Thomas Pickles was born and grew up in Whitby, North Yorkshire. He studied for a BA, M. St. and D. Phil. in History at Wadham College, University of Oxford. He was a Fellow by Special Election of St Catherine's College, University of Oxford, a Lecturer in History in the Centre for Medieval Studies and Department of History at the University of York, and a Lecturer in History and Archaeology in the Department of History, Classics, and Archaeology at Birkbeck, before joining the Department of History at the University of Chester.

"A hugely impressive volume that deserves to generate more detailed studies in Yorkshire, and comparable explotations of other parts of Danelaw." -- Stuart Wrathmell, The Society for Medieval Archaeology

"With Kingship, Society, and the Church, Pickles offers a rich account of the origins and progress of the pre-1066 church in Yorkshire. In his use of a wealth of complex sources, from the written record to archaeological remains of various kinds, Pickles provides a book that is important for readers with a wide range of interests, from historians to archaeologists and social anthropologists. Pickles's work has provided a wonderfully interdisciplinary and detailed case study of one region and how it compares to views about the origins and organization of the Anglo-Saxon church more broadly." -- David Woodman, Early Medieval Europe

"Well researched, interdisciplinary, rigorously argued, and ambitious in scope... Kingship, Society, and the Church will, of course, appeal to those researching pre-Conquest Yorkshire, but also to those researching Anglo-Saxon England more broadly, and the development and intersections of its ecclesiastical, social and political infrastructure and hierarchies." -- Matthew Firth, Flinders University, Journal of the Australian Early Medieval Association