Institute for Medieval Studies

Session	1610
Title	Rethinking the Medieval Frontier, II: Defining and Dissolving Borders in the Late Roman and Byzantine Empires
Date/Time	Thursday 7 July 2016: 11.15-12.45
Organiser	Jonathan Jarrett, Institute for Medieval Studies / School of History, University of Leeds
Moderator/Chair	Sarah Lambert, Open Book, Goldsmiths, University of London
Paper 1610-a	Fatal Permeability: The Roman Frontier in Late Antiquity (Language: English) Thomas Edmund Kitchen, Independent Scholar, Walsall Index Terms: Mentalities; Political Thought; Politics and Diplomacy; Rhetoric
Paper 1610-b	Trading with the Enemy across the Byzantine-Sasanian Frontier (Language: English) Rebecca Darley, Institute for Medieval Studies / School of History, University of Leeds Index Terms: Administration; Archaeology - Artefacts; Byzantine Studies; Economics - Trade
Paper 1610-c	The Lower Danube Frontier Zone, 441-602 (Language: English) Alexander Sarantis, Wydział Historii, Uniwersytet Warszawski Index Terms: Byzantine Studies; Military History; Social History
Abstract	In sources from the late antique world a powerful rhetoric of insiders and outsiders defines much of the conceptual structure with which we are presented as readers. This session pits concepts against reality on late Roman and early Byzantine frontiers, as Darley examines the apparently futile attempts of both Roman and Persians to close the border between their two empires and Sarantis details the effectiveness of Byzantine defences against barbarians in the Balkans. Kitchen opens the session by studying how the writings of late Romans envisage the ideal frontier and how these visions survived contact with reality.