Timothy Graham

Photo: Timothy Graham

Distinguished Professor
Regents' Professor in Arts and Sciences

Email: tgraham@unm.edu
Phone: (505) 277-1191 / (505) 277-2252
Office: Mesa Vista 2043

Education:

B.A. University of Cambridge
M.A. University of Cambridge
M. Phil. The Warburg Institute, University of London
Ph.D. University of Cambridge

Research Interests:

Medieval History, Paleography and Codicology of Medieval Manuscripts, History of Anglo-Saxon Studies

Research Statement:

For close to thirty years, my research has focused on Anglo-Saxon manuscripts and the ways they were studied by scholars of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries: in particular, by the entourage of Archbishop Matthew Parker, the greatest manuscript collector of Elizabethan England; by two Cambridge scholars of the first half of the seventeenth century, William L’Isle and Abraham Wheelock; and by the Oxford Saxonists of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. I am interested in the religious impulse that galvanized early Anglo-Saxon studies and in how the field became more philologically oriented as the seventeenth century progressed. My most recent research projects include an extended assessment of the ways in which manuscripts produced at or owned by Exeter Cathedral in the later Anglo-Saxon period were utilized by early modern English scholars; an overview of the beginnings of Old English and Old Norse studies in early modern England; an analysis of the manuscripts studied and annotated by Abraham Wheelock as he prepared the notes for his dual-language edition of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History; and an examination of female involvement in early Anglo-Saxon studies, with a particular focus on transcripts of Old English texts made by Elizabeth Elstob (1683–1756). My electronic facsimile edition of Elstob’s An English-Saxon Homily on the Birth-Day of St. Gregory (1709) appeared in 2016.

 

Profile:

Professor Graham is an internationally recognized specialist in medieval manuscripts who holds his B.A. and M.A. in History from the University of Cambridge, his M.Phil. in Renaissance Studies from the Warburg Institute, University of London, and his Ph.D. in Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic from Cambridge. Before becoming Director of UNM’s Institute for Medieval Studies and joining the History Department in 2002, he held positions at the University of Manchester (1980–89), the University of Cambridge (1989–94), and Western Michigan University (1995–2002). He is the co-author of Introduction to Manuscript Studies, the most widely used resource in its field. Professor Graham’s undergraduate courses include The Medieval World, Anglo-Saxon England, 450–1066, and History of Christianity to 1517. At the graduate level he teaches Medieval Research and Bibliography, Bede and His World, and an intensive four-week seminar on Paleography and Codicology that is offered every second summer (even-numbered years) and is open to graduate students from institutions across and beyond North America. As Director of the Institute for Medieval Studies, he organizes UNM’s prestigious annual Medieval Spring Lecture Series. He gives frequent community lectures, notably to Albuquerque OASIS Group and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute; each February, he directs a half-day Medieval Manuscripts Workshop at the annual conference of the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. He has been the co-director of two National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminars for College Teachers, held respectively at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (1997), and the British Library, London (2001). In 2015 he was named a UNM Regents’ Professor and in 2018 a Distinguished Professor. He received the Medieval Academy of America’s CARA Award for Excellence in Teaching Medieval Studies in 2016. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and is the current President (2018–19) of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists.

 

Recent/Select Publications:

Books

Elizabeth Elstob’s English-Saxon Homily on the Birth-Day of St. Gregory  (e-book: Witan Publishing, 2016)

Herbs and Healers from the Ancient Mediterranean through the Medieval West: Papers in Honor of John M. Riddle (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2012; co-edited with Anne Van Arsdall)

Introduction to Manuscript Studies (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007; co-authored with Raymond Clemens)

The Recovery of Old English: Anglo-Saxon Studies in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2000)

The Recovery of the Past in Early Elizabethan England: Documents by John Bale and John Joscelyn from the Circle of Matthew Parker (Cambridge: Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 1998; co-authored with Andrew G. Watson)

Medieval Art: Recent Perspectives. A Memorial Tribute to C. R. Dodwell (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998; co-edited with Gale R. Owen-Crocker)

Selected articles and book chapters

“Female Agency in Early Anglo-Saxon Studies: The ‘Nuns of Tavistock’ and Elizabeth Elstob,” in Studies in Honor of Helen Damico, ed. Helene Scheck and Christine Kozikowski (forthcoming)

“Old English and Old Norse Studies to the Eighteenth Century,” in The Oxford Handbook of Victorian Medievalism, ed. Joanne Parker and Corinna Wagner (forthcoming)

“The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts,” in The Wisdom of Exeter, ed. Edward Christie (forthcoming)

“William Elstob’s Planned Edition of the Anglo-Saxon Laws: A Remnant in the Takamiya Collection,” in Middle English Texts in Transition: A Festschrift Dedicated to Toshiyuki Takamiya on His 70th Birthday, ed. Simon Horobin and Linne R. Mooney (Woodbridge, UK: York Medieval Press, 2014), 269-96

“Glosses and Notes in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts,” in Working with Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, ed. Gale R. Owen-Crocker (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2009), 159‒203

“Matthew Parker’s Manuscripts: An Elizabethan Library and Its Use,” in The Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland, vol. 1, ed. Elisabeth Leedham-Green and Teresa Webber (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 322‒41

“William L’Isle’s Letters to Sir Robert Cotton,” in Early Medieval English Texts and Interpretations: Studies Presented to Donald G. Scragg, ed. Elaine Treharne and Susan Rosser (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2002), 353–79

“Anglo-Saxon Studies: Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries,” in A Companion to Anglo-Saxon Literature, ed. Phillip Pulsiano and Elaine Treharne (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), 415–33

“Early Modern Users of Claudius B. iv: Robert Talbot and William L’Isle,” in The Old English Hexateuch: Aspects and Approaches, ed. Rebecca Barnhouse and Benjamin C. Withers (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2000), 271–316

“John Joscelyn, Pioneer of Old English Lexicography,” in Graham, The Recovery of Old English, 83–140

“Changing the Context of Medieval Manuscript Art: The Case of Matthew Parker,” in Owen-Crocker and Graham, Medieval Art: Recent Perspectives, 183–205

“Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 57 and Its Anglo-Saxon Users,” in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts and Their Heritage, ed. Phillip Pulsiano and Elaine M. Treharne (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1998), 21–69

“Robert Talbot’s ‘Old Saxonice Bede’: Cambridge University Library, MS Kk.3.18 and the ‘Alphabetum Norwagicum’ of British Library, Cotton MSS, Domitian A. IX,”  in Books and Collectors 1200–1700: Essays Presented to Andrew Watson, ed. James P. Carley and Colin G. C. Tite (London: British Library Publications, 1997), 295–316

“Matthew Parker and the Conservation of Manuscripts: The Case of CUL MS Ii.2.4 (Old English Regula Pastoralis, s. xi3/4),” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 10/5 (1995): 630–41

“The Old English Prefatory Texts in the Corpus Canterbury Pontifical,” Anglia 113 (1995): 1–15

“Les cycles des saints Dunstan et Alphège dans les vitraux romans de la cathédrale de Canterbury,” Cahiers de civilization médiévale 38 (1995): 55–78 (co-authored with Mildred Budny)

“A Parkerian Transcript of the List of Bishop Leofric’s Procurements for Exeter Cathedral:  Matthew Parker, the Exeter Book, and Cambridge University Library MS Ii.2.11,” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 10/4 (1994): 421–55

Awards:

 

Medieval Academy of America CARA Award for Excellence in Teaching Medieval Studies (2016)

Honorary Member, Phi Eta Sigma National Honor Society (2014)

UNM History Department Marjorie Bell Chambers Award for Excellence in History (2012–14)

UNM College of Arts and Sciences Award for Teaching Excellence (2010)

New Mexico Humanities Council Grants for the annual UNM Medieval Spring Lecture Series (2002, 2005, 2007–12, 2014–17)

National Endowment for the Humanities Awards for co-directing two Summer Seminars for College Teachers (1997, 2001)

Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation Support Grant for directing a Summer Institute in the Archival Sciences at The Newberry Library, Chicago (1998)

Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (1998)

Courses:

  • Anglo-Saxon England, 450-1066
  • History of Christianity to 1517
  • The Medieval World
  • Bede and His World
  • Paleography and Codicology
  • Medieval Research and Bibliography