Editing Frances Yates (section)

{{Short description|English historian of the Renaissance (1899–1981)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2021}}
{{Use British English|date=May 2012}}
{{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] -->
| honorific_prefix = [[Dame]]
| name             = Frances Yates
| image            = Frances Yates 1924.jpg
| caption          = Yates in graduation robes, 1924
| birth_date       = {{birth date|1899|11|28|df=y}}
| birth_place      = [[Southsea]], England
| death_date       = {{death date and age|1981|9|29|1899|11|28|df=y}}
| death_place      = [[Surbiton]], England
| occupation       = {{hlist | Historian | writer}}
| subject          = History of [[Western esotericism]]
| alma_mater       = [[University College London]], [[Warburg Institute]]
| honorific_suffix = [[Order of the British Empire (DBE)|DBE]] [[Fellow of the British Academy|FBA]]
| birth_name       = Francis Amilia Yeats
}}

'''Dame Frances Amelia Yates''' {{Post-nominals|country=GBR|DBE|FBA}} (28 November 1899 – 29 September 1981) was an English historian of the [[Renaissance]], who wrote books on the history of [[Western esotericism|esotericism]].

After attaining an [[Master of Arts|MA]] in French at [[University College London]], she began to publish her research in scholarly journals and academic books, focusing on 16th-century theatre and the life of the linguist and lexicographer [[John Florio]]. In 1941, she was employed by the [[Warburg Institute]] in London, and began to work on what she termed "Warburgian history", emphasising a pan-European and inter-disciplinary approach to historiography.

Her most acclaimed publication was ''[[Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition]]'' (1964), in which she emphasised the role of [[Hermeticism]] in [[Giordano Bruno|Bruno]]'s works and the role that magic and mysticism played in Renaissance thinking. ''[[The Art of Memory]]'' (1966), and ''The Rosicrucian Enlightenment'' (1972) are also major works. Yates wrote extensively on the [[occult]] or [[Platonism in the Renaissance|Neoplatonic philosophies of the Renaissance]], which she is credited with making more accessible.