One of the founders of the American Academy of Research Historians of Medieval Spain and throughout his long and productive life an enthusiastic promoter of the study of the Spanish Middle Ages, Father Burns was a historian of rare distinction and productivity. His seminal works on the medieval kingdom of Valencia, beginning with his landmark study of Valencia shortly after its conquest by Jaume I, The Crusader Kingdom of Valencia: Reconstruction on a Thirteenth-Century Frontier (Harvard University Press, 1967) and soon followed by his Islam under the Crusaders, Colonial Survival in the Thirteenth-Century Kingdom of Valencia (Princeton University Press, 1973) and Medieval Colonialism: Postcrusade Exploitation of Islamic Valencia (Princeton University Press, 1975), completed a lengthy and path-breaking trilogy that opened new methodological vistas on the history of Christians, Muslims and Jews in the peninsula.

These works were soon followed by a torrent of monographs and articles on the cultural world of Jaume I, Jews in notarial culture, and the wide interrelations between the three religions in the context of western Mediterranean culture. His enduring interest in those sites of encounter between different religions and culture can be documented in Burns’ first book, The Jesuits and the Indian Wars of the Northwest (Yale University Press, 1966) and was maintained throughout his life. His introduction to the translation of Alfonso X’s Siete Partidas is exemplary in its economy and erudition. When the end came, he was still hard at work in editing the fifth volume of the monumental Diplomatarium, or Els documents registrats de Jaume I el Conqueridor, 1257-1276, which will make available to all scholars the vast documentation of Jaume I’s reign and his relations with Valencia. Generous as he always was, Father Burns established the Premio del Rey Award, a biennial award given by the American Historical Association to the best book in Spanish medieval history.

One would need many pages to summarize Father Burns’s remarkable scholarly range, productivity, and historical insight. Such praise however fails to capture what he meant for generations of scholars working on Spanish medieval history. A kind and gentle man, he was one of the most generous individuals in the discipline. His generosity and support extended beyond his many graduate students to encompass all those who came to him with questions or problems. Although we all wish to be good and to do good in our own particular ways, for most of us such desires demand a great deal of work and commitment. Father Burns was, and is - for he remains alive in his work and in our memories - one of those special and rare individuals for whom kindness and goodness come naturally. He was an exemplary Jesuit, joyfully committed to his vows as a member of the Society of Jesus. He was a great and influential scholar. He was, and is, a good man. We will miss him immensely.

In the name of the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Research Historians of Medieval Spain
Teofilo Ruíz, Professor of History, University of California Los Angeles, AARHMS President, 2004-7

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