ABSTRACT
The Histories of John Kantakouzenos is among the longest pieces of historiography that Byzantium produced. On the basis of speculation about its authorial intention and some characteristic features it has been variously designated as an apologia pro vita sua or as memoirs. 1 Is it really an ex-emperor’s apologetic work concerning his deeds or misdeeds from the serene distance of the cloister? Can the work be described as ‘memoirs’ with all the selectivity that goes with memoirs, or is it a more objectively comprehensive type of historical writing? If we consider the first possibility, what seems to contradict a purely apologetic intention is that this historiographical enterprise is too extensive an undertaking to be simply an apologia for his deeds. There is much detail in this history whose inclusion is not justified by any overt apologetic intention: for example, in the descriptions of the famous battle at Pelekanon (1329), 2 the various skirmishes with marauding bands of Ottomans in Thrace, the clashes with local rulers (like the battle with Momčilo in 1343) or the capture of cities like Berroia in 1350. At most we would say that there are ‘apologias’ within the work, either in the sustained manner of a logos or in the episodic appearance of authorial comments complementing other subgenres in the Histories. These apologetic pieces within the work offer us the form and limits of what we ought to mean when we refer to an apologia sensu stricto. On the other hand a distinction between memoirs and standard historiography is too rigid and possibly anachronistic a concept to be seriously applied in this case or to be of much value for a real understanding of the formative elements shaping this work.
