A Companion to the Byzantine Culture of War, ca. 300–1204, ed. Yannis Stouraitis, Brill, Leiden–Boston 2018 [= Brill’s Companions to the Byzantine World, 3], 6 maps, 3 figures, index, pp. X, 490.

Abstract

T he presented volume is edited by Yannis Stouraitis, a lecturer of Byzantine history at the University of Edinburgh, whose research interests lie in the social and cultural history of the Byzantine Empire from 6th to 13th century, especially focusing on the issues of Byzantine war ideology, identity and migration in the medieval Eastern Mediterranean1. The volume is divided in two parts, six chapters each, and preceded by an Introduction by Y. Stouraitis, who argues that the changes taking place in Byzantine warfare from Late Antiquity to ca. 1204 should be understood on a macro-structural scale (and provides the examples of the impact of the Germanic migrations of the 5th century; the Arab-Muslim expansion since the 7th century and 11th century Seljuk invasion) as a part of the phenomena of penetration and destabilization of the Byzantine’s political, social and cultural structures (p. 1–19). However, this is not a classic introduction to the presented topic, but actually a separate article. Part 1 entitled The Mentality of War is opened by Paul Stephenson’s chapter on the issue of the Byzantine theology of victory (p. 23–58).