Chronicle of 754

The ''Chronicle of 754'' (also called the ''Mozarabic Chronicle'' or ''Continuatio Hispana'') is a Latin-language history in 95 sections, written by an anonymous Mozarab (Christian) chronicler in Al-Andalus. The ''Chronicle'' contains the earliest known reference in a Latin text to "Europeans" (''europenses''), whom it describes as having defeated the Saracens at the battle of Tours in 732.

Author

Its compiler was an anonymous Mozarab (Christian) chronicler, living under Arab rule in some part of the Iberian peninsula. Since the 16th century, it has been attributed to an otherwise unknown bishop, Isidorus Pacensis but this attribution is now widely accepted as being the result of compounded errors. Henry Wace explained the origin and the phantom history of "Isidorus Pacensis", an otherwise unattested bishop of Pax Julia (modern Beja, Portugal).

There is also some disagreement about the place where the ''Chronicle'' was written. Tailhan named Córdoba as the city of origin. Mommsen was the first to champion Toledo. A recent study by Lopez Pereira rejects both these in favour of an unidentified smaller city in present-day south-east Spain.

The work

The Chronicle of 754 covers the years 610 to 754, during which it has few contemporary sources against which to check its veracity. It begins with the accession of Heraclius and is considered an eyewitness account for the Umayyad conquest of Hispania,. Some consider it one of the best sources for post-Visigothic history and for the story of the Arabian conquest of Hispania and Septimania; it provided the basis for Roger Collins, ''The Arab Conquest of Spain, 711-797'', the first modern historian to utilise it so thoroughly. It contains the most detailed account of the Battle of Poitiers-Tours.

The style of the entries resembles the earlier chronicler John of Biclar, similarly covering the topics of rulers, rebellions, wars, the church and plagues (but in greater detail, with a more eccentric prose style that has made the work difficult for modern scholars to decipher). The work has three main focal points, the first two Byzantium and Visigothic Spain it shares in common with the Chronicle of 741, adding a third which is the Umayyad conquest.

The ''Chronicle'' survives in three manuscripts, of which the earliest, of the ninth century, is divided between the British Library and the Biblioteca de la Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid. The other manuscripts are of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

The ''Chronicle'' was first published in its entirety in Pamplona, 1615; it was printed in Migne’s ''Patr. Lat.'', vol. 96, p. 1253 sqq. and given a modern critical edition and translated into Spanish by José Eduardo Lopez Pereira.Firstly as ''Cronica mozarabe de 754'' (Zaragoza, 1980); followed by a revised Latin edition and translation, with numerous essays, in 2009 (see References below) An English translation by Kenneth Baxter Wolf can be found in his volume ''Conquerors and Chroniclers of Early Medieval Spain'' (Liverpool, 1990).

Notes

{{reflist, 2

References

* Ann Christys, ''Christians in Al-Andalus, 711–1000'' (Routledge, 2002).
* Reinhart Dozy, ''Recherches sur l'histoire et la littérature d'Espagne'', 2nd ed. 1860.
* J. Eduardo Lopez Pereira, ''Continuatio Isidoriana Hispana Cronica Mozarabe de 754''. Fuentes y Estudios de Historia Leonesa 127. León, 2009.
* T. Mommsen, ''Continuatio Hispana anno DCCLIV.'' Monumenta Germaniae Historica auctores antiquissimi XI, Chronica minora saec. IV, V, VI, VII, vol. 2,. Berlin, 1894
Online

* William Smith and Henry Wace, ''A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects and Doctrines'' (1880: vol. III, ''s.v.'' "Isidorus Pacensis" pp 313f).
* J. Tailhan, ''Anonyme de Cordoue. Chronique rimée des derniers rois d'Espagne.'' Paris, 1885.
* English translation of the Chronicle by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamim
Online

754
8th-century history books
Mozarabs
Italian chronicles
8th century in Al-Andalus
8th-century Latin books
Christianity in Al-Andalus
Christian texts of the medieval Islamic world