The Alexiad: according to the podcast, which includes an interview with a philogist about it, it's written in Attic Greek
Did the philologist say anything about how fluent the Attic Greek was? Because what I remember reading was that she did her best, but you can tell that she's not a native speaker. But I'm no longer qualified to tell for myself, if I ever was, though it's not out of the question I might read this when I get around to reviving my Greek.
also is a strange and unique mixture of historian style and performative feminity, i.e. every now and then Anna interrupts the narrative with an emotional lament to show she's not an unnatural unfeminine woman despite daring to write history, and then she switches back to continue with the story.
Now that I didn't know!
Western Europe: less and less priests learn Greek. Eastern Europe: less and less priests learn Latin.
My Barbarossa biographer tells me that when the Byzantine emperors would write to their western counterparts, they would send the letter in Greek but include a Latin translation, because they knew it wasn't going to be understood otherwise.
Even with the translation, though, misunderstandings crept in, as we saw with Isaac Angelos, who either had a surname or an overinflated and possibly blasphemous opinion of himself.
Of course, Cahn, if you keep listening to the podcast, you'll get to the part where there's a mistranslation within Latin, wherein the Germans use "beneficium" to mean "fief"* and the Italians use it to mean "nice things" and use "feudum" to mean "fief". So when the Pope sends a letter saying he wants to give the emperor "maiora beneficia" and the German chancellor translates that as the pope wanting to bestow more fiefs on the emperor, all hell breaks loose. The Papal legate and future pope Alexander III almost gets run through with a sword.
But the emperor protects him, and the pope writes a conciliatory letter explaining that the word doesn't mean "fiefs" in Italy, but, uh, the episode doesn't do papal-imperial relations any good.
* Speaking of bilingualism:
Me: "The Germans use 'beneficium' to mean 'Lehen'...dammit, what is the English word again?" *googles* :P Hilariously, this has happened before, when I was telling my wife a story and had to say "Wappen", and then give an elaborate explanation of what it meant, because I was blanking on "coat of arms".
Re: Byzantine tales, brought to you by virtue of me having finished the available podcast
Did the philologist say anything about how fluent the Attic Greek was? Because what I remember reading was that she did her best, but you can tell that she's not a native speaker. But I'm no longer qualified to tell for myself, if I ever was, though it's not out of the question I might read this when I get around to reviving my Greek.
also is a strange and unique mixture of historian style and performative feminity, i.e. every now and then Anna interrupts the narrative with an emotional lament to show she's not an unnatural unfeminine woman despite daring to write history, and then she switches back to continue with the story.
Now that I didn't know!
Western Europe: less and less priests learn Greek.
Eastern Europe: less and less priests learn Latin.
My Barbarossa biographer tells me that when the Byzantine emperors would write to their western counterparts, they would send the letter in Greek but include a Latin translation, because they knew it wasn't going to be understood otherwise.
Even with the translation, though, misunderstandings crept in, as we saw with Isaac Angelos, who either had a surname or an overinflated and possibly blasphemous opinion of himself.
Of course, Cahn, if you keep listening to the podcast, you'll get to the part where there's a mistranslation within Latin, wherein the Germans use "beneficium" to mean "fief"* and the Italians use it to mean "nice things" and use "feudum" to mean "fief". So when the Pope sends a letter saying he wants to give the emperor "maiora beneficia" and the German chancellor translates that as the pope wanting to bestow more fiefs on the emperor, all hell breaks loose. The Papal legate and future pope Alexander III almost gets run through with a sword.
But the emperor protects him, and the pope writes a conciliatory letter explaining that the word doesn't mean "fiefs" in Italy, but, uh, the episode doesn't do papal-imperial relations any good.
* Speaking of bilingualism:
Me: "The Germans use 'beneficium' to mean 'Lehen'...dammit, what is the English word again?" *googles* :P Hilariously, this has happened before, when I was telling my wife a story and had to say "Wappen", and then give an elaborate explanation of what it meant, because I was blanking on "coat of arms".