You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Analyses the ideological writings of a scholarly and unusual Byzantine emperor dedicated to distinctively Orthodox Christian principles.
The first major book to examine ancient Christian literature on hell through the lenses of gender and disability studies Throughout the Christian tradition, descriptions of hell’s fiery torments have shaped contemporary notions of the afterlife, divine justice, and physical suffering. But rarely do we consider the roots of such conceptions, which originate in a group of understudied ancient texts: the early Christian apocalypses. In this pioneering study, Meghan Henning illuminates how the bodies that populate hell in early Christian literature—largely those of women, enslaved persons, and individuals with disabilities—are punished after death in spaces that mirror real carceral spaces, effectually criminalizing those bodies on earth. Contextualizing the apocalypses alongside ancient medical texts, inscriptions, philosophy, and patristic writings, this book demonstrates the ways that Christian depictions of hell intensified and preserved ancient notions of gender and bodily normativity that continue to inform Christian identity.
A collection of essays from leading historians which explores the ways in which history was written in Europe and Asia between 400 and 1400.
Byzantine Military Rhetoric in the Ninth Century is the first English translation of the ninth-century Anonymi Byzantini Rhetorica Militaris. This influential text offers a valuable insight into the warrior ethic of the period, the role of religion in the justification of war, and the view of other military cultures by the Byzantine elite. It also played a crucial role in the compilation of the tenth-century Taktika and Constantine VII’s harangues during a period of intense military activity for the Byzantine Empire on its eastern borders. Including a detailed commentary and critical introduction to the author and the structure of the text, this book will appeal to all those interested in Byzantine political ideology and military history.
The Transactions of the Royal Historical Society publish an annual collection of major articles representing some of the best historical research by some of the world's most distinguished historians. The volume includes the following articles: Potential Address: Britain and Globalisation since 1850: I. Creating a Global Order, 1850-1914; Land, Freedom and the Making of the Medieval West; The Origins of the English Hospital (The Alexander Prize Essay); Trust and Distrust: A Suitable Theme for Historians?; Witchcraft and the Western Imagination; Africa and the Birth of the Modern World; The Break-Up of Britain? Scotland and the End of the Empire (The Prothero Lecture); Report of Council for 2005-2006.
The Bible is the foundational text for the Byzantine Empire. The papers of this volume explore its reception through appropriation, adaptation and interpretation as articulated in all aspects of Byzantine society. Several sessions at the ISBL held in Vienna, 6 to 10 July 2014 on 'The Reception of the Bible in Greco-Roman Tradition,' 'The Bible between Jews and Christians in Byzantium,' 'Biblical Scholarship in Byzantium,' and 'Biblical Foundations of Byzantine Identity and Culture' built the basis of this volume. Various angles shed light on the Byzantine experience of the Bible. The wide range of source materials that inform the contributions to this volume—from manuscripts and military handbooks to lead seals and pilgrim guides— allows insights into a vivid liturgical tradition, which shapes Orthodox Christianity up today. As a thoroughly Christianized society, the Bible had sunk deep into the cultural DNA of Byzantium. The volume shows the multitude of strategies for the engagement with the Biblical text and the manifold ways in which the Bible message was experienced, articulated and brought to life on a daily basis.
What do the mysterious Roman author Vegetius, the Byzantine emperor Leo VI, and the Chinese general Li Jing all have in common? They are three of the dozens of authors across the medieval Mediterranean world and beyond who wrote works of military literature, sometimes called military handbooks, manuals, or treatises. This book brings together a multidisciplinary international team of scholars who present cutting edge essays on diverse aspects of medieval military literature. While some chapters offer novel approaches to familiar authors like Vegetius, some present research on under-valued topics like Byzantine military illustrations, and others provide holistic studies on subjects like early modern treatises, they all move the discussion of medieval military literature forward. Contributors are Michael B. Charles, Georgios Chatzelis, Pierre Cosme, Maxime Emion, Immacolata Eramo, Michael Fulton, David Graff, John Haldon, Catherine Hof, John Hosler, Savvas Kyriakidis, Łukasz Różycki, Katharina Schoneveld, Georgios Theotokis, Conor Whately, Michael Whitby, and Nadya Williams.
This work represents the current and most relevant content on the studies of how Christianity has fared in the ancient home of its founder and birth. Much has been written about Christianity and how it has survived since its migration out of its homeland but this comprehensive reference work reassesses the geographic and demographic impact of the dramatic changes in this perennially combustible world region. The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Christianity in the Middle East also spans the historical, socio-political and contemporary settings of the region and importantly describes the interactions that Christianity has had with other major/minor religions in the region.
The late Byzantine period (thirteenth to fifteenth centuries) was marked by both cultural fecundity and political fragmentation, resulting in an astonishingly multifaceted literary output. This book addresses the poetry of the empire’s final quarter-millennium from a broad perspective, bringing together studies on texts originating in places from Crete to Constantinople and from court to school, treating topics from humanist antiquarianism to pious self-help, and written in styles from the vernacular to Homeric language. It thus offers a reference work to a much-neglected but rich textual material that is as varied as it was potent in the sociocultural contexts of its times. Contributors are Theodora Antonopoulou, Marina Bazzani, Julián Bértola, Martin Hinterberger, Krystina Kubina, Marc D. Lauxtermann, Florin Leonte, Ugo Mondini, Brendan Osswald, Giulia M. Paoletti, Cosimo Paravano, Daniil Pleshak, Alberto Ravani, and Federica Scognamiglio.
The Transactions of the Royal Historical Society publish an annual collection of major articles representing some of the best historical research by some of the world's most distinguished historians. The volume includes the following articles: Presidential address: England and the Continent in the Ninth Century, The Triumph of the Doctors: Medical Assistance to the Dying, c. 1570-1720, Marmoutier and its Serfs and the Eleventh Century, Housewives and Servants in Rural England 1440-1650, Putting the English Reformation on the Map, The Environmental History of the Russian Steppes: Vasilii Dokuchaev and the Harvest Failure of 1891, A 'Sinister and Retrogressive' Proposal: Irish Women's Opposition to the 1937 Draft Constitution