Download or read book Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 533 written by Andrew Gillett and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-08-28 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Warfare and dislocation are obvious features of the break-up of the late Roman West, but this crucial period of change was characterized also by communication and diplomacy. The great events of the late antique West were determined by the quieter labours of countless envoys, who travelled between emperors, kings, generals, high officials, bishops, provincial councils, and cities. This book examines the role of envoys in the period from the establishment of the first 'barbarian kingdoms' in the West, to the eve of Justinian's wars of re-conquest. It shows how ongoing practices of Roman imperial administration shaped new patterns of political interaction in the novel context of the earliest medieval states. Close analysis of sources with special interest in embassies offers insight into a variety of genres: chronicles, panegyrics, hagiographies, letters and epitaph. This study makes a significant contribution to the developing field of ancient and medieval communications.

Download or read book Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 533 written by Andrew Gillett and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the role of envoys in the period from the establishment of the first 'barbarian kingdoms' in the West, to the eve of Justinian's wars of reconquest. It makes a significant contribution to the developing field of ancient and medieval communication.

Download or read book Apocalypse and Reform from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages written by Matthew Gabriele and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-08-13 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Apocalypse and Reform from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages provides a range of perspectives on what reformist apocalypticism meant for the formation of Medieval Europe, from the Fall of Rome to the twelfth century. It explores and challenges accepted narratives about both the development of apocalyptic thought and the way it intersected with cultures of reform to influence major transformations in the medieval world. Bringing together a wealth of knowledge from academics in Britain, Europe and the USA this book offers the latest scholarship in apocalypse studies. It consolidates a paradigm shift, away from seeing apocalypse as a radical force for a suppressed minority, and towards a fuller understanding of apocalypse as a mainstream cultural force in history. Together, the chapters and case studies capture and contextualise the variety of ideas present across Europe in the Middle Ages and set out points for further comparative study of apocalypse across time and space. Offering new perspectives on what ideas of ‘reform’ and ‘apocalypse’ meant in Medieval Europe, Apocalypse and Reform from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages provides students with the ideal introduction to the study of apocalypse during this period.

Download or read book Social and Political Life in Late Antiquity Volume 3 1 written by William Bowden and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2006-12-31 with total page 687 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of papers, arising from the conference series Late Antique Archaeology, examines the social and political structures of the late antique period and the ways in which they are manifested in the archaeological and textual record.

Download or read book The Roman Imperial Court in the Principate and Late Antiquity written by Caillan Davenport and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-01-23 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Roman Imperial Court in the Principate and Late Antiquity examines the Roman imperial court as a social and political institution in both the Principate and Late Antiquity. By analysing these two periods, which are usually treated separately in studies of the Roman court, it considers continuities, changes, and connections in the six hundred years between the reigns of Augustus and Justinian. Thirteen case studies are presented. Some take a thematic approach, analysing specific aspects such as the appointment of jurists, the role of guard units, or stories told about the court, over several centuries. Others concentrate on specific periods, individuals, or office holders, like the role of women and generals in the fifth century AD, while paying attention to their wider historical significance. The volume concludes with a chapter placing the evolution of the Roman imperial court in comparative perspective using insights from scholarship on other Eurasian monarchical courts. It shows that the long-term transformation of the Roman imperial court did not follow a straightforward and linear course, but came about as the result of negotiation, experimentation, and adaptation.

Download or read book Rediscovering Sainthood in Italy written by Edward M. Schoolman and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-08-31 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning with Saint Barbatianus, a fifth-century wonderworking monk and confessor to the Empress Galla Placidia, this book focuses on the changes in the religious landscape of Ravenna, a former capital of the Late Roman Empire, through the Middle Ages. During this period, written stories about saints and their relics not only offered guidance and solace but were also used by those living among the ruins of a once great city—particularly its archbishops, monks, and the urban aristocracy—to reflect on its past glory. This practice remained important to the citizens of Ravenna as they came to terms with the city’s revival and renewed relevance in the tenth century under Ottonian rule. In using the vita of Barbatianus as a central text, Edward M. Schoolman explores how saints and sanctity were created and ultimately came to influence complex political and social networks, from the Late Roman Empire to the High Middle Ages.

