The Excerpta Constantiniana and the Byzantine Appropriation of the Past
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- Author: András Németh, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
- Date Published: August 2021
- availability: Available
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9781108438216
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The Excerpta project instigated by the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII turned the enormously rich experience offered by Greek historiography into a body of excerpts distributed across fifty-three distinct thematic collections. In this, the first sustained analysis, András Németh moves from viewing the Excerpta only as a collection of textual fragments to focusing on its dependence from and impact on the surrounding Byzantine culture in the tenth century. He introduces the concept of appropriation and also uses it to study some other key texts created under the Excerpta's influence (De thematibus, De administrando imperio and De ceremoniis). Unlike world chronicles, the Excerpta ignored the chronological dimension of history and fostered the biographical turn in Byzantine historiography. By exploring theoretical questions such as classification and retrieval of historical information and the relationship between knowledge and political power, this book provides powerful new ways for exploring the Excerpta in Byzantine studies and beyond.
Read more- The first in-depth analysis of the historical excerpts, including many key historians from classical and late antiquity, in the context of their production in Byzantium
- Proposes a new and coherent interpretative framework of several key works produced at Byzantine Court in the tenth century
- Tackles theoretical problems beyond Byzantium, such as the understanding of time, history, textual coherence, the practical reading of history and managing information overload
Awards
- Short-listed, 2019 Runciman Award, The Anglo-Hellenic League
Reviews & endorsements
'During a period of external threats and internal disunity, Constantine VII (913–59), the dilettante emperor of the Byzantine empire, supervised the compilation of the multivolume Excerpta. The volumes were chiefly unaltered texts from pre-Christian era authors. The emperor and his staff organized the material in a set of 53 topics. … Németh argues that instructive examples, many of which were biographical, were aimed at stimulating creative and critical thinking, improving the morality of Constantine’s circle, and providing pragmatic answers to contemporary problems. But there is no concrete proof that the Excerpta produced any military successes or enlightened legislation, or led to fruitful diplomatic maneuverings. The Excerpta may have had more aesthetic than practical value. This immense work of scholarship is strictly for the pinpoint specialist. Recommended.' A. J. Papalas, Choice
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×Product details
- Date Published: August 2021
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9781108438216
- length: 352 pages
- dimensions: 228 x 152 x 18 mm
- weight: 0.519kg
- contains: 7 b/w illus. 3 maps 4 tables
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
1. Imperial court and knowledge production
2. Appropriation of the past: theory and practice of excerpting historiography
3. Constructing a research engine of the past
4. Information management in Constantine VII's treatises
5. Renewal of historiography under Constantine VII
6. Distorsion and expansion of the past in the Excerpta
7. Classification of the past in the Excerpta
8. The reading of the Excerpta
9. The Suda: the lexicographer and the excerptor
Conclusions
Appendices A. Edition of the proem and the poem
B. The imperial manuscripts of the Excerpta.
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