There is very little that connects the two parts of this book. The attempt (pp. 217–36) made to find a connection around the use of the term ‘new martyr’ does not in my opinion work. As the editors admit (pp. 234–5), the term is only generalised in the late Middle Ages, when the advance of the Turks produced a new crop of martyrs. Only in the remotest sense does the second part of the book provide a historical context for the first.

The first part is a straightforward edition of an obscure saint's life: The Life and passion of St Bacchos the Younger, of which the only previous edition dates to 1666. Its importance derives from its author Stephen the Deacon, who is otherwise known for his Life of Stephen the Younger. This is, famously, the most important piece of hagiography produced in Constantinople in the interlude between first and second iconoclasm (787–815). St Bacchos the Younger could hardly have been more different from St Stephen the Younger. The latter was a native of Constantinople and was baptised at St Sophia. He would become one of the leaders of the opposition to the iconoclast policies of Constantine v, who finally handed him over to martyrdom at the hands of the mob. St Bacchos was a Palestinian who was brought up as a Muslim, his father, but not his mother, having converted to Islam. His Life traces his conversion to Christianity and eventual martyrdom in 787. With variants it was not an uncommon occurrence in eighth-century Palestine. What was uncommon was for his Life to have been written in Greek outside Palestine and for his cult to be established in Constantinople. He was the only saint martyred in Palestine to be properly included in the Synaxarion of St Sophia. It is not entirely clear which of the two Lives Stephen the Deacon wrote first, but there is a strong presumption (pp. 56–7) that the Life of St Bacchos the Younger was done while the Emperor Constantine vi (780–97) was still alive, in which case it will have come first. Remarkably, this would have been within ten years of the saint's death. There is also a strong presumption (p. 58) that the Life was commissioned by a patriarch, who would have been Tarasios (784–806). It would in any case have had to be written before 815, which still suggests that there was an urgency about it. That urgency was the need to secure the support of the Palestinians, who had found refuge at the end of the eighth century in Constantinople. Among their numbers were St Bacchos's brothers and their families, who had gone into exile at their mother's insistence. The Life produced was very different from the one that Stephen the Deacon wrote on St Stephen the Younger. The editors describe it as akin to a work of fiction (p. 63). There is none of the precise detail which makes the Life of St Stephen the Younger such a treasure trove for historians of the first iconoclasm. The Life of St Bacchos the Younger celebrates in rather general terms the Palestinian Church in the shape of the church of the Anastasis at Jerusalem and the monastery of Mar Saba. Its originality lies in the central position accorded to the saint's family (pp. 80–1), which, in the end, is the point of the Life. In many ways it is a curiosity, but one that adds a different dimension to the renewal of hagiography which occurred during the interlude between the two iconoclasms. The edition is a very welcome addition and done to an extremely high standard.

The second part began life as a ‘round table’ at the 23rd International Congress of Byzantine Studies held in 2016 at Belgrade. Its theme can be loosely rendered as bringing ‘new martyrs’ up to date. The intention seems to have been to relate the new martyrs of the Ottoman era to their post-iconoclast predecessors. One can always be sure that a round table will have a life and a logic of its own. In this case it is provided by Eleonora Kountoura Galaki, who shows how Palaiologan authors rewrote the Lives of saints of the iconoclast era as critical commentary on their own times (pp. 285–304), and by Alessandra Cozzi, who unravels how the Emperor John iv Laskaris (1258–61) became a martyr for the anti-unionist cause (pp. 305–32). As a result, the central episode becomes the opposition to Michael viii Palaiologos and the union of Churches of 1274, which generated more passion than anything since iconoclasm and far more than the martyrdoms suffered at the hands of the Turks. Since anti-unionism is a well-worn episode of late Byzantine history it is not dealt with in any systematic way, while those papers that look at other aspects of the original subject through no fault of their own appear to have wandered in from a different round table. Francesco D'Aiuto's examination of the Imperial Menologion (pp. 237–83) sheds valuable light not only on the piety of Michael iv (1034–41), but also on the guilt that he felt for his usurpation, which makes a nice contrast with Michael viii Palaiologos. Bringing things bang up to date Michel Kaplan wonders whether battered wives might be considered new martyrs (pp. 333–46). Smilja Marjanović-Dušanić looks at Serbia, where anti-unionism does not have quite the resonance it has in late Byzantium (pp. 347–61). She concludes with an arresting contrast between Serbia sancta and Serbia sacra, where the former is put at the service of the latter. By this she means that new saints are needed to feed a sacred core of identity. The same applies to Byzantium. The raw material is supplied by Marco Fanelli in a most impressive dossier of the nine new martyrs of the Palaiologan age (pp. 363–98). He uses ‘new martyr’ in its traditional way to mean those that suffered at Muslim – usually Turkish – hands. While the two martyred in Egypt and Palestine quickly attract attention in Constantinople, it is only at the bitter end that much attention is paid to those who suffered at the hands of the Turks, by which time it was far too late. Why the Byzantines were so apparently blind to the danger posed by the Turks might be a theme for a future round table.