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Research on the Mongol conquest of Iran and the Transcaucasus has focused most heavily on the campaigns of Chinggis Khan and his nephew Hülegü, in 1219–1224 and 1256–1260 respectively. Significantly less attention has been given to the nearly four decades that separate these two invasions, during which Mongol control was consolidated by a tamma (garrison) army numbering roughly 30,000 soldiers. This garrison occupied a liminal position on the frontier of the Mongol empire, linking the great khan to regional vassals in Iran, Greater Armenia, Georgia, and eastern Anatolia. This paper will use the history of the tamma to illuminate the web of personal relationships that allowed the Mongol empire to project its authority into the Middle East. It will demonstrate that this network was extremely brittle during the first three decades after Chinggis Khan's death, during which time the Mongol empire was still taking shape. Founded by Chinggis Khan, the tamma owed its loyalty to the great khan in Mongolia, yet long interregnums and political instability at the heart of empire forced the Mongol garrison to identify regional princes and princesses as suitable substitutes for political authority. This collaborative approach embroiled the tamma in the factional politics at the heart of the Mongol empire and ultimately brought about its destruction in 1261. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article will elucidate the philosophy of the image that developed in the wake of the Iconoclastic Controversy in the Eastern Christian Empire in the ninth Century. Iconophilia was finally reinstated after a wave of iconoclasm swept across the Empire. The controversy coincides with dramatic changes within the Byzantine empire, making it difficult to establish consensus amongst scholars regarding its possible causes. After discussing several of the theories that seek to explain the adoption of iconoclasm in the Byzantine Empire, we will seek to show how image veneration was transformed and differentiated from relic worship thanks to its encounter with iconoclasm. After reviewing icon veneration prior to the Iconoclastic Controversy, this article will elucidate the philosophy of the image developed by Patriarch Nicephorus in order to show how he differentiated veneration from idolatry by redefining the image as "similar to" (homoiosis) rather than consubstantial with (homoousios) its model. By differentiating image veneration from the theory of consubstantiality that was normative within Judaism and Islam, Christian philosophy of the image will differentiate resemblance from identity, inscription from circumscription, and thereby reveal iconoclasm to be in the eye of the beholder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper discusses the reign of the Rubenid lord of Armenian Cilicia, Mleh (1170–1175), and examines his relations with the two great powers of the period, the Byzantine Empire and the Zengids under Nūr al-Dīn (1146–1174). Through examination of the contemporary sources of the period, the following conclusions may be drawn: Firstly, Manuel (1143–1180) did not send an expeditionary force against Mleh. On the contrary, Mleh faced and defeated the local Byzantine garrisons. Secondly, the Crusaders waged a campaign against Mleh in 1173, which was partially successful as it forced the Rubenid lord to recognize the suzerainty of the king of Jerusalem, albeit temporarily. Thirdly, a consequence of the Crusader success was the Byzantine re-conquest of the cities of the Cilician Plain. Finally, Mleh's status as a client of Nur al-Din does not relate to his religious identity. The sources make it clear that he remained a Christian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reflects on Istanbul as a palimpsest city, more specifically, about how architectural typologies, practices, visual tropes and narratives migrate through different contexts in time and space. As a city inherited from the Byzantine Empire, negotiating the intersection of past and present as well as topography and politics has been fundamental to shaping Ottoman Istanbul. The article explores the imperial city through one of its 'original' Ottoman structures, the religious and social complex known as külliye , in order to frame its agency, both formal and urbanistic, to reveal not only its extremely rich and imaginative iterations from the conquest of Constantinople to the Tanzimat but also the spatiotemporal relationships between them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Late nineteenth-century Tunisian history has primarily been studied from a European perspective, in the colonial context of the French Protectorate. Yet, the North-African beylik was still inscribed within the realm of the Ottoman Empire long after 1881. The strength of the Mediterranean network was epitomized by Ḫayr al-Dīn's political figure and by his going back and forth between Tunis and Istanbul. Later on, the princess Nazlı Fazıl Hanım (d. 1913) created another layer of relationships, extending the zone of contacts to Paris and Cairo, putting Tunisia at the heart of Mediterranean intellectual exchanges. In her tow, the famous Egyptian scholar Muḥammad ʿ⁠Abduh had a notable influence over Tunisian ʿulamāʾ , and Bachir Sfar (al-Bašīr Ṣfar), forerunner of the Young Tunisians, paralleling