Leontios Machairas or Makhairas (

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

: Λεόντιος Μαχαιράς, French: Léonce Machéras; about 1380 - after 1432) was a

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

in medieval

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ge ...

. The main source of information on him is his chronicle, written in the medieval Cypriot dialect. The chronicle documents events from the visit of Saint Helena to

until the times of the

Kingdom of Cyprus The Kingdom of Cyprus (french: Royaume de Chypre, la, Regnum Cypri) was a state that existed between 1192 and 1489. It was ruled by the French House of Lusignan. It comprised not only the island of Cyprus, but it also had a foothold on the Ana ...

. Machairas was

Orthodox Christian Orthodoxy (from Greek: ) is adherence to correct or accepted creeds, especially in religion. Orthodoxy within Christianity refers to acceptance of the doctrines defined by various creeds and ecumenical councils in Antiquity, but different Churche ...

but wrote with respect for the pope and the Catholic ruling class of Cyprus for whom he was working. He is the only source on the "Re Alexis" rebellion of Cypriot serfs, which he condemned. Following the usual Byzantine practice, he only used the word "'' basileus''" (Greek for sovereign) for the

Byzantine emperor This is a list of the Byzantine emperors from the foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD, which marks the conventional start of the Byzantine Empire, Eastern Roman Empire, to Fall of Constantinople, its fall to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. On ...

at Constantinople, and referred to the king of Cyprus as "''regas''" (from Latin ''rex'' king). Machairas was also present at the Battle of Choirokoitia. The text as we have it became abbreviated after 1432, and historians believe the remainder of the text is a subsequent accretion. There are manuscripts of the ''Chronicle'' at the Bodleian Library in

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

, the

Biblioteca Marciana The Marciana Library or Library of Saint Mark ( it, italic=no, Biblioteca Marciana, but in historical documents commonly referred to as ) is a public library in Venice, Italy. It is one of the earliest surviving public libraries and repositori ...

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

, and

Ravenna Ravenna ( , , also ; rgn, Ravèna) is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. It was the capital city of the Western Roman Empire from 408 until its collapse in 476. It then served as the ca ...

. The Oxford manuscript was copied in

Paphos Paphos ( el, Πάφος ; tr, Baf) is a coastal city in southwest Cyprus and the capital of Paphos District. In classical antiquity, two locations were called Paphos: Old Paphos, today known as Kouklia, and New Paphos. The current city of Pap ...

in June 1555, according to an additional paragraph after the end of the chronicle. The chronicle was published by

Konstantinos Sathas Constantine Sathas ( el, Κωνσταντίνος Σάθας; Athens, 1842 – Paris, 25 May 1914) was a Greek historian and researcher. Sathas spent his life unearthing hitherto unknown material pertaining to the history of late medieval and ear ...

as part of his ''Medieval Library'' in Venice in 1873. The chronicles of Cyprus by Francesco Amadi and Diomede Strambaldi published by Rene de Mas Latrie in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

in 1891 were translations of Machairas's chronicle into Italian. The chronicle was published again by Richard M. Dawkins with an English translation as "Recital Concerning the Sweet Land of Cyprus Entitled 'Chronicle' - The chronicle of Makhairas" in Oxford in 1932. The Ravenna manuscript has not yet been incorporated into a critical edition.

Publication history

* Σάθας, K
Μεσαιωνική Βιβλιοθήκη Τόμος Β΄. Χρονογράφοι Βασιλείου Κύπρου.
Εν Βενετία: Τύποις του Χρόνου (1873). * Miller. E & Sathas. K. Λεοντίου Μαχαιρά Χρονικόν Κύπρου. Paris (1882).

References

External links

Text (Nick Nicholas)

Text (Univ. of Athens) {{DEFAULTSORT:Machairas, Leontios 15th-century Greek people 15th-century writers Year of death missing Cypriot non-fiction writers Cypriot historians Eastern Orthodox Christians from Cyprus People of the Kingdom of Cyprus Bodleian Library collection Year of birth uncertain

Publication history

See also

References

External links