Though recent scholarship has investigated many aspects of the Virgin's cult in Byzantium, the Visitation has been entirely overlooked with respect to both its theological significance and its popularity in pre-iconoclastic art. My research examines textual sources such as bibli…
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The history of the late-antique papacy has long fascinated historians, but studies of popes and their allies have rarely considered both Latin and Greek sources on equal terms. This thesis aims to fill this unfortunate lacuna by considering together networks of individuals align…
This dissertation examines the spiritual theology of Peter of Damascus, a twelfth-century Byzantine monk and spiritual theologian who flourished around 1157. To accomplish this I employ the two works of spiritual theology authored by Peter: “The Book of our Holy and God-bearing …
The term “sgraffito” refers to a ceramic decorative technique in which a design is cut through a light-colored slip to reveal the dark-colored earthenware body of the vessel's fabric. Sgraffito ware was one of the most common and widespread forms of regular tableware in Islam an…
This dissertation aims to analyze the geneses of “otherness” in intra-cultural and cross-cultural interactions and relations in late Byzantium and in the early Ottoman period with a special reference to the fourteenth century. The technologies of “otherness” or “otherization” ar…
This study examines the role of the cross and its cult in relation to the cult of images and iconoclasm. It focuses particularly on the Iconoclastic Controversy of the eighth and ninth centuries in Byzantium and the medieval west. The literature of that controversy, synodal acts…
Despite some renewed interest in the study of Byzantium and the pre-Islamic near east, the final military confrontation between the Byzantine and Persian empires that began in 603 remains a footnote in most historical narratives. When referenced, it is often discussed as a facto…
The present dissertation studies St. Theodore of Studion's theology of icon as he elaborated it in the context of the iconoclastic controversy of his time. The problem is introduced first against the background of the Christological debate of the fifth and sixth centuries, where…
Despite amounting to a mere one percent of the population of the Byzantine Empire, the Jews there left a lasting mark on the economic development of the region, particularly in the sector of textile trade and production. At the same time, the Jews engaged in an entire set of pro…
This dissertation historicizes the formation the Syrian Orthodox Church in the first half of the sixth century. The council of Chalcedon in 451 CE divided eastern Christianity. Those who opposed the council separated from the church of the empire after Justin I in 518 CE tried t…
This study explores the representation of holy places in devotional images from the early Christian era to the post-Byzantine period. I delineate five phases of this development. The first phase (300s–500s) was connected to the rise of Christian sacred sites. Christian ideas abo…
This dissertation explores specific episodes in the history of Byzantine Christian missions into foreign lands between the fourth century and the ninth century. According to tradition, this period brought about Eastern Orthodoxy's largest expansion to date as Byzantine Christian…
The theological and historical issues surrounding Byzantine sanctity have never been thoroughly tied together by historians. However, the inner experience of theosis (union with God) and the external recognition of saints were in fact closely tied in the Byzantine mind. Once thi…
Chapter 2 examined the importance of the city in Greek thought. The Greek culture of Antioch was inspected and the effect on Antioch of Greek thinking about the ideal of city. This chapter concluded with an investigation of the goal of renewing cities found in the writings of tw…
This dissertation is a study of Damascus during the period of passage from Byzantium to early Islam. I have subtitled the thesis "Studies on Damascus in the Umayyad Era" to indicate the specificity of the chapters. Each comprises a study of a particular monument, residential pat…
Niketas Byzantios was a Byzantine polemicist active in ninth-century Constantinople. His writings against Islam include two letters in response to an un-named Muslim intellectual and a general refutation of the Qur'an. Unlike earlier Byzantine anti-Islamic writers, Niketas does …
Devotion to military saints flourished in Egypt and the Levant in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the era of the Crusades. During this period of conquest and expansion, icons of warrior saints were made in great number. Image makers responded to local concerns by depicting…
The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the acculturation and differentiation at the site of al-Mina (one of the ports of Antioch) through its material culture (coins, pottery, and glass). The site was excavated in 1936 and 1937 by Sir Leonard Woolley, who did not retain …
This dissertation is a study in Byzantine historiography with specific emphasis on rhetoric, politics, and gender to show that Byzantine women in the eleventh century were active participants in imperial political history, instead of isolated phenomena separate from the historic…