Bennett David Hill was a historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

, a Benedictine monk and an author. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

 and earned advanced degrees from Harvard (A.M.

Master of Arts (postgraduate)

A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...

 in 1958) and Princeton

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

 (Ph.D.

Ph.D.

A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 in 1963). He taught history at the University of Illinois at Urbana

Urbana, Illinois

Urbana is the county seat of Champaign County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 41,250. Urbana is the tenth-most populous city in Illinois outside of the Chicago metropolitan area....

.

Hill was the author of English Monasteries and Their Patrons in the Twelfth Century (1968), Church and State in the Middle Ages (1970), and articles in Analecta Cisterciensia, New Catholic Encyclopedia

New Catholic Encyclopedia

The New Catholic Encyclopedia is a multi-volume reference work on Roman Catholic history and belief edited by the faculty of The Catholic University of America and originally published by McGraw-Hill in 1967...

, The American Benedictine Review and The Dictionary of the Middle Ages. He was one of the contributing editors of The Encyclopedia of World History (2001).

Among other publications Hill have made contributions to are A History of World Societies and A History of Western Society, both published in several editions.

Hill was a Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies

American Council of Learned Societies

The American Council of Learned Societies , founded in 1919, is a private nonprofit federation of seventy scholarly organizations.ACLS is best known as a funder of humanities research through fellowships and grants awards. ACLS Fellowships are designed to permit scholars holding the Ph.D...

 and served as vice president of the American Catholic Historical Association

American Catholic Historical Association

The American Catholic Historical Association was founded by Peter Guilday in Cleveland, Ohio, in December, 1919 as a national society that would bring together scholars interested in the history of the Catholic Church or in Catholic aspects of secular history...

 (1995-1996). A Benedictine monk of St. Anselm's Abbey in Washington, D.C., he was also a visiting professor at Georgetown University

Georgetown University

Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...

.