Topics in Middle East History
Chapter 7: The Decline of the Byzantine Empire (1050-1350)
Copyright ©2010 by T. Pavlidis
Weaknesses of the Byzantine State
At the end of the reign Basil II the empire was at its biggest extent since the sixth century (see map of Figure 2 in Chapter 6). However, appearances were misleading. As the civil wars at the start of Basil's reign suggest there were serious divisions within the empire, in particular between the bureaucracy in Constantinople (dominated by the eunuchs in the palace) and the military families in Asia Minor who were also major landowners.
A snapshot of the times is provided by the story of Danielis. She was a wealthy widow from Patras (In the south of Greece) who had befriended Basil I before he became emperor. When he rose to the throne she went to visit him in Constantinople. Around 870 she made the five hundred mile trip on a litter that was carried on the shoulders of ten slaves. Amongst her gifts to the emperor were "three hundred beautiful youths , of whom one hundred were eunuchs" [EG, Chapter LVIII, vol. 5, pp. 458-459]. (You can find a picture of Danielis and her mode of travel on p. 575 of [WT97].) Clearly the slave trade, as well as the practice of castration, were flourishing in the ninth century.
The Byzantines seem to have continued, and possibly expanded, the old Persian practice of using eunuchs in the palace administration. In Chapter 6 we saw several eunuchs in high positions and in Chapter 4 we made mention of the eunuch general Narses. Even without holding a special office eunuchs had considerable power because of their close access to the emperor [WT97, p. 117 and 384]. However, several also achieved prominent positions. At least two had held the office of the postal logothete, Stauracius under the empress Irene [ibid, p. 418, 423] and Theoctistus under the empress Theodora [ibid p. 446-447]. The holder of that office was responsible not only for the mail but also for the internal security of the empire and Theoctistus even led a military campaign against the Arabs. Two others became patriarchs of Constantinople, Germanos [CM02, p. 155] and Ignatius [WT97, p. 449] who held the office twice, first under Michael III and then under Basil I. (See more about him below on the discussion of the schism below.) The church recognizes as saints both Germanos and Ignatius.
The rule of the emperor was absolute. Basil I's successor, Leo VI, abolished the senate that, anyway, had been losing power for centuries. The emperor was answerable only to God and he had full authority over the church (Gibbon [ibid, pp. 469-470].) Emperors were guarded by foreign bodyguards, the Varangians. The name usually refers to men of Scandinavian origin but the palace guard included other ethnic groups. Gibbon quotes a Greek chronicler in the original: Πολυχρονιζουσι Βαραγγοι, κατα την πατριον και ουτοι γλωσσαν αυτων, ηγουν Ιγκλινιστι. The last word means English. The first word refers to a recitation (or singing) wishing the emperor long life. A free translation will be acclaim of the king. The whole sentence is translated into "The Varangians acclaimed the king in their own language, namely English." [ibid, p. 465, footnote No. 2]. Gibbon adds (referring to the Greek chronicler): "I wish he had preserved the words, however corrupt, of their English acclamation."
We have a state where the emperor is guarded by foreign troops while surrounded by eunuchs in administrative positions of the palace. It is difficult to imagine a more remote and autocratic ruler. Of course if the emperor was a weak individual, it was the eunuchs who controlled the empire.
Emperor Heraclius had established a system where farmers were obligated to military service in exchange for their right to own land. This ensured the existence of a native army [Hu61, p. 25]. However, over the centuries major landholders took over the small farms and their previous owners became tenant farmers without the military obligation. Emperors did not seem to mind such developments. On the contrary, around 1053 Constantine IX relieved about 50,000 troops of the Armenian provinces from their military obligation in exchange for regular cash payments [WT97, pp. 595-96]. The end result was that the empire had to rely on mercenaries. Foreign mercenaries may had an appeal for the emperor because there unlikely to revolt in alliance with his subjects, but their loyalty against foreign powers was doubtful and very soon that proved catastrophic.
The schism between the Pope and the Byzantines
At one time the pope of Rome was only one of the four patriarchs of the Christian church, the other three being the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. Constantine I add a fifth, the patriarch of Constantinople. When Theodosius I made Catholic Christianity the sole religion of the Roman empire he mentions in his decree two bishops: those of Rome and Alexandria (Chapter 3). In Justinian's time one pope was even removed from office as a result of machinations by a general's wife (Chapter 4). The Arab conquests changed the picture dramatically. Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem came under Muslim rule and Christian population in their areas declined significantly. Another important bishopric, that of Carthage, was also lost to the Arabs. These changes increased the relative importance of both the pope of Rome and the patriarch of Constantinople. However, the tenuous control of Italy by the Byzantine emperors put the pope outside imperial control and he was able not only to take positions in opposition to those advocated by Constantinople, against iconoclasm in particular, but also to become a temporal monarch (Chapter 6). During the same period the pope entered into alliances with the Frankish kings in the West culminating with the crowning of Charlemagne as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 800.
