Journal articles on the topic 'Byzantine Empire in fiction'

This paper reviews three novels by different modern authors, all published in 2020 and applying to the realities of Ancient Rome. Marik Lerner’s science fiction novel “Practical Ufology” fits within the subliterary genre of “accidental travel”, and any background information from the Roman-Byzantine life is not very appropriate in the adventure text. The new novel “The Triumphant” by Olga Eliseeva, a professional historian, can be labeled as a form of the “science novel” genre, because it has numerous references and “anchors” that only an educated person is able to understand. The main canvas of O. Eliseeva’s novel is a synthesis of the personalities and actions of Julius Caesar and Constantine the Great, so the writer used the motif of the fantasy world, in which the Roman Republic and Rome are replaced by Latium and Eternal City with the Nazarenes (i.e., Christians) playing an important role in its future. The trilogy “Divine World” by Boris Tolchinsky, a professional politologist, is the most radical inversion of the reality with its own alternative history. The world of the Amorian Empire is a synthesis of the ancient Mediterranean and the ancient Egyptian civilizations. These texts can be considered as “imperial literature” tied to the post-Soviet realities and projects aimed to find a better future.

A Byzantinist specializing in the history of the Empire of Trebizond (1204–1461), the author presents four books of different genres written in English and devoted to the medieval state on the south coast of the Black Sea. The most spectacular of them is a novel by Rose Macaulay, Towers of Trebizond. Dąbrowska wonders whether it is adequate to the Trebizondian past or whether it is a projection of the writer. She compares Macaulay’s novel with William Butler Yeats’s poems on Byzantium which excited the imagination of readers but were not meant to draw their attention to the Byzantine past. This is, obviously, the privilege of literature. As a historian, Dąbrowska juxtaposes Macaulay’s narration with the historical novel by Nicolas J. Holmes, the travelogue written by Michael Pereira and the reports of the last British Consul in Trabzon, Vorley Harris. The author of the article draws the reader’s attention to the history of a rather unknown and exotic region. The Empire of Trebizond ceased to exist in 1461, conquered by Mehmed II. At the same time the Sultan’s army attacked Wallachia and got a bitter lesson from its ruler Vlad Dracula. But this Romanian hero is remembered not because of his prowess on the battlefield but due to his cruelty which dominated literary fiction and separated historical facts from narrative reality. The contemporary reader is impressed by the image of a dreadful vampire, Dracula. The same goes for Byzantium perceived through the magic stanzas by Yeats, who never visited Istanbul. Rose Macaulay went to Trabzon but her vision of Trebizond is very close to Yeats’s images of Byzantium. In her story imagination is stronger than historical reality and it is imagination that seduces the reader.

Few, if any, rulers in twelfth-century Christendom received as much attention by contemporary chroniclers as the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos I Komnenos (1183–85). Even though Andronikos ruled for less than three years, his rise to power, reign of terror, downfall and gruesome death at the hands of the lynch mob of Constantinople struck contemporaries. In contrast to medieval chroniclers, modern historians have shown little interest in this emperor. While some scholarly attention has been paid to the Greek sources in order to reconstruct the historical facts of Andronikos’s reign, there has been little focus on the Greek historians’ perceptions and representations of their ruler. As to the relatively large number of Latin accounts of Andronikos’s reign, these have been either completely disregarded by historians or dismissed as ‘full of imagined conversations and romantic fictions’ and therefore as being of limited value for the reconstruction of historical events. All these accounts, however, are important, among others, in giving great insight into how a harsh and oppressive rule was viewed in both Byzantium and the Latin world in the late twelfth and early thirteenth century. This article examines accusations of tyranny against Andronikos expressed uniformly across Byzantine, French, German–Austrian and English accounts, and explores their meaning and function. To gain a greater appreciation of their significance, these accusations against the Byzantine emperor are subsequently cast against the backdrop of charges of tyranny levelled against other Christian rulers in twelfth-century Christendom. Therefore, the significance of this article extends beyond Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire to the evolution of many other strands of political philosophy of rulership in medieval European history.1