Download or read book Essence of Diplomacy written by Christer Jönsson and published by Springer. This book was released on 2005-08-02 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essence of Diplomacy explores the essential, timeless features of diplomacy, drawing on the historical record of over three millennia. In their effort at making international relations (IR) theory relevant to diplomacy, and diplomacy relevant to IR theory, the authors identify three essential dimensions of diplomacy: communication, representation and the reproduction of international society.

Download or read book Empires and Exchanges in Eurasian Late Antiquity written by Nicola Di Cosmo and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-26 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Empires and Exchanges in Eurasian Late Antiquity offers an integrated picture of Rome, China, Iran, and the Steppes during a formative period of world history. In the half millennium between 250 and 750 CE, settled empires underwent deep structural changes, while various nomadic peoples of the steppes (Huns, Avars, Turks, and others) experienced significant interactions and movements that changed their societies, cultures, and economies. This was a transformational era, a time when Roman, Persian, and Chinese monarchs were mutually aware of court practices, and when Christians and Buddhists criss-crossed the Eurasian lands together with merchants and armies. It was a time of greater circulation of ideas as well as material goods. This volume provides a conceptual frame for locating these developments in the same space and time. Without arguing for uniformity, it illuminates the interconnections and networks that tied countless local cultural expressions to far-reaching inter-regional ones.

Download or read book Greek and Latin Letters in Late Antiquity written by Pauline Allen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-10 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first general book on Greek and Latin letter-writing in Late Antiquity (300–600 CE). Allen and Neil examine early Christian Greek and Latin literary letters, their nature and function and the mechanics of their production and dissemination. They examine the exchange of Episcopal, monastic and imperial letters between men, and the gifts that accompanied them, and the rarer phenomenon of letter exchanges with imperial and aristocratic women. They also look at the transmission of letter-collections and what they can tell us about friendships and other social networks between the powerful elites who were the literary letter-writers of the fourth to sixth centuries. The volume gives a broad context to late-antique literary letter-writing in Greek and Latin in its various manifestations: political, ecclesiastical, practical and social. In the process, the differences between 'pagan' and Christian letter-writing are shown to be not as great as has previously been supposed.

Download or read book Crisis Management in Late Antiquity 410 590 CE written by Pauline Allen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2013-08-08 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pauline Allen and Bronwen Neil investigate crisis management as conducted by the increasingly important episcopal class in the 5th and 6th centuries. Their basic source is the neglected corpus of bishops’ letters in Greek and Latin, the letter being the most significant mode of communication and information-transfer in the period from 410 to 590 CE. The volume brings together into a wider setting a wealth of previous international research on episcopal strategies for dealing with crises of various kinds. Six broad categories of crisis are identified and analysed: population displacement, natural disasters, religious disputes and religious violence, social abuses and the breakdown of the structures of dependence. Individual case-studies of episcopal management are provided for each of these categories. This is the first comprehensive treatment of crisis management in the late-antique world, and the first survey of episcopal letter-writing across the later Roman empire.

Download or read book The Last of the Romans written by Jeroen W. P. Wijnendaele and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-12-18 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite his critical role in the western Roman Empire during the early fifth century AD, Bonifatius remains a neglected figure in the history of the late Empire. The Last of the Romans presents a new political and military biography of Bonifatius, analysing his rise through the higher echelons of imperial power and examining themes such as the role of the buccellarii as contemporary semi-private armies. The volume offers a reassessment of the usurpation of Ioannes and Bonifatius' indispensable role in the restoration of the Theodosian dynasty in the West. The Vandal invasion of North Africa is re-examined together with Bonifatius's putative role as the traitor who invited them in. The relationship between Bonifatius and Augustine of Hippo is assessed, bringing new light to the important, yet largely unstudied, influence of Christianity in Bonifatius's life. A further discussion revisits the rivalry between Boniface and Aetius. Although Procopius termed Bonifatius and Aetius the last of the Romans, this volume argues that they were the first of Rome's late imperial warlords. The volume closes with a reconstruction of the Odyssey of Sebastian, Bonifatius' son-in-law.

Download or read book War and Warfare in Late Antiquity 2 vols written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2013-08-19 with total page 1119 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of papers, arising from the Late Antique Archaeology conference series, explores war and warfare in Late Antiquity. Papers examine strategy and intelligence, weaponry, literary sources and topography, the West Roman Empire, the East Roman Empire, the Balkans, civil war and Italy.

