Members of the Chair of Medieval History (Jaspert) Laurin Herberich, M.A.

• History of the military religious orders (esp. of the Hospitallers)
• History of the Republic of Venice
• History of the Eastern Mediterranean
• Digital Humanities (esp. relational databases, cypher, neo4j, python)
• Historical Methodology (esp. Latin philology)

Maritime Predators in the Eastern Mediterranean

The diction of sources doesn’t usually match the definition of researchers. Therefore, the fact that the main actors in the Rhodian “corso” of the Hospitallers in the Eastern Mediterranean are called “piratae” as well as “cursarii” by the mostly affected Venetians, reflects said rule of thumb. Surprisingly empirical research derives its definitions of the phenomenon of maritime predation not only from the modern equivalents of the latter terms, but also specifically from their distinction. Reasons seem to be its source-analytical focus on entities and its legalist understanding of maritime predation. To test newer attempts at definitions empirically and support them possibly, this project is not only setting a new focus on group- and single actors, but also a new outcome-oriented understanding of maritime predation as its guiding principle. The aim is a prosopographical study of the phenomenon of maritime predation, that should enable insights in financial structures, social careers as well as diplomatic networks. At the end, a more useful definition of the phenomenon in the Late Middle Ages should be available, which matches its actors.

• since October 2025: Researcher in the DFG-Project “Ambivalent Enmity. Dynamics of Antagonism in Europe, Asia and the Middle East”
• October 2022 – September 2025: Researcher in the DFG-Project “Medieval Maritime Predation – A Database Supported Analysis of Mediterranean Violence”
• October 2021 – September 2022: Scientific Assistant at the Chair of Medieval History (Prof. Dr. Nikolas Jaspert) at the Department of History of the Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg
• Juli 2021: Second State Exam (Latin and History)
• January 2020 – Juli 2021: Student teacher at Ludwig-Frank-Gymnasium Mannheim and the Seminar for the professional training of teachers Heidelberg
• November 2019: First State Exam (Latin and History)
• October 2013 – November 2019: Studies in Classical Philololgy and History at Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg

• Summer term 2025: Colmar between Fachwerk and Fortresses (Excursion)
• Summer term 2024: Luxemburg in European contexts (Excursion)
• Summer term 2023: Genoa, Pisa and the Mediterranean (Excursion)
• Summer term 2023: Wissembourg between Bunkers und Castles (Excursion)
• Summer term 2023: Marshall Boucicaut (Exercise)
• Winter term 2022/23: Norman Connections (Excursion)
• Summer term 2022: The Teutonic Order in the County of Hohenlohe (Excursion)
• Summer term2022: The Teutonic Order (Seminar)
• Winter term 2021/22: Venice and Maritime Predation (Exercise)

Articles 

• Herberich, Laurin, Defence Exporters? Catalans, Turks, and Venetians in the Triarchy of Negroponte, in: Laurin Herberich, Alexander Marx (eds.), Conflict and Polemic on the Iberian Peninsula and the Mediterranean World. In preparation
• Id., Burguera i Puigserver, Victòria, Accessing medieval Maritime Predation: Approaches, Challenges, and Solutions, in: Burguera i Puigserver, Victòria, Herberich, Laurin, Jaspert, Nikolas (eds.), Accessing the Sea in the Middle Ages: Quantitative Approaches to Mediterranean Mobility. In preparation
• Id., Loose Ends? Captives, fugitives, and agency between Venice and the Aegean Beyliks, in: Burguera i Puigserver, Victòria, Silvestri, Alessandro (eds.), Maritime cities at the boundaries: Governance, intervention and agency at sea in Late Medieval Western Europe (13^th - 15^th centuries). In preparation
• Id., Machine of Unfreedom? Venice, induced demand, and the trafficking of Turkic slaves in the late Middle Ages, in: Houben, Hubert, Jaspert, Nikolas, Koller, Markus (eds.), The Eastern Mediterranean: A Liquid Frontier, 1300-1700. In preparation
• Id., Maritime Powers and Maritime Predation: Strategies of Everyday Thalassocracy in the Eastern Mediterranean, in: Jaspert, Nikolas, Rüdiger, Jan, Über die Küsten hinaus: Thalassokratien im Mittelalter (Mittelmeerstudien, 25), Paderborn 2023, pp. 191-233.

