The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography: Volume II: Genres and Contexts

Description

For an entire millennium, Byzantine hagiography, inspired by the veneration of many saints, exhibited literary dynamism and a capacity to vary its basic forms. The subgenres into which it branched out after its remarkable start in the fourth century underwent alternating phases of development and decline that were intertwined with changes in the political, social and literary spheres. The selection of saintly heroes, an interest in depicting social landscapes, and the modulation of linguistic and stylistic registers captured the voice of homo byzantinus down to the end of the empire in the fifteenth century. The seventeen chapters in this companion form the sequel to those in volume I which dealt with the periods and regions of Byzantine hagiography, and complete the first comprehensive survey ever produced in this field. The book is the work of an international group of experts in the field and is addressed to both a broader public and the scholarly community of Byzantinists, medievalists, historians of religion and theorists of narrative. It highlights the literary dimension and the research potential of a representative number of texts, not only those appreciated by the Byzantines themselves but those which modern readers rank high due to their literary quality or historical relevance. Acknowledgements ix Note on Transliteration and Citation xi Abbreviations xiii Contributors xvii Maps xxi Introduction 1 Stephanos Efthymiadis Part I: Genres, VArieties and Forms 1 Byzantine Hagiography and its Literary Genres. Some Critical Observations 25 Martin Hinterberger 2 Greek Passions of the Martyrs in Byzantium 61 Marina Detoraki 3 Collections of Miracles (Fifth–Fifteenth Centuries) 103 Stephanos Efthymiadis 4 Collections of Edifying Stories 143 André Binggeli 5 Greek Byzantine Hagiography in Verse 161 Stephanos Efthymiadis 6 Symeon Metaphrastes and the Metaphrastic Movement 181 Christian Høgel 7 Synaxaria and the Synaxarion of Constantinople 197 Andrea Luzzi Part II: Hagiography as Literature 8 The Byzantine Hagiographer and his Text 211 Martin Hinterberger 9 Audience, Language and Patronage in Byzantine Hagiography 247 Stephanos Efthymiadis – Nikos Kalogeras 10 Byzantine Hagiography and Hymnography: An Interrelationship 285 Antonia Giannouli 11 Fiction and/or Novelisation in Byzantine Hagiography 313 Charis Messis 12 Holy Actors and Actresses Fools and Cross-Dressers as the Protagonists of Saints’ Lives 343 Stavroula Constantinou 13 The Literary Portrait of Byzantine Female Saints 363 Nathalie Delierneux Part III: Hagiography and Society 14 Economy and Society in Byzantine Hagiography: Realia and Methodological Questions 389 Michel Kaplan – Eleonora Kountoura-Galaki 15 The City in Byzantine Hagiography 419 Helen G. Saradi 16 The Hagiography of Doubt and Scepticism 453 Anthony Kaldellis General Index 479 Index of Greek Words 509 Manuscript Index 511