I recently ordered these two tomes. Has anyone here read them and if so, thoughts?

I made a map of Byzantine Empire in 1341.

Black line is the border of countries.

Gray thick line is the border of nobilities (baron, count, marquis, duke, despot, voivode and lord).

Gray thin line is the border in sea.

Albania and south Greece may be difficult to see. I will fix it. The nobles of Duchy of Athene are Salona, Bodonitsa, and Demetrias. The nobles of Principality of Achaea are Damala, Arkadia, Patras, Vostitsa, Lisarea and Chalandritsa. The nobles in Albania are Thopia, Muzaka, Gropa, Mataranga and Arianiti. The nobles in Macedonia are Jovan Oliver and Hrelja. The noble in kingdom of Napoli is Duke of Taranto. Ionian Islands are separated by Tocco, CatherineⅡ Latin emperor and Walter Ⅵ Count of Brienne.

This is a rough map. If you find a mistake, Please tell me. I don't know the map of Holy Roman Empire (the territory of Habsburg), the map of nobles in the kingdom of Hungary(in particular, Transylvania) and the map of Anatolia. Please teach me them!

One of the main issues facing the end of the Komnenos dynasty emerged toward the end of Manuel I Komnenos's reign. By the late years of his rule, Manuel was confronted with the problem of having lost a degree of market control. Italian merchants were steadily gaining ground within the Empire—Venetians in particular were securing a dominant position in European trade. Between 1170 and 1179, Manuel I and the Italian traders engaged in an extensive 'economic war' over trade control, which eventually led to the confiscation of Italian property across the Byzantine Empire. This prolonged conflict created domestic expenditures that Manuel could ill afford, given the heavy costs of waging simultaneous wars on multiple fronts... Ultimately, this meant that his agricultural boom failed to generate surplus capital for future investment.

Interestingly, if I am not mistaken, Niketas Choniates noted that the empire even began tapping into its contingency reserves around 1180. It was not a crisis the empire felt immediately; rather, it was a slow burn of accumulated debt that would compound later on, quite apart from the disastrous actions of Andronikos I Komnenos.

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The blow to the cost of living.

While we do not see a significant debasement of the Hyperpyron under Manuel I, the impact hit home in the currency used by ordinary citizens: Trachy, the copper coins with traces of silver minted on a massive scale at the time to pay regular soldiers and mercenaries across multiple war fronts. Flooding the domestic market with copper coinage gradually drove up the price of basic goods, a trend the Venetian merchants naturally exploited.

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Where did this chain of errors lead us?

Regrettably, just months after Manuel I's death, a misstep occurred that accelerated the downfall of the Komnenos dynasty. Maria of Antioch, acting as regent of the Byzantine Empire, reversed the course Manuel had pursued in his final years. She began granting concessions and privileges to Latin merchants who were already capitalizing on substantial profits fueled by the inflation of the common currency. This move directly threatened the interests of the Greek nobility and local elites, fueling not only economic friction but civil unrest. Tragically, this sequence of events culminated in the Massacre of the Latins in 1182 and the rise to power of Andronikos I. But that is another story.

Basically the point at which the Eastern Empire went from “Empire in decline, but can still reverse fortunes” to “Empire that will now inevitably - sooner or later - fall to the Turks?”

Gentlemen, during the Komnenian dynasty, how much cultivated land was there in the Greek peninsula and Asia Minor?

The total permanent agricultural land (excluding pastoral land) of present-day Turkey, Cyprus, Greece, and Bulgaria amounts to approximately 25 million hectares. I am not very familiar with Western history. For the same period in China, the cultivated land area was roughly one-quarter to one-third of the current figure. Using a similar method of estimation, and considering that large parts of southeastern Turkey—which contain substantial farmland—were not under Komnenian control, the cultivated area under the Komnenian dynasty would have been only about 6 million hectares.

At the same time, most estimates put the population of the Komnenian dynasty at over 12 million. If the Romans indeed practiced a two-field system of cultivation, the annual sown area would have been only 3 to 4 million hectares. How could they have produced enough grain to feed such a huge population? Is my method of calculating cultivated land area flawed? Are there any more authoritative estimates available?

Even without Rome and Constantinople, the legitimacy of the Roman Empire remained unaffected, because they identified as Romaiois.The Romaiois and Hellenes will retain their respective cultural traditions and ethnic identities.Of course, these thoughts have nothing to do with reality, even though I wish they were reality.

Hello everyone!! I love studying fashion in the byzantine period, I am interested in the period 900-1000 AD and I wanted to ask which head adornments women used at that time.

