VIVIAN GREEN, the Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, from 1983 to 1987, was a kindly and shrewd schoolmaster and college tutor with many pupils who held him in affection (including one, John le Carré, who modelled parts of the character of Smiley on him). But he was also a writer of clear, useful textbooks and several model college histories, and an eloquent preacher and faithful priest who ended his career (perhaps to his and others’ surprise) as a successful head of his college.

Vivian Hubert Howard Green was born in 1915. His background was humble, his father keeping a small tobacconist and newsagent shop in Minehead, Somerset. By considerable efforts and with scholarships he was educated at Bradfield College and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he obtained first class in both parts of the history tripos, the Lightfoot scholarship in ecclesiastical history and the Thirlwall medal and prize. He chose 15th-century ecclesiastical history as his field of work, and this, together with an interest in the Church of England, in the 18th and 19th centuries, gave unity to what might otherwise seem a disparate list of publications. His research subject was the life of Bishop Reginald Peacock, on whom he published in 1945. The book might have been larger, and published sooner, had all his books and papers not been destroyed in the bombing of Exeter.

From 1940, when he was ordained priest, to 1942, he was chaplain to Exeter School and St Luke’s Training College. He then moved to be chaplain and history master at Sherborne School, and it was there that he was given the task of building up a new library and the working capital of a scholar.

He was fortunate to have an exceptional headmaster in the Rev A. Ross Wallace, and a most sympathetic colleague in H. H. Brown. After the war, Brown and Green regularly went on holiday together, and their journeys are chronicled in The Swiss Alps (1961). Pupils were delighted to recognise Brown anecdotes in Green’s two very successful textbooks, The Hanoverians (1948) and Renaissance and Reformation (1952), both of which sold well as thorough and enlightening accounts of their subjects. Green had the ideal qualities for a schoolmaster — common sense, humour, an ability to interest pupils and, as Ross Wallace said, “a toughness”.

In 1951 he became a Fellow and tutor at Lincoln College, where for nearly ten years he was senior tutor, chaplain and librarian. In 1962, he resigned as senior tutor and continued as chaplain and tutor in medieval history. In teaching medieval history he was wholly sound; truth to tell he scarcely was a medievalist, though he was ready to teach, and teach thoroughly, a number of difficult medieval special subjects; his pupils always liked him, and his colleagues respected him. The Later Plantagenets (1955) was not very well reviewed, but it was remarkably useful in the absence of any lucid account of the English Later Middle Ages. In 1957 he published what is perhaps his best book, Oxford Common Room, a history of Lincoln College in the stormy years of the mid-19th century. He took his doctorate in divinity at Cambridge in 1958.

His Religion at Oxford and Cambridge (1964) was an extremely useful and admirably impartial survey. Among several later publications, The Commonwealth of Lincoln College, 1427-1977 (1979) is one of the best examples of the genre. Always interested in Mark Pattison, the remarkable Victorian Rector of Lincoln, he edited Pattison’s correspondence with Meta Bradley under the good title of Love in a Cool Climate (1985). All his books are notable for their clarity and fluency as well as their solid industry. Those who read them more deeply will also note his good judgment and piety.

He had performed the difficult job of college chaplain sensibly and well, taking part in many Christian activities — including the Oxford borstal camps, where he made a picturesque figure in orange shorts. Although approaching retirement and having served as a sub-rector for 15 years, he was elected Rector of Lincoln in that year in succession to Sir Burke Trend.

It turned out to be an inspired choice. For four years the college had the benefit of his calm and by no means unworldly wisdom, his knowledge of the establishment at all levels and a presence which combined genuine geniality and interest in others with dignity unassumingly worn. Stocky and rubicund, with a daring, even discordant taste in ties and shirts, he was a reassuring figure to members of a college whose history both collectively and individually he knew so well.

He was unmarried, and leaves a large circle of devoted friends in many walks of life, especially in Oxfordshire (he retired to a charming house in Burford) and in his native West Country.

The Rev Vivian Green, clergyman and historian, was born on November 18, 1915. He died on January 18, 2005, aged 89.