Raymond Ian Page (25 September 1924 – 10 March 2012) was a British historian of

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

England and the

Viking Age The Viking Age (about ) was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonising, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. The Viking Age applies not only to their ...

. As a renowned runologist, he specialised in the study of

Anglo-Saxon runes Anglo-Saxon runes or Anglo-Frisian runes are runes that were used by the Anglo-Saxons and Medieval Frisians (collectively called Anglo-Frisians) as an alphabet in their native writing system, recording both Old English and Old Frisian (, ᚱ� ...

Biography

Page was born in

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its so ...

in 1924, and was educated at King Edward VII School."Professor Raymond Page"
''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

'', 21 March 2012. His family circumstances required him to leave school at the age of 16. In 1942 he took a course in mechanical engineering at Rotherham Technical College, applying thereafter for a commission in the Royal Navy. After the war, on discharge from the Navy, he was able as an ex-serviceman to obtain a place as an undergraduate at the

University of Sheffield The University of Sheffield (informally Sheffield University or TUOS) is a public university, public research university in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. Its history traces back to the foundation of Sheffield Medical School in 1828, Fir ...

. After graduating in English, he spent a year in Copenhagen working on an MA. He then moved to the University of Nottingham, where he was appointed to an assistant lectureship in English in 1951 and completed his doctoral dissertation on ''The Inscriptions of the Anglo-Saxon Rune-Stones'' in 1959. In 1962, Page joined the faculty at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

, where he was a lecturer, and later reader, in

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

language and literature. In 1965 he was appointed Parker Librarian at the

Parker Library, Corpus Christi College The Parker Library is a library within Corpus Christi College, Cambridge which contains rare books and manuscripts. It is known throughout the world due to its invaluable collection of over 600 manuscripts, particularly medieval texts, the ...

, and in 1984 he was appointed Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon. He held these two prestigious posts until his retirement in 1991.Professor Raymond Page
News, Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, 13 March 2012. In 1989-1990 he held the Sandars Readership in Bibliography lecturing on "Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, and his books." He continued to work at Corpus Christi after his retirement in an out-of-the-way office which he called 'Paradise' because it was so hard to reach.

Academic reputation

Rudolf Simek Rudolf Simek (born 21 February 1954) is an Austrian philologist and religious studies scholar who is Professor and Chair of Ancient German and Nordic Studies at the University of Bonn. Simek specializes in Germanic studies, and is the author ...

said that Page "is widely acknowledged as ''the'' authority on Old English runes". Professor Elmer Antonsen of the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...

has noted that "serious study of English runes without Raymond Ian Page... is simply inconceivable"; others praise him as a "meticulous scholar". Page's ''An Introduction to English Runes'' was first published in 1973, and revised and republished in 1999. Page intended it as a prefatory publication to a complete corpus edition of Anglo-Saxon runes, and it was praised for, among other qualities, its "healthy skepticism". Even in 2003, it remained "the only book-length study providing a comprehensive and scholarly guide to the Anglo-Saxon use of runes", and the revised edition was deemed as authoritative as the first one was in the 1970s. Much of his work was aimed at a general readership, but many of his scholarly articles were collected in 1995 in ''Runes and Runic Inscriptions: Collected Essays on Anglo-Saxon and Viking Runes.'' Page called himself a 'sceptical' runologist, demonstrating that runes were most often used for mundane purposes and arguing against their 'romantic' association with the occult. In 1996 he was awarded an honorary doctorate at The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).

Personal life

In 1953 Page married Elin Hustad; they had two daughters and a son. True to his Yorkshire roots, he would not permit red roses in his garden. Known as a connoisseur of real ale and single-malt whisky, he was presented on his 70th birthday with an oak manuscript conservation box specially made to contain a bottle of whisky, with its spine embossed with the title ''The Runes of Jura''.

Works

* 1960. ''Gibbons saga''. Copenhagen: Editiones Arnamagnænæ, Series B, vol 2. * 1970. ''Life in Anglo-Saxon England''. London: Batsford. * 1973. ''An Introduction to English Runes''. London: Methuen. 2nd ed. Boydell Press, 1999 (2006). . * 1985. ''Anglo-Saxon Aptitudes''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . * 1987. ''"A Most Vile People": Early English Historians on the Vikings''. London: Viking Society for Northern Research. * 1987. ''Runes''. (''Reading the past'' series). London: British Museum Press. . * 1990. ''Norse Myths''. London: British Museum Press. . * 1995.
Chronicles of the Vikings: Records, Memorials and Myths
'. London: British Museum Press. . * 1995. ''Runes and Runic Inscriptions: Collected Essays on Anglo-Saxon and Viking Runes''. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. . * 1999. ''The Icelandic Rune-Poem''. London: Viking Society for Northern Research. .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Page, R. I. Elrington and Bosworth Professors of Anglo-Saxon English historians English librarians Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Old Norse studies scholars People educated at King Edward VII School, Sheffield Royal Navy officers of World War II Runologists 1924 births 2012 deaths Alumni of the University of Sheffield Academics of the University of Nottingham Corresponding Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America Writers on Germanic paganism