Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, volume 42, issue 2 (October 2018).

CONTENTS INCLUDE

Nikephoros III Botaneiates, the Phokades, and the Fabii: embellished genealogies and contested kinship in eleventh-century Byzantium
Nathan Leidholm

This article examines the genealogical claims of Nikephoros III Botaneiates, namely his supposed descent from the Phokades and the ancient Roman Fabii, and aims to situate Botaneiates’ case within a broader context of exaggerated and contested claims of kinship in medieval Byzantium. While exploring the uses of fictionalized or exaggerated kinship and their reception in contemporary society, it addresses issues of authenticity, proof, and credibility. It argues that Byzantine authors were widely sceptical of audacious genealogical claims and may have been exposed to false claims of kinship more often than previously acknowledged.

Local families, local allegiances: sigillography and autonomy in the eleventh-twelfth century Black Sea
Alex M. Feldman

Many studies of the medieval Black Sea address the importance of Byzantine imperial agency in facilitating economic and political exchange. However, few studies examine the limits of Byzantine statehood regarding trans-Black Sea local dynasts. This study, primarily utilizing sigillography, focuses on the eleventh-twelfth century notable families of Cherson and Trebizond in case studies, particularly the well-known Tzouloi and Gavrades: two cities and families famed for their respective local autonomies. How can seals uncover an otherwise hidden dimension of Byzantine sovereignty, or its contestation, which manifested itself across the Black Sea even before the emergence of the empire of Trebizond after 1204?

The court of women in early Palaiologan Byzantium (ca.1260-1350)
Frouke Schrijver

This article serves as a contribution to the discussion of gender segregation at the imperial court of Byzantium. Evidence from the Palaiologan period shows that many of the elements of a women's court, as it was known from earlier centuries, were still present in the last centuries of the empire.

The tombs of the Palaiologan emperors
Nicholas Melvani

This article examines textual and material evidence regarding the burials of emperors during the Palaiologan period. It is argued that the Palaiologos dynasty did not initially have a plan to establish an imperial mausoleum: the monastery of Lips, re-founded by Theodora Palaiologina and often regarded by modern scholars as an imperial mausoleum, was instead conceived as a family shrine. Small-scale attempts to establish imperial mausolea are discernible only from the middle of the fourteenth century onwards, with the burials of Andronikos III and John V in the monastery of ton Hodegon and of the last Palaiologoi in the Pantokrator.

Reviews

Floris Bernard, Writing and Reading Byzantine Secular Poetry, 1025–1081. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Foteini Spingou

Alexios G. C. Savvides, Οι Μεγάλοι Κομνηνοί της Τραπεζούντας και του Πόντου. Ιστορική επισκόπηση της Βυζαντινής Αυτοκρατορίας του μικρασιατικού Ελληνισμού, 1204-1461, 3rd edn. Thessaloniki: Kyriakidis Editions, 2016.
Annika S. E. Asp