Introduction to the Medieval World: Class 23
Class 23: Eastern Christendom after the Crusades
Assigned Reading:
I. Introduction
A. Rise of the West - past few weeks
Internal - art, literature
External - Commerce, crusades
B. Impact - on Byzantium and on Islam
C. But these two cultures both had their own internal
dynamics as well.
II. Byzantium
Eastern Roman Empire - correct description until c. 640
-Then loss of Syria and Egypt
-Greek/Armenian Empire
-Byzantine Dark Ages/Iconoclasm
-Triumph of Orthodoxy 842
-Macedonian Dynasty 867-1057
Expansion - vs. Arabs and Bulgars + Cultural Renaissance
-11th century - Decline of military empire at expense
of Constantinopolitan bureaucracy
-1071 - Mantzikert - Defeat of Romanus IV Diogenes by Seljuqs.
-Collapse of Byzantine power in Anatolia
-Finis?
III. Russia
Before we go on to look at that, lets pause a moment at look
at the Slavs.
-Why important?
- Byzantium no longer exists, and Greece is small
- But Byzantine culture spread to the Slavs. (Caesar Tsar.
The Slavs - a tribe in eastern Europe
Nowadays defined by language - Poles, Russians, Ukrainians,
Serbs, Croats, Bulgars ! - but not Hungarians
or Romanians
Kievan Rus - Viking background - names like Olga
Russians first major appearance on scene - attack on CP 860
Photius decided to send missionaries
- had very important consequences
Missionary Expansion
- SS. Cyril (+869. and Methodius - first in Moravia
- Use of Old Church Slavonic
Slavs never entirely happy with Byzantine politics, but
accepted Byzantine culture in a purely Christian guise.
-No access to pagan works in Greek or Latin
-No Renaissance in Russia
Permanent influence of Byzantium is through these Slavs.
-Third Rome theory
IV. The Comneni
-Back to Byzantium
-Byzantium was restored to relatively good health by the Comneni.
Bureaucracy had led to a deliberate weakening of Byzantine
military power in the 11th century.
The old theme system was gone. Byzantine armies were composed of
either aristocratic retinues or, more often, mercenaries.
But the military families of the countryside, while keeping
their estates in the country, saw how power was being exercised,
and began in this period to move into the City.
With the collapse of the bureaucracy, the still strong networks
of the Great families cam into their own as a nexus of power
in Byzantium - makes the history of the period read like Dallas.
The Family which triumphed, after leading a successful coup, was
the Comneni - led by the mother Anna Dalessena, who got her
son Alexius made emperor (1081-1118.. To found a dynasty
which would rule the Empire until 1185.
Alexius initiated a Renovatio of the empire
-Government through his family
a golden hierarchy (used to be made fun of.
Based on title Autokrator, Sebastos, Basileus
-e.g.. Hypersebastokrator
protonobelissimus
What this did was to spread a veneer of majesty over
his whole family.
-other major families were united with his through marriage
-power of women in this set up
-Taking control of the Church
-Appointing Patriarchs
-Confronting and punishing heretics - and making it know that
he was doing so.
-Supporting selected monasteries
-spread a pall of holiness around his family
-Military restoration
Fought Bulgars and fought back Turks
- but could not regain all of Anatolia
- used mercenaries - cheaper than own troops
In all the Comeneni restore the stability of the Byzantine State.
You also got in the 12th century a burst of creativity in
Byzantium - writing of fiction etc.
-although this was restricted to the upper classes.
-Also canon Law
But one thing Alexius did which ultimately proved disastrous
was to call for help from the west. Led to crusades.
V. The Crusades
Byzantines never understood the Crusades.
They wanted them to help defend Byzantium.
Less concerned with Jerusalem - for Byzantines, Constantinople
was the holy city.
Alexius tried to tie the crusaders to him, by having
them take oaths of fealty to him (not really a Byzantine idea..
Didn't work - Crusaders got to holy land and set up own states.
Even worse contact btw east and west made each have a worse
view of the other.
-Before Crusades, Byzantine regarded Latins as vulgar and
uneducated, but orthodox Christians. Afterwards they thought
of them as barbarians greedy and uncivilized.
-Westerners, initially had gone to aid eastern Christians,
but on meeting them they pillaged their lands, killed them
when they looked like Muslims. And took to the view that the
Greeks were effete. slimy, and too rich.
Led to distancing btw east and west. But for a long time,
Byzantium was as rich and powerful as the westerners.
There was an equilibrium.
But - the Churches drifted apart.
1054 and all that - not so important
-but appointment of Latin Bishops of Antioch and Jerusalem
really distanced the churches.
VI. The Fourth Crusade
First Three Crusades had Holy land as a goal.
First took Jerusalem - 1096
Second in response to Muslim capture of Edessa - 1146
Third in response to loss of Jerusalem - 1187 -but it failed
The Fourth Crusade was significantly different.
