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Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire

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I'll lay my cards on the table and confess to having studied Byzantine History and have continued a lifelong fascination and love of the subject. Trying to explain what drives that interest as Prof. Herrin found herself trying to do to two working men however, has always been difficult to get across to others to whom it is a blank area of knowledge.
I've nothing but praise for the way she has distilled her professional knowledge into one of the more approachable books on the subject that I have read. Not decrying other books which on the whole are written for readers with at least a basic knowledge of the subject, this by and large succeeds in casting light on what is perceived to be an esoteric subject.
The maps, illustrations and tables are an excellent aid for this primer which seeks to explain on their terms what made the Empire tick without spoon feeding you. It makes you, the reader, think.
Arranged thematically, Icons, Monasticism, Economics, Warfare, Eunuchs, the Imperial Court, relations with the West, the Slavs and the Moslems, the place of women in society, its structure covers the Empires chronology. What to the modern mind are barbarous practices such as castration and mutilation are placed in context . It looks at those puzzling practices of icon worship and explains the intent. Reaction to pressures such as the rise of Islam and relations with the West and its missionary work to the Slavs are explained together as a whole rather than in isolation in a very readable manner.
I would heartily recommend it to the general reader who wishes to know more and part of me likes to think that somewhere that those two working men are sitting somewhere over a pint imagining light glinting off golden mosaics.

On page xiii, the author notes that a couple workers in hard hats, after having seen from her office door that she taught Byzantine history, wondered what Byzantine history was. She tried in a few minutes to explain, and they followed up by asking "why she didn't. . .write about it for them?" And, indeed, she decided to write this volume for a broader audience. Her goal in this book (Page xiv): ". . .I want you to understand how the modern western world, which developed from Europe, could not have existed had it not been shielded and inspired what happened further to the east in Byzantium."

Byzantium originated as the eastern portion of the Roman Empire, while Rome still stood as the center of the Western Empire. Over time, the Western Empire declined and fell (pace Gibbon). The book considers the evolution and development of Byzantium and the Eastern Empire from its start as a Roman bastion in the fourth century (under the Emperor Constantine, after whom the city Constantinople was named) to its final fall in 1453.

There is much material covered in this volume. It is not organized along a strictly chronological template, although there is some temporal ordering--from its foundations to the medieval era to its final demise. However, in each of these sections, there is coverage of a variety of aspects of the Eastern realm. The Foundations portion considers Greek Orthodoxy, the great churches, such as Hagia Sophia, continuing links with Rome and, after its fall, Italy, and Roman Law.

As we move toward the Medieval era, the author, Judith Herrin, points out the key role of Byzantium in protecting Europe from Islam, by standing as a bastion between Islam and Europe. Also considered is the art and religious artifacts (such as icons) of the Empire. Greek fire, a key part of Byzantium's defenses, is discussed, as are other factors such as the economy, politics, sometime internal instability as intrigues sometimes led to the replacement of one emperor by another.

Finally, the inevitable fall, as Byzantium became more and more compressed, surrounded by a new force--Turks. Finally, in 1453, the Turks with their heavy cannon, breached the walls of Byzantium and its existence as an independent state ended.

Some nice features: a list of many of the emperors and the dates of their rule (pages 354-356), a chronology of major events (pages 357-361), and fairly well drawn maps (pages 363-373).

There is, of course, so much more detail. The book is solidly written by Herrin (the words don't flow magically, but the language is accessible to most people). Her appraisal of the major role of Byzantium in western history goes into much greater depth than what I am able to mention. Each reader will have to determine how convincing her arguments are, as she strove the answer the two workers.

This book may, as its newspaper reviews suggest, fill a need for a general reader's overview of Byzantium, but it doesn't do it very well. I doubt the "two men in hard hats", whose curiosity (Herrin says) originally motivated her to write it, would be much stimulated or enlightened by the instant descent into theology (full of Greek terms regarding the nature of God) and architecture (equally full of narthices and pendentives). Theology and architecture (especially the former) are vital for understanding Byzantine history, but the general reader (this one, at least) would be better served by insights into why they were so important to the Byzantines, rather than plunging into the technical detail. Herrin, in short, fails to stand back from from her academic framework (which I suspect is a rather old fashioned one anyway) and give us the big picture in coherent terms. The book gets better as it goes on, and from time to time one is able to get some feeling for how Byzantium operated and how its people lived, but it's a gold-panning task.

Also, given Herrin's academic eminence, I was deeply disappointed to find elementary errors of chronology and fact in the first few pages (as I've remarked in another review, it shakes the confidence when a person with a mere general reader's knowledge finds simple errors in a specialist's work). For example: "... the last Roman emperor in the west was deposed in 476, leaving a half-Vandal, half-Roman general, Stilicho, in control of Italy" (p.13). Romulus Augustulus, the last emperor in the west, was indeed deposed in 476, but by Odoacer the Goth (even that magnificently bad film `The Last Legion' managed to get that bit right). Stilicho the Vandal had been murdered by his nominal master the emperor Honorius two generations earlier, in 408. Such an error (about events in Herrin's own specialist period) would expose her to professional sniggering if committed in a peer-reviewed scholarly work. I submit that when writing for the general reader the duty of scrupulous accuracy lies, if possible, even heavier.

