Byzantium and Contested Spaces
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Byzantine Studies Association of North America (BSANA)
Organizer Name
Richard Barrett
Organizer Affiliation
Indiana Univ.-Bloomington
Presider Name
Andrew Donnelly
Presider Affiliation
Loyola Univ. Chicago
Paper Title 1
The State of the "No Man’s Land"
Presenter 1 Name
David A. Heayn
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Graduate Center, CUNY
Paper Title 2
Contested Religious Identity in Early Eighth-Century Jerusalem
Presenter 2 Name
Scott Ables
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Regent's Park College, Univ. of Oxford
Paper Title 3
Contested or Shared Spaces? Producing Artistic Space in the Holy Land in the Byzantine and Islamic Periods
Presenter 3 Name
Sean Leatherbury
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Bard Graduate Center
Paper Title 4
Digenis Akritas, the Book of Dede Korkut, and the Poetics of Liminality
Presenter 4 Name
Kyle Grothoff
Presenter 4 Affiliation
Indiana Univ.-Bloomington
Paper Title 5
The Order of the Patriarchal Thrones: Neilos Doxapatres and Contested Ecclesiological Space in Norman Italy
Presenter 5 Name
James Morton
Presenter 5 Affiliation
Univ. of California-Berkeley
Paper Title 6
The Moreote Castle of Chlemoutsi: Stages of Development between Frankish Lords and Greek Masons
Presenter 6 Name
Kyle Shimoda
Presenter 6 Affiliation
Ohio State Univ.
Start Date
11-5-2014 8:30 AM
Session Location
Bernhard 106
Description
The landscape of the Roman world as it began fragmenting in late antiquity, as well as its proximity to Sassanid Persia (and later, the Caliphates, the Abbasids, the Seljuks, and then finally the Ottomans) meant that the Eastern half of the Empire was constantly having to solve the problem of contested spaces on several fronts. Militarily, the frontier of the Middle East was subject to much back-and-forth between Persia and Byzantium, as the early sixth century Sassanid siege of Amida demonstrates, as does the expedition of the Himyarites into northern Arabia. The Sassanid desire to restore Achaemenid-era borders in the Middle East and Asia Minor also made Jerusalem and Antioch the objects of struggle over occupation in the early seventh century. Of course, Muslim possession of formerly Roman territories fueled the Crusades during the Middle Ages, making Constantinople itself an object of siege and an occupied territory in the thirteenth century. In between the seventh and thirteenth centuries, the Bulgars, Khazars, Rus’, and Seljuk Turks turned eastern Europe and the Balkans into focal points of military struggle as well, such as with the Battle of Manzikert in the eleventh century.
From a religious point of view, central and eastern Europe became loci of conflict and negotiation between Byzantine and Frankish Christianity, such as the mission to Moravia of Cyril and Methodius, and the apparent jockeying of the Bulgars and the Rus’ between Constantinople and Rome for the most favorable terms on conversion.
On a civic scale, the Byzantine city itself has been a location of physical and religious strife; militarily, besides the 1204 sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusaders, there was the 626 attack by the Avars, and the tenth century sea attacks by the Rus’. In religious terms, the public spaces of cities in Byzantium have been subject to struggle, such as the competing choral street processions of the Arians and the Nicenes led by John Chrysostom in the late fourth/early fifth century, the East/West religious aspects of the Latin Empire of Constantinople in the thirteenth century, and into fourteenth century with the theological dimensions of the Zealot/Hesychast controversy in Thessaloniki. Even within the church building, there is discursive and liturgical struggle, such as Symeon of Thessaloniki’s pitting of the “sung service” of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople against the neo-Sabaïtic typikon that had become nearly universal by the time Symeon was writing in the fifteenth century.
This panel, then, will explore the theme of contested spaces in Byzantium. How can we better understand and interrogate issues of space and society in the Byzantine world? How do social forces in Byzantium construct these spaces, and how do these spaces, be they physical or ideological, subsequently influence society? What fresh theoretical approaches might be helpful?
Richard R. Barrett
Byzantium and Contested Spaces
Bernhard 106
The landscape of the Roman world as it began fragmenting in late antiquity, as well as its proximity to Sassanid Persia (and later, the Caliphates, the Abbasids, the Seljuks, and then finally the Ottomans) meant that the Eastern half of the Empire was constantly having to solve the problem of contested spaces on several fronts. Militarily, the frontier of the Middle East was subject to much back-and-forth between Persia and Byzantium, as the early sixth century Sassanid siege of Amida demonstrates, as does the expedition of the Himyarites into northern Arabia. The Sassanid desire to restore Achaemenid-era borders in the Middle East and Asia Minor also made Jerusalem and Antioch the objects of struggle over occupation in the early seventh century. Of course, Muslim possession of formerly Roman territories fueled the Crusades during the Middle Ages, making Constantinople itself an object of siege and an occupied territory in the thirteenth century. In between the seventh and thirteenth centuries, the Bulgars, Khazars, Rus’, and Seljuk Turks turned eastern Europe and the Balkans into focal points of military struggle as well, such as with the Battle of Manzikert in the eleventh century.
From a religious point of view, central and eastern Europe became loci of conflict and negotiation between Byzantine and Frankish Christianity, such as the mission to Moravia of Cyril and Methodius, and the apparent jockeying of the Bulgars and the Rus’ between Constantinople and Rome for the most favorable terms on conversion.
On a civic scale, the Byzantine city itself has been a location of physical and religious strife; militarily, besides the 1204 sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusaders, there was the 626 attack by the Avars, and the tenth century sea attacks by the Rus’. In religious terms, the public spaces of cities in Byzantium have been subject to struggle, such as the competing choral street processions of the Arians and the Nicenes led by John Chrysostom in the late fourth/early fifth century, the East/West religious aspects of the Latin Empire of Constantinople in the thirteenth century, and into fourteenth century with the theological dimensions of the Zealot/Hesychast controversy in Thessaloniki. Even within the church building, there is discursive and liturgical struggle, such as Symeon of Thessaloniki’s pitting of the “sung service” of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople against the neo-Sabaïtic typikon that had become nearly universal by the time Symeon was writing in the fifteenth century.
This panel, then, will explore the theme of contested spaces in Byzantium. How can we better understand and interrogate issues of space and society in the Byzantine world? How do social forces in Byzantium construct these spaces, and how do these spaces, be they physical or ideological, subsequently influence society? What fresh theoretical approaches might be helpful?
Richard R. Barrett