Search results for ""Author M. Mazzola""

The Ecclesiastical History of Bar ‘Ebroyo has long been recognized as a crucial source for the history of the Eastern churches in the Mongol period but it has hardly been appreciated as a literary work on its own. Over the past decades, further study on Bar ‘Ebroyo has permitted to dismiss his undeserved label of unoriginal epistomist and to reassess the value of his work. This book seeks to inject that perspective into the study of Bar ‘Ebroyo as an ecclesiastical historian and it argues that his Ecclesiastical History offers an original historical narration that encompasses geo-ecclesiology, theology and political theory. Often read as a mere abridgment of Michael the Great’s Chronicle, the Ecclesiastical History incorporates a number of additional sources and deploys specific narratological tools to convey a unique vision of history that results from the cultural, political and personal circumstances in which Bar ‘Ebroyo wrote his work. In short, the Ecclesiastical History shows how the long-lived tradition of the Church history writing was adjusted to respond to the specific challenges that the political and religious landscape of 13th century Middle East posed to the Syrian Orthodox community.

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Late Antiquity is the land of plenty for scholars interested in intercultural exchange, and yet the subject still lacks systematical investigation. The study of late antique historiography allows for a particularly rewarding approach. Late antique historiographical texts testify to contemporary attitudes towards contacts between different cultures, religions, languages; but they were also impacted on by intercultural exchange, mostly in the form of translation or adaptation of sources imported from other cultural areas. The six contributions gathered in this volume present case studies focused on the Mediterranean region and Western Asia, crossing religious, linguistic and political borders in a chronological framework that goes from the fourth to the eleventh centuries. Besides showcasing the results that can be harvested with such a twofold analytical approach to late antique historiography, they also pinpoint the methodological challenges researchers are likely to meet when venturing in the mainly uncharted field of intercultural exchange in Late Antiquity.

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