The Aleppo question: a Byzantine-Fatimid conflict of interests in Northern Syria in the later tenth century A.D.

Abstract

The ambition to control Syria had always been among the serious temptations of Emperor Nikephoros Phokas (963–969). In the last year of his reign and specifically on October 28th, 969 A.D. two of his generals, Michael Bourtzes and Peter Phokas (the Stratopedarch), at last succeeded in capturing the great city of Antioch. I For the first time in three centuries Byzantium reestablished its authority in Northern Syria, and soon Antioch became a seat of a doux whose responsibility was to guard the southeastern flank of the Empire. Like both the doux of Mesopotamia and that of Chaldia, the doux of Antioch had to supervise the small themes in the new Byzantine territories which came under his jurisdiction. Moreover, as a stronghold Antioch was to serve as the main Byzantine headquarters in all military operations in Syria for years to come.     

‘Der sehleehteste Staat’: Ahmed Midhat Efendi (1844–1913) on Byzantine institutions

Abstract

Just as Karl Marx, in 1842, called the Byzantine empire ‘der schlechteste Staat’, so did Ahmed Midhat Efendi (1844–1913), the protagonist of Ottomanism and at the same time the first Ottoman ‘to make a strong and clear case for the Turkish ancestry of the Ottomans’ (David Kushner), a few decades later. Byzantine history stands, according to Midhat, for the Dark Ages, and the Byzantine empire for corruption, lawlessness, extravagance and frivolity. By contrast, the picture drawn by him of the early Ottomans is one of a community based on high moral values such as decency, concord, obedience and mutual esteem. In his view, the rise of the Ottomans heralds the dawning of the Modern Age. His identification of the Ottomans as the liberators from the Dark Ages of all the peoples previously under Byzantine rule is the central element in his concept of the ‘enlightened and liberating Ottomans,. His Detailed History of Modern Times (Mufassal Tarih-i Kurun-i Cedide), with its section on Byzantine history and institutions, has already been introduced to readers of the last issue of BMGS.     

A Greek Lexicon of the middle Byzantine period

Abstract

Greek lexicography of the Byzantine period is a thorny subject, indeed an almost thankless task, if efforts end merely in a collection of inaccessible and unpublished handwritten' material. I would like to call to mind the case of Emmanuel Miller in the last century, who showed a continuous interest in lexicography, pouring out new Greek words in the notes to his editions on every occasion. However, those notes are nothing but feeble shadows of his vast collection left to the Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris about ninety years ago. When I inspected this mass of more than 40,000 small slips, I was considerably taken aback, in view of the fact that this collection as well as every other similar to it (for instance the 10,000 Athesaurista gathered by Pezopoulos) are practically of no use for Byzantine studies, since they have never been published.     

Crossing traditional boundaries: grub to glamour in Byzantine silk weaving

Abstract

Byzantine silk research evokes images of glamour but it is prudent to consider grass roots as well as exotic aspects of this enticing subject: without the grub there would be no glamour. In its fullest sense a study of Byzantine silk weaving entails research on many and varied levels, across a broad range of disciplines. An immense variety of topics require consideration: the production of the silk yarn; the various workshop practices involved in weaving the yarn into silk cloth; the relationship between technique and design; the marketing and the numerous uses of the silks both at home and abroad, and the implications of the distribution of Byzantine silks purely through diplomatic channels.     

'Political' personae: the poem from prison of Michael Glykas: Byzantine literature between fact and fiction

Abstract

Byzantine vernacular literature, much of it in verse, has long been seen as material for Quellenforschung into the historical or social conditions of its time. Following the precepts for literary history set down by such pioneers of Byzantine studies as Karl Krumbacher, the study of these texts has concentrated on authors rather than on the texts themselves as autonomous objects of historical study, whose form and content should guide our understanding of their original intention and reception by Byzantine audiences. The 'Poem from Prison' by Michael Glykas illustrates both the shortcomings of the focus on authors and the alternative potential for renewed engagement with Byzantine texts as objects of imagination and creativity.     

