(The Expansion of Latin Europe, 1000-1500) Jonathan Shepard - The Expansion of Orthodox Europe - Byzantium, The Balkans and Russia-Routledge (2016)

The Expansion of Latin Europe, 1000-1500
The Expansion of Orthodox Europe

THE EXPANSION OF LATIN EUROPE, 1000-1500
General Editors: James Muldoon and Felipe Fernández-Armesto
The Expansion of Orthodox Europe: Byzantium, the Balkans and Russia

E d ite d b y J o n a t han Sh e pa r d
Medieval Ethnographies: European Perceptions of the World Beyond

E d ite d b y J o a n -P a u R u b ié s
Religion and Expansion: the Missionary Impulse

E d ite d b y J a m e s D . R y a n
The North Atlantic Frontier: Vikings and Celts

E d ite d b y J a m e s M u l doon
Please note titles may change prior to publication

The Expansion of Latin Europe, 1000-1500
The Expansion of Orthodox Europe

Byzantium, the Balkans and Russia
edited by
Jonathan Shepard
First published 2007 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon 0X14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint o f the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition copyright © 2007 Taylor & Francis, and Introduction by Jonathan Shepard.
For copyright of individual articles refer to the Acknowledgements.
Published in The Expansion of Latin Europe, 1000-1500 Series
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ISBN 9780754659204 (hbk)
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

The expansion of Orthodox Europe : Byzantium, the Balkans
and Russia. - (The expansion of Latin Europe, 1000-1500)
1. Orthodox Eastern Church 2. Civilization, Slavic -
Byzantine influences 3. Byzantine Empire - History
4. Byzantine Empire - Relations - Slavic countries
5. Slavic countries - Relations - Byzantine Empire
I. Shepard, Jonathan
949'.04
US Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The expansion of orthodox Europe : Byzantium, the Balkans and Russia / edited by
Jonathan Shepard.
p. cm. - (The expansion of Latin Europe, 1000-1500)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7546-5920 4 (alk. paper)
1. Byzantine Empire-History. 2. Byzantine Empire-Influence. 3. Byzantine Empire-
Relations-Slavic countries. 4. Slavic countries-Relations-Byzantine Empire. 5.
Civilization, Slavic-Byzantine influences 6. Orthodox Eastern Church. I. Shepard,
Jonathan.
DF552.E96 2007
949.5'04-dc22
2007018809
THE EXPANSION OF LATIN EUROPE, 1000-1500

Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Abbreviations xiii
Maps xvii
General Editor’s Preface xxi
Introduction xxv
PART ONE - THE BUOYANCY OF BYZANTIUM BEFORE 1204:

ITS MANIFEST DESTINY AND MANY FRONTIERS
1 God and the ‘Family of Princes’ Presided Over by the Byzantine Emperor
André Grabar 1
2 The Strength of Empire and Capital as Seen Through Byzantine Eyes

Paul J Alexander 9
3 The History of the Future and its Uses: Prophecy, Policy and Propaganda
(with Postscript)
Paul Magdalino 29
4 Emperors and Expansionism: From Rome to Middle Byzantium

Jonathan Shepard 65
5 Isaac II, Saladin and Venice

Paul Magdalino 93
6 Byzantine Trade with Egypt from the mid-Tenth Century to the Fourth Crusade
David Jacoby 107
7 Prayer, Illumination, and Good Times: The Export of Byzantine Wine and Oil
to the North of Russia in pre-Mongol Times
Thomas S. Noonan and Roman K. Kovalev 161
8 Wine and Oil for All the Rus’ ! The Importation of Byzantine Wine and Olive Oil
to Kievan Rus’
Thomas S. Noonan and Roman K. Kovalev 185
vi CONTENTS
9 The Many Frontiers of pre-Mongol Rus’

David B. Miller 221
10 Mission Impossible: Ups and Downs in Byzantine Missionary Activity from the
Eleventh to the Fifteenth Century
Sergey A. Ivanov 251
11 The ‘Second Bulgarian Empire’. Its Origin and History to 1204

Robert L. Wolff 267
PART TWO - AFTER THE FALL: SHIFTING CENTRES OF THE ORTHODOX WORLD
12 Fragmentation (1204-1453) (with bibliography)

Stephen W Reinert 307
13 Some Observations on the Administrative Terminology of the Second Bulgarian

Empire (13th—14th centuries)
Ivan Biliarsky 327
14 Tsar Stephen Dusan and Mount Athos

George C. Soul is 349
15 Between Kingdom and Empire: Dusan’s State 1346-1355 Reconsidered

Sima M. Cirkovic 365
16 Divine Wisdom as Part of Byzantine Imperial Ideology. Research into the Artistic
Interpretations of the Theme in Medieval Serbia. Narthex Programmes of
Lesnovo and Sopocani
Zaga Gavrilovic 377
17 Khan or Basileus: An Aspect of Russian Medieval Political Theory

Michael Cherniavsky 403
18 ‘Know Thy Enemy’: Medieval Russian Familiarity with the Mongols of

the Golden Horde
Charles J Halperin 421
19 Under Pressure from the Pagans? - The Mongols and the Russian Church
Sergei Hackel 437
20 Cultural Ties: Byzantium, the Southern Slavs and Russia

John Meyendorff 447
21 Late Byzantine Culture and the Slavs: A Study in Acculturation

Dimitri Obolensky 473
----------------------------------------- CONTENTS-------------------------------------- vii
22 The Holy Man and Christianization from the Apocryphal Apostles to St Stephen
of Perm
Richard M. Price 497
Index 521
Acknowledgements
The chapters in this volume are taken from the sources listed below, for which the editor and
publishers wish to thanks their authors, original publishers or copyright holders for permission
to use their materials as follows:
Chapter 1: André Grabar, ‘God and the “Family of Princes” Presided Over by the Byzantine
Emperor’, Harvard Slavic Studies, 2 (1954), pp. 117-23.
Chapter 2: Paul J. Alexander, ‘The Strength of Empire and Capital as Seen Through Byzantine
Eyes’, Speculum, 37 (1962), 339-57 repr. in Alexander’s Religious and Political History and
Thought in the Byzantine Empire, (London, 1978), no. 3.
Chapter 3: Paul Magdalino, ‘The History of the Future and its Uses: Prophecy, Policy and
Propaganda’, R. Beaton and C. Roueché (eds) The Making o f Byzantine History. Studies
dedicated to DonaldM. Nicol, (London, 1993), pp. 3-34 [with postscript].
Chapter 4: Jonathan Shepard, ‘Emperors and Expansionism: from Rome to Middle

Byzantium’, D. Abulafia and N. Berend (eds), Medieval Frontiers: Concepts and Practices,
(Aldershot, 2002), pp. 55-82.
Chapter 5: Paul Magdalino, ‘Isaac II, Saladin and Venice’, M. Kaplan (éd.), Byzance et ses
confins, (Paris, forthcoming) [translated by the author as of January 31, 2003].
Chapter 6 : David Jacoby, ‘Byzantine Trade with Egypt from the mid-Tenth Century to the
Fourth Crusade’, Thesaurismata, 30 (2000), pp. 25-77.
Chapter 7: Thomas S. Noonan and Roman K. Kovalev, ‘Prayer, Illumination and Good
Times: The Export of Byzantine Wine and Oil to the North of Russia in pre-Mongol Times’,
Byzantium and the North. Acta Byzantina Fennica, 8 (1995-6), pp. 73-96.
Chapter 8 : Thomas S. Noonan and Roman K. Kovalev, ‘Wine and Oil for All the Rus’! The
Importation of Byzantine Wine and Olive Oil to Kievan Rus” , Byzantium and the North. Acta
Byzantina Fennica, 9 (1997-98), pp. 118-52.
Chapter 9: David B. Miller, ‘The Many Frontiers of pre-Mongol Rus” , Russian History, 19
(1992), pp. 231-60.
X ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Chapter 10: Sergey A. Ivanov, ‘Mission Impossible: Ups and downs in Byzantine Missionary
Activity from the Eleventh to the Firfteenth Century’ [A fresh look at Byzantine missions, a
specially commissioned article; drafted in English, deliberately focusing on post-1000. Final
touches (mainly on English idiom) carried out by J. Shepard (based upon discussions and
informal agreement conducted during Paris International Byzantine Congress, August 2001).
Final version agreed January 2004].
Chapter 11: Robert L. Wolff, ‘The “Second Bulgarian Empire”. Its Origin and History to
1204’, Speculum, 24 (1949), pp. 167-206, repr. in Wolff’s Studies in the Latin Empire o f
Constantinople, (London, 1976), no. 3.
Chapter 12: Stephen W. Reinert, ‘Fragmentation (1204-1453)’, C.Mango (ed.), The Oxford
History o f Byzantium, (Oxford, 2002), pp. 248-83.
Chapter 13: Ivan Biliarsky, ‘Some Observations on the Administrative Terminology of the
Second Bulgarian Empire (13th—14th centuries)’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 25
(2001), pp. 69-89.
Chapter 14: George C. Soulis, ‘Tsar Stephen Dusan and Mount Athos’, Harvard Slavic
Studies, 2 (1954), pp. 125-39.
Chapter 15: Sima M. Cirkovic, ‘Between Kingdom and Empire: Dusan’s State 1346-1355
Reconsidered’, Byzantium and Serbia in the 14th Century (National Hellenic Research
Foundation Institute for Byzantine Research, International Symposium 3) (Athens, 1996),
pp. 110-20.
Chapter 16: Zaga Gavrilovic, ‘Divine Wisdom as Part of Byzantine Imperial Ideology.
Research into the Artistic Interpretations of the Theme in Medieval Serbia’, Zograf 11
(1980), repr. in Gavrilovic’s Studies in Byzantine and Serbian medieval art (London, 2001),
pp. 44-69.
Chapter 17: Michael Chemiavsky, ‘Khan or Basileus: An Aspect of Russian Medieval

Political Theory’, Journal o f the History o f Ideas, 20 (1959), 459-76, repr. in M. Chemiavsky
(ed.), The Structure o f Russian History (New York), pp. 65-79.
Chapter 18: Charles J. Halperin, “‘Know Thy Enemy”: Medieval Russian Familiarity with
the Mongols of the Golden Horde’, Jahrbücher fu r Geschichte Osteuropas, n.s. 30.2 (1982),
pp. 163-175.
■ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xi
Chapter 19: Sergei Hackel, ‘Under Pressure from the Pagans? The Mongols and the Russian
Church’, in J. Breck, J. Meyendorff, E. Silk, eds, The Legacy o f St. Vladimir: Byzantium,
Russia, America, (Crestwood, NY, 1990), pp. 47-56
Chapter 20: John Meyendorff, ‘Cultural Ties: Byzantium, the Southern Slavs and Russia’,
Byzantium and the Rise o f Russia, (Cambridge, 1981), ch. 6, pp. 119^4.
Chapter 21: Dimitri Obolensky, ‘Late Byzantine Culture and the Slavs: a Study in
Acculturation’, XVe Congrès International d Etudes Byzantines, Athènes 1976. Rapports et
co-rapports, (Athens, 1976), pp. 3-26, repr. in Obolensky’s The Byzantine Inheritance o f
Eastern Europe (London, 1982), no. 17.
Chapter 22: Richard M. Price, ‘The Holy Man and Christianization from the Apocryphal
Apostles to St Stephen of Perm’, J. Howard-Johnston and P. A. Hayward (eds.), The cult o f
Saints in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Studies in Honour o f Peter Brown (Oxford,
1999), pp. 215-38.
Abbreviations*
AB (or AnBoil) Analecta Bollandiana

Angelov, Iz starata B.S. Angelov, Iz starata B Igarska, Rus ska i Srbska literatura
(Sofia, 1958)
AS P.R.L. Brown, Authority and the sacred: aspects o f the
Christianisation o f the Roman world (Cambridge, 1995)
BBA Berliner Byzantinische Arbeiten
Beck, Kirche H.-G. Beck, Kirche und theologische Literatur im byzantinischen
Reich (Munich, 1959)
Bede, HE Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Angi orum, ed. B. Colgrave and
RA.B. Mynors (rev. ed., Oxford, 1991)
BHG Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca, ed. F. Halkin (3 vols, 3rd éd.,
Brussels, 1957)
BHL Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina (2 vols, Brussels, 1898-9),
with Novum Supplementum, ed. H. Fros (Brussels, 1986)
BMGS Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies
Bsl (or BS) Byzantinos lavic a
Byz Byzantion
Byz Forsch Byzantinische Forschungen
BZ Byzantinische Zeitschrift
Cantacuzenus John Cantacuzenus, Historiarum libri quattor, ed. L. Schopen (3
vols, Bonn, 1828-32)
CFHB Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae
CSCO Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium
CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum
CSHB Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae
DACL Dictionnaire d Archéologie Chrétienne et de Liturgie, ed. F.
Cabrol et al. (15 vols, Paris, 1907-53)
Decani Decani i vizantijska umetnost sredinom X IV veka (Belgrade,
1989)
Dmitriev, ‘Rol’ i znachenie’ L.A. Dmitriev, ‘Rol’ i znachenie mitropolita Kipriana v istorii
drevne-russkoi literatury’, TODRL, 19 (1963): 215-54
DOP Dumbarton Oaks Papers
Dujcev, ‘Tsentry’ I. Dujcev, ‘Tsentry vizantiiskoslavyanskogo obshcheniya i
sotrudnichestva’, TODRL, 19 (1963): 107-29
EEBS Epetëris Etaireias Byzantinôn Spoudôn
Fedotov, Religious Mind G. Fedotov, The Russian religious mind (2 vols, Cambridge MA,
1946-66)
Ferjancic, Despoti B. Ferjancic, Despoti u Vizantiji i juznoslovenskim zemljama
(Belgrade, 1960)
Abbreviations given here supplement those explicated within individual articles.

xiv ABBREVIATIONS
Golubinsky, Istoriya E.E. Golubinsky, Istoriya russkoi tserkvi (2 vols, Moscow,

1900-01)
Grumel-Laurent, Régestes V. Grumel, V. Laurent et al. (eds.), Les Régestes des actes du
Patriarcat de Constantinople (7 vols, Paris, 1932-91)
Ikonnikov, O kul ’turnom V. Ikonnikov, O kul ’turnom znachenii Vizantii v russkoi istorii
znachenii (Kiev, 1869)
Jirecek, Geschichte C. Jirecek, Geschichte der Serben I (Gotha, 1911)
JOB Jahrbuch der Ôsterreichischen Byzantinistik
Kourouses, FafiaXàç S. Kourouses, Manouël Gabalas eita Matthaios Mëtropolitës
Ephesou (1271/2-1355/60) (Athens, 1972)
Likhachev, ‘Nekotorye D.S. Likhachev, ‘Nekotorye zadachi izucheniya vtorogo
zadachi’ yuzhnoslavyanskogo vliyaniya v Rossii’, in Issledovaniya po
slavyanskomu literaturovedeniyu i f o l ’kloristike sovetskikh
uchenykh na IV. mezhdunarodnom s ’ezde slavistov (Moscow,
1960), pp. 95-151
Ljubic, Lis tine S. Ljubic, Listine o odnosajih izmedju Juznoga Slavenstva i
Mletacke republike (10 vols, Zagreb, 1868-91)
Mansi J.D. Mansi (éd.), Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima
collectio (31 vols, Florence, 1759-93)
Mansvetov, Kiprian I. Mansvetov, Mitropolit Kiprian v ego liturgie he s koi
deyatel ’nosti (Moscow, 1882)
Mercati, Notizie G. Mercati, Notizie di Procoro e Demetrio Cidone, Manuele
Caleca e Teodoro Meliteniota, ed altri appuntiper la storia
della teologia e della letteratura bizantina del secolo X IV
(Studi e testi 56) (Vatican, 1931)
Meyendorff, Introduction J. Meyendorff, Introduction à l ’étude de Grégoire Palamas (Paris,
1959) [trans G. Lawrence, A Study o f Gregory Palamas
(London, 1964)]
Meyendorff, ‘O vizantiiskom J. Meyendorff, ‘O vizantiiskom isikhazme i ego roli v kul’turnom
isikhazme’ i istoricheskom razvitii Vostochnoi Evropy v XlV-m veke’,
TODRL, 29 (1974): 291-305
Meyendorff, ‘Spiritual trends’ J. Meyendorff, ‘Spiritual trends in Byzantium in the late thirteenth and
early fourteenth centuries’, in Art et Société à Byzance sous les
Paléologues (Venice, 1971) [also in P. Underwood, The Kariye
Djami (4 vols, Princeton NJ, 1966-75), vol. 4, pp. 93-106]
M GH SS rer. Germ. Monumenta Germaniae Historica Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum
M GH SS rer Merov. Monumenta Germaniae Historica Scriptores Rerum
Merovingicarum
Moshin, ‘O periodizatsii’ V. Moshin, ‘O periodizatsii russko-yuzhnoslavyanskikh
literaturnykh svyazei’, TODRL, 19 (1963): 28-106
NE Neos Ellënomnëmôn
Nik. Nikonovskaya Letopis ’, PSRL, 9-10 (St Petersburg, 1862-97)
Novakovic, Zakonski S. Novakovic, Zakonski spomenici srpskih drzava srednega veka
spomenici (Belgrade, 1912)
Obolensky, ‘Byzantium, Kiev D. Obolensky, ‘Byzantium, Kiev and Moscow: a study of
and Moscow’ ecclesiastical relations’, DOP, 11 (1957): 23-78
■ABBREVIATIONS xv
Pavlov, Opyty A.S. Pavlov, Kriticheskie opyty po istorii drevneishei greko-

russkoipolemikiprotiv Latinyan (St Petersburg, 1878)
PG Patrología cursus completus, series graeca, ed. J.-P. Migne (161
vols, Paris, 1857-66)
Podskalsky, Theologie G. Podskalsky, Theologie und Philosophie in Byzanz. Der Streit
und die theologische Methodik in der spátbyzantinischen
Geistesgeschichte (14./15. Jk), seine systematischen
Grundlagen und seine historische Entwicklung (Munich,
1977)
Popov, Obzor A. Popov, Istoriko-literaturnyi obzor drevne-russkikh
polemicheskikh sochineniiprotiv Latinyan (XI-XV v)
(Moscow, 1875; repr. London, 1972)
PPS Pravoslavnyi Palestinskii Sbornik
Prokhorov, ‘Gimny’ G.M. Prokhorov, ‘K istorii liturgicheskoi poezii. Gimny i molitvy
Filofeya Kokkina’, TODRL, 27 (1973): 120-49
Prokhorov, ‘Keleinaya G.M. Prokhorov, ‘Keleinaya isikhastskaya literatura v biblioteke
literatura’ Troitse-Sergievoi lavry s XIV-go po XVII v .\ TODRL, 28
(1974): 317-24
PS Pravoslavnyi Sobesednik
PSRL Polnoe Sobranie Russkikh Letopisei
PVL Povest’vremennykh let, ed. V.P. Adrianova-Peretts and D.S.
Likhachev, 2nd ed. rev. M.B. Sverdlov (St Petersburg, 1996)
[see also RPC]
Radie, Vreme Jovana V R. Radie, Vreme Jovana VPaleologa (1332-1391) (Belgrade,
1993)
REB Revue des Etudes Byzantines
RIB Russkaia Istoricheskaia Biblioteka (39 vols, St Petersburg,
1872-1927), vol. 6 (1880), Pamyatniki drevne-russkogo
kanonicheskogo prava, vol. 1, ed. A.S. Pavlov
Rog. Rogozhskii Letopisets, PSRL, 15 (Moscow, 1965)
RPC Russian Primary Chronicle, trans. S.H. Cross and O.P.
Sherbowitz-Wetzor (Cambridge MA, 1953) [see also PVL\
SC Sources Chrétiennes
SCH Studies in Church History
Sobolevsky, A.I. Sobolevsky, Yuzhnoslavyanskoe vliyanie na russkuyu
Yuzhnoslavyanskoe p is ’mennost’v X IV -X V vv. (St Petersburg, 1894) [also
vliyanie published by the author as a part of his book Perevodnaya
literatura Moskovskoi Rusi X IV-XVII vv. (St Petersburg,
1903)]
Soulis, The Serbs G.C. Soulis, The Serbs and Byzantium during the Reign o f Tsar
Stephen Dusan (1331-1355) and his Successors (Washington,
DC, 1984)
Speransky, Iz istorii M.N. Speransky, Iz istorii russko-slavyanskikh literaturnykh
svyazei (Moscow, 1960)
Syrku, K istorii ispravleniya P. Syrku, K istorii ispravleniya knig v Bolgarii v XlV-m veke (2
vols, St Petersburg, 1890)
xvi ABBREVIATIONS
Tachiaos, ’EmSpáaeig A. Tachiaos, Epidraseis tou Ësychasmou eis tën ekklësiastikën

politikën en Rôsia, 1328-1406
(Thessaloniki, 1962)
Theodoret, HR Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Historia Religiosa, ed. P. Canivet and A.
Leroy-Molinghen, Théodoret de Cyr: Histoire des moines de
Syrie (2 vols, Paris, 1977-9)
Tikhomirov, Svyazi M.N. Tikhomirov, Istoricheskie svyazi Rossii so slavyanskimi
stranami i Vizantiei (Moscow, 1969)
TM Travaux et Mémoires
TODRL Trudy otdela drevne-russkoi literatury (Leningrad, 1934-)
Troits. Troitskaya Letopis Rekonstruktsiya teksta, ed. M.D. Priselkov
(Moscow-Leningrad, 1950)
TU Texte und Untersuchungen
VIINJ Vizantijski Izvori Za Istoriju Naroda Jugoslavije
VV Vizantiiskii Vremennik
Vzdornov, ‘Rol’ masterskikh’ G.I. Vzdornov, ‘Rol’ slavyanskikh monastyrskikh masterskikh
pis’ma Konstantinopolya i Afona v razvitii knigopisaniya
i khudozhestvennogo oformleniya russkikh rukopisei na
rubezhe XIV-XV w . \ TODRL, 23 (1968): 171-98
Zivoti kraljeva Archbishop Daniel et al., Zivoti kraljeva i arhiepiskopa srpskih,
ed. D. Danicic (Zagreb, 1866; repr. London, 1972)
ZRVI Zbornik Radova Vizantoloskog Instituta
ZMNP Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia
Map 1: Missions, sees, monasteries and markets of the middle Byzantine world
Map 2: The Balkans and the central and eastern Mediterranean
Map 3: North from Byzantium after 1204
General Editors’ Preface
This series began with a suggestion that a volume dealing with medieval European expansion
would make an interesting prologue to the Expanding World: The European Impact on World
History 1450-1800 series that was already appearing. Several of the volumes in that series did
include articles dealing with aspects of the medieval background, but the medieval ‘expansion
of Europe’ - within and along the frontiers of Latin Christendom - lay outside the terms of
reference. So did an important part of the medieval prelude to the story of the ‘expanding
world’: the growth of neighboring cultures with which Latin Christendom collided.
Motives, practices, and tools characteristic of modem European expansion were creations
or developments of the Middle Ages. ‘The internal colonization of Europe’ was the basis of
subsequent overseas colonization. Along the edges of Latin Christendom, expanding societies
encountered Celts, Scandinavians, Slavs, and others who were organizing societies of their
own that could block or redirect European expansion, initiate cultural exchange, and exercise
varying degrees of influence on the way Europeans thought about themselves and the world.
As medieval Christian society expanded further, Europeans encountered other societies with
which they competed or cooperated.
The introductory volume for the entire series will deal with the expansion of European
society during the Middle Ages in terms of the frontier experience, setting the stage for the
entire series. Gradually or fitfully, with occasional reversals, between the late ninth and mid-
fourteenth centuries, the culture of Latin Christendom spread outwards in all directions from
the heartlands of western Europe. In spite of the contraction of Latin Christendom after the
Black Death, the check to the outward growth of the frontier, and the continuing expansion of
Islam, the basic motives for expansion remained, as did knowledge of institutional structures
employed in developing overseas trade and colonization.
Other volumes will deal with the expansion of Europe in geographical terms. The first
will examine the internal colonization of Europe that began around 1000 as the population
began to increase, previously unfarmed areas were transformed into arable land, and new
towns created. This period of growth provided impetus for acquiring new lands to settle and
for developing the techniques of colonization, techniques that were to have a long history.
Remaining volumes will deal with European expansion along specific frontiers. While
European expansion possessed some general qualities, each frontier had its own particular
characteristics.
The first external frontier to be considered is with the Muslim world. One volume devoted
to the Muslim frontier deals with the crusades and related efforts to block or reverse Muslim
expansion in the Mediterranean. The crusades were also early examples of colonization as
the crusaders established permanent settlements and a kind of European feudal government
in the reconquered territories occupied by an urban population of Christians, heretical and
schismatic, Jews, and Muslims.
The second volume dealing with Christian expansion along the frontier with the Muslim
world will examine the reconquista in the westward-facing parts of Spain and Portugal, a
xxii GENERAL EDITORS’ PREFACE-
process that not only led to the creation of the Spanish and Portuguese kingdoms, but also
to Christian occupation of parts of the African coast, exploration of the Atlantic, and the
discovery of several island chains. These efforts in turn led to Columbus’s voyages and to
Portuguese explorations that eventually linked the Atlantic to the trade routes of the Indian
Ocean.
Along other frontiers, European Christians expanded into lands occupied by a variety
of societies, often employing religious motives to justify their actions as they had done
in the crusades to regain the Holy Land. For example, expansion along the Celtic frontier
brought Anglo-Norman conquerors of England into contact with Scots, Welsh, and Irish,
all Christians yet, by continental standards, ‘uncivilized’. Expansion here meant not only
conquest but also, as in the case of Ireland, a responsibility for reforming the Church as
well. There was also the task of transforming the pastoral societies of the Celtic fringe into
agricultural societies that the intruders assumed to be the basis for fully civilized society. On
the northern, southern, and eastern shores of the Baltic where unevangelized Slavs and Baltic
peoples dwelled, and - further south - along the Danube and inland from the Dalmatian coast,
Christian Scandinavians, Germans, Slavs and Magyars faced a variety of intractable infidels
who deployed modest levels of material culture in terrain classifiable, according to the values
of the time, as savage.
English and Spanish medieval experience of dealing with the peoples encountered along
the frontier shaped initial responses to peoples encountered in the Americas. When they came
to the New World they came with perceptions about people who lived on the frontier and
with institutions for dealing with them. Europeans saw, or thought they saw, in the Americas
societies like those that they had encountered in the course of their medieval expansion so they
attempted apply lessons learned from that expansion to the Americas. Within two generations,
however, colonizers began to recognize that the Americas were different and that the lessons
learned in the course of medieval expansion were not necessarily directly applicable to the
New World.
The second set of volumes deals with two inter-related issues; first, the role of religion
in shaping the medieval response to the world beyond Europe and the perceptions of non-
Europeans that circulated throughout Europe. The Christian responsibility for preaching to all
mankind encouraged missionaries to move beyond the geographical frontiers of Christendom
to preach to infidels who lived along those frontiers. Early modem overseas expansion,
Catholic and Protestant, renewed this notion of mission on a large scale. A further volume
in this category deals with European knowledge of the world beyond Europe. Much of this
knowledge came from missionaries, especially Franciscan friars, and from merchants such as
Marco Polo who had visited China, India, and the Islamic world. Missionaries and merchants
subsequently wrote down their observations about these worlds, providing their fellow
Europeans with the earliest first-hand information about the eastern world, information that
shaped the fifteenth-century search for a new route to Asia.
The third group of volumes focuses on the other expanding societies that Latin Christians
encountered in the course of expansion. These volumes demonstrate how expansion led to
interaction with other societies, some expanding, others contracting. The Byzantine Empire
ruled a Christian society that became increasingly estranged from the Latin West over
theological and cultural issues between the eleventh and the thirteenth centuries. To some
extent, the Byzantines found themselves caught between two expanding societies, the Latin
GENERAL EDITORS’ PREFACE xxiii
Christians of Europe and the Muslims who had emerged from Arabia in the seventh century,
eventually conquering a great deal of territory that the Byzantines once ruled. The crusades
that Europeans launched at the end of the eleventh century aimed at assisting in the defense of
the Byzantine Empire and at freeing the Holy Land from Muslim hands. As things turned out,
however, the crusaders were not interested in restoring the lands to Byzantine control. They
sought instead to carve out kingdoms for themselves at the expense of both the Muslims and
the Byzantines.
Muslim expansion was not only at the expense of the Byzantines, however. From the
mid-seventh century to the late seventeenth, Muslim expansion also had a serious impact
on Western European development. Christian armies encountered Muslim societies in Iberia
where a several-centuries long series of wars led to the creation of numerous small states.
At the other end of Europe, Muslim expansion through the Balkans from the fourteenth
century to the seventeenth century blocked European expansion eastward and pushed the
boundaries of Latin Christendom back as traditionally Christian kingdoms such as Hungary
fell to Turkish armies. European expansion into the African Atlantic began in the fifteenth
century partly in order to find a route to Asia that would outflank the Muslim-dominated
eastern Mediterranean.
Another society whose expansion impinged on Europe was the Mongol Empire that
Genghis Khan (1162-1227) created. On the one hand, the Mongols wrought a great deal of
havoc on the eastern frontiers of Christian Europe as well as on the Muslims in the Near East.
On the other hand, Mongol control of the routes between Europe and Asia made it possible for
European merchants and missionaries to travel back and forth, thus providing Europeans with
more accurate knowledge about the East than they had ever possessed before.
The collapse of the Mongol Empire in the fourteenth century made possible the creation
of new states out of the Mongol domain. From the perspective of Western Europe the most
important of these successor states was Moscow whose rulers embarked upon a policy of
expansion that eventually led to the creation of a Russian Empire. This empire not only
succeeded to the Mongol hegemony in Central Asia, it also took over the Byzantine Emperor’s
role as leader and defender of Orthodox Christianity, identifying Moscow as the Third Rome
and heir to the Byzantine tradition. Subsequent expansion brought the Russians into conflict
with peoples of the Latin West, Islam, and China. Russian expansion eventually extended
through Siberia, across the Bering Strait to the North American mainland.
The expansion of Europe between 1000 and 1492 provided the foundation upon which
modem expansion built. This first stage of European expansion was a part of a larger process,
global age of expansion. This series traces the origins of a vital aspect of modernity back into
the Middle Ages and sets an early chapter of the rise of Europe in the context of the history
of the world.
James Muldoon and Felipe Fernández-Armesto
General Editors
Introduction
Tides of Byzantium: The Many Forms of Expansion and
Contraction
One may well ask what a volume entitled ‘The Expansion of the Orthodox World’ is doing in
a series like ‘The Expansion of Latin Europe’. Hopefully, the contents of this introduction will
provide something of an answer. But, to tackle the question head-on, four points may highlight
the mutual relevance of goings-on in eastern and western Christendom in the central and later
middle ages. Firstly, the upswing in population, revitalisation of town-life and intensification
of commercial exchanges discernible in Italy from the tenth century onwards owed something
to the rerouting of the oriental ‘spice trade’ from overland routes to the Indian Ocean and the
Red Sea and to burgeoning economic activity in Egypt in the tenth century. Byzantine shippers
and traders were on the scene from the time Eastern Mediterranean commerce quickened,
and it is against this background of Byzantine activities that Amalfitan and Venetian traders’
arrival in Egyptian markets should be viewed. Byzantium’s economic expansion underpinned
its rulers’ willingness to embark on military offensives and contemplate greater territorial
expansion than they had done for centuries. Economic growth was also bound up with the
Byzantines’ mission work, most spectacularly in the land of Rus. The upshot was that in
the mid-eleventh century the Byzantine world overlapped closely with Latin Christendom,
and sometimes overshadowed it: this may partly account for the reform papacy’s alacrity in
responding to emperors’ calls for assistance, once military disasters struck Byzantium in the
second half of the century.1A hundred or so years later, the empire could still strike back in
Latin-dominated areas in a variety of ways, as this introduction will illustrate (see below, pp.
xxxvii, xl).
This brings us to a second point about the mutual relevance of Byzantine and Latin
Christendom: Byzantium matters because it was different, as well as because it had significant
similarities and directly impinged on the west. To define those differences is as difficult as it
is to define ‘the Byzantine empire’ or, indeed, ‘Byzantine orthodoxy’. On the organisational
plane, Byzantium’s characteristics mark it out from all sizable Latin polities before the twelfth
century: Middle Byzantium functioned as a sovereign entity, with the institutions as well
as the accoutrements of a unitary state - a stable coinage, a state-wide tax-collection, law-
courts operating by versions of Roman law, a standing army and, so far as force majeure
was concerned a virtual state monopoly. These qualities were not lost on visiting westerners,
and Byzantine court ceremonial presented tableaux and celebrations of the ‘sacred empire’
such as no western emperor or kinglet could hope to lay on so lavishly or persistently in
one central city. Yet to picture an eastern Christian monolith, locked in a time-warp, in
1 J. Shepard. ‘Byzantium’s overlapping circles’, in E. Jeffreys (ed.), Proceedings o f the 21st

international congress o f Byzantine studies. London 21-26 August 2006 (Aldershot, 2006), pp. 50-3.
xxvi INTRODUCTION
contrast with multiple and shifting Latin lordships and realms, would be misleading, since
much about Byzantium was mutable or involved tacit divergences of interpretation. Different
shades of opinion, scales of values and everyday devotional practice coexisted within the
imperial envelope, even if certain fundamentals of doctrine laid down by the early church
councils were non-negotiable. Questions over the interrelationship between imperial and
church authority were never fully resolved, and although the emperor could generally see
off a patriarch who proved turbulent or utterly recalcitrant, important elements in the eastern
church were, in effect, ‘semi-detached’, regarding issues to do with the soul as transcending
all earthly concerns, and categorising the fate of the empire among the latter. Monks were
less amenable to disciplining than prelates and could be outspoken, while the monastic life
was highly esteemed by well-to-do laypersons. This was not without political implications for
an emperor who provoked hardline monks by showing excessive sympathy for Latin ways
or by deferring to the papacy on a point of doctrine.2 There was more to Byzantium than
met the eye at the scenes of pomp and circumstance at the imperial court, fault-lines no less
deep-seated for being seldom declared overtly or articulated systematically. The ceremonies’
emphasis on God-willed autocracy could mislead outsiders with their own agendas as well
as the modem observer: the papacy seems to have been particularly willing to suppose that a
compliant emperor could swing all his subjects with him, and accept active papal primacy. It
is no exaggeration to say that this misreading of Byzantium on the part of ambitious senior
churchmen who saw what they wanted to see gave impetus to Latin expansionism. One might
add that emperors, anxious for papal sponsorship of military aid and for its other good offices,
did little to disillusion them as to the constraints on their own role within orthodoxy and, from
the later eleventh century on, they were laying emphasis on what Christians in east and west
had in common.
Byzantium’s confrontation with the Christian west can, in fact, be quite revealing for
students of Latin expansionism. Several chapters in this volume demonstrate the multitude
of paths down which westerners advanced into what was, until the eleventh century, a more
or less Byzantine-dominated sphere. Not that they formed a common front, and some of
the more spectacular consequences of their moves were unintended. Those sometimes seen
as ring-leaders of conquest take on a rather different hue when viewed from an eastern
perspective. Prime candidates for reappraisal are the Venetians. Their commercial interests
could align them with the imperial government of the day - to the point of willingness to
contemplate Byzantine dominion over the Palestinian coast. It may have been the overthrow
of one outstandingly sympathetic regime and the coolness of its successor that made the
Venetian leadership look to alternative options at the beginning of the thirteenth century.3
What also emerges is the enormity of westerners’ potential for help or harm. Enlisting a few
companies of western knights within his ranks could boost an emperor’s striking-power far
beyond what numbers alone might lead one to expect. Western warriors were not without
their shortcomings, and Byzantine aspersions about their stamina in battle may stem from
2 On the close involvement of the laity with monks and monasteries, see R. Morris, Monks and
laymen in Byzantium, 843-1118 (Cambridge, 1995). For the differing shades of religious and political
orthodoxy, see below, n. 33.
3 Magdalino, ‘Isaac II, Saladin and Venice’.
INTRODUCTION xxvii
experience.4Nonetheless, in the event of divisions within the Byzantine ruling family, a small
force of western warriors could deal the deathblow, as the events of 1203-04 showed: the
crusading knights who stayed on until the final assault on Constantinople may have been
numbered in hundreds.5 And the very passage of crusaders through the Balkans en masse
could further destabilise a Byzantine overlordship already under challenge, as the Serbian
and Bulgarian potentates’ attempts to exploit the approach of the armies of the Third and
Fourth Crusades show.6 The crystallisation of the Bulgarian and the Serbian realms is in some
respects an unintended consequence of the crusades.
A final point is the far-reaching repercussions of the Latins’ feats of conquest and
domination of Constantinople on the Byzantine church as an organisation, and on spiritual life
in the orthodox world in general. There are many reasons why revised versions of the earthly
Byzantine empire proliferated after the city’s fall, as also why so many outstanding figures
emerged among the church leadership and rallied their flocks by tongue and pen. But one
pressing concern was the almost ubiquitous spectacle of western power and prosperity, which
gave material backing to the proselytising efforts of Latin Christians at large among orthodox
populations. It was not only rigorist monks on Mount Athos and other bastions of orthodoxy
who feared that higher educational or spiritual training of new generations of monks and
priests would wither away, leaving ordinary layfolk prey to energetic and adaptable western
holy men. The Franciscans, whose preaching of poverty and simplicity struck a chord with
orthodox sensibilities, were quick to establish a presence in Constantinople: in fact, the earliest
surviving major fresco cycle of St Francis’ life comes from a church in Constantinople.7 One
response to this challenge was for Byzantine imperial and ecclesiastical leaders to proclaim
the worldwide reach of their own home church, while also pointing out its unbroken tradition
from the era of Constantine the Great and the early church councils. The imperial court at
Nicaea became a hotbed of scholarship and fostered new libraries as well as pride in the
Hellenic past.8 Another, rather less intellectual, response involved communal ritual and
worship (including spectacular celebrations of saints’ feast days), while monks sought new
means of direct communication with God Himself through prayer. These initiatives arose from
essentially local difficulties in the Greek-speaking communities of the former empire. But
acute rivalry with the Latins and a desire to halt their progress also gave a fillip to Byzantine
monks’ and churchmen’s interest in protecting and regulating the spiritual life of orthodox
brethren and congregations further afield, whether in the Balkans, around the Black Sea or
across the vast land of Rus (see below, pp. xlvii-xlviii).
4 See R. Macrides, George Akropolites, The History. Introduction, translation and commentary
(Oxford, 2007), p. 89 (introduction), p. 149 (trans).
5 J. Riley-Smith, ‘Toward an understanding of the Fourth Crusade as an institution’, in A.E. Laiou
(ed.), Urbs capta: the Fourth Crusade and its Consequences. l e IV Croisade et ses conséquences
(Réalités byzantines 10) (Paris, 2005), p. 81.
6 Wolff, “Second Bulgarian empire”.
7 A. Derbes and A. Neff, ‘Italy, the Mendicant Orders and the Byzantine sphere’, in H.C. Evans
(ed.), Byzantium: faith and power (1261-1557) (New Haven CT, 2004), pp. 449-53 and no. 274 on pp.
463-5.
8 C.N. Constantinides, ‘Teachers and students of rhetoric in the late Byzantine period’, in E.
Jeffreys (ed.), Rhetoric in Byzantium (Aldershot, 2003), pp. 42-4. See also below, nn. 61 and 62.
xxviii INTRODUCTION
(I)
Byzantium’s impact on the religious and political culture of Slavic-speaking peoples in eastern
Europe and Rus was most pronounced in the centuries following the fall of Constantinople
to the Fourth Crusaders in 1204. The City became the base of a ‘rightly-believing emperor’
(basileus orthodoxos) again in 1261, and for the next eighty years or so its rulers cut quite a
forceful figure among the eastern Christian populations of the Balkans, the Greek-speaking
Aegean, and also in the region of the Black Sea. The masterpieces of Byzantine art and
architecture of this era owed much to the purchasing-power and patronage of the imperial
elite in Constantinople. Thus between 1316 and 1321 the monastery church of the Chora
was enlarged and embellished with frescoes and mosaics that can still awe the onlooker, all
carried out at the expense of the ‘prime minister’, Theodore Metochites.9 Nonetheless the
prevailing trend in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was the diffusion of patronage and
also of intellectual, artistic and spiritual endeavour across the Greek-speaking regions, from
the southern Crimea to Mistra in the Peloponnese. The ancient imperial centre lost its hold,
and this loosening of Byzantine governance made it easier for Slavic-speaking potentates, and
wealthy population-centres, to attract Greek-born or -trained monks, churchmen, scholars and
craftsmen.
South Slav rulers in the Balkans, and subsequently the Wallachian and Moldavian princes
of what is now Romania, hoped to bolster their regimes through feats of technical excellence
beyond the reach of their ordinary subjects. Byzantine know-how could assist with this. For
example, the Serbian king, Stefan Uros Milutin (1281-1321) probably employed craftsmen
from Thessaloniki - perhaps also from Epiros - to build a monumental church at Gracanica
that may have been intended to house his mausoleum.10 Far to the north in the land of Rus,
Byzantine churchmen had been assigned to senior bishoprics since the tenth century, and
painters and other craftsmen found employment there (see below, p. xl). But by the later
fourteenth century individual artists of outstanding quality were heading for Rus, notably
Theophanes ‘the Greek’, whose frescoes beautified churches in Novgorod, and also the
churches and palace of Prince Vasilii I of Moscow (1389-1425).11 Theophanes’ work in Rus
was a source of inspiration to Andrei Rublev, whose works show understanding of theology
as well as an eye for colour and harmonious form.12 From the late fourteenth century on,
9 P. Underwood (ed.), The Kariye Djami (4 vols, Princeton NJ, 1966-75); R. Ousterhout, The
architecture o f the Kariye Camii in Istanbul (Washington DC, 1987), pp. 34-7, 91-100, 142-4; A.-M.
Talbot, ‘Revival and decline: voices from the Byzantine capital’, in Evans (ed.), Byzantium: faith and
power, pp. 17-18 and fig. 2.3; S. Curcic, ‘Religious settings of the late Byzantine sphere’, ibid., pp. 72-3
and fig. 3.18.
10 S. Curcic, Gracanica. King M ilutin’s church and its place in late Byzantine architecture
(University Park PA, 1979), pp. 75-90, 94-9, 111-27, 140-3.
11 On Theophanes ‘the Greek’, see Meyendorff, ‘Cultural ties’, pp. 140-1.
12 V.N. Lazarev, Theophanes der Grieche und seine Schule (Vienna, 1968), pp. 105-07; Oxford
Dictionary o f Byzantium, eds A. Kazhdan et al., (3 vols, Oxford, 1991), vol. 3, p. 2064 (A. Cutler); I. Bruk
andL. Iovleva, Gosudarstvennaia Tret’iakovskaiagalereia: Katalogsobraniia (3 vols, Moscow, 1995),
vol. 1, nos 61-5, pp. 141-52; E.K. Guseva, ‘Our lady of the Don: on the question of an iconographie
prototype’, in I. Sevcenko, G.G. Litavrin and W. Hanak (eds), Acts o f the XVIII International Congress
o f Byzantine Studies, Moscow 1991 (4 vols, Shepherdstown WV, 1996), vol. 3, pp. 103-08; L.I. Lifshits,
INTRODUCTION xxix
Greek-bom medical doctors, goldsmiths and other jewellery workers also turned to western
Europe for patrons, or simply for patients or markets, some of them doing business in Paris
and London.13
(II)
The chapters in our collection do not follow up all these avenues of Byzantines’ activity
beyond the Greek-speaking world, although Part II - devoted to the period after 1204 - offers
panoramic views of the Slavic-speaking world in the later middle ages (Chapters 20 and 21),
together with a reconstruction of the late Byzantine jigsaw (Chapter 12). The rulers, regimes
and societies adopting elements of Byzantine religious and political culture are mostly
presented here in detailed studies. The focus is on church life, religious rites and writings, and
on the interrelationship in most rulers’ eyes between keeping ritual correct, doctrine pure, and
staying in power - or legitimising power newly gained. The subject-matter comprises mainly
the political and ecclesiastical elites, not religious devotions at grass-roots. It is no accident
that the efforts of ‘upwardly mobile’ potentates are illustrated by surviving source-materials.
Byzantium’s arsenal of conspicuous godliness, political imagery and rites of rulership was
precisely what attracted them.
The rhythms of Balkan rulers’ emulation, adaptation and aggressiveness towards the
ancient empire emerge most starkly from the reign of Stefan Uros IV Dusan, king (krai)
and later emperor (tsar) of the Serbs (1331-1355). Dusan was at once erudite, militarily
formidable and pious. He also showed interest in administration, adapting Byzantine legal
principles to his own heterogeneous dominions while enhancing his legitimacy through
consummate political imagery. These qualities are the subject of two chapters in Part II,
while a third demonstrates Dusan’s zeal to rally the monks of Athos, ‘the Holy Mountain’,
to his cause.14 Dusan was laying down markers for a kind of ‘universal’ empire, underpinned
by religious correctness - orthodoxy (see below p. xxxv) - and he likened his conquests to
those of Constantine the Great.15 This invocation of the first Christian emperor who had (like
Dusan) started out from the west reflects high ambition. Yet most rulers of eastern orthodox
populations held back from following up the logic of their claims to universal dominion and
trying to seize Constantinople by force. In practice these rulers, intent on creating new polities
for themselves under divine protection, preferred co-existence and honorary association with
the original ‘world-empire’ of the Romans. To attempt an assault on ‘the God-protected’ city
and its formidable Roman-built fortifications would only highlight the differences between
‘Freski Feofana greka v troitskom pridele tserkvi Spasa na Il’ine ulitse’, in L.I. Lifshits et al. (eds),
Drevnerusskoe iskusstvo. Vizantiia, Rus Zapadnaia Evropa: iskusstvo i huí ’tura (St Petersburg, 2002),
pp. 269-87 (English summary, pp. 287-8). An English translation of an eyewitness account of ‘Feofan
grek’ (i.e. Theophanes the Greek) at work in Rus is given by C. Mango, The art o f the Byzantine empire
312-1453. Sources and documents (repr. Toronto, 2000), pp. 256-8. On Andrei Rublev’s masterpiece,
the Trinity icon, see G.I. Vzdornov (ed.), ‘Troitsa’Andreia Rubleva: antologiia (Moscow, 1981), pp.
205-14 (English summary).
13 J. Harris, Greek émigrés in the west, 1400-1520 (Camberley, 1995).
14 Cirkovic, ‘Between kingdom and empire’; Gavrilovic, ‘Divine wisdom as part of Byzantine
imperial ideology’; Soulis, ‘Tsar Stefan Dusan’.
15 Cirkovic, ‘Between kingdom and empire’, p. 115.
XXX INTRODUCTION
oneself and the first Constantine. Thus even Stefan Dusan, conqueror of extensive Byzantine
territories, seemingly baulked at a direct attack on the capital.
The ambivalence and intimacy of Stefan Dusan’s relationship with the ancient empire
of ‘the Romans’ owe something to the unusually volatile conditions of the mid-fourteenth
century, when rival Byzantine-born claimants with plausible credentials were vying for
the throne.16 But deference, emulation and appropriation in varying degrees characterise
the relationship of all those at the head of societies forming on or beyond the periphery of
Byzantium and drawing their religious and political cultures from it. The cross-currents
between the Byzantine imperial-ecclesiastical establishment and Serbian, Bulgarian, Rus and
Wallachian and Moldavian leaders are touched on in Chapter 21, and they are followed up
in depth in Dimitri Obolensky’s The Byzantine Commonwealth.11 Paradoxes were inherent
in the approach of potentates seeking goods, shows of respect and access to supernatural
forces from the God-blessed centre: they were, essentially, devising nuclei of authority -
‘universes’ - on terms of their own; yet they needed to defer to Constantinople’s custodians
in order to gain and maintain key building-blocks, correct texts and forms of Christian faith
and worship. Such ‘acquisitional’ societies were aiming for the highest celestial backing, but
association with a ‘superordinate centre’ was indispensable for this purpose. The dynamics of
these interrelationships have been formulated by anthropologists, and attempts made to apply
these formulations specifically to polities abutting on Byzantium and adopting its religious
rites and doctrine.18
(Ill)
Part I: The Buoyancy o f Byzantium before 1204
The juncture at which a potentate turned to Byzantium for baptism and organisation of his
people within its church usually set the course for that people’s future. One might therefore
have devoted Part I to the initial conversions of the Bulgars, the Serbs and the Rus. Relevant as
these episodes are, they are well-treated in general surveys, notably in Obolensky’s Byzantine
Commonwealth, and more specialised works are readily accessible.19 Recent findings also
16 S. Reinert, ‘Fragmentation’, pp. xxxiii-xxxv.

17 D. Obolensky, The Byzantine commonwealth. Eastern Europe 500-1453 (London, 1971).
18 E. Shils, ‘Center and periphery’; repr. inE. Shils, Center and periphery: essays in macrosociology
(Chicago IL, 1975), pp. 3-11; E. Shils, ‘Society and societies: the macrosociological view’, repr. ibid.,
pp. 37-42; C. Geertz, ‘Centers, kings, and charisma: reflections on the symbolics of power’, repr. in
C. Geertz, Local knowledge: further essays in interpretive anthropology (New York, 1983), pp. 121—
47; M.W. Helms, Craft and the kingly ideal. Art, trade and power (Austin TX, 1993); D. Obolensky,
‘Nationalism in eastern Europe in the middle ages’, Transactions o f the Royal Historical Society 5th
series, 22 (1972): 1-16; T. Stepanov, ‘Periphery as universe (Byzantium and Bulgaria)’, Bsl, 59 (1998),
247-54; J. Shepard, ‘The Byzantine commonwealth, 1000-1550’, in M. Angold (ed.), The Cambridge
history o f Christianity, V: Eastern Christianity (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 7-12, 14.
19 A.P. Vlasto, The entry o f the Slavs into Christendom (Cambridge, 1970); F. Dvornik, Byzantine
missions among the Slavs: SS Constantine-Cyril and Methodius (New Brunswick NJ, 1970); J. Shepard,
‘Slavs and Bulgars’, in R. McKitterick (ed.), The new Cambridge medieval history: II: c.700-c.900
(Cambridge, 1995), pp. 239-40; S. Franklin and J. Shepard, The emergence o f Rus, 750-1200 (London,
INTRODUCTION xxxi
illustrate the geographical range of Byzantine missionary activities. For example, from the
mid-tenth century onwards the realm of the Alans housed a Byzantine metropolitan. A complex
of churches and monasteries was built at Nizhnyi Arkhyz in the northern Caucasus, with
elaborate frescoes decorating these and other churches’ walls. Nizhnyi Arkhyz was probably
the metropolitan’s residence.20
Instead of pursuing these enterprises further, the chapters in Part I deal with other aspects
of the Byzantine phenomenon, less obviously connected with the impact of Byzantium’s
culture on other societies and elites, and yet highly relevant. Their bias is towards the period
before 1204, and they show up the varied, fluctuating, patterns of the Byzantines’ expectations
of the future. They also illustrate the dynamism of Byzantine economic enterprises beyond the
imperial borders, even after those borders contracted sharply in the later eleventh and twelfth
centuries. Taken together, they demonstrate Byzantium’s capacity for metamorphoses. And
they suggest how difficult it was for outsiders, whether visitors to Constantinople or potentates
watching after their own thrones, to take the measure of Byzantium: the imperial order could
draw on hidden reserves even when things looked bleak. These qualities, together with an
ideology of divinely-guided hegemony and the buoyancy of its economy, help explain the
aura still investing the ancient seat on the Bosporus in the eyes of occupants of other thrones
in the later middle ages. For adherents to the eastern orthodox rite, at least, the basileus’ court
was a kind of gold standard of legitimate rule. The ceremonies and liturgies performed there
acted as a metronome attuned to the workings of the universe, pre-set by the creator of all
things. They gave visible expression to imperial Byzantine ideology. Thus the notion of the
emperor’s special relationship with Christ was reiterated in court acclamations and formalised
in such rituals as leaving the senior (right-hand) seat on the imperial throne vacant on Sundays
and feast-days: Christ himself was supposed to preside over proceedings on His days, and the
basileus duly took the lesser seat on the throne, as Christ’s junior partner.21
No chapter in Part I is specifically devoted to the Byzantine court or the ceremonies
performed there: two important texts, the mid-tenth century Book o f Ceremonies and a master
of ceremonies’ guidelines for receptions and state banquets, are available to those with a
1996); SA . Ivanov, Vizantiiskoe missionerstvo. Mozhno li sdelat’iz varvara’khristianina? (Moscow,

2003); SA . Ivanov, ‘Religious missions’, in J. Shepard (ed.), The Cambridge history o f the Byzantine
empire, c.500-1492 (Cambridge, 2008 forthcoming); S. Cirkovic, The Serbs, trans V. Tosic (Oxford,
2004), pp. 15-22; F. Curta, South-eastern Europe in the middle ages, 500-1250 (Cambridge, 2006),
pp. 144-5, 166-75; J. Shepard, ‘Rus’, in N. Berend (ed.), Christianization and the rise o f Christian
monarchy: Scandinavia, central Europe and R u s’c. 900-1200 (Cambridge, 2007 pp. 374-86).
20 I. Arzhantseva, ‘The Christianization of north Caucasus (religious dualism among the Alans)’,
in W. Seibt (ed.), Die Christianisierung des Kaukasus. The Christianization o f Caucasus (Armenia,
Georgia, Albania) (Ôs terre ichis che Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-Historische Klasse.
Denkschriften 296) (Vienna, 2002), pp. 19-22; D.V. Beletsky and A.I. Vinogradov, ‘Freski sentinskogo
khrama i problemy istorii alanskogo khristianstva v Xv.’, Rossiiskaia arkheologiia, no. 1 (2005): ISO-
42.
21 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, De cerimoniis aulae byzantinae, ILI, ed. J.J. Reiske (2 vols,
Bonn, 1829-30), vol. 1, pp. 520 (scholion), 521; O. Treitinger, Die ostrômische Kaiser- undReichsidee
(repr. Darmstadt, 1956), pp. 32-3 and n. 3, 39-40 and n. 43.
xxxii INTRODUCTION
reading-knowledge of French.22 Several chapters in Part I are, however, devoted to the world-
picture encapsulated in the court and the city of Constantinople, to the Byzantines’ own ideas
of their place in the grand scheme of things.
The emperor’s role as the representative or understudy of Christ, or God, coloured his
dealings with other earthly rulers, and the quasi-familial relationship he maintained with
them. He could the more plausibly lay claim to the high moral ground, standing at the head of
an association of partners who were, if Christian, addressed as ‘son’ and even, if they or their
predecessors had received baptism from Byzantine priests, ‘spiritual son’. Really substantial
Christian potentates, such as the western emperor, were ‘brothers’, while non-Christians could
still be ‘friends’. And God was all these things to the emperor, a kind of universal counterpart
to the emperor’s associates on earth. Such, at least, was the conception of a late eleventh-
century intellectual, Theophylact of Ohrid. Chapter 1 draws attention to Theophylact’s text,
and also to a certain asymmetry between the heavenly and the earthly kingdom: no other
potentates on earth have a personal relationship with God, who ‘has only a single partner, the
emperor of Byzantium’.
Nonetheless, the vocabulary of intimate relationships with Christian pastoral overtones
was of utility in the constant parleying with other power-nodes which Byzantium’s geo-
political circumstances dictated. Ceaseless assuaging, negotiating or deterring at many levels
- with up-and-coming individuals or families as well as acknowledged leaders - was the
means by which units of military manpower could be enlisted, a formal alliance for joint-
operations negotiated, or an attack bought off. A common ploy was to invite rulers, their
sons, or other members of elites from regions of strategic concern to come and be feted at
Constantinople as the emperor’s guests, ‘the diplomacy of hospitality’.23 The assumption was
that the visitors’ outlook would be transformed, to the empire’s advantage, the City itself
offering a glimpse of a different world, complete with its own benign climate.24
22 Philotheos, Kletorologion, ed. and French trans N. Oikonomides, Les listes de préséance
byzantines des IXe et X e siècles (Paris, 1972), pp. 65-235; Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, De
cerimoniis aulae byzantinae, incomplete ed. and French trans A. Vogt, Constantin VII Porphyrogénète:
le livre des cérémonies (2 vols, Paris, 1935-39) (also in preparation ed. and French trans G. Dagron and
B. Flusin, Le livre des cérémonies; and trans A. Moffatt and M. Tall, Constantine Porphyrogennetos: the
ceremonies). See also M. McCormick, ‘Analyzing imperial ceremonies’, Jahrbuch der ôsterreichischen
Byzantinistik, 35 (1985): 1-20; Averil Cameron, ‘The construction of court ritual: the Byzantine Book of
ceremonies’, in D. Cannadine and S. Price (eds), Rituals o f royalty: power and ceremonial in traditional
societies (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 106-36; H. Maguire, ‘Images of the court’, in H.C. Evans and W.D.
Wixom (eds), The glory o f Byzantium: art and culture o f the middle Byzantine era, AD 843-1261 (New
York, 1997), pp. 182-91.
23 J. Shepard, ‘Byzantine diplomacy, means and ends, c. 800-1204’, in J. Shepard and S. Franklin
(eds), Byzantine Diplomacy (Aldershot, 1992), pp. 51-2, 61.
24 See P. Stephenson, ‘Byzantine conceptions of otherness after the annexation of Bulgaria
(1018)’, in D.C. Smythe (ed.), Strangers to themselves: The Byzantine outsider (Aldershot, 2000), pp.
245-6 and n. 1. Visitors would also encounter “‘columns looming like massive giants’” among the
many monuments from antiquity and, even within the walls, extensive meadows and other farmland:
P. Magdalino, ‘Medieval Constantinople: built environment and urban development’, in A.E. Laiou
et al. (eds), The economic history o f Byzantium from the seventh through the fifteenth century (3 vols,
Washington DC, 2002), vol. 2, p. 534.
INTRODUCTION xxxiii
The City was at once a sacral centre and a showcase for the material benefits flowing from
imperially-policed religious order. We do not rely on Byzantine writers for these conceptions:
Muslim observers held up Constantinople as a paragon of civilisation and governance,25 while
the church of St Sophia, constructed by Justinian as a miniaturised version of the cosmos,
was still making an impression on visitors hundreds of years later. Prince Vladimir of Rus’
emissaries reported back to him c. 988 their experience of a service in the Great Church (as
St Sophia was called): 4We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth ... We only know
that God dwells there among men’.26 It was this form of Christianity, as practised by ‘the
Greeks’, that Vladimir eventually chose for himself and his people.
(IV)
In effect, the city of Constantinople was the empire in quintessential form, containing all that
was needed for imperial hegemony to reassert itself after periodic setbacks and divinely-sent
punishment for sins. The unique place of Constantinople in the thinking of the Byzantines
and of other people receives attention in Chapter 2. Paul Alexander shows its centrality to
suppositions about the future of mankind. The emperor had been assigned a mission from
God and accordingly his divinely-protected seat on the Bosporus was a symbol of all that was
good and pure. Hence, the labours of Basil I (867-86) to repair its buildings and carry out
restoration-works are detailed in the biography commissioned by his grandson Constantine
VII (945-59): they symbolise his reforms, rejuvenating the administration and eliminating
corruption. ‘Renewal’ of the City represented moral regeneration of the empire as a whole.27
The fall of the City would only be allowed by God when it fulfilled His grand design. Thus
a late seventh-century Syriac text composed in the aftermath of the victories of the Arabs
(‘Ishmaelites’) and of their conquest of Egypt and the Levant prophesied that ‘the Ishmaelites’
would carry all before them until the emperor arose ‘like a man from sleep after drinking much
wine’ and put them to flight; his subsequent journey to Jerusalem would lead to confrontation
with the Anti-Christ and, eventually, the end of the world.28 This text, written in the name of
the fourth-century bishop of Patara, Methodius, was soon translated into Greek. Alexander
noted its relevance to Byzantine notions of their capital’s pivotal role in human history.29 This
25 N.M. El-Cheikh, Byzantium viewed by the Arabs (Cambridge MA, 2004), pp. 70, 140-1, 150,
211 12.
26 PVL, p. 49; RPC, p. 111.
27 Life o f Basil, in Theophanes Continuatus, ed. I. Bekker (Bonn, 1838), pp. 321-5; ed. and trans I.
Sevcenko (Berlin and New York, forthcoming); Alexander, ‘Strength of empire and capital’, pp. 349-51.
See also, for various aspects of imperial renewal, P. Magdalino (ed.), New Constantines: the rhythm o f
imperial renewal in Byzantium, 4th—13th centuries (Aldershot, 1994).
28 Pseudo-Methodius, Apocalypse, [13], 11, ed. W.J. Aerts and G.A.A. Kortekaas, Die Apokalypse
des Pseudo-Methodius: die Àltesten Griechischen und Lateinischen Übersetzungen (2 vols, Louvain,
1998), vol. 1, p. 174. See also Psalms 78.65.
29 Alexander, ‘Strength of empire and capital’, p. 344. See also G.J. Reinink, ‘Ps.-Methodius:
a concept of history in response to the rise of Islam’, in Averil Cameron and L.I. Conrad (eds), The
Byzantine and early Islamic Near East, I: problems in the literary source material (Studies in Late
Antiquity and Early Islam 1) (Princeton NJ, 1992), pp. 149-87; P. Alexander, The Byzantine apocalyptic
tradition (Berkeley CA, 1985).
xxxiv INTRODUCTION
encouraged in the Byzantines a sense of being God’s new chosen people and a certain self-
importance: ‘après nous, le déluge’.
The nature and far-reaching implications of such writings as Pseudo-Methodius’ are
drawn out in Chapter 3. Paul Magdalino reviews the evidence of Byzantines’ persistent
attempts at reckoning when the world would end. They drew on visions and prophecies in the
scriptures and also consulted a medley of apocryphal texts, all on the assumption that triumph
as well as trials lay ahead for God’s people. Byzantine forecasters - at least those whose
texts survive - are mostly rather circumspect, and it is those discouraging speculation that
the End is nigh who tend to be most forthright. A certain reluctance to commit to a particular
date is understandable, given that milestones like the end of the sixth millennium since God’s
creation of the world passed without incident. There was, in any case, no unanimity as to the
exact status of the current empire of the Romans: was it the fourth kingdom of the Book of
Daniel [4.23^1] fated to go the way of its predecessors before Christ returned in glory, or
did it in fact embody Christ’s kingdom without end, merely awaiting the return of the Lord?
As Magdalino observes, Byzantine expectations ranged across a broad spectrum, from the
imperial-triumphalist to the dour prognostications of churchmen and monks that downfall
must follow from the empire’s internal corruption and Christians’ sins. The colour-tones
varied with the circumstances of the observer, but all assumed a vital interrelationship between
empire, City and Christ. In the postscript written for our reprint,30 Magdalino notes further
indications of the seriousness with which Byzantines viewed the onset of the year 1000, the
millennium from Christ’s nativity. The thousand-year-kingdom of the saints envisioned in the
Book of Revelation [20.1-6] was identified with the empire of the basileus by members of the
establishment. This may not be spelt out in as many words by a surviving Byzantine text, but
- as so often - the message was conveyed non-verbally through symbols and ceremonies at
the emperor’s court, which served as a kind of portal for the extraordinary events that would
unfold as the last days approached.31 The senior part of the throne left empty for Christ on His
days has been noted above (p. xxxi).
(V)
Expectations of the End might, in theory, have made the conversion of the heathen a matter of
urgency: they needed to be baptised and their souls given a chance of salvation before the time
of ultimate trials. The emperor’s role in bringing ‘the gentiles’ within the Christian fold was, in
fact, proclaimed in court celebrations of the feast of Pentecost and court acclamations declared
him ‘equal of the apostles’. The missionary efforts of individual holy men can be viewed in
this light. For example, St Stephen of Perm’s evangelising among the Finnic-speaking peoples
of the Urals in the fourteenth century was spurred on by belief that the End was nigh. But as
Richard Price demonstrates in Part II, holy men withdrawing to deserts and backwoods in
east and west had long been wont to captivate those whom they encountered, and their zeal to
combat demons and offer salvation to pagans was not fuelled solely by expectations of the End
(Chapter 22). So far as the imperial establishment of Byzantium was concerned, mission work
30 See also P. Magdalino, ‘Prophecies on the fall of Constantinople’, in Laiou (ed.), Urbs Capta,
pp. 41-2, 49-53.
31 Magdalino, ‘History of the future’, postscript p. xxvii.
INTRODUCTION XXXV
among outlying barbarians was more a matter of the emperor maintaining the role of a ‘new
Constantine’, than of whole-hearted commitment to expanding the borders of Christendom.
As Sergey Ivanov shows in Chapter 10, emperors and churchmen of the Byzantine metropolis
were generally more interested and effective in baptising and assimilating new arrivals on
imperial soil than in spreading the word beyond the borders.32 Only for the twilight years of
empire is evidence more abundant of senior Byzantine churchmen engaging with far-flung
enterprises. The initiative for the conversions of barbarian peoples in the ninth and tenth
centuries seems to have come mainly from their leaders.
There are, then, paradoxes in the transmission of Byzantium’s blend of political culture
and religious doctrine determined by early church councils - ‘orthodoxy’ - to external
power-centres and societies: expansion was as much due to ‘barbarians’ seeking to better
themselves as it was to the Byzantines themselves.33 The imperial-ecclesiastical complex
literally went through the motions of world-rulership with its rounds of court ceremonial, an
ethos of moral and cultural superiority being upheld. Yet the very position of Constantinople,
chosen by Constantine the Great for its command of intersecting land- and sea-routes, left
it exposed to sudden assaults, once the lucrative eastern provinces of the empire fell to the
Arabs in the seventh century, and even the relatively poor territories of the Balkans and
Asia Minor were only thinly shielded. That a certain siege-mentality developed among the
denizens of Constantinople is unsurprising. The cross-currents of everyday apprehensions
yet stubborn assumptions of an ultimately merciful providence presented in Chapters 2 and 3
are indispensable for understanding why Byzantium appealed to so wide a variety of external
rulers, elites, fortune-seekers and soul-searchers. The basileus, God-protected monarch and
ostentatious master of treasure, excited other potentates’ envy, and some sought to replicate
his authority-symbols. At the same time, the Byzantine establishment’s sense of vulnerability
on several fronts generated diplomatic initiatives, not only the ‘diplomacy of hospitality’, but
also the frequent despatch of embassies, some on a grandiose scale. Their heads, acting on
the emperor’s behalf, were equipped with elaborate baggage-trains, bearing furnishings from
the basileus’ court back in Constantinople; sumptuously clothed and conducting themselves
haughtily, they presented miniaturised versions of that court.34
32 See also Ivanov, ‘Religious missions’; Price, ‘The holy man and Christianization’, p. 234; J.
Shepard, ‘Spreading the word: Byzantine missions’, in C. Mango (ed.) The Oxford history o f Byzantium
(Oxford, 2002), pp. 230-47.
33 Byzantium’s blend was itself open to varying interpretations, and ‘political orthodoxy’ was not
identical with religious orthodoxy: H.-G. Beck, Das byzantinische Jahrtausend (Munich, 1978), pp.
38-52, 87-108, 178-92. See also contributions to A. Louth and A. Casiday (eds), Byzantine orthodoxies
(Aldershot, 2006), especially A. Louth’s ‘Introduction’, pp. 1-11, and the contributions to Section I,
‘Defining orthodoxy’. There were underlying tensions over the role of the emperor in the church and
his right to determine legal issues involving Christian principles or mores (G. Dagron, Emperor and
priest, trans J. Birrell (Cambridge, 2003)), and an emperor might polemicise with monks and others
as to whether astrology was heretical or not: Magdalino, ‘Isaac II, Saladin and Venice’, n. 21. External
potentates sought doctrinal and liturgical orthodoxy, but their adoption of Byzantine political culture
varied according to their circumstances. Stefan Dusan bid fair to acquire a full ‘politico-religious
package’: see above, p. xxix.
34 See J. Shepard, ‘Courts in east and west’, in P. Linehan and J. Nelson (eds), The Medieval world
(London and New York, 2001), pp. 26, 28-9.
xxxvi INTRODUCTION
Even when such an embassy failed to attain its specific objective, its luxuriance, rituals
and manifestations of Christian piety probably made an impact on beholders. Prominent
members of the target-polity in addition to its formal leader were witnesses and benefited,
directly or indirectly, from the emperor’s largesse. In other words, the very insecurity of
Byzantium prompted myriad travelling road-shows beaming out the merits of the imperial
order and orthodox faith to diverse peoples, some so remote that they might otherwise have
been barely aware of the empire’s existence.
(VI)
A certain sense of beleaguerment informed the strategy of Byzantine statesmen in the earlier
middle ages: whatever images of victory the court ceremonial and rhetoric might conjure
up, aversion to lasting territorial commitments was the norm. They were hesitant and highly
selective when the political disarray of Byzantium’s archrival, the Abbasid caliphate, opened
up opportunities for regaining towns and cities. Humdrum reckonings about manpower and
economic resources were supplemented by predictions that seldom found vent in the chronicles.
In fact, the victories in the east won by the soldier emperors Nikephoros II Phokas (963-969)
and John I Tzimiskes (969-976) aroused unease. There were forebodings that the sensational
victories would be followed by an Arab countersurge as far as the Bosporus, terrible natural
disasters and then (at least implicitly) by the End of the world.35 Eschatological angst was, in
Byzantine statecraft, compounded with cautiousness, a preference for letting imperial interests
beyond the Greek-speaking ‘Roman’ provinces be served by proxies. This predisposition,
together with awareness of differences in the modus operandi of other societies, runs through
the pages of the diplomatic handbook compiled by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus for his
son and heir Romanos II c. 950.36
Even when Byzantine armies did make lasting gains in Cilicia, northern Syria and the
Balkans in the later tenth and early eleventh centuries, there was a tendency to leave local
elites and administrative structures in place, at least for the earlier stages of occupation.
Imperial attention focused on points of particular strategic or economic value.37 Nonetheless,
as is pointed out in Chapter 4, the spectacular victories and conquests called to mind rhetoric
from the Roman empire in its heyday - of bounds set ever wider and only natural barriers
holding up the advance. Officers and men of the enlarged army showed enthusiasm for foreign
35 W. Brandes, ‘Liudprand von Cremona (Legatio Cap. 39-41) und eine bisher unbeachtete west-
ôstliche Korrespondenz über die Bedeutung des Jahres 1000 AD’, BZ, 93 (2000): 439-41, 462-3. See
also Magdalino, ‘History of the future’, pp. 24-5.
36 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, De administrando imperio, ed. G. Moravcsik, trans R.J.H.
Jenkins, 2nd ed. (CFHB 1) (Washington DC, 1967), pp. 44-7, 56-63, 216-23; on Constantine’s own
counsels of caution, see J. Shepard, ‘Constantine VII, Caucasian openings and the road to Aleppo’, in A.
Eastmond (ed.), Eastern approaches to Byzantium (Aldershot, 2001), pp. 26-7.
37 P. Stephenson, Byzantium’s Balkan frontier: a political study o f the northern Balkans, 900-
1204 (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 78-89, 114-16, 241-56, 261-6; P. Stephenson, The legend o f Basil the
Bulgar-slayer (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 36-46; C. Holmes, ‘Byzantium’s eastern frontier in the tenth and
the eleventh century’, in D. Abulafia and N. Berend (eds), Medieval frontiers: concepts and practices
(Aldershot, 2002), pp. 83-104; C. Holmes, Basil II and the governance o f empire (976-1025) (Oxford,
2005), pp. 321-6, 330-51, 354-8, 389-91.
INTRODUCTION xxxvii
ventures and in the mid-eleventh century currents of opinion in governing circles still favoured
a forwards policy. The armed forces were well-equipped and in fair condition,38 while client-
princelings on the borders were only too willing to hand over responsibilities to the emperor.
But a sizable army was costly and from the 1050s a series of weak, divided governments had
to cope with formidable foes on several fronts at once. There was inadequate opportunity to
reorganise the armed forces and switch to effective defensive tactics in time. Southern Italy
was under the control of the Normans by 1071 while Turkoman war-bands streamed into
Asia Minor. Territorially, the empire was shrunken by the closing years of the century, for all
the ingenuity shown by Alexios I Komnenos (1018-1118) in repulsing Norman attacks and
coming to terms with the Turks.39
Byzantine emperors from Alexios I onwards laboured hard to regain the initiative, seeking
ways of harnessing the burgeoning western commercial enterprises, military companies and
muscular Christianity to their advantage. They presided over an economy itself still expanding
and thus capable of yielding revenues to the state. Population-size, too, seems to have been
on the rise.40 Despite a tax-base of reduced territorial extent, funds could be raised for wide-
ranging diplomatic and military demarches, and as late as the 1170s emperors could reasonably
hope for the reconquest of Asia Minor: ‘the imperial army was still the strongest in Anatolia’.41
Moreover emperors’ eyes remained alert for lucrative trading-opportunities, and for means of
disenfranchising commercial partners who were proving recalcitrant or overmighty. Manuel I
Komnenos’ (1143-1180) attempt to make of Ancona a counterweight to Venice and a kind of
military outpost is only the most obvious example of this.42
(VII)
Manuel Komnenos’ venture in Ancona is easily dismissed as an example of him overreaching

himself, vainly countering the irresistible rise of commercially-driven powers such as Venice.
What tends to be overlooked in general surveys43 is the vitality of lower-profile enterprises
overseas on the part of Byzantines below the level of the imperial court and its orators and
historians. Once these are taken into account, the emperors’ schemes for reconquest look
38 J. Haldon, ‘Approaches to an alternative military history of the period ca. 1025-1071’, in V.N.
Vlysidou (ed.), The empire in crisis? Byzantium in the eleventh century, 1025-1081 (Athens, 2003), pp.
52-3, 64-5, 68-74.
39 M. Angold, ‘Belle époque or crisis? (1025-1118)’, in Shepard (ed.), Cambridge history o f the
Byzantine empire (2008 forthcoming).
40 See, in general, A. Harvey, The economic expansion o f the Byzantine empire, 900-1200
(Cambridge, 1989). For Manuel I Komnenos, see P. Magdalino, The empire o f Manuel I Komnenos
1143-1180 (Cambridge, 1993).
41 D.A. Korobeinikov, ‘Raiders and neighbours: the Turks (1040-1304)’, in Shepard (ed.),
Cambridge history o f the Byzantine empire (2008 forthcoming). See also J.W. Birkenmeier, The
development o f the Komnenian army, 1081-1180 (Leiden, 2002), pp. 118-38, 185-205.
42 D. Abulafia, ‘Ancona, Byzantium and the Adriatic 1155-1173’, Papers o f the British School at
Rome, 52 (1984): 195-216; Magdalino, Empire o f Manuel /, pp. 61, 83, 93.
43 See, however, contributions to Laiou et al. (eds), Economic history o f Byzantium - notably A.E.
Laiou, ‘Exchange and trade, seventh-twelfth centuries’, vol. 2, pp. 746-51; A.E. Laiou, ‘The Byzantine
economy: an overview’, vol. 3, pp. 1152-3.
xxxviii INTRODUCTION
rather less quixotic. Three chapters in Part I illustrate this kind of commercial expansion. It
was not only Italian merchants who took advantage of the waning of the jihad in the tenth
century to operate a trading nexus between Egypt, the Levant and Constantinople. As David
Jacoby shows in Chapter 6, the term al-Rüm in Arabic and Hebrew documents relating to
the Eastern Mediterranean could denote not only western Christians but also Byzantines.
Byzantine goods were a significant item of commerce in Alexandria and Cairo, many being
brought by traders based within the empire: there was a suggestively-named ‘Market of
the Greeks’ in Old Cairo. Venetian and Amalfitan boats were putting into Egyptian ports
by the later tenth century, but they were probably heavily outnumbered by Byzantine-based
vessels at least until the end of the eleventh century.44 Products and agrarian produce from the
provinces - cheese, for example, from Asia Minor and Crete - as well as de luxe textiles from
Constantinople’s workshops were exchanged for high-quality Egyptian linen and oriental
spices. In the twelfth century, the Greeks gradually lost ground to the Italian beneficiaries
of privileges from the Crusading states that were now ensconced along the Palestinian and
Syrian coastline, with the Venetians and other city-states dominating high-value exchanges
between the west, Constantinople and the Eastern Mediterranean. Yet the axis between Egypt
and the Byzantine lands remained economically significant - and of interest to emperors
contemplating regulation of this traffic.
Byzantine economic enterprises also reached far north in this period, as Thomas Noonan
and Roman Kovalev show (Chapters 7 and 8). These two chapters complement one another.
‘Prayer, illumination, and good times’ focuses on the finds in northern and central Rus of
shards of amphorae manufactured in the Byzantine world, while “‘Wine and oil for all the
Rus’!”’ concentrates on finds in southern Rus, taking in Kiev together with lesser-known
sites between the Prut and the lower Don. Besides reviewing the find-locations, the chapters
discuss the likely contents of the amphorae, wine and oil, assessing their uses among the Rus.
They expressly leave open the question of where the original vineyards and olive-groves were
situated. But they are unequivocal that the wine and oil can fairly be termed ‘Byzantine’,
emanating mostly from the Byzantine lands.45 Christian religious rites generated steady
demand for wine and oil. But Noonan and Kovalev emphasise that wine was also imported for
convivial purposes. They further note that amphorae shards occur in small rural settlements
in north and south alike: ‘demand for wine was so strong that it could be found even in the
most remote villages of northern Russia’.46 Olive oil was used for practical purposes such
as lighting lamps as well as for benedictions in church services: ‘the import of olive oil into
Kievan Rus was very big business’.47
44 Jacoby, ‘Byzantine trade with Egypt’, pp. 34, 37, 47, 51-3.
45 Noonan and Kovalev, “‘Wine and oil for all the Rus’!”’, pp. 119-20 and n. 5 on p. 141. See also
N. Günsenin, ‘Le vin de Ganos: les amphores et la mer’, in M. Balard et al. (eds), Eupsychia: mélanges
offerts à Hélène Ahrweiler (2 vols, Paris, 1998), vol. 1, pp. 281-7.
46 Noonan and Kovalev, ‘Prayer, illumination, and good times’, p. 79; Noonan and Kovalev,
“‘Wine and oil for all the Rus’!”’, p. 125.
47 Noonan and Kovalev, “‘Wine and oil for all the Rus’!” ’, p. 134.
INTRODUCTION xxxix
(VIII)
These trading activities involved more and more settlements in the land of Rus during the
twelfth century. As David Miller posits in Chapter 9, trading and manufacture formed just
one pattern - in his words, ‘transparency’ - in a kaleidoscopic series of communities: of
towns and settlements, written culture and religious worship, spoken language and conscious
membership of an ethnic grouping, and political allegiance. These affinities, some localised,
others ranging vast distances, were partially in tension with one another and their dynamics
were peculiar to Rus. Yet as Miller signals, Byzantium had a part to play in their workings.
Citing the work of Thomas Noonan, he notes the significance of Kiev as arrival point for
superior technologies such as building in brick and stone: ‘conversion to orthodox Christianity
was the catalyst, foreign artisans, especially Greeks, were the carriers, and Kiev’s princes
the transfer agents’.48 Byzantium also provided a church organisation. The metropolitan
residing at Kiev was usually Byzantine-born, but the prevailing written language was a form
of Slavic, not Greek, and the range of texts available in translation was quite narrow: ‘most
were prepared for liturgical purposes’.49
The processes by which this religious culture filtered through to the populace in the urban
centres are debatable, as is the nature of popular literacy. But literacy of a sort is attested by
finds of birch-bark letters and also of characters and words scratched on pots and other objects.
These items occur mainly in urban sites and townsfolk - women as well as men - were the
most likely to find uses for writing, whether for marking ownership, listing creditors or other
matters to do with craftsmanship and commercial exchanges.50 These mundane concerns do
not, at first sight, have much to do with the religious culture of the Slavic texts deriving from
Greek originals. Nonetheless a shared cult encouraged commercial trust. Besides, orthodox
Christianity, prizing liturgical services, visual symbols and repetition, was attuned to the
preoccupations of agrarian populations and provided compass-bearings, symbolic rather than
textual, set against false spirits and damnation.51 Evidence is mounting for the veneration
of Christian symbols, especially small metal crosses, at grassroots. Near Lake Kubenskoe
in north-east Rus many, if not most, villagers wore a cross-pendant in daily life, implying
widespread veneration of the cross as a personal talisman.52 Equally, the distinctive pattern
of settlement in pre-Mongol Rus has become clearer from systematic surveys. Settlements
tended to form in ‘compact nests’, beside rivers or lakes. The clusters might be separated from
one another by vast tracts of forest, but their inhabitants kept in touch. The main driver for
exchanges was the fur-trade, which was both lucrative and constant enough to allow village-
48 Miller, ‘Many frontiers of pre-Mongol Rus’, p. 238.

49 Miller, ‘Many frontiers of pre-Mongol Rus’, p. 243.
50 Miller, ‘Many frontiers of pre-Mongol Rus’, pp. 247-8; S. Franklin, Writing, society and culture
in early Rus, c. 950-1300 (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 35-45, 75-81, 121-6,276-8.
51 For the broad spectrum of beliefs, rites and practices accommodated within pre-modern Russia,
see W.F. Ryan, The Bathhouse at Midnight: an historical survey o f magic and divination in Russia
(Stroud, 1999); Franklin, Writing, pp. 264-8.
52 N.A. Makarov, ‘Kresty-tel’niki iz raskopok srednevekovykh selishch i problema khristianizatsii
severnorusskoi derevni’, Istoricheskie Zapiski, 7(125) (2004): 258-72.
xl INTRODUCTION
dwellers to rely on distant urban centres for items of jewellery, high-quality implements and
small strips of Byzantine silk.53
Many of the furs ended up in western Europe, and finds of German silver coins in rural
Rus settlements show the importance of this trading-axis. However, goods from the Byzantine
south carried with them a certain ‘charge’, as witness the oil and wine imported for purposes
of religious ritual, and the ties of faith were reinforced by commercial links. These involved
face-to-face encounters between Rus and Greeks in the markets of Constantinople and Black
Sea ports, but also in Rus itself. Byzantine-born or Byzantine-descended craftsmen were a
not unfamiliar sight in the cities. One such was Olisei ‘the Greek’, who presided over a studio
for painting icons in later twelfth-century Novgorod.54 In an economy geared to intensive
long-distance exchanges, the sprinkling of Greek craftsmen as well as churchmen offering
guidelines on iconography and ritual may have had more impact at street-level than their
numbers alone warranted. The inhabitants of the sprawling lands of Rus and of the Byzantine
empire can hardly be said to have constituted a cohesive community. But the points of contact
between them in the eleventh and twelfth centuries were vibrant.55
(IX)
One cannot put figures to the contribution made by the ever-expanding markets of Rus to the
Byzantine economy any more than one can quantify the monetary value of trade between
Byzantium, the Levant and Egypt. But Mediterranean produce bound for the northern
markets was taxable as it passed through the Bosporus and all these axes illustrate the width
of Byzantine commercial horizons. They might yet metamorphose and take politico-military
forms, a variant on Manuel’s experiment with Ancona. As Paul Magdalino shows in Chapter
5, there was method in the schemes of Manuel’s successors, Andronikos I Komnenos (1183—
1185) and Isaac II Angelos (1185-95): by coming to terms with Venice and with Saladin, now
master of Egypt as well as Syria, they might gain possession of the coastline of Palestine.
As late as c. 1190 Byzantium could still manage an operational navy, and it was not without
53 J. Shepard, ‘Silks, skills and opportunities in Byzantium: some reflections’, Byzantine and
Modern Greek Studies, 21 (1997): 256-7; N A . Makarov et al., Srednevekovoe rasselenie na Belom
Ozere (Moscow, 2001), pp. 64-8, 78-92, 217-23; N A . Makarov, ‘Rural settlement and landscape
transformation in northern Russia, AD 900-1300’, in J. Hines et al. (eds), Land, sea and home:
proceedings o f a conference on Viking-period settlement at Cardiff, July 2001 (Leeds, 2004), pp. 56-69;
N.A. Makarov, ‘Cultural identity of the Russian north settlers in the 10th—13th centuries: archaeological
evidence and written sources’, in J. Nuorluoto (ed.), The Slavicization o f the Russian North. Mechanisms
and chronology (Slavica Helsingiensia 27) (Helsinki, 2006), pp. 259-81.
54 B.A. Kolchin et al., Usad’ba novgorodskogo khudozhnika XIIv. (Moscow, 1981), pp. 114-29,
136-49; Noonan and Kovalev, “‘Wine and oil for all the Rus’!”’, pp. 134, 138. See also, for hints of
Byzantine craftsmen and even unlettered persons at work in Rus, I. Sevcenko, ‘To call a spade a spade,
or the etymology of Rogalije\ Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 19 (1995): 609-11, 614-16; L.A. Beliaev
and A.V. Chernetsov, ‘Novye nakhodki khudozhestvennogo remesla’, in AV. Chernetsov et al. (eds),
Velikoe kniazhestvo Riazanskoe. Istoriko-arkheologicheskie issledovaniia i materialy (Moscow, 2005),
pp. 180-2, 184-5.
55 For an exhaustive catalogue of references to Rus in Byzantine sources, see M.V. Bibikov,
Byzantinorossica. Svod vizantiiskikh svidetel stv o Rusi (Moscow, 2004).
INTRODUCTION xli
sympathisers among churchmen in the Holy Land, some of them Greek-speakers.56 These
projects came to nothing but, as Magdalino shows, they did not look doomed. Isaac’s hopes
were fanned by a series of predictions made by Dositheos, the churchman whose promotion
he ensured firstly to the patriarchate of Jerusalem and later to Constantinople’s. This may be
taken as an instance of shadow-chasing, but a certain sense of destiny, whether individual
or collective, was what provided the Byzantines with resilience through times of military
setbacks and material want.
(X)
By the time Isaac II was making his overtures to Saladin, the island of Cyprus was the power-
base of another member of the Komnenos dynasty, also named Isaac, who styled himself
basileus, while some population-groups living to the north-west of Constantinople were up in
arms. Their depredations would eventually lead to the formation of a second Bulgarian empire.
However, as Robert Lee Wolff shows in Chapter 11, the prime movers of the insurrection in
1186 were two brothers of Romance-speaking - Vlach - stock, Peter and Asen. They had the
support of fellow-Vlachs of the Haemus mountain region, while cavalry was provided by
steppe-nomads, the Cumans.57 Slavic-speaking Bulgarian agriculturalists were not prominent
in the earliest stages of the revolt. In fact the Vlachs’ initial quarrel with the emperor was over
taxation, with Peter and Asen reacting furiously after their petitions were rebuffed. These
uplands herdsmen were objecting to unaccustomed tax-demands by a government reeling
from the sack of Thessaloniki by a Norman army in 1185. Isaac II Angelos, himself an
accidental emperor, lacked the military talents to stamp down on the Vlachs’ raiding, while
more competent generals sent to deal with them fancied the throne for themselves. The town
of Tmovo became the main base of the rebellious brothers, a ‘throne town’. The relics of John
of Rila, the most celebrated Bulgarian holy man of the tenth century, were solemnly translated
there, in a bid to gain legitimacy for the Bulgarian polity resurrected.58
But for all its military successes ‘the loose conglomeration of Balkan peoples in revolt led
by the Vlachs Peter and Asen and later by their brother Ioannitsa [Kalojan]’59was fissiparous.
Rival warlords and local magnates began to proliferate in the eastern Balkans. It was the onset
of the Fourth Crusade and its challenge to the reigning emperor, Alexios III (1195-1203) that
provided fresh opportunities and Kalojan, who had outlived his brothers, duly seized them,
negotiating for papal recognition of his imperial status. Eventually, in 1204, he gained from
56 Magdalino, ‘Isaac II, Saladin and Venice’, pp. xxxvi-xxxvii. See also J. Pahlitzsch, Graeci
und Suriani im Palàstina der Kreuzfahrerzeit. Beitráge und Quellen zur Geschichte des griechisch-
orthodoxen Patriarchats von Jerusalem (Berlin, 2001), pp. 191-3, 196-7, 200-13, 245.
57 On the Cumans’ role in the insurrection, see V. Spinei, The great migrations in the east and south
east o f Europe from the ninth to the thirteenth century, trans D. Bâdulescu (Cluj-Napoca, 2003), pp.
272-80.
58 D.I. Polyviannyi, K u l’turnoe svoeobrazie srednevekovoi Bolgarii v kontekste vizantiisko-
slavianskoi obshchnosti IX-XVvekov (Ivanovo, 2000), pp. 133-4.
59 Wolff, “Second Bulgarian empire”, p. 189.
xlii INTRODUCTION
Pope Innocent III a crown symbolising his rule as king and recognition of his top churchman
as ‘primate’.60
Even while pursuing diverse agendas and themselves short of funds, the parties joining
forces for the Fourth Crusade proved more than a match for the Byzantine government.
Between the 12th and the 15th April 1204 the Crusaders stormed into Constantinople and
sacked it, and the empire of the Romans dissolved. The resultant vacuum in unimpeachably
legitimate authority of the traditional kind gave aspiring Balkan potentates the chance to vest
their regimes in universal values, with newly-declared sacral centres and God-given missions
to reign over their peoples. It was, in essence, the unruly expansion of the Latin west that
created the conditions in which Bulgarian and Serb polities could work out their own forms.
And yet, for all the opportunistic negotiations with the papacy on the part of Kalojan and the
Serbian ruler Stefan ‘the First-Crowned’, it would still be the Byzantine church organisation
and imperial order that provided building-blocks and models for their emerging structures.
Some underlying reasons for this are implicit in the chapters already considered. By
1204 Byzantium had undergone cycles of expansion and recession on various levels,
territorial, cultural and economic, and its political thought and religious expectations could
accommodate abrupt reversals of fortune. Lurid as the events of 1204 and their immediate
aftermath were, the self-belief and resilience of the Byzantines were far from exhausted. This
was most palpable a hundred or so kilometres south-east of Constantinople, where a node of
imperial and patriarchal authority formed. At the Nicaean emperor’s court, military virtues
were promoted, doctrinal purity guarded and new thinking about orthodoxy and its ideal
political order stirred.61 From embers such as these,62 the orthodox Roman empire might yet
flare up and re-configure: even the boldest non-Greek-speaking potentate had to reckon with
this possibility. However legitimate and divinely-favoured they considered their own realms,
they could not carry all their monks and churchmen with them, and ecclesiastical discipline
and faith were vital to the political structures they were trying to form. The rulings made and
precedents set by the Byzantine patriarchate and monastic figures were still touchstones of
orthodoxy, and thirteenth-century Bulgarian and Serbian rulers generally found it prudent to
remain in communion - the latter having a special stake in Mount Athos. Past and future could
not be unscrambled.
60 Wolff, “Second Bulgarian empire”, pp. 190-7. See also Stephenson, Byzantium s Balkan frontier,
pp. 309-12.
61 See M. Angold, A Byzantine government in exile: government and society under the Laskarids o f
Nicaea 1204-1261 (Oxford, 1975), pp. 46-59, 182-201; D.G. Angelov, Imperial ideology and political
thought in Byzantium, 1204-1330 (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 98-102, 134-9, 191-7, 204-52.
62 Other embers of imperial order were skilfully re-kindled by the rulers of Trebizond: A.
Eastmond, Art and identity in thirteenth-century Byzantium: Hagia Sophia and the empire o f Trebizond
(Aldershot, 2004), pp. 15-20, 47-60, 117-37, 153-6. In the Balkans, the installation of a new emperor
at Thessaloniki inspired some notions of a concurrent patriarchate: A. Stavridou-Zafraka, ‘The political
ideology of the state of Epiros’, in Laiou (ed.), Urbs capta, pp. 313-23. See also below, n. 102.
INTRODUCTION xliii
(XI)
Part II: After the Fall
Part II focuses on the uses to which Byzantine political and religious orthodoxy were put in
the Balkans and Rus after 1204. Bulgarian and Serbian rulers sought to make their regimes
more credible by aligning court rituals, titles and, more profoundly, laws and concepts of
governance with Byzantium’s. Rus’ princes were differently placed, and less than forty
years after the collapse of the Byzantine empire, they came under the thrall of a militarily
superior people from the steppes, the Mongols. Their relationship with the Mongols served,
paradoxically, to inculcate religious orthodoxy among Rus populations, while also facilitating
travel between the northern forest regions and centres such as Constantinople, Athos and
Tmovo, the circulation of texts and new forms of spirituality and prayer.
These developments, the consolidation of religious orthodoxy and its extension to
fresh populations in the region of the Urals, were played out against conditions of flux in
the former core-regions of the empire. Stephen Reinert, in Chapter 12, traces the ebb and
flow of imperial Byzantine power. Constantinople, known to South Slavs and Rus alike as
Tsargrad (‘Emperor-town’) became the seat of a Byzantine orthodox emperor again in 1261
after the Latin emperor’s flight aboard a Venetian merchantman. Michael VIII Palaiologos
(1258-1282) had to contend with the hostility of westerners who had lost out from these
events, and he attempted to head off a ‘crusade’ by submitting himself and his church to papal
overlordship at the Council of Lyon (1274). This, however, earned him abiding execration
from church leaders opposed to union with Rome, and even his son Andronikos II judged it
impolitic to accord Michael’s body ‘a decent orthodox burial’.63
The position of late Byzantine emperors, tossed between various emergent or occupying
powers and the commercial interests of the Venetians, the Genoese and other western trading
groups, was vulnerable and, as Reinert observes, often melancholy. The Palaiologoi somehow
contrived to be their own worst enemies, grandfathers quarrelling with grandsons, and siblings
vying over the apportionment of territory. But as the chapters below indicate, the patriarchate
was a forceful advocate of the imperial order in Constantinople, and the reputation of the
basileus rode high among Slavic-speaking peoples, perhaps higher than among his Greek-
speaking subjects. Personal oaths of fealty to the emperor could bring the rulers of Epiros
and Thessaly, urban elites, and masterful individuals from all quarters back into line, a kind
of imperial confederation.64And an able emperor such as Manuel II Palaiologos (1391-1425)
could work the many strings to his bow to considerable effect, although it was fellow-
Christians in the west, not South Slavs or Rus, who held out the best prospects of effective
military aid. Diplomatic and socio-cultural ties between the Palaiologoi in Constantinople and
Mistra and western courts remained vibrant long after Manuel’s death, a sense of common
Christian cause could still prompt military action and Byzantine embassies were appealing
for help until the end.65
63 Reinert, ‘Fragmentation’, p. xxx.

