Books in the Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies series

After the Text honours the work of renowned historian Margaret Mullett, who since the 1970s has transformed the study of Byzantine literature. It is crucial reading for scholars and students of the Byzantine world, as well as for those interested in literary studies.

The Byzantine Neighbourhood contributes to a new narrative regarding Byzantine cities through the adoption of a neighbourhood perspective. Beyond its Byzantine focus, it also contributes to broader discussions of premodern urbanism by drawing attention to the spatial dimension of social life.

The contributors of this volume take the Memoirs of Sylvester Syropoulos, written by a Byzantine ecclesiastical official in the fifteenth century, as their starting point in reconstructing Mediterranean living conditions and artistic and commercial exchange in the late Middle Ages. Syropoulos¿s text, a rare eye-witness account of the Council of Fer

This book focuses on the impact of political relations with the East, especially the Muslim caliphate, on the reign of the last iconoclast emperor of Byzantium, Theophilos (829-842), reinterpreting the major events of the period and their chronology. Separate sections are devoted to the influence of Armenians at the court.

The empires of Rome, Byzantium, the Ottomans and later the British, all sought to develop a common territorial base in the Eastern Mediterranean and all struggled to control the political and spiritual allegiances of the indigenous groups that were brought under their rule. This volume addresses the various dimensions of these successive empires

The work known as Pseudo-Kodinos, the fourteenth-century text which is one of two surviving ceremonial books from the Byzantine empire, is presented here for the first time in English translation. With facing page Greek text and the first in-depth analysis in the form of commentary and individual studies on the hierarchy, the ceremonies.

This volume, on the cult of the Theotokos (Virgin Mary) in Byzantium, focuses on textual and historical aspects of the subject, thus complementing previous work which has centred more on the cult of images of the Mother of God. The papers presented here, by an international team of scholars, consider the development and transformation of the cult from approximately the fourth through the twelfth centuries. The volume opens with discussion of the origins of the cult, and its Near Eastern manifestations, including the archaeological site of the Kathisma church in Palestine, which represents the earliest Marian shrine in the Holy Land, and Syriac poetic treatment of the Virgin. The principal focus, however, is on the 8th and 9th centuries in Byzantium, as a critical period when Christian attitudes toward the Virgin and her veneration were transformed. The book re-examines the relationship between icons, relics and the Virgin, asking whether increasing devotion to these holy objects or figures was related in any way. Some contributions consider the location of relics and later, icons, in Constantinople and other centres of Marian devotion; others explore gender issues, such as the significance of the Virgin''s feminine qualities, and whether women and men identified with her equally as a holy figure. The aim of this volume is to build on recent work on the cult of the Virgin Mary in Byzantium and to explore areas that have not yet been studied. The rationale is critical and historical, using literary, artistic, and archaeological sources to evaluate her role in the development of the Byzantine understanding of the ways in which God interacts with creation by means of icons, relics, and the Theotokos.

This volume is designed as a primary source for the history of the first Byzantine iconoclasm (730-787 AD) and the iconodoulic reaction (787-815 AD). The author argues that Stephen's opposition to the emperor Constantine V was as much political as it was religious.

The study of the family is one of the major lacunas in Byzantine Studies. Angeliki Laiou remarked in 1989 that 'the study of the Byzantine family is still in its infancy', and this assertion remains true today. The present volume addresses this lacuna.

This text is a key source for the history and culture of the Byzantine world in the 8th and 9th centuries. The book provides an introduction, commentary and English translation of the text, places it in the framework of other patriarchal biographies and looks at Tarasios and Ignatios the Deacon.

This volume is a brief survey of the possible source materials used by historians wanting to present a history of the Byzantine world during the 8th and 9th centuries. It also highlights some of the problems inherent in attempting to interpret such materials in a historical context.

The period of Byzantine iconoclasm remains in many ways a "Dark Age". In this volume, the author continues her re-examination of a key source for the time, the Life of Stephen the Younger, aiming to establish a solid methodology for reading a hagiographical text as a historical source.

This volume explores the letters of Theophylacht of Ochrid. It concentrates on the letters as examples of Byzantine literature and attempts to place an epistolary text in a succession of literary and historical contexts and makes an analysis of the personal networks of Theophylacht.

This work examines the themes of the constitution of the Church, from the 6th to the 12th century. They focus on discipline of the clergy and the question of divorce, as they were faced historically in the canon law of the principle Christian Churches.

An analytical account of the history of subsistence crises and epidemic diseases in Late Antiquity. Based on a catalogue of all such events in the East Roman/Byzantine empire between 284 and 750, it presents an account of the causes, effects and internal mechanisms of these crises.

Italy and the East Roman World in the Medieval Mediterranean addresses the understudied topic of the Italian peninsuläs relationship to the continuation of the Roman Empire in the east, across the early and central Middle Ages.

The contributors of this volume take the Memoirs of Slyvester Syropoulos, written by a Byzantine ecclesiastical official in the fifteenth century, as their starting point in reconstructing Mediterranean living conditions and artistic and commercial exchange in the late Middle Ages. Syropoulos's text.

Discussing the cult of the Theotokos (Virgin Mary) in Byzantium, this title focuses on textual and historical aspects of the subject. It re-examines the relationship between icons, relics and the Virgin, asking whether increasing devotion to these holy objects or figures was related in any way.