Nathan D.C. Websdale

Nathan Websdale is a Research Associate in the Faculty of History at the University of Oxford on the AHRC–DFG-funded project Patronage and Power in the Pre-Modern Mediterranean: Monumental Donor Epigraphy on Mount Athos (10th–17th Centuries). His role focuses on identifying and contextualising individuals attested in Athonite epigraphy, reconstructing their familial, social, and political networks through prosopographical research.

Nathan completed his DPhil in History at the University of Oxford in 2026 under the supervision of Dr Ida Tóth. His doctoral thesis, Panspermía and the Romaíoi: Performative Ethnicity and the Weaponization of Space in Byzantium's Post-Imperial Networks c.1190–1235, examined identity formation, ethnic discourse, and ideological projection during the political fragmentation of Byzantium following the collapse of the Komnenian dynasty and the Fourth Crusade. Drawing on epigraphic, epistolary, and narrative sources, his research argues for substantial continuity in elite social networks across the transition from imperial unity to competing successor states, challenging traditional interpretations of 1204 as a definitive historical rupture.

Alongside his work on Mount Athos, Nathan is co-convener of the collaborative research project Epiros: The Other Western Rome and contributes to the Prosopon Research Network's initiatives in Byzantine prosopography. His wider research interests include Byzantine political and social history, Crusader Studies, the Despotate of Epiros, the medieval Caucasus, Slavonic Studies, epistolography, network analysis, historical sociology, environmental history, Late Antiquity, Classical Greece, Anglo-Saxon England, the Ottoman Empire, and Napoleonic history.

https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/patronage-and-power-in-the-pre-modern-mediterranean 

Supervisor (2021–2025): Dr Ida Toth

https://oxford.academia.edu/NathanWebsdale

President, Oxford University Byzantine Society (2022-2023)

Graduate Outreach Tutor, Researcher in Residence: Faculty of History

Educational Background:

BA History (First Class) : Royal Holloway, University of London, 2016.

MA Late Antique and Byzantine Studies (Merit):  Intercollegiate University of London, 2017.

• Recipient of the Patriarch George II of Cyprus Scholarship.

ESL Teacher: ELC Anifadis, Chalkida, Greece

DPhil History: Wolfson College, University of Oxford, 2021–2025.

• Recipient of the Tsiter-Kontoupoulou Visiting Fellowship at the University of Vienna, 2025.

Affiliations:

Royal Historical Society - Postgraduate Member

Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies - Member

Epiros: The Other Western Rome - Convenor

Dumbarton Oaks Coins and Seals Summer Programme - Participant