Games of History

Games of History provides an understanding of how games as artefacts, textual and visual sources on games and gaming as a pastime or a “serious” activity can be used as sources for the study of history. From the vast world of games, the book’s focus is on board and card games, with reference to physical games, sports and digital games as well. Considering culture, society, politics and metaphysics, the author uses examples from various places around the world and from ancient times to the present to demonstrate how games and gaming can offer the historian an alternative, often very valuable and sometimes unique path to the past. The book offers a thorough discussion of conceptual and material approaches to games as sources, while also providing the reader with a theoretical starting point for further study within specific thematic chapters. The book concludes with three case studies of different types of games and how they can be considered as historical sources: the gladiatorial games, chess and the digital game Civilization. Offering an alternative approach to the study of history through its focus on games and gaming as historical sources, this is the ideal volume for students considering different types of sources and how they can be used for historical study, as well as students who study games as primary or secondary sources in their history projects

Games of History

Games of History provides an understanding of how games as artefacts, textual and visual sources on games and gaming as a pastime or a “serious” activity can be used as sources for the study of history. From the vast world of games, the book’s focus is on board and card games, with reference to physical games, sports and digital games as well. Considering culture, society, politics and metaphysics, the author uses examples from various places around the world and from ancient times to the present to demonstrate how games and gaming can offer the historian an alternative, often very valuable and sometimes unique path to the past. The book offers a thorough discussion of conceptual and material approaches to games as sources, while also providing the reader with a theoretical starting point for further study within specific thematic chapters. The book concludes with three case studies of different types of games and how they can be considered as historical sources: the gladiatorial games, chess and the digital game Civilization. Offering an alternative approach to the study of history through its focus on games and gaming as historical sources, this is the ideal volume for students considering different types of sources and how they can be used for historical study, as well as students who study games as primary or secondary sources in their history projects

Political approaches to Byzantine liturgical texts

Accepted version of a chapter in the book: Approaches to the text : from Pre-Gospel to Post-Baroque, edited by Roy Eriksen and Peter Young

Was innovation unwanted in Byzantium?

Offprint of a chapter published in the book: Wanted: Byzantium : the desire for a lost empire, edited by Ingela Nilsson and Paul Stephenson

Anekdota patriarchika eggrafa peri tou Leimoniakou Zetematos (1881-1888)

The Archives at Leimonos Monastery, Lesbos, Hellas, consist of some 2,500 documents. A part of the Archives, namely the Archives of Nicephoros Glykas, the Bishop of Methymna [1881–1896], that consist of 332 documents, is related to the so-called Leimoniakon issue. By Leimoniakon issue is meant a composite conflict between the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Diocese of Methymna on the one side, and the local authorities and the monks of Leimonos Monastery on the other. The main point of the Leimoniakon issue was the claim of the local authorities to use a part of the revenues of the rich Leimonos Monastery to build up a new school in the conterminous village (today: Kalloni) and to support the educational needs of the area. This conflict should be considered within the framework of the rise of the bourgeoisie in Lesbos in the second half of the 19th c. and its effort to share some of the authority that the Church was exercising over the Greek people. The whole problem influenced the social, educational, economic, political, and ecclesiastical life of the province for some twenty years and resulted in acts like the occupancy of the monastery by local people and the monks(!) and the excommunication of the protagonists by the Patriarchate of Constantinople. This paper presents the edition of thirty-seven patriarchal letters related to the Leimoniakon issue. The majority of them is addressed to the abbot and the brotherhood of the Leimon monastery, while some are sent to the bishop of Methymna Nikephoros Glykas and the local authorities. Most of these letters were hitherto unpublished. Their content demonstrates the efforts of the Patriarchate of Constantinople to find a solution to the problem, which arose because of the claims and movements of the local authorities

"To every innovation, anathema" (?) : some preliminary thoughts on the study of Byzantine innovation

Published version of a chapter in the book: Mysterion, strategike og kainotomia : et festskrift til ære for Jonny Holbek, redigert av Harald Knudsen (et al.). Also available from the publisher at: http://www.agderforskning.no/reports/mysterion.pdfA well established notion in Byzantine, and generally in medieval studies, is that Byzantium was a conservative civilization, highly resistant to innovation. This general idea has influenced our evaluation of innovation in Byzantium up to the present time. Even modern scholars have considered innovation as being either totally absent or at least as something the Byzantines were generally opposed to. This article makes a preliminary effort to reexamine this notion, by studying lexicographical and other textual sources, and questioning whether the evaluation of Byzantine innovation has been as thorough as it should be and whether it is based on a sound methodology.Published version of a chapter in the book: Mysterion, strategike og kainotomia : et festskrift til ære for Jonny Holbek, redigert av Harald Knudsen (et al.). Also available from the publisher at: http://www.agderforskning.no/reports/mysterion.pd

