Proceeding of the 23rd International Congress of Byzantine Studies Belgrade, 22 – 27 August 2016 THEMATIC SESSIONS OF FREE COMMUNICATIONS Editors Dejan Dželebdžić, Stanoje Bojanin Assistant Editors Miloš Cvetković, Tamara Matović Belgrade 2016 THURSDAY, 25TH AUGUST LATIN CYPRUS (1192-1571): A CASE OF FORCED COEXISTENCE. ART, DOGMA, LAWS, HAGIOLOGY AND ARCHITECTURE Conveners: Ioannis Eliades, Nikolaos D. Siomkos VENETIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY (AND BYZANTINE STUDIES) Conveners: Andrea Nanetti, Șerban V. Marin WAR AND PEACE IN BYZANTIUM: CHANGES AND TURNING-POINTS IN THE MIDDLE AND LATE BYZANTINE PERIOD (7TH- 15TH CENTURIES) Convener: Athina Kolia-Dermitzaki STUDYING BYZANTINE SCULPTURE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: NEW PERSPECTIVES AND APPROACHES Conveners: Claudia Barsanti, Alessandra Guiglia THEATRE AND LITURGY: PERFORMANCE AND RITUAL IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP – PART 1 Conveners: Andrew Walker White, Niki Tsironis THEATRE AND LITURGY: PERFORMANCE AND RITUAL IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP – PART 2 Conveners: Andrew Walker White, Niki Tsironis SYNODIKA Conveners: Frederick Lauritzen, Antonio Rigo, Anna-Marija Totomanova LIFE AND WORKS OF PHOTIUS OF CONSTANTINOPLE Conveners: Filippo Ronconi, Marcello Garzaniti FASHION IN TRANSITION: FROM BYZANTIUM TO THE BYZANTINE COMMONWEALTH Conveners: Aleksandr Musin, Marcin Wołoszyn, Perica Špehar 461 STUDYING AND COMMUNICATING BYZANTIUM – PART 2 Chairs: Karsten Fledelius, Anna Linden Weller THE AGE OF THE KOMNENOI Chairs: Paul Magdalino, Leonora Neville THE EARLY BYZANTINE CHURCH Chairs: Mikhail Gratsianskiy, Manya Erna Shirinyan BYZANTINE ARCHEOLOGY Chairs: Dominic Moreau, Mihailo Milinković STUDIES IN BYZANTINE ICONOGRAPHY ‒ PART 1: ICONOGRAPHY OF SAINTS Chairs: Anna Zakharova, Tatjana Starodubcev BYZANTINE LITERATURE IN THE 11TH CENTURY Chairs: Diether Roderich Reinsch, Dejan Dželebdžić THE LATE BYZANTINE EMPIRE – PART 1 Chairs: Antonia Kiousopoulou, Maja Nikolić ART OF MEDIEVAL GEORGIA Chairs: Nina Chichinadze, Irene Giviashvili LITERATURE IN THE AGE OF THE KOMNENOI Chairs: Elisabeth Jefreys, Nikolaos Zagklas THE LATE BYZANTINE EMPIRE ‒ PART 2 Chairs: Erekle Jordania, Bogdan-Petru Maleon THE CHURCH BETWEEN THE EAST AND THE WEST ‒ PART 1 Chairs: Nichkiphoros Tsougarakis, Anna Karamanidou 462 WAR AND PEACE IN BYZANTIUM: CHANGES AND TURNING-POINTS IN THE MIDDLE AND LATE BYZANTINE PERIOD (7TH- 15TH CENTURIES) Convener: Athina Kolia-Dermitzaki Salvatore Cosentino, A Silent Revolution: he Early Phase of Militarization of Byzantine Sicily Alexandru Madgearu, he War of 971 in Bulgaria: A Model of Conlict Resolution for Present Superpowers Leif Inge Ree Petersen, A Reassessment of Byzantine and Arab Operations 634-37 AD Based on a Multispectral Reading of BL Syriac MS Add 14461, A Fragment on the Arab Conquest Georgios heotokis, Byzantine-Arab Wars of the Tenth Century: he Strengths and Weaknesses of the Primary Sources and the Value of heir Authors as “Military Historians'' Nike Κoutrakou, Managing the Other Face of Byzantine War: Was there a Mode of Presenting and Accepting Defeat? Christos G. Makrypoulias, A Byzantine Band of Brothers: he Tenth- and Eleventh-Century Infantry Commanders Katerina Nikolaou, Women as Agents of Restoration of Imperial Power and Peace in Byzantium Yannis Stouraitis, Holy warriors? Some houghts on the Religious Identity of Byzantine Soldiers Triantafyllitsa Maniati-Kokkini, Economic Efects of Internal Wars for Individuals and the State in Byzantium, 1282 to the Middle of the 14th Century Efstratia Synkellou, War Violence Episodes in Late Byzantium: Some Remarks on Byzantine Warfare religious task and a means for the salvation of the soul remains a hotly debated issue. Within this framework, what needs to be further problematized is the religious identity of Byzantine soldiers. Quite oten, notions such as ‘athletes of Christ’, ‘chosen people’, ‘God›s army’ etc., which are recurrent in the discourse of Byzantine authors, are considered to relect the war mentality and to have underpinned the religious motive of the average soldier on the battleield particularly in war against inidel enemies. his tendency to reify the Byzantine soldiers’ religious identity as represented in texts with a distinct literary aspect is problematical insofar as it adopts a methodologically rather outmoded approach to written sources as “mirrors” of social reality, in particular of the common people’s thought-world. In the current paper, I shall address the issue of the literary aspect of text-based justiication of Byzantine warfare and the need to distinguish between an operative religious ideology on the battleield and an intertextual symbolic universe in the writings of