A refined inspection of the literary legacy of one of late Byzantium's most important emperors is conducted in Imperial Visions, by Florin Leonte.
Although the overarching purpose is to supplement political history, the focus on Manuel's rhetorical texts makes this less useful as a general history of his reign. Although L. is clearly well-acquainted with the entirety of Palaiologan authors and late Byzantine history in general, and provides relevant context on Manuel's life and times, this study does not aspire to be a new stand-alone history. Readers seeking such a work should see Siren Çelik, Manuel II Palaiologos (1350–425): Byzantine Emperor in a Time of Tumult (Cambridge, 2021), which assesses Manuel's written oeuvre more generally (as a complementary aspect), whereas L.'s monograph will be of greater use to specialists in Manuel's rhetorical texts, or Byzantine rhetoric and literature in general.
Following a contextual introduction and notes on sources, L. divides the study into two main parts. Despite the often abstruse nature of the text, the thesis is simple enough: that Manuel II relied on his cosmopolitan upbringing and education to develop communications strategies within a complex political-religious context, to achieve goals or mitigate negative outcomes when possible, at a time of extreme limitations and difficulties for the empire. This has long been known. What is more novel about the approach is the focus on Manuel's rhetorical works as literary and historical artefacts to demonstrate the concept.
In order to discuss Manuel's texts (in Part II), L. first mentions those of his allies and rivals in the lay and ecclesiastical intelligentsia of Constantinople and other cities, in Part I, ‘Consent and Dissent,’ which explores the emperor's literary court. This is essentially a classic survey, in which the ideas of important churchmen are discussed in their contemporary contexts, including relations with the Western church, pastoral outreach to Orthodox populations in Latin-controlled areas (like Crete) and Turkish-controlled ones (as with most of Anatolia), as well as the internal power struggles between Manuel II and his discontented nephew and rival, Despot of Thessaloniki, John VII.
L. associates the rise of a collective authorial role in the Church with Hesychasm, officially adopted in 1351, which influenced trends toward a largely non-political, anti-church Union clerical mindset that instead favoured monasticism and prayer (p. 20). The most important ecclesiastical, and then lay authors are then assessed.
While focusing on too many authors to provide an authoritative account of any single one, the first part provides good context for the more important second part, ‘Other voices, other approaches: Manuel II's political writings,’ which analyses Manuel II's writing, exploring its literary character and political subtexts. L argues that Manuel cemented his authority and indeed, legitimacy during a very unstable era, largely through his own writing, managing to hold his own in a perennial battle of wits with the cultivated mandarins of the imperial court and the often-antagonistic ecclesiasts.
L. displays an authoritative knowledge of the ancient Greek and Byzantine rhetorical corpus and its literary strategies in his scrutiny of Manuel's works; specifically, four: the Dialogue with the Empress-Mother on Marriage; the Foundations of an Imperial Education; the Seven Ethico-Political Orations, and the Funeral Oration on His Brother Theodore, Despot of Morea. All of these texts were composed during Manuel's reign and, L. writes, ‘reveal the extent to which the emperor regarded his literary activities as intertwined with, and reflected in, the administration of the Byzantine state’ (p. 8).
L. devotes 13–25 pages (43 in the case of Seven Ethico-Political Orations) to a discussion of these works, which greatly expands our appreciation and understanding of Manuel's thought as writer and statesman. L.'s methodology is well exhibited by his approach to the funeral oration for Despot Theodore (‘The rhetorical template and the compositional structure of the Funeral Oration,’ from p. 203). After demonstrating how Manuel employed a long-existing rhetorical template from antiquity for this epitaphios, L. discusses each section – bolstering his claim about the unusually detailed historical narrative for such a rhetorical form (in this case, about contemporaneous events in the Peloponnese) by citing three near-contemporary Byzantine authors commenting on Manuel's text.
For L., Manuel emerges as an ‘omniscient storyteller’ (p. 214), deliberately transgressing the bounds of a genre he had earlier sworn to eschew, as undertaking a long narrative would be the historian's task. It is an interesting insight, and supports L.'s contention that narrative's diverse function in such rhetorical works remains somewhat overlooked by Byzantinists. This is accompanied by use of theoretical terminology: Manuel is described as being in a homodiegetic relationship with his text; that is, becoming a character in his own narration (p. 215). As with his other examples, L. presents Manuel as utilizing conventional works of rhetoric in personal ways, to emphasize and assert his own imperial power. L. concludes that Manuel's literary works reveal not only ‘his attempts to answer political challenges, but also a unique and long-term imperial project’ to create ‘a system of effective political communication by exhibiting his fatherly concern for his son and co-emperor’ (p. 265).
While accepting Sphrantzes’ view of Manuel as a self-confessed ‘managerial’ emperor overseeing diminished territories and constant crises, L. makes the case that Manuel took an active role in staving off various problems and guiding resolutions when dealing with political and ecclesiastical rivals. In this light, ‘the role of rhetoric in his rule cannot be overlooked’ (p. 267). L. does a service in exploring these texts as vital source-material for a reign lacking in contemporaneous historiographical sources, a fact that has long forced scholars to look to Byzantine texts published after Manuel's death for information on his reign.
