Richard Abels FRHistS (born 1951) is professor emeritus of history at the United States Naval Academy.^[1] Abels is a specialist in the military and political institutions of Anglo-Saxon England.^[2] He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (elected 1990) and a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America (2024).^[3][4] Abels' approach to medieval military history focuses upon the influence of culture upon the practice and representation of warfare.^[5] With his wife Ellen Harrison, Abels is also the co-author of an article examining the role played by women in the Cathar heresy based upon a statistical analysis of Inquisitiorial registers.

Selected publications

• Alfred the Great: War, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England. London: Longman, 1998.
• Æthelred the Unready: The Failed King. Penguin Monarchs Series, Penguin U.K., 2018.
• Lordship and Military Obligation in Anglo-Saxon England. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California, 1988.
• The Normans and their Adversaries: Essays in Memory of C. Warren Hollister. Co-edited with Bernard Bachrach. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 2001.
• "The Participation of Women in Languedocian Catharism." Mediaeval Studies 41 (1979): 215-251. (With Ellen Harrison.)

Podcast: "'Tis But A Scratch: Fact & Fiction About the Middle Ages" (2022)