Download PDF | (Brill's Companions to the Byzantine World, 12) Sofia Kotzabassi - A Companion to the Intellectual Life of the Palaeologan Period-Brill (2022).
534 Pages
Acknowledgments
My thanks go to the managing editor of Brill’s Companions to the Byzantine World, Wolfram Brandes, who welcomed this volume into his series, and to the authors of the individual chapters for their excellent cooperation and patience. Unfortunately not all invited scholars were able to contribute to this volume. I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions; Demetra Samara who revised references and bibliographies; George Alexakis who copyedited the text of the manuscript; and the publisher’s former and current editorial staff, in particular Julian Deahl, Alessandra Giliberto and Peter Buschman, for their tireless support.
Notes on Contributors
Giuseppe De Gregorio is Professor for Greek Palaeography at the University of Bologna. His main fields of investigation are Greek manuscripts and documents, especially of the Palaeologan era as well as of the early modern period (in Western Europe and in the Ottoman East), history and reception of ancient Greek texts in Byzantium, Byzantine chanceries, and Byzantine epigrams.
Pantelis Golitsis is a researcher at the Aristoteles-Archiv of the Freie Universitat Berlin and an Assistant Professor at the Aristotle Unversity of Thessaloniki. He is the author of Les Commentaires de Simplicius et de Jean Philopon a la Physique dAristote. Tradition et innovation (Berlin & New York, 2008) and has published several articles on topics of Late antique and Byzantine philosophy.
Eleni Kaltsogianni is Assistant Professor of Byzantine literature at the University of Ioannina. Her research interests focus on learned literature, especially rhetoric and hagiography, of the Middle and Late Byzantine period (from the 12th to the 15th centuries). In collaboration with Ioannis Polemis, she has published an edition of Theodore Metochites’ rhetorical works in the Bibliotheca Teubneriana.
Apostolos Karpozilos is Professor emeritus of the University of Joannina. He taught Medieval Greek Literature. He provided critical editions of The Letters of Ioannes Mauropous and of Theodore Hyrtakenos (with George Fatouros). He is the author of several works on Byzantine epistolography and historiography (Byzantine Historian and Chroniclers, 4 vols.), and has also written articles on the material culture of Byzantium.
Sofia Kotzabassi is Professor of Byzantine Philology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Her research interests include Byzantine rhetoric and epistolography, historiography and prosopography, and Greek paleography. Her recent publications include Das hagiographische Dossier der heiligen Theodosia von Konstantinopel (Berlin, 2009) and Greek Manuscripts at Princeton. A Descriptive Catalogue (with Nancy Sevéenko, Princeton, 2010).
Sophia Mergiali-Sahas is Associate Professor of Byzantine History at the University of Athens. Her publications include, L’Enseignement et les Lettrés pendant Epoque des Paléologues (Athens, 1996), Writing history with the saints: From the society of the saints to the society of the Palaeologan era (1261-1453) (in Greek; forthcoming), and some twenty articles on intellectual history, social issues, holy relics and political power, diplomacy, piracy, slave trade, and other aspects of Byzantine history.
Ioannis Polemis is Professor of Byzantine Literature at the Athens University. He specializes in Late Byzantine literature, and has produced editions and translations of Ethikos and the orations of Theodore Metochites, the Funeral Orations of Michael Psellos. He is the author of a number of articles on the hesychastic quarrels of the 14th century, and has published various texts of the late 14th century referring to the Palamite controversy.
Alexander Riehle is Assistant Professor of the Classics at Harvard University. He specializes in the rhetorical and epistolary literature of late Byzantium. He is the editor of A Companion to Byzantine Epistolography (Leiden, 2020) and is currently preparing an edition and translation of the letter-collections of Nikephoros Choumnos.
Demetra Samara taught Byzantine Philology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Her research deals with the literature of the Palaeologan period. She is the author of Theodore Mouzalon. The Life and writings of a13th Century Scholar (in Greek, 2018) and is preparing a critical edition and translation of Manuel Philes.
Ilias Taxidis is Associate Professor of Byzantine Philology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. His main interests are Byzantine epistolography, rhetoric and poetry. His most recent publications include Les epigrammes de Maxime Planude (Berlin 2017) and The Ekphraseis in the Byzantine Literature of the 72th century (Alessandria, 2021).
