DOCSLIB.ORG

217424991-Byzantium-In-The-Year-1000-Edited-By-Paul-Magdalino.Pdf

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
217424991-Byzantium-In-The-Year-1000-Edited-By-Paul-Magdalino.Pdf BYZANTIUM IN THE YEAR 1000 THE MEDIEVAL MEDITERRANEAN PEOPLES, ECONOMIES AND CULTURES, 400-1500 EDITORS Hugh Kennedy (St. Andrews) Paul Magdalino (St. Andrews) David Abulafia (Cambridge) Benjamin Arbel (Tel Aviv) Mark Meyerson (Toronto) Larry J. Simon (Western Michigan University) VOLUME 45 BYZANTIUM IN THE YEAR 1000 EDITED BY PAUL MAGDALINO BRILL LEIDEN • BOSTON 2003 Cover illustration: Basil II Bulgaroctonus, miniature (Cod. Marc. Gr. Z. 17 (=421) f. IIIr, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana Venezia) This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Byzantium in the year 1000 / edited by Paul Magdalino. p. cm. (The Medieval Mediterranean, ISSN 0928 5520 ; v. 45) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 9004120971 (hbk.) 1. Byzantine Empire History Basil II Bulgaroctonus, 976 1025. I. Title: Byzantium in the year one thousand. II. Magdalino, Paul. III. Series. DF595 .B97 2002 949.5'02 dc21 2002034276 Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme Byzantium in the year 1000 / ed. by Paul Magdalino. -- Leiden ; Boston: Brill 2003 (The Medieval Mediterranean ; Vol 45) ISBN 90-04-12097-1 ISSN 0928–5520 ISBN 90 04 12097 1 © Copyright 2003 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands To the memory of Nikos Oikonomides and Lenos Mavromatis This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS Preface ........................................................................................ ix Abbreviations .............................................................................. xvii List of Contributors .................................................................... xix Marriages towards the Millennium .......................................... 1 Jonathan Shepard Political Elites in the Reign of Basil II .................................... 35 Catherine Holmes Basil II and Asia Minor ............................................................ 71 Jean-Claude Cheynet The Balkan Frontier in the Year 1000 .................................... 109 Paul Stephenson Between Two Empires: Southern Italy in the Reign of Basil II .................................................................... 135 Vera von Falkenhausen Turning Sisinnios against the Sisinnians: Eustathios Romaios on a Disputed Marriage ...................... 161 Ludwig Burgmann Byzantine History Writing at the End of the First Millennium .................................................................... 183 Athanasios Markopoulos Byzantine Poetry and the Paradox of Basil II’s Reign .......... 199 Marc Lauxtermann viii Hagiography under the Macedonians: the Two Recensions of the Metaphrastic Menologion ...................... 217 Christian Høgel The Year 1000 in Byzantium .................................................. 233 Paul Magdalino Index ............................................................................................ 271 PREFACE This volume grew out of the Byzantine session of the 19th Congress of Historical Sciences at Oslo. With the Congress scheduled for August 2000, it did not require much effort of imagination to find a theme. The subject of Byzantium at the end of the first millen- nium A.D. would have suggested itself even if the date had been completely devoid of historical significance. In fact, the choice was far from being purely arbitrary or symbolic. The year 1000 A.D. marks the middle of a century which saw the medieval Byzantine Empire at the height of its military and political power. Between 950 and 1050, the empire of New Rome reconquered the islands of Crete and Cyprus, and went on to regain a substantial amount of continental territory in Syria, Northern Mesopotamia, the Balkans and Southern Italy, which it had lost in the seventh and eighth cen- turies, as well as annexing more of Armenia than had ever been ruled by the ancient Roman Empire. Its political and cultural influence extended beyond its frontiers, not only to the principalities and tribes which were its immediate neighbours, and to the ancient centres of the Christian world, Rome and Jerusalem, which remained tantalis- ingly beyond its military grasp; with the conversion of Rus, symbol- ised by the baptism of Prince Vladimir of Kiev in 989, its magnetism reached far to the north of the Black Sea, into what for the Romans had been the dark wastes of Scythia. The decades before and after the year 1000 also tend to be seen as the high point of Byzantine imperial absolutism, the period when centuries of administrative, eco- nomic and ideological centralisation came to fruition, and the Byzantine emperor controlled the resources, the lives and the beliefs of his sub- jects as