About The Byzantine Empire – White Supremacists And QAnon Enthusiasts Are Obsessed – But Very Wrong
From Charlottesville to the Capitol, medieval imagery has been repeatedly on show at far-right rallies and riots in recent years.
Displays of Crusader shields and tattoos derived from Norse and Celtic symbols are of little surprise to medieval historians like me who have long documented the appropriation of the Middle Ages by today’s far right.
But amid all the expected Viking imagery and nods to the Crusaders has been another dormant “medievalism” that has yet to be fully acknowledged in reporting on both the far right and conspiracy theorist movements: the Byzantine Empire.
Byzantium – or more properly, the medieval Roman Empire – controlled much of the Mediterranean at the height of its territorial rule in the mid-sixth century. Centered in modern-day Istanbul from A.D. 330 to 1453, ...