CA(c)cile Morrisson – författare

Angeliki Laiou (1941-2008), one of the leading Byzantinists of her generation, broke new ground in the study of the social and economic history of the Byzantine Empire. Women, Family and Society in Byzantium, the first of three volumes to be published posthumously in the Variorum Collected Studies Series, brings together eight articles published between 1993 and 2009. Demonstrating Professor Laiou''s characteristic attention to the relationship between ideology and social practice, the first five articles concern the status of women as evidenced through legal, narrative, hagiographical, and archival sources, while the final three investigate conceptions of law and justice, the vocabulary and typology of peasant rebellions, and the and the form and evolution of political agreements in Byzantine society.

In collaboration with colleagues in physics and metallurgy, Cécile Morrison has helped transform our knowledge of the techniques of late Roman and Byzantine coin production. The results are illustrated in the studies here which look in detail at standards of refining and processes of debasement. This analysis can also identify sources of metal, and explains the enigmatic appearance of concave gold coins n the 11th century. The volume itself opens with a comparison of the methods of numismatics and sigillography, and an epigraphic study showing the conservatism of the Byzantine coinage up until 1204. The following articles turn to the finances and economy of Byzantium, making full use of recent advances in numismatics. They aim to assess the importance of the state and other economic agents during the empire’s different phases of expansion and contraction, and demonstrate how fiscal documents and legislation on treasure hoards can be used as evidence for the state of public finances.