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Sorry, I just have a petty personal crusade to try to get people to stop causing a fuss about what we call the Byzantines.

Seriously, this isn’t anything new or groundbreaking. All of this ‘Roman not Byzantine’ stuff is rather tiresome by now.

It was first deployed in the 16th century by Hieronymus Wolf and popularised in the 17th century by Charles du Cange. It was already very well established by the 19th century.

James Morton @jamesmorton.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

No, I think it’s silly. For one thing, anyone with any interest in the Byzantine Empire already knows that they called themselves Romans, and we’re far enough removed from the 16th century that we aren’t being Orientalist when we say ‘Byzantine’. It’s just historiographical convention now.

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Historians often try to explain why things happened, but this is an unusual case in which I tried to explain why something *didn’t* happen. Just published, ‘Untranslatable Law’ in Toma and Bara (edd.), ‘Latin Translations of Greek Texts from the 11th to the 13th Century’: brill.com/display/book...

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James Morton @jamesmorton.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

By the time you got off the train, your money would be half the value it was when you got on and you wouldn’t even be able to afford absinthe anymore ;)

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James Morton @jamesmorton.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Wandering around the Met in New York, trying to fight off jet lag before the AHA begins tomorrow. I keep coming across artefacts, thinking ‘that looks familiar’, and then recognising them from images that I use in my lecture slides! #AHA25

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James Morton @jamesmorton.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

Happy New Year! I am at Hong Kong International Airport, waiting for a 3:20am flight to New York so that I can attend the annual conference of the American Historical Association. I wouldn’t stay up this late for a party, so why am I doing it for work?!? #AHA25

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James Morton @jamesmorton.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

This was definitely the most memorable new headline this year

James Morton @jamesmorton.bsky.social · 25/12/2024

Merry Christmas! God bless us, everyone!

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James Morton @jamesmorton.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

Yep, that’s Margaret Mullett!

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James Morton @jamesmorton.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

Constantine’s Wikipedia page has already been updated with the image!

James Morton @jamesmorton.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

Is this a glimpse of the last #Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos (r. 1449-1453)? The Ephorate of Antiquities of Achaia discovered this fresco in a church near Aigio, possibly the only portrait of Constantine made during his lifetime: greekcitytimes.com/2024/12/13/p... #medievalsky

Fresco painting of Constantine XI Palaiologos (r. 1449-1453) from the Taxiarches monastery of Aigialeia near Aigio

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James Morton @jamesmorton.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

I’m marking hand-written exams for the first time in years. It’s fascinating to see how many students were all drawn to one or two topics on the essay question (they had a choice of six). More fascinating still, one essay topic was so unpopular that literally nobody (out of a class of 30) chose it!

James Morton @jamesmorton.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

My best friend made it into the Financial Times!

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James Morton @jamesmorton.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

On my way to invigilate my first ever in-person university exam today. I used to just give take-home final papers. However, thanks to the modern technological progress of #AI, they get to experience course assessment the same way I did when I was a student!

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Reposted by James Morton

War Mapper @warmapper.org · 08/12/2024

Welcome back Principality of Antioch

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James Morton @jamesmorton.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

Now, how long can Russia keep those last remaining bases on the coast?

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James Morton @jamesmorton.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

Amazing developments in #Syria. When I woke up and read the news this morning, I thought it might all be over for Assad in a day or two. Turns out that it was more like an hour or two! It’s a useful reminder that historical change comes gradually at first… and then very suddenly.

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The Biden administration doing what it can to lose any remaining good will it still has in its last days.

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They might want to revisit this part of their constitution to make sure that a president can’t just order the army to do a coup like this in the future. I’d also think about firing the army leaders who followed the order so obediently this time around.

If the army had done a better job of sealing it off, they wouldn’t have been able to vote. The line between success and failure was literally a question of representatives physically evading military security. That’s a little too close for comfort!

James Morton @jamesmorton.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

I’m obviously not South Korean or very knowledgeable about South Korea, but I don’t find it reassuring that the attempt to impose martial law ended the way it did. Yes, lawmakers were able to overturn it with a vote, but they had to break into the National Assembly building first! #SouthKorea

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In my #Byzantine History class yesterday, we discussed how the Ottoman Mehmed II took the title ‘Kayser-i Rum’ (1453) and Ivan IV of Moscow became ‘Tsar’ (1457). Made me wonder: how many ‘Roman Empires’ have there been in history? Original Western Eastern/Byzantine HRE Ottomans Russia … any others?

Portrait of Sultan Mehmed II (r. 1451-1481) by Italian artist Gentile Bellini (1480)

James Morton @jamesmorton.bsky.social · 01/12/2024

It has been suggested that the Declaration of Arbroath might have been one of the models for the American Declaration of Independence (1776), though this is disputed.

