Byzantium: The Last Centuries

Professor Stephen W. Reinert

Email: sreinert@rci.rutgers.edu

Office phone: (848) 932-8234

Campus Address: Van Dyck Hall, 16 Seminary Place, Room #218

Office hours: < to be added >

The objective of this course is to introduce students to the major themes of Byzantine civilization, in the process exploring an array of representative artifacts (texts, images, sounds, excavations), and assessing the key ways in which Byzantine civilization impacted neighboring cultures, and its overall importance in the history of human civilization.

1. 
   15% - Attendance and participation.
   

2. 
   30% - In class midterm examination. Information about the contents of this exam will be provided to students approximately a week beforehand, affording them the opportunity to prepare well for this test.
   

3. 
   30% - In class final examination, to be given during the regularly scheduled exam period. Information about the contents of this exam will be provided to students approximately a week beforehand, affording them the opportunity to prepare well for this test.
   

4. 
   25% - A paper of 10-15 pages on a choice of topics to be assigned. In writings their papers students should draw upon the assigned readings, classroom lectures and discussions, and (if appropriate) other relevant materials. Papers will be due a week before the final exam.
   

• 
  Cavallo, Guglielmo, ed. The Byzantines, translated by Thomas Dunlap, Teresa Lavender Fagan, & Charles Lambert (Chicago, 1997).
  
• 
  Haldon, John. Byzantium: A History (Stroud, 2000).
  
• 
  Hull, Denison B., trans. Digenis Akritas: The Two-Blood Border Lord (Athens, Ohio, 1972).
  
• 
  Laiou, Angeliki E. and Haguire, Henry. Byzantium: A World Civilization (Washington D. C., 1992).
  
• 
  Mango, Cyril. Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome (New York, 1980).
  
• 
  ______________, ed. The Oxford History of Byzantium (Oxford, 2002).
  
• 
  Sewter, R. A., trans. Fourteen Byzantine Rulers: The Chronographia of Michael Psellus (Harmondsworth, 1979).
  

• 
  Barber, Charles. “Homo Byzantinus?,” in Liz James ed., Women, Men and Eunuchs: Gender in Byzantium (London-New York, 1997), pp. 185-99.
  
• 
  Cameron, Averil. “Sacred and Profane Love: Thoughts on Byzantine Gender,” in Liz James ed., Women, Men and Eunuchs: Gender in Byzantium (London-New York, 1997), pp. 1-23.
  
• 
  Cheynet, Jean-Claud. “Bureaucracy and Aristocracies,” in Elizabeth Jeffreys et al. edd., The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies (Oxford, 2008), pp. 518-26.
  
• 
  Geanakoplos, Deno. “Italian Renaissance Thought and Learning and the Role of the Byzantine Emigré Scholars in Florence, Rome, and Venice: A Reassessment,” in his Constantinople and the West: Essays on the Late Byzantine (Palaeologan) and Italian Renaissances and the Byzantine and Roman Churches (Madison, 1989), pp. 3-37.
  
• 
  Harris, Jonathan. Constantinople: Capital of Byzantium (London, 2007):
  
  • 
    “Defense,” pp. 40-58;
    
  • 
    “Palaces and Power,” pp. 59-83;
    
  • 
    “Churches and Monasteries,” pp. 84-107.
    
• 
  James, Liz. “The Role of Women,” in Elizabeth Jeffreys et al. edd., The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies (Oxford, 2008), pp. 643-51.
  
• 
  Kolbaba, Tia M. The Byzantine Lists: Errors of the Latins (Urbana-Chicago, 2000):
  
  • 
    “Greeks, Latins, and Religion in the Middle Ages,” pp. 9-22;
    
  • 
    “Contents,” pp. 32-87.
    
• 
  Louth, Andrew, “Byzantine Theology,” in Elizabeth Jeffreys et al. edd., The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies (Oxford, 2008), pp. 699-710.
  
• 
  Makrides, Ruth. “Families and Kinship,” in Elizabeth Jeffreys et al. edd., The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies (Oxford, 2008), pp. 652-660.
  
• 
  Mango, Cyril. “Byzantium’s Role in World History,” in Elizabeth Jeffreys et al. edd., The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies (Oxford, 2008), pp. 957-61.
  
• 
  Markopoulos, Athanasios. “Education,” in Elizabeth Jeffreys et al. edd., The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies (Oxford, 2008), pp. 785-95.
  
• 
  Meyendorff, Jean. “Byzantine Views of Islam,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 18 (1964), pp. 113-32.
  
