Reports by SPBS Members |
Conferences
held in 2002 |
XXXVIth SPRING SYMPOSIUM OF BYANTINE STUDIES 23-25 March 2002 Symposiarch: Professor Andrew Louth The 36th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies met in the hospitable surroundings of Colllingwood College on the hill known as Mountjoy to the south of Durham for forty-eight hours of discussion and reflection on the place of Orthodoxy in Byzantine Society. The programme had been designed to make possible some theological reflection on the nature and definition of Orthodoxy, while placing in the setting, much more familiar to most Byzantinists, where political, sociological and issues of cultural history tend to predominate. Many of the faces of the principal lecturers were new, and many of them were young. Participants in the symposium—both lecturers and others—were a cosmopolitan group, with representatives of most of the countries of Europe and a significant contingent from North America. All sessions were plenary, and there was generated a wonderful atmosphere of mutual exploration and discussion. There were four sessions, devoted successively to the issues of (a) Orthodoxy as Imperial Policy, (b) Orthodoxy in Liturgy and Art, (c) the Nature of Orthodoxy, and (d) Orthodoxy and the Other. The first session was severely hit by illness, with three out of the four advertised lecturers having to withdraw, which meant that the issues of this opening session were more solidly theological than had been intended, though that was probably no bad thing. On the Sunday morning, art historians were well represented with a linked presentation by Liz James, Leslie Brubaker and Robin Cormack, complemented by lively papers on the articulation of Orthodoxy—and the condemnation of heresy—in liturgical texts, and their musical settings. The high point of the conference, by common consent, was a remarkable lecture by the well-known Russian Academician, Sergei Averintsev, who reflected on ‘Some Constant Features of Byzantine Orthodoxy’, in a paper that ranged across centuries and cultures with consummate skill. Monday morning saw a series of papers on how Byzantium conceived and confronted the ‘Other’, whether Latin or Armenians, the presence of Western women as Imperial Empresses, or—in a fascinatingly different paper—how Byzantium constituted an authenticating ‘otherness’ for those who developed the cult of St Cuthbert in the North East of England in the Middle Ages. The many communications brought shafts of insight, and their being given in plenary sessions ensured that these insights were not lost. Thanks are due to many people. Without the data base for the Society provided by Mary Cunningham nothing would have happened at all; not would things have run smoothly, if at all, without the selfless assistance of Anne Parker, the secretary of the Department of Theology. Augustine Casiday, Adam Cooper and other research students at Durham lent valuable assistance, especially over the days of the conference itself. The staff at Collingwood were marvellous, not least in their tolerance of the constantly fluctuating numbers for meals. Thanks is also due to those institutions that supported the symposium with financial assistance: the British Academy, the Leventis Foundation, the Hellenic Foundation, the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies and the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius. Such support helped to keep the symposium solvent, enabled reduced rates and grants for students, and made possible the cosmopolitan complexion of the main papers. Tangible records of the event in the form of abstracts of the communications were published in last year’s Bulletin; a further tangible record, revised version of the main papers, is now being prepared for publication in the Society’s series. Andrew Louth
|
AHRB Skylitzes Colloquium The AHRB Centre for Byzantine Cultural History held a colloquium on the Madrid Skylitzes at the Institute for Byzantine Studies, the Queen’s University, Belfast. Two days of papers and discussions reviewed the current state of work on the manuscript and offered suggestions for future work within the Centre’s Skylitzes Project. Speakers: The Translation ProjectsBernard Flusin, l’Université de Paris, began proceedings with a discussion of the French translation project, and explained some of the problems and niceties inherent in the translation of any text but also specifically in the text of Skylitzes. John Wortley, Manitoba, gave a brief history of the project from his end. As Wortley said, in 1991, Flusin and J-C. Cheynet, who were already proposing a French translation by Bernard with notes by Cheynet, agreed to a joint project. Flusin would send his French text to Wortley in return for Wortley’s English so that they could be checked against each other. Wortley freely admits that Bernard was the “cutting edge” in this process, himself a mere follower. Each independently also checked his translation against Thurn’s German translation of the first half of his edition (the second half was never published and may even be lost). After nine years of passing texts backwards and forwards, the English version was sufficiently advanced for a private and limited edition called a “provisional translation” to be produced in Canada, which Wortley used in his last year of teaching with some success. The final revision of both French and English texts is now in process, Cheynet having meanwhile completed an excellent and comprehensive set of notes to the text. These Wortley is in the process of translating and inserting into the English text. Flusin hopes that an in-house translation of the French text will be appear in Winter 2003. The annotated English edition will appear perhaps in April 2004. It is hoped that there will be a relatively cheap paperback edition followed by a more luxurious edition containing the illustrations from the Madrid manuscript. George T. Calofonos, Institute of Byzantine Research of the Hellenic National Research Foundation, Athens.The Greek “Historiography” project and the facsimile of the Madrid Skylitzes. A Digital Dictionary of Byzantine Historiography -- the preliminary ‘pilot’ phase in the creation of a Digital Encyclopaedia of Byzantium, in the form of a website and CD-ROM in English and Modern Greek. A presentation of the current DDBH Project, carried out by two part-time researchers, Dr Nike Koutrakou and myself, at the Institute of Byzantine Research of the Hellenic National Research Foundation in Athens, in collaboration with the Institute of Byzantine Studies at Queen’s University, Belfast. Basic funding for two-years has been secured from the Alexander S.Onassis Public Benefit Foundation. The end product will be a free-standing specialized guide to