Theoretically, the Byzantine Emperor was, just like in the times of the Roman Empire, chosen on the basis of his personal qualities and merits ? by the grace of God, of course. Practically, the factors which determined the ascension of a person to the throne were much more complex, the methods of gaining power being multifarious. In consequence, the political philosophy was confronted with the question of whether it is virtue (aret?) or origin (g?noz) that defines an Emperor. Independently of this rather theoretical question, however, and despite the claims that the personal qualities are decisive in the choice of the Emperor, the origin of the ruler played an important role in the consciousness of the Byzantines of all epochs. This is why great attention was paid to the creation of family trees, especially in the cases when the Emperor was of low origin (homo novus) or when it was for some reason necessary to strengthen his legitimacy. The choice of the genealogy was not random: since it carried a clear political message, it was of utmost importance with whom the Emperor in power would be associated and whose historical deeds or legendary personality would serve as a moral model. Also important is the fact that the search of a "good family" was as a rule triggered by the need to confirm one's own virtue. Thus, genealogies often reflect a certain system of values, usually emphasizing morality, courage in war, care for the welfare of the country, piety, etc. The choice of the archetype depended, of course, on the needs of the ruler for whom the genealogy was created. All this allows us to consider legendary genealogies as an expression of the imperial ideology. Notwithstanding their chronological diversity, the Byzantine imperial genealogies display very similar characteristics, i.e. they contain stereotypical elements, many of which had been established already in the first centuries of the Eastern Empire. In the early Byzantine period, when Christianity was still young, Emperors were frequently associated with pagan gods and semi gods, like Jupiter, Mars or Hercules. The Roman tradition of the eastern part of the Empire is also reflected in the fictive genealogies, so that the Emperors often chose Western Emperors or illustrious personalities and families of the Republican Era as their ancestors. The convention of establishing genealogical relations with the past rulers or their families (e.g. Claudius Gothicus, Trajan, the Flavii) served on one hand to create the impression of continuity and legitimacy, and on the other, to affirm the proclaimed system of values, since individual Roman Emperors had by that time become the prototypes of certain values (so Nerva stood for tranquility, Titus for philanthropy, Antoninus for high morality, Hadrian for justice and legality, Trajan for a successful military leader). In the same fashion, the creation of the family ties with persons from the Roman republican past, like the members of the family of the Scipios or Gnaeus Pompeius, was instrumental in the emphasizing of not only noble origin but also virtue. Interestingly enough, whereas the bonds with the Roman state are permanently evoked, the exempla from the Greek history play only a minor role in legendary genealogies (mostly Corinthians and Spartans, sometimes even mythical nations, like Homer's Pheacians). The central position of the Roman ideology is also reflected in the tendency to establish direct geographical connections between the origin of the ruler and either Rome itself or one of the Western provinces, so that the motif of migration is often found in the genealogies. On the other hand, Byzantine writers sometimes tended to boast with their knowledge of the history of the Ancient Orient, connecting famous personalities (like Artaxerxes) or dynasties (Achaemenids, Arsacids) with the Emperor whose genealogy they were composing. A special place in legendary genealogies is occupied by Constantine the Great. Almost as a rule, the genealogies postulate a kinship with him, often confirming it with the alleged physical resemblance. Depending on the purpose of the genealogy, certain purported features of Constantine's character were emphasized, so that he is alternately mentioned as a protector of the Christian faith, a triumphant military leader, or as a wise administrator of the Empire. Apart from that, the motifs of founding the new Capital and the migration of the Roman patrician families to Constantinople represent important topoi in this literary genre. The two most fascinating specimens of legendary genealogies in the Byzantine literature ? those of Basil I the Macedonian and Nikephoros III Botaneiates ? show that the choice of the elements of which the genealogy is composed (personality, family, dynasty) is at the same time a strong indication of the reason why it was composed in the first place. The genealogy of Basil the Macedonian was doubtlessly conceived by more than one person. It is quite certain that the idea to compose it originally came from Photios and was taken over by Basil's descendents ? his son Leo VI and his grandson Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos. The core of Basil's legendary genealogy is the story of his origin from the Parthian-Armenian dynasty of Arsacids (an indication of the Armenian origin of the founder of the Macedonian dynasty?). Constantine Porphyrogennetos elaborated this story further, describing in some detail the fate of Arsac's descendents, to whom Basil was allegedly related on his father's side, in the Byzantine Empire. This, of course, does not mean that he forgot to create connections between his grandfather and the standard legendary ancestors, like Constantine the Great (on Basil's mother's side) and Alexander the Great (the common ancestors of both Basil's parents). This apocryphal family tree certainly has its roots in the fact that the founder of the Macedonian dynasty was a parvenu of low origin, whose ascent to the throne was maculated by the murder of his predecessor and benefactor Michael III: apart from providing Basil with the noble origin, the genealogy was supposed to strengthen his right to the crown. One should keep in mind, though, that Basil's genealogy was written in the time of "Macedonian renaissance", so that its content is doubtlessly partly a product of the erudition of the compilers. In the course of time, legendary genealogies were enriched with new elements, stemming from the Byzantine history in the narrower sense of the word. The genealogy of Nikephoros III Botaneiates, compiled by Michael Attaleiates in the second half of the 11th century, is a good illustration to this. In contrast to Basil the Macedonian's genealogy, it is interwoven with real historical data, so that it cannot be called 'legendary' in its entirety. It would probably be more appropriate to call it a genealogy of both the Phokades and the Botaneiatai, since its core is made up of an invented story of the origin of the famous Byzantine family of Phokades, from which the family of Botaneiatai purportedly stems. The genealogy is clearly divided into three parts. In the first part, Attaleiates develops a theory according to which the Phokades are descendents of the Roman patrician families of Fabii and Scipios. The second part is devoted to the elaboration of the genealogical connection between the Phokades and the Botaneiatai, a tour deforce achieved by the claim that the latter are direct descendents of Nikephoros II Phokas, who is not only the central figure of this part in his capacity as an ancestor of Nikephoros III, but also as a model of a virtuous Emperor. Comparable to the habit of other writers to single out one or another characteristic trait of Constantine the Great according to their needs, Attaleiates concentrates on Nikephoros Phokas' military qualities, which are similar to those possessed by his "descendent" Botaneiates, and emphasizes the physical resemblance between the two rulers. In all likelihood, the part on the genealogy of the Phokades, as well as the story of Nikephoros Phokas, were taken over from an earlier tradition dealing with this renowned family, which Attaleiates implicitly mentions when he says that he had used 'an old book' and some other writings. As indicated above, the last, third, part of the genealogy, devoted to the deeds of Nikephoros Botaneiates' father and grandfather, does not fit the narrow definition of a legendary genealogy, despite the exaggerations Attaleiates uses in order to satisfy the demands of the genre. The description of Nikephoros Botaneiates' family tree represents merely an excursus within Attaleiates' History, but its composition has nevertheless an internal coherence and logic. Namely, all parts of the genealogy (the histories of the Fabii/Scipios, Phokades, and Botaneiatai) have one characteristic in common: the stories of the military deeds of the members of these families are used as an illustration of the military virtues of Nikephoros III. Since the hidden intention of the panegyric for Nikephoros III Botaneiates is to justify his usurpation of the throne, it is clear that a genealogy in this form ? especially the section pertaining to Nikephoros Phokas and his kinship with the usurper's father and grandfather ? represents a good basis for a legalistic interpretation of the coup d'?tat of 1078. The permeation of legendary genealogies with the Byzantine history is not confined only to individual Emperors which, like Nikephoros II Phokas, get assigned the role of the ancestor and moral model: some aristocratic families, most often the Phokades and the Doukai, also became moral exempla, serving to prove the reputation and the nobility of the ruler. As in the case of the Phokades, there is also a legendary tradition surrounding the family of Doukai, which made them a kind of model family: Being related to them became a measure of nobility, since it allowed the less prominent families to occupy a more distinguished place on the hierarchy of the Byzantine nobility. The prominence certain family names achieved ? mostly those of the families which created a dynasty ? led from the beginning of the 12th century until the fall of the Empire to free adoption and combination of more different surnames (mostly Doukai, Komnenoi, Angeloi, Palaiologoi, Kantakouzenoi, etc.). This, in turn, led to the creation of fictitious family trees. This kind of apocryphal construction of one's own origin was characteristic not only of the Byzantine culture but rather represented a very common phenomenon in the medieval world. In the medieval Serbia, for instance, its dissemination was fostered by the translation of the writings of the Byzantine chroniclers (Georgios Monachos, John Malalas, Constantine Manasses, and John Zonaras), so that legendary genealogies, written according to the Byzantine pattern, became an expression of the wish to include one's own history into the flow of the world history. Finally, a note on the reception of this genealogical line of thought. Parallel to the fictitious genealogies, there also existed a consciousness about them: Just like the development and the functional load of genealogies reveals a lot about the attitudes of the Byzantines towards power, so do the Byzantine writers who often criticize and ridicule the genealogies of individual Emperors. .