never before or since. The emperor in the year 1000 and the generations on either side of it was Basil II (976–1025), whose name is emblematic of the great- ness of the medieval Byzantine state. It is not just that Basil’s reign came chronologically at the end of a series of interrelated develop- ments which characterise the political and cultural ‘renaissance’ of Byzantium in the ninth and tenth centuries: a long succession of strong and effective emperors, all more or less closely identified with the dynasty founded by Basil II’s great-great grandfather, Basil I the x ‘Macedonian’; an ideology of restoration, recovery and renewal, expressed in an imperially-sponsored programme of collecting, cod- ifying, excerpting and re-issuing the written legacy of the Greco- Roman past; a growing professionalism in the armed forces, backed by a revival of military theory; a closer identification of the Church with the interests of the State, and particularly of the ruling dynasty; a consistent effort to advance the cause of the imperial fisc by leg- islation and in the administration of justice. Basil himself has gone down in history as the Byzantine ‘l’état c’est moi’, the paradigm of efficient, successful state control—so much so that the problems of the Byzantine state in the late eleventh century have been blamed on his excessive insistence on the domination of the imperial periph- ery by the bureaucratic, Constantinopolitan centre. To some extent, his reputation was created after the eleventh-century crisis by nos- talgia for the better times which he had seemed to incarnate. Thus the Grottaferrata text of Digenes Akrites, a work dating from the twelfth century and set in the eastern borderlands which by that time had been lost to the empire, refers to him as ‘Basil who took imperial glory to the grave with him’. It was not until the late twelfth cen- tury, with the revolt of Peter and Asan and the establishment of the ‘Second Bulgarian Empire’, that Basil became known as Boulgaroktonos, the Bulgar-Slayer. But the idealisation of Basil as a model emperor began before the twelfth century. It has been detected in the two main Greek sources for his reign, the Chronographia of Michael Psellos and the Synopsis of John Skylitzes, which can be seen, in their different ways, to reflect the agenda of imperial revival under the first two Comnenian emperors, Isaac I (1057–1059) and Alexios I (1081–1118), whose family had done well under Basil and had good reason to identify retrospectively with his regime. Both sources have endur- ingly shaped later perceptions of his reign. To Psellos we owe the portrait of Basil as the harsh, austere, parsimonious despot with no time for luxury or literature, while Skylitzes is responsible for the view that Basil concentrated on the Balkans and the destruction of Bulgaria at the expense of Asia Minor and the advancement of the eastern frontier. Both historians have by their emphasis created the impression of a reign dominated at the outset by massive military rebellions, and dedicated thereafter to eradicating aristocratic faction and civil war. Ultimately, however, the image of Basil II the grim autocrat stems from his own publicity: from the threatening anti- magnate rhetoric of his Novel of 996, and from the miniature of xi the Venice Psalter depicting him armed and triumphant with bar- barians grovelling at his crimson-shod imperial feet. The composite picture of Byzantium at the peak of its achieve- ment under Basil II was central to modern perceptions of Byzantium in the nineteenth and for most of the twentieth century. This was not only because the different components fitted together so plausi- bly, but also because the composition represented what Byzantinists and the regimes or ideologies they served most wanted to find in Byzantium: the perfect moment of a state system with an impecca- ble Greco-Roman pedigree which was triumphant over Islam and northern barbarism, yet did not have—indeed, energetically resisted— the dark forces of feudalism and Catholic clericalism which were the bane of the Western Middle Ages. This basic consensus united Greeks, Slavs and Western scholars with a classical education. It received its fullest articulation in the synthetic histories of the mid-twentieth cen- tury which remain among the most coherent and readable narra- tives of Byzantine history, and it continues
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Orontids of Armenia by Cyril Toumanoff
