Byzantine World

The Byzantine World presents the latest insights of the leading scholars in the fields of Byzantine studies, history, art and architectural history, literature, and theology. Those who know little of Byzantine history, culture and civilization between AD 700 and 1453 will find overviews and distillations, while those who know much already will be afforded countless new vistas.

Each chapter offers an innovative approach to a well-known topic or a diversion from a well-trodden path. Readers will be introduced to Byzantine women and children, men and eunuchs, emperors, patriarchs, aristocrats and slaves. They will explore churches and fortifications, monasteries and palaces, from Constantinople to Cyprus and Syria in the east, and to Apulia and Venice in the west. Secular and sacred art, profane and spiritual literature will be revealed to the reader, who will be encouraged to read, see, smell and touch. The worlds of Byzantine ceremonial and sanctity, liturgy and letters, Orthodoxy and heresy will be explored, by both leading and innovative international scholars.

Ultimately, readers will find insights into the emergence of modern Byzantine studies and of popular Byzantine history that are informative, novel and unexpected, and that provide a thorough understanding of both.

Paul Stephenson is Reader in Medieval History at the University of Durham, and formerly was Rowe Professor of Byzantine History at the University of Wisconsin, a joint appointment with Dumbarton Oaks. He has researched and taught in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Greece, Sweden and the USA, and held fellowships from the British Academy, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Onassis Foundation and the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Studies. He is author of Byzantium’s Balkan Frontier (2000), The Legend of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer (2003) and Constantine: Unconquered Emperor, Christian Victor (2009).