M.A. (Cantab.), B.Litt. (Oxon.)
Emeritus Bywater and Sotheby Professor of Byzantine and Modern Greek Language and Literature; Emeritus Fellow, Exeter College; Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow (2008–9)
Research interests
Byzantine literature, especially chronicles, letters, romances; the manuscript background of early Modern Greek literature
Current research project
The Court Poetry of Manganeios Prodromos
Elizabeth Jeffreys and Michael Jeffreys
The imperial and aristocratic courts of Byzantium in the twelfth century offered many occasions for rhetorical display, often in verse; these disseminated propaganda, celebrated births, marriages and deaths, made petitions and dedicated works of art, using allusive codes now needing interpretation. The poet conventionally called Manganeios Prodromos wrote imperial panegyrics and private poems for other aristocrats, especially the Sevastokratorissa Eirene and her family. This project, supported in the past by the Australian Research Council and now by the Leverhulme Trust, will publish the editio princeps of his 148 poems (ca.18,000 lines), making fully available a major source for the history and culture of Byzantium at a period when it remained one of the world’s
most influential societies.
Selected Publications
Books
Popular literature in late Byzantium: collected papers (with M.J. Jeffreys; Variorum, London, 1983)
The Chronicle of John Malalas: a translation (with M.J. Jeffreys, R.D. Scott and others; Byzantina Australiensia 4, Melbourne, 1986)
Studies in John Malalas (with B. Croke and R.D. Scott; Byzantina Australiensia 6, Sydney, 1990)
The War of Troy (with M. Papathomopoulos; Byzantini kai Neoelliniki Bibliothiki, Athens, 1996)
Digenis Akritis: the Grottaferrata and Escorial versions (Cambridge Medieval Texts in Translation 7; Cambridge University Press, 1998)
The Age of the Dromon: the Byzantine navy ca 600–1204 (with J.H. Pryor; Brill, Leiden, 2006)
Iacobi Monachi Epistulae (with M. J. Jeffreys; Corpus Christianorum Series Graeca 68; Brepols, Leuven, 2008)
Edited Books
Byzantine Papers; Proceedings of the First Australian Conference of Byzantine Studies (with M. J. Jeffreys and A. Moffatt; Byzantina Australiensia 1, Canberra, 1981)
Philellen: studies in honour of Robert Browning (with C. Constantinides and others; Venice, 1996)
The Sixth Century — End or Beginning? (with P. Allen; Byzantina Australiensia 10, Brisbane, 1996)
Through the Looking Glass: Byzantium through British eyes (with R. Cornack; Aldershot, 2000)
Rhetoric in Byzantium (Aldershot, 2003)
Approaches to Texts in Early Modern Greek (with M. Jeffreys; Oxford, 2005)
Byzantine Style, Civilization and Religion: in honour of Sir Steven Runciman (Cambridge, 2006)
Papers for the 21st International Congress of Byzantine Studies, 21-28 August, London 2006, 3 vols. (Aldershot, 2006)
The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies (with J. Haldon and R. Cormack; OUP, Oxford, 2008)