Byzantium

When we started to think about travel to southern Europe in the warmer months of summer, it seemed natural for us to seek out the history of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome as well as the glories of the Renaissance period. Perhaps with some Medieval Gothic cathedrals thrown in for good measure. There was 500 to 1,000 years or so of ‘Dark Ages’ in between that didn’t seem to hold much interest.

Some time around our second European trip (in 2008) we both read the book Justinian’s Flea by William Rosen. We learnt about the efforts of Emperor Justinian I (r. 527-565) to restore the Roman Empire, his fascinating wife Theodora, and a cast of other colourful characters. We also learnt about the Italian city of Ravenna which had been capital of the Western Roman Empire from 402 to 476, then became capital of the Ostrogothic Kingdom until it was re-conquered in 540 by Justinian’s Byzantines. And about its amazing mosaics.

That led us to read the book ‘Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire’ by the British archaeologist and academic Judith Herrin. There’s a lovely anecdote in the introduction of her book:

One afternoon in 2002, two workmen knocked on my office door in King’s College, London. They were doing repairs to the old buildings and had often passed my door with its notice: ‘Professor of Byzantine History’. Together they decided to stop by and ask me, ‘What is Byzantine history?’ They thought it had something to do with Turkey. And so I found myself trying to explain briefly what Byzantine history is to two serious builders in hard hats and heavy boots. Many years of teaching had not prepared me for this.

The book she wrote in response to this interaction is an excellent primer for a general audience. It helped to shed much further light on a period of European history we didn’t know much about, and hadn’t thought about exploring before then.

On our next trip to Italy (in 2009) we sought out Early Christian Rome and visited Ravenna. That was enough to get us hooked. Subsequent trips led us to marvel at the Byzantine mosaics of Arab-Norman Sicily in Palermo and Monreale, and look at Venice in a very different way. We went to Turkey to see Istanbul and imagine it as Constantinople. On trips to Greece we sought out the World Heritage Byzantine sites of Moni Hosios Loukas, Mystras, Meteora, and Byzantine Thessaloniki. We were able to look beyond Ancient Athens and see Byzantine Athens.

So what are the things that have drawn us to Byzantium? The skill of the mosaicists, the beauty of the icons, and the stories and characters portrayed from a time when very few people could read or write. The ‘Tardis-like’ qualities of the buildings that always seem bigger on the inside. Small things, like the aesthetics of the jewellery. The magic of being in places that were conceived, designed, and built over 1,500 years ago and have somehow survived through thick and thin.

Beyond these specifics, two things stand out as we think back on the sum of our experiences. Firstly, how some of its most brilliant flowerings emerged through embracing rather than eradicating disparate influences. Arian and Orthodox in Ravenna. Greek, Arab, and Norman in Sicily. Secondly, how colourful female characters emerge in spite of the overwhleming predominance of old, bearded, black-clothed males. Galla Placidia and Theodora in Ravenna, Adelaide del Vasto in Sicily.

Over more than a decade we’ve found the pursuit of an interest in Byzantium to be particularly rewarding when travelling in Italy, Turkey, and Greece. It’s exposed us to a long, deep history that we were barely aware of beforehand. A history that is far less ‘dark’ and far more diverse than we could have imagined.