Madrid Skylitzes Folio 11r: Krum and Michael I Rangabe at Adrianople

Two unframed miniatures share folio 11r of the Madrid Skylitzes, and together they open a war. In the upper strip the Bulgarian ruler Krum sits inside a building and gathers his people, with horsemen already assembled beside it; in the lower, the emperor Michael I Rangabe (811–813) is enthroned beneath a dark blue tent while his cavalry rides towards the walls of Adrianople. The page belongs to the illustrated copy of John Skylitzes’ Synopsis of Histories in the Biblioteca Nacional de España in Madrid (VITR/26/2). This Greek manuscript on parchment was produced in Norman Sicily in the twelfth century. Beneath the paintings a block of eight lines of Greek minuscule carries the chronicle forward. In its opening line the name of Krum can already be read, in the dative form Κρούμμῳ, next to the verb παρεστρατοπέδευσε: the emperor has pitched his camp facing the Bulgarian.

Krum gathering the Bulgarians (above) and Michael I Rangabe encamped before Adrianople (below), detail of fol. 11r, Madrid Skylitzes, Biblioteca Nacional de España, VITR/26/2, Sicily, twelfth century.

The two scenes are numbered 3 and 4 in the descriptive catalogue of the manuscript’s miniatures. That catalogue keys them to S. Cirac Estopañan’s facsimile study (figs 9 and 10) and to page 6 of Thurn’s critical edition of the text. Its titles are brief: Krum gives orders to his army, and Michael I encamps before Adrianople. Both are accurate, but neither says much about how the painter built the page.

Krum Gathering the Bulgarians: The Upper Miniature

The upper composition reads from left to right as a single unbroken frieze, with no frame and no painted ground. A dense body of horsemen opens it. Their heads, overlapping closely, almost merge into a mass of faces, and above them rise more than a dozen lances with dark, leaf-shaped points. The horses are painted in a pinkish red and a cool grey-lilac, and their legs cross and recross beneath the riders. One rider wears a cuirass rendered as a gold lattice. This is the same convention the painter uses for some of the imperial figures in the strip below, so nothing in costume or armour clearly sets the Bulgarians apart.

Three standing men occupy the centre, conferring. The figure in pale blue extends an open hand. His companion on the right, dressed in red, lays a hand on the arm of the man between them, whose faded reddish garment is set off by a gold collar. No legend identifies them. Their placement between the mounted troops and the ruler’s residence suggests consultation, or the passing on of orders, rather than a distinct episode.

The building that closes the scene is drawn as a double-gabled pavilion washed in pale blue and lilac. Its red roof is patterned with rows of scalloped tiles, and a narrow red-brick tower with small windows is attached on the right. A figure in red stands in the left-hand bay with his arms lowered. In the right-hand bay sits the bearded ruler, in red and wearing a low cap, on a gold-coloured seat. He leans slightly towards the standing figure and stretches out a hand to him. Written above this end of the scene, the red legend identifies Krum, ruler of the Bulgarians, gathering his people. His seated gesture carries the act of gathering into the exchange within the building.

Michael I Rangabe before Adrianople

The Emperor Enthroned beneath the Tent

The lower miniature gives the imperial side a broader stage and a clearer hierarchy. At the left, a deep blue canopy curves over the enthroned emperor like a shallow arch, with a small finial at its crest. Michael I sits frontally on a high-backed gold-coloured throne. He is crowned and nimbed, his garments are worked in gold tones, and his feet rest on a red cushion. Two attendants in red bend inwards from either side, framing him within the shelter of the tent. The red legend placed above the canopy names him as emperor and gives his family name, Rangabe.

The nimbus belongs here to the standard imperial formula. In this manuscript it does not establish sanctity, and the catalogue records a later miniature in which the general Olbianos is mistakenly given a nimbus, imperial dress and a throne “as an emperor”. The tent is another such formula. Further on in the cycle, Michael II is again enthroned under a tent outside Adrianople, this time directing the siege against the rebel Thomas. The city and the motif return in a different reign.

A compact group of dignitaries stands to the right of the canopy. Several wear tall white caps, a form of headgear the cycle elsewhere gives to senators and court officials. At the front is an older, bearded man who wears a gold lattice cuirass over a red robe and turns towards the emperor.

