What was the title of Tolkien’s Oxford professorship from 1945 to 1959?

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

The professorship was based at the University of Oxford and focused on the language and literature now generally called Old English. Tolkien succeeded Charles Leslie Wrenn in the post and later moved to the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature. His tenure placed him among the leading academic specialists in early English studies.

The title is sometimes simplified to “Oxford professor of English,” but that wording loses the historical specificity of his appointment. Tolkien’s work on Old English texts, Germanic philology, and medieval poetry informed both his teaching and the linguistic design of Middle-earth.