Byzantine-msg - 5/7/01 Byzantine culture, clothing, commerce. NOTE: See also the files: cl-Byzantine-msg, Byzant-Cerem-art, ME-feasts-msg, ME-dance-msg, commerce-msg, Balkans-msg, Turkey-msg, fd-Byzantine-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ From: jeffs at math.bu.edu (Jeff Suzuki) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: new persona Date: 25 Sep 1995 21:25:52 GMT Organization: Boston University Lynn J. Neergaard (ljnrsch at nmt.edu) wrote: : Hi folks. Hubby and I recently decided to change personas. We wish to be : Byzantines about 12-1300 AD. Any one out there have references to Byzantine : garb,commerce and healing arts? A neat book I have (oddly enough, right here in my office, next to _Probability and Measure Theory_...) is _Imperial Constantinople_, by D. A. Miller. Lots of neat info. Psellus' _Twelve Byzantine Emperors_ (or something like it) was a pretty fun read, except for those parts where you learned in tedious detail exactly where the term "byzantine politics" came from! William the Alchymist From: jeffs at bu.edu (Jeff Suzuki) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Looking for "Byzantine information" Date: 29 Jun 1996 22:20:32 GMT Organization: Boston University : bjm10 at cornell.edu (Bryan J. Maloney) wrote: : > Well, I've decided for grins to take on an alternate persona. I've : > decided to be an inhabitant of the Roman Empire under the Comnensian : > dynasty or maybe just before Manzikert, not sure yet. : > : > I realize that some folks might try to "correct" me and claim that this : > was the "Byzantine" empire, but they considered themselves to be "Romans", : > even when they were in warfare against the "Latins". : > : > So, any sources on clothing, food, attitudes, etc? I'm already teaching : > myself Koine Greek (which is not Byzantine Greek, but it's a start). An interesting book I picked up a while ago, filled with all sorts of useful information, is called _Imperial Constantinople_, by D. A. Miller; it deals with the life and times of people in the city during the Empire. Jeffs From: zarazena at io.com (Vicki Marsh) To: ansteorra at eden.com Date: Wed, 23 Oct 1996 22:16:42 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Byzantium on the web I thought some of you might enjoy checking out some websites I found the other day. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/medweb.html Byzantine and Medieval Web Links http://www.bway.net/~halsall/byzantium.html Byzantium: The Byzantine Studies Page http://members.aol.com/DOBooks/TitleList.html Dumbarton Oaks Publications http://www.cs.ruu.nl/~hansb/d.chessvar/byzantine.html Byzantine Chess http://www.wooster.edu/Art/wb.html Bibliography on Women in Byzantium 1996 Somewhere in there I located another web page on Art in the Vatican. Pretty cool. Zara Zina (spending way too much time playing and not enough time studying my real coursework) From: zarazena at io.com (Vicki Marsh) To: ansteorra at eden.com Date: Mon, 28 Oct 1996 20:46:16 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: Latin rubbish/Greek to me Greetings from Zara Zina, >Lord Jovian possibly muttered... >Another question: I just got another book on Byzantine history and >they state that Medieval Greek and Modern Greek are very similar. Does >this mean that I can pick up modern Greek textbooks and phrase books >and speak closely to how my persona would have? Jovian, in "Everyday Life in Byzantium" by Tamara Talbot Rice, Barnes & Noble Books, 1994, ISBN 0-88029-145-1, p. 193, Rice states that "As in present-day Greece, three forms of Greek were in simultaneous use from about the eight century: the vernacular Romaic was used by the uneducated, Attic Greek was used by educated people when writing, and a more elaborated version for conversation. The last was closer to classical Greek that to Romaic and was used for orations, thus widening the gap between the written and spoken forms." As you are from a noble family, you would probably know and be able to speak all three - like High, Middle, and low German. Time to learn how to read Homer - Can you memorize your 50 lines a day?? That's what was required of the school children. BTW, I finally got it in gear and found some information about the Calligraphic style. Caroline or Carolingian miniscule was in use fro the 8th - 12th century and would have been used when writing Latin. The Emperors commonly employed Greek and Latin scribes. In writing Greek, a script called Greek miniscule was used from the 10th - 12th century. I have also seen reference but no examples of a Beneventan script dating from 1087-13th c. from Benevento