Ioannis Vassis is Professor of Medieval Greek Literature at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He specializes in Byzantine Poetry and his recent publications include Leon Magistros Choirosphaktes, Chiliostichos Theologia (Berlin, 2002), Initia Carminum Byzantinorum (Berlin, 2005), and, with Ioannis Polemis, A Greek Exile in 12th-century Malta. The Poem of the Ms. Matritensis BN 4577. A New Critical Edition with Translation and Notes (in Greek, Athens, 2016).
INTRODUCTION
Intellectual Life in the Palaeologan Period: Persons, Genres and Trends
1 Renaissance or Not Renaissance?
The publication in book form of four lectures given by Sir Steven Runciman at Queen’s University, Belfast as the very well-known The Last Byzantine Renaissance (1970)! was decisive in directing the interest of a broad and educated public to Byzantium’s last two centuries. It followed Ihor Sevéenko’s systematic study of such eminent scholars of the period as the mesazon Nikephoros Choumnos (c.1250/55-1327), megas logothetes Theodore Metochites (1270-1332) and Nicholas Kabasilas (c.1319—after 1391),2 and also the admiration aroused by the unveiling of the famous mosaics and frescoes in the Chora Monastery (Kariye Camii) in 1966, by Paul Underwood,? after years devoted to their conservation and restoration, and their publication in a monumental four-volume edition. The direct connection between this splendid set of works and Theodore Metochites, one of the most important figures and eminent scholars of the period, whose portrait — on his knees offering the church to Christ - appears in an impressive scene above the entrance to the nave, served indirectly to encourage exploration of his personality and rich body of writings.
It may be true, as Runciman observes in the preface to his book, that “The product of Byzantine scholars is less attractive to us today than the product of Byzantine artists. But scholarship should be judged by the standards of its age, not by the tastes of subsequent generations’, but in the intervening years study of the Palaeologan /iterati has brought to light many exceptionally interesting “products” and persons.
Although the characteristics of the literary and artistic productions of the Palaeologan age were quite different from those of the Italian Renaissance, it is also generally accepted that, despite being preceded by the dissolution and fragmentation of the Byzantine Empire as a consequence of the Crusaders’ capture of Constantinople in 1204, the situation in Byzantium just prior to the Palaeologan period did not resemble that preceding the Renaissance in Western Europe.
The Palaeologan age is the longest and most turbulent period in Byzantine history. It begins with the restoration of Byzantine imperial authority in Constantinople in 1261, after 57 years of Latin rule, and ends with the fall of the city to the Turks in 1453.
Although Byzantine territory was then far smaller than it had been, and was perpetually shrinking as its neighbours, and especially the Turks, gradually expanded, a situation that had serious economic consequences for the empire, the Palaeologan period can nonetheless show important achievements in the interlinked domains of art, letters and the sciences, which operated interactively and express the intellectual life of Byzantium in its final centuries.
Political power went hand in hand with erudition far more than at any other time, as witness the lively interest of Andronikos 11 Palaiologos in literature and the arts and his support for scholars and /iterati throughout his forty five-year reign (1282-1328); as witness also the prolific literary activity of the Emperors John vi Kantakouzenos (1341-1347) and Manuel 11 Palaiologos (1391-1425), who some four centuries after Constantine vi1 Porphyrogennetos (913-959) once again combined the conditions of emperor and scholar. Moreover, in no other period do we find in Byzantium so many men of letters in such high-ranking state offices as those of logothetes tou genikou, grand logothete (megas logothetes), or mesazon, which were held by (among others) George Akropolites (1217-1282), his son Constantine Akropolites (c.1250-1323/24), Theodore Mouzalon (1256/58-1294), Nikephoros Choumnos, Theodore Metochites, and Demetrios Kydones (c.1324—1397).
2 The Role of the Women
At the same time, we also find the women of the Byzantine aristocracy playing a more active role in public life in the Palaeologan era than in any previous period. Well educated and with commanding personalities, these women engaged actively in the political and cultural life of the empire and enjoyed the esteem of eminent scholars.
