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This volume, on the cult of the Theotokos (Virgin Mary) in
Byzantium, focuses on textual and historical aspects of the
subject, thus complementing previous work which has centred more on
the cult of images of the Mother of God. The papers presented here,
by an international team of scholars, consider the development and
transformation of the cult from approximately the fourth through
the twelfth centuries. The volume opens with discussion of the
origins of the cult, and its Near Eastern manifestations, including
the archaeological site of the Kathisma church in Palestine, which
represents the earliest Marian shrine in the Holy Land, and Syriac
poetic treatment of the Virgin. The principal focus, however, is on
the 8th and 9th centuries in Byzantium, as a critical period when
Christian attitudes toward the Virgin and her veneration were
transformed. The book re-examines the relationship between icons,
relics and the Virgin, asking whether increasing devotion to these
holy objects or figures was related in any way. Some contributions
consider the location of relics and later, icons, in Constantinople
and other centres of Marian devotion; others explore gender issues,
such as the significance of the Virgin's feminine qualities, and
whether women and men identified with her equally as a holy figure.
The aim of this volume is to build on recent work on the cult of
the Virgin Mary in Byzantium and to explore areas that have not yet
been studied. The rationale is critical and historical, using
literary, artistic, and archaeological sources to evaluate her role
in the development of the Byzantine understanding of the ways in
which God interacts with creation by means of icons, relics, and
the Theotokos.
This book analyses the global influence of the Byzantine Empire,
which will appeal to all those interested in Byzantine History /
This book expands upon the theme of 'Byzantium and its neighbours',
by looking into the cultural and geographical influence of
Byzantium / This book will appeal to all those interested in
Byzantine Culture and the Byzantine economy.
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.
9th-century Byzantium has always been viewed as a mid-point between
Iconoclasm and the so-called Macedonian revival; in scholarly terms
it is often treated as a 'dead' century. The object of these papers
is to question such an assumption. They present a picture of
political and military developments, legal and literary
innovations, artisanal production, and religious and liturgical
changes from the Anatolian plateau to the Greek-speaking areas of
Italy that are only now gradually emerging as distinct.
Investigation of how the 9th-century Byzantine world was perceived
by outsiders also reveals much about Byzantine success and failure
in promoting particular views of itself. The chapters here, by an
international group of scholars, embody current research in this
field; they recover many lost aspects of 9th-century Byzantium and
shed new light on the Mediterranean world in a transitional
century. The papers in this volume derive from the 30th Spring
Symposium of Byzantine Studies, held for the Society for the
Promotion of Byzantine Studies at the University of Birmingham in
March 1996.
Modern historiography has become accustomed to portraying the
emperor Theophilos of Byzantium (829-842) in a favourable light,
taking at face value the legendary account that makes of him a
righteous and learned ruler, and excusing as ill fortune his
apparent military failures against the Muslims. The present book
considers events of the period that are crucial to our
understanding of the reign and argues for a more balanced
assessment of it. The focus lies on the impact of Oriental politics
on the reign of Theophilos, the last iconoclast emperor. After
introductory chapters, setting out the context in which he came to
power, separate sections are devoted to the influence of Armenians
at the court, the enrolment of Persian rebels against the caliphate
in the Byzantine army, the continuous warfare with the Arabs and
the cultural exchange with Baghdad, the Khazar problem, and the
attitude of the Christian Melkites towards the iconoclast emperor.
The final chapter reassesses the image of the emperor as a good
ruler, building on the conclusions of the previous sections. The
book reinterprets major events of the period and their chronology,
and sets in a new light the role played by figures like Thomas the
Slav, Manuel the Armenian or the Persian Theophobos, whose identity
is established from a better understanding of the sources.
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.
This volume brings together a group of scholars to consider the
rituals of eating together in the Byzantine world, the material
culture of Byzantine food and wine consumption, and the transport
and exchange of agricultural products. The contributors present
food in nearly every conceivable guise, ranging from its rhetorical
uses - food as a metaphor for redemption; food as politics; eating
as a vice, abstinence as a virtue - to more practical applications
such as the preparation of food, processing it, preserving it, and
selling it abroad. We learn how the Byzantines viewed their diet,
and how others - including, surprisingly, the Chinese - viewed it.
