Ekaterini Mitsiou – författare

This book offers the first analysis of female monasticism across the last three centuries of the Byzantine empire using Social Network Analysis (SNA). The present study analyzes and reconstructs the networks of Byzantine female monasteries as well as the geographical and spatial dimensions of monastic life, art, and literary production. Moreover, it reconstructs and represents the networks of specific female monastic individuals, female involvement in ecclesiastical controversies, and the complexity of patronage.

This book offers the first analysis of female monasticism across the last three centuries of the Byzantine empire using Social Network Analysis (SNA). The present study analyzes and reconstructs the networks of Byzantine female monasteries as well as the geographical and spatial dimensions of monastic life, art, and literary production. Moreover, it reconstructs and represents the networks of specific female monastic individuals, female involvement in ecclesiastical controversies, and the complexity of patronage.

Mobility and migration were not uncommon in Byzantium, as is true for all societies. Yet, scholarship is only beginning to pay attention to these phenomena. This book presents in English translation a wide array of relevant source texts from ca. 650 to ca. 1450 originally written in medieval Greek: from administrative records, saints’ lives and letters by churchmen to ego-documents by ambassadors and historical narratives by court historians. Each source text is accompanied by a detailed introduction, commentary and further bibliography, thus making the book accessible to both scholars and students and laying the groundwork for future research on the internal dynamics of Byzantine society.