A distinguished scholar of Byzantine history, Mark Whittow always believed that past events had to be studied as much through landscapes and physical objects as through texts — of which few survived — at his desk. And so it was that he found himself in Sicily measuring the outside of a castle built on a “good defensive site”, or in other words hundreds of feet above a perilous drop.
He fell, turned a couple of somersaults, but was halted by a ledge. It was a near thing. Suffering from shock, Whittow took to his bed for 24 hours and was woken only when fire suddenly surrounded the isolated farmhouse in which he was staying. With typical gusto, he was soon pouring buckets of water on the flames as it was a case of all hands — literally — to the pump.
Around Oxford he was an instantly recognisable figure: always in a suit — usually tweed, often in a bow tie, usually with a hat. He seemed like a character from an older, more distant world, which included his role as senior member of the student Conservative Association. At his installation as proctor, he insisted on using the real fur hood, rather than the synthetic version preferred by most, on the grounds that it was the only time he was likely to be asked to wear ermine.
Despite giving the appearance of a Bertie Wooster, it was agreed that he possessed all the pragmatism of a Jeeves, usually able to secure funding or extract a new post as lecturer. With his sharp mind — every apparently diverging line of thought led to a pithy conclusion — he was also a passionate advocate of the most avant-garde historical ideas, especially global history.
In his efforts to uncover the reach of the Byzantines, he roved across continents and centuries and was dubbed the “global medievalist”. In one conversation he might have covered subjects from the Romans and Arabs before the rise of Islam, to the influence of mothers in China, or local, regional and long-distance trade in the medieval economy. The French writer Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie once divided historians into truffle hunters and parachutists. Truffle hunters dig around for buried treasure, often ignoring the wider picture; parachutists view the whole landscape from a great height. Colleagues agreed that Whittow was both — able to survey the Middle Ages in one sweep or use an ancient silver coin or picture to illuminate his points.
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In 1996 he wrote The Making of Orthodox Byzantium 600-1025, which argued that the Byzantine empire, spanning territories from Armenia to southern Italy, was a multi-ethnic power rather than a continuation of Roman empire. His favourite cry was: “And have you read . . .”
In the 1990s he ran digs across Jordan and Turkey, where he spent almost six years surveying castles. On one Turkish dig he was visited by an official deputation convinced that he had dug up a golden phallus. Needless to say, it was nonsense. Once the officials had searched the dig house and seen the extraordinary care the team was taking over a few unglazed potsherds, good relations were restored.
A fierce promoter of younger scholars, he had a habit of writing to junior academics abroad — usually unknown to him personally — to commend them on their first book, much to their amazement. His theatrical abilities as a lecturer were infamous. “Where most can only give shy am-dram, with Mark you had the full RSC,” one colleague said. His quirky turns of phrase — “Whittowisms” — were collected by his students. “St Fluffwater the Obscure” was used for many a lesser-known saint, while he often dated committee minutes with “the Feast day of St Ambrosius” or similar — the more obscure the better.
Mark Whittow was born in 1957 in Cambridge to John Whittow, an accountant, and his wife, Joan. He went to King’s College School until his father died when he was ten and thereafter on a scholarship to Lord Wandsworth College in Hampshire. After reading history at Trinity College, Oxford, he taught himself Greek and did a PhD in Byzantine history. Posts as a lecturer followed at Oxford and King’s College, London; most recently he was college lecturer in medieval history at St John’s College, Oxford. He was senior proctor of the university in 2016-17, which he handled with skill, despite his outspoken tastes and opinions. He had been elected to take the post of provost of Oriel in September.
He met his wife, Helen — later a barrister and deputy high court judge — when she was finishing a degree in oriental languages at Oxford in 1982. They travelled frequently together. On one occasion Whittow, who had a very good head for heights, persuaded Helen, who did not, to climb up to another ruined castle in Turkey. The sandstone outcrop on which it was built was so eroded that they had to climb the cliff next door and cross a saddle no more than a foot wide. Whittow pranced across like a mountain goat, but Helen had to sit with legs dangling over a 200ft drop each side and wriggle over. When she collapsed into a bush on the far side, she thought she was hallucinating and could smell gin. It took a moment to realise that she was sitting in a juniper bush.
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The pair were married at St Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield, London, in 1987 and had three children: George, Mary and Flossy. One is still at school and the other two have just graduated.
An excellent cook, bon viveur and lover of good conversation — elements he believed were essential to a good undergraduate education — he gave legendary drinks parties in college and at his house in Holywell Street. But they were famous not because of the drinks or grilled mackerel, but because he had the capacity to bring together the most unlikely people: the least distinguished undergraduates mixing with the most remarkable scholars; Trotskyites discussing history with the highest of High Tories; and visitors from all of the world speaking every manner of language.
In between he published innumerable articles and monographs. He was working on his next two books when he died. However, his ideas had been well disseminated through his teaching. It was said that over the years many students chose courses explicitly because Whittow taught them. His tutorials, accompanied by strong coffee (never Nescafé), hot milk, sticky iced buns and, occasionally, snuff — were always, in his words, “a hoot”.
Mark Whittow, historian, was born on August 24, 1957. He died in a road accident on December 23, 2017, aged 60