Feast, Fast or Famine
(XIIIth Conference of AABS)
Abstracts
Contents
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Aspects of eating and drinking in Skylitzes' Synopsis
Historiarum
John Burke, University of Melbourne
-
Late Antique and Middle Byzantine cookery: Methods and
utensils
Tim Dawson, University of New England
-
'Sabaiorum': What was wrong with beer and beer drinking
in late antiquity?
Danijel Dzino, University of Adelaide
-
(Not sailing) to Byzantium: Metropolis, hinterland and
frontier in the transformation of the Roman empire
John Fitzpatrick, Flinders University
-
The rhetoric of hunger in twelfth-century Byzantium
Lynda Garland, University of New England
-
Dining with the enemy: Peter 'Patricius' and Isdigousnas
Zich
Andrew Gillett, Macquarie University
-
Food, transport and movement in Byzantium: The case of
military logistics
John Haldon, University of Birmingham, UK
-
The representation of Christ's body and blood as the 'food
of immortality' in Byzantine Crucifixion iconography
Felicity Harley, University of Adelaide
-
Fasting and abstinence: Some facts of life in Byzantium
A. Nicholas John's Louvaris, University of Western Australia
-
Communal meals in the Late Antique synagogue
Matthew J Martin, Melbourne College Of Divinity
-
Food and drink in Early Byzantium: A new web resource
Wendy Mayer, Australian Catholic University
-
What John VIII Palaeologus had for lunch in July 1439
John Melville-Jones, University of Western Australia
-
Feeding a Late Roman field army: The Caesar Julian in Gaul
AD 355-361
David O'Donnell, University of New England
-
Bread from heaven: Vegetarianism in Byzantium
Ken Parry, Macquarie University
-
Eustathios of Thessaloniki and the wedding banquet for
Prince Alexios (1180)
Andrew Stone, University of Western Australia
-
Calypso's cauldron. The ritual ingredients of Early Byzantine
love spells
Silke Trzcionka, University of Adelaide
-
Steak à la Hun: Food, drink and dietary habits in
Ammianus Marcellinus
Paul Tuffin and Meaghan McEvoy, University of Adelaide
Aspects of eating and drinking
in Skylitzes'
Synopsis Historiarum
John Burke
University of Melbourne
John Skylitzes' Synopsis Historiarum focuses
primarily on ecclesiastical conflicts, political intrigues and military
events. But food and drink constantly underlie his account of the years
811-1057. Battles are won or lost because of food and drink, cities fall,
nations change religious allegience. The food supply is always a concern,
fasting and abstinence assume political dimensions, and ancient laws of
hospitality are overturned. This paper explores intertextuality and the
rich illustration of the Madrid manuscript for insight into both Byzantium
and Skylitzes the author.
Late Antique and Middle Byzantine
cookery: Methods and utensils.
Tim Dawson
University of New England
The urban sophistication of the culture of the early
Roman Imperial era had seen a wide range of methods and implements for
preparing food and drink. Despite the contraction and relative impoverishment
of the medieval empire, this sophistication was far from lost amongst the
wealthy. At lower social levels, cookery continued much as it had done
for thousands of years. Beginning with some examples from the early imperial
era, surviving items, pictorial and literary material will be presented
to illustrate the continuity of methods and forms in fixed and mobile hearths,
cookware and utensils through late antiquity and the middle Byzantine period.
Romans also applied particular ingenuity to serving heated and chilled
drinks.
'Sabaiorum': what was wrong with
beer and beer drinking in late antiquity?
Danijel Dzino
University of Adelaide
In AD 365 the besieged troops loyal to the rebel
Procopius, hurled numerous insults at the co-emperor Valens from the walls
of Chalcedon in Asia Minor. One of those insults was particularly mentioned
and singled out by the historian Ammianus Marcellinus in his account of
the siege as being particularly offensive The rebels called Valens sabaiarius,
the word that we may freely translate as 'beer-drinker'.
... cuius e muris probra in eum iaciebantur,
et irrisive compellebatur ut Sabaiarius.
