Byzantine Society Research Articles

Североафриканский фронтир и кочевники (IV-VII вв.) = Severoafrikanskiy frontir i kochevniki (IV-VII vv.)

This article deals with to the Berbers as a part of the frontier in Africa. Berbers for a fee under the Romans and Byzantinians agreed to carry the service on the border. Uprising Berber population when Roman power was due to abuse of the local Roman authorities. Byzantium faced already with the states of the Berbers, who have expanded their holdings due to their sedentary neighbors. Byzantines attracted Berbers in the service of offering them cash grants, as well as providing support against other Berbers. From Romans and Byzantines and Berbers took over the titulature and existence of sedentary settlements. During the Arab expansion of the semisedentary Berbers was a allies of the Byzantines. Their leader Kuseyla wanted to integrate into the Byzantine society. Berber nomads also raided the agricultural population of the provinces of Africa and Mauritania, without changing the normal lifestyle

Diet and health in post-byzantine society: A socio-historical approach

Introduction: Throughout human history, the role of wide social environmental factors such as lifestyle and eating habits is manifest either in health protection or illness inducement. Aim: The socio-historical inquiry of the relation between diet and health in post- byzantine society. Materials and methods: The No 218 Manuscript of the Monastery of Iviron of Mount Athos. Socio-historical analysis of a historical source. Results: In the under study post-byzantine manuscript the mention of diet as a precaution and therapy measure, diets’ differentiation according the seasons of the year, its correlation with bodily humors, its importance as a life style and the recommendation to prefer certain types of food and avoid others reflect the Hippocratic and Galenic concept about diet. Dietetic concoctions adjusted for every illness, food good or bad for bodily fluids (humors) along with the exact time and way of dosage, the correct mix, preparation and combination with other types of food and activities are presented as well as their possible benefits and harm to human health. The existence of an organized system of dietetic instructions in the society of the time and the important role of dietetics to health promotion and illness treatment is denoted since many types of food were used as medicine. The correlation of diet and exercise also features in the manuscript. During Ottoman Rule in Greece diet was an important factor of pestilence treatment. Conclusions: Mentions of the importance of diet as a precaution and therapeutic measure for health and illness are found in all societies and civilizations from pre- historical years up to now but especially during ancient, byzantine and post- byzantine years as the understudy historical source indicates.

Res publica Byzantina? State formation and issues of identity in medieval east Rome

It is a great pleasure and an honour to be writing for the fortieth anniversary volume ofByzantine and Modern Greek Studies. As editor of the journal for some twenty years, from 1984 until 2004, I have watched the journal grow in stature and in esteem over that period, and I am delighted to see it continuing to do so in the hands of its current editors. In the first issue I edited, I also contributed an article that attempted to reconcile some very different approaches to the history of Byzantine society and culture, or at least, to show that such different approaches were not necessarily mutually exclusive. If now rather out-of-date in its content, that article remains a useful baseline for discussing the relationship between empirical research and writing and theoretical reflection.‘“Jargon” vs. “the facts”‘?was a comment about the confrontation that at the time appeared to exist between, very broadly speaking, those who were interested in questioning the theoretical assumptions underlying and informing their research, and those who were not interested in such debates, preferring to see them either as irrelevant or as inaccessible. In my concluding remarks, I suggested that Byzantine Studies in the mid-1980s was in the process of what T. S. Kuhn would have called a ‘paradigm shift‘, that is to say, a process through which a traditional set (or sets) of assumptions and priorities, as well as theories and approaches, is replaced by different sets of ideas. While the changes in the nature of the subject that have occurred since then have not been particularly marked, there have nevertheless been some interesting and important developments that have altered the framework within which some ways of looking at the medieval eastern Roman world are carried on. The so-called ‘linguistic turn‘, for example, pushed Byzantinists, in particular, scholars of Byzantine literature and visual culture, to grapple with various aspects of what might very broadly be termed post-modernist and post-structuralist theory. This is evident in some of the writing and publishing of the later 1980s and 1990s in particular, and in some respects has now been incorporated into our ‘ways of seeing’ the Byzantine world.2In particular issues of intertextuality, of authorial intention, of reception, and of the relativizing of cultural interpretive possibilities (in respect of our own perspective) have become part and parcel of scholarly discourse, thus greatly enriching our discipline.3Represented by more recent work in literary studies and art history especially, I believe this shift also facilitated a much greater degree of cross-disciplinary reading, comparative thinking, and in respect of historical context and setting, a generally more open approach to the medieval west and the Islamic world in terms of both material and method.4

