Historian on the Edge is written by Professor Grumpy, the Historian on the Edge. He served 11 years at the University of London but now works in the north of England at Poppleton University. Sometimes he goes under the pseudonym of Guy Halsall, and teaches at the University of York. He doesn’t make much of a secret of his identity but doesn’t use it as such on his blog to reduce Google hits and because his kindly employers wouldn’t necessarily agree with everything he writes.

He is best known for writing various works about the history and archaeology of the late antique and early medieval periods in western Europe, covering such themes as barbarian migrations, death, burial, the life-cycle, gender, warfare, violence and humour. He is also well-known as a controversialist, for a somewhat (by academic standards) off-beat sense of humour. The Historian on the Edge sees himself simultaneously as the clown prince and enfant terrible of medieval history … though he admits that he is really too old to occupy either position.