Author : András Németh
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 353 pages
File Size : 43,67 MB
Release : 2018-10-11
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1108423639
Presents the first comprehensive study of the 'Byzantine Google' and how it reshaped Byzantine court culture in the tenth century.
Author : Panagiotis Manafis
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 271 pages
File Size : 49,98 MB
Release : 2020-05-12
Category : History
ISBN : 1000068757
Scholars have recently begun to study collections of Byzantine historical excerpts as autonomous pieces of literature. This book focuses on a series of minor collections that have received little or no scholarly attention, including the Epitome of the Seventh Century, the Excerpta Anonymi (tenth century), the Excerpta Salmasiana (eighth to eleventh centuries), and the Excerpta Planudea (thirteenth century). Three aspects of these texts are analysed in detail: their method of redaction, their literary structure, and their cultural and political function. Combining codicological, literary, and political analyses, this study contributes to a better understanding of the intertwining of knowledge and power, and suggests that these collections of historical excerpts should be seen as a Byzantine way of rewriting history. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780429351020, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
Author : Brian Croke
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 257 pages
File Size : 15,32 MB
Release : 2023-04-18
Category : History
ISBN : 1000866882
Between c.250 and c.650, the way the past was seen, recorded and interpreted for a contemporary audience changed fundamentally. Only since the 1970s have the key elements of this historiographical revolution become clear, with the recasting of the period, across both east and west, as ‘late antiquity’. Historiography, however, has struggled to find its place in this new scholarly world. No longer is decline and fall the natural explanatory model for cultural and literary developments, but continuity and transformation. In addition, the emergence of ‘late antiquity’ coincided with a methodological challenge arising from the ‘linguistic turn’ which impacted on history writing in all eras. This book is focussed on the development of modern understanding of how the ways of seeing and recording the past changed in the course of adjusting to emerging social, religious and cultural developments over the period from c.250 to c.650. Its overriding theme is how modern historiography has adapted over the past half century to engaging with the past between c.250 and c.650. Now, as explained in this book, the newly dominant historiographical genres (chronicles, epitomes, church histories) are seen as the preferred modes of telling the story of the past, rather than being considered rudimentary and naïve.
Author : Rustam Shukurov
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 325 pages
File Size : 27,19 MB
Release : 2023-10-04
Category : History
ISBN : 1000937240
This book offers a study into the perceptions of ancient and medieval Iran in the Byzantine Empire, as well as the effects of Persian culture upon Byzantine intellectualism, society, and culture. Byzantine Ideas of Persia, 650-1461 focuses on the place of ancient Persia in Byzantine cultural memory, both in the "religious" and the "secular" sense. By analysing a wide range of historical sources – from church literature to belles-lettres – this book provides an examination of the place of ancient Persia in Byzantine cultural memory, as well as the place and function of Persian motifs in the Byzantine mentality. Additionally, the author uses these sources to analyse thoroughly the knowledge Byzantines had about contemporary Iranian culture, the presence of ethnic Iranians and the circulation and usage of the Persian language in Byzantium. Finally, this book discusses the importance and influence of Iranian science on Byzantine scholars. This book will appeal to scholars and students interested in Byzantine and Iranian History, particularly in reference to the cross-cultural and social influence of the two societies during the Middle Ages.
Author :
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 45,85 MB
Release : 2020-08-03
Category : History
ISBN : 9004421378
Byzantium in Eastern European Visual Culture in the Late Middle Ages focuses on how the heritage of Byzantium was continued and transformed alongside local developments in the artistic and cultural traditions of Eastern Europe between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Author : Stefano Trovato
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 328 pages
File Size : 24,71 MB
Release : 2022-07-15
Category : History
ISBN : 100061803X
Julian, the last pagan emperor of the Roman empire, died in war in 363. In the Byzantine (that is, the Eastern Roman) empire, the figure of Julian aroused conflicting reactions: antipathy towards his apostasy but also admiration for his accomplishments, particularly as an author writing in Greek. Julian died young, and his attempt to reinstate paganism was a failure, but, paradoxically, his brief and unsuccessful policy resonated for centuries. This book analyses Julian from the perspectives of Byzantine Culture. The history of his posthumous reputation reveals differences in cultural perspectives and it is most intriguing with regard to the Eastern Roman empire which survived for almost a millennium after the fall of the Western empire. Byzantine culture viewed Julian in multiple ways, first as the legitimate emperor of the enduring Roman empire; second as the author of works written in Greek and handed down for generations in the language that scholars, the Church, and the state administration all continued to use; and third as an open enemy of Christianity. Julian the Apostate in Byzantine Culture will appeal to both researchers and students of Byzantine perspectives on Julian, Greco-Roman Paganism, and the Later Roman Empire, as well as those interested in Byzantine Historiography.