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James Morton @jamesmorton.bsky.social · 01/12/2024

I’m lecturing on the 14th century this week, which means I get to show off the #Scottish Declaration of Arbroath (1320)! ‘It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom - for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.’ #medievalsky

An original copy of the Declaration of Arbroath (1320), by which the nobles of Scotland asserted the country’s independence and determination to refuse English rule. National Records of Scotland, SP13/7

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James Morton @jamesmorton.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

A couple of days ago, I shared an image of a 14th-century Italian classroom. In the interests of balance, here is a 12th-century #Byzantine classroom. Two ‘philosophers’ sit at the front and address a group of students in this folio from the Madrid Skylitzes. #medievalsky

Byzantine classroom scene from the 12th-century Madrid Skylitzes manuscript (f. 134r)

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James Morton @jamesmorton.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

‘Embrace technology’ - easy words to throw out in a webinar, policy memo, or (in this case) a THE op-ed. Not so easy to define what this actually means for us in practice, though. Should we ‘embrace’ students using AI to cheat on homework? Fewer platitudes and more specifics, please.

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James Morton @jamesmorton.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

This is about onions, but I have the same complaint about recipe cooking times in general. Why is it that it takes me an hour to cook something that is supposed to take 30 minutes? Am I just a slow cook? Is the recipe optimistically assuming a best-case scenario? Or is it just lying?

James Morton @jamesmorton.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

I’ve been reading this study of Byzantine bishops in the 11th to 12th centuries by Jack Roskilly. A little niche, maybe, but I’m enjoying it!

After I finished my first book, I mentioned to one of my mentors that I couldn’t bring myself to look at it again. She said, quite simply, ‘No, you should never read anything again after it’s published. You’ll only be able to see the mistakes.’

The intersection of science and religion? This 14th-century #Byzantine monk is using an astrolabe to take astronomical readings while a scribe jots down the results. Natural science is an underappreciated aspect of the 'Palaiologan Renaissance' of late #Byzantium. #medievalsky

A monk uses an astrolabe while a scribe takes notes. From the 14th-century MS Ambros. H 57 sup., f. 1r (title page of Theon of Alexandria's short commentary on Ptolemy's Canons). Credit to Darin Hayton (https://dhayton.haverford.edu/blog/2021/01/26/monks-using-astronomical-instruments/)

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Hi! Could you add me as well, please? 🙏🏻

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James Morton @jamesmorton.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

🙋🏻‍♂️ Sorry I’m late to this, but could you add me too?

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The white immigrants get to be called ‘expats’, but not the huge population of workers from south and southeast Asia. If anyone here suffers from racial prejudice (often overt, not an undertone), it’s them.

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James Morton @jamesmorton.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Replace the books with computers, and it isn't so different from a modern lecture! This C14 carving from Verona shows the physician Antonio Pelacani (d. 1327) lecturing to students in a medieval classroom. I'll be doing something similar when I show it to my own students tomorrow... #medievalsky

The physician Antonio Pelacani (d. 1327) gives a lecture to a group of four students. Carving from the tomb of Antonio Pelacani in the cloister of S. Fermo Maggiore in Verona.

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I’ll finish here with a bifolium from the 10th-century canon law collection Laud gr. 39 in Oxford. This shows a section of the Nomocanon in Fourteen Titles. This manuscript has some sentimental value for me, as it was the first one that I studied when I began work on my PhD thesis in 2015!

Add. 24369 has a really weird title page, by the way. This is the title of Alexios Aristenos’ commentary (c. 1130) on the Synopsis of Canons. I’ve never seen it presented like this before. Also, whoever rebound the manuscript in the modern era managed to insert the title page backwards somehow.

Of course, marriage is more complicated than that. Thanks to Patriarch Sisinnios II (996-998), you also have to count your in-laws (up to five degrees) as well as blood relatives. These diagrams in the 15th-century Add. 24369 can help with that. Sorry, you can’t marry your sister-in-law’s brother.

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Maybe you’re an aristocrat and want to marry your cousin, but unsure if it counts as incest or not. This useful diagram in the 14th-century civil law collection Roe 18 can help you figure out if your future spouse is within six degrees of consanguinity. Just start in the middle and count the steps!

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Are you a Byzantine judge who needs to understand Roman legal terminology but can’t read Latin? Not to worry! This Latin-Greek legal glossary in the 13th-century canon law collection BN II C 7 has you (sort of) covered. It even has a guide to the ‘Roman’ (Latin) alphabet at the top.

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This collection of the Novels of Leo VI (r. 886-912) isn’t actually from Byzantium. Marc. gr. 179 was produced for a Greek judge in the Kingdom of Sicily in the late 12th century called Sinator Maleinos. You can just make out the Greek letters of his first name at the top of this unusual title page!

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James Morton @jamesmorton.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

I was lucky to be able to present some of my research on Byzantine legal manuscripts at a conference in Taiwan recently (‘lucky’ in a very literal sense - there was a super typhoon the day before!). Here are some of my favourite highlights from the manuscripts that I discussed! #ByzantineLaw

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This is wrong for the following reasons: 1. McClane wouldn’t even be there if it wasn’t Christmas. 2. It’s the Christmas party that allows Hans Gruber to take over the building. 3. Killing terrorists helps McClane rediscover the true meaning of Christmas: it’s all about family.