Peter Anthony Linehan, FBA (11 July 1943 – 9 July 2020) was a British historian of medieval Spain.^[1][2][3]

He was a fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, where he was Dean of Discipline,^[4] and a fellow of the British Academy.^[5][3]

Linehan was born in Mortlake, London, the son of a brokerage clerk and a teacher, and attended St Benedict's School, Ealing.^[6] He first visited Spain in 1959.^[7] He joined St John's College in 1961 as an undergraduate to study History. He remained at St John's where he became a research fellow in 1966.^[6][8] He completed his PhD on "Reform and reaction: the Spanish kingdoms and the Papacy in the thirteenth century", under the supervision of Walter Ullmann.^[6] This won the Thirlwall Prize and Seeley medal for 1970-1, and formed the basis for his first book, "The Spanish Church and the Papacy in the Thirteenth Century" (1971).^[4][9]

At St John's, Linehan served as a Tutor, Tutor for Graduate Affairs, Director of Studies in History three times, and Dean of Discipline for 11 years.^[10][8]

Linehan was influenced by Walter Ullmann, Christopher Cheney, Raymond Carr, Geoffrey Barraclough, and his tutor Ronald Robinson.^[11][12]

He became a fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1971^[6][13] and a corresponding member of the Real Academia de la Historia in 1996.^[6][3] He was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 2002.^[5] In 2018, he was awarded an honorary degree from the Autonomous University of Madrid.^[7][14]

He died in 2020 aged 76 from heart disease.^[11] He was survived by his wife and their three children.^[4]

• The Spanish Church and the Papacy in the Thirteenth Century (1971)
• Spanish Church and Society, 1150-1300 (1983)
• Past and Present in Medieval Spain (1992)
• History and the Historians of Medieval Spain (1993)
• The Ladies of Zamora (1997)
• The Processes of Politics and the Rule of Law (2002)
• The Mozarabic Cardinal: the life and times of Gonzalo Pérez Gudiel (2004, with Francisco J. Hernández)
• Spain 1157–1300: a partible inheritance (2008)
• St John's College, Cambridge: A History (2011)
• Historical Memory and Clerical Activity in Medieval Spain and Portugal (2012)
• Portugalia Pontificia: Materials for the history of Portugal and the Papacy 1198–1417 (2012)
• At the Edge of Reformation: Iberia before the Black Death (2019)