In the aftermath of the Arab conquest dozens of treaties safeguarded non-Islamic places of worship. These protections rarely forbade the...

Outside Rome the West lacked the relics of important apostles. This was rectified in Venice by the theft of St Mark the Evangelist from...

Textbooks typically note that Arab armies conquered Iran 637-651. And though the civilisation didn’t melt instantly into the Arab...

In the tumult of war or imperial strategy hundreds of thousands of people were moved around the map by Constantinople in a game of...

There are a number of iconoclastic tendencies within Christianity, most obviously the Old Testament Decalogue, which prohibited the...

If challenged, most Byzantinists will have at least a couple of popular riots on the tip of their tongues. Nika (532) remains preeminent...

“If any unholy and defiled pagan does not make himself manifest… and run to the churches with his household… let him submit to the...

Venetian fritoler with portable fryer c. 1900. Sweetness has always been prized. Cave paintings near Valencia dated to around 8000 BC...

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...

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...

“[Abbot Ulsinus] loved the district and people of St Albans and looked after their interests. He brought the people from the surrounding...

According to legend, Venice obtained its relics of St Mark from Alexandria in AD 829. Apparently the pork-barrel-smuggled saint – a...

While most gawp upwards at mosaics, frescoes or columns in Byzantine churches, the gaze is often better fixed on the cupola’s basso...

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...

According to the apostle Paul, after the first coming of the Messiah there would be a second: “The Lord himself shall descend from heaven...

The Roman ingredients of Ottoman architecture (codified during Sinan’s tenure as the royal architect, 1539-88) have historically been...

Santa Maria in Domnica When a biographer described Pope Hadrian’s reign (AD 772-795), he didn’t stress the pontiff’s “Romanitas” in the...

Church of San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura Imperial confirmation of papal elections was formally requested until AD 731. At the Emperor’s behest...

View of the Ponte Nomentano by Pierre Nicolas Brisset Gregory the Great was born c. AD 540 into the Anicii family. A great-grandson of...

St. Maria Maggiore In the late fourth and early fifth century, inconspicuous house churches began to morph into large basilicas. Towards...