64 Angelov, Imperial ideology, pp. 335-44.
65 E. Malamut, ‘Les ambassades du dernier empereur de Byzance’, TM, 14 (2002): 435-48; S.
Ronchey, ‘Orthodoxy on sale: the last Byzantine and the lost Crusade’, in Jeffreys (éd.), Proceedings
xliv INTRODUCTION
(XII)
For all the empire’s mortal tatters, the later thirteenth and fourteenth centuries rank among
the liveliest in the history of Byzantine religious culture, and orthodoxy became deeper
engrained across a wider area than ever before. To a great extent this was due to the initiative
of non-Byzantine rulers, who tried to mould church organisations to their own needs. A
patriarchate was established at Tmovo in 1235, with the consent of the Byzantine imperial
and patriarchal authorities in Nicaea.66 The training of priests and monks was now in the
hands of Bulgarian church leaders fully committed to using Slavic as the language of worship
and study of the scriptures, and Bulgarian patriarchs could the better supervise pastoral care
precisely because their church organisation was small-scale. The ruling establishment had its
reasons for fostering Slavic as a sacred language and inculcating it, given the heterogeneity
of the population-groups - Vlachs as well as Greeks - within the Bulgarian borders. The texts
copied in the scriptoriums - monastic workshops for book-production - were mostly religious
in content. The premium was on diffusing correct doctrine, forms of worship and examples
(through saints’ Lives) of godly living among the overwhelmingly rural communities. The
texts also served the purpose of legitimising and extolling the revived Bulgarian empire.67
Traditional - ninth-century and earlier - Byzantine techniques of physically assembling books
were maintained, but more recent Byzantine styles of ornament were also adopted.68
In depicting their newly separate status Bulgarian rulers and their encomiasts likewise
treated the ancient empire as a point of departure. Their principal cities were extolled as ‘new
Tsargrads’, and when Tsar Ivan II Alexander (1331-1371) commissioned a de luxe manuscript
of a translated Byzantine historical text, the chronicle of Manasses, he was shown in one
of the illuminations standing between Christ and the chronicler, crowned and haloed and
receiving a second small crown from an angel. This scene echoes Byzantine iconography.69
The extent to which the hierarchy of Byzantine dignities and offices was taken as a model
o f the 21st International Congress vol. 1, pp. 313-42; N. Necipoglu, Politics and society in the later
Byzantine empire: Byzantium between the Ottomans and the Latins (Cambridge, 2008 forthcoming).
66 Religious orthodoxy had already been affirmed at Trnovo in 1211 by Kalojan’s successor, Boril,
who issued a synodikon containing anathemas of the Dualist Bogomils: Monumenta Bulgarica, ed. and
trans T. Butler (Sofia, 1996), pp. 206-09.
67 Polyviannyi, K u l’turnoe svoeobrazie srednevekovoi Bolgarii, pp. 146-9, 156-60, 162-8; G.
Podskalsky, Theologische Literatur des Mittelalters in Bulgarien und Serbien, 865-1459 (Munich,
2000), pp. 247-9, 313-14, 482.
68 A. Dzurova, V ’vedenie v slavianskata kodikologiia: vizantiiskiat kodeks i retseptsiiata mu sred
Slavianite (Sofia, 1997), pp. 174-90 and French résumé, pp. 229-35. For scriptoriums, see N. Ovcharov,
‘Localization of Byzantine, Bulgarian, Serbian and Russian scriptoriums, chancelleries and archives of
the 9th-14th century’, Bsl, 64 (2006): 203-12.
69 For the two portrayals of Ivan Alexander being crowned in this codex, see I. Dujcev, The
miniatures o f the chronicle o f Manasses (Sofia, 1963), nos 1, 33 (folios lr, 91v). Dujcev (p. 127)
suggests that the Bulgarian artist replaced portraits of Manuel I Komnenos which he found in his source,
an illuminated Byzantine manuscript of Manasses. See also A. Grabar, L ’empereur dans I ’art byzantin:
recherches sur l ’art officiel de l ’empire d ’Orient (Paris, 1936; repr. London, 1971), pp. 105-06, 120-2
and plate XXIII.2; A. Bozhkov, T ’rnovska srednovekovna khudozhestvenna shkola (Sofia, 1985), pp. 44,
175, 178, plate 14 on p. 25.
INTRODUCTION xlv
of political order is registered in the number of administrative terms of the second Bulgarian
empire borrowed from Byzantine usage (Chapter 13). These borrowings were deliberate and
systematic. The basileus’ court and the governance emanating from it served as a gold standard
which no ‘upwardly mobile’ neighbour aspiring to legitimate ascendancy could ignore.70And
not infrequently Bulgarian rulers in the later thirteenth and earlier fourteenth century had to
reckon with one or more rival members of their family, or virtually autonomous dynasts.
(XIII)
The Bulgarian rulers presided over populations that had been under Byzantine rule for nearly
200 years, while they could claim illustrious precursors, the Christian princes Boris, Symeon
and Peter. In contrast, the core-lands of the Serbs had never come under intensive Byzantine
occupation, nor could their princes lay claim to local precedents for the polity they were
trying to establish. The grand zupan who stamped his authority on the rest of his kin-group
and made the region of Raska his power-base, Stefan Nemanja, was a ruthless opportunist.
Exploiting Byzantium’s disarray, and especially the passage of the Third Crusade through
the Byzantine lands in 1189-90, he seized strongholds such as Nis and later negotiated with
the emperor, obtaining recognition of many of his gains and the emperor’s niece as bride for
his son, also named Stefan.71 Yet he subsequently joined another of his sons, Sava, on Mount
Athos, became joint-manager with Sava of the monastery of Chilandar, had his rights over it
confirmed by imperial chrysobull, and died there in 1199. Sava combined personal saintliness
and intellect with concern for administrative order and his father’s name. In 1206 or 1207
the relics of Stefan Nemanja were borne from Athos to the monastery-church of Studenica
he had founded, and the cult of this ‘holy ruler’ began to take hold. The translation of the
relics was the work of Sava who also wrote a Life of his sainted father and became abbot of
Studenica. Although no longer residing on Athos, he was still a frequent visitor. Such goings-
on were not to the disadvantage of Sava’s brother, grand zupan Stefan, who was in effect
directing the secular side of the family concern, while also serving as honorary chief ‘founder’
of Chilandar.72 The Serb ruling family’s commitment to eastern orthodoxy of Byzantine stamp
was reinforced in 1219 when Sava was ordained ‘archbishop of Pec and of all Serbia’ by the
orthodox patriarch in Nicaea, his standing being confirmed by a synodal decree issued with
the emperor’s authority. In this, as in other cases, coterminous ecclesiastical organisation gave
territorial definition to an embryonic polity.73
Through harping on parallels with scriptural figures and reworking the sacred past,
literary apologists for the Nemanjid dynasty (including its own members) sought to bring a
sense of common purpose to disparate subject-populations, a new Israel with a mission from
70 Polyviannyi, KuVturnoe svoeobrazie srednevekovoi Bolgarii, pp. 142-3. See also I. Biliarsky,
Hier archia. L ’ordre sacré (Fribourg, 1997), pp. 74-86.
71 Stephenson, Byzantium s Balkan frontier, pp. 300-01.
72 D. Obolensky, Six Byzantine portraits (Oxford, 1988), p. 130.
73 For Sava’s administrative measures and diatribe against ‘heretical’ beliefs upon returning to
Serbia, see ibid. pp. 155-6; A. Roach, ‘The competition for souls: Sava of Serbia and consumer choice in
religion in the thirteenth-century Balkans’, Glasnik (Institut za nacionalna istorija, Skopje, Macedonia),
50 (2006).
xlvi INTRODUCTION
God.74 The opportunities for ‘nation-building’ which orthodox political and religious culture
afforded were more alluring than what was on offer from the Latin west, and grand zupan
Stefan’s receipt of a crown from the papacy in 1217 did not lead to re-alignment of Serbian
religious faith or rituals with those of the Latin church. Of more enduring significance was
the ruling family’s association with Athos and patronage of ‘the Holy Mountain’, its sacral
rallying-point. The formidable prince Milutin (1282-1321) still looked to Athos as a source of
senior churchmen and spiritual guidance after overrunning Byzantine territories as far south
as Prilep and Ohrid. It was during his reign that the concept of the Nemanjid dynasty as
holy family was fully elaborated in wall-paintings, showing their family-tree akin to that
of Christ’s.75 This did not, however, wholly resolve issues of succession, and Milutin’s self-
aggrandisement occurred against a background of simmering rivalry with his brother Dragutin.
It was here that the Byzantine template of monarchy was of use, and Milutin’s marriage in
1299 to Simonis, infant daughter of Andronikos II Palaiologos (1282-1328), greatly helped
in his efforts to transform his court into a picture of harmony.76
Milutin’s grandson Stefan Dusan took this still further, aspiring to parity with his
Constantinopolitan counterpart in rank and proximity to God. Dusan exploited Byzantium’s
own internal power-struggle to seize more Byzantine territories, reaching as far as the
Chalkidike peninsula, on whose northernmost promontory stood Mount Athos. Just before
proclaiming himself ‘emperor of the Serbs and the Greeks’, Dusan made a compact with the
monks of Athos: they accepted him as their overlord, offering prayers for his soul in return.
Subsequently Dusan and his family gained sanctuary on the Holy Mountain at the height of
the Black Death. Dusan was lavish with his gifts, and not only to the house which his ancestor
Stefan Nemanja had founded, Chilandar (Chapter 14).
Dusan’s conception of his special relationship with God took multifarious forms, visual
and legislative. Among the pictorial evocations of rulership that he commissioned at his
church of Lesnovo is the ‘holy wisdom’ which enlightens the ruler, informing his guidance
of his people. This is discussed in Chapter 16, where the Byzantine conceptual framework
for Dusan’s sense of mission to lead his subjects from sin to purity and spiritual illumination
is investigated. The images at Lesnovo were painted in the very year Dusan promulgated
an elaborate law-code, 1349. The code was promulgated together with a Byzantine treatise
synthesising secular and church law composed in Thessaloniki some years earlier and another
Byzantine text, The Farm er’s Law; both translations were in shortened form.77 The ‘Charter’
accompanying Dusan’s code avowed his ‘desire to enact certain virtues and truest laws of the
74 B.I. Bojovic, L'idéologie monarchique dans les hagio-biographies dynastiques du moyen âge
serbe (Orientalia Christiana Analecta 248) (Rome, 1995), pp. 322-57, 368-87, 406-16, 675-7, 689-98;
A. Eastmond, ‘“Local” saints, art and regional identity in the Orthodox world after the Fourth Crusade’,
Speculum, 78 (2003): 707-17, 741-9; Cirkovic, The Serbs, pp. 34-6, 58-61. The sense of constituting a
new Israel was not unknown to the Bulgarians: I. Biliarsky, ‘Ot mifa k istorii ili ot stepi k Izrailiu’, ZRV1,
42 (2005): 10-11, 13-14, 18-21.
75 S. Curcic, ‘The Nemanjic family tree in the light of the ancestral cult in the church of Joachim
and Anna at Studenica’, ZRVI, 14-15 (1973), 191-5.
76 E. Malamut, ‘Les reines de Milutin’, BZ, 93 (2000), 500-05.
77 One of the versions closest to the lost original text of Dusan’s law-code has been translated
into English by D. Krstic in Zakonik Tsara Stefana Dusana, ed. M. Begovic et al. (3 vols, Belgrade,
1975-97), vol. 2, pp. 235-62. See also Obolensky, Byzantine commonwealth, pp. 318-20; Z. Gavrilovic,
INTRODUCTION xlvii
orthodox faith to be adhered to’, thus subsuming civil regulation within guardianship of the
faith.78 The code was intended for practical purposes and an updated version incorporating
Dusan’s most recent edicts was promulgated in 1354. Thus art, pious pronouncements and
legal practices deriving from Byzantium were orchestrated to help consolidate Dusan’s realm.
Dusan was emulating the basileus at Constantinople, he was an opportunist and he may have
been aiming to seize Thessaloniki just before his untimely death in 1355.79 But it is unlikely
that he was aiming to seize Constantinople outright, in the manner of a barbarian. Besides his
well-known acknowledgement of the primacy of ‘the emperor of the Romans’ in the pecking
order of prayers offered up by the monks of Athos, Dusan takes for granted the existence - and
by implication the legitimacy - of ‘the Greek throne’ in the autobiographical note transmitted
by one late copy of his law-code. Sima Cirkovic draws attention to this suggestive phrase in
Chapter 15.80
(XIV)
Important as were the initiatives of local rulers in implanting religious orthodoxy in their
lands, the Constantinopolitan patriarchate showed tenacity and a measure of statesmanship
in addressing the problems which political fragmentation brought its flock. The calibre of
senior figures in the church during Byzantium’s last centuries receives due recognition in
Chapters 20 and 21. The ‘guardianship of all’ which the patriarchate proclaimed for itself
is borne out by the numerous instances of resolution of disputes, effective pastoral care and
timely reorganisations of sees recorded in its register for the fourteenth century.81 Not all
aspects of this can be addressed in our volume and one important reason for the vigour and
rigour is left largely unexplored: rivalry with the church of the Latins, that is, the western
church headed by the Roman papacy. Not only had the patriarchate suffered a crushing blow
in being ousted from Constantinople in 1204. Orthodox flocks on former Byzantine territories
were targets for evangelisers from the west, intent on luring or compelling them to adopt
the Latin way. In regions such as the Balkans and in areas now under Mongol dominion
western churchmen, monks and friars were also active in the thirteenth and earlier fourteenth
‘Kingship and baptism in the iconography of Decani and Lesnovo’, repr. in her Studies in Byzantine and
Serbian medieval art (London, 2001), pp. 140, 144-5; above, p. xxix.
78 Trans in Cirkovic, The Serbs, p. 68.
79 S. Pirivatric, ‘On the death of the emperor Dusan’, in M. Kaimakamova et al. (eds), Byzantium,
new peoples, new powers: the Byzantine-Slav contact zone, from the ninth to the fifteenth century
(Cracow, 2007 forthcoming).
80 See also Soulis, ‘Tsar Stefan Dusan’, pp. 127-9; Obolensky, Byzantine commonwealth, pp. 255-
6; Cirkovic, The Serbs, pp. 67-71; L. Maksimovic, ‘L’empire de Stefan Dusan: genèse et caractère’, TM,
14 (2002): 425-7.
81 Obolensky, ‘Late Byzantine culture’, p. 13. The activities of the patriarchate in the fourteenth
century are better-known to us than for earlier periods thanks to the survival of a copy of its register:
Das Register des Patriarchats von Konstantinopel, ed. and trans H. Hunger et al. (3 vols to date, Vienna,
1981-). See more generally, on the patriarchate in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, M. Angold,
Church and society in Byzantium under the Comneni, 1081-1261 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 518-22, 530-
63; J.M. Hussey, The orthodox church in the Byzantine empire (Oxford 1986), pp. 207-11, 246-54,
286-90; Shepard, ‘The Byzantine Commonwealth’, pp. 21-3.
xlviii INTRODUCTION
century, establishing sees and religious houses and trying to gain fresh converts among
eastern ‘schismatic’ Christians and infidels alike.82 The orthodox church authorities’ response
amounted to a hardening of the line, emphasising the differences between orthodox and Latin
practices. Lists of ‘the errors of the Latins’ circulated widely, attempts by churchmen and
monks to warn flocks in Greek-speaking regions and beyond against everyday intermingling
with western Christians and adopting their devotional practices.83
The church leaders’ competitiveness with the Latins went hand in hand with adeptness
at accommodating unsympathetic local powers: churchmen in sees that had long formed part
of the Byzantine empire now had to fend for themselves. Sergey Ivanov notes an apparent
shift in attitudes: the Constantinopolitan church’s assumption of community leadership and
its experience of dealing with the western barbarians and Turkish infidels on its own doorstep
had repercussions for more distant sees.84A sense of urgency in demarcating church discipline
and forms of worship could sharpen leading churchmen’s interest in goings-on in the furthest
reaches of the eastern Christian world. First-hand experience rendered them better-qualified
to offer ‘guardianship of all’ than in the days when the basileus’ writ ran unchallenged on
home-ground.
(XV)
This is illustrated by the case of Rus. As emphasised in Part I, geo-political circumstances

there were unique and Latin churchmen were only to be found in its western parts and major
emporia such as Novgorod and Sarai (seat of the khan of the Golden Horde in the Volga
delta). Nonetheless the Rus’ situation resembled that of most Byzantines in a significant way:
they, too, came under harsh external overlordship. After the Mongols’ onslaught in the mid-
thirteenth century, Rus princes and churchmen had neither means nor motivation to aspire to
their own separate church organisation, in the manner of the Bulgarians and the Serbians. The
senior churchman in Rus retained the rank of ‘metropolitan of Kiev and all Rus’ although the
political centres lay north of Kiev in the principalities of Tver and Moscow, or in the western
regions of Rus under the domination of the still-pagan Lithuanians. It was Moscow that
eventually, in the earlier fourteenth century, became the residence of the metropolitan, and
Greeks were still being assigned to take up office there in the mid-fifteenth century.85 In fact
the two centuries or so of domination by aliens saw Rus culturo-religious ties with Byzantium
tightening, while pastoral work by monks drew in outlying regions. To a large extent this can
be put down to the compact leading churchmen and princes of Rus made with the Mongol
leadership, to local Christians’ initiatives and to the Rus mindset, looking back to Byzantium
82 A. Ducellier, ‘Balkan powers: Albania, Serbia and Bulgaria (1200-1300)’, in Shepard (ed.)
Cambridge history o f the Byzantine empire; P. Jackson, The Mongols and the west, 1222-1410 (Harlow,
2005), pp. 257-60; Ivanov, ‘Mission impossible’.
83 For the lists and their significance, see T.M. Kolbaba, The Byzantine lists: errors o f the Latins
(Urbana IL, 2000). See also T.M. Kolbaba, ‘Meletios Homologetes On the customs o f the Italians' ,
REB, 55 (1997): 137-68; A. Nikolov, “‘A useful tale about the Latins”: an Old Bulgarian translation of
a lost Byzantine anti-Latin text of the end of llth-early 12th century’, Scripta & e-scripta, 1 (2003):
99-119.
84 Ivanov, ‘Mission impossible’, pp. xxxvi-xxxvii; above, p. xliii.
85 J.L.I. Fennell, A history o f the Russian church to 1448 (London, 1995), pp. 171-3.
INTRODUCTION xlix
as a place of cultural origin. But it also owes something to the qualities of ‘guardianship’
of the Constantinopolitan patriarchate and to the vitality of monastic centres such as Mount
Athos, ‘the school of the monks, workshop of virtue’.86
Several chapters in Part II illustrate the directions in which Rus political culture and
Christian living evolved beneath the dominance of semi-nomads residing in the steppes to the
south, yet long able to intimidate, and mustering hordes to menace Moscow even in the late
fifteenth century. The directions are diverse, even contradictory, yet a rationale is discernible.
Having witnessed mass-destruction, princes and churchmen bowed before the inevitable
and acknowledged the authority of the Mongol khan as being worldwide and ordained by
God. Michael Chemiavsky points this out in Chapter 17, observing that the khan is called in
Rus sources ‘tsar’, a term equivalent to Greek basileus with connotations of unimpeachable
legitimacy. He also draws attention to the charters (iarlyki) that khans issued to successive
metropolitans: in return for their sweeping privileges, Rus churchmen must pray for the khan,
and ‘if any clergyman prays with mental reservations, he commits mortal sin’.87
The basileus in faraway Tsargrad was in eclipse. Yet the eclipse was not total, and
contemporary Rus literary sources have several layers of meaning, as Charles Halperin
makes clear in Chapter 18. Rus writers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, clergy almost
to a man, seldom dilate upon ‘Mongolica’. Yet these chroniclers and hagiographers were
knowledgeable about the geography of the steppes and the customs, hierarchy and personnel
of their overlords. ‘Familiarity with the Tatar language’, concludes Halperin, ‘must have
been far greater than the medieval Russian sources allow’.88 They observed a kind of self-
denying ordinance, taking for granted their readers’ all too close acquaintance with Mongols
and leaving much unsaid. Such demonstrable reticence about the Mongols may also put in
perspective Rus narrative sources’ tendency towards taciturnity about the Constantinopolitan
patriarchate and indeed about Byzantine affairs in general. This was neither a mark of hostility
nor of ‘airbrushing-out’ (as it was in the Mongols’ case); nor does it necessarily betoken
blithe indifference towards a superseded superpower. If David Miller’s early Rus has ‘many
frontiers’, these entail many layers in the literary sources - for the fifteenth century, as for
the eleventh. Grim realities, together with distant affiliations taken for granted, tended to fall
outside the fairly narrow scope of princely-oriented chronicles.
The material benefits which the church in Rus reaped from acknowledging the Mongols’
dominion are outlined by Sergei Hackel in Chapter 19. The church’s lands and their inhabitants
were exempted from all military service and from taxation, while the khan’s writ ran far
more effectively in Rus than any basileus’ or, indeed, most Rus princes’ ordinances had done.
The lands of the monasteries were privileged likewise. The upshot was, as Hackel shows, a
massive expansion of the properties owned by clergymen and monks: secular landowners made
generous donations while peasants moved willingly onto estates whose landlords, themselves
tax-exempt, could afford to demand less of them by way of rents and labour services. This
process coincided with a general shift in settlement-pattems in Rus, away from the ‘compact
nests’ of the pre-Mongol era. A new pattern emerged, of small settlements dotted across what
86 Register des Patriarchats, no. 156, ed. and trans Hunger et al., vol. 2, pp. 428-9; D.M. Nicol,
Church and society in the last centuries o f Byzantium (Cambridge, 1979), p. 19.
87 Cited by Cherniavsky, ‘Khan or basileus’, p. 467.
88 Halperin, “‘Know thy enemy’” , p. 173.
1 INTRODUCTION
had hitherto been wilderness. In regions such as that of Lake Beloe Ozero it seems that parish
churches and churchyards did not keep pace with this process of diffusion: they tended to stay
put on the sites of the earlier settlements near lakes and rivers. This would seem to reflect popular
preference for traditional sacred places. Yet evidence of Christian proclivities in burial-rites even
in the backwoods in the fourteenth and fifteenth century is quite full. This may have something to
do with the pastoral care provided by monks, or simply the spectacle of their piety. In contrast to
parish churches, the monasteries founded from the later fourteenth century onwards were mostly
in ‘virgin’ lands, fostering when not following the opening-up of forests near Beloe Ozero and
elsewhere, and in the 1420s a monk settled on the island of Solovki in the White Sea.89 This
was an era when individual holy men were inspired to seek out the unconverted, and St Stephen
devised a special alphabet for the people of Perm and other Finnic-speakers in the vicinity of the
Urals, translating the scriptures into their language (Chapter 22).
The precise interrelationship of all this with the Mongols’ privileging of the Rus church
cannot be calibrated, and ascetics such as Stephen had little use for the things of this world.
But a solid material base was now at the disposal of churchmen and the beautiful first church
Stephen built for the Permians will have cost money, as also the later ones equipped with
‘icons and books’. Earlier, in the monastery in Rostov where he received his tonsure, Stephen
had, according to his hagiographer, learnt Greek, always kept Greek texts in his cell and was
himself a good copyist of ‘holy books’.90 Such activities hint at the back-up for both scholarship
and pastoral care which the church’s privileged landholdings could yield. It also brings us
back to the question of the part played by churchmen and holy men from Constantinople and
other orthodox centres far to the south.
While the initiative for turning for guidance to the Constantinopolitan patriarchate
and to monks on Athos and elsewhere in the orthodox world came from northerners, the
responses sent to them were often of inherent merit, making allowance for circumstances.
When in 1276 the bishop of the see of Sarai consulted the patriarchal council on issues he
was facing in the great encampment, the council made concessions on ritual, for ‘nomadic
peoples have no settled place of their own’.91 Although appointed by the Rus metropolitan,
Bishop Theognostos was a Greek-speaker, and he and his successors served as go-betweens
of the khans and the Constantinopolitan authorities, while also brokering the frequent visits
paid by the metropolitans and princes of Rus to the khan’s court. In fostering this Christian
out-station, the patriarchs of Constantinople were acting in tandem with the emperors, who
generally sought amicable relations with the Golden Horde, potential enforcers of stability
on their northern approaches and allies against the Turks. Three illegitimate daughters of the
first Palaiologan emperors were married to khans. Thus dynastic ties enlivened the Byzantine
ecclesiastical presence on the Lower Volga through most of the later thirteenth and first half
89 Makarov et al., Srednevekovoe rasselenie, pp. 207-16, 224-5; Makarov, ‘Rural settlement’, pp.
63, 70-1; A.E. Musin, Khristianizatsiia novgorodskoi zemli v IX -X IV vekakh. Pogrebal’nyi obriad i
khristianskie drevnosti (St Petersburg, 2002), pp. 76, 105-06, 108-09, 204-07; S. Rock, ‘Russian piety
and orthodox culture 1380-1589’, in Angold (ed.), Eastern Christianity, pp. 266-8.
90 Epifanii Premudryi, Zhitie sviatogo S te f ana episkopa Permskogo, ed. V.G. Druzhinin (St
Petersburg, 1897), pp. 7-8, 22, 34; Meyendorff, ‘Cultural ties’, p. 136; Price, ‘The holy man and
Christianization’, pp. 226-8.
91 Trans in Hackel, ‘Under pressure from the pagans?’, p. 51; Ivanov, ‘Mission impossible’, p.
xxx vi.
INTRODUCTION li
of the fourteenth century, reaching across the pax mongolica. Similar diplomatic calculations
informed Byzantine interest in the affairs of Rus itself,92 even as the Mongols’ privileges for
the church served to consolidate Christian observance at grassroots in Rus.
The virtual ‘meltdown’ of the Palaiologan governance and treasury in the mid-fourteenth
century93 made emperors less effective as partners for the Constantinopolitan patriarchate,
while prolonged turbulence in the Golden Horde rendered the khans, for their part, less useful
to Byzantium as guarantors of order in the north. And the Moscow princes’ longstanding
deference towards the Mongols left them vulnerable in the face of rival claimants to leadership
of the Horde.94 Nonetheless the interest of senior Byzantine churchmen in the north remained
close - and not only in Moscow. Some saw opportunities in the pagan Lithuanians’ expansion
across Rus: the population was largely orthodox and certain members of the Lithuanian ruler’s
court showed orthodox leanings.95
(XVI)
The Byzantines were well-aware of the advantages, moral and potentially military, accruing
to them from the adherence to their faith and church of vast populations to the north. It was in
letters addressed to ‘the noblest kings’ of Rus that Patriarch Philotheos in 1370 described how
he picked ‘the best men and those most distinguished in virtue’, consecrated them as pastors
and bishops, and ‘sends them to the various parts of the inhabited world’.96 Here Philotheos
put his finger on an asset of the Byzantine church that became all the more valuable as the
empire’s material resources dwindled: its human resources, well-educated, highly-motivated
personnel with few qualms about assignments to remote outposts - and who remained in touch
with one another. Dimitri Obolensky drew attention to this, both in the chapter published here
and in what became a chapter in his book, Six Byzantine Portraits. The chapter was devoted
to Cyprian: Bulgarian-born, he served as an emissary for the Constantinopolitan patriarchate
and ended up metropolitan of Kiev and all Rus, residing in Moscow.97 Cyprian’s renown as
diplomat, pastor and scholar tends to eclipse one simple feature of his career. He chose to
align himself with the patriarchate even though there was, until 1393, a functioning Bulgarian
patriarchate which he might have served instead. And the Constantinopolitan patriarchate
92 J. Meyendorff, Byzantium and the rise o f Russia. A study o f Byzantino-Russian relations in

the fourteenth century (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 46, 69-71, 148-57. On the marriages of Palaiologan
daughters to the khans, see also S. Runciman, ‘The ladies of the Mongols’, in N.B. Tomadakis (ed.), Eis
mnëmën Konstantinou Amantou (Athens, 1960), pp. 46-53; C.L. Connor, Women o f Byzantium (New
Haven CT, 2004), pp. 311-16.
93 Reinert, ‘Fragmentation’, p. xxxiv.
94 Meyendorff, Byzantium and the rise o f Russia, pp. 160-72, 181-6, 200-21.
95 See D. Baronas, ‘The three martyrs of Vilnius: a fourteenth-century martyrdom and its
documentary sources’, Analecta Bollandiana, 122(2004): 113-16,119-20; D. Baronas, ‘Byzantium and
Lithuania: north and south look at each other’, in Kaimakamova et al. (eds), Byzantium, new peoples,
new powers.
96 Acta patriarchatus constantinopolitani, ed. F. Miklosich and J. Müller, (2 vols, Vienna, 1860-
62), vol. 1, p. 521; Obolensky, ‘Late Byzantine culture’, p. 13.
97 Obolensky, ‘Late Byzantine culture’, pp. 13-16, 23-5; Obolensky, Six Byzantine portraits, pp.
173-200.
Hi INTRODUCTION
soon put him to work in regions where Slavic as a mother-tongue would be of particular
use. The recruitment and promotion of Cyprian says much for the patriarchate’s pre-existing
stature, and for its talent-spotting capabilities.
That the Constantinopolitan church leadership had the acumen to enlist multilingual
talents is merely one facet of the revitalisation of religious orthodoxy during the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries. The patriarchate was now well-geared to supervising pastoral work
across huge tracts of steppe and forest. In addition, ample quantities of funding, translated
texts and bilingual personnel were to be found on Athos, or in religious houses affiliated with
the Holy Mountain in one way or another. Athos had had distant horizons since its early days
as a monastic centre, reaching to the Georgians in Caucasia and to the land of Rus,98 and we
have already noted its importance as a sacral rallying point for the Nemanjids. Closer links
were forged with the patriarchate, as imperial power corroded, and the Mountain came under
its formal jurisdiction in 1312. The monks also had many personal ties with the patriarchate:
several patriarchs of the fourteenth century had spent time on the Mountain, including Kallistos
(1350-1353; 1355-1363), Philotheos Kokkinos (1353-1354; 1364-1376) and Anthony IV
(1389-1390,1391-1397)." Aparticularly strong current of spiritual contemplation and ascetic
practices known as ‘hesychasm’100 gathered momentum in the milieu of Athos and swept
across the orthodox world, gaining enthusiasts in the patriarchate and powerful sympathisers
at the Constantinopolitan court. This kind of ‘triangulation’ provided additional channels for
diffusion of a self-confident, even aggressively didactic, regime of psychophysical exercises
and prayer. Figures such as Gregory Palamas were loud in their denunciations of alternative
models of spirituality, advocating techniques for making visions of the divine light available
to monks. As a kind of ‘fundamentalist’, Palamas saw little place for argument by means of
reasoning, a malpractice of the detested Latins.101
The hesychasts’ concentration on key prayers and exercises, indifference to hardships
and outspoken distrust of ‘worldly wisdom’ were well-attuned to Slavic-speaking milieus
lacking in powerful political courts or centres for intellectual training. Not that there was
total disregard for the written word. Dread of faulty manuscripts introducing false doctrine
and ritual into worship stimulated demand for pure texts and (among Slavic-speakers) for
98 B. Martin-Hisard, ‘Christianisme et Église dans le monde géorgien’, in G. Dagron et al. (eds),

Evêques, moines et empereurs (610-1054) (Paris, 1993) (Histoire du christianisme: des origines à nos
jours, J.-M. Mayeur et al. (eds) (14 vols, Paris, 1990-2000), vol. 4, pp. 573-5; G. Tcheishvili, ‘Georgian
perceptions of Byzantium in the eleventh and twelfth centuries’, in Eastmond (ed.), Eastern approaches,
pp. 201-04; R. Gothóni, ‘Mount Athos during the last centuries of Byzantium’, in J.O. Rosenqvist (ed.),
Interaction and isolation in late Byzantine culture (Istanbul, 2004), pp. 57-69; Obolensky, Byzantine
commonwealth, pp. 295-8, 302-04.
99 J. Meyendorff, ‘Mount Athos in the fourteenth century: spiritual and intellectual legacy’, DOP,
42(1988): 157-65.
100 Hesychasm (from hesychia, ‘peace and quiet’) is a contemplative practice focused on attaining
communion with God through inner peace and prayer, and also a term denoting a tendency in fourteenth-
and fifteenth-century Byzantine monasticism.
101 This evaluation of Palamas’ position is made by D. Krausmiiller, ‘The rise of hesy chasm’, in
Angold (ed.), Eastern Christianity, pp. 101-26. For a more sympathetic portrayal of Palamas’ attitude
towards the role of the intellect and reason, see J. Meyendorff, A study o f Gregory Palamas, trans G.
Lawrence (London, 1964).
INTRODUCTION liii
translations of high quality to be made from them. A considerable number of liturgical and
other religious works were retranslated from the original Greek or translated in full for the
first time in the fourteenth century, and new saints’ Lives were written and older ones rewritten
in a mannered style. This in turn stimulated further contacts with Mount Athos as copying-and
translation-centre par excellence, while the patriarchate was highly regarded as the custodian
of accurate texts and doctrine in Constantinople.102 Thus the new rigourism, though wary
of reason as a route towards spiritual illumination, took advantage of the medium of books:
texts and icons, as well as scholarly monks and pilgrims, circulated widely across the Greek-
speaking and Slav-speaking world.103 There is, for example, evidence of quite heavy ‘traffic’
between the Byzantine lands and Rus in the fourteenth century, and a traveller like Ignatius
of Smolensk took for granted the presence of Rus living in Constantinople.104 Their interest
seems to have been in religious texts currently used by the ‘Greeks’, not just in the shrines and
relics of which they were custodians. Stephen, evangeliser of the Permians, had studied Greek
texts while a young monk (above, p. 1).
Stephen’s mission work in the vicinity of the Urals extended the bounds of religious
orthodoxy at a time when the Byzantine emperor was beleaguered in his capital by Turkish
armies. Yet Stephen, or rather his contemporary hagiographer Epifanii, showed awareness
of the empire as a point of reference. Stephen’s death in 1396 is placed ‘during the reign
of the rightly-believing Greek tsar Manuel, reigning in Tsargrad, under Patriarch Anthony,
archbishop of Constantinople ... under the pious grand prince Vasilii Dmitrievich of all the
Rus’.105 Stephen’s evangelisation had been spurred on by expectations of the imminent End
of the world; he may have shared widespread assumptions that the emperor would play a key
role, that he was God’s agent in the grand scheme of things.
Thus an empire apparently moribund in material terms was not only compatible with the
expansion of religious orthodoxy: its plight may even have fanned anxiety that the End was
nigh and there were still souls to be saved. In practice the imperial-ecclesiastical complex in
Constantinople outlasted the upstart patriarchate of the Bulgarians, and took formal charge of
its flock: Tmovo became a mere metropolitanate.106 And the Constantinopolitan authorities,
acting in conjunction with leading monks on Athos and in apprehension of Latin churchmen’s
initiatives from Hungarian and Polish-ruled regions, responded with alacrity to the requests of
102 Obolensky, ‘Late Byzantine culture’, pp. 16-18, 21-2; Meyendorff, ‘Cultural ties’, pp. 122-5,
128-30; Polyviannyi, K u l’turnoe svoeobrazie srednevekovoiBolgarii, pp. 184-99, 201-07; Podskalsky,
Theologische Literatur, pp. 252-63, 297-328, 442-7. See also E. Malamut, ‘La circulation des Ms grecs
en Europe milieu XIVe-milieu XVe siècle’, in V. Giuzelev and A. Miltenova (eds), Medieval Christian
Europe: east and west, tradition, values, communications (Sofia, 2002), pp. 86-9, 100-13.
103 As Obolensky noted, the itinerancy of the leading hesychasts has given rise to the term ‘hesychast
International’: Obolensky, ‘Late Byzantine culture’, p. 26.
104 G.P. Majeska, Russian travelers to Constantinople in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
(Washington DC, 1984), pp. 90-1, 92-3 (text), 283-5 (commentary). See also G.P. Majeska, ‘Russo-
Byzantine relations 1240-1453: a traffic report’, XVIII International Congress o f Byzantine Studies.
Major Papers, 8-15 August 1991 (Moscow, 1991), pp. 27-51; G.P. Majeska, ‘Russian pilgrims and the
relics of Constantinople,’ in A.M. Lidov (ed.), Eastern Christian relics. Vostochnokhristianskie relikvii
(Moscow, 2003), pp. 387-94.
105 Epifanii, Zhitie sviatogo Stefana, p. 85.
106 Podskalsky, Theologische Literatur, pp. 84-5.
liv INTRODUCTION
Wallachian and Moldavian princes, instituting metropolitanates for their respective regimes.
The opening phases of the Moldavian church organisation saw wrangles between alternative
candidates for the post of metropolitan. But the wishes of emperor and patriarch eventually,
in 1416, prevailed, and the upshot was a network of orthodox monasteries and bishoprics
offering closer supervision of Christians living between the lower Danube and the river Prut.
The imperial-ecclesiastical complex was still supplying senior churchmen, texts and a model
for rites of rulership for these new nodes of power when the Council of Florence in 1439
called into question the religious orthodoxy of the complex, in Wallachian and Moldavian as
in Rus eyes.107
(XVII)
The prophets of doom were vindicated in that Constantinople fell to new ‘Ishmaelites’ in
1453. Although this did not trigger Christ’s Second Coming, the orthodox populations of
the Balkans faced life on earth under Turkish occupation. Mehmed II, the conqueror of
Constantinople, moved swiftly to recognise the Greek-speaking orthodox as a self-regulating
community under the direction of their patriarch; political submission was required in return.108
Comparable arrangements were made with church authorities in the Slavic-speaking regions,
but the patriarchate of the Serbs was suppressed some time after 1463.109
Church leaders in the Balkans and the Aegean world had long been assuming greater
responsibilities in their communities and had begun to pull their political weight, as the imperial
order fractured and powers of enforcement waned.110And well before 1453 monastic houses
on Mount Athos were coming to terms with Ottoman military power, gaining confirmations of
land-holdings and privileges from the sultans.111 For all the lip-service monks and churchmen
might pay to ‘the orthodox emperor of the universe’, most were prepared to render that which
was caesar’s unto what was, in effect, the new caesar, a mark of the old imperial order’s
passing. But one must remember that pliability is already discernible in the aftermath of
Justinian’s victories, when the Roman empire lost face and ground to ungodly barbarians in
the seventh century; and this era of spectacular expansion and setbacks is associated with
107 Obolensky, Byzantine commonwealth, p. 305; Obolensky, ‘Late Byzantine culture’, pp. 9-10,
17-18; Biliarsky, ‘Administrative terminology’. For the interplay between Byzantium, Wallachian and
Moldavian princes and churchmen from Lithuanian- and Rus-dominated lands, see A. Elian, ‘Byzance
et les Roumains à la fin du Moyen Age’, in J.M. Hussey et al. (eds), Proceedings o f the X III International
Congress o f Byzantine Studies (London, 1967), pp. 195-203; F.J. Thomson, ‘Gregory Tsamblak. The
man and the myths’, Slavica Gandensia, 25.2 (1998): 5-149; M. Cazacu, ‘Saint Jean le Nouveau, son
martyre, ses reliques et leur translation à Suceava (1415)’, in P. Guran and B. Flusin (eds), L ’empereur
hagiographe. Culte des saints et monarchie byzantine et post-byzantine (Bucarest, 2001), pp. 139-52.
108 S. Runciman, The Great Church in captivity (Cambridge, 1968); A.A.M. Bryer, ‘The Roman
orthodox world (1393-1492)’, in Shepard (ed.), Cambridge history o f the Byzantine empire.
109 Podskalsky, Theologische Literatur, pp. 92-3; Cirkovic, The Serbs, p. 134.
110 A notable example is provided by the able and ambitious archbishop of Ohrid, Demetrios
Chomatenos: G. Prinzing, ‘A quasi-patriarch in the state of Epiros: the autocephalous archbishop of
“Boulgaria” (Ohrid) Demetrios Chomatenos’, ZRVI, 41 (2004): 165-82.
111 E.A. Zachariadou, ‘Mount Athos and the Ottomans 1350-1550’, in Angold (ed.), Eastern
Christianity, pp. 156-62.
INTRODUCTION lv
the eschatological expectations set out in Chapters 2 and 3. The other-worldly realism of
eastern orthodoxy, its capacity for enduring lengthy periods of subjugation from outsiders,
owed something to the belief that the orthodox were God’s people and that His representative
on earth would, against all the odds, re-emerge and prevail.
The compliance of church leaders in Rus towards the Mongol khans, their readiness to
accord them the rank of tsars in lieu of the Byzantine basileus, are the themes of Chapters
17 and 19. They bowed to the inevitable, acknowledging the overwhelming power of infidel
semi-nomads. However, when the princes of Moscow emerged as the main force in north-east
Rus, they found advocates among their orthodox monks and prelates. By the late fifteenth
century Rus encomia and ceremonial were beginning to depict Prince Ivan III (1462-1505)
‘who has shone forth in orthodoxy’ as leader of a new people of Israel, and Moscow as a new
Tsargrad or Jerusalem; it thus became the centre of the rightly-believing world, a world the
Rus expected to end in 1492, at the conclusion of the seventh millennium. This is, in effect, a
variant on themes we have already encountered among the South Slavs in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries.112But it smacks also of eastern orthodoxy as practised by the Byzantines
since their empire’s early years: the accommodation of both Christian imperial triumphalism
and earthly catastrophe within their scheme of things. This amalgam allowed for ebb and
flow - and even simultaneous recession and expansion - in a variety of dimensions, military,
economic, religious and cultural. In short, the Byzantine orthodox world, combining qualities
of an imperial order, church organisation and faith-zone, showed a talent for rebounds. And
with cultural expansion came prospects of replication, of new centres claiming to be bastions
of true religion.
112 ‘Mitropolita Zosimy izveshchenie’, RIB, cols. 798-9; M.S. Flier, ‘Till the end of time. The
apocalypse in Russian historical experience before 1500’, in V.A. Kivelson and R.H. Greene (eds),
Orthodox Russia: belief and practice under the tsars (University Park PA, 2003), pp. 132-6, 152-8;
M.S. Flier, ‘Political ideas and rituals’, in M. Perrie (ed.), The Cambridge history o f Russia, I: From
early R u s’to 1689 (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 389-93. See above, pp. xliv-xlvii.
1
God and the ‘Family of Princes’ Presided Over by the

Byzantine Emperor
André Grabar
A long tradition, extending back to the origins of the Chris-

tian Empire and even further, led the Byzantines of the Middle Ages
to conceive of their foreign policy on two different levels: that of real-
ity and that of historiosophical doctrine. Thus a campaign against the
Goths or the Bulgars, the Russians or the Serbs would be invested,
under the pen of a Byzantine, with the consecrated character of the
irreconcilable struggle between the Empire and the barbarian world.
Likewise, in times of peace, the material reality of the relations be-
tween Byzantium and other countries was in a sense paralleled by a
theoretical reality, that of a World governed by a family of princes
whose hierarchic head was the Emperor of Constantinople.
The ancient doctrine defining the antithesis between the Empire
and the barbarians has long been familiar, as has its prolonged sur-
vival in Byzantium; the only thing needed to complete our under-
standing of the interpretation given to this doctrine in medieval
Byzantium would be to assemble and classify all the characteristic
passages from the authors of the time and the texts of the Russian
chronicles, which adopt the traditional Byzantine phraseology for de-
scribing the situation of the Russian state vis-à-vis the Turkish and
Mongolian peoples. The studies which reconstruct the “family of
princes” theory created at the Court of Constantinople are much
more recent. Thanks to these works,1 we no longer are confronted with
1 Georg Ostrogorsky, “Die byzantinische Staatenhierarchie,” Seminarium
Kondakovianum, VIII ( 1 9 3 6 ), 4 1 - 6 1 . F. Dôlger, “Die ‘Familie der Konige’ im
Mittelalter,” Historisches Jahrbuch, 6 0 ( 1 9 4 0 ), 3 9 7 - 4 2 0 . Cf. his “Der Pariser
Papyrus von St. Denis,” Actes du VIe Congrès International d'Études Byzantines,
I (Paris, 1 9 5 0 ), 1 0 1 - 1 0 2 .
2 THE EXPANSION OF ORTHODOX EUROPE
118 André Grabar
the seemingly insurmountable contradictions, between the notions of

vassalage and independence with regard to Byzantium, which there
were good reasons to apply simultaneously to a single state: for in-
stance, could the princes of Kievan Russia enjoy political independ-
ence de jacto and at the same time be subordinate to Byzantium in
the ideal “family” of princes, headed by the emperor? Moreover,
these studies have detected a central fact: that the growing importance
of the independent states around the Empire had led the Byzantines to
favor and to systematize a doctrine which reflected the political
reality of the Middle Ages more faithfully than the theory of the
Empire-barbarian antithesis. This doctrine, now referring not to
whole peoples but only to heads of governments, no longer rates
them uniformly as “tyrants” (as they appeared when they were con-
sidered from the point of view of an Empire opposed to the barbarian
world), but confers on them the honorific titles of son, brother, and
friend of the basileus. The former “tyrants” are brought into the
family circle of the Emperor of Byzantium himself, and he reserves
for himself only the dignity of pater familias.
This doctrine was especially useful in that it defined the rela-
tions between the Byzantine monarchs and other princes in peace-
time and as a consequence provided a constructive principle for
organizing a world-wide expansion of the Byzantine political influence
without recourse to conquest (whereas the old doctrine of the uni-
versal Empire as the antithesis of the barbarians assumed implicitly
the final conquest of the latter by the head of the Empire). The
Byzantine chancellery could thus use the “family of princes” theory
quite openly in the official documents which it issued and brought
to the knowledge of foreign princes. When addressed as sons, brothers,
or friends of the basileus, the foreign princes regarded these terms
less as a violation of their sovereignty than as a recognition of their
actual political power, which, on an ideal level, was thus integrated
into a universal political system.
The essor of the “family of princés” theory is a result of the
consolidation of the national states around Byzantium, but it also
owes something to Christian ideas. Up to the end of the Empire the
Byzantines took a certain satisfaction in reproducing the accepted
variations on the antibarbarian theme, inherited from pagan an-
tiquity, but it was always in connection with invasions or foreign
THE BUOYANCY OF BYZANTIUM BEFORE 1204 3
The “Family of Princes” 119

wars. On the contrary, outside of these armed conflicts they delighted
in making the most of a foreign prince’s (for instance a Bulgarian’s)
title as son or brother of the reigning emperor, and it cannot be
doubted that for the tsars of Bulgaria as for other “barbarian”
princes, it was their conversion to Christianity which made this new
Byzantine attitude possible. The official application of the theory of
the “family of princes” by the Byzantine chancellery coincides with
the adoption of a generalized policy of sending Christian missions
from Constantinople and with the growing progress of Christianity
in the countries bordering on the Empire. Indeed, this notion of a
“family of princes” was an instrument of Byzantine diplomacy (this
political system did not permit a state to withdraw from subordina-
tion to Byzantium without the shameful stigma of a traitorous
revolt against the head of a spiritual family), and it in no way
excluded the non-Christian (Muslim) princes from the ideal associa-
tion of states; but the primary constant of Christian thought is
clearly manifest in the usage of the two superior titles — “son” and
“brother” — which are reserved for Christian princes only. These
are, moreover, the only titles which express a real bond of relation-
ship (to show the spiritual character, but also the reality — on the
religious level — of this relationship, the epithet irviv/ianKpç, that is,
“spiritual,” was added to the title “brother” or “son” of the emperor).
Sometimes — for the first princes of a dynasty to be converted —
the basileus became the godfather and the prince baptized took the
name of his spiritual father, the emperor: Boris of Bulgaria was
called Michael after Michael III; Vladimir of Russia was called
Basil after Basil II. The non-Christian princes were taken into the
ideal system of the “family of princes,” but with the title of “friend.”
This therefore left them outside the spiritual and Christian family
which formed the nucleus of the association of princes imagined by
the Byzantine chancellery. The last point, as we shall see, is of con-
siderable importance. It is this which permitted the theory of the
“family of princes” to be introduced into the corpus of traditional
doctrines of the Christian Empire.
It has been recently pointed out that the Byzantine theory of the
universal “family of princes” was not the first to imagine a govern-
ment of the world by “brother” princes.2 There were antecedents:
*DoIger, “Die ‘Familie der Konige’,” p. 412f.
120 André Grabar
the emperors of Rome and the kings of Persia, under Galerius, then
under Maurice and Phocas; the universal Roman Empire governed
by the Tetrarchs, the first two of which were brothers and the other
two sons of the Augusti.3 Even farther back, at the court of the Ptolo-
mies (second century b .c . ) , dignitaries not related to the royal
family bore the title of avyyevr¡s, “relative,” with the honors which
this theoretical relationship implied, including the divinization re-
served for real members of the reigning dynasty, and as early as the
Hellenistic courts the bonds of fictitious relationship were defined
with the words ¿SeA</><>?, “brother” and irar^p, “father” ; finally, as
later in Byzantium, the “friends” of the king, occupied a rank
inferior to that of the “ o-uyyevâç,” “relatives.”
But the Roman-Persian antecedent is radically different from the
Byzantine system of the Middle Ages in one essential feature: the
two sovereigns are not brothers unless they share the universe geo-
graphically. It is a purely political conception, without religious
background, and, in this respect Byzantine practice at the time of the
Macedonians and the missions to the Slavs does not derive from the
old theory, or at any rate, if there is any recollection of these ante-
cedents, they are given a religious basis, under the probable in-
fluence of the mass conversions of the barbarian tribes. In contrast,
if not as a direct source of inspiration for the Byzantines of the ninth,
tenth, and eleventh centuries, then as a distant antecedent of a
“family of princes” with a religious basis, the example of the
Ptolomies and the Tetrarchs should be recalled: in both cases the
whole reigning family acquired, from the heads of the families who
held the supreme power and represented gods incarnate, a moral
unity which is essentially religious. These families, united by a
“spiritual” bond, are in some sense extended to the other world, the
abode of the gods who protect and direct the fictitious “family” of
the rulers.
For medieval Byzantium one could assume a similar extension. But
a text which I should like to add to the dossier of “family of princes”
theory makes it more clearly understandable, and in a very curious
way. This text is in the Institutio Regia of Theophylact, Archbishop of
Ochrid in the time of the Byzantine reconquest of Bulgaria. The great
3 Later this system was extended to the Germanic kings who ruled over
different parts of the old territory of the Empire. Ibid., p. 405!

intelligence, the broad learning, and the vigor of this prelate are well
known. Being responsible for directing the ecclesiastical affairs of
Slavicized Macedonia for the benefit of Byzantium, he proved to be
well aware of the work of his predecessors from the time of Great
Bulgaria and of the general problems which the relations between the
Empire and its neighbors posed. He did, once, to be sure, reproduce
in a piece of brilliant rhetoric, the whole arsenal of ancient notions
and terms referring to savage barbarians.4 But in other writings he
gave evidence of being well informed about the successful missions
of St. Clement, disciple of St. Cyril, among the Slavs of Macedonia
and on the pro-Christia.n activities of Tsar Boris.5 In the Institutio
Regia which we shall quote, it is for the benefit of a young prince,
Constantine, son of Romanus IV Diogenes, that Theophylact ex-
plains the principles of imperial government, and he happens, on
this occasion, to contribute some useful specific information on the
historiosophic thought of the Byzantines.
In chapter 12 of the second part of his Institutio Regia (Migne, PG
126, 273, 276), Theophylact writes, to show that piety was necessary
for the emperor:
"Odev ar'Tw (the pious emperor) rà irávra êorai ©eos Kal Trarrjp koí áBe\<f>o<s
Kal< t t paTt.toT'fjs ¡cal rrr/x/iaôç, èv iroXéjXM Kadop6G>v Kal o v veyú p w v rà rp ó -rra ia '
èv à p ’rjvy r à rr¡<; e ív o fíía s (Tv¡nrpo0 1yxoi yxei'os'. T ís ovv oXfiiMTepos t o v t o v

®eov <j>íkov Ix o v to ç ; ris ¡xâXXov èv raîs á"qTTr¡TO<s', rtç iK eêipía
€ipr¡viK(in¿pa', ría o v t i y á p KcvSwevei fw v o s o v t o <¡ t o v Koafiov fic u n X a 'tiv
iravrós. E l y a p &eov filv ó k ím t u o s , I k ú v o <¡ Se ©eov t/uAos' ÚFio/xoAóy^Tai, rà
Sé tü)v Koivá ' Se<T7r¿TTjs ítTTai. roí) KÓdfxov {¡aaiXevs o Oeo<j>i\é<TTaTo<¡.
In other words, for the pious Emperor of Byzantium, God is simul-

taneously Father and Brother, head of the army and comrade in arms,
He Who in time of war ensures victories and in time of peace just
government. Above all, for the Emperor God is a friend; the basileus
has the Master of the universe as a friend, and as a result — are not
the goods of friends common? — the basileus who is loved by God
becomes a universal sovereign himself.
In this suggestive passage, one notes first of all the use, one after
the other, of all the terms which serve in the language of the imperial
chancellery to designate the different members of the “family of
4“Oratio in Alexium Comnenutn;” Migne, PG 126, 288L
6“Vita s. dementis, Bulg. archiep.,” PG 126, ii93f.
122 André Grabar
princes”: irar^p, ¿8e\<j>6s, <#>iXoç. One sees, on the other hand, that in
this context these words are not employed in their usual senses but in
the interpretation given them by Imperial documents, for they are
used in association with other terms of the political vocabulary,
(TTpaTuiiTTj-s, “chief of the (Byzantine) army” and avfifiaxoç, “subordi-
nate allied fighter (foreign auxiliary leader of Byzantine armies).”
Therefore God, who is at once father, brother, head of the army,
fighting ally, and friend of the emperor, guarantees the latter supreme
power over the world, just as, on a terrestrial level, this power rests
outside the Empire on the whole group of members of the “family
of princes,” his brothers, sons, and friends, subordinated to his patria
potestas ; and within the Empire on the heads of his armies, regular
and auxiliary.
This remarkable text is in conformity with the basic ideas of the
Christian Empire and only extends the principles established in the
time of Eusebius and faithfully maintained in Constantinople through
the centuries to the medieval Byzantine doctrine of the “family of
princes.” Since the fourth century it had been understood that the
Christian emperor was a reflection of the celestial Sovereign and that
the Empire of the basileus was an earthly replica of the Kingdom of
God. These general ideas received different interpretations among
different men, milieus, and epochs, but the essential core remained.
It was therefore natural that at the time of the doctrine of the “family
of princes,” the attempt was made to project its fundamental prin-
ciples into heaven and thus to sanctify a realist theory of politics by
presenting it as a replica of an order founded by the celestial
Sovereign. In my study of imperial iconography I have already
called attention to the intentional symmetry maintained in Byzantine
pictures between the representation of the relationship of Christ to
the emperor on the one hand and that of the emperor to his sub-
ordinates on the other.6 Theophylact’s text presents us with a com-
parable situation: the emperor can establish his universal power on
earth, partly by the power of his regular and auxiliary armies and
partly by surrounding himself with other chiefs, whose spiritual
“father” or “brother” or friend he is, because God from his heavenly
throne on high proceeds in an analogous fashion; He also assures
His universal government by assuming simultaneously the titles of
6A. Grabar, L’empéreur dans l’art byzantin (Paris, 1936), pp. 121-122.

father, brother, and friend, of general-in-chief, and of head of vassal
armies.
The parallelism goes very far, and it is immediately apparent that
this image could not have been invented until late, and in a milieu
like Byzantium where the principle of the single Christian monarchy
remained unshaken. Actually, this image, in order to be completely
symmetrical, ought to have shown God having earthly princes as
spiritual sons, other potentates as brothers and friends, and still
other chiefs as generals and vassals. But, in Theophylact, God has
only a single partner, the Emperor of Byzantium, for whose benefit
God becomes by turns the antitype of all his allied princes and of
the chiefs of all his armies. As Sovereign of the World, the Emperor
holds a monopoly of the divine grace reserved to the supreme power
on earth. On the other hand, Theophylact’s scheme sanctifies the
medieval political system of the “family of princes” by representing
God and His assistance as standing behind all the categories of
princes which Byzantine diplomacy sought to ground around the
basileus and thus to prolong — under new circumstances — the
theoretical, and if possible, the real supremacy of the Empire.
2
The Strength of Empire and Capital as Seen Through
Byzantine Eyes
Paul J. Alexander
O n e of the best syntheses in the field of Byzantine history, Charles Diehl’s

famous Byzantium: Greatness and Decline, is devoted partially to an analysis of
Byzantine strength.1In this work the author attributed the powerful position of
the Byzantine Empire in the Middle Ages to elements such as the Byzantine
autocracy, the high quality of its military establishment, the skill of its diplomats,
the efficiency of its administrators, the economic and manpower resources of the
territories controlled by Byzantium and the importance of the capital as its
economic and social center. Naturally Diehl derived his factual information from
the Byzantine primary sources, but it is noteworthy that the pragmatic linking
of facts with the problem of Byzantine greatness is due in all cases to Diehl’s
historical judgment and was not expressed in the primary sources. Byzantine
literature was permeated with the thought of the greatness of empire and capital,
yet the Byzantine sources had, as will be seen, a simple explanation of Byzantine
strength which allowed them to dispense with the kind of historical analysis to
be found, for example, in Diehl’s book. The Byzantines attributed the greatness
of their empire and capital to their supernatural defenders and therefore had
little incentive to develop either a historical analysis of their greatness or a
secular theory of their political development. On the absence of political theory
the late Professor N. H. Baynes remarked: “The subjects of the empire were
convinced that their policy was approved by God . . . And if you believe that,
what profits it to discuss other politics? It would be but a waste of breath.”2For
the same reason the Byzantines never explained in secular terms the strength of
* The substance of this paper was delivered orally at the meeting of the American Historical
Association at Chicago in December 1959. In its present form it owes a great deal to the advice of
Professor Ernst Kitzinger, to whom I wish to express my sincere gratitude.
1 Charles Diehl, Byzance, Grandeur et Décadence (Paris, 1919). English translation: Byzantium:
Greatness and Decline by N . Walford (New Brunswick, N. J., 1957).
2 N. H. Baynes, “The Thought-World of East Rome,” as reprinted in Byzantine Studies and Other
Essays (London, 1955), p. 82.
340 Em pire and Capital Through B yzantine Eyes
mediaeval Byzantium. Yet Byzantine civilization, and especially its literature,

is inspired by the conviction of Byzantine strength and can hardly be understood
without a thorough grasp of its elements and presuppositions. It is the purpose
of this paper to explain in detail the Byzantine view concerning the strength of
capital and empire, as it existed before the crusades shattered Byzantine con-
fidence in their historical destiny.
For the purpose of this discussion the Byzantine self-image may conveniently
be divided into three components : a religio-political ideology or rhetoric; a theory
of kingship based on a specific philosophy of history; and a justification of
empire. Of these three components the most important in Byzantine eyes was
the second. In the following discussion, however, the religio-political ideology
will be placed first because here the classical roots can most clearly be demon-
strated. It should be noted that in any given context these three components are
apt to combine and intermingle. With regard to them, as in fact in most other
respects, Byzantium was indebted to the Biblical tradition, to classical Greece
and to ancient Rome. However, at Byzantium these three sources of inspiration
did not prove of equal strength and authority. The Biblical fount was of course
the strongest and its impact was felt whenever Greek or Roman materials were
adopted at Byzantium. But it is also true that the Hellenic source was operative
at Byzantium only as modified by the Romans. The Byzantine attitude towards
Greece and Rome may be studied with the help of the Byzantine use of the
words “Rome” and “Hellas” and “Greece.” The Byzantines called their capital
“Rome” or “Second Rome” or “New Rome.” They referred to the inhabitants
of the Byzantine Empire as Romaioi and to the Empire as Romania.3 The term
“Hellas” and some of its derivatives, on the other hand, had at an early time
come to refer to paganism or more precisely to the Greek pagan tradition and
normally retained its derogatory sense down to the twelfth century.4Graecia and
Graeci were used occasionally in a neutral or favorable sense but normally
they too had an uncomplimentary meaning. It is surely no accident that the
3 Robert L. Wolff, “Romania: The Latin Empire of Constantinople,” S p e c u l u m , x x i i i (1948), 1-34,
esp. 5 f.; F. Dolger’s “Rom in der Gedankenwelt der Byzantiner,” as reprinted in his Byzanz und die
europaische Staatenwelt (Ettal, 1953), pp. 70-115, esp. pp. 77-98. Dolger’s essay is basic for the
topic of Byzantine ideology. Constantine Porphyrogenitus in the Vita Basilii (Theophanes Con-
tinuatus V, ch. 1, p. 211, ed. Bonn) calls the Byzantine period “the entire duration of Roman rule
at Byzantium.” A specific view of history, that of translatio im'perii (cf. Dolger, pp. 98-101), underlies
this terminology. According to it, the history of Roman rule may be divided into two historical
phases distinguished by the shift of the capital from Rome to Byzantium, but in spite of this transfer
it is the same Roman Empire that ruled from Rome first and from Constantinople afterwards.
(Unless noted otherwise, all Byzantine historians and chroniclers will henceforth be cited from the
Bonn Corpus.)
4 K. Lechner, Hellenen und Barbaren im Weltbild der Byzantiner: Die alten Beziehungen als Ausdruck ,
eines neuen Kulturbewusstseins, Diss. Munich, 1954; cf. the review by P. Lamina, Byzantinische Zeit-
schrift, XLIX (1956), 404-407, and the summary by Lechner in Saeculum, vi (1955), 292-306. On the
pagan connotation of the Hellenic name and the emergence of the new term Helladikoi in the ninth
century, see P. Charanis, “Hellas in the Greek sources of the Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Centuries,”
Late Classical and Mediaeval Studies in Honor of Albert Mathias Friend, Jr (Princeton, 1955), p. 172 f.,
n. 111. Constantine Porphyrogenitus seems to be the only mid-Byzantine author with a favorable
view of the Hellenic name; cf. Lechner, Hellenen und Barbaren, pp. 51-53.
Empire and Capital Through Byzantine Eyes 341
opprobrious meaning of Graecus makes its appearance in Procopius at about the

same time when the term Romania is first found in the more popular language of
Malalas to designate the Byzantine Empire.5 Graecia was meant and felt to be
a denial of all the positive values evoked by the term Romania. This hesitant or
even negative attitude of the Byzantines towards the Hellenic heritage was due,
at least partly, to the memory of Rome’s victories over the Hellenistic states and
of the incorporation of the Greek cities into the Roman Empire, a memory
which compromised the prestige of Greece in the eyes of Rome and Byzantium.
In the Byzantine self-image, then, Hellenic traditions were admitted only to the
extent that they could be de-paganized and harmonized with the Byzantine
claim of being the ruling power of a universal empire.
I. The Religio-Political Ideology.
The development of Constantinopolitan and imperial rhetoric is closely asso-
ciated with the circumstances surrounding Constantinople’s foundation. When
Constantine the Great founded the Second Rome on the Bosporus, he thought of
it as a second capital which he tried to make as similar to the first Rome as
possible. It is well known that before the end of the fourth century resemblance
to Rome was replaced by equality with Rome and that from the sixth century
on Rhomë was used to designate Constantinople. Like every ancient city, Con-
stantinople quickly acquired an official rhetoric by virtue of which it would be
able to compete with the older cities of the Empire. Yet while there exist mono-
graphs on the literary praises of Athens, Rome, and Antioch, a collection and
evaluation of the Laudes Constantinopoleos is still lacking6and only a few random
5 Procopius, Anécdota, 24 §7 (p. 147, 5, ed. Haury) mentions among Justinian’s and Theodora’s
injustices toward the military that “they accused them of being Tp a t k o I, implying that it was quite
impossible for any person born in Hellas to be brave.” Roman contempt for the Greeks is of course
much older than the contemptuous use of the name (cf., for example, Juvenal, hi, 58 ff.). Ducange’s
remarks (Glossarium Mediae et infimae Graedtatis [Lyons, 1688], verbo TpaixoL) are still instructive.
For the neutral use of V p c u K o i as “speaking Greek” (as opposed to “speaking a Slavic language”)
see Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Administrando Imperio, ch. 49 (p. 228, 6, ed. Gy. Moravcsik
and R. J. H. Jenkins [Budapest, 1949]). The term T p a m e l a seems to be used in a friendly sense in
Theodorus Studita, Ejpist. 74 (ed. I. Cozza, Nova Patrum Bibliotheca^ vin, 60 f.).
6 The bibliography on the literary glorification of cities will be found in A. D. Nock, “The Praises
of Antioch,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, x l (1954), 76-82, esp. 76, n. 3. A. P. Rudakov, Ocherhi
Vizantiiskei Kultury po Dannym Grecheskoi Agiografii (Moscow, 1917), ch. iii, pp. 110-137, collected
some items on Constantinople from hagiographie sources. See also R. L. Wolff, “The Three
Romes . . . ,” Daedalus lx x x v iii (1959), 291-311, esp. p. 293 f. In the text following above I use in the
first place an interesting text of the fourth century, Himerius’ Oratio (vil) x li, In Urbem Constan-
tinopolim, ed. Aristides Colonna, Scriptores Graeci et Latini consilio Academiae Lynceorum editi
(Roma, 1951), pp. 168-176. (Incidentally, this is the enigmatic “Aimonius Sophista” from whom a
fragment is quoted by Leo Allatius in the Bonn edition of Georgius Acropolites, p. 205). Himerius*
speech represents an attempt to adapt a Christian rhetoric, probably already developed for Con-
stantine’s city, to the pagan revival under Julian, but if one abstracts from this tendency, it may
serve as an early inventory of the main topics of this rhetoric. The topics of Himerius* speech will be
supplemented by some references to later authors dealing with the Praises of Constantinople, but
the subject deserves full monographic treatment. I abstain from using the Vita loannis Acatii
(.Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca, ed. 3, Subsidia Hagiographica, no. 8a [Brussels, 1957], no. 829;
henceforth abbreviated BHG®) because its date is unknown; it seems to be late.
34% Empire and Capital Through Byzantine Eyes
examples can be given here. According to a fourth-century pagan example of

literary “Praises of Constantinople,” Constantinople is no ordinary city but al-
most a continent transformed into a city.7 She is so large that she has made a
large city out of the waters containing the continent. She extends over all beaches
and all plains and has made land of the sea and forced it to become part of the
city.8 She is the beginning and end of Europe; she rules over as large a part of
Asia as of Europe.9At Constantinople the Black Sea ceases to swell; at Constan-
tinople the Aegean begins; the Bosporus is her neighbor, the Bosporus which, by
being named after Zeus’ mistress Io, foretold that he would nurse in his bosom
a Zeus-born king.10The sea protects Constantinople,11a populous12city inhabited
by a mixed race of natives and heroes who have made it truly an imitation of a
kind of heaven,13a people from beginning to end purified by the gods.14The city
is of great beauty, adorned with gold, by the arts, the senate house, baths,
theaters, her greatest ornament is the emperor.15She is also the home of philoso-
phy and literature.16A notion that is almost invariably found in the “Praises of
Constantinople” is that of Constantinople the imperial city. Inherited from the
first Rome on the Tiber, this epithet remains one of the designations of Constan-
7 Himerius, Oratio (vii) x l i §4 (p. 170, 42, ed. Colonna).

8 Himerius, Oratio ( v i i ) x l i §6 (p. 171, 61, ed. Colonna). On Constantinople as the megalopolis,
cf. Constantinus Porphyrogenitus, Vita Basilii, ch. 7 (Theophanes Continuatus, p. 221) ; Vita Petri
Episcopi Argivorum, BHGZ 1504, ed. I. Cozza-Luzi, Nova Patrum Bibliotheca, ix, Part 3 (Rome,
1888), p. 2.
9 Himerius, Oratio ( v i i ) x l i §4 (p. 170, 45, ed. Colonna).
10 Himerius, Oratio ( v i i ) x l i §5 (p. 170, 48, ed. Colonna). Constantinople’s location at the meeting
place of two continents and the manifold advantages derived by the inhabitants from communica-
tions by sea remained a favorite topic, see Libanius Ep. 114 (ed. Foerster, x, 114) ; Procopius, De aed.
i 5 (pp. 27-29, ed. Haury); cf. also Nock, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, x l (1954), 80, n. 4.
11 Himerius, Oratio ( v i i ) x l i §10 (p. 173, 110, ed. Colonna). Cf. Nicephorus Phocas* harangue to
his troops when he was on the point of capturing the capital, Leo Diaconus in 5 (p. 43).
12 Himerius, Oratio (vii) x l i §11 (p. 173, 13, ed. Colonna). On the large number of houses (and
consequently of inhabitants) at Constantinople see Nock, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, x l
(1954), 80.
13 Himerius, Oratio (vu) x l i §11, (p. 173 f., 118 ff., ed. Colonna). The notion of Constantinople
as the imitation of some kind of heaven seems an adaptation of the Christian topic of ChHstomimesis,
see above n. 6.
14 Himerius, Oratio ( v i i ) x l i §13, (p. 174, 135, ed. Colonna).
16 Himerius, Oratio (vn) x l i §8 (p. 172, 81, ed. Colonna). On the wealth and splendor of Con-
stantinople, on its Senate and the beauty of its churches, see also the Vita Petri Episcopi Argivorum
(above n. 8) p. 2.
16 Himerius, Oratio ( v i i ) x l i §12, (p. 174,125, ed. Colonna). Cf. on literature §2, p. 169,12 Colonna.
On Byzantine pride in its learned men, see the career of the famous philosopher Leo, as told by
several authors, e.g., by Theophanes Continuatus iv 27-29 (pp. 185-192) and Scylitzes-Cedrenus,
vol. ii, p. 169: the Emperor Theophilus refuses to loan Leo’s services to the Khalif at Bagdad “be-
cause he considered it absurd to give others one’s own treasure and to hand over to foreigners the
knowledge of reality [i.e., philosophy] for the sake of which the Roman [i.e., Byzantine] people is
admired and respected by all” (Theophanes Continuatus iv 27, p. 190). On Leo, see recently Cyril
Mango, “The Legend of Leo the Wise,” Recueil des Travaux de VInstitut d’Etudes Byzantines [Bel-
grade], vi (1960) 59-93, esp. 91. Another example of learning as a topic in the Praises of Constan-
tinople in the Vita Petri Episcopi Argivorum (above, n. 8), p. 2.
tinople throughout the centuries, but in the mid-Byzantine period it is often

combined with another, “god-protected.”17
The concept of Rome and the Empire’s eternity, however, could not simply be
transferred to Constantine’s city, as it conflicted with Christian doctrine. Conse-
quently, it was modified into an expression of hope that capital and empire
would last to the end of the world.18 In this connection it is also worthwhile to
mention the belief, also inherited from Rome, in pignora imperii, of which Con-
stantinople was thought to possess for example the Staff of Moses, the Throne
of Solomon, the Constantinian Cross. They related the emperors to their Israelite
prototypes or to their Byzantine predecessors and thus were thought to guaran-
tee the existence of the Empire for a long time to come.19In addition there existed
at Constantinople a well-developed discipline devoted to the interpretation of
astrological phenomena, of dreams, of omina and of the inscriptions and sculp-
tural decoration of columns and statues. Columns and statues especially were
popularly believed to prophesy not only the fate of individual emperors but also
the end of city and empire. The Patria Constantinopoleos, written during the last
years of the tenth century, are full of references to mysterious and threatening
texts and sculptures found on columns at Constantinople. On the Forum Tauri
for example stood an equestrian statue brought to Constantinople from Antioch.
On its square base were engraved “stories of the last fate of the city when the
Russians would be about to destroy the city itself.” As Charles Diehl remarked
a generation ago: “What makes [such accounts] interesting is the Byzantine
belief in the certain and inescapable end of empire and city, this pessimistic feel-
ing which knew and accepted, without resistance and complaint, a limited fate
for capital and monarchy. . . . ”20 Yet even these Byzantine views of the end
of world, capital, and empire, which the texts are fond of describing in terrifying
tones, are colored, as it were, by the warm glow of pride in the capital, the
monarchy, and the empire. One of the basic prophecies describing the end of the
world, the explanatio somnii attributed to the Tiburtine Sibyl and going back to
the fourth century A.D., mentions, during the reign of the Antichrist and immedi-
ately following upon the invasion of Gog and Magog, an interesting episode : the
17 See for example Justinian’s Constitution De Conceptione Digestorum §10, ed. Th. Mommsen
and P. Krueger, Corpus luris Civilis, i, 8 (Cod. lust., ibid., n, 69, I, 17 §10) : “Romam autem
intelligendum est non solum veterem, sed etiam regiam nostram, quae deo propitio cum melioribus
condita est auguriis.” It appears frequently in Theophanes, as p. 485, 12; p. 486, 1 (ed. de Boor, vol.
i) and regularly in Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Vita Basilii (Theophanes Continuatus, e.g., pp.
213, 221, 223, 227 etc.). In official documents this epithet appears frequently joined with another,
“guarded by God,” see for example the protocol of the first session of the Sixth Ecumenical Council
(680 A.D.), ed. Labbé, tom. vn, 629 A. Same combination of epithets in Theophanes, p. 384, 25;
385, 1 (ed. de Boor).
18 Otto Treitinger, Die ostromische Kaiser-und Reichddee . . . , 2nd ed. (Darmstadt, 1956), p. 122.
On this point a characteristic passage is found in Nicephorus Presbyter, Vita Andreae Sali (BHG8
117) of the tenth (?) century (ch. 209, P.G., cxi, 853 B).
19 Treitinger, Die ostromische Kaiser- und Reichsidee, pp. 132-134. Interesting Russian data on
‘pignora imperii in R. L. Wolff, “The Three Romes,” Daedalus, l x x x v i i i (1959), p. 301.
20 Patria Constantinopoleos, n 47 (p. 176,7, ed. Th. Preger). Cf. Ch. Diehl, “De quelques croyances
byzantines sur la fin de Constantinople,*’ B.Z., x x x (1930), 192-196, esp. p. 195 f.
344 Empire and Capital Through Byzantine Eyes
king of the Romans (i.e., the Byzantine emperor) will defeat Gog and Magog, will
journey to Jerusalem, “will lay down his headgear and all his royal attire and
hand over the Christian kingdom to God the Father and Jesus Christ his son.”21
In the prophecy of the Tiburtine Sibyl this episode follows immediately upon the
appearance of Antichrist and the defeat of the tribes of Gog and Magog by the
emperor; it precedes the end of the Roman (Byzantine) Empire.22In the Revela-
tion of Pseudo-Methodius, probably of the seventh century, the same episode oc-
curs, only that here the crown is deposited by the last emperor on top of the Cross
and is taken into heaven together with the latter.23The same feature is found in a
version of the Visiones Danielis, probably of the ninth century.24This motif of the
surrender of royal rule by the last emperor, in fact the figure of this last emperor
itself, is not of Christian origin but is derived from pagan Roman oracles (where
the last emperor surrenders his power to the senate) which in turn may go back to
an oriental prototype.25Whether of Roman or of oriental origin, the effect of this
import into Christian prophecy was that it assigned to the Roman or Byzantine
emperor and empire a central role within the divine plan of history. One might
say — although of course no Byzantine would have said it — that in this view of
history the kingdom of Heaven was no more than an improved, purified, and
infinitely successful version of the Basileus9 earthly kingdom. This figure of the
last emperor and of the surrender of his power to God thus provided for at least
a modicum of continuity from the familiar world of the Byzantine Empire to the
strangeness of the heavenly kingdom and thereby deprived the events of the last
21 Ernst Sackur, SibyUinische Texte und Forschungen (Halle a.S., 1898), p. 186: “Cum autem
audierit rex Romanorum [i.e., of the attack of Gog and Magog], convocato exercitu debellabit eos
atque prosternet usque ad internicionem et postea veniet Jerusalem et ibi deposito capitis diademate
et omni habitu regali relinquet regnum christianorum Deo patri et Iesu Christo filio eius.” On the
date of the text, see Sackur, p. 162. The Greek text of the Tiburtine Sibyl has been discovered in
two manuscripts; cf. S. G. Mercati, “È stato trovato il testo greco della Sibilla Tiburtina,” Annuaire
de VInstitut de Philologie et d'Histoire Orientales et Slaves, ix (1949), 473-481. I plan to comment on
these Greek texts in another context.
22 Sackur, SibyUinische Texte, p. 186: “et cum cessaverit imperium Romanum, tunc revelabitur
manifeste Antichristus . . . .”
23 Revelatio Pseudo-Methodii (BHG3 2036). Latin text ed. by E. Sackur, SibyUinische Texte und
Forschungen, pp. 60-113, esp. p. 93. Greek text edited by V. Istrin, Otkrovenie Mefodia Patarskago,
etc. (Moscow 1897); this monograph was also published by Moscow University in Chteniia of the
Imperatorskoe Obshchestvo Istorii i Drevnostei Rossiiskikh, 1897 and 1898, and it is to this last
publication that reference is made here, see 1897, Part iv, Sect. iii, pp. 45 f. On Istrin’s publication,
see the review by C. E. Gleye, B.Z., ix (1900), 222-228, and on Pseudo-Methodius the article by
M. Kmosko, “Das Ratsel des Pseudomethodius,” Byzantion, vi (1931), 273-296 (according to him,
the original was written in Syriac under Muawiya, 661-680). The deposition of the regalia upon the
Cross naturally presupposes that it is on earth (at Jerusalem). Ernst Kantorowicz, “The King’s
Advent and the Enigmatic Panels in the Doors of Santa Sabina,” A rt Bulletin, xxv i (1944), 207-231,
esp. 226, has examined the ancient tradition of the ascent of the Cross at the time of Jesus’ resurrec-
tion and connected it with the apocryphal Gospel of Peter. Unless Pseudo-Methodius represents a
different tradition, it must be supposed that at the time of the Last Emperor the Cross has already
descended to earth in preparation for Jesus’ Second Coming.
24 Visio Danielis /8 (.BHGZ 1872), ed. A. Vasiliev, Anécdota Graeca-Byzantina (Moscow, 1893), pp.
88-43, esp. p. 43. Cf. also the Vaticinium de futuris rebus Byzantinis (Vita sancti Andreae Sali, cf.
n. 18 above), ibid., pp. 50-58, esp. p. 54 (BHG* 117 d).
28 Sackur, SibyUinische Texte, p. 169 f.
days of some of their terror. The Roman notion of the eternity of capital and
empire thus finds a late expression in this Byzantine idea of an orderly transfer
of power from the last Byzantine emperor to God.
The religio-political rhetoric of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire,
then, which formed part of the Byzantine self-image, presents a curious mixture
of elements. Partly it arose in clear competition with other cities of the Empire
and emphasized Constantinople’s superiority to the more ancient centers with re-
gard to its location on the sea route from the Aegean to the Black Sea and on the
land route from Europe to Asia, as well as the number of its dwellings. In other
respects it adopted topics from the Laudes Romae, such as the epithets of mbs
regia and urbs aeterna, both adjusted in various ways to the Christian religion.
Nothing is as significant for the change from the early Byzantine to the mid-
Byzantine period in this respect as a comparison of the official usage in the sixth
and seventh centuries : Justinian I speaks of the [urbs] regia, the protocol of the
sixth ecumenical council of the “imperial city guarded by God.”26At pagan Rome
the gods’ concern for city and empire had been no more than one among many
topics constituting together the Praises of Rome. At Christian Byzantium the
Christian environment produced, at the latest in the mid-Byzantine period, a
change of emphasis or better: the emergence of an emphasis where there had been
none before.27At Christian Byzantium one feature came to overshadow all other
items in the traditional repertory of religio-political rhetoric: Constantinople and
the Empire are under the protection of God, Christ, and the saints. Of course the
notion that a particular city had its divine protector or protectors was in no way
novel and had been a standard item in the repertory of the praises of cities for
centuries. The novelty consists in the fact that, beginning in the mid-Byzantine
period, this one theme of the repertory grew in importance and frequency at the
expense of the others. This idea had already received a classic formulation in the
sixth century, when the African poet Corippus made the Byzantine Emperor
Justin II reply to a haughty speech by an Avar envoy: “The Roman [i.e., Byzan-
tine] state belongs to God.”28In the seventh century, during the critical years of
the Persian Wars, the poet George of Pisidia and his contemporaries represent
God, Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the other saints as fighting on the Byzantine
side, in fact sometimes taking an active part in combat, as the Homeric gods had
done.29At the end of the tenth century the historian Leo the Deacon tells how the
26 Note 17 above.
27 Cf. W. Gernentz, Laudes Romae (Diss. Rostock, 1918). With the emergence of the emphasis on
divine protection compare A. Grabar’s remarks in L'Empereur dans Vari byzantin (Paris, 1936) on
the disappearance of many themes from the repertory of Byzantine imperial art in the fourth to
sixth centuries and the emergence of Christian symbols beginning with the late sixth century.
28 Corippus, In Laudem Iu$tiniy m 333 (ed. I. Partsch, MGH, Auct. Ant., h i [Berlin, 1879], 145):
“res Romana Dei est, terrenis non eget armis.”
29 Georgius Pisida, Exped. Pers. n 100 (p. 101, ed. Agostino Pertusi, Studia Patrística et Byzantina,
vil, 1959): God the general of the Byzantine armies; in 385 (p. 133, ed. Pertusi) : God the general
of the heavenly and earthly armies; in 401 (p. 133, ed. Pertusi) : Heraclius the hypostrategos under
God’s supreme command; Bell. Avar. 451 ff. (p. 196, ed. Pertusi) : the Virgin Mary, in the thick of
battle, fights invisibly, hits, inflicts wounds, deflects the sword of a Persian, overturns the enemy’s
ships. (Lines 457 ff. show that the poet considers the Virgin’s military activities unusual. The same
view is taken in Chron. Pasck., p. 397). Theodorus Syncellus, the probable author of a homily preached
Emperor John Tzimisces, after his victorious return from Bulgaria, was received
by the inhabitants of the capital urging him to enter the city in triumph upon a
chariot inlaid with gold and drawn by white horses, but the emperor refused and
placed instead upon the chariot’s throne of beaten gold an image of the Virgin
captured in Bulgaria.80
Byzantium’s ambivalent attitude towards the Hellenic heritage, the modifica-
tions made to the belief in the eternity of city and empire, and the new emphasis
on supernatural protection had been the logical consequence of the Empire’s
Christianization. The same process introduced into Byzantine ideology the entire
repertory of Old Testament typology and prophecy. Byzantine emperors, for
example, are regularly compared with Old Testament figures such as Moses,
Elijah, David, etc.31In more general terms the emperor is frequently referred to
as “the Lord’s Anointed.”32The fulfillment at seventh-century Byzantium of Old
Testament narratives and prophecies is the pervading theme of a homily preached
on 7 August 627 at St Sophia by Theodore Syncellus to commemorate the city’s
delivery from the Perso-Avar siege in the preceding year.33The speaker demon-
strates that the Biblical account of the attack by the kings of Syria and Israel
upon Jerusalem and Judah (735 B.C.) was a foreshadowing and a type of the
Perso-Avar siege of Constantinople in A.D. 626. In the course of this demonstra-
tion Constantinople is expressly identified with Jerusalem.34The preacher takes
this identification so seriously that he gives the three Byzantine envoys sent in
one year after the Perso-Avar siege of Constantinople in 626 (BUG3 1061; on the authorship see
F. Barisié, “Le siège de Constantinople par les Avares et les Slaves en 626,” Byzantion, x x iv [1954],
373 f.) is more reserved than George of Pisidia. According to Theodore, the Virgin acts “through
the hands of Christian soldiers” (L. Sternbach, Rozprawy Akademii Umiejetnosciy Wydial Filolog.,
ser. i i , tom x iv [Cracow, 1900, p. 306, 1). Note that after mentioning the magister Bonus* military
preparations for the defense of the capital, Theodore Syncellus remarks (p. 303, 35, Sternbach) : “for
God rejoices even in these [military preparations] because he does not wish those that take refuge
with him and pin their faith on him for their salvation to be inactive and idle.” It sounds like an
apology for military preparations; cf. Corippus’ “terrenis non eget armis” (n. 28 above). On the emer-
gence of the Virgin Mary as protectress of Constantinople see A. Florov, “La dédicace de Constan-
tinople dans la tradition byzantine,” Revue de Vhistoire des religions, cxx v n (1944), 61-127.
30 Leo Diaconus, H ist, ix 12, p. 158. Cf. Scylitzes-Cedrenus, H ist Comp., vol. n, p. 413, who adds
that the emperor considered the Virgin the protectress of the city (rro\u>vxo$). More than a century
later John Cinnamus was to tell a similar story of the Emperor John Comnenus (Hist, i 5, p. 13).
See Frolov, loc. cit. (n. 29 above), p. 105.
31 Treitinger, Die ostromische Kaiser- und Reichsidee, p. 130.
32 Thus Theophilus, upon his accession (828), called Leo V in order to show up the enormity of the
crime committeed by Leo’s murderers, cf. Theophanes Continuatus n i 1, p. 86; Scylitzes-Cedrenus,
vol. i i , p. 1 0 0 . On the messianic role of the king as the basis for a royalist political theory in the
Western Middle Ages, see G. H. Williams, The Norman Anonymus of 1100 A .D ., Harvard Theo-
logical Studies, xv iii (1951), esp. pp. 155-174, and R. W. Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages
(New Haven, n.d.), pp. 92-94.
33 Cf. n. 29 above.
84 Theodorus Syncellus, p. 298, 25 ed. Sternbach (addressed to Prophet Isaiah: cf. Isaiah 7). On
other Byzantine identifications of Constantinople with Jerusalem see Frolov, loc. cit. (n. 29 above),
86.
A.D. 626 to the Avar Chagan the names of King Hezekiah’s ambassadors sent to
Sennacherib of Assyria.35 He is, however, not satisfied with this first level of
typology but by means of complex chronological computations he discovers
similarities between Constantinople’s ordeal of A.D. 626, Jerusalem’s fatal siege
by Nebuchadnezzar (586 B.C.) and Titus’destruction of the Second Temple (A.D.
70).36Finally he adds a laborious proof that Ezekiel’s prophecy of King Gog’s and
his northern people’s attack on Jerusalem never found (nor could ever find) its
fulfillment in historic Jerusalem and is rather to be considered a prophecy of the
Perso-Avar siege of Constantinople in A.D. 626.37 This cumulation of Old Testa-
ment links, considerably more elaborate than can be indicated here, undoubtedly
is unusual and even betrays an element of intellectual playfulness, but it also re-
veals in a touching way the comfort and strength which a Byzantine preacher and
his audience, not long after the dramatic events of 626, could derive from the
equation of the New Rome with the ancient Jerusalem, more generally from the
Old Testament as a source for Byzantine ideology and rhetoric.
This religio-political ideology, because it was an ideology and not a philo-
sophical or religious system, could easily be manipulated for political ends. Thus
in the tenth century the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus advised his son
and heir Romanos, in a confidential handbook of Byzantine diplomacy, the De
Administrando Imperio, on how to deal with the greedy northern peoples (Kha-
zars, Turks, Russians) and especially with their perennial demands for imperial
vestments, for the liquid (“Greek”) fire, or — most serious of all — for the hand
of a purple-born princess. The father supplied his son with what he called ‘plausi-
ble speeches and prudent and clever excuses.”38 Romanos was to reply to bar-
barian requests for imperial vestments and diadems that God had sent them
through an angel to Constantine the Great, charged him to deposit them in St
Sophia and to curse anyone who should misuse or alienate them. The advice with
regard to the Greek fire and the purple-born princess is cast in the same vein.
Constantine Porphyrogenitus certainly was aware that these replies were
specious, for in the case of the liquid fire he mentions in the same work that the
Byzantines learned of this weapon from a refugee, Callinicus of Heliopolis, under
Constantine IV Pogonatus (668- 685).39 Yet the general tendency of these replies
is in keeping with Byzantine ideology : res Romana Dei est. Constantine’s advice to
his son was simply a new variation on an old theme, and this theme was in no way
discredited because one or the other of the variations did not ring true.
86 Theodorus Syncellus, p. 306,20 (ed. Sternbach); cf. IV Reg. 18,17 ff. He omits the name of the
fourth envoy (probably Theodore himself, cf. Sternbach, p. 333; Barisic, “Le Siège de Constan-
tinople/’ Byzantion, xx iv [1954], 374, n. 2, 383), because King Hezekiah of Judah sent three envoys
only to King Sennacherib’s commanders.
36 Theodorus Syncellus, pp. 309 f. (ed. Sternbach).
37 Theodore-Syncellus, pp. 314 ff. (ed. Sternbach).
38 Gy. Moravcsik and R. J. H. Jenkins, edd., Constantine Porphyrogenitus: De Administrando
Imperio, Magyar-Gorog Tanulmanyok, 29 (Budapest, 1949), ch. 13, pp. 64-76, esp. p. 66.
39 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De. Adm. Im p., ch. 48 (p. 226, ed. Moravcsik-Jenkins).
II. Theory of Kingship and Philosophy of History.

