Things are not always clear. As Byzantinists, we must frequently face up to uncertainty: to that produced by the often incomplete nature of the evidence we work with, but also to the ambivalences inherent in texts, artworks, and other objects. Deliberate ambiguity was a recognized tool in the Byzantine writer’s arsenal. Drawing on Ioannes Tzetzes’ description of amphoteroglossia (‘double-tonguedness’, ‘ambivalence’), Panagiotis Roilos’ 2006 monograph explores how this rhetorical device enables a writer to convey multiple, even contradictory, meanings within a single word or expression. Lara Frentrop, in a 2019 article, extends this concept to the visual arts, arguing that Middle Byzantine individuals were attuned to ambiguity in the production and interpretation of artworks. Youval Rotman (2016) examines ambiguity not as a stylistic device but as a social force, showing how the ambivalent figure of the holy fool reshaped cultural attitudes in Early Byzantium. Building on this growing body of scholarship, we aim to explore the various facets of ambiguity and ambivalence in Byzantium, considering both intentional ambiguities, those that form part of an authorial or artistic strategy, and ambiguities in reception, the multiple readings that texts, images, and manuscripts may elicit from both their contemporary audience and modern scholars. The contributions will be structured along three axes: (1) Textual ambiguity and its subversive potential, focusing on how speech and writing could be used to critique, to circumvent censorship, and to undermine social norms and historical figures—including the emperor(s)—through irony or double entendre. (2) Ambiguity in the codicological space: the formation of collections of texts, the co-existence of contradictory materials, and the reception of such collections. (3) Ambiguity in visual and material culture, analyzing how Byzantine artworks and objects were deliberately designed to hold—or were retrospectively perceived as sustaining – multiple, coexisting layers of interpretation across religious, political, and symbolic registers.
The island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea, now part of Sweden, features a series of pictorial decorations that are described in scholarship as being “Byzantine” in nature. These are the wall paintings in the Garde and Källunge churches and the painted wooden fragments that belonged to the lost stave churches in Eke, Sundre, and…
In his opening monologue, the hero of the novel, Dosikles, declares his fitness to endure the trials of captivity ἀνὴρ γάρ εἰμι καὶ μάχαις συνετράφην / καὶ μυρίος ἤλθησα πολλάκις μόθους (1.116-117) but worries for his beloved Rhodanthe as a γυνὴ θαλάμῳ καὶ τρυφαῖς εἰσθισμένη / σὰρξ ἁπαλή, πρόχειρος εἰς πᾶσαν νόσον (1.119-120). Invoking military…
In the Byzantine world, ambiguity was a recognised feature of learned discourse. Heirs to a long rhetorical and philosophical tradition, Byzantine authors often employed expressions with double meanings and formulations that allowed for the coexistence of multiple, even contradictory, interpretations. Although these techniques have been examined in recent years within the field of Byzantine literature,…
Between the eighth and eleventh centuries, the Duchy of Amalfi occupied an ambiguous position between Byzantium and Latin Christendom. Once politically attached to Constantinople yet entangled in Papal, Lombard, and Arab networks, Amalfi exemplified the coexistence of multiple, and sometimes contradictory, identities. This paper explores the ways in which Amalfitans cultivated a double-tongued rhetoric that…
Legal canonical traditions generally emerge from the most stable institutions of the Church. Synodal decisions delineate the boundaries of orthodoxy, determining what lies within or outside a particular creed and shaping the Church’s direction. In the history of Eastern Christianities, many pivotal moments were defined by such synods and councils. Syriac legal literature, however, also…