Literacy, Education and Manuscript Transmission in Byzantium and Beyond 9004120963, 9789004120969

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LITERAC~

EDUCATION AND MANUSCRIPT TRANSMISSION IN BYZANTIUM AND BEYOND

THE

MEDIEVAL MEDITERRANEAN PEOPLES, ECONOMIES AND CULTURES, 400-1500 EDITORS

(St. Andrews) (St. Andrews) DAVID ABULAFIA (Cambridge) BENJAMIN ARBEL (Tel Aviv) MARK MEYERSON (Toronto) LARRY]. SIMON (Western Michigan University) HUGH KENNEDY

PAUL MAGDALINO

VOLUME 42

EDUCATION AND MANUSCRIPT TRANSMISSION IN BYZANTIUM AND BEYOND LITERAC~

EDITED BY

CATHERINE HOLMES

AND JUDITH

BRILL LEIDEN · BOSTON · KOLN 2002

WARING

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

On the cover: Two teachers and their students, Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid (MS. vitro 26-2, folio 134r). Reproduced with the permission of the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Literacy, education and manuscript transmission in Byzantium and beyond / edited by Catherine Holmes and Judith Waring p. em. - (The Medieval Mediterranean; v. 42) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 9004120963 1. Written communication-Byzantine Empire-Congresses. 2. Transmission of texts-Byzantine Empire-Congresses. 3. Education-Byzantine Empire-Congresses. 4. Byzantine literature-History and criticism-Congresses. I. Holmes, Catherine. II. Waring,Judith. III. Series. P211.3.B99 L57 2002 302.2'244'094950902-dc21

2002071700

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahm.e Literacy, education and manuscript transmission in Byzantium and beyond / ed. by Catherine Holmes andJudith Waring. - Leiden ; Boston; Koln : Brill, 2002 (The medieval Mediterranean ; Vol. 42) ISBN 90-04-12096-3

ISSN ISBN

0928-5520 90 04 12096 3

© Copyright 2002 by Koninklijke BrillNJI: Leiden, TheNetherlands All rights reserved. Nopartof this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, ortransmitted in anyform or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording orotherwise, without prior written permissionfrom the publisher. Authorization tophotocopy itemsfor internal orpersonal use isgranted by Brillprovided that the appropriatefees are paiddirectly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject tochange. PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS

CONTENTS

Preface

........................................................................................

VII

Acknowledgements

IX

Abbreviations

Xl

List of Contributors Written Culture in Byzantium and Beyond: Contexts, Contents and Interpretations Catherine Holmes The Byzantine Reception of Classical Astrology Paul Magdalino The Transmission of 'Visual Knowledge' in Byzantium through Illuminated Manuscripts: Approaches and Conjectures John Lowden

XIII

.

33

59

Some Changing Trends in the Jewish Literary Expression

of the Byzantine World Stefan Reij The Literary Background of Kekaumenos Charlotte Roueche Food for the Spirit and a Light for the Road: Reading the Bible in the 'Life of Cyril Phileotes' by Nicholas Kataskepenos Margaret Mullett Literacies of Lists: Reading Byzantine Monastic Inventories Judith Waring

81

III

139

165

vi

CONTENTS

Byzantium and the Origins of Written Culture in Rus Simon Franklin

187

Learning Greek in Western Europe 1476-1516 Paul BotlfJ

199

The Transmission of Greek Philosophy via the 'School of Edessa' .. Erica C.D. Hunter

225

Greek-Oriental Palimpsests in Cambridge: Problems and Prospects Natalie Tchemetska

243

Index

257

PREFACE

In the late spring 2000 a one-day colloquium was held in Cambridge dedicated to the subjects of literacy, education, and manuscript transmission in Byzantium and the neighbouring worlds. Speakers working within a variety of disciplines, linguistic traditions, and historical periods were invited to consider subjects such as manuscripts, libraries, scribes, and the transmission of scientific, technical, and rhetorical knowledge and practice. Although the colloquium was initially intended as a round-table discussion, speakers and participants encouraged us to publish the proceedings. 1 Their enthusiasm for this undertaking stemmed from the fact that none of these topics has received sustained scholarly attention within the field of Byzantine studies. There is no monograph treatment of Byzantine literacy; very few publications are concerned with Byzantine education; only rarely is Byzantine manuscript transmission considered in the context of either literacy or education. We do not expect this volume to fill all or any of these gaps. Instead we offer a collection of very different, innovative perspectives designed to provoke further discussion among Byzantinists and medievalists. The papers range widely across geography, primary source materials and methodological approaches. The volume not only embraces the area and culture traditionally seen as Byzantine, that is to say a Greek speaking world confined to Asia Minor and the southern Balkans, but also includes non-Greek speaking communities within Byzantium, as well as non-Greek speaking cultures from outside the Byzantine empire. Those who spoke or wrote in Syriac, Latin, Slavonic and Arabic are represented, as are those who formed part of a complex Jewish culture visible throughout the lands of the medieval Mediterranean. The transliteration of Greek and other non-Roman scripts is always a complex issue. In this volume we have chosen not to impose any kind of standardisation across papers; we have respected the individual preferences of contributors. Transliteration (and indeed English I In addition to those papers presented on the day, we include four further contributions by Stefan Reif, Charlotte Roueche, Paul Botley and Natalie Tchernetska.

Vlll

PREFACE

usage) is consistent within each paper and readers should not have any serious difficulties in identifying transliterated names and places. English translations, or equivalents, of more technical terms are provided where necessary. Abbreviations of journals, series and bibliographical references are based on the Dumbarton Oaks 'Master List'. Lastly we do not offer a prescribed way of reading this volume. The ordering of the papers is very loosely organised along the following lines: discussions primarily based on Byzantium (papers 2-7) are followed by those on the 'beyond' of our title (papers 8-11). Each paper can be read on its own terms, although we hope that the major contribution of this collection is in the overall picture which it presents of a complex, diverse and yet interconnected, medieval Mediterranean world. The first paper is perhaps the most useful way into the volume; it offers a context, both historical and scholarly, and presents some discussion of the major issues under debate.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Editors would like to thank the Trustees of the George Macaulay Trevelyan Fund (Faculty of History, University of Cambridge) and the Finance Committee of the Faculty of Classics (University of Cambridge) for sponsoring the one-day colloquium 'Literacy, Education and Manuscript Transmission in Byzantium and the Neighbouring Worlds' held on 29 April 2000 at Newnham College-the event which inspired this volume. Professor Pat Easterling and members of the Cambridge seminar series 'Byzantium and the Medieval World' have provided generous support and encouragement throughout the project. C.H. would like to thank Conville and Caius College, Cambridge for the award of a Research Fellowship from 1998 to 2001, and for providing a congenial environment for fortnightly meetings of the 'Byzantium and the Medieval World' seminar. J.vV. would like to acknowledge the support of the AHRB Centre for Byzantine Cultural History, based at the Institute of Byzantine Studies, Queen's University, Belfast, and thank all colleagues there for providing a stimulating and supportive environment.

ABBREVIATIONS

ArtB ByzAus B BBOM BBTT BMFD

Art Bulletin Byzantina Australiensia Byzantion Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Monographs Belfast Byzantine Texts and Translations Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents, 5 vols. (Dumbarton Oaks: 2000) BMGS Byzantine and Modem Greek Studies BollGrott Bolletino della Badia grecia di Grottoferrata BJ(j Byzantinisch-neugriechische Jahrbiicher BulURylandsLib Bulletin of the John Rylands Library ByzForsch Byzantinische Forschungen ByzVindo Byzantina Vindobonensia Byzantinische Zeitschrift BZ CCAG Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum, 12 vols. (Brussels: 1898-1953) CCSG Corpus Christianorum, Series Graeca CFHB Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae CSCO Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium CSHB Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae DEC Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity, ed. K. Parry et al. (Oxford: 1999) DenkWien Osterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophischhistorische Klasse, Denkschriften DHGE Dictionnaire d'histoire et de geographie ecclesiastiques, eds. A. Baudrillart, A. de Meyer, R. Aubert, 28 vols.(Paris: 1912-) nop Dumbarton Oaks Papers DOS Dumbarton Oaks Studies EEBS Epeteris tes Hetaireias Byrantinon Spoudon EO Echos d'Orient GCS Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte GRBS Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies HSCPh Haroard Studies in Classical Philology Jahrbuch der Osterreichischen Byzantinistik JOB

XlI

ABBREVIATIONS

Journal of Roman Studies Jewish Qyarterly Review Journal of Theological Studies Orientalia Christiana Periodica Oxford Dictionary ofByzantium, ed. A.P. Kazhdan et al., 3 vols. (New York; Oxford: 1991) ODCC Oxford Dictionary ofthe Christian Church, ed. E. Livingstone, 3rd ed. (Oxford: 1997) P&P Past and Present PC Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Graeca, ed. J.-P. Migne, 161 vo1s. In 166 pts. (Paris: 1857-1866) PO Patrologia Orientalis, ed. R. Graffin, F. Nau, vol. 1(Paris: 1903-) Revue des Etudes Augustiniennes RE4 REB Revue des Etudes Byzantines REG Revue des Etudes Grecques RenAccNap Rendiconti dell'Accademia di archeologia, lettere e belle arti di Napoli RHT Revue d'Histoire des Textes Rivista di studi birantini e neoellenici RSBN S&C Scrittura e Civilta SC Sources chretiennes so« Symbolae Osloenses SPBS Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies ST Studi e Testi SubsHag Subsidia Hagiographica TLS Times Literary Supplement TM Travaux et Memoires

