Mobility And Migration In Byzantium A Sourcebook

Mobility and migration were not uncommon in Byzantium, as is true for all societies. Yet, scholarship is only beginning to pay attention to these phenomena. This book presents in English translation a wide array of relevant source texts from ca. 650 to ca. 1450 originally written in medieval Greek: from administrative records, saints' lives and letters by churchmen to ego-documents by ambassadors and historical narratives by court historians. Each source text is accompanied by a detailed introduction, commentary and further bibliography, thus making the book accessible to both scholars and students and laying the groundwork for future research on the internal dynamics of Byzantine society.

Mobility and migration were not uncommon in Byzantium, as is true for all societies. Yet, scholarship is only beginning to pay attention to these phenomena. This book presents in English translation a wide array of relevant source texts from ca. 650 to ca. 1450 originally written in medieval Greek: from administrative records, saints’ lives and letters by churchmen to ego-documents by ambassadors and historical narratives by court historians. Each source text is accompanied by a detailed introduction, commentary and further bibliography, thus making the book accessible to both scholars and students and laying the groundwork for future research on the internal dynamics of Byzantine society.

The volume – whose chapters originated at panels at the International Byzantine Congress in Belgrade and at the IMC in Leeds – seeks to offer an introduction into various aspects of social and geographical mobility, and the intrinsic relationship between the two, as well as into the microstructures of social action in the Byzantine world during the high and late Middle Ages. Based on a balanced approach to the role of personal agency and social structure, the authors of the individual chapters seek to clarify how and why various kinds of people mobilized to either change place and/or social position, or to form groups whose actions shaped social reality both at the imperial centre and the provincial periphery.

Byzantium is more and more recognized as a vibrant culture in dialogue with neighbouring regions, political entities, and peoples. Where better to look for this kind of dynamism than in the interactions between the Byzantines and the Armenians? Warfare and diplomacy are only one part of that story. The more enduring part consists of contact and mutual influence brokered by individuals who were conversant in both cultures and languages. The articles in this volume feature fresh work by younger and established scholars that illustrate the varieties of interaction in the fields of literature, material culture, and religion. Contributors are: Gert Boersema, Emilio Bonfiglio, Bernard Coulie, Karen Hamada, Robin Meyer, Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, Claudia Rapp, Mark Roosien, Werner Seibt, Emmanuel Van Elverdinghe, Theo Maarten van Lint, Alexandra-Kyriaki Wassiliou-Seibt, and David Zakarian.

Research on late antique and early medieval migrations has long acknowledged the importance of interdisciplinarity. The field is constantly nourished by new archaeological discoveries that allow for increasingly refined pictures of socio-economic development. Yet the perspectives adopted by historians and archaeologists are frequently different, and so are their conclusions. Diverging views exist in respect to varying geographical areas and scholarly traditions too. This volume brings together history and archaeology to address the impact of the inflow and outflow of migrations on the rural landscape, the creation of new settlement patterns, and the role of migrations and mobility in transforming society and economy. Such themes are often investigated under a regional or macro-regional viewpoint, resulting in too fragmented an understanding of a widespread phenomenon. Spanning Eastern and Western Europe, the book takes steps toward an integrated picture of territories normally investigated as separate entities, and critically establishes grounds for new comparisons and models on late antique and early medieval transformations.

The Impact of Mobility and Migration in the Roman Empire assembles a series of papers on key themes of Roman mobility and migration, discussing i.a. the mobility of the army, of the elite, of women, and war-induced mobility and deportations.

In "Migration and Mobility in the Early Roman Empire" seventeen specialists in the fields of Roman social history, Roman demography and Roman economic history offer fresh perspectives on voluntary, state-organised and forced mobility during the first to early third centuries CE.

This book brings together recent developments in modern migration theory, a wide range of sources, new and old tools revisited (from GIS to epigraphic studies, from stable isotope analysis to the study of literary sources) and case studies from the ancient eastern Mediterranean that illustrate how new theories and techniques are helping to give a better understanding of migratory flows and diaspora communities in the ancient Near East. A geographical gap has emerged in studies of historical migration as recent works have focused on migration and mobility in the western part of the Roman Empire and thus fail to bring a significant contribution to the study of diaspora communities in the eastern Mediterranean. Bridging this gap represents a major scholarly desideratum, and, by drawing upon the experiences of previously neglected migrant and diaspora communities in the eastern Mediterranean from the Hellenistic period to the early mediaeval world, this collection of essays approaches migration studies with new perspectives and methodologies, shedding light not only on the study of migrants in the ancient world, but also on broader issues concerning the rationale for mobility and the creation and features of diaspora identities.