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Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14288/3
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Publication Metadata only The historiography of dreaming in medieval Byzantium(Ashgate Publishing, 2014) N/A; Department of History; Magdalino, Paul; Faculty Member; Department of History; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; N/AN/APublication Metadata only Astrology(Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2017) N/A; Department of History; Magdalino, Paul; Faculty Member; Department of History; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; N/AThe inclusion of a chapter on astrology in an intellectual history of Byzantium needs some justification. Astrology is widely perceived by intellectuals today, and especially by exact scientists, as a mindless superstition, and plenty of support for dismissing it as unscientific can be found in ancient and medieval literature too. Most Byzantine statements on astrology by non-astrologers are derisive as well as critical, perhaps the most memorable and eloquent being Niketas Choniates’ reports of the consistently wrong astrological predictions in which the emperor Manuel I Komnenos (1143-1180) naively believed, and on which he persistently based his policies. Yet Manuel wrote a treatise in Defense of Astrology, and whatever its intellectual merits, this treatise was at least an intellectual exercise. Astrology had an enduring appeal at all levels of society because it used scientific methods and could be explained according to accepted scientific theories. It was impossible to practice astrology without a basic knowledge of astronomy; apart from the construction and correction of calendars, astrology was the only practical use to which the study of astronomy could be put. The great second-century synthesizer of ancient astronomy, Ptolemy, assumed that the two went together and, in addition to his astronomical works, produced a treatise on astrology, the Tetrabiblos. The calculation of horoscopes depended on the exact mapping of the heavens at a given moment with arithmetical and geometrical precision; astrologers were frequently referred to as “mathematicians” (mathematikoi). The interpretation of a horoscope was a game of skill and judgment, which involved both the application of a rigorous logic and the consideration of many variables. It drew on the entire range of cosmological theories produced by the religious and philosophical systems of antiquity. It originated in Babylonian and, to a lesser extent, Egyptian religion, and its basic doctrine of planetary influences was linked to the identification of the planets with the Olympian gods Hermes (Mercury), Aphrodite (Venus), Artemis (Diana - the Moon), Apollo (the Sun), Ares (Mars), Zeus (Jupiter), and Kronos (Saturn). It was based on the Stoic theory of cosmic sympathy, the idea that all the parts of the universe were interconnected and danced to the same tune. It shared the Pythagorean obsession with number symbolism and adopted Aristotle’s theory of matter.Publication Metadata only Byzantine historical writing, 900-1400(Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2018) N/A; Department of History; Magdalino, Paul; Faculty Member; Department of History; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; N/AThis chapter talks about how the dates 900 and 1400 are not entirely arbitrary divisions in the history of Byzantine historical writing. Approximately thirty-one pieces of Greek historical writing produced in the Byzantine world (excluding Latin occupied areas) survive from the period 900–1400. It also includes a work whose author, Niketas Choniates, published more than one version, as well as works that might not be considered strictly historical because they record limited episodes in a speech or letter format, and in a rhetorical context of apology, request, panegyric, or denunciation. Other works in this border zone, however, have not been included despite the rich historical information they contain: such are the tenth-century hagiographies of the patriarchs Ignatios and Euthymios, and the self-canonizing autobiography of Nikephoros Blemmydes.Publication Metadata only Generic subversion? the political ideology of urban myth and apocalyptic prophecy(Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2013) N/A; Department of History; Magdalino, Paul; Faculty Member; Department of History; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; N/AThe Edinburgh Conference coincided with the Birmingham graduate seminar on literary theory. A judicious selection, carefully annotated, would provide an excellent starting point for all Byzantinists. Neo-hellenists were at that time anxious to align themselves with Europe and to follow its critical trends. Byzantinists had to confront linguistic and textual difficulties, with fewer reliable translations than we possess today, and in unfamiliar historical contexts, leaving little time for 'literary theory'. New courses in Combined Honours were introduced, and among our first Birmingham students with Byzantine interests were John Haldon, Margaret Mullett, and Paul Tuffin, whose needs had to be coped with in small but heterogeneous graduate or undergraduate groups at different levels of linguistic competence. The theoretical readings were useful only up to a point: since most celebrated exponents were experts primarily in the fields of modern Western European literature, philosophy, psychology, there was little room for different concepts of what other literatures, ancient, medieval, or non-Western, might entail.Publication Metadata only The other image at the palace gate and the visual propaganda of Leo III(Brill, 2012) N/A; Department of History; Magdalino, Paul; Faculty Member; Department of History; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; N/AN/APublication Metadata only The triumph of 1133(Routledge, 2016) N/A; Department of History; Magdalino, Paul; Faculty Member; Department of History; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; N/AN/APublication Metadata only Byzantine matters(Cambridge Univ Press, 2015) N/A; Department of History; Magdalino, Paul; Faculty Member; Department of History; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; N/AN/APublication Metadata only Basileia: the idea of monarchy in Byzantium, 600-1200(Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2017) N/A; Department of History; Magdalino, Paul; Faculty Member; Department of History; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; N/AThe middle Byzantine period (c. 600-1200) was the golden age of the Byzantine imperial monarchy. In this period the Empire of New Rome achieved its highest level of political cohesion and common identity as a state centered upon the emperor in Constantinople. The late antique emperors, of whom Constantine, Theodosius, and Justinian were emblematic, had wielded immense resources and built up a formidable ideology of absolute monarchical power, yet they ruled a vast, heterogeneous collection of culturally diverse and inward-looking communities. From the late twelfth century, and especially after the crusader capture of Constantinople in 1204, internal forces of disintegration and centrifugal drift prevailed under the impact of outside aggression. Regional separatism, aristocratic factionalism, class conflict, and religious schism undermined the unity and the credibility of the monarchical system. It was thus in the period between late antiquity and the later Middle Ages that this system came closest to perfection. From an ideological perspective, it was during the era of the clash of monotheisms, from Muhammad to the failure of the crusades, that the political ideology generated by monotheism in late antiquity came closest to the reality of a Christian Roman empire. What was distinctive about middle Byzantine ideas of the monarchical ideal? Perhaps the most striking feature of middle Byzantine political culture is the paucity of political theory: the dearth of treatises on government and of philosophical discussions about the ideal constitution and the function of the state. This might be regarded as a reflection of the relative perfection of the system: the merits of monarchy were too self-evident to need justification or provoke serious debate. A related point is that since, as we shall see, the Byzantine state was officially considered, from the seventh century, to be a theocracy, monarchical theory pertained essentially to divine kingship and therefore belonged to the realm of theology. It is not that Byzantines lacked an intellectual conception of political monarchy; on the contrary, the ideal of monarchy pervaded their collective imagination, dominated their cultural output, and was fundamental to their self-presentation. The distinctive feature of their political thought is that it was not solely or even primarily distilled into abstract statements, but embedded in the actions, contexts, and representations of the political performers