One of those distinguished for her strength of character was Irene-Eulogia Palaiologina (before 1220-1284), sister of Michael v111 Palaiologos (12591282), who opposed her brother’s policy on Church Union and was in consequence exiled to Asia Minor with her daughter, protobestiarissa Theodora Raoulaina (c.1240-1300). With her encouragement, Theodora Raoulaina would write a Life of St. Theodore and St. Theophanes the Graptoi (the Branded), a work distinguished for its elegance and rhetorical perfection. Irene-Eulogia Palaiologina was also responsible, at least in part, for the exceptionally fine education which won her daughter a prominent place among the literati of the early Palaeologan period.* Indeed, she is described in the most flattering terms by the orator of orators Manuel Holobolos (c.1245-1310/14) in a letter of condolence to her daughter, Theodora Raoulaina, upon the death of the latter’s husband, the protovestiarios John Raoul, and by the scholarly Patriarch Gregory of Cyprus (1241-1289) upon the occasion of her own death.5 Theodora Raoulaina was considered by many scholars of the late 13th century as a worthy interlocutor, because of her general culture, her philological knowledge, her activity as a copyist, and her extensive library.®
Apart from her friendship and regular correspondence with Gregory of Cyprus, which was largely concerned with exchanges of manuscripts, mainly of ancient orators, but also occasionally with comments on the style of the Patriarch’s letters, Theodora Raoulaina also demonstrated an interest in the physical sciences and in music. In his Letter 68 to Theodora Raoulaina, ManuelMaximos Planoudes (1255-1305) complains of the loss of a manuscript containing Bryennios’ Harmonics which he had been intending to use as a basis for corrections to a manuscript of hers on the same subject, while Constantine Akropolites corresponded with her on the subject of a treatise on astrology.’ She herself was the copyist of one of the most important manuscripts of Simplikios’ commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, and her name is associated with other manuscripts as well, including a manuscript of Thucydides (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Ms Monac. gr. 430) and a 12th-century parchment manuscript of the commentaries of Theophylact of Bulgaria on the Gospels (Paris, Bibliotheque National de France, Paris. Coisl. gr. 128) which she presented to the Athonite monastery of Megiste Lavra in 1300; she may also have been the sponsor of fifteen precious liturgical manuscripts ascribed by Buchtal and Belting to the “atelier of Palaiologina’®
Theodora Raoulaina may have been the most erudite and active of the female scholars of the Palaeologan period, but she was not alone. Many ladies of the highest rank were extremely well educated, among them IreneEulogia Choumnaina, daughter of Nikephoros Choumnos and wife of John Palaiologos (+ 1307), the son of Andronikos 11, who studied with her father and was praised by Nikephoros Gregoras (1290/94—1358/61) for her quick wit and theological learning.® She herself, as founder of the convent tou Philanthropou Soteros, corresponded with both her father and her spiritual father, Theoleptos of Philadelphia, and later with Gregory Akindynos (ca. 1300-1348).!° The Empress Helen (1333/4-1397), daughter of John vi Kantakouzenos and wife of John v Palaiologos, who corresponded with Nikephoros Gregoras and Demetrios Kydones, was also formidably well educated."
The manuscripts dedicated to the libraries of their foundations by many of the female founders of monasteries in that period, such as Theodora Synadene (before 1270—after 1342), founder of the Bebaias Elpidos Nunnery (Virgin of Sure Hope)” and the protostratorissa Anna Komnene Raoulaina Strategopoulina (PLP 26893), daughter of Theodora Raoulaina and founder of the Monastery of Christ Krataios,!> show that the convents, too, had nuns who could read lives and encomia of saints and other religious works. Indeed, in the Typikon of her monastery Theodora Synadene urged the nuns to do so.
Thomais, later an abbess in Constantinople, lived in the late 14th and early 15th century. She was an orphan who was raised in the household of the mother of Nicholas Kabasilas (c.1319—after 1391), where she acquired a basic education. She later studied with the hymnographer Palaiologina at the Monastery of St. Theodora in Thessaloniki and returned to Constantinople with a knowledge of the Scriptures that drew the attention of the Empress and the Patriarch.
