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Ioannis Smarnakis
University of the Aegean, Mitilini, Lesbos, Greece;
ismarnakis@sa.aegean.gr
Plethon’s Reformatory Proposals of the Despotate of Morea.
A Paradigm of Early Modern Political Thought?
The aim of this paper is to propose a new interpretation of Plethon’s proposals about the political
and social reformations of the despotate of Morea. Following Foucault’s path breaking analysis of
the early modern monarchical state I investigate the role of monarchy in Plethon’s memoranda
about the Peloponnese as a “reformatory” crucial factor for the canonization and the control of
the economic, social and political life. Plethon’s outlook is closely associated with the political
program of Manuel II Palaeologus and his efforts to impose the rule of Constantinople in a frontier
society where the local magnates strongly opposed the byzantine authority. In my view this need
for regularizing and disciplining the local society also caused the production of new knowledge in
Plethon’s circle about the history, the geography and the populations of the peninsula in order to
transform a liminal zone into an early modern kingdom with a distinct political and ethnic identity.
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Stefan Staretu
University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania;
istaretu@yahoo.com
Two Models of Byzantine Monarchy
The Byzantine monarchical pattern is linked to two models: the orthodox theological model
of Messianism Christ, developing the testimony of David and Solomon through Christ, this being
autocracy, and the roman military model.
These two models developed into an interesting symbiosis after the IV crusade, when
Serbia arose as a kingdom and when Byzantium fell in its imperial symbolism by the conquest
of Constantinople. Facing the crisis of the destruction of the immutable of the empire by the
conquest of Constantinople, Saint Sava developed a new and more coherent model of monarchical
Christianity, in his written life of his father, Saint Simeon Nemanja. This life emphasizes the model
of Christ inspiration and combative defense of dogmatic orthodoxy through political and military
action with a great freshness coming from the rediscovery of the true faith through baptism and
fight against the western heresy. This model is intertwined with the monastic vocation and with
hesychasm, and will be continued by all the members of the Serbian dynasty, as an orthodox reaction
to the westernizing influences exercised upon Byzantium by the Italians and franks.
Serbia continued its model of holy dynasty sanctified by military and political defense
of orthodoxy against Catholicism in both combat with Hungarians or with Byzantines, model
recognized by the church in the form of the canonization.
This influences Sigismund of Luxemburg in recognizing Lazarevic Stefan a great position
in the hierarchy of European royalty, even founding the Order of the Dragon that was ruled by
him, who was the first knight. Great nobility, including Sigismund, became related to the Serbs (by
families such as the Garay of Cilli), and people spoke about Sigismund’s orthodox baptism, which
was reflected in the byzantine tendencies of Sigismund’s party at the Councils of Basel and Konstanz.
Byzantium was in fear of being eclipsed. The importance given to the Serbian dynasty in the
time of the two Dragasses Paleologues shows this growth of European influence, but also stirred
up envy. To prevent a recentralization of Europe around orthodoxy as envisaged by Lazarevici
and Sigismund, fact which would give the orthodox church central control, confirming Dushan’s
imperial thinking, the Byzantines accepted the papal supremacist theology at Florence, alongside
other Serbian pretenders like the Hunyadi’s and the dynasty of Skanderbeg. This made Brankovic’s
Serbia, as successor to both Dushan’s empire and to the orthodox hesychast empire of Cantacuzino,
the center of imperial orthodoxy, and thus subject to attack, which led to its fell, although some
continuation of its politics could have been preserved in Matyas Corvinus’s Hungary.
This paper will show that the Florentine union was the culmination of the conflict between
the roman military model of emperor, more and more influenced by post-Carolingian feudalism
having a peripherical position in its constitution as a direct consequence of the principles governing
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the role of the Holy Roman Empire and papacy in the west, and the Serb model that wanted to
conserve and even improve a total orthodox monarchial model, of Christ and biblical inspiration,
which was manifested in the form of the holy dynasty and holy martyr war, essential in the ideology
of Vidovdan, which was eventually in the XVI century transmitted to Russia and influenced in the
basis of some of the Russian’s tsar European genealogy, the concept of the Third Rome, the final and
true orthodox Rome heir to the Nemanjic testament.
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