Byzantine Intersectionality: Sexuality, Gender and Race in the Middle Ages, by Roland Betancourt

disciplines, namely that Byzantium was the medieval Roman Empire, viewed as such by the subjects of the Roman emperors and by their neighbors alike.2 Byzantine Roman identity—as most other prenationalistic identities—was not parsed along the lines of language, ethnicity, skin color, and territory. It was a fluid construct based on shared values and traditions. Ethnicity, culture, and territory were not welded together as our modern post-Enlightenment notions would have us believe.3 Other scholars, mostly historians and