The American medievalist William Chester Jordan has focused much of his scholarship on northwestern Europe. As a Resident, he has embraced the opportunity to research in Rome and explore new ideas, some sparked by AAR’s East and West theme this season. “It’s been wonderful getting to know other scholars in different disciplines and hearing feedback from people outside of the field of medieval studies,” he said.

His two main projects have been researching for his lecture “King Louis IX and Other Converts,” which explores the king’s interest and actions in promoting conversions of Muslims to the Catholic faith, and preparing for his upcoming book on public service in the European high Middle Ages. Jordan’s studies and publications have centered on the Crusades, English constitutional history, gender, economics, and church-state relations in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. He is the former president of the Medieval Academy of America and a past Rome Prize juror for medieval studies. The Dayton-Stockton Professor of History at Princeton University, Jordan has also counted many AAR Fellows among his students and former students.