After reviewing the exceptional podcast 12 Byzantine Rulers, I contacted the publisher/author duo of Anders and Lars Brownworth to explore the possibility of interviewing the podcasting team about their efforts in the audio lecture field. Fortunately for our readers, they agreed to this request and the result is an exciting, insightful look into what it is to be an author, a publisher, and a pioneer in a new media.   

1) Why did you choose podcasting as your medium?

(Anders) Initially, the 12 Byzantine Rulers project was released as MP3 files for download from a website. We turned the project into a podcast shortly after that when Apple added podcast support in iTunes which gave us two primary advantages. Firstly, the podcast format was the most convenient way to disseminate lectures to our listeners. It took the pain out of keeping up to date with the lectures and we started to see greatly increased return rates from our listeners. Secondly, the podcast feed allowed us to submit our project to iTunes and other sites which greatly increased our visibility. Rather than relying on people finding us through Google searches, we were categorized with other educationally oriented podcasts which allowed us to be seen by a much larger and more targeted group of potential listeners. In hindsight, the podcasting decision has been very good for us.

2) What do you believe are the advantages/disadvantages of using podcasting to disseminate knowledge?

(Anders) Audio lectures can be an engaging way to experience history, and in some cases reach those who wouldn’t otherwise take the time to study topics like the Byzantine Empire. The key advantage that podcasting offers us is the ability to fairly quickly disseminate new lectures as they  become available. If we were just posting audio files on a website, people generally wouldn’t know to come back for new lectures. While we do send emails when new lectures become available, podcasting takes the pain out of downloading them by automating the process. Once someone subscribes to the 12 Byzantine Rulers podcast feed, new lectures automatically arrive
when they are released.

A weakness of the podcasting medium at this point is the lack of searchability. While you can search the summary information, the actual words in the audio files are not in a searchable format. For example, going back and listening to an entire lecture to find a short reference would be very time consuming. However, technologies that promise to change this are being created and we will continue to evaluate them.

3) Do you plan to create more history podcasts featuring different eras?

(Anders) Yes, that is something we have been discussing though we aren’t ready to announce anything yet. We are also considering other lecturers as well.

4) What is your educational background?

(Lars) I went to a liberal arts college and majored in History (with a specialization in Ancient and Medieval), and minors in Philosophy and Science. Currently I am pursuing a Masters in Medieval history.

5) (Anders’ question) Why did you decide to present a lecture on the Byzantine Empire?

(Lars) I have always been fascinated with Roman and Medieval history, especially the transition from one to another. In most of my history classes, we traced the decline of the empire till its end in 476, then said some closing remarks, and then it was on to the Middle Ages. It wasn’t till after college that I discovered that the story did not in fact end there- the Roman Empire did not come to an end in 476 but actually continued for another thousand years. Here was a story that needed to be told, and the more I read about it, the more apparent it became that this “lost” history was vitally important, both to our understanding of the East, and to our understanding of ourselves.

6) In your podcast, you mention several contributions the Byzantines made to modern society. What, in your opinion, is the greatest contribution the Byzantines made?

(Lars) Thomas Cahill wrote a wonderful little book a while ago called “How the Irish Saved Civilization”, where he argues that Irish monks essentially kept the flame of learning alive through the dark ages, and transmitted classical civilization to us through those turbulent years. I would say that the Byzantines played a similar (even more important) role, by not only preserving a record of classical civilization, but by keeping it alive. For example Aristotle, one of the pillars of Western philosophy was lost in the West for 400 years, but during that time was a vital part of a noble Byzantine’s education. Constantinople, by comparison with the West, was a beacon of medicine, learning, and sophistication. When the fourth crusade brought the city to its knees in 1204 and the years following, most educated members of the city and empire fled to the west, bringing with them invaluable skills and knowledge. The most obvious (and yet under appreciated) result was the Renaissance- that “reawakening” and improving on the classical foundations. This cultural flowering of the Renaissance was the moment when the West “caught up” and surpassed the East, and yet it would not have occurred without the Byzantine Empire. In addition to providing the learning, Constantinople was also a bulwark, sheltering the nascent West from barbarian onslaught and the armies of the prophet alike. The Byzantines effectively blocked the tide of Islam, forcing their armies to go the long way across Africa, and giving the West vital time to develop.

7) How well were the Roman/Byzantine soldiers equipped for fighting the Persians in their desert environment?

(Lars) The Byzantines adopted several different tactics for dealing with the desert environment over the years, and on the whole, were extremely well adapted for the climate. Some Emperors relied on mercenaries from similar environments (it was sometimes hard to tell which side a mercenary was on, and their loyalties were quite volatile), and others developed specially trained units. By the 7th century they had completely adopted the fast-moving, hard-hitting tactics of the Persians. This relied on the horse archer- a major innovation of Byzantine warfare, who was able to shoot arrows on either side while riding at full speed. This emphasized speed and agility over armor, and contrasted favorably, for example, with the Western Crusader who put as much steel on as possible and tried to win every engagement with a frontal assault.

8) You mentioned briefly a few of the Popes in Rome. What was the general relationship between the Western/Eastern rulers and the Pope/Patriarch?

(Lars) The Eastern and Western halves of the empire developed drastically different relationships with their relative spiritual leaders (Pope/Patriarch). With the absence of temporal authority in Rome, the Pope took on the vacant imperial responsibilities and authority, (protecting the people from Attila the Hun, the Visigoths, etc), and gradually grew to rival the emperor himself. This independence was vigorously protected by the Popes (and contested just as vigorously by the emperors- Justinian even ill-advisedly kidnapped the Pope), and led to frosty relations with Constantinople. The Patriarch, by contrast, residing in the capital city, was completely dominated by the emperor. If the West represented separation of church and state, the East was the opposite. The emperor was the de facto head of the church and appointed or deposed Patriarchs at will. By the time of the final schism of the churches the tension was palpable- the Pope and Emperor wanted nothing to do with each other.

9) My readers and I appreciate the work you have put into creating this podcast, what inspired you to put your lectures on the internet?

(Anders) We were interested in presenting this lecture series to as wide an audience as possible. If we released on CDs delivered through the mail, we would have had to bill our listeners and therefore greatly reduce our exposure. We also didn’t have a network of potential listeners to advertise to so it seemed the best place to grow would be the Internet.Now one year and over 24,000 listeners later, we have that network. With the Internet’s blogs and podcasts, we feel that content in large part is moving toward the Internet. In the future we plan to take better advantage of the Internet’s two-way collaborative format making dissemination of knowledge as simple and accessable as possible. It is important to mention that this is not a money making enterprise. We survive off of donated recording equipment from Bandwidth.com and server space and bandwidth donated from my website.