Politics and Government in Byzantium

The Rise and Fall of the Bureaucrats

Jonathan Shea (The George Washington University, USA)

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English

I.B. Tauris
11 August 2022

Middle Eastern history; Early history: c 500 to c 1450&1500; Social & cultural history; Genealogy, heraldry, names & honours; Political structure & processes

Series: New Directions in Byzantine Studies

The eleventh century marked a turning point in the history of the Byzantine Empire. At its start Byzantium was the paramount power in the Mediterranean world, by turns feared, respected and admired. By the century’s close the empire had lost half of its territory and had managed only a partial recovery under the leadership of the Komnenos family. How did a powerful and famously wealthy empire collapse so quickly?

The contemporary accounts of this turbulent ‘long’ century (taken here as c. 950–1100) attribute the empire’s decline to the emperors’ reckless and self-serving favouring of civilian bureaucrats and, while these sources are today widely acknowledged as biased and unreliable, modern assessments of the century have hitherto failed to suggest any tangible alternatives. To circumvent this dearth of archival material, Jonathan Shea has meticulously analysed 2,200 unpublished seals from the period (more than a third of the known total extant today) to uncover exactly whom the emperors were favouring and promoting, as well as developing a nuanced and revealing picture of the makeup of the much-chastised civilian bureaucracy. The sigillographic evidence is throughout measured against the written material to give a fresh account of this key transitional century and a rare insight into Byzantine politics.

By: Jonathan Shea (The George Washington University USA)
Imprint: I.B. Tauris
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9780755648306
ISBN 10: 0755648307
Series: New Directions in Byzantine Studies
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 11 August 2022
Audience: College/higher education , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Jonathan Shea is Associate Curator of Coins and Seals at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, and Dean’s Distinguished Lecturer in the Humanities at The George Washington University. He received his PhD from the University of Birmingham and has published in peer-reviewed articles and edited collections

Reviews for Politics and Government in Byzantium: The Rise and Fall of the Bureaucrats

This is a useful and refreshing contribution to the complex history of eleventh-century Byzantium and offers an approach that differs from those that place emphasis chiefly on fiscal problems on the one hand or military collapse on the other. * Speculum * [A]n important contribution to the study of Byzantine government and society. Given its rich and sometimes complex detail it will serve as a useful reference work. Further, in conjunction with other recent studies of Byzantium in the tenth and eleventh centuries...it will enable greater understanding of this crucial period of Byzantine history. * Early Medieval Europe *