Amm. Marc. 26.8.2
Why was this such an offensive remark, worthy of
Ammianus' attention, and what was so wrong with beer and beer-drinkers
in late antiquity? This paper will look into the obscure origins, social
and cultural significance of sabaia - beer made from barley and
water in ancient Illyricum. It will put sabaia into the wider context
of the northern European ("beer/spirit" or "dry") pattern of drinking and
beverage production and discuss its conflict with the Mediterranean (or
"wet") wine-drinking pattern, especially in the period of late antiquity.
This examination would shed new light on the well-known cultural discrimination
on behalf of wine-drinking, city-dwelling, sophisticated Mediterraneans
towards rough beer-drinking provincials who defended and ruled the Roman
Empire in its last centuries.
(Not sailing) to Byzantium: Metropolis,
hinterland and frontier in the transformation of the Roman empire
John Fitzpatrick
Flinders University
The question of the emergence of 'Byzantium' from
the environment of the later Roman empire (and 'Late Antiquity' in general)
is often framed primarily in diachronic or evolutionary terms, and primarily
in terms of a 'culturalist' problematic - emphasising literate languages,
literary culture, religion, etc. This paper approaches the question primarily
in synchronic or structural terms (with some explicit comparisons between
the 'rise of Byzantium' and the much earlier 'rise of Rome'), and primarily
in terms of a 'materialist/geopolitical' problematic. Core themes will
be the relationships between warfare, transport logistics and food supply,
between food supply, state-making and 'centre-periphery' relations, and
between the food-producing potential and the 'military participation' potential
of different ecological regions.
The rhetoric of hunger in twelfth-century
Byzantium
Lynda Garland
University of New England
To the Byzantines in the twelfth century little was
more amusing or more appropriate as a target for abuse than food-related
humour, whether epitomised by depictions of the struggles of penurious
literati to acquire a square meal or the excesses displayed by emperors,
monks and prominent officials at the dinner table. This overwhelming interest
in food and food-abuse becomes in the twelfth century a marked facet of
popular and learned literature, in which unpopular and jumped-up bureaucrats
or gluttonous abbots can be attacked for their obsessions (often for the
most unlikely comestibles), and the denisons of the capital mocked for
their lowly tastes and their inability even to purchase the simplest of
foods.
The Ptochoprodromic poems are particularly valuable
in this regard. Narrated from various contradictory stances - the narrator
is a downtrodden husband, penurious priest with a numerous family, a much
put-upon monk, and an unemployed scholar with a cupboard filled but with
useless papers - the assumption of poverty in all cases, particularly focussing
on the narrator's hunger, clearly allows the poet to play on a specific
type of humorous situation in which he attempts to entertain by poking
fun at his own series of predicaments (ka]n faivnwmai...gelw;n oJmou; kai;
paivzwn 1.15). Despite the fictional constructions of identity within these
poems, they provide valuable details of life in twelfth-century Constantinople
(Oikonomides 1990; Bouras 1982), and of perceptions of the humorous: husbands
who can only obtain a decent meal by dressing up in disguise or raiding
the pantry, while saleswomen met with in the Ptochoprodromic poems (and
women are frequent dramatis personae) either ignore the narrator,
or refuse to give him the food he is begging for - often with obscene connotations
thrown in for good measure (Alexiou 1986, 1999). Such works are able to
enlighten us both as to the gastronomic preferences of the Byzantine capital
and the ways in which these could be used to entertain a court audience.
Dining with the enemy: Peter 'Patricius'
and Isdigousnas Zich
Andrew Gillett
Macquarie University
Peter patricius and Isdigousnas Zich, senior palatine
officials at Constantinople and Ctesiphon in the mid-sixth century, met
and negotiated political relations between Rome and Persia on at least
five separate occasions over some two decades. Their intertwining careers
personify developments in the conduct of affairs between the two late antique
super-powers. The first part of this paper will outline the circumstances
of their encounters; the second will discuss hospitality and largesse as
elements of political communication.