By the middle of the eighth century, a new genre of Christian writing had developed among those Christians living within the Islamic empire, that of apologetics intended to defend Christianity against attacks from Muslims. Although the Islamic empire had come into existence a century earlier, a series of changes took place in the mid eighth century, including the rise of the Abbasid caliphal dynasty and the stabilization of the empires border with Byzantium, which led to more stable internal politics. In this new atmosphere, Christian authors began to consider, for the first time, the theological ramifications of an empire that was ruled by Muslims, but which still had a majority Christian population. The purpose of this essay is to enter into the ongoing scholarly discourse surrounding the genre of Christian apologetics produced under Islam in the eighth and ninth centuries. There are two competing perspectives on studying these works. One argues for them as historical sources authentically representing an ongoing dialogue between Christians and Muslims during a period commonly known as the Golden Age of Islam. The other argues that these texts are literary creations; at its most extreme, this school of thought asserts that these texts are purely fictional, creating a world of Christian rhetorical superiority in the face of mass conversion from Christianity to Islam.

This article examines the motives of the earliest Muslim attacks on the Byzantine Empire in the seventh and eighth centuries by examining the earliest Christian (Byzantine) and Muslim sources that describe these attacks. The article assesses the strengths of these accounts and culls from them the possible religious motivations behind the first Muslim attacks on the Byzantine Empire. One question particularly addressed is the goal of the Muslim attacks: to bring down the Byzantine Empire entirely, or merely to wrest from it Palestine and the surrounding territories that were of significance to the Muslim invaders. In either case, Whealey argues that the motives were religious in nature.

After 1204, the Byzantine Empire lost control over the Eastern Mediterranean. The restoration of the Empire in 1261, however, did not recover its sea dominance. The Latins, especially the Venetians and the Genoese, who had possessions in the Aegean and the Black Seas and conducted active maritime trade there, established themselves in the region. The importance of sea routes for Byzantium increased dramatically given the territorial dispersion of the Byzantine possessions, the high activity of Europeans in the region, and the growing threat of an Ottoman conquest. This article analyses the specifics of Byzantine sea communications and their role in the fate of the Empire during the period of geopolitical changes between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Based on written sources, the author examines the condition of the Byzantine fleet, the role of foreigners in ensuring movement within and outside the Empire, and the meaning of the sea communication during the Ottoman sieges of Byzantine cities. The author reveals that the Empire could not provide stable and regular sea contacts between separate parts of its territories and external relations with the West on its own. The decline of the fleet and the lack of material resources forced the Byzantines to use foreign ships as means of transportation. The Italians, especially the Venetians, provided transport to the Byzantine emperors and diplomats who made official trips to the West, transported people and goods within the region, and provided food for the inhabitants of besieged cities. It is concluded that the transport dependence of Byzantium on the Italian maritime republics testified to its economic and political weakness. The loss of control over the sea routes in the Eastern Mediterranean and the degradation of its own transport system contributed to the decline and fall of Byzantium in 1453.

