MSt in Late Antique and Byzantine Studies

Late Antiquity (c.250-c.750) was a period of remarkable political change and cultural efflorescence. It witnessed the transformation of the ancient Roman and Iranian empires into their more centralised, more bureaucratic late Roman and Sassanian successors. This was a time of the consolidation of ancient philosophy, Judaism, and Christianity, as well as the emergence of Islam. By the end of the period, the ancient world order had dissolved into a series of Western kingdoms, the Islamic caliphate, and the Byzantine state focused on Constantinople. Over more than a millennium of history, Byzantium (c.330-c.1453) was central to political, economic, and cultural networks across the Eurasian continent, and played a crucial part in the formation of Eastern Christendom, the Crusades, and the Renaissance.

This course introduces you to this rich heritage, while also allowing for a high level of specialisation in various periods, regions, and source types; as well as languages (incl. Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, and Persian) and approaches (incl. History, Archaeology, Visual Culture, Literature, and Religion). Uniquely, the course is taught through a team of scholars based in several different Oxford faculties: History, Classics, Archaeology, Theology and Religion, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, and Modern and Medieval Languages.

Oxford scholars have been vital to the formation of Late Antiquity and Byzantium as modern academic disciplines. As a postgraduate in Late Antique and Byzantine Studies you will join a thriving and active community of over one hundred scholars and students, represented in the Oxford Centre for Late Antiquity and the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research. These centres help to organise a regular programme of seminars and conferences, while the Oxford University Byzantine Society runs an annual postgraduate research trip to different parts of the former late antique and Byzantine worlds, and a conference which gathers postgraduates from across the globe.

The faculty’s research is organised around historical periods, research centres, or in collaborative and individual research projects, and graduates are key participants in the wide range of seminars, workshops and conferences run by the Faculty of History.

Further opportunities for exchange are provided by the interdisciplinary communities fostered within individual colleges, which also offer dedicated support for graduates by means of personal advisors. The Oxford Centre for Research in the Humanities (TORCH) offers a stimulating range of interdisciplinary activities. You are also encouraged to join the Oxford History Graduate Network (OHGN), which fosters friendships, conversations and collaboration.

The Oxford environment provides a unique opportunity to develop intellectual curiosity whilst remaining focused on your own work without becoming blinkered - an integral part of a successful graduate career.

Core courses

Although the two components of the course, Late Antiquity and Byzantium, have been designed to the same specification and are conjoined in a single course, you are expected to concentrate on one of the fields only.

In the first two terms you take classes in either:

• Late Antique; or
• Byzantine History

Alongside this, you will follow a second weekly class:

• Late Antique and Byzantine Archaeology and Visual Culture (first term); and
• Late Antique and Byzantine Religion (second term).

Late Antique History

This course, which comprises sixteen classes over the first two terms, encompasses the whole chronological and geographical span of the Late Roman Empire and beyond. Taught through a mix of student- and teacher-led sessions, it aims to explore facets of the late antique world against wider themes such as religious, cultural, and political change, while also familiarising you with different source types and methodologies. Examples of topics covered in recent years include: Urbanism, Successor Kingdoms, Monasticism, Elite housing and art, Late Roman empresses, Splinter empires and usurpers, Poetry, Magical and philosophical texts, Sassanid Persia, Law, Military handbooks, Goths, Natural disasters and narratives, Travel, and Papyrus documents.

Byzantine History

Taught each week over the first two terms, this sixteen-class course introduces you to the world of medieval Byzantium and its neighbours. Operating with a generous definition of the horizons of Byzantine history, it normally progresses chronologically from the reign of Justinian to the fall of Constantinople (depending on students’ interests), and focuses on critical debates within Byzantine and wider medieval studies. Through a combination of short lectures, student presentations, and group debate, it exposes you to a range of methodological approaches to, sources for, and scholarship on the medieval East. Recent classes have included: Justinian and political dissent, the Justinianic plague and environmental history, the Rise of Islam, Church councils and the papacy, Byzantine law, Iconoclasm, Cultural exchange with the caliphate, Arab geographers on Byzantium, Slavery, Byzantium and Rus’, the Eleventh-century ‘crisis’, Komnenian historiography, the Seljuks, the Crusades and 1204, the Empire of Nicaea, and the Zealots.

