Steven Runciman

Born in Northumberland, he was the second son of Walter and Hilda Runciman.{{Cite news |date=2000-11-02 |title=Sir Steven Runciman obituary |page=25 |work=The Times |issn=0140-0460 |language=en}} His parents were members of the Liberal Party and the first married couple to sit simultaneously in Parliament.{{Cite news |last=Hill |first=Rosemary |author-link=Rosemary Hill |date=2016-10-20 |title=Herberts & Herbertinas |work=London Review of Books |url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n20/rosemary-hill/herberts-and-herbertinas |url-status=live |url-access=subscription |access-date=2016-10-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220106015032/https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v38/n20/rosemary-hill/herberts-herbertinas |archive-date=2022-01-06 |issn=0260-9592 |language=en}} His father was created Viscount Runciman of Doxford in 1937. His paternal grandfather, Walter Runciman, 1st Baron Runciman, was a shipping magnate. He was named after his maternal grandfather, James Cochran Stevenson, the MP for South Shields.

Runciman said that he started reading Greek at the age of seven or eight.{{Cite web |title=The Last interview with the Great Byzantologist Sir Steven Runciman |url=https://www.impantokratoros.gr/B8BE43F5.en.aspx |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220106013529/https://www.impantokratoros.gr/B8BE43F5.en.aspx |archive-date=2022-01-06 |access-date=2017-04-10 |website=Pantokratoros Monastery |language=en |issue=4}} Later he came to be able to make use of sources in other languages as well: Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Hebrew, Syriac, Armenian and Georgian.{{Cite web |title=The library of Sir Steven Runciman |url=https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~itsnew/newsletter/2005/05/runciman.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170411060035/https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~itsnew/newsletter/2005/05/runciman.html |archive-date=2017-04-11 |publisher=University of St Andrews |language=en |format=text.article |accessdate=2017-04-10}} A King's Scholar at Eton College, he was an exact contemporary and close friend of George Orwell. While there, they both studied French under Aldous Huxley.{{citation needed|date=May 2023}}

In 1921 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as a history scholar and studied under J. B. Bury, becoming, as Runciman later said, falsely, "his first, and only, student". At first the reclusive Bury tried to brush him off; then, when Runciman mentioned that he could read Russian, Bury gave him a stack of Bulgarian articles to edit, and so their relationship began. His work on the Byzantine Empire earned him a fellowship at Trinity in 1927.

After receiving a large inheritance from his grandfather, Runciman resigned his fellowship in 1938 and began travelling widely. Thus, for much of his life he was an independent scholar, living on private means. He went on to be a press attaché 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 at Istanbul University, in Turkey, where he began the 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.

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.

Jonathan Riley-Smith, one of the leading historians of the Crusades of the subsequent generation,{{Cite book |last=Peters |first=Damien |url={{GBurl|3EorDwAAQBAJ|pg=PT66}} |title=The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2017 |isbn=9781351353106 |page=66 }} was told by Runciman during an on-camera interview that he [Runciman] considered himself "not a historian, but a writer of literature."{{sfn|Andrea| Holt|2015|p=xxii}}

According to Christopher Tyerman, Professor of the History of the Crusades at Hertford College, Oxford,{{Cite web |last=Hertford College, University of Oxford |title=Professor Christopher J. Tyerman |url=https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-christopher-j-tyerman?}} 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."{{sfn|Andrea|Holt|2015|p=xxiii}}

In his personal life, Runciman was an old-fashioned English eccentric{{explain|date=July 2024}}, known as an æsthete, 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".

