A cracked mirror? - forming the ideal ruler in Epirus and Nicaea in the first half of the 13th century

Abstract

During the first half of the 13th century both Byzantine Empire and the image of its ideal ruler had to undergo a transformation. By applying mostly the narratological analysis to the parenetic texts written in the two successor states of the Empire, the paper sheds light on the dynamic ‘negotiations’ within the Roman elites of the place that the Emperor should have inside the symbolic order, and suggests a possible model of approach to other Byzantine texts and periods. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177015]