Reproducing, Transforming, and Generating Knowledge. Nature and the Animal World in Byzantine Hexaemera
How did people in the Byzantine world (the Eastern Roman Empire, ca. 330-1453) understand nature and the animal kingdom? This project is part of a broader research initiative that seeks to redefine our understanding of medieval hexaemera – commentaries on the biblical book of Genesis describing the Six Days of Creation – not merely as theological reflections but as essential sources of knowledge about the natural world. These texts shaped medieval conceptions of nature, influencing broader cultural and religious attitudes toward the environment and non-human life. Byzantine authors of hexaemera did not simply preserve ancient knowledge; they actively engaged with it, adapting and reinterpreting ideas to suit their religious, intellectual, and social realities. This project examines three hexaemeral texts from different centuries and regions of Byzantium, each developed for distinct audiences. By comparing these works, the study uncovers how Byzantine authors shaped and transmitted knowledge about nature, demonstrating the hexaemera’s role as a dynamic medium of intellectual creativity. Adopting a “history of knowledge” approach, this study highlights hexaemeral literature as an evolving space of inquiry rather than a passive repository of inherited wisdom. By analyzing how knowledge about nature and animals was recorded, transmitted, and transformed across different centuries and regions, this project not only deepens our understanding of Byzantine intellectual culture but will also contribute to a larger research initiative on the cross-cultural and multilingual transmission of hexaemeral knowledge in the entangled medieval world.
Przemysław Marciniak
Vita
Przemysław Marciniak is Research Professor of Byzantine Literature at the University of Silesia in Katowice (Poland). He has been a visiting professor in Munich, Freiburg, and Paris, and has held fellowships in Hamburg, Uppsala, Vienna, Washington, and Princeton. His research interests include the reception of Byzantine culture, humor in Byzantium, cultural entomology, and animal studies. Among other works, he is the co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Human-Animal Relations in the Byzantine World and Byzantium in the Popular Imagination (Bloomsbury). His forthcoming publications include a volume on insects in the premodern world (De Gruyter) and another of conceptions of nature in the Byzantine world (Harrassowitz).
Research Areas
Animal Studies
Environmental Humanities
Byzantine Literature
Humor Studies
Reception Studies
Publications (Selection)
Edited volumes:
2024. Routledge Handbook of Byzantine Human-Animal Relations, eds. P. Marciniak and T. Schmidt, Abingdon: Routledge.
2023. Byzantium in the Popular Imagination. The Modern Reception of the Byzantine Empire, eds. M. Kulhankova and P. Marciniak, London: Bloomsbury.
2022. Byzantine commentaries to ancient literature (with B. van der Berg & D. Manolova), Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
2020. Satire in the Middle Byzantine Period. The Golden Age of Laughter?, with I. Nilsson, Brill: Leiden.
Chapters in books:
2024. Animals We Love. Pets and Companion Animals in Byzanitum?, in Routledge Handbook of Human-Animal Reltions in the Byzantine World, eds. P. Marciniak and T. Schmidt, Farnham: Routledge: 332–341.
2021. Performing Byzantium. Byzantium in Early Modern European theatre, in The Reception of Byzantium in Early Modern Europe, eds. J. Ranshoff & N. Aschenbrenner, Washington D.C, Dumbarton Oaks: 205–221.
2023. Animals of Constantinople: Some Initial Remarks. In: Anekdota Byzantina. Studien zur byzantinischen Geschichte und Kultur. Festschrift für Albrecht Berger anlässlich seines 65. Geburstags, eds. I. Grimm-Stadelmann, A. Riehle, R. Tocci, M. Vučetić, Berlin-Boston, DeGruyter: 435–442.
Articles:
2024. Writing a Byzantine Zoobiography: the Case of the Octopus, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 117.3: 669–692.
2024. How to Lament a Fallen Mouse? A Parody of Ancient Lament in the Katomyomachia by Theodore Prodromos, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 117.1: 157–168.
2023. Byzantine Cultural Entomology (4th to 15th centuries): A Microhistory of Byzantine Insects, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 77: 177–193.
