• Comment: Most of the sources are her works which cannot be used to establish notability and much of this is unsourced. Also needs to be rewritten in a neutral manner. S0091 (talk) 16:20, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
  • Comment: I do not have access to all sources to review whether claims such as "Dr. Scofield's work has continued to remain a vital resource for scholars up to this day" are indeed verified, but note that External links should be removed or converted to inline citations where appropriate. See also WP:DOCTOR. Greenman (talk) 20:35, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Cora Louise Scofield (February 6, 1870-March 10, 1962) was an American historian of late medieval England.

Early life and education

edit

Cora Scofield was born in Washington, Iowa in 1870, the second of two daughters of a Union Army veteran, General Hiram Scofield, and his wife Amelia.[1] She attended Vassar College, graduating in 1890,[2][3] which she followed with a period of study at the University of Oxford in 1891-92. She graduated with a PhD from the University of Chicago in 1898, the first woman to receive a PhD in history there. Her thesis was on the court of Star Chamber.[4]

Career

edit

Scofield taught at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, from 1897 to 1902. Four years later, her father died and Scofield became her widowed mother's companion until Amelia Scofield's death in 1929. Scofield and her mother moved to Boston in 1912, where each of them would spend the remainder of their lives.

Scofield published her doctoral thesis, A Study of the Court of Star Chamber, in 1900. She then focused her studies on the reign of Edward IV of England, publishing articles on various aspects of his reign. In 1923, she published her two volume The Life and Reign of Edward the Fourth.[5][6][7][8][9] Historian and archivist Charles Johnson wrote that it was "likely to be the standard authority on that period of English history which his life covers, and not soon to be superseded." He considered that "[t]he most striking merit of Miss Scofield's work is her treatment of foreign relations. ... she makes constant use of French and Flemish sources", although he regretted that, "in view of the excellence of her work", she did not have access to some sources.[7] This was the first scholarly biography of that king and was the result of extensive research carried out by Scofield in the archives of England and the continent. Her book became not merely the defining history of the king and his reign for half a century, but was a landmark work for historians of later medieval England in general for its engagement with unprinted primary sources. Even after Charles Ross published his Edward IV in 1974, Scofield's work has continued to remain a vital resource for scholars.[10][11][12] It was reissued in 1967, 2016, and 2020.

While Scofield's output all but ceased after the completion of her magnum opus, she remainder a respected scholar of the period, continuing to travel to Britain through the 1930s.[13] Scofield died in Boston on March 10, 1962.[14]

Publications

edit
  • 1900 A Study of the Court of Star Chamber
  • 1906 'Henry duke of Somerset and Edward IV' and 'The Movements of the earl of Warwick in the summer of 1464', both in The English Historical Review
  • 1914 'The Early Life of John de Vere, thirteenth earl of Oxford' and 'An Engagement of Service to Warwick the Kingmaker, 1462', both in The English Historical Review
  • 1921 'Five Indentures between Edward IV and Warwick the Kingmaker', The English Historical Review
  • 1922 'The Capture of Lord Rivers and Sir Anthony Woodville, 19 January 1460,' The English Historical Review
  • 1923 The Life and Reign of Edward the Fourth, King of England and France and Lord of Ireland, Volumes 1 and 2. Longmans, Green and Company. 1967 edition:OCLC 834125264 2016 edition: ISBN 9781781554753; 2020 edition: ISBN 9780367177959



References

edit
  1. ^ "Well-known Iowa Veteran Is Dead". Quad-City Times. Davenport, Iowa. Jan 2, 1907. p. 2. Retrieved 8 February 2025.
  2. ^ "Vassar's Commencement". Buffalo Weekly Express. Jun 12, 1890. p. 8. Retrieved 8 February 2025.
  3. ^ "Vassar Commencement". The Evening Republican. Meadville, Pennsylvania. Jun 12, 1890. p. 1. Retrieved 8 February 2025.
  4. ^ "Frequently asked questions about UChicago history - the Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center - the University of Chicago Library".
  5. ^ Newhall, Richard A. (April 1924). "Review: The Life and Reign of Edward the Fourth, King of England and of France and Lord of Ireland". The American Historical Review. 29 (3): 541–543. doi:10.1086/ahr/29.3.541.
  6. ^ Terry, Benjamin S. (June 1927). "Reviewed Work: The Life and Reign of Edward the Fourth, King of England and of France and Lord of Ireland by Cora L. Scofield". Journal of Political Economy. 35 (3): 430–432. Retrieved 8 February 2025.
  7. ^ a b Johnson, Charles (July 1924). "Review: The Life and Reign of Edward the Fourth". The Antiquaries Journal. 4 (3): 296–298. doi:10.1017/S0003581500006004.
  8. ^ "The Life and Reign of Edward the Fourth". The Daily Telegraph. London, England. Jul 18, 1924. p. 15. Retrieved 8 February 2025.
  9. ^ "A Royal Patron of Letters". Liverpool Daily Post. Liverpool, England. Jan 5, 1924. p. 4. Retrieved 8 February 2025.
  10. ^ Brondarbit, Alexander R. (2020). Power-brokers and the Yorkist State, 1461-1485. Boydell Press. p. xi. ISBN 9781783275342. The references within will not do adequate justice to the numerous historians I have relied upon. Cora Scofield, Ralph Griffiths, Jack Lander, Rosemary Horrox , and Tony Pollard are especially deserving of mention.
  11. ^ Gregory, Phillipa; Baldwin, David; Jones, Michael (2011). The Women of the Cousins' War The Duchess, the Queen, and the King's Mother. Atria Books. p. 231. ISBN 9781451629569. Cora Scofield, whose admired biography of Edward IV was published in 1923, wrote that ....
  12. ^ Penn, Thomas (2019). "Acknowledgements.". The Brothers York An English Tragedy. Penguin Books Limited. ISBN 9780718197292. I want also to acknowledge three scholars, Cora Scofield, Charles Ross and, again, Rosemary Horrox, whose landmark studies of Edward IV and Richard III are crucial to an understanding of the two reigns spanned by this book.
  13. ^ [1]
  14. ^ Griffiths, Ralph A., Cora Louise Scofield (1870-1961): a memoir in Scofield, Cora L., The Life and Reign of Edward the Fourth, reissue by Fonthill Media, 2016