Dr Jonathan Harris

Contact Details

Department of History
Royal Holloway, University of London
Egham, Surrey
TW20 0EX, UK.

Email: jonathan.harris@rhul.ac.uk

Background

When and where did you initially develop an interest in the history of the crusades and/or the Latin East?

By way of an interest in Byzantine history.

Who or what sparked your enthusiasm for the subject?

A lecture given by Donald Nicol in Senate House, University of London in October 1979.

Education

Please provide details of your Higher Education, including dates, institution(s) and the name(s) of your research supervisors.

  • 1987-92: Royal Holloway, University of London (Supervisor: J Chrysostomides)
  • 1979-82: King's College, University of London

Career History

Please provide details of your academic career history, including confirmation of your current institutional affiliation and contact details.

  • 2007 - : Reader in Byzantine History, Royal Holloway, University of London (current)
  • 2004 - 7 : Senior Lecturer in Byzantine History, Royal Holloway, University of London
  • 1999 - 2004 : Lecturer in Byzantine History, Royal Holloway, University of London
  • 2001 - 2 : Visiting Lecturer, King's College London
  • 1996 : Visiting Lecturer, Goldsmiths' College, University of London
  • 1993 - 9 : Research Fellow, University College London.

Influences and Methodologies

What ideas and/or methodologies have informed your approach to your research?

The importance of the Byzantine empire as an element in Crusade history.

Research Outlook

What do you consider to be the most important avenues for future research in the field of crusader studies?

An investigation of the period after 1453 up to 1683 and beyond.

Research Output

Please provide details of your research output, including publications and other media as appropriate.

1. Books:

  • Constantinople: Capital of Byzantium (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2007)
  • (Editor) Palgrave Advances: Byzantine History (Basingstoke: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2005). Reviewed in Anglo-Hellenic Review 33 (2006), 23-4 and Journal of Hellenic Studies, 126 (2006), 217
  • Byzantium and the Crusades (London: Hambledon and London, 2003) – translated into Greek and Polish
  • (Editor with Charalambos Dendrinos, Eirene Harvalia-Crook and Judith Herrin) Porphyrogenita: Essays on the History and Literature of Byzantium and the Latin East in Honour of Julian Chrysostomides (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003).
  • Greek Émigrés in the West, 1400-1520 (Camberley: Porphyrogenitus, 1995).

2. Articles in Books:

  • (with Dmitri Tolstoy), ‘Alexander III and Byzantium’, in Alexander III, ed Peter Clarke and Anne Duggan (Aldershot: Ashgate, in progress)
  • 'Collusion with the infidel as a pretext for military action against Byzantium', in Clash of Cultures: the Languages of Love and Hate, ed Sarah Lambert and Liz James (Turnhout: Brepols, forthcoming)
  • 'More Malmsey, your grace? The export of Greek wine to England in the Later Middle Ages', in Eat, Drink and be Merry (Luke 12:19) - Food and Wine in Byzantium: Papers of the 37th Annual Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, in Honour of Professor AAM Bryer, ed Leslie Brubaker and Kallirroe Linardou (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007)
  • 'Cardinal Bessarion and the ideal state', in Der Beitrag der byzantinischen Gelehrten zur abendländischen Renaissance des 14 und 15 Jahrhunderts, ed Evangelos Konstantinou, Philhellenische Studien 12 (Frankfurt aM Main: Peter Lang, 2006), pp 91-7
  • 'Greek sources', 'Manuel II', 'John V', 'Bessarion', 'Paul II', and 'Innocent VIII', in Encyclopedia of the Crusades, ed Alan Murray, 4 vols (Santa Barbara: ABC Clio, 2006).
  • 'Introduction', in A Chronology of the Byzantine Empire, ed Timothy Venning (Basingstoke: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2006), pp xiii-xxv
  • 'Political History, 1204-1453', in Palgrave Advances: Byzantine History, ed Jonathan Harris (Basingstoke: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2005), pp 58-67
  • ‘The Last Crusades: The Ottoman Threat’, in Crusades: The Illustrated History, ed Thomas F Madden (London: Duncan Baird, 2004), pp 172-99
  • 'The influence of Plethon's idea of fate on the historian Laonikos Chalkokondyles', in Proceedings of the International Congress on Plethon and his Time, Mystras, 26-29 June 2002, ed LG Benakis and Ch P Baloglou (Athens: Society for Peloponnesian and Byzantine Studies, 2004), pp 211-17
  • 'Edward II, Andronicus II, and Giles d'Argenteim: an unnoticed episode in Anglo-Byzantine relations' in Porphyrogenita: Essays on the History and Literature of Byzantium and the Latin East in Honour of Julian Chrysostomides, ed Charalambos Dendrinos, Jonathan Harris, Eirene Harvalia-Crook and Judith Herrin (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), pp 77-84
  • 'Greek scribes in England: the evidence of episcopal registers', in Through the Looking Glass: Byzantium through British Eyes, ed Robin Cormack and Elizabeth Jeffreys, Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies, Publications 7 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), pp 121-6
  • 'John Argyropoulos', 'Bessarion', 'Byzantine archives', 'Manuel Chrysoloras', 'Theodore Gaza', 'George of Trebizond', 'George Gemistos Plethon', 'Theophanes of Crete', and 'Domenikos Theotokopoulos (El Greco)', in Encyclopedia of Greece and the Hellenic Tradition, ed Graham Speake (London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000)

3. Articles in Journals:

  • ‘Another Country: Istanbul’, History Today 57.5 (May 2007), 10-11
  • 'Plato, Byzantium and the Italian Renaissance' in Scottish Association of Teachers of History: History Teaching Review Year Book 19 (2005), 11-16
  • ‘Laonikos Chalkokondyles and the rise of the Ottoman Empire’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 27 (2003), 153-70
  • ‘Looking back on 1204: Nicetas Choniates in Nicaea’, Mesogeios/Méditerranée. Histoire, Peuples, Langues, Cultures 12 (2001), 117-24
  • 'Distortion, divine providence and genre in Nicetas Choniates's account of the collapse of Byzantium, 1180-1204', Journal of Medieval History 26 (2000), 19-31
  • 'Demetrius Leontaris: Constantinople to Otranto', The Patristic and Byzantine Review 18-19 (2000), 27-40
  • ‘Being a Byzantine after Byzantium: Hellenic Identity in Renaissance Italy’, Kambos:  Cambridge Papers in Modern Greek 8 (2000), 25-44
  • 'Publicising the Crusade: English bishops and the Jubilee Indulgence of 1455', Journal of Ecclesiastical History 50 (1999), 23-37
  • 'Wars and rumours of wars: England and the Byzantine world in the eighth and ninth centuries', Mediterranean Historical Review 14 (1999), 29-46
  • 'Byzantine medicine and medical practitioners in the West: the case of Michael Dishypatos', Revue des Études Byzantines 54 (1996), 201-20
  • 'A worthless prince? Andreas Palaeologus in Rome, 1465-1502', Orientalia Christiana Periodica 61 (1995), 537-54
  • 'Two Byzantine craftsmen in fifteenth century London', Journal of Medieval History 21 (1995), 387-403
  • 'Bessarion on shipbuilding: a re-interpretation', Byzantinoslavica 55 (1994), 291-303

 

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