Literature in Frankish Greece 307
The various versions of the Greek Chronicle give unique insights into
the development of the Greek language in the late medieval period, and
have attracted considerable attention to the Chronicle purely on linguis-
tic grounds. The changes between the various versions show that the Greek
used reflects the spoken language to a high degree (while not being identical
to it).52 The changes also reveal the extent of scribal interference—or, better,
involvement—in the text as it was successively reproduced in written form,
and strongly imply that the Chronicle continued to have resonance among
the Greek-speaking population of the Morea over a considerable time span.
More than the other language versions, then, the Greek versions of the
Chronicle seem directed to an audience within the Peloponnese, rather than to
Angevins in Naples, Hospitallers in Avignon or Spain, or temporary Venetian
officers.
The convincingly vernacular language of the Greek Chronicle is such that it
must have been written by a native speaker, while at the same time the very
pro-French (and at times anti-Greek) attitude of the Chronicle has led some
to conclude that, notwithstanding this fluency, that author cannot have been
a Greek. However, the language used by the chronicler in regard to Byzantine
Greek identity shows that he was very much part of the Byzantine Greek
world—if not Greek then absolutely acculturated into that world.53 Fluency
in Greek on the part of certain Franks as early as the mid-13th century is well
attested, so a well-acculturated French author should not be ruled out. Equally,
the presence of numerous Greeks in high-ranking administrative positions in
the Villehardouin principality shows that a Greek author is also quite possible.54
Crucially, however, the ethnic identity of the author of the Chronicle is in the
final analysis unimportant. Either he was a Greek who set out to eulogise his
French overlords and knew there was enough of a Greek-speaking audience
ready to enjoy that eulogy, or he was a Frenchman who was utterly fluent in the
language and attitudes of the conquered. Either way, the Greek Chronicle must
constitute significant evidence of cultural integration in the Morea.55
52 Geoffrey Horrocks, Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers (London, 1997),
pp. 349–54; Robert Browning, Medieval and Modern Greek, pp. 73–74; more recently, David
Holton and Io Manolessou, “Medieval and Early Modern Greek,” in A Companion to the
Ancient Greek Language, ed. Egbert J. Bakker (Chichester, 2010), pp. 539–64.
53 Page, Being Byzantine, pp. 209–21.
54 Greek-speaking Franks, e.g. H4130, 5234; high-ranking Greeks, e.g. H8332, B829.
55 Page, Being Byzantine, pp. 179–81; see also Jacoby “Considérations,” pp. 155–58; Jeffreys,
“Priority,” p. 315.