the Young Turks, created his own path through a complex geo-political space. This article documents these personal links and the circulation of ideas within this cultural space: Maghreb in Mediterranean context, at the meeting point of provincial and imperial logics, and at the crossroads of traditionalist and reformist agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Michalis Michael's article endeavours to show how the ruling party in Turkey today and especially Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are trying to construct a new Turkish nation and a new Turkey on an ideological level through a different reading of Ottoman history. The aim of this special issue is to offer studies on the multiple readings of Ottoman history by different ideological and political forces in modern Turkey, readings which contributed to the formulation of a specific present with the goal of creating a specific future. The author examines the presidential system as an AKP claim aiming at the resolution of Turkey's "basic historical contradiction" of being a Muslim nation on which Western civilization has been imposed, but also as an effort to restore the Ottoman imperial legacy. [Extracted from the article]

From the fourth century CE, Christians were encouraged to redeem their faults by caring for the poor. The most striking manifestation of this phenomenon was the building by the Church of more or less specialised hospices throughout the Early Byzantine Empire (4th to 7th century CE) to accommodate those who depended on charity for their survival. These establishments are mentioned by ancient texts and lapidary inscriptions. About nine such facilities, ptocheion for the needy, xenodocheion for foreigners and travelers, diakonia where food was distributed and other types of charitable hospices can be listed in the ancient province of Arabia (Southern Syria, Northern Jordan). The available data, whether textual or archaeological since some remains are observable on the field, are presented in this paper and compared to those collected elsewhere in the Near East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India: V.1-2 (2006), pp. 69-78; V.1-2 (2006), pp. 107-141; V.1-2 (2006), pp. 235-255; V.1-2 (2006), pp. 357-369; X.1-2 (2012), pp. 81-95; XV.1 (2017), pp. 1-35. Shiism: I.1 (2002), pp. 77-84; III.2 (2004), pp. 245-63; V.1-2 (2006), pp. 69-78; V.1-2 (2006), pp. 93-105; V.1-2 (2006), pp. 257-269; V.1-2 (2006), pp. 371-375; XIV.1-2 (2016), pp. 205-230; XVI (2018), pp. 395-428. Indian Ocean: I.2 (2002), pp. 237-262; III.2 (2004), pp. 245-63; V.1-2 (2006), pp. 1-4; V.1-2 (2006), pp. 175-193; V.1-2 (2006), pp. 235-255; V.1-2 (2006), pp. 357-369; VIII.1-2 (2010), pp. 77-96; VIII.1-2 (2010), pp. 149-165; X.1-2 (2012), pp. 81-95. Qajars: V.1-2 (2006), pp. 69-78; V.1-2 (2006), pp. 235-255; V.1-2 (2006), pp. 297-305; VIII.1-2 (2010), pp. 49-75; IX.1-2 (2011), pp. 213-262; X.1-2 (2012), pp. 189-219; XIII.1-2 (2015), pp. 153-179; XIV.1-2 (2016), pp. 135-177. ahmasp I: II.1 (2003), pp. 1-29: III.1 (2004), pp. 1-33; V.1-2 (2006), pp. 79-92; V.1-2 (2006), pp. 271-295; V.1-2 (2006), pp. 319-331; VI (2007-2008), pp. 47-50. [Extracted from the article]

In the late 11th century, two mysterious "Roman" embassies visited China and offered tribute to the Song Dynasty. This paper seeks to reopen the argument surrounding the identity of the Roman embassies. The question enjoyed intense discussions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, before interest waned thereafter. Relying on a broad range of underused sources, this paper re-assesses the two most widely acknowledged theories that associate the embassies with the aims of the Byzantine pretender Nikephoros Melissenos and of the Seljuk prince in exile Sulaymān ibn Qutlumush. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Byzantine historian Theophylact Simocatta (fl. 620s) records an exchange of letters with the Sasanian Empire. The correspondence of March 590, from the Iranian shah Khosrow II Parviz (r. 591–628) and addressed to the Byzantine emperor Maurice (r. 582–602), exhibits a particular style, focused on the ideological oppositions of order and disorder and legitimacy and usurpation. This paper suggests that Khosrow's claims to his kingdom made use of a discourse of catastrophic motifs that reflected common Sasanian apocalyptic beliefs. Thus, the chaotic situation provoked by the inversion of the rightful order elicited, from a Zoroastrian perspective, a response that stressed the dualistic nuance of demonic anarchy in order to stigmatize the risk of deposition. For these reasons, apocalyptic doctrines and royal propaganda share a common language: a political discourse based on the justification of kingship and the demonization of the enemy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Gift exchange was an integral and crucial part of Byzantine diplomacy. The practice of Byzantine gift-giving varied with diplomatic context. The main division is that between Byzantine diplomacy with Muslim rulers and Byzantine diplomacy with (Christian) rulers to the North and West. While the former happened on a more egalitarian footing, the latter was structured in more explicitly hierarchical terms. This difference was reflected in the practice of gift exchange: in who participated, how they comported themselves and the nature of the objects being exchanged. Even so, in both contexts, the function of diplomatic gift-giving was to claim and justify authority, be that the authority of the One (Byzantine Emperor) over the Many (Christian rulers, people of the Roman lands), or the authority of the Few (Byzantine Emperor and Muslim Caliph) over the Many (their respective subordinates). