Staff in Classics

Professor Niels Gaul

MSt, MA, PhD

A. G. Leventis Professor of Byzantine Studies

Email: N.Gaul@ed.ac.uk
School of History, Classics & Archaeology, Old Medical School, Teviot Place

General Information

Office hours

On research leave – please contact me via e-mail

Roles

Director, Centre for Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies (heir to the Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies Research Group)

Affiliated research centres

Edinburgh Centre for Global History, Centre for Medieval & Renaissance Studies, Centre for Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies

Biography

I am a Byzantinist with research interests primarily in the middle and later Byzantine periods.

Together with Curie Virág, I currently co-direct a Byzantinist-Sinologist project funded by the European Research Council, ‘PAIXUE: Classicising learning in medieval imperial systems: cross-cultural approaches to Byzantine paideia and Tang/Song xue’ (CoG 726371, 2017–2022). Under PAIXUE auspices Curie and I are presently co-authoring a book (provisionally) entitled Empires of Learning in the Long Eleventh Century: Literati and the Formation of Learned Selves in Byzantium and Song.

After initial steps into exploring the manifold connections between 'Byzantium and Scotland' through the ages in my inaugural lecture I have more recently been involved, alongside Professor Roderick Beaton (Edinburgh's 12th A. G. Leventis Professor of Greek) and Dr Alasdair Grant, in organising a series of exciting events commemorating the Greek Revolution of 1821 which for the first time somewhat systematically explored its manifold Scottish connections: the 12th A. G. Leventis Conference (‘The Greek Revolution of 1821’) and the accompanying ‘Edina/Athena – The Greek Revolution and the Athens of the North’ exhibition in the Main Library.

Prior to taking up the inaugural A. G. Leventis Chair at Edinburgh in 2015, I taught Byzantine studies at Central European University Budapest (2007–2015) and held the Dilts-Lyell Research Fellowship in Greek Palaeography at Lincoln College, Oxford (2005–2007). I hold a Master’s degree from Oxford and my PhD from Bonn, where I also spent my undergraduate years.

I welcome applications from potential research students with interest in the Byzantine world: I supervise PhD students in both Classics and History.

External appointments

Series editor, Edinburgh Byzantine Studies (Edinburgh University Press)
Editorial board member,
- Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library/Byzantine Greek series (Harvard University Press)
- Translated Texts for Byzantinists (Liverpool University Press)
- Zbornik radova Vizantološkog instituta (ZRVI)
Chair, British Academy Project, 'Prosopography of the Later Roman and Byzantine Worlds' (based at the Institute of Classical Studies, School of Advanced Study, London)
Instructor, Byzantine Greek Summer School, Byzantine Studies Research Center, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, 2017–
E. A. Lowe Lecturer in Palaeography, Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 2022/3

Useful Links

Research, Knowledge Exchange and Impact

Summary of research interests

Places:

Mediterranean
Near East

Themes:

Ancient Civilisations
Culture
Ideas
Language & Literature

Periods:

Antiquity
Medieval

Research interests

My research focuses on the middle and later Byzantine empire; my recent work has looked at classicising learning and the classical tradition in Byzantium, various types of social performances – be it in the form of rhetorical ‘theatre’, processions or (staged) miracles – and at the scholarly networks permeating late Byzantine society. Right now I am working on a monograph on the sociology of classicising learning in the Byzantine empire.

Research projects

All these interests come together in the ERC project I am currently co-directing with Dr Curie Virág, ‘PAIXUE: Classicising learning in medieval imperial systems: Cross-cultural approaches to Byzantine paideia and Tang/Song xue’ (ERC CoG 726371).

In the medieval Eurasian geopolitical space, Byzantium and China stand out as two centralised imperial orders that drew on seemingly unbroken, in fact purposely constructed, traditions of classicising learning. With generous support from the European Research Council (ERC), the PAIXUE project examines in tandem, with equal focus on structural parallels and divergences, the conscious revival and subsequent dialectics of classicising learning in middle and later Byzantium (c.800–1350) and Tang/Song China (618–1279). Initially tied into aristocratic culture, it became a tool by which the imperial state sought to monopolise prestige and access to power so as to effectively channel the activities of newly emerging burgeoning ‘middling’ strata into the service of empire. As time progressed, it was also the basis upon which these new elites constructed novel forms of subjectivity that claimed authority and agency increasingly independent of the imperial state.

