Epistolary codes in Byzantine epistolography: between social context and literary techniques

Byzantine letters are sophisticated texts, brimming with intertextual allusions, puns, and subtle language, but at the same time they were also real tools of communication in all kinds of social networks. Aim of this project is to connect these literary techniques and conventions (frequently disparaged as irrelevant “decoration” in existing scholarship) with a broad range of social parameters: hierarchies, the dynamics of service and remuneration, gifts, the initiation of relationships, etc.