The historian, Marjorie Reeves, who had an association with St Anne's College that spanned five decades, has died at the age of 98.

Born in 1907, Ms Reeves was brought up in Wiltshire before studying modern history at St Hugh's College, Oxford.

Ms Reeves' career as a historical researcher took off at Westfield College, London, where she wrote a PhD on medieval heretical mystics.

Much of her life's work focused on the career of Abbot Joachim of Flora (or Fiore). She wrote a book The Influence of Prophesy in the later Middle Ages: a study in Joachimism and contributed to others on the abbot and the period.

Apart from her work as a historian, Ms Reeves was also a committed educator, sitting on the Robbins Committee on Higher Education in the 1960s, editing Eighteen Plus: unity and diversity in higher education (1965) and writing a book: The Crisis in Higher Education in 1988.

Ms Reeves, who lived in Norham Road, Oxford, was a Fellow, then tutor at the Society of Home Students (which became St Anne's College) from 1938 to 1974.

She also served as vice-principal from 1951-62 and in 1964-1967 and in that capacity played an important role in its incorporation as a college of Oxford University in 1952.

A religious woman, she regularly attended the University Church of St Mary The Virgin, in High Street, Oxford.

She spent her retirement writing, gardening and travelling, especially in Italy where she was made an honorary citizen of the town of Fiore in recognition of her research.