Instytucja rodziny w teologii Pawłowej i Bizancjum w opiniach sądów cerkiewnych Despotatu Epiru

St Paul teaches that family life is founded on the union of a man and woman, which symbolises the relation between Christ and His Church. A second guideline to family life is the education and upbringing of children “in Christ.” The Apostle Paul, in his letters provides parents with advice on how they should raise their children, and children on how they should behave in relation to their parents. In this advice, although limited in number and extend, one can distinguish the basic elements of Christian education for children. For the Apostle Paul, the cultivation of healthy relations is indispensable, not only in the relations between husbands and wives, but also in the relationship between parents and children. Parents have the main responsibility for the creation of pedagogic relation with their children and they can contribute to their education, by providing them social stimuli. The institution of the family has long attracted the interest of Byzantine scholars. Influenced by, among other things, the social sciences, the focus has expanded in recent years to include the function of the family as a social and economic unit in Byzantine society. Since marriage is the basis for the formation of a family, the field of study embraces the rules governing the contracting of a marriage (age, criteria for the selection of a spouse), betrothal, impediments to marriage, the institution of marriage portions and bridal gifts, the status of the wife and children, divorce and so on. Under the Romans, marriage was a civil act. As Christianity spread, the Church gradually came to intervene and acquire a role in the institution. The purpose of marriage is procreation and the perpetuation of the human race, and in this sense, it is of interest to both church and state. A turning-point was reached with the promulgation by Leo VI the Wise (886-912) of Novella 89, which laid down that only marriages blessed by the Church were legal. Later statues, beginning with the Tome (997) of Patriarch Sisinnius, codified the impediments to marriage by reason of kinship or affinity. Among the most illuminating sources for the study of the family and the legal relations deriving from marriage are the decisions and opinions of the ecclesiastical courts of the principality of Epirus and specifically those of the Metropolitan, John Apokaukos, and the Archdiocese of Ochrid, under Demetrios Chomatenos. It is interesting to note that these two prelates considered the cases brought before them not only in the light of the secular law and Church rules, but also with a certain broadness of mind and social sensitivity.

The Medieval Climate Anomaly and Byzantium: A review of the evidence on climatic fluctuations, economic performance and societal change

At the beginning of the Medieval Climate Anomaly, in the ninth and tenth century, the medieval eastern Roman empire, more usually known as Byzantium, was recovering from its early medieval crisis and experiencing favourable climatic conditions for the agricultural and demographic growth. Although in the Balkans and Anatolia such favourable climate conditions were prevalent during the eleventh century, parts of the imperial territories were facing significant challenges as a result of external political/military pressure. The apogee of medieval Byzantine socio-economic development, around AD 1150, coincides with a period of adverse climatic conditions for its economy, so it becomes obvious that the winter dryness and high climate variability at this time did not hinder Byzantine society and economy from achieving that level of expansion. Soon after this peak, towards the end of the twelfth century, the populations of the Byzantine world were experiencing unusual climatic conditions with marked dryness and cooler phases. The weakened Byzantine socio-political system must have contributed to the events leading to the fall of Constantinople in AD 1204 and the sack of the city. The final collapse of the Byzantine political control over western Anatolia took place half century later, thus contemporaneous with the strong cooling effect after a tropical volcanic eruption in AD 1257.We suggest that, regardless of a range of other influential factors, climate change was also an important contributing factor to the socio-economic changes that took place in Byzantium during the Medieval Climate Anomaly. Crucially, therefore, while the relatively sophisticated and complex Byzantine society was certainly influenced by climatic conditions, and while it nevertheless displayed a significant degree of resilience, external pressures as well as tensions within the Byzantine society more broadly contributed to an increasing vulnerability in respect of climate impacts.Our interdisciplinary analysis is based on all available sources of information on the climate and society of Byzantium, that is textual (documentary), archaeological, environmental, climate and climate model-based evidence about the nature and extent of climate variability in the eastern Mediterranean. The key challenge was, therefore, to assess the relative influence to be ascribed to climate variability and change on the one hand, and on the other to the anthropogenic factors in the evolution of Byzantine state and society (such as invasions, changes in international or regional market demand and patterns of production and consumption, etc.). The focus of this interdisciplinary study was to address the possible causal relationships between climatic and socio-economic change and to assess the resilience of the Byzantine socio-economic system in the context of climate change impacts.