PAIXUE traces this evolution of classicising learning in Byzantine and Tang/Song literati culture from two angles. The ﬁrst examines the galvanising function of social performances that involved classicising learning in the imperial systems. The second places the individual literatus centre-stage and explores the transformations of self-awareness, ethos, and self-cultivation. Given PAIXUE’s concern with examining phenomena cross-culturally in the longue-durée, rather than merely juxtaposing ‘spotlight’ impressions, a comparison of these two imperial systems does not only allow for deeper insights into the historical development of both China and Byzantium: it opens the possibility of studying cultural mechanisms behind the formation of institutions, practices and values. The project explores novel forms of collaboration in the humanities, including the co-authoring of research output between Byzantinists and Sinologists. Byzantium, frequently perceived as the ‘Other’ within western culture to the present day, serves here to build meaningful bridges to (pre-modern) China.

Teaching

Undergraduate teaching

Greek Palaeography
Byzantine Literary History
Constantinople: The History of a Medieval Megalopolis from Constantine the Great to Süleyman the Magnificent

Postgraduate teaching

Centre, Province and Periphery in the Age of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos
Renovatio Imperii or ‘Twilight of Empire’? Byzantium under Andronikos II Palaiologos
Constantinople: The History of a Medieval Megalopolis from Constantine the Great to Süleyman the Magnificent (PG version)
Córdoba & Constantinople: Exchange & Competition between the Umayyad and Byzantine Courts – taught together with Dr Glaire Anderson (ECA)
Byzantine Text Seminar
Greek Palaeography (PG version)

Postgraduate Supervision

Current Students:

Name	Degree	Thesis topic	Supervision type
Elif Demirtiken	PhD	‘Monasteries and monasticism in late Byzantine Constantinople’	Primary
Aristotelis Nayfa	PhD	‘Monetary exchanges and social capital in the court and empire of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos’	Primary
Defangyu Kong	PhD	‘Female rule in Byzantium and Tang China: The empresses Eirene and Wu Zetian’	Primary
Joaquín Serrano del Pozo	PhD	‘Crosses and relics of the Holy Cross in Byzantine warfare’	Secondary
Bilal Adıgüzel	PhD	‘Patterns of resistance and subversion in the middle Byzantine empire: Niketas David Paphlagon in context’	Primary
George Pinkerton	PhD	‘Porphyry, the “Roman marble”: imperial purple, power, and perception in the Long Late Antiquity’	Secondary
Shinichi Kubo	PhD	‘Translating Hellenic words into Christian minds: Classicising learning from the Greek Fathers through the Byzantine literary tradition’	Primary
David Moore	MScR	tbd	Primary
Daiki Sano	PhD	‘Imperial decision-making and its performative communication in early Palaiologan Byzantium (1261–1328)’	Primary
Ruisen Zheng	MScR	tbd	Primary

Past Students:

Name	Thesis topic	Supervision type	Completion year
At Central European University Budapest
András Németh	‘Imperial systematization of the past: Emperor Constantine VII and his historical excerpts’; revised version published as The Excerpta Constantiniana and the Byzantine Appropriation of the Past	Primary	2010
Florin Leonte	‘Rhetoric in purple: The renewal of imperial ideology in the texts of Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos’; revised version published as Imperial Visions of Late Byzantium: Manuel II Palaiologos and Rhetoric in Purple	Primary	2012
Julia Bokody	‘Itinerant rulership in Byzantium: A topographical analysis of the Laskarid realm (1204–1261)’	Primary	2013
Luka Špoljarić	‘Nicholas of Modruš, “The Glory of Illyria”: humanist patriotism and self-fashioning in Renaissance Rome’	Primary	2013
Cristian-Nicolae Daniel	‘Coping with the powerful other: a comparative approach to Greek-Slavonic communities of rite in late medieval Transylvania and the Banat‘	Primary	2014
Divna Manolova	‘Discourses of science and philosophy in the letters of Nikephoros Gregoras’	Primary	2014
Roman Shliakhtin	‘From Huns into Persians: the image of the Seljuk Turks of Asia Minor among the Byzantine literati of the eleventh and twelfth centuries’	Primary	2016
Mircea Duluş	‘Philagathos of Cerami: Byzantine culture, monastic renewal and politics at the courts of Roger II (1130–1154) and William I (1154–1166)’	Primary	2018
Sandro Nikolaishvili	‘Byzantium and the Georgian world c. 900–1210: Ideology of kingship and rhetoric in the Byzantine periphery’	Joint	2019
At the University of Edinburgh
Mihail Mitrea	‘A late Byzantine hagiographer: Philotheos Kokkinos and his vitae of contemporary saints’	Primary	2018
Jesús Rodríguez Viejo	‘Ottonian and early Salian manuscript illumination at St Gall: Imagery, thought and Marian devotion’	Secondary	2019
Ivan Marić	‘Iconoclast imperial authority and its contested legacy: From the Arab siege (717/18) to the death of Michael III (867)’	Primary	2020
Alasdair Grant	‘Cross-confessional captivity in the later Byzantine world, c.1280–1460’	Primary	2020
Mark Huggins	‘The reception of John Chrysostom in the middle Byzantine period (9th–13th centuries): A case study of the Catechetical Homily on Pascha’	Primary	2021

