Sir Steven Runciman (Sir James Cochran Stevenson Runciman) Biography

British historian, born in Northumberland, educated at Eton and at Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he was a fellow between 1927 and 1938. He subsequently held a succession of senior academic posts in Europe and America and was President of the British Institute of Archaeology in Ankara from 1960 to 1975. His earlier publications include The Emperor Romanus Lecapenus (1929) and The First Bulgarian Empire (1930). The Eastern Schism (1955), The Fall of Constantinople (1965), The Last Byzantine Renaissance (1970), and Mistra: Byzantine Capital of the Peloponnese (1980) are among the works which established his reputation as a foremost authority on Byzantine civilization. A Traveller's Alphabet (1991) contains Runciman's informative and entertaining autobiographical recollections of the wide range of countries and cultures he has experienced. His other works include the highly regarded A History of the Crusades (3 volumes, 1951–4). He was knighted in 1958.