Philip Grierson - Life in College

Life in College

Grierson’s performance as a student was exceptional. Graduating with a double first, he took the Lightfoot Scholarship from the university and also won the Schuldham Plate, his college’s highest academic accolade for students. He began graduate studies in 1932 on the subject of Carolingian history, and his first publications were to be on the ecclesiastical history of the early Middle Ages.

After being offered a fellowship in 1934, he saw no need to submit his PhD research, and only received an honorary PhD from the university in 1971. Grierson went on to hold a number of important posts in college: he was college librarian 1944–1969, and President (second in line to the Master) 1966–1976. He remained an active member of the fellowship until the last, and was present at the interview for the master sworn in shortly after his own death.

Grierson’s teaching responsibilities lay with the faculty of history, which appointed him assistant lecturer in 1938 and full lecturer in 1945. He became reader in numismatics in 1959, and professor of numismatics in 1971. He came to share and later lead teaching on the general introduction to European history, running through the history of continental Europe from the fifth to the fifteenth century. At various times he was also director of the Royal Historical Society (1945–1955), president of the Royal Numismatic Society (1961–1966), Ford lecturer at Oxford (1956–1957), fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (from 1949) and a fellow of the British Academy (from 1958).