Chitwood, Zachary
Ambassadors, Artists, Theologians: Byzantine Relations with the Near East from the Ninth to the Thirteenth Centuries
The contributors in the edited volume »Ambassadors, Artists, Theologians: Byzantine Relations with the Near East from the Ninth to the Thirteenth Centuries« examine the complex dynamics which arose between the Byzantine Empire and the Near East. Moving beyond the tradition of histoire événementielle, the contributions collected here highlight the passing of artistic practices, ideas and interlocutors between Byzantium and the Islamicate world. In this way, this volume seeks to nuance and contextualize our understanding of the relationship between these two medieval cultural spheres.
Byzanz und seine europäischen Nachbarn: Politische Interdependenzen und kulturelle Missverständnisse
On the one hand cultural misunderstandings represent a prerequisite for intercultural communications, on the other hand they can also be understood as a method or result of interculturalism and transcultural relationships. In this process there are unthinking as well as provoked and politically manipulated misunderstandings, or rather alleged misunderstandings, which disguise real political or church political conflicts of interest. In addition, there are misunderstandings in research which sometimes states a misunderstanding too quickly, where logic and context are not immediately evident. Such misunderstandings dictated the political-cultural pattern of relationships among the Byzantine Empire, the Latinised West and Slavic world, who all regarded themselves as parts of ecumenical Christianity and who stood in close political and cultural contact over many centuries. In the present book proponents of history, Byzantine studies, art history and theology apply themselves to the analysis of this phenomenon.
Menschen, Bilder, Sprache, Dinge: Wege der Kommunikation zwischen Byzanz und dem Westen 2: Menschen und Worte
In 2018, the Roman-Germanic Central Museum Mainz presents in cooperation with the Schallaburg, the splendid Renaissance castle near Melk (Lower Austria), the exhibition »Byzantium & the West: 1000 forgotten years «.
Both Byzantium and the European West spring from the Roman Empire, but as early as Late Antiquity experience different developments. While the Roman Empire continued to exist in the East and passed seamlessly into the Byzantine Empire of the Middle Ages, pagan took its place in the West: the kingdoms of the Goths, Vandals, Anglo-Saxons, Lombards and Franks. Although Byzantium was respected or accepted as a major power by the other European entities for at least 800 years, territorial conflicts, disputes, and cultural differences quickly emerged. In addition, communication became increasingly difficult - in the "orthodox" East, Greek was the common language, while in the "Catholic" West, Latin was the lingua franca. Differences in liturgy and questions of belief intensified the disparities or were even (religio-) politically underlined to emphasize dissimilarity. But one still continued to admire "wealthy Constantinople" and the Byzantine treasures - among them the magnificent silks, ivory reliefs, technical marvels, plentiful relics and magnificent buildings.
The change came in 1204 with the conquest and plunder of Constantinople by the Crusaders. For the already weakened Byzantine Empire, this catastrophe meant a completely new situation as an empire in exile, whose emperor and patriarch had to flee to Asia Minor. Across much of the former European Byzantine Empire, crusader states spread; Venice and Genoa, which had previously been strongly present as trade powers under special treaties, became major determinants of the western powers in the East.
On the occasion of this exhibition, two accompanying volumes with a total of 41 contributions concerning the varied and changing relationships between the Latin West and the Byzantine Empire are being published. The volumes are structured according to the media of communication: people, images, language and things. They collect contributions from renowned scientists with archaeological, art historical, philological and historical priorities. Several overviews and detailed studies are drawn from research projects of the Leibniz- ScienceCampus Mainz: Byzantium between Orient and Occident, as well as the focus on Byzantine and medieval research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.
