Byzantium in the Ninth Century: Dead or Alive?

9th-century Byzantium has always been viewed as a mid-point between Iconoclasm and the so-called Macedonian revival; in scholarly terms it is often treated as a 'dead' century. The object of these papers is to question such an assumption. They present a picture of political and military developments, legal and literary innovations, artisanal production, and religious and liturgical changes from the Anatolian plateau to the Greek-speaking areas of Italy that are only now gradually emerging as distinct. Investigation of how the 9th-century Byzantine world was perceived by outsiders also reveals much about Byzantine success and failure in promoting particular views of itself. The chapters here, by an international group of scholars, embody current research in this field; they recover many lost aspects of 9th-century Byzantium and shed new light on the Mediterranean world in a transitional century. The papers in this volume derive from the 30th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, held for the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies at the University of Birmingham in March 1996.

Leslie Brubaker

Contents: The Byzantine State: The Byzantine state in the 9th century: an introduction, John Haldon; Reanimation of Roman law in the 9th century: remarks on reasons and results, Marie Theres Fögen; The Paulicians and 9th-century Byzantine thought, Claudia Ludwig; The rehabilitation of the Emperor Theophilos, Athanasios Markopoulos; The imperial thought-world of Leo VI: the non-campaigning emperor of the 9th century, Shaun Tougher; Byzantine Culture: Byzantine culture in the 9th century: an introduction, Leslie Brubaker; Byzantium: cultural suicide? Paul Speck; Manifestations de la propagande en faveur de l'orthodoxie, Marie-France Auzépy; Canon and calendar: the role of a 9th-century hymnographer in shaping the celebration of saints, Nancy Patterson Sevcenko; Reconstructing 9th-century Constantinople, Robert Ousterhout; The road from Baghdad to Byzantium and the case of the Bryas Palace in Istanbul, Alessandra Ricci; Away from the centre: 'provincial' art in the 9th century, Robin Cormack; Byzantium and the Outside World: Byzantine relations with the outside world in the 9th century: an introduction, Jonathan Shepard; What has Constantinople to do with Jerusalem? Palestine in the 9th century: Byzantine orthodoxy in the world of Islam, Sidney Griffith; The road to Baghdad in the thought-world of 9th-century Byzantium, Paul Magdalino; Byzantium and al-Andalus in the 9th century, Eduardo Manzano Moreno; Byzance et Italie méridionale, Guislaine Noyé; 9th-century Byzantium through western eyes, Chris Wickham; Index.