JRS JQR JTS OCP ODB

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

PAUL BOTLEY SIMON FRANKLIN CATHERINE HOLMES ERICA HUNTER

JOHN LOWDEN PAUL MAGDALINO MARGARET MULLETT

STEFAN REIF

CHARLOTTE RouEcHE NATALIE TCHERNETSKA JUDITH WARING

Munby Fellow (2000-2001) in Bibliography, Cambridge University Library Reader in Slavonic Studies, University of Cambridge Tutorial Fellow in Medieval History, University College, Oxford Research Associate at the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library, Affiliated Lecturer in Aramaic, University of Cambridge, and Visiting Lecturer in Eastern Christianity, SOAS, University of London Reader in the History of Art, Courtauld Institute, London Professor of Byzantine History, University of St Andrew's Professor of Byzantine Studies, Director of the Institute of Byzantine Studies, Queen's University, Belfast, and Director of the AHRB Research Centre in Byzantine Cultural History Director of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library, and Professor of Medieval Hebrew Studies, University of Cambridge Reader in Classical and Byzantine Greek, King's College, London Research Fellow in Classics, Trinity College, Cambridge Post-doctoral Research Fellow in Byzantine Cultural History, AHRB Research Centre, Queen's University, Belfast

WRITTEN CULTURE IN BYZANTIUM AND BEYOND: CONTEXTS, CONTENTS AND INTERPRETATIONS* Catherine Holmes

Contexts The written word was ubiquitous in Byzantium. Throughout the empire's thousand-year history, writing appeared in a wide variety of contexts: in complex literary texts ranging from letters, universal chronicles, histories, and poetry, to hymns, saints' lives, theological treatises and polemics; in copies, compilations, updates and excerpts of classical texts; in 'documentary' texts including charters, inventories, lists and wills; and in inscriptions, on lead seals, and on coins. Such writing did not exist in a vacuum but was integral to wider and more complex patterns of communication. At the very highest level of society the imperial court communicated with neighbouring states through the dispatch and receipt of embassies and the enactment of ceremonial. Embassies were accompanied by written communications. Such ceremonial was sometimes recorded in writing. Imperial propaganda was disseminated and received within and outside the empire through a multiplicity of overlapping written, oral and visual modes: through inscriptions, letters, orations, monumen-

tal paintings and illustrated manuscripts. Within the empire the government in Constantinople maintained close contact with its provinces through the collection of taxes and the defence of frontiers, processes visible in the lead seals that were attached to documentation and correspondence produced by imperial officials. Conversely those living in the provinces appealed to the empire's capital for patronage and the protection of person and property; their requests were recorded and confirmed by sealed chrysobulls, documents issued by central government in Constantinople, some of which survive in

* I have found Judith Waring's insights and comments invaluable in writing this introduction. The historiographical discussion owes a great debt to the introduction to her doctoral thesis; Waring (1999); see also Waring (forthcoming).

2

CATHERINE HOLMES

extant monastic archives. An array of communication systems underpinned the empire's military organisation. Beacons warned of invasion; commands in Greek were translated for the benefit of army units from outside the empire. But even in the military context writing was important. Senior commanders in the field communicated with the emperor in Constantinople by letter; bulletins of campaigns were read out to crowds in Constantinople. In the longer term, generals imparted their experience to their contemporaries and successors by annotating and updating ancient military manuals. Such examples of the diverse role of written culture come from the 'official' spheres of court, administration and army; more could be added from other areas of Byzantine life: from the church, from private devotion, from personal correspondence and from trading networks. Identification of the written word in Byzantium raises certain important questions for any understanding of Byzantine cultural and social history. How ubiquitous was writing, and indeed reading, in Byzantium? Did the ubiquity of either change from century to century, or from region to region? Who had access to writing, either as a producer or a consumer? Was that access direct or indirect? How should the relationship between those who dictate, those who scribe, those who read, and those who listen be understood? How did the practice of reading and writing affect those without such skills? How were literacy skills acquired? What were the precise roles of writing and reading in wider systems of communication? How did the written intersect with oral modes, with gesture, and with visual representation? How can we approach communication across time and space? What was the impact of new authors, audiences and contexts in the transmission of texts? In an empire where more than one script was written and more than one language spoken, and where contact was maintained with neighbours of many different tongues, what were the roles of bilingualism and translation? How did physical materials affect modes of communication and transmission? At a more general level, how were writing and communication shaped by social, political, and cultural contexts; and how were those contexts themselves shaped by writing and communication? Questions such as these have been asked of the written word with ever greater frequency during the past quarter century by scholars interested in the history and culture of medieval western Europe, questions which have generated an entire sub-field within the study of the western Middle Ages: 'literacy'. Initially inspired by sugges-

WRITIEN CULTURE IN BYZANTIUM

3

tions from anthropologists that writing was a technology with the power to provoke fundamental social and cultural change, western medievalists from the 1970s onwards began to nuance the nature and significance of 'literacy' in medieval contexts. Western medievalists have been particularly anxious to define and measure literacy and to assess its levels and uses. Crucial periods of change in literate practices have been investigated, as have the activities of clerics and laymen. Western medievalists have attempted to assess the role of literacy in governance, whether in the narrow sense of administration or in the wider sense of the imposition and articulation of political authority.' More recently the focus of such western scholarship has widened beyond the archives of central government, a select canon of literary texts, parchment or paper manuscripts, and governance. Instead, interest is now just as likely to centre on the use of literacy in more mundane circumstances, for more prosaic purposes, by humbler members of society, whose texts are often recoverable only from archaeological contexts. To take one example, in a recent essay called 'Send more Socks', Mary Garrison investigated letters from the early medieval period which have been found in archaeological contexts rather than preserved and edited for the benefit of a highly educated audience. These letters were written on a variety of media: on slivers of wood at Vindolanda on Hadrian's Wall in Roman Britain, on sticks at Bryggen harbour at Bergen in Norway, and on birch-bark at Novgorod in Russia. They deal with a wide range of issues (sacred and secular), are articulated in a variety of languages (Latin and vernacular), and are represented in an array of different scripts including runes." But while the study of literacy has flourished in western medieval studies since the early 1970s, it has attracted surprisingly little attention from Byzantinists. This is not to say that the disciplines upon which a study of literacy could be based have been neglected. This

I See in particular ground-breaking studies by Clanchy (1993; originally 1979), Stock (1983), McKitterick (1990) and Geary (1994); for a summary of the relevant bibliography in western medieval Europe see Briggs (2000). 2 Garrison (1998); this article appears in Mostert (1998), one of a series of studies into medieval literacy undertaken by the 'Pionierproject Verschriftelijking' based in Utrecht. This particular volume contains an extensive bibliography, itself a powerful index of the dynamism and scale of western medievalists' interest in those topics that nestle under the umbrella of 'literacy'.

4

CATHERINE HOLMES

is not the case. As the programme of papers offered at the recent International Congress of Byzantine Studies in Paris confirms, interest and expertise among Byzantinists in disciplines such as palaeography, coclicology, papyrology, sigillography, epigraphy, numismatics, literature and art history is profound. However, such interest and expertise is often fragmented, concerned with the description and analysis of individual artefacts, or the refinement of separate academic disciplines, rather than with the implications that such investigations may contain for a deeper understanding of Byzantine culture and society. Less thought has been dedicated to discovering how texts and materials intersect with the processes of acquiring, practising and disseminating the skills of reading and writing; or to how texts, materials, education and literacy combined to create, preserve and transmit information and knowledge; or to the reciprocal relationships between literacy and wider social, economic, and political contexts. No monograph has ever been produced on the subject of literacy in Byzantium. Meanwhile, Byzantine education has faired little better. The only sustained study of this subject covers a relatively late period, the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries." On the rare occasion where the topics central to this volume have been studied in a deeper and more connected sense, it has usually been to argue that literacy, education and manuscript transmission belong within two narrow overlapping contexts: the imperial court and the preservation of the classical tradition. For the contributors to Byzantine Books and Bookmen, published in 1975, the territorial collapse of Byzantium in the seventh century and the contemporaneous demise of urban society dictated that the producers and consumers of the written word were necessarily few in number. As the population and prosperity of provincial cities declined, so schools closed. Higher education was limited to a small circle of imperial mandarin officials within the capital city. The loss of Egypt to the Arabs cut off supplies of cheap papyrus and thus made the cost of books prohibitive for all but the Constantinopolitan governing elite." Nigel

:j Constantinides (1982); see also articles on education in Constantinople in the eleventh and twelfth centuries by Browning (1962-3), Wolska-Conus (1976, 1979); for the so-called imperial university in Constantinople see Speck (1974). For the earlier period see Moffatt (1977), (1979). 4 Mango and Sevcenko (1975).

