The College Record 2022

nine, he won a scholarship to Hymers College, Hull and in 1944 he was awarded
a Hastings scholarship at Queen’s where he read Modern History, and where he
was taught by another distinguished medievalist, John Prestwich. On graduating
with a first-class degree in 1947, he spent 13 months in the ranks on Army National
Service, where he learnt a fundamental transferable skill, typing! He had always
intended to enter the Church and he returned to Queen’s to read for a second BA
degree in Theology, graduating, again with a first, in 1951. In 1952 he moved to
Lincoln Theological College, a college in the Liberal Catholic tradition, where he
was ordained deacon in 1953. Later that year he was elected Fellow in Medieval
History and Chaplain at Pembroke College, and ordained priest. He remained at
Pembroke for 16 years during which time he took his place in an outstanding group
of medievalists, including Richard Hunt, John Prestwich, Beryl Smalley, Richard
Southern, and Michael Wallace-Haddrill, among many others. Colin’s training in
both History and Theology undoubtedly contributed to the nuanced sensitivity of
his research, and it was appropriate that much of his earliest published work was
focussed on the medieval diocese of Lincoln, and that its theological college could
in some sense be seen as successor to the twelfth-century cathedral school, as
significant an intellectual centre as was contemporary Oxford! As chaplain, Colin is
remembered for his thoughtful and ecumenical ministry, and for promoting outreach,
such as supporting annual camping trips for borstal boys: in the course of one tent
inspection a burglar’s kit was slipped into his hand. This became a key element of
the Morris family tool-kit!
Obituaries
In 1956 Colin married Brenda Gale (who has also had a distinguished career,
as a psychiatrist), his teenage sweetheart, and they lived happily in College with
their young family (who would occasionally break unannounced into his tutorials!).
Immediately after serving as Vicegerent of Pembroke during an interregnum, a role
he fulfilled with characteristic good-natured efficiency (not least at a time of student
unrest which he navigated with sensitivity and sympathy), he was appointed to the
Chair of Medieval History at the University of Southampton, a post he held till his
retirement in 1993. At Southampton, where he was my colleague and friend, he led
with even-handed and even-tempered judiciousness, supporting and encouraging
the work of the History Department and medieval colleagues more widely, while
at the same time continuing with his own extensive research as well as serving
periodically as Head of Department and Dean of the Arts Faculty at a time of
considerable pressures, and developing Faculty ties with the University of Hamburg
where he was a visiting lecturer.
Colin’s first article, published in 1969, was literally parochial, a study of parishes in
rural Lincolnshire, his last book, published in 2005, The Sepulchre of Christ and the
Medieval West: from the Beginning to 1600 examines the function of the Sepulchre
in medieval Christian, and specifically as developed in Crusading, ideology and
its reinterpretations in the light of changing political realities. It also reflects Colin’s
abiding interests both in Crusading history, and that of chivalry and medieval
College Record 2022 | The Queen’s College 119