Short answers, pulled from the story.
Janet Nelson, known as Jinty Nelson, was a British historian and professor of medieval history at King's College London, born on the 28th of March 1942 in Blackpool, Lancashire. She was the first female President of the Royal Historical Society and was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2006. She died on the 14th of October 2024 at the age of 82.
King and Emperor: A New Life of Charlemagne, published in 2019, is Janet Nelson's biography of the eighth and ninth-century emperor Charlemagne. It was awarded History Book of the Year for 2019 by both The Daily Telegraph and the BBC. Reviewing it in the Financial Times, historian David Bates described it as mixing rigorous assessment of difficult evidence with what feels like invitations to conversation.
Janet Nelson studied at Newnham College, Cambridge, receiving her BA in 1964. She completed her PhD in 1967 under Professor Walter Ullmann, writing on early medieval inauguration ritual. Their relationship became strained after Ullmann expressed disapproval of the direction her thesis took.
Nelson joined King's College London as a lecturer in 1970, was promoted to Reader in 1987, to Professor in 1993, and served as Director of the Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies from 1994 until her retirement in 2007.
The Jinty Nelson Award for Inspirational Teaching and Supervision in History was established by the Royal Historical Society in January 2018. It is named after Janet Nelson, who was the Society's first female President, appointed in 2001.
Nelson published over 140 papers, half of which were gathered into four volumes of collected essays. Her book-length works included a 1992 biography of the ninth-century Frankish king Charles the Bald and her 2019 biography of Charlemagne, King and Emperor. She also co-edited the Manchester Medieval Sources translation series from 1991 to 2009 and co-edited The Oxford History of Medieval Europe from 2011.