The Chronicle and Other Forms of Historical Writing in Byzantium

Author(s): James Howard-Johnston

Source: The Medieval Chronicle , 2015, Vol. 10 (2015), pp. 1-22
Published by: Brill

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/48579365

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 THE CHRONICLE AND OTHER FORMS OF HISTORICAL WRITING IN
BYZANTIUM

James Howard-Johnston

Abstract
The fundamental concern of the Byzantine chronicle was with what
happened, when it happened, and God’s role in human affairs. Its scope
was universal, going back to the beginning of time (either on its own or
through a chain of predecessors) and combining religious with secular
history. Its key characteristics were chronological precision and
conciseness. Eleven chronicles written between 600 and 1200 are
examined, and compared to non-chronicle histories of the same period.
Almost all the authors belonged to the bureaucratic world. Hence their
calibration of time by financial years as well as from Creation, and their
viewing of history from the vantage point of Constantinople. Virtually
no local history was written in Byzantium. Historical production,
including chronicles, was limited compared to that of the medieval West
and the Caliphate, but much more varied than that of contemporary
China. Byzantium was unique in being able to draw on all three early
traditions of historical writing: Biblical, classical and bureaucratic.

Rather than classify or grade historical texts as chronicles and histories,

implicitly relegating the former to an inferior category, it is surely pre-
ferable to treat all written sources dealing with the human past as
histories and to subject them to the same set of questions: out of what
materials were they put together, by whom, when and where, and with
what ulterior purpose? Careful attention must also be paid to the editorial
processes involved, in particular the criteria for the selection of material
for inclusion, the treatment of such material (whether it be paraphrased
or not, the degree of abridgement if it is shortened), and its arrangement.
That is why the general remarks in section III below bracket chroniclers
together with other writers of history in Byzantium.
A definition of the chronicle is proposed in section I, followed in
section II by an enumeration of the eleven chronicles which have
survived from the first six hundred years of Byzantium’s existence (600–
1200), together with a cursory survey of other categories of historical

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2 James Howard-Johnston

production from the same period. This entails a foray through three
distinct historical eras: two centuries of guerrilla fighting for survival
(c.650–c.850), the era of Byzantine revival and reassertion of authority in
the Middle East and Balkans (c.850–c.1050), and, finally, the grim times
inaugurated by defeat in Asia Minor which saw the intervention in force
of Latin Christendom in the East Mediterranean (c.1050–1204).
The conclusion is far from earth-shaking. Byzantium went its own
way with respect to historical writing, partly because there were clearer
memories of the classical, especially the late antique, past than in much
of the medieval West, but mainly because of the highly centralised
character of a state which had conserved the fiscal capability of the late
Roman empire. In the early Middle Ages, we witness the demise of
ecclesiastical history and a mutation of universal history, which filled out
as it approached the Byzantine present. This was followed, in the era of
military and political revival, with intermittent attempts to recapture
something of the style and substance of late antique classicising history.

I. The chronicle defined

The fundamental concern of the chronicle was with what happened and
when, rather than how and why. The basic form was the list, an enumer-
ation of rulers or events, arranged in chronological order. Such bare lists
probably formed the core of the chronicle written by Julius Africanus in
the early third century, on which Eusebius modelled his Chronicon a cen-
tury later. Early medieval examples are the Syrian Chronicle to the Year
724, a source of great value because of the accuracy of the seventh
century dates given, and the Chronographikon syntomon of the Patriarch
Nikephoros (early ninth century).1
The principal task which early chroniclers set themselves was to
integrate biblical and non-biblical history. Classical sources on Chaldae-
ans, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks and Romans had to be correlated with
the Old Testament. Much ingenuity and effort were involved in the com-
putations which established key synchronisms. It then became possible to
weave the two strands of gentile and Hebrew history into a single chro-
nologically ordered historical narrative. This was the great achievement
of Africanus and Eusebius, together with their predecessors, although
they differed on many particulars. Later chroniclers were able to build up
their own systems on these foundations, notably George Syncellus (early

1
Chronicle to 724 in The Seventh Century in the West-Syrian Chronicles, pp. 5-12. See
section II below for the Chronographikon syntomon and other Byzantine texts.

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 Historical Writing in Byzantium 3

ninth century) and the many continuators of Eusebius in the West

(Wallraff 2006: 1-205).
A key characteristic of the chronicle was chronological precision,
either in the form of the date-list or in the careful chronological labelling
of major events, accessions etc, or in adoption of an annalistic frame-
work. This last provided the armature for Theophanes’ massive Chrono-
graphia (early ninth century). It is divided into discrete year-entries,
which, after the loss of the Middle Eastern provinces in the seventh
century, are headed by rubrics noting the date since Creation, the regnal
years of emperors and caliphs, and the year of individual tenures of the
patriarchate of Constantinople and, normally, of one other patriarchate.
Individual entries could vary in length according to the amount of
material available and editorial decisions of Theophanes. There were
problems, though. If a source did not specify a date, Theophanes had to
guess. So a fair number of notices were placed in specific year-entries
often quite arbitrarily, sometimes to fill an otherwise blank entry
(Howard-Johnston 2010: 273, 279-84).
Chronicles tended to form sets, an original work then spawning one
or more continuations. This can be shown in late antiquity in the case of
John of Antioch, writing in the early sixth century, with two continu-
ators, the latter at work in the 640s.2 Medieval Byzantine chroniclers
chose one or more earlier chronicles for recycling or quarrying in the
first part of their own works, adding their own assemblages of newer
material. By the twelfth century, chronicle genealogies could be com-
plicated, for example that of George Kedrenos, which included three
preceding Byzantine chroniclers: Theophanes, George the Monk and the
Logothete.3
As for the more recent past, chroniclers received news, which, duly
sifted and summarised, was recorded in individual notices. The chron-
icler did not usually go out in search of information, but waited for it to
reach him. He would not automatically believe it, given that he was not
denuded of critical acumen and had general knowledge of what was
going on. Nor would he refrain from introducing comments of his own.
But his prime aim was to gather ostensibly sound information and to
record it in writing for onward transmission to future readers. The ideal
chronicler effaced himself almost entirely from his text (the author of the

