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Their combined efforts restored the veneration of icons, saving Byzantium from a purely symbolic and decorative art and ensuring its influence for centuries to come. In this exhilarating and highly entertaining account, one of the foremost historians of the medieval period tells the story of how these fascinating women exercised imperial sovereignty with consummate skill and sometimes ruthless tactics. Though they gained access to the all-pervasive authority of the Byzantine ruling dynasty through marriage, all three continued to wear the imperial purple and wield tremendous power as widows. From Constantinople, their own Queen City, the empresses undermined competitors and governed like men. They conducted diplomacy across the known world, negotiating with the likes of Charlemagne, Roman popes, and the great Arab caliph Harun al Rashid. 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Written by one of the world's foremost historians of the Byzantine millennium, this landmark book evokes the complex and exotic world of Byzantium's women, from empresses and saints to uneducated rural widows. Drawing on a diverse range of sources, Judith Herrin sheds light on the importance of marriage in imperial statecraft, the tense coexistence of empresses in the imperial court, and the critical relationships of mothers and daughters. She looks at women's interactions with eunuchs, the in-between gender in Byzantine society, and shows how women defended their rights to hold land. Herrin describes how they controlled their inheritances, participated in urban crowds demanding the dismissal of corrupt officials, followed the processions of holy icons and relics, and marked religious feasts with liturgical celebrations, market activity, and holiday pleasures. The vivid portraits that emerge here reveal how women exerted an unrivalled influence on the patriarchal society of Byzantium, and remained active participants in the many changes that occurred throughout the empire's millennial history. Unrivalled Influence brings together Herrin's finest essays on women and gender written throughout the long span of her esteemed career. This volume includes three new essays published here for the very first time and a new general introduction by Herrin. She also provides a concise introduction to each essay that describes how it came to be written and how it fits into her broader views about women and Byzantium.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50278346555665,"sku":"GOR013910221","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50928269000977,"sku":"GOR011670062","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51005746675985,"sku":"NIN9780691166704","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0691166706.jpg?v=1751008773"},{"product_id":"formation-of-christendom-book-judith-herrin-9780691008318","title":"The Formation of Christendom","description":"In a lucid history of what used to be termed \"the Dark Ages,\" Judith Herrin outlines the origins of Europe from the end of late antiquity to the coronation of Charlemagne. She shows that the clash between nascent Islam and stubburn Byzantium was the central contest that allowed \"Europe\" to develop, and she thereby places the rise of the West in its true Mediterranean context. Her inquiry centers on the notion of \"Christendom.\" Instead of taking medieval beliefs for granted or separating theology from politics, she treats the faith as a material force. In a path-breaking account of the arguments over Christian doctrine, she shows how the northern sphere of the Roman world divided into two distinct and self-conscious imperial units, as the Arabs swept through the southern regions. One of the most interesting strands of the author's argument concerns religious art and iconoclasm. 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The vivid portraits that emerge here reveal how women exerted an unrivalled influence on the patriarchal society of Byzantium, and remained active participants in the many changes that occurred throughout the empire's millennial history. Unrivalled Influence brings together Herrin's finest essays on women and gender written throughout the long span of her esteemed career. This volume includes three new essays published here for the very first time and a new general introduction by Herrin. 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The author combines recent scholarship with her own comparative vision of the material in order to find out where modern Europe came from.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50661961040145,"sku":"GOR009726606","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50776239210769,"sku":"GOR005660008","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0631151869.jpg?v=1750699881"},{"product_id":"ravenna-book-judith-herrin-9780691153438","title":"Ravenna","description":"A riveting history of the city that led the West out of the ruins of the Roman Empire  At the end of the fourth century, as the power of Rome faded and Constantinople became the seat of empire, a new capital city was rising in the West. Here, in Ravenna on the coast of Italy, Arian Goths and Catholic Romans competed to produce an unrivaled concentration of buildings and astonishing mosaics. For three centuries, the city attracted scholars, lawyers, craftsmen, and religious luminaries, becoming a true cultural and political capital. Bringing this extraordinary history marvelously to life, Judith Herrin rewrites the history of East and West in the Mediterranean world before the rise of Islam and shows how, thanks to Byzantine influence, Ravenna played a crucial role in the development of medieval Christendom.  Drawing on deep, original research, Herrin tells the personal stories of Ravenna while setting them in a sweeping synthesis of Mediterranean and Christian history. She narrates the lives of the Empress Galla Placidia and the Gothic king Theoderic and describes the achievements of an amazing cosmographer and a doctor who revived Greek medical knowledge in Italy, demolishing the idea that the West just descended into the medieval \"Dark Ages.\"  Beautifully illustrated and drawing on the latest archaeological findings, this monumental book provides a bold new interpretation of Ravenna's lasting influence on the culture of Europe and the West.