The second half of the fourteenth century was a period of rapid change in the Eastern Mediterranean, principally due to the expansion into Europe of the Ottoman Turks. Demetrius Kydones was one of the key Byzantine political and intellectual figures of the time, and his writings are regarded as one of the most important sources for study of the period. Kydones' career spanned at least four decades, from the 1340s to the 1380s. A Latin scholar, influenced...