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Author : Florin Curta,Leonora Neville,Shaun Tougher
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2017
Category : Electronic
ISBN : OCLC:1102002049
Author : Alexander Olson
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 2020-11-16
Category : History
ISBN : 9783030599362
This book illuminates Byzantines' relationship with woodland between the seventh and twelfth centuries. Using the oak and the olive as objects of study, this work explores shifting economic strategies, environmental change, and the transformation of material culture throughout the middle Byzantine period. Drawing from texts, environmental data, and archaeological surveys, this book demonstrates that woodland's makeup was altered after Byzantium's seventh-century metamorphosis, and that people interacted in new ways with this re-worked ecology. Oak obtained prominence after late antiquity, illustrating the shift from that earlier era's intensive agriculture to a more sylvan middle Byzantine economy. Meanwhile, the olive faded into the background, re-emerging in the eleventh and twelfth centuries thanks to the initiative of people adapting yet again to newly changed political and economic circumstances. This book therefore shows that Byzantines' relationship with their ecology was far from static, and that Byzantines' decisions had environmental impacts.
Author : Thomas Arentzen,Virginia Burrus,Glenn Peers
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 203 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2021-07-11
Category : History
ISBN : 9783030759025
This book examines the many ways Byzantines lived with their trees. It takes seriously theological and hagiographic tree engagement as expressions of that culture’s deep involvement—and even fascination—with the arboreal. These pages tap into the current attention paid to plants in a wide range of scholarship, an attention that involves the philosophy of plant life as well as scientific discoveries of how communicative trees may be, and how they defend themselves. Considering writings on and images of trees from Late Antiquity and medieval Byzantium sympathetically, the book argues for an arboreal imagination at the root of human aspirations to know and draw close to the divine.
Author : Claudia Sode,Sarolta Takács
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 472 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2017-05-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781351914260
This volume reflects the different methods and new approaches to the study of Byzantine history that have characterized the work of Paul Speck, to whom it is dedicated, and above all, his insistence on a close reading and careful interpretation of the sources. These aims are encapsulated in the introduction by John Haldon, which gives a sense of where future studies should lead new generations of scholars. The following studies, by many of the leading authorities in their fields, look at a whole range of aspects of the history of Byzantium - its culture, theology, linguistics, literature, historiography, sigillography and art - and at the place of the Byzantine empire within the late antique and medieval worlds.
Author : Martin Hurbanič
Publisher : Springer
Page : 361 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2019-07-25
Category : History
ISBN : 9783030166847
This book examines the Avar siege of Constantinople in 626, one of the most significant events of the seventh century, and the impact and repercussions this had on the political, military, economic and religious structures of the Byzantine Empire. The siege put an end to the power politics and hegemony of the Avars in South East Europe and was the first attempt to destroy Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. Besides the far-reaching military factors, the siege had deeper ideological effects on the mentality of the inhabitants of the Empire, and it helped establish Constantinople as the spiritual centre of eastern Christianity protected by God and his Mother. Martin Hurbanič discusses, from a chronological and thematic perspective, the process through which the historical siege was transformed into a timeless myth, and examines the various aspects which make the event a unique historical moment in the history of mankind – a moment in which the modern story overlaps with the legend with far-reaching effects, not only in the Byzantine Empire but also in other European countries.
Author : Francesca Dell’Acqua,Ernesto Sergio Mainoldi
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 351 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2019-11-20
Category : History
ISBN : 9783030247690
This book uses Pseudo-Dionysius and his mystic theology to explore attitudes and beliefs about images in the early medieval West and Byzantium. Composed in the early sixth century, the Corpus Dionysiacum, the collection of texts transmitted under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, developed a number of themes which have a predominantly visual and spatial dimension. Pseudo-Dionysius’ contribution to the development of Christian visual culture, visual thinking and figural art-making are examined in this book to systematically investigate his long-lasting legacy and influence. The contributors embrace religious studies, philosophy, theology, art, and architectural history, to consider the depth of the interaction between the Corpus Dionysiacum and various aspects of contemporary Byzantine and western cultures, including ecclesiastical and lay power, politics, religion, and art.
