Abstract
So Far the crisis which overwhelmed the late Roman empire at the beginning of the seventh century and the Byzantine empire’s ability to survive has been presented in strategic and structural terms. Would this analysis have made sense to contemporary Byzantines?
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Bibliography
Prophecies of the empire’s future which shed light on contemporary expectations are introduced and discussed in P. J. Alexander, The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition, ed. D. deF. Abrahamse (Berkeley, Calif., 1985).]
The apocalypse of St Andrew the Fool, dated by Mango to the early eighth century — ‘The Life of St. Andrew the Fool Reconsidered’, Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Slavi, II (1982), 297–313 — is translated in L. Rydén, ‘The Andreas Salos Apocalypse. Greek Text, Translation and Commentary’, DOP, XXVIII (1974). The original Syriac text of the apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodios is translated and discussed by S. Brock in West-Syrian Chronicles, pp. 222–53.
A good introduction to iconoclasm is Cormack, Writing in Gold. Several useful papers appear in Iconoclasm, ed. A. Bryer and J. Herrin (University of Birmingham 9th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies 1975, Birmingham, 1977). Both Gero’s studies — Byzantine Iconoclasm During the Reign of Leo III (Louvain, 1973), and
Byzantine Iconoclasm During the Reign of Constantine V (Louvain, 1977) — helpfully tackle source problems and clarify the difficulties.
P. Brown, ‘A Dark Age Crisis: Aspects of the Iconoclastic Controversy’, English Historical Review, LXXXVIII (1973), 1–34, puts iconoclasm in a wider context as part of a struggle for control over the sources of power in Byzantium.
Also of particular interest among a vast bibliography are H. Belting, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image Before the Era of Art, tr. E. Jephcott (Chicago, I11., 1994)
P. J. Alexander, The Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople (Oxford, 1958)
A. Grabar, L’iconoclasme byzantin, 2nd edn (Paris, 1984)
and J. Moorhead, ‘Iconoclasm, the Cross and the Imperial Image’, Byz, LV (1985), 165–79.
There are useful collections of texts in D. J. Sahas, Icon and Logos: Sources in Eighth-century Iconoclasm (Toronto, 1986)
and C. Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312–1453 (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1972). Some of the less than incisive anti-iconoclast writings of the patriarch Nikephoros are translated in Nicéphore, Discours contre les iconoclastes, tr. M.-J. Mondzain-Baudinet (Paris, 1989). See also The Life of Michael the Synkellos, ed. and tr. M. B. Cunningham (BBTT I, Belfast, 1991), and La vie merveilleuse de saint Pierre dAtroa († 837), ed. and tr. V. Laurent (Brussels, 1956).
The political history of the period is inevitably coloured by anti-iconoclast propaganda and for the ninth century by later chroniclers’ political biases. Important attempts to disentangle this mess are P. Lemerle, ‘Thomas le Slave’, TM, I (1965), 255–97
and the papers of P. Karlin-Hayter; ‘Études sur les deux histoires du regne de Michel III’, Byz, XLI (1971), 452–96
‘Michael III and Money’, Byzantinoslavica, LI (1989), 1–80.
A different view of iconoclasm and of the Byzantine world in general based on a strong faith in the veracity of early medieval sources, is found in W. Treadgold. The Byzantine Revival, 780–842 (Stanford, Cal., 1988).
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© 1996 Mark Whittow
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Whittow, M. (1996). The Shock of Defeat. In: The Making of Orthodox Byzantium, 600–1025. New Studies in Medieval History. Red Globe Press, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24765-3_6
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