Marek Jankowiak
University of Oxford, History, Department Member
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University of Oxford, The Khalili Research Centre, Faculty of Oriental Studies, Department Member add
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Historical Archaeology, History of Slavery, Silk Road Studies, Medieval Archaeology, Slavic Archaeology, Late Antiquity, and 24 moreByzantine Studies, Monothelitism, Islamic Numismatics, Dirham Hoards, Viking Age Scandinavia, Archaeology of Central Asia, Khwarezmian, Khorezm, Volga Bulghars, Early Islamic Central Asia, Early Islamic Archaeology, Late Antique Archaeology, Islamic Archaeology, Byzantine Archaeology, Early Medieval Archaeology, Early Islam, Medieval Islam, Late Antique and Byzantine History, Early Islamic History, Coin Hoards, Sasanian Archaeology, Chinese Numismatics, Silk Road Archaeology, and Paekche edit
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I am Associate Professor of Byzantine History (500-1200) at the University of Oxford. Previously, I was Birmingham Fe... moreI am Associate Professor of Byzantine History (500-1200) at the University of Oxford. Previously, I was Birmingham Fellow and Early Career Lecturer in Byzantine History at the University of Birmigham (2017-18), Departmental Lecturer in Byzantine History at the University of Oxford (2016-17), Co-Investigator of the "Dirhams for Slaves" project (2013-17), and Newton Fellow at the Khalili Research Centre, University of Oxford (2011-13).
My research interests concentrate in three areas: Byzantium and the Near East in the 7th century, slavery and slave trade in the 9th-11th centuries, and world history.
I am currently researching the trade system that connected Central Asia, other parts of the Islamic world, and Byzantium with Scandinavia and the Slavic lands in the 9th-11th centuries AD. It is evidenced by hundreds of thousands of Islamic dirhams strewn across Northern Europe, from the British Isles to the Middle Volga. My forthcoming monograph will argue that this system of trade dealt mainly in Slavic slaves, and that it provided the key stimulus to a sequence of economic, social, and political transformations that resulted in the emergence of states in northern Europe. I conducted this research initially as British Academy Newton International Fellow at the University of Oxford in 2011-13, and currently as the Co-Investigator of the "Dirhams for Slaves" project sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, together with Dr Luke Treadwell (PI), Dr Jonathan Shepard and (now Dr too) Jacek Gruszczyński. More details on the project can be found here: http://krc.orient.ox.ac.uk/dirhamsforslaves/
My second field of research builds on my PhD dissertation on the monothelete controversy that I at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris (with Professor Denis Feissel) and the University of Warsaw (wiht Professor Adam Ziółkowski). Its publication in English is planned for 2018. I am also working together with Richard Price on a commented translation of the Acts of the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680-681) for the Translated Texts for Historians.
Finally, I am increasingly interested in world history. The forthcoming monograph on slave trade will be a wide-ranging study in early medieval global history. I am planning to extend this type of cross-cultural research to other geographies and other topics that would enable a comparative study of Byzantium, the Caliphate, and medieval East Asia.
I also studied Mathematics, Economics, and Finance, and worked for a couple of years as a strategy consultant for McKinsey & Co. edit
Written sources from the early Middle Ages frequently report enslavement and slave trade in northern Europe. The evidence, abundant and unequivocal, indicates the great importance of this form of unfreedom for social structures and the... more
Written sources from the early Middle Ages frequently report enslavement and slave trade in northern Europe. The evidence, abundant and unequivocal, indicates the great importance of this form of unfreedom for social structures and the economy, and sheds light on the forms of violence and oppression associated with it. But written sources, by nature fragmentary, illuminate only some aspects of the phenomenon of slavery and leave many questions unanswered. It is therefore tempting to supplement them with archaeological finds. This raises, however, a number of methodological problems, given that enslavement, slave trade, and slave holding leave few, if any, unambiguous material traces. They can be easily missed when looked at it in isolation; but when combined with the results reached by historians, natural scientists, or linguists, archaeological evidence can provide important insights into this “dark side” of the early medieval economy. To address this methodological challenge, comparative and interdisciplinary approaches offer the most secure way forward.
