Peter Coss studied for his doctorate at the University of Birmingham under the guidance of Rodney Hilton. His major posts were at the University of Northumbria, where he gained a personal chair, and at Cardiff where he held the established chair of medieval history from 1995 to 2013. He was head of the school of history, archaeology, and religion there from 2006 to 2011. From 1984 to 2017 he was a member of the editorial board of Past and Present. Among
his areas of expertise is the English gentry on which he has written five monographs. He is also the editor of three volumes of medieval documents and of ten books of essays.