Derek Pearsall

Derek Albert Pearsall (1931–2021) was a prominent medievalist and Chaucerian who wrote and published widely on Chaucer, Langland, Gower, manuscript studies, and medieval history and culture.

He was the co-director, Emeritus, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York; Gurney Professor of English Literature, Emeritus, Harvard University. In 1998 he delivered the British Academy's Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture.

Early and personal life
Pearsall was born in Birmingham to parents Elsie (née Rawlins) and Joseph, a shop fitter toolmaker, and attended King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys. The first in his family to go to university, Pearsall earned a B.A. in 1951 and an M.A. in 1952 from the University of Birmingham (UK).

In 1952 in King's Lynn, Pearsall married Rosemary Elvidge (d. 2004), whom he had met as a student. They had four children. The couple considered York, where they returned to upon retirement and had a permanent house in Clifton, to be their home.