Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- Preface and acknowledgements
- Note on transliteration and citation
- List of abbreviations
- 1 The empire, c. 1150
- 2 The heartland of the Comnenian empire
- Genealogical tables
- Introduction Problems and sources
- 1 The Comnenian empire between East and West
- 2 Constantinople and the provinces
- 3 The Comnenian system
- 4 Government
- 5 The guardians of Orthodoxy
- 6 The emperor and his image
- Epilogue
- Appendix 1 The poems of ‘Manganeios Prodromos’
- Appendix 2 Lay officials in synodal lists of the Comnenian period
- Appendix 3 Magnate ‘patrons’ under Manuel named in verse collections
- Bibliography
- Index
Preface and acknowledgements
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- Preface and acknowledgements
- Note on transliteration and citation
- List of abbreviations
- 1 The empire, c. 1150
- 2 The heartland of the Comnenian empire
- Genealogical tables
- Introduction Problems and sources
- 1 The Comnenian empire between East and West
- 2 Constantinople and the provinces
- 3 The Comnenian system
- 4 Government
- 5 The guardians of Orthodoxy
- 6 The emperor and his image
- Epilogue
- Appendix 1 The poems of ‘Manganeios Prodromos’
- Appendix 2 Lay officials in synodal lists of the Comnenian period
- Appendix 3 Magnate ‘patrons’ under Manuel named in verse collections
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This book grew out of an interest in the palace building and the literary and artistic image of a Byzantine emperor who seemed to correspond to Burckhardt's idea of ‘the state as a work of art’ as well as any ruler before the Renaissance. My interest was compounded by the realisation that this ‘universal man’ was not regarded either as a showpiece of Byzantine civilisation or as part of the mainstream of European history. The following chapters represent my long search for a context in which to place the cultural phenomenon of Manuel Komnenos.
Since the project was first conceived, our knowledge and appreciation of twelfth-century Byzantium have improved dramatically. Instead of the textbook orthodoxy of the eleventh and twelfth centuries as the depressing aftermath of the ‘Macedonian Renaissance’, we now have a textbook by Michael Angold devoted solely to the period 1025–1204. Ralph-Johannes Lilie has removed some basic obstacles to our perception of the empire's relationship with the West at the time of the crusades. Michael Hendy and Alan Harvey have between them provided a coherent and usable model of the Byzantine monetary and agricultural economy. Twelfth-century literary culture has attracted more and more attention, and Alexander Kazhdan has synthesised his conclusions on the subject and made them accessible to English readers.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Empire of Manuel I Komnenos, 1143–1180 , pp. xi - xiiPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993