Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Byzantine Historiography'

This thesis examines literary and cultural influences upon descriptions of warfare in Byzantine historiography, focusing on events of the ninth to twelfth centuries. Its main aim is twofold: to account for the appearance in historiography of more ‘heroic’ accounts of battle from the late tenth century, and to identify the sources Middle Byzantine historians employed for military events, particularly since this material appears to have had a significant role in the aforementioned development. Study of Middle Byzantine historical works grants insight into general features of war writing. Moreover, it also reveals much about the working methods of historians and the written sources they employed for military episodes. These sources, now lost to us, are determined to have primarily been campaign reports and biographical compositions. Once an understanding of the nature of such texts is reached, one may demonstrate that they presented their military subject according to contemporary ideals of valour and generalship. It is suggested that the appearance of promotional literature of the military aristocracy in the tenth century was instrumental in the development of a more ‘heroic’ form of war writing, with Homeric-style descriptions of battle, cunning military stratagems, and courageous displays more evident in historiography from this time.

This thesis is concerned with the editorial, printing and marketing history of four Byzantine historical narratives, published between 1556 and 1645, and soon collectively identified under the name Corpus Historiæ Byzantinæ (hereinafter, 'Byzantine Corpus'). The four Byzantine historians - Ioannes Zonaras, Niketas Choniates, Nikephoros Gregoras and Laonikos Chalkokondyles - enjoyed considerable popularity in early modern Europe, with a peak of interest in the second half of the sixteenth century. This thesis aims at highlighting how these four texts, despite being so popular in a number of early modern European countries (particularly in the German-speaking area, in Italy and in France), did not do so for the same reasons: in fact, depending on the country in which these books were printed, they were marketed, perceived and read in very different ways. This element is particularly relevant in light of the fact that the Byzantine Corpus represents the earliest predecessor of the Corpus Fontium Historiæ Byzantinæ, the modern resource for the study of Byzantine historical sources. Chapter 1 analyses the early formation of the Byzantine Corpus and, in particular, the figure of Hieronymus Wolf, first editor of the Byzantine Corpus, often considered the 'father' of Byzantine studies; his relation with his patrons, the Fuggers of Augsburg; finally, his relation with his publisher, the Basel printer Johannes Oporinus. It then provides contextualised bibliographical and paratextual descriptions of the editiones principes of the Byzantine Corpus, all printed in Basel. Chapters 2-5 reflect the same comparative approach, used to investigate how the later editions of the Byzantine Corpus were prepared and marketed in different European countries: each chapter provides a bibliographical and paratextual analysis of the subsequent German, Italian, French and Genevan editions respectively. The Conclusions draw together all the information collected in the previous chapters and investigate three pivotal aspects of the Byzantine Corpus: i) the formation of the Byzantine Corpus and the individual popularity of each of the four Byzantine historians based on the frequency and popularity of both individual and collective editions; ii) the distinctive reasons of their popularity, analysed through a comparison of the different approaches with which editors and publishers have presented these texts to their respective audiences in Germany, Italy and France; iii) the reasons for the rise and decline in popularity of the Byzantine Corpus in the early seventeenth century.

The capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman armies of Mehmed II in 1453 was a cataclysmic event that reverberated throughout Renaissance Europe. This event intensified the exodus of Byzantines to Italy and beyond and they brought along with them the heritage of Greek antiquity. Laonikos Chalkokondyles contributed to the Renaissance with his detailed application of Herodotos to the fifteenth century, Apodeixis Historion, and made sense of the rise of the Ottomans with the lens of ancient history. The Apodeixis was printed in Latin, French, and Greek and was widely successful. The historian restored Herodotean categories of ethnicity, political rule, language, and geography to make sense of contemporary events and peoples. This was a thorough study of ancient historiography and Laonikos thus parted ways with previous Byzantine historians. I refer to Laonikos' method as "revolutionary classicizing", to describe the ways in which he abandoned the ideal of lawful imperium and restored the model of oriental tyranny when he described the nascent Ottoman state. What appears to be emulation of the ancient classics was radical revival of political concepts such as city-states as ethnic units, freedom defined as independence from foreign rule, law-giving as fundamental aspect of Hellenic tradition which did not encompass the Christian period. Laonikos has often been studied in the context of proto-nationalist historiography as he had composed a universal history, wherein he had related extensive information on various ethnic and political units in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. However, such proto-nationalist application does not fully capture Laonikos’ classicizing interests. Laonikos referred to his contemporaries as Hellenes, not because he was a nationalist who defined political identity only by recourse to language and common history. Rather, Laonikos believed that Hellenic identity, both referring to paganism as well as ethnicity, was relevant and not bankrupt. Importantly, we introduce manuscripts that have not yet been utilized to argue that Hellenism as paganism was living reality for Laonikos, his Platonist teacher Plethon, and their circle of intellectuals in the fifteenth century.

