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IMC 2014: Sessions

Session 520: The Komnenian Empire, I: La Belle Époque Finale de Rome?

Tuesday 8 July 2014, 09.00-10.30

Sponsor:Oxford University Byzantine Society
Organiser:Nicholas Matheou, Oriental Institute, University of Oxford
Moderator/Chair:Nicholas Matheou, Oriental Institute, University of Oxford
Paper 520-aAlexios Komnenos: Saviour or Nemesis?
(Language: English)
Peter Frankopan, Worcester College, University of Oxford
Index terms: Administration, Byzantine Studies, Politics and Diplomacy
Paper 520-bSpace of the Seljuks, Place of the Seljuks: The Seljuk Turks in the Imagined Geography of Byzantine Rhetoric of the Komnenian Era
(Language: English)
Roman Shliakhtin, Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest
Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Language and Literature - Greek, Rhetoric, Social History
Paper 520-cWestern Input in the Komnenian Army
(Language: English)
Alex Rodriguez Suarez, Centre for Hellenic Studies, King's College London
Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Military History
Abstract

The Komnenian Dynasty heralded a crucial period for the medieval Roman Empire, with antique Rome's two Christian children in closer contact than ever before. The Empire remained a 'superpower', campaigning across the central and eastern Mediterranean. Imperial coinage remained the Mediterranean standard, and the era produced some of the greatest Byzantine historiographers in the so-called Komnenian Renaissance. Yet was the Komnenian achievement a successful recovery from the 11th-century crisis, or a temporary solution in some ways contributory to the decline of c.1180-1204? This session will address these issues.