169-193

Literary analysis

• Κιαπίδου, Ειρήνη-Σοφία
• KIAPIDOU, Eirini-Sophia

If Michael Glykas is well-known today, it is undoubtedly thanks primarily to the Βίβλος Χρονική, his 12th-century chronicle of events from the creation of the world to the death of Alexios I Komnenos. Compared to this chronicle as well as Glykas’ two vernacular poems addressed to the emperor Manuel I Komnenos and to a certain degree his collection of proverbs, Glykas’ epistolographic corpus is the least studied part of his work. It consists of ninety-five texts of theological content, which aim at providing monks or higher-ranking Byzantines with persuasive answers to various theological issues that derive from the reading of the Old and New Testaments or arise in the daily lives of monks and ordinary faithful Christians. Glykas’ argumentation in all these texts is based on the constant citation of mostly ecclesiastical sources and their interpretation with a strong dose of common sense and good will. The current paper focuses on Glykas’ epistolography, wishing to emphasize that it is a core element of his work, and one that needs to be studied as a whole and in conjunction with his better-known chronicle, so that more light can be shed on the ambiguous data of this scholar’s highly interesting life and thought as well as the literary production of the Byzantine 12th century.

• History and Archaeology

• Ιστορία

epistolography, Glykas, theology, literary texts

Τα keywords δεν υπάρχουν στο πρωτότυπο τεκμήριο, 856:https://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/bz/article/view/3793, DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/byzsym.1061

• http://byzsym.org/index.php/bz/article/view/1061
• http://dx.doi.org/10.12681/byzsym.1061