Preface

This Historical Atlas is an attempt to represent graphically some of the major developments in the history and evolution of the medieval eastern Roman or Byzantine empire. It may be seen as both an introduction to the history of the Byzantine empire in its own right and as an accompaniment to general histories of the empire. It cannot, of course, illustrate all facets of the empire’s development, and in particular it can say very little, without gross over-simplification, about the culture, beliefs and social or economic relationships and structures of the empire. Nevertheless history books are all too rarely accompanied by useful and detailed maps, and I hope that this short volume of maps with parallel explanatory texts will at least put Byzantium more clearly in its geopolitical context and show how its internal history is interlinked with and influenced by developments among the peoples and political formations which surrounded it.

A word of caution is in order, however. The breadth of coverage of the Atlas inevitably means that the maps are drawn to a relatively small scale. Absolute exactitude in respect of the relationship between physical features and historical or cultural features such as frontiers is not, in consequence, attainable. This is especially true given the lack of precise information for, or the ambiguity pertaining to, many such features. It is also the case that historians disagree among themselves about such features, while the line of a particular treaty frontier, for example, or the lines of provincial and state boundaries or frontiers must be guessed from often very general information. Users should be aware of these limitations from the beginning, and while I have tried to base all the maps on the results of the most recent research, there will inevitably be disagreement about the exact location of many features.

I have appended a brief time-line or chronology, a glossary of Byzantine technical terms and a short bibliography, the last including the works from which the information contained in the different maps is drawn and representing also appropriate further reading.

I owe thanks in particular to my colleagues in the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman & Modern Greek Studies at the University of Birmingham, as well as to Henry Buglass for his excellent cartography and to Graham Norrie for much valuable help with technical matters, both of the Institute of Archaeology & Antiquity at Birmingham. I am particularly indebted to my friend Meaghan McEvoy, who found the time to act as a generous and invaluable commentator on the texts, to Ruth Macrides and Dimiter Angelov, who also commented on sections of the text, and in particular to Rosemary Morris, who went through maps and texts and saved me from many a blunder. All of their views helped me fashion the whole into a more useful form than it might otherwise have been. Needless to say, any shortcomings are mine alone.

Finally, thanks are also due to the editorial team at Palgrave for their patience and co-operation in producing this volume.