In 858 the last emperor of the Isaurian dynasty, Michael III, forced Ignatius, patriarch of Constantinople to resign and in his place appointed Photius. Photius was a layman and he was rushed through the clerical orders to reach the highest office of the church. Pope Nicolas I did not object immediately because he was hoping for a deal that would transfer some dioceses from the authority of Constantinople to that of Rome. When that did not happen, the pope raised the issue and in 866 excommunicated Photius who immediately reciprocated. When Basil I became emperor a year later, he restored Ignatius and the schism was patched. One factor might have been the Arab threat in Southern Italy for which the pope needed support from the Byzantines [MW96, pp. 283-284].
The final break between the two churches took place in 1054 during the reign of Constantine IX (1042-1055), the third husband of Zoe, a niece of Basil II. During that time the patriarch of Constantinople was the strong willed Michael Cerularius who insisted on traditional Byzantine practices throughout the empire. By that time there were several differences between such practices and those in use in the West, in particular whether lower level clergy could be married (they could in the East but not in the West), whether unleavened bread should be used in the Eucharist (it was not in the East but it was in the West), etc. There was also a dogmatic difference, the filioque, whether the Holy Spirit emanates from the Father and the Son (the western opinion) or only from the Father (the eastern opinion) [WT97, pp. 688-690]. The Pope sent the equally strong willed Cardinal Humbert to negotiate with Cerularius but they clashed and the result was mutual excommunications [Hu61, p. 48]. Both Treadgold [WT97, ibid] and Hussey [Hu61, ibid] claim that the schism was in essence a misunderstanding and, except for subsequent events, the two churches could have reconciled. The trouble with such views is that they ignore the geopolitical reality. Western Europe was becoming a place quite different from the Byzantine empire and there were bound to be conflicts between the states of the West and the Byzantines. While the visible causes of the schism may appear trivial, they reflect deeper geopolitical divisions. Regardless of whether the schism reflected deep divisions or superficial differences, it did not help the diplomatic position of the Byzantine empire because it could no longer rely on alliances with states of Western Europe.
Civil Strife
Constantine IX was succeeded by Theodora, another niece of Basil II, but she reigned barely a year before she died. She was the last of the Macedonian dynasty and she was succeeded by a favorite of hers, the general Michael Bringas, a relative of the eunuch Joseph Bringas who had held sway in the palace 80 years earlier (Chapter 6). He took the throne as Michael VI, but he lasted only one year. The years 1028-1056 when the empire was ruled either by the nieces of Basil II or their husbands are given quite a grim assessment by Gibbon [EG, Chapter XLVIII, vol. 5, p. 117] "... shameful and destructive period of twenty-eight years, in which the Greeks, degraded below the common level of servitude, were transferred like a heard of cattle by the choice or caprice of two impotent females."
The elevation of Michael Bringas was resented by other generals who met in secret in the sanctuary of St. Sophia and elected one of their own, Isaac Comnenus, to be the new emperor. In a battle that followed Michael VI was defended only by the Varangians and he lost. The then patriarch, Michael Cerularius, convinced him to abdicate and became a monk while Isaac was crowned emperor in 1057. Isaac lasted only two years before he too retired to a monastery. He was succeeded by a friend of the Comnenus family, Constantine X Ducas [ibid, pp. 118-120]. Ducas wife, Eudocia was the niece of Michael Cerularius, another evidence of the hold on power of a few families. Isaac had found the finances of the empire in poor state and he had institute a policy of fiscal austerity. That did not sit well with the civil servants and the church and Constantine X had to reverse Isaac's economy measures. However, that left the army weakened and in 1060 the empire lost most of its Italian possessions to the Normans. There was also losses to the new power in the region, the Seljuk Turks (see next section). The general Romanus Diogenes had started plotting the overthrow of Constantine X but the latter died before the start of the coup. Constantine X was succeeded by his young son Michael VII while his uncle John Ducas and Eudocia served as regents. Romanus conspiracy had been discovered and at first Eudocia jailed him, but then she changed her mind, married him, and made him co-emperor as Romanus IV [ibid, p. 120-121], [WT97, pp. 600-601].
