Medieval historian wins WMU’s 2024 Gründler Book Prize

KALAMAZOO, Mich.—A historian of medieval Germany has won Western Michigan University's Otto Gründler Book Prize for his book studying authority and justice across a millennium.

Dr. Jonathan R. Lyon, professor of medieval history at the University of Chicago, is the winner of the 2024 Gründler prize for “Corruption, Protection and Justice in Medieval Europe: A Thousand-Year History.”

The award, which comes with a $1,000 cash prize, was announced at the 59th International Congress on Medieval Studies held on Western’s campus May 9-11. It is named for the late, longtime director of WMU's Medieval Institute. Given annually since 1997, the Otto Gründler Book Prize recognizes a monograph on a medieval subject that the selection committee determines has made an outstanding contribution to the field. Authors from any country are eligible, and nominations are accepted from readers and publishers.

Published by Cambridge Press in 2022, Lyon’s book focuses on medieval advocates, who served as agents who provided protection and justice on behalf of others. This focus, according to the prize committee, allows Lyon “to show why protection and justice in many locales remained outside of any centralizing authority for so long.”

Using a variety of sources across time and territory, the book provides “insightful and often poignant reminders of the complexity and messiness of human power relations.” 

In fall 2024, Lyon will take up a new position as professor of medieval history at the University of Vienna, Austria.

View past winners of the Gründler prize.

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