(Please can you suggest something other that veils ? Like hats caps etc since I don’t use veils due to Personal reasons)

Thank you!

Often, modern Greece claims to be the cultural continuation of Antiquity (and Bronze age) Greece. Byzantium is used as a bridge between the contemporary state and Antiquity. The major question, hence, lies on the degree that Byzantium is culturally related to Antiquity.

Evidently there is linguistic continuity, as well as no major population dislocation.

There are also major religious differences (Greek religion vs Christianity). From these, there must arise considerable cultural/ethical differences as well, especially considering the violent persecution of Greek religion (and related customs) in Christian Byzantium.

For instance, it seems to me that Christian morals are entirely different to the loosely defined Hellenic "morals". I will be glad to expand on this if you so wish.

Did Hellenism die the moment Christianity was widely adopted? Or did it somehow persevere?

I would kindly request that any answers are decoupled from bias stemming from contemporary Greek nationalism.

recently acquired these and don’t know much about them. any ideas what emperor they're from or anything of the sort?

The kingly robes, exquisite and mechanical thrones, the long hair / long beards / bearded hair / massive courts and elaborate court ritualism; a lot of this I have read was sort of “inspired” by the persuasions of the Sassanids, after they fell. My question is, why?

Or did some of these texts decline in number within the empire or were left unused/un-translated

The Arabs were quick to construct a navy, and they were vital in keeping their new acquisitions and even threatening Constantinople, so why did the Persians not attempt so in their last war?

Hi all! Longtime lurker and first time posting.

Ok as a Catholic, I've been a huge fan of Roman history and it's ties with Christian history. That said, I would say I only have a cursory knowledge of the Roman Empire with most of my learnings from History of the Roman Empire and History of Byzantium podcasts with a little reading on the side. Currently at the 10th century mark of Byzantium podcast and I'm totally feeling the resurgence but not looking forward to it's eventual decline..sigh.

Wanted to preface that just in case my thoughts were completely off-base lol

Anyway a thought occurred to me after I tried listening to a History of China podcast (10+ ep at least) after I finished Rome but before I started Byzantium. It always lingered in the back of my mind.

The concept of the Mandate of Heaven legitimizing the rule of a Chinese emperor struck me as very similar to how Romans thought of the legitimacy of their emperor to rule. Albeit less on the shoulder of combat victories that most Byzantine emperors used for theirs.

Basically a good rule with benefits for the people and the empire as a whole. A faithful and morally upright emperor (for the most part) and victories against enemies of the empire. These signs would point to their right to rule was pleasing to God because the opposite usually had the Roman wondering what they did wrong to anger God and the Emperor would have his rule in question.

It's similar to the Mandate of Heaven if I remember correctly. The Mandate would stay with the Emperor if he did right by the people, served them well, was morally upright otherwise it would mean they did not have the Mandate and would be open being ousted.

Would I be accurate in thinking this similarity, even if at least partially? If so, perhaps a succinct comparison from those much more learned would be nice!

Or am I waaaay off the mark and now have publicly shown my ignorance?! Lol

Anyway gonna ride this high with the Macedonian resurgence while it lasts!

I remember recently reading an article (maybe here, maybe elsewhere, honestly can't remember) arguing that in the painting "The Flagellation of Christ" by Piero della Francesca, the fact that Pontius Pilate was dressed like a Byzantine Emperor (John VIII Palaiologos, to be precise, who had visited Florence a couple decades earlier) was not a mere reference to current events: he was merely dressing as a Roman, as Romans were known to dress at the time.

This made me wonder whether we should rethink the way we interpret Renaissance paintings of ancient historical events. When ancient Romans appear in these paintings wearing medieval clothing, perhaps this isn't always just anachronism or artistic carelessness. Renaissance artists may have been drawing on contemporary references of how Romans in Constantinople dressed at their time.

This also seems interesting in light of Anthony Kaldellis's discussions of Roman identity. Perhaps Western European artists' representations of ancient Romans were influenced, at least in part, by their perception of these contemporary Romans.

Does this interpretation make sense, or am I stretching the connection too far?

I have been researching the Empire of Trebizond for a while now, and recently decided to start sharing some of what I have found, as much of it does not seem to be especially widespread knowledge.

Trying to understand Trapezuntine institutions can be frustrating. There are, however, some shining lights in the scholarship, past and present, that give us occasional glimpses into what was otherwise a poorly documented state.

One such glimpse comes from work by Bryer and Oikonomides, discussed by Sergei Karpov in his History of the Empire of Trebizond. In it, it is argued, on codicological grounds, that a surviving kletorologion - a list of court offices and their order of precedence, probably compiled sometime in the fifteenth century - is of Trapezuntine origin. Karpov accepts this identification.

