Below is an updated obituary, from the Department of History, on James Brundage:

James A. Brundage

James A. Brundage, Professor in the Department of History from 1955-1989, died on November 5, 2021, at the age of 92. Jim received his BA and MA from the University of Nebraska and his PhD from Fordham University. After a 34-year career at UWM, including serving as Chair of the Department, he was named Ahmanson-Murphy Distinguished Professor of Medieval History, Courtesy Professor of Law, and, in 2000, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Kansas.

In addition to fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, Jim was a Fulbright Lecturer, a Fellow of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America and the Royal Historical Society, and on the Board of Directors of the Stephan Kuttner Institute of Medieval Canon Law at the University of Munich. He was the author of twelve books, including Medieval Canon Law and the Crusader (1969), Law, Sex, and Christian Society (1987), and Medieval Origins of the Legal Profession (2008).

His colleagues in the History Department remember Jim as a brilliant and wide-ranging scholar, but also wickedly funny. Both of these are captured in the best-known part of his still-authoritative Law, Sex, and Christian Society: a one-page flow chart of all the rules about sex in medieval penitentials, which he analyzes along with other types of texts in the book. You can find it here and many other places online as well, plus no doubt in the Powerpoints and handouts of countless teachers of the Middle Ages around the country.

For additional information, please see Jim’s obituary online.