• 
  Sevcenko, Ihor. Three Byzantine Literatures: A Layman’s Guide (Brookline, Mass., 1985).
  
• 
  Tougher, Shaun F. “Byzantine Eunuchs: An Overview, with Special Reference to their Creation and Origin,” in Liz James ed., Women, Men and Eunuchs: Gender in Byzantium (London-New York, 1997), pp. 168-84.
  
• 
  Vryonis, Speros. “Byzantine Attitudes Towards Islam during the Late Middle Ages,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 12 (1971), 263-86.
  
• 
  __________________. “The Byzantine Legacy and Ottoman Forms,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 23/24 (1969-70), pp. 251-308.
  
• 
  Weitzmann, Kurt. “The Contribution of the Princeton University Department of Art and Archaeology to the Study of Byzantine Art,” in Slobodan Curcic and Archer St. Clair edd., Byzantium at Princeton: Byzantine Art and Archaeology at Princeton University (Princeton, 1986), pp. 11-30.
  

A student who expects to miss a class for a compelling reason should use the University’s absence reporting website (https://sims.rutgers.edu/ssra/) to indicate the date and reason for the absence. Your report will automatically be sent to the instructor via email.

Cheating on tests or plagiarizing materials in your papers deprives you of the educational benefits of preparing these materials appropriately. It is also personally dishonest and unfair because it gives you an undeserved advantage over your fellow students who are graded on the basis of their own work. In this course cheating and plagiarism will be treated as the serious offenses they are. Suspected cases will be referred to the Office of Judicial Affairs and will be punished with penalties that are appropriate to the gravity of the infraction.

Outline of the Course

Week 1 Overviews: Byzantine History & Byzantine Civilization

1. 
   The Remarkable Life of the Byzantine State: late 3^rd century - 1453
   
2. 
   What Was Byzantine Civilization & What Was Its Importance?
   

3. 
   The “Emperor of the Romans” & Imperial Ideology
   
4. 
   Instruments of Rule & Protection: The Bureaucracy, Army & Diplomatic Service
   

Week 3 The Imperial Capital — “Queen of Cities”

06 The Ecclesiastical Fabric

Monasteries”.

7. 
   The Orthodox Creed & Its Development
   
8. 
   The World of Byzantine Saints and their Veneration
   

Theology”; Mango, Oxford History, pp. 96-120 (#3, “New Religion, Old

Culture”).
Week 5 Organized Expression of Religion
09 The Secular Church & Its Calendaring of Life

10 Monks & Monasteries

Haldon, Byzantium, pp. 131-52 (#7, “Church, state and belief”); Mango,

12 Peasants & Townsfolk

71 (Oikonomides, “Entrepreneurs”); Cheynet, “Bureaucracy and

Aristocracies”; Haldon, Byzantium, pp. 95-112 (#5, “Life in Town and

Countryside”); Mango, Oxford History, pp. 71-95 (#2, “Life in City and

Country”).

Week 7 Conceptions of Gender & Gender Relations

14 The Ungendered (?) – The Eunuchs

Cavallo, Byzantines, pp. 117-43 (Talbot, “Women”); James, “Role of Women”;

Tougher, “Byzantine Eunuchs”.
Week 8-9 Education & Literature
15 Hellenistic Pedagogy & Its Byzantine Perpetuation

16 Patterns and Layers of Byzantine Literature

17 Focus: Digenes Akritas

18 Focus: Michael Psellos’ Chonographia & Imperial Portraiture

“Literature”); Sevcenko, Three Byzantine Literatures; Digenes Akritas, trans.

Hull; Psellos, Chronographia, trans. Sewter.
Week 10 Byzantine Art & Architecture
19 The Place and Functions of Art in Byzantine Life & Culture

20 Field trip to Princeton: The Princeton Art Museum’s Byzantine Collection

Byzantium”); Laiou-Maguire, Byzantium, pp. 81-118 (Vikan, “Byzantine Art”); Mango, Byzantium: The Empire, pp. 256-81 (#14, “Art and Architecture”); Weitzmann, “Contribution of Princeton”.

22 Conceptions of Arabs & Islam

24 The “Latins in the Levant”

25 Renaisssance Italy

26 The Ottoman Turks

and pp. 294-305 (#12, “Towards a Franco-Greek Culture”); Vryonis, “The

Byzantine Legacy”.

Week 14 Byzance après Byzance in New Jersey

28 The Orthodox Churches of Old Trenton