In the preceding discussion of Byzantine ideology the Byzantine emperor
played only a modest part. This is not accidental, for the ideology had been
developed within a literary genre concerned with the praises of ancient cities,
notably of Rome, and the ancient city as such had found it notoriously difficult to
find a place for the rulers of kingdoms or empires. It will be remembered, how-
ever, that under the influence of the Old Testament the emperor as “the Lord’s
anointed [king]” emerged into Byzantine rhetoric, and this Old Testament view of
the Byzantine monarchy remained basic throughout the Byzantine period. It
was, however, combined at the time of Constantine the Great with a theory of
Byzantine kingship which, as will be seen presently, was based on a profound
philosophy of history. The Byzantine ideas concerning their emperor, the
Byzantine Kaisergedanke^ have been treated in a series of excellent works and
need only a summary here. In the Byzantine view the emperor was the only
legitimate ruler over the entire Christian world in his capacity as God’s image and
representative on earth. As God’s viceroy he was charged with the maintenance of
peace in the Christian world, with the Christian mission to the “barbarians,” and
with the preservation of law. This sublime view of the Byzantine emperor’s
position constituted an element of enormous strength inasmuch as it assigned the
emperor an easily understood place in the divine plan of history.41 The emperor
was selected by God and, as was seen above, at the end of time the last Byzantine
emperor would bring about the transition from the earthly to the heavenly king-
dom.
This Byzantine Kaisergedanhe was based in the last resort on an interesting
philosophy of history. In a remarkable book Professor Gerhard Ladner has
emphasized the connection of the Byzantine Kaisergedanke with the concept of
renewal.42 He has demonstrated how, since the age of Constantine, Byzantine
“political theology” based the renewal of man upon the role of the emperor as the
imitator of Christ. Ladner’s results will be utilized on the following pages for an
explanation of the Byzantine views of the strength of empire and capital. It will
be shown that it was not only the concept of the emperor as imitator of Christ but
its connection with a peculiar notion of “newness” and consequently with a
40 This term was used by F. Dolger, “Bulgarisches Zartum und byzantinisches Kaisertum,”
reprinted in Byzanz und die europâische Staatenwelt, pp. 141 f. (I know of no adequate English equiva-
lent; “imperial idea” would stress the empire rather than the emperor). In the above article as well
as in “Europas Gestaltung im Spiegel der frânkischbyzantinischen Auseinandersetzung des 9.
Jahrhunderts,” reprinted in Byzanz und die europaische Staatenwelt, pp. 291 f., Dolger has sum-
marized the Byzantine Kaisergedanke in masterful fashion. Among the basic studies of the subject
are: Erik Peterson, Der Monotheismus als politisches Problem (Leipzig, 1935); André Grabar, L*em-
pereur dans Vart byzantin (Paris, 1936); Otto Treitinger, Die ostromische Kaiser- und Reichsidee,
(above, n. 18).
41 Cf. Dolger, “Bulgarisches Zartum’* (above, n. 40) p. 143: “Despite its splendor, [this conception]
was so simple that it was bound to be understood by the last peasant in the most out-of-the-way
nook of the empire and that even the lowliest soldier would be willing to shed his blood for its sake.”
42 Gerhart B. Ladner, The Idea of Reform: Its Impact on Christian Thought and Action in the Age
of the Fathers (Cambridge, Mass., 1959), esp. pp. 107-132.
particular philosophy of history that accounts for Byzantine self-confidence. The

Byzantine idea of newness is a key concept of Byzantine political thought, for it
was part (at least since the late fourth and fifth centuries) of the official designa-
tion for the capital, the “New Rome.”43 Not long ago it was observed that the
notion of “newness” pervades one of the masterpieces of Byzantine prose, the
biography of Basil I by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, and that Basil is here
represented as the great “refounder and renovator of the Roman State.”44 It is
worthwhile to attempt to define more closely the meaning of the “newness”
brought about by Basil I.45One seventh of Basil’s biography is concerned with the
emperor’s building activities. Here the language of “newness” occurs frequently,
but curiously enough is not found where a modern reader would expect it : with
regard to brand-new buildings. Basil’s two most important new constructions were
the New Church (Nea) and the New Building (Kainourgion), both within the
imperial palace. Now it is obvious that the notion of “newness” appears in the
name of both structures, yet Constantine Porphyrogenitus carefully explains that
the New Church was dedicated by Basil to Jesus Christ, the Archangel Gabriel,
the Prophet Elijah, the Virgin Mary, and St Nicholas, and that the name “New
Imperial Church” represented not the official designation but the popular usage,
perhaps of Constantine’s own day.46The New Building, on the other hand, ap-
pears under no other denomination in the Vita Basilvi.47With this important ex-
ception, however, the language of newness is conspicuously absent from Con-
stantine’s description of Basil’s new constructions.48 The situation is different
where Constantine discusses Basil’s repairs of earlier buildings. The entire section
on Basil’s building activities is introduced by the following statement:
A t all tim es the Christ-loving Em peror B a s i l . . . showed concern for m any of the holy and
43 On Constantinople the New Rome, see the basic study by D<5lger, cited n. 3 above, esp. pp. 83-98.
44 R. J. H. Jenkins, “The Classical Background of the Scriptores post Theophanem,” Dumbarton
Oaks Papers, viii (1954), 11-30, esp. p. 23.
4EDolger, in the article cited in note 3 above, has called attention to the meaning: “young” and
“youthful” often given since the sixth century to the designation of “New Rome” in contrast to the
Old Rome on the Tiber. In the present study the emphasis will be on another connotation of the
word. In the translations of Greek texts following above it should be borne in mind, however, that the
Greek word neos and its derivatives mean both “new” and “young.”
46 Constantine Porphyrogenitus mentions the Nea three times in the Vita Basilii. The fullest
and most detailed account is found in chs. 83-86 (pp. 325-328) in the narrative of Basil’s building
activities. The other two instances are incidental. In ch. 68 (p. 308,19) it is said that Basil kept the
sailors busy by employing them in the construction of the church of Jesus Christ, the archangels
(i.e., Gabriel and Michael) and the Prophet Elijah. Finally, in ch. 76 (p. 319) the author mentions
the gifts offered by Basil’s aged protectress Danelis to the church of Jesus Christ, the Archangel
Michael and the Prophet Elijah “which we are accustomed to call the new imperial church.” Cf.
R. Janin, La géographie ecclésiastique de Vempire byzantin, i, 3: Les églises et les monastères (Paris,
1953), p. 374-378.
47 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Vita B asilii, ch. 89, (pp. 331-335). Cf. A. Vogt, Basile I er (Paris,
1908), p. 408.
48 The vocabulary used for the building process: àvoucoSo¡ii¡ (Nea, p. 308, 20); eyeipeiv (Nea,
p. 308, 20; 319,14; = to build at least since Hellenistic times); ohcoboii&v (Nea, p. 319,12; 325, 9);
Üopéiv (Nea, p. 325, 17); &vaôèixe<rdai (Kainourgion, p. 331, 22); àveyeipeiv (Kainourgion, p* 332, .4).'
350 Empire and, Capital Through Byzantine Eyes

divine churches. They had been damaged or completely destroyed by earlier earthquakes
or were threatened with impending collapse because of cracks. By the generous supply and
grant of the necessary materials he rebuilt some of them from the ruins and gave them
beauty as well as safety. Others he strengthened by appropriate additions and repairs so
that they would not collapse, but was responsible for their return to another bloom and
youth.49
This same language of rejuvenation permeates the entire account of Basil’s
architectural activities. The western part of St Sophia was in danger of collapse,
but Basil “himself, with the experience of craftsmen, strengthened and rejuven-
ated it and made it safe and durable.”50 At the church of the Holy Apostles,
damaged by earthquakes, “he scraped off the [signs of old] age caused by time,
removed its wrinkles and made it once again beautiful and young.”51The church
of the Mother of God at Pêgë “which was in ruins and had lost its ancient beauty
[Basil] rejuvenated and made more splendid than before.”52 Similar formulae
recur throughout the Vita Basilii.53 For Constantine Porphyrogenitus, then,
Basil’s architectural activities, especially his repairs of earlier buildings, amounted
to a renewal and rejuvenation of the city and a struggle against time’s ravages, a
judgment that finds expression especially in the statement with which he intro-
duced the section on Basil’s buildings. This view of imperial building activities
was not invented by Constantine Porphyrogenitus but was traditional. For
example, one of George of Pisidia’s minor poems celebrates a “renewal” of a bath
at Constantinople much in the same terms Constantine used three centuries later:
Time had captured the bath, just as the barbarians (the Avars and Persians) had
captured the cities of the Empire. Heraclius, the conqueror of Scythians and
Persians, “rejuvenated” the cities as well as the bath.54
It is interesting to note that George of Pisidia’s poem compares the “rejuvena-
tion” of the bath with that of the cities of the Empire, i.e., with a political
restoration. The same concept of political renewal permeates the Vita Basilii.
The biographer mentions prominently, for example, that Basil legislated against
the practice of Byzantine officials of supplementing their often meager salaries by
demanding “tips” for the performance of public services. He speaks of Basil’s
edicts against this abuse in the following terms:
Striving to eliminate everywhere injustice, this most powerful [ruler, Basil] set up every-
where and dispatched edicts to every region. In them, all gifts which up to that time had
49 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Vita Basilii, ch. 78 (p. 321, 17 — 322, 5).
50 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Vita Basilii, ch. 79 (p. 322, 9).
62 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Vita Basilii, ch. 80 (p. 323, 5). On this church cf. Janin, Les
églises et les monastères, pp. 332-337.
63 Church of Apostle Philip, ch. 80 (p. 323, 15; cf. Janin, Les églises et les monastères, pp. 508 f.).
Church of Apostle Andrew (ch. 81, p. 324, 2; cf. Janin, pp. 32-35). Church of St Ann in Deuteron
and church of Demetrius (ch. 81, p. 324, 4; cf. Janin, pp. 39-41, 94). Church of Martyr Aemilianus
(ch. 81, p. 324, 6; cf. Janin, pp. 16 f.). Church of Martyr Nazarius (ch. 82, p. 324, 9; cf. Janin, pp.
372 f.). Church of Martyr Plato (ch. 82, p. 324,16; cf. J&nin, pp. 418 f.).
54 Georgius Pisida, no. x l y i i i (ed. L. Sternbach, Wiener Studien, x iv [1892], 56). R. Janin, Con-
stantinople byzantine: Développement urbain et répertoire topographique, Archives de l’Orient Chrétien,
iv (Paris 1930), does not discuss this poem in his section on baths at Constantinople (pp. 209-217).

seemed to be justified by wicked custom [established] by Time were cancelled and eradi-
cated. Equality entire and Justice seemed to return to life as if from some foreign exile and
to live among men.55
The rhetorical figures are not identical in George of Pisidia’s poem and in
Constantine Porphyrogenitus ’ prose, but they have this in common that in both
works an emperor is celebrated as a political restorer and time as the great
enemy. The last passage from the Vita Basilii is closely connected in thought with
two others strategically located at the beginning and end of the discussion of
Basil’s political achievements. In the former it is said that Basil was concerned
“to bring some good to his subjects and to have affairs take a visible and great
change for the better.”56 With that purpose, Basil took the greatest care in his
administrative appointments and selected officials who not only were above
corruption but also would protect the poor against the rich.57 Basil’s appointees
were eager that “men whom he [Basil] knew to have swooned and fainted because
of those that had preceded him [Michael III] should recover and be restored to
their ancient prosperity.”58 In a second passage, at the conclusion of Basil’s
domestic reforms, Constantine remarks that his grandfather manifested the four
cardinal virtues and that “everything progressed towards the better. And once
again life seemed to have returned to its ancient good order and condition.”59
There emerges, then, from a study of the Vita B asilii a fairly consistent view of
Basil’s achievement. In his buildings as well as in his military and domestic
activities, the emperor waged incessant war against time. Time threatens with
senility both the body architectural of the capital and the body politic of the
Empire. Time drives the virtues into exile beyond the frontiers of the Empire,
weakens buildings and causes the inhabitants of the Empire to faint or to swoon.
In his fight against this enemy, the emperor rejuvenates buildings and political
institutions. He recalls the virtues from exile, especially by cultivating them him-
self and by selecting virtuous officials and he strengthens the edifices as well as his
subjects. This “change for the better” he brings about by restoring the ancient
status which had been corroded by time but which is now happily reproduced by
Basil. Constantine Porphyrogenitus’ view of the imperial mission, then, is
essentially conservative. A good emperor such as Basil functions as the restorer
of a splendid past, and the strength of capital and empire lies precisely in their
potential for repeated imperial restorations. In conclusion it may be said that the
newness of the architectural and political body of capital and empire, which in the
Vita Basilii figures so prominently among the achievements of the emperor, im-
plies restoration rather than innovation.
66 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Vita Basilii, ch. 30 (p. 259, 5). This edict is missing from Dolger’s
Regesten.
86 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Vita Basilii, cf. 30 (p. 257,18). On the change for the better, see
also ch. 72 (p. 315,10) and ch. 29 (p. 256, 9). In the last passage the change is attributed to God.
67 Here, as well as in other passages (e.g., ch. 99, pp. 346-348) Constantine Porphyrogenitus at-
tributes to Basil the concerns of the tenth century, i.e., the hostility to large landholders expressed
in the social and economic legislation of Romanos I Lekapenos and his successors.
59 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Vita BasiUi, ch. 30 (p. 258, 7, cf. also p. 256, 9; 257, 19).
What are the roots of this conservative confidence in the past, this fear of time,
so characteristic of the Byzantines’ view of their empire’s greatness? It goes back
ultimately to the view of Constantine the Great and of his circle, notably of
Eusebius of Caesarea. This emperor’s announcements contain indeed the
philosophy of history found six centuries later in the Vita Basilii. It has not been
sufficiently stressed that for Constantine the Great the Christian religion, which
he was the first Roman emperor to favor after centuries of persecution, was not a
new religion but as old as the world. Immediately upon the defeat of Licinius the
emperor declared in a letter to provincials, which is especially interesting for his
religious and political views and in which he addresses the Christian God: “Our
[religion] is neither new nor novel but Thou hast ordained it with the worship
proper to Thee ever since we have believed that the ordering of the universe had
been firmly made. But the human race fell and was misled by errors of all kinds,
yet Thou through Thy Son, lest Evil should further weigh us down, hast held up
a pure light and reminded all men of Thyself.”60 In another letter of the same
year 324 Constantine made it clear that the Incarnation was only one very im-
portant instance of mankind’s recall by God and that he interpreted his own
activities as another example of this same process:
He [God] sought m y service and deemed it worthy for his will. I started out from the sea
near Britain . . . , w ith the help of a higher power I repelled and scattered the terrors
which beset the universe. In this way H e recalled the human race, which through m y
service was taught the worship of the m ost august law, and at the same tim e the blessed
faith was strengthened under the guidance of a greater power.61
Thus, in Constantine’s view of history, mankind continued to err even after the
Incarnation and had been recalled a second tim e by Constantine. The establish-
ment of the true religion thus was not a sudden change but was a continuing proc-
ess which in the days of Constantine had behind it a millennial history. Religiously
Constantine’s reign therefore brought a “universal renewal,”62 just as by his
m ilitary victory over Maxentius a decade earlier the emperor had “freed and re-
stored the Senate and People of Rome to their ancient fame and splendor,” as he
60 Eusebius, Vita Constantini, n, ch. lvii (p. 64, 15 ff., ed. Heikel). On this letter see H. Dôrries,
Das Selbstzeugnis Kaiser Konstantins, Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Gottingen,
Philolog.-Hist. Kl., Dritte Folge, XXXIV (1954), 51-54, 250. On the authenticity of the letter, see
p. 50, n. 2, but neither the authenticity of individual documents cited in Vita Constantini nor the
vexed question of the Eusebian authorship of the entire work are of critical importance in the con-
text of this paper, as at Byzantium they were never doubted.
61 Letter to the Orientals, in Eusebius, Vita Constantini, n, ch. xxviii (p. 53, 7, ed. Heikel). Cf.
Dorries, Selbstzeugnis, pp. 43-50, 250. Constantine had expressed a similar idea ten years earlier in
a letter to the synod of Arles: “aeterna et religiosa incomprehensibilis pietas dei nostri nequaquam
permittit humanam condicionem diutius in tenebris oberrare neque patitur exosas quorundam volun-
tates usque in tantum praevalere, ut non suis praeclarissimis luminibus denuo pandens iter salutare
eas det ad regulam iustitiae converti” (ed. von Soden, Urkunden zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Donatis-
mus [Bonn, 1913], No. 18, p. 23). Cf. Dorries, Selbstzeugnis, pp. 28-33.
62 Constantine’s letter to the Church of Nicomedia of A.D. 325 (ed. H. G. Opitz, Urkunden zur
Geschichte des arianischen Streites [Berlin and Leipzig, 1934], no. 27, p. 59, 13). Cf. Dorries, Selbst-
zeugnis, pp. 70-74.
said in the inscription on his statue in Rome.63 In religious and political terms
Constantine interpreted his historical role not as an innovation but as the restora-
tion of past glories.
Similar views are found in the works of Constantine’s contemporary, Eusebius
of Caesarea, where they form part of a philosophy of history derived through
Eusebius’ teacher Origen from Hellenistic philosophy. In his Ecclesiastical History
Eusebius sets out to record the development of a Christian commonwealth
antedating the age of Constantine.64According to Eusebius, it was no accident
that the coming of Christ occurred simultaneously with the disappearance of
many small states of the Hellenistic age and the establishment of a universal
monarchy of Augustus. Without the Roman Empire the Christian mission would
have been impossible and warfare between states and cities would have continued
everywhere.65With the help of the Logos, the Emperor Constantine, God’s friend,
wears the imagé of the highest kingship; he imitates God, he steers and stands at
the helm of all earthly things. The Saviour prepares the universe for his Father;
his friend Constantine makes men ready for the saving Logos’ kingship. The Logos
wages war upon the demons; his friend Constantine upon the visible enemies of
truth. The Logos enables his followers to understand his Father’s kingdom; his
friend Constantine “like some interpreter of the divine Logos recalls the entire
human race to the knowledge of God.”66In Eusebius’ view the end of the persecu-
tions and the many conversions of the Constantinian age to Christianity, “a
second renewal much superior to the preceding,” were brought about by Jesus
Christ.67 These consecutive renewals were rendered necessary by men misusing
their freedom and denying God, i.e., by the Fall. Eusebius envisages the restora-
tion of man not as a single historical event but as a historical process occurring in
stages: the Fall, Jewish monotheism, the establishment of Augustus’ monarchy
as an image of the divine monarchy and the coming of Christ, the establishment
of the Christian Empire by Constantine.68 Eusebius does not state explicitly, as
63 As cited in Eusebius, Vita Constantini, i, ch. xl (p. 26, 25, ed. Heikel). Cf. Dôrries, Selbstzeugnis
p. 215.
64 Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, V prooem. (p. 400, ed. E. Schwartz, ed. maior) describes his
Ecclesiastical History as “the narrative concerning the body [of Christians living] according to God.”
I owe this point to the suggestive article by A. Pertusi, “L’atteggiamento spirituale della più antica
storiografía bizantina,” Aevum, x x x (1956), 134-166, esp. p. 145, n. 2.
66 On Eusebius* theory of history and kingship the following works were especially helpful: Erik
Peterson, Der Momtheismus eds politisches Problem, etc. (Leipzig, 1935), esp. pp. 71-82 (where the
Origenist inspiration of these views is demonstrated); F. Edward Cranz, “Kingdom and Polity in
Eusebius of Caesarea,*’ Harvard Theological Review, x l v (1952), 47-66; Gerhart B. Ladner, The
Idea of Reform, esp. pp. 119-125. On the pagan antecedents of Eusebius’ and Origen’s views of king-
ship, see N. H. Baynes, “Eusebius and the Christian Empire,” Mélanges Bidez, n = Annuaire de
VInstitut de Philologie et d’Histoire Orientales, 1934, pp. 13 ff., reprinted in his Byzantine Studies and
Other Essays, pp. 168-172.
66 Eusebius, Tricennalia, chs. i (end) and ii (p. 199, 1-23 Heikel). Cf. Cranz, Harvard Theological
Review, x l v (1952), 53 f.
67 Eusebius, Tricennalia, ch. xvii 5 (p. 255, 6, Heikel). See Ladner, Idea of Reform, pp. 119 f. and
the passages concerning the Constantinian renewal there quoted from Eusebius* Ecclesiastical History.
68 Cf. Crans, p. 52 f.
Constantine did in his letter to the provincials, that the Christian religion was co-
eternal with the creation of the world, but this view seems to be implied in his
philosophy of history. Neither Constantine nor Eusebius had occasion to be con-
cerned with future stages of this historical process, yet throughout Byzantine
history all imperial activities were understood as attempts to restore an earlier
and better status along the lines of Constantine’s and Eusebius’ thought.69
Constantine’s and Eusebius’ ideas about history and kingship thus had decisive
influence on Byzantine thinking. Their view of Constantine “restoring” his
subjects to the state in which they had been created and from which they had
been alienated by the Fall is responsible for the essential conservatism of Byzan-
tine views of kingship. Forever after, positive achievements of Byzantine em-
perors such as Basil I were presented not as innovations but as restorations of
man’s first state. The connection with the doctrine of the Fall shows that the
roots of the Byzantine view of renovatio derived from Christian doctrine based on
the Old Testament account of the Fall. Byzantine emperors restoring their sub-
jects to men’s condition before the Fall — here was an aspect of Byzantine theory
of kingship which in the eyes of the Byzantines both guaranteed and explained
Byzantine greatness. Undoubtedly this greatness might as well have been recon-
ciled with a philosophy of history which placed the achievement of true perfection
in the future. Yet the Byzantine view of the Christian religion as created by God
together with the world had this advantage over all future-minded philosophies of
history that it presented the goal of history as anticipated by Adam at the time of
his creation and before his fall. The Byzantine philosophy of history, thus, was
immune against the doubt, which could be raised against any rectilinear philoso-
phy, that the goal of history was unattainable: it had in fact been man’s posses-
sion on the first day of history. No reason to doubt, therefore, that what had been
possessed by man in the past could be restored to him in the present or in the
future by a Christian emperor. The Byzantine view of history placed the attain-
ability of the goal of history beyond doubt and thus established the Byzantines’
conviction of the strength of their empire and capital on unassailable ground.
III. Byzantine Justification of Empire.

The theoreticians of Roman imperialism had not found it an easy task to
justify in moral terms Rome’s sway over her conquered provinces. Such Roman
justifications have been examined in a remarkable article by E. von Ivanka down
to the period of the Late Roman Empire.70Poets and prose writers in the Roman
Empire had proclaimed that Roman government of the Mediterranean world was
the deserved reward for her civilizing role: her political wisdom,71 the military
protection afforded by her armed forces and the respect for law shown by her
68 Cf. Cranz, p. 47: “Byzantine imperial theory rests on assumptions similar to those of Eusebius,”
and Ladner, Idea of Reform, p. 120 f.: “This Eusebian conception of imperial Christomimesis . . . was
to remain the basis of “political theology” in the Christian East.”
70 E. von Ivanka, “Zur Selbstdeutung des rftmischen Imperiums,” Saecidum, vrn (1957), 17-31.
71 Vergil, Aerveid, vi, 851.
administrators,72her concern for civilizing her subjects.73In the Hellenic half of

the Roman Empire these “piecemeal” justifications culminated, at the latest in
the second century A.D., in the overall theory that Rome ruled because she was
morally perfect.74In the Eastern part of the Empire this preoccupation with the
moral justification of empire seems to lessen in intensity or even to disappear
after the fifth century. This was only natural in view of the development of
Byzantine religio-political rhetoric and theory of kingship. If Byzantine rhetoric
emphasized above all the supernatural protection of Constantinople and if the
Byzantine philosophy of history saw in each emperor the image and agent of God
charged with the mission of bringing fallen mankind back to God, who could then
deny that a city and empire thus protected by superhuman forces and charged
with a mission which knew no ethnic boundaries was bound to extend over all
mankind? This point was so obvious that, if I am not mistaken, it was made
rather rarely. Theodore Syncellus said in 627 : “Constantinople is the eye of the
Christian faith and an attack on it endangers the preaching of Christ’s mystery to
the ends of the world.”75 This view also underlay the Byzantine notion of a
hierarchy of states. According to it, the Byzantine ruler ranked above even the
most powerful kings of the mediaeval world in the “family of kings.” This concept
was of secular and political origin and derived ultimately from the notion of a
family of courtiers in Ptolemaic Egypt.76In the mid-Byzantine period, however,
this concept was “spiritualized” after the pattern of the monastic and secular
clergies, where the bond of religious instruction by the abbot or the granting of
the sacrament by the ecclesiastical superior, respectively, established degrees of
rank.77Following these patterns, the Byzantine emperor was conceived of as the
spiritual superior of all other rulers, no matter how powerful, because his mission
was ecumenical.78
The Byzantines, then, found the bases of Byzantine greatness in a religio-
political ideology inherited from late Antiquity and adapted in the mid-Byzantine
period to the Christian environment by a strong emphasis on divine protection;
in a theory of kingship which considered emperor and empire the images of the
Logos of God and the kingdom of God, respectively, and assigned to the Byzan-
tine emperor the task of periodically restoring man to the faith in which God had
created him; and finally in a sense of Byzantine mission consisting in the preach-
ing of the Gospel “to the ends of the world.” This was a grandiose conception of
72 Tacitus, Historiae, iv, 73 f.

73 Claudianus, De cons. Stilichonis, iv 150-159.
74 Von Ivanka, Saeculum,, viii (1957), esp. pp. 25-27.
75 Theodorus Syncellus, p. 304, 17 (ed. Sternbach; see n. 29 above).
78 On this concept see Georg Ostrogorsky, “Die byzantinische Staatenhierarchie,” Seminarium
Kondakovianum, v i i i (1936), 41-61; F. Dolger, “Die Familie der Kônige im Mittelalter,” reprinted
in this author’s Byzanz und die europaische Staatenwelt (Ettal, 1953), pp. 34-69 (p. 62-66 on Ptolemaic
antecedents).
77 Dolger, Byzanz und die europaische Staatenwelt, pp. 67 f.; cf. pp. 55-59.
78 Ostrogorsky, Seminarium Kondakovianum, vii (1936), 42: “ . . . das Grunddogma der byzan-
tinischen Staatslehre . . . von der oikumenischen Mission des byzantinischen Herrschers als des
einzigen rechtmassigen Kaisers auf Erden. . . . ”
Byzantine greatness which must have been infinitely reassuring in periods of

imperial greatness and even during shorter periods of decline. In terms of this
concept, it was always possible to account for setbacks on the battlefield or for
temporary victories of an unorthodox theological doctrine by considering them
examples of another fainting spell79or “falling asleep”79a soon to be followed by
the reign of another restorer who would reawaken the state.
In evaluating the Byzantine self-image it is important, however, to note two
principal shortcomings, one of them realized primarily by the modern historian
and hardly by the Byzantines down to the Latin conquest, the other felt at
Byzantium in the later periods of history. The first deficiency was the failure of
Byzantine intellectuals to analyze the sources of Byzantine greatness in secular
terms.80 Secondly, the Byzantine self-image prior to the Fourth Crusade was of
such a nature as not to offer psychological protection to the inhabitants of the
Empire against a protracted period of internal disintegration and decline from the
status of universal empire to that of a medium-sized or even small state. This
situation prevailed at Byzantium since the end of the Macedonian dynasty. It is
significant that the first expression of dissatisfaction with the prevailing self-
image, so far as I am aware, dates from a few years after the Byzantine defeat at
the hands of the Seljuqs at Manzikiert (1071), itself the consequence of internal
disintegration and the cause of further decline. When in 1079/80 Michael of
Attaleia composed his history of the years 1034- 1079, he appended to his narra-
tive of the battle of Manzikiert and of the ensuing troubles some general reflec-
tions on the reasons for Byzantium’s defeats, indeed a frightening indictment of
Byzantium’s military and civil establishment.81 He began with a contrast of
Byzantium and ancient Rome. The Romans took the greatest care to ascertain
and obey the will of the gods, Byzantine emperors and military commanders of
the eleventh century, so Michael of Attaleia thought, were concerned only with
enriching themselves. Their defeats were therefore well-deserved punishments for
Byzantium’s godless conduct. So far Michael’s thinking followed the established
pattern, but he continued:
Therefore I attribute the catastrophic outcome of events among the Romans [i.e.,
Byzantines] to divine Nemesis itself and to the judgment of an incorruptible sentence, for
the following reason: the [other] nations are said to revere justice and to guard inviolate
their ancestral customs and proclaim incessantly that all their prosperity is derived from
the Creator. These [respect for justice and tradition, recognition of God’s benefactions]
79 N. 58 supra.
79a Xpicrrôs Kaùevôec is in the early ninth century Theodore of Studios* characteristic explanation
for the predominance of Iconoclasm, Epist. ii 31 (P.O. xcix, 1204 A); n 208 (P.G., xcix, 1629D).
80 P. 339 above.
81 Michael Attaliotes, Historia, pp. 193-197. The passage is referred to in C. Neumann, Die Welt-
stellung des byzantinischen Reiches vor den Kreuzziigen (Heidelberg, 1894), pp. 120 f. It is replete with
references to classical terminology. Compared with ancient Roman triumphs the return of Byzantine
commanders is a clear example of divine infatuation (ûeo&X&peia, pp. 193 f.). The taking of the
auspices and the Vestal Virgins are mentioned (p. 195). Byzantine emperors disregard the lessons
of history which shows that misfortunes are due to divine anger or ignoble intentions (p. 194). The
misdeeds of the Byzantine armies towards civilians are such that the latter feel relieved by Byzan-
tine defeats (p. 196).
Em pire and Capital Through Byzantine Eyes 357

are achievements common to all men and are required of every religion; for the true and
flawless faith of us Christians is nothing as much as a censure and condemnation, ever
since we happened to lose those virtues, as is stated in the divine law of the command-
ments : “He who knows the will of his master and does not do it will be stricken.”82
The virtues of justice, traditionalism, and godliness are common achievements
of mankind; they are possessed by other nations, are no longer a monopoly of the
Byzantines; the Christian religion serves not to justify Byzantium but to
condemn its depraved inhabitants ! One thinks one hears one of the prophets of
the Old Testam ent explaining to the Hebrews th at their God is a universal and
moral god, no more concerned with the people of Israel than with the gentiles,
recognizing righteousness and condemning injustice wherever found. The passage
clearly shows the shattering impact of M anzikiert and its sequel upon a Byzan-
tine intellectual: Michael sees the Empire tottering and falling a prey to its Seljuq
enemies and so he considers for a fleeting moment jettisoning and revising the
traditional self-image. Yet it is as if he were afraid of his own courage. In the
following paragraph he apologizes for his boldness. He offered his remarks, he
continues, not in a spirit of insult or irreverence, but in order to convert Byzan-
tine leaders, generals, and subjects back to the path of godliness, so th at Byzan-
tium may once more enjoy divine support.83 I t remains a fact th at, faced by mili-
tary defeat and social decay, this Byzantine historian had come to realize the
insufficiency of the traditional explanations of Byzantine greatness.
Un iv e r s it y o p M ic h ig a n
82 Michael Attaliotes, Historia, p. 197. The last words of the passage are cited from memory, cf.
Luke xii. 47. On Michael Attaliotes see the interesting comments by Pertusi, “L’Atteggiamento spiri-
tuale” (n. 64 above), 164-166, esp. p. 165 f., n. 4, and on the text the same author’s “Per la critica del
testo della ‘Storia’ di Michele Attaliate,” Jahrbuch der Osterreickischen Byzantinischen Gesselschaft,
VH (1958), 59-73.
88Michael Attaliotes, Historia, p. 197.
357a
ADDITIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
On the Byzantine K aiserg ed an k e ( p . 3 4 8 ) see now the m onu-

m ental w ork by F .D v o rn ik ,E arly C h ris tia n and Byzantine
P o litic a l Philosophy .O rig in s and B ack gro un d, 2 v o ls .,D um -
b a rto n O aks Studies 1 0 , W ashington, D .C . ,1 9 6 6 ,e s p .c h a p -
te r s XI and XII. The legend of the Last Roman E m p ero r
( p . 343 f . ) i s tre a te d m o re fully in no.X II b e lo w ;se e a lso my
O ra cle of Baalbek (c f. P re fa c e ) , 1 1 6 .The in s iste n c e of the
V ita B asilii on re p a irs of ancient b u ild in g s , r a th e r then the
e re c tio n of new s tr u c tu r e s , as a cts of re n e w a l and re ju v e n -
ation ( p . 349 f . ) i s re m in is c e n t of a s im ila r tendency at the
c o u rt of the O strogothic King T h e o d e ric , notably in the w r i-
tin g s of C assio d o ru s ,a s in te re s tin g ly a n aly sed by H e rb e rt
B loch,"E in d a tie rte r Z ieg e lste m p el T h eo d erich s des G ro s -
s e n " , M itteilungen des D eu tschen A rch ao lo g isch en In s titu ts ,
RSm ische Abteilung 66 , 1 9 5 9 , 1 9 6 - 2 0 3 , e s p . 2 0 1 - 2 0 3 .The p a -
r a lle l show s that th is connotation of the concept is at le a s t
as old as Late A ntiquity.
3
The History of the Future and its Uses:
Prophecy, Policy and Propaganda
(with Postscript)
Paul Magdalino
The Byzantines, perhaps more than any medieval people, did not regard
historical change as a Good Thing. ‘Novelty’ (veayuepiajioq) and ‘innovation’
(K a iv o x o jiia ) were negative words in their vocabulary. Yet, by one of the
paradoxes inherent in their culture, they recognized that change was built into
God’s plan for his creation, and could therefore be explained, or even welcomed,
in terms of the workings of Divine Providence. They perceived four schemes
through which Providence acted for the salvation of mankind, and in particular
of the Chosen People of the New Covenant: (a) by chastising them for their
sins and rewarding them for their faith; (b) by periodic renewal through
divinely-inspired, heaven-sent saviours in the image of Christ; (c) by progressive
enlightenment through the Holy Spirit; (d) by preparing the way for the
Second Coming of Christ.
Of all these schemes, the most problematic was undoubtedly the fourth, the
eschatological, because it could not be demonstrated from historical experience.
Yet it was also, potentially, the most significant, since it logically subsumed
the other three. Past and present events made full sense only in so far as they
pointed to the final consummation (cnmetaia) of the temporal order to which
they belonged. There is no doubt that Byzantines awaited, sooner or later, the
end of the world as prophesied in the Bible, and were given to speculation as
to how and when this would occur. The literature in which they expressed their
projections has now been studied in depth and, in most cases, put in its
historical context.1 Yet the role of eschatological thinking outside its own
literary traditions has not been so systematically investigated. While it is clear
how history influenced eschatology, the question whether eschatology affected
the making of Byzantine history has only recently, and tentatively, been
raised,2Our explanations of Byzantine historical phenomena therefore lack a
1 See particularly G. Podskalsky Byzantinische Reichseschatologie (Munich, 1972); P. Alexander

The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London, 1985). Other studies by these
and other authors will be referred to where relevant. For references to work published since this
article was completed, see p.33-4.
2 R. Scott, ‘Malalas, The Secret History, and Justinian’s Propaganda’, DOP39 (1985), 107-9.
4 PAUL MAGDALINO
dimension which the Byzantines themselves took for granted. In the hope that
something can be gained from adding that dimension, I propose in this paper
to survey the course of Byzantine history from a prophet’s-eye point of view.
In doing so, I shall be treading a path already beaten by Cyril Mango, but since
I am interested in eschatology as cause, and not only as effect, I shall also be
turning aside to considerations which have not, to my knowledge, been covered
before.3
Byzantium was heir to a simple but comprehensive eschatology based on
three necessary and two optional ingredients. The necessary ingredients were:
1. Old Testament prophecy, above all the prophecy in the Book of Daniel
about the succession of four world kingdoms.
2. New Testament prophecy of the Gospels and Epistles, notably Christ’s
prophecy of his Second Coming (Matt. 24), and St Paul’s reference to the
‘withholding power’ (ó Kaié^cov) whose removal would lead to the advent
of Antichrist (2 Thess.7- 8 ). The withholding power was readily identified
with the Roman Empire, and St Paul’s statement, combined with the
prophecy in Daniel, was naturally taken to mean that the world would last
as long as the empire, which for Byzantines meant effectively that the fate
of the world was tied to the fate of Constantinople.
3 . The notion that the world had a finite and calculable lifespan corre-
sponding to the six days of creation, a day being a thousand years in God’s
sight.
The optional elements were the Apocalypse of St John, which the Christian
East never fully accepted as a canonical work of scripture, and an apocryphal
prophetic tradition, part Judaeo-Christian, part Sibylline and pagan, which
foretold, among other things, the succession of Roman emperors, and was
therefore useful for identifying the sequence of reigns that would lead to the
Last Things.
The story begins, effectively, around the year 500 . Christians had, of course,
been awaiting Christ’s Second Coming from the moment of his Ascension, and
much had happened in the following centuries to fuel speculation. Yet from
the third century, special significance had been attached, at least in the Greek
East, to the five hundredth anniversary of the Incarnation, since that, according
to Hippolytos of Rome, would be the year 6000 from the creation of the
world.4 Vasiliev, writing 44 years ago, felt able to state that the date made no
particular impression on contemporaries.5 Since then, however, Paul Alexander
has shown that the reign of the emperor Anastasios (491 - 518 ) was a time of
3 C. Mango, Byzantium. The Empire of New Rome (London, 1980), chapter 11.
4 On Daniel, IV.23-4, ed. G.N. Bonwetsch, H. Achelis, Hippolytus Werke (Leipzig, 1897),
240-8; Podskalsky, Reichseschatologie-, 79-80,92ff. See also A. Harnack, Diodor von Tarsus, TU 21/4
(Leipzig, 1901), 109-110; Lactantius, Divine Institutes, VII.25, 3-5.
5 A. Vasiliev, ‘Medieval Ideas of the End of the World: West and East’, Byz 16 (1944), 469-70.
HISTORY OF THE FUTURE 5
intense eschatological speculation,6 while Gerhard Podskalsky has drawn

attention to two conclusive passages in the commentary on Aristotle’s Decáelo
by the sixth-century pagan philosopher Simplicius.7 Simplicius criticizes a
Christian opponent, who can probably be identified with the contemporary
Alexandrian scholar John Philoponos, for believing that the heavens are
corruptible and perishable:
Since, according to them, these are the last days, and the end ofthe world is awaited
as never before, surely by now something strange ought to have appeared in the
heaven and its movements ... If the heavens came into existence just over six
thousand years ago, as he believes, and are now in their last days, as it also pleases
him to opine, how come no sign of decline and corruption has manifested itself?8
As the world survived on into its seventh millennium, the conviction that it
could not last much longer only intensified, and was amply confirmed by
signs that pointed to the fulfilment of Christ’s own prophecies. He had told
his disciples that, ‘when the Gospel shall be preached in all the world, then
shall the end come’ (Matt. 24 .14). During the reign of Anastasios, Ethiopia was
converted to Christianity; later in the sixth century, church historians noted
the progress of Christian preaching among the Huns and the Persians, whose
king Khushraw I (531- 79 ) was reputed to have died a Christian. ‘And this same
thing is a token of the mercies of God, who cares for everyone that is in every
place. And henceforth it is the time which is placed in his own power, that the
fullness of the nations may come in, as the Apostle said’ (Romans 11.25 ; cf.
Acts 1.7 ).9
Christ had also warned that ‘Nation shall rise up against nation, and kingdom
against kingdom, and there shall be famines and pestilences, and earthquakes
in divers places’ (Matt. 24 .7). Sixth-century chroniclers record an unprecedented
catalogue of such events, and it is hard to avoid the suspicion that the events
were being chronicled precisely because people were watching for them. The
chronicle of Joshua the Stylite, written expressly to record the wars, famines,
and epidemics that befell Edessa during the generally prosperous reign of
Anastasios, reflects not only the scale of the afflictions but also the interest
they generated as signs.10They were certainly on a small scale compared with
the disasters that afflicted the whole empire under Justinian (527- 65 ). The
apocalyptic significance which was attached to the famines, plagues, earthquakes
and invasions of the 540 s and 550 s is evident in a number of texts. The
6 P. Alexander, The Oracle of Baalbek (Washington D.C., 1967), 116-20; Mango, Byzantium,
203-4.
7 G. Podskalsky, ‘Marginalien zur byzantinischen Reichseschatologie’, B Z 11 (1974), 357 n.28.
8 Commentaria in Aristotelem Graecum, VII, ed. I.L. Heiberg (Berlin, 1893), 87-8; X, ed. H. Diels
(Berlin; 1895), 1335.
9 The Chronicle of Zachariah ofMytilene, tr. P.J. Hamilton and E.W. Brooks (London, 1899), 327ff;
Evagrius, Ecclesiastical History; IV.28, eds J. Bidez and L. Parmentier (London, 1898), 176.
10 The Chronicle ofJoshua the Stylite, ed. and tr. W. Wright (Cambridge, 1882), 4-5.
6 PAUL MAGDALINO
chronicler Malalas records that in 541 , the year when the bubonic plague
struck Alexandria and Antioch, a woman in Constantinople prophesied that
the city was about to sink under the sea; there were public litanies, and the
emperor was informed.11 Romanos the Melodist’s hymn On the Ten Virgins is
clearly dateable to the mid-550 s by its allusions: ‘The last day is nigh, Now
we behold those things; they are not at the door, they are the very doors. They
have arrived and are present. Nothing is lacking of which Christ told, but as
he foretold, all will come to pass: famines and plagues and frequent earthquakes.
Nation has risen up against nation, Within all is frightful, without all is filled
with strife’.12 In 557 Constantinople was shaken by a series of violent tremors
which, among other things, caused the partial collapse ofJustinian’s Great Church
of Hagia Sophia, consecrated 20 years earlier. The historian Agathias records
the public reaction in words which are worth quoting in full:13
Immediately fantastic and fallacious pronouncements began to circulate, to the
effect that the whole world was on the point of perishing. For certain deceivers,
behaving like self-inspired oracles, prophesied whatever came into their heads
and terrified all the more the populace who were already thoroughly disposed to
be terrified. These men, by simulating madness and pretending to be demon-
possessed, announced yet more terrible things as if they had been taught the future
by their indwelling phantoms. They positively exulted in the general distress.
Others, considering the movements and configurations of the stars, hinted darkly
at worse disasters to come, and an all but total confusion of the world’s affairs. It
is usual for men of this sort to swarm in times of trouble. But it was a good thing
for them that their prophecies turned out to be false. For there had to be some
way for those who dreamed up these prophecies to escape the charge of impiety
[which they invited in] leaving nothing but knowledge to a higher power.
At the time, however, there was no-one who was not greatly shocked and
afraid. Litanies and hymns of supplication were everywhere to be heard, with
everyone joining in. And things which are always promised in words, but never
carried out in deeds, were at that time readily performed. Suddenly all were
honest in their business dealings, so that even public officials, putting aside their
greed, dealt with law-suits according to the law, and other powerful men contented
themselves with doing good and abstaining from shameful acts. Some, changing
their life-style completely, espoused a monastic and mountain way of life,
renouncing money and honours and all the other things most pleasing to men.
Many gifts were brought to the churches, and by night the most powerful citizens
frequented the streets and cared for those wretched and pitiful people who lay
crippled on the ground, providing all that they needed in food and clothing. But
all this was limited to that fixed space of time in which the terror was endemic.
As soon as there was some respite and relief from danger, most people reverted
to their normal ways.
11 John Malalas, Chronicle (CSHB), 481.43.
12 Romanos, Hymnes, ed. J. Grosdidier de Matons, V, SC 283 (Paris, 1981), 272-327, esp.
strophe 4.
13 Historiae, V.5: ed. R. Keydell (Berlin, 1967), 169-70.
The disaster was interpreted by two groups of self-proclaimed experts: bogus

lunatics who seem to correspond to contemporary and later descriptions of the
type of ascetics known as Saloi or ‘Holy Fools’; and astrologers. The prophecies
circulated by the former group were clearly the most direct and frightening.
We can only guess at what these prophecies were like, but they were presumably
in the same vein as the written apocalypses which survive from this and later
periods.14In other words, they probably contained an embroidered version of
the standard biblical schema with sensational and topical references to Con-
stantinople and its emperors. They may well have predicted that Constantinople
would sink beneath the sea - a prediction which had already been made in
541 , as we have seen, and recurs in later apocalyptic texts.15 They would
almost certainly have had something to say about the reign of Antichrist and
the sufferings this would bring. That talk of Antichrist was very much in the
air in Constantinople at the time is evident from two other sources. Romanos’
hymn On theLast Judgement contains a detailed description of Antichrist based
on the apocalypse of Ephraim the Syrian.16Procopius’ Secret History, recently
dated to 558 , describes Justinian in terms which are reminiscent both of
Romanos and of earlier Christian polemic which had cast the emperor Domitian
in the role of the final adversary.17
The sixth century, then, was a time of intense and intensifying eschatological
apprehension. Was there any connection between this apprehension and the
great change which came over the culture and ideology of the Eastern Roman
Empire in the two centuries from Justinian to Iconoclasm, giving Eastern
Roman society its definitively medieval Byzantine identity? The starting
point for discussing this question must be the suggestion, recently made by
Roger Scott, that the whole imperial policy and imperial propaganda ofJustinian
was shaped by eschatological preoccupations. His point is that if disillusion
with and denigration of Justinian cast the emperor in the role of Antichrist,
the reverse side of the medal, represented in imperial and pro-imperial writings,
must show us Justinian himself actively and consciously reforming the world
in preparation for the Second Coming.18 The idea is an attractive one, which
puts all the different aspects of Justinian in a single perspective. Why then
has it taken so long to surface, in what can hardly be described as a neglected
field of scholarship?
14 See Alexander, The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition, passim.

15 L. Rydén, ‘The Andreas Salos Apocalypse. Greek Text; Translation; and Commentary’, DOP
28 (1974), 209, 211, 250-1; K. Berger, Diegriechische DanielDiegese (Leiden, 1976), 15.
16 Hymnes, ed. Grosdidier de Matons, V, 209-67, esp. strophes 7-9; Th. Wehofer, Unter-
suchungen zum Lied des Romanos aufdie Wiederkunft des Herm, SB Wien,phil.-hist. Kl., 154/5 (Vienna,
1907).
17 Procopius, Secret History, XII. 14-27; XVIII. 1 ^ , 36-7; XXX.34; cf. Scott, ‘Malalas’, 108 and
n. 84; idem, ‘Justinian’s Coinage and Easter Reforms and the Date of the Secret History’, BMGS
11 (1987), 215-21.
18 Scott; ‘Malalas’, 107-9.
8 PAUL MAGDALINO
One problem is that the main literary and legal sources can, with less effort
of imagination, be read to yield a very different conclusion about the role of
eschatological thinking in sixth-century society. The Secret History is so
obviously an exercise in exaggerated rhetorical vilification that its Antichrist
motif cannot be taken any more seriously than its scurrilous stories about
Theodora’s sex life.19 Besides, Procopius does not call Justinian Antichrist in
so many words, and in his panegyrical work on Justinian’s Buildings, he makes
no symmetrical allusion to any positive eschatological role that Justinian may
have chosen to adopt. The emperor’s own propaganda, as reflected in his
legislation, alludes to the other providential schemes which we noted at the
beginning, especially to that of renewal and chastisement, but it has no obvious
eschatological overtones.20As for Agathias, the main source for sixth-century
apocalyptic fever, he dismisses both the prophets of doom and the people who
believe in them, and furthermore is at pains to point out that the reaction to
their prophecies was ephemeral. Elsewhere he appears to leave open the
question whether the plague was a sign of God’s anger, or merely an indication
that the world was experiencing a downward turn in an endlessly recurring cycle
of prosperity and adversity.21 In sum, the obvious inference would seem to be
that eschatological thinking did not go deep, and thinking men, including
Justinian, had no time for it.
We must be careful, however, not to see rational scepticism in what is more
likely to have been the impartial persona of the classicizing historian, combined
with the discriminating piety of a genuine believer.22What Agathias deplored
above all was a lack of faith - the presumption of claiming to pin down events
of which Christ had said to his disciples, ‘But of that day knoweth no man, no,
not the angels of heaven; but my Father only’ (Matt. 24 .36 ), and elsewhere,
‘It is not for you to know the times and the seasons which the Father hath placed
in his own power’ (Acts 1.7). The true believer would await the ultimate and
as yet hidden outcome of events, and would allow that God was free to change
his mind.23The world could not end until it was complete, and its completion
depended not only on the number of years that God had foreordained, but also
on the number of souls he intended to save.24The Church Fathers had been
19 On Procopius’ rhetoricity, cf. A.M. Cameron, Procopius (London, 1985), passim, esp. chapters
3, 13. Cf. also H.-G. Beck, Kaiserin Theodora und Prokop. Der Historiker und sein Opfer (Munich,
1985), 20, 106.
20 Reward: Novel 6, proem; chastisement: Nov.77.1. Justinian’s ideology of renewal, presented
in the legislation as a conservative response to innovation by Nature, is discussed by M. Maas, ‘Roman
History and Christian Ideology in Justinianic Reform Legislation’, DOP40 (1986), 17-31, esp. 28-31.
21 Agathias V.10, ed. Keydell, 176.
22 Cf. A.M. Cameron, Agathias (Oxford, 1970), passim, esp. ch. 9.
23 John Chrysostom, Sur la Providence de Dieu, ed. and tr. A.-M. Malingrey, SC 79 (Paris, 1961).
24 Kosmas Indikopleustes, Christian Topography:; V.255, ed. W. Wolska- Conus, II, SC 159
(Paris 1970) 371; for later instances of this belief, cf. S.I. Kourouses, Ai ctVTiXriy^Ç rcepi xcov
éaxáxcov xoá) kocfiaoo) kcci f | koctoc t o hoc, 1346 7iT coaiç t o û xpoùAÀai) r fjç 'Ayiaç Xoquaç, EEBS 37
(1969/70), 221 n.31, below.
on the whole extremely reluctant to speculate on the timing of the Last

Things. But this did not mean that the question did not concern them or later
Christian intellectuals. For we must also be careful not to draw too sharp a
contrast between ‘high’ theology and ‘low’ superstition. While it is true that
‘eschatology does not as a rule appeal to intellectuals’,25and Christian teachers,
beginning with Christ himself, have always tended to expound concepts like
the Last Judgement and the coming of the Kingdom in terms of the individual
believer’s inner experience, I do not think sixth-century Christianity was
ready to discard the belief that these would be real historical events. To have
done so would have been to concede too much to paganism. As we can see in
the hymns of Romanos, who can be regarded as Justinian’s official hymno-
grapher, the established church was ready to echo popular apprehensions of
doomsday, if only to call people to repentance. And as we can infer from
Simplicius, John Philoponos (who was the foremost Christian intellectual of
his day, and was sharply criticized by other Christians for his lack of biblical
fundamentalism) shared in the general belief that the days of the world were
symbolically numbered.26 In other words, both the discreet silence of the
cultural élite and the prophetic effusions of popular religion were based on
the same unstated assumptions. What is more, orthodox biblical fundament-
alism never in practice precluded recourse to astrology and other forms of
divination, despite official condemnation of the latter. As the Agathias passage
indicates, apocalyptic prophecy and astrological calculation went together
well. As Byzantine culture became more fiercely biblical in the gathering
darkness of the late sixth and seventh centuries, it became more, not less,
susceptible to other kinds of inspirational wisdom which claimed to read the
future in the stars or in the sculptured stones of Constantinople.27
In any case, although patristic theology left no room for home-made prophecy,
it allowed ample scope for creative interpretaton of the relevant biblical texts.
It is surely no accident that two of the four surviving Byzantine commentaries
on the Apocalypse of St John - the only two of any originality - were composed
in this period. Both the commentary by Oikoumenios (early sixth century) and
that by Andreas of Caesarea (late sixth-early seventh century) attempt to rehab-
ilitate the Book of Revelation as a canonical guide to the future, and Andreas,
at least, tries systematically to relate its prophecies to the Roman Empire.28
25 D.M. Nicol, Church and Society in the Last Centuries of Byzantium (Cambridge, 1979), 105.
26 See W. Wolska-Conus, La Topographie Chrétienne de Cosmas Indicopleustès (Paris, 1982), chapter
5, esp. 183ff.
27 G. Dagron, ‘Quand la terre tremble TM 1 (1981), 87-103; Dagron, ‘Le saint, le savant,
l’astrologue’, Hagiographie, cultures et sociétés (Paris, 1981), 143-55 (both repr. in idem, La romanité
chrétienne en Orient [London, 1981]); idem; Constantinople imaginaire (Paris, 1984).
28 Oikoumenios, ed. H.G. Hoskier, The Complete Commentary of Oecumenius on the Apocalypse (Ann
Arbor, 1928); Andreas, ed. J. Schmid, Studien zur Geschichte des griechischen Apokalypse-Textes, I
(Munich, 1955); cf. C. Mango, ‘Le temps dans les commentaires byzantins de l’Apocalypse’, Le
temps chrétien de la fin de ïantiquité au Moyen Age (IlIe-XIIe siècles) (Paris 1984), 431-8.
10 PAUL MAGDALINO
Here, however, another problem arises. There is an obvious gap between

the Christian apocalyptic tradition, whether of the sensational or the erudite
variety, and imperial ideology.29 The former stressed the impermanence of
the earthly order, and the perversion and destruction this would suffer before
the synteleia. Andreas of Caesarea is hardly more optimistic about the Christian
Roman Empire than earlier commentators on St John’s Apocalypse had been
about its pagan predecessor.30 He more than once infers that Antichrist will
come in the form of a Roman emperor (an interesting view, in the light of
Procopius). Although he would clearly like to believe that Babylon the Great
is the Persian capital, he has to conclude that the indications point over-
whelmingly to Constantinople. He does not think the empire can last long,
and he sees something in the view that the ‘Scythian’ hordes currently
threatening the empire correspond to the unclean nations Gôg and Magog. Only
in his final remarks does he appear to sidestep the inevitable conclusion: ‘Let
us pray that we may be spared the experience of these things that have been
prophesied, and may behold neither the arrival of Antichrist nor the mobilization
of the aforesaid nations’.31 This was an ideal eschatology for those elements
in Byzantine society which, having renounced the world of imperial power and
wealth, regarded this world as irredeemable and expendable. But it had little
to offer those who identified with, and sought to idealize, the imperial power
structure. Indeed, the very notion that the empire was mortal and its current
ills were terminal was embarrassing to the exalted imperial image promoted
by Justinian. The only eschatology which imperial ideology could accept was
one which played down the significance of the events between the fall of the
empire and the Second Coming, but stressed, instead, the extent to which the
Kingdom of God was already being anticipated, or even realized, in the Roman
Empire.
Such an eschatology did, however, exist. It existed in a particular interpre-
tation of the Four Kingdoms prophecy in the Book of Daniel which had been
hinted at by Eusebius in the fourth century, and was properly formulated towards
the end of Justinian’s reign by that Alexandrian writer known as Kosmas
Indikopleustes. The importance of the relevant passage in Kosmas’ Christian
Topography has been brought out by Podskalsky and Sabine MacCormack. The
mainstream of Christian exegesis equated the Roman Empire with the last of
Daniel’s Four Kingdoms, the Iron Kingdom with the feet of clay. Kosmas,
however, dismisses this notion out of hand. For him, the sequence of kingdoms
prophesied by Daniel ended with the Hellenistic monarchies. Daniel had
nothing to say about the Roman Empire:
29 For the relationship between apocalypticism and the established political order, see in
general B. McGinn, Visions of the End (New York, 1979), 28ff.
30 Ed. Schmid, 136-7,188-9,193,197,199-202. My reading of these passages differs from Mango’s
(‘Le temps’, 434-5).
31 Ed. Schmid, 199-202.
But he says ‘God will raise up a Kingdom of Heaven which will not be corrupted
unto eternity’. Speaking here about the Lord Christ, he cryptically includes the
kingdom of the Romans which arose at the same time as Christ our Lord... The
Empire of the Romans shares in the honours of the Kingdom of Christ Our Lord,
surpassing all other kingdoms as far as is possible in this life; and remaining
undefeated until the end... For I would venture to say that, although barbarian
enemies may rise up against the Roman Empire for chastisement on account of
our sins, yet by the strength of the preserving power (to û SiaK p aïoû vT oç), the
empire remains undefeated, so that Christianity may not be confined, but spread.32
The Christian Topography, as its title implies, was not primarily a work of
eschatology. But it clearly has eschatological implications, for Kosmas goes on
to show how the Gospel is being carried to the whole world, along with the
Roman imperial coinage. Similarly, although its author was something of an
outsider to both the political and the religious establishment, he says things
that no imperial spokesman could have put better. It may therefore be taken
as a reflection of the imperial position on the passing of the sixth millennium
and the contemporary portents of Christ’s Second Coming. This position is
difficult to define more exactly, and was no doubt deliberately vague. It might
have envisaged an earthly millennium of messianic imperial rule, or (and I think
more likely) it might have expected that the Second Coming was shortly to
occur in Constantinople. But either way, it saw the Kingdom of Heaven as being
both imminent and immanent in the Christian Empire.
This hypothesis is supported by two considerations. First, there is an
indication that sixth-century emperors did not dread, but actually looked
forward to, the consummation of the world. The emperor Anastasios was
reported to have been visited in a dream by an angel who informed him that
because of his sins, he was losing 14 years. As Mango has pointed out, since
Anastasios was probably in his 80 s at the time, the prophecy can hardly have
meant that he would fail to reach a ripe old age, and is more likely to have meant
that he would not be around for a very important date.33
Second, the Christian culture of East Roman society in the sixth and seventh
centuries was characterized by a complex of trends whose common factor can
be identified as the idea that the Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Heaven
were in the process and on the point of becoming one:
1. The idea of Constantinople as the New Jerusalem first appears in a text
written c.500 , and then becomes a standard topos in praise of Constan-
32 Eusebius, Tricennial Oration, III.2; Kosmas Indikopleustes, Christian Topography, II. 73-5:
ed. Wolska-Conus, I, SC 141 (Paris, 1968), 387-91; Podskalsky, Reichseschatologie, 11-12; idem,
‘Représentation du temps dans l’eschatologie impériale byzantine’, Le temps chrétien, 440-1; S.
MacCormack, ‘Christ and Empire, Tim e and Ceremonial in Sixth-Century Byzantium and
Beyond’, Byz 52 (1982), 287-309.
33 Malalas, 408; Mango, Byzantium, 204.
12 PAUL MAGDALINO
tinople. Most interestingly for our purpose, it is echoed in the building of

two churches in Constantinople. It has recently been argued that the
church of St Polyeuktos, completed in 527 by a lady with imperial
pretensions, imitated the measurements and the decoration of the Temple
of Solomon described in 2 Kings 6. A hymn of Romanos the Melodist written
c. 536 , during the building of the new Hagia Sophia, celebrates this as an
achievement surpassing not only the Jewish Jerusalem of Solomon but also
the Christian Jerusalem of Constantine.34 A later, anonymous, hymn
written for the rededication of the church in 562 adds a new twist to the
same line of thought: Solomon’s Temple was built for one people, but Hagia
Sophia is a universal temple for all the nations of the earth. Here we are
reminded of the contemporary remark that ‘henceforth it is the time for
the fulness of the nations to come in’. There was an apocryphal belief that
the Second Coming and Last Judgement would take place in Jerusalem.
But what if Jerusalem had been superseded by Constantinople?35
2 . The ambitious and unprecedented programme of church building and
religious endowment undertaken by sixth-century emperors was not just
an imperial phenomenon, or one confined to Constantinople, as is clear
from the large number of sixth-century basilicas which have been excavated
all over Greece, Asia Minor and Syria. But it is also clear that the emperors
took the lead, and that their most lavish foundations were in Constantinople.
By c. 580 , a section of the imperial patrimony had been specially set aside
for the financing of ‘new churches’. From the late fifth century, the
building of churches began to outstrip that of other public edifices. At the
same time, the church progressively infiltrated the city’s social life, as it
came to control the facilities for public welfare, including public bathing.
Is it sufficient to characterize this transformation merely in general terms
of growing piety? Churches were commonly referred to as the houses of
the holy persons to whom they were dedicated, and in that sense, the great
new churches of Constantinople could easily be considered to be the
principal earthly residences of Christ, the Virgin, the Apostles, and the
Archangel Michael. If the Second Coming was to be an earthly event, where
could the court of heaven be better accommodated than in the New
34 T. Honoré, Tribonian (London, 1978), 14ff.

35 Life ofDaniel the Stylite, ed. H. Delehaye, Les saints stylites (Brussels; 1923), 12; cf. G. Dagron,
Naissance d'une capitale (Paris, 1974); R.M. Harrison, Excavations at Saraçhane in Istanbul, I
(Princeton, 1986), 410-11; Hymnes, ed. Grosdidier de Matons, V, 470-99; C.A. Trypanis, Fourteen
Early Byzantine Cantica (Vienna, 1968), 141ff. Second Coming in Jerusalem: Pseudo-Chrysostom,
PG 61, cols 775-6. Cf. the tenth-century vision of the Heavenly Jerusalem as a celestial Con-
stantinople, with Christ officiating in a church in the east of the city (cited by Mango, Byzantium,
216); cf. also the later belief that Christ, on his return, would wear the Crown of Thorns (kept,
along with other relics of the Passion, in the Palace of Constantinople): P.E.D. Riant, Exuviae
sacrae Constantinopolitanae (Geneva, 1877), I, 51.
Jerusalem, and where could the glorious adventus of Christ be better

celebrated than in Justinian’s Great Church?36
3 . The persecution of deviants, especially pagans, homosexuals, and Jews.
4 . The elimination of psychological barriers between heaven and earth,
which can be seen happening in five interconnected ways:
(a) The liturgification of public life, evident in the elaboration of palace
ceremonial and the liturgical calendar, together with the growth in
the ceremonial functions of the circus and the circus factions.
Concomitant with this was the encroachment of‘liturgical time’, not
only as a framework of chronological reference and as an incentive
for chronological computation (to fix the precise date of Easter), but
also as a suspension of normal time, which made the whole history
of Christian salvation eternally present in the ritual drama of Church
and State.37
(b) The refinement of Christian neoplatonism in the work of Pseudo-
Dionysios the Areopagite (late fifth-early sixth century). Although
this emphasized the ultimate unknowability of God, it also emphasized
the continuous hierarchy of being which emanated from God,
descended to the lowest of his creatures, and allowed them to return
to him. Central to the theology of Pseudo-Dionysios was the idea of
the Church as an anagogical image of the heavenly hierarchy, which
through its sacraments lifted the faithful to the eternity of heaven,
transcending time as well as space, and thus anticipating the coming
in time of Christ’s Kingdom. From the structure of the church
hierarchy, the idea was applied both to the structure of the liturgy
and to the structure of the church building; its influence can be seen
not only in the seventh-century abstract Mystagogia of Maximos the
Confessor, but also in two mid sixth-century hymns celebrating
specific church buildings.38
(c) The development of the theme of intercession. This is most evident,
of course, in the cults of the saints, in particular the Virgin. It was
36 P. and I. Zepos, Jus graecoromanum (Athens, 1931, repr. Aalen, 1962), 20; C. Mango, ‘The
Development of Constantinople as an Urban Centre’, The 17th International Byzantine Congress,
Major Papers (New York, 1986), 125ff.; P. Magdalino, ‘Church, Bath and Diakonia in Medieval
Constantinople’, Church and People in Byzantium, ed. R. Morris (Birmingham, 1990), 165-88.
37 A.M. Cameron, ‘Images of Authority: Elites and Icons in Late Sixth-Century Byzantium’,
Past and Present 84 ( 1979), 6-15 (repr. in Cameron, Change and Continuity in Sixth-Century Byzantium
[London, 1981]); J. Beaucamp et al., ‘La Chronique Pascale: le temps approprié’, Le temps chrétien,
451-68; MacCormack, ‘Christ and Empire’.
38 R. Roques, L'univers dionysien (Paris, 1983). Maximos: text in PG 91, cols 657-718; Eng. tr.
by G. C. Berthold, Maximus Confessor, Selected Writings (London, 1985), 181ff.; cf. R. Bornert, Les
commentaires byzantins sur la divine liturgie (Paris, 1966), chapter 2; Trypanis, Fourteen Early Byzantine
Cantica, 141 ff.; A. Palmer, with Lyn Rodley, ‘The Inauguration Anthem of Hagia Sophia in
Edessa’, BMGS 12 (1988), 117-67, esp. 137ff.
14 PAUL MAGDALINO
during the late sixth and early seventh centuries that she properly
came into her own as patron and mediator for Constantinople. But
the theme of intercession is also to be found in poems on religious
pictures and in praise of the emperor. Paul the Silentiary, in his verse
Ekphrasis of Hagia Sophia, celebrated the building above all as a work
of salvation, by which Justinian both saved himself and brought his
people to God.39
(d) T he assimilation of the earthly empire to the Kingdom of Heaven.
T he idea that the Roman Empire was a pale imitation of heaven, and
that the heavenly order could be described in terms of imperial court
procedure, was not new in the sixth century. It had been adumbrated
in the 330s by Eusebius of Caesarea in his writings in praise of
Constantine, and had been elaborated by later writers, notably St John
Chrysostom. But in writings of the seventh century, the analogy
appears in a much less qualified form: it is simply assumed that
angels can be mistaken for court eunuchs, that a saint will appear in
the guise of an imperial dignitary, that leaving one’s family to take
the monastic habit is just like going to court to receive the insignia
of office from the emperor, that after death the soul will pass through
a series of customs posts manned by merciless bureaucratic demons,
that the liturgy is attended by angels keeping a roll-call. There is even,
in the Miracles o f S t Demetrios, what looks like a deliberate confusion
between the earthly and heavenly levels.40
(e) T h e proliferation of holy phenomena which, as Peter Brown has
suggested, can best be characterized as divine epiphaneiai, and which,
in a sense, form an exact pendant to the disasters of the time. For as
with those disasters, no less remarkable than the phenomena
themselves is the interest with which they were recounted. There
were remarkable holy men, some of a conventional kind, and others
whose holiness took new and paradoxical forms, notably Symeon the
Fool for Christ and John the Almsgiver. T he biographer of these two
saints, Leontios of Neapolis, was evidently keen to make the point
that extreme holiness is no longer confined to desert places or country
columns, but has penetrated to the very centre of the towns - to the
39 A. M. Cameron, ‘The Cult of the Theotokos in Sixth-Century Constantinople’, Journal of

Theological Studies 29 (1978), 79-108 (repr. in Cameron, Change and Continuity). Agathias, in Anth.
Gr. I. 34-5. Paul the Silentiary: text ed. P. Friedlànder, Johannes von Gaza und Paulus Silentiarius
(Leipzig, 1912); cf. R. Macrides and P. Magdalino, ‘The Architecture of Ekphrasis: Construction
and Context of Paul the Silentiary’s Description of Hagia Sophia’, BMGS 12 (1988), 47-82.
40 P. Lemerle, Les plus anciens recueils des Miracles de Saint Démétrius (Paris, 1979), I, 80, 161ff.;
Miracles of S t Artemios, ed. A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, Varia Graeca Sacra (St Petersburg, 1909;
repr. Leipzig, 1975), 11-12; Leontios of Neapolis, Vie de Syméon le Fou et Vie de Jean de Chypre, ed.
A-J. Festugière (Paris, 1974), 62-3, 65-7, 379-80, 396-7 (cf. 613ff.), 403.
underworld of E mesa and to the wealthy, worldly church of Alexandria.

At home, as well as beyond the frontier, the world was being converted
to Christ. At the same time, Christ was making surprise appearances
among men. One holy man, Symeon Stylites II, was treated to several
extraordinary visions of Christ descending from heaven in majesty
- visions which, to contemporaries who heard about them, must
have sounded like sneak previews of the Second Coming. Meanwhile,
the world was becoming aware of the existence of several images of
Christ ‘not made by hand’ (de%eipo7toir|Toi). T he most famous were
the image of Edessa, which was ‘invented’ after the Persian siege of
the city in 544, and the image of Kamouliana near Caesarea in Asia
Minor, of which an equally famous copy was made, and, on the
emperor’s orders, paraded throughout the region in annual processions
from 554 to 560.41
With the acheiropoietoi, we come to the key phenomenon in the whole complex:
the icon. T he notion of image or likeness (eÍkcdv) underlies all the develop-
ments just described, and the veneration of religious pictures was to become
one of the definitive features of Byzantine Christianity, as well as the most
controversial. Moreover, icons provide the most direct evidence of a link
between the new ideological trends and contemporary expectations of the
Second Coming. Our source for the discovery and parading of the Kamouliana
icon goes on to comment:
And I believe that these [things] happened under the direction of Providence,
because there are two comings of Christ according to the purport of the Scriptures,
one in humility ... and a future one in glory; which we are awaiting; and this same
thing is a type of the mystery and picture and wreathed image (Xorup&TOv) of the
king and lord of those above and those below, which shall be quickly revealed.42
That this was not just a personal opinion is suggested by the later history of
the image. In the ninth year of the reign of Justin II (574) it was removed to
Constantinople, along with a fragment of the True Cross from Apamea in Syria
- another legendary object which, like the image of Edessa, had given
miraculous aid during the Persian invasions.43 The translation of the Kamouliana
41 P. Brown, ‘Eastern and Western Christendom in Late Antiquity: a parting of the ways’, The
Orthodox Churches and the West, Studies in Church History 13 (Oxford, 1976), 14ff., repr. in Brown,
Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity (London, 1982), 182ff.; Evagrius, Historia Ecclesiastica, IV. 27,
33ff.; Leontios of Neapolis, ed. Festugière, passim; P. Van der Ven, La vie ancienne de S. Syméon
Stylite leJeune (Brussels, 1962), 39,44,82-3,90-1,119ff.; Chronicle ofZachariah ofMytilene, tr. Hamilton-
Brooks, 321-2. On the acheiropoietoi, cf. E. Kitzinger, ‘The Cult of Images in the Age before
Iconoclasm’, DOP 8 (1954), 112-5; A. M. Camejon, ‘The History of the Image of Edessa: The
T elling of a Story’, Okeanos. Essayspresentedto IhorSeucenko on his Sixtieth Birthday (= Harvard Ukrainian
Studies, 7) (Cambridge, Mass., 1983), 80-94.
42 Chronicle ofZachariah ofMytilene, loc. cit., cf. E. von Dobschütz, Christusbilder.;TU N.S., 3 (Leipzig,
1899), 7**ff.; Kitzinger, ‘Cult of Images’, 99-100.
43 Cedrenus (CSHB) I, 684-5; Evagrius, Historia Ecclesiastica IV.26.
16 PAUL MAGDALINO
image obviously marked an important stage in the development of the official

adoption of icons, and, as Averil Cameron has shown, it is hardly a coincidence
that Justin II was the emperor who built the Chrysotriklinos and decorated it
with mosaic icons, including one of Christ in the apse.44 But the full signifi-
cance of the icon’s translation can only be understood with reference to another
event which scholars have so far failed to discuss in the same context, even
though it is recorded in the same chronicle entry. This was the institution of
the Cheroubtkon, the hymn sung in the Orthodox liturgy after the reading of
the Gospel and before the second or Great Entrance of the clergy, when they
process from the sacristy through the church bearing the bread and wine.45
The very words of the hymn have eschatological as well as anagogical overtones:
We who mystically represent the Cherubim, sing the thrice-holy hymn to the life-
giving Trinity. Let us put away all worldly care, so that we may receive the King
of all, invisibly escorted by the angelic hosts.
The eschatological overtones are reinforced by the insertion of the hymn at
the moment of transition from the Liturgy of the Word to the Liturgy of the
Faithful. T he Liturgy of the Word was open to catechumens as well as baptized
Christians, because it was concerned with announcing the truth, in readings
from the Old Testament, the Epistles, and the Gospels. But the Liturgy of
the Faithful was open only to the initiate, because it revealed the full mystery
of the Word made Flesh. In the words of Maximos the Confessor’s Mystagogia,
written some 55 years later, the reading of the Gospel ‘signifies and announces
the truth of which it is a likeness and a type, as if proclaiming that, as the Scripture
says, after the preaching of the Kingdom in all the world, then the End will
come, with Christ descending from heaven in his Second Coming’; and this,
Maximos says, is symbolized by the bishop’s descent from his throne after the
Gospel reading.46 In other words, the Cheroubikon marked the liturgical moment
corresponding to the moment in history at which the Byzantines could consider
themselves to be in 574: the moment when the Gospel had been preached,
and the ‘fulness of the nations’ was about to come in.
The icons of Christ appearing at this time were therefore in a very real sense
portraits announcing the adventus in glory of the heavenly King. Later, pro-
icon theology would insist that such icons were essentially memorials of
Christ’s historical, human form. But this does not seem to have been the main
emphasis in the mid sixth century. T he monumental depictions at San Vitale,
Ravenna, the Rotonda and Hosios David in Thessaloniki, and at Mt Sinai, all
depict not the humble humanity but the glorious divinity of the Son of God,
44 Cameron, ‘Images of Authority’, 16-17.

45 R. F. Taft, The Great Entrance, Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 20 (Rome, 1978), chapter 2; N.
K. Moran, ‘The Musical “Gestaltung” of the Great Entrance Ceremony in the Twelfth Century
in Accordance with the Rite of Hagia Sophia’, JOB 28 (1979), 168-9.
46 PG 91.693, 708.
and the Thessaloniki mosaics have been seen as pointedly apocalyptic.47 That
this was not just a matter of provincial idiosyncrasy is clear from Paul the
Silentiary’s description of the portrait medallion of Christ in the silver chancel
screen made for the second dedication of Hagia Sophia in 562. Here the artist
engraved the figure of the immaculate God who, without seed, clothed himself
in human form. Elsewhere he has carved the host of winged angels bowing down
their necks, for they are unable to gaze upon the glory of God, though hidden
under a veil of human form - he is still God, even if he has put on the flesh that
removes sin (693-9).48
This emphasis may have been intended as a concession to the Monophysites,
whom Justinian made a last effort to woo at the end of his reign by embracing
the doctrine of Aphthartodocetism, much to the embarrassment of his patriarch,
Eutychios.49 Yet it was not until three years after the rededication of the
church that Justinian issued his Aphthartodocetist edict and Eutychios resigned
in protest. It is in any case unlikely that either the iconography of the screen,
or Paul’s celebration of it - which honoured the patriarch as well as the emperor
- would have contained a contentious statement on sensitive Christological
issues.50 It is more likely that the iconography referred not to the controver-
sial chemistry of Christ’s mortal life, but to his presence in heaven and to his
future appearance, which all agreed would be in great glory.51
T he apocalyptic potential of the icon of Christ is further illustrated in a
surviving work of art, the Barberini ivory.52 In the upper register of this plaque
depicting the triumph of a sixth-century emperor, possibly Justinian, we see
a clipeate image of Christ held by two angels who are pointedly looking away.
T hat they do so because they cannot bear the brightness is perhaps suggested
by the presence of all the heavenly lights in the clipeus of the icon. Another
point of interest is that the angels are carrying an image of Christ. T he
iconography was obviously derived from that which showed angels (or Victories)
47 See in general E. Kitzinger, Byzantine Art in the Making (London, 1977), chapters 3-6; for the
monuments of Thessaloniki, W. E. Kleinbauer, ‘The Iconography and the Date of the Mosaics
of the Rotunda of Hagios Georgios, Thessaloniki’, Viator'S (1972), 28-44; J.-M. Spieser, Thessa-
lonique et ses monuments du IVe au Vie siècle (Paris, 1984), 163ff. and works cited.
48 The translation is that by G. Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 324-1453. Sources and
Documents (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1972), 87.
49 E. Stein, Histoire du Bas-Empire (Paris/Brussels/Amsterdam, 1949), II, 685ff.
50 Cf. Mary Whitby, ‘Eutychius, Patriarch of Constantinople: An Epic Holy Man’, Homo Viator.
Classical EssaysforJohn Bramble, eds Michael Whitby, Philip Hardie, Mary Whitby (Bristol, 1987),
297-308.
51 Cyril of Jerusalem: PG 33.869; John Chrysostom: PG 57-8.554; 60.538. This does not mean,
of course, that depictions of Christ in glory referred exclusively to the apocalyptic future: see Y.
Christe, ‘Apocalypse et interprétation iconographique: quelques remarques liminaires sur les images
du règne de Dieu et de l’Eglise à l’époque paléochrétienne’, BZ 67 (1974), 92-100.
52 See Age of Spirituality, ed. K. Weitzmann (New York, 1979), no.28.
18 PAUL MAGDALINO
holding the sign of the cross.53 Now the sign of the cross meant many things,
but among those things, it was identified, in patristic and pseudo-patristic
writings, as the sign of the Son of Man which Christ had said would appear in
the sky immediately before his arrival in glory (Matt.24.30). According to John
Chrysostom, it would be brighter than the sun.54 According to Ephraim the
Syrian, it would appear ‘with great glory and a host of angels’, while a pseudo-
Chrysostomic text specifies that angels will carry it.55 Whether iconography
influenced prophecy or vice versa is not relevant to our discussion. Either way,
one possible reading of the Barberini ivory is that in the sixth century, the portrait
icon of Christ was emerging as an alternative to the cross as the sign of the Son
of Man, with all that this implied.
Icons came of age during the reign of Heraclius (61(M-1), at the same time
that the hopes and fears aroused by the advent of the seventh millennium were
coming to a head. Heraclius, who delivered the empire from the disastrous and
tyrannical rule of Phokas (602-10), and then, after a decade of destructive Persian
and Avar invasions, went on to crush the Persian Empire, was naturally
celebrated as the author of cosmic renewal.56 But it is clear that he was also
seen, and saw himself, as an agent of cosmic fulfilment. His patronage of the
‘philosopher’ and astrologer Stephen of Alexandria shows that he was keeping
a close watch on the future.57 T h e Avar-Persian siege of Constantinople in 626
was seen as the fulfilment of prophecies by Isaiah and Ezekiel, and the Avars
were explicitly likened to the nation of Gog.58 Four contemporary texts record
prophecies that the end of the world was imminent.59 T he most interesting,
and probably the closest to H eraclius’ own thinking, is the one which
Theophylact Simocatta, the official historian of the reign of Maurice (582-602),
ascribes to the vanquished Persian king Khushraw II (591-628). Khushraw had
allegedly prophesied 21 years of Persian ascendancy, followed by seven years
in which Rome would enslave Persia; then, ‘the day without evening would
53 Cf. Age of Spirituality, nos 68, 70, 477, 480.

54 PG 57-8.698.
55 Ephraim, Operagraeca, ed. J. Assemani, II (Rome, 1746), 212; Ps.-Chrys., PG 61.775.
56 George of Pisidia, Poemi, I. Panegirici epici, ed. A. Pertusi (Ettal, 1960), III.372; VI passim,
esp. (1) 82ff.
57 See P. Lemerle, tr. H. Lindsay, A. Moffatt, Byzantine Humanism (Canberra, 1986), 88-9
n.29.
58 Ed. L. Sternbach, ‘Analecta Avarica’, Rozprawy Akademii Umiejetnosci, Wydialfilolog., 2nd ser.,
14 (Cracow, 1900), 298-320, esp. 314ff. Cf. P. J. Alexander, ‘The Strength of Empire and Capital
as seen through Byzantine Eyes’, Speculum 37 (1962), 346f.; S. Spain Alexander; ‘Heraclius,
Byzantine Imperial Ideology, and the David Plates’, Speculum 52 (1977), 222-3; Cameron, ‘Images
of Authority’, 5-6, 20-21.
59 G. Garitte, ‘La Passion géorgienne de Sainte Golindouch’, AB 74 (1956), 439; Vie de Théodore
deSykéon, ed. A.-J. Festugière (Brussels, 1970), I, 106; E.A.W. Budge, The History ofAlexander the
Great (Cambridge, 1889), 158. See also following note.
dawn among m en’, as the corruptible world gave way to a more perfect order.60
It is not clear how much of this was vaticinium ex eventu\ but it must have been
well on the way to being realized when Heraclius won his final victory in 628.
As Mango has shown, he celebrated in ‘deliberately apocalyptic’ style.61 His
six years of campaigning were compared to the six days of creation.62 Having,
it seemed, converted the Persians to Christ, he attempted, in 632, to convert
the Jews - for was it not written that Israel would return to the Lord in the
last days, after the ‘fulness of the nations’ had come in (Rom. 11.26)?63 In 630
he solemnly restored to Jerusalem the piece of the True Cross that the Persians
had taken from the city.64 It is not entirely clear whether he was inspired by,
or inspired, the apocalyptic legend of the Last Emperor who would lay down
his crown in Jerusalem.65 Heraclius, of course, did not lay down his crown, but
he did the next best thing: he changed his imperial title from autokratorto basileus
- the title by which not only the Persian king, but also the ancient kings of
Israel, and Christ himself, were known. From 629 the Roman emperor signed
himself‘faithful basileus in Christ’.66 T he merger between the empire and the
Kingdom of Heaven was now official.
Whatever Heraclius expected to happen next, his calculations were seriously
upset.67 But just how seriously was not perhaps apparent during his reign or
those of his immediate successors. The immediate effect of the Arab conquests
would have been to heighten the sense of apocalyptic drama, by revealing, at
last, the true identity of the principal villain. When the caliph Omar entered
Jerusalem, the patriarch Sophronios is said to have exclaimed, ‘behold the
abomination of desolation standing in the holy place’.68 The dénouement was
60 Theophylact Simocatta, Historiae, V.15, 3ff; ed. C. de Boor, rev. P. Wirth (Stuttgart, 1972),
216-17; Eng. tr. Michael and Mary Whitby, The History of Theophylact Simocatta (Oxford, 1985),
22.
61 Mango, Byzantium, 205.
62 Theophanes, Chronographia, ed. C. de Boor (Leipzig, 1883; repr. Hildesheim, 1980), I,
327-8; cf. George of Pisidia, Hexaemeron, PG 92, 1575-6.
63 A. Sharf, Byzantine Jewry from Justinian to the Fourth Crusade (London, 1971 ), 42ff.; cf. George
of Pisidia, ed. Pertusi, V.25-6.
64 See C. Mango, ‘Deux études sur Byzance et la Perse Sassanide’, TM9 (1987), 112-13,116-17.
65 The case for a pre-Heraclian date becomes less convincing if the relevant passage in the
Latin version of the Tiburtine Sibyl (fourth century) is regarded as an interpolation contempo-
rary with, or later than, the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius: Alexander, Byzantine Apocalyptic
Tradition 62-3, n.44.
661. Shahid, ‘The Iranian F actor in Byzantium during the Reign of Heraclius’, DOP 26 ( 1972),
293-320, esp. 308, n.56; idem, ‘Heraclius 7c ig t ô ç èv Xpurap paaitaùç, Z)(9/>34-5 (1980-1), 225-37;
E. Chrysos, ‘The Title paaiÀeùç in Early Byzantine International Relations’, DOP 32 (1978), 29-75;
(contra) I. Shahid, ‘On the Titulature of the Emperor Heraclius’, Byz 51 (1981), 28-36.
67 On the seventh-century crisis in general see: J. Herrin, The Formation of Christendom (Oxford,
1987), chapters 5-6; J. F. Haldon, ‘Ideology and Social Change in the Seventh Century, Military
Discontent as a Barometer’, Klio 68 (1986), 139-90; Mango, Byzantium, 205ff.
68 Theophanes, ed. de Boor, 339.
20 PAUL MAGDALINO
obviously going to be messier than expected, but it might still be swift, and
the Roman Empire would still be on the side of the angels. It was in the mid
to late seventh century that a Syrian Christian incorporated the legend of the
Last Roman Emperor into an elaborate apocalyptic prophecy which, circulating
under the pseudonym of Methodios of Patara, and translated into Greek and
Latin, enjoyed a long future in both East and West.69 Possibly under the
influence of some such prophecy, the emperor Justinian II (685-95, 705-10)
sent against the Muslims an army of captured Slavs whom he named the
‘Chosen People’.70 T h e same emperor gave graphic expression to the title
‘faithful basileus in Christ’ by issuing coins with the icon of Christ on the
obverse and his own portrait on the reverse.71 When the Arabs launched their
great three-pronged offensive against Constantinople in 717, an apocalypse was
composed for the benefit of the reigning emperor Theodosius III, and when
he was deposed, the text was amended to apply to his successor Leo III
(717— 41 ).72 Another Byzantine prophecy, about the lion and his cub who
would together pursue the wild ass, can be traced back to Leo’s reign.73 Like
Heraclius, Leo tried to convert the Jews, whose own Messianic expectations
had been aroused by the siege of Constantinople and the prospect that
Christendom and Islam were about to destroy each other.74 T he apocalyptic
mood of the times is further reflected in the extraordinary story, preserved in
the two main narrative sources, that when the people of Pergamon prepared
to do battle with the invader, they cut open a pregnant woman and boiled up
her foetus in a cauldron into which they then dipped their swords. As a German
scholar has recently pointed out, this was a practice attributed by legend to
Gog and Magog, and Pergamon happened to be the birthplace of a recent
heterodox emperor, as well as a city rich in the remains of pagan temples, which
were, of course, notorious haunts of demons.75 There was a growing obsession
with the prophetic meaning of ancient sculptures: the reign of Leo III is one
date that has been assigned to the compilation of the Parastaseis, that enigmatic
collection of tales reflecting the activities of ‘philosophers’ who decipher the
public monuments of Constantinople.76 Only eight years after the siege of Con-
69 Alexander, Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition, 13-60; Haldon, ‘Ideology’, 168-9, n.74.
70 Theophanes, ed. de Boor, 366.
71 Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and in the Whittemore Collection,
eds A.R. Bellinger, P. Grierson, II/2 (Washington, D.C., 1968), 568-609,647-63; Herrin, Formation
of Christendom, 311.
72 K. Berger, DiegriechischeDaniel-Diegese (Leiden, 1976); on the date, see C. Mango, ‘The Life
of St Andrew the Fool Reconsidered’, Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Slavi 2 (1982), 310-13 (repr. in
Mango, Byzantium and its Image [London, 1984], VIII). In the main part of this article, Mango argues
that the Life of St Andrew the Fool, and the apocalypse which it contains, should also be dated
to the late seventh or early eighth century. See also above, n.15, and below, n.116.
73 Alexander, Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition, 172-4.
74 Sharf, Byzantine Jewry, 6 Iff., esp. 64-5.
75 W. Brandes, ‘Apokalyptisches in Pergamon’, B S l48 (1987), 1-11.
76 A.M. Cameron, J. Herrin, Constantinople in the Early Eighth Century. The Parastaseis Syntomoi
Chronikai (Leiden, 1984); Dagron, Constantinople imaginaire.
stantinople had been broken, the submerged volcano at Thera erupted in what
was probably the most spectacular act of God to have affected the Aegean world
since the famous eruption of the same volcano in c. 1500 B.C. T he eruption
of 726 threw up a new island, and showers of pumice, which fell all over the
Aegean. The sources, which were written long after the event, note that this
was interpreted as a sign of divine displeasure. At the time, it may well have
given rise to much more alarmist speculation, since it must have been
accompanied by tidal waves and followed by weeks of blood-red sunsets.77
All in all, then, the atmosphere in the early eighth century was as doom-
laden and apocalyptic as ever. But there was now an important difference. The
empire was not only far more reduced and embattled than at any previous time;
it also lacked the sense of imminent fulfilment, of the dawning of a new era,
which had characterized the period from Justinian to Heraclius. After the
siege of 717, it was clear that the struggle with the Arabs had reached an
impasse: they were not going to take Constantinople, but neither were they
going to be shifted from Syria and Egypt, where their occupation far exceeded
the three and a half years prescribed for the reign of Antichrist. T he world was
also now more than 200 years into its seventh millennium. Byzantine society
was therefore led to review the assumptions which had guided it for the past
two centuries. T he establishment was divided in its reactions. One reaction,
led by the emperor Leo III, was to point the finger at certain institutions which
the empire had adopted in the sixth century. Leo III commissioned a new law
code, the Ecloga, to replace the Justinianic legal corpus.78 More controversially,
he challenged the veneration of icons.79 He began, after the eruption of 726,
by removing the icon of Christ from the main entrance to the palace and
erecting a plain cross.80 Iconoclasm, as recent studies have shown, was an attack
not on the concept of religious images, but on what it regarded as false images,
as opposed to true images, above all the sign of the cross. Leo and his supporters
were seeking to replace images that had manifestly failed, because they were
tainted with idolatry, by an image that in their eyes had altogether better
credentials. T he cross was the sign in which Constantine had conquered; it
was also, we may recall, traditionally identified with the apocalyptic sign of
the Son of Man.
The other, and, as it eventually proved, more orthodox reaction to the crisis
was not to question traditional images, but to reinterpret their significance. In
77 Nikephoros, Opuscula historica, ed. C. de Boor (Leipzig, 1880), 57; Theophanes, ed. de Boor,
404-5; Herrin, Formation of Christendom, 334-5.
78 Ed. L. Burgmann, Ecloga. Das Gesetzbuch Leons III. undKonstantinos V. (Frankfurt am Main,
1983).
79 On Iconoclasm in general, see Herrin, Formation of Christendom, chapter 8.
80 The most recent discussion is in Herrin, Formation of Christendom, 335-6, suggesting that
the cross was put up in a different place; and hence did not necessarily replace the icon over the
Chalke Gate. It is difficult, however, to think of a more likely location than this, which was the
main public, ceremonial ‘front’ of the imperial Great Palace.
22 PAUL MAGDALINO
mid sixth-century images of Christ, as we have seen, the accent had been on
his awesome, eternal divinity. But the early eighth-century apologists for icon
veneration, the patriarch Germanos and St John of Damascus, based their whole
theology on the premise that pictures of Christ represented his historical
human form.81 This was partly a natural counter to the charge of idolatry, and
partly a consequence of the final resolution of the Christological question in
the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680-1), which had fully rehabilitated Christ’s
human nature after two centuries of imperial fudging of the issue in order to
appease Monophysite opinion. One exponent of the theology that triumphed
at the council recommended that the orthodox should illustrate their teachings
with pictures of the crucified Christ.82 But are the Second Commandment and
Christology alone sufficient to explain the shift in emphasis? T he same shift
can be seen in orthodox interpretations of another image of Christ, the
eucharistie liturgy. St Maximos the Confessor (580-662) and the patriarch
Germanos (715-30) were both equally Orthodox commentators, but while
the former in his Mystagogia interpreted the liturgy as an anagogical experience,
the latter, as the title of his commentary implies {Historia Ecclesiastica), was
much more concerned to see it as a historical drama symbolizing Christ’s
Passion and Resurrection.83 When due allowance has been made for the
influences of different exegetical traditions, and for possible differences in
readership, we can see here a real change in perspective. T he change in escha-
tological perspective is particularly striking. Both authors see the actual
Eucharist as an image of ultimate fulfilment in Christ, and both attribute
eschatological significance to the moment of the Gospel reading. But while
for Maximos, writing at the time of Heraclius’ triumph over Persia, this is the
image of the moment when eschatology is realized in the Second Coming, for
Germanos it is prophetic of an event that lies very definitely in the future: ‘The
bishop’s blessing of the people indicates that the future parousia of Christ will
be in the year 6500, through the figure çcp which he traces with his fingers’.84
If this passage belongs to the text of the Historia Ecclesiastica as Germanos
wrote it, it is a remarkable piece of evidence. Germanos was not content
merely to discard Maximos’ interpretation of the liturgy as realized eschatology,
but wanted to put in its place an authoritative statement to the effect that
eschatology was still about 300 years from being realized - for the year 6500
corresponded to +/- A.D. 1000. Since the Historia is not otherwise a prophetic
work, the patriarch’s purpose in including such a prophecy cannot have been
to encourage apocalyptic speculation, but rather to discourage it - to divest
the liturgy and, perhaps, other images of Christ, of the expectancy that
81 Germanos: PG 98.173B-C, 176C, 180D; John of Damascus: PG 94.1237^10,1245,1248,1269B.

