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    Forging Venezianita: Venice the Byzantine Naval Base
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Jun 2
    • 7 min

    Forging Venezianita: Venice the Byzantine Naval Base

    SLAVIC BRAKES (3.1) The first half of the ninth century saw Croats and other polities emerge. A group named Narentines were particularly...
    186 views0 comments
    Forging Venezianita: The Birth of Venice
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • May 19
    • 17 min

    Forging Venezianita: The Birth of Venice

    REMILITARISATION OF ITALY (2.1) Italian society had not contributed large amounts of manpower to the Roman military since the mid-third...
    491 views0 comments
    Forging Venezianita: La Serenissima’s Tortured Relationship with its Byzantine DNA
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Apr 28
    • 10 min

    Forging Venezianita: La Serenissima’s Tortured Relationship with its Byzantine DNA

    St Theodore’s Column, Venice, Sydney Vacher (1919) AIM: This paper is split into four parts and seeks to address the source scarcity that...
    988 views0 comments
    Exploring Gender and Paganism within Christianity's DNA
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Feb 17
    • 5 min

    Exploring Gender and Paganism within Christianity's DNA

    During the Reformation Protestants accused Catholics of harbouring ideas that were less Christian than Greco-Roman i.e. pagan. It was a...
    532 views0 comments
    A Deadly Dance: The Papacy, Anglos, Britons & Irish
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Feb 3
    • 11 min

    A Deadly Dance: The Papacy, Anglos, Britons & Irish

    “To go to Rome Is much trouble and little profit. The King whom you seek there Unless you take Him with you, you will not find.” – An...
    300 views0 comments
    Eternity’s Eye: A Chronology of Rome’s Earliest Surviving Christian Mosaics (400–850)
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Jan 14
    • 15 min

    Eternity’s Eye: A Chronology of Rome’s Earliest Surviving Christian Mosaics (400–850)

    I spent 2021’s Indian Summer (Sept–Oct) in Rome documenting the city’s Byzantine churches. My appetite had been whetted by days 5–7 of...
    598 views0 comments
    The Long March of Latin Alienation from the Empire
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Jan 1
    • 15 min

    The Long March of Latin Alienation from the Empire

    You ought to know that the pontiffs of Rome preside in that city in order to maintain peace like a common wall occupying the middle...
    1,606 views0 comments
    What hath Jerusalem to do with Milan?
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Dec 23, 2021
    • 11 min

    What hath Jerusalem to do with Milan?

    [Fashion] represents a long… legitimate hope to actualise a lost image… [which] retains… an unquiet fascination with an allusive glory...
    804 views0 comments
    Float like a Stylite, Sting like an Imperial Decree: Byzantine Monasteries in Rome
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Dec 16, 2021
    • 3 min

    Float like a Stylite, Sting like an Imperial Decree: Byzantine Monasteries in Rome

    Profile of Rome As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, pastoral care in early Christian Rome was looked after by the tituli. These numbered twenty...
    185 views0 comments
    Did Regional Theology Trump Imperial Loyalty? An Egyptian Case-Study
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Dec 9, 2021
    • 3 min

    Did Regional Theology Trump Imperial Loyalty? An Egyptian Case-Study

    Egypt mattered. Though no emperor since Diocletian had travelled to the country, its tax revenues accounted for roughly a third of the...
    513 views0 comments
    Regionalism in Byzantium & Early Islam
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Dec 2, 2021
    • 4 min

    Regionalism in Byzantium & Early Islam

    Historically, the scholarly literature on the Rhomaioi has either melted sub-identities in a vast Orthodox soup, or fractured the empire...
    765 views0 comments
    Cartographers of the Mind: Byzantine Views on Nature
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Oct 22, 2021
    • 7 min

    Cartographers of the Mind: Byzantine Views on Nature

    Byzantines, on the one hand, celebrated nature as a reflection of God’s glory. On the other, they considered it fleeting, corruptible and...
    502 views0 comments
    Flagship of Romanitas: Constantinopolitan Statuary
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Sep 23, 2021
    • 11 min

    Flagship of Romanitas: Constantinopolitan Statuary

    “Thus, for this and many other reasons, one sees just how low sculpture and with it the other arts had fallen by the time of Constantine....
    484 views0 comments
    Anthemius: the Betrayed Byzantine Saviour of the West
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Sep 16, 2021
    • 5 min

    Anthemius: the Betrayed Byzantine Saviour of the West

    When all seemed lost; when the chasm between the elder Rome and the new seemed unbridgeable; when the extent to which the Germanics had...
    576 views0 comments
    The Invention of Roma Christiania: How the Early Papacy Policed Art & Faith
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Sep 9, 2021
    • 12 min

    The Invention of Roma Christiania: How the Early Papacy Policed Art & Faith

    “Hi sunt olivae duae coram Domino Et candelabra luce radiantia Praeclara caeli duo luminaria Fortia solvent peccatorum vincula Portas...
    436 views0 comments
    Imitatio Theclae: Exploring Gender in Thecla's World
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Aug 12, 2021
    • 10 min

    Imitatio Theclae: Exploring Gender in Thecla's World

    A disciple and colleague of the apostle Paul, Thecla was the most celebrated female saint of late antiquity. Recognised for her...
    510 views0 comments
    The Sky Cannot Brook Two Suns:
 Frankish Impressions of Constantinople
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Jul 29, 2021
    • 10 min

    The Sky Cannot Brook Two Suns:
 Frankish Impressions of Constantinople

    “Ce nos ont nostre livre apris Que Grece ot de chevalerie La premier los et de clergie, Puis vint chevalerie a Rome Et de la clergie la...
    552 views0 comments
    Anti-Byzantine Rhetoric in the Renaissance
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Jul 15, 2021
    • 5 min

    Anti-Byzantine Rhetoric in the Renaissance

    I’ve resisted writing up the exchange below because it features heavily in a book I’ve scribbled, half of which is dedicated to the theme...
    602 views0 comments
    Londonium: a Reappraisal
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Jul 8, 2021
    • 6 min

    Londonium: a Reappraisal

    No archaeology has substantiated the medieval tradition of London (AKA “New Troy”) being founded by Brutus in 1108 BC, or its later...
    497 views0 comments
    Fashioning Romanitas on the Bosphorus
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Jun 10, 2021
    • 10 min

    Fashioning Romanitas on the Bosphorus

    ‘You must dress well to gain admiration from your subjects.’ Patriarch Photios to Boris of Bulgaria Contemporary remnants of ‘Byzantine’...
    445 views0 comments
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