    The Orontids of Armenia by Cyril Toumanoff This study appears as part III of Toumanoff's Studies in Christian Caucasian History (Georgetown, 1963), pp. 277-354. An earlier version appeared in the journal Le Muséon 72(1959), pp. 1-36 and 73(1960), pp. 73-106. The Orontids of Armenia Bibliography, pp. 501-523 Maps appear as an attachment to the present document. This material is presented solely for non-commercial educational/research purposes. I 1. The genesis of the Armenian nation has been examined in an earlier Study.1 Its nucleus, succeeding to the role of the Yannic nucleus ot Urartu, was the 'proto-Armenian,T Hayasa-Phrygian, people-state,2 which at first oc- cupied only a small section of the former Urartian, or subsequent Armenian, territory. And it was, precisely, of the expansion of this people-state over that territory, and of its blending with the remaining Urartians and other proto- Caucasians that the Armenian nation was born. That expansion proceeded from the earliest proto-Armenian settlement in the basin of the Arsanias (East- ern Euphrates) up the Euphrates, to the valley of the upper Tigris, and espe- cially to that of the Araxes, which is the central Armenian plain.3 This expand- ing proto-Armenian nucleus formed a separate satrapy in the Iranian empire, while the rest of the inhabitants of the Armenian Plateau, both the remaining Urartians and other proto-Caucasians, were included in several other satrapies.* Between Herodotus's day and the year 401, when the Ten Thousand passed through it, the land of the proto-Armenians had become so enlarged as to form, in addition to the Satrapy of Armenia, also the trans-Euphratensian vice-Sa- trapy of West Armenia.5 This division subsisted in the Hellenistic phase, as that between Greater Armenia and Lesser Armenia.
    [Show full text]
  • Journeys to Byzantium? Roman Senators Between Rome and Constantinople
    Journeys to Byzantium? Roman Senators Between Rome and Constantinople Master’s Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Michael Anthony Carrozzo, B.A Graduate Program in History The Ohio State University 2010 Thesis Committee: Kristina Sessa, Advisor Timothy Gregory Anthony Kaldellis Copyright by Michael Anthony Carrozzo 2010 Abstract For over a thousand years, the members of the Roman senatorial aristocracy played a pivotal role in the political and social life of the Roman state. Despite being eclipsed by the power of the emperors in the first century BC, the men who made up this order continued to act as the keepers of Roman civilization for the next four hundred years, maintaining their traditions even beyond the disappearance of an emperor in the West. Despite their longevity, the members of the senatorial aristocracy faced an existential crisis following the Ostrogothic conquest of the Italian peninsula, when the forces of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I invaded their homeland to contest its ownership. Considering the role they played in the later Roman Empire, the disappearance of the Roman senatorial aristocracy following this conflict is a seminal event in the history of Italy and Western Europe, as well as Late Antiquity. Two explanations have been offered to explain the subsequent disappearance of the Roman senatorial aristocracy. The first involves a series of migrations, beginning before the Gothic War, from Italy to Constantinople, in which members of this body abandoned their homes and settled in the eastern capital.
    [Show full text]
  • BYZANTINE CAMEOS and the AESTHETICS of the ICON By
    BYZANTINE CAMEOS AND THE AESTHETICS OF THE ICON by James A. Magruder, III A dissertation submitted to Johns Hopkins University in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Baltimore, Maryland March 2014 © 2014 James A. Magruder, III All rights reserved Abstract Byzantine icons have attracted artists and art historians to what they saw as the flat style of large painted panels. They tend to understand this flatness as a repudiation of the Classical priority to represent Nature and an affirmation of otherworldly spirituality. However, many extant sacred portraits from the Byzantine period were executed in relief in precious materials, such as gemstones, ivory or gold. Byzantine writers describe contemporary icons as lifelike, sometimes even coming to life with divine power. The question is what Byzantine Christians hoped to represent by crafting small icons in precious materials, specifically cameos. The dissertation catalogs and analyzes Byzantine cameos from the end of Iconoclasm (843) until the fall of Constantinople (1453). They have not received comprehensive treatment before, but since they represent saints in iconic poses, they provide a good corpus of icons comparable to icons in other media. Their durability and the difficulty of reworking them also makes them a particularly faithful record of Byzantine priorities regarding the icon as a genre. In addition, the dissertation surveys theological texts that comment on or illustrate stone to understand what role the materiality of Byzantine cameos played in choosing stone relief for icons. Finally, it examines Byzantine epigrams written about or for icons to define the terms that shaped icon production.
