3.07 TS – Byzantium and its Neighbours: Dialectics of Conflict and Cooperation

Following the Fourth Crusade, the coinage produced across Frankish Greece offers a unique perspective for studying economic, political, and cultural interactions in the medieval eastern Mediterranean. These hybrid coins functioned first and foremost as instruments of economic exchange, facilitating trade across regions. They also served as symbols of Latin rulers’ authority over local populations, constructing…

In March 1171, Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos ordered the arrest of Venetians within Byzantine territory and the confiscation of their property. The uniqueness of this event lies in the fact that it is the only instance during the 12th-century conflicts between Byzantines and Westerners where confiscation was used as a means of action. Additionally,…

The analysis advances three claims. Firstly, Komnenian strategy in the Levant was not a linear “reconquest” but an iterative bargaining process with Latin and Armenian actors in which limited campaigns were routinely converted into revenue-exacting arrangements and positional guarantees around Antioch and Cilicia. Additionally, in Anatolia the Empire’s alternating offensives and truces with the Seljuks…

The theory of translatio imperii, which explains the transfer of imperial authority from one polity to another, occupies a prominent place in the historiography of twelfth-century Byzantium. Byzantine historians such as Anna Comnena and John Zonaras articulated this theory in response to both historical developments and ideological challenges. They traced the succession of emperors and…

Corinth was among the best-documented commercial centres of Venice in the Byzantine provinces. Beyond hosting a major Venetian community, the city—with its two harbours, Kenchreai and Lechaion, opening respectively to the East and the West—served as a crucial entrepôt for Venetian maritime trade in the eastern Mediterranean. With recent studies shedding new light on the…

From the tenth century onward, frequent Arab incursions into Sicily and Calabria triggered a northward movement of Greek communities from southern Italy into central and northern regions. Among them were groups of Italo-Greek saints and laymen who practiced asceticism. While the role of these saints as intermediaries and the Eastern ascetic tradition they embodied have…