Griffiths was born in 1955 and educated at Canford School, Dorset, and Leamington College. In 1973 he went up to Bangor to read English, graduating in 1976 with a First and the John F. Danby Memorial Prize. He stayed on to complete an MA and then went up to Oxford in 1977 to begin research for a DPhil on 15th- century English manuscript production. He quickly established himself as a figure of precocious authority, particularly gifted at identifying scribal hands and keenly interested in English manuscript illumination. He gave a number of provocative scholarly papers during this period; but they, like his thesis, remain unpublished at his death.