Yitzak Hen, born in Tzefat, Israel, in 1963. Ph.D. from Cambridge University. Senior Lecturer in Mediaeval History at the University of Haifa, Israel.
Fellow (1 September 2000 – 30 June 2001)
During my year at NIAS I started research for a book on the Royal Court and the patronage of culture in the Barbarian kingdoms of the early Middle Ages. The final version of the book will include six (or maybe seven) chapters, and during my fellowship at NIAS I have managed to collect material and finish writing the first draft of three chapters .The first chapter contains an introductory discussion of patronage of culture as a social, political and cultural phenomenon; the second discusses the court of the Vandal King Thrasamund; and the third analyses the court of the Frankish King Dagober I (623-639). I have also collected most of the material for a chapter on the Ostrogothic court of King Theoderic the Great (493-526). In addition to work on my main project, I also wrote five papers, two of which will be part of a book I am editing with Dr. Rob Meens (University of Utrecht), on the Bobbio Missal. I also prepared three papers for publication: a volume edited by Marco Mostert, a volume edited by Julia Smith and Leslie Brubaker; and the Revue bénédictine. In April, Dr. Rob Meens and I organised a one-day workshop on the Bobbio Missal. This workshop, sponsored by the University of Utrecht and NWO, brought together scholars from all around the world and from various disciplines (historians, liturgists, Latinists, art historians, theologians, and literary critics). It was extremely successful, and we intend to publish the results of this workshop in a special book dedicated to the Bobbio Missal.