A reader’s map to Byzantine hymns and everything written about them

This is the second volume of Josef Szövérffy’s guide, and it deals with two forms of Byzantine hymn, named on the title page in Greek: the kanon (Κανών) and the sticheron (Στιχηρόν). As a classified bibliography it sorts both the texts of the hymns and the scholarship written about them, so a reader can find editions and studies side by side. Szövérffy compiled it in collaboration with Eva C. Topping, and Classical Folia Editions published it in 1979, from Brookline, Massachusetts, and Leyden.

The foreword tells how closely it followed the first volume. When that one was finished for publication in December 1978, this second part already existed in manuscript, and the author thanks his close collaborator for her valuable help. The book is dedicated to the memory of Oscar Vasella, rector of the University of Fribourg. A list printed in the book advertises Szövérffy’s other titles in the series Medieval Classics: Texts and Studies, among them a survey of Iberian hymnody and an introduction to Peter Abelard’s hymns.