Climate, environment and society in southern Italy during the last 2000 years. A review of the environmental, historical and archaeological evidence

This paper examines the interrelationship between the natural and human history of Sicily over the last 2000 years. It presents a close comparison of the data from the key multi-proxy site of Lago di Pergusa – located inland in the eastern part of Sicily – with the existing archaeological and textual evidence on the socio-economic processes. The article also includes a review of the available natural proxy archives from the Central Mediterranean. On the basis of the isotope and pollen data from the Lago di Pergusa core PRG2, we identified two humid periods (ca. 450–750 AD and ca. 1400–1800 AD) as well as a dry one (ca. 1100–1350 AD); our evidence corresponds closely with other environmental palaeoclimate proxies from the Mediterranean region. In our synthesis of the environmental, historical and archaeological evidence from southern Italy, we argue that during both periods of increased humidity – that is during the late antique-Byzantine times and during the late medieval and early modern periods – intense agricultural use of the Sicilian landscape developed on an unprecedented scale. This in turn contributed to the impressive demographic and economic expansion visible during these periods. A sudden period of aridity followed the first of these eras of humidity-related agricultural growth. This climatic shift, dated to around 750 AD, corresponds to a decrease in synanthropic taxa and a recovery of arboreal vegetation. We argue that in this case a climatic change contributed to socio-economic decline. Moreover, as this change occurred prior to the Arab invasion of Sicily in AD 827, the environmental processes may help to explain the collapse of Byzantine society on Sicily which, in turn made the Muslim conquest possible. After this event, there occurred a longer period of agricultural decline, lasting until around 1000 AD, after which we see the first signs of a slow recovery. Ongoing research in nearby archaeological sites will help defining if it was a local change or a regional, potentially climate-induced phenomenon. Although textual evidence records considerable population losses during the later Middle Ages as a result of the Black Death, the effects of the plague are not obviously apparent in the pollen data, except for some short term fluctuations.