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term ‘magic’ is problematic. Magic studies have rapidly developed in recent decades and have suggested various ways of understanding the term, especially regarding objects from the medieval Roman Empire, Byzantium. Two early Byzantine amulets (as case studies) display conventional semiotic structures, which include persuasive analogy, speech-acts, and show-acts. Persuasive analogy, speech-acts, and show-acts – and how they organize information – operate also in religious, medical, and philosophical examples. Accordingly, art, archaeology, and texts of ritual power exemplify intersecting communities of thought and various types of social practices. Magic studies is interdisciplinary, and it encourages critique of modern assumptions regarding authority and of our intellectual colonization of times past. This essay is broad with several object examples across media, written as a conference presentation. Another approach to these semiotic structures on magical amulets – with examination of fewer objects and wider attention to the historiography of magic studies – will appear in the forthcoming Oxford Handbook on Byzantine Art and Architecture, ed. Ellen Schwartz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existence of parties in the Russian Orthodox Church 1480–1580 does not imply parties in the sense of coherent ideological groupings, as Don Ostrowski, David Goldfrank and Charles Halperin correctly argue. Iosif Volotskii and Nil Sorskii had complementary, not rival views. The issue of monastic lands was about regulation, not confiscation, and the parties were actually "old boy networks". The Russian story needs a Byzantine context for the treatment of heresies, monastic lands, and other issues. Byzantium had different practices than the West, and so did the Russians. Western practice and terminology is not relevant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern discussions of rural labor in Byzantine Egypt (300–700 CE) have been bedevilled by disagreement over the definition of that concept. There are three main competing conceptualizations: (i) Rural labor has been defined in terms of serfdom as a parallel outcome to the emergence of "private" (or feudal) large landowners as opposed to the decline of "public powers"; (ii) Rural labor has been described as "free" since it was based on contractual arrangements (primarily, rent tenancy) and on the payment of a public levy to the state; and (iii) Rural labor has been characterized in terms of exploitation, that is, as the instrument through which landholders (both landowners and tenants) extracted unpaid wealth from the population of producers. Building on a vast literature, this essay seeks to clarify that while the notion of feudal serfdom does not find corroborations in the Byzantine sources, the contractual, tributary, and "exploitative" characterizations of labor were not mutually exclusive, but instead describe different aspects and possible developments of the employer-employee relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ottoman urban revolt has been the subject of many studies, but most of them consider either the janissaries or political factions of the elite as the main actors. However, Ottoman sources point to the marked participation of what can be called the 'urban mob', people without any strong professional or military affiliation. The article seeks to explore the type and scope of this participation, the composition and socioeconomic characteristics of this mob, and the possible hints we may obtain about their motives and ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early Middle Ages, while Byzantium was impoverished and Anatolian cities were evolving into fortified kastra, the Islamic Near East enjoyed an age of economic and demographic growth. Exploring the formation of sūqs and the rise of the Umayyad and early ‘Abbāsid states, this article argues that the Arab-Islamic aristocracy’s involvement in establishing sūqs reflected a desire to exert power and build legitimacy. Despite their physical resemblance to Late Roman and Sasanian bazaars, early Islamic sūqs functioned differently, and their specificity exemplifies an evolution of labour patterns from 700 to 950, in particular the social rise and increasing religious involvement of merchants. This article places the archaeological evidence in dialogue with the literary. Although the Islamic material is central, comparisons in the paths of trade and economic life between the Middle East and Western Europe provide ways to identify the divergences between East and West after the fall of Rome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the implementation of Gregory's distinction for preaching to the young and the old in the Regula Pastoralis in the context of the papacy's expanding relations with Christians across the Late Antique and Early Medieval world. Much has been written about whether Gregory's pontificate was part of the end