This study considers the development and evolution of Byzantine diplomacy through a crucial and previously overlooked period of the empire’s history. Current scholarship has neglected the analysis of Byzantine diplomacy from 1204, when the capital of Constantinople was seized by the Fourth Crusade, to 1261, when the city was returned to Byzantine control. During these years the institutions of the Byzantine state were preserved at Nicaea, which continued the complex relationship between Greeks and Latins and adapted the tested methods of diplomacy to meet new challenges. Of central concern is the frequency of church-union negotiation, or disputatio, during the period in question. Attempts to heal the schism of the Eastern and Western Churches were a frequently used tool of Byzantine diplomacy even before 1204, but the sources, problems and implications surrounding this aspect of foreign relations, although taken up by those pursuing theological analysis, have been neglected by historians. The emperors in Nicaea repeatedly opened talks with the papacy to end the schism before 1261, most notably in 1234, a meeting which carried profound implications for Byzantine foreign policy. By placing the disputatio in the context of Byzantine-Latin relations after 1204, we gain a more complete understanding of Byzantine diplomacy.

This dissertation examines the ceremonies and rituals involving the princes of early Rus’ and their entourage, how these ceremonies and rituals are represented in the literature and artefacts of early Rus’, the possible cultural influences on ceremony and ritual in this emergent society, and the role of ceremony and ritual as representative of political structures and in shaping the political culture of the principalities of early Rus’. The process begins by introducing key concepts and historiographic considerations for the study of ceremony and ritual and their application to the medieval world. The textological survey that follows focusses on the chronicles of Rus’, due to their compilatory nature, and discusses the philological, linguistic, and contextual factors governing the use of chronicles in this study. This examination of the ceremonies and rituals of early Rus’, the first comprehensive study of its kind for this region in the early period, engages with other studies of ceremony and ritual for the medieval period to inform our understanding of the political culture of early Rus’ and its influences. The structure of this dissertation is dictated by the chronology of ceremonies and rituals that structure the reigns of Rus’ princes in literary sources. The first chapter investigates—both comparatively and locally—the development of enthronement rituals depicted in textual sources and on coins. The second chapter focusses on rituals of association that are represented as mediating relations between princes in a non-central functioning dynastic culture. Oath-taking (and breaking) and association through commensality—dining and gift-giving—are examined in terms of historical context and the internal categorisation of associative acts in textual sources from Rus’. The final chapter builds on recent studies of ritualised warfare in early Rus’ and examines the ritualisation of princely movement—the most common action associated with the princes of Rus’ in textual sources—in times of war. The celebration of triumph and princely entry along with ritualised invocations for intercession in war are acts examined—both in textual sources and iconographic artefacts—as rituals of triumphal rulership reflecting both Byzantine and wider medieval culture. This study concludes with a discussion of the themes explored in its three chapters and offers further considerations about the influence of the Church and monastic culture inherited from Byzantium (and developed in Rus’) on the preservation, creation, and promulgation of ritualised political power.

This work represents the most comprehensive investigation of silk in the middle Byzantine period to date. The current interpretation of silk as an imperial prerogative confined to elite use is poorly integrated with the body of evidence and lacks explanatory value. The difficult terminology and scattered mentions in written sources limits application of conventional research methods. Although a number of silk fragments survive in institutional collections, the lack of find and contextual information represents a formidable obstacle. This dissertation redefines silk in Byzantium by demonstrating its social importance, contribution to technology development, and integration in the regional economy. Findings are based on intensive analysis of production and consumption data from parallel investigation of texts and textile fragments according to a common framework. To aid data collection and analysis, information technology tools involving relational database methods and digital imaging were devised for this purpose. The evidence suggests that the historical process involving silk was shaped by a continuing cycle of elite differentiation and imitative reproduction, which contributed to the transmission of the material and production in the region. From a broader perspective, this work demonstrates the relevance of textile studies to the interpretation of economic and social history.

