At which university did J.R.R. Tolkien become a professor of Anglo-Saxon?

J.R.R. Tolkien became a professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxford. In 1925 he was appointed Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, where he taught Old English and related subjects. His academic career at Oxford continued through later appointments in English language and literature.

Tolkien’s professional study of Old English, Middle English, and medieval texts deeply informed his fiction. He was especially interested in the history of words, sound changes, philology, and the surviving fragments of early literature. His famous lecture “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics,” delivered in 1936, helped reshape scholarly views of the poem.

Oxford is also closely connected with Tolkien’s writing life. He wrote and revised much of his fiction while teaching there and belonged to literary circles that included C. S. Lewis. His Oxford career was academic, not a position at Cambridge or another university.