Some of the female relatives of the Byzantine emperors embroiled themselves in the religious disputes of their day. Among these were Maria-Martha Tarchaneiotissa (c.1214/16—after 1267, PLP 21389), sister of Michael viir Palaiologos and founder of the monastery that bears her name, who supported the Arsenites, Theodora Raoulaina and her mother Irene-Eulogia Palaiologina, who opposed Church Union, and Irene-Eulogia Choumnaina, who supported Gregory Akindynos and the anti-Hesychasts.!©
3 Manuscripts and the Role of Thessaloniki
A significant factor in the blossoming of intellectual life in the Palaeologan age was the change in writing material with the progressively increasing use of paper. Parchment continued to be used, but paper was both far less expensive and much easier for non-professional scribes to use. Paper made it possible for scholars to set down their own works without having to employ a professional scribe, and it also helped their writings circulate: there are many references to scholars hearing of a new work and asking for a copy from the author or a friend. In the same way, paper facilitated the copying of Ancient Greek and Byzantine literature, since anyone interested in a particular work could borrow a manuscript from a friend and make his own copy.!”
Many of the scholars of that age studied the Ancient Greek literature intensively, copied new manuscripts, and attempted to correct existing manuscripts.!® Three of the most important Byzantine philologists, Thomas Magistros (c.1275—after 1347), Manuel Moschopoulos (end 13th—after 1305/6) and Demetrios Triklinios (c.1280-1340), dealt mainly with the tragic poets,!® Planoudes with Plutarch and Ptolemy’s Geography,2° and John Pediasimos (c.1240-1301/14) with Cleomedes’ The Heavens.?!
It would be remiss, in speaking of these scholars, to fail to mention the significance of presence of Thessaloniki in the intellectual and literary production of the Palaeologan period.
Many eminent scholars of that age were natives of the city or lived there for a time. Apart from the three philologists already mentioned, Thessaloniki was the birthplace of Nicholas Kabasilas, Patriarch Philotheos Kokkinos, an active participant in the Hesychast controversy, and Demetrios Kydones, while among those who spent some years living and working there were Nikephoros Choumnos, Theodore Metochites, the philosopher Joseph Rhakendytes, and Metropolitans Gregory Palamas and Symeon of Thessaloniki. One of the subjects upon which Symeon (who was metropolitan of the city shortly before it fell to the Turks) wrote, was an interpretation of the Liturgy, a topic with which Nicholas Kabasilas had also engaged some years earlier but until then had seemingly been of no interest to Byzantine scholars.
Others connected with Thessaloniki include three of the most distinguished jurists of the age. The Palaeologan period may have little to show in the way of original jurisprudence, but a number of efforts were made to systematise the laws in use. One of these was the Synopsis minor, a compilation attributed to the dikaiophylax of Thessaloniki George Phobenos.?? The work was cited a few decades later by the author of the Hexabiblos (ca. 1345), Constantine Harmenopoulos.”? Although his origins are unknown, Harmenopoulos served as nomophylax and katholikos krites of Thessaloniki, while his Hexabiblos was the most important legal work of the period. Some years earlier, also in Thessaloniki, Matthew Blastares (c.1280-c.1350) had written a lengthy legal work, the Alphabetical Treatise (Lbvtaypa xat& ototysiov),24 a compendium of canon and civil law organised in twenty-four sections according to the letters of the Greek alphabet.
Thessaloniki is also associated with a rich body of hagiographical literature and hymnography, relating primarily but far from exclusively to the city’s patron and protector, St. Demetrios. Many scholars, both lay-persons and churchmen, composed encomia on saints from various times in this period, among them Constantine Acropolites, Theodore Metochites, Nikephoros Gregoras, Philotheos Kokkinos and Nicholas Kabasilas, while several, including Philotheos Kokkinos, Symeon of Thessaloniki and Mark Eugenikos, Metropolitan of Ephesos (15th c.), were also hymnographers.
Sciences and Curriculum
That age was one of markedly increased interest in mathematics, astronomy and medicine.” In the early years after the recovery of Constantinople by Michael virt Palaiologos in 1261 the megas logothetes George Akropolites taught Nicomachian arithmetic and Euclidian geometry.26 Theodore Metochites sought someone to teach him astronomy, which he later taught to his pupil Nikephoros Gregoras, who in turn wrote an Elements of Astronomical Science following Ptolemy’s Almagest.?” In their study of astronomy some scholars adopted elements from the Persian and Arabic traditions as well; among these are George Chionades (1240-1320), Nicholas Rhabdas, George Chrysokokkes, Isaac Argyros, Nicholas Kabasilas and Theodore Meliteniotes.?® Medicine was also a subject of interest to Palaeologan scholars, as evidenced by the works of Nicholas Myrepsos and John Aktouarios.?9
Although Ancient Greek philosophy had always been part of the Trivium and a perennial interest of Byzantine literati, interest in the subject in the Palaiologan period was noticeably heightened. This is expressed both in the copying of manuscripts of Plato and Aristotle by Byzantine scholars like Gregory of Cyprus?° and George Pachymeres (c.1242—-1310) and in the writing of commentaries or paraphrases, particularly of the works of Aristotle. In this regard one might mention the commentaries of Theodore Metochites on many of Aristotle’s works, the surviving commentaries of Nikephoros Gregoras, Neophytos Prodromenos and George Scholarios, and the paraphrases of George Pachymeres and Joseph Rakendytes.*!
Another activity that influenced the intellectual life of the age was the translation of secular and theological Latin literature. The first Byzantine scholars to engage in translation were Maximos Planoudes, who among other things translated works by Cato, Ovid and Augustine, and Manuel Holobolos, who translated Boethius. They were followed by Demetrios Kydones, who translated Thomas Aquinas and some works of Augustine, and George-Gennadios Scholarios, who would later become Patriarch.°2
Despite the friction created between Byzantium and the West by the two attempts at church union with the Council of Lyon (1274) and the Council of Ferrara/Florence (1438-39), communication between the two sides was cultivated, particularly in the 15th century. With the Renaissance in Italy came a turn towards Antiquity and interest in Ancient Greek writers, spurring numerous Italians to go to Byzantium in search of manuscripts and to learn Greek, while Byzantine scholars moved to Italy, seeking to escape the looming Turkish conquest and in hopes of better fortunes.
In the Palaeologan age intellectual and artistic activity were connected. Members of the Byzantine aristocracy restored monasteries*? and dedicated icons, and poets composed epigrams about them: Maximos Planoudes, for example, wrote three epigrams on the monastery renovated by Theodora Raoulaina,** and Manuel Philes composed the lines carved in relief on the cornice in the Pammakaristos Monastery.*°
Through their active engagement with and systematic promotion of every branch of knowledge, through works of their own dealing with the teaching of the Trivium and the Quadrivium,?® and through their personal literary and philological production, the Byzantine literati demonstrated their “ability to think and understand things, especially complicated ideas’,?” creating an intellectual environment that went beyond the limited number of “chancery” scholars to pervade society and shape the life of the Byzantine citizens of that age.
The way in which the intellectual life of the Palaeologan period is reflected and described in the works and activities of its writers and scholars is presented in the chapters that follow.
For the Byzantines, rhetoric (Chapter 1) had always been a fundamental element of any intellectual activity. At all times forming part of the Byzantine curriculum and serving as a means of stabilizing the political system through the propagation of official ideology, rhetoric continued to play a significant role in the intellectual life of the Palaeologan era. Court oratory flourished under the patronage of learned rulers, while the death of emperors or other prominent persons was often commemorated in funerary orations of lofty style. Significant historical events, such as the siege or fall of Byzantine cities, also offered an occasion for the composition of rhetorical speeches of epideictic or advisory character, while the uncertain historical conjuncture led to a revival of counselling oratory, a genre that had previously been neglected. The aim of Chapter 1 is to give a taste of the various forms of rhetorical discourse that were produced in the late Byzantine period and point out the basic trends to be observed in each individual genre (e.g., imperial panegyrics, funeral orations, praises of cities, counselling texts, speeches on historical occasions), with reference, of course, to their main representatives.
