J.R.R. Tolkien’s first Oxford professorship, beginning in 1925, was in Anglo-Saxon.
In 1925 Tolkien became Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxford. The position focused on the language and literature of the Anglo-Saxon period, especially Old English. He held the chair until 1945, when he moved to the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature.
Tolkien’s scholarly work in Old English strongly influenced his fiction. He studied texts such as Beowulf and drew on Germanic languages, heroic traditions, and medieval storytelling. His professional expertise also informed invented languages and the historical depth of Middle-earth, though the fictional world was not simply a retelling of Anglo-Saxon history.
The title is sometimes confused with Tolkien’s later Merton professorship. Both were at Oxford, but the Rawlinson and Bosworth chair was his first Oxford professorship and specifically concerned Anglo-Saxon studies.