JUDITH HERRIN, Professor Emerita and Senior Research Fellow in Byzantine Studies, King’s College London
WHAT IS BYZANTIUM
Date/Time: 19th February 2009, 17:30
To hear a recording of the lecture, click HERE
This lecture will explore some of the meanings attached to the word Byzantium, both pejorative and positive, and will examine a range of objects which represent a specific form of Byzantine art. By looking particularly at gifts sent from the Byzantine court of Constantinople to other centres of medieval government, it will contrast internal views of Byzantium with those of outsiders who visited it, in order to answer this persistent question.
Judith Herrin studied History at Cambridge University and obtained her PhD in Byzantine History from Birmingham University. After working in Athens, Paris, Munich and Istanbul, the Stanley J. Seeger Chair of Byzantine History was created for her at Princeton University. In 1995 she returned to London as Professor of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies. She is the author of The Formation of Christendom (Princeton/Oxford 1987); Women in Purple. Rulers of Medieval Byzantium (London/Princeton 2002), and most recently Byzantium. The surprising life of a medieval empire (Penguin 2008),