Botany
The Byzantines were particularly interested in plants,
mainly for their use in preparing drugs.The recording of herbs went back to antiquity:
Nicander of Colophon (2nd century BC) wrote two books on the subject, Theriaca and Alexipharmaca, while the first book of botany by Crateuas contained
an alphabetical list of plants and their properties, together with colour
drawings of their roots and foliage for recognition and identification purposes. Later, in Late Antiquity, Dioscorides (1st century AD)
recorded the therapeutic and pharmaceutical properties of Mediterranean plants
in his five-volume work De Materia Medica,
a book which served as a model for later medieval and modern illustrated books
of botany. The most famous copy, decorated with miniatures of plants drawn in Constantinople in
512, is kept in the National Library of Vienna.
In the 10th century, Emperor Constantine VII
commissioned the compilation of Geoponica
(Agricultural Pursuits), an
unoriginal work that simply brought together information and advice on
agriculture, such as vine cultivation and wine production, olive and fruit tree
cultivation, ornamental plants and vegetables, and the control of pests, vermin
and reptiles, etc. The Geoponica was
written in plain language, with many features of everyday speech, and includes
advice derived from folk medicine, superstition and magic. It is at this time that knowledge of plants appears to
have been systematized all over the known world: entire paragraphs of Geoponica were taken from Persian texts,
while several Greek works were translated into Arabic and Persian, and Byzantine
Greek and Arab names of plants and herbs were gathered in specialist lexicons.
Specialist books on healthy eating were also written
at this time, based on earlier medical works, with instructions as to which
foods should be consumed for good health according to the month of the year.
One such work was even dedicated to Emperor Michael VII Ducas - doctor and
astrologer Simeon Seth’s Properties of
Food, containing 228 plant and animal foods.
Late
Byzantium saw
the compilation of specialist botanical dictionaries, such as the lexicon by
Neophytos Prodrominos, a monk from Constantinople,
and an anthology by Demetrios Pepagomenos, a famed doctor in the capital, which
lists therapeutic plants in alphabetical order, one for each letter of the
alphabet. Poets and writers also dealt with plants and herbs in a humorous vein,
as can be seen in four humorous poems by Manuel Philes, entitled On Wheat Ears, On Grapes, On Rose and On Pomegranate, dedicated to no less a
person than the Emperor. The satirical work Porikologos
centres on a trial taking place in the kingdom of plants. Although it is
now impossible to see which actual people the author intended to lampoon, the
work’s moralizing aim as a denouncement of drunkenness remains clear.
Glossary (1)
Late Byzantine Period:
the period from 1204, when Constantinople was conquered by the Franks, until 1453, the fall of the city to the Ottomans.
Information Texts (1)
The city:
Constantinople, the capital city of the Byzantine
Empire, was built on the site of the ancient Greek colony of Byzantium, on the
triangular peninsula formed by the Golden Horn,
the Bosporus and the Sea
of Marmara. This was an excellent location that controlled trade
routes linking the Aegean to the Black Sea. Emperor Constantine founded Constantinople
in 330 AD as a city to rival Rome
in splendour, wealth and power. The city grew fast, leading to problems of
space and facilities, so Theodosius I extended it to the west by building new
strong walls that protected Constantinople
until the end of the Byzantine Empire.
The
city was laid out after Rome.
A main road, the Mese Odos, linked the palace to the Golden
Gate. On this road was the Forum, a circular plaza with a statue
of Constantine
mounted on a column, surrounded by public buildings. Theodosius I and Arcadius later
built more forums decorated with their own statues.
Following
the Nika riots in the 6th century, Justinian adorned Constantinople
with magnificent edifices, palaces, baths and public buildings. This time also
saw the construction of Agia Sophia (the Holy Wisdom), the church which served
as the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarchate throughout the Byzantine period.
During
the 7th and 8th centuries Constantinople faced
major problems that threw it into disarray: attacks by the Avars (a siege in
674) and Arabs (attacks in 674 and 717-718); natural disasters (a powerful,
destructive earthquake in 740); and epidemics (plague in 747). Limited building
activity resumed in the 8th and 9th century, mainly concentrated on
strengthening the city's fortifications.
With
the recovery of the Byzantine Empire from the
9th to the 11th century, Constantinople became
the most populated city in Christendom; the majority of inhabitants were
Greek-speaking, but many other ethnic groups lived alongside them, such as
Jews, Armenians, Russians, Italians merchants, Arabs and mercenaries from Western Europe and Scandinavia. Many public, private and church-owned buildings were erected at the time, with
an emphasis on establishing charitable institutions such as hospitals, nursing
homes, orphanages and schools. Higher education flourished, thanks to the care
of the state and the emergence of important scholars. This renaissance lasted
until the mid-11th century, when economic problems due to poor management set
in, compounded by the adverse outcome of imperial operations beyond the borders.
The
Crusaders left Constantinople entirely
unscathed when first passing through, but in the Fourth Crusade of 1204 the
Franks conquered and ransacked the city, slaughtering those inhabitants they
did not take prisoner or drive out. In 1261 the city was retaken by Michael
VIII Palaeologus, who rebuilt most of the monuments and the walls but proved
unable to restore the city to its former splendour and glory. Enfeebled as it
was, the empire was incapable of checking the advance of the Ottomans, and in
1453 Constantinople finally fell into their
hands.
The fall signalled the end of the empire. Nevertheless, the Byzantine intellectual
tradition remained significant, as many scholars settled in the Venetian dominions
of Crete and the Peloponnese,
as well as in European countries, conveying Greek learning to the West.
Bibliography (4)
1. Singer, H., The Herbal in Antiquity and its Transmission to Later Ages, 1927
2. Beck, H.-G., Ιστoρία της Βυζαντινής δημώδους λογοτεχνίας, Μορφωτικό Ίδρυμα Εθνικής Τράπεζας, Athens, 1988
3. Hunger H., Βυζαντινή λογοτεχνία. Η λόγια κοσμική γραμματεία των Βυζαντινών, Μορφωτικό Ίδρυμα Εθνικής Τράπεζας, 2000
4. Touwaide, A., The Development of Paleologan Renaissance. An Analysis Based on Dioscoride''s De Materia Medica
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