THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY PLANNED BY J. B. BURY, M.A., F.B.A. REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY EDITED BY J. R. TANNER, Litt.D. C. W. PREVITÉ-ORTON, M.A. Z. N. BROOKE, M.A. VOLUME IV THE EASTERN ROMAN EMPIRE (717-1453) NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1923 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PREFACE. will be seen from the title-page that the Cambridge Medieval History has again suffered the loss of one of its Editors by the resignation of Professor Whitney, to whom the first three volumes owed so much. Volume IV, however, a good part of which was in type before the War, stands indebted to him nearly as much as its predecessors have done, and much of the revision in proof has benefited by his co-operation. Mr Z. N. Brooke has been appointed by the Syndics of the University Press to succeed him. Our chief thanks are also due to Professor Bury, without whose aid our task in a volume treating of Byzantine history could hardly have been accomplished. He has read most of the chapters in proof, and has made a number of invaluable suggestions upon them. Besides contributing a summary to Chapter V, he has written for us the Introduction to the volume, in which he explains its general plan and defines the place of Byzantium in universal history. A volume dealing with subjects which lie apart from the more frequented paths of medieval studies has laid the Editors under many obligations to specialists. Professor A. A. Bevan has given the kindest help in the transliteration of Arabic, and Professor E. G. Browne in that of Turkish names, while Dr E. H. Minns has revised the forms of names in Slavonic languages; we owe much to their criticism and advice. The long delays which the War imposed on Volume III have reacted also on Volume IV, and we regret that Sir Edwin Pears did not live to see his chapter in proof, nor M. Ferdinand Chalandon more than the first proofs of his chapters; but we have been fortunate in the second revision of M. Chalandon's proofs by Madame Chalandon. The scope and proportion of the volume have occasionally necessitated the abbreviation of a chapter; and here we owe a special debt to Professor Macler, who has allowed us to reshape his exhaustive contribution on Armenia in accordance with the limitations on our space, and to Mrs E. A. Benians, who undertook the task of compression, enabling us to give to a chapter abbreviated from the French the characteristics of an original composition in English. Our thanks are also due to Mr E. W. Brooks for the Bibliography of |