Author : David Alan Parnell
Publisher : Springer
Page : 228 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2016-11-02
Category : History
ISBN : 9781137562043
This book explores the professional and social lives of the soldiers who served in the army of the Byzantine Empire in the sixth century. More than just a fighting force, this army was the setting in which hundreds of thousands of men forged relationships and manoeuvred for promotion. The officers of this force, from famous generals like Belisarius and Narses to lesser-known men like Buzes and Artabanes, not only fought battles but also crafted social networks and cultivated their relationships with their emperor, fellow officers, families, and subordinate soldiers. Looming in the background were differences in identity, particularly between Romans and those they identified as barbarians. Drawing on numerical evidence and stories from sixth-century authors who understood the military, Justinian’s Men highlights a sixth-century Byzantine army that was vibrant, lively, and full of individuals working with and against each other.
Author : Nicholas Baker-Brian,Shaun Tougher
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 474 pages
File Size : 40,7 Mb
Release : 2020-05-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9783030398989
This edited collection focuses on the Roman empire during the period from AD 337 to 361. During this period the empire was ruled by three brothers: Constantine II (337-340), Constans I (337-350) and Constantius II (337-361). These emperors tend to be cast into shadow by their famous father Constantine, the first Christian Roman emperor (306-337), and their famous cousin Julian, the last pagan Roman emperor (361-363). The traditional concentration on the historically renowned figures of Constantine and Julian is understandable but comes at a significant price: the neglect of the period between the death of Constantine and the reign of Julian and of the rulers who governed the empire in this period. The reigns of the sons of Constantine, especially that of the longest-lived Constantius II, mark a moment of great historical significance. As the heirs of Constantine they became the guardians of his legacy, and they oversaw the nature of the world in which Julian was to grow up. The thirteen contributors to this volume assess their influence on imperial, administrative, cultural, and religious facets of the empire in the fourth century.
Author : Panos Sophoulis
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 194 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2020-10-28
Category : History
ISBN : 9783030559052
This book explores the history of banditry in the medieval Balkans between the ninth and fifteenth centuries. While several scholars have recognized the problems which various outlaw groups caused in the region during the Middle Ages, few have given much attention to the bandits themselves, their origins, their reasons for taking up brigandage, and the steps taken by the central authorities to control their activity. Among other things, this book identifies three main sources of banditry: shepherds, soldiers and peasants. Far from being ʻlone wolvesʼ, these men operated within well-defined social networks. Poverty played a decisive role in driving them to a life of crime, but there is strong evidence to suggest that the growing economic prosperity in parts of the Balkans from the ninth century onwards may have also contributed to the rise of the phenomenon.
Author : Sverrir Jakobsson
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 212 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2020-10-14
Category : History
ISBN : 9783030537975
This book is the history of the Eastern Vikings, the Rus and the Varangians, from their earliest mentions in the narrative sources to the late medieval period, when the Eastern Vikings had become stock figures in Old Norse Romances. A comparison is made between sources emanating from different cultures, such as the Roman Empire, the Abbasid Caliphate and its successor states, the early kingdoms of the Rus and the high medieval Scandinavian kingdoms. A key element in the history of the Rus and the Varangians is the fashioning of identities and how different cultures define themselves in comparison and contrast with the other. This book offers a fresh and engaging view of these medieval sources, and a thorough reassessment of established historiographical grand narratives on Scandinavian peoples in the East.
Author : Stavroula Constantinou,Mati Meyer
Publisher : Springer
Page : 327 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2018-09-17
Category : History
ISBN : 9783319960388
This book examines the gendered dimensions of emotions and the emotional aspects of gender within Byzantine culture and suggests possible readings of such instances. In so doing, the volume celebrates the current breadth of Byzantine gender studies while at the same time contributing to the emerging field of Byzantine emotion studies. It offers the reader an array of perspectives encompassing various sources and media, including historiography, hagiography, theological writings, epistolography, erotic literature, art objects, and illuminated manuscripts. The ten chapters cover a time span ranging from the early to the late Byzantine periods. This diversity is secured by an expanded and enriched exploration of the collection’s unifying theme of gendered emotions. The scope and breadth of the chapters also reflect the ways in which Byzantine gender and emotion have been studied thus far, while at the same time offering novel approaches that challenge established opinions in Byzantine studies.
