Reginald Lane Poole

Born in 1857, he became known as a British historian and archivist closely connected with Oxford. He worked in fields such as medieval history, historical method, and archival scholarship, and he was part of the wider Poole family of scholars.

His writing ranged widely across medieval Europe, with books and studies on political thought, church history, and institutions. That mix of detailed research and big historical questions helped make his work useful both to specialists and to general readers interested in how medieval societies were organized.

He died in 1939. Even now, he is remembered chiefly for the steady, scholarly work he brought to medieval studies and to the care of historical records.