  The most important philosophy teacher and scholar in the period leading up to this “renaissance” was undoubtedly Nikephoros Blemmydes (1197–c. 1269). Through his students – who included Doukas Laskaris as well as the historian George Akropolites (1217–1282), later charged by Michael VIII with the headmastership of the Imperial School in Constantinople – and through his widely read compendia on logic and natural philosophy (see sect. 1.2), Blemmydes exerted an influence that is clearly discernible in many later philosophical works although it has never been systematically measured. In a prefatory note to his compendium on logic, the first version of which was apparently composed in 1237 at the behest of Emperor John III Batatzes, he somewhat unexpectedly emphasizes the utility of logic for theology.  Indeed, Blemmydes’ services were employed on more than one occasion to defend the Orthodox dogma of the procession of the Holy Ghost in official debates with papal legates. The relation to the Catholic Church was the dominating political and religious issue for most of the 13th century. A reunion was negotiated at the Second Council of Lyons in 1274, but it lacked popular support, and after the death of Michael VIII in 1282, the new emperor and his patriarch pulled out of the deal. Encounters with Dominican and Franciscan theologians may have helped fuel the interest in logic in Byzantium during this time. The Greek translations of Boethius’ De hypotheticis syllogismis and De topicis differentiis by Manuel Holobolos, who taught logic at the Patriarchal School between 1265 and 1273, must be seen against this background. Other Latin philosophical and theological works were translated by Maximos Planoudes (1260–c. 1310). They do not seem to have had any discernible impact until the mid-14th century, when Augustine’s “cogito” appears as one of several arguments against Scepticism in a pamphlet by Nicholas Kabasilas Chamaetos (c. 1322/3–after 1391); it reappears in a similar work of unknown date, transmitted as chapter 3 of a miscellany attributed in the (late) manuscripts to one Herennius.