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

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

The chair was connected with the study of Old English and related languages. Tolkien’s scholarship in this field included work on Beowulf, Middle English texts, and the history of English. His academic knowledge of Germanic languages and medieval literature also supplied important foundations for the invented languages and cultures of Middle-earth.

In 1945, Tolkien moved from this chair to the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature, which he held until his retirement in 1959. The two titles are therefore both genuinely associated with him, but they belong to different periods of his Oxford career.

The name Rawlinson and Bosworth refers to the endowment supporting the chair. It is sometimes shortened in biographies to “Professor of Anglo-Saxon,” but the full title identifies the specific Oxford professorship Tolkien held during the years when he developed and published much of his major fiction.