Associate Professor of History, The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC
John P. Birkelund Fellow in the Humanities - Class of Fall 2016
Jennifer R. Davis is Associate Professor of History and Director of Graduate Studies at the Catholic University of America. She earned her PhD in history at Harvard University, following her MA at Harvard and at the University of Cambridge. She has held fellowships from the Fulbright Commission, German Academic Exchange Service, American Philosophical Society, Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, and the American Academy in Rome. Davis is the co-editor, with Michael McCormick, of The Long Morning of Medieval Europe (Ashgate, 2008), and has written numerous articles on early medieval politics, Charlemagne, and Louis IX of France. In her recent book Charlemagne’s Practice of Empire (Cambridge, 2015), Davis examines how the Frankish king Charlemagne and his court held together his vast new empire created during the first decades of his reign. Telling the story of Charlemagne’s rule based on contemporary sources, she offers a new interpretation of Charlemagne’s political practice, freed from the distortions of legend.