Graduate Student, Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity
Postgraduate Teaching Assistant
College of Arts and Law
Thesis Title: From Womb to the Tomb: The Byzantine Life Course 6th-12th century
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Leslie Brubaker
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About
My PhD looks at the social construction of life stages in the East Roman Empire, 6th-12th century. Across this period, perceptions of age and aging, and the impact of status and gender on these perceptions, shift. Changes in the construction of the Byzantine Life Course tell us a great deal about identity, familial roles and societal responsibilities.
The Byzantine Life Course has never been subject to analysis. Talbot and Gilleard have focused on old age; Miller and Abrahamse have concentrated on childhood. Yet Harlow and Laurence – internationally recognised experts on the Roman life course – point to the importance of studying age as a series of transitional phases instead of isolated stages. This is crucial because, as Garland (the Ancient Greek Life Course expert) has observed, age terminology may vary with status and gender, and chronological aging was not always systemised: understanding the Life Course is the only way to put isolated pieces of evidence into context and thus exploit them.
For my data, I must move beyond the conventional tools of Byzantine historians, who normally rely on texts representative of a largely elite, urban and male culture. While not ignoring these, my analysis centres on different resources – prosopographical studies, epigraphy, and material culture – which reveal information about a wider sector of the population, urban and rural, male and female, young and old. Traditional approaches to history expound ideals and expectations; this approach exposes the daily life of the individual. The three approaches are likely to generate different models, the reconciliation of which will enable my ultimate goal: a nuanced definition, for the first time, of the Byzantine life course and changing perceptions of it over time.
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