October 31, 1887

Roger Sherman Loomis (October 31, 1887 to October 11, 1966) historian and medieval scholar is the author of a number of books about medieval romance. Books with titles like:

Illustrations of Medieval Romance on Tiles from Chertsey Abbey (1916 )

Arthurian Legends in Medieval Art (1938)
(with ‎Laura Hibbard Loomis)

Medieval English Verse and Prose  (1948)

 Arthurian Tradition and Chretien de Troyes (1949) (some say his masterpiece.)

Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages (co-author) (1959)

Tristan and Isolt: A Study of the Sources of the Romance. 
(crediting  Gertrude Schoepperle as co-author) ‎ (1960)

The Development of Arthurian Romance (1963)

Here's the blurb from another title, The Grail: From Celtic Myth to Christian Symbol(1963) 

The medieval legend of the Grail, a tale about the search for supreme mystical experience, has never ceased to intrigue writers and scholars by its wildly variegated forms: the settings have ranged from Britain to the Punjab to the Temple of Zeus at Dodona; the Grail itself has been described as the chalice used by Christ at the Last Supper, a stone with miraculous youth-preserving virtues, a vessel containing a man's head swimming in blood; the Grail has been kept in a castle by a beautiful damsel, seen floating through the air in Arthur's palace, and used as a talisman in the East to distinguish the chaste from the unchaste. In his classic exploration of the obscurities and contradictions in the major versions of this legend, Roger Sherman Loomis shows how the Grail, once a Celtic vessel of plenty, evolved into the Christian Grail with miraculous powers. Loomis bases his argument on historical examples involving the major motifs and characters in the legends, beginning with the Arthurian legend recounted in the 1180 French poem by Chrtien de Troyes. The principal texts fall into two classes: those that relate the adventures of the knights in King Arthur's time and those that account for the Grail's removal from the Holy Land to Britain. Written with verve and wit, Loomis's book builds suspense as he proceeds from one puzzle to the next in revealing the meaning behind the Grail and its legends.

The book includes an episode wherein a woman on a mule rides into King Arthur's court. Here is how  Chretien de Troyes describes her:

...[I]f the book describes her truly never was there a creature so loathly save in hell. Her neck and hands were blacker than any iron ever seen, yet these were less ugly than the rest of her.Her eyes were two holes as small as those of a rat; her nose was like that of a monkey or a cat; her lips were like those of an ass...She had a beard like a goat. In the middle of her chest rose a hump; her backbone was crooked...her back was hunched and her legs were twisted like two willow wands....

This person turned out in the story to have oracular powers. 

Medieval Romances(with as co-author Laura Hibbard Loomis ) Roger Sherman Loomis (1965)

A Mirror of Chaucer's World (1965)

The Arthurian Material in the Chronicles: Especially Those of Great Britain and France  (co author) (1965)

R. S. Loomis had degrees from Harvard and Oxford. He was on the faculty of Columbia University from 1919 to 1958.  He married twice, both times to medieval scholars.  Gertrude Schoepperle Loomis died in 1921 and Laura Hibbard Loomis, in 1960. They worked together and were credited in the author's field.