Research Interests:
Prehistoric Archaeology, Medieval History, Slavery, History of Slavery, Medieval Archaeology, and 15 moreMedieval Scandinavia, Viking Studies, Slave Trade, Viking Age Archaeology, Early medieval Britain (Archaeology), Medieval Slavery, Islamic Law and Slavery, Archaeology of slavery, Piast Dynasty, Material Culture of the Viking age, Great Moravia, Gender and Slavery, Vikings in the East, Polabian Slavic Tribes, and East African Slave Trade
That there was an in!ux of silver dirhams from the Muslim world into eastern and northern Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries is well known, as is the fact that the largest concentration of hoards is on the Baltic island of Gotland.... more
That there was an in!ux of silver dirhams from the Muslim world into eastern and northern Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries is well known, as is the fact that the largest concentration of hoards is on the Baltic island of Gotland. Recent discoveries have shown that dirhams were reaching the British Isles, too. What brought the dirhams to northern Europe in such large numbers? The fur trade has been proposed as one driver for transactions, but the slave trade offers another – complementary – explanation.
This volume does not offer a comprehensive delineation of the hoard finds, or a full answer to the question of what brought the silver north. But it highlights the trade in slaves as driving exchanges on a trans-continental scale. By their very nature, the nexuses were complex, mutable and unclear even to contemporaries, and they have eluded modern scholarship. Contributions to this volume shed light on processes and key places: the mints of Central Asia; the chronology of the in!ows of dirhams to Rus and northern Europe; the reasons why silver was deposited in the ground and why so much ended up on Gotland; the functioning of networks – perhaps comparable to the twenty-first-century drug trade; slave- trading in the British Isles; and the stimulus and additional networks that the Vikings brought into play.
This combination of general surveys, presentations of fresh evidence and regional case studies sets Gotland and the early medieval slave trade in a firmer framework than has been available before.
This volume does not offer a comprehensive delineation of the hoard finds, or a full answer to the question of what brought the silver north. But it highlights the trade in slaves as driving exchanges on a trans-continental scale. By their very nature, the nexuses were complex, mutable and unclear even to contemporaries, and they have eluded modern scholarship. Contributions to this volume shed light on processes and key places: the mints of Central Asia; the chronology of the in!ows of dirhams to Rus and northern Europe; the reasons why silver was deposited in the ground and why so much ended up on Gotland; the functioning of networks – perhaps comparable to the twenty-first-century drug trade; slave- trading in the British Isles; and the stimulus and additional networks that the Vikings brought into play.
This combination of general surveys, presentations of fresh evidence and regional case studies sets Gotland and the early medieval slave trade in a firmer framework than has been available before.
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Slavery, Early Medieval History, Early Medieval Ireland, Viking Studies, Slave Trade, and 15 moreViking Age Archaeology, Medieval Slavery, Medieval trade, Viking Age Scandinavia, Settlement archaeology, Coin Hoards, Medieval Russia, Medieval Poland, Dirham Hoards, Fur Trade, Silver Economy, Gotland, Vikings in the East, Britain and Ireland In the Viking Age, and Bornholm
This book presents the proceedings of the conference “The Chronicle of Theophanes: sources, composition, transmission,” organized by the editors in Paris in September 2012. The first section of the volume is devoted to the question of the... more
This book presents the proceedings of the conference “The Chronicle of Theophanes: sources, composition, transmission,” organized by the editors in Paris in September 2012. The first section of the volume is devoted to the question of the authorship of the Chronicle, raised by C. Mango almost forty years ago. The second section is devoted to issues of transmission, both direct (manuscript tradition) and indirect (readership, translations). The third section concerns Theophanes’ sources for early Byzantine history. A separate section hosts papers by some of the major actors in the current debate on Theophanes’ Eastern source. The last section of the book deals with the later part of the Chronicle and with its sources. ISBN 978-2-916716-58-9
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This chapter uses hoarding patterns to reconstruct the inflow of dirhams to northern and eastern Europe and to shed light on ninth- and tenth-century state formation in Scandinavia and the Slavic lands. Two main characteristics of the... more
This chapter uses hoarding patterns to reconstruct the inflow of dirhams to northern and eastern Europe and to shed light on ninth- and tenth-century state formation in Scandinavia and the Slavic lands. Two main characteristics of the region’s trade with the Islamic world emerge: its remarkable momentum and persistence; and its complexity and extreme volatility. The Scandinavians’ appetite for silver led to their involvement in the slave trade, which in turn drove warrior groupings to organise, compete for captives and secure access to prestige goods. Our hoard maps can shed light on this competition for slaves and silver and on the eventual emergence of political structures in northern and eastern Europe.