2
See Ioannis Antiocheni fragmenta quae supersunt omnia and Nikephoros Patriarch of
Constantinople, Short History; cf. also Howard-Johnston (2010: 140-42, 244-50).
3
This is a key feature of the Byzantine chronicle for Scott (2009), along with length and a
penchant for a limited repertoire of good, often fanciful, stories.

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4 James Howard-Johnston

Chronicon Paschale came very close to achieving this ideal in the early
seventh century). The worst offender in terms of intruding into his text
was George the Monk. Writing in the middle of the ninth century, he
embellished his work with a series of rants. Moralising of a calmer sort
was more common, a notable example being Michael Glykas in the
middle of the twelfth century.
Finally, it is in chronicles, qua medieval heirs of late antique church
histories, that we find clear acknowledgement of God’s role as manager
of human affairs. The chronicler, as universal historian, strove to under-
stand the working out of God’s will on earth between Creation and the
Incarnation, to trace the main lines of the grand providential scheme for
mankind. After the Incarnation, at the start of a period of indeterminate
length before the Last Days, God was still watching but his interventions
were no longer planned but ad hoc responses to the behaviour of his
creatures. It was a system of theodicy, of divine judgement followed by
punishment or reward, which the discerning chronicler sought to detect
and then to reveal to his readers (cp. Van Nuffelen 2004: 87-105, 292-
309).
In sum, the chronicle may be defined as universal history, attentive
to chronology, which reached back to the beginning of time and
debouched into the present. It differed from the works of historians in the
narrow sense of those who engaged in sustained inquiry (the meaning of
the Greek historia). Non-chronicler historians were those who made use
of their own direct experiences (autopsy), travelled, questioned witnesses
and carried out research in archives, in order to gather material for their
work. Documentary material underlay much of Byzantine as of preceding
Roman historical writing, but it was not advertised (the historian con-
fined himself to naming a few key witnesses, as the vital links between
text and historical reality) and lay concealed beneath the literary patina
expected of histories. A higher standard of critical evaluation of evidence
was also expected of the history proper, and plenty of interpretation and
explanation (mainly in human terms, although chance, fate and the
supernatural could have a role). The narrative could flow and spread as
events dictated, rather than being broken up into distinct episodes,
coherence of subject-matter prevailing over the careful calibration of
time. Non-chronicle histories could thus be thematic, could give more of
a sense of continuity and connection across time and space. The only
recourse of the chronicler was to introduce often awkward casts-back or
forward. Finally, the classical emphasis on history as literature was not
forgotten. In general, the texts not classifiable as chronicles were written
in a higher stylistic register.

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 Historical Writing in Byzantium 5

II. Byzantine chronicles and other historical writings

It is not inappropriate, given the fundamental character of chronicles, to
have recourse to listing the chronicles written in the six centuries under
consideration. Naturally they will be taken in chronological order, and as
much chronological detail as possible will be given about the time of
production and period covered. Room will also be made for remarks
about the principal characteristics of individual texts, by way of scholia
to the list.

1. The Chronicon Paschale was written by a patriarchal functionary in

Constantinople in the years around 630. The author, who included some
complex computations in his text, was keen to establish correspondences,
in terms of dates in the month and days of the week, between events in
the life of Christ and acts of God in the week of Creation. He began his
coverage on the third day of Creation, Wednesday 21 March, when it
first became possible to calibrate time with the creation of the heavenly
timepieces, sun and moon. He covers the whole history of mankind to his
own day, ending probably with the solemn ceremony which marked the
end of the last great war of antiquity, Heraclius’ triumphal entry into
Jerusalem and the return of the fragments of the True Cross to their
proper place – on Wednesday 21 March 630.4
The author is blessed by latterday historians above all for his
willingness to include documentary material in the last section of the
chronicle, after his principal source for Roman history, the chronicle of
John Malalas in the version available to him, gives out. He reproduced
Justinian’s Theopaschite edict (first issued in March 533) and the edict
issued in 551 for the guidance of Fifth Ecumenical Council held in
Constantinople in 553. Otherwise he left the history of the middle and
late sixth century blank, apart from brief notices about consulships,
imperial deaths, accessions and coronations, and five events. He only
resumed year by year coverage when he came to his own generation. In
this last section, running from 602 to 630, the text consists of official
documents or extracts from documents. The documents are mainly court
circulars, but include a copy of the Senate’s grovelling letter to the
Persian shahanshah, sent off in 615, a detailed but, alas, lacunose report
on the Avar-Slav siege of Constantinople in 626 (which, according to

4
Chronicon Paschale, or Chronicon Paschale 284-628 AD; Beaucamp, Bondoux, Lefort,
Rouan and Sorlin (1979). There is some uncertainty about the conclusion as the
manuscript is missing its last folio or folios.

