Center, province and periphery in the age of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos
Subtitle: from De ceremoniis to De administrando imperio
By: edited by Niels Gaul, Volker Menze and Csanad Balint
Contributors: Bálint, Csanád, editor
Series: Mainzer Veröffentlichungen zur Byzantinistik -- Band 15; Mainzer Veröffentlichungen zur Byzantinistik -- Bd. 15.
Publisher: Harrassowitz Verlag
Published: 2018
Place of publication: Wiesbaden
Language: eng
Number of pages: 300
ISBN-13: 9783447109291
Subjects: History; Civilization
Description: "This comprehensive volume offers new insights into a seminal period of medieval Eastern Roman imperial history: the rule of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos (913/945-959). Its fifteen chapters are organized around the concepts of center, province and periphery and take the reader from the splendor of Constantinople to the fringes of the empire. They examine life in the imperial city in the age of Constantine VII, the cultural revivals in Byzantium and the Carolingian West, as well as the emperor's historiographical projects, including his historical excerpts and the famous Book of Ceremonies. Entering the sphere of the provinces, the authors explore visual messages on the coinage of Romanos I Lekapenos and Constantine Porphyrogennetos and its circulation through the provinces, provincial legal culture in the tenth-century empire, and offer a new analysis of Constantine VII's two military harangues. Spotlights on the empire's periphery include chapters on borderland trade with the Muslim world, a compelling new theory of the untimely deaths of the children of King Hugh of Italy, and the origins of medieval Croatia in relation to information gained from Constantine VII's De administrando imperio. The final chapter offers intriguing insights into Constantine VII's legacy and reception, from later middle Byzantine historiography via the Renaissance editions of the emperor's treatises to Bavarian King Louis II's Constantinople-inspired building projects. The volume combines leading scholars and new voices and contains survey chapters with detailed case studies."--
Notes: "The essays in this volume represent the revised versions of papers originally read at an international symposium convened in Budapest in November 2009."--Acknowledgements, page xv.

International conference proceedings.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Zooming in on Constantinople : Introductory Notes on the Interplay of Center, Province and Periphery in the Tenth-Century Byzantine Empire / Niels Gaul; title: Voices from the Center : Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos and the Macedonian Dynasty in Contemporary Historiography: With an Appendix: Three Letters rom Romilly J. H. Jenkins to Gyula Moravcsik / Athanasios Markopoulos; title: Constantinople in the Age of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos : Life at the Center / Paul Magdalino; title: Comparing the Carolingian and Middle Byzantine Artistic Revivals : Mutual Exchange or Parallel Universes? / Ádám Bollók; title: Historical-Antiquarian Texts in the Ceremonial Book of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos : The Appoinment of an Augustalis and a Proconsul (Chapter I, 85) / Claudia Sode; title: A Database for Re-conceiving Imperial Ideology? : Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos and the Historical Excerpts / András Németh; title: Lost on Reverse? : Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos's Vying with Romanos I Lekapenos for Legitimacy as a Tale of Coins, Seals, and Tesserae/  Ivan Marić; title: The Aurality of Legal Performance in Provincial Society : Ceremonial Soundsof Sales/ Leonora Neville; title: Conveying Imperial Ideals to the Periphery of Empire : The Two Military Orations of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos / Florin Leonte; title: "Blessed Be Who Crushes the Children of Persia" : Byzantine Sacralization of War from the Seventh through Tenth Centuries / Volker Menze; title: The Cilician Frontier/ A Case Study of Byzantine-IslamicTrade in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries / Koray Durak; title: Byzantinizing Minor Objects in the Carpathian Basin : Tracing Multi-Level Connections during the Tenth Century / Péter Langó and András Patay-Horváth; title: Emperor Constantine VII and Margrave Berengar II of Ivrea under Suspicion of Murder : Circumstantial Evidence of a Plot against Berta / Eudokia and Lothair (Lothar), the Children of King Hugh of Italy / Günter Prinzing; title: Croatia and Byzantium in the Tenth Century : A Latin Member of the Byzantine Commonwealth / Neven Budak; title: Clothes Make the Men; title: Writings the Emperor : Tracing Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos and his Œuvre through the Centuries / Peter Schreiner