William Chester Jordan

Winner of the Barry Prize, 2024

The prize citation for Dr. Jordan’s Barry Prize reads:

Bridging the social, economic, religious, and political dimensions of life, William Chester Jordan has unlocked the mysteries of medieval Europe for contemporary readers. His scholarship has deepened our understanding of such critical historical events and developments as the Great Famine, the Crusades, the treatment of Jewish populations, the contributions of women to premodern economies, and the legal systems of medieval monarchies. The Academy honors Dr. Jordan’s distinguished contribution to humanity’s capacity to make sense of its own past, that its present and future may be enriched by a larger understanding of its story.

William Chester Jordan is Dayton-Stockton Professor of History Emeritus, and director of the Program in Medieval Studies at Princeton University. He has received a number of honors and awards, including the Haskins Medal of the Medieval Academy of America, a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, an Annenberg Research Institute Fellowship, a Residency as Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the American Academy in Rome, the Behrman Award of Princeton University for Distinguished Achievement in the Humanities, the President’s Award of Princeton University for Distinguished Teaching, and election as a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has also served or is serving on the boards of various educational and philanthropic organizations and editorial enterprises: the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Humanities Center, the Teagle Foundation, the International Committee of Historical Sciences, the Institute for Advanced Studies (Jerusalem), and Princeton University Press.

October 2024