Despite ruling over arguably the most powerful Christian nation in the period, in a time when European and middle-eastern history entered a new phase of interaction due to the Crusades, John's reign has received little scholarly attention. The only major monograph is Chalandon's Les Comnènes from 1912, since which a number of new sources have come to light, together with numerous studies on his contemporaries. Despite the impression that sources are lacking for his reign, in fact there are over 50,000 words of court letters and poetry that allow us to take the political pulse of the Komnenian court. When incorporated with the extra information found in Syriac, Arabic, Russian, Hungarian and many other texts, archaeological remains, sigillographic and numismatic evidence, John's reign is in fact very well covered, and ripe for analysis. Between fieldwork in Turkey, Serbia and Kosovo and translations of these previously unused texts, this thesis contains new material on top of over a century of updated methodologies and research since Chalandon. As such, this thesis will reevaluate assumptions concerning John and his reign, including rewriting the narrative itself, which has previously been distorted due to the agendas of the few sources used. Through the reconstruction of this narrative John's empire can be reexamined, and how it operated in the changed world of the twelfth century determined. The empire found itself in a more multi-polar power dynamic, and tackled this by operating more as an empire than it had as a larger polity as in the previous century: incorporating other peoples as clients and emphasing the rhetoric of imperial piety and legitimacy of the Roman empire. Equally, all of John's actions on the frontiers were fuel for the political theatre that was Constantinople, and this dynamic shaped his actions and resulted in the empire that Manuel inherited.

[Truncated abstract] My focus has been twofold. On the one hand I have highlighted and elucidated the events which Pachymerēs narrates, glossing with prosopographical and topological notes the people, places and things mentioned in the text, and explaining other esoteric details, such as the range of many and varied, ornate Byzantine court honorifics. On the other hand I have made a critical comparison between Pachymerēs and the other important sources for the period, Greek, Western, and Eastern, to provide explanations for differences in the various narratives, to suggest which source is the more accurate for any given event, and to fill up the narrative ‘gaps’ of Gomme .... I must stress that both by training and inclination I am an historian, not a philologist, so the commentary will be historical rather than philological. This is despite the importance Pachymerēs himself places in the clever use of language and his frequent use of allusions to and quotes from other works, Classical, Byzantine or biblical. The question of mimēsis, how much Pachymerēs is directly trying to imitate or incorporate older texts, has received limited attention, and only where Pachymerēs’ use of the earlier text is vital to the understanding of his own work. Similarly, questions of language, and the way in which Pachymerēs uses it, have not been explored except in those instances where it directly affects the historical point our author is making. Pachymerēs’ Historia is an important source for a pivotal period in Byzantine Imperial history, and many scholars have not used it as efficiently as they could due to the denseness of his prose and his “tortuous syntax” (Bartusis 1992:55) ...

