Making Byzantium Great Again
Madeleine, of the Empress of Byzantium | Interview | July 2025
Dear History Writers,
It is an absolute privilege to share with you this interview with
, host of the excellent Substack newsletter ‘Empress of Byzantium’. Madeleine is currently studying for her PhD and has recently launched an introductory series of essays on Substack for those looking to understand the basics about Byzantine history.She very kindly agreed to answer a few questions for us, a combination of my own and some asked by subscribers in a recent chat thread. (Do join us if you’re not there already! The link is at the end of this email) It’s a long one, so I’d advise getting hold of a big cup of coffee (or whatever else takes your fancy!) before settling down to enjoy Madeleine’s wealth of knowledge.
All the best as always,
Holly
Editor, The Society of History Writers
Madeleine thank you so much for agreeing to talk to us at the Society of History Writers! I have a few questions of my own, and then there are a few from subscribers too.
To kick us off, could you briefly introduce yourself - who you are, what you do, where your interest in history started…
Hi! I’m Madeleine! I run the Empress of Byzantium Substack. When I’m not writing here, I can be found doing my actual DPhil (PhD) work. I’m currently researching women, the rural countryside, nature, visual and material culture, and papyri in the Late Antique (c.250-600 AD) Mediterranean.
I’ve been interested in History for a lot of my life. Probably like a lot of kids of my generation, I got a real kick out of reading about the Greco-Roman myths in the Percy Jackson series when I was 9 or 10, and that spiralled into a love of History more broadly. When I was at school, I really liked the imaginative and story-telling aspects of History, and the fact that I got to argue quite aggressively in essays. Although I maintain a strong interest in the classical Greco-Roman world, I chose to do History over Classics at uni because I felt that it offered me more flexibility to explore my very wide range of interests – probably proven by the fact that I was convinced in my first year of university that I wanted to study ‘Modern’ history (specifically the Haitian and French revolutions), and then wound up specialising in 4th-7th century Late Antiquity/Byzantium!
You are passionate about Byzantine studies, which forms the main content for your Substack newsletter. What do you think is most misunderstood about Byzantium?
To start with, Byzantium (or rather, Late Antiquity & Byzantium), isn’t a period of history that’s particularly accessible. It’s quite an insular academic discipline, and so when it does emerge into the wider consciousness, there can be room for misunderstanding just because a lot of people have never actually heard about what Byzantium was (or, if it was even real!). Perhaps what is least understood is that Byzantium was a continuation of the Roman Empire – albeit in a rather morphed form. It was a culture that self-consciously perceived of itself as the ‘inheritor’ of Rome, and thus trying to separate out ‘Byzantine’ history from ‘Roman’ history is actually contrary to developing a deep understanding of ‘Byzantine’ society, politics, and culture. Talking about ‘Byzantium’ is a modern construction, but it is a categorisation that has stuck, and which has some utility when we’re thinking about introducing the period to general audiences.
In my own research on 5th-7th-century England, I come across a lot of Byzantine objects in high-status graves, particularly metal bowls. These were, presumably, diplomatic gifts between rulers, but could also have been the result of trade across north-western Europe. How connected was Byzantium to far-flung parts of the former western empire like Britain?
This is such a good question! You’re right in saying that gift-giving as a diplomatic tool was a major means through which Byzantium interacted with these more ‘far-flung’ regions. Byzantines – especially elite Byzantines, or those who travelled as traders – would likely have heard a decent amount about these territories. Trade and exchange, through both political and economic systems, were undoubtedly the chief means through which Byzantium was connected to regions like Britain.
There would have been moments of direct contact, certainly, most likely in the exchange of slaves, but for most of its history Byzantium was more concerned with having direct contact with the other entities in its immediate periphery. A major example of when these further afield regions came into the sphere of immediate geographical contact, and thus became of much greater interest, was of course in the Crusading period.
Recently, however, Dr. Helen Gittos has produced a compelling argument that British soldiers fought in 6th-century Byzantine campaigns against the Sassanians in Persia and Armenia! She explains that the famous Sutton Hoo burial treasure is partially made up of rare artefacts that could only have been acquired by these British soldiers travelling eastwards, and taking them personally back to Britain. With more and more academics starting to research the Mediterranean/Europe & the contact networks within them, as well as more scholarly interest in Byzantium outside of the discipline, we may well see more of this!
