Ioannes VI. Kantakuzenos: Historia. Completion of a critical edition for the Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae

• Applicant: Dr. Sonja Schönauer
• Subject Area: Greek and Latin Philology ; Medieval History
• Term: from 2020 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 443786756

The Historia by Ioannes VI. Kantakuzenos is the only Byzantine historiographical work that was composed by a formerly ruling emperor after his abdication. In this respect, it was also studied as an autobiography as well as an apology for some fatal decisions during his reign. Kantakuzenos wrote the history of his political life in the 1360ies under the pseudonym Christodulos, and he personally supervised the progress of at least four completely preserved manuscripts of the work which were probably produced on the Peloponnese in Mystras by a few copyists at his service. In the course of its tradition, the work underwent several structural alterations – additional chapters were attached, headings were inserted and a four-book structure was introduced which seems not to have been originally intended by the author. On the basis of extensive preliminary studies (description and collation of the manuscripts, generation of a stemma codicum, composition of the Prolegomena on life and works of the author, the manuscripts and their own history, the structural development of the text as well as former editions and translations), it is the aim of the project to efficiently complete a critical edition of this important historigraphical work and, by doing so, to reconstruct its original shape developed and redacted by the author himself.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants