Gonville & Caius College Fellow Professor David Abulafia FBA has been awarded a CBE in the King’s Birthday Honours List, it has been announced.

The Emeritus Professor of Mediterranean History at the University of Cambridge has been honoured for services to scholarship.

Professor Abulafia joined Caius in 1974, aged 24, as a Research Fellow, following the completion of his undergraduate degree at King’s College, where he also undertook his PhD.

“It's just so very heartwarming,” Professor Abulafia said.

“It's often been said that mathematicians peak in their 30s. Historians, I think tend to do our best work as our careers develop. It's extremely gratifying to get recognition for what one considers one's best work.”

Professor Abulafia returned from an academic trip abroad to a letter informing him of the Honour. He shared the news with his wife, Professor Anna Sapir Abulafia, Emerita Professor of the Study of the Abrahamic Religions at the University of Oxford, and two daughters by text message, noting the embargo date. All were delighted.

His research interests focus on the Mediterranean and other seas at all periods but especially in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and above all Italy and Spain; he is now writing about the Black Sea.

Books written by Professor Abulafia include Frederick II (1988), The Discovery of Mankind: Atlantic encounters in the age of Columbus (2008), The Great Sea: a human history of the Mediterranean (2011, translated into 12 languages), and The Boundless Sea: a human history of the Oceans (2019), which won the Wolfson Prize in History.

The Master, Professor Pippa Rogerson, said: “On behalf of the Caius community, many congratulations to Professor David Abulafia for his CBE. David has been a Fellow of Caius for 49 years and it is wonderful his lifetime of scholarship has been recognised with this Honour.”