{"id":55129,"date":"2026-08-27T16:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=55129"},"modified":"2026-08-25T21:43:59","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T19:43:59","slug":"revisiting-the-byzantine-commonwealth-nodes-networks-and-spheres-ur-jonathan-shepard-peter-frankopan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=55129","title":{"rendered":"\u201eRevisiting the Byzantine Commonwealth: Nodes, Networks, and Spheres\u201c, ur. Jonathan Shepard, Peter Frankopan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Byzantine phenomenon posed problems of characterization for contemporary observers, as it does for modern commentators. The concept of the Byzantine Commonwealth was coined by Dimitri Obolensky to characterize the medley of societies and polities that came under the aegis of the emperor and were kept in line with the religious rites, doctrine, and norms that the basileus<\/em> (and the Constantinopolitan patriarchate) propounded. These studies address such basic questions as who the Byzantines thought they were and how they managed to maintain their hegemonial stance for so long. Two sections survey the polities and cultures of Eastern Europe which inspired Obolensky\u2019s vision of a Commonwealth. But other sections go beyond Obolensky\u2019s geographical focus on Eastern Europe to survey three spheres which functioned independently of (one expressly in antithesis to) Byzantium, yet which overlapped and were constantly interacting with it\u2014the Latin west, the Islamic\u2013Christian east, and the world of the steppes. Candidates for membership of the Commonwealth can be found there, too, along with transregional networks that functioned regardless of political borders. Elites were the most conspicuous \u2018consumers\u2019 of Byzantine political culture, but interactions went on at lowlier social levels, too. Some polities engaged only briefly, and each drew on Byzantine culturo-religious resources in a different way to serve its elite\u2019s interests. But for all the kaleidoscopic shifts and varieties of East Roman dealings with outsiders, some firm contours emerge, and the elements of continuity and commonality might even bear comparison with another, equally controversial, phenomenon\u2014the British Commonwealth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Table of Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1:The Byzantine Phenomenon
Part I. WHO DO THEY THINK THEY ARE?<\/strong>
2:Byzantine Globalism: The Power of Attraction
3:Commonwealth, Empire, or Nation-State?
4:What Did It Mean to Be ‘Roman’ in Byzantium?
5:Commonwealth of Elect Nations: A Contradiction in Terms?
6:Identity through Language in the Byzantine Commonwealth
7:Keeping Up Appearances: Byzantine Perspectives of ‘Legality’ and the Italians
Part II. HOW DO THEY DO IT?<\/strong>
8:Laying Down the Law in Byzantium: Law-Making and Adjudication
9:Identity, Law, and Beards: Judicial Shaving in Byzantium, c.<\/em>600-900
10:A Taktikal<\/em> Retreat?: Middle Byzantine Provincial Administration Revisited
11:Byzantium’s Empires of Gold
12:The Patriarchate of Constantinople and Its Register<\/em>: Documents, Agents, and Interconnectivity
13:The Byzantine Visual Commonwealth
BORDERLINE CASES<\/strong>
14:Attracting Elites from the Empire’s Periphery
15:Byzantine ‘Zomia’?: Spaces of Refusal between Centre and Periphery, 500-1200
16:’As Though from India Itself’: Stories of Byzantium
17:Byzantino-Turkish Diplomacy and the Loss of Western Asia Minor, 1260-1335
18:Agents of Commercial and Diplomatic Exchange: Amalfitans in Byzantium in the Tenth to Twelfth Centuries
19:Imagining Byzantium in Norse Romance
The Latin West<\/strong>
20:Frankish Commonwealth or Imperium Romanum<\/em>?: The Empire in the West, 750-1500
21:Parallel Spheres: Monasticism East and West c.<\/em>1000-1500
22:Alignment, Entanglement, and Antagonism: Byzantium and the West
23:The Byzantinization of the Roman Church under Innocent II (1130-1143)
24:Byzantium and the Crusades
PART V. THE ISLAMIC-CHRISTIAN EAST AND BEYOND<\/strong>
25:Byzantium, Rum, and the bilad al-Islam<\/em>
26:Looking East: Early Christian Art beyond Christian Hegemony
27:Melkite Translations of Byzantine Law-Books into Arabic
28:Art and Eschatological Empire between the Islamic East, Byzantium, and Latin Christendom: Sultan Baybars I’s Mausoleum in Damascus
29:Romans, Egyptians, and the Second Arab Siege of Constantinople (717\/18)
30:The Byzantine Commonwealth: A View from the East
Part VIA. Obolensky’s Commonwealth<\/strong>
31:Reclaiming the Balkans: A Study in Byzantine Soft Power
32:Bulgaria-Prime Candidate for Byzantine Commonwealth Membership?
33:A Virtual Empire?: Byzantium and the Eastern Adriatic Coast
34:Before Byzance apr\u00e8s Byzance<\/em>: The Making of Wallachia and the Byzantine Political Toolkit
35:Languages of Art
36:Finding the Frontiers of the Commonwealth
Part VIb. Obolensky’s Commonwealth<\/strong>
37:On Rus and the Commonwealth: Old Questions in the Light of Some New Studies
38:Early Rus Political Culture versus Byzantine Law: Reconciling Two Contradictory Ideologies
39:The Reluctant Empire
40:Byzantine Literature in the Slav World: Serendipity or Intention?
41:Non-elite Church Contacts between Byzantium and Rus in the Palaiologan Period
Part VII. Steppe Changes<\/strong>
42:The Typology of the Nomad State in Western Eurasia
43:From War to Peace in Medieval Steppe Empires
44:Boundaries and Bonds: Khazaria and the Commonwealth
45:Bargaining with Byzantium: The North Caucasian Kingdom of Alania and the Empire
46:Triangles into Spheres: Trade, Faith, and the Palaiologan Balancing Act after 1261
47:Epilogue<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Objavljeno: 2025.
ISBN: 9780198864097
768 str.
Oxford University Press<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Op\u0161irnije: https:\/\/global.oup.com\/academic\/product\/revisiting-the-byzantine-commonwealth-9780198864097?cc=hr&lang=en&<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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