Marc D. Lauxtermann is Bywater and Sotheby Professor of Byzantine and Modern Greek Language and Literature and Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford University. He hails from Amsterdam. He has written extensively on Byzantine poetry and metre, and is the co-editor of a recent book on the letters of Psellos. Further research interests include translations of oriental tales in Byzantium, the earliest grammars and dictionaries of vernacular Greek, and the development of the Greek language in the eighteenth century.

Mark Whittow is the University Lecturer in Byzantine Studies at the University of Oxford. Recent or forthcoming publications include 'Byzantium's Eurasian Policy in the Age of the Türk Empire', in Maas and Di Cosmo's Entangled Empires: Rome, Iran, China, and the Eurasian Steppe in Late Antiquity (2017); 'Byzantium and the Feudal Revolution' in Howard-Johnston and Whittow's The Transformation of Byzantium (2017); 'The End of Antiquity in the Lykos Valley' in ¿im¿ek's, The Lykos Valley and Neighbourhood in Late Antiquity (2016).