In April 1204, the army of the Fourth Crusade captured Constantinople. For the leading princes, it was self-evident that they would install an imperator of their own in the Queen of Cities. Their choice fell on Baldwin IX/VI, count of Flanders/Hainault. In this contribution, we aim to analyse how Baldwin and his successors saw their emperorship, and how they and their empire were seen by others in Byzantium and the West. The current historiographical term, ‘Latin Empire of Constantinople’, reflects the prevailing view that an entirely new political construct had been set up replacing the former Byzantine Empire. However, contemporaries, both the emperors themselves as well as outsiders, consistently referred to the empire using both Latin and Greek terms that, prior to 1204, had been commonly employed to refer to the Byzantine Empire. Yet eastern and western conceptions of the nature of the empire before 1204 differed greatly: it was ‘Greek’ in Latin eyes, ‘Roman’ in Byzantine eyes. The Constantinopolitan imperial crown having been placed on his head, Baldwin became heir to these conflicting traditions. Moreover, rival imperial claims soon arose within the Byzantine space in neighbouring Byzantine successor states. In the face of these challenges, the Latin emperors strove to formulate a political ideology legitimising their claim to imperial rule. We will argue that in essence the successive Latin emperors adopted, up to a point, the key tenets of Byzantine imperial theory (Roman character, universalism, emperors as vicars of Christ and autocracy). Their western background and their different relationship with the West led to certain changes, but whether these should be seen as fundamentally un-Byzantine is not self-evident. Conversely, the presence of the now Latin rulers on the Constantinopolitan throne also led to changes in the western perception of the eastern empire.

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the status afforded old age in the Byzantine Empire. Frequently neglected in accounts of state formation or comparative history, this Christian imperial state transformed the moral ordering of the lifecourse. In contrast to both classical Greek and Roman society, old age acquired a distinct moral authority in Byzantine society. This status was not confined to a few members of the elite as in Sparta or Rome. The economic vulnerability, physical frailty and social marginality accompanying old age conferred an equal moral claim upon society that the state actively addressed. A mix of institutionalised and individual charities created a prototype ‘welfare state’ within which provision for old age played a significant part. Despite its neglect by most social historians of old age, the Byzantine Empire is of considerable historical significance in the development of the contemporary constructions of old age. Just as the Byzantine Empire helped erode the practice of slavery that had been widespread in the ancient Greek and Roman societies, so too did it help to create a prototype welfare state in which individual enterprise was tempered by a collective sense of inclusive Christian responsibility. The consideration extended by Byzantine society, to old age, to its weakness as well as to its wisdom and authority, instituted a step change from earlier classical traditions.

Abstract For the Byzantine Empire, at the end of the first quarter of the 11thcentury, a new period starts, which in the historiography opinion is generalized as the period of the rule of bureaucratic aristocracy of the capital city. This covers the period 1025-1081, which was characterized by disintegration in the state system and failures in the field of internal and foreign politics. The political crisis at its beginning did not appear clearly, because bureaucratic aristocracy came to power following the thriving period that Byzantine Empire had experienced until then, known as the golden age of the empire. After a calm developmental beginning, the period commenced to be characterized by some developments of decentralizing character. Heirs of the then Byzantine Emperor, Basil II. could not resist enough the separatist movements of feudal and military leaders. Despite these trends towards weakening and separatism, Empire reached that thanks to Komnena dynasty to successfully withstand the challenges that were created by Seljuk Turks and Norman Crusaders. It partially reclaimed its former reputation to continue with the political existence for some more centuries. In these developments, the Byzantine Emperors were supported or often were objected by the non-Byzantine feudal elements that in various cases came from Albania, Bulgaria, Rasha and Zeta.

AbstractEros’s conniving nature in conjunction with his sadistic temperament is the single most important attribute of his character—indeed, it remains intact after some 800 years of iconographic and literary evolution. In medieval Byzantium Eros emerges as a formidable sovereign, toying with his subjects’ desires as he asserts his cosmic dominion from the grounds of his utopian castle. This remarkable transformation reveals a rich discourse on the merits of sovereignty—a discourse that raises significant questions about the dynamics of Byzantine imperial commissions and the paradoxical role of court intellectuals as sovereign propagandists and political critics. In linking the role of Byzantine intellectuals in the aftermath of political upheaval to the figurations of sovereignty showcased in Byzantine fiction, the author reveals an ambitious interplay of literary and political interests that calls into question the view of Byzantine intellectuals as dutiful followers of powerful patrons.

