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New Genres in the Twelfth Century: the Schedourgia of Theodore Prodromos

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New Genres in the Twelfth Century: the Schedourgia of Theodore Prodromos New genres in the twelfth century: the schedourgia of Theodore Prodromos Wolfram Hörandner in alter Verbundenheit zugeeignet Despite much good work that has been done concerning education in Byzantium of the eleventh and twelfth century, there are still many areas that need to be cov- ered.1 One of them is «the art of the [grammatical] sketch» (hJ tevcnh tou' scevdou"), as Anna Komnene called it in the Alexiad (XV 7, 9), more generally known as sche - dography (scedografiva). Since Karl Krumbacher’s negative appreciation of sche- dography,2 previous scholarship was slow in appreciating more fully the in structive function and socio-political role of this teaching method in Komnenian By zan - tium.3 In a series of recent studies, I have tried to show that schedography was, in The research for the present paper was conducted in 2012/13 at the Institut für Byzantinistik (Universität München) with a fellowship from the Alexander-von-Humboldt Stiftung (Bonn), a grant from the A. C. Leventis Foundation (London), and a travel grant from the Research Com- mittee of the University of Cyprus. I am grateful to all three institutions for their financial sup- port, as well as to Albrecht Berger who acted as my host in Munich. Particular thanks are due to Margaret Alexiou and Vassilis Katsaros for sharing with me their thoughts on the Ptochopro- dromic corpus, Ioannis Vassis for a fruitful conversation on Prodromos’ schedographic project, and to Nikolaos Zagklas for reading through the paper and offering pertinent suggestions and corrections. I have received crucial assistance in rebus bibliographicis from Eric Cullhed, Diether Roderich Reinsch and Nikolaos Zagklas, while Elizabeth Jeffreys and Kalliope Linardou al- lowed me to use some of their studies before publication. My thanks extend to all of them. Fi- nally and most importantly, the paper is dedicated to Wolfram Hörandner for having been a constant source of wisdom and inspiration over the past twenty-five years. All translations are my own. 1 For a summary of research with good bibliography see A. Markopoulos, De la structure de l’é- cole byzantine: le maître, les livres et le processus éducatif, in B. Mondrain (ed.), Lire et écrire à Byzance, Paris 2006, pp. 85-96; for a freshly published overview of education theory and prac- tice see A. Giannouli, Education and Literary Language in Byzantium, in M. Hinterberger (ed.), The Language of Byzantine Learned Literature, Turnhout 2014, pp. 52-71. The chapter on teach- ing methods in R. H. Robins, The Byzantine Grammarians: Their Place in History, Berlin 1993, pp. 125-148, actually concentrates on epimerismoi and not on schedography. For a detailed his- torical presentation of education during the Komnenian longue durée see now I. Ch. Nesseris, H Paideiva sthn Kwnstantinouvpolh katav ton 12o aiwvna, PhD thesis, University of Ioannina, I-II, Ioannina 2014. 2 K. Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur von Justinian bis zum Ende des Ost - römischen Reiches (527-1453), zweite Auflage, bearbeitet unter Mitwirkung von A. Ehrhard und H. Gelzer, Munich 1897, pp. 590-593, § 250 (hereafter GBL2); this section did not exist in the first edition, that is, Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur von Justinian bis zum Ende des Ost - römi schen Reiches (527-1453), Munich 1891 (hereafter GBL1). 3 Note should be made of the pioneering work of S. D. Papadimitriou, Feodor Prodrom: Is- «MEG» 15, 2015, pp. 1-41 2 Panagiotis A. Agapitos fact, broadly appreciated since its invention sometime in the early years of the eleventh century, while the critique expressed against it by authors such as Anna Komnene, Nikephoros Basilakes, John Tzetzes and Eustathios of Thessalo ni ke,ul- timately focused on the novel (and in their view, excessive) form which the schedos had taken in the Forties and Fifties of the twelfth century.4 This novel form includ- ed the use of the ijdiw'ti" glw'tta («everyday speech»), as Anna Komne ne described it in another passage of the Alexiad (II 4, 9). The fact that students of Komnenian literature have not systematically examined the relevant textual production in learned and vernacular Greek comparatively is the result of a general tendency to separate these two linguistic and literary domains. This tendency was most clearly expressed by Krumbacher in his Geschichte der byzantinischen Littera tur, and was – to varying degrees – embraced by Byzantinists and Neohellenists alike. We can actually speak of a scientific paradigm that has governed the study – both textual and literary – of Byzantine and Early Modern Greek Literature, and that I have elsewhere termed the Krumbacher paradigm.5 Consequently, schedographic production, especially such schede or dictionaries that actually employ the vernacular idiom within a learned frame have been left un- exploited for the study of literary developments during the