Philip Grierson
Encyclopedia
Philip Grierson, FBA
(15 November 1910 – 15 January 2006) was a British historian and numismatist, emeritus professor of numismatics
at Cambridge University
and a fellow of Gonville and Caius College
for over seventy years. During his long and extremely prolific academic career, he built the world’s foremost representative collection of medieval coin
s, wrote very extensively on the subject, brought it to much wider attention in the historical community and filled important curatorial and teaching posts in Cambridge
, Brussels
and Washington DC
.
who, after losing his job in 1906, ran a small farm at Clondalkin
, near Dublin. There he gained a reputation for financial acumen, and was appointed to the boards of a number of companies. Grierson’s father also built up an important collection of freshwater snails, which now resides at the Ulster Museum
in Belfast
.
Grierson was educated at Marlborough College
, where he specialised in natural sciences. As a result, he was admitted to read medicine at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, in 1929. Almost immediately, he switched to history, and was to remain with the latter subject for the rest of his life. However, his early interest in the sciences left him with a sound knowledge of the methods and principles of metallurgy
, mathematics
, statistics
and much more besides that would prove valuable in later years.
, he took the Lightfoot Scholarship from the university and also won the Schuldham Plate, his college’s highest academic accolade for students. He began graduate studies in 1932 on the subject of Carolingian history
, and his first publications were to be on the ecclesiastical history of the early Middle Ages
.
After being offered a fellow
ship in 1934, he saw no need to submit his PhD research, and only received an honorary PhD from the university in 1971. Grierson went on to hold a number of important posts in college: he was college librarian 1944–1969, and President (second in line to the Master) 1966–1976. He remained an active member of the fellowship until the last, and was present at the interview for the master sworn in shortly after his own death.
Grierson’s teaching responsibilities lay with the faculty of history, which appointed him assistant lecturer in 1938 and full lecturer in 1945. He became reader in numismatics in 1959, and professor
of numismatics
in 1971. He came to share and later lead teaching on the general introduction to European history, running through the history of continental Europe from the fifth to the fifteenth century. At various times he was also director of the Royal Historical Society
(1945–1955), president of the Royal Numismatic Society
(1961–1966), Ford lecturer
at Oxford
(1956–1957), fellow of the Society of Antiquaries
(from 1949) and a fellow of the British Academy
(from 1958).
1944 or shortly thereafter produced a bronze Byzantine
coin
from one of his father’s desk drawers. It was later identified as an issue in the name of the emperor Phocas
, and inspired Grierson to visit Spink’s in London
. There, he expressed no intention of ever becoming a serious collector, and wished only to purchase £5 of coins to serve as illustrative material in his lectures.
These good intentions did not last, and by the end of the next year he had 1,500 coins, and 3,500 by the end of 1946. Eventually his collection was to include over 20,000 specimens, worth several million pounds as a whole. It is the finest representative collection for medieval Europe in the world. Although it resided in the Fitzwilliam Museum
for many years, his collection only passed to the museum upon his death, and was retained in his own name so as to facilitate the selling of old specimens and the purchase of superior ones.
Grierson was never especially wealthy, and only built the collection by spending most of his modest inheritance and two-thirds of his annual income as an academic on coins. It helped that he started collecting at a fortuitous time, when the London numismatic dealers were awash with material from the enormous collection of Lord Grantley. Wartime and post-war conditions meant that these coins were available at a fraction of their pre-war (and equivalent modern) price, with heavy restrictions on the activities of foreign purchasers. Grierson was a careful buyer, but could also be willing to spend significant amounts for particular coins, such as his famous and exceptionally rare portrait denier
of Charlemagne
. Later appointments to additional positions helped further his collection.
In 1982, Grierson arranged funding to begin a project aimed at publishing his (now very substantial) collection. Medieval European Coinage was initially envisaged as twelve volumes of definitive catalogue and text on the coinage of different parts of Europe. The first volume appeared in 1986, and discussed the coinage of all of western Europe up to the tenth century. It remains the standard catalogue and study of the period.
of the museum until 1958. Under his influence, the department of coins and medals in the Fitzwilliam became one of the most active and productive research departments in the museum. It contains a room named in his honour, which houses Philip’s collection. He remained an almost daily visitor to the coin room, adding new specimens to his collection and meeting visitors, until very shortly before his death. The current Keeper of Coins and Medals, Dr Mark Blackburn, first came to the department in 1982 as part of the Medieval European Coinage project to publish Philip’s burgeoning collection.
