This article examines the advantages and difficulties that might be encountered by a researcher who, in the initial phase of his work on a translated text, turns to the Index of Slavonic Translated Literature of the noted Belgian paleoslavist Francis Thomson. The homily In tranfigurationem Domini by Proclus of Constantinople (BHG 1980, CPG 5807) is chosen as an example. A comparison of the data from the 9 cards for this homily with current scholarship shows that their information generally represents a very good starting point. Sometimes the identification of manuscripts that are cited without a repository or signature, and of abbreviated titles of secondary literature, creates difficulties for the user. After a review of the now partly outdated information in the cards concerning the classification of Slavonic translations and the relationship between them, it is pointed out that it would be good to correct them. And this would be possible only with the participation of the broad scholarly community by using the methodology and the model that the team of the project “The Slavonic Metaphrasis of Byzantine Orthodoxy” should propose.
The present paper addresses the problem of telling independent translations from later retranslations. Though telling these apart forms part and parcel of the practice of Paleoslavic text research, up to this date no effort has been made to formulate a generally applicable methodology of going about this task. Sound intuition and personal reading experience are still the standard to go by. In this paper an outline is provided of what such a methodology could look like, suggesting and discussing a set of basic criteria for distinguishing what we term parallel against retranslations. This will be done based on the Slavonic Life of Eupraxia, for which alternate renderings pointing to starkly different text versions have been registered. This paper will take the cards on Eupraxia from Francis Thomson’s cartotheca as a point of departure and start with a discussion of the translations identified on his EUPRAXIA cards.
This thematic section contains a selection of the papers that were presented at the Workshop on Byzantino-Slavonic Hagiography in Francis J. Thomson’s Card Index hosted by the KU Leuven department of Greek Studies on December 11, 2024. The workshop was organised in the framework of two ongoing research projects, a Cologne/Leuven collaborative project on The Bible in Middle Byzantine Hagiography and an Innsbruck/Leuven collaborative project on The Slavonic Metaphrasis of Byzantine Orthodoxy. In the weeks leading up to the workshop, the organisers shared with the participants a preview of the digital publication of the Hagiography section in the Thomson Index of Slavonic Translation Literature (ThISTL), on which they provided feedback in their papers and during the discussions. With this introductory paper we aim to present ThISTL and the organizational context in which current research on Byzantine hagiography and its Slavonic translation is carried out.
This study examines Michael Psellos’ Funeral Oration for the Most Blessed Patriarch Kyr Michael Keroularios, delivered in 1060, one year after Keroularios’ death. The oration, structured according to Menander Rhetor’s encomiastic guidelines, presents Keroularios’ life, virtues, and political career, portraying him as a martyr through rhetorical and ideological constructs. By glorifying Keroularios, the speech rehabilitates him and stands in contrast to Psellos’ Indictment against Keroularios, produced just a year earlier, demonstrating the performative and political nature of east Roman funeral oratory. The Funeral Oration was delivered at the patriarch’s foundation, the church of the archangel Michael west of Constantinople, in the presence of the emperor Constantine X Doukas, his wife and Keroularios’ niece Eudokia Makrembolitissa, Keroularios’ nephews, the new patriarch Constantine Leichoudes, and high-ranking clergy. The speech constructs Keroularios as a bloodless martyr, likening him to biblical figures and the Church Fathers. By analyzing Psellos’ engagement with biblical and patristic sources, this study reveals how the oration functioned as both a political statement and an attempt at posthumous rehabilitation. The parallels between Psellos’ oration and Gregory of Nazianzos’ Funeral Oration for Basil of Caesarea suggest that Psellos’ speech sought to elevate Keroularios’ status, possibly even as a step toward canonization. Ultimately, this study positions Psellos’ Funeral Oration as a key example of a politically engaged ceremonial oratory, demonstrating how funeral orations were used not only to eulogize but also to shape political and religious narratives in the eleventh-century east Rome.