A story from his time at Eton of an incident with a then-friend, Eric Blair, who later became famous writing as George Orwell, is told in Gordon Bowker's biography of Orwell: "Drawing from new correspondence with Steven Runciman, one of Orwell's friends at Eton (which he attended from 1917 to 1921), Bowker reveals the (perhaps surprising) fascination of Blair with the occult. A senior boy, Phillip Yorke, had attracted the disfavour of both Blair and Runciman so they planned a revenge. As Runciman recalled, they fashioned an image of Yorke from candle wax and broke off a leg. To their horror, shortly afterwards, Yorke not only broke his leg but in July died of leukaemia. The story of what happened soon spread and, in somewhat garbled form, became legend. Blair and Runciman suddenly found themselves regarded as distinctly odd, and to be treated warily".{{Cite book |last=Bowker |first=Gordon |url={{GBurl|Ij49NQAACAAJ|p=56}} |title=George Orwell |date=2004 |publisher=Little, Brown |isbn=978-0-349-11551-1 |page=56 |author-link=Gordon Bowker (writer) |language=en}}{{Cite web |last=Keeble |first=Richard Lance |date=2019-01-26 |title=Gordon Bowker |url=https://orwellsociety.com/gordon-bowker/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220303050128/https://orwellsociety.com/gordon-bowker/ |archive-date=2022-03-03 |publisher=The Orwell Society |language=en |accessdate=2022-03-03}}

Runciman was homosexual.{{Cite book |last=Dinshaw |first=Minoo |url={{GBurl|vh5WMQAACAAJ}} |title=Outlandish Knight: The Byzantine Life of Steven Runciman |date=2017 |publisher=Penguin Books, Limited |isbn=978-0-14-197947-2 |language=en}} There is little evidence of a long-term lover, but Runciman boasted of a number of casual sexual encounters, and told 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, partly perhaps because of religious feelings that homosexuality was "an inarguable offence against God". Runciman also felt that his sexuality had potentially held back his career. Max Mallowan related a conversation in which Runciman told him "that he felt his life had been a failure because of his gayness".{{Cite web |last=Malcolm |first=Noel |author-link=Noel Malcolm |date=2016-10-05 |title="I have the temperament of a harlot": on the life of Steven Runciman |url=https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/poetry/2016/10/i-have-temperament-harlot-life-steven-runciman |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220106013508/https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/poetry/2016/10/i-have-temperament-harlot-life-steven-runciman |archive-date=2022-01-06 |access-date=2019-02-07 |website=New Statesman |language=en}}

He died in Radway, Warwickshire, while visiting relatives, aged 97.{{Cite web |last=Pace |first=Eric |date=2000-11-03 |title=Sir Steven Runciman, 97, British Historian and Author |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/03/nyregion/sir-steven-runciman-97-british-historian-and-author.html |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220106013514/https://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/03/nyregion/sir-steven-runciman-97-british-historian-and-author.html |archive-date=2022-01-06 |access-date=2016-07-10 |website=The New York Times |language=en}} He never married.{{Cite web |last=Clive |first=Nigel |date=2000-11-02 |title=Obituary: Sir Steven Runciman, Historian whose magisterial works transformed our understanding of Byzantium, the medieval church and the crusades |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2000/nov/03/guardianobituaries.books |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220107035341/https://www.theguardian.com/news/2000/nov/03/guardianobituaries.books |archive-date=2022-01-07 |access-date=2014-09-11 |website=The Guardian |language=en}}

Edward Peters (2011) says Runciman's three-volume narrative history of the Crusades "instantly became the most widely known and respected single-author survey of the subject in English."{{Cite book |last=Peters |first=Edward |url={{GBurl|PSOSJWG3E2MC|pg=PA314}} |title=The First Crusade: "The Chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres" and Other Source Materials |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-0812204728 |page=314 |author-link=Edward Peters (scholar) }}

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."{{Cite book |last=Riddle |first=John M |url={{GBurl|rhWpPr93KjMC|pg=PA315}} |title=A History of the Middle Ages, 300–1500 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |year=2008 |isbn=9780742554092 |page=315 |author-link=John M. Riddle |language=en}}

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.{{Cite book |last=Madden |first=Thomas F |url={{GBurl|fKYxKsgVpmMC|pg=PA216}} |title=The New Concise History of the Crusades |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |year=2005 |isbn=9780742538221 |page=216 |author-link=Thomas F. Madden |language=en}}

