Letters

September 2002 · Historically Speaking 35 LETTERS To the Editors: Warren Treadgolds "Late Ancient and Byzantine History Today" (April 2002) presents a distorted picture ofPeter Brown, Princeton University 's Rollins Professor of History. Treadgold's representation of Brown's scholarship is disturbingly marred by factual inaccuracies. This article therefore does a disservice to The Historical Society and readers ofHistorically Speaking. Treadgold would like us to believe that Peter Brown is a purveyor of Foucauldian poststructuralism . He would like us to attribute Brown s success and popularity to his alleged adoption of trendy postmodem fashions rather than to erudition and solid scholarship. Like some pied piper of poststmcturalism, according toTreadgold, Brown casts his spell, luring scholars and graduate students away from traditional Byzantine studies to the enchanted "New Age" ofLate Antiquity. This picture is highly misleading. In the first place, Brown's scholarship is much more traditional than Treadgold indicates. It is firmly grounded in primary sources, and consists ofdetailed, thoughtfulanalysisoftexts,authorsand their societies, and specific historical conditions. Brown is much more interested in texts and social realities than in abstractions. He refers to Foucault in the bibliography ofThe Body andSociety (1988), but otherwise doesn't seem to engage directly with Foucault or discuss Foucault s work in his other ten books. Brown has even less to say about otherpoststructural theorists such as Lacan, Derrida, Kristeva , etc. He does discuss late antique sources, and does engage with the main traditional scholars of the period. Brown is far from being a name-dropping , jargon-spouting, theorizing postmodernist. His thorough mastery ofthe sources and the high quality ofhis scholarship haveearned Brown the recognition and admiration ofleading traditional scholars in his field, despite what Treadgold says. Brown's insight and brilliant creativity , displayed in his eleven books and numerous articles, opened a rich field for further exploration. His scholarship covers a wide range ofimportant aspects of late antique society and culture, from Augustine ofHippo (1967), Religion and Society in theAgeofSt. Augustine(1912), TheCultoftheSaints (1981), PowerandPersuasion (1992), Authorityand the Sacred (1995) to Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire (2002). There is no foundation for Treadgold's charge that Brown's work is narrowly focused on "private behaviorand beliefs." When Brown examines private behavior and beliefs it is in relation to public culture, social function, and the ordering ofsociety as awhole, or in connection with the sources ofauthority or the acquisition and use ofpower in late antique society . Brown's work is not narrowly focused; his works are acknowledged as major contributions in precisely the areas Treadgold considers important : "late Roman cities, government, culture, religon, and society in general." Treadgold asserts that Brown's "work won acclaim chiefly from historians outside the field, who found its depiction ofLate Antiquity intriguing even ifthey rejected poststmcturalism in their own scholarship." To say that Brown's popularity comes "chiefly from historians outside the field" is simply not true, as diefollowing evidenceproves. • Robin Lane Fox, in PagansandChristians: Religion andthe Religious Lifefrom the Secondto the Fourth Century A.D. (1986), cites and praises Brown many times. And in a review of Brown's TheRiseofWestern Christendom (1996), which Fox calls "an essential guide for those interested in late Antiquity"(The New York ReviewofBooks, April 24, 1997), he notes that "since 1967, Brown's books, articles and lectures have spoken inspiringly to those who wished to find more in late antiquity than the exploitation ofthe 'humble' and the in-jokes of unidentified senators." • Averil Cameron, in TheMediterranean Worldin LateAntiquity(1993), cites TheCultoftheSaints (1981), Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity (1982), and several other ofBrown's works. • Henry Chadwick, in his review of Brown's PowerandPersuasion in LateAntiquity (1992), says: "Peter Brown combines a witty and ironic prose style with the gifts ofa first-class historian of late antiquity possessing an exhaustive knowledge ofthe sources. His latest book will certainly win him new admirers and delight old friends" (New York Times Book Review, November 15, 1992). • In TheRiseofChristianity (1984) W.H.C. Frend refers to Brown's works throughout. In the bibliography for his chapter on "The North African Church and Augustine," Frend notes that there are some excellent books on the subject : "Ofthese I regard Peter Brown's AugusComing soon to...