This study investigates the interconnection between the adoption of the minuscule script for the transcription of Greek literary texts (one of the most significant innovations in the history of Byzantine book culture) and the huge cultural revival of ninth-century Byzantium. The focus lies on the social changes that occurred among the Constantinopolitan elites at the end of the eighth century as a result of the political events following the death of Emperor Leo IV. The adoption of the minuscule in the copying of books will be described as a three-step process, whose phases will be discussed with particular attention to the social milieus in which they emerged and developed (especially the bureaucratic circles of the capital connected to the finance administration and some monastic networks). In conclusion, the study emphasizes the importance of some very specific technical skills in one of the most decisive changes in middle-byzantine cultural history.

This chapter takes as its starting point the gendered nature of political communications. It uses as case studies the careers — and subsequent reputations — of two twelfth-century figures: the Southern Song general Yue Fei (d. 1142), and the Angevin minister and churchman Thomas Becket (d. 1170). Both rose from relatively humble beginnings to become powerful men, and both met violent deaths at the hands of rivals within the elite. Posthumously, they were both celebrated for specifically masculine virtues in their respective cultures. This micro-comparative study deploys the traditional Chinese dichotomy between wen (civil, cerebral) and wu (military, physical) expressions of manhood to explore the masculinities at play in their careers, their homosociality, and their reputations.

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