Currently accepting research student applications : Yes

Areas accepting Research Students in:

Middle and late Byzantine history and culture; Greek palaeography and Byzantine manuscript studies; Byzantine rhetoric and the classical tradition; comparative approaches to the Byzantine world

Publications

Monographs

Thomas Magistros und die spätbyzantinische Sophistik. Studien zum Humanismus urbaner Eliten in der frühen Palaiologenzeit. Mainzer Veröffentlichungen zur Byzantinistik, 10 (Wiesbaden, 2011).

Edited volumes

with M. Carr and Y. Stouraitis (eds), The Post-1204 Byzantine World: New Directions and Novel Approaches. Papers read at the 51st Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, University of Edinburgh, 13–15 April 2018 (Abingdon and New York, forthcoming).
with V. Menze and Cs. Bálint (eds), Center, Province and Periphery in the Age of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos: From De Cerimoniis to De Administrando Imperio. Mainzer Veröffentlichungen zur Byzantinistik, 15 (Wiesbaden, 2018).
with Av. Cameron (eds), Dialogues and Debates from Late Antiquity to Late Byzantium (Abingdon and New York, 2017).
with S. Steckel and M. Grünbart (eds), Networks of Learning: Perspectives on Scholars in Byzantine East and Latin West, c. 1000–1200. Byzantinische Studien und Texte, 6 (Berlin and Münster, 2014).
with S. Ronchey (eds), Peter Schreiner, Byzantinische Kultur. Eine Aufsatzsammlung, II: Das Wissen (Rome, 2008).

Journal articles

‘All the emperor’s men (and his nephews): Paideia and networking strategies at the court of Andronikos II Palaiologos, 1290–1320’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 70 (2016): 153–78. [open access]
‘Writing “with joyful and leaping soul”: Sacralizing strategies, scribal hands, and ceremonial in the Lincoln College Typikon’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 69 (2015): 243–71 (with eleven figures). [open access]
‘The twitching shroud: collective construction of paideia in the circle of Thomas Magistros’, Segno e Testo 5 (2007): 263‒340 (with six ﬁgures).
‘Andronikos Komnenos, Prinz Belthandros und der Zyklop: Zwei Glossen zu Niketas Choniates’ Χρονικὴ Διήγησις’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 96 (2003): 623–60.

