In the field of History of Science, Byzantine scientific culture has often been overshadowed by the better-known Latin, Arabic, and Jewish traditions of pre-modern Europe. Typically credited for but reduced to preserving Greek antique and late antique sources, the Byzantine scientific tradition has also been frequently berated for a perceived lack of originality or innovation. This perception is slowly shifting as new publications explore Byzantine sciences from the perspective of the Byzantine actors and the ways in which they defined their practices and reflected on the knowledge corpora they engaged with. This roundtable aims to understand how sciences were discussed and taught in a Byzantine context writ large and how neighbouring scientific traditions engaged in mutual conversations with Byzantine scientific practices in the Middle East (in Syriac), the Caucasus (in Armenian), the Italian peninsula (in Latin) or the Balkans (in Slavonic or Greek). In doing so, the roundtable also seeks to propose new critical approaches to the study of the scientific cultures of Byzantium within the framework of current developments in the History of Science and a broader medieval global context. The themes addressed by the speakers include Byzantine classification(s) of sciences, texts and textbooks used for teaching and learning, as well as discussions of patterns of knowledge transfer and exchange between Byzantium and its neighbours.
The Synopsis of Natural Questions (Conspectus rerum naturalium) written by the physician and scholar Symeon Seth is a work of natural philosophy that, among other matters, addresses questions of astronomy, geography, and meteorology. Important sections of this text circulated in Slavonic translations in the late 15th and 16th centuries and were fused with other anonymous…
Modern Byzantine Studies has paid attention to two classifications of sciences in Byzantium: the distinction between thyrathen and ecclesiastical and the trivium/quadrivium. However, within Byzantine literary culture one can also find other classifications. The paper will explain why modern scholarship has been partial to some classifications over others and what changes regarding our understanding of…
This contribution examines patterns of knowledge organisation in a selection of late Byzantine multiple-text manuscripts (MTMs) that contain introductory cosmological and astronomical works. It addresses the central question of what constitutes a textbook for the teaching of the astral sciences in late Byzantium, and how such a textbook should be defined. My working hypothesis is…
Severus Sebokht of Nisibis was a Syriac Orthodox scholar and abbot of the School of Qenneshre (Northern Syria) in the mid-seventh century. He is well known for his involvement in philosophy and astronomy. From his astronomical writings, two treatises — On the Constellations and On the Astrolabe — and a correspondence addressed to Basil of…
Two previously unedited letters by Severus Sebokht, preserved in MS Paris, BnF, Syr. 346, document technical debates about astronomical methods for Easter computation. Written in 665 AD to Basil, a Syriac priest in Cyprus, these letters respond to disputes about calculating the Paschal full moon. Severus develops several aspects of the astronomical cycles underlying these…
Anania Širakac’i “the Mathematician”, a prominent scholar in early Medieval Armenia is best known for works on the calendar and for a 7th-century geographical treatise attributed to him. His works in Astronomy, of which only some have been edited, are hard to access, and are still awaiting to be given their place within a wider…