Where the Middle Ages Begin
Between 541 and 543 AD, the Plague of Justinian, traditionally regarded as the first of three human plague pandemics, spread from either central Asia or Africa across the Mediterranean basin into Europe, killing an estimated 100 million people according to the contemporary scholar Procopius
Using normative legal sources such as law codes and imperial novels to illuminate Byzantine heresy is a very difficult proposition. One of the great problems in the analysis of Byzantine law in general is that the normative legal sources rarely were adapted to subsequent economic, political, or social conditions.
This paper investigates Procopius’ description of two of the most influential men of his era: the Persian emperor Kosrow I (ruled 531-579), and the Byzantine emperor Justinian (ruled 527-565).
The aim of this study is to present the sea and land commercial routes of the Byzantine Egypt and their role in the dissemination of the plague bacteria Yersinia pestis from the Red Sea to Mediterranean ports. The Mediterranean port of Pelusium was considered as the starting point of the first plague pandemic…
This article argues that the common modern version of the invasion, in which Byzantine forces arrived in 552, fought on the side of the usurper Athanagild until 555, and then fought against Athanagild for a brief period before concluding a treaty with him, is flawed and, relying on a more precise reading of the sources, proposes a new chronology and narrative, in which Byzantine forces did not arrive until 554.
Behind the purported facts of Theodora’s career as a common prostitute and later as empress are the hidden details of what we might call feminine pharmacology: what were the drugs used by prostitutes and call-girls in sixth-century Byzan- tium? Were there ordinary pharmaceuticals employed by such professionals to stay in business?
The Black Death, which caused the deaths of tens of millions of people in the fourteenth century, was caused bacterium Yersinia pestis. New evidence now shows that the same microscopic bacterium also caused the Plague of Justinian in the sixth century.
In 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.
Like most other writers of late antiquity, what little is known about Procopius comes from his works. Born at the turn of the sixth century in Caesarea, he had the chance to receive education in the traditional Greek fashion, i.e. through the use of classical authors, before Justinian banned pagan teaching in 529
What makes a great emperor? This was one of the questions addressed by John Lydus, a 6th century Byzantine administrator and writer, whose work On Powers examined the rule of previous Roman emperors.
Most scholars of the Byzantine empire have given an important role to Justinian’s invasion of Italy during the sixth century – it has been envisioned as a grand reconquest of the West by the East.
This thesis seeks to explore the construction and conceptualization of the Byzantine imperial feminine, up until the sixth century AD.
My purpose is to examine how Justinian appeared to one contemporary observer, the historian Procopius of Caesarea
In Rome the term triumphus referred to an archaic and highly regulated rite that was decreed by the Senate upon the fulfilment of certain strict preconditions. Scholars have disagreed whether the triumphal procession, which could be held only in Rome, always followed the same itinerary, but the chances are that it did
In the Roman world the status of doctor as doctor was never high. When he did achieve repute or rank, that usually depended not upon his practice of medicine as such, but upon the social or political connections that accrued to him from his success in it.
When establishing an endpoint for the classical philosophical tradition in the Greco-Roman world, scholars often choose the closing of the Athenian Neoplatonic school by the emperor Justinian in 529.
The basis on which the successful administration of the Roman Empire at its zenith was built was the cursus publicus, or the state post. This organization also made the service of intelligence more effective.
This thesis will examine the guiding ideology of Justinian’s emperorship and how that ideology especially manifested itself in terms of Justinian’s diplomacy and his relationship with the former provinces of the Western Roman Empire.
Located at the heart of Constantinople by the Senate and the Imperial Palace, Hagia Sophia was one of the great monuments of Christianity for more than nine hundred years.
Some aspects of the history of blind education, deaf education, and deaf-blind education with emphasis on the time before 1900.
We have had a long tradition of attempts to replace her historical image with an idealized, uncritical glossy picture or to denigrate her utterly.
“Frankish” or “Byzantine” Saint? The origins of the cult of Saint Martin in Dalmatia Vedris, Trpimir Papers from the First and Second Postgraduate Forums in Byzantine Studies: Sailing to Byzantium, a cura di S. Neocleous, Cambridge, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, (2009) Abstract This paper grew out of my research in Dalmatian hagiotopography and was originally meant to contribute […]
The Plague of Justinian and Other Scourges: An analysis of the Anomalies in the Development of the Iron Age population in Finland Seger, Tapio Fornvännen, 77 (1982) Abstract In this paper the corpus of excavated and dated Iron Age burial grounds in Finland is quantitatively analyzed with various statislical methods in order to isolate and define […]
The Journey of Saint Catherine of Mount Sinai Duelt, Daniel Duran Mediterraneum: The Splendor of the Medieval Mediterranean (13th-15th centuries), ed. Xavier Barral i Altet (Lunwerg, 2004) Abstract During the Middle Ages, the monastery of Saint Catherine of Mount Sinai was a pilgrimage centre of great importance for the Christian world. The 6th century foundation by Justinian was […]
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