Peter Linehan has been a fellow of St John's College Cambridge since 1966, and was senior proctor at the University of Cambridge in 1976 and 1977. He has been a corresponding member of the Real Academia de la Historia in Madrid since 1996 and a Fellow of the British Academy since 2002. He edited the Journal of Ecclesiastical History from 1979 to 1991. Linehan is married, with three children.