Los ducados de Atenas y Neopatria en el comercio regional e internacional durante la dominación catalana (siglo XIV). II: el comercio de larga distancia a través del observatorio de Barcelona y Mallorca.

Commercial exchanges in and with the Duchies of Athens and Neopatria during the “Catalan” domination have received little interest from researchers. Nevertheless, unpublished documentation from archives allows us to characterize now those commercial activities and to highlight an intensity far from traditional assumptions. From the commercial point of view the two most outstanding characteristics of this period will be the emergence of new agents with a leading role, the Catalans, and a new product, the slave, which will also be the basis on which an active long-distance trade will be sustained, especially with the island of Mallorca.

Hipacio de Rufiniana y la lucha contra la idolatría y la magia en Bitinia durante el siglo V.

In the present work, we study the struggle against idolatry in Bithynia during the first half of the fifth century from the analysis of the Vita Hypatii, a biography written by Callinicus about 450. Hypatius, founder and first abbot of the monastery of Rufinianae (near Chalcedon) between 406 and 446, stood out as a tireless combatant against the remains of idolatrous cults which, despite being prohibited, were still practised in that region. According to his biographer, he used the supernatural powers derived from his holiness to confront idols and demons. In addition, and taking into account that Christian authorities identified magic and polytheism, Hypatius also fought the magical practices, stating at all times that the powers granted by God always beat those of the magicians.

La barbarización del ejército y de la corte oriental: el matrimonio de Serena y Estilicón.

On November 24th 380, Theodosius I celebrated his first aduentus in Constantinople and inaugurated a new period of the Roman Empire. Several women of his family arrived with him, and one of them was his adopted daughter Serena, who in 384 married Stilicho, a soldier born of a Roman woman and a Vandal. This union stands out as it was between a member of the imperial family and a man of barbarian origins (although Stilicho had Roman citizenship). The aim of this paper is to analyse the circumstances of the wedding and why Theodosius I allowed the nuptials.

Reconciliando al genio crítico y al adulador cortesano: una revisión a la aproximación bipartita de la Cronografía de Miguel Pselo y la Historia de Miguel Ataliates.

The Chronographia of Michael Psellos (AD 1018-ca.1078) and the History of Michael Attaleiates (ca. 1025ca. 1080) are two nearly contemporary –and thus frequently compared– eleventh-century Byzantine historical narratives. Recent analyses concerning their respective style, as well as their literary and ideological framework, have increasingly highlighted a sharp internal division within each of the two works. Such a division concerned their composite moments, literary genres (history opposed to enkomion) and even the works’ argumentative lines developed in each section. This article reconsiders the implications of the internal division in Psellos’ work, while flatly discarding the existence of a comparable internal break in Attaleiates’ History.