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orality is the language of the Greek Chronicle which, while uniquely preserv-
ing elements of the spoken Greek of the time, is nevertheless a mixed form
combining the contemporary with the archaic amid a bewildering variety
of forms. This has in the past been seen as incompetence on the part of the
writer or scribes of the manuscript but this mixed form may rather be seen as
representing a typically oral kunstsprache.65 Thus in many ways the Chronicle
reveals itself to be a work that was above all performed and received orally.
The addressees are overwhelmingly perceived to be listeners, but it is acknowl-
edged that reading is also involved. However, the repeated invocations to an
audience make clear that this reading is intended to be by a reciter, rather than
by a solo private reader.
We should also consider the possibility of book-less recital. It would not be
difficult for a performer of the jongleur type to learn this work episodically and
to perform it relatively faithfully to its original (what Duggan has called vocal
performance as opposed to oral composition) thus facilitating an element of
oral transmission of the work on top of written transmission.66 Additionally,
the Chronicle probably contains elements of earlier orally transmitted works,
notably a song in praise of Geoffrey of Karytaina—“the finest knight in all
Romania”.67 Further oral sources cannot be ruled out; indeed the Chronicle just
might derive from a collection of oral material gathered and combined with
material from other, written, sources as it was transformed into a written text.68
In sum, the Greek Chronicle reflects its time very well as a transitional work
between the oral and the written.69 This was a period of interaction between
65 Jeffreys, “Oral Background,” pp. 521–27; for alternative views see also Roderick Beaton, The
Medieval Greek Romance, pp. 184–87 and Martin Hinterberger, “How Should We Define
Vernacular Literature?” in Unlocking the Potential of Texts: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
on Medieval Greek, published online at http://www.mml.cam.ac.uk/greek/grammar
ofmedievalgreek/unlocking/html/Hinterberger.html (Cambridge, 2010) (consulted
November 2011).
66 Joseph J. Duggan, “Performance and Transmission: Aural and Ocular Reception in the
12th- and 13th-Century Vernacular Literature of France,” Romance Philology 43 (1989),
49–58; see also Jeffreys, “Oral Background,” p. 532.
67 H1924, 3254–5, 5763; Jeffreys, “Priority,” p. 336; Jeffreys “Oral Background,” p. 527.
68 For written sources: Shawcross, Chronicle, pp. 53–80; Willem J. Aerts, “Was the Author of
the Chronicle of Morea that Bad?,” in The Latin Empire: Some Contributions, ed. Victoria D.
van Aalst and Krijnie Ciggaar (Hernen, 1990), p. 136.
69 Bauml, “Varieties and consequences,” pp. 238–46; Brian Stock, The Implications of Literacy:
Written Languages and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
(Princeton, 1983), pp. 13–34; Ong, Orality and Literacy, pp. 78–116; also Michael Jeffreys,
“Proposals for the Debate on the Question of Oral Influence in Early Modern Greek