Byzantium, that dark sphere on the periphery of medieval Europe, is commonly regarded as the immutable residue of Rome's decline. In this highly original and provocative work, Alexander Kazhdan and Ann Wharton Epstein revise this traditional image by documenting the dynamic social changes that occurred during the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
Byzantium, that dark sphere on the periphery of medieval Europe, is commonly regarded as the immutable residue of Rome's decline. In this highly original and provocative work, Alexander Kazhdan and Ann Wharton Epstein revise this traditional image by documenting the dynamic social changes that occurred during the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
Byzantium, that dark sphere on the periphery of medieval Europe, is commonly regarded as the immutable residue of Rome's decline. In this highly original and provocative work, Alexander Kazhdan and Ann Wharton Epstein revise this traditional image by documenting the dynamic social changes that occurred during the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
The history of Byzantium pivots around the eleventh century, during which it reached its apogee in terms of power, prestige, and territorial extension, only then to plunge into steep political decline following serious military defeats and extensive territorial losses. The political, economic, and intellectual history of the period is reasonably well understood, but not so what was happening in that crucial intermediary sphere, the social order, which both shaped and was shaped by contemporary ideas and brute economic developments. This volume aims to deepen understanding of Byzantine society by examining material evidence for settlements and production in different regions and by sifting through the far from plentiful literary and documentary sources in order to track what was happening in town and country. There is evidence of significant change: the pattern of landownership continued to shift in favour of those with power and wealth, but there was sustained and effective resistance from peasant villages. Provincial towns prospered in what was an era of sustained economic growth, and, through newly emboldened local elites, took a more active part in public affairs. In the capital the middling classes, comprising much of officialdom and leading traders, gained in importance, while the twin military and civilian elites were merging to form a single governing class. However, despite this social upheaval, careful analysis of these various factors by a range of leading Byzantine historians and archaeologists leads to the overarching conclusion that it was not so much internal structural changes which contributed to the vertiginous decline suffered by Byzantium in the late eleventh century, as the unprecedented combination of dangerous adversaries on different fronts, in the east, north, and west.
This book reveals how cultural memories of classical Roman honor informed Nikephoros Bryennios' history of the eleventh century and his political choices.
The eleventh century in Byzantium is all about being in between, whether this is between Basil II and Alexios Komnenos, between the forces of the Normans, the Pechenegs and the Turks, or between different social groupings, cultural identities and religious persuasions. It is a period of fundamental changes and transformations, both internal and external, but also a period rife with clichés and dominated by the towering presence of Michael Psellos whose usually self-contradictory accounts continue to loom large in the field of Byzantine studies. The essays collected here, which were delivered at the 45th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, explore new avenues of research and offer new perspectives on this transitional period. The book is divided into four thematic clusters: 'The age of Psellos' studies this crucial figure and seeks to situate him in his time; 'Social structures' is concerned with the ways in which the deep structures of Byzantine society and economy responded to change; 'State and Church' offers a set of studies of various political developments in eleventh-century Byzantium; and 'The age of spirituality' offers the voices of those for whom Psellos had little time and little use: monks, religious thinkers and pious laymen.
In this book Dr Harvey shows that, if we broaden our comprehension of feudalism, the economic developments of the Byzantine Empire and of the medieval west were far more comparable than Byzantine historians have been prepared to admit. Previous interpretations have linked economic trends too closely to the political fortunes of the state, and have consequently regarded the twelfth century as a period of economic stagnation. Yet there is considerable evidence that the empire's population expanded steadily during the period covered by this book, and that agricultural production was intensified. A wealth of evidence serves to reinforce the point that the disintegration of the empire in the late twelfth century should no longer be associated with economic decline. Dr Harvey's conclusions, in particular that there is no incompatibility between the development of the landed wealth of a feudalising aristocracy and the growth of commerce and urbanisation, will affect all future interpretations of Byzantine history.
These studies look at general problems of reading Byzantine literature, at literacy practices and the literary process, but also at individual texts. The past thirty years have seen a revolution in the way Byzantine literature has been viewed: no longer is it considered a decadent form of classical literature or a turgid precursor of modern Greek literature. There are still prejudices to overcome: that there was no literary public, or that Byzantium had no drama or humour, but Byzantine texts are now read as literature in the social context of literacy and book culture. One genre is treated here more fully: the letter (Derrida said that letters represent all literature). In these studies epistolography is examined from the point of view of genre, of originality, of communication and as evidence for political history. Other genres touched on include the novel, historiography, parainesis, panegyric, and hagiography. The section on literary process includes essays on genre, patronage and rhetoric, and the section on literacy practices deals with both writing and reading. The collection includes one unpublished lecture which acts as introduction, and additional notes and comments.
"This is the first comprehensive, single-author history of the eastern Roman empire (or Byzantium) to appear in over a generation. It begins with the foundation of Constantinople in 324 AD and ends with the fall of the empire to the Ottoman Turks in the fifteenth century, covering political and military history as well as all major changes in religion, society, demography, and economy. In recent decades, the study of Byzantium has been revolutionized by new approaches and sophisticated models for how its society and state operated. The book's core is an accessible and lively narrative of events, free of jargon, which incorporates new findings, explains recent models, and presents well-known historical characters and events in new light. Two overarching themes shape the narrative. First, by projecting accountability the Roman state persuaded its subjects that it was working in their interests and thereby forestalled separatist movements. To do so, it had to restrain the tendency of elites to extract ever more resources from the labor-force. Second, the effort to sustain a common identity, both Roman and Christian, was subject to powerful forces of internal division and put under severe strain by western Europeans in the later Middle Ages. The book explains in detail the alternating periods of success and failure in the long history of this polity. It foregrounds the dynamics of Christian identity, asking why it tended to fracture along lines of doctrine, practice, and ultimately over Union with the Catholic West"--
