Henry Mayr-Harting


Henry Maria Robert Egmont Mayr-Harting is a British medieval ecclesiastical historian. From 1997 to 2003, he was Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Oxford and a lay canon of Christ Church, Oxford.

Early life and education

Mayr-Harting was born on 6 April 1936 in Prague. He is the son of Herbert Mayr-Harting, a lawyer who was the Czechoslovak representative at the United Nations War Crimes Commission, and of Anna Mayr-Harting, née Münzer, who had a distinguished career as a bacteriologist in Bristol, England. His brother, Thomas Mayr-Harting, is an Austrian and EU diplomat.
He was educated at Douai School and Merton College, Oxford.

Career

Mayr-Harting was lecturer in medieval history at the University of Liverpool 1960–68. He then returned to Oxford to become Fellow and Tutor in Medieval History at St Peter's College from 1968 until 1997, when he was appointed Fellow Emeritus. From 1976 until 1997 he was also lecturer in medieval history at Merton College. He was Slade Professor of Fine Art for the academic year 1987–88 and in 1993 he was named university reader in medieval history. In 1997 he became the first Roman Catholic and the first layperson to be appointed Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the University of Oxford and consequently he became the first lay canon of Christ Church Cathedral. He retired from these positions in 2003.
He was elected Visiting Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, in 1983 and Brown Foundation Fellow at in 1992. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in the same year and he is a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He was the president of the Ecclesiastical History Society. In 2003 he took part in the Spring Lecture Series, Barbarian Europe: The Creation of a Civilization, at the Institute for Medieval Studies, University of New Mexico. Hon. D.Litt., University of East Anglia, 2009.

Personal life

In 1968 Mayr-Harting married Caroline Mary Humphries. Together they have a son, Felix, and a daughter, Ursula. Mayr-Harting's daughter, now called Ursula Weekes, is an art historian and has written several books, including Techniques of Drawing, Early Netherlandish Engraving circa 1440–1540, Techniques of Drawing: from the 15th to the 19th Centuries, and Early Engravers and their Public: the Master of the Berlin Passion and Manuscripts from Convents in the Rhine-Maas Region.

Selected publications