There are saints in Orthodox Christian culture who overturn the conventional concept of sainthood. Their conduct may be unruly and salacious, they may blaspheme and even kill--yet, mysteriously, those around them treat them with even more reverence. Such saints are called "holy fools." In this pioneering study Sergey A. Ivanov examines the phenomenon of holy foolery from a cultural standpoint. He identifies its prerequisites and its development in religious thought, and traces the emergence of the first hagiographic texts describing these paradoxical saints. He describes the beginnings of...

How were Greek texts on the care and medical treatment of the horse transmitted from antiquity to the present day? Using the evidence of Byzantine manuscripts of the veterinary compilation known as the Hippiatrica, Anne McCabe traces the journey of the texts from the stables to the medieval scriptorium and ultimately to the printed edition. Surviving manuscripts include both magnificent presentation copies and plain ones intended for use in the field. The Hippiatrica is a rich and little-known source of information about horses, medicine, and magic. This book provides a guide to its complex...

This is the first English translation and study of George Akropolites' History, the main Greek source for the history of Byzantium between 1204 and 1261. Akropolites relates what happened to Byzantium after the Latin conquest of its capital, Constantinople, by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. He narrates the fragmentation of the Byzantine world, describing how the newly established 'empire' in Anatolia prevailed over its foreign and Byzantine enemies to recapture the capital in 1261. Akropolites was an eyewitness to most of the events he relates and a man close to the emperors he served, and his...

In Debating the Saints' Cults in the Age of Gregory the Great, Dal Santo argues that the Dialogues, Pope Gregory the Great's most controversial work, should be considered from the perspective of a wide-ranging debate about the saints which took place in early Byzantine society. Like other contemporary works in Greek and Syriac, Gregory's text debated the nature and plausibility of the saints' miracles and the propriety of the saints' cult. Rather than viewing the early Byzantine world as overwhelmingly pious or credulous, the book argues that many contemporaries retained the ability to...

Shaping a Muslim State provides a synthetic study of the political, social, and economic processes which formed early Islamic Egypt. Looking at a corpus of previously unknown Arabic papyrus letters, dating from between AD 730 and 750, which were written to a Muslim administrator and merchant in the Fayyum oasis in Egypt, Sijpesteijn examines the reasons for the success of the early Arab conquests and the transition from the pre-Islamic Byzantine system and its Egyptian executors to an Arab/Muslim state.
By examining the impact of Islam on the daily lives of those living under its rule,...

Niketas Choniates' History is the single most important source for a crucial period in Byzantine history, which began with the death of Alexios I Komnenos in 1118 and culminated with the capture of Constantinople by the armies of the Fourth Crusade in 1204.
In this first book-length study of the History in English, Simpson reviews the complex manuscript tradition and transmission of the text, and examines the substantial differences in style, content, and purpose between the two main versions in which it has been preserved. Investigating issues related to historical narrative and imperial...

Using a comprehensive evaluation of recent archaeological findings, Avni addresses the transformation of local societies in Palestine and Jordan between the sixth and eleventh centuries AD. Arguing that these archaeological findings provide a reliable, though complex, picture, Avni illustrates how the Byzantine-Islamic transition was a much slower and gradual process than previously thought, and that it involved regional variability, different types of populations, and diverse settlement patterns.
Based on the results of hundreds of excavations, including Avni's own surveys and...

In the mid-eleventh century, secular Byzantine poetry attained a hitherto unseen degree of wit, vividness, and personal involvement, chiefly exemplified in the poetry of Christophoros Mitylenaios, Ioannes Mauropous, and Michael Psellos. This is the first volume to consider this poetic activity as a whole, critically reconsidering modern assumptions about Byzantine poetry, and focusing on Byzantine conceptions of the role of poetry in society.
By providing a detailed account of the various media through which poetry was presented to its readers, and by tracing the initial circulation of...

The round and octagonal churches of Jerusalem were the earliest of their kind. Powerful, monumental structures, recalling imperial mausolea and temples, they enshrined the holiest sites of Christianity. Constantine himself ordered the building of the first ones immediately after the council of Nicaea (325), his main objective being the authentication of Jesus's existence in Jerusalem in accordance with the council's resolutions, but the sites he chose in Palestine also obliterated reminiscences of Jewish or Pagan domination.
Holy Sites Encircled demonstrates that all four concentric...

The Letters of Psellos is the first detailed study of the correspondence of Michael Psellos, a leading Byzantine intellectual, politician, and writer of the eleventh century. Psellos' corpus of over 500 letters represents a historical source of great significance for the study of society and culture of the time: literary masterpieces in and of themselves, yet often complex and difficult to understand in their entirety, they not only rebound with subtlety and humor, but also offer invaluable information on myriad subjects ranging from the political culture of Byzantium and its civil...