Richard Abels

Richard Abels (born 1951) is an American educator, historian, and professor emeritus at the United States Naval Academy.^[1] Abels is a specialist in the military and political institutions of Anglo-Saxon England.^[2] He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (elected 1990) and a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America (2024).^[3][4] Abels' approach to medieval military history focuses upon the influence of culture upon the practice and representation of warfare.^[5] With his wife Ellen Harrison, Abels is also the co-author of an article examining the role played by women in the Cathar heresy based upon a statistical analysis of Inquisitiorial registers.

Richard Philip Abels was born on October 31, 1951 in Brooklyn, New York, United States, the son of Milton and Blanche Abels. Abels received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia College in 1973. Two years later he earned a Master of Arts from Columbia University, and in 1982 was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree by the same university. Abels’ dissertation, written under the direction of J.M.W. Bean, became the basis for his first book, Lordship and Military Obligation in Anglo-Saxon England.

Richard Abels began his teaching career as a preceptor at Columbia University in 1977. He held this position until 1980, becoming an instructor there in 1981. From 1981 to 1982 he served as a visiting assistant professor at Cornell College. In 1982 Abels was hired by the United States Naval Academy as an assistant professor of history. He was promoted to associate professor in 1986, and to full professor in 1991. From 2008 to 2014 he served as Chair of the Naval Academy’s History Department. He retired in 2017 and was awarded the title of Professor Emeritus in the following year.

• Alfred the Great: War, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England. London: Longman, 1998.
• Æthelred the Unready: The Failed King. Penguin Monarchs Series, Penguin U.K., 2018.
• Lordship and Military Obligation in Anglo-Saxon England. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California, 1988.
• The Normans and their Adversaries: Essays in Memory of C. Warren Hollister. Co-edited with Bernard Bachrach. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 2001.
• "The Participation of Women in Languedocian Catharism." Mediaeval Studies 41 (1979): 215-251. (With Ellen Harrison.)

In 2022, Abels began the podcast "'Tis But A Scratch: Fact & Fiction About the Middle Ages," which compares popular conceptions of the Middle Ages to their underlying historical reality.

• Appearances on C-SPAN