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6 James Howard-Johnston

Marc Lauxtermann, may have been slightly retouched by the chronicler 5)

and the Emperor Heraclius’ final victory dispatch sent off from Ganzak
in Persian Atropatene (Azerbaijan) on 8 April 628 and read out from the
ambo in St Sophia on 15 May. The author only intrudes once, apart from
his possible retouching of the siege report. It was to lament the worst
tragedy of the war, the fall of Jerusalem to the Persians in 614. His role
otherwise is to act as a smooth conduit conveying information which he
judges important to future generations (Howard-Johnston 2010: 40-41,
44-54).

2. The Chronographikon syntomon, a chronologically ordered list of

rulers and church leaders, is attributed to the Patriarch Nikephoros I
(born around 758, died 828, patriarch 806–815), a champion of icons,
well-educated and a good stylist (as demonstrated in his Historia
syntomos, Short History). It began with Adam and came down to the time
of writing in the 820s. It was translated into Latin in the ninth century by
Anastasius Bibliothecarius and later into Slavonic.6

3-4. George Synkellos (born in Palestine, synkellos of the Patriarch

Tarasios, 784–806) began his chronicle with Creation and came down to
the accession of Diocletian in 284. His prime concern was to establish a
set of precise and accurate dates, around which to articulate his universal
history. The main phase of composition probably took place after he
ceased his duties as chief liaison officer between church and palace in
806.7 Within a few years, he realised that he could not possibly bring his
account down to the present in the time left to him. So he handed over
the task of writing post-Diocletianic history to his friend and protegé,
Theophanes (759/60–818), abbot of the monastery of Megas Agros, on
the Bithynian shore of the Sea of Marmara. Theophanes tells us, in his
preface, that George provided him with the materials he had assembled
and that he, Theophanes, had refrained from writing anything of his own,
confining himself to editorial work. We should, I am sure, believe him.
He worked at speed, completing the text (which came down to 813) in
five years (810–814). The last part, covering the seventh, eighth and
early ninth century, is a rich and voluminous compendium of information
culled from earlier sources. It is by far the most important historical text

5
Personal communication.
6
Nicephori opuscula historica, 79-135; Mango, 2-4.
7
Georgii Syncelli Ecloga chronographica (trans. The Chronography of George Syn-
kellos).

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 Historical Writing in Byzantium 7

to survive from Byzantium’s early medieval dark age. It fully deserves

the scholarly attention which it has received.8

5. We now come to the Ranter, George the Monk, whose chronicle runs
from Adam to 842. He took the role of moralising Christian to an
extreme in his universal history. Among the many polemics with which
he embellished it were attacks on Greek mythology, ancient philosophy,
pagan religion, Manichaeism and Iconoclasm. His text survives in many
manuscripts and was translated at an early date into Slavonic.9

6. The Chronicle of the Logothete had to wait until 2000 for a critical
edition. It was a popular text, preserved in whole or in part in some thirty
manuscripts, often truncated and tacked on to the end of George the
Monk’s chronicle. Revised editions were produced, including one with
an extension to 963 by a writer keen to improve the style and another by
a scholar who abridged it and incorporated new material taken from a
variety of other sources. Copies circulated in the east, where it was
picked up and used by the Christian Arab chronicler Yahya of Antioch,
and by Step‘anos Asołik‘ in Armenia. It was translated into Slavonic in
the early eleventh century and heavily drawn upon by the Russian
Primary Chronicle in the early twelfth century.10
In its original form, the chronicle covered the whole history of the
world, beginning with Creation (there are idiosyncratic glosses on
aspects of the Genesis story), and came down to the death of the Emperor
Romanos I Lekapenos in 948. The author is identified in several manu-
scripts as Symeon Logothete, presumably the high-ranking bureaucrat of
that name who is attested in other texts. There are good grounds for
supposing that he was Symeon Metaphrastes, who was responsible for
rewriting a large number of saints’ lives in contemporary prose in the
second half of the tenth century. Presumably he wrote the chronicle in
his years of retirement from government service (which may be dubbed
his indefinity). Like Theophanes, he allowed his text to expand and to be
enriched with detailed accounts of important episodes, usually involving
high-level politicking or warfare, as he approached the end.11

8
Theophanis chronographia (trans. The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor).
9
Georgii monachi chronicon; see also Hunger (1978: I, 347-51).
10
The Повесть временных лет (Povest’ vremennych let, i.e. ‘The Chronicle of
Bygone Years’, also known as ‘The Nestor Chronicle’).
11
Symeonis magistri et logothetae Chronicon.

