Cyril Mango - Böcker

The Oxford History of Byzantium is the only history to provide in concise form detailed coverage of Byzantium from its Roman beginnings to the fall of Constantinople and assimilation into the Turkish Empire. Lively essays and beautiful illustrations portray the emergence and development of a distinctive civilization, covering the period from the fourth century to the mid-fifteenth century. The authors - all working at the cutting edge of their particular fields - outline the political history of the Byzantine state and bring to life the evolution of a colourful culture.In AD 324, the Emperor Constantine the Great chose Byzantion, an ancient Greek colony at the mouth of the Thracian Bosphorous, as his imperial residence. He renamed the place 'Constaninopolis nova Roma', 'Constantinople, the new Rome' and the city (modern Istanbul) became the Eastern capital of the later Roman empire. The new Rome outlived the old and Constantine's successors continued to regard themselves as the legitimate emperors of Rome, just as their subjects called themselves Romaioi, or Romans long after they had forgotten the Latin language. In the sixteenth century, Western humanists gave this eastern Roman empire ruled from Constantinople the epithet 'Byzantine'.Against a backdrop of stories of emperors, intrigues, battles, and bishops, this Oxford History uncovers the hidden mechanisms - economic, social, and demographic - that underlay the history of events. The authors explore everyday life in cities and villages, manufacture and trade, machinery of government, the church as an instrument of state, minorities, education, literary activity, beliefs and superstitions, monasticism, iconoclasm, the rise of Islam, and the fusion with Western, or Latin, culture. Byzantium linked the ancient and modern worlds, shaping traditions and handing down to both Eastern and Western civilization a vibrant legacy.

This anthology of translated histories, chronicles, saint’s lives, theological treatises, and accounts presents an in-depth analysis of Byzantine art. Focusing on Constantinople, Mango chronicles the arts, and places them in historical, political, and theological perspective. First published in 1972.

This volume is devoted to the history, monuments and topography of Byzantine Constantinople, and includes two specially written pieces, as well as up-dates to the studies reprinted. Many of the articles deal with the imperial constructions of the first centuries of the City’s existence - for instance, the columns of Constantine and Justinian, the Mausoleum of the Holy Apostles and the churches of St Sophia, St John of Studius, and Sts Sergius and Bacchus - structures which provided the basic monumental framework around which Constantinople developed and its life was lived. In his reconstruction of these monuments and their history, Cyril Mango demonstrates how much can be achieved by combining the information gained from meticulous examination of the written sources, whether contemporary or from post-medieval travellers, with that provided by the surviving buildings themselves and the remains that have been excavated. Ce volume, voué à l’histoire, aux monuments et à la topographie de Constantinople la Byzantine, comprend deux études rédigées pour l’occasion, ainsi qu’une mise à jour des travaux qui y sont re-publiés. Bon nombre des études traitent plus particulièrement des constructions impériales datant des premiers siècles d’existence de la cité - tels, les colonnes de Constantin et de Justinien, la Mausolé des Saints Apôtres et les églises de Ste Sophie, St Jean de Studius, ou de Sts Serge et Bacchus; un ensemble de structures qui apportèrent la base monumentale autour de laquelle Constantinople s’est développée et a vécu. Au travers de cette reconstruction des monuments et de leur histoire, Cyril Mango démontre combien peut être atteint en combinant l’information acquise à partir d’un examen méticuleux des sources écrites - que celles-ci soient contemporaines ou proviennent des voyageurs post-médiévaux - à celle que l’on peut tirer des bâtiments-mêmes qui ont survécu, ainsi que des restes qui été re

From its foundation, the city of Constantinople dominated the Byzantine world. It was the seat of the emperor, the centre of government and church, the focus of commerce and culture, by far the greatest urban centre; its needs in terms of supplies and defense imposed their own logic on the development of the empire. Byzantine Constantinople has traditionally been treated in terms of the walled city and its immediate suburbs. In this volume, containing 25 papers delivered at the 27th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies held at Oxford in 1993, the perspective has been enlarged to encompass a wider geographical setting, that of the city’s European and Asiatic hinterland. Within this framework a variety of interconnected topics have been addressed, ranging from the bare necessities of life and defence to manufacture and export, communications between the capital and its hinterland, culture and artistic manifestations and the role of the sacred.