University of Oxford
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Dr Mike Humphreys

Mike Humphries

Departmental Lecturer in Byzantine History

michael.humphreys@history.ox.ac.uk I work primarily on the history of Byzantium, especially the period 500 to 1000. I was educated at the University of Cambridge, where I also held a Research Fellowship at St John’s College (2013-17) and was a University Lecturer.

Research Interests

My main research interest lies in the transformation of Byzantium, ca.600 to 900. While interested in every facet of the period, my research has focused on two strands. First, the controversy over religious imagery known as iconoclasm. Second, what the legal sources can tell us about this period.

Currently I am examining criminal law and especially the use of various mutilations, such as blinding, removal of the nose, and punitive shaving. I am attempting to place these penalties within a broader context within the wider late antique and early medieval world, and to ask what they say about Byzantine attitudes to the body, gender, power, justice, and much else.

Publications

A Companion to Byzantine Iconoclasm A Companion to Byzantine Iconoclasm
Featured Publication

A Companion to Byzantine Iconoclasm A Companion to Byzantine Iconoclasm

(Brill, September 2021)

Few subjects have generated more argument in early medieval, Byzantine, and Orthodox history than Iconoclasm. Supposedly for more than a century the Orthodox Church and Byzantium were wracked by controversy over religious figural imagery, culminating in 843 in the establishment of icon veneration as a fundamental Orthodox practice. In this multidisciplinary Companion to Byzantine Iconoclasm, twelve contributors set the controversy in context and critically examine the key debates: what was the argument about? How much destruction and persecution were there?