A ‘Woven-Texture’ Narration: On the Compilation Method of the Syriac Renaissance Chronicles

Syrian Orthodox historians adopted a compilatory method in the composition of their chronicles. The practice of selecting, excerpting and structuring previous material in a new work is thus a cue of the way the authors intended to provide historical knowledge to the readers. This article focuses on the compilation method of the Syriac Renaissance chronicles of Michael the Great and Anonymous (1234). Through a compared text analysis with some main sources it will be detected common redactional techniques and attitudes which partly results from the participation of the authors to a common compilation culture, shared by earlier historians as well, and partly from the new historical-intellectual context they were working in. It will be argued that both Michael the Great and the Anonymous employ novel redactional devices to emphasize the authoritative value of the quotations and harmonize the combination of the sources with the aim of providing a reasoned systematization of earlier historical knowledge. The new historical circumstances which determined the 10th century centralization of the Syrian Orthodox community in the Melitene region and the consequent economic and intellectual flourishing created the conditions for the development of this project and the new literary techniques associated therewith. Moreover, whereas parallel projects of systematization in other traditions (like e.g. Byzantium) produced excerpts collections, Syriac Renaissance historians adopted exclusively the chronicle format. This choice ties in the earlier historiographical tradition since no historical collection exists independently in Syriac, which betrays the relevance of the chronological arrangement for the Syrian Orthodox historical discourse.