The ‘Lost Arian History’ in Late Antique and Medieval Historiography
Author: Joseph J. Reidy
Publisher: Springer Nature
Published:
Total Pages: 340
ISBN-13: 3031554442
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The Roman Empire in Late Antiquity
Author: Hugh Elton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2018-11-22
Total Pages: 401
ISBN-13: 1108686273
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn this volume, Hugh Elton offers a detailed and up to date history of the last centuries of the Roman Empire. Beginning with the crisis of the third century, he covers the rise of Christianity, the key Church Councils, the fall of the West to the Barbarians, the Justinianic reconquest, and concludes with the twin wars against Persians and Arabs in the seventh century AD. Elton isolates two major themes that emerge in this period. He notes that a new form of decision-making was created, whereby committees debated civil, military, and religious matters before the emperor, who was the final arbiter. Elton also highlights the evolution of the relationship between aristocrats and the Empire, and provides new insights into the mechanics of administering the Empire, as well as frontier and military policies. Supported by primary documents and anecdotes, The Roman Empire in Late Antiquity is designed for use in undergraduate courses on late antiquity and early medieval history.
The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity
Author: Scott Fitzgerald Johnson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2015-11
Total Pages: 1294
ISBN-13: 019027753X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity offers an innovative overview of a period (c. 300-700 CE) that has become increasingly central to scholarly debates over the history of western and Middle Eastern civilizations. This volume covers such pivotal events as the fall of Rome, the rise of Christianity, the origins of Islam, and the early formation of Byzantium and the European Middle Ages. These events are set in the context of widespread literary, artistic, cultural, and religious change during the period. The geographical scope of this Handbook is unparalleled among comparable surveys of Late Antiquity; Arabia, Egypt, Central Asia, and the Balkans all receive dedicated treatments, while the scope extends to the western kingdoms, and North Africa in the West. Furthermore, from economic theory and slavery to Greek and Latin poetry, Syriac and Coptic literature, sites of religious devotion, and many others, this Handbook covers a wide range of topics that will appeal to scholars from a diverse array of disciplines. The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity engages the perennially valuable questions about the end of the ancient world and the beginning of the medieval, while providing a much-needed touchstone for the study of Late Antiquity itself.
Bishops in Flight
Author: Jennifer Barry
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2019-04-23
Total Pages: 222
ISBN-13: 0520300378
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAt publication date, a free ebook version of this title will be available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Flight during times of persecution has a long and fraught history in early Christianity. In the third century, bishops who fled were considered cowards or, worse yet, heretics. On the face, flight meant denial of Christ and thus betrayal of faith and community. But by the fourth century, the terms of persecution changed as Christianity became the favored cult of the Roman Empire. Prominent Christians who fled and survived became founders and influencers of Christianity over time. Bishops in Flight examines the various ways these episcopal leaders both appealed to and altered the discourse of Christian flight to defend their status as purveyors of Christian truth, even when their exiles appeared to condemn them. Their stories illuminate how profoundly Christian authors deployed theological discourse and the rhetoric of heresy to respond to the phenomenal political instability of the fourth and fifth centuries.
Early Christian Historiography
Author: G. W. Trompf
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-04-08
Total Pages: 385
ISBN-13: 1134964137
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFirst Published in 2014. This book describes the developing application of retributive principles in historical narratives before Christ. It assesses degrees of concern in the first history-writers of the world's most widespread monotheistic tradition to discern divine justice in human affairs.
Making Christian History
Author: Michael Hollerich
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Published: 2021-06-22
Total Pages: 331
ISBN-13: 0520295366
DOWNLOAD EBOOKKnown as the “Father of Church History,” Eusebius was bishop of Caesarea in Palestine and the leading Christian scholar of his day. His Ecclesiastical History is an irreplaceable chronicle of Christianity’s early development, from its origin in Judaism, through two and a half centuries of illegality and occasional persecution, to a new era of tolerance and favor under the Emperor Constantine. In this book, Michael J. Hollerich recovers the reception of this text across time. As he shows, Eusebius adapted classical historical writing for a new “nation,” the Christians, with a distinctive theo-political vision. Eusebius’s text left its mark on Christian historical writing from late antiquity to the early modern period—across linguistic, cultural, political, and religious boundaries—until its encounter with modern historicism and postmodernism. Making Christian History demonstrates Eusebius’s vast influence throughout history, not simply in shaping Christian culture but also when falling under scrutiny as that culture has been reevaluated, reformed, and resisted over the past 1,700 years.
J.R.R. Tolkien's Utopianism and the Classics
Author: Hamish Williams
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2023-02-09
Total Pages: 225
ISBN-13: 1350241482
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book opens up new perspectives on the English fantasy writer J.R.R. Tolkien, arguing that he was an influential thinker of utopianism in 20th-century fiction and that his scrutiny of utopias can be assessed through his dialogue with antiquity. Tolkien's engagement with the ancient world often reflects an interest in retrotopianism: his fictional places – cities, forests, homes – draw on a rich (post-)classical narrative imagination of similar spaces. Importantly for Tolkien, such narratives entail 'eutopian' thought experiments: the decline and fall of distinctly 'classical' communities provide an utopian blueprint for future political restorations; the home as oikos becomes a space where an ideal ethical reciprocity between host and guest can be sought; the 'ancient forest' is an ambiguous, unsettling site where characters can experience necessary forms of awakening. From these perspectives, tokens of Platonic moderation, Augustan restoration, Homeric xenophilia, and the Ovidian material sublime are evident in Tolkien's writing. Likewise, his retrotopianism also always entails a rewriting of ancient narratives in post-classical and modern terms. This study then explores how Tolkien's use of the classical past can help us to align classical and utopian studies, and thus to reflect on the ranges and limits of utopianism in classical literature and thought.
A History of the Middle Ages, 300–1500
Author: John M. Riddle
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2008-03-13
Total Pages: 533
ISBN-13: 1442210044
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis clear and comprehensive text covers the Middle Ages from the classical era to the late medieval period. John M. Riddle provides a cogent analysis of the rulers, wars, and events—both natural and human—that defined the medieval era. Taking a broad geographical perspective, Riddle includes northern and eastern Europe, Byzantium, and the Islamic states. Each, he convincingly shows, offered values and institutions that presaged modernity. In addition to a thorough chronological narrative, the text offers humanizing features to engage students. Each chapter opens with a theme-setting vignette about daily life and introduces students to key controversies and themes in historiography by discussing the work of a prominent medieval historian. Richly illustrated, this lively, engaging book will immerse readers in the medieval world, an era that shaped the foundation for the modern world.
Conversion and the Contest of Creeds in Early Medieval Christianity
Author: Marta Szada
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2024-06-13
Total Pages: 375
ISBN-13: 1009426478
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAs the Roman Empire in the west crumbled over the course of the fifth century, new polities, ruled by 'barbarian' elites, arose in Gaul, Hispania, Italy, and Africa. This political order occurred in tandem with growing fissures within Christianity, as the faithful divided over two doctrines, Nicene and Homoian, that were a legacy of the fourth-century controversy over the nature of the Trinity. In this book, Marta Szada offers a new perspective on early medieval Christianity by exploring how interplays between religious diversity and politics shaped post-Roman Europe. Interrogating the ecclesiastical competition between Nicene and Homoian factions, she provides a nuanced interpretation of religious dissent and the actions of Christians in successor kingdoms as they manifested themselves in politics and social practices. Szada's study reveals the variety of approaches that can be applied to understanding the conflict and coexistence between Nicenes and Homoians, showing how religious divisions shaped early medieval Christian culture.
