Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

The fall of Byzantium

Learning, literature, science, and art

Page 17

Poetry was represented under the Palaeologi by Manuel Holobolus and Manuel Philes. Holobolus poetry has usually been estimated as artificial and unoriginal, seeking its subjects in the sphere of court interests, and therefore conventional and sometimes unpardonably fulsome and subservient. But more recent investigation shows that this judgment is erroneous; the poems, it is true, describe the magnificence and brilliance of court ceremonies, but show no personal flattery or subservience towards the emperor. Holobolus was also the author of an encomium of the Emperor Michael VIII. Manuel Philes, whose life was one of extreme misery, was forced to use his literary talent to get daily bread; sometimes, accordingly, he stooped to every kind of flattery and sycophancy. In this respect he may be compared with Theodore Prodrome of the twelfth century.

The last great literary figure of the fourteenth century is Theodore Meliteniotes. Several persons of this name are known who lived at the end of the thirteenth and at the beginning of the fourteenth century; therefore it is rather difficult to distinguish who among them wrote a work ascribed only to Meliteniotes. However, it is certain that Theodore Meliteniotes, who lived in the fourteenth century, was the author of an astronomical work, the most vast and most scientific of the entire Byzantine epoch, as well as of a long allegorical poem in 3062 political verses, entitled Concerning Prudence (Εἰς τὴν Σωφροσύνην). A very interesting question has recently been raised as to whether or not Meliteniotes poem was composed under the direct influence of Boccaccios LAmorosa Visione. This example may illustrate once more the importance of cultural exchanges between Byzantium and Italy in the epoch of the Palaeologi. Some parallels between Concerning Prudence and the famous legendary Pelerinage de Charlemagne have recently been pointed out.

Some very interesting literary documents written in the spoken language of the Palaeologian epoch have been preserved. The Greek version of the Chronicle of Morea, more than nine thousand verses in length, which has already been evaluated from the historical point of view in connection with the conquest of the Peloponnesus by the Latins, gives an interesting specimen of the Greek spoken language of the time, which had already absorbed a number of words and phrases from the tongues of the Roman conquerors. The problem of the original language of the Chronicle is still under debate: some scholars hold to the French version as the original, others to the Greek; more recently the opinion has been expressed that the original text was Italian, probably in the Venetian dialect. In my own opinion, the original text is Greek. The author of the Greek version is usually regarded as a Hellenized Frank who lived at about the time of the events described and who was well acquainted with Peloponnesian affairs.

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