Some consider the protocols of eating in a monastery, of dining in
the palace, or of roughing it on a picnic or military campaign;
others examine what serving dishes and utensils were in use in the
dining room and how this changed over time. Throughout, the
terminology of eating - and especially some of the more problematic
terms - is explored. The chapters expand on papers presented at the
37th Annual Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, held at the
University of Birmingham under the auspices of the Society for the
Promotion of Byzantine Studies, in honour of Professor A.A.M.
Bryer, a fitting tribute for the man who first told the world about
Byzantine agricultural implements.
9th-century Byzantium has always been viewed as a mid-point between
Iconoclasm and the so-called Macedonian revival; in scholarly terms
it is often treated as a 'dead' century. The object of these papers
is to question such an assumption. They present a picture of
political and military developments, legal and literary
innovations, artisanal production, and religious and liturgical
changes from the Anatolian plateau to the Greek-speaking areas of
Italy that are only now gradually emerging as distinct.
Investigation of how the 9th-century Byzantine world was perceived
by outsiders also reveals much about Byzantine success and failure
in promoting particular views of itself. The chapters here, by an
international group of scholars, embody current research in this
field; they recover many lost aspects of 9th-century Byzantium and
shed new light on the Mediterranean world in a transitional
century. The papers in this volume derive from the 30th Spring
Symposium of Byzantine Studies, held for the Society for the
Promotion of Byzantine Studies at the University of Birmingham in
March 1996.
This volume, on the cult of the Theotokos (Virgin Mary) in
Byzantium, focuses on textual and historical aspects of the
subject, thus complementing previous work which has centred more on
the cult of images of the Mother of God. The papers presented here,
by an international team of scholars, consider the development and
transformation of the cult from approximately the fourth through
the twelfth centuries. The volume opens with discussion of the
origins of the cult, and its Near Eastern manifestations, including
the archaeological site of the Kathisma church in Palestine, which
represents the earliest Marian shrine in the Holy Land, and Syriac
poetic treatment of the Virgin. The principal focus, however, is on
the 8th and 9th centuries in Byzantium, as a critical period when
Christian attitudes toward the Virgin and her veneration were
transformed. The book re-examines the relationship between icons,
relics and the Virgin, asking whether increasing devotion to these
holy objects or figures was related in any way. Some contributions
consider the location of relics and later, icons, in Constantinople
and other centres of Marian devotion; others explore gender issues,
such as the significance of the Virgin's feminine qualities, and
whether women and men identified with her equally as a holy figure.
The aim of this volume is to build on recent work on the cult of
the Virgin Mary in Byzantium and to explore areas that have not yet
been studied. The rationale is critical and historical, using
literary, artistic, and archaeological sources to evaluate her role
in the development of the Byzantine understanding of the ways in
which God interacts with creation by means of icons, relics, and
the Theotokos.
Iconoclasm, the debate about the legitimacy of religious art that
began in Byzantium around 730 and continued for nearly 120 years,
has long held a firm grip on the historical imagination. Byzantium
in the Iconoclast Era is the first book in English to survey the
original sources crucial for a modern understanding of this most
elusive and fascinating period in medieval history. It is also the
first book in any language to cover both the written and the visual
evidence from this period, a combination of particular importance
to the iconoclasm debate. The authors, an art historian and a
historian who both specialise in the period, have worked together
to provide a comprehensive overview of the visual and the written
materials that together help clarify the complex issues of
iconoclasm in Byzantium.
Iconoclasm, the debate about the legitimacy of religious art that
began in Byzantium around 720 and continued for nearly one hundred
and twenty years, has long held a firm grip on the historical
imagination. This is the first book in English for over fifty years
to survey this most elusive and fascinating period in medieval
history. It is also the first book in any language to combine the
expertise of two authors who are specialists in the written,
archaeological and visual evidence from this period, a combination
of particular importance to the iconoclasm debate. The authors have
worked together to provide a comprehensive overview of the visual,
written and other materials that together help clarify the complex
issues of iconoclasm in Byzantium. In doing so they challenge many
traditional assumptions about iconoclasm and set the period firmly
in its broader political, cultural and social-economic context.