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Medieval History, Viking Studies, Slave Trade, Medieval Slavery, Medieval trade, and 12 moreViking Age Scandinavia, Islamic Law and Slavery, Khazar archaeology and history, Slavic Studies, Samanids, Medieval Russia, Medieval Poland, Dirham Hoards, Volga Bulghars, Khazars, Viking silver hoard, and Gotland
The works of the Arab geographers, the finds of Islamic dirhams in northern and eastern Europe, and mentions of Saqaliba slaves scattered in Muslim sources point to the importation of significant numbers of captives from the North to the... more
The works of the Arab geographers, the finds of Islamic dirhams in northern and eastern Europe, and mentions of Saqaliba slaves scattered in Muslim sources point to the importation of significant numbers of captives from the North to the Islamic world in the ninth and tenth centuries. This slave trade system stands out by the level of detail in which it can be reconstructed; but slavery and slave trade appear to have been a common occurrence in early medieval northern Europe. Why, then, the apparent discrepancy between their ubiquity in the written sources and the scarcity of the archaeological evidence that has so far been associated with them? This paper argues that, while little direct evidence can be expected due to the ambiguous nature of the archaeological record, a promising approach consists in taking a landscape perspective. Large-scale demographic, economic, social, cultural and political changes reflected in the landscape can be usefully confronted with the mechanisms of the slave trade deduced from written and numismatic sources. Slavery and slave trade are thus valid interpretative frameworks for the early medieval archaeology of northern and eastern Europe.
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Northern Europe and the Islamic world, although separated by the wide belt of the steppe, were in contact throughout the pre-Mongol period. The intensity of these contacts varied over time and so did their geography: objects of Islamic... more
Northern Europe and the Islamic world, although separated by the wide belt of the steppe, were in contact throughout the pre-Mongol period. The intensity of these contacts varied over time and so did their geography: objects of Islamic provenance were import ed to the basin of the Kama in the 7th–10th centuries, to the lands settled by the Scandi navians and those Slavs who were under their political or cultural influence in the 9th and 10th centuries, and to the northern edge of the steppe in the two centuries before the Mongol invasion. This chapter surveys the finds of Islamic objects associated with these interactions—mostly silver coins and silverware—and investigates the mechanisms that account for their importation to the North.
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On the basis of Gert Rispling’s research on dirham imitations, this paper proposes a classification of dirham imitations that, in addition to die-links and stylistic criteria, takes into account also the chronology of their production and... more
On the basis of Gert Rispling’s research on dirham imitations, this paper proposes a classification of dirham imitations that, in addition to die-links and stylistic criteria, takes into account also the chronology of their production and their distribution in the hoards. Four more or less coherent major groups of dirham imitations emer- ge from this analysis: the early Khazar, the irregular issues of the second half of the ninth century, the late Khazar, and the Volga Bulgar. Several minor groups also have clear contours. This typology, when placed within the framework of the slave trade between Scandinavian and Muslim merchants at such marketplaces as Itil and Bulgar, leads to a reconsideration of the motivations for the production of the dirham imitations. Their weight and quality, similar if not superior to their prototypes – Abbasid and Samanid dirhams – rules out simple considerations of profit. It will be argued instead that the imitations were a means to mitigate the instability inherent in the early medieval long-distance trade connections.
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Overview of the results of the project "Dirhams for Slaves". Translated by Minoru Ozawa.
