Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium

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Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium

The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (ODB) is a three-volume historical dictionary published by the English Oxford University Press. With more than 5,000 entries, it contains comprehensive information in English on topics relating to the Byzantine Empire. It was edited by Alexander Kazhdan, and was first published in 1991. [1] Kazhdan was a professor at Princeton University who became a Senior Research Associate at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC, before his death. He contributed to many of the articles in the Dictionary and always signed his initials A.K. at the end of the article to indicate his contribution.

Contents

Description

The dictionary is available in printed and e-reference text versions from Oxford Reference Online. It covers the main historical events of Byzantium, as well as important social and religious events. It also includes biographies of eminent political and literary personalities and describes in detail religious, social, cultural, legal and political topics. Cultural topics include music, theology and the arts. Other topics covered include warfare, demography, education, agriculture, commerce, science, philosophy, and medicine providing a comprehensive picture of the complex and advanced political and social structures of Byzantine society.

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Michael Attaleiates or Attaliates was an Byzantine Greek chronicler, public servant and historian active in Constantinople and around the empire's provinces in the second half of the eleventh century. He was a younger contemporary of Michael Psellos and likely an older colleague of John Skylitzes, the two other Byzantine historians of the eleventh century whose work survives.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Macedonian Renaissance</span> Byzantine cultural movement during the reign of the Macedonian dynasty

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John Geometres or Kyriotes, was a Byzantine poet, soldier, and monk. He is one of the main literary figures of the Macedonian Renaissance.

During the course of the Arab–Byzantine wars, exchanges of prisoners of war became a regular feature of the relations between the Byzantine Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate. The exchanges began in the late 8th century and continued until the late 10th century. Most of them took place at the Lamos River in Cilicia, on the border between the two powers.

Łewond or Leontius was a late 8th-century Armenian priest and historian.

Scriptor Incertus de Leone Armenio is the conventional Latin designation given to the anonymous author of a 9th-century Byzantine historical work, of which only two fragments survive.

Alice-Mary Talbot is an American Byzantinist. She is director of Byzantine studies emerita, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection.

In the Byzantine Empire, cities were centers of economic and cultural life. A significant part of the cities were founded during the period of Greek and Roman antiquity. The largest of them were Constantinople, Alexandria and Antioch, with a population of several hundred thousand people. Large provincial centers had a population of up to 50,000. Although the spread of Christianity negatively affected urban institutions, in general, late antique cities continued to develop continuously. Byzantium remained an empire of cities, although the urban space had changed a lot. If the Greco-Roman city was a place of pagan worship and sports events, theatrical performances and chariot races, the residence of officials and judges, then the Byzantine city was primarily a religious center where the bishop's residence was located.

References

  1. The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, 1991. ISBN   0195046528