University of Wisconsin–Madison
Leonora Neville

Leonora Neville

John W. and Jeanne M. Rowe Chair of Byzantine History; Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor

leonora.neville@wisc.edu

608.263.1814

Office: 2265 Levy Hall
Curriculum Vitae (pdf)
Office Hours: TBA

Leonora Neville

I specialize in the history of the east Roman empire in the ninth through twelfth centuries. I have strong interests in reuniting east Roman history with classical Roman history and its ancient Greek antecedents. My research has focused on gender, civic religion and religious aspects of political culture, and historical memory and historiography.

When east Roman history is considered as one phase in the history of the long Roman empire, we can see Christianity as one aspect of social and religious history, rather than as a definitional of “Byzantium.” This opens space for the history of Jews and non-Orthodox people to be included fully as part of east Roman history and allows for greater appreciation of change in medieval Orthodoxy. A long Roman empire, that crosses over the notional boundary between ‘ancient’ and ‘medieval’ with much of its culture and social norms intact, displays an alternative to the western European narrative of Renaissance recovery of a moribund classical antiquity, and hence that classical studies is not inherently western-centric. By acknowledging that the same group of people could be truly Greeks in one century and truly Romans in another, east Roman history is fundamentally anti-racist and pushes against nationalist readings of medieval history. East Roman history is remarkably disruptive and incredibly fun. You can find more on my argument for a long Roman empire in my recent book Sailing Away from Byzantium.

I am honored to serve on the Historical Advisory Council of the Ukrainian History Global Initiative: https://uhgi.org/. I am currently a Senior Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks, and an editor of several book series: Cambridge Elements in Rethinking Byzantium, Palgrave’s “New Approaches to Byzantine History and Culture,” and Arc Medieval Press’s “Long Roman Empire.”

Education

Ph.D., Princeton University 1998
B.A., Yale University 1992

Books

Sailing Away from Byzantium toward East Roman History

Leonora Neville. Sailing Away from Byzantium Toward East Roman History. Cambridge University Press, 2025.

Although the first thing one learns about the ‘Byzantine Empire’ is that it was really the eastern Roman empire, scholars have preferred to call it ‘Byzantine’ in a repudiation of the self-conception and emic vocabulary of the inhabitants of that polity. The terminology of ‘Byzantium’ artificially severs the ‘medieval’ eastern Roman empire from its ‘classical’ roots allowing for the fundamentally Eurocentric schematization of history into ‘ancient,’ ‘medieval,’ and ‘Renaissance’ periods. ‘Byzantine’ is not a benign term of art but has served a variety of political and historiographical agendas including maintaining nationalist visions of ethnic continuity, creating precedents for communism, enabling politics of nostalgia for Orthodox dominion, and constructing visions of western European superiority and masculinity that justify colonialism. By exploring these intellectual legacies of ‘Byzantium,’ and the benefits of conceptualizing Roman history as an unsevered whole, this Element exhorts scholars to let go of the ‘Byzantine’ misnomer.

Byzantine Gender

Leonora Neville. Byzantine Gender. ARC Humanities Press, 2019.

Why were virtuous Byzantine women described as manly? Why were boys’ bodies thought to be closer in constitution to those of women than adult men? Did Byzantines think eunuchs were men? This lively and personal book explains some key aspects of how people of the Medieval Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) conceived of men and women, masculinity and femininity, and proper behaviour for men and women. By laying bare fundamental ideas about how gender was defined and performed, Byzantine Gender enables readers to understand Byzantine society more fully. And by providing background information about Byzantine gender, it makes it easier to approach and appreciate the fascinating otherness of Byzantine culture.

Guide to Byzantine Historical Writing

Leonora Neville. Guide to Byzantine Historical Writing. Cambridge University Press, 2018.

This handy reference guide makes it easier to access and understand histories written in Greek between 600 and 1480 CE. Covering classicizing histories that continued ancient Greek traditions of historiography, sweeping, fast-paced ‘chronicle’ type histories, and dozens of idiosyncratic historical texts, it distills the results of complex, multi-lingual, specialist scholarship into clear explanations of the basic information needed to approach each medieval Greek history. It provides a sound basis for further research on each text by describing what we know about the time of composition, content covered by the history, authorship, extant manuscripts, previous editions and translations, and basic bibliography. Even-handed explanations of scholarly debates give readers the information they need to assess controversies independently. A comprehensive introduction orients students and non-specialists to the traditions and methods of Byzantine historical writing. It will prove an invaluable timesaver for Byzantinists and an essential entry point for classicists, western medievalists, and students.

