Abstracts

Dionysios Stathakopoulos (KCL)Acculturation, Transfer, Exchange: Contextualizing the transmission of knowledge inthe medieval LevantThis paper will offer an introduction to the topic of this workshop by surveying the history ofresearch on the transcultural transmission of knowledge in the Levant. Past models thatassumed a hegemonic culture imposing itself in colonialist fashion on others we are now movingto more inclusive and dynamic models that explore questions of hybridity and transmission in-interaction.

Mohamed Ouerfelli (Université d'Aix-Marseille)La circulation des savoirs techniques en Orient : l'exemple de la production du sucreLe transfert des techniques de production du sucre de l’Orient vers le monde méditerranéenreste un épisode peu étudié du fait du manque de documentation et du peu d’intérêt manifestépar les historiens, notamment des techniques. Or, l’Orient mé diterranéen a constitué un centrede diffusion des maîtres et des techniques sucrières. Les Égyptiens prétendent avoir enseigné auxautres peuples l’art de raffiner le sucre.  Cette communication examine les modalités de transfert et de circulation des techniques deproduction en Égypte, en Terre sainte, en Syrie et dans le royaume de Chypre. Le rôle desdéplacements des hommes occupe dans cette chaine de transmission une place de choix ; ceshommes, qui se déplacent d’une extrémité à l’autre de la Méditerra née, véhiculent un savoir faire,qui s’enrichit à travers les siècles. Ils sont les vecteurs de la circulation des techniques industrielles.

Carmen Caballero-Navas (University of Granada)The impact of the Arabic and Christian medical traditions in the formation of theHebrew corpus of medicine. (Sefer ha-yosher: A major source)

The Greek-to-Arabic translation movement that got under way in the East around the mid-eighth century, which inaugurated an enriching process of transmitting and appropriating Greekscience and philosophy in a multicultural context, had a considerable impact on Jewish culture.However, Jews, who had been quick to adopt the Arabic language and cultural model, did notplay an important role in this enterprise of translation, although some did collaborate in thediffusion, re-elaboration, and adaptation of Greek philosophy and science. Besides, thewidespread use of Arabic makes it difficult to ascertain the texts and authors most appreciatedby the Jews and to identify the books they owned or used.

This state of affairs changed during the second half of the twelfth century, when medical andscientific texts began to be written in Hebrew, in the Christian lands of the westernMediterranean. This turning point occurred as part of the encounter between two distinctJewish cultures, when Jews from al-Andalus, who had moved to the northern Iberian Peninsulaand the south of France, where the Jewish cultural language was Hebrew, transmitted to theirco-religionists the wealth of Greco-Arabic knowledge of which they had been previouslyunaware.

Following this pattern, the Hebrew medical corpus was built predominantly on translations, bothfrom Arabic and from Latin, although many of the latter were also made from Arabic. Growingover the following three centuries, this translation enterprise seems to have offered an adequateresponse to the needs of both Jewish students of medicine and practicing physicians, andbecome a significant source of knowledge transfer.

 

Although the volume of original work was much smaller than that of translations, originalmedical texts also were written. Sefer ha-Yosher is a comprehensive Hebrew encyclopaedia ofcontemporary medical knowledge written in Provence, some time around the last decades of thethirteenth century, by an unknown but highly educated medical author who apparently alsobenefited from abundant clinical experience. He seems very familiar with the medical learningcirculating in his milieu, as the book draws from numerous sources translated into Hebrew fromLatin as well as from Arabic. He also shared some of his contemporaries’ concerns regardingmedical practice, and expressed in his work his opinions on cross-religious medical interactions.These and other related features render this encyclopaedia a particularly appropriate means toexplore the role of medical texts as channels that led to the formation of a Jewish scientificculture by accommodating scientific and philosophical ideas produced by others.

This paper discusses the role of Hebrew medicine in knowledge transfer by analyzing the sourcesof Sefer ha-yosher , and its author’s stance regarding practice across -religious lines.

Petros Bouras-Vallianatos (KCL)Oriental influences in Nicholas Myrepsos’ DynameronNicholas Myrepsos is considered to be the author of the Dynameron , the first Byzantinepharmacological work sensu stricto , which is still unedited and only accessible in a Latin editionby Leonhart Fuchs from 1549 (Basel). Nicholas is traditionally identified with the Nicholas, whowas chief physician at the court of John III Doukas Vatatzes (1222 –  1254) in 1241(Akropolites, Annales, 63.13-15). However, this identification is not confirmed by any cross-reference to the Dynameron, in which the identity of the author remains somewhat unclear. Thework consists of 2,656 recipes, arranged alphabetically in 24 classes according to the variouspharmaceutical forms and seems to have been composed at the end of the thirteenth century.The author draws lots of recipes from contemporary Latin antidotaria   such as the twelfth-century Salernitan Antidotarius Magnus seu Universalis and the less extensive, early thirteenth-century Antidotarium Nicolai , but also from texts of clearly Greek origin such as Paul of Aegina(seventh century) and Metrodora (seventh century?). However, we can trace a large number oforiental influences either in the form of ingredients or pharmaceutical dosage forms. In my paper,I would like to explore Nicholas’ oriental sources by comparing and contrasting contemporarytexts produced by Byzantine medical authors, but also Greek and Latin translations of Arabicmedical works by using the earliest surviving manuscript, codex Parisinus gr. 2243, dated to1339. Such an exploration should highlight connections between the various texts andcontribute to the wider debate of knowledge transmission in the field of late Byzantinepharmacology. On another level, it could help us to understand the development of orientaltechniques for preparing various pharmaceutical dosage forms such as distillation, as well aspatterns of contemporary trade and commerce. Finally, it will contribute to the precise dating ofthe work and the identification of the Greek compiler.

