Evelyn Mary Jamison (24 February 1877 – 9 May 1972) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

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

who devoted herself mainly to the study of the history of the

Normans The Normans (Norman language, Norman: ''Normaunds''; ; ) were a population arising in the medieval Duchy of Normandy from the intermingling between Norsemen, Norse Viking settlers and locals of West Francia. The Norse settlements in West Franc ...

Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...

. She was vice-principal and tutor of

Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford Lady Margaret Hall (LMH) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, located on a bank of the River Cherwell at Norham Gardens in north Oxford and adjacent to the University Parks. The ...

from 1921 to 1937.'Miss E. M. Jamison: Historian of the Normans in Southern Italy', ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'', 10 May 1972

Life

Jamison was born in 1877, the eldest of three children of Arthur Andrew Jamison, a doctor, and his wife Isabella Green (whose mother, Mary Brandreth Green, was a friend of the novelist

Elizabeth Gaskell Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (''née'' Stevenson; 29 September 1810 – 12 November 1865), often referred to as Mrs Gaskell, was an English novelist, biographer, and short story writer. Her novels offer detailed studies of Victorian era, Victoria ...

). Evelyn Jamison attended

Francis Holland School Francis Holland School is the name of three separate private day schools for girls in central London, England, governed by the Francis Holland (Church of England) Schools Trust. The schools are located at Clarence Gate (near Regent's Park ...

, 39 Graham Street (now Graham Terrace) in London between 1890 and 1895, from where she gained a place at Oxford to study modern History. Her recollections of her time at Francis Holland can be read in ''Graham Street Memories'' (ed. B Dunning 1931), where she recalls December exams being sat under the "flare of unshaded gaslights when the yellow fog of tradition descended on London". After studying art in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, she entered

Lady Margaret Hall Lady Margaret Hall (LMH) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, located on a bank of the River Cherwell at Norham Gardens in north Oxford and adjacent to the University Parks. The college is more formally known under ...

in 1898 to study Modern History. Graduating in 1901, she was made a research fellow at

Somerville College Somerville College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. It began admitting men in 1994. The college's liberal tone derives from its f ...

in 1903, and the first beneficiary of the Lady Margaret Research Fellowship, established the previous year by Principal Agnes Maitland. This enabled her to travel to Italy, studying at the

British School at Rome The British School at Rome (BSR) is a British interdisciplinary research centre supporting the arts, humanities and architecture established in Rome. Historical and archaeological study are at the core of its activities. History The British Sc ...

. In 1907 she returned to Lady Margaret Hall, initially as librarian and bursar, and subsequently as assistant history tutor. From 1921 to 1937 she was history tutor and vice-principal of Lady Margaret, and from 1928 to 1935 University Lecturer in History. Among her students was the historian

Marjorie Chibnall Marjorie McCallum Chibnall (27 September 1915 – 23 June 2012) was an English historian, medievalist and Latin translator. She edited the ''Historia Ecclesiastica'' by Orderic Vitalis, with whom she shared the same birthplace of Atcham in S ...

. She authored several works of history, which were notable for including previously unpublished archival material from the

Norman Kingdom of Sicily The Kingdom of Sicily (; ; ) was a state that existed in Sicily and the southern Italian Peninsula as well as, for a time, in Northern Africa, from its founding by Roger II of Sicily in 1130 until 1816. It was a successor state of the County o ...

. Her final work, an edition of the ''

Catalogus Baronum The ''Catalogus Baronum'' ("Catalogue of the Barons") is a collection of registers of the military obligations owed by the barons of the Kingdom of Sicily. The collection was compiled in 1322 under the Angevin dynasty. It contains three distinct r ...

'', was completed after her death by Errico Cuozzo. After Jamison's death, several of her friends dedicated in her memory a new stone effigy of Lady Margaret Beaufort, namesake of Lady Margaret Hall, installed in the college chapel to replace an earlier, and by then deteriorated, plaster one.

Works

* '' The Norman Administration of Apulia and Capua, more Especially under Roger II and William I, 1127-1166 '', in: Papers of the British School at Rome 6 (1913) 211- 481; Reprint of the Edition 1913, edited by Dione Clementi and Theo Kölzer, Aalen 1987 * ''Studies on the History of Medieval Sicily and South Italy'', edited by Dione Clementi. Aalen 1992 * ''Admiral Eugenius of Sicily, His Life and Work and the Authorship of the Epistola ad Petrum and the Historia Hugonis Falcandi Siculi'', London 1957 * ''Judex Tarentinus''. Aalen 1992 * ''Catalogus Baronum'', Rom 1972 (Fonti per la storia d'Italia ; 101)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jamison, Evelyn Mary 1877 births 1972 deaths Alumni of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford British medievalists British women historians English historians Fellows of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford Fellows of Somerville College, Oxford