the world of late antiquity by peter brown

They note that they “attempted to cast our net wide”, with the caveat that “it was never our intention that it should be all-inclusive” (xii). The editors stress that the volume “is a guide … not an encyclopedia, a dictionary, or a lexicon” (p.xii). As evidence that this already has happened at a very fundamental level, one only has to look at the number of university position descriptions that specify Late Antiquity either as a specialty or as a field. This rather defensive statement reflects a continuing quasi-apologetic feeling among some who study Late Antiquity at a time when others would argue that it already has become, de facto, just the independent period that the editors would like to see it be. It contains both lengthy essays on special topics and a multitude of shorter “encyclopedia” entries, providing not only a general overview of things late antique but also a survey of “the advances in scholarship” (p.x).Īs a raison d’être for the volume, the editors suggest that “the time has come for scholars, students, and the educated public in general to treat the period between around 250 and 800 as a distinctive and quite decisive period of history that stands on its own… It cannot be treated as a corpse to be dragged quickly offstage so that the next great act of the drama of the Middle Ages should begin” (p.ix). It is edited by three scholars of immense reputation and includes entries by a virtual who’s-who of late antique scholarship.

This massive volume is yet one more consequence of the continually expanding interest in Late Antiquity as an historical period.

The world of late antiquity by peter brown