C. R. Cheney


Christopher Robert Cheney was an English medieval historian, noted for his work on the medieval English church and the relations of the papacy with England, particularly in the age of Pope Innocent III.

Life

Cheney was born on 20 December 1906 in Banbury, Oxfordshire, to parents George Gardner Cheney and Christina Stapleton Bateman. He was educated at Banbury County School and Wadham College, Oxford, where he graduated with first-class honours in 1928.
He lectured at the University of Cairo, University College, London, and the University of Manchester before returning to the Oxford in 1937 as reader in diplomatic and fellow of Magdalen College in 1937. He married Mary Hall on 24 August 1940.
After war service with MI5, he took the chair in medieval history at Manchester in 1945 and was elected to the membership of Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society in 1946 while living in Withington, Manchester.
He remained at Manchester until he was elected the Professor of Medieval History at the University of Cambridge in 1955. He remained at Cambridge as a fellow of Corpus Christi College until his retirement in 1972.
Cheney was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1951 and appointed CBE in 1984. He died in Cambridge on 19 June 1987.

Publications