The term Byzantium or Byzantine Empire is used for a state creation that existed from the 4th to the 15th century, more precisely until 1453 and the fall of Constantinople due to the Ottoman conquests. Regardless of what historical discussions and opinions otherwise differ regarding the origin of Byzantium, in this scholarly work May 11th, 330 AD, was taken as the beginning of the Byzantine Empire, the date when New Rome came into existence (Greek NέaῬώme, Lat. Nova Roma) at the site of the Byzantine Greek colony. The paper will analyze the influence of Byzantine law on the further development of the law in the world, as well as the temporal continuity and development of Byzantine law that relies on Roman law. In addition, through a comparison of the Byzantine Code Members and later Dusan's Code, the theory of legal transplants developed by Alan Watson will be analyzed.

It is shown that the history of medicine in the Byzantine Empire is characterized by almost complete stagnation of development throughout the entire thousand years of the empire, for which characteristic was the domination of religious and magical practices represented as astrology, magic, occultism, neoplatonism over scientific ones, extremely low levels of education and training of doctors. The article points out that one of the leading causes of stagnation of the development of medical science in the Byzantine Empire was the formation of the civil church, which was completely controlled, both in administrative and doctrinal terms, by imperial government, which led to the secularization of the church and its transformation in a great feudal lord; to introduction of pagan beliefs and provisions to the church; to formation and prosperity of superstitions and rituals characteristic of paganism. It is shown that the state subjugating church lost its necessary spiritual foundation (without which it is impossible to build a healthy and prosperous society) resulting in the formation of extremely backward socio-economic situation of Byzantium, with long persistence of slave relations, pervasive embezzlement, huge bureaucracy, corrupt executive system, sharp stratification of society, low level of science in general and medicine in particular.

Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies was launched in the middle of a decade that saw many landmark events in Byzantine scholarship. I remember them well, because this was the decade when I became a Byzantinist, and attended my first two international congresses of Byzantine Studies, the 14th in Ceauşescu's Bucharest (1971), and the 15th, in post-Junta Athens (1976). Apart from the acts of these congresses, the 1970s produced many memorable publications that shaped our field. It would take too long to list them all, and it would be invidious to make, and justify, a small selection. I have chosen to focus my retrospective look on one small monograph of 1975 that makes a comprehensive statement about Byzantium and is therefore a representative illustration of where Byzantine studies were forty years ago and how far they have come, or not come, since then. My book of the decade is L’idéologie politique de l’Empire byzantin by Hélène Ahrweiler (Paris 1975).

Modern historians have long argued that the early medieval Franks thought themselves to be the chosen people or new Israel, especially as they gained a great empire under the Carolingian dynasty in the late eighth century. TheOpus Caroliof Bishop Theodulf of Orléans has often been cited as one of the clearest expressions of this self-conception as God's elect. A massive work attacking the legitimacy of the Byzantine empire in the context of the iconoclasm dispute during the early 790s, it does indeed contest the Byzantine claim to be the Christian empire. But Theodulf's repeated statement that ‘We are the spiritual Israel’ is best understood not as an assertion of ethnic election, but as a reference to the Christian tradition of Scripture exegesis which should (he argues) underpin both the Frankish and the Byzantine understanding of images. The Carolingian claim to empire rested on the Frankish championing of the universal Church, and its traditions of orthodoxy and correct biblical interpretation.

Introduction. The paper deals with a byzantine lead seal of Constantine, notarios and abydikos, which originated from the vicinity of the medieval fortress of Rusokastro, southeastern Bulgaria. Methods. A part of byzantine lead seals are a primary source of information regarding both the commercial and economic activity in the Byzantine Empire and the administrative structures and mechanisms for its control and management, in particular for the period of the 8th – 9 th centuries. Therefore, the appearance of any such new scrambling monument is of great importance and the information derived from it should be carefully analyzed and appropriately taken into account in any reconstruction of the picture of the socio-economic life of the Empire and its contacts with its neighbors, including the medieval Bulgaria. Analysis. The seal dates from the second half of the 8th – the first half of the 9th cc. A cross-shaped invocative monogram is depicted on its obverse, while there is an inscription in four lines placed in a partly preserved circle on the reverse. The whole text of the monogram and the legend is as follows: “+ Κύριε βοήθει τῷ σῷ δούλω Κωνσταντίνω νοταρίου καὶ ἀβυδηκοῦ +”. The article also focuses on retrieving possible information from the Byzantine lead seal published in it. Results. The Byzantine lead seal published here is a material proof related to the picture of the commercial and economic life in the area of the Byzantine Empire near the medieval Bulgarian state and its administration by the Byzantine provincial authorities. Finding it in the territory that for the most of this period was a part of the First Bulgarian Empire suggests that Constantine’s seal is undoubtedly a testimony of the nature of peacetime contacts between Byzantium and Bulgaria at that time.

