Michael Psellos

"This publication presents the first study of the defining features of Psellos' Chronographia, written in the 11th century.
Character is the single most important feature of the Chronographia written by Michael Psellos (1018-1081?). It is an historical account of the events at court from the time of Basil II (986-1025) to Michael VII Doukas (1071-1078) with the insight of someone whose career developed within the imperial court and his unsurpassed eye for details of personality was enlightened by his intellectual interests. During his lifetime, Psellos was considered the forefront of philosophical studies in the capital and therefore was named consul of philosophers (ὕπατος τῶν φιλοσόφων) in 1047 and he credited himself with reintroducing Plato on the cultural scene of Constantinople. It was his attractive manner of speech which led him to remain in the emperor’s presence and his rhetorical ability also plays an important role in the Chronographia, especially when he emphasizes or fabricates events to justify his understanding of a person’s mind. Many have employed Psellos’ Chronographia for its value in shedding light on historic events, itself important, though it often neglects the fact that Psellos’ historiography is not based on factual details to explain multiple causes for events, but seeks to attribute blame or merit to the personality of the ruling emperor."

The Chronographia of Michael Psellos (1018-1081) reveals a limited interest in nations and minorities within and without the Byzantine Empire. He had access to information about these peoples either indirectly (1018-1042) or more directly (1042-1078). He has a greater understanding of their complexity, especially between 1042-1059 when his friend Constantine Leichoudes was mesazon. Psellos refers to nations and minorities in his Chronographia through the prism of the imperial court at Constantinople.

Article in the proceeding:
A Book of Psalms from Elventh-Century Byzantium: The Complex of Texts and Images in Vat. gr. 752
edited by Barbara Crostini & Glenn Peers
Studi e Testi 504
Città del Vaticano 2016, 193-225

The publishing house has mistakenly blackened passages in the list on pp. 224-225. This preprint version displays all entries.

The Byzantine peasantry has been traditionally analyzed through documentary sources and material evidence. This study attempts to complement the existing scholarship on the peasantry by showing how a perception-based, socio-cultural angle can be provided through the utilization of Byzantine narrative sources from the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The peasant voice is completely absent from these sources and, therefore, must be reached through deduction, close-reading and literary analysis techniques. In addition to furnishing us with much direct information on the peasants’ lifestyle, their economic and legal interactions with different actors, as well as their utilization and victimization through military matters, these sources also highlight the elite, educated and also quite urban perception of the peasantry. These narratives contain a delicate blend of marginalizing the peasantry, while also praising and defending them due to the acknowledgement that they are vital in the maintenance of the empire. A strong case is made for the collective importance attributed to the peasantry, through their function as a vast manpower pool for the agrarian economy and military machine; yet, as individuals, they remain obscure and invisible. The relative homogeneity among the selected authors’ views concerning the peasantry, which is also mirrored and enforced by military doctrines, legal documents and imperial orders of the time, indicates that their individual views are part of a broader socio-cultural expression.

This article analyzes new evidence from the marginalia to Ficino’s Plotinus manuscripts and offers a novel reading of Ficino’s “De Vita” 3. It settles scholarly disagreements concerning Paul O. Kristeller’s manuscript research and Frances Yates’s Hermetic thesis about “De Vita” 3, and reconsiders accepted conclusions regarding the centrality of Hermetic magic in Ficino’s philosophy. It demonstrates the origins and sources for “De Vita” 3 in Ficino’s reading of Plotinus’s explanations of prayer, and also reveals Iamblichus’s overlooked influence on Ficino: on the performative nature of philosophy in “De Vita” 3, and even on Ficino’s acknowledgment of the pseudonymity of the Hermetica.

The article offers an insight into a peculiar cultural event, the philosophical dispute of the 11th century. The lack of references to it in the extant sources indicates that this dispute was not the biggest one that ever happened in Byzantium and renders a detailed and complete reformulation of the dispute unattainable. Nevertheless, taking the narrations of the extant Synaxaria for the 30th of January into consideration and focusing on interesting strands of this controversy, such as the “sinner” John Chrysostom, the participation of Michael Psellos and the curious vision of John Mavropous, I shed light over intriguing and unknown aspects of this peculiar philosophical conflict. Furthermore, my research contributes to the discussion about the reception of the Three Hierarchs and their works during the last part of the 11th century.

