Byzantine Slavery and the Mediterranean World by Youval Rotman (review)

REVIEWS 305 of the “Exodus” play as a wagon-stage play, given his graduate-student status at the University of Toronto, were examples of the import of foreign academics into York as volunteers, especially from North America. In addition, the role of academic experimentation with the plays as facilitating further academic study of English theatre history is highlighted by Meg Twycross’s seminal role in organizing a production of four wagon plays from her base in the University of Lancaster’s English Department in 1988, as well as a second five-wagon program in 1992. Exportations, by academics, of the York mysteries to other continents included the 1977 production of a full-cycle wagon production by David Parry, a Fellow of the University of Toronto’s Graduate Centre for Study of Drama, which was organized by a committee chaired by Professor Alexandra Johnston from the Records of Early English Drama initiative in the university. The parochialism of the York mysteries, specifically in terms of the audience ’s tendency to resist changes in performance style and radical experimentation , is an especially important point for Rogerson. Notably, when the York mysteries moved indoors into the local Theatre Royal of York in 1992 owing to arrangements made between the organizers of the Festival of Britain and the Royal’s management, this move drew a barrage of negative criticisms for its liberties with attiring the cast in twentieth-century costume, and the use of a stationary building-site. Musical innovations, such as the hybrid use of English folk music, electronic music, and big bands alongside traditional medieval music , also proved to be polarizing in its effects. In John Doyle’s 1996 production, controversial decisions such as the casting of women as God, knights, the Jewish high priests, and shepherds, which were traditionally roles reserved for men during the Middle Ages, raised theological issues in tandem with the anxieties of that time about the ordination of female clergy in the Anglican Church. Rogerson’s study must be commended as a worthy contribution to studies of modern reenactments of the York mystery plays, given the meticulous charting of the personnel involved in the York mysteries’ productions throughout , and a biographical list of the actors, scriptwriters, and backstage crew in a separately-attached appendix, along with another appendix on the music used. It continues in the vein of earlier research—such as John Elliott’s 1989 study of modern reenactments of mystery plays, Playing God: Mediaeval Mysteries on the Modern Stage; Claire Sponsler’s 2005 Ritual Imports: Performing Medieval Drama in America; and Katie Normington’s 2007 study, Modern Mysteries : Contemporary Productions of Medieval English Cycle Dramas—testifying to the vibrancy of continuing academic interest in modern medievalism, especially in relation to medieval English drama. As a study of medieval drama’s modern adaptations, it also reveals that the adaptations of medieval drama not only was meant to be relevant to current concerns of the playmaking circle producing it, but also looked forward to the revitalizing effects of a heritage movement on a city. KEVIN TEO KIA CHOONG, English, University of Calgary Youval Rotman, Byzantine Slavery and the Mediterranean World, trans. Jane Marie Todd (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press 2009) 307 pp. REVIEWS 306 Youval Rotman traces the evolution of slavery by looking at how slaves were treated by the law, the labor market, medieval politics, and religion at a time when the Mediterranean world was undergoing great political, social, and religious changes, and slavery as an institution was adapting to this new environment . Rotman’s study encompasses the reign of Justinian (527–565) up to the beginning of the twelfth century in areas controlled by Constantinople. He argues that slavery and freedom are not two sides of the same coin and may not even be related to one another. He also argues that the term slavery should be used to describe any sort of social dependency instead of a specific civic status. He embarks on this analysis by looking more closely at the theoretical approaches to what civil status entails in terms of a distinction between a slave and others, and at the meaning of economic status in terms of productivity. Byzantine slaves had...