Baxter, James Houston, 1894-1973

Professor James Houston Baxter (1894-1973), Professor of Ecclesiastical History, University of St Andrews, 1922-1970, last Regius Divinity Professor in the University of St Andrews.

Baxter was a native of Canonbie, Dumfriesshire and attended Glasgow University where he graduated in Classics. He moved to Aberdeen to serve as assistant to the Professor of Humanity while he was completing his B.D. After a year as parish minister of Ballantrae in Ayrshire he was appointed to the Chair of Ecclesiastical History in 1922 at the early age of 28. As a university teacher Baxter won immediate recognition for his erudition, his lucidity of exposition and his capacity to inspire his students with his own high standards of scholarship and his enthusiasm for his subject. He covered a variety of subjects in his academic life, including classical and medieval Latin, the Early Christian Fathers, Byzantine archaeology, and the ecclesiastical and political history of the later Middle Ages and beyond.

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