Byzantine Sources and French Humanism: Western Heresies, Eastern Remedies

PEÑA, SANTIAGO FRANCISCO

Toronto

Congreso; Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference; 2019

Renaissance Society of America

In this paper, we try to demonstrate how the translation and publication of middle-Byzantine Historians served in 16th Century France as a way of contesting the Huguenot claims of religious purity and closeness to primitive Christianity. Maybe mirroring the failure of German Lutherans to establish a religious agreement with the Greek Orthodox authorities over the legitimate path of Christian history, we detect in France a growing confidence in Byzantine views over Heresy serving Catholic own political needs. This historical process may be considered as a barely known prelude to 17th Century?s French enthusiasm in Byzantine studies and political symbols.