Byzantine Studies

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Quel rôle, quelle place la lecture et l’écriture ont-elles tenus dans la culture et la société byzantines? Quel rapport ont-elles entretenu? Telles sont les questions auxquelles huit spécialistes de domaines très divers s’efforcent d’apporter dans ce volume des réponses originales. Dans une première partie, c’est la figure centrale du copiste que l’on voit à l’œuvre. La seconde partie étudie les modalités de l’apprentissage et de la diffusion de la lecture et de l’écriture dans la société byzantine. La troisième partie, enfin, montre comment récits édifiants et romans byzantins sont susceptibles d’éclairer les usages de la lecture et de l’écriture à Byzance. Ce livre constitue ainsi une contribution de premier plan à la connaissance d’un élément central du dynamisme culturel byzantin.


ISBN : ISBN 2-9518198-1

Research on early medieval Cyprus has focused on the late antique " golden age " (late fourth/early fifth to seventh century) and the so-called Byzantine " Reconquista " (post-AD 965) while overlooking the intervening period. This phase was characterized, supposedly, by the division of the political sovereignty between the Umayyads and the Byzantines, bringing about the social and demographic dislocation of the population of the island. This book proposes a different story of continuities and slow transformations in the fate of Cyprus between the late sixth and the early ninth centuries. Analysis of new archaeological evidence shows signs of a continuing link to Constantinople. Moreover, together with a reassessment of the literary evidence, archaeology and material culture help us to reappraise the impact of Arab naval raids and contextualize the confrontational episodes throughout the ebb and flow of Eastern Mediterranean history: the political influence of the Caliphate looked stronger in the second half of the seventh century, the administrative and ecclesiastical influence of the Byzantine empire held sway from the beginning of the eighth to the twelfth century. Whereas the island retained sound commercial ties with the Umayyad Levant in the seventh and eighth centuries, at the same time politically and economically it remained part of the Byzantine sphere. This belies the idea of Cyprus as an independent province only loosely tied to Constantinople and allows us to draw a different picture of the cultural identities, political practices and hierarchy of wealth and power in Cyprus during the passage from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages.

"This publication presents the first study of the defining features of Psellos' Chronographia, written in the 11th century.
Character is the single most important feature of the Chronographia written by Michael Psellos (1018-1081?). It is an historical account of the events at court from the time of Basil II (986-1025) to Michael VII Doukas (1071-1078) with the insight of someone whose career developed within the imperial court and his unsurpassed eye for details of personality was enlightened by his intellectual interests. During his lifetime, Psellos was considered the forefront of philosophical studies in the capital and therefore was named consul of philosophers (ὕπατος τῶν φιλοσόφων) in 1047 and he credited himself with reintroducing Plato on the cultural scene of Constantinople. It was his attractive manner of speech which led him to remain in the emperor’s presence and his rhetorical ability also plays an important role in the Chronographia, especially when he emphasizes or fabricates events to justify his understanding of a person’s mind. Many have employed Psellos’ Chronographia for its value in shedding light on historic events, itself important, though it often neglects the fact that Psellos’ historiography is not based on factual details to explain multiple causes for events, but seeks to attribute blame or merit to the personality of the ruling emperor."

Article based on a presentation given at the Thomas Latinus - Thomas Graecus. Thomas Aquinas and His Reception in Byzantium International Conference held at the Hellenic Library of Athens (Stavros Niarchos Cultural Center) in Dec. 15-16 2017, co-organized by The Hellenic Institute, Royal Holloway, University of London.

Taft R. F. The Great Entrance. A History of the Transfer of Gifts and other Preanaphoral Rites of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. [A History of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, vol. II]. Roma, 1975. (Orientalia Christiana Analecta; 200).

Often simply called the Holy Mountain, Mount Athos was the most famous center of Byzantine monasticism and remains the spiritual heart of the Orthodox Church today. This volume presents the Lives of Euthymios the Younger, Athanasios of Athos, Maximos the Hutburner, Niphon of Athos, and Philotheos. These five holy men lived on Mount Athos at different times from its early years as a monastic locale in the ninth century to the last decades of the Byzantine period in the early fifteenth century. All five were celebrated for asceticism, clairvoyance, and, in most cases, the ability to perform miracles; Euthymios and Athanasios were also famed as founders of monasteries.

