Download or read book Society and Intellectual Life in Late Byzantium written by Ihor Ševčenko and published by Variorum Publishing. This book was released on 1981 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Early Palaeologan Renaissance 1261 c 1360 written by Edmund Fryde and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-12-28 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Byzantine world underwent a remarkable recovery of intellectual energy in the period following the recovery of Constantinople in 1261. The reaction of the emperors and their entourage of well-educated high officials to their political disasters was a deliberate revival of the glories of ancient Greek culture. The main subject of this book is the preservation and dissemination by this learned elite of such ancient literature, philosophy and science as still survived then, the development of editorial techniques which resulted in more complete and less corrupt texts, and their improvement buy the addition of commentaries and other innovations.

Download or read book A Companion to the Intellectual Life of the Palaeologan Period written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-11-14 with total page 531 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focuses on the scholarly interests of the intellectual elites during the last two centuries of Byzantium and the cultural environment in which they flourished, as well as the interaction between secular and church circles in Constantinople, Thessaloniki, Athos and beyond.

Download or read book The Late Byzantine Army written by Mark C. Bartusis and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The late Byzantine period was a time characterized by both civil strife and foreign invasion, framed by two cataclysmic events: the fall of Constantinople to the western Europeans in 1204 and again to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Mark C. Bartusis here opens an extraordinary window on the Byzantine Empire during its last centuries by providing the first comprehensive treatment of the dying empire's military. Although the Byzantine army was highly visible, it was increasingly ineffective in preventing the incursion of western European crusaders into the Aegean, the advance of the Ottoman Turks into Europe, and the slow decline and eventual fall of the thousand-year Byzantine Empire. Using all the available Greek, western European, Slavic, and Turkish sources, Bartusis describes the evolution of the army both as an institution and as an instrument of imperial policy. He considers the army's size, organization, administration, and the varieties of soldiers, and he examines Byzantine feudalism and the army's impact on society and the economy. In its extensive use of soldier companies composed of foreign mercenaries, the Byzantine army had many parallels with those of western Europe; in the final analysis, Bartusis contends, the death of Byzantium was attributable more to a shrinking fiscal base than to any lack of creative military thinking on the part of its leaders.

Download or read book Imperial Visions of Late Byzantium written by Florin Leonte and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-27 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores a Byzantine emperor's construction of authority with the help of his rhetorical texts Examines the changes in the Byzantine imperial idea by the end of the fourteenth century with a particular focus on the instrumentalization of the intellectual dimension of the imperial ruleIntegrates late Byzantine imperial visions into the bigger picture of Byzantine imperial ideology Provides a fresh understanding of key pieces of Byzantine public rhetoric and introduces analytical concepts from rhetorical, literary, and discursive theoriesOffers translations of key passages from late Byzantine rhetoricManuel II Palaiologos was not only a Byzantine emperor but also a remarkably prolific rhetorician and theologian. His oeuvre included letters, treatises, dialogues, short poems and orations. Florin Leonte deals with several of his texts shaped by a didactic intention to educate the emperor's son and successor, John VIII Palaiologos. He argues that the emperor constructed a rhetorical persona which he used in an attempt to compete with other contemporary power-brokers. While Manuel Palaiologos adhered to many rhetorical conventions of his day, he also reasserted the civic role of rhetoric. With a special focus on the first two decades of Manuel II Palaiologos' rule, 1391-1417, Leonte offers a new understanding of the imperial ethos in Byzantium by combining rhetorical analysis with investigation of social and political phenomena.

Download or read book Hagiography in Byzantium Literature Social History and Cult written by Stephanos Efthymiadis and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-10-28 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Involving a vast number of texts, saintly heroes and authors, Byzantine hagiography stands out as a field of scholarly research highly rewarding for both the philologist and the historian. The studies reproduced in this volume cover a chronological range from late antiquity to the Paleologan era. They bring together annotated editions of specific texts and discussions of their contexts, complemented by comprehensive surveys of saintly and monastic cult. Having appeared over the last twenty years, they also illustrate and reflect upon the significant development and re-orientation which has marked the study of hagiography in recent decades.

Download or read book Land and Privilege in Byzantium written by Mark C. Bartusis and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-03 with total page 749 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A pronoia was a type of conditional grant from the emperor, often to soldiers, of various properties and privileges. In large measure the institution of pronoia characterized social and economic relations in later Byzantium, and its study is the study of later Byzantium. Filling the need for a comprehensive study of the institution, this book examines the origin, evolution and characteristics of pronoia, focusing particularly on the later thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. But the book is much more than a study of a single institution. With a broad chronological scope extending from the mid-tenth to the mid-fifteenth century, it incorporates the latest understanding of Byzantine agrarian relations, taxation, administration and the economy, as it deals with relations between the emperor, monastic and lay landholders, including soldiers and peasants. Particular attention is paid to the relation between the pronoia and Western European, Slavic and Middle Eastern institutions, especially the Ottoman timar.