The aim of this thesis is to establish the political, economic, and military history of Samos over a millennium, from the first arrival of colonists in the Minoan and Mykenaian Ages to the submission of Samos to imperial Athens in 439 B.C. There is little evidence available for the earlier part of this period. And such later traditions about the Ionian Migration as there are have come under severe attack by modern writers, both in detail and on general grounds of chronology. But there are striking instances of the accurate preservation of information going back at least as far, notably in the case of Mopsos of Kolophon, now confirmed even as to date by Hittite records and by the bilingual inscription of Karatepe. Consequently, it is reasonable to take the traditional narrative as a basis, and see whether it receives confirmation from other sources, chiefly archaeological. Apart from the autochthonous Lelegian king Ankaios, we read in ancient writers of several different immigrant groups in the island: fugitives from Krete in the time of Minos, on their way to found Miletos; 'Aiolians' from Lesbos, sent to found a cleruchy some time before the Trojan War; 'Karians' under Tembrion; 'Ionians' from Epidauros under the leadership of Prokles. Prokles' son Leogoros became involved in war against Androklos, founder of Ephesos and one of the Neleid leaders of the general Ionian Migration. This fact enables us to fix the traditional date of Prokles' arrival in Samos to c. 1125, since the Migration took place four generations after the Sack of Troy, which should be dated, following Herodotos and with archaeological confirmation, to c. 1240. The archaeological remains in Samos agree with these traditions. At Tigani there is Minoan pottery contemporary with - or even slightly earlier than - that from the settlements at Miletos. Gradually this gave way to Mykenaian styles, until the Kretan element had quite disappeared. By the time of the Trojan War, however, the Greek element had left Tigani, no doubt replaced by Tembrion's 'Karians'. When the next Greek pottery appears it is LH III C and Sub-mykenaian, not at Tigani but at the Heraion. It may be, therefore, that of the two settlements under Tembrion and Prokles mentioned by the Etymologicon Magnum Tigani is Astypalaia, the Heraion Chesia. In the course of the Ionian Migration, the new Samians sided with the natives against the Neleids, and for a while the island was conquered and held by Androklos. The Samians went into exile for ten years, some traditionally to Anaia and others to Samothrake. There is evidence that a third group sailed further, and founded Kelenderis in Kilikia: the name of this Samian colony occurs in the Karatepe inscription, invoking Ba'al KRNTRS; and since Samian interest in the orient was not resumed until half a century after that inscription was set up, the Greek place-name would seem to have been given before the Dark Age. Names in -nd- of course are as commonly Anatolian as Greek. But there is only one other Kelenderis, and that near Epidauros, serving to confirm that the Samians did indeed come from the eastern Argolid. There is other evidence in support of this tradition (which can be traced as far back as Herodotos in an explicit form), notably the fact that the eponymous hero of the Samian colony Perinthos (602 B.C.) was an Epidaurian and companion of Orestes. For more than three hundred years, c. 1100-750, we are virtually without evidence for Samian history. We must infer from the names of tribes and months that the traditions of Neleid Ionia were assimilated during this period, and it is probable that Samos received Neleid kings. Otherwise there is only the small but steady sequence of pottery and primitive architecture at the Heraion to assure us of the continuity of the islands's habitation. Recorded history reopens in the second half of the eighth century, when we find the self-conscious Ionians destroying the Karian-infiltrated town of Melie. It seems that Samos and Priene made the attach, against the vain resistance of Miletos, itself part Karian, and Kolophon, Melie's metropolis. The victors parcelled out the territory between them, Priens taking Melie itself, Samos the coastal strip northwards from there to Ephesos. The precise border of the two parcels was to be a matter of recurrent dispute between Samos and Priene. It was about the same time that these Ionian alliances were swept into the wider struggle which grew from the agrarian dispute of Chalkis and Eretria over Lelanton. Samos fought on the side of Chalkis, and at the same time helped Sparta against Messenia and received help from Corinth, while Miletos sent aid to Eretria and may have opposed Sparta on behalf of Messenia. The literary tradition of the alliances has archaeological support. Samos shared in the Athenian disaster at Aigina c. 700, and, like Athens, spent much of the first half of the seventh century in reconstruction. This century was politically and economically the age of the Geomoroi, certain defined artistocratic families said to have held their lands ever since the original settlement. Their period of rule marked the avoidance of warfare in favour of commercial expansion overseas. In the first half of the century they had inaugurated large-scale trade with the Near-Eastern kingdoms and with Kypros. In the second half they were the first to find a new source of silver and tin at Tartessos, Cadiz (638 B.C.). Some time previously Samians had become active in Egypt: first mercenaries in the service of Psamatik I; later, after the establishment of Milesian Naukratis c. 650, merchants who secured a special place in the treaty-port. After a short interlude of tyranny, the Geomoroi founded a group of colonies in Propontis, of which the most notable was Perinthos (602. B.C.). Ensuing warfare with Megara, Lesbos, and Priene, weakened the oligarchy and led to the rise of a short-lived democracy, followed by tyranny under Syloson I c. 590. Five years later he was able to make an alliance with Miletos, now entering two generations of stasis and glad even of so unlikely an ally as Samos. Priene was defeated at last, and a new division made of the lands of the Mykale peninsula. Syloson was succeeded by a relative, perhaps a nephew, Polykrates I, whose existence, hitherto unsuspected by modern writers, is argued from literary and archaeological evidence. Under him Samos reached the peak of her prosperity basing megaloprepeia at home upon increased trade abroad. It was this tyrant who reformed the whole basis of Samian agriculture, fostered industry (notably the cosmetic trade), and embarked on the programme of public works which so thrilled Herodotos. He gained an empire among the coastal towns of Ionia and ruled the islands as far as Delos, enjoying the powerful alliance of Sparta and Lydia. Yet when Kyros conquered Lydia, Polykrates rejoiced; for Phokaia was destroyed, and she was Samos' strongest commercial rival, having seized the monopoly of the Tartessian trade. Polykrates was confident that the shipless Persians would leave him alone. In this he was mistaken, and after a raid in which the Heraion was burned down and a cemetery desecrated, the tyranny fell and was replaced by an oligarchy friendly to Persia c. 540. In 533 Polykrates II made himself tyrant and resumed his father's independent policies. For eight years he enforced a rigid military austerity to equal that of Sparta, and defied the Persians. But by 525 it had become clear that the Persians must in the end conquer, and Polykrates deserted his Egyptian allies, following the Kypriote example in going over to the Persian side. The significance of his famous thalassocracy was that his fleet held the balance between the navies of Egypt and Persian Phoinikia. It was probably this that persuaded the Spartans to attempt to unseat him after his defection.

