Elizabeth Raye-Muller
Elizabeth Raye-Muller (b. 1967) is an American paper conservator and historian who lives in Germany. She is the author of The Cursed Queen: The Life of Maleen of Adlkofen, which she published in 2015, and which was on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list for seven weeks.
Raye was born in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1967. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1989, and earned a Master’s Degree in historic preservation from Columbia University in 1992. She then attended the University of Delaware and received a Ph.D. in Conservation Research and Historic Preservation in 1995. In 1998, Raye married Hans Muller, a German art conservator who she met while working. They have two daughters and a son and live near Munich.
In May 1995, Raye-Muller traveled with a group of recent American Ph.D. graduates to a town outside of Munich to work in a local museum, cataloging 15th century documents from the ruins of a monastery. While there, Raye, Martin Shipland, and Julie Shipland uncovered the remains of court records from the court of Kollstansze. The three briefly returned to America and then returned to Germany to continue working with these records. In 2015, she published The Cursed Queen: The Life of Maleen of Adlkofen, an account of their findings.
The Cursed Queen was popular, but received criticism from some scholars, including women’s historian Kira Lennox. She argued that Raye-Muller’s account over-emphasizes the use of Maleen by the men around her, and that she puts too much faith in the notes written by Maleen’s husband, especially because his records are mixed in with love letters from Maleen and notes from his children.
Lennox also argued that Raye-Muller’s team should devote more of their research to the notes concerning Federica—she said “we know about the subjugation of women in the 16th century. What we don’t know about is the history of mental illness in the 16th century”. Raye-Muller responded, "if Kira Lennox wants to get her degree in conservation and come over here to help us go through these papers, she's more than welcome".
Lennox also argued that Raye-Muller’s team should devote more of their research to the notes concerning Federica—she said “we know about the subjugation of women in the 16th century. What we don’t know about is the history of mental illness in the 16th century”. Raye-Muller responded, "if Kira Lennox wants to get her degree in conservation and come over here to help us go through these papers, she's more than welcome".