At which university did J.R.R. Tolkien hold the post of Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon?

J.R.R. Tolkien held the post of Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxford.

He took up the Oxford professorship in 1925 and held it until 1945. The position focused on Old English language and literature, subjects central to Tolkien’s academic career. His work on Beowulf, medieval texts, and historical languages informed both his scholarship and his creative writing.

Tolkien later became Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford, a chair he held from 1945 until his retirement in 1959. He had previously taught at the University of Leeds, where he was professor of English language from 1924 to 1925.

The academic titles can be confusing because Tolkien held more than one important university post. The Rawlinson and Bosworth professorship was specifically at Oxford and concerned Anglo-Saxon, the traditional term for the language and culture of early medieval England.