Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

Byzantium and the Crusades

Education, learning, literature, and art 

Page 5

This brief sketch shows how powerfully the imperial family of the Comneni was imbued with literary interests. But, of course, this phenomenon reflected the general rise of culture which found expression especially in the development of literature and was one of the distinctive features of the epoch of the Comneni. From the time of the Comneni and Angeli, historians and poets, theological writers as well as the writers in various fields of antiquity, and, finally, chroniclers, left works which give evidence of the literary interests of the epoch.

A historian, John Cinnamus, a contemporary of the Comneni, wrote a history of the rule of John and Manuel (1118-76) which was a continuation of Anna Comnena's work. This history followed the examples of Herodotus and Xenophon, and was also influenced by Procopius. The central figure of the evidently unfinished history is Manuel; it is therefore somewhat eulogistic. Cinnamus was an earnest defender of the rights of the eastern Roman imperial power and a convinced antagonist of the papal claims and of the imperial power of the German kings. He chose as his hero Manuel, who had treated him with favor; nevertheless he gave a trustworthy account based upon the study of reliable sources and written in very good Greek, in the style of an honest soldier, full of natural and frank enthusiasm for the Emperor.

Michael and Nicetas Acominati, two brothers from the Phrygian city of Chonae (in Asia Minor), were prominent figures in the literature of the twelfth and the early thirteenth centuries. They are sometimes also surnamed Choniatae after their native city. The elder brother, Michael, who had received an excellent classical education in Constantinople with Eustathius, bishop of Thessalonica, chose a religious career and for more than thirty years was archbishop of Athens. An enthusiastic admirer of Hellenic antiquity, he had his residence in the episcopal building on the Acropolis where in the Middle Ages the cathedral of the Holy Virgin was located within the ancient Parthenon. Michael felt particularly fortunate to be situated on the Acropolis, where he seemed to reach the peak of heaven. His cathedral was to him a constant source of delight and enthusiasm. He looked upon the city and its population as if he were a contemporary of Plato, and he was therefore thoroughly amazed to see the enormous chasm that separated the contemporary population of Athens from the ancient Hellenes. Michael was an idealist and at first was not able to appreciate properly the completed process of ethnographic change in Greece. His idealism clashed with dull reality. He could say: I live in Athens, but I see Athens nowhere.

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