Byzantium

Judith Herrin, Winner of the 2016 Dr A.H. Heineken Prize, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences "The scope and shape of Herrin's survey of Byzantine history and culture are impressive. She moves from the foundation of Constantinople to its fall before the Turks in a series of twenty-eight short chapters. This allows the curious or impatient reader to sample, according to taste, such delectable topics as Greek fire, eunuchs, icons, and the Towers of Trebizond ... "--G.W. Bowersock, New York Review of Books "Offering a brilliant study of the history of the Byzantine empire, Herrin...draws [an] original portrait of a tradition-based yet dynamic empire that protected Christianity by checking the westward expansion of Islam. Drawing on letters, journals and other primary documents from both political figures and ordinary citizens, Herrin splendidly recreates an empire whose religious art, educational curriculum, tax and legal systems, and coronation rituals preserved the best of the empire's pre-Christian Greek past while at the same time passing along advances to the rest of the world. Herrin's history is hands-down the finest introduction to Byzantium and its continuing significance for world history."--Publishers Weekly "The book is comprehensive, but the paragraphs are never dense and the prose retains throughout a lively quality."--J.W. Nesbitt, Choice "The big, standard histories contain a wearying succession of emperors, patriarchs, battles, and sieges...At the other end of the scale there are lightweight travelogues, or books that pick out the juiciest moments (such as the final siege of 1453), leaving aside many things that are more important but less conducive to a good story. Judith Herrin has tried to find a middle ground between those two extremes, and has succeeded in a rather original way. Her book is a necklace of short chapters, each on a different topic, strung out in broadly chronological order. Some are devoted to places (Ravenna, Mount Athos and, of course, Constantinople itself); some are about people (Anna Comnena, Saints Cyril and Methodius, and the unforgettably named Basil the Bulgar-Slayer); and some are on general subjects, whether large (Greek Orthodoxy, the Byzantine economy, the Crusades) or small ('Greek Fire', and eunuchs)."--Noel Malcolm, The Daily Telegraph "Judith Herrin, a professor at King's College London, sets out to show that there are far better reasons to study and admire the civilisation that flourished for more than a millennium before the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, and whose legacy is still discernible all over south-east Europe and the Levant. She presents Byzantium as a vibrant, dynamic, cosmopolitan reality which somehow escaped the constraints of its official ideology."--The Economist "Others in recent years have made worthy efforts to interest us in the Byzantine achievement, but none has made it live in quite the way that Herrin does. She's been bold in foregrounding themes, concerned more with painting a panoramic picture of Byzantium's 'surprising life' than to establish a chronology--though the narrative's there to give the reader a sense of how it all progressed. Free from portentousness and pretentiousness, she doesn't insist on her subject's importance or relevance: the freshness and enthusiasm of her book is its real point. Not just an important work of scholarship but a delight to read, this study works a minor miracle in raising Byzantium, Lazarus-like, from its dusty grave."--Michael Kerrigan, The Scotsman "[A] remarkable new history...Herrin takes a fresh approach and focuses on manifold aspects of Byzantine culture, civilization, and religion. Herrin's scholarship is impeccable, yet she writes like the very best of travel writers. She paints vivid pictures of this prosperous and pious culture whose capital was a fortified city of sunlight glinting off the gilded church domes and spires,

Judith Herrin is professor of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies at King's College London. She is the author of Women in Purple: Rulers of Medieval Byzantium and The Formation of Christendom (both Princeton).

List of Illustrations ixList of Maps xiiIntroduction: A Different History of Byzantium xiiiPart I: Foundations of ByzantiumChapter 1: The City of Constantine 3Chapter 2: Constantinople, the Largest City in Christendom 12Chapter 3: The East Roman Empire 22Chapter 4: Greek Orthodoxy 33Chapter 5: The Church of Hagia Sophia 50Chapter 6: The Ravenna Mosaics 61Chapter 7: Roman Law 70Part II: The Transition from Ancient to MedievalChapter 8: The Bulwark Against Islam 83Chapter 9: Icons, a New Christian Art Form 98Chapter 10: Iconoclasm and Icon Veneration 105Chapter 11: A Literate and Articulate Society 119Chapter 12: Saints Cyril and Methodios,'Apostles to the Slavs' 131Part: III: Byzantium Becomes a Medieval StateChapter 13: Greek Fire 141Chapter 14: The Byzantine Economy 148Chapter 15: Eunuchs 160Chapter 16: The Imperial Court 170Chapter 17: Imperial Children,"Born in the Purple" 185Chapter 18: Mount Athos 192Chapter 19: Venice and the Fork 203Chapter 20: Basil II,"The Bulgar-Slayer" 212Chapter 21: Eleventh-Century Crisis 220Chapter 22: Anna Komnene 232Chapter 23: A Cosmopolitan Society 242Part IV: Varieties of ByzantiumChapter 24: The Fulcrum of the Crusades 255Chapter 25: The Towers of Trebizond, Arta, Nicaea and Thessalonike 266Chapter 26: Rebels and Patrons 281Chapter 27: "Better the Turkish Turban than the Papal Tiara" 299Chapter 28: The Siege of 1453 310Conclusion: The Greatness and Legacy of Byzantium 321Further Reading 339List of Emperors Named in the Text 354Chronology 357Maps 363Acknowledgements 375Index 377