Food, transport and movement in
Byzantium: The case of military logistics
John Haldon
Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies
University of Birmingham, UK
The size of an army is directly proportional to the
sum of a number of factors, which could vary dramatically from campaign
to campaign: available manpower resources, available agrarian production,
dependent in turn upon season, region, climate and types of crop grown;
types of livestock employed for transportation; population density of the
areas in which the campaigning took place; roads and other aspects of the
communications infrastructure; and so on. One of the most important issues
is the amount of provisions required by a force of a given size, the rate
of consumption, and in consequence the sources of such provisions and the
means of transporting them to the army. What do we know about the levels
of productivity needed to support transient populations such as campaign
forces passing through the provinces or traversing hostile territory, and
how did this impact on strategic planning? This paper will look at the
sort of evidence we might use to resolve these issues, and deal with such
questions as the volume and weight of the bread ration for Byzantine armies,
the weight-bearing capacity of pack-animals and cavalry mounts, the fodder
requirements of the animals which accompanied an army, and so forth. In
other words, I will sketch in the physical and logistical framework for
an understanding of logistical matters in general in the period from the
5th to the 12th centuries. In the process, the paper will deal with a number
of issues directly relating to the nature of the Byzantine diet, the production
of bread and the availability of resources for the population at large.
The representation of Christ's
body and blood as the 'food of immortality' in Byzantine Crucifixion iconography
Felicity Harley
University of Adelaide
The holy altar stands for the place where
Christ was laid in the grave, on which the true and heavenly bread, the
mystical and bloodless sacrifice lies, His flesh and blood offered to the
faithful as the food of eternal life.
Germanus
The sacramental identity of the body and blood of
Jesus was codified in Middle and Late Byzantine representations of the
Crucifixion with the addition of such iconographic elements as eucharistic
vessels to catch the blood flowing from his side, liturgical veils, or
even words of institution from the Divine liturgy. The identity was further
expounded through the interior decorative schemes of Middle-Late Byzantine
churches, in the placement of Crucifixion imagery above the altar or within
the apse of the Church.
This paper will examine the early stages of what
Kartsonis has described as the 'sacramentalisation' of Crucifixion iconography:
the apparent expansion of the historical and theological content of Crucifixion
iconography around the seventh/eighth centuries to include pointed visual
references to the sacramental realities of Jesus' death. It will explore
some of the immediate consequences of this process of sacramentalisation,
for iconography, in the increasing visual connection between Jesus' sacrifice
and the Eucharistic elements of bread and wine, and for Christian worshippers,
in the reception of Crucifixion imagery into new visual contexts. And it
will comment on the resultant impact these consequences exerted on the
wider role of images of the Crucifixion in Christian art before the ninth
century.
Fasting and abstinence: Some facts
of life in Byzantium
A. Nicholas John's Louvaris
University of Western Australia
The essentially Orthodox Christian character of Byzantine
society was also reflected in its dietary habits. While it was in monasteries
and convents that the rules of fasting were most strictly adhered to, in
the outside world the observanc of those rules also prevailed to a remarkable
degree. Fasting, and abstinence from certain categories of food and drink,
as a means of spriritual training, self-discipline or repentance, or as
a punishment for serious sins, was not only widely practised by the Byzantines,
from the emperor himself down to the most humble labourer, but they also
had an important effect on the mores of everyday life and the economy of
the Oikoumene, not forgetting their influence on Byzantine cuisine and,
in later times, the successor cuisines in Eastern Europe, especially the
Balkans.
Communal meals in the Late Antique
synagogue
Matthew J Martin
Melbourne College Of Divinity
In this paper I examine the phenomenon of communal
meals held in synagogues in the late antique period. This issue is of particular
interest insofar as the Rabbinic tradition contains statements expressly
forbidding the eating of meals in the synagogue (e.g. T.Megillah 2:18;
B.Megillah 28a-b). Nevertheless, archaeology (e.g. the triclinium
of the Stobi synagogue), non-Rabbinic Jewish sources, and even elements
of the Rabbinic tradition itself (e.g. Y.Berakhot 2,5d; Y.Nazir
7,1,56a), indicate that communal synagogue meals, festive and otherwise,
were a common feature of the life of many Jewish communities, both inside
and outside Palestine, certainly for the 3rd to 5th century period. This
phenomenon would appear to be a continuation of a practice known from the
late Second Temple period (c.f. the first century Theodotos inscription
from Jerusalem).
