Johannes Kinnamos

Johannes Kinnamos ( Middle Greek Ιωάννης Κίνναμος * shortly after 1143; † after 1185) was a Byzantine historian .

Johannes came from a noble family and at a young age came to the court of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos , whose secretary he became. It is quite likely that Johannes also went through military training. In any case, he accompanied the emperor on his campaigns and was possibly also present at the battle of Myriokephalon in 1176, which ended in a disaster for the Byzantines.

Johannes apparently wrote a rhetorical work ( Ethopoiia ) in his early years . Probably around 1185 he wrote a historical work in seven books, which covers the period from 1118 to 1176 and was obviously intended as a continuation of Alexias Anna Komnenes . The work is unfinished or not completely edited. It could also just have been handed down incompletely, as only a version that is deficient compared to the original has survived. The title is unknown; although it is often referred to as an epitome , this is arguably only the title of the first book. The work is based on the classic models, the style is clear and simple. The focus of the plot is Manuel, whom Kinnamos portrays very positively. The work may even have been commissioned by this emperor. What is striking is the tendency to treat people who do not belong to the nobility with disrespect, which is probably due to the author's social background. Parallels to Niketas Choniates can be explained by the use of common sources, but research has also suggested that Niketas Choniates knew the history of Johannes Kinnamos.

C. Tollius published the work in Utrecht in 1652. In 1836 an edition provided by A. Meineke was published as part of the Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae . Since then the work has been translated into Russian in 1859, Serbian in 1971, French in 1972 and English in 1976.

Translations

• Charles M. Brand (Ed.): John Kinnamos. The Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus . New York 1976.
• Jacqueline Rosenblum: Jean Kinnamos, Chronique , Paris 1972.

literature

• Herbert Hunger : The high-level profane literature of the Byzantines . Vol. 1, Munich 1978, pp. 409ff.
• Johannes Karayannopulos, Günter Weiß: Source studies on the history of Byzantium (324-1453) . 2 vol., Wiesbaden 1982, no.380.
• Jakov Ljubarskij: John Kinnamos as a writer . In: C. Scholz, G. Makris (eds.): Polypleuros Nous: Miscellanea for Peter Schreiner on his 60th birthday . Munich-Leipzig 2000, p. 164ff. ( Byzantine Archives 19).
• Warren Treadgold : The Middle Byzantine Historians . Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke 2013, pp. 407ff.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Review of Brand in: History 5–6, p. 165.