Curtains constituted a standard component of the scenography of imperial ceremonies during the Middle and Late Byzantine period. This paper explores how curtains were used to control and ritualise sensory and perceptual access to the sacred person of the emperor and to manipulate emotive response to ritual performances. It also enquires into the way in which curtains, both as material objects and as symbols, were employed by those staging imperial ceremonies in order to articulate and communicate messages regarding the nature of the emperor's authority and his special status vis-à-vis his subjects. Paradoxically, the performative and symbolic potential that ensured the curtains’ use in imperial ceremonies led to their exclusion from the representation of the emperor in imperial portraiture, since post-Iconoclastic art did not admit veiled secrets.

A small silver bowl, discovered in Russia and usually attributed to eleventh-century Byzantium, displays a range of unusual imagery that has complicated its interpretation. The role of the saint and prayer on the vessel and the emphasis placed on intercession as well as on protection, this paper will suggest, was to protect the vessel's owner both on earth and in his afterlife. The vessel, which makes visible contemporary ideas about punishment, Last Things, and salvation, presents a fragmentary image of the Last Judgement designed to stress the importance of heavenly justice and to remind its viewer to remain virtuous.

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries Byzantium saw the rise of an influential monastic reform movement, which found its expression in rules and saints' lives. In these texts the question of worldly possessions was repeatedly broached. The authors challenged the hitherto common practice of allowing monks some private property and insisted that in their monasteries nobody should own money or other goods. Yet when it came to communal property the situation was starkly different. Most reformers accepted the traditional view that monasteries should be endowed with land in order to meet the material needs of the communities, and if anything were even more acquisitive than their forebears. There was, however, a small group of monastic founders, which challenged this consensus. They insisted that their monasteries should not accept donations of land because such behaviour went against Christ's demand not to take thought for the morrow and displayed a lack of trust in divine providence. This article presents the surviving evidence and seeks to explain how communities without landed property ensured their survival.

Despite a distinguished reputation as an orator and bishop in his own time, comparatively little scholarship focuses upon Euthymios Malakes, metropolitan of Neopatras during the later twelfth century. Using his extant works and contemporary sources, this article reconstructs elements of Malakes’ career in both Constantinople and Hellas. He was active in each, balancing his intellectual credentials, participation in synods, and elite connections to the capital, with immersion in more local contests. This combination allowed him to expand his pursuits and reputation beyond his minor see, in the capital and also in the province of his see.

This article considers the variation in the metres of the ‘ὥσπερ ξένοι’ epigrams, collected in the Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams (DBBE). In its canonical form, these epigrams follow a dodecasyllabic metrical pattern. The seemingly unmetrical decasyllabic and decatetrasyllabic variants are explained from a cognitive-linguistic perspective as the pairing of different cola – 5+5 and 7+7 instead of the usual 7+5 or 5+7. From this perspective, cola can be equated with the cognitive ‘idea’ or ‘intonation units’ (IUs) used in ordinary speech.

This article discusses a neglected aspect of Greek ecclesiastical material culture: the wide use of Ottoman textiles after the conquest of Constantinople. My discussion will touch upon Greek archival sources before analysing three different types of textiles: aniconic silks and velvets; Ottoman figural production for the Christian market; and embroidery of the Byzantine tradition featuring Ottoman motifs. These categories represent three different points of contact between Ottoman aesthetic and Greek ecclesiastical material culture. If the use of aniconic textiles expresses the employment of court aesthetic, then the figural silks represent the weaving industry's response to a Christian demand for such products. Finally, the Byzantine-tradition embroideries discussed constitute evidence of artistic confluence.

Merchant diasporas have long attracted the attention of scholars through the narrow prisms of ‘nations’ and states. The history of Amsterdam's Greek Orthodox merchants, together with the other cases—who left the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth century and established a seemingly controversial range of networks involving the Dutch, Russian, Ottoman and Greek states there—is an oft-quoted example. This article draws attention to some of the problematic aspects of these perceptions of the relations between states and diaspora merchants. The main tenet of the article is that nation- and state-centred perspectives are limited in explaining the full scope of flexibility and pragmatism displayed by the diaspora merchants.

Before World War II, tobacco was the most important Greek export, but just days after the German invasion in April 1941, the occupation authorities rushed to seize the tobacco production. While this article will document the seizure, most importantly, it will take a deeper look at how Greek tobacco producers and traders sought compensation for losses incurred as the result of the confiscation of their tobacco. It will also present how the German and the Greek postwar authorities handled these claims, taking into consideration Greek and German archival sources, which have hitherto been relatively neglected.

After an introduction considering the reception of Aristophanic comedy and the significance of shadow theatre in modern Greek culture, this article explores the possibilities of adapting Aristophanes’ plays to the latter art form. Using Evgenios Spatharis’ shadow performances of Peace (c. 1986) and Frogs (1978) as case studies, I examine the way obscenity is handled and roles are allocated. These adaptations are viewed in relation to the generic prerequisites rather than just the medium of Greek shadow theatre, which is characterized by a high level of codification.

Since the publication of our article on the tombstone of Meletios II in Muswell Hill, London, in Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 41.2 (2017), a photograph, probably taken in the 1920s and showing the tombstone in the garden of North Bank, has come to light. At that time, the tombstone was in much better condition than it now is. It had not then broken into pieces. The jagged edge at the bottom of the tombstone may be an indication that it is not complete.