WRITIEN CULTURE IN BYZANfIUM

5

Wilson's many studies of Byzantine literary culture have been concerned with a similar cultural universe, focusing on the role that a small number of highly educated Byzantine scholars played in preserving classical texts from the ancient world and transmitting them to Renaissance Italy." Such analyses have primarily been concerned with two questions which by their nature limit discussion to elite, classical texts. When exactly did the education system of late antiquity collapse? And who were the occasional scholars who facilitated the survival of the classical tradition? The main impact of this strong focus on a classical tradition maintained by members of an educated elite is that the related topics of literacy, education and manuscript transmission within the Byzantine world can become boxed into a preordained narrative: collapse in the seventh and eighth centuries followed by a very limited recovery from the ninth to fifteenth centuries. Yet, there are grounds for suggesting that if one looks at the classical tradition itself in a wider Byzantine literary context, and at other forms of evidence which transcend and depart from that tradition, then a rather more complex picture can emerge. As well as focusing on the preservation of classical texts, it is important to ask why the Byzantines read, preserved and disseminated such texts, and used them as exemplars for their own literary productions. The large corpus of literary works produced in Byzantium outside the classical canon, particularly in the field of theology, deserves attention. More study needs to be devoted to writing produced for mundane and quotidian purposes, to archival, sigillographical, epigraphical and numismatic evidence, and to discoveries of the written word in archaeological contexts. Light may be shed on the subjects of literacy, education and manuscript transmission from outside the Byzantine empire as well as from within. As the papers in this volume suggest, the intellectual and commercial exchanges which occurred between Byzantium and neighbouring states in the centuries between 'Antiquity' and the Italian Renaissance, many of which involved the written word, deserve attention: exchanges such as the transmission of classical scientific texts from Byzantium to the Persian and Islamic east; the translation of biblical and theological works in and between those states which converted to Orthodox Christianity; written trading agreements forged between the

5

Wilson (1983, 1992); and with Reynolds (1991).

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CATHERINE HOLMES

Byzantines and neighbouring powers and peoples, whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish or pagan." Yet, while such approaches remain largely unexplored, there have been some noteworthy scholarly initiatives, particularly in recent years. First the classical tradition within Byzantium has itself been the subject of revisionist scrutiny, as scholars have begun to explore the creative and innovative dimensions of Byzantium's use of the classical tradition, rather than simply seeing the Byzantine empire as passive mediator of cultural forms between 'Antiquity' and the Renaissance.' Meanwhile, some preliminary thought has been dedicated to broadening the study of literacy, education and manuscript transmission within Byzantium, either as individual topics or as linked themes. Within the context of her analyses of Byzantine monasticism, Rosemary Morris has drawn attention to frequent references in saints' lives about the provision of rudimentary education in the Byzantine provinces by monasteries and local notaries." Such allusions clearly suggest that hagiographical texts provide important insights into how reading and writing skills were acquired and deployed inside and outside Constantinople in the post seventh-century period, a theme which is taken up in this volume by Margaret Mullett. Robert Browning's study of an impoverished and hard-working schoolmaster tells us much about education and the circulation of books in Constantinople in the tenth century." Gilbert Dagron has made some preliminary suggestions about how bilingualism and translation should be understood in the Byzantine context. 10 Articles by Browning, Patlagean and Oikonomides have sketched out some contours for the study of Byzantine literacy; all have explicitly identified, examined, and included materials and protagonists outside the classical tradition.!' Margaret Mullett touches on many themes relevant to this volume in her wide-ranging studies of Byzantine literature, although perhaps her most significant work as far as Byzantine literacy is concerned is 'Writing in Early Medieval Byzantium' .12 This investiga-

6

7 8

9 10 11

12

See especially Magdalina, Hunter, Franklin, Batley, Tchemetska. See below at 26 and note 21ff Morris (1995). Browning (1954). Dagron (1994). Browning (1978, 1993); Patlagean (1979) and Oikonomides (1988). Mullett (1990).

WRITTEN CULTURE IN BYZANTIUM

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tion, which focuses closely on Byzantine correspondence, emphasises the importance of locating writing within wider processes of communication. For Mullett writing is a medium of interaction that is always inextricably linked with other cultural phenomena including visual imagery. However, for those interested in the connections between literacy, education and manuscript transmission, works by Herbert Hunger and Paul Lemerle provide the two most important points of departure. Lemerle's Le premier humanisme byeantin represents the first sustained attempt by a Byzantine scholar to integrate the related themes of literacy, education and manuscript transmission, although his account only goes as far as the tenth century. Meanwhile, Hunger's Schreiben und Lesung in Byzanz also discusses the materials, individuals, groups, and locations which contributed to the processes of reading and writing within Byzantium. While both analyses are partially concerned with the transmission of classical texts to the Renaissance world, both are primarily concerned to show how a distinctive book culture functioned within and shaped contemporary Byzantine society." Although relatively few in number these studies have laid vital foundations. How then do the contributions in this volume advance this body of scholarship? Quite clearly the papers presented here do not provide a sustained chronological or thematic treatment of any of these fields either separately or in combination. Such comprehensive treatment requires a series of monograph studies. However, in the absence of such sustained investigations, these papers represent a series of probes that either in their own right, or taken together,

shed new light on the nature of literacy, education and manuscript transmission in Byzantium and in neighbouring worlds. While each of the contributors has offered a self-contained study, certain consistencies in method among the papers can be identified. None of the papers is concerned primarily with direct measurement. Assessments of how many people could read and/or write, how many schools or other educational institutions were established, and how many manuscripts were produced are not starting points for our contributors' analyses. All the papers take it as a given that some people in the Byzantine past acquired and possessed skills of reading, writing,

13

Lemerle (1971/1986); Hunger (1989).

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CATHERINE HOLMES

or image-making, and that these skills were used in communication and transmission of knowledge. Of more substantial interest is how, where and why these skills were developed and utilised. Our authors are also concerned with detecting and understanding the significance of a diversity of literate practices: with analysing 'literacies' rather than 'literacy' alone. They are conscious of the overlaps and intersections between the uses of the written word and contexts; contexts which include physical materials as well as changing political, social and economic imperatives. Taken collectively these papers suggest that it is only through the study of the application of different literate processes and practices in historical context that we can learn more about the nature of literacy, education and manuscript transmission. These consistencies in method emerge from a series of papers with very different geographical, chronological and thematic emphases. Some papers are general surveys; others concentrate on the internal Byzantine world; others on relations between Byzantium and neighbouring peoples. The volume's chronological and geographical coverage is extensive, stretching from the fourth to the sixteenth centuries, and from Tabriz to Paris. The papers do not confine themselves to high politics, imperial and princely courts, and the organs and processes of governance. Although elite settings are certainly explored, non-elite individuals and groups also come under the spotlight. Most papers concentrate with greatest intensity on one element within the general title to this volume; however, all explicitly demonstrate the overlaps between these three topics. Most papers ally general remarks with closely observed case studies. Each contributor highlights recent specialist literature in their fields, particularly material in languages which a general audience may find inaccessible. Attention is also drawn to the most recent research techniques, including those which rely on current information and image-processing technologies. Papers are presented by a wide variety of specialists, including historians, art historians, palaeographers and literary scholars. A range of material evidence is analysed including amphorae, palimpsests, and wax tablets. Such items are far from the luxury manuscripts which have traditionally been at the heart of studies of Byzantine literate culture. Our authors also draw attention to varieties of evidence which may seem more familiar but which nonetheless remain under-utilised by scholars of Byzantium: texts such as florelegia, handbooks, and treatises that build on classical models, many of which remain unpub-

WRITTEN CULTURE IN BYZANTIUM

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lished. Equally, John Lowden warns against ignoring the power of visual media in the transmission of knowledge within Byzantium, particularly after the restoration of the icons in the ninth century. This project adopts a deliberately panoptical approach bringing together scholars working in very different geographical, chronological and disciplinary fields. However, one important unity is that many of the papers come from the University of Cambridge. The inclusion of this body of research in part reflects the number of young scholars currently or recently associated with Cambridge who are working on topics germane to this volume. However, it also reflects the presence in Cambridge of resources of international importance which have yet fully to be exploited by either Byzantinists or medievalists. Several authors in this volume make use of documents held in Cambridge University Library, including materials in Syriac (Hunter), Hebrew (Reif), and palimpsests written in a variety of languages (Tchernetska). But by far the most remarkable of all the Library's holdings discussed here is the Genizah, that collection of over one million scraps of paper and parchment dating from the sixth to the fourteenth centuries written in a variety of scripts and languages, including Hebrew, Judaeo-Arabic, ]udaeo-Greek, Arabic, and Greek, which were discovered at the end of the nineteenth century in the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo. As Stefan Reif and Natalie Tchernetska make clear, the Genizah sheds light on the literary, spiritual and mundane life ofJewish communities across the Mediterranean. While historians have yet to decide to what extent this collection reflects the interests of a single mercantile community or a much

wider Mediterranean world, it clearly offers an unparalleled panorama of written culture in the medieval world. The existence of such a vast, relatively untapped resource, which comes from a known archaeological context, suggests that it is no longer appropriate for those working on the written culture of the medieval Mediterranean, a world which surely includes Byzantium, to bemoan a lack of evidence or a lack of context.