of the Late Antique period or the beginning of the Early Medieval era. The implementation of these preaching prescriptions in Gregory's letters demonstrates that the Regula Pastoralis can serve as a newtool for examining this debate and reveals how the method prescribed by Gregory for caring for the young and the old shaped how he approached the papacy's relations with different communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Apart from its Greco-Roman and Christian connotations, considering its continuous influence in the Byzantine world, the oikoumene should be seen as a geo-political as well as socio-religious concept of networking and unity in popular thought and local narratives. This paper argues that "ecumenical" thought survived after Late Antiquity and through the Byzantine era in the Orthodox transportation infrastructure of people and information. It also provides a review of the circulation of heresiological "labels" in the middle to late Byzantine eras. In the Mediterranean, routes, transportation vehicles, and any media supported intelligent networking in the oikoumene. People in the oikoumene could access foreign teachings or stories from outsiders or "barbarians" of different faiths. Constantinopolitan intellectuals coined and issued labels for heretics, such as the Bogomils, Paulicians, and Massalians, and constructed a narrative of the heretical contamination from the center of the oikoumene. Heresiologists collected the information used in creating these heresy titles from far-flung places in all directions from Constantinople, and then exported the labels, which were spread using the transportation network of the Byzantine oikoumene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the history of the Chalcedonian Melkites in the Fatimid state in the period after the reign of the caliph al-Häkim, i.e., from 1021 until the end of the Fatimid caliphate in 1171. For the eleventh century the focus will be on Palestine (before its conquest by the Crusaders). Although the evidence is very fragmentary, the attempt will be made to provide some insights on the development of the situation of the Melkite community under Fatimid rule, its ecclesiastical institutions, its connection with Byzantium, and its intellectual life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the primary Copto-Arabic literary source for the history of Fatimid Egypt, and indeed, for much of the history of Egypt in general: known as the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, it was compiled in Arabic in the late eleventh century CE on the basis of earlier, mostly Coptic sources, by the Alexandrian notable Mawhūb ibn Manūr ibn Mufarrij, who added original Arabic materials of his own. Later continuations were added by others, from late Fatimid times up to the twentieth century. The first part of the paper is an outline of the textual history of the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, its existing editions and their shortcomings, and the new critical edition that is now being prepared. This part also discusses the fundamentals of a meticulous method of textual criticism, close reading, and contextualization which should help to elucidate numerous problems of historic interpretation. In the subsequent sections of the paper, this same method is applied to a short text sample with an aim of, wherever possible, reconstructing Mawhūb's original Arabic text, but also with the objective of illustrating how this late eleventh-century text may have been read by later generations. Finally, the freshly coined concept of "internal intertextuality" is employed to point to parallels with episodes that occur in the earlier parts of the Arabic History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, based on older Coptic sources. At the level of content, several new historical interpretations and corrections to older interpretations are offered. The text sample in question concerns the martyrdom of a young Copt, Bifām ibn Baqūra al-awwāf, during the imamate-caliphate of al-Mustanir Billāh (427/1036-487/1094). Throughout the paper, it is argued that narratives such as this, together with accounts of events belonging to the early Islamic period or even to pre-Islamic (Roman, Byzantine) history, are to be seen as emanating from the specific socio-cultural environment of the Coptic urban elite of the mid-Fatimid period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is about Roman 'law reports' in general, and particularly about the so-called decreta frontiana mentioned in D. 29,2,99 and not infrequently attributed to Titius Aristo. It is contended that Aristo was indeed the author of a great number of notae, responsa and epistulae, compiled by Sextus Pomponius a generation after Aristo's death, but that he was not the author of 'law reports' entitled decreta Frontoniana or Frontiniana. All he did, was compose an observation (nota) on an appeal case decided by one of six possible consuls, called either Fronto, or Frontonianus, or even Frontinus, that Aristo had found in the consular commentarii. There is only one genuine Roman 'law report', and that is the collection of cases decided by Septimius Severus and Caracalla as compiled by Julius Paulus. In the history of Roman legal literature, it is only in the Byzantine period that anything similar appears again. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For much of the 20th century, scholarship on Muhammad and the beginnings of Islam has shown a reluctance to acknowledge the importance of imminent eschatology in earliest Islam. One of the main reasons for this resistance to eschatology would appear to be the undeniable importance of conquest and political expansion in early Islam: if Muhammad and his followers believed that the world would soon come to an end, why then did they seek to conquer and rule over so much of it? Nevertheless, there is no real contradiction between the urgent eschatology revealed by the Qur'än and other early sources on the one hand, and the determination of Muhammad and his followers to expand their religious policy and establish an empire on the other. To the contrary, the political eschatology of the Byzantine Christians during the sixth and early seventh centuries indicates that these two beliefs went hand in hand, offering important contemporary precedent for the imperial eschatology that seems to have fueled the rise of Islam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on regional studies of the late antique economy highlighting the controversies surrounding the economic period of the Mediterranean. Topics discussed include the economic decline in this region after the sixth century, the technological development in the area and Marges Arides project, the survey of settlement patterns in the arid region to the south-east of Aleppo and east of Hama, showing the extension of agriculture into the Syrian desert in the Byzantine period.

The article offers information on late antique economy, focusing on non-ceramic evidences and Stefano Costa's essay on ceramic evidence. It presents general syntheses, theoretical and cultural conceptualization and methodological approach related to late antique economy. It also focuses on the historiography of Late Antiquity into the Byzantine world.

The quest for orthodoxy began in the earliest days of Christianity, and has continued unabated until today, after two thousand years of church councils and theological argument. In the western church, the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451) is generally taken to be a watershed, or even to have settled the most important questions. This was not the case in the east, where Chalcedon was immediately questioned, leading to the separation of the eastern churches. Byzantinists tend to suppose that the ending of iconoclasm in AD 843 characterised the nature of Byzantine orthodoxy for the future. This paper argues that 'orthodoxy' was always fluid, and that its definition, and still more its imposition, were always fought over, and required constant effort, energy and an outpouring of oral and written argument. This effort was costly for institutions and individuals alike, and was far less successful than it seems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conspicuously absent from 6th to early 7th c. fortified sites in the Balkans are stirrups and other elements of equipment signalling the presence of cavalry troops. Hoards of iron implements containing stirrups have been wrongly dated to Late Antiquity; they are in fact of a much later date (9th-- 11th c. A.D.). Those hoards which can be dated to the 6th c. with some degree of certainty lack agricultural tools associated with large-scale cultivation of fields. As most such hoards found in Early Byzantine hill-forts typically include tools for the garden-type cultivation of small plots of land, they show that no agricultural occupations could be practised inside or outside 6th c. forts, which could satisfy the needs of the existing population. Those were, therefore, forts, not fortified villages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstracts of Justinianc law in the of Σύνταγμα χατά στoιχεϊoν Matthew Blastares. - The Σύνταγμα χατά στoιχεϊoν, redacted in 1334-1335 by the Gteek hietomonk Matthaeus Blastares, was composed of secular and canon laws, arranged alphabetically. This article focuses on the previously uninvestigated presence of Justinianic law in the secular dispositions of the Syntagma. The Syntagma, which was a nomokanon and a juridical encyclopedia, was translated and used in Serbia (14th century), Moldovia (15th century) and Georgia (17th century) to introduce into these countries juridical systems based on Justinianic law, more than 1000 years after the redaction of the Corpus luris Civilis. The question about which Byzantine juridical compilations have been used to redact this juridical work has not yet been answered and the article could help to shed light on this aspect through highlighting the work's references to the Basilics, the Prochiron and the Eisagoge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent paper published in this review (79 (2011), p. 253-296), L. Waelkens investigates the problem of the lacunose oldest western manuscripts of the Code, especially at their beginning. He argues that the first 13 titles of the Codex Justinianus had been compiled after the promulgation of its second edition and placed in front of the text of 534, where they did not in fact belong. This successful forgery would have led in various stages to the composition of the Code in its accepted form. This paper sets out to demonstrate that there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary: