After working briefly in the
Foreign Office, promoted to Reader in 1987, to Professor in 1993, and Director of the Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies in 1994, retiring in 2007. Although Nelson had studied under Ullmann, in 1977 she published an article critiquing his work, which she saw as overly sympathetic to the
Carolingian Empire's administrative bureaucracy. Instead, Nelson argued that Ullman had overestimated the Empire's ability or sophistication to reform itself as he had earlier proposed, thereby casting doubt on the decisiveness of the
Carolingian Renaissance. Her first biography, in 1992, was of the 9th-century
Frankish King,
Charles the Bald. and was a Vice-President of the
British Academy (2000–01), which she had been elected to in 1996. The Jinty Nelson Award for Inspirational Teaching & Supervision in History was established by the Royal Historical Society in January 2018. Nelson's research focused on
early medieval Europe, including
Anglo-Saxon England. She published widely on
kingship, government, political ideas, religion and ritual, and increasingly on women and gender during this period. From 2000 to 2010 she co-directed, with
Simon Keynes (of
Cambridge University), the AHRC-funded project
Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England. Nelson published over 140 papers—half of which were gathered into four volumes of collected essays Reviewing the book for the
Financial Times, historian
David Bates said, "Rigorous assessments of difficult evidence are mixed with what feels like invitations to conversation. Their effect is to transport readers away from the eighth and ninth centuries to the 21st — and into quite a few others as well — demonstrating the effectiveness of biography as a means to understand a seemingly remote age, a subject on which Nelson reflects insightfully." Explaining her approach, Nelson said: ".. my research has centred on early medieval European themes: politics and ritual, women's history and gender, ecclesiastical, social and cultural history. As my publications suggest, I tend to stick to choices, once made. My preferred genres are articles rather than books, collaborative and interdisciplinary projects rather than solo ones." ==Personal life and death==