Contents The volume begins with three general survey accounts. In the first Paul Magdalino charts the transmission of astrological knowledge

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within the Byzantine world itself, and between Byzantium and the empire's eastern neighbours in the seventh to the fourteenth centuries. He looks not only at texts and scholars, but also at the intellectual, political and diplomatic contexts behind the compilation, dissemination, translation and reworking of astrological material. He explores how bodies of knowledge first systematically recorded during the second and third centuries could both ossify and mutate according to the specific interests and needs of author and audience. He offers comparisons and contrasts with other disciplines such as astronomy, medicine and rhetoric which were also codified in treatise form in Late Antiquity and with which astrology was often associated. A case study of the eleventh-century polymath Symeon Seth is used to exemplify the interplay between texts, scholars, audiences and contexts in the transmission of knowledge. Seth produced two very different texts that touched on astrology: one a conservative astronomical treatise which closely replicates the Ptolemaic tradition, a work of edification and instruction unlikely to offend the contemporary church; the other a more 'modern' rendering drawn up for practitioners of astrology, which includes expert analysis from the contemporary Islamic world. Translated excerpts from these texts appear in accompanying appendices. In the second general survey, John Lowden considers the nature and transmission of visual knowledge in Byzantium by assessing modern historiographical approaches in the light of empirical evidence. Lowden argues against treating Byzantine cultural artefacts as incomplete manifestations of lost, antique archetypes. Instead, drawing extensively on his knowledge of Byzantine illustrated manuscripts, including examples from the Octateuchs and the Theodore Psalter, Lowden suggests that Byzantine art involved the production of a series of basic, familiar, and well-worked visual elements. These were easily recognised by artist and audience alike, and could be utilised with remarkable freedom in the service of constantly changing needs. Lowden concludes with a discussion of the methods through which artists learned to identify and reproduce the building blocks, or 'vocabulary', of this 'visual knowledge'. The final general survey is offered by Stefan Reif in the form of an outline of the changing faces ofJewish literary expression during the late Roman and Byzantine centuries. Although Reif concentrates with greatest intensity on the period up to the Arab conquests in the seventh century, he offers some thoughts on later centuries, draw-

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ing on evidence from the Genizah and other Hebrew manuscripts in the University Library, Cambridge. He considers several categories of literary production in detail including liturgical texts, legal commentary, biblical exegesis and poetry. While each of these genres enjoyed their own histories of development, all were characterised by great fluidity. Oral modes predominated for many centuries, and even where literary expression was written down, distinct variants were consistently discernible both within and between Jewish communities in different regions of the Mediterranean and the Near East. 'jewish cultural expression took on a number of forms as it responded to different stimuli in its various locations." Such stimuli included the literary and religious preoccupations of those other groups with whom Jewish communities came into contact, as well as more practical matters such as the availability of physical materials. The next 'gathering' of articles relates to the internal Byzantine world between the late eleventh and early thirteenth centuries. Charlotte Roueche's contribution centres on what an interesting text written in central Greece in the late eleventh century has to tell us about reading, the availability of texts, and the dissemination of ideas in contemporary Byzantium. Whereas scholars have traditionally trawled the Strategikon (also known as the Advice and Anecdotes) of Kekaumenos for snippets of information about eleventh-century political history, Roueche analyses this text as an organic whole, dissecting it to discover the documentary, military, religious and historiographical materials utilised by the author. Some of these sources were read directly by Kekaumenos; others he knew through intermediate texts such as jlorilegia and treatises. These mediating texts influenced not only the content of Kekaumenos's work but also its arrangement into a series of discrete chapters. Each of these units comprises chains (catenae) of aphorisms, illustrated with anecdotes, which aim to provide advice. Kekaumenos's Advice and Anecdotes also displays distinct parallels with texts produced by more illustrious lateeleventh century authors including Michael Psellos and Symeon Seth, the polymath central to Paul Magdalino's paper. This suggests that despite his 'provincial' background Kekaumenos was able to keep up with and contribute to contemporary debates about politics and scientific knowledge. Margaret Mullett also centres her contribution on the close reading of a single text: the life of Cyril Phileotes written in the midtwelfth-century by Nicholas Kataskepenos. This extremely rich text,

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which in many ways resembles florilegia found in other eleventh- and twelfth-century monastic contexts, tells us much about how the Bible was read in Byzantium. At one level Kataskepenos offers his audience explicit advice about reading the Bible, guidance which tallies closely with that of Kekaumenos. However, at another level Kataskepenos's actual use of the Bible itself also reflects contemporary reading practices. For example, the incidence in the text of direct quotations excerpted either from divine Scripture or from patristic writings indicates that such material was very familiar both to author and audience. This acquaintance may have been gained from regular public readings in the churches and refectories of monasteries. In this context Kataskepenos's narrative reflects the way in which members of Byzantine society, especially monks, absorbed, constructed, and articulated their ideas, whether in speech or in writing, through the vocabulary and phraseology of Scripture. Yet, while the Bible provided familiar building blocks of speech and writing, it is clear that the use of scriptural quotation was far from anachronistic or hackneyed. Instead, well-worn phrases were deployed for contemporary purposes. In this text Kataskepenos used scriptural and patristic quotations to construct a new relationship between male and female sanctity which accorded an unusual degree of practical power to women. But, there is a string in the tail. Kataskepenos spoke though the Bible to redraw saintly gender boundaries less out of interest in holy women and more because he wished to attract imperial funding for his own monastery. Judith Waring's investigation focuses on the thirteenth-century 'lending list' from the library of the monastery of Stjohn on Patmos. While this archival document has few of the literary complexities of Kekaumenos's Advice and Anecdotes or the Life of Cyril, Waring demonstrates the different ways in which an apparently unprepossessing text can illuminate the uses and levels of literacy within a Byzantine monastic community and within the wider local society of which it was part. The contents of the document allow for the identification and discussion of copyists, borrowers, the relationship between lay and monastic readers, and the purposes and paths of transmission. When this document is set against other materials from the Patmos archives it becomes apparent that some of the most ubiquitous borrowers or recipients of liturgical works were the monastery's own metochia (or subordinate houses). This suggests that books were not regarded as luxuries within 'provincial' monastic networks but instead

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as essential practical guides for the monastic life. Waring's investigation also focuses on the physical attributes of the list: the material upon which it was written, the script used, the hands, and the orthographical and grammatical skills on display. Previous scholarship has argued that inconsistencies in such documents are signs of low levels of literacy; in contrast Waring's research suggests that despite its informality this 'lending list' is a complex production which demanded sophisticated written and comprehension skills on the part of those who produced it and used it. In the second half of the book the focus shifts away from a Greekspeaking Byzantine world towards different chronological, geographical and cultural peripheries of Byzantium. Simon Franklin begins by probing the development of written culture among the East Slavs in the context of relations with Byzantium. He questions the extent to which the introduction of a book culture among the Rus was caused by the conversion to Orthodox Christianity in 988, noting how few books date from before the mid-eleventh century. When books did begin to appear their connections to Byzantium were slight. The Rus had little time for most Byzantine literature, reserving interest only for those texts directly relevant to their own religious needs and experiences. Moreover, most Byzantine texts were transmitted through a secondary filter, Slavonic translations produced in Bulgaria. While there is little temporal correlation to be drawn between the development of book culture and conversion to Orthodox Christianity, other forms of evidence enable us to chart a rather different history of writing among the Rus. Recent archaeological research has yielded

a series of ceramic objects inscribed with letters or words from a variety of languages and scripts, many of which seem to refer to trading arrangements. Franklin concludes by suggesting that while Byzantine literate practices made virtually no impact on Rus religious practice either before or after the conversion of 988, paradoxically it was the Byzantine emperor's insistence on the use of documentation in the conduct of trade which persuaded the Rus to turn to written modes. Paul Botley's analysis of learning Greek in western Europe in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries takes us to a very different region and period, where indeed Byzantium no longer existed as a political state. However, like several of our other contributors Botley suggests that a stronger understanding of the nature of literate practices and cultural relations within the wider Byzantine sphere of

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influence may come from analysis of texts which stand outside the classical tradition. As Botley notes, scholarly interest in the learning of Greek in the West in this period has tended to concentrate on the lecture courses devoted to the canon of classical texts that were offered by eminent teachers to famous pupils who later recorded their prestigious academic development. Much less is known about how students learnt Greek at the most basic of levels and about their schoolbooks. Botley approaches these questions by looking at the printing of elementary Greek texts. His overarching conclusion concerns the limited extent of the knowledge of Greek in western Europe in this period. Greek texts were customarily produced with interleaved Latin translations; edificatory tales and simple religious texts were much more popular than classics of the Greek canon; most students learnt Greek in order to drop pithy tags into courtly conversations; heavy-weight texts usually remained unsold. Paradoxically, the fact that many printing houses were able to bankroll larger and more expensive scholarly publications through the production of elementary primers suggests that very large numbers of beginner texts must have been sold. Thus, while most students of Greek did not progress far with the language there was a constant and, indeed, growing market of those with the best of intentions. Our final two contributions concern the development of written culture and education in the eastern-most lands of Byzantium. In the first Erica Hunter looks at the inter-related subjects of education, translation and bilingualism in Mesopotamia in the mid-fourth to late fifth centuries. She assesses the range of evidence which can be used to chart the history of the so-called 'School of Edessa', an academy located in a borderland city where Greek and Syriac were both spoken and written. While acknowledging the difficulty of providing precise information about the 'School', Hunter offers a picture of the ferment of the intellectual activity that overtook Edessa in the fifth century, by concentrating on the flurry of translations from Greek into Syriac which appear to date from this period. For Hunter the background to, and catalyst for, this scholarly enterprise were the great Christological debates which dominated the theological, ecclesiastical and political history of the Byzantine empire in this period. In addition to collating existing scholarship, Hunter draws attention to marginal notes found in later Syriac manuscripts held in British libraries which record the activities of some of the first translators. An interesting coda to Hunter's observations is Paul

