Most academics trace the origins of Byzantine Akritic chivalric romance to the oral epic poetry of the ninth and tenth centuries. Greek scholar Sokrátes Kuyás () dates the earliest reference to oral epics of the tenth century to a speech given by bishop Arethas of Caesarea condemning the local αγύρται ("ayirte", the Greek counterpart of troubadours) of Paphlagonia for glorifying violent acts instead of the saints and God. Kougeas aptly observed that Arethas suggests a tradition developed at that time exactly in central Anatolia, which was the cradle of Acritic literature. The preservation of such important oral songs in Asia Minor up to 1922, when the entire region was depopulated of Greeks, proves that Kougeas's assumption is valid.