Our friend and long-time EBS member Mary-Jo Arn died in Dorchester, MA, the week before last. The circumstances remain unclear. According to reports, she was on her way to the library (the best place for scholars to be) when she was hit by a car (or fell?) though she sustained no bruises or broken bones. Recently, she had made a remarkable recovery from a stroke that, however, had impaired her eyesight which may have been a factor. The fall caused an inoperable brain bleed.

I remember Mary-Jo from meetings of the Medieval Club of NY, the Medieval Academy, the York Medieval Conference, Kalamazoo, and Early Book Society conferences and meetings. She was a leading expert on the poetry and texts of Charles d’Orléans and published a volume in the EBS series Texts & Transitions, The Poet’s Notebook: The Personal Manuscripts of Charles d’ Orléans (Paris, BnF, MS fr. 25458) in 2008, which received positive reviews in Speculum, Philological Quarterly, and Medium Aevum, among others. We also remember her work as Reviews Editor at Speculum. Mary-Jo had just received her copy of the new Oxford Chaucer edition to which she had spent many years contributing and had started on a new research project. Dorothy Africa wrote, “We are all sad to lose our friend and gifted scholar, but I am thankful that she left us on a personal high point with an ambitious research project before her.” I await information on a charity or not-for-profit to which donations might be made in her memory, and I wish to thank Dorothy Africa and Jenna Mead for contacting me.

Martha Driver

The Early Book Society will miss Dr Anne F. Sutton, who died on Saturday 18th June 2022 in her hometown of Bury St Edmunds (Suffolk). In spite of her declining health, she had been able to remain at home until very near her death, where she was able to enjoy the company of visitors, telephone calls, letters and cards from her friends and well-wishers from around the world.

Anne’s contribution to scholarship is truly outstanding. She was a highly regarded scholar and a prolific writer, and the recent publication of her book The King’s Work: The Defence of the North Under the Yorkist Kings, 1471–85 (Donington, 2021) has not only been well received, but it also brought her much pleasure.

Medieval scholarship has lost a truly gifted and remarkable historian, one who didn’t suffer fools gladly, but who provided great hospitality, encouragement and friendship to others. Anne was a private person with great dignity and presence, but she also had a wonderful sense of humour and enjoyed nothing better than being with her friends and talking about King Richard and the events of the fifteenth century. She had a formidable memory and was able to find connections that others could not. She was one of a kind, and, although she will be deeply missed, her publications will remain a mainstay of scholarship for many years to come.

— Christian Steer
Read more at the website for the Richard III and Yorkist History Trust (here).

If any scholar could bring back to life the holy men and scholars of the Middle Ages it was Richard Sharpe. Richard, professor of diplomatic at Oxford University since 1998, who has died aged 66 of heart failure, was a man of abundant energy, which he poured into writing and editing a torrent of books and articles that threw light on all aspects of these men – saints and sinners alike. He was equally energetic outside his study – his gym sessions were so strenuous that he once broke a leg without at first realising it. He served as an Oxford University proctor and a Lib Dem member of Oxford city council. Read entire obituary here.