    [Show full text]
  • Publications Without, However, Aspiring to Completeness. Paul
    Jonathan Shepard publications without, however, aspiring to completeness. Paul Stephenson has provided a valuable review-article of secondary literature published in a western language on the history of the early Hungarians, while his book on Byzantium’s Balkan frontier sets the activities of Hungarians in the tenth century within the broader context of imperial Byzantine diplomacy, emergent Balkan polities and the needs of nomads. Stephenson and Tóth, building on the earlier work of Macartney and Göckenjan, point to the strong probability that the lands east of the Tisza were occupied by the De administrando’s Kavars (Kabaroi). These, in turn, may be associated with the “Khalisioi”/Kaliz, a grouping of Khazar provenance known from later Hungarian sources to have occupied the valley of the Tisza in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Constantine VII could well have drawn heavily on Kavar informants for his contemporary data about the Hungarians’ lands, and the De administrando’s generous coverage of this grouping in comparison with the other units of Hungarians becomes the more understandable. In addition, a number of scholars have independently reached the conclusion that imperial attention to, knowledge about, and policy towards a region or people fluctuated drastically in accordance with the empire’s ever- changing needs and apprehensions of perils. Stephenson’s book shows how adaptable Byzantine administrative arrangements were after the defeat of the Rus and the Bulgarians in 971. Comparable flexibility was applied to the northern borderlands after final victory over the Bulgarians had been won in 1018, and in the territories reconquered from the eastern Muslims in the 960s and 970s.
    [Show full text]
  • The Iqta' System of Iraq Under the Buwayhids Tsugitaka Sato
    THE IQTA' SYSTEM OF IRAQ UNDER THE BUWAYHIDS TSUGITAKA SATO* In 334 A. H. (946 A.D.), having established his authority in Baghdad, Mu'izz al-Dawla granted iqta's in the Sawad to his commanders, his asso- ciates, and his Turks. This is the formation of the so-called "military" iqta' system in the Islamic history. The appearance of the military iqta's brought about not only the evolution of the Islamic state, but also the transformation of the Iraqi society during the 10-11th centuries and of the other countries in the following periods. Nizam al-Mulk understood this as the change from bistagan (cash pay) to iqta',(1) while al-Maqrizi described as the change from 'ata' to iqta' in the same meaning.(2) As for the iqta' system under the Buwayhids, H. F. Amedroz first translated the Miskawayh's text into English with annotations,(3) and then C. H. Becker tried to realize the iqta' system in the history of 'Lehen' from the early Islamic period to the Ottoman Turks.(4) A. A, al-Duri, who studied the economic history of the Buwayhid Iraq, made clear the character of iqta' comparing it with milk (private land) and waqf, though the reality of iqta' holding remained to be investigated in future.(5) On the other hand, Cl. Cahen published the general survey of iqta' in the history of the Islamic land holding, which gave us usefull informations concerning the right and obligation of soldiers, and the fall of peasants by way of himaya (protection) and the loan at high interest.(6) We also find the general description of iqta' in the study of H.
    [Show full text]
  • Byzantium's Balkan Frontier
    This page intentionally left blank Byzantium’s Balkan Frontier is the first narrative history in English of the northern Balkans in the tenth to twelfth centuries. Where pre- vious histories have been concerned principally with the medieval history of distinct and autonomous Balkan nations, this study regards Byzantine political authority as a unifying factor in the various lands which formed the empire’s frontier in the north and west. It takes as its central concern Byzantine relations with all Slavic and non-Slavic peoples – including the Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians and Hungarians – in and beyond the Balkan Peninsula, and explores in detail imperial responses, first to the migrations of nomadic peoples, and subsequently to the expansion of Latin Christendom. It also examines the changing conception of the frontier in Byzantine thought and literature through the middle Byzantine period. is British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, Keble College, Oxford BYZANTIUM’S BALKAN FRONTIER A Political Study of the Northern Balkans, – PAUL STEPHENSON British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow Keble College, Oxford The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia Ruiz de Alarcón 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa http://www.cambridge.org © Paul Stephenson 2004 First published in printed format 2000 ISBN 0-511-03402-4 eBook (Adobe Reader) ISBN 0-521-77017-3 hardback Contents List ofmaps and figurespagevi Prefacevii A note on citation and transliterationix List ofabbreviationsxi Introduction .Bulgaria and beyond:the Northern Balkans (c.–) .The Byzantine occupation ofBulgaria (–) .Northern nomads (–) .Southern Slavs (–) .The rise ofthe west,I:Normans and Crusaders (–) .
