State and Society in the Palaiologan Era

Often described as a period of decline and decadence, the history of the Byzantine Empire under the emperors of the Palaiologan dynasty (1261–1453) has undergone a considerable historiographical revival that has allowed this deeply negative image to be nuanced.

State and Society in the Palaiologan Era brings together articles by some of the best specialists in the field and addresses various aspects of the functioning of the Byzantine state and society in the Palaiologan period. These contributions reflect not only the dynamism of the Byzantine society, but also the divisions and challenges created by the deep transformations in the socioeconomic conditions of the time, and by the Ottoman conquest of the Byzantine territory. They show the capacity of the Byzantine state and institutions to adapt to a new political context, one of territorial shrinkage and instability, as well as the consequences of this instability for the society of the time, for its economic and charitable activities, for its spirituality and beliefs, and for the splits and conflicts opposing different categories of social actors.

This book aims to provide researchers with a series of studies whose methodology and results offer new insights into the complex, often contradictory phenomena that ran through the Byzantine world during the Palaiologan period. This collection of chapters will thus prove useful to all those interested in the Byzantine Empire at the end of the Middle Ages.

Marie-Hélène Blanchet, PhD, is a research director at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (UMR 8167 Orient et Méditerranée) in Paris. Her research focuses on the intellectual and religious history of the Byzantine Empire during the Palaiologan period (13th–15th centuries). Among other works, she is the author of Georges Gennadios Scholarios (vers 1400–vers 1472): un intellectuel orthodoxe face à la disparition de l’Empire byzantin (2008) and Théodore Agallianos, Dialogue avec un moine contre les Latins (1442) (2013). Within the ‘Thomas de Aquino Byzantinus’ project, she now prepares the critical edition of the two Greek translations of Thomas Aquinas’ De rationibus fidei.

Raúl Estangüi Gómez, PhD, studied and taught at the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. He is currently a research scientist at the Spanish National Research Council in Madrid. His main fields of research are the history of the Byzantine Empire during the Palaiologan period (1261–1453) and the medieval archive documentation in Greek. He is the author of numerous publications, including the book Byzance face aux Ottomans. Exercice du pouvoir et contrôle du territoire sous les derniers Paléologues (milieu du xiv e – milieu du xv e siècle) (2014). He is a member of the team responsible for publishing the Acts of Mount Athos and he is the coeditor of Actes de Vatopédi, vol. III, De 1377 à 1500 (2019).