Pamela Armstrong – författare

Authority is an important concept in Byzantine culture whose myriad modes of implementation helped maintain the existence of the Byzantine state across so many centuries, binding together people from different ethnic groups, in different spheres of life and activities. Even though its significance to understanding the Byzantine world is so central, it is nonetheless imperfectly understood. The present volume brings together an international cast of scholars to explore this concept. The contributions are divided into nine sections focusing on different aspects of authority: the imperial authority of the state, how it was transmitted from the top down, from Constantinople to provincial towns, how it dealt with marginal legal issues or good medical practice; authority in the market place, whether directly concerning over-the-counter issues such as coinage, weights and measures, or the wider concerns of the activities of foreign traders; authority in the church, such as the extent to which ecclesiastical authority was inherent, or how constructs of religious authority ordered family life; the authority of knowledge revealed through imperial patronage or divine wisdom; the authority of text, though its conformity with ancient traditions, through the Holy scriptures and through the authenticity of history; exhibiting authority through images of the emperor or the Divine. The final section draws on personal experience of three great ’authorities’ within Byzantine Studies: Ostrogorsky, Beck and Browning.

Volume Two of Ron Young and Pamela Armstrong's informative trilogy on submarine wrecks of the British Isles, focusing in this edition on the South Coast, from Beachy Head in Sussex down to the Isles of Scilly. Over 150 British submarine and U-boat wrecks in British coastal waters, specifically those in the English Channel, are described in detail, including information on the vessel's type and technical specifications, its voyage history, how it was sunk, a list of crew at the time of loss, details of the wreck site and the current state of the wreck.