Robert Jeremy Adam Inch Catto (27 July 1939 – 17 August 2018) was a British historian who was a Rhodes fellow and tutor in Modern History at Oriel College, Oxford, where he was also senior dean. Catto was a Brackenbury Scholar in History at Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated with first-class honours. [1] He held a master's degree (M.A.) and a doctorate (D.Phil.) From 1964 to 1969 he was employed as a tutor at Hatfield College, Durham. [2] During this time he became acquainted with Mark Lancaster and Bryan Ferry, who were then art students in nearby Newcastle. [1]
His research interests lay in the politics and religion of later medieval England. In a piece in The Spectator to commemorate his retirement in June 2006, Alan Duncan MP described him as "the quintessential Oxford don ... if one were to devour C. P. Snow, Goodbye, Mr. Chips and Porterhouse Blue, there is a smattering of Catto in each." [3]
He died on 17 August 2018 at the age of 79. [4]
A medieval university was a corporation organized during the Middle Ages for the purposes of higher education. The first Western European institutions generally considered universities were established in the Kingdom of Italy, the Kingdom of England, the Kingdom of France, the Kingdom of Spain, and the Kingdom of Portugal between the 11th and 15th centuries for the study of the Arts and the higher disciplines of Theology, Law, and Medicine. During the 14th century there was an increase in growth of universities and colleges around Europe. These universities evolved from much older Christian cathedral schools and monastic schools, and it is difficult to define the exact date when they became true universities, though the lists of studia generalia for higher education in Europe held by the Vatican are a useful guide.
Edward Augustus Freeman was an English historian, architectural artist, and Liberal politician during the late-19th-century heyday of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom William Gladstone, as well as a one-time candidate for Parliament. He held the position of Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, where he tutored Arthur Evans; later he and Evans would be activists in the Balkan uprising of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1874–1878) against the Ottoman Empire. After the marriage of his daughter Margaret to Evans, he and Evans collaborated on the fourth volume of his History of Sicily. He was a prolific writer, publishing 239 distinct works. One of his best known is his magnum opus, The History of the Norman Conquest of England. Both he and Margaret died before Evans purchased the land from which he would excavate the Palace of Knossos.
Sir Thomas Little Heath was a British civil servant, mathematician, classical scholar, historian of ancient Greek mathematics, translator, and mountaineer. He was educated at Clifton College. Heath translated works of Euclid of Alexandria, Apollonius of Perga, Aristarchus of Samos, and Archimedes of Syracuse into English.
Rosamond Deborah McKitterick is a British medieval historian. She is an authority on the Frankish kingdoms in the eighth and ninth centuries AD, who uses palaeographical and manuscript studies to illuminate aspects of the political, cultural, intellectual, religious, and social history of the Early Middle Ages. From 1999 until 2016 she was Professor of Medieval History and Director of Research at the University of Cambridge. She is a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College and Professor Emerita of Medieval History in the University of Cambridge.
Kenneth Bruce McFarlane, FBA was one of the 20th century's most influential historians of late medieval England. He was born on 18 October 1903 and was the only child of A. McFarlane, OBE. His father was a civil servant in the Admiralty and the young McFarlane's childhood was an unhappy one. This may have led to the deep melancholy that seemed to pervade much of his adult life. His family sent him to public school at Dulwich College as a day-boy. McFarlane did not particularly like the atmosphere of the public school. In 1922 he earned a scholarship to read history at Exeter College, Oxford. His tutor during these years was C. T. Atkinson. Following the completion of his DPhil on the loans of Cardinal Beaufort to the English Crown, McFarlane became a fellow of Magdalen College, where he remained for the rest of his life. Many of his colleagues and students found him difficult to approach, but to those who could break through the facade he became a great and true friend. McFarlane also found, through the help of his great friend Helena Wright and her family, a home and a family of sorts. In Wright's house he found that he could be himself and find refuge from the daily grind of the University and a place of joy. McFarlane never married.
Rodney Howard Hilton was an English Marxist historian of the late medieval period and the transition from feudalism to capitalism.
The St Scholastica Day riot took place in Oxford, England, on 10 February 1355, Saint Scholastica's Day. The disturbance began when two students from the University of Oxford complained about the quality of wine served to them in the Swindlestock Tavern, which was based at Carfax, in the centre of the town. The students quarrelled with the taverner; the argument quickly escalated to blows. The inn's customers joined in on both sides, and the resulting mêlée turned into a riot. The violence started by the bar brawl continued over three days, with armed gangs coming in from the countryside to assist the townspeople. University halls and students' accommodation were raided and the inhabitants murdered; there were some reports of clerics being scalped. Around 30 townsfolk were killed, as were up to 63 members of the university.
Herbert Albert Laurens Fisher was an English historian, educator, and Liberal politician. He served as President of the Board of Education in David Lloyd George's 1916 to 1922 coalition government.
Sir Frederick Maurice Powicke (1879–1963) was an English medieval historian. He was a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, a professor at Belfast and Manchester, and from 1928 until his retirement Regius Professor at Oxford. He was made a Knight Bachelor in 1946.
Michael Maclagan, CVO, FSA, FRHistS was a British historian, antiquary and herald. He was Fellow and Tutor in Modern History at Trinity College, Oxford, for more than forty years, a long-serving officer of arms, and Lord Mayor of Oxford 1970–71.
Ralph Henry Carless Davis, always known publicly as R. H. C. Davis, was a British historian and educator specialising in the European Middle Ages. Davis was born and died in Oxford. He was a leading exponent of strict documentary analysis and interpretation, was keenly interested in architecture and art in history, and was successful at communicating to the public and as a teacher.
Dame Joan Evans was a British historian of French and English mediaeval art, especially Early Modern and medieval jewellery. Her notable collection was bequeathed to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Donald Elmslie Robertson Watt FRSE was a Scottish historian and Professor Emeritus at St Andrews University.
Ada Elizabeth Levett (1881–1932), known professionally as A. E. Levett, was an Oxford-educated native of Bodiam, Sussex, who became a pioneering woman economic historian specialising in medieval feudalism. Levett was Vice Principal of St Hilda's College, Oxford, and later took up an appointment to a history chair at Westfield College at the University of London.
William Abel Pantin was an historian of mediaeval England who spent most of his academic life at the University of Oxford.
Ursula Miriam Dronke was a medievalist and former Vigfússon Reader in Old Norse at the University of Oxford and an Emeritus Fellow of Linacre College. She also taught at the University of Munich and in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages at Cambridge University.
Jonathan James Graham Alexander, known in print as J. J. G. Alexander, is a medievalist and expert on manuscripts, "one of the most profound and wide-ranging of all historians of illuminated manuscripts".
Mark Whittow was a British historian, archaeologist, and academic, specialising in the Byzantine Empire. He was a university lecturer at the University of Oxford and a Fellow in Byzantine Studies at Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
John Roger Loxdale Highfield was an English historian of medieval Europe and fellow of Merton College, University of Oxford. His contribution to the study of medieval Spain was recognised by his appointment to the Order of Isabella the Catholic in 1989.
Robert Howard "Robin" Hodgkin was an English historian of modern history at Queen's College at the University of Oxford, who served as its provost from 1937 until 1946. In 1900, he was named a Lecturer of modern history at the college, and from 1928 to 1934 was a University Lecturer in that subject. His seminal work, A History of the Anglo-Saxons, was published in 1935, and in his retirement he published Six Centuries of an Oxford College: A History of the Queen's College, 1340–1940.
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