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Magdalino's assertion that Edessa continued to produce gifted multilingual scholars much later in the Abbasid period: Theophilos, a Syrian from Edessa, who wrote astrological texts in Greek which were known to the Byzantines, also served as the court astrologer in Baghdad to the Caliph aI-Mansur. The final contribution, by Natalie Tchernetska, is concerned with palimpsests, recycled manuscripts which are only very rarely of luxury quality. While previous scholarship has focused on palimpsests with Greek lower and Latin upper scripts, Tchernetska breaks new ground by considering palimpsests which contain lower scripts in Greek and upper scripts in Near Eastern languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, Judaeo-Arabic, Syriac and Georgian. One of Tchernetska's aims is to use existing palaeographical scholarship to date more accurately the Greek script of a variety of Greek-'Oriental' palimpsests held in Cambridge, including within the Genizah. It is clear that many of these manuscripts were produced in Egypt and Palestine in the sixth to eighth centuries. Tchernetska also points to future developments in the field of palimpsest studies, considering how modern technology and image-processing may further the study of Greek script. While Tchernetska's main interest is palaeographical, she offers some insights into how, why and by whom palimpsests were created; into interactions between different ethnic communities; and into relationships between faith, language and script. In the process she challenges some long-standing ideas about palimpsests in the Genizah.

Interpretations The papers presented here make some obvious conclusions about method and approach. All emphasise the need to deal with Byzantine written culture, including its treatment of the classical tradition, on its own terms. They widen considerably the scope of individuals, groups, activities and evidence considered the legitimate subject of scholarly inquiry. They include the study of individual luxury manuscripts, but also suggest that greater attention should be paid to the needs, purposes, function and reception of writing and artistic production in a variety of social, commercial and political milieus. All stress the importance of local circumstances and historical context. In the light of this emphasis on contingency, it is perhaps rash to offer any further generalised conclusions. Yet, if this volume is to

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open up new avenues of discussion, then some degree of re-conceptualisation is required. Our papers explore many themes: bilingualism, translation, script, image and text, the vernacular, orality, prayer, instruction, advice, florilegia, rhetoric, identity, trade, religion, women, gender, conservation, reuse, imperial courts and silence. Space is too short to elaborate on the significance of all of these topics in detail. What is offered in the next few pages is a highly selective series of conclusions about the principal subjects which our contributors were asked to consider: literacy, education and manuscript transmission. This summary draws together themes common to our contributors, suggests some directions for future research and offers some thoughts about how a deeper understanding of these topics can extend our understanding of Byzantine social, cultural and political history. But I begin with a word of warning. There are, of course, many potential epistemological dangers in generalisation. While subjects such as literacy and education may make sense in modern terms, they may fail to reflect or explain medieval social structures and cultural processes. Indeed the difficulty of translating terms and concepts between modern and medieval societies is a widely recognised problem in 'literacy' studies. The term literatus in the medieval West did not indicate a general ability to read and write in any language but rather the specific capacity to function in Latin. In this volume Paul Botley nuances this point further, noting that contemporaries distinguished between those who were literati in Latin and in Greek in late medieval Italy; even the process of learning these languages was sharply differentiated. Elsewhere, Gilbert Dagron has demonstrated that similar care must be taken in any discussion of bilingualism in Byzantium. Despite the fact that many languages were spoken within the empire and among its immediate geographical neighbours, there is very little evidence that contemporaries were interested in this phenomenon. 14 A further epistemological danger, to which many papers here make allusion, is that of anachronism or misrepresentation within the medieval world itself Erica Hunter illustrates how the great fourthcentury Syrian theologian Ephra-m was associated by seventh-century writers with the 'School of Edessa'. Yet, this allusion probably tells

14

Dagron (1994), 223.

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us more about the posthumous reputation of Ephra-m and the importance of education to later generations of Syrian Christians than about connections between Ephrem and the 'School' in the saint's own lifetime. A similar example is provided by an allegation in the twelfthcentury Primary Chronicle that the conversion of the Rus was accompanied by a growth in book culture. As Simon Franklin notes this assertion reflects reverence for the relationship between writing and faith in later centuries of Rus history; it says little about the introduction of written modes among the East Slavs in the tenth century. Likewise Stefan Reif illustrates the extent to which certainties about the early coherence of the written Talmud are the product of later rabbinical polemic; they do not reflect the development of early medieval Jewish literary expression. Nonetheless as our papers indicate, misplaced modern and medieval constructs do not have to obscure our vision as long as the evidence under consideration is interpreted within its own historical, geographical and material contexts.

Literary One of the most important questions traditionally asked about book culture in Byzantium is: how widespread was access to books? The traditional line on this subject is, as we have already seen, that reading and writing were activities confined to and shaped by tiny metropolitan elites, the only groups who could afford to commission manuscripts. This idea has on occasions been challenged, particularly by research which suggest that books may have circulated more widely within Constantinople itself 15 However, this volume suggests that scholars should widen their field of vision yet further. Judith Waring demonstrates that, at least by the thirteenth century, books circulated far away from the great cities of the empire. Moreover, she indicates that those who shared in the book culture of the monastery of St John on Patmos were many and various, not only neighbouring monasteries but also local lay figures. Furthermore, if Waring's evidence is set against other non-Constantinopolitan examples, then it becomes clear that we need to think not only about much wider circles of readers and book owners in Byzantium, but also to reassess

15

Browning (1954); Mullett (1984), 187-201.

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the numbers of books that were produced. The eleventh-century will of the protospatharios Eustathios Boilas indicates that even a middleranking landowner from Mesopotamia owned a library of some eighty books." Charlotte Roueche's enumeration of those texts known by Kekaumenos, a provincial figure from the same period and of a similar social status to Boilas, suggests that libraries of some magnitude may have been quite common among Byzantine minor landowners in the later eleventh and twelfth centuries. Although his evidence comes from a much later period, and from a period where changes in technology allowed for mass production of reading matter, perhaps Paul Botley offers us one way of understanding how the supply of books worked in earlier Byzantine centuries. The difficulty that scholars have always had in envisaging the substantial production of books in Byzantium after the seventh century is the lack of extant manuscripts. Absence of material evidence has customarily been explained on grounds of cost. As we saw earlier, historians used to think that books were simply too expensive to produce, particularly after the territorial loss of Egypt and the demise of cheap supplies of papyrus. However, the importance of Botley's work is that it shows us how rarely cheap books, even from the age of printing, are preserved. Because we have figures about original print runs we are aware of the scale of the losses in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Is it possible that losses of non-de-luxe texts could be typical of earlier, pre-printing, periods? This is a possibility which new evidence, either from archaeological contexts or from administrative documents held in monastic archives, may help to clarify. Indeed, substantial circumstantial evidence for large-scale losses in written materials already exists. While thousands of lead seals, dating from the sixth to thirteenth centuries, survive, the documents to which they were initially attached are invariably 10st.17 Of course, as Waring points out, possession of or access to books, - whether permanent or temporary, is not conclusive proof of an ability to read, or of a desire to be read to. Owning or borrowing a book could simply reflect social status or aspiration. But many of our papers indicate that there was an expectation among contemporaries that books should be read, an expectation that was quite

16 17

Lemerle (1977); Vryonis (1957); Mango (1980), 239-40; cf. Waring (below). Whittow (1996), 1-14, esp. at 1-4.

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clearly met. Kekaumenos famously disapproved of those who read without due attention; instead he recommended that books should be read all the \vay through and then reread to capture full understanding. Yet even his most negative sentiments about contemporary reading practices enable us to see that although few were as conscientious in their reading habits as Kekaumenos, many still chose to read. Indeed, as Roueche shows, the contents and structures of Kekaumenos's text support this hypothesis. Whether the texts that Kekaumenos drew upon in compiling his advice manual were known to him directly or through the intermediate lens of jlorilegia, it is clear that he expected his audience to have read, or at the very least to be familiar with, the range of material that he cites, comments upon, engages with, and embellishes with his own life experiences. The principle that reading was a widespread and recommended practice within Byzantium is strongly supported by Margaret Mullett's contribution. Kataskepenos characterised reading in terms of nourishment and guidance. It is striking that this analogy also surfaces in historiographical material of roughly the same period: the late eleventhcentury historian John Skylitzes encouraged his readers to treat his synoptic chronography as a travelling companion which would provide fine nourishment. 18 Such sentiments indeed suggest that reading, or being read to, was regarded by eleventh- and twelfth-century contemporaries as food for body and soul, a basic requirement for spiritual and material well-being. While books were there to be read, they could also be read in different ways. Waring draws a distinction between the types of books

which were borrowed by individuals for private reading and those which were lent out to monasteries and solitary hermits for liturgical purposes. Texts distributed to individuals may have been subjected to silent individual reading while liturgical works were probably either read or sung out loud. The familiarity which Kataskepenos's audience had with the Bible could also have come from a variety of reading experiences: either through personal reading, or through hearing the Bible read aloud by others, or through communal recitation, particularly of the Psalter. Many of our papers go on to suggest a further level of complexity: that Byzantine readers were used both to reading, either directly or indirectly, and on occasions to writing,

18

Thurn (1973), 3-4.