, which he held until his retirement in 1981. Grierson spent parts of the Easter
and Christmas
vacation in Brussels every year, along with more occasional visits. For many years already Grierson’s interests had encompassed the medieval Low Countries
, and he had a number of friends in Belgium, not least the great Carolingian scholar François-Louis Ganshof
.
Work in the United States began in 1953, when Grierson was one of the founding instructors at the American Numismatic Society
’s annual summer school. He returned the following year, and in 1955 was invited to become honorary adviser and curator at the Dumbarton Oaks
Research Library and Collection in Washington DC, managed by the trustees of Harvard University
. His brief was to use the centre’s considerable resources to build up the world’s finest collection of Byzantine coinage
and publish it – a task which, by the time he left the post in 1997, he had completed admirably (despite once accidentally dropping a tray of gold coins down a lift shaft). The Catalogue of Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and in the Whittemore Collection remains the standard reference work for Byzantine coinage. At the height of his productivity, therefore, Grierson would spend the Michaelmas, Lent and East terms each year in Cambridge, Christmas and Easter in Brussels and two months of the summer vacation in Washington and at Cornell University.
, when they were used by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
. These rooms remained a hub of activity in college, constantly receiving visitors. Although he never married, Grierson had a great many friends in Cambridge and elsewhere, and would host sherry parties at the beginning of each year.
During his time away from study, the cinema
was one of Grierson’s greatest interests. Evenings with friends in his later years would often begin with pizza (either at Pizza Express
on Jesus Lane or, in summer, at Don Pasquale in the Market Square) and end with a movie in his rooms. As an undergraduate, he was secretary of the university’s film society, and was such a regular cinema-goer that in the 1930s one local newspaper commented that the opening of an eighth cinema in Cambridge would give ‘Mr Grierson of Caius the chance to visit a different cinema every day, and two on Sunday’. With the advent of video
, he began to build up a collection of films in his rooms, which eventually included 2,000 items on video and DVD
. Most had notes attached bearing Grierson’s scathing initial thoughts jotted down after watching. Grierson’s cinematic and literary tastes always inclined towards the exciting and adventurous: science fiction and horror were among his favourites.
As a student and young fellow, Grierson had a great interest in and admiration for the Soviet Union
, which led him to spend a summer touring it with a friend in 1932. Subsequently he published a bibliography of literature on the Soviet Union down to 1942, which he updated annually until 1950. Grierson’s distaste with fascist régimes manifested itself in a refusal to visit Spain
under Franco
, and also in a visit to Germany
in 1938 to aid the release of two Jewish academics. They were the father and father-in-law of David Daube
, a friend of Philip and subsequently regius professor of civil law at Oxford. After being rounded up in Kristallnacht
(9 November 1938 – 10 November 1938) they had been sent to the Dachau concentration camp. Once Grierson and some friends had been alerted to the situation by Daube they moved very fast, obtaining a visa to visit Germany on 14 November and papers for the release under British visa of Daube’s relatives expedited by the MP
for Cambridge university. After flying to Frankfurt
on 18 November, Grierson arranged the release of Daube’s relatives on 20 November and 26 November, and travelled with them back to England.
Grierson’s wartime experiences were relatively peaceful. Poor eyesight and a childhood injury left him unfit for military service, and despite being interviewed he was rejected from the Ultra
codebreaking enterprise at Bletchley Park
because his German was not strong enough. Instead, he remained in Cambridge as part of the reduced history faculty.
Throughout his life, Grierson remained active and relatively healthy. He played squash
regularly until the age of 80, and enjoyed telling stories of how he had climbed Mount Etna
in Sicily
during its 1949 eruption. Physical challenges appealed to him, such as when on one occasion in 1932 or 1933 he walked home from London one evening – a distance of some forty-four miles – and arrived the following lunchtime. The evening, he was sworn in as fellow of Gonville and Caius in 1935 happened to coincide with an important family party in Dublin the next evening. Grierson was not deterred, and arranged for a friend to fly him from Cambridge to Rugby
after leaving dinner at the earliest possible moment. At Rugby, he caught the post train for Holyhead
, and after catching a ferry the following morning made it to Dublin in plenty of time for his party. Grierson learned to fly himself in his 20s, but never learned to drive.
British Academy
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national body for the humanities and the social sciences. Its purpose is to inspire, recognise and support excellence in the humanities and social sciences, throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value.It receives an annual...