Download or read book Hesychasm and Art written by Anita Strezova and published by ANU Press. This book was released on 2014-09-01 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Although many of the iconographic traditions in Byzantine art formed in the early centuries of Christianity, they were not petrified within a time warp. Subtle changes and refinements in Byzantine theology did find reflection in changes to the iconographic and stylistic conventions of Byzantine art. This is a brilliant and innovative book in which Dr Anita Strezova argues that a religious movement called Hesychasm, especially as espoused by the great Athonite monk St Gregory Palamas, had a profound impact on the iconography and style of Byzantine art, including that of the Slav diaspora, of the late Byzantine period. While many have been attracted to speculate on such a connection, none until now has embarked on proving such a nexus. The main stumbling blocks have included the need for a comprehensive knowledge of Byzantine theology; a training in art history, especially iconological, semiotic and formalist methodologies; extensive fieldwork in Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Turkey and Russia, and a working knowledge of Greek, Old Church Slavonic, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, Latin as well as several modern European languages, French, German, Russian and Italian. These are some of the skills which Dr Strezova has brought to her topic.” Professor Sasha Grishin AM, FAHA Adjunct Professor of Art History School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics The Australian National University

Download or read book The Twilight of Byzantium written by Slobodan Curcic and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-19 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The centuries-long economic and military decline of the Byznatine Empire, which culminated in its political disappearance as a state in 1459, was, paradoxically, accompanied by high levels of cultural achievement. Aimed at broadening our understanding of the final phase of the empire, this collection explores how Byzantine ideological, spiritual, and artistic traditions transcending the economic and political realities of the time. The papers, delivered at an interdisciplinary colloquium held in May 1989 at Princeton University, deal with hagiographic, monastic, literary, architectural, and artistic questions, as well as the general cultural and social issues, of this fascinating period. Along with the editors, the contributors are Smilkjka Gabelic, Thalia Gouma-Peterson, Angela Hero, Robert Ousterhout, Marcus Rautman, Steven Reinert, Alice Mary Talbot, SPeros Vryonis, and John J. Yiannias. Slobodan Curcic is Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University. Doula Mouriki teaches at the Technical University of Athens. Publications of the Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University. Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Download or read book Byzantine Art and Diplomacy in an Age of Decline written by Cecily J. Hilsdale and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-20 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Late Byzantine period (1261–1453) is marked by a paradoxical discrepancy between economic weakness and cultural strength. The apparent enigma can be resolved by recognizing that later Byzantine diplomatic strategies, despite or because of diminishing political advantage, relied on an increasingly desirable cultural and artistic heritage. This book reassesses the role of the visual arts in this era by examining the imperial image and the gift as reconceived in the final two centuries of the Byzantine Empire. In particular it traces a series of luxury objects created specifically for diplomatic exchange with such courts as Genoa, Paris and Moscow alongside key examples of imperial imagery and ritual. By questioning how political decline refigured the visual culture of empire, Cecily J. Hilsdale offers a more nuanced and dynamic account of medieval cultural exchange that considers the temporal dimensions of power and the changing fates of empires.

Download or read book The Bronze Horseman of Justinian in Constantinople written by Elena N. Boeck and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-29 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Justinian's triumphal column was the tallest free-standing column of the pre-modern world and was crowned with arguably the largest metal equestrian sculpture created anywhere in the world before 1699. The Byzantine empire's bronze horseman towered over the heart of Constantinople, assumed new identities, spawned conflicting narratives, and acquired widespread international acclaim. Because all traces of Justinian's column were erased from the urban fabric of Istanbul in the sixteenth century, scholars have undervalued its astonishing agency and remarkable longevity. Its impact in visual and verbal culture was arguably among the most extensive of any Mediterranean monument. This book analyzes Byzantine, Islamic, Slavic, Crusader, and Renaissance historical accounts, medieval pilgrimages, geographic, apocalyptic and apocryphal narratives, vernacular poetry, Byzantine, Bulgarian, Italian, French, Latin, and Ottoman illustrated manuscripts, Florentine wedding chests, Venetian paintings, and Russian icons to provide an engrossing and pioneering biography of a contested medieval monument during the millennium of its 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.