This phenomenon has very important implications
for the question of Rabbinic authority in the late antique synagogue. The
reality of communal synagogue meals in the face of Rabbinic rulings forbidding
such activities may be added to a list of similar discrepancies between
Rabbinic legal rulings and actual practice - such as the use of pictorial
art in synagogues - which indicate that Rabbinic authority in the institution
of the late antique synagogue was perhaps not as powerful and pervasive
as much modern scholarship - and the Rabbinic tradition itself - would
like to suggest.
In this way, the synagogue meal issue - particularly
when the function of communal dining in shaping group identity is taken
into account - becomes an important piece of evidence in support of the
thesis questioning the authority of the Rabbi's in Judaism of the pre-Mediaeval
period recently espoused by Seth Schwartz in his "Imperialism and Jewish
Society" (Princeton 2001).
Food and drink in Early Byzantium:
A new web resource
Wendy Mayer
Australian Catholic University
The more than 800 authentic homilies of John Chrysostom
offer a window onto the daily life of people who lived in the cities of
Antioch in Syria and Constantinople in the late fourth and early fifth
centuries. Anecdotes and exempla include information about the diet of
infants and of small children and adults, drinking parties, dinner parties,
food production, tableware, the effects of too much food or drink, ascetic
diet, special diets prescribed patients and a great deal more. This paper
offers a tour of the new web knowledge-base being constructed by a team
at the Centre for Early Christian Studies, Australian Catholic University.
The knowledge-base aims to make searchable all of the information about
daily life contained in this important corpus, which includes a reasonable
amount of information concerning food and drink.
What John VIII Palaeologus had
for lunch in July 1439
John Melville-Jones
University of Western Australia
On July 27 1439, after concluding his business at
the Council of Florence, John VIII Palaeologus visited some neighbouring
places with the aim of viewing the holy relics that they possessed. Returning
from one visit, he stopped for a while at the small town of Peretola near
Florence. A record survives of the midday meal that he ate that day, written
by a fascinated Peretolan.
Feeding a Late Roman field army:
The Caesar Julian in Gaul AD 355-361
David O'Donnell
University of New England
One of the reasons for Julian's military success
in Gaul between AD 355-61 was that he comprehended how important logistical
support was for an army on active service. The adequate provisioning of
the Gallic field army by various means meant that it could undertake the
arduous tasks of expelling the German invaders, namely the Alamanni and
the Franks, from imperial territory and restoring the integrity of the
Rhine frontier. The Late Roman field soldier that Julian commanded whether
he was a Gaul or a German could perform well under pressure provided he
received adequate sustenance. In fact, one of the few times that the Gallic
legions turned their fury against Julian was when he commandeered a portion
of the soldiers' rations to provision some forts that he had restored and
presumably garrisoned. The troops, toughened by years of hard campaigning,
could endure most deprivations, but the spectre of hunger was too great
a burden even for them.
Julian appropriated these rations because he expected
to make good the shortfall from German sources. Unfortunately in this instance
the enemies' crops were not fully ripe. However, the incident reveals that
the Caesar was resourceful enough to augment his army's food supplies from
a number of different sources and sometimes this strategy paid off. During
a punitive expedition into Germany an Alamannic king was granted peace
on the condition that he kept the Roman army provisioned and so he was
thus reduced to the status of a common contractor. The fact that Julian
was able to keep his troops adequately provisioned not only kept them loyal,
but also gave them an advantage over the Alamanni and the Franks who had
no organised supply system. Indeed, some of the German raiders that Julian
encountered during his first campaign In Gaul were starving because they
had exhausted the foodstuffs in their immediate vicinity.
Bread from heaven: Vegetarianism
in Byzantium
Ken Parry
Macquarie University
There are two main sources for the study of vegetarianism
in Byzantium. One source is monastic typika and writings on the spiritual
life and the other is writings relating to heretical movements. The practice
of non-meat eating in the monastic life is sanctioned by a variety of authorities
whereas the practice among heretical groups arises from a different theological
perspective. The motivating force of the two traditions is therefore quite
different and this paper will examine the distinct nature of this alimentary
phenomenon in the two sources.
