Byzantium Archive
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Diplomacy and the Carolingian Encounter with Byzantium down to the Accession of Charles the Bald
Posted on April 19, 2013 | No CommentsHow was it possible that an Irishman should discover in Frankland a talent for studying Byzantine thinkers like Ps.-Dionysius, Maximus Confessor, and Gregory of Nyssa? -
Late Antique and Early Byzantine fortifications in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Posted on April 15, 2013 | No CommentsGeographically, the province of Dalmatia can be divided into two zones: the coastal and the mountainous regions. -
The Battle of Yarmuk
Posted on April 8, 2013 | No CommentsOn August 20, 636 AD, a battle was fought in Syria between the Roman army and a Saracen force made up of allied Arab tribes which during the previous decade had been converted to the new monotheistic religion of the prophet Mohammed. -
Hard and Soft Power on the Eastern Frontier
Posted on April 7, 2013 | No CommentsThis paper considers historical perspectives on recently discovered archaeological evidence in what was the sixth-century Roman-Persian frontier region. -
The Death Toll of Justinian’s Plague and Its Effects on the Byzantine Empire
Posted on April 4, 2013 | No CommentsIn 541 a plague arrived in Egypt and rapidly began to spread. The following account of the beginning of the plague, while clearly an exaggeration still shows the impact of the disease. -
Hades Stabbed by the Cross of Christ
Posted on March 29, 2013 | No CommentsA Byzantine ivory carved with the crucifixion of Christ has long been considered one of the treasures of the medieval collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. -
The Monk as an Element of Byzantine Society
Posted on March 20, 2013 | No CommentsIn Byzantium, the monk - at least as a projected ideal - embodied the aspirations of his society as a whole. -
The early years of Justin I’s reign in the sources
Posted on March 7, 2013 | No CommentsIn the night of 8—9 July 518 the aged emperor Anastasius died during a violent storm. On the following day, 9 July, the magister officiorum Celer gathered together the other high palace officials to deliberate and choose another emperor. -
Byzantine wine press discovered in Jaffa
Posted on February 27, 2013 | No CommentsArchaeological excavations in the Israeli city of Jaffa have uncovered what was likely a wine press that dates back to the Byzantine era. -
The Story of Byzantine
Posted on February 26, 2013 | No CommentsThis short documentary tells the story of Byzantine. -
Basil II and the government of Empire (976-1025)
Posted on February 8, 2013 | No CommentsThe reign of Basil II (976-1025) is widely accepted as the apogee of medieval Byzantium. -
Striking a Match on Byzantium’s “Dark Age”
Posted on January 29, 2013 | No CommentsThe seventh and eighth centuries have been called the “Dark Age” of Byzantium because of the paucity of historical sources that illuminate them. This lack is commonly ascribed more to scant production than to failed transmission. -
Blood-brothers: a ritual of friendship and the construction of the imagined barbarian in the middle ages
Posted on January 15, 2013 | No CommentsMy reflections are part of a broad stream of inquiries into the world of medieval rituals which has proved to be very fertile during the last two decades, but which also has its limits. For more than twenty years now, medievalists have discovered and analysed the importance of personal relationships for the organization of societies before the existence of states in a modern sense of the word. -
The Battle of Beroia: A Byzantine ‘Face of Battle’
Posted on January 7, 2013 | No CommentsIt was by reading John Keegan’s Face of Battle that I discovered that it was possible to write military history that was both intellectually rigorous and engaging to read. -
The Mystery of the Marble Man and his Hat: A Reconsideration of the Bari Episcopal Throne
Posted on December 31, 2012 | No CommentsUntil the twentieth century, the throne was universally held to have been sculpted in or immediately before 1098 for Elias, the abbot of San Nicola and archbishop of Bari and Canosa. -
Russian Pilgrims in Constantinople
Posted on December 30, 2012 | No CommentsIf one compares the Russian Anthony text with the original Mercati Anonymus text, the longest and most detailed of the three extant contemporary Western descriptions of the shrines of Constantinople, one finds that the Latin text includes only twenty of the seventy-six religious shrines mentioned by the Russian enumeration. -
Hebrew Astrology in Byzantine Southern Italy
Posted on December 23, 2012 | No CommentsIt is a commonplace that our modern, tidy distinction between astronomy and astrology does not apply to the Middle Ages. -
The Emperor, the Church, and Chariot Races: The Imperial Struggles with Christianity and Entertainment in Late Antique Constantinople
Posted on December 16, 2012 | No CommentsWith seating available for around 80,000 citizens, just under one sixth of the population of Constantinople in the fifth century could get their voices heard by the emperor at each of the nearly 70 races held in the hippodrome every year, making chariot racing the most popular sport in the Roman world. -
The Ideology of the Feminine in Byzantine historical narrative: The role of John Skylitzes’ Synopsis of Histories
Posted on December 15, 2012 | No Comments"Who once sliced men more sharoly than the sword Is victim of a woman...Epitaph for Emperor Nicephoros II Phocas. -
Conversion and Empire: Byzantine Missionaries, Foreign Rulers, and Christian Narratives (ca. 300-900)
Posted on December 3, 2012 | No CommentsFor a broader modern audience today, if taken somewhat journalistically, Pusicius’ story is an example that cuts along cultural and religious lines that presumably originate in ancient, political divisions and confirm a “clash of civilizations” thesis. -
The Indigenous Christians of the Arabic Middle East in an Age of Crusaders, Mongols, and Mamlūks (1244-1366)
Posted on December 2, 2012 | No CommentsThe chronological period of study is highlighted by the usurpation of the Ayyūbid-ruled Sultanate by the Baḥrī Mamlūks, while the two most important political-military events in the region were the collapse of the Crusader States and the invasion of the Mongols. This thesis will examine how events impacted on the nine Christian Confessions, treating each separately. -
The Origins of the Great Schism
Posted on November 29, 2012 | No CommentsOne of the more profound of such differences—and one which would shape the course of religious development in the eastern and western worlds—is the nature of the Latin and Greek languages. -
Imperial Ideology: The Idea of the Universal Christian Empire in Late Antiquity
Posted on November 28, 2012 | No CommentsThis paper examines the evolution of Christian universalist ideologies from the year 300 AD to about 800 AD, with a focus on their development in the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. -
Twelve-year project to research the Chronographia of John Malalas begins
Posted on November 27, 2012 | No CommentsThe Chronographia of John Malalas has been considered one of the most important historical sources for the study of Byzantium. -
Holy Land, Holy Bones, Holy Image: Byzantine Pilgrimage Art
Posted on November 26, 2012 | No CommentsIn Christianity that's when pilgrimage, sacred bones, holy people and holy places were defined. That's when the rules were set, and the rules that were sent in those three centuries are the same rules that apply now, and that is same crucible of time and location out of which emerged the icon
