In La Diplomatie byzantine, de l’Empire romain aux confins de l’Europe (Ve-XVe s.), twelve studies explore from novel angles the complex history of Byzantine diplomacy. After an Introduction, the volume turns to the period of late antiquity and the new challenges the Eastern Roman Empire had to contend with. It then examines middle-Byzantine diplomacy through chapters looking at relations with Arabs, Rus’ and Bulgarians, before focusing on various aspects of the official contacts with Western Europe at the end of the Middle Ages. A thematic section investigates the changes to and continuities of diplomacy throughout the period, in particular by considering Byzantine alertness to external political developments, strategic use of dynastic marriages, and the role of women as diplomatic actors. Contributors are are Jean-Pierre Arrignon, Audrey Becker, Mickaël Bourbeau, Nicolas Drocourt, Christian Gastgeber, Nike Koutrakou, Élisabeth Malamut, Ekaterina Nechaeva, Brendan Osswald, Nebojša Porčić, Jonathan Shepard, and Jakub Sypiański.

"The eighteen chapters of this book explore the complex history of exchange between Byzantium and the Latin West over a period of more than three hundred years, with a focus on the political, ecclesiastical and cultural spheres. Besides outlining the history of competition and collaboration between two empires in medieval Europe, a range of regional approaches, stretching from England to the Crusader kingdoms, offer insights into the many aspects of Byzantine-Latin contact and exchange. Further sections explore patterns of mutual perception, linguistic and material dimensions of the contacts, as well as the role played by various groups of "cultural brokers" such as ambassadors, merchants, monks and Jewish communities. Contributors are: Axel Bayer, Saskia Dönitz, Nicolas Drocourt, Leonie Exarchos, Daniel Föller, Christian Gastgeber, Hans-Werner Goetz, Dominik Heher, Klaus Herbers, Christopher Hobbs, David Jacoby, Sebastian Kolditz, Savvas Neocleous, Johannes Pahlitzsch, Annick Peters-Custot, Miriam Salzmann, Jonathan Shepard, Juan Signes Codoñer, and Eleni Tounta"--

This book explores the complex history of contact and exchange between Byzantium and the Latin West over a formative period of more than three hundred years, with a focus on the political, ecclesiastical and cultural spheres.

During the late Byzantine period (1261-1453), a significant number of texts were translated from Latin, but also from Arabic and other languages, into Greek. Most of them are still unedited or available in editions that do not meet the modern academic criteria. Nowadays, these translations are attracting scholarly attention, as it is widely recognized that, besides their philological importance per se, they can shed light on the cultural interactions between late Byzantines and their neighbours or predecessors. To address this desideratum, this volume focuses on the cultural context, the translators and the texts produced during the Palaeologan era, extending as well till the end of 15th c. in ex-Byzantine territories. By shedding light on the translation activity of late Byzantine scholars, this volume aims at revealing the cultural aspect of late Byzantine openness to its neighbours.

Byzantine Media Subjects invites readers into a world replete with images—icons, frescoes, and mosaics filling places of worship, politics, and community. Glenn Peers asks readers to think themselves into a world where representation reigned and humans followed, and indeed were formed. Interrogating the fundamental role of representation in the making of the Byzantine human, Peers argues that Byzantine culture was (already) posthuman. The Byzantine experience reveals the extent to which media like icons, manuscripts, music, animals, and mirrors fundamentally determine humans. In the Byzantine world, representation as such was deeply persuasive, even coercive; it had the power to affect human relationships, produce conflict, and form self-perception. Media studies has made its subject the modern world, but this book argues for media having made historical subjects. Here, it is shown that media long ago also made Byzantine humans, defining them, molding them, mediating their relationship to time, to nature, to God, and to themselves.

The Romans who established their rule on three continents and the Europeans who first established new homes in North America interacted with communities of Indigenous peoples with their own histories and cultures. Sweeping in its scope and rigorous in its scholarship, Empires and Indigenous Peoples expands our understanding of their historical parallels and raises general questions about the nature of the various imperial encounters. In this book, leading scholars of ancient Roman and early anglophone North America examine the mutual perceptions of the Indigenous and the imperial actors. They investigate the rhetoric of civilization and barbarism and its expression in military policies. Indigenous resistance, survival, and adaptation form a major theme. The essays demonstrate that power relations were endlessly adjusted, identities were framed and reframed, and new mutual knowledge was produced by all participants. Over time, cultures were transformed across the board on political, social, religious, linguistic, ideological, and economic levels. The developments were complex, with numerous groups enmeshed in webs of aggression, opposition, cooperation, and integration. Readers will see how Indigenous and imperial identities evolved in Roman and American lands. Finally, the authors consider how American views of Roman activity influenced the development of American imperial expansion and accompanying Indigenous critiques. They show how Roman, imperial North American, and Indigenous experiences have contributed to American notions of race, religion, and citizenship, and given shape to problems of social inclusion and exclusion today.

This book offers a study into the perceptions of ancient and medieval Iran in the Byzantine Empire, as well as the effects of Persian culture upon Byzantine intellectualism, society, and culture. Byzantine Ideas of Persia, 650-1461 focuses on the place of ancient Persia in Byzantine cultural memory, both in the "religious" and the "secular" sense. By analysing a wide range of historical sources – from church literature to belles-lettres – this book provides an examination of the place of ancient Persia in Byzantine cultural memory, as well as the place and function of Persian motifs in the Byzantine mentality. Additionally, the author uses these sources to analyse thoroughly the knowledge Byzantines had about contemporary Iranian culture, the presence of ethnic Iranians and the circulation and usage of the Persian language in Byzantium. Finally, this book discusses the importance and influence of Iranian science on Byzantine scholars. This book will appeal to scholars and students interested in Byzantine and Iranian History, particularly in reference to the cross-cultural and social influence of the two societies during the Middle Ages.

Mobility and migration were not uncommon in Byzantium, as is true for all societies. Yet, scholarship is only beginning to pay attention to these phenomena. This book presents in English translation a wide array of relevant source texts from ca. 650 to ca. 1450 originally written in medieval Greek: from administrative records, saints’ lives and letters by churchmen to ego-documents by ambassadors and historical narratives by court historians. Each source text is accompanied by a detailed introduction, commentary and further bibliography, thus making the book accessible to both scholars and students and laying the groundwork for future research on the internal dynamics of Byzantine society.

Focuses on the scholarly interests of the intellectual elites during the last two centuries of Byzantium and the cultural environment in which they flourished, as well as the interaction between secular and church circles in Constantinople, Thessaloniki, Athos and beyond.