Medieval and Early Modern Greek Manuscripts : Chronicles

Medieval and Early Modern Greek Manuscripts

This manuscript, the greater part of which was completed in 1543 and the rest added shortly afterwards, contains a variety of different texts. Chronicles and other works and extracts bearing on chronology form the bulk of the collection.The main body of the manuscript consists of an anonymous Byzantine world chronicle, charting history from the creation of the world until the deposition in 1081 of the Emperor Nikephoros III Botaneiates (d. 1081). The text is structured largely by the reigns of rulers, and was commonly divided, as here, into two sections, the first extending as far as the reign of the Emperor Diocletian (245-313), and the second containing the era of the Christian emperors.In the usual manner of Byzantine chronicles, it draws heavily on earlier works in the same genre, the bulk of it being derived from the chronicles of Theophanes (completed between 813 and 818) and Constantine Manasses (between 1145 and 1150). The date of composition of this chronicle is unknown. All of the considerable number of known manuscripts date from the 15th century or later, leaving a large potential range of dates between the composition of the work of Manasses and the earliest evidence of its own existence. It provided in turn a source for later chroniclers, being used in the composition of the anonymous text known as the Chronicle of 1570.The second part of the manuscript, which contains this chronicle, was copied by an anomymous scribe, who supplied a colophon dating its completion to 1 April 1543 (<a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(572);return false;'>Part II, f. 265v</a>). The first part contains a contents list to this text, and the third an array of shorter texts. Both have been identified as the work of another hand, that of the prolific scribe Manuel Malaxos, originally from Nauplion, who would later work in Thebes, Constantinople and Italy, as a notary and teacher as well as a copyist. The use of the same paper and the presence of the same style of ornament in the parts of the manuscript he copied as in those produced by the other hand indicates that they must have been added not long after its completion and in the same context, placing this project early in the career of Malaxos, who was active until at least 1581. However, each part bears a separate early foliation sequence, probably dating to the time of production and suggesting that the second part had been produced and foliated before it was decided that a contents list should precede it. The numbering of the quire signatures in the second part also starts from scratch. Hence it appears likely that the additions by Malaxos were not part of the original production plan.The shorter texts copied by Malaxos in the third part include a text on the degrees of family relationship within which marriages were prohibited, and a selection of letters, mainly by Flavius Philostratus, a sophist of the early Roman Empire, and the 7th-century historian Theophylact Simocatta. However, for the most part they conformed to the same preoccupations of chronicling and chronology, including lists of ecclesiastical office-holders, excerpts on matters of historical chronology and short chronicles. One of these (<a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(581);return false;'>Part III, ff. 5r-6v, line 5</a>), although directly following a chronicle finishing with the reign of Michael VIII Palaiologos (c. 1224-1282), is explicitly a continuation of a text extending as far as the reign of Nikephoros III, possibly the much fuller world chronicle forming the greater part of this manuscript, athough this was not the only Byzantine chronicle to end at that point.The most significant of these texts is a short chronicle which is in part unique to this manuscript. The first part of this text is an unusual variant of the brief chronicle of Nikephoros I, Patriarch of Constantinople in the early 9th century, expanded with additional content. This proceeds seamlessly into a continuation which runs until 1403. For the most part the continuation is a brief, summary narration, but in its last few years, during which it is primarily concerned with the activities of the Mongol conqueror Timur (1336-1405) and the aftermath of his great victory over the Ottomans at the Battle of Ankara in 1402, it becomes a detailed account containing significant information not found elsewhere. This portion is evidently of closely contemporary composition, but is not known to have survived in any other manuscript.Dr Christopher Wright