Byzantine history-writing -- intended for the educated general public, undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as specialists both in Greece and elsewhere. Furthermore, as the pilot phase in the creation of a more extensive digital encyclopaedia, the project aims: (a) to produce a model and offer the necessary expertise for compiling similar specialist guides in digital form; (b) to act as an area of theoretical and applied research as regards the possibilities offered by the new digital technology for processing information and producing specialist scholarly publications. The Dictionary includes entries on every aspect of history-writing produced during the Byzantine period: prosopographical/biographical entries on Byzantine historians and chroniclers, entries on technical terms, as well as extracts from historical texts in the original with translations in English and Modern Greek and bibliographies. It is hoped that trial version will open until the end of 2002. George T. Calofonos Some current work on the Madrid Skylitzes: Titles, captions, text Chapter and section headings (‘titles’) have been transcribed from the facsimile and entered into a database, along with the captions, and an English translation of these is nearing completion. Analysis of the facsimile reveals that certain changes of approach occur at certain points in the text with respect to titles, rubricated line-initial letters and quire numbering, although these are modifications within a fairly consistent program. There is evidence to suggest that the manuscript is a work in progress and that inconsistencies between text, illustration and caption may be due, in part at least, to the process employed in its construction. Initial observations indicate that the type of orthographical errors noted in the captions also occur in the text. These errors, and some other characteristics, suggest a measure of orality in the process of copying the text and adding the rubrics, with the scribe sometimes writing what he heard and understood rather than what might have been there for him to see, and sometimes using vernacular equivalents. Elena Boeck, Yale. Bente Bjørnholt, AHRB Centre for Byzantine Cultural History,
Sussex. Jane Geddes, School of History and History of Art, Aberdeen University. The Theodore Psalter CD-Rom was demonstrated by Patricia Finlay and discussed at length. |
Reconstructing Byzantine Constantinople: New Perspectives from Archaeology and History Reading, 26 October 2002 This one-day colloquium was organised by Ken Dark of the Research Centre for Late Antique and Byzantine Studies (University of Reading), and Jonathan Harris of the Hellenic Institute at Royal Holloway College (University of London). Eight speakers examined themes which covered the city's history from its foundation by Constantine in 330 through to its restoration to Byzantine rule by Michael VIII Palaeologus in 1261. Jan Kostanec, visiting from the University of Prague, looked at the latest evidence for the first phase of the great palace, before it developed into the sprawling complex that it later became. Peter Sarris traced the fortunes of Egyptians in sixth century Constantinople and the support networks they established there. Bryan Ward-Perkins compared the vicissitudes of Constantinople in the fifth to ninth centuries with those of Rome, and cast considerable light on this notoriously obscure period. Nikolai Serikoff revealed the existence of an Arabic version of an account of the building of Hagia Sophia, preserved in the Wellcome Trust library in London. A beautifully illustrated presentation by Antony Littlewood looked at the gardens of Constantinople. The great public parks and palace gardens were seen as a symbol of wealth and power, so that a Byzantine ambassador to Baghdad berated the caliph for the lack of greenery in his palace. Professor Littlewood also revealed evidence for private gardens and roof terraces that must have dotted the urban landscape. Ken Dark discussed tantalising traces that may remain of the great church of the Holy Apostles, built into the fifteenth century mosque of the Conqueror (Fatih Camii). Jonathan Harris looked at attitudes to the monks and hermits of Constantinople in the middle and Byzantine period. Aphrodite Papayianni took the evidence of western and Arab travellers to assess what remained of the great sites and sights of the city, after its sack by the crusaders in 1204. The full conference programme and titles of papers can be found on the internet at: http://www.rhul.ac.uk/hellenic-institute/ About 65 people attended, including many MA and PhD students. The organisers would like to thank Anthea Harris, Zoe Harris and Charalambos Dendrinos for their help and hard work in making the day a success. |
Byzantium and the Crusades: An international colloquium on
the non-Greek sources The principal purpose of the colloquium was to inform the development of current work on the Prosopography of the Byzantine Empire (PBE), by surveying the range of material and state of publication in major subject areas. PBE, for this period now appropriately renamed Prosopography of the Byzantine World (PBW), is an AHRB (formerly British Academy) project based at King’s College London. Important themes underlying several contributions were the issues of what constituted ‘Byzantine’ identity and the difficulty of selecting and prioritizing in fields with potentially huge resources. Speakers (in order of presentation) were: Michael Jeffreys (KCL/Oxford), 'Overview of the problem, 1025-1204'; Vera von Falkenhausen (Rome), 'South Italian sources'; Michel Balard (Paris), 'Sources from Genoa and other maritime republics'; Jonathan Riley-Smith (Cambridge): 'Crusader sources, overview'; Julian Chrysostimides (RHUL), 'Venetian documents as a source for Byzantine history (1200-1500)'; Peter Edbury (Cardiff), 'Crusader sources from the Near East'; Simon Franklin (Cambridge), 'Slavic and Russian sources'; Krijnie Ciggaar (Leiden), 'Western non-Latin, vernacular and Scandinavian sources'; Tim Greenwood (Oxford), 'Armenian sources'; Stephen Rapp (Atlanta, USA), 'Georgian sources'; Chase Robinson (Oxford): 'Arabic sources, overview'. Sessions were chaired by Averil Cameron (Oxford), Judith Herrin (KCL), Ralph-Johannes Lilie (Berlin), Robert Thomson (Oxford). It is intended that the planned publication of the proceedings will include in addition subject areas which it was unfortunately not possible to cover, in particular materials in Syriac and Jewish sources. The proceedings of the first British Academy conference on Prosopography (December 2000) are due to appear shortly in a volume edited by Averil Cameron and entitled Fifty Years of Prosopography: The Later Roman Empire, Byzantium and beyond (OUP 2003). |
|
|