Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire

by Judith Herrin

  The fragmentation of imperial territory could have positive results locally, as all the pretenders to Byzantine imperial power established courts, which required administrators, rhetors, teachers, artists and generals to support their claims. Thanks to the educational systems in each centre, and the ecclesiastical hierarchy of highly educated bishops, the new courts emerged well staffed. The rulers of Trebizond, Arta and Nicaea all invested in buildings, law, agriculture and trade, promoting development and patronizing art in new churches and monasteries. In their rivalry to represent Byzantium, the new centres drew on a wealth of regional skills, and competed using local propaganda brilliantly expressed by their historians and intellectuals, sermons written by their churchmen and imperial-style buildings constructed and decorated by local workmen.

  The plethora of successor states also had to confront another consequence of 1204: the opportunity, eagerly seized by Pope Innocent III and his successors, to bring the Eastern Church under his control, as agreed by Alexios IV Angelos at Zara. Latin bishops were immediately appointed to all the major sees in Byzantium controlled by the crusaders; Dominican, Franciscan and Cistercian friars were sent out to occupy monasteries, which became centres for the conversion of the Greek Orthodox to Latin Christianity. Byzantium was thereby invaded a second time by a religious force, determined to show the Greeks the errors of their theology. But this attempt at spiritual conquest was largely unsuccessful. The inhabitants of the empire remained loyal to their own clergy, even when their bishops were forced into exile. Byzantium resisted and maintained its cultural heritage, even in those far-flung regions never recovered by the rulers of Constantinople.

  In Cyprus, for instance, Orthodox churches with frescoes, mosaics and icons remained a dominant feature of the island, although the late medieval and early modern history of the island is marked by its foreign occupiers: crusaders, Franks, Venetians and Ottomans. Beside the soaring Gothic cathedral of Famagousta, the monastery of Bellapais and the castles of St Hilarion, Kyrenia and Saranda Kolonnes, local Byzantine traditions were adapted and developed. Similarly, in central and southern Greece arched windows adorn the Gothic churches and monasteries rebuilt by western friars at Daphni and Andravida (plate 34); western-style castles at Karytaina and Mistras, and Frankish towers dotted through central Greece, reflect western building techniques. The acropolis of Athens was transformed into a fortified castle, enclosing the palace celebrated in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as the idyllic home of Duke Theseus. But it remained Greek, not Latin.

  This mixed society of Greeks and Latins, Byzantines and crusaders, is wonderfully illustrated in the Chronicle of the Morea, an epic of the conquest of the Peloponnese written in the early fourteenth century. The name ‘Morea’ may reflect the ubiquitous cultivation of the mulberry, morea or murus, an essential ingredient in the production of silk. The Chronicle in verse survives in Old French, Aragonese, Italian and demotic Greek versions, reflecting the polyglot population. Intermarriage created gasmoules, half-Greek half-Latin, whose rights and status were regulated by the Assizes of Romania, modelled on the law book of the kingdom of Jerusalem. Although a western type of feudal rule was imposed by the conquerors, the Byzantine character of the regions is very clear in the surviving monuments, especially village churches decorated with frescoes and icons in traditional style. While new provincial centres encouraged this growth, it was fired by local loyalty to the Orthodox Church, which embodied Byzantine traditions beyond the purely religious.

  Trebizond

  Of these new centres, Trebizond, at the southeast corner of the Black Sea, is especially notable because it became the centre of a flourishing independent empire which lasted for over 250 years, from 1204 to 1461. During the Seljuk inroads of the eleventh century, a local notable, Theodore Gabras, fought and negotiated to make it relatively independent from Constantinople. In 1204, two grandsons of Emperor Andronikos I (1182–5) gained control of it with the help of Queen Tamar of Georgia. Drawing on its traditions of autonomy, as well as its natural resources, David and Alexios Komnenos made Trebizond a new capital city. It became an international centre of Black sea trade, partly because it controlled the western end of one of the most important overland routes from the Far East, and thus raised income from commercial taxes. Trebizond also derived considerable wealth from silver mines in the Pontic Alps, which form a natural defence to the south.