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8 James Howard-Johnston

What is most remarkable, though, is the general tendency of this

recent and not-so-recent history. It is highly critical of the so-called
Macedonian dynasty, which came to power with Basil I in 867. Scandal
of many different sorts is ladled out in quantity, before the tone changes
and a sympathetic account is given of the rule and character of Romanos
I, who seized power in a well-planned and well-executed coup in 919,
was deposed at the end of 944 and died in 948. Given this anti-
Macedonian tone and the dry character of the narrative about the most
recent events (there is no indication that the author was an eyewitness, in
the form say of incidental detail or evocation of atmosphere), it is
tempting to place its composition well into the second half of the tenth
century and to assign it to the period of the great rebellions of Bardas
Phokas and Bardas Skleros in the early years of Basil II’s reign (976–
1025).12

7. The seventh chronicle is credited in the single extant manuscript to

Michael Psellos, intellectual star of the eleventh century, a philosopher
who plunged rather too eagerly into the thick of court politics. It is an
attribution which has been taken seriously, despite the simplistic subject-
matter of the text. It is a history of the Roman world, from Romulus to
Basil II. It takes the form of series of biographical notices, initially short,
then doubling in length from Chapter 55 on Constantine the Great to
Chapter 86 on Philippicus at the beginning of the eighth century, after
which they shrink again. Towards the end, the author, like Theophanes
and the Logothete, spreads himself, writing at length about the last few
emperors, from Basil I to Basil II. It is a low-brow work, showing a
special interest in the often far from arresting sayings of rulers. The
rhythmical character of the prose, rhetorical touches, phraseology and
vocabulary confirm the attribution. It looks like another of the simple
summaries of knowledge written by Psellos for his imperial pupil, the
young Michael VII, in this case a sort of mirror of princes written in
prose rather than the political verse of most of the didactic poems. 13

8. If George Kedrenos was the Vestarches of the same name who secured
a letter with a metrical seal in the eleventh century, he was a high-

12
The suggested date of composition is at odds with received opinion; cf. Wahlgren
(2006: 5*-8*); see Holmes (2005: 240-98) for the troubled early years of Basil II.
13
Michaelis Pselli Historia syntomos; Duffy and Papaioannou (2003); Bernard (2014:
229-43, 297).

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 Historical Writing in Byzantium 9

ranking civil official.14 He took most of the material for his chronicle
(running from Creation to 1057) from a much-revised version of the
Logothete’s chronicle (that of ps. Symeon Magister), which drew
additional material from George Synkellos, Theophanes and other older
sources. From 811, he relied exclusively on the original version of the
Synopsis historion of John Skylitzes (discussed below), which halted in
1057. He was content to reproduce Skylitzes’ text. His work is thus as
much historical compilation as chronicle.15

9. With John Zonaras we enter the twelfth century, the heyday of pro-
fessional literary men in Constantinople. It was also the heyday of the
Byzantine chronicle. He was a senior judge with a specialist knowledge
of canon law. He seems to have fallen out of favour with the Komnenian
regime after the death of Alexios I (1081–1118), and to have withdrawn
to a monastery on the island of St Glykeria in the Sea of Marmara. His
chronicle covers the history of the world from Creation to 1118. He took
a particular interest in Roman constitutional history. He concluded with a
hostile account of Alexios’ reign.16

10. Michael Glykas (born in the first third of the twelfth century) was an
imperial secretary until he took part in a failed conspiracy against
Manuel Komnenos in 1159. For this he was imprisoned for several years
and partially blinded. He had sound, commonsensical views on theo-
logical matters, which he expressed in plain, unpretentious prose in his
Theological Chapters. He took issue with Manuel’s defence of astrology.
His Biblos chronike covers the same time-span as Zonaras’ (Creation–
1118), but is much shorter. It is addressed to his son and didactic in tone.
It is unusual above all in the amount of space – two fifths of the text –
devoted to the story of Creation.17

11. Constantine Manasses (c.1130–c.1187) is the last of the early and

middle Byzantine chroniclers. He was a star of the twelfth-century
literary world. He enjoyed the favour of the grandest patron of the age,
the Sebastokratorissa Irene, sister-in-law of Manuel Komnenos (1143–

14
Jeffreys et al. (2011): Georgios 20202 – http://db.pbw.kcl.ac.uk/pbw2011/entity/
person/152932 (consulted 27 June 2013). Four lead sealings are known, now in
collections in Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania and Russia.
15
Georgius Cedrenus, 2 vols.; Treadgold (2013: 217-23).
16
Ioannis Zonarae Epitome historiarum, 6 vols.; Trapp (1986); Hunger (1978: I, 416-
19).
17
Michaelis Glycae Annales; Hunger (1978: I, 422-26); Magdalino (1993: 370-82).

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10 James Howard-Johnston

1180). He rose high in the church, ending his life as Metropolitan of

Naupaktos. Apart from run-of-the-mill rhetorical pieces (mainly eulogies
and ekphraseis), he wrote a verse account of the embassy to Palestine in
1160 on which he served (the Hodoiporikon), an erotic romance in verse,
Aristandros and Kallithea (lost apart from a few fragments), and a world
chronicle in 6733 lines of 15-syllable verse. The chronicle like the
romance was commissioned by the Sebastokratorissa. To avoid any
possibility of giving offence to a member of the governing elite,
Manasses halted his coverage in 1081. To have continued, he wrote in
his conclusion, would have been to set off on an ocean voyage in the
flimsiest of crafts.
Manasses’ Chronike synopsis is a literary tour de force. Writing
around 1150, he lifts the chronicle up on to a higher literary plane that
normally associated with the most classicising of histories. The reader is
treated to lush, extended accounts of love and war, and many a Homeric
image. The vocabulary is rich and variegated, offset with occasional bits
of coarse argot. The mundane matter of mankind’s past has been taken
mostly from the late antique chronicle of John of Antioch and Zonaras’
near contemporary work. Much has been dropped, to make way for the
literary flourishes. Virtually nothing is said about Byzantium’s confron-
tation with Islam from the seventh to the middle of the tenth century.
Muhammad is not mentioned. There is no hint that the Arabs overran the
whole Roman Middle East in the 630s and 640s. Even the fraught
episode of Constantinople under siege by a massive naval and military
expeditionary force in 717–18 is passed over in silence. Apart from a
note about an attack by Arab pirates on North Africa at the end of the
seventh century and two further fleeting references in the ninth century,
Arabs first come to the fore in the 960s as the targets of Byzantine
offensive operations. Manasses’ history thus gives a highly misleading
picture of the Byzantine past.
It was surely the literary qualities of the text which made it the most
popular of all the historical texts written in Byzantium. There are nearly
120 manuscripts. It was paraphrased into vernacular Greek at an early
stage and translated into Bulgarian in the fourteenth century. There is a
fine illustrated manuscript of the Bulgarian version, a rare example of an
illustrated historical text produced within the Byzantine cultural sphere.18

