'Late Byzantine Imperial Relatives: Roles, Activities and Political Culture, c. 1261-1461'

1204年第四次十字军东征攻陷君士坦丁堡后，拜占庭帝国不再是一个统一的、连续的政体。尽管拜占庭在1261年重新征服了君士坦丁堡，但在整个拜占庭晚期（c.巴尔干半岛和爱琴海地区的特点是文化多样性、政治不稳定和复杂的区域内外联盟。正如微观区域案例研究-最近的是Wright（2014）-所表明的那样，这些条件促成了民族、语言和信仰纽带的断裂，并使亲属关系成为该地区希腊、拉丁（西欧）、斯拉夫和突厥政治之间独特的凝聚力因素。拜占庭也不例外：它的皇帝们利用亲属关系来维持、重塑和扩大他们在该地区和更广泛的地中海地区分散的权威和影响力。然而，除了人物传记、个别统治者传记和原始资料调查之外，人们对拜占庭帝国晚期皇室亲属关系的关注很少。我的博士项目将通过系统分析拜占庭帝国晚期皇室亲属的各种角色和活动对帝国治理的影响，为该领域做出原创性贡献。我的研究关注的是，并告知，前现代统治家族和“政治文化”，即结构，实践和期望的框架内，其中一个政体的政治行为体运作的相互铭刻的相互联系。现代学术界对拜占庭政治史的研究主要集中在官僚主义的细枝末节上，并且总是将帝国的“中心”（君士坦丁堡）置于所谓的“外围”（帝国的各个省份）之上。对拜占庭帝国晚期皇室亲属关系的研究特别适合于对这种二分法进行质疑。在这一时期，皇亲国戚（男性，偶尔也有女性）管理和保卫准封建的“封臣”，参与外交使团和外国冒险主义，并与基督徒（拉丁人和东正教徒）和非基督徒（蒙古人和土耳其人）缔结具有战略优势的内婚和外婚婚姻。他们通过寺院、文艺赞助来彰显自己的社会地位，通过叛乱、宫廷派性、宗教争议和私人战争来追求个人利益。为了探讨中央所设想的政治文化与“现实”中的政治文化之间的紧张关系，我将并列两个证据：（1）反映帝国中央对皇亲国戚的期望行为和责任的“规范性”文本;（2）反映皇亲国戚自我塑造的来源，例如与他们的慈善活动和书信网络有关的来源。通过选择案例研究直接关注皇室亲属，我的方法将通过揭示皇室亲属如何与帝国中心互动以及这种互动如何反过来塑造治理的现实，促进对拜占庭晚期政治文化的更清晰理解。我方法的一个特别方面将是与邻近地区的学术研究相结合，并比较借鉴“模型”-例如，卡佩王朝，Piast，Ayyubid和Buyid '家庭系统' -照亮拜占庭的做法。通过试图了解权力是如何概念化，谈判和部署在拜占庭晚期，我的博士研究将有助于了解前现代权威的影响和超越中世纪晚期的地中海。

Following the Sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204, the Byzantine Empire ceased to exist as a unitary, contiguous polity. Despite the Byzantine reconquest of Constantinople in 1261, throughout the Late Byzantine period (c. 1261-1461), the Balkans and Aegean were typified by cultural diversity, political instability and complex extra- and intra-regional alliances. As demonstrated by microregional case studies - most recently Wright (2014) - these conditions contributed to fractured ethnic, linguistic and confessional bonds and the emergence of kinship as a uniquely cohesive factor among the region's Greek, Latin (Western European), Slavic and Turkic polities. Byzantium was no exception: its emperors utilised kinship ties to maintain, refashion and expand their fragmented authority and influence in the region and the wider Mediterranean. However, little attention has been paid to Late Byzantine imperial kinship beyond prosopographical works, biographies of individual rulers and surveys of raw data.My doctoral project will make an original contribution to the field by providing a systematic analysis of the multifarious roles and activities of Late Byzantine imperial relatives in terms of their impact on the governance of the empire. My research is concerned with, and informed by, the mutually-inscribing interconnectivity of the premodern ruling family and 'political culture', that is, the framework of structures, practices and expectations within which a polity's political actors operated. Modern scholarship's treatment of Byzantine political history has largely focused on bureaucratic minutiae and has invariably privileged the imperial 'centre' (Constantinople) over the supposed 'periphery' (the empire's various provinces). The study of Late Byzantine imperial kinship is particularly well-suited to problematise this dichotomy. In this period, imperial relatives (male and, occasionally, female) governed and defended quasi-feudal 'appanages', participated in diplomatic missions and foreign adventurism, and contracted strategically advantageous endogamous and exogamous marriages with Christians (Latin and Orthodox) and non-Christians (Mongols and Turks). They performed their social status through monastic, literary and artistic patronage, and pursued their personal advantage through rebellion, court factionalism, religious controversy and private warfare. To explore the tension between the political culture envisioned by the centre and political culture in 'reality', I will juxtapose two bodies of evidence: (1) 'normative' texts reflective of the views of the imperial centre as regards the expected behaviours and duties of imperial relatives; and (2) sources reflective of the self-fashioning of imperial relatives, for example those connected to their philanthropic activities and epistolary networks. Attending directly to imperial relatives through select case studies, my approach will facilitate a clearer understanding of Late Byzantine political culture by revealing how imperial relatives interacted with the imperial centre and how such interaction in turn shaped the reality of governance.A particular facet of my approach will be to engage with scholarship on neighbouring regions and draw comparatively upon 'models' - for example, the Capetian, Piast, Ayyubid and Buyid 'family systems' - to illuminate Byzantine practices. By seeking to understand how power was conceptualised, negotiated and deployed in Late Byzantium, my doctoral research will contribute to an understanding of premodern authority with implications for and beyond the late medieval Mediterranean.