Book Burning as Purification in Early Byzantium

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Herrin
Keyword(s):  
Sixth Century ◽  
Written Texts ◽  
State Office ◽  
The Status ◽  
Byzantine Period ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Early Byzantine ◽  
Ancient Texts

This chapter examines book burning as a form of purification, designed to protect readers and listeners from inaccurate or downright misleading material, during the early Byzantine period. Throughout the fourth and fifth centuries, when Christianity was struggling to define its theology more closely, every official condemnation was followed by ritual destruction. Decades after the decree of AD 528 that barred pagans from state office, Justinian ordered a persecution of surviving Hellenes, accompanied by the burning of pagan books, pictures, and statues. In the mid-sixth century, active persecution in Constantinople probably destroyed many ancient texts. The chapter considers two canons, issued by the Council in Trullo in AD 692, that shed light on book burning and destruction, purification, and the status of written texts in early Byzantium.

scholarly journals The Early Byzantine and Khazar Periods in the Evolution of the Towns on the Inner Mountain Ridge in the Crimea

2021 ◽  
pp. 475-497
Author(s):  
Alexander I. Aibabin
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Mountain Ridge ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Crimea ◽  
History Of ◽  
Byzantine Period ◽  
The One ◽  
Early Byzantine

From the large-scale archaeological researches of individual urban centres located on the Inner Mountain Ridge of the Crimea, atop of the plateaus of Mangup, Eski-Kermen, and Bakla, there are enough reasons to identify and reconstruct the Early Byzantine and Khazar Periods in the evolution of these towns. The analysis of written sources and materials of archaeological excavations allows the one to substantiate the chronology of the two initial periods in the history of the evolution of the towns located on the Inner Mountain Ridge as: 1 – Early Byzantine, from 582 AD to the early eighth century; 2 – Khazar, from the early eighth century to 841 AD. In the early sixth century, there was the only oppidum or civitatium Dory known in the region in question. Obviously, its fortifications were built by the Goths living atop of the plateau of Mangup from the mid-third century on. In the Early Byzantine Period, in the late sixth century, when the region of Dory was incorporated into the Empire’s borderland province, military engineers realised the state-sponsored program and constructed fortifications and a church in the castle (κάστρον) of Δόροϛ and fortified towns of various types (πόλισμα) atop of the mountains of Eski-Kermen and Bakla. Although the engineers immediately planned and constructed fortifications, access roads, gates, sally ports, a church, streets, and other objects on a greater part of the uninhabited plateau of Eski-Kermen, only the citadel was built on the already inhabited terrace of the plateau of Bakla. In the Khazar Period, Δόροϛ kept the status of the capital of Gothia and the bishop’s see. At Eski-Kermen there probably was an archon supervising the building of the town according to a single plan, while at Bakla there appeared suburban area covered by residential houses. The archontes of the towns located atop of Eski-Kermen and Bakla were civil and church governors of the klimata, just as their predecessors had done earlier.

Caričin Grad and the Changes in the Nature of Urbanism in the Central Balkans in the Sixth Century

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. BAVANT
Keyword(s):  
Residential Area ◽  
Traditional View ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Floor Level ◽  
Ground Floor ◽  
Timber Frame ◽  
Original Plan ◽  
Byzantine Period ◽  
The Church ◽  
Early Byzantine

Caričin Grad (Justiniana Prima) is an ideal site for studying urbanism in the early Byzantine period. Amongst the numerous early Byzantine sites in the central Balkans, Caričin Grad is one of the very few that was a city and was founded in the sixth century. Its fortifications include three separate walled areas (the Acropolis, the Upper City, and the Lower City). Contrary to the traditional view, this chapter argues that the walls of the Acropolis were not part of the original plan and that the Upper and Lower Cities were established at the same time. The Church and the army occupied more than two-thirds of the Upper City and the Lower Town contained mainly public buildings. The only known intramural residential area lies in the south-west corner of the Lower City. Houses here were built of stone bonded with clay at ground-floor level, and the upper floor was constructed with a timber frame and cob walls and had tile roofs. It is also very likely that there was an extramural population, protected by a ditch and palisades.

A Theotokos lamp from Antioch in the Hatay Archaeology Museum (southeastern Turkey)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ergun Lafli ◽  
Maurizio Buora
Keyword(s):  
Sixth Century ◽  
Byzantine Period ◽  
Specific Formula ◽  
Early Byzantine

During the early Byzantine period numerous objects with sacred inscriptions became souvenirs in the hands of pilgrims, returning to their homes. Particularly in Jerusalem - or in Syria - were made terracotta oil lamps with a specific formula of blessing. It mentions both the Blessed Virgin as “Theotokos” and a certain John, who we do not know whether he was a saint or the manufacturer of these lamps. The archaeological museum of Hatay in southeastern Turkey preserves a lamp of this type, probably dating to the sixth century AD or shortly afterwards

Secular Architecture: Domestic

2021 ◽  
pp. 350-362
Author(s):  
Carolyn S. Snively
Keyword(s):  
Urban Form ◽  
Small Towns ◽  
Urban Setting ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Industrial Products ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Byzantine Period ◽  
Early Byzantine ◽  
Courtyard House

Byzantine domestic housing of the fourth–fifteenth centuries is preserved predominantly in the Balkans and Asia Minor. Peristyle houses dominate in the Early Byzantine period and continue later: their construction and decoration, subdivision, and disappearance in the sixth century have been studied. The Middle Byzantine courtyard house was a typically urban form, centrally located in towns with Classical predecessors; it provided privacy for the residents who may have been merchants dealing in agricultural or industrial products. Most people in the Byzantine period, however, probably lived in variations of the “longhouse,” in agriculturally based small towns and villages, where they shared living quarters with livestock. Houses in Late Byzantine/Frankish centers such as Mystras were large and elaborate longhouses in an urban setting.