C. 1,1-13 have always been part of the Codex repetitae praelectionis, as is proven by, inter alia, P.Oxy. 1814, the Collectio XXV Capitulorum, the scholia of the Basilica and, pace Waelkens, even the Collectio Tripartita. The solution of the problem of the western medieval tradition of the Code has to be sought elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the motives of the earliest Muslim attacks on the Byzantine Empire in the seventh and eighth centuries by examining the earliest Christian (Byzantine) and Muslim sources that describe these attacks. The article assesses the strengths of these accounts and culls from them the possible religious motivations behind the first Muslim attacks on the Byzantine Empire. One question particularly addressed is the goal of the Muslim attacks: to bring down the Byzantine Empire entirely, or merely to wrest from it Palestine and the surrounding territories that were of significance to the Muslim invaders. In either case, Whealey argues that the motives were religious in nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines two categories of portable objects: ceramics and ephemeral architecture (such as tents, palanquins, litters) for clues to the transmission of ideas about palatial architecture and the creation of a shared taste for a certain kind of palatial form and decoration between Christian and Muslim states whose artistic production is usually considered separately. The time period investigated is the twelfth to fourteenth centuries, and the geographical area investigated spans Constantinople, Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia. Without denying the importance of traveling craftsmen as vectors for artistic exchange, this essay argues that portable objects and portable or ephemeral architecture helped create the taste and demand for a supranational palatial architecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I analyze the use and development of perfect periphrases with the verbs "be" (ϵíμí) and "have" (ϵΧω) in Post-classical and Early Byzantine Greek. While their importance has often been stressed in the context of the restructuring of the verbal system (more in particular the loss of the synthetic perfect), they have not received an in-depth, corpus-based treatment yet. The approach adopted in this article builds on insights from recently developed ecological-evolutionary models, which recognize the fact that language change is a two-step process, consisting of innovation and propa- gation, and that multiple ecologogical' factors influence the spread of a construction through the population (what I discuss in terms of register'). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1349 Stefan Dušan enacted a code that was part of a tripartite codification with the Abridged syntagma and the so-called Law of Justinian. The Serbian emperor introduced in his empire a Byzantine legal system, even if elements of Slavic customary law were preserved. Physical mutilations and punishments, death penalty, public penal system, personal liability were unknown to the Slav populations and have to be connected to the Greek-Roman law influence. This influence is evident both in civil and criminal law and in this sense the dispositions of the Code of Dušan must be connected to the two other Byzantine compilations. Dušan's attempt failed just a few years after his death because of the fall of the Serbian empire due to the Ottoman advance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to investigate the adaptation of the Christian monastic foundations to the Islamic vakıf and to demonstrate the often flexible and equivocal way the term vakıf was applied by the Orthodox monks and the state officials in the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. The question of the Christian vakıf is important, since a significant part of the agricultural property of many Orthodox monasteries in the Greek lands was vakıf, owned since the Byzantine period and acknowledged as such by the Ottomans, or property acquired during the Ottoman period and characterized as vakıf through the legal procedure or perceived as such by the monks themselves. The article also refers to the importance of the study in a comparative perspective of Greek monastic documents issued in the Ottoman period, since they may contribute to a better understanding of the Ottoman landholding reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eros's conniving nature in conjunction with his sadistic temperament is the single most important attribute of his character-indeed, it remains intact after some 800 years of iconographic and literary evolution. In medieval Byzantium Eros emerges as a formidable sovereign, toying with his subjects' desires as he asserts his cosmic dominion from the grounds of his utopian castle. This remarkable transformation reveals a rich discourse on the merits of sovereignty-a discourse that raises significant questions about the dynamics of Byzantine imperial commissions and the paradoxical role of court intellectuals as sovereign propagandists and political critics. In linking the role of Byzantine intellectuals in the aftermath of political upheaval to the figurations of sovereignty showcased in Byzantine fiction, the author reveals an ambitious interplay of literary and political interests that calls into question