Michael Psellos (left) with Emperor Michael VII, from a 12th-13th-century manuscript. Source · Public domain
About Michael Psellos
Michael Psellos (1018–c. 1078, or a few years later) was born in Constantinople with the name Constantine and received a thorough education in rhetoric, law and philosophy. He rose in the imperial civil service under Michael IV and Constantine IX Monomachos, who named him 'consul of the philosophers', the head of philosophical teaching in the capital. About 1054 he became a monk, taking the name Michael, and withdrew briefly to a monastery on Mount Olympus in Bithynia before returning to court. He advised several emperors, helped bring Isaac I Komnenos and later the Doukas family to power, and tutored the future Michael VII; besides the Chronographia he left orations, letters, philosophical and theological treatises, and works on medicine and natural science. The date of his death is uncertain.
The Chronographia of Michael Psellos is a history of the Byzantine court across roughly a century, from the accession of Basil II in 976 to the reign of Michael VII Doukas in the 1070s. It is arranged by reign rather than by year and covers fourteen emperors and empresses.
