Jump to content

Steven Runciman

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Sscloud (talk | contribs) at 21:43, 25 July 2018 (→Criticism: Tidying up). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Sir James Cochran Stevenson Runciman, CH, FBA (7 July 1903 – 1 November 2000), known as Steven Runciman, was an English historian best known for his three-volume A History of the Crusades (1951–54).

His three-volume history has had a profound impact on common conceptions of the Crusades, primarily portraying the Crusaders negatively and the Muslims favourably. Runciman was praised by older Crusade historians as a storyteller and prose stylist.[1][2] although contemporary historians have highlighted his admiration of the Byzantine Empire as a source of bias against the Crusaders in his work.

Biography

Born in Northumberland, he was the second son of Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford, and Hilda Runciman, Viscountess Runciman of Doxford. Both of his parents were or became members of parliament for the Liberal Party, and were the first married couple to sit simultaneously in Parliament.[3] His father was created Viscount Runciman of Doxford in 1937. His paternal grandfather, Walter Runciman, 1st Baron Runciman, was a shipping magnate.[3] He was named after his maternal grandfather, James Cochran Stevenson, the MP for South Shields.

Eton and Cambridge

Runciman was said to have been reading Latin and Greek by the age of five and in the course of his life he would master a number of languages. As a historian, his linguistic ability allowed Runciman to write about the Middle East using Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Hebrew, Syriac, Armenian and Georgian sources as well accounts in Latin, Greek and the Western vernaculars.[4][5] A King's Scholar at Eton College, he was an exact contemporary and close friend of George Orwell,[3] with whom he studied French under Aldous Huxley.

In 1921 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge as a history scholar and studied under J.B. Bury, becoming, as Runciman incorrectly claimed, "his first, and only, student".[3] At first the reclusive Bury tried to brush him off but when Runciman mentioned that he could read Russian Bury gave him a stack of Bulgarian articles to edit, beginning their teacher-student relationship. Runciman's work on the Byzantine Empire earned him a fellowship at Trinity in 1927.

Historical works

After receiving a large inheritance from his grandfather, Runciman resigned his fellowship in 1938 and began travelling widely. For much of his life he was an independent scholar, living on private means.[3] He went on to be a press attache at the British Legation in the Bulgarian capital Sofia in 1940 and at the British Embassy in Cairo in 1941. From 1942 to 1945 he was Professor of Byzantine Art and History[3] at Istanbul University in Turkey, where he began his research on the Crusades which would lead to his best known work, the History of the Crusades (three volumes appearing in 1951, 1952, and 1954). From 1945 to 1947 he was a representative in Athens of the British Council.[3]

Most of Runciman's historical works deal with Byzantium and her medieval neighbours between Sicily and Syria; one exception is The White Rajahs, published in 1960, which tells the story of Sarawak, an independent state founded on the northern coast of Borneo in 1841 by James Brooke, and ruled by the Brooke family for more than a century.

Homosexuality

In his personal life, Runciman was an old-fashioned English eccentric, known, among other things, as an aesthete, raconteur, and enthusiast of the occult. According to Andrew Robinson, a history teacher at Eton, "he played piano duets with the last Emperor of China, told tarot cards for King Fuad of Egypt, narrowly missed being blown up by the Germans in the Pera Palace hotel in Istanbul and twice hit the jackpot on slot machines in Las Vegas".

Runciman was gay[6] and despite little evidence of a long-term lover, Runciman boasted of a number of casual sexual encounters - telling a friend in later life: “I have the temperament of a harlot, and so am free of emotional complications.” Nevertheless Runciman was discreet about his homosexuality, perhaps reflecting religious feelings that homosexuality was “an inarguable offence against God”. Runciman also felt that his sexuality had potentially held back his career and related to Max Mallowan “that he felt his life had been a failure because of his gayness”.[7]

Last year and death

He died in Radway, Warwickshire, while visiting relatives, aged 97.[8] He never married. Earlier the same year, he had made a final visit to Mount Athos to witness the blessing of the Protaton Tower at Karyes (the capital of the monastic community), which had been refurbished thanks to a gift from him.[9][10] He was interred in Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire.

Praise

Runciman's work became a highly influential account of Crusader history and widely considered to be the most influential English language book on the subject. Runciman has been praised for his writing style and for offering a narrative free from the entirely pro-Christian bias of his contemporaries, though some modern historians have characterised Runciman's work as flawed and reflecting an innate bias against the Crusaders (see below).

Christopher Tyerman, Fellow and Tutor in History at Hertford College and Lecturer in Medieval History at New College, Oxford, related that Runciman created a work that "across the Anglophone world continues as a base reference for popular attitudes, evident in print, film, television and on the internet."[1].

