56th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies – Byzantium from below: rural and non-elite life in the Byzantine world
56th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies: Symposium Information
The Byzantine Empire was built on the backs of the rural and urban labour force. From agricultural production and the extraction of raw materials to the physical construction of urban centres and buildings, the strength of the empire’s economy and its imperial administration rested upon complex networks of labourers, artisans and ‘local notables’, across its natural landscapes, in villages, and cities. While huge advances have been made in studying labour processes in recent years, the experiences of such populations within the Byzantine world have received comparatively less attention when compared to other fields of late Roman and western medieval studies. How the Byzantine Empire was experienced and understood by those far removed from its centres of governance and central networks of power, are crucial questions for understanding the lived experience of the mostly silent majority whose lives played out both within, and around, the empire’s fluctuating ‘borders’. Beyond exploring the contribution of rural communities and non-elites to modes of production, this symposium will also explore what can be said of the intricacies of their lives, societies, and what it meant to ‘be Byzantine’, viewed from below.
Symposiarch
Dr Daniel Reynolds
Cost
Full three days:
- Members of SPBS – £95
- Non-members – £110
- Students/ unwaged: – £50
One day:
- Members of SPBS – £55
- Non-members – £65
- Students/ unwaged – £30
Symposium Feast
Sunday 13 April 1930 (Kolkata Lounge Restaurant) – £40 per head
Online:
- Members: £20
- Non-members: £35
- Students/unwaged: £10
Venue
The University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, United Kingdom
The Symposium will be hosted in the Arts Building on the University of Birmingham’s main campus (map reference R16): https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/documents/university/edgbaston-campus-map.pdf
An interactive map can be accessed here: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/contact/directions
Getting to campus
Train
The University of Birmingham has its own train station known as ‘University’. Trains leave every 10-15 mins from Birmingham New Street Station, usually departing from platform 11B.
Further details on train travel: https://intranet.birmingham.ac.uk/student/travelling-to-campus/travelling-by-train.aspx
Information on National Rail Services: https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/
It may be possible to get cheaper tickets, especially for longer-distance rail travel within the UK, here: https://www.thetrainline.com/
By bus
Local routes 61, 63, 41, 48, 76, X21, X22, 19, 20, 20A directly serve the University of Birmingham campus, linking the university to the city centre, local train stations and neighbourhoods. The circular 11A and 11C routes also run nearby.
Further details on bus travel: https://intranet.birmingham.ac.uk/student/travelling-to-campus/travelling-by-bus.aspx
Car Parking
Northeast multi-storey car park (Pritchatts Road, B15 2SA).
You can park here for up to ten hours. Parking charges apply Monday to Sunday, between 8am and 6pm. This includes Bank holidays and university closed days.
Charges start from £3.40 and are capped at £10 (as of October 2024) Monday to Friday. If parking at the weekend or on a Bank holiday, there is a flat day rate of £2.50.
Taxi
TOA Taxis are a Birmingham-based company which is recommended by the university.
TOA Taxis: Birmingham black cab taxi service | Home | TOA Taxis
Accommodation
The university has its own onsite hotel accommodation, now known as the Edgbaston Park Hotel: https://www.edgbastonparkhotel.com/
The city centre has a greater range of accommodation options and is located around 10-15mins away by train.
Further information on city centre options can be found here: https://visitbirmingham.com/where-to-stay/
Medical assistance
First Aid: Dr Daniel Reynolds (symposiarch) is a qualified first aider.
Emergency service numbers: 999 or 112
Medical Practice:
The university has its own dedicated GP practitioner for non-emergency care: https://www.theump.co.uk/
UBHeard is a confidential listening and support service for all registered students (undergraduate and postgraduate) at the University of Birmingham. It offers immediate emotional and mental health support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Call the service on 0800 368 5819 (Freephone UK*) or 00353 1 518 0277 (International), or visit the UBHeard portal (create an account with your UoB email address). You can also text ‘Hi’ to +44 74 1836 0780 for SMS & WhatsApp support (standard rates apply) or contact UBHeard via Live Chat.
Security
If there is an immediate risk to life, safety or security – yours, another person’s, or property – call the emergency services on 999. Then call Security on 0121 414 4444. If you are a member of the University of Birmingham, you can also alert them through the SafeZone app.
If you’re calling to report an alleged crime (especially assault/sexual assault, indecency, fraud, theft, or burglary), you should always contact both the police and Security. Security will be able to support you while you wait for the emergency services to arrive.
To report a non-emergency crime (e.g., theft), call Security on 0121 414 3000 or report an incident through the SafeZone app. You should also report the incident to the police online or by calling 101.
