David Herlihy

David Herlihy (May 8, 1930 – February 15, 1991) was an American historian who wrote on medieval and renaissance life. He was married to historian Patricia Herlihy. Particular topics of his included domestic life, especially the roles of women, and the changing structure of the family. He studied for his bachelor's at the University of San Francisco, received a doctoral degree from Yale University and taught at Bryn Mawr College, Wisconsin, Harvard and Brown.

His study of the Florentine and Pistoiese Catasto of 1427 is one of the first statistical surveys to use computers to analyse large amounts of data. The resulting book examines statistical patterns in tax-collecting surveys to find indications of social trends.

The University of San Francisco history department named their annual award for the best student-written history paper the David Herlihy Prize, and Brown University has established a David Herlihy University Professorship.

“It is not at all certain that the diseases we observe today are the same that troubled our ancestors.”

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