Komnenian era. A key figure in these developments was the grammatikos Theodore Prodromos, who was one of the most versatile and prolific writers of the Komnenian era, and who, moreover, became famous while still alive.6 Prodromos wrote a number of prose toriko-literaturnoe izslědovanie, Odessa 1905, pp. 413-429. See also G. Schirò, La schedografia a Bisanzio nei sec. XI-XII e la Scuola dei SS. XL Martiri, «Bollettino della Badia Greca di Grotta- ferrata» 3, 1940, pp. 11-29; A. Garzya, Intorno al Prologo di Niceforo Basilace [1969], in Storia e interpretazione di testi bizantini: saggi e ricerche, London 1974, nr. XII; Literarische und rheto - rische Polemiken der Komnenenzeit [1973], ibid., nr. VII; R. Browning, Il codice Marciano gr. XI.31 e la schedografia bizantina [1976], in Studies on Byzantine History, Literature and Educa- tion, London 1977, nr. XVI. For the more recent bibliography see my studies referred to in the next note. 4 Grammar, Genre and Patronage in the Twelfth Century: Redefining a Scientific Paradigm in the History of Byzantine Literature, «Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik» 64, 2014, pp. 1- 22; Anna Komnene and the Politics of Schedographic Training and Colloquial Discourse, «Neva ÔRwv mh» 10, 2013 [2014], pp. 89-107; Learning to Read and Write a Schedos: The Verse Dictionary of Par. gr. 400, in P. Odorico, S. Efthymiadis, I. D. Polemis (eds.), Vers une poétique de Byzance: Hommage à Vassilis Katsaros, Paris 2015, pp. 11-24; Literary Haute Cuisine and its Dangers: Eu- stathios of Thessalonike on Schedography and Everyday Language, «Dumbarton Oaks Papers» 69, 2015 (forthcoming). 5 See Agapitos, Grammar, cit., pp. 1-4, and more broadly Karl Krumbacher and the History of Byzantine Literature, «Byzantinische Zeitschrift» 108, 2015 (forthcoming). 6 Despite much work on the biography of Theodore Prodromos, no consensus has been reached about the approximate dates of his life or all the stages of his “career”. The older studies have been thoroughly discussed by W. Hörandner (ed.), Theodoros Prodromos, Historische Gedichte, Vienna 1974, pp. 8-12, who also presented the first balanced attempt at a biography of Prodro- mos (ibid., pp. 21-32), suggesting the dates ca. 1100-ca. 1156; in a revisionist study A. P. Kazh- dan, S. Franklin, Studies on Byzantine Literature of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, Cam- bridge 1984, pp. 87-115, suggested the dates ca. 1110-ca. 1170. For more recent expositions see New genres in the twelfth century: the schedourgia of Theodore Prodromos 3 works in many genres (e.g. orations of various types, satirical dialogues, letters, ha- giography, commentaries, grammatical treatises), but also numerous poems in vari- ous styles and metres.7 In many of these works, but especially in the poems, Pro- dromos clearly described the relation between his teaching activity, his literary ef- forts and the patronage he had received or expected to secure.8 It is this stance that led Krumbacher to call him a Betteldichter («beggar poet»),9 a characterization that proved problematic as recent scholarship has shown.10 Beyond this substantial œuvre, two further groups of poems have been ascribed to Prodromos. The first group consists of a large collection of “learned” poems (144 items) preserved in the Marc. gr. XI, 22 (13th c.).11 Most of these poems are addressed to various aristocratic patrons, while some of them specifically relate to now E. M. Jeffreys, Four Byzantine Novels: Theodore Prodromos, Rhodanthe and Dosikles; Eu- mathios Makrembolites, Hysmine and Hysminias; Constantine Manasses, Aristandros and Kallithea; Niketas Eugenianos, Drosilla and Charikles. Translated with Introductions and Notes, Liverpool 2012, pp. 3-6; Nesseris, H Paideiva, cit., I, pp. 81-90; N. Zagklas, Theodore Prodromos: The Neglected Poems and Epigrams. Edition, Translation and Commentary, PhD thesis, Universi- ty of Vienna, Vienna 2014, pp. 52-57. For a number of Byzantine references to Prodromos see Hörandner (ed.), Theodoros Prodromos, cit., pp. 32-35. To these one should add the mention in a small rhetorical treatise On the Four Parts of the Perfect Speech, datable to the later 12th or 13th century; see now the recent edition by W. Hörandner, Pseudo-Gregorios Korin thios, Über die vi- er Teile der perfekten Rede, «Medioevo Greco» 12, 2012, pp. 87-131: 108, 162-163 (e[cei" ajrcev- tupon to;n Pisivdhn, newtevrou" to;n Kalliklh'n, to;n Ptwcoprovdromon kai; ei[ ti" toiou'to"). 7 For an almost complete list of his works, as well as a number of dubia and spuria see Hörand- ner (ed.), Theodoros Prodromos, cit., pp. 37-67; for an updated list with excellent bibliography see Nesseris, H Paideiva, cit., II, pp. 434-462. 8 Though this particular aspect of Prodromos’ works has been noted, no thorough study of it as a cultural and literary phenomenon has been conducted. For some pertinent observations and preliminary proposals see Zagklas, The Neglected Poems, cit., pp. 58-72. 9 GBL1, p. 354 = GBL2, p. 750. 10 For two different reassessments of this image see the older studies by M.
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