Arthur George Rigg (17 February 1937 – 7 January 2019) was a British academic and medievalist. Rigg was born in Wigan on 17 February 1937, and attended

Wigan Grammar School Wigan Grammar School was founded in 1597; and closed in 1972 as part of the comprehensive education movement. Notable former pupils * Ivor Abrahams, sculptor * Stanley Alstead CBE, Regius Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics from 1948-70 ...

. He enrolled at

Pembroke College, Oxford Pembroke College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford, is located at Pembroke Square, Oxford. The college was founded in 1624 by King James I of England, using in part the endowment of merchant Thomas Tesdale, and was named after ...

between 1955 and 1959, and also earned a doctorate at Oxford University. As a doctoral student, Rigg taught at

Merton College Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, ch ...

and Balliol College. Rigg was visiting assistant professor at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

from 1966 to 1968, after which he moved to the University of Toronto. Rigg dedicated himself to two initiatives designed to make the University of Toronto a high standard academic environment for learning and studying medieval Latin in North America. Both initiatives were undertaken in close collaboration with the academic staff at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. The first involved a new Latin programme, comprising two different levels, M.A. and PhD. Rigg chaired the Latin committee and taught the M.A. and PhD Latin courses in alternate years. The rigorous Latin standards established by him made the Toronto Latin programme unique. The second initiative was the Toronto Medieval Latin Texts series. Rigg was the editor between 1972 and 2008 during which time thirty volumes were printed, including his own ''A Book of British Kings: 1200 BC–1399 AD''. The idea behind the series was to provide students and instructors with affordable editions of representative Latin texts which were based on selected manuscripts and included notes for the student. During his academic career, Rigg wrote over sixty articles in books or leading academic journals. Rigg was elected a fellow of the Medieval Academy of America in 1997 and of the

Royal Society of Canada The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; french: Société royale du Canada, SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bil ...

in 1998, and was granted emeritus status upon retirement in 2002. He died on 7 January 2019.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rigg, A. G. 1937 births 2019 deaths British medievalists British expatriate academics in Canada Alumni of Pembroke College, Oxford Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada University of Toronto faculty People from Wigan