Smaller publications

• Herberich, Laurin, Burguera i Puigserver, Victòria, Jaspert, Nikolas, Jäger und Gejagte: Mittelalterliche Gewaltunternehmer im Mittelmeerraum, in: Ruperto Carola 26 (2025), pp. 77-83.

• Id., Hätte ich das mal eher gewusst … mit Laurin Herberich, in: h r e f. A Link to Digitized Primary Source Projects in German and Global History (06.06.2025). 

  Online access (last access: 23.03.2026)

• Review of “Florian Chamorel, Un destin méditerranéen. Les princes de la Maison de Savoie en Méditerranée orientale (XIVe-XVe siècle) (Études d'Histoire Médiévale, 18), Paris (Honoré Champion) 2023”, in: Francia-Recensio.

   Online access (last access: 12.11.2024)

• Review of “A Military History of the Mediterranean Sea. Aspects of War, Diplomacy, and Military Elites (History of Warfare, 118), hg. von Georgios Theotokis / Aysel Yildiz, Leiden/Boston 2018”, in: Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters (2024, 79,2), pp. 915-917.

• Tailored Terms: Catalan and Genoese Maritime Predators in Venetian Words, in: Ibero-Mediaevistik. Mittelalterforschung zur Iberischen Halbinsel (07.06.2023).

  Online access (last access: 07.06.2023)

• Alfons V. and his Predators – Control through Goodwill, in: Ibero-Mediaevistik. Mittelalterforschung zur Iberischen Halbinsel (08.10.2022).

  Online access (last access: 08.10.2022)

• In vielen, nicht so einfachen Schritten zum eigenen Metropolitanbistum, in: Ibero-Mediaevistik. Mittelalterforschung zur Iberischen Halbinsel (26.12.2021).

  Online access (last access: 26.12.2021)

• „[multum] aliud importat“ – Venetians, Catalans and Maritime Predators, in: Ibero-Mediaevistik. Mittelalterforschung zur Iberischen Halbinsel (18.11.2021).

  Online access (last access: 18.11.2021)

• Hospitaller activity in the Eastern Mediterranean between 1380 and 1480: Scattered Sources and Relational Access, Paper given at the 17. Colloquium of the German-Polish Forum for Source Editions (17.09.2025).

  Online access (last access: 23.03.2026)

• Learning from the Best: ‘Catalan’ sea experts in the Eastern Mediterranean, Paper given at the IMC of the Institute for Medieval Studies at Leeds University (09.07.2025).

  Online access (last access: 23.03.2026)

• The Skeleton Key: Data Integration as a Task of Historiography, Lecture given in the lecture series “Pergament und Pixel: Schnittstellen zwischen Materialität und Digitalen Methoden” of the Medieval Studies Master’s programme at Heidelberg University (24.04.2025).
• Neo4j, easydb, und fylr: Quantitative Lösungen prosopographischer Probleme, Presentation at the Medieval Research Colloquium of the Department of History at the University of Münster (18.12.2024).
• Accessing Medieval Maritime Predation, Presentation at the DFG-funded conference “Accessing the Sea in the Middle Ages: Quantitative Approaches to Mediterranean Mobility” in Heidelberg (30.10.2024).
• A City out of Time: Venice and the Latency Problem, Presentation at the 16. Conference of the European Association for Urban History (EAUH) in Ostrava (05.09.2024).

• Pride and Predation: Conflict resolution between Venice and the Crown of Aragon in the late Middle Ages, Presentation at the IMC of the Institute for Medieval Studies at Leeds University (01.07.2024).

  Online access (last access: 22.02.2025)

• Hospitallers and Maritime Violence: Bystanders or Beneficiaries? – Part II, Presentation at the Humboldt Symposium in Heidelberg (14.06.2024).
• Hospitallers and Maritime Violence: Bystanders or Beneficiaries? – Part I, resentation at the Humboldt Symposium in Heidelberg (27.10.2023).
• Loose Enden: Kriegsgefangene, Flüchtlinge und Sklaven zwischen Venedig und dem Osmanischen Reich, Lecture in the study course of Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani (04.10.2023).
• Out and Proud: The ‘pirata publicus’ in Venetian Archival Records, Presentation at the IMCS of the Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University (13.05.2023).
• Seeraub und Seeherrschaft: Strategien alltäglicher Thalassokratie im Östlichen Mittelmeer, Lecture at the Great Colloquium of the Department of History of the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg (20.12.2022).