Politics and Government in Byzantium The Rise and Fall of the Bureaucrats
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Jonathan Shea is Associate Curator of Coins and Seals at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, and Dean’s Distinguished Lecturer in the Humanities at The George Washington University. He received his PhD from the University of Birmingham and has published in peer-reviewed articles and edited collectionsThis is a useful and refreshing contribution to the complex history of eleventh-century Byzantium and offers an approach that differs from those that place emphasis chiefly on fiscal problems on the one hand or military collapse on the other.
Speculum
[A]n important contribution to the study of Byzantine government and society. Given its rich and sometimes complex detail it will serve as a useful reference work. Further, in conjunction with other recent studies of Byzantium in the tenth and eleventh centuries...it will enable greater understanding of this crucial period of Byzantine history.
Early Medieval Europe
The eleventh century marked a turning point in the history of the Byzantine Empire. At its start Byzantium was the paramount power in the Mediterranean world, by turns feared, respected and admired. By the century’s close the empire had lost half of its territory and had managed only a partial recovery under the leadership of the Komnenos family. How did a powerful and famously wealthy empire collapse so quickly?
The contemporary accounts of this turbulent ‘long’ century (taken here as c. 950–1100) attribute the empire’s decline to the emperors’ reckless and self-serving favouring of civilian bureaucrats and, while these sources are today widely acknowledged as biased and unreliable, modern assessments of the century have hitherto failed to suggest any tangible alternatives. To circumvent this dearth of archival material, Jonathan Shea has meticulously analysed 2,200 unpublished seals from the period (more than a third of the known total extant today) to uncover exactly whom the emperors were favouring and promoting, as well as developing a nuanced and revealing picture of the makeup of the much-chastised civilian bureaucracy. The sigillographic evidence is throughout measured against the written material to give a fresh account of this key transitional century and a rare insight into Byzantine politics.
Part 1 Byzantium at the Turning Point
· Part 1.2 Byzantium in the Eleventh Century
· Part 1.2 Seals, Coins, and Lists
Part 2 The Byzantine Bureaucrat
Part 3 The Rise of the Civilians
· Part 3.1 Changing with the Times: The Logothesia and the Treasuries
· Part 3.2 Slipping Backwards: The Imperial Chancery
· Part 3.3 Governing the Capital
· Part 3.4 A New Bureucratic Elite: The Judiciary
Part 4 The Collapse of Civilian Government
· Reform and Consolidation: The Logothesia and the Treasuries p. 116
· The Chancery: A Part of the Imperial Household?
· The Administration of Constantinople: A Steady Decline
· Falling From Grace: The Judiciary
· The End of Civilian Government
Part 5 Changing Priorities and an Evolving Government
Appendix Chartoularioi, Notarioi, and Logariastai
Bibliography
Works in this series:
Explore Byzantium’s peripheries (geographically, socially).
Focus on linguistic and translation skills.
Foster a series with broad, inter-disciplinary bent.
Promote innovative research methods.
Demonstrate the empire as dynamic, complex and fluid – the crossroads between East and West.
Key topics include:
Archaeology and material culture.
Economy and trade.
Art and architecture.
Crusades and warfare.
International diplomacy.
Conversion.
The history of Christianity; developments and schisms; papal politics.
Religious tolerance; religious exchange; religious persecution.
Political development and reform.
Legal development and reform.
Philosophy and the history of ideas.
Developments in social history.
Series Editor: Dionysios Stathakopoulos, University of Cyprus