82. What was First Iconoclasm about?, with Leslie Brubaker

A conversation with Leslie Brubaker (University of Birmingham) on the first period of Byzantine iconoclasm (ca. 730 to 787 AD). What was the problem with religious icons? What did the "Isaurian" emperors Leon III and Konstantinos V try to do about it, and why? A great deal of what we used to know, largely by following pro-icon sources, has come undone in the latest research. Where we stand now has been lucidly presented by Leslie in her Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm (Bristol Classical Press 2012).