in Southern Italy. It was also in use at Cava Capula, Bari, and in Dalmatia. Italy came to using Gothic towards the end of the 13th century. Sources: ibid. above "ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS, The Book before Gutenberg", Giulia Bologna, Random House, 1995, ISBN 0-517-12083-6 This is an excellent book, with good histories of Latin scripts. Mark Harris/Stefan asked me about Carolingian Scripts and how they would have travelled to Byzantium. This book outlines its journey from Charlemagne's reign (768-814) where it developed in the scriptoria of the area between the Rhine and the Loire, spreading in use throughout Spain, Italy, England, France,& Germany. Zara Zina Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 12:42:27 -0700 (PDT) From: Heidi Johnson To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: ROM Byzantine Web Site! ---Janine Goldman-Pach wrote: > I was at the Art Gallery of Ontario > at 6 PM when I found a flyer to a brand new Byzantine gallery at the Royal > Ontario Museum which had just closed for the evening and I was leaving > first thing in the morning before the ROM opened. The gallery is new > enough that their web site has no pictures from it and I have emailed the > curator but received no response. The web site is up and running! And the wonderful sample pictures make me want to beg, borrow, or steal money to get there. Well, maybe they'll have a catalogue some day. Anyway, the address is: http://www.rom.on.ca/ebuff/byzmain.html They also have a nice timeline of Emperors with a brief bio for each. If you're looking for a way to pass the time, make up a list and check off every time the words "poisoned," "murdered," "blinded," or "deposed" come up. Use a large piece of paper. Kassia of Trebizond, Barony of Nordskogen mka Heidi Johnson Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 12:29:28 +0000 From: Scot Eddy To: ansteorra at Ansteorra.ORG Subject: ANST - Byzantine Emperors In a previous post someone added a Byzantine webpage link (thanks, that was really interesting. Some stuff I hadn't seen before) At the end they stated that we should look at all of the Emperors that had been forcibly removed from the throne. Here for your general enjoyment and for chroniclers in need of material for their newsletter is a comprehensive list of those rulers. Jovian Skleros Eighty-eight emperors sat on the Byzantine throne from 324 AD - 1453 AD, twenty nine of them met violent ends. Here are the rulers, dates of their demise, and method of their "removal." Basilicus 477 AD Starved in prison Zeno 491 AD Buried alive Maurice 602 AD Decapitated Phocas 610 AD Dismembered Heracleonas 641 AD Mutilated Constantine III 641 AD Poisoned Constas II 668 AD Bludgeoned in his bath Leonitus 705 AD Decapitated Tiberius III 705 AD Decapitated Justinian II 711 AD Decapitated Phillipucus 713 AD Blinded Constantine VI 797 AD Blinded Leo V 820 AD Stabbed and decapitated Michael III 867 AD Stabbed Constantine VII 959 AD Poisoned Romanus II 963 AD Poisoned Nicephorus II 969 AD Stabbed and decapitated John I 976 AD Poisoned Romanus III 1034 AD Poisoned and drowned Michael V 1042 AD Blinded Romanus IV 1071 AD Poisoned and blinded Alexius II 1183 AD Strangled and decapitated Andronicus I 1185 AD Mutilated and tortured Isaac II 1193 AD Blinded Alexius IV 1204 AD Strangled Alexius V 1204 AD Blinded and maimed John IV 1261 AD Blinded Andronicus IV 1374 AD Blinded John VII 1374 AD Blinded To: ansteorra at Ansteorra.ORG From: njones at ix.netcom.com Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:56:57 -0500 Subject: ANST - Book Review - Between Two Worlds A good friend of mine has been writing book reviews on a wide variety of topics for many years. Every once in a while something comes along that I think is neat and would like to share. Below is his review of a book that deals with the beginnings of the Ottoman Empire. Gio. ***** title: Between Two Worlds : The Construction of the Ottoman State by: Cemal Kafadar publisher: University of California Press 1995 other: 221 pages, notes, bibliography, index, US$18.95 Early in the 14th century, Osman, son of Ertogril, became the leader of a minor beglik, one of many small political units on the Anatolian marches of Islam. Through a combination of commitment to _gaza_ (loosely, "holy war"), alliances with other gazis (and a pragmatic attitude to alliances with the heathen), an advantageous geographical location, an unusual commitment to unigeniture, and a good deal of luck, this beglik was to expand, under Osman and his successors, into the Ottoman Empire. Despite defeat by Timur at the