Mark K. Vaughn (2007) says "Runciman's three-volume History of the Crusades remains the primary standard of comparison." However, Vaughn says that Tyerman "accurately, if perhaps with a bit of hubris, notes that Runciman's work is now outdated and seriously flawed."{{Cite journal |last=Vaughn |first=Mark K. |date=2007 |title=God's War: A New History of the Crusades |url=https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2015&context=nwc-review |url-status=live |journal=Naval War College Review |volume=60 |issue=2 |page=159 |issn=0028-1484 |jstor=26396832 |oclc=1779130 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200924141636/https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2015&context=nwc-review |archive-date=2020-09-24 |language=en}} 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."{{Cite web |last=Madden |first=Thomas F. |author-link=Thomas F. Madden |date=December 2006 |title=Fighting the Good Fight |url=https://www.firstthings.com/article/2006/12/fighting-the-good-fight |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201022182427/https://www.firstthings.com/article/2006/12/fighting-the-good-fight |archive-date=2020-10-22 |access-date=2022-03-03 |publisher=First Things |language=en}}

• Runciman was knighted in the 1958 New Year Honours List and appointed a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in 1984.{{London Gazette|issue=41268|date=1957-12-31|page=2|supp=y}}{{London Gazette|issue=49583|date=1983-12-30|page=19 |supp=y}} He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1957 and a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1965.{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Steven+Runciman&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=2022-10-05 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}
• Streets in Mystras, Greece, and Sofia, Bulgaria, were named in his honour.{{Cite news |date=2000-11-02 |title=Sir Steven Runciman: Obituary |work=The Daily Telegraph |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1372747/Sir-Steven-Runciman.html |url-status=live |url-access=subscription |access-date=2016-07-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220106013515/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1372747/Sir-Steven-Runciman.html |archive-date=2022-01-06 |language=en}}

File:SIR STEVEN RUNCIMAN STREET IN SOFIA.jpg, Bulgaria]]

Published works of Runciman include the following.{{Cite web |title=Steven Runciman (1903-2000) |url=https://data.bnf.fr/en/12176279/steven_runciman/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220124122405/https://data.bnf.fr/en/12176279/steven_runciman/ |archive-date=2022-01-24 |access-date=2022-03-03 |website=Bibliothèque nationale de France |language=en}}