The Enlightenment of Zen Buddhism and the Hesychastic Vision of the Divine Light

My intention here is to present the religious phenomena of Zen and Hesychasm, analyzing similarities within the mechanism of prayer and movements within the respective faiths. There is a common way that the transcendent is exposed in Zen Buddhism and Hesychasm, but at the same time there is conflict between traditional Eastern Christian ideas on the communion with and the Western approaches to that are manifest in the Eastern and Western understanding of God. The divine in the Christian tradition and enlightenment in the Oriental religions are two different experiences. The common characteristics of the breathing exercises in Hesychasm and Zen make the study of these common religious phenomena interesting. Byzantine monks in the East were free persons and at the same time obedient to traditional authority. The bishops were elected from the monastic community. The Byzantine society respected monks who were completely devoted to and who engaged in unceasing prayer, fasting, and restraint. This unceasing prayer was very important for the monks, who adopted a variety of techniques and theories developed in relation to it. Traditionally, there are two schools of thought on the matter within Christianity: (1) The school of Evagrios of Pontos (Asia Minor), which is based on Platonism, with an epistemological approach to purify the mind and unite with the divine spirit; and (2) the school of Makarios, leading toward Neoplatonism, with an approach of purifying the heart. The monks of the fourteenth century leaned toward the Makarian school of thought. They emphasized that the human being is body, heart, and spirit that participate in the blessed vision of the uncreated and especially in prayer. In this way the whole human being is transformed and deified, a process known as theosis. The purpose of the monks in prayer is literally to attain communion with God. The is a universal symbol of and God's Reign, in contrast to darkness and its misery. The symbol of as was commonly used in Greek philosophy and religious tradition in the mystery religions (enlightenment: as vision of god or goddess); this was also true in Gnosticism, in the heretical sects of Judaism and Christianity. In the Christian creed Jesus Christ is the Son of God, viewed as Light of Light, and the entire Christian theology, ethics, and liturgies are imbued by this symbolism of light. It is true that some Eastern writers speak of in apophatic terms and symbolism. This is true only in a few neoplatonic theologians who speak of in an absolute apophatic way. For them, is beyond, as described in the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite, Maximus the Confessor, and others. However, according to the claim of the apophatic way, God is light more than darkness. Especially within the Christian life and theory, it is in the Uncreated light that the symbols of the are manifest in the created world. This is also evident from the Hebrew Bible. This transcendent is manifested in Jesus Christ, through his whole life and teaching, and especially in the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor and his Resurrection. In this light, all the faithful participants in their daily life will participate in the eschaton, in the End of Days. The hesychasts of the Holy Mountain make every effort to attain exactly this type of life. This type of theological language concerning and communion with always had a real and symbolic taste of the transcendent now, as well as the hope for a more complete taste and fulfillment of in the future. The hesychasts introduced an intensive realism and a time of completeness in relation with the divine and filled with God; this fulfillment was realized in their own practice of prayer and in their expectation that during prayer they participate in true uncreated and are therefore transfigured by the of the holy transfiguration. …

Questions of Gender in Byzantine Society

Questions of Gender in Byzantine Society

A Development of Byzantine Christian Charities during the 4th-7th Centuries and the Birth of the Hospital

This study aims to examine the beginning and the development of Christian Charities during the 4(th)-6(th) centuries which would eventually result in the birth of the hospital in modern sense in the first half of the 7(th) century. For this purpose, I looked carefully into various primary sources concerning the early Christian institutions for the poor and the sick. Above all, it's proper to note that the first xenodocheion where hospitality was combined with a systematic caring, is concerned with the Trinitarian debate of the 4(th) century. In 356, Eustathios, one of the leaders of homoiousios group, established xenodocheion to care for the sick and the lepers in Sebaste of Armenia, whereas his opponent Aetios, doctor and leader of the heteroousios party, was reckoned to have combined the medical treatment with his clerical activities. Then, Basil of Caesarea, disciple of Eustathios of Sebaste, also founded in 372 a magnificent benevolent complex named 'Basileias' after its founder. I scrupulously analysed several contemporary materials mentioning the charitable institution of Caesarea which was called alternatively katagogia, ptochotropheion, xenodocheion. John Chrysostome also founded several nosokomeia in Constantinople at the end of the 4(th) century and the beginning of the 5(th) century. Apparently, the contemporary sources mention that doctors existed for these Charities, but there is no sufficient proof that these 'Christian Hospitals,' Basileias or nosokomeia of Constantinople were hospitals in modern sense. Imperial constitutions began to mention ptochotropheion, xenodocheion and orphanotropheion since the second half of the 5(th) century and then some Justinian laws evoked nosokomium, brephotrophia, gerontocomia. These laws reveal that 'Christian Hospitals' were well clarified and deeply rooted in Byzantine society already in these periods. And then, new benevolent institutions emerged in the 6(th) century: nosokomeia for a specific class and lochokomeia for maternity. In addition, one of the important functions of Sampson Xenon was, according to Novel 59, to hold a funeral service for the people of Constantinople. Nevertheless, there is no sufficient literary material that could demonstrate the existence of a hospital in modern sense. The first hospital where outpatient service, hospitalization and surgery were confirmed was Sampson Xenon in the first half of the 7th century, figured in the tale of Stephanos of the The Miracles of St. Artemios. Why was the early Byzantine literary so reticent as to write the medical activities in the Christian Charities? It's because Christian innovation didn't rest on the medical treatment but caring for the poor and the sick, depending on the word of Mt. 25.35-36. In this meaning, I'd like to say that the Early Byzantine history of Christian Charities or 'Christian Hospitals' consists of only a footnote of the verse.

