Professor John H Pryor

Contact Details

Centre for Medieval Studies
University of Sydney
John Wolley Building A20
Sydney, New South Wales 2006
Australia

Background

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

Who or what sparked your enthusiasm for the subject?

Interest in the Crusades and the Latin East originally sparked by teaching a course on the Crusades and having a long-standing interest in seafaring, leading to studies of Crusader transport ships and the transportation of horses by sea.

Education

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

University of Adelaide, 1965-68, First Class Honours in History, 1968.

Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, 1969-73, PhD 1973: Thesis Topic: The Commenda contract in Mediterranean maritime commerce during the thirteenth century: a study based on Marseilles. Supervisor: Andrew Watson.

Career History

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

  • Lecturer, University of Sydney, Department of History: 1974-79.
  • Senior Lecturer, University of Sydney, Department of History: 1980-1988.
  • 1984 (January - July): Visiting Fellow, the Institute for Advanced Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
  • Associate Professor, University of Sydney, Department of History: 1988-96
  • Associate Professor, University of Sydney, Department of History and Centre for Medieval Studies: 1996-2007
  • Retired 2007
  • Associate Professor part time, University of Sydney, Centre for Medieval Studies: 2008-2010

Influences and Methodologies

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

None.  Annalisme if anything.

Research Outlook

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

In my opinion, over the next generation the most important advances in Crusade Studies and related fields will be made in the field of what may be loosely called ‘logistics’; that is, the study of HOW the human endeavour associated with the Crusades and related military and other activities (maritime commerce, travel, etc ) was achieved or not achieved.

Research Output

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

(relating to Crusade Studies and Maritime History only)

    (a)      Books

  1. Business contracts of medieval Provence: selected notulae from the cartulary of Giraud Amalric of Marseilles, 1248 (Toronto, Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1981).
  2. Commerce, shipping, and naval warfare in the medieval Mediterranean (London, Variorum, 1987) [Collected studies]
  3. Geography, technology and war: studies in the maritime history of the Mediterranean, 649-1571 (Cambridge, CUP, 1988). Reprinted in paperback (Cambridge, 1992). Turkish translation: Akdeniz’de Cog!rafya, Teknoloji ve Savasc: Arapalar, Bizanslilar, Batililar ve Türkler, trans F and T Tayanç (Istanbul, 2004).
  4. Logistics of warfare in the age of the Crusades: Proceedings of a Workshop held at the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Sydney, 30 September to 4 October 2002, ed John H Pryor [with two chapters: “Introduction: modelling Bohemond’s march to Thessalonike2” (pp 1-24), “Digest” (pp 275-92)] (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2006).
  5. The age of the ΔΡΟΜΩΝ: the Byzantine Navy ca 500-1204, with Elizabeth M Jeffreys (Leiden, Brill, 2006), pp lxxvii, 754.

    (b)      Chapters in Books
  6. “The voyage of Jacques de Vitry from Genoa to Acre, 1216: juridical and economic problems in medieval navigation”, in MJ Pelaez, ed, Derecho de la navegación en Europa. Homenaje a F Valls i Taberner (Barcelona, 1987), 1689-1714.
  7. “Winds, waves, and rocks: the routes and the perils along them”, in K Friedland ed, Maritime aspects of migration, (Cologne, 1989), 71-85.
  8. “The Eracles and William of Tyre: an interim report”, in BZ Kedar, ed, The Horns of H4at6t6ı3n (Jerusalem and London, 1992), 270-93.
  9. Theodericus (Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio medievalis, 139) (Turnhout, 1994), 32-57.
  10. “The Mediterranean Round Ship”, in RW Unger, ed, Cogs, caravels and galleons: the sailing ship 1000-1650 (London, 1994), 59-76.
  11. “From dromon to galea: Mediterranean bireme galleys AD 500-1300”, in J Morrison, ed, The age of the galley: Mediterranean oared vessels since pre-classical times (London, 1995), 101-116.
  12. “The geographical conditions of galley navigation in the Mediterranean”, in J Morrison, ed, The age of the galley: Mediterranean oared vessels since pre-classical times (London, 1995), 206-216.
  13. “At sea on the maritime frontiers of the Mediterranean in the High Middle Ages: the human perspective”, in L Balletto, ed, Oriente e Occidente tra medioevo ed età moderna: studi in onore di Geo Pistarino (Acqui Terme, 1997), 1005-34.
  14. “The problem of Byzantium and the Mediterranean world, c 1050-c 1400”, in BZ Kedar, et al, eds, Montjoie: studies in Crusade history in honour of Hans Eberhard Mayer (Aldershot, 1997), 199-212.
  15. “The unedited commercial charters of the Manduel family of Marseilles, 1191-1251”, in J Brown and WP Stoneman, eds, A distinct voice: medieval studies in honor of Leonard E Boyle, OP (Notre Dame, 1997), 505-24.
  16. “The maritime republics”, in D Abulafia, ed, The new Cambridge medieval history. Volume V c 1198-1300 (Cambridge, 1999), 419-46.
  17. “Water, water everywhere, Nor any drop to drink”: Water supplies for the fleets of the First Crusade”, in M Balard, et al, eds, Dei gesta perFrancos: Etudes sur les croisades dédiées à Jean Richard/Crusade studies in honour of Jean Richard (Aldershot, 2001), 21-8.
  18. “Types of ships and their performance capabilities”, in R Macrides, ed, Travel in the Byzantine world: papers from the Thirty-fourth Spring Symposium of Byzantine studies, Birmingham, April 2000 (Aldershot, 2002), 33-58.
  19. “The Venetian fleet for the Fourth Crusade and the diversion of the Crusade to Constantinople”, in M Bull and N Housley, eds, The experience of Crusading. Volume One: Western approaches (Cambridge, 2003), 103-23.
  20. “Byzantium and the sea: Byzantine fleets and the history of the Empire in the age of the Macedonian emperors, c 900-1025 CE”, in JB Hattendorf and RW Unger, eds, War at sea in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Woodbridge, 2003), 83-104.
  21. “The Mediterranean breaks up: 500-1000”, in D Abulafia, ed, The Mediterranean in History (London, 2003), 155-81.
  22. “The Stadiodromikōn of the De Cerimoniis of Constantine VII, Byzantine warships, and the Cretan expedition of 949”, in J. Chrysostomides, et al, eds, The Greek islands and the sea (London, 2004), 77-108.
  23. “Marco Polo’s return voyage from China: its implications for ‘The Marco Polo debate’”, in Travel and Travellers from Bede to Dampier, ed Geraldine Barnes with Gabrielle Singleton (Newcastle, Cambridge Scholars Press, 2005), 125-157.
  24. “Naval history, 1096-1099”, “Naval history, 1100-1249”, “Ships”, in Alan V Murray, ed, The encyclopedia of the Crusades, 4 vols (Santa Barbara, 2006), vol III, 864-76; vol III, 1096-1103.
  25. “The Chain of the Golden Horn, 5-7 July 1203”, in In laudem Hierosolymitani:

