01 — Foundations

The historical ground beneath a legend-haloed life: Romanos the Melodist’s origins at Emesa in Syria, the tradition of his Jewish-convert background, his diaconate at Berytus and removal to Constantinople under the emperor Anastasius — and the sixth-century liturgical and political world of Justinian into which the master of the kontakion was born.

This section establishes what can and cannot be known about Romanos before the hymns begin. Because the sources are meagre and late — the Menaion for October, the Synaxarion of Constantinople, a single mention in the eighth-century St. Germanus, an entry in the Suda — the foundations are built carefully, with the contested dates and the convert tradition flagged as such, and the rich, well-documented backdrop (the Constantinople of Justinian, Hagia Sophia, the cathedral rite) supplied where the biography runs thin.

Files

File Description
emesa-to-constantinople.md Origins at Emesa (modern Homs); the Jewish-convert tradition; deacon at Berytus; the move to Constantinople under Anastasius; the church of the Theotokos; the meagre, legend-laden sources
the-world-of-justinian.md Sixth-century Constantinople — Justinian, Hagia Sophia, the Nika riots, post-Chalcedonian ferment, and the flourishing of the sung cathedral rite

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