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The letter sent by Kyros of Alexandria to Sergios of Constantinople in 638 appears to contain a chronological contradiction: it implies that Sergios was aware before his death of the election of Severinus as the new bishop of Rome two... more
The letter sent by Kyros of Alexandria to Sergios of Constantinople in 638 appears to contain a chronological contradiction: it implies that Sergios was aware before his death of the election of Severinus as the new bishop of Rome two months earlier. Given the travelling times in the seventh century, this is impossible. The problem originates in a mistake made by Louis Duchesne when calculating the chronology of the popes for his edition of the Liber pontificalis: for the period 619-49, all his dates are one year too late. This change of the chronological framework affects the interpretation of a number of documents. How does Cambridge Core Share work? Cambridge Core Share allows authors, readers and institutional subscribers to generate a URL for an online version of a journal article. Anyone who clicks on this link will be able to view a read-only, up-to-date copy of the published journal article.
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The chronology of the patriarchate of Kyros of Alexandria, a key actor in the transition of Egypt from Roman to Arabic rule, has long been controversial. The difficulty consists in reconciling sources speaking of a long exile of around... more
The chronology of the patriarchate of Kyros of Alexandria, a key actor in the transition of Egypt from Roman to Arabic rule, has long been controversial. The difficulty consists in reconciling sources speaking of a long exile of around four years, in 637–41, with two documents that seem to suggest Kyros’ presence in Alexandria during this period. The first, a letter of Kyros to Patriarch Sergios of Constantinople accepting the Ekthesis, displays some unusual characteristics that suggest that Kyros was in reality in exile already by autumn 638. The second, the papyrus P.Lond. I 113.10, can be read as the sole surviving documentary trace of the tribute paid at the initiative of Kyros to stave off the Arab invasion of Egypt. The mention of Kyros as the initiator of these payments in the papyrus does not imply, therefore, his presence in Egypt in 639/40. The long exile of Kyros concords with the testimony of narrative sources, in the first place the Short history of Nikephoros, and suggests, in turn, that this text is better informed of the affairs of Egypt than has been thought since the time of Alfred Butler’s monograph on the Arab conquest of Egypt. Nikephoros’ account of several Roman campaigns to defend this province in the years preceding the invasion of ʿAmr b. al-ʿAs in 640 relocates the most detailed narrative of the Muslim conquest of Egypt, the Chronicle of John of Nikiu, in its context: that of the aftermath of the defeat of a major Roman army sent to Egypt in 639. This reconstruction of the events sheds some new light on the formation of Islamic traditions on the conquest of Egypt and the supposed Roman reoccupation of Alexandria several years later.
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One would expect the towering figure of Procopius of Caesarea to have exerted significant influence over later Byzantine historiography. His narrative of the wars waged by the Empire in Italy, in the Balkans, and in the East was indeed... more
One would expect the towering figure of Procopius of Caesarea to have exerted significant influence over later Byzantine historiography. His narrative of the wars waged by the Empire in Italy, in the Balkans, and in the East was indeed extended by half a century by such historians as Agathias, Menander Protector, and Theophylact Simocatta. In the later centuries, his works were used as a source by historians interested in the reign of Justinian, or quarried for uncommon words, elegant phrases, and useful examples. But is this sufficient to speak of Procopius as a major source of inspiration for his successors? Was the modern enthusiasm for him matched by that of the Byzantine historians and literati, such as Agathias or Photius? This chapter will explore Byzantine attitudes to the oeuvre of Procopius until the end of the period of the encyclo- paedic compilations at the close of the 10th century, focusing in particular on the three historians who took most interest in Procopius’ works: Agathias of Myrina, the only self-avowed continuator of Procopius, Evagrius Scholasticus, and Theophanes Confessor.
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This is the abbreviated and slightly updated version of my 2013 article on the first siege of Constantinople.