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texts which constantly interlocked with each other in different ways. That is to say Byzantine readers and writers did not receive and produce texts in isolation but instead read and wrote with reference to a much wider hinterland of literate experiences. Those associated with the 'School of Edessa' not only read and translated Greek theology and philosophy but also produced marginal notes and commentaries. Paul Magdalino detects even within the silent recesses of the conservative astronomical text which Symeon Seth wrote for his imperial sponsors, hints of the new radical eastern astrological information he utilised more openly in his expert astrological manual. Even the slowest learners of Greek in Paul Batley's cohort of western European students at the turn of the sixteenth century appear to have owned several texts which interconnected with each other either implicitly or explicitly: dictionaries, grammars, and simple readers. Judith Waring's 'lending list' is part of a written culture which not only proves that the monks of Patmos owned a library to which many readers had access; it is also one of many administrative documents drawn up in the monastery, part of an archive whose existence indicates that some monks on Patmos needed to be able to read and write, if only to manage the resources under the monastery's control, assets which included the library itself. The administrative dimension of the Patmian 'lending list' illuminates another important theme which runs through many of these papers, namely the degree to which literacy skills were connected to pragmatic, often financial, needs and purposes. Both Franklin and Reif emphasise the important and ubiquitous connections between written culture and trade. As we have already seen, the scrappy nature of many of the materials upon which such pragmatic texts are inscribed, the terse and utilitarian nature of their contents, their lack of literary style, their inconsistency in spelling and grammar, their ill-shaped handwriting, and their tendency to blend different scripts and languages into unfamiliar hybrids, have often caused historians to discount them. They are either thought to be irrelevant or they are used as indices of illiteracy. However, as Waring, Reif, Franklin, and Tchernetska make clear, if we look at such documentary texts in their functional context they can expand our understanding of the place of writing in Byzantium and among its neighbours in significant and interesting ways. The primary interests of those who wrote utilitarian documents such as these were to produce a record and to make that record comprehensible to others. Their

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main concern was communication, and it is this dimension of such texts which should surely interest us the most. Many papers in this volume suggest that the role of communication may have an important part to play in other, more sophisticated literary productions, particularly when it comes to the choice of linguistic register. It used to be believed that choices of register reflected levels of literacy and education. This was categorised into low, middle and high styles." But more recently the focus has shifted and suggests that an individual was capable of selecting and writing in many different registers. This is confirmed by, and elaborated upon, in this volume by Magdalino and Roueche, principally in their discussions of late eleventh-century literature produced by those court polymaths Symeon Seth and Michael Psellos. Equally it is clear that individuals who worked in very different locales, were exposed to varying standards of education, and wrote with diverse potential audiences in mind, often produced works which adopted the same language register and organisational structure. Thus, Roueche concludes that those literary items which she typifies as 'useful' (items which include florilegia, manuals, and treatises) tend to exhibit similar levels and patterns of syntax and vocabulary, whether they were produced by highly educated individuals such as Symeon Seth, or by more modest authors such as Kekaumenos who may have only completed the preliminary stages in rhetorical training. Such evidence suggests that register selection was determined by the demands of genre; that works of a given nature were by tradition compiled and expressed in a particular and appropriate fashion. However, another, and perhaps more interesting way of stating the same point, is to argue that choice of register was driven by the expectations and pre-existing literate experiences of authors and audiences. Authors wrote in a chosen register and according to particular rules because they sought to alert their audience to the nature of the text they were producing. This strategy relied on the assumption that the audience would already be familiar with such rules and such literature. As Mullett points out, skilful literary operators, such as Nicholas Kataskepenos, could manipulate these literary structures and tensions to convey their own persuasive messages. All this suggests that register could prove an exciting area of exploration in the study

19

Sevcenko (1981-2).

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of Byzantine literacy in as much as it can tell us more about communication. It is, however, much less useful if it is employed to identify and measure absolute levels of literacy or education within Byzantium and neighbouring states. Written culture was partially shaped by, and reflective of, pragmatic record and communication between individuals and communities. Yet the papers in this volume indicate that committing knowledge to permanent record could operate at other levels. John Lowden, for example, notes the mnemonic function inherent in the creation of an inscribed record. He suggests that sketching and copying was how visual vocabulary was memorised and internalised by Byzantine artists. Waring, meanwhile, suggests that liturgical and theological texts, especially those produced for monastic libraries, were often written out as spiritual exercises, rather than for practical reasons. Indeed, as Franklin points out, spirituality was never far away even from the most pragmatic of written texts; there were certain overlaps between spirituality and commerce in writings of the early Rus. However, while it is clear that reading, writing and religion were often inseparable, Stefan Reif produces rather contradictory evidence from the medieval Jewish world. Despite being adherents of a religion of the book, many Jews, particularly from the early centuries C.E., were reluctant to commit non-Torah forms of religious expression to writing but instead transmitted such texts orally. This reluctance is intriguing since it occurs among a people who used written modes for other purposes, especially trade and administration, and who lived in a wider Mediterranean world where written culture abounded, particularly in the service of religion.

Education Only two papers, those by Hunter and Batley, concentrate directly on education, and both focus on the extreme chronological and geographical frontiers of Byzantium: Edessa in Late Antiquity and Italy in the late fifteenth century. However, several other contributors also make valuable contributions to widening our knowledge of this underresearched area, and suggest interesting directions for future studies. What appears with greatest force from this collection is the degree to which some form of education modelled on the curricula of Late Antiquity continued to be provided both within and outside Con-

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stantinople after Byzantium's territorial losses and military defeats in the seventh century. Evidence from archaeological and archive contexts, including palimpsests from the Genizah (Tchernetska), indicate that Greek continued to be taught in areas outside the political frontiers of the Byzantine empire long into the eighth century. Meanwhile, within the empire elements of the trivium, and even the quadrivium, were still studied. Among those exposed to some dimension of advanced education were Kekaumenos (Roueche) in the eleventh century, and Byzantine Jews in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (Reif). One of the most exciting elements of Charlotte Roueche's paper is the way in which her dismantling and close reading of Kekaumenos's text illuminates the nature and level of education that he had received. Textual dissection is a process through which we can learn more about the academic curricula; archaeology will surely prove to be another, especially as more finds from Egypt, particularly papyrus and ostraka discovered on site and in museums, are deciphered and published. The Genizah too promises more. Archaeological remains and the internal structures of texts may yet provide information about curricula, but we also need answers to other questions, especially about the institutional structures which underpinned learning. Where, for example, were schools located? Hunter offers the pool of Abraham at Edessa, now the location of an Islamic madrasa, as one possible site of learning. Reif suggests close links between developments in Jewish literary expression and the role of the synagogue and the bet al-midrash. Both Hunter and Reif suggest that religious establishments were often at the forefront of education provision, a conclusion which Morris's work on saints from the ninth to twelfth centuries supports; such figures often began their education within monasteries, even if they later transferred to Constantinople to continue their training.Y Institutions, however, clearly changed over time and place. One doubts whether those attending Greek lectures in fifteenth-century Italy (Botley) would have identified with the educational environment provided in fourth- and fifth-century Mesopotamia (Hunter). Yet, it is possible that the search for precise locations of formal institutions of learning misjudges the nature of education in Byzantium and neighbouring states. Much learning, throughout the centuries covered in this volume, was clearly

20

Morris (1995), 76-80.

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gained through informal channels, whether by Ephrem offering lessons to his fellow Syrian monks in caves outside Edessa (Hunter), or by enthusiastic students who bought up cheap printed copies of Greek grammars and dictionaries in fifteenth-century western Europe specifically for 'home' study (Botley). It is likely that developments within Byzantine education will only be fully understood by analysing formal and informal modes of study as mutually dependent topics. But even this may not be enough if we want to understand how education contributed to the social, cultural and political history of the empire. Instead, some of our papers suggest indirectly that we should distinguish between education in the narrow sense of recognised curricula and education in the wider sense of training. Both Magdalino and Lowden refer at length to the training of experts: in Lowden's case, artists who used observation, sketching and, possibly, model-books to acquire visual knowledge; in Magdalino's case, astrologers. Both make it clear that rather than relying on manuals inherited from Late Antiquity, such experts preferred to use up-to-date texts or techniques. Hints that similar sentiments existed among other professional groups surface in Kekaumenos's Advice and Anecdotes, which while embracing and engaging with longstanding traditions about military tactics, recommends personal experience in the field most highly. Clearly future research needs to ask to what extent this was consistent with other profes-

sional disciplines such as medicine and rhetoric. Equally it may be profitable to explore concepts such as experience, practice, and training. Vocabulary relating to such concepts, at least in Greek, saturates many literary texts, including histories and saints' lives, as well as 'useful' handbooks. Research in this direction will not only open up the subject of education, but may also reflect on understandings of literacy. How did one train for those professions in which liter . . acy skills were required? How was one trained to conduct trade, to be an administrator, to communicate with state and religious authorities, to articulate religious belief, to make speeches and deliver sermons, and to operate in oral as well as written modes?

