Byzantium’s Kalīla wa-Dimna (Stephanites and Ichnelates) and the Localization of Medieval Popular Text

초록

This study challenges the traditional narrative of Byzantine intellectual isolationism through examination of Stephanites and Ichnelates, demonstrating instead sophisticated cultural mediation during the Komnenian renaissance. Codicological analysis of four primary manuscripts reveals the text functioned as political theory disguised as animal fable, designed for multicultural governance. The Eugenian recension, produced within Norman Sicily’s intercultural environment, demonstrates cross-cultural synthesis rivaling any medieval intellectual achievement. This research exposes methodological blind spots in Byzantine studies. Traditional disciplinary boundaries separating Western medieval, Islamic, and Byzantine traditions have obscured the transnational character of Mediterranean intellectual life. Thus, the institutional networks within the Mediterranean world at the time created incentives for cultural competence that contradict the traditional scholarly narratives. The selected text’s strategies for managing cultural diversity remain relevant to contemporary multicultural governance, underscoring how significantly scholarship has underestimated medieval political sophistication and Byzantine intellectual creativity.

키워드