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Dagron, Gilbert, Flusin, Bernard, Feissel, Denis and Stavrou, Michel. "Constantin VII Porphyrogénète, Le livre des cérémonies, bespr. von Marek Jankowiak" Byzantinische Zeitschrift, vol. 116, no. 3, 2023
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Even a cursory glance at the map of dirham hoards buried in the Western Slavic lands in the 10th century reveals a contrast between their northern part, dotted with dozens of finds, and the southern, almost totally devoid of Islamic... more
Even a cursory glance at the map of dirham hoards buried in the Western Slavic lands in the 10th century reveals a contrast between their northern part, dotted with dozens of finds, and the southern, almost totally devoid of Islamic silver. On the one hand, thousands of Samanid dirhams were hoarded in Polabia, Pomerania, Greater Poland and Mazovia, while, on the other, Islamic coins are exceedingly rare in Silesia, Lesser Poland, Bohemia and Moravia. This is an unexpected contrast. Written sources emphasize the outstanding position of the market of Prague and mention its connections with Kraków and Kiev, but are silent about the trade connections of Greater Poland and Mazovia in the 10th century. Why, then, do the written sources and hoards convey opposite pictures?
I will argue that the contrast between the northern and southern parts of the Western Slavic lands is indicative of something more than different hoarding behaviours. These two areas belonged, well into the second half of the 10th century, to two different and almost watertight trade systems. While the dirhamless zone in the south corresponds to the area of influence of the Prague market, a major supplier of slaves to Umayyad Spain, the North participated in the long-distance trade conducted by the Scandinavians with the distant markets of Bulgar and Itil. I will try to illustrate the sharply different operation modes of these two trade systems, in order to show the deep repercussions they had on the nascent economies of the Western Slavic lands.
I will argue that the contrast between the northern and southern parts of the Western Slavic lands is indicative of something more than different hoarding behaviours. These two areas belonged, well into the second half of the 10th century, to two different and almost watertight trade systems. While the dirhamless zone in the south corresponds to the area of influence of the Prague market, a major supplier of slaves to Umayyad Spain, the North participated in the long-distance trade conducted by the Scandinavians with the distant markets of Bulgar and Itil. I will try to illustrate the sharply different operation modes of these two trade systems, in order to show the deep repercussions they had on the nascent economies of the Western Slavic lands.
The 49th Spring Symposium of the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies INSCRIBING TEXTS IN BYZANTIUM: CONTINUITIES AND TRANSFORMATIONS 18-20 March 2016, Exeter College, Oxford In spite of the striking abundance of extant... more
The 49th Spring Symposium of the Society
for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies
INSCRIBING TEXTS
IN BYZANTIUM:
CONTINUITIES AND TRANSFORMATIONS
18-20 March 2016, Exeter College, Oxford
In spite of the striking abundance of extant primary material – over 4000 Greek texts produced in the period between the sixth and fifteenth centuries – Byzantine Epigraphy remains largely uncharted territory, with a reputation for being elusive and esoteric that obstinately persists. References to inscriptions in our texts show how ubiquitous and deeply engrained the epigraphic habit was in Byzantine society, and underscore the significance of epigraphy as an auxiliary discipline. The growing interest in material culture, including inscriptions, has opened new avenues of research and led to various explorations in the field of epigraphy, but what is urgently needed is a synthetic approach that incorporates literacy, built environment, social and political contexts, and human agency. The SPBS Symposium 2016 has invited specialists in the field to examine diverse epigraphic material in order to trace individual epigraphic habits, and outline overall inscriptional traditions. In addition to the customary format of panel papers and shorter communications, the Symposium will organise a round table, whose participants will lead a debate on the topics presented in the panel papers, and discuss the methodological questions of collection, presentation and interpretation of Byzantine inscriptional material.
for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies
INSCRIBING TEXTS
IN BYZANTIUM:
CONTINUITIES AND TRANSFORMATIONS
18-20 March 2016, Exeter College, Oxford
In spite of the striking abundance of extant primary material – over 4000 Greek texts produced in the period between the sixth and fifteenth centuries – Byzantine Epigraphy remains largely uncharted territory, with a reputation for being elusive and esoteric that obstinately persists. References to inscriptions in our texts show how ubiquitous and deeply engrained the epigraphic habit was in Byzantine society, and underscore the significance of epigraphy as an auxiliary discipline. The growing interest in material culture, including inscriptions, has opened new avenues of research and led to various explorations in the field of epigraphy, but what is urgently needed is a synthetic approach that incorporates literacy, built environment, social and political contexts, and human agency. The SPBS Symposium 2016 has invited specialists in the field to examine diverse epigraphic material in order to trace individual epigraphic habits, and outline overall inscriptional traditions. In addition to the customary format of panel papers and shorter communications, the Symposium will organise a round table, whose participants will lead a debate on the topics presented in the panel papers, and discuss the methodological questions of collection, presentation and interpretation of Byzantine inscriptional material.
