J. M. Wallace-Hadrill

John Michael Wallace-Hadrill CBE FBA FRHistS (29 September 1916 – 3 November 1985) was a British academic and one of the foremost historians of the early Merovingian period. He held the Chichele Chair in Modern History at the University of Oxford between 1974 and 1983.

Professor J. M. Wallace-Hadrill CBE FBA FRHistS
Born	John Michael Wallace-Hadrill 29 September 1916 Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, England
Died	3 November 1985(1985-11-03) (aged 69)
Nationality	British
Occupation(s)	Historian and academic
Title	Chichele Professor of Modern History
Spouse(s)	Ethel Irving ​ (m. 1943⁠–⁠1949)​ Anne Wakefield ​ (m. 1950)​
Children	2, including Andrew
Academic background
Education	Cheltenham College
Alma mater	Corpus Christi College, Oxford
Doctoral advisor	Maurice Powicke
Academic work
Era	Middle Ages
Discipline	History
Sub-discipline	Medieval History
Institutions	Corpus Christi College, Oxford University of Manchester Merton College, Oxford All Souls College, Oxford
Doctoral students	Donald A. Bullough Peter Sawyer Julia M. H. Smith Michael Wood Patrick Wormald
Main interests	Merovingian period

Life and career

Wallace-Hadrill was born on 29 September 1916 in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, where his father was a master at Bromsgrove School.^[1] He was Professor of Mediaeval History at the University of Manchester between 1955 and 1961. He then became a Senior Research Fellow of Merton College in the University of Oxford (where he held the office of Sub-Warden) from 1961 till 1974.^[2] He was Chichele Professor of Modern History at Oxford from 1974 to 1983 and, between 1974 and 1985, a Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford.

He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1969 and delivered the Ford Lectures in 1971. He was a Vice-President of the Royal Historical Society between 1973 and 1976. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1982. He is the father of the Roman historian Andrew Wallace-Hadrill and the brother of church historian, D.S. Wallace-Hadrill.^[3]

Bibliography

• The Barbarian West, 400–1000 (1952).
• The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar with Its Continuations (1960).
• The Long-haired Kings (London, 1962).
• Early Germanic Kingship in England and the Continent (Oxford, 1971).
• Early Medieval history (1976).
• The Frankish Church (1983).
• Ideal and reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon society: studies presented to J.M. Wallace-Hadrill (1983).
• Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People: A Historical Commentary (Oxford, 1988).