Associate Professor John Pryor

PhD (Toronto), BA Hons (Adelaide)
Room N306 Woolley Building

+61 2 9351 2840

John Pryor has been a member of the Department of History since 1974. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1979 and to Associate Professor in 1987. John has taught in a wide range of courses in medieval and Early Modern History, focussing especially on medieval social and economic history, the Crusades, and maritime history. He has also held many administrative positions both within the Department of History and in Faculty. He was Pro-Dean of the Faculty in the early 1990s. Since the establishment of the Centre for Medieval Studies in 1997 he has had cross appointments to it and currently shares his commitments equally between History and Medieval Studies. He intends to retire within the next few years.

• The Crusades
• Medieval economic history
• Medieval and early modern maritime history

• The Age of the Drvomwn: the Byzantine navy ca 500-1204
• Soldiers of fortune in the fleets of Charles I of Anjou, ca. 1266-1285
• A view from the sea: Sea Power and the First Crusade

Geography, technology and war: studies in the maritime history of the Mediterranean, 649-1571 (Cambridge, C.U.P., 1988).

Commerce, shipping, and naval warfare in the medieval Mediterranean (London, Variorum, 1987)

Business contracts of medieval Provence: selected notulae from the cartulary of Giraud Amalric of Marseilles, 1248 (Toronto, Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1981).

“Byzantium and the sea: Byzantine fleets and the history of the Empire in the age of the Macedonian emperors, c. 900-1025 CE”, in J. B. Hattendorf and R. W. Unger, eds, War at sea in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Woodbridge, 2003), 83-104.

“The Venetian fleet for the Fourth Crusade and the diversion of the Crusade to Constantinople”, in M. Bull and N. Housley, eds, The experience of Crusading. Volume One: Western approaches (Cambridge, 2003), 103-23.

“Types of ships and their performance capabilities”, in R. Macrides, ed., Travel in the Byzantine world: papers from the Thirty-fourth Spring Symposium of Byzantine studies, Birmingham, April 2000 (Aldershot, 2002), 33-58.

“Water, water everywhere, Nor any drop to drink”: Water supplies for the fleets of the First Crusade”, in M. Balard, et al., eds, Dei gesta perFrancos: Etudes sur les croisades dédiées à Jean Richard/Crusade studies in honour of Jean Richard (Aldershot, 2001), 21-8.

“The maritime republics”, in D. Abulafia, ed.,The New Cambridge medieval history. Volume V c. 1198-1300 (Cambridge, 1999), 419-46.

“The naval architecture of Crusader transport ships: a reconstruction of some archetypes for round-hulled sailing ships”, Mariner's Mirror, 70 (1984), 171-219, 275-92, & 363-86.

“The naval battles of Roger of Lauria”, Journal of Medieval History, 9 (1983), 179-216.

"Transportation of horses by sea during the era of the Crusades: eighth century to 1285 A.D.", Mariner's Mirror, 68 (1982), 9-27 & 103-25.

"The origins of the Commenda contract", Speculum, 52 (1977), 5-37.

• Social and economic history of the High Middle Ages (ca 1050-1300). A teaching field for Junior-level History.
• The social and economic history of the Mediterranean world in the High Middle Ages (ca 1050-1300). A teaching field for Senior-level History.
• Diplomatic and legal history in the High Middle Ages. A teaching field in Medieval Studies MDST2001: The written record of the Middle Ages
• Medieval and Early Modern maritime history. A teaching field in honours in History
• The First Crusade and the history of the Crusader States (ca 1099-1291). Teaching fields in Senior-Level Medieval Studies

Participant at the Dibner Institute, MIT, December 2205, as commentator on papers by Mauro Bondioli and Piero Falchetta on the shipbuilding texts and portolans and related material for the Michael of Rhodes Project/Conference. Michael of Rhodes was a Greek seaman who joined the Venetian navy in Apulia in 1401 and who subsequently rose to high rank. Between 1435 and 1444 he compiled a manuscript detailing matters of maritime interest including shipbuilding, mathematics, navigation, etc. This is the oldest manuscript of its type in existence. It has been in private hands (still not revealed) since the 16th century. The Dibner Institute is publishing it with translation and commentary.

Asked by The Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East to organize its Meeting at the International Congress of Historical Sciences in Sydney, July 2005, which eventuated as “Peoples and Cultures of the Levant in the Ages of the Crusades”, 4 July , 2005. In conjunction with this, organized a Symposium of the participants in the Centre for Medieval Studies entitled “From the West to the Levant in the Ages of the Crusades”, 1 July, 2005. A volume of papers is to be edited for the series “Medieval voyagers” of the Centre for Medieval Studies for its publisher Brepols.

Recipient of a grant of $30,000 to organize a week-long workshop in the Centre for Medieval Studies on the Logistics of Crusading and related military activities. in 2002 Scholars from around the world attended and the volume of proceedings is about to appear.