Byzantine aristocratic housing architecture: From the eleventh to the fifteenth century

The early Christian society had still a strong public character inherited from Antiquity. By the middle Byzantine period society had experienced a change. Society became more private with the family as the dominant focus of daily life. Likewise, this phenomenon was translated into domestic architecture. The tradition of building sprawled atrium aristocratic houses during Late Antiquity was abandoned, and instead houses acquired a more private and inward look. A new aristocracy that emerged after the eleventh century favored the construction of palaces in the form of a single-block, with a fortified look, reasserting its private character. During the last centuries of the Byzantine Empire, the household, or oikos, represented a symbol of social status, familial continuity and power for the aristocracy. This thesis examines the emergence and nature of the Byzantine aristocracy after the eleventh century, and the importance of the oikos as an institution. This is followed by a survey of the dwellings of the Byzantine aristocracy located in modern Turkey. The survey is based on the surviving archaeological evidence, in conjunction with an analysis of contemporary written sources.