82 See A.D. Kartsonis, Anastasis (Princeton, 1986), chapter 3, esp. 57ff.
83 St Germanus of Constantinople, On the Divine Liturgy, ed. and tr. P. Meyendorff (New York,
1984).
84 On the Divine Liturgy, 33; p.82.
surrounded them, and to dismiss any idea that the terrible events through which
the empire was living were the Last Things. To this extent, the prophecy can
be considered a manifesto against the apocalypticism of the time. It is tempting
to think that Germanos aimed it at the emperor Leo III, and that it was in some
way connected with his opposition to the emperor’s iconoclast policy, which
eventually cost him his patriarchal throne.85 Unfortunately, the work cannot
be dated so precisely - for all we know, Germanos wrote it before Leo came
to the throne. Moreover, Germanos was almost certainly not the first to circulate
the prophecy, and 6500 was not the only terminus being proposed at the time.
This is clear from a text attributed to a monk Theophanios and dateable to
the year 710. Here the prophecy is added to a series of computations in order
to prove that Christ has extended the calculable age of the world by 120 years:
i.e. but for his mercy, the end should come 888 years after his birth, that is in
880 A.D. according to the most common Byzantine dating system.86 The
connection between iconoclasm and eschatology clearly needs much more
thorough investigation than can be attempted here. But I hope to have shown
that the connection is worth exploring. For this much can be said for certain:
first, the crisis in the veneration of icons coincided closely with a crisis in the
eschatological framework in which that veneration had developed; second, the
churchman who first came to the defence of images in their traditional form
was also at the forefront of efforts to promote a new eschatological time-scale
which allowed plenty of time to prepare for the Second Coming.
We must now ask what effect the new projections had on the mentality of
future generations. In the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries the empire
experienced a steady political and cultural revival, which consciously looked
back for inspiration to the forms and institutions of the period before the Arab
invasions. Was there a corresponding revival of the old sixth- and seventh-century
Reichseschatologiein anticipation of a new terminus? One possible terminus was,
as we have seen, the year 880. T he evidence suggests that, after a relative lull
in the late eighth century, speculation revived and intensified in the course
of the ninth century. It is in connection with the emperor Leo V (813-20) that
we first hear of emperors consulting books of illustrated Sibylline prophecies
that were kept in the palace library.87 Three extant apocalyptic texts can be
dated to 827-9, 842 and 869 respectively.88 T he last of these was composed,
and the year 880 happened to fall, in the reign of Basil I (867-86), who was
very keen to project himself as a ruler of uncommon destiny, in ways which
are distinctly reminiscent of Justinian, Heraclius and Leo III.89 There was heavy
85 Meyendorff, On the Divine Liturgy, 48ff.
86 E. von Dobschiitz, ‘Coislinianus 296’, B Z 12 (1903), 534-67 (text 550-1); Podskalsky, Reichs-
eschatologie, 97.
87 Theophanes Continuatus (CSHB), 36.
88 Alexander, Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition, chapter 3.
89 For the following, see P. Magdalino, ‘Observations on the Nea Ekklesia of Basil I’, JOB 37
(1987), 51-64.
24 PAUL MAGDALINO
emphasis on renewal; there was also, as in the sixth century, a strong sense
that the emperor of Constantinople was converting the world to Christ.
Byzantine missionaries were making great progress among the Slavs. Basil
crushed the Paulician heresy which had flourished for decades on the empire’s
eastern borders. He led victorious campaigns against the Arabs which gave rise
to hopes that he might liberate Jerusalem. At home, Basil tried even more ener-
getically than Heraclius and Leo III to convert the Jews. He was also a great
church builder - probably the greatest since Justin II. Not only did he restore
all the major churches of the capital and build several oratories in the imperial
palace; he also built a Great New Church - the Nea Ekklesia - in deliberate
reminiscence of Solomon’s Tem ple as well as Justinian’s Hagia Sophia. The
Nea, consecrated in 880, was dedicated to Christ and the Virgin, but especially
to the Archangels Gabriel and Michael, and the Prophet Elijah. Basil was par-
ticularly devoted to Elijah, whom, according to one source, he expected to give
him a lift up to heaven in the fiery chariot. Can this devotion - almost unique
among Byzantine emperors - have been altogether dissociated from the
traditional belief that Elijah would reappear at the end of time, either alone
or accompanied by Enoch, in order to denounce Antichrist?90
The passing of the year 880 focused attention ever more clearly on the middle
of the seventh millennium, and there is evidence that considerable hopes and
fears were invested in and around this date. T he late antique astrologer Vettius
Valens was credited with a horoscope calculating that Constantinople, and hence
the world, would come to an end 696 years from the consecration of the city
in 330.91 Another retrospective horoscope, attributed to Stephen of Alexandria,
predicted the final destruction of Islam in 986/7.92 One anonymous author
prophesied the birth of Antichrist in the year 1000.93 Some verses attributed
to Anthimos, chartophylax of the Great Church, foretold the end of the world
in 1025.94 T he well known tenth-century hagiographer and theologian Niketas
the Paphlagonian wrote a treatise on the end of the world in which he discusses
a number of predictions currently in circulation and adds some ideas of his own.
In the first treatise, he proposes the date 6636 (1128), but in the second, he
seems to settle for the prophecy which we have already encountered in
90 For Basil and Elijah, see Gy. Moravcsik, ‘Sagen und Legenden liber Kaiser Basileios I’, DOP
15 (1961), 90-91. Elijah’s return: Malachi 4.5; Romanos, ed. Grosdidier de Matons, V. strophe 4;
Oikoumenios, ed. Hoskier, 128; Alexander, Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition, 21 Iff. Apart from
Basil’s son Leo VI, the only other Byzantine emperor who showed comparable devotion to Elijah
was Zeno (474-91), who built the prophet’s main church in Constantinople: Patria, ed. Th.
Preger, Scriptores originum Constantinopolitanarum (Leipzig 1907), 239-40.
91 D. Pingree, ‘The Horoscope of Constantinople’, Tlpiaiiaxa (Wiesbaden, 1977), 305-15;
Podskalsky, Reichseschatologie, 97-8.
92 Cedrenus, 717; H. Usener, Kleine Schriften, III (Leipzig/Berlin, 1914), 257.
93 E. von Dobschütz, ‘Eine Sammelhandschrift des 16. Jahrhunderts’, BZ 15 (1906), 261.
94 G. Mercati, ‘Anthimi de proximo saeculi fine’, Opere minori, II, Studi e Testi 77 (Rome, 1937),
298-304; Podskalsky, Reichseschatologie, 93.
Germanos and Theophanios; refining this by a calculation which is hard to follow,

he arrives at a date corresponding to either 996 or 1041. At all events, he is
convinced that ‘the end of days has arrived’, and that this is everywhere
obvious in the moral corruption of state, church, and the monastic life.95
Niketas was not alone in looking for apocalyptic portents in the world
around him. According to Leo the Deacon, writing under Basil II (975-1025),
contemporary wars, earthquakes and meteorological disorders were widely
interpreted as signs that ‘life is now undergoing a transformation, and the awaited
Second Descent of God our Saviour is at the gates’. Leo says that he has decided
to record ‘these things full of fear and wonder, that they may be a lesson to
later men, should it be that Providence has not decreed that life’s ferry boat
must dock right now in the harbour of the E nd’.96 T he empire’s recent wars
with the Russians gave particular cause for alarm, since in the Septuagint text
of Ezekiel, Ros was a name associated with Gog and Magog (Ez.38, l).97
T he tenth century saw a revival of interest in the Apocalypse of St John.
Arethas of Caesarea wrote a new commentary; Niketas the Paphlagonian
strongly defended the book’s scriptural authenticity, and used the Number
of the Beast in his eschatological calculations. Both authors evidently found
the Apocalypse congenial to their jaundiced view of the imperial establishment,
and above all of the emperor Leo VI (886-912), whom both severely criticized
for his uncanonical fourth marriage.98 At the same time, there was a revival of
the optimistic eschatology of Kosmas Indikopleustes: shortly before the middle
of the seventh millennium, Basil, metropolitan of Neopatras, wrote a commentary
on the Book of Daniel which even more explicitly than Kosmas states the view
that the Christian Roman Empire stands outside the succession of world
empires and is therefore identical with the Kingdom of the Saints.99
Altogether, the evidence for a build-up of eschatological tension in the
tenth century is impressive. Once we are aware of it, can it fail to colour our
perception of the great political and cultural achievements of the period: the
‘Macedonian Renaissance’ and the grand military offensives against the
empire’s neighbours, which sometimes took on the character of holy wars?100
T he hagiographical encyclopaedism of Symeon Metaphrastes and the imperial
Menologion takes on new significance when it is seen in the context of the belief
95 L.G. Westerink, ‘Nicetas the Paphlagonian on the End of the World’, Essays in Memory of
BasilLaourdas (Thessaloniki, 1975), 177-95.
96 Leo Diaconus (CSHB), 4.
97 Patria, ed. Preger, Scriptores, II, 176; Mango, Byzantium, 211-2.
98 See above, n.95, PG 106.713 (Arethas on Constantinople as Babylon the Great). For recent
discussion and bibliography on Arethas, Niketas and the Tetragamy, see B. Flusin, ‘Un fragment
inédit de la Vie d’Euthyme le Patriarche? II. Vie d’Euthyme ou Vie de Nicétas?’ TM 10 (1987),
233-60, esp. 251ff.
99 Podskalsky, Reichseschatologie, 38-9.
100 M. McCormick, Eternal Victory (Cambridge, 1986), 249ff.
26 PAUL MAGDALINO
that the world would end when the population of heaven was complete.101And
is our assessment of the great Basil II not affected by the knowledge that the
fatal year 6500 fell in his reign? At any rate, we should not dismiss this
knowledge out of hand when trying, for example, to make sense of the fact
that this provident statesman lived a life of ascetic celibacy, and was content
to be succeeded by a brother who had no son and no married daughter. Was
this apparent insouciance about the succession - which may remind us of
Justinian - simply the Stalinesque megalomania of an autocrat who could not
bear to contemplate a future without him? Or was it, perhaps, megalomania
tinged with the pious belief that there would be no future worth planning for?
The year 6500 came and went without major incident. This did not
immediately put an end to hopes and fears of an imminent Second Coming.
Symeon the New Theologian, although no prophet of doom, was sure that this
would happen before the end of the seventh millennium.102Only 50 years after
Basil II’s death the empire came close to extinction; yet by the end of the century
it had staged a remarkable recovery, and a Christian army nominally under
imperial leadership had conquered Jerusalem. The emperor at the time,
Alexios I Komnenos - who commissioned a mosaic of the Last Judgement for
the imperial palace - was not slow to grasp the apocalyptic potential of these
sensational events, for according to the historian Zonaras he took seriously the
prophecy of certain monks that he would not die before he had gone to
Jerusalem, where he would lay down his crown.103 Zonaras does not attribute
any eschatological significance to this prophecy, and modern historians have
failed to comment on it, but the motif is easily recognizable from apocalyptic
literature: Alexios was being cast in the role of the Last Emperor. Since
Alexios’ successors were determined to succeed where he had failed in his
dealings with the crusader states, and since, moreover, the Last Emperor
prophecy was an important part of the ideology of French and German monarchs
who took the cross, we can assume that it was never far from the minds of
Byzantine emperors and imperial propagandists throughout the twelfth
century.104 In passing, we may recall that 1128 was one terminus suggested
101 H.-G. Beck, Kirche und theologische Literatur im byzantinischen Reich (Munich, 1959), 271,273;
Lemerle, Byzantine Humanism, 337-9. For the belief see above, n.24, and Symeon the New
Theologian, Traités théologiques et éthiques, ed. J. Darrouzès, I, SC 122 (Paris, 1966), 22CM-0, esp.
236. Symeon himself encountered stiff opposition from the church authorities when he tried to
promote the cult of a new saint: Niketas Stethatos, ViedeSyméon le Nouveau Théologien, ed. I. Hausherr
(Rome, 1928), 98ff.
102 Darrouzès, op.cit., 344.
103 Zonaras (CSHB) III, 760. On the Last Judgement mosaic in the Palace, see Nicholas
Kallikles, ed. R. Romano, Nicola Callicle, Carmi (Naples, 1980), 101-2; cf. P. Magdalino and R.
Nelson, ‘The Emperor in Byzantine Art of the Twelfth Century’, ByzForsch 8 (1982), 124-6.
104 See P. Magdalino, ‘The Phenomenon of Manuel I Komnenos’, Byzantium and the West: IX-XHI
centuries, ed. J.D. Howard-Johnston (Amsterdam, 1988), 188-9; J. Baldwin, The Government of
Philip Augustus (Berkeley/Los Angeles, 1986), 384-6.
by Niketas the Paphlagonian, and we may note that when the emperor John
II suffered his fatal hunting accident early in 1143, he was preparing not only
to reconquer Antioch from the Latins but also to lead his army on to Jerusalem.
Astrology flourished at the court of John’s successor, Manuel Komnenos, and
so did prophecy in the Sibylline manner. It was probably in Manuel’s reign
that the so-called Oracles of Leo the Wise were compiled in something like
their present form.105 The approach of the Second Crusade in 1147 gave rise
to panic speculation that old prophecies about the destruction of Constantinople
were about to come true.106Manuel and his cousin Andronikos, who eventually
succeeded him, were both firm believers in the AIMA prophecy: the prediction
that the initials of the succession of emperors started by Alexios I would spell
the Greek word for blood. Andronikos was readily identified with the emperor
of one oracular prophecy, and his successor, Isaac Angelos, was keen to identify
himself with another such figure.107
The loss of Constantinople in 1204, and its recovery in 1261 by a highly con-
troversial emperor, inspired new updates of old apocalyptic material.108
According to a prophecy circulating in Epiros at the end of the thirteenth century,
there was no hope that the empire would be renewed, since the 1271 years of
the Cross had run their course under Michael VIII Palaiologos (1258- 82).109
The disastrous reign of Michael’s son Andronikos II (1282- 1328) must have
confirmed such suspicions, and his subjects must have awaited the year 1324
with some dread, for an oracle which had been in circulation at least since the
1140s proclaimed ‘Woe unto thee, City of the Seven Hills, for thou shalt not
live to be a thousand’.110
By now, however, attention was coming to focus on a date that was sym-
bolically more satisfying than any other terminus: the end of the seventh
millennium.111When Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, leaving barely
40 years to go until the deadline, it required little imagination or juggling of
the figures to believe that the reign of Antichrist had arrived. Gennadios
Scholarios, the first patriarch under the new regime, consoled himself and his
flock with the thought that they did not have long to suffer.112That this hope
105 C. Mango, ‘The Legend of Leo the Wise’, ZRVI6 (1960), 59-93, repr. in Mango, Byzantium
and its Image, XVI.
106 John Tzetzes, Epistulae, ed. P. A. M. Leone (Leipzig, 1972), 87-8.
107 Mango, ‘Legend’; P. Karlin-Hayter, ‘Le portrait d’Andronic I Comnène et les Oracula Leonis
Sapientis’, ByzForsch 12 (1987), 103-23.
108 Mango, Byzantium, 212-3; for prophecies after the Fourth Crusade cf. Michael Choniates,
Ta GCüÇôneva, ed. Sp. Lambros (Athens, 1879-80), II, 188- 91.
109 Sp. Lambros, H jcpôppîiaiç toû ’AvdpixôTcouôa), NE 3 (1906), 474-6.
110 Tzetzes, Epistulae, ed. Leone (see n. 106).
111 Kourouses, Ai ccv'üiàtiii/eç (see above, n. 24), 217-23. For the same belief in fifteenth-
century Russia, cf. Medieval Russian Culture, ed. H. Birnbaum and M.S. Flier (Berkeley/Los
Angeles, 1984), 144-5, 155-6.
112 Nicol, Church and Society, 104-5; Mango, Byzantium, 213.
28 PAUL MAGDALINO
was widely shared is touchingly illustrated by a manuscript note of the year

1462-3 recording the transfer of several books to the monastery of St John the
Baptist at Petra in Constantinople from a monastery in Selymbria, which, as
we can deduce fom other evidence, had just been turned into a mosque. ‘This
book is the property of the monastery of the megas doux in Selymbria, and I
have given it to the monastery of the Prodromos that they may read the com-
memorations of the saints. But when God’s mercy comes to all Creation, may
this book be returned, along with all the others, to the monastery in Selymbria,
that is of the megas doux\ Interesting here is the clear assumption that ‘God’s
mercy’ will restore desecrated churches to Christian worship, even to the
extent of returning their lost possessions. 113
In the foregoing, I have tried to look at Byzantine history not from the
perspective of either medieval or modern hindsight, but with what I understand,
from the available evidence, to have been the conventional foresight with which
Byzantines contemplated their future. I have tried, very superficially, to follow
the thread of prophecy which runs through both imperial policy and imperial
propaganda, and is as difficult to extricate from either as they are difficult to
separate from each other. In so doing, I hope to have made three contribu-
tions to our understanding of Byzantium. First, I would hope to have
demonstrated that a whole complex of attitudes and institutions which we regard
as typically, indeed quintessential^, Byzantine, were causally related to
concrete, time- and place-specific expectations of Christ’s Second Coming. In
particular, it seems to me, the turning point of the mid sixth century cannot
be understood without reference to eschatology. Second, I hope it has emerged
that our periodization of Byzantine history can usefully take account of
Byzantine eschatological projections. For it is a fact that the lifespan of the
Byzantine empire as an entity distinct from the Later Roman Empire
corresponds more or less to the seventh millennium in the Byzantine scheme
of world history; that within this period, the great ‘imperial centuries’ correspond
to the first half of the millennium; and that within these first five centuries,
the critical moment for the empire’s self-confidence and internal cohesion -
the Iconoclast crisis - came at a time of ideological adjustment to the realization
that the countdown to the Last Things was still far off. Third, I hope to have
confirmed the proposition from which I started, namely, that the other schemes
through which Divine Providence was conceived as acting for the good of
creation were always subordinated to the eschatological scheme, even where
this is not explicit. In other words, cycles of imperial decline and renewal, or
of divine punishment and reward, were not perceived as corresponding to a
primarily cyclical pattern of history, but rather as twists in a progressive spiral,
in which present events of cosmic significance, whether disastrous or triumphal,
were always liable to be seen as the last in the series.
113 P. Magdalino, ‘Byzantine Churches of Selymbria’, DOP 32 (1978), 314.

I would like to think that the main criticism I have laid myself open to is
that of stating the obvious. But to judge from the silence of modern scholarship
on this subject, I suspect that I am more likely to be charged with exercising
my imagination at the expense of the evidence. For it can reasonably be
objected that most of the evidence I have cited is indirect, and that what direct
evidence there is hardly supports my theory of an optimistic official eschatology.
In so far as Byzantine eschatological literature offers a precise and coherent
vision of the Last Things, that vision is deeply pessimistic about the empire.
As we have seen, commentators on the Apocalypse of St John readily identified
Constantinople with Babylon the Great. Byzantine apocalypses, far from
predicting a smooth transition from the New Jerusalem to the Heavenly
Jerusalem, emphasize the rupture between the end of the Roman Empire and
the coming of Christ’s Kingdom, and sometimes take a positive delight in
describing the horrible catastrophes that will destroy Constantinople, churches
and all. But on the whole, Byzantine eschatology does not present a coherent
prophetic vision. Its different strands are never united and its different opinions
are never resolved. In exegetical tradition, the Book of Revelation never quite
makes it into the scriptural canon, and the idea that the Roman Empire lies
outside Daniel’s succession of Four Kingdoms never supersedes the traditional
view of it as the fourth, Iron Kingdom. 114 In the purely prophetic literature,
there is a basic lack of cross-reference between the chronological treatises, on
the one hand, and the apocalyptic/Sibylline texts on the other. As Sir Richard
Southern has said of the latter in a Western context, ‘they always promised
more than they ever delivered ’. 115 They delivered, and indeed were normally
consulted, not on eschatology but on more mundane matters, such as the
imperial succession. Such texts are dateable only by their vaticinia ex eventu,
and by their obvious use of earlier material. For the rest, they are as timeless
as fiction, and give the distinct impression that the importance of their tale
lies in the telling. Is it not revealing that the most widely diffused Byzantine
apocalypse is contained in a work which has been variously characterized as a
hagiographical romance or a hagiographical encyclopaedia, where it is put into
the mouth of a saint who supposedly lived in the fifth century, by an author
who covers his own chronological tracks so well that leading Byzantinists can
argue whether he lived in the seventh century or in the tenth ?116 Corre-
spondingly, it is hard to avoid the impression that some of the more highbrow
eschatologists were more interested in their own present than in the future of
mankind. The words ‘Antichrist’ or ‘forerunner of Antichrist’ came all too easily
114 See especially John Zonaras (CSHB), 212-14, 226-8.

115 R.W. Southern, ‘Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing: 3. History as
Prophecy’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 22 (1972), 167.
116 Mango, ‘The L ife’ (see above, n.72); L. Rydén; ‘The Life of St Basil the Younger and the
Date of the Life of St Andreas Salos’, Okeanos (see above, n.41), 568-86.
30 PAUL MAGDALINO
to monastic writers with a dogmatic axe to grind. 117 As already noted, Arethas
of Caesarea in his commentary on Revelation, and Niketas the Paphlagonian
in his treatises on the end of the world, come alive mainly when they are railing
against social corruption. These works are all the more disappointing in that
they are the only surviving eschatological writings by leading Byzantine
churchmen. It is worrying that the writers whose opinions we value are silent,
non-committal, or frankly dismissive in their attitude to prophetic speculation. 118
Above all, it is worrying that Byzantium never produced a Joachim da Fiore -
an intellectual who earned the respect of world leaders in his own day, and
still impresses us by his ability to combine prophetic inspiration with theological
and computational expertise and a fairly sophisticated sense of historical
development. 119
In anticipation of such objections, I begin by making the general point that
it requires a fairly massive effort of imagination to enter into a mentality for
which the future was in some ways much more predictable and circumscribed,
but in other ways more uncertain and indefinable than it is for us; a mentality
for which, moreover, prophecy was not science fiction, but science. We have
to think ourselves across an ever-moving prophetic frontier to which our
sources always look forward, and never look back, even when they are writing
about a former frontier zone. Specifically where Byzantium is concerned, I make
three related observations. First, the Apocalyptic and Sibylline literature was
closely related in style and in mentality to the patriographic tradition of lore
and legend about the origins and the monuments, particularly the statues, of
Constantinople. This tradition was, as Dagron has recently shown, consistently
subversive of the imperial ideal. 120 Just as the Parastaseis, the Diegesis ofHagia
Sophia, and the Patria give us the reverse image of the Constantine, the
Justinian and the Constantinople of court panegyric, so, I would argue, the
popular prophecies in their pessimism balance out the optimistic official
eschatology which I have postulated. What I am postulating is not a static and
monolithic idea, nor even two mutually exclusive alternatives, but a fluid
spectrum of variation on the theme that Constantinople will endure until the
end of the world. Second, the lack of cross-reference between different strands
of eschatological literature has a lot to do with Byzantine respect for the
autonomy of literary genres, which imposed a strict structural relationship
between medium and message, and ensured that hybrids, like mules, did not
reproduce. Byzantine eschatology is the sum, and not the synthesis, of its parts.
This brings us to our third point. The lack of a systematic eschatological
117 E.g. Anastasios Sinaites, Viae dux, ed. K. Utheman (Turnhout, 1981), 96, 107, 114, 318;
Theophanes, ed. de Boor, 400, 407.
118 E.g.: Photios, Bibliotheca, 202, ed. R. Henry (Paris, 1959-67), III, 101-2; Podskalsky, Reichs-
eschatologie, 95; Tzetzes (above, n.106); Michael Ghoniates (above, n.108).
119 Southern, ‘History as Prophecy’, 176; McGinn, Visions of the End, 126ff.
120 Dagron, Constantinople imaginaire, passim.
synthesis à la Joachim is only one aspect of a Byzantine failure, or reluctance,

to systematize religious belief, or rather to articulate the largely implicit system
of belief that had been worked out by the seventh century. In the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, while the Western Church was producing not only a
highly structured eschatology, but also perfecting its theory of the afterlife, its
persecution of religious deviance, and its theory of holy war, these develop-
ments were conspicuous by their absence in the East. This does not mean that
they were utterly foreign to Byzantium, but rather that they followed a different
rhythm: they had become adequate for Byzantine purposes at an earlier date.
In most cases, indeed, they were more than adequate. When we are evaluating
Byzantine eschatology, it is important to distinguish between its dynamic
phase in the sixth and seventh centuries and its later, derivative phases. In a
word, Byzantium never really got over the fact that the world did not end with
the Arab conquests. Until Iconoclasm, the signs of approaching cosmic fulfilment
were sufficiently compelling to convince all Byzantines that the end was at
hand and that the empire was preparing the way - although opinions might
differ as to what this meant in practice. But in the eighth century, the spell
was broken, and although it was recast with regard to the middle of the seventh
millennium, it never recovered all its old magic. The world had changed in
many respects. Among other things, Jerusalem was in infidel hands, which meant
that the world could not end before the Last Emperor went there. Constan-
tinople thus lost something of its eschatological potential as a New Jerusalem;
and Byzantine emperors, by not recapturing Jerusalem, effectively postponed
the End indefinitely. From 800, moreover, the Byzantine emperor was not the
only Roman emperor, and his eschatological projections had therefore to take
account of those being advanced on behalf of his Western imperial rivals. There
is a case for thinking that the middle Byzantine emperors who attracted, or
cultivated, apocalyptic speculation were looking over their shoulders at the West.
And in this one can perhaps discern a deepening gulf - which, I have already
suggested, has its origins in the early eighth century - between imperial
propaganda, which fed on apocalyptic tension, and the Church, which took a
more apophatic or long-term view of the situation.
The traditional Reichseschatologie took a further knocking as the year 6500
turned out to have been a non-event, and the empire’s long decline in relation
to the Christian West progressively undermined the premise on which all
Byzantine projections, whether optimistic or pessimistic, were based, namely
the idea that the survival of the world was tied to the survival of Constantinople
and the Roman Empire. As early as the 1080s, some Byzantines were suggesting
that God was only interested in men’s souls, and their political affairs were a
matter of fortune. 121 In 1096-7, Philip Monotropos wrote a verse treatise on
the end of the world in which he argued the futility of speculation about the
121 P. Gautier, ‘Diatribes de Jean l’Oxite contre Alexis 1er Comnène’, REB 28 (1970), 21-3.
32 PAUL MAGDALINO
exact date. 122 Two centuries later, Theodore Metochites came close to
suggesting that the empire was only one, and not necessarily the last, in a series
of ephemeral world powers. 123 Thinking men in the last centuries of Byzantium
were obviously well aware that imperial eschatology, if not Christian eschatology,
no longer fitted the facts. From the eleventh century, the discreet silence of
intellectuals on eschatological matters probably does reflect growing scepticism
or indifference.
And yet, as we have seen, the traditional eschatology was alive and well in
1453. To see this in terms of a sterile, obstinate, myopic attachment to obsolete
forms, is, I think, to miss the whole point of the prophetic tradition: its enduring
serviceability. Like Eastern Orthodoxy in general, the Byzantine vision of the
future survived without a major crisis of conscience because it did not over-
systematize, by attempting to iron out contradictions or push definitions to their
logical conclusion. Its ancient, rambling, crumbling structure was maintained
because it was satisfying to live in, as a repository of materials that could be
stored for use and re-use, or just quietly ignored. The Byzantines approached
their future, as they approached their past, by combining an absolute reverence
for orthodox tradition with an absolute flexibility in the way they handled it.
The history of Leo the Deacon gives us two valuable insights into the way
their minds worked. In his preface, as we have seen, Leo says that he is
recording the momentous events of his own time because they might be
portents of the End, but just in case they are not, they will be an edifying lesson
to posterity. 124 We see here how Byzantines hedged their bets with regard to
apocalyptic phenomena which might turn out not to be apocalyptic: these were
invested with both prophetic and historical significance. If they did not fit the
eschatological scheme of Divine Providence, they could easily be switched to
the scheme of providential chastisement. In a later passage of his history, Leo
discusses the significance of a comet that appeared in July 975. The emperor
at the time consulted two eminently respectable experts, a leading civil official
and a leading churchman, who, says Leo, told the emperor what he wanted to
hear, namely that the comet promised him a long life and victories over his
enemies. Leo was able to point out from hindsight that they were wrong, that
the sign portended rebellions, invasions, civil wars, forced transfers of population,
famines, plagues, frightful earthquakes, and the near destruction of the
empire. 125 But it is clear that the phenomenon was open to two equally
‘orthodox’ interpretations - one optimistic and flattering, and one pessimistic
and unflattering. In the circumstances, the experts opted for the former
explanation. Who can blame them, and who can doubt that they were in a long
and distinguished tradition?
122 Podskalsky, Reichseschatologie, 98-9.
123 Nicol, Church and Society, 105-6.
124 Leo Diaconus (CSHB), 4.
125 CSHB 168-9.
The Byzantine history of the future was all things to all men, and this is why
we should not ignore it in studying the Byzantine past. It would certainly be
a distortion to register every episode in that past as a tick or a chime in an escha-
tological clock. But it is equally distorting to close our ears deliberately to the
eschatological echoes of words and actions produced in a climate of genuine
uncertainty about the future. We are studying a culture where language was
more easily made pregnant with meaning than delivered of it. The danger is
always of reading too little into the sources rather than too much. The danger
is particularly great when we are dealing with evidence like icons, hymns, and
liturgical commentaries, where it is the timeless anonymous statements which
have come to prevail at the expense of all personal, time- and place-specific
intentions. We do no violence to the enduring spiritual message of Byzantine
images of heaven if we see them as the products of anxious preoccupation with
the here and now. Indeed, as historians we can appreciate their eternal quality
much better when we see them against a background of consciousness that
time was running out, not just for the present generation of mortal men, but
for mankind in general.
Postscript
Since this article was written in 1988 the bibliography on Byzantine eschatology and related issues
has grown to an extent which precludes proper treatment here. I draw attention to some of the
main titles simply to underline my point that serious investigation of the subject is only just beginning.
General: A. Pertusi, Fine di Bisanzio efine del mondo. Significato e ruolo storico delleprofezie sulla caduta
di Constantinopoli in oriente e in occidente, ed. R. Morini (Rome, 1988); W. Brandes, ‘Die apokalyp-
tische Literatur’, Quellen zur Geschichte des friihen Byzanz (4.-9. Jahrhundert), ed. F. Winkelmann
and W. Brandes, BBA 55 (Berlin, 1990), 305-22, 368-70.
The cosmic week: A. Sharf, ‘T he Eighth Day of the W eek’, Koí9r¡yriTpia. Essays presented to J oan
Husseyfor her 80th Birthday, ed J. Chrysostomides (London, 1988), 27-50; G. Podskalsky, ‘Ruhestand
oder Vollendung? Zur Symbolik des achten Tages in der griechisch-byzantinischen Theologie’,
F est und Alltag in Byzanz, ed. G. Prinzing and D. Simon (Munich, 1990), 157-66, 216-9.
Patristic background: Brian E. Daley, The Hope ofthe Early Church:A Handbook ofPatristic Eschatology
(Cambridge, 1991).
Sixth and seventh centuries: S. Ashbrook Harvey, ‘Remembering Pain: Syriac Historiography and
the Separation of the Churches’, Byz 58 (1988), 295-308; O. Nicholson, ‘Golden Age and the End
of the World: Myths of Mediterranean Life from Lactantius to Joshua the Stylite’, The Medieval
Mediterranean, Cross-Cultural Contacts, ed. Marilyn J. Chiat and Kathryn L. Reyerson, Medieval
Studies at Minnesota 3 (St Cloud, Minnesota, 1989), 11-18.
Late sixth and seventh centuries: M. Whitby, The EmperorMaurice and his Historian (Oxford, 1988),
111, 240-1; J. F. Haldon, Byzantium in the Seventh Century (Cambridge, 1990), 367-9; G. Dagron,
‘Juifs et chrétiens dans l’Orient au V ile siècle’, TM 11 (1991), 17-248, esp. 28—43; various con-
tributions to The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East I. Problems in the Literary Source Material,
ed. Averil Cameron and L. I. Conrad (Princeton, 1992).
34 PAUL MAGDALINO
Further evidence of eschatological expectation in the late tenth/early eleventh century has been
pointed out by L. Rydén, ‘T he date of the Life of St Niphon, BH G 137 lz ’, Greek and Latin Studies
in Memory of Cajus Fabricius, ed. S.-T. Teodorsson (Gothenburg, 1990), 36-7.
The West: The Use and Abuse ofEschatology in the Middle Ages, ed. W. Verbeke, D. Verhelst, A. Welken-
huyseji (Louvain, 1988); J. Fried, ‘Endzeiterwartung um die Jahrtausendwende’, Deutsches Archiv
für Erforschung des MittelaIters 45 (1989), 381—473.
Postscript
Paul Magdalino
The years since the original publication of this article have seen some significant activity in the
field of Byzantine prophecy and eschatology, perhaps not unrelated to the recent completion
of the second Christian millennium. We now have full critical editions, with extensive
commentaries, of the various versions of the prophecy of Pseudo-Methodius.1 The dossier
of published texts has been enriched with new items,2 and some well-known pieces in that
dossier have received radical re-interpretation.3 The impact that expectations of the End may
have had on culture and ideology is still far from being a matter of debate, let alone consensus,
among Byzantinists. However, the attention that apocalyptic texts and eschatological visions
are receiving from historians of Byzantium’s neighbours4 is beginning to have some effect on
Byzantine studies, as witnessed by the inclusion of the present article in the present volume.5
The role of Constantinople and Jerusalem in apocalyptic thought has been the subject of two
1 Syriac version: Die syrische Apokalypse des Pseudo-Methodious, ed. and trans G.J.
Reinink (Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 540-41) (2 vols, Louvain, 1993); Greek and
Latin versions: Die Apokalypse des Pseudo-Methodius. Die àltesten griechischen und lateinischen
Übersetzungen, ed. W.J. Aerts and G.A.A. Kortekaas (Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium
569-70) (2 vols, Louvain, 1998).
2 P. Magdalino, ‘Une prophétie inédite des environs de l’an 965 attribuée à Léon le Philosophe
(MS Karakallou 14, f.253r-254r.)’, TM, 14 (= Mélanges Gilbert Dagron) (2002): 391-402; I. Sevcenko,
‘Unpublished Byzantine texts on the End of the World about the year 1000 AD’, ibid.: 561-78.
3 Anonymi Monophysitae Theosophia: an attempt at reconstruction, ed. P.F. Beatrice (Leiden,
2001): re-edits the Tübingen Theosophia and the Oracle of Baalbek as parts of a single reconstituted
text which is attributed to a Monophysite author, probably Severus of Antioch, writing at the beginning
of the sixth century; The Oracles o f the Most Wise Emperor Leo and the Tale o f the True Emperor
(Amstelodamensis Graecus VI E 8), ed. W.G. Brokaar et al. (Amsterdam, 2002): dates the original
composition of the work to the reign of Leo V (813-820). There is also much useful information and
insight in the edition of another manuscript: J. Vereecken and L. Hadermann-Misguich, Les Oracles de
Léon le Sage illustrés par Georges Klontzas. La version Barozzi dans le codex Bute (Venice, 2000).
4 R. Hoyland, Seeing Islam as Others Saw it. A survey and evaluation o f Christian, Jewish and
Zoroastrian writings on early Islam (Princeton, 1997), pp. 257-335; H. Môhring, Der Weltkaiser der
Endzeit: Entstehung, Wandel und Wirkung einer tausendjàhrigen Weissagung (Stuttgart, 2000); see also
R. Landes, ‘The Fear of an Apocalyptic Year 1000: Augustinian Historiography, Medieval and Modem’,
Speculum, 75 (2000): 97-145.
5 See also J. Shepard, ‘Marriages towards the Millennium’, in P. Magdalino (ed.), Byzantium in
the Year 1000 (Leiden, 2002), pp. 1-34.
articles,6 and another eschatological theme, the vision of the afterlife, is investigated in a
forthcoming monograph.7
So far as the dating of the End is concerned, the most important contribution has been
by Wolfram Brandes, who has moved on from the study of apocalyptic literature as a genre of
source material for the seventh-century crisis8to a systematic exploration of the evidence for
the eschatological expectations surrounding the three important millennial dates of the early
middle ages: the end of the fifth century AD, corresponding to the end of the sixth millennium
from the Creation according to the computations adopted in the Christian east;9 the year 800
AD, corresponding to annum mundi 6000 according to the Eusebian computation adopted
in the west;10 and the year 1000 AD.11 In the light of Brandes’ studies, the significance of
these dates can no longer be ignored; neither can the connection between eastern and western
attitudes to the end of time.
In the context of a long-term research project on the culture of the future in Byzantium,
I too have returned to the field in a recent study which partly supplements and partly modifies
the conclusions of the present article.12Firstly, it argues more emphatically that the thousandth
year from Christ’s Nativity or Resurrection (992 or 1025 AD) was not only the most important
expected terminus in the Byzantine eschatological calendar between the end of the sixth
millennium (+/- 500 AD) and the end of the seventh (1492 AD), but that it was at least as
important in Byzantium as it was in the west, despite the fact that Byzantium did not move to
a system of dating years from the Incarnation. Secondly, it looks more closely at the process
by which the terminus was shifted from the end to the sixth millennium to the middle of the
seventh. Thirdly, and most importantly, it attempts to offer a more satisfactory resolution to
the apparent conflict between the view of the empire as the fourth and last kingdom in the
sequence prophesied by Daniel, and the view that it was the kingdom without end, which
would supersede the series of earthly realms. I previously suggested that these corresponded
to different and contradictory trends within Byzantine eschatological thought, of which
one envisaged a pessimistic, traditional apocalyptic scenario involving the termination
of the empire and the cataclysmic destruction of Constantinople, while the other looked
6 A. Kiilzer, ‘Konstantinopel in der apokalyptischen Literatur der Byzantiner’, Jahrbuch der

ôsterreichischen Byzantinistik, 50 (2000): 51-76; M.-H. Congourdeau, ‘Jérusalem et Constantinople
dans la literature apocalyptique’, in M. Kaplan (éd.), Le sacré et son inscription dans l ’espace à Byzance
et en Occident (Byzantina Sorbonensia 18) (Paris, 2001), pp. 125-36.
7 J. Baun, Tales from Another Byzantium: Celestial Journey and Local Community in the
Medieval Greek Apocrypha (Cambridge, 2007 forthcoming).
8 W. Brandes, ‘Die apokalyptische Literatur’, in F. Winkelmann and W. Brandes (eds), Quellen
zur Geschichte des friihen Byzanz (4 —9. Jahrhundert) (Berliner Byzantinische Arbeiten 55) (Berlin,
1990), pp. 305-70.
9 W. Brandes, ‘Anastasios ho dikoros. Endzeiterwartung und Kaiserkritik in Byzanz um 500
n.Chr.’, BZ, 90 (1997): 24-63.
10 W. Brandes, “ T em pora periculosa sunt” . Eschatologisches im Vorfeld der
Kaiserkrônung Karls des Grossen’, in R. Berndt (ed.), Das Frankfurter Konzil von 794:
Kristallisationspunkt karolingischer Kultur (2 vols, Mainz, 1997), vol. 1, pp. 49-79.
11 W. Brandes, ‘Liudprand von Cremona (Legatio Cap. 39-41) und eine bisher unbeachtete
west-ôstliche Korrespondenz über die Bedeutung des Jahres 1000 A.D. \ BZ, 93 (2000): 435-63.
12 ‘The Year 1000 in Byzantium’, in Magdalino (ed.), Byzantium in the Year WOO, pp. 233-70.
forward to a smooth transition from the empire to the Kingdom of Heaven, of which it was
already the anticipated realisation. Although I tried to avoid the suggestion that these were
mutually exclusive alternatives, I did present them in terms of a contrast between a popular-
ecclesiastical version and an official-imperial version. Further reflection has convinced me
that the difference is mainly one of emphasis between different parts of a single and basically
consistent narrative: at one extreme, the optimistic, imperial version emphasised the sanctity
of the present order and the Empire’s ultimate victory over its enemies; at the other extreme,
the pessimistic ecclesiastical version concentrated on the corruption of the Empire in its final
phase, apart from the reign of a single messianic emperor, and on the suffering and destruction
which would accompany the end of the Empire and the reign of Antichrist. I now argue that
the contrasting elements of the narrative can be explained by seeing this in terms of the final
visions of the book of Revelation, as interpreted by the seventh-century commentator Andreas
of Caesarea. I note - a point which I had previously overlooked - that Andreas’ interpretation
was essentially identical with St Augustine’s, that is, he identified the millennium during
which Satan would be bound and the saints would reign with Christ (Rev. 20.1-6) as the
period between Christ’s Incarnation, or Ascension, and the coming of Antichrist. Although
Andreas, like Augustine, identifies the Kingdom of the Saints with the church rather than the
empire, the identification with the empire was readily made by the imperial establishment.
It is implicit in the whole ideology, ceremonial, iconography and titulature surrounding the
emperor in the middle Byzantine period, and it gathered credibility as the number of years
from Christ’s earthly life approached the one thousand mark. Most of the texts which argue a
millennium date for the End were written in the tenth century and appeal to the authority of
Revelation. Thus I conclude that all Byzantines, whether or not they emphasised the sanctity
of the Empire, believed that it would end as the millennial reign of the saints would end, with
the release of Satan, the unleashing of Gog and Magog, and the various other horrors that the
post-biblical apocalypses added to the Revelation story.
4
Emperors and Expansionism:
From Rome to Middle Byzantium
Jonathan Shepard
A decade ago Benjamin Isaac raised the question o f whether there was such a thing as
a ‘Grand Strategy o f the Roman Empire’, in the sense o f a consistent policy towards
the East formulated by the high command in the light o f such rational considerations
as deterrence, the security of the inhabitants of the provinces and supposedly ‘natural’
frontiers. Isaac cast doubt on the idea that the Romans had primarily defensive aims,
such as withstanding incursions from the Persians or the Saracens.1 Instead, he
suggested, a variety of considerations, changing over time, led Roman emperors to
intervene in the Caucasus and Mesopotamia and then to maintain a presence there.
Among these was the need to consolidate their hold over existing provinces; the need
to fund the occupation by means of occasional forays in quest o f plunder from enemy
territory; and, not least, the yearning for ‘glory’ which Roman historians themselves
quite often ascribe to emperors. For example, Dio Cassius writes of Trajan that ‘he
campaigned against the Armenians and Parthians on the pretext that the Armenian
king had received his diadem not at his hands but from the Parthian king; but the real
reason was a desire for fame’, in the footsteps o f Alexander.2 Isaac concluded that
‘Roman expansion may have been far less systematic than is often claimed. It was an
aim in itself and therefore opportunistic’.3
Such bold claims have not received universal assent.4 But they accord with the
1 B. Isaac, The Limits o f Empire: The Roman Army in the East (rev. edn, Oxford, 1992),
50-53, 265-8,419.
2 Dio Cassius, Roman History 68.17, trans. E. Cary and H.B. Foster, 9 vols (London and
Cambridge, Mass., 1914-27), vol. 8,392-3; cf. Dio Cassius, 68.29-30, trans. Cary and
Foster, 416-17; Isaac, Limits, 26, 51,121, n. 92.
3 Isaac, Limits, 416.
4 See, for example, D. Potter, in Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 1 (1990), 33-42; Y. Le
Bohec, in Latomus, 51 (1992), 672-4; S.T. Parker, ‘Two books on the eastern Roman
frontier: nomads and other security threats’, Journal o f Roman Archaeology, 5 (1992),
56 Medieval Frontiers: Concepts and Practices
observations of A.R. Birley formulated twenty years earlier. Birley raised the question
of ‘why it was that only a few of the first twenty or so emperors were able to resist the
romantic urge to create an imperium sinefine9, that is, to seize opportunities to extend
their dominions one way or another.5 Birley presented evidence to suggest that even
emperors who have previously been credited with a sense of ‘realism’ and moderation
may be associated with expansionist demarches and epithets. For example, Marcus
Aurelius features as a propagator imperii on a medallion, while his coin legends
offer only a partial toning-down of the customary refrain of imperial victories.6
Noting the expansionist rhetoric of the poets Virgil, Horace and Ovid, Birley
suggested that it may not have been as out of key with imperial decision-makers’
sentiments as has generally been supposed. Modem historians may have been rather
too hasty to take as indicative o f restraint from expansionism statements such as that
of Appian: ‘possessing the best part of the earth and sea they are wholly committed to
preserving their empire through the exercise o f prudence, rather than extending their
sway indefinitely over poverty-stricken and profitless tribes of barbarians’.7 Neither
Appian nor Dio were opposed to expansionism as such.8 And the very fact that Appian
and other writers o f the later second century saw fit to expound and praise a policy of
restraint from indiscriminate expansion implies that the latter still seemed desirable to
some of their contemporaries. A kind of ‘discourse’ on the extension of empire was
under way, the one constant being the widespread assumption that the conspicuous
loss of spheres of influence or dependency or the overt withdrawal of military
garrisons was ignoble.
The theses of Birley, Isaac and other writers have shown how miscellaneous
assumptions and rhetoric about the frontiers and the nature o f imperial dominion
interacted with one another and with external realities during the early empire.9 The
467-72; W.E. Kaegi, in Classical Philology, 88 (1993), 183-5. A full critique issued
forth from E.L. Wheeler, ‘Methodological limits and the mirage of Roman strategy:
I-IF, Journal of Military History, 57 (1993), 7-41,215-40, while prior caveats had been
voiced by R. Syme, ‘Military geography at Rome’, Classical Quarterly, 7 (1988),
227-51 at 243-50.
5 A.R. Birley, ‘Roman frontiers and Roman frontier policy: some reflections on Roman
imperialism’, Transactions of the Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham
and Northumberland, n.s. 3 (1974), 13-25, at 24.
6 Birley, ‘Frontiers’, 21; W. Szaivert, Die Münzprâgung der Kaiser Marcus Aurelius,
Lucius Verus und Commodus (161-192), Moneta Imperii Romani 18; Ôsterreichische
Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-Hist. Klasse, Denkschriften, 187 (Vienna, 1986),
26,54-60,196-202,205-10.
7 Appian, Roman History, Preface 7, trans. H. White, 4 vols (London and New York,
1912-13), vol. 1, pp. 10-11; Birley, ‘Frontiers’, 13-14,19; Isaac, Limits, 396.
8 Isaac, Limits, 24-8.
9 Notably, C.R. Whittaker, Frontiers of the Roman Empire (Baltimore and London, 1997),
23-30, 33-8, 51-97.
Rome to Middle Byzantium 57
question arises whether there may not have been a similar interplay in Byzantium. At
first sight this appears une question mal posée, for the situation of a beleaguered
Christian empire seems too different from the Principate’s to bear much meaningful
comparison. It is clear that the empire underwent drastic change during the seventh
century, in its demographic and other economic resources, territorial holdings and
prestige. The wealthiest, most urbanised provinces - Egypt, Palestine and Syria -
were subjugated by Arab war-bands, acting jointly in the name of their own one true
God. To the west the Slav immigration into the Balkans, already under way by the
mid-sixth century, intensified and extended south to the mountainous hinterland of the
Peloponnese. 10 The Slavs and other immigrants were not, for the most part, organised
into permanently tight-knit politico-military structures, but they were adept at guerilla
warfare, acclimatised to rough terrain and very numerous. Their self-sufficiency,
elusiveness and mobility made them intractable and required the Byzantine forces to
adopt similarly flexible tactics. 11 And although under imperial tutelage, their chiefs
were occasionally confident and ambitious enough to make attempts upon the bastion
o f Byzantine power in northern Greece, Thessalonika. A two-year blockade and
then a siege was mounted after the exposure of a Slav chief’s plot to seize the city in
the later 670s, at a time when a huge Arab force was blockading Constantinople
itself. 12 Neither this nor any other attempt on Thessalonika was successful, but these
manoeuvres eroded the resources at the disposal o f the Byzantine state and, no less
importantly, they dented its prestige. Around the time o f the Slavs’ two-year blockade
of Thessalonika and the Arab assault on Constantinople, a compact host of nomads
from the former conglomerate that had dominated the Black Sea steppes a generation
earlier presumed to ignore the imperial watch-posts and units stationed in the vicinity
o f the Lower Danube. These nomads, the Bulgars, crossed the river and pastured their
flocks and herds in the plains stretching south to the Haemus mountain range. They
were organised into highly effective military formations which played a key part in
restoring the deposed Emperor Justinian II to his throne in 705-6 and also, it seems, in
10 On the question of the density of Slav settlement in the Peloponnese and further north in
Greece, see J. Koder, ‘Zur Frage der slavischen Siedlungsgebiete im mittelalterlichen
Griechenland’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 71 (1978), 315-31; idem, Der Lebensraum
der Byzantiner. Historisch-geographisches Abriss ihres mittelalterlichen Staates im
ôstlichen Mittelmeerraum (Graz, Vienna and Cologne, 1984), 142-3; Abbildung 22,
p. 144 (map); M. Whittow, The Making o f Orthodox Byzantium, 600-1025 (London,
1996), 267-70. Extensive further bibliography in A.G.C. Sawides, ‘Peloponnesus
Mediaevalis: a review essay à propos of a new collective manual on the medieval
Morea’, Byzantion, 70 (2000), 309-30 at 311-16.
11 Maurice, Strategikon, XI.4; XII B 20, ed. G.T. Dennis and E. Gamillscheg (Vienna,
1981), 371-89; 459-67.
12 P. Lemerle (éd.), Les plus anciens recueils des miracles de Saint Dèmétrius et la
pénétration des Slaves dans les Balkans, 2 vols (Paris, 1979-81), vol. 1,198-221 (text
and French trans.); vol. 2,111-36 (commentary).
helping the Byzantines rebuff the Arab assault on Constantinople in 717-18.13 The
making of formal ‘treaties’ (pakta) between the Bulgars’ leader, Tervel, and Justinian
and his provision of military aid to the emperor are recorded in one of the Greek
inscriptions adorning the relief o f the ruler-huntsman at Madara, high on a cliff-face
to the south of the Bulgar encampment at Pliska. 14 Tervel sported on his lead seals
the title o f ‘Caesar’ {Kaiser) which he had received from a grateful emperor. 15 He is
depicted on the seals’ obverse wearing a helmet and facing the beholder in a pose
reminiscent o f that o f recent emperors on their seals and coins. The structure that
Tervel headed persisted as a de facto autonomous military power more or less
continuously for over 300 years, extending its sway over many of the Balkan Slavs
and occasionally mounting shows of force outside the walls of Constantinople itself.
For almost as lengthy a period, until the earlier tenth century, the Muslims launched
raids, often several in a year, from a variety of bases. At some, such as Tarsus, the
whole economy and society seems to have been dedicated to incessant raiding. 16
Byzantium’s geo-political position was essentially beleaguered so long as the Bulgars
and the Muslims had the capacity to threaten significant military action, and the
Muslims’ raids by land and sea became a standing irritant and handicap o f provincial
life. As late as the 950s, when a Byzantine envoy attempted to negotiate ‘a perpetual
truce’ with the Fatimid Caliph o f North Africa, he was rebuffed and reminded that
only temporary truces with infidels were permitted by the Koran. 17
The culture and values that emerged in Byzantine society in these unpredictable,
often violent circumstances differed in many ways from what had earlier been the
norm, and the changes of the seventh century have been aptly characterised as ‘the
transformation of a culture’.18 One facet of the change is the lack of protracted literary
13 For the Bulgars’ somewhat ambivalent role in 717-18, see P. Yannopulos, ‘Le rôle des
Bulgares dans la guerre arabo-byzantine de 717/718’, Byzantion, 67 (1997), 483-516,
14 V. Beshevliev, P ’rvob'lgarski nadpisi (2nd expanded edn Sofia, 1992) no. 1 (c), 99
(text), 105-9 (commentary).
15 G. Zacos and A. Veglery, Byzantine Lead Seals, 2vols (Basel-Beme, 1972-84), vol. 1.3,
no. 2672, p. 1441; Beshevliev, P ’rvob ’Igarski nadpisi, no. 81,246-7.
16 C.E. Bosworth, ‘The city ofTarsus and the Arab-Byzantine frontiers in early and middle
Abbasid times’, Oriens, 33 (1992), 268-86 at 276-7, 281-6, repr. in his The Arabs,
Byzantium and Iran: Studies in Early Islamic History and Culture (Aldershot, 1996), no.
14; idem, ‘Abu ‘Amr ‘Uthman al-Tarsusi’s Siyar al-thugur and the last years of Arab
rule in Tarsus (fourth/tenth century)’, Graeco-Arabica, 5 (1993), 183-95, repr. in his
Arabs, Byzantium and Iran, no. 15; J.F. Haldon and H. Kennedy, ‘The Arab-Byzantine
frontier in the eighth and ninth centuries: military organisation and society in the border-
lands’, Zbornik Radova Vizantoloshkog Instituta, 19 (1980), 79-116 at 107-11.
17 A.A. Vasiliev, Byzance et les Arabes, 3 vols (Brussels, 1935-68), vol. 2.1, 375; S.M.
Stem, ‘An embassy of the Byzantine emperor to the Fatimid Caliph al-Mu’izz’,
Byzantion, 20 (1950), 239-58 at 245-6.
18 J. Haldon, Byzantium in the Seventh Century: The Transformation of a Culture
(Cambridge, 1990), 355-75,436-43.
attention to, or substantive discussion of, ‘frontiers’ as physical barriers or limits or as

dividing lines between polities in Byzantine writings from the mid-seventh century
onwards. An abiding claim o f classical rhetoric had been that the wonders of nature,
such as mighty rivers, mountains or the ocean, symbolised and alone determined the
extent of the emperor’s sway. At the same time public buildings, walls and watch-
posts demonstrated his far-flung hegemony as well as his vigilance and hold over
subjects living closer to hand. Such themes were still being played out in the mid-
sixth century and Justinian’s building programme ranged from the Caucasian passes
and the Euphrates to the Straits of Gibraltar. Procopius both praised Justinian for
expanding the empire’s territory, allegedly ‘more than doubling’ it, and devoted a
whole book to the enumeration of the buildings as being ‘the works of one man’.19
He concluded that Justinian ‘has strengthened the empire, not with fortresses alone,
but also by means of garrisons of soldiers from the bounds o f the East to the very
setting o f the sun, these being the limits of the Roman dominion’.20 Procopius is, in
effect, celebrating the virtual limitlessness of the emperor’s sway across much of
the inhabited world, staked out in brick and stone, at the same time as praising
the emperor’s objective o f defending his subjects from external attackers. The
celebration of the imperial presence in peripheral regions and commemoration of
these feats of construction and subjugation of nature is associated with the drastic
expansion o f the empire to which Procopius refers repeatedly. In other words, in this
period as in earlier phases o f the empire, the ‘limits o f the Roman dominion’ are
described in essentially triumphalist terms, as testimony o f the emperor’s proven
range and capacity for still further extension rather than in acknowledgement of an
ultimate cut-off point. If there is innovation, it is in the strong sense conveyed by
Procopius that the emperor’s works - churches, granaries and cisterns among them -
comprised a network of bases that would provide for periodic inundations by waves
of ‘barbarians for ever making war’ in the Balkans.21 This was implicitly to acknow-
ledge that the empire’s borders were now porous. Such willingness to contemplate a
‘soft frontier’ in, for example, the Lower Danube zone,22 was accompanied by, and to
some extent enshrouded in, the forementioned triumphalism.
These considerations offer part of the answer, if not the key, to the question o f why
very little discussion, discursive description or attempted definition o f the Byzantine
‘frontier’ features in extant Byzantine writings of subsequent centuries: essentially
there was very little for encomiasts or chroniclers to celebrate. It seems only to have
19 Procopius, Buildings, 1.1.16-17, trans. H.B. Dewing and G. Downey (Cambridge, MA

and London, 1940), 8.
20 Procopius, Buildings, 6.7.17, trans. Dewing and Downey, 392.
21 Procopius, Buildings, 4.1.6, trans. Dewing and Downey, 220.
22 See S. Patoura, ‘Une nouvelle considération sur la politique de Justinien envers les
peuples du Danube’, Byzantinoslavica, 58 (1997), 78-86.
been in the mid-tenth century that an attempt was made briefly to define the ‘frontier’
as an outer limit in need of forts and defenders and, significantly, the encyclopaedist’s
point of reference is an edict from the time of Emperor Diocletian.23 This dearth of
descriptions or theoretical definitions is, o f course, also a reflection of the profoundly
different nature o f literary source materials from the mid-seventh century. Narrative
history o f the ‘classicising’ genre fell into abeyance; earthly horizons contracted and
matters to do with religion, morality and means of access to the divine became the
dominant subject matter of the writings that have survived.24 But there were also
some quite specific reasons why ‘frontiers’ and frontier affairs received rather thin
coverage in Byzantine literary works. Firstly it was demeaning, almost to the point of
subversion, to draw attention to the diminution of the regions that were directly
beneath the emperor’s control. For the effect would be to underline the difference
between his present position and that o f his distant predecessors, thereby bringing
into question his credentials as the continuer and upholder of the old Roman order.
And the claim to exercise sole rights as heirs and perpetuators to that legitimate order
underpinned Byzantine imperial ideology. It underlay the Byzantines’ claim to
exercise legitimate hegemony over other people and to be able to confer authority
and privileges or to confirm legal possession of places to neighbouring elites and
potentates who were defacto autonomous. The Eastern emperor’s exclusive rights to
the authenticating label of ‘Roman’ must therefore not be diluted in any way. When,
in 812, Byzantium formally recognised the imperial status of Charlemagne and
envoys acclaimed him as ‘emperor and basileus’ in his church at Aachen, care was
taken to demonstrate that there remained only one truly legitimate Roman emperor
living on the Bosphorus. From that time forth, the Eastern emperor is styled as
‘Emperor of the Romans’ rather than plain ‘Emperor’ on his coins. This more specific
title had already been commonly used on imperial seals from the early eighth century
and it also featured occasionally in imperial signatures. But the fact that it first
appeared on coins in the reign o f Michael I and continued to feature on coin legends
thereafter cannot be accidental. Being essential lubricants of Byzantine diplomacy,
23 Suidae Lexicon, ed. A. Adler, 5vols (repr. Stuttgart, 1971), vol. 2, s.v. eschatia, p. 432; P.
Stephenson, ‘The Byzantine frontier at the Lower Danube in the late tenth and eleventh
centuries’, in Frontiers in Question: Eurasian Borderlands 700-1700, ed. D. Power and
N. Standen (London, 1999), 80-104, at 81.
24 C. Mango, ‘The tradition of Byzantine chronography’, Harvard Ukrainian Studies,
12-13 (1988-89), 360-72 at 360-65; Haldon, Byzantium in the Seventh Century,
425-35; M. Whitby, ‘Greek historical writing after Procopius: variety and vitality’, in A.
Cameron and L.I. Conrad, eds, The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East, I: Problems
in the Literary Source Material, 3 vols (Princeton, 1992-95), vol. 1, 25-80 at 66-74;
A. Cameron, ‘New themes and styles in Greek literature: seventh-eighth centuries’, in
Cameron and Conrad, eds, Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East, vol. 1, 81-105 at
88 102.
the coins needed to convey a message of Roman legitimacy as clear and constant as
the fineness of the gold pieces themselves.25
The Byzantines insisted during their diplomatic dealings that Constantine the
Great had moved the imperial seat together with the Roman senate and army to
Constantinople, but the fact that so many former Roman possessions had slipped
from the emperor’s grasp, including ‘Old Rome’ itself, was hard to deny. This, in turn,
made it less than politic to describe in detail the current bounds o f the emperor’s
effective control, for this would highlight how little they had in common with those
o f imperial Rome at its peak. In a work probably not intended for widespread
circulation, Constantine VII noted that ‘now the Roman empire has been diminished
to the east and the west and mutilated’ and ‘the ancestral Roman language’, Latin,
had been abandoned.26 His disquisition was an attempt to correlate the place-names
used by antique writers with those in use at the present time, when the old unity of
the Roman imperial ‘drag-net’ had broken up and ‘both names and realities have
been transformed’.27 Significantly, Constantine’s essay does not attempt to delineate
the borders of the current, ‘decomposed’ empire, although other works penned or
commissioned by him for practical purposes pay careful attention to boundaries that
have been agreed with external potentates.28 To formally acknowledge that extensive
tracts of former imperial territory came beneath other powers might have demeaned
the emperor’s claim to be truly ‘Roman’, and thus well-publicised delineations of the
current borders were still out of vogue in the tenth century. Instead, by taking it for
granted that ‘Old Rome’ and Ravenna lay rightfully within his purlieu, the emperor
could bolster his claims to unimpeachable Romanitas and treat such towns as
bargaining chips. This is what was done in the course of negotiations with Otto I’s
envoy, Liudprand o f Cremona, in 968.29
Whereas the location and condition o f the borderlands was not a fit subject for
fulsome rhetoric and propaganda, the court at Constantinople was a showcase for
long-standing rites, symbols, costumes and customs, some o f which really did hark
back to the heyday of imperial Rome. It was through presiding over unrelenting
rounds of ceremonial involving the chanting of acclamations - some still in Latin
25 For the addition to the earlier coin-legends, see P. Grierson and A. Bellinger, Catalogue
of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and in the Whittemore Col-
lection, 3 vols (Washington, DC, 1966-73), vol. 3.1,64,178,364-7, Plate 17; G. Rôsch,
Onoma Basileias. Studien zum offiziellen Gebrauch der Kaisertitel in spàtantiken und
frühbyzantinischen Zeit (Vienna, 1978), 111-16.
26 Constantine VII, De thematibus, ed. A. Pertusi, Studi e Testi 160 (Rome, 1952), 60.
27 Constantine VII, De thematibus, ed. Pertusi, 84.
28 Constantine VII, De administrando imperio, 45, ed. and trans. G. Moravcsik and RJ.H.
Jenkins (Washington, DC, 1967), 212-15.
29 Liudprand, Legatio, 15, in Opera omnia, ed. P. Chiesa, Corpus Christianorum
Continuatio Mediaevalis, vol. 156 (Tumhout, 1998), 194.
even in the tenth century - and the parading o f holders of such titles as patrikios,
Caesar and hypatos (consul) that the emperor could project most compellingly his
‘Roman’ credentials, both to his own subjects and to foreign guests. Constantine VII
implies as much when he insists, albeit for particular and self-serving reasons, that an
emperor needs to have ‘followed Roman customs’ from birth, having been raised in
the palace and learnt there ‘the virtues’, ‘the becoming and the good ’.30 The moral
dimensions of these qualities were attributed to Constantine the Great and Church
teachings, but there is also emphasis on the antiquity of ‘the ordinances handed down
by our forefathers’, while the preface to Constantine’s Book o f Ceremonies treats
the codification and due performance of court ceremonies as a key distinguishing
characteristic o f ‘the imperial polity’.31 It is the clear hierarchy and continuity
symbolised by and projected from the court that brings together the body politic’s
diverse limbs. These would otherwise appear to be and, it is implied, would actually
be ‘in utter chaos’. The prestige and validating quality of the titles bestowed by the
emperor owed much to a sense that the court encapsulated the ancient Roman empire
in a refined, well-ordered and, of course, Christian form and that membership of
the court connected one with that famed empire.32 So long as the panoply of titles,
court costumes, ornaments and stipends exerted magnetism across a wide assortment
of external elites and leaders, the ‘Roman’ emperor’s sway carried at least some
conviction over an extensive area, and the reduction in his actual territorial holdings
since antiquity could be finessed. The attachment and nominal subordination of
prominent individuals on and^beyond peripheral regions by means o f court titles and
other solemn affiliations thus became an incomparable means o f safeguarding and
perpetuating the empire. The decision o f a ‘barbarian’ potentate to align himself with
the emperor and accept a title or other symbol of association with the Byzantine
empire rested, of course,.mainly on the sense of a convergence between his own
interests and those of the emperor. His commitment was seldom unconditional, even
though the Byzantines referred to it as ‘submission’ and it could readily be
overturned, by the honorand’s local rivals or overlord, if not by the individual himself
as his circumstances changed. Thus the decision of Arichis, the Lombard Duke of
Benevento, to seek the title o f patricius (i.e. patrikios) ‘together with the duchy of
Naples’ represented an attempt to dissolve Charlemagne’s newly-imposed regime
and, in effect, to form an alliance with the Eastern emperor.33 But his offer ‘to avail
30 Constantine VII, De administrando imperio, 13, ed. Moravcsik and Jenkins, 72-5.
31 Constantine VII, Le livre des cérémonies, preface, ed. and French trans. A. Vogt, 2 vols
(Paris, 1935-39), vol. 1,1.
32 See J. Shepard, ‘Courts in east and west’, in P. Linehan and J. Nelson, eds, The Medieval
World (London, 2001), 14-36, at 20-26.
33 MGH, Epp. Ill (Berlin, 1892), 617. Arichis’s démarche is known to us only from a letter
of Pope Hadrian, addressed to Charlemagne, but its contents are not inherently
implausible.
himself of \perfrui] the manners of the Greeks both in hair-style and in dress, under
the authority [dicione] of the ... emperor’ illustrates how a sumptuous court culture,
boasting exclusive antiquity and legitimacy, provided a well-known format whereby
leaders and other figures from distant elites might voluntarily associate themselves
with ‘the noble polity’ and thereby bolster the credibility o f the emperor’s claims to
world rule. Reportedly, Byzantine officials, equipped with the appropriate costumes,
sword of honour, combs and clippers, were sent to confer the title of patricius upon
Arichis and bring him within the emperor’s ambit.
Some twenty years after this episode the Carolingians were confirming the right of
the local worthies on the Istrian peninsula to continue to take Holy Communion in the
ranking order o f their Byzantine court dignities.34 As M. McCormick has observed,
‘over a thousand kilometers and a month of travel away [from Constantinople], local
grandees had assimilated the very essence of the social structure o f the metropolitan
elite; and the metropolis retained the master key which made it work’.35 Affectations
of court orders o f precedence such as this were self-imposed and insofar as they were
collective and en masse they were driven largely by the competitive dynamics o f local
families. Yet these forms of affiliation held continually aloft the notion o f imperial
ascendancy - if not actual imperial banners - in far-flung places and they could on
occasion be translated into the provision of tangible military assistance for the empire.
It was partly out of a desire to display imperial endorsement for his headship over
other members of the Bulgar political elite that Tervel issued seals bearing his title of
Caesar and depicting him in quasi-imperial mode. In practice he was self-governing
and the Bulgars’ political structure proved sturdy even though it owed nothing to past
Roman administrative arrangements or contemporary imperial direction. But this
durability was neither foreseeable nor inevitable during the first three-quarters o f the
eighth century. At that time the acceptance by Tervel (and, probably, other Bulgar
notables) of imperial titles and other trappings probably appeared to Byzantine
statesmen a first step in the gradual entanglement of the nomad chiefs and their clans
and dependents within the Roman ‘drag-net’. Personal ties and dignities such as these
radiating out to barbarian elites from the imperial court were, for all their tenuousness
and fragility, far worthier of celebration and literary mention than were lines of forts
or other symbols of the Roman limes, past or present. The kaleidoscopic quality and
limited territorial application o f these connexions served to make the very notion o f a
clearly delineated, fixed, frontier redundant if not unwelcome.
34 Plea o f Rizana, ed. A. Petranovic and A. Margetic, ‘II placito del Risano’, Atti, Centro
di ricerche storiche, Rovigno, 14 (1983-84), 55-75, at 62; M. McCormick, ‘The
imperial edge: Italo-Byzantine identity, movement and integration, AD 650-950’, in
H. Ahrweiler and A.E. Laiou, eds, Studies on the Internal Diaspora o f the Byzantine
Empire (Washington, DC, 1998), 17-52 at 47-51.
35 McCormick, ‘Imperial edge’, 51.
A further reason for the apparent lack of appetite for definitions or descriptions of
the frontier from the seventh century onwards was the fact that so very many parts of
the emperor’s virtual archipelago of possessions abutted onto external ‘barbarian’
peoples or, in the case of Greece, populations that were still largely unassimilated.36
Many were exposed to constant raiding and the strategy of ‘soft frontiers’ against
Muslim incursions in Asia Minor allowed for the raiders to range freely and thereby
encumber themselves with captives and loot. This made them the more vulnerable
to ambushes upon their withdrawal through mountain passes.37 Not even the capital
went unmolested and although the number of incursions by barbarians or rebel
Byzantine armies right up to the walls of Constantinople was fairly modest, the cult
of the Virgin’s special protection for ‘her’ city and of its consequent impregnability
developed rapidly during the early seventh century. At that time the city faced
permutations of Avar, Slav and Persian threats or downright assaults.38 The fact
that barbarians might advance unmolested as far as the city walls, only there to
be thwarted, became occasion for relief, gratitude to supernatural defenders and
liturgical celebration rather than remorse or shame at the failure o f the empire’s outer
defences to hold firm. The term ‘God-protected’ came to be used regularly of the city
in much the same way as the emperor was called ‘crowned by God’ .39 There was
conviction or best hope that the empire would endure so long as the city was preserved
inviolate and the emperor and churchmen residing there kept the faith, honoured its
saintly presences and made regular intercessions to the divine. In any case, even the
very worst eventuality, the fall of the city and the reign of Antichrist, would herald
the Second Coming and the ultimate triumph of Christ’s kingdom.40 The walls of
Constantinople themselves became objects of admiration and pride and provided
settings for ritual. When the walls suffered serious damage from an earthquake in 740,
their restoration was celebrated with panache. Acclamations were chanted by one of
the City factions: ‘Leo [III] and Constantine [V] have triumphed in power!’ An
extensive series of inscriptions commemorated these emperors’ works in similarly
uplifting terms as, for example: ‘The fortune (tyche) of Leo and Constantine our God-
36 Koder, Lebensraum der Byzantiner, 142.

37 Leo VI, Tactica, XVIII, 127, 134, 143, PG 107, cols 976, 978, 981, 984; Haldon and
Kennedy, ‘Arab-Byzantine frontier’, 95-106; J. Haldon, Warfare, State and Society in
the Byzantine World 565-1204 (London, 1999), 78-9, 177-80,209-10.
38 A. Cameron, ‘The Theotokos in sixth-century Constantinople’, Journal of Theological
Studies, n.s. 29 (1978), 79-108; eadem, ‘The Virgin’s Robe: an episode in the history of
early seventh-century Constantinople’, Byzantion, 49 (1979), 42-56 at 42-8.
39 E. Fenster, Laudes Constantinopolitanae, Miscellanea Byzantina Monacensia 9
(Munich, 1968), 103^ and n. 2 on 104,108-16.
40 P.J. Alexander, ‘The strength of empire and capital as seen through Byzantine eyes’,
Speculum, 37 (1962), 339-57 at 343-7, 355-6, repr. in his Religious and Political
History and Thought in the Byzantine Empire (London, 1978), no. 3.
protected masters and of Irene, our most pious Augusta, has triumphed’.41 From a
natural, yet ultimately heaven-sent, disaster great works were springing forth. This
setting in stone of triumphalist rhetoric should not be dismissed as vainglory or empty
bluster. The ruling elite and the citizenry of Constantinople were unified by belief in
their city as a kind of Ark of the Covenant whose special relationship with the divine
could actually be reaffirmed by periodic trials at the hands o f impious outsiders. And
the sense of external perils girding them all persisted for hundreds of years. One might
take as an example the hymns and verses attributed to the mid-ninth-century writer
Joseph the Hymnographer and his contemporaries. Imprecations for the Virgin’s
protection against ‘barbarian’ assaults are a recurring theme and the Virgin together
with her miraculous Robe are hailed as a kind of ‘wall’, guarding the inhabitants of
Constantinople.42
One might perhaps regard the preoccupation with the city’s security shown by
imperial ceremonial and by churchmen’s sermons as being contrivances to rally the
citizens behind emperor and patriarch as intercessors with the Virgin, were it not
for the testimony of Muslim and Latin writers that Constantinople still seemed at
risk from foreign assaults in the tenth century. A former Muslim captive recalled
the elaborately guarded palace gates, while Masudi noted a fortress at the northern
mouth o f the Bosphorus which kept guard against the Rus’ ships.43 A contemporary of
Masudi, Liudprand of Cremona, described the palace as a formidable ‘fortress’, while
the city of Constantinople was confronted by ‘most ferocious peoples’, for example,
‘Hungarians, Pechenegs, Khazars, Rus ... and all too closely neighbouring it, the
Bulgars’.44 Such descriptions, together with practical measures such as posting
numerous ships to guard the capital while the rest o f the fleet sailed for Crete in 949,45
41 A. Cameron and J. Herrin, eds and trans., Constantinople in the Early Eighth Century:
The Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai, 3 (Leiden, 1984), 58-9, 170 (commentary). See
also textual observations and citation of the inscriptions in O. Kresten, ‘Leon III. und die
Landmauem von Konstantinopel. Zur Datierung von c.3 der Parastaseis syntomoi
chronikai\ Romische Historische Mitteilungen, 36 (1994), 21-52 at 36-46.
42 Joseph the Hymnographer, Mariale, PG 105,1005,1008,1009-13,1025; A. Kazhdan,
‘Joseph the Hymnographer and the first Russian attack on Constantinople’, in From
Byzantium to Iran: In Honour of Nina G. Garsoïan, ed. R. Thomson and J.-P. Mahé
(Atlanta, GA, 1997), 187-96 at 189-92. See also Fenster, Laudes Constantinopolitanae,
100-110; J. Herrin, The Formation of Christendom (Princeton, 1987), 192-4, 198-200,
307-11,314-20.
43 A.A. Vasiliev, ‘Harun Ibn Yahya and his description of Constantinople’, Seminarium
Kondakovianum, 5 (1932), 149-63, at 155-6; A. Miquel, La géographie humaine du
monde musulman jusqu 'au milieu du Xle siècle (Paris, 1975), 418-19,423-5; Masudi,
Le livre de l 'avertissement et de la révision, trans. B. Carra de Vaux (Paris, 1896), 194.
44 Liudprand, Antapodosis, 5.21, 1.11, in Opera omnia, ed. P. Chiesa, Corpus
Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis, vol. 156 (Tumhout, 1998), 135,10.
45 Constantine VII, De cerimoniis aulae byzantinae, 2.45, ed. J.J. Reiske, 2 vols (Bonn,
1829), vol. 1,664.
indicate that Constantinople was in effect (if not in public image or ideology) a
kind of frontier city, containing a peculiar kind o f frontier society. One mark of
the preoccupation with the security of Constantinople is the prayer prescribed for
emperors to intone on the point of departure for expeditions to the East in the mid-
tenth century: ‘Christ, my God, I place in your hands this your city. Defend it from all
enemies and misfortunes which approach it, from civil strife and from the assaults of
the nations. Keep it impregnable and unassailable.’46 This may seem to confirm the
impression that medieval Byzantium is exceptionally unpromising as an object of
comparison with attitudes and rhetoric about expansionism during the principate.
Yet at the very time when the above-cited prayer for the City’s security was
being prescribed, strategy towards the empire’s eastern approaches was switching
to a ‘forwards’ policy, involving the permanent annexation o f substantial tracts of
territory. This change prompted a rhetoric o f expansion which made a positive virtue
o f conquest and enlargement in terms which would have been recognizable to - and
were most probably partly borrowed from - the orators, poets and historians of the
principate and Justinian’s time. The conquests o f the third quarter of the tenth century
followed approximately a hundred years of military initiatives which had sometimes
been audacious, but which had only exceptionally involved lasting occupation of
Muslim-held strongholds or territory.
Lack of space precludes discussion of a number o f pertinent issues, such as the fact
that the launching of more venturesome military initiatives from the mid-ninth
century onwards coincides with more vigorous and explicit religious mission work.
We shall only touch upon the questions o f how far the initiatives were seen or
represented as a reconquista, regaining rightful possessions from illicit occupants in
the manner of Justinian’s campaigns, or in what sense campaigns avowedly waged
‘on behalf of God, for love o f Him and on behalf of the whole nation’ were considered
especially meritorious. Leo VI describes their participants as earning ‘rewards stored
up by God Himself and... Our Majesty’ 47 The aim here is to draw a number o f com-
parisons between Middle Byzantium and the principate - both in terms o f similarities
and substantive differences - in the light o f Benjamin Isaac’s work.
First, it is worth drawing attention to a negative, to the lack of a sense of territori-
ality or mention o f ‘frontiers’ or enlargement o f empire in most o f the ceremonial and
public pronouncements to do with emperors for the period from the mid-ninth to the
46 Constantine VII, Three Treatises on Imperial Military Expeditions, ed. and trans. J.F.
Haldon (Vienna, 1990), 114-15.
47 Leo VI, Tactica, 12.72,18.19, PG 107,828,949. See N. Oikonomides, ‘The concept of
“Holy War” and two tenth-century Byzantine ivories’, Peace and War in Byzantium:
Essays in Honor o f George T. Dennis, S.J., ed. T. Miller and J. Nesbitt (Washington, DC,
1995), 62-86 at 62-8; T.B. Kolbaba, ‘Fighting for Christianity: holy war in the
Byzantine empire’, Byzantion, 68 (1998), 194-221, at 205-11.
mid-tenth century. The triumphs which Theophilos and Basil I staged in celebration
o f their expeditions to the East involved parades o f prisoners of war and large
amounts of booty,48 but there was not at that time, so far as I can see, much conception
o f the ‘conquest’ of places, or of deliberate reconquista. The funeral oration which
Leo VI composed for his father, Basil, praised him for revitalising his soldiers
and ‘curing’ them of cowardice, but it referred only in very general terms to actual
territorial gains in southern Italy: ‘who could recount his victories won over them
[the Muslims] to the east and the west?’49 A poem written in praise of Basil during
his lifetime and perhaps attributable to Patriarch Photios is equally devoid o f any
‘territorial’ sense, even though it concludes with a prayer for the campaign about to be
launched against the Paulicians.50 The avowed aims are the general ones of ‘victory’
and making all the peoples of the barbarians ‘submissive’ at the feet o f the emperor, a
vivid but ultimately vague image.51 A comparable tone is struck in the orations which
Arethas delivered in praise o f Leo VI at the turn o f the ninth century. One o f them
dilates on an actual victory, but it enthuses most about the triumph celebrated at
Constantinople, the abundance of spoils and the things done to the Saracens ‘far
more piteous than those which they have inflicted upon us’.52 Arethas recounts the
offensive to the Euphrates in fairly general, justificatory terms, maintaining that the
attacks were on ‘those formerly subject to the Romans’ yoke’, ‘as if one were laying
claim to one’s ancestral inheritance’.53 His intimations o f reconquista are tentative
and his aspirations for the ‘revival of whole cities and churches of God to the praise
of his glory’ lack territorial definition.54 There is no mention of frontiers or their
extension, save that Leo V i’s successes are compared favourably with Alexander the
Great’s, which sprang from ‘greed and ambition’.55 It is characteristic that Arethas
devotes an oration to the translation of St Lazarus’s relics to Constantinople from
Cyprus, an island which had a kind of neutral status between Byzantium and the
Muslims, without any hint o f ambitions for reconquering the island from the
48 M. McCormick, Eternal Victory (Cambridge, 1986), 146-57.

49 A. Vogt and I. Hausherr, ‘L’oraison funèbre de Léon, Empereur par le Christ, Empereur
étemel’, Orientalia Christiana, 26.1 (1932), 5-72, at 56-7, lines 22-3. Subsequent
references are to Basil ‘stretching his hand’ over other peoples, but without mention of
occupation or territory: Vogt and Hausherr, ‘Oraison’, 58-61.
50 A. Markopoulos, ‘An anonymous laudatory poem in honor of Basil I’, Dumbarton Oaks
Papers, 46 (1992), 225-32 at 231, lines 212-17.
51 Markopoulos, ‘Laudatory poem’, 227-9; 231, lines 214-15. See also Photius, Carmina,
PG, 102, 583-4.
52 Arethas, Scripta minora, ed. L.G. Westerink, 2 vols (Leipzig, 1972), vol. 2, 31, lines
16-17. Allusions are made to campaigns in other orations: ibid., 27-8, 38.
53 Arethas, Scripta minora, vol. 2, 33, lines 15-16.
55 Arethas, Scripta minora, vol. 2, 32-3.
Muslims. The accent is, rather, on the benefits which the emperor is conferring on
Constantinople by bringing in such valuable relics, ‘raising this [city] to such a height
with these holy objects o f pride’.56 The rhetoric and the mentalité in these writings of
the beginning of the tenth century has far more in common with early seventh-century
texts about the Virgin’s Robe than it does with the prevailing rhetoric of the time of
Justinian or the earlier empire
Seeing that Byzantium’s stance early in the tenth century was still essentially
defensive, it is perhaps unsurprising that the court rhetoric remained couched in
general terms of ‘victory’ and spoils. Equally, one might consider it unremarkable
that ‘official’ rhetoric grew more bellicose and more consistently expansionist once
imperial offensives against the Muslims were stepped up towards the mid-tenth
century. What is striking is that works penned within and, apparently, outside court
circles subsequently became still more stridently expansionist and also ‘territorial’,
naming lands which were to be occupied and calling for further expansion. A
fundamental reason for this was the build-up o f a large standing army, trained for
offensives on the lines of tactics recommended by classical manuals, in the mid-tenth
century.57 For this body of men, frequent incursions into enemy territory and
opportunistic seizures of valuable strongholds were a material means of gaining a
living, rather than merely a subject for rhetorical exaggeration and ceremonial at the
emperor’s court. Such a resurgence o f an expansionist posture together with outright
annexation of entire territories offers real analogies with the situation which Isaac
pointed out in the early principate.
What complicated matters was that emperors still had to provide for the security
and other interests of the citizens o f Constantinople. The shifting of the borders
further away from the capital in the eleventh century might seem to have satisfied that
need. Yet, paradoxically, the very remoteness o f hostile barbarians seems to have
increased the pressure on emperors to prove their worth to the citizens in other,
material, ways such as lavish grants of offices and titles and expensive building-
projects and charitable foundations, adding to the demands on the treasury which the
army was already making.58 At the same time the mounting security and prosperity o f
the capital fostered a sense of affinity with the early Roman empire on the part of
prominent members of the metropolitan elite. The concept of distant ‘frontiers’
having associations with landmarks celebrated in classical antiquity, notably rivers

57 E. McGeer, Sowing the Dragon's Teeth: Byzantine Waifare in the Tenth Century
(Washington, DC, 1995), 178-89,200-202,226-9,257-62.
58 H.-G. Beck, ‘Konstantinopel. Zur Socialgeschichte einer frühmittelalterlichen
Hauptstadt’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 58 (1965), 11-45, at 44-5; C. Mango, ‘Les
monuments de 1’architecture du XI siècle et leur signification historique et sociale’,
Travaux et Mémoires, 6 (1976), 351-65; M. Angold, ‘The Byzantine state on the eve of
the battle of Manzikert’, 'Byzantinische Forschungen, 16 (1991), 9-34, at 21-3.
such as the Euphrates and the Danube, loomed large in this triumphalist rhetoric,59 and
so did the recovery o f regions heavily charged with classical associations such as
Sicily. It is in this period, from the mid-tenth century onwards, that the conceit of
calling the Byzantines ‘Ausonians’, a lofty term with strong overtones of imperial rule
and destiny, was revived after an interval of400 years or so.60It had, significantly, first
been given these connotations by Virgil. Such a rhetoric of empire did not necessarily
commit emperors to the maintenance of ‘hard’ frontiers or full-scale occupation of
peripheral regions. But it made wholesale abandonment of outlying regions or
manifest failure to deal with barbarian incursions the more demeaning, fuelling
criticism both from military advocates of a forwards policy and from opportunists
within the metropolitan elite itself. It was, I suggest, only partly a matter o f vested
interests such as military men: the problem was also one o f the rhetorical ‘tail’ o f a
newly expansion-oriented political culture wagging the ‘dog’ of imperial policy.
Without attempting fully to chart this shift in attitudes, one may usefully consider
the outline a little further. Firstly, it may be noted that court rhetoric and ceremonial
were attuned quite closely to imperial strategy, registering its increasing boldness
and selective expansionism in the East towards the middle o f the tenth century. The
extension o f dominion was then held to be an imperial attribute, but it was generally
presented in vague terms, amounting to more than triumphs and other evocations of
‘victory’, but to less than lasting gains of territory. This notion o f expansionism was
propounded most articulately under the auspices o f Constantine VII, although it
was most probably in vogue already before he became senior emperor in 945. The
encomiastic Life of Basil I which Constantine commissioned, attributes to Basil
the desire ‘by his own efforts, courage and nobility to extend the boundaries of the
empire, and to drive further off and expel the enemy’.61 The latter phrase lets slip the
still essentially defensive character of Byzantine campaigning, even while crediting
Basil with greater concern to ‘extend the boundaries’ than contemporary encomia
of Basil appear to have done. Under the broad label of such extension a variety of
demarches falling short of outright annexation of lands and full-scale military
occupation could be fitted, much as in the political culture of the principate which
Isaac diagnosed: the depopulation of regions, transplantation of populations to other
59 Above, p. 59. See Whittaker, Frontiers, 53- 5, 73- 4 ; S.A. Ivanov, ‘Vospriiatie predelov
imperii: ot Rima k Vizantii’, Slaviane i ikh sosedi, 8 ( 1998), 4- 11; Stephenson, ‘The
Byzantine frontier at the Lower Danube’, 81- 3, 88; idem, ‘Byzantine conceptions of
Otherness after the annexation of Bulgaria ( 1018)’, in Strangers to Themselves: The
Byzantine Outsider, ed. D.C. Smythe (Aldershot, 2000), 245- 57, at 254—5.
60 Naumachica, ed. A. Dain (Paris, 1943), 61; John Geometres, Carmina varia, PG, 106,
902, 903, 934, 980; Suidae Lexicon, ed. Adler, vol. 1, 417; Michael Attaleiates, Historia,
ed. I. Bekker (Bonn, 1853), 31, 214; Michael Psellos, Poemata, ed. L.G. Westerink
(Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1992), 257, 258.
61 Vita Basilii, in Theophanes Continuatus, 5.36, ed. I. Bekker (Bonn, 1838), 265.
parts of the empire, personal defection or submission o f a border potentate or the

imposition of tribute upon a town or towns. Constantine’s Book o f Ceremonies
prescribes acclamations which hailed the ‘increase’ of the empire o f the Romans, but
without indicating precisely what this might amount to.62 That it could encompass
simply the submission or humiliation of foreign leaders is suggested by the fact that
these were among the acclamations chanted at the ritual trampling of an Arab emir
performed by Constantine in 956.63
A similarly broad construction of expansion occurs in a chronicle’s account of the
exploits of Domestic of the Schools John Kourkouas during the 920s and 930s. He,
too, ‘extended the borders o f the Romans as far as the Euphrates and the Tigris’. He is
said to have ‘set in order and added to Romania some thousand towns and more’, feats
which might seem to warrant the chronicle’s comparison of Kourkouas with Trajan
and Belisarius.64 But this chronicle, Theophanes Continuatus, does not envisage the
establishment o f a linear frontier. Its amplification of Kourkouas’s achievements
implies variegated, sometimes qualified forms of dominion, both the revival in
central Asia Minor o f towns and settlements that had been exposed to the Saracens’
depredations and the extraction of tribute and military manpower from populations
which had formerly been subject to them.65 It is significant that Theophanes
Continuatus specifies that the amount of tribute was large and paid ‘yearly’, and that
so much play is made of what are grandiosely called ‘towns’ and ‘castles’. It is
relating, in terms evoking the supposed conquests of earlier Roman generals, a
process which could involve the capture o f an enemy fort or outpost and installation
of a ‘Roman’ garrison, but which could merely require the fort’s commander to
engage in joint operations with imperial forces and pay some form of tribute. Such
were the terms initially agreed with the emir of Melitene in the late 920s, and a not
wholly dissimilar deal was struck with the inhabitants of Edessa on the Euphrates in
return for their surrender of an especially revered relic, the mandylion of Christ, in
943-4 .66
That expansion was still, in the mid-tenth century, conceived of in terms of the
formal submission of cities and peoples rather than as outright conquest and full-scale
occupation is suggested most clearly by a poem addressed to Constantine VII’s son,
Romanos, in 950 by a certain ‘Eustathios’, who seems to have been a familiar of the
imperial court. The poet tells the boy Romanos to help his father, who is already
62 Constantine VII, De cerimoniis, 2.19, 43, ed. Reiske, vol. 1, 612, 651; McCormick,
Eternal Victory, 163 and n. 123.
63 McCormick, Eternal Victory, 162-3.
64 Theophanes Cont., 6.41, ed. Bekker, 427.
65 Theophanes Cont., 6.41, ed. Bekker, 427.
66 Theophanes Cont., 6.24,48, ed. Bekker, 416,432; Vasiliev, Byzance et les Arabes, vol.
2, pt 1, 296-300; J. Shepard, ‘Constantine VII and the road to Aleppo’, in Eastern
Approaches to Byzantium, ed. A. Eastmond (Aldershot, 2001), 19-40, at 29-30.
growing weary from writing down the names of those ‘subjected’ to him. Of the cities
listed, Theodosioupolis had just been captured and occupied, but others such as
Adana and Germanikeia had merely been sacked.67 The poet cites together with the
cities the spoils taken from Saif ad-Daula and ends up by claiming that ‘every people
and city of the enemy has now been written down by your fingers, bending their neck
before your power’.68 Expansion is thus seen primarily as a matter of subjecting or
sacking cities, and breaking the power of troublesome border emirs. The campaigning
could be projected as defence of, and vengeance for, one’s fellow-Christians and
also for ‘Christ H im self... who is wickedly denied by them [the Saracens]’. This
notion occurs in one of the speeches which Constantine composed for delivery to his
troops.69 But the principal stated aims of the two surviving speeches are, besides
victory over Saif ad-Daula, the gaining of glory and trophies, objectives which did not
commit the emperor to specific or substantial acquisitions of territory.70 In fact, so
far as lasting gains were concerned, Constantine seems still to have been thinking
mainly in terms o f relics to be brought to Constantinople, adding to its reserves of
supernatural protectors and to his own stock as the city’s guardian. Thus in 956 he
presided over the recovery o f a relic from ‘barbarian hands’, the hand o f St John
the Baptist from Muslim-held Antioch. It was, according to a festal sermon, placed
by Constantine ‘in the middle of the palace church’, ‘so that all might believe that
the Baptist himself was present... and that he was sanctifying with his right hand the
waters proffered [to him]’.71
I suggest, then, that up to the 950s decisions as to strategy and the rhetorical and
ceremonial explication of what was, or was not, being achieved were largely at the
emperor’s discretion. He seems to have enjoyed considerable latitude, being able to
present in sweeping terms of ‘extension of empire’ what were usually only transient
or partial gains: victories could be claimed and the ‘frontiers’ said to have been
‘extended’ without many material new commitments having been taken on; in fact,
some border districts might even become remunerative, if former enemy towns could
67 P. Odorico, ‘II calamo d’argento’, Jahrbuch der ôsterreichischen Byzantinistik, 37

(1987), 65-93, at 78-9 (commentary); 91, lines 62-7.
68 Odorico, ‘Calamo d’argento’, 92, lines 85-7.
69 H. Ahrweiler, ‘Un discours inédit de Constantin Porphyrogénète’, Travaux et Mémoires,
2 (1967), 393-404, at 398, lines 31-2.
70 A recurring theme is the prospect of the soldiers’ return to the emperor after their
victories, without word of lasting conquests: Ahrweiler, ‘Discours’, 399, lines 85-7;
R. Vari, ‘Zum historischen Exzerptenwerke des Konstantinos Porphyrogennetos’,
Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 17 (1908), 75-85, at 82, line 15 to 83, line 1; 84, lines 1-3;
C.M. Mazzucchi, ‘Dagli anni di Basilio Parakimomenos (Cod. Ambr. B 119 Sup.)’,
Aevum, 52 (1978), 267-316, at 298-303;
71 Theodore Daphnopates, Oratio in translationem manus s. praecursoris, PG, 111,613,
620.
be made to keep up their tribute payments. This state of affairs altered from the late
950s onwards, as a result of the military build-up which Constantine VII instigated
in order to deal a mortal blow to Saif ad-Daula. There ensued for almost twenty
years a series o f campaigns and annexations which amounted (by any definition)
to ‘expansion’. What seem to be novel themes appear in imperial pronouncements
about victories, notably the letter which Emperor John Tzimiskes sent to the
Armenian ‘King of Kings’, Ashot III, after his Syrian campaign o f 975. Side by side
with familiar claims of devastation, booty and tribute exacted, there are also claims to
have ‘freed from the bondage of the Muslims .. . all Phoenicia, Palestine and Syria’
and of thwarted intentions to ‘deliver the holy sepulchre’ from the same ‘bondage’; as
it is, ‘the rule o f the holy cross o f Christ has been expanded, the name of God being
praised and glorified throughout these places [which we conquered]’.72 Imperial
triumphalism was now laying claim to the care of the Holy Places rather than merely
recovering relics, although the latter still featured in the propaganda. John Tzimiskes
claimed to have acquired ‘the holy sandals o f Christ’ and hair from John the Baptist’s
head.73
Yet even as emperors’ claims became overweening, expansionism ceased to be an
exclusively imperial attribute, a fairly flexible, instrument of imperial propaganda
serving to magnify routine incursions or mask defeats. The notion of further
conquests by feats o f arms became engrained not only in military thinking but also in
civilian discourse and pamphleteering. Allusions to recent conquests and a call for
victories feature in the acclamations with which the citizens o f Constantinople
greeted Nikephoros Phokas, the conqueror of Crete, as he arrived for his coronation in
963.74 Lists o f cities, islands and - a significant innovation - whole territories newly
won from the Saracens or candidates for subjugation occur in such works of the 960s
and 970s as the anonymous Philopatris and the poems o f John Geometres. These
were not, or not for the most part, commissioned by the imperial government and
they suggest that expectations of extension of frontiers ‘to the Euphrates and Tigris’
and conquest ‘of all the land of Arabia’ were now rife among the literary elite in Con-
stantinople.75 Of course such enthusiasm could be mercurial, or subject to manipu-
lation by the ‘spin-doctors’ of the imperial court, decking out defeat as triumph. There
are, however, signs that civilian decision-makers might themselves take advantage of
the trend for their own ends, career enhancement and glory. One such was the imperial
72 Matthew of Edessa, Chronicle: Armenia and the Crusades, Tenth to Twelfth Centuries,
1. 20,19, trans. A.E. Dostourian (Lanham, 1993), 32, 30, 33.
73 Matthew of Edessa, Chronicle, 1.20, trans. Dostourian, 32.
74 Constantine VII, De cerimoniis, 1.96, ed. Reiske, vol. 1, 438-9; McCormick, Eternal
Victory, 169.
75 Philopatris, in Lucian, Works, trans. A.M. Harmon and M.D. Macleod, 8 vols (London
and Cambridge, MA, 1913-67), vol. 8, 462-5; John Geometres, Carmina varia, 902,
903-4, 927, 932.
chamberlain, Basil Lekapenos, who commissioned a work on naval warfare in 959.

Its prefaces praise the eunuch’s past exploits as a field commander but insist that naval
warfare was far nobler and look forward to assaults on Crete and the North Africans.76
Here, I suggest, are signs o f a ‘discourse’ concerning expansionism comparable to
that discernible in the principate of the first and second centuries.
More ominously, full-time military commanders now publicly urged the need for
continuous campaigning and this was most likely to be offensive, seeing that the
Muslims were now in disarray. These operations were sometimes presented, and
justified, expressly in terms of the acquisition of tracts of territory. The treatise on
Skirmishing, from the milieu albeit not the pen of Nikephoros Phokas, envisages
future expansion carried out by a highly-motivated army: ‘if the army... should attain
its ancient condition and can rid itself of those elements dragging its men into poverty,
they will be full of enthusiasm, happiness and good cheer... When this comes to pass,
our holy emperors will not only defend their own lands but will subjugate very many
other lands o f the enemy’.77 Towards the end of the tenth century a treatise written by
another military commander warned: ‘For soldiers to stay at home and do nothing,
to get no exercise, not to go on campaign each year at the proper time, this is to
reduce them to the ranks of merchants and common farmers’. He held up as a model
‘those who dwell on the borders of the Roman dominion and have our enemies as
neighbours. There the unceasing, perpetual warfare continues to keep them vigorous
and brave’, and also well trained and ready to go out on ‘expeditions’.78 Without
specifically recommending the annexation of territory, the anonymous author enjoins
the checking o f muster rolls ‘before marching into enemy territory’.79He presupposes
offensives as being invaluable for keeping troops - and not merely those stationed in
the borderlands - in peak condition. Such a priority opened the way to adventurist
bids to gain spoils and seize new vantage-points, as it had during the earlier empire.80
Pressures making for a high level of military capability and also for offensives
were, then, mounting from the mid-tenth century onwards and although they were
most clearly articulated by military men such as the authors of the above-cited
treatises, they were not confined to military circles. They were, essentially, a corollary
o f a sizable standing army and they posed for the central government on the one
hand an array of financial, fiscal and administrative problems and, on the other,
opportunities for fame and individual advancement.81 These opportunities could be
76 Naumachica, ed. Dain, 62,61; Mazzucchi, ‘Basilio Parakimomenos’, 292-5, 303-5.