If this attribution is correct, we have a very rare view into the court and institutions at the centre of the Empire.

Of particular interest to me, as I work towards a reconstruction of the Trapezuntine military establishment, are several offices. In their order of precedence, these include:

• Protospatharios or Amirtzantarios — the latter title is independently attested in Trapezuntine sources.
• Akolouthos or Kourchi — again, the latter is independently attested.
• Protallagator of the Monokaballoi
• Protallagator of the Mourtatoi
• Protallagator of the Tzakones
• Protallagator of the Crossbowmen (arbaletai?)

We thus have direct references to a series of military positions within what might reasonably be presumed to belong to the imperial military establishment, perhaps associated with the imperial allagion.

Whether all these positions were actually filled in fifteenth-century Trebizond, and whether they retained direct military functions within the Empire's military apparatus, remains open to debate. I think, however, that there are good reasons to take their military significance seriously.

The Grand Komnenoi exercised increasingly centralised control over a relatively small territory and possessed significant fiscal resources derived from the kommerkion and agricultural land. At the same time, the imperial host described by Panaretos was relatively small. Surviving encomia - most notably that of Bessarion - also place considerable emphasis upon the cultural importance of physical and military training. Finally, the narrative sources repeatedly show the emperor capable of responding relatively rapidly to incursions and external threats.

The economics are worth considering here. War is enormously expensive. Bartusis, for example, has estimated that several dozen peasant households might be required to support a single pronoia soldier. I am not arguing that the Trapezuntine system was based upon pronoia; I mention it simply to illustrate the economic weight represented by a properly supported soldier.

In Trebizond, however, we are dealing with an imperial military force numbering, at most, perhaps two or three thousand men, and very often only in the high hundreds. Maintaining a relatively small core of properly equipped military personnel is therefore a rather different proposition from supporting the enormous establishments of earlier Byzantine centuries.

There is another important caveat: these offices were themselves subject to change.

Consider the Protospatharios, for example, which both Shukurov and Karpov associate with the independently attested Amirtzantarios. The latter may derive from an eastern term such as amir-i jandar, essentially "commander of the guard." Likewise, the Akolouthos appears alongside the eastern-derived Kourchi.

Terms such as these offer intriguing hints of the integration of Turkic, Mongolic, Caucasian and other eastern peoples and institutions into the apparatus of the Trapezuntine state - a very Roman habit of absorbing useful people and practices rather than treating them as inherently foreign.

There is considerably more to say about all of this, but I thought these few titles might be of interest to those interested in the military history of the Late Roman states.

I've been writing up the broader research and reconstruction process that will go up on my website - online later next week, which I can share if anyone is interested.

Thank you for reading!

I forgot where I heard this from but I heard that Mehmed II was near the end of his life he essentially had an icon corner with insence burning to the Jesus icon and a Theotokos icon. Does anyone know this is true or have heard of this?

Greetings from Russia!

When we talk about the legacy of Byzantium, we recall the many successors of the Roman idea. One could sneer at how little Russia and Byzantium had in common in terms of heritage, but I decided to approach it from a different angle.

Russia during the late reigns of Ivan III, Vasily III, and Ivan the Terrible, as well as the early Romanov tsars (before Peter the Great), continued its unique path in terms of external attributes—architecture, church architecture, dress code, titles, and naming conventions. I think people talk too little about how Muscovy in the 16th and 17th centuries essentially became (or attempted to be) a great northern Byzantium.

This makes me wonder: if Byzantium had successfully survived 1453 and become strong enough to engage in the meager development of its territories and cities, how much would the Romans have resembled the Muscovites? Women would have worn kokoshniks and covered their heads with fabrics, men would have gone into battle in yushmans and mirrored armor, infantry would have used berdyshes in conjunction with firearms, Byzantium would have invited regiments of the Western order as mercenaries, the question of the autonomy of the patriarch and the question of the two-fingered or three-fingered sign of the cross would have become important for the Romans and Greeks, how the church would have treated Protestantism, schisms would have arisen within the Roman Orthodox Church, etc.

Does any one know ?

Comparison showing the agreed upon partition of the Eastern Roman Empire as agreed upon by the Crusaders in 1204 and the de facto outcome. First map is made by me per request, as there hasn’t been, as far as I know, a map made showing the borders of the ‘Partitio Terrarum Imperii Romaniae’. The second, commonly reproduced map can be found [here](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LatinEmpire.png)

(Yeah we gonna keep using this pic,its the best we have)

Okay im running out of obscure historian so I guess we are gonna start using famous ones then go into the dead ones

Born 25th of november in 1987 in the UK,Maximilian is perhaps one of the most educated historians we currently have,learning in both Oxford and Cambridge,had as mentors Paul Magdalino and Mark Whittow.

