R. W. Southern
R. W. Southern was a prominent medieval historian born on February 8, 1912, in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. He was educated at the Royal Grammar School and later earned an M.A. in history from Balliol College, Oxford University, in 1936. Southern's academic career included roles as a research fellow and don at Balliol, followed by his appointment as the Chichele Professor of Modern History at All Souls College. He served in the British Army during World War II, reaching the rank of major, and married Sheila Cobley in 1944, with whom he had two sons. Renowned for his influential publications, Southern authored significant works such as *The Making of the Middle Ages* and contributed to scholarship on medieval philosophy and the Western medieval views of Islam. He was knighted in 1974 and received honorary doctorates from several universities. Southern retired in 1981 and passed away in 2001, shortly before his eighty-ninth birthday. His legacy continues through collections of his works, including *History and Historians: Selected Papers of R. W. Southern*, which showcases his contributions to the field of medieval history.
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R. W. Southern
- Born: February 8, 1912
- Birthplace: Newcastle upon Tyne, England
- Died: February 6, 2001
- Place of death: Oxford, England
Biography
R. W. Southern, a distinguished medieval historian, was born on February 8, 1912, in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, the second son of Matthew Henry Southern and Eleanor Sharp Southern. His father, a timber shipping depot foreman who later became a merchant, provided Southern with a good education at the Royal Grammar School in Newcastle, and Southern went on to receive an M.A. in history in 1936 from Balliol College, Oxford University.
Southern was a research fellow at Exeter College from 1933 until 1937, and a don at Balliol from 1937 until 1961. Her served in the army during World War II, attaining the rank of major. During his time at Balliol, on June 2, 1944, Southern married Sheila Cobley, with whom he subsequently had two sons, Andrew and Peter. From 1961 until 1969, Southern was the Chichele Professor of Modern History at All Souls College, and in 1969 he became president of and took up residence at St. John’s College in Oxford. He was awarded doctor of letters degrees from the Universities of Glasgow, Durham, and Cambridge and was knighted in 1974; he also was a fellow of the British Academy.
Throughout his academic career, Southern published important and influential works in the area of medieval history, establishing his reputation with The Making of the Middle Ages (1953) and The Shape and Substance of Academic History (1961). He wrote on Western medieval views of Islam as well as books on the medieval philosophers Saint Anselm and Robert Grosseteste. He also edited the Royal Historical Society’s book Essays in Medieval History: Selected from the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society on the Occasion of Its Centenary (1968). In 1970, he published two works, Medieval Humanism, and Other Studies and Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages.
Southern retired from his presidential duties at St. John’s College in 1981, and he died at Oxford in 2001, two days before his eighty-ninth birthday. In 2004, the collection History and Historians: Selected Papers of R. W. Southern appeared. The collection, edited by Richard J. Bartlett, includes papers that Southern presented when he was president of the Royal Historical Society from 1968 until 1972 as well as lectures Southern delivered during his teaching career. In the book’s introduction, Bartlett wrote that Southern was “widely regarded as one of the greatest medieval historians.”