Staff Profiles

I completed my doctorate at Oxford on the emperor Diocletian and the era of the tetrarchs in 1992, which was subsequently published as the prize-winning The Empire of the Tetrarchs (Clarendon Press, 1996), and I maintain a strong interest in the era of Diocletian and Constantine.

However, my principal area of interest is Roman legal history across both antiquity and the early Middle Ages, on which I have published widely in print and on-line, especially as part of work for the Volterra Roman law projects at University College London (1999-2015).

I have a particular interest in manuscripts and the transmission of ancient texts (especially legal texts), and was trained in palaeography at both the University of Liverpool (1993/4) and King’s College London (2000/1). I was involved in the identification of parchment fragments of the otherwise lost Roman legal work, the Gregorian Code, in 2010, on which I am currently writing a book in collaboration with my project colleague, Benet Salway.

I have a strong interest in Greek and Latin epigraphy and have served on the Steering Committee of the British Epigraphy Society (2014-2022). I previously served on the Councils of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies (2006-2009), the British Institute at Ankara (2011-2015), and.the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies (2018-2021).

Academic Qualifications

2018: Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy.

1994: M.Ar.Ad. Archives Administration, University of Liverpool.

1992: D.Phil. Ancient History, University of Oxford.

1984: BA Literae Humaniores (Classics), University of Oxford.

Academic Positions

2023-2024: Corresponding Fellow (ERC Consolidator Grant "AntCoCo"), Institute for History and European Ethnology, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg

2016- : Lecturer (Senior Lecturer from 2022) in Ancient History, School of History, Classics & Archaeology, Newcastle University.

2016- : Honorary Senior Research Associate, Department of History, University College London.

1999-2015: Senior Research Fellow (on the Volterra Roman law projects), Department of History, University College London.

1995-1998: Assistant Archivist, Department of Manuscripts and Special Collections, University of Nottingham.

Much of my research is focussed on the history, manuscript tradition, and impact of the Justinian Code (published in its surviving revised edition in AD534), and on other late antique and early mediaeval legal works in the Roman tradition including the Summa Perusina and the Lex Romana Canonice Compta. I am also finishing a book with Dr Benet Salway of UCL on the parchment fragments that we have identified as coming from the otherwise lost Gregorian Code (a precursor of that of Justinian).

I have recently been working on a well-known manuscript by the early English historian, William of Malmesbury (c.1090-c.1143), Bodleian Arch. Selden B16, which contains both Roman historical and Roman legal texts. I am also contributing to several international projects, including "Beyond the Black Hole: Locating Junian Latins in the Roman Empire", the Oxford Guide to the Transmission of the Latin Classics, and the REDHIS project at Pavia on late antique juristic thought.

I am currently a Corresponding Fellow on the ERC Consolidator Grant project "AntCoCo" ("Understanding Late Antique Top-Down Communication: A Study of Imperial Constitutions"), run by Prof. Peter Riedlberger based at the University of Bamberg (2021-2026). For this I will be researching, among other things, Justinian's Novels and the bilingual Greek and Latin world of legal teaching and practice in the Roman empire in the sixth century. I will be spending most of the academic year 2023/24 in Bamberg.

I am happy to supervise research not only in late Roman/early mediaeval legal history, but in late antiquity generally, including the era of the tetrarchy and Constantine. I am happy also to supervise topics relating to slavery in the ancient world.

Academic Year, 2023/2024

On Research Leave.

• Article

  • Corcoran S. Roman law and the two languages in Justinian's empire. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 2017, 60(1), 96-116.

• Book Chapters

  • Corcoran S. Junian Latinity in Late Roman and Early Medieval Texts: A Survey from the Third to the Eleventh Centuries AD. In: López Barja, P; Masi Doria, C; Roth, U, ed. Junian Latinity in the Roman Empire Volume 1: History, Law, Literature. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2023, pp.132-152.
  • Corcoran S. Barsauma and the Emperors. In: Hahn J; Menze V, ed. The Wandering Holy Man: The Life of Barsauma, Christian Asceticism and Religious Conflict in Late Antique Palestine. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2020, pp.25-49.
  • Corcoran S. Less of the same? Continuity and change in the official epigraphy of the late empire. In: Destephen,S; Dumézil,B; Ingelbert,H, ed. Le Prince chrétien de Constantin aux royautés barbares (iv-viii siècle). Paris, France: Association des Amis du Centre d’Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance, 2018, pp.3-27.
  • Corcoran S. The Projet Volterra and the palingenesis of imperial constitutions: principles and problems. In: Lohsse, S; Marino, S; Buongiorno, P, ed. Texte wiederherstellen, Kontexte rekonstruieren. Internationale Tagung über Methoden zur Erstellung einer Palingenesie, Münster, 23.–24. April 2015. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2017, pp.139-160.
  • Corcoran S. The Würzburg fragment of Justinian’s constitutions for the administration of recovered Africa. In: Freu C; Janniard S; Ripoll A, ed. Libera curiositas. Mélanges d'histoire romaine et d'Antiquité tardive offerts à Jean-Michel Carrié. Turnhout: Brepols, 2016, pp.97-114.
  • Corcoran S. The Codex of Justinian: the life of a text through 1,500 years. In: Frier B, ed. The Codex of Justinian: A New Annotated Translation, with Parallel Latin and Greek Text. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016, pp.xcvii-clxiv.
  • Corcoran S, Crawford M, Salway B. Sixth Book, First to Twentieth Titles. In: Frier,B, ed. The Codex of Justinian. A New Annotated Translation, with Parallel Latin and Greek Text. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016, pp.1407-1485.
  • Corcoran S. Roman law in Ravenna. In: Herrin,J;Nelson,J, ed. Ravenna: Its Role in Earlier Medieval Change and Exchange. London: Institute of Historical Research, 2016, pp.163-197.
  • Corcoran S. Hincmar and his Roman legal sources. In: Stone R; West C, ed. Hincmar of Rheims : Life and Work. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015, pp.129-155.
  • Corcoran S. From unholy madness to right-mindedness: or how to legislate for religious conformity from Decius to Justinian. In: Papaconstantinou,A;McLynn,N;Schwartz,D, ed. Conversion in Late Antiquity: Christianity, Islam, and Beyond. Papers from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, University of Oxford, 2009-2010. Abingdon: Routledge, 2015, pp.67-94.
  • Corcoran S. "The Augusti and Caesars say": Imperial communication in a collegiate monarchy. In: Procházka,S;Reinfandt,L;Tost,S, ed. Official Epistolography and the Language(s) of Power. Proceedings of the 1st International Conference of the Research Network Imperium and Officium. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2015, pp.219-236.
  • Corcoran S. State correspondence in the Roman Empire: Imperial communication from Augustus to Justinian. In: Radner,K, ed. State Correspondence in the Ancient World from New Kingdom Egypt to the Roman Empire. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014, pp.172-209.