Robert Eugene Somerville (born 1940) was, until his retirement, the Ada Byron Bampton Tremaine Professor of Religion and Professor of History at Columbia University, New York. [1] Since July 1, 2020, he has been the Tremaine Professor Emeritus of Religion. [2]
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1940, Somerville taught at Columbia from 1969 until his retirement, except for a year at the University of Pennsylvania (1976–1977).
Somerville did his doctoral work under Stephan Kuttner at Yale University. He has published widely on the high medieval history of the papacy and of canon law. He is internationally recognized as an authority on medieval church councils. With the publication of his 2011 book Pope Urban II's Council of Piacenza , he has published completely all the sources relating to the councils of Pope Urban II.
Somerville is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America and of the Commission internationale de diplomatique. He is a corresponding member of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica in Munich and of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He has received numerous awards, including two John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowships, in 1974 and 1987. [3]
In 2012, the Catholic University of America Press published a Festschrift in his honor, Canon Law, Religion, and Politics: "Liber Amicorum" Robert Somerville, edited by his former students Uta-Renate Blumenthal, Anders Winroth, and Peter Landau. [4]
He currently lives on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, New York. His son, Gregory Somerville, graduated in 2013 from Columbia College with a Bachelor of Arts in music. [5]
This pamphlet commemorates Columbia's award of the Nicholas Murray Butler Award in Gold.
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Pope Alexander III, born Roland, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 7 September 1159 until his death in 1181.
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Philip I, called the Amorous, was King of the Franks from 1060 to 1108. His reign, like that of most of the early Capetians, was extraordinarily long for the time. The monarchy began a modest recovery from the low it had reached during the reign of his father, Henry I, and he added the Vexin region and the viscountcy of Bourges to his royal domaine.
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Gerard la Pucelle was a peripatetic Anglo-French scholar of canon law, clerk, and Bishop of Coventry.
Paul Oskar Kristeller was a scholar of Renaissance humanism. He was awarded the Haskins Medal in 1992. He was last active as Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Columbia University in New York, where he mentored both Irving Louis Horowitz and A. James Gregor.
Stephan George Kuttner, an expert in Canon Law, was recognized as a leader in the discovery, interpretation and analysis of important texts and manuscripts that are key to understanding the evolution of legal systems from Roman law to modern constitutional law.
Hilary was a medieval bishop of Chichester in England. English by birth, he studied canon law and worked in Rome as a papal clerk. During his time there, he became acquainted with a number of ecclesiastics, including the future Pope Adrian IV, and the writer John of Salisbury. In England, he served as a clerk for Henry of Blois, who was the bishop of Winchester and brother of King Stephen of England. After Hilary's unsuccessful nomination to become Archbishop of York, Pope Eugene III compensated him by promoting him to the bishopric of Chichester in 1147.
Albinus was an Italian Cardinal of the late twelfth century. A native of Milan, or perhaps of Gaeta, he became an Augustinian regular canon.
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Lambert of Guînes was the bishop of Arras (1094–1115). He was a major regional player and an active proponent of the Cluniac reform movement.
Uta-Renate Blumenthal is a German-born American medievalist and expert on canon law history, and professor emerita at the Catholic University of America. She is known for her work on the Investiture Controversy and on Pope Gregory VII.
The synod of Melfi was an ecclesiastical synod held in Melfi from 10 to 15 September 1089, convened by pope Urban II. Seventy bishops and twelve abbots attended and the synod dealt with various ecclesiastic topics connected to the reform movement as well the relation with the Greek part of the church.