    [Show full text]
  • Ravenna Its Role in Earlier Medieval Change and Exchange
    Ravenna its role in earlier medieval change and exchange Ravenna its role in earlier medieval change and exchange Edited by Judith Herrin and Jinty Nelson LONDON INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH Published by UNIVERSITY OF LONDON SCHOOL OF ADVANCED STUDY INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU First published in print in 2016 (ISBN 978‑1‑909646‑14‑8) This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution‑ NonCommercial‑NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY‑ NCND 4.0) license. More information regarding CC licenses is available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Available to download free at http://www.humanities‑digital‑library.org ISBN 978‑1‑909646‑72‑8 (PDF edition) DOI: 10.14296/917.9781909646728 iv Contents Acknowledgements vii List of contributors ix List of illustrations xiii Abbreviations xvii Introduction 1 Judith Herrin and Jinty Nelson 1. A tale of two cities: Rome and Ravenna under Gothic rule 15 Peter Heather 2. Episcopal commemoration in late fifth‑century Ravenna 39 Deborah M. Deliyannis 3. Production, promotion and reception: the visual culture of Ravenna between late antiquity and the middle ages 53 Maria Cristina Carile 4. Ravenna in the sixth century: the archaeology of change 87 Carola Jäggi 5. The circulation of marble in the Adriatic Sea at the time of Justinian 111 Yuri A. Marano 6. Social instability and economic decline of the Ostrogothic community in the aftermath of the imperial victory: the papyri evidence 133 Salvatore Cosentino 7. A striking evolution: the mint of Ravenna during the early middle ages 151 Vivien Prigent 8. Roman law in Ravenna 163 Simon Corcoran 9.
    [Show full text]
  • Sniðmát Meistaraverkefnis HÍ
    MA ritgerð Norræn trú Að hitta skrímslið í skóginum Animal Shape-shifting, Identity, and Exile in Old Norse Religion and World-view Caroline Elizabeth Oxley Leiðbeinandi: Terry Adrian Gunnell Október 2019 Að hitta skrímslið í skóginum Animal Shape-shifting, Identity, and Exile in Old Norse Religion and World-view Caroline Elizabeth Oxley Lokaverkefni til MA–gráðu í Norrænni trú Leiðbeinandi: Terry Adrian Gunnell 60 einingar Félags– og mannvísindadeild Félagsvísindasvið Háskóla Íslands Október, 2019 Að hitta skrímslið í skóginum Ritgerð þessi er lokaverkefni til MA-gráðu í Norrænni trú og er óheimilt að afrita ritgerðina á nokkurn hátt nema með leyfi rétthafa. © Caroline Elizabeth Oxley, 2019 Prentun: Háskólaprent Reykjavík, Ísland, 2019 Caroline Oxley MA in Old Nordic Religion: Thesis Kennitala: 181291-3899 Október 2019 Abstract Að hitta skrímslið í skóginum: Animal Shape-shifting, Identity, and Exile in Old Norse Religion and World-view This thesis is a study of animal shape-shifting in Old Norse culture, considering, among other things, the related concepts of hamr, hugr, and the fylgjur (and variations on these concepts) as well as how shape-shifters appear to be associated with the wild, exile, immorality, and violence. Whether human, deities, or some other type of species, the shape-shifter can be categorized as an ambiguous and fluid figure who breaks down many typical societal borderlines including those relating to gender, biology, animal/ human, and sexual orientation. As a whole, this research project seeks to better understand the background, nature, and identity of these figures, in part by approaching the subject psychoanalytically, more specifically within the framework established by the Swiss psychoanalyst, Carl Jung, as part of his theory of archetypes.