    (c)      Articles
  26. “The origins of the Commenda contract”, Speculum, 52 (1977), 5-37.
  27. “Transportation of horses by sea during the era of the Crusades: eighth century to 1285 AD”, Mariner’s Mirror, 68 (1982), 9-27 and 103-25.
  28. “Mediterranean commerce in the Middle Ages: a voyage under contract of Commenda”, Viator, 14 (1983), 133-94.
  29. “The naval battles of Roger of Lauria”, Journal of Medieval History, 9 (1983), 179-216.
  30. “The naval architecture of Crusader transport ships: a reconstruction of some archetypes for round-hulled sailing ships”, Mariner’s Mirror, 70 (1984), 171-219, 275-92, and 363-86.
  31. “The oaths of the leaders of the First Crusade to emperor Alexius I Comnenus: fealty, homage - pivstis, douleiva”, Parergon, new series, 2 (1984), 111-141.
  32. “Commenda: the operation of the contract in long-distance commerce at Marseilles during the thirteenth century”, Journal of European economic history, 13 (1984), 397-440.
  33. “In subsidium Terrae Sanctae : exports of foodstuffs and war materials from the Kingdom of Sicily to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1265-1284”, Asian and African Studies, 22 (1988), 127-46. Hebrew translation in BZ Kedar, et al, eds, Commerce in Palestine throughout the Ages. Studies, (Jerusalem, 1990), 260-279.
  34. “The voyage of Rutilius Namatianus: from Rome to Gaul in 417 CE”, Mediterranean Historical Review, 4 (1989), 271-80.
  35. “The medieval Muslim ships of the Pisan bacini”, Mariner’s Mirror, 76 (1990), 99-113. (with S Bellabarba)
  36. “The naval architecture of Crusader transport ships and horse transports revisited”, Mariner’s Mirror, 76 (1990), 255-73.
  37. “The Crusade of Emperor Frederick II, 1220-29: the implications of the maritime evidence”, The American Neptune, 52 (1992), 113-32.
  38. “The galleys of Charles I of Anjou, King of Sicily: ca 1269-84”, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, ns, 14 (1993), 33-103.
  39. “Stephen of Blois: Sensitive New Age Crusader or victim of history”, Arts: journal of the Sydney University Arts Association, 20 (1998), 26-74.

    (d)      Forthcoming
  40. “The “Cargo Manifest” of a Pisan galley, 1281”, in a Festschrift for Andrew Watson, ed B Catlos.
  41. “Soldiers of fortune in the fleets of Charles I of Anjou, ca. 1266-1285” in proceedings of the Conference Mercenaries and Paid Men in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period (Swansea, 7-9 July, 2005). Edited by John France.
  42. “A view from a masthead: the First Crusade viewed from the sea”, to appear in Crusades, 2008.
  43. “II.6.ix  Shipping and seafaring”, Forthcoming in The Oxford handbook of Byzantine studies, eds EM Jeffreys, J Haldon, and R Cormack.

    (e)      Work in progress
  44. Crusading by sea: a maritime  history of the Crusades.

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