Barbara Harvey

Early life and education Harvey was born on 21 January 1928.

After earning her BA, Harvey remained at Somerville to complete a BLitt thesis entitled "The Manor of Islip from the Conquest to the Dissolution" in 1951.

Career After earning her BLitt, Harvey spent a year in the Department of Scottish History at the University of Edinburgh and three years at Queen Mary College, London, where a young Roy Strong was among her students. having held the college offices of Dean, Librarian and Vice-Principal during her tenure, as well as the role of university Assessor for the 1968–9 academic year. Harvey was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) in 1982. She was appointed a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1997 Birthday Honours for services to medieval history. She was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS) and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

Harvey was the joint winner of the Wolfson History Prize in 1993 for her book Living and Dying in England 1100–1540: The Monastic Experience, which examines the lives of monks at Westminster Abbey, one of England's greatest mediaeval monasteries. It was based on her Ford Lectures from four years earlier. From 1993 onwards, she was emeritus fellow of Somerville College, Oxford. Prior to her death, Harvey was an honorary vice-president of the Henry Bradshaw Society.

Harvey died on 9 August 2025, at the age of 97. "Draft Letters Patent of Manumission and Pardon for the Men of Somerset in 1381", The English Historical Review (1965) Documents Illustrating the Rule of Walter de Wenlok, Abbot of Westminster, 1283–1307 (editor; Camden Society, 4th series, no. 2, 1965), "The Population Trend in England between 1300 and 1348", Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (1966) "The Leasing of the Abbot of Westminster's Demesnes in the Later Middle Ages", The Economic History Review (1969) Westminster Abbey and its Estates in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), The Westminster Chronicle, 1381–1394 (co-editor and translator with L. C. Hector; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), Monastic Dress in the Middle Ages: Precept and Practice (Canterbury: William Urry Memorial Trust, 1988), Living and Dying in England, 1100–1540: The Monastic Experience (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), The Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, 1066–c.1280 (editor; Short Oxford History of the British Isles; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), The Obedientiaries of Westminster Abbey and their Financial Records, c. 1275 to 1540 (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2002), The States of the Manors of Westminster Abbey c.1300 to 1422 (co-editor with C. M. Woolgar; Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 2019),