Byzantium's Balkan Frontier
A Political Study of the Northern Balkans, 900–1204

A history of the relations between Byzantium and the Balkan peoples, 900–1204.

Paul Stephenson (Author)

9780521770170, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 29 June 2000

368 pages, 6 maps
24 x 16.1 x 2.7 cm, 0.654 kg

'It opens up a wide region that has had little attention lavished on it in the past, and will therefore provide a welcome and useful springboard for students of this period and of this region.' History

Byzantium's Balkan Frontier is the first narrative history in English of the northern Balkans in the tenth to twelfth centuries. Where previous histories have been concerned principally with the medieval history of distinct and autonomous Balkan nations, this study regards Byzantine political authority as a unifying factor in the various lands which formed the empire's frontier in the north and west. It takes as its central concern Byzantine relations with all Slavic and non-Slavic peoples - including the Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians and Hungarians - in and beyond the Balkan Peninsula, and explores in detail imperial responses, first to the migrations of nomadic peoples, and subsequently to the expansion of Latin Christendom. It also examines the changing conception of the frontier in Byzantine thought and literature through the middle Byzantine period.

List of maps and figures
Preface
A note on citation and transliteration
List of abbreviations
Introduction
1. Bulgaria and beyond: the northern Balkans (c. 900–963)
2. The Byzantine occupation of Bulgaria (963-1025)
3. Northern nomads (1025–1100)
4. Southern Slavs (1025–1100)
5. The rise of the west, I: Normans and crusaders (1081–1118)
6. The rise of the west, II: Hungarians and Venetians (1100–1143)
7. Manuel I Comnenus confronts the West (1143–1156)
8. Advancing the frontier: the annexation of Sirmium and Dalmatia (1156–1180)
9. Casting off the 'Byzantine yoke' (1180–1204)
Conclusions
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500 [HBLC], European history [HBJD]