If you could go back to any time and place during the time of the Byzantine Empire (with the protections of modern sanitation, healthcare, and so on!), where would you go and why?
Definitely sometime from 527-565 AD in Constantinople – the reign of Justinian and Theodora (well, until her death in 548 AD). This was, in my mind, the apogee of the Byzantine Empire. Justinian and Theodora oversaw the construction of great works of art and architecture, like the Hagia Sophia, the consolidation of Roman Law, fairly successful attempts at reclaiming lost former Roman territories in North Africa and Italy, and much more. I’d love to just be in Constantinople seeing everything going on and listening to the gossip circulating. I’d also try to meet Procopius, writer of the infamous Secret History, in which he totally slated Justinian and Theodora, to try and see if he actually meant what he wrote.
Ok, over to subscriber questions…
asked: ‘My question is about how foreign policy was conducted during the different periods of the empire - specifically how that shifted after the rise of the Caliphates, when I imagine they were negotiating from a position of strength far less often…
This is a fascinating question, and one which I won’t be able to answer in as much detail as it probably deserves!
The key thing to understand about Byzantine foreign policy at all stages of the empire’s history was that it was inherently pretty adaptable and flexible. The Byzantines were as willing to be realists and pragmatists, negotiating for peace and/or capitulating when needed, as they were to carry out total warfare and demand complete obeisance from client states or enemies. The Byzantine attitude towards non-Byzantines was very similar to the Romans’: they believed in their superiority and pride in their identity was particularly important to them. This is always reflected in the rhetoric that they use to discuss their various engagement with foreign powers and peoples.
A major change heralded by the rise of the Caliphates specifically was that the Byzantines lost a really useful geopolitical ally/client. The pre-Islamic Arabic tribes, specifically the Ghassnids, were an important part of Byzantine geostrategy, as well as trade. Their alliance with the Christian Ghassnids allowed them to exert power in the Arabian peninsula without having to have an explicit military presence there, useful in a region that bordered their wealthy Levantine territories (and which wasn’t too far from jewel-in-the-crown Egypt), but which was also a site of Byzantine and Sassanian Persian proxy warfare.
The loss of this semi-soft management of the Arabian peninsula not only facilitated the conquest of the Eastern provinces, but meant that the way that Byzantium engaged with the Arabian Peninsula and surrounding territories, especially vis-a-vis trade, took on a new dimension. In some ways, though, the organised Arab polities came to fill the void that had been left by the Sassanian Persians. As such, engagement between the two empires (especially in later periods) often followed in the footsteps of the Byzantine-Persian relationship.
The other crucial thing that the Byzantines had to contend with was the existence of a new, persuasive, powerful monotheistic religion surrounding their shrunken territories. There does actually seem to have been a lot of mutual respect at various points between the Byzantines and the Caliphates, once the conquests had ceased and the two empires found a version of equilibrium (albeit you are correct in noting that, for a while, Byzantium was negotiating from a position of strength).
If you’d like to get a more technical and well-rounded answer, as well as explore other periods, there are a couple of texts I’d recommend. For context about the Romano-Persian war which ultimately facilitated the rise of the Caliphates, try James Howard-Johnston’s The Last Great War of Antiquity. In The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies (ed. Robin Cormack) there may be some useful chapters, again James Howard-Johnston’s particularly. Garth Fowden’s work exploring the connection of the Caliphates and Islam to the cultural and thought worlds of Late Antiquity may also be of some use to you here. If you happen to have institutional library access then feel free to drop me a message, as I can provide you with a more technical reading list.
asked: ‘A “technical” question sparked by my recent reading of the Steven Runciman biography that came out a few years ago. What are the basic sources used to write about Byzantium? I write this as someone intrigued by the ways historians might try to integrate written, statistical, and anthropological sources in their work.’
