Special award for Ingrid Tieken
Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade has received a special award: the Order of St. Mellitus, in recognition of her services to the history of the Bishops of London.
Bishop Lowth
Tieken, Professor of Historic Sociolinguistics of English, received a Vici award in 2008 from the NWO for her project on The Codifiers and the English Language. As part of this project she studied the grammar and language of Robert Lowth, so-called Father of English Grammar. Lowth was Bishop of London from 1777 to 1787. Tieken's book about Lowth: 'The Bishop's Grammar' was published in 2010 by Oxford University Press.
On 23 February, Tieken presented a copy of her book to the present Bishop of London, Richard Chartres. As a token of his gratitude for this publication - and in particular for Tieken's services to the history of the Bishops of London - she was awarded the Order of St. Mellitus. Mellitus was the very first Bishop of London, in the seventh century. He played an influential role in the conversion of the English people to Christianity, an important juncture in the history of the English language.