Sir Steven Runciman’s History of the Crusades (1951–4) remains widely read and influential to this day but represents only a part of his wide-ranging, erudite and immensely readable literary output. His early work focused on Byzantium in the tenth century (The Emperor Romanus Lecapenus) and the history of the first Bulgarian empire. Later he wrote with authority on ecclesiastical relations between the Eastern and Western Churches (The Eastern Schism), and more generally on Byzantine culture (Byzantine Style and Civilization), with forays into medieval diplomacy (The Sicilian Vespers) and British colonial society (The White Rajahs). With a diplomatic past which informed his work, he was the doyen of Byzantine studies in Britain. This volume of essays on topics relevant to Sir Steven’s interests, long planned in his honour by British Byzantinists of all generations, includes a memoir of his life and a full bibliography of his writings.

ELIZABETH JEFFREYS is Bywater and Sotheby Professor of Byzantine and Modern Greek Language and Literature in the University of Oxford, and Fellow of Exeter College; she has published extensively on topics in Byzantine literature.

Byzantine Style, Religion and
Civilization

In Honour of Sir Steven Runciman

ELIZABETH JEFFREYS

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo

Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521834452

© Cambridge University Press 2006

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2006

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data

ISBN-13 978-0-521-83445-2 hardback
ISBN-10 0-521-83445-7 hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for
external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee
that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

Figures

Contributors

Anthony Bryer first met Steven Runciman in the House by Herod’s Gate in Jerusalem in 1942. He is now emeritus Professor of Byzantine Studies in the University of Birmingham.

Leslie Brubaker is Professor of Byzantine Art at Birmingham University. Her publications include Vision and Meaning in Ninth-century Byzantium (Cambridge, 1999) and Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era (c. 680–850): a history (Cambridge, 2005).

David Buckton studied art history at the University of East Anglia, graduating in 1975, and at the Courtauld Institute, University of London. From 1978 to 2000 he was curator of the Early Christian and Byzantine collections at the British Museum, in addition to Carolingian, Ottonian, Salian and Eastern Orthodox art. From 1983 to 2000 he was also responsible for the National Icon Collection.

Archie Dunn is a Research Fellow in the Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity at Birmingham University. He specializes in the history and archaeo- logy of Late Antique and Byzantine Greece and Cyprus, and in Byzantine sigillography.

David Frendo graduated in classics from University College London in 1963 and studied for a PhD under Robert Browning, which he was awarded in 1968. He was Lecturer in Classics at the Royal University of Malta from 1965 to 1969 and Statutory Lecturer in Ancient Classics at University College Cork until 1997. His research interests are in the fields of early Byzantine poetry and Late Antique and early Byzantine history, especially Byzantine–Sasanian relations.

Zaga Gavrilović studied art history in the University of Belgrade and subsequently in Paris. Since 1980 she has been associated with the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies in the University of Birmingham, as an Honorary Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Research in the Humanities; from 2002 she has also been an associate member of the Institute for Medieval Studies in the University of Nottingham. In 2003 she was elected a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Belgrade.

Timothy Greenwood’s research is focused on the Armenian contribution to Byzantine society. After holding post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Oxford he is now Lecturer in Byzantine History at the University of St Andrews.

John Haldon is Professor of Byzantine History at Princeton University. His research focuses on the history of the early and middle Byzantine empire, in particular in the period from the sixth to the eleventh centuries, on state systems and structures across the European and Islamic worlds from Late Antique to early modern times and on the production, distribution and consumption of resources in the late Roman and medieval world, especially in the context of warfare. He has published many books and articles, including Byzantium in the Seventh Century (Cambridge, 1997), Warfare, State and Society in the Byzantine World (London, 1999), Byzantium: a history (Stroud, 2000), and The Palgrave Atlas of Byzantine History (London, 2005).

Paul Hetherington studied art history at the Courtauld Institute, London, taking his first degree there in 1962 as well as his PhD in 1968. His publications include a translation and commentary on The Painter’s Manual of Dionysius of Fourna (London, 1974), two guide books to the Byzantine buildings of mainland Greece and of the Greek Islands, and a number of articles on Byzantine enamel.

Catherine Holmes is a tutor and University Lecturer in Medieval History at University College, Oxford. Her publications include Basil Ⅱ and the Governance of Empire (976–1025) (Oxford, 2005).

James Howard-Johnston is University Lecturer in Byzantine Studies in the University of Oxford. His main research interests lie currently in international relations at the end of Antiquity and in the early Middle Ages.

