History Online - Chronology

The medieval authors believed that the emperor Heraclius (traditionally assumed to have reigned from 610 to 641) had reigned with Princess SemTramis in the Land of the Hellenes ([57]). If we place biblical Semlramis into the 7th century, we shall diverge from traditional chronology to the extent of several hundreds of years.

A.V. Sterligov, the author of Ancient Plots in French Book Illustration at the End of the 1^th-15th century [91], for example, reports the following:
"The greatest specialist in French medieval literature Gaston Paris wrote that the Middle Ages had never recognized themselves how far they had been separated fromm antiquity..."

"Anachronism was a common feature in the numerous universal chronicles, and ancient historians' renderings where biblical; ancient and national historical characters and the contemporaries were depicted similarly. The Trojan heroes cannot be distinguished from King Arthur's knights and warriors of the Hundred Years' War, while the contemporaries of Charles VI pronounce phrases which Livy put in the mouth of Gaius Capuleius, a tribune living in the 5th century B.C. ... Ancient history, espe--^_ dally that of Troy, from which the French nation allegedly originated, was included in the French chronicles. Hence, say, during the famous 1330 tournament, the Parisians fought under the name of Priam and his 35 sons" ([91]).

"The deeds of biblical, ancient Greek and Roman heroes merged into one history of knighthood, continuing before the eyes of contemporaries" ([91]).

Under the pressure of tradition and all these strange things, the historians are forced to believe that
"... the medieval idea of chronological sequence had all but been confused: Monks with crosses and censers took part in the funeral of Alexander the Great; Catiline translated from the French-tr.in the liturgy ... Orpheus was in their eyes Aeneas' contemporary, Sardanapalus a Greek king, Julian the Apostate a papal chaplain. All in that world took fantastic colouring according to the modern historians.... The most glaring anachronisms and the strangest fantasies neighboured peacefully" ([113]).

All the above facts (and thousands of others!) today have been rejected as "preposterous". However, we have to bear in mind that their seeming prepos-terousness only arises from the chronology traditionally accepted at present.

Long before the discovery of the allegedly "ancient" manuscript of the story of the Golden Ass, the "ass theme" had been widely exploited by medieval trouveres, and the "ancient" story (of Apuleius), which surfaced only during the Renaissance, resulted from the medieval sources. It is generally known that in the Middle Ages, much earlier than the "ancient" originals were discovered, all "ancient" stories had been exploited and embellished, with the alleged originals chronologically and evolutionally following their medieval predecessors [64].

The oldest biography of Aristotle is dated to A.D. 1300 ([86]). Furthermore, only 20 percent of what is now called the Aristotelian corpus belongs to Aristotle himself ([86]). In the 15th century, it was the propagandist Georgios Scholarios who fervently popularized Aristotle's works.