Classical Education and Society in Early Palaeologan Constantinople

The early 14th century Byzantine commentator and teacher Manuel Moschopoulos is a familiar name to classical philologists interested in the transmission and reception of ancient Greek classics. The copious number of manuscripts containing Moschopoulean commentaries on Homer, Hesiods Work and Days, Pindars Olympians, the Byzantine Triad of Sophocles and Euripides, shows the importance of Manuel Moschopoulos exegetical work and the role that he played not only in the transmission of Greek classics, but also as a teacher. Furthermore, recent paleographical studies on Moschopoulean manuscripts in general (containing his commen- taries on Greek classics, Schedography or his Grammar) has shown that they had continuously served as school- books: erudite scribes such as Georgios Baiophoros (early xv cent.) didnt hesitate to reuse manuscripts, thus sacrificing Patristic literature in order to copy Moschopoulos schoolbooks. Recent studies have explored the philological activity of Manuel Moschopoulos in terms of his contribution (or lack of it) to textual criticism. His commentaries on Greek classics, however, have not yet drawn enough the attention of modern scholars, but these are untapped sources for illuminating the reception of Classical literary heritage in late Byzantine society. This research project addresses a desideratum in Byzantine studies and serves a double purpose. It aims firstly at producing the first complete critical edition of Manuel Moschopoulos commentary on Sophocles Ajax and attempts on the other hand a monograph-sized sociolinguistic study on Moschopoulos activity as a teacher and interpreter of the Byzantine Triad of Sophocles (critical editions of the other two Moschopoulean commentaries on Electra and Oedipus Rex are already available). It will analyze: the didactic efficacy of Moschopoulos commen- taries on Sophocles (How were they used? By whom?); the socio cultural context in which he compiled it (Did Moschopoulos commentary aim to respond to the increasing demand of having instruments for writing in a pure Attic form?); its influence on Byzantine society and on Medieval Greek (Did Moschopoulos doctrine on Attic dialect influence Byzantine authors? Can it help us to understand the Byzantine concept of code/style switch- ing?). The project will moreover explore the entire manuscript tradition of Moschopoulos commentary on the Byzantine Triad of Sophocles (analysis of extra-Moschopoulean scholia; notes of scribes, owners, readers etc.). In conclusion, it will make a contribution not just by sharpening our understanding of the Palaeologan renaissance and manu- scripts role within it but by also looking at the later reception of manuscripts commentaries, it clarifies the reception of the Palaeologan achievement down to 1453 and indeed beyond. A concluding conference and the Viennese Forum for Sociolinguistics (www.oeaw.ac.at/sociolinguistics), with its quarterly sessions, will encourage debates between philologists, linguists and philosophers of language, and this will enrich the results of this research project.

The so-termed 'linguistic archaism' is one of the most typical aspects of the Byzantine culture. This phenomenon derives from the influence that the Attic Greek language of the V-IV centuries BC had on Hellenistic and imperial literary civilizations. Throughout the history of the Greek language, these Attic literary models, filtered through the speculation of grammarians, have become the parameter of linguistic correctness. Parallel to the archaizing variety of Greek, another, lower-register variety of written Greek, known as koinè (i.e. common language), was legitimated by its use in sacred texts, but it always enjoyed less prestige. The two varieties of written Greek, namely the archaizing and the koinè, have co-existed in a relationship of mutual influence. This project focused on a particular textbook for the study of Greek, namely on Manuel Moschopoulos' comments to Sophocles, in particular on Sophocles' Electra. The project had three main objectives. (1) The handwritten tradition of Moschopoulos' comments on Sophocles and the critical edition. These comments are preserved in the so-termed 'Moschopoulean manuscripts of Sophocles'. Of the more than 80 manuscripts identified by Aleksander Turyn (1940s), this project established in 36 the number of those to be taken into account for a critical edition. Two articles and a workshop, of which the papers will be presented in proceedings, focused on these issues, especially on the methodology for editing this particular type of textbooks. (2) The Authorship of these comments. This project was able define that the comments to Sophocles hand down annotations from Planoudes, Moschopoulos, Magistros, and sometimes, from Triklinios as well. The heterogeneous nature of these comments is due to the fact that every single manuscript is a world onto itself and that the copyists, while writing the copies of these comments, not only aimed to copy a text, but above all, responded to particular didactical needs. Two articles, dedicated to the 'extra-Moschopoulean' material contained in some manuscripts, demonstrate the nature and purpose of these additions. (3) The relationship between textbooks and linguistics. This project is open to the future. The most important legacy of this research was to bring philology and paleography into dialogue with historical linguistics. The study of Byzantine textbooks for the study of the archaizing Greek language, in fact, allows us to reconstruct how the users of the time perceived their language and what meanings they assigned to the various words, and to the various syntactic constructions. Overall, the seeds of this project are already sprouting. The theoretical acquisitions of the project, as well as the collaborative networks of scholars started within its framework, will soon lead to the critical edition of this material with great profit for historical linguistics, to new research projects, and international workshops.