Charles Plummer

Charles Plummer was an English historian and cleric, born on January 24, 1851. He studied at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, matriculating in 1869, and after graduating in 1873 he became a Fellow there. Sources agree that he remained closely tied to Corpus Christi for the rest of his life, also serving as chaplain.

His scholarly reputation rests on careful editorial work. He is widely noted for his edition of Sir John Fortescue's The Governance of England, and for coining the term "bastard feudalism." He also edited Bede and a number of Irish and Hiberno-Latin texts, including the two-volume Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae, which helped preserve and organize important medieval material for later readers.

Plummer was elected a Fellow of the British Academy, reflecting the esteem he earned as a historian. He died in 1927 after a life spent largely in the Oxford world he had entered as a student, leaving behind a legacy built less on fame than on deep, durable scholarship.