Translated Texts for Historians (TTH), the acclaimed series of translations of a wide range of texts in many ancient languages from Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages (300-800 CE), is celebrating its fortieth anniversary this year. Now numbering 86 volumes and counting, the series has many highlights, providing English translations of both world-famous and little-known works, all of which are a precious window into the ancient world.
Some of the most popular volumes in the series are the numerous works of Bede, one of the greatest writers and scholars to emerge from the early Middle Ages. Of these works, perhaps the best-known is The Reckoning of Time, a new revised edition of which is published in March 2025, to coincide with the 1300th anniversary of its first publication. Bede called it ‘his ‘little book about the fleeting and wave-tossed course of time’. But it was much more than a ‘little book’, containing not only a ‘textbook’ on computus (the information and techniques required to calculate the Christian calendar, especially the date of Easter), but also a scientific encyclopaedia.
Church Councils also feature strongly in the series. These gatherings of Christian bishops, monks, priests and officials took place across Europe throughout Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. They were crucial in shaping Christian doctrine and airing hotly-contested disagreements about theology as well as church politics and personalities. The Acts (or minutes) from these councils are a vital resource for historians, but often transmitted in complex format that was difficult for all but specialists to access, until English translations began to appear, among them The Council of Ephesus of 431, The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, The Acts of the Council of Constantinople of 553, The Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea (787) and the forthcoming Documents of the early ‘Arian’ controversy and the Council of Nicaea.
Political spin in the modern world is nothing new, as demonstrated in the volume Themistius and Valens. Themistius, a consummate speech writer, was in the words of author Simon Swain ‘someone who would communicate imperial policy in the most persuasive and memorable way to the elites by pushing or ignoring conventions as it suited and, at the same time, was able to claim his audience’s attention by constantly repeating that he was a philosopher speaking the truth.’ The seven orations in this volume show just how this was done.
As well as providing translations of texts written in Greek, Latin and Syriac, TTH also encompasses other languages from the Middle East. Two such recent examples are The Book of Kings and the Explanations of this World and The Definitive Zoroastrian Critique of Islam. The language of The Book of Kings is Mandaic. The text is a concise outline of the most sacred scripture of the Mandaean community of Iraq and Iran, adherents of the only surviving Gnostic tradition from the period of Late Antiquity and a unique chronicle of late antique Mesopotamia.
The text (two chapters of the Škand Gumānīg-Wizār) translated in The Definitive Zoroastrian Critique of Islam is in Pāzand, a later form of Zoroastrian Middle Persian in the Avestan script. A polemical text, it offers a unique window into the history of contact and competition between Zoroastrianism and rival religions including Islam, Judaism and Christianity in the late antique and early medieval Middle East.
As it moves into its fifth decade TTH continues to expand its coverage, with more Church Councils and hagiographic Lives (the Conference of Carthage in 411; The Life of Porphyry of Gaza); languages from Latin through Georgian to Ethiopic; and regions from the British Isles to the Middle East. The series is available as a digital collection to libraries. Contact us to order or to arrange a free trial for your library.
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