Gender analysis is one of the most probing ways to understand both
power and cultural strategies in pre-industrial societies. In this
book, sixteen scholars on the cutting edges of their disciplines
explore the ideas and expressions of gender that characterised the
centuries from c. 300 to 900 in milieux ranging from York to
Baghdad, via Rome and Constantinople. Deploying a variety of
disciplines and perspectives, they draw on the evidence of material
culture as well as texts to demonstrate the wide range of gender
identities that informed the social, political and imaginary worlds
of these centuries. The essays make clear that the fixed point in
the gender systems of the period was constituted by the hegemonic
masculinity of the ruling elite, marginalised groups often
invisible as historical subjects in their own right were
omnipresent in, and critical to, the gendered discourses which
buttressed assertions of power.
Byzantine 'iconoclasm' is famous and has influenced iconoclast
movements from the English Reformation and French Revolution to
Taliban, but it has also been woefully misunderstood: this book
shows how and why the debate about images was more complicated, and
more interesting, than it has been presented in the past. It
explores how icons came to be so important, who opposed them, and
how the debate about images played itself out over the years
between c. 680 and 850. Many widely accepted assumptions about
'iconoclasm' - that it was an imperial initiative that resulted in
widespread destruction of images, that the major promoters of icon
veneration were monks, and that the era was one of cultural
stagnation - are shown to be incorrect. Instead, the years of the
image debates saw technological advances and intellectual shifts
that, coupled with a growing economy, concluded with the emergence
of medieval Byzantium as a strong and stable empire.
The Byzantines used imagery to communicate a wide range of issues.
In the context of Iconoclasm - the debate about the legitimacy of
religious art conducted between c. AD 730 and 843 - Byzantine
authors themselves claimed that visual images could express certain
ideas better than words. Vision and Meaning in Ninth-Century
Byzantium deals with how such visual communication worked and
examines the types of messages that pictures could convey in the
aftermath of Iconoclasm. Its focus is on a deluxe manuscript
commissioned around 880, a copy of the fourth-century sermons of
the Cappadocian church father Gregory of Nazianzus which presented
to the Emperor Basil I, founder of the Macedonian dynasty, by one
of the greatest scholars Byzantium ever produced, the patriarch
Photios. The manuscript was lavishly decorated with gilded
initials, elaborate headpieces and a full-page miniature before
each of Gregory's sermons. Forty-six of these, including over 200
distinct scenes, survive. Fewer than half however were directly
inspired by the homily that they accompany. Instead most function
as commentaries on the ninth-century court and carefully
deconstructed both provide us with information not available from
preserved written sources and perhaps more important show us how
visual images communicate differently from words.
Gender analysis is one of the most probing ways to understand both
power and cultural strategies in pre-industrial societies. In this
book, sixteen scholars on the cutting edges of their disciplines
explore the ideas and expressions of gender that characterised the
centuries from c. 300 to 900 in milieux ranging from York to
Baghdad, via Rome and Constantinople. Deploying a variety of
disciplines and perspectives, they draw on the evidence of material
culture as well as texts to demonstrate the wide range of gender
identities that informed the social, political and imaginary worlds
of these centuries. The essays make clear that the fixed point in
the gender systems of the period was constituted by the hegemonic
masculinity of the ruling elite, marginalised groups often
invisible as historical subjects in their own right were
omnipresent in, and critical to, the gendered discourses which
buttressed assertions of power.
This book centers on the copy of the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus produced in Constantinople around 880 for the emperor Basil I as a gift from the patriarch Photios. The manuscript includes forty-six full page miniatures, most of which do not directly illustrate the text they accompany, but instead provide a visual commentary. Vision and Meaning in Ninth-Century Byzantium deals with how such communication worked, and examines the types of messages that pictures could convey in ninth-century Byzantium.
Iconoclasm, the debate about the legitimacy of religious art that
began in Byzantium around 720 and continued for nearly one hundred
and twenty years, has long held a firm grip on the historical
imagination. This is the first book in English for over fifty years
to survey this most elusive and fascinating period in medieval
history. It is also the first book in any language to combine the
expertise of two authors who are specialists in the written,
archaeological and visual evidence from this period, a combination
of particular importance to the iconoclasm debate. The authors have
worked together to provide a comprehensive overview of the visual,
written and other materials that together help clarify the complex
issues of iconoclasm in Byzantium. In doing so they challenge many
traditional assumptions about iconoclasm and set the period firmly
in its broader political, cultural and social-economic context.
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