18
Constantini Manassis Breviarium chronicum, 2 vols.; Hunger (1978: I, 419-22).

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 Historical Writing in Byzantium 11

Histories which cannot be classified as chronicles survive in roughly

equal numbers. The first, written in the 780s by the future Patriarch
Nikephoros I, is a world away from his very basic Chronographikon
syntomon. Nikephoros, a young bureaucrat at the time of writing, carried
out a similar exercise to Manasses’. He set out to rewrite, in a higher,
classicising style, three existing historical texts which he had come
across. Only towards the end, when he seems to have been hurrying, did
he allow rather more of the original writing to show through. His
interests were literary rather than historical. Hence he made no effort to
plug the large hole left between the first of these texts, covering the years
602–641 (either a personal history written by a partisan of the con-
troversial Patriarch Pyrrhus or such a partisan’s reworking of a two-part
continuation of the chronicle of John of Antioch), and the second, the
political memoirs of a certain Trajan, who obtained the high rank of
Patrician, written around 720 and reaching back no further than 669. He
was lucky that the third of his sources, a history which was well disposed
towards the iconoclast emperors and paid particular attention to
Byzantine-Bulgar relations, picked up where Trajan left off and probably
came down to the death of Constantine V (741–775). Wary of venturing
too close to the time of writing, he halted in 769, with a notice about the
arrival in Constantinople of Irene, the future restorer of icon-
veneration.19
Two substantial fragments, well written and gravid with matter, are
all that survive of a ninth-century history, plausibly attributed to Photios’
father, Sergios. They deal with recent events, the ill-fated expedition of
Nikephoros I (802–811) into Bulgaria in 811, and part of the reign of Leo
V (813–820). It is impossible to say how much else was covered.20 There
follows a gap of a century or more before the appearance of a cluster of
classicising histories sponsored by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus
early in the period of his personal rule (945–959). There were three of
them, all organised by imperial reign and all therefore with a bio-
graphical emphasis. The writers viewed themselves simply as hands
working for the emperor. Their instructions were to continue Theo-
phanes’ Chronographia. The main series, for which two amanuenses
were responsible, is therefore known as Theophanes Continuatus. Books
I-IV, by the first of these writers, cover the reigns of Leo V, Michael II
(820–829), Theophilus (829–842) and Michael III (842–867). Like

19
Nikephoros, Short History; Howard-Johnston (2010: 238-44).
20
Scriptor incertus de Leone Armeni; Dujčev (1965); Hunger (1978: I, 333-34);
Treadgold (2002: 1-7).

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12 James Howard-Johnston

Sergius’ work, they present the reader with plenty of information, in this
case slanted so as to point up the achievements of the reign which
followed, that of Constantine’s grandfather, Basil I (867–886). A writer
who could operate at a higher stylistic level was made responsible for
Basil’s life, which constitutes book V of Theophanes Continuatus. He
wrote this as a formal encomium, modelled, it appears, on a lost life of
Augustus. Both texts were intended to burnish the reputation of the
founder of the Macedonian dynasty.21
Somewhat earlier, perhaps in the 930s, a member of the emperor’s
literary circle, Joseph Genesios, had been encouraged to make use of the
same collection of sources to produce his own (inferior) version on the
period 813–867, to which he later added a résumé of the Life of Basil.22
Constantine also commissioned a massive supplement to the universal
history written by George Synkellos and Theophanes, which took the
form of a comprehensive collection of excerpts from a wide range of
classical and late antique authors, sorted by theme and arranged in fifty-
three volumes. Another of his commissions, a handbook of diplomacy
with a strong historical bias in fifty-three chapters (mistitled De
administrando imperio), may have been intended to act in part as a
second supplement, by presenting material on the recent history of actual
and potential allies and clients of Byzantium in important arenas of
active diplomacy.23
To the generation following Constantine Porphyrogenitus and his
stable of writers belong two high-style historians, Theodosios the Deacon
who described the 960–961 Byzantine campaign in Crete, probably soon
after it ended, and Leo the Deacon who, writing in the late 980s, covered
the reigns of Romanos II (959–963), Nikephoros Phokas (963–969) and
John Tzimiskes (969–976) in ten books. Much of Theodosios’ iambic
verse was lifted from classical texts. He laid on a virtuoso literary per-
formance, demonstrating his command of the literary canon and
arranging his quotations in a flowing catena. Leo’s text is much the more
substantial. He assumes the persona of a proper classicising historian.
His language is luxuriant. He evokes places and persons. His characters
speak to each other, as they should, in long, formal speeches.24

21
Theophanes continuatus; Vita Basilii; cf. Jenkins (1954).
22
Genesius (trans. Genesios on the Reigns of the Emperors).
23
Excerpta historica iussu Imp. Constantini Porphyrogeniti confecta, 4 vols.; Constan-
tine Porphyrogenitus, De administrando imperio; Lemerle (1971: 267-92).
24
Theodosii Diaconi De Creta capta; Leonis diaconi Caloënsis Historiae libri decem
(trans. The History of Leo the Deacon).