The Turks are Coming
While the Byzantines faced all these problems, a new factor entered the Middle East, the Seljuk Turks. They were the first of several Turkish people to play an important role in the Middle East. They started as a group of nomads under a chief named Seljuk and during the tenth century they settled in area of what is now Kazakhstan. They embraced Islam and by 985 they were found in the vicinity of Bukhara. Next they found allies within Persia who saw them as a way to counteract the influence of Shiite powers of the Fatimids and the Buyids (Chapter 5). (Persians were Sunni at the time. They did not switch to Shi'ism until 1501.) Very soon the Seljuks established an empire that stretched from what is now Uzbekistan through Iran all the way to Armenia and Syria. In 1055 their great leader Toghril Bey abolished the emirate of the Buyids and re-established the Caliphate of Baghdad over the area of modern Iraq. As a result the Seljuks were seen as delivering the Sunni Caliphate from the tyranny of the heretic Shias. The Seljuks also established the first network of religious schools (Madrasahs) with a unified administration in order to provide training according to Orthodox Islam. Thus the Seljuk empire had a religious as well as a political character. (See Article on Seljuks of Encyclopedia Britannica, Fifteenth edition, 1982, vol. 16, pp. 503-506. Gibbon's account [EG, Chapter LVII, vol. 6, pp.1-12] includes several details about the relationship between the Caliph and the Seljuk sultan.)
In 1063 Toghril was succeeded by Alp Arslan who started attacking and taking over parts of the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire during the reign of Constantine X and soon after his death they sacked and burned Caesarea in Cappadocia. Soon after he took the throne in 1071 Romanus IV he mounted a campaign against the Seljuks. His army of over 100,000 men included not only Byzantine troops but also foreign mercenaries: Bulgarians, French, Normans, and Turks [ibid, pp. 13-15.] He defeated the Seljuk forces in Asia Minor and then moved to Armenia where he captured the key city of Manzikert. But then Romanus divided his forces sending the French and Normans towards another objective while Alp Arslan was approaching at the head a 40,000 strong cavalry. Alp Arslan offered a truce but Romanus rejected it. The Byzantines would have won the battle, if not for treachery. Part of their forces under Andronicus Ducas (son of the regent John Ducas) left the field of the battle; the French and Normans mercenaries refused to join the battle; and worst of all the Turk mercenaries went to the other side. Romanus IV was taken prisoner [EG, ibid, pp. 15-18] [WT97, pp. 602-604]. There is also a good Wikipedia article on the Battle of Manzikert.
The battle was a major disaster for the Byzantines and 1071 represents the start of the end of their empire, especially because of the way they handled the defeat. Because of divisions within the Seljuks and because most of the Byzantine army had escaped, Alp Arslan agreed to favorable (for the Romans) treaty with Romanus and freed him. But Romanus had no face domestic enemies. The regent John Ducas proclaimed Michael VII sole emperor and had Romanus deposed. A series of battles between the forces loyal to Romanus and those to John Ducas followed. At the end Romanus was captured by his enemies and blinded. He died from infection in his blinded eyes in 1072. Understandably, the Seljuks were no longer bound by the treaty they had signed with Romanus and resumed their advances against the Romans. Alp Arslan had also been killed by a prisoner and he had been succeeded by his very capable son Malik Shah. While the Byzantines were fighting each other, the Turks captured most of Asia Minor. In the span of 50 years misgovernment had caused the empire to lose half of its territory. [EG, ibid, pp. 18-21] [WT97, pp. 604-607].
Eventually, the Seljuk empire split up into sultanates, one of them, centered in Asia Minor, was the Sultanate of Rum. The connection to Rome was preserved even under Seljuk rulers!
The Aftermath of the Loss to the Seljuks
The Byzantine throne passed to Alexios I Comnenos in 1081 who was the nephew of emperor Isaac and he had also distinguished himself in putting down rebellions by foreign mercenaries. Alexios asked the Pope of Rome for help against the Seljuks but he got more than what he bargained for. In 1096 the disorganized masses of the "people's crusade" led by Peter the Hermit arrived in Constantinople. Alexios gave them passage to Asia MInor where they were promptly massacred by the Turks. The following year saw the arrival of the knights of the First Crusade. With their help Alexios was able to recapture the coastal regions of Asia Minor. The Crusaders went on to capture the lands around Syria and Israel capturing Jerusalem in 1099 and massacring its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants. They established the kingdom of Jerusalem, the principality: of Antioch, and the counties of Edessa and Tripoli. Overall the first Crusade proved helpful to the Byzantines and by the middle of the twelfth century the empire occupied the area shown in Figure 1. Alexios was succeeded by his son John II (1118-1143). Treadgold [WT97, pp. 612-637] provides an extensive account of their rule and their dealings with the Crusaders while Gibbon [EG, Chapter XLVIII, vol. 5, pp. 122-127] provides interesting observations on their characters as well as accounts of the palace intrigues. Gibbon provides a more favorable judgments on these two emperors than Treadgold. Gibbon rates John as the "best and the greatest of the Comnenian princes" [ibid].
