The following items include useful introductory overviews, essay collections, and essential reading on Late Antiquity broadly conceived, from about 200 to 800 CE.
The Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd ed.
Login required: The Cambridge Ancient History is a multi-volume work of ancient history from Prehistory to Late Antiquity, published by Cambridge University Press. The second edition was published between 1970 and 2005, consisting of 14 volumes in 19 books. Volumes relevant to this field include:
Login required; edited by Philip Rousseau (Wiley, 2009): This volume is an accessible and authoritative overview capturing the vitality and diversity of scholarship that exists on the transformative time period known as Late Antiquity. It provides an essential overview of current scholarship on Late Antiquity - from between the accession of Diocletian in AD 284 and the end of Roman rule in the Mediterranean. It comprises 39 essays from some of the world's foremost scholars of the era.
Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World
Login required; edited by Peter Brown et al. (Harvard, 1999): The first book of its kind, this richly informative and comprehensive guide to the world of Late Antiquity offers the latest scholarship to the researcher. In eleven comprehensive essays and in over 500 encyclopedic entries, an international cast of experts provides essential information and fresh perspectives on the history and culture of an era marked by the rise of two world religions, unprecedented political upheavals that remade the map of the known world, and the creation of art of enduring glory.
The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Patristics
Login required; edited by Kenneth Parry (Wiley, 2015): This comprehensive volume brings together a team of distinguished scholars to create a wide-ranging introduction to patristic authors and their contributions to not only theology and spirituality, but to philosophy, ecclesiology, linguistics, hagiography, liturgics, homiletics, iconology, and other fields.
