Undergraduate Course: Art and Society in the Byzantine World (CACA10060)

Course Outline
School	School of History, Classics and Archaeology	College	College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit level (Normal year taken)	SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate)	Availability	Available to all students
SCQF Credits	20	ECTS Credits	10
Summary	The rich artistic world of the Mediterranean from Late Antiquity to the late Byzantine period reveals how patrons - including emperors, saints, aristocrats and communities - shaped a distinctive visual language across buildings, figural arts, manuscripts and jewellery. Moments of crisis and innovation, from Iconoclasm to transregional exchanges, demonstrate how art both reflected and influenced politics, faith and culture. The course examines the stories, spaces and masterpieces that defined Byzantium and its wider Mediterranean connections.
Course description	This course investigates the rich artistic developments of the Mediterranean from Late Antiquity to the late Byzantine period, highlighting the interplay between religious devotion, imperial authority and cultural exchange in shaping a distinctive visual language. Students will explore the roles of emperors, saints and patrons in defining both sacred and secular imagery across architecture, figural and decorative arts. The course also considers Byzantium's dialogue with the Latinate West, with Ravenna, Venice and Sicily serving as case studies, and examines periods of crisis - most notably Iconoclasm - as moments of both challenge and creative transformation. Further attention is given to the material and conceptual dimensions of sacred spaces, religious architecture, ivories and illuminated manuscripts as vehicles for transmitting theological, political and cultural ideas. Seminars will also trace Byzantium's connections with the Balkans and Asian regions and the impact of political and military events on artistic production. In its final section, the course situates late Byzantine art of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries within a wider Mediterranean context, revealing patterns of continuity, stylistic evolution and the transregional circulation of artists, patron

Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites		Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations		Other requirements	Students must have progressed to Honours

Information for Visiting Students
Pre-requisites	Visiting students should usually have at least 3 courses in Classics, History or Archaeology (at least 1 of which should be in Classical or Byzantine Art and Archaeology at grade B or above (or be predicted to obtain this) for entry to this course. We will only consider University/College level courses. as numbers are limited, visiting students should contact the Visiting Student Office directly for admission to this course

Course Delivery Information

Academic year 2026/27, Available to all students (SV1)		Quota: 0
Course Start	Semester 1
Timetable	Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info)	Total Hours: 200 ( Seminar/Tutorial Hours 22, Summative Assessment Hours 2, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 172 )
Assessment (Further Info)	Written Exam 50 %, Coursework 50 %, Practical Exam 0 %
Additional Information (Assessment)	Exam: Two-hour exam (50%) Coursework: Virtual exhibition (50%)
Feedback	Students will receive feedback on their coursework and will have the opportunity to discuss that feedback further with the Course Organiser during their published office hours for this course or by appointment.
Exam Information
Exam Diet	Paper Name		Minutes
Main Exam Diet S2 (April/May)			120

Academic year 2026/27, Part-year visiting students only (VV1)		Quota: 2
Course Start	Semester 1
Timetable	Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info)	Total Hours: 200 ( Seminar/Tutorial Hours 22, Summative Assessment Hours 2, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 172 )
Assessment (Further Info)	Written Exam 50 %, Coursework 50 %, Practical Exam 0 %
Additional Information (Assessment)	Exam: Two-hour exam (50%) Coursework: Virtual exhibition (50%)
Feedback	Students will receive feedback on their coursework and will have the opportunity to discuss that feedback further with the Course Organiser during their published office hours for this course or by appointment.
Exam Information
Exam Diet	Paper Name		Minutes
Main Exam Diet S1 (December)			120

Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to: Understand, evaluate and reflect critically upon primary source material and relevant scholarship concerning the material and visual culture of Byzantium and its interactions. Be familiar with some of the main artistic outputs of the Byzantine period and be able to contextualise them in a solid historical, cultural, ideological and political framework. Understand and discuss the principal elements of continuity and change in the artistic production of Byzantium, developing their idea on the subject. Build confidence in academic discussion, presentation and writing skills. Be acquainted with some of the most important collections of Byzantine objects around the world, their catalogues, related web resources and online databases.

Reading List
Bakirtzis, Charalambos, Chrysanthi Mavropoulou-Tsioumi and Eftychia Kourkoutidou-Nikolaidou. Mosaics of Thessaloniki: 4th to 14th Century. Athens: Kapon Editions, 2012. Brubaker, Leslie. Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm. London: Bristol Classical Press, 2012. Evans, Helen C. Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557). New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004. Gavrilovic, Zaga. Studies in Byzantine and Serbian Medieval Art. London: Pindar Press, 2001. Herrin, Judith. Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020. James, Liz, Mosaic in the medieval world: from late antiquity to the fifteenth century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Jevtic, Ivana, Kontogiannis, Nikos D. and Stankovic, Nebojsa. Religious Buildings Made in Byzantium: Old Monuments, New Interpretations?. New Approaches to Byzantine History and Culture. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024. Lowden, John. Early Christian and Byzantine Art. London: Phaidon Press, 1997. Ousterhout, Robert. Visualizing community: art, material culture, and settlement in Byzantine Cappadocia, Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2017 Ousterhout, Robert. Eastern Medieval Architecture: The Building Traditions of Byzantium and neighboring lands. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Ousterhout, Robert G. Master Builders of Byzantium. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 2008 (originally published Princeton University Press, 1999). Schwartz, Ellen C., ed. The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Art and Architecture. Oxford: Oxford

Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills	Research, collect, evaluate, and use the available evidence to contextualise the cultural developments concerning designs, fashions, customs, and techniques for Byzantium Summarise, interpret and critique previous and current literature on Byzantine visual and material culture through a solid historiographic lens. Analyse and explain how and why objects were made and interacted with their social, cultural, and physical environments. Identify original research questions concerning the developments of Byzantine visual and material culture. Communicate clearly, both in verbal and written form, ideas, work in progress, and results developed after researching specific aspects of the material and visual culture of Byzantium by showing awareness of the possible diverse audience.
Keywords	Not entered