Monday 12 October 2026

Professor Chris John Wickham (1950-2026)

The College is very sorry to announce the death of Honorary Fellow and alumnus Professor Chris Wickham FBA (1968 BA DPhil History).

Professor Wickham came to Keble in 1968 to read for a BA in History and received his DPhil in 1975. He went on to hold a number of academic positions at the University of Birmingham between 1977 and 2005, progressing from Lecturer to Senior Lecturer, Reader and Professor of Medieval History.

In 2005, he was appointed Chichele Professor of Medieval History at the University of Oxford and became a Fellow of All Souls College. He remained in this post until his retirement in 2016. He subsequently returned to the University of Birmingham as the Professor of Medieval History.

A highly regarded and influential medieval historian, Professor Wickham’s research focused particularly on medieval Italy, comparative European and Mediterranean history, and the social and economic history of the early Middle Ages. His recent work also drew extensively on archaeological evidence to explore the development of medieval economics.

He was the author of numerous influential books on medieval history, most notably Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400–800 (2005), which received several prestigious awards, including the Wolfson History Prize, the Deutscher Memorial Prize and the James Henry Breasted Prize of the American Historical Association.

Professor Wickham was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1998 and an Honorary Fellow of Keble College in 2014.

He will be greatly missed by all who knew him.