Download or read book Dialogues and Debates from Late Antiquity to Late Byzantium written by Averil Cameron and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-01-20 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dialogues and Debates from Late Antiquity to Late Byzantium offers the first overall discussion of the literary and philosophical dialogue tradition in Greek from imperial Rome to the end of the Byzantine empire and beyond. Sixteen case studies combine theoretical approaches with in-depth analysis and include comparisons with the neighbouring Syriac, Georgian, Armenian and Latin traditions. Following an introduction and a discussion of Plutarch as a writer of dialogues, other chapters consider the Erostrophus, a philosophical dialogue in Syriac, John Chrysostom’s On Priesthood, issues of literariness and complexity in the Greek Adversus Iudaeos dialogues, the Trophies of Damascus, Maximus Confessor’s Liber Asceticus and the middle Byzantine apocryphal revelation dialogues. The volume demonstrates a new frequency in middle and late Byzantium of rhetorical, theological and literary dialogues, concomitant with the increasing rhetoricisation of Byzantine literature, and argues for a move towards new and exciting experiments. Individual chapters examine the Platonising and anti-Latin dialogues written in the context of Anselm of Havelberg’s visits to Constantinople, the theological dialogue by Soterichos Panteugenos, the dialogues of Niketas ‘of Maroneia’ and the literary dialogues by Theodore Prodromos, all from the twelfth century. The final chapters explore dialogues from the empire’s Georgian periphery and discuss late Byzantine philosophical, satirical and verse dialogues by Nikephoros Gregoras, Manuel II Palaiologos and George Scholarios, with special attention to issues of form, dramatisation and performance.

Download or read book Divinings Religion at Harvard written by Rodney L. Petersen and published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. This book was released on 2014-09-17 with total page 1421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Harvard has often been referred to as "godless Harvard." This is far from the truth. Fact is that Harvard is and always has been concerned about religion. This volume addresses the reasons for this. The story of religion at Harvard in many ways is the story of religion in the United States. This edition will clarify this relationship. Furthermore, the question of religion is central not only to the religious history of Harvard but to its very corporate structure and institutional evolution. The volume is divided into three parts and deals withthe Formation of Harvard College in 1636 and Evolution of a Republic of Letters in Cambridge ("First Light", Chapters 1–5); Religion in the University, the Foundations of a Learned Ministry and the Development of the Divinity School (The "Augustan Age", Chapters 6–9); and the Contours of Religion and Commitment in an Age of Upheaval and Globalization ("Calm Rising Through Change and Through Storm", Chapters 10–12).The story of the central role played by religion in the development of Harvard is a neglected factor in Harvard's history only touched upon in a most cursory fashion by previous publications. For the first time George H. Williamstells that story as embedded in American culture and subject to intense and continuing academic study throughout the history of the University to this day.Replete with extensive footnotes, this edition will be a treasure to future historians, persons interested in religious history and in the development of theology, at first clearly Reformed and Protestant, later ecumenical and interfaith.

Download or read book The Perfect Servant written by Kathryn M. Ringrose and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2007-11-01 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Perfect Servant reevaluates the place of eunuchs in Byzantium. Kathryn Ringrose uses the modern concept of gender as a social construct to identify eunuchs as a distinct gender and to illustrate how gender was defined in the Byzantine world. At the same time she explores the changing role of the eunuch in Byzantium from 600 to 1100. Accepted for generations as a legitimate and functional part of Byzantine civilization, eunuchs were prominent in both the imperial court and the church. They were distinctive in physical appearance, dress, and manner and were considered uniquely suited for important roles in Byzantine life. Transcending conventional notions of male and female, eunuchs lived outside of normal patterns of procreation and inheritance and were assigned a unique capacity for mediating across social and spiritual boundaries. This allowed them to perform tasks from which prominent men and women were constrained, making them, in essence, perfect servants. Written with precision and meticulously researched, The Perfect Servant will immediately take its place as a major study on Byzantium and the history of gender.

Download or read book The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography written by Stephanos Efthymiadis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-02-25 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For an entire millennium, Byzantine hagiography, inspired by the veneration of many saints, exhibited literary dynamism and a capacity to vary its basic forms. The subgenres into which it branched out after its remarkable start in the fourth century underwent alternating phases of development and decline that were intertwined with changes in the political, social and literary spheres. The selection of saintly heroes, an interest in depicting social landscapes, and the modulation of linguistic and stylistic registers captured the voice of homo byzantinus down to the end of the empire in the fifteenth century. The seventeen chapters in this companion form the sequel to those in volume I which dealt with the periods and regions of Byzantine hagiography, and complete the first comprehensive survey ever produced in this field. The book is the work of an international group of experts in the field and is addressed to both a broader public and the scholarly community of Byzantinists, medievalists, historians of religion and theorists of narrative. It highlights the literary dimension and the research potential of a representative number of texts, not only those appreciated by the Byzantines themselves but those which modern readers rank high due to their literary quality or historical relevance.

Download or read book The Oxford History of Byzantium written by Cyril Mango and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2002-10-24 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Byzantium linked the ancient and modern worlds, shaping traditions and handing down to both Eastern and Western civilization a vibrant legacy. The Oxford History of Byzantium is the only history to provide in concise form detailed historical coverage from the Roman beginnings to the fall of Constantinople and assimilation into the Turkish Empire. Against a backdrop of stories of emperors, intrigues, battles, and bishops the contributors to this beautifully illustratedvolume explore everyday life in cities and villages, manufacture and trade, machinery of government, the church as an instrument of state, minorities, education, literary activity, beliefs and superstitions, monasticism, iconoclasm, the rise of Islam, and the fusion with Western, or Latin, culture.