Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire

Summary

Judith Herrin's Byzantium is a portrait of the Eastern Roman Empire from the founding of Constantinople in 330 to its fall to the Ottomans in 1453, written for readers who know little about it. In the introduction she explains that the book began when two builders who passed her office every day asked her what Byzantium actually was; rather than answer with a continuous chronicle, she wrote twenty-eight short chapters, each built around a theme, monument, event or person, that can be read in sequence or on their own. Part I, Foundations of Byzantium, covers Constantine's city and its rise to become the largest city in Christendom, the eastern Roman state, Greek Orthodoxy and the church councils, the church of Hagia Sophia, the mosaics of Ravenna and Justinian's codification of Roman law. Part II, The Transition from Ancient to Medieval, opens with Byzantium's long resistance to the Arab armies, which Herrin calls the empire's role as a bulwark against Islam, then turns to icons as a new Christian art, the iconoclast controversy and the restoration of icon veneration, the literate culture of Byzantine society, and the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodios to the Slavs. Part III, Byzantium Becomes a Medieval State, gathers the topics for which the empire is popularly known and some it is not: Greek fire, the economy and its gold coinage, eunuchs at court and in the church, the ceremonial of the imperial palace, children born in the purple, the monasteries of Mount Athos, the Byzantine princess whose use of a fork startled Venice, Basil II the Bulgar-slayer, the crisis of the eleventh century, the historian-princess Anna Komnene, and the cosmopolitan mix of peoples in the capital. Part IV, Varieties of Byzantium, follows the Crusades and the Latin sack of Constantinople in 1204, the successor states at Trebizond, Arta, Nicaea and Thessalonike, rebels and patrons of the late empire, the bitter debate over union with Rome summed up in the saying that the Turkish turban was better than the papal tiara, and the siege of 1453. A conclusion on the greatness and legacy of Byzantium argues that the empire preserved the classical inheritance, shaped Orthodox Christianity and, by holding the eastern frontier for centuries, made the development of medieval western Europe possible. The book was published in 2007 in London and by Princeton University Press. It is under copyright; this record describes it in our own words, with no quotations.

Plot or Argument

• Introduction: A different history

  The builders' question about what Byzantium was, and Herrin's choice of short thematic chapters over a continuous narrative.

• Part I: Foundations of Byzantium (chs. 1-7)

  Constantinople's founding and growth, the East Roman state, Orthodoxy and the councils, Hagia Sophia, the Ravenna mosaics and Roman law under Justinian.

• Part II: From ancient to medieval (chs. 8-12)

  Resistance to the Arab conquests, the rise of icons, iconoclasm and its defeat, a literate society, and the Slavic mission of Cyril and Methodios.

• Part III: A medieval state (chs. 13-23)

  Greek fire, the economy, eunuchs, the court, the purple-born, Mount Athos, Venice and the fork, Basil II, the eleventh-century crisis, Anna Komnene and the cosmopolitan city.

• Part IV: Varieties of Byzantium (chs. 24-28)

  The Crusades and 1204, the successor states, late rebels and patrons, the quarrel over union with Rome, and the Ottoman siege of 1453.

• Conclusion: Greatness and legacy

  Byzantium's preservation of classical learning, its shaping of Orthodox Christianity and its role in shielding and enabling the medieval West.

Lessons

• A civilization in its own right

  Herrin presents Byzantium not as a decadent sequel to Rome but as a long-lived Christian empire with its own art, law, learning and statecraft. The chapter format lets readers meet it through concrete things such as a mosaic, a weapon or a coin.

  • Why might Western readers have known so little about Byzantium, as the builders' question suggests?
  • Which single chapter subject best captures what was distinctive about Byzantium, and why?

• Images and faith

  The chapters on icons and iconoclasm show a society arguing seriously about whether holy images honour or offend God, with emperors, monks and theologians on both sides. The restoration of icons in 843 shaped Orthodox worship ever after.

  • What arguments did the iconoclasts and the defenders of icons each make?
  • Why did a question about images become a matter for emperors and armies?
  • How does the Feast of Orthodoxy keep the memory of this dispute alive?

