Giles Constable FBA (1 June 1929 – 17 January 2021) was an English historian of the Middle Ages. Constable was mainly interested in the religion and culture of the 11th and 12th centuries, in particular the abbey of Cluny and its abbot Peter the Venerable.^[1]

Early life

Constable was born in London, the son of the art historian William George Constable and Olivia Roberts. He received his A.B. at Harvard University in 1950 and his Ph.D. at the same school in 1957.

Career

Constable taught at the University of Iowa from 1955 to 1958 and at Harvard University from 1958 to 1984. He was the Henry Charles Lea-Professor of Medieval History at Harvard University from 1966 to 1977. From 1977 to 1984 he was Director of the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library. He joined the faculty of the Institute for Advanced Study as a Medieval History Professor in the School of Historical Studies in 1985 and became professor emeritus in 2003.^[2]

A vigorous explorer of medieval religious and intellectual history, Constable was the author or editor of more than twenty books on medieval religious and intellectual history. His most influential works, centered around the religious and cultural history of the twelfth century, illuminated the origins of monastic tithes, Peter the Venerable, the people and power of Byzantium, medieval religious and social thought, the reformation of the twelfth century, twelfth-century crusading, and the history of Cluny.^[3]

He died in Princeton, aged 91.

Honours

Constable was a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, the American Historical Association, and the American Philosophical Society, the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, the British Academy, the Royal Historical Society, the Instituto Lombardo, the Accademia di Scienze e Lettere, and the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. He was a member of the scientific council of the Revue d'Histoire Ecclésiastique.^[4]