A Critical Reappraisal of Eustathios Makrembolites’ Hysmine and Hysminias

Abstract

Despite the massive amount of scholarly literature on Iconoclasm and its aftermath, there are really only two major publications that deal specifically and synthetically with ninth-century art. One of these is André Grabar's magisterial L'iconoclasme byzantin, a chronological analysis of monuments and texts; the other is Robin Cormack's short but insightful essay in Iconoclasm, the collection of papers originally presented at Birmingham in 1975, which asks ‘whether the discussion of religious images stimulated by Iconoclasm changed the nature of Byzantine Art’. My aim is rather different. Rather than presenting an encyclopedic overview, this article attempts to crawl into the fabric of Byzantine culture: to see and understand Byzantine art of the ninth century as the Byzantines saw and understood it. It follows that the material presented has not been segregated into the familiar (and often useful) categories of style, iconography, and context, for, to the Byzantines, the three were neither exclusive nor separable. For similar reasons, I have deemphasized any linear progression that might imposed with art historical hindsight on the distant past, and have thereby underplayed the flashes of innovation, novelty and erudition that such detachment allows. These sparks are probably more visible (and certainly more appealing) to twentieth-century art historians than they were to the ninth-century Byzantines, for whom, as we shall see, the power of tradition militated against individual creativity, and artists on the whole remained anonymous artisans. In my attempt to look at Byzantine art from the inside rather than from the outside I have, in other words, concentrated on the fluid interface between objects, and the shifting dialogue between objects and context. This is because what interests me here is how Byzantine ideas about art (their theories), Byzantine perception (how the Byzantines saw), and the artifacts themselves (the practice) come together in the ninth century: how art, that preeminent social construct, worked in the years after Iconoclasm.     

Sticks and Stones: Byzantine Material Culture

Abstract

Suddenly last summer, research on Byzantine Material Culture, La belle aux bois dormant, was awakened from a prolonged siesta. In the 20th International Congress of Byzantine Studies held in Paris two papers were given in an attempt to chart out the progress made in this particular field in the past decades. T. Kolias assembled the various projects undertaken by individuals or institutions dealing with the different aspects of Byzantine daily life and material culture. M. Mundell Mango focused more on the archaeological evidence at hand and illustrated through the examples of architecture and industrial products how these could be used to detect and explain the interaction between centre and periphery. Just two weeks later, in September 2001 a conference entitled ‘Material Culture and Well-Being in Byzantium (400–1453)’ was organised in Cambridge. A number of suggestions were made during the conference, as for example to initiate a website to host a continuously updateable bibliography and to act as a forum of scholarly exchange in the numerous fields covered by research on material culture. Finally in April 2002 the Spring Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks was devoted to ‘Realities in the Arts of the Medieval Mediterranean’ in an attempt to reposition topics as exchange, influence and impact of the material culture between the Byzantine, the Western and the Islamic world. All the above has made clear the potential that the analysis of material culture has for Byzantine studies.     

Some Karamanlidika Inscriptions from the Monastery of the Zoodokhos Pigi,Balıklı, Istanbul

Abstract

‘Few scholars so equipped are disposed to abandon Homer and Sophocles, Thucydides and Plato, for George of Pisidia, Paul the Silentiary, Procopius of Caesarea and Michael Psellus.’ So Romilly Jenkins explained the late development of Byzantine studies. One might add that fewer still are prepared to forsake George of Pisidia, Paul the Silentiary, Procopius of Caesarea and Michael Psellus for Kaisarios Dapontes, Sergios Makraios, Nikodimos Agioreitis and Athanasios Komninos Ypsilantis. Not so Sir Steven Runciman who, in addition to his manifold contributions to the development of Byzantine studies stretching over a period of almost fifty years, has also found the time to make important forays into the as yet largely uncharted seas of what Nicolae Iorga termed Byzance après Byzance. The ethnic complexity of the Ottoman Empire in its prime is strikingly illuminated in Sir Steven's The Great Church in Captivity: A Study of the Patriarchate of Constantinople from the Eve of the Turkish Conquest to the Greek War of Independence. One of the lesser known features of this great agglomeration of races and cultures was the confusion of alphabets employed by the minorities of the Empire.     

Peasant Names in Fourteenth-Century Macedonia

Abstract

The historian who is engaged in the study of Byzantine social history is faced with a problem common to pre-industrial societies, or societies in which the majority of the population is both exploited and illiterate. The sources, written as they are by an upper class and largely for an upper class, give relatively abundant information about a small segment of the population, leaving us in darkness about the rest of society. In Byzantine history this is particularly true about the peasantry, which has left us only a very few sources of its own, and rather uninspiring ones at that. The Byzantine upper class wrote its own history, but the Byzantine peasants did not, thus making the task of the modern historian more difficult. Despite these problems, work has been done on both the urban and the rural population of the Empire, and more will probably be done as monastic archives become available. The study of the Byzantine peasantry is of primary importance. For if we are to understand Byzantine society, we must study and understand what happened in the countryside. After all, the Byzantine economy rested on agriculture, and the social relations which determined the fate of the state were, primarily, the social relations prevalent in the countryside.     