• The shield of the West

  Herrin argues that Byzantium's long defence against Persians, Arabs and later Turks gave western Europe time to develop. Some historians weigh this claim differently, but it frames the empire as central rather than peripheral to European history.

  • What evidence does Herrin offer for Byzantium as a bulwark?
  • How might medieval Europe have developed differently if Constantinople had fallen in the seventh century?

• East and West divided

  The chapters on the Crusades, 1204 and the debate over church union show how Latin and Greek Christians came to distrust each other, a division whose consequences outlasted the empire.

  • Why did the Fourth Crusade end in the sack of a Christian city?
  • What did Byzantines who preferred Ottoman rule to union with Rome fear most?

Context

Byzantine studies grew steadily in the late twentieth century through excavation, the publication of texts and seals, and large museum exhibitions, while general readers still often knew the empire only through the adjective byzantine for needless complexity. Herrin wrote to bring that scholarship to a wide audience and to answer the question of what the empire was and why it matters.

Composition

Herrin drew on a long career of teaching and research in Byzantine history, art and the history of women. She chose a thematic form of short chapters, each on a representative topic, with a chronology, list of emperors and maps for orientation. The book appeared in 2007 and was later issued in paperback and as an audiobook.

Reception

Reviewers praised its range, readability and the appeal of chapters on topics such as Greek fire, eunuchs and icons; some found the early chapters brisk and the political narrative dense in places. It has become a common first book on Byzantium for general readers and students.

Comparisons

• anna-komnene-alexiad

  Herrin devotes a chapter to Anna Komnene; the Alexiad lets readers hear the twelfth-century princess-historian in her own voice on her father's reign and the First Crusade.

• justinian-institutes

  Herrin's chapter on Roman law describes the codification that the Institutes represent; reading the Institutes shows what Justinian's legal project looked like on the page.

• psellos-chronographia

  Psellos's portraits of eleventh-century emperors supply the primary source behind Herrin's chapters on Basil II and the eleventh-century crisis.

• runciman-the-fall-of-constantinople-1453

  Runciman gives a full narrative of the siege that Herrin compresses into her final chapter.

• villehardouin-conquest-of-constantinople

  Villehardouin's crusader account of 1204 sets beside Herrin's Byzantine-centred chapter on the Crusades, showing the same events from the Latin side.

• gibbon-decline-and-fall-selections

  Gibbon's influential picture of a declining Byzantium is one of the views Herrin's portrait of a vigorous medieval empire sets out to revise.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The builders' question in the introduction and how Herrin's thematic chapters answer it.
• How each chapter begins from one object, place or person (a church, a weapon, a coin, a princess) and widens to an age.
• The repeated theme of Byzantium as a Christian Roman empire that thought of itself as Roman to the end.
• The chapters on icons and iconoclasm, where theology, art and politics meet.
• The relation between Latin West and Greek East in the chapters on Venice, the Crusades and church union.

Key terms and names

Constantinople

The city founded by Constantine on the site of Byzantion in 330, capital of the empire until 1453 and, in Herrin's account, the largest city in Christendom for centuries.

Iconoclasm

The eighth- and ninth-century policy, backed by several emperors, of removing and destroying religious images, reversed finally in 843.

Greek fire

A liquid incendiary weapon sprayed from ships, used against Arab fleets besieging Constantinople; its recipe was a state secret.

Porphyrogennetos

Born in the purple: a child born to a reigning emperor in the porphyry chamber of the palace, with a special claim to the throne.

Mount Athos

The monastic peninsula in northern Greece, founded as a community of monasteries in the tenth century and still functioning.

