The Palaiologan period was marked by a unique flourishing of learning and scholarship, supported by contributions from various institutions and agents. An especially influential environment for the intensified scholarly activity was the Patriarchate of Constantinople. As the highest ecclesiastical institution of Byzantium, its foremost but not exclusive contribution was the education of its clerics and officials. Numerous prominent Palaiologan scholars and teachers—such as Gregory of Cyprus, George Pachymeres or Nikephoros Xanthopoulos—were strongly connected to the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The connections between institutionalized and informal learning in the milieu of the Patriarchate, the contents and accessibility of its library—one of the main repositories of knowledge in Constantinople—, as well as the (intellectual) biographies of prominent literati connected to this circle have been of constant interest for modern scholarship. Many questions, however, remain open, even if our knowledge of the intellectual climate of the Palaiologan period has been substantially refined in recent decades. New critical editions and studies of texts composed in this period, as well as palaeographical and codicological research, have contributed enormously. Above all, they offer a fresh glimpse into the activities of scholars copying and annotating manuscripts, as well as into the circulation of specific books and texts. The proposed Round Table aims to present current insights in connection with enduring questions as to the role of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the intellectual life of Late Byzantium and the motivations for the Church’s involvement in establishing a thriving scholarship in the final Byzantine centuries.
The paper will investigate the transmission of elementary spelling instruction in Palaiologan Constantinople. Drawing on educational practices rooted in the Komnenian period, it examines the available instructional materials and searches for the pedagogical principles that underpinned them. The discussion highlights the roles, intentions, and perspectives of the principal authors involved in producing these materials, focusing…
The present paper examines the dual identity of George Pachymeres (1242–c. 1307) as scholar and member of the Patriarchal clergy exploring his positioning in an intellectual network of the early Palaiologoi. By situating Pachymeres within the scholarly and ecclesiastical circles of his time, the paper traces how his educational background and his relationships with key…
This paper explores the preaching activity of Patriarch Kallistos I of Constantinople as a reflection of his pastoral response to the moral and social challenges of fourteenth-century Byzantium. Drawing particularly on his moral and exhortatory homilies, a large part of which are still unedited, it examines how Patriarch Kallistos I sought to guide and discipline…
This presentation examines the Festal Homilies of Joseph Bryennios (ca. 1350–1431), addressed to the audiences in Constantinople and Crete. Through an analysis of their content, structure and rhetorical techniques, it explores how Bryennios adapted the conventions of Byzantine preaching to the needs of public exhortation and how these homilies reflect the didactic objectives of a…
In the past two decades, research into Byzantine eschatology and conceptions of the afterlife has greatly enriched scholarly understanding of paradise in Byzantine literature and art. While the early and middle Byzantine periods have received significant attention, particularly with respect to visionary narratives of holy ascetics and saints that shaped both literary and visual traditions,…