Thomas Girault is a PhD researcher working on an EU funded project entitled New Polities. Political thought in the first millennium and led by his supervisor Pr. Peter Van Nuffelen. He studied History and Germanistics at the University of Dijon and the University of Mainz, where he earned his B.A. (2021) ; he studied then Late Antique History at the Universities of Strasbourg and Trier as a TRISTRA-M student (UFA/DFH), where he earned his M.A. degree (2024). During his M.A., he worked, under the supervision of Pr. Eckhard Wirbelauer and Pr. Christian Rollinger, on the early days of early Christian pilgrimage to the Holy Land, focusing mainly on the Peregrinatio Egeriae.
Currently, his PhD project focuses on the nakharark'-system in Late Antique Armenia (5th-9th c.). His research addresses the functioning of the Late Antique Armenian aristocracy in its relationship with Byzantium, the Sassanian Empire/Umayyad & Abbassid Caliphate and its other Caucasian neighbours, and its self-representation as part of the construction of an 'Armenian' identity. He also investigates the various representations of power and rulership in Late Antique Armenian historiography.