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Program information (including abstracts) for sessions on slavery organized for the Leeds International Medieval Congress 2016
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History, Economic History, Gender Studies, Social Sciences, Medieval History, and 21 moreGender History, Medieval Studies, Legal History, Slavery, History of Slavery, Medieval Islam, History of slavery and migration movements, Abolition of Slavery, Medieval Archaeology, Islamic Studies, Medieval Europe, Slave Trade, Social History, Islamic History, Medieval Islamic History, Medieval Slavery, Islamic Law and Slavery, Middle Ages, Ancient Slavery, History of slavery in the Mediterrenean, and Roman Slavery
A poster announcing the sessions on slavery at the Leeds IMC
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History, European History, Economic History, Gender Studies, Social Sciences, and 18 moreMedieval History, Middle East Studies, Gender History, Medieval Studies, Migration, Slavery, History of Slavery, Mediterranean Studies, History of slavery and migration movements, Medieval Archaeology, Islamic Studies, Social History, Islamic History, Medieval Slavery, Ancient Slavery, History of slavery in the Mediterrenean, Legal History of Slavery and its Abolition, and Roman Slavery
Conference to be held in Corpus Christi College, Oxford
MBI Al Jaber Building, 14-15 March 2016
MBI Al Jaber Building, 14-15 March 2016
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The ability to issue coinage has frequently been considered to be one of the main attributes of early medieval states. Historians of countries such as Sweden, Poland or Bohemia – the list is by no means exhaustive – have looked to the... more
The ability to issue coinage has frequently been considered to be one of the main attributes of early medieval states. Historians of countries such as Sweden, Poland or Bohemia – the list is by no means exhaustive – have looked to the first national coinages in order to establish at which point these political structures became ‘independent’, fully formed ‘states’. This perspective leaves little place for coins that did not bear any national insignia or royal names, but merely imitated, with varying degrees of accuracy, the coinages of more powerful neighbours. In the last half century, however, it has become apparent that issues of imitative coinage were widespread in the early Middle Ages (8th – 12th centuries). What is more, in some cases imitations dominated the early coinages of the emerging states, relegating ‘official’ issues to the status of an economically insignificant admixture.
The goal of the conference is to reverse the traditional monetary perspective through which early medieval history is viewed by placing the imitations centre stage. We will attempt to deal both with their bewildering diversity – Islamic, Byzantine, Anglo-Saxon and German coins were being imitated not only in most of Northern Europe, from the British Isles to Volga Bulgaria, but also within their lands of origin – and with the apparent uniformity of their purpose – which was economic rather than political. By downgrading the imitations to the rank of anomalous ‘ugly’ coins, historians have neglected a crucial aspect of the early medieval economy. The conference will seek to correct the nationalist bias of the historiography of the early Middle Ages and thus contribute to its fuller understanding.
The conference will be held in the Conference Room of the Royal Coin Cabinet, Slottsbacken 6, Stockholm’s Old City (Gamla stan).
The goal of the conference is to reverse the traditional monetary perspective through which early medieval history is viewed by placing the imitations centre stage. We will attempt to deal both with their bewildering diversity – Islamic, Byzantine, Anglo-Saxon and German coins were being imitated not only in most of Northern Europe, from the British Isles to Volga Bulgaria, but also within their lands of origin – and with the apparent uniformity of their purpose – which was economic rather than political. By downgrading the imitations to the rank of anomalous ‘ugly’ coins, historians have neglected a crucial aspect of the early medieval economy. The conference will seek to correct the nationalist bias of the historiography of the early Middle Ages and thus contribute to its fuller understanding.
The conference will be held in the Conference Room of the Royal Coin Cabinet, Slottsbacken 6, Stockholm’s Old City (Gamla stan).
