O City of Byzantium...

[fajrdrako]

I was reading O City of Byzantium by Niketas Choniates this evening - his annals of the city in the late 12th century. To my surprise, when I first opened it at random, the book opened to the page where Choniates first introduces Conrad of Montferrat in 1171. Just the page I most wanted to go to.

I love history. I love those people of the 12th century, coming real on the page as I read. I love Niketas Choniates for writing this book. I love his introduction:

Historical narratives, indeed, have been invented for the common benefit of mankind, since those who will are able to gather from many of these the most advantageous insights. In recording ancient events and customs, the narratives elucidate human nature and expose men of noble sentiments, whose who nourish a natural love for the good, to varied experiences.

Comments

[wanderinunicorn.livejournal.com]

I also fall in love with the mediaval history, but after this love is very young yet, I'm first in the secondary sources (like Runciman and others). But I can good understand that the primary sources are even more interesting, because one gets the facts rom the "first hand".
I've never thought until now that I would read a history book with such tension like I'm now reading Runciman; actually I'm waiting the day long to go home and read.

Niketas Choniates' introduction is absolutly wonderful, the price on amazon as well.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Yes, the price is horrific. I borrowed it from the library in St As and photocopied chunks instead!

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Please cross-post to oltramar!

Choniates is a great writer - wonderful purple prose, stuffed with Homeric and biblical allusions, but with a nose for scandal!

I love the way he introduces Conrad in 1179, after taking the Archbishop of Mainz prisoner! He just makes him sound so wonderful: heroic and intelligent and beautiful!

[wanderinunicorn.livejournal.com]

"With a nose for scandal" - I would love it!

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

He takes great delight in relating all the stories about the various Emperors having mistresses!

But he's good on the military stuff, too. I love his account of Vranas's revolt in 1187.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I think Runciman is wonderful (despite various errors) and I can't think of a better place to start if you're into crusading studies. As I am.

Yes, the price of Choniates is terrifying, and do you know what's worse? That's one of the lower prices I have found.

I think they ought to reprint it.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Well, we know Conrad was heroic, intelligent and beautiful - we are just happy to see Choniates give us further evidence.

Okay, I'll cross-post to oltramar.

Sadly, this is a non-renewable interlibrary loan book without possibility of renewal, and I only had time to read chunks here and there. On a happier note, I know where to get the book now - from the Carleton University library - and I just have to go there when the fall term hours start and I can read more.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

He takes great delight in relating all the stories about the various Emperors having mistresses!

I always love the personal perspective. I like the sense of characterization we get at the same time.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

He provided the evidence of the beauty - for which I am grateful! No-one else bothers with physical description of him.
I love his description of him being very dashing in battle against Vranas/Branas... Perfect for fangirling over!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I just wish we had half a dozen Choniates to five us more of these details of Conrad's life.... Sadly, the eternal plea of the historian: the need for more sources! Chonaiates is a good one.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

In paperback!
It's an important primary source - surely it would go down well with students if they could afford their own copies?!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes - make a good, basic, affordable copy - make it a companion volume to Anna Comnena. Why not? Why keep these things out of print?

Grumble, grumble. Publishers don't have a clue.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Yes! And it would stop people wrongly accusing our poor boy of murder!

[wanderinunicorn.livejournal.com]

I'm the one who always says that everyone should know the history, but sometimes I think it wouldn't be so good if "our guys" would become to popular. Can you imagine a rock opera by Elton John with the title "Conrad of Montferrat" or "Bohemund of Antioch"?

I'm only joking, but I can't resist to post it. But it has nothing to do with the price of the Choniates or other sources, it's horrible, even the historian or people who really want to lern can't afford it.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Can you imagine a rock opera by Elton John with the title "Conrad of Montferrat" or "Bohemund of Antioch"?

Sure I can! Or at least... there's a certain degree of fame some historical figures have achieves - say, Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, Juius Caesar, Napoleon, Leonardo da Vinci - that makes them fair game for popular entertainment, because people have heard of them. Obviously some appalling works have been produced with these characters, but there've been a lot of worthwhile ones, too. And I happen to think Bohemund of Antioch or Conrad of Montferrat are just as interesting.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

You think? I think that's a little optimistic. You'll always get detractors. But it would be nice to have a more balanced picture where not all the popularizers make him a monster.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Well, the murder accusation comes from Roger of Howden over-abridging Benny of Peterborough's abridgement of the Vranas revolt. Whence Runciman and the popularists copying from him saying that Conrad fled Byzantium because he'd murdered someone!

I'm sure they'd still think of other nasty things to say about him, but more widely circulated Choniates would kill that one!

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Conrad has been in opera, albeit in his Walter Scott villain mode, in Balfe's Il Talismano. I think there were other operas based on it, too.

There's an 18C Italian verse tragedy, which I haven't yet read, by Magnocavallo (also an architect: I saw the church and his palace in Moncalvo).

But by and large, the Richard cult has squeezed him out in the popular media... The movie portrayals are excruciating.

