41 Facts About Frances Yates

Dame Frances Amelia Yates was an English historian of the Renaissance, who wrote books on esoteric history.

Frances Yates's most acclaimed publication was Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, in which she emphasised the role of Hermeticism in Bruno's works and the role that magic and mysticism played in Renaissance thinking.

Frances Amelia Yates was born on 28 November 1899 in the southern English coastal town of Southsea.

Frances Yates was the fourth child of middle-class parents, James Alfred and Hannah Malpas Yates, and had two sisters, Ruby and Hannah, and a brother, Jimmy.

Frances Yates was a keen reader, ensuring that his children had access to plenty of books.

Frances Yates was christened in February 1900 at St Anne's Church in the dockyard, although from an early age had doubts about Christianity and the literal accuracy of the Bible.

Frances Yates began to write; in March 1913, Yates published a short story in the Glasgow Weekly Herald.

Frances Yates's sisters had moved away, leaving Frances to care for her ageing parents, although she regularly took the train to central London, where she spent much time reading and researching in the library of the British Museum.

Frances Yates was awarded her BA with first-class honours in May 1924.

Frances Yates published her first scholarly article in 1925, on "English Actors in Paris during the Lifetime of Shakespeare", which appeared in the inaugural issue of The Review of English Studies.

Frances Yates then embarked on an MA in French at the University of London, this time as an internal student.

Frances Yates's thesis was titled "Contribution to the Study of the French Social Drama in the Sixteenth Century", and in it she argued that the plays of this period could be seen as propaganda aimed at the illiterate population.

From 1929 to 1934, Frances Yates taught French at the North London Collegiate School, but disliked it as it left little time for her to devote to her research.

Frances Yates' second book was A Study of Love's Labour's Lost, an examination of Love's Labour's Lost.

Frances Yates translated Bruno's La Cena de la ceneri, and added an introduction in which she argued against the prevailing view that Bruno had simply been a proponent of Copernicus' Heliocentric theories; instead she argued that he was calling for a return to Medieval Catholicism.

At Wind's invitation, Frances Yates contributed a paper on "Giordano Bruno's Conflict with Oxford" for the second issue of the Journal of the Warburg Institute in 1939, which she followed with "The Religious Policy of Giordano Bruno" in the third issue.

Frances Yates herself continued to battle with depression, and was deeply unhappy.

In 1943, Frances Yates was awarded the British Federation of University Women's Marion Reilly Award.

Frances Yates described this as "an ambitious effort to apply the Warburgian modes of work, to use art, music philosophy, religion" to elucidate the subject.

Frances Yates lectured on the subjects of her research at various different universities across Britain; during the 1950s she lectured on the subject of esperance imperiale, which would later be collected and published as Astraea: The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century.

Frances Yates offered a novel interpretation of the tapestries, approaching them as if they were "a detective story" and arguing that they were meant as portraits of the French royal family.

In 1961, Frances Yates authored Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, which has come to be widely regarded as her masterpiece.

Frances Yates's next publication was a part-sequel to Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, being published as The Art of Memory in 1966.

In 1971, Frances Yates was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of East Anglia, which was presented to her by Angus Wilson, and in the New Year Honours 1972 Frances Yates was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to Art History.

Frances Yates was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1975.

Frances Yates was promoted in the Queen's Birthday Honours 1977 to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to Renaissance studies.

In 1979, Frances Yates published The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age, in which she discussed the place of the Christian Cabala during the Renaissance and its influence on Christian Neoplatonism.

In March 1979, Frances Yates moved her sister Ruby into a nursing home, before embarking on a lecture tour of the US Ruby died in May 1980, leaving Frances Yates as the last surviving member of her immediate family.

In 1980 Frances Yates was elected a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In summer 1981, Frances Yates traveled on a lecture tour of Hungary, coming to believe that Anglophone scholarship had neglected Central Europe.

Frances Yates recovered and returned home, where she died in her sleep.

Frances Yates's body was cremated in an Anglican memorial service.

Frances Yates suggested that the itinerant Catholic priest Giordano Bruno was executed in 1600 for espousing the Hermetic tradition rather than his affirmation of cosmic eccentricity.

Frances Yates's works drew attention to the role played by magic in early modern science and philosophy, before scholars such as Keith Thomas brought this topic into the historiographical mainstream.

Frances Yates has stated it as an attractive paradox, the autonomous esotericism helping give birth to the scientific mentality that will be dismissive of its parent.

The arguments surrounding this questioning of Frances Yates include Lodovico Lazzarelli and the rival views of Antoine Faivre, who has proposed a clearer definition of esotericism.

Hanegraaff argued that the reception of Frances Yates' work was coloured by the Zeitgeist.

Hints on the "Frances Yates thesis" were left as sketches in works of Frances Yates herself.

Frances Yates' scholarship was often criticised for using what she termed her "powerful historical imagination"; she put forward scenarios that could not be proved using documentary evidence, something that many other historians saw as a flaw in her methodology.

Jones noted that Frances Yates remained a product of Victorian thought and value systems throughout her life.

Frances Yates was highly critical of nationalism, seeing it as the cause for the European wars of the early 20th century, and sought to find a solution to Europe's conflicts in history, particularly the 16th century.