Byzantium in the Ninth Century: Dead or Alive? Papers from the Thirtieth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Birmingham, March 1996

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First published 1998 by Ashgate Publishing. 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. Preface vii List of Abbreviations ix Section I. The Byzantine State 1. The Byzantine state in the ninth century: an introduction / John Haldon 3 2. Reanimation of Roman law in the ninth century: remarks on reasons and results / Marie Theres Fögen 11 3. The Paulicians and ninth-century Byzantine thought / Claudia Ludwig 23 4. The rehabilitation of the Emperor Theophilos / Athanasios Markopoulos 37 5. The imperial thought-world of Leo VI: the non-campaigning emperor of the ninth century / Shaun Tougher 51 Section II. Byzantine Culture 6. Byzantine culture in the ninth century: an introduction / Leslie Brubaker 63 7. Byzantium: cultural suicide? / Paul Speck 73 8. Manifestations de la propagande en faveur de l'orthodoxie / Marie-France Auzépy 85 9. Canon and calendar: the role of a ninth-century hymnographer in shaping the celebration of saints / Nancy Patterson Ševčenko 101 10. Reconstructing ninth-century Constantinople / Robert Ousterhout 115 11. The road from Baghdad to Byzantium and the case of the Bryas Palace in Istanbul / Alessandra Ricci 131 12. Away from the centre: 'provincial' art in the ninth century / Robin Cormack 151 Section III. Byzantium and the Outside World 13. Byzantine relations with the outside world in the ninth century: an introduction / Jonathan Shepard 167 14. What has Constantinople to do with Jerusalem? Palestine in the ninth century: Byzantine orthodoxy in the world of Islam / Sidney Griffith 181 15. The road to Baghdad in the thought-world of ninth-century Byzantium / Paul Magdalino 195 16. Byzantium and al-Andalus in the ninth century / Eduardo Manzano Moreno 215 17. Byzance et Italie méridionale / Guislaine Noyé 229 18. Ninth-century Byzantium through western eyes / Chris Wickham 245 Index 257