![]() ![]() Kaeuper’s very last doctoral student says he was fortunate to snag the popular scholar as his Doktorvater before his retirement. “Luck and hard work aside, I feel that I was better prepared for casework than many of my peers,” writes Lehn. “A history paper is remarkably similar to a detective’s case. Both utilize times, places, quotations, and outcomes in order to prove a thesis.” He writes that Kaeuper’s seminar course on chivalry, “where I had to read and process an incredible amount of source material as well as contemporary analysis,” and Kaeuper’s course on research, which for him meant combing through the written English record for Stephan Fulborne, set him on track to become a detective. One of them, Jeffrey Lehn ’05, has been a NYPD officer for the last 17 years. Many of the donations were accompanied by kind notes from alumni to their former professor, recalling fondly Kaeuper’s teaching and how it affected their personal and professional lives long after their time on campus. Smoller adds, “It just seemed such a perfect fit for Dick’s expertise.” ‘Kaeuperites’ unite It really speaks perfectly to both his teaching and to his own research.” “We purchased it in honor of Dick because he’s a monumental historian of legal history, particularly for France and for England in the high and late Middle Ages. “Essentially, it’s a lawyer’s handbook,” says Siebach-Larsen. She zeroed in on a particular manuscript, a guide for lawyers on how to argue cases and respond to various legal situations.īOOK SMARTS: A medieval handbook for French lawyers, the manuscript contains definitions of judicial terms and concepts, various types of legal pleas and defenses, and guidance on how to respond to them. Siebach-Larsen began to scour auction catalogues and talked to dealers to find a suitable candidate. More specifically, a medieval legal treatise-because Kaeuper is a preeminent expert not just on chivalry, but also on medieval European law, public order, administration, and finance. Suddenly an entire medieval book, known as a codex, was a real possibility. Thanks to the generosity of lead donor Paul Kreuzer ’72-and bolstered by David Burkhardt ’88, whose gift kept the momentum going-the fund grew rapidly. ![]() “But then these really huge gifts started coming in.” “Honestly, I thought we might raise about $1,500 or so,” says Smoller. Meanwhile, staff at the University’s advancement office and the library started reaching out to Kaeuper’s former students. Mims agreed that any Kaeuper manuscripts would be housed in safe, climate-controlled conditions at RBSCP. Schleifer Director of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation (RBSCP), who immediately offered her enthusiastic support. They enlisted Miranda Mims, the Joseph N. The two were thinking modestly-maybe a small medieval charter. Something that would at once be a lasting extension of Kaeuper’s work enhance the University River Campus libraries’ existing collections across medieval history, literature, art, and culture and serve as a valuable research and teaching object for scholars and students alike. Laura Smoller, a professor of history and then chair of the Department of History, and Anna Siebach-Larsen, the director of the Rossell Hope Robbins Library and Koller-Collins Center for English Studies, were hunting for something special. Clark Professor Emeritus of History, taught and researched at Rochester for 52 years. Last June, two University of Rochester colleagues-a historian and a librarian-were thinking out loud: how best to commemorate a preeminent medievalist and immensely popular history professor who was about to retire after more than half a century of service to the University? The 700-year-old manuscript is the first in a new University of Rochester library collection that honors historian Richard Kaeuper. ![]()
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