Italy and the East Roman World in the Medieval Mediterranean: Empire, Cities and Elites, 476-1204 (Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies)

Italy and the East Roman World in the Medieval Mediterranean addresses the understudied topic of the Italian peninsula’s relationship to the continuation of the Roman Empire in the East, across the early and central Middle Ages.The East Roman world, commonly known by the ahistorical term "Byzantium", is generally imagined as an Eastern Mediterranean empire, with Italy part of the medieval "West".Across 18 individually authored chapters, an introduction and conclusion, this volume makes a different case: for an East Roman world of which Italy forms a crucial part, and an Italian peninsula which is inextricably connected to-and, indeed, includes-regions ruled from Constantinople.Celebrating a scholar whose work has led this field over several decades, Thomas S.Brown, the chapters focus on the general themes of empire, cities and elites, and explore these from the angles of sources and historiography, archaeology, social, political and economic history, and more besides.With contributions