But you should speak to historienne about opera... She'd love to do Baldwin IV à la Puccini!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Or would at least add another, more reliable opinion. You're still going to have biases and errors in the original sources, but there'd be more viewoints expressed. Which is always a good thing.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I still boggle at the fact that on this point, Runciman - a Byzantinist - privileged 2 English priests' prècis over an on-the-spot Byzantine source! He refers to Choniates elsewhere - why not on this? I wish I'd know about this when I met him...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Conrad has been in opera

...He has?

albeit in his Walter Scott villain mode, in Balfe's Il Talismano.

I never heard of it! Eeek! Another opera to feverishly search for! I assume it's based on the novel of the same name?

There's an 18C Italian verse tragedy

That sounds more my style... unless it's really dire.

But by and large, the Richard cult has squeezed him out in the popular media...

I think this is because the movie and entertainment industry is so rooted these days in the English language, and Richard comes across as such an English hero - playing up to the nationalism of England at that time. I know Scott wasn't English, but he was writing in English, and selling to the English. Actually I think he bastardized the language abominably but don't listen to me, I'm prejudiced.

Richard became a glamour-hero in his time (he knew how to play up to his own PR) and then was re-glamified (ooh, was I just criticising someone else's bastardization of language?) to suit the taste of a later era. His reputation since has gone up and down like a yo-yo and most people I speak to these days have a very negative view of him, of the "but he neglected and bakrupted England" variety). Especially true when they think they know something about the history... Perhaps there was an era when the schools were teaching about him as a bad absentee king? I doubt that - the schools here don't teach about him at all.

I know of no movie that has villainized him. And heck, they've even had Patrick Stewart play him - how much better can an image get?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I am just learning about opera. There's precious little of it here, and what there is, is waaay out of my price range even if I did manage to get to Toronto or Montreal or New York. I want more! When I can, I buy operatic CDs or DVDs, and get them from the library.

A Puccini rendition of Baldwin IV - ah, that would be a joy and a delight.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It's such a bizarre and inexplicable lapse - a mistake in the very place Runciman should be least likely to overlook something. I know I cannot expect anyone (even Runciman) to be perfect, but that was a particularly uncharacteristic slip-up.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Balfe isn't a fashionable composer (mid 19C Irish), so I'm not sure if Il Talismano has ever been recorded. Yes, it's based on Scott...

I think this is because the movie and entertainment industry is so rooted these days in the English language, and Richard comes across as such an English hero - playing up to the nationalism of England at that time.

This started after the break-up of the Angevin empire: he had already been hijacked into an anti-French icon (which I'm sure would have surprised him!) by the time of the 100 Years War.

I know Scott wasn't English, but he was writing in English, and selling to the English. Actually I think he bastardized the language abominably but don't listen to me, I'm prejudiced.

Scott's problem was that he was a lawyer and thought legal prose could easily transfer into fiction! I like some of his earlier novels, but his secondary characters are always better than his insipid romantic leads (he began the historical fiction staple of putting modern-day characters in fancy-dress for his leads). He sold internationally, and was translated into various languages - thus setting a template for historical fiction (and ultimately, film) across Europe and in North America.

His view of Richard is interesting, in that he regards him as more barbaric & c than Saladin (Scott is largely responsible for the Romantic vision of Saladin in 19-21C fiction), but still thinks he was the best of the Christian leaders at the time. What's clear, reading his introduction and notes to The Talisman, is that while he read a wide range of sources, he did not really discriminate between works from the mediæval romance tradition and less fanciful chronicles; indeed, as a novelist, he was inclined to favour the romances.

Richard became a glamour-hero in his time (he knew how to play up to his own PR) and then was re-glamified (ooh, was I just criticising someone else's bastardization of language?) to suit the taste of a later era. His reputation since has gone up and down like a yo-yo and most people I speak to these days have a very negative view of him, of the "but he neglected and bakrupted England" variety). Especially true when they think they know something about the history... Perhaps there was an era when the schools were teaching about him as a bad absentee king? I doubt that - the schools here don't teach about him at all.

I think that was taught in schools for a time (as you know, due to an incompetent teacher and unruly classmates, my Junior High School history lessons jumped from 1170 to 1492, so I have no first-hand recollection on this). Again, it was due to the 19C tendency to apply modern notions of the nation-state to the Middle Ages, and ignore the fact that the vast bulk of Richard's territories were in what is now France.

But against that, there was the on-going popular romantic tradition: Blondel, Robin Hood (anachronistically, again thanks to Scott), & c. My Mum - who left school at 14 in 1939 - said he was one of her heroes when she was at school.

I know of no movie that has villainized him. And heck, they've even had Patrick Stewart play him - how much better can an image get?

The furthest film has gone in depicting Richard negatively has been in The Lion in Winter (as somewhat psychopathic). I'd forgotten Patrick Stewart had played him - in Robin Hood: Men in Tights! (He was a good Henry in the most recent version of Lion in Winter.)

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Yes...
And the sad fact is, all the second and third-rate 'popular' historians since have just copied from him. So you get Newby, Bartlett, Jones & Ereira, Reston and all of them accusing Conrad of a 'murder' that didn't even happen, but was a straightforward slaying-in-battle!