77 Skirmishing, 19, in Three Byzantine Military Treatises, ed. and trans. G.T. Dennis
(Washington, DC, 1985), 216-17.
78 Campaign Organization and Tactics, 28, in Three Byzantine Military Treatises, ed. and
trans. G.T. Dennis (Washington, DC, 1985), 318-21.
79 Campaign Organization, 29, ed. Dennis, 320-21.
80 Isaac, Limits, 378-83, 391-2, 399-401.
81 Methods of funding and maintaining soldiers are a prime concern of the legislation of
grasped by a variety of persons, most obviously by ambitious military commanders

but also by the emperor himself and his entourage. The conduct of Basil II can, in my
view, best be understood in the light of these pressures, which had erupted in the form
of major revolts by generals in the opening stages of his reign. The militaristic style of
Basil’s regime was in part an ad hoc reaction to these revolts and to the Bulgarian
rising which they unleashed, but it also contained a large measure of political
calculation, being an attempt to retain direction of the war-machine which his
predecessors had assembled. The stance which Basil struck most memorably was
that of vigilant warrior-guardian of his people, and this is registered in his epitaph.82
The epitaph does not make explicit mention of expansionism as an objective, but the
glorification of military prowess was not easily sustained without periodic feats o f
arms or plundering. And opportunistic forays could open the door to expansion
when lucrative districts offered little resistance, as has been observed of the early
principate.83 In the event, the defiance and military skills of Tsar Samuel o f Bulgaria
provided Basil with ready opportunities for protracted campaigning. Launching
repeated offensives against Samuel and his successors constituted his most conspicu-
ous pursuit for a generation.84 These may not have had the annexation o f territory as
their principal objective. But when Basil’s unremitting incursions and a stroke o f
fortune (the killing of Tsar John Vladislav) eventually offered him the chance to move
in, he speedily came to terms with John’s widow and leading Bulgarian warlords
and installed garrisons at key points.85 And, not long after his victory in 1018, he
represented enlargement of the empire as of particular concern to him: 6Among the
many and great benefits which merciful God has lavished upon our Majesty... this is
preferable beyond all things, that there should be increase (prosthêkë) to the Roman
mid- and later tenth-century emperors: J. Haldon, ‘Military service, military lands and
the status of soldiers: current problems and interpretations’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers,
45 (1993), 1-67, at 37-41,48-50, 65-6.
82 S.G. Mercati, ‘Sull’ epitafio di Basilio II Bulgaroctonos’, repr. in S.G. Mercati,
Collectanea byzantina, 2 vols (Bari, 1970), vol. 1, 226-31, at 230.
83Isaac, Limits, 28-33, 50-53,377-94,416-18.
84 Angold, ‘Byzantine state’, 15; J. Shepard, ‘Byzantium expanding’, in New Cambridge
Medieval History, ed. T. Reuter, vol. 3, c. 900-c. 1024 (Cambridge, 1999), 586-604, and
specifically 597-9.
85 John Scylitzes, Synopsis Historiarum, ed. I. Thum, Corpus Fontium Historiae
Byzantinae, Series Berolinensis 5 (Berlin and New York, 1973), 357-9; Shepard,
‘Byzantium expanding’, 600-601. Garrisoning of strongholds and fortified population-
centres was a key means ofcombining cost-effective border defence with occupation: H.
Ahrweiler, ‘Recherches sur l’administration de l’empire byzantin aux IX-XI siècles’,
Bulletin de Correspondance hellénique, 84 (1960), 1-109, at 46-51, 59-61, repr. in H.
Ahrweiler, Études sur les structures administratives et sociales de Byzance (London,
1971), no. 8 ; N. Oikonomides, Les listes de préséance byzantines des IXe et Xe siècles
(Paris, 1972), 345-6, 354-63; Stephenson, ‘Byzantine frontier’, 86-9.
Rome toMiddle Byzantium 75
empire’ .86 Basil or the draftsman composing this decree seems deliberately to have
been evoking the edicts of the great Justinian. Basil’s expansionist rhetoric was borne
out by his subsequent deeds in that, once uncontested overlord of the Balkans, he
turned his attention to gaining territories and securing rights of dominion in Caucasia.
He was still on the warpath in December 1025 when, on the point of joining the
expeditionary force marshalled to invade Sicily, he fell ill and died.87
More might be said about the reasons for Basil II’s stance as soldier-emperor and
one may well question the sense in which his prime aims really were ‘expansionist’ .88
But instead we shall glance at another aspect of the build-up of the military establish-
ment and the territorial gains made before and during Basil’s reign: a habit or ethos of
expansionism. Modem historians have tended to regard Byzantine expansionism in
the eleventh century as finishing with the death of Basil or very soon afterwards. The
amount o f territory actually acquired by Basil’s successors was indeed fairly modest.
But this should not obscure the fact that attempts at expansion, whether the seizure
of key strongholds or occupation of regions or islands, continued for a generation
after 1025, alternating with incursions to deliver shattering blows to truculent border
potentates.
It is worth outlining these ventures, which seldom received much detailed attention
from the Byzantine chronicles. In 1030 Romanos III led an army within about 50
kilometres of Aleppo, which he intended to capture. This expedition was a spec-
tacular failure but a couple of years later Romanos led another expedition towards
Syria, albeit without seeing it through.89 The early 1030s also saw the installation of
Byzantine governors in the strategically important towns of Edessa and Perkri (near
Lake Van), while a Byzantine garrison moved into a Georgian royal fortress on the
Black Sea coast, Anacopia (Novyi Afon) .90 Anacopia held the key to surveillance of
the main kingdom of Georgia and facilitated intervention, such as the expedition
led by the Domestic of the Schools in the later 1030s.91 In that same period an
86 lus graecoromanum, ed. I. and P. Zepos, 8 vols (Athens, 1931), vol. 1,272; H. Hunger,
Prooimion. Elemente der byzantinischen Kaiseridee in den Arengen der Urkunden,
Wiener Byzantinische Studien 1 (Vienna, 1964), 72, 70.
87 Scylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thum, 368; Shepard, ‘Byzantium expanding’, 602.
88 See P. Stephenson, Byzantium s Balkan Frontier: A Political Study of the Northern
Balkans, 900-1204 (Cambridge, 2000), 62-3, 66-77; C. Holmes, Basil I I and the
Government of Empire (976-1025) (unpublished Oxford DPhil thesis) (Oxford, 1999).
89 W. Felix, Byzanz und die islamische Welt im friiheren 11. Jahrhundert, Byzantina
Vindobonensia 14 (Vienna, 1981), 82-8, 99-100.
90 Scylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thum, 387, 388-9; Felix, Byzanz, 143-7; Matiane Kartlisa,
Russian trans. M.D. Lordkipanidze (Tbilisi, 1976), 47; Das Leben Kartlis. Eine Chronik
aus Georgien 300-1200, German trans. G. Pàtsch (Leipzig, 1985), 368.
91 Scylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thum, 402; M. Lordkipanidze, ‘Georgia in the Xlth and Xllth
centuries’, inM. Lordkipanidze, Essays on Georgian History (Tbilisi, 1994), 47-188, at
90-91.
expeditionary force was despatched to reconquer Sicily, and much of the eastern part
of the island was regained, albeit only for a few years.92 Then, through the first half of
the 1040s, Byzantine forces strove to seize Ani, the residence of the Armenian ‘king
of kings’, while also intervening in Georgia. Finally gaining possession in 1045,
Constantine IX Monomachos proceeded to direct his eastern army against Dvin, the
base of Emir Abu’l Aswar, who had helped the Byzantines take possession of Ani.93
It appears, then, that Byzantium was still, in the 1040s, fielding sizable expedition-
ary forces and that its strategy was still geared to forms o f expansionism rather than
wholly to the maintenance of the status quo. One may briefly consider what was the
nature of these armies and why the habit of expansionism persisted. The precise
composition of the grand armies cannot be determined from existing evidence, but
they were clearly a mixture of full-time soldiers receiving a money-wage, part-time
soldiers likewise mostly reliant on wages, foreign-born mercenaries and levies raised
not far from the campaign theatre. The armies were large and lavishly equipped.
Around 20,000 men are estimated to have gone on Romanos Ill’s expedition to
Aleppo in 1030. Many of them were foreigners under their own commanders -
Bulgars, Rus, Abasgians, Georgians and Pechenegs among them - and when the
emperor’s baggage-train was captured by the Muslims, seventy or more camels were
needed to carry off the spoils.94 The sheer scale of the Byzantine armed forces was
also emphasised by Amatus o f Monte Cassino in his account o f Byzantine operations
on Sicily: ‘the plain was entirely covered by the multitude of the emperor’s army’ .95
The empire’s military might was evident to foreigners, and dynasts throughout the
border regions were inclined to seek Byzantine help in their bids to seize or uphold
local dominance. Such initiatives triggered off several of the annexations made in the
decades following Basil II’s death.
The example of constant campaigning which Basil II set added a more concrete
definition to the notion of expansionism. He left, literally, a legacy of expansionism in
the case of the kingdom of Ani. He had pressed the ‘king of kings’, Yovhannes-
92 Scylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thum, 403,405-7,416; J. Shepard, ‘Byzantium’s last Sicilian

expedition: Scylitzes’ testimony’, Rivista di studi bizantini e neoellenici, n.s. 14-16
(1977-79), 145-59, at 146-7,159; Felix, Byzanz, 207-15.
93 Scylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thum, 435-9; J. Shepard, ‘Scylitzes on Armenia in the 1040s,
and the role of Catacalon Cecaumenos’, Revue des études arméniennes, n.s. 11 (1975—
76), 269-311, at 283-306; Felix, Byzanz, 154-60; K.N. Iuzbashian, ‘Skilitza o zakhvate
Aniyskogo tsarstva v 1045 g.’, Vizantiyskiy Vremennik, 40 (1979), 76-91.
94 Felix, Byzanz, 84, n.125, 8 8 . On the eleventh-century army see Haldon, ‘Military
service’, 60-63; J.-C. Cheynet, ‘La politique militaire byzantine de Basile II à Alexis
Comnène’, Zbornik Radova Vizantoloshkog Instituta, 30 (1991), 61-74, at 65-8; idem,
‘Les effectifs de l’armée byzantine aux X-XII siècles’, Cahiers de civilisation
médiévale, 38 (1995), 319-35, at 323-8, 330-33.
95 Amatus of Monte Cassino, 1.22, Storia de ’ Normanni, ed. V. de Bartholomaeis (Rome,
1935), 29.
Smbat, to bequeath his realm to Byzantium after his death. Twenty years later, after
Yovhannes-Smbat’s death, the testament was produced from the imperial archives in
Constantinople and troops were sent to try and take over.96 Basil’s successors were
thus legally bound to follow up the title to Yovhannes-Smbat’s estate. But they were
also committed to making at least gestures towards expansionism by Basil’s example,
the embodiment of the strenuous war-leader. Paradoxically, it may well have been
precisely because they lacked military backgrounds and connexions, as well as
unimpeachably legitimate, Porphyrogenitan, birth, that Basil’s successors were prone
to carry on with expansionism. They needed the prestige which conquest might
bestow on them. One may believe Michael Psellos’s satirical portrait of Romanos III
as yearning for ‘glory from victories’ and being set on rivalling the feats of ‘the
Trajans and the Hadrians ... and before them of Alexander, son o f Philip’. He is said
to have decided on Aleppo as his target because campaigning against Eastern foes
would make him look majestic and very grand, notwithstanding his generals’
objections to the expedition.97 ‘A desire for fame’ had been Dio Cassius’s explanation
for Trajan’s own expedition to the east and Romanos’s priorities seem to echo those of
Trajan and other rulers during periods when Rome held most of the strategic cards.98
In support of Psellos’s caricature is the fact that Aleppo was of little, if any, strategic
value to Byzantium, and soldier-emperors such as Nikephoros II Phokas and John
Tzimiskes had sacked it or reduced it to tributary status rather than attempting direct
occupation. In a similar vein is what, according to Psellos, Michael IV often used to
say: it would be ‘terrible... if his reign not merely saw no enlargement o f the Roman
empire but part of it were actually lost’.99
It is, in my view, probable that Romanos III and subsequent non-military emperors
were impelled to lead or authorise offensive expeditions by a further consideration,
the desire for action on the part of many officers and men, a phenomenon implied
in the later tenth-century military treatises cited earlier and not infrequently found in
the history of the principate.100 Through active service, preferably on enemy soil, they
could gain wealth as well as reputation. A Muslim envoy to Constantinople in the
early 980s noted the predilection of Byzantine commanders for military operations
and linked it with the higher ‘stipends’ which they received in wartime.101 It is very
likely that offensives offered chances of self-enrichment to lower ranks, too, most
obviously from plundering and taking prisoners for sale as slaves or ransoming. One
96 Scylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thum, 435; Shepard, ‘Scylitzes’, 285-6; Felix, Byzanz, 141,
154.
97 Michael Psellos, Chronographia, ed. E. Renauld, 2 vols (Paris, 1926-28), vol. 1,35-7.
98 Above, p. 55.
99 Psellos, Chronographia, ed. Renauld, vol. 1, 78.
100 Above, p. 73; Birley, ‘Frontiers’, 16-17, 22; Isaac, Limits, 24-5, 380-83.
101 H.F. Amedroz, ‘An embassy from Baghdad to the Emperor Basil II’, Journal of the
Royal Asiatic Society (1914), 915-42, at 925.
THE EXPANSION OF ORTHODOX EUROPE
gains a glimpse of the political risks which underemployed soldiers could pose from
Leo Tomikios’s rebellion in the autumn of 1047. The generals in the key fortress of
Adrianople were ‘overlooked and at a loose end’, and Tomikios also rallied to his
cause ‘those soldiers who had nothing to do and those who delighted in plundering
and spoils’. 102 Equally significantly, Tomikios’s supporters proclaimed that he was a
‘soldier emperor’, who would ‘expand the Roman empire through wars and victories
over the barbarians’. 103 Tomikios seems to have been appealing to the soldiers’ self-
interest by holding out the prospect of aggressive rather than wholly defensive
campaigning - even though an assault on Dvin was then under way in the east. In
other words, not even the operations in the Caucasus were sufficient to bring full
mobilisation and the chance o f supplementary pay and spoils to soldiers based in the
western half o f the empire, in Thrace. The prospect of active service was most
probably one o f the reasons why so many of the western-based regiments o f full-time
soldiers (tagmata) rallied behind Tomikios and marched on Constantinople. 104
This episode suggests how difficult it was for emperors to stay the pressures for
further expansion. Given that a large standing army had been formed to conquer and
hold (or hold down) lands south-east of the Taurus mountains, in the Balkans, the
Caucasus and then, in the 1040s, the realm of Ani, the government faced major
problems in the financing and maintenance of its soldiery. These problems were not
unfamiliar to rulers in the early principate: for both sets of regimes, there was a
temptation to seek a ‘quick fix’ through countenancing further offensives. These
could take the form of a foray at local level, meeting the aspirations of a regional
commander, or a full-blown invasion led by the emperor himself or a trusted ‘supreme
commander’ (strategos autokratôr)}05 It was a temptation to which the non-military
102 Scylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thum, 439. See also Iohannis Euchaitorum Metropolitae quae
in Codice Vaticano Graeco 676 supersunt, ed. P. de Lagarde, Abhandlungen der Hist.-
Phil. Classe der Kôniglichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Gottingen, 28 (1882;
repr. Amsterdam, 1979), 179.
103 Psellos, Chronographia, ed. Renauld, vol. 2, 18, 21. The rebels’ belief that such
proclamations would win over the citizens of Constantinople proved false, but their very
resort to expansionism as a rallying cry implies that the notion still had widespread
resonance. Tomikios’s prior assignment to an eastern border command was, ironically
but significantly, dubbed ‘glorious exile’ by Psellos: Chronographia, ed. Renauld, vol.
2, 15. See also Cheynet, ‘Politique militaire’, 64-5.
104 The authorities’ forbearance from full-scale combat against invading Pechenegs early in
1047 and subsequent dismissal of some soldiers may well have swollen the rebels’
ranks. See J. Lefort, ‘Rhétorique et politique: trois discours de Jean Mauropous en
1047’, Travaux et Mémoires, 6 (1976), 265-303, at 276-80,283-4,293; J.-C. Cheynet,
Pouvoir et contestations à Byzance (963-1210) (Paris, 1990), 59-60; Stephenson,
Byzantium s Balkan Frontier, 90-91.
105 Isaac, Limits, 379,383-4,389-90,425; P. Karlin-Hayter, ‘L’Hétériarque’, Jahrbuch der
ôsterreichischen Byzantinistik, 23 (1974), 101-43, at 121 and n. 77.
successors of Basil II, fearful of rebellions by generals and their men ‘at a loose
end’, were susceptible. This state o f affairs underlies the quite substantial number
of offensives and bids for annexation in the 1030s and 1040s, during the reigns of
emperors who lacked a military background.
There was, undoubtedly, a powerful current of opinion that expansionism should
come to a halt, notably among the learned counsellors and orators at the court of
Constantine IX. Their views found expression in a decree o f spring 1047: ‘Thanks
to the Lord of Heaven ... external wars and rebellions have been brought to an end;
enemies are at peace and our subjects reconciled. The affairs o f the Romans now
enjoy the greatest tranquillity’.106 This decree composed for the emperor by John
Mauropous was, however, laying down markers for future policy rather than
describing an established consensus which all members of the ruling elite accepted.
Mauropous was over-optimistic, seeing that only a few months later Leo Tomikios
rallied much o f the western army to his cause. As we have seen, Tomikios’s rebellion
showed up the dangers posed by under- or unemployed soldiers and commanders.107
The Pecheneg rising from 1049 onwards offered plenty o f opportunities for action,
but the assumption persisted in some military circles, at least, that further acquisitions
should be made. Modem historians often cite Psellos’s praise of Emperor Isaac
Komnenos (1057-59) for refraining from further expansion: Isaac realised that
‘addition becomes reduction’ for those without ‘plenty o f money and a fine military
capability’.108 However, as if in exculpation, Psellos makes a point of specifying that
Isaac was not opposed to ‘expanding the frontiers of [the empire]’ as such: he simply
did not think that current resources warranted it, and therefore declined foreign
potentates’ proffered possessions.109 The assumption that initiatives involving force
o f arms and shading into expansion belonged to the natural order o f things coloured
military thinking. A senior commander writing a practical handbook on military life
and everyday ethics supposed that border commanders would be looking out for
opportunities to overpower potentates across the border, and also that the emperor
would be drawing the latter into his orbit and making them his ‘subjects’.110 The
106 lus graecoromanum, ed. Zepos, vol. 1,621; Angold, ‘Byzantine state’, 18.
107 Mauropous answered the rebels ’ call for more military action in an oration delivered just
after Tomikios’s rebellion was quashed, in December 1047. He argued that a pious
emperor, resorting to diverse means of persuasion and receiving help from God, could
deal with the barbarians more efficaciously than could force of arms alone: Iohannis
Euchaitorum Metropolitae, ed. de Lagarde, 178-95; Lefort, ‘Rhétorique’, 289-93;
Stephenson, Byzantium s Balkan Frontier, 111.
108 Psellos, Chronographia, vol. 2,114.
109 Psellos, Chronographia, vol. 2, 114. Such invitations to intervene had triggered acts of
imperial expansion earlier in the eleventh centuiy: see above, p. 76.
110 Commanders are warned against inflicting unprovoked ‘harm’ upon such potentates,
and the story is told of a commander who sought ‘to make a name for himself’ (stësai
writer, Kekaumenos, regarded expansion as habitual, due largely to the allure which
the palace and its diplomacy exerted on foreigners, but sustained by armed forces
whose battle-order ‘is mightier and more secure than all the others’ . 111 He envisaged
well-equipped, full-time soldiers who were capable of fighting on enemy territory and
whose battle-order and camps took into account, albeit not uncritically, the precepts
of ‘the ancients’. The examples of Scipio Africanus and Belisarius are considered
admirable and relevant. 112 Kekaumenos, writing in the mid-1070s, appears to offer
the experiences and opinions of an essentially conventional commander.
It seems to me that the esprit de corps expressed by Kekaumenos belonged to an
army which believed itself to be fundamentally sound - and still capable of pitched
battles and offensives, if only the decision-makers in the palace and dispensers
of state funds would authorise such initiatives and allocate sufficient resources.
Such an outlook was neither uniform among all soldiers nor invariably anathema to
non-military circles and the citizens o f Constantinople. Michael Psellos, sometime
apologist for the doctrine that, in effect, ‘more means worse’, deemed it politic to pay
lip-service to expansionism on occasion. In a sermon drafted on behalf of an emperor,
God is praised for having ‘extended the borders in both parts and made subject the
most warlike of peoples’ . 113 If, as is quite possible, that emperor was Constantine X
Doukas (1059-67),114 the claim is all the more noteworthy, in that Doukas’s actual
policy was usually one of caution and aversion to major military actions. He was a
former general and his caution presumably stemmed from military experience as well
as political and financial constraints. 115 At any rate, the public statements of Psellos,
Mauropous and other mid-eleventh-century writers offer hints of a ‘discourse’ as to
tropaion) through abducting a Slav ‘toparch’: Kekaumenos, Strategikon (Sovety i

rasskazy Kekavmena. Sochinenie vizantiyskogo polkovodtsa XI veka), ed. G.G. Litavrin
(Moscow, 1972), 166, 172. Kekaumenos warns toparchs themselves to beware of
succumbing to the blandishments of the emperor’s court and ‘giving up your district and
losing your authority’; through too-frequent visits, one will become his ‘subject and not
[his] friend’: Kekaumenos, Strategikon, ed. Litavrin, 298, 302.
111 Kekaumenos, Strategikon, ed. Litavrin, 136, lines 25-6; n. 146 on 356.
112 Kekaumenos, Strategikon, ed. Litavrin, 134-8, 148, 158-62.
113 Michael Psellos, Oratoria minora, ed. A.R. Littlewood (Leipzig, 1985), 14, lines 138-9.
114 A case can be made for Constantine IX, since the emperor is styled as reformer of the
polity in tones reminiscent of Mauropous’s orations of 1047, while the references to
nomads now turned into farmers and auxiliary forces could match the Pechenegs’
condition then: Psellos, Oratoria, ed. Littlewood, 14, lines 115-23,142-6. However, as
the editor indicates, the theme of heaven-sent victory over barbarians and imagery of
Moses and Pharaoh also feature in an oration indubitably addressed to Constantine X
after he had dealt with the Uzes in 1064. The nomads of the sermon could thus be the
Uzes who were, like the Pechenegs, overcome largely by non-violent means: Psellos,
Oratoria, ed. Littlewood, 10,15.
115 Scylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thum, 483, lines 8-9; Cheynet, Pouvoir, 70-71 ; 193 and nn. 17,
20.
the future direction of the empire which had emerged around the time of the first
sustained offensives. It is not a ‘discourse’ with clear-cut positions, nor does it fit neat
labels such as ‘soldier’ and ‘civilian’, although the most determined proponents o f a
forwards policy tended to have a military background, for example Leo Tomikios and
the generals in Adrianople. It may well be that the oblique and often coded statements
of Byzantine sources for this period can better be understood through comparison
with the more explicit interplay between rhetoric, ambitions and realities during
the principate. Sound strategic and political considerations underlay Mauropous’s
advocacy of a stable, peace-loving, Christian empire. However, a potent mix of
interest groups, the heroic precedent of Basil II and classicising martial rhetoric stood
in the way o f this policy.116 The desirability of maintaining massive military might
carried conviction with - and rewards for - many through the middle years of the
eleventh century. With this went a lingering propensity for offensives and armed
interventions in the affairs of neighbouring polities. The rhetoric o f expansionism was
now embedded in the concrete form of an elaborate military organisation.
The differences between Middle Byzantium’s situation and that of the principate
are obvious enough and real. There developed through the protracted state of
emergency from the seventh to ninth centuries a kind of ‘survivalist imperialism’,
heavily imbued with Christian teleology and rites o f intercession. The ability of
emperor and capital repeatedly to hold out against the earthly odds became cause
for wonder, praise and faith that attached to both the idea of empire and the divine
protectors who repelled all assailants of Constantinople. To a remarkable extent, this
served to shift attention from the emperor’s inability to provide full security for many
of his outlying possessions. Enjoying a pivotal place in God’s plan for mankind and
His unique sanction for the exercise of authority made up for the modesty o f visible
material means of support. Monumental and rhetorical commemoration o f the
frontiers no longer played a key role in the liturgy o f empire and insofar as any
physical barrier was deemed worthy of celebration, it was the complex of fortifi-
cations guarding Constantinople itself. Yet the claim to be perpetuating the empire of
the Romans continued to be made, and the titles and supposedly ancient ceremonial
usages were of great importance in forging links with potentates and notables in far-
flung areas such as Istria, Central Italy and Armenia. Such links comprised a looser
kind o f hegemony from that embodied in heavily fortified frontiers, but they provided
some backing for the empire’s claims to be universal. Those claims could always
be dusted off and reasserted in more tangible form, if circumstances grew more
favourable, and this is in fact what happened in the course o f the ninth and tenth
116 That there was a range of views on policy is also suggested by the likelihood that sec-
tions of a speech of Mauropous praising the emperor’s non-violent resolution of the
Pecheneg problem were edited out before its delivery to a cross-section of the ruling elite
in April 1047: Lefort, ‘Rhétorique’, 277-8, 285-7, 301-2.
centuries. Once the pressure from the jihad eased, imperial decision-makers began
to exploit opportunities to secure long-lost strongholds and towns to the east and to
reimpose tribute and other marks of submission on populations long under Muslim
rule. The actual ‘expansion’ was highly selective at first, and it was conceived o f
partly in terms o f nominal protectorates and the collection o f tribute. However, from
the mid-tenth century the strategy changed to one of more sweeping and full-scale
conquests and permanent military occupation of territories on the empire’s former
eastern approaches. The rhetoric issuing forth from court writers both registered
and accelerated the raising of the empire’s sights. The period o f actual extension o f
the borders eastwards was fairly brief and it is questionable whether acquisition of
further territory really was the prime objective of Basil II’s constant campaigning in
Bulgaria. Nevertheless, the concept o f territorial expansion as being a desirable end of
empire entered the vocabulary o f political discourse and it was periodically invoked
by a number of writers, not all of them spokesmen for the emperor or military men. At
the same time, the greatly enlarged armed forces harboured officers who saw positive
benefits in frequent military operations, whether or not they were under attack from
the barbarians. Such an attitude found justification in the subjugation of ‘very many
other lands of the enemy’.117 Decision-making remained largely the prerogative of
the imperial government whose control of the purse-strings of the salaried standing
army was a constraint on large-scale adventurism. Few, if any, acts o f annexation can
incontestably be attributed to military commanders lacking authorisation from the
central government. None the less, in the generation after Basil II’s reign emperors
without a military background were impelled to give their approval to offensive
campaigning and occasionally even to lead expeditions in person. They were
inspired, or at least consciously overshadowed, by the heroic precedent set by Basil
but they were also responding to keen awareness among the ruling elite of the still
more illustrious feats of such early emperors as Trajan and Hadrian. And in their
quest for ‘glory from victories’ and attempts to engage their armies’ loyalty through
opportunistic ventures, the eleventh-century emperors were going through many of
the motions familiar to the earlier rulers of the principate.
117 Skirmishing, 19, in Three Byzantine Military Treatises, ed. and trans. Dennis, 216-17.
See above, p. 73.
5
Isaac II, Saladin and Venice
Paul Magdalino
The medieval Byzantine Empire ceased to expand in the mid-eleventh century, and although
it showed distinctly expansionist tendencies in its revival under the dynamic leadership of the
Komnenian dynasty, it never returned to its eleventh-century frontiers in Asia or in Italy. If
the restoration of the empire of Basil II eluded the three great Komnenos emperors, Alexios I
(1081-1118), John II (1118-1143) and Manuel I (1143-1180), who had the resources and the
internal security to undertake ambitious and diplomatic and military offensives, it was surely
never a realistic prospect for their successors.1Already under Manuel, the ignominious defeat
of his grand expedition against the Seljukid sultanate of Iconium in 1176 confirmed the Turks
in the possession of the Anatolian plateau. Manuel’s death in 1180, leaving his eleven-year
old son and heir, Alexios II, in the care of a faction-ridden regency council, initiated a cycle of
usurpation and counter-rebellion which provided little scope for an ambitious foreign policy,
but led inexorably to the disaster of 1204, when the deviated forces of the Fourth Crusade took
and sacked Constantinople. The unpopularity of the regency government led to the bloody
usurpation of Manuel’s cousin Andronikos Komnenos (1182), accompanied by a massacre
of the Latin residents and visitors in Constantinople. The empire’s neighbours, incited by
Byzantine refugees from Andronikos’ reign of terror, encroached on imperial territory and
encouraged the secession of frontier areas under local magnates; the king of Sicily launched
a full-scale invasion in 1185. The coup d’état which toppled Andronikos I in the same year
failed to reverse the situation. His successor, Isaac II Angelos (1185-1195), came to power
almost by accident, crowned emperor in a spontaneous gathering in the church of Hagia
Sophia, where he had fled in desperation to seek asylum after killing the emperor’s agent
who had come to arrest him. Isaac’s view that his accession was providential rather than
accidental did not command widespread or lasting conviction: others had better claims to the
throne in terms of lineage and leadership qualities. The conspiracy which finally replaced him
with his brother Alexios III (1195-1203) was only the last in a long series of insurrections,
including the revolt of the Vlachs under Peter and Asen that led to the formation of the Second
Bulgarian Empire. To add to his troubles, Isaac’s reign coincided with the fall of Jerusalem
to the Muslim counter-crusade of Saladin (1187) and the consequent calling of the Third
Crusade, which, like its predecessors, involved the passage of large western forces through
Byzantine territories and waters.
1 On the foreign policy of the Komnenoi, see P. Magdalino, The Empire o f Manuel I Komnenos,
1143-1180 (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 27-108, with previous bibliography. For the period after Manuel’s
death, C.M. Brand, Byzantium Confronts the West, 1180-1204 (Cambridge MA, 1968) remains
indispensible.
In the circumstances, it is not surprising that the only military expeditions fielded by
Andronikos I and Isaac II were defensive and reactive, aimed at countering rebellions and
invasions. It was hardly a time for grand expansionist designs. Yet contemporary sources
credit both emperors with plans of imperial restoration in Syria and Palestine such as even the
grandiose publicity of Manuel I had not made explicit.
The clearest testimony is provided by the German chronicler Magnus the Priest, in a text
inserted into his account of the Third Crusade, under the year 1189.2 The text purports to be
a letter sent from the Latin East to inform people in Europe about the alliance between Isaac
II and Saladin. This alliance, according to the anonymous author, stemmed from the personal
ties which they had formed when Isaac and his brother had fled from Andronikos’ tyranny and
taken refuge at Saladin’s court. However, the agreement was also the conclusion of a treaty
which Saladin had negotiated with Andronikos before the latter’s overthrow. Andronikos,
faced with growing hostility and threatened by revolts and invasions, had sought ‘aid and
counsel’ from Saladin, reminding him of their former friendship and mutual commitments.
Saladin supposedly swore homage to the emperor, promising to aid him in case of need. In
addition, they had supposedly agreed to divide the conquest of neighbouring countries. If
Saladin managed to acquire the kingdom of Jerusalem, he would not occupy Jerusalem itself
and the coastal region, apart from Ascalon, which he would hold from the emperor. If they
succeeded in jointly occupying the territory of the Sultan of Iconium, the emperor was to hold
it ‘as far as Antioch and the land of the Armenians’.
Doubt has naturally been cast on the reliability of this information, which clearly served
to justify the aggression of the German crusaders as they passed through Byzantine territory
in 1189-1190.3The Arabic sources say nothing about a pact between Andronikos and Saladin,
and while they attest to Saladin’s diplomatic relations with Isaac, they mention no territorial
concessions. On the other hand, they emphasise the spirit of jihad which drove Saladin to
claim Jerusalem and even to contemplate the conquest of Constantinople. It seems highly
improbable that this champion of Sunni Islam would have willingly yielded any territory to
Christian domination. At most, he might have agreed to give the Orthodox clergy exclusive
control of the churches in the Holy Land, in exchange for freedom of worship for Muslims in
Constantinople, whose mosque he provided with a new pulpit or minbar. On this point, the
Arabic sources and other western sources are in agreement.4
The alleged ‘letter from the east’ in the chronicle of Magnus the Priest arouses further
suspicions in its concluding statement that Isaac had received from Saladin poisoned wine
and flour for distribution to the crusaders. At the same time, some other details in the text
seem more authentic: the detention of Isaac’s brother Alexios by the count of Tripoli, the
2 Chronicon Magni Presbyteri, ed. W. Wattenbach, in Monumenta Germaniae historica. Scriptores

(38 vols to date, Hanover, 1826-), vol. 17(1861), pp. 511-12; see in general C.M. Brand, ‘The Byzantines
and Saladin, 1185-1192: Opponents of the Third Crusade’, Speculum, 37 (1962): 167-82.
3 H. Môhring, Saladin und der Dritte Kreuzzug (Frankfurter Historische Abhandlungen 21)
(Wiesbaden, 1980), pp. 171-88; R.-J. Lilie, Byzantium and the Crusader States (Oxford, 1993), pp.
230-42.
4 See in general Môhring, Saladin. The reciprocity of religious privileges is mentioned in a
report from Constantinople by French royal envoys: text in the chronicle of Ralph de Diceto, Ymagines
historiarum, ed. W. Stubbs, The Historical Works of Master Ralph de Diceto (2 vols, London, 1876), vol.
2, pp. 59-60.
exchange of diplomatic gifts, and the hospitality provided for the Saracen ambassadors in
Constantinople.5 In all, one has the impression of an author who knows Byzantium, and of an
account which cannot be rejected in its entirety.
The evidence of the ‘letter from the east’ for Isaac IPs expansionist ambitions are indeed
confirmed by three Byzantine texts whose testimony has so far been neglected in the debate.
The main historian of the period, Niketas Choniates, records that Isaac had fantasies about his
destiny. Among other things:
he said that he would assume universal rule, that he would suck the milk of the nations, and
that he would be the liberator of Palestine who would gain the glory of Lebanon, plundering the
Ishmaelites as far as the Euphrates and beyond, and annihilating the barbarians all around. He
added that his subordinates would not be like the governors of today, but they would be invested
with enormous strength and would grow fat on the wealth of nations, because they would be equal
to kings and toparchs in power and glory.6
To this testimony of Choniates the historian, written probably after 1204, we can add that of
Choniates as encomiast, in an oration delivered before Isaac on 6 January 1190.7 The orator
says that the emperor will fell the barbarians, just as David beat Goliath; the Roman armies
will drink the waters of the Euphrates and Tigris and dine in Mesopotamia; the emperor will
bathe in the Jordan and emerge hard as steel, in order to expel the Gentiles from Palestine
and settle the Romans there, like Joshua and the Israelites of old. Choniates is evidently a
spokesman here for the official policy which he condemns in his history.
Theodore Balsamon alludes to the same policy in an epigram which, according to its
title, accompanied a portrait of the emperor and patriarch commissioned by a bishop of Sidon,
who was represented in the picture behind the patriarch’s legs. The verses are addressed to
the bishop:
You who, like Moses, behold in shadows, or rather from behind, the protection of the Angel-
Emperor and the bounty of Patriarchs, pray that you may see them in person illuminating, like the
stars, the land of Canaan and the extent of Paradise. For thus will you see God sheltering the sea-
coast of Jerusalem, breaking the army of the barbarians and saving the church of Sidon.8
5 Chronicon Magni Presbyteri, ed. Wattenbach, p. 511, a detail confirmed by Pisan documents:
Documenti sulle relazioni delle città toscane coll’Oriente cristiano e coi Turchi fino all’anno MDXXXI,
ed. G. Müller (Florence, 1879), pp. 41, 50.
6 Niketas Choniates, Historia, ed. J.-L. van Dieten (CFHB 11) (2 vols, Berlin-New York, 1975),
vol. 1, p. 432.
7 Niketas Choniates, Orationes et epistulae, ed. J.-L. van Dieten (CFHB 3) (Berlin-New York,
1972), p. 94; see also J.-L. van Dieten, Niketas Choniates: Erlâuterungen zu den Reden und Briefen
nebst einer Biographie (Supplementa Byzantina 2) (Berlin-New York, 1971), pp. 116-22.
8 ‘Die Epigramme des Theodoros Balsamon’, ed. K. Horna, Wiener Studien, 25 (1905): 184-5; see
also P. Magdalino and R. Nelson, ‘The emperor in Byzantine art of the twelfth century’, Byzantinische
Forschungen, 8 (1982): 152-3 (repr. in P. Magdalino, Tradition and Transformation in Medieval
Byzantium (Aldershot, 1991), no. 6).
In other words, it is through the emperor Isaac Angelos and the patriarch - Dositheos, to
whom we shall return - that God will liberate the coastal regions of Palestine, including
Sidon, from non-specified barbarians.
There is a further echo of these ideas later in Chômâtes’ history, where he deals with
the restoration of Isaac Angelos by the crusaders in 1203. Isaac, he says, was again prone to
fantasise: ‘if, formerly, he had dreamed of universal monarchy, claiming to be the one who
would unite east and west, he now hoped to be cured of his blindness’.9
It is evident that the ambitions of Isaac II echoed by Choniates and Balsamon correspond
to the territorial division agreed by Isaac and Saladin, according to the text preserved in
the chronicle of Magnus the Priest. The Greek sources mention neither the agreement with
Saladin nor the precedent of Andronikos. But where Andronikos is concerned, we should note
the idea of ‘joining east and west’ which Choniates uses to recall Isaac’s grandiose dreams.
The same expression is to be found in his account of Andronikos’ reign, where he narrates the
scandal of the marriage between Andronikos’ illegitimate daughter and Manuel’s illegitimate
son, a marriage which was incestuous in more than one sense.10Choniates twice mentions that
the synodal tome issued by the clergy to allow this wedding justified it with the claim that it
would bring about the union of east and west.11 To explain these allusions, one is reduced to
speculation, but if we suppose that there was some connection with the project mentioned in
the ‘letter’ of Magnus’ chronicle, there is only one solution which fits the evidence of both
texts, namely, that the agreement between Andronikos and Saladin provided for the couple
of ‘super-Komnenoi’ to rule the kingdom of Jerusalem.12 It is true that the ‘letter’ places the
discussions towards the end of Andronikos’ reign, in 1185, two years after the wedding, but it
also alludes to their previous relations, and the terms of the treaty, such as they are described
in the Latin text, are more appropriate to the beginning of the reign, when Andronikos was
feeling strong. One may note too that the description seems to envisage a different status for
Palestine from the other lands which are to revert to the empire: Saladin would ‘leave free’
(<dimitteret liberam) a part of his conquests in Palestine, whereas the lands acquired in Asia
Minor would belong as property (propria essent) to the empire. The distinction is being made
between territory which had belonged to the empire until the eleventh century, and had been
claimed by the Komnenoi, and that which had been part of the Fatimid Empire before the
First Crusade, later becoming the nucleus of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and the County
of Tripoli.
Without other data, we cannot take this hypothesis, however seductive, any further, and
we have to be satisfied with establishing that Isaac’s ambitions were in some way founded on
Andronikos’ policy. Choniates’ silence is not, of course, conclusive, given that he is seemingly
unaware of Isaac’s very well attested relations with Saladin. But it is more helpful to focus on
Choniates’ information rather than his omissions. According to Choniates, ‘they said’ that the
9 Choniates, Historia, ed. van Dieten, p. 558.

10 V. Grumel and J. Darrouzès, Les Regestes des Actes du Patriarcat de Constantinople, I. Les
actes des patriarches, fasc. 2-3. Les regestes de 715 à 1204 (Paris, 1989), no. 1162, p. 578. The fathers
were cousins, and the mothers were their nieces: see K. Barzos, Ë genealogia ton Komnënôn (Byzantina
Keimena kai Melëtai 20) (2 vols, Thessaloniki, 1984), nos 81, 87, vol. 1, pp. 422-77, 493-638.
11 Choniates, Historia, ed. van Dieten, pp. 260-1, 309-10.
12 Note that the bride’s mother was the widow of Baldwin III of Jerusalem.
inspiration for Isaac’s fantasies was the patriarch Dositheos.13 He fed the emperor’s credulity
to the point of leading him to believe that Fortune would make all the kingdoms of the earth
subject to him, without him having to do anything. He was even said to have declared that,
since God had reduced the number of years allotted to Andronikos from nine to three, because
of his evil nature, Isaac was not guilty of the injustices committed during his first six years,
these being the ‘malefic’ years which had been taken away from his predecessor. ‘Malefic’
(kakopoiô) is a term from astrology, which Choniates denounces several times in the course
of his work, and in this instance, it is above all Isaac’s fatalism that he objects to. We may
mention in passing that this fatalism helped not only to excuse the emperor’s continuation of
his predecessor’s foreign policy, but also to shift the blame on to Andronikos for every policy
that went wrong, including his opposition to the Third Crusade.
If Choniates is to be believed, it was again the prophetic genius of Dositheos that made
Isaac decide, in 1189, to block the passage of the German crusading army under Frederick
Barbarossa.14 Dositheos is said to have declared that Frederick had the intention of taking
Constantinople; the German emperor, having entered the City by the wooden gate, the
Xylokerkos, would commit various atrocities before suffering divine retribution. Isaac blocked
up the gate and brandished arrows which he said he was going to fire at the Germans from a
window in the Blachemae Palace. The prophecy almost fulfilled itself when Frederick, in the
face of Byzantine obstructiveness, plundered the fertile regions of Macedonia and western
Thrace, allied with the Serbian and Vlach rebels, and threatened to attack Constantinople.15
The inflammatory role of the patriarch is also highlighted in the main German source for
Frederick’s expedition, the history of the so-called ‘Ansbert’. This reproduces the text of
a letter sent by Frederick to his son Henry, instructing him to make various preparations,
including a request to the Pope for a general campaign of preaching against the Greeks,
‘because, in the presence of our envoys, the bishop of Munster and his colleagues, the patriarch
of Constantinople preached publicly in the church of Santa Sophia that “Whoever kills one
hundred crusaders will earn indulgence for the murder of ten Greeks’” . ‘Ansbert’ adds that
Dositheos called the crusaders dogs; later on, he relates that, when negotiations were resumed,
Frederick insisted that the agreement should be sworn in Santa Sophia before the patriarch,
and that the latter should sign the document.16
Choniates makes no connection between Dositheos’ two prophecies, which he narrates
at different points in his history. But the connection is immediately apparent from the Latin
and Arabic sources, which, in spite of their differences, are all agreed in linking Isaac’s
hostility to the crusaders to his relations with Saladin - relations from which he hoped to
derive some benefit for the Greeks, either the recovery of the Holy Places for the Greek
clergy, or a Byzantine domination of Palestine. It is not impossible that Isaac thought for a
time of imposing this domination with the help of the crusaders,17 but from the moment that
13 Choniates, Historia, ed. van Dieten, pp. 432-3.

14 Choniates, Historia, ed. van Dieten, pp. 401-04.
15 See Brand, Byzantium Confronts the West, pp. 180-5.
16 Historia de expeditione Friderici, ed. A. Chroust, Quellen zur Geschichte des Kreuzzuges Kaiser
Friedrichs I., Monumenta Germaniae historica. Scriptores rerum Germanicarum n. s. (22 vols to date,
Berlin-Weimar, 1922-), vol. 5 (1928), pp. 40-3, 66.
17 This is perhaps the point of the prophecy of ‘Daniel of Constantinople’ (i.e. one of the many
apocalypses attributed to the Hebrew prophet), reported by the envoys of Philip Augustus in 1189: it
Frederick refused outright to discuss any territorial partition, an agreement with Saladin was
the only way of achieving it. The Byzantines’ goodwill towards Saladin was linked with
their hostility to the crusaders: Frederick’s envoys had occasion to witness this when Isaac
seized their best horses to give to Saladin’s ambassadors.18 It was on this same occasion that
they heard the inflammatory preaching of Dositheos. And Choniates, in his role as imperial
encomiast, confirms that Isaac was counting at that point on a German defeat in order to
realise his ambitions in Palestine: the oration of 6 January 1190, which alludes to the plan for
the recovery of the Holy Land, refers to the German emperor as a perjurer who deserves to
suffer the same fate as Andronikos, whom he so resembles as an aged tyrant.19
The question arises, therefore, as to why the patriarch Dositheos appears as the inspiration
for Isaac IPs expansionism. There are three aspects to the question. Firstly, does Choniates
exaggerate the part played by prophecy and Dositheos’ influence in Isaac’s policy? Secondly,
why did Isaac allow himself to be influenced? Thirdly, what was Dositheos’ interest in putting
forward the prophecies which Choniates attributes to him?
Choniates, as we have seen, disapproves in principle of the use of divination of the future
by the emperors of his day, from Manuel I to Alexios III Angelos. He sees it as an offence
against Divine Providence, one of the sins which provoked the great chastisement of 1204.
One may suspect him of having exaggerated the rulers’ superstition in order to enhance his
picture of moral decadence, a picture so consistent with western judgements on Byzantium. It
is easy to let oneself be seduced by Choniates’ rhetoric; one should, all the same, recognize the
basis of the observations, where they can be checked. Manuel’s infatuation with astrology, for
which Choniates frequently criticizes him,20 is well attested by a text which he commissioned
and by another which he wrote himself.21 The oracle which foretold that the succession of
emperors would form, by their initials, the word AIMA (blood) proved decisive on more than
one occasion. Thus Manuel was afraid of being overthrown by an Alexios or an Andronikos,
and named his successor Alexios instead of John (Ioannes).22Andronikos designated his son
John as his successor, in preference to the latter’s elder brother Manuel;23 and he feared the
usurpation of an Isaac, which did in fact come about.24Isaac II gave the name Manuel to the son
announced the reconquest of Jerusalem in a year when Easter coincided with the feast of the Annunciation:
Ralph De Diceto, Ymagines historiarum, ed. Stubbs, p. 59.
18 Historia de expeditione Friderici, ed. Chroust, pp. 48-9
19 Choniates, Orationes et epistulae, ed. van Dieten, pp. 88-90.
20 Choniates, Historia, ed. van Dieten, pp. 95-6, 154, 169, 220-1; see also Magdalino, Empire of
Manuel, pp. 5-8, 11.
21 John Kamateros, Introduction to Astronomy, ed. L. Weigl, Studien zu dem unedierten
astrologischen Lehrgedicht des Johannes Kamateros (Würzburg, 1902); Manuel Komnenos, Defence
of astrology, in Catalogus codicum astrologorum graecorum (12 vols, Brussels, 1898-1936), vol. 5.1,
ed. F. Cumont and F. Boll, pp. 108-25. See also D. George, ‘Manuel Komnenos and Michael Glykas:
a Twelfth-Century Defence and Refutation of Astrology’, Culture and Cosmos 5.1 (Spring/Summer
2001): 3-48; 5.2 (Autumn/Winter 2001): 23-51.
22 Choniates, Historia, ed. van Dieten, pp. 146, 169; Magdalino, Empire of Manuel, pp.200-1; R.
Shukorov, ‘AIMA: the blood of the Grand Komnenoi’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 19 (1995):
161-81.
23 Choniates, Historia, ed. van Dieten, pp. 268, 315, 318, 426.
24 Ibid., p. 340 (the name of Isaac indicated by lecanomancy).
who was bom in the purple from his second marriage.25 It is likely that Isaac was particularly
receptive to prophecy, because of his weak dynastic claim and the unusual circumstances
of his accession, an accession so unexpected that he proclaimed it to be providential. He
called himself, and believed himself to be, the Angel of the Lord or the Angel of peace,
the chosen instrument for ending Andronikos’ tyranny.26 It is thus easy to understand his
readiness to believe that he would gain the east without any effort, that he only had to follow
his preordained destiny. It is also understandable that he should have chosen, as teller of his
destiny, the one man who had been able to predict his rise to power, a monk from the Stoudios
monastery named Dositheos, for it was thus, according to Choniates, that the future patriarch
gained the confidence of the future emperor. The information is entirely credible. There is no
other way of explaining the extraordinary favour that Isaac showed to Dositheos, in arranging
first his election to the patriarchate of Jerusalem as the successor to the late Leontios, and then
his thoroughly uncanonical translation to the see of Constantinople, which aroused so much
controversy that Dositheos had to resign twice.27 We may note, too, that before his accession
Isaac had lived close to the Stoudios monastery,28 and that he had a devotion to ascetic holy
men which Choniates found excessive.29
According to Choniates, the prophecies with which Dositheos led Isaac by the nose, ‘or
rather by the ears’, were taken from certain ‘books of Solomon’.30 Indeed, there are several
indications that the patriarch drew on the written tradition of oracles and apocalypses. Again
according to Choniates, Isaac identified with the ox-like emperor of a certain prophecy, of
which the text cited by Choniates is also to be found in the collection of the so-called Oracles
25 Ibid., p. 599; Brand, Byzantium Confronts the West, pp. 96-7.

26 There are many indications that Isaac used the double meaning of his family name for propaganda
purposes: his coins which represented him with the Archangel Michael, the town of Angelokastron
which he founded in Asia Minor, the iconography of the mosaics which portrayed him at various places
in Constantinople, and the formulae used by his encomiasts, especially in his early years: Theodoros
Balsamon, ‘Die Epigramme’, ed. Horna, pp. 184-5, 190-1, 200; Johannes Syropoulos, Die Rede des
Johannes Syropoulos an den Kaiser Isaak Angelos (1185-1195), ed. M. Bachmann (Munich, 1935),
pp. 13, 16, 17; Robert of Clari, La conquête de Constantinople, ed. R Lauer (Paris, 1924), p. 28;
George Tornikes, ‘Logos .... eis ton ... Isaakion ton Angelón’, ed. W Regel, Fontes rerum byzantinarum
(Petrograd, 1917; repr. Leipzig, 1982), p. 261; Michael Choniates, Michael Akominatou tou Chôniatou,
ta sôzomena, ed. S. Lampros (2 vols, Athens, 1879), vol. 1, pp. 212-13, 227, 229; Niketas Choniates,
Orationes et epistulae, ed. van Dieten, pp. 28, 34, 38, 105. See in general Magdalino and Nelson, ‘The
emperor in Byzantine art’, pp. 152-62; R. Macrides, ‘From the Komnenoi to the Palaiologoi: imperial
models in decline and exile’, in New Constantines, ed. P. Magdalino (Aldershot, 1994), pp. 276-7.
27 Choniates, Historia, ed. van Dieten, pp. 405-8; see also Dositheos’ second act of abdication from
the see of Constantinople, ed. A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, Analekta Ierosolymitikes Stachyologias
(5 vols, St Petersburg, 1891-98), vol. 2, pp. 368-70. On Dositheos as patriarch of Jerusalem, see J.
Pahlitzsch, Graeci und Suriani im Palâstina der Kreuzfahrerzeit. Beitrâge und Quellen zur Geschichte
des griechisch-orthodoxen Patriarchats von Jerusalem (Berliner historische Studien 33) (Berlin, 2001),
pp. 253-5.
28 Choniates, Historia, ed. van Dieten, p. 341: near the Peribleptos monastery, on the location of
which see G.P. Majeska, Russian Travelers to Constantinople in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
(Washington DC, 1984), pp. 276-88.
29 Choniates, Historia, ed. van Dieten, pp. 383, 558.
30 Ibid., p. 408.
of Leo the Wise.31Another text of the same collection, which was related to Andronikos, seems
to allude to the nine years that Dositheos assigned to him.32 The figure of the ox-like emperor
occurs, moreover, in a prophetic text of the tenth century which marked a significant stage in
the evolution of the legend of Leo the Wise and was readily adaptable to Isaac’s propaganda:
the emperor ‘with the bovine name’ appears there as the successor of a harsh tyrant who had
provoked civil wars and had been killed by an Angel of the Lord.33 The prophecy against
the Germans combines two old apocalyptic motifs, that of the ‘blond race’,34 and that of the
enemy who enters Constantinople by the Xylokerkos gate and is driven back at the Forum
of the Ox.35 The emperor who recovers the Holy Land and presides over the last golden
age before the end of time figures, with variations, in all the apocalyptic literature from the
seventh century onwards, and since Isaac thought that he was destined to reign thirty-two
years,36it is likely that Dositheos used one of the two apocalypses which mention this figure.37
At all events, the secret of his success as a prophet lay not in the originality of his prophecies,
but in the way he managed to adapt them to the current situation. What then was his interest in
promoting these prophecies? Did he do it just to please the emperor and to advance his career,
or was he pursuing an ulterior aim?
The patriarch’s alarmist preaching against the crusaders, which accused them of meditating
an attack on Constantinople, would seem to reflect a fanatical anti-Latin attitude, and it is thus
that his behaviour has been explained.38 Such an attitude might be thought appropriate to a
Studite monk, given the rigorist tradition of the Stoudios monastery. However, it has recently
been argued that the monastery adopted a conciliatory position towards the Roman church in
31 PG, 107, col. 1133; Chômâtes, Historia, ed. van Dieten, p. 355. On the tradition of the Oracles
and their attribution to the emperor Leo VI, see the classic study by C. Mango, ‘The Legend of Leo
the Wise’, ZRVI, 6 (1960): 59-93 (repr. in C. Mango, Byzantium and its Image (London 1984), no.
16). Two recent publications have greatly advanced our understanding of the text: J. Vereecken and L.
Hadermann-Misguich, Les Oracles de Léon le Sage illustrés par Georges Klontzas. La version Barozzi
dans le codex Bute (Venice, 2000); The Oracles of the Most Wise Emperor Leo and the Tale of the True
Emperor (Amstelodamensis Graecus V IE 8), ed. W.G. Brokaar et al. (Amsterdam, 2002).
32 PG, 107, col. 1132 (Oraculum IV, 1. 6: ‘Tris treis de zësas en biô kyklous gerôn’); Chômâtes,
Historia, ed. van Dieten, p. 351.
33 P. Magdalino, ‘Une prophétie inédite des environs de l’an 965 attribuée à Léon le Philosophe
(MS Karakallou 14, f.253r-254r.)’, TM, 14: 391-402 (= Mélanges Gilbert Dagron). On the revolts in
Asia Minor under Andronikos I, see Choniates, Historia, ed. van Dieten, pp. 263, 280-9.
34 See A. Pertusi, Fine di Bisanzio e fine del mondo (Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo,
Nuovi studi istorici 3) (Rome, 1988), pp. 40-76.
35 Greek version of the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, ed. W.J. Aerts and G.A.A. Kortekaas,
Die Apokalypse des Pseudo-Methodius. Die áltesten griechischen und lateinischen Übersetzungen
(CSCO 570-571, Subsidia 97-98) (2 vols, Louvain, 1998), vol. 1, p. 172, vol. 2, p. 49, where the
prediction refers to the Arabs.
37 The Life of St Andrew the Fool (BHG 1677), ed. and trans L. Rydén (Studia Byzantina
Upsaliensia 4) (2 vols, Uppsala, 1995), vol. 2, pp. 262-3; ‘Vision of Daniel’, ed. A. Vassiliev, Anécdota
Graeco-Byzantina (Moscow, 1893), p. 41.
38 See for example M. Angold, Church and Society in Byzantium under the Comneni, 1081-1261
(Cambridge, 1995), pp. 122-4.
the aftermath of the ‘schism’ of 1054.39 In any case, the supposed latinophobe was himself
of Latin origin: latinogenës, according to a note on episcopal transfers,40 and specifically,
according to Choniates, ‘deriving his birth from the Venetians and from a father by the
name of Vitiklinos’.41 The name Viticlinus is well attested in the twelfth-century Veneto;42
the Viticlinus Geno who appears in documents of 1164, 1166 and 1174 seems a promising
candidate.43 We may wonder whether the Studite in Dositheos had completely supplanted the
Venetian - or indeed whether he had not entered Stoudios because of his Venetian origin. Is
it then inconceivable that the patriarch who prophesied the Byzantine recovery of the Holy
Land and the taking of Constantinople by the German crusaders was acting in the interests of
his native city?
There is only circumstantial evidence to go on, but it is striking that the years when
Dositheos led the Byzantine emperor by the ears was one of the best periods in Byzantino-
Venetian relations. In these years, Venice more than regained its privileged position in
Byzantine trade of which Manuel I had deprived it in 1171, when he had ordered the arrest
of all Venetians on imperial territory and the confiscation of their goods.44 Reparations had
begun under Andronikos, because Venice was the only Italian maritime power with which
he could build relations after the massacre of 1182, whose victims had been mainly Pisans
and Genoese. It is therefore significant that Isaac, although he was innocent of the massacre
and only too keen to distance himself from Andronikos’ tyranny, did not attempt to break
with the latter’s rapprochement with Venice, nor even to balance it, by negotiations with Pisa
and Genoa. In 1187, Isaac renewed the privileges granted to Venice by Alexios, John and
Manuel, while Venice undertook once more to provide naval assistance, albeit under strictly
defined conditions which limited the Venetian obligations. Isaac undertook, on his side, to
compensate the Venetians for the confiscations they had suffered under Manuel, and also to
pay the balance of the indemnity promised by Andronikos.45As the matter dragged on, and the
Doge’s envoys came two years later to ask for satisfaction, Isaac paid a sixth of the indemnity,
39 See the new interpretation of the Theodore Psalter and related manuscripts, by B. Crostini,
‘Navigando per il Salterio: riflessioni intorno all’edizione elettronica del manoscritto Londra, British
Library, Addit. 19.352 (2)’, Bollettino della Badia greca di Grottaferrata, 66-67 (2002-03): 133-209.
40 J. Darrouzès, ‘Notes inédites de transferts épiscopaux’, REB, 40 (1982): 159.
42 SS. Secondo ed Erasmo, ed. E.M. Ucropina (Venice, 1958), nos 6 (Witiclinus de a Carthorio,
June 1135), 42 (Viticlinus, December 1186), 67 (Witaclinus de Conrado, October 1199); San Lorenzo
di Ammiano, ed. L. Lanfranchi (Venice, 1947), no. 61 (Viticlinus, December 1179); San Lorenzo, ed.
F. Gaeta (Venice, 1959), notizie nos lxviii-lxix (Vitaclinus Conradi, September 1199). See also the
following two notes.
43 G.L.F. Tafel and G M. Thomas, Urkunden zur alteren Handels -und Staatsgeschichte der Republik
Venedig (3 vols, Vienna, 1856-57), no. 61, vol. 1, pp. 140-4 (August 1164: witness to document
issued by doge; the witness list also includes one Viteclinus Constatinus); San Giovanni Evangelista di
Torcello, ed. L. Lanfranchi (Venice, 1948), no. 40 (December 1164: evidence given by Viticlinus Geno
‘de confinio Sancti Iohannis Decollati’); SS. Secondo ed Erasmo, ed. Ucropina, nos 22 (June 1166:
advocate of the monastery), 27 (January 1174: advocator for Marcus Reinaldo and Veneranda Marino).
44 See in general D.M. Nicol, Byzantium and Venice (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 104-17.
45 Chrysobulls of February 1187, ed. Tafel and Thomas, Urkunden, nos 70-2, vol. 1, pp. 179-
203.
which he agreed to pay in full, without counting the sum already paid by Andronikos. As for
the individual damages, these proved impossible to estimate in every case, and so the envoys
proposed a global compensation. This took the form of a grant to the commune of a profitable
piece of real estate situated next to the Venetian quarter, namely the malls (emboloi) together
with the wharves belonging to the French and Germans.46
Isaac confirmed these concessions in a chrysobull of June 1189 which is remarkable
for the warmth with which it refers to the Venetians. Although it is not desirable to let the
nations (gentes) spread themselves in Constantinople, the emperor declares himself willing to
make an exception for the Venetians because he considers them not as strangers but as native
Romans (quia non ut alienigenos, immo ut aborigines Romanos genus Veneticorum nostra
serenitas reputat). They suffer for the empire (Romania) as much as the Romans, and they
serve with such devotion that to give them land is like giving it to the fatherland. They thus
richly deserve to be given the properties held until now by the French and Germans or rather,
more exactly, by certain unrepresentative individuals who have not given any proper service
in return for the great profit (multum lucrum) which they derive from the concessions.47
This chrysobull was issued at the very time when the German crusaders were heading
for the imperial frontier through Hungary. It has often been noted that Isaac’s generosity
with regard to Venice was prompted by the fear and hostility which he felt at the approach of
Frederick Barbarossa. But it has not been observed, as far as I know, that the patriarch who
inflamed these feelings that proved so advantageous to Venice was himself Venetian. So one
may well wonder whether it was hatred of the Latins or love of his native country which
aroused Dositheos’ prophetic zeal against the crusaders. Or was it both, a case of Venetian
patriotism joining forces with the orthodoxy of the Studite monk? The rhetoric of the imperial
chrysobull, which he may have helped to draft, was very appropriate to him, because he was
indeed both a Venetian and a Byzantine, for whom the interest of his adopted country was
profitable to his native land. The profit is clear enough from the rise of Venetian investment
in Byzantine trade, documented in contracts recorded for the years 1188-1192.48 The amount
of Venetian merchant activity in Byzantine markets is all the more striking in view of the
fact that almost no contracts for Palestine are preserved from these years.49 The years were
exactly those of the Third Crusade, in which the Venetian war-fleets were remarkable for their
inactivity. It was Pisa and Genoa that were rewarded for their help in defending Tyre (1187)
and recapturing Acre (1191) with greatly increased privileges in both ports. Marie-Luise
Favreau-Lilie sees Venice’s non-involvement as a deliberate avoidance of actions which could
46 On the topography of the Venetian quarter and the location of the French and German wharves,
see now D. Jacoby, ‘The Venetian quarter of Constantinople from 1082 to 1261’, in C. Sode and S.
Takács (eds), Novum Millennium. Studies on Byzantine history and culture presented to Paul Speck
(Aldershot, 2001), pp. 153-70.
47 Tafel and Thomas, Urkunden, no. 74, vol. 1, pp. 206-11.
48 R. Morozzo della Rocca and A. Lombardo, Documenti del commercio veneziano nei secoli
XI-XIÎI (2 vols, Turin, 1940), vol. 1, nos 375, 381-7, 394-5, 405, 411-2.
49 D. Jacoby, ‘Conrad, Marquis of Montferrat, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem (1187-1192)’, in L.
Balletto (ed.), Atti del Congresso Intemazionale “Dai feudi monferrini e dal Piemonte ai nuovi mondi
oltre Oceani”, Alessandria, 2-6 aprile 1990 (Alessandria, 1993), pp. 213-33 (repr. in D. Jacoby, Trade,
Commodities and Shipping in the Medieval Mediterranean (Aldershot, 1997), no. 4).
upset the Byzantine entente with Saladin.50 The interpretation has been rejected by Jacoby,51
but it deserves consideration in view of the gains which Byzantium hoped to obtain from
its treaty with the Ayyubid ruler. If Byzantium succeeded in occupying the Palestine coast,
Venice, as the empire’s associate, would reap the commercial reward. The treaty of 1187
had stipulated that in all the cities Byzantium gained with Venetian aid, the Venetians would
obtain a church, a wharf, an embolos, and complete tax exemption. The patriarch of Venetian
stock who prophesied the liberation of Palestine could hardly ignore the consequences for
his city of origin. We should recall that the Venetian-Byzantine treaty of 1189 was concluded
when Dositheos was at the height of his influence, and before the German army set foot on
imperial territory. We should also note the parallel between the treaty and the incident of the
horses reported by the German envoys. In both instances, Isaac favoured his ally - Venice in
one case, Saladin in the other - at the expense of the crusading nations, whom he arbitrarily
deprived of their property.
Of course, it would have been unthinkable for Venice to obstruct the crusade openly.
In fact, the Doge Aureo Mastropiero joined it formally in November 1188, when he ordered
all Venetians to assemble before Easter in preparation for an expedition.52 A fleet set sail
in 1189. But the Pope felt obliged to remind them, in 1192, to imitate ‘the great princes
of the earth who have made effort and expenditure for the recovery of the Holy Land’.53
There are two indications that the Venetians remained more faithful to the Byzantine alliance
than to the crusade, to the point of incurring the hostility of other westerners. The first is an
episode recorded by the historian of Frederick Barbarossa’s crusade. The German crusaders,
on arriving at the Dardanelles, found Venetian ships carrying grain, wine and other victuals to
Constantinople, that had been blown ashore by a contrary wind. Frederick’s representatives
offered to buy the cargoes for the crusading army; the Venetians refused and set sail for
Constantinople, but the wind drove them back to Gallipoli, where the Germans forced them,
this time, to comply with their request.54
The other indication of Venice’s loyalty to Byzantium during the years of the Third
Crusade comes from the complaints lodged by Isaac II with the communes of Genoa and Pisa
against certain of their citizens who, in October 1192, had attacked in the sea off Rhodes some
Venetian vessels coming from Egypt and Palestine.55 One of the ships was carrying envoys
from Saladin along with returning Byzantine ambassadors and a number of Greek and Syrian
merchants. The attackers spared only the Genoese and Pisan passengers. The emperor lists the
values of the stolen goods for which he demands compensation:56
50 M.-L. Favreau-Lilie, Die Italiener im Heiligen Land vom ersten Kreuzzug bis zum Tode
Heinrichs von Champagne (1098-1197) (Amsterdam, 1989), pp. 259-61.
51 Jacoby, ‘Conrad’, p. 215.
52 Tafel and Thomas, Urkunden, no. 73, vol. 1, pp. 204-6.
53 Ibid., no. 75, pp. 211-12.
54 Historia de expeditione Friderici, ed. Chroust, pp. 70-1.
55 Genoese documents of 1192 and 1193, ed. A. Sanguineti and G. Bertolotto, ‘Nuova serie di
documenti suile relazioni di Genova coli’Impero bizantino’, Atti délia Società ligure di storia patria, 28
(1896-98): 449-55; Pisan document of 1195, Documenti, ed. Müller, pp. 66-7 (as above n. 5).
56 The list is contained in the first of the Genoese documents, the text of which is also published in
F. Miklosich and J. Müller, Acta et diplomata graeca sacra et profana (6 vols, Vienna, 1860-90), vol. 3,
pp. 37-40.
• 6675 hyperpyra for his own losses

• 700 hyperpyra for the property of the imperial mystes
• 39,000 hyperpyra for the losses suffered by the Constantinopolitan merchants - an
enormous sum, which would seem to indicate high-value merchandise such as spices
• 50,000 hyperpyra for the losses of the emperor’s brother, the sebastokratôr and later
emperor Alexios. It is not clear whether this even more enormous sum represented
merchandise or cash, but it surely involved more than private expenditure, and suggests
that Alexios was himself investing heavily in trade.
These sums, totalling 96,000 hyperpyra, represent only the recorded losses; the list did
not include either the goods of those passengers who had been killed, or the costly diplomatic
gifts sent by Saladin.
The texts we have just cited provide the only concrete data both for the provisioning of
Constantinople and for diplomatic and commercial communication between Constantinople
and Egypt at the time of the Third Crusade. In both cases, transport was guaranteed by
Venetian ships, exposing Venetian seamen and merchants to the risk of violence from their
co-religionists. We have to suppose that the profits were proportionate to the risk.
In sum, Isaac II did indeed have plans for imperial restoration in Syria and Palestine,
plans bequeathed by Andronikos I, promoted by Dositheos, and founded on alliances with
Saladin and Venice. In terms of recent scholarly literature, the interpretation of Charles Brand
turns out to be substantially correct, as opposed to the German scholars, Hannes Môhring and
Ralph-Johannes Lilie, who, while disagreeing among themselves, criticised him for having
relied too heavily on the text of Magnus the Priest.57The problem, in all three cases, is that the
testimony of the Greek sources was neglected.
To conclude, let us now attempt to reconstruct the thread of events, adducing some
complementary information, mainly from the Life o f Leontios o f Jerusalem. The death of
Nureddin in 1174 had allowed Saladin to extend his dominion from Egypt to Syria. It is
probable that Saladin formed a scheme to detach Byzantium from the crusader states, by
offering an improvement to the status of the Greeks in Syria and Palestine; it would involve
allowing the orthodox clergy to reoccupy the local bishoprics. This, in my opinion, is how
we should interpret his invitation to the Greek patriarch of Jerusalem, Leontios, to settle in
Damascus.58 Manuel Komnenos, who did not encourage Leontios to accept the invitation,
was evidently not tempted, and remained faithful to his pro-Latin policies. However, the
realignment inevitably came about after his death, as a consequence of three events which
poisoned Byzantine-Latin relations: the rejection by Bohemond III, prince of Antioch and
uncle of Alexios II, of his Byzantine wife Theodora Komnene; the massacre of the Latins in
Constantinople which accompanied Andronikos’ coup d’état; and the murders of Alexios II
and his mother, Maria of Antioch. Andronikos turned to Saladin, whom he had perhaps met
during his long period of exile in Muslim territory from 1167 to 1180. In his publicity, he
would surely have made a virtue of this new diplomatic orientation which he had adopted
57 See above, nn. 3-4.

58 The Life of Leontios Patriarch of Jerusalem (BHG 985), 87, ed. and trans D. Tsougarakis (The
Medieval Mediterranean 2) (Leiden, 1993), pp. 134-7. See now also B. Hamilton, The Leper King and
his Heirs. Baldwin IV and the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 112-39.
out of necessity, and thus the marriage between his illegitimate daughter and Manuel’s
illegitimate son became a policy and publicity instrument. The episode remains obscure, but
it can be inferred from Choniates’ allusions that the marriage was meant to serve foreign
policy objectives. We learn also from the Life ofLeontios o f Jerusalem, that Andronikos was
very keen for the patriarch to take part in the nuptials,59 which strengthens the supposition
that the couple were in some way linked to a plan for the creation of a Greek kingdom of
Jerusalem. The plan was not totally devoid of realism, because it was not without strategic
advantage for Saladin. A Byzantine occupation of the Syrian littoral would have created a
shield against the new crusade that would be triggered by the loss of the Frankish states
of Outremer. Byzantium, with its still considerable navy, would be useful in preventing or
resisting a seaborne offensive, especially after its rapprochement with Venice. The revolt of
Isaac Komnenos on Cyprus and the Sicilian invasion certainly gave Andronikos the incentive
to hasten his negotiations with both Venice and Saladin.
The sudden overthrow of Andronikos in 1185 halted negotiations, and theoretically left
the new ruler, Isaac Angelos, free to change direction, especially after the defeat of the Sicilian
army. Did the initiative for renewing the agreement with Saladin come from the latter, who
was preparing for the final assault on the kingdom of Jerusalem, fatally weakened by the death
of Baldwin IV and the minority of Baldwin V? At all events, Isaac listened to the prophetic
advice of his Venetian-born spiritual father, Dositheos, who had so correctly predicted his own
rise to power, and whom Isaac hastened to nominate as successor to Leontios of Jerusalem. As
patriarch-elect of the Holy City, Dositheos was directly interested in negotiations over the fate
of the Holy Land. Here, we should recall another fact from the biography ofLeontios: when
he visited Jerusalem in 1176, he encountered strong hostility from the Latin authorities which
the influence of Manuel Komnenos was unable to remove.60 Is it therefore pure coincidence
that Isaac ensured that he was succeeded by a patriarch of Latin stock, a latinogenës, a
choice which might have been made with a view to Latin sensibilities, especially those of the
Venetians who would have the commercial monopoly in liberated Palestine?
The fall of Jerusalem to Saladin in 1187 quickened the pace of developments. It became
apparent that Dositheos would be more useful to the emperor, and no doubt to Venice, in the
see of Constantinople, and his translation was effected in 1189. The inevitable crusade was
launched in the same year. Isaac thought himself in a position to play a double game with
Frederick Barbarossa and Saladin, but Frederick’s reaction left him in no doubt that his only
ace was his ability to obstruct the crusading army. Dositheos energetically encouraged this
policy which he justified by a prophecy. Venice benefited from the grant of new concessions,
but Byzantium derived only military humiliation, the devastation of its lands, and the further
weakening of its position in the Balkans. Having played his ace, Isaac had nothing more to
offer Saladin, whose advisers assured him that the Byzantines were no better than the Franks
and deserved no territorial concession that was detrimental to the interests of Islam. At the
same time, Isaac’s opposition to the crusade not only cost him his reputation in the Latin
world, but also, as a result, the island of Cyprus. Richard the Lionheart, having liberated
Cyprus from the ‘tyranny’ of the rebel Isaac Komnenos, gave it to Guy of Lusignan instead
of returning it to the Byzantine empire. After the crusaders’ departure, Syria and Palestine
59 Life ofLeontios, 91, ed. Tsougarakis, pp. 142-3.

60 Ibid., 84-87, pp. 132-7.
remained divided between the Ayyubids and the Latins, who, from Tyre and Acre, went on to
resume domination of the coast. From this division, Byzantium was totally excluded.
Should we therefore conclude that the episode was without lasting historical significance?
History consists as much of unfulfilled intentions as it does of real events and material facts.
If one wants to have a complete image of the past, one neglects at one’s peril the part played
by prophecies and dreams. In this particular instance, besides, the episode was not without its
consequences. The failure of Isaac’s and Dositheos’ project must have contributed to the fall
of both men from their respective offices, in hardening the intransigence of those bishops who
were calling for the patriarch’s resignation, and in feeding the discontent of those who were
not inclined to see the emperor Isaac Angelos as the Angel of the Lord. At the same time, it is
important not to forget those who, far from complaining about Isaac, would have been glad to
see him remain in power. With the fall of Isaac in 1195, the Venetians lost a great benefactor,
perhaps the best they had known among the rulers of Byzantium. His brother Alexios III was
much less favourable to Venice’s interests. The role of the Venetians in the deviation of the
Fourth Crusade has been much discussed. Did they simply want to make sure of recovering
the debts owed them by the crusaders, or had they plotted the capture of Constantinople from
the very start, as Choniates believed? Insufficient consideration has been given to a third
possibility: that what impelled them to accept the proposals of the young Alexios IV was
the desire to see his father Isaac re-established on the imperial throne. We may note too that
the career of Dositheos, a Venetian occupying the patriarchal see of the New Rome, to some
extent provided a precedent and a pretext for Venice’s control of the patriarchate in the Latin
empire of Constantinople. All this does not excuse the responsibility of the Venetians for the
tragic outcome of the Fourth Crusade, but it does alter the perspective in which we view them:
we see them acting not just as businessmen on crusade, but also as partisans of a Byzantine
regime, and as former accomplices in a Byzantine imperial policy that was foreign to the
crusading ideal.
6
Byzantine Trade with Egypt from the mid-Tenth Century
to the Fourth Crusade
David Jacoby
I. INTRODUCTION
Little attention has been devoted to Byzantine seaborne trade with Egypt
after the loss o f the Empire’s eastern provinces to the Arabs in the seventh
century. Several reasons explain this neglect, yet three in particular should
be mentioned : first, some general conceptions o f modern historians regarding
the Empire’s foreign commerce; secondly, the common approach to the stru-
cture o f the Mediterranean trade and shipping networks since the eleventh
century; and, finally, the nature o f the source material bearing on Byzantine
trade with Egypt from the mid-tenth to the early thirteenth century. The
three factors just mentioned deserve to be examined at some length.
It is almost axiomatic among Byzantinists that until the Fourth Crusade
the Empire was more or less self-sufficient, its economy was turned inward,
and trade was not a primary factor in that framework. According to this line
o f argument, the imperial government was adverse to Byzantine foreign trade.
As a result, there was no state incentive to engage in exchanges beyond the
Empire’s boundaries. Moreover, the number o f Byzantine merchants active
in foreign trade was small, all the more so since on the whole the Empire’s
subjects were reluctant to undertake long commercial voyages. It was expected
that foreigners would bring their goods to the Empire and especially to Con-
stantinople.
Significantly, the most comprehensive attempt to analyze the nature and
operation o f the Byzantine economy from the tenth to the early thirteenth
century, published a dozen years ago, deals only marginally with foreign
An extended stay at the Istltuto Eilenico di Studi bizantini e postbizantini in Venice

has greatly contributed to the preparation of this study. I wish to thank hereby Professor
Chryssa Maltezou, Director of the Istituto, for her hospitality and friendship.
26
trade. It briefly examines the activity o f Italian merchants in the Empire in

that period, in view o f their penetration into the Byzantine domestic market.
Some other studies dealing with this development are also concerned with
its long-term implications for the Empire’s economy and finances. Whatever
the case, foreign trade is primarily discussed in the context o f exchanges
between the Empire and the West. Trade with Egypt is mentioned in passing
only, if at all.1 Despite some rare criticism o f the common views noted above,2
there has as yet been no attempt to reconstruct the nature and evolution o f
Byzantine foreign trade or to assess its role within the Empire’s economy
since the tenth century.3
The neglect o f Byzantine foreign trade is also shared by western medieva-
1. See A. Harvey, Economic Expansion in the Byzantine Empire 900-1200, Cambridge

1989, p. 298, index, s.v. Venetians; for Alexandria and Egypt, not even cited in the index,
see pp. 174-175. Similar approach in P. Magdalino, The Empire o f Manuel I Komnenos, 1143-
1189, Cambridge 1993, pp. 142-148; N. Oikonomides, «The Economic Region of Constan-
tinople : from Directed Economy to Free Economy, and the Role of the Italians», in G. Ar-
naldi e G. Cavallo, eds., Europa medievale e mondo bizantino. Contatti ejfettivi e possibilità
di studi comparati (Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, Nuovi studi storici - 40) Roma
1997, pp. 221-238; and the recent review article with ample references to earlier studies by
M. Angold, «The Road to 1204: The Byzantine Background to the Fourth Crusade», Jour-
nal of Medieval History 25 (1999), 269-278. R,- J. Lilie, Handel und Politik zwischen dem
byzantinischen Reich und den italienischen Kommunen Venedig, Pisa und Genua in der Epoche
der Komnenen und der Angeloi ( 1081-1204), Amsterdam 1984, pp. 285-290, deals briefly
with Byzantine foreign trade and shipping, citing only a few wellknown references to Egypt.
Several of his arguments are rightly criticized by G. Prinzing, «Zur Intensitat der byzantini-
schen Fern-Handelsschiffahrt des 12. Jahrhunderts im Mittelmeer», in E. Chrysos, D. Le-
tsios, H. A. Richter und R. Stupperich, eds., Griechenland und das Meer (Studien zur Ar-
châologie und Geschichte Griechenlands und Zyperns, 4), Mannheim und Môhnesee 1999,
pp. 141-150; this study too deals only briefly with Egypt.
2. A. E. Laiou, «Byzantine Traders and Seafarers», in S. Vryonis, Jr., ed., The Greeks
and the Sea, New Rochelle, N.Y. 1993, pp. 79-96, rightly stresses the importance of Byzantine
seaborne trade, yet dwells mainly on domestic commerce and devotes little space to ex-
changes with Egypt on pp. 81-82.
3. Brief references to Byzantine involvement in foreign trade after the period examined
here in A. E. Laiou-Thomadakis, «The Byzantine Economy in the Mediterranean Trade
System: Thirteenth-Fifteenth Centuries», Dumbarton Oaks Papers 34-35 (1980-1981), 193,206,
and eadem, «The Greek Merchant of the Palaeologan Period: A Collective Portrait», iTga-
xxixa rtjç ’Axaôrjpiaç 9A6t}vûv 57(1982), 102; both studies are reproduced in eadem, Gender,
Society and Economic Life in Byzantium, Aldershot 1992, nos. VII and VIII respectively.
N. Oikonomidès, Hommes d’affaires grecs et latins à Constantinople (XIIIe-XVe siècles)>
Montréal-Paris 1979, pp. 83-92, provides a somewhat more extensive treatment. See also
G. Makris, Studien zur byzantinischen Schiffahrt (Collana storica di fonti e studi, diretta
da G. Pistarino, 52), Genova 1988, pp. 67-101, 261-275. More sources have been published
since these studies appeared and the subject is far from being exhausted.
Byzantine Trade with Egypt 27
lists, whose study o f Mediterranean commerce since the eleventh century has
been largely dominated by a eurocentric approach and a bipolar perspective.
Trade and shipping in that region have been mostly, if not exclusively viewed
in the context o f relations between West and East, with a focus on the ex-
pansion o f the western maritime powers in the eastern Mediterranean, as
well as on the impact of that process. The relative abundance o f western
sources bearing on trade and shipping, in particular o f notarial documents
since the twelfth century, and the paucity o f relevant Byzantine and Egyptian
evidence have enhanced and seemingly vindicated that biased approach. By
contrast, short, medium and long-distance maritime commerce within the
eastern Mediterranean itself have been mentioned in passing only. The exis-
tence o f a major trade network specific to that region connecting the Empire
and Egypt, with the addition o f the crusader states of the Levant in the twelfth
and thirteenth century, has been largely overlooked.4 As illustrated by the
evidence presented below, this network was tightly interwoven with trans-
Mediterranean exchanges between East and West. It follows that, at any
event from the second half o f the eleventh century, the eastern Mediterranean
trade system was structured within a triangular, rather than within a bi-polar
pattern.
Numerous studies deal with the political relations and military confronta-
tions between Byzantium and Muslim powers. Some attention has also been
paid to trade between the Empire and its Muslim neighbors, yet Byzantine-
Egyptian commerce has been practically overlooked by students o f the Muslim
world. Strangely, these scholars have adopted the bipolar approach o f western
medievalists with respect to Mediterranean trade and shipping. They focus on
exchanges between Muslim countries and the West and ignore the existence
o f the triangular trade pattern just mentioned, within which Byzantium was
firmly integrated. Their biased approach to the Empire’s role in that context
has strongly influenced their interpretation o f various sources referring to
al-Rüm.
This term originally designated Romans and Byzantines.5 However, in
the period examined here it was often used by Oriental Christians, Muslim
geographers and travelers, Egyptian officers and Jews for both Byzantines
4. E. Malamut, Les îles de VEmpire byzantin, VIIe-XHe siècles (Byzantina Sorbonen-

sia, 8), Paris 1988, II, esp. pp. 434-455, 536-561, deals with maritime trade within the By-
zantine region or Romania and with the waterways linking Constantinople and various
islands to Cyprus and Jaffa, the latter with respect to pilgrimage, yet hardly mentions Byzan-
tine-Egyptian trade.
5. The entry ‘Rüm’ by C. E. Bosworth in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2VIII, Leiden 1995,
pp. 601-606, does not cover the entire range of uses.
28
and Westeners.6 Yahyâ o f Antioch, who records the massacre of Rüm mala-
fita or Amalfitan Ram at Old Cairo in 996, considers them a specific group
and clearly distinguishes between them and other Rüm.7 Yet elsewhere he
applies Ram to the members o f the Melchite or Chalcedonian community
living in Egypt.8 A different use is found in the letter of a Jewish woman from
Jerusalem writing shortly after the fall o f the Holy City to the crusaders in
1099, since she calls the latter Ram.9 Between 1101 and 1130 an official Fati-
mid document applies the term Ram to both an Amalfitan and a Genoese,10
and a Jewish letter from Alexandria does so with respect to Venetians.11 The
taxation treatise compiled by al-Makhzamï around 1170, which reflects Egyp-
tian practice o f that time, uses Ram for all the subjects o f Christian lands.12
In his travel account o f the 1180s Ibn Jubayr, who hailed from Spanish Gra-
nada, distinguishes between the Ram of Constantinople and the Genoese
Ram, two o f whom served as captains o f two ships on which he sailed.13 It
follows that in some instances the precise identity of the Ram is obvious,
while in others it is not. Nevertheless, scholars consider as Westerners the
6 . This was common as late as the second half of the twelfth century, contrary to
S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society. The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as
Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1967-1993, I,
p. 43, who claims that Rum and Ifranj, Byzantines and Westeners respectively, were clearly
and regularly distinguished in that period.
7. Yahya-ibn-Sa'id d’Antioche, Histoire, ed. and trans. I. Kratchkovsky et A. Vasiliev
(Patrología Orientalis, vol. 23, fase. 3), Paris 1932, pp. 447-448. On this event, see C. Cahen,
«Un texte peu connu relatif au commerce oriental d’Amalfi au Xe siècle», Archivio storico
per le provincie napoletane, n.s. 34 (1953-1954), 3-8, repr. in idem, Turcobyzantina et Oriens
Christianus, London 1974, no. A.
8 . Yahya-ibn-Sa‘id d’Antioche, Histoire, p. 465; see F. Micheau, «Les guerres arabo-
byzantines vues par Yahyâ d’Antioche, chroniqueur arabe melkite du Ve/XIe siècle», in
EY'FYXIA. Mélanges offerts à Hélène Ahrweiler (Byzantina Sorbonensia, 16), Paris 1998,
II, p. 546.
9. Ed. by S. D. Goitein, «Tyre-Tripoli-Arqa. Geniza Documents from the Beginning
of the Crusader Period», The Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s. 66 (1975-1976), 70 (dating), 80
(Hebrew text), 81 (translation).
10. Ed. by S. M. Stern, «An Original Document from the Fatimid Chancery con-
cerning Italian Merchants», in Studi orientalistici in onore di Giorgio Levi Della Vida, Roma
1956, II, 532-533, repr. in idem, Coins and Documents from the Medieval Middle East, London
1986, no. V.
11. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 303-304.
12. See C. Cahen, Douanes et commerce dans les ports méditerranéens de VEgypte mé-
diévale d'après le Minhâdj d'al-Makhzvmï, Leiden 1964, pp. 223-224. For the dating, see
ibid., pp. 218-222, and esp. idem, «Un traité financier inédit d’époque fatimide-ayyubide»,
Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 5 (1962), 139-159.
13. R. J. C. Broadhurst, trans., The Travels of Ibn Jubayr, London 1951, pp. 26,267,327.
Ram traders and carriers documented by the Jewish letters from the so-called
Genizah or synagogue archive o f Fustat or Old Cairo, unless there is explicit
evidence pointing to Byzantium.14 This approach requires a thorough re-
vision.15 In the absence o f direct testimony bearing on the origin o f the Ram,
due regard should be paid to the precise context in which they appear as
well as to circumstantial evidence, both o f which may offer a clue to their
identity.
There is only scanty and scattered information regarding the Empire’s
trade with Egypt from the mid-tenth century to the Fourth Crusade, yet the
evidence, whether direct or indirect, proves to be more abundant than generally
assumed. Byzantine, Arabic and Persian sources illustrate various aspects of
that activity. The Jewish documents from the Cairo Genizah provide in-
valuable data, especially for the tenth and eleventh century, a period for
which rather few other sources on Byzantine-Egyptian exchanges are available.
The languages o f these documents, Hebrew or Arabic interspersed in some
cases with Greek words, the Hebrew script in which they are written, as well
as the fact that many o f them have neither been published nor translated into
western European languages explain why they have been virtually ignored by
Byzantinists dealing with topics other than Byzantine Jewry. The western
documentation, which becomes gradually more abundant since the mid-eleventh
century, also yields some unexpected insights into the evolution o f Byzantine-
Egyptian trade. One should remember, though, that Byzantine as well as
Muslim trade and shipping are markedly underrepresented in that documenta-
tion, which projects a western-biased picture.
Before proceeding, two final remarks are in order. This short study is
not aimed at an overall reconstruction of Byzantine-Egyptian commerce from
the mid-tenth century, shortly before the Fatimid conquest o f Egypt in 969,
to the Fourth Crusade in the early thirteenth century. Its purpose is more
modest, namely to review the evolution o f Byzantine trade with Egypt during
the two and a half centuries separating these two military events, both o f
which generated some important changes, whether in the short or the long
run, in the pattern o f Byzantine-Egyptian commerce.16 Within that period
14. On the Genizah, see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 1-28.

