Michael Attaleiates: History as politics in eleventh-century Byzantium.

Abstract

This dissertation is about history as politics in eleventh-century Byzantium. Focusing on the <italic>Historia</italic>, the work of the judge and courtier Michael Attaleiates, it examines the uses of history within the Byzantine court in the 1060s and 1070s. I argue that Michael Attaleiates wrote history with his eyes firmly set on the political scene of his times. The production of history was a highly political enterprise that allowed Attaleiates to communicate with his contemporaries and express his ideas about the empire's military and political crisis. At the same time his skills as a historian were presented as skills useful in governance. By demonstrating his understanding of the past Attaleiates hinted at his ability to plan the future. The <italic>Historia </italic> was therefore the proof of his status as an advisor and an active political man. The portrait of Attaleiates emerging from this dissertation is one of an ambitious, socially conscious, patriotic and entrepreneurial political agent negotiating the pitfalls of Byzantine court life while maintaining a dialogue on current affairs with his contemporaries. In chapters 1 and 21 present a social, economic and intellectual biography of the author setting the background for the textual analysis that ensues. Chapter 2 specifically examines Attaleiates' intellectual debt to the ancient Greek historian Polybios of Megalopolis. Chapters 3 and 4 treat Attaleiates' relationship, social and intellectual, with his contemporary, the philosopher, historian, and courtier Michael Psellos. Chapter 5 closely reads the <italic> Historia</italic> and challenges Attaleiates' loyalty to the emperor to whom his work is dedicated. Chapter 6 challenges contemporary scholarship in showing Attaleiates as a pragmatic enemy of Michael Keroularios, the imperious patriarch, and friend of the Norman mercenary Rouselios. Chapters 8 and 9 look into Attaleiates' views of the divine. The author emerges as an analyst of the past, who excludes God from history. Finally in chapter 9 Attaleiates becomes a true supporter of Alexios Komnenos. The close reading of the <italic>Historia </italic> culminates in Attaleiates' covert praise of the up-and-coming general and future emperor. History in Attaleiates' hands proves, indeed, to be a form of politics.