Nigel F. Palmer

Nigel F. Palmer
M.A., D.Phil., FBA
Nigel F. Palmer in front of the Ashmolean Museum (2001)
Born
Nigel Fenton Palmer

(1946-10-28)28 October 1946
Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, England
Died8 May 2022(2022-05-08) (aged 75)
Oxford, England
OccupationsUniversity lecturer, medievalist
Title
Awards
Academic background
EducationHyde Grammar School
Alma materWorcester College, Oxford
Thesis"Visio Tnugdali": the German and Dutch translations and their circulation in the later Middle Ages (1975)
Peter Ganz
Academic work
DisciplineGerman language and literature
Sub-discipline
Medieval German Literature
Institutions
Main interests
  • Literary topography of South West Germany in the later Middle Ages
  • Palaeography and codicology of the period 1100–1550

Nigel Fenton Palmer FBA (28 October 1946 – 8 May 2022) was a British Germanist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Oxford.

Portrait of Professor Nigel F. Palmer
Nigel F. Palmer during an excursion with a group of Tübingen German medievalists to explore the wall paintings in the Gamburg

Career

Nigel F. Palmer went to Hyde Grammar School and then read Modern Languages at Worcester College, Oxford where he graduated in 1969 with a first class degree after spending his year abroad in Vienna. In 1970 he took up a position as lecturer in German at Durham University. His DPhil thesis (1975) was on the German and Dutch versions of the Visio Tnugdali. He was made a fellow of Oriel College, Oxford in 1976 and Professor of Medieval German Literature and Language from 1992 to 2012 at St Edmund Hall, Oxford as successor to Peter Ganz.

He worked on a wide range of topics in mediaeval German language and literature, among them the ‘Literary topography of South West Germany in the later Middle Ages’, an attempt to establish a literary history of this region on the basis of the manuscript sources and library history (Latin and German).

Other areas of special interest were blockbooks and their place in early printing history, the interface between Latin literature and German literature in the Middle Ages, and palaeography and codicology of the period 1100–1550. He was a member of the British Academy since 1997. His work as editor of Oxford German Studies was featured in the celebratory volume 50/4. In 2022, he was awarded the inaugural Meister-Eckhart-Forschungspreis.

Prof. Nigel F. Palmer, Emeritus Professor of German Medieval and Linguistic Studies, preparing for a lecture series on Easter Plays in Azerbaijan 2015 by examining the facsimile scroll of the Osterspiel von Muri in the Taylor Institution Library, University of Oxford
Prof. Nigel F. Palmer, Emeritus Professor of German Medieval and Linguistic Studies, preparing for a lecture series on Easter Plays in Azerbaijan 2015 by examining the facsimile scroll of the Osterspiel von Muri in the Taylor Institution Library, University of Oxford

Selected publications

Prof. Nigel F. Palmer, thanking colleagues and friends for fundraising to buy a manuscript in honour of his 70th birthday, Taylor Institution Library, Oxford
Prof. Nigel F. Palmer, thanking colleagues and friends for fundraising to buy a manuscript in honour of his 70th birthday, Taylor Institution Library, Oxford

A full list of publications to 2007 will be found in Bibelübersetzung und Heilsgeschichte.

References

  1. ↑ Volfing, Annette. "Nigel Palmer" (PDF). British Academy.
  2. ↑ "N F Palmer". gazette.web.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2 September 2018.
  3. ↑ "Remembering Emeritus Fellow Professor Nigel Palmer". St Edmund Hall. Retrieved 10 May 2022.
  4. ↑ Reed, Jim; Lähnemann, Henrike (2 October 2021). "The OGS Editors". Oxford German Studies. 50 (4): 389–397. doi:10.1080/00787191.2021.2021022. ISSN 0078-7191. S2CID 248003093.