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Figure 1: Lands of the Byzantine
Empire in 1156 (in blue). Compared to Figure 2 of Chapter 6 the
major losses are in Asia Minor and in Italy. These will never again
be under Greek rule. |
| Adapted from http://hobbit.ict.griffith.edu.au/~wiseman/Roman/Decline&Fall.html | |
John II was succeeded by his son Manuel I (1143-1180) who proved a capable emperor. One of his first acts was to subjugate the crusader principality of Antioch and make it a vassal state of Byzantium. However, this was against the long term interests of the empire because it strengthened the Turks. He married Bertha, a relative of the German emperor Conrad in order to secure an alliance against the Normans in Sicily and the French in Antioch. The Second Crusade took place during 1147-49 and it started with atrocities against the Jews in Rhineland. As the Crusaders passed through the Balkan part of the Roman empire they did considerable looting. Eventually, they were unable to inflict any significant damage to the Turks, so that crusade was a failure [WT97, pp. 638-641]. Manuel was arguably the last strong emperor of the Byzantines and the last time that the state was a still a power to be reckoned with by both the Western Europeans and the Turks. [EG, ibid, pp. 127-130].
Dealing with the Crusaders
After Manuel's time the empire was torn by civil strife. Manuel was succeeded by his 11 year old son Alexius II who three years later was killed by Andronicus I Comnenus, a cousin of Manuel I. He was also killed three years later and that ended the dynasty of the Comneni. Isaac II became emperor in 1185 and had a tumultuous reign. He was toppled and blinded by his older brother Alexios III Angelos who reigned during 1195-1203. He was overthrown by the the army of the Fourth Crusade who put Isaac back to the throne for one year, until in 1204, the crusaders sacked Constantinople and established the Latin Empire in place of the Roman Empire. However the change was in name only and the possessions of the crusaders were fragmented. The main Latin empire covered parts of Greece and a small part of Asia Minor while several of the islands, including Crete, came under the rule of Venice. Three Byzantine states were formed from lands that were kept out of the reach of the Crusaders. The Empire of Trabizond was in eastern Asia Minor, along the coast of the Black Sea and was ruled by members of the house of Comneni. The Empire of Nicea was in northwest Asia Minor ruled at first by Theodore I Lascaris, son-in-law of Alexios III [WT97, pp. 712-715]. The third state was the despotate of Epirus in the mountain region in northwestern Greece and in parts of what is now Albania.
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Figure 2: The
Latin Empire (In red), Latin Principalities (red dots), and Byzantine
possessions in blue. |
| Adapted from http://hobbit.ict.griffith.edu.au/~wiseman/Roman/Decline&Fall.html | |
These three states fought each other and the Latins. The Empire of Nicea became eventually the most prominent state under the rule of John III, surnamed Vatatzes (or Vataces). He reigned for thirty three years (1221-1254) and he used French mercenaries in his wars against the Latins [EG, Chapter LXI, vol. 6, p. 195 and pp. 201-2]. He was succeeded by his son Theodore II Laskaris, a mean tyrant according to Gibbon. One of his atrocities was committed against a woman who incurred his displeasure: "her body, as high as the neck, was enclosed in a sack with several cats, who were pricked with pins to irritate their fury against their unfortunate fellow captive" [ibid, pp. 219-220]. Such a punishment of women was used by the Ottoman sultans and has often been cited as sign of their barbarism. However, the sultans simply followed a practice of the Christian Byzantine rulers.