(15 November 1910 – 15 January 2006) was a British historian and numismatist, emeritus professor of numismatics
Numismatics
Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, and related objects. While numismatists are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, the discipline also includes the broader study of money and other payment media used to resolve debts and the...
at Cambridge University
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
and a fellow of Gonville and Caius College
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
Gonville and Caius College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The college is often referred to simply as "Caius" , after its second founder, John Keys, who fashionably latinised the spelling of his name after studying in Italy.- Outline :Gonville and...
for over seventy years. During his long and extremely prolific academic career, he built the world’s foremost representative collection of medieval coin
Coin
A coin is a piece of hard material that is standardized in weight, is produced in large quantities in order to facilitate trade, and primarily can be used as a legal tender token for commerce in the designated country, region, or territory....
s, wrote very extensively on the subject, brought it to much wider attention in the historical community and filled important curatorial and teaching posts in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
and Washington DC
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
.
Early life
Grierson was born in Dublin to Philip Henry Grierson (24 April 1859 – 18 November 1952) and Roberta Ellen Jane Grierson (1875 – 1 September 1970). He had two sisters, Janet Grierson born 10 October 1913 and Aileen Grierson born 14 August 1901. His father was a land surveyor and member of the Irish Land CommissionIrish Land Commission
The Irish Land Commission was created in 1881 as a rent fixing commission by the Land Law Act 1881, also known as the second Irish Land Act...
who, after losing his job in 1906, ran a small farm at Clondalkin
Clondalkin
-Today:Modern Clondalkin is a busy satellite town of Dublin, with a population of 43,929 in 2006. Retail facilities include Tesco Ireland- and Dunnes Stores-led shopping centres, and Aldi and Lidl stores on the Fonthill Road and New Nangor Road respectively, and the village centre is a base for...
, near Dublin. There he gained a reputation for financial acumen, and was appointed to the boards of a number of companies. Grierson’s father also built up an important collection of freshwater snails, which now resides at the Ulster Museum
Ulster Museum
The Ulster Museum, located in the Botanic Gardens in Belfast, has around 8,000 square metres of public display space, featuring material from the collections of fine art and applied art, archaeology, ethnography, treasures from the Spanish Armada, local history, numismatics, industrial...
in Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
.
Grierson was educated at Marlborough College
Marlborough College
Marlborough College is a British co-educational independent school for day and boarding pupils, located in Marlborough, Wiltshire.Founded in 1843 for the education of the sons of Church of England clergy, the school now accepts both boys and girls of all beliefs. Currently there are just over 800...
, where he specialised in natural sciences. As a result, he was admitted to read medicine at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, in 1929. Almost immediately, he switched to history, and was to remain with the latter subject for the rest of his life. However, his early interest in the sciences left him with a sound knowledge of the methods and principles of metallurgy
Metallurgy
Metallurgy is a domain of materials science that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their intermetallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are called alloys. It is also the technology of metals: the way in which science is applied to their practical use...
, mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, statistics
Statistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
and much more besides that would prove valuable in later years.
Life in College
Grierson’s performance as a student was exceptional. Graduating with a double firstBritish undergraduate degree classification
The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading scheme for undergraduate degrees in the United Kingdom...
, he took the Lightfoot Scholarship from the university and also won the Schuldham Plate, his college’s highest academic accolade for students. He began graduate studies in 1932 on the subject of Carolingian history
Carolingian Empire
Carolingian Empire is a historiographical term which has been used to refer to the realm of the Franks under the Carolingian dynasty in the Early Middle Ages. This dynasty is seen as the founders of France and Germany, and its beginning date is based on the crowning of Charlemagne, or Charles the...
, and his first publications were to be on the ecclesiastical history of the early Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
.
After being offered a fellow
Fellow
A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...
ship in 1934, he saw no need to submit his PhD research, and only received an honorary PhD from the university in 1971. Grierson went on to hold a number of important posts in college: he was college librarian 1944–1969, and President (second in line to the Master) 1966–1976. He remained an active member of the fellowship until the last, and was present at the interview for the master sworn in shortly after his own death.
