Which Oxford university held J.R.R. Tolkien’s position as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon?

The University of Oxford held J.R.R. Tolkien’s position as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon. Tolkien occupied the chair from 1925 to 1945.

He first held an academic post at the University of Leeds, where he taught English language and literature. In 1925 he moved to Oxford and became a professor at Pembroke College. His Oxford career later included the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature.

Tolkien’s scholarship focused heavily on languages, medieval texts, and philology. His academic knowledge shaped his fiction, but he wrote Middle-earth as an imaginative mythology rather than as a straightforward academic reconstruction of Anglo-Saxon society.

The title is sometimes shortened to Professor of Anglo-Saxon, but Rawlinson and Bosworth is the formal name of the Oxford chair. Tolkien remained connected with Oxford for much of his professional life and wrote many of his major works there.