Adam J. Davis
Adam J. Davis is a medieval historian and Professor of History at 性视界传媒. From 2019 to 2024, he was Director of 性视界传媒鈥檚 Lisska Center for Intellectual Engagement. In that role, he developed new programs to deepen intellectual life across campus, create research opportunities, and help prepare students for meaningful post-graduate careers. In 2016 he was awarded 性视界传媒鈥檚 Charles A. Brickman Teaching Excellence Award, 鈥済iven each year to a faculty member who is a master craftsman in the profession.鈥 From 2011 to 2014, he served as Chair of 性视界传媒鈥檚 History Department. Davis has been the recipient of a year-long Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a Bourse Chateaubriand (given by the French Embassy), a William G. Bowen Faculty Fellowship, two Robert C. Good Fellowships, as well as grants from the Mellon Foundation and the Lilly Endowment. From 2022-25, he held the John and Christine Warner Professorship, and he held the William T. Utter/Clyde E. Williams, Jr. Professorship from 2013-18. He is a 鈥渓ife member鈥 of Clare Hall, Cambridge University, where he was a Visiting Fellow in 2017-18.
Learning & Teaching
- HIST 152: Late Antiquity
- HIST 153: Origins of Europe: Medieval Society
- HIST 201: Doing History: Debating the Middle Ages
- HIST 205: Sophomore Seminar - The History of the Liberal Arts
- HIST 251: The Crusades
- HIST 253: The Renaissance and Reformation of the Twelfth Century
- HIST 255: Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages
- HIST 350: Plagues and Peoples: From the Black Death to Covid-19
- HIST 430: Senior Seminar: Religion and Society in Medieval Europe
- W101: Writings About the Self
Research
A historian of medieval Europe, Davis鈥檚 scholarship spans a range of topics, including ecclesiastical reform, medieval religious life, attitudes toward commerce, wealth, and poverty, the history of charity and charitable institutions, and the complex role of ambition within the medieval Christian moral tradition. His most recent book, The Medieval Economy of Salvation: Charity, Commerce, and the Rise of the Medieval Hospital (Cornell University Press, 2019; paperback 2021; open access ebook 2023), examines the intersection of the medieval commercial economy and the rise of hospitals as new charitable institutions in the Latin West. This work sheds new light on the nature of Christian charity during Europe鈥檚 first great age of commerce and was honored with the Ohio Academy of History鈥檚 Publication Award for the best history book by an Ohio author (2021). Davis鈥檚 first book, The Holy Bureaucrat: Eudes Rigaud and Religious Reform in Thirteenth-Century Normandy (Cornell UP, 2006), explores the intersection of intellectual and theological currents at the University of Paris with the practical challenges faced by a Franciscan archbishop seeking to reform the clergy and laity in Normandy. He is currently working on a new book, Medieval Ambitions: A Cultural History of a Virtuous Vice.
Works
Books
- The Medieval Economy of Salvation: Charity, Commerce, and the Rise of the Medieval Hospital (Cornell University Press, 2019; pbk 2021)
- The Holy Bureaucrat: Eudes Rigaud and Religious Reform in Thirteenth-Century Normandy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006).
Recent journal articles and book chapters
- 鈥淭hree Visionary Women Hospital Founders c. 1300,鈥 in Medieval Work, Worship and Power: Persuasive and Silenced Voices edited by Tanya Stabler Miller, Nancy McLaughlin, and Abigail P. Dowling (Routledge) (in press)
- 鈥淟a nature des soins hospitaliers en milieu urbain aux XIIe et XIIIe si猫cles,鈥 in Infirmeries et Hospices: Lieux de soins du Moyen Age 脿 l鈥櫭﹑oque moderne, edited by Susan Boynton and Isabelle Cochelin (Brepols, forthcoming)
- 鈥淭he Aristocratic Culture of Charity in Medieval Champagne,鈥 in On the Borders of the Realm: Aristocratic Culture in Medieval France, edited by Randall Pippenger and Anne Lester (Brepols, forthcoming)
- 鈥淧overty, Charity and Spirituality,鈥 in A Cultural History of Poverty: The Middle Ages, ed. Eliza Buhrer (Bloomsbury Academic) (in press)
- 鈥淓udes Rigaud et Louis IX: une relation 茅troite fond茅e sur des id茅aux religieux et politiques similaires,鈥 in Eudes Rigaud en son temps, edited by Elisabeth Lalou (Presses universitaires de Lyon) (in press)
- 鈥淪ervants and Service in Twelfth and Thirteenth-Century Hospitals,鈥 in 鈥淲e Are All Servants:鈥 The Diversity of Service in Premodern Europe, 1000-1700, edited by Isabelle Cochelin and Diane Wolfthal (Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, University of Toronto Press, 2022): 215-233
- 鈥淗ospitals, Charity and the Culture of Compassion in Medieval Europe,鈥 in Approaches to Poverty in Medieval Europe: Complexities, Contradictions, Transformations, c. 1100-1500, edited by Sharon Farmer (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016): 23-45
- 鈥淭he Social and Religious Meaning of Charity in Medieval Europe,鈥 History Compass 12.12 (December 2014): 935-950
- 鈥淭he Economic Power of a Hospital in Thirteenth-Century Provins,鈥 in Center and Periphery: Studies on Power in the Medieval World in Honor of William Chester Jordan, edited by Katherine L. Jansen, G. Geltner, and Anne E. Lester (Leiden: Brill, 2013): 121-134
- 鈥淔rom the Purse and the Heart: Exploring Charity, Humanitarianism, and Human Rights in France,鈥 co-authored introduction (with Bertrand Taithe) to Toward a French History of Universal Values: Charity, Humanitarianism, and Human Rights, a special issue of French Historical Studies 34.3 (Duke University Press) (Summer, 2011): 413 鈥 432
- 鈥淧reaching in Thirteenth-Century Hospitals,鈥 Journal of Medieval History 36, no. 1 (March 2010): 72-89
Other
- William G. Bowen Faculty Fellowship (Spring 2025)
- Braver Angels College Debates and Discourse, John Templeton Foundation (2023-25), Faculty Fellow
- Ohio Academy of History鈥檚 2021 Publication Award for The Medieval Economy of Salvation as the best history book in any region/time period published by an Ohio author the previous year
- Visiting Fellow, Clare Hall, Cambridge University, 2017-18 (Life Member, Clare Hall)
- R. C. Good Fellowship, research sabbatical, 2017-18
- Charles A. Brickman Teaching Excellence Award, 性视界传媒, 2016
- National Endowment for the Humanities, Fellowship, 2014-15
- R. C. Good Fellowship, Research sabbatical 2009-10: Visiting Scholar at Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
- Lilly Endowment Fellowship, research sabbatical, Fall 2006
- Mellon Cluster Grant for 鈥淲orld of Byzantium鈥 travel study project
- Bourse Chateaubriand, French government fellowship for year-long doctoral dissertation research and academic study in France, 1998-1999.
