Henry Mayr-Harting


Henry Maria Robert Egmont Mayr-Harting is a British medieval ecclesiastical historian. From 1997 to 2003, he was Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Oxford and a lay canon of Christ Church, Oxford.

Early life and education

Mayr-Harting was born on 6 April 1936 in Prague. He is the son of Herbert Mayr-Harting, a lawyer who was the Czechoslovak representative at the United Nations War Crimes Commission, and of Anna Mayr-Harting, née Münzer, who had a distinguished career as a bacteriologist in Bristol, England. His brother, Thomas Mayr-Harting, is an Austrian and EU diplomat.
He was educated at Douai School and Merton College, Oxford.

Career

Mayr-Harting was lecturer in medieval history at the University of Liverpool 1960–68. He then returned to Oxford to become Fellow and Tutor in Medieval History at St Peter's College from 1968 until 1997, when he was appointed Fellow Emeritus. From 1976 until 1997 he was also lecturer in medieval history at Merton College. In the 1970s Mayr-Harting served as Admissions Tutor for St Peter's College and in the early 1980s as Chair of the Faculty Board for the Faculty of History.
Mayr-Harting was Slade Professor of Fine Art for the academic year 1987–88 and in 1993 he was named university reader in medieval history. In 1997 he became the first Roman Catholic and the first layperson to be appointed Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the University of Oxford and consequently he became the first lay canon of Christ Church Cathedral. He retired from these positions in 2003.
He was elected Visiting Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, in 1983 and Brown Foundation Fellow at Sewanee: The University of the South in 1992. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in the same year and he is a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He was the president of the Ecclesiastical History Society. In 2003 he took part in the Spring Lecture Series, Barbarian Europe: The Creation of a Civilization, at the Institute for Medieval Studies, University of New Mexico. Hon. D.Litt., University of East Anglia, 2009.
Mayr-Harting is the current president of the Henry Bradshaw Society.

Personal life

In 1968 Mayr-Harting married Caroline Mary Humphries. Together they have a son, Felix, and a daughter, Ursula. Mayr-Harting's daughter, now called Ursula Weekes, is an art historian and has written several books, including Techniques of Drawing, Early Netherlandish Engraving circa 1440–1540, Techniques of Drawing: from the 15th to the 19th Centuries, and Early Engravers and their Public: the Master of the Berlin Passion and Manuscripts from Convents in the Rhine-Maas Region.

Selected publications

  • Henry Mayr-Harting, The Bishops of Chichester and the Administration of Their Diocese, 1075–1207: with a Collection of Acta
  • Widukind of Corvey, Res gestae Saxonicae, tr. Henry Mayr-Harting
  • Henry Mayr-Harting, The Bishops of Chichester, 1075–1207: Biographical Notes and Problems
  • Henry Mayr-Harting, ed. and introduction, Diocesis Cicestrensis: The Acta of the Bishops of Chichester, 1075–1207
  • Henry Mayr-Harting,
  • Henry Mayr-Harting, 'Functions of a Twelfth-Century Recluse', History 60, 337–52
  • Henry Mayr-Harting, The Venerable Bede, the Rule of St Benedict, and Social Class
  • Henry Mayr-Harting and R. I. Moore, eds, Studies in Medieval History Presented to R. H. C. Davis
  • Henry Mayr-Harting, Saint Wilfrid
  • Henry Mayr-Harting, ed., St Hugh of Lincoln: Lectures Delivered at Oxford and Lincoln to Celebrate the Eighth Centenary of St Hugh's Consecration as Bishop of Lincoln
  • Henry Mayr-Harting, 'The Foundation of Peterhouse, Cambridge and the Rule of Saint Benedict', English Historical Review 103, 318
  • Henry Mayr-Harting, Ottonian Book Illumination: an Historical Study
  • Henry Mayr-Harting, Two conversions to Christianity: the Bulgarians and the Anglo-Saxons
  • Henry Mayr-Harting, 'Charlemagne, the Saxons, and the Imperial Coronation of 800', English Historical Review 111:444, 1113–33
  • Henry Mayr-Harting, Perceptions of Angels in History: an Inaugural Lecture Delivered in the University of Oxford on 14 November 1997
  • Henry Mayr-Harting, 'Liudprand of Cremona's Account of his Legation to Constantinople and Ottonian Imperial Strategy', English Historical Review 116 539
  • Richard Harries and Henry Mayr-Harting, eds, Christianity: Two Thousand Years
  • Henry Mayr-Harting, 'The Uta Codex: Art, Philosophy, and Reform in Eleventh-Century Germany', Catholic Historical Review 88:4, 759–61
  • Henry Mayr-Harting, Melbourne Church in its Earliest Historical Surroundings: the Friends First Public Lecture
  • Henry Mayr-Harting, Church and Cosmos in Early Ottonian Germany: The View from Cologne
  • Henry Mayr-Harting, ''Religion, Politics and Society in Britain 1066–1272''