Contact

• workRoom C36b Trent
  University Park
  Nottingham
  NG7 2RD
  UK
• work0115 82 32177
• monica.white@nottingham.ac.uk

Expertise Summary

History of pre-modern Russia and Byzantium

The Orthodox Church

Cults of saints and relics

Religion and warfare

Teaching Summary

•Nation, Myth, Identity: Introduction to Russian and Slavonic Studies (R81106)

•The World of Orthodox Sainthood (R82098) •The History of the Byzantine Empire (R83111)

I am able to offer postgraduate supervision in early East Slavonic and Byzantine history, religion and culture.

Past Research

Military Saints in Byzantium and Rus, 900-1200, published by Cambridge University Press in 2013, studies the cults of the patron saints of armies in the medieval Orthodox world. Starting with an analysis of the religious re-orientation of Byzantine military thought between the sixth and tenth centuries, the book examines the emergence of a new corps of divine patrons whose cults were promoted by successive emperors of the Macedonian dynasty. The Byzantine tradition of military sainthood went on to exert a strong influence in early medieval Russia (Kievan Rus), shaping the cult of the martyred princes Boris and Gleb.

During and after work on this monograph, I completed a number of other projects on aspects of Byzantine and Rus culture and religion. These include articles about the inverted heart motif, a pattern found on enamels in the medieval Orthodox world; the evolution of dragon-slaying miracles in Byzantine hagiography; the place of Ss Boris and Gleb within the world of Orthodox sainthood; the veneration of Constantine the Great in early Rus; and relics in the religious culture and politics of Rus and Byzantium.

I am currently working on a history of relations between Byzantium and Rus over the entire medieval period (c. 860-1453).