Food and drink
Lunch and refreshments will be provided for all symposium delegates. However, the campus also has a wide range of options you may prefer to explore: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/community/university-campus/retail/food-fellows/opening-times
The Main Library
The University Main Library is open 0800-2000 during university holidays and is open to visitors for consultation. Further information can be found here: https://intranet.birmingham.ac.uk/student/libraries/index.aspx
Symposium Feast (Sunday 13 April 1930)
The symposium feast will be held at Kolkata Lounge 1488 Pershore Rd, Bournville, Birmingham B30 2NT.
Byzantium from Below: 56th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies – UPDATED PROGRAMME
Byzantium from Below
12th-14th April 2025
Saturday 12th April
0930-0945: Welcome from symposiarch
0945-1030: Keynote: Sharon Gerstel (UCLA), “Seeing villages over time: case studies from rural Greece”
1030-1100: Tea and coffee
Session 1: Documented Lives
1100-1125: Matthew Kinloch (Oslo), “Non-elite characters in late Byzantine history writing”
1125-1150: Dora Konstantellou (Dumbarton Oaks), “When is a rural painter identified by name? Reading representations of painters in late Byzantine/medieval rural societies”
1150-1200 Milan Vukašinović (Uppsala), “Collective subjectivity in the Athonite archives”
1200-1210 Nikolas Hächler (Zurich), “The Dialogus de scientia politica: an anonymous comment on and critique of the early Byzantine state under Justinian I” (Communication)
1210-1230: Questions
1230-1400: Lunch
Session 2: Law, Land and Property
1400-1425: Arietta Papaconstantinou (Aix-Marseilles) “Byzantine “tormented voices” from the edge of empire”
1425-1450: Jenny Cromwell (Manchester Metropolitan), “Patrons and property in rural Egypt in the early 8th century”
1450-1500 Franka Horvat (UCLA), “Islanders’ perspective: the case of the Elaphiti Archipelago” (Communication)
1500-1510 Thomas Laver (Cambridge), “Using tax registers to study labour relationships in the villages of Byzantine Egypt”
1510-1530: Questions
1530-1600: Tea and coffee
Session 3: Landscape and Settlement
1600-1625: Jim Crow (Edinburgh), “Rural settlement in the Cyclades: excavations at Kato Chora”
1625-1650: Archie Dunn (Birmingham) “From communal corvées to fiscal and communal enterprises in medieval Byzantium”
1650-1715: Sophia Germanidou (Hellenic Ministry of Culture), “Unseen, unheard and disregarded: tracing female labour in the Byzantine countryside through an interdisciplinary approach”
1715-1735: Georgios Makris (British Columbia), “Modest luxury? Rural cemeteries and grave goods in the Valley of Kalamas, Epiros”
1735-1800: Questions
1800-1900: Wine reception
Sunday 13th April
Session 4: Material Approaches and Labour
1000-1025: Flavia Vanni (Newcastle), “The contribution of rural artisans to Byzantine sacred spaces (11th-13th centuries)”
1025-1050: Sean Leatherbury (Dublin) “Craft labour and rural communities in the late antique east”
1050-1115: Anna Kelley (St Andrews), “Career opportunities: apprentice contracts and social networking in late antique workshops”
1115-1125: Zeynep Olgun (Cambridge), “Ships in villages: maritime labour in Byzantine society” (Communication)
1125-1135: Questions
1135-1200: Tea and coffee
Session 5: Social Life
1200-1225: Sophie Moore (Newcastle) “Title TBC”
1225-1250: Vicky Manopoulou (Durham), “Processing villages: litanic experiences of rural communities in Byzantium”
1250-1300: Rachael Helen Banes (Vienna), “Artisans or amateurs: who wrote the graffiti at late antique Aphrodisias?” (Communication)
1250-1310: Jacopo Dolci (Nottingham) “A Monument in Transition: The Artemision and the Evolving Urban Landscape of Late Antique Gerasa (c. 350–750)”
1310-1320: Questions
1330-1430 Lunch (SPBS Exec)
1430-1530: Communications
1) Irakli Tezelashvili (Courtauld), “Painted and adorned for the salvation of all of this valley: great and lesser’: Svan Churches of T’evdore, ‘the King’s Painter,’ Revisited”
2) Giuseppe Belsito (independent scholar), “The rural context in the Sicilian Theme (6th-8th centuries AD): an impoverished or a dynamic economic area within the overall Byzantine polity? Contradictory data emerging from recent archaeological excavations in Sicily”
3) Husamettin Simsir (Notre Dame), “Anthroponymic appellations, names, sobriquets, nicknames and titles of mid-15th-century post-Byzantine landholders in the Ottoman Balkans”