This article presents an analysis of the handwritten card index of the late professor Francis J. Thomson (1935–2021), which is currently being digitised within the framework of the ‘Professor Francis J. Thomson Legacy Project’. This analysis is based on four case studies from the hagiography section of the card index, viz. saint Thecla, Catherine of Alexandria, Euthymius the Great and the sister saints Menodora, Metrodora and Nymphodora, including index cards from the authors’ section with a certain connection to these case studies. I analyse the presented literature review through both general observations of the different case studies and an in-depth analysis of the index cards concerning saint Thecla, in order to establish methodological patterns within the structure of the cartotheca. Although one should always be cautious and critical in using any scholarly resource, the exhaustive character of the cartotheca can only be admired, which is why I strongly encourage scholars from various disciplines and fields to apply the index cards to their future research.
This article examines the narratological concept of focalization as a structuring principle of characterization in Late Antique liturgical poetry. Using Romanos the Melodist’s (ca. 485–560 CE) kontakion On the Annunciation I as a case study, it argues that Romanos’ exegetical storytelling is driven not only by imagined speech, but by the interplay of diverging character perspectives. While previous scholarship has fruitfully explored the gendered dynamics of Romanos’ dialogical style – particularly Mary’s rhetorical agency – such analyses often treat characterization as static and isolate speech from broader narrative functions. By foregrounding focalization – the mediation of narrative information through the perceptions of characters – this study demonstrates how Romanos constructs dynamic character arcs. Over the course of “On the Annunciation I,” Mary’s characterization evolves from that of a reserved maiden to an articulate theological interlocutor, shaped by her internal deliberations and her shifting perception of Gabriel’s authority. Gabriel, in turn, is portrayed as uncertain and unprepared, grappling with the paradox of Mary’s multifaceted identity as both virgin and Theotokos. These conflicting characterizations, generated through divergent focalizations, do not merely enrich the characters; they constitute the theological core of Romanos’ retelling, allowing the kontakion to function as a dramatic, exegetical engagement with Scripture. In this context, focalization emerges as a powerful tool through which Romanos models interpretive inquiry for his audience – making characterization an act of theological reflection as much as literary construction.
Character construction is not usually considered for non-fictional characters, and surprisingly seldom in drama as distinct from mediated narrative. An analysis, based on the method of De Temmerman and van Emde Boas (who characterises and how), of the treatment of the Gospel accounts of the first Easter Sunday in the third (Resurrection) play of the Christos Paschon and in Romanos’s Resurrection reveals the dominance of female characters in both texts: the women of Galilee and Mary Magdalen in both and additionally the Theotokos in the Paschon. In Romanos they are contrasted with the timorous and unbelieving male disciples; in the Paschon with the venal conspiracy of Pilate, priests and guard. In neither text is characterisation constrained by scripture or by a fixed transtextual tradition. Gospel harmony is achieved by very different means and the characters are constructed differently in the two texts. Mimesis (Paschon) as well as diegesis (Romanos) provides access to the inner worlds of the characters, and it is clear that character construction should be considered however fictional or non-fictional a text may be.
Niketas Eugenianos’ Drosilla & Charikles is one of the four Komnenian novels produced in twelfth-century Constantinople. In this erotic fictional narrative following the traditional novelistic plot, the two lovers get separated once and again by Fate before finally managing to reunite. The female protagonist, Drosilla, is pursued by a series of suitors who explicitly compare her to nature and to diverse characters from the mythological and literary tradition. Drosilla has little to no agency, no say over her own destiny. Nonetheless, she is aware of the literary tradition to which her story is ascribed and of the expectations put on her. Just as male characters compare her to other women, she also defines herself in relation to them. Existing scholarship has already identified the literary models used by Eugenianos for the composition of this novel, and recent ecocritical studies have tackled some aspects of female characterization in medieval Greek novels, but Drosilla & Charikles has so far received only partial attention in this regard. The author of the present article explores Drosilla as a character analysing the hypotexts and natural elements used by male characters for her portrayal, which reveal the contemporary perception of femininity.
