The Chronicler’s Workshop: George Kedrenos and the Use of Sources for the Hellenistic Period

Georgios Kedrenos was a Byzantine chronicler who lived in the 11th century. He authored a universal chronicle (Compendium historiarum) that spans from the Creation of the world to the year 811 AD. His goal was to “complete in reverse” the chronicle of the highly esteemed historian John Skylitzes. Kedrenos stands out among Byzantine chroniclers as the one whose working method can be reconstructed with the greatest clarity—an exceptional case in Byzantine historiography—because nearly all of his sources have survived. This fact has, understandably, influenced the scholarly reception of his work, often to its detriment, creating the impression that his chronicle is nothing more than a clumsy and unoriginal compilation of earlier texts. Undoubtedly, Kedrenos did not conceive of his Compendium as an original composition—nor was originality necessarily expected of chronicles. Kedrenos’ main source is a 10th-century chronicle known as Pseudo-Symeon, itself a complex compilation drawing from multiple earlier works. Kedrenos supplemented this base text with numerous interpolations of various kinds, particularly anecdotes and religious digressions. The aim of this paper is to examine the narrative construction of Kedrenos’ chronicle in the section dealing with Roman history of the monarchy and the republic. This is a period that Byzantine chronicles typically bypass, leaping directly from the founding of Rome to the imperial era. Kedrenos, therefore, was compelled to draw on external sources to cover this material. As such, this portion of his work offers a privileged lens through which one can analyze the chronicler’s intricate process of compilation.