Identities and Ideologies in the Medieval East Roman World

Yannis Stouraitis is Senior Lecturer in Byzantine History, University of Edinburgh. He is the author of Krieg und Frieden in der politischen und ideologischen Wahrnehmung in Byzanz (Byzantinische Geschichtsschreiber, Erganzungsband, 2009). He is editor of A Companion to the Byzantine Culture of War, c. 300-1204 (Brill, forthcoming 2018) and he is co-editor of Byzantine War Ideology between Roman Imperial Concept and Christian Religion (Osterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (2012).

These sixteen articles represent a fresh look at history of Byzantium, where Constantinople and its Emperors only play a marginal role. The focus is instead on provincial elites (including those in the border lands), members of the literate middle class, city dwellers, rural families, and women. What ideologies did they subscribe to? How did they articulate their social, political and ethnic identities? And what sense of community cohesion did they thereby generate? This volume goes a long way to address these questions, contributing to a bottom-up perspective on medieval society in the eastern Mediterranean.

• List of IllustrationsList of AbbreviationsNotes on ContributorsIntroductionThe Ideology of Identities and the Identity of IdeologiesJohn Haldon and Yannis StouraitisPART I: Top-Down and Bottom-Up ApproachesIs Byzantinism an Orientalism? Reflections on Byzantium’s Constructed Identities and Debated IdeologiesYannis Stouraitis Ruling Elites and the Common People: Some Considerations on Their Diverging Identities and IdeologiesJohannes KoderThe Dēmosia, the Emperor, and the Common Good: Byzantine Ideas on Taxation and Public Wealth, Eleventh‒Twelfth Century Kostis SmyrlisBeyond Religion: Homilies as Conveyor of Political Ideology in Middle ByzantiumTheodora AntonopoulouPerforming Byzantine Identity: Gender, Status and the Cult of the VirginLeslie Brubaker‘Middle-Class’ Ideology of Education and Language, and the ‘Bookish’ Identity of John TzetzesPanagiotis A. AgapitosByzantium from Below: Rural Identity in Byzantine Palaestina and Arabia, 500–630Daniel ReynoldsCommunity Building and Collective Identity in Middle Byzantine AthensFotini KondyliPART II: Centre and PeripheryProvincial Rebellions as an Indicator of Byzantine ‘Identity’ (Tenth–Twelfth Centuries)Jean Claude Cheynet Ethnic/Provincial Separatism in the Late Twelfth and Early Thirteenth Centuries: A Case of Power Relations or Disparate Identities?Alicia SimpsonRacism in the Crusades: Ethnic and Religious Identities Between Conquest and NegotiationDionysios StathakopoulosAdjustable Imperial Image-Projection and the Greco-Roman Repertoire: Their Reception Among Outsiders and Longer-Stay VisitorsJonathan ShepardTwo Paradoxes of Border Identity: Michael VIII Palaiologos and Constantine Doukas Nestongos in the Sultanate of RūmDimitri KorobeinikovThe Coriander Field: Ideologies and Identities in Post-Roman RavennaFrancesco BorriCultural Policy and Political Ideology: How Imperial Was the Norman Realm of Sicily?Annick Peters-CoustotChanges in Identity and Changes of Ideology in the Byzantine World in the Second Half of the Twelfth Century: The Case of SerbiaVlada StankovićIndex