The practice of vegetarianism in the Neoplatonic
schools of Late Antiquity requires examination in relation to the emergence
of Christian vegetarianism as part of the monastic life. This topic has
not been sufficiently covered in the transition from paganism to Christianity
and the acceptance of non-meat eating as part of Christian asceticism.
Such an acceptance would imply a certain attitude towards the animal kingdom
and the rejection of meat eating from a moral point of view. The monastic
promotion of vegetarianism, however, seems to be for reasons of discipline
rather than compassion for animals. This raises questions in relation to
the criminal prosecution and punishment of animals in Byzantine law. The
Christian condemnation of animal sacrifice among pagans and Jews does not
appear to have resulted in a Byzantine concern for animal rights. The use
of animals in the hippodrome bears witness to this attitude.
In contrast to the mainstream monastic tradition
of non-meat eating the adoption of the practice by heretical groups is
of considerable interest. Starting with the Gnostic and Manichaean movements
in the second and third centuries vegetarianism became associated with
a more advanced spiritual and ascetic life. It reflected a highly structured
mythology and theory of rebirth which prohibited the eating of meat on
strictly religious grounds. However, the denunciation of animal slaughter
and the eating of meat by heretical Christian dualists groups, such as
the Paulicians and Bogomils, seems to have another dimension. The rejection
of meat eating in social and religious dissent has not been sufficiently
studied and this paper will attempt to draw out the implications from an
historical point of view.
Eustathios of Thessaloniki and
the wedding banquet for Prince Alexios (1180)
Andrew Stone
University of Western Australia
In 1179 the emperor Manuel I Komnenos secured a new
alliance with King Louis VII of France through the betrothal of Agnes of
France (aged nine) to his son Alexios Porphyrogennetos. The nuptials were
celebrated on March 2 of the following year, at the same time as those
of Alexios' elder half-sister, who was married to the Italian noble Renier
of Montferrat. Eustathios, who had travelled from Thessaloniki to Byzantium
to see the disembarkation of Agnes, and stayed for the double wedding,
delivered an oration to celebrate it, at the public banquet granted by
the emperor to the populace. The venue was the Hippodrome, with tables
erected for the occasion, and the people thronged among them, to be plied
with meat and wine at the emperor's expense. In true Eustathian fashion,
the rhetor uses classical allusions (the Table of the Sun in Ethiopia,
Harpies, Trapezon in the Peloponnese), but perhaps with a little more humour
than is usual for him.
Calypso's cauldron. The ritual
ingredients of early Byzantine love spells
Silke Trzcionka
University of Adelaide
Incantation over an apple (melon). Say
it three times: "I shall strike with apples ... I shall give this pharmakon
- always timely & edible - to mortal men and immortal gods. To whichever
woman I give or at whichever woman I throw the apple or hit with it, setting
everything aside, may she be mad for my love - whether she take it in her
hand and eats it ... or sets it in her bosom - and may she not stop loving
me. O Lady Cyprogenia, bring to perfection this perfect incantation" (SM
72.i.5-14).
In the Greco-Roman world there were charms to increase
charisma and affection, viagra potions, aphrodisiacs, spells that led their
victim to the instigator, and binding spells that made certain of the impediment
of rival suitors or even a third party in a love triangle. Food, drink,
and spices played an integral part in the supernatural rituals which aided
these "romantic" intentions. Apples could be thrown at a potential mate,
the aphrodisiac properties of wine could be utilised for seduction, and
various simple or elaborate offerings of food and spices could be presented
to eros in order to drive an individual wild with lust. This paper will
discuss such uses of food and drink in Byzantine rituals of desire. Furthermore
it will consider these actions within their social context, focussing particularly
on aspects of gender. Thus it will be proposed that in both the ritualised
ingredients and actions of desire can be seen a reflection, and even inversion,
of social perceptions and expectations of feminine and masculine behaviour.
Steak à la Hun: Food, drink
and dietary habits in Ammianus Marcellinus
Paul Tuffin and Meaghan McEvoy
University of Adelaide
Ammianus Marcellinus makes relatively frequent reference
to food and drink and to dietary habits. This paper will explore such references
with a view to ascertaining whether they simply represent an area of interest
for the historian or whether their inclusion serves a purpose (or purposes)
that gives them greater significance, in particular in relation to Ammianus'
value system.