Grierson’s teaching responsibilities lay with the faculty of history, which appointed him assistant lecturer in 1938 and full lecturer in 1945. He became reader in numismatics in 1959, and professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
of numismatics
Numismatics
Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, and related objects. While numismatists are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, the discipline also includes the broader study of money and other payment media used to resolve debts and the...
in 1971. He came to share and later lead teaching on the general introduction to European history, running through the history of continental Europe from the fifth to the fifteenth century. At various times he was also director of the Royal Historical Society
Royal Historical Society
The Royal Historical Society was founded in 1868. The premier society in the United Kingdom which promotes and defends the scholarly study of the past, it is based at University College London...
(1945–1955), president of the Royal Numismatic Society
Royal Numismatic Society
The Royal Numismatic Society is a learned society and charity based in London, United Kingdom which promotes research into all branches of numismatics...
(1961–1966), Ford lecturer
Ford Lectures
The Ford Lectures are a prestigious series of public lectures given annually in English or British History by a distinguished historian. Known commonly as "The Ford Lectures," they are properly titled "Ford's Lectures in British History" and they are given by a scholar elected to be "Ford's...
at Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
(1956–1957), fellow of the Society of Antiquaries
Society of Antiquaries of London
The Society of Antiquaries of London is a learned society "charged by its Royal Charter of 1751 with 'the encouragement, advancement and furtherance of the study and knowledge of the antiquities and history of this and other countries'." It is based at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London , and is...
(from 1949) and a fellow of the British Academy
British Academy
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national body for the humanities and the social sciences. Its purpose is to inspire, recognise and support excellence in the humanities and social sciences, throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value.It receives an annual...
(from 1958).
Coin collection
It was pure chance that first drew Grierson’s attention to numismatics. A visit to the family home at ChristmasChristmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
1944 or shortly thereafter produced a bronze Byzantine
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
coin
Byzantine coinage
Byzantine currency, money used in the Eastern Roman Empire after the fall of the West, consisted of mainly two types of coins: the gold solidus and a variety of clearly valued bronze coins...
from one of his father’s desk drawers. It was later identified as an issue in the name of the emperor Phocas
Phocas
Phocas was Byzantine Emperor from 602 to 610. He usurped the throne from the Emperor Maurice, and was himself overthrown by Heraclius after losing a civil war.-Origins:...
, and inspired Grierson to visit Spink’s in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. There, he expressed no intention of ever becoming a serious collector, and wished only to purchase £5 of coins to serve as illustrative material in his lectures.
These good intentions did not last, and by the end of the next year he had 1,500 coins, and 3,500 by the end of 1946. Eventually his collection was to include over 20,000 specimens, worth several million pounds as a whole. It is the finest representative collection for medieval Europe in the world. Although it resided in the Fitzwilliam Museum
Fitzwilliam Museum
The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge, located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge, England. It receives around 300,000 visitors annually. Admission is free....
for many years, his collection only passed to the museum upon his death, and was retained in his own name so as to facilitate the selling of old specimens and the purchase of superior ones.
Grierson was never especially wealthy, and only built the collection by spending most of his modest inheritance and two-thirds of his annual income as an academic on coins. It helped that he started collecting at a fortuitous time, when the London numismatic dealers were awash with material from the enormous collection of Lord Grantley. Wartime and post-war conditions meant that these coins were available at a fraction of their pre-war (and equivalent modern) price, with heavy restrictions on the activities of foreign purchasers. Grierson was a careful buyer, but could also be willing to spend significant amounts for particular coins, such as his famous and exceptionally rare portrait denier
French denier
The denier was a Frankish coin created by Charlemagne in the Early Middle Ages. It was introduced together with an accounting system in which twelve deniers equaled one sou and twenty sous equalled one livre...
of Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
. Later appointments to additional positions helped further his collection.
In 1982, Grierson arranged funding to begin a project aimed at publishing his (now very substantial) collection. Medieval European Coinage was initially envisaged as twelve volumes of definitive catalogue and text on the coinage of different parts of Europe. The first volume appeared in 1986, and discussed the coinage of all of western Europe up to the tenth century. It remains the standard catalogue and study of the period.
Fitzwilliam Museum
Grierson’s growing interest in numismatics soon brought him into contact with the coin room at the Fitzwilliam Museum, and he was appointed Honorary Keeper of Coins and Medals in 1949, and served as a syndicSyndic
Syndic , a term applied in certain countries to an officer of government with varying powers, and secondly to a representative or delegate of a university, institution or other corporation, entrusted with special functions or powers.The meaning which underlies both applications is that of...
of the museum until 1958. Under his influence, the department of coins and medals in the Fitzwilliam became one of the most active and productive research departments in the museum. It contains a room named in his honour, which houses Philip’s collection. He remained an almost daily visitor to the coin room, adding new specimens to his collection and meeting visitors, until very shortly before his death. The current Keeper of Coins and Medals, Dr Mark Blackburn, first came to the department in 1982 as part of the Medieval European Coinage project to publish Philip’s burgeoning collection.
