Judith Herrin was educated at the universities of Cambridge and Birmingham, and received additional training in Paris, Munich and Athens. She was awarded several fellowships and visiting appointments before 1991 when she took up the Stanley J. Seeger Professorship in Byzantine History at Princeton University. From there she moved to King’s College London where she remains Professor Emerita and Constantine Leventis Senior Research Fellow attached to the Classics Department.
Her major books include The Formation of Christendom (Princeton University Press, 1987), now reprinted as a Princeton Classic (2021); Byzantium. The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire (Penguin Books, 2007), translated into twelve languages, and Ravenna. Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe (Penguin Books, 2020), which was awarded the Duff Cooper/Pol Roger Prize for History 2020 and is currently being translated into ten languages.
From 1979-2013 she served on the Editorial Board of Past and Present and was Vice Chairman from 2000-2013. She was elected President of the Association Internationale des Etudes Byzantines, 2011-12. In 2000, she was awarded the médaille d’honneur by the Collège de France; in 2002, she received the Gold Cross of Honour by the Hellenic Republic; in 2016 she won the Heineken Prize for History, and in 2023 she was made a Corresponding Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America.