Download or read book Shifting Cultural Frontiers in Late Antiquity written by David Brakke and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shifting Cultural Frontiers in Late Antiquity explores the transformation of classical culture in late antiquity by studying cultures at the borders - the borders of empires, of social classes, of public and private spaces, of literary genres, of linguistic communities, and of the modern disciplines that study antiquity. Although such canonical figures of late ancient studies as Augustine and Ammianus Marcellinus appear in its pages, this book shifts our perspective from the center to the side or the margins. The essays consider, for example, the ordinary Christians whom Augustine addressed, the border regions of Mesopotamia and Vandal Africa, 'popular' or 'legendary' literature, and athletes. Although traditional philology rightly underlies the work that these essays do, the authors, several among the most prominent in the field of late ancient studies, draw from and combine a range of disciplines and perspectives, including art history, religion, and social history. Despite their various subject matters and scholarly approaches, the essays in Shifting Cultural Frontiers coalesce around a small number of key themes in the study of late antiquity: the ambiguous effects of 'Christianization,' the creation of new literary and visual forms from earlier models, the interaction and spread of ideals between social classes, and the negotiation of ethnic and imperial identities in the contact between 'Romans' and 'barbarians.' By looking away from the core and toward the periphery, whether spatially or intellectually, the volume offers fresh insights into how ancient patterns of thinking and creating became reconfigured into the diverse cultures of the 'medieval.'

Download or read book History and Geography in Late Antiquity written by A. H. Merrills and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-08-11 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the role of geography in the historical writings of the early medieval period.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity written by Scott Fitzgerald Johnson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-11 with total page 1294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Late antiquity extends from the accession of the Christian emperor Constantine to the rise of Muhammad and early Islam (ca. 300-700 AD). This volume takes account of the scholarship published in the last 30 years and provide a foundational synthesis for students of late antiquity.

Download or read book Narbonne and its Territory in Late Antiquity written by Frank Riess and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-22 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work centres on the post-Roman period of Narbonne and its territory, up to its capture by the Arabs in 720, encompassing not only recent archaeological findings but also perspectives of French, Spanish and Catalan historiography that have fashioned distinct national narratives. Seeking to remove Narbonne from any subsequent birth of France, Catalonia and Spain, the book presents a geopolitical region that took shape from the late fifth century, evolving towards the end of the eighth century into an autonomous province of the nascent Carolingian Empire. Capturing this change throughout a 300-year period somewhat lacking in written sources, the book takes us beyond an exclusive depiction of the classical city to an examination of settlement in various forms. Discourses of literary criticism also lie behind aspects of this study, mapped around textual commentaries which highlight a more imaginative biography of a city. Narbonne's role as a point of departure and travel across the Mediterranean is examined through a reading of the correspondence of Paulinus of Nola and the writings of Sulpicius Severus, enabling the reader to gain a fuller picture of the city and its port. The topography of Narbonne in the fifth century is surveyed together with Bishop Rusticus’s church-building programme. Later chapters emphasise the difficulties in presenting a detached image of Narbonne, as sources become mainly Visigothic, defining the city and its region as part of a centralised kingdom. Particular attention is given to the election of Liuva I as king in Narbonne in 568, and to the later division into upper and lower sub-kingdoms shared by Liuva and his brother Leovigild, a duality that persisted throughout the sixth and seventh centuries. The study therefore casts new light on Narbonne and its place within the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo, suggesting that it was the capital of a territory with roots in the post-Roman settlement of barbarian successor states.

Download or read book The Rhetoric of Power in Late Antiquity written by Elizabeth DePalma Digeser and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Late Antiquity, the period of transition from the crisis of Roman Empire in the third century to the Middle Ages, has traditionally been considered only in terms of the 'decline' from classical standards. Recent classical scholarship strives to consider this period on its own terms. Taking the reign of Constantine the Great as its starting point, this book examines the unique intersection of rhetoric, religion and politics in Late Antiquity. Expert scholars come together to examine ancient rhetorical texts to explore the ways in which late antique authors drew upon classical traditions, presenting Roman and post-Roman religious and political institutions in order to establish a desired image of a 'new era'. This book provides new insights into how the post-Roman Germanic West, Byzantine East and Muslim South appropriated and transformed the political, intellectual and cultural legacy inherited from the late Roman Empire and its borderlands.