Manuel II Palaiologos (1350-1425) had a lot to say, with Siren Çelik
A conversation with Siren Çelik about the many personas that the emperor Manuel II Palaiologos crafted for himself in his surviving works. In fact, we have more writings from him — in many genres, and many of a personal nature — than from any prior Roman emperor. What was he hoping to accomplish and why is he worth reading?
The experiences of Byzantine children, with Oana-Maria Cojocaru
A conversation with Oana-Maria Cojocaru about the images of Byzantine children in our sources, and the experiences that they would have had once they made it past infancy.
Anna Komnene: The Purple-Born Historian
Anna’s legacy is not her political vivacity but the impressive history she wrote of her father’s reign, fittingly called the Alexiad.
Safe Travels: Taming the Seas through Image, Word, and Sacred Matter in Byzantium
One of the papes given at The Byzantines and the Sea in Texts and Images conference
The perils of childbirth, with Christian Laes
A conversation with Christian Laes about one of the most joyous, dangerous, and often tragic, moments of life in antiquity and the Middle Ages: childbirth.
How did emperors make decisions? with Michael Grünbart
A conversation with Michael Grünbart about the problem of imperial decision-making. Byzantine emperors are often presented to us as perfectly virtuous monarchs favored by God, but can we pull the veil away from this image and understand the difficult conditions under which they had to make decisions that could potentially cost them their throne? Whom did they consult? How and why did they delegate? Did they have experts? Data? When could they avoid making decisions? As someone in academic middle-management, these questions cut close to home!
Harald Hardrada: Mediterranean Voyages
Harald Hardrada finds himself in the Mediterranean world, but did he go to Jerusalem?
Byzantine dress and fashion, with Jennifer Ball and Elizabeth Dospěl Williams
A conversation with Jen Ball and Betsy Williams on the study of Byzantine dress and fashion. How do we know what people wore? Was clothing gendered? Why are dress and jewelry studied separately? And can we talk about fashion in Byzantium, or was fashion, as some believe, a modern development?
The Medieval Pirates’ Nest of Crete
In the ninth century, the island of Crete would become a major base of piracy. Could the Byzantine Empire defeat this threat?
Harald Hardrada: In Service to the Byzantine Empire
In 1034, Harald, still young but freshly blooded in war, was knocking upon the gates of an empire whose foundations were sunk into a wholly different political and conceptual landscape.
Representing the trauma of captivity, enslavement, and degradation, with Adam Goldwyn
Can Byzantine literature speak powerfully to these transhistorical traumas? How can we activate it to do so?
Lasting Impressions: New Byzantine exhibition at Dumbarton Oaks
Lasting Impressions: People, Power, Piety, now on view at the Dumbarton Oaks Museum, explores individual stories and family histories, the concept of status, developments in popular piety, and the inner workings of the state as shown through the intricate impressions on seals.
Harald Hardrada: The Universal Empire
As Harald Hardrada travels to Constantinople, what is this Byzantine Empire he’s coming to?
The column and equestrian statue of Justinian, with Elena Boeck
Though it is often overlooked today, Justinian’s column and colossal statue, which stood for a thousand years next to Hagia Sophia, defined the City almost as much as the Great Church itself. In this episode of Byzantium and Friends, we talk with Elena Boeck about the symbolism, history, and the engineering of this monument.
A global history of the Greeks, with Roderick Beaton
In this episode of Byzantium & Friends, a conversation with Roderick Beaton on his new book The Greeks: A Global History.
Disability in Byzantium, with Christian Laes
What might count as a disability in a Byzantine context? What social consequences did it have? How was it represented in texts? How did people try to cope with their disabilities?
Cyril, Methodios, and the conversion of the Slavs, with Mirela Ivanova
Despite the huge importance attributed to these men and their activities in modern scholarship, national narratives, and Slavic Orthodox identity, our knowledge about them rests largely on two texts whose interests are quite different from our own. What do we really know about them?
Is it Time to Decolonize the Terms Byzantine and Byzantium?
A panel discussion including George Demacopoulos, Elizabeth Bolman, Anthony Kaldelis, Leonora Neville and Alexander Tudorie
Social class in Byzantium, with Efi Ragia
A conversation with Efi Ragia on coming to grips with social class in Byzantium, a society without a fixed social hierarchy, at least not fixed in terms of hereditary groups. Claims to high (or low) social standing were often rhetorical and fluid. Who were “the powerful”? By what criteria could they be recognized, and how might others aspire to that position?
Coping with pandemics in Byzantium, with Tina Sessa and Kyle Harper
This episode looks at Byzantine reactions to pandemics. What was the threshold of social visibility for a pandemic anyway? What could the government do to help? What imaginative and social resources were activated in times of pandemic?
The grain supply of the Byzantine empire revisited: history, archaeology, palynology
We’re going to talk about in this paper the way the production of cereal, such as wheat, barley, millet and so forth, developed and was managed across the Byzantine period.
Carolingian and Byzantine practices of empire compared, with Jennifer Davis
A conversation with Jennifer Davis on the study of empire in a medieval context, contrasting the different ways in which Charlemagne and the Byzantine emperors ran theirs. What do we mean by empire after all?
Byzantine soft power in an age of decline, with Cecily Hilsdale
A conversation with Cecily Hilsdale about the coping strategies that late Byzantium used to counter, ameliorate, and reverse its imperial decline.
Treasure hoard of sixth-century coins discovered in Russia
Russian archaeologists have discovered a cache of coins dating back to the sixth century, at Phanagoria along the Black Sea. The 80 coins, known as copper staters, were found in a layer of rubble from a fire that destroyed much of that city.