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Khwarazm, an autonomous kingdom situated on the southern shore of what used to be the Aral Sea in Central Asia, played in Late Antiquity and in the early Middle Ages a pivotal role as the interface between the sedentary world to its south... more
Khwarazm, an autonomous kingdom situated on the southern shore of what used to be the Aral Sea in Central Asia, played in Late Antiquity and in the early Middle Ages a pivotal role as the interface between the sedentary world to its south and the Eurasian steppe. Entirely forgotten to the modern world (with the exception of Soviet-era archaeologists), it mediated exchanges between the Sogdians and the nomads, between Iran and the Turks, and between Scandinavia and the Islamic world, and developed its own unique culture at the intersection of all these influences. The little attention that Khwarazm has received from the historians focused on the early period (to approx. 6th century AD) and on the short period when it became the centre of a thriving empire which was destroyed by the Mongol invasion (12th-13th centuries AD). The goal of the workshop is to attempt to close this gap and to focus on the transitional period covering roughly 6th-11th centuries AD, when Khwarazm transformed from the northernmost outpost of the Iranian world to an Islamised state ruled by Turks. The workshop will in particular focus on the role Khwarazm played in the trade networks of Late Antiquity and early Middle Ages.
The workshop will be preceded by a public lecture given in the evening of 28 November by Professor Irina Arzhantseva (Russian Academy of Sciences) in the Leonard Wolfson Auditorium. Professor Arzhantseva will present the site of Por-Bajin, a spectacular fortress on a lake island at the Russian-Mongolian border. Her lecture will throw new light on the Uyghur Empire and, more broadly, on the medieval history of the steppe.
The workshop will be preceded by a public lecture given in the evening of 28 November by Professor Irina Arzhantseva (Russian Academy of Sciences) in the Leonard Wolfson Auditorium. Professor Arzhantseva will present the site of Por-Bajin, a spectacular fortress on a lake island at the Russian-Mongolian border. Her lecture will throw new light on the Uyghur Empire and, more broadly, on the medieval history of the steppe.
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With much delay, compared to the archaeology of Africa or of the Americas, the imprint of slavery and slave trade in the archaeological material begins to be conceptualised for the early medieval Europe. Recent studies shed new light on... more
With much delay, compared to the archaeology of Africa or of the Americas, the imprint of slavery and slave trade in the archaeological material begins to be conceptualised for the early medieval Europe. Recent studies shed new light on the role of the slave trade in the economic revival of Northern Europe in the early Middle Ages (McCormick 2001). But the emerging historical consensus has so far found little echo among the archaeologists, who only start to show awareness of the significance of slavery and of its potential material traces. We think that time is ripe to bridge this divide. We propose to gather, for the first time, archaeologists and historians working on early medieval slavery, and to lay foundations for a more comprehensive approach to what seems a seriously underestimated, yet crucially important, phenomenon of the European history. We intend to survey geographical areas from the British Isles to Russia looking for material evidence of slave trade, such as enclosures, shackles, specific burial types and, on a more general level, evidence for sudden population movements and increasing insecurity; we will also reach to specialists in other slave trade systems, Ancient and African, for inspiration and points of comparison.
The title of this volume could be misleading. “Constructing the 7th century” by no means implies an intellectual construction. It should rather recall the image of a construction site with its scaffolding and piles of bricks, and with its... more
The title of this volume could be misleading. “Constructing the 7th century” by no means implies an intellectual construction. It should rather recall the image of a construction site with its scaffolding and piles of bricks, and with its plentiful uncovered pits. As on the building site of a medieval cathedral, every worker lays his pavement or polishes up his column knowing that one day a majestic edifice will rise and that it will be as accomplished and solid as is the least element of its structure. The reader can imagine the edifice as he reads through the articles collected under this cover, but in this age when syntheses abound it was not the editor’s aim to develop another one. The contributions to the volume, regrouped in five sections, explore various aspects of institutional, political and cultural life of the century producing unpublished material and new insights on some much debated topics.
