Review of Alexios G.C. Savvides, Byzantine Feudalism: A Bibliographical Survey on the Issue and on the Institution of the Pronoia / Αλέξιος Γ.Κ. Σαββίδης, Βυζαντινή Φεουδαρχία. Μια βιβλιογραφική επισκόπηση για το ζήτημα και για τον θεσμό της Πρόνοιας (original) (raw)
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Abstract
Journal of Oriental and African Studies 33 (2024) 373-377
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CL 380-HY 300: History of the Byzantine Empire, Syllabus 2017
It is an introductory course in the history of the Byzantine Empire (330 – 1453). It will be divided into two parts. The first part consists of 15 lectures and 6 group discussions. We will follow the main events and the milestones of the Byzantine history structured chronologically, and will discuss the specific topics such as Byzantine political organization, international relations, society, economy, and culture. We will start with an overview of the main types of primary sources that scholars use studying Byzantium. Students will explore the different areas of the Byzantine history by reading a selection of the narrative sources, by examination of Byzantine coins, seals, manuscripts and art objects (available on-line). We will immerse ourselves in the legends and realities of the social, political, and cultural life of the majestic capital of the Byzantine empire, the city of Constantinople. Together with the Byzantine historians Eusebius of Caesarea, Procopius, Leo the Deacon, Michael Psellos, and Anna Komnene, we will have a chance to peep in the couloirs and chambers of the Imperial Palace, to eavesdrop on the flattering and defamatory stories about emperors and empresses, generals and bureaucrats, and to learn about intrigues, ambitions, love and hatred of the Byzantine beau monde. We will try to understand why (according to Averil Cameron) Byzantium is virtually " absent " from the public and even academic memory of the Western World, and will discuss the modern examples of the use (and abuse) of the Byzantine aesthetics (see the " Byzantine " collections from Dolce & Gabbana (2013), Valentino (2013), and Chanel). The second part of the course consists of students' presentations. Each student is invited to prepare a talk on the one of the " unorthodox " subjects that often are left behind in the standard expositions on the history of Byzantium (such as Byzantine magic, the Byzantine garden culture, cuisine and fashion, the Byzantine sense of humor and emotions, the Byzantine ideas about death, dreams, beauty, holiness, gender, women, and eroticism; please, find the list of the topics and the suggested bibliography at the end of this syllabus). Students will learn and practice the basic academic skills of preparing and delivering the oral presentations, and giving feedback on their colleagues' talks. This approach will make the fascinating and mysterious civilization of Byzantium more tangible and, in fact, unforgettable. The required primary and secondary literature will be available on the Blackboard, through the UA library E-Resources, and freely on the Internet. The course will require the occasional visits to the library, but the students will not have to purchase their own books or materials. The primary sources will be provided in English translation. Student learning outcomes: 1. Broadly recount the history of the Byzantine empire in the context of world civilization 2. Be able to discuss current issues and debates in Byzantine studies 3. Understand how various types of primary sources and methods of historical inquiry contribute to Byzantine studies.
Byzantine Legal Culture under the Macedonian Dynasty, 867-1056 (Doctoral Dissertation)
Building upon the pioneering work of legal historians as well as recent scholarship on the Middle Byzantine administration, "Byzantine Legal Culture under the Macedonian Dynasty, 867-1056" is a study which seeks to situate Byzantine law within its broader historical and societal context. This dissertation is an examination of Byzantine Legal Culture, which can be loosely defined as the interaction between laws, jurisprudence and ideas about justice as well as their implementation. The period under examination, from roughly the middle of the ninth to the middle of the eleventh century, was characterized by a "Recleansing of the Ancient Laws", in which the emperors of the Macedonian dynasty made a concerted effort to reassert the empire's Roman legal heritage. This epoch represented the last great efflorescence of Byzantine secular law, as from the twelfth century onward the importance of Byzantine canon law gradually came to encompass and supplant secular law.
“Both Milestone and Stepping Stone” Metanarratives of Byzantine Politico-Economic History
NARRATIVES Proceedings оf the 11th International Symposium on Byzantine and Medieval Studies “Days of Justinian I”, Skopje, 10-12 November, 2023, 2024
In the 20-21st centuries, from the post-WWII period during the First Cold War, Byzantine politico-economic history was something of an ideologi- cal proxy battleground, like other proxy battlegrounds during this conflict, be- tween empires centered in Washington DC and Moscow. The historians of each empire conceived of Byzantium’s politico-economic past in the context and ser- vice of its own purposes: Soviet historians extensively discussed the reigning systems of feudalism while Anglo-American historians focused more on agrar- ian production within the periodization of the “middle ages.” Then, the Ber- lin Wall fell and one empire imposed on the other not only its present system of political economy, but also its version of the history of political economy. The dominant version of Byzantine politico-economic history which followed sought to downplay the importance of feudalism (and mercantilism) in Byzan- tine history and to instead focus on linear progress and economic expansion up to (and including) the so-called industrial “revolution.” In doing so, this version of the Byzantine past also focused heavily on separating the political from the economic from the ecclesiastical - to minimize twelve centuries of Byzantine heritage in the Western historical context. This has lately given rise to the so- called “Great Divergence” doctrine separating East and West.
