The eleventh century in Byzantium is all about being in between, whether this is between Basil II and Alexios Komnenos, between the forces of the Normans, the Pechenegs and the Turks, or between different social groupings, cultural identities and religious persuasions. It is a period of fundamental changes, both internal and external, but also a period rife with clichés and dominated by the towering presence of Michael Psellos whose usually self-contradictory accounts continue to loom large in the field of Byzantine studies. The essays collected here, which were delivered at the 45th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, explore new avenues of research and offer new perspectives on this transitional period.

Marc D. Lauxtermann is Bywater and Sotheby Professor of Byzantine and Modern Greek Language and Literature and Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford University. He hails from Amsterdam. He has written extensively on Byzantine poetry and metre, and is the co-editor of a recent book on the letters of Psellos. Further research interests include translations of oriental tales in Byzantium, the earliest grammars and dictionaries of vernacular Greek, and the development of the Greek language in the eighteenth century.

Mark Whittow is the University Lecturer in Byzantine Studies at the University of Oxford. Recent or forthcoming publications include 'Byzantium's Eurasian Policy in the Age of the Türk Empire', in Maas and Di Cosmo's Entangled Empires: Rome, Iran, China, and the Eurasian Steppe in Late Antiquity (2017); 'Byzantium and the Feudal Revolution' in Howard-Johnston and Whittow's The Transformation of Byzantium (2017); 'The End of Antiquity in the Lykos Valley' in Simsek's, The Lykos Valley and Neighbourhood in Late Antiquity (2016).

List of Figures

Notes on Contributors

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Marc D. Lauxtermann

Introduction

Section I The Age of Psellos

1. Paul Magdalino

From 'encyclopaedism' to 'humanism': the turning point of Basil II and the millennium

2. Michael Jeffreys

Michael Psellos and the eleventh century: a double helix of reception

3. Floris Bernard

Authorial practices and competitive performance in the works of Michael Psellos

4. Jean-Claude Cheynet

L'administration provinciale dans la correspondance de Michel Psellos

Section II Social Structures

5. James Howard-Johnston

The Peira and legal practices in eleventh-century Byzantium

6. Peter Sarris

Beyond the great plains and the barren hills: rural landscapes and social structures in eleventh-century Byzantium

7. Tim Greenwood

Aristakes Lastivertc'i and Armenian urban consciousness

Section III State and Church

8. Mark Whittow

The second fall: the place of the eleventh century in Roman history

9. Jonathan Shepard

Storm clouds and a thunderclap: east-west tensions towards the mid-eleventh century

10. Dimitris Krallis

Urbanite warriors: smoothing out tensions between soldiers and civilians in Attaleiates' encomium to Emperor Nikephoros III Botaneiates

11. Judith Ryder

Leo of Chalcedon: conflicting ecclesiastical models in the Byzantine eleventh century

12. Peter Frankopan

Re-interpreting the role of the family in Comnenian Byzantium: where blood is not thicker than water

Section IV The Age of Spirituality

13. Dirk Krausmüller

From competition to conformity: saints' lives, typika, and the Byzantine monastic discourse of the eleventh century

14. Barbara Crostini

Eleventh-century monasticism between politics and spirituality

15. Georgi R. Parpulov

The rise of devotional imagery in eleventh-century Byzantium

Index