Helen Maud Cam was an English historian of the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

, born at Abingdon

Abingdon, Oxfordshire

Abingdon or archaically Abingdon-on-Thames is a market town and civil parish in Oxfordshire, England. It is the seat of the Vale of White Horse district. Previously the county town of Berkshire, Abingdon is one of several places that claim to be Britain's oldest continuously occupied town, with...

, Berkshire (now Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....

).

Educated at home, she did her undergraduate degree at Royal Holloway College

Royal Holloway, University of London

Royal Holloway, University of London is a constituent college of the University of London. The college has three faculties, 18 academic departments, and about 8,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students from over 130 different countries...

, and later an MA in Anglo-Saxon and Frankish studies at the University of London

University of London

-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...

, after a fellowship year in the United States. This degree led to her first book, Local Government in Francia and England, 768–1034 (1912). After teaching at Cheltenham Ladies' College and Royal Holloway, she became a fellow of Girton College

Girton College, Cambridge

Girton College is one of the 31 constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge. It was England's first residential women's college, established in 1869 by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon. The full college status was only received in 1948 and marked the official admittance of women to the...

, Cambridge in 1921. In 1948 she took up a professorship at Harvard

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

, a position she held until her retirement in 1954.

Cam’s focus was on local administration, as opposed to the constitutional and legal history of the dominant historians of the age, Stubbs

William Stubbs

William Stubbs was an English historian and Bishop of Oxford.The son of William Morley Stubbs, a solicitor, he was born at Knaresborough, Yorkshire, and was educated at Ripon Grammar School and Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated in 1848, obtaining a first-class in classics and a third in...

 and Maitland

Frederic William Maitland

Frederic William Maitland was an English jurist and historian, generally regarded as the modern father of English legal history.-Biography:...

. Though an admirer of both, she greatly expanded on and revised the work of these men. Her work was of great scholarly value, but she was also able to write successfully for a wider audience, illustrated best by her England before Elizabeth (1950). She also had an interest in historical fiction, expressed in Historical Novels (1961). She strongly resented the whitewashing of particular historical figures, such as Richard III

Richard III of England

Richard III was King of England for two years, from 1483 until his death in 1485 during the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty...

.

In 1945 she was elected to the British Academy

British Academy

The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national body for the humanities and the social sciences. Its purpose is to inspire, recognise and support excellence in the humanities and social sciences, throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value.It receives an annual...

, and in the same year she became the first woman to deliver the Raleigh lecture there. She received honorary doctorates from Smith College

Smith College

Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college located in Northampton, Massachusetts. It is the largest member of the Seven Sisters...

, Mount Holyoke College

Mount Holyoke College

Mount Holyoke College is a liberal arts college for women in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It was the first member of the Seven Sisters colleges, and served as a model for some of the others...

, the University of North Carolina

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...

, and Oxford. She acted as vice-president both of the Selden Society

Selden Society

The Selden Society is the only learned society to be devoted to the study of English legal history.The Society was founded in 1887 by FW Maitland. The main activity of the Society is publishing historical records of English law. Since the society's inception, a volume of interesting and important...

, and of the Royal Historical Society

Royal Historical Society

The Royal Historical Society was founded in 1868. The premier society in the United Kingdom which promotes and defends the scholarly study of the past, it is based at University College London...

. In 1957 she was appointed CBE

Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

.

Select bibliography

• Studies in the hundred rolls: some aspects of thirteenth-century administration, Oxford: Clarendon press, 1921
• The hundred and the hundred rolls; an outline of local government in medieval England, London, Methuen 1930
• Liberties and communities in medieval England: collected studies in local administration and topography Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1944.
• England before Elizabeth, London, New York: Hutchinson’s University Library, 1950
• Law as it looks to a historian, Cambridge: W. Heffer 1956
• What of the Middle Ages is alive in England today, London: Athlone press, 1961.
• Historical novels, London: Historical Association, 1961.
• Law-finders and law-makers in medieval England: collected studies in legal and constitutional history, London: Merlin press, 1962.

Sources

• Kathleen Major, 'Cam, Helen Maud (1885–1968)', rev., Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press
  Oxford University Press
  Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
  
  , 2004 (http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/32254, accessed 26 March 2007)
• Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing, Kelly Boyd (ed.), London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1999 , pp. 166–7.
• Euan Taylor, 'Helen Cam, the Academic Life and the Idea of Community' PhD thesis (Darwin College, Cambridge
  Darwin College, Cambridge
  Darwin College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.Founded in 1964, Darwin was Cambridge University's first graduate-only college, and also the first to admit both men and women. The college is named after the family of one of the university's most famous graduates, Charles Darwin...
  
  (2000))