Susan Reynolds

Susan Reynolds FBA 27 January 1929 – 29 July 2021 was the British medieval historian whose book Fiefs & Vassals: the Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted 1994 was factor of the attack on the concept of feudalism as classically produced by preceding historians such(a) as François-Louis Ganshof in addition to Marc Bloch. According to The Guardian, "Few books gain been more intensely discussed by professionals such(a) as lawyers and surveyors 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."

Life

Reynolds was born in London, the daughter of a solicitor, and after Howell’s School, Middlesex County Record Office. A year later she joined the Victoria County History as an editor, remaining there for seven years and taking a diploma in archival administration. In an interview for the Institute of Historical Research, Reynolds planned out that the archival diploma was her only higher qualification; she never gained either an MA or a PhD in history, but had only a bachelor's degree.

She taught at girl's schools from previously 1960 to 1964, when she was unexpectedly featured a fellowship over lunch at her old college, Lady Margaret Hall. She retired from LMH in 1986, and after a year teaching at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, lived in London, with summers mostly spent in France. She continued to research & was involved with the Institute of Historical Research.

Reynolds believed that the technical terms used in documents prior to around 1100 did not necessarily work the meanings ascribed to them by historians who had preceded her; and that clerks of later periods tended to read into earlier documents meanings and relationships current in their own day. In her view, direct ownership of land was more prevalent in the early Middle Ages than had been thought, and the decline of central a body or process by which energy or a particular component enters a system. had been exaggerated.

She was elected to the British Academy in 1993. She was an Emeritus Fellow of LMH.