Why such conservatism? The answer would be much the same as to why Greek and Latin lingered so long in the English education system: it was a reasonably good method for producing mandarins capable of turning an elegant phrase and constructing a lucid argument. For as long as the state and ecclesiastical bureaucracy had need of high-level word-spinners and lower-level competent wordsmiths, so the conservatism continued, with implications for the processes of education and the types of literature that were produced. The Byzantine state functioned until the fifteenth century; thus the education and literary aspirations that had been set up in late antiquity lingered on too.19
As in the ancient world, education in Byzantium came in stages. The most elementary involved basic reading and writing, usually using the Psalms as an instructional manual; teaching at this level was probably quite widely available at most periods, and would have taken place from the ages of 6 to 11. The next called for deeper study of orthography, morphology and syntax, based on grammars like that of Dionysius of Thrax, and the composition of writing exercises ranging from the simple to the relatively complex; depending on the student’s ability and his parents’ willingness to pay, this stage could last until the age of 16.20 At any point in the Byzantine millennium there would have been fewer opportunities at this level, but appropriate teachers would have certainly existed in Constantinople and Thessaloniki, and probably in large towns. Information on the process is scattered: the correspondence of an anonymous tenth-century school-master is illuminating, as are comments from Tzetzes in the twelfth century and George of Cyprus in the thirteenth.21 But the picture is reasonably consistent, of practice in orthography and the somewhat ill-understood schede (parsing exercises).22 It is at this stage that training in rhetoric can be said to have started, with increasing use of progymnasmata as an aid to fluent composition. For the majority of those who had progressed this far, their education would now come to an end, the emphasis having been on form (accurate linguistic usage) rather than on the content of the texts from which the form was learnt. Any further progress would depend on the student’s ability and ambition, his parents’ means and the availability of a teacher. The careers of Photius (civil servant turned patriarch), Psellus (courtier and would-be statesman) and Tzetzes (impoverished literary polymath) each demonstrate both the possibilities of what could be achieved and the range of material - literary, philosophical, historical - that could be mined. However, after the loss of Alexandria and Beirut to the Greek-speaking world in the seventh century, university-level instruction, of whatever content, was provided in the capital only intermittently: key phases were the short-lived establishments set up by Bardas (perhaps; d. 866), Constantine IX Mono-machus (reigned 1042-1055), and then the Patriarchal School which from the twelfth century supported the training of clergy; after 1204 strenuous efforts were made in Nicaea to set up establishments to provide trained state officials.23
What proportion of the population was involved in this process, or could be considered literate, is difficult to estimate.24 The Byzantine fisc and army ran on files and detailed records, and employed a significant number of officials, as witnessed by the numerous seals once attached to their documents; they must have been at least minimally literate. It has been calculated for the tenth, twelfth and fourteenth centuries that at no time were there in the capital many more than two hundred individuals who had passed through the higher levels of the educational process and who would have been capable of writing and appreciating the written products of the process.25 It was at this level of advanced literary composition that rhetoric in Byzantium functioned to its fullest extent.
However, despite the bureaucracy and the importance of the written word, Byzantine society remained largely oral. Manuscripts were costly and silent reading was remarked upon.26 Publication was by performance; letters were read to the recipient, often in a public gathering (a theatron) for entertainment;27 sermons were a significant part of the Church’s outreach to the congregation;28 court ceremonial demanded suitable orations at diplomatic or festive occasions. The texts that have survived from these occasions more often than not make no concessions to the audience, whether or not they could have been expected to have been trained to appreciate stylistic subtleties.
World History
