Dr Maximilian Lau FRHistS AFHEA

Dr Maximilian Lau is an historian and Co-Investigator of the AHRC Research Project: Noblesse Oblige? ‘Barons’ and the Public Good in Medieval Afro-Eurasia. He teaches for the Faculty of History and the Department of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies, and he is also a senior member of the common room of St Cross College. At Worcester College, he is a Research Member of the Senior Common Room and Head Coach of Worcester College Boat Club.

He read History at the University of St Andrews before coming to Oxford to do his MSt in Late Antique and Byzantine Studies, and then his Doctorate in History at Oriel College. He was then made a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Tokyo, in addition to being appointed an Assistant Professor of Medieval History at Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo.

He serves on various academic society committees, such as the executive committee of the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies, and the Prosopography of the Byzantine Empire project. and he has lectured everywhere from Shrivenham Defence Academy of the United Kingdom to Changchun University, People’s Republic of China. He has featured on podcasts such as The History of Byzantium and written articles for papers such as the Huffington Post. He has carried out fieldwork all over the world, most recently in Turkey, Israel-Palestine, Georgia, Iran, Serbia and Kosovo.

In addition to the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) and the JSPS, his work has been supported by the British Institute at Ankara, the Sumimoto Mitsui Banking Corporation Foundation, and the Pereira Grants for Fieldwork. He has also been awarded the E.O. James Bequest of All Souls College, the Colin Matthew Fund of St Hugh’s College, and he was awarded the Dacre Graduate Prize for History at Oriel.

He is also the Editor of Crux Alba, the scholarly journal dedicated to the history and culture of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, Rhodes and Malta.

Max works in development for various charities, most recently for homeless people, the elderly and the traveling community in the local area. He does the same for the college Development Office on occasion.

Max predominantly teaches MSt and MPhil students for the Department for Late Antique and Byzantine studies, though he also teaches undergraduates in European and Global history courses (especially EWH1 and 2), and the Crusades and Constantine Porphyrogennetos undergraduate History options.

He has supervised dissertations or taught courses for visiting students on various aspects wholly or tangentially connected to Byzantium, most recently the transformation of the Roman Army in Late Antiquity, Byzantine Femininity 4th-15th centuries, and the powers of 9th century Rus princes.

He also teaches academic writing classes for humanities students more broadly.

Though Max wrote his doctorate on twelfth-century Byzantium and the Crusades, for which he carried out extensive fieldwork in the Balkans and the Middle East, his research interests have been and continued to be broad.

He has published articles and book chapters on subjects such as Islamic warrior women, Armenian prophecy, Turkish civil wars, the Byzantine Navy, the 18th century Hospitaller Order of Malta and its dealings in Ethiopia, and Middle Eastern influences upon Frank Herbert’s Dune. His current research focus concerns the organisation of the Noblesse Oblige? project, where Max is not only contributing towards the Byzantine, Crusader and Islamic side of the project, but is also investigating the medieval kingdoms of Polynesia, especially Tonga and Samoa. This project also engages with teachers and exam boards to consult on the future of the UK History curriculum.

In addition, Max is currently organising a project on the Komnenian Dynasty of Byzantium as a whole, he is involved with another on the impact of Eastern spirituality upon the west during the crusades, and he is writings papers on heretics and supernatural persecutions in Byzantium, canon law and the theology of ecumenical councils in the 12th century, and he is working on a book on the siege of Constantinople in 1204.

• “The Knights of Massawa? Coffee, Crusade, and How the Order of St John Almost Moved to Africa”, Crux Alba 1 (2024), pp. 7-33
• Book Review: Georgios Theotokis, The Campaign and Battle of Manzikert, 1071. Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2024. The Byzantine Review 06.2024.014, https://doi.org/10.17879/byzrev-2024-5496
• Book Review: Historiography and Identity, V: The Emergence of New Peoples and Polities in Europe, 1000–1300, ed. Walter Pohl, Veronika Wieser and Francesco Borri (Turnhout : Brepols, 2023; pp. 515. £99.89). The English Historical Review, Volume 139, Issue 601, December 2024, pp. 1568–1570, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/ceae227
• Emperor John II Komnenos: Rebuilding New Rome 1118-1143 (Oxford : OUP, 2023)
• “Isaac in Exile. Down and Out in Constantinople and Jerusalem?” Isaac Komnenos: Walking the Line in Twelfth-century Byzantium (Milton Park : Taylor and Francis, 2023)
• “Will Zion Fall Again? The Deuteronomistic Epic in Twelfth Century Byzantium” (2023)
• “Frank Herbert’s Byzantium. Medieval Futurism and the Princess Historians Irulan and Anna Komnene”, Discovering Dune (Jefferson NC : McFarland, 2022)
• “Rewriting History at the Court of the Komnenoi: Processes and Practices” Rewriting History in the Central Middle Ages, 900-1300 (Turnhout : Brepols, 2022)
• “‘Both General and Lady’ The 1135 Defence of Gangra by its Amira”, Women and Violence in the Medieval Mediterranean (Turnhout : Brepols, 2022)
• “Explaining Twelfth-Century Byzantium’s Prosperity as a Result of the Implementation of New Economic Theories and Practices (or how Byzantium learned to stop worrying and love the ‘feudal’ economy)” Mediterranean World XXIV (地中海論集), (2019)
• “Piroska-Eirene, the First Western Empress in Byzantium: Power and Perception”, Piroska and the Pantokrator,  (Budapest : Central European University Press, 2019)
• (with Roman Shliakin) “Mas’ud of Ikonion. The overlooked victor of the Twelfth Century Anatolian Game of Thrones” Byzantinoslavica LXXVI (2018)
• “Immigrants and Cultural Pluralism in Twelfth-Century Byzantium” Seiyo Chusei Kenkyu 9 (Medieval European Studies – Byzantine Empire and the Medieval Christian World Special Issue) (2018)
• “A Dream Come True? Matthew of Edessa and the Return of the Roman Emperor” Dreams, Memory and Imagination in Byzantium, (Leiden : Brill, 2018)
• “Rewriting the 1120s: Chronology and Crisis under John II Komnenos” Making and Remaking Byzantium, Limes Plus Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities (Belgrade : Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2016)
• “The Naval Reform of Emperor John II Komnenos: A Re-evaluation” Mediterranean Historical Review 31.2 (2016)
• “Multilateral Cooperation in the Black Sea in the Late Eleventh and Early Twelfth Centuries: The Case for an Alliance between Byzantium, Kiev and Georgia,” Cross Cultural Exchange in the Byzantine World, (Oxford : Peter Lang, 2016)
• (Editor), Landscapes of Power (Oxford : Peter Land, 2014)