Derek Pearsall

Derek Albert Pearsall (1931–2021) was an English medievalist and Chaucerian who wrote and published widely on Chaucer, Langland, Gower, manuscript studies, and medieval history and culture.^[1] He was the co-director for the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of York and was the Gurney Professor of English Literature at Harvard University.^[2][3] In 1998, he delivered the British Academy's Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture.^[4]

Early and personal life

Pearsall was born in Birmingham to parents Elsie (née Rawlins) and Joseph, a shop fitter toolmaker, and attended King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys. The first in his family to go to university,^[5] Pearsall earned a B.A. in 1951 and an M.A. in 1952 from the University of Birmingham (UK).^[3]

In 1952 in King's Lynn, Pearsall married Rosemary Elvidge (d. 2004), whom he had met as a student. They had four children.^[5] The couple considered York, where they returned to upon retirement and had a permanent house in Clifton, to be their home.^[6]