Title: Serving Byzantium's emperors : the courtly life and career of Michael Attaleiates /
Authors: Krallis, Dimitris,
Year: 2019
Subjects: Attaleiatēs, Michaēl,; Attaleiatēs, Michaēl,; Historians Byzantine Empire Biography.; Historians; Byzantine Empire Court and courtiers Biography.; Byzantine Empire.
Abstract: "This book is a microhistory of eleventh-century Byzantium, built around the biography of the state official Michael Attaleiates. Dimitris Krallis presents Byzantium as a cohesive, ever-evolving, dynamic, Roman political community, built on traditions of Roman governance and Hellenic culture. In the eleventh century, Byzantium faced a crisis as it navigated a shifting international environment of feudal polities, merchant republics, steppe migrations, and a rapidly transforming Islamic world. Attaleiates' life, from provincial birth to Constantinopolitan death, and career, as a member of an ancient empire's officialdom, raise questions of identity, family, education, governance, elite culture, Romanness, Hellenism, science and skepticism, as well as political ideology during this period"--
Contents: Introduction -- Attaleiates' time: Byzantium in the eleventh century -- Paper, parchment, and ink: the sources for Attaleiates' biography -- Attaleia: the busy, bustling fringe -- To the capital seeking wisdom -- Attaleiates' household -- The courts of justice, the court, and the courtiers -- The army in society. The society of the army -- The judge on horseback: the empire at war -- Byzantine "republicanism": Attaleiates' politics of accommodation and self-interest -- Piety, tax-heavens and the future of the family -- Culture wars and a judge's Roman piety -- A short conclusion.