Download or read book Basil II and the Governance of Empire 976 1025 written by Catherine Holmes and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-11-24 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book-length study in English of the Byzantine emperor Basil II. Basil II, later known as 'Bulgar-slayer', is famous for his military conquests and his brutal intimidation of domestic foes. Catherine Holmes considers the problems Basil faced in governing a large, multi-ethnic empire, which stretched from southern Italy to Mesopotamia. Her close focus on the surviving historical narratives, above all the Synopsis Historion of John Skylitzes, reveals a Byzantium governed as much by persuasion as coercion. This book will appeal to those interested in Byzantium before the Crusades, the governance of pre-modern empires, and the methodology of writing early medieval political history.
Download or read book Basil II and the Governance of Empire 976 1025 written by Catherine Holmes and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2005 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Basil's Byzantium is revealed as a state where the rhetoric of imperial authority became reality through the astute manipulation of force and persuasion."--Jacket.
Download or read book Basil II and the Government of Empire 976 1025 written by Catherine J. Holmes and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 794 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Legend of Basil the Bulgar Slayer written by Paul Stephenson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-08-07 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The reign of Basil II (976-1025), the longest of any Byzantine emperor, has long been considered as a 'golden age', in which his greatest achievement was the annexation of Bulgaria. This, we have been told, was achieved through a long and bloody war of attrition which won Basil the grisly epithet Voulgartoktonos, 'the Bulgar-slayer'. In this new study Paul Stephenson argues that neither of these beliefs is true. Instead, Basil fought far more sporadically in the Balkans and his reputation as 'Bulgar-slayer' was created only a century and a half later. Thereafter the 'Bulgar-slayer' was periodically to play a galvanizing role for the Byzantines, returning to centre-stage as Greeks struggled to establish a modern nation state. As Byzantium was embraced as the Greek past by scholars and politicians, the 'Bulgar-slayer' became an icon in the struggle for Macedonia (1904-8) and the Balkan Wars (1912-13).
Download or read book An Emperor s Journey with Trauma written by Zachary John Guillaume and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Imagining the Byzantine Past written by Elena N. Boeck and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-07-09 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first comparative, cross-cultural study of medieval illustrated histories that engages in a direct, confrontational dialogue with Byzantine historical memory.
Download or read book The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c 500 1492 written by Jonathan Shepard and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-06-30 with total page 1228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Byzantium lasted a thousand years, ruled to the end by self-styled 'emperors of the Romans'. It underwent kaleidoscopic territorial and structural changes, yet recovered repeatedly from disaster: even after the near-impregnable Constantinople fell in 1204, variant forms of the empire reconstituted themselves. The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c.500-1492 tells the story, tracing political and military events, religious controversies and economic change. It offers clear, authoritative chapters on the main events and periods, with more detailed chapters on outlying regions and neighbouring societies and powers of Byzantium. With aids such as maps, a glossary, an alternative place-name table and references to English translations of sources, it will be valuable as an introduction. However, it also offers stimulating new approaches and important findings, making it essential reading for postgraduates and for specialists. The revised paperback edition contains a new preface by the editor and will offer an invaluable companion to survey courses in Byzantine history.
Download or read book The Argument of Psellos Chronographia written by Anthony Kaldellis and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-10-11 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a philosophical interpretation of Michael Psellos' Chronographia, an acknowledged masterpiece of Byzantine literature. Anthony Kaldellis argues that although the Chronographia contains a fascinating historical narrative; it is really a disguised philosophical work which, if read carefully, reveals Psellos' revolutionary views on politics and religion. Kaldellis exposes the rhetorical techniques with which Psellos veils his unorthodoxy, and demonstrates that the inner message of the text challenges the Church's supremacy over the intellectual and political life of Byzantium. Psellos consciously articulates a secular vision of Imperial politics, and seeks to liberate philosophy from the constraints of Christian theology. The analysis is lucid and should be accessible to anyone with a general knowledge of Byzantine civilization. It should interest all who study the history of ancient and medieval philosophy.
Download or read book Byzantium in the Time of Troubles written by Eric McGeer and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-12-30 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Continuation of the Chronicle of John Skylitzes provides a contemporary narrative of the events and people that shaped the course of Byzantine history in a time military and political crisis.
Download or read book Streams of Gold Rivers of Blood written by Anthony Kaldellis and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-07 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the second half of the tenth century, Byzantium embarked on a series of spectacular conquests: first in the southeast against the Arabs, then in Bulgaria, and finally in the Georgian and Armenian lands. By the early eleventh century, the empire was the most powerful state in the Mediterranean. It was also expanding economically, demographically, and, in time, intellectually as well. Yet this imperial project came to a crashing collapse fifty years later, when political disunity, fiscal mismanagement, and defeat at the hands of the Seljuks in the east and the Normans in the west brought an end to Byzantine hegemony. By 1081, not only was its dominance of southern Italy, the Balkans, Caucasus, and northern Mesopotamia over but Byzantium's very existence was threatened. How did this dramatic transformation happen? Based on a close examination of the relevant sources, this history-the first of its kind in over a century-offers a new reconstruction of the key events and crucial reigns as well as a different model for understanding imperial politics and wars, both civil and foreign. In addition to providing a badly needed narrative of this critical period of Byzantine history, Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood offers new interpretations of key topics relevant to the medieval era. The narrative unfolds in three parts: the first covers the years 955-1025, a period of imperial conquest and consolidation of authority under the great emperor Basil "the Bulgar-Slayer." The second (1025-1059) examines the dispersal of centralized authority in Constantinople as well as the emergence of new foreign enemies (Pechenegs, Seljuks, and Normans). The last section chronicles the spectacular collapse of the empire during the second half of the eleventh century, concluding with a look at the First Crusade and its consequences for Byzantine relations with the powers of Western Europe. This briskly paced and thoroughly investigated narrative vividly brings to life one of the most exciting and transformative eras of medieval history.
