Emergent Elites and Byzantium in the Balkans and East-central Europe

According to Byzantium's leaders, their imperial order anchored in Constantinople was the centre of excellence, spiritual, moral, material and aesthetic. They rewarded individuals willing to join, and favoured those prepared to cooperate militarily or politically. Interactions with outsiders varied over place and time, complicated by the sometimes differing priorities of Byzantine churchmen and monks on or beyond Byzantium's borders. Jonathan Shepard here considers the dynamics of such interactions, notably the interrelationships of Bulgarians, Hungarians and Rus with Byzantium.