Joan Elizabeth Turville-Petre (10 May 1911 – 9 March 2006) was an English philologist at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

who specialized in

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

and Old Norse studies.

Life

Joan Turville-Petre (née Blomfield) was the daughter of Sam Blomfield and Kate Barton of Colchester, Essex. In 1930 she began her studies at

Somerville College Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, Ir ...

, Oxford University and she maintained a lifelong connection with the college. She was a Tutor and Fellow from 1941 to 1946, a lecturer in English from 1946 to 1965 and an Honorary College Research Fellow from 1965 until her death in 2006. On 7 January 1943, Joan Turville-Petre married

Gabriel Turville-Petre Edward Oswald Gabriel Turville-Petre (25 March 1908 – 17 February 1978) was an English philologist who specialized in Old Norse studies. Born at Bosworth Hall, Leicestershire to a prominent Roman Catholic family, Turville-Petre was edu ...

, a fellow Oxford academic working in the same field. There were no guests at their wedding, but their friends J. R. R. and

Edith Tolkien Edith Mary Tolkien ( Bratt; 21 January 1889 – 29 November 1971) was an Englishwoman, known as the wife and muse of the novelist J. R. R. Tolkien, and the inspiration for his fictional Middle-earth characters Lúthien Tinúviel and Arwen Und ...

were there as witnesses. They had three sons: Thorlac Francis Samuel (born 6 January 1944), Merlin Oswald (born 2 July 1946) and Brendan Arthur Auberon (16 September 1948 – 6 December 1981). Joan Turville-Petre died at the age of 94. Her funeral was held at St Michael's,

Aylsham Aylsham ( or ) is a historic market town and civil parish on the River Bure in north Norfolk, England, nearly north of Norwich. The river rises near Melton Constable, upstream from Aylsham and continues to Great Yarmouth and the North Sea, ...

on 23 March 2006.Joan Turville-Petre, Obituary, ''Saga-Book of the Viking Society for Northern Research'' 30 (2006)

Selected publications

*"Runes and the Gothic alphabet" ''Saga-Book of the Viking Society for Northern Research'' 12 (1937–45) 177–94; 209–31 *"Studies on the

Ormulum The ''Ormulum'' or ''Orrmulum'' is a twelfth-century work of biblical exegesis, written by an Augustinian canon named Orm (or Ormin) and consisting of just under 19,000 lines of early Middle English verse. Because of the unique phonemic orthog ...

MS." ''Journal of English and German Philology'' 46(1) (January 1947), 1–27 *''The story of Rauð and his sons'' Trans. from the Icelandic by J.E. Turville-Petre. Viking Society for Northern Research. Payne Memorial Series II. (1947) *"Hengest and Horsa" ''Saga-Book of the Viking Society for Northern Research'' 14 (1953–7) 273-90 *"Sources of the Vernacular Homily in England, Norway and Iceland" ''Arkiv för Nordik Filologi'' 75 (1960), 168–82. *"Translations of a Lost Penitential Homily" ''Traditio'' 19 (1963) 51–78 *"The metre of Icelandic court poetry" ''Saga-Book of the Viking Society for Northern Research'' 17 (1966–69) 326–51 *"Beowulf and Grettis saga: An excursion" ''Saga-Book of the Viking Society for Northern Research'' 19 (1974–77) 347–57 *"The genealogist and history: Ari to Snorri" ''Saga-Book of the Viking Society for Northern Research'' 20 (1978–81) 7–23 *''The Old English "Exodus"'' Text, translation and commentary by

J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlins ...

; edited by Joan Turville-Petre. Clarendon Press, Oxford (1981) *Meulengracht Sørensen, Preben ''The unmanly man: concepts of sexual defamation in early northern society'' Trans. by Joan Turville-Petre. Odense: Odense University Press (1983) *Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson ''A Piece of Horse Liver: Myth, Ritual, and Folklore in Old Icelandic Sources'' Trans. by Terry Gunnell and Joan Turville-Petre, Háskólaútgáfan Félagsvísindastofnun (1998)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Turville-Petre, Joan 1911 births 2006 deaths Anglo-Saxon studies scholars Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford Germanic studies scholars Linguists from England Women linguists English philologists Women philologists Old Norse studies scholars

Life

Selected publications

See also

References