Kirjahaku

The classical historian J. B. Bury (1861–1927) was the author of a history of Greece (also reissued in this series) which served as a standard textbook for over a century. He also wrote on the later history of the Roman empire, and, in this 1911 work, examines the text (of which he provides an edition) of the 'Kletorologion' of Philotheos, an otherwise unknown official at the court of Byzantine Emperor Leo VI in the late ninth century. The work is a guide to precedence and court hierarchy, which at this time were of great political and social importance. Bury uses it to throw light on an administrative process in a period from which few other administrative documents have survived, but also works backwards from it to the far better recorded period of the reign of Justinian, demonstrating the likely developments of the imperial system in the intervening three centuries.

The classical historian J. B. Bury (1861–1927) was the author of a history of Greece which was a standard textbook for over a century. He also wrote on later periods, and, in this two-volume work of 1889, examines Byzantine history from 395 to 800. Arguing for the underlying continuity of the Roman empire from the time of Augustus until 1453, Bury nevertheless begins his account in the year in which, on the death of Theodosius I, the empire was divided into eastern and western parts, and Constantinople began to take on the metropolitan role formerly held by Rome. Broadly chronological, but with an extended section on the state of the empire at the end of the fourth century, Volume 1 covers the period to the deaths of Belisarius and Justinian in 565, examining the decline of paganism, the inroads of 'barbarians', and the cultural milieu of the early Byzantine empire.

The classical historian J. B. Bury (1861–1927) was the author of a history of Greece which was a standard textbook for over a century. He also wrote on later periods, and, in this two-volume work of 1889, examines Byzantine history from 395 to 800. Arguing for the underlying continuity of the Roman empire from the time of Augustus until 1453, Bury nevertheless begins his account in the year in which, on the death of Theodosius I, the empire was divided into eastern and western parts, and Constantinople began to take on the metropolitan role formerly held by Rome. Volume 2, after reviewing Justinian's legacy, takes the history down from the accession of Justin II to the death of Irene in 803. Topics examined include civil strife, including the period of iconoclasm, and the increasing problems of maintaining the imperial borders against incursions from both east and west.

The classical historian J. B. Bury (1861–1927) was the author of a history of Greece which was a standard textbook for over a century. He also wrote on the later history of the Roman empire, and, in this 1912 work, examines the Byzantine empire in the ninth century. The book is a continuation of his two-volume History of the Later Roman Empire of 1889, which covers the period from 395 to 800 (and is also reissued in this series), and reflects Bury's belief that the century-long so-called Amorian epoch 'is not a mere epilogue, and is much more than a prologue' between the better-known periods of Byzantine history that preceded and followed it. In this period, iconoclasm again became a cause of civil strife, and wars on the eastern frontier were a strain on the military resources of the empire, while at least two of the emperors were murdered.

St Patrick is perhaps the most venerated saint of the modern age, whose feast day is marked each year by massive celebrations across the world, from Dublin to New York and Sydney to Rio de Janeiro. Yet, in spite of his popularity, very little is known of his life, which is clouded by myth and uncertainty. The facts that are known - that he was born in the late fourth century in Roman Britain, was captured by Irish raiders at the age of 16 and sold into slavery, escaped six years later to Britain where he became a priest and later a bishop before returning to Ireland to proselytise - give only a vague sense of the man behind the legends. J.B. Bury's classic biography, which remains the definitive work on the saint, dispels many of the myths and paints a vivid and exacting portrait of the world around St Patrick, revealing the influences and inspirations that transformed him from a minor fifth century missionary into the patron saint of Ireland and a source of living inspiration for countless people - the Irish above all - some 1,500 years after his death.