The Jews In The Byzantine Empire 641 1204

A survey of Jewish life in the Byzantine Empire during its last 300 years. Ch. 1 (pp. 9-48), "Byzantium and the Jews, " discusses the Jews' political and legal status. Notes that while emperors attempted to use force to create religious unity and eradicate Judaism, the Church objected to forced conversion while pressuring the Jews to convert voluntarily. The anti-Jewish liturgy also encouraged popular antisemitism. Analyzes ecclesiastical rulings, the question of a special tax for Jews, and anti-Jewish polemics. Includes translated excerpts from Jewish and Byzantine official and ecclesiastical documents illustrating the status of the Jews and describing persecutions (pp. 209-332).

In this book Dr Harvey shows that, if we broaden our comprehension of feudalism, the economic developments of the Byzantine Empire and of the medieval west were far more comparable than Byzantine historians have been prepared to admit. Previous interpretations have linked economic trends too closely to the political fortunes of the state, and have consequently regarded the twelfth century as a period of economic stagnation. Yet there is considerable evidence that the empire's population expanded steadily during the period covered by this book, and that agricultural production was intensified. A wealth of evidence serves to reinforce the point that the disintegration of the empire in the late twelfth century should no longer be associated with economic decline. Dr Harvey's conclusions, in particular that there is no incompatibility between the development of the landed wealth of a feudalising aristocracy and the growth of commerce and urbanisation, will affect all future interpretations of Byzantine history.

The History of the Byzantine Jews explores the Jewish microcosmos in Byzantium. Under the Romans, Jews enjoyed the privileges of knighthood and nobility. Although these luxuries were significantly diminished under Theodosius II- whose wife, Eudoxia, was a judaizing Empress- and the Codex Justinianus, they remained a powerful entity in Byzantium. In comparison to the irredentist Samaritans and Paulicians, the Jews remained areligio licita (permitted religion) that tolerated and even protected by Imperial and Church authority. Their position in society even enabled the Jews to vie for increased power. The Byzantine Jews tried to play the game of power politics through their affiliation with Yemen's Jewish Himyarites, and ill-fated alliance with the Persian Sassanides, and finally through the colossal power of the Jewish Khazar Empire. In this living history of the Byzantine Jews, Author Elli Kohen attempts to revive the spirit of Moses of Crete, Procopius, Eusebius, Theophanes Continuatus, and medieval chroniclers such as Liutbrand, Villehardouin, and Benjamin of Tudela. Intended as a complementary text to other classics on Byzantine Jews, this new work emphasizes multicultural cooperation in the study of this time period. Some of the events and individuals profiled in The History of the Byzantine Jews include: -Byzantine and Jewish polemists- the "Hagiographic Bibliotheca" -Historiography of a Jewish family in Byzantine Apulia -The Jerusalem Karaites finding a safe haven in Byzantium -The rerouting of the fourth Crusade through the Juiverie of Constantinople -The return of the Paleologues -Byzantine-Jewish coexistence under Symeon, Archbishop of Salonica

In the ever increasing volume of Byzantine Studies in recent years there seems to be one very apparent void, namely, the history and culture of the Byzantine Jewry, its presence and impact on the surrounding convoluted Byzantine world between Late Antiquity until the conquest of Byzantium (1453). With the now classic but dated studies by Joshua Starr and Andrew Sharf, the collective volume at hand is an attempt to somewhat fill in this void. The articles assembled in this volume are penned by leading scholars in the field. They present bird's eye views of the cultural history of the Jewish Byzantine minority, alongside a wide array of surveys and in-depth studies of various topics. These topics pertain to the dialectics of the religious, literary, economic and visual representation world of this alien minority within its surrounding Byzantine hegemonic world.

Byzantine Jews: Dialectics of Minority and Majority Cultures is the collective product of a three year research group convened under the auspices of Scholion: Interdisciplinary Research Center in Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The volume provides both a survey and an analysis of the social and cultural history of Byzantine Jewry from its inception until the fifteenth century, within the wider context of the Byzantine world.