Transmission Many of our papers are directly concerned with transmission. They identify two principal types of transmission whether of texts, manu-

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scripts, or more generally, 'knowledge': that which was deliberate and purposeful; and that which was accidental, involving, for example, items that were thrown away and only survive in archaeological contexts, or items that were reused because they were expedient. Of course, as Paul Betley's work on the limited survival rate of cheap editions of Greek grammars and dictionaries illustrates, many written texts did not get transmitted at all. When written materials were exhausted, either because they fell apart, or because their contents became irrelevant, they disappeared. Yet the poor survival rate of much written material, does not suggest a throwaway culture within Byzantium and associated regions. In fact, quite the reverse. Everywhere a very strong sense of the need to preserve can be discerned. Stefan Reif discusses a strong preservative trend within Jewish written expression, namely the citation of chains (catenae) of past authorities after the espousal of a general point. The catenae principle was clearly shared by many cultures across the medieval Near East. In this volume Reif, Roueche, Mullett, Lowden, and Botley all discuss how different varieties of cultural artefacts were constructed around catenae. Interesting parallels emerge. In reference to the development of religious law, halakhah, Reif points out that the catenae practice frequently led to inconsistency. Roueche notes similar trends in Kekaumenos's Advice and Anecdotes, a text which is constructed from aphorisms culled from earlier texts many of which were also built from catenae of past authorities. But while there are similarities, there are also differences. Kekaumenos rarely names the authorities he cites, unlike the situation in Jewish literary expression.

Another important insight shared by our contributors is the idea that transmission is rarely passive. Instead it involves the intersection of the interests of transmitter, the needs and expectations of the audience, the internal structures of artefacts, and physical materials. Examples of the dynamism of transmission abound. John Lowden indicates how the transmission of images in the Octateuchs varied according to the physical layout of manuscripts and the space left free for pictorial representation. Erica Hunter illustrates how transmission required a catalyst. For translations of Aristotelian texts from Greek into Syriac that catalyst was religious polemic. Meanwhile, Simon Franklin suggests it is only those elements of an artefact considered relevant by an audience which get transmitted. Thus, after their conversion to Orthodox Christianity, the Rus took what they needed of Byzantine written and visual culture, leaving untouched what they saw as irrelevant.

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Complex texts in Atticising or Second Sophistic Greek were not translated into Slavonic. The kind of Greek suitable for use in a selfconsciously learned court where epideictic rhetoric flourished, like Constantinople, had little appeal in early Rus political society. More demand for such products existed elsewhere on the Byzantine periphery. Among the Renaissance courts of fifteenth-century Italy, many individuals learned Greek to include useful Attic tags and aphorisms in speeches to princes (Botley). And yet, even within similar courtly societies, audience tastes produced radically different effects. The 'Souda' was an immensely popular text in Byzantium, prized as a thesaurus of snippets of useful knowledge in the best Byzantine florilegia tradition; but when it was produced in Italy, it 'bombed'. One explanation for its failure was its expense; another may have been that it was simply beyond the comprehension of a wide enough audience. The popularity of simple, Greek texts with interleaved Latin translations in fifteenth-century Italy suggests that an un-translated volume of immense size such as the 'Souda' was never likely to sell widely. Many contributors to this volume display an interest in a much wider long-term debate within Byzantine studies about transmission, namely how (and how far) we should interpret Byzantine culture in the light of the classical tradition." Closely allied to this debate is a second polemic concerned with the degree to which Byzantium was conservative or innovative, a culture constrained by classical models and/ or by the Orthodox Church's emphasis on the primacy of tradition." Roueche, Magdalino, Lowden, and Mullett offer interesting, and contradictory, insights. All agree that a certain corpus of textual and visual material was very familiar to a wide audience. Furthermore they agree that the component elements of such texts and images served as a fundamental cultural vocabulary; building blocks of this common body of knowledge which were constantly re-assembled according to contemporary need by writers and artists. Such processes facilitated discussion of contemporary high politics (Roueche and Mullett), the prosecution of propaganda wars by the imperial court (Magdalino), and the creation of visual images of power (Lowden). Yet while several of our papers demonstrate how dexterity with the

21 22

Mullett and Scott (1981). Littlewood (1995); Kazhdan (1984), esp. ch. 1.

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familiar enabled the composition of new and sometimes potentially subversive messages, there is less consensus about whether such cultural practices were liberating or suffocating. Most of our contributors suggest that there was ample room for manoeuvre. Magdalino, however, is more cautious, suggesting that the Byzantines had to use ambiguous areas of intellectual endeavour and curiosity, like astrology, to escape the cultural constraints imposed by the Orthodox Church, constraints which ultimately proved deadening. The scientific revolutions of the Middle Ages happened first of all in the Islamic East and later in the Latin West, not in Byzantium. Perhaps Magdalino is unduly pessimistic; but, his conclusions do seem to be supported by contemporary evidence, not least by Kekaumenos in his recommendation to avoid slavish devotion to antique texts and his espousal of practical experience. However, is it significant that in arguing his case, Kekaumenos uses the format of the very vehicles he chooses to criticise, the manual or advice book? Roueche suggests that Kekaumenos may have used the format of the advice book to comment on the nature and relevance of advice itself. If this is so, then Kekaumenos is as skilled at subversion as Kataskepenos; his text becomes even more interesting. Nonetheless, if Roueche is correct, it becomes clear that influence in Byzantine political society only came through adherence, at least in appearances, to officially received and recommended modes of expression.

Conclusion

Perhaps this is an unduly ambiguous conclusion with which to end. After all, the Byzantine empire survived Kekaumenos by more than four hundred years. Byzantine culture continued to resonate across a wide geographical area long after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, as Botley shows us so clearly. It is clear from all the papers in this volume that transmission was as much about new audiences, needs and purposes, as about the preservation of, devotion to, and constraint by, the old. This volume has also drawn attention to the array of written records that exist within, on the periphery, and far outside Byzantium. Texts such as pragmatic trading and administrative documents were not compelled to conform to the parameters imposed on Byzantine 'high' culture. It is, perhaps, to these more mundane activities and documents that historians should now look for new

28

CATHERINE HOLMES

inspiration to draw and refine a picture of Byzantine literacy, education and manuscript transmission which will also illuminate Byzantine culture and society. Areas that future research should take on board include some other important topics barely touched upon here, especially the impact of the co-existence of so many languages and scripts. In this introductory chapter I have tried to show that Byzantine studies of literacy, education and manuscript transmission, while still in their infancy compared with current research in the medieval west, have begun to move away from a singular concentration on highly learned figures who maintained the classical tradition. I have described a more plural approach which involves new kinds of evidence, readers, authors, and literate practices. Nonetheless, I have tried to indicate that the reuse, preservation and transmission of texts and images from the past still shaped Byzantine cultural behaviour and expectations. Much of this activity happened far from the imperial court in Constantinople. But to make sense of the different approaches adopted in this volume, I paradoxically now want to conclude by taking us back to Constantinople and the centre of government, the place where this chapter began. For it seems that whether we investigate the most fragmentary archival document or inscribed sherd, the most voluminous florilegia, or the most elaborately constructed saint's life, written culture in Byzantium shows signs of the imprint of the empire's governmental structures and processes. The prominence of writing within imperial administration shaped literacy, education and even the transmission of manuscripts at many different levels. Indications that this is the case come from even the most unprepossessing evidence, including inscribed potsherds. Franklin, for example, argues that the Rus primarily learned to read and write in a trading context; however, these skills were probably learned in response to the demands placed upon overseas traders by Byzantine imperial administrators. The development of literacy skills in the context of the need to approach, to lobby, to communicate with, and on occasions defend oneself against, the interests of Byzantine government was also important for the monks of Patmos in the thirteenth century (Waring). The degree to which governance by written mode determined literate practices also surfaces in Charlotte Roueche's description of Kekaumenos's literary activities. Inserted into Kekaumenos's Advice and Anecdotes are a number of family documents closely related to public affairs. These include a description of Nikoulitzas Delphinas's

WRITTEN CULTURE IN BYZANTIUM

29

political adventures from the 1060s, which seems to be a statement of personal defence, as well as a rather earlier letter from Basil II (976-1025) to another Nikoulitzas. The passage of such materials between members of Kekaumenos's family, many of whom were imperial servants, and the emperor, illustrates the importance of writing in governing the empire. The fact that writing was so closely associated with the tenure of public office may explain why individuals like Kekaumenos were educated to a rudimentary level in rhetoric. But the retention of documentary evidence may reveal much more about the relationship between high power politics and literacy in Byzantium. At one level these materials survive in Kekaumenos's account because they furnished convenient and useful examples of his abstract points; at another level they suggest that families were accustomed to keeping archives of important documents. Just as monasteries and individuals retained chrysobulls to verify concessions made to them in the past, so were other documents which related to imperial authority retained, including letters and personal manifestos. Perhaps it was always necessary to have to hand written evidence of past behaviour just in case the family fell out of favour. If this is correct, then literacy skills for families like the Kekaumenoi were not just administratively useful but also politically essential. Such circumstances may make it less surprising that Kekaumenos attempted to use his text to comment upon, and contribute to, contemporary political debates. In a highly centralised political system such as that of medieval Byzantium what happened in the capital could have an immediate impact on life in the provinces. Kekaumenos was right

to pass comment. His were not idle pursuits, but active debates. Kekaumenos's text fascinates, not least because it demonstrates that in Byzantium writing was power.

