Reginald Lane Poole or Lane-Poole, FBA (1857–1939), was a British historian specializing in medieval history, diplomatics, and ecclesiastical politics. He served as Keeper of the Archives and a lecturer in diplomatics at the University of Oxford, where he delivered the Ford Lectures in 1912 on "The Exchequer in the Twelfth Century."
Life
Poole was born in London on 29 March 1857, the second of three children of Edward Stanley Poole (1830–1867) and Roberta Elizabeth Louisa Poole (1828–1866). Following the death of both parents during his childhood, Poole and his siblings were raised by their paternal grandmother, Sophia Lane Poole, author of An Englishwoman in Egypt (1844), and their great-uncle, the noted orientalist Edward William Lane. The "Lane" in his surname derives from his grandmother's family. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, matriculating in 1874 and graduating in 1878, later earning a doctorate.
Poole was a lecturer in history at Jesus College, Oxford, from 1886 to 1910, and a research fellow of Magdalen College from 1898 to 1933. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1904. He married Rachael Emily Poole, an art historian, and was the father of Austin Lane Poole (1889–1963), also a noted historian and Ford Lecturer. He was the brother of the orientalist Stanley Lane-Poole and the nephew of the archaeologist and numismatist Reginald Stuart Poole.
In 1912, Poole rediscovered the identity of Henry Symeonis, a 13th-century figure whom Oxford students had been required to swear not to forgive for centuries after the original reason for the oath had been forgotten.
Works
Poole co-edited the twelve-volume Political History of England (1905–1910) with William Hunt. His major publications include:
- History of the Huguenots of the Dispersion (1880)
- Sebastian Bach (1882)
- Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought (1884; 2nd ed., 1920)
- Wycliffe and Movements for Reform (1889)
- Historical Atlas of Modern Europe (1897–1902)
- The Exchequer in the Twelfth Century (1912)
- Lectures on the History of the Papal Chancery (1915)
- Medieval Reckonings of Time (1918)
- Studies in Chronology and History (1934)