    [Show full text]
  • E-Concerts/Listenings
    M.C.E.O. IMS Study Group Music of the Christian East and Orient Aristotle University of Thessaloniki School of Music Studies IMS Study Group Music of the Christian East and Orient First International Musicological e-Symposium: MELISMATIC CHANT REPERTORIES Thessaloniki, 12th –14th June 2020 https://mceo.mus.auth.gr/ E-Concerts/Listenings Friday, 12.6.2020 Τhe “Thessalonikeis Ymnodoi”, dir. Ioannis Liakos: Εὐλογήσατε τόν Κύριον, Ἐμμανουήλ παιδίον, Στίχος ἐκ τοῦ Λατρινοῦ Πολυελέου, εἰς τήν ἑορτήν τῶν Χριστουγένων, Μέλος Ἰωάννη Κουκουζέλη, ἦχος α΄ - Praise the Lord, Emmanouil the Child, Verse from the Latrinos Polyeleos, for Christmas, melody by St John Koukouzeles, first authentic mode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=12&v=pBKusHNOYh8&feature=emb_logo Σῶμα Χριστοῦ, Κοινωνικόν, μέλος Μπαλασίου Ιερέως, ιζ΄ αιώνας, ήχος α΄. Ηχογράφηση από τον Καθεδρικό Ναό του Κρεμλίνου – The Body of Christ, melody by Balasios the Priest, 17th cent, first authentic mode. Recording from the Cathedral of the Kremlin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2GZ9g-hywM 1 Ὦτα ἔχουσιν, Στίχος Πολυελέου, Μπαλασίου ιερέως, ήχος α΄ - They have ears, Verse of a Polyeleos by Balasios the Priest, in the first authentic mode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJSpqbVDm6o Τhe Volos Women Byzantine Choir “Adousai”, cond. Domestikaina Dr. Sevi Mazera- Mamali: Μεγαλύνει ἡ ψυχή μου τὸν Κύριον, η θ΄ ωδή της θεοτόκου (Λουκ. α΄ 46 – 55), μέλος Κωνσταντίνου Πρωτοψάλτου († 1855), ήχος πλ. δ΄ – Τὴν Τιμιωτέραν, μέλος Μπαλασίου ιερέως και Νομοφύλακος της Μ.Χ.Ε. (περ. 1680), ήχος γ΄ - Bless, my soul, the Lord, ninth ode of the Theotokos (Luke 1, 46-55), melody by Konstantinos Protopsaltes († 1855), plagal of the fourth mode – The more venerated, melody by Balasios the Priest and Nomophylax of the Great Church (ca.
    [Show full text]
  • Ties Between Kievan Rus and the Byzantine Empire in the 9Th and 10Th Centuries Were Mainly of a Trade and Military Nature
    Ties between Kievan Rus and the Byzantine Empire in the 9th and 10th centuries were mainly of a trade and military nature. The situation had changed however, at the close of the 10th century. Not only had the Kievan Prince Vladimir Sviatoslavich adopted Christianity from Constantinople, he had also taken to wife, Anna Porphyrogenita, the Byzantine princess and sister of Basil II Bulgaroktonos. Vladimir’s marriage to a princess born to imperial purple signified a great honour for the Rurik dynasty, an honour not achieved even by the emperor Otto I who requested the hand in marriage of the Byzantine purpleborn or Porphyrogenitus for his son Otto II. Anna also brought her craftsmen and priests with her to Russia, they helped christianize the country. The craftsmen taught local builders to build large stone churches and decorate them with mosaics and frescoes. The introduction of christianity also saw the spread of the culture of the written word. Another Byzantine princess in Rus was the mother of Vladimir II Monomakh, of whom we have very little knowledge. There is a legend relating to relics connected to his nick-name which he took from his mother after the emperor Constantine IX. The so called legend of Monomakh relics became important in the period between the 15th and 16th centuries, when the great Moscow prince began using the title Tsar. The last two Byzantine princesses to join the Rus dynasty, did so in the 15th century. One was Marie, the daughter of Andreas Palaiolog, she married the Prince Vasily Mikailovich. The other was Zóé Palaiolog, the daughter of Thomy Palaiolog and niece to the last two Byzantine emperors Constantine XI.