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50664919007505,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50664920383761,"sku":"CIN0691153434VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":51838610309393,"sku":"CIN0691153434A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52104642363665,"sku":"CIN0691153434G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0691153434.jpg?v=1750912332"},{"product_id":"margins-and-metropolis-book-judith-herrin-9780691166629","title":"Margins and Metropolis","description":"This volume explores the political, cultural, and ecclesiastical forces that linked the metropolis of Byzantium to the margins of its far-flung empire. 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The letters of Michael Choniates, archbishop of Athens from 1182 to 1205, offer a detailed account of how this highly educated cleric coped with life in an imperial backwater, and demonstrate a synthesis of ancient Greek culture and medieval Christianity that was characteristic of the Byzantine elite. This collection of essays spans the entirety of Herrin's influential career and draws together a significant body of scholarship on problems of empire. It features a general introduction, two previously unpublished essays, and a concise introduction to each essay that describes how it came to be written and how it fits into her broader analysis of the unusual brilliance and longevity of Byzantium.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51005704438033,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51005707387153,"sku":"NIN9780691166629","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51797466218769,"sku":"GOR013159584","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53105891639569,"sku":"GOR014743957","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0691166625.jpg?v=1751073734"},{"product_id":"identities-and-allegiances-in-the-eastern-mediterranean-after-1204-book-judith-herrin-9781138379688","title":"Identities and Allegiances in the Eastern Mediterranean after 1204","description":"This volume of studies explores a particularly complex period in Byzantine history, the thirteenth century, from the Fourth Crusade to the recapture of Constantinople by exiled leaders from Nicaea. During this time there was no Greek state based on Constantinople and so no Byzantine Empire by traditional definition. Instead, a Venetian\/Frankish alliance ruled from the capital, while many smaller states also claimed the mantle of Byzantium. Even after 1261 when the Latin Empire of Constantinople was replaced by a restored Greek state, political fragmentation persisted. This fragmentation makes the study of individuals more difficult but also more valuable than ever before, and this volume demonstrates the very considerable advances in historical understanding that may be gained from prosopographical approaches.   Specialist historians of the Byzantine successor states of the period, and of their most important neighbours, here examine the self-projection and interactions of these states, combining military history and diplomacy, commercial and theological contacts, and the experiences and self-description of individuals. This wide-ranging series of articles uses a great diversity of sources - Arabic, Armenian, Bulgarian, Greek, Latin, Persian and Serbian - to exploit the potential of the novel methodology employed and of prosopography as an additional historical tool of analysis.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51020347900177,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51020349702417,"sku":"NIN9781138379688","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52671689261329,"sku":"NLS9781138379688","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1138379689.jpg?v=1751205983"},{"product_id":"formation-of-christendom-book-judith-herrin-9780691054827","title":"The Formation of Christendom","description":"A groundbreaking history of how the Christian “West” emerged from the ancient Mediterranean world  In this acclaimed history of Early Christendom, Judith Herrin shows how—from the sack of Rome in 410 to the coronation of Charlemagne in 800—the Christian “West” grew out of an ancient Mediterranean world divided between the Roman west, the Byzantine east, and the Muslim south. Demonstrating that religion was the period’s defining force, she reveals how the clash over graven images, banned by Islam, both provoked iconoclasm in Constantinople and generated a distinct western commitment to Christian pictorial narrative. In a new preface, Herrin discusses the book’s origins, reception, and influence.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51104414531857,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51104415711505,"sku":"GOR014176707","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52093137453329,"sku":"CIN0691054827G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0691054827.jpg?v=1751295161"},{"product_id":"book-judith-herrin-9789604108091","title":"Η άνοδος και η πτώση της Βυζαντινής αυτοκρατορίας Τόμος Α΄","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51728464478481,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51728464544017,"sku":"GOR014380908","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9604108093.jpg?v=1751097748"},{"product_id":"book-judith-herrin-9789604108107","title":"Η άνοδος και η πτώση της Βυζαντινής αυτοκρατορίας Τόμος Β΄","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51897749012753,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51897749143825,"sku":"GOR014452774","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9789604108107.jpg?v=1754988535"},{"product_id":"identities-and-allegiances-in-the-eastern-mediterranean-after-1204-book-judith-herrin-9781409410980","title":"Identities and Allegiances in the Eastern Mediterranean after 1204","description":"Explores a particularly complex period in Byzantine history, the thirteenth century, from the Fourth Crusade to the recapture of Constantinople by exiled leaders from Nicaea.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52479884656913,"sku":"NLS9781409410980","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53036432130321,"sku":"NIN9781409410980","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781409410980.jpg?v=1759849388"},{"product_id":"ravenna-book-judith-herrin-9781909646148","title":"Ravenna","description":"In the long-debated transition from late antiquity to the early middle ages, the city of Ravenna presents a story rich and strange. 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