Last Centuries of Byzantium
Cambridge University Press
Edition: 2nd, 1/1/1993
EAN 9780521439916, ISBN10: 0521439914
Paperback, 496 pages, 23.4 x 15.6 x 2.8 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
The Byzantine Empire, fragmented and enfeebled by the Fourth Crusade in 1204, never again recovered its former extent, power and influence. Its greatest revival came when the Byzantines in exile reclaimed their capital city of Constantinople in 1261 and this book narrates the history of this restored empire from 1261 to its conquest by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. First published in 1972, the book has been completely revised, amended, and in part rewritten, with its source references and bibliography updated to take account of scholarly research on this last period of Byzantine history carried out over the past twenty years.
1. The Byzantine empire after the Fourth Crusade
2. The empire in exile and its restoration
Part I. The Problems of the Restored Empire
the Reign of Michael VIII Palaiologos, 1261-82
3. The price of survival
4. The battle of wits between east and west
5. The Byzantine dilemma in the thirteenth century
Part II. Byzantium as a Second-rate Power
the Reign of Andronikos II Palaiologos,1282-1321
6. The restoration of orthodoxy
7. Symptoms and causes of decline
8. The failure to find a cure
9. The nature of the enemy
Part III. The Mortal Illness of Byzantium
the Age of Civil Wars, 1321-54
10. The question of the succession and the first civil war
11. The reign of Andronikos III, 1328-41
12. The second civil war, 1341-47
13. The reign of John VI Cantacuzene, 1347–54
Part IV. Byzantium as a Vassal of the Turks
the Last Hundred Years, 1354-1453
14. The reign of John V Palaiologos, 1354-91
15. The reign of Manuel II
the first crisis, 1391–1402
16. The last reprieve, 1402–25
17. The Ottoman revival and the reign of John VIII Palaiologos, 1425–48
18 Constantine XI and Mehmed II
The fall of Constantinople, 1448–53
19. The last outposts of Byzantium
Bibliography.