battle of Ankara in 1402, the Ottomans were to cross into Thrace and, in 1453, take Constantinople. As the Ottoman state expanded, politically centrifugal and religiously heterodox elements of the original _gaza_ ethos were discarded in favour of a centralising ideology and religious orthodoxy. It is not till the last chapter of _Between Two Worlds_, however, that Kafadar describes the story of the Ottoman rise to power and the construction of the Ottoman state. He begins with an overview of the background history and some brief remarks on national identity and influence, trying to give the reader a feel for the struggles that have been, and continue to be, fought over national histories. Also helpful for the novice to the period (or for those, like me, who only know it from a Byzantine perspective) are a chronology of events and a list of the regnal years of the Ottoman begs and sultans from Osman to Bayezid II. (The absence of a map is unfortunate, however, since many of the places referred to don't appear, or appear under other names, in modern atlases.) After this introduction, Kafadar surveys the historians of the early Ottomans: their engagements with issues of nationalism, their approaches to the sources, and their differing stresses on religious, economic, geographical, and ethnic factors. He touches briefly on Knolles (who wrote in the sixteenth century) and Gibbons, but his chief focus is on Koprulu and Wittek and their attempt to place the Ottomans within the broader context of Anatolian history. The field has been dominated by Wittek's gaza thesis, which stressed the role of gazis and the gaza ethos in the Ottoman expansion. Kafadar argues that "refutations" of this thesis based on discrepancies between gaza ideology and Ottoman practice miss the point, since the gaza thesis is not bound to idealised and anachronistic definitions of _gaza_. Kafadar devotes his longest chapter to a critical analysis of the sources for the period. Little in the way of early Ottoman writing survives, but there are two other important bodies of sources. Stories from Anatolian frontier culture provide essential background for understanding _gaza_ and gazis and the religious experience of the milieu, while the later Ottoman chronicle tradition, though it has been filtered through later orthodoxy and must be used with extreme care, provides critical information. Kafadar looks at several individual works and episodes in detail, but stresses that the sources must be evaluated as parts of evolving complexes of traditions. And so, before they come to the actual history, the reader has an understanding of the different ways historians have approached the period and of the sources and the debates over their use. Such integration of history and historiography is unusual, and makes for an elegant and sophisticated study. _Between Two Worlds_ is both a scholarly review and an introduction accessible to the newcomer, and for me it was a hundred and fifty pages of pure pleasure. -- Disclaimer: I requested and received a review copy of _Between Two Worlds_ from the University of California Press, but I have no stake, financial or otherwise, in its success. -- %T Between Two Worlds %S The Construction of the Ottoman State %A Cemal Kafadar %I University of California Press %C Berkeley %D 1995 %O paperback, notes, bibliography, index, US$18.95 %G ISBN 0-520-20600-2 %P xx,221pp %K history, historiography, Islam 17 September 1997 ------------------------------------------------ Copyright (c) 1997 Danny Yee (danny at cs.su.oz.au) http://www.anatomy.su.oz.au/danny/book-reviews/ ------------------------------------------------ To: ansteorra at Ansteorra.ORG From: "Vicki Marsh" Subject: Re: ANST - Byzantine Date: Sun, 21 Sep 97 14:16:00 PDT Mistress Meadhbh honored me thusly: > Talk to HE Zara Zehna (baroness of Elfsea), she does a lot of Byzantine > clothing. Most of the original costuming I have done was based on the mosaics of Justinian and Theodora, which dates from the fifth century. However, the high court regalia didn't change much over the ensuing centuries until the influence of the Turks began to be felt in the 12th -14th c. I have come across some other web pages that you might find of interest: Gallery: Byzantine Images : http://www.bway.net/~halsall/images.html SCA Byzantine : http://www.netaxs.com/~blktauna/byzantine.html Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine: http://www.doaks.org/Byzantine.html Byzantine and Medieval Web Links: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/medweb.html I also have written some supporting documentation for some of