Life

Born Doris Mary Parsons, she was the daughter of John Parsons and his wife Amelia Wadhams. She was their only child and was born in Reading, Berkshire

Reading, Berkshire

Reading is a large town and unitary authority area in England. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London....

 on 27 August 1894. Her father was a cabinet-maker. She attended the Abbey School in Reading before entering the University College at Reading in 1912. She earned a first-class London degree in 1916. In 1919 she married Frank Stenton

Frank Stenton

Sir Frank Merry Stenton was a 20th century historian of Anglo-Saxon England, and president of the Royal Historical Society . He was the author of Anglo-Saxon England, a volume of the Oxford History of England, first published in 1943 and widely considered a classic history of the period...

, who held the first chair of history at Reading and was already known as a medievalist.

Even before her marriage, however, Stenton had begun work on the transcription of the charter

Charter

A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified...

s of the cathedral chapter

Cathedral chapter

In accordance with canon law, a cathedral chapter is a college of clerics formed to advise a bishop and, in the case of a vacancy of the episcopal see in some countries, to govern the diocese in his stead. These councils are made up of canons and dignitaries; in the Roman Catholic church their...

 of Lincoln Cathedral

Lincoln Cathedral

Lincoln Cathedral is a historic Anglican cathedral in Lincoln in England and seat of the Bishop of Lincoln in the Church of England. It was reputedly the tallest building in the world for 249 years . The central spire collapsed in 1549 and was not rebuilt...

. This project led to the first of Stenton's editorial jobs, the edition of The Earliest Lincolnshire Assize Rolls, A.D. 1202–1209 which was published in 1926. Another fruit of the Lincoln project was the revival of the Pipe Roll Society, which had become dormant. In 1922, the Stentons, along with Canon Foster of Lincoln Cathedral and Leonard Owen began discussions that revived the Society. Further conversations led to Doris Stenton being appointed organizing secretary of the Society in 1923. It was mainly due to her efforts that the society became an important publishing source for medieval historians.

In 1948 Stenton earned a Doctor of Letters degree from Reading, and in 1953 she was elected to the British Academy. She also was known as Lady Stenton from 1948, when her husband was knighted. Other honors included honorary doctorates from Glasgow University and Oxford University and being selected as an honorary fellow at St Hilda's College

St Hilda's College, Oxford

St Hilda's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England.The college was founded in 1893 as a hall for women, and remained an all-women's college until 2006....

 at Oxford. She became a senior lecturer in the history department at Reading in 1952 and a reader in that department in 1955.

Up until Frank Stenton's death in 1967, both Stentons were engaged in numerous writing projects, but after her husband's death, Stenton concentrated on completing the third edition of his Anglo-Saxon England as well as issuing a collected edition of his papers. She completed that in 1971. She was troubled by deafness in her last years, and died on 29 December 1971 at Reading after a illness that lasted a week. She was buried at Halloughton, Nottinghamshire

Halloughton

Halloughton is a village in Nottinghamshire, England. It is located 9 miles west of Newark on Trent and is within the civil parish of Southwell....

 on 5 January 1972 in the same grave as her husband.

Both Stenton and her husband were devoted to the study of history, with both being known and esteemed for their historical studies.

Selected bibliography

• The Earliest Lincolnshire Assize Rolls, A. D. 1202–1209 published in 1926
• Rolls of the Justices of the Eyre for Lincolnshire, 1218–19 and Worcestershire, 1221 published in 1934 by the Seldon Society as their 53rd volume
• Rolls of the Justices in Eyre for Yorkshire in 3 Henry III published in 1937
• Rolls of the Justices in Eyre for Gloucestershire, Warwickshire and Staffordshire (recte Shropshire), 1221, 1222 in 1940
• Pleas before the King or his Justices, 1198–1202 in four volumes between 1952 and 1968
• English Society in the Early Middle Ages (1066–1307) published in 1951 as the third volume for the Pelican History of England
• English Justice between the Norman Conquest and the Great Charter 1066-1215: the Jayne Lectures for 1963 the Jayne Lectures were given to the American Philosophical Society
• The English Woman in History published in 1957

External links

• Bibliographical listing at World Cat