Questions of Gender in Byzantine Society ed. by Bronwen Neil and Lynda Garland (review)

Reviewed by: Questions of Gender in Byzantine Society ed. by Bronwen Neil and Lynda Garland Charis Messis Questions of Gender in Byzantine Society. Edited by Bronwen Neil and Lynda Garland. (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing. 2013. Pp. xiv, 218. $119.95. ISBN 978-1-4094-4779-5.) Just because a book has “gender” in the title does not mean that it actually does deal with it. Other than a specific topic, “gender” is a theoretical methodology, a way of looking at things and posing questions. Simply writing about women, men, or eunuchs does not necessarily entail that one is doing “gender studies.” Those topics can equally be approached through traditional scholarly methods that may be brought to bear on any aspect of Byzantine history. If gender scholarship is limited to the repetition of certain commonplace formulas or to banal observations about sexual inequality and does not truly bring “the lens of gender to the study of history,” the results may be interesting, to be sure, but do not deepen our understanding of gender in a society. Two basic observations may be made regarding the book under review. First, in spite of the quality of most of the contributions, the volume takes an approach that, with few exceptions, is far from belonging to gender history and that ultimately leads to the conclusion that there was no gendered discourse in Byzantium, not because it truly did not exist but because the contributors are not looking for it where it did. Second, this type of collection of papers is shaped primarily by the [End Page 148] choice of contributors and their prior interests, and not by an editorial logic that would prioritize theoretical relevance and thematic coherence. Two contributions (Paul Brown and Bronwyn Neil) deal with Western views of Byzantine men and women. The first relates to the military presence of Byzantium in Italy (eighth to eleventh centuries) and the second relates to the image of the empress Eirene (797–802) in various literary texts, primarily Western. In both cases the authors conclude that gender plays a secondary role in the political and cultural confrontation between the Byzantines and the Latins and that the main issue at hand was, in the first case, a denunciation of the “treachery and cunning” of the Byzantines and, in the second case, Eirene’s Iconophile policies (whether viewed positively or negatively). The chapter by Diana Gilliland Wright takes the inverse approach by looking at Byzantine views of Western women, namely Sophia of Montferrat and Cleofe Malatesta who came to Byzantium to marry the sons of Manuel II Palaiologos and tries to understand why they were treated so differently. A series of chapters on aspects of the lives of women in Byzantium constitutes the core of the book. Lynda Garland presents family strategies of investment in monasticism, by examining, through the Typika, the transformation of monasteries into alternative family households, especially on the initiative of aristocratic women. Amelia R. Brown presents the “highlights” of the education of women throughout the whole of Byzantine history. Sarah Gador-Whyte studies the masculine and feminine qualities that hymnographers attribute to the Virgin during the sixth and seventh centuries. Liz James presents the genealogical tree of many women of the family of Constantine the Great, their role in the creation and cultivation of political alliances, and the way in which their representation changed with every fluctuation in political circumstances. For his part, Shaun Tougher discusses men and eunuchs in Byzantium and underlines the importance of beards in defining manhood after the seventh century. Tougher regards the general preference for beards as “a sign of the increasing Hellenisation and Christianisation of the empire and also a sign of a desire to enhance masculinity, perhaps in response to a sense of political and military crisis” (p. 161). The volume closes with the contribution of Damian Casey that is also the most interesting when it comes to the actual issue of gender. In this very stimulating paper, Casey examines various Christian readings of gender, the body, and sexuality, underlining the ambivalence of those terms and the complex relationship that they had with spiritual authority. In conclusion, with the exception of some contributions that pose the issue...

