The book is devoted to the research of the late Byzantine intellectual milieu as a social and cultural phenomenon based on the analysis of its system of values and norms, ideas and representations, stereotypes of activity and behavior, institutional models and forms of communication. The author examines the intellectual community, its structure, functioning and influence on a spiritual life of Byzantium in the last third 14th - first half 15th centuries. Studying of Byzantine intellectual life in the framework of a deep general crisis of Empire has permitted to expose more brightly the specific features of the Byzantine civilization and to estimate the ways of preservation of classical heritage and the character of its influence on the European culture. The book is addressed to historians, specialists in culture studies and all those who are interested in the history and culture of the Byzantine Empire.