I’ve resisted writing up the exchange below because it features heavily in a book I’ve scribbled, half of which is dedicated to the theme...

No archaeology has substantiated the medieval tradition of London (AKA “New Troy”) being founded by Brutus in 1108 BC, or its later...

‘You must dress well to gain admiration from your subjects.’ Patriarch Photios to Boris of Bulgaria Contemporary remnants of ‘Byzantine’...

“Here is the Capitol where in the old days a human head was found and declared to be an omen, for in that place would be fixed the...

Rome has boasted many titles (from caput mundi to urbs sacra) over the centuries. Some are bombastic, several true, and almost all play...

My book draft contains large passages on the statuary of Constantinople. As I scribbled them up I realised that few – unless they...

“Those who came for the spectacle left instructed in the divine.”[1] Theodoret of Cyrrhus The Jews had a handful of holy places worthy of...

Defectio shared a seat with high treason in Roman law, a crime which usually resulted in ignominious forms of punishment followed by the...

“The Power of God’s words… shall never pass away.” Leo III, Ecloga [1] In 705, the noseless Justinian II returned to Constantinople and...

“Since the days of Scipio, no bolder enterprise has been attempted than that which Heraclius achieved for the deliverance of the empire.”...

Aquinas arrived on the Byzantine literary scene on 24th December, 1354, when Kydones completed his translation of Summa contra gentiles....

Few will have heard of Golinduch.[1] She’s not in the western canon and – despite her extraordinary life and “death” – she is not a...

The sixth-century bureaucrat John Lydus wrote that Roman military dress had changed over time but that there were still some troops who...

Around 500 BC the Greeks began dating events by reference to the name of an important local office holder e.g. the priestess of Hera at...

Around the late 340s Cyril – the future bishop of Jerusalem – announced that the city’s church was in possession of the “wood of the...

I’ve tried to omit some of the obvious big ticket items like Aquae Sulis (modern Bath, which is Roman only really up to the stylobate)...

A parenthesis about Clovis in a passage I wrote here inspired this article. I outlined how Clovis’ appointment as consul by Anastasius...

Bruno of Cologne was appointed to the court of his older brother Otto the Great at the age of fifteen. Thirteen years later he was made...

Having recently written about Russian and English ethnogenesis, it’s time to alight on what ethnicity meant in the medieval period....

As with the Arian controversy (318-) Nicaea took place without any considerable Western involvement, a trend that continued until roughly...