Richard Barber

For other people named Richard Barber, see Richard Barber (disambiguation).

Richard Barber
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Born	Richard William Barber 1941 (age 82–83)
Occupation	Historian, publisher
Nationality	British
Subject	Middle Ages Chivalry Medieval literature Mythology

Richard William Barber FRSL FSA FRHistS (born 1941) is a British historian who has published several books about medieval history and literature. His book The Knight and Chivalry, about the interplay between history and literature, won the Somerset Maugham Award, a well-known British literary prize, in 1971. A similarly-themed 2004 book, The Holy Grail: Imagination and Belief, was widely praised in the UK press, and received major reviews in The New York Times and The New Republic.

Barber has long specialised in Arthurian legend, beginning with the general survey, Arthur of Albion (1961). His other major interest is historical biography: he has published Henry Plantagenet (1964) and a biography of Edward, the Black Prince, Edward Prince of Wales and Aquitaine (1978). Recent biographical books are Edward III and the Triumph of England: The Battle of Crécy and the Order of the Garter (2013), which includes a reappraisal of the origins of the Order, and Henry II in the Penguin Monarchs series (2015).

The Prince in Splendour (2017) is a study of the role of festivals and feasts in the courts of medieval Europe looking at the events which such occasions celebrated and the organisation which lay behind them.

In 2020 Barber published Magnificence and Princely Splendour in the Middle Ages.

Life

Barber was educated at Marlborough College, Shrewsbury School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. In 1969 he founded The Boydell Press, which later became Boydell & Brewer Ltd, a publisher in medieval studies, and acted as group managing director until 2009. In 1989, Boydell & Brewer Ltd, in association with the University of Rochester, started the University of Rochester Press in upstate New York. In 2016, the directors of Boydell & Brewer Ltd transferred the company into a trust for the benefit of the employees. He was visiting Professor in the history department at the University of York from 2013 to 2016, and was awarded an honorary doctorate there in 2015.

Select bibliography

• Arthur of Albion: an introduction to the Arthurian literature and Legends of England (Barrie & Rockliff with Pall Mall P, 1961).
• The Knight and Chivalry (London; 1970).
• The Figure of Arthur (London: Longman, 1972).
• King Arthur: in Legend and History (Boydell Press, 1973).
• Edward, Prince of Wales and Aquitaine (London; 1978).
• Life and Campaigns of the Black Prince (1979).
• The Arthurian Legends: An Illustrated Anthology (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1979).
• Legends of Arthur (The Boydell Press; 2001) ISBN 0-85115-837-4
• The Holy Grail: Imagination and Belief (London: Allen Lane & Harvard University Press; 2004). ISBN 978-0-674-01390-2
• The Holy Grail, The History of a Legend (Penguin Books Ltd; 2004).
• The Reign of Chivalry (2nd Ed. UK: The Boydell Press; 2005) ISBN 1-84383-182-1
• Edward III and the Triumph of England: The Battle of Crécy and the Order of the Garter (London: Allen Lane, 2013)
• Henry II (Penguin Monarchs) (London: Penguin Books, 2015).
• The Prince in Splendour (London: Folio Society, 2017)
• Edited and introduced by Richard Barber: Myths & legends of the British Isles (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1999).

Collaborations

• with Juliet Barker: Tournaments: Jousts, Chivalry and Pageants in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1989).

External links

• Works by or about Richard Barber in libraries (WorldCat catalog)