Mark K. Vaughn (2007) acknowledged that "Runciman's three-volume History of the Crusades remains the primary standard of comparison." but claimed that Tyerman "accurately, if perhaps with a bit of hubris, notes that Runciman's work is now outdated and seriously flawed."[11] Tyerman himself has said "It would be folly and hubris to pretend to compete, to match, as it were, my clunking computer keyboard with his [Runciman's] pen, at once a rapier and a paintbrush; to pit one volume, however substantial, with the breadth, scope and elegance of his three."[12]

Edward Peters (2011) claims Runciman's three-volume narrative history, "instantly became the most widely known and respected single-author survey of the subject in English."[13]

John M. Riddle (2008) says that for the greater part of the twentieth century Runciman was the "greatest historian of the Crusades." He reports that, "Prior to Runciman, in the early part of the century, historians related the Crusades as an idealistic attempt of Christendom to push Islam back." Runciman regarded the Crusades "as a barbarian invasion of a superior civilization, not that of the Muslims but of the Byzantines."[14]

Thomas F. Madden (2005) stresses the impact of Runciman's style and viewpoint:

It is no exaggeration to say that Runciman single-handedly crafted the current popular concept of the crusades. The reasons for this are twofold. First, he was a learned man with a solid grasp of the chronicle sources. Second, and perhaps more important, he wrote beautifully. The picture of the crusades that Runciman painted owed much to current scholarship yet much more to Sir Walter Scott. Throughout his history Runciman portrayed the crusaders as simpletons or barbarians seeking salvation through the destruction of the sophisticated cultures of the east. In his famous "summing-up" of the crusades he concluded that "the Holy War in itself was nothing more than a long act of intolerance in the name of God, which is a sin against the Holy Ghost.”[15]

Criticism

Jonathan Riley-Smith, who was considered a leading modern historian of the Crusades,[16] was highly critical of Runciman for his perspective on the Crusades.[17] Riley-Smith claimed that Runciman confessed to being "not a historian, but a writer of literature." during an on-camera interview.[1]

Runciman's sympathetic view of the Byzantine Empire has led some modern historians to conclude that Runciman's work was biased against the Crusaders, whom he considered "intolerant barbarians", for causing the downfall of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade. Runciman referred to this as the greatest crime committed against humanity.[1]

Honours

Sir Stevenson Runciman Street in Sofia, Bulgaria

Works

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d Andrea & Holt 2015, p. 22, 23.
  2. ^ "A new history of the Crusades". The Telegraph. 17 September 2006. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Hill, Rosemary (20 October 2016). "Herberts & Herbertinas". London Review of Books. Retrieved 22 October 2016.
  4. ^ The library of Sir Steven Runciman, st-andrews.ac.uk. Retrieved on 10 April 2017.
  5. ^ The Last interview with the Great Byzantologist Sir Steven Runciman, impantokratoros.gr. Retrieved on 10 April 2017.
  6. ^ Minoo Dinshaw, Outlandish Knight: The Byzantine Life of Steven Runciman, 2017
  7. ^ https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/poetry/2016/10/i-have-temperament-harlot-life-steven-runciman
  8. ^ Eric Pace (3 November 2000). "Sir Steven Runciman, 97, British Historian and Author". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 July 2016.
  9. ^ a b Nigel Clive (2 November 2000). "Obituary: Sir Steven Runciman, Historian whose magisterial works transformed our understanding of Byzantium, the medieval church and the crusades". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 September 2014.
  10. ^ THE LAST INTERVIEW WITH THE GREAT BYZANTOLOGIST SIR STEVEN RUNCIMAN FOR THE MAGAZINE “PEMPTOUSIA” (Issue 4, DEC. 2000 - MAR. 2001) at the Holy Monastery of Pantocrator of Melissochori‘s website
  11. ^ Mark K. Vaughn, review of Tyerman, God's War: A New History of the Crusades, in Naval War College Review (2007), 60#2, p. 159
  12. ^ Madden, Thomas F. (11 September 2001). "Fighting the Good Fight by Thomas F. Madden". First Things. Archived from the original on 12 November 2013. Retrieved 20 February 2014. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  13. ^ Edward Peters (2011). The First Crusade: "The Chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres" and Other Source Materials. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 314. ISBN 0812204727.
  14. ^ John M Riddle (2008). A History of the Middle Ages, 300 – 1500. Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Incorporated. p. 315. ISBN 9780742554092.
  15. ^ Thomas F Madden (2005). The New Concise History of the Crusades. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 216. ISBN 9780742538221.
  16. ^ Damien Peters (2017). The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading. Taylor & Francis. p. 66.
  17. ^ "Crusade Myths". Ignatius Insight. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
  18. ^ "No. 41268". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 1957. p. 2.
  19. ^ "No. 49583". The London Gazette (Supplement). 30 December 1983. p. 19.
  20. ^ "Sir Steven Runciman: Obituary". The Telegraph. 2 November 2000. Retrieved 10 July 2016.

References

Wikiquote has quotations related to Steven Runciman.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Steven_Runciman&oldid=851989714"