Late Antique and Byzantine Archaeology and Visual Culture

The archaeology and visual culture course consists of eight three-hour long sessions in the first term. Through a combination of brief lectures, class-based discussions, class-presentations, and museum visits, it introduces you to the main methods of Late antique and Byzantine archaeology and visual culture, and explores current research themes. It is foremost intended to make students familiar with the specificity of the source material, teach you how to look at, analyse and describe material and visual culture as well as explore diverse ways in which you can make use of this evidence for your own research papers. Methodological insights are applied to various topics, including Urbanism, Reuse of building materials, Architecture and power, Light and lighting in Byzantium, Late antique and Byzantine capital cities, Byzantine perceptions of neighbouring societies, Cappadocia, Pilgrimage, The origin and workings of icons.

Late Antique and Byzantine Religion

Taught in the second term through student-led presentations and group discussion, this course of eight classes introduces you to prominent aspects of theology and religion within the late antique and Byzantine worlds. Organised thematically so as to encompass the various regional and chronological specialisms of attendees, the classes range across the diverse religious traditions of the period (incl. polytheism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, and Manichaeism), while introducing you to the various sources and methodologies available to students of theology and religion. Recent class topics have included Apocalyptic, Asceticism, Conversion, Councils, Dualism, Hagiography, Heresy, Holy women, Iconoclasm, Liturgy, Mysticism, Relics, and Religious art.

Training pathways

Alongside the choice between Late Antique or Byzantine History, you must also choose between two training pathways, dependent on your knowledge of languages or your primary interests in the field.

You must also choose one of the following training pathways:

Language pathway

The language training pathway offers intensive training in any one of the following ancient and medieval languages and, normally, their associated literatures: Greek, Latin, Old Church Slavonic, Armenian, Syriac, Coptic, Arabic, Middle Persian, and Hebrew.

Skills pathway

The skills pathway is designed for those who already have considerable competence in their chosen language(s) and are able to read primary sources in the original. You will receive instruction in one or two of a range of specialist auxiliary disciplines: papyrology, epigraphy, palaeography, numismatics, sigillography or artefact studies. You will also write a 10,000-word dissertation on a subject of your choosing.

Attendance

Resources to support your study

Further libraries

The Bodleian Libraries’ Special Collections Department attracts scholars from all over the world. Further strengths include the countless databases and digital resources currently offered by the Bodleian and being developed through Oxford’s Digital Humanities programme.

You are also able to draw on the specialist resources offered by the Bodleian History Faculty Library which provides dedicated support and training courses for all graduates. You will also have access to the many college libraries and to college archives which can house significant collections of personal papers as well as institutional records dating back to the middle ages.

Supervision

The allocation of graduate supervision for this course is the responsibility of the Faculty of History and it is not always possible to accommodate the preferences of incoming graduate students to work with a particular member of staff. Under exceptional circumstances a supervisor outside the Faculty of History may be nominated.

An Oxford academic’s pre-application indication of willingness to supervise an enquiring applicant is not a guarantee that the applicant will be offered a place, or that the supervisor in question has capacity in that particular year.

Assessment

Examination comprises several parts depending on the chosen pathway:

All students submit two essays on a topic of your choosing, subject to the approval of your supervisor. The first is submitted in the second term; the second in the third term. You can find examples of previous essay titles on the Faculty of History website.

If you select the language pathway, you will take a language paper; and a literature paper in the same language.

If you select the skills pathway, you will take a paper or papers in the chosen auxiliary disciplines; and a dissertation on a topic of your choosing, subject to the approval of your supervisor, and submitted in the third term.

Language, Literature, and auxiliary disciplines are taught throughout the year, and will normally be examined by unseen examinations at the end of the third term.

Graduate destinations

About a quarter of master’s students proceed to doctoral work at Oxford; others continue academic study at other institutions. Other career destinations are as diverse as, but broadly in line with, undergraduate history career destinations: law, finance, management consultancy, civil service etc.

College preference

The following colleges accept students on the MSt in Late Antique and Byzantine Studies: