Bishko Memorial Prize

Initiated in 2003, the Bishko Prize honors Professor Charles Julian Bishko, the distinguished historian of medieval Iberia who taught for 39 years at the University of Virginia. The biennial prize recognizes the best peer-reviewed article or book chapter on medieval Iberian history published by a North American scholar. Calls for submissions are generally in the fall; prizes are awarded the following spring and announced at our annual conference. Submissions will only be accepted from those who are active members at the time of submission. The prize carries an honorarium of $250.

Thanks to the prize committee:  Dr. Núria Jornet-Benito of the Universitat de Barcelona, Dr. Adam Franklin-Lyons of Emerson College, and Dr. Paola Tartakoff of Rutgers University.

2025 Bishko Award:  Yanay Israeli

Yanay Israeli, “Petition and response as social process: Royal power, justice and the people in late medieval Castile (c .1474–1504).” Past & Present, Volume 262, Issue 1, February 2024.

2023 Bishko Award:  Adam Franklin-Lyons and Marie A. Kelleher

“Framing Mediterranean Famine: Food Crisis in Fourteenth-Century Barcelona.” Speculum 97.1 (2022): 40-76.

The 2022-23 Bishko Memorial Prize winner was selected from a diverse pool of submissions that collectively demonstrate the extraordinary quality and sophistication of current scholarship within our field. “Framing Mediterranean Famine: Food Crisis in Fourteenth-Century Barcelona,” by Adam Franklin-Lyons and Marie A. Kelleher, is a clearly written, inspirational example of collaborative scholarship that integrates multiple lines of inquiry into a feast of interesting arguments. The article not only addresses the timely issue of climate change and its impact on food production but also exhibits how these systems were shaped by human agents engaging in localized decision-making. The result is a beautiful balance of archival and historiographical work that weaves together compelling stories about premodern Barcelona, wider Europe, and the Mediterranean that equip the authors to advance an impactful, multi-faceted argument about how their new models regarding the genesis of famines should encourage medievalists as well as historians studying other periods to reassess their methodologies. We, the members of the committee, are honored to award Kelleher and Franklin-Lyons this year’s Bishko Prize for this exceptionally brilliant and deeply deserving work of path-breaking scholarship.

2021 Bishko Awards: Jessica Boon and Dana Wessell Lightfoot & Alexandra Guerson

For this cycle the committee felt that there were two submissions equally deserving of the award:

Jessica Boon, “The Body-and-Soul in Pain: Medico-Theological Debates in Late Medieval Castilian Passion Treatises.” Viator 50.1 (2019): 249-87. DOI 10.1484/J.VIATOR.5.121363. (actual publication date Sept 2020)

Dana Wessell Lightfoot & Alexandra Guerson, “A Tale of Two Tolranas: Jewish women’s agency and conversion in late medieval Girona,” Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies​ 12.3 (2020): 344-364.