L'image négative de Byzance puise ses racines dans les chroniques occidentales du Moyen âge. Au XVIIIe siècle, elle est diffusée par les philosophes Montesquieu et Voltaire et par les historiens Lebeau et Gibbon. C'est sur ces bases que se constitue l'histoire byzantine. Au début du XIXe siècle, les romantiques assimilent Byzance à une longue décadence de l'empire romain où règne le luxe, le vice et la perfidie. Cependant, il se dessine déjà une image plus nuancée chez les historiens allemands avec la deuxième moitié du XIXe siècle, l'image de Byzance évolue. Le philhellène anglais Finlay, les premiers spécialistes allemands Hopf, Kugler, et le français Rambaud font progresser l'histoire byzantine. De nombreux préjugés demeurent notamment lorsque son histoire se heurte aux prérogatives ou sert de faire valoir aux enjeux occidentaux et nationaux du XIXe siècle. Ce phénomène est amplifié dans le dernier quart du XIXe siècle chez certains historiens français qui ont mal vécu la défaite de 1870 (Lavisse, Renan). Cependant, la vision de Byzance s'améliore grâce à quelques spécialistes allemands : Neumann, Krumbacher, Heyd, anglais : Bury, français : Gasquet, Schlumberger. Ces historiens ont permis de mettre fin à un certain nombre d'à priori. Ce travail se poursuit en France et en Allemagne dans le premier XXe siècle avec des spécialistes tels Diehl, Chalandon. A partir de la deuxième moitié du XIXe siècle, la vision de Byzance a donc évolué favorablement sous l'influence de l'école allemande. Cette évolution n'apparaît pas dans les manuels scolaires et des images conçues parfois plusieurs décennies auparavant sont encore d'actualité. Pourquoi une image si négative ? L'histoire de Byzance a porté des enjeux essentiels (légitimité impériale, évangélisation, culture) qui la mettait en concurrence avec les revendications de l'Occident. Son histoire est un discours au service de stratégies politiques ou religieuses, culturelles ou nationales. Son histoire a servi de contremodèle à toutes les passions qui ont animé le siècle. Au début du XXe siècle, Byzance devient le domaine réservé des spécialistes et acquiert ses lettres de noblesse

Les principaux objets de la présente étude sont les récits produits à l’intérieur des entités politiques de Nicée, de l’Épire et de la Serbie entre les années 1204 et 1261. La majorité des précédentes recherches concernant cette période soulignent son irrégularité. Les chercheurs puisent l’explication des phénomènes historiques dans les récits figés de la fragmentation du monde byzantin et de l’indépendance de l’État serbe, présentées comme conséquences de la Quatrième croisade. Ces attitudes sont souvent médiatisées par le concept non défini d’idéologie. En se servant des concepts empruntés à la narratologie et aux théories marxistes, cette thèse conteste ce type d’approche ainsi que la conception d’une relation rectiligne entre les textes et les ‘réalités’ historiques. Les récits y sont définis comme résolutions des contradictions matérielles et l’idéologie en tant qu’ensemble des stratégies narratives employées dans la constitution de subjectivités des personnages et dans la construction de leur espace social. L’analyse des pratiques narratives d’interpellation dans les contextes rhétoriques, juridiques, épistolaires et hagiographiques ouvre la possibilité de réinterprétation des acteurs, des actions et des relations sociales. L’examen de la mise en récit de l’espace dans le cadre trialectique permet d’éclaircir cet élément important de la socialité, d’habitude réduit au statut d’un objet passif au service des intérêts de l’État-nation. Enfin, à la place des métaphores impertinentes de famille et de hiérarchie, le concept d’hétérarchie est suggéré pour théoriser les relations de pouvoir, à l’intérieur des trois États examinés, mais aussi concernant les rapports entre eux. Cette thèse propose d’interpréter les sociétés médiévales à partir de la façon dont les expériences sociales et politiques y étaient racontées, avec deux objectifs en ligne de mire : l’ouverture de la lecture des textes byzantins et serbes en parallèle avec la réflexion sur les pratiques historiographiques contemporaines
The principal objects of this dissertation are narratives produced between 1204 and 1261 in the polities of Nicaea, Epiros and Serbia. Previous studies, for the most part, stress the anomalous character of this period. In their explanations of historical phenomena, historians draw upon fixed modern narratives of the fragmentation of the Byzantine world and the independence of the Serbian state, both seen as consequences of the Fourth Crusade. These arguments are often buttressed by the undefined concept of ideology. Using concepts borrowed from narratology and Marxist theories, this study challenges that line of approach, as well as the notion of an unambiguous nexus between texts and historical ‘realities’. Narratives are defined as resolutions to material contradictions. Ideology is defined as a set of narrative strategies used to constitute the subjectivities of concerned actors and to construct their social space. Analyzing the narrative practices of interpellation in rhetorical, legal, epistolary, and hagiographical contexts opens up the possibility of reinterpreting historical actors, actions and social relations. Examining the narrativization of space in a trialectical matrix sheds light on this important element of sociality, which was previously usually reduced to a passive object at the service of nation-states interests. Finally, the study proposes a concept of heterarchy as a way to replace the unsuitable metaphors of family and hierarchy, frequently used to theorize the power relations both inside and between medieval states. This dissertation offers an interpretation of medieval societies, based on the way their members told stories of their social and political experience. Thus, it has two aims: to diversify the reading of Byzantine and Serbian texts and to prompt modern scholars to rethink their approach to historiographical practice