Book chapters

‘Introduction’, in The Post-1204 Byzantine World (above, forthcoming).
‘The circulation and display of imperial effigies in (early) Palaiologan Byzantium’, in The Post-1204 Byzantine World (above, forthcoming).
‘Processions in early Palaiologan Constantinople: From Michael Palaiologos's theatrical spectacles to participatory processions under Andronikos II and Patriarch Athanasios I’, in L. Brubaker and N. Patterson Ševčenko (eds), Processions: Urban Ritual in Byzantium and Neighbouring Lands, Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Symposia and Colloquia (Washington, D.C., forthcoming).
‘Voicing and gesturing emotions: Remarks on emotive performance from antiquity to the middle Byzantine period’, in D. Cairns, M. Hinterberger, A. Pizzone and M. Zaccarini (eds), Emotions through Time: From Antiquity to Byzantium (Tübingen, 2022), 201–23.
‘Schools and learning’, in S. Bassett (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Constantinople (Cambridge, 2022), 263–276.
‘Fringe encounters: Translations of antiquity and negotiations of scholarly authority in the margins of Byzantine schoolbooks of Ioannes Tzetzes and Manuel Moschopoulos’, in J. Henderson and R. F. Thomas (eds), The Loeb Classical Library and Its Progeny: Proceedings of the First James Loeb Biennial Conference, Munich and Murnau 18–20 May 2017. Loeb Classical Monographs (Cambridge, Mass., 2020), 351–91.
‘The letter and its audience: Epistolary voice, character, and their audience’, in A. Riehle (ed.), Companion to Byzantine Epistolography (Leiden, 2020), 353–73.
‘“And the whole city cheered”: The poetics and politics of the miraculous in the early Palaiologan period’, in A. Mattiello and A. Rossi (eds), Reconsidering the Concept of Decline and the Arts of the Palaiologan Period (Abingdon, 2019), 7–30. [open access]
‘Performative reading in the late Byzantine theatron’, in I. Toth and T. Shawcross (eds), Reading in the Byzantine Empire and Beyond (Cambridge, 2018), 215–233. [open access]
‘Zooming in on Constantinople: Introductory notes on the interplay of center, province and periphery in the tenth-century Byzantine empire’, in Center, Province and Periphery in the Age of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos (above), 1–21.
‘Embedded dialogues and dialogical voices in Palaiologan rhetoric’, in Dialogues and Debates from Late Antiquity to Late Byzantium (above), 184–202.
‘Rising elites and institutionalization – ĒthosImores – “Debts” and drafts: Three concluding steps towards comparing networks of learning in Byzantium and the “Latin” West, c.1000–1200’, in Networks of Learning (above), 235–80.
‘The manuscript tradition’, in E.J. Bakker (ed.), A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language (Malden, Mass., and Chichester, 2010), 69–82.
‘Moschopulos, Lopadiotes, Phrankopulos (?), Magistros, Staphidakes: Prosopographisches und Paläographisches zur Lexikographie des 14. Jahrhunderts’, in E. Trapp and S. Schönauer (eds), Lexicologica byzantina (Bonn, 2008), 163–96.
‘The partridge’s purple stockings: Observations on the historical, literary, and manuscript context of Pseudo-Kodinos’ Handbook on Court Ceremonial’, in M. Grünbart (ed.), Theatron. Rhetorische Kultur in Spätantike und Mittelalter (Berlin and New York, 2007), 69‒103.
‘Anassa Anna skopei – Fürstin Anna, bedenke! Beobachtungen zur Schedo- und Lexikographie in der spätbyzantinischen Provinz’, in L. Hoffmann (ed.), Zwischen Polis, Provinz und Peripherie. Beiträge zur byzantinischen Geschichte und Kultur. Mainzer Veröffentlichungen zur Byzantinistik, 7 (Wiesbaden, 2007), 663–704.
‘Eunuchs in the late Byzantine empire, c.1250–1400’, in S. F. Tougher (ed.), Eunuchs in Antiquity and Beyond (London, 2002), 199–219.

Exhibition catalogue

with A. Grant, I. G. Brown and R. Beaton, Edina/Athena – The Greek Revolution & the Athens of the North – 1821/2021 (Edinburgh, 2021). [open access]

Lexicon and encyclopedia entries

Chapter on ‘Byzantinische Buchkultur’, in F. Daim (ed.), Byzanz. Historisch-kulturwissenschaftliches Handbuch. Neuer Pauly, Supplementband, 11 (Stuttgart, 2017), 982–996.
Entries on ‘Books, book illustration, book binding, Byzantium’; ‘Libraries, Byzantium’; ‘Scribes, Byzantium’; ‘Scripts, Byzantium’, in Blackwell’s Encyclopedia of the Ancient World (Malden, Mass., 2012).
Entries on ‘Eustathius’; ‘Moschopoulos, Manuel’; ‘Planudes, Maximus’; ‘Thomas Magister’; and ‘Triclinius, Demetrius’, in A. Grafton, G. Most and and S. Settis (eds). The Classical Tradition: A Guide (Cambridge, Mass., 2010).
Entry on ‘Metochites, Theodoros’, in L. Arnold (ed.), Kindlers Literatur Lexikon, 3rd edn (Stuttgart, 2009).
Contributor to E. Trapp (ed.), Lexikon zur byzantinischen Gräzität, fifth fascicle (λ–παλιάνθρωπος) (Vienna, 2004).

This article was published on 18 Jan, 2019