Although perceived since the sixteenth century as the most impressive literary achievement of Byzantine culture, historical writing nevertheless remains little studied as literature. Historical texts are still read first and foremost for nuggets of information, as main sources for the reconstruction of the events of Byzantine history. Whatever can be called literary in these works has been considered as external and detachable from the facts. The 'classical tradition' inherited by Byzantine writers, the features that Byzantine authors imitated and absorbed, are regarded as standing in the way of understanding the true meaning of the text and, furthermore, of contaminating the reliability of the history. Chronicles, whose language and style are anything but classicizing, have been held in low esteem, for they are seen as providing a mere chronological exposition of events. This book presents a set of articles by an international cast of contributors, deriving from papers delivered at the 40th annual Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies. They are concerned with historical and visual narratives that date from the sixth to the fourteenth century, and aim to show that literary analyses and the study of pictorial devices, far from being tangential to the study of historical texts, are preliminary to their further study, exposing the deeper structures and purposes of these texts.

The work known as Pseudo-Kodinos, the fourteenth-century text which is one of two surviving ceremonial books from the Byzantine empire, is presented here for the first time in English translation. With facing page Greek text and the first in-depth analysis in the form of commentary and individual studies on the hierarchy, the ceremonies, court attire, the Blachernai palace, lighting, music, gestures and postures, this volume makes an important new contribution to the study of the Byzantine court, and to the history and culture of Byzantium more broadly. The unique traits of this ceremony book include the combination of hierarchical lists of court officials with protocols of ceremonies; a detailed description of the clothing used at court, in particular, hats and staffs; an account of the functions of the court title holders, a description of the ceremonies of the year which take place both inside the palace and outside; the service of the megas domestikos in the army, protocols for the coronation of the emperor, the promotions of despot, sebastokrator and caesar, of the patriarch; a description of the mourning attire of the emperor; protocol for the reception of a foreign bride in Constantinople all these are analysed here. Developments in ceremonial since the tenth-century Book of Ceremonies are discussed, as is the space in which ceremonial was performed, along with a new interpretation of the 'other palace', the Blachernai. The text reveals the anonymous authors' interest in the past, in the origins of practices and items of clothing, but it is argued that Pseudo-Kodinos presents descriptions of actual practice at the Byzantine court, rather than prescriptions.

This is the first English translation and study of George Akropolites' History, the main Greek source for the history of Byzantium between 1204 and 1261. Akropolites relates what happened to Byzantium after the Latin conquest of its capital, Constantinople, by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. He narrates the fragmentation of the Byzantine world, describing how the newly established 'empire' in Anatolia prevailed over its foreign and Byzantine enemies to recapture the capital in 1261. Akropolites was an eyewitness to most of the events he relates and a man close to the emperors he served, and his account has therefore influenced modern perceptions of this period. It has been an essential source for all those studying the eastern Mediterranean in the thirteenth century. However, until now historians have made use of his History without knowing anything about its author. Ruth Macrides remedies this deficiency by providing a detailed guide to Akropolites' work and an analysis of its composition, which places it in the context of medieval Greek historical writing.

Although perceived since the sixteenth century as the most impressive literary achievement of Byzantine culture, historical writing nevertheless remains little studied as literature. Historical texts are still read first and foremost for nuggets of information, as main sources for the reconstruction of the events of Byzantine history. Whatever can be called literary in these works has been considered as external and detachable from the facts. The 'classical tradition' inherited by Byzantine writers, the features that Byzantine authors imitated and absorbed, are regarded as standing in the way of understanding the true meaning of the text and, furthermore, of contaminating the reliability of the history. Chronicles, whose language and style are anything but classicizing, have been held in low esteem, for they are seen as providing a mere chronological exposition of events. This book presents a set of articles by an international cast of contributors, deriving from papers delivered at the 40th annual Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies. They are concerned with historical and visual narratives that date from the sixth to the fourteenth century, and aim to show that literary analyses and the study of pictorial devices, far from being tangential to the study of historical texts, are preliminary to their further study, exposing the deeper structures and purposes of these texts.