The academic vocabulary used to describe the Iconoclastic Controversy in Byzantium includes both authentic Middle Greek lexemes and artificial terms coined in 16th–17th century Western Europe, developed in the context of Reformation theological debates. The former category is largely represented by terms referring to the so-called Iconoclasts (εἰκονομάχοι, εἰκονοκλάσται, εἰκονοκαῦ[σ]ται), while the latter includes designations for their opponents (iconophiles, iconodules). Authentic Byzantine terms for the supporters of icon veneration (εἰκονολάτραι, εἰκονοσεβάσται) are attested only rarely and are notably underrepresented in the surviving corpus. This imbalance can be attributed to their origin as pejorative labels coined by opponents – terms that the participants of the conflict avoided using to describe themselves, preferring instead the designation “Orthodox.” This avoidance applied to both sides of the conflict, but after Orthodoxy was redefined in 843 as icon veneration, the vocabulary of the victors became normative, while the idiom of their adversaries was erased from collective memory. Although the original iconoclastic vocabulary remained unfamiliar to most historians of the controversy, some of its elements were reappropriated by hagiographers seeking to enhance the psychological realism of the antagonists through speech characterization. A hypothesis is advanced that the reconstructed idiom of the Iconoclasts, as presented by these later writers, owes more to their literary imagination than to archival research.
This contribution presents ongoing research on the Life of Saint Blasios of Amorion (BHG 278), a “new-saint” vita produced at the early tenth-century monastery of Studios and most probably translated into Slavonic in that same century. A critical Greek-Slavonic edition of the Life is currently being prepared by the authors, who address the vita’s place within Middle Byzantine hagiographical literature, the available manuscript evidence, and the historical and literary contexts of its composition, translation and revision in both the Greek and Slavonic traditions. We could rely on the hagiography section of Francis Thomson’s card index – in its digital form the Thomson Index of Slavonic Translation Literature, or ThISTL – as a valuable point of departure for the exploration of the Slavonic tradition. An edition sample of chapter 2 of the Life is appended as an illustration of the ongoing text-critical and editorial work. The article concludes with observations on the text’s development, pointing to (1) the probable existence of an earlier, now lost Greek Vita A that served as a basis for the extant Slavonic translation, and (2) traces of a programmatic abridgement in the Slavonic version, apparently aimed at the removal of Constantinopolitan and Studite elements from the text. Directions for future research include further comparative analysis that also takes into account related texts, such as the Life of Nicholas the Studite (BHG 1365), as the only way forward to arrive at an understanding of the complex and layered textual history of Saint Blasios’ Vita.
This article examines the Slavonic translations of hagiographic texts about two saints venerated in the medieval Balkans. Its aim is to compare the information in the renowned Card Index of Slavonic Translated Literature, compiled by Prof. Francis J. Thomson, with current scholarly research and to supplement it with additional data where possible. The main focus is placed on two Slavonic texts ‒ translated in different periods and within distinct literary centres ‒ whose Greek originals have not yet been identified: the Martyrdom of St. Marina of Antioch attributed to Timotheos, and the Life of the St. Empress Theophano by Nicholas the Deacon.
This study explores the possibility that tenth-century multi-ethnic warrior groups exchanged stories (or story elements) with one another during joint campaigns. This claim is examined through the intersection of oral tradition and written history in the legend of Botond, a fictional tenth-century Magyar hero famed for his raid on Byzantium. Preserved in varied forms in late medieval Hungarian chronicles, the story’s historical reliability has long been contested. Yet key narrative elements – such as a wrestling duel and the symbolic act of striking the gates of Constantinople – have close analogues in the Russian Primary Chronicle. While some similarities likely reflect common literary tropes of medieval historiography, others may preserve authentic memories of tenth-century events. The core narrative of the legend exhibits strong parallels with tenth-century Byzantine sources, suggesting a plausible historical core rooted in real events of the period. Parallels with the cultural practices of the Rus’, Bulgars, and Pechenegs – peoples closely linked to the Magyars and to one another – underscore a shared heroic tradition in which wrestling and symbolic acts of aggression played key roles. These groups, often allied against Byzantium, likely exchanged stories within their multi-ethnic war camps, perhaps around the campfire. Oral narratives then circulated and evolved widely before entering the written traditions of the late Middle Ages.
