The Byzantine World


List of illustrations viii
List of contributors x
Preface Paul Stephenson xv
List of abbreviations xvii
Introduction Paul Stephenson xxi


PART I: THE BYZANTINES IN THEIR WORLD 1

1 The Byzantine political process at crisis point Michael Angold 5
2 The rise of the middle Byzantine aristocracy and the decline of the imperial state Paul Stephenson 22
3 Money, coins and the economy Cécile Morrisson 34
4 The army and military logistics John Haldon 47
5 The study of women and children: methodological challenges and new directions Anthony Kaldellis 61
6 Strong women and their husbands in Byzantine historiography Leonora Neville 72
7 Cherchez l’homme! Byzantine men: a eunuch perspective Shaun Tougher 83
8 On slaves and slavery Günter Prinzing 92
9 Monotheists, dualists and pagans Christopher Livanos 103
10 The virtues and faults of the Latin Christians Tia Kolbaba 114

PART II: THE WRITTEN WORLD 131

11 Political literacy Catherine Holmes 137
12 Byzantine military manuals: prescriptions, practice and pedagogy Denis F. Sullivan 149
13 De cerimoniis and the Great Palace J. M. Featherstone 162
14 Rhetoric and performance Emmanuel C. Bourbouhakis 175
15 Letter-writing Stratis Papaioannou 188
16 Trends and developments in the Byzantine poetic tradition Christopher Livanos 200
17 The corpus of Byzantine historiography: an interpretive essay Anthony Kaldellis 211
18 Christians, Jews and Muslims in Byzantine Italy: medieval conflicts in local perspective Youval Rotman 223
19 The Miracles of Gregory Palamas by Philotheos Kokkinos Alice-Mary Talbot 236
20 Writing for the heart: the spiritual literature of Byzantium Joseph Munitiz 248

PART III: HEAVEN ON EARTH: BYZANTINE ART AND ARCHITECTURE 261

21 What is a Byzantine icon? Constantinople versus Sinai Bissera V. Pentcheva 265
22 Defining liturgical space Vasileios Marinis 284
23 Celestial hierarchies and earthly hierarchies in the art of the Byzantine Church Warren T. Woodfin 303
24 Unofficial art and the resistance to Orthodoxy Henry Maguire
25 Constantinople and the construction of a medieval urban identity Robert Ousterhout 334
26 The practice, perception and experience of Byzantine fortification Nikolas Bakirtzis 352
27 Imperial outliers: building and decorative works in the borderlands and beyond Jonathan Shepard 372
28 The medieval progeny of the Holy Apostles: trails of architectural imitation across the Mediterranean Tassos Papacostas 386
29 Sacred space from Constantinople to Venice Thomas E. A. Dale 406

PART IV: THE WORLD OF BYZANTINE STUDIES 429

30 The history of editing Byzantine historiographical texts Diether Roderich Reinsch 435
31 Byzantium in nineteenth-century Greek historiography Despina Christodoulou 445
32 Pioneers of popular Byzantine history: Freeman, Gregorovius, Schlumberger Paul Stephenson 462
33 A case study in the emergence of Byzantine studies: Serbia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
34 Byzantium and historical sociology Johann P. Arnason 491
35 Byzantium’s European future Paul Stephenson 505

References 510
Index 581

CONTENTS