Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Professor Leslie Brubaker
Edited by Ian Wood
SeriesStudies in Early Medieval History
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:160
Dimensions(mm): Height 234,Width 156
ISBN/Barcode 9781853997501
ClassificationsDewey:246.5309021
Audience
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Illustrations 25 black and white illustrations

Publishing Details

Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint Bristol Classical Press
Publication Date 22 September 2011
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

Byzantine `iconoclasm' is famous and has influenced iconoclast movements from the English Reformation and French Revolution to Taliban, but it has also been woefully misunderstood: this book shows how and why the debate about images was more complicated, and more interesting, than it has been presented in the past. It explores how icons came to be so important, who opposed them, and how the debate about images played itself out over the years between c. 680 and 850. Many widely accepted assumptions about `iconoclasm' - that it was an imperial initiative that resulted in widespread destruction of images, that the major promoters of icon veneration were monks, and that the era was one of cultural stagnation - are shown to be incorrect. Instead, the years of the image debates saw technological advances and intellectual shifts that, coupled with a growing economy, concluded with the emergence of medieval Byzantium as a strong and stable empire.

Author Biography

Leslie Brubaker is Professor of Byzantine Art and Director of the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK. She is the author of Vision and Meaning in Ninth-century Byzantium (1999), co-editor of Gender and the Transformation of the Roman World, 300-900 (2003) and Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era c. 680-850: a history (2011).