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 Historical Writing in Byzantium 13

Michael Psellos, a highly articulate and politically adept intellec-

tual, penned a history of court life and politics in the eleventh century
(from 1025 to 1059), prefaced with a summary account of the reign of
Basil II (976–1025). He probably did so in the early years of Constantine
X Doukas’ reign (1059–1067). He made full use of his position as an
insider, privy to events in the highest circles. Later he brought it up to
date with a series of summary accounts of later reigns, including that of
his pupil Michael VII (1071–1078).25 His contemporary Michael
Attaleiates cuts a drabber figure. He too was in a privileged position, as a
senior judge who had accompanied Romanos IV Diogenes on his
campaigns in the east. His coverage of events from the accession of
Michael IV in 1034 to 1079/80 is fuller and, save for the encomium of
Nikephoros III Botaneiates (1078–1081) at the end, more balanced than
Psellos’.26
Three histories were written in the twelfth century. The Alexiad, a
history of Alexios I Komnenos’ reign (1081–1118), stands out as a wide-
ranging, carefully structured history of a fraught period, written in a high,
classicising style. It was, in my view, the work of two hands: much of the
content, in particular a set of fine campaign narratives, was drafted by
Nikephoros Bryennios, a general and senior figure in Alexios’ regime;
after his death in 1138, his widow, Alexios’ oldest daughter Anna,
revised it, adding a considerable amount of new material of her own,
licked it into shape and polished up the language. Nikephoros’ history of
the decade preceding Alexios’ coup d’état in 1081, which he had brought
to completion, was transmitted separately. It constitutes, together with
the Alexiad, a binary work of history, like the universal history of George
Synkellos together with its continuation by Theophanes and books I-IV
and V of Theophanes Continuatus.27 Finally, there were two later
Komnenian historians, John Kinnamos and Niketas Choniates, who took
the accession of John II Komnenos (1118–1143) as their starting-point
and came down to 1176 and 1206 respectively. Kinnamos, an imperial
secretary, took part in several campaigns with Manuel Komnenos. He
adopted a determinist approach to history and was full of praise for
Manuel. Choniates, likewise a civil servant until the fall of Constan-

25
Michel Psellos, Chronographie, 2 vols.; Ljubarskii (1978: 180-81, 185-244). Cf.
Kaldellis, (1999).
26
Michael Attaleiates, Historia (trans. Michael Attaleiates, History); cf. Krallis (2012).
27
Nicéphore Bryennios, Histoire; cf. Neville (2012); Annae Comnenae Alexia (trans.
Anna Komnene, The Alexiad); cf. Howard-Johnston (1996); Gouma-Peterson (2000).

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14 James Howard-Johnston

tinople in 1204, took a more detached view, was free with his own
opinions and regarded individuals as prime agents in history.28
The Synopsis historion (Historical Conspectus) of John Skylitzes, a
senior judge under Alexios cannot be classified either as a chronicle,
since it does not start with Creation, or as a work of high-grade history
because of its relatively mundane style. Skylitzes managed to assemble a
large collection of sources from which to piece together his account.
From them he extracted material of many sorts but concerned mainly
with high politics and warfare. He confined himself to a substantial
tranche of the past, some two and half centuries (from 811 to 1057, later
extended to 1079). A large cast of characters populated his pages, many
of them picked out because of the importance of their descendants at the
time of writing.29 His work should probably be assigned to a third
category of historical writing, that of the historical compendium,
synoptic history which served to orient the reader with respect to the
intermediate as well as the recent past, written in an unpretentious style.
It is a category to which should also be assigned the tail-end of some
chronicles – the final section of Theophanes’ Chronographia, from the
accession of Justinian II in 685, and the whole of Symeon Logothete’s
riposte to the official history of ninth-century emperors sponsored by
Constantine Porphyrogenitus.

III. General observations

Byzantine historians did not conform to a single type, and, with very few
exceptions, belonged to worlds very different from those of Latin
chroniclers in the Middle Ages. The majority consisted of laymen, whose
working lives were spent in service of the Byzantine state, a strong state
with impressive governmental capability. Senior ministers, palace offi-
cials, judges, one general and two members of the imperial family
between them penned more of the historical works catalogued above than
men of the cloth. There is only one historian (George) who can be
classified as a plain monk. As has been seen, he is distinguished for the
intemperate tone of the diatribes included in his chronicle. The other
monk, Theophanes, belonged to high court circles, until he renounced the

28
Ioannis Cinnami Epitome rerum ab Ioanne et Alexio Comnenis gestarum (trans. Deeds
of John and Manuel Comnenus by John Kinnamos); Nicetae Choniatae Historia (trans. O
City of Byzantium: Annals of Niketas Choniates); cf. Hunger (1978: I, 409-16, 429-41);
Magdalino (1993: 3-14, 18-22).
29
Ioannis Scylitzae Synopsis historiarum (trans. Jean Skylitzès, Empereurs de Constan-
tinople); cf. Holmes (2005: 66-239).

