Dominica Legge

Legge's reputation as a scholar was widely acknowledged by the academic community through election to various fellowships. She was elected a fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1942, a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1958, corresponding fellow of the Medieval Academy of America in 1971, and Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) in 1974. In 1971 the French government appointed her an officer of the Ordre des Palmes académiques.

Legge received an education at Liverpool College in Huyton before attending Somerville College, Oxford where she specialised in Medieval French, and in particular the Anglo-Norman language, under the guidance of Mildred Pope. She was awarded a BLitt in 1928 for her thesis on the Lumiere as lais and thereafter became an editor for the Selden Society. In 1930 Legge attended the first International Arthurian Congress in Truro, Cornwall, where she, Henry Jenner, Eugène Vinaver, Roger Sherman Loomis and other scholars investigated Arthurian legends. Legge was appointed Mary Somerville research fellow in 1935, and in 1937 she became a founding member of the Anglo-Norman Text Society. She was also one of the first members of the Somerville College Boat Club. In 1938, Legge became assistant lecturer in French at Royal Holloway College, University of London, she was subsequently appointed assistant lecturer in French at University College, Dundee in 1942. She was then Professor of French (Anglo-Norman Studies) at the University of Edinburgh, 1968-1973 and Professor Emerita after her retirement.

Professor Mary Dominica Legge, FBA (26 March 1905 – 10 March 1986), known as Dominica Legge, was a British scholar of the Anglo-Norman language.

Legge was born in Bayswater in 1905. Her grandfather was Professor James Legge, and her father James Granville Legge was the Director of Education in Liverpool.