booklet of abstracts - Oxford University Byzantine Society

Session Eleven4:15 | Saturday 5 March 2011 | Lecture TheatreChairPrerona Prasadkeble CollegeRoger de Flor’s Campaign of1304 in Western Anatolia: AReinterpretationWiktor OstaszSt. Peter’s College, OxfordThe hiring of the Catalan Company was anevent of central importance in the long reignof Andronikos II. After a textbook combat performanceagainst the Turkomans in Anatolia,the mercenary army almost bled the empire todeath. As most scholars have approached theCatalan episode with regard to its traumaticoutcome, the first phase from the arrival of theCompany in 1303 to the assassination of Rogerde Flor in 1305, has too often been dismissed asa mere herald of the strife to come. While theaims and policies of the emperor and his Latingambros have often been misrepresented asclashing, a close reading of the sources revealsa degree of understanding between the two.Although Roger was quick to enter the roleof an imperial official, his methods shouldbe carefully distinguished from those of hisrecruits. Andronikos had sound reasons to trustthe Company and solid precedents on which tobuild his approach to the eastern problem.It is the political and military activities ofRoger de Flor on his mission to the Anatolianborderland that require reconsideration, asthey offer an extraordinary glimpse of theprovincial society deeply discontented withthe Palaeologan rule and ready to follow localleaders. The Genoese connection of Rogerand the curious possibility of some Catalanssubsequently joining the ‘plundering confederacy’of Karası Turks add more complexity tothe interplay of various political forces in earlyfourteenth century Anatolia.Wiktor Ostasz is a graduate studentof St. Peter’s College, Oxford. His researchinterests include the history, archaeology andhistorical geography of Byzantine and MedievalTurkish Anatolia, society and culture in theChristian–Muslim frontier zones, realities ofprovincial life in the Medieval Mediterranean,navigation, piracy and business enterprises inthe Medieval Mediterranean and the historyof the Medieval Crown of Aragon.No Triumphs, Just Words:Competing Political Discoursesin Early Fifteenth CenturyByzantiumFlorin LeonteCentral European University, BudapestThis paper aims to indicate the major typesof political discourse as they developed inthe last decades of Byzantine history. Firstly,one can identify a discourse cultivated bythe members of Byzantine clergy who downplayedthe emperor’s role and denied thevery existence of an Empire of the Romans.These ideas, often combined with an antiaristocraticstance, can be found in texts ofauthors like Joseph Bryennios, Symeon ofThessalonike and Makarios, Metropolitan ofAnkara. Secondly, in several of his rhetoricalwritings, Emperor Manuel II Palaeologos(1391-1425) attempted to re-evaluate the ideaof imperial authority. Accordingly, he eitherrepresented himself as an emperor-didaskalos(The Foundations of an Imperial Education andThe Seven-Ethico Political Orations), or playedthe role of an emperor-preacher by performinghis homilies in the imperial palace. Thirdly, thetexts of the early fifteenth-century panegyristsThe 2011 International Graduate Conference | 31