I haven't posted much in a while, again. It's been a struggle to keep up with everything. So, having sent off three things today, I thought I'd blabber on about something, and I'm going to talk about something vaguely related to my last post (mid-Byzantine things). Where that was about one fabulous text/history, this is about one fabulous manuscript that illustrates a history.
One of the things I submitted in the past few weeks is a review of Brill's Companion to the Byzantine Culture of War, ca. 300-1204 (https://brill.com/view/title/22983?lang=en), and it includes all sorts of interesting stuff (my review will appear in the English Historical Review). So, during a lull, and to break up the run of usual stuff, I took a look (brief glances, really) at the dozens and dozens (hundreds even) illustrations of the Madrid Skylitzes. They can be viewed, for free, here: http://bdh.bne.es/bnesearch/detalle/1754254. It's probably the most remarkable illuminated manuscript from the entirety of Byzantine history, though I gather there are far fewer of these to go on than there are for the medieval west. I confess I'm coming to this as a novice, and those in the know will probably find this all very familiar.
Anyway, the text illuminated is the Chronicle of John Skylitzes, an 11th century author, and an important source for the emperor Basil II, better known as the Bulgar slayer. Given all his discussion of war, quite a lot of the illustrations depict war and soldiers in some capacity or other. The rarity of illuminations of works of Byzantine history has given this manuscript considerable importance. The images contained therein have served as importance sources for those looking to reconstruct the appearance, equipment, and armour of mid-Byzantine soldiers.
As someone approaching all of this as someone much more familiar with (earlier) Roman history, it reminds me of the comparable place of the friezes from Trajan's Column to our understanding of the appearance, equipment, and armour of high imperial Rome's soldiers. Scholars have treated the images in the manuscript as pretty accurate representations. Haldon, for one, one of the most esteemed Byzantinists in the world, used it as an accurate indication armour of Byzantine cavalry from the 9-11th centuries in his chapter on early Byzantine arms and armour (Haldon 2002: 78, https://www.academia.edu/33042359/Some_aspects_of_early_Byzantine_arms_and_armour_2002_). Kolias' Byzantinische Waffen (https://books.google.ca/books/about/Byzantinische_Waffen.html?id=n6neAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y) discusses its value in various places, and even includes some choice plates from the manuscript. Even more recently, Grunbart's chapter on depictions of enemies in Brill's Companion to the Byzantine Culture of War touches on the value of the manuscript's illustrations.
Now, I must stress that this is as far as I've got, and Kolias' book I've only glanced it, though he seems to have recognized some of the restrictions of the images. Down the road, I'd like to look into the matter in more detail, possibly/probably in concert with my desired study of Anna Komnene. So, it could all be a lot of bollocks, or even something (or some things) that some scholars have already said.
To get back to Trajan's Column, one of the growing views out there is that the soldiers so depicted are in no way representative of second century CE soldiers such as we know them (Michael Charles, https://www.jstor.org/stable/i40074597). Some of the points about that column might be valid for the material on the Madrid Skylitzes. Would the army of illustrators for the manuscript really have made their images with the intention of making them as accurate as possible? Or would they have tried to depict them in such a way as to be recognizable to whomever the manuscript was intended? But it's also worth asking if the two questions are mutually exclusive.
There are all sorts of interesting questions that these images generate. For one, we have little in the way of Byzantine physical evidence for arms and armour in the mid-Byzantine era. Instead we have this manuscript, some coins, and a variety of texts, especially Anna Komnene's Alexiad, though also some military manuals. So we have to use evidence like this. But despite the many different illustrations contained therein, they don't come together in the same sort of sequence as we find in Trajan's Column. Indeed, the difference in medium made producing the same sorts of images impractical if not impossible - and the chronological gap and cultural differences were significant too. So, the artists were forced to make due with the space allotted, and were likely hamstrung by what was written on the page. There were also two different groups of images too: those with a western origin, and those a Byzantine one.
Tsamakda's (https://books.google.ca/books/about/The_Illustrated_Chronicle_of_Ioannes_Sky.html?id=-STrAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y) seemingly impressive study (seemingly because I haven't really read it, though I've glanced at it and its beautiful illustrations) does catalogue just about everything in the manuscript. It includes type scenes, which I'll have to look into. She seems to suggest in places (many places?) that the items catalogued in some scenes couldn't be identified with anything known. There is a great deal to consider about these illuminations, and when the time comes, I'll see what I can find, though it's possible it's already been said. Whatever comes out of this, if any of it sounds vaguely interesting you should check out the illustrations yourself in the link noted above.
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