Byzantine Studies at the Beginning of the Twenty-first Century

Alice-Mary Talbot, Dumbarton Oaks

At the outset let me say how pleased I am as a Byzantinist to have been included in a volume on the status of medieval studies at the beginning of the twenty-first century. As the lone representative of my discipline, however, in the company of so many distinguished Western medievalists, I must also confess to empathizing with Sir Steven Runciman, who wrote in the 1950 preface to his History of the Crusades, "It may seem unwise for one British pen to compete with the massed typewriters of the United States." Perhaps one could rephrase that sentence to read, "it may seem unwise for one Byzantinist pen to compete with the massed computers of Western medievalists," since I will necessarily have to present a much more wide-ranging and superficial survey than my Western colleagues.