This book represents the first attempt to analyze historical and cultural developments in late medieval and early modern southeastern Europe as a set of mutually intertwined regional histories, burdened by the strong dichotomy between the almighty center—Constantinople—and the periphery that is rarely visible in both contemporary sources and modern scholarship. This mosaic of original studies is devoted to various regions of the Byzantine Balkans and their historical, artistic, and ideolog...

This study of Constantinople's monasteries within their urban framework during the last decades of Byzantium (1394–1453) explores the activity of monks, nuns, and affiliated laypeople such as patrons just before the city’s Ottoman conquest and transformation into the capital of an Islamic Empire.The book captures aspects of Byzantine institutions, social and economic networks, scholarly and artistic activity, spiritual trends, and the city’s appearance during its final phase as the...