4) Nicolas Varaine (Paris), “Ordinary devotion in the late Byzantine world: looking for the modest donors of
Venetian Crete”
5) Bjarke Bach Christensen (Cambridge) New Ostraka Evidence for an Integrated Estate in Sixth-Century Byzantine North Africa
1530-1600: Tea and coffee
Session 6: Comparative perspectives
1600- 1630: Chris Wickham (Oxford) “The West’”
1630-1700: Hugh Kennedy (SOAS), “Slavery as a vehicle for social mobility in the early Islamic world”
1700-1730: Questions
1730-1830: Wine reception
1830-1930: Travel to feast
1930: Feast (Kolata Lounge, 1488 Pershore Rd, Bournville, Birmingham B30 2NT)
Monday 14th April
Session 7: Rural Life on Islands and Peripheries
0930-0955: Luca Zavagno (Bilkent), “‘From the gentle coast and where the stream descends from the grove of the river and all the high peaks there’. The countryside of large Byzantine islands in the early Middle Ages”
0955-1020: Basema Harmaneh (Vienna), “On peripheries: exploring the non-elite universe in the late antique Levant”
1020-1045: Angelo Castrorao Barba (Granada), “Living in the Sicilian countryside during the Byzantine-Islamic transition: archaeological perspectives”
1045-1100: Questions
1100-1130: Tea and coffee
1130-1200: AGM
1200-1230: Closing remarks by Stuart Pracy (Exeter) and Leslie Brubaker (Birmingham)
1230: Closing of the symposium and announcement of the next symposium
56th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies – Programme
Saturday 12th April
0930-0945: Welcome from symposiarch
0945-1030: Keynote: Sharon Gerstel (UCLA), “Seeing villages over time: case studies from rural Greece”
1030-1100: Tea and coffee
Session 1: Documented Lives
1100-1125: Matthew Kinloch (Oslo), “Non-elite characters in late Byzantine history writing”
1125-1150: Dora Konstantellou (Dumbarton Oaks), “When is a rural painter identified by name? Reading representations of painters in late Byzantine/medieval rural societies”
1150-1200 Milan Vukašinović (Uppsala), “Collective subjectivity in the Athonite archives”
1200-1210 Nikolas Hächler (Zurich), “The Dialogus de scientia politica: an anonymous comment on and critique of the early Byzantine state under Justinian I” (Communication)
1210-1230: Questions
1230-1400: Lunch
Session 2: Law, Land and Property
1400-1425: Arietta Papaconstantinou (Aix-Marseilles) “Title TBC”
1425-1450: Jenny Cromwell (Manchester Metropolitan), “Patrons and property in rural Egypt in the early 8th century”
1450-1500 Franka Horvat (UCLA), “Islanders’ perspective: the case of the Elaphiti Archipelago” (Communication)
1500-1510 Thomas Laver (Cambridge), “Using tax registers to study labour relationships in the villages of Byzantine Egypt”
1510-1530: Questions
1530-1600: Tea and coffee
Session 3: Landscape and Settlement
1600-1625: Jim Crow (Edinburgh), “Rural settlement in the Cyclades: excavations at Kato Chora”
1625-1650: Archie Dunn (Birmingham) “Title TBC”
1650-1715: Sophia Germanidou (Newcastle), “Unseen, unheard and disregarded: tracing female labour in the Byzantine countryside through an interdisciplinary approach”
1715-1735: Georgios Makris (British Columbia), “Modest luxury? Rural cemeteries and grave goods in the Valley of Kalamas, Epiros”
1735-1800: Questions
1800-1900: Wine reception
Sunday 13th April
Session 4: Material Approaches and Labour
1000-1025: Flavia Vanni (Newcastle), “The contribution of rural artisans to Byzantine sacred spaces (11th-13th centuries)”
1025-1050: Sean Leatherbury (Dublin) “Craft labour and rural communities in the late antique east”
1050-1115: Anna Kelley (St Andrews), “Career opportunities: apprentice contracts and social networking in late antique workshops”
1115-1125: Zeynep Olgun (Cambridge), “Ships in villages: maritime labour in Byzantine society” (Communication)
1125-1135: Questions
1135-1200: Tea and coffee
Session 5: Social Life
1200-1225: Sophie Moore (Newcastle) “Title TBC”
1225-1250: Vicky Manopoulou (Durham), “Processing villages: litanic experiences of rural communities in Byzantium”
1250-1300: Rachael Helen Banes (Vienna), “Artisans or amateurs: who wrote the graffiti at late antique Aphrodisias?” (Communication)
1300-1315: Questions
1330-1430 Lunch (SPBS Exec)
1430-1530: Communications
1) Irakli Tezelashvili (Courtauld), “Painted and adorned for the salvation of all of this valley: great and lesser’: Svan Churches of T’evdore, ‘the King’s Painter,’ Revisited”
