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William Miller | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1864-12-08)8 December 1864 |
| Died | 23 October 1945(1945-10-23) (aged 80) |
| Occupation | Medievalist |
William Miller,FBA (8 December 1864 – 23 October 1945) was a British-bornmedievalist and journalist.
The son of aCumberland mine owner, Miller was educated atRugby School andHertford College, Oxford, where he gained a double first, and wascalled to the bar in 1889, but never practised law.[1] He married Ada Mary Wright in 1895,[1] and in 1896 publishedThe Balkans, followed in 1898 byTravels and Politics in the Near East.[2]
In 1903 he and his wife left England forItaly, and despite an effort byRonald Burrows to recruit Miller as the first incumbent of the Chair ofModern Greek andByzantine History, Language, and Literature atLondon University, he and his wife spent the rest of their lives abroad. They lived inRome (atVia Palestro 36) until 1923, when Miller foundBenito Mussolini'srise to power distasteful, and they moved toAthens.[1] There he was associated with theBritish School at Athens until theGerman invasion of Greece in 1941. During his time in Rome and Athens, Miller also served as correspondent of theMorning Post.[2]
Together the couple lived in the Ocean View Hotel inDurban,South Africa, for the rest of their lives. Miller died there in 1945, while Ada Mary surviving him by five years. They had no children.[1]
Miller was afellow of the British Academy and foreigncorresponding member ofAcademy of Athens.[2]
Miller was particularly interested in theFrankish period of Greek history, covering theCrusader principalities established on Greek soil following theFourth Crusade. He was among the most eminent scholars of the field in the early 20th century, and produced a number of "landmark" studies.[3]
Although his work displays a "romantic view of the Crusades and the Frankish expansion into the Eastern Mediterranean" typical of 19th-century Western trends on the subject,[4] and is considered "clearly outdated" given the research produced in recent decades, it has had a major influence and remains widely used to this day.[5] Particularly the 1908The Latins in the Levant has "remained for decades the standard English-language narrative account of the period",[3] and is "still the main reference for undergraduates in search of information on medieval Greece".[5] Its influence has also been felt in Greece, where already in 1909–1910 the Greek scholarSpyridon Lambros issued an expanded Greek translation of the work.[5]
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