Byzantium from Below: Rural and Non-elite Life in the Byzantine World, 56th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, University of Birmingham, April 12-14, 2025

Abstracts are invited for communications at the 56th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies to be held at the University of Birmingham, UK. 

The Byzantine Empire was built on the backs of the rural and urban labour force. From agricultural production and the extraction of raw materials to the physical construction of urban centres and buildings, the strength of the empire’s economy and its imperial administration rested upon complex networks of labourers, artisans and ‘local notables’, across its natural landscapes, in villages, and cities. While huge advances have been made in studying labour processes in recent years, the experiences of such populations within the Byzantine world have received comparatively little attention when compared to other fields of late Roman and western medieval studies. How the Byzantine Empire was experienced and understood by those far removed from its centres of governance and central networks of power, are crucial questions for understanding the lived experience of the mostly silent majority whose lives played out both within, and around, the empire’s fluctuating ‘borders’. Beyond exploring the contribution of rural communities and non-elites to modes of production, this symposium will also explore what can be said of the intricacies of their lives, societies, and what it meant to ‘be Byzantine’, viewed from below.

Communications are 10-mins long. Communications related to the themes of non-elites, peasants and rural life in the Byzantine world are particularly encouraged. 

Symposiarch: Dr Daniel Reynolds