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.
The Medieval Travel Guide of Cristoforo Buondelmonti
Cristoforo Boundelmonti’s 15th-century guide to the islands and lands around the Aegean Sea is a traveller’s delight.
Crowd behavior in imperial Rome and Constantinople, with Daniëlle Slootjes
As our own political world is increasingly revolving around mass protests, it is time to revisit what we know about the dynamics of crowds in imperial Roman cities, whether they acted for or against the regime of the day.
Life on the Byzantine-Arab Frontier
A look at the long-lasting conflict between the Byzantine and Abbasid empires.
When does Roman history end and Byzantine begin? with Marion Kruse
By what standards can anyone say that Roman history ends at some point and Byzantine history begins? Or is Byzantine history rather a phase of Roman history?
Byzantine poetry on its own terms, with Marc Lauxtermann
We talk about how modern Romantic notions of poetry as well as the ancient meters of classical Greek have distorted the expectations that we place on Byzantine poetry, and then discuss the specific contexts that gave rise to poetry in Byzantine society. Who were the poets? How did poems accompany objects and events?
‘We knew not whether we were in Heaven or on Earth’: Justinian’s Hagia Sophia
Completed nearly 1,500 years ago, the Hagia Sophia is both an architectural masterpiece and a cultural icon of Byzantine and Eastern Orthodox civilization
Reappraising the Silk Road: Byzantium and Ancient China
In this talk, as a Chinese byzantinist, I will present the recent focuses on Byzantium and ancient China along the Silk Road, based on which, to reappraise the significance of the Silk Road in the historical context.
How a Byzantine aqueduct in Constantinople was maintained for 700 years
One of the great technological accomplishments of the ancient Romans was the aqueducts they built to bring water long distances. New research has revealed that an aqueduct built in fourth-century Constantinople would remain in operation for over 700 years.
The story of a Byzantine military manual: Syrianos magistros and his compendium ‘Anonymus Byzantinus’
Who was Syrianos, and how did he come to be identified as the author of a collection of works of military nature that so deeply influenced the Byzantine literary genre of the military manuals in the 10th century?
What did Byzantine music sound like? (The answer is more political than you’d expect), with Alexander Lingas
A conversation with Alexander Lingas on the debates surrounding the reconstruction of Byzantine music. We discuss the common origins of western and eastern Christian traditions, when they parted ways, and how both traditions passed through phases of reinvention. Why does the modern performance of Gregorian Chant sound so different from Byzantine chant?
The double-headed eagle as a symbol in the Byzantine Empire: myths and realities
After the Holy Cross, perhaps no other symbol has been associated more closely with the history and fate of the Byzantine Empire than the double-headed eagle motif
Byzantine Orthodoxy and homosexuality, with Stephen Morris
A conversation with Stephen Morris about the attitudes toward male homosexuality in different sites of Byzantine culture and the prospects for an orthodox recognition…