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the above mentioned manuscript at Oxford, we are now able to gain some acquaintance with the interesting personality of this writer.188 We must remember that far from all the manuscripts referring to John of Naupactus have been published.

John Apocaucus, metropolitan of Naupactus, who died in the thirties of the thirteenth century, received an excellent classical and theological education, spent some time in Constantinople, perhaps, in his youth, and then as metropolitan of Naupactus, took an active part in the political, public, and ecclesiastical life of the Despotat of Epirus. John appears as a leader of the patriotic portion of the orthodox Greek clergy, both in independent Epirus and in the regions temporarily conquered, also, perhaps, as a political leader, and finally as the supporter of the Despots in their conflicts with the highest ecclesiastical authority, the Patriarch, who was backed by the rival Emperor of Nicaea.189 Another historian writes (E. A. Chernousov): John was "not a gloomy monk confined in his cell, interested only in ecclesiastical affairs, far from the world and men. On the contrary, in his conception and character, in disclosing his own 'Ego', in the methods of his literary activity, may be noticed the features which, to a certain extent, relate him to the later Italian humanists."190 In the works of John Apocaucus we may point out his love and taste for writing, which has produced his vast correspondence, his love and feeling for nature and, finally, his attitude toward ancient literature, the authority of which, in the persons of the most celebrated writers of antiquity, Homer, Aristophanes, Euripides, Thu

188 Vasilievsky, "Epirotica saeculi XIII", Viz. Vrem. (St. Petersburg, 1896), III, 233-99. S. Pétridès, "Jean Apokaukos, lettres et autres documents inédits", Transactions of the Russian Archaeological Institute in Constantinople, XIV, part 2-3 (1909), 1–32. Eleven other documents connected with the name of John of Naupactus were published by A. Papadopoulo-Kerameus, Συνοδικά γράμματα Ἰωάννου τοῦ ̓Αποκαύκου μητροπλίτου NavTakrov, in the Greek periodical Buğarris (Athens, 1909), I, 3-30 (only text of documents). For full bibliography on John Apocaucus, of Naupactus, see M. Wellnhofer, Johannes Apokaukos, Metropolit von Naupaktos in Aetolien (c. 1155-1233). Sein Leben und seine Stellung im Despotate von Epirus unter Michael Doukas and Theodoros Comnenos (Freising, 1913), pp. 1-5.

189 See Vasilievsky, in Viz. Vrem, III, 234 (in Russian).

199 E. Chernousov, From a Byzantine backwoods of the thirteenth century, in the Essays presented to V. P. Buzeskul (Kharkov, 1913-14), p. 281 (in Russian).

cydidies, Aristotle, and others, he estimates very highly, and which, along with the Bible, gives him a rich mine for parallels and analogies. At the present day we have at our disposal in print more than forty of his writings: letters, various canonical works, and epigrams.191 Among his correspondents we may indicate Theodore Comnenus, Despot of Epirus, and the famous metropolitan of Athens, Michael Acominatus. As not all the writings of John Apocaucus have been published, a more complete and definite judgment on him, as a writer and statesman, belongs to the future.192

About the second eminent personality of the epoch of the Despotat of Epirus, George Bardanes, metropolitan of Corcyra, there existed for long an important misunderstanding. At the end of the sixteenth century the author of "the Ecclesiastical Annals", Cardinal Baronius, on the basis of George's letters to the Emperors Frederick and Manuel Ducas Comnenus, placed him in the twelfth century, thinking the former, the Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa and the latter, Manuel I Comnenus.193 Later scholars, realizing that several polemic pieces given under the name of George could not be referred in subject matter to the twelfth century, came to the conclusion that there were two Georges of Corcyra, of whom one lived in the twelfth century and the other in the thirteenth. This erroneous opinion, as we shall see, was accepted in the "History of Byzantine Literature" by Krumbacher (in 1897).194 But in 1885 this problem was definitely solved by V. G. Vasilievsky who proved irrefutably that there was only one George, metropolitan of Corcyra, that he lived in the thirteenth century, and that, in his correspondence, by Emperor Frederick was meant not Frederick I Barbarossa, but Frederick II, and by Manuel, not Manuel I Comnenus, but the above-mentioned Manuel, Despot of Thessalonica, brother of the Emperor of Thessalonica, Theodore Ducas Angelus, who had been cap

191 See Pétridès, pp. 1-3.

192 See M. Wellnhofer, op. cit., pp. 68-69.

193 Baronii, Annales ecclesiastici (Barri-Ducis, 1869), XIX, 413-15.

194 Krumbacher, pp. 91; 770.

tured by the Bulgars. Thus, George Bardanes belongs to the thirteenth century. 195

Born, probably, at Athens and first a pupil and, later, a friend and correspondent of Michael Acominatus, from whose letters we have a great deal of information about his life, George Bardanes spent some time at the imperial court of Nicaea, and then returned to the west, where he was ordained bishop of Corcyra by John of Naupactus. The Despot of Epirus, Theodore Angelus, was favorably disposed towards him. George's interesting letters have reached us, and Michael Acominatus on reading them felt the elegance of their style and clearness of their exposition; this, however, did not prevent Michael Acominatus, in his letters, from teaching George and correcting various failures of his style.196 Besides the letters, George was the author of polemic pieces against the Latins and several iambic poems.

The famous Greek hierarch and canonist of the first half of the thirteenth century, the archbishop of Ochrida (Achrida), ordained by John of Naupactus, Demetrius Chomatenus (Chomatianos), who, as we have mentioned above, crowned Theodore of Epirus Emperor of Thessalonica, has left more than 150 writings, namely, letters in which various juridical and ecclesiastical questions were discussed, various canonical messages and replies, judicial decisions, the acts of councils, and so on. These writings are of very great importance for the history of Byzantine Law in general and Canonic Law in particular, and give an interesting source of information on the history of the church, the customs and manners, and the international relations of the first half of the thirteenth century in Epirus, Albania, Serbia, Bulgaria, and the Latin states.

195 See Vasilievsky, "The regeneration of the Bulgarian patriarchate", Journal of the Ministry of Public Instruction, vol. 238 (1885), 224-33 (in Russian). E. Kurtz, "Georgios Bardanes, Metropolit von Kerkyra", Byz. Zeitsch., XV (1906), 603 foll. In more recent works George Bardanes has been erroneously referred to the twelfth century by Norden, op. cit., pp. 112-13; W. Miller, The Latins in the Levant, p. 12 and n. 2; Ch. Haskins, Studies in the history of mediaeval science (Cambridge, 1924), p. 212 and n. 113. Correctly in Cognasso, Partiti politici... (Turin, 1912), p. 293 (81), n. 1. Knowing neither Vasilievsky nor Kurtz's articles Golubovich expresses the hope that this complicated problem will be solved in due time. Golubovich, Biblioteca bio-bibliografica della Terra Santa e dell 'Oriente Francescano, I (1906), 170-75.

196 Mich. Acom., II, 282-89; especially 289.

The three persons just mentioned, John Apocaucus, metropolitan of Naupactus, George Bardanes, metropolitan of Corcyra, and Demetrius Chomatenus, archbishop of Ochrida, are the most prominent representatives of the cultural movement in the Despotat of Epirus and in the short-lived Empire of Thessalonica.197 As far as Byzantine art was concerned, the new Frankish principalities established on the territory of the Byzantine Empire induced many artists from Constantinople and Thessalonica (Salonika) to seek new fields in the now powerful Serbian kingdom, or to join the artists already settled in Venice; "there was a diaspora (dispersion) of the painters. These missionaries of Byzantine art gave direction to the Slav schools, the full achievement of which at a rather later time we are now only beginning to understand."198 But artistic traditions did not die out, and the artistic renaissance under the Palaeologi was, to a certain extent, due to these traditions and achievements of an earlier time which were preserved in the thirteenth century.

The literary movement of the epoch of the Nicene Empire has great importance for the general history of Byzantine culture. The center which had been created at the court of the Emperors of Nicaea became a nursery of culture, which, amid political division, violent international struggle, and internal troubles, saved, protected, and continued the achievements of the first Hellenic renaissance under the Comneni in order to make possible later the appearance of the second cultural Hellenic renaissance under the Palaeologi. Nicaea serves as a bridge from the first renaissance to the second.

The cultural center formed in the thirteenth century in the western part of the Balkan peninsula, in the territory of Epirus, was the link which related the Christian East to Western Europe, and to Italy in particular, in the cultural movement of the time. The rise of the culture of Italy in the thirteenth century at the time of Frederick II Hohenstaufen, this "prologue of the Renais

107 These three writers are not mentioned at all in Montelatici, Storia della letteratura bizantina (Milano, 1916).

198 O. Dalton, East Christian Art (Oxford, 1925), pp. 19-20. See also Diehl, Manuel, II, 735-36.

sance", although it has not yet been satisfactorily wrought out and studied, has been and is being generally emphasized, discussed, and acknowledged. But the rise of the culture of Nicaea in the same thirteenth century and especially the movement in neglected and seemingly forsaken Epirus have not been taken into consideration. Meanwhile, these three movements, in Italy, Nicaea, and Epirus, were developing more or less actively along parallel lines, and perhaps, not without reciprocal influences. Even phenomenon so modest at first sight as the cultural rise of Epirus in the thirteenth century must lose its exclusively local significance and take place in the history of general European culture of the thirteenth century.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

For general works on the history of Byzantium see the first chapter of the first volume; the works of Hopf, Finlay (vol. III and IV) and Gregorovius are particularly important.

WORKS OF GENERAL CHARACTER ON THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY:

Καλλιγάς, Π. Μελέται βυζαντινῆς ἱστορίας ἀπὸ τῆς πρώτης μέχρι τῆς τελευ Taías ȧλwσews (1205-1453). Athens, 1894, pp. 140-245 (a brief general sketch of the external history of the Greek and Latin states of the thirteenth century).

Μηλιαράκης, Α. Ἱστορία τοῦ Βασιλείου τῆς Νικαίς καὶ τοῦ Δεσποτάτου τῆς 'HTEĺpov (1204-1261). Athens, 1898. An important book which treats chiefly of the history of the Empire of Nicaea and the Despotat of Epirus and contains also some chapters of the history of the Latin states.

Ρωμανός, Ι. Α. Περὶ τοῦ Δεσποτάτου τῆς Ἠπείρου ἱστορικὴ πραγματεία (Corfu, 1895). An important and reliable posthumous monograph on the Despotat of Epirus.

Gardner, A. The Lascarids of Nicaea: the story of an empire in exile (London, 1912). An interesting and reliable monograph on the Empire of Nicaea.

Andreeva, M. A. Essays on the culture of the Byzantine court in the thirteenth century (Prague, 1927). In Russian. Good piece of work. MONOGRAPHS ON PARTICULAR REIGNS:

Dräseke, J. "Theodoros Lascaris", Byzantinische Zeitschrift, III (1894), 498-515. Especially Theodore II's literary activity.

Pappadopoulos, J. B. Théodore II Lascaris empereur de Nicée (Paris, 1908). A rather thin sketch of Theodore II's reign; see the severe review by Festa, in Byzantinische Zeitschrift, XVIII (1909), 213-17.

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