Donald Nicol

Donald MacGillivray Nicol (born February 4, 1923 in Portsmouth , † September 25, 2003 in Cambridge ) was a British Byzantinist and Koraes Professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature at King's College London .

Life

Nicol attended King Edward VII School in Sheffield and St Paul's School in London . In the war and post-war years from 1941 to 1946, Nicol served in the Friends' Ambulance Unit , which led him to a large extent to Greece, especially Ioannina and north-west Greece with the Meteora monasteries , and brought him into contact with the population and Orthodox monks . His acquaintance with Steven Runciman also dates from this time , which was particularly cultivated in the Athenaeum Club in London.

These coordinates determined his academic career. After a first degree in Classical Philology , he received his doctorate in 1952 at Pembroke College , Cambridge , with a dissertation on the despotate Epirus supervised by Runciman . He spent the academic year 1949-50 at the British School at Athens . Following his doctorate, Nicol was Lecturer in Classics at University College Dublin from 1952 to 1964 , Visiting Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks from 1964 to 1966 , and Senior Lecturer and Reader in Byzantine History at Edinburgh University from 1966 to 1970 . In 1970 he was appointed to the chair of Koraës Professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature at King's College London, which he held until his retirement in 1988. At King's College he was Assistant Principal from 1970 to 1980 and Vice Principal from 1980 to 1981 .

Nicol was editor of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies from 1973 to 1983 , chairman of the Ecclesiastical History Society from 1975 to 1976 and head of the Gennadios library (Γεννάδειος Βιβλιοθήκη) in Athens from 1989 to 1992 ; During his stay, he wrote a biography of their founder Ioannes Gennadios (1844–1932).

In 1960 Nicol became a Member of the Royal Irish Academy , 1981 Fellow of the British Academy . The city of Arta granted him honorary citizenship in 1990, and the University of Ioannina made him an honorary doctor in 1997.

In 1950 he married Joan Mary Campbell, with whom he had three sons. The family lived in Eltham , where the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaiologos and King Henry IV had spent Christmas in 1400. Nicol presented the visit in 1970 in a test article for the planned journal Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies .

Research priorities

Nicol had originally been a classical philologist and had developed into a historian, not without considering historiography in the wake of Runciman as literature . His main areas of work were the history of the Byzantine dynasties , Byzantine prosopography , the development of which he initiated, Byzantine diplomacy and relations with Venice , the Franks and the patriarchs , but also Byzantine archeology and art history or social and economic history .

Fonts

• The Despotate of Epiros . Basil Blackwell, 1957. Extended revision: The Despotate of Epiros 1267–1479. A Contribution to the History of Greece in the Middle Ages . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1984, ISBN 0-521-13089-1 .
• Byzantium: its ecclesiastical history and relations with the western world. Collected studies. Variorum Reprints, London, 1972, ISBN 0-902089-35-8 .
• Meteora: the rock monasteries of Thessaly . Chapman & Hall, London, 1963. Revised edition: Variorum Reprints, London, 1975, ISBN 0-902089-73-0 .
• The Byzantine Family of Kantakouzenos (Cantacuzenus) ca 1100-1460: a genealogical and prosopographical study . Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, Washington 1968 (Dumbarton Oaks studies, vol. 11).
• End of the Byzantine Empire . Hodder Arnold, 1979, ISBN 0-7131-6250-3 .
• Church and Society in the Last Centuries of Byzantium (The Birkbeck Lectures in Ecclesiastical History 1977), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1979, ISBN 0-521-07167-4 .
• Byzantium and Venice. A study in diplomatic and cultural relations . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1988, ISBN 0-521-34157-4 .
• Joannes Gennadios, the man. A biographical sketch . American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Athens 1990.
• A biographical dictionary of the Byzantine empire . Seaby, London, 1991, ISBN 1-85264-048-0 .
• The Immortal Emperor: the life and legend of Constantine Palaiologos, last Emperor of the Romans Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991, ISBN 0-521-89409-3 .
• Byzantium and Venice: A Study in Diplomatic and Cultural Relations . Cambridge University Press, 1992, ISBN 0-521-42894-7 .
• The last centuries of Byzantium, 1261-1453 . St Martin's Press, 1972, ISBN 0-246-10559-3 ; 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1993, ISBN 0-521-43991-4 , books.google.de .
• The Byzantine lady: ten portraits, 1250–1500 . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1994, ISBN 0-521-45531-6 , books.google.de .
• The Reluctant Emperor: A Biography of John Cantacuzene, Byzantine Emperor and Monk, c . 1295-1383 . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996, ISBN 978-0-521-52201-4 , books.google.gr .
• Theodore Spandounes : On the origin of the Ottoman emperors . Ed. by DM Nicol, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1997, ISBN 0-521-58510-4 , books.google.de .

literature

• Anthony Bryer: Professor Donald Nicol (Obituary). In: The Independent , October 3, 2003, independent.co.uk .
• Roderick Beaton , Charlotte Roueché (Eds.): The Making of Byzantine history. Studies dedicated to Donald M. Nicol . Variorum, Aldershot 1993, ISBN 0-86078-385-5 .
• Roderick Beaton, Ruth Macrides, Paul Magdalino, Jinty Nelson, Stewart Sutherland: Donald MacGillivray Nicol, 1923-2003 . In: Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy . tape XIV , 2015, p. 423-437 ( thebritishacademy.ac.uk [PDF]).

Web links

• Nicol, Donald MacGillivray .  Publications in the bibliographic database of the Regesta Imperii .