Building an Archive and a Legacy

Simultaneously establishing and maintaining those archives, which are essential infrastructure for the creation of new scholarship, requires resources and the expertise of skilled archivists.

Now, thanks to a $5 million bequest from noted historian Elizabeth A.R. Brown, the Penn Libraries will be able to establish an archive for the professional papers of medieval historians. Brown’s gift will also endow an archivist position to develop and manage the collection, which includes Brown’s own professional papers from her long and distinguished career. She elected to make this commitment because the Penn Libraries is globally renowned for managing archival materials with the utmost care and attention.

“We deeply appreciate this gift from Professor Brown, which enables the Penn Libraries to preserve and provide access to the works of medieval studies scholars in perpetuity,” says Brigitte Weinsteiger, H. Carton Rogers III Vice Provost and Director of the Penn Libraries.

Brown was a distinguished scholar whose work contended that the idea of feudalism, which defined the twentieth-century approach to medieval studies, was historically inadequate. She argued that it failed to account for the complex social and economic structures of the period. Her ideas shook the field and led to extensive debate, controversy, conferences, and new scholarship on the subject.

The Elizabeth A.R. Brown Medieval Historians’ Archivist Fund will create a repository for the professional papers of medievalists, to be led by the Elizabeth A.R. Brown Archivist, an endowed position in the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts. This position will ensure that the archive becomes a vital tool for scholars expanding on the work of experts like Brown.

Professor Brown’s selection of the Penn Libraries for this gift is a testament to Penn’s expertise in the field of medieval studies, particularly through the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies. We look forward to honoring her legacy of scholarship through this initiative for generations to come.”Brigitte Weinsteiger, H. Carton Rogers III Vice Provost and Director of the Penn Libraries

The Brown Archivist “will be one of the key people in identifying these archives and then assessing them through on-site visits,” says Nicholas Herman, the Lawrence J. Schoenberg Curator at the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies and Medieval Studies Librarian at Penn Libraries. “There’s also a born-digital archival component. Correspondence and project files are increasingly electronic, so the archivist will be preserving Brown’s digital records in tandem with her physical materials.”

A one-day symposium to honor Brown is being planned for September 2025. Individuals interested in contributing materials to the archive can contact Carrie Greif, Associate Director of Development, at (215) 898-2520 or cgreif@upenn.edu with suggestions for the Advisory Committee of Medieval Historians.

To support the critical and wide-ranging work of the Penn Libraries, contact Doug Stuart, Director of Development, at (215) 573-3609 or dstuart@upenn.edu.

Header image: Periermenias Aristotelis, LJS 101. Boethius’s 9th-century Latin translation of Aristotle’s De interpretatione, with 11th-century additions. Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania. Public domain. View full manuscript. Metadata licensed under CC-BY 4.0.