Working in the Imperial and Patriarchal Chanceries

This contribution surveys the role the central Byzantine chanceries (imperial and patriarchal) played in the intellectual life of the Palaeologan era. Alongside a detailed reconstruction of the inner workings and mechanisms of production in these offices, which were in charge of preparing and copying the acts of both the Byzantine sovereign and the Great Church, it highlights evidences that demonstrate the chanceries’ value in assembling a rhetorical equipment that could be employed in the service of political ideology and religious Orthodoxy (for example in the prefaces of documents—among the highest expressions of intellectual production, used as exercises even by major authors). Moreover, it examines certain cases that exemplify the activity of well-known scholar-officials within the imperial court and the patriarchal entourage, as well as, more generally, within Byzantine society. Finally, it identifies several crucial turning points among the writing practices detected in these two offices, which often constituted a sort of training ground for the scribal education of those who worked therein.