During the 11th c. CE the high-ranking civic officials (e.g. judges: "kritai" or "praitores") of the Opsician Theme (e.g. the administrative unit that covered most of northwest Byzantine Asia Minor / Anatolia) had completely overshadowed or even partially replaced the senior military officers (e.g. generals: "strategoi" and later "dukes"); the former exercised by then a variety of duties, in addition to their purely judicial powers. The holders of the office of "krites Opsikiou" usually descended from distinguished families of that time, although normally they were not associated with the traditionally powerful Roman clans of central and northern Asia Minor, who held large landholdings and direct access to provincial troops; on the contrary, they originated mainly from the governmental, bureaucratical and financial circles of the so-called (at that time) "politikon genos" of Constantinople. The Opsician judges were highly educated men and held prestige, special administrative and economic powers, wide intervention capacities and social influence in their areas and beyond, as well as access or direct contact with the Byzantine emperor himself. The latter treated them as his personal envoys in the region of their appointment, which was considered to hold particular importance for the economy of the Empire and the safety of its political and strategic core. The once prominent, glorified, imperial and God protected ("basilikon" and "theophylakton") Opsician Theme had declined as a strictly military unit during the 11th c. The wider area that covered administratively had been gradually transformed by then in an exclusively economic, fiscal and judicial district, which was characterized by a dense residential network and developed productive and other infrastructures. Mighty actors such as the state, the crown and members of the imperial families, prominent officials of the Byzantine capital (such as the "charistikarios", "despot[es]" of monasteries, villages and peasants and active local patron Michael Psellos), veteran militaries and local ecclesiastical seats and monasteries. The latter subject, however, will be the main research topic of a major forthcoming publication by the same author.

To λεγόμενο "θέμα Οψικίου" κάλυπτε διοικητικά και στρατιωτικά το μεγαλύτερο γεωγραφικό τμήμα της βορειοδυτικής Μικράς Ασίας κατά τη μέση βυζαντινή περίοδο. Από τα τέλη του 10ου και κατά τον 11ο αι. ανώτατοι πολιτικοί αξιωματούχοι ("κριταί" ή "πραίτωρες") είχαν πλέον επισκιάσει εντελώς ή και μερικώς υποκαταστήσει τους "στρατηγούς" στην κορυφή της διοικητικής ιεραρχίας του συγκεκριμένου θέματος: οι ίδιοι ασκούσαν μάλιστα ποικίλα και πολλαπλά καθήκοντα, πέραν των αμιγώς δικαστικών αρμοδιοτήτων τους. Οι φορείς του συγκεκριμένου αξιώματος κατάγονταν συνήθως από διακεκριμένες οικογένειες της εποχής, χωρίς όμως να συνδέονται με τις παραδοσιακές ισχυρές φαμίλιες της κεντρικής και βόρειας Μικράς Ασίας με τις μεγάλες γαιοκτησίες και τις άμεσες προσβάσεις στα επαρχιακά στρατεύματα· τουναντίον, μάλλον προέρχονταν κυρίως από τους κύκλους του τότε λεγόμενου "πολιτικοῦ γένους" της βυζαντινής πρωτεύουσας. Διέθεταν υψηλή μόρφωση, κύρος, ευρείες παρεμβατικές δυνατότητες και ιδιαίτερη κοινωνική επιρροή καθώς και πρόσβαση ή επαφή με τον αυτοκράτορα. Ο τελευταίος τους αντιμετώπιζε ως προσωπικούς απεσταλμένους του στην περιφέρεια διορισμού τους, η οποία θεωρείτο ιδιαίτερης σπουδαιότητας. Το παλαιό και κάποτε προβεβλημένο, ένδοξο και βασιλικό "θέμα Ὀψικίου" είχε πια παρακμάσει ως αμιγώς στρατιωτικό σώμα. Η ευρύτερη περιοχή που κάλυπτε διοικητικά είχε πλέον μετατραπεί κατά την ίδια περίοδο σε μία αμιγώς οικονομική, φορολογική και δικαστική περιφέρεια, η οποία χαρακτηριζόταν από πυκνό οικιστικό δίκτυο και αναπτυγμένες παραγωγικές και λοιπές υποδομές· σε αυτήν δραστηριοποιούνταν και επένδυαν ποικιλοτρόπως ισχυροί παράγοντες όπως το κράτος, το στέμμα και μέλη των αυτοκρατορικών οικογενειών, διακεκριμένοι αξιωματούχοι της πρωτεύουσας (όπως ο "χαριστικάριος", "δεσπότης μονών" και χωρίων και δραστήριος τοπικός πάτρωνας Μιχαήλ Ψελλός), παλαίμαχοι στρατιωτικοί αλλά και οψικιανές εκκλησιαστικές έδρες και μονές. Το συγκεκριμένο θέμα πρόκειται ωστόσο να αποτελέσει κύριο ερευνητικό θέμα μείζονος προσεχούς δημοσίευσης του γράφοντος.

