Reynolds, Susan, 1929-
Enlarge text Shrink text-
Personality
- Her The Victoria history of the county of Middlesex.
- Contemporary authors 117 (1986)(Reynolds, Susan (Mary Grace), b. Jan. 27, 1929, London, Eng.; MA, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, 1953; archives assistant, 1951-52; Victoria county histories, 1952-59; teacher at secondary school, London, 1960-64; lecturer, Lady Margaret Hall, 1964- ; author of Introduction to the history of English medieval towns, and Kingdoms and communities in western Europe)
Susan Reynolds FBA (27 January 1929 – 29 July 2021) was a British medieval historian whose book Fiefs and Vassals: the Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted (1994) was part of the academic critique on the concept of feudalism as classically portrayed by previous historians such as François-Louis Ganshof and Marc Bloch. Reynolds rejected typical ideas of feudalism and presented a medieval society structured through ‘horizontal’ groups. According to The Guardian, "Few books have been more intensely discussed by professional medieval historians. Largely as a consequence of this work, the word "feudalism", or the "F-word", as it came to be called by historians, began to lose currency among British medievalists." Reynolds did not only write books that have changed the way we think about the past, but was also someone who was constantly examining her own ideas and whose interests were extraordinarily wide-ranging.
Read more on Wikipedia >