Dumbarton Oaks and Brussels
Grierson’s academic career eventually spread beyond Cambridge when, in 1947, he was invited to take up the vacant chair of numismatics at BrusselsUniversité Libre de Bruxelles
The Université libre de Bruxelles is a French-speaking university in Brussels, Belgium. It has 21,000 students, 29% of whom come from abroad, and an equally cosmopolitan staff.-Name:...
, which he held until his retirement in 1981. Grierson spent parts of the Easter
Easter
Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...
and Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
vacation in Brussels every year, along with more occasional visits. For many years already Grierson’s interests had encompassed the medieval Low Countries
Low Countries
The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....
, and he had a number of friends in Belgium, not least the great Carolingian scholar François-Louis Ganshof
François-Louis Ganshof
François-Louis Ganshof was a Belgian medievalist. After studies at the Athénée Royal, he came to the University of Ghent, where he came under the influence of Henri Pirenne. After studies with Ferdinand Lot, he practiced law for a period, before returning to the University of Ghent...
.
Work in the United States began in 1953, when Grierson was one of the founding instructors at the American Numismatic Society
American Numismatic Society
The American Numismatic Society is a New York City-based organization dedicated to the study of coins and medals.-Introduction:...
’s annual summer school. He returned the following year, and in 1955 was invited to become honorary adviser and curator at the Dumbarton Oaks
Dumbarton Oaks
Dumbarton Oaks is the conventional name for the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, situated on a historic property in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The institution is administered by the Trustees for Harvard University. Its founders, Robert Woods Bliss and his wife...
Research Library and Collection in Washington DC, managed by the trustees of Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
. His brief was to use the centre’s considerable resources to build up the world’s finest collection of Byzantine coinage
Byzantine coinage
Byzantine currency, money used in the Eastern Roman Empire after the fall of the West, consisted of mainly two types of coins: the gold solidus and a variety of clearly valued bronze coins...
and publish it – a task which, by the time he left the post in 1997, he had completed admirably (despite once accidentally dropping a tray of gold coins down a lift shaft). The Catalogue of Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and in the Whittemore Collection remains the standard reference work for Byzantine coinage. At the height of his productivity, therefore, Grierson would spend the Michaelmas, Lent and East terms each year in Cambridge, Christmas and Easter in Brussels and two months of the summer vacation in Washington and at Cornell University.
Personal life
Despite his prodigious volume of publications and onerous academic duties, Grierson was extremely sociable. He moved into St Michael’s Court in the 1930s, and occupied the same set of rooms overlooking the Market Square in Cambridge after an interlude during the Second World WarWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, when they were used by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was a United Kingdom government department created by the Board of Agriculture Act 1889 and at that time called the Board of Agriculture, and then from 1903 the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, and from 1919 the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries...
. These rooms remained a hub of activity in college, constantly receiving visitors. Although he never married, Grierson had a great many friends in Cambridge and elsewhere, and would host sherry parties at the beginning of each year.
During his time away from study, the cinema
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
was one of Grierson’s greatest interests. Evenings with friends in his later years would often begin with pizza (either at Pizza Express
Pizza Express
PizzaExpress is a restaurant group with over 400 restaurants across the United Kingdom and 40 overseas in China, Europe, Hong Kong, Japan and the Middle East. It was founded in 1965 by Peter Boizot.In Ireland, PizzaExpress trades under the name Milano....
on Jesus Lane or, in summer, at Don Pasquale in the Market Square) and end with a movie in his rooms. As an undergraduate, he was secretary of the university’s film society, and was such a regular cinema-goer that in the 1930s one local newspaper commented that the opening of an eighth cinema in Cambridge would give ‘Mr Grierson of Caius the chance to visit a different cinema every day, and two on Sunday’. With the advent of video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
, he began to build up a collection of films in his rooms, which eventually included 2,000 items on video and DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
. Most had notes attached bearing Grierson’s scathing initial thoughts jotted down after watching. Grierson’s cinematic and literary tastes always inclined towards the exciting and adventurous: science fiction and horror were among his favourites.