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Figure 3: The
Roman Empire circa 1288. Most of the Latin possessions are gone
and some of the break-away Byzantine states recognize the emperor
in Constantinople. In the Greek mainland the Principality of Achea
and the Duchy of Athens are still in Latin hands as well as island
of Crete. |
| Adapted from http://www.cit.griffith.edu.au/~wiseman/Roman/19Maps.html#1288 | |
Theodore died in 1258 and he was succeeded by his seven year old son John Lascaris. The general Michael Paleologus became regent and then he declared himself co-emperor. In 1261 his general Alexius Strategopoulos captured with little resistance Constantinople from the Latins putting an end to their empire [WT97, pp. 719-733, EG, Chapter LXI, vol. 6, pp. 203-205]. However some Latin principalities remained. The map of Figure 3 shows the Byzantine possessions at their maximum in 1288. The success of the Byzantines is due to no small extend to the fact that the Seljuk Turks had to fight the Mongol invasion led by Genghis and his successors (Chapter 8). However a comparison of the maps of Figures 1 and 3 shows that the net result of Crusades was a weakening of the Roman empire that left it less able to deal with the Turkish threat from the East.
Self Inflicted Injuries
The Roman Empire might still have survived if it were not for misgovernment and internal strife. Michael Paleologus blinded the legitimate emperor John Lascaris in 1261 and appointed his own son Andronicus II Paleologus as co-emperor, thus establishing the Paleologus dynasty, the last one of the Byzantine Empire. Gibbon lists several misdeeds of Michael Paleologus [EG, Chapter LXII, vol. 6, pp. 226-235]. He gave exclusive possession of the suburb of Galata to the Geneose "in which they ... insulted the majesty of the Byzantine empire" [ibid, p. 226]. He forced a union of the Eastern church with the Catholic accepting the supremacy of the Pope and the Catholic dogma but that union did not survive his death in 1282 [ibid, p. 234].
Andronicus II reigned for over 40 years, until 1328. Gibbon characterizes him as being overly concerned with religious affairs [EG, Chapter LXIII, vol. 6, pp. 247-48] and he made several bad decisions. Around 1300 he hired the so-called Catalan mercenaries to fight the Turks. They were about 8,000 of them under the leadership of Roger de Flor and they did inflict damage onto the Turks. However, pretty soon they turned against the Byzantines and eventually took over parts of Greece [EG, Chapter LXII, vol. 6, pp. 241-245]. Andronicus had appointed his son Michael IX as co-emperor but he died before Andronicus. Michael's son Andronicus (named after his grandfather) had caused the death of his own brother and Andronicus the elder meant to try him in court for the crime. However, the younger Andronicus escaped and started a civil war that raged for seven years until 1328 when the elder Andronicus was deposed [EG, Chapter LXIII, vol. 6, pp. 250-255]. In the meantime the Ottoman Turks appeared on the scene and captured the Byzantine province of Bythinia, across the sea of Marmara from Constantinople (See Chapter 8). Gibbon has given the title "Civil Wars, and Ruin of the Greek Empire" to the chapter where these events are described [EG, Chapter LXIII]. The chapter ends 100 years before the final fall of Constantinople suggesting that many of wounds of the Byzantine Empire were self-inflicted. The last part of Treadgold's book is titled "The Failed Restoration" [WT97, pp. 735-844] and provides the sad story of those years in more concise form than Gibbon.
By the middle of the 14th century the one mighty Roman Empire consisted of the immediate area around the capital and territorial fragments (including islands) in Greece and Western Asia Minor. The commentator to Gibbon provides a list of these places according to the historian Finlay [EG, Chapter LXIII, vol. 6, p. 261]. We will describe the final end of the Byzantine empire in the context of the rising Ottoman power in Chapters 8 and 9 but before we leave the subject there are two stories worth narrating.
The Geneose territory at Galata proved quite troublesome to the Byzantines and they turned for help to the Venetians. A naval battle between the two Italian maritime powers was fought near Constantinople and ended in favor of the Geneose. Gibbon notes the irony of the Roman Empire becoming a province of Genoa, a prospect that was averted by the ultimate triumph of Venice. [EG, Chapter LXIII, vol. 6, pp. 271-272].
The other, also from Gibbon, deals with some bizzare religious belief of the times, that introspection would allow one to see God in the form of light similar to the Metamorphosis on Mount Thabor related by the Gospels. The emperor John Kantakouzenos was pre-occupied with the question "... he defended with equal zeal the divine light of Mount Thabor, a memorable question which consummates the religious folies of the Greeks" [ibid, p. 265]. Kantakouzenos "presided in the synod of the Greek church, which established, as an article of faith, the uncreated light of Mount Thabor" [ibid, p. 266]. This theological debate was raging while the Ottoman Turks were building up their empire across the sea of Marmara.
First Posted: March 8, 2010. Latest Revision: April 16, 2010.