Niels Gaul

Associate Professor
egyetemi docens
Building: 
Nador u. 9, Faculty Tower
Room: 
504
Phone number: 
+36 1 327-3045
Email contact form
See Courses, Projects, Theses, Publications, associated with this profile.
Qualifications: 
MSt (Oxf), 1999
MA (Bonn), 1999
PhD (Bonn), 2005
Academic/Professional experience, and Achievements: 

Niels Gaul studied Byzantine history and Classics at the universities of Bonn, Cologne, and Oxford. Before joining CEU’s Department of Medieval Studies in November 2007, he was the Dilts-Lyell Research Fellow in Greek Palaeography in the University of Oxford (in association with Lincoln College), 2005–7; a junior fellow at Dumbarton Oaks/Harvard University, 2004/5; and a lecturer in the Department of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies at the University of Cologne, 2002–4. In 2006, he became the founding programme director of the biennial Lincoln College International Summer School in Greek Palaeography.

At CEU, he teaches Byzantine history, culture and rhetoric from c.600 to 1453, as well as classes on medieval Greek manuscript studies and current literary and discourse theory. He presently serves as director of the doctoral program in Medieval Studies.

He is currently working on a handbook of Greek palaeography & Byzantine manuscript studies as well as a monograph on the connection of mimēsis, (rhetorical) self-fashioning, and the revival of civic spirit from the middle through the late Byzantine periods. 

Since coming to CEU, he has hosted an international workshop on ‘Charismatic authority, spiritual friendship: comparative approaches to networks of learning, Byzantine east and Latin west, c.1000–c.1200’ (together with Dr Sita Steckel, 2008) and an international symposium on ‘Centre and periphery in the age of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos: from De ceremoniis to De administrando imperio’ (together with the Archaeological Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 2009). Publication of the proceedings is in progress.

CV attachment: 
Academic/research topics: 
Byzantine history and culture c.600–c.1500
Greek palaeography & Byzantine manuscript studies
Academic/Research Areas: 
History and Medieval Studies

Theses supervised by Niels Gaul

Doctoral
Politics and hagiography in fourteenth-century Byzantium: the œuvre of Philotheos Kokkinos (c.1300–1376/7)
Thesis author: Mihail Mitrea
Year of enrollment: 2011/2012
Scythians or Persians? The Image of the Seljuk Turks of Asia Minor in the Byzantine Historical Narratives of the Twelfth Century
Thesis author: Roman Shlyakhtin
Year of enrollment: 2009/2010
Nicholas of Modruš (1427–1480): defensor ecclesiae, decus Illyriae
Thesis author: Luka Špoljarić
Year of enrollment: 2008/2009
Philosophical Argumentation and Dialogicity in Nikephoros Gregoras’ Epistolary Collection
Thesis author: Divna Manolova
Year of enrollment: 2008/2009
Developing Latin Theological Language at the Court of Charles the Bald: Peri kataskeuēs anthrōpou of Gregory of Nyssa in the Translation of Johannes Scottus Eriugena
Thesis author: Antoaneta Sǎbǎu
Year of enrollment: 2008/2009
Philagathos of Cerami: Byzantine culture, monastic renewal and politics at the courts of Roger II (1130–1154) and William I (1154–1166)
Thesis author: Mircea Duluş
Year of enrollment: 2007/2008
Rhetoric in Purple: The Renewal of Imprerial Ideology in the Texts of Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos (R. 1391–1425)
Thesis author: Florin Leonte
Year of enrollment: 2006/2007
Decentralization in Byzantium: A Topographical Analysis of the Laskarid Realm (1204-1261)
Thesis author: Julia Jedamski
Year of enrollment: 2006/2007
Coping with the Powerful Other: the orthodox ecclesiastical geography of late medieval Transylvania
Thesis author: Cristian Daniel
Year of enrollment: 2005/2006
Imperial Systematization of the Past: Emperor Constantine VII and His Historical Excerpts
Thesis author: András Németh
Year of enrollment: 2004/2005
Master's
A Network Analysis of Hugo Falcandus' De regno Sicile (working title)
Thesis author: Hervin Fernández Aceves
Year of enrollment: 2011/2012
Eustathios of Thessalonike's Life of St Philotheos of Opsikion: Text and Contexts (working title)
Thesis author: Péter Tamás Bara
Year of enrollment: 2011/2012
Arethas of Caesarea and the Scholia on Philostratus' Vita Apollonii in Laur. 69.33
Thesis author: Ryan Bailey
Year of enrollment: 2011/2012
A Late Byzantine Swan Song: Maximos Neamonites and His Letters
Thesis author: Mihail Mitrea
Year of enrollment: 2009/2010
Construction of Power and Kingship Ideology under King David IV the Builder (r. 1089–1125): With Special Attention to the Byzantine Model
Thesis author: Sandro Nikolaishvili
Year of enrollment: 2009/2010
Constructing Imperial Honour in the History of Leo the Deacon
Thesis author: Ivana Dobcheva
Year of enrollment: 2008/2009
Identifying Kyros of Alexandria
Thesis author: Nikoloz Aleksidze
Year of enrollment: 2008/2009
Dish to Cash, Cash to Ash: the last Roman parasite and the birth of a comic profession
Thesis author: Goran Vidović
Year of enrollment: 2007/2008
Sophonias the Philosopher. A preface of an Aristotelian commentary: structure, intention, and audience
Thesis author: Divna Manolova
Year of enrollment: 2007/2008
William of Tyre and the Byzantine Empire: the construction and deconstruction of an image
Thesis author: Luka Špoljarić
Year of enrollment: 2007/2008

Projects with involvement of Niels Gaul

Publications

Book
Book Chapter
Gaul, N.. "The Manuscript Tradition." In A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language, edited by E. J. Bakker, 69-82. Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
Gaul, N.. "Moschopulos, Lopadiotes, Phrankopulos (?), Magistros, Staphidakes: Prosopographisches und Methodologisches zur Lexikographie des frühen 14. Jahrhunderts." In Lexicologica byzantina. Beiträge zum Kolloquium zur byzantinischen Lexikographie (Bonn, 13.–15. Juli 2007), edited by E. Trapp and S. Schönauer, 163-196. Super alta perennis. Studien zur Wirkung der klassischen Antike. Göttingen: V&R unipress / Bonn University Press, 2008.
Gaul, N.. "Anassa Anna skopei: Fürstin Anna, bedenke! Beobachtungen zur Schedo- und Lexikographie in der spätbyzantinischen Provinz." In Zwischen Polis, Provinz und Peripherie. Beiträge zur byzantinischen Geschichte und Kultur, edited by L. Hoffmann, 663-704. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005.
Gaul, N.. "Eunuchs in the late Byzantine empire." In Eunuchs in antiquity and beyond, edited by S. Tougher, 199-219. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2002.
Journal Article
Gaul, N.. "The Twitching Shroud: collective construction of paideia in the circle of Thomas Magistros." Segno e testo: international journal of manuscripts and text transmission 5 (2007): 263-340.
Miscellaneous