The three works of Procopius of Caesarea, the History of the Wars, the Buildings and the Secret History, form a corpus which can be profitably studied as a whole. My thesis is a typology of the visual in Procopius’ corpus, which is embedded in a study of narrative technique. It concerns itself with the representation of material reality and the complex relationship between materiality and the text. It utilises the digressive and the descriptive as an indirect entry point to expose Procopius’ literary finesse and his use of poikilia. In the first half of this thesis, the main object of my study is the representation of the material world in Procopius. The first chapter is devoted to the first book of the Buildings as it depicts the city of Constantinople. The second chapter moves to the representation of space and the third chapter to that of objects of all sizes and kinds. From these three different angles, I demonstrate how the visual is deeply charged with both ideological and meta-textual intentions. The second half of the thesis goes beyond materiality to examine what I discuss as the imaginaire of Procopius. The fourth chapter examines the way violence is depicted in a material and spectacular manner as well as its meta-textual implications, and the fifth and final chapter addresses the omnipresence of the supernatural in the corpus as well as Procopius’ self-representation as narrator and character. While preoccupied to some extent with ideological and political concerns, this thesis is first and foremost centred on the text itself and how its relationship to the description of material culture throws light on a crucial author on the cusp between the classical and the medieval imaginaire, one of the most significant authors in Byzantine literary culture.

This thesis is a study of the pre-Islamic passages of Abū Ḥanīfa Aḥmad ibn Dāwūd ibn Wanand Dīnawarī's Kitāb al-Aḫbār al-Ṭiwāl. This is to say that it stops at the beginning of the Arab conquest of Iran. It is intended for scholars of Late Antiquity. Special emphasis is placed on Dīnawarī's exposition of the rule of the Sasanian dynasty and questions relating to the mysterious Ḫudāynāma tradition which are intimately connected with it. Beginning with a discussion of Dīnawarī and his work, the thesis moves into a discussion of indigenous Iranian historiography. Speculation on the sources of Kitāb al-Aḫbār al-Ṭiwāl follows, and the historiographical investigation of the most substantial portion of Kitāb al-Aḫbār al-Ṭiwāl's notices on the Sasanian dynasty comes next. The conclusion summarises the findings of the thesis. The final section (an appendix) is a translation of the relevant part of Kitāb al-Aḫbār al-Ṭiwāl running from the beginning of that text to the reign of Šīrūya. This thesis was written with one main question in mind: what does Dīnawarī's Kitāb al-Aḫbār al-Ṭiwāl have to say about pre-Islamic Iranian history? A host of other questions arose immediately: who was Dīnawarī; when did he live; what did he do; how was his work perceived by others; where did Dīnawarī get his information and how did he present it; is Dīnawarī's information reliable? These questions are addressed one by one in my thesis.

