We are very sorry to share the news that Professor David Dumville died last week.
David was appointed to the University of Aberdeen in 2005, initially as Professor in History & Palaeography in the School of Divinity, History & Philosophy and soon afterwards as Professor in History, Palaeography & Celtic shared with the School of Language & Literature. From this shared base he divided his research and teaching between the departments of History and Celtic; he was instrumental in setting up the new MA programme in Celtic & Anglo-Saxon Studies. In 2020 he retired and became Emeritus Professor. From 1995 to 2005 he had been Professor of Palaeography & Cultural History at the University of Cambridge, where since 1977 he had taught as Lecturer and then Reader in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic.
During this period of over forty years, David’s work transformed the study of the history, culture and literature of Britain, Ireland and their neighbours in the Middle Ages, publishing numerous books, pamphlets and articles on the subject from the 1970s to the 2010s. His appointment at Aberdeen was as one of a select few ‘Sixth-Century Chairs’ instituted by the then Principal, Sir Duncan Rice, to celebrate the onset of this university’s sixth century by enhancing its international research profile across all subject areas. In this pantheon David was almost alone in conducting research into the sixth century itself.
But his expertise and impact ranged much more widely than this. Unusually for a mediaevalist he was a master of all the relevant mediaeval languages of early Britain and Ireland, from Latin, Old English and Old Norse to the mediaeval forms of Gaelic, Welsh and Breton. This, combined with his gifts in deciphering the various script forms found in mediaeval manuscripts, gave him an unrivalled capacity to access directly the various conflicting sources for these islands’ history and remove decades, sometimes centuries, of misunderstanding and scholarly preconception so that this history could be placed on a new basis built on hard evidence rather than wishful thinking. David rapidly gained an international reputation as exploder of old chestnuts, aided by his considerable gifts as a writer and speaker and his irreverent sense of humour. Yet his critical approach was built, not on rejecting earlier views out of hand, but on genuine curiosity about how they were produced. His voracious reading and digesting of earlier scholarship in several different modern European languages gave him an incomparable understanding of the contributions of previous generations of scholars – including some which deserved to be rescued from oblivion and adjusted in the light of the latest research. David’s work thus maintained a scholarly conversation which had been in danger of losing touch with its roots. In the same spirit of critical generosity he established lecture- and pamphlet-series in honour of some of these early contributors.
David did not leave others to do all the hard work of reconstructing a history he had turned on its head. He was the first to roll up his sleeves, and was an indefatigable editor of primary sources covering more than half a millennium of history, as well as far-reaching analytical studies. Under his hand, leadership or supervision, new editions and text-critical studies of key sources such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Historia Brittonum, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain and various sets of Irish and North British annalistic chronicles and law-texts took shape. These remain essential building-blocks for future scholars. David’s mastery of historical, philological, literary and palaeographical disciplines made his work a model of interdisciplinarity long before the word was invented. His accounts of the interplay between mediaeval churches and secular leaders, the role of Viking activity in the making of England and Scotland, structures of governance in Germanic and Celtic societies, and the nature of Old Gaelic lyric poetry and voyage-tales (among much else) have become standard reference-points in the various fields on which he drew.
In recognition of these contributions David received numerous academic distinctions during his long career. He was a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of the Royal Societies of Antiquaries of both Scotland and Ireland, as well as holding prestigious visiting lecturer or professor posts at Oxford, Berkeley, UCLA and the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, a British Academy Research Readership, and an honorary MA at the University of Pennsylvania.
David was also an energetic facilitator of academic debate, hosting numerous guest speakers over the years (not only those who shared his own views). He established or resurrected several academic journals, including Anglo-Saxon, Mediaeval Scandinavia and the Journal of Celtic Studies, as well as many separate pamphlet series in which he published lectures by visiting speakers and a wide range of essential primary sources. At Aberdeen, David was instrumental in setting up the Centre for Scandinavian Studies, which still produces a regular series of talks, workshops and a student journal, and the Centre for Celtic & Anglo-Saxon Studies, which holds copies of many of the pamphlets that David published. He was a much-valued academic colleague at Aberdeen, and was a tireless and trenchant advocate of the importance of the humanities to this university.
Finally, David was a dedicated and inspirational teacher. Both at Cambridge and Aberdeen he supervised numerous Masters and PhD students, many of whom have subsequently gone on to pursue successful academic careers in which David continued to act as a much-valued mentor. He was exceptionally generous with his time even when approached for advice by those who were not formally his students. His attention to detail was legendary: we may all have dreaded the red-pen comments littering the margins of our draft chapters, but this level of critical engagement improved our work no end. At Aberdeen, David’s lectures and seminars in History and in Celtic & Anglo-Saxon Studies were hugely popular, and not only for their maverick, sometimes anarchic approach to the subject. He had the rare gift of talking to beginners – even to first-year undergraduates – in a way that made them feel that they were not just passively absorbing information, but were genuine participants in making knowledge. He will be very much missed.
It is hoped that a memorial conference in David’s honour will take place in Cambridge early in 2025.
David moved to Liverpool with his former partner Clare Downham and their daughter Jenny at the beginning of 2022. He spent his last years surrounded by books, enjoying regular visits to cafes and National Trust properties and walking his dog, Bobby. He died painlessly at home in the early hours of 8 September 2024. He is succeeded by his children Elliott and Jenny, and one grandchild, Westley. David will be buried in Clare, Suffolk, in a plot close to his beloved first wife Sally. All our thoughts are with his family at this time.