an educated élite that was mainly built on literary motifs from the biblical repertoire. If the latter was the main source of an idiomatic religious language that Byzantine authors commonly employed to ethically justify imperial warfare in their writings, there is enough evidence to support the argument that the relationship of Byzantine soldiers with religion on the battleield was far less idealistic despite their occasionally depicted textual image as sacred warriors of the faith. Triantafyllitsa Maniati-Kokkini National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece; tmaniati@arch.uoa.gr Economic Efects of Internal Wars for Individuals and the State in Byzantium, 1282 to the Middle of the 14th Century Privileges and grants are, by deinition, an arbitrary choice of the person bestowing the grant. Nevertheless, the Byzantine Emperor, despite the absolute character of his central authority, appears to grant inancial privileges for speciic reasons, oten combining the receiver’s gratiication and state gain. Indeed, in many instances the particularly extended or expandable privileges are laid out in the prologues (prooimia) of the chrysobulls, although this happened partly due to imperial propaganda through the projection of imperial philanthropy and social justice which the emperor should not disregard. In addition, the withdrawal of inancial privileges and grants are equally within the Emperor’s rights, since they are both considered a priori retractable and by no means hereditary in Byzantium. Nevertheless, the documents usually contain an explanation, which is mainly linked to the behaviour as well as several transgressions on behalf of the beneiciary of the imperial privilege-grant. here are, however, circumstances in which the frequency and comparative percentage of granting privileges, as well as their retraction, supersede the usual explanations and betray diverse criteria and choices by the emperors, at the same time raising questions concerning a large degree of arbitrariness and personal interest by central authority. he empire experiences a long, yet not 484 continuous, period of such circumstances under the Palaiologoi, particularly towards the end of the 13th and the irst half of the 14th centuries, when internal strife, caused by the claimants to the throne or those contesting imperial rule, is added to external hostile attacks. he events pertaining to the internal developments and reversals during the aforementioned internal wars are well-known. Nevertheless, it is of particular interest to investigate further the imperial decisions deriving from those events relevant to granting or retracting inancial privileges, as well as the resulting reaction of the beneiciaries during the reigns of Andronikos II and Andronikos III and the dispute between Ioannis V and the Kantakouzenoi about the throne. Efstratia Synkellou University of Ioannina, School of Philosophy, Department of History and Archaeology, Ioannina, Greece; synkellou@gmail.com War Violence Episodes in Late Byzantium: Some Remarks on Byzantine Warfare Man’s history has unfortunately been full of wars and violent incidents. War produces violence and is therefore a genuine social phenomenon with psychological, ideological, ethical and even ethnological parameters. In medieval times, war violence had been an issue for discussion for the Christian states of both East and West, but it was only in the 14th century when several western states such as Venice decided to impose measures to reduce violence. In the eastern Mediterranean, the Byzantine state, adhering to the principle of “ius gentium”, attempted to confront the various aspects of warfare (e.g. acquisition, captivity, rehabilitation, immunity, etc.). Nonetheless brutality against prisoners of war or even civilians was a measure used to break the enemy’s morale and appears to have been a common and acceptable practice. War violence, apart from its military or strategic background, belongs to a wider social, ethical and ideological context. It is the product of war ethics, religious beliefs and ideological models, inancial and political objectives, the social structure of the troops, and war technology. his paper examines these parameters. Several cases of wars (e.g. the Byzantine-Ottoman wars) or speciic episodes from wars in written sources will be presented to help deine the complex aspects of war violence. In addition, the late Byzantine period will be assessed in respect of the use and attitude towards violence as these developed from the standard-period Byzantine ethics, and attitudes and practices on war violence. Exploring war violence leads to a better understanding of the common points and the diferences between diferent peoples as determined by culture, ideology and ethics. 485