Author : Paul Magdalino
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 183 pages
File Size : 25,59 MB
Release : 2024-06-03
Category : History
ISBN : 9004700765
This book studies the research perspective in which the literary inhabitants of Late Antique and medieval Constantinople remembered its past and conceptualised its existence as a Greek city that was the political capital of a Christian Roman state. Initial reactions to Constantine’s foundation noted its novel Christian orientation, but the memorial mode of writing about the city that developed from the sixth century recollected the traditional civic cultural heritage that Constantinople claimed both as the New Rome, and as the continuation of ancient Byzantion. This research culture increasingly became the preserve of the imperial bureaucracy, and focused on the city’s sculptured monuments as bearers of eschatological meaning. Yet from the tenth century, writers progressively preferred to define the wonder and spectacle of Constantinople in the aesthetic mode of urban praise inherited from late antiquity, developing the notion of the city as a cosmic theatre of excellence.
Author : Przemysław Marciniak
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 507 pages
File Size : 22,26 MB
Release : 2024-12-03
Category : History
ISBN : 1040157564
Animals have recently become recognized as significant agents of history as part of the ‘animal turn’ in historical studies. Animals in Byzantium were human companions, a source of entertainment and food – it is small wonder that they made their way into literature and the visual arts. Moreover, humans defined themselves and their activities by referring to non-human animals, either by anthropomorphizing animals (as in the case of the Cat-Mice War) or by animalizing humans and their (un)wanted behaviours. The Routledge Handbook of Human-Animal Relations in the Byzantine World offers an in-depth survey of the relationships between humans and non-human animals in the Byzantine Empire. The contributions included in the volume address both material (zooarchaeology, animals as food, visual representations of animals) and immaterial (semiotics, philosophy) aspects of human-animal coexistence in chapters written by leading experts in their field. This book will appeal to students and scholars alike researching Byzantine social and cultural history, as well as those interested in the history of animals. This book marks an important step in the development of animal studies in Byzantium, filling a gap in the wider research on the history of human-animal relations in the Middle Ages.
Author : Stratis Papaioannou
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 816 pages
File Size : 49,44 MB
Release : 2021-05-18
Category : History
ISBN : 0199351775
This volume, the first ever of its kind in English, introduces and surveys Greek literature in Byzantium (330 - 1453 CE). In twenty-five chapters composed by leading specialists, The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Literature surveys the immense body of Greek literature produced from the fourth to the fifteenth century CE and advances a nuanced understanding of what "literature" was in Byzantium. This volume is structured in four sections. The first, "Materials, Norms, Codes," presents basic structures for understanding the history of Byzantine literature like language, manuscript book culture, theories of literature, and systems of textual memory. The second, "Forms," deals with the how Byzantine literature works: oral discourse and "text"; storytelling; rhetoric; re-writing; verse; and song. The third section ("Agents") focuses on the creators of Byzantine literature, both its producers and its recipients. The final section, entitled "Translation, Transmission, Edition," surveys the three main ways by which we access Byzantine Greek literature today: translations into other Byzantine languages during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages; Byzantine and post-Byzantine manuscripts; and modern printed editions. The volume concludes with an essay that offers a view of the recent past--as well as the likely future--of Byzantine literary studies.
Author : Neil Churchill
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 215 pages
File Size : 17,34 MB
Release : 2024-01-23
Category : History
ISBN : 1003835589
Throughout the history of Byzantium 65 emperors were dethroned and only 39 reigns ended peacefully. How might a usurper get away with murdering his predecessor? And how could a bloody act of regicide lead to one of the most glorious of all eras in Byzantium? These were questions that puzzled Michael Psellos as he looked back at Basil I’s assassination of Michael III and the origin of the Macedonian dynasty. Might the imperial art of Basil, his sons and grandson help to explain how the dynasty overcame its violent beginnings and secured the loyalty of its subjects? It has long been recognised that the early Macedonian emperors were active propagandists but royal art has usually been viewed thematically over the span of centuries. Official iconography has been understood to project imperial power in ways which were impersonal and unchanging. This book instead adopts a chronological approach and considers how Basil justified his seizure of power, and how his successors went on to articulate their own ideas about authority. It concludes that imperial art did at times reflect the personality of the emperor and the political demands of the moment, such as the need for an heir, the nature of court politics or the choice of successor. This innovative account of the forging of the Macedonian dynasty will appeal to those interested in how early medieval kings and emperors used art to create their own image, to differentiate themselves from rivals and to extend the boundaries of their personal power.