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 Historical Writing in Byzantium 15

world. But his tonsuring does not seem to have pushed him down into the
monastic ruck. He retained the wherewithal to found monasteries and
kept his connections with the outside world. As for the clergy, they were
all enmeshed in the secular world. Nikephoros was a high-flying civil
servant before his ordination and, a few days later, his consecration as
patriarch. George Synkellos’ job took him to the court. The two deacons,
Theodosios and Leo, were worldly clerics, the former to judge by his
highly-developed classicism, the latter by virtue of his appointment as
court chaplain, but they were far outshone by the fashionable littérateur
and future metropolitan bishop, Constantine Manasses.
Byzantine historical writings, irrespective of the category to which
they belonged – whether chronicle, history or historical compendium –
can be characterised as products of a centralised, bureaucratised world.
The attitudes of such a world both determined what was selected for
coverage and how it was covered. The Roman past was well remem-
bered, since it provided the ultimate rationale for the existence of the
medieval successor state. Christianity was the second, binding element in
Byzantine culture. Both these elements, the Roman inheritance and the
Orthodox faith, were integral to what was written. Similarly, the
dominating position of Constantinople in reality was inevitably reflected
in the writings of historians of all sorts.
Constantinople housed the court and governing elite. The localities
were knitted together into a single body politic, managed from a single
commanding centre. It was from there that warfare was directed against
the main adversaries of the rump Christian Roman state, Islam in the
east, Bulgars, Russians, Hungarians and other nomads in the north,
Normans and Crusaders from the west. It was the place where God’s
prime agent on earth communicated with higher, divine authority
(Shepard 1992: 41-71; Whittow 1996: 98-113). Constantinople was
therefore the vantage point from which Byzantine historical writers
looked out at the surrounding world. It followed naturally that the history
which was written was national or universal rather than local.
Chroniclers, historians and synoptists (to coin a word) were preoccupied
with goings-on at court, conspiracies, palace ceremonies and emperors’
management of their subjects. The principal actors were identified by the
posts which they held in the administration of state or church. No
episode when the capital itself was threatened from without was omitted.
Otherwise the coverage of military affairs was selective. Armies would
be tracked to distant places and their fortunes described, if the campaigns
were important or the commanders key figures in the politics of the time.

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16 James Howard-Johnston

Virtually no local history was written, in marked contrast to the

medieval West and the Caliphate. The single obvious exception, Kami-
niates’ account of the capture of Thessalonike by Arab naval raiders in
904, was almost certainly written long after the event.30 Byzantine
historians could no more conceive of writing history from a provincial
perspective than the most determined of rebel leaders could envisage
breaking away from the governing centre of a divinely favoured people
before the twelfth century. The only local history written was very local
indeed and is to be found in the lives and deeds, including posthumous
miracles, of holy men. It was narrowly focused on individuals and the
localities with which they came into contact. Hagiographical works
which entrench themselves in the realities of local life can be rich
sources of information, none more so than book II of the Miracles of St
Demetrius, which contains detailed accounts of five perilous episodes in
the history of Thessalonica in the first half of the seventh century. 31
Chroniclers, historians and synoptists were rooted in their own time.
There was no question then of their bringing about a renaissance of
classical history. They were conditioned by current circumstances to
write a different sort of history. Church and state, for example, were so
closely entwined that historians could not conceive of separating out
ecclesiastical from secular history. Ecclesiastical history vanished as a
distinct genre in Byzantium. The combination of the two formerly dis-
tinct historical strands was greatly to the detriment of the ecclesiastical.
It was incorporated as a subsidiary theme in works which concentrated
their attention, as in the classical past, on politics and warfare. In the
main, the coverage of church affairs was limited to appointments (mainly
of patriarchs), to unusual episodes when church and state were at odds,
and to relations with the papacy. Historians thus followed the example of
emperors in subordinating churchmen and church politics. It was only
during the two periods of iconoclasm that religious issues became
prominent, in the works of Nikephoros and Theophanes as much as that
of the intemperate George the Monk.
Finally, the contemporary world impinged on Byzantine historical
writing by affecting the basic armature of history, the calibration of time.
There were several chronological systems to hand, familiar from other
cultures – numbering years from the beginning of time, or from the start
of an artificial era defined by a particular event (the foundation of a city,

30
Ioannis Caminiatae De expugnatione Thessalonicae (trans. John Kaminiates, The
Capture of Thessaloniki); cf. Kazhdan (1978).
31
Les plus anciens recueils des miracles de saint Démétrius.

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 Historical Writing in Byzantium 17

the establishment of an empire or, in the unusual case of Coptic Egypt

after the coming of Islam, the persecution of Diocletian), or by their
position in the reign of a named ruler. Two of them – years of the world
and regnal years of emperors – featured in Byzantine historical texts, but
they were very much subsidiary to the main dating method, which was
the financial year. Years were identified by their position in a fifteen-
year cycle, between censuses and revisions of tax registers. These
indiction cycles went back to the early fourth century, the first year of the
first cycle beginning on 1 September 312. This was a far from convenient
dating system. While individual years were numbered within each cycle,
the cycles themselves were not numbered. Resort had to be had to
circumstantial evidence to establish the general location of a given indic-
tion year. There could be no more striking evidence of the fundamental
bureaucratic character of Byzantium than this assertion of authority by
the financial year over other traditional and superior methods of dating. It
imposed itself because it was second nature to Byzantine chroniclers,
historians and synoptists, enmeshed as most of them were in the admini-
strative systems of state and church, handling as they did documents
dated by financial years.

