Between the eleventh and twelfth centuries a new class of authors specifically interested in classical philosophical texts appeared in Byzantium. After a long hiatus, these authors embarked upon a new adventure by producing commentaries on ancient philosophical texts. Their works are highly sophisticated and came to shape the Byzantine cultural landscape in this period and beyond. This chapter presents a survey of the middle Byzantine commentaries on philosophical works. For the first time, issues such as the conception of authoriality displayed in these commentaries, the different textual approaches, the transmission of these texts and the peculiar way of life of the Byzantine commentators are discussed and investigated from the point of view of the material and social conditions that favoured the production of these new texts.

This chapter seeks to locate and elucidate the philosophical precedents and mechanisms in late-antique and Byzantine Christian thought that inform the tension between the rigorous affirmation of autonomous moral determination, on the one hand, and the self-effacing quality of ecclesiastical and monastic life, on the other. Though expressed with some variance and terminological inconsistency, the majority of Christian writers affirm some version of 'free will' and universally attribute the capacity for moral development to all humankind, developing and altering paradigms from the mélange of philosophical concepts present in Middle- and Neoplatonism. No less prominent, however, is the assertion—both tacitly and explicitly—that private moral judgment and individual conscience are unreliable. Each human being not only requires a pedagogical process for proper moral development but also depends upon the presence and guidance of a heteronomous 'other', whether human or divine. This chapter will accordingly seek to demonstrate that, while Christians of late antiquity and Byzantium considered free will and moral determination to be an inextricable aspect of moral psychology, they did not have the same understanding of autonomy that emerged so forcefully during the Enlightenment and in its wake.

The introduction sets forth the goals and the methodologies of the study. It reviews the previous scholarship on Manuel II Palaiologos and explains the contributions made by this book. While setting the scholarly background of the book, previous studies on Late Byzantine political and socio-economic history, Byzantine literature, Byzantine philosophy and theology are discussed in relation to Manuel's biography. By relying on studies on historical biography writing and some select examples from historical biographies of Western medieval rulers, the metholodology for writing Manuel's biography is established. The sources used in the biography are introduced and their chief characteristics are discussed.

This chapter chiefly deals with Manuel's ethico-political works, his Foundations of Imperial Conduct and the Seven Ethico-Political Orations. They are analysed with regard to the emperor's ethico-political thought, his reliance on Aristotelian ethics, his self-representation and the political messages he embedded into these works. Manuel's literary network, manuscripts and his collaborations with the literati are further investigated, while panegyrics and other works addressed to the emperor receiveattention. In this regard, the emperor's reactions to praise and criticism are examined, offering an insight into his personality. The chapter ends with a discussion of the political situation between the years 1416–21 and an analysis of the political differences between Manuel and his son John VIII.