A Concise History of Byzantium (review)

300 Short Notices late twentieth-century obsession with theory; in the most recent critical turn, the Pardoner's much discussed homosexuality is in question again, but, prompted by queer theory, the critic drives the question to radically new conclusions. After sections devoted to editions and bibliographical materials, criticism on the Pardoner is presented according to two chronologies: dates ofpublication, within sequences determined by the Pardoner's several appearances in the 'General Prologue' and the tales. This necessarily complicated arrangement makes for a certain clumsiness and repetition, but Sutton does a fair job of articulating her categories one to another. O n the other hand, her bibliographical practice sometimes buckles surprisingly under pressure to get the book into print. Numbering fails from time to time: so 516 is followed by 516a, and 516b, not 517; this might not matter, but the Index refers under 'Sexuality' to an absent 516c. Item 994 simply reads 'Item canceled'. The Index, crucial to the success of such a volume, is usefully detailed, but often feels cumbersome and again it is not always correct. The survey is comprehensive, but there are omissions: so, the Hieatts' 1964 edition of The Canterbury Tales is described, but not their 1961 illustrated, bowdlerised children's edition. A n d it is regrettable that 'Analogues' could not stretch to m o d e m instances like the film 'Shallow Grave'. Bibliographies, however accurate and informative, necessarily suffer from their own obsolesence, which suggests that the true future of these retrospective publications, as the General Editor recognises, lies not in print but electronic text, where the past becomes an ever reviewed, renewable, present. In the meantime, there is much help to be had from Sutton's Bibliography of scholarship and criticism on Chaucer's Pardoner, and not a little pleasure. Roger Nicholson Department ofEnglish University of Auckland Tread gold, Warren, A Concise History of Byzantium, Basingstoke, Palgrave, 2001; cloth ; pp. ix, 273; R R P £42.50; ISBN 0333718291. While Western Europe declined and later revived, Byzantium remained a relatively affluent and centralised Christian power. There are so many points of contact and influence between the two regions, that scholars of one cannot fail to have at least some interest in the other. Warren Treadgold has endeavoured to produce the sort of beginner's guide to Byzantium that should serve as a handy Short Notices 301 reference when scholars of early Western European history want to look up events, people, geography, politics and culture. H e makes use of the research that went into his longer work, A History of the Byzantine State and Society (1997), here completely rewritten for the 'general and less specialised reader'. His greatest challenge has been to condense this material. he timespan between 285 and 1453 is divided into six parts, each broadly characterised and dealt with in its own chapter: formation (285-457); reconquest and crisis (457-602); catastrophe and containment (602-780); recovery and victory (780-1025); wealth and weakness (1025-1204); and restoration and fall (1204-1461). Recognising but not enslaved by 'modern academic fashion,' Treadgold undertakes to provide both narrative history and descriptive sections dealing with society and culture. As a corrective to Gibbon, w h o m he holds responsible for the popular view that Byzantium was decadent, Treadgold seeks to show that the course of Empire had both downs and ups. The introduction and the conclusion talk about the idea ofdecline, and how i t might be measured. Treadgold produces figures which show that the area, population, revenue and army of Byzantium remained relatively large for a very long while. Where there were dips, he explains that some could be accounted for by natural disaster or changes in measurement, rather than negative features ofByzantine governance. In all, he covers 1,169 years in 273 pages. Allowing for indexes and maps, that leaves one page for everyfiveyears, or eight lines a year. Some things are going to be left out. Treadgold has chosen to put in all ofthe 114 emperors, with a briefdescription of each, what they did, and how they came to be replaced, and some reference to their generals and advisers. That takes up the narrative sections, which are concise...