Frances Yates
Encyclopedia
Dame Frances Amelia Yates DBE
(28 November 1899 – 29 September 1981) was a British
historian. She taught at the Warburg Institute
of the University of London
for many years.
She wrote extensively on the occult
or Neoplatonic philosophies of the Renaissance
. Her books Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition
(1964), The Art of Memory
(1966), and The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (1972) are major works. She dealt with traditions whose remoteness she could not eliminate, even while she made them more understandable.
, in the City of Portsmouth
, Hampshire
. Yates' father, a devout Anglican, was a naval engineer who began working in the shipyards as a teenager and supervised the construction of British warships in the years leading up to World War I. Although one of her older sisters attended Girton College, Cambridge
, like many independent women scholars, Frances was educated at home by her mother, yet attended Birkenhead High School
for some time.
The youngest of four children, she grew up in a middle class family whose Victorian worldview influenced her later scholarship. The death of her only brother in World War I, along with the ravages of World War II, underscored her disdain for rampant nationalism. She espoused interdisciplinary historiography, and for more than forty years she was affiliated with the Warburg Institute, University of London.
She died in Surbiton
, Surrey
after a brief illness. Frances Yates and the Hermetic Tradition by Marjorie G. Jones, the first biography of this scholar, was published in 2008 by Ibis Press.
within Renaissance
culture, and spoke of the interest in mysticism, magic and Gnosticism
of Late Antiquity
that survived the Middle Ages. In the face of longstanding conventional interpretations, Yates suggested that the itinerant Catholic priest Giordano Bruno
was executed in 1600 for espousing the Hermetic tradition rather than his affirmation of heliocentricity.
Her 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. Thomas references Yates alongside Piyo M. Rattansi for the basic point that hermetic thinking fed into the foundations of modern science, before being dispelled later. It has been written that
, or gave out a grand narrative. In those terms, a so-called Yates paradigm (sometimes Yates Thesis), her work is contested freely. This is a view that Wouter Hanegraaff
has put forth, starting with Yates as the scholar first to treat Renaissance hermeticism, integrated with Rosicrucianism, as a coherent aspect of European culture. He has stated it as an attractive paradox, the autonomous esotericism helping give birth to the scientific mentality that will be dismissive of its parent. But, it is now said, there was no unitary esoteric tradition and that view is only tenable on a selective reading of the evidence. The arguments surrounding this questioning of Yates include Lodovico Lazzarelli
as not included; and the rival views of Antoine Faivre
, who has proposed a clearer definition of esotericism.
Hanegraaff has further argued that the reception of the work of Yates was coloured by the Zeitgeist
. An extra assumption, that the magus had a point of view that could be recovered, was fashionably added. Further he argues that essentialist rather than nominalist use of the very term "esotericism" has vitiated succeeding work. The "Yates paradigm", in his view, dominated in the 1970s but fell by the wayside in the 1980s, for scholars. Hints on the "Yates thesis" were left as sketches in works of Yates herself (Francis Bacon
in relation to hermeticism, and the Hartlib circle
, in particular). These related to paths, and how actual influence on science was effected.
Such theories were developed by others, and then later largely rejected by scholars. Brian Vickers
identifies Rattansi, A. G. Debus and Peter J. French as on the side of the Yates thesis, with M. B. Hesse, Edward Rosen, Paolo Rossi, and Charles Trinkhaus on the other side. He notes that the debate (up to 1984) was not conducted by close reading of texts and evidence; he himself is entirely unconvinced by the thesis.
(OBE) in 1972, and raised to Dame Commander (DBE) in 1977.
drew extensively on Yates for the occult motifs in Little, Big
(1981) and Aegypt (1987-2007).
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(28 November 1899 – 29 September 1981) was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
historian. She taught at the Warburg Institute
Warburg Institute
The Warburg Institute is a research institution associated with the University of London in central London, England. A member of the School of Advanced Study, its focus is the study of the influence of classical antiquity on all aspects of European civilisation.-History:The Institute was founded by...
of the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
for many years.
She wrote extensively on the occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
or Neoplatonic philosophies of the Renaissance
Platonism in the Renaissance
Platonism underwent a revival in the Renaissance, as part of a general revival of interest in Classical antiquity. Interest in Platonism was especially strong in Florence under the Medici....
. Her books Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition
Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition
Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition is a 1964 non-fiction book by British historian Frances A. Yates. The book delves into the history of Hermeticism and its influence upon Renaissance philosophy and Giordano Bruno....
(1964), The Art of Memory
The Art of Memory
The Art of Memory is a 1966 non-fiction book by British historian Frances A. Yates. The book follows the history of mnemonic systems from the classical period of Simonides of Ceos in Ancient Greece to the Renaissance era of Giordano Bruno, ending with Gottfried Leibniz and the early emergence of...
(1966), and The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (1972) are major works. She dealt with traditions whose remoteness she could not eliminate, even while she made them more understandable.