A l'époque classique, la dérision, entendu comme tout message - délivré par le geste, le dessin, la musique et surtout la parole dont le dessein est de susciter le rire en prenant pour cible quelque chose ou quelqu'un, débordait de toute part l'espace civique athénien. Les lois qui encadraient l'usage de la parole, et donc de la dérision, étaient d'ailleurs assez lâches. Pourtant, pour les esprits du temps, la dérision constituait une offense et pouvait par conséquent semer la haine et la discorde et fragiliser l'équilibre social. La parrhèsia, cette liberté de tout dire que la démocratie athénienne valorisait, n'explique pas seule cette situation paradoxale. Il convient surtout d'invoquer l'importance politique capitale de la dérision. En premier lieu, elle était l'une des modalités principe des affrontements politiques de faible intensité qui flanquaient ce régime de dissensus qu'était la démocratie. En outre, la dérision était un outil critique dont le poète comique se servait pour mettre en exergue les dérèglements et les errements du régime démocratique devant un parterre de citoyens. Elle leur apprenait alors à mieux «habiter» cette démocratie. Dans le même temps la dérision était employée pour rabaisser, sur le plan symbolique, les membres de l'élite confortant en creux la légitimité du peuple être le détenteur du pouvoir. La dérision participait enfin à ce «tissage» de la communauté par lequel les Anciens se représentaient le politique : non seulement elle disposait d'un pouvoir normatif que sa réfraction au sein des institutions civiques décuplait, mais elle était également un moyen de réduire les tensions sociales en les laissant s'exprimer sous une forme temporaire et/ou atténuée. / In classical times, derision, understood as any message-delivered through gesture, through painting, music, and especially through the spoken word- where the purpose was to bring about laughter, taking as its target something or someone, was all over in the Athenian public space. The laws that governed the usage of language, and thus of derision, were at the time quite lax. Even still, for the temperament of the period, derision constituted an offense and could as a consequence fuel the fire of hate and discord, therefore weakening the social balance. Parrhesia, the concept of freedom of speech, that liberty that all of democratic Athens valued, did not by itself explain this paradoxal situation. It served more than anything to invoke the great political importance of derision. To begin with, it was one of the first lines of defense for political confrontations of weak intensity that flanked the regime of dissention that was the democratic politeia. On the other hand, derision was a critical tool, that the comic poet used to pinpoint the dysfunctions and errors of the democracy before an audience of citizens. It taught the people to better partake of their role in that democracy. At the same time, derision was used to belittle, on a symbolic level, the members of the elite and shallowly comfort the legitimacy of the people in their power. Finally, derision participated in the "fabric" of the community: not only as a normative power, with its refraction at the core of civic institutions increased, but equally as a method of reducing social tensions by letting citizens express themselves in an ephemeral and/or muted way.

