Book excerpt: Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Table of Contents -- List of figures -- Preface -- Abbreviations -- 1. Mattia Pascal and the name of Cyprus -- Notes -- 2. Seeing the unseen: a brief overview of Cypriot historiography -- Notes -- 3. The mousetrap of methodology -- Act I: General problems of method -- Act II: Literary and material sources for early medieval Cyprus -- Notes -- 4. A history of Cyprus in the early Middle Ages -- Cyprus from the sixth to the ninth century -- The power of the Cypriot Church -- Notes -- 5. Urban versus rural: the many sides of the Cypriot coin -- Overcoming the caesurae -- Surveying the Cypriot countryside -- Salamis-Constantia and its sisters: Cypriot urbanism in transition -- Notes -- 6. An insular economy in transition -- The economy of early medieval Cyprus -- In a league of their own: ceramics in early medieval Cyprus -- Notes -- 7. Aftermath and conclusions -- Cyprus in the ninth and tenth centuries -- Concluding remarks -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index