Life
She was born in SouthseaSouthsea
Southsea is a seaside resort located in Portsmouth at the southern end of Portsea Island in the county of Hampshire in England. Southsea is within a mile of Portsmouth's city centre....
, in the City of Portsmouth
Portsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
, Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
. Yates' father, a devout Anglican, was a naval engineer who began working in the shipyards as a teenager and supervised the construction of British warships in the years leading up to World War I. Although one of her older sisters attended Girton College, Cambridge
Girton College, Cambridge
Girton College is one of the 31 constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge. It was England's first residential women's college, established in 1869 by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon. The full college status was only received in 1948 and marked the official admittance of women to the...
, like many independent women scholars, Frances was educated at home by her mother, yet attended Birkenhead High School
Birkenhead High School
Birkenhead High School Academy is an all-ability state funded girls' Academy in Birkenhead, Wirral.-Admissions:It is a member of the Girls' Day School Trust, a national educational charity based in London. Its predecessor school was Birkenhead High School, which was an independent selective school...
for some time.
The youngest of four children, she grew up in a middle class family whose Victorian worldview influenced her later scholarship. The death of her only brother in World War I, along with the ravages of World War II, underscored her disdain for rampant nationalism. She espoused interdisciplinary historiography, and for more than forty years she was affiliated with the Warburg Institute, University of London.
She died in Surbiton
Surbiton
Surbiton, a suburban area of London in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, is situated next to the River Thames, with a mixture of Art-Deco courts, more recent residential blocks and grand, spacious 19th century townhouses blending into a sea of semi-detached 20th century housing estates...
, Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
after a brief illness. Frances Yates and the Hermetic Tradition by Marjorie G. Jones, the first biography of this scholar, was published in 2008 by Ibis Press.
Scholarly writings
With the publication of Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition Yates highlighted the hermeticismHermeticism
Hermeticism or the Western Hermetic Tradition is a set of philosophical and religious beliefs based primarily upon the pseudepigraphical writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus...
within Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
culture, and spoke of the interest in mysticism, magic and Gnosticism
Gnosticism
Gnosticism is a scholarly term for a set of religious beliefs and spiritual practices common to early Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco-Roman mystery religions, Zoroastrianism , and Neoplatonism.A common characteristic of some of these groups was the teaching that the realisation of Gnosis...
of Late Antiquity
Late Antiquity
Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the time of transition from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world. Precise boundaries for the period are a matter of debate, but noted historian of the period Peter Brown proposed...
that survived the Middle Ages. In the face of longstanding conventional interpretations, Yates suggested that the itinerant Catholic priest Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno , born Filippo Bruno, was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. His cosmological theories went beyond the Copernican model in proposing that the Sun was essentially a star, and moreover, that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited...
was executed in 1600 for espousing the Hermetic tradition rather than his affirmation of heliocentricity.
Her works drew attention to the role played by magic in early modern science and philosophy, before scholars such as Keith Thomas
Keith Thomas (historian)
Sir Keith Vivian Thomas is a Welsh historian, best known as the author of Religion and the Decline of Magic and Man and the Natural World.-Biography:...
brought this topic into the historiographical mainstream. Thomas references Yates alongside Piyo M. Rattansi for the basic point that hermetic thinking fed into the foundations of modern science, before being dispelled later. It has been written that
Reputation
Some of her conclusions have later been challenged by other scholars. Yates remains one of the major scholars of hermeticism in Renaissance Europe; and her book The Art of Memory (1966) has been named one of the most significant non-fiction books of the 20th century. Paolo Rossi identified two key points in it: the past importance and later loss of mnemnotechnics as a human power, where (he feels) she overstated the occult or "Jungian" aspect; and the subsequent marginalization of the area, which he considers valid and of wider applicability.Yates as founding a paradigm
It is now said that Yates founded a paradigmParadigm
The word paradigm has been used in science to describe distinct concepts. It comes from Greek "παράδειγμα" , "pattern, example, sample" from the verb "παραδείκνυμι" , "exhibit, represent, expose" and that from "παρά" , "beside, beyond" + "δείκνυμι" , "to show, to point out".The original Greek...
, or gave out a grand narrative. In those terms, a so-called Yates paradigm (sometimes Yates Thesis), her work is contested freely. This is a view that Wouter Hanegraaff
Wouter Hanegraaff
Wouter Jacobus Hanegraaff is full professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy and related currents at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands...
has put forth, starting with Yates as the scholar first to treat Renaissance hermeticism, integrated with Rosicrucianism, as a coherent aspect of European culture. He has stated it as an attractive paradox, the autonomous esotericism helping give birth to the scientific mentality that will be dismissive of its parent. But, it is now said, there was no unitary esoteric tradition and that view is only tenable on a selective reading of the evidence. The arguments surrounding this questioning of Yates include Lodovico Lazzarelli
Lodovico Lazzarelli
Ludovico Lazzarelli was an Italian poet, philosopher, courtier and alleged magician and diviner of the early Renaissance....
as not included; and the rival views of Antoine Faivre
Antoine Faivre
Antoine Faivre is a prominent French scholar of esoterism. Until his retirement, he held a chair in the École Pratique des Hautes Études at the Sorbonne, University Professor of Germanic Studies at the University of Haute-Normandie, director of the Cahiers del Hermétisme and of Bibliothèque de...