  The alliterative title of Rose Macaulay’s novel The Towers of Trebizond is based on romantic views of the picturesque Black Sea port, with its grand citadel rising above the sea, its magnificent churches and monasteries, including one dedicated to St Eugenios, the city’s patron saint. The towers were largely rebuilt in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by the emperors, who also constructed their palace on the citadel that offers wonderful views out over the Black Sea. They adopted the title of Grand Komnenoi to bolster their political claims as successors to the rulers of Byzantium, and followed the same philanthropic traditions of building churches as well as monasteries. In the mid-thirteenth century, Manuel I founded the monastery of St Sophia, extensively rebuilt later, which preserves outstanding frescoes and carved external decoration. In both the sphere of administration and international trade, the institutions of the empire of Trebizond were modelled closely on Constantinople’s. Genoese and Venetian merchants were granted privileges and allowed quarters close to the harbour, which was also used by numerous Caucasian and Russian traders.

  Trebizond was always appreciated as a spectacularly beautiful site. In the eleventh century, the local scholar John Xiphilinos (later Patriarch of Constantinople) wrote an account of the martyrdom of Eugenios and recorded his miracles, which include the curing of several Scythian soldiers (Varangians). Later the local sacristan, John Loukites, rewrote the miracles with interesting new details; he describes the saint as ‘the great attraction and the glorious name of all the East and of golden Trebizond’. But the most important descriptions of Trebizond occur in two famous speeches: by John Bessarion, who was born in the city in about 1400 and later became a cardinal of the Catholic Church; and by the cleric John Eugenikos, who visited it to pay tribute to his father’s birthplace in the mid-fifteenth century. These are rhetorical works of praise, which follow an established genre (ekphrasis) and include many set elements, but they reveal much about the life of the city. Bessarion praises it as the ‘marketplace of the world’, with strong fortifications and a fine palace, while Eugenikos notes particularly its beautiful setting and fertile agriculture. Together they provide a rich and contrasting picture of a justly famous city.

  Due to its frontier position, Trebizond served as a conduit for ideas as well as goods from the Muslim Caliphate and lands farther east. In the 1290s, Gregory Chioniades, a Greek monk, travelled via Trebizond to Tabriz, capital of the Mongol Ilkhans (in modern Iran), to learn more about Arabic astronomy with a famous scholar called Shams Bukhari. His long period of study there resulted in the translation of key Arabic texts on astronomy and the astrolabe, one of the few instances of Byzantium accepting the superior scholarship of a foreign culture. After his return, Chioniades was appointed to teach both astronomy and medical science in Constantinople, using his substantial library of scientific and medical writings. The significance of his translations into Greek was recognized much later by Copernicus, who used them in his work on planetary models. In 1305, he was sent back to Tabriz as bishop, and served the Christian community of the Ilkhanate for about five years before retiring to a monastery in Trebizond where he died in about 1320.

  By judicious diplomatic and marriage alliances with Turkish, Mongol and Georgian rulers, the Grand Komnenoi sustained Byzantine rule until 1461, when their capital finally succumbed to the Ottomans. Thanks to the extensive research of Anthony Bryer, we can see how they made an excellent case for ‘small is beautiful’ in imperial terms. Gradually, Trebizond became Trabzon but many of its Byzantine characteristics lived on, notably the monasteries in the Pontic Alps, such as the founda
tion of Soumela, which survived to the early twentieth century. Isolated communities preserved a dialect of Pontic Greek and the art of playing the one-string lyra. Today, Trabzon remains a most impressive city perched above the Black Sea, and it secures some of its wealth through the sale of local hazelnuts to Cadbury’s of Birmingham, England, to be made into fruit and nut chocolate bars.

