The Argument Of Psellos Chronographia

Author : Anthony Kaldellis
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 237 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2021-10-11
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9789004452862

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The Argument of Psellos' Chronographia by Anthony Kaldellis Pdf

This book is a philosophical interpretation of Michael Psellos' Chronographia, an acknowledged masterpiece of Byzantine literature. Anthony Kaldellis argues that although the Chronographia contains a fascinating historical narrative; it is really a disguised philosophical work which, if read carefully, reveals Psellos' revolutionary views on politics and religion. Kaldellis exposes the rhetorical techniques with which Psellos veils his unorthodoxy, and demonstrates that the inner message of the text challenges the Church's supremacy over the intellectual and political life of Byzantium. Psellos consciously articulates a secular vision of Imperial politics, and seeks to liberate philosophy from the constraints of Christian theology. The analysis is lucid and should be accessible to anyone with a general knowledge of Byzantine civilization. It should interest all who study the history of ancient and medieval philosophy.

Author : Claire Nesbitt,Mark Jackson
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 406 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2016-04-22
Category : History
ISBN : 9781317137832

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Experiencing Byzantium by Claire Nesbitt,Mark Jackson Pdf

From the reception of imperial ekphraseis in Hagia Sophia to the sounds and smells of the back streets of Constantinople, the sensory perception of Byzantium is an area that lends itself perfectly to an investigation into the experience of the Byzantine world. The theme of experience embraces all aspects of Byzantine studies and the Experiencing Byzantium symposium brought together archaeologists, architects, art historians, historians, musicians and theologians in a common quest to step across the line that divides how we understand and experience the Byzantine world and how the Byzantines themselves perceived the sensual aspects of their empire and also their faith, spirituality, identity and the nature of ’being’ in Byzantium. The papers in this volume derive from the 44th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, held for the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies by the University of Newcastle and University of Durham, at Newcastle upon Tyne in April 2011. They are written by a group of international scholars who have crossed disciplinary boundaries to approach an understanding of experience in the Byzantine world. Experiencing Byzantium is volume 18 in the series published by Ashgate on behalf of the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies.

Author : Clare Teresa M. Shawcross,Ida Toth
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 745 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2018-10-04
Category : History
ISBN : 9781108418416

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Reading in the Byzantine Empire and Beyond by Clare Teresa M. Shawcross,Ida Toth Pdf

The first comprehensive introduction in English to books, readers and reading in Byzantium and the wider medieval world surrounding it.

Author : Michael Jeffreys,Marc Diederik Lauxtermann
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 479 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2017
Category : History
ISBN : 9780198787228

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The Letters of Psellos by Michael Jeffreys,Marc Diederik Lauxtermann Pdf

The Letters of Psellos is the first detailed study of the correspondence of Michael Psellos, a leading Byzantine intellectual, politician, and writer of the eleventh century. Psellos' corpus of over 500 letters represents a historical source of great significance for the study of society and culture of the time: literary masterpieces in and of themselves, yet often complex and difficult to understand in their entirety, they not only rebound with subtlety and humor, but also offer invaluable information on myriad subjects ranging from the political culture of Byzantium and its civil administration to social codes, religious beliefs, and popular culture. This volume consists of two complementary parts designed to make Psellos' letters as widely accessible as possible, both to the specialist academic community and to a wider non-specialist audience. The first part contains five essays offering detailed historical and literary analyses of a considerable number of the letters across a range of different topics, including the financial management of monasteries, the friendship of Psellos and John Mauropous, and the challenges posed by Psellian irony. While the essays are supplemented by individual appendices containing the translated text of the pertinent letters, the second part of the book presents annotated summaries in English of the entirety of Psellos' correspondence, compiled over many years as part of the Prosopography of the Byzantine World project and supported by substantial excursuses and notes. The result is an engaging and accessible shortcut into these bewildering and fascinating letters and an essential resource for the study of eleventh-century Byzantine society and culture through the pen of one of its pre-eminent figures.

Author : Anthony Kaldellis
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 309 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2015-02-02
Category : History
ISBN : 9780674365407

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The Byzantine Republic by Anthony Kaldellis Pdf

