'After the Text' honours the work of renowned historian Margaret Mullett, who since the 1970s has transformed the study of Byzantine literature. Her work has been influential in demonstrating the strength and variety of Byzantine texts. Byzantium is renowned for its achievements in architecture and the visual arts. Professor Mullett's perceptive studies, produced over more than 40 years, have shown that the literature of the Byzantine Empire is of equal beauty and interest, ranging, as it does, from high-style poetry and rhetoric in the classical manner through letters to demotic writings such as fables and the lives of saints. The collection of essays in this volume draws further attention to the wealth and diversity of Byzantine texts, by exploring the Greek literature of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages in all its variety. These studies, by going, like Professor Mullett herself, beyond the texts, illustrate the value of Byzantine literature for interpreting Byzantine history and civilisation in all its richness.
Author(s): Liz James, Oliver Nicholson, Roger Scott (eds.)
Series: Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies, 32
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 404
List of figures xi
List of abbreviations xiii
List of contributors xv
Margaret Elizabeth Mullett, OBE: Appreciations xvii
Professor Margaret Mullett, OBE: A Life in Byzantium xxvii
Introduction 1
PART I. Performance, narrative and text 5
(i) Performance
1. The Presentation of Christ in the Temple (Hypapante) according to two Byzantine Hymnographers: An encounter in liturgical time and space / MARY B. CUNNINGHAM 7
2. Variations on the theme of death: Two Byzantine limb-by-limb laments / BARBARA CROSTINI 19
3. Theodore Prodromos, 'Carmina historica', I: Translation and commentary / PAUL MAGDALINO AND RUTH MACRIDES 29
4. Visually demolished and textually reconstructed: Performing the Middle Ages in contemporary crime fiction / PANAGIOTIS A. AGAPITOS 41
(ii) Narrative
5. More than a story: Lactantius, the anger of god and the deaths of the persecutors / OLIVER NICHOLSON 59
6. Narratives of fluency: Miracles of Mary and Mariology between Byzantium and the West / FRANCESCA DELL’ACQUA 72
7. What’s in a name? The Byzantine Chronicles / PAOLO ODORICO 85
8. Kedrenos’ substitution for Theophanes’ chronicle / ROGER SCOTT WITH JOHN BURKE AND PAUL TUFFIN 95
(iii) Text
9. The 'Typikon' section in the 'Lives' of Athanasios the Athonite: Sources and agendas / DIRK KRAUSMÜLLER 117
10. Constantine the Rhodian’s εἰκών of the Church of the Holy Apostles at Constantinople / BEATRICE DASKAS 131
11. Τῇ βασιλίσσῃ μοναχῇ κυρᾷ: An unedited letter to Eirene Doukaina (and an 'Êthopoiia' in verse by her son for his father) / STRATIS PAPAIOANNOU 147
12. Sophocles, Euripides and the unusual cento / PRZEMYSŁAW MARCINIAK 167
13. Letters, 'Latinitas' and latent wordplay: John Milton’s didactic epistles to Richard Jones / ESTELLE HAAN 176
PART II. Emotion and gender 189
14. The rose and the dung beetle: Theodore Laskaris on 'friendship' and 'envy' / MARTIN HINTERBERGER 191
15. 'Homo byzantinus': Keeping women in their place / LIZ JAMES 205
16. Same-gender friendships and enmity in the 'Life of Eupraxia' / STAVROULA CONSTANTINOU 218
17. Basil the Younger comes to stay: Eunuchs and other male friends in Constantinopolitan households / SHAUN TOUGHER 233
18. Women remembering women? The 'Miracle in Latomos' motif in medieval Macedonia / ROWENA LOVERANCE 241
PART III. Text and physical context 257
19. Reading Aesop in Cappadocia / ROBERT OUSTERHOUT WITH ASSISTANCE FROM ANNA SITZ 259
20. Reading an icon of the black Mohammed: Georgios Klontzas on Islam / CHARLES BARBER 273
21. The Monastery of Christ the Saviour in Sourmaina and the Hagiographical Dossier of St Eugenios / JAMES CROW 289
22. The transmission of monumental art: Travelling saints and monastic networks / PAMELA ARMSTRONG 303
23. Exploring Thessaloniki – a mismatch of art history and urban history / ROBIN CORMACK 317
24. The impact of choir and organ on synagogue architecture: Preliminary thoughts on the role of musical performance in Balkan Sephardic communities / FANI GARGOVA 328
Epilogue 351
LESLIE BRUBAKER
Index 353
