Makris, Georgios 

Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection

Research Topic: Monastic Communities and Lay Society in Byzantine Thrace, CA. 950-1376

Mr.Makris is a final-year PhD candidate in Byzantine Studies at the University of Birmingham. His dissertation is the first comprehensive study of the monks and monastic foundations of Byzantine Thrace from the tenth to fourteenth centuries. By drawing on a rich array of textual sources and extensive archaeological fieldwork in Türkiye and Greece, his study traces the development and spatial organization of monasticism in Thrace, and elucidates the concept of the “holy mountain” within the religious culture of the Byzantine world. The fields of his interests encompass Byzantine material culture, the archaeology of monasticism, and the relationship between monasteries and lay society in the Middle Ages. Makris most recently held a Junior Fellowship in Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C. During his time at the RCAC, he will prepare his thesis for publication as a monograph on the cultural history of Byzantine Thrace, offering an integrated view of the social and economic lives of indigenous inhabitants in town and countryside.