Janet Bately is a British academic, the Sir Israel Gollancz Professor Emerita of English Language and Medieval Literature at King's College London since 1977. She has a bachelor's degree from Somerville College, Oxford and began her academic career as a lecturer at Birkbeck College. Her research interests include Old English and Middle English literatures, the court of King Alfred the Great, and early modern bilingual dictionaries.
Bately was elected Fellow of the British Academy in 1990, and a CBE in 2000. She is an Honorary Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford. In 1997, Bately was honoured with a Festschrift, Alfred the Wise, edited by Jane Roberts, Janet L. Nelson, and Malcolm Godden to celebrate her 65th birthday.