The work of Sir Steven Runciman (1903-2000), one of the leading twentieth-century Byzantinists and Medievalists, stands out as that of a solitary pioneer who had the scholarly and literary skills to make noteworthy historical events and issues of far-reaching importance accessible and interesting to a wide public. Representing what Ihor _ev_enko once called "Byzantinologie totale," and known for books rather than articles, Sir Steven covered a wide variety of subjects, treating them beyond the limits of a simple political and religious historical narrative. To be sure, his publications were in full accordance with the spirit of an age which still required that Byzantium become known, justified, and appealing to a wide public; yet, in many respects, they can still offer inspiration to fairly appreciating and discussing what was the Byzantine style (or Byzantine idiosyncrasy) in religion, politics, literature, art, and culture.
Emerging from a small conference dedicated to the honoree, the twenty-two contributions included in this volume, all authored by British Byzantinists, touch upon a great variety of topics and fields. Arranged according to the three main subject-matters of the title, they re-address old directions or take up new ones of Byzantine and other research. Ranging from the fifth century (Frendo) to the fifteenth (Gabrilovi_), but also extending beyond Byzantium's chronological confines (Buckton, Hunt, Rodley), all studies have an essential point to make. As space constraints do not permit discussion of all of them, I shall leave out some, mostly those that are archaeological and art historical and are included in the first and third parts of the book (on "style" and "civilization").
To begin with A. Dunn; he examines how Thisvi, a town in Western Boeotia, was transformed into medieval Kastorion, a town mostly involved in silk production and trade. Evaluating recent archaeological finds and exploring historical sources, he offers an exemplary case-study which could become a standard for similar endeavors regarding the medieval history of towns in the region of Hellas (mod. southern Greece).
Profound sorrow reflecting an age of violent change is the sentiment prevailing in Serbian artistic activity from the turn of the fourteenth century, i.e., as the establishment of Ottoman rule advanced in the Balkans, to the rule of Mehmet II. Z. Gavrilovi_, a specialist in medieval Serbian art, discusses the contribution of Serbian princesses and despots' widows to the artistic and literary movement of the period, illustrated in the building of churches and in commissioning precious holy objects and manuscripts of religious content.
J. Shepard discusses three chronologically distinctive cases of "barbarian rulers" (Theoderic the Ostrogoth, Symeon of Bulgaria, and Stefan Du_an), who in their boyhood or later were hosted at the imperial court. When, in adulthood, they adopted an adversary's standpoint, which was often expressed in hostile actions, their former stint in Constantinople was crucial in shaping much of their endeavor to create a polity worthy of comparison and coexistence with 'the empire of the Romans.'
On the basis of a narrative of the finding of relics of Saint Grigor, Illuminator of Greater Armenia, translated into English and commented on in detail here, T. Greenwood brings out convincing arguments in favor of Photios' own involvement in this "holy" case. Composed in the Byzantine capital in the third quarter of the ninth century, this narrative formed part of a wider initiative by the learned patriarch to reconcile Armenian "religious dissenters" with the Church of Constantinople.
A. Louth delves into a rather disregarded side of Photios' theological output and draws interesting inferences from the Amphilochia and the Bibliotheca (esp. its longest codex 222 devoted to a theological treatise of the otherwise unattested sixth-century monk Job); both his final affirmation that Photios was rather unaware of the works of John of Damascus and his point that the learned patriarch was continuing a tradition of theological reflection are worthy of further consideration.
J. N. Smith takes up a rapid survey of beliefs in magic in the Greek, Egyptian, Roman, Jewish, and early Christian cultures, ending in the sixth century and placing emphasis on perceptions and distinctions among the terms mageia, pharmakeia, and goeteia.
S. Tougher highlights the scant evidence on monasteries for eunuchs found from the sixth through the eleventh century and attempts (however possible) to find the reasons for their foundation. Although he ends by re-stating the problem, he dwells at some length on the richest source for this matter, the Diataxis of the eleventh-century scholar and founder of one such monastery, Michael Attaleiates.
F. Trombley's study of "armed pilgrimage and the reign of the anti- Christ" is a first attempt at inquiring into the mentality, behavior, and small-group dynamics of the ordinary fideles Christi bellatores through the Latin accounts of crusaders. Yet much remains to be surveyed and discussed (for instance, the apocalyptic "background" of the crusades) to bring this interesting topic to a fair and rounded-off evaluation.
Opting for a distinction between Nonnos of Panopolis, pagan poet of the incredibly long epic Dionysiaca, and pseudo-Nonnos, the Christian paraphraser of St John's Gospel, D. Frendo highlights various aspects of "innovative" differentiation from Homeric epic poetry, as this can be observed in the introductory verses. After commenting on the themes and leitmotivs which appear in the preamble of Dionysiaca, the author goes through book by book giving a summary of the plot.
J. Haldon (in collaboration with A. Lacey and C. Hewes) revisits one of his favorite topics, the composition and other problems relating to what the Byzantines called "liquid" or "sea fire" and Westerners "Greek fire"; briefly reviewing all different points of the debate, he adduces further arguments in support of the geographical provenance of the oil--the basic element of this mysterious weapon--from the Caucasus area and the methods by which it was constructed and used.
"Constantinople in the reign of Basil II" is a rather far-fetched and misleading title for C. Holmes' gathering together of the scanty evidence for the influential courtiers and imperial intra- family relationships in late tenth- and early eleventh-century Constantinople. Conversely, J. Howard-Johnston launches a convincing reconstruction of the events that marked Byzantine- Bulgar relations in the age of the tsar Symeon (893-927), with particular reference to the final confrontation and its peaceful conclusion with the agreement reached on Wednesday, 19 November, 923 and the final making of peace in spring 924.
P. Karlin-Hayter first discards the existence of a "regency council" which met after the emperor Theophilos' death (842) and approved the restoration both of icon-veneration in Byzantium and of the last iconoclast emperor's ill-reputed name. Drawing evidence from the Acts of the three saintly brothers from Lesbos (David, Symeon, and George), three vitae merged into a single long text, she reconstructs how the widowed empress Theodora demanded that posthumous pardon be granted to Theophilos.
L. Rodley casts a favorable eye on a French traveler to the Levant (and in that a distant predecessor of this volume's honoree!) who, though contemporary with the reign of Louis XIV, has been hardly regarded as a figure who deserves scholarly attention. In his three published accounts, Paul Lucas, a jewelry trader, recorded aspects of life and objects from the multi-ethnic melting-pot that was the Ottoman empire.
The early Byzantine empire was a melting-pot of a similar kind as was its capital Constantinople, which attracted and integrated members of provincial elites, especially those well-reputed for either their literary skills or land-ownership. P. Sarris' discussion of the "Egyptian evidence" (papyri and other documents) leads to the conclusion that, be they aristocrats or not, aliens in the capital would turn to their compatriots who could, in turn, operate as a medium of contact between the imperial court and their place of distant origin.
All in all, this volume, beautifully printed and carefully edited by Elizabeth Jeffreys (only a few misprints of the Greek can be regarded as a slip!) is a fair re-assessment of the ways Byzantine studies have been redirected since Steven Runciman's path-breaking work.