A. E. Levett

Professor Ernest Barker, for instance, taught both Elizabeth Levett and her gifted contemporary Maude Clarke before departing Oxford to become principal of King's College, London.

Her study on the Black Death was groundbreaking at the time, and her work on the manorial courts of St Albans was seminal in the field.

Speaking of her former professor Vinogradoff, Levett said "he taught me to unify my varied interests... into the great framework of Economics and Jurisprudence, and to bring it to bear on practical social history.

"[7] This growing wellspring of women historians was especially evident in the Victoria History of the Counties of England, where much of the text was written by female medievalists like Levett, poring over contemporaneous medieval records of peasantry at the time.

By focusing on such particular incidents in the old records, Levett limned the societal rights (or lack of them) of medieval women, who were seen as subordinate tenants.

As her reputation grew, and strictures on women in academia loosened, Levett found that she was in great demand as a lecturer and writer.

The award of a history chair at Westfield College crowned her career as one of a small number of emerging British women historians.