Hybrid Cultures in Medieval Europe

Kulturen sind keine monolithischen Blöcke. Sie sind hybrid, setzen sich also aus Elementen verschiedenster Herkunft zusammen und bringen aus ihnen Neues hervor. Das DFG-Schwerpunktprogramm "Integration und Desintegration der Kulturen im europäischen Mittelalter" hat sich zum Ziel gesetzt, die Geschichte Europas im Mittelalter vom permanenten Kontakt und Austausch her zu denken und die sich daraus ergebenden Prozesse kultureller Innovationen zu analysieren. Auf einer "International Spring School" im April 2008 präsentierte sich das Schwerpunktprogramm einer breiten wissenschaftlichen Öffentlichkeit. Der Band vereint die dort gehaltenen Vorträge und Workshops. Das Phänomen der Hybridität von Kulturen und die Differenzen der mittelalterlichen Welt zwischen Island und der Levante, zwischen Skandinavien und Nordafrika werden aus den Blickwinkeln verschiedener Disziplinen (Byzantinistik, Skandinavistik, Mediävistik, Germanistik, Kunstgeschichte, Orientalistik, Judaistik, Osteuropäische Geschichte) und Wissenschaftsnationen (Ungarn, Italien, Niederlande, Russland, Frankreich, Israel, Griechenland, USA, Island, Deutschland) beleuchtet

He sylloge cheirografon tes Mones Leimonos

Published version af an article published in the book: A. Spanos & A. Kalamatas (Eds.), Hiera Mone Leimonos : Historia, palaiografia, tekhne (pp. 35-55). Athena: Bartzoulianos.The manuscript Collection of the Leimonos monastery consists of more than five hundred manuscripts, dated or datable to the tenth through the twentieth century. The article presents the collection, the categories of the manuscripts and their dating. It focuses on: (a) the Byzantine manuscripts of the collection; (b) the so-called monastic codices, i.e. manuscripts used by the monastery to record or copy its most important documents and texts; (c) the calligraphic activity of the monks of the monastery; and (d) manuscripts that have been lost or stolen from the monastery

An annotated critical edition of an unpublished Byzantine Menaion for June: Codex Lesbiacus Leimonos 11

The present thesis is an annotated critical edition of an unpublished collection of hymnographical texts. The collection, some of the texts of which was in use in the Byzantine and (later) the Orthodox Church between the 9th and the 17th c., is preserved in the 11th-12th-century Greek Manuscript 11 of the Library of Leimonos Monastery, on the island of Lesvos, Greece. This important codex is a Menaion for June comprising thirty akolouthiai on saints celebrated by the Orthodox Church. Twenty of these texts are hitherto unpublished. The introduction examines codex Lesb. Leimonos 11 and its importance from a palaeographical, liturgical, and hymnographical perspective. It is divided into four chapters. Chapter 1 presents briefly the liturgical environment of the period from the 9th c., when most of the texts edited were composed, to the 11th-12th, when the production of the codex could be placed. It also discusses the liturgical books used in the period, the structure of the akolouthiai and the festal calendar of the Byzantine Church. Chapter 2 deals with the content of the texts edited. The content of each of the akolouthiai is presented along with some information on the saints celebrated, hagiographical and liturgical texts related with them, and the composition of the akolouthiai. Chapter 3 presents briefly the life and the hymnographical work of the authors of the texts edited below, namely Joseph the Hymnographer, George of Nicomedia, Theophanes Graptos and Clement. Chapter 4 is devoted to the manuscript tradition of the texts. It comprises an analytical palaeographical and codicological description of codex Lesb. Leimonos 11, followed by the description of a closely related manuscript, codex Hierosolymitanus Sabaiticus 70, and a brief description of all manuscripts transmitting the texts edited, and an examination of their relations. The chapter closes with a brief note on the principles and conventions adopted in the present edition. The Commentary discusses liturgical, palaeographical, and hymnographical aspects of the edition. The thesis closes with full Bibliography and Plates with facsimiles of selected folios of manuscripts cited. The edition of the texts (Volume II) is preceded by a list of abbreviations and signs and is accompanied by an apparatus criticus and an apparatus fontium. Unpublished hymns and stanzas preserved in manuscripts other than Lesb. Leimonos 11 are included in the Appendices following the Texts

Leimoniako Zetema : Episkopese vasei tou archiakou ylikou

The province of Methymna on the island of Lesvos underwent from 1866 until 1886 a multiple economical, social, educational and ecclesiastical turmoil, known as ≪The Leimoniakon Issue≫, as Leimonos Monastery was at its heart. The financial crisis of almost all the villages of the area at that time caused serious dysfunctions in the educational system and the notables of the villages appealed to the wealthy Leimonos Monastery for help, facing the negative reaction of the monks. But only a few years later, when the Patriarchate of Constantinople tried to use the property of the Monastery for its own needs, notables and monks united to form a coalition against the ecclesiastical authorities (the Patriarchate and the local Bishop). The occupation of the Monastery by them, political and social untoward incidents, excommunications and accusations for misusing of the monastery’s property, are some of the main elements of the mosaic. The paper presents an overview of the issue, having as its basis the relevant original documents, treasured today in the Archives of Leimonos Monastery and the Diocese of Methymna