A Christian Millennium

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Herrin
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Byzantine Empire ◽  
Fourth Crusade ◽  
Dark Ages ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Of Greece

This chapter focuses on the period when Greece was essentially a minor province of the Christian Roman empire of Byzantium. During “The Dark Ages,” there was a very slow and uncertain shift from a society organized according to the principles of the ancient world—a world of half-autonomous cities—to one dominated by the Byzantine Empire. The chapter first describes the upheavals that disrupted the empire during the first half of the seventh century before discussing how it regained stability during the late seventh and eighth centuries. It then considers the disastrous results of the Fourth Crusade for the empire and the emergence of Byzantium as a theocracy. It also examines how Byzantium reclaimed the provinces of Greece and how the Slavs were integrated into Byzantine society. It concludes with an overview of Byzantine economy, society, and culture during the period as well as the legacy of the Byzantine Empire.

The Byzantine Empire (641–1453 CE)

2021 ◽  
pp. 450-467
Author(s):  
Anthony Kaldellis
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Fourth Crusade ◽  
Shifting Balance ◽  
Governing Institutions

After the Roman Empire lost Egypt and Syria to the Arab conquests of the seventh century, it survived in the Balkans and Asia Minor until the fifteenth century in a form that modern historians call “Byzantium.” This state expanded gradually until the eleventh century, conquering Bulgaria, but then experienced the shock of sudden contractions, especially when it lost most of Asia Minor to the Seljuk Turks and when the Fourth Crusade captured its capital Constantinople and dismembered the empire. This chapter examines how the empire’s governing institutions adapted to these changing circumstances, the combination of Roman and Christian Orthodox ideology that sustained it, and the shifting balance of ethnic diversity within it. At all times, the majority of the population consisted of Greek-speaking Orthodox Romans: “empire” was thus more a relationship that obtained between the state and its conquered or absorbed minorities, which Byzantium was good at assimilating.

Pausanias’ Arcadia between Conservatism and Innovation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Baleriaux
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Religious Landscape ◽  
Of Greece

The vivid survival of traditional features in Arcadian religion under the early Roman Empire is striking. Despite the brutal conquest of Rome and the intrusiveness of its administration, cities were able to keep their most peculiar religious characteristics alive. This chapter investigates this seemingly uninterrupted religious continuity despite remarkable political change. In line with the studies of Alcock and more recently Spawforth, it aims to show that the attitude of Rome towards Hellenism, and in particular the antiquarian attitude to religion it promoted, triggered a cascade of changes in the human, social, economic, political, and religious landscape of Greece. The apparent conservatism of Arcadian religion during that period was not principally ‘resistance’—in the sense of asserting a distinct Greek identity through religion—but was rather largely promoted by the Romans themselves.

Fortresses of the Tur Abdin and the confrontation between Rome and Persia

2017 ◽  
Vol 67 ◽  
pp. 181-229
Author(s):  
Anthony Comfort
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Satellite Imagery ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Google Earth ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Crucial Importance ◽  
Substantial Risk ◽  
Urgent Necessity ◽  
Late Roman

AbstractAlthough research is currently impossible on the ground, satellite photographs allow some further information to be gleaned concerning the region of the Tur Abdin, of crucial importance during the wars between the late Roman Empire and Sassanian Persia in the fourth to seventh century AD. This article examines the ancient sources and the reports of visitors to the area in the light of what is now visible to all via Google Earth and other suppliers of free satellite imagery. Apart from describing the remains of the fortresses and their role in defending an important redoubt against Persian attacks, it draws attention to the urgent necessity for proper ground surveys of what remains of the fortifications of various periods before these are completely destroyed by looting and reuse of building materials. Dams also present a substantial risk to some of the monuments discussed here.

Byzantine Scyphate Bronze coinage in Greece

1961 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 42-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. M. Metcalf
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
The Other ◽  
Purchasing Power ◽  
Byzantine Empire ◽  
Market Place ◽  
Fourth Crusade ◽  
Unusual Form

