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The Date of the Synopsis Minor of the Basilics1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Michael Angold
Michael Angold*
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
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Extract

It comes as no surprise that the Synopsis Minor of the Basilics has been more or less neglected by modern scholars, for it is hardly an impressive monument of Byzantine jurisprudence. It is little more than a hack compilation of excerpts taken for the most part from the Synopsis Major of the Basilics and the Ponema Iuris of the eleventh-century historian Michael Attaleiates. Its main interest lies in the inclusion of some of Manuel I Komnenos’s (1143–80) legislation. This furnishes a terminus post quern for the date of the Synopsis Minor. A terminus ante quern is furnished by its earliest manuscript, which dates from the late thirteenth century. K. E. Zachariae von Lingenthal, the editor of the Synopsis Minor, ventured to suggest that it was compiled under the Emperors of Nicaea, most probably during the reign of John III Vatatzes (1222–54). Modern scholarship has followed him, with a greater or lesser degree of conviction.

Type
Research Article
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 4: Essays Presented to Sir Steven Runciman , 1978 , pp. 1 - 7
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1978

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Footnotes

1.

The text is to be found in J. and P. Zepos, Jus Graecoromanum (Athens, 1931), VI, pp. 319–564.

References

2. Ibid., pp. 347,515, 540–1.

3. Ibid., p. 321.

4. , E.G. Cambridge Medieval History, IV (1923), p. 722; IV, part 2 (1967), p. 274, n. 1.Google Scholar

5. Svoronos, N. G., La synopsis major des Basiliques et ses appendices (Bibliothèque byzantine. Etudes, 4 [Paris, 1964]), pp. 181–8.Google Scholar

6. Angold, M. J., A Byzantine Government in Exile (Oxford, 1975), pp. 166–74.Google Scholar

7. Zepos, , op. cit., VI, p. 321.Google Scholar

8. Ibid., VII, p. 497 (para. 47).

9. Ibid., I, pp. 389–96; Bréhier, L., Les institutions de l’empire byzantin (Paris, 1949), p. 233.Google Scholar

10. Cf. Theodore Balsamon’s opinion: ( Rhalles, G. A. and Potles, M., Syntagma tôn theiôn kai hierôn kanonôn (Athens, 1852), I, p. 141; 11, 26–7).Google Scholar

11. Guilland, R., Etudes byzantines (Paris, 1959), pp. 89–107.Google Scholar

12. Orationes et Epistulae Nicetae Choniatae, ed. Dieten, J. A. Van (CFHB, III [Berlin, New York 1972]), p. 134, ll. 14–29 Google Scholar; Sinogowitz, B., ‘Über das byzantin-ische Kaisertum nach dem Vierten Kreuzzuge 1204–1205’, BZ, XLV (1952), 348–51.Google Scholar

13. Browning, R., ‘The Death of John II Komnenos’, B, XXXI (1961), 29–35.Google Scholar

14. Nicetae Choniatae Historia (CSHB, 1835), pp. 589–94; ed. Dieten, J. A. Van (CFHB, XI/1 [Berlin, 1975]), pp. 448–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15. Ibid., pp. 561–2 (CSHB); p. 429 (CFHB). Ioannis Cinnami Epitome rerum ab Ioanne et Alexio Comnenisgestarum(CSHB, 1836), pp. 28–29.

16. Choniates, Nicetas, p. 55, ll. 8–26, (CSHB); p. 41, ll. 1–3 (CFHB). Google Scholar

17. Ibid., pp. 591–592 (CSHB); p. 449 (CFHB). Brand, C. M., Byzantium confronts the West 1180–1204 (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), pp. 112–13.Google Scholar

18. Choniates, Nicetas, p. 59s, ll. 9–15, (CSHB); p. 449, ll. 41–51 (CFHB). Google Scholar

19. Cinnamus, , p. 23, ll. 8–20 Google Scholar. Prodromos, Cf. Theodoros, Historische Gedichte ed. Horandner, W. (Wiener Byzantinistische Studien, XI [Vienna, 1974]), No. xxix, pp. 345–7.Google Scholar

20. Choniates, Nicetas, p. 597, ll. 10–18 (CSHB); p. 453 ll. 3–5 (CFHB). Google Scholar

21. Regel, W., Fontes rerum byzantinarum, sumptibus Academiae Scientiarum Rossicae (Petrograd, 1892-1917), I, 1–2, No. xiv, pp. 244–54 Google Scholar. For the dating, see Georges et Démétrios Tornikès, Lettres et Discours, ed. Darrouzès, J. (Paris, 1970), p. 47 Google Scholar and n. 17.1 have to thank Paul Magdalino for these references.

22. Zepos, , op. cit., VI, pp. 347, 515, 540–1.Google Scholar

23. Zepos, , op. cit., I, p. 402, ll. 24–6, 30—3.Google Scholar

24. Choniates, Nicetas, p. 605, 11. 8–11, (CSHB); p. 459. 11. 54–6 (CFHB). Google Scholar