La chute de Constantinople en 1453 est perçue comme l’un des événements crucial de l’histoire européenne, le siège et la conquête d’une capitale étant en effet un lieu de mémoire culturelle d’une importance fondamentale. Les témoignages occidentaux et grecs sur la chute ont permis d’étudier la naissance et la structuration de la représentation culturelle de l’événement, grâce à l’analyse des différents niveaux de réélaboration de ce dernier: la reconstruction des faits et des souvenirs dans les comptes-rendus de première main qui ont diffusé la nouvelle, puis la création de la mémoire dans des narrations et des échos de seconde main, ensuite la réélaboration des historiographes et des intellectuels avec la naissance de ‘mythes’ et de représentations collectives, accueillis parfois par l’historiographie scientifique à partir du XVIII° siècle. La genèse de la mémoire de la chute se produit dans un contexte occidental. Un point de vue occidental est présenté par tous les premiers comptes-rendus, dont certains influencent une grande partie de la production historiographique postérieure, même grecque. Dans la culture de l’Occident européen, les narrations de la chute de Constantinople constituent un moment fort de diffusion et de relance de stéréotypes sur l’islam et la chrétienté orthodoxe hérités en partie du passé et qui auront plus de fortune pendant les siècles suivants. La ‘mémoire des vaincus’ aborde le traumatisme de la conquête en projetant les événements dans une perspective messianique caractérisée par des désirs de reconquête nationale et en élaborant une représentation héroïque de la chute qui deviendra un mythe d’identité nationale
Nowadays, the fall of Constantinople by the Ottoman Empire in 1453 is perceived by historians as one of the crucial events for European history. The siege and the conquest of this city can be considered as a symbol of cultural memory, as a symbol of extraordinary importance. The Western and Greek evidences related to the fall of the capital of the Byzantine Empire allow us to study the birth and the evolution of the cultural representation of this historical event. This can be done on studying the analysis of the different levels of re-elaboration of the event itself; on evaluating the construction as well as the re-construction of the records related to it; on developing the narrations of the chroniclers who wrote about it; on analyzing the re-elaborations of historians and intellectuals who mythicized it; on perceiving how scientific historiographers since the eighteenth century took into it. The genesis of the memory of this fall has mainly a Western tradition, a tradition which has had a heavy influence even on Greek historical culture. In Western European historiography, in fact, the faithful account of this historical fact is a moment of strong diffusion of stereotypes on both Islamic and Orthodox cultures, to some extent inherited from the past and destined to having an enlightened fortune in the near centuries. The ‘memory of losers’ talks about the trauma of the conquest, projecting the event itself into a proper messianic prospective, so that the heroic representation of it has transformed it into a crucial myth of national identity

碩士
輔仁大學
歷史研究所
100
Byzantium plays an important role in the development of Western history, especially in the period from Late Classic to Medieval. However, Western scholars often thought Byzantium as an Asian empire rather than a part of Western culture in the past, and even label it as stagnant, corrupt and rigid. Moreover, it is believed that there is a large gap between Byzantium and Roman Empire. On the contrary, there is continuity in Byzantium, Roman Empire and Ancient world. The change in politics, the movement of capital and the reformation in culture are all proofs of the continuity. Byzantium shouldn’t even be separated from Roman Empire. This paper is going to discuss the gap between Byzantium’s reality and what Western people used to think of it, and how this misunderstanding is formed. The two researching aspects are as follow: First, to clarify the continuity in Byzantium, Roman Empire and Ancient world, along with the close relationship of Byzantium and the development of Western European. Second, based on former discussion, to expound how the gap between Byzantium in Western scholars’ concept and Byzantium in history is formed. Also, the negative terms that Western scholars use in describing Byzantium is similar to the vocabularies that Eurocentrists use to criticize other non-European culture. Therefore, this would also be an aspect in this paper, and the relationship of Byzantium and other non-European culture would be discussed.

The study focuses on the unique phenomenon of society’s changing attitudes towards the Crusades. Right from its inception the Crusades made a lasting impact on history, an impact which is still evident in the present day. Several aspects contributed to the start of the Crusades, among them the world and ideology of the eleventh century, the era in which the Crusades began. In current times there have been calls demanding an apology for the Crusades, while at the same time some within Christianity have felt the need to apologise for the atrocities of the Crusades. The Crusades are often blamed for the animosity between Christians and Muslims, a situation worsened by the fact that leaders on both sides misuse the word ‘crusade’ for their own agendas. The thesis is written within a historiographical framework making use of both critical enquiry and historical criticism.
Christian Spirituality, Church History & Missiology
M. Th. (Church history)