‘A Late Byzantine Book Inventory in Sofia, Dujčev gr. 253 (olim Kosinitsa 265) – a monastic or private Library?’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 115.3 (2022) 977-1029 (original) (raw)
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2023
We discuss the nature of the Byzantine libraries by examining their degree of accessibility as witnessed by the loan lists of the monasteries of Saint John Prodromos in Patmos and Saint Nicholas in Casole, and by the typikon of Boilas' foundation near Edessa. We also draw on the place occupied by books in some monasteries in Egypt (Shenute's White Monastery in Suhag) and in Byzantine territory, to conclude that their accessibility was non-existent. In the second part of this paper, we review the history and public nature of the Imperial Library of Constantinople: in Late Antiquity it occupied a facility near the Basilike Stoa (centrally located in the city), but later on was replaced by a 'palace library' accessible only to members of the imperial family and to palace officers.
The Libraries in the Byzantine Empire (330-1453)
2016
This paper has as objective presenting main types of libraries who existed during the Byzantine Empire. The five types of existent libraries – imperial, patriarchal, monastic, private and universitary, had a complex evolution during the history of Byzance. The beginning of those libraries is represented by the inauguration of the new imperial capital, by emperor Constantine the Great (306-337) in 330. The new imperial capital, Constantinople city, had several buildings which were inaugurated by Emperor Constantine including two libraries: the imperial one and the patriarchal one. Subsequently, have appeared over the centuries, and other libraries such as monastic, private or academic. Although there is no historical evidences proving the existence of a university library in the Byzantine Empire, however this it is not excluded. Over time all of these types of libraries have suffered changes and have experienced periods of flowering and decay, until their abolition final, once with...
This paper has as objective presenting main types of libraries who existed during the Byzantine Empire. The five types of existent libraries – imperial, patriarchal, monastic, private and universitary, had a complex evolution during the history of Byzance. The beginning of those libraries is represented by the inauguration of the new imperial capital, by emperor Constantine the Great (306-337) in 330. The new imperial capital, Constantinople city, had several buildings which were inaugurated by Emperor Constantine including two libraries: the imperial one and the patriarchal one. Subsequently, have appeared over the centuries, and other libraries such as monastic, private or academic. Although there is no historical evidences proving the existence of a university library in the Byzantine Empire, however this it is not excluded. Over time all of these types of libraries have suffered changes and have experienced periods of flowering and decay, until their abolition final, once with the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottomans in 1453. Since the study is not intended to be exhaustive I will deal this issue only from the historical point of view to make an overview of the Byzantine libraries and their role in the cultural evolution of Byzantium.An interesting thing is that the scientists and the byzantine scholars frequented the libraries in the Byzantine Empire, moreover some of them, such as Patriarch Photios the Great, had possessed impressive libraries, enviable even by the Byzantine emperors.
The sack of Constantinople following the Crusader conquest of the city in 1204 was so ruthless that what Michael VIII Palaiologos recaptured in 1261 was a virtual wasteland,1 its religious and secular foundations, among them libraries, dissolved and stripped of their treasures, which had either been destroyed or shipped to the West. 1 Imperial Library One of the ��rst concerns of the Byzantines once Constantinople had been retaken was to rebuild the ruined institutions and monasteries and restore higher education, which meant re-establishing and restocking the libraries with old manuscripts and new copies of classical texts.2 These e�forts were
2021
It presents some patterns of the transmission of Byzantine texts in their cultural context. It stresses the importance of material causes to explain the conservation or loss of texts, such as the use of a particular support or the conservation in a specific library; thus, e.g., the use of fragile Eastern paper undoubtedly explains the scarcity of manuscripts preserved from such a rich literary culture as that of the Komnenian period. It also analyzes the transmission of texts in miscellanies and the beneficial combination of ancient and Byzantine works; the role of the author and his circle, especially his disciples, in the conservation and transmission of his works; the center/periphery dialectic in an empire like Byzantium, where the learning and the literary canon promoted by the administration determined not only the texts that were most widely circulated but also those that were not. To sum up, the study of transmission offers a likely window into the values and goals of those who purchased, owned, read, and wrote books, and it can illuminate the multiple functions of books in Byzantium.
Scholars' libraries in Hungary in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
2011
Hungarian historians started to publish archival sources regarding library history and the history of reading in r87ó in Magyar Könyszemle, one of Europe's oldest journals of book history. The published archival sources were in particular book lists included in probate inventories from different periods, inventories ofconfiscated books and other property, records of confiscations, and bills regarding book purchases. fn the period between the nro World Wars, Béla Iványi devoted most of his scholarly actiüry to these types of sources, and his collected papers were published in a separate volume.' Considering the fact that the historians of the Annales School started to publish similar sources on a regular basis at exactly the same time, and that it was in r94r that Lucien Febvre announced that he intended to analyse probate inventories as a particular type of source,t one can be proud of the achievements of the Hungarian historians. In the nineteen-fifties, Zsigmond Jakó emphasised the importance of a unified historical approach to material culture,3 that is, an examination of all objects listed as assets in probate inventories, and not separately the books, paintings, jewels, clothes, and other personal effects. In the same article, Jakó underscored the fact that an adequate picnrre of the book culture of a given period cannot be achieved by studying the archival sources alone, since owners'marks and handwritten annotations in extant books (such as ex-Iibris, sapralibros, shelf marks, other numbers, etc.) can reveal important information. In fact, such evidence can help us reconstruct book collections, estimate the number of lost books, and reveal reading habits as well as particular circumstances under which reading has taken place. In the nineteen-sixties' Jakó supervised provenance studies carried out by his students in Kolozsvár (today: Cluj-Napoca) and in other ancient Transylvanian collections. The evidence gathered through these Vimral visis to lost libroic: recomtruction of md accs to dispcrsed collcctim (uoro) ornr rrlsrs xr (rcrr) CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk
Reading in the Byzantine Empire and Beyond
2018
Offering a comprehensive introduction to the history of books, readers and reading in the Byzantine Empire and its sphere of influence, this volume addresses a paradox. Advanced literacy was rare among imperial citizens, being restricted by gender and class. Yet the state's economic, religious and political institutions insisted on the fundamental importance of the written record. Starting from the materiality of codices, documents and inscriptions, the volume's contributors draw attention to the evidence for a range of interactions with texts. They examine the role of authors, compilers and scribes. They look at practices such as the close perusal of texts in order to produce excerpts, notes, commentaries and editions. But they also analyse the social implications of the constant intersection of writing with both image and speech. Showcasing current methodological approaches, this collection of essays aims to place a discussion of Byzantium within the mainstream of medieval textual studies.
ARCHIVES AND READERS: PRESERVATION AND CIRCULATION OF DOCUMENTS IN BYZANTINE MONASTIC ARCHIVES
Present article deals with the problems of Byzantine monastic archives and its readers. Namely, trough regarding methods of keeping, storing techniques, ways of copying and persons responsible for the archives, I find out the possible readers inside of monasteries, and examine their attitude toward the content of the records. While through analyzing the situations when the monastic documents were used outside of the foundations (during tribunals, border‑delineations etc.), I discover which laic authorities and individuals had access to records, and what was their ways of reading these texts.