"Constantine the Great considered himself the representative of God on earth, but also the fact that through his mind is transmitted “divine intelligence.” This conception about the emperor manifested itself throughout the existence of the Byzantine Empire. The emperors who followed Constantine the Great intervened in problems that arose within the Church. Some of them supported it, and others who shared the heresies that appeared during this period, persecuted the important representatives of the Church who tried to defend the purity of Christianity. Within the Byzantine Empire, numerous transformations will now take place in all fields, and these transformations will lay the foundations on which the Byzantine state developed. "

This article discusses the historical and geographical characteristics of medieval Bosnia, its area and position presented in the perception of Byzantine and post-Byzantine sources. It is characteristic that all these sources, regardless of whether they originated in the 10th, 12th, or 15th century or in the centuries after the collapse of the Byzantine Empire offered testimony of the territory of Bosnia. The presentations are sometimes a bit distorted and unrealistic, and their names are based on ancient standards. Data provided by the source material speaking of the appearance of Bosnia and medieval towns in its territory, were named differently in Byzantine sources.

During the first half of the 13th century both Byzantine Empire and the image of its ideal ruler had to undergo a transformation. By applying mostly the narratological analysis to the parenetic texts written in the two successor states of the Empire, the paper sheds light on the dynamic ?negotiations? within the Roman elites of the place that the Emperor should have inside the symbolic order, and suggests a possible model of approach to other Byzantine texts and periods.

The article describes the application of Byzantine law in the region of Bessarabia which formed part of the Russian Empire from the early 19th century until 1917. The empire allowed the local population to apply their local laws for the regulation of their civil law relations. Due to historical reasons, these local laws were identified with the law of the Byzantine Empire which had already disappeared in 1453. The authors of the article provide a general description of the sources of Bessarabian law and then turn to case study research regarding the jurisprudence of courts on the issues of the Law of Succession in Bessarabia. They demonstrate that in interpreting the provisions of the law applicable, Russian lawyers often referred to Roman law as a doctrinal background of Byzantine law. Furthermore, they did not hesitate to identify Roman law with Pandect law. Even though the doctrine of the Law of Pandects had been created in Germany on the basis of Roman law texts, it was far from the content of the original law of the Ancient Roman Empire. The fate of the practical application of Byzantine law in Bessarabia reflects some general problems of the ‘legal transplants’ in the history of law and therefore provides additional materials for the theoretical study of the issues of ‘legal transfer’ in history and nowadays.

The four Byzantine historians of 'the Fall' of the Byzantine Empire, Doucas Chalcocondyles, Sphrantzes and Critobulos, as well as the Byzantine short chronicles, bring many news concerning Serbian history of the first half of the XV century. Although almost all of them refer to the Serbian political history of the period, they also imply that Serbia was a state, having its own territory, ethnicity, government, diplomacy, army and economic resources.

The Ottomans were descended from one of the many clans of Turkish nomads who swept westwards from the steppes of Central Asia and decisively defeated the enfeebled Byzantine Empire at the battle of Manzikert in 1071. The tribesmen converted to Islam and then slowly expanded their grip on Byzantine territory in Anatolia.

Adrianoupolis, or with its current name Edime, was one of the most important cities of Thrace during the ancient era. Located in Eastern Thrace, in the area of the intersection of Hebrus River (Evros in Modern Greek, Meri9 in Modern Turkish and Maritsa in Slavic languages), Arda and Tunca rivers, Adrianoupolis, during the Roman era, was located on the heart of BelgradeSofia- Constantinople military road and maintained close connections with the nearby - 250 km far away - Byzantine capital. The city, during the ancient times was referred to by the names of Uskudama, Orestiada or Orestian respectively. (Samothrakis 1963: 15) Included in the Roman Empire borders in AD 46-47, the city was re-established by Roman Emperor Hadrian in AD 127 and given its new name after its founder: Hadrianopolis or Adrianoupolis.

