What was the name of J.R.R. Tolkien’s professorship at Oxford from 1925 to 1945?

From 1925 to 1945, J.R.R. Tolkien held the title Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University.

The professorship was based at Oxford’s Pembroke College, where Tolkien taught Old English, Old Norse, and related subjects. The position recognized his expertise in the language and literature of early Germanic England, fields that deeply informed his fiction.

In 1945 Tolkien moved to Merton College and became Merton Professor of English Language and Literature. He held that chair until his retirement in 1959. The change in title reflects a shift from a post focused specifically on Anglo-Saxon studies to a broader professorship.

Tolkien’s academic career is sometimes reduced to the label “Oxford professor,” but his exact posts matter because they show that his invented languages and stories grew from a serious career in philology. His teaching and scholarship on works such as Beowulf influenced the way he understood myth, language, and poetic tradition.