Anna Komnene - Historian

Historian

In the seclusion of the monastery, Anna dedicated her time to studying philosophy and history. She held esteemed intellectual gatherings, including those dedicated to Aristotelian studies. Anna's intellectual genius and breadth of knowledge is evident in her few works. Among other things, she was conversant with philosophy, literature, grammar, theology, astronomy, and medicine. It can be assumed because of minor errors that she may have quoted Homer and the Bible from memory when writing her most celebrated work, the Alexiad. Her contemporaries, like the metropolitan Bishop of Ephesus, Georgios Tornikes, regarded Anna as a person who had reached "the highest summit of wisdom, both secular and divine."

Being an historian, Nikephoros Bryennios the Younger had been working on an essay that he called “Material For History,” which focused on the reign of Alexios I. He died in 1137 before finishing the work. At the age of 55, Anna took it upon herself to finish her husband's work, calling the completed work the Alexiad, the history of her father's life and reign (1081–1118) in Greek. The Alexiad is today the main source of Byzantine political history from the end of the 11th century to the beginning of the 12th century. It totalled 15 volumes when complete.

In the Alexiad, Anna provided insight on political relations and wars between Alexios I and the West. She vividly described weaponry, tactics and battles. It has been noted that she was writing about events that occurred when she was a child, so these are not eye-witness accounts. Her neutrality is compromised by the fact that she was writing to praise her father and denigrate his successors. Despite her unabashed partiality, her account of the First Crusade is of great value to history because it is the only Hellenic eyewitness account available. She had the opportunity to gather information from key figures in the Byzantine elite; her husband Nikephorus Bryennios had fought in the clash with crusade leader Godfrey of Bouillon outside Constantinople on Maundy Thursday 1097, and her uncle George Palaeologus was present at Pelekanon in June 1097 when Alexius I discussed future strategy with the crusaders. Thus the Alexiad allows the events of the First Crusade to be seen from the Byzantine elite's perspective. It conveys the alarm felt at the scale of the western European forces proceeding through the Empire, and the dangers they might have posed to the safety of Constantinople.

Special suspicion was reserved for crusading leader Bohemond of Taranto, a southern Italian Norman who, under the leadership of his father Robert Guiscard, had invaded Byzantine territory in the Balkans in 1081

Anna Komnene's literary style is fashioned after Thucydides, Polybius, and Xenophon. Consequently, it exhibits struggle for an Atticism characteristic of the period, whereby the resulting language is highly artificial. For the most part, the chronology of events in the Alexiad is sound, except for those that occurred after Anna’s exile to the monastery, when she no longer had access to the imperial archives. Nevertheless, her history meets the standards of her time.

The exact date of Anna Komnene’s death is uncertain. It is inferred from the Alexiad that she was still alive in 1148. Moreover, the Alexiad sheds light on Anna’s emotional turmoil. She wrote that no one could see her, yet many hated her. Thus, she loathed the isolated position in society that exile had forced upon her.