Royal Holloway, University of London

Department Member, History

Other Affiliations: Institute of Historical Research, University of London, School of Advanced Studies

Alan Pearsall Fellow in Naval and Maritime History

Institute of Historical Research, London

About

My research interests lie in the cross-cultural history of the eastern Mediterranean in the medieval and early modern periods, especially the study of the crusades, Byzantium and the Anatolian Turkish beyliks/early Ottomans. My current research project, as Alan Pearsall Fellow in Naval and Maritime History at the Institute of Historical Research, London, is titled "Trade and Crusade between the Italian Mercantile Republics and the Turks: 1300-1500". It focuses on the interaction of Latin, Greek and Turkish cultures in the Aegean area both in terms of military opposition and cooperation. I am especially interested in the interplay between holy war ideology and commercial exchange in the late medieval period, such as the relationship between the papacy and the Italian mercantile republics. I have studied archival documents relating to trade and religious history in the Vatican Secret Archives, the State Archives of Venice and the National Archives at Kew. I have presented research papers for international conferences in the UK, Germany, Turkey, Greece and Romania. In 2010-11 I was a Junior (Scouloudi) Research Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research and in July 2011 I finished my PhD thesis, "Motivations and Response to Crusades in the Aegean, c.1300-1350", supervised by Professor Jonathan Harris at Royal Holloway, University of London.

I am the co-editor of a volume Contact and Conflict in Frankish Greece and the Aegean, 1204-1453 with Dr Nikolaos Chrissis which focuses on trade, religion and warfare in the Aegean area between the periods of Byzantine and Ottoman domination. As well as this, I have submitted a number of articles for publication on the alliances of the Knights Hospitaller of Rhodes against the Turks, papal relations with the Italian merchants of Genoa and Venice, and the role of Humbert of Vienne in the Crusade of Smyrna. I am also conducting a joint project with Dr Cristian Caselli (Madrid) on the "genre" of apocryphal correspondence between Ottoman and European rulers in the fifteenth century.

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