The two volumes of collected studies by N Oikonomides (died 31 May 2000), edited by his wife E Zachariadou, present a total of fifty-six studies (English, French, Greek and Italian), published at various dates between 1981 and 2003. In these studies, the author demonstrated his command of historical and philological method alongside his expertise in the fields of epigraphic and seal analysis.

On the Byzantine state, Oikonomides concluded that, between the time of the Latin conquest of ad 1204 and the fall in 1453, the state remained an essentially ‘Byzantine institution’ (autocratic, centralized and theocentric). Only after 1453 did a neo-Hellenic era begin (2005, Study XV). The state, he found, displayed differing levels of literacy across time and institutions, according to prevailing historical circumstances (2005, Studies I–VI).

A large number of studies were concerned with the relationship of this centralized Byzantine state to the provinces (2004, Studies III, IV, VI, VII and XV, XVI and XXI). Here, Oikonomides demonstrated that the state was anxious to maintain control, although there was also an element of protection from central religious dominance afforded to some provincial monastic institutions (2004, Study VI).

The centralized state exerted power over its subjects through the award of imperial titles and benefits (2004, Study XXI). Upward social mobility was based on this system and titles were exploited outside the capital of Constantinople (2004, Studies XXVIII and XXIX, and 2005, Study XII). Those with titles were apt to curry further favour by paying artistic tribute to the emperor (2005, Study XI).

Another aspect of interest to Oikonomides was the question of the actual composition of the Byzantine army and of the changing roles of the farmer-soldier and of mercenaries (2004, Studies X and XI). He sought to explain how, by the mid-fourteenth century, Byzantium was no longer able to afford to sustain a proper army (2005, Studies XVI and XX). In particular, he examined the destabilizing influence of different types of adventure mercenaries and of unreliable foreign allies at times of civil war. The administration of the Church, by way of contrast, he found well ordered (2004, Study V).

Several studies further indicate how closely the fates of Church and State were connected (2004, Studies IX, X, XV and XVI). The state drew revenue from the land, but increasingly this was diminished, as land with tax exemption was acquired by monasteries. Also, the land and the taxes of the peasants were being absorbed into the large estates of secular landowners, representing further loss of tax revenue to the state. In one paper, Oikonomides examined the question of ‘Proto-feudalism’ in Byzantium (2004, Study I), but in another (2004, Study XX) he concluded that feudalism cannot be attributed to Byzantium in that there was no ‘western-style’ feudal pyramid social structure involved. Unique to Byzantium was the fact that each subject owed direct allegiance first and foremost to the emperor.

In general, Oikonomides argued for a move away from an imperially controlled ‘command economy’ towards a ‘market economy’ in Byzantium from the tenth to twelfth centuries onwards (2004, Studies XII, XIII, and XVII), under western influence (2004, Study XIII). The closest application of the ‘market economy’ theory was made in relation to the silk industry (2004, Study VIII), where Oikonomides differed in detailed definition of the kommerkiarioi with Lopez. Oikonomides also examined the degree of monetarization of the economy (2004, Study XIV) and the problems caused by the large monetary outlays made by the emperors in the eighth to tenth centuries (2004, Study XVIII). Debasement and lack of coinage after that time called for the payment of officials directly by the public through special taxes, rather than through salaries from the state.

Alongside the growing threats to the empire from foreign attack, Byzantium developed both pro- and anti-western stances to suit its own political purposes (2005, Studies XVII, XIX and XX). This lack of clarity in imperial policy was part of the atmosphere of uncertainty that foretold the fall of the empire.

From the impeccably researched studies as a whole, the reader gains a very clear overall picture of how Byzantium was organized and of the role of Church and State in the control of Byzantine social, economic and belief systems. Levels of literacy across the empire were also considered in a systematic manner. Some of Oikonomides's art-historical papers have been overtaken by contemporary scholarship (2005, Studies VIII and IX), but others have stood the test of time (2005, Studies VII and XIII). The volumes act as a fitting tribute to a great scholar.

Henry Maguire's volume presents twelve studies, copiously illustrated and originally published between 1977 and 2003. He advocates the use of parallel historical, art-historical and philological approaches to the analysis of his visual and written sources. He examines imperial attitudes and artistic patronage and the role of the Church in art appreciation. He contrasts Byzantium's fascination with ‘magic’ and the classically secular, with its fixation upon Christian concepts about salvation and the earthly revelation of the spiritual world.

