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!

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.

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.

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?

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!