2) Giuseppe Belsito (independent scholar), “The rural context in the Sicilian Theme (6th-8th centuries AD): an impoverished or a dynamic economic area within the overall Byzantine polity? Contradictory data emerging from recent archaeological excavations in Sicily”
3) Husamettin Simsir (Notre Dame), “Anthroponymic appellations, names, sobriquets, nicknames and titles of mid-15th-century post-Byzantine landholders in the Ottoman Balkans”
4) Nicolas Varaine (Paris), “Ordinary devotion in the late Byzantine world: looking for the modest donors of
Venetian Crete”
1530-1600: Tea and coffee
Session 6: Comparative perspectives
1600- 1630: Chris Wickham (Oxford) “The West’”
1630-1700: Hugh Kennedy (SOAS), “Slavery as a vehicle for social mobility in the early Islamic world”
1700-1730: Questions
1730-1830: Wine reception
1830-1930: Travel to feast
1930: Feast (Kolata Lounge, 1488 Pershore Rd, Bournville, Birmingham B30 2NT)
Monday 14th April
Session 7: Rural Life on Islands and Peripheries
0930-0955: Luca Zavagno (Bilkent), “‘From the gentle coast and where the stream descends from the grove of the river and all the high peaks there’. The countryside of large Byzantine islands in the early Middle Ages”
0955-1020: Basema Harmaneh (Vienna), “On peripheries: exploring the non-elite universe in the late antique
Levant”
1020-1045: Angelo Castrorao Barba (Granada), “Living in the Sicilian countryside during the Byzantine-Islamic transition: archaeological perspectives”
1045-1100: Questions
1100-1130: Tea and coffee
1130-1200: AGM
1200-1230: Closing remarks by Stuart Pracy (Exeter) and Leslie Brubaker (Birmingham)
1230: Closing of the symposium and announcement of the next symposium
Call for communications: 56th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies at the University of Birmingham
Byzantium from below: rural and non-elite life in the Byzantine world
12th-14th April 2025
Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies
University of Birmingham
Call for communications
Abstracts are invited for communications at the 56th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies to be held at the University of Birmingham, UK. Communications are 10-mins long. Communications related to the themes of non-elites, peasants and rural life in the Byzantine world are particularly encouraged. Abstracts should be 250 words in length and are due by Monday 6 January 2025.
Please send abstracts to d.k.reynolds@bham.ac.uk.
Successful applicants will be notified by mid-January 2025.
Symposium abstract
The Byzantine Empire was built on the backs of the rural and urban labour force. From agricultural production and the extraction of raw materials to the physical construction of urban centres and buildings, the strength of the empire’s economy and its imperial administration rested upon complex networks of labourers, artisans and ‘local notables’, across its natural landscapes, in villages, and cities. While huge advances have been made in studying labour processes in recent years, the experiences of such populations within the Byzantine world have received comparatively little attention when compared to other fields of late Roman and western medieval studies. How the Byzantine Empire was experienced and understood by those far removed from its centres of governance and central networks of power, are crucial questions for understanding the lived experience of the mostly silent majority whose lives played out both within, and around, the empire’s fluctuating ‘borders’. Beyond exploring the contribution of rural communities and non-elites to modes of production, this symposium will also explore what can be said of the intricacies of their lives, societies, and what it meant to ‘be Byzantine’, viewed from below.
Transitions: A Historian’s Memoir
Dear friends,We would like to invite you to celebrate with us the launch of Transitions: A Historian’s Memoir by Prof Dame Averil Cameron, President of the SPBS.
This event is organised by the Oxford Centre for Late Antiquity.
Discussants: Revd Canon Dr Peter Groves, Prof John Haldon FBA
Date: Tuesday 12th November 2024
Time: 5pm (UK time)
Venue: Levine Auditorium, Trinity College, Oxford
Online Attendance: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/
Crow Week! Celebrating Professor Jim Crow
Edinburgh’s Centre for Late Antique, Islamic & Byzantine Studies (CLAIBS) is delighted to announce Crow Week!