Although Byzantium is known to history as the Eastern Roman Empire, scholars have long claimed that this Greek Christian theocracy bore little resemblance to Rome. Here, in a revolutionary model of Byzantine politics and society, Anthony Kaldellis reconnects Byzantium to its Roman roots, arguing that from the fifth to the twelfth centuries CE the Eastern Roman Empire was essentially a republic, with power exercised on behalf of the people and sometimes by them too. The Byzantine Republic recovers for the historical record a less autocratic, more populist Byzantium whose Greek-speaking citizens considered themselves as fully Roman as their Latin-speaking “ancestors.” Kaldellis shows that the idea of Byzantium as a rigid imperial theocracy is a misleading construct of Western historians since the Enlightenment. With court proclamations often draped in Christian rhetoric, the notion of divine kingship emerged as a way to disguise the inherent vulnerability of each regime. The legitimacy of the emperors was not predicated on an absolute right to the throne but on the popularity of individual emperors, whose grip on power was tenuous despite the stability of the imperial institution itself. Kaldellis examines the overlooked Byzantine concept of the polity, along with the complex relationship of emperors to the law and the ways they bolstered their popular acceptance and avoided challenges. The rebellions that periodically rocked the empire were not aberrations, he shows, but an essential part of the functioning of the republican monarchy.

Author : Leonora Neville
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 335 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2018-05-17
Category : History
ISBN : 9781107039988

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Guide to Byzantine Historical Writing by Leonora Neville Pdf

Makes the study of medieval Greek historical writing accessible by providing fundamental orientation and information.

Author : Eva Anagnostou,Ken Parry
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 568 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2022-12-28
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9789004527850

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Later Platonists and their Heirs among Christians, Jews, and Muslims by Eva Anagnostou,Ken Parry Pdf

In this volume authors working across different disciplines of late antique and medieval thought explore the reception of Platonic and Neoplatonic tenets among Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

Author : Dimitris Krallis
Publisher : Springer
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2019-01-31
Category : History
ISBN : 9783030045258

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Serving Byzantium's Emperors by Dimitris Krallis Pdf

This book is a microhistory of eleventh-century Byzantium, built around the biography of the state official Michael Attaleiates. Dimitris Krallis presents Byzantium as a cohesive, ever-evolving, dynamic, Roman political community, built on traditions of Roman governance and Hellenic culture. In the eleventh century, Byzantium faced a crisis as it navigated a shifting international environment of feudal polities, merchant republics, steppe migrations, and a rapidly transforming Islamic world. Attaleiates’ life, from provincial birth to Constantinopolitan death, and career, as a member of an ancient empire’s officialdom, raise questions of identity, family, education, governance, elite culture, Romanness, Hellenism, science and skepticism, as well as political ideology during this period. The life and work of Attaleiates is used as a prism through which to examine important questions about a long-lived medieval polity that is usually studied as exotic and distinct from both the European and the Near Eastern historical experience.

Author : Hans-Christian Günther,Andrea A. Robiglio
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 524 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2010-10-07
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9789004193789

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The European Image of God and Man by Hans-Christian Günther,Andrea A. Robiglio Pdf

The present volumes unites papers which explore the European image of god in an intercultural context. They range from classical antiquity to contemporary philosophy and science.

Author : Michael Saxby,Dimiter Angelov
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 316 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2016-04-08
Category : History
ISBN : 9781317076933

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Power and Subversion in Byzantium by Michael Saxby,Dimiter Angelov Pdf

This volume addresses a theme of special significance for Byzantine studies. Byzantium has traditionally been deemed a civilisation which deferred to authority and set special store by orthodoxy, canon and proper order. Since 1982 when the distinguished Russian Byzantinist Alexander Kazhdan wrote that 'the history of Byzantine intellectual opposition has yet to be written', scholars have increasingly highlighted cases of subversion of 'correct practice' and 'correct belief' in Byzantium. This innovative scholarly effort has produced important results, although it has been hampered by the lack of dialogue across the disciplines of Byzantine studies. The 43rd Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies in 2010 drew together historians, art historians, and scholars of literature, religion and philosophy, who discussed shared and discipline-specific approaches to the theme of subversion. The present volume presents a selection of the papers delivered at the symposium enriched with specially commissioned contributions. Most papers deal with the period after the eleventh century, although early Byzantium is not ignored. Theoretical questions about the nature, articulation and limits of subversion are addressed within the frameworks of individual disciplines and in a larger context. The volume comes at a timely junction in the development of Byzantine studies, as interest in subversion and nonconformity in general has been rising steadily in the field.

Author : Ruth Macrides
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 326 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2016-12-05
Category : History
ISBN : 9781351930642

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History as Literature in Byzantium by Ruth Macrides Pdf

Although perceived since the sixteenth century as the most impressive literary achievement of Byzantine culture, historical writing nevertheless remains little studied as literature. Historical texts are still read first and foremost for nuggets of information, as main sources for the reconstruction of the events of Byzantine history. Whatever can be called literary in these works has been considered as external and detachable from the facts. The 'classical tradition' inherited by Byzantine writers, the features that Byzantine authors imitated and absorbed, are regarded as standing in the way of understanding the true meaning of the text and, furthermore, of contaminating the reliability of the history. Chronicles, whose language and style are anything but classicizing, have been held in low esteem, for they are seen as providing a mere chronological exposition of events. This book presents a set of articles by an international cast of contributors, deriving from papers delivered at the 40th annual Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies. They are concerned with historical and visual narratives that date from the sixth to the fourteenth century, and aim to show that literary analyses and the study of pictorial devices, far from being tangential to the study of historical texts, are preliminary to their further study, exposing the deeper structures and purposes of these texts.

