George Kodinos (), also
Pseudo
Pseudo- (from , ) is a prefix used in a number of languages, often to mark something as a fake or insincere version.
In English, the prefix is used on both nouns and adjectives. It can be considered a privative prefix specifically denoting '' ...
-Kodinos or Codinus, is the conventional name of an anonymous late 15th-century author of late
Byzantine literature
Byzantine literature is the Greek literature of the Middle Ages, whether written in the Byzantine Empire or outside its borders. It was marked by a linguistic diglossy; two distinct forms of Byzantine Greek were used, a scholarly dialect based ...
.
Their attribution to him is only traditional, and is based on the fact that all three works come in the same manuscript. The works referred to are the following:
#''
Patria'' (Πάτρια Κωνσταντινουπόλεως), treating of the history, topography, and monuments of
Constantinople
Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...
. It is divided into five sections: (a) the foundation of the city; (b) its situation, limits and topography; (c) its statues, works of art, and other notable sights; (d) its buildings; (e) and the construction of the
Hagia Sophia
Hagia Sophia (; ; ; ; ), officially the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque (; ), is a mosque and former Church (building), church serving as a major cultural and historical site in Istanbul, Turkey. The last of three church buildings to be successively ...
. It was written in the reign of
Basil II
Basil II Porphyrogenitus (; 958 – 15 December 1025), nicknamed the Bulgar Slayer (, ), was the senior Byzantine emperor from 976 to 1025. He and his brother Constantine VIII were crowned before their father Romanos II died in 963, but t ...
(976-1025), revised and rearranged under
Alexios I Komnenos
Alexios I Komnenos (, – 15 August 1118), Latinization of names, Latinized as Alexius I Comnenus, was Byzantine Emperor, Byzantine emperor from 1081 to 1118. After usurper, usurping the throne, he was faced with a collapsing empire and ...
(1081–1118), and perhaps copied by Codinus, whose name it bears in some (later) manuscripts. The chief sources are: the ''Patria'' of
Hesychius Illustrius of Miletus, the anonymous ''
Parastaseis syntomoi chronikai
''Parastaseis syntomoi chronikai'' (, "brief historical notes") is an eighth- to ninth-century Byzantine text that concentrates on brief commentary connected to the topography of Constantinople and its monuments, notably its Classical Greek sculp ...
'', and an anonymous account () of St Sophia (ed.
Theodor Preger in ''Scriptores originum Constantinopolitanarum'', fasc. i, 1901, followed by the ''Patria'' of Codinus).
Procopius
Procopius of Caesarea (; ''Prokópios ho Kaisareús''; ; – 565) was a prominent Late antiquity, late antique Byzantine Greeks, Greek scholar and historian from Caesarea Maritima. Accompanying the Roman general Belisarius in Justinian I, Empe ...
, ''De Aedificiis'' and the poem of
Paulus Silentiarius on the dedication of St. Sophia should be read in connexion with this subject.
#''De Officiis'' (), a treatise, written between 1347 and 1368, of the court and higher