Hendy, Michael F. 1942–2008

(M.F. Hendy, Michael Hendy, Michael Frank Hendy)

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born April 16, 1942, in Newhaven, Sussex (now East Sussex), England; died of a heart attack, May 13, 2008. Historian, numismatist, classicist, curator, and author. Hendy was known for his groundbreaking research on the money of ancient Byzantium and its role in the stability of the Byzantine economy. His research in modern-day Bulgaria, the Fitzwilliam Museum in England, and the Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies in Washington, DC, led him to discoveries about Byzantine coinage that had misled scholars for years. Hendy was able to reverse the prevailing opinion that the Byzantine economy was in a period of decline during the first half of the thirteenth century; rather, the frequent monetary reforms and revaluations pointed to an economy in a state of expansion. Hendy lectured in numismatics and curated the Byzantine coin collection of the Barber Institute at the University of Birmingham for fifteen years, resigning in 1987 to spend a year at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, followed by an appointment in the classics department at Harvard University. He published his research in the books Coinage and Money in the Byzantine Empire, 1081-1261 (1969), Studies in the Byzantine Monetary Economy, c. 200-1450 (1985), and The Economy, Fiscal Administration, and Coinage of Byzantium (1989).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Times (London, England), June 12, 2008, p. 65.