Author : Frederick Lauritzen
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2013
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 2503558887

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The Depiction of Character in the Chronographia of Michael Psellos by Frederick Lauritzen Pdf

Author : Paul Magdalino
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 305 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2003
Category : History
ISBN : 9789004120976

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Byzantinum in the Year 1000 by Paul Magdalino Pdf

One thousand years ago, the Byzantine Empire was reaching the height of its revival as a medieval state. The ten contributions to this volume by scholars from six European countries re-assess key aspects of the empire's politics and culture in the long reign of the emperor Basil II, whose name has come to symbolise the greatness of Byzantium in the age before the crusades. The first five chapters deal with international diplomacy, the emperor's power, and government in Asia Minor and the frontier provinces of the Balkans and southern Italy. The second half of the volume covers aspects of law, history-writing, poetry and hagiography, and concludes with a discussion of Byzantine attitudes to the Millennium.

Author : Sarah Foot,Chase F. Robinson
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 671 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2012-10-25
Category : History
ISBN : 9780191636936

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The Oxford History of Historical Writing by Sarah Foot,Chase F. Robinson Pdf

How was history written in Europe and Asia between 400-1400? How was the past understood in religious, social and political terms? And in what ways does the diversity of historical writing in this period mask underlying commonalities in narrating the past? The volume, which assembles 28 contributions from leading historians, tackles these and other questions. Part I provides comprehensive overviews of the development of historical writing in societies that range from the Korean Peninsula to north-west Europe, which together highlight regional and cultural distinctiveness. Part II complements the first part by taking a thematic and comparative approach; it includes essays on genre, warfare, and religion (amongst others) which address common concerns of historians working in this liminal period before the globalizing forces of the early modern world.

Author : John Burke,Ursula Betka,Penelope Buckley,Kathleen Hay,Roger Scott,Andrew Stephenson
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 650 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2006-01-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9789004344877

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Byzantine Narrative by John Burke,Ursula Betka,Penelope Buckley,Kathleen Hay,Roger Scott,Andrew Stephenson Pdf

"Byzantine Narrative: Papers in Honour of Roger Scott"--"Copyright"--"Dedication" -- "Contents" -- "Introduction" -- "Roger Scott" -- "List of Illustrations" -- "KEYNOTE PAPERS" -- "Novelisation in Byzantium: Narrative after the Revival of Fiction" -- "Narrating Justinian: From Malalas to Manasses" -- "NARRATIVE IN HISTORIANS, CHRONICLES & FICTION" -- "To Narrate the Events of the Past: On Byzantine Historians, and Historians on Byzantium" -- "Tradition and Originality in Photius' Historical Reading" -- "Narrating the Trials and Death in Exile of Pope Martin I and Maximus the Confessor" -- "The Use of Metaphor in Michael Psellos' Chronographia" -- "War and Peace in the Alexiad" -- "Moralising History: the Synopsis Historiarum of John Skylitzes" -- "The Representation of Augustae in John Skylitzes' Synopsis Historiarum" -- "The Madrid Skylitzes as an Audio-Visual Experiment" -- "The Goths and the Bees in Jordanes: A Narrative of No Return" -- "From 'Fallen Woman' to Theotokos: Music, Women's Voices and Byzantine Narratives of Gender Identity" -- "How the Entertaining Tale of Quadrupeds became a Tale: Grafting Narrative" -- "Lamenting the Fall or Disguising a Manifesto? The Poem Conquest of Constantinople" -- "A Probable Solution to the Problem of the Chronicle of the Turkish Sultans" -- "NARRATIVE IN BYZANTINE ART" -- "The Narration of Christ' s Passion in Early Christian Art" -- "Observations on the Paintings of the Exodus Chapel, Bagawat Necropolis, Kharga Oasis, Egypt" -- "The Column of Arcadius: Retlections of a Roman Narrative Tradition" -- "Biblical Narrative in the Mosaics of Bishop Theodore's Cathedral, Aquileia" -- "Plato, Plutarch and the Sibyl in the Fresco Decoration of the Episcopal Church of the Virgin Ljeviška in Prizren" -- "Narrativity in Armenian Manuscript Illustration