my clothes that I am willing to share with anyone who asks for it. I also have documentation and sources for Byzantine names. The Academy of St. Gabriel has a good web page for Byz. names also, but I have located more feminine names than those they have listed. It was an amazing empire - one that was comprised of many different cultures, and stretched over more that a millenium. If you wish to have a Byzantine persona, and do it well, you really need to nail down a time and region of the Empire you would have lived in. It really helps (I'm still working on that!!). At one point, the Empire stretched from Spain to North Africa, Egypt and all around the Mediterranian. Which religious sect would you have belonged to, the Arians, the Metaphysites, or the Niceans? If you lived in Constantinople, which of the Circus Factions were you aligned with, the Blues or the Greens? Or were you Jewish, Turkish, etc..? Did your family come from a certain guild? They had a strong guild system. The University of Texas at Arlington has a lot of books on the subject, and I feel like I am just scratching the surface. Please write to me at zarazina at flash.net or vam1554 at utarlg.uta.edu if you want to get more information. Baroness Zara Zina Theanos Date: Tue, 30 Dec 1997 16:42:08 -0800 From: "Crystal A. Isaac" Subject: Re: SC - Byzantine cooking Dan Gillespie (Antoine) wrote: > Does anyone know of any period cooking sources from the Byzantine > empire? There is Apicius & the Greek originals that it is supposed based > on, but is there anything later than that? There is a 6th century letter on food health and correct eating for kings by Anthimus, a Byzantine physician to Theoderic, King of the Franks(circa 526). It has been translated by Shirley Howard Weber in her dissertation, _Anthimus, De Observatio Ciborum: Text, Commentary, and Glossary with a Study of the Latinity. A Dissertation..._ and published by E. J. Brill Ltd., Leiden 1924. It's English translation with the Latin on the facing pages; includes a glossary and index. There's a copy in the Stanford University Library. I recently saw another translation but do not remember the translator's name. I think I saw it in Potboiler press, NY. If anyone has another source for Byzantine cooking I would love to hear about it. I wanted to do a Byzantine feast but could not find enough material. Crystal of the Westermark, AoA (mka Crystal A. Isaac) Date: Tue, 30 Dec 1997 22:48:36 -0700 (MST) From: "Jamey R. Lathrop" Subject: Re: SC - Byzantine cooking On Tue, 30 Dec 1997, Crystal A. Isaac wrote: > There is a 6th century letter on food health and correct eating for > kings by Anthimus, a Byzantine physician to Theoderic, King of the > Franks(circa 526). It has been translated by Shirley Howard Weber in her > dissertation, _Anthimus, De Observatio Ciborum: Text, Commentary, and > Glossary with a Study of the Latinity. A Dissertation..._ and published > by E. J. Brill Ltd., Leiden 1924. It's English translation with the > > I recently saw another translation but do not remember the translator's > name. I think I saw it in Potboiler press, NY. > Crystal of the Westermark, AoA I recently purchased the Mark Grant translation from the Food Heritage Press: _ANTHIMUS: De obseruatione ciborum, ON THE OBSERVANCE OF FOODS_, Prospect Books, 1996. ISBN 0907325 750 It also has the latin and english on opposite pages for comparison, along with historical information and great notes. Lady Allegra Beati Barony of al-Barran Outlands Subject: ANST - Byzantine References Date: Tue, 28 Apr 98 11:39:01 MST From: stddly at SHSU.edu To: ANSTEORRA at Ansteorra.ORG I found a page with a really good Bibliography the Byzantine Resource Page www.byway.net/~halsall/refdocs.html Lorraine Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1998 10:45:43 -0600 From: "Decker, Terry D." Subject: RE: SC - Byzantine cuisine--sources? > Try Anna Comnena (don't remember the name of the work, but the author's > name should get the title for you) -- she was the aformentioned "Emperor > Irene"'s grandaughter, I believe. The Alexiad. It was a history of her father's (Alexius Comnenus I) life. Anna may have been related to Irene, but there is a good 200 year gap between them. Irene became regent for her son in 780, was deposed in 802 and died on Lesbos in 803. Anna was born at the end of the 11th Century and died in the middle of the 12th Century. Lineal dissent may be questionable as Issac Comnenus siezed power in Byzantium in 1057, establishing the Comnenus dynasty. > Also, remember that Byzantium grew out of Roman civilization, and at > some points streched as far west