History – 340 pages – my copy (paperback; 2008) bought from Waterstones, Xmas 2008 for £10
- 2 nods
Now largely forgotten, the Byzantium Empire was a domain that endured for over one thousand years; it’s capital was the magnificent and unrivalled Constantinople – now modern Istanbul – and it held a great significance in being the bulwark against the rise and spread of Islam, allowing Europe to grow. Yet despite this, it remains an empire that is largely neglected by both historian and reader alike. It is Herrin’s self-proclaimed intention to reverse such a trend.
‘The modern stereotype of Byzantium’, writes the author, Herrin, ‘is tyrannical government by effeminate, cowardly men and corrupt eunuchs, obsessed with hollow rituals and endless, complex and incomprehensible bureaucracy’ (p.321). Herrin’s self-proclaimed intention is to reverse the trend of dull, ‘complicated histories which fail to bring to life the inner dynamic of the empire’ (p.267). This book – glossy and modern – is the marker for change.
From it’s inception in the Roman period, to it’s demise when seized by the Ottoman Turks in the mid-fifteenth century, Herrin takes the reader throughout all conceivable aspects of Byzantine life. There is no narrative, rather a chapter summary of all topics, from eunuchs to the mystical Greek Fire. Yet rather than tackle the issues head on, Herrin instead glosses over each one; each chapter never threatening to become engrossing.
Herrin argues throughout how the empire was important in allowing western Europe and Christendom to grow: ‘Without Byzantium, Europe as we know it is inconceivable’ (p.87). Yet such an assertion, though perhaps kindling gratitude, isn’t enough to sustain the layman throughout three hundred pages of a book that is dull in large parts, lacking in adding the sparkling interest that Herrin desperately craves.
‘The surprising life of a medieval empire’ reads the subtitle of Judith Herrin’s history on Byzantium; yet a flick through these pages mostly reveals the reverse. It may be that Byzantium remains, like Greek Fire, elusive; but the Worm is of the convinced belief that it is the author herself who fails in the task of bringing to life this vigorous empire and time.
