The sixth-century theological controversy over the 'Three Chapters', which centred on the nature of Christ, provoked one of the most serious and long-lived religious schisms of the early Middle Ages. this book examines different facets of the Three Chapters Controversy and the profound impact it had.

Pauline Allen and Bronwen Neil investigate crisis management as conducted by the increasingly important episcopal class in the 5th and 6th centuries. Their basic source is the neglected corpus of bishops’ letters in Greek and Latin, the letter being the most significant mode of communication and information-transfer in the period from 410 to 590 CE. The volume brings together into a wider setting a wealth of previous international research on episcopal strategies for dealing with crises of various kinds. Six broad categories of crisis are identified and analysed: population displacement, natural disasters, religious disputes and religious violence, social abuses and the breakdown of the structures of dependence. Individual case-studies of episcopal management are provided for each of these categories. This is the first comprehensive treatment of crisis management in the late-antique world, and the first survey of episcopal letter-writing across the later Roman empire.

The Avars arrived in Europe from the Central Asian steppes in the mid-sixth century CE and dominated much of Central and Eastern Europe for almost 250 years. Fierce warriors and canny power brokers, the Avars were more influential and durable than Attila's Huns, yet have remained hidden in history. Walter Pohl's epic narrative, translated into English for the first time, restores them to their rightful place in the story of early medieval Europe. The Avars offers a comprehensive overview of their history, tracing the Avars from the construction of their steppe empire in the center of Europe; their wars and alliances with the Byzantines, Slavs, Lombards, and others; their apex as the first so-called barbarian power to besiege Constantinople (in 626); to their fall under the Frankish armies of Charlemagne and subsequent disappearance as a distinct cultural group. Pohl uncovers the secrets of their society, synthesizing the rich archaeological record recovered from more than 60,000 graves of the period, as well as accounts of the Avars by Byzantine and other chroniclers. In recovering the story of the fascinating encounter between Eurasian nomads who established an empire in the heart of Europe and the post-Roman Christian cultures of Europe, this book provides a new perspective on the origins of medieval Europe itself.

The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity is the first comprehensive reference book covering every aspect of history, culture, religion, and life in Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Near East (including the Persian Empire and Central Asia) between the mid-3rd and the mid-8th centuries AD, the era now generally known as Late Antiquity. This period saw the re-establishment of the Roman Empire, its conversion to Christianity and its replacement in the West by Germanic kingdoms, the continuing Roman Empire in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Persian Sassanian Empire, and the rise of Islam. Consisting of over 1.5 million words in more than 5,000 A-Z entries, and written by more than 400 contributors, it is the long-awaited middle volume of a series, bridging a significant period of history between those covered by the acclaimed Oxford Classical Dictionary and The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages. The scope of the Dictionary is broad and multi-disciplinary; across the wide geographical span covered (from Western Europe and the Mediterranean as far as the Near East and Central Asia), it provides succinct and pertinent information on political history, law, and administration; military history; religion and philosophy; education; social and economic history; material culture; art and architecture; science; literature; and many other areas. Drawing on the latest scholarship, and with a formidable international team of advisers and contributors, The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity aims to establish itself as the essential reference companion to a period that is attracting increasing attention from scholars and students worldwide.

This book provides both a detailed introduction to the vivid and exciting period of `late antiquity' and a direct challenge to conventional views of the end of the Empire.

This is the first volume to attempt a comprehensive overview of the evolution of the 'Arian' churches in the Roman world of Late Antiquity and their political importance in the late Roman kingdoms of the 5th-6th centuries, ruled by barbarian warrior elites. Bringing together researchers from the disciplines of theology, history and archaeology, and providing an extensive bibliography, it constitutes a breakthrough in a field largely neglected in historical studies. A polemical term coined by the Orthodox Church (the side that prevailed in the Trinitarian disputes of the 4th century C.E.) for its opponents in theology as well as in ecclesiastical politics, Arianism has often been seen as too complicated to understand outside the group of theological specialists dealing with it and has therefore sometimes been ignored in historical studies. The studies here offer an introduction to the subject, grounded in the historical context, then examine the adoption of Arian Christianity among the Gothic contingents of the Roman army, and its subsequent diffusion in the barbarian kingdoms of the late Roman world.

Usually known as a bon vivant poet or naïve biographer of saints, Venantius Fortunatus, the sixth-century poet and émigré from Italy to Merovingian Gaul, emerges this book as a vigorous and mature preacher of Christian theology.

The era of the Emperor Justinian (527-68) intersects the fall of the western half of the Roman Empire in the fifth century and the collapse of the east in the face of rampant Arab invasions in the seventh. Determined to reverse the losses Rome suffered in the fifth century, Justinian's stubborn aggression in the face of all adversity, not least the plague, led the eastern Empire to overreach itself, making it vulnerable to the Islamic takeover of its richest territories in the seventh century, which turned the great East Roman Empire of late antiquity, into its pale Byzantine shadow of the Middle Ages. Rome Resurgent promises to introduce to a wide readership this fascinating but unjustly overlooked chapter in ancient warfare.

This book explores the Merovingian kingdoms in Gaul within a broader Mediterranean context. Their politics and culture have mostly been interpreted in the past through a narrow local perspective, but as the papers in this volume clearly demonstrate, the Merovingian kingdoms had complicated and multi-layered political, religious, and socio-cultural relations with their Mediterranean counterparts, from Visigothic Spain in the West to the Byzantine Empire in the East, and from Anglo-Saxon England in the North to North-Africa in the South. The papers collected here provide new insights into the history of the Merovingian kingdoms by examining various relevant issues, ranging from identity formation to the shape and rules of diplomatic relations, cultural transformation, as well as voiced attitudes towards the “other”. Each of the papers begins with a short excerpt from a primary source, which serves as a stimulus for the discussion of broader issues. The various sources' point of view and their contextualization stand at the heart of the analysis, thus ensuring that discussions are accessible to students and non-specialists, without jeopardizing the high academic standard of the debate.