Holy Men of Mount Athos illuminates both the history and the varieties of monastic practice on Athos, individually by hermits as well as communally in large monasteries. The Lives also demonstrate the diversity of hagiographic composition and provide important glimpses of Byzantine social and political history.

All the Lives in this volume are presented for the first time in English translation, together with authoritative editions of their Greek texts.

Procopius's Secret History has attracted the attention of a generation of social historians. Yet, the significant, albeit subtler ways, in which gender colors Procopius’s most significant work, the Wars, has received far less notice. Seeking to address this imbalance, the present study examines how gender shapes Procopius’s presentation of the Goths, East Romans, and Italo-Romans in his Wars. Rather than uncovering the Goths, East Romans, and Italians “as they really were,” this paper seeks to unearth some of the purpose and reasoning behind Procopius’s gendered depictions and ethnicizing worldview. A careful investigation of Procopius’s discussions about the manly and unmanly provides crucial insights into not just the larger narrative but also the historian’s knotty authorial agenda. Despite the Gothic War’s reliance on classical ethnic and gender patterns, Procopius did not compose his history in a vacuum. Indeed, the gendered discourse, which undergirds much of the Wars, must be understood within the broader context of the political debates reverberating around the late antique Mediterranean at a time when control of Italy from Constantinople was contested.

Social changes in the contemporary era have directly influenced human life and existence, especially the meaning of marriage. In light of these contemporary developments, researchers have emphasized the urgent need to deconstruct marriage and re-constitute it, fundamentally altering its traditional characteristics and meaning in the process. Conversely, the Orthodox Church views the essence of marriage with an interminable consistency and continuity characterized by the mysterion of love in Christ. Is it viable to live the meaning of this mysterion in today’s postmodern era? To examine this issue, this study initiates an interdisciplinary dialogue between postmodern perspectives on marriage and family on the one hand, and the vision of Orthodox theology on the other. This new and unexplored dialogue endeavors to contribute to the positive engagement of the Orthodox Church with the postmodern world.

This essay was published in The Bible and Early Trinitarian Theology, edited by Christopher A. Beeley and Mark E. Weedman, for the CUAP Studies in Early Christianity (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2018); this is the uncorrected proofs. Exploring the humanity and divinity of Jesus, the Son's relation to the Father, and the agency of the Holy Spirit, it is one of five essays suggesting Johannine contributions to trinitarian discussions in the early church.

Images of dragon-slaying by Eastern Christian warrior saints allegorise the overthrow of evil forces, a topos that appears first on the eastern confines of the Byzantine Empire in Transcaucasia. Representations of a triumphal rider trampling or slaying a fallen enemy are frequent in antiquity but acquire a moral significance only under the emperor Constantine in the early fourth century – a century later than analogous imagery on the investiture relief of Ardashīr I (r. 224–241) at Naqsh-i Rustam. Close parallels in iconography between the Iranian and the Judaeo-Christian traditions expressing the fundamental juxtaposition between victor and vanquished, and the latter often characterised by ophidian features, may in large part be due to the influence of Iranian dualistic notions, and specifically Zoroastrian eschatological thought systems. Conclusive evidence points to the fact that the iconographic semantics of the medieval Western Asian equestrian dragon-fighter in its heroic as well as saintly incarnation owe much to ancient prototypes that germinated in the syncretistic melting pot of the great Near Eastern religions. The visual representation of a fighter doing battle with a serpent or dragon employs a traditional and enduring iconographical formula of some antiquity and wide diffusion throughout the Near Eastern world. It is part of a stock of popular imagery that survived into medieval times. The fighter takes aim at an ophidian creature using a variety of weapons while the creature is shown either as a lively upright being imbued with fighting spirit, or, more commonly, in the guise of a vanquished being lying on its back beneath the horse's feet with gaping upturned jaws. The idea of connecting the cult and iconography of the Eastern Christian warrior saints with a serpent-dragon can be traced to at least the early seventh century. In the Christian church the dragon motif developed in the eastern confines of Byzantium, where the so-called holy rider vanquishing a dragon was a well-established literary topos and was represented in early wall painting. Depictions are found on portable items, ranging from magical amulets to luxury objects, as well as on sacred architecture, in particular churches and funerary settings. The motif fell on particularly fertile ground in the southern Caucasus region which was part of the pan-Iranian religio-cultural realm and was steeped in its artistic conventions.

