Chrysovalantis Kyriacou examines how memories of the pre-Christian past, Christian militarism, power struggles, and ethnoreligious encounters have left their long-term imprint on Cypriot culture. One of the most impressive examples of this phenomenon is the preservation and transformative adaptation of Byzantine heroic themes, motifs, and symbols in Cypriot folk songs. By combining a variety of written sources and archaeological material in his interdisciplinary examination, the author reconstructs the image of the Byzantine warrior hero in the songs, recovering the mentalities of overshadowed social protagonists and stressing the role of subaltern communities as active agents in the shaping of history.

Cyprus was a thriving and densely populated late antique province. Contrary to what used to be thought, the Arab raids of the mid-seventh century did not abruptly bring the island’s prosperity to an end. Recent research instead highlights long-lasting continuity in both urban and rural contexts. This volume brings together historians and archaeologists working on diverse aspects of Cyprus between the sixth and eighth centuries. They discuss topics as varied as rural prosperity, urban endurance, artisanal production, civic and private religion and maritime connectivity. The role of the imperial administration and of the Church is touched upon in several contributions. Other articles place Cyprus back into its wider Mediterranean context. Together, they produce a comprehensive impression of the quality of life on the island in the long late antiquity.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Table of Contents -- List of figures -- Preface -- Abbreviations -- 1. Mattia Pascal and the name of Cyprus -- Notes -- 2. Seeing the unseen: a brief overview of Cypriot historiography -- Notes -- 3. The mousetrap of methodology -- Act I: General problems of method -- Act II: Literary and material sources for early medieval Cyprus -- Notes -- 4. A history of Cyprus in the early Middle Ages -- Cyprus from the sixth to the ninth century -- The power of the Cypriot Church -- Notes -- 5. Urban versus rural: the many sides of the Cypriot coin -- Overcoming the caesurae -- Surveying the Cypriot countryside -- Salamis-Constantia and its sisters: Cypriot urbanism in transition -- Notes -- 6. An insular economy in transition -- The economy of early medieval Cyprus -- In a league of their own: ceramics in early medieval Cyprus -- Notes -- 7. Aftermath and conclusions -- Cyprus in the ninth and tenth centuries -- Concluding remarks -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Professor Carr is concerned here with the devotional arts of the Byzantine world in the period from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. The first set of studies deals with groups of illuminated manuscripts of the twelfth century, mostly connected with the Eastern Mediterranean, while the second focuses directly on Cyprus and its rich Orthodox visual heritage in the later Middle Ages. As Byzantium's strongest bridgehead to the Crusades and its heir in the Levantine balance of power, the island of Cyprus retains an exceptionally rich legacy of Byzantine culture and artifacts. At the same time, as the seat of the most enduring Crusader state, it offers unparalleled testimony to the interplay of Greek and Latin cultural traditions as they accommodated and resisted one another under the pressure of Mamluk, Mongol, and Ottoman expansion.

This study examines Cypriot society from the crusader conquest of the island in 1191 to the Ottoman conquest of 1571. The author analyzes the ethnic, cultural, and religious landscape of Cyprus and argues that Cypriots adopted a nonviolent, covert form of anti-Latin resistance.

The twelve papers written for this volume reflect the wide scope of Annemarie Weyl Carr's interests and the equally wide impact of her work. The concepts linking the essays include the examination of form and meaning, the relationship between original and copy, and reception and cultural identity in medieval art and architecture. Carr’s work focuses on the object but considers the audience, looks at the copy for retention or rejection of the original form and meaning, and always seeks to understand the relationship between intent and perception. She examines the elusive nature of ’center’ and ’periphery’, expanding and enriching the discourse of manuscript production, icons and their copies, and the dissemination of style and meaning. Her body of work is impressive in its chronological scope and geographical extent, as is her ability to tie together aspects of patronage, production and influence across the medieval Mediterranean. The volume opens with an overview of Carr’s career at Southern Methodist University, by Bonnie Wheeler. Kathleen Maxwell, Justine Andrews and Pamela Patton contribute chapters in which they examine workshops, subgroups and influences in manuscript production and reception. Diliana Angelova, Lynn Jones and Ida Sinkevic offer explorations of intent and reception, focusing on imperial patronage, relics and reliquaries. Cypriot studies are represented by Michele Bacci and Maria Vassilaki, who examine aspects of form and style in architecture and icons. The final chapters, by Jaroslav Folda, Anthony Cutler, Rossitza Schroeder and Ann Driscoll, are linked by their focus on the nature of copies, and tease out the ways in which meaning is retained or altered, and the role that is played by intent and reception.