G. G. Coulton

Who was G. G. Coulton?

George Gordon Coulton FBA was a British historian, known for numerous works on medieval history. He was known also as a keen controversialist.

He was born in King's Lynn. He was educated at Lynn Grammar School, and Felsted School, and St Catharine's College, Cambridge.

He taught for a short period, and was ordained in 1883. He did not however pursue that course in the Church of England, in the absence of a vocation. He took further teaching jobs, and began as an independent scholar to study the history of the Middle Ages. A fierce anti-Catholic, he was often, especially during the 1930s, embroiled in embittered journalistic controversy with Hilaire Belloc, who detested him.

In 1911 Coulton found a lecturing position at the University of Cambridge. He became a Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge in 1919, a Fellow of the British Academy in 1929.