Module Information

The Byzantine world of scheming emperors, empresses and eunuchs, mad monks, ferocious generals and Greek fire is one of fascinating paradoxes. Heir to Classical Greek and ancient Roman civilisations, Christian in religion but eastern in outlook, its mysterious nature may explain why it tends to be ignored in early medieval history courses. And yet it played a significant role in shaping the post-Roman medieval world, serving as a crucial bulwark against the expansion of Islam into Europe, influencing forms of kingship and political ideology in the West and spreading Christianity and the Cyrillic alphabet throughout Slavic speaking eastern Europe. Monasteries, churches, mosaics and paintings form part of the rich cultural legacy it has bequeathed to Slavic and Greek Orthodox Christian countries today. This module will introduce students to the history of the Early to Middle Byzantine empire, examining textual and material evidence for its wars and political relations with the northern, Islamic, and western Christian worlds, bureaucratic and military infrastructure, political ideology, economy and Orthodox Christian religious culture.

LECTURES
1. The decline and fall of the East Roman empire and a modern historiography of Byzantium.
2. Islam rises and Byzantium survives, A.D. 641-718.
3. The Isaurian dynasty, iconoclasm and the empress Irene, A.D. 717-802.
4. Khan Krum, the second iconoclastic age and Michael III ‘the Drunkard’, A.D. 802-67.
5. The Rise of the Macedonian emperors, A.D. 867-913.
6. Emperor Constantine VII ‘the Purple-born’ and the soldier-emperors A.D. 913-76.
7. Byzantine renovatio: the conquests of Basil ‘the Bulgar Slayer’, A.D. 976-1025.
8. Emperors, empresses and imperial ideology.
9. Administering the empire.
10. The Byzantine army: fortifications, themes and Greek fire.
11. Settlement patterns and the economy.
12. Christianity (i) Church and State.
13. Christianity (ii) Byzantine monasticism.
14. Social life and cultural legacies.
15. The Byzantine commonwealth.
16. Byzantium and Islam.
17. Byzantium and the West.
18. Conclusion.

SEMINARS
1. Christian chronicles and iconoclasm.
2. The Macedonian dynasty through the eyes of Leo the Deacon and Michael Psellus.
3. The works of Constantine VII and Byzantine political ideology.
4. Orthodox Christianity: texts, art and archaeology.
5. Society and economy: texts, inscriptions, seals and coins.

By 641, the East Roman empire had been crippled by the devastating final great war of antiquity with the Sasanian Persian empire and its eastern provinces were being swallowed up by the armies of Islam. The growing might of the Arabian armies resulted in their annihilation of the Sasanian Persian empire and it seemed inevitable that the remnant of the East Roman empire would be next. But over the following centuries, this Christian, Greek-speaking state, centred on Asia Minor and the southern Balkans, survived and evolved into what is now known as the Byzantine empire. This module will introduce students to the early medieval history and the textual, material and artistic evidence on which modern Byzantinists rely. Students will be encouraged to question how the Byzantine state survived in spite of its territorial and economic inferiority to the Umayyad and Abbasid Islamic caliphates, how its relationship with western European groups such as the Carolingian Franks developed and how it exerted cultural and political influence throughout eastern continental Europe.

To introduce a Byzantine subject area within the Medieval and Early Modern degree scheme.

To introduce students to topics which they may want to explore in more detail in future modules.

To provide students with a good understanding of Byzantine history from the 7th to 11th c.

To make students aware of the political and cultural relationship between the Byzantine empire and the rest of medieval Europe.

To develop students’ familiarity with the relevant primary evidence and historiographical debates.