The present paper is an overview and discussion of Byzantine literary criticism concerning the ancient Greek novel from the ninth to the fifteenth century CE. More specifically, I focus here on the opinions and judgments of some of the most prominent Byzantine scholars as regards two fully extant Greek novels: Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon and Heliodorus’ Ethiopian Tale. I review in some detail various aspects of the ‘evaluation practice’ of Patriarch Photios I (ninth century CE) and Michael Psellos (eleventh century CE), and I also – though more briefly – go over the corresponding theories and ideas of (Philip-)Philagathus of Cerami (twelfth century CE) and Ioannis Eugenikos (fifteenth century CE). The main question I attempt to address in this study is how similarly or differently (even idiosyncratically) the Byzantines read and discussed the Greek novels over the centuries.

Brigitte Tambrun, "Byzance, Platon et les platoniciens", Colloque "Platon et l'Orient", 8 septembre 2012, Fondation Boghossian, Villa Empain, Bruxelles, Belgique:
http://www.villaempain.com/activites/conferences/platon-et-lorient/

Résumé : Comment les œuvres de Platon ont-elles été transmises et conservées dans l'Empire (des Romains) byzantin ; comment Platon y a-t-il été lu et interprété ? Byzance a connu deux retours de Platon. Le premier commence au IXe siècle avec la renaissance des lettres profanes et connaît son acmé avec Michel Psellos et Jean Italos au XIe siècle. Le second retour de Platon commence au XIIIe siècle et culmine dans la tentative de promotion d'un platonisme complètement déchristianisé, dans les dernières années de l'Empire ; la figure dominante de cet ultime retour du platonisme - cette fois païen, hellénique -, est Pléthon. Pléthon qui à l'instar des platoniciens de Perse, enracine le platonisme dans la tradition de Zoroastre, est, comme son élève Bessarion, l'un des grands passeurs du platonisme vers l'Occident latin.

n the mid-eleventh century, secular Byzantine poetry attained a hitherto unseen degree of wit, vividness, and personal involvement, chiefly exemplified in the poetry of Christophoros Mitylenaios, Ioannes Mauropous, and Michael Psellos. This is the first volume to consider this poetic activity as a whole, critically reconsidering modern assumptions about Byzantine poetry, and focusing on Byzantine conceptions of the role of poetry in society.

By providing a detailed account of the various media through which poetry was presented to its readers, and by tracing the initial circulation of poems, this volume takes an interest in the Byzantine reader and his/her reading habits and strategies, allowing aspects of performance and visual representation, rarely addressed, to come to the fore. It also examines the social interests that motivated the composition of poetry, establishing a connection with the extraordinary social mobility of the time. Self-representative strategies are analyzed against the background of an unstable elite struggling to find moral justification, which allows the study to raise the question of patronage, examine the discourse used by poets to secure material rewards, and explain the social dynamics of dedicatory epigrams. Finally, gift exchange is explored as a medium that underlines the value of poetry and confirms the exclusive nature of intellectual friendship.

This brief note focuses on the reception of Or. Chald. fr. 88 des Places in Synesius of Cyrene, Michael Psellus and George Gemistus Plethon. I suggest two corrections to a passage of a letter Gemistus Plethon sent to Cardinal Bessarion which contains references to the μαγικὰ λόγια τῶν ἀπὸ Ζωροάστρου μάγων (p. 459, 4-10 Mohler). Finally, I analyse how the Chaldean Oracles form part of Gemistus Plethon and Bessarion’s idea of perennial philosophy.;

The commentary on the Jesus Prayer published by Sinkiewicz in 1987 is a genuine work by Psellos. It is ascribed to him in a number of manuscripts and is not eccentric in relation to his interests. Indeed, he wrote a commentary on the 'Kyrie Eleison'. Moreover, the theological points in the commentary echo those he described in Poem 4 Westerink. The commentary contains a previously unidentified verse which contains eleventh century expressions. Psellos' commentary was used by Markos Eugenikos when he wrote his own commentary on the same prayer which was published in the Philocalia. Psellos' commentary was transmitted in a number of manuscripts preserved today on Mt. Athos also under his name.

