John H. Mundy collection of correspondence on Bibliothèque de Toulouse's Ms 609, 1933-1952

John Hine Mundy was born on December 29, 1917, in London. His mother, Clytie Hine, was an Australian-born opera singer; his father, John Mundy, a cellist. The family emigrated to the United States in 1921. Mundy attended the St. Thomas School and the Trinity School, and received his bachelor's degree in 1940 and master's degree in history in 1941 from Columbia University. He married Charlotte Williams in 1942.

Mundy was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943, he learnt cryptanalysis in Virginia and shipped out to serve in the U.S. Army Signal Corps unit in Europe. In June 1945, he was sent to teach history to GIs at the Shrivenham Army University in England. He was later discharged and returned to Columbia.

In 1946, Mundy returned to France to research the Cathars of Toulouse, where his adviser, the medievalist Austin P. Evans, encouraged him to write his dissertation on the social history of the Cathars of southern France and northern Italy. Mundy obtained his doctorate from Columbia in 1950 and published his dissertation as Liberty and Political Power in Toulouse, 1050-1230 (New York, 1954). He also published articles and books such as Europe in the High Middle Ages, 1150–1230 (New York, 1973), The Repression of Catharism at Toulouse: The Royal Diploma of 1279 (Toronto, 1985), Men and Women at Toulouse in the Age of the Cathars (Toronto, 1990), and Society and Government at Toulouse in the Age of the Cathars (Toronto, 1997). He also edited and contributed to Essays in Medieval Life and Thought Presented in Honor of A.P. Evans (New York, 1955), contributed chapters on the Middle Ages to the series Chapters in Western Civilization and the Columbia History of the World (New York, 1972), etc.

Mundy joined the Columbia history department as an instructor in 1947, became an assistant professor in 1950, an associate professor in 1956, and full professor in 1962. He chaired the department from 1967-1970. He also taught at other institutions such as Barnard, the New School, Chicago, Fordham, and Brown.

Mundy received a Fulbright fellowship as well as fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies (twice), the Guggenheim Foundation (twice), the National Endowment for the Humanities, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a visiting member of the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton (twice), Medieval Academy of America in 1975, and served as its president in 1988-1989. In 1981, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He died on April 13, 2004 at the age of 86, New York.

Source: https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/october-2005/in-memoriam-john-hine-mundy