put it: "She inspired in me equal parts of love and terror"'. Smalley 'was not in the least convivial, but she cared greatly about people in an austere way and would take endless trouble over their minor needs—major ones were their own affair.' She never married, and died in Oxford after a brief illness in 1984. After her surgeon told her she had only a few months to live, she finished as much of her work as possible and destroyed the rest. "In 1929 she had been received into the Roman Catholic Church, and about ten or twelve years later had become a member of the Communist Party. The connection between these two loyalties remained a mystery to all but herself. But by the time of her death she had quietly dissociated herself from both of them. These were her only attempts to find a home in a universal community. When these failed her, she sought no others, and accepted her solitary fate with unflinching courage and steadfastness. She bequeathed her books to her old College, and directed that there should be 'of course, no memorial service'". She died on 6 April 1984. Selected works The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, 1940 (3rd ed. 1983) Historians in the Middle Ages, 1974, Thames and Hudson, The Becket Conflict and the Schools: a Study of Intellectuals in Politics in the Twelfth Century, 1973 The Gospels in the Schools, c. 1100 – c. 12801985 Studies in Medieval Thought and Learning from Abelard to Wyclif English friars and antiquity in the early fourteenth century, 1960 Exempla in the commentaries of Stephen Langton, 1933 Medieval exegesis of wisdom literature : essays by Beryl Smalley; edited by Roland E. Murphy. 1986 Studies in medieval thought and learning : from Abelard to Wyclif, 1981 References 1905 births 1984 deaths 20th-century British women writers 20th-century Christian biblical scholars 20th-century English historians 20th-century Roman Catholics Academics of Royal Holloway, University of London Alumni of St Hilda's College, Oxford Alumni of the University of Manchester British women historians Catholic socialists Christian communists Converts to Roman Catholicism Corresponding Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America English biblical scholars English Christian socialists English communists Fellows of St Hilda's College, Oxford Fellows of the British Academy Historians of the University of Oxford People associated with Girton College, Cambridge People from Stockport Roman Catholic biblical scholars