Bibliography Briggs, C.F. (2000) 'Literacy, Reading and Writing in the Medieval West', Journal ofMedieval History 26 (2000) 397-430 Browning, R. (1954) 'The Correspondence of a Tenth-Century Byzantine Scholar', B 24 (1954) 397-452 - - , (1962) 'The Patriarchal School at Constantinople in the Twelfth Century', B 32 (1962) 167-202 - - , (1963) 'The Patriarchal School at Constantinople in the Twelfth Century', B 33 (1963) 11-40 - - , (1978) 'Literacy in the Byzantine World', BMGS 4 (1978) 39-53

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- - , (1993) 'Further Reflections on Literacy in Byzantium' in To Hellenikon. Studies in Honor qf Speros Vryonis, Jr., Hellenic Antiquity and Byzantium', eds. j.S. Langdon et al. (New Rochelle; New York: 1993) 63-84 Clanchy, M.T. (1993) From Memory to Written Record. England 1066-1307, 2nd ed. (London: 1993) Constantinides, C.N. (1982) Higher Education in Byzantium in the Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries (1204-c. 1310) (Nicosia: 1982) Dagron, G. (1994) 'Formes et fonctions du pluralisme linguistique it Byzance (IXCxn- siecle)', TM 12 (1994) 219-240 Garrison, M. (1998) 'Send more Socks' in New Approaches to Medieval Communication, ed. M. Mostert (Utrecht: 1998) Geary, P. (1994) Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion and the End of the First Millennium (Princeton: 1994) Hunger, H. (1989) Schreiben und Lesung in Byzanz (Munich: 1989) Kazhdan, A. and S. Franklin (1984) Studies on Byzantine Literature of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Cambridge; Paris: 1984) Lemerle, P. (1971/1986) Le premier humanisme byzantin. Notes et remarques sur enseignement et culture a Byzance des origins au X' siecle (Paris: 1971); tr. H. Lindsay and A. Moffatt as Byzantine Humanism, the First Phase. Notes and Remarks on Education and Culture in Byzantium .from its Origins to the 10th Century, ByzAus 3 (Canberra: 1986) - - , (1977) 'Le Testament d'Eustathios Boilas' in Cinq etudes sur le XI siecle byzantin (Paris: 1977) 15-63 Littlewood, A. (l99~ ed. Originaliry in Byzantine Literature, Art and Music (Oxford: 1995) Mango, C. and I. Sevcenko (1975) Byzantine Books and Book:men (Washington, D.C.: 1975) - - , (1980) Byzantium. TIe Empire of the New Rome (London: 1980) McKitterick, R. (1990) edt The Uses qf Literary in Early Medieval Europe (Cambridge: 1990) Moffatt, A. (1977) 'Schooling in the Iconoclast Centuries' in Iconoclasm, eds. A. Bryer and J. Herrin (Birmingham: 1977) 85-92 - - , (1979) 'Early Byzantine School curricula and a Liberal Education' in Byeance et les Slavs: etudes de civilisation. Melanges Ivan Dujcev (Paris: 1979) 275-288 Morris, R. (1995) Monks and Laymen in Byzantium, 843-1118 (Cambridge: 1995) Mostert, M. (1998) New Approaches to Medieval Communication (Utrecht: 1998) Mullett, M.E. and R. Scott (1981) eds. Byzantium and the Classical Tradition (Birmingham: 1981) - - , (1984) 'Aristocracy and Patronage in the Literary Circles of Comnenian Constantinople' in Byzantine Aristocracy, ed. M. Angold (BAR International Series, Oxford: 1984) 173-201 - - , (1990) 'Writing in Early Medieval Byzantium' in McKitterick (Cambridge: 1990) Oikonomides, N. (1988) 'Mount Athos: Levels of Literacy', DOP 42 (1988) 167-178 Patlagean, E. (1979) 'Discours ecrit, discours parle, Niveaux de culture a Byzance aux VIIC-xr siecles', Annales ESC 34 (1979) 264-278 Sevcenko, 1. (1981) 'Levels of Style in Byzantine Prose', JOB 31 (1981) 289-312 -~, (1982) 'Some Additional Remarks to the Report on Levels of Style', JOB 32 (1982) 220-38 Speck, P. (1974) Die kaiserliche Unioersiuit von Konstantinopel (Munich: 1974) Stock, B. (1983) The Implications ofLiterary (Princeton: 1983) Thurn, I. (1973) ed. Joannis Skylitzae Synopsis Historiarum, CFHB V (Berlin; New York: 1973) Vyronis, S. (1957) 'The Will of a Provincial Magnate, Eustathios Boilas (1059)', DOP 11 (1957) 263-277

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\Varing, j.S. (1999) Byzantine Monastic Libraries in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, Unpublished PhD thesis (Belfast: 1999) - - , (forthcoming) Reading Spaces: Monastic libraries in Byzantium, 1050-1204 (Cambridge: forthcoming) Whittow, M. (1996) The Alaking if Orthodox Byzantium, 600-1025 (London: 1996) 'Vilson, N.G. (1983) Scholars if Byzantium (London: 1983) - - , and L.D. Reynolds (1991) Scribes and Scholars: a Guide to the Transmission if Greek and Latin Literature, 3rd ed. (Oxford: 1991) - - , (1992) From Byzantium to Italy: Greek Studies in the Italian Renaissance (London: 1992) Wolska-Conus, \v. ~1976) 'Les Ecoles de Psellos et de Xiphilin sous Constantin IX Monomaquc', TM 6 (1976) 223-43 - - , (1979) 'L'Ecole de droit et l'enseignement du droit a Byzance au Xl" siecle: Xiphilin et Psellos', TAJ 7 (1979) 1-107

THE BYZANTINE RECEPTION OF CLASSICAL ASTROLOGY Paul Magdalino

Astrology is the black sheep of the family of ancient Greek arts and sciences which made their home in Byzantium. Byzantine writers who were not astrologers hardly ever had a good word to say for it, and Byzantinists have had little time for it, with the notable exception of David Pingree, whose interests and competence extend way beyond the geographical, linguistic and chronological confines of the Byzantine world. The astronomical data used and supplied by Byzantine astrologers have received much attention from historians of Byzantine astronomy, but with little regard for the astrological context or lack of it. The astrological relevance and associations of astronomical texts are neglected, presumably because they have nothing to do with pure science. This is unfortunate, because it evades the important question which is posed by every item of astral science in pre-modern times: to what extent were the movements and positions of the sun, moon, planets, comets and the so-called fixed stars ever studied for their own sake and regardless of their significance for the sublunar sphere? It is important, in this connection, to emphasise that medieval and

modern rejections of astrology are based on essentially different criteria. The modern attitude is one of enlightened, sceptical disdain for the superstitious remnants of a cosmology which the astronomy of Copernicus and Galileo and Newtonian physics have deprived of all scientific credentials. Medieval disapproval arose from the challenge posed to organised religion by a theory of determinism based on cosmological principles which were extremely hard to disprove precisely because they harmonised with the idea of a providentially ordained, perfectly constituted universe, where nothing was created without meaning or purpose. I How could the bright lights of heaven,

1 The most influential statement of Christian objections in Greek patristic literature is that of St Basil of Caesarea, VI.5-7, 96-101.

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PAUL MAGDALINO

with their complex but precise and mathematically predictable paths, fail to have meaning or effect in a sublunar world which was obviously so much more susceptible to corruption and decay? If the sun's rays could determine the seasons and the life cycles of all living things, how could the other celestial bodies fail to exert other influences." As St Gregory of Nyssa put it, "the universe is coherent in itself" (avv£x£~ earl niiv eavrij'J), and it is interesting that while in his Contrafatum, Gregory puts this statement into the mouth of an imaginary astrologer he is setting up for refutation," in his homily on the Creation (Hexaemeron) he uses it in support of his own cosmological argument." Like the ancients, the Byzantines did distinguish between astronomy and astrology," between the pure and the applied science of celestial observation, but the distinction was mainly theoretical. It was important in religious terms, since it served to reconcile the Church's objections to astrology with the undeniable fact that God had created celestial phenomena to be observed, used and admired: in the words of Genesis 1.14, "to be for signs of the times and the seasons." Otherwise, no strict separation between astronomy and astrology was maintained in linguistic, educational or professional practice. Though astrologia usually refers specifically to astrology, astronomia can be inclusive of both," and astronomos in Byzantine texts is commonly synonymous with astrologos or mathematikos.' because astrologers were effectively the only professional practitioners of astronomy. Astrology apart, there were two things one could do with astronomical knowledge. One was to use it in the service of religious timekeeping, for the computation of liturgical timetables, calendars, Easter tables, and chronologies of world history. The other was to teach astronomy as one of the mathematical sciences within the framework of a general education (£YKUKA10-l

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ILLUSTRATIONS LOWDEN

9 Mt Athos, Vatopedi Monastery : Ms.602, f.347r, Joshua builds an altar near Gilgal (photo: P. Huber, Berne)

ILLUSTRATIONS LOWDEN

10 London, British Library: Ms.Add.19352, f.192r, Abbot of Stoudios receives his staff (photo: British Library)

ILLUSTRATIONS LOWDEN

II

Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana: Ms.Vat.Barb .gr.372, f.5r, Imperial family (photo: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana)

12 Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana: Ms.Vat.Chisi.R .VIIl .54, f.41v, Micah (photo: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana)

13 Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana : Ms.Vat.gr.1153, f.35r, Micah (photo: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana)

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