Richard William Kaeuper is an American

medievalist The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often voc ...

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

. He was a student of, and mentored by,

Joseph Strayer Joseph Reese Strayer (1904–1987) was an American medievalist historian. He was a student of and mentored by Charles Homer Haskins, America's first prominent medievalist historian. Life Strayer taught at Princeton University for many decades, st ...

, the noted

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine ...

scholar. Kaeuper grew up in Richmond, Indiana.

Education

Kaeuper earned his PhD from Princeton in 1967, and thereafter held several posts, finishing in his present position as

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

at the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The University of Roc ...

. He is active in several scholarly organizations among them

De Re Militari ''De re militari'' (Latin "Concerning Military Matters"), also ''Epitoma rei militaris'', is a treatise by the Late Latin writer Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus about Roman warfare and military principles as a presentation of the methods and pr ...

Career

Professor Kaeuper is regarded as an influential scholar in the field, known both for his thorough work and for his use of literary sources as historical evidence. He has published extensively on topics ranging from law and

finance Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fina ...

to his more recent works on

chivalry Chivalry, or the chivalric code, is an informal and varying code of conduct developed in Europe between 1170 and 1220. It was associated with the medieval Christianity, Christian institution of knighthood; knights' and gentlemen's behaviours we ...

, culminating in the definitive general volume on chivalry, published by Cambridge University Press. Professor Kaeuper has also won numerous teaching awards. In 2015, Kaeuper was selected to become a Fellow of the

Medieval Academy of America The Medieval Academy of America (MAA; spelled Mediaeval until c. 1980) is the largest organization in the United States promoting the field of medieval studies. It was founded in 1925 and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The academy publishes ...

. In 2017 Brill published a ''festschrift'' entitled ''Prowess, Piety, and Public Order in Medieval Society: Essays in Honor of Richard W. Kaeuper.'' It was co-edited by Craig M Nakashian and Daniel P. Franke (two of Kaeuper's doctoral students) and featured nineteen scholarly articles by his colleagues and former students.

Bibliography

*''The Tension Between Vengeance and Mercy in Chivalric Mentalite'' (forthcoming) *''Medieval Chivalry'' (Cambridge 2016) *''Kings, Knights and Bankers'' (edited by Christopher Guyol) (Brill 2015) *''Law, Governance, and Justice: New Views on Medieval Constitutionalism'' (editor, with assistance of Paul Dingman and Peter Sposato) (Brill 2013) *''Holy Warriors: The Religious Ideology of Chivalry'' (Univ. of Pennsylvania 2009) *''Violence in Medieval Society'' (editor) (Boydell 2000) *''Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe'' (Oxford 1999) *''The Book of Chivalry of Geoffroi de Charny: Text, Context, and Translation'' (with Elspeth Kennedy) (Univ. of Pennsylvania 1996), paperback version (without French text): ''A Knight's Own Book of Chivalry'' (2005) *''War, Justice and Public Order: England and France in the Later Middle Ages'' (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1988) (French Translation: Aubier-Flammarion 1994) *''An Historian's Reading of The Tale of Gamelyn'' (Medium & AELIG vol. 52, 1983) *''Law and Order in Fourteenth-Century England: The Evidence of Special Commissions of Oyer and Terminer'' (Speculum vol. 54, 1979) *''Bankers to the Crown: The Riccardi of Lucca and Edward I'' (Princeton Univ. 1973)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kaeuper, Richard W. American medievalists Historians of the Crusades University of Rochester faculty Princeton University alumni Living people Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America Year of birth missing (living people)