How to Spend It? Wealth, Charity and Remembrance in the Late Byzantine Period, lecture by Dionysios Stathakopoulos (King’s College London), University of Birmingham, January 26, 2017, 5:15–6:30 pm

During its last centuries the Byzantine Empire was a poor state, the result of near constant warfare and territorial losses. Yet some of its citizens were exceedingly rich. As elites became increasingly unable to draw their revenues exclusively from established sources (exploitation of landed estates and office-holding at court), they found ways to adapt to the reduced circumstances by investing in trade and banking, primarily as partners of Italian merchants. This paper looks at the patterns of investment and disinvestment of those wealthy Byzantines and especially at the convergence of charity, medicine and the cult of remembrance.

CBOMGS Seminar