Richard Abels

Richard Abels FRHistS (born 1951) is professor emeritus of history at the United States Naval Academy. Abels is a specialist in the military and political institutions of Anglo-Saxon England. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (elected 1990) and a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America (2024). Abels' approach to medieval military history focuses upon the influence of culture upon the practice and representation of warfare. 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)