"The article examines the specific iconographic features of the fifteen scenes of the Archangels Cycle depicted in the narthex of the Kučevište Monastery near Skopje (1630/31). All of the scenes, some of which are a thematic rarity, have been identified on the basis of the texts they are found on. The Cycle includes only the Old Testament and legendary events linked with the Holy Archangels, thematically arranged on two adjacent walls. Namely, the miracles (Smiting the Assyrians before Jerusalem, Three Youths in the Burning Fiery Furnace, Carrying Habakkuk to Daniel, Miracle at Chonae, Miracle at Docheiariou) are painted on the south wall and the appearances (Abraham's Sacrifice, Appearing to Balaam, Annunciation of Samson to Manoah and His Wife and Appearances to Joshua, to Gideon and to King David) on the north wall. The “opening” scenes of the Cycle (Fall of Satan and Council of Angels) disposed on the west tympanum are accompanied by the (so far enigmatic) scene which we identify as the Healing of the Child Possessed by Daemons according to the Sermon on the Miracles of Archistrategos Michael attributed to Michael Psellos. The rather rare narrative of the Miracle at Docheiariou is illustrated in two scenes:  (1) Abbot Neophyte (with the Sexton) and the Faithless Monks and (2) Saving of the Boy by the Archangels and Exposing the Faithless Monks. By our analyses the pattern for both of them is not the older menology version of the Docheiariou legend, but the newer one retell in the sc. Damascins.
The chosen events of the Archangels Saga and the manner of depicting them reveal the hand of an educated and lucid painter.

[ Uncorrected proofs ] The following is of necessity a scanty survey of significant moments in the last millennium of Orthodox Christian experience. Sometimes divergent, the trends and figures mentioned here converged in the common aspiration for higher gnosis and the attainment of human perfection.

There is thus nothing paradoxical about the inclusion of alchemy in the ensemble of the physical sciences nor in the preoccupation with it on the part of learned men engaged in scientific study. In the context of the Medieval model, where discourse on the physical world was ambiguous, often unclear, and lacking the support of experimental verification, the transmutation of matter, which was the subject of alchemy, even if not attended by a host of occult features, was a process that was thought to have a probable basis in reality. What is interesting in this connection is the utilization of the scientific categories of the day for discussion of transmutation of matter and the attempt to avoid, in most instances in the texts that survive, of methods reminiscent of magic.

Byzantium was heir to a tradition of Greek and Roman military literature stretching back to the fourth century BC, which was manifest both in the collection, editing and adaptation of surviving texts from classical antiquity and in the composition of numerous new treatises devoted to warfare on land and sea. This broad genre always exhibited a diversity of content, style, language and approach, reflective of different categories of author and reader. Originating in a research project to prepare a full critical edition of Nikephoros Ouranos’ Taktika (c.1000), conventionally acknowledged as the longest and last representative of this literary and intellectual tradition, this paper explores the subsequent and more obscure history of this genre in the Late Byzantine period. Aspects of continuity are discernible in isolated instances of military writing, specifically a tactical opusculum by the scholar-courtier Michael Psellos (c.1050s-70s) and evidence for a lost work by the general Michael Doukas Glabas Tarchaneiotes (c.1297-1305/8), and in a partially overlapping but distinct genre of advisory literature (Kekaumenos, c.1075-8; Theodore Palaiologos, c.1326/7). The investigation addresses the more difficult question of the Late Byzantine audience(s) of military treatises, as reflected in evidence for aristocratic education and literary culture and in what can be inferred from manuscript production and ownership. In particular, these criteria show the continued esteem accorded to Greco-Roman ‘classics’, notably Ailianos’ Taktika Theoria (c.106-13 AD). More generally, they highlight the socio-cultural function of this genre as a component of the schooling, identity and perspectives of Late Byzantine military and civilian elites, over and above whatever practical utility these texts might (or might not) have possessed as ‘technical’ or ‘scientific’ literature. The discussion introduces some hitherto unexploited manuscripts in the Topkapı Palace Library (TSMK G.İ. 19 and 36).

(This paper was originally presented at the First International Conference on the Military History of the Mediterranean Sea, Fatih Üniversitesi, Istanbul, 26-28 June, 2015).

