Edgar Baldwin Graves (1898 – March 24, 1983) was an American

medievalist The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often vo ...

and professor of history at

Hamilton College Hamilton College is a private liberal arts college in Clinton, Oneida County, New York. It was founded as Hamilton-Oneida Academy in 1793 and was chartered as Hamilton College in 1812 in honor of inaugural trustee Alexander Hamilton, following ...

in Clinton, New York. His primary area of expertise was medieval English law and the relationship between royal and ecclesiastical jurisdictions. Graves was born in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

, where he attended the Penn Charter School and Haverford College. At Haverford, he studied with the eminent medievalist W. E. Lunt, who taught courses on English constitutional history and did pioneering research on papal financial records. Graves would maintain a close working relationship with Lunt for many years until the latter's death in 1956. Following graduation from Haverford, Graves continued on to Harvard where he completed a Ph.D. under the supervision of

Charles Homer Haskins Charles Homer Haskins (December 21, 1870 – May 14, 1937) was a history professor at Harvard University. He was an American historian of the Middle Ages, and advisor to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. He is widely recognized as the first academic ...

. From 1927 until his retirement in 1969, Graves taught history at Hamilton College in central New York state. His scholarship focused on a few select issues in English legal history, particularly the relationship between the

Crown A crown is a traditional form of head adornment, or hat, worn by monarchs as a symbol of their power and dignity. A crown is often, by extension, a symbol of the monarch's government or items endorsed by it. The word itself is used, partic ...

and ecclesiastical courts, including the papal rota. Later, he would see to completion the massive two-volume work begun by his mentor Lunt on papal finances in England. In 1975, Graves completed his ''magnum opus'', a revised and updated edition of Charles Gross's ''Bibliography of English History to 1485'' (Oxford). Graves died in 1983 and his papers were deposited at the

Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (PIMS) is a research institute in the University of Toronto that is dedicated to advanced studies in the culture of the Middle Ages. Governance The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Toronto, currently Th ...

in Toronto.An inventory of the papers, as well as a biography of Graves are on file in the archive of the Pontifical Institute. Friends and former students later established an

endowed professorship A financial endowment is a legal structure for managing, and in many cases indefinitely perpetuating, a pool of Financial instrument, financial, real estate, or other investments for a specific purpose according to Donor intent, the will of its fou ...

in his memory in the Hamilton College history department.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Graves, Edgar B. 1898 births 1983 deaths Educators from Philadelphia American medievalists Hamilton College (New York) faculty Harvard University alumni Haverford College alumni Historians from Pennsylvania Historians from New York (state)