Download or read book The Blinded State written by Mitko B. Panov and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-03-25 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a new approach to the late 10th- and early 11th-century state of Samuel. Mitko B. Panov deconstructs the Byzantine distorted image of the Samuel’s polity that was recycled by the Balkan elites of the medieval and modern periods and exploited for their political agendas and territorial aspirations.
Download or read book Medieval Self Coronations written by Jaume Aurell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-11 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first systematic study of the practice of royal self-coronations from late antiquity to the present.
Download or read book The Cambridge Intellectual History of Byzantium written by Anthony Kaldellis and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-11-30 with total page 1438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings into being the field of Byzantine intellectual history. Shifting focus from the cultural, social, and economic study of Byzantium to the life and evolution of ideas in their context, it provides an authoritative history of intellectual endeavors from Late Antiquity to the fifteenth century. At its heart lie the transmission, transformation, and shifts of Hellenic, Christian, and Byzantine ideas and concepts as exemplified in diverse aspects of intellectual life, from philosophy, theology, and rhetoric to astrology, astronomy, and politics. Case studies introduce the major players in Byzantine intellectual life, and particular emphasis is placed on the reception of ancient thought and its significance for secular as well as religious modes of thinking and acting. New insights are offered regarding controversial, understudied, or promising topics of research, such as philosophy and medical thought in Byzantium, and intellectual exchanges with the Arab world.
Download or read book Victors and Vanquished in the Euro Mediterranean written by Johannes Pahlitzsch and published by V&R unipress. This book was released on 2024-03-11 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The volume presents a comparative perspective on victors and vanquished according to the categories of remembering victory and defeat, practices of celebrating victory and triumphs as well as the culture of dealing with the vanquished. Specifically, the representation of victory and defeat in Byzantine literature of the 10th–12th centuries is contrasted with commemorative practices in early Russia, and the reflection of military events in courtly music of the 15th century is examined. In addition, the practices of celebrating victories in England in the High and Late Middle Ages are explored, as is the treatment of the defeated and the subjugated in the Frankish Empire of the 9th century, in Norman southern Italy and in Byzantium.
Download or read book Law Power and Imperial Ideology in the Iconoclast Era C 680 850 written by M. T. G. Humphreys and published by Oxford Studies in Byzantium. This book was released on 2015 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Law was central to the ancient Roman conception of themselves and their empire. Yet what happened to Roman law and the position it occupied ideologically during the turbulent years of the Iconoclast era, c.680-850, is seldom explored and little understood. This volume uses Roman law and canon law to chart the various responses to these changing times - especially the rise of Islam, from Justinian II's Christocentric monarchy to the Old Testament-inspired Isauriandynasty - and the transformation from the late antique Roman Empire to medieval Byzantium.
Download or read book The Routledge Handbook on Identity in Byzantium written by Michael Edward Stewart and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-03-31 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is the first to focus solely on how specific individuals and groups in Byzantium and its borderlands were defined and distinguished from other individuals and groups from the mid-fourth to the close of the fifteenth century. It gathers chapters from both established and emerging scholars from a wide range of disciplines across history, art, archaeology, and religion to provide an accurate representation of the state of the field both now and in its immediate future. The handbook is divided into four subtopics that examine concepts of group and specific individual identity which have been chosen to provide methodologically sophisticated and multidisciplinary perspectives on specific categories of group and individual identity. The topics are Imperial Identities; Romanitas in the Late Antique Mediterranean; Macro and Micro Identities: Religious, Regional, and Ethnic Identities, and Internal Others; and Gendered Identities: Literature, Memory, and Self in Early and Middle Byzantium. While no single volume could ever provide a comprehensive vision of identities on the vast variety of peoples within Byzantium over nearly a millennium of its history, this handbook represents a milestone in offering a survey of the vibrant surge of scholarship examining the numerous and oft-times fluctuating codes of identity that shaped and transformed Byzantium and its neighbours during the empire’s long life.
Download or read book Historical Dictionary of Byzantium written by John Hutchins Rosser and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 643 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Byzantine Empire dates back to Constantine the Great, the first Christian ruler of the Roman Empire, who, in 330 AD, moved the imperial capital from Rome to a port city in modern-day Turkey, which he then renamed Constantinople in his honor. From its founding, the Byzantine Empire was a major anchor of east-west trade, and culture, art, architecture, and the economy all prospered in the newly Christian empire. As Byzantium moved into the middle and late period, Greek became the official language of both church and state and the Empire's cultural and religious influence extended well beyond its boundaries. In the mid-15th century, the Ottoman Turks put an end to 1,100 years of Byzantine history by capturing Constantinople, but the Empire's legacy in art, culture, and religion endured long after its fall. In this revised and updated second edition of the Historical Dictionary of Byzantium, author John H. Rosser introduces both the general reader and the researcher to the history of the Byzantine Empire. This comprehensive dictionary includes detailed, alphabetical entries on key figures, ideas, places, and themes related to Byzantine art, history, and religion, and the second edition contains numerous additional entries on broad topics such as transportation and gender, which were less prominent in the previous edition. An expanded introduction introduces the reader to Byzantium and a guide to further sources and suggested readings can be found in the extensive bibliography that follows the entries. A basic chronology and various maps and illustrations are also included in the dictionary. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Byzantium.
