Henry Hopwood-Phillips
A Letter From the Lord: the Road from Abgar to Magic
The New Testament is about Christ and the consequences of his life. Yet it contains no words written directly by the Messiah. This...
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Henry Hopwood-Phillips
- Dec 24, 2020
- 5 min
Muslims on Medieval Europe
Talking of Europe to a European would have been irrelevant for much of Western history. Not because the occidental peoples didn’t have...
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Henry Hopwood-Phillips
- Dec 24, 2020
- 2 min
Eat Like a Byzantine
Proverbial wisdom has it that the fastest way to a man’s heart is via his stomach. Though bumptious sorts like to add it’s really through...
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Henry Hopwood-Phillips
- Dec 10, 2020
- 3 min
Muslims in Constantinople before 1453
“O Hagia Sophia that great temple! O the wonders and antiquities in the Hippodrome!... Constantinople is greater even than its name! May...
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Henry Hopwood-Phillips
- Dec 3, 2020
- 5 min
A History of Circumcising Women: FGM in Egypt
Roland Betancourt’s recent book Byzantine Intersectionality (2020), which I negatively reviewed here, contained the claim that the...
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Henry Hopwood-Phillips
- Nov 28, 2020
- 4 min
The Fate of Byzantine Churches Under Early Islam
In the aftermath of the Arab conquest dozens of treaties safeguarded non-Islamic places of worship. These protections rarely forbade the...
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Henry Hopwood-Phillips
- Nov 19, 2020
- 6 min
Unlikely Beginnings: How St James became Spain’s Patron Saint
Outside Rome the West lacked the relics of important apostles. This was rectified in Venice by the theft of St Mark the Evangelist from...
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Henry Hopwood-Phillips
- Nov 12, 2020
- 4 min
Cultural Heavyweight: Iranianness Après le Déluge
Textbooks typically note that Arab armies conquered Iran 637-651. And though the civilisation didn’t melt instantly into the Arab...
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Henry Hopwood-Phillips
- Oct 22, 2020
- 5 min
The Refugees of the Medieval Roman Empire:Displacement in the East
In the tumult of war or imperial strategy hundreds of thousands of people were moved around the map by Constantinople in a game of...
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Henry Hopwood-Phillips
- Oct 16, 2020
- 10 min
Before the Storm: The Status of Images in Christianity Before Iconoclasm
There are a number of iconoclastic tendencies within Christianity, most obviously the Old Testament Decalogue, which prohibited the...
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Henry Hopwood-Phillips
- Oct 8, 2020
- 7 min
The Trisagion Riots: Sanctified Violence
If challenged, most Byzantinists will have at least a couple of popular riots on the tip of their tongues. Nika (532) remains preeminent...
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Henry Hopwood-Phillips
- Sep 3, 2020
- 5 min
The Attritional War: Paganism's Slow Demise
“If any unholy and defiled pagan does not make himself manifest… and run to the churches with his household… let him submit to the...
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Henry Hopwood-Phillips
- Aug 27, 2020
- 5 min
The Roman Contribution to the Doughnut
Venetian fritoler with portable fryer c. 1900. Sweetness has always been prized. Cave paintings near Valencia dated to around 8000 BC...
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Henry Hopwood-Phillips
- Aug 20, 2020
- 6 min
Heaven's Court Crumbles: the Byzantine Frescos of Luxor
East wall, detail Once you’ve been immersed in Byzantium for long enough it’s easy to grow weary of the reel of churches, fortifications...
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Henry Hopwood-Phillips
- Aug 7, 2020
- 4 min
1955: the Second Fall of Constantinople
Hagia Sophia’s conversion into a mosque this year was part of a pattern in which the Turkish state views its legitimacy as threatened by...
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Henry Hopwood-Phillips
- Jul 30, 2020
- 9 min
The Fall of Verulamium & Ascent of St Alban
“[Abbot Ulsinus] loved the district and people of St Albans and looked after their interests. He brought the people from the surrounding...
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Henry Hopwood-Phillips
- Jul 16, 2020
- 4 min
Genesis of the Nemesis: Venice Rising
According to legend, Venice obtained its relics of St Mark from Alexandria in AD 829. Apparently the pork-barrel-smuggled saint – a...
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Henry Hopwood-Phillips
- Jul 9, 2020
- 5 min
Beauty Beneath the Feet: Cosmogonic Paving
While most gawp upwards at mosaics, frescoes or columns in Byzantine churches, the gaze is often better fixed on the cupola’s basso...
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Henry Hopwood-Phillips
- Jul 2, 2020
- 8 min
Rome in the Eighth Century: A History in Art (Review)
This is a guest post by @philocrocodile: An intriguing book that does much to bring a too often ignored period to light, John Osborne’s...
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Henry Hopwood-Phillips
- Jun 18, 2020
- 7 min
Eternity in Byzantine Art
According to the apostle Paul, after the first coming of the Messiah there would be a second: “The Lord himself shall descend from heaven...
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