{{Short description|British scholar and historian (1936–2009)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox scientist | name = Valerie Flint | image = | image_size = | alt = | caption = | birth_name = Valerie Irene Jane Flint | birth_date = {{Birth date|1936|7|5|df=y}} | birth_place = [[Derby]], [[England]] | death_date = {{Death date and age|2009|1|7|1936|7|5|df=y}} | death_place = [[Beverley]], [[England]] | residence = | fields = [[Medieval]] [[intellectual history]], [[cultural history]] | workplaces = [[Princeton University]], [[University of Cambridge]], [[University of Oxford]] | alma_mater = [[University of Oxford]] | doctoral_advisor = [[Beryl Smalley]], [[Richard Southern]], [[Richard William Hunt|Richard Hunt]] | doctoral_students = | known_for = Seminal contributions to [[medieval studies]]<ref name="guardian_obituary" /> | awards = | footnotes = }}

'''Valerie Irene Jane Flint''' (5 July 1936 &ndash; 7 January 2009) was a British [[scholar]] and [[historian]], specialising in medieval [[Intellectual history|intellectual]] and [[cultural history]].

== Biography ==

=== Early life === Flint was born in [[Derby]], England. She was a pupil at the Rutland House School; and although her family was not Catholic, Flint was also educated by the Sisters of Mercy at their Doncaster convent school. Upon winning a scholarship, she matriculated to [[Lady Margaret Hall]] at the [[University of Oxford]].<ref name="times_obituary">{{cite news|title=Professor Valerie Flint: historian|url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article5644116.ece|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100524151933/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article5644116.ece|url-status=dead|archive-date=24 May 2010|access-date=5 June 2010|newspaper=The Times|date=3 February 2009}}</ref> Focusing on the 12th century, Flint studied for an [[MPhil]] under [[Beryl Smalley]], [[Richard Southern]], [[Richard William Hunt|Richard Hunt]] and [[Lorenzo Minio-Paluello]].

=== Academic career === Flint's D.Phil. thesis was on "The life and works of [[Honorius Augustodunensis]] with special reference to chronology and sources", and was finished in 1969. While finishing her thesis, Flint took up lecturing and she began to work at the [[University of Auckland]] in 1971.<ref name="guardian_obituary">{{cite news|last=Brett|first=Martin|title=Valerie Flint|url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2009/feb/26/valerie-flint-obituary|access-date=5 June 2010|newspaper=The Guardian|date=26 February 2009}}</ref> In the late 1980s, Flint relocated to [[Princeton University]] as a Fellow of the [[Davis Center]]. While working at the Institute for Advanced Study (also in Princeton), Flint completed her most extended and important<ref name="times_obituary" /> publication, ''The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe''.<ref name="guardian_obituary" /> She held a chair at the [[University of Hull]] from 1995 until 1999, when she retired. She also held [[fellow]]ships with the [[University of Canberra]], [[Clare Hall, Cambridge]], the [[University of Chicago]], the [[University of Minnesota]], [[Trinity College, Cambridge]], and [[All Souls College, Oxford]].<ref name="times_obituary" />

=== Later life and death === In 1999, while at Princeton as a Visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study, Flint discovered that she was suffering from a [[virulent]] form of [[cancer]].<ref name="times_obituary" /> When her treatment enabled her to, she returned to [[Beverley]] in the [[East Riding of Yorkshire]]. She centred her subsequent studies on the [[Hereford Mappa Mundi]].<ref name="guardian_obituary" />

On 7 January 2009, Flint died at home in her library, aged 72.

== Personal life == Flint never married, asserting that "marriage is for men". She was received into the [[Catholic Church]] in the 1960.<ref name="times_obituary" />

== Works == * ''Honorius Augustodunensis - Imago Mundi'' (1982) * ''Ideas in the Medieval West: texts and their contexts'' (1988) * ''[[The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe]]'' (1991) * ''The Imaginative Landscape of Christopher Columbus'' (1992) * ''Honorius Augustodunensis'' (Authors of the Middle Ages, 6) (1995) * ''Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: Ancient Greece and Rome'' (1999)

== References == {{Reflist}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Flint, Valerie}} [[Category:1936 births]] [[Category:2009 deaths]] [[Category:20th-century British historians]] [[Category:Academics from Derby]] [[Category:Alumni of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford]] [[Category:British women historians]]