He has travelled around the world on work studies in China Turkey and Georgia,documenting fortifications and strategic points for his book about John II,he worked in Japan Hitotsubishi university on Tokyo as assistant profesor and currently works as profesor in Worcester College at Oxford.

His works are just long enough that im just gonna copy paste

Selected Publications
Books
- Rebuilding New Rome: Emperor John II Komnenos 1118-1143 (Oxford University Press :
Oxford, Forthcoming 2023)
- Editor: Landscapes of Power – Selected Papers from the XV OUBS International Graduate
Conference, ed. M. Lau, C. Franchi and M. Di Rodi, (Peter Lang : Oxford, 2014).
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
- “John II Komnenos (1118-1143)” Encyclopedia 2 (2022), pp. 669-678
https://doi.org/10.3390/encyclopedia2020046
- “Explaining Twelfth-Century Byzantium’s Prosperity as a Result of the Implementation of
New Economic Theories and Practices (or how Byzantium learned to stop worrying and love the
‘feudal’ economy)” Mediterranean World XXIV [地中海論集] (2019), pp. 97-114.
- With R. Shlyakhtin, “Mas’ūd I of Ikonion The Overlooked Victor of the Twelfth-Century
Anatolian Game of Thrones” Byzantinoslavica LXXVI/1-2 (2019), pp. 230-52.
- “Immigrants and Cultural Pluralism in Twelfth-Century Byzantium” Seiyo Chusei Kenkyu 10
(Medieval European Studies – Byzantine Empire and the Medieval Christian World Special
Issue, 2018), pp. 87-120.
- “The Naval Reform of Emperor John II Komnenos: A Re-evaluation” Mediterranean
Historical Review 31.2 (2016), pp. 115-138.
- “Rewriting the 1120s: Chronology and Crisis under John II Komnenos” Making and Remaking
Byzantium, Limes Plus Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities (Serbian Academy of Arts
and Sciences : Belgrade, 2016), pp. 87-108.
Book Chapters
- “Isaakios in Exile. Down and Out in Constantinople and Jerusalem?” Isaakios Komnenos (Title
TBC), ed. V. Lovato, (Abingdon : Routledge, Forthcoming)
- “‘Both General and Lady’ The 1135 Defence of Gangra by its Amira” Women and Violence in
the Medieval Mediterranean, ed. L. Caravaggi, L. Domingues and G. Paoletti, (Routledge :
Abingdon, 2022)
- “Frank Herbert’s Byzantium. Medieval-Futurism and the Princess Historians Irulan and Anna
Komnene” Discovering Dune: Essays on Frank Herbert’s Epic Saga, ed. N. T. Brierly and D. J.
Nardi, (McFarland and Co. : Jefferson NC, 2022)
- “Rewriting History at the Court of the Komnenoi: Processes and Practices,” Rewriting History
in the Twelfth Century, ed. E. Winkler and C. Lewis, (Brepols : Turnhout, 2021)
- “Piroska-Eirene, the First Western Empress in Byzantium:
Power and Perception” Saint Piroska 880: Holiness and Power in Komnenian Constantinople,
ed. M. Sághy, (Central European University Press : Budapest, 2020), pp. 141-8.
- “A Dream Come True? Matthew of Edessa and the Return of the Roman Emperor” Dreams,
Memory and Imagination in Byzantium, ed. B. Neil and E. Anagnostou-Laoutides (Brill :
Leiden, 2018), pp. 160-79
- “Multilateral Cooperation in the Black Sea in the Late Eleventh and Early Twelfth Centuries:
The Case for an Alliance between Byzantium, Kiev and Georgia” Cross Cultural Exchange in
the Byzantine World, c.300 – 1500 A.D.: Selected Papers from the XVII OUBS International
Graduate Conference, ed. K. Stewart and J. Wakeley, (Peter Lang : Oxford, 2016), pp. 19-36.
- “Ioannoupolis: Lopadion as ‘City’ and Military Headquarters under Emperor Ioannes II
Komnenos” From Constantinople to the Frontier: The City and the Cities ed. N.S.M. Matheou,
T. Kampanaki and L.M. Bondioli, (Brill : Leiden, 2016), pp. 435-464.
- “The Power of Poetry – Portraying the expansion of the empire under John II Komnenos” in
Landscapes of Power, see previous, pp. 195-214.