Caroline W. Bynum '63, associate professor of Church History at the Divinity School, is leaving Harvard at the end of this year for a position at the University of Washington in Seattle.

A close friend of Bynum's, who asked not to be identified, said yesterday Bynum rejected an offer of tenure from the Divinity School.

Bynum and most of the school's faculty and administration were on a retreat and unavailable for comment yesterday.

Arther Ferrill, associate chairman of the University of Washington's history department, said yesterday that Bynum will become a tenured associate professor there and teach medieval history.

Bynum presently teaches four history courses, History 1211, 1212, 1213 and 1214, here. A source in the History Department, which does not have a tenured female faculty member, said the department did not consider Bynum for a senior position.

Bynum is known at Harvard for her opinions on relations between the sexes at Harvard-Radcliffe. In an article published last year in the Radcliffe Quarterly, she wrote that Harvard men are afraid of love and prescribed by a cultural pattern of male dominance.

History 1211 covers the "History of Christian Thought from 300 to 1050." History 1212 continues with the "History of Christian Thought in the High Middle Ages." History 1213 follows with the "History of Christian Thought in the Later Middle Ages and Reformation." History 1214 deals with "Problems in the Intellectual History of the Early Middle Ages."

She will assume her position at Seattle in September. The University of Washington has an enrollment of 34,000 and a history department of about 42 faculty members.