Byzantine News

A succinct but highly informative introduction into the study of middle Byzantine Church architecture by R. Ousterhout. The architecture of the middle Byzantine period reflects changes in the nature of Byzantine society starting with the Transitional Period from the 7th to 9th centuries (plague, famine, Arab invasions, Iconoclast controversy, deurbanization, a cultural break). These societal changes led from an open to a closed society, from a public to a private character of Byzantine life. Developments in the architecture profession are reflected in the terminology of the period—a change from theory-based to practice-based. Modifications in worship practices dictated a smaller-scale to the buildings to serve private devotion. The symbolic importance of the dome continued, as with the two-axis, two-focus space expressed in the Hagia Sophia, but with a dramatic reduction in scale. Click here to read more

Click here to download and read the book Spanning twelve centuries and three continents, the Byzantine Empire linked the ancient and modern worlds, shaping and transmitting Greek, Roman, and Christian traditions—including the Greek classics, Roman law, and Christian theology—that remain vigorous today, not only in Eastern Europe and the Middle East but throughout Western civilization. Though in its politics Byzantium often resembled a third-world dictatorship, it has never yet been matched in maintaining a single state for so long, over a wide area inhabited by heterogeneous peoples.

The classical book on Byzantine warfare by John Haldon is now online. Click below to read and enjoy!

Full access to a major resource for the study of Byzantine art: The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, edited by Helen C. Evans, William D. Wixom :

A new book on Hagia Sophia and the Byzantine Aesthetic Experience by Nadine Schibille. From the introduction: Paramount in the shaping of early Byzantine identity was the construction of the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (532-537 CE). This book examines the edifice from the perspective of aesthetics to define the concept of beauty and the meaning of art in early Byzantium. Byzantine aesthetic thought is re-evaluated against late antique Neoplatonism and the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius that offer fundamental paradigms for the late antique attitude towards art and beauty. Click here to browse the book.

Medieval Greek romances were a very popular genre in Byzantium. P. Roilos' groundbreaking volume on the topic is now available online. Here is a passage from the conclusions: Through their multilayered responses to the past and their present, the Komnenian novels mediate first between antiquity and the Middle Ages and, second, between the Middle Ages and modernity. Due to its inherent discursive plasticity, the genre of the novel offered the Komnenian writers a dynamic literary medium for the exploration of a number of ideological and conceptual tensions ensuing from originally antithetical but often ultimately complementary conceptual and cultural categories. No doubt these tensions marked Byzantine culture from its initial formation to its final exhaustion. However, all these opposing forces reached their acme in the twelfth century: Hellenism and Christianity, antiquity and “modernity,” tradition and experimentation, secular and sacred, “high” and “low,” pleasure and asce...

Armenia and the Council of Chalcedon. Click here to access the book

Medieval Greek florilegia, collections of wise sayings, compendia, and excerpts, all in a dynamic library that make their study easier. The SAWS Dynamic Library contains five main groups of texts. Elvira Wakelnig and colleagues in Vienna have made available two collections, Gnomological Material in Arabic and in Arabic-Spanish transmission, and Arabic Philosophical Compendia and Excerpts of Arabic and Latin Philosophical Texts; these include, among others, transcriptions of two abridgements of the Ṣiwān al-ḥikma, Ps.-ʿĀmirī’s Kitāb al-Saʿāda, the first editions of three unpublished Arabic compilations of philosophical material, together with further excerpts from relevant texts, from Greek sources and from the Spanish Bocados di Oro whch drew on this tradition. Apophthegmata et gnomae secundum alphabetum comprises the first full edition of an important tradition of Greek gnomologia, arranged in alphabetical order, and edited from 16 manuscripts by Denis Searby and colleagues in Up...

A. Kaldellis' chapter from The Companion to Byzantine Hagiography (ed. S. Efthymiadis) is available online. Scepticism in religious matters is not what comes to mind when we think of Byzantium. In fact, it is routinely asserted that there was no such thing, indeed that it could not have existed because a credulous religious mentality was allegedly pervasive and overpowering. To quote only one scholar, A.H.M. Jones: ‘Sceptics and rationalists, if they existed, have left no mark on history and literature’.1 This belief, however, is the result of a commitment to a particular view of the ‘essence’ of Byzantine culture that rests on modern needs and inventions. Ironically, the genre that testifies powerfully to the ubiquitous presence of scepticism is hagiography, the very corpus that is commonly cited to prove the opposite case. The recurring figure of the man who doubts the saint’s power and expresses scepticism at his alleged miracles, only to be struck down by God and eventually...

The newly inaugurated Digital Library of Qatar has fascinating Arabic manuscripts in digital form. Here is a 13th c manuscript of Euclid. Click here to access the manuscript and to explore other medieval books.

