Religious Pluralism in the Medieval Mediterranean Working Group: Alexander Beihammer, "The Cartulary of the Lembos Monastery near Smyrna: Editing and Interpreting Byzantine Legal Charters"
Alex Beihammer will talk about the project “Medieval Smyrna/Izmir: The Transformation of a City and its Hinterland from Byzantine to Ottoman Times” and the new edition of “The Cartulary of the Lembos Monastery near Smyrna: A Thirteenth-Century Monastic Archive from Byzantine Asia Minor,” which he is currently preparing with Dr. Despoina Ariantzi (Austrian Academy of Sciences). The cartulary of the Lembos monastery, preserved in Vind. hist. gr. 125, represents one of the richest collections of legal documents from the Byzantine world. After its restoration by Emperor John III Vatatzes, the Lembos monastery became a leading imperial foundation in Byzantine Asia Minor during the Nicaean Empire and the early Palaiologan period. This critical and annotated edition replaces an outdated partial edition by F. Miklosich and J. Müller (1871), serving as an essential source for understanding secular and ecclesiastical institutions, fiscal administration, land use, rural economy, topography, and prosopography in thirteenth-century Byzantium.
Alexander Beihammer’s research interests focus on Byzantine diplomatics, diplomacy, and cross-cultural exchange between Byzantium and the Muslim world, Byzantine-Turkish contacts in Asia Minor, and Byzantine-Latin relations in the Eastern Mediterranean. His earlier monographs deal with Byzantine letters and official documents in Arabic sources (2000), as well as Greek documents issued in the crusader kingdom of Cyprus (2007). His latest book Byzantium and the Emergence of Muslim-Turkish Anatolia, ca. 1040-1130, Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies (London and New York: Routledge, 2017) re-examines the earliest stage of the so-called Seljuk conquest and the beginning of the Turkification and Islamization of Anatolia. In addition, he collaborated in a project of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences on Byzantine imperial charters (2003) and published articles and co-edited collective volumes on diplomatics and ceremonies in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Seljuks and Turkish beyliks of Anatolia, as well as political relations, mutual perception, and communication between Byzantium, Islam, and the Latin East. His latest project deals with the political and socio-economic transformation of Western Asia Minor from Byzantine to early Ottoman times (13th–15th centuries) with a special emphasis on the Gulf of Smyrna region.
Questions can be sent to Ian Storey at istorey@nd.edu.