Social Change in Town and Country in Eleventh-Century Byzantium

Abstract

The history of Byzantium pivots around the eleventh century. For it was then that it reached its apogee, in terms of power, prestige, and territorial extension, only to plunge into steep political decline in the second half of the century. It is therefore well worth taking a thorough look at the social order in this age of change, to see how it was affected by economic growth and political expansion, and what were the consequences of the social changes which occurred. The approaches of individual contributors vary according to their subject matter. The social order is surveyed from the bottom-up in four archaeologically founded papers which examine three regions of the Byzantine world (Asia Minor, in general (Niewoehner) and with respect to the Sagalassos area (Kaptijn and Waelkens), Greece (Armstrong), and Southern Italy (Noye)). The top-down view, drawing on textual evidence, documentary and literary, is presented by four contributors, who again focus on different places—the metropolis (Cheynet), the country in the core regions of Asia Minor and Greece (Smyrlis), and two peripheral regions, Taron in south-west Armenia (Greenwood) and southern Italy (Noye). These detailed studies are complemented by a venture into the sphere of political ideas, as manifest in the thinking of one high-flying servant of the state (Krallis), and an overview of eleventh-century developments (Howard-Johnston).