What was J.R.R. Tolkien’s academic subject in his 1925 Oxford professorship?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1925 Oxford professorship was in Anglo-Saxon.

In 1925, Tolkien became the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxford. The title referred to the language and literature now more commonly called Old English, the language of works such as Beowulf.

His scholarship in this field shaped his approach to fantasy. Tolkien treated language as a historical and creative force, building fictional cultures whose names, sound changes, and legends developed over time. His famous lecture “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” was published in 1936.

Tolkien later moved to the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature in 1945. That later chair is why descriptions of his Oxford career sometimes identify him simply as an English professor, although his earlier appointment was specifically in Anglo-Saxon.