Life on a Mediaeval Barony

The Fief of St. Aliquis; Its History and Denizens The Castle of St. Aliquis How the Castle Wakes. Baronial Hospitality Games and Diversions. Falconry and Hunting. The Baroness's Garden The Family of the Baron. Life of the Women The Matter of Clothes. A Feudal Wedding Cookery and Mealtimes The Jongleurs and Secular Literature and Poetry The Feudal Relationship. Doing Homage Justice and Punishments The Education of a Feudal Nobleman Feudal Weapons and Horses. Dubbing a Knight The Tourney A Baronial Feud. The Siege of a Castle A Great Feudal Battle-Bouvines The Life of the Peasants Charity. Care of the Sick. Funerals Popular Religion. Pilgrimages. Superstitions. Relic Worship The Monastery of St. Aliquis: Buildings, Organization. An Ill-Ruled Abbey The Monastery of St. Aliquis: The Activities of Its Inmates. Monastic Learning The "Good Town" of Pontdebois: Aspect and Organization Industry and Trade in Pontdebois. The Great Fair The Lord Bishop. The Canons. The Parish Clergy The Cathedral and Its Builders.......... William Stearns Davis (April 30, 1877 - February 15, 1930) was an American educator, historian, and author. He has been cited as one who "contributed to history as a scholarly discipline, . . . [but] was intrigued by the human side of history, which, at the time, was neglected by the discipline." After first experimenting with short stories, he turned while still a college undergraduate to longer forms to relate, from an involved (fictional) character's view, a number of critical turns of history. This faculty for humanizing, even dramatizing, history characterized Davis' later academic and professional writings as well, making them particularly suitable for secondary and higher education during the first half of the twentieth century in a field which, according to one editor, had "lost the freshness and robustness . . . the congeniality" that should mark the study of history. Both Davis' fiction and non-fiction are found in public and academic libraries today. LifeDavis was born April 30, 1877 in the presidential mansion of Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts, where his mother's father had been president for the twenty-two years preceding his birth. His father was Congregational minister William Vail Wilson Davis; his mother Francis Stearns. Due both to childhood illnesses and to family moves occasioned by his father's call to new congregations, Davis was largely educated at home until he entered Worcester Academy in 1895. In 1897 he matriculated at Harvard. Fascinated by maps and by historical figures, he had begun writing stories for himself while still at home. He now turned this experience and his desire to humanize history to writing historical novels, the first of which, A Friend of Caesar, was published in the year he graduated as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He continued at Harvard, being the first first-year graduate student to receive the Harvard Thayer Graduate Scholarship, and earning his A. M. in 1901 and his PhD in 1905. During these same years he continued publishing historical fiction. In 1904, Davis began his formal teaching career, beginning as a lecturer at Radcliffe College while finishing his doctorate. He continued thereafter at Beloit College (instructor, 1906-07), Oberlin College (Assistant Professor of Medieval and Modern European History, 1907-1909), and finally at the University of Minnesota (Professor of History, 1909-1927). "He was an excellent teacher with the ability to put life into his lectures."[6] His steady output of non-fiction in both history and the historical background to contemporary world affairs began with his time at Minnesota. Professionally, he was a member of the American Historical Association. In 1911, he married Alice Williams Redfield of Minneapolis. He retired from teaching in 1927, moving back to New England and taking up residence in Exeter, New Hampshire, with the intention of devoting all of his time to writing.