Although for the vast majority of Byzantines the norm was that learning was sought for its practical benefits or as a means towards divine knowledge but never for its own sake, in the intellectual history of the Palaiologan era we are presented with what appears to be a converse trend. In the case of some specific (albeit few) intellectuals of high cultural awareness, we encounter a novel mentality in terms of a pursuit of scientific and literary knowledge that becomes an end in itself. Five representative figures are examined in Chapter 2: the megas logothetes Theodore Metochites, lover of astronomy, the court physician John Zacharias, astrologer; the physician Gregory Chioniades, devoted to Persian astronomy, the mesazon Demetrios Kydones, dedicated to Western theology, and the Emperor Manuel Palaiologos, one of the most prolific authors of his time. Devotion to learning for its own sake may be seen as a luxury, especially under circumstances of political decline. But for those few, such a devotion was believed to imbue the intellectual environment and make life worth living, especially at a time when the looming eclipse of the Byzantine Empire was imminent and irreversible.
Interest in seeking knowledge and acquiring scientific learning is also reflected in the autobiographical texts of the age (Chapter 3), whose literati, more than in any preceding period, reveal considerable autobiographical information in their works, some of them indeed writing entirely autobiographical texts either as self-contained works or as introductions to some other composition. The characteristic feature of these texts is that their authors chose to relate not an account of their lives but a description of their adventures in search of knowledge.
The framework within which the intellectual life of the last two centuries of Byzantium unfolded and the impact of the various political, military and religious conflicts are described by the historians of the age (Chapter 4). The political circumstances of the Palaeologan period made some historians more outspoken and often critical of the rulers and protagonists of the events. Others used their histories as a propaganda tool, for a variety of reasons — ideological, religious or for personal gain. Regardless of their motives, they depicted military disasters, civil wars and the prevailing political unrest in cities and the countryside — those factors that contributed to the collapse of the State. And yet for about one hundred years — from the middle of the fourteenth century to the Fall of Constantinople — no major historical work was written. The Turkish advance must be the main reason for this gap in historiography, and those who recorded their victorious deeds felt apologetic towards their Christian readers. In their outlook they remained traditional, attributing the disintegration of the State to the will of the divine. For current events they found parallels in the classics and the Scriptures. Their views on history and its dynamics were antiquarian and as such differed little from older works.
Poetry was indisputably a major element of intellectual life (Chapter 5). Poets and patrons were members of the same elite, which was also the audience for the poems. Poets were not only able to demonstrate their skill in handling language but could also present their works publicly, either at the imperial court or in what were described as “theatres”, and might even see some of them preserved as inscriptions on works of art, icons, churches, etc., or as prefaces to prose works. In their poems they often expressed not only their own sentiments but also those in whose name they were writing and which related to ecclesiastical as well as to secular matters.
Another window into the intellectual life of the literati of the age is afforded by the numerous letters that have survived. Chapter 6 examines the role that letter-writing played within the circles of the educated elites of the late Byzantine period. It argues that epistolography was an essential medium of social exchange, which enabled literati to communicate with one another and to reaffirm themselves as a distinctive group based on the principles of friendship and shared intellectual ideals. While the general “conservatism” of Byzantine literary culture fostered the stabilisation of social and linguistic codes within this framework, this essay shows that the transformation that Byzantine society underwent due to the severe crisis it experienced in this period challenged traditional values and profoundly affected the constitution of networks and behaviour of educated elites.
Philosophy held a special place in the lives and work of the literati of the Palaiologan period. Chapter 7 provides an outline of the two main features of that era in this regard: 1) the production of new copies of ancient philosophical texts, as well as the composition of new commentaries on them, which made possible an extensive knowledge of Plato and Aristotle during this period; and 2) the intervention of ancient philosophy into theology and religious life, as may be seen primarily through the Palamist controversy and its various extensions.
It would not be possible to speak of philosophy without mentioning one of the most important scholars of this period, the megas logothetes Theodore Metochites. Chapter 8 essays an examination of various aspects of the contemplation of the world in his main writings. Metochites introduced the study of the four mathematical sciences into Late Byzantium, and the idea of the contemplation of the world is therefore rather frequently discussed in his treatises. As an heir of the Late Antique tradition of cosmic theology, he stresses that contemplation of the world or nature may lead man towards God. Drawing upon the works of Philo of Alexandria, in the Ethikos, one of his most important treatises, he depicts an impressive image of the sage who contemplates the world, free of all distractions. He even goes so far as to compare some of the objects described in his treatises with the world: Constantinople is a microcosm of the whole universe, while the Byzantine provinces in Asia Minor are aptly compared to the well-ordered kosmos. In some cases, however, Metochites does not hesitate to give the term “nature” a negative connotation, stressing its instability. Despite all appearances, the world in Metochites’ works is presented as something ambiguous, or even terrifying. That ambiguity allows Metochites to pose the question whether human life is worth living. Although he admits that life is a gift from God, the fact that he dares to ask such a question indicates the author's inner estrangement from the basic tenets of official Byzantine ideology.
