ABSTRACT
Of the three men who are the subject of this section,2 Robert Browning is at rst sight the one whose inclusion is hardest to justify. All Byzantinists know and have used, indeed still use, Ostrogorsky’s magisterial History of the Byzantine State, especially in the English translation of that formidable woman scholar Joan Hussey;3 likewise we all know and still use Beck’s two handbooks, for theological literature and for the δημώδη κείμενα, Volksliteratur.4 But Robert Browning?