the view of Byzantine intellectuals as dutiful followers of powerful patrons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a detailed investigation of Byzantine and post-Byzantine perceptions of the political organization of the Italian city-states. Drawing on philosophical and historical writing produced by Byzantine and post-Byzantine authors between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, it identifies the main patterns and motifs that informed Byzantine discourse about the constitutional arrangements of such Italian cities as Genoa, Venice, Florence, and Milan. It shows how these come into play in the writings of major figures of Byzantine and post-Byzantine intellectual life such as Theodoros Metochites, John Kantakouzenos, Nikephoros Gregoras, George of Trebizond, Cardinal Bessarion, Laonikos Chalkokondyles, and John Kottunios. It also explores the ways in which the classical legacy of political thought was applied by Byzantine writers in their analysis of various constitutional forms. The findings of this survey provide new insights into cross-cultural exchanges between the Byzantine world and medieval and early modern Europe and the formation of Byzantine identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Muslim conquest of Constantinople was seen in various apocalyptic traditions as one of the portents of the end. An Ottoman mystic, Ahmed Bî-cân, gave voice to these apocalyptic fears and expectations soon after the Ottoman conquest in 1453 CE. His apocalyptic narrative, expressed in the Turkish vernacular, placed the Ottoman enterprise within the final tribulations and hailed the sultan, Mehmed II, as an apocalyptic warrior. This endorsement heralded the emergence of a new imperial ideology in the sixteenth century: Ottoman history became an important component of universal history, while Ottoman sultans were attributed cosmic responsibilities and messianic abilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the built spaces, often described as mosques, of two Muslim communities in Constantinople between the tenth and thirteenth centuries. These Islamic spaces in the Byzantine capital originated pragmatic solutions to the functional requirements of accommodating Muslim prisoners and merchants. During this period one of these built spaces acquired political status as “the mosque of Constantinople” in diplomatic negotiations, serving as a counterpart to Christian monuments in Islamic territories. By the end of the twelfth century the Muslim spaces of Constantinople had acquired social, economic and religious significance for an international Muslim community, becoming in effect Islamic monuments. The “mosques” of Constantinople thus illuminate a role for architecture within Byzantine-Islamic diplomatic exchange, and a process of medieval monument formation, based not on intrinsic artistic interest, but on meanings acquired through social processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an overview of the extent to which the Byzantine Empire preserved the engineering traditions of the ancient world, passed them on to Islam and back to the West, and modifi ed them to meet its own requirements. After about A.D. 600, expensive works of civil engineering became rare, but machines for military and agricultural purposes remained in constant and even increasing use, while fi ne technology saw some revival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two phenomena were paramount in the transformation, and ultimate collapse, of the Byzantine imperial system in the period c. 950-1204: sustained economic and demographic growth, which the state failed fully to direct or exploit; and the emergence of a powerful, self-conscious aristocracy, willing to exploit resources to the detriment of the state. During the tenth and eleventh centuries imperial policies were devised which aimed to bolster existing political and fiscal structures, prop up the state economy, and delimit the power of aristocrats. These measures failed. Twelfth-century efforts took another tack, seeking to harness the interests and wealth of the aristocracy, anchored in the land, to those of the state. These provided no lasting solution, but instead led to greater political fragmentation, internecine conflict, social unrest, and ultimately to the collapse of the state system in the last years of the twelfth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigates the coin frequencies in the sixth and seventh centuries in Islamic Palestine and Arabia and its social and economic implications. Coins recovered at the archeological excavations; Sites of the excavations; Administrative structure in the Late Roman and early Byzantine periods.

Comments on the certainty, doubt and errors in Byzantine astronomy. Awareness of the Byzantines that they possessed the scientific knowledge of the Greeks; History of the Byzantine Empire; Mathematical errors in Byzantine manuscripts.

The author presents a response to a comment made by former Anglican rector Kevin Giles about his reference to one Greek Orthodox theologian named John Meyendorff. He argues that the citation describes the Byzantine theology as a whole. He stresses that the citation from one Orthodox theologian must be viewed in the context of vital tradition, when compared with its counterpart from a Barth, a Moltmann or a Torrance.