Book Review: Banditry in the Medieval Balkans, 800-1500, by Panos Sophoulis (Springer, 2020)

Note: this book review was originally published in the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies’ Bulletin of Byzantine British Studies (March, 2021). Click the link below to become a paid subscriber of my TLS Substack to read the full review, plus many other intriguing and original essays and stories.

By Christopher Deliso

Panos Sophoulis, Banditry in the Medieval Balkans, 800-1500, Springer (2020).

This engaging study, a part of Palgrave’s New Approaches to Byzantine History and Culture series, investigates an important aspect of Byzantine social life that is both well-known and yet understudied: that is, the role played by highwaymen, brigands, pirates and other semi-professional enemies of law and order in the medieval Balkans.

Expert Knowledge and Methodological Sensitivity

Author Panos Sophoulis is an acknowledged academic expert in the Byzantine Balkans, having received his DPhil from Oxford and subsequently specializing in the empire’s relations with medieval powers like the Bulgarians and Serbians. Currently Assistant Professor of History at the University of Athens, his 2012 book (Byzantium and Bulgaria, 775-831, Brill) won the John Bell Book Prize in 2013.

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