scholarly journals Turbulent Ethnopolitical Processes in the Eastern Taurica in the Sixth and Seventh Centuries

2021 ◽  
pp. 71-89
Author(s):  
Viktor N. Zin’ko ◽  
Alexey V., Zin’ko
Keyword(s):  
Seventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Byzantine Empire ◽  
Urban Buildings ◽  
Seasonal Migrations ◽  
Archaeological Materials ◽  
Byzantine Period ◽  
Scanty Information ◽  
The One ◽  
Early Byzantine

This paper presents the results of archaeological researches allowing the one to reconstruct ethnopolitical processes in the eastern Taurica in the sixth and seventh centuries. By the sixth century, the eastern Crimean steppes were depopulated and used for seasonal migrations of the Hunnic tribes. The Byzantine Empire made a significant influence on the ethnopolitical processes in the Bosporos in the sixth and seventh centuries when annexed this country in 527/528. Archaeological researches supply scanty information about the urban buildings of the Bosporan capital in the sixth century. Alternative archaeological situation developed with the preserved Early Byzantine layers of the Bosporan town of Tyritake, where continuous many-year-long archaeological research uncovered large areas. According to the archaeological materials and a few epigraphic finds, Bosporan Greeks constituted the overwhelming majority of the population of Tyritake in the sixth century as before, being mostly the persons of moderate means, engaged in fishing and agricultural production, crafts and petty trade. After the raid of the Turks in 576, Bosporos and Tyritake declined, with only isolated residential houses reconstructed in certain areas in these towns; these houses lived to the third quarter of the seventh century when they were burned down by the Khazars. Bosporos constantly experienced the pressure from nomadic hordes, which, over the centuries, moved here and there, replacing each other, along the great tract of the steppes. The turbulence of ethnopolitical processes in the Eastern Taurica especially intensified in the Early Byzantine Period. Following the Khazar devastation, all the Bosporan settlements were depopulated, and the insignificant remnants of the former population concentrated in the fire-ravaged town of Bosporos, which for centuries became an out-of-the-way provincial town forming a part of different polities.

Transformation of legal language – Early Byzantine legal discourse

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaakko Husa
Keyword(s):  
Legal Discourse ◽  
Legal Culture ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Cultural Transformation ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Legal Language ◽  
Linguistic Change ◽  
Early Byzantine

AbstractThis article examines the complicated legal-cultural process in which Roman law became Byzantine law and Roman legal discourse altered into Byzantine legal discourse. Roman law’s transformation into Early Byzantine law is analysed from the point of view of legal language which mutated from Latin to Greek. The approach is legal cultural and legal linguistic and focuses on the overall shape and general patterns. The goal is to highlight how legal-cultural transformation was incremental, language-bound and that there was no radical or sudden culmination point. Moreover, the analysis answers generally to the question of why sixth-century Byzantine legislative Greek contained frequent Latin loans, expressions, phrases and distortions. The discussion concentrates on the Novellae as an integral part of the process of legal cultural and linguistic change from Roman to Byzantine. Instead of going into detailed linguistic analysis, this article underlines generally the contextuality of law and the importance of legal culture

The Jewish Community of Late Byzantine Thessalonica: the Problem of Determining Its Status

Istoriya ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7 (105)) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Natalia Zhigalova
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Community ◽  
Financial Resources ◽  
The Status ◽  
Byzantine Period ◽  
Byzantine Era ◽  
The City ◽  
The Church

In this article, the author turns to an examination of the status of the Jewish community in Thessalonica in the late Byzantine period. The author concludes that both in the Byzantine era and during the Venetian rule in Thessalonica, the Jewish community of the city was subjected to numerous restrictions and prohibitions on the part of the official authorities. The reason for this was the initial isolation of the community, as well as the fact that the Jews, in contrast to the rest of the townspeople, owned vast financial resources and rented trading floors, ousting local entrepreneurs from there. The Jewish community in Thessalonica, quite numerous by the standards of contemporaries, in the XIV and XV centuries was in a state of permanent conflict with the church authorities of the city and, probably, had some influence on the communities of Judaizing Christians.

Codex Vatopedinus gr. 610 and Its Place in the Manuscript Tradition of Kallistos Angelikoudes’ Works

Istoriya ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5 (103)) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Oleg Rodionov
Keyword(s):  
Significant Part ◽  
Greek Text ◽  
Manuscript Tradition ◽  
Patristic Literature ◽  
History Of ◽  
Byzantine Period ◽  
The Church ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Literary Legacy

The article deals with one of the oldest manuscripts containing a significant part of the theological chapters of Kallistos Angelikoudes, one of the most important hesychast authors of the late Byzantine period. Codex Vatopedinus gr. 610 was written in the late 14th c. It contains a great amount of quotations excerpted from Patristic literature. In the second part of the codex, one can find the chapters of Kallistos Angelikoudes; these 92 chapters were retrieved from a greater collection containing now about 200 chapters. The article discusses the content of the Vatopedi manuscript, pointing out to the use of many Patristic fragments included there in different works by Kallistos Angelikoudes. This may shed light on the origin and purpose of the manuscript. A further study of the history of the text of these chapters allows us to assess the place of the Vatopedi codex in the manuscript tradition of Kallistos Angelikoudes’ literary legacy. The Church Slavonic translation of this collection of Angelikoudes’ chapters made by Paisius Velichkovsky in the 1770—1790s reproduces many peculiarities of the Greek text contained in the Vatopedi manuscript and was presumably based on a copy of that codex.

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