The Universal History of Stepʻanos Tarōnecʻi: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary

375 Pages·2017·3.377 MB·English

by  Tim Greenwood

OXFORD STUDIES IN BYZANTIUM
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The Universal History
‘ ō ‘
of Step anos Tar nec i
Introduction, Translation,
and Commentary
TIM GREENWOOD
1
3
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Preface
The Universal History of Step‘anos Tarōnec‘i (Stephen of Tarōn) offers an
Armenian perspective on the history of the world, in three books, from the
seventy-fifth year of Abraham to the turn of the first millennium. It was
completed in the year 1004/5 CE, in an era when the Byzantine Empire was
expanding eastwards and seizing control by various means of the districts of
western and central Armenia. Eager to describe and analyse the processes
of political, social, and cultural change which accompanied this expansion,
historians haveturnedtobookIII—thelongestofthethree,focusedpredomin-
antlyonthesecondhalfofthetenthcentury—andhavecomeawaydisappointed.
Although it records the Byzantine expansion, it does so through a series of
terseentrieswhichdonotofferfurthercommentorresponse.Noticesrecord-
ingtheinteractionsoflocalArmenian,Georgian,Muslim,andKurdishelites
are scarcely more forthcoming. Instead book III is dominated by a long
theological letter addressed to the metropolitan of Sebasteia defending the
Armenianconfessionoffaithandhighlightingfailingsinthecurrentpractices
oftheImperialChurch.AlthoughscholarsofmedievalArmenia,Byzantium,
and the Caucasus have exploited the Universal History as a contemporary
composition,invariablytheyhaveturnedtoothersourcesinordertosupple-
mentitsbriefnarrative.
This study of the author and his work takes a very different approach. It
treats the whole composition as a reflection of the historical context within
which Step‘anos was working, arguing that his decision to compose a world
history was not accidental. Step‘anos fused Armenian tradition with Roman,
Persian, and Islamic history for a purpose, allowing him to demonstrate that
Armeniahadanancientoriginandlong-standingtieswiththeseotherpowers,
tieswhichwererootedinplace,time,andcircumstance.Thisrecoursetothe
pastwasdesignedtoshapeandreinforcewhatitmeanttobeArmenianinthe
present,atatimewhenitwascomingundersustainedpressure.Furthermore
although the contents of books I and II are derivative, lifted from known
works forthemost part, theextracts chosenby Step‘anos and, more particu-
larly, the revisions made by him, reveal a clear antipathy to Byzantium. This
permitsamorenuancedinterpretationofbookIII,withthetheologicalletter
now central to the whole, operating as a defiant response to the Imperial
Church as well as an assertion of Armenian parity with, and independence
from,Byzantineintellectualandreligiousculture.
YettheUniversalHistorycomprisesmuchmorethanacritiqueofByzantium.
Although it might seem counter-intuitive, this study proposes that Step‘anos
viii Preface
turned to a Byzantine historical composition structured around the imperial
sequence as the chronological spine for book III. Several details about the
Byzantine past preserved by Step‘anos are unique. From an Armenian per-
spective,alongsidethesequencesofkings,princes,andclericalleaders,books
IIandIIIrecordprominentmonasticcommunitiesandscholars.Theirinclu-
sionmaybeconnectedtoStep‘anos’ownresponsibilitieswithintheArmenian
Church,buthisdecisiontoaffordthemsuchprominencemayalsoberelated
to his conception of Armenian identity, constructing it in terms of cultural
memory and tradition as well as historic political and territorial expression.
Hisvisitstothesemonasticcommunitiesmayalsoaccountformuch,ifnotall,
ofthelocalinformationwhichfindsitswayintobookIII,includingreflections
on Buyid hegemony and the actions and interactions of local Sallārid, Raw-
wādid, and Marwānid amirs. Intriguingly, his knowledge and experience of
monastic communities did not extend south into the Arcruni kingdom of
Vaspurakan, nor east and south-east into the districts of Siwnik‘, and it is
striking that book III offers little on the affairs of these parts of historic
Armenia.
The Universal History of Step‘anos Tarōnec‘i emerges as a sophisticated
composition, assembled at a time when traditional markers of Armenian
identitywerebeingtransformedthroughsustainedengagementwitharesur-
gent Byzantium. It represents one scholarly response to these changing
circumstances, advancing a vision of world history which included, and
thereby validated, Armenian tradition. As such, it reminds us that medieval
historiesaremorethanmerelyrecordsofwhathappened.Everycomposition
reflectsthecontextsinwhichitwascomposedandtheresponsesofitsauthor.
The Universal History introduces us to the mind and the world of Step‘anos
Tarōnec‘i.
Acknowledgements
Just as Step‘anos combined absolute and relative chronologies within his
Universal History to measure the course of world history, so the duration of
thisresearchprojectcanbereckonedindifferentways.Fromaninstitutional
point of view, it was begun during the period of a postdoctoral research
fellowship held in the Oriental Institute at the University of Oxford and
completed in the tenth year after my appointment to a lectureship at the
UniversityofStAndrews.Fromanannularperspective,someinitialthoughts
on the text and its author were presented at the Ninth General Conference
of the Association Internationale des Études Arméniennes in Würzburg on
10October2002;andthefull draftwas senttotheEditorialBoardof Oxford
Studies in Byzantium on 7 September 2015. Or to reflect from a personal
viewpoint, our daughter Eleanor was a 1-year old toddler when I began this
studyandembarkingonherpreparationforpublicGSCEexaminationswhen
Ifinished.Whichevercalibrationoneprefers,thereisnoavoidingthefactthat
thisprojecthastakenaverylongtimeindeed.
I should like to extend my sincere thanks to the Faculty of the Oriental
Institute in Oxford for the award of a postdoctoral fellowship, during which
the initial research was conducted, and to my colleagues in the School of
History at the University of St Andrews, for the award of a semester of
research leave in 2014/15, during which the study was completed. I am
indebtedtoalargenumberofcolleaguesandfriendsfortheirencouragement,
wise counsel, and assistance, including Ali Ansari, Juan Signes Codoñer,
CatherineHolmes,JamesHoward-Johnston,HughKennedy,DimitriKastritsis,
Simon MacLean, Ruth Macrides, Paul Magdalino, Andrew Marsham, Karen
Mat‘evosyan, Paruyr Muradyan, Andrew Peacock, Ioanna Rapti, Chase
Robinson, Angus Stewart, Luke Treadwell, Robert Thomson, Theo van Lint,
EddaVardanyan,MaryWhitby,andMarkWhittow.Ishouldliketoacknow-
ledge the contributions of James Mercer and Charlie Fidler in supplying the
imageforthefrontcover,andEmmaDove,whopreparedthemaps.Ishould
alsoliketoexpressparticularthankstoasuccessionoffinal-yearundergradu-
ateclassesattheUniversityofStAndrewswhoencounteredandrespondedto
extractsfrombookIIIintheirstudyoftenth-centuryByzantium.Totheearly
cohorts who were presented with substantial unannotated blocks of text for
analysis,Icanonlyapologize.
Between 2003 and 2007, a series of different papers on aspects of the
structure and contents of the Universal History were presented at research
seminarsinOxford,Birmingham,Queen’sBelfast,andColumbia,NewYork,
and I am grateful for the thoughtful questions and comments on these