Author : Leslie Brubaker,Shaun Tougher
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 446 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2016-04-08
Category : History
ISBN : 9781317180012
The study of the family is one of the major lacunas in Byzantine Studies. Angeliki Laiou remarked in 1989 that ’the study of the Byzantine family is still in its infancy’, and this assertion remains true today. The present volume addresses this lacuna. It comprises 19 chapters written by international experts in the field which take a variety of approaches to the study of the Byzantine family, and embrace a chronological span from the later Roman to the late Byzantine empire. The context is established by chapters focusing on the Roman roots of the Byzantine family, the Christianisation of the family, and the nature of the family in contemporaneous cultures (the late antique west and the Islamic east). Key methodological approaches to the Byzantine family are highlighted and discussed, in particular prosopographical and life course approaches. The contribution of hagiography to the understanding of the Byzantine family is analysed by several authors; other chapters on the family and children in art and on the archaeology of the Middle Byzantine house explore the material evidence that can shed light on the Byzantine family. Overall, the diversity of families that existed in Byzantium (blood, fictive, metaphorical) is emphasised, and chapters consider the specific cases of ascetic, monastic, aristocratic and peasant families, as well as the imperial family, which is illuminated by the comparative case of a Caliphal family. The volume is topped and tailed by a Preface and an Afterword by the editors, which address the state of the field and consider the way ahead. Thus the volume is vital in putting the subject of the Byzantine Family in sharp focus and setting the research agenda for the future.
Author : Roderick Beaton,David Ricks
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 208 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2017-03-02
Category : History
ISBN : 9781351944175
Called variously the ’Byzantine epic’, the ’epic of Modern Greece’, an ’epic-romance’ and ’romance’, the poem of Digenes Akrites has, since its rediscovery towards the end of the nineteenth century, exerted a tenacious hold on the imagination of scholars from a wide range of disciplines and from many countries of the world, as well as of writers and public figures in Greece. There are many reasons for this, not least among them the prestige accorded to ’national epics’ in the nineteenth century and for some time afterwards. Another reason must surely be the work’s uniqueness: there is nothing quite like Digenes Akrites in either Byzantine or Modern Greek literature. However, this uniqueness is not confined to its problematic place in the literary ’canon’ and literary history. As historical testimony, and in its complex relationship to later oral song and to older myth and story-telling, Digenes Akrites again has no close parallels of comparable length in Byzantine or Modern Greek culture. Whether as a literary text, a historical source, or a manifestation of an oral popular culture, Digenes Akrites remains, more than a century after its rediscovery, persistently enigmatic. This Byzantine ’epic’ or ’romance’ has now become the focus of new research across a range of disciplines since the publication in 1985 of a radically revised edition based on the Escorial text of the poem, by Stylianos Alexiou. The papers in this volume, derived from a conference held in May 1992 at King’s College London, seeks to present and discuss the results of this new research. Digenes Akrites: New Approaches to Byzantine Heroic Poetry is the second in the series published by Variorum for the Centre for Hellenic Studies, King’s College London.
Author : Liz James
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 488 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2010-01-29
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 1444320025
Using new methodological and theoretical approaches, A Companionto Byzantium presents an overview of the Byzantine world fromits inception in 330 A.D. to its fall to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Provides an accessible overview of eleven centuries ofByzantine society Introduces the most recent scholarship that is transforming thefield of Byzantine studies Emphasizes Byzantium's social and cultural history, as well asits material culture Explores traditional topics and themes through freshperspectives
Author : Adam J. Goldwyn
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 312 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2021-08-06
Category : History
ISBN : 9783030788575
This book analyzes Byzantine examples of witness literature, a genre that focuses on eyewitness accounts written by slaves, prisoners, refugees, and other victims of historical atrocity. It focuses on such episodes in three nonfictional texts – John Kaminiates’ Capture of Thessaloniki (904), Eustathios of Thessaloniki’s Capture of Thessaloniki (1186), and Niketas Choniates’ History (ca. 1204–17) – and the three extant twelfth-century Komnenian novels to consider how the authors’ positions as both eyewitness and victim require an interpretive method that distinguishes witness literature from other kinds of writing about the past. Drawing on theoretical developments in the fields of Holocaust and Genocide Studies (such as Giorgio Agamben’s homo sacer and Michel Foucault’s biopolitics) and comparisons with modern examples (Elie Wiesel’s Night and Primo Levi’s If This is a Man), Witness Literature emphasizes the affective, subjective, and experiential in medieval Greek historical writing.