Background
Frederick York Powell was born in Bloomsbury, London.
historian medievalist university professor
Frederick York Powell was born in Bloomsbury, London.
He was educated at Rugby School, and matriculated at Oxford as an unattached student, subsequently joining Christ Church, where he took a first-class in law and modern history in 1872.
Much of his childhood was spent in France and Spain, so that he early acquired a mastery of the language of both countries and an insight into the genius of the people. He became law-lecturer and tutor of Christ Church, fellow of Oriel College, delegate of the Clarendon Press, and in 1894 he was made Regius Professor of Modern History in succession to J. A. Froude. His contributions to history were not extensive, but he was a particularly stimulating teacher.
He had been attracted in his school days to the study of Scandinavian history and literature, and he was closely allied with Professor Guðbrandur Vigfússon (d 1889), whom he assisted in his Icelandic Prose Reader (1897), Corpus Poeticum Boreale (1887), and Origines Islandicae (1905), and in the editing of the Grimm Centenary papers (1886).
He took a keen interest in the development of modern French poetry, and Paul Verlaine, Stéphane Mallarmé and Emile Verhaeren all lectured at Oxford under his auspices. He was also a connoisseur in Japanese art
In June 1901 he received an honorary doctorate (Doctor of Laws) from the University of Glasgow during celebrations for the university´s 450th jubilee. The Society"s journal, which had published his papers, printed an obituary by Edward Clodd.
Participant of his collection of artefacts were deposited at the Pitt Rivers Museum.
See the Life, with letters and selections, by Oliver Elton (1906).
Powell was a member of the Folklore Society and became its President in the year that he died.