Power and People: Collective Agency in Byzantium

How did people climb the social ladder in the Byzantine empire? Did Byzantium have guilds? What did horse-racing fan clubs in the hippodrome have in common with other social organizations? What causes and what religious and civic motivations united urban dwellers?For too long, Byzantium has been seen as an atomized society dominated by the imperial court in Constantinople. Power and People breaks new ground in highlighting the existence of vertical connections articulated through collective agency. Focusing on "middling" people—urban professionals, prosperous householders and farmers, and monastics—living in Constantinople, Thessaloniki, and elsewhere, these eight contributions present new materials and fresh approaches to the strategies of collective self-empowerment.