The position of Diebold Professor of Comparative Philology (designated the Professor of Comparative Philology 1868–82 and 1925–2003, and known as the Corpus Christi Professor of Comparative Philology 1882–1925) is a professorship in comparative philology at the University of Oxford. The professor's duties are "to lecture and give instruction in Indo-European and the history and comparative philology of the Indo-European languages."[1]

The professorship was created for the German academic Max Müller in 1868.[2] It was called the "Corpus Christi" Professorship because a commission in 1877, led by Roundell Palmer, 1st Earl of Selborne, recommended that the richest colleges should help the university by providing funds for chairs. Corpus Christi College was reluctant – partly because of the cost involved at a time when the college's income was affected by an agricultural recession, but also because the fellows of the college feared that they would be outvoted by professors.[3] Although the chair was renamed as the Corpus Christi professorship in 1882 on the basis that provision had been made to endow the chair out of the college's revenues,[4] the college never provided sufficient funds to establish a full endowment for the chair, and its obligation to do so (to the college's relief) was removed in 1925.[3] The chair was renamed in 2003 after Professor A. Richard Diebold Jr., to mark his donation to the university to support the chair.[5] It is now associated with a fellowship of Worcester College, although Anna Morpurgo Davies (appointed in 1971) was a fellow of Somerville College instead because at that time Worcester did not have women fellows.[6]

List of Diebold Professors of Comparative Philology

The academics to have held the position are:

References

  1. ^ "Diebold Professor of Comparative Philology" (PDF). University of Oxford. Retrieved 5 February 2015.
  2. ^ a b Fynes, R. C. C. (May 2007). "Müller, Friedrich Max (1823–1900)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 5 February 2015. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
  3. ^ a b c Posner, Rebecca (1994). "Romance Linguistics in Oxford 1840–1940". In Christmann, Hans Helmut; Baum, Richard (eds.). Lingua et Traditio. Gunter Narr Verlag. pp. 377–378. ISBN 9783823341376.
  4. ^ "Corpus Christi Professor of Comparative Philology". Statuta Universitatis Oxoniensis. Clarendon Press. 1885. p. 64.
  5. ^ "Renaming the Professorship of Comparative Philology as the A. Richard Diebold Jr Professorship of Comparative Philology". Oxford University Gazette. University of Oxford. 8 May 2003. Retrieved 5 February 2015.
  6. ^ "College News" (PDF). Worcester College Magazine. Worcester College, Oxford: 5.
  7. ^ Gunn, Battiscombe; Gurney, O. R. (2004). "Sayce, Archibald Henry (1845–1933)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 5 February 2015. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
  8. ^ a b Kellett, Arnold (2004). "Wright, Joseph (1855–1930)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 5 February 2015. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
  9. ^ "Braunholtz, Gustav Ernst Karl". Who Was Who. Oxford University Press. April 2014. Retrieved 5 February 2015. (subscription required)
  10. ^ "Palmer, Leonard Robert". Who Was Who. Oxford University Press. April 2014. Retrieved 5 February 2015. (subscription required)
  11. ^ "Anna Morpurgo Davies obituary". The Guardian. 9 October 2014. Retrieved 5 February 2015.
  12. ^ "Appointments: Diebold Professor of Comparative Philology". Oxford University Gazette. University of Oxford. 22 April 2004. Retrieved 5 February 2015.
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