Serving Byzantium's Emperors

The Courtly Life and Career of Michael Attaleiates
1. Auflage 2019
ISBN: 978-3-030-04524-1
Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buch, Englisch, 288 Seiten, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 518 g

Reihe: New Approaches to Byzantine History and Culture

This book is a microhistory of eleventh-century Byzantium, built around the biography of the state official Michael Attaleiates. Dimitris Krallis presents Byzantium as a cohesive, ever-evolving, dynamic, Roman political community, built on traditions of Roman governance and Hellenic culture. In the eleventh century, Byzantium faced a crisis as it navigated a shifting international environment of feudal polities, merchant republics, steppe migrations, and a rapidly transforming Islamic world. Attaleiates’ life, from provincial birth to Constantinopolitan death, and career, as a member of an ancient empire’s officialdom, raise questions of identity, family, education, governance, elite culture, Romanness, Hellenism, science and skepticism, as well as political ideology during this period. The life and work of Attaleiates is used as a prism through which to examine important questions about a long-lived medieval polity that is usually studied as exotic and distinct from both theEuropean and the Near Eastern historical experience.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Krallis, Dimitris

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Geschichte der klassischen Antike Byzantinische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein Biographien & Autobiographien: Historisch, Politisch, Militärisch
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Militärgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Chapter 1 Introduction.- Chapter 2 Attaleiates’ Time: Byzantium in the Eleventh Century.- Chapter 3 Paper, Parchment and Ink: The Sources for Attaleiates’ Biography.- Chapter 4 Attaleia: The Busy, Bustling Fringe.-Chapter 5 To the Capital Seeking Wisdom.- Chapter 6 Attaleiates’ Household.- Chapter 7 The Courts of Justice, The Court and the Courtiers.- Chapter 8 The Army in Society – The Society of the Army.- Chapter 9 The Judge on Horseback – The Empire at War.- Chapter 10 Byzantine ‘Republicanism’: Attaleiates’ Politics of Accommodation and Self-Interest.- Chapter 11 Piety, Tax-Heavens and the Future of the Family.- Chapter 12 Culture Wars and a Judge’s Roman Piety.- Chapter 13 A Short Conclusion.

Über Autor(innen)

Dimitris Krallis is Associate Professor at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University, Canada. He writes on questions of politics, society, intellectual culture, and governance in the middle Byzantine period.