O most divine emperor narrative and political ideology in eleventh-century Byzantium

This thesis provides the first collective revision of four nearly contemporary eleventh-century historical accounts: Michael Psellos’ Chronographia, Michael Attaleiates’ History, and John Skylitzes’ Synopsis and Continuation. Recent studies have attempted to further contextualise Byzantine historical narratives in order to form a better understanding of the past and the way it was perceived by contemporaries. Of special concern to this thesis is the mishandling of key concepts such as religion, theocracy, authorial originality, and the purposes behind Byzantine history writing. This study analyses how these authors and their literary activity have been framed within misleading dichotomies between either religion and secular, autocratic and republican thought, or traditional writing and original innovation. A narratological framework will be applied to the revision of the sources. Thus, the central chapters are devoted to the narratives’ character focus, how the characters’ morality is qualified in the sources, and the creative uses of narrative space and time to shape the message aimed at their respective intended audiences. In sum, this narratalogical revisionist appraisal of these accounts provides a new perspective on eleventh-century political thought in Byzantium