For some 1,000 years, the Southeastern part of Europe was under the sway of the Eastern Roman Empire, later also known as Byzantium. A watershed in the history of Byzantium was the legislation of the Emperor Justinian in the 6th century. Under his reign, a codification of Roman law was achieved, which was to remain not only the bedrock of Byzantine law, but which also, after its rediscovery in Italy in the 11th century, was to become the foundation of the continental European legal tradition. During the 10th, 11th, and 12th centuries, the Byzantine emperors issued privilege acts to the Italian city-republics of Venice, Pisa, and Genoa. This doctoral thesis examines these Byzantine imperial acts from a legal perspective. The book examines such questions as: What is the legal information that these acts provide? What law do they presuppose and apply? Did both parties have law in common and if so, of what does it consist? Is Roman law assumed to be binding in these acts as part of that common law, and if so, in which cases and what are the examples given? Investigating the possible genesis of a common legal understanding in Europe before the 11th century may contribute to an explanation of why Justinian's law became prominent in the West. In the last chapter, common legal issues in these acts - such as grants of immovable property, issues dealing with justice, and shipwreck and salvage provisions - have been subjected to a comparative analysis and in their turn compared with other Byzantine or Western sources. The study of legal acts of the medieval period at a European level may help in answering the question of whether, long before the formation of today's Europe, it was already bound by common legal forms. This study brings together a small piece of the puzzle of how a common European legal heritage was formed. Dissertation.

In thirteen contributions, Byzantium in Dialogue with the Mediterranean. History and Heritage shows that throughout the centuries of its existence, Byzantium continuously communicated with other cultures and societies on the European continent, as well as North Africa and in the East. In this volume, ‘History’ represents not only the chronological, geographical and narrative background of the historical reality of Byzantium, but it also stands for an all-inclusive scholarly approach to the Byzantine world that transcends the boundaries of traditionally separate disciplines such as history, art history or archaeology. The second notion, ‘Heritage’, refers to both material remains and immaterial traditions, and traces that have survived or have been appropriated. Contributors are Hans Bloemsma, Elena Boeck, Averil Cameron, Elsa Fernandes Cardoso, Cristian Caselli, Evangelos Chrysos, Konstantinos Chryssogelos, Penelope Mougoyianni, Daphne Penna, Marko Petrak, Matthew Savage, Daniëlle Slootjes, Karen Stock, Alex Rodriguez Suarez and Mariëtte Verhoeven.

This book explores the complex history of contact and exchange between Byzantium and the Latin West over a formative period of more than three hundred years, with a focus on the political, ecclesiastical and cultural spheres.

This volume comprises a multidisciplinary study of Pisa’s socio-economic, cultural, and political history, art history, and archaeology at the time of the city’s greatest fame and prosperity during the transformative period of the Middle Ages.

The postal system of the Byzantine Empire, the cursus publicus or dromos, was a pony express-style system of routes and relays, capable of moving messages at up to 100 miles (160 km) per day. In this fascinating book, Jason Fossella describes the infrastructure, operations, and administration of the dromos. Drawing on sources as varied as papyri, seals, inscriptions, and ancient histories, the author examines how the dromos was integrated into Byzantine society and influenced the development of Byzantine diplomacy, ceremony, and religion, demonstrating that it played a key role in the development of Byzantine imperial power.

The interaction between Byzantium and the Latin West was intimately connected to practically all the major events and developments which shaped the medieval world in the High and Late Middle Ages – for example, the rise of the ‘papal monarchy’, the launch of the Crusades, the expansion of international and long distance commerce, or the flowering of the Renaissance. This volume explores not only the actual avenues of interaction between the two sides (trade, political and diplomatic contacts, ecclesiastical dialogue, intellectual exchange, armed conflict), but also the image each side had of the other and the way perceptions evolved over this long period in the context of their manifold contact. Twenty-one stimulating papers offer new insights and original research on numerous aspects of this relationship, pooling the expertise of an international group of scholars working on both sides of the Byzantine-Western ‘divide’, on topics as diverse as identity formation, ideology, court ritual, literary history, military technology and the economy, among others. The particular contribution of the research presented here is the exploration of how cross-cultural relations were shaped by the interplay of the thought-world of the various historical agents and the material circumstances which circumscribed their actions. The volume is primarily aimed at scholars and students interested in the history of Byzantium, the Mediterranean world, and, more widely, intercultural contacts in the Middle Ages.

Die Niedersächsische Akademie in Göttingen hat 1990 im Rahmen des Akademienprogramms ein schon seit 1974 bestehendes Projekt zur Edition byzantinischer Rechtsquellen unter Leitung von Dieter Simon übernommen. Zu seinem Abschluss Ende 2021 fand in Sofia ein Kolloquium statt, das von der Niedersächsischen und der Bulgarischen Akademie der Wissenschaften ausgerichtet wurde, und dessen Akten hier vorliegen. Ziel der Beiträge war es, nicht nur Editionsmethoden, die im Verlaufe des Projekts durchgeführt wurden, zu demonstrieren, sondern auch das byzantinische zivile und kanonische Recht im Rahmen auswärtiger Rechtssysteme, insbesondere slavischer und muslimischer Länder, zu positionieren. Eine Darstellung finden zudem epigraphische Rechtsquellen, die Rolle der platonischen Gesetze in Byzanz und die Bedeutung des Rechts im Rahmen der Medizin. Die zwanzig Beiträge in deutscher, englischer und französischer Sprache betonen, neben speziellen Fachfragen, auch die Rolle des Rechts insgesamt als kulturgeschichtlicher Faktor in Byzanz, den Balkanstaaten, Osteuropa und der angrenzenden islamischen Welt im Mittelalter.