15. In fact, it has created a vicious circle. The assumption that the Empire’s merchants
and ships were a marginal factor in Egyptian trade has prevented the correct identification
of the Empire’s subjects called Rüm. In turn, their supposedly limited activity in Egypt
has seemingly vindicated the initial assumption.
16. S. W. Reinert, «The Muslim Presence in Constantinople, 9th-15th Centuries: Some
Preliminary Observations», in H. Ahrweiler and A. E. Laiou, eds., Studies on the Internal
Diaspora of the Byzantine Empire, Washington, D.C. 1998, pp. 125-150, deals to some extent
30
the establishment o f the Latin states in the Levant around 1100, in the wake
of the First Crusade, signals the beginning o f a new phase in these exchanges.
This justifies the distinction adopted below between the eleventh and the
twelfth century, which at first glance may seem to follow an old-fashioned
periodization according to centuries. The second remark concerns a metho-
dological aspect of our investigation. Merchants, ships and goods are generally
treated together as components o f seaborne trade. The underlying assumption
is that their respective movement necessarily coincides and follows a similar
course. However, as illustrated by the evidence adduced below, this was
definitely not the case with respect to trade between Byzantium and Egypt.
Within that framework, therefore, it is essential to consider these three com-
ponents separately whenever necessary.
II. BYZANTINE TRADE WITH EGYPT FROM THE MID-TENTH

TO THE TWELFTH CENTURY
Trade between Byzantium and its former eastern provinces lost in the
seventh century continued in the following period, despite occasional dis-
ruptions and interruptions caused by armed struggle between the Empire and
the Muslims. However, its pattern underwent profound changes as a result
o f major political and economic developments in the late tenth and the eleventh
century. These developments affected the westward flow o f a broad range o f
commodities from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean region, namely
spices, the most important o f which was pepper, in addition to aromatics
and dyeing materials.17 These costly oriental goods, known in the Middle
Ages under the generic name o f ‘spices’, were increasingly diverted from the
Persian Gulf, plagued by political instability, to the Red Sea and the Nile
Valley through which they reached the Mediterranean. The Fatimids, who
ruled Egypt since 969, encouraged, protected and controlled this lucrative
trade conducted through their territory. As a result Byzantine Trebizond and
the cities o f Muslim Syria ceased to be the main suppliers of oriental commo-
dities to the Empire and especially to Constantinople. Instead, Alexandria
became in the eleventh century the main Mediterranean outlet for these goods,
with Egyptian trade in the Byzantine capital, yet a more comprehensive view of that activity
in the Empire is still wanting.
17. It is noteworthy that in Constantinople these three types of goods were handled
by the (¿.upshot, according to the early tenth-century Book o f the Eparch: J. Koder, ed.
and trans., Das Eparchenbuch Leons des Weisen. Einfilhrung, Edition, Übersetzung und Indices
(Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae, XXXIII), Wien 1991, p. 110, chap. 10, par, 1.
as well as for frankincense and myrrh produced in the Arabian peninsula.18

This shift required a restructuring o f the Byzantine supply network in
spices, increased Byzantine dependence upon Egypt in this respect and, more
generally, enhanced trade between the Empire and Egypt. Their exchanges,
however, were not limited to precious wares. The differing and complemen-
tary nature o f their economies called for diversified commercial relations,
each partner supplying a large variety o f commodities to the other. To the
external trade factor we may add yet another, domestic one furthering an
intensification o f Byzantine-Egyptian trade since the eleventh century. Eco-
nomic growth in the Empire and the increasing prosperity o f the Byzantine
social elite and the urban middle stratum, primarily in Constantinople, sti-
mulated changing consumption patterns, the ostentatious display o f riches
and an increasing demand for luxury items, whether produced in the Empire
itself such as silk textiles or imported from foreign countries.19
Various Arab authors o f the second half o f the tenth century refer to
trade relations between the Empire and Egypt. ‘Umar b. Muhammad al-Kindi
18. On Trebizond and its trade routes in the late ninth and in the tenth century, see
R. S. Lopez, «Silk Industry in the Byzantine Empire», 20 (1945), 29 and 30 n. 1, repr. in
idem, Byzantium and the World around it: Economic and Institutional Relations, London
1978, no. Ill; S. Vryonis Jr., The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Pro-
cess of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century, Berkeley 1971, pp. 15-
20. On the shift in favor of Egypt, see esp. B. Lewis, «The Fatimids and the Route to India»,
Revue de la Faculté des Sciences Économiques de VUniversité d ’Istanbul 11 (1949-1950), 50-
54; J. Aubin, «La ruine de Sîrâf et les routes du Golfe Persique aux Xle et Xlle siècles»,
Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale 2 (1959), 295-301 ; J.- C. Garcin, «Transport des épices et
espace égyptien entre le Xle et le XVe siècle», in Les transports au moyen âge — Annales
de Bretagne et des pays de VOuest 85 (1978), 305-309; C. Cahen, Orient et Occident au temps
des croisades, Paris 1983, pp. 111-113.
19. Economic background: M. F. Hendy, Studies in the Byzantine Monetary Economy,
c. 300-1450, Cambridge 1985, pp. 570-582; idem, «‘Byzantium, 1081-1204*: the Economy
revisited Twenty Years on», in idem, The Economy, Fiscal Administration and Coinage of
Byzantium, Northampton 1989, no. Ill, pp. 21-23; Harvey, Economic Expansion, esp. pp.
120-243. Social background: S. Vryonis, Jr., «Byzantine ÀHMOKPATIA and the Guilds
in the Eleventh Century», Dumbarton Oaks Papers 17 (1963), 287-314, repr. in idem, By-
zantium: its Internal History and Relations with the Muslim World, London 1971, no. IIIA;
H. Ahrweiler, «Recherches sur la société byzantine au Xle siècle : nouvelles hiérarchies et
nouvelles solidarités», Travaux et Mémoires 6 (1976), 99-124, esp. on Constantinople; P. Le-
merle, Cinq études sur le Xle siècle byzantin, Paris 1977, pp. 287-293; P. Kazhdan and A. W.
Epstein, Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, Berkeley 1985,
pp. 74-83. On Byzantine silk production and demand since the eleventh century, see D. Ja-
coby, «Silk in Western Byzantium before the Fourth Crusade», Byzantinische Zeitschrift
84/85 (1991-1992), 452-500, repr. in idem, Trade, Commodities and Shipping in the Medieval
Mediterranean, Aldershot 1997, no. VII.
32
(d. in 961) composed a work on the merits o f Egypt, in which he claimed that
the country was the hub o f world commerce. He mentions numerous goods
and the routes they followed to and from Egypt, insisting on the latter’s role
in transit trade. In addition to the precious commodities coming from China,
the region o f the Indian Ocean and the Arabian peninsula, he lists various
Mediterranean ports, countries and wares, among them Constantinople, Rho-
des, as well as Chios and its mastic. Ibn Züláq (d. in 996) follows the same
pattern in his work on Egypt, naming Crete and the Empire as destinations
o f ships leaving Egypt.20 Arab geographers offer a description o f maritime
lanes linking Egypt to the Empire and especially to Constantinople, whether
o f entire routes or sections o f them.21 Ibn Hawqal, who completed a revised
version o f his K itab §ürat al-ard around 988, deals with the southern coast
o f Asia Minor, mentioning Attaleia as a port o f call and the presence of
Byzantine ships at the mouth o f the river Lamus, west o f Tarsus, where the
Empire and Egypt exchanged prisoners. His treatment o f Constantinople is
more extensive.22 Byzantine sources also offer scattered and partial evidence
on waterways connecting the Empire to Egypt.23 Though useful, the geo-
graphic information found in all these works offers a static picture o f sea-
borne trade and navigation routes between the two regions. It is partly taken
from earlier authors and too general for our purposes, since it is devoid o f
concrete and dated evidence reflecting the nature and evolution o f these
factors.24
20. See S. Y. Labib, Handelsgeschichte Âgyptens im Spâtmittelalter (1171-1517),

Wiesbaden 1965, pp. 13-14.
21. See T. Lewicki, «Les voies maritimes de la Méditerranée dans le haut moyen âge
d’après les sources arabes», in La navigazione mediterranea nelVaïto medioevo (Settimane di
studio del Centro italiano di studi sull’alto meioevo, 25), Spoleto 1978, II, pp. 451-452.
22. Ibn Hauqal, Kitâb §ûrat al-ard, 2 ed. J. H. Kramers (Bibliotheca Geographorum
Arabicorum, II), Leiden 1938, pp. 201-202; Configuration de la terre (Kitab surat al-ard),
trans. by J. H. Kramers and G. Wiet, Beyrouth-Paris 1964,1, pp. 196-197; see also Lewicki,
«Les voies maritimes de la Méditerranée», pp. 451-454, and next note. See also Oxford
Dictionary of Byzantium, eds. A. P. Kazhdan et al., New York - Oxford 1991, II, p. 973, s.v.
Ibn Hawqal, on this author’s knowledge of the Empire.
23. See I. Ch. Dimitroukas, Reisen und Verkehr im Byzantinischen Reich vom Aufang
des 6. Jhr. bis zur Mitte des 11, Jhr., Athens 1997, II, pp. 474-479.
24. Incidentally, recent studies also offer a rather static view of navigation routes and
ascribe to Crete and Cyprus an inflated role in that framework, without properly taking
into account commercial and navigational developments during the period discussed here.
J. H. Pryor, Geography, Technology and Wae. Studies in the Maritime History of the Mediter-
ranean, 649-1571, Cambridge 1988, pp. 7, 70-71, 87-101, heavily relies on evidence related to
specific political or military circumstances, which is not always convincing. See also Malamut,
Les ties de VEmpire byzantin, II, pp. 546-561, with maps on pp. 652-653, 656-663, and S. Bor-
Ibn Hawqal blamed Muslim rulers, eager to reap profit, for allowing
the Byzantines to send their ships to Muslim ports for trade and for permitting
their agents to travel in Muslim countries, activities that enabled the Empire
to secretly gather information about these territories. 25 His criticism implies
that Byzantine merchants and their goods were welcome in Egypt, both for
commercial and fiscal reasons. They contributed to the provisioning o f the
country in various commodities, and exported its products as well as precious
oriental wares arriving from the region o f the Indian Ocean and the Arabian
peninsula. The state treasury enjoyed large revenues deriving from this two-
way traffic. Cairo was the political, commercial and financial center o f Egypt
and its largest market.26 Byzantine merchants were visiting the city shortly
before the beginning o f the Fatimid period in 969 and the shift in trade routes
mentioned earlier. The Arab chronicler al-Mas‘üdï reports that during his
stay in Cairo Byzantine ambassadors and merchants arrived by sea from
Constantinople and reported the death in exile o f Emperor Romanus I Le-
sari, Venezia e Bisanzio nel XII secolo. I rapporti economici (Deputazione di storia patria
per le Venezie, Miscellanea di studi e memorie, 26), Venezia 1988, pp. 19-20, specifically
about the two islands. Yet see my strong reservations regarding the latter’s functions in
D. Jacoby, «Italian Privileges and Trade in Byzantium before the Fourth Crusade: A Re-
consideration», Annuario de estudios nedievales 24 (1994), 349-356, repr. in idem, Trade,
Commodities and Shipping, no. II, and idem, «Byzantine Crete in the Navigation and Trade
Networks of Venice and Genoa», in L, Balletto, ed., Oriente e Occidente tra medioevo ed
età moderna. Studi in onore di Geo Pistarino, Acqui Terme 1997, pp. 517-540. On Cyprus,
see also below.
25, Ibn Hauqal, Kitâb $vrat al-ard, p. 198; trans., I, p. 193.
26. On Cairo’s functions, see S. D. Goitein, «Cairo: An Islamic City in the Light of
the Genizah Documents», in I. M. Lapidus, ed., Middle Eastern Cities. A Symposium on
Ancient, Islamic and Contemporary Middle Eastern Urbanism, Berkeley and Los Angeles
1969, pp. 80-97, esp, 82; A. L. Udovitch, «A Tale of Two Cities: Commercial Relations
between Cairo and Alexandria during the Second Half of the Eleventh Century», in H. A.
Miskimin, D. Herlihy, A. L. Udovitch, eds., The Medieval City, New Haven and London
1977, pp. 144-148,158-160; same approach in A. L. Udovitch, «L’énigme d’Alexandrie: sa
position au moyen âge d’après les documents de la Geniza du Caire», in Alexandrie entre
deux mondes — La revue de VOccident musulman et de la Méditerranée 46 (1987), 71-79. Udo-
vitch in particular seems to have overstated the economic centrality of Cairo. Two of his
arguments, ibid., p. 76, are clearly not convincing. Indeed, it is not surprising that in certain
instances spices imported through the Red Sea and palm fiber from Yemen or southern
Egypt (on the latter, see below, n. 85) should be available in Cairo, where they arrived for
local consumption or on their way to the Mediterranean, while the stocks further north in
Alexandria had already been exhausted. Nor is it surprising that the price of pepper should
have been higher in Alexandria than in Cairo, because of added transportation costs and
especially high seasonal demand resulting from the greater concentration of foreign buyers,
including Byzantines, within a short period.
34
capenus, which had occured on 15 June 948.27 In the Middle Ages it was
common for merchants to take advantage o f the sailing o f ambassadors en-
trusted with special and urgent missions, whose ships were better protected
and proceeded with fewer stops than other vessels. Yet the reverse also oc-
cured, since ambassadors occasionally boarded ships engaging in mercantile
voyages.28 Whatever the case in the instance just mentioned, we may safely
assume that the Byzantine ambassadors and traders traveled on a Byzantine
ship as far as Fustat. Vessels sailing in the Mediterranean frequently made
their way up the N ile to deliver their cargo directly in that city.29
There is good reason to believe that the arrival o f Byzantine merchants
mentioned by Mas‘üdï was not an isolated case. Indeed, the existence o f a
‘Market o f the Greeks’ (shuq ha-Yevanim) in Old Cairo, mentioned in a Heb-
rew Genizah letter o f 959, is highly suggestive in that respect.30 The specific
reference to Greek speakers,31 and not to Rum, lifts all doubts regarding
the identity o f the merchants to whom the document alludes.32 The so-called
‘market’ was presumably a funduq, in which Byzantine merchants from
Constantinople and other cities o f the Empire were compelled to reside and
trade under the supervision o f state-appointed officials.33 From the assignment
27. Al-Mas’ûdï, Kitâb at-tanbîh wa'1-ischrâf (Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum,

VIII), ed. M. J. de Gœje, Leiden 1894, p. 174; Maçoudi, Le livre de Vavertissement et de la
revision, trans, by B. Carra de Vaux, Paris 1896, p. 236.
28. Some later examples appear below.
29. See Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 295-296 ; A. L. Udovitch, «Time, the
Sea and Society: Duration of Commercial Voyages on the Southern Shores of the Mediter-
ranean during the High Middle Ages», in La navigazione mediterranea, II, pp. 521-522. It is
likely than the Amalfitan traders massacred in 996 in Old Cairo (see above, n. 7) also arrived
there on the vessel that had brought them to Egypt.
30. Ed. by S. Assaf, «Ancient Documents from the Genizah [sent from] Erez Israel,
Egypt and North Africa» [Hebrew], Tarbiz 9 (1938), 203, line 12; trans. by S. D. Goitein,
«Geniza Documents on the Transfer and Inspection of Houses», Revue de VOccident musul-
man et de la Méditerranée 13-14 (1973) (= Mélanges Le Tourneau, Aix-en-Provence, 1973),
pp. 402-403. The document does not deal directly with the market, but mentions only its
location with respect to a piece of property.
31. On ‘Yavan’ or Greece standing for ‘Byzantium’, see below, n. 197.
32. However, Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, is ambiguous in this respect: ibid.,
I, p. 44, he seems to consider the merchants as being European or western, while ibid., IV,
p. 27, he hypothesizes that the ‘Market of the Greeks’ was the one known in the Fatimid
period as dar mânak, in which Amalfitan merchants were murdered in 996, and seems to
suggest that Byzantine merchants were also housed there. This is excluded, however, since
Yahyâ of Antioch refers to Amalfitan Rum and thus distinguishes between them and By-
zantine Rum: see above, n. 7.
33. See Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 186-192, 349-350; A. L. Udovitch,
«Merchants and amirs : Government and Trade in Eleventh Century Egypt», Asian and
o f a special funduq to the housing o f Byzantine merchants we may gather

that by 959 these were visiting Old Cairo both regularly and in fairly large
numbers. Various agreements concluded by the emperors Leo VI and R o-
manus I Lecapenus with the rulers o f Egypt and Syria since the 880s may
have paved the way for that traffic and, conversely, for the presence of Muslim
merchants in Constantinople, among them from Egypt.34 This appears to be
confirmed by the mitaton for Muslim traveling merchants attested in the city
in the late ninth or early tenth century, which more or less fulfilled the same
function as the Byzantine funduq in Old Cairo.35
There is no direct information about the commodities brought by By-
zantine merchants to Cairo around the mid-tenth century. However, some-
what later evidence from the early Fatimid period suggests two o f them ex-
ported from Asia Minor to Egypt, namely storax resin used as incense, in
medicine and in perfumery,36 and timber. The Empire’s reconquest of Crete
in 961 and its occupation o f Cyprus in 965 deprived Egypt o f free access to
two major sources o f raw material for naval construction.37 Yet both earlier
and later evidence points to Southern Asia Minor as another important
supplier o f timber to Egypt. Arab raids on that region from the seventh to
the ninth century were mainly motivated by the need for timber, and occasio-
nally the Arabs occupied areas long enough to build ships on location.38 In
the last quarter o f the tenth century Ibn Hawqal mentions Hisn at-Tinat
in the Gulf o f Alexandretta, close to the large forests o f the Amanus Mountains,
as a point o f embarkation for pine timber sailing to Egypt.39 Byzantine timber
African Studies 22 (1988) ( = The Medieval Levant. Studies in Memory of Eliyahu Asthor
[1914-1984]), pp. 56, 58-59, 65-71; D. Jacoby, «Les Italiens en Egypte aux Xlle et XHIe
siècles: du comptoir à la colonie?», in M. Balard et A. Ducellier, eds., Coloniser au Moyen
Age, Paris 1995, pp. 76-77, with additional references p. 102 n. 4.
34. See Reinert, «The Muslim Presence in Constantinople», pp. 130-135.
35. On mitata in Constantinople, see Lopez, «Silk Industry in the Byzantine Empire»,
pp. 25-31.
36. Ibn Hauqal, KitRb $vrat al-ard, p. 201; trans. I, p. 196.
37. On sources of timber, overview by M. Lombard, «Arsenaux et bois de marine
dans la Méditerranée musulmane: VIIe-XIe siècles», and «Le bois dans la Méditerranée
musulmane, VIIe-XIe siècles. Un problème cartographié», repr. both in idem, Espaces et
réseaux du haut moyen âge, Paris - La Haye 1972, pp. 107-151, esp. 129-132 and 153-176 re-
spectively. Yet see the critique of these two studies by C. Cahen in Journal of the Economic
and Social History of the Orient 2 (1959), 339-342.
38. See Lombard, «Arsenaux», pp. 114-115,134-137.
39. Ibn Hauqal, Kitdb $vrat al-ard, p. 182; trans. I, p. 180. Around the mid-twelfth
century the Arab geographer al-I drïsï also mentions such export, yet without referring to
Egypt: P.-A. Jaubert, trans., La géographie d'Edrisi, Paris 1836-1840, II, p. 132; he seems
to quote an earlier source.
36
was either directly shipped from Asia Minor and neighboring areas, or else
was picked up by vessels on their way from Constantinople or other Byzantine
ports to Egypt.40 The caliph’s arsenal north of Fustat, in which warships were
being built, was obviously one o f the main destinations o f that timber.41
John I Tzimiskes ascended the imperial throne in 969, shortly after the
Empire had recovered Crete and Cyprus. The consolidation and expansion
o f Byzantine rule in the east at the expense o f the Muslims required energetic
measures to reduce the power o f the Egyptian navy. Under the emperor’s
pressure Doge Pietro Candiano IV o f Venice prohibited in July 971 the trans-
fer o f timber, oars and arms to Muslim countries.42 There can be no doubt
that a similar ban was issued in the Empire itself, despite the absence o f direct
evidence to this effect. Ibn Hawqal’s reference to the export o f timber from
Hisn at-Tinat is in the past tense, which suggests that it was composed while
the Byzantine embargo was still being enforced.43 Amalfi, subject to imperial
authority at that time, may have been compelled to interrupt for some time
its deliveries o f timber to Egypt.44 In any event, the ban must have been lifted
in 987-988 at the latest following the agreement concluded between Emperor
Basil II and the caliph al-‘Aziz. One clause o f this agreement stipulates free-
dom o f trade for all the Empire’s subjects and with respect to all the com-
modities requested by the Fatimid ruler. Though not explicitely mentioned,
timber was clearly among these goods. Another clause o f the treaty deter-
mines that the caliph’s name should be proclaimed in the mosque o f Con-
stantinople, which implies the activity o f Egyptian merchants there at that
time.45
The Arab geographer al-Muqaddasi, who completed his ‘Best Classi-
40. Later evidence in this respect appears below and in D. Jacoby,«TheSupply of

War Materials to Egypt in the Crusader Period», Jerusalem Studies inArabic and Islam 24
* (2000) (in press).
41. On that shipyard, see A. M. Fahmy, Muslim Sea-Power in the Eastern Mediter-
ranean from the Seventh to the Tenth Century A.D., London 1950, pp. 48-50; Cahen, «Un
texte peu connu», pp. 3-6; Y. Lev, Saladin in Egypt, Leiden 1999, pp. 161-162.
42. G. L. Fr. Tafel and G. M. Thomas, eds, Urkunden zur alteren Handels- und Staats-
geschichte der Republic Venedig, Wien 1856-1857, I, pp. 25-30; see also W. Heyd, Histoire
du commerce du Levant au moyen âge, Leipzig 1885-1886,1, p. 113.
43. See above, n. 39.
44. Its position in Egypt heavily depended on them : see below, n. 97.
45. On the agreement, see G. Schlumberger, Uépopée byzantine à la fin du dixième
siècle, Paris 1896-1905, 1, p. 730; M. Canard, «Les relations politiques et sociales entre By-
zance et les Arabes», Dumbarton Oaks Papers 18 (1964), 52 n. 83, repr. in idem, Byzance
et les Musulmans du Proche-Orient, London 1973, no. XIX; and esp. Reinert, «The Muslim
Presence in Constantinople», pp. 136-137.
fication for the Knowledge o f Regions’ in 986 and a revised version in 989,
thus shortly after the conclusion o f the agreement just mentioned, notes that
ships were constantly arriving at Fustat from Arabia and Rum.46 There can
be no doubt that he was referring to maritime trade in the Red Sea and with
the Empire. To be sure, Amalfitans traded then in Old Cairo, as mentioned
above, and it is likely that those murdered in 996 had arrived there with a
cargo o f timber. The funduq in which they stayed was close to Cairo’s port
and shipyard.47 Venetian vessels also reached Egypt in that period and presu-
mably they too sailed up the Nile.48 Nevertheless, in the last decades o f the
tenth century Byzantine ships anchoring in Egyptian ports must have de-
finitely been more numerous than the vessels o f these western cities, whose
maritime trade in the eastern Mediterranean was still fairly limited.49
The Persian poet, moralist and theologian Na§ir-i Khusrau, who visited
Jerusalem in 1047, reports in his Safarnama or “Book o f Travels”, with re-
ference to the late tenth and early eleventh century, that every year many
pilgrims from the Empire used to visit the Holy Sepulcher. Among them was
supposedly the emperor, who came in disguise, a fact that irritated the caliph
al-Hakim to such an extent that it prompted him to destroy the church in
1009.50 Although apocryphal, the story suggests a large, regular flow o f By-
zantine pilgrims from various social ranks traveling to Jerusalem. At least
some o f those coming from cities as distant as Constantinople must have
opted for the maritime route to the Holy Land. Since there is no evidence
for Byzantine ships specializing in the transportation o f pilgrims, they must
have boarded vessels engaging in commercial voyages to Cyprus or Egypt.
The vessels carrying pilgrims anchored off Jaffa, the coastal city closest to
Jerusalem. It is unlikely, however, that this city, devoid o f commercial im-
portance and o f a proper anchorage for ships, should have been the final
destination o f vessels carrying merchants from Constantinople. In other words,
it is a fair guess that these ships proceeded beyond Jaffa to an Egyptian port,
and took the pilgrims again on board on their return journey.51 Apparently
46. MuqaddasI, Ahsan al-taqâsim f t ma'rif at al-aqâlîm, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Bibliotheca

Geographorum Arabicorum, III), Leiden 1906, p. 199; trans. by A. Miquel, «L’Egypte vue
par un géographe arabe du IVe/Xe siècle al-Muqaddasi», Annales islamologiques 11 (1962),
119.
47. On these merchants, see above, n. 7.
48. See below, n. 121, for a somewhat later case.
49. As we shall see below, this appears to have been the case until the twelfth century.
50. Na§er-e Khosraw's Book of Travels (Safarnama), trans. by W. M. Thackston, Jr.,
[Albany, N.Y.J, 1986, pp. 37-38.
51. Such a pattern is indirectly confirmed by the journey of a Byzantine envoy sent
by Michael VI to the caliph al-Mustan$ir in 1053, who sailed on a Byzantine ship as far as
38
the same transportation and navigation pattern still prevailed about a century
later, when the Russian abbot Daniel o f Chernigov sailed from Constantinople
to Jaffa between 1106 and 1108.52 The abbot does not refer to the identity
o f the ship he boarded, which carried both pilgrims and merchants, yet it
was undoubtedly a Byzantine vessel. This is suggested by its itinerary via
the Byzantine province o f Cyprus, instead o f along the Levantine coast which
by then was already largely in Frankish hands.
Na§ir-i Khusrau’s story, reported above, implies regular Byzantine mer-
cantile sailings to Egypt in the late tenth and early eleventh century. A tem-
porary interruption o f the Empire’s trade with Egypt occured in 1016, when
Basil II decreed a ban on commerce with and travel to Muslim countries,
except for the territory o f Aleppo. One may wonder, however, whether the
ban was effectively implemented. In any event, it was lifted in 1027, when
Emperor Constantine VIII concluded an agreement with the Fatimid caliph
az-Zahir.53 A Genizah document o f around 1035, adduced below, confirms
the resumption o f Byzantine trade in Egypt.
Na$ir-i Khusrau provides somewhat later information about that trade.
In 1047 he saw in the Lebanese port o f Tripoli, then under Fatimid rule,
ships from al-Rum and al-Firank, Byzantium and the Christian West respecti-
vely, as well as from Andalusia and the Maghreb. The sultan, or more pre-
cisely the Fatimid caliph, kept there commercial vessels sailing to the Empire,
Sicily and the Maghreb.54 It follows that Tripoli was then an important port
Cairo. After delivering gifts on behalf of the emperor, he left Egypt on the same ship, ac-
companied by Fatimid vessels from the Syrian fleet. He went ashore at Jaffa to pray at the
Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and in all likelihood re-embarked at Jaffa: see M. Hamidulla,
«Nouveaux documents sur les rapports de l’Europe avec l’Orient au Moyen Age», Arabica 1
(1960), 289; O. Grabar, «The Shared Culture of Objects», in H. Maguire, éd., Byzantine
Court Culture from 829 to 1204, Washington, D.C. 1997, p. 121. Jaffa w'as also the destina-
tion of Genoese ships transporting western pilgrims later in the eleventh century: see B. Z.
Kedar, «Mercanti genovesi in Alessandria d’Egitto negli anni sessanta dei secolo XI», in
Miscellanea di studi storici, II, Genova 1983 (Collana storica di fonti e studi, diretta da
G. Pistarino, 38), pp. 26-28, repr. in idem, The Franks in the Levant, 11th to 14th Centuries,
Aldershot 1993, no. 1.
52. Account of abbot Daniel, trans. by W. F. Ryan in J. Wilkinson, J. Hill, W. F.
Ryan, Jerusalem Pilgrimage, 1099-1185, London 1988, pp. 122-126, cap. 2-7. For its dating,
see K.- D. Seeman, Altrussiche Wallfahrtsliteratur. Theorie und Geschichte eines literarischen
Genres, München 1976, p. 175.
53. On the ban, see Schlumberger, V épopée byzantine, II, pp. 452-454, and III, p. 23;
W. Felix, Byzanz und die islamische Welt im früheren 11. Jahrhundert. Geschichte der poli-
tischen Beziehungen von 1001 bis 1055, Wien 1981, pp. 68, 80-81, whose dating is more pre-
cise; Reinert, «The Muslim Presence in Constantinople», pp. 138-139.
54. Nâe$r-e Khosraw's Book of Travels, p. 13. On the involvement of Egyptian rulers
o f call and transshipment station along the sea lane linking the Empire’s
capital to Egypt and that it was visited by merchants and ships from both
that country and Byzantine territories.55
The continuing role o f Tripoli in that context is also illustrated by a
Genizah letter from the second half o f the eleventh century, which records
a tumultuous voyage from Alexandria to the Lebanese city on a leaking
vessel. The author o f the letter reports that some o f the linen he had taken
along was slightly damaged by the seawater that seeped into the ship. In-
terestingly, he uses Greek antliai for the pumps bailing out the water and
notes that each bucket was the size o f half a Byzantine barrel.56 It follows
that the merchant was a Byzantine Jew and that his Egyptian linen was in-
tended for the Empire’s market, although its precise destination is unknown.67
It is obvious that the import o f Egyptian linen into Byzantium was also carried
out by Christian subjects o f the Empire. To be sure, flax was cultivated in
various Byzantine regions, and in the early tenth century Constantinople
imported linen cloth from the Strymon region and the Pontos, as we learn
from the Book o f the E p arch y Egyptian high-quality linen cloth was never-
theless highly valued in the Empire, as we may gather from Nà§ir-i Khusrau’s
apocryphal story about the Byzantine emperor’s interest in the Egyptian city
o f Tinnïs.
The Persian traveler, who visited Egypt in 1047-1048, was deeply im-
pressed by two types o f textiles o f high quality woven in Tinnïs. One was
multicolored linen used for turbans and women’s clothing, the other buqa-
lamun, “an irridescent cloth that appears o f different hues at different times
o f the day” . Buqalamun was a silk textile o f Byzantine origin with a peculiar
and their officers in maritime trade, see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 309-310;
Udovitch, «Merchants and amirs», pp. 57-65.
55. Incidentally, in Aleppo, an inland city, he noted the presence of merchants from
Byzantine Asia Minor and from Egypt, and mentioned the distance from that city to Con-
stantinople: Nâ$er-e Khosraw's Book of Travels, p. 10.
56. Trans, by Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, I, p. 321, and see p. 483 n. 55. The
undated letter was addressed to Nahray b. Nissïm, a prominent Jewish merchant and banker
active in Egypt between 1049 and 1097, on whom see M. R. Cohen, Jewish Self-Govern-
ment in Medieval Egypt. The Origins of the Office of Head o f the Jews, ca. 1065-1126, Prince-
ton, N.J. 1980, pp. 102-104.
57. On twenty-six varieties of Egyptian flax, see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, I,
pp. 224-228, p. 455 n. 61 to p. 457, and IV, p. 167; on varieties of linen in Egypt, some of
which were extremely fine and expensive, and on their uses, see ibid., IV, pp. 164-167, and
next note.
58. Koder, Das Eparchenbuch, p. 106, chap. 9, par. 1, which also mentions the lining
of cotton garments with linen; see also Harvey, Economic Expansion, pp. 185-186.
40
sheen imitated in Egypt.59 The Persian author adds the following suggestive
story: “I heard that the ruler o f Byzantium once sent a message to the sultan
o f Egypt that he would exchange a hundred cities o f his realm for Tinnïs
alone. The sultan did not accept, o f course, knowing that what he wanted
with this city was its linen and buqalamuri\ It is noteworthy that Nà$ir-i Khus-
rau ends his description o f Tinnis by stating that it takes twenty days by ship
from there to Constantinople.60 This is the only Egyptian port for which he
provides such information.
While in Cairo Na§ir-i Khusrau attended the festive opening o f the Nile
canal at the beginning o f the yearly irrigation season. A large pavilion “of
Byzantine brocade spun with gold and set with gems” was set up. It was
large enough for a hundred o f the sultan’s horsemen to stand in its shade.
When the sultan mounted his own horse, ten thousand horses ‘‘with gold
saddles and bridles and jewel-studded reins” stood at rest “with saddle-cloths
o f Byzantine brocade and buqalaman woven seamless to order”. Interestingly,
he adds that “in the borders o f the cloth are woven inscriptions bearing the
name o f the sultan o f Egypt”. In the caliph’s palace he also noted that “all
the carpets and pillows (...) o f Byzantine brocade and buqalamun [were] each
woven exactly to the measurements o f its place”.61 It follows that these pieces
were imitations o f Byzantine silks, rather than genuine ones, manufactured
according to specifications o f the caliph’s court in firaz, state factories or,
by extension, workshops compelled to deliver some o f their products or all
o f them to that court.62
Silk textiles, whether or Byzantine origin or imitations, were also found
in private Egyptian homes. The Rümï or Byzantine m andil or kerchief, as
well as brocade and cloth used for upholstery appear in many marriage settle-
ments from the tenth to the twelfth century found in the Genizah, yet it is
obvious that Jewish brides were not the only ones in Egypt to have them in
their trousseau.63 Richer brides had a Rümï brocade bedcover which could
be worth the money needed by a middle-sized family for five months, or even
a more expensive Rami brocade couch.64 It is likely that some high-priced
59. See Jacoby, «Silk in Western Byzantium», p. 458 n. 29.

60.
Na$er-e Khosraw’s Book o f Travels, pp. 39-40.
61.
Ibid., pp. 48, 57.
62.
On the tiraz system, see R. B. Serjeant, Islamic Textiles. Material for a History
up to the Mongol Conquest, Beirut 1972, pp. 7-15, and for Fatimid Egypt, pp. 157-160.
63. For the latter, see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, I, p. 46; IV, pp. 191, 315, 320,
329-330. Goitein wrongly assumed that Arabic mandil came from a Latin root, like Spanish
mantilla; he was unaware that it derived from Greek [xocv&rjXiov.
64. Ibid., I, p. 46; IV, pp. 299-300,302-305, 315, 324.
B yzantine Trade w ith E g y p t 41
textile pieces were genuine Byzantine products, while others were imitations
manufactured in Egypt or elsewhere. The tinnlsi rümï mandil or Byzantine
kerchief from Tinms, made o f high-quality linen, was one o f several Egyptian
imitations o f the silken Rümï or Byzantine kerchiefs.65 Despite the production
of these imitations, we may safely assume that many Byzantine silk textiles
were imported into Egypt in the eleventh century, although no direct evidence
in this respect has surfaced until now.68 Some o f these fabrics were surely
brought by Egyptian merchants, yet the bulk of imports must have been
handled by the Empire’s traders. These textiles were among the costly goods
indispensable for the financing o f Byzantine purchases in Egypt, especially
those o f spices, high-quality linen and other expensive commodities.
In addition to silk textiles, we also find a single Genizah reference to the
import o f silk as raw material into Egypt. In 1053 a Jew living in Jerusalem
asked his correspondent in Fustat to find for him seven ra ti or between 2 kg.
940 and 3 kg. 080 o f “coloured Constantinopolitan silk” o f good quality.67
It is unclear whether that silk was dyed in the Empire’s capital or whether
the name merely points to a specific variety o f coloured silk. In any event,
the commodity was clearly o f Byzantine origin.68 Unfortunately, we do not
know whether or not the merchant involved in its import into Egypt was a
Byzantine subject. The fact that Byzantine silk is mentioned only once in the
Genizah documents, while Spanish and Sicilian silk appear frequently, does
not necessarily imply that this was an exceptional shipment.69 In fact, from
65. Ibid., IV, p. 167. On imitations of Byzantine linen and silk textiles in Muslim
countries, see ibid., I, p. 50; also Serjeant, Islamic Textiles, pp. 43, 117: Tustar in Iran and
Damascus manufactured Rümï brocades.
66. On the shipping of silks to Egypt at a Jater period, though under different conditions,
see below, n. 241.
67. Ed. and Hebrew trans. by M. Gil, Erets Israel ba-requfa ha-muslemit ha-rishona
(634-1099) [ = Palestine during the first Muslim Period (634-1099)], Tel Aviv 1983, III, pp.
104-107, no. 460, esp. line 16; mentioned bu Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, I, p. 417
n. 21, and IV, p. 402 n. 128, with approximate dates. The rati used for silk must have been
the spice weight. Goitein, ibid., I, p. 360, assumes that it was around 450 grams, yet see
rather E. Ashtor, «Levantine Weights and Standard Parcels : A Contribution to the Metro-
logy of the Later Middle Ages», Bulletin o f the School o f Oriental and African Studies 45
(1982), 472, repr. in idem, East-West Trade in the Medieval Mediterranean, ed. B. Z. Kedar,
London 1986, no. II, who on the basis of numerous sources estimates it at between 420
and 440 grams.
68. Since the letter mentions coloured silk together with Spanish crimson, Goitein as-
sumed that it came to Egypt via Sicily: see previous note. This suggestion is unfounded,
since the correspondent was requested to find the two commodities wherever he could, which
implies that they were not necessarily available at the same shop or warehouse.
69. Various other Byzantine products are also mentioned seldom, although some of
42
the way it is mentioned we may gather that the commodity was more or less
regularly available in Fustat. One may wonder, therefore, whether the restric-
tions imposed on the export o f silk from the Empire, attested by the early
ninth-century Book o f the Eparch, were still in force.70
We may now turn to the costly commodities known as spices in the
Middle Ages. A Genizah letter from around 1035 reports that the Ram have
acquired odoriferous woods in Old Cairo: “The did not leave a single piece
of it when they departed for their country” . These Rúm have been identified
as Europeans.71 To be sure, at that time there was a growing demand for
luxury products in the Empire and especially in Constantinople, as well as
in Italy.72 It would seem, however, that the purchasing power in the Empire
was far greater, judging by the expansion o f Byzantine silk manufacture, a
process primarily generated by increasing domestic consumption o f costly
items. There was no contemporary development o f a high-grade luxury in-
dustry in Italy. In addition, in the eleventh century the volume o f Byzantine
business in Egypt seems to have exceeded by far that o f Italian traders, as
suggested by somewhat later evidence that will soon be adduced.73 Finally,
one should take into account that in the 1030s Amalfitan and Venetian traders
were supplying goods bought in Egypt exclusively to western markets, and
apparently no Italian was yet engaging in trade between Egypt and the Em-
pire.74 In short, in view o f the economic context there is good reason to believe
that the massive purchase mentioned in the Genizah letter of 1035 was carried
out by Byzantine merchants. Somewhat later Genizah letters sent from Ale-
xandria to Fustat enhance this interpretation.
them like cheese were surely imported on a fairly large scale. One should also take into
account that the Jews attested in the Genizah conducted maritime trade mainly with Tunisia
and Sicily, from where many families originated and where they still had resident relatives.
70. Koder, Das Eparchenbuch, p. 100, chap. 6, par. 16. I shall deal extensively with
Byzantine silk in a forthcoming book.
71. See Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, I, p. 44, whose interpretation of the term
4Rüm’ is similar to that of other historians of the Muslim world referring to the Genizah
it,
documents: see above, n. 14.
72. See above, n. 19, and D. Jacoby, «Silk crosses the Mediterranean», in G. Airaldi,
éd., Le vie del Mediterraneo. Idee, uomini, oggetti (secoli XI-XVI) (Université degli studi
di Genova, Collana dellTstituto di storia del medioevo e della espansione europea, n. 1),
Genova 1997, pp. 61-63.
73. In the second third of the eleventh century the concentration of Italian traders
bying spices in Tunisia, where they were brought from Egypt, was undoubtedly far greater
than in the ports of this country. This is also suggested by the fact that they could occasionally
impose payments for their purchases in Sicilian and Pisan currencies: see Goitein, A Medi-
terranean Society, I, pp. 44-45.
74. On that involvement, see the detailed discussion below.
B yzantine Trade w ith E g yp t 43
We have already noted the Byzantine ship reaching Cairo in 1053 with
an imperial embassy on board.75 In all likelihood the vessel also carried mer-
chants. Genizah documents o f the 1060s or early 1070s illustrate the activity
o f traders and ships from the Empire in Alexandria. One o f them refers “to
the merchants from Constantinople [who] have already agreed upon prices” ,
while “those from Venice and Crete still hold back” .76 There is no indication
about the goods these merchants intended to purchase in Alexandria, yet
spices were surely high on their list, if not the exclusive items in which they
were interested. Indeed, another letter, written at Alexandria in the summer
of 1062, mentions merchants from Constantinople buying various spices, the
nature o f which is not specified, whereas Cretan and Genoese traders purchased
pepper, yet held back with respect to other spices, with the result that the
latter’s prices fell sharply.77 The two more or less contemporary letters are
noteworthy on several counts. From their specific references to Italian traders
we may gather that all the others, whether Cretan or Constantinopolitan,
were Byzantine subjects. It follows that by the second half o f the eleventh
century the conduct o f trade between the Empire and Egypt was not the
exclusive domain o f merchants and ships from the capital. In addition, the
letters illustrate for the first time the involvement o f Venetian and Genoese
traders and vessels in trade between a Byzantine province and Egypt, in these
specific cases with respect to Cretan agricultural and pastoral produce. From
the phrasing o f the two letters we may gather that the appearance o f these
traders in Alexandria was not exceptional.78 Since direct sailing from Crete
to Egypt was excluded at that time, we must assume that the ships reached
their destination via Rhodes and proceeded from there along the Levantine
coast or Cyprus.79
The shipping of oriental spices from Egypt to Constantinople is further
attested by a Genizah letter from Alexandria, dated 1094, which reports that
“indigo (...) has gone down in price by one third, this is because the al-Rum

76. Trans, by Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, IV, p. 168.
77. Ed. and Hebrew trans. by M. Gil, Be-malkhut Yishma'el bi-tequfat ha-geonim [ = In
the Kingdom o f Ishmael], Jerusalem 1997, IV, pp. 445-450, no. 749, lines 1-6; English trans.
by S.Simonsohn, The Jews o f Sicily, I, 383-1300 , Leiden 1997, pp. 314-316, no. 145.
78. On eleventh-century trade between Crete and Egypt, yet without reference to the
letter of 1062, see Jacoby, «Byzantine Crete», pp. 521-523. My statement that the Genoese
first appeared in Romania at the time of the First Crusade, ibid,, p. 530, should be corrected
in the light of that letter.
79. Ibid., pp. 537, 540.
44
have received news that indigo is not selling well in Constantinople”.80 Ano-
ther letter, from the last years o f the eleventh century, states the following:
“Please take notice that no pepper, cinnamon or ginger are available in Ale-
xandria. If you have any o f these commodities, keep them, for the Rum are
keen solely on them. All the Ram are about to leave for Old Cairo. They
are only waiting for the arrival o f two additional ships from Constantino-
ple” .81 The sailing o f several vessels from this city to Alexandria in a single
season is not surprising. Interestingly, the second letter seems to imply that
all the ships would sail up the Nile. As for the identity o f the Ram traders,
it is likely that most, if not all o f them were subjects o f the Empire sailing
on Byzantine ships, since the Italian participation in maritime trade between
Egypt and Constantinople was still fairly limited in the last decades o f the
eleventh century.82 The massive purchase o f spices following the arrival of
the traders from Constantinople thus points to the substantial purchasing
power of Byzantine traders, whose behavior largely determined the strategy
o f Egyptian merchants and had a direct impact on the fluctuation o f market
prices.
The eleventh-century Genizah letters mentioned above clearly imply that
Egypt was then the Empire’s main source o f spices. However, occasionally
these could also be purchased in ports along the waterway leading to the
Empire, to which they had been exported from Egypt. We may safely identify
as Byzantines the Ram traders who around 1075 bought brazilwood, a valuable
red dye originating in the East Indies, in an unspecified city o f Sham or Syria-
Lebanon. It is unlikely that Italians would have bought spices along the
Levantine coast rather than in Egypt or Tunisia.83 Alexandria appears to
have been then the only Egyptian port in which they conducted business.84
80. Ed. and Hebrew trans. by Gil, Be-malkhut Yishma'el, III, pp. 441-444, no. 431,
lines 20-22; English trans. by Udovitch, «Time, the Sea and Society», p. 528, slightly changed
here. Udovitch translates ‘al-Rüm’ (line 21 of the text) as ‘Italians’, in accordance with his
stand that «in the Geniza terminology, Rüm refers to Italy and the Italians» (in the dis-
cussion that followed his lecture, ibid., p. 554), yet see the evidence adduced below.
81. Trans, by Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, I, p. 44. For the dating of this docu-
ment after 1094, see ibid., V, p. 104.
82. See below, p. 47.
83. The case is reported in a letter of 1085, about ten years after the transaction: ed.*
and Hebrew trans. by Gil, Be-malkhut Yishma'el, IV, pp. 63-66, no. 623; mentioned three
times, in different ways, by Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, I, p. 45 (sale in a Palestinian
port with 150 percent profit, which is a slip), 178 (with reference to European buyers), 202
(sale in Syria, with correct figure of profit, namely fifty percent). On Tunisia, see above, n. 73.
84. The earliest evidence about western traders in Damietta appears some thirty-five
years later, in a Venetian document of 1119, yet by then their visits in that port had apparently
Therefore, the Rüm expected to proceed from Damietta to Old Cairo some
time after the 1070s also appear to have been Byzantine traders. They intended
to buy there date palm fiber, used for the manufacture o f baskets and ropes.85
Some Genizah letters from the eleventh century offer information about
Byzantine products marketed in Egypt and about their precise origin, in
addition to those already mentioned above. Mastic from Chios, used in the
manufacturing o f perfumes and in pastries, is attested around 1050 and in
the second half o f the eleventh century.86 Although direct evidence is lacking,
it would seem that its production and sale were conducted under stringent
imperial control. It is likely, therefore, that only Byzantine merchants handled
the export o f mastic from Chios.87 Egypt imported cheese from Asia Minor
and Crete.88 Various medicinal plants and drugs were brought from Asia
Minor, as attested by a later document.89 The high-quality Cretan epithymon
or dodder o f thyme, also a medicinal plant, was partly re-exported from
Egypt to the countries o f the Indian Ocean, as revealed by a Jewish lawsuit
conducted in Cairo in 1097-1098.90 The same lawsuit also refers to Russian
become quite common: R. Morozzo della Rocca - A. Lombardo, eds., Documenti del com-
mercio veneziano nei secoli XI-XIH , Torino 1940 (hereafter: DCV ), I, pp. 43-44, no. 41,
85. See Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 44 and 401 n. 17, who hypotesizes that
the material was imported from Yemen. However, according to Muqaddasi, Ahsan al-
taqâsim , p. 203; trans., p. 125, Egypt had excellent palm fiber. The writer of the letter was
active between 1060 and 1090: see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 228-229, 379,
no. 42; V, pp. 144-145,545 n. 88.
86 . See Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 268 and 154, respectively, and for the
approximate dating of the latter piece of information, p. 153. Udovitch, «A Tale of Two
Cities», pp. 151-153, dates a letter mentioning mastic to the late 1060s.
87. Significantly, in 1302 Andronicus II prohibited Venetian trade in mastic and salt,
yet another commodity controlled by the state: G. M. Thomas et R. Predelli, eds., Diplo-
matarium veneto-levantinum, Venetiis 1880-1899, I, p. 14. Two years later he confirmed Ge-
noese freedom of trade in all commodities, except in mastic, salt and grain : L. T. Belgrano,
«Prima serie di documenti riguardanti la colonia di Pera», Atti délia Società Ligure di Sto-
ria patria 13 (1877-1884), 105-110. The Genoese lords of Chios from 1304 to 1329 and again
after 1348 apparently maintained the existing control system on mastic, yet adapted it to
some extent to their own needs. On mastic under Genoese rule, see M. Balard, La Romanie
génoise (Xlle-début du XVe siècle) (Bibliothèque des Ecoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome
235), Rome 1978, pp. 119-120,742-749.
88 . See Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 46, 124, and above, n. 78.
89. Ed. and Hebrew trans. by S. D. Goitein, «A Letter of Historical Importance from
Seleucia (Selefke), Cilicia, dated 21 July 1137» [Hebrew], Tarbiz 27 (1958), 528-535; English
trans. and commentary by idem, «A Letter from Seleucia (Cilicia), Dated 21 July 1137»,
Speculum 39 (1964), 298-303, and for the information mentioned here, pp. 299, 301.
90. See S. D. Goitein, «From the Mediterranean to India: Documents on the Trade
46
linen, presumably shipped from Constantinople to Egypt by Byzantine mer-

chants. Russian linen was highly valued in Egypt and also re-exported to
India, where it was much appreciated.91 Incidentally, the document recording
the lawsuit reveals an interesting aspect o f the function o f Constantinople
and Egyptian ports as intermediaries in long-distance exchanges between the
Black Sea and the Indian Ocean. While oriental spices flowed westward to-
ward the Mediterranean, the two commodities just mentioned point to the
movement o f specific goods from or via Byzantium in the opposite direction.
It is likely that eleventh-century Byzantine purchases in Egypt were also
partly financed by the import o f timber from Asia Minor, as in the previous
period.92 Grain appears only once as a trade item in the context o f eleventh-
century commerce between the Empire and Egypt. Early in 1054, while Egypt
was suffering from famine, the Fatimid caliph al-Mustan$ir requested from
Constantine IX Monomachus a large quantity o f grain, 400,000 artabai, yet
after the emperor’s death in the following year the empress Theodora refused
to deliver it. This was undoubtedly an exceptional case, due to insufficent
irrigation by the Nile in the previous two years.93
The late tenth and eleventh-century evidence adduced so far suggests
regular and intensive maritime trade between the Empire and Egypt, occasio-
nally restricted for short periods by political and military circumstances or by
the activity o f pirates.94 Commercial exchanges between the two regions were
handled by Byzantine or Muslim merchants and carriers. Yet Italian merchants
and vessels began to integrate into the existing trade and shipping patterns
around the mid-eleventh century. Their activity was not limited to the water-
way linking Crete and Alexandria, already noted earlier. It also extended to
sea lanes between other Byzantine provinces and Constantinople, on the one
hand, and Egypt on the other. The factors promoting this development as
to India, South Arabia, and East Africa from the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries», Spe-
culum 29(1954), 192, and for the dating, pp. 189 and 191.
91. Ibid., p. 192 and n. 20. Linen brought to Constantinople by Bulgarians and other
foreigners is mentioned in the early-tenth century Book o f the Eparch : Koder, Das Eparchen-
buchy p. 108, chap. 9, par. 6.
92. See above, nn. 38-40, 44. There is no evidence about timber exports from Cyprus
to Egypt.
93. F. Dolger, éd., Regesten der Kaiserurkunden des Ostrômischen Reiches von 565-
1433 , 2. Teil: Regesten von 1025-1204. Zweite , erweiterte und verbesserte Auflage bearbeitet
von P. Wirth, München 1995, p. 32, no. 912, for the sources, dating and background.
* 94, On eleventh-century piracy hampering trade with Egypt, see D. Jacoby, «What do
we learn about Byzantine Asia Minor from the Documents of the Cairo Genizah?», in Sp.
Vryonis, Jr., and N. Oikonomides, eds.,'H Bv£avTivi¡ M w qa 9A a ia (6oç-12oç a l.) [ = Byzan-
tine Asia Minor (6th-12th cent.)], Athens 1998, pp. 89-92.
Byzantine Trade w ith E gyp t 47
well as their long-term impact on Byzantine participation in Byzantine-Egyptian

trade require a detailed and thorough discussion.
III. THE INTEGRATION OF THE ITALIANS INTO BYZANTINE-EGYPTIAN

MARITIME TRADE
The Amalfitans were the first Westeners to intrude into seaborne com-
merce between the Empire and Egypt. They are attested in Constantinople
in 944, yet presumably traded there earlier. Some of them were settled in
the Byzantine capital before 1053, and Amalfitan ergasteria are mentioned in
the charter issued by Alexius I Comnenus in favor o f Venice in 1082.95 The
location o f the Amalfitan premises is attested for the first time in 1192. They
were situated within the Pisan quarter, close to the Golden Horn, and may
well go back to the eleventh century. In any event, contrary to common
opinion, there was no Amalfitan quarter similar to those held by other Italian
maritime powers in Constantinople.96 Close trade relations with the Fati-
mids o f Tunisia, naval assistance provided to them in 969 for the conquest
o f Egypt, and continuing supplies o f naval lumber and iron ensured the Amal-
fitans o f favorable trading conditions in that country.97 Between 1101 and
1130 an Amalfitan and a Genoese arrived in Egypt with a cargo o f timber,
presumably o f Italian origin since the Genoese did not yet sail between the *
Empire and Egypt at that time.98
The Amalfitans progressively extended the geographic range o f their
operations both from Constantinople and Egypt along the seaboard o f the
95. See M. Balard, «Amalfi et Byzance (Xe-XIIe siècles)», Travaux et Mémoires 6

(1976), pp. 87-92; Borsari, Venezia e Bisanzio, pp. 7-8; V. von Falkenhausen, «Il commercio
di Amalfi con Costantinopoli e il Levante nel secolo XII», in O. Banti, ed., Amalfi, Genova
Pisa e Venezia. II commercio con Costantinopoli e il Vicino Oriente nel secodo X ll (Biblio-
teca del «Bollettino Storico Pisano», Collana storica, 46), Pisa 1998, pp. 19-24.
96. This is convincingly argued by P. Magdalino, Constantinople médiévale. Etudes sur
révolution des structures urbaines, Paris 1996, pp. 85-88.
97. See Cahen, «Un texte peu connu», pp. 6-7; B. Figliuolo, »Amalfi e il Levante neî
medioevo», in G. Airaldi e B. Z. Kedar, eds., I comuni italiani nel Regno crociato di Geru-
salemme (Collana storica di fonti e studi, diretta da G. Pistarino, 48), Genova 1986, pp. 581-
588 ; Jacoby, «Les Italiens en Egypte», pp. 76-77. Cahen, Orient et Occident, pp. 37-38, 259
n. 10, and below, n. 101, insists on favorable taxation and the conjunction of interests be-
tween the early Fatimids and the Amalfitans, yet overestimates the latter’s contribution to
the growth of trade in precious oriental commodities. In addition, in the absence of fami-
liarity with the evidence adduced here he unjustly downplays the role of Byzantine trade
in Egypt in the eleventh century.
98. On the timber, see above, n. 10. Genoese trade along that sea route is examined
below.
48
eastern Mediterranean in the first half of the eleventh century. In all likeli-
hood most o f not all Christian ships from the West which Na$ir-i Khusrau
noted in the harbor o f Tripoli in 1047 were Amalfitan vessels." Indeed, Geni-
zah sources from the second half o f the eleventh century reveal that the Amal-
fitans were routinely sailing between Constantinople and Egypt. This is also
confirmed by the letter which an Egyptian Jew, recently settled in Constanti-
nople, entrusted between 1092 and August 1096 to an Amalfitan merchant
with whom he was acquainted, on the eve o f the latter’s departure for Egypt.
It follows that cumulatively the Amalfitans established a triangular trading
and shipping network connecting their own city, Constantinople and Alexan-
dria, in the framework o f which the major ports o f Byzantine Asia Minor
and the Levant served as transit stations.100
Amalfi’s advantage over other maritime nations in that context was
progressively eroded in the course of the twelfth century. The city’s reluctance
to join the First Crusade and the subsequent western war effort against the
Muslims may be ascribed to its high stakes in Egyptian trade, stimulated
by the good relations maintained by the Norman rulers o f southern Italy and
Sicily with Egypt as late as the 1140s.101 Amalfi’s interests in Egypt explain
to a large extent its limited commercial involvement in the crusader states
in the first half o f the twelfth century.102 The antagonism between Byzantium
and the Norman rulers, commonly blamed for the decline o f Amalfitan trade
and shipping in the Empire, apparently did not undercut that activity. Indeed,
Amalfitans traded in Constantinople throughout the twelfth century, as at-
tested by their premises within the Pisan quarter, mentioned earlier, until they
were compelled to leave the city in 1203, at the time o f the Fourth Crusade.103
Moreover, the Amalfitans also maintained their role as middlemen and
carriers in the eastern Mediterranean in the twelfth century. In 1119 some
Venetians boarded an Amalfitan vessel leaving the imperial city for Alexan-

100. See Jacoby, «What do we learn about Byzantine Asia Minor», pp. 91, 93-94. For
the dating of the letter of the 1090s and the location of its writer, see D. Jacoby, «The Jewish
Community of Constantinople from the Komnenan to the Palaiologan Period», Vizantijskij
Vremennik 55/2 (80) (1998), 32-35.
101. See Cahen, Orient et Occident, pp. 70-80, 96-98, 109, 123-125. Von Falkenhausen,
«II commercio di Amalfi», pp. 33-35, overlooks Amalfi’s favored treatment in Egypt since
the early Fatimid period and underestimates its relations with that country in the first half
of the twelfth century.
102 . See Cahen, as in previous note.
103. See Cahen, Orient et Occident, p. 96; Von Falkenhausen, «II commercio di A-
malfi», pp. 25-38.
B yzantine Trade w ith E gy p t 49
dria, presumably because no Venetian vessels were available at the time o f

their planned departure.104 Amalfitans appear in 1101, 1149 and 1164 at
Antioch, and in the 1160s at Acre and in the Lebanese ports o f Tripoli and
Laodikeia. From 1163 Amalfi obtained some privileges in the crusader states,
the most extensive ones in the Kingdom o f Jerusalem in 1190105. In addition,
Amalfitans also traded in Alexandria in the 1160s, according to the Jewish
traveler Benjamin o f Tudela.106 The Amalfitan merchant residing with his
family at Phocea around 1172 is noteworthy.107 All these testimonies should
be viewed in the context o f an ongoing Amalfitan activity along the waterway
linking Constantinople to Egypt, despite the attacks o f King Roger II o f
Sicily on the Nile Delta in 1151 and 1154-1155, which ushered in a period
o f tension between the Norman kingdom and Egypt.108
However, Amalfi’s limited resources in men, capital and ships, far in-
ferior to those o f its increasingly powerful Italian rivals, Venice, Pisa and
Genoa, as well as the absence o f naval power account for its lack o f leverage
to obtain privileges as extensive as theirs, whether in the Empire, the crusader
states or Egypt.109 Amalfi’s interest in cabotage along the Levantine coast,
explicitly mentioned in the charter it obtained from Guy o f Lusignan in
1190, possibly reflects a temporary adaption to the circumstances existing at
that time, which prevented regular traffic with Constantinople since the Latins’
massacre in 1182, as well as with Egypt since 1187.110 Yet that interest may
have been o f a more lasting nature. It suggests the use o f comparatively small
and at best medium-sized vessels,111 a partial shift toward short and medium-
104. The case was recorded in 1144: L. Lanfranchi, ed., Famiglia Zusto (Fonti per
la storia di Venezia, Sez. IV: Archivi privati), Venezia 1955, p. 38, no. 16. Another Venetian
sailed on an Amalfitan ship from Halmyros to Constantinople in 1111: DCV , I, pp. 37-38,
no. 35, dated March 1112.
105. See Figliuoli, «Amalfi e il Levante», pp. 609-610, 616-619. On the privileges of
1190, see also D. Jacoby, «Conrad, Marquis of Montferrat, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem
(1187-1192)», in L. Balletto, ed., A tti del Congresso Internazionale «Dai feudi monferrini e
dal Piemonte ai nuovi mondi oltre gli Oceani» , Alessandria, 2-6 Aprile 1990 , Alessandria 1993,
p. 213, in D. Jacoby, Trade, Commodities and Shipping, no. IV.
106. M. N. Adler, ed., The Itinerary o f Benjamin o f Tudela. Critical text, Translation
and Commentary, London 1907, Hebrew text, pp. 67-68; English trans., p. 76.
107. Von Falkenhausen, «II commercio di Amalfi», pp. 31, 37.
108. On these attacks, see Cahen, Orient et Occident, pp. 125 and 267 n. 22.
109. The loss of Amalfi’s archive in the fourteenth century does not explain by itself
the lack of Amalfitan privileges.
110. See above, n. 105.
111. On the size of Amalfitan trading ships, see B. M. Kreutz, «Ghost Ships and
phantom cargoes: reconstructing early Amalfitan trade», Journal o f Medieval History 20
(1994), 349-350. On that of other vessels, see below, n. 219.
50
range traffic in the eastern Mediterranean, and a corresponding reduction of

Amalfitan share in exchanges and sailings between Constantinople and Egypt.
Venetian, Pisan and Genoese merchants and ship operators expanded
their activity along that same waterway in the wake o f the Amalfitans, and
in the course o f the twelfth century surpassed their predecessors. One o f the
major factors ensuring their success in this respect was the ability o f their
respective governments to obtain extensive privileges in the Empire,112 the
crusader states,113 and Egypt.114 These privileges varied in nature and extent
and were not always fully or continuously implemented,115 yet on the whole
they enhanced the maritime trade o f the nations enjoying them in the three
regions just mentioned and furthered their exchanges between the latter. The
positions acquired by Venice, Pisa and Genoa in the crusader Levant were
o f particular importance in that framework. Their principal commercial out-
posts in that region were located at the meeting points o f north-south traffic
along the Levantine seaboard and trade routes joining the latter to major
Muslim emporia inland, primarily Damascus and Aleppo. The crusader ports
provided western merchants and ships, yet particularly those of the privileged
nations safe maritime havens, logistic support and transshipment services
along a major section o f the itinerary between the Empire and Egypt.116 They
also served as temporary bases for their naval forces, a factor that enabled
these nations to acquire and maintain supremacy over the Egyptian navy
and to ensure to a large extent the safety o f their own commercial navigation.
Venetian merchants and ships were sailing quite regularly, though se-
ll 2. See Lilie, Handel und Politik, pp. 8-115; different approach to several issues in
Jacoby, «Italian Privileges and Trade in Byzantium», pp. 349-369.
113. See M.-L. Favreau-Lilie, Die Italiener im Heiligen Land vom erst en Kreuzzug
bis zum Tode Heinrichs von Champagne ( 1098-1197), Amsterdam 1989, pp. 327-496, yet see
some different interpretation in D. Jacoby, «The Venetian Privileges in the Latin Kingdom
of Jerusalem: Twelfth and Thirteenth-Century Interpretations and Implementation», in B. Z.
Kedar, J. Riley-Smith and R. Hiestand, eds., Montjoie. Studies in Crusade History in Honour
o f Hans Eberhard Mayer, Aldershot, Hampshire 1997, pp. 155-175; Jacoby, «Conrad, Mar-
quis of Montferrat)), pp. 190-219; idem, «Pisa e TOriente crociato», in G. Garzella e M. L.
Ceccarelli Lemut, eds., «Pisani viri in insulis et transmarinis regionibus potentes». Pisa come
modo di comunicazioni nei secoli centrali del medioevo, Pisa 2000 (in press).
114. See Jacoby, «Les Italiens en Egypte», pp. 76-89; idem, «Pisa e l’Oriente crociato».
115. See Jacoby, «Italian Privileges and Trade in Byzantium», pp. 354-356, 363-364,
367; idem, «The Venetian Privileges in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem», pp. 166-170,172;
idem, «Les Italiens en Egypte», pp. 78,80-81.
116. See D. Jacoby, «The Trade of Crusader Acre in the Levantine Context: an Over-
view», Archivio Storico del Sannio, n.s., 3 (1998), 103-120. On transshipment in crusader
ports, see also below, n. 167.
parately, to both Byzantium and Egypt from the ninth century, as illustrated
by various pieces o f evidence chosen at random. Several coins issued by
Emperor Theophilus (829-842) and buried in Venice around the mid-tenth
century attest to trade with the Empire in that period.117 The chrysobull o f
992 issued by Basil II and co-emperor Constantine VIII in favor o f Venice
attests to intensive Venetian commerce in Constantinople.118 The alleged
transfer of the relics o f St Mark the Evangelist from Alexandria to Venice in
828 implies that the Venetians were familiar with the Egyptian port.119 Shortly
after being elected in 991 Doge Pietro II Orseolo sent ambassadors to seve-
ral Muslim rulers, the Fatimid caliph surely among them.120 A Venetian ship
arrived in Cairo around 1026.121 We have already noted others sailing to
Egypt via Crete in the 1060s or 1070s.122 In 1071 a Venetian exported alum
from Alexandria to Venice via Modon in the southwestern Peloponnese,
which supposes an itinerary through the Aegean.123
The chrysobull granted by Alexius I Comnenus to Venice in 1082 points
to a new development in Venetian trade and shipping. It is noteworthy that
the list o f cities enumerated in that document follows both in the west and
in the east the course o f navigation toward Constantinople. It thus reflects
the perspective and practical experience o f Venetian merchants and sailors,
rather than the view o f Byzantine officers, and must have been included at
the request o f Venice. The list mentions Laodikeia as the most southern By-
zantine city in the east, followed by Antioch and other ports and islands along
the coast o f Asia Minor in the direction o f the Empire’s capital.124 It suggests
117. They were found in 1934: see G. Ortalli, «II mercante e lo stato: strutture della
Venezia altomedievale», in Mercati e mercanti nelValto nedieovo: Varea euroasiatica e Parea
mediterranea (Settimane di studio del Centro italiano sull’alto medioevo, 40), Spoleto 1993,
p. 126.
118. New ed. by M. Pozza e G. Ravegnani, eds., / trattati con Bisanzio, 992-1198
(Pacta veneta, 4), Venezia 1993, pp. 21-25, yet see emendations and detailed discussion of
the text in my review of that volume, published in Mediterranean Historical Review 9 (1994),
140-142.
119. Much has been written about the ecclesiastical and ideological consequences of
that transfer, yet only the economic aspect is envisaged here.
120. See Heyd, Histoire du commerce du Levant, I, p. 1114; A. Schaube, Handels-
geschichte der romanischen Vôlker des Mittelmeergebiets bis zum Ende der Kreuzzüge, Mün-
chen 1906, pp. 21-22.
121. «Vita S. Symeonis auctore Eberwino abbate S. Martini Treviris», in Acta Sancto-
rum, Iun. I, pp. 86-92.
122. See above.
123. DCV , I, pp. 10-11, no. 11: testimony of April 1072.
124. Tafel und Thomas, Urkunden, I, pp. 51-54, and new ed. by Pozza e Ravegnani,
52
that by then Venetian traders and ships had expanded the geographical range
o f their operations beyond Constantinople and were sailing from there as far
as Antioch and Laodikeia. This is confirmed by a somewhat later document.
In 1095 a Venetian merchant traveled from Venice first to Constantinople
and from there to Antioch, captured by the Seljuks in 1084. This voyage via
the Byzantine capital does not appear to have been exceptional. The familiarity
o f the Venetians with Antioch and Laodikeia is also illustrated in 1099, when
Venetian ships were involved together with Byzantine vessels in the trans-
portation o f victuals from these ports to the crusaders besieging Arqa, in
the vicinity o f Tripoli.125 In 1100 the Venetians transferred the supposed relics
o f St Nicholas from Myra to Venice,126 yet another indication that they were
familiar with navigation along the southern coast o f Asia Minor. Apparently
around that time, if not earlier, Venetian merchants and maritime carriers
took advantage o f their simultaneous connections with Constantinople and
Alexandria to operate between these cities, in addition to their sailings be-
tween Crete and Egypt.
It is noteworthy that the commercial and fiscal privileges granted to
Venice in the Empire from 1082 also extended to the provinces, while their
Italian competitors did not obtain such wide concessions until 1192.127 The
Venetian edge in that respect undoubtedly contributed to the expansion o f
twelfth-century Venetian trade and shipping between the Byzantine provinces
and Egypt, which appear to have been far more diversified, intense and larger
in volume than those o f Pisa or Genoa. The Venetian participation in Cretan
exports to Egypt, already attested in the 1060s or 1070s,128 must have increased
in the course o f the twelfth century. Some time before 1161 the Venetian
Giacomo Venier passed through Crete on his way from Constantinople to
Alexandria and undoubtedly took advantage o f the stopover to pick up some
o f the island’s produce, such as cheese and wine.129 The Venetians were pre-
sumably involved on a regular basis in the export o f Cretan products to Ale-
xandria, mentioned by several Arab authors, among them al-Makhzomï around
I trattati con Bisanzio, pp. 35-45. See also Jacoby, «Italian Privileges and Trade in Byzantium»,
pp. 349-354.
125. DCV , I, pp. 27-28, no. 24; Fulcher of Chartres, Gesta Francorum Iherusalem Pe-
regrinantium, ed. H. Hagenmeyer, Heidelberg 1913.
126. See D. M. Nicol, Byzantium and Venice. A Study in Diplomatic and Cultural Re-
lations, Cambridge 1988, pp. 71-73.
127. See Jacoby, «Italian Privileges and Trade in Byzantium», pp. 349-368.
128. See above.
129. On twelfth-century exports of Cretan cheese to Egypt, see Jacoby, «Byzantine
Crete», pp. 528-530, 536; on Cretan wine, see below, n. 139.
B yzantine Trade w ith E g y p t 53
1170.130 Other Venetians shipped more than 1.200 liters o f olive oil from
Sparta to Alexandria in 1135.131 The transfer o f agricultural produce from
continental Greece to the same destination is also implied by a Venetian con-
tract o f 1140 and later twelfth-century Venetian documents.132 An additional
reference appears in the taxation treatise o f al-Makhzümï, who in a registra-
tion example mentions Badr the Venetian as an importer o f oil, which most
likely came from the Peloponnese.133 In addition, Venetian traders may have
exported to Egypt silk textiles from Thebes, a major manufacturing center
which they visited continuously from the 1070s.134 One may wonder, therefore,
whether they conveyed to their destinations the Jewish letters exchanged
between Egypt and Thebes around 1135.135
Venetian trade between Cyprus and Egypt is documented in 1139 and
between 1173 and 1176.136 It is not excluded that Venetian settlers in Cyprus
exported the island’s wine to Egypt. The Egyptian population mostly drank
local wine, yet foreign produce was also available.137 It is attested in Alexan-
130. DCV, I, pp. 148 and 156-157, no. 149 and the related no. 159; treatise of al-
Makhzümï : Cahen, Douanes et commerce, pp. 235, 286 n. 2, 308-309. See also Jacoby, «By-
zantine Crete», pp. 525-530, and above.
131. DCV, I, p. 69, no. 65.
132. Lanfranchi, Famiglia Zusto , pp. 35-36, no. 14, and see Borsari, Venezia e Bisan-
zio9 pp. 96-97, yet for 1140 read there ‘Pietro’ instead of ‘Enrico’.
133. Cahen, Douanes et commerce, p. 304. Badr may be safely identified as a member
of the Badoer family. Manasse Badoer is attested in Alexandria in 1174: DCV , I, pp. 252-
253, no. 257.
134. On Venetian silk purchases in, and exports from the Empire, see Jacoby, «Silk
in Western Byzantium», pp. 479, 491-492, 494-497.
135. See S. D. Goitein, «The Jewish Communities of Saloniki and Thebes in Ancient
Documents from the Cairo Geniza» [Hebrew], Sefunot 11 (1967), 23-33, with testimony on
a scholar travelling from Egypt to Thebes.
136. DCV , I, pp. 77-78 and 444-445, respectively nos. 74 and 454-455. The latter docu-
ment refers to a Venetian settler in Paphos between 1173 and 1176; correct accordingly the
erroneous dating and location in D. Jacoby, «The Rise of a New Emporium in the Eastern
Mediterranean: Famagusta in the Late Thirteenth Century», MeAérai xai úaojuvrjpara
CTSpu(xa ’ApxieTctaxÓTTou Maxapíou T') 1 (1984), 164-165, repr. in idem, Studies on the
Crusader States and on Venetian Expansion, Northampton 1989, no. VIII. T. Papacostas,
«Secular Landholdings and Venetians in 12th-century Cyprus», Byzantinische Zeitschrift 92
(1999), 487-490, convincingly argues that a fairly large number of Venetians held urban and
rural property in Cyprus before the island’s conquest by Richard the Lionheart in May 1191.
It is impossible, however, to date their presence in a precise way by relying on names found
in other documents, as attempted by the author (pp. 490-497), in view of the contempora-
neous appearance of several hononymous Venetian individuals in Venice and in eastern
Mediterranean lands.
137. See Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 122-124, and IV, pp. 259-260; on the
54
dría in 1130-1131, yet the precise identity o f the Rüm wine retailers from
whom it was purchased is not stated.138 In any event, it is likely that the foreign
wine was o f Byzantine origin.139 Significantly, a number o f Venetians estab-
lished in Cyprus by the second half o f the twelfth century owned and ex-
ploited vineyards in three villages situated on the southern slopes o f the
Troodos mountains, in the hinterland o f the port o f Limassol.140 Venetian
investments in that property may have been partly stimulated by a growing
demand for wine in Egypt.141
The combination o f trading in two or more ports located in different
regions o f the eastern Mediterranean appears to have been a fairly common
Venetian practice. In 1111 a merchant from Venice proceeded beyond Con-
stantinople to Damietta.142 In 1119 a Venetian vessel sailed from Venice to
Bari, from where it was to pursue its journey to Damietta and Constanti-
nople.143 Another triangular trade operation between Venice, Damietta and
Constantinople is attested in 1141.144 The contract o f 1140 mentioned earlier
tax on wine, see H. Rabie, The Financial System of Egypt, A.H. 664-741/A.D. 1169-1341,
London 1972, pp. 119-121.
138. See S. D. Goitein, «The Tribulations of an Overseer of the Sultan’s Ships. A Letter
from the Cairo Geniza (Written in Alexandria in 1131)», in G. Makdisi, ed., Arabic and
Islamic Studies in Honor of Hamilton A. R. Gibb, Leiden 1965, pp. 270-284. Imported wine
was later sold in the western funduqs of Alexandria: see Jacoby, «Les Italiens en Egypte»,
pp. 79 and 83-86, passim.
139. I. Genov, «Vorbereitung des Weins und Weinsorten in Byzance», Etudes balkani-
ques 25/2 (1989), 119-120, lists Byzantine regions producing wine. For Crete and Cyprus,
see also Malamut, Les îles de VEmpire byzantin, II, pp. 389-390; D. Tsougarakis, Byzantine
Crete From the 5th Century to the Venetian Conquest, Athens 1988, p. 287.
140. The Venetians and their vineyards are listed in a Venetian survey carried out in
1243 or 1244: ed. by O. Berggôtz, Der Bericht des Marsilio Zorzi. Codex Querini-Stampalia
IV3 (1064) (Kieler Werkstücke, Reihe C: Beitràge zur europâischen Geschichte des frühen
und hohen Mittelalters, herausgegeben von H. E. Mayer, Band 2), Frankfurt am Main 1990,
pp. 184-191, esp. p. 191, lines 14-20. Two of the villages have been indentified: see E. Pa-
padopoulou, «OI 7rp&Ts<; èyxaTaarâaeK; Bevex&v otyjv Kurepo», Zv/ufiteixta 5 (1983), 320*
The third one must have been located in the same region. One Venetian owned X zarete de
vinea, a reference to its average yearly output of must. G. Boerio, Dizionario del dialetto
veneziano, Venezia 21856, p. 807, defines ‘zareta’ as a small jar. No such Cypriot wine
measure in known, yet the larger ‘zara’ or ‘giarra’ of the island contained 53.880 liters: see
E. Schilbach, Byzantinische Metrologie (Handbuch des Altertumswissenschaft, XII/4 = By-
zantinishes Handbuch, 4), München 1970, pp. 134-136 and 128 respectively.
141. Papacostas, «Secular Landholdings and Venetians»,pp. 498-500, suggests ex-
ports to the crusader states and to Constantinople, yet overlooksEgypt.
142. Lanfranchi, Famiglia Zusto, pp. 23-24, no. 6; see also Jacoby, «Silk in Western
Byzantium», p. 496,
143. DCVf I, pp. 43-44, no. 41.
144. DCV, I, pp. 80-81, no. 77.
envisaged a complex trading venture extending over two years. The traveling
merchant would leave Venice for Constantinople, proceed from there to
Corinth or Sparta overland, then to Alexandria and back to the Byzantine
capital.145 In December 1158 a maritime loan granted in Constantinople was
to be reimbursed in Venice, the destination being reached either directly or
via Alexandria.146 It is noteworthy that all these operations took place before
Venice obtained a funduq of its own in Egypt, apparently in 1172.147 Crusader
ports, to which Venetians also sailed from various regions o f the Empire,148
often served as stopovers, transshipment stations or bases o f departure. A
Venetian contract o f 1139 envisaged a journey from Tyre to Venice either
via Alexandria or via Constantinople.149 In the 1160s Romano Mairano
conducted trade from Acre both with the Empire and Egypt, partly with his
own vessels.150 Goods traveling from Alexandria to Constantinople were oc-
casionally transshipped in Tyre.151 The evidence clearly points to the conso-
lidation o f Venetian triangular trading and shipping networks joining Venice,
the Empire and Egypt in the twelfth century.
Pisa entered the waters o f Romania at the time o f the First Crusade.152
Its seaborne trade with the Empire was enhanced by the commercial and fiscal
privileges it secured in 1111. However, since these privileges were limited to
the sale o f goods in Constantinople, it would seem that the range o f Pisan
trade and shipping in the Empire’s provinces remained fairly limited, despite
the settlement o f some Pisans in Halmyros.153 The extension o f Pisan privi-
leges in 1192 appears to have furthered an expansion o f Pisan activity in the
provinces, as suggested by the sale of a large quantity of Peloponnesian oil,
apparently intended for Constantinople, carried out by a Pisan consortium
in M od on shortly before 1201.154 Pisan exchanges with Egypt were also
initiated in the early twelfth century and expanded rapidly, thanks to deli-
145. See above, n. 132.

146. DCV, I, pp. 133-134, no. 134.
147. See Jacoby, «Les Italiens en Egypte», p. 79.
148. See also Borsari, Venezia e Bisanzio, pp. 94-97.
149. DCV , I, p. 78, no. 75.
150. See Borsari, Venezia e Bisanzio, pp. 119-122. On transshipment in Acre, see also
below, n. 167.
151. As suggested by DCV, I, pp. 374-375, 376-381, nos. 381, 383-387.
152. For this whole paragraph, see S. Borsari, «Pisani a Bisanzio nel XII secolo»,
Bolletino Storico Pisano 60(1991), 59-75 ; Jacoby, «Italian Privileges and Trade in Byzantium»,
pp. 357-359, 362-368; idem, «Les Italiens en Egypte», pp. 77-78; idem, «Pisa e FOriente
crociato».
153. On whom see Borsari, «Pisani a Bisanzio», pp. 65-66.
154. DCV, I, pp. 445-446, no. 456.
56
veries o f timber. According to the Arab geographer Zuhrï, who wrote around
1150, Pisan ships were more numerous in Alexandria’s harbor than those o f
any other nation. Pisa obtained a funduq o f its own in Alexandria at an un-
known date before 1153, the first western maritime nation to benefit from
such a concession in Egypt, and another one in Cairo in 1154. There is no
evidence pointing to Pisan exports from the Empire’s provinces to Egypt
similar to those carried out by the Venetians and the Genoese, yet this may
due to the almost total loss o f Pisan notarial charters regarding the eastern
Mediterranean. It would seem, though, that the volume o f Pisan trade and
shipping between the two regions remained inferior to those o f its main rivals.
As noted earlier, Genoese merchants and ships were carrying Cretan
produce to Alexandria and buying there pepper in 1062.155 Their activity in
the Egyptian port around that time is also attested by another Genizah docu-
ment mentioning the arrival o f ships from Genoa, which seems to imply that
these vessels did not stop in Crete on the way.156 Genoese traders continued
to visit Egypt in the following decades. Those present there in the early years
o f the twelfth century were imprisoned in reprisal for the assistance offered
by Genoese forces to the crusader conquests in the Levant.157 We do not
know how long Genoese traders were barred from doing business in Egypt.
In any event, by the 1130s they were again routinely active there and even
traveled inland to buy local produce. Genoa concluded an agreement with
Egypt some time before 1156. Its terms, which are unknown, apparently did
not include the concession o f a funduq in Alexandria, yet Genoa obtained
one between 1192 and 1200.158
Genoese maritime trade in Romania, beyond Crete, must have expanded
after the First Crusade.169 Yet only since around 1135 do we find Genoese
traders reaching Constantinople, whether directly from Genoa or via Ale-
xandria. The two letters illustrating these itineraries, preserved in a stylized

156. Excerpt trans. by Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, I, p. 318; full trans. by Udo-
vitch, «A Tale of Two Cities», pp. 149-151. E. Ashtor, A Social and Economic History of
the Near East in the Middle Ages, London 1976, p. 353 n. 65, mentions in fact the same
document with a mistaken reference, which has led some to assume that there was more
evidence about the Genoese around 1065.
157. See Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, I, p. 45; Kedar, «Mercanti genovesi in
Alessandria d’Egitto», p. 26. Interestingly, al-Malik al-Afdal apparently arrested only the
Genoese, although Pisa and Venise too supported the early crusader conquests.
158. See Jacoby, «Les Italiens en Egypte», pp. 78, 81.
159. For this whole paragraph and the following one, see Jacoby, «Italian Privileges
and Trade in Byzantium», pp. 359-368; idem, «Byzantine Crete», pp. 530-540. Further evi-
dence regarding Crete appears below.
version, imply that Genoese journeys between Egypt and the imperial capital
were no longer exceptional by that time.180 It follows that as early as the 1130s
some Genoese traders were engaging in triangular trade ventures between
Genoa, Alexandria and Constantinople. This is all the more significant, since
they preceded Genoa’s first agreements with either Egypt or the Empire. It
is noteworthy, though, that the authors o f the letters just mentioned sailed
to Constantinople on foreign vessels. The one who traveled directly to the
imperial capital intended to board a local vessel at Bari. His partner, who
visited Egypt, planned to proceed on a ship carrying other Italian merchants
as well as Egyptian ambassadors. It was safer to sail along the Levantine
coast held by the Franks on an Italian, rather than on an Egyptian vessel,
and we may thus assume that the Genoese merchant boarded an Amalfitan,
a Venetian or a Pisan boat.
While Genoese ships sailed in Byzantine waters, they apparently did not
yet reach Constantinople or rarely did so. Regular Genoese sailings presu-
mably began some two decades later, in the 1150s. This development must
have been prompted by the growing number o f Genoese merchants interested
in trade in Constantinople and provided the background to Genoa’s request
for privileges in the Empire. Manuel I Comnenus granted some in 1155, more
limited than those o f Venice. These privileges were curtailed in 1169 and re-
stricted to Constantinople. As a result, the range and volume o f Genoese
maritime trade in Romania in the second half o f the twelfth century appear
to have remained more restricted than those o f Venice.
Despite the limited extent o f their privileges in the Empire, the Genoese
took full advantage o f their sailings in the waters o f Romania to engage in
triangular trade and shipping operations. A merchant about to leave Genoa
in 1160 was offered the choice either to sail first to Constantinople and from
there via Crete to Alexandria or directly from the imperial city to the Egyptian
port, or still to travel from Constantinople to Bougie in the Maghreb, Spain,
Provence or Genoa, eventually reaching Alexandria, from where he would
be free to proceed along the maritime route of his choice.161 The following
year the destination o f another merchant leaving Genoa was Constantinople,
Alexandria and any other port, which implies that he was also allowed to
160. Ed. by W. Wattenbach, «Iter austriacum, 1853», Archiv für Kunde osterreichischer
Geschichtsquellen 24 (1855), 79-80, nos. XIX-XX; see D . Abulafia, The Two Italies. Economic
Relations between the Norman Kingdom of Sicily and the Northern Communes, Cambridge
1977, pp. 74-76.
161. M. Chiaudano - M. Moresco, eds., II cartolare di Giovanni Scriba, Torino 1935, 1,
pp. 404-405, no. 752.
58
travel between the two emporia just mentioned.162 Around 1170 al-Makh-
zami cites the name o f Guglielmo the Genoese in an example o f tax registra-
tion recording the arrival o f ships from Crete in Alexandria. Crete was then
a frequent stopover o f Genoese ships.163 Shortly before December 1174 the
Byzantine authorities seized a Genoese vessel carrying a large numbers o f
oars, beams and large boards, apparently loaded along the coast o f Asia
Minor and in all likelihood intended for Egypt.164 A commenda contract
concluded in Genoa in 1186 provided for a journey to Constantinople and
from there either to Alexandria or Ceuta in the Maghreb.165
The function o f the crusader ports as stopovers and transshipment sta-
tions within triangular Genoese ventures is illustrated by the charter o f 1192
which the ruler o f the Kingdom o f Jerusalem, Henry o f Champagne, issued
in favor o f Genoa. It mentions both land trade with the Muslim hinterland
and maritime trade with Egypt, the Maghreb and territories to the north o f
Acre as far as Constantinople.166 The charter reflects Genoa’s expectations
that regular Genoese trade with Byzantium, interrupted since 1182, and with
Egypt, severed in 1187, would soon be resumed.167 The strong measures taken
by Henry o f Champagne in the 1190s to stop Pisan piracy in Levantine waters
were undoubtedly also motivated by the need to ensure the safety o f naviga-
tion between Egypt and Constantinople, regardless o f the nationality o f the
merchants and ships involved in that traffic, from which the Levantine ports
greatly benefited.168
The spice trade undoubtedly continued to play a major role within that
framework, as in the eleventh century. We have already encountered the
Genoese merchant who around 1135 visited both Egypt and Constantinople,
from where he was cxpected to return home. His wife requested him to bring
various items, among them spices and silk textiles.169 The spices which that
merchant was expected to buy in Egypt would have partly financed his pur-
162. Ibid., II, p. 44, no. 895.
163. Cahen, Douanes et commerce, p. 308, and see Jacoby, «Byzantine Crete», pp. 533-
536.
164. See Jacoby, «The Supply of War Materials to Egypt», nn. 46-49.
165. M. Chiaudano, ed., Oberto Scriba de mercato, 1186, Torino 1940, p. 8, no. 21.
166. C. Imperiale di Sant’Angelo, ed., Codice diplomático della repubblica di Genova
dal MCLXIII al MCLXXXX, Roma 1936-1942, III, pp. 87-89, no. 28; new ed. by D. Pun-
cuh, I Libri lurium della Repubblica di Genova, 1/2 (Fonti per la storia della Liguria, IV),
Genova 1996, pp. 146-149, no. 335.
167. See Jacoby, «Conrad, Marquis of Montferrat», pp. 218-219,222-223.
168. On these measures, see M .-L. Favreau, «Die italienische Levante-Piraterie und
die Sicherheit der Seewege nach Syrien im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert», Vierteljahrschrift für
Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 65 (1978), 483-492.
169. See above, n. 160.
chases o f silk textiles in the Empire. More precise information about the
twelfth-century flow o f spices to the Empire may be gathered from two other
documents. In 1188 a Venetian bought some pepper in Alexandria for export
to Constantinople, its weight being expressed in Alexandrian units.170 Some
ten years later a Genoese stated the weight o f the pepper he had given to
Gafforio in Constantinople in cantaría units used at the catena or harbor
customs o f Acre.171 Egypt appears to have offered cheaper spices than those
arriving in Constantinople by other trade routes.172 We may safely assume,
therefore, that in both instances just mentioned the pepper originated in Egypt,
yet in the second one it had been transshipped at Acre. Although the evidence
is scarce, it would seem that the twelfth-century export o f spices from Egypt
to the Empire was increasingly handled by Italian merchants. Circumstantial
evidence supporting this assumption will be adduced below.
Neither the Empire’s merchants and carriers nor their Egyptian counter-
parts enjoyed the favorable trading conditions secured by their Venetian,
Pisan and Genoese competitors in the Empire, the crusader states and Egypt.
Byzantine subjects were not granted any fiscal concessions in these regions,
nor any commercial outposts in foreign lands. Nor did Cyprus, a Byzantine
province until 1184 and in fact an independent state from that year until 1191,
offer them advantages similar to those provided by the crusader states to the
privileged Italian nations. Cyprus was mainly involved in short and medium-
range trade with the ports o f southern Asia Minor such as Attaleia,173 the
Levantine coast,174 and Egypt.175 To be sure, before the First Crusade Christian
170. DCV, I, p. 362, no. 368: de caricaturas de Alexandria.

