The ByzantinesGuglielmo Cavallo University of Chicago Press, 1997 - 293 pages For more than a thousand years, Byzantium flourished at the crossroads of the Eastern and Western worlds. But who were the people of the first modern civilized state? What features distinguished them from earlier civilizations, and what cultural characteristics, despite their multi-ethnic origins, made them uniquely Byzantine? Through a series of remarkably detailed composite portraits, an international collection of distinguished scholars has created a startlingly clear vision of the Byzantines and their social world. Paupers, peasants, soldiers, teachers, bureaucrats, clerics, emperors, and saints—all are vividly and authentically presented in the context of ordinary Byzantine life. No comparable volume exists that so fascinatingly recovers from the past the men and women of Byzantium, their culture and their lifeways, and their strikingly modern worldview. |
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activities administration Alexios Alexios I Komnenos ancient army authority Basil became bishop Byzantine Empire Byzantium capital ceremonial Choniates Christ Christian church civil Constantine Constantine VII Constantinople convent countryside court ecclesiastical economic eleventh century emperor empire's empresses eunuchs example fourteenth century fourth century functionaries girls gold solidi Greek Hagia Sophia hagiographical holy husband imperial important John John I Tzimiskes Justinian Kekaumenos Komnenos land late antiquity later Latin literature lived marriage medieval merchants metropolitan Michael Choniates Michael Psellos military modioi monastery monastic monasticism monks Nikephoros Niketas Choniates ninth palace Palaiologan patriarch peasants period Photios political poor poverty prefect provinces pupils remained rhetoric rich role Roman Rome saint seventh sixth century social society soldiers solidi sources spiritual survived synaxarion taxes teacher tenth century texts Theodore Theodore Metochites Thessalonike throne tion trade tradition twelfth century typikon village women