Ο δημόσιος και ιδιωτικός βίος των Βυζαντινών

Everyday Life

by Tamara Talbot Rice

This book describes with knowledge and enthusiasm what it was like to live in Byzantine times. along with this information is over 100 illustrations which vividly portray the life, work, and religion of the Byzantines.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Medieval

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Tamara Talbot Rice was a Russian then English art historian, writing on Byzantine, Russian and Central Asian art. Talbot Rice was born Elena Abelson, to Louisa Elizabeth Vilenkin and Israel Boris Abelevich Abelson, the latter a businessman and member of the Czar's financial administration, a privileged family which fled Russia in 1917. Married David Talbot Rice and worked with him during the late 1920s and 30s.

She began to publish after the second world war writing on Russian Art and Russian history as well as on the art and history of the Scythians, Seljuks, and Byzantines.

Reviews

[Maxim K. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Хорошая книга — ну или как минимум та, которую я искал.
Про исторические факты и их изложение пусть говорят специалисты (я пару раз споткнулся о какие-то неожиданные и противоречащие всему ранее прочитанному сведения, но это можно списать на перевод, например (а он действительно ужасен), время (автор умерла почти 30 лет назад) — наконец, на мое невежество. Но обычно в книгах о Византии очень много рассказывают про императоров, патриархов и прочих селебрити, а вот о том, как жили в Восточной Римской империи все остальные, пишут редко. И здесь как раз об этом! (Хотя про императоров и проч. тоже есть.) Пожалуй, здесь несколько слишком подробно рассказано об экономике и финансах (зато становится понятно, что роль османов в крушении империи, прямо скажем, незначительна), но так же подробно рассказано и об одежде, еде, быте, искусстве — словом, гораздо легче после этой книги представить, как все это выглядело и как жили люди. И даже картинки здесь есть (но их мало). В общем, рекомендую с моей сугубо дилетантской точки зрения.

Маленькая деталь: Тамара Талбот Райс, она же Елена Абельсон — наша бывшая соотечественница (семья благополучно ретировалась после 1917 года) и крестная дочь (тадам!) Льва Николаевича Толстого. Благополучно вышла замуж за археолога и историка Талбота Райса, всю жизнь (почти 90 лет!) прожила в UK. Как утверждает википедия, специализировалась на искусстве Византии и Центральной Азии.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

History often focuses on wars, succession, geopolitics, and calamities. I've often wondered what the lives of ordinary people are like while these events are going on, so this book caught my attention on display at the public library.

This is not a history of the Byzantine Empire, although it does touch on some of the major events. This is exactly the sort of minutia I've wondered about. Here is a portrait of a people and how they lived, in the period between antiquity and the middle ages. While not offering a rise and fall narrative of the empire, the intricacies of how Byzantine civilization developed over the course of roughly 1000 years are presented in great detail. Their political parties, how Greek came to dominate over Latin, how they heated their homes, managed the economy, and from what influences they drew when creating their art, music, literature, and architecture.

A fascinating account.

[Thomas Ernst · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as interesting as I had hoped it would be.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is helpful to know a bit about Byzantine history before reading this book. Passing references are made to historical events and figures as a way of dating certain cultural trends; this might be annoying to a reader not familiar with the sweep of the empire's history.

I had been looking for some insight into what life was like for a commoner in the empire. This book contained that, and a lot of other information besides. But the 1,000 year span of the empire's existence is a very broad period to be covered in a book this size.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The subject matter is fascinating. But I found Rice's writing style pretty boring. She also rattles off many facts, names etc. without context, a source or, often, when the event happened or the figure lived.

[Jim Slavinski · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wasn't really what I expected. Always appreciate the research and knowledge that goes into writing books like these. But I thought it was going to go more into detail.

[Joe Sabet · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book needed a glossary for all the religious and historical jargon. Nothing really noteworthy here, mostly dry reading. The small number of pictures (drawings) was a plus

[Squirrel · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars
This book is from the mid-1960's and it has very obvious holes in its coverage of "everyday life." While the language is accessible, it is not always clear. And while it has copious illustrations, most of them are hand-drawn and are usually only referenced with a sentence or maybe two; the illustrations aren't really integrated into the text. The text itself is very noticeably bowdlerized, with sex work, slavery, or even discussion of childbirth and child rearing pushed to the edges. This book is fairly good at describing what men of middle class and higher were doing, but only provides a smattering of discussion about the vast majority of Byzantine residents. Talbot Rice cites a lack of primary sources for some of the gaps in knowledge, but surely 50+ years of archaeology have been able to fill in some of those gaps. History as a field has changed significantly in the last half a century; providing patrons with a book so long out of date is bound to establish some bad habits and wring ideas. I would suggest that librarians considering weeding this book to do so, and to find a more modern text for non-expert readers.

The specifics: What especially stood out to me is that I have never seen Empress Theodosia referred to only as a circus performer in any other text and leaving out her history as a sex worker. Similarly, sex workers are only mentioned once in relation to a retirement home that an emperor builds. Women are mentioned maybe a dozen times in a 250 page book, mostly in reference to textile manufacturer. Talbot Rice uses Anna Comnena's biography of her emperor father and so is forced to talk about the woman a bit. The author also makes mention of how the empresses and their attendants wanted to see the chariot races at the Hippodrome so they would stand on a church roof. Oh yeah, and rich kids learn their letters and numbers from their mothers. That's pretty much it as far as women are made mention. The discussion of the production of cloth is mostly focused on silk garments rather than cotton, flax, or wool ones. I'm also left wondering exactly how children were brought up in Byzantium, along with how infertility, adultery, monogamy, and bastardy were handled by the Byzantines. There's some hand waving that gestures towards the Byzantines having the same ideas about such things as modern Christian churches do.

I'm also staggered by the throwaway line about how the institution of slavery provided the Byzantines with the human power necessary to produce their luxury goods for export. There are also another few mentions of slaves in the text as well, but Talbot Rice doesn't get into the institution at all, despite getting fairly into the weeds about topics such as monetary policy and taxation. Who were the slaves? Where did Byzantine citizens get new ones? Was it hereditary chattel slavery or were most enslaved people freed at some point? Oh yeah, can we also get into the rise of castration as a viable practice? What did the Church think about that?

this book fills in a lot of large brush strokes, such as talking about the Blue and Green factions in Constantinople, or about how half of the population lived in monasteries by the 10th century. But that just gives me more questions than answers. The lack of citations in the book also makes it difficult to fact check Talbot Rice's assertions. I wish she had also contained a glossary, as she not infrequently makes reference to a term, often a term in Greek, but does not define it.

And I swear this is my last point, but the last chapter on the visual arts was incomprehensible. There is a lot of architectural jargon in this chapter, and Talbot Rice does a poor job of providing definitions or illustrations. Like what is the difference between a squinch and a pendentive? Also there are way too many adjectives and too few pictures. Yeah, that's dandy to describe multiple artworks as delicate, but the hand-drawn illustrations don't really convey that delicateness, and you've used that adjective 3 times in 2 pages. The only artwork that Talbot Rice spends any amount of time discussing in detail is the Hagia Sophia. Besides that structure, every other work mentioned gets a line at most, and many do not get an illustration at all. The chapter on the visual arts is nearly useless and as an art historian I am especially sad to have learned absolutely nothing from the chapter. If I hadn't seen many of the same kinds of items in museums in the past, I think I would be absolutely lost.

So I'm glad I got through this book, and I did learn some things, although I'm left wondering what in this book is horribly old-fashioned and untrue, what was left out that should have been there, and which parts are still seen as accurate today.