Horsemen and the Walls of Adrianople

The cavalry, setting off behind the dignitaries, moves towards the city. A chestnut horse leads, with white and maroon mounts behind it at full gallop. The riders’ lances form a second row of dark points along the upper edge, echoing the Bulgarian group above. A short red label over the horsemen appears to read Ῥωμαῖοι, “Romans”. One rider in red turns back towards the tent and raises an arm with the palm open, linking the moving troops to the stationary centre of command.

The movement ends at the right, against Adrianople. The city is rendered as a fortified mass of mauve and pink brickwork, with crenellated towers, inset panels of deep blue and a tall arched window. The masonry is set back in angular planes, without any real attempt at recession in depth. A brief label above the walls gives the city’s name.

The condition of this strip is uneven. Paint losses across the cavalry group interrupt several faces and the outlines of the horses’ heads. The surface of the emperor’s gold-toned garments is worn, but the canopy and the city remain comparatively intact.

Legends, Script and Layout of Madrid Skylitzes Folio 11r

Folio 11r of the Madrid Skylitzes, John Skylitzes’ Synopsis of Histories, with the text beneath the miniatures naming Krum and the emperor’s camp; Norman Sicily, second quarter to mid-twelfth century.

The full page shows how plainly the miniatures sit within the text. Both strips are painted directly on the parchment, with no frame, border or gold ground. This is the manuscript’s normal practice: the catalogue singles out a miniature on folio 80 as the only one enclosed in a frame and set against gold. The two images occupy the upper and middle parts of the leaf, separated only by a strip of bare parchment.

The red legends are written in a small minuscule with abbreviation marks and suspended letters above the line. Each is placed directly over the figure or building it names. They work as captions in the strictest sense, identifying persons and places without commenting on them.

Written in brown ink in a regular minuscule, the main text opens with an enlarged red initial projecting into the left margin. The lines are not uniformly filled, and blank intervals interrupt several of them. The text, the Biblioteca Nacional’s catalogue record notes, is written in two hands.

The later apparatus of the leaf is also visible. A folio number, 11, appears in the upper right corner. A crowned BN monogram stamped in violet sits below the last line of text. There are scattered stains across the parchment and a discoloured patch at the lower left edge.

The Bulgarian War in the Narrative Sequence

Folio 11r is the hinge of a short, rapid sequence. On the preceding page, folio 10v, the cycle illustrates imperial acclamation, with two crowned figures raised on a shield. After the camp at Adrianople, the catalogue lists the following scenes in close succession:

• a cavalry clash between Byzantines and Bulgarians;
• the commander Leo leaving the battlefield with his troops behind him;
• a Bulgarian victory following that desertion;
• on folio 12v, Leo V the Armenian enthroned and proclaimed emperor.

A few pages further on, Michael I, his wife Prokopia and their sons withdraw by boat to the monastery of Pharos to become monks.

Seen in this context, the calm order of the lower miniature on folio 11r carries a certain irony: the emperor enthroned and nimbed, his court around him, his army in motion. Within three leaves the same army breaks, and the throne passes to the man who led it away. In Imagining the Byzantine Past, the Madrid Skylitzes is read as a manuscript that consistently foregrounds rebellion, regicide and palace intrigue, undercutting the image of divinely sanctioned order that Byzantine emperors preferred to project. The war against Krum, which ends in Michael I’s fall, fits that reading closely. The painter of folio 11r gives no hint of what is coming.

A Sicilian Manuscript of a Byzantine Chronicle

John Skylitzes, a high-ranking jurist at the court of Alexios I Komnenos, compiled his Synopsis in the 1080s. His narrative covers the Byzantine emperors from 811 to 1057, so the reign of Michael I stands near its beginning.

The Madrid manuscript is the oldest surviving illustrated Byzantine chronicle. The library’s 2024 publication Un universo de imágenes counts 574 miniatures. The Biblioteca Nacional’s catalogue gives the following details:

• Date: the second quarter of the twelfth century, more narrowly and with a question mark between 1126 and 1150.
• Format: 234 leaves (in fact 233) of parchment, measuring 36 × 27 cm.
• Provenance: the monastery of San Salvador in Messina until the end of the sixteenth century, then Messina Cathedral, then the Duke of Uceda.

The library places the manuscript’s production in Sicily in the mid-twelfth century, within the Norman court. The study cited above connects it more specifically to the reign of Roger II.

Sources

Boeck, E. N., Imagining the Byzantine Past: The Perception of History in the Illustrated Manuscripts of Skylitzes and Manasses, Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Biblioteca Nacional de España, Synopsis historiarum … conscripta a Joanne Scylitze, VITR/26/2, catalogue record.