Research Catalog

Heroes and Romans in twelfth-century Byzantium : the Material for history of Nikephoros Bryennios

Title

Heroes and Romans in twelfth-century Byzantium : the Material for history of Nikephoros Bryennios / Leonora Neville.

Author

Neville, Leonora Alice, 1970-

Publication

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Supplementary Content

Available Online

Table of contents only

Items in the Library & Off-site

Filter by

1 Item

Item details
Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person.	Text	Use in library	JFE 13-696	Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315

Details

Description

xiv, 243 p. : geneal. tables; 24 cm.

Summary

"Nikephoros Bryennios' history of the Byzantine Empire in the 1070s is a story of civil war and aristocratic rebellion in the midst of the Turkish conquest of Anatolia. Commonly remembered as the passive and unambitious husband of Princess Anna Komnene (author of the Alexiad), Bryennios is revealed as a skilled author whose history draws on cultural memories of classical Roman honor and proper masculinity to evaluate the politicians of the 1070s and implicitly to exhort his twelfth-century contemporaries to honorable behavior. Bryennios' story valorizes the memory of his grandfather and other honorable, but failed, generals of the eleventh century while subtly portraying the victorious Alexios Komnenos as un-Roman. This reading of the Material for History sheds new light on twelfth-century Byzantine culture and politics, especially the contested accession of John Komnenos, the relationship between Bryennios' history and the Alexiad and the function of cultural memories of Roman honor in Byzantium"--

Subject

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references.

Contents

Machine generated contents note: Introduction; Part I. Contexts: 1. Twelfth-century politics and the House of Komnenos; 2. Writing history in twelfth-century Constantinople; 3. Nikephoros' reading; 4. Sources for the Material for History; Part II. Reading in the Material for History: 5. Problems of the Empire: civil war and mercenaries; 6. The rise of Alexios; 7. Romans and their enemies; 8. Military virtue; 9. Roman family politics; 10. Religion and providence; 11. Roman heroes; 12. A Roman mother; 13. A bold young man; Part III. The Material for History in Twelfth-Century Politics and Culture: 14. The Material for History and imperial politics of the twelfth century; 15. Nikephoros and Anna; 16. Roman ideals and twelfth-century Constantinopolitan culture; Conclusions; Appendix 1; Appendix 2. Vocabulary of virtue.

Call Number