171. Imperiale di Sant’Angelo, Códice diplomático, III, p. 198: ad cantarium catene
Accon qui sic est cantaría V ad cantarium Costantinopolim ; at the time of the Joss the price
of pepper in this city was 20 hyperpers per cantarium. The Genoese Gafforio had become
a corsair in 1198 and had not paid for the pepper. The case was raised by the Genoese am-
bassador sent to Constantinople in 1201 ; for the background, see Heyd, Histoire du com-
merce du Levant, I, pp. 238-242.
172. Even after the opening of the trans-Asian overland route following the Mongol
expansion of the thirteenth century spices were cheaper in Alexandria than in other Medi-
terranean outlets: Marinus Sanutus, Liber secretorum fidelium crucis super Terrae Sanctae
recuperatione et conservatione, in J. Bongars, ed., Gesta Dei per Francos, sive orientalium
expeditionum et regni Francorum Hierosolomytani historia, Hanoviae 1611, II, p. 23.
173. See Malamut, Les îles de VEmpire byzantin, II, pp. 454-455; Goitein, A Mediter-
ranean Society, I, pp. 214 and 453 n. 23.
174. S. D. Goitein, trans., Letters o f Medieval Jewish Traders, Princeton 1973, pp. 45-
47: Cypriot silk in Ramie around 1066, yet the reference to Tripoli in idem, A Mediterra-
nean Society, I, p. 453 n. 23, is a slip; DCV, I, pp. 85-86, no. 82: trade between Acre and
Cyprus before 1143; DCV, I, pp. 366-367, no. 373: between Cyprus and Tyre before 1189.
175. See above, n. 136.
60
and especially Byzantine pilgrims and travelers apparently preferred to board

ships passing through Cyprus, a Byzantine province, rather than to sail through
Muslim ports, and this was still the case of Byzantine subjects in the twelfth
century.176 There was also commercial traffic between Constantinople and
Cyprus and via the island to Egypt.177 Occasionally vessels anchored in Cyprus
on their way from the Levant to Constantinople, as sometime before 1143,178
and a shipping line connected Cyprus with the Peloponnese via Crete, as
illustrated by the geographical treatise o f al-Idrïsî, compiled between 1139 and
1154.179
However, Cyprus does not seem to have fulfilled in the twelfth and th ir -
teenth century the major function commonly ascribed to it in Mediterranean
trade and navigation.180 Cypriot ports did not serve as indispensable stopovers
for vessels engaging in long-distance trade. They lacked most o f the elements
favoring the variegated commercial and maritime functions assumed by cru-
sader ports, which in addition benefited from proximity to the emporia of
their Muslim hinterland. In other words, Cyprus did not offer an alternative
to the Levantine seaboard, along which the main navigation route connecting
the Empire and Egypt proceeded. Genizah documents as well as other sources
clearly point to intensive navigation along that waterway in the eleventh and
even more so in the twelfth century.181 The Latin conquest o f Cyprus in 1191
did not basically alter conditions in that respect, though it further weakened
the standing o f Byzantine subjects involved in seaborne trade, including with
Egypt.182 Only after the fall o f the crusader states in 1291 did Cyprus become
an important destination and maritime transit station in long-distance trade
and produce on a large scale export-oriented commodities such as sugar,
cotton, precious textiles and salt, in high demand in the West.183
176. For a list, see C. Galatariotou, The Making o f a Saint. The Life, Times and Sanc-
tification o f Neophytos the Recluse, Cambridge 1991, p. 54, yet for William of Tyre read
‘1180’ instead of ‘1066’, clearly a slip.
177. See above, nn. 51-52.
178. DCV , I, pp. 85-86, no. 82.
179. Jaubert, La géographie d'Edrisi, II, pp. 126-130; see the maps in Malamut, Les
îles de VEmpire byzantin, II, pp. 661-662.
181. See Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 212-214, 318, 323; also Jacoby, «By-
zantine Crete», pp. 523-524.
182. Despite the absence of privileges granted by the Lusignan kings in the following
decade.
183. See Jacoby, «The Rise of a New Emporium», pp. 145-179; idem, «Tó èjjtjrôpio
xal yj olxovopiia xvjç KÚ7rpou (1191-1489)», in Th. Papadopoullos, éd., 'Iotoqícl rfjç Kv-
nQov, Tôfioç A', Meoaiwvtxôv Baaiheiov, ' Everoxgaria, MtQoç A! ("I8pojjia ‘Ap/temoxó-
7Toi> Maxapíou T'), Nicosia 1995, pp. 387-454.
Byzantine Trade w ith E gy p t 61
The privileges and outposts acquired by the three major maritime nations
in eastern Mediterranean lands afforded their merchants and carriers a growing
competitive edge over their Byzantine and Egyptian counterparts in that region,
as well as over the Amalfitans. It remains to be seen what precise impact
this development had on the participation o f the Empire’s subjects in Byzan-
tine-Egyptian traffic.
IV. THE EVOLUTION OF BYZANTINE TRADE WITH EGYPT

IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
The ‘market o f the Greeks’ in Fustat, documented in a Genizah letter

o f 959, is no more attested after that date. However, by itself this fact does
not imply a reduction in Byzantine maritime trade with Egypt since the early
Fatimid period, which as noted above appears to have been quite intensive
in the eleventh century. The absence o f further references to the ‘market
o f the Greeks’ may be rather due to the paucity o f Genizah evidence regarding
institutions with which the Jews o f Fustat had little or no contact.184 It pre-
sumably also reflects a shift in the relative importance o f Cairo and Alexan-
dria with respect to Mediterranean trade, as well as a change in governmental
policy with respect to foreign Christian traders. We have seen that Cairo
was the commercial and financial center o f Egypt and its largest market,
including for exchanges with other Mediterranean countries, although most
goods handled in that framework passed through Alexandria.385 It is not
surprising, therefore, that foreign, including Byzantine merchants occasionally
sailed up the Nile as far as Cairo, sometimes on their own ships, or reached
the city by land.186 Cairo’s functions explain why Pisa requested a funduq
in that city and obtained it in 1154, in addition to the one it already had in
Alexandria.187 It is noteworthy, however, that after the Frankish invasions
if Egypt in the 1160s Saladin refrained from restoring to Pisa the funduq it
had held in Cairo. Moreover, he limited the activity o f western merchants
to Mediterranean ports,188 although he appears to have granted the Pisans

186. See above, nn.29,48,81.
187. See above, p. 394. Note thatin1169too Pisa requesteda funduq inCairofrom
King Amalric, in anticipation of theFrankishoccupation of thecity: G.Müller, ed.,Docu-
menti sulle relazioni delle città toscane coïVOriente cristiano e coi Turchi fino alVanno MD
XXXI, Firenze 1879, p. 15, no. XII.
188. See previous note, and for Saladin’s policy, see Labib, Handelsgeschichte Âgy -
ptens, p. 29 ; C. Cahen, «Les marchands étrangers au Caire sous les Fatimides et les Ayyu-
62
some freedom o f movement inland in 1173.189 Significantly, the major Italian

maritime powers did not obtain and possibly did not even request any funduqs
in Cairo afterwards. Those o f Alexandria appear to have fulfilled the
needs o f their nationals engaging in trade in Egypt in the second half of the
twelfth century.
Several factors may explain the concentration o f western business in
Alexandria, even prior to the administrative measures barring Italian mer-
chants from traveling inland. The expansion and intensification o f Italian
trade and shipping throughout the Mediterranean since the early twelfth cen-
tury undoubtedly enhanced the function o f Alexandria as a commercial center
and reduced to some extent the economic centrality o f Cairo.190 Moreover, pro-
ceeding beyond Egyptian ports was apparently not indispensable, especially
for merchants importing large cargoes o f timber and iron. Trade in these
commodities was a state monopoly handled by government officials, who
took hold o f the shipments upon arrival at the Mediterranean ports o f Egypt,
where the alum used by the state as partial payment for iron and timber was
concentrated. Moreover, even sales on the free market were controlled by
the authorities. As a result, the diffusion of goods inside Egypt was over-
whelmingly in the hands o f state officials or local merchants.191 Alexandria
may have indirectly benefited from yet another factor. The growing size o f
Italian ships in the second half o f the twelfth century either prevented them
from sailing up the Nile at certain periods o f the year or made such journeys
less attractive.192
The participation o f Byzantine merchants and carriers in twelfth-century
bides au Moyen Age», in Colloque international sur Vhistoire du Caire, 27 mars - 5 avril 1969
(Arab Republic of Egypt, Ministry of Culture, General Egyptian Book Organization), Cairo
1969, pp. 99-100; idem, Cahen, Orient et Occident, p. 146; Jacoby, «Les Italiens en Egypte»,
p. 78.
189. M, Amari, éd., I diplomi arabi del R . Archivio Florentino, Firenze 1863, p. 260,
no. VII: letters confirming the grant of privileges were sent to officials per totam terram
nostram. See Jacoby, «Les Italiens en Egypte», p. 78. Incidentally, the Genoese author of
one of the letters written c. 1135 traveled inland and for three days awaited there Egyptian
traders with whom he intended to do business: see above, n. 160. He presumably intended
to buy flax in the countryside, as done by local merchants: see Goitein, A Mediterranean
Society , I, p. 224.
190. The factors accounting for the twelfth-century economic rise of Alexandria ad-
duced here have been overlooked in studies dealing with the economic function of Cairo,
on which see above, n. 26.
191. On state control, see Cahen, Douanes et commerce, pp. 235-243, 257-262; Rabie,
The Financial System o f Egypt, pp. 82-85, 91-94; Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, I, pp.
192-195; Jacoby, «The Supply of War Materials to Egypt», nn. 1-20.
192. On the size of ships, see below, n. 219.
exchanges between the Empire and Egypt is attested both explicitly and in-
directly, and appears likely in other cases. It has been suggested above that
the ship on which the Russian abbot Daniel sailed from Constantinople to
Jaffa between 1106 and 1108 also carried merchants and in all likelihood
proceeded to Egypt.193 The same apparently applies to the numerous Byzantine
ships captured by the Fatimid fleet off Jaffa in 1151-1152, according to the
Arab chronicler Ibn al-Qalanisi.194 A Genizah letter dispatched from Old
Cairo in January 1133 reports that “business is at a standstill, for no one
has come from the West, and only a few Rum have arrived”, clearly a re-
ference to Byzantine merchants.195 Decisive evidence regarding their activity
in Egypt appears in a charter issued in 1154 by the Egyptian caliph az-Zâfir
in favor o f Pisan traders. He promised to uphold the existing reduction o f
taxes which they enjoyed, adding that “you know well that we levy higher
dues from Muslims and Greeks” .196 Benjamin o f Tudela, who visited Alexan-
dria around 1165, encountered there merchants from many nations, including
those from “Yavan, who are called Grigos” or Greeks, thus clearly Byzan-
tines.197 Byzantines merchants are again attested in Alexandria in 1192.198
The Arab chronicler Ibn al-Athïr reports that Franks and Rüm, respectively
Westerners and Byzantines, traded in Acre before its conquest by Saladin in
1187.199 It is likely that some o f these Byzantine merchants proceeded beyond
Acre, which as noted earlier was an important port o f call and transshipment
station between Constantinople and Egypt.200 The document o f 1133 men-
tioned above is the latest available testimony about Byzantine merchants
reaching Cairo, presumably on a Byzantine vessel sailing up the Nile. One
may wonder to what extent the growing concentration o f foreign maritime

194. H. A. R. Gibb, The Damascus Chronicle o f the Crusade, extracted and translated
from the Chronicle o f Ibn al-Qalanisi, London 1932, p. 308.
195. Goitein, A Mediterranean Societu, I, p. 45. The writer was obviously referring to
the Jewish year and, therefore, to the autumn sailings of 1132 from the Empire. A letter of
1141 states that «ships going to Spain, al-Mahdiyya, Tripoli in Lybia, Sicily and Byzantium
have departed and have encountered a propitious wind», see ibid., I, pp. 301-302. It is un-
clear whether the reference is to Egyptian or to Byzantine merchants and boats.
196. Amari, I diplomi arabi, p. 247: et bene scitis quia magis diricturas capimus a Sa-
racenis et a Grecis quam a vobis. For the correct dating of the letter, see Heyd, Histoire du
commerce du Levant, I, p. 394 n. 1.
197. Benjamin of Tudela, Hebrew text, pp. 67-69; the English translation is mine.
198. See below, p. 71.
199. Ibn al-Athïr, «Kamel Altevarikh», in Recueil des Historiens des Croisades, His-
toriens orientaux, Paris 1872, ï/1, p. 689.
200 . See above, n.n 105,150,166,171.
64
business in Alexandria affected the Empire’s traders and vessels. Whatever

the case, it is a reasonable guess that the participation o f Byzantine forces
in the invasion o f Egypt by King Amalric o f Jerusalem in the autumn o f
1169 induced Saladin to extend the ban on inland trading to the Empire’s
subjects.201
There is possibly only one instance in which we may identify a Byzantine
merchant reaching Egypt. Niketas Choniates reports that a Constantinopo-
litan 'money-changer’ by the name o f Kalomodios, arrested in 1200, had
amassed a fortune in arduous long-distance trade operations.202 To be sure,
Benjamin o f Tudela notes that Byzantine merchants traded in the 1160s in
Barcelona and Montpellier. The Jewish traveler remarks about this city that
“all nations are found there doing business through the medium o f the Ge-
noese and the Pisans”, which is certainly correct with respect to Byzantine
traders.203 Indeed, by the 1160s Genoa and Pisa had acquired a dominant
role in mercantile transportation between Provence and the eastern Mediter-
ranean.204 Yet there is no evidence o f Byzantine traders in the West in the
late twelfth century. Although Kalomodios may have conducted business in
the Black Sea, it is more plausible that the crusader Levant and Egypt were
the destinations o f his arduous long-distance journeys.
The assertion o f the Jewish traveler Benjamin o f Tudela that each nation
had its own funduq in Alexandria is not supported by other sources and may
be safely dismissed. Indeed, at the time o f Benjamin’s visit there in the 1160s
only Pisa had been granted such premises, while Venice and Genoa apparently
obtained theirs only later, in 1172 and between 1192 and 1200 respectively.205
The absence o f a Byzantine funduq in the Egyptian port is all the more sur-
prising in view o f the existence o f a similar residential and commercial facility
for visiting Muslim merchants in Constantinople. Their mitaton was located
201. On the invasion, see R.- J. Lilie, Byzantium and the Crusader States, 1096-1204,
Oxford 1993, pp. 198-202; on the ban, see above, n. 188.
202. Niketas Choniates, Historia , ed. J. L. van Dieten -Berlin-New York 1975) (Corpus
Fontium Historiae Byzantinae, XI), I, pp. 523-524. Oikonomides, «The Economic Region
of Constantinople», p. 235, challenges the common interpretation of this passage, claiming
that Kalomodios himself did not travel and only invested in commercial ventures carried
out by others. The text, however, points to personal involvement: âoyaÀéaç xal ôofoyàç
èxôrjjuiaç.
203. Benjamin of Tudela, Hebrew text, pp. 1-3; English translation, pp. 2-3.
204. On the struggle between the two powers in this respect, see Schaube, Handels-
geschichte, pp. 570-571, 574-575, and esp. H. E. Mayer, Marseilles Levantehandel und ein ak -
konensisches Fàlscheratelier des 13. Jahrhunderts (Bibliothek des Deutschen historischen In-
stituts in Rom, 38), Tübingen 1972, pp. 60-65.
205. See above, nn. 152, 147 and 158 respectively.
between the Golden Horn and the northern city wall, close to the church
o f St Irene in the Perama area.206 At the request o f Saladin Emperor Isaac II
Angelus built in 1188 a mosque within that mitaton, and numerous Muslim
traders attended its inauguration in the following year. The willingness o f the
emperor to comply with the sultan’s wishes was largely due to political con-
siderations.207 The location o f the mosque close to the Golden Horn implies
that Muslims involved in maritime commerce were already trading in that
urban area, and it is likely that the mitaton went back to the tenth century.208
Since 1082 at the latest the Empire adopted a liberal policy with respect to
the residence o f western merchants in Constantinople, reflected by the con-
cession o f quarters to the major Italian maritime powers and the lifting o f
time restrictions on their stay in the Empire.209 It is unclear whether in the
1160s the same policy was applied to Muslims or, in other words, whether
they were still compelled to reside in their mitaton or did so by choice, in
view o f the convenience it afforded them. Benjamin o f Tudela, who visited
Constantinople in the early 1160s, mentions the presence o f merchants from
Fatimid territories in the city, yet does not specify where they resided.210
The lack o f reciprocity in Egyptian-Byzantine relations with respect to
residential and commercial premises is striking. It illustrates the relatively
weak position o f Byzantine traders in Egypt, compared to that o f their Italian
competitors. Pisa, Venice and Genoa obtained their respective funduq in
Alexandria and other concessions in Egypt in the course o f the twelfth century
thanks to the conjunction o f two main factors, namely their growing trade,
partly linked to large deliveries o f timber and iron,211 and the political backing
offered by their respective governments. We may surmise that the number o f
206. On the location of St Eirene, see D. Jacoby, «The Venetian Quarter of Constanti- *
nople from 1082 to 1261: Topographical Considerations», in C. Sode, S. A. Takàcs, eds.,
Novum Millenium, Aldershot 2000, p. 178.
207. For dating and circumstances, see D. Jacoby, «Diplomacy, Trade, Shipping and
Espionage between Byzantium and Egypt in the Twelfth Cemtury», in Gordula Scholz
und Georgios Makris, eds., nOAYIIAEYPOS NOYE, Miscellanea fü r Peter Schreiner
zu seinem 60. Geburtstag (Byzantinisch Archiv. Band 19), München 2000, pp. 95-97.
208. Magdalino, «Constantinople médiévale», p. 88, convincingly argues that the name
mitaton given to the mosque in popular parlance points to the earlier existence of commercial
premises. By contrast, Reinert, «The Muslim Presence in Constantinople», pp. 141-142,
postulates that the mosque was built with subsidiary buildings and became the nucleus of
a mercantile Muslim neighborhood established shortly afterwards, which gave its name to
the mosque. Such a scenario is not plausible.
209. The important change in this respect has been largely overlooked.
210. Benjamin of Tudela, Hebrew text, p. 14; English translation, p. 12.
211. See Jacoby, «The Supply of War Materials to Egypt».
66
Byzantine merchants visiting Alexandria in any given season was inferior to

that o f any one o f the major Italian maritime nations, which in the second
half o f the twelfth century may have reached several hundred.212 The gap
between the strength o f the Byzantine and Italian contingents o f visiting traders
grew constantly, as a result o f various developments which will be examined
below. In any event, the number o f the Empire’s subjects was apparently not
sufficient to warrant the establishment o f a separate funduq for them in Ale-
xandria. More importantly perhaps, the Byzantine emperors lacked the ne-
cessary leverage to ensure such a measure. While the Empire heavily depended
011 the supply o f spices from Egypt, Byzantine merchants do not seem to
have brought there the commodities in which the Egyptian rulers were most
interested, namely timber and iron, or imported them in small quantities
only. It should be stressed that the activity o f Byzantine traders in Egypt in
the twelfth century does not necessarily imply that all o f them, or all their
goods, sailed on Byzantine vessels.
Byzantine mercantile shipping is poorly documented, yet was undoubtedly
very intensive in the twelfth century. During the First Crusade a large number
o f Byzantine boats o f small tonnage from the Aegean islands and Cyprus were
212. Documents of 1154-1155 refer to some eighty western merchants imprisoned in

Egypt as reprisal for the murder of Egyptian subjects who had sailed on a Pisan ship in
1153: Amari, I diplomi arabi, pp. 241-242,248, 250-251. M. Balard, «Notes sur le commerce
entre l’Italie et l’Egypte sous les Fatimides», in M. Barrucand, éd., V Egypte fat ¡mide, son
art et son histoire, Paris 1999, p. 629, considers that figure as reflecting more or less the
strength of the Pisan mercantile community temporarily staying at Alexandria. This is highly
doubtful for two reasons. First, around 1150 the number of Pisan ships in Alexandria’s
harbor was superior to that of any other nation: see above, n. 152. If we suppose, for instance,
that in 1153 six of them had arrived, the average number of traders per vessel would have
been a dozen only, clearly too low. Secondly, the Pisan ship involved in the incident of 1153
presumably left Alexandria during the autumn sailing season and the news of the incident
arrived there in late autumn or in the winter. If so, only the Pisan merchants who had not yet
managed to leave or who intended to spend the winter in Alexandria would have been arrested.
The figure of eighty would thus apply to them only, and not to all the visiting Pisan traders. A
higher figure is also suggested by later data, although one should take into account that the
number of western ships and traders visiting the Egyptians port grew after 1153. In the fall of
1187 thirty-eight western ships anchored in the harbor of Alexandria: M. R. Morgan, éd., Le
continuation de Guillaume de Tyr (1184-1197 ) (Documents relatifs à l’histoire des Croisades
publiés par l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, XIV), Paris 1982, pp. 74-75, par.
61. It would seem that even around 1215 only a small number of Pisans spent the winter
in Egypt, although the total number of western merchants visiting the country had sub-
stantially increased. According to the Arab chronicler al-Maqrïzï the Egyptian authorities
of Alexandria arrested in 1215-1216 three thousand of them, quite a plausible figure for
that period: see Jacoby, «Les Italiens en Egypte», pp. 82 and 81 respectively.
heavily involved in the provisioning o f the crusader forces besieging Antioch,

and in the following decade Cypriot crafts supplied victuals to the Franks
besieging the Lebanese city o f Tripoli.213 Numerous Byzantine merchants and
vessels conducted trade between the Empire’s provinces, as well as between
the latter and Constantinople. The substantial volume o f their activity is
implied by various commercial privileges and fiscal exemptions granted by
the emperors to some large landowners, monasteries and churches, as well
as by other sources214. While the Italians clearly expanded their handling o f
Byzantine goods within Romania, there is no reason to believe that they had
acquired a dominant role in the region already in the late eleventh century.215 Their
approach was selective. They were interested only in medium and long-distance
trade in specific goods and their transportation along a number o f major sea lanes,
while leaving short-distance traffic entirely in Greek hands. Moreover, they could
not have mustered sufficient ships for operation within the complex maritime
network o f Romania.216 This brings us to the impact of Italian shipping upon
maritime transportation between the Empire and Egypt.
One may wonder whether the tonnage o f vessels was a weighty factor
in the competition between Italian and Byzantine carriers. The Empire built
large warships o f the dromon type which had a crew o f more than 200 oarsmen
and 70 fighting personnel.217 As for western warships, it is noteworthy that
according to Anna Comnena a large three-mast pirate vessel with 200 rowers
was hired in 1096 by a Norman prince for the transport o f troops from Italy
across the Adriatic.218 These were exceptionally large crafts which, however,
did not carry goods. The twelfth century witnessed an increase in the construc-
tion o f large mercantile vessels in the West, furthered by the transfer o f military
213. See J. France, Victory in the East. A Military History o f the First Crusade, Cam-
bridge 1994, pp. 209-210, 236-237; Lilie, Byzantium and the Crusader States, pp. 32-33; Ga-
latariotou, The Making o f a Saint, pp. 47-48.
214. See Harvey, Economic Expansion, pp. 236-241. There is yet no comprehensive
study of Byzantine commercial shipping. Makris, Studien zur byzantinischen Schiffahrt, deals
only with some aspects of that topic at a later period and only incidentally refers to the
centuries preceding the Fourth Crusade.
215. As argued by Malamut, Les îles de VEmpire byzantin, II, p. 438, who speaks of
«la mainmise des marchands étrangers». On Crete and Cyprus, see below.
216. On the other hand, manpower was not an obstacle since local sailors could be
hired. For later evidence in this respect, see Makris, Studien zur byzantinischen Schiffahrt,
pp. 118-124.
217. See V. Christides, «Two Parallel Naval Guides of the Tenth Century: Qudama’s
Documend and Leo VPs Naumachia: A Study on Byzantine and Moslem Naval Prepared-
ness», Graeca-Arabica 1 (1982), 84-85.
218. Anne Comnène, Alexiade, chap. 10, par. 8, ed. B. Leib, Paris 1937-1945, II, p. 215.
68
forces, horses and equipment for the crusades, in addition to numerous pil-
grims to and from the Holy Land, as well as the conveyance o f bulky and
heavy commodities such as timber, iron and other metals, as well as alum
and grain across the Mediterranean. Western large ships appear to have been
more numerous than Muslim or Byzantine ones by the second half o f that
period.219 The large three-mast craft owned by the Venetian Romano Mairano
was one the largest ships sailing in the Mediterranean in 1171, when it arrived
in Constantinople. Although sold to the imperial treasury, it managed to
escape after the arrest o f the Venetians in the Empire ordered by Manuel I.220
In 1173 it was scheduled to carry some 450 metric tons o f timber from Venice
to Egypt, and would have returned with a large cargo of alum and other
commodities.221
However, it is the nature o f the goods moved from one port to another
and their destinations that determined the extent to which larger ships offered
a possible advantage to Italian traders and carriers over their Byzantine and
Muslim counterparts. As noted above, costly commodities such as spices and
high-quality textiles were important items in Egyptian-Byzantine trade, yet
the volume o f these goods was small. Nor did the transportation o f agricultural
and pastoral commodities require large vessels. Al-Makhzümi mentions around
1170 convoys or a large number o f ships, clearly o f small tonnage, arriving
from Crete to Alexandria with Cretan commodities on board.222 Twelfth-
century and later sources, some o f which have been adduced above, illustrate
the continuing importance o f small and medium-sized boats, on which the
bulk o f mercantile traffic in the eastern Mediterranean relied. Though later
than the period discussed here, a contract o f 1306 offers some indication in
this respect. It provided for the transportation o f some thirty metric tons of
219. On Muslim ships: Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 215, 305-207, 315, 331-
332, with some reservations about large numbers of passengers quoted in Genizah letters;
an early eleventh-century Muslim ship supposedly carried some four hundred of them : idem,
Letters o f Medieval Jewish Traders, pp. 39-42; see also Udovitch, «Time, the Sea and So-
ciety», pp. 522-523 ; Pryor, Commerce, Shipping and Naval Warfare, pp. 28-29. On Byzantine
vessels : H. Antoniadis-Bibicou, Etudes d*histoire maritime de Byzance. A propos du «thème
des Caravisiens», Paris 1966, pp. 129-137, dealing with tonnage. On western vessels, see
Pryor (as above), pp. 29-31 ; U. Tucci, «L’impresa marittima: uomini e mezzi», in G. Cracco -
G. Ortalli, eds., Storia di Venezia, II, U età del Comme, Roma 1995, pp. 627-639.
220. Ioannes Kinnamos, Epitome rerum ab loanne et Alexio Comnenis gestarum, ed.
A. Meineke (Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae), Bonn 1836, p. 238, lines 4-19; see
also Borsari, Venezia e Bisanzio, p. 124 and n. 87, 126.
221. Jacoby, «The Supply of War Materials to Egypt», nn. 50-55. The projected voyage
did not take place.
222. See above, n. 130.
Cretan cheese to Cyprus or Cilician Armenia on a ship with a crew o f twelve,223

Even the vessels carrying timber from southern Asia Minor and Cilician
Armenia to Egypt in the 1270s were at best medium-sized.224 The western
ship carrying in 1191 or 1192 some 180 metric tons o f cheese, apparently
from Crete, was much larger. To be sure, the circumstances in which it sailed
were exceptional, since the cargo was apparently intended for the numerous
crusader forces besieging Acre.225 Yet it is not excluded that occasionally
such ships brought Byzantine products to Egypt. In short, while the larger
capacity o f western ships was a decisive asset in trans-Mediterranean voyages
along an east-west axis, it played only a limited role in exchanges between
north and south. It is nevertheless clear that Italian ships were increasingly
involved in the transportation o f Byzantine passengers and goods along specific
navigation routes. A brief look at contemporary developments in the western
Mediterranean may prove useful in this respect.
Already by the mid-eleventh century Muslims from that region were
sometimes compelled to travel on board Christian ships. By the twelfth century
this had become commonplace, as illustrated in various instances. In 1153
Egyptian merchants embarked with wives and children on a Pisan ship leaving
Alexandria for a Muslim port. In the 1160s the Jewish traveler Benjamin of
Tudela implies that Muslim merchants reached Montpellier on board Genoese
and Pisan vessels.226 From al-Makhzümf s taxation treatise, compiled in Egypt
around 1170, we may gather that Muslims often boarded Italian mercantile
vessels.227 Ibn Jubayr reports that he was among numerous Muslim pilgrims
heading for Mecca who left Ceuta for Alexandria on a Genoese ship in 1183.
The following year he departed from Acre to Messina on his return voyage
on another Genoese craft. After proceeding on two small vessels and over-
land from Messina to Trapani, he boarded a third Genoese craft bound
westward.228 In 1190 or somewhat earlier a ship from Salerno transporting
223. Venezia, Archivio di Stato, Notai di Candía, b. 186, Angelo de Carlura, fol. 28v.
This document will be shortly edited by A. M. Stahl, whom I wish to thank for sending
me its text.
224. See Jacoby, «The Supply of War Materials to Egypt».
225. For details, see Jacoby, «Byzantine Crete», p. 536.
226. Amari, I diplomi arabi, pp. 241-242; Benjamin of Tudela, as above, n. 203, and
on the role of Genoese and Pisan ships in transportation, see above, n. 204.
227. See Cahen, Douanes et commerce, pp. 269-270,299.
228. The Travels o f Ibn Jubayr, pp. 26-29, 326-340, 343-346, 350, 357, 361-362. Interes-
tingly, in Trapani he met two ships, one of which had carried him from Ceuta to Alexandria.
Both were heading westward with Muslim pilgrims and merchants on board: ibid., p. 350.
Somewhat later he encountered in the port of Favignana, an island to the southwest of
70
Christian and Muslim merchants was attacked by Pisans. In 1227 a Muslim

merchant from Alexandria traveled from Marseilles to Ceuta on a Marseillais
ship.229 In short, on the basis of these and other testimonies it is generally
believed that the Italians dominated maritime traffic between Egypt and the
Maghreb. It has even been claimed that in the twelfth century they acquired
a virtual monopoly along that axis and, in addition, evicted Muslim ships
from the sealanes connecting Egypt and the Maghreb to Sicily.230
These views, however, require serious qualifications. First, one should
distinguish between the southern sea route following with some variations the
northern coast o f Africa, an area ruled by Muslim powers, and the northern
waterway proceeding from Egypt toward the European shores and then fol-
lowing these westward.231 There can be no doubt that traders and carriers
from Muslim countries opted whenever possible for the shorter, southern
route along friendly shores, as illustrated by various Genizah documents.
With respect to tonnage, it should be noted that in the eleventh century a
large number o f relatively small Muslim ships sailed in any given year between
Egypt and the Maghreb along the southern route, and there is no reason to
believe that any change occured in that pattern in the twelfth century. Large
Muslim vessels carrying merchants and cargo or pilgrims were definitely the
exception.232 As for Italian carriers, they followed the northern route, even
when sailing to or from Muslim ports or crossing the entire Mediterranean
on an east-west axis. This is illustrated by a Genoese contract o f 1160 en-
visaging a journey from Bougie to Alexandria and by the itineraries of Genoese
ships recorded by Ibn Jubayr.233 In short, in the twelfth century we witness
a division o f the western Mediterranean, the Muslims continuing to dominate
traffic along the southern sea route connecting Egypt, the Maghreb and
Muslim Spain, while Italian ships established a virtual monopoly along the
northern route.
Trapani, another Genoese ship returning from Alexandria with more than two hundred
Muslim pilgrims, his fellow-passengers on his outbound voyage from Ceuta: ibid., 362.
229. Favreau, «Die italienische Levante-Piraterie», pp. 505-506; L. Blancard (ed.), Do-
cuments inédits sur le commerce de Marseille au moyen-âge, Marseille 1884-1885, pp. 18-19.
230. See Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 59, 313, 332. On that evolution, with
an extreme statement in that respect, see Cahen, Orient et Occident, pp. 109, 137-139.
231. On the southern sea route, see the eleventh-century Genizah evidence in Goitein,
A Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 211-212, 319-320; Udovitch, «Time, the Sea and Society»,
pp. 510-511 (Table I), 541-545. On both sea lanes, see R. Gertwagen, «Geniza Letters: Mari-
time Difficulties along the Alexandria-Palermo route», in S. Menache, ed., Communications
in the Jewish Diaspora. The Pre-Modern World, Leiden 1996, pp. 75-86.
232. See above, n. 219.
233. See above, nn. 161 and 228.
The evolution o f twelfth-century mercantile shipping in the eastern Medi-

terranean was strikingly different. Italian, Byzantine and Muslim vessels
followed the same major sea routes between the Empire and Egypt, although
Byzantine boats occasionally sailed via Cyprus, especially until its conquest
by Richard the Lionheart in 1191.234 The competition between the various
maritime nations was therefore fiercer than between Muslim and western
vessels in the western Mediterranean. One should distinguish, however, be-
tween the Constantinople-Alexandria axis and other sea lanes connecting the
Empire’s provinces with Egypt, both with respect to the factors determining
the nature and evolution o f trade and shipping and the Italian impact on
Byzantine activity.
While considerations about tonnage and navigation routes should not be
neglected, there were also other factors that furthered the expansion o f Italian
shipping at the expense o f Byzantine vessels in the twelfth century. As else-
where traffic in the eastern Mediterranean was affected by political factors,
as well as by the activity o f pirates and corsairs, a perennial disease. In parti-
cular Muslim ships sailing along the coast o f the crusader Levant were in
constant danger o f being attacked and captured by Christians, even in pe-
riods o f truce or peace between the Franks and their neighbours. On the
other hand, both Muslim and western attacks hampered Byzantine maritime
links with Egypt. These suffered especially in periods o f tension or open
conflict between the Empire on the one hand, Venice, Genoa or Pisa on the
other.235
Twelfth-century sources reveal that Byzantine and Egyptian subjects alike
increasingly depended and relied upon Italian shipping, especially between
Constantinople and Egypt. On the whole, Italian carriers offered safer journeys,
although not always devoid o f danger.236 Their role is illustrated on several
occasions. The Genoese merchant whose letter o f c. 1135 has already been
mentioned at several occasions planned to board in Alexandria an Italian
ship carrying Italian merchants and the ambassadors o f the Egyptian caliph
to Constantinople.237 An Egyptian embassy apparently dispatched to Con-
stantinople in 1174 traveled on board a Genoese vessel.238 In 1192 Byzantine
ambassadors and envoys o f Saladin sailed together with Byzantine and western
merchants from Alexandria to Constantinople on a Venetian ship, which was
234. See above, nn. 51-52, 176.

235. See Favreau, «Die italienische Levante-Piraterie», pp. 461-510.
236. See Jacoby, «Diplomacy, Trade, Shipping and Espionage», pp. 84-85.
237. See above, n. 160.
238. Jacoby, «Diplomacy, Trade, Shipping and Espionage», pp. 86-94.
72
attacked by Genoese and Pisan pirates.239 In all these instances the ambas-
sadors’ choice o f vessels was clearly determined by safety considerations,
although in the last case this did not prevent an attack near Rhodes by a fleet
o f Genoese and Pisan pirates under the command o f the Genoese Guglielmo
Grasso. To be sure, the sailings just mentioned took place in special circum-
stances, yet they suggest that Byzantine merchants were thoroughly acquainted
with Italian shipping services. We may surmise, therefore, that it was fairly
common for them to use them on strictly mercantile voyages or for the dis-
patch o f goods.
Indeed, by increasing their share in trade and shipping between Romania
and Egypt the Italians also enhanced their role as middlemen and carriers
handling Byzantine goods on behalf o f Byzantine traders and producers. In
1111 the Greek Kalopetros Xanthos, a vestioprates or merchant o f silk gar-
ments in Constantinople, entrusted several pieces o f silk cloth to the Venetian
Enrico Zusto, who was about to sail to Damietta, in return for a fixed sum
which ensured him in advance a good profit.240 Incidentally, the same Venetian
merchant invested in 1119 in business between Constantinople and Alexan-
dria, while another member o f his family, Pietro, was involved in 1140 in a
triangular trade venture between Venice, Constantinople, central Greece and
Alexandria.241 These cases illustrate the integration o f Italian middlemen
operating between the Empire and Egypt within the broader context of Medi-
terranean trade. In July 1167 the Greek Michael Anaxioti, like seven Latin
merchants, granted a maritime loan to the Venetian Romano Mairano, who
was about to leave Constantinople for Alexandria. Anaxioti was promised a
profit o f forty percent on his investment o f fifty hyperpers, which he obtained
upon Mairano’s return in March 1168.242 The documents recording the bu-
siness ventures o f the two Greeks o f Constantinople just mentioned imply
that such deals were by no means exceptional, although no other such cases
have been found.243 They are of considerable interest, since they reveal that
239. Letters of Isaac II to Genoa in November 1192 and October 1193 respectively:
F. Miklosich et J. Müller, eds., Acta et diplomata graeca medii aevi sacra et profana, Wien
1862-1890, III, pp. 37-46 nos. 6-7 (Greek version), and Imperiale di Sant’Angelo, Codice
diplomático, III, pp. 78-80, 101-107 (Latin); to Pisa: Müller, Documenti, pp. 61-64, 66-67,
nos. 38,41.
240. Lanfranchi, Famiglia Zusto, pp. 23-24, no, 6; see also Jacoby, «Silk in Western
Byzantium», p. 496.
241. See above, n. 132.
242. DCV , I, pp. 201-202, no. 203; see also Borsari, Venezia e Bisanzio, pp. 120-121
and n. 73.
243. It is noteworthy that the two cases are recorded in Venetian documents, which
again emphasizes the absence of relevant Byzantine documentation.
the operation o f Italian middlemen in Byzantine-Egyptian trade was not

necessarily detrimental to the interests o f the Byzantine merchants who relied
upon them.
One may wonder whether Byzantine traders and carriers managed to
take advantage o f particular twelfth-century political circumstances to main-
tain their own links with Egypt or even expand them at the expense o f their
Italian counterparts, at least temporarily. At first glance it would seem that
such favorable conditions existed between 1182 and 1192. The full resumption
o f Venetian trade in the Empire, after its abrupt interruption in 1171, took
place only in 1183, some three and a half years before a new formal Venetian-
Byzantine agreement was reached in 1187. In addition, Pisan and Genoese
activity in the Empire was sharply reduced after the massacre o f the Latins
in Constantinople in 1182. It was at best intermittent and remained marginal
until 1192.244 The full interruption o f western traffic in Egyptian ports from
1187 to the spring o f 1192 seems to have presented yet another opportunity
for the strengthening o f Byzantine trade with Egypt,245 all the more so since
Isaac II and Saladin maintained fairly close relations from 1188 to the autumn
of 1192.246 It is doubtful, however, that Byzantine trade and shipping could
benefit from these circumstances, in view o f the hostility of Pisa and Genoa
toward the Empire from 1182 until the renewal o f their formal relations in
1192 and the activity of Pisan and Genoese pirates, both in Byzantine waters
and along the Levantine coast.247 Moreover, it would seem that both after
1171 and 1182 the Italians pursuing their activity in the Empire largely re-
placed their evicted Italian competitors and fully exploited their position in
maritime trade with Egypt. This is for instance illustrated in 1192, when the
envoys dispatched by Isaac II to Saladin sailed on a Venetian vessel before
the full resumption of Pisan and Genoese activity in the Empire.
The Italian impact on seaborne trade and shipping between the Empire
and Egypt was enhanced in the last decade of the twelfth century by several
developments, some specific to Romania and others to Egypt. The Byzantine-
Venetian agreement o f 1187 enabled the renewal o f regular Venetian activity
in the Empire. It was followed in 1192 by treaties concluded by Emperor Isaac
II Angelus with Pisa and Genoa, which provided the merchants o f both these
244. See Jacoby, «Conrad, Marquis of Montferrat», pp. 220-223, 237, n. 117.
245. See ibid., pp. 217-219; idem, «Les Italiens en Egypte», p. 90.
246. See Lilie, Byzantium and the Crusader States, pp. 230-242 ; Jacoby, «Diplomacy,
Trade, Shipping and Espionage», pp. 94-99.
247. See Favreau, «Die italienische Levante-Piraterie», pp. 476-477, 481-483; Lilie,
Handel und Politik, pp. 304-308.
74
powers with more extensive tax exemptions and furthered thereby their trade
in the Empire.248 In that same year western traders returned to Egypt, after
about four years o f absence due to the war between Saladin and the Latins.
Their activity was encouraged by that sultan and his successors, they visited
Egypt in growing numbers, and several o f them extended their stay there
beyond a single sailing season. As a result the funduqs held by Pisa, Venice
and Genoa in Alexandria evolved into full-fledged colonies with a core of
stable population, thus affording a more solid base for continuous economic
activity.249 The Pisan Leonardo Fibonacci provides invaluable evidence to
this effect in his Liber abbaci, a manual o f mathematics composed in 1202
that faithfully reflects the realities o f contemporary commercial life. An exer-
cise in his work refers to two business partners, one o f whom lived for more
than five years in Alexandria, while the other resided in Constantinople.250
The origin o f the two western merchants is not stated, yet they were most
likely Pisans. Their temporary settlement for several years in the two Medi-
terranean emporia was obviously aimed at promoting bilateral trade between
Egypt and the Empire. Fibonacci’s wording suggests that this was not an
isolated case. Partnerships like theirs must have further reduced the share o f
Byzantine and Egyptian merchants and shipping in exchanges between their
respective countries.
The Latin conquest o f Constantinople and the establishment o f the Latin
empire in 1204, followed shortly afterwards by the creation o f the Venetian
maritime empire abruptly altered the geo-political and geo-economic structure
o f the eastern Mediterranean. These events deprived the Empire o f its capital
and o f extensive territories, resulted in a severe contraction o f its economy,
and disrupted Byzantine trade with Egypt for some time. The same events
also affected the balance o f power between the major maritime nations. They
enhanced Venice’s standing at the expense o f its Italian rivals, Genoa and
Pisa, both in Constantinople and in Romania at large and ensured it had a
dominant position as an intermediary between this region and Egypt until
the Byzantine reconquest o f the imperial capital in 1261. These developments
require an extensive treatment, which cannot be undertaken here.
248. See Jacoby, «Conrad, Marquis of Montferrat», pp. 220-223 ; Jacoby, «Italian Pri-
vileges and Trade in Byzantium», pp. 361-368.
249. See Jacoby, «Les Italiens en Egypte», pp. 80-82.
250. B. Boncompagni, éd., Scritti di Leonardi Pisani, /, II liber abbaci di Leonardo
Pisano, Roma 1857, pp. 274-276.
V. CONCLUSIONS
The sources illustrating Byzantine trade and shipping with Egypt from
the mid-tenth to the early thirteenth century point to the virtually continuous
involvement o f Byzantine merchants and carriers in that traffic. The nature,
intensity and volume o f their participation varied from one region o f Romania
to another, as well as over time. Byzantine seaborne trade with Egypt was
increasingly affected by Italian commerce and transportation services from
the later eleventh century. It should be stressed, however, that the twelfth-
century Italian impact along the Constantinople-Alexandria waterway dif-
fered from that felt along other sea lanes connecting the Empire’s provinces
with Egypt.
The privileged status o f the Italians in the Empire, in Egypt, and especially
in the crusader states o f the Levant provided them a major advantage over
Byzantine subjects. In the Levant they engaged in conjunction with local
traders and carriers in short and medium-range traffic, as between Alexandria
and Acre and, more generally, between the crusader ports o f the Levant. As
noted above, these served as transit and transshipment stations in the frame-
work o f inter-regional trade. The major role o f the Italians along the Levantine
seaboard furthered their activity in long-distance traffic between Constanti-
nople and Egypt and was one o f the decisive factors that enabled them to
acquire a dominant function in that framework in the twelfth century.251
Trade with Egypt along other sea lanes proceeded within different para-
meters. The Venetian and Genoese export and transportation o f agricultural
and pastoral products from the Empire’s provinces to Egypt relied on seasonal
transit trade and shipping, whether largely or exclusively according to the
region. On the one hand that pattern provided an advantage, yet on the
other it necessarily limited the scope o f the traffic both in time and volume.
By contrast, the Byzantine traders and carriers o f the provinces, in any event
o f Crete about which we are better informed, operated continuously in the
framework of bilateral exchanges with Egypt, apparently using a larger number o f
vessels, albeit smaller ones.252 The Italian impact on twelfth-century Cretan exports
appears to have been at best moderate.253 This assessment, based on contem-
porary sources, is strengthened by later evidence from the period following
251. Cahen, Orient et Occident, p. 210, considers that the crusades did not contribute
to the expansion of maritime trade. This radical position is convincingly contradicted by
the evidence adduced here.
252. Some of the goods obtained in Egypt were re-exported to other destinations.
253. See Jacoby, «Byzantine Crete», pp. 524-540.
76
the Fourth Crusade. The participation o f local traders and vessels in exchanges
with Egypt was then quite substantial, despite Venetian rule on the island
and the involvement o f Venetian and other western settlers in that activity.254
Although not directly documented, we may assume that the pattern o f Italian
and local exchanges between Cyprus and Egypt was more or less similar. In
sum, one may wonder whether the Italians ever acquired an edge over By-
zantine competitors with respect to Crete and Cyprus in the twelfth century.
In any event, if such an edge existed, it must have been definitely more limited
than along the Constantinople-Alexandria axis.
Whatever its nature and intensity, twelfth-century Italian activity along
the various Byzantine-Egyptian waterways benefited from its integration within
the broader Mediterranean trade and shipping patterns. The triangular business
ventures in which many Italians engaged brought them flexibility with respect
to itineraries, cargoes, passengers and undoubtedly also freight charges, far
more than their Byzantine counterparts. The profits they derived could be
reinvested in trade and transportation between the Empire and Egypt. Direct
Byzantine commercial and maritime activity with Egypt was gradually re-
duced, possibly in absolute terms, in any event proportionally.255 The Empire’s
subjects increasingly sailed on Italian vessels and resorted to Italian middle-
men and ship operators, investing in their trade ventures or sending their
goods with them. This development was especially pronounced between Con-
stantinople and Egypt.
The impact o f the growing Italian involvement in twelfth-century ex-
changes between the Empire and Egypt was complex. On the microeconomic
level, it deprived some Byzantine merchants and carriers o f income or reduced
their profits. On the other hand, it did not prevent others from pursuing
their activity in a profitable way, whether on their own or by integrating
within Italian trade and shipping patterns. The Byzantines had become tho-
roughly familiar with Italian credit, trade and partnership operations.256 To
be sure, on the macro-economic level the Italians diverted toward the West
a substantial share o f profits deriving from trade and shipping between the
Empire and Egypt. However, the increasing volume o f economic activity
conducted between these two regions, regardless o f whether it was in Byzantine,
254. See D. Jacoby, «Creta e Venezia nel contesto economico del Mediterraneo orien-
tale sino alla metà del Quattrocento», in G. Ortalli éd., Venezia e Creta (Atti del Convegno
internazionale di studi, Iraklion-Chanià, 30 setiembre-5 ottobre 1997), Venezia 1998, pp.
95-102.
255. The surviving data is too casual to allow any quantified assessment.
256. See A. E. Laiou, «Byzantium and the Commercial Revolution», in Arnaldi e Ca-
vallo, Europa meclievale e mondo bizantino, pp. 239-246, 252-253.
B yzantine Trade with E gy p t 77
Muslim or Italian hands, must have had a rather positive impact on the
Empire. Like exchanges between the West and Byzantium, Italian activity
contributed to the growth o f domestic business and services and enhanced
the flow o f capital, at any event in specific regions. These developments should
be taken into account in any assessment o f the economic evolution o f twelfth-
century Byzantium. They are also essential for an evaluation o f the Empire’s
function within the broader context o f the eastern Mediterranean economy.
There is yet one more conclusion o f a general nature worthy o f particular
consideration. The evidence produced above dispels once and for all a stereo-
type common among modern historians: that o f a Byzantine mercantile group
devoid o f daring and initiative, apprehensive o f long voyages, and passively
awaiting at home the arrival o f merchandise carried by foreigners.257 In the
period examined here Byzantine merchants and ships definitely operated be-
yond the waters o f Romania, in any event in the eastern Mediterranean as
far as Egypt.
Addenda and Corrigenda
p. 33, n. 24, lines 6-8: the study is reproduced as article II in D. Jacoby, Byzantium, Latin
Romania and the Mediterranean, Aldershot 2001 (hereafter Jacoby, Byzantium).
p. 36, n. 40, line 3: the study is reproduced as article II in D. Jacoby, Commercial Exchange
Across the Mediterranean, Aldershot 2005 (hereafter Jacoby, Exchange).
p. 42, n. 72: the study is reproduced as article X in Jacoby, Byzantium.
p. 46, n. 94: the study is reproduced as article I in Jacoby, Byzantium.
p. 47, text, lines 3-4 from bottom, replace by the following: presumably originating in Italy
although possibly also from the wooded provinces of southern Asia Minor. The Genoese
sailed along that region on their way to Egypt,
p. 48, n. 100: the second study is reproduced as article V in Jacoby, Byzantium.
p. 50, n. 113: the first study by D. Jacoby is reproduced as article V in Jacoby, Exchange.
The last study mentioned as being ‘in press’ has not been published so far.
p. 50, n. 116: the study is reproduced asarticle IV in Jacoby, Exchange.
p. 65, n. 206: the study is reproduced asarticle III in Jacoby, Exchange.
p. 76, n. 254: the study is reproduced asarticle VII in Jacoby, Exchange.
257. The same remark is implied with respect to other regions and shorter journeys
by Hendy, «‘Byzantium, 1081-1204’: the Economy revisited», p. 22.
7
Prayer, Illumination, and Good Times:
The Export of Byzantine Wine and Oil to the
North of Russia in pre-Mongol Times
Thomas S. Noonan and Roman K. Kovalev
Grand Prince Vladimir’s conversion to Orthodoxy in 988/89 was

unquestionably one o f the great turning points in Russian history.
A s the result o f this conversion and the close trade ties between Kiev
and Constantinople, which dated to ca. 900 i f not earlier, Byzantium
cam e to exert a significant impact upon Russia in such areas as
religion, art, culture, law, and political theory. W hen scholars dis-
cuss the religious impact o f Byzantium, they usually focus upon
such topics as monasticism, hagiography, church architecture, and
icons. However, conversion and the concomitant strengthening o f
econom ic and social ties with Constantinople had ramifications that
extended throughout R us’ society. The origins and development o f
a glass industry in K iev, for exam ple, were consequences o f the
Byzantine connection. The Greek glassmakers who decorated the
n ew R us’ churches with m osaics also helped to establish a market
for glass jewelry among the R us’ elite. Soon, R us’ artisans were also
producing for this market which grew to include large parts o f the
urban population. Technology transfer was thus a key component o f
R us’-Byzantine relations in the post-conversion era.' In this study,
w e shall consider several other practical consequences o f Russia’s
Byzantium connection which are often forgotten.
Excavations at a number o f R us’ settlements from the Kievan era
(ca. 800-1240) have uncovered fragments o f amphorae used to
transport wine and olive oil. Som e o f these amphorae were made
either in Byzantium or along the shores o f the Black Sea. Other am-
Prayer, Illumination, and G ood Times . . .
phorae were made in K iev.2 There is thus considerable evidence that

large quantities o f w ine and oil com ing from the Black Sea or even
the Mediterranean were exported to K iev and other ports o f entry in
the southern R us’ lands. From here, they were re-exported (partly in
locally made v essels) to towns and villages throughout R us’.
To understand the volum e and extent o f this trade, it is necessary
to examine the archaeological evidence. W hile it has been im possi-
ble to utilize all reports and studies about all excavations o f Kievan
settlements, a significant number o f publications covering digs at
numerous sites in northern Russia have been reviewed. The data on
amphorae imports found in these sources is literally the tip o f the
iceberg. An analysis o f all studies o f all Kievan sites would no doubt
have revealed many more finds from hundreds o f towns. Further-
more, some shards from som e sites have simply not been reported.
Finally, it is w ell to remember that only a small part o f most
settlements o f the K ievan era have been excavated. Large portions
o f the best excavated major R us’ towns have not yet been studied
while numerous smaller settlements are untouched. Based on the ca.
753 birchbark scrolls found from those sections o f Novgorod which
had been excavated, Academ ician Ianin estimated that a total o f
around 20,000 scrolls might have been deposited in the cultural
strata o f the city as a w hole.3 The same type o f multiplier might be
applied to our amphorae. The discovery o f 50 shards from the
Kievan layers o f a town might w ell indicate that upwards o f 3,000
shards had been discarded in its m edieval strata.
Let us begin our survey with the Novgorod lands in northwestern
Russia. As o f 1982, som e 760 amphora shards had been found in the
excavations o f N ovgorod which was the greatest and most impor-
tant town in this area.4 Unfortunately, more current data does not
seem to have appeared. The earliest amphora shards here com e from
strata o f the late tenth century, i.e., the time o f Vladimir’s conver-
sion to Orthodoxy. The greatest concentration o f shards dates to the
first half o f the twelfth century.5 It is not clear whether this was the
period when imports o f Byzantine wine into Novgorod reached their
74
Prayer, Illumination, and G oo d Times . . .
zenith or whether this represents som e peculiarity o f the areas o f the

city thus far excavated.
The Novgorod finds are particularly illuminating due to the large
concentration o f shards (170) from u s a d ’ba (residence) A o f the
Troitskii excavation which dates to the second-half o f the twelfth
century. A minimum o f 18 separate amphorae were reconstructed
from these shards.6 In 1151 the Church o f St. Basil was constructed
next to this u sa d ’ba and priests from this church and the nearby
nunnery o f St. Varvara resided at u sa d ’ba A during the second-half
o f the twelfth century. The dw elling itself belonged to members o f
the wealthy and influential N esdych-M iroshchinych clan o f boyars
w ho were also patrons o f the church.7 Based on the archaeological
evidence, we thus possess a fairly clear picture o f the market for
w ine in a wealthy town o f northern Russia during the twelfth centu-
ry. Affluent boyars were patrons o f the churches, monasteries and
nunneries in their neighborhoods. They also provided a residence
for the priests assigned to these establishments. W ine was needed
for the communion service in these establishments and it is possible
that som e o f the wine for use in the liturgy was stored in u sa d ’ba A .
But, it is hard to believe that all the wine brought to residence A
went solely to commemorate the forgiveness o f sins. The wealthy
boyars and their priestly retainers no doubt managed to consum e a
respectable portion during their m eals and evening conversations.
N o other evidence so clearly demonstrates the interconnection o f
the secular and religious demand for wine in the north o f Russia.
It should be noted that som e o f the amphora shards from u s a d ’ba
A were made in Cherson in the Crimea. In fact, a graffito found on
one o f the amphorae from u s a d ’ba A is almost identical with a
graffito discovered on an amphora in Cherson.8 W hile w e cannot
say with certainty where all the w ine found in northern Russia
originated, the Crimea was clearly one o f the main Byzantine pro-
ducers for the Russian market. A few shards are thought to have
com e from amphorae made in the Aegean suggesting a Mediterra-
nean origin for some o f the wine.
75
By 1972, some 479 amphora shards had been uncovered in strata

of the tenth to thirteenth centuries at Beloozero which is located to
the northeast of Novgorod. The chart below graphically illustrates
the distribution of these shards.9 At Beloozero, the greatest number
of shards came from the eleventh century with a substantial number
dated to the thirteenth century. There are only a few shards from the
tenth century, i.e., the import of significant quantities of wine and
oil to Beloozero in amphorae apparently began after Vladimir’s
conversion. As we have seen, the greatest number of shards in
Novgorod dated to the twelfth century, the time when the fewest
shards were reported from Beloozero. In addition, the number of
shards reported from Beloozero (479), a town of moderate impor-
tance, seems large in comparison with the 760 shards reported from
Novgorod, a town of far greater significance. It thus appears that the
quantity of amphora shards found in Rus’ towns and their dating
reflect the choice of what parts of particular towns were to be
excavated. In other words, we should be very careful in trying to use
the number and date of amphora shards to measure the volume of
wine and oil imports into northern Russia.
Fig. 1 Amphoraefrom Beloozero
250
777
200
157
150
100
81
50
19
0
X XI XII XIII
[ I Number of fragments
76
Prayer, Illumination, and G oo d Times . ..
A graffito found on an amphora from B eloozero is very similar

to a graffito from an amphora discovered in Cherson.10 W e have
already noted the same circumstance for a graffito from Novgorod.
There is thus strong epigraphic evidence for the important role o f
Cherson and the Byzantine Crimea in the export o f wine and oil to
Russia.
N ot surprisingly, amphora shards have been found in a number
o f other towns in the Novgorod lands although the data has not yet
been analyzed and quantified. At Riurikovo gorodishche, just south
o f Novgorod, a ’’significant” number o f shards were uncovered
during the digs.11 O f particular interest are the ’’many” shards found
in a large building w hich perished in a fire at Riurikovo. Riurikovo
was the residence o f the Novgorod prince and this building was
located near to the prince’s church o f Blagoveshchaniia. It has been
suggested that the building itself was connected with the prince’s
residence.12 If these suppositions are correct, then w e have a
situation similar to the one in Novgorod where large quantities o f
w ine were stored in the dwellings o f the R us’ elite and in close
proximity to a church patronized by the same members o f this elite.
Considerable amounts o f wine were apparently kept by the R us’
elite for their personal consumption as w ell as for use in church
services.
Amphora shards have been found on a number o f occasions
during the excavations o f Staraia Ladoga13 and Pskov14, both major
towns in the Novgorod lands. Som e o f the Ladoga shards came from
strata o f the twelfth-thirteenth centuries and one shard had several
Old Rus’ letters inscribed on it. The Pskov finds included several
shards from amphorae made in southern R us’ and one shard with
Old Rus’ letters inscribed on it. In addition, an amphora o f the
second-half o f the tenth to early eleventh century was unearthed
during the excavation o f a kurgan (burial mound). Amphorae are
normally found near the place where they had been used by the
living; they were seldom buried with the dead. It is possible that the
earliest amphorae imported into R us’, i.e., before or soon after
77
Prayer, Illumination, and G oo d Times .. .
Vladimir’s conversion, had a special value that made them worthy

o f accompanying the deceased.
An amphora shard was found in the village o f Selishche on the
Lovat’ River. The village dates to the second-half o f the tenth to
early eleventh centuries.15 W hile much Byzantine wine and oil
reached the major towns o f R us’ before or soon after Vladim ir’s
conversion, the find from Selishche shows that these earliest am-
phorae could also be found in the small villages o f the countryside.
In other words, starting in the late tenth century if not earlier, w ine
and oil became available both in the large towns and small hamlets
o f northern Russia. Finally, amphora shards have been reported
from Staraia Russa south o f N ovgorod.16 Some o f these shards,
along with dolzhnitsy or lists o f debtors written on birch bark, com e
from an usad 'ba referred to as the residence o f the moneylender.
Affluent Rus’ financiers also enjoyed their wine!
Turning to the upper V olga and Oka regions, amphora shards
have been found in various settlements within Vladimir-Suzdalia
and the Riazan’ lands. Unfortunately, the published reports on the
shards are very general and we have not com e across any tables
showing either the total quantity or their temporal distribution.
Finds have been reported from Suzdal’17, Vladim ir18, Iaroslavl’19,
PereslavP-Zalesskii20, Iaropolch-Zalesskii21, Ustiuzhna22, Gorodets
on the Volga23, and M oscow 24 in Vladimir-Suzdalia and from Ria-
zan’25, Pronsk26, Serensk27, Slobodka28, RostislavF29, Murom30 and
Spas-Gorodok31 in the Riazan’ lands. A few o f these finds deserve
brief mention. A n eleventh century amphora from Suzdal’, attribut-
ed to a southern R us’ workshop, had a name inscribed on it.32 The
names or marks on amphorae found in dw ellings often served to
indicate the owner o f the wine. The 50 or so shards from Iaropolch-
Zalesski came from Crimean amphorae o f the twelfth-thirteenth
centuries and about h alf o f the shards originated in the residence o f a
wealthy person.33 In Suzdalia as in the N ovgorod lands, the elite
constituted a major market for wine and Crimean w ine seem s to
have been very popular. Shards o f Kievan amphorae were unearthed
78
THE BUOYANCY OF BYZANTIUM BEFORE 1204 ----------- 167
Prayer, Illumination, a nd G o o d Times . ..
at Gorodets on the V olga suggesting quite clearly that wine was

reexported from K iev to the upper Volga. The M oscow shards are
dated to the eleventh-thirteenth centuries. Since M oscow was only
an obscure hamlet in the pre-M ongol era, these finds demonstrate
that the demand for wine was so strong that it could be found even in
the most remote villages o f northern Russia. Som e o f the Riazan’
shards, including two com pletely reconstructed amphorae, came
from a boyar’s residence o f the first h alf o f the thirteenth century
w hile shards o f Crimean amphorae were uncovered at a second
boyar residence. Again, the urban elite formed a key component o f
the demand for wine in R us’. In Slobodka archaeologists unearthed
over 100 shards, primarily o f Crimean manufacture from the
twelfth-thirteenth centuries, which belonged to 10 or 11 amphorae.
One o f the shards carries an inscription o f the Greek letter ’’delta,”
representing the numeral ”4. ’’The amphorae found in Pronsk seem
to have been o f a ’’southern” type, presumably made in the towns o f
southern Rus’ such as Kiev. Finally, the shards from RostislavP
cam e from Crimean amphorae dated to the mid-thirteenth century.
The basic patterns in the Suzdal’ and Riazan’ lands are similar to
those from the Novgorod lands. M any members o f the Rus’ urban
elite imported large quantities o f Byzantine w ine including a signif-
icant amount which came from the Crimea.
Large quantities o f Byzantine w ine and oil were exported to the
R us’ lands adjoining the upper Dnepr, W est Dvina, and Nem an
rivers. In particular, exceptionally large quantities o f amphora
shards were unearthed during the excavations at Novogrudok and
V oikovysk along the upper Nem an.34 Over 2200 shards at Novogru-
dok came from fourteen buildings dating to the twelfth and first-half
o f the thirteenth centuries as w ell as other sites. These shards be-
longed to at least 70 separate amphorae. A s many as ten amphorae
were uncovered in som e o f the buildings. These buildings were no
doubt the homes o f the wealthy, wine-drinking members o f the
Novogrudok elite. Novogrudok was not one o f the main towns o f
Kievan Rus’; it was never one o f the great political, econom ic or
79
ecclesiastical centers o f R us’ in the pre-Mongol era. Yet, as the

leader o f the digs there has commented, more twelfth-thirteenth
amphora shards were found in the excavated area o f Novogrudok
than in a much larger excavated area o f Tmutarakan’/Tamatarkha
along the Kerch Strait, which was a major center o f amphorae
production. At the latter site, som e 2000 shards were found dating
from the fifth to thirteenth centuries.35 Regrettably, no figures on the
chronological distribution o f the shards from Novogrudok have
been published. Nevertheless, the Novogrudok data confirms our
impression that by the twelfth and first-half o f the thirteenth centu-
ries, huge quantities o f wine were consumed by members o f the elite
urban classes in all the towns o f R us’.
Som e 1600 amphorae shards dating from the second-half o f the
eleventh century were unearthed during the excavations at Volko-
vysk.36 A gain, w e lack any more precise chronological distribution.
Nevertheless, the large number o f amphorae found in this modest
town along one o f the secondary rivers o f the Rus’ lands bolsters the
view that the elites o f all the R us’ towns, large and small, constitut-
ed a vast market for Byzantine and Black Sea wine. Furthermore, it
is clear that the import o f wine began in the aftermath o f Vladimir’s
conversion and, within a century, had reached enormous propor-
tions. Byzantine w ine was freely flow ing to the wealthy, urban elite
o f the R us’ lands.
In addition to Novogrudok and Volkovysk, amphora shards have
turned up in m any other towns o f the upper Dnepr-W est Dvina-
Nem an region. A t Polotsk, for example, over 187 shards dating
from the eleventh-twelfth to the mid-thirteenth centuries were re-
ported.37 Shards have also been found at Grodno38, Smolensk39,
Selishche40, at a town near O sovik along the Desna41, and at Ro-
slavl’42, V oishchin43, and Kovsharovo44 in the Sm olensk lands. In
addition, shards o f Crimean amphorae have been reported from
Polotsk, M insk, Vitebsk, Lukom l’, Orsha, Borisovo, Zaslavl’, La-
goisk, Brest, Pinsk, Turov, Slutsk, Slonim, and Turisk while shards
o f K ievan amphorae have been found in Polotsk, Drutsk, and Ko-
80
Prayer, Illumination, a nd G oo d Times . ..
p y s’.45 In short, wine and oil were being exported from the Black
Sea to numerous towns throughout this area. In fact, future excava-
tions will no doubt show that almost every town was importing
Byzantine wine.
The shards from Sm olensk are o f special interest. During the
excavation o f a church dated to the late twelfth and first h alf o f the
thirteenth centuries, archaeologists discovered that amphorae were
apparently being used as golosniki, i.e., they were inserted into the
w alls o f the church. These so-called ’’resonators” served various
purposes. They were used to reduce the w eight o f vaults, to improve
acoustics, and for interior decoration. Two types o f golosniki have
been found: imported Greek amphorae and locally made vessels.46
Later digs at the Church o f St. John Chrysostom in Sm olensk, built
ca. 1 160s—1180s, also uncovered amphorae that were apparently
used as golosniki. The excavators o f a church o f the first-half o f the
thirteenth century in R oslavl’ also uncovered amphorae that seem to
have been used as golosniki. In other words, the frugal clerics o f
Sm olensk and other towns in the R us’ lands recycled their ampho-
rae. After the wine had been used for com m union, the empty am-
phorae were utilized in the construction o f new churches. W hen
such amphorae were insufficient, locally made v essels were substi-
tuted.
The shards from V oishchin originated in the dw elling o f a
wealthy local resident. This circumstance reinforces our earlier
conclusion that the urban elite in both large and sm all towns formed
a major market for imported wine.
The above survey is admittedly incomplete. It includes only the
R us’ principalities o f northern and central Russia and Belarus. N one
o f the finds from the Kiev, Chernigov, Pereiaslav, Volynian, and
Galician lands o f southern R us’ are included. Num erous amphorae
have been found in these lands which were closer to the northern
Black Sea and contained such great towns as K iev and Chernigov.47
D espite these limitations, our data points to several basic conclu-
sions. Significant imports o f Byzantine w ine into the R us’ lands
81
Prayer, Illumination, and Good Tim es. . .
dates to the time o f V ladim ir’s conversion if not earlier. B y the

twelfth century, these imports had reached significant proportions
as many members o f the urban elite in almost all the Rus’ towns had
developed a taste for wine. W hile it is impossible to say where in the
south all this wine came from, there is no doubt that much o f it came
from the Byzantine Crimea. In addition to the secular market, the
conversion o f Vladimir and the spread o f Christianity throughout
the Rus’ lands meant that Byzantine and Rus’ merchants had a
growing market for com m union wine.
Besides the archaeological data, som e written sources provide
further information on the export o f Byzantine wine into European
Russia. These sources show, for instance, that wine imports into
Rus’ predated Vladim ir’s conversion. The Russian Prim ary Chroni-
cle recorded that already in the early tenth century Grand Prince
O leg brought wine back to K iev from Constantinople.48 W hen
Grand Prince Sviatoslav contemplated m oving his capital from
K iev to Pereisalavets on the lower Danube, he argued that all the
riches o f his realm were concentrated there. In enumerating these
riches, Sviatoslav specifically mentioned gold, silks, various fruits
and wine from Greece.49 The most famous chronicle episode o f
interest to us here is, o f course, Vladim ir’s reply to the V olga
Bulghar embassy which tried to convert him to Islam. W hen the
Grand Prince heard that Islam required abstinence from w ine and
pork, he supposedly exclaimed: ’’Drinking is the joy o f the R us’. W e
cannot exist without that pleasure.”50 W hile the historicity o f many
early entries in the Prim ary Chronicle has often been questioned, it
seem s unlikely that the authors deliberately fabricated three sepa-
rate instances pointing to the consumption o f wine in the R us’ lands
prior to Vladimir’s conversion. B y the time Vladimir decided to
accept Orthodoxy, the R u s’ elite had already becom e consumers o f
Byzantine wine.
After conversion, literary sources show that the church tried to
dampen the enthusiasm o f the Rus’ elite for wine. W hile the Iz-
bornik o f 1076 is a com pilation based in large part on Byzantine
82
Prayer, Illumination, and G o o d Times . . .
sources rather than an original work, the choice o f themes to be

covered reflected concerns about Rus’ society at the time. Thus, it is
pertinent that the author borrowed admonitions to ’’Drink w ine
moderately, for if it is drunk sparingly, it does good to those w ho
drink it. Give your stomach so much as is sufficient, not as much as
it desires... Moderate drinking satisfies and makes merry, immoder-
ate drinking is folly.” The author, drawing upon another source,
went on to add: ’’N o w it is better to drink wine with control than to
drink water with pretence. Consider the holy men who drink wine in
the world and the unclean men who drink water without moderation.
In addition, when men drink properly or improperly do not scorn or
praise the body, but hold the mind accountable. Joseph drank w ine
som etim es in Egypt, and it did not impair his w isdom ...”51 In the
Izbornik the Rus’ church thus tried to spell out som e precepts for
daily living to guide the faithful and especially the ruling circles.
According to these precepts, drinking w ine was perfectly acceptable
but it should only be done in moderation. The inclusion o f specific
advice about drinking w ine in the Izbornik strengthens our conten-
tion that the use o f wine was widespread am ong the Rus’ elite.
Two episodes in the P a terik o f the Kievan Caves Monastery
regarding wine and oil are very illuminating. In the first, it is
reported that a priest from K iev once cam e to the monastery to ask
the monk Feodosii ( f 1074) i f he could borrow som e wine in order
”to celebrate the holy liturgy” in his church. Feodosii asked one o f
the monastery’s stewards to pour sufficient wine into a vessel and
g iv e it to the priest. The steward replied that the monastery only had
enough wine for a few days’ liturgies. Feodosii nevertheless told the
steward to give the priest all o f their wine. The steward, however,
w as still concerned about the monastery’s supply and only poured
”a little wine into the priest’s vessel and left som e for the morning
church service.” The priest then showed Feodosii the meager quan-
tity o f wine which he had received from the steward. Feodosii called
the steward a second time and repeated his order that the priest be
given all o f the monastery’s wine. Feodosii reassured the steward
83
Prayer. Illumination, and G oo d Times . . .
that God would provide abundant w ine for the next day’s church
service. The steward now obeyed and gave all o f the wine to the
priest. That evening, w hen the monks were sitting down, three carts
with barrels o f w ine suddenly appeared. They had been sent to the
monastery by a wom an w ho ran the household o f Prince V sevolod
Iaroslavich!52
The above episode is very informative. Monasteries and church-
es had to have sufficient w ine for church services. But, even in the
capital o f Kiev, which had constant, direct contact with the Black
Sea and Constantinople, it was not always possible for priests and
monks to keep an adequate supply. It is not clear whether the
shortage o f w ine was due to problems in the supply system or the
high cost o f wine. In any event, it is understandable that a sim ple
parish priest w ould encounter problems in finding enough wine for
the services. I f it were difficult to keep the churches and monasteries
o f K iev supplied with wine, then it must have been a major chal-
lenge to provide w ine for all the churches, monasteries and nunner-
ies in central and northern Russia. Since wine was used daily in the
church services, it is not surprising that the priest apparently had a
special vessel used to carry the wine. It would be very inconvenient
to cart around amphorae and barrels w hen w ine was brought for the
day’s service. Instead, a smaller vessel which a single person could
easily carry was used. In any religious establishment o f stature, the
wine would presumably be stored in an appropriate place where a
steward or religious could easily pour out whatever amount was
needed for the service. W hile amphorae were used in shipping wine,
it was clearly easier in many circumstances to put the w ine in
barrels and transport it by cart. Finally, it is significant that the
prince provided w ine for the church service when the monastery
exhausted its supply. W hen w ine becam e too expensive or difficult
to obtain, the secular elite provided for the church’s needs.
In the second episode, which also dates to the time o f Feodosii,
the Monastery o f the Caves had ”no oil with which to fill the
lamps.” The steward thought o f using the oil from flax seeds to bum
84
Prayer. Illumination, a n d G o o d Times . . .
in the lamps. He asked Feodosii who told him to go ahead. H ow ev-

er, when he was about to pour this oil into the lamps, he noticed that
a mouse had fallen into it. The steward then told Feodosii that he
had carefully covered the vessel containing the oil and could not
explain how the mouse had drowned in it. Feodosii interpreted this
event as a sign that they should have trusted in God. The steward
w as told to pour all the oil on the ground and then join the prayers to
God for new oil. At the tim e for vespers, a rich man appeared with a
large barrel o f oil. Feodosii thanked God and the lamps were then
filled with the proper oil.53 Since there was a shortage o f the ’’correct
o il,” it was most probably olive oil which was both expensive and
difficult to transport. One o f the primary purposes o f the imported
Byzantine oil was therefore to illuminate monasteries, churches,
and nunneries. In fact, this imported oil was seem ingly considered
the only proper oil to be used in monastic lam ps.54 Finally, the oil
was transported in large barrels that were hauled in carts in the same
w ay that wine was transported.
In the Hypathian C hronicle under the year 1146, it was reported
that 80 korchaga or amphorae o f wine had been found in the cellar
o f a certain Prince Sviatoslav.55 This source confirm s all our other
data demonstrating that the princes were major importers o f wine
and that they kept large supplies. I f one local prince in one town
kept 80 vessels filled with wine in his cellars, then it is reasonable to
assume that several thousand korchaga!amporae filled with w ine
were being stored in princely cellars at any given time. In addition,
amphorae with wine were no doubt also stored in the cellars o f
boyars, wealthy merchants, and other members o f the ruling elite.
And, since this wine was constantly being consum ed, the princes
and other secular consumers must have imported hundreds o f wine
vessels annually at a minimum.
In addition to the literary sources, important data can be found on
several epigraphic sources. An inscription on an amphora dating to
the second-half o f the twelfth century which w as found in old
Riazan’ read: ’’N ew good wine sent to the prince [by] Bogunko.”56
85
In a similar vein, an amphora o f the late twelfth century from Pinsk

had the follow ing inscription: ’’Iaropolk’s w ine.” It has been sug-
gested that the vessel belonged to Prince Iaropolk Georgevich w ho
celebrated his wedding in Pinsk during 1192.57 These inscriptions
reinforce our conclusions based on the archaeological data regard-
ing the nature o f the market for wine in the R us’ lands. Members o f
the urban elite, and princes were at the top level o f this elite,
constituted the main secular market for imported Byzantine wine.
These inscriptions demonstrate that the princes dealt with w ine
merchants like Bogunko who claimed that they were providing
them with ’’new good ” wine. The princes also put their name on the
amphorae containing their wine for special occasions such as w ed-
dings. Wine was expensive enough to justify measures to limit its
consumption to ’’authorized” persons.
An interesting inscription was found on a twelfth-century am-
phora discovered beneath the floor o f the altar o f St. Sofia cathedral
in Kiev. The inscription read: ’’W hite wine zakova . . . (?).”58 Since
white wine could be used in the liturgy, it appears that the clerics o f
St. Sophia kept supplies o f both red and w hile wine and, when
necessary, marked an amphora to indicate which was which. It may
also be that these clerics had developed a taste for white wine.
While the meaning o f the word wine in the old Rus’ language is
clear, there is som e ambiguity about the meaning o f the word oil or
maslo. W hile m aslo can mean olive oil, is can also refer to other
types o f oil or even butter. However, L.A. Golubeva, like most other
Russian scholars, believes that amphorae were used to transport
olive oil and not these other oils. A s evidence, she cites the R us’
inscription ”m aslo ” found on an amphorae shard from B eloozero.59
Since amphorae were traditionally used to store and carry olive oil
throughout the Mediterranean and Black Seas, the assumption o f
Golubeva and others rests on a sound foundation. Som eone in
Beloozero apparently found it necessary to write ’’o il” on an ampho-
ra to designate its contents.
Two birch bark scrolls from Novgorod contain references o f
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Prayer, Illumination, a n d G oo d Times . . .
interest to us. The first, scroll No. 585, comes from usad’ba G of the
Troitskii excavation and dates from the late 1080s to the first-
quarter of the twelfth century. It reads: ’’From Nezhata [take]:
cherries, wine, vinegar, and flower, Ivan’s coat and a frying pan.”60
It is significant that wine is listed along with such mundane items as
cherries, vinegar, and a frying pan. It may be that cheaper varieties
of wine were available to a relatively large percentage of the popu-
lation, i.e., inexpensive wine was not a luxury confined just to the
pallets of the elite. The second scroll, No. 379, dates from the late
twelfth century to the 1230s and comes from usad’ba D of the
Nerevskii excavations. While largely unreadable, it seems to be a
request to send an amphora (korchaga) to someone. Since these
vessels were used primarily to ship wine and oil, it is reasonable to
conclude that the scroll has something to do with the transmission of
wine or oil. Both scrolls thus reinforce the idea that wine was a
fairly available commodity in Novgorod which was regularly dis-
patched throughout the city.
To summarize the above, wine and oil were two of Byzantium’s
gifts to Russia. While little studied and lacking the ’’glamour” of
such topics as conversion, icons, monasticism, and church architec-
ture, wine and oil can tell us much about the practical aspects of
Byzantine influence upon Russia. The Rus’ not only received their
religion from Constantinople, but they found that this religion re-
quired the constant import of wine and oil necessary for the church
services. And, much of this wine and oil came from Byzantine areas
such as the Crimea. The Rus’ do not seem to have objected to this
dependency upon Byzantium and the Black Sea. In fact, long before
conversion the Rus’ elite had developed a taste for Greek wine
while the prohibition against alcohol was one reason Vladimir and
his retinue rejected Islam. The Rus’ liked wine whether it was drunk
at parties and meals or consumed as part of the communion service.
The church, however, preached the drinking of wine in moderation.
In any event, there was a growing market for wine and oil in the
Rus’ lands fueled by the spread of Orthodoxy and the desire of
87
provincial elites to share in the liquid luxuries enjoyed by their

counterparts in Kiev.
This growing market necessitated a significant commercial in-
frastructure whose purpose was to supply all parts of the Rus’ land,
from Novgorod in the north to Pereiaslav’ in the south, with a
regular supply of wine and oil. The tales from the Paterik suggest
that this system did not always function perfectly and that wine and
oil were expensive. Priests and monks in various parts of the Rus’
lands could run low on wine and oil. In such cases, they could
borrow from a neighboring church, nunnery, or monastery or appeal
to the generosity of their secular patrons and other members of the
secular elite. We have not found any source that describes what
happened when a church had no wine for the communion service.
But, contingency rules for such circumstances must have existed.
The wine and oil destined for the Rus’ lands was collected along
the northern coasts of the Black Sea. Some of this wine probably
came from the Mediterranean. Excavations at almost all the Greek
and Roman towns of the northern Black Sea coast have unearthed
shards from amphora made at various places in the Mediterranean
and Aegean seas. Wine and oil had been shipped to the northern
Black Sea ever since the Greeks first colonized this area c. 700 B.C.
In addition, the Greeks began to produce wine in various places
along the northern Black Sea coast and this winemaking tradition
has continued until the present time. The areas most often associat-
ed with wine production here are the Crimea, the Taman’ peninsula
and adjoining regions, and the lower Don. We have referred to the
wine which went north as Byzantine for the sake of simplicity;
much of the wine was Byzantine although some came from areas
outside the Empire.
The wine merchants carried the wine and oil north from the
Black Sea coast in boats and carts. Ships were obviously preferred if
they were available. The classic account of the Rus’ trade with
Constantinople, attributed to the Emperor Constantine Porphyro-
genitus ca. 950, gives a detailed description of the trip from Kiev to
88
Constantinople.6' Unfortunately, it says nothing about the voyage

back to Kiev. We would very much have appreciated an explanation
of how the Rus’ merchants sailed upstream along the Dnepr. Never-
theless, boats were used at least for part of the voyage between the
northern Black Sea and Kiev. During the period when Nikon was
abbot of the Caves Monastery (ca. 1077-1088), Greek icon-painters
from Constantinople arrived in Kiev. It turned out that Greek and
Abkhazian merchants had accompanied the icon-painters on their
trip to Kiev and specific reference is made to the fact that they had
all come to Kanev, south of Kiev along the Dnepr, ”in our boats.”
The icon-painters also made several references to their boat moving
upstream.62 At the same time, the account of Rus’ merchants who
encountered both Polovtsian khans and Rus’ princes in 1184 clearly
suggests that these merchants had travelled by land across the
steppe and forest-steppe rather than by the Dnepr.63 In this case, the
merchants would use carts to transport their goods. This report may
well be connected to the accounts in the Rus’ chronicles which
mention the zaloznyi route that was apparently used by those mer-
chants {zalozniki) who travelled between the lower Don and Kiev.64
A very recent study derives zalozniki from ”loza” or vine and argues
that the ’’vine route” was used by merchants who brought wine to
Kiev from the lower Don/Sea of Azov as well as the Crimea.65
William of Rubruck, writing ca. 1254, described how Rus’ mer-
chants used carts to carry their furs and salt and how the Rus’ in a
village along the Don helped to ferry a caravan of merchants across
the river.66What Rubruck, in fact, encountered was a fairly sophisti-
cated infrastructure that enabled groups of merchants to transport
large quantities of goods overland following well established routes
along which necessary support services, such as aid in crossing
rivers, existed. By the mid twelfth century this sophisticated infra-
structure, known as the zaloznyi route, already existed and made it
possible to export huge quantities of wine and much oil from the
northern Black Sea to towns and hamlets all over the Rus’ lands.
In the Mediterranean world, wine and (olive) oil were also trans-
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Prayer, Illumination, a nd G o o d Tim es, .,
ported in winebags and ’’skins.” There is a reference to winebags in

connection with the Varangians or Vikings in Byzantine service.67
The documents found in the Cairo Geniza also mention ’’skins of
oil” several times. In one case, they note ”31 new large skins of
(olive) oil” which apparently amounted to 1240 liters.68 This data
indicates that wine and olive oil may well have been transported to
Rus’ in leather skins or bags and, most certainly, they were carried
within Rus’ in such containers.
The wine and oil coming north into Rus’ by boat and cart were
initially brought to the major cities of southern Rus’. Among these
towns, Kiev ranked first and foremost. Kiev was the greatest city in
pre-Mongol Rus’ and, as the political and ecclesiastical capital as
well as the major commercial center, it had a large, rich, and
diversified elite as well as numerous churches, monasteries, and
nunneries. It was the greatest Rus’ market for Byzantine wine and
oil. Kiev was also the key intermediary in the shipment of wine and
oil to many of the other Rus’ lands. Chernigov lay along the Desna,
a leading tributary of the Dnepr. Smolensk on the upper Dnepr was
the center of a growing principality which had good, well estab-
lished routes leading to the towns along the upper West Dvina, the
upper Volga, the upper Neman, and the Novgorod lands. Novgorod,
in turn, was the center from which wine and oil were shipped to such
by-towns as Pskov and Staraia Ladoga. For reasons which are still
not clear, part of the wine and oil reaching Kiev was placed in
locally made amphorae which were quite different from Black
Sea amphorae. It remains to be seen whether this change in vessel
was done to differentiate quality, color, cost, or some other attribute
of the wine. It is also possible that some of the amphorae had
developed cracks while in transport and their wine had to be put
into new, Kievan amphorae. Be this as it may, there is no doubt that
Kiev was the great center of the wine and oil trade in the pre-
Mongol era.
Kiev was not the only key transmission center in the distribution
of wine and oil. The many amphorae shards from the Riazan’ lands,
90
Prayer, Illumination, and Good Times . . .
for example, suggest that another route may have led north along the
Don and then, by portage, across to the Oka system along which
Riazan’ was located. This route had been utilized by Rus’ merchants
travelling to Khazaria earlier and was used by Muscovite Metropol-
itans journeying to Constantinople in the fourteenth century.69 A
good part of the wine and oil which reached Vladimir-SuzdaP
probably went by this route from the Sea of Azov via the Don.
Once the wine and oil reached the major distribution centers like
Kiev, Smolensk, Novgorod, and Riazan’, local merchants took over.
There were most likely warehouses near the river ports of these
centers or in their commercial section. Here the wholesale, interna-
tional merchants sold their wine to the regional and local merchants.
Bogunko, who supplied wine to the prince of Riazan’ in the twelfth
century, may well have been one of these local merchants. The
major churches and monasteries as well as the princes, the leading
members of their retinues, and the wealthy merchants and artisans
no doubt dealt with merchants who specialized in the wine trade and
had good contacts among the long-distance traders. After leaving
the ports, some of the wine was apparently transferred into barrels.
Barrels were presumably easier to store and transport than ampho-
rae. But, part of the wine was apparently preserved in the amphorae
in which it had been shipped from the northern Black Sea.
The local and regional merchants then transported the wine and
oil from the major towns to the smaller towns and even hamlets. It
would have been these merchants who carried wine from towns
such as Smolensk along the upper Dnepr to Novogrudok along the
upper Neman. As we have seen, the urban elites in the secondary
and tertiary towns of Rus’ constituted a large and profitable market
for wine while the churches and monasteries in such towns also
needed wine and oil. Finally, local merchants supplied wine and oil
reaching the lesser towns to the churches in villages and small
hamlets. The system was designed to ensure that all the ecclesiasti-
cal and secular consumers got the wine they wanted. It is even
conceivable that the Orthodox church had its own system which
91
attempted to guarantee that all religious institutions received suffi-

cient communion wine. It is not clear what would have happened if
churches and monasteries ran out of wine. But, a severe wine
shortage would certainly have disrupted the liturgy.
In conclusion, a study of the imports of wine and oil into north-
ern and central Rus’ provides some very interesting insights into the
more mundane aspects of Russia’s Byzantine inheritance as well as
some of the more practical sides of the conversion to Orthodoxy. In
this brief study, we have only considered some of the evidence and
briefly examined a few of the important questions. It is to be hoped
that future studies will explore these neglected and ignored ques-
tions more fully using all the available data. Finally, it is essential
that our colleagues in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine devote more
attention to publishing all the information on amphora finds from
the Rus’ lands in detail. Much of the published material only ap-
pears in summary form, e.g., ’’many shards of amphorae were found
at the site”, and there is much archival data on amphora shards that
has yet to be published. The study of Byzantine wine and oil imports
into northern and central Russia is just beginning.
Notes
Periodical Abbreviations Used in the Notes
AO = Arkheologicheskie otkrytiia
KSIA = Kratkie soobshcheniia Instituta arkheologii
SA = Sovetskaia arkheologiia
1 Thomas S. Noonan, ’’Technology Transfer Between Byzantium and Eastern
Europe: A Case Study o f the Glass Industry in Early Russia,” in The Medieval
Mediterranean: Cross-Cultural Contacts, ed. M.J. Chiat and K.L. Reyerson
(St. Cloud, MN, 1988), 105-111; Id., The Millennium of Russia’s First Per-
estroika: The Origins of a Kievan Glass Industry under Prince Vladimir
[Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, Occasional Papers #233]
(Washington, D.C., 1989).
2 Novoe v arkheologii Kieva (Kiev, 1981), 2 86 -2 88 , where it is argued that even
the chemical composition o f the red-clay amphorae from the northern Black
92
THE BUOYANCY OF BYZANTIUM BEFORE 1204 ----------- 181
Sea and Byzantium differed from that of the gray-clay amphorae made in Kiev.
3 V.L. Ianin, ’’Osnovnye istoricheskie itogi arkheologicheskogo izucheniia
Novgoroda,” Novgorodskie arkheologicheskie chteniia (Novgorod, 1994), 10.
4 B.A. Kolchin, ’’Khronologiia novgorodskikh drevnostei,” Novgorodskii
sbornik: 50 let raskopok Novgoroda (Moscow, 1982), 174-175.
5 E.A. Rybina, Arkheologicheskie ocherki istorii novgorodskoi torgovli, X-XV
w. (Moscow, 1978), 26-29 and fig. 2.
6 B.A. Kolchin, A.S. Khoroshev, V.L. Ianin, Usad’ba novgorodskogo khudozh-
nika (Moscow, 1981), 86 - 8 8 ; A.S. Khoroshev, ’’Topografiia, stratigrafiia,
khronologiia i usadebnaia planirovka Troitskogo raskopa (usad’ba A),” Novgo-
rodskie arkheologicheskie chteniia (Novgorod, 1994), graphs 7-8, p. 60.
7 Kolchin, Khoroshev, Ianin, Usad’ba novgorodskogo khudozhnika; Khoroshev,
’Topografiia, stratigrafiia, khronologiia,” 65-66.
8 A. I. Romanchuk, ’’Graffiti na srednevekovoi keramike iz Khersonesa,” SA,
1986, No. 4,180.
9 The data for the chart on the Beloozero finds derives from L.A. Golubeva, Ves’
i slaviane na Belom ozere: X-XIII w. (Moscow, 1973), 189. Also see L.A.
Golubeva, ’’Amfory i krasnoglinianye kuvshiny Beloozera,” KSIA> 135(1973),
101-104.
10 Romanchuk, ’’Graffiti na srednevekovoi keramike,” 180.
11 E.N. Nosov, Novgorodskoe (Riurikovo) gorodishche (Leningrad, 1990), 138.
12 E.N. Nosov, ’’Issledovanie Riurikovo gorodishcha i pamiatnikov novgorodskoi
okrugi,” AO 1985 goda (Moscow, 1987), 22.
13 V.P. Petrenko, ’’Raboty Staroladozhskoi ekspeditsii,” AO 1977 goda (Moscow,
1978), 27; V.P. Petrenko, V.N. Smimov, ’’Raskopki bliz Variazhskoi ulitsy v
Staroi Ladoge” AO 1975 goda (Moscow, 1976), 36; E.A. Riabinin, ’’Raskopki
v Staroi Ladoge,” AO 1982 goda (Moscow, 1984), 30; V.P. Petrenko, A.A.
Nekhaev, T.B. Shitova, ’’Raskopki v sevemoi chasti Staroi Ladogi,” AO 1974
goda (Moscow, 1975), 33.
14 V.V. Sedov, S.V. Belitskii, ’’Pskovskaia ekspeditsiia v 1980-1984 gg.,” KSIAy
188(1986), 80; I.K. Labutina, ’’Prodolzhenie okhrannykh raskopok na. ul.
Lenina v Pskove,” AO 1978 goda. (Moscow, 1979), 21; Id., ’’Izuchenie
nachal’nykh otlozhenii kul’tumogo sloia v predelakh sten 1309 g.,” Arkheo-
logicheskoe izuchenie Pskova (Moscow, 1983), Table I, p. 140 and p. 141 ; S.V.
Belitskii, N.A. Belitskaia, ’’Novye raskopki Pskovskogo gorodishcha,” AO
1977 goda (Moscow. 1978), 7; I.O. Kolosova, N.N. Miliutina, ’’’Bol’shoi
kurgan’ drevnerusskogo nekropolia Pskova (pogrebeniia 57 i 59),” Arkheolog-
icheskoe izuchenie Pskova, II, (Pskov, 1994), 121, 123; I.K. Labutina, ’’Rasko-
pki v Pskove,” AO 1974 goda (Moscow, 1975), 22; Id., ’’Raskopki v
Pskove,”^ 0 1970 goda (Moscow, 1971), 21.
15 A.A. Aleksandrov, et al, ’’Issledovaniia na Pskovshchine,” AO 1986 goda
(Moscow, 1988), 3.
16 A.F. Medvedev, ’’Novye dannye o Staroi Russe,” AO 1967 goda (Moscow,
93
Prayer. Illumination, and G ood Times . . .
1968), 19; V.G. Mironova, ’’Istoriia arkheologicheskogo izucheniia Staroi

Russy,” Materialy po arkheologii Novgoroda: 1988 (Moscow, 1990), 211.
17 V.V. Sedov, ’’Issledovaniia v Suzdale,” AO 1970 goda (Moscow, 1971), 87;
M.V. Sedova, ’’Epigraficheskie nakhodki iz Suzdalia,” KSIA, 190(1987), 8 ;
A.D. Varganov, ”Iz istorii Suzdalia (IX-XIIIvv.),” Kratkie soobshcheniia In-
stituta istorii materiaVnoi kuVtury, 12(1946), 133; M.V. Sedova, DA.
Belen’kaia, ’’Raskopki v Suzdale i Iur’eve-Pol’skom,” AO 1975 goda (Mos-
cow, 1976), 8 6 ; M.V. Sedova, ’’Raskopki v g. Suzdale,” AO 1985 goda
(Moscow, 1987), 100.
18 N.N. Voronin, ’’Oboronitel’nye sooruzheniia Vladimira XII v.,” Materialy i
issledovaniia po arkheologii drevnerusskikh gorodov [Materialy i issledovaniia
po arkheologii SSSR, No. 11] (Moscow-Leningrad, 1949), 233.
19 N.N. Voronin, ’’Raskopki v Iaroslavle,” in Materialy i issledovaniia, No. 11,
185.
20 N.N. Voronin, ’’Raskopki v Pereslavle-Zalesskom,” in Materialy i issledovani-
ia, No. 11, 199.
21 M.V. Sedova, ’’Torgovye sviazi Iaropolcha Zalesskogo,” KSIA, 135(1973),
42-43; Id., Iaropolch Zalesskii (Moscow, 1978), 94.
22 A.V. Nikitin, ’’Gorodishche v g. Ustiuzhe,” KSIA, 110(1967), 117.
23 A.F. Medvedev, ’’Pervye raskopki v Gorodtse na Volge,” KSIA, 110( 1967), 74;
Id., ’’Novye materialy k istorii Gorodtsa na Volge,” KSIA, 113(1968), 33.
24 A.G, Veksler, L.V. Kondrashev, ’’Okhrannye arkheologicheskie raboty v
Moskve na Manezhnoi ploshchadi,” AO 1994 goda (Moscow, 1995), 74;
Varganov, ”Iz istorii,” 133; N.S. Vladimirskaia, ’’Raskopki v Moskovskom
Kremlq ” AO 1979 goda (Moscow, 1980), 48.
25 V.P. Darkevich, G.V. Borisevich, Drevniaia stolitsa Riazanskoi zemli (Mos-
cow, 1995), 52, 163, 180-181, 191-193, 195.
26 A.E. Leont’ev et al, ’’Issledovaniia srednevekovykh pamiatnikov v doline r.
Proni,” AO 1969 goda (Moscow, 1970), 77; V.A. Mal’m et al, ’’Raskopki v
doline r. Proni,” AO 1970 goda (Moscow, 1971), 89-90.
27 T.N. Nikol’skaia, Zemlia Viatichei: K istorii naseleniia verkhnei i srednei Oki v
IX -X lIlw . (Moscow, 1981), 285.
28 T.N. Nikol’skaia, Gorodishche Slobodka XII-XII1 vv. (Moscow, 1987), 141.
29 V.Iu. Koval’, ’’Okhrannye raskopki Rostislavlia-Riazanskogo i razvedki v
zapadnom raione Moskovskoi oblasti,” AO 1994 goda (Moscow, 1995), 110.
30 N.E. Chalykh, ’’Raskopki v Muróme,” AO 1986 goda (Moscow, 1988), 101.
31 T.N. Nikol’skaia, ’’Raskopki na gorodishche Spas-Gorodok,” AO 1979 goda
(Moscow, 1980), 6 8 .
32 Sedova, ’’Epigraficheskie,” 8 .
33 Sedova, Iaropolch , 94, who emphasized that ’’Expensive wine and oil, trans-
ported in amphorae, were luxury goods and accessible only to representatives
of the feudal hierarchy.”.
34 Ia.G. Zverugo, Verkhnee Poneman'e v IX-XIII w . (Minsk, 1989), 154.
94
Prayer, Illumination, a n d G o o d Times . . .
35 F.D. Gurevich, Drevnii Novogrudok (Leningrad, 1981 ), 150-151.