Rustam Shukurov (Moscow University)Foreign Languages in Late Byzantium: an Instrument of Knowledge?

In the Byzantine model of identity of the  Ῥωμαῖο and other nations and tribes, the language

criterion played almost no role. Even in the Greek models of self-identity, the linguistic criterionwas of a secondary character. Although the feeling of a certain connection between Greekidentity and the Greek language survived through the ages, however, the issue of language wasconstantly glossed over having become a part (not always expressed explicitly) of broader

concepts such as δάνοα  (‘mindset’), ἔος  / ἔ  (‘habit’ and consequently ‘way of life’,

‘mindset’ or rather what we now call ‘culture’) and the like.

 

Due to the secondary role of language in identity patterns, the Byzantines were not concernedwith the problem of learning foreign languages. Byzantine intellectualism never problematizedthe idea of foreign language as a cognitive tool. The learning of foreign languages and their usein the Byzantine space was unsystematic, random and purely utilitarian. One of the remarkablemanifestations of this indifference to foreign languages is the fact that there, in Byzantium, didnot exist any tradition of bilingual and multilingual dictionaries (with the exception of Greek-Latinlexicons), which were so widespread in the Muslim Orient, Slavic World and Western Europe.Most translators in Byzantine cultural space were bilingual either foreign immigrants orrepatriated Greeks; we know only few native Byzantines who by this or that reason acquired theknowledge of a foreign language and used it in literary activity.The noted indifference to foreign languages corresponds to the generic self-sufficiency ofByzantine culture and its clear disinterest in obtaining information from foreign sources.

Julius Morche (KCL)“The Political Dimensions of Venetian Merchant Networks” This paper investigates the role of Venetian mercantile correspondence as a medium of politicalcommunication. Through a textual analysis of the commercial letters of a Venetian familycoalition that comprised – by means of consanguineous and marital bonds – members of theDolfin, Bragadin and Morosini families, it is shown that correspondence between Venetian eliteswritten in different locations of the Venetian trading post empire in the early fifteenth centuryalready featured an avviso -like structure that frequently contained political news in addition topersonal and business information. The paper further highlights the significance of the patricianfamily as a long-term business arrangement and thus as a principal pillar of politicalcommunication networks: large-scale political developments and events were frequentlyreported in patrician letters, thus providing valuable insights into the perception of macro-politicaldevelopments from a micro-historical perspective. The sources also bear testament to thesignificance of elite communication in the political process with respect to the distribution ofpolitical offices and the maintenance of political institutions.

Christine Gadrat-OuerfelliContacts et circulation des textes en Orient autour de la cinquième croisade

À l’époque de la cinquième croisade, on assiste à un foisonnement de nouveaux textes relatifs àl’Orient. L’apparition de la lettre du Prêtre Jean, qui est antérieure (elle est datée d’environ 1165),peut-être considérée comme l’origine de ce mouvement. Mais on assiste à une multiplication denouvelles informations dans les années 1210-1230, dans le contexte de la préparation, puis dudéroulement de la cinquième croisade. Le point commun qui unit ces textes est leur origineorientale ; certains ont vraisemblablement été composés dans les milieux chrétiens orientauxavant d’être transmis aux Francs de Terre sainte ou aux croisés, comme la Relatio de Davide .D’autres sont des lettres, comme celles de Jacques de Vitry, qui se fait l’écho des rumeurscirculant alors en Orient, ou d’autres lettres moins connues et moins bien identifiées mentionnantles débuts de l’arrivée des Mongols. On peut rattacher au même contexte et à la mêmeproblématique un texte en grande partie inédit, que j’intitule provisoirement « Lettre dupatriarche de Jérusalem à Innocent III », qui contient une description des possessions des princesayyoubides à la veille de la cinquième croisade. Les années qui encadrent la cinquième croisade etles débuts des conquêtes mongoles constituent un moment d’émergence d’une certaine curiositépour l’Orient, qui se marque par l’apparition de nouveaux textes et leur rapide diffusion enOccident.

 

Ioanna Rapti (KCL)Short sight or strange script? Visual impact of changes in transmissionThe portraits of the evangelists are the commonest and most numerous category of images ofauthors we have from the Middle Ages. Despite their standardized depictions they are known toreflect realities of the scribal material culture in the depiction of utensils and furnishing.Sometimes, evangelists are depicted with a scroll displaying an illegible script - possibly evokingthe Hebrew language and thus corroborating the historicity of the translation of the Gospels.This pseudo-oriental script, quite rare in Middle Byzantine manuscripts, is sometimes replaced by– more or less correct - Latin in the books found on the evangelist’s lectern. The depiction ofthis foreign or strange script may also be associated with a seemingly painful posture that maybe due to the tiredness of the eyes or even shortsightedness. These images may echo thecognitive difficulty of shifting between languages and scripts as well as a new interest in opticsand eye diseases.