Byzantine glass mosaic tesserae: some material considerations

Abstract

Issues about the manufacture of Byzantine mosaics and the implications of these in wider terms relating to social and economic questions about the art form have been little discussed. This paper brings together evidence about Byzantine glass mosaic tesserae gathered from archaeology, glass technology and glass analysis, and synthesizes these into a discussion of three aspects: distribution; manufacture; trade and price. It looks to examine how these different elements can be used to form a more detailed composite picture about the production and distribution of Byzantine mosaics. It also proposes ways in which glass analysis can be used in a more coherent way to extend our understanding of mosaic glass production.     

Divine Diplomacy in the late Eleventh Century

Abstract

The subject of the XXIV Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies was Byzantine Diplomacy and many of the papers dealt with high-level contacts between Byzantium and other medieval states. But although Byzantines often made use of churchmen and monks as ambassadors and although there was usually a religious dimension to Byzantine diplomacy, it is worth noting that powerful monastic figures and influential houses often engaged in diplomacy on their own account. The theatre of operations was often more geographically limited, but this kind of monastic diplomacy had much in common with its lay counterpart. In both cases, it was Constantinople and the imperial court which was the centre of ‘diplomatic activity’ and, in both cases, negotiations were often delicate and long-protracted. If favours were sought, if confirmations of privileges were required, if difficulties with zealous local officials were to be overcome, then representations needed to be made at the highest level. This often meant a monastic delegation visiting Constantinople and operating in very similar ways to lay missions.     

Autobiography and Hagiography in Byzantium

This article explores the interaction between hagiography and autobiography in Byzantine literature. As the most productive narrative genre, hagiography influenced the structure and content of autobiographical accounts. On the other hand, for some vitae the protagonist's autobiographical account constituted the primary written source. A hagiographical work, again, may have a highly autobiographical character insofar as the author refers to himself as the saint's associate who eye-witnessed the saint's exploits. In many cases the hagiograph's autobiographical remarks are sprinkled over the whole narrative. Other authors present the life, or part of it, in a separate section, located usually toward the end of the text. The present study also points to common features in hagiographical autobiography and other forms of autobiographical writing, that constitute the conventions of a standardized way of written self-representation in Byzantium.     

Roman and Byzantine Settlements in the Region of West Irbid

Abstract

It was always clear that for practical reasons any new region-based study of the Roman and Byzantine periods in north-western Jordan would have to rely on existing evidence from archaeological surveys and excavations. The concentration of previous archaeological survey work in parts of the region of West Irbid in Jordan, and especially the surveys made by N. Glueck in the 1940s and S. Mittmann in the 1960s, made this area especially attractive for archaeologists. In this paper, the aim was to analyze the results of the West Irbid survey, particularly of the Roman and Byzantine periods, made during September 2005. The information gathered was of great help, enabling the classifi cation of sites into groups according to the nature of occupation, and analyzing the discovered architectural remains to provide a broader context for interpretation of the nature of Roman and Byzantine settlements in the surveyed region.     

Synônê: re-considering a problematic term of middle Byzantine fiscal administration

Abstract

The history of Byzantine fiscal administration, as is well-known, is still an area in which many problems remain to be resolved. In 1880 the Russian Byzantinist V. G. Vassilievsky, one of the first historians to address them seriously, described Byzantine fiscal structures as labyrinthine; other scholars have not disagreed. But as a result of the work of successive generations, we are in a much better position today to understand the fundamental lines of development of late Roman and Byzantine fiscal arrangements, and in particular to follow the evolution of middle and later Byzantine fiscal administrative structures out of the situation that prevailed in the later Roman period, especially from the fifth and sixth centuries. Many problems remain, of course, and in the present contribution I would like to re-examine the term synônê, which has a technical significance in late Roman and Byzantine texts. The exact meaning of the word remains disputed and this has led to conflicting opinions among those who have attempted to interpret its application in the sources. The resolution of some of these questions has important consequences for our understanding of how the state's fiscal structures operated over the period in question.     

