What was J.R.R. Tolkien’s official academic title at Oxford University?

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

He took up the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford in 1925 and held it until 1945. The position was based at Pembroke College, where Tolkien taught and continued developing his expertise in Old English, Germanic languages, and medieval literature.

In 1945 he moved to Merton College and became Merton Professor of English Language and Literature. He remained in that post until his retirement in 1959. These two professorships are often combined or simplified in popular biographies, leading to the less precise description “Oxford professor of English.”

Tolkien’s academic career strongly influenced his fiction. His knowledge of Old English, Norse literature, medieval poetry, and historical linguistics shaped names, languages, poetry, and storytelling techniques in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. His academic title is therefore more specific than simply calling him an English professor.