The voluminous Chronicle of Michael the Great, Syriac Orthodox patriarch from 1166 to 1199, covers human and ecclesiastical histories, stretching from the biblical account of the Creation to the year 1195. The current edition and translation of Books XV to XXI, based on the 16th century Edessa-Aleppo Syriac Codex, discuss history from 1050 to 1195, during which, warring nations, including Turks, Crusaders, Arabs, Greeks and Armenians, coveted extensive domains lost to the Abbasid Caliphate for ever. The two centuries covered by the present book witnessed the rise and fall of the Crusaders, the ever fighting Turkish tribes, which eventually controlled Eastern Anatolia and Syria in the name of the Abbasid Caliphate, and Fatimid violent siege and capture of Jerusalem from the Crusaders. The author was an eyewitness of some fifty years of crucial historical, celestial, and seismic happenings. Although internal politics of the Syriac Orthodox Church marred his patriarchate, he admirably remained clear-minded, unbending administrator, and profoundly Christian.
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- Book