John Kaminiates (, fl. tenth century) was a

Greek Greek may refer to: 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 of all kno ...

resident of

Thessalonica Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area) and the capital city, capital of the geographic reg ...

when the city, then one of the largest in the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

, was besieged and sacked by a

Saracen upright 1.5, Late 15th-century German woodcut depicting Saracens ''Saracen'' ( ) was a term used both in Greek and Latin writings between the 5th and 15th centuries to refer to the people who lived in and near what was designated by the Rom ...

force led by

Leo of Tripoli Leo of Tripoli (), known in Arabic as Rashīq al-Wardāmī (), and Ghulām Zurāfa (), was a Greek renegade and fleet commander for the Abbasid Caliphate in the early tenth century. He is most notable for his sack of Thessalonica, the Byzanti ...

in 904. His account of the city's plunder, ''On the capture of Thessalonica'', (Εις την άλωσιν της Θεσσαλονίκης, ''Eis tēn alōsin tēs Thessalonikēs'') survives in four manuscripts; though of these, none were written before the fourteenth century, causing some concern over the text's authenticity.Kazhdan 1978

Name

John Kaminiates has alternatively been

transliterated Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one writing system, script to another that involves swapping Letter (alphabet), letters (thus ''wikt:trans-#Prefix, trans-'' + ''wikt:littera#Latin, liter-'') in predictable ways, such as ...

John Kaminatos, Ioannis Kaminiatis, and sometimes appears in the Latinized forms Ioannis Caminiatae, Joannes Cameniata and John Cameniates.

Life

Kaminiates was born in the end of the

9th century The 9th century was a period from 801 (represented by the Roman numerals DCCCI) through 900 (CM) in accordance with the Julian calendar. The Carolingian Renaissance and the Viking raids occurred within this period. In the Middle East, the H ...

in the

and was the son of an

exarch An exarch (; from Ancient Greek ἔξαρχος ''exarchos'') was the holder of any of various historical offices, some of them being political or military and others being ecclesiastical. In the late Roman Empire and early Byzantine Empire, ...

. He grew up to become a priest of the imperial palace at

, holding the ecclesiastical dignity of '' kouboukleisios''. During the sack of Thessalonica by the

Abbasid Caliphate The Abbasid Caliphate or Abbasid Empire (; ) was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (566–653 CE), from whom the dynasty takes ...

in 904, Kaminiates and his family were among the Thessalonians that were captured by the intruders.

''On the capture of Thessalonica''

''On the capture of Thessalonica'' (

: ''Εις την άλωσιν της Θεσσαλονίκης'') takes the form of a long letter written by Kaminiates to his friend, Gregory of Cappadocia; and describes the conquest of Thessalonica and the treatment of the captives. He gives a very detailed description of the attack and his experience on the pirate ship, which was initially heading to

Crete Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...

and then to

Paphos Paphos, also spelled as Pafos, is a coastal city in southwest Cyprus and the capital of Paphos District. In classical antiquity, two locations were called Paphos: #Old Paphos, Old Paphos, today known as Kouklia, and #New Paphos, New Paphos. It i ...

, Tripoli and Tarsus in

Cilicia Cilicia () is a geographical region in southern Anatolia, extending inland from the northeastern coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. Cilicia has a population ranging over six million, concentrated mostly at the Cilician plain (). The region inclu ...

. His work is an invaluable source about the sack of Thessalonica in 904, as well as the slave trade in the

eastern Mediterranean The Eastern Mediterranean is a loosely delimited region comprising the easternmost portion of the Mediterranean Sea, and well as the adjoining land—often defined as the countries around the Levantine Sea. It includes the southern half of Turkey ...

during the

medieval times In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and t ...

. However, its validity is questioned by some modern historians mainly due to some

anachronisms An anachronism (from the Greek , 'against' and , 'time') is a chronological inconsistency in some arrangement, especially a juxtaposition of people, events, objects, language terms and customs from different time periods. The most common type ...

that appear in Kaminiates' work.

Alexander Kazhdan Alexander Petrovich Kazhdan (; 3 September 1922 – 29 May 1997) was a Soviet and American Byzantinist. Among his publications was the three-volume ''Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium'', a comprehensive encyclopedic work containing over than 5,000 ...

argued that the text was a 15th century composition masquerading as a 10th century text, written in response to the siege of Thessalonica in 1430 by the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

. Other scholars like Ioannis Tsaras, David Frendo and Paolo Odorico support that the extant text is a reworked or modified version of a 10th century original.

References

Sources

''English'' *Kaminiates, John ''The capture of Thessaloniki'' (D. Frendo, A. Fotiou, and G.Böhlig, trans.) Byzantina Australiensia, 12. Perth: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, 2000. . *Kazhdan, Alexander ''Some Questions Addressed to the Scholars, who Believe in the Authenticity of Kaminiates’ Capture of Thessalonika'' Byzantinische Zeitschrift 71. 1978. p. 301–314.

ISSN An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is an eight-digit to uniquely identify a periodical publication (periodical), such as a magazine. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title. ISSNs a ...

br>0007-7704
* ''Foreign'' *Kaminiates, John ''Eis ten alosin tes Thessalonikes / De Expugnatione Thessalonicae'' (Böhlig, Gertrude, ed.)

Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae The ( English: "Corpus of Byzantine History Sources") or CFHB is an international project that aims to collect, edit, and provide textual criticism on historical sources from the time of the Byzantine Empire (4th–15th centuries AD). Its purpose ...

. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1973.

External links

A portion of the translated text online
- An interesting look at how the four surviving manuscripts are used to create a modern scholarly Greek edition. {{DEFAULTSORT:Kaminiates, John 10th-century Byzantine historians Byzantine Thessalonian writers Byzantine people of the Arab–Byzantine wars