Robin Pierson
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Episode 338 – Get Rid of Byzantium with Leonora Neville
🕑 Added 2026-01-27 18:43:16 +0000 UTCProfessor Leonora Neville joins us to make the case for getting rid of the term Byzantium for good. She wants to replace it with a different term and a different understanding of Roman history.
Professor Neville is the John W and Jeanne M Rowe Chair of Byzantine History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She specialises in the 9-12th centuries of the Empire’s history. And her research has focussed on gender, civic religion, and religious aspects of political culture as well as historical memory and historiography.
She has written several excellent books which have been vital to this podcast. Her guide to Byzantine historians is essential reading for students. Her book on Byzantine gender helped direct my episodes on ‘Women in the Roman world’ and her book on provincial authority was extremely helpful in understanding Kekaumenos. She is also a Senior fellow at Dumbarton Oaks and an editor of several book series. Find out more at the University of Madison-Wisconsin website.
Comments
Jason Ackerman
I think if and when Robin does the Western Empire he should call the podcast The History of the Long Roman Empire
Robin Pierson
But it's worth pointing out that the move away from Rome begins as early as Hadrian. And is no longer the practical capital by 230 AD. That's a century before Constantinople is founded. So the concept of what being Roman meant obviously changed over time. But it wasn't Byzantium that made that the case.
Mark Simms
Agree with the thrust of the speaker's thinking but can't help feeling that when the Rome was no longer the "capital" the Roman Empire became slightly less Roman and the same when no-one spoke Latin and, I hate to say it, but a little bit when no-one looked as Italian as they used to. This is just the nature of concepts. The more you move away from canonical examples the weaker or more fragile the concept gets. But for me Constantinople was always part of the Roman Empire. I still want to say the Roman Empire later to the 15th century but I have a little unease in the back of my mind
Mladen
A wonderful episode. I would only add that the diminution of the Eastern Romans has been a conscious effort of the western Catholic Church for over a thousand years. I am always perplexed how scholars have ignored this fact. How else can western culture and its later version of Christianity be superior?
Diarmuid Angland
Love her work. This was a real tour de force episode!
