Acknowledgements
First, I wish to thank the scholars who participate in this Companion for their valuable contributions but also for the patience and understanding they showed awaiting its publication.
I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewer for thoroughly reviewing the volume and for his/her helpful and insightful proposals and comments. I am especially grateful to the publisher’s editorial staff (former and current), in particular to the wonderful Julian Deahl, to Alessandra Giliberto, Petra Stiglmayer, and Kate Hammond, for their tireless support; and of course, to Tim Barnwell, who copy-edited the text of the manuscript and Gera van Bedaf, who saw the project through as production editor.
The humanities have become a threatened species in the university landscape. The fact that, despite the enduring crisis, an important publishing house such as Brill invests in the humanities cannot – also in the context of the foreseeable massive impact of artificial intelligence – be praised highly enough. So, I sincerely thank all members of staff of Brill who are part of this. If this Companion stimulates only a few students of medieval philology or history, either Western or Eastern, to turn their attention to what we call Byzantine chronicle, the immense effort undertaken by Brill will prove fruitful, and the editor of this volume will be satisfied.
My warmest thanks go to the managing editor of Brill’s Companions to the Byzantine World, Wolfram Brandes, who welcomed this volume into his series and supported me during the whole process of preparation and publication, also in uneasy times.