Hi r/AskHistorians,
I'm a recently graduated university student, looking to become a Byzantine/Middle East scholar in the future, and have started studying this "lost empire" in detail. I've read John Norwich's and Judith Herrin's works on Byzantium and was looking for more deep, rich sources that I can read up on. Anything pertaining to the empire, both internally (religion, culture, society etc.) and the geopolitical situation at the time (economics, warfare, technology, other powers, etc.) would be fantastic!
I have a rudimentary understanding of the empire, its society and reactions to its neighbours, along with what's going on in the world during the Migration period/Medieval Era. However, I'm looking to learn more and expand the depth of my studies in this time period. Anything that you guys have to share would be a great help!
P.S. I'm not too sure if this is the right subreddit for these kinds of questions, and I apologise in advance if this isn't.
For Primary Sources and Secondary Sources, I strongly recommend Michael Psellos' Chronographia, which covers most of the Macedonian Dynasty, as well as Anna Komnene's The Alexiad, which covers the succeeding reign of the Alexios Komnenos. Both were courtiers who had access to primary and secondary sources, who give strong, highly detailed accounts of intricate events from military, political, and religious perspectives.
Additionally, you can go pretty far with the Suda, which was a 10th Century Byzantine Encyclopedia written to document the world for the Byzantine Court. The Suda contains 30,000 entries and preserves some of the only references to ancient and lost documents.
I also strongly recommend the works of St John of Damascus, to get an Eastern Christian perspective of Islam. John was born inside the Umayyad Caliphate, but was a Doctor of Orthodox Christianity, and gives strong first and second hand accounts of the nuanced relations between Orthodox Christianity and Islam.
Princeton university has a digitized collection on hundreds of Byzantine sources, from Byzantine scientific, legal, medical, and historical texts.
http://library.princeton.edu/byzantine/
Additionally, there is the Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae, which is a modern improvement on the Early Modern collection of Byzantine Literature.
This is an entirely appropriate subreddit! Let nobody discourage you from asking for sources here.
There are AskHistorians book lists. The Europe mentions Byzantine books in two sections, so you might be best served by doing a search for "Byz" (Well, three sections, except that one section mentions only Herrin, J. Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire, which I assume is the Herrin book you were referring to.)
AskHistorians has a podcast. Episodes 20 and 21 are "Byzantines: Macedonian and Komnenian Dynasties".
Thanks for the primary sources! I knew of the Alexiad, but I didn't realise such a wealth of primary sources still existed and were so readily available. Looks like I have quite the list of reading material to add to my summer read list. This will definitely help in my research. Thank you again for your help and support!
Can I follow up and ask about a specific book? Someone recommended Warren Treadgold's A History of Byzantine State and Society. However, I noticed the book has a bit of age on it. Is anyone able to comment on whether any of the scholarship is outdated or mistaken?