the black death in early ottoman territories - Bilkent University

esemblance to the early Hellenistic text in a similar way. Both texts claim that the
head is afflicted with high fever and redness and that the disease then descends to
the chest. This observation is not a common feature of other contemporary
descriptions of plague, as it is no obvious clinical symptom of the disease. Both
also list diarrhea, delirium and insomnia. The above clearly demonstrates that
descriptions of plague in Byzantine literature had become stereotyped, a literary
genre that was obeying fixed patterns of style and structure. It is fair to speculate
that if Kritovoulos had to report about a plague outbreak at another time, his prose
would have been near-identical.
Chronicon minos and Chronicon maios by Sphrantzes 114 . Georgios Sphrantzes was
an accomplished diplomat in the service of Manuel II Palaeologus who continued
his career loyally in the service of the last Byzantine emperor. Although the
Chronicon minos are meant to be a history, they are at the time Sphrantzes'
personal memoirs, describing what he experienced and heard in his long career. In
that respect, he can be considered a Greek counterpart to Tursun Beğ. But whereas
the latter could look back to a happy past, Sphrantzes' life was filled with drama.
Kritovoulos: For some ... fled and never came back, not even to care for their nearest relatives, but
even turned away from them, although they often appealed to them with pitiful lamentation.
T: And all the funeral customs they had previously observed were thrown into confusion, and they
gave burial as each found the means.
K: There were not enough presbyters, or acolytes, or priests for the funerals and burials or the
funeral chants and prayers, nor could the dead be properly interred.
T: If they were unwilling, in their fear, to approach to one another, they perished in isolation.
K: There were also some who shut themselves up in their rooms, and would allow no one to come
near them. Many of these died,...often with nobody knowing of them.
T: Many of them turned to shameless burial methods...while others put the body they were carrying
on top of another (funeral pyre) that was being burned and went away.
K: There were often two or three dead, or even more, buried in a single coffin.
T: What was most terrible in the whole affliction was the despair when someone realized he was
sick (for immediately forming the judgment that there was no hope...).
K: Despair and hopelessness dominated the spirits of all. Belief in Providence vanished altogether.
114 Sphrantzes. 1980. The Fall of the Byzantine Empire: A Chronicle by George Sphrantzes, 1401-
1477. edited by Marios Philippides. Amherst. This work is essentially the Chronicon minos.
see also: Sphrantzes. 1954. Die letzten Tage von Konstantinopel. Der auf den Fall Konstantinopels
1453 bezügliche Teil des dem Georgios Sphrantzes zugeschriebenen "Chronicon Maius". edited by
Endre von Ivanka. Graz: Verlag Styria. This translation comprises the part of the Chronicon maius
that relates the conquest of Constantinople.
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