  Epiros

  In 1205, another rival empire was set up by Michael Komnenos Doukas in Epiros, hugging the Adriatic coast on the western edge of Greece. He was a cousin of the Byzantine Emperors Isaac II Angelos and Alexios III, but inherited from his father John the names of Komnenos and Doukas, which allowed him to claim membership of those more distinguished clans. After serving briefly in Boniface of Montferrat’s Latin forces, Michael fled to Arta in western Greece, where he organized local resistance to the crusaders. In ten years he succeeded in taking control of the coastland from the Gulf of Corinth north to the Albanian border, as well as Kerkyra (Corfu) and land as far east as Larissa in central Thessaly. This small state, based on the capital, Arta, was isolated from the rest of Greece by the Pindos Mountains. It was oriented mainly to the west and encouraged the exploitation of its rich agricultural produce by local and foreign merchants. Michael’s illegitimate son Michael II Komnenos Doukas adopted the title of despotes (lord) in 1249, which later historians used to identify his state as the Despotate of Epiros.

  In 1215, Theodore Komnenos Doukas succeeded his half-brother Michael I. He regained Ohrid and defeated and captured the Latin emperor, Peter of Courtney. By 1224 he had control of Thessalonike and went on to capture Adrianople (modern Edirne), only a couple of days’ march from Constantinople. When he was crowned emperor (basileus) in the cathedral of Thessalonike by the senior metropolitan, Demetrios Chomatenos of Ohrid in around 1225/7, he made good his claim to inherit the mantle of Byzantium. For nearly twenty years, Theodore ruled the second city of the empire as well as the Despotate of Epiros. He was succeeded by Michael II Komnenos Doukas, who consolidated the independence of the Despotate. From their capital at Arta, despots ruled until 1318 and embellished their territory with elegant monuments.

  It was difficult for these rival states to attain a dominant position: their small scale meant that they had to form alliances even with their enemies. In Greece, this involved dealing with crusader leaders and western powers hungry for a foothold. As a result, the history of western Byzantium after 1204 is one of constant rivalry, realignment of forces, pitched battles and self-destructive murders perpetuating division. Ambitious western rulers, such as Charles of Anjou – king of Naples and Sicily (1265–85) – or the Italian families of Tocco and Acciajuoli, and mercenary groups like the Catalan and Aragonese Companies, intervened in the political ferment, both as allies and opponents of the crusading kingdoms and Byzantine successor states.

  Nonetheless, the despots of Epiros created a capital city at Arta with a court and administration based on Byzantine models. They used their imperial patronage to attract artists and scholars and founded monasteries and churches. With their encouragement, archbishops like John Apokaukos and Demetrios Chomatenos applied Byzantine law in their own courts and extended Constantinopolitan practices to ecclesiastical administration. As I noted in chapter 7, the records of their legal decisions make unusually interesting reading and reveal a humane concern to improve unsatisfactory arrangements. While Michael II built a major church at Arta dedicated to the Virgin (which is now known as Kato Panagia, the lower church), his wife Theodora constructed a monastery and was buried in the narthex which she had added in about 1270. She is recognized as a saint and her Life records her pious activities. Her son Nikephoros was also a patron of the arts. In around 1290, he founded the most outstanding Byzantine monument of the despotate: the church of the Panagia Paregoretissa (the All-Holy Virgin of Comfort, plates 35 and 36). This tall, five-domed structure rises through three storeys supported on tiers of columns to the central dome with a mosaic of Christ Pantokrator. Marble revetment faces the walls up to the gallery level. While some of the relief carving reflects a western, Romanesque style, the impact of the interior is undoubtedly Byzantine.

  Nicaea

  The empire established at Nicaea was different. It remained in every sense closest to Constantinople, a short boat ride and day’s march away. Nicaea was a well-fortified, ancient foundation, with a famous and prestigious history as the site of two oecumenical councils, and all the urban monuments necessary to a capital city. From the beginning, it was dominated by exiles from the capital and sustained the most imperial pretensions. Theodore Laskaris had married Anna, a daughter of Alexios III Angelos, and transported whatever could be salvaged of the imperial system of government from Constantinople to Nicaea. When Patriarch John Kamateros refused to move to Nicaea, Theodore persuaded a suitably qualified cleric, Michael Autoreianos, to become Orthodox patriarch in exile. And in 1208, Autoreianos performed an imperial coronation which made Theodore the first Byzantine emperor acclaimed in the successor states.