Questions of gender in Byzantine society. Edited by Bronwen Neil and Lynda Garland. Pp. xiii+218 incl. 3 figs. Farnham–Burlington, Vt: Ashgate, 2013. £65. 978 1 4094 4779 5

Questions of gender in Byzantine society. Edited by Bronwen Neil and Lynda Garland. Pp. xiii+218 incl. 3 figs. Farnham–Burlington, Vt: Ashgate, 2013. £65. 978 1 4094 4779 5

On Theophylact’s in Defense of Eunuchs (I)

The first part of this paper analyzes a text by Theophylact of Ohrid known as In Defense of Eunuchs. In terms of its genre and topic, this work stands alone in Byzantine literature. Through a dialogue between the two interlocutors - a monk and a eunuch, Theophylact challenges the traditional representation of eunuchs. He particularly focuses on the condemnation of castration in Ecclesiastical Canons and secular legislation (of the late Roman Empire and Byzantium). Theophylact highlights the ambivalence of the views on eunuchs in Byzantine society, demonstrating that castration as such did not necessarily lead to the marginalization of the castrated individual. The most important part of Theophylact?s Defense offers a comparison between ?the bearded? and eunuchs in monastic orders. Also, the affirmation of freedom of choice between good and evil and insisting that an individual should be judged according to his own deeds is the guiding idea of Theophylact?s Defense. The second part of the paper contains a Serbian translation of Theophylact?s text with a commentary. Besides the French translation by the editor of the critical edition P. Gautier, this is the second complete translation of the Greek original. It deviates from Gautier?s version in several places, offering alternative readings of ambiguous places.

Porikogolos in a transcript held by the Matica Srpska library

This narrative was probably created in the 12th century in the Greek language, and represents a parody of a judicial hearing, containing allusions to hagiographies. It also constitutes a parody ridiculing a deluge of titles in Byzantine society. In the Greek language version, this work is known as A Book on Fruit, or Porikogolos. It has been translated into the Serbo-Slavic language, and the title of this version states that it is a narrative about the blessed Grozdije (grapes). Several Serbian transcripts have been preserved, and what has been edited on this occasion is the text of a transcript dating from the end of the 17th century unknown so far, which belongs to the Library of Matica srpska. It is compared textologically to the other known transcripts.

중세 동로마-비잔티움 사회의 문화적 정체성: 6~15세기 인장 이미지와 텍스트를 중심으로

중세 동로마-비잔티움 사회의 문화적 정체성: 6~15세기 인장 이미지와 텍스트를 중심으로

The Byzantine Legacy of Religious and Legal Pluralism: A Contemporary Reassessment of Byzantine Church-State Relations

In modern times, many Christians have struggled with the question of how their faith commitments can inform a meaningful social and political engagement within the contemporary secular realities that surround them. This article critically explores one especially commanding narrative that has often complicated such efforts for Orthodox Christians in particular, namely the Byzantine legacy of church–state relations. The article proceeds to make the case in favour of a more nuanced and layered account of church–state relations in the Eastern Roman Empire. First, the exact value of Justinian’s Sixth Novel in reflecting the celebrated symphony in Byzantine church–state relations is evaluated not only on the basis of the Novel itself, but also with respect to the recognized role played by legal pluralism in Byzantine society. Second, the Edict of Milan (313) is highlighted as having inaugurated a period of religious pluralism which only terminated with Theodosius’s promulgation of Christianity as a state religion in 380, some 43 years after the death of Constantine. Third, the early monastic and hierarchical resistance to the increasing imperialization of Christianity is expounded as further support for the conceptualization of alternative facets in the Byzantine legacy of church–state relations.

HOMER WITillN THE BYZANTINE FRAMEWORK

The present paper is intended to provide the reader with a brief insight into the attitude to Homer in Byzantine society as reflected particularly in the works of John Tzetzes (poet) and Eustathios, archbishop of Thessalonika (both 12th century writers).