There is a really wide and exciting range of sources that historians can use when we’re studying Byzantium. In a certain sense, Byzantinists are actually somewhat lucky, because this was an empire that, throughout its thousand-year history, maintained a strong literary culture and interest in documentary practices. A lot of the time, in the first instance, this gives us the opportunity to utilise the written testimony of contemporary agents to begin writing our histories. Obviously, this has inherent issues of elite bias, but it’s a very useful jumping off point, especially when these sources are read carefully and/or against the grain.
With the written sources, Byzantinsts are able to integrate them both in a more traditionally historical sense; that is, using them as records of actual historical events. But training in Byzantine studies also encompasses training in linguistics, philosophy, theology and usually ancillary disciplines like epigraphy and paleography, which often makes our analysis of written sources pretty multi-dimensional.
In the case of a theological treatise, for example, it may be used to discuss how a particular religious movement or ideology operated within its historical context, or to identify cause and effect patterns in relation to its adoption, spread, or persecution. At the same time, a Byzantinist may well use that same text to comment on its theological elements and principles, and this commentary becomes highly significant to understanding the way that the text is both an historic artefact and a piece of theological thought. I think this allows us to get a little closer to the concerns of contemporary authors and audiences.
This is probably equally quite an anthropological approach, because it treats the study of Byzantium as a layered endeavour, understanding a culture and society with all of its various thought-paradigms, contemporary contexts, philosophical interests, and political frameworks, etc. So it’s probably less that Byzantinists employ specifically ‘anthropological’ sources, and more that the sources are often approached in quite an anthropological way. I hope that makes sense?!
Regarding statistical sources, I’m not especially well-versed on their implementation. I tend to shy away from data-forward approaches to history, chiefly because I’m absolutely hopeless with numbers. The key area I can think of is the integration of paleoclimactic data with assessments of Byzantine history, both purely environmental as well as social and political. John Haldon’s work is increasingly focused on this, particularly utilising the statistical environmental data to assess the resiliency of Byzantine society in response to climactic stresses or disasters.
asked: ‘I implore your wise counsel for my upcoming time travel trip back to 10th-century Constantinople next month. 1. Can my broken North American Latin be of use in the city in this period, or should I adopt my Turkish friend’s accent? 2. How should I plan my itinerary as a researcher? I’ve only got Hagia Sofia on my bucket list so far. 3. Were the chariot races still around, and can foreigners take a bet?’
Welcome to 10th-century Constantinople! Unfortunately, Latin won’t be of too much use to you – Constantinople is very much a Greek-speaking city at this time! And you’re free to use whatever accent you wish, but it may be confusing for 10th-century Byzantines to hear a Turkish accent, as they haven’t yet had contact with Turkic peoples.
No need to plan your itinerary too intensely, as you may well be able to find a guidebook! If you’re arriving late in the 10th century, you could try to source an early copy of the Patria of Constantinople, a compilation of tales about Constantinople from across the city’s history, featuring important sites to visit. If you’re planning to arrive earlier, then don’t worry! People have been writing about Constantinople since its foundation – you should be able to locate a guidebook and a map.
And finally, yes, definitely head down to the Hippodrome. Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (r. 913-959 AD) has been engaging in a programme of civic regeneration up on the First Hill of the city (where the Hippodrome is located) and has even put up a new column in the spina (the central section of the Hippodrome), made from an ancient Egyptian obelisk. Regarding bets, though, I cannot claim to have any insight into such unpious behaviour… so I suppose you’ll have to find that out for yourself…
asked: ‘Did wages exist in the Byzantine period? Who paid them? How did they pay them? Were wages reliable?’
Sort of! Wages, in the sense of cash or other payments being provided in exchange for services, definitely existed. But the concept of waged work, as we would think of it today, was much less formalised and institutionalised.
Perhaps the most important and consistent kind of waged work in Byzantium was military service. Until the 7th century, soldiers were paid a salary for their service, which was partly made up of the annona, or the grain ration, which was a major economic and political feature of the Roman and Byzantine states. The annona was comprised of grain that was extracted from the agricultural workforce as part of their tax obligation, often channelled through the large or imperial estates. In the later period, provisioning was still part of this military wage, but it was not as systematic as the annona had been — but soldiers were definitely paid wages for their services.
