We are pleased to welcome Tristan Schmidt, who joins Byzantine Studies as a short-term predoctoral resident from December 1 to 14. Schmidt is a doctoral student in Byzantine studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz. He is currently working in the Research Training Group 1876, “Early Concepts of Man and Nature,” on his doctoral thesis about animal imagery in the discourse about the emperor in court literature under the Komnenoi, Angeloi, and early Laskarids. The work is supervised by Johannes Pahlitzsch and Sabine Obermaier.
Prior to this, Schmidt studied history and political science at the University of Mainz and spent half a year at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He has also worked on Byzantine hospitals and philanthropic institutions, law of inheritance in eleventh century testaments, and the Mediterranean policy of the Holy Roman and the Byzantine Empires in the twelfth century. He is also interested in the cultural, economic, and political function of middle and late Byzantine aristocracy.