Michael Critobulus

Michael Critobulus (Greek: Μιχαήλ Κριτόβουλος, c. 1410 – c. 1470) was a Greek politician, scholar and historian. He is known as the author of a history of the Ottoman conquest of the Eastern Roman Empire under Sultan Mehmet II. Steven Runciman included Critobulus' work, along with the writings of Doukas, Laonicus Chalcondyles and George Sphrantzes, as one of the principal Greek sources for the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.^[1]

Critobulus is a Romanization of the name, which is alternatively transliterated as Kritoboulos, Kritovoulos, Critoboulos; sometimes with Critobulus' provenance affixed (e.g. Critobulus of Imbros).

Biography

Critobulus' birth name was Michael Critopoulos. He changed this modern Greek family name to the more classical-sounding "Kritoboulos" in reference to a figure of that name in the dialogues of Plato.

He belonged to a family of landowners on the island of Imbros. In the 1450s he was a local political leader of the island and played an active role in the peaceful handover of Imbros, Limnos and Thasos to the Ottomans after the final breakdown of the Byzantine Empire.^[2]

Works

He later wrote the work History in five books.^[3] It is a historical account of the rise of the Ottomans and the final conquest of the remainder of the Eastern Roman Empire. Its main part is a biography of the Ottoman sultan Mehmet II, the Conqueror, to whom the work was also dedicated. Writing under Ottoman rule, Critobulus expressed admiration for Mehmet in his work, and combined mourning for the Greek loss with an acceptance of the shift of power to the Ottoman Turks, which he interpreted as a divinely ordained world historic event.

In doing so, Critobulus took as a literary model the works of Flavius Josephus, the Jewish-Roman historian of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. His text is the most detailed historical account of the first decade of Turkish rule in Constantinople, including the Ottoman efforts of rebuilding and repopulating the city. The autograph of his text has been preserved in the Library of the Serail in Istanbul. He used Thucydides as a model for his History.^[3]

Editions

Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, vol. 5, 1873.
Diether R. Reinsch (ed.), Critobuli Imbriotae historiae. (Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 22). Berlin: de Gruyter, 1983.
Diether R. Reinsch and Photini Kolovou (ed. and transl.), Κριτοβούλου του Ιμβρίου Ιστορία. Athens: Ekdoseis Kanaka, 2005.
Charles T. Rigg (ed. and transl.), History of Mehmed the Conqueror. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1954.

References

↑ Runciman, The Conquest of Constantinople: 1453 (Cambridge: University Press, 1969), pp.192-195
↑ Babinger, Franz. Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time, edited by William C. Hickman and translated by Ralph Manheim (Princeton: University Press, 1978), pp. 97f
1 2 John Antonakos, Noted Greeks Of The Middle Ages, p. 61

Byzantine historians

5th century	Malchus Panodorus of Alexandria Priscus

6th century	Agathias Evagrius Scholasticus Hesychius of Miletus John of Ephesus John of Epiphania Jordanes John Malalas Liberatus of Carthage Marcellinus Comes Menander Protector Peter the Patrician Procopius Theodorus Lector Theophanes of Byzantium Zacharias Rhetor Zosimus

7th century	Trajan the Patrician Theophylact Simocatta John of Antioch

8th century	Hippolytus of Thebes

9th century	Theophanes the Confessor George Syncellus Nikephoros I of Constantinople George Hamartolos

10th century	Constantine VII Joseph Genesius John Kaminiates Leo the Deacon Symeon the Metaphrast Theophanes Continuatus

11th century	Michael Attaleiates George Kedrenos Michael Psellos John Skylitzes John Xiphilinus Yahya of Antioch

12th century	Nikephoros Bryennios the Younger Niketas Choniates Eustathius of Thessalonica Michael Glycas Anna Komnene John Kinnamos Constantine Manasses Joannes Zonaras

13th century	George Akropolites

14th century	Nicephorus Gregoras Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos George Pachymeres Michael Panaretos

15th century	John Anagnostes John Cananus Laonikos Chalkokondyles Michael Critobulus Doukas George Sphrantzes

Authority control	WorldCat Identities VIAF: 210998499 LCCN: n86028627 ISNI: 0000 0001 1641 4054 GND: 118677357 SELIBR: 182518 SUDOC: 028505239 BNF: cb12032794n (data)

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