Age, Biography and Wiki

Steven Runciman (James Cochran Stevenson Runciman) was born on 7 July, 1903 in Northumberland, England, is a British historian of the Middle Ages (1903–2000). Discover Steven Runciman's Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. Learn How rich is he in this year and how he spends money? Also learn how he earned most of networth at the age of 97 years old?

Popular As James Cochran Stevenson Runciman
Occupation Historian
Age 97 years old
Zodiac Sign Cancer
Born 7 July 1903
Birthday 7 July
Birthplace Northumberland, England
Date of death 1 November, 2000
Died Place Radway, Warwickshire, England
Nationality United Kingdom

We recommend you to check the complete list of Famous People born on 7 July. He is a member of famous Miscellaneous with the age 97 years old group.

Steven Runciman Height, Weight & Measurements

At 97 years old, Steven Runciman height not available right now. We will update Steven Runciman's Height, weight, Body Measurements, Eye Color, Hair Color, Shoe & Dress size soon as possible.

Physical Status
Height Not Available
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Dating & Relationship status

He is currently single. He is not dating anyone. We don't have much information about He's past relationship and any previous engaged. According to our Database, He has no children.

Family
Parents Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford Hilda Stevenson
Wife Not Available
Sibling Not Available
Children Not Available

Steven Runciman Net Worth

His net worth has been growing significantly in 2023-2024. So, how much is Steven Runciman worth at the age of 97 years old? Steven Runciman’s income source is mostly from being a successful Miscellaneous. He is from United Kingdom. We have estimated Steven Runciman's net worth, money, salary, income, and assets.

Net Worth in 2024 $1 Million - $5 Million
Salary in 2024 Under Review
Net Worth in 2023 Pending
Salary in 2023 Under Review
House Not Available
Cars Not Available
Source of Income Miscellaneous

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Timeline

1903

Sir James Cochran Stevenson Runciman (1903-07-07 – 2000-11-01), known as Steven Runciman, was an English historian best known for his three-volume A History of the Crusades (1951–54).

His works had a profound impact on the popular conception of the Crusades.

Born in Northumberland, he was the second son of Walter and Hilda Runciman.

His parents were members of the Liberal Party and the first married couple to sit simultaneously in Parliament.

1917

"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".

Runciman was homosexual.

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".

He died in Radway, Warwickshire, while visiting relatives, aged 97.

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.

1921

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.

1927

His work on the Byzantine Empire earned him a fellowship at Trinity in 1927.

1937

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.

He said that he started reading Greek by the age of seven or eight.

Later he came to be able to make use of sources in other languages as well: Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Hebrew, Syriac, Armenian and Georgian.

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.

1938

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.

1940

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.

1942

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).

1945

From 1945 to 1947 he was a representative in Athens of the British Council.

1960

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, denounced Runciman for his perspective on the Crusades.

Riley-Smith had been told by Runciman during an on-camera interview that he [Runciman] considered himself "not a historian, but a writer of literature."

According to Christopher Tyerman, Professor of the History of the Crusades at Hertford College, Oxford, 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."

In his personal life, Runciman was an old-fashioned English eccentric, known, among other things, 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:

2005

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

2008

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."

2011

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."