This thesis explores the literary topos in which heresy is defined in terms of disease, focusing particular attention on the reign of the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos (1081-1118). By examining the portrayals of two heretics – the philosopher Ioannes Italos and the dualist Bogomil heresiarch Basileios – in a body of interrelated source material, conclusions are drawn related to the contemporary thought-world, which influenced the authors, their works and their understanding of the heterodox threat. This, in turn, is used to gain insight into the contemporary dynamics of imperial propaganda and power. There are four main chapters, the first of which discusses the methodological approach adopted throughout this study. This section treats various questions related to the problems inherent in heresy scholarship, such as the ever-changing definition of ‘heresy' and the use of source material that is fundamentally antagonistic towards the heretical subject. The second chapter traces the transmission of the focal topos, ‘heresy as disease', within heresiology from its origins in the fourth-century Panarion of the bishop Epiphanios of Salamis up to the twelfth century, where it is found used prevalently by the court of Alexios I. Chapter three then offers a detailed analysis of the primary sources that are employed in the case studies of Italos and Basileios: Anna Komnene's Alexias, Euthymios Zygabenos's Panoplia Dogmatike, the Synodikon of Orthodoxy and trial proceedings preserved from the synodal examination of Italos. The final chapter explores the surviving presentations of both men – their depictions as ‘outsiders' and the specific association developed between their teachings and disease – within the context of the newly emerging and insecure Komnenian dynasty. ‘Heresy as disease' is found to transmit an ideological framework, allowing Alexios to reinforce his unstable position by capitalising on the image of the great Orthodox doctor, providing a cure for the common soul.

This thesis examines Byzantine diplomacy and foreign policy in the round in the personal reign of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos (945-959). This particular period has been singled out for investigation because Constantine had a keen personal interest in foreign affairs and two treatises from his reign, the De administrando imperio and the De cerimoniis aulae byzantinae, shed light upon the Byzantine view of the outside world and the workings of imperial bureaux charged with diplomatic affairs and the administration of military campaigns. After introducing the subject and the key sources, the thesis makes a clockwise circuit of all of the theatres in which Byzantine foreign policy was active. The first chapter looks at worldviews as documented in sources from Byzantium, Ottonian Saxony, and the Islamic Near East in order to determine how these key players saw their place in the world and systematised their relationships with each other. The second chapter discusses relations with the Islamic Near East and Transcaucasia and provides a survey of sources, historical reconstruction, and analysis of goals and processes. Chapter three examines relations with the Islamic caliphates of the central and western Mediterranean, and assigns them greater importance than generally acknowledged. Chapter four chronicles the nascent relations with Ottonian Saxony and Byzantium's re-engagement with the Transalpine Franks. Chapter five deals with the peoples of the Eurasian steppe and homes in on Byzantium's attempts to diffuse threats from this volatile world. Chapter six focuses on Italy as the region in which three strands of Byzantine foreign policy met and evaluates the empire's response to wholesale changes in power relations in the peninsula in the early years of Constantine's personal reign. The conclusion to the thesis interrogates whether Constantine's foreign policy kept the empire safe, enhanced its prestige, managed the military elites, and had an enduring legacy.