Lucy-Anne Hunt is Professor and Head of the School of History of Art and Design at Manchester Metropolitan University. She is the author of Byzantium, Eastern Christendom and Islam: art at the crossroads of the medieval Mediterranean, 2 vols. (London, 1998 and 2000) and The Mingana and Related Collections: a survey of illustrated Arabic, Greek, Eastern Christian, Persian and Turkish manuscripts in the Selly Oak Colleges, Birmingham(Birmingham, 1997). Her present interests and publications focus on cross-cultural analysis between Byzantine and Islamic, and Christian and Muslim art and culture in the Middle Ages through study of Byzantine, Eastern Christian and ‘Crusader’ art, as well as East–West cultural relations in the Middle Ages.

Patricia Karlin-Hayter was educated in Bordeaux and Birmingham; she was assistant to Henri Grégoire, and has edited the Vita Euthymii. She is the author of many articles on Byzantine peasant society, monasticism, tenth-century intellectual history, circus factions, iconoclasm and hagiography. She is currently working on a book on iconoclasm.

Peter Lock is Professor of History at York St John University College, York. He is co-editor with Guy Sanders of The Archaeology of Medieval Greece (Oxford, 1996) and author of The Franks in the Aegean (London, 1995) and the Routledge Companion to the Crusades (London, 2006). He is currently translating the crusade works of Marino Sanudo Torsello for Ashgate Crusader Texts in Translation.

Andrew Louth is Professor of Patristic and Byzantine Studies in the University of Durham and the author of several books, including St John Damascene: Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology (Oxford, 2002).

A. H. S. Megaw was for many years Director of Antiquities, Cyprus.

Jennifer Nimmo Smith is a post-doctoral scholar with a long-standing honorary link with the School of History and Classics at the University of Edinburgh, where she tutors part-time in Greek. Her translation of the Pseudo-Nonnos Commentaries on Sermons 4, 5, 39, and 43 by Gregory of Nazianzos was published as A Christian’s Guide to Greek Culture (Liverpool, 2001).

Lyn Rodley is the author of Byzantine Art and Architecture (Cambridge, 1994); she teaches for the Open University and Morley College in London. She is currently Helen Waddell Visiting Professor at Queen’s University Belfast in the Institute of Byzantine Studies.

Peter Sarris is University Lecturer in Medieval History in the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity College. He is author of Economy and Society in the Age of Justinian (Cambridge, 2006).

Jonathan Shepard was for many years University Lecturer in Russian History at the University of Cambridge. He was co-editor, with Simon Franklin, of Byzantine Diplomacy (Aldershot, 1992) and is editor of the Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire (Cambridge, forthcoming).

Shaun Tougher is Lecturer in Ancient History in the Cardiff School of History and Archaeology at Cardiff University, and has also taught at Queen’s University Belfast and the University of St Andrews. He specializes in late Roman and Byzantine history, and has written several articles on subjects such as eunuchs, Julian the Apostate and Leo Ⅵ. He is the author of The Reign of Leo Ⅵ (886–912) (Leiden, 1997) and the editor of Eunuchs in Antiquity and Beyond (London, 2002). He is currently preparing a monograph on Byzantine eunuchs.

Frank Trombley is Reader in Byzantine and Early Islamic History at Cardiff University and author of Hellenic Religion and Christianization c. 370–529 ad (Leiden, 1993–4); he collaborated with John W. Watt in the translation and commentary The Chronicle of Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite (Liverpool, 2000). He is currently working on a book entitled War in Byzantine Culture and Society. His various articles deal with such subjects as the impact of endemic war on Byzantine culture and society, Greek and Arabic epigraphy in the villages of Syria, and towns and their rural territories in early medieval Greece and Asia Minor.

David Winfield divided his career between Byzantine studies, about which he has written extensively, and conservation work, for which he was awarded an MBE in 1973. He was the first Surveyor of Conservation to the National Trust.

Acknowledgements

This book has been far too long in the making, for which the final editor offers her share of the apologies. It had its origins in the wish to honour Sir Steven on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday, when a small conference was held in Glenesk in Scotland. The contributors and their themes have evolved over the intervening years, and alas, Sir Steven is no longer with us to receive his volume. It is offered as a modest memorial to the wide range of interests of that most courteous and accomplished of historians: the book’s title is intended to reflect those interests. The contributors span the generations of British Byzantinists, from those who had known him throughout their academic lives to more recent entrants to the field, who came to appreciate his role as President of the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies.

   Thanks are due to Michael Angold for initiating this enterprise, to the British Academy for permission to reproduce Anthony Bryer’s memoir of Sir Steven, and to William Davis and Michael Sharp at Cambridge University Press for their patience and helpfulness. But especial thanks are due to Ann Shukman for her support throughout the preparation of this book, and most particularly for her vital role in the compilation of the bibliography of Sir Steven’s writings.

Abbreviations

Classical authors are cited as in LSJ.

Note that the usual problems of consistent transliteration of Greek names are particularly acute when a book’s subject matter spans the centuries. Rather than descend into an abyss of pedantry, a certain inconsistency has been allowed, particularly over place names referring to places in present-day Greece.