Late Antique Historiography

Chronicle of 819

Title(s):
  • Chronicle of 819
  • ܬܫܥܝܬܐ ܕܡܘܕܥܐ ܩܦܝܣܐܝܬ ܆ ܥܠ ܣܘܪ̈ܥܢܐ ܕܗܘܘ ܒܙܒܢܵܐ ܡܫܚܠܦܵܐ ܕܡܢ ܡܫܝܚܐ ܘܥܕܡܐ ܠܗܫܐ
    (taš‘ītā d-mawd‘ā qpīsāyit ‘al sū‘rānē da-hwaw b-zabnē mšaḥlpē d-men mšīḥā w-‘admā l-hāšā, Story that expounds briefly the events that happened in various times from Christ up to now)
  • Chronicon anonymum ad annum AD 819 pertinens
Author:
Period covered:
Christ's birth-819
Language:
Syriac
State of Preservation:
Full
Genre:
  • Chronicle (chronica)
Remarks:
Based on the amount of details concerning the monastery of Qartamin, Palmer (1990: 9-13) has suggested that the author of the chronicle was a monk in that abbey. According to Conrad (1991: 23-24), the original core focusing on the monastery of Qartamin (what he calls the 'Chronology of Qartamin') covered only the period up to 728, and was later expanded with three more layers: an account of ecclesiastical events up to 785, a list of Abbasid kings up to 813, and a list of Jacobite patriarchs up to 819. In his reconstruction, the hypothetical 'Chronology of Qartamin' figures as the source shared by the anonymous chronicler of 819 and Theophilus of Edessa (Conrad 1991: 6-7, 23-24; Hoyland 1997: 419-420; Hoyland 2011: 26-29, 316-318; Borrut 2011: 151-152).
The text was edited from a codex found in 1911 by Aphram Barsaum in the village of Beth Svirina (Tur Abdin, South-East Turkey), hypothetically dated to the mid-ninth century. The codex is now lost.
Edition - Translation:
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Sources:
Bibliography:
  • A. Borrut (2011) Entre mémoire et pouvoir: L'espace syrien sous les derniers Omeyyades et les premiers Abbasides (v. 72-193/692-809). Leiden - Boston.
  • E.W. Brooks (1906) 'The sources of Theophanes and the Syriac chronicles'. Byzantinische Zeitschrift 15: 578-587.
  • L.I. Conrad (1991) 'Syriac perspectives on Bilād al-Shām during the Abbasid period'. In: Bilād al-Shām during the Abbasid period: Fifth international conference on the history of Bilād al-Shām, ed. M. Adnan al-Bakhit - R. Schick. Amman: 1-44.
  • M. Debié (2015) L'écriture de l'histoire en syriaque: Transmissions interculturelles et constructions identitaires entre hellénisme et Islam (Late antique history and religion, 12). Leuven - Paris - Bristol: 567-568.
  • R. Hoyland (1997) Seeing Islam as others saw it: A survey and evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian writings on early Islam (Studies in Late Antiquity and early Islam, 13). Princeton: 419-420.
  • R. Hoyland (2011) Theophilus of Edessa's Chronicle and the circulation of historical knowledge in Late Antiquity and early Islam (Translated texts for historians, 57). Liverpool.
  • A. Palmer (1990) Monk and mason on the Tigris frontier: The early history of Tur Abdin. Cambridge.
  • A. Palmer (1993) The seventh century in the West-Syrian chronicles, including two seventh-century Syriac apocalyptic texts (Translated texts for historians, 15). Liverpool.