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Politics and Government in Byzantium: The Rise and Fall of the Bureaucrats (New Directions in Byzantine Studies) Paperback – August 11, 2022

by Jonathan Shea (Author), Dionysios Stathakopoulos (Series Editor)
4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 6 ratings
See all formats and editions
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The eleventh century marked a turning point in the history of the Byzantine Empire. At its start Byzantium was the paramount power in the Mediterranean world, by turns feared, respected and admired. By the century's close the empire had lost half of its territory and had managed only a partial recovery under the leadership of the Komnenos family. How did a powerful and famously wealthy empire collapse so quickly?

The contemporary accounts of this turbulent 'long' century (taken here as c. 950–1100) attribute the empire's decline to the emperors' reckless and self-serving favouring of civilian bureaucrats and, while these sources are today widely acknowledged as biased and unreliable, modern assessments of the century have hitherto failed to suggest any tangible alternatives. To circumvent this dearth of archival material, Jonathan Shea has meticulously analysed 2,200 unpublished seals from the period (more than a third of the known total extant today) to uncover exactly whom the emperors were favouring and promoting, as well as developing a nuanced and revealing picture of the makeup of the much-chastised civilian bureaucracy. The sigillographic evidence is throughout measured against the written material to give a fresh account of this key transitional century and a rare insight into Byzantine politics.

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Previous page
  1. Print length
    272 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    I.B. Tauris
  4. Publication date
    August 11, 2022
  5. Dimensions
    6.2 x 0.9 x 9.2 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0755648307
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0755648306
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“This is a useful and refreshing contribution to the complex history of eleventh-century Byzantium and offers an approach that differs from those that place emphasis chiefly on fiscal problems on the one hand or military collapse on the other.” ―Speculum

"[A]n important contribution to the study of Byzantine government and society. Given its rich and sometimes complex detail it will serve as a useful reference work. Further, in conjunction with other recent studies of Byzantium in the tenth and eleventh centuries...it will enable greater understanding of this crucial period of Byzantine history." ―Early Medieval Europe

About the Author

Jonathan Shea is a teaching fellow at George Washington University and the head sigillographer at Dumbarton Oaks, in charge of their 17,000+ lead seals. He received his PhD from the University of Birmingham and has published in peer-reviewed articles and edited collections

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ I.B. Tauris (August 11, 2022)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0755648307
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0755648306
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.2 x 0.9 x 9.2 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 6 ratings

Customer reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars
4.8 out of 5
6 global ratings

Top review from the United States

A Reader
5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Research
Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2021
The author has done some painstaking research into the lead seals used by the Byzantines to secure their correspondence. These were left scattered about the lands of the former Byzantine Empire and been preserved by archaeologists.

One would think that these small items would tell us very little about this almost forgotten civilization, but instead they provide a tremendous amount of information about how the Byzantine bureaucratic elements of their government operated. Professor Shea has made a valuable contribution to the work of Byzantine historians.
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