My husband, Paul Hyams, who has died aged 82, was a lecturer in medieval history who wrote extensively on his subject, including two books on medieval England. He started his career at Oxford University and ended it at Cornell University in the US.
Born in Leeds, to Henry, a solicitor, and Rachel (nee Hauser), an advocate for youth organisations, he went to Bootham school in York and then to Worcester College, Oxford, where he studied history. Graduating with a first, he embarked on postgraduate work, holding the Scurry Jones research fellowship at Jesus College on the way to a doctorate in 1968. The following year he became a fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford, where he spent 20 fulfilling years as a tutor in medieval history.
Paul and I married in 1975, having met at a legal history conference in Wales three years earlier.
In 1989 we moved to the US, where Paul taught history at Cornell University. There he experimented with some innovative teaching methods, posting source material online for his students from the early 1990s onwards and asking them to create their own “glosses” (explanatory notes or comments in the margin) on medieval legal texts.
He was always generous with his time to any students who sought his advice, guiding them with great care through dissertation research and writing. He was a proud Jew and partly this level of attention came from the Jewish concept of “tikkun olam”, or “repairing the world”.
Paul also wrote two books: Kings, Lords and Peasants in Medieval England (1980) and Rancor and Reconciliation in Medieval England (2003).
He retired from Cornell in 2013, after which we returned to the UK to live in Oxford. He kept up his interest in history through membership of several professional associations, including the American Society for Legal History, the Jewish Historical Society and the Charles Homer Haskins Society. He was also a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Medieval Academy of America.
He is survived by me, our two children, Deborah and David, and his sister Catherine.
