Rural Lives and Landscapes in Late Byzantium: Art, Archaeology, and Ethnography

This is the first book to examine the late Byzantine peasantry through written, archaeological, ethnographic, and painted sources. Investigations of the infrastructure and setting of the medieval village guide the reader into the consideration of specific populations. The village becomes a micro-society, with its own social and economic hierarchies. In addition to studying agricultural workers, mothers, and priests, lesser-known individuals, such as the miller and witch, are revealed through written and painted sources. Placed at the center of a new scholarly landscape, the study of the medieval villager engages a broad spectrum of theorists, including economic historians creating predictive models for agrarian economies, ethnoarchaeologists addressing historical continuities and disjunctions, and scholars examining power and female agency.

Author: Sharon E. J. Gerstel
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 07/15/2015
Pages: 226
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 2.25lbs
Size: 11.00h x 8.30w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9780521851596

Review Citation(s):
Choice 04/01/2016

About the Author
Gerstel, Sharon E. J.: - Sharon E. J. Gerstel is Professor of Byzantine Art and Archaeology in the Department of Art History at the University of California, Los Angeles. She has authored and edited books including Beholding the Sacred Mysteries: Programs of the Byzantine Sanctuary (1999), A Lost Art Rediscovered: The Architectural Ceramics of Byzantium (2001), Thresholds of the Sacred: Architectural, Art Historical, Liturgical, and Theological Perspectives on Religious Screens, East and West (2007), Approaching the Holy Mountain: Art and Liturgy at St Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai (2010), and Viewing the Morea: Land and People in the Late Medieval Peloponnese (2013).