Greet me with words: gifts and intellectual friendships in eleventh-century Byzantium

This contribution describes a specific discourse of gift giving in the texts of Michael Psellos, John Mauropous and Christopher Mitylenaios, three authors from 11th-century Byzantium. In their letters and poems, these authors present their literary works (logoi) as an immaterial gift, superior to normal material gifts. This specific argumentation needs to be set within the framework of intellectualistic self-representations. It is a literary construct that projects intellectualist values on the axis of the commonly accepted ethics of gift exchange. As such, it helps to maintain friendships between persons willing to recognize the symbolic value of intellectual pursuits