, who has proposed a clearer definition of esotericism.
Hanegraaff has further argued that the reception of the work of Yates was coloured by the Zeitgeist
Zeitgeist
Zeitgeist is "the spirit of the times" or "the spirit of the age."Zeitgeist is the general cultural, intellectual, ethical, spiritual or political climate within a nation or even specific groups, along with the general ambiance, morals, sociocultural direction, and mood associated with an era.The...
. An extra assumption, that the magus had a point of view that could be recovered, was fashionably added. Further he argues that essentialist rather than nominalist use of the very term "esotericism" has vitiated succeeding work. The "Yates paradigm", in his view, dominated in the 1970s but fell by the wayside in the 1980s, for scholars. Hints on the "Yates thesis" were left as sketches in works of Yates herself (Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
in relation to hermeticism, and the Hartlib circle
Hartlib Circle
The Hartlib Circle refers primarily to the correspondence network set up in Western and Central Europe by Samuel Hartlib, an intelligencer based in London, and his associates, in the period 1630 to 1660.-Structure:J. T. Young writes:...
, in particular). These related to paths, and how actual influence on science was effected.
Such theories were developed by others, and then later largely rejected by scholars. Brian Vickers
Brian Vickers (academic)
Sir Brian Vickers, FBA is a British academic, now Emeritus Professor at ETH Zurich. He is known for his work on the history of rhetoric, Shakespeare, John Ford, and Francis Bacon....
identifies Rattansi, A. G. Debus and Peter J. French as on the side of the Yates thesis, with M. B. Hesse, Edward Rosen, Paolo Rossi, and Charles Trinkhaus on the other side. He notes that the debate (up to 1984) was not conducted by close reading of texts and evidence; he himself is entirely unconvinced by the thesis.
Awards and honours
The author of many books and articles, Yates was recipient of numerous prizes and honorary degrees. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British EmpireOrder of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(OBE) in 1972, and raised to Dame Commander (DBE) in 1977.
In literature
John CrowleyJohn Crowley
John Crowley is an American author of fantasy, science fiction and mainstream fiction. He studied at Indiana University and has a second career as a documentary film writer...
drew extensively on Yates for the occult motifs in Little, Big
Little, Big
Little, Big: or, The Fairies' Parliament is a modern fantasy novel by John Crowley, published in 1981. It won the World Fantasy Award in 1982.-Plot synopsis:...
(1981) and Aegypt (1987-2007).
Works
- John Florio: The Life of an Italian in Shakespeare's England (1934)
- A study of Love's labour's lost (1936)
- The French Academies of the Sixteenth Century (1947)
- The Valois TapestriesValois TapestriesThe Valois Tapestries are a series of eight tapestries depicting festivities or "magnificences" at the Court of France in the second half of the 16th century. The tapestries were worked in the Spanish Netherlands, probably in Brussels or Antwerp, shortly after 1580.Scholars have not firmly...
(1959) - Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic TraditionGiordano Bruno and the Hermetic TraditionGiordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition is a 1964 non-fiction book by British historian Frances A. Yates. The book delves into the history of Hermeticism and its influence upon Renaissance philosophy and Giordano Bruno....
(1964) - The Art of MemoryThe Art of MemoryThe Art of Memory is a 1966 non-fiction book by British historian Frances A. Yates. The book follows the history of mnemonic systems from the classical period of Simonides of Ceos in Ancient Greece to the Renaissance era of Giordano Bruno, ending with Gottfried Leibniz and the early emergence of...
(1966) - Theatre of the World (1969)
- The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (1972)
- Astraea : The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century (1975)
- Shakespeare's Last Plays: A New Approach (1975)
- The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age (1979)
- Lull and Bruno (1982) Collected Essays I
- Renaissance and Reform : The Italian Contribution (1983) Collected Essays II
- Ideas and Ideals in the North European Renaissance (1984) Collected Essays III
See also
- Hermeticism (history of science)Hermeticism (history of science)Hermeticism is a historiographical phrase describing the work that attempts to reconstruct the mode of thought held by 17th century scientists. It primarily traces out the connections of Renaissance modes of thought with those of the Scientific Revolution . This type of analysis began with...
- HermeticismHermeticismHermeticism or the Western Hermetic Tradition is a set of philosophical and religious beliefs based primarily upon the pseudepigraphical writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus...
- NeoplatonismNeoplatonismNeoplatonism , is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonists, with its earliest contributor believed to be Plotinus, and his teacher Ammonius Saccas...
- Method of lociMethod of lociThe method of loci , also called the memory palace, is a mnemonic device introduced in ancient Roman rhetorical treatises . It relies on memorized spatial relationships to establish, order and recollect memorial content...
- School of Night