Mazzola Marianna. Bar ‘Ebroyo’s Ecclesiastical History: writing Church History in the 13th century Middle East

Université Paris sciences et lettres; Universiteit Gent, 2018. — 619 p.The Ecclesiastical History of Gregory Bar ‘Ebroyo (1225/6-1286 A.D.), Syrian Orthodox author and maphrian of the East, has long been recognized as an invaluable historical source for the history of the Late Antique and Medieval Middle East but it has received limited scholarly attention as a work of literature in its own right, and it has never been made the object of a book-length study. Moreover, the Ecclesiastical History is still available only via a 19th century edition, which is basically a diplomatic reproduction of a 16th century manuscript. Although Bar ‘Ebroyo’s Chronicle, of which the Ecclesiastical History forms the second part, is the only Syriac historiographical work preserved in more than one manuscript, its rich manuscript tradition has never been examined. The purpose of this thesis is to provide a first philological and historiographical study of the Ecclesiastical History. More particularly, I propose an analysis of a) the manuscript tradition and the transmission of the text, b) the relation with the tradition of the genre Ecclesiastical History, c) the study of the sources. This study is accompanied by a newly established text and an English translation.