21^st INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF BYZANTINE STUDIES

LAST WORDS ON THE CONGRESS

This website http://www.byzantinecongress.org.uk reflects the Congress at its opening on 21 August 2006, when participants received its printed papers, one volume of Plenary Papers, and two volumes of abstracts of Panel Papers, Communications & Posters. These are now published for sale as Proceedings of the 21^st International Congress of Byzantine Studies, ed. Elizabeth Jeffreys and others, 3 volumes (Ashgate, Aldershot, 2006).

Thanks to our webmaster, Gavin Wraith, this website remains open because it includes contributions which arrived too late for publication or are expanded texts of the printed abstracts (see Programme). Under Information will be found a record of related exhibitions, concerts and receptions held in the British Museum, the British Library, Lambeth Palace, St Pancras church, Somerset House and King's College London. For special exhibitions, participants received Eurydice Georganteli and Barrie Cook, Encounters. Travel and Money in the Byzantine world (2006), and Clare Brown, Julian Chrysostomides and Charalambos Dendrinos, The Greek Manuscript Collection of Lambeth Palace Library (2006). The Byzantine Festival in London gave participants a CD of music performed for the Congress.

The Congress brought together over 1000 registered participants from over 40 countries. Perhaps the most telling statistic is that over 800 participants contributed formally to its Programme. There can be no Authorised Version of it beyond its Proceedings and this website, for each participant has their own tale. But it demonstrated three things:

1. Byzantine Studies, so vast and so comparatively new a concept, were confirmed as a coherent discipline, where students of, say, hagiography must speak to economic, literary or art historians. For example, participants would have been alert to the different layers of context in the seventh debate of Manuel II Palaiologos with a Muslim cleric in Ankara in 1391. The text put Byzantine Studies in the news when the Pope cited it three weeks after the Congress. The Congress was a good reflection of today's interests and future concerns.

2. The Congress was the first to use the website so extensively - how did we communicate before? But it demonstrated that there is no substitute for Byzantinists meeting and speaking face to face - indeed enjoying convivial argument.

3. The Congress was blessed with great Sponsors, whose active support is acknowledged here. Sponsorship and Registration each provided near £140,000 to cover the costs of the Congress. But we are especially grateful for the contribution of all  participants and wish the organizers of the 22^nd International Congress of Byzantine Studies (Sofia, 2011) similar good fortune.

Photographs and an updated GastroGuide follow.

The Organizing Committee