What was J.R.R. Tolkien’s academic specialty at the University of Leeds?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s academic specialty at the University of Leeds was English philology. He served there as a reader in English language from 1920 and became a professor in 1924.

Philology studies languages through their historical development, including changes in vocabulary, grammar, and sound. Tolkien’s work involved Old English, Middle English, Old Norse, and related Germanic languages. These studies informed both his scholarship and his invented languages.

In 1925 Tolkien left Leeds for Oxford, where he became Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon. His Leeds years were nevertheless important: he collaborated with E. V. Gordon on the edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, published in 1925.

Tolkien’s academic work was not primarily archaeology or modern history. His fiction drew on history, legend, and material culture, but his professional field was language and medieval literature.