Michael McCormick is the Francis Goelet Professor of Medieval History and the Chair of the Standing Committee on Medieval Studies at Harvard University. His research focuses on the late Roman and early medieval history of the Mediterranean basin and Continental Europe, with interests in the Carolingian empire, Byzantium, philology, paleography and codicology. His recent works include Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce, A.D. 300-900 (2001), Five Hundred Unknown Glosses from the Palatine Virgil (1993), and Eternal Victory: Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium, and the Early Medieval West (1986).