In Byzantium monks did not form a separate caste, apart from society. They formed part of a nexus of social, economic and spiritual relationships that bound together the "powerful" in the middle Byzantine state. Using hagiography, chronicles and, in particular, the newly-available archives of the Athonite monasteries, this book reassesses the role of monks in Byzantine society and examines the reasons for the flowering of the monastic life in the period from the end of iconoclasm to the beginning of the twelfth century.

In Byzantium monks did not form a separate caste, apart from society. They formed part of a nexus of social, economic and spiritual relationships that bound together the "powerful" in the middle Byzantine state. Using hagiography, chronicles and, in particular, the newly-available archives of the Athonite monasteries, this book reassesses the role of monks in Byzantine society and examines the reasons for the flowering of the monastic life in the period from the end of iconoclasm to the beginning of the twelfth century.

Dr Morris examines how the legend grew through the retelling of what medieval writers believed was the story of an historical figure, based not on some lost Welsh biography, but on Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain, the authorised' version of Arthur's career. She looks at his antecedents, the story of his conception and birth, and his accession, moving on to discuss his warfare, his role in peacetime, his relationships with his family, his personal attributes, and his problematical death, showing how Arthur remains a distinct character in medieval literature despite...

This provocative new book argues that the rise of the West to world domination has brought widespread social, cultural and material destruction in its wake.