Maguire sees a shift, from an earlier open attitude towards an accessible Paradise and a free association between man and nature, to a post-Iconoclastic period, confined and inaccessible Paradise, where nature has fallen under the power of religious doctrine (Studies I and III). He traces this change in mentality to religious influence and political circumstance. He argues that the classical revival of the tenth century represents only poorly understood classical artistic elements put to Christian use (Studies II and IV). The imperial house is anxious to emphasize its divine virtues (Study XII) and the emperor alongside the saints is depicted as intercessor between God and man. The Virgin as intercessor, he suggests, holds a special place as the symbol of Byzantine justice and law, by virtue of her Presentation in the Temple (Study X). The imperial earthly court mirrors the heavenly court above (Study XI).

In artistic terms, classicizing styles of art are utilized to depict the humanity of Christ and classical gestures are adopted into the Byzantine artistic repertoire to express lament and sorrow in relation to Christ's crucifixion. The influence of Latin liturgical drama also is evident in the depiction of emotion in Byzantine Sicily (Studies III, VI and VIII). Maguire suggests that in art, as in rhetoric, the use of excessive realism was avoided through the substitute use of the device of pairing scenes (synkrisis and antithesis). One example was the pairing of Transfiguration and Crucifixion, which evoked the comfortable thought that at the time of Christ's suffering the apostles would have looked back to his glorious Transfiguration (Study VII).

Although the Church condemned apotrophaic symbols and objects and magic rituals, their influence was still felt in Byzantium (Studies V and IX). Maguire argues that this was because, by the twelfth century, a distinction was made between apotrophaic and magical power. The Church developed the dogma of the Christian ‘eye of Justice’ as superior to the magical ‘evil eye’. Maguire succinctly concludes that the message was to trust in saints and not in sorcery.

The volume as a whole, well researched and presented, provides fascinating insight into Byzantine religious and secular mentalities in the context of institutional constraints. A greater integration of analysis of Byzantine art as ‘material culture’, particularly in relation to Byzantine cultural artefacts (textiles and ceramics), would have been valuable.

The stated aim of Maniatis, the author of the fourth volume, is to examine the concepts, institutions and markets behind the process of market pricing in Byzantium, in a series of seven studies dating variously from 1999 to 2006. He attempts to reconcile contemporary economic theory to the analysis of Byzantine source materials and he envisages the broad move from command to market economy in Byzantium between the tenth and the twelfth centuries (Studies I–IV and VIII, XII, XIII and XVII). He considers that, by the fourteenth century, the regulations of the tenth-century Book of the Prefect or Eparch had been incorporated into private business organizations in a market-driven economy.

Maniatis concentrates on two main topics: the nature of the guilds in Byzantium and forms of pricing mechanisms in operation, both of these with regard to the role played by the State (Studies I, II, III, V and VI). He argues strongly, and with justifiable references to the Book of the Prefect, that the state supported occupational monopolies but not market monopolies. He closely analyses the roles of the different guilds and demonstrates that they did not determine the organization or the operation of the Byzantine economy. Thus, he argues, if neither state nor guilds governed the Byzantine economy, it is reasonable to suggest that pricing within the economy must have been market-driven.

The author distinguishes between the Byzantine and the western guilds, in that the Byzantine guilds did not have internal by-laws enforced by guild officials but rather they were subject to Byzantine law. He insists that Byzantine guilds never covered all the occupations and crafts described in Byzantine law sources. He does provide a typology of Byzantine business organization (fig 1), which divides it into state and voluntary sectors, each with its own subdivisions.

Overall, the attempt to understand Byzantine market organization and pricing systems in practical terms is commendable. However, there are weaknesses in the author's arguments. One of these must revolve around the question of how representative are the Byzantine sources, and particularly the Book of the Prefect. Some argue that it is a very early document and incomplete. Also, Maniatis does not refer to the nature of Islamic business organization, as fully reflected in tenth- to eleventh-century Cairo Geniza documents. He draws parallels with western guilds, but these functioned at a time much later than the Byzantine guilds of the Book of the Eparch. In addition, Maniatis fails to consider the evidence of surviving silks, which have been published and which reflect levels of technical and technological achievement across the centuries. In Study II (p 551), the author claims the ‘Industry had no economic incentive to seek novel production methods that would have induced technological breakthroughs’. The surviving silks reveal that precisely the opposite is true. Constant improvements in drawloom structure and operation are in evidence for the production of more complex and yet more economically viable silks. In Study III (p 319), the author claims that mass production of cheaper silks was not in operation. Again, the evidence of the surviving silks suggests precisely the opposite was true. Similarly, Maniatis states that all use of purple murex dyes was confined to imperial workshops and to those commissioned to work for them (Study I, p 351), but the regulations of the Book of the Prefect (8.1, 8.2, 8.4) precisely indicate that not all, but only certain very specific, types of murex purple used on special tailored cuts were confined to imperial use.