Nathan van Kleij is lecturer in history and a researcher at the Amsterdam Centre for Urban History (ACUH). He works in the fields of social, cultural and urban history, with a main focus on the fifteenth century. Topics of interest are e.g. public space, built environment, violence, conflicts and contest, crime and punishment, communication and civic governance. Between 2016 en 2020 he was employed as a PhD at the Amsterdam School for Historical Studies at the University of Amsterdam. In 2020-21 he worked as a lecturer in (medieval) history at Leiden University.

In March 2021 Nathan defended his doctoral dissertation Beyond the Façade: Town Halls, Publicity, and Urban Society in the Fifteenth-Century Low Countries. In this research he analyses the multifunctional, public use and multilayered meaning of late medieval town halls (and urban courtroom spaces). It studies how members of urban society - dealing with e.g. the built environment and contest - co-created ideas and applications on publicity and seclusion inside these buildings. Several findings of this project have resulted in a 3D reconstruction of the public hall and courtroom of Gouda's late medieval town hall (in collaboration with the 4D Research Lab of the University of Amsterdam).

Other current projects are a public history book on medieval stereotypes (with Jonas Roelens, UGent) and a study on so-called stone donations - fines imposed by urban governments which ostensibly were used for urban infrastructure works etc (with Frans Camphuijsen, UvA).

De stad in het archief ('The city and the archive': MA Urban History)
Historische dilemma's ('Historical debates': BA)
De wereld op straat ('The world on the street': BA)
Middeleeuwse geschiedenis ('Medieval history': BA)
Middeleeuws geweld ('Medieval violence': BA)
Academische vaardigheden ('Academic Skills': Pre-master)
Tutoraat ('Tutoring': BA)
Themacollege I en II: Stad en stedelijke samenleving, 1300-1650 ('City and urban society': BA)
Inleiding in de geschiedenis I ('Introduction into History'"BA)
Inleiding in de geschiedenis II (BA)
The History of Punishment (guest lecture, BA)
Werkgroep Bachelorscriptie ('Bachelor thesises': BA)

(With Frans Camphuijsen) "Brick for an Eye, Lime for a Tooth: Stone Fines, Common Good and the Urban Fabric in the Later Middle Ages", Amsterdam Centre for Urban History Seminar, 18-01-2024

(With Mariëlle Kruithof) "De stedelijke bedrijvigheid van het Sint-Pietersgasthuis: de gasthuisarchieven en  het inclusieve beeld van sociaal Amsterdams leven (ca. 1475-1530)", Conference: Urban Lives: Amsterdam Diaries and Other Stories of the Self, organized by the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the University of Amsterdam, 27-10-2023

"The Making of Material and Social Environments: Town Halls in the Low Countries, c.1400-1500", Belgian-British Late Medieval Urban History Seminar (online), organized by Ghent University and Queen Mary University of London, 24-02-2023

"The late medieval town hall in the Low Countries: a social mediated space", HOST - Brussels Urban History Seminars, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 10-10-2022

"Moving between Open and Closed Spaces: Doors, Walls, and Municipal Legitimacy in the Cities of the Fifteenth-Century Low Countries". Session: M38 - The City as a Broadcasting System: Communication and Sites of Openness/Seclusion in Premodern Europe (co-organized by Nathan van Kleij and Isabel Casteels). EAUH 2022 Antwerp, 15th Conference of the European Association for Urban History 

"Visual Communication and Communal Accountability in Urban Legal Spaces of the Fifteenth-Century Low Countries" - Workshop Culture of Accountability , Leiden University 2022

"A (re)visited Building: the Multifunctional Use and Accessibility of the Town Hall in the Late Medieval Low Countries" - keynote at Nájera- Encuentros Internacionales del Medievo 2021: 'The Social Use of Space in the Late Medieval European Town, 25-11-2021

“Town Halls and Urban Society in the Low Countries, c.1400-1500” - Amsterdam Centre for Urban History, Universiteit van Amsterdam, 21-11-2019

“De toegankelijkheid van het middeleeuwse stadhuis: openbaarheid en geslotenheid in een voormodern publiekoverheidsgebouw”  - co-organized session Historicidagen 2019, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

“Town Hall Thresholds and Civic Agency in the Late Medieval Low Countries” - Sesson: Transforming Cities, Negotiating Spaces and Powers: Markets and Civic buildings in Europe, the Middle East and North-Africa (XIIIth c. / XIXth c.) European Association of Urban History (EAUH) Conference 2018, Roma Tre University, Rome

“Spaces, Paintings and Collective Memory in the Late Medieval Urban Courtroom” - Organized session Collective Memory in and around the Courtroom, International Medieval Congress Leeds 2018.

“De functie en symbolische betekenis van schilderijen in laatmiddeleeuwse rechtsruimten” - guest lecture at Studiedag Kunst en Recht, Museum Hof van Busleyden in Mechelen en Opera Vlaanderen during the opening of the exhibition “Roep om Rechtvaardigheid. Kunst en rechtspraak inde bourgondische Nederlanden (1450-1650).

"Backroom Politics': Openness and Secrecy inside the Late Medieval Town Hall." - 17. Symposium des Mediävistenverbandes, Gheimnis und Verborgenes im Mittelalter, 19.-22. März 2017. Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn

"Town Halls, Courtrooms and Society in the Low Countries, c.1300-1500" - 22nd Dutch-Flemish Medieval Studies Day: "Readjusting the Middle Ages", Utrecht 11 November 2016

"Addressing Accessibility of the Courtroom in the Late Medieval Town Hall" Conference 'Voices of Law: Law and Ritual', Leeuwarden 22-23 September 2016

"Stadhuizen als fenomeen", guest lecture at the symposium Zwolle in de Middeleeuwen, organized by Varias Vias / Buro Ruis / Stadkamer Stadhuis Zwolle 2016