Sir R. A. B. Mynors | |
|---|---|
 Portrait by John William Thomas | |
| Born | Roger Aubrey Baskerville Mynors 28 July 1903 Langley Burrell, Wiltshire, England |
| Died | 17 October 1989 (aged 86) near Hereford, England |
| Spouse |
Lavinia Alington (m. 1945) |
| Awards | Knight Bachelor (1963) |
| Academic background | |
| Education | Eton College |
| Alma mater | Balliol College, Oxford |
| Influences | |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Classics |
| Institutions | |
| Influenced | |
Sir Roger Aubrey Baskerville Mynors FBA (28 July 1903 – 17 October 1989) was an English classicist and medievalist who held the senior chairs of Latin at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. A textual critic, he was an expert in the study of manuscripts and their role in the reconstruction of classical texts.
Mynors's career spanned most of the 20th century and straddled two of England's leading universities, Oxford and Cambridge. Educated at Eton College, he read Literae Humaniores at Balliol College, Oxford, and spent the early years of his career as a Fellow of that college. He was Kennedy Professor of Latin at Cambridge from 1944 to 1953 and Corpus Christi Professor of Latin at Oxford from 1953 until his retirement in 1970. He died in a car accident in 1989, aged 86, while travelling to his country residence, Treago Castle in Herefordshire.
Mynors held a reputation as one of Britain's foremost classicists.[1] He was an expert on palaeography, and has been credited with unravelling a number of highly complex manuscript relationships in his catalogues of the Balliol and Durham Cathedral libraries. His publications on classical subjects include critical editions of Vergil, Catullus, Pliny the Younger, Bede and Cassiodorus. He also was part of the editorial board of the comprehensive edition of the works by Erasmus. The final achievement of his scholarly career, a comprehensive commentary on Vergil's Georgics, was published posthumously. In addition to honorary degrees and fellowships from various institutions, Mynors was created Knight Bachelor in 1963.
- ^ "Sir Roger Mynors. Distinguished Latinist". The Guardian. 19 October 1989. p. 39 – via Newspapers.com.