At the moment when, in October 1341, a new Civil War broke out in the Byzantium after the death of Andronicus III, the traditional views of the imperial power and the Empire underwent considerable changes. The powers of the co-rulers had been on the rise since 1272, and during the Civil War of 1321-1328 the Byzantine Empire was in effect divided, that is, two Basileis were ruling 'imperially' (autokratorik?s) over their respective territories within the formally unified Empire, under the scope of relations of Superior basileus - co-basileus. Therefore, the Empire (autokratoria, imperium) could multiply in the sense of rulers? authorities, and be divided in the sense of territoriality. The imperial power and the Empire became subject to family relations and family law. In view of the family connections between the Byzantine Emperors (basileis autokratores) and the monarchs of the neighboring countries and nations, the right to succession was being used as an argument in some disputes between the rulers. The Byzantine law, that is the Byzantine political views, allowed for the possibility of the so-called 'joint rule' (e oikeia arch) by a Byzantine basileus autokrator and some other, foreign member of the dynasty ruling over certain region of the Byzantine Empire - a foreign ruler would be allowed to rule on condition that the Byzantine basileus be recognized as the supreme master. This scenario is known from one recorded dispute between the Byzantine basileus Andronicus III and the Bulgarian tsar Michael Assen III dating from 1328, when the Bulgarian Emperor did not accept the Byzantine rule, however. All these circumstances are of special importance since they directly precede the King Stefan Dusan?s involvement in the Civil War, that is, his later entering into the Empire. The first phase of Dusan?s involvement in the Civil War is typically conquering and opportunistic in nature, with the aim of immediate territorial enlargement. The second phase was initiated with the agreement he signed with Kantakouzenos in August 1342, the details of which are now not clear, but it is to be supposed that the agreement envisaged the division of power in the Byzantine regions that Du{an would conquer for Kantakouzenos, that is Dusan?s participation in power in some form of the atypical co-ruling, that is, some form of the 'joint rule'. In August 1343, after previously having parted ways with Kantakouzenos, Du{an accepted the offer by the regents from Constantinople to form an alliance with the legitimate dynasty of Palaiologoi. The agreement included the engagement of Dusan?s son Uros to the sister of the Byzantine Emperor John V, and also probably a kind of the 'Charter of Rule' over the lands west from the gorges near Christopolis, that is, over the areas that Dusan had already conquered in part as Kantakouzenos? ally. The important issue for the forming of the alliance with the regents was, on one hand, the position of Kantakouzenos as the rebel against the imperial power and his previous excommunication from the Church, and, on the other, the legitimacy of the Palaiologoi dynasty and the fact that the regents ruled over Constantinople. It is possible that this agreement was also signed with the idea of some sort of 'joint rule'. However, there is no information to confirm that Du{an considered the Palaeologus his master. After having signed the agreement, which meant the legitimization of his rule over one part of the Romaian Empire by the legitimate and ruling dynasty Dusan changed his views of the statehood. That is evident from the change of his royal title, used after August 1343, when signing decrees and other documents, which, besides the traditional 'Serbian and maritime lands' included in different forms 'the Greek lands', that is, 'the Greeks', and sometimes even 'the Bulgarian lands', that is, 'the Bulgarians'. It is interesting to note his title autokrat?r R?mai?n (inscription on the Church near Polosko), that is, imperator Romaiorum (inscription on one kind of currency). This title shows that Du{an considered himself the ruler of Rhomaioi; however, he soon gave it up and started using the term Romania, for which he could have hoped to be more ideologically acceptable on the conquered territories as well as to his allies in Constantinople. King Du{an used different titles to refer to his rule over the Greek lands and the Greeks - gospodin (master), cestnik (participant), samodrzac (=autokrator) autokrator, imperator, dominus - all of which, nonetheless, meant one and the same essential thing. Morphologically speaking, the term cestnik (participant, lat. particeps) invoked the idea of co-ruling over the part of Empire. In the Mount Athos Charter from November 1345, King Du{an accepted that during the church liturgies in the Mount Athos region and the neighborhood the name of the Basileus of Rhomaioi to be mentioned before his own. This document shows that King Dusan accepted the hierarchical supremacy of the Emperor from Constantinople, but based on the principle primus inter pares. Little is known about the details of the alliance between Du{an and the regents in the period from August 1343 through the victory of Kantakouzenos in February 1347. The contemporary Byzantine historiography offers in certain way one-sided views of the events. Gregoras and Kantakouzenos were partial neither to the regents nor to Du{an but to Kantakouzenos himself; besides, there was no historiographer partial to the regents at all, and subsequently, Dusan?s portrayal in the Byzantine historiography was one-sided, and for the most part negative. Concerning the relations between Du{an and the regents, the period of greatest importance is from the death of the most important regents? ally, Apokaukos, in June 1345 through the victory of Kantakouzenos in February 1347, which remains almost entirely unknown. After having conquered Serres in September 1345, Dusan?s army was camped in the vicinity of Thessaloniki. In February 1346 he requested a fleet from Venice so he could conquer Constantinople, and in the first half of the year 1346 he managed to conquer Berroia. Du{an proclaimed himself a basileus and autokrator of Serbia and Romania (by many contemporaries the act was understood as a proclamation for a Byzantine Emperor in the first instance) at the end of 1345 or beginning of 1346, and he was crowned by the previously ordained Serbian patriarch, and until then archbishop, Joanikije, and the Bulgarian patriarch Simeon. The engagement between Dusan?s son and John?s sister did not result in marriage, for the reasons we can only speculate on. It was probably broken off before April 1346, because in Du{an?s Charter for Zografou of that date, while referring to the Emperor John Palaiologos there was no mention of the appropriate terms reflecting the actual kinship, if there had been any. Likewise, the lack of the term 'dearest' next to the title and name of the Emperor of Rhomaioi, in comparison to the way the name of the Emperor of Bulgarians was mentioned suggests that the relations between Du{an and Constantinople were not that close in the time of his coronation. It remains unknown what the views of the regency and the Patriarchy of Constantinople were towards Dusan?s proclaiming himself an Emperor and the creation of the Patriarchy, as well as the coronation. The Patriarchy of Constantinople reacted only a few years later but not before mid 1351 and not later of the autumn of 1352, when the Patriarch Kallistos excommunicated Du{an and the Serbian Church. On the other hand, the first Kantakouzenos? coronation, in Adrianople in May 1346, could be considered a reaction to Dusan?s coronation. However, at the time of the issuance of the Code, in 1349, Du{an emphasized that he also had the blessing of 'the Greek throne' for his coronation. It is most probable that the reference in the said document meant the Archbishop of Ohrid, in a rather unusual way, and not the Patriarch of Constantinople. Supposition based on the common views on the Byzantine politics, from which it could be deduced that it would be impossible for the official Constantinople to make a deal with Du{an over the imperial title, is of little value in the time of the Civil War, where there were a lot of precedents, as we are well aware of. For completeness sake, it should be noted that even before and at the time of deposition and excommunication of the then Patriarch John, one of the regents (deposed in February 1347), there had been accusations about his 'illegal actions against the Empire and the Church.' In the context of the Civil War between the regents and Kantakouzenos, these generally mentioned accusations could also refer to his relations with Du{an, as the major foreign ally of the regents. Since his imperial coronation, Du{an signed his prostagmata with menologema, which had been the exclusive right of the Emperor of Rhomaioi and the crowned co-ruler, the junior basileus autokrator. This could be interpreted as the sign of Du- {an?s highest pretentions - namely, gaining the throne of the Emperor of Rhomaioi, but it could also be interpreted as the expression of his specific position of the co-Emperor (Emperor of Romania) that is some kind of the co-ruler with the Emperor from Constantinople (Emperor of Rhomaioi). It remains unclear whether the usage of the menologema was a willful act, and thus usurpation of power, or if there had been some kind of an agreement over this with the regents. On his way to the Empire, Du{an had probably been inspired by the Bulgarian example of the co-existence of yet another Empire besides the Byzantium. However, the change of the title of the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Alexander at that time, that is, the appearance of 'the Greek' component in it, taken together with Dusan?s title and what is known about the character of his Empire, seems to indicate that the both monarchs actually ruled over the empires that were the combination of co-existing and co-ruling models, that is, that the both of them were local and 'Byzantine' emperors at the same time. At the time of Dusan?s coronation, there had been a dominant opinion about the spiritual and political kinship of the rulers, that is, about the family of emperors. In that, ideal sense, Du{an and Ivan Alexander were brothers of Andronicus III that is, of Anna Palaiologos, and uncles to John Palaiologos. The actual kinship, when there had been such, was cited besides the ideal one, with the appropriate terms of family relations. Dusan?s entering into the Empire begun in the legitimate spirit, through the agreement with the Palaiologos dynasty. Later steps - proclaiming himself a basileus, creation of the Patriarchy and the actual coronation - were disputed, if not earlier, then most certainly after Kantakouzenos came to power. The genealogical tree from the fresco in the Monastery church near Matejich, created after 1347, although illegible in the most part, shows certain disputable components - it shows the kinship with the Emperor Isaac Comnenos, and through it the right of the Nemanjic dynasty to the Byzantine Imperial Crown to precede the right of the Palaiologos and Kantakouzenos families.

