John Skylitzes' extraordinary Middle Byzantine chronicle covers the reigns of the Byzantine emperors from the death of Nicephorus I in 811 to the deposition of Michael VI in 1057, and provides the only surviving continuous narrative of the late tenth and early eleventh centuries. A high official living in the late eleventh century, Skylitzes used a number of existing Greek histories (some of them no longer extant) to create a digest of the previous three centuries. It is without question the major historical source for the period, cited constantly in modern scholarship, and has never before been available in English. This edition features introductions by Jean-Claude Cheynet and Bernard Flusin, along with extensive notes. It will be an essential and exciting addition to the libraries of all historians of the Byzantine age. 'As John Wortley indicates, this translation took many years to come to fruition. But it now has the potential to contribute very substantially to those reassessments of the political and cultural history of Byzantium in the tenth and eleventh centuries which are currently underway in a variety of scholarly contexts across Europe and North America.' Catherine Holmes, Early Medieval Europe The first complete English translation of John Skylitzes' Middle Byzantine chronicle, with introductions and notes. John Wortley is Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Manitoba. He has published widely on the Byzantine era and completed several translations to date, including Les Recits edifiants de Paul, eveque de Monembasie, et d'autres auteurs (1987), The Spiritual Meadow of John Moschos, including the additional tales edited by Nissen and Mioni (1992), The spiritually beneficial tales of Paul, Bishop of Monembasia and of other authors (1996) and John Skylitzes: A Synopsis of Histories (811-1067 AD), a provisional translation published in 2000. John Skylitzes lived and wrote towards the end of the eleventh century AD. He was a kouropalates (official in charge of running the palace) and a former commander of the elite Vigla regiment. His major work is the Synopsis of Byzantine History. There is also a continuation of this work, known as Skylitzes continuatus, covering 1057-79, which some historians believe was also written by Skylitzes.