Shaping the sacred: light and the experience of worship in middle Byzantine churches

Abstract

Byzantine churches have been extensively studied in terms of their architectural development and in their role as places to display religious art. However there has been less research into one of the most fundamental aspects of the Byzantine ritual experience, illumination. In practical terms, churches had to be illuminated sufficiently for worship to take place. In experiential terms, lighting can be seen as the medium by which the iconographic programmes and liturgical practices were staged and enhanced. This paper considers the archaeological and textual evidence linking physical illumination of buildings with the experience of their sacred function.     

A Life in Progress: Motion and Emotion in the Autobiography of Robert M. La Follette

Abstract

This article is a study of La Follette's Autobiography, the autobiography of the leading Wisconsin progressive Robert M. La Follette, which was published serially in 1911 and, in book form, in 1913. Rather than focusing, as have other historians, on which parts of La Follette's account are accurate and can therefore be trusted, it explains instead why and how this major autobiography was conceived and written. The article shows that the autobiography was the product of a sustained, complex, and often fraught series of collaborations among La Follette's family, friends, and political allies, and in the process illuminates the importance of affective ties as well as political ambition and commitment in bringing the project to fruition. In the world of progressive reform, it argues, personal and political experiences were inseparable.     

BYZANTINE AND UMAYYAD PERIOD POTTERY AT BARSINIA (2006 SEASON OF EXCAVATION)

Abstract

Until recent pottery studies of the ancient Classical and Early Islamic rural sites in northern Jordan were of less interest to archaeologists. This article focuses on the Byzantine and Umayyad period pottery that has been discovered during the first season of excavation at Barsinia in the north-western part of Jordan. Fifty-two indicative pottery sherds were sorted according to their date and function into two main groups: the early Byzantine pottery (fourth–sixth centuries) and the Late Byzantine–Umayyad pottery (sixth–eighth centuries). Since Barsinia is one of the small rural archaeological sites, and such sites were rarely mentioned in ancient literary sources, the study of material remains at such locations is essential for elucidating regional development and trade. It also sheds more light on the relation between the site and the surroundings through the comparative study of the pottery objects.     

Les Grecs Pontiques: Diaspora,Identité, Territoires.

Abstract

In recent years there have been significant advances in our understanding of the Byzantine rural economy. While work on such problems as the legal status of the peasantry, the fiscal procedures by which the state extracted revenues from the peasantry and the nature of the fiscal concessions which the state made to landowners remains central to our understanding of the Byzantine social structure, greater attention has been paid recently to the history of settlements, agricultural production and the influence of the climate and environment on the rural economy. Recent work has been greatly facilitated by two developments, the publication of more material from the archives of Mount Athos and the upsurge in intensive surveys and other archaeological work which is already providing us with information about regions for which our documentary material is either inadequate or non-existant. This paper will not attempt a comprehensive discussion of all recent work on the subject, but will focus on some of the most significant problems affecting our understanding of the Byzantine rural economy.     

The exploitation and control of woodland and scrubland in the Byzantine world

Abstract

A welcome and necessary aspect of the renewal of studies of the Byzantine economy has been the analysis, sometimes in both the technical and the broader organisational aspects, of the production and redistribution of particular goods. One only has to think of some recent work concerning mining and metallurgy, minting, silk-production, glass-making, potteries, shipping, and salsamenta, to realise the potential significance of such studies, the need for the historical study of all types of economic activity, and how unilluminating has become the incantation of such statements as that the Byzantine economy was ‘overwhelmingly' rural (almost invariably made with reference to the primary products of a narrowly defined agriculture), or that centres of population were ‘characterised by consumption', or even that commercialised redistribution was ‘feeble’ and stagnant in the Early Byzantine period.     

THE BYZANTINE CHURCH OF THE NUTRITION IN NAZARETH REDISCOVERED

Abstract

Although Nazareth has usually been seen by scholars as a relatively minor Byzantine pilgrimage centre, it contained perhaps the most important ‘lost’ Byzantine church in the Holy Land, the Church of the Nutrition – according to De Locis Sanctis built over the house where it was believed that Jesus Christ had been a child. This article, part of a series of final interim reports of the PEF-funded ‘Nazareth Archaeological Project’, presents evidence that this church has been discovered at the present Sisters of Nazareth convent in central Nazareth. The scale of the church and its surrounding structures suggests that Nazareth was a much larger, and more important, centre for Byzantine-period pilgrimage than previously supposed. The church was used in the Crusader period, after a phase of desertion, prior to destruction by fire, probably in the 13th century.