The relationship of King Arthur to the Byzantine Empire is something akin to that of the missing years of Jesus being spent in India, & the Grand Tour of Europe made by William Shakespeare 1585-87. The evidence for Arthur's own travels & Gothic heritage lies scatter'd through the sources, & this paper attempts to place the scraps together to make some kind of cohesive outline of Arthur's connections to the Byzantine Empire.

Winner of the 2022 Edmund Keeley Prize
https://mgsasymposium.org/anno-kb.html

In the middle of the fifteenth century, ominous portents like columns of fire and dense fog were seen above the skies of Constantinople as the Byzantine capital fell under siege by the Ottomans. Allegedly, similar signs appeared a few decades later and seven thousand miles away, forecasting the fall of the Mexica capital of Tenochtitlan—Tlatelolco to the Spanish and their indigenous allies. After both cities had fallen, some Greeks and Mexica turned to poetry and song to express their anguish at the birth of what has come to be called the “modern” era.

This study probes issues of collective memory and cultural trauma in three sorrowful poems, the “Lament for Constantinople,” the “Huexotzinca Piece,” and the “Tlaxcala Piece.” Composed by anonymous authors soon after the conquest of the two cities, these texts describe the fall of an empire as a fissure in the social fabric and an open wound on the body politic. They are the workings of creators who draw on tradition and historical particulars to articulate, in a familiar language, the trauma of the conquered.

Those who work with topics related to Modern Greek identity usually start discussing these issues by quoting the famous Georgios Gemistos Pletho (c.1360-1454): we, over whom you rule and hold sway, are Hellenes by genos (γένος), as is witnessed by our language and ancestral education. Although Woodhouse thought of Pletho as the last of the Hellenes, others prefer to denounce him the last of the Byzantines and the first and foremost Modern Greek. During the 14th and 15th centuries, a number of influential intellectuals in the Eastern Roman Empire preferred the term Hellene (Ἓλλην) to identify themselves, instead of the formal Roman (Ρωμαῖος) and the common Greek (Γραικός). According to the prevalent view of modern scholarship, the shift should not be interpreted only as a statement of proto-national identity, but also as the outcome of growing archaism. As Vryonis pointed out, the historian Critoboulos used to call the Balkan nations with their archaic names: Byzantines became “Hellenes,” Albanians became “Illyrians,” etc. Chalkokondyles followed in the same path. Furthermore, in order to lament the decline of their Empire, byzantine intellectuals tended to compare their sad present to the glory of ancient Greece. Besides archaism, proto-nationalism and Hellenism, I suggest that a careful reading of the sources would lead us to reappraise the ways 15th century intellectuals perceived identity. Whilst I do not accept Vakalopoulos’ views on diachronic Hellenic identity, I support that, in the 15th century, Byzantine scholars attempted to create an identity based on cultural and historical continuity and otherness. Moreover, Laiou’s definition of Greek identity as a resultant of language, history, tradition and interests does not cover the case of 15th century Byzantine philosophers, since the latter strived to enrich and enlarge Greek identity with additional elements. It is worth noting that those philosophers who fled to Italy deliberately chose to describe themselves as
Greeks (Greci/Γραικοί) or Hellenes (Ἓλληνες) and not as Romans (Ρωμιοί/Ρωμαῖοι), according to the Byzantine official terminology. During the 15th century a major shift occurred in the Byzantine intelligentsia and its prominent members revisited matters of identity. In this paper, I attempt to scrutinize the ways Byzantine philosophers of the 15th century,
who lived in the territories of the Byzantine Empire and in Italy, perceived identity and otherness. In my research, I include not only Greek, but also Latin sources, since their works is written in both languages.

L’Antiquité tardive constitue une période de première importance en raison de l’ampleur des sources conservées et des événements survenus. Durant cette époque, qui s’étend du IIIe au VIIe siècle, l’Empire romain connaît des évolutions profondes et progressives qui ont non seulement modifié l’organisation du monde méditerranéen antique, mais aussi posé les fondements des périodes et des civilisations postérieures et limitrophes.
C’est durant l’Antiquité tardive que l’autorité de l’État monarchique et bureaucratique devient omniprésente par le biais de la loi, de l’impôt et de l’armée, que le poids des autorités locales se réduit au profit des capitales administratives et de leur système de cour, que le brassage des populations aboutit à leur recomposition et à une fusion des élites, que la conversion au christianisme, malgré les divisions confessionnelles, provoque une intégration et une uniformisation culturelle sans précédent des populations par l’adhésion à une même transcendance et l’élaboration d’une esthétique commune.

This paper aims to present a historical reconstruction of a very powerful, but up to recently almost neglected ‘spatial icon’ — the Tuesday miraculous performance with the Hodegetria of Constantinople. Spatial icons are iconic images created in space. It is a new layer of subjects never discussed before in the history of Byzantine art and culture. The Hodegetria performance consisted of carrying a heavy icon by a single bearer on his shoulders giving the impression that the icon carried a bearer, hence this performance was also named “the flying Hodegetria”. This ritual was likely to have appeared as a commemoration-reenactment of the miraculous deliverance of Byzantium in year 626, when the siege of the city was raised after the icon was carried around the wall of the city. The creators of the Tuesday performance did not mean to present a historical drama reconstructing a particular event, but they used the paradigmatic story of the year 626 to make an iconic re-enactment of the Virgin’s appearance and miraculous protection over the city and a cosmic image of salvation. The Tuesday performance might be considered as a special type of Byzantine creativity, that I term hierotopy.

In this paper I propose a new narrative of the history and milieu of the Jerusalem (Hagiopolitan) Daily Office in Constantinople. I show that this Office was monastic neither typologically nor sociologically, but practiced at the Great Palace and in public churches at an early date - in addition to monasteries such as Stoudios. I also suggest an earlier date for the adoption in Constantinople of the Jerusalem Office than what has been previously thought.

Asceticism is founded on the possibility that human beings can profoundly transform themselves through training and discipline. In particular, asceticism in the Eastern monastic tradition is based on the assumption that individuals are not slaves to the habitual and automatic but can be improved by ascetic practice and, with the cooperation of divine grace, transform their entire character and cultivate special powers and skills. Asceticism of the Mind explores the strategies that enabled Christian ascetics in the Egyptian, Gazan, and Sinaitic monastic traditions of late antiquity to cultivate a new form of existence. At the book's center is a particular model of ascetic discipline that involves a systematic effort to train the mind and purify attention. Drawing on contemporary cognitive and neuro-scientific research, this study underscores the beneficial potential and self-formative role of the monastic system of mental training, thereby confuting older views that emphasized the negative and repressive aspects of asceticism. At the same time, it sheds new light on the challenges that Christian ascetics encountered in their attempts to transform themselves, thereby lending insight into aspects of their daily lives that would otherwise remain inaccessible. Asceticism of the Mind brings rigorously historical and cognitive perspectives into conjunction across a range of themes, and in so doing opens up new ways of exploring ascet-icism and Christian monasticism. By working across the traditional divide between the humanities and the cognitive sciences, it offers new possibilities for a constructive dialogue across these fields.

The study focuses on the monumental painting of the island of Rhodes, Greece, during the 13th century and specifically from the year 1204, when the Byzantine official Leo Gabalas took over the administration of the island, until the arrival of the Knights of Saint John in 1309. The remains of the artistic production are located in six churches in the town and the countryside of Rhodes. The monuments in question are presented in chronological order. After the detailed description and iconographic examination follows the stylistic analysis of the wall paintings along with the proposed dating. In particular, the study deals with the frescoes of Hagios Phanourios in the Medieval Town of Rhodes, of the monastery of the Archangel Michael at Thari, of Hagios Ioannes Theologos at Kouphas in Paradeisi, of Hagios Niketas in Damatria, of Hagios Georgios Vardas in Apolakkia (1289/90) and of Hagios Georgios Kounaras in Asklepeio. Two sub-chapters concerning the wall paintings of the church of Hagios Georgios Vardas were expanded because of their special interest: one concerns the rare inscription Akedioktene which accompanies the representation of the Virgin Glykophilousa and the other deals with the iconography and local cult of Saint Philemon, following his rare representation in the church. Given that the paintings of the church of Hagios Georgios Kounaras in Asklepeio is ascribed to the same hand as that of Hagios Georgios Vardas, the painter’s style in both monuments and the particularities of his art are examined in a special chapter. In the final part of the book, the overall consideration of the artistic production is developed: the structure and order of the iconographic programmes are assessed, some interesting issues of iconography are discussed, as well as matters concerning the donors of the churches. The stylistic trends are analysed, compared with monuments from other Dodecanese islands and within the artistic currents of the first and second half of the 13th century.