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Emperor and Priest

The Imperial Office in Byzantium

Gilbert Dagron author Jean Birrell translator

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:16th Oct '03

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Emperor and Priest cover

A complex study of the dual role of the emperor in Byzantium.

The figure of the Byzantine emperor, who sometimes was also designated a priest, has long fascinated the western imagination. This classic book studies in detail the imperial union of 'two powers', temporal and spiritual, against a broad background of relations between Church and state and religious and political spheres.This is a revised and translated edition of Gilbert Dagron's Empereur et prêtre, an acknowledged masterwork by one of the great Byzantine scholars of our time. The figure of the Byzantine emperor, a ruler who sometimes was also designated a priest, has long fascinated the western imagination. This book studies in detail the imperial union of 'two powers', temporal and spiritual, against a wide background of relations between Church and state and religious and political spheres. Presenting much unfamiliar material in complex, brilliant style, it is aimed at all historians concerned with royal and ecclesiastical sources of power.

'… This is a very significant book for Byzantine specialists … Indeed, no one interested in the varieties of earthly sovereignty should be unaware of it.' John W. Barker, Speculum

ISBN: 9780521801232

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 24mm

Weight: 690g

356 pages