-it was pushed by the Pope, but this time Innocent III, the
most powerful pope of the middle ages.
-it did not really involve kings - they were too busy building
up their newly solid kingdoms.
-Instead it was made up of the second-tier nobility
like the first crusade.
By this time Crusaders were aware that there was no point
in going to the Holy land overland, so they decided to go by
sea - taking advantage of the increase in shipping due to
the commercial revolution.
Venice supplied the ships. Aim was to attack Egypt, not
Palestine directly (Unreal - Egypt too populated for
small crusader armies to subdue.
Problem was things didn't go well.
Not enough money was collected to pay the Venetians for all
the ships they had provided.
Venetians had a solution - help us take Zara
Problem - Zara was a perfectly Catholic Christian city.
The Pope was mad - but did not call off crusade.
Crusade got to CP
With crew was a dissident member of Byzantine Ruling House.
This led to an excuse to conquer CP - 1204
Advantageous to Venice - who traded happily with Egypt
-Setting up of Latin Empire of CP
-Frankish Emperor
-Venetian Patriarch (Final split.
-Division of Greece among Frankish families - land grab
VII. Villehardoin: The Capture of Constantinople
Written in French
Author: French b. c. 1150, An official history
Story: It was all an accident
ideas: honor, contract, relics, division of land.
Discuss.
VIII. Survival - Nicea, Epirus, and Trebizond
The Byzantine state was smashed. But it survived
Fragments formed into small states - Epirus, Trebizond
-Nicea - most important
Nearest to CP
Probably had largest Greek pop
Had the Greek Patriarch of CP
Survival in Western Asia Minor
Weakness of Latin empire - really a piece of western
exploitation rather than a serious state.
IX. The Palaiologoi
Lascarids in Nicea
Michael Paleologus - in charge of a young Lascarid.
Murders him. Becomes Emperor. Founds last Dynasty.
1261 - CP recaptured.
Byzantium again an important player
-but fatally weakened - A city with little territory
-still successor states all over Greek sprachraum
-no longer an empire in any true sense, but a city state.
Church Union - policy pursued by Michael VIII to stabilize
his power - vs. Latin attackers. Church Union of 1272
But opposed by the Church - 1204 had dealt a fatal blow to
Greek views of the Latin Church.
Church as powerful as emperor - would condemn emperor if
he disagreed. Michael VIII was excommunicated.
Greeks coming to define themselves in opposition to Latin
culture (discuss concept of dominant and dependent cultures.
X. The Palaiologan Renaissance
Periods of economic and political decline often see
great cultural outpouring - e.g. the Italian Renaissance.
-Art - frescoes
-Literature - theology, biography, philosophy
-Rebirth of Hellenism
-All important as they preserved books
XI. Palamas
-Growth of monasticism's prestige.
-International - not just Greeks, but Russians also
Mt. Athos an independent monastic republic.
-Rejection by some intellectuals of monks vision of God.
-Led to a theological development known as Palamism.
Affirmed the reality of monks experience of God in mysticism
Cf. Aquinas affirmation of the experience of God in Intellect.
XII. Late Byzantine Politics
-Economy taken over by Genoese - Galata more important than CP.
-Dynastic wars.
-Growth of competitor states - e.g. Serbia.
-Effect of Plague from 1347 on.
-Church becomes more and more important as state declines.
The Patriarch administers a wider area!
XIII. The Turks
While Byzantium was having a revival, a new and ultimately
final challenge was developing.
The Seljuqs who had originally conquered Anatolia had collapsed
by the end of the 12th century - had been based at Konya.
Development of competing Turkish statelets - Ghazi ideal
Turkish state nearest CP - founded by Osman -leading Ghazi state.
Began, c. 1300 to expand - taking over Byzantine land in the
West of Asia Minor plus other Turkish states.
1358 - Turks took Gallipoli - benefited from internal
civil wars in Byzantium.
Soon took over all Balkans
For last century Byzantium was a city state
[with a flourishing out post in Morea]
XIV. The End
1402 - saved by Tamurlane
1453 - Mehmet II took CP
Establishment of a Turkish Empire - same areas as Byzantium
at its height. An immensely civilized empire. Hollister too
hostile.
1459 - Trebizond fell.
XV. Survival of Orthodoxy
Byzantium did not survive as a state.
Its intellectual culture contributed to the Renaissance, and
even to modern science as its leading intellectual went west
- especially important was the University of Padua.
Greece survived - under Turkokratia
-in Greece, and all until 1922 in Western Asia Minor and CP.
-Eimi rhomoi
The Church Survived - As Rum Millet the Patriarch had more
power than previously.
Reborn in 1821 - Independent Greece.
Byzantium also survives in Russia.
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© Paul Halsall, 1996.
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