Such are the main characteristics of historical writing in Byzantium.

Byzantium is thus clearly demarcated from other historically minded
cultures in the early and high Middle Ages, those of Latin Christendom,
Islam and China. Much of the world, it should be noted, did not acquire
the historical habit until it was imported from without. Apart from Africa
and the Americas, this was true of much of Asia. History of a sort was
written in late antique Iran, but it was mangled and transformed into a
mythical analogue of real Achaemenid history in which time loosened its
grip and good, personified in the legendary heroes of Iran, battled against
evil (Yarshater 1983). In central Asia, the Indian subcontinent and south-
east Asia, there was no history at all until the coming of Islam in the
Middle Ages. Before it was disseminated across the globe, the historical
habit was confined (1) to the Peoples of the Book, Jews, Christians and
Muslims, who were committed to recording the past history of the
relations between a set of righteous believers and their single, all-
powerful divinity, (2) to the beneficiaries, in the Graeco-Roman world
and medieval Christendom, east and west, of the historical revolution
brought about by Ctesias, Herodotus and Thucydides in the fifth century
BC, and finally (3) to members of the highly bureaucratised empire of
Han and T’ang China, where history consisted of summary digests of the
principal acts of state (Twitchett 1992).

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18 James Howard-Johnston

Byzantium was unique in being able to draw on all three traditions –

providential history which was first presented in the Old Testament,
classicising history in its late antique manifestation, and the bureaucratic
impulse to record past practice and past achievements. But instead of the
proliferation of genres which might have been expected, there was, as
has been seen, a narrowing of history writing into three types of text: the
chronicle (inherited from late antiquity), fuller contemporary and near-
contemporary history (normally stripped of its classicising veneer), and
the historical compendium, debouching into the present (an innovation).
Plenty of history was written, but it was limited in type in comparison to
Latin Christendom and Islam.
The local chronicle, an ubiquitous feature of the West, is con-
spicuous for its absence. Ecclesiastical history, widespread in the West,
was relegated to a subsidiary role in all three forms taken by history in
Byzantium, with the beneficial consequence that the pieties which might
conceal character or veil sordid and brutal realities are less in evidence.
There was also no Byzantine analogue to royal annals, kept up to date by
officially appointed chroniclers. There was no such post attached to the
Byzantine court, because there was little need of it in what was a rela-
tively compact state, with good communications and widespread literacy.
Written documents were winging their way continuously between centre
and periphery, instructions and briefings going out, dispatches and
reports coming in. News bulletins (which have left their traces in sur-
viving texts) were issued to disseminate reliable, authorised information
across the apparatus of government – in the bureaux of the capital, the
inner provinces around the Aegean Sea, and the more militarised outer
provinces. It was vital to scotch rumours which might undermine the
current regime and to satisfy the appetite for news endemic in a ramified
bureaucracy.
The narrow coverage of Byzantine historical writing is even more
evident when it is compared to the voluminous production of the Islamic
world in the early and high Middle Ages. There was no Byzantine
parallel to the local histories written by members of the intelligentsia of
individual cities in many different parts of the Caliphate, from the
margins of the steppes in the east to the cities of Iraq, Syria and the
Maghreb. The same is true of the biographical dictionaries of the
intelligentsia itself, divided into regional groupings, and of the great
geographical works of the tenth and later centuries which covered the
whole extent of the Caliphate and adjoining sectors of the outer world
and included much historical material (Lombard 1971; Robinson 2003).
Even dynastic history did not take off as it did in the Islamic world, with

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 Historical Writing in Byzantium 19

the exception of the historical projects of Constantine Porphyrogenitus

and Anna Komnene.
The explanations are not hard to find. Byzantium lacked the
provincial intelligentsias and merchant elites spawned in the thriving
cities of the Caliphate. It was a small world, by comparison, one with
which military officers and civil administrators would become familiar in
the course of their careers. There was therefore little incentive for writers
to turn their hands to the production of geographical surveys or detailed
local histories. The stranglehold of rhetoric also inhibited the full
development of history as of many branches of literature. Byzantium
remained in thrall to its late antique self, with an intelligentsia which
congregated in the capital or, if extruded, as bishops were to their
provincial sees, looked longingly back to the capital. It was there that
reputation and preferment were to be gained, primarily by virtuoso
displays of rhetoric and carefully modulated verse (Magdalino 1993:
335-56; Mullett 1997).
But Byzantium fares better if the context of historical production is
remembered. This small, tight-knit, bureaucratic society generated much
more variegated records of the recent and remoter past than did the huge
T’ang empire and its medieval successors. History was not snared by the
state. With the exception of the Constantinian project, and a text attribu-
table to the great poet George of Pisidia, fragments of which are
embedded in the Chronographia of Theophanes, all the works itemised
above were freelance ventures of their authors, rather than carefully
vetted works sponsored by the imperial authorities (Howard-Johnston
2010: 25-26, 284-95). That means that they include some strikingly
unusual examples of their genres, ranging from the ranting of George the
Monk to the portrayal of character in motion to be found in the extended
anecdotes of Nikephoros Bryennios and Constantine Manasses’ virtuoso
rewriting of universal history in verse.

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