Which Oxford university professorship in Anglo-Saxon did J.R.R. Tolkien hold from 1925 to 1945?

J.R.R. Tolkien held the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford from 1925 to 1945.

The chair was attached to Pembroke College, Oxford, where Tolkien taught Old English language and literature. His academic work included close study of texts such as Beowulf, alongside research into Germanic languages and medieval philology.

Tolkien’s scholarship and fiction were closely connected, although his novels were not simply translations of medieval stories. His expertise in historical languages helped him build believable invented languages and cultures, while his literary studies influenced how he thought about myth, monsters, heroes, and textual tradition.

In 1945, Tolkien moved to the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature, which he held until retiring in 1959. The title of the earlier chair is sometimes shortened in biographies, but its formal name preserves the benefactions associated with John Rawlinson and Joseph Bosworth.