What was J.R.R. Tolkien’s Oxford academic chair called from 1945 to 1959?

From 1945 to 1959, J.R.R. Tolkien held the title Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford.

He was appointed to the chair at the University of Oxford after serving as Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Leeds and as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor at Oxford. The position reflected his expertise in Old English, also called Anglo-Saxon, as well as related Germanic languages and medieval literature.

Tolkien’s academic work and his creative writing were closely connected, although his fiction was not simply a by-product of his teaching. His knowledge of languages, philology, mythology, and medieval texts informed the invented histories and linguistic patterns of Middle-earth. In 1959 he retired from the Oxford chair. The title is sometimes shortened inaccurately to “Professor of Anglo-Saxon,” but the full historical name is Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon.