John Kaminiates

The sack of Thessalonica in 904, from the Madrid Skylitzes.

John Kaminiates (Greek: Ιωάννης Καμινιάτης, fl. tenth century) was a Greek resident of Thessalonica when the city, then one of the largest in the Byzantine Empire, was besieged and sacked by a Saracen force led by Leo of Tripoli in 904. His account of the city's plunder, On the capture of Thessalonica, (Εις την άλωσιν της Θεσσαλονίκης, Eis tēn alōsin tēs Thessalonikēs) survives in four manuscripts; though of these, none were written before the fourteenth century, causing some concern over the text's authenticity.

Name

John Kaminiates has alternatively been transliterated John Kaminatos, Ioannis Kaminiatis, and sometimes appears in the Latinized forms Ioannis Caminiatae, Joannes Cameniata and John Cameniates.

References

English

• Kaminiates, John The capture of Thessaloniki (D. Frendo, A. Fotiou, and G.Böhlig, trans.) Byzantina Australiensia, 12. Perth: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, 2000. ISBN 1-876503-00-9.
• Kazhdan, Alexander Some Questions Addressed to the Scholars, who Believe in the Authenticity of Kaminiates’ Capture of Thessalonika Byzantinische Zeitschrift 71. 1978. p. 301-314. ISSN 0007-7704.
• Tougher, Shaun The Reign of Leo VI (886-912): Politics and People BRILL, 1997. ISBN 90-04-10811-4.

Foreign

• Kaminiates, John Eis ten alosin tes Thessalonikes / De Expugnatione Thessalonicae (Böhlig, Gertrude, ed.) Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1973. ISSN 0589-8048

External links

• A portion of the translated text online
• The Manuscript Editing Process - An interesting look at how the four surviving manuscripts are used to create a modern scholarly Greek edition.