ISBN : 978-2-916716-45-9
ISBN : 978-2-916716-45-9
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La crise monthélite – une discussion théologique portant sur le nombre des volontés du Christ – demeure la seule des controverses ayant déchiré l'Eglise chalcédonienne à la fin de l'antiquité, à n'avoir jamais fait l'objet d'une... more
La crise monthélite – une discussion théologique portant sur le nombre des volontés du Christ – demeure la seule des controverses ayant déchiré l'Eglise chalcédonienne à la fin de l'antiquité, à n'avoir jamais fait l'objet d'une monographie. Pourtant, elle eut des répercussions politiques, idéologiques et intellectuelles profondes sur l'empire byzantin lors de cette période charnière de son histoire que fut le VIIe siècle. Mon travail se propose d'étudier, à partir d'un dossier de sources récemment renouvelé, les implications et le contexte politique de cette controverse qui naquit d'un rejet, par un groupe restreint de moines palestiniens, du projet d'union entre l'Eglise chalcédonienne et les Eglises monophysites mis en oeuvre par l'empereur Héraclius à partir d'environ 630, et qui prit fin un demi-siècle plus tard par un concile oecuménique qui entérina la doctrine de deux volontés. Loin d'être une résurgence de la rivalité entre Rome et Constantinople, la contreverse monothélite se laisse interpréter comme la sédition de moines-intellectuels, groupés autour de Maxime le Confesseur, qui eurent recours à des moyens politiques extrêmes pour imposer leur orthodoxie à l'Eglise de l'Empire. Ils y parvinrent grâce à l'alliance avec la papauté. La discussion sur les volontés du Christ présente donc un cas intéressant de "papocésarisme" byzantin; parallèlement, elle est le dernier maillon des controverses christologiques qui ébranlèrent l'Empire pendant la période tardoantique: l'invasion arabe et la perte des provinces orientales allaient désormais tourner l'attention des Byzantins vers la rectitude rituelle.
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That there was an influx of silver dirhams from the Muslim world into eastern and northern Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries is well known, as is the fact that the largest concentration of hoards is on the Baltic island of Gotland.... more
That there was an influx of silver dirhams from the Muslim world into eastern and northern Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries is well known, as is the fact that the largest concentration of hoards is on the Baltic island of Gotland. Recent discoveries have shown that dirhams were reaching the British Isles, too. What brought the dirhams to northern Europe in such large numbers? The fur trade has been proposed as one driver for transactions, but the slave trade offers another – complementary – explanation.
This volume does not offer a comprehensive delineation of the hoard finds, or a full answer to the question of what brought the silver north. But it highlights the trade in slaves as driving exchanges on a trans-continental scale. By their very nature, the nexuses were complex, mutable and unclear even to contemporaries, and they have eluded modern scholarship. Contributions to this volume shed light on processes and key places: the mints of Central Asia; the chronology of the inflows of dirhams to Rus and northern Europe; the reasons why silver was deposited in the ground and why so much ended up on Gotland; the functioning of networks – perhaps comparable to the twenty-first-century drug trade; slave-trading in the British Isles; and the stimulus and additional networks that the Vikings brought into play.
This combination of general surveys, presentations of fresh evidence and regional case studies sets Gotland and the early medieval slave trade in a firmer framework than has been available before.
https://www.routledge.com/Viking-Age-Trade-Silver-Slaves-and-Gotland/Gruszczynski-Jankowiak-Shepard/p/book/9781138293946
This volume does not offer a comprehensive delineation of the hoard finds, or a full answer to the question of what brought the silver north. But it highlights the trade in slaves as driving exchanges on a trans-continental scale. By their very nature, the nexuses were complex, mutable and unclear even to contemporaries, and they have eluded modern scholarship. Contributions to this volume shed light on processes and key places: the mints of Central Asia; the chronology of the inflows of dirhams to Rus and northern Europe; the reasons why silver was deposited in the ground and why so much ended up on Gotland; the functioning of networks – perhaps comparable to the twenty-first-century drug trade; slave-trading in the British Isles; and the stimulus and additional networks that the Vikings brought into play.
This combination of general surveys, presentations of fresh evidence and regional case studies sets Gotland and the early medieval slave trade in a firmer framework than has been available before.
https://www.routledge.com/Viking-Age-Trade-Silver-Slaves-and-Gotland/Gruszczynski-Jankowiak-Shepard/p/book/9781138293946