Introduction

The text offered here in translation, known as the Continuation of the Chroni- cle of John Skylitzes, or more simply as Skylitzes continuatus, deals with a fateful score of years in the history of the Byzantine Empire. It begins in 1057 with the accession of a usurper and ends in 1079 with a murder in the wake of yet another usurpation. Within its compass the Continuation tells the story of five emperors and one female regent coping none too easily with the tasks of main- taining their hold on power, managing domestic affairs, and confronting new, aggressive, and opportunistic enemies who between them very nearly extin- guished an empire that only a few years before had stood supreme from south- ern Italy to Syria. Comparison of a map of the empire in 1040 with another from 1081 reveals at a glance the rapidity and extent of the Byzantine collapse dur- ing the third quarter of the eleventh century, which left the Greek Orthodox polity shrunken and weakened, caught in a vise between the militant Chris- tianity of the Latin West and the resurgent Islam of the Seljuk Turks. Hence the interest and importance of this text to students and scholars of the Byzantine Empire, mediaeval Europe, and the Middle East. The Continuation of the Chron- icle of John Skylitzes provides a contemporary account of a momentous shift in the fortunes of eleventh-century Byzantium, the causes and consequences of which have long inspired debate,1 and in a wider perspective contributes to our understanding of the eastern Mediterranean world on the eve of the First Cru- sade.2 This translation is itself a continuation, supplementing as it does the French and English versions of the Synopsis historiôn (“Synopsis of histories”) of John Skylitzes.3 This chronicle, a compendium of earlier histories synthesized into a

1 See now the revisitation of Paul Lemerle’s influential studies in Autour du Premier human- isme byzantin et des Cinq Etudes sur le XIe siècle: Quarante ans après Paul Lemerle = TM 21/2 (2017); the essays in Byzantium in the Eleventh Century. Being in Between. Papers from the 45th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Exeter College, Oxford, 24–6 March 2012. Ed. Marc D. Lauxtermann and Mark Whittow. London-New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2017; and the long needed reassessment of the traditional interpretations of the period by Anthony Kaldellis, Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood. The Rise and Fall of Byzantium, 955A.D. to the First Crusade. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. 2 Paul Magdalino, The Byzantine Background to the First Crusade. Toronto: The Canadian Insti- tute of Balkan Studies, 1996; Peter Frankopan, The First Crusade: The Call from the East. Cam- bridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012; Alexander Daniel Beihammer, Byzantium and the Emergence of Muslim-Turkish Anatolia, ca. 1040–1130. Birmingham Byzan- tine and Ottoman Studies. London-New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2017. 3 English translation by John Wortley: John Skylitzes. A Synopsis of Byzantine History, 811–1057.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004419407_002 2 introduction single narrative covering the reigns of twenty-three Byzantine emperors from 811 to 1057, has come down in two recensions. The one regarded as the original work concludes with the abdication of Michael VI Stratiotikos on August 31, 1057, and the coronation of Isaac I Komnenos the following day, and is most likely to have been composed during the last two decades of the eleventh cen- tury. This constitutes the Greek text which served as the basis for the transla- tions mentioned above.4 The second recension, however, brings the narrative down to the reign of Nikephoros III Botaneiates (1078–1081). Appended to the main chronicle around the year 1100, this coda, entitled The Continuation of the Chronicle of John Skylitzes by its editor,5 was published separately from the Syn- opsis and has until now been accessible only to a specialised readership. With the appearance of this annotated translation, the full text of a major historical source has become available for use by students and non-specialists interested in the history and historiography of the middle Byzantine period.6 This English version of the Continuation takes its place alongside the trans- lations and studies of contemporary sources published over the last few years. First among these is The History of Michael Attaleiates,7 covering the years between 1034 and 1079 and the source on which Skylitzes relied most closely for his account of events, particularly the ill-starred reign of Romanos IV Dio- genes (1068–1071) and the battle of Mantzikert. He followed Attaleiates’ lead in challenging the version of events crafted by the best known figure of his time, the courtier and polymath Michael Psellos, whose Chronographia he knew and quoted,8 and whose other works, notably his epitaphs of the Patriarchs and his

Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010; the French translation, prepared by Bernard Flusin and annotated by Jean-Claude Cheynet, appeared as Jean Skylitzès. Empereurs de Constantinople. Paris: Editions P. Lethielleux, 2003. 4 Ioannis Scylitzae Synopsis historiarum, editio princeps, edited by Hans Thurn, CFHB 5. Berlin- New York: De Gruyter, 1973. 5 Ἡ Συνέχεια τῆς Χρονογραφίας τοῦ Ἰωάννου Σκυλίτση. Edited by Eudoxos Th. Tsolakes. Thessa- lonike: Ἑταιρεία Μακεδονικῶν Σπουδῶν. Ἵδρυμα Μελετῶν Χερσονήσου τοῦ Αἴμου, 1968. 6 A comprehensive and very useful survey of the historical sources is given by Warren Tread- gold, The Middle Byzantine Historians. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Mac- millan, 2013. Well worth reading is Anthony Kaldellis, “The corpus of Byzantine historiogra- phy: an interpretive essay,” in: The Byzantine World. Ed. Paul Stephenson. Oxford and New York: Routledge, 2010, 211–222. 7 The History. Michael Attaleiates. Translated by Anthony Kaldellis and Dimitris Krallis. Dumb- arton Oaks Medieval Library. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012. See also the study by Dimitris Krallis, Michael Attaleiates and the Politics of Imperial Decline in Eleventh- century Byzantium. Tempe, Arizona: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2012. 8 Michaelis Pselli Chronographia. Edited by Dieter Reinsch. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter