Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik, Band 65/2015

The article examines the letter of Paulos Helladikos (CPG 7531) on monastic failures, which was widely ignored by scholarship though edited by V. Lundström in 1902. In a first section it can be shown that the letter´s author, Paulos Helladikos, is to be identified with Paul of Elousa. Due to parallel passages in the Lives of the Monks of Palestine by Cyril of Scythopolis the letter can be dated in the years 530/31-554. Thus, Paul´s lifetime can be fixed around the second quarter of the sixth century A.D.

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This paper deals with a new fragmentary witness, viz. Library of the Hellenic Parliament (Athens) 84, to Michael Psellos’ didactic poem “On Medicine”. It is divided into three parts: a brief codicological description of the manuscript, a detailed presentation of the various connections between the new witness and the extant manuscripts of the complete work, and a list of peculiar readings of the new witness accompanied by some suggestions for the improvement of the most recent critical edition of the work.

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The letters of the imperial court of Constantinople, sent to the 2nd Council of Lyon in 1274 with regard to the union of the Latin and Greek churches, have survived in a complex transmission. A new finding of a parchment scroll with the union dossier in the Austrian Haus-, Hof und Staatsarchiv demands a revision of the recent reconstruction of the process of disseminating these documents. The scroll, originating from the archbishopric of Salzburg, is compared with the text tradition of the two known versions of the documents and another unique scroll from Durham, written during the Council and not taken into consideration for the recent text constitution of these documents. Additionally, a supplement to the chronicle of Martinus Polonus, interpolated from the Annales sancti Rudperti, in two manuscripts of and from the monastery of Vorau (Austria) witness the same text transmission as in the scrolls. A collation of these texts classifies this tradition in comparison to the scrolls and the revised Lyon version of the documents. Abstracting from the results of the collations and the text transmission through direct text witnesses from the time of the Council, the paper critically re-discusses the recent theory of two translations (in Constantinople and Lyon) and argues in favor for only one Constantinopolitan version and a partial linguistic revision of the Latin text in Lyon.

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This paper discusses the results of a numerical analysis of the existing palynological evidence from medieval and early modern Balkans and Anatolia; as such, it hopes to provide new quantitative data for the study of Byzantine and Ottoman economic history. After presenting the palynological database prepared for this project – as well as the numerical methods developed specifically to deal with this material - the core of the paper is devoted to historical interpretation. In the first section we deal with the late antique and early medieval periods, demonstrating that signs of both late antique agrarian prosperity and early medieval economic collapse may be observed across Greece, Macedonia and Anatolia. The following section focuses on evidence for the development of a pastoral economy in the central Balkan mountain ranges, between the early Middle Ages and the Ottoman era. The third section discusses environmental aspects of the middle Byzantine economic revival. Finally, the paper focuses on how different regions of the Balkans and Anatolia fared during the late Byzantine and Ottoman periods; in particular, we demonstrate how the Byzantine economic system came to an end, and how a new economic geography emerged during the Ottoman era.

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This article treats the phenomenon of clairvoyance, the ability to know the thoughts of others that set holy men apart from ordinary human beings who had to make inferences from a person’s outward appearance. After a discussion of the various theories that Late Antique authors put forward in order to account for this phenomenon, it focuses on opposition to clairvoyance in seventh- to eleventh- century Byzantium. It identifies texts in which such opposition is expressed and seeks to explain why their authors took this stance.

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The present article contains the critical edition of the Syllogè against the Latins, a heresiological treatise attributed to Theodore Agallianos (ca 1400–1474). The edition is preceded by a discussion of the authenticity, the structure and the content of the text, as well as by a philological commentary containing a description of all manuscript witnesses and a stemma codicum.

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The present paper focuses on the marble architectural members inserted into the bell-tower of Vatopedi monastery. Their study enriches our knowledge about the sculpted decoration especially in the middle and late Byzantine period; moreover, an aspect of the nature and organization of the marble decoration in a non-ecclesiastical Athonite building, erected just a few years after the Ottoman Occupation of Mount Athos, is provided. Additionally, the reused spolia render some enquires about their provenance necessary; this question remains open and only hypotheses can be expressed

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Constantine Manasses, author of the twelfth century known above all as historian, produced a considerable number of texts that included extensive and skilful ekphrastic discourse, but he also composed five independent ekphraseis. In different manners and to varying extent, all these texts reflect the learned environment in which Manasses was active as teacher and thetorician, that ist, the imperial milieu of Komnenian Constantinople. The aim of this article is to present a new edition and translation of one of the independent ekphraseis, the Description of a Little Man, and to offer a thorough discussion of its literary and sociocultural significance. This ekphrasis stands out as regards the curiosity of its motif: a dwarf, originally from Chios, spending time in Constantinople and living at the imperial palace in order to entertain the court. The present article includes an edition of the Greek text, a translation with notes and a detailed introduction on the rhetorical and `scientific` tradition that precedes and informs this text, interpreted in relation to the Constantinopolitan environment of Manasses and his peers.

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This paper discusses a recently proposed scenario of a climate-induced “Collapse of the Eastern Mediterranean” in the 11th century AD. It demonstrates that such a scenario cannot be maintained when confronted with proxy data from various regions. On the other hand, data on the interplay between environment and economy in the Komnenian period (1081–1185) and evidence for a change of climatic conditions in the period of the Angeloi (1185–1204) is presented, arguing that climatic parameters should be taken into consideration when comparing socio-economic dynamics in the Eastern Mediterranean with those in Western Europe. The necessity of further research on the regional as well as over-regional level for many aspects of the interaction between human society and environment in the medieval Eastern Mediterranean is highlighted.

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Codex Plut. 59.35 of the early fourteenth century transmits a letter, which so far has remained unpublished and therefore almost completely escaped scholarly attention. In this letter, addressed to Andronikos Zarides, the mathematician Nikolaos (Artabasdos) Rhabdas predicts a solar and a lunar eclipse, which can be dated to the year 1321. The present article provides the first edition, with German translation, of this text and explores its implications for the biography of its little-known author and addressee as well as their place within the scholarly circles of the early Palaiologan period.

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