Materiality and Materialism of Middle Byzantine Gospel Lectionaries (Eleventh–Twelfth Centuries CE)

Abstract

Materiality and considerations of color in medieval art have been the subject of a growing number of studies in recent years, but have tended to address architecture, monumental works of art such as mosaics, or metalworking. Scholars working on western medieval manuscripts have shown how much can be done with technical art history in this arena, but to date, the study of manuscript materials and their meanings with respect to the Byzantine world have been lacking. This dissertation resituates the understanding of Middle Byzantine (East Medieval Roman) manuscript production from the eleventh and twelfth centuries CE, employing a cross-disciplinary approach that synthesizes traditional codicological analysis with new technologies that identify precise materials and techniques. In particular, this work explores Middle Byzantine manuscript materiality along two perspectives. First, it investigates modes of manufacture, identifying materials and techniques of Middle Byzantine manuscripts themselves, especially in the Lectionary of Katherine Komnena and the Dumbarton Oaks Lectionary. Secondly, it analyzes the meanings and understandings of those materials along liturgical, monastic, and scientific-intellectual contexts in the manuscripts’ specific use in Middle Byzantine milieus. In each case, the focus is Middle Byzantine, Greek-language Gospel Lectionaries traceable to the Rite of Constantinople. These lavishly illuminated books played important roles in Christian liturgical contexts, and provide an opportunity to explore what Byzantines thought about the natural world.This study revises both the methodological approaches of earlier manuscript scholars and interpretations that assign place of production and meaning of materials as solely iconographic or stylistic problems. Byzantine manuscripts — in part due to twentieth-century historiographic traditions — have rarely been considered in terms of their material production, in contrast to their counterparts in western Medieval Europe, which have been explored with modern technology in exciting new ways in recent decades. As a result, this void in Byzantine studies provides a great opportunity for considering the specific contexts of these objects in their production and significance. As this dissertation attends to the material contexts of Byzantine Gospel Lectionaries, it analyzes the manuscripts in terms of their materials and methods of production, and consider the relationships between materials, Byzantine understandings of matter through the field of alchemy, and the production of knowledge about artmaking in Byzantium. This strategy seeks to account for both the interest in Byzantine intellectual works on the nature of matter and the manner in which knowledge about codex creation was passed on. Although this dissertation follows art historical methodologies and not those of the hard sciences, it incorporates scientific data that identifies precise pigments on manuscript pages into my study. In this work, the materials used by the manuscript makers of the studied objects are identified. This involves performing non-destructive analysis, collaborating with conservators, through close observation and the use of x-ray reflectography, which allows for the non-invasive, in situ study of manuscript materials.