| dc.description.abstract | Justinian the Great was the byzantine emperor from 527 to 565. There has been little research on the modern historiography surrounding him, including in English-language introductory one-volume textbooks on the history of Byzantium. This paper examines how this emperor has been presented and evaluated in four different English-language, introductory one-volume textbooks through historiographic analysis. These books are History of the Byzantine Empire by Alexander Vasiliev (1953), History of the Byzantine State by George Ostrogrosky (1968), A History of the Byzantine State and Society by Warren Treadgold (1997), and A Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire edited by Jonathan Shepard (2008).
The theoretical starting point of the paper is that all historiography has a theoretical basis that influences the issues, methods, and choice of sources. In order to identify this basis, a content analysis has been conducted using several theoretical concepts. These are narrative types or plotlines, grunnfortelling («master narrative»), types of explanation, and types of sources. The focus of the content analysis of the textbooks is limited to examining how Justinian's reign is presented and evaluated within the topics of administration and religious policy. Finally, the decisive differences are identified through comparison. These differences are then viewed in light of historiographic schools to attempt to explain them.
The study shows that the presentation and evaluation of Justinian's reign can be particularly placed within Ranke's narrative, political historical tradition. This is expressed in the focus on Emperor Justinian and other leaders within the bureaucracy and the church. However, there are also elements of other historiographic schools, particularly within the broader framework of the social scientific historical orientation. Ostrogorsky has indications of influence from Marxist historiography in the form of some focus on the social production relations. Treadgold has features of the quantitative approach or historiography, where he uses statistics and tables to support his explanations. Through his emphasis on the biases and intentions of classicising historians, supporting author Louth from Shepard's edited book suggests influence from the linguistic turn. The analysis has shown that in addition to Ranke's narrative, political historical tradition, there are generally three features of social scientific historical orientation that emerge in the textbooks, which are expressed through emphasis on causal relationships and discussion. The linguistic turn is most prominently present only in the latter textbook of Shepard. For this reason, this paper has suggested that the textbooks largely follow a similar pattern. | |
