Book review:E. TCHKOIDZE, Ένας Γεωργιανός προσκυνητής στον βυζαντινό κόσμο του 9ου αιώνα: ο Άγιος Ιλαρίων ο Γεωργιανός [A Georgian Pilgrim in the Byzantine World of the 9th Century: Saint Hilarion the Georgian], Athens 2011, 273 pp. (ISBN 978-960-6813-29

BOOK REVIEW::E. Tchkoidze, Ένας Γεωργιανός προσκυνητής στον βυζαντινό κόσμο του 9ου αιώνα: ο Άγιος Ιλαρίων ο Γεωργιανός [A Georgian Pilgrim in the Byzantine World of the 9th Century: Saint Hilarion the Georgian], Athens 2011, 273 pp.  (ISBN 978-960-6813-29-0

"The sun was darkened for seventeen days (AD 797)". An interdisciplinary exploration of a celestial phenomenon between Byzantium, Charlemagne, and a volcanic eruption

The blinding of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VI in Constantinople in August 797 and his overthrow by his mother Eirene, who then until 802 ruled as first female emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, was used as legitimation for the coronation of the Frankish King Charlemagne as emperor of the Romans on December 25, 800, by contemporaries in Western Europe. Some observers in the West may have even interpreted the downfall of the Eastern Roman emperor and his replacement by a woman as sign of an impending collapse of the Roman Empire and the entire world order as already expected, based on chiliastic calculations. We equally find indications of apocalyptic expectations in Constantinople, where the blinding of Constantine was linked with a spectacular celestial manifestation of divine disapproval, a darkening of the sun for 17 days. In this paper, this obfuscation of the sun is compared with the description of other atmospheric and climatic phenomena in the 8th and 9th century as well as before and after this period. In addition, natural scientific data is used to disprove earlier hypotheses on the physical background to this event and to present a more probable scenario, i. e., the impacts of one or more volcanic eruptions, for the darkening of 797 and other phenomena, which provided a peculiar atmospheric framework for the interpretation of the events between the downfall of Constantine VI and the coronation of Charlemagne by contemporaries.Comment: Pre-Print (post peer review), accepted for publication in the journal Medieval World

Hierarchies and fractals: ecclesiastical revenues as indicator for the distribution of relative demographic and economic potential within the cities and regions of the Late Byzantine Empire in the early 14th century

Until now the source material has made it impossible to reconstruct the distribution of economic power and population within the Late Byzantine Empire on a large scale. Our new analysis of a list of financial contributions from 1324, which includes those from 33 bishoprics and the Patriarchate of Constantinople, connects this data with the economic performance of the respective town and its hinterland; we demonstrate that the distribution of contributions shows characteristics which are typical for settlement hierarchies and therefore can be used to create the first models for the relative distribution of demographic and economic potential in the Byzantine Empire at this time.Until now the source material has made it impossible to reconstruct the distribution of economic power and population within the Late Byzantine Empire on a large scale. Our new analysis of a list of financial contributions from 1324, which includes those from 33 bishoprics and the Patriarchate of Constantinople, connects this data with the economic performance of the respective town and its hinterland; we demonstrate that the distribution of contributions shows characteristics which are typical for settlement hierarchies and therefore can be used to create the first models for the relative distribution of demographic and economic potential in the Byzantine Empire at this time

Book review:E. TCHKOIDZE, Ένας Γεωργιανός προσκυνητής στον βυζαντινό κόσμο του 9ου αιώνα: ο Άγιος Ιλαρίων ο Γεωργιανός [A Georgian Pilgrim in the Byzantine World of the 9th Century: Saint Hilarion the Georgian], Athens 2011, 273 pp. (ISBN 978-960-6813-29

BOOK REVIEW::E. Tchkoidze, Ένας Γεωργιανός προσκυνητής στον βυζαντινό κόσμο του 9ου αιώνα: ο Άγιος Ιλαρίων ο Γεωργιανός [A Georgian Pilgrim in the Byzantine World of the 9th Century: Saint Hilarion the Georgian], Athens 2011, 273 pp.  (ISBN 978-960-6813-29-0

Hierarchies and fractals: ecclesiastical revenues as indicator for the distribution of relative demographic and economic potential within the cities and regions of the Late Byzantine Empire in the early 14th century

Until now the source material has made it impossible to reconstruct the distribution of economic power and population within the Late Byzantine Empire on a large scale. Our new analysis of a list of financial contributions from 1324, which includes those from 33 bishoprics and the Patriarchate of Constantinople, connects this data with the economic performance of the respective town and its hinterland; we demonstrate that the distribution of contributions shows characteristics which are typical for settlement hierarchies and therefore can be used to create the first models for the relative distribution of demographic and economic potential in the Byzantine Empire at this time.Until now the source material has made it impossible to reconstruct the distribution of economic power and population within the Late Byzantine Empire on a large scale. Our new analysis of a list of financial contributions from 1324, which includes those from 33 bishoprics and the Patriarchate of Constantinople, connects this data with the economic performance of the respective town and its hinterland; we demonstrate that the distribution of contributions shows characteristics which are typical for settlement hierarchies and therefore can be used to create the first models for the relative distribution of demographic and economic potential in the Byzantine Empire at this time

Correcting for the missing rich: An application to Wealth Survey Data

It is a well-known criticism that if the distribution of wealth is highly concentrated, survey data are hardly reliable when it comes to analyzing the richest parts of society. This paper addresses this criticism by providing a general rationale of the underlying methodological problem as well as by proposing a specific methodological approach tailored to correcting the arising bias. We illustrate the latter approach by using Austrian data from the Household Finance and Consumption Survey. Specifically, we identify suitable parameter combinations by using a series of maximum-likelihood estimates and appropriate goodness-of-fit tests to avoid arbitrariness with respect to the fitting of the Pareto distribution. Our results suggest that the alleged non-observation bias is considerable, accounting for about one quarter of total net wealth in the case of Austria. The method developed in this paper can easily be applied to other countries where survey data on wealth are available