Anna Komnene: The Life and Work of a Medieval Historian

Leonora Neville. Anna Komnene: The Life and Work of a Medieval Historian. Oxford University Press, 2016.

Onassis Series in Hellenic Culture First book devoted to understanding Anna Komnene since 1929, and the first ever to systematically examine how she presents herself in the Alexiad Offers a systematic explanation of the relationship between Anna’s gender and her writing Brings the life and work of a major, but understudied, medieval female author to a wide audience

Heroes and Romans in Twelfth-Century Byzantium: The Material for History of Nikephoros Bryennios

Leonora Neville. Heroes and Romans in Twelfth-Century Byzantium: The Material for History of Nikephoros Bryennios. Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Nikephoros Bryennios’ history of the Byzantine Empire in the 1070s is a story of civil war and aristocratic rebellion in the midst of the Turkish conquest of Anatolia. Commonly remembered as the passive and unambitious husband of Princess Anna Komnene (author of the Alexiad), Bryennios is revealed as a skilled author whose history draws on cultural memories of classical Roman honor and proper masculinity to evaluate the politicians of the 1070s and implicitly to exhort his twelfth-century contemporaries to honorable behavior. Bryennios’ story valorizes the memory of his grandfather and other honorable, but failed, generals of the eleventh century while subtly portraying the victorious Alexios Komnenos as un-Roman. This reading of the Material for History sheds new light on twelfth-century Byzantine culture and politics, especially the contested accession of John Komnenos, the relationship between Bryennios’ history and the Alexiad and the function of cultural memories of Roman honor in Byzantium.

Authority in Byzantine Provincial Society, 950–1100

Leonora Neville. Authority in Byzantine Provincial Society, 950–1100. Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Acting essentially to maintain power and collect taxes, the emperors of the Byzantine Empire (ca. 950-1100) did not attempt to govern provincial society. As a result, provincial households took advantage of this situation by competing for local control over each other whenever they could. This book describes the power-holders in the central provinces in a detailed comparison of the provincial strength of the imperial government and the mechanics of local authority.

Videos & Podcasts

Selected Publications

  • “Contextualizing Gender in Byzantine Society and Politics.” In Routledge Handbook of Gender and Sexuality in Byzantium, edited by Mati Mayer and Charis Messis, 2024, 79-95.
  • “Reading Greco-Roman Gender Ideals in Byzantium: Classical Heroes and Eastern Roman Gender.” In Routledge Handbook on Identity in Byzantium, edited by David Parnell, Michael Stewart, and Conor Whately. London: Routledge, 2022, 377-394.
  • “Privacy, friendship, and social regulation in Byzantine neighborhoods.” In The Byzantine Neighborhood: Urban Space and Political Action, edited by Fotini Kondyli and Benjamin Anderson. Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman studies. London: Routledge, 2022, 245-258.
  • “Enemies of Empire in the Muses, Nikephoros Bryennios’ Material for History, and Anna Komnene’s Alexiad.” In Auteurs byzantins et leur époque. Expression, idéologie, société, edited by Alicia Simpson and Vasiliki Vlyssidou. Athens: l’Institut de Recherches Historiques, 2021, 253-265.
  • “Singing with David and Contemplating Agesilaus: Ethical Training in Byzantium.” In The Reception of Greek Ethics in Late Antiquity and Byzantium, edited by Sophia Xenophontos and Anna Marmodoro, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021, 140-160.
  • “Anna Komnene, a monastic intellectual?” In Women and Monasticism in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean: Decoding a Cultural Map, edited by Eleanora Koutoura Galake and Ekaterini Mitsiou, Athens: National Hellenic Research Foundation, 2019, 89-106.
  • “Pity and Lamentation in the Authorial Personae of Ioannis Kaminiates and Anna Komnene.” In Gender and Emotions in Byzantium, edited by Stavroula Constantinou and Mati Meyer. London: Palgrave, 2018, 65-92.
  • “Legal Performance in Provincial Society: the Ceremonial Sounds of Sales” In Center, Province and Periphery in the Age of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos: From De Cerimoniis to De Administrando Imperio. Edited by Neils Gaul, Volker Menze, and Csanád Bálint. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2018, 124-136.

Advisor To

Selected Awards

  • Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor, 2016
  • Co-Winner of the Prize in Memory of Nikolaos Panagiotakis, 2007 edition, for the essay “Power-Hungry Byzantine Empresses and Theodora’s Rhetorical Legacy: the functions of women in Byzantine historical narrative” given by the Università Ca’Foscari in Venice and the Greek Ministry of Culture.
  • Dumbarton Oaks Bliss Prize Fellowship 1992-1994

History Courses=