Sarah Rosamund Irvine Foot (born 23 February 1961) is an English Anglican priest and early medieval historian, currently serving as Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Oxford. Early life and education Foot was born on 23 February 1961 and is the daughter of the military historian M. R. D. Foot and his second wife Elizabeth. She was educated until 1979 at Withington Girls' School in Manchester. She then went up to Newnham College, Cambridge, to study at the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic, where she was taught by, amongst others, Rosamond McKitterick and Simon Keynes. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1984: as per tradition, her BA was promoted to a Master of Arts (MA Cantab). She was awarded her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in 1990: her doctoral thesis, written under the supervision of Rosamond McKitterick, was titled Anglo-Saxon Ministers, AD 597 – ca. 900. Academic career Foot was, from 1989 to 1990, research fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, before becoming a fellow and tutor there. In 1993 she took up a lectureship at the University of Sheffield, being promoted to senior lecturer in 2001. In 2004, she was appointed to the newly established chair of Early Medieval History. On 22 February 2007 Queen Elizabeth II appointed Foot to the Regius Chair of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Oxford. She is the first woman ever to hold this chair. Postholders are expected to lead research and develop graduate studies within their areas of specialisation and to take a leading part in developing the work of the Oxford theology faculty. The professorship is also annexed to a canonry at Christ Church, although the postholder need only be a lay churchperson; and at a special ceremony on 6 October 2007 Foot was installed as residentiary canon of the cathedral. Her main areas of research lie in the history of Anglo-Saxon England, particularly Anglo-Saxon monasteries, women and religion, and the Cistercians. She also works on the history of the early medieval church and society as well as the invention of the English in historiography, and historical theory. In 2001 she was awarded a major grant to carry out research into the ruined Cistercian abbeys of Yorkshire. She has written a biography of Æthelstan, the first king of all England. Among her current projects are the charters of Bury St Edmunds Abbey.