Description
Book SynopsisIt has long been noted that the prestige and power of the church were steadily growing in the period of the late Byzantine empire, a tendency that was complex, multifaceted, and sometimes ambivalent. The essays in this collection seek to shed light on various aspects of the church's role in late Byzantine society, especially on the relationship between the church and the lay world and the response of individuals to the challenges faced by Orthodoxy. The volume is divided into three sections: (1) Politics, Society, and the Economy; (2) Intellectual Life and Ideology; and (3) The Church and the Turkish Conquests. By exploring these different areas, the essays in this volume contribute to scholarly understanding of how the church was embedded into the fabric of late Byzantine society and intellectual life.
Table of ContentsAbbreviations
Introduction by Dimiter G. Angelov
Politics and Society and Economy The Relations between Secular and Religious Authorities in the State of Epiros after 1204 by Alkmini Stavridou-Zafraka
Abbot or Bishop? The Conflict about the Spiritual Obedience of the Vlach Peasants in the region of Bothrotos ca. 1220: Case No. 80 of the Legal Works of Demetrios Chomatenos Reconsidered by Gunter Prinzing
Priests and Bishops in the Byzantine Countryside, Thirteenth to Fourteenth Centuries by Angeliki E. Laiou
The State, the Land, and Private Property: Confiscating Monastic and Church Properties in the Palaiologan Period by Kostis Smyrlis
Intellectual Life and Ideology The Donation of Constantine and the Church in Late Byzantium by Dimiter G. Angelov
Emperors, Embassies, and Scholars: Diplomacy and the Transmission of Byzantine Humanism to Renaissance Italy by John W. Barker
The Church and the Turkish Conquests The Turkish Conquests and Decline of the Church Reconsidered by Tom Papademetriou
From Constantinople to Moscow: The Fourteenth-Century Liturgical Response to the Muslim Incursions in Byzantium and Russia by Philip Slavin
Contributors
Index