1204

The year the Fourth Crusade captured and sacked Constantinople, leading to Latin rule there until 1261 and to Greek successor states.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What question prompted Herrin to write the book, and why did she choose short thematic chapters rather than a single narrative?
2. Comprehension What were the main positions in the iconoclast controversy, and how did it end?
3. Comprehension What happened in 1204 and in 1453, and how did the empire survive between them?
4. Interpretation Herrin includes chapters on eunuchs and on the fork alongside chapters on councils and sieges. What does this mixture suggest about her idea of what history should include?
5. Interpretation Why did some Byzantines prefer Ottoman rule to union with the Latin church, according to Herrin's chapter on the turban and the tiara?
6. Interpretation How does Herrin's portrait of Anna Komnene challenge assumptions about women and learning in the medieval world?
7. Big Question Byzantium lasted over a thousand years as a self-consciously Christian empire. What can its long life teach about the strengths and dangers of joining church and state closely?

Faith Connections

• Exodus 20:4-6 (Scripture)

  The commandment against graven images was central to the iconoclasts' case; defenders of icons answered that the incarnation of Christ made the invisible God visible and so made images of him possible.

• John of Damascus, On the Divine Images I (Church Fathers)

  Writing from Muslim-ruled Palestine in the eighth century, John argued that he did not venerate matter but the Creator of matter who became matter for our sake, the classic defence of icons behind the outcome Herrin narrates.

• John 17:20-23 (Scripture)

  Christ prays that his followers may be one; the long, painful negotiations over union between Rome and Constantinople in Herrin's final chapters show how hard that unity proved to keep.

• Second Council of Nicaea (787) (Great Conversation)

  The council distinguished the veneration given to icons from the worship due to God alone, a distinction the Byzantine church reaffirmed in 843.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Byzantium is widely misunderstood or ignored in the West; yet for over a thousand years it preserved Roman law and Greek learning, created a Christian art and liturgy, converted and civilized much of eastern Europe, and defended Christendom's eastern frontier; therefore it was a great and creative civilization without which the history of Europe, East and West, cannot be understood.

Rhetorical device: synecdoche (part for the whole). Each chapter takes one concrete thing, such as Greek fire, the fork or the towers of Trebizond, and makes it stand for a larger aspect of Byzantine life, so that the book builds a picture of the whole from vivid parts.

Debate: Resolved: Byzantium did more than any other medieval state to make the development of western Europe possible.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Herrin chose to write Byzantium as a series of short portraits rather than a continuous story. Using three chapters, argue whether this method gives a truer or a more partial picture of the empire than a chronological history would.

Comparison with The Alexiad: Read Herrin's chapter on Anna Komnene alongside a book of the Alexiad. Compare how the modern historian and the Byzantine princess describe the empire under Alexios I and argue what each perspective reveals that the other cannot.

Medical Lens

The book is a general history and has little medical content. Two chapters touch the body in ways relevant to the history of medicine. The chapter on eunuchs describes the place of castrated men at court and in the church, a Byzantine institution in which an altered body opened a career rather than closing one. The chapter on Basil II recounts the tradition that he blinded thousands of Bulgarian prisoners after the battle of Kleidion in 1014, and Byzantine political culture more widely used blinding and mutilation to disqualify rivals from rule, on the principle that an emperor should be physically whole. These are matters of political and social history; Herrin does not offer medical analysis.

• Chapter 15, Eunuchs

  Eunuchs as court officials, churchmen and guardians, and how castration shaped their status.

  Sexuality Medicalized Disability Deformity
• Chapter 20, Basil II

  The reported mass blinding of Bulgarian captives and the political use of mutilation.

  Disability Deformity

Creative Prompts

• Classroom

  Assign each student one of Herrin's chapter subjects (Greek fire, the fork, eunuchs, Mount Athos, the purple-born) to present as a museum label of 150 words, then arrange the labels in chronological order.

• Dialogue

  Write the conversation Herrin describes in her introduction, in which the two builders ask what Byzantium was, and give her answer in five minutes.

• Essay

  Herrin argues that without Byzantium there might have been no medieval Europe as we know it. Weigh the claim using the chapters on Islam, the Slavic mission and the Crusades.

Further Reading

• The Alexiad, Anna Komnene

• Women in Purple: Rulers of Medieval Byzantium, Judith Herrin

• The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe, 500-1453, Dimitri Obolensky

• A History of the Byzantine State and Society, Warren Treadgold

• Fourteen Byzantine Rulers (Chronographia), Michael Psellus