Psellos and the Patriarchs: Letters and Funeral Orations for Keroullarios, Leichoudes, and Xiphilinos by Anthony Kaldellis and Ioannis Polemis (review)

By its translations in numerous languages, Michael Psellos’ Chronography made the text accessible to audiences not necessarily familiar with the medieval Greek of one of the most sophisticated Byzantine authors. On the grounds of style, rhetorical vividness, and especially of the authorial-self that pervades it, the text is deservedly considered a major achievement of the eleventh-century Byzantine literary production. In contrast to the Chronography, access to the rest of Psellos’ œuvre, which comprises almost all literary genres, displays a variety of stylistic levels and rhetorical devices, and predominantly sets the subject matter within a theoretical framework, has long been exclusively available to the specialists. In this regard, the series “Michael Psellos in Translation” offers to historians of the Middle Age as well as to the informed public and students a valuable tool for assessing the intellectual aspirations of a key-figure in the development of medieval thought. The first volume of the series presented texts in which are evidenced Psellos’ per-ception of and attitude toward family bonds; the second introduces the long funeral orations he wrote for three successive mid-eleventh century patriarchs of Constantinople, Michael Keroullarios, Constantine Leichoudis, and John Xiphilinos. Letters he addressed to Keroullarios and Xiphilinos complete the selection of texts comprised in the volume.

Aspects of the specific thematic choice are insightfully analyzed by Anthony Kaldellis and Ioannis Polemis in the introductory chapter of the book.

The Funeral Orations were composed to celebrate the memory of the deceased patriarchs on the anniversary of their death. Whether they were actually orally delivered in public or read to a limited group of relatives and friends, the texts, remark Kaldellis and Polemis, are the earliest examples of encomiastic speeches for ecclesiastics, who were not sanctified and therefore did not deserve hagiographical encomia. Indeed, none of the three Patriarchs had manifested any significant religious vocation in the early stages of their lives; instead, they were deeply involved in secular activities, political (as is the case of Keroullarios), administrative (Leichoudes), or heading high-level schools of Constantinople (Xiphilinos). Moreover, all of them were chosen to lead the Patriarchate of Constantinople and later deposed by imperial resolution. These substantial changes in the course of their lives served Psellos for constructing the orations “in two movements” and exploring the abstract notions of “virtues and states of being” (p. 2).

In the “Historical and Interpretative Essay” (pp. 10-35), Kaldellis and Polemis contextualize Psellos’ relation with the patriarchs and thoroughly discuss the different ways by which he approached each of them. They also consider the framing of the discourses on the secure, for Psellos, philosophical ground and their stylistic elegance, which supports the appreciation of Leichoudes’ personality as the “harmonious mixture of all the best elements of human life,” but barely veils criticism toward Keroullarios and Xiphilinos—the former for his bigotry and false Neo-Platonic reasoning, the latter for moving away from the true philosophy to adhere to conservative positions.

Transposing a text from one language to another is a delicate endeavor, especially in the case of the writings of Psellos, who was relishing allusiveness and constantly dialogued with his subjective perception of persons and events with the assistance of ancient authorities. Yet, the excellent translations of the Letters and the Funeral Orations render the subtleness of the texts and enable the modern reader to follow effortlessly the, often complicated, argumentation of Psellos. The volume concludes with the bibliography of sources and secondary literature, and a useful index.