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.

Top 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

Verified Quotes

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.

• Chapter 20, Basil II

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