Regarding reliability, this is context dependent. There are a few labour and wage contracts for various kinds of works, found in papyri corpuses dating from the 3rd-5th centuries, which testify to the perceived-importance in certain cases of establishing a formal route for ensuring the payment of wages. One particular example might be in the case of employing an apprentice, especially where that apprentice was enslaved. This would lay out the conditions of the apprentices’ employ, how much they were to earn over the course of their training, usually per annum, and on occasion stipulate that, if they were enslaved, this was to be paid back to their master.
There are also very rare examples of wet-nursing contracts. I think at this point we’ve only uncovered ten of them, and they’re from the Ptolemaic through to the Late Byzantine period in Egypt, so they’re a hard evidence base to use. These contracts will stipulate that the wet-nurse is to raise a child, for a wage paid usually in cash and in kind, for a set period of time (most commonly 2 years), and that this payment is to be reliably delivered by the employer, sometimes each month or sometimes each year.
We also have the evidence from Diocletian and the Tetrarch’s 301 AD ‘Maximum Prices Edict,’ which seeks to cap prices for goods and services. This legislation attempted to regulate the maximum price that could be paid as a daily wage for workers in all kinds of professions, from teachers, notaries, and scribes to laundresses, builders, and armourers. So although this isn’t precisely evidence of a fixed-wage system, it does indicate that people were receiving money from providing services and this when combined with the papyrological evidence, we can posit that there might have been instances where this actually was, or evolved into, longer-term, contracted, waged, work.
In the 10th century, the fabulous ‘Book of the Eparch’ was published, which doesn’t speak to wages explicitly, but it does regulate the practices of professional guilds within the city of Constantinople. I believe given the context of its publication, talking about the market environments of Constantinople, and the existence of some form of guild-like system (there is obviously a lot of historiographical debate about whether ‘guild’ is the right framework or translation to think about these organisations with), we can presume that there was some mechanism for waged work that existed at this point. That is my interpretation of the evidence, at least.
I hope this has provided something of an answer to this excellent question — dealing with an empire that lasted for such a long time means that, of course, economic and labour practices also change over time!
asked: ‘I’m always fascinated by the behind-the-scenes work that goes into thoughtful writing. With that in mind, could you walk us through your typical process - from the initial spark or research question to a finished, polished draft?’
What a lovely question! I may be offering a slightly less lovely answer, but I have to confess that I am one of those writers who is referred to (hopefully affectionately) as a ‘pantser’. That is to say, I don’t really plan things out in advance, but sort of muddle my way through once an idea has struck. I sometimes have a rough outline of what I’m going to write, or a timeline of things I know I need to do within a particular piece, but I would consider that to be a very, almost overly, organised piece.
In order for inspiration to strike I usually need to be in active movement, walking, running, or in the gym, or I need to simply begin writing and keep writing until the actual thing I want to say emerges from the chaos. Then, usually when I have an idea that I’m really taken with, I’ve got to see it through, even if it means abandoning all other plans, rushing home, and writing for hours on end. I’m also someone who edits as they go. It’s quite rare for me to write a whole ‘first draft’ and then return to it at some later stage to refine it. This has advantages (it is fast and I don’t get bored/distracted) and disadvantages (I don’t edit that carefully). It’s immensely flattering to hear my writing called thoughtful and polished, though, so thank you. I hope this peek into my somewhat chaotic process hasn’t put people off reading my work too much!
Thank you so much Madeleine! Where can readers find you, on and off Substack, and are there any particular Substack posts that you’ve written that you’d like to draw their attention to?
I’m on Bluesky and Instagram as @empressofbyzantium, and then I’d just love people to check out Byzantium for Beginners! Which is receiving a long overdue update soon… and if there are any further questions or things people would particularly like me to explore in-depth I can integrate these into Byzantium for Beginners or even think about dedicated posts!
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Great interview! Definitely going for a copy of Last Great War of Antiquity.
Wet nursing contracts are such a pragmatic approach. I hadn't considered domestic labor, particularly childcare, being transactional during this period. Fascinating! Thank you both!