A. E. Levett

Who was A. E. Levett?

Ada Elizabeth Levett, known professionally as A. E. Levett, was an Oxford-educated native of Bodiam, Sussex, who became a pioneering woman economic historian specializing in medieval feudalism. Levett was Vice Principal of St Hilda's College, Oxford, and later took up an appointment to a history chair at Westfield College at the University of London.

Levett was born into an old Sussex family in Bodiam, near the border between Kent and Sussex, where her family had lived since medieval times. Bodiam Castle had been held by the Levett family during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and the lane near the castle was named for them. The once-powerful Anglo-Norman family, one of the county's oldest, had held manors and lands across Sussex. The study of medieval feudalism was probably in Levett's genes.

Levett's father was a simple yeoman farmer as well as an outdoor enthusiast. Academic pursuits were not encouraged in the household, especially for women. Nevertheless, both Elizabeth and her younger sister Mary Jane Levett became noted scholars.

Elizabeth Levett graduated from Oxford, then became Tutor in Modern History, writer, lecturer and Vice Principal at St Hilda's College, Oxford, where her scrupulous research and lean writing style made her stand out, even among her women contemporaries at Oxford, who often chose the route of close archival study to set themselves apart from male contemporaries. These women were redefining the role of women at the University: women had been forbidden to be faculty members or examine for the university, nor were they allowed to take the M.A. diploma. Oxford published women's examination results in a separate class-list up until 1952.