Intellectual life was also closely connected with the monasteries (Chapter 9), both in Constantinople and near other cities. Several of these had been founded by members of the elite and were centres promoting and disseminating knowledge and ideas, support for which often created conflict. Despite the fact that Byzantine monasticism flourished in the early second millennium, the gradual expansion of the Seljuks into Asia Minor led little by little to the destruction of the monastic centres in that area, such as Mount Latros in Miletos, Mount Galesion in the region of Ephesos and Mount Auxentios in Bithynia, which, however, survived until the beginning of the 14th century, contributing decisively to the intellectual blossoming of the Palaeologan era. At the same time, the progressive development of large monastic centres in the European part of the Byzantine Empire, such as Mount Athos, Meteora or Mount Ganos in Thrace, somewhat restored the lost balance, while in the meantime strong and important monastic complexes founded during the previous centuries in the empire’s two great urban centres, Constantinople and Thessaloniki, continued to flourish during the Palaelogan period. In any case, it seems that the monasticism of the Palaeologan era contributed significantly to the intellectual movement of the time, either in the form of direct or indirect participation in the so-called “Palaeologan renaissance” or by supporting and disseminating Hesychastic theology (Chapter 10), proving that at a time when the empire was in decline, monasticism experienced a rich period on the intellectual, ideological and artistic levels, reflecting the beauty of every form of Byzantine spirituality. Gregory Palamas, one of the few original thinkers of late Byzantium, had the audacity to raise the question of God’s relations with his creatures in 14th-century Byzantium and to apply that distinction to the problem of man’s union with God in a consistent manner, using a precise philosophical vocabulary.
An important role in the intellectual life of the Palaeologan period was played by the imperial and patriarchal chancery and Byzantium’s public and private libraries. Chapter provides a detailed reconstruction of the inner workings and mechanisms of production in these offices, which were in charge of copying the acts of both the Byzantine sovereign and the Great Church, and highlights evidence that demonstrates the chanceries’ value in assembling a rhetorical toolbox that could be used in the service of political ideology and religious Orthodoxy (for example in documentary prefaces — among the highest expressions of intellectual production, used as exercises even by the most important literati). Moreover, it examines certain cases that exemplify the activity of well-known officials/intellectuals within the imperial court and the patriarchal entourage, as well as within Byzantine society in general. Finally, it identifies several key intersections between the writing practices of these two offices, which often constituted a sort of graphic training ground for the scribes who worked in them.
Some of the scribes of the imperial and patriarchal chancery, such as Michael Klostomalles and George Galesiotes, made an important contribution to the production of manuscripts at this time and to the reconstruction of public and private libraries. The contents of the books belonging to those public, monastic and private libraries that were active, as described by the sources, during 1261-1453 are examined in the last chapter of this volume, which provides a full and broader view of libraries and manuscripts in Byzantium during the Palaeologan era.
Regardless of political dissensions, civil strife and military conflicts, the Palaeologan age was a brilliant period for the arts and letters. In perhaps no other era had there been such intense dedication to classical studies and the sciences, such extensive philological and publishing activity, or such great literary production. Intellectual disputes such as those between Nikephoros Choumnos and Theodore Metochites or Nikephoros Gregoras and Barlaam of Calabria, and those created by the theological conflicts surrounding the union of the churches and Hesychasm, provided ample material for public debate and the writing of new works, but also for revealing aspects of the personality of the scholars and the society they lived in, and give us an eloquent image of intellectual life in the Palaeologan age.
This image cannot, of course, be captured in its entirety within the scope of this book. It is, however, our hope and intention that it presents the protagonists and the main sectors of intellectual life in the last two centuries of Byzantium and gives the reader both an overall picture of that life and the urge to study it more closely.
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