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Wednesday, October 8th, 2003 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caddymanI don't suppose it's often that an LJ entry is made to mark the passing of an academic, but having just read his obituary in The Times, I thought it appropriate to note the death, aged 80, of Professor Donald Nichol on September 25.
Once my interest in Byzantine history had been sparked by reading John Julius Norwich's Short History of Byzantium, I started casting around for more information on the subject, and by way of Steven Runciman and Georg Ostragorski - both eminent, but relatively dry writers, I found my way to Professor Nichol. Whereas Runciman concentrated on the early centuries, of Byzantium, Nichol was fascinated by the centuries of decline, and between them he and Runciman did much to rescue a fascinating and intriguing period in history from the academic dungeon in which it had been left by the ever-critical Gibbon in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. From his 18th Century viewpoint, Gibbon regarded the ten centuries of Byzantium as a sad and degenerate postscript to the glory that was Rome.
Such was his influence, that historians such as Nichol had something of a Sisyphean task in rehabilitating the subject and period. That it has been is surely a testament to the man's work.
And it seems we shared a birthday as well as an interest.
Once my interest in Byzantine history had been sparked by reading John Julius Norwich's Short History of Byzantium, I started casting around for more information on the subject, and by way of Steven Runciman and Georg Ostragorski - both eminent, but relatively dry writers, I found my way to Professor Nichol. Whereas Runciman concentrated on the early centuries, of Byzantium, Nichol was fascinated by the centuries of decline, and between them he and Runciman did much to rescue a fascinating and intriguing period in history from the academic dungeon in which it had been left by the ever-critical Gibbon in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. From his 18th Century viewpoint, Gibbon regarded the ten centuries of Byzantium as a sad and degenerate postscript to the glory that was Rome.
Such was his influence, that historians such as Nichol had something of a Sisyphean task in rehabilitating the subject and period. That it has been is surely a testament to the man's work.
And it seems we shared a birthday as well as an interest.
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Date: 2003-10-08 07:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-08 08:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-08 08:46 am (UTC)