A Companion to the Byzantine Culture of War, ca. 300-1204, edited by Yannis Stouraitis (Brill 2018)
This collection of essays on the Byzantine culture of war in the period between the 4th and the 12th centuries offers a new critical approach to the study of warfare as a fundamental aspect of East Roman society and culture in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The book’s main goal is to provide a critical overview of current research as well as new insights into the role of military organization as a distinct form of social power in one of history’s more long-lived empires. The various chapters consider the political, ideological, practical, institutional and organizational aspects of Byzantine warfare and place it at the centre of the study of social and cultural history. Contributors are Salvatore Cosentino, Michael Grünbart, Savvas Kyriakidis, Tilemachos Lounghis, Christos Makrypoulias, Stamatina McGrath, Philip Rance, Paul Stephenson, Yannis Stouraitis, Denis Sullivan, and Georgios Theotokis.
Georgios Akropolitis: theory and practice in later Byzantine historiography.
Though superficially using Atticising language, even the most careful writers of the later Byzantine era in fact employ ancient Greek morphology and lexicon to recharacterise the syntactic structures of the contemporary vernacular. This article examines the language of the historian Georgios Akropolitis (of the Palaeologan era), and analyses data from the domain of futurity and modality to illustrate the basic correctness of this proposition.
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2022
s of the Free Communications, Thematic Sessions, Round Tables and Posters, 3-334 ment, ses actes instrumentés à Constantinople restent inédits et très largement inexplorés, en dépit de la rareté de ce genre de sources, qui contraste avec l'ampleur de l'implantation des Vénitiens à Byzance et en Romanie. Observateur privilégié du monde qui l'entoure en sa qualité de notaire, Smeritis nous permet de faire la connaissance d'une partie des personnes qui formaient, de manière permanente ou temporaire, la société de Constantinople à la toute fin de son histoire byzantine, de même qu'il nous renseigne sur les activités auxquelles elles se livraient.
The period between the two falls of Constantinople, namely the Crusader conquest of 1204 and the Ottoman conquest of 1453, witnessed the radical transformation of Byzantium from empire into a mosaic of autonomous and semi-autonomous polities. The fascinating survival and transformation of Byzantine identities in a world dominated by Latin Christian and Muslim powers was the result of complex dynamics, with Constantinople functioning, more or less, as a magnet for the Orthodox populations beyond its narrow political borders. Theodoros Metochites’ (d. 1332) rhetoric eloquently captures the ideological, spiritual and cultural radiance of the “Queen City”. In his laudatory oration on the Byzantine capital, Metochites describes Constantinople as “the citadel of the whole world” (ἀκρόπολιν τινὰ τῶν ὅλων) and the “shared homeland of all people” (κοινοπολιτεία πάντων ἀνθρώπων), stressing the city’s role as a centre, in both geographic and symbolic terms. Over the past two decades, there has been a remarkable progress in the way scholars approach the history and culture of former Byzantine areas under Latin Christian and Muslim rule in the period between 1200 and 1400. The picture emerging from these studies embraces unity and diversity, interaction and contention, synthesis and conservativism, new identities and old. Research on the history of Mediterranean has also shown that the political, religious and cultural fragmentation of the Eastern Mediterranean increased, rather than restrained, the development of multiple connectivities, among the peoples inhabiting this vast liquid area. Yet, the nature and degree of bonds of unity between Late Byzantium and the former Byzantine lands —encompassing the physical mobility of humans and objects, as well as institutional, ideological, religious and cultural links— requires a more systematic and in-depth exploration. The aim of this Colloquium is to re-address questions related to Byzantine connectivities, experiences and identities in Latin- and Muslim-ruled Mediterranean areas once belonging to the Byzantine Empire. Borrowed from graph theory, the term connectivities has been employed by Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell to describe the networks connecting microecologies with similar structures in Mediterranean landscapes and seascapes, society and religion, politics and culture. Focusing on religion and culture as the main strands of identity preservation, negotiation and adaptation, our Colloquium wishes to examine the threads waving the tapestry of a “Late Byzantine Mediterranean”: a fluidly-defined κοινοπολιτεία under the enduring influence of Constantinople, but in constant communication and exchange with the religious and ethnic Other. The main themes of the Colloquium include, but are not necessarily restricted to, the following: • Byzantine legacies in the Eastern Mediterranean after 1200 • Worlds of interaction and conflict (e.g., Asia Minor, the Holy Land, Cyprus and the Aegean) • The role of Byzantine culture as a transcultural language of communication • The impact of intra-Byzantine conflicts in the Eastern Mediterranean • Experiences of colonisation and foreign rule • Instrumentalisation of identities in historiography (inclusions and exclusions) Our speakers represent a variety of scholarly fields and methodological approaches, navigating the sea of Byzantine encounters in the Latin and Muslim worlds from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. By paying close attention to the continuities and discontinuities that (re-)shaped Byzantine identities in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Colloquium aims at providing fresh and stimulating perspectives on the sense of belonging to Byzantium and its broader significance. The Colloquium is dedicated to the loving memory of two great scholars, Speros Vryonis, Jr. and Elizabeth A. Zachariadou, who transformed our perception of the Byzantine legacy in the Eastern Mediterranean. Registration necessary at: https://ics.sas.ac.uk/events/late-byzantine-mediterranean-byzantine-connectivities-experiences-and-identities-a
Bibliography of Byzantine Law B. Articles on Roman and Byzantine Law, History and Culture. Fourth, augmented edition, 2024
E-Library\ByzLaw\EPubls\Cherchi II,37; Cherchi 2014; digital only A. Cherchi, 'Riflessioni sull'applicazione del principio della successione delle leggi nel tempo tra Digesto e Codice. A proposito di una teoria di Scheltema' in D. Mantovani / A.