Byzantium was neighbouring the steppe empires founded by the Huns, Avars, Gökstürks, Khazars and Mongols. As for China or the Muslim states, relations with political organisms located between the Yellow Sea and the Black Sea were a diplomatic or military challenge for the emperors from Constantinople. The rulers of the steppe peoples (e.g. Attila, Bayan,…
Parmi les sources historiques de la Byzance tardive, les Relations historiques de Georges Pachymérès (1242–1310) constituent un ouvrage majeur, notamment en ce qui concerne la description des Mongols et les informations relatives à l’expansion de l’Empire mongol. Toutefois, à ce jour, peu d’études se sont penchées sur la manière dont Pachymérès désigne les Mongols (Tokhariens)….
The Ulus of Juchi, better known as the Golden Horde, played a major role in the politics of the Black Sea and Balkan regions for about 150 years. Having emerged as part of the Mongol Empire, it was a leading military power in Western Eurasia, while also including a diverse ethnic and religious groups within…
Throughout the long history of intensive interaction—marked by both cooperation and nearly constant conflict—between the First Bulgarian Empire (680/681–1018) and the Byzantine Empire, the concept of the border emerges as a particularly prominent and meaningful theme. Both Byzantine chronicles and the so-called Protobulgarian inscriptions pay close attention to defining the often-shifting borderline between the two…