Chronicle of Monemvasia

The Chronicle of Monemvasia (Greek: Το χρονικόν της Μονεμβασίας; rarely known as the Chronicle of the Peloponnesos) is a medieval text of which four versions, all written in medieval Greek, are extant. The author (or authors) of the account is currently unknown. The Chronicle, specifically the version from the Iberikon monastery, narrates the events that depict the Avaro-Slavic conquest and colonization of mainland Greece, covering a period from 587 to 805 AD.

The first manuscript of the Chronicle was published in 1749 by Joseph Pasinus (or Giuseppe Passini) and his colleagues, Rivautella and Berta, at the Royal Library of Turin. The text was reissued in 1884 by Spyridon P. Lambros along with two other versions, one belonging to the Iberikon monastery and the other belonging to the Koutloumousiou monastery in Mount Athos. Minor corrections were made to all three versions of the Chronicle by N. A. Bees who republished the texts in 1909. Three years later (1912), a fourth version was published by Lambros who discovered another text at the Collegio Greco in Rome.

There is currently no consensus among modern scholars regarding the chronological order of the four Chronicle manuscripts. Lambros argues that the text discovered at the Iberikon monastery is the earliest version. N. A. Bees, however, disagrees with Lambros and finds the Iberikon manuscript to be a later variant of the Turin and Koutloumousion versions. But despite the lack of consensus, recent studies show the Iberikon text to be a later version of the Chronicle through its use of the Byzantine dating system whereas the Koutloumousion and Turin texts use the older Alexandrian dating system.

The author (or authors) of the Chronicle of Monemvasia is unknown. One hypothesis by J. Koder states that Arethas of Caesarea was responsible for compiling the text. However, Koder's argument was rejected by I. Dujčev based on the Chronicle's allusion to Emperor Nikephoros II (r. 963–969), who lived after Arethas. What is ultimately known about the author(s) is his/their ignorance of Balkan geography outside of the Peloponnese, despite basing his/their depiction of Avar attacks on Procopius's description of attacks by the Huns.

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