ANNUAL OF MEDIEVAL STUDIES AT CEU VOL. 18 2012 Central European University Budapest Annualis 2012.indb 1 2012.07.31. 15:59:40 Annualis 2012.indb 2 2012.07.31. 15:59:42 ANNUAL OF MEDIEVAL STUDIES AT CEU VOL. 18 2012 Edited by Judith Rasson and Marianne Sághy Central European University Budapest Department of Medieval Studies Annualis 2012.indb Sec1:1 2012.07.31. 15:59:42 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the permission of the publisher. Editorial Board Niels Gaul, Gerhard Jaritz, György Geréby, Gábor Klaniczay, József Laszlovszky, Marianne Sághy, Katalin Szende Editors Judith Rasson and Marianne Sághy Technical Advisor Annabella Pál Cover Illustration Labskhaldi Gospel, 12th century, 29×22 cm, parchment. Canon Table, detail (4 r) Georgian National Museum. Svanety Museum of History and Ethnography, Mestia. www.museum.ge. Reproduced by permission Department of Medieval Studies Central European University H-1051 Budapest, Nádor u. 9., Hungary Postal address: H-1245 Budapest 5, P.O. Box 1082 E-mail: [email protected] Net: http://medievalstudies.ceu.hu Copies can be ordered at the Department, and from the CEU Press http://www.ceupress.com/order.html ISSN 1219-0616 Non-discrimination policy: CEU does not discriminate on the basis of—including, but not limited to—race, color, national or ethnic origin, religion, gender or sexual orientation in administering its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered programs. © Central European University Produced by Archaeolingua Foundation & Publishing House Annualis 2012.indb Sec1:2 2012.07.31. 15:59:42 TABLE OF CONTENTS Editors’ Preface ............................................................................................................ 5 I. ARTICLES AND STUDIES ........................................................... 7 Andor Kelenhegyi The Song of Songs as a Tool for Inter-religious Polemics .................................... 9 András Kraft Constantinople in Byzantine Apocalyptic Thought ........................................... 25 Sona Grigoryan The Trinity as seen by Muslims with a Focus on Ibn Taymiyyah’s Perception of the Doctrine ..................................................... 37 Krisztina Lilla Földy De fi ne Saeculi The Debate between Augustine of Hippo and Hesychius of Salona ................ 48 Courtney Krolikoski Saints and Sinners: The Role of the Saints in the Life of the Leper Before the Thirteenth Century ........................................ 66 Farida Mukazhanova Emotions and Health: Evidence from Late Medieval German Regimina Sanitatis ................................................................................................. 79 Eszter Konrád The Life of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary in the Vernacular ..................... 90 Ievgen A. Khvalkov The Slave Trade in Tana: Marketing Manpower from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean in the 1430s .................................................................... 104 The Southern Caucasus and Its Neighbors: Education and Communication ..................................................... 119 Niels Gaul The Southern Caucasus and Medieval Studies at CEU ................................ 121 Tina Dolidze Foundation of Kartvelian–Byzantine Studies in Georgia .............................. 126 Igor Dorfmann-Lazarev Studies of Armenian Christian Tradition in the Twentieth Century ............. 137 Annualis 2012.indb 3 2012.07.31. 15:59:42 Sandro Nikolaishvili Byzantine Imperial Ideology as the Chief Inspiration for a New Kingship under King David IV the Builder (r. 1089–1125) ............... 153 II. REPORT OF THE YEAR ......................................................... 169 Katalin Szende Report of the Year ........................................................................................ 171 Stanislava Kuzmova The CULTSYMBOLS Project – OTKA Saints Project ............................ 179 Anna Somfai Summer School in Medieval Codicology and Palaeography, CEU Summer University, 2011 .................................................................. 184 Abstracts of MA Theses Defended in 2011 .............................................. 188 PhD Defenses during the Academic Year 2010–2011 ............................. 206 Annualis 2012.indb 4 2012.07.31. 