Life and Society in Byzantine Cappadocia

by Cooper, J. Eric; Decker, Michael; Decker, Michael J.

• ISBN13: 9780230361065
• ISBN10: 0230361064
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-08-21
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

This is the first in-depth historical study of Byzantine Cappadocia. The authors draw on extensive textual and archaeological materials to examine the nature and place of Cappadocia in the Byzantine Empire from the fourth through eleventh centuries.

Author Biography

J. Eric Cooper earned his DPhil from Oxford University, UK. Since then, he has worked for several leading Wall Street firms before founding the consultancy firm Akrites, LLC. He has published in several fields and maintains an active interest in Byzantine history and archaeology. Michael J. Decker is Maroulis Professor of Byzantine History and Orthodox Religion at the University of South Florida, USA. He earned his DPhil from Oxford University and was Andrew Mellon Post-doctoral Fellow at Rice University in Houston. He has written extensively on Byzantine Syria and agrarian history of the Levant.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	p. ix
List of Maps	p. x
Acknowledgements	p. xi
List of Abbreviations	p. xii
Introduction	p. 1
Evidence: the written sources	p. 2
Evidence: archaeological	p. 3
Style, Cappadocia vs Kappadokia, references, and illustrations	p. 7
'A Vast and Admirable Land'	p. 11
Cities and settlement	p. 15
Population: how many people?	p. 44
The Increase of the Earth	p. 49
Land tenure	p. 50
Arable farming	p. 55
Industry	p. 67
Land of Beautiful Horses	p. 76
Equids	p. 76
Pastoralism and stocking	p. 94
Other animals	p. 100
If One, Why So Many?	p. 107
Early monasticism in Cappadocia	p. 108
Cappadocian monasteries	p. 119
A monastic landscape?	p. 136
City of God	p. 139
God in the land	p. 139
Churches	p. 148
Piety and religious observance	p. 158
Elite Society	p. 175
Undercurrents of Cappadocian society	p. 177
Cappadocian society during Late Antiquity	p. 180
Women	p. 183
The elite centre	p. 187
Cappadocian society during the Dark Ages and Middle Period	p. 194
Cappadocian elite identity	p. 211
The Warlords	p. 213
Rise of an elite	p. 228
Conclusion	p. 253
Notes	p. 261
Bibliography	p. 288
Index	p. 316
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