This comprehensive volume offers new insights into a seminal period of medieval Eastern Roman imperial history: the rule of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos (913/945-959). Its fifteen chapters are organized around the concepts of center, province and periphery and take the reader from the splendor of Constantinople to the fringes of the empire. They examine life in the imperial city in the age of Constantine VII, the cultural revivals in Byzantium and the Carolingian West, as well as the emperor's historiographical projects, including his historical excerpts and the famous Book of Ceremonies. Entering the sphere of the provinces, the authors explore visual messages on the coinage of Romanos I Lekapenos and Constantine Porphyrogennetos and its circulation through the provinces, provincial legal culture in the tenth-century empire, and offer a new analysis of Constantine VII's two military harangues. Spotlights on the empire's periphery include chapters on borderland trade with the Muslim world, a compelling new theory of the untimely deaths of the children of King Hugh of Italy, and the origins of medieval Croatia in relation to information gained from Constantine VII's De administrando imperio. The ?nal chapter offers intriguing insights into Constantine VII's legacy and reception, from later middle Byzantine historiography via the Renaissance editions of the emperor's treatises to Bavarian King Louis II's Constantinople-inspired building projects. The volume combines leading scholars and new voices and contains survey chapters with detailed case studies.

This edition contains a wide variety of information on both foreign relations and internal administration and is one of the most important historical documents surviving from the Middle Byzantine period.

Throughout the history of Byzantium 65 emperors were dethroned and only 39 reigns ended peacefully. How might a usurper get away with murdering his predecessor? And how could a bloody act of regicide lead to one of the most glorious of all eras in Byzantium? These were questions that puzzled Michael Psellos as he looked back at Basil I’s assassination of Michael III and the origin of the Macedonian dynasty. Might the imperial art of Basil, his sons and grandson help to explain how the dynasty overcame its violent beginnings and secured the loyalty of its subjects? It has long been recognised that the early Macedonian emperors were active propagandists but royal art has usually been viewed thematically over the span of centuries. Official iconography has been understood to project imperial power in ways which were impersonal and unchanging. This book instead adopts a chronological approach and considers how Basil justified his seizure of power, and how his successors went on to articulate their own ideas about authority. It concludes that imperial art did at times reflect the personality of the emperor and the political demands of the moment, such as the need for an heir, the nature of court politics or the choice of successor. This innovative account of the forging of the Macedonian dynasty will appeal to those interested in how early medieval kings and emperors used art to create their own image, to differentiate themselves from rivals and to extend the boundaries of their personal power.

This book studies the research perspective in which the literary inhabitants of Late Antique and medieval Constantinople remembered its past and conceptualised its existence as a Greek city that was the political capital of a Christian Roman state. Initial reactions to Constantine’s foundation noted its novel Christian orientation, but the memorial mode of writing about the city that developed from the sixth century recollected the traditional civic cultural heritage that Constantinople claimed both as the New Rome, and as the continuation of ancient Byzantion. This research culture increasingly became the preserve of the imperial bureaucracy, and focused on the city’s sculptured monuments as bearers of eschatological meaning. Yet from the tenth century, writers progressively preferred to define the wonder and spectacle of Constantinople in the aesthetic mode of urban praise inherited from late antiquity, developing the notion of the city as a cosmic theatre of excellence.

Julian, the last pagan emperor of the Roman empire, died in war in 363. In the Byzantine (that is, the Eastern Roman) empire, the figure of Julian aroused conflicting reactions: antipathy towards his apostasy but also admiration for his accomplishments, particularly as an author writing in Greek. Julian died young, and his attempt to reinstate paganism was a failure, but, paradoxically, his brief and unsuccessful policy resonated for centuries. This book analyses Julian from the perspectives of Byzantine Culture. The history of his posthumous reputation reveals differences in cultural perspectives and it is most intriguing with regard to the Eastern Roman empire which survived for almost a millennium after the fall of the Western empire. Byzantine culture viewed Julian in multiple ways, first as the legitimate emperor of the enduring Roman empire; second as the author of works written in Greek and handed down for generations in the language that scholars, the Church, and the state administration all continued to use; and third as an open enemy of Christianity. Julian the Apostate in Byzantine Culture will appeal to both researchers and students of Byzantine perspectives on Julian, Greco-Roman Paganism, and the Later Roman Empire, as well as those interested in Byzantine Historiography.

Although often mentioned in textbooks about the Carolingian and Byzantine empires, the Treaty of Aachen has not received much close attention. This volume attempts not just to fill the gap, but to view the episode through both micro- and macro-lenses. Introductory chapters review the state of relations between Byzantium and the Frankish realm in the eighth and early ninth centuries, crises facing Byzantine emperors much closer to home, and the relevance of the Bulgarian problem to affairs on the Adriatic. Dalmatia’s coastal towns and the populations of the interior receive extensive attention, including the region’s ecclesiastical history and cultural affiliations. So do the local politics of Dalmatia, Venice and the Carolingian marches, and their interaction with the Byzantino-Frankish confrontation. The dynamics of the Franks’ relations with the Avars are analysed and, here too, the three-way play among the two empires and ‘in-between’ parties is a theme. Archaeological indications of the Franks’ presence are collated with what the literary sources reveal about local elites’ aspirations. The economic dimension to the Byzantino-Frankish competition for Venice is fully explored, a special feature of the volume being archaeological evidence for a resurgence of trade between the Upper Adriatic and the Eastern Mediterranean from the second half of the eighth century onwards.

This comparative study explores three key cultural and political spheres – the Latin west, Byzantium and the Islamic world from Central Asia to the Atlantic – roughly from the emergence of Islam to the fall of Constantinople. These spheres drew on a shared pool of late antique Mediterranean culture, philosophy and science, and they had monotheism and historical antecedents in common. Yet where exactly political and spiritual power lay, and how it was exercised, differed. This book focuses on power dynamics and resource-allocation among ruling elites; the legitimisation of power and property with the aid of religion; and on rulers' interactions with local elites and societies. Offering the reader route-maps towards navigating each sphere and grasping the fundamentals of its political culture, this set of parallel studies offers a timely and much needed framework for comparing the societies surrounding the medieval Mediterranean.