Material Culture and Well-Being in Byzantium (400-1453)

Studies on everyday life are centred on housing conditions, eating and drinking, clothing, hygiene and medical care professions, land and sea communications, and generally production and consumption. The material range occupies a broad area here; besides the object-related specificity one can frequently denote also a mental function as carrier and/or symbol of concepts or values. The material, for exeample, from which parts of costumes or jewelery are manufactured, corresponds to a social hierarchy, an amulet reflects the worldviews of faith and superstition. Their respective use and employment determine the condition of the individual in the broader sense, whose existence is equally/additionally shaped by worthwhile concepts and ideas. The international symposium in Cambridge in 2001, which was organized in part by the Viennese Institute of Byzantine Studies, for some years on of the global leaders in this field, placed Well-being" as a topic in its material, legal and philosophical-religious components wishing to position it as a multiform and interdisciplinary common venture. Apart from Byzantine Studies scholars representing art history, archaelogy, legal studies, history of medicine and theology were active in the symposium. The twenty-three contributions, which form the publication of the symposiums proceedings, treat accordingly among other things aspects such as town planning, perfumes in the secular and church sphere, magical practices and holy physicians, clothing as status symbols and forms of abundance and shortage in the Byzantine diet. The actual congress proceedings are preceded by an introduction on the history of such cultural studies and their future perspectives. In order to grasp and register a past civilisation not only within the scholarly community but also make it appealing to the general public it is necessary to put more emphasis on the interlaced analysis between the textual, pictorial and material facts and evidence, mentalities and the aspects of conversation and presentation in museums.