Maurice Keen R.I.P

I was extremely sorry to learn today of the death yesterday of the distinguished Oxford historian aurice Keen, Fellow Emeritus of Balliol.

I first became aware of him as a schoolboy when I borrowed his first book, on Robin Hood and the outlaws of medieval legend from the local library in my home town. This was a book he was subsequently to state in print that he saw as completely superseded by the work of others.

In later years I read his now standard text book on England in the later middle ages and he was to produce what has become the standard book on Chivalry.

 When in 1993 I came to Oxford to discuss the possibilities of research I was sent by G.L. Harriss, after ameeting with him at Magdalen, to discuss matters with maurice keen at balliol. The meeting was in his book-lined room in the oldest part of the college, and we sat either side of an electric fire on a cold March 1st deciding that Richard Fleming was a much more fruitful or practical topic of enquiry than my other possible lines of enquiry

During the following years I attended his lectures on heraldry in the fourteenth century and worked on improving my Latin with his wife Mary's tutorial assisitance
Maurice Keen was very much a traditional tweed clad Oxford History don, with a traditional courtesy that included all he knew. I was once told that he had described me as one of the last gentlemen scholars. I could not say if that is true, but I am sure that he was both a scholar and a gentleman.

May he rest in peace.