Department of History and Archaeology

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Konstantinos Moustakas was born in Athens in 1968. Between 1986 and 1990 he studied at the Department of History and Archaeology of the University of Ioannina from which he graduated with a specialization in History. He successfully competed for a postgraduate grant from the State Scholarship Foundation in 1991. From 1991 he carried on with postgraduate studies at the University of Birmingham in England, first MPhil, then PhD, on the subjects of Byzantine and Ottoman history, and supported his doctoral dissertation in 2001. In the midst he completed his military service in the years 1997 and 1998. He worked in the 2^nd Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities in 1999, and in the Foundation of Hellenic World as a research cadre between 2000 and 2002. Since 2002 he teaches Byzantine History at the Department of History and Archaeology of the University of Crete, as a lecturer on temporary appointment (2002-05), a lecturer (2005-10), an assistant professor (2010 – November 2023) and an associate professor (from December 2023). He also works as associate teaching staff at the Hellenic Open University since 2006, and was a research associate of the Institute of Mediterranean Studies (FORTH) between 2004 and 2011. He is married with two children.

Research Interests: Comparative study of Byzantine and Ottoman institutions and social realities; Social, economic  and demographic history of Byzantium, the medieval Balkans, and the early Ottoman Empire; Byzantine views of the Ottoman ascent; Late Byzantine and Post-Byzantine historiography; History of the medieval Balkans

Links: 

• http://crete.academia.edu/KonstantinosMoustakas

Recent publications:

Books

History of the Medieval Balkans, 7^th-11^th centuries, Athens: HEAL, 2015 (e-book, in Greek).

Articles

“Slave-Labour in the Early Ottoman Rural Economy. Regional Variations in the Balkans during the Fifteenth Century”, in M. Hadjianastasis (ed.), Frontiers of the Ottoman Imagination. Studies in Honour of Rhoads Murphey, Leiden-London: Brill, 2015, pp. 29-43.

“The Myth of the Byzantine Origins of the Osmanlis: An Essay in Interpretation”, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 39/1 (2015), pp. 85-97.

“The Properties of Athonite Monasteries in south-eastern Macedonia during the first decades of the 16^th century” [in Greek], in K. Chrysochoides (ed.), Η εξακτίνωση του Αγίου Όρους στον ορθόδοξο κόσμο: Τα μετόχια, Πρακτικά Θ΄ Διεθνούς Επιστημονικού Συνεδρίου Αγιορειτικής Εστίας, Thessalonica 21-23/11/2014, Thessalonica 2015, pp. 93-105.

“The logic of historical thematology in the Historia Politica Constantinopoleos and the Historia Patriarchica Constantinopoleos”, in E. Balta – G. Salakidis – Th. Stavridis (eds.), Festschrift in Honor of Ioannis P. Theocharidis, II. Studies on the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, Istanbul: Isis Press, 2014, pp. 363-74.

 “Idealizing themes of Osmanli origins in the historical texts of the 15^th and early 16^th centuries”, Ariadne, 18 (2012), pp. 151-70.

“Questions of Method to the Approach of the Population Size of the Late Byzantine Town” [in Greek], in T. Kiousopoulou (ed.), The Byzantine City. Outlooks of Research and New Interpretative Approaches, Rethymno 2012, pp. 225-51.

“‘Byzantine “Visions’ of the Ottoman Empire: Theories of Ottoman Legitimacy by Byzantine Scholars after the Fall of Constantinople”, in A. Lymberopoulou (ed.), Images of the Byzantine World. Visions, Messages and Meanings: Studies presented to Leslie Brubaker, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011, pp. 215-29.

“Early historical records of the monastery of Mauriotissa in Kastoria (1530)” [in Greek with summary in English], in G. Salakides (ed.), Turcologica. Festschrift for Anastasios Iordanoglou, Thessalonica 2011, pp. 253-88.     

“Early Evidence on the Introduction of Timar in the Balkans and its use as a Means of Incorporation. The Pronoia of Laskaris”, Südost Forschungen, 68 (2009), pp. 63-95.  

“Mamaimi: Contribution to the Study of the Oracular Tradition at the Times of the Fall of Constantinople” [in Greek with summary in English], Ariadne. Scientific Journal of the Faculty of Letters of the University of Crete, 14 (2008), pp. 119-55.