ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the presentation of the medieval Byzantine Empire in Tolkien’s oeuvre. Tolkien scholars conceded that Byzantium is the most plausible historical basis for the southern kingdom of Gondor in The Lord of the Rings. Yet Judy Ann Ford, Miryam Librán-Moreno, and Sandra Straubhaar have argued that Tolkien was hostile to Byzantium and thought it inferior to a revived Western Roman Empire. Yet Tolkien recognized he needed an analogue of Byzantium in his imaginative world. The chapter concludes by examining how later fantasy writers, such as Guy Gavriel Kay, Judith Tarr, and Harry Turtledove, deploy a version of Byzantium in their works that is recognizably Tolkienian.
