Richard William Pfaff

Richard William Pfaff (1936-10 July 2016) was an American historian specializing in medieval English liturgy.

He was a descendant of German settlers in the Midwest.^[1] In 1966, he was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church.^[1]

He completed his B.A. in history at Harvard College.^[1] He later received the Rhodes scholarship and attended Magdalen College, Oxford, where he received his D.Phil in history.^[1] He served as a professor of history at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill until his retirement in 2006.^[1]

In 1993, he became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.^[1]

He was married to Margaret Campbell until her death in 2010; they had one son. He married Jeanette Falk shortly before his death.^[1]

His notable books include:^[2][3]

• The Liturgy in Medieval England: A History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2009.
• Liturgical Calendars, Saints and Services in Medieval England. (= Variorum collected studies series 610). Aldershot: Ashgate 1998.
• Medieval Latin Liturgy: A Select Bibliography (= Toronto Medieval Bibliographies 9). Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1982.
• New Liturgical Feasts In Later Medieval England (= Oxford theological monographs). Oxford: Clarendon Press 1970.
• Gibson, Margaret T.; Pfaff, Richard William; Heslop, T. A., eds. (1992). The Eadwine psalter: text, image, and monastic culture in twelfth-century Canterbury. London: Modern Humanities Research Association. ISBN 9780947623463.

• News & Observer obituary (paywalled)
• ResearchGate