• {{Google books|id=Uw_TAAAAMAAJ|title=The Emperor Romanus Lecapenus and His Reign: A Study of Tenth-Century Byzantium}} (1929)
• {{Google books|id=Y-NBAAAAYAAJ|title=A History of the First Bulgarian Empire}} (1930)
• {{Google books|id=MUEbAAAAYAAJ|title=Byzantine Civilization}} (1933)
• {{Google books|id=ZqIIAQAAIAAJ|title=The Medieval Manichee: A Study of the Christian Dualist Heresy}} (1947)
• {{Google books|id=qkV71_6H8UIC|title=A History of the Crusades, Volume One: The First Crusade and the Foundation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem}} (1951)
• {{Google books|id=QL88AAAAIAAJ|title=A History of the Crusades, Volume Two: The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East, 1100-1187}} (1952)
• {{Google books|id=mrw8AAAAIAAJ|title=A History of the Crusades, Volume Three: The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades}} (1954)
• {{Google books|id=8NUNAQAAIAAJ|title=The Eastern Schism: A Study of the Papacy and the Eastern Churches during the XIth and XIIth Centuries}} (1955)
• {{Google books|id=ExJBAAAAYAAJ|title=The Sicilian Vespers: A History of the Mediterranean World in the Later Thirteenth Century}} (1958)
• {{Google books|id=cWEeAAAAMAAJ|title=The White Rajahs: A History of Sarawak from 1841 to 1946}} (1960)
• {{Google books|id=BAzntP0lg58C|title=The Fall of Constantinople 1453}} (1965)
• {{Google books|id=Vm5OGIBgoHMC|title=The Great Church in Captivity: A Study of the Patriarchate of Constantinople from the Eve of the Turkish Conquest to the Greek War of Independence}} (1968)
• {{Google books|id=k_wNAQAAMAAJ|title=The Last Byzantine Renaissance}} (1970) {{isbn|9780521097109}}
• The Orthodox Churches and the Secular State (1971) {{isbn|9780196476131}}
• {{Cite book |last=Runciman |first=Steven |url=https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/collection/ConspectusH/id/140 |title=Focus on biography |date=1974 |publisher=Ball State University |editor-last=Hoover |editor-first=Dwight W. |series=Conspectus of history |volume=1/#1 |location=Muncie, Indiana |pages=1–11 |chapter=The Empress Irene |author-mask=4 |access-date=2022-03-03 |editor-last2=Koumoulides |editor-first2=John T. A. |chapter-url=https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/collection/ConspectusH/id/380 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210506152909/https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/collection/ConspectusH/id/380 |archive-date=2021-05-06 |url-status=live |language=en}}
• {{Google books|id=CXoFAAAAMAAJ|title=Byzantine Style and Civilization}} (1975) {{isbn|9780140137545}}
• {{Cite book |last=Runciman |first=Steven |url=https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/collection/ConspectusH/id/411 |title=Cities in history |date=1977 |publisher=Ball State University |editor-last=Hoover |editor-first=Dwight W. |series=Conspectus of history |volume=1/#4 |location=Muncie, Indiana |pages=1–12 |chapter=Balkan Cities{{thinspace|{{mdash}}}}Yesterday and Today |author-mask=4 |access-date=2022-03-03 |editor-last2=Koumoulides |editor-first2=John T. A. |chapter-url=https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/collection/ConspectusH/id/1499 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210514131211/https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/collection/ConspectusH/id/1499 |archive-date=2021-05-14 |url-status=live |language=en}}
• {{Google books|id=7TVSAQAAIAAJ|title=The Byzantine Theocracy: The Weil Lectures, Cincinnati}} (1977) {{isbn|9780521545914}}
• {{Google books|id=IR-3jgEACAAJ|title=Mistra: Byzantine Capital of the Peloponnese}} (1980) {{isbn|9780500250716}}
• {{Google books|id=Z_sWBOzEleMC|title=The First Crusade}} (1980) {{isbn|9780521232555}}
• {{Google books|id=gnxyAQAACAAJ|title=A Traveller's Alphabet: Partial Memoirs}} (1991) {{isbn|9780500015049}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{Cite book |last1=Andrea |first1=Alfred J. |url={{GBurl|UECFCgAAQBAJ}} |title=Seven Myths of the Crusades |last2=Holt |first2=Andrew |publisher=Hackett Publishing Company |year=2015 |isbn=978-1624664038 |location=Indianapolis |language=en}}
• {{Cite book |last=Dinshaw |first=Minoo |title=Outlandish Knight: The Byzantine Life of Steven Runciman |publisher=Allen Lane |year=2016 |isbn=978-0-24100493-7 |location=London }}
• {{Cite AV media |title=Sir Steven Runciman: Bridge to the East |date=1987 |last=Carras, Lydia (Director) |type=DVD |publisher=Amaranthas Films : Distributed in North America by GOTelecom |place=London |oclc=701719496 |publication-date=2010 |lang=en}}
• {{IMDb title|1008041|Sir Steven Runciman: Bridge to the East}}
• {{Cite web |title=Alan Bates Television Archive: "Bridge to the East" |url=http://alanbates.com/abarchive/tv/bridge.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070614114137/http://alanbates.com/abarchive/tv/bridge.html |archive-date=2007-06-14 |access-date=2022-03-03 |language=en}}
• {{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiCpeFm5IU8 |title=Minoo Dinshaw @ 5x15 – Outlandish Knight |date=2016-12-14 |via=YouTube |access-date=2022-03-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220303075125/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiCpeFm5IU8 |archive-date=2022-03-03 |url-status=live |lang=en}}

{{Wikiquote}}

• {{Cite web |last=Runciman |first=Steven |title=Greece and the later crusades |url=http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/runciman_crusades.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220106013516/http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/runciman_crusades.html |archive-date=2022-01-06 |access-date=2022-03-03 |website=Myriobiblos Library |language=en}}
• {{NPG name}}
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Runciman, Steven}}

Category:1903 births

Category:2000 deaths

Category:20th-century English historians

Category:20th-century English male writers

Category:20th-century British LGBTQ people

Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge

Category:British Byzantinists

Category:British medievalists

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Category:English people of Scottish descent

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Category:Historians of the Crusades

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Category:Independent scholars

Category:Knights Bachelor

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Category:People educated at Eton College

Category:Writers from Northumberland

Steven Runciman

Category:Younger sons of viscounts

Category:Historians of Byzantine art

Category:Scholars of Byzantine history

Category:Members of the American Philosophical Society

Category:Historians of medieval Greece

Category:Scholars of Manichaeism