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
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 ...
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 ...
in
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).
See also
*
Neophytos the Recluse Neophytos of Cyprus, Saint Neophytos, Neophytos the Recluse (Greek: Άγιος Νεόφυτος ο Έγκλειστος; 1134–1214) was a Cypriot Orthodox monk, priest, and sometime hermit, whose writings preserved a history of the early crus ...
*
Georgios Voustronios
*
Florio Bustron
Florio Bustron (1500s - post-1568, perhaps 1570), was a 16th century administrator, jurist and historian. Florio became a prominent administrative figure when Cyprus was under Venetian rule. He came from a family possibly of Syrian origin, with ...
*
Chronicle of ‘Amadi’
The ''Chronicle of Amadi'' (or ''Istoria del regno di Cipro'', 'History of the kingdom of Cyprus') is an anonymous chronicle written around 1520 in Italian prose with some Venetian traits that detailed the history of Cyprus from the Byzantine Empe ...
*
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 ...
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