Murphey - Empire byzantin;Empire byzantin - influence exercée;Empire ottoman;Empire ottoman - influence

JOHN HALDON AND RHOADS MURPHEY

ROSEMARY MORRIS

RHOADS MURPHEY

AGLAIA KASDAGLI

BEAT BRENK

LESLIE BRUBAKER

NATHALIE CLAYER

JOHANN STRAUSS

FREDERICK ANSCOMBE

JOHN BINTLIFF

ATHANASIOS K. VIONIS

11 Legacies in the landscape: the Vostizza district,
c. 14601715

MALCOLM WAGSTAFF

The unifying concept that links the eleven chapters presented in this volume has its origins in a conference convened under the joint auspices of the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies (University of Birmingham, UK) and the Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations (Ko University, Turkey). Thanks are due first and foremost to the Philip D. Whitting fund administered by the University of Birmingham, whose generous support covered the travel and accommodation costs of the twenty scholars who were brought together to take part in the International Conference on Imperial Legacies in a Cross-Cultural Context held in Istanbul in September 2011. Special thanks are due to Scott Redford, then director of the Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations for securing financial support from his universitys rectorate and for arranging meals and hospitality, not to mention the free use of his institutes handsome and well-appointed premises, during the full extent of our tightly scheduled two-day meeting. As convenor of the conference as well as a participant in its proceedings, speaking both for myself and on behalf of the nineteen other participants, we would like to express our heartfelt thanks for his collegiality and support. I would also like to acknowledge the offer of financial support from the College of Arts and Law, University of Birmingham, whose support from the Research and Knowledge Transfer Fund made possible a more generous quota for illustrations than was originally envisaged.

Although the papers presented at the conference were of a uniformly high calibre, during the process of revision and finalisation for inclusion in the present volume, the authors, myself included, benefitted from suggestions on the final chapter drafts that were made by a group of volunteers from among the doctoral students in Byzantine and Ottoman studies working under the supervision of John Haldon, a former colleague at the University of Birmingham and currently Shelby Cullom Davis 30 Professor of History at Princeton University. Professor Haldon also kindly agreed to offer some incisive remarks on the state of the field in the comparative study of empires for the introduction to the volume. As for his postgraduate students, with their agreement I am pleased to acknowledge their contributions individually and by name in alphabetical order: Merle Eisenberg, Vicky Hioureas, Rebecca Johnson, Sarah Matherly, Arianna Myers, Robyn Radway, Emily Riley, Morgan Robinson, David Walsh and Genie Yoo.

Finally, and certainly not least, I would like to express my personal thanks to John Smedley of Ashgate (now Routledge) publishing house for his unstinting help and support during the process of preparing the book for the press.

Rhoads Murphey
University of Birmingham,
Birmingham, UK, 19922014
Ipek University, Ankara, Turkey, 2014

Johann Strauss