An event which influenced the history of both Byzantium and the Western states, the crusades pose many problems to the researchers of today. Were the crusades a Holy War in Byzantium? The late G.T. Dennis tried to give an answer to this question in a Dumbarton Oaks volume. Click here to read more

Harvard's Center for Hellenic Studies has recently published online A. Cameron's volume on Dialoguing in Late Antiquity. A passage from the Introduction : This book is about a particular form of writing by Christians in late antiquity, sometimes referred to as “the philosophical dialogue”—although by no means all the dialogues in question can be regarded as philosophical. The subject is central to the much wider question of the development of a specifically Christian rhetoric, especially in Perelman’s sense in which “the realm of rhetoric” constitutes “the entire universe of argumentative discourse,” [1] for Christian writers did indeed use the dialogue form as part of their argumentative endeavor. Click here to read the book

The Suda Lexikon, a great source for the study of Classics and of the Byzantine literary culture, dating from the 10th c., the golden age of the Byzantine Empire, is very close to having a complete online English version. Click here to visit the project webpage

The aristocratic oikos on the Vrina Plain, Butrint c. AD 830−1200 pp. 1-19(19) Authors: Greenslade, Simon; Hodges, Richard The illusion of continuity: Nikephoros Phokas, John Tzimiskes and the eastern border pp. 20-34(15) Author: Garrood, William The original source for Tzimiskes' Balkan campaign (971 AD) and the emperor's classicizing propaganda pp. 35-52(18) Author: Kaldellis, Anthony At the origins of ephoreia* pp. 53-62(10) Author: Chitwood, Zachary The fair of Agios Demetrios of 26 October 1449: Byzantine-Venetian relations and land issues in mid-century* pp. 63-80(18) Author: Wright, Diana Gilliland Contemporary perception of Byzantium in Turkish cinema: the cross-examination of Battal Gazi films with the Battalname pp. 81-91(11) Authors: Bayrı, Buket Kitapçı Nicosia and its municipal administration during the very early years of British rule in Cyprus pp. 92-110(19) Author: Markides, Diana `Peasantist nationalism' in inter-war Greece (1927-41) pp. 111-129(...

Greco-Egyptian Alchemy in Byzantium The main concern of this paper will be with the problems raised by the reception of ancient alchemy in Byzantium. After a brief introduction, I will start from the study of a pre-Byzantine author, Zosimos of Panopolis, and deal with the following questions : How, from a purely material viewpoint, were Zosimos’ writings handed down during the Byzantine period? Did Byzantine alchemists have access to his works and did they resort to them? --> Was Zosimos known outside the alchemical Corpus; in other words, did Graeco Egyptian alchemists exert any kind of influence outside strictly alchemical circles? When and how was the alchemical Corpus put together? In a more general way, what evidence do we have, whether in the Corpus itself or in non-alchemical literature, that alchemy was practised in Byzantium? Answers (or at least partial answers) to these questions should help us to understand and define to some extent the p...

The art of creating mosaic patterns grew and developed with the rise of the Byzantine Empire in the 5th century. New characteristics appeared in mosaics with Eastern influences in style and the use of glass tesserae, known as smalti, sourced from northern Italy. This added new texture and life to the mosaic patterns being created, with the smalti, which were cut from thick sheets of colored glass and had a rough surface and tiny air bubbles throughout, being backed by reflective silver or gold leaf. --> The application of mosaics also changed; while the Romans favored the use of mosaic patterns for flooring, the Byzantines took the art further and applied them to walls and ceilings. They kept their smalti un-grouted to allow light to reflect and refract through them and set their pieces at slight angles to capture the play of light as it moved through the space and allow the silver or gold backing to sparkle from every angle. The mosaic patterns and themes melded togethe...

Catalogue of the Imperial Byzantine Coins in the British Museum By Warwick William Wroth , British Museum Dept . of Coins and Medals Published 1908. --> Catalog of Imperial Byzantine Coins in the British Museum - Vol I by

The Classical Review publishes informative reviews from leading scholars on new work covering the literatures and civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome. Publishing over 150 high quality reviews and 50 brief notes every year, The Classical Review is an indispensable reference tool, essential for keeping abreast with current classical scholarship.  --> We are pleased to offer you complimentary access to ten of the most popular reviews from the last five volumes of The Classical Review, free of charge until the 31st March 2013.  Access the reviews here: http://journals.cambridge.org/crpopular2013 http://journals.cambridge.org/crpopular2013 Read outgoing Editor Dr Neil Hopkinson's Blog post: http://blog.journals.cambridge.org/2013/01/thoughts-of-an-outgoing-reviews-editor/

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Ten more digitized manuscript from Paris, BNF: Gr. 142 Gr. 519 Gr. 1470 Gr. 2032 Gr. 2042 Gr. 2935 Gr. 3032 Gr. 3051 Gr. 3059 Suppl. gr. 1232 Check the manuscripts at Paleografia Greca