Sir Keith Vivian ThomasCH FBA FRHistS FLSW (born 2 January 1933) is a Welsh historian of the early modern world based at Oxford University. He is best known as the author ofReligion and the Decline of Magic andMan and the Natural World. From 1986 to 2000, he waspresident ofCorpus Christi College, Oxford.

Thomas was born on 2 January 1933 inWick,Glamorgan, Wales.^{[citation needed]} He was educated at Barry County Grammar School, astategrammar school inBarry, Vale of Glamorgan.^[1] Having been awarded the Brackenbury Scholarship, he studied modern history atBalliol College, Oxford.^[1] He graduated from theUniversity of Oxford with afirst classBachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1955;^[1] as per tradition, his BA was later promoted to aMaster of Arts (MA Oxon).^[1][2]

He was a prizeFellow ofAll Souls College, Oxford, from 1955 until 1957, when he was electedFellow ofSt John's College. He wasreader in modern history in theUniversity of Oxford from 1978 to 1985, and professor of modern history in 1986, in which year he became president ofCorpus Christi College. He retired in 2000, at the statutory age of 67, and the following year he was once more elected fellow ofAll Souls College. He served for some time aspro-vice-chancellor of theUniversity and a delegate to theUniversity Press. He was a consultant editor to theOxford Dictionary of National Biography and an editor, with J. S. Weiner, of the Oxford Paperback University Series (OPUS) published by theOxford University Press.^[3]

He was a member of theEconomic and Social Research Council 1985–90, and of the Reviewing Committee on Exports of Works of Art 1990–93, and, since 1992, of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts. From 1991 to 1998, he was a trustee of theNational Gallery and since 1997 he has been chairman of theBritish Library Advisory Committee for Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.^{[citation needed]}

He is married to Valerie, Lady Thomas, a graduate ofSomerville College, and has two children.

He is a supporter ofHumanists UK, an organisation promotingsecular humanism.^[4]

In May 2016, Thomas was one of 300 prominent historians, includingSimon Schama andNiall Ferguson, who were signatories to a letter toThe Guardian, telling voters that if they chose to leave theEuropean Union on 23 June, they would be condemning Britain to irrelevance.^[5][6]

He was elected aFellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1970 (Vice-President 1980–84) and aFellow of the British Academy in 1979 (President 1993–97). In 1983, he was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 1993, he was elected to theAcademia Europaea. He is also a Founding Fellow of theLearned Society of Wales.

He is anHonorary Fellow of Balliol (1984) and St John's (1986), and Corpus Christi Colleges, Oxford, and ofCardiff University (1995). He has been awarded honorary doctorates byUniversity of Kent (DLitt 1983),University of Wales (DLitt 1987),Williams College (LLD 1988),University of Sheffield (LittD 1992),University of Cambridge (LittD 1995),University of Hull (DLitt 1995),University of Leicester (DLitt 1996),University of Sussex (DLitt 1996),Oglethorpe University (LLD 1996), andUniversity of Warwick (DLitt 1998).

In the 1988Queen's Birthday Honours, he was appointed aKnight Bachelor^[7] and in 1991, he was honoured with theOrder of Merit of the Italian Republic.

In the2020 New Year Honours, he was appointedMember of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) for services to the study of history.^[8]

Portraits of Sir Keith Thomas hang atCorpus Christi College, Oxford, and theBritish Academy and National Portrait Gallery, London.^[9][10]

Works authored

• "The Social Origins of Hobbes's Thought",Hobbes Studies, ed. K.C. Brown (Oxford : Basil Blackwell, 1965), 185–236
• 'History and Anthropology',Past & Present 24 (1963), 3–24
• Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971; New York, Scribner 1971; Harmondsworth; London: Penguin, 1973; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978; London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997)
• Rule and Misrule in the Schools of Early Modern England (Reading: University of Reading, 1976)
• Age and Authority in Early Modern England (London: British Academy, 1976)
• The Perception of the Past in Early Modern England: The Creighton Trust Lecture 1983, Delivered before the University of London on Monday 21 November 1983 (London: University of London, 1983)
• Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England, 1500–1800 (London: Allen Lane, 1983; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984) (first American edition published asMan and the Natural World: A History of the Modern Sensibility (New York: Pantheon, 1983).
• History and Literature: the Ernest Hughes Memorial Lecture Delivered at the College on 7 March 1988 (Swansea: University College of Swansea, 1988)
• "Ways of Doing Cultural History", in Rik Sanders (ed.),Balans en perspectief van de Nederlandse cultuurgeschiedenis (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1991)
• Changing Conceptions of National Biography: The Oxford DNB in Historical Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)
• The Ends of Life: Roads to Fulfilment in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)ISBN 0-19-924723-4;ISBN 978-0-19-924723-3^[11]
• "The Great Fight Over the Enlightenment,"The New York Review 3 April 2014
• In Pursuit of Civility: Manners and Civilization in Early Modern England (London: Yale University Press, 2018)

Works edited

• Great Political Thinkers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992)
• The Oxford Book of Work (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999)

Works jointly edited

• (ed. withDonald Pennington)Puritans and Revolutionaries: Essays in Seventeenth-Century History Presented toChristopher Hill (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978)
• (ed. withAndrew Adonis)Roy Jenkins: A Retrospective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)

• Barry, Jonathan. "Introduction: Keith Thomas and the problem of witchcraft" in Jonathan Barry et al. eds.,Witchcraft in early modern Europe: Studies in Culture and Belief (1996) pp. 1–46.

Wikiquote has quotations related toKeith Thomas (historian).

• "Diary – LRB"
• Alan Macfarlane,People who have influenced me most: Keith Thomas
• Interviewed by Alan Macfarlane 5 September 2009 (video)
• British Academy Fellowship
• Debrett's People of Today (12th edn, London: Debrett's Peerage, 1999), p. 1933

• Living people
• Welsh scholars and academics
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• Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford
• Fellows of St John's College, Oxford
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• Knights Bachelor
• 1933 births
• Fellows of the British Academy
• Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• Fellows of the Royal Historical Society
• Fellows of the Learned Society of Wales
• Members of Academia Europaea
• Presidents of the British Academy
• Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour
• Wolfson History Prize winners
• Historians of the University of Oxford
• 20th-century Welsh historians
• 21st-century Welsh historians
• 20th-century Welsh male writers
• 21st-century Welsh male writers
• Historians of the early modern period

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