Proso w gastronomii antyku i wczesnego Bizancjum

The present article deals with some culinary applications of millet in Antiquity and Byzantine period, as demonstrated in select Greek and Roman literary sources (Athenaeus of Naucratis, Pedanius Dioscurides, Galen, Oribasius, Aetius of Amida, Alexander of Tralles, Symeon Seth, Geoponica, Byzantine lexi­ca, Cato, Columella, Antimus and Apicius). The authors of the article start their analysis with presenting two kinds of millet, which ancient and Byzantine people were familiar with, namely Latin – milium, i.e. broomcorn millet, Latin – panicum, i.e. foxtail millet. Subsequently, they demonstrate suitability of the cereals for bread baking. As result, they prove that millet bread was fairly popular and appreciated, even though Greek dietitians promoted the doctrine that millet was suitable for the purpose of bread production only in the time of scarcity of other, better quality grains. Accordingly, they specify various kinds of bread and describe diverse sorts of ov­ens (furnus, furniculus) it was baked in. The authors also write about one of the ancient desserts, occasionally made of millet flour, namely about libum. Then, the authors of the article discuss Roman puls, which were two kinds of foods eaten (instead of bread) by a considerable fraction of an­cient and Byzantine society and which could also be prepared from the analyzed cereal. The discussion is exemplified with some extant recipes. Ultimately, the authors of the study refer to the evidence left by medical writers (Galen, Oribasius, Aetius of Amida, Alexander of Tralles), as they discuss soups/ gruels and beverages prepared from millet, which were said to possess some medical values (and, as the sources re­veal, were profited from mostly to cure alimentary tract disorders).

Was there a “pre-feudal” crisis? On Ljubomir Maksimovic’s inaugural lecture before the Academy of Athens

In the period of long wars on several fronts (7th-9th centuries) a free village commune emerges as a basic source for state taxes and necessary military units; the social differentiation within the village commune should be marked as a background for all political struggles and upheavals, which have guided byzantine society after its ?aristocratization? in the 9th century (as Kazdan argued). The strategoi of themata, who represented village communes in 717 and who ?nationalized? church estates under the Isaurians, are being reconciled with the church again after 787 and form, together with it, the core of the new ruling class.

Ces gens ont raison : La controverse christologique de 1165-1166, la question des échanges doctrinaux entre l’Occident latin et Byzance et leur portée politique

Imported from the West by a Byzantine, Demetrios of Lampe, the controversy that broke out in Byzantium in 1165-1166 over Christ’s words “The Father is greater than I,” is evidence of the intensity of theological debates between the two worlds, but also of the ability of Byzantine society to respond on its own, i.e. orthodox, terms to a question that emerged from a debate that was internal to Latin society. Contrary to what traditional historiography portrays as the influence of a Latin theologian, Hugo Eteriano, on the Emperor Manuel I Komnenos and as a confrontation between pro- and anti-Latins in Byzantium, the subject is in fact much more complex. If, at the end of this crisis, the Emperor could consider that he had won both internally and externally, one might nonetheless wonder whether, in the long term, this controversy did not contribute to the exacerbation of anti-Latin sentiment in Byzantium.

Andronikos I Komnenos: A Greek Tragedy

<span style="line-height: 150%; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; color: black; font-size: 12pt">The Annals of Niketas Choniates depict Emperor Andronikos I Komnenos (1183-1185) in certain aspects of his lifestyle as a mirror image of his first cousin, Emperor Manuel I Komnenos (1143-1180). The life and death of Andronikos I Komnenos provide us with a window into the aesthetic, moral, intellectual, religious, economic and emotional world of Byzantine society in the 12th century. It was thanks to the Byzantine empire that the ancient texts were preserved and transmitted. Ancient Greek culture and reason, in particular, continued to inform Christian values while, at the same time, both could be in radical conflict. The tragic reign of Andronikos as presented by Niketas Choniates conforms to Aristotle's principles of classical drama, but there is a fundamental disagreement between the author of the Poetics and the historian as to what constitutes tragedy, which underlines this conflict.</span>