This text is a prose history of Cyprus written in Cypriot demotic Greek. It begins with stories of St. Helena in Cyprus in the fourth century, then jumps to the eleventh century and runs quickly through the history of Cyprus to the beginning of the reign of Peter I Lusignan (1359– 1369), at which point it tells the history of the Lusignan kings up to 1432. The text is hostile to the Genoese and warmly supportive of the Lusignan kings. It uses many loan words deriving from Latin, French, and Italian and is an interesting example of fifteenth- century demotic Greek.

The first book begins with stories of St. Helena and the True Cross and races through the history of Cyprus until 1359 in thirty- nine pages. Books two and three, which are by far the longest and most detailed, cover the reigns of Peter I (1359– 1369) in 188 pages, and Peter II (1369– 1382) in 322 pages. The final three books cover the reigns of James I (1382– 1398), Janus (1432– 1458), and John II (1432– 1458) in ninety pages with increasing speed and decreasing detail.

Galatariotou argues that Machairas participated in the Greek tradition of history writing, innovating only in writing in vernacular rather than Attic Greek. In this she opposes the appraisal of Dawkins, who saw Machairas as culturally divorced from traditions of Byzantine historical writing, and as more of a storyteller than an historian. Anaxagorou sees Machairas as differing from the Byzantine tradition of historiography by writing for oral presentation using a “relaxed and informal style.” She sees the text as having been influenced by the French culture and as having an “astonishingly close narrative and stylistic affinity” to the chronicles of Villehardouin, Robert de Clari, and Froissart.

Machairas was born near the middle of the fourteenth century into a wealthy, educated family that was influential in the court of the Lusignan kings of Cyprus. In 1401 Machairas was working as a secretary to the nobleman John de Nores. By 1426, he had joined the service of King Janus (1398– 1432). Leontios Machairas was mentioned as an ambassador of King John II of Cyprus (1432– 1458) to Asia Minor in 1432.