On Monday 13 May 2024, CLAIBS is honoured to host, in hybrid format, this year’s joint lecture of the Austrian (OEBG) and British (SPBS) societies for Byzantine Studies, delivered by CLAIBS’s own Jim Crow with Galina Fingarova (University of Vienna) as respondent. The lecture is entitled ‘Peeping under the Palimpsest: reclaiming the urban topography of Byzantine Constantinople’.
Abstract: A recent publication on late antique and medieval urbanism titled ‘Cities as palimpsests?’ draws attention to the multi-layered nature of ancient cities and the nuanced perspectives which are offered for the study of evolving urbanism. But how far is this engaging metaphor relevant for understanding the city beneath our feet and as a contribution to comprehending past lifeways? By reviewing past and contemporary approaches and methodologies I aim to consider the contribution of previous observations and excavations for the topography and infrastructure of the city, with particular attention to the Byzantine remains enclosed within the circuit wall of the Topkapı Saray, the city’s first hill.
Proceedings commence at 5.30pm BST. All welcome; registration – for in person or remote participation – is open at https://edin.ac/3QiNueS
On Friday that same week (17 May 2024), CLAIBS, in collaboration with Edinburgh’s Departments of Archaeology and Classics, looks forward to hosting a half-day hybrid workshop – ‘Of Walls and Aqueducts: Celebrating Professor Jim Crow’ – to mark Professor Crow’s recent retirement from his distinguished tenure as Edinburgh’s Chair in Classical and Byzantine Archaeology. Three speakers representing the three areas of the Centre – Ine Jacobs (Oxford) for Late Antique studies, Scott Redford (SOAS) for Islamic studies, and Edinburgh’s Margaret Mullett for Byzantine studies – will deliver talks relevant to Professor Crow’s own work and in his honour. The academic part will last from 3.15–6pm BST. All welcome; for further details and registration – for in person or remote participation – see https://edin.ac/3QgRLjg
With any queries, please contact Niels Gaul (N.Gaul@ed.ac.uk).
SPBS-OEBG Joint Lecture 2024 – Hybrid Event!
Peeping under the palimpsest: reclaiming the urban topography of Byzantine Constantinople
Prof. Jim Crow (University of Edinburgh)
Respondent: Dr Galina Fingarova (Universität Wien)
Event Details:
In person
May 13th 2024 at 5:30PM
Location: Meadows Lecture Theatre, Edinburgh, EH8 9AG
The subject of this talk is the sub-surface archaeology of Constantinople. A recent publication on late antique and medieval urbanism titled ‘Cities as Palimpsests?’ draws attention to the multi-layered nature of ancient cities and the nuanced perspectives which are offered for the study of evolving urbanism. But how far is this engaging metaphor relevant for understanding the city beneath our feet and as a contribution to comprehending past lifeways? By reviewing past and contemporary approaches and methodologies I aim to consider the contribution of previous observations and excavations for the topography and infrastructure of the city, with particular attention to the Byzantine remains enclosed within the circuit wall of the Topkapi Saray, the city’s first hill.
To register please click here
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, Volume 48 – Issue 1 – April 2024
The latest issue of the Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies journal, of the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies of the University of Birmingham is here!
The editors of the BMGS journal have dedicated the 48th volume to Leslie Brubaker!
SEEING THROUGH BYZANTIUM: PAPERS IN HONOUR OF LESLIE BRUBAKER
You may read the published articles by clicking here.
Justice in Byzantium – 13th to 15th April 2024
In 2024, the Symposium will take place in Canterbury at the University of Kent, for the first time. The chosen theme is ‘Justice in Byzantium’. This theme will facilitate inter-disciplinary discussion of research and ideas embracing Byzantine history, society, culture, and law. Sessions will be arranged around the themes of ‘Social Justice’; ‘Unwritten Rules’; ‘Criminal Justice’; ‘Revenge’; ‘Civil Law & Justice’; and ‘Divine Justice’.
The main sessions of the conference will be held in the Templeman Lecture Theatre, with a reception and dinner in the Darwin Conference Suite, Darwin College.
Confirmed speakers include Daphne Penna, Dennis Stathakopoulos, Carlos Machado, Arietta Papaconstantinou, Rosemary Morris, Anna Kelley, Lorena Atzeri, Mike Humphreys, Catherine Holmes, Robert Wisniewski, Peter Sarris, Matthijs Wibier, Simon Corcoran, Caroline Humfress, Maroula Perisanidi, Dan Reynolds and Shaun Tougher.
Please keep checking the website periodically: further information will be added in due course, and continuously updated. The complete programme can be found here: Conference Programme.
To register please click here.