    [Show full text]
  • Vernacular Religion in Diaspora: a Case Study of the Macedono-Bulgarian Group in Toronto
    Vernacular Religion in Diaspora: a Case Study of the Macedono-Bulgarian Group in Toronto By Mariana Dobreva-Mastagar A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Trinity College and the Theological Department of the Toronto School of Theology In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Theology awarded by the University of St. Michael's College © Copyright by Mariana Dobreva-Mastagar 2016 Vernacular Religion in Diaspora: a case Study of the Macedono-Bulgarian group in Toronto PhD 2016 Mariana Dobreva-Mastagar University of St.Michael’s College Abstract This study explores how the Macedono-Bulgarian and Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox churches in Toronto have attuned themselves to the immigrant community—specifically to post-1990 immigrants who, while unchurched and predominantly secular, have revived diaspora churches. This paradox raises questions about the ways that religious institutions operate in diaspora, distinct from their operations in the country of origin. This study proposes and develops the concept “institutional vernacularization” as an analytical category that facilitates assessment of how a religious institution relates to communal factors. I propose this as an alternative to secularization, which inadequately captures the diaspora dynamics. While continuing to adhere to their creeds and confessional symbols, diaspora churches shifted focus to communal agency and produced new collective and “popular” values. The community is not only a passive recipient of the spiritual gifts but is also a partner, who suggests new forms of interaction. In this sense, the diaspora church is engaged in vernacular discourse. The notion of institutional vernacularization is tested against the empirical results of field work in four Greater Toronto Area churches.
    [Show full text]
  • The Byzantine State and the Dynatoi
    The Byzantine State and the Dynatoi A struggle for supremacy 867 - 1071 J.J.P. Vrijaldenhoven S0921084 Van Speijkstraat 76-II 2518 GE ’s Gravenhage Tel.: 0628204223 E-mail: [email protected] Master Thesis Europe 1000 - 1800 Prof. Dr. P. Stephenson and Prof. Dr. P.C.M. Hoppenbrouwers History University of Leiden 30-07-2014 CONTENTS GLOSSARY 2 INTRODUCTION 6 CHAPTER 1 THE FIRST STRUGGLE OF THE DYNATOI AND THE STATE 867 – 959 16 STATE 18 Novel (A) of Leo VI 894 – 912 18 Novels (B and C) of Romanos I Lekapenos 922/928 and 934 19 Novels (D, E and G) of Constantine VII Porphyrogenetos 947 - 959 22 CHURCH 24 ARISTOCRACY 27 CONCLUSION 30 CHAPTER 2 LAND OWNERSHIP IN THE PERIOD OF THE WARRIOR EMPERORS 959 - 1025 32 STATE 34 Novel (F) of Romanos II 959 – 963. 34 Novels (H, J, K, L and M) of Nikephoros II Phokas 963 – 969. 34 Novels (N and O) of Basil II 988 – 996 37 CHURCH 42 ARISTOCRACY 45 CONCLUSION 49 CHAPTER 3 THE CHANGING STATE AND THE DYNATOI 1025 – 1071 51 STATE 53 CHURCH 60 ARISTOCRACY 64 Land register of Thebes 65 CONCLUSION 68 CONCLUSION 70 APPENDIX I BYZANTINE EMPERORS 867 - 1081 76 APPENDIX II MAPS 77 BIBLIOGRAPHY 82 1 Glossary Aerikon A judicial fine later changed into a cash payment. Allelengyon Collective responsibility of a tax unit to pay each other’s taxes. Anagraphis / Anagrapheus Fiscal official, or imperial tax assessor, who held a role similar as the epoptes. Their major function was the revision of the tax cadastre. It is implied that they measured land and on imperial order could confiscate lands.
    [Show full text]