Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval EmpireByzantium. The name evokes grandeur and exoticism—gold, cunning, and complexity. In this unique book, Judith Herrin unveils the riches of a quite different civilization. Avoiding a standard chronological account of the Byzantine Empire's millennium—long history, she identifies the fundamental questions about Byzantium—what it was, and what special significance it holds for us today. |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - stillatim - LibraryThingA flawed effort, within a noble campaign to explain that Byzantium probably can't be summed up by an incense-bearing eunuch paying off manly masculine men from [wherever the author is from] until ... Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - le.vert.galant - LibraryThingA competent and readable history of the Byzantine empire. It updates earlier histories, such as the eloquent trilogy of John Julius Norwich, incorporating a more skeptical eye and covering a broader ... Read full review
Contents
The City of Constantine | 3 |
Constantinople the Largest City in Christendom | 12 |
iii | 15 |
The East Roman Empire | 22 |
Greek Orthodoxy | 33 |
The Church of Hagia Sophia | 50 |
The Ravenna Mosaics | 61 |
Roman Law | 70 |
Imperial Children Born in the Purple 18 Mount Athos | 185 |
Basil II The BulgarSlayer 21 EleventhCentury Crisis 212 | 212 |
Anna Komnene | 232 |
A Cosmopolitan Society | 242 |
Varieties of Byzantium | 253 |
The Fulcrum of the Crusades | 255 |
The Towers of Trebizond Arta Nicaea and Thessalonike | 266 |
Rebels and Patrons | 281 |
The Bulwark Against Islam | 83 |
Icons a New Christian Art Form | 98 |
Iconoclasm and Icon Veneration | 105 |
A Literate and Articulate Society | 119 |
Saints Cyril and Methodios Apostles to the Slavs | 131 |
Byzantium Becomes a Medieval State | 139 |
Greek Fire | 141 |
The Byzantine Economy | 148 |
Eunuchs | 160 |
The Imperial Court | 170 |