15:59:42 EDITORS’ PREFACE Lectori salutem! Volume 18 of our Annual presents the main results of the academic year 2010– 2011. As usual, the fi rst section contains articles based on outstanding MA theses. In geographical terms they range from East Central Europe to the Near East and in chronological scope from early to late medieval times. This year’s thematic block arose from the Higher Education Support Project in the southern Caucasus, headed by Niels Gaul and István Perczel, run by the Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies. The project’s goal is to develop complementary syllabi for medieval topics and foster communication among students and medievalists from the Caucasus, Europe, and the Americas. Two of the papers in this section are based on presentations made at the workshop launching the project and one paper is based on a thesis encompassing both Byzantine and Georgian materials. Niels Gaul discusses further details in the introduction to this block. The splendid cover illustration this year also comes from the Caucasus. Part II of the yearbook follows the practice of the previous volumes of the Annual in describing the main events of the academic year 2010–2011 and presenting our new graduates’ work through abstracts of the MA theses and PhD dissertations that were defended during this period. This year we also include reports on results of two grants: the ESF (European Science Foundation) – OTKA (Hungarian Research Council) research project coordinated by Gábor Klaniczay, “Communicating Sainthood—Constituting Regions and Nations in East-Central Europe: Tenth to Sixteenth Centuries,” and a report on a CEU SUN summer university course in codicology and palaeography organized by our senior research fellow, Anna Somfai. For more information on recent and forthcoming events as well as on publications, students, and alumni, and upcoming events, please consult our website (http://medstud.ceu.hu). We would also like to call our readers’ attention to the continuing publication activity of our department. This year three volumes were published in the CEU Medievalia series: Isolated Islands in Medieval Nature, Culture and Mind (vol. 14); Angels, Devils. The Supernatural and Its Visual Representation (vol. 15); Violence and the Medieval Clergy (vol. 16), administered by CEU Press (www.ceupress.com). We would like to thank the PhD student who worked on various aspects of preparing this volume: Teodora Artimon. Her contributions are much appreciated. Budapest, June 2012 Judith Rasson and Marianne Sághy, editors Annualis 2012.indb 5 2012.07.31. 15:59:42 Annualis 2012.indb 6 2012.07.31. 15:59:42 PART I Articles and Studies Annualis 2012.indb 7 2012.07.31. 15:59:42 Annualis 2012.indb 8 2012.07.31. 15:59:43 THE SONG OF SONGS AS A TOOL FOR INTER-RELIGIOUS POLEMICS Andor Kelenhegyi Introduction The Song of Songs is one of the most perplexing pieces of Holy Scripture.1 As part of both the Christian and the Jewish canon,2 it has puzzled commentators, interpreters, and readers for centuries. The most important reason for the peculiarity of the Song of Songs is that this Biblical book is a piece of love poetry, fi lled with erotic images. This eroticism was and still is understood by many readers as the main hallmark and the major feature of the Song of Songs.3 Nevertheless, nearly two millennia of interpreting this piece in a non-literal way and the tremendous efforts made by rabbis and Christian exegetes to fi nd and outline a deeper and theologically more appropriate meaning in the Song of Songs cannot simply be dismissed with the explanation that: “it is the only book in the canon lacking a religious or national theme.”4 Although it includes erotic images and scenes there has to be more to its meaning.5 If nothing else, the variety of commentaries and the perseverance of exegetes trying to interpret the text make the Song of Songs special and signify that it must be more than a recollection of a mere love affair. The commentaries on the Song of Songs are critical resources. Besides interpreting the Biblical text proper, they draw a picture of the interpreters themselves. This interpretation was coeval with the beginning of the separation 1 This article is based on my MA thesis: “Commentaries on the Song of Songs – a Possible Jewish–Christian Polemics” (Department of Medieval Studies, CEU, 2011). 2 On questions of the canonicity of the Song of Songs and its canonization see: Edmée Kingsmill, The Song of Songs and the Eros of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 12–14. 3 See, e.g., M. H. Segal, “The Song of Songs,” Vetus Testamentum 12, no. 4 (1962): 479– 481. 4 Robert Gordis, The Song of Songs and Lamentations, a Study, Modern Translation and Commentary (New York: Ktav Publishing, 1954), 1. 5 “If the Song were a continuous allegory of sex, no matter how ingenious the techniques or subtle the allusions, it would be nothing more than a riddle or a tease.” Cf. Francis Landy, “The Song of Songs,” in The Literary Guide to the Bible, ed. Robert Alter and Frank Kermode (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1987), 305. 9 Annualis 2012.indb 9 2012.07.31. 15:59:43 Andor Kelenhegyi between