John Mauropous

John Mauropous (Greek: Ἰωάννης Μαυρόπους, Iōánnēs Maurópous, lit. "John Blackfoot") was a Byzantine Greek poet, hymnographer, and author of letters and orations, who lived in the 11th century.

John Mauropous was born in Paphlagonia around 1000. He came to Constantinople, and quickly gained a reputation as a teacher. Among his students, Michael Psellos was to be the most important. It was also Psellos who introduced him to the emperor Constantine IX Monomachos (1042-1055). For a couple of years, Mauropous belonged to the favoured circle of poets and scholars that Constantine gathered around him, and he functioned as a court orator. But for an unknown reason, these friends suddenly fell from favour around the year 1050, and presumably on this occasion, Mauropous was appointed metropolitan of Euchaita. In many letters, Mauropous complained of this "honourable exile", and asked his friend Psellos to urge the succeeding emperors to call Mauropous back to the capital. This seems to have succeeded at the end of Mauropous' life: he retired to the monastery of Agia Petra in Constantinople. He died presumably in the 1070s.

It seems that Mauropous had prepared during his lifetime a collection of his own literary works. The manuscript Vaticano Graeco 676 is a very close copy of this collection. That collection consists of ninety-nine poems (epigrams, polemical and autobiographical poems, funeral orations in verse), seventy-seven letters and thirteen speeches (with for the most part religious content).

Apart from these works, Mauropous composed a huge amount of liturgical canons. Mauropous has been seen as a precursor of the new cultural mentality in mid-11th century Byzantium. The typical blend of religious piety and classical culture links him with his pupil Psellos, and contemporary poets like Christopher of Mytilene. A particular theme in his poems and letters are the vicissitudes and dangers of public life and political careers, which is not surprising given the political and social instability of this period.

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