Psellos and the Patriarchs

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© 2015 UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

Michael Psellos in Translation

Miniature portrait of Michael Psellos and his pupil Michael Doukas, MS Pantokrator, fol. (th century). © Holy Monastery of Pantokrator, Mount Athos. Used with permission.

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© 2015 UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

Psellos and the PatriarchsLetters and Funeral Orations for

Keroullarios, Leichoudes, and Xiphilinos

translated by

ANTHONY KALDELLIS

and IOANNIS POLEMIS

University of Notre Dame Press

Notre Dame, Indiana

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© 2015 UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

Copyright © 2015 by University of Notre Dame

Notre Dame, Indiana 46556

undpress.nd.edu

All Rights Reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Psellus, Michael.

Psellos and the patriarchs : letters and funeral orations for Keroullarios, Leichoudes, and

Xiphilinos / [Michael Psellos] ; translated by Anthony Kaldellis and Ioannis Polemis.

pages cm. — (Michael Psellos in translation)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-268-03328-6 (paper : alk. paper) —

ISBN 0-268-03328-5 (paper : alk. paper)

1. Psellus, Michael. 2. Authors, Greek (Modern)—Biography. 3. Patriarchs and

patriarchate—Biography. 4. Political customs and rites—Byzantine Empire—History.

5. Funeral orations—Translations into English. 6. Byzantine Empire—Officials

and employees. 7. Byzantine Empire—Politics and government. 8. Byzantine

literature—History and criticism. 9. Byzantine Empire—Social life and customs.

I. Kaldellis, Anthony. II. Polemis, I. III. Title.

PA5355.Z5P73 2015

189—dc23

2015017672

∞ The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and

durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity

of the Council on Library Resources.

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Contents

Preface vii

General Introduction 1

A Brief, Revised Biography of Michael Psellos 3

Psellos and the Patriarchs: A Historical and Interpretive Essay 10

Reading between the Lines in the Funeral Orations 32

Letter to the Patriarch Kyr Michael Keroullarios 37

Anthony Kaldellis

Funeral Oration for the Most Blessed Patriarch Kyr Michael

Keroullarios 49

Ioannis Polemis

Funeral Oration for the Most Holy Patriarch Kyr Konstantinos

Leichoudes 129

Anthony Kaldellis

Letters to Ioannes Xiphilinos 163

Anthony Kaldellis

Funeral Oration for the Most Blessed Patriarch Kyr Ioannes

Xiphilinos 177

Ioannis Polemis

Bibliography 229

Index 239

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Preface

This volume was created fortuitously. In 1998, Anthony Kaldellis translated

the long letters to Keroullarios and Xiphilinos and part of the funeral oration

for Leichoudes. More recently, Ioannis Polemis translated the funeral orations

for Keroullarios and Xiphilinos in the course of preparing a new edition of

Psellos’ funeral orations, now published in the series Bibliotheca Teubneriana.

A volume containing all of these texts suggested itself naturally to us. Each of

us has written the introductions to the texts that he has translated. In addi-

tion, Anthony Kaldellis wrote the first two sections of the general introduction

to the volume, and Ioannis Polemis the third section. We have read and com-

mented on each other’s translations. But this is Psellos, so some passages re-

main baffling.

The translators thank the two reviewers for the University of Notre Dame

Press, Stratis Papaioannou and an anonymous reviewer, for their useful cor-

rections and advice, as well as Michael Jeffreys for making useful comments

after reading the volume. We are also grateful to the press and our editor,

Stephen Little, for continuing their support for this project.

Note on Translations. Biblical references are to the Septuagint version of the

Bible (LXX). Biblical quotations in English are the authors’ own translations,

following the wording of Psellos, which is based on the Septuagint and the

Greek New Testament. In the translations, ellipses in brackets mean that

words are missing from the manuscript text or that the text has been cor-

rupted and cannot be properly translated; ellipses without brackets are used

to convey the sense of what Psellos is doing in an equivalent way in Greek,

vii

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usually the deliberate introduction of a kind of caesura or syntactical break

to mark a pause, stark contrast, or reformulation of his argument.

For the sake of consistency, we are naming all three orations Funeral Ora-

tions, even though the first two (for Keroullarios and Leichoudes) are called

Encomia (i.e., orations of praise) in the original manuscript. In substance,

they are encomia and so can be referred to in either way. But for their formal

titles we have opted for Funeral Oration.

viii Preface

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