This not a history of the Byzantine Empire - rather it's a series of essays on different aspects of the Byzantine Empire with an overriding defensive attitude about the derogatory way the empire has been portrayed throughout history. The idea, apparently, is to try to present the important facets or characteristics of the empire in such a way that perhaps people who would not be interested in a straight history of the subject might be challenged to read about it, and change the attitude, which still prevails to a large extent, that there wasn't much to admire or even be interested in about the late Roman Empire which was ruled from Constantinople from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries. Basically, it's a highbrow Complete Idiot's Guide to the Byzantine Empire.
That having been said, I like the strategy and I like the book. By skipping the chronological history of the empire (which at 1100 years takes a while to tell and buries anything really interesting) it picks and chooses aspects of the history, telling you why the empire was important. Whether it was Hagia Sophia, or iconoclasm, or eunuchs, or the siege of 1453, the two dozen or so things that are important are highlighted and given a chance to breathe.
My favorite (largely I think because of the music) history of Byzantium is still John Romer's TV series from about 1998, but this book adds quite a bit to it by providing if less poetic, more persuasive analysis of many issues.
For example, I never really understood before what the driving force behind iconoclasm was - Romer makes it seem just another random bizarre theological dispute - something the Byzantines were always prone to. Its advocates' motives are never really explained, and it's presented largely as the sort of tyrannical invasion on freedom of worship that we can be expected to abhore. Herrin, however, explains that it arose when the empire was sustaining repeated military defeats, and since God obviously would not allow his chosen to be defeated, there had to be some reason behind it - something the Byzantines were doing that they were being punished by God for. The emperor eventually decided that it had to be divine displeasure with the common practice of venerating or "worshiping" idols, which did admittedly have strong roots in pagan practice. From their perspective, iconoclasm made perfect sense as an attempt to get back into God's good graces. Far from a tyrannical whim, it was, from their perspective a responsible, and even a courageous act.
All in all, a good book, and a good addition to my growing library on Byzantium.

For readers who enjoy history this is a fascinating subject since the empire ruled so much of civilization for about a millenium. The writing is not a dry, chronological recitation of events from Constantine to the end but individual aspects of Byzantium are presented, e.g., chapters on Eunuchs, Life at Court, Economy. This is good but it means that the names of various emperors and empresses keep getting reintroduced with each topic and it becomes impossible to keep track or even try. I found myself skipping pages.

Because the Byzantine Empire lasted 1,129 years (from Constantine's founding of Constantinople in 324 AD to Sultan Mehmet II's capture of the city in 1453), the historian writing about the empire faces a daunting task. Write about it in the traditional chronological manner, and space limitations will force a laundry list approach with little meaningful content.

What Judith Herrin (a professor of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies at King's College, London) has elected to do instead is to break the subject down into 28 topics under 4 general subject headings and then deal with each topic chronologically:

I. FOUNDATIONS OF BYZANTIUM
1. The City of Constantine
2. Constantinople, the Largest City in Christendom
3. The East Roman Empire
4. Greek Orthodoxy
5. The Church of Hagia Sophia
6. The Ravenna Mosaics
7. Roman Law

II. THE TRANSITION FROM ANCIENT TO MEDIEVAL
8. The Bulwark Against Islam
9. Icons, a New Christian Art Form
10. Iconclasm and Icon Veneration
11. A Literate and Articulate Society
12. Saints Cyril and Methodios, `Apostles to the Slavs'

III BYZANTIUM BECOMES A MEDIEVAL STATE
13. Greek Fire
14. The Byzantine Economy
15. Eunuchs
16. The Imperial Court
17. Imperial Children, `Born in the Purple'
18. Mount Athos
19. Venice and the Fork
20. Basil II, `The Bulgar-Slayer'
21. Eleventh Century Crisis
22. Anna Komene
23. A Cosmopolitan Society

IV VARIETIES OF BYZANTIUM
24. The Fulcrum of the Crusades
25. The Towers of Trebizond, Arta, Nicaea and Thessalonike
26. Rebels and Patrons
27. `Better the Turkish Turban than the Papal Tiara'
28. The Siege of 1453
Conclusion: The Greatness and Legacy of Byzantium

The core of the book consists of 333 pages, which means that each topic is limited to an average of 12 pages. As a result, the writing is information-dense, slowing the reader's progress. Additionally, the author's writing style is academic (i.e., somewhat tedious), although the shortness of the chapters makes reading the book manageable.

