The Excerpta Constantiniana and the Byzantine appropriation of the past / András Németh.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Németh, András, 1978- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, Emperor of the East, 905-959. Excerpta Constantiniana.

Constantine.

Historiography.

Byzantine Empire--Historiography.

Byzantine Empire.

Physical Description:

xiv, 338 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Summary:

"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."-- Publisher's website.

Contents:

Imperial Court and Knowledge Production

Appropriation of the Past : Theory And Practice Of Excerpting Historiography

Constructing a Research Engine of the Past

Information Management in Constantine VII's Treatises

Renewal of Historiography under Constantine VII

Distortion and Expansion of the Past in the Excerpta

Classification of the Past in the Excerpta

The Reading of the Excerpta

The Suda : The Lexicographer And The Excerptor

- Conclusions

Appendices. A: Edition of the Proem and the Poem ; B: The Imperial Manuscripts of the Excerpta.

Notes:

"This book has developed from a doctoral project that I concluded at the Central European University (CEU), Budapest, in 2010."--Acknowledgements, page xi.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 278-321) and indexes.

Other Format:

ebook version :

ISBN:

9781108423632

1108423639

OCLC:

1029062794