This is in important book which fills a gap. It covers the crucial period before that treated in Rosemary Morris's excellent Monks and laymen in Byzantium, 843–1118 (1995), and it provides a detailed and comprehensive treatment of the neglected subject of monks and monasteries in Constantinople itself. It is based on very thorough and complete documentation and coverage of the available sources, especially in the period covered by Hatlie's own original work on Theodore the Stoudite and the Stoudios monastery. It will certainly become a standard work.

Hatlie divides his subject into three periods: c. 350 to 565, the beginnings of monasticism in Constantinople until the death of Justinian; 565 to 730, a period of decline; and 730 to c. 850, a period which saw monasticism revive, especially following measures of ‘serious monastic reform’ undertaken from about 760. As he says himself, no such schema is likely to fit all the phenomena, but this framework has nevertheless determined the organisation of the book and is repeated and defended in the conclusion. There are five appendices, the first a master-list of monasteries in Constantinople and its hinterland, 350–850, based mostly on written sources (hardly any archaeological information is available) and with due caution expressed about using the standard but often unreliable work of R. Janin. Obviously many of the dates given for the functioning of the monasteries depend on the positions taken in the main text, but this is a very useful handlist. There follow two more appendices, both listing attested iconophiles (Hatlie uses the term ‘iconodule’); these are largely based on the voluminous writings of Theodore the Stoudite, and give references to the relevant entries in PBE, which Hatlie prefers to its German rival, PmbZ. The fourth is a select list of monastic authors working in Constantinople, c. 730 to 850, and the fifth consists of maps, which are clear and commendably cautious.

One of the main problems with which Hatlie had to deal is that presented by the source material. Faced with a serious lack of material evidence for the topic, the historian must rely on textual sources; these include hagiography, about which a vigorous debate still rages among scholars (which Hatlie discusses). Hatlie himself tends to the Kazhdan approach, using hagiography with caution for historical data and context, and is somewhat sceptical of more radical literary approaches. But other sources can also be tendentious, such as the records of councils, and Hatlie is perhaps a little too reluctant to see the real extent of manipulation in the written material, especially in relation to iconoclasm. Indeed, his narrative of development and monastic revival in the eighth century requires him to play down the heroic view expressed by the iconophiles themselves of the sufferings of monks under the first period of iconoclasm in the eighth century. This may be right, but the argument could have been strengthened by more discussion of the extent to which iconophile writers like Theophanes Confessor themselves distorted the picture in the interests of asserting their own schema.

Writing of his first period, from the mid-fourth century to the death of Justinian, Hatlie rightly emphasises that monasticism in Constantinople was only weakly established, if at all, in the fourth century; the period of its real flourishing was from the late fifth into the sixth century, a time when monks were an important factor with which the Emperor Justinian had to deal, and whom he tried to regulate. He points to three issues (‘free rides’) which helped this development: the general growth of the city and influx of outsiders from the fourth century onwards, the ready availability of material patronage, and the intense atmosphere of religious rivalry and unrest in the fifth and sixth centuries (for which he is indebted to Meyendorff and Grillmeier and Hainthaler), which brought monks to great prominence. Monasteries in Constantinople are presented as ‘institutional start-ups’, and had varying chances of success; many failed, but others lasted and developed.

Writing of the period from 565 to c. 730, Hatlie paints a gloomy picture, according to which the earlier thriving monastic world ‘came completely undone’ and ‘ended in ruin’ (p. 445). He is influenced by negative portrayals of this period by other scholars, including Mango's dark vision of Constantinople in the early eighth century. But monasticism did not die; on the contrary, it survived the reigns of the iconoclast emperors Leo iii and Constantine v (whom Hatlie regards as ‘neutral’ towards monks) and underwent ‘a dramatic turnaround’ from the mid-eighth century onwards. If we accept the figures of Theodore the Stoudite, which Hatlie is inclined to do, the Stoudios monastery would have had 300 monks by 800, 700 by c. 807 and no fewer than 1,000 by c. 815. Family-based monasteries grew in number, and imperial patronage also played a part, especially under the Empress Irene. Hatlie rightly stresses the fact that many monks may have been sympathetic to the iconoclast cause when it was again pressed in the early ninth century; but the great figure of Theodore the Stoudite steered his monks skilfully, even from exile, through ecclesiastical disputes and renewed iconoclast attacks, and this resistance continued after his death in 826. A degree of doggedness on the part of the iconophiles helped in the gradual retreat of the iconoclast urge (p. 388), and after 843 the former monk and now patriarch Methodios purged iconoclasts and promoted iconophiles (pp. 391f.). This was less a ‘triumph of Orthodoxy’, as usually presented, than the fading away of a guerilla war. But the resolution of the dispute permitted an upsurge of the monastic activity which had already begun, and monks were very actively involved in the cultural revival or renaissance of the ninth century (pp. 404ff.).

This is more a political than a social history of Constantinopolitan monasticism, and it is in part determined by the nature of its sources. Hatlie has also chosen to omit altogether what many would see as the driving factor in monasticism, namely religious commitment and spirituality, on which there is indeed a huge amount of material available – although it would have doubled the size of the book. Merely in terms of explaining historical development, this omission of ideology can be questioned, though it is perhaps explicable given Hatlie's starting point from an analysis of Theodore the Stoudite's writings from the point of view of assessing their historical data. He also leaves out for the most part a discussion of this development in economic terms, which is perhaps more surprising. And in a book with such rich and welcome documentation, I personally found the use of the Harvard system inconvenient. But the very fact that Hatlie's book gives rise to many questions and stimulates further thought on this important subject is indication of the importance of its contribution.