The Byzantine coinage in the twelfth century was of three kinds. There were gold nomismata, with a purchasing power which must have been a good deal greater than that of a present-day five-pound note, and also nomismata of ‘pale gold’—gold alloyed with silver—of lower value; at the other extreme there were bronze coins, smaller than a modern farthing, which were the coinage of the market-place; intermediate, but still of low value, there were coins about the size of a halfpenny, normally made of copper lightly washed with silver. The silvered bronze and the gold were not flat, as are most coins, but saucer-shaped. The reason for their unusual form is not known. Numismatists describe them as scyphate, and refer to the middle denomination in the later Byzantine system of coinage as Scyphate Bronze, to distinguish it from the petty bronze coinage. Scyphate Bronze was first struck under Alexius I (1081–1118). Substantive issues were made by John II (1118–43), and such coinage became extremely plentiful under Manuel I (1143–80) and his successors Isaac II (1185–95) and Alexius III (1195–1203). After the capture of Constantinople in the course of the Fourth Crusade, the successor-states to the Byzantine Empire at Nicaea, Salonica, and in Epirus continued to issue scyphate bronze coinage, although in much smaller quantities, until after the middle of the thirteenth century.

scholarly journals Jeden z herezjarchów? Przedstawienia ikonograficzne Mahometa w rękopisie Рнб, f.IV.151 w kontekście staroruskich narracji na jego temat

Vox Patrum ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 70 ◽  
pp. 449-469
Author(s):  
Zofia Brzozowska
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Russian Literature ◽  
Byzantine Empire ◽  
Extensive Sequence ◽  
Old Russian ◽  
The Third ◽  
Russian State ◽  
Identical Manner ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ivan The Terrible

The РНБ, F.IV.151 manuscript is the third volume of a richly illustrated his­toriographical compilation (so-called Лицевой летописный свод – Illustrated Chronicle of Ivan the Terrible), which was prepared in one copy for tsar Ivan IV the Terrible in 1568-1576 and represents the development of the Russian state on the broad background of universal history. The aforementioned manuscript, which contains a description of the history of the Roman Empire and then the Byzantine Empire between the seventies of the 1st century A.D and 919, includes also an extensive sequence devoted to Muhammad (Ѡ Бохмите еретицѣ), derived from the Old Church Slavonic translation of the chronicle by George the Monk (Hamartolus). It is accompanied by two miniatures showing the representation of the founder of Islam. He was shown in an almost identical manner as the creators of earlier heterodox trends, such as Arius or Nestorius. These images therefore become a part of the tendency to perceive Muhammad as a heresiarch, a false pro­phet, and the religion he created as one of the heresies within Christianity, which is also typical of the Old Russian literature.

The Collapse of the Byzantine Empire in the Twelfth Century

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Herrin
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Economic Organization ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
Byzantine Empire ◽  
Fourth Crusade ◽  
Latin Empire

This chapter examines the collapse of the Byzantine Empire in the twelfth century. Between the tenth and twelfth centuries, the Byzantine state machinery was extremely sophisticated. It directed a systematic foreign policy and maintained a developed network of diplomatic relations with neighboring powers, controlled the minting and circulation of a stable gold currency, and ran a complex bureaucratic administration. However, the empire's economic organization was primitive. The chapter analyzes the fiscal and commercial aspects of the economic organization of a provincial area of the Byzantine Empire under the Angeloi during the period 1185–1204. It suggests that the conquest and sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade constitutes a collapse and disappearance of the empire in 1204, and that the establishment of a Latin Empire on Byzantine territory signals a definite break with the former Byzantine organization.

The Tasks of the Translators: Relics and Communications between Constantinople and Northern France in the Aftermath of 1204

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne E. Lester
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Byzantine Empire ◽  
Fourth Crusade ◽  
Northern France ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Latin West ◽  
The Creation

The concept of linguistic “translation” helps to understand the process by which the material culture of the Byzantine empire, taken from Byzantine churches and palaces following the conquest of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade, was interpreted in new environments in the Latin West. This was a process that required input from those invested in shaping the meaning of the relics and the creation of unique works of art in the form of new reliquaries.

Helena

2021 ◽  
pp. 347-350
Author(s):  
Michael Llewellyn-Smith
Keyword(s):  
Byzantine Empire ◽  
European Cities ◽  
Peace Negotiations ◽  
Grave’S Disease ◽  
Grave's Disease ◽  
Of Greece ◽  
Do So ◽  
The Way

This chapter describes Helena Schilizzi, a London-based member of the widespread and prosperous Schilizzi family, who met Venizelos during the peace negotiations of late 1912-1913 and became devoted to him. It is based in part on her memoir A l'Ombre de Veniselos. The Schilizzis originated in the Byzantine empire, spread to Chios and later to London and other European cities. Helena, troubled for a period by Grave's disease, came across Venizelos by reading his 1910 speech in Athens, and was captivated. She took every opportunity to get close to him, starting with his contacts with the London Greek community during the peace negotiations. She realized that the way to attach herself to him was to devote herself to the cause of Greece. With her money she was able to do so.

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