This interdisciplinary collection of essays explores the nexus between mobility and the sacred in Byzantium and in the centuries after its fall. Over the past two decades, the construction, experience and use of sacred space have generated growing interest in the humanities, including Byzantine studies. Recent scholarship on the subject has intersected with issues of sound, embodiment and performance, with environmental perceptions, and with power, identity and territorial imaginations, among other things. At the same time, the Mobility Turn has increasingly extended from the domain of the social sciences to the humanities, prompting new questions, approaches and understandings of issues related to transport, movement, and circulation of people, objects and ideas. Bringing together experts from different disciplines including history, art history, literature, geography, architecture and theology, this volume aims to set these two streams in dialogue to further our understanding of Byzantine and post-Byzantine spiritual culture and society.
Most of the chapters in the volume are based on presentations at the International Virtual Colloquium ‘Sacred Mobilities in Byzantium and Beyond: People, Objects and Relics,’ organized by the co-editors under the aegis of the Institute of Classical Studies (ICS) of the University of London’s School of Advanced Studies on 1–2 June 2021. The event was co-sponsored by the Hellenic Institute and Centre for the GeoHumanities of Royal Holloway, University of London. We would like to express our warm thanks to Greg Woolf, then director of ICS, for his support, to Valerie James, Manager of ICS, for her administrative and technical assistance, and to all participants in the event, both younger and seasoned scholars, for their excellent input and the stimulating discussions that prompted the birth of this volume. Our grateful thanks to Jack Dooley for compiling the index. Our deepest thanks also to Marcella Mulder and to the Brill Medieval Mediterranean Series Editorial Board for their support and excellent editorial guidance, and to two anonymous readers for their valuable feedback and suggestions. The present volume is dedicated to the loving memory of Julian Chrysostomides (1928–2008) and Denis E. Cosgrove (1948–2008), pioneers, teachers, and sources of endless inspiration.