Panegyrics

The geographical matrix of the imperial office: a network of spatial relations between comparative figures in Byzantine imperial panegyrics, 1204-1328.

I constructed a network of concepts and actors for the genre of imperial panegyrics in Byzantium between 1204 and 1328, relying on data from the excellent study by Dimiter Angelov (D. Angelov, Imperial Ideology and Political Thought in Byzantium (1204-1330). Cambridge 2007, esp. 86–90).  Angelov systematically surveyed authors and addressees (the emperors, of course) of imperial panegyrics for this period as well as the figures from the biblical as well as classical tradition (such as King David or Alexander the Great) with which authors compared emperors in their texts. I combined this data into a three-mode-network of Emperors (red), authors (blue) and comparative figures (green). This network is also object of further analysis in: J. Preiser-Kapeller, From quantitative to qualitative and back again. The interplay between structure and culture and the analysis of networks in pre-modern societies, in: E. Mitsiou - M. Popović – J. Preiser-Kapeller (eds.), Multiplying Middle Ages. New methods and approaches for the study of the multiplicity of the Middle Ages in a global perspective (3rd-16th CE). Akten der Konferenz in Wien im November 2012. Vienna 2014 (forthcoming).
I transformed the 3-mode-network of authors, emperors and figures in a 1-mode-network of figures, in which two figures are connected if they were used by the same author for the same emperor; as several figures were used by several authors for the same emperors, some linkages are stronger than others. As becomes obvious if we inspect the graph of this network with nodes scaled according to their number of ties (degree), there is a densely connected core of nodes with a relatively high number of connections and various less densely interconnected clusters at the periphery of this web of comparative figures. (Blue: figures of biblical origin, red: figures of classic origin).
On the basis of the 1-mode-network of comparative figures used in the imperial panegyrics of Byzantium between 1204 and 1328, I created a network of geographical places which are related to the respective figures (e. g. Moses – Sinai, Julius Caesar – Rome). Two localities are linked in this spatial network if figures connected to them are linked in the above-presented 1-mode-network. Thus, a dense and complex geographical matrix of imperial panegyrics in Late Byzantium becomes visible.