The Byzantine city between 5th and 9th centuries: historiographical perspective

Abstract

This article aims at presenting a historiographical overview of the traditional debate on the fate of Byzantine cities during the so-called Dark Ages. This debate has always begun from the point of departure of illustrating and also proving either the continuity or the discontinuity of the classic city, of the Greco-Roman concept of polis, during the middle ages; this was the framing of the discussion by scholars such as Kazhdan and Ostrogorsky, and has continued in the views of modern authors such as Foss. Some scholars (Liebeschuetz, Trombley) seem to have developed a conservative reaction to Foss, trying mainly to adapt the decline-continuity polemic to the new “archaeological” environment. Others (Ward-Perkins, Spieser, Zanini) have deliberately chosen to limit their analytical model of the urban trajectories chronologically, without crossing the symbolic threshold of the seventh century. In contrast Brandes, Walmsey and, partially, Whittow have followed in the footsteps of Foss in developing archaeologically exhaustive regional studies which propose peculiar solutions to the problem of the changing appearance of Byzantine urbanism in seventh and eighth century. Lastly, Wickham and Haldon have moved along (economic) guidelines, recognizing the underlying structural tendencies that these have in the evolution of cities in the context of the late Roman state and society, as well as describing the functional distinctions between different types of settlements and their changing types of permutations within the slow process of transformation of late Roman urban society, which entail a number of changes in the physical appearance and extent of towns.