The Mynas Code and the VII. Constantine's Historical Extract Collection Cover Image
  • Price 7.00 €

A Mynas-kódex és VII. Konstantin történeti kivonatgyűjteménye
The Mynas Code and the VII. Constantine's Historical Extract Collection

Author(s): András Németh
Subject(s): Cultural history, 6th to 12th Centuries, Theory of Literature
Published by: Akadémiai Kiadó
Keywords: Constantine VII; Byzantine techniques of excerpting texts; Excerpta Constantiniana; poliorcetics; Corvinian Library; Mynas codex; Par. suppl. gr. 607; Tours; Bibliothèque municipale; C980;

Summary/Abstract: The Mynas codex, a composite manuscript from the mid-tenth century (Párizs, BnF, suppl. gr. 607) preserves a set of historical excerpts on the sieges of various towns from a range of Greek historians. My study explores the relationship of these excerpts with the „historical encyclopaedia” of Emperor Constantine VII (r. 945–959) which is known as the Excerpta Constantiniana (EC). The common view maintained by the scholars of Byzantium denies the close relationship between the two on the basis of the traditional means of textual transmissions. The presumptions on which the denial is based are refuted by the comparative analysis of the method of excerpting historical narratives in EC and in the Mynas codex, respectively, through examples from Prokopios and Arrian. The similarities between the two projects with regard to the methodology provide a more stable basis for assuming a strong relationship between them than the hypotheses do for denying it. The distinctive elements of the particular methodology include the observance of the continuous complete historical narratives in the sequence of the excerpts, the attempt to avoid summaries and major rephrasing as well as the omission of coherent sections that belong to the set of fifty-three imperial thematic subjects.

  • Issue Year: 55/2011
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 70-95
  • Page Count: 26
  • Language: Hungarian