The symbolic role of Helena throughout the Byzantine period has never been considered in any detail. Many of the literary sources, particularly historiographical and hagiological texts, are not easily accessible and have not been translated. The visual sources referring to Helena, such as works of late Roman and Byzantine art, coinage, illustrated manuscripts, reliquaries, and wall paintings, have never been collected. My thesis collects and re-evaluates the textual and visual evidence from the fourth to the fifteenth century in order to explore the origins and development of Helena's cult; the emergence of a Helena-legend with symbolic and metaphorical functions; and the ways that the Byzantines reconstructed, judged, and appreciated her role. Special attention is given to the relationship between word and image, as well as the influence exerted on them by contemporary political and social developments. This thesis demonstrates that memories of Helena as an empress and as a saint were manufactured in several distinct stages over several centuries; and that her role differed in the eastern and western halves of the former Roman empire. The evidence is analysed thematically and in chronological order.

In 533, Justinian I ordered the conquest of the former Roman provinces of Africa, which had been lost to the Vandals a century earlier. The 'reconquest' has been regarded, by contemporaries and modern scholars alike, as one of the defining successes of the reign. However, despite the evident achievements of the campaign, Roman victory over the Vandals marked little more than the beginning of the Eastern Roman Empire's attempt to consolidate its position in Africa. The unanticipated threat posed by hostilities from the Berber tribes would continue until 548. Roman-Berber relations, unlike other aspects of Justinian's foreign relations, have received comparatively little attention, and this study aims to reassess the establishment of Roman authority in Africa and the Eastern Roman Empire's response to the Berber threat. In particular, it considers whether this response should be seen as a series of ad hoc reactions to immediate circumstances, or whether it is possible to identify a coherent Roman policy vis-à-vis the Berbers. The major conclusions of this study fall in two areas. First, it argues that Roman objectives in Africa were far more limited than has generally been supposed, with the empire's territorial ambitions not extending beyond key coastal positions which offered strategic and commercial advantages, and from which the empire could project its limited authority into the interior. Second, this study concludes that the Eastern Roman Empire's actions with respect to the Berber tribes lacked coherence. Attempts to implement a system of client rulers were unsuccessful, partly as a result of the competition between individual Berber leaders as they sought to establish independent polities within the frontiers of the former Roman Empire; and partly as a result of an increasing lack of resources, as well as the instability caused by constantly changing leadership within the African civil and military administrations, which prevented the development of coherent long term strategies for addressing the Berber threat.

The subject of this thesis is the Synopsis Chronike (or Synopsis Sathas), a Byzantine chronicle of the thirteenth century that conveys the history of the world, starting from Adam and concluding with the recapture of Constantinople in 1261. The study focuses on the first part of the text (Adam – Nikephoros Botaneiates), and more specifically on the comprehensive presentation and analysis of the whole corpus of its sources, passage by passage, in order to reconstruct the background of the chronicle and to determine its place in the Byzantine chronicle tradition. Following the introductory first chapter, which sets out the aims of the thesis and establishes its methodology, chapter two offers an overview of the chronicle itself, and a first discussion of the main issues it presents: the key characteristics of its narrative structure, its manuscript tradition, and – mainly – the problem of its authorship, with special reference to the commonly supposed author, Theodore Skoutariotes, bishop of Kyzikos. Chapter three conveys a detailed presentation of the results of our research; following the discussion of the sources and influences of the proem, it attempts to place each passage of the Synopsis Chronike in the context of any related texts, which are then identified as 'main sources', 'other sources' and 'parallel passages', depending on their link to the Synopsis Chronike. Chapter four discusses individually each text that appears as a source of the Synopsis Chronike, and locates its place amongst the whole corpus of the sources. Furthermore, it examines the passages for which we were not able to identify a main source, and suggests possible sources that have not survived. Finally, the concluding chapter of the thesis summarises the earlier discussion, and attempts to combine the different pieces of information, and to provide an overall picture of the background of the Synopsis Chronike in order to establish – to the degree that it is possible – its position in the Byzantine chronicle tradition.