A New Edition of the De cerimoniis: No Longer a ‘geteiltes Dossier’?

Abstract

Abstract This review article presents a brief survey of the new critical edition, translation and commentary of the important tenth-century Byzantine imperial treatise known as the De cerimoniis aulae byzantinae (on the ceremonial of the Byzantine court), a title ascribed to the text only in the 16th century. The edition offers an up-to-date and highly accurate edition of the tenth century manuscripts through which the text has been transmitted and the detailed and rigorous commentary includes a complete historical and structural analysis of the two books into which the text is divided. In the course of their analysis, the editors arrive at a number of important new conclusions about the origins, intentions and structure of the text, the working methods of the emperor who commissioned it, and the aims and intentions of Basil the parakoimomenos, the person who commissioned the Leipzig manuscript, the chief surviving witness for the text. The 5 volumes of the publication represent a superb achievement by the team of French scholars under the original direction of Gilbert Dagron (†).