36 ia.G. Zverugo, Drevnii Volkovysk (Minsk, 1975), 80.
37 G.V. Shtykhov, Goroda Polotskoi zemli (Minsk, 1978), 115; G.V. Shtykhov,
Drevnii Polotsk (Minsk, 1975), 87.
38 N.N. Voronin, Drevnee Grodno (Moscow, 1954), 60; O.A. Trusov, M.A.
Tkachev, A.K. Kravtsevich, ’’Issledovaniia v Grodno,” AO 1986 goda (Mos-
cow, 1988), 381-382.
39 P.A. Rappoport, E.V. Sholokhova, ’’Raskopki tserkvi u ust’ia r. Churilovki v
Smolenske,” KSIA, 144(1975), 78; N.V. Sapozhnikov, ”0 raskopkakh v g.
Smolenske,” AO 1981 godo. (Moscow, 1983), 8 6 ; Id., ”0 raskopkakh tserkvi
Ionna Bogoslova v Smolenske,” A 0 1982 (Moscow, 1984), 81 ; Id., ’’Arkhitek-
tumye raskopki v Smolenske,” AO 1986 goda (Moscow, 1988), 8 6 .
40 F.E. Modestov, ”Issledovaniia Smolenskogo muzeia-zapovednika,” AO 1986
41 K.V. Pavlova, '’Raskopki gorodishcha u derevni Osovik,” AO 1975 goda
(Moscow, 1976), 79; Id., ’’Raskopki u der. Osovik,” AO 1976 goda (Moscow,
1977), 64.
42 PA. Rappoport, E.V. Sholokhova, ’’Raskopki v Roslavle,” AO 1975 goda
(Mosocw, 1976), 84.
43 V.V. Sedov, Sel 'skie poseleniia tsentraVnykh raionov Smolenskoi zemli (VIII-
XVvv.) (Moscow, 1960), 8 8 .
44 A.N. Liavdinskii, ’’Nekotorye dannye o gorodishchakh Smolenskoi gubeme,”
Nauchnye izvestiia Smolenskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta , VIII, No. 3,
1926, 237-238,245.
45 G.V. Shtykhov, Goroda Polotskoi zemli (Minsk, 1978), 115; F.D. Gurevich,
’’Sviazi drevnikh gorodov Belorusii s prichemomor’em i Sredizemnomor’em,”
in Drevnerusskoe gosudarstvo i slaviane (Minsk, 1983), 64 and figure 13.
46 Pavel A. Rappoport, Building the Churches o f Kievan Russia (Aldershot,
1995), 78-81, where the ’’resonators” found in other Kievan churches are
mentioned and there is a good drawing of several types.
47 Byzantine and Crimean amphorae, for example, have been found in large
numbers throughout Kiev especially in strata of the second half of the eleventh
and twelfth centuries. At one twelfth-century usad’ba on ulitsa Frunze, four-
teen amphorae were noted while twelve were unearthed at a nearby residence.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, no less than 80 amphorae were uncovered in
Kiev. See P.P. Tolochko, Drevnii Kiev (Kiev, 1983), 176.
48 The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text, tr. and ed. S.H. Cross and
O.P.Sherbowitz-Wetzor, (Cambridge, Mass., 1953), s.a. 907, p. 65.
49 Ibid., s.a. 969, p. 86 .
50 Ibid., s.a. 986, p. 97.
51 ’’The Izbomik of 1076,” in The Edificatory Prose o f Kievan R u s\ tr. W.R.
Veder, intro. W.R.Veder and A. A. Turilov [Harvard Library of Early Ukraini-
an Literature, English Translations: VI], (Cambridge, Mass.: 1994), 98.
95
Prayer, Illumination, and G oo d Times . ..
52 The Paterik o f the Kievan Caves Monastery, tr. Muriel Heppell [Harvard
Library of Early Ukrainian Literature, English Translations: I], (Cambridge,
Mass., 1989), 68-69.
53 Ibid., 6 8 .
54 It is interesting that medieval Russia, which possessed so much wax, would
import olive oil for lighting. Roman Kovalev has found, however, that a little
olive oil provides illumination for quite some time. Ceramic lamps used to hold
the oil have been found in Kiev and other Rus’ towns. See P.P. Tolochko, Kiev
i Kievskaia zemlia v epokhu feodaVnoi razdroblennosti XII-XIII vekov (Kiev,
1980), 50, for a picture of two of these lamps.
55 The Kievan Chronicle, tr. and comm. Lisa Heinrich (Ann Arbor, 1978), 58.
56 A.A. Medyntseva, ’’Epigraficheskie nakhodki iz Staroi Riazani,” Drevnosti
Slavian i Rusi, ed. B.A. Timoshchuk (Moscow, 1988), 248-249.
57 B.A. Rybakov, Russkie datirovannye nadpisi: X I-X IV vv. (Moscow, 1964), 34.
58 S.A. Vysotskii, Kievskie graffiti: XI-XVII vv. (Kiev, 1985), 106 [Kievan in-
scription no. 410].
59 Golubeva, Ves ’ i slaviane, 180.
60 A.A. Zalizniak, Drevnenovgorodskii dialekt (Moscow, 1995), 243.
61 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Administrando Imperio, ed. Gy. Moravcsik,
tr. R.J.H. Jenkins, (Budapest, 1949), Ch. 9, pp. 56-63.
62 Paterik , 11-12.
63 The Kievan Chronicle, s.a. 1184, p. 403.
64 The Kievan Chronicle, sa. 1168 & 1170, pp. 273, 287. There is a very useful
discussion of this route in A. Spitsyn, ”Torgovye puti Kievskoi Rusi,” in
Sbornik statei posviashchennykh S.F. Platonovu (St. Petersburg, 1911), 246-
250.
65 Simon Franklin & Jonathan Shepard, The Emergence o f Rus 750-1200 (Lon-
don-New York, 1996), 325.
66 William of Rubruck, ’’The Journey of William of Rubruck,” in The Mongol
Mission, ed. Christopher Dawson, (New York: 1955), 92-93, 114. The
Hypathian Chronicle, (Kievan Chronicle, s.a. 1146, p. 49) mentions the ”sup-
ply carts” of a Rus’ prince.
67 Heimskringla Saga , tr. A.H. Smith (New York, 1932, reprint 1990), 706-707.
68 S.D. Goiten, Letters o f the Jewish Traders (Princeton, 1973, p. 87 (ca. 1020), p.
104 (ca. 1040), and p. 140 (ca. 1062-1073).
69 For the account of Ignatius of Smolensk about the journey of Metropolitan
Pimen to Constantinople in 1389 see G.P. Majeska, Russian Travelers to
Constantinople in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (Washington, 1984),
76-87.
96
8
Wine and Oil for All the Rus’! The Importation of

Byzantine Wine and Olive Oil to Kievan Rus’
Thomas S. Noonan and Roman K. Kovalev
Introduction
In the previous volume of this journal, we examined the import of
Byzantine wine and oil into the northern and central Rus’ lands
during the pre-Mongol era.1 While this was probably the most
exhaustive study of the topic published outside of Russia, it did not
address a number of important issues. Since the focus was northern
and central Russia, the southern Rus’ lands were omitted. The
proximity of these southern lands to Byzantium meant, however,
that much Byzantine wine and oil were imported into them. The first
objective of the present study is therefore to consider these imports
into European Russia and Ukraine. Since amphorae were used to
transport wine and oil, this section will concentrate upon the finds of
amphorae shards from various southern Rus’ sites.2 While this sec-
tion does not pretend to be a comprehensive catalog of all the finds
o f amphorae shards in all the southern Rus’ lands, the large body of
evidence that has been gathered demonstrates that significant quan-
tities of Byzantine wine and oil were imported to this region during
the Kievan period.
Since the publication of our initial study, new evidence has come
to light on amphorae finds from northern and central Russia. The
second objective o f this study is thus to enumerate these new finds. It
is hoped that the discussion o f the data on amphorae finds from all of
Rus’ will provide a more comprehensive picture of this important but
much neglected aspect of Byzantine commerce with Kievan Rus’.
Wine a n d Oil For All th e Rus'!
In addition to the discussion o f the amphorae shards from all the

Rus’ lands, a number of other topics related to the importation of
wine and oil also need to be discussed. These topics include the
growing evidence for the existence of wine cellars, the many uses of
olive oil in Kievan society, the various types of vessels used in the
consumption o f wine, and some further comments on attitudes
toward wine. This list of topics is not intended to be exhaustive.
Rather, it is meant to suggest that the study of wine and oil imports
must go beyond plotting finds of amphorae shards on a map and
graphing the shards from different strata of the same site.
It is heartening to note the recent publication of several impor-
tant Russian studies on the medieval Byzantine amphorae found in
the Rus’ lands. For example, R.L. Rozenfel’dt contributed a short
but useful chapter on imported amphorae to the major study on
everyday life in medieval Rus’. Unfortunately, his map of the distri-
bution of amphorae only shows about a third of all of the sites where
amphorae shards have been found and he gives a very traditional
account of the origins o f the amphorae (i.e., he suggests the Cri-
mea).3 These short-comings can no doubt be ascribed to the fact that
it took so long to publish this volume. Rozenfel’dt’s discussion now
seems a little outmoded precisely because recent years have brought
a new era in Russian studies of medieval Byzantine amphorae. The
pioneers in this “renaissance” are I.V. Volkov and Iu.V. Koval’. In a
series of articles published over the past decade, Volkov has argued
convincingly that the overwhelming majority of the amphorae
found in the Rus’ lands came from Byzantium.4 This interpretation
rejects the former view held by many historians and archaeologists
that some amphorae were made in the Rus’ lands (i.e., in Kiev itself)
and that the Crimea was a key source of wine for the Rus’ lands
during the Kievan era. Koval’ has carried this line of thought even
further. In his 1998 dissertation, Koval’ concluded that 9/10 of all of
the amphorae found in the Rus’ lands came from the Byzantine
territories of northern Anatolia (Trebizond) and the southern coast
of the Sea of Marmara (Triglia5).6 He also noted that medieval
119
Thomas S. N oonan & Roman K. Kovalev
amphorae have been found at 149 Eastern European sites o f the

Kievan period.7 The revolutionary studies o f Volkov and Koval’
alter much of what was formerly believed about the source of the
wine and oil found in Kievan Rus’. Their conclusions lend legitima-
cy to our use of the word “Byzantine” in connection with the wine
and oil imported into Kievan Rus’.
While the studies of Volkov and Koval’ have revolutionized our
thinking about the origin o f the oil and wine found in the Rus’ lands
and expanded our knowledge o f the number of sites where ampho-
rae shards have been unearthed, they have not yet addressed many
of the topics regarding the oil and wine trade enumerated above. It is
to be hoped that Russian and/or Ukrainian archaeologists will ex-
plore several of these topics in greater depth. In the meantime, it is
hoped that our analysis may stimulate a more comprehensive study
of the Byzantine wine and oil imported to Rus’.
Amphorae Shards from

the Southern Rus’ Lands
In our earlier study, the amphorae finds from northern and central
Russia were presented according to the principality in which they
were found. The reason for this is that most of the finds came from
relatively large and familiar towns that are normally associated with
a given principality. Many of the amphorae finds from the southern
Rus’ lands have been unearthed in small villages and hamlets whose
location is not well known. Furthermore, since this area lay closer to
the Black Sea, the riverine routes by which the wine and oil were
brought north are much clearer. Consequently, it makes more sense
to ignore the political boundaries of principalities and instead focus
on the routes used to import wine and oil into the southern Rus’
lands. This “catalog” will thus be organized by river basins going
from west to east (i.e., from the Carpathians/lower Danube to the
Don/Donets rivers). Within each river basin, the sites are listed
going upstream from the mouth of the river to its upper reaches.
120
Wine a n d Oil For All the Rus'!
The Prut’ river flows along the southwestern frontiers of the

Rus’ lands. The Rus’ towns all lie along the middle and upper
reaches of the Prut’. Amphorae shards have been uncovered at three
sites in the middle Prut’ basin. At Gorodishche Revno I, shards of
amphorae were found in a building dating to the X century.8“Many”
shards of amphorae were unearthed at Lenkovtsy which flourished
from ca. 1150-ca. 1250.9 Finally, at Molodiia along the Dereglui
river, a tributary to the Prut’, archaeologists reported amphorae
shards.10 While the number of sites from the Prut’ basin with am-
phorae is not great, it would appear that Byzantine wine and oil were
sporadically imported into this far-western region of Rus’ as early
as the X century and that these imports continued throughout the
Kievan period.
Amphorae shards have been found at a number of Rus’ sites
along the Dnestr river and its tributaries. At Belgorod-Dnestrovskii
in the mouth of the Dnestr, archaeologists uncovered “medieval”
amphorae shards.11 While this was not a Rus’ settlement and the
exact dating of the shards is unclear, these finds seem to suggest that
imports of wine and oil from Byzantium went through a harbor/
market located at the mouth of the Dnestr. A little further upstream
at Lukashevka V, located just within the Rus’ lands at the conflu-
ence of the Dnestr and Reuta rivers, excavators found amphorae
shards.12 Amphorae shards have also been reported from a number
of Rus’ settlements along the middle course o f the Dnestr: Daraba-
ny-Shchob,13 Staraia Ushitsa,14 Bakota,15 Grinchuk,16 Perebykovt-
sy,17 and Vasil’ev.18 Most of these settlements seem to have flour-
ished during the XII and first-half o f the XIII centuries. Wine and
oil were also imported into small towns on the upper reaches of the
tributaries of the middle Dnestr, e.g., Gorodok on the Vereshchitsa
river.19Wine and oil also reached a number o f towns along the upper
Dnestr. Amphorae shards have turned up at such major cities as
Galich,20Zvenigorod (460 shards thus far),21 and L’vov (both on the
territory of former Onufriev Monastery as well as the Zamkovaia
gora).22 Zudech (amphorae shards of the XII-XIII centuries) was
121
one o f the small towns in this region to import wine and oil.23
Wine and oil were also transported north from the Dnestr basin
to the Rus’ towns along the Western Bug and San rivers. Amphorae
shards have been found, for example, at Vladimir in Volynia24 and
Belz25 along the Western Bug as well as Peremyshl’26 on the San.
Amphorae shards have been uncovered at numerous towns and
villages in the Dnepr basin. Hundreds and even thousands of shards
have been uncovered at some of these sites. There is no doubt that
huge quantities of wine and oil were transported up the Dnepr and
then dispersed to many Rus’ towns. In the lower Dnepr basin,
amphorae shards were found at Berezan’ and Velikii Pot’omkinskii
Island in the mouth of the river.27 In the general area of the Dnepr
rapids, shards of Byzantine amphorae were reported from the island
of Khortitsa, at Kichkas where excavations revealed over 1000
shards,28 and at Staraia Igren’29 at the confluence of the Dnepr and
Samara rivers. The massive numbers of amphorae shards from the
mouth of the Dnepr as well as the area of the Dnepr rapids point to
the existence of the harbors used by merchants who imported wine,
oil, and other southern products to the Rus’ lands.30
In the middle Dnepr basin, amphorae shards have been found at
several sites south of Kiev including Kniazh’ia gora near Kan’ev,31
PereiaslavF Khmel’nitskii,32 Monastyrek (shards of the XII-XIII
centuries),33 and Ivan-Gora (shards o f Byzantine amphorae o f the
XII-XIII centuries).34 It is instructive to note that “massive” num-
bers of amphorae shards were uncovered at a fortified site near the
village of Grigorovka.35 This settlement may well have functioned
as one of the key way-stations/harbors in the import of wine and oil
to Kiev.
Kiev was undoubtedly the biggest single market in all the Rus’
lands for Byzantine wine and oil. Large numbers of amphorae
shards have been found at practically every dig throughout the city
including the Podol region along the Dnepr itself, the upper-city, the
Kopyrevskii End as well as in the periphery of the city.36 Some of
the specific sites in and around Kiev where amphorae shards have
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Wine a n d Oil For All the Rus'I
been excavated include: Zhytnii rynok;37 the digs on Zhytomirska

St., No.4 and Volodimyrska, N o.7-9;38 the digs of Frunze St., No. 17
and Livera St.;39 near the church of St. Sophia;40 in “Iaroslav’s” City
(including the Golden Gates);41 and, at Reitarskaia St., No.33.42 An
immense number of amphorae shards came to light during the
1978-1982 excavations in the “upper part of Kiev.”43 This area of
town (lying along the medieval street that led from cathedral of St.
Sophia to the Zhidovskie/Jewish Gates) belonged to a well-to-do
Kievan population which could afford to purchase much imported
Byzantine wine and oil.44 Numerous amphorae shards were re-
trieved during the 1980-1982 excavations in the northern and north-
western peripheries of the Podol.45 At one residence dating to the
XII century, archaeologists unearthed 625 amphorae shards.46 As
will be discussed later, this residence was in fact the workshop of a
jeweler-artist who used olive oil in making jewelry and in icon
painting. Between 1984 and 1989, hundreds of amphorae shards
turned up in excavations throughout Kiev: Zhytomirska St., No.247
and No.20-22;48 Verkhnii Val St. (where between 15-30% of all of
the ceramic finds were of amphorae shards);49 Andriivska St., No.7-
9;50 Gonchari and Kozhumiaky Sts.;51 Spaskii St.;52 in the Kievan
Caves Monastery;53 and Kitaivskoe selishche on the outskirts of the
city.54 There is no doubt that thousands o f amphorae shards, at a
minimum, have been found in the various excavations in and around
Kiev. Unfortunately, specific data on the quantity and dating of
these shards is almost non-existent. We can only hope that our
Ukrainian colleagues will count, date, and published the amphorae
shards from Kiev.
As was to be expected, many amphorae shards turn up in towns
north of Kiev along the middle Dnepr. At Vyshgorod, for example,
numerous amphorae shards of the XI to early-XIII centuries have
been unearthed.55 Finds of amphorae shards have also been reported
from Liubech north of Vyshgorod.56 Merchants bringing wine and
oil to the north of Russia from Kiev may have stopped at these two
towns.
123
Thomas S. N o onan & Roman K. Kovalev
While much of the wine and oil transported along the middle
Dnepr was either consumed there or shipped north to such towns as
Smolensk and Novgorod, large quantities of both products were
also used in the towns and villages located along the many tributar-
ies along the middle Dnepr.
On the right (west) bank of the Dnepr, shards of Byzantine
amphorae of the XII-XIII centuries were found in Belaia tserkov’
(medieval Iur’ev) along the Ros river.57 Amphorae shards have also
been unearthed in the basin of the Irpen’ river in Belgorod-
Kievskii58 and at a settlement near the village of Doroginka.59At the
former site, the shards apparently came from a princely kitchen.
Amphorae shards have also been excavated at Raikovets gorodish-
che in the basin of the Tetereva river.60 Wine and oil were also
imported to several sites along the Pripiat’ river and its tributaries:
Zaturtsy,61 Muravitsa,62 Peresopnitsa,63 Iziaslavl’ (shards of ampho-
rae dating to XII-XIII centuries),64 and Dorogobuzh.65 At the later
site, over 600 shards were unearthed.66 Wine and oil coming along
the Dnepr were thus brought to a number of settlements located at
some distance from the river itself using its various tributaries.
Many amphorae shards have also been uncovered along the left
(east) bank tributaries of the Dnepr river. Proceeding from south to
north, two sites along the Vorskla river have produced amphorae.
Shards of the XII-XIII centuries were unearthed at the Khotmyzhsk
gorodishche along the upper Vorskla67 while at Zarechnoe, to the
south of Khotmyzhsk, numerous amphorae dating to the XI century
were uncovered.68
Seven sites along the Sula river basin contained amphorae
shards. These include Matveevka,69 Sencha,70 Ksniatin along the
border with the steppe,71 Sviridovka,72 near Chutovka,73 Zhovnino,74
and Voin/Voinskaia Greblia. The latter settlement was located at the
mouth of the Sula and apparently contained a harbor that serviced
the traffic passing via the Dnepr.75 Not surprisingly, the amphorae
shards from Voin dated from the X to the mid-XIII centuries.
Amphorae shards have been reported at many sites along the
124
Wine a n d Oil For All the Rus'l
Desna basin including a number that occur in clusters. For example,

shards have been found at the “Korovel”’ gorodishche76 and at
Glushets77 in the vicinity of Chernigov as well as in Chernigov
itself.78 At Chernigov over 700 amphorae fragments have been
reported including six whole amphorae dating to the XI-XII centu-
ries. In 1998, excavations in the Posad area revealed yet another
whole amphorae.79 A very interesting cluster of six sites with am-
phorae shards was located along the Belous river basin which con-
nected Chernigov with Liubech on the Dnepr. These sites included
Krinitsa,80 Desnianka,81 a settlement near the Tabaevsk cemetery,82
another settlement near Ocheretianaia Gora,83 near Malyi Listven/
Leskovoe (250 shards),84 and near the village of Petrusha located
only 16 km from Liubech.85 The concentration of amphorae shards
in small, rural settlements along the Belous can perhaps be ex-
plained by the fact that a number of princely residences were locat-
ed in this area. In addition, the Belous river was also used as a trade
artery linking Chernigov with Liubech.86 The appearance of ampho-
rae shards in many small villages might also be explained by the
attention devoted to rural settlements by Chernigov archaeologists.
Wine and oil were also exported northeastwards from Chernigov via
the Snov river. Amphorae shards have been found, for example, at
Avtunichi.87
At least three sites with amphorae are located along the Seim
river, one of the main tributaries of the Desna. These sites included
Putivl’,88 a village near Ozarichi,89 and Ryl’sk.90 In the upper Desna
basin, amphorae shards have been uncovered at Novgorod-Sev-
ersk,91 Tselikov Bugor near Novgorod-Seversk,92 and Trubchev.93
These latter three sites raise the possibility that wine and oil were
exported via the Desna to the Ugra-Oka river system and onto
Suzdalia and the Riazan’ lands.
Finally, along the Sozh river north of Liubech, amphorae shards
have been unearthed at two sites: Gomii’94 and Konchantsy.95 The
above material leaves no doubt that large quantities of wine and oil
were shipped north along the Dnepr from the Black Sea and then
125
distributed throughout the entire Dnepr basin from the upper Pripi-
at’ river in the west to the upper Desna basin in the east.
In evaluating the finds from the Don and Northern Donets river
basins, it is well to keep in mind that the amphorae from some of the
sites in this area included both those of the so-called Saltovo type
which date to the Khazar era (up to the mid-X century or so) and
those deposited during the Kievan period which are now considered
of Byzantine origin. Unfortunately, not all of the studies clearly
differentiate between these two types of amphorae. T”mutarakhan’
on the coast of the Taman’ Peninsula was the only Rus’ site in the
Kerch’ Strait for several centuries. While the excavations from the
medieval strata have never been adequately published, it was report-
ed that by the mid-1950s, about 2000 amphorae shards dating to the
IV-XIII centuries had been registered.96 There is no published infor-
mation on the number of shards uncovered in subsequent excava-
tions.97 While most wine and oil connected with these finds comes
from the late-ancient and Khazar eras, there can be not doubt that
significant quantities of these products were available here during
the Kievan period.
Numerous amphorae shards have been found at the Rus’ site of
Kazach’ei Erik located in the mouth of the Don near the city of
Azov. Some of these shards are considered to be of Byzantine
origin. This settlement is thought to have been a way-station along
the trade route leading up the Don river, an interpretation which is
confirmed by the fact that amphorae types found here have been
uncovered in Rus’ towns as far north as Novgorod.98 Further evi-
dence of the movement o f wine and oil through this region comes
from Sambek on the coast of the Sea of Azov where amphorae
shards of the X-XII centuries have been reported.99 Moving up the
Don, large quantities of amphorae shards dating from the X to XII
centuries have been found in Belaia Vezha.100 Belaia Vezha was a
Khazar site of some significance (when it was known as Sarkel) and
it flourished as a Rus’ town for several centuries. Regrettably, there
is no precise data on either the total number of amphorae shards
126
found here nor their chronological distribution, i.e., the relative

numbers dating to the Khazar and Rus’ periods. Nevertheless, one
set of data indicates that between 1949-1951, 17000 amphorae
shards were excavated at Khazar Sarkel.101 There is no doubt that
massive quantities o f wine and oil were being imported into the
lower Don already in the Khazar era. It is to be hoped that the full
publication of the information on amphorae shards from the post-
Khazar era will help us determine the extent to which this com-
merce continued during the Kievan period. While most of the wine
and oil coming into Rus’ came up the Dnepr, we cannot rule out the
import of these products via the Don.
Wine and oil were also exported to the Rus’ lands via the North-
ern Donets, one of the major tributaries of the Don. In fact, several
sources indicate that the nomadic Polovtsians of the Northern
Donets steppe possessed wine. A Rus’ chronicle, for example, re-
ports that in the year 1111 Prince Vladimir Monomach was present-
ed with fish and wine by the inhabitants of a Polovtsian town in the
upper Donets area.102 Furthermore, spindle-whorls made from am-
phorae were found in a Polovtsian burial mound dating to the X II-
XIII centuries.103 We should note here that nomads inhabiting the
lower and middle Dnepr steppe also made spindle-whorls from
amphorae shards.104
At Krapivenskoe, on the border of the Rus’ lands, archaeologists
uncovered amphorae shards dating to XII century.105 Further north
along the Northern Donets, in the Rus’ lands, amphorae shards have
been found at the Rus’ town of Donets106 and at Kazinka.107 While
some wine and oil went north by the Northern Donets, the quantity
does not seem to be significant.
Amphorae Shards from

the Northern Rus’ Lands
Since the preparation of our initial study on wine and oil, additional
information has come to light on the amphorae finds from northern
127
Russia. This information includes both materials inadvertently

overlooked earlier as well as new information published recently.
As in our prior study, we shall group these finds by principality/
region. Starting in the Novgorod lands of northwestern Rus’, a 1996
study, for example, has noted that a total of ca. 3000 amphorae
shards had been found in Novgorod itself. O f these, ca. 447 came
from the Nerev excavations, ca. 1800 from the Troitsk digs, and the
rest from digs in other parts of Novgorod.108 Volkov has published a
useful chart showing the chronological distribution of the finds
from the Nerev digs which also indicates the different types of
amphorae.109 Unfortunately, Volkov’s chart cannot be replicate
since it is difficult to determine the precise number of shards from
each layer. Key topics to be addressed in any subsequent study are
the chronological distribution o f the amphorae shards from all the
different parts of Novgorod as well as their topological breakdown
by strata, i.e., the relative imports of different types of Byzantine
wine into Novgorod during the course of the Kievan period.
Elsewhere in the Novgorod lands, amphorae shards have been
unearthed during the excavations of the Iur’ev Monastery just out-
side of Novgorod110 as well as in Pskov,111 and Staraia Ladoga.112 Of
particular interest is the recent study of the amphorae shards from
Staraia Russa. While the excavations undertaken in the 1960s and
1970s only unearthed 9 shards, it is significant that these came from
at least five distinct types o f amphorae.113 In other words, wine and
oil were being imported into the Rus’ lands from a number of
Byzantine centers and even a relatively small town such as Staraia
Russa received some wine and oil from each major exporting cent-
er. It is not clear whether the variations in the number of different
types of shards reflect changes in the volume o f wine imported from
each center over time or whether they reflect the peculiarities within
the distribution system of the Rus’ lands.
In Suzdalia and the Riazan’ lands, there is data on new finds of
amphorae shards from Murom,114 Suzdal’,115 Kolomna,”6
Izheslavl’,117 Pirovy gorodishche,118 Chevkinskoe selishche,119 four
128
sites within the city of Vladimir,120 Plesskoi selishche,121 and Mos-

cow.122 At the latter site, the amphorae shards found recently were
decorated with “dipint” i.e., the red paint used by the Byzantines to
mark amphorae.123
In the upper Dnepr lands and what is now Belarus, new finds of
amphorae have been reported from MstislavF,124 Mozyr’,125
Zaslavl’,126 Strochitskoe selishche,127 Drysviaty,128 Kovshaiy gorod-
ishche,129 and Staro-Borisov.130 Finally, amphorae shards have been
found at Dorogichen131 in the far-western Rus’ lands and at Kok-
nese132 and Asote133 in Latvia. There is no doubt that new amphorae
finds from northern Russia will continue to be reported each year.
As suggested in our earlier article, what we desperately need are
more specialized studies o f the finds from particular sites and gener-
al studies of the amphorae shards uncovered throughout the Rus’
lands.
Special Topics Connected with the Use of

Wine and Olive Oil in the Rus’ Lands
Wine Cellars
Written sources from the Kievan period mention, in passing, the
existence of princely wine cellars. On one campaign in 1146, for
instance, two Davidovichi princes captured the estate of another
prince which had a cellar containing wine and meat.134 On the same
campaign, as noted in our earlier study, these princes looted 80
korchagi or amphorae of wine from the cellar of Prince Sviatoslav
Ol’govich. In the well-known account of the murder of Grand
Prince Andreii Bogoliubskii of Suzdalia ca. 1174, the chronicler
mentioned that the assassins went into Andrei’s wine cellar
(imedushu) «And then, having become drunk with wine, they went to
the tent [to kill him]».135 These written sources leave no doubt that
every Kievan prince possessed a well-stocked wine cellar. Rus’
boyars were not to be outdone by princes when it came to the
129
Thomas S, Noonan & Roman K. Kovalev
consumption of wine. Some boyars in the Galich lands had so much

wine stored on their rural estates that a chronicler commented re-
garding the quantity that «it is scary to imagine».136 It is «scary» to
imagine how much wine all the boyars in all the Rus’ lands kept in
their urban and rural dwellings. The boyars consumed so much wine
that a much-loved boyar curse went as follows: «may he have little
wine and oil...».137 However, while the written sources contain inter-
esting anecdotal information, all we can say based on them is that
many princes and boyars kept many amphorae filled with wine in
the cellars on their estates. We must turn to archaeology for a more
detailed description of just what a princely wine cellar of the Kievan
period was like.
Archaeological excavations provide unique information about
the layout of a typical princely wine cellar. Excavations of the
citadel of Novgorod-Seversk conducted in the early-1980s uncov-
ered the remains of a wooden princely wine cellar. The floor of this
rectangular/square structure was sunk about 0.7-0.9 m below
ground level and encompassed an area o f over 50 m. A great
number of amphorae shards were found inside this cellar and a
number of special cells or niches (0.3-0.5 m in diameter; 0.2-.04 m
in depth) arranged in several parallel rows had been made to hold
the amphorae. Some of the cells still contained the imprints of
amphorae bottoms. Judging from the size of the cellar, the excava-
tors estimated that it stored at least 120-140 amphorae, each of
which contained VA buckets (vedr).m Since the standard vedro
equaled 12.3 liters,139 the amphorae in this one cellar held 2214-
2583 liters of wine or 2952-3444 standard modem wine bottles of
750 ml each.
It was not just the princes who had wine cellars in Kievan Rus’.
Wine cellars similar to that found in Novgorod-Seversk but smaller
in size (with only one or several niches) have been unearthed by
archaeologists in Kiev,140 Old Riazan’,141 Chernigov,142 Liubech,143
and at the small settlements of Doroginka (located in the estuary of
the Unava and Irpen’ rivers),144 Lenkivets (1.5 km from the Prut’
130
river),145 and Komike (in Riazan’ lands).146 The authors of the most
recent monograph on Old Riazan’ have attempted to illustrate what
one of these wine cellars looked like. Their drawing shows a ladder
leading down into an earthen pit in which several amphorae were
placed in holes cut into the ground.147 Most o f the more modest-
sized cellars belonged to well-to-do individuals who were probably
local boyars or successful merchants.
Since many areas o f northern Rus’ (particularly the northwestern
parts) had waterlogged soils, sunken wine cellars could not be
constructed since water would leak into them. In Novgorod and in
other towns of northwestern Rus’, wine was presumably kept
above-ground in bams or ice-houses.148 On the other hand, southern
Rus’ had drier soils but warmer temperatures. Consequently, it was
necessary to dig cellars into the ground.
There is no doubt that the import o f wine for princely and boyar
pallets constituted a major component of the secular wine trade. Just
as special merchants presumably supplied churches and monasteries
with wine on a regular basis, other special merchants no doubt
existed to keep princely and boyar wine cellars filled. One of the
important tasks of future research is to estimate the annual demand
for wine by both ecclesiastical and secular markets. Among other
things, such a study should take into account the degree to which the
wine consumed in Kievan Rus’ was watered and how long it could
be stored.
The Many Uses of Olive Oil

Wine has received much of the attention in this as well as the prior
study. However, amphorae were used to transport both wine and
olive oil. Consequently, this section will focus on how olive oil was
used in Kievan Rus’. Olive oil had a variety of purposes. First of all,
it was used as part of a blessing. For example, various Kievan Rus’
prayer-books and sermons speak about the use of olive oil for
religious purposes.149 We also find passages that refer to the healing
131
of the sick by anointing with olive oil. The “Tale of the Miracles of
Roman and David” contains the following passage: «When he heard
this, Lazor’ bade her [the sick woman] stand before the church
doors during the liturgy, so that when they finished singing they
would pray for her and anoint her with olive oil».150 The Kievan
Caves’ Paterik also states: «And whenever anyone brought in a
child with some illness, people would bring the child to the monas-
tery to the venerable Feodosij, who would order Demian to say a
prayer over the sick person. He at once would do so and anoint him
with holy oil (maslom sviatym), and those who came to him were
healed».151
Ampoules or miniature vessels used to store and carry small
quantities of olive oil have been found during the archaeological
digs of Rus’ towns. For instance, in addition to the many shards of
amphorae from strata dating to the late-XII/XIII centuries of resi-
dences “I” and “D” o f the Nerev dig in Novgorod, archaeologists
unearthed a number o f items imported from Byzantium. These finds
included small stone icon-pendants and lead ampoules that were
used for storing and carrying the oil used in anointing. M.V. Sedova
has suggested that these items can be connected with pilgrims living
in residences “I” and “D” who traveled to the Byzantine Empire and
then returned to Novgorod during the late-XII century with the icon-
pendants and lead ampoules.152 It is quite probable that when the
ampoules were empty they were refilled with olive oil that had been
brought to Novgorod in the amphorae found at these residences.
Aside from lead ampoules, small glass bottles may also have
been used for the storing of the oil used in anointing. Such bottles
have been found in Novgorod, Novogrudok, and other Rus’ sites,
and were apparently used to carry olive oil.153 Rus’ literary sources
refer to the storage in glass vessels of the olive oil used in anoint-
ing.154Thus, olive oil, like wine, was used for religious purposes and
was required on a regular basis in the Rus’ lands after Vladimir’s
conversion in 988/89.
Olive oil in Kievan Rus’ was also used in lamps. As noted in our
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Wine a n d Oil For All the Rus'I
prior study, the Paterik stated that the “proper” oil used in lamps
was none other than olive oil, since flax-seed oil was “improper”
according to the Paterik.155 Ceramic lamps or lanterns, some of
which were glazed, have been found throughout Kievan Rus’. Hun-
dreds of such lanterns have been found in Kiev and have been
labeled “Kievan type.”156 For instance, at one workshop in Kiev,
archaeologists unearthed 103 ceramic lamps including some that
were glazed.157 Thus, it is probable that this workshop specialized in
glazing lanterns for the citizens of Kiev and, perhaps, for export to
other Rus’ lands.
Lanterns of the so-called “Kievan type” have been unearthed in
Novgorod, Chernigov, Belgorod, Smolensk, Old Riazan’, Galich,
Turov, Pinsk, Grodno, Gorodets, Osovik, Lazarev gorodishche (in
Smolensk region), Avtunichi (on the left bank of Verpch, tributary
of the Snov River), and other Rus’ towns and settlements.158 These
lanterns were used both in private houses as well as in churches.159
In addition to clay lamps, glass oil lamps have been unearthed at
a number of sites in Kievan Rus’. In Novgorod, for example, 17
such lamps dating to the Kievan period have been found while 21
occur in Novogrudok.160 Such lamps have also been found in other
Rus’ towns (e.g., Zvenigorod of Galich).161 Rus’ written sources
mention the use of such glass oil lamps.162
Besides being used for anointing and as fuel in lamps, olive oil
was also utilized in craft production. At one residence dating to the
XII century unearthed in 1980-1982 in Kiev, archaeologists found
the workshop of a jeweler-artist who worked with non-ferrous met-
als, glass/glazing, and enamels. Inside the workshop were 625 am-
phorae shards along with many pieces (545 g) of raw amber.163 The
conjunction of amphorae with amber has led scholars to propose
that the amphorae were used to store the oil which was heated and
melted together with the amber to produce a shellacking agent
(olifa) utilized in jewelry-making and icon-painting.164 Earlier, in
1938, archaeologists had discovered in Kiev the workshop of an
icon-painter/jeweler who, based on the finds of many shards of
133
amphorae and 650 g of amber, also employed olive oil for making
shellac.165 It is believed that Olisei, the Novgorodian priest-icon
painter of the XII century, also made shellac out of amber and oil.
He used this shellac to glaze his icons once the paint had dried in
order to prevent possible damage (many raw and melted amber
pieces were also found at his residence alongside amphorae
shards).166 Thus, artists and jewelers in both Kiev and Novgorod
utilized olive oil to make the shellac used in their work. Olive oil
was no doubt employed in other workshops in the Rus’ lands where
icons were painted.
If we take into account all the sick and ill, all those receiving
Christian rites, the number of secular dwellings and ecclesiastical
establishments which needed to be illuminated in the evenings, and
the various icons painted in the cities of Rus’, then it becomes clear
that the import of olive oil into Kievan Rus’ was very big business.
Is it too much to suggests that certain merchants specialized in the
import and distribution of olive oil in the Rus’ lands?
The Vessels Used for Drinking Wine

Wine was consumed in a variety of vessels in Kievan Rus’: cups and
ladles made of wood; silver, copper, bronze, and other vessels made
of precious and semi-precious metals; bone drinking horns; and,
glass vessels (wine glasses, beakers, goblets). The best collection of
wooden vessels apparently used for consuming wine comes from
Novgorod. Since these were the cheapest vessels, they were proba-
bly the most popular among the non-princely/boyar classes. Glass
containers, however, were presumably the vessels of choice for elite
wine drinkers.167
Many metal cups made o f copper, bronze, silver and gold, a
number of which were used for drinking wine, have been found in
Kievan Rus’. The bronze and copper cups have turned up at the
excavations of a number o f towns such as Novogrudok and Dm-
itrov. A number of silver cups, some elaborately decorated, formed
134
Wine a n d Oil For All th e Rus'!
parts of treasure hoards. Such silver cups have been reported from
Kiev, Kamennobrodskyi, Old Riazan’, and Shchigrovo.168 Of partic-
ular interest is the silver-gilded cup of the Chernigov Prince
Vladimir Davidovich who ruled from 1139-1151. The inscription
on this vessel identifies it as the cup o f Vladimir Davidovich who
drank from it for the good of his health and the glory of God, his
great master.169 One can easily imagine the number of Kievan princ-
es who drank wine on every occasion due to their concern about the
state of their health as well as the state of their soul!
In addition to metal cups, people o f stature in Kievan Rus’ also
unitized drinking horns in the consumption of wine. Such homs
have been uncovered in Chernigov and surrounding sites, by the
village of Ust’-Rybezhno, at Gnezdovo, and the Podol section of
Kiev.170 Given the elaborate decoration on many of the metal and
bone cups, they can only be considered as evidence of conspicuous
drinking.
Thanks to its unique physical conditions, literally thousands of
wooden vessels from medieval Novgorod have been preserved.
Among the various types, B.A. Kolchin identified two which he
labeled as “wine cups” and “wine bowls.” While there is no doubt
that wooden vessels were used to drink wine, it is not certain that all
of the so-called “wine cups” and “wine bowls” were, in fact, used to
drink wine. Forty-five “wine cups” were uncovered in the Nerev
excavations of which 23 came from strata of the Kievan period and
22 from the post-Kievan era. Three of the “wine bowls” date to the
pre-Mongol period while four come from the post-Kievan era.171 If
Kolchin is correct about the wine vessels from Novgorod, then their
chronological distribution would indicate that the residents of
Novgorod continued to drink wine long after the decline in imports
of Byzantine wine connected with the Fourth Crusade (see below).
One of the major questions for future studies is thus the source of
the wine consumed in Novgorod after ca. 1200.
Although a great quantity of glass vessels have been unearthed
by archaeologists throughout the Rus’ lands, a detailed and system-
135
atic study of them has not yet been published. However, we do have
a number of studies which discuss the glass goblets and glasses
found in Kiev,172 Vyshgorod,173 Liubech, Chernigov, Vshchizh,
Raiki, Gorodsk,174 Novgorod,175 Pskov,176 Beloozero,177 Suzdal’,178
Vladimir, Rostov,179 Moscow,180 Riazan’,181 Slobodka,182 Novogru-
dok,183 Polotsk,184 Volkovysk,185 Berest’e,186 Minsk,187 Turov,188
Iziaslavl, Plisensk,189 Smolensk,190 MstislavP,191 Dorogobuzh,192
Zvenigorod of Galich193 Galich,194 Tmutarakhan’,195 and other
towns. These vessels were apparently made in Kiev or were import-
ed from Byzantium, central Europe, and the Near East. One of the
best studies of these vessels examines those found in Novgorod.
There, as in other Rus’ towns, the greater part of the glass containers
unearthed by archaeologists were goblets and wine glasses.196 Five
references to glass vessels and their use for drinking wine are found
in the medieval Rus’ literary sources.197 It should also be noted that
many wine glasses in Kievan Rus’ had no stand on their stems; thus,
one had to drink to the bottom in order to put the glass down.198 No
doubt, this contributed to a greater consumption of wine in Rus’.
Aside from the Novgorod and Kiev finds, one of the largest
collections of goblets and wine glasses comes from Novogrudok
which was a secondary town located along a secondary water route.
Here, archaeologists unearthed fragments from 42 individual drink-
ing vessels that constituted 3/4 of all the glassware found at the
site.199 The large quantity of goblets from Novogrudok corresponds
to the great number of amphorae found there, suggesting an interre-
lationship of the two.200 Numerous fragments of Kievan, Byzantine,
and central European glassware (including the remains of four well
preserved Byzantine glass goblets) along with many amphorae
shards have been reported from Zvenigorod of Galich.201 We find
the same correlation o f abundant amphorae and glass in Vyshgorod
where archaeologists have recently unearthed many goblets.202 Am-
phorae shards and glass fragments from goblets have been found in
the same layers in a number of other Rus’ sites, e.g., Mstislavl’.203
Even at very small settlements (i.e., villages), such as the Plesskoi
136
selishche in the upper Volga region, Ivanov oblast’, archaeologists

have discovered both shards of amphorae and fragments of glass
goblets.204 Thus, there seems to be a direct correlation between the
finds of amphorae shards and the finds of glass vessels used for
drinking wine. This striking coincidence between amphorae shards
and fragments o f glass goblets indicates that these two types o f finds
should be studied together in order to be properly understood.
The chronological distribution of the finds of both amphorae
shards and glass-vessel fragments raises some very provocative
questions about Rus’ trade in the pre-Mongol period. In Novgorod,
the peak in the occurrence of both fragments of glass vessels and
amphorae shards dates to the XII century.205 In the Nerev digs in
Novgorod, for example, the largest concentration of glass vessels
came from layers 21-15 (1096-1238) and the peak occurred in the
18th layer (1161-1177). The greatest number of amphorae shards
from the Nerev excavations were uncovered in layers 18-15 (1161—
1238) and peaked in layer 16 (1197-1224).206 While we do not yet
have comparable data from other parts of Novgorod, the Nerev
materials clearly suggest that the consumption of wine and the use
of glass goblets reached a high point in the second half of the XII
century and then declined. Most studies of Rus’ economy tend to
see the Mongol conquest of ca. 1240 as the great divide.207 The
Novgorod amphorae materials strongly suggest that major changes
in the imports of certain products took place even earlier. The data
from the Nerev excavations in Novgorod also appears to be repre-
sentative of the data from other Rus’ towns. The largest concentra-
tion of amphorae shards throughout the Rus’ lands date to the
second half of the XII century.208 While we do not yet possess a
detailed chronological breakdown of the glass finds from outside of
Novgorod, it is reasonable to believe that a decline in the number of
finds during the first half o f the XIII century will also be noted. The
great volume of wine imports into Novgorod during the XII century
created an increased demand for glass drinking vessels. When wine
imports declined after ca. 1200, the demand for glass vessels no
137
Thomas S. N o onan & Roman K. Kovalev
doubt experienced a corresponding drop.

What precipitated the apparent decline in wine imports into the
Kievan lands starting in the early XIII century? One obvious answer
is that the Fourth Crusade and the conquest of Constantinople by the
Latins in 1204 caused a major dislocation in the Byzantine wine
trade with the Rus’ lands.209 If this is true, as the data seems to
suggest, then one of the major objectives of future research is to
document this decline in wine and oil imports in greater detail and
to determine how the Rus’ made up for the loss of these Byzantine
imports. In any event, major changes were taking place in Kievan
trade already several generations before the Mongol conquest.210
Use and Abuse of Wine

The written and archaeological sources describe a number of uses
for wine and oil in the Rus’ lands. In addition to the evidence
discussed in our first study, the following material should be noted.
The Rus’-Byzantine treaty o f 907 indicates that Rus’ merchants
staying in Constantinople were entitled to a six-month’s supply of
various foodstuffs as well as wine.211 Wine was also provided to the
needy in Rus’ towns. One source notes that Grand Prince Vladimir I
distributed «...bread, vegetables, honey, wine» and other necessities
to the «ill and the poor...».212 These references underscore the fact
that wine was already consumed quite extensively in Rus’ during
the X and early XI centuries.
In our first study, we noted the large concentration of amphorae
from a residence of the second half of the XII century in Novgorod.
This complex was apparently the rectory o f priests assigned to the
adjacent church o f St. Basil and the nearby nunnery of St. Var-
vara.213 It is believed that one of the priests, Olisei Grechin, who
resided here was also an icon painter.214 A similar residence dating
from the XI-XII centuries existed on Reitarskaia St. in Kiev. Here,
archaeologists unearthed a residence of a member of the clergy (a
priest?). Aside from the shards of amphorae and lamps, inside one
138
building (No.5) of this residence archaeologists discovered an in-

cense burner/icon lamp {lampada), a pendant-cross/encolpion, and
bookbinders (from a Bible?). A building of “unusual architectural
form” that stood next to this structure has been interpreted as a
church.215 If this is so, then the residence in Kiev is very similar to
that of the residence o f Olisei-Grechin in Novgorod. The residence
in Kiev may have belonged to a parish priest who stored wine and
oil in his home to be used in church services. As with Olisei, this
wine and oil may have been donated by the parish community or
wealthy boyars who were his patrons.
Finally, we should note two further ecclesiastical sources of the
Kievan era that condemn excessive wine drinking. The first states:
«For woe unto that city in which the prince is young and loves to
drink wine with young councilors to the accompaniment of gusli
(stringed musical instruments)».216 This admonition conjures up the
vision of a young carefree prince and his dissipated entourage
drinking too much wine and listening to “sinful” music in one of the
cafes of Kievan Rus’. The second source come from a sermon
directed to “common people” and warns them of the dangers of
drinking too much wine and other beverages.217 While sermons
contain many rhetorical elements, the fact that this one was ad-
dressed to ordinary people suggests that wine drinking was well
known among the non-elite population of Rus’.
Conclusion
This study has attempted to make several points. First and foremost,
significant quantities o f wine and oil were imported to all parts of
Kievan Rus’, from major regional centers to small hamlets. While
we lack precise data on the amphorae finds from most sites, there
can be no doubt that the trade in wine and oil constituted a major
component of Kievan commerce, a component which has been
seriously neglected in most studies of the Kievan economy as well
139
as of the Kievan church and Kievan society. We need to pay much

more attention to the vast quantities of wine and oil shipped to the
Rus’ lands to aid in the salvation of souls and in the enjoyment of
the fruits of this world. In addition, this study has attempted to
explore a number of important topics related to the imports of wine
and oil. The wide-spread consumption of wine by the Rus’ elite led
to the construction o f numerous wine cellars. While only a few of
these have been fully excavated thus far, these sites constitute our
best evidence on the volume o f wine used by individual members of
the ruling elite. Furthermore, the more modest wine cellars demon-
strate that wine drinking was not a monopoly of this ruling elite.
Those who could stored a few amphorae in their cellars. We have
also highlighted the importance of olive oil for purposes of anoint-
ing, healing, illumination, and craft production. At a time when
olive oil is thought o f primarily for cooking, it is important to
remember that in medieval Rus’ it served important ecclesiastical,
medicinal, and industrial functions. The thousands of amphorae
imported into the Rus’ lands meant that wine drinkers needed a
variety of drinking vessels. While the wealthy favored expensive
silver, bronze, and glass goblets and drinking horns, the less affluent
utilized wooden containers. The remarkable correspondence be-
tween the chronological distribution of the amphorae shards and
fragments of glass goblets in one part of Novgorod suggests that the
import of Byzantine wine along with the need for expensive glass
vessels peaked in the second half of the XII century and declined
sharply during the first half of the XIII century presumably as the
result of the Fourth Crusade. Finally, this study has explored other
uses of wine and oil as well as the admonitions of Kievan clergymen
against excessive wine consumption. These sources, while perhaps
exaggerated in some cases, help to document the wide-spread use of
both wine and oil in the Kievan lands. It is to be hoped that in a
future study we can address such issues as the places which pro-
duced the wine and oil imported into Rus’ and the routes by which
these products were transported north from the Black Sea.
140
Notes
Periodical Abbriviations Used in the Notes
AO = Arkheologicheskie otbrytiici
KSIA —Kratkie soobshcheniia Instituta Arkheologii
KSIIMK - Kratkie soobshcheniia Instituta Istorii Material ’noi Ktd ’tury
1 T.S. Noonan, R.K. Kovalev, “Prayer, Illumination, and Good Times: The
Export of Byzandne Wine and Oil to the North of Russia in Pre-Mongol
Times,” Byzantium and the North, Acta Byzantina Fennica, Vol. VIII: 1995—
1996, (1997), 73-96.
2 In our prior study (pp. 84, 85), we indicated that barrels of wine and oil were
brought to the Kievan Monastery of the Caves. Our use of the word “barrel”
came from the English translation of the Paterik ( The “Paterik” o f the Kievan
Caves Monastery [Harvard Library of Early Ukrainian Literature], Vol. I, trans.
M. Heppel (Harvard, Mass., 1989), 68-69). An examination of the original
text, however, revealed that the word used was korchaga which is best translat-
ed as “large clay vessel” and often means amphorae when wine and oil are
concerned. See “Zhitie Feodosiia Pecherskogo,” Biblioteka literatury drevnei
Rusi, Vol. I (St. Petersburg, 1997), 406, 410.
3 R.L. Rozenfel’dt, “Privoznaia keramika. Amfory i krasnoglinianye kuvshiny,”
Drevniaia Rus’: Byt i kuVtura, ed. B.A. Kolchin, T.I. Makarova [Arkheologi-
ia], (Moscow, 1997), 33-36.
4 I.V. Volkov, “Importnaia amfomaia tara zolotoordynskogo goroda Azaka,”
Sevemoe Prichernomor’e i Povolzh ’e vo vzaimootnosheniiakh Vostoka i Zapa-
da vXII-XVI vekakh (Rostov-na-Donu, 1989), 85-100; idem., “O proiskhozh-
denii i evoliutsii nekotorykh tipov srednevekovykh amfor,” Donskie drevnosti,
Vol. 1 (Azov, 1992), 143-156; idem., “Import iz Sviatoi Zemli? (Amfory
gruppy kleima SSS v Prichemomor’e i gorodakh Drevnei Rusi),” Problemy
istorii (Rostov-na-Donu, 1994), 3-8; idem., “Amfory Novgoroda Velikogo i
nekotorye zametki o vizantiisko-russkoi torgovle vinom,” Novgorod i
Novgorodskaia zemlia, Vol. 10, (Novgorod, 1996), 90-103.
5 There is an unresolved but ongoing discussion about the exact origin of these
amphorae, i.e., were they made in the Trebizond region or Ganos (located on
the northern coast of the Sea of Marmara), or even some other place. See I.V.
Volkov, “Amfoiy Novgoroda Velikogo,” 92-93.
6 lu.V. Koval’, Keramika Vostoka i Vizantii na Rusi (konets IX-XVII vv.) (av-
toreferat, Moscow, 1997), 12; idem., “Keramika Vostoka v Drevnei Rusi,”
Problemy slavianskoi arkheologii [Trudy VI Mezhdunarodnogo Kongressa
slavianskoi arkheologii, Vol. 1] (Moscow, 1997), 278 & Map 2 on page 282.
7 Koval’, Keramika Vostoka i Vizantii na Rusi, 12.
8 L.P. Mikhailina, I.P. Rusanova, B.A. Timoshchuk, “«Dlinnyi» dom X v. na
gorodishche Revno I,” AO 1981 goda, (Moscow, 1983), 290.
141
Thomas S. Noonan & Roman K. Kovalev
9 B.O. Timoshchuk, “Drevnerusskie poseleniia sevemoi Bukoviny,” KSIIMK,

No.57 (1955), 114; idem., Davnoruska Bukovyna (Kyiv, 1982), 30, 196-197;
A.V. Kuza, Drevnerusskie gorodishcha X-XIII vv.: Svod arkheologicheskikh
pamiatnikov (Moscow, 1996), p. 198, No. 1186.
10 BA. Timoshchuk, B.P. Tomenchuk, “Raskopki drevnerusskogo gorodishcha
na Bukovine,” AO 1976 goda (Moscow, 1977), 380.
11 G.G. Mezentseva, “Raskopki v Belgorod-Dnestrovskoi kreposti,” AO 1980
12 I.G. Khynku, “Raskopki na selishche XII-XV vekov Lukashevka V,” KSIA,
No.86 , (1961), 90.
13 Tymoshchuk, Davnoruska Bukovyna, 117.
14 M.P. Kuchera, P.A. Moia, “Raskopki letopisnoi Ushitsy/MO 1976 goda (Mos-
cow, 1977), 321.
15 Rozenfel’dt, “Privoznaia keramika,” Fig. 3.
16 S.P. Pachkova, “Davnoruske horodyshche Hrynchuk na Dnistri,” Arkheolohi-
ia , No.32, (1979), 94.
17 B.A. Timoshchuk, “Slavianskie pamiatniki Perebykovskoi izluchiny Dnestra,”
AO 1970 goda (Moscow, 1971), 293.
19 O.M. Korchinskii, B.M. Petegirich, “Issledovaniia letopisnogo Gorodka,” AO
1985 goda (Moscow, 1987), 348.
20 V.V. Aulikh, V.G. Opiysk, V.M. Petegirich, “Issledovaniia letopisnogo Gali-
cha,” AO 1976 goda (Moscow, 1977), 264; V.V. Aulikh, V.M. Petegirich,
“Raboty Galichskogo otriada Karpato-Volynskoi ekspeditsii,” AO 1977 goda
(Moscow, 1978), 292; V.V. Aulikh, V.G. Oprysk, V.M. Petegirich, “Issledova-
niia Galichskogo otriada Prikarpatskoi ekspeditsii,” AO 1978 goda (Moscow,
1979), 292; V.V. Aulikh, “Issledovaniia v Galiche,” AO 1983 goda (Moscow,
1985), 257; idem., “Issledovaniia v Galiche,” AO 1984 goda (Moscow, 1986),
211 .
21 I.K. Svieshnikov, “Drevnerusskii gorod Zvenigorod i ego torgovye sviazii s
Vostokom,” Slavianskaia arkheologiia 1990: Rannesrednevekovyi gorod i ego
okruga. Materialy p o arkheologii Rossii (Moscow, 1995), 53.
22 R.S. Bagrii, I.R. Mogitich, A.A. Ratich, I.K. Sveshnikov, “Raskopki vo
L’vove,” AO 1975 goda (Moscow, 1976), 298; R.S. Bagrii, I.R. Mogitich,
“Drevnerusskii gorod L’vov v svete arkheologicheskikh i arkhitektumykh
issledovanii (1955-1956, 1975-1981 gg),” Drevnerusskii gorod (Kiev, 1984),
17.
23 O.M. Korchinskii, “Raskopki v g. Zhidachove,” AO 1983 goda (Moscow,
1985), 296; O.M. Korchinskii, V.M. Petegirich, “Izuchenie drevnerusskikh
gorodishch v Prikarpat’e,” AO 1986 goda (Moscow, 1988), 290; O.M. Osaul-
chuk, “Litopysnyi Zudech XII-XIV st. v svitli novykh arkheolohichnykh
vidkrittiv,” Slavianskii srednevekovyi gorod [Trudy VI Mezhdunarodnogo
Kongressa slavianskoi arkheologii, Vol. 2] (Moscow, 1997), 290.
142
Wine a n d Oil For Aii the Rus'!
24 M.M. Kuchinko, “Raskopki drevnego Vladimira-Volynskogo,” AO 1975 goda

(Moscow, 1976), 349; idem., “O rabotakh vo Vladimire-Volynskom,’’ AO
1976 goda (Moscow, 1977), 323; idem., “Drevnerusskii gorod Vladimir na
Volyni,” Drevnerusskii gorod, 67.
25 V.M. Petegirich, “Raskopki v drevnem Belze,” AO 1974 goda (Moscow,
1975), 338; V.M. Petegirich, M.Iu. Pitsishin, “Issledovaniia detintsa drevnego
Belza,” AO 1983 goda (Moscow, 1985), 342; V.M. Petegirich, “Torgovye i
kul’turnye sviazi drevnego Belza,” Drevnerusskii gorod , 102.
26 RozenfePdt, “Privoznaia keramika,” Fig. 3.
27 A.T. Smylenko, Sloviany ta ikh susidy v stepovomu Podniprovi (II—XIII st.)
(Kyiv, 1975), 186; A.O. Kozlovskyi, “Hospodarska diialnist osiloho naselen-
nia X-XIII st. u Pivdennomu Podniprovi,” Arkheolohiia , No.37, (1982), 70.
28 Smylenko, Sloviany ta ikh susidy , 186; A.L. SokuPskii, et al, “Raskopki
slavianskogo poseleniia na ostrove Khortitsa,” AO 1976 goda (Moscow,
1977), 374; Kozlovskyi, “Hospodarska diialnist,” 70.
29 S.A. Balakin, A.A. Kozlovskii, D.Ia. Telegin, “Raskopki u sela Igren’ na
Dnepre,” AO 1978 goda (Moscow, 1979), 294-295; A.O. Kozlovskii, “Novi
doslidzhennia v Dniprovskomu Nadporizhzhi,” Arkheolohiia, No.35, (1980),
82, 90-91; Kozlovskyi, “Hospodarska diialnist,” 70.
30 Kozlovskyi, “Hospodarska diialnist,” 70.
31 G.G. Mezentseva, Drevneoruske misto Roden, Kniazha hora (Kyiv, 1968),
101 102.
32 M.Iu. Braichevskii, Iu.S. Aseev, “Arkheologicheskie issledovaniia v
Pereiaslave-Khmel’nitskom v 1958 godu,” KSIA, No.81, (1960), 144.
33 E.V. Maksimov, V.A. Petrashenko, “Raskopki poseleniia Monastyrek na sred-
nem Dnepre,” AO 1982 goda (Moscow, 1984), 290.
34 P.P. Tolochko, N.V. Blazhevich, “Raskopki Ivan-goroda,” AO 1982 goda
(Moscow, 1984), 336.
35 O.M. Prykhodniuk, “Horodyshcha Khalepie I Hryhorivka na Serednomu Dni-
pri ,” Arkheolohiia, No.33, (1980), 92; Iu.N. Sytyi, “Poseleniia X-XIV vv.
severo-zapodnogo uchastka chemigovskogo zadesen’ia,” Tezisy: istoriko-
arkheologicheskogo seminara: 1990 g. (Chernigov, 1990), 125; L.I. Vyno-
horodska, V.O. Petrashenko, “Novi doslidzhennia davnoruskoho poselennia
mnapodalik s. Gryhorivka na Dnipri,” Starozhytnosti Pivdennoi Rusi (Chemi-
hiv, 1993), 50.
36 Novoe v arkheologii Kieva: issledovaniia Kieva (1963-1978) (Kiev, 1981),
373.
37 P.P. Tolochko, K.M. Hupalo, V.O. Kharlamov, “Raskopki Podolu 1973 r.
Arkheolohichni doslidzhennia starodavnego Kyieva (Kyiv, 1976), 29, 32;
Novoe v arkheologii Kieva, 373.
38 S.R. Kiliievych, “Arkheolohichna karta kyivskoho dytyntsia,” Arkheolohichni
doslidzhennia starodavnego Kyieva, 197, 208-210.
39 Novoe v arkheologii Kieva: issledovaniia Kieva , 373.
143
40 M.K. Karger, Drevnii Kiev (Moscow-Leningrad, 1958), 420-426.

41 Ibid., 425; Ia.Ie. Borovskyi, “Arkheolohichni doslidzhennia v «Horodi» Iarosl-
ava,” Arkheolohichni doslidzhennia starodavnego Kyieva , 87, 88 , 91, 95, 101,
104, 106, 107.
42 Novoe v arkheologii Kieva: issledovaniia Kieva , 373.
43 Ia.E. Borovskii, M.A. Sagaidak, “Arkheologicheskie issledovaniia verkhnego
Kieva 1978-1982 gg,” Arkheologicheskie issledovaniia Kieva: 1978-1983 gg.
(Kiev, 1985), 38-42, 45-52, 58.
44 Ibid., 51.
45 G.Iu. Ivakin, L.Ia. Stepanenko, “Raskopki v severo-zapadnoi chasti Podola v
1980-1982,” Arkheologicheskie issledovaniia Kieva , 77—78, 80, 83, 87.
46 Ibid., 101-103.
47 la. Ie. Borovskyi, O.P. Kaliuk, “Doslidzhennia kyivskoho dytyntsia,” Staro-
davnii Kyiv : Arkheolohichni doslidzhennia (Kyiv, 1993), 24-29, 31, 33, 36.
48 la. Ie. Borovskyi, le. I. Arkhipova, “Doslidzhennia «Mista Iaroslava» 1984-
1989 rr.,” Starodavnii Kyiv , 213.
49 V.M. Zotsenko, O.A. Braichevska, “Remisnychyi oseredok XI-XII st. na
Kyivskomu Podoli,” Starodavnii Kyiv , 71-72.
50 H.Iu. Ivakin, H.A. Kozubovskyi, “Doslidzhennia pivdennoi chastyny Podolu v
1984-1985 rr.,” Starodavnii Kyiv, 109, 130.
51 H.Iu. Kozubovskyi, H.Iu. Ivakin, A.A. Chekanovskyi, “Doslidzhennia urochy-
shch Honchari ta Kozhumiaky u 1987-1989 rr.,” Starodavnii Kyiv, 255.
52 O.A. Braichevska, P.S. Mykhailov, M.A. Sagaidak, “Doslidzhennia dilianky
Podolu po vul. Spaskii u 1988-1989 rr.,” Starodavnii Kyiv, 217, 219, 234-236.
53 V.M. Honchar, “Arkheolohichni doslidzhennia kolyshnoho mitropolychoho
sadu Kyievo-Pecherskoi lavry u 1987-1988 rr.,” Starodavnii Kyiv, 184.
54 I.I. Movchan, “Pivdennyi forpost starodavnoho Kyieva,” Starodavnii Kyiv,
190.
55 A.I. Kubyshev, “Khronolohiia odnoho typu amfor chasu Kyivskoi Rusi,”
Arkheolohiia, No.6 , (1972), 57; P.P. Tolochko, “Issledovaniia drevnerusskogo
Vyshgoroda,” AO 1979 goda (Moscow, 1980), 345-346; V.N. Zotsenko,
“Raskopki v drevnerusskom Vyshgorode,” AO 1980 goda (Moscow, 1981),
250; L.V. Pekarskaia, V.N. Zotsenko, “Arkheologicheskie issledovaniia
drevnerusskogo Vyshgoroda v 1979-1981 gg,” Arkheologicheskie issledova-
niia Kieva, 131.
56 B.A. Rybakov, “Raskopki v Liubiche v 1957 godu,” KSIIMK, No.79(1960),
31; RozenfeFdt, “Privoznaia keramika,” Fig. 3.
57 R.S. Orlov, “Raskopki v Beloi Tserkvi,” AO 1980 goda (Moscow, 1981), 295;
idem., “Raskopki Belotserkovskoi ekspeditsii,” AO 1981 goda (Moscow,
1983), 299.
58 B.A. Rybakov, T.V. Nikolaeva, “Raskopki v Belgorode Kievskom,” AO 1969
goda (Moscow, 1970), 287; A.N. Kirpichnikov, “Iz istorii drevnego Belgoroda
v X-XI w , ” KSIIMK, No.73, (1959), 26.
144
Wine a n d Oil For All the Rus'l
59 O.V. Serov, “Issledovaniia v Kievskoi oblasti,” AO 1983 goda (Moscow,

1985), 354; idem., “Drevnerusskie selishcha u s. Doroginka,” AO 1985 goda
(Moscow, 1987), 411.
60 Kubyshev, “Khronolohiia odnoho typu amfor,” 57.
61 Kuza, Drevnerusskie gorodishcha, 156.
62 T.A. Ponomareva, et al, “Issledovanie letopisnoi Muravitsy,” AO 1978 goda
(Moscow, 1979), 389; Iu.M. NikoPchenko, “Raboty Rovenskogo kraeved-
cheskogo muzeia,” AO 1980 goda (Moscow, 1981), 292.
63 V.S. Shelomentsev-Terskii, “Issledovaniia gorodishcha letopisnoi Peresopnit-
syr AO 1980 goda (Moscow, 1981), 323.
64 A.A. Peskova, “Drevnii Iziaslavl’,” KSIA, No.164, (1981), 70; M.M. Ni-
kitenko, “Issledovaniia v KhmePnitskoi oblasti,” AO 1985 goda (Moscow,
1987), 379; M.M. Nikitenko, A.B. Avagian, “Drevnerusskoe gorodishche v g.
Iziaslavle Khmernitskoi oblasti,” AO 1986 goda (Moscow, 1988), 316.
65 B.A. Pryshchepa, Iu.M. Nikolchenko, Litopysnyi Dorohobuzh (Rivne, 1996),
99-100.
66 Ibid.
67 A.G. D’iachenko, “Issledovaniia Khotmyzhskogo gorodishcha,” AO 1983
68 V.V. Priimak, “Raboty Sumskogo kraevedcheskogo muzeia,” AO 1986 goda
(Moscow, 1988), 327.
70 A.A. Peskova, “Drevnerusskoe poselenie u s. Sencha na Suie,” KSIA, No. 155,
(1978), 90-91.
71 Iu.Iu. Morgunov, “Letopisnyi gorod Ksniatin i ego nekropol’ na Sule,” KSIA,
No.205, (1990), 39.
72 Iu.Iu. Morgunov, “Tri gorodishcha XII-XIII w . v srednem Posul’e,” KSIA,
No.208, (1993), 65.
73 A.A. Medyntseva, Iu.Iu. Morgunov, “Nadpis’ na korchage s Poltavshchiny,”
KSIA, No. 187, (1986), 55-57.
75 V.K. Goncharov, V.A. Bogusevich, R.A. Iura, “Raskopki drevnerusskogo
goroda Voina v 1956 g .” KSIA, No.8, (1956), 71; V.I. Dovzhenko, V.K.
Goncharov, R.O. Iura, Drevnomske misto Voin (Kyiv, 1966), 71, 84-85.
76 V.P. Kovalenko, “Rozviduvalni roboty v Serednomu Podesenni u 1976 r.,”
Arkheolohiia, No. 36, (1981), 96.
77 G.A. Kuznetsov, “O rabote Vtorogo chemigovskogo otriada,” AO 1985 goda
(Moscow, 1987), 359.
78 V.P. Kovalenko, “Issledovaniia v Chemigove,” AO 1984 goda (Moscow,
1986), 245; A.V. Shekun, Iu.N. Sytyi, “Issledovaniia na Chemigovshchine,”
AO 1986 goda (Moscow, 1988), 351; V.V. Sokhatskii, “Raskopki na territorii
«okol’nogo grada» drevnego Chemigova v 1993 g.,” Arkheolohichni staro-
zhytnosti podesennia (Chemihiv, 1995), 140.
145
79 Personal communication of August 15, 1998 from A.L. Kazakov to Roman

Kovalev.
80 O.V. Shekun, L.F. Sita, “Pamiatnyky IX-XII st. v okolytsiakh s. Staryy Bilous
Poblysu Chemihova,” Starozhytnosti Pivdennoi Rusi (Chemihiv, 1993), 47.
81 VA. Shekun, “Issledovaniia na Chemigovshchine,” AO 1983 goda (Moscow,
1985), 375.
82 A.V. Shekun, “Issledovaniia na Chemigovshchine,” AO 1985 goda (Moscow,
1987), 436.
83 GA. Kuznetsov, A.V. Shchekun, V.V. Shuliak, “Issledovaniia v okrestnostia-
kh Chemigova,” AO 1976 goda (Moscow, 1977), 320.
84 A.V. Shekun, “Raboty Chemigovskoi oblastnoi arkheologicheskoi ekspedit-
sii,”îO 1980 goda (Moscow, 1981), 321; idem., “Issledovaniia na Chemigov-
shchine,” AO 1981 goda (Moscow, 1983), 333; V.P. Kovalenko, “Torhivlia
silskoho naselenia Chemihovo-Siverskoi zemli X-XIII st.,” Arkholohiia, No.2,
(1993), 66.
85 E.M. Veremeichik, “Okhrannye issledovaniia poseleniia X-XIII w . u s.
Petrushi,” Problemy arkheologii Iuzhnoi Rusi (Kiev, 1990), 76.
86 A.V. Shekun, E.M. Veremeichik, “Selishcha IX-XIV w . v mezhdurech’e
nizovii Desny I Dnepra,” Chernigov i ego okruga v IX-XIII vv. (Kiev, 1988),
108-110.
87 V.P. Kovalenko, O.P. Motsia, “Poselennia Avtunychi: 10 rokiv doslidzhen,”
Tezi dopovidei ukrainskoi delegatsii na VI Mizhnarodnomu kongresi
slov’ianskoi arkheologii: Novgorod, Rosiia, 1996 r. (Kyiv, 1996), 82.
88 O.V. Sukhobokov, “ K vozniknoveniiu i rannei istorii Putivlia,” Drevnerusskii
gorod, 120.
89 S.A. Beliaeva, “Raboty v Poseim’e,” AO 1975 goda (Moscow, 1976), 306;
S.O. Bieliaieva, “Roskopky serednovichnoho poselennia na r. Seim,” Arkhe-
olohiia, No.29, (1979), 98.
90 M.V. Frolov, “Raskopki v RyPske,” AO 1984 goda (Moscow, 1986), 80.
91 V.P. Kovalenko, A.V. Kuza, R.S. Orlov, “Raskopki v Novgorode-Severskom,”
AO 1979 goda (Moscow, 1980), 281; V.P. Kovalenko, A.V. Kuza, A.P.
Motsia, “Raskopki v Novgorode-Severskom,” AO 1980 goda (Moscow, 1981),
259; idem., “Raboty Novgorod-Severskoi ekspeditsii,” AO 1981 goda (Mos-
cow, 1983), 269.
92 E.A. Goriunov, “Selishche Tselikov Bugor na srednei Desne,” KSIA, No. 129,
(1972), 45.
93 V.A. Padin, “Raskopki v Trubchevske,” AO 1986 goda (Moscow, 1988), 82.
94 O.A. Makushnikov, “O meste letopisnogo Gomiia v sisteme gorodskikh tsen-
trakh Chemigovo-Severshchiny,” Arkheolohichni starozhytnosti podesennia,
95.
96 S.A. Pletneva, “Srednevekovaia keramika Tamanskogo gorodishcha,” Kerami-
ka i steklo drevnei Tmutarakani (Moscow, 1963), 48.
146
97 I.B. Zeest, A.K. Korovina, “Raskopki Tamanskogo gorodishcha,” AO 1971

goda (Moscow, 1972), 143; A.K. Korovina, “Raskopki Tmutrakani-Ger-
monassy,” AO 1980 goda (Moscow, 1981), 105.
98 A.V. Gadlo, “Poselenie XI-XII w . v del’te Dona,” KSIA, No.99, (1964), 40-
45.
99 P.A. Larenok, O.S. Larenok, V.G. Lushin, “Okhrannye raskopki na gorodish-
che Sambek,” AO 1977 goda (Moscow, 1978), 126.
100 S.A. Pletneva, “Keramika Sarkela - Beloi Vezhi,” Trudy Volgo-Donskoi
arkheologicheskoi ekspeditsii, Vol.III, [MIA, No.75] (Moscow, 1959), 244-
246.
101 V.E. Flerova, Graffiti Khazarii (Moscow, 1997), 171.
102 Povest’ vremenykh let, ed. and trans. D.S. Likhachev (St. Petersburg, 1996),
261.
103 B.A. Antonenko, “Raskopki kurganov v Voroshilovgradskoi oblasti,” AO
1984 goda (Moscow, 1986) 211.
104 See, for example, Kozlovskyi, “Hospodarska diialnist,” 70.
105 S.A. Pletneva, “O Iugo-vostochnoi okraine russkikh zemer v domongorskoe
vremia,” KSIA, No.99, (1964), 25-28.
107 V.I. Matveeva, “Raboty verkhnedonskoi ekspeditsii,” AO 1971 goda (Mos-
cow, 1972), 108.
108 Volkov, “Amfory Novgoroda Velikogo,” 90-91.
109 Ibid., 101, Fig.3.
110 B.A. Bulkin, “Raskopki v Khutyni i Iur’eve,” AO 1982 goda (Moscow,
1985), 9; V.A. Bulkin, V.N. Sedykh, G.M. Shtender, “K rannei istorii
Khutynskogo i Iur’eva Monastyrei,” Novoe v arkheologii severo-zapada
SSSR (Leningrad, 1985), 127.
111 A.V. Iakovlev, S.E. Shun’gina, “Nekotorye rezul’taty arkheologiches-
kikh issledovanii za predelami steny 1374/1375 gg. (Kazanskie 1 i 2
raskopy),” Arkheologiia i istoriia Pskova i Pskovskoi zemli: 1993 (Pskov,
1994), 21.
112 Z.D. Bessarabova, “Novye svedeniia o drevnem Ladozhskom poselenii,”
Novgorod i Novgorodskaia zemlia, Vol. 9, (Novgorod, 1995), 64.
113 V.Iu. Koval’, “Keramika Vostoka iz raskopok v Staroi Russe,” Novgorod i
Novgorodskaia zemlia, Vol. 10, (Novgorod, 1996), 172-176.
114 L.A. Mikhailova, “Okhrannye raskopki v g. Muróme,” AO 1996 (Moscow,
1997), 147.
115 M.V. Sedova, et al, “Issledovaniia v Suzdale I Suzdal’skom raione,” AO 1986
116 A.B. Mazurov, “Okhrannye issledovaniia v Kolomne,” AO 1994 (Moscow,
1995), 119.
118 Ibid, 149.
147
119 V.P. Darkevich, G.B. Borisevich, Drevniaia stolitsa Riazanskoi zemli (Mos-
cow, 1995), 435.
120 M.E. Rodina, “Raskopki vo Vladimire v «Monomakhovom gorode»” and
M.V. Sedova, “Raboty vo Vladimire,” AO 1993 goda (Moscow, 1994), 89,
92.
121 P.N. Travkin, “Issledovaniia v Plesskom muzee-zapovednike,” AO 1996 goda
(Moscow, 1997), 181.
122 T.D. Panova, “Arkheologicheskie nabliudeniia v Moskovskom Kremie,” AO
1993 goda (Moscow, 1994), 86; T.D. Panova, A.M. Kolyzin, “Arkheolog-
icheskie issledovaniia v Moskovskom Kremie,” AO 1995 goda (Moscow,
1996), 172; A.G. Veksler, “Arkheologicheskie issledovaniia srednevekovoi
Moskvy. Raboty 90-kh godov,” Slavianskii srednevekovyi gorod, 44.
123 Veksler, “Arkheologicheskie issledovaniia srednevekovoi Moskvy,” 44.
124 L.V. Alekseev, “Raskopki v Mstislavie,” AO 1985 goda (Moscow, 1987),
445; idem., “MstislavPskii detinets v XII-XIV vakakh,” Rossiiskaia arkhe-
ologiia, No.3(1995), 72.
125 O.A. Trusov, “Izuchenie pamiatnikov arkhitektury na territorii Belorussii,”
AO 1983 goda (Moscow, 1985), 408.
126 Iu. A. Zaiats, ZaslavV v epokhu feodalizma (Minsk, 1995), 80-81.
127 G.V. Shtykhov, V.A. Karpenko, “Raskopki na Menke,” AO 1978 goda (Mos-
cow, 1979), 449.
128 H. Semianchuk, “Diysviaty - Pamezhny horad Polatskai ziamli u rannim
siaredniavechchy (XI-XIII stst.),” Slavianskii srednevekovyi gorod, 345, 346.
129 Kubyshev, “Khronolohiia odnoho typu amfor,” 57.
130 Kuza, Drevnernsskie gorodishcha, 82.
132 Ibid., Fig. 3.
133 E.D. Shnore, Asotskoe gorodishche [Materialy i issledovaniia po arkheologii
Latviiskoi SSR, II] (Riga, 1961), 117.
134 The Kievan Chronicle (.Hypatian), trans. and comm. L.L. Heinrich, (Ann
Arbor, 1978), 57.
135 Ibid., 346.
136 “Galitsko-Volynskaia letopis’,” Biblioteka literatury drevnei Rusi, Vol. V (St.
Petersburg, 1997), 219.
137 Ibid., 209.
138 A.V. Kuza, V.P. Kovalenko, A.P. Motsia, “Chernigov i Novgorod-Severskii
v epokhu «Slova o Polku Igorove»,” Chernigov i ego okruga v IX-XIII vv.,
57-58; idem., “Raskopki v Novgorode-Severskom,” AO 1980 goda (Mos-
cow, 1981), 259; idem., “Roboty Novgorodskoi-Severskoi ekspeditsii,” AO
1981 goda (Moscow, 1983), 269.
139 L.V. Cherepnin, Russkaia metrologiia (Moscow, 1944), 79.
140 la. le. Borovskyi, O.P. Kaliuk, “Doslidzhennia kyivskoho dytyntsia,” Staro-
davnii Kyiv, 26.
148
141 Darkevich, Borisevich, Drevniaia stolitsa Riazanskoi zemli, 125, 129, Fig.
90:3.
142 Kuza, Kovalenko, Motsia, “Chernigov i Novgorod-Severskii,” 63. The re-
mains of this wine cellar, located in the princely court, were greatly destroyed
by later excavations. It is not clear whether the wine cellar belonged to a local
prince, boyar or even one of the churches in the area.
143 B.A. Rybakov, “Raskopki v Liubiche v 1957 godu,” KSIIMK, No.79(1960),
31. Although the wine cellar from Liubech was located in the citadel, its
modest size and contents point to a non-princely owner.
144 Serov, “Drevnerusskie selishcha u s. Doroginka,” 411.
146 R.V. Klianin, Komike - Gorod Riazanskogo kniazhestva,” Slavianskii sredn-
evekovyi gorod, 144.
147 Darkevich, Borisevich, Drevniaia stolitsa Riazanskoi zemli, 129, Fig. 90:3.
148 P.I. Zasurtsev, “Usad’by i postroiki drevnego Novgoroda,” Zilishcha drevne-
go Novgoroda: Trudy Novgorodskoi arkheologicheskoi ekspeditsii, Vol. IV
[MIA, No. 123] (Moscow, 1963), 78-80.
149 See, for example, Cyrill of Turov, “Slovo o rasslablennom,” Biblioteka liter-
atury drevnei Rusi, Vol. IV, (St. Petersburg, 1997), 199.
150 “Tale of the Miracles of Roman and David,” The Hagiography of Kievan Rus ’
[Harvard Library of Early Ukrainian Literature], Vol. II, trans. P. Hollings-
worth (Harvard, Mass., 1992), 126.
151 The “Paterik” of the Kievan Caves Monastery, 109; “Paterik,” Biblioteka
literatury drevnei Rusi, Vol. IV, 348.
152 M.V. Sedova, “Palomnicheskii kompleks XII v. s Nerevskogo raskopa,”
Novgorodskie arkheologicheskie chteniia (Novgorod, 1994), 90, 94.
153 Iu.L. Shchapova, “Stekliannaia posuda,” Drevniaia Rus ’: Byt i kuVtura, 33-
34.
154 Idem., “Stekliannye izdeliia drevnego Novgoroda,” Trudy Novgorodskoi
arkheologicheskoi ekspeditsii III, [MIA No. 117] (Moscow, 1963), Appendix
on page 147.
155 “Paterik,” Biblioteka literatury drevnei Rusi, Vol. IV, 410.
156 G.G. Mezentseva, “Davnoruski keramichni svitylnyky ta svichnyky,” Arkhe-
olohiia, No. 10, (1973), 72-77.
157 G.Iu. Ivankin, L.Ia. Stepanenko, “Raskopki v severo-zapadnoi chasti Podola v
1980-1982,” Arkheologicheskie issledovaniia Kieva, 87.
158 Mezentseva, “Davnoruski keramichni svitylnyky,” 73; K.V. Pavlova,
“Raskopki gorodishcha u der. Osovik,” AO 1976 goda (Moscow, 1977), 64;
V.V. Enukov, “Raskopki na Lazarevom gorodishche,” AO 1980 goda (Mos-
cow, 1981), 51; Kovalenko, Motsia, “Poselennia Avtunychi,” 82.
159 Mezentseva, “Davnoruski keramichni svitylnyky,” 77; N.P. Petasiuk, “Svich-
nyky z sofiyskoho soboru v Kyievi,” Arkheolohichni doslidzhennia staro-
davnego Kyieva, 175-178.
149
160 Shchapova, “Stekliannaia posuda,” 33-34.

161 Svieshnikov, “Drevnerusskii gorod Zvenigorod,” 52-53.
162 Shchapova, “Stekliannye izdeliia drevnego Novgoroda,” Appendix on page
147.
163 Ivankin, Stepanenko, “Raskopki v severo-zapadnoi chasti Podola,” 101-103.
164 Ibid., 102-103.
165 Karger, Drevnii Kiev, 310-316, 477-478. Also see V.N. Zosnchenko, “O
proiskhozhdenii i ispoFzovanii iantaria v Kieve (X - pervaia polovina XIII
v.),” Arkheologicheskie issledovaniia Kieva, 137-142.
166 BA. Kolchin, A.S. Khoroshev, V.L. Ianin, Usad’ba novgorodskogo khudozh-
nikaXII v. (Moscow, 1981), 128; R.K. Kovalev, “What Do the Birch-Bark
Texts Tell Us About Everyday Church Life and Christianity in Pre-Mongol
Novgorod?” Modern Greek Studies Yearbook, No. 14, (1998) (in the press).
167 There is a good study of the glass vessels from Kievan Rus’ in lu.L. Shchapo-
va, Steklo Kievskoi Rusi (Moscow, 1972), 27-64.
168 R.L. Rozenfel’dt, “Metallicheskaia posuda, kukhonnaia i stolovaia,” Drevni-
aia Rusy: Byt i kuVtura, 39-40.
169 A.A. Medyntseva, “Chara Vladimera Davydovicha,” Problemy arkheologii
Iuzhnoi Rusi, 128-135.
170 RozenfeFdt, “Metallicheskaia posuda,” 40.
171 B.A. Kolchin, Wooden Artifacts from Medieval Novgorod, trans. and ed. A.V.
Chemetsov, (Oxford, 1988), Pt. 1, 46-47, 58.
172 Shchapova, Steklo Kievskoi Rusi, 30-33; Novoe v arkheologii Kieva: issle-
dovaniia Kieva, 314-316.
173 Shchapova, Steklo Kievskoi Rusi, 34-36.
174 Ibid., 36.
175 Ibid., 41-47; idem., “Stekliannye izdeliia drevnego Novgoroda,” 114-138.
176 Shchapova, Steklo Kievskoi Rusi, 63.
177 Ibid., 53; L.A. Golubeva, Ves’ i slaviane na Belom ozere: X-XIII w. (Mos-
cow, 1973), 183-185.
179 Ibid., 63.
180 Ibid., 53.
181 lu.L. Shchapova, “Stekliannye izdeliia iz Staroi Riazani (po materialam
raskopok 1966-1968 gg.),” Arkheologiia Riazanskoi zemli (Moscow, 1974),
81-90.
182 T.N. NikoPskaia, Gorodishche Slobodka XII-XIII vv. (Moscow, 1987), 140-
141.
183 Shchapova, Steklo Kievskoi Rusi, 47-51; F.D. Gurevich, Drevnii Novogmdok
(Leningrad, 1981), 151—152; la. G. Zverugo, Verkhnee Poneman’e v 1X-XIII
w. (Minsk, 1989), 152.
184 G.V. Shtykhov, Drevnii Polotsk: IX-XIIIvv. (Minsk, 1975), 96-97.
185 Ia. G. Zverugo, Drevnii Volkovysk (Minsk, 1975), 78.
150
W ine a n d Oil For All the Rus'!
186 P.F. Lysenko, Bereste (Minsk, 1985), 277.

188 Ibid., 51-53; M.D. Poluboiarinova, “Stekliannaia posuda drevnego Turova,”
Sovetskaia arkheologiia, No.4(1963), 233-238.
190 Ibid., 58; N.I. Astashova, “Usad5by drevnego Smolenska,” Smolensk i Gnez-
dovo (Moscow, 1991), 98.
191 Alekseev, “MstislavPskii detinets,” 69, 71.
192 B.A. Pryshchepa, Iu.M. Nikolchenko, Litopysnyi Dorohobuzh (Rivne, 1996),
95-96.
193 I.K. Sveshnikov, “Raboty v Zvenigorode,” AO 1983 goda (Moscow, 1985),
354; idem., “Raskopki v Zvenigorode pod L’vovom,” AO 1985 goda (Mos-
cow, 1987), 409; idem., “Issledovaniia drevnerusskogo Zvenigoroda pod
L’vovom,” AO 1986 goda (Moscow, 1988), 335; idem., “Drevnerusskii
gorod Zvenigorod,” 52.
194 Shchapova, Steklo Kievskoi Rusi, 29, 37.
195 Ibid., 53.
196 Shchapova, “Stekliannye izdeliia drevnego Novgoroda,” 136.
197 Ibid., see Appendix on page 147.
198 Ibid., 136.
199 Zverugo, Verkhnee Poneman’e, 152.
200 Noonan, Kovalev, “Prayer, Illumination, and Good Times,” 79-80.
201 See note 193.
202 L.V. Pekarskaia, V.N. Zotsenko, Arkheologicheskie issledovaniia
drevnerusskogo Vyshgoroda v 1979-1981 gg,” Arkheologicheskie issledova-
niia Kieva, 131.
203 Alekseev, “Mstislavl’skii detinets,” 71-72.
204 Travkin, “Issledovaniia v Plesskom muzee-zapovednike,” 181.
205 For the data on Novgorod and Novogrudok, see Shchapova, “Stekliannye
izdeliia drevnego Novgoroda,” Fig. 9, pp. 131-132; idem., “Stekliannaia
posuda,” 32-33; Volkov, “Amfory Novgoroda Velikogo,” p. 101, Fig.3.
206 Volkov, “Amfoiy Novgoroda Velikogo,” p. 101, Fig.3.
207 See, for example, Shchapova, Steklo Kievskoi Rusi, 64.
208 Personal communication of January 21, 1998 from I.V. Volkov to Roman
Kovalev.
209 Volkov, “Amfory Novgoroda Velikogo,” 94-95.
210 In a recent study of pre-Mongol craft production in Kiev, T.S. Noonan raised
the question of whether Kiev’s industrial growth peaked ca. 1200 and had
“entered a period of decline prior to the Mongol conquest.” See T.S. Nunan,
“Vozniknovenie Kieva kak vazhnogo Evropeiskogo torgovogo i remeslenno-
go tsentra v domongol’skii period/The Emergence of Kiev as a Major Europe-
an Commercial and Industrial Center During the Pre-Mongol Era,” Arkheo-
logicheskie vesti, No.5, (1996-1997), 302, 311-312.
151
211 The Russian Primary Chronicle, trans. & ed. S.H. Cross & O.P. Sherbowitz-
Wetzor (Cambridge, Mass., reprint, 1973), 65.
212 “Lessons on the Life and Murder of the Blessed Passion-Sufferers Boris and
Gleb,” The Hagiography o f Kievan Rus\ 8.
213 Noonan, Kovalev, “Prayer, Illumination, and Good Times,” 75; Kovalev,
“What Do the Birch-Bark Texts Tell Us About Everyday Church.”
214 Kolchin, Khoroshev, Ianin, Usad’ba novgorodskogo khudozhnika XII v.
215 Borovskii, Sagaidak, “Arkheologicheskie issledovaniia verkhnego Kieva
1978-1982 gg,” 40-41.
216 “A Paremejnik Reading for Boris and Gleb,” The Hagiography o f Kievan
Rus\ 212.
217 “Slovo mudrogo episkopa Belogorodskogo,” Biblioteka literatury drevnei
Rusi, Vol. IV, 287, 289.
152
9
The Many Frontiers of pre-Mongol Rus’
David B. Miller
The land into which Volodimer the Saint introduced Christianity as an

official cult about 988 was stateless. It is true that Volodimir forced most of
the few important towns in the vast area between Kiev and Novgorod to
accept his brothers and sons as overlords by his death in 1015. But how
different were the realities and conceptions of community and of outsiders in
that period from those of today—and how misleading can be modem
conceptions of sovereignty and frontiers when applied to these phenomena.
Volodimer?s political achievement, remarkable though it was, amounted to
this: the establishment of a ruling clan and its retinues with tributary rights
over a welter of different peoples at central points in agricultural communities
and along commercial routes. When the Mongols came two hundred fifty
years later, Rus’ was more populous, more urban, more literate, ethnically
more homogeneous, and richer in the extent of land under tillage and in the
vitality of urban manufacturing and commerce. It had a fragmented political
culture centered in a multitude of what I. Ia. Froianov and others have called
city-states.
The degree to which towns generated independent political cultures with
institutional coherence and sense of community varied considerably. Nor
were literati consistent when they wrote of a larger entity called Rus or the
Rus’skaia zemlia. City-state and Rus’, both terms were concepts of
community. Whether they ever were defined in territorial terms with frontiers
beyond which Others had a different body politic and a different loyalty is
open to question.
The dynamic by which these communities came into being and the
forms they took were the result of related but different processes, each of
which might be said to have had its own frontier. Illustrating these processes
is analogous to placing one transparancy atop another on a map of Rus’. A
first set of imaginary transparancies marks areas of agricultural tillage and
towns. A second set illustrates manufactures and commerce; a third shows
the areal of a common written culture as defined by evidence of Christian
worship and literacy; a fourth set marks ethno-linguistic frontiers. My last set
of imaginary transparancies reflects political units and the frontiers of self-
identity, that is, how people defined their community and what divided them
232 Russian History/Historie Russe
from Others. For each category of community and its frontier I offer three
transparancies; the first of Rus’ about 1000, the second reflecting the
situation around 1100, and the third the state of things from 1200 to the
Mongol invasions of 1238-40.
* * $
My transparancies of agricultural tillage and towns take the form of

points registering fortified places identified by archaeologists. Probably not
all of them were permanent settlements, but then how many micro-
settlements there were, mere hamlets without walls, one can only guess. The
dots are indicative of human effort and to suggest that in the aggregate they
represent densities of settlement should not lead us far astray. In the
transparencies the points come in various sizes according to the size of their
fortified areas. Ï take them as a rough measure of the size of settlements from
the humblest p o g o st to the greatest of towns. The pattern of their
development to the Mongol invasion will be of great importance in defining
modifications in the development of all other phenomena under
investigation.
The model owes much to the dynamic statistical profile of settlements
and town formation in Rus’ developed by the late A. V. Kuza.1 In the first
transparancy settlements existing about 1000 already show up as a pattern of
clusters. The largest and densest cluster was that on the central Dnepr and its
tributaries; a lesser cluster was evident on the upper part of the southern Bug
and Dnestr Rivers to the west; another shows up on the upper Don.
Elsewhere patterns were thinner, the dots even widely dispersed as in the
loose cluster on the Northern Bug River and on the Pripiat’ and its southern
tributaries, or that on the upper Neman. Elsewhere individual points existed
in empty spaces.
By 1100 the same clusters were larger and denser with the exception of
that on the upper Don which disappeared. There were also new clusters: on
the upper Dnepr around Smolensk, along the Oka and to its north; and a
sparser cluster between the upper Volga and Lake Il’men forming the nucleus
of the Novgorod land. By 1200 there were many more sites, but the tightest
cluster and the most settlements were still in the central Dnepr basin from the
Ros River on the right bank south of Kiev to the Desna to the northeast.
This was the southernmost area of mixed forest and pasture. In the same zone
1. A. V. Kuza» “SotsiaTno istoricheskaia tipologiia drevnerusskikh gorodakh X-XHI vv.,”

Russkii gorod 6 (1983): 4-26; idem, Malye goroda Drevnei Rusi (Moscow: Nauka, 1989); his
chapters in Drevniaia Rus'. Gorod, zamok, selo, ed. B. A. Kolchin (Moscow: Nauka, 1985),
esp. tables 1, 6, 16-19; based on pioneering field studies of P. A. Rappoport, Materialy i issle-
dovaniia po arkhëologii SSSR [hereafter MM], nos. 52,105,140 (1956, 1961,1967).
The Many Frontiers of Pre-Mongol Rus’ 233
to the west in the uplands near the Carpathians, the lands of Galich and
Volyn’ on the Dnestr and Northern Bug contained almost as many
settlements but scattered over a larger territory. In descending order of density
were clusters on the upper Dnepr and in the VoFga-Oka triangle. The number
of sites in the latter cluster had increased significantly since 1100. A new
cluster shows up in 1200 around the ancient city of Polotsk on the Western
Dvina. But neither here, nor around Turov and Pinsk on the Pripiat’, nor on
the upper Neman around Goroden’ (Grodno) were densities much greater in
1200 than in 1100. Excepting its southeast portion near the headwaters of the
Volga, the Novgorod land had hardly developed at all.
Knowing that Slav and Balt farmers, the main ethnic stock, preferred to
live in hamlets, the settlement patterns described above must approximate the
location and extent of land put to the plow. The denser the pattern, the
greater the completeness of land utilization. If this is granted, then it must
follow from the first transparancy that widespread agriculture first appeared in
the basin of the central Dnepr and that it continued to develop most
intensively there; that southwest Rus’ possessed a solid agricultural base
early on, one which continued to develop; that in the early 1100s the upper
Dnepr and Volga-Oka areas had become important areas of tillage and
continued to develop into the 1200s with the latter having the most
explosive growth; and that agriculture developed slowly and steadily in the
relatively swampy lands of western Rus’ and also, but even more slowly,
around a few centers in the climatically less hospitable north.
It is thought that in pre-industrial societies towns initially coalesced as
market centers feeding off surrounding agricultural districts.2 In such societies
levels of productivity per unit of land or per capita changed little over time.
It meant that increases in overall surpluses to feed people who were not
primarily farmers had to come from marginal increments generated by
increasing numbers of farmers tilling additional plots of land. In north
Europe where only about one-third of arable land was planted annually in
2. My discussion of central place theory and agriculture relies on Ester Boserup,

Population and Technological Change (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1981); J. CL Russell,
Medieval Regions and Their Cities (Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univ. Press, 1972); Gilbert
Rozman, Urban Networks in Russia, 1750-1800, and Premodern Periodization (Princeton:
Princeton Univ. Press, 1976), 5-41; Norman Pounds, An Economic History of Medieval Europe
(London: Longmans, 1974), esp. 128-39; H. H. Lamb, “Climate and History in Northern
Europe and Elsewhere,” in Climatic Changes on a Yearly to Millennial Basis, eds. A. A.
Morner and W. Karlén (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1984), 225-40; Hans-Wemer Goetz, Leben im
Mittelalter: vom 7. bis zum 13. Jahrhundert (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1986), chs. 1-2; Drevniaia
R u s\ ed. Kolchin, 219-33, tables 83-87; R. A. French, “Russians and the Forest,” and “The
Introduction of the Three-field Agricultural System,” in Studies in Russian Historical
Geography, 2 vols., eds. James Bater and R. A. French (London: Academic Press, 1983), 1:22-
44,65-81.
cereals, a third of the harvest was needed as seed for the next sowing, and
animals and farmers had to be fed from the remainder. Between 900 and 1250
improvements in farming and a warming cycle resulted in increased average
yields as a ratio of seed sown for principal cereals from 1:2 to 1:3 or 1:4. To
achieve such ratios, of course, rainfall and other factors had to be favorable.
But even at a ratio of 1:4 only about one-twelfth of the crop could be
marketed. Obviously it required a dense network of many farms, and farmers,
to support a town. What then in Rus’, where a harsh continental climate
dictated average yields of about 1:3? Transportation was a second variable
affecting town formation in agricultural societies; the more distant the tilled
land from a town, the greater the cost of moving its harvest to market. From
where it became uneconomical to do so, farms became suppliers of new
market centers. The emerging pattern of settlment then was one in which
clusters of farming hamlets surrounded market towns that were equidistant
from one another.
Returning to the transparencies, and taking into consideration that Rus’
was criss-crossed by slow moving, navigable rivers that allowed greater
distances between markets, it does not take much imagination to see that the
emerging pattern of settlement was one of ever denser clusters of small
hamlets surrounding ever more numerous market towns. Of the over fourteen
hundred known fortified sites, or of the eight hundred sixty-two of them that
archaeologists have investigated, or even of the two hundred sixty-two place
names mentioned in chronicles, the number that had an urban character was
relatively small. Kuza calculated that forty-one settlements in 1000 had
fortified areas of 2.5 or more hectares, a size adequate for a town. Of these he
thought thirty to thirty-six possessed enough urban characteristics—a
complex system of walls, the presence of masonry buildings, evidence of
crafts and trade, or that it was a political or cult center—to be called a town.
By 1100 there were seventy-eight towns with 2.5 hectares of walled area; by
the same criteria, Kuza thought fifty-eight to sixty were towns. In 1200 the
totals were one hundred twenty-three and at least seventy-five. The number of
settlements of lesser size increased at a greater pace. Kuza counted fifty-two
settlements with fortified areas of 1-2.5 hectares and 267 of less than 1
hectare in 1100; by 1200 the number of such settlements in each category had
increased significantly, to 111 and 600. In size, location, and number, the
pattern of town formation duplicated the pattern by which settlement clusters
formed. These developing urban networks resembled classical descriptions of
central place theory,3
3. In addition to Kuza see Paul Bairoch, Cities and Economic Development (Chicago:
Univ. of Chicago Press, 1988), esp. 11-18; Carsten Goehrke, “Bemerkungen zur altrussischen
Stadt der fruhen Teilfürstenzeit (mitte des 11. bis des 12. Jahrhunderts),” in Beitràge zum
Central place theory posits that a single town eventually emerges as the
central plaee of a “mature” society of dense agricultural settlement, local
market towns, and often towns of intermediate size. Central places almost
always are cult and political centers served by concentrations of artisans and
merchants engaged in long distance as well as local trade. “Portar’ cities of
unusually large size exist where a central place enjoys an exceptional
geographical location controlling the exchange of goods at a strategic point
on narrow seas, at a river mouth, or at a junction between river systems or
geographical zones.
In Rus’ only the central Dnepr basin could be described as having an
emerging hierarchy of towns in 1000. Kiev was its central place and already
large and populous. Its religious and political prominance and position as a
point of departure of goods from Rus’ across the steppe to the Black Sea
made it a portal city of unusual importance. That settlement formation in its
environs was greater than elsewhere speaks of relatively intense agricultural
development. Chernigov and PereiaslavF-Russkii, potential central places,
were still within Kiev's orbit. Elsewhere, excepting the nest of small towns
in the Dnestr-Northem Bug region, only isolated commercial towns existed:
Polotsk, a collection point for commerce on the Western Dvina; first Ladoga,
then Novgorod as ports of call in the trade from the Baltic to the Volga and
points east and south; and Smolensk at the junction of east-west and north-
south routes.
By the early 1100s Kiev had become a giant city with an interior area of
300-350 hectares and thirty to fifty thousand inhabitants. Its land was still
more densely settled—and farmed—than any in Rus’, but neither this nor its
vitality as a commercial and manufacturing center can account for its great
size. Kiev’s elite must have taken tribute from other lands for some time after
1100. In these lands from about the 1080s on there seems to have been an
explosion of town formation and growth. Chernigov and PereiaslavF-Russkii
became central places. Both had become cult and political centers; Chernigov
had several important satellite towns. In southwest Rus’ there were perhaps
ten towns by the 1130s. One, Galich, had become a major urban center with
Hochmittelalterlichen Stâdtewesen, ed. B. Diestelkamp (Koln: Bohlau Verlag, 1962), 208-27;

idem, “Die Anfânge des mittelalterlichen Stâdtwesens in eurastscher Perspective,” Saeculum
31 (1980): 194-239; V. V; Karlov, “O faktorakh ekonomicheskogo i politicheskogo razvitiia
russkogo goroda v epokhu srednevekov’iia,” Russkii, gorod 1 (1978): 32-69; David B. Miller,
“Monumental Building and Its Patrons as Indicators of Economic and Political Trends in Rus’,
900-1262,” Jahrbücher fur Geschickte Osteuropas 38 (1990): 321-55; Witold Hensel, Anfânge
der Stádte be den Ost- und West-slawen (Bautzen: Domowina, 1967); V. I. Mezentsev, “The
Territorial and Demographic Development of Medieval Kiev and Other Major Cities of Rus,”
Russian Review 48 (1989): 145-70; Eduard Miihle, Die stâdtischen Hartdelszentren der nord-
westlichen Rus’ (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1991).
a walled area of eighteen hectares. In western Rus’ Turov was administrative

and economic center of a sparsely populated swampy domáin in which Pinsk
was the only other identifable town; Polotsk was center of a land in which
Vitebsk was probably a town by 1100 and in which there may have been two
others by 1150. Perhaps also Goroden’ and Dorogobuzh on the upper Neman
were towns by 1130. On the upper Dnepr in 1130 Smolensk was still the
only town. In Suzdalia Rostov and Suzdal’ were administrative centers (as
was Beloozero north of the Volga), but whether any of them possessed more
than rudimentary urban characteristics before 1130 is doubtful. On the lower
Oka there were Riazan’ and Murom. In the north Novgorod was the fastest
growing city, its prominance the result of an alliance of princes and its
citizenry to make it the portal city through which the riches of the northern
forests were funnelled into international trade routes. Given its limited
agricultural potential, the sparseness of its cluster is not surprising, although
Pskov and Ladoga were important towns, the latter by virtue of its
commercial importance.
By 1200 the process of urbanization around central places was more
pronