The Hidden Secrets: Late Byzantium in the Western and Polish Context Małgorzata Dąbrowska The Hidden Secrets: Late Byzantium in the Western and Polish Context Małgorzata Dąbrowska − University of Łódź, Faculty of Philosophy and History Department of Medieval History, 90-219 Łódź, 27a Kamińskiego St. REVIEWERS Maciej Salamon, Jerzy Strzelczyk INITIATING EDITOR Iwona Gos PUBLISHING EDITOR-PROOFREADER Tomasz Fisiak NATIVE SPEAKERS Kevin Magee, François Nachin TECHNICAL EDITOR Leonora Wojciechowska TYPESETTING AND COVER DESIGN Katarzyna Turkowska Cover Image: Last_Judgment_by_F.Kavertzas_(1640-41) commons.wikimedia.org Printed directly from camera-ready materials provided to the Łódź University Press This publication is not for sale © Copyright by Małgorzata Dąbrowska, Łódź 2017 © Copyright for this edition by Uniwersytet Łódzki, Łódź 2017 Published by Łódź University Press First edition. W.07385.16.0.M ISBN 978-83-8088-091-7 e-ISBN 978-83-8088-092-4 Printing sheets 20.0 Łódź University Press 90-131 Łódź, 8 Lindleya St. www.wydawnictwo.uni.lodz.pl e-mail:
[email protected] tel. (42) 665 58 63 CONTENTS Preface 7 Acknowledgements 9 CHAPTER ONE The Palaiologoi Themselves and Their Western Connections L’attitude probyzantine de Saint Louis et les opinions des sources françaises concernant cette question 15 Is There any Room on the Bosporus for a Latin Lady? 37 Byzantine Empresses’ Mediations in the Feud between the Palaiologoi (13th–15th Centuries) 53 Family Ethos at the Imperial Court of the Palaiologos in the Light of the Testimony by Theodore of Montferrat 69 Ought One to Marry? Manuel II Palaiologos’ Point of View 81 Sophia of Montferrat or the History of One Face 99 “Vasilissa, ergo gaude...” Cleopa Malatesta’s Byzantine CV 123 Hellenism at the Court of the Despots of Mistra in the First Half of the 15th Century 135 4 • 5 The Power of Virtue.