STUBBS, WILLIAM (1825-1901), English historian and bishop of Oxford, son of William Morley Stubbs, solicitor, of Knaresborough, Yorkshire, was born on June 1825, and was educated at the Ripon Grammar school and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated in 1848, with a first class in classics and a third in mathematics. He was elected a fellow of Trinity college in the same year, was ordained priest in 185o, and held the college living of Navestock, Essex, from 185o to 1866. In 1862 he was appointed librarian at Lambeth, and in 1866 regius professor of modern history at Oxford. He held this chair till 1884. Many of his lectures were published in book form, including Seventeen Lectures on the Study of Mediaeval and Modern His tory, etc. (1886, 3rd ed. 1900) ; Lectures on European History (1906) ; Germany in the Early Middle Ages (1908) ; and Germany in the later Middle Ages (1908). Stubbs aimed at the organization of a school of history in Oxford after the German model, but his lectures were thinly attended and he gave up the idea.
As a historian Stubbs was eminent alike in ecclesiastical his tory, as an editor of texts and as the historian of the English. Constitution. In 1858 he published his Registrum sacrum anglica which sets forth episcopal succession in England, and he edited with A. W. Haddan, vol. iii. of Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents covering the History of the Anglo-Saxon Church (1878). He edited for the Rolls series 19 volumes of editions of the chronicles, among the most notable of which are the Gesta Regum of William of Malmesbury (1867) ; the Gesta regis Hen rici II. (1867) ; Roger Hoveden's Chronica (4 vols., 1868-71) ;
the Memorials of St. Dunstan (1874); The Historical Works of Ralph Diceto (1878) and The Historical Works of Gervase of Canterbury (1879-9o). The prefaces to these volumes contain some brilliant sketches of character.
His most famous work is his Constitutional History of Eng land (3 vols., 1873, 75, 78, French trans. 1907), preceded by the Select Charters, and other Illustrations of English Constitutional History from the Earliest Times to the Reign of Edward I., in 187o. The appearance of the Constitutional History, which traces the development of the English Constitution from the Teutonic invasions of Britain till 1485, is a landmark in the study of mediaeval English history, and has not been superseded.
In character Bishop Stubbs was modest, kind and sympathetic, ever ready to help and encourage serious students, generous in his judgment of the works of others, a most cheery companion, full of wit and humour. His wit was often used as a weapon of defence, for he did not suffer fools gladly. He died on April 22, 1901. In 1859 he had married Catherine, daughter of John Dollar, of Navestock, and had a numerous family.
See Letters of William Stubbs, Bishop of Oxford, edit. W. H. Hut ton (1904)•