Rural Lives and Landscapes in Late Byzantium

This is the first book to examine the late Byzantine village through written, archaeological and painted sources.

This is the first book to examine the late Byzantine (thirteenth to fifteenth centuries) village through written, archaeological and painted sources. This study inserts the Byzantine peasant into broader examinations of Mediterranean history and ethnography by discussing both the medieval villager and villagers of more recent centuries.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.