Through terms that articulate the arts as the results of divine possession or inspiration, the writings of Byzantine thinkers repeatedly expressed the manner in which representation was believed to operate as a form of divine indwelling occurring beyond the skill and originality of the artist, writer, or performer. Beyond ideas of naturalism or style, the literary, visual, and performance arts arose through the event of divine participation. The goal of this article is to contextualize the concept of empsychos graphe, as articulated by Michael Psellos, within a longer and broader history of similar concepts across literary, liturgical, and artistic thought.

In art historical scholarship, the concept of "living painting" (ἔμψυχος γραwὴ) in the work of Michael Psellos has drawn attention to the implications of artistic representation as a form of indwelling or divine inspiration. At times, the term's usage has been signalled as unique to Psellos' thinking about the icon. However, the goal of the present article is to survey a wide range of sources that use empsychos and related words to conceptualize strategies of representation. By looking at this and other terms' handling by writers thinking about visual art, liturgy, theology, literature, and performance, the aim is to give readers a better sense of the variety and cohesion of this line of thought. The article by no means presents a comprehensive survey, but instead each section presents a microhistory of these terms in artistic, liturgical, and literary theory in the Middle Byzantine world. These three threads nuance our understanding of terms such as empsychos, typos, and entheos, by engaging their ancient and late-antique precedents in order to contextualize how learned authors, such as Psellos, would have understood the usage of these terms within secular and religious milieus, both Pagan and Christian. This article deliberately brings together an eclectic range of textual and visual evidence in order to show the consistency, continuation, and cohesion of this thinking.

The hermeneutics of Nicetas Stethatos is systematically expounded mainly by his letters to Gregorios. I focus on the hermeneutic controversy between Stethatos and his contemporary scholars. At the same time, I investigate historical-comparative the hermeneutic theory of Stethatos, principally with regard to his sources, and an attempt is being made to integrate his concepts in the history of Christian hermeneutics. The hermeneutics of Stethatos is also contextualized in the wider developments of intellectual history in Byzantium of the eleventh century (rhetoric, philosophy, architecture) and compared especially with the hermeneutics of Michael Psellos.

Ioannes Xiphilinos, the nephew of the eponymous patriarch Ioannes VIII Xiphilinos (1063-1075), played a critical role in the transmission of the text of the Roman historian Cassius Dio. Despite his importance, however, scholars continue to reproduce an inaccurate and arbitrary biography according to which he was a monk and the author of three works: the epitome of Cassius Dio, a collection of fifty-three homilies, and a menologion dedicated to Alexios I Komnenos. The current article lays out the shortcomings of the prevailing consensus before surveying the evidence for the family of the Xiphilinoi in the eleventh century and positing an identification of our epitomator informed by the testimony of lead seals and the letters of Michael Psellos. It argues that our epitomator was not a monk, but was likely a student of Psellos and a high-ranking member of the imperial administration whose only extant work is the epitome of Cassius Dio.

Michael Psellos (1018-1081?) had a limited and specific interest in Plotinus’ writings. He rarely quotes them, preferring the later Neoplatonist Proclus. Nevertheless, four essays reveal his study of Enneads 1.3, 1.4, 1.6, 3.7, 5.8 and 5.9. Generally, he indicates his disagreement with the ancient philosopher except on the question of time. From the context it appears that the period of such research was ca 1055-1075 and may have been prompted by a friend such as Xiphilinos.

Review of Stratis Papaioannou _Michael Psellos: Rhetoric and Authority in Byzantium_ Cambridge, 2013 and _Psellos and the Patriarchs: Letters and Funeral Orations for Keroullarios, Leichoudes, and Xiphilinos_ translated by Anthony Kaldellis and Ioannis Polemis, Notre Dame, 2015

Herodotus enjoyed wide popularity among Byzantine
historians. Within a Christian society, his complicated religious outlook and his moral viewpoint were of interest to the historians while at the same time presenting difficulties for their perception of historical causation. This article traces the responses of three early and middle Byzantine historians to Herodotus’ religious views. I focus in particular on the significance which three concepts central to Herodotus’ religious and historical thought—fate, divine phthonos, and the wheel of fortune—hold in selected passages from Procopius’ Wars, Michael Psellus’ Chronographia and Nicetas Choniates’ History. I argue that these three concepts are not merely employed as literary devices but can help elucidate the theological and historical views of the Byzantine
historians.