This paper presents an overview of the extent to which the Byzantine Empire preserved the engineering traditions of the ancient world, passed them on to Islam and back to the West, and modified them to meet its own requirements. After about A.D. 600, expensive works of civil engineering became rare, but machines for military and agricultural purposes remained in constant and even increasing use, while fine technology saw some revival.

The defence of Late Byzantine (fourteenth–fifteenth centuries) frontier zones frequently became the responsibility of military elites, borderlords, who enjoyed absolute power in these areas and immunity from any fiscal or other obligation towards the Byzantine state. In this article I present the case studies of two borderlord families: the brothers and military officials Alexios and John, and the Genoese family of the Gattilusi, who ruled large areas around the Northern Aegean in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and participated actively in their defence at a time when they were surrounded by enemies and plagued by piracy. The aim of the article is twofold. First, I consider the borderlords’ building activities, modes of self-representation and the creation of new geographies as strategies for establishing control and legitimising their power. Second, I explore how the rise of these borderlords fits with Byzantine imperial policies and corresponds to changes in the character of Late Byzantine imperial authority and the role of the Byzantine emperor within and beyond the empire. Over the course of this article I hope to highlight the complexity of the political and economic situation in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and contribute to an understanding of modes of Late Byzantine government and power that move beyond simplistic frameworks of decline and fall.

THE idea of papal sovereignty was foreign to the Byzantines. They had trouble enough trying to understand the Western interpretation of papal primacy. Papal ‘sovereignty’ was beyond them, unintelligible, unreasonable, and unhistorical. It is true that the East Roman Christians, whom for convenience we call Byzantines, did not all live in one generation. Their cultural and political roots were in Constantinople, the ancient Byzantium; and their empire endured in one form or another for 1,100 years, from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries. In so long a span their ideas naturally evolved and changed, as did their society. But their concept of the order of the Christian world remained stable. It was based upon the formula devised by the first Christian historian, Eusebius of Caesarea, in the fourth century. The formula was an amalgam of pre-Christian, Hellenistic notions of monarchy, with Old and New Testament elements. The Christian Roman Emperor was the elect of God and, as God’s vice-gerent on earth, he ruled over what was the terrestrial reflection, albeit a poor copy, of the Kingdom of Heaven. His patriarchs or supreme bishops of the Christian Empire, especially the Patriarch of Constantinople, his capital city, were the spiritual heads of the Christian world, acting in harmony with him. Church and State were therefore one, indissoluble and interdependent.