  Before he became its ruler in 1254, the first Theodore’s grandson and namesake composed a eulogy of the city, which he delivered in the presence of his father, John III Vatatzes, and the citizens. He stresses that

  the city of you Nicaeans now… crowns your heads with the purple of grandeur and truth… And in return being well endowed by you with majesty it is indeed a city among cities, since it contains inhabitants made illustrious by learning rather than by wealth and a great army… [Nicaea] is the queen of all cities and has, on account of its learning, the truly supreme rank.

  Drawing attention to the physical beauty of the site, the riches of its agricultural land and lake, vineyards and supplies of water, he claims that these can satisfy any lover of food or luxury, while the city’s education pours forth over the surrounding fields, making even the country people wise.

  This appreciation of the civilizing role of a city is a commonplace, but Theodore emphasizes the benefits of Nicaea’s learning to raise it above ancient Babylon, the cities of India and even Athens. In 1290, the set rules of eulogy were more closely followed in a later oration composed by Theodore Metochites for the visit of Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos. The future civil servant draws attention to the fine situation of Nicaea and its lake, and ‘the plentiful enjoyment of baths, with a charm that adds luxury to utility’, the common shelters for those suffering in illness joined to poverty, including those stricken by the sacred disease (epilepsy). He gives more detailed descriptions of the churches, monasteries, walls and houses, reminding Andronikos that Nicaea contains

  reverend treasures of beauty, the illustrious monuments of the wisdom of our times, the fruits of it, its brilliant and superb rites, the holy places of meditation for those who have chosen to withdraw from material things and to give their time only to God.

  While Constantinople was occupied by the Latins, the emperors in Nicaea created a viable imperial structure in western Asia Minor and developed the region’s agricultural potential to enhance its economic capacity to survive alone. During his long reign (1224–54), Emperor John III Vatatzes was able to ban the import of foreign goods and food supplies because Nicaea could provide all basic needs. Numerous foundations contributed to this agricultural development, which is documented in the records of the monastery dedicated to the Virgin Lembiotissa near Smyrna (modern Izmir). Judicious alliances with the Genoese, who were the first Italian community to gain a foothold in the lucrative Black Sea commerce, brought an increased investment in international trade. The emperor preferred to live at Nymphaion, where the mint and treasury were sited, and moved his court there in the 1230s, but the patriarch remained at Nicaea.

  In addition to campaigning vigorously against Latins, Turks and the forces of Epiros and Thessalonike, emperors of Nicaea and their patriarchs took an active part in the negotiations for church union. Numerous embassies, often led by western friars, passed through Nicaea and Constantinople for discussions, which involved Elias of Cortona and John of Parm
a, both general masters of the Franciscan order. In 1249/50, a papal delegation led by John debated the key issue of the filioque (see chapter 4 for discussion of the procession of the Holy Spirit) at the court of Nymphaion. Nikephoros Blemmydes, a thirteenth-century theologian, represented the Byzantine side. Some of these westerners had broader interests: the Flemish Dominican William of Moerbeke was particularly interested in ancient Greek philosophy. He collected manuscripts, requested help in learning Greek, visited Nicaea and Thebes in 1260, and made translations of Aristotle’s On the Parts of Animals, works of Alexander of Aphrodisias, Proclus, Archimedes and Galen. As papal legate, in 1274 he worked for the reunion of the churches and in 1278 was appointed Latin Archbishop of Corinth. His Latin translations were based on such a strict word-by-word method (called kata poda, ‘by foot’, or ‘step by step’) that they can help in reconstituting the original Greek of texts now lost or only partially preserved.