Prosopography of the Byzantine World
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The Prosopography of the Byzantine World is a project to create a prosopographical database of individuals named in textual sources in the Byzantine Empire and surrounding areas in the period from 642 to 1265. The project is a collaboration between the British Academy and the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy. The database is hosted at King's College London and is freely accessible from the internet.
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[edit] Origins
The project was begun in the 1980s with the aim of completing the work on later Roman Empire and Byzantine prosopography begun by Theodore Mommsen in the 19th century and carried on by A.H.M. Jones, which produced The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (three volumes, Cambridge, 1971–1992), covering the period from 285 to 641.
The first result was the Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinische Zeit, published in five volumes. A version of this database is hosted at Berlin-Brandenburg Academy. This covers over 20000 individuals in the period from 641 to 1025.
[edit] Status
The project aimed to cover all named individuals in the Byzantine world, defined as the empire at its maximal extent during the reign of the Emperor Basil II, in the period from 642, where The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire ends, to the 1265. The geographical scope has since been extended to cover Jerusalem. As of 2006 the PBW itself covers the period 1025 to 1180, a total of some 10000 individuals. The data is drawn from textual sources and also from sigillography which constitutes an important resource in Byzantine prosopography. Around 7500 seals are recorded. The project team estimate that, in printed form, the database would amount to some 1400 pages.
The project was chaired until 2005 by Dame Averil Cameron. The current chair is Professor Charlotte Roueché FSA, head of the Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies department at King's College London. The project has been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
