1st Edition

Constantinople and its Hinterland Papers from the Twenty-Seventh Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Oxford, April 1993

By Cyril Mango, Gilbert Dagron Copyright 1995

    From its foundation, the city of Constantinople dominated the Byzantine world. It was the seat of the emperor, the centre of government and church, the focus of commerce and culture, by far the greatest urban centre; its needs in terms of supplies and defense imposed their own logic on the development of the empire. Byzantine Constantinople has traditionally been treated in terms of the walled city and its immediate suburbs. In this volume, containing 25 papers delivered at the 27th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies held at Oxford in 1993, the perspective has been enlarged to encompass a wider geographical setting, that of the city’s European and Asiatic hinterland. Within this framework a variety of interconnected topics have been addressed, ranging from the bare necessities of life and defence to manufacture and export, communications between the capital and its hinterland, culture and artistic manifestations and the role of the sacred.

    Contents: Section I: The water supply of Constantinople, C. Mango; L’approvisionnement de Constantinople, J. Durliat; The grain supply of Constantinople, 9th-12th centuries, P. Magdalino; Fresh vegetables for the capital, J. Koder; Poissons, pêcheurs et poissonniers de Constantinople, G. Dagron; Sectin II: La diffusion de la monnaie de Constantinople: routes commerciales ou routes politiques?, C. Morrisson; Was there totalitarianism in Byzantium? Constantinople’s control over its Asiatic hinterland in the early 9th century, I. Sevcenko; Section III: The Long Walls of Thrace, J. G. Crow; Procopius and Agathias on the defences of the Thracian Chersonese, G. Greatrex; The siege of Constantinople in 626, J. D. Howard-Johnston; Strategies of defence, problems of security: the garrisons of Constantinople in the middle Byzantine period, J. F.Haldon; Economic conditions in Constantinople during the siege of Bayezid I (1394-1402), N. Necipoglu; Constantinople vue par les témoins du siège du 1453, M. Balard; Section IV: Nicomedia and Constantinople, C. Foss; L’hinterland religieux de Constantinople: moines et saints de banlieue d’après l’hagiographie, M.Kaplan; Les communications entre Constantinople et la Bithynie, J. Lefort; Section V: The Jews of Constantinople and their demographic hinterland, D. Jacoby; Venetian habitatores, burgenses and merchants in Constantinople and its hinterland (12th-13th centuries) C.A Maltezou; Constantinople - gateway to the north: the Russians, J. Shepard; Section VI: The Proconnesian production of architectural elements in late antiquity, based on evidence from the marble quarries, N. Asgari; La sculpture médio-byzantine: le marbre en ersatz et tel qu’en lui-même, J.-P. Sodini; Glazed ’Tiles of Nicomedia’ in Bithynia, Constantinople and elsewhere, R. B. Mason and M. M. Mango; Glass and glaze at medieval Constantinople: preliminary scientific evidence, J. Henderson, M. M. Mango; Section VII: Les déplac

    Biography

    Gilbert Dagron, Cyril Mango