This RT intends to develop a research carried out in the volume Byzantine Heritage in South-Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period = Études byzantines et postbyzantines n.s. IV, 2022 edited by the convenors (also with the help of O. Iacubovschi). The goal of this RT is to describe the dynamics of the Byzantine heritage in the South-Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages (chiefly in the Kingdom of Serbia and the Romanian Principalities, observing also the Bulgarian Empire) starting from a series of case studies, illustrating several ways in which this heritage has been transformed, in specific political and social contexts (from ca. 1204 until ca. 1453). The key areas of this research are historical literature, chancery documents, hagiography and religious art. Particular emphasis will be placed on the adaptation and creative reception of Byzantine imperial, literary, language and iconographic models in new political and cultural contexts. The contributions in this RT will attempt to identify the various reasons for these transformations, the demands to which they respond and the audiences they target. In the end, what emerges is the construction of new cultural frameworks that relate to Byzantium and Romanitas beyond its borders, to a heritage which is in dialogue, sometimes polemical, with its matrix, but which belong to a cultural and ideological universe that is no longer only Byzantine and to specific needs for legitimisation and identity construction that are no longer strictly Byzantine.
As is well known, the Nicaean Empire of the Laskarid dynasty saw a kind of revival of the cult of Saint Tryphon, an early Christian martyr who suffered in Nicaea, during the reign of Emperor Decius (249–251). Among the Laskarids, Theodore II (1254–1258) was particularly devoted to this saint. He renovated the old church of…
The Palaea Historica is a Byzantine text dated back to the 9th century, which provides summarized stories from the Old Testament from the creation of the world up to the reign of David, peppered with apocryphal episodes and commentaries on the Psalms. Due to the manner in which it made the Old Testament narrative more…