CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2011
| Author | Mitrea, Mihail |
|---|---|
| Title | A Late Byzantine Swan Song: Maximos Neamonites and His Letters |
| Summary | The present thesis has endeavoured to shed more light on the life and activity of the hitherto little-known figure of Maximos Neamonites, a pepaideumenos seemingly active in the first decades of the fourteenth-century Palaiologan Byzantium. The only bits and pieces of data about his life and activity are scattered throughout fourteen hitherto unpublished letters stemming from his quill, extant in the fourteenth-century codex unicus Vaticanus Chisianus R. IV. 12 (gr. 12), ff. 166-172, a miscellaneous Greek manuscript preserved in the Vatican Library. Thus, Maximos Neamonites’ epistulae depict their author as a schoolmaster of primary education active in the second and the third decades of the fourteenth-century Constantinople (fl.1315–1325), true to generic conventions (and the realities of life), eking out a meager income on the basis of his teaching activities, and occasionally lifting his pen to interfere on behalf of others. Heavily reliant on this type of income, the letters portray Neamonites in a constant struggle of either retaining his students or gaining some more. Moreover, he is seen as pursuing his intellectual interests by taking part in the book transmission economy of the age. Apart from all the details concerning his activity as a schoolmaster, the letters, an eikōn of Neamonites’ soul, also speak of his poor health condition and the wretchedness of his existence, that, similar to that of a swan, is drawing near its twilight. The present research represents a first step in giving the swan a voice once again. |
| Supervisor | Gaul, Niels |
| Department | Medieval Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2011/mitrea_mihail.pdf |
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