as Ravili (I believe is the name of the > town -- it's a town in NE Italy). I would expect at least some Roman > influence as well, depending on how far back you go, and who you are > calling "byzantium." > > toodles, margaret The Byzantine Empire was established around 330 and lasted until 1453. The core of the Empire was Asia Minor and the Balkan peninsula which controlled trade through the Dardanelles. In the 6th Century, Justinian I expanded the boundaries of the Empire to include most of Italy destroying the Ostrogoth Empire there. By the end of the 6th Century effectively controlled much of the eastern Mediterranean. The Empire's primary enemies were the Lombards in the West and the Persians in the East. Islam and the Turks later replaced the Persians. Between the 7th and 11th Centuries the empire lost ground to its various enemies, but retained its hold on the core provinces. There were resurgences, but none of Byzantium's Emperors regained the boundries set by Justinian. Since Byzantium maintained relations with various Italian city states even after they lost Italy, I would expect Italian cooking from Apicius to the 15th Century to have influenced them. Bear From: Paul Halsall To: byzans-l at lists.missouri.edu ; mediev-l at ukans.edu Date: Monday, November 08, 1999 5:04 PM Subject: Chilander on CD Chilander is a monastery on Mount Athos which in 1198 was refounded by St. Sava as a the Serbian monastery on Athos. At the Byzantine Studies Conference this past weekend Dr. Taylor Hostetter [hilandercd at hotmail.com] presented one of the most fascinating CD-Roms I have ever seen. Called, _In the Heart of Hilander_ ($32) it is a complete three dimensional presentation of the monastery church of the foundation. The work presents a complete photographic record of the inside and outside of the Church (think of a sort of Byzantine version of Myst or Doom), in which every image of the Church is viewable, many in different sizes (although the pictures are not scalable.) Moving the cursor over each image calls up the identity of the figure in question, feast days of the figure, and a great deal of additional information. The work allow much more than this. It also allows sectional views, views of the monastery church at different periods of its construction, examination of the use of space, and an ability to see the frescos without the current monastic furniture (iconstands and so forth.) Other modules allow you to play Serbian church music in the background, to explore the architectural forms of a Byzantine church, to trace the history of Mt Athos, and even to follow Bible stories through the paintings. There are even a series of inbuilt databases on the images which users can access. In all the disk claims to contain nearly 5000 images on over 3000 pages, with the ability to see every one of the 950 wall paintings individually and in context. In other words, this is a stunning achievement -- a CD which does things that no book can do, and in a depth that will satisfy almost anyone. The promise that it might be a model for further presentations of architectural monuments is only icing on the cake. Supposedly a website on the project will be set up soon -- with the URL http://www.digitalbyzantium.com or http://digitalbyzantium.com In the meantime, I really would encourage any one who wants to enthuse students about Byzantium, the medieval Balkans, or the middle ages in general, to get hold of the disk. Students I have been showing it to in my office all day long have left with their eyes popping. Paul Halsall Subject: ANST - All Things Byzantine Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 07:55:21 -600 From: gunnora at realtime.net To: Ansteorra-Laurels at ansteorra.org CC: Ansteorra at ansteorra.org I thought I'd pass this along for Xene and anyone else that may be interested: A list for all things Byzantine is starting at: http://www.egroups.com/group/SCAbyzantine ::GUNNORA:: From: David Read Newsgroups: rec.org.sca,soc.history.medieval Subject: Re: Byzantine 11th Century Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2000 07:45:55 +0100 Andrew Hodgson writes >I require information on the clothing of Byzantine Empire during the 11th >Century. Either books or web-pages would be of great help. Try this one:- http://www.gryph.com/byzantine/dress.htm From: "David C. Pugh" Newsgroups: rec.org.sca,soc.history.medieval Subject: Re: Byzantine 11th Century Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2000 11:19:28 +0200 Andrew Hodgson wrote > I require information on the clothing of Byzantine Empire during the 11th > Century. Either books or web-pages would be of great help. Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, edited Kazhdan. From: joylana at aol.com (Joylana) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Date: 08 Oct 2000 13:42:12 GMT Subject: Re: Byzantine 11th Century > I require information on the clothing of Byzantine Empire during the > 11th Century. Either books or web-pages would be of great help. Here is partial biblio of books that i have in my library. any further info i'd be glad to share. Jolanna East Bibliography of Byzantine Study Ancient Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Costume & Decoration Mary G. Houston {libraries} Art of Europe The Dark Ages from Teodoric to Charlemagne Paola Verzone Art of the Byzantine Era David Talbot Rice Byzantine Armies 886-1118 Ian Heath Byzantine Aspects of Italy Daniel Crena De Iongh Coptic Fabrics Marie-Helene Rutschowscaya Costume Pattern and Design Max Tilke Cut My Cote Dorothy K. Burnham Dawn of the Middle Ages Michael Grant Early Christian & Byzantine Architecture William MacDonald The Encyclopedia of Ornament A. Racinet Everyday Life in Byzantium Tamara Talbot Rice Fashion at the Center of the World Veleda of Isenfir* The Grammar of Ornament Owen Jones Handbook of the Byzantine Collection Dunbarton Oaks, Washington The History of Beads Lois Sherr Dubin Masterpieces of Serbian Goldsmith's Work Victoria and Albert Museum 13th - 18th Century The Mysterious Fayum Portraits Faces from Ancient Egypt Euphrosyne Doxiadis Ravenna San Vitale Sant'Apollinare in Classe Franz Bartl and Julie Boehringer Saint Vitale de Ravenee Giuseppe Bovini Splendors of Christiandom Dmitri Kessel *Society of Creative Anachronism persona From: "Jon Meltzer" Newsgroups: rec.org.sca,soc.history.medieval Subject: Re: Byzantine 11th Century Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 17:22:24 -0400 "Andrew Hodgson" wrote > I require information on the clothing of Byzantine Empire during the 11th > Century. Either books or web-pages would be of great help. > > Andrew Though a bit out of date, "The Cambridge Medieval History", 2nd edition, vol. 4 and Ostrogorsky's "History of the Byzantine State" could give you a start. Also check Warren Treadgold's "A History of the Byzantine State and Society". Subject: ANST-Announce - Steven Runciman-RIP Date: Sat, 4 Nov 2000 12:04:35 -0600 From: "Vicki Marsh" To: "Ansteorra-Announce" Xene here: This has been on several history and Byzantine lists. His small book, "Byzantine Civilization", first published in 1933, then republished in 1994 by Barnes & Nobles Books (ISBN 1-56619-574-8) is a wonderful overview for anyone interested in a Byzantine persona. He was also the author of the three volume set, "The First Crusades". We have lost a great historian. ______________________________ Steven Runciman died Nov 1 at the age of 97. >From the London times extensive obituary: "Sir Steven Runciman Scholar, linguist and gossip, whose revisionist History of the Crusades and studies of Byzantium were massively researched and widely read Steven Runciman was famous for throwing light on some very dark ages, and attempting, as he said the historian must, "to record in one great sweeping sequence the greater events and movements that have swayed the destiny of man". But as well as being the leading historian of the Crusades, he was a world traveller, the companion of royalty - at least four queens were said to have turned out for his 80th birthday - and an aficionado of the foibles of the powerful, whether past or present. Details of forgotten personalities glint in all his writings, and he could discourse about ancient genealogies, scandals and feuds until the crusaders came home." Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2001 18:16:14 -0700 From: "Wanda Pease" Subject: RE: SC - Byzantium > Andrea asked: > >Can anyone point me to web links/info about Byzantium and their food?? Not necessarily food, but the most comprehensive site for Byzantine studies and "stuff" is at: http://www.bway.net/~halsall/byzantium.html I'd also recommend going to the ORB website (linked with the above). The sites are built for and maintained by scholars in the field, but it's been my experience that an interested and polite question about something specific (they get a bit antsy if they think you want to use them rather than do your own research for a school paper) is treated as sincere. At least one of the "scholars" has been on the BoD. He has real academic credentials and teaches Medieval Studies at a university. Ah what the SCA did to some kids! Regina Romsey Edited by Mark S. Harris Byzantine-msg Page 13 of 14