Approaching Social Hierarchies in Byzantium: Dialogues Between Rich and Poor

by Anna C. Kelley (Editor), Flavia Vanni (editor), Cecily Hennessy

Utilising new methodological approaches to understanding not only the poor as a social and economic group but also of the internal means of stratification which informed social organisation within local communities, this book looks at the place of the poor within the multi-layered hierarchies of Byzantine society using evidence from archaeology, art, architecture, as well as narrative, theological, and legal texts. Rather than treating the different levels of society independently, it looks at the social interactions which replicated and reinforced hierarchies but were also subject to negotiation within local communities. Fifteen leading Byzantine scholars discuss and analyse the topic of social hierarchies in the Byzantine Empire, covering topics such as working lives, the material world, the stratification of space, and philanthropy and social obligation.

The book will appeal to scholars and students alike interested in identity formation and expression in the Byzantine provinces, as well as those researching the social history of the poor in Byzantium, and the mechanisms of hierarchies, social marginalisation, and oppression.

Chapter 15 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license

354 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 20, 2025