Is Byzantine just bureaucracy? “Glory of the Greeks” – fresh book by Andegavenum

I hope that the dear Readers will not be offended erstwhile I admit that I read Harry Potter books as a child. As a “child of the 1990s,” I became acquainted with the first Polish editions of books in this series. Strangely, these books reminded me erstwhile I read the work Grecian Glory: Byzantine cultural contribution to the improvement of Romanesque Europe (from X to the beginning of the 13th century) by French historian Sylvain Gouguenheim...

Reading about the large Logotes or Grzegorz Pakourianos holding the position Megas Domestikos Western military troops of the Byzantine Empire I had in head thoughts of muggles or Auroras from the planet invented by J. K. Rowling.

I'm not the only 1 who felt charmed by Greece and its originality. In the mediate Ages there were authors who made the planet center from Greece. Gouguenheim stated that respective maps dating back to the 12th century clearly show “greko-centrism”. This is not about the "greko-centrism" of Byzantine emperors and officials, but representatives of Western Europe. Gwidon of Pisa placed Achaia in the center of the world, more specifically Peloponnese. In turn, the map of the planet from the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries, which was attributed to Henry of Mainz, presents Cyclades as the center of the world. From this kind of trivia it's full of Grecian Praises.

It is fair to admit that for this reason the book seems to be directed, above all, to experts in the field of history, art past or cultural studies. For people who like to delve into the nuances of medieval culture Glory to the Greeks may be a rarity. due to its detail, this book besides reminded me of childhood and episodes of the show. Great Gamewhere participants prepared to play by reading a number of very detailed, specialized books, and were later judged by a group of scientists.

The author himself – Sylvain Gougenheim has caused considerable controversy among experts in the fields mentioned (mainly historians). Gougenheim, who is known in Poland mainly due to being a specialist on the past of the Teutonic Order, in his earlier work Aristotle on Mount St. Michael he attacked the lost academic opinion of the extremist dependence of medieval European thought on arabian thought. W Grecian Praises he returned to that subject for which he was criticized. He returned without a polemic aspect, but full demonstrating the richness of direct cultural and intellectual transmission from Biznacjum to medieval Latin Europe.

It is impossible to note that the book besides contains another information in the field of philosophy, which may surprise even a professional philosopher (which in itself is not so amazing considering how low the level of education is represented by Polish universities). I personally, as a very interesting thing, receive the news that Gouguenheim presented about the old Christian writer, Tertullian. Well, the celebrated sentences of Tertullian "I believe due to the fact that it is absurd" and "What do Athens and Jerusalem have in common, the Academy and the Church, heretics and Christians?", according to Sylvain Gouguenheim, cannot be interpreted outside the context in which they were spoken. The message of belief as absurd was made during a polemic with Marcyon's position, which was a well-known heretic from before the Milanese Edict. In turn, the words about Jerusalem and Athens should not be understood literally. In this conviction 1 should announcement a stylistic trend, a taste for rhetorical antithesis. In addition to what may be even more important, this conviction is the conclusion of a longer passage in which Tertullian sought to show not so much the uselessness of doctrine as its inferiority toward Revelation.

In addition, in the philosophical part Glory to the Greeks The emphasis is besides drawn to the fact that any early Christian apologists referred to themselves as philosophers, while the usage of the name doctrine for Christianity became so common that under this concept, in time, the monastic life was understood as the most perfect form of Christian life.

I will not compose here about akin subtleties, but concerning not philosophy, but the fields of literature and art. Those curious in these aspects of human activity will surely find something for themselves erstwhile reading Glory to the GreeksI powerfully encourage you to do so.

Dr. Krzysztof Kotula

Sylvain Gougenheim, Glory to the Greeks, crowd. P. Tylus, Andegavenum 2024, 344 pages