Peter Schreiner (Byzantinist)

Peter Schreiner (born 4 May 1940 in Munich) is a German Byzantinist. From 1979 to 2005 he taught as a full professor of Byzantine Studies at the University of Cologne. Schreiner is one of the leading Byzantinists in German-speaking countries.

Life and work
Peter Schreiner attended the humanistic Wilhelmsgymnasium in Munich and passed his Abitur there in 1961. He then studied at the University of Munich Byzantine Studies, Middle Latin Philology, Ancient History and Classical Philology. On February 23, 1967, he received his doctorate under Hans-Georg Beck with a thesis on the Byzantine Minor Chronicles. From 1967 to 1968 he had a travel and research scholarship from the German Research Foundation. From 1968 to 1972 he worked as a scribe for Greek manuscripts at the Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana in Rome. From 1972 to 1974 he was a research assistant at the Free University of Berlin. There he completed his habilitation in 1974 in Byzantine Studies. He was a private lecturer at the Free University of Berlin until 1979. From 1979 to 2005 he was a full professor of Byzantine Studies and director of the Institute for Classical Studies at the University of Cologne. In 1992 he was a visiting professor at the École pratique des hautes études in Paris and in 2000 a visiting professor at the Collège de France. From 1987 to 1993 he was a member of the advisory board of the Medievalists' Association. From 1992 to 1999 he was co-editor of the “Lexicon of the Middle Ages”. From 1992 to 2004 Peter Schreiner was editor of the Byzantine Journal. From 2005 to 2009 he was chairman of the scientific advisory board of the German Study Center in Venice. He was President of the Association Internationale des Études Byzantines from 2001 to 2011.

His research focuses on manuscript research (paleography, codicology, libraries), the urban history of Constantinople, Genoa, Venice and Byzantium. His research projects include, among other things, studies on the Sofia manuscript of Johannes Skylitzes, research on the settlements of Western merchants in Constantinople up to the end of the 12th century, as well as the edition and commentary of 100 inventory lists of private and church book collections from the 11th to 19th centuries 15th century. He presented a standard work on the history of the Byzantine Empire, the fourth updated edition of which appeared in 2011.

Schreiner has been awarded numerous scientific honors and memberships for his research. He was awarded the Medal of Honor from Sofia University in 1988. Since 1991 he has been a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, since 1994 a member of the Istituto Siciliano di Studi Bizantini, since 1993 of the Akademie der Sciences in Göttingen, honorary member of the Association of Russian Medievalists since 1998 and external member of the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti since 2018. From 1986 to 2015 he was a member of the Southeast European Commission at the Göttingen Academy. He received honorary doctorates from the universities Tarnovo (1992), Belgrade (2003), Sofia (2004), Galați (2009) and Komotini (2014). In 2015, he received the Medal of Honor from the Eötvös College of Eötvös State University Budapest.

Fonts (selection)
List of publications
 * The writings of Peter Schreiner from the years 1965-2000. In: Cordula Scholz, Georgios Makris (Hrsg.): Polypleuros nus. Miscellanea für Peter Schreiner zu seinem 60. Geburtstag (= Byzantinisches Archiv. Band 19). Saur, München, Leipzig 2000, ISBN 3-598-77742-6, S. 415–429.

Monographs
 * Studien zu den Brachea chronika (= Miscellanea Byzantina Monacensia. Band 6). Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Institut für Byzantinistik, Byzantinische Kunstgeschichte und Neogräzistik, Philologie, München 1967, (Dissertation University of Munich 1967).
 * Byzanz 565–1453 (= Oldenbourg Grundriss der Geschichte. Band 22). Oldenbourg, München 1986, ISBN 978-3-486-57750-1 (4th, updated edition 2011).
 * Stadt und Gesetz – Dorf und Brauch. Versuch einer historischen Volkskunde von Byzanz: Methoden, Quellen, Gegenstände, Beispiele. (= Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, Philologisch-historische Klasse. Nr. 9, Jahrgang 2001). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001.
 * Konstantinopel. Geschichte und Archäologie (= C. H. Beck Wissen, Band 2364). Beck, München 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-50864-6 (Italian edition Edition Salerno, Rome 2009, ISBN 978-88-8402-663-7).

Source works
 * Chronica Byzantina breviora = Die byzantinischen Kleinchroniken (= Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae. Band 12), 3 Bände, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien 1975–1979.
 * Texte zur spätbyzantinischen Finanz- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte in Handschriften der Biblioteca Vaticana (= Studi e testi, Band 344). Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Città del Vaticano 1991, ISBN 88-210-0637-9.

Essay collections
 * Byzantinische Kultur. Eine Aufsatzsammlung, collected short writings:
 * Band 1: Die Macht, ed. by Silvia Ronchey, Elena Velkovska, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Rom 2006, ISBN 88-8498-210-3 (Inhaltsverzeichnis);
 * Band 2: Das Wissen, ed. by Niels Gaul, Silvia Ronchey, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Roma 2009, ISBN 978-88-8498-211-7 (Inhaltsverzeichnis);
 * Band 3: Die materielle Kultur, ed. by Christina Katsougiannopoulou and Silvia Ronchey, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Roma 2011, ISBN 978-88-8498-368-8 (Inhaltsverzeichnis);
 * Band 4: Die Ausstrahlung, ed. by Silvia Ronchey and Raimondo Tocci, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Roma 2013 ISBN 978-88-6372-503-2 (Prefazione von Silvia Ronchey; Inhaltsverzeichnis).

Literature

 * Cordula Scholz, Georgios Makris (Ed.): Polypleuros nus. Miscellanea für Peter Schreiner zu seinem 60. Geburtstag (= Byzantinisches Archiv. Band 19). Saur, München, Leipzig 2000, ISBN 3-598-77742-6.