There are 41 photographs of varying quality, many in black and white. They appear to have been chosen haphazardly. NOTE: A good source of high quality reproductions of Eastern Orthodox religious icons is Holy Image, Hallowed Ground (Getty Trust Publications: J. Paul Getty Museum).

As the above discussion suggests, this is a book that will primarily interest an academic reader. Those interested in a more comfortable approach may wish to consider Kenneth Harl's excellent course for the Teaching Company
Great Courses World of Byzantium Parts 1 and 2 (365 and 366) (Teaching Company)

UPDATE [04-06-2011]: Ms. Herrin wrote an essay, "The Glories of Byzantium," which appeared in the Saturday/Sunday March 12-13, 2011 edition of the Wall Street Journal, in which she recommended some recent books on Byzantium:

1. Re the military reasons for Byzantium's long survival, Warfare, State And Society In The Byzantine World 565-1204 (Warfare and History)

2. Same, The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire

3. Re Byzantium's historical significance, Empires and Barbarians and After Tamerlane: The Global History of Empire Since 1405

4. Re the end of the Empire: The End of Byzantium

She pays the traditional academic obeisance to Sir Steven Runciman's books, describing them as "well-researched and elegantly phrased books." Well researched, definitely. But elegantly phrased? I think not; they suffer from the same stylistic problems that plague the work of Ms. Herrin and other academics.

Somewhat surprisingly, or perhaps not so since he is a competitor, she fails to mention John Julius Norwich's eminently readable three volume history Byzantium: The Early Centuries, Byzantium (II): The Apogee, and Byzantium: The Decline and Fall. For those not up to that amount of reading, there is a shorter version "A Short History of Byzantium." Both the research and the writing are superb.

An upscale cruise line, Voyages to Antiquity, retained Norwich to provide historical background for its catalogs and to lead a trip or two a year. The catalogs are masterpieces in and of themselves.

I bought this book, Byzantium, by Judith Herrin as I had been advised to read it before visiting the excellent exhibition at the Royal Academy in London. Judith gives a great deal to readers: like the builders mentioned at the start, I had little idea of Byzantium or what byzantine art was about. She writes a clear historical and often witty account of Constantinople through its Christian era from the 4th to the 15th centuary. This beautiful city is described in detail and one follows with excitement the lives of the emperors, their religious beliefs, belief in the power of icons,their disagreements with Rome, the expanding and contracting empire, the disaster of the Fourth Crusade and the final sacking by the Turks. Her scholarship is indisputable but her easy use of the English language and prose makes the book a delight to read.

This is a fine and imaginative introduction to the Eastern Roman Empire (known as the Byzantine Empire to modern historians) for the general reader. However, on page 13 it states: "....the last Roman emperor in the West was deposed in 476, leaving a half-Vandal, half-Roman general, Stilicho, in control of Italy." This is a gross error. Anyone with a basic knowledge in ancient Roman history knows that Stilicho was murdered in 408 under the orders of the emperor Honorius. It was a German general,Odoacer, in the sercive of the western "Roman army" (by then Roman in name only) who deposed the last western Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus in 476.

I find it shocking that such a mistake is to be found in a book by an excellent scholar such as Herrin. It mars an otherwise enjoyable account. Perhaps this is just another example of the increasingly poor editing and error-laden works of history that have appeared since the age of computer editing. Sad. But this book is still worth reading for its fine writing and lively descriptions of the Byzantine world.

In writing this book, Professor Judith Herrin set out to answer a question posed by to her by two workmen in 2002: ` What is Byzantine history?'

Those of us with some interest in Byzantine history should be grateful both to the two workmen for asking the question, and to Professor Herrin for seeking to provide a succinct answer.

Byzantine history covers a period of 1000 years (from 330 to 1453), involves 90 emperors and 125 patriarchs. Professor Herrin approached the subject by theme, rather than chronology and has provided a broad overview of the history, traditions and resources of this fascinating empire. Looking both east to Persia and west to Rome, Byzantium was shaped by both. The rise of Islam, the depredations of the Crusades and the final demise of Byzantium at the hands of the Ottoman Empire in 1453 saw the passing of a unique and rich empire.

Professor Herrin argues that without Byzantium there would be no Europe. On one level at least it is difficult to disagree. Fortunately, for those who want more information on the history and culture of this fascinating empire, Professor Herrin has included a bibliography

My only question: have the two workmen read the book, and did it answer their question?

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

This is a super book, well organized and informative. Chapters are arranged by thematic issues, rather than in chronological sequence. Reference to ruler lists and a chronology in the back helps place each episode in historical perspective.

When I first saw the book I wondered what could be added to Julius Norwich's 3 volume history, but was pleasantly surprised. It's curious, however, that the author never credits Norwich in her extensive bibliography. Is there a rivalry, or does Herrin not consider the older work worth reading?

I would be interested in reading the other works by this author.