Bertram Colgrave (1889, Derry, Ireland – 13 January 1968, Cambridge, England) was a medieval historian, antiquarian and archaeologist, specializing on the lives of the early saints in Anglo-Saxon England.
Life
Colgrave attended King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys in
Birmingham, prior to undergraduate studies at the University of Birmingham. He went on to study for a second degree in
Old English and
Middle English at Clare College, Cambridge, teaching briefly at Merchiston Castle School near
Edinburgh from 1916 to 1918. In 1920 he was appointed lecturer in English at Durham University, with a promotion to reader in 1930. He was attached to
Hatfield College. He served as dean of the Faculty of Arts between 1933 and 1935 and was the first public orator of the university from 1939 to 1942. From 1950 to 1963 he was founding editor-in-chief of
Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile. On his retirement from Durham University in 1954, he held visiting professorships at the University of North Carolina, University of Texas, University of Kansas, University of Colorado and Mount Holyoke College. He fully retired to Coton near Cambridge in 1965. Colgrave was a member of the Plymouth Brethren.
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Works
Colgrave specialized on the lives of
Cuthbert and the
Bede. He prepared editions of the Latin lives of the early saints
Wilfrid, Cuthbert,
Guthlac and Gregory the Great. He was also a historian of the city and diocese of Durham, for which he wrote the official guide. In 1939 in the preface to his edition of
Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert, dated "St. Cuthbert's Day" (20 March), Colgrave wrote, "To edit the two most important Lives of Cuthbert is almost a pious duty for one who lives under the shadow of Durham Cathedral."
Honours
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Honorary D.Litt., Durham University, 1957.
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Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture, 1958, British Academy
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Inaugural Jarrow Lecture, St Paul's Church, Jarrow, 1958.
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Fellow of the Mediaeval Academy of America, 1968.
Selected bibliography
Notes
Sources
External links