As a student and young fellow, Grierson had a great interest in and admiration for the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, which led him to spend a summer touring it with a friend in 1932. Subsequently he published a bibliography of literature on the Soviet Union down to 1942, which he updated annually until 1950. Grierson’s distaste with fascist régimes manifested itself in a refusal to visit Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
under Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
, and also in a visit to Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
in 1938 to aid the release of two Jewish academics. They were the father and father-in-law of David Daube
David Daube
David Daube DCL, FBA was the twentieth century's preeminent scholar of ancient law. He combined a familiarity with many legal systems, particularly Roman law and biblical law, with an expertise in Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian literature, and used literary, religious, and legal texts to...
, a friend of Philip and subsequently regius professor of civil law at Oxford. After being rounded up in Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, and also Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938.Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and...
(9 November 1938 – 10 November 1938) they had been sent to the Dachau concentration camp. Once Grierson and some friends had been alerted to the situation by Daube they moved very fast, obtaining a visa to visit Germany on 14 November and papers for the release under British visa of Daube’s relatives expedited by the MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
for Cambridge university. After flying to Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
on 18 November, Grierson arranged the release of Daube’s relatives on 20 November and 26 November, and travelled with them back to England.
Grierson’s wartime experiences were relatively peaceful. Poor eyesight and a childhood injury left him unfit for military service, and despite being interviewed he was rejected from the Ultra
Ultra
Ultra was the designation adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by "breaking" high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park. "Ultra" eventually became the standard...
codebreaking enterprise at Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is an estate located in the town of Bletchley, in Buckinghamshire, England, which currently houses the National Museum of Computing...
because his German was not strong enough. Instead, he remained in Cambridge as part of the reduced history faculty.
Throughout his life, Grierson remained active and relatively healthy. He played squash
Squash (sport)
Squash is a high-speed racquet sport played by two players in a four-walled court with a small, hollow rubber ball...
regularly until the age of 80, and enjoyed telling stories of how he had climbed Mount Etna
Mount Etna
Mount Etna is an active stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily, close to Messina and Catania. It is the tallest active volcano in Europe, currently standing high, though this varies with summit eruptions; the mountain is 21 m higher than it was in 1981.. It is the highest mountain in...
in Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
during its 1949 eruption. Physical challenges appealed to him, such as when on one occasion in 1932 or 1933 he walked home from London one evening – a distance of some forty-four miles – and arrived the following lunchtime. The evening, he was sworn in as fellow of Gonville and Caius in 1935 happened to coincide with an important family party in Dublin the next evening. Grierson was not deterred, and arranged for a friend to fly him from Cambridge to Rugby
Rugby, Warwickshire
Rugby is a market town in Warwickshire, England, located on the River Avon. The town has a population of 61,988 making it the second largest town in the county...
after leaving dinner at the earliest possible moment. At Rugby, he caught the post train for Holyhead
Holyhead
Holyhead is the largest town in the county of Anglesey in the North Wales. It is also a major port adjacent to the Irish Sea serving Ireland....
, and after catching a ferry the following morning made it to Dublin in plenty of time for his party. Grierson learned to fly himself in his 20s, but never learned to drive.
Selected publications
- [with L. Travaini] Medieval European Coinage, vol. 14: Italy (3). South Italy, Sicily, Sardinia (Cambridge, 1998)
- Coins of Medieval Europe (London, 1991)
- [with M. A. S. Blackburn] Medieval European Coinage, vol. 1: the Early Middle Ages (5th–10th Centuries) (Cambridge, 1986)
- Byzantine Coinage (London and Berkeley, CA, 1982)
- Bibliographie numismatique, 2nd ed. (Brussels, 1979)
- Dark Age Numismatics: Selected Studies (London, 1979) [collected papers]
- Later Medieval Numismatics (11th–16th centuries) (London, 1979) [collected papers]
- Monnaies du Moyen Âge (Fribourg, 1976)
- Numismatics (Oxford, 1975)
- [with A. R. Bellinger et al.] Catalogue of the Byzantine coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and in the Whittemore Collection, 9 vols. (Washington DC, 1966–99)
- Books on Soviet Russia 1917–42: a Bibliography and a Guide to Reading (London, 1943)
External links
- Philip Grierson Fitzwilliam Museum
- Philip Grierson's profile; Fitzwilliam Museum
- Obituary in The Guardian
- Obituary in The Independent