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    Stabbed in the Front: How Romans Facilitated Their Own Colonisation
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Jan 12, 2020
    • 3 min

    Stabbed in the Front: How Romans Facilitated Their Own Colonisation

    In the fifth century, several barbarian peoples were accorded settlements on the provincial soil of the empire. The details are worth inv...
    325 views0 comments
    Carolingian Learning
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Jan 9, 2020
    • 7 min

    Carolingian Learning

    In the course of my own book, which touches on the fusion of Byzantine and Latin learning in the fifteenth century, I found myself attemp...
    437 views0 comments
    An Interview with Professor M. Whitby
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Dec 13, 2019
    • 6 min

    An Interview with Professor M. Whitby

    I first encountered Michael Whitby through his translation of the Pascal Chronicle (1989); a text marking such a sea-change in Roman hist...
    151 views0 comments
    The Ultimate LARP: How Germanics Mimicked Their Way Into Forging The West
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Dec 6, 2019
    • 6 min

    The Ultimate LARP: How Germanics Mimicked Their Way Into Forging The West

    The post-Roman states languish in an electric day-dream. Martial and ephemeral, they’re conventionally presented as biblical scourges i.e...
    252 views0 comments
    Mystras: Kosmikos & Apokosmos
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Nov 22, 2019
    • 4 min

    Mystras: Kosmikos & Apokosmos

    “William found a remarkable hill, a fragment of a mountain” and “called it Myzithras because they shouted it thus, and he made it into a ...
    429 views0 comments
    The Fourth Crusade Blame Game: The Betrayal of Byzantium
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Nov 14, 2019
    • 4 min

    The Fourth Crusade Blame Game: The Betrayal of Byzantium

    Launched by Pope Innocent III in August 1198 with the aim of taking Jerusalem from the Ayyubids, the fourth crusade’s blueprint had a Ven...
    251 views0 comments
    Linguistic Gatekeepers: How Byzantium dominated the diplomatic language game
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Nov 7, 2019
    • 5 min

    Linguistic Gatekeepers: How Byzantium dominated the diplomatic language game

    One of the most confusing aspects to potential catechumens of Byzantium’s ideology is its ethnography. Unless well-versed in it, the Byz ...
    398 views0 comments
    Did Byzantium kill Athens? The closure of the Academy
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Nov 2, 2019
    • 5 min

    Did Byzantium kill Athens? The closure of the Academy

    Two major elements in the anti-Christian prism through which the jaded West has historically viewed late antiquity (mentioned in the arti...
    564 views0 comments
    Draconian Dreams: Julian the Apostate and the Pagan Police-State
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Oct 24, 2019
    • 7 min

    Draconian Dreams: Julian the Apostate and the Pagan Police-State

    It’s easy to line Catherine Nixey between the crosshairs. Almost as undemanding, perhaps, as it was it was for her to portray the ascende...
    768 views0 comments
    An Epilogue: Byzantine Spain & Africa
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Oct 18, 2019
    • 4 min

    An Epilogue: Byzantine Spain & Africa

    The Byzantine chapter on Africa (and to a lesser extent, Spain) tends to be a short one. It starts with a whiff of betrayal from men like...
    329 views0 comments
    How Byzantium Duped the West into Thinking It Had Fallen
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Oct 10, 2019
    • 8 min

    How Byzantium Duped the West into Thinking It Had Fallen

    Answering why societies rise and fall is often what brings enquiring minds to study history. And, in the West, the most totemic society o...
    1,327 views0 comments
    Unlikely Companions:
Anglo-Byzantine Relations 500-1500
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Oct 3, 2019
    • 14 min

    Unlikely Companions: Anglo-Byzantine Relations 500-1500

    While it would hysterical to claim Byzantine links to the English were ever stable, considering the fact Lundenwic and Constantinople sto...
    1,210 views0 comments
    Byzantine Treasures in Britain: Late Byzantium
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Sep 26, 2019
    • 5 min

    Byzantine Treasures in Britain: Late Byzantium

    In 1440, Canon Fursy de Bruille arrived in Cambrai with an icon of the Virgin & Child he had received in Rome. Purchased in the belief it...
    213 views0 comments
    Byzantine Treasures in Britain: The Middle Period
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Sep 23, 2019
    • 6 min

    Byzantine Treasures in Britain: The Middle Period

    The road from the achievements of Justinian (527-565) to the drastic actions of Leo III (717-41) was a remarkably short one. Threats came...
    147 views0 comments
    Byzantine Treasures in Britain: Early Byzantium
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Sep 19, 2019
    • 4 min

    Byzantine Treasures in Britain: Early Byzantium

    In 1860 the chairman of the Select Committee on the British Museum, questioning Sir Anthony Panizzi, the museum’s principal librarian, pr...
    303 views0 comments
    Low Life: Culinary Adventures in Constantinople by Nigel Hillpaul
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Sep 12, 2019
    • 4 min

    Low Life: Culinary Adventures in Constantinople by Nigel Hillpaul

    Breakfast around the Middle East is usually a washout. Two places I’ve enjoyed it have been the Hotel Baron in Aleppo and over the border...
    102 views0 comments
    High Life: Eating out in Constantinople
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Aug 29, 2019
    • 4 min

    High Life: Eating out in Constantinople

    Despite Turks being associated with kebab culture in Europe – and much of the world thanks to the antics of Salt Bae (AKA Nusret Gokce) o...
    677 views0 comments
    Ethnic minorities in Byzantium Part 3
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Jun 20, 2019
    • 6 min

    Ethnic minorities in Byzantium Part 3

    Jews Byzantine relations with the Jews have always been complex, not least because the former effectively stole the latter’s ideological ...
    478 views0 comments
    Ethnic Minorities in Byzantium Part 2
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Jun 14, 2019
    • 5 min

    Ethnic Minorities in Byzantium Part 2

    Bogomils Gnostics to the bone, the Bogomils seem to have snowballed in their Macedonian-Bulgarian heartland after John I transferred anot...
    394 views0 comments
    Ethnic Minorities in Byzantium Part 1
    Henry Hopwood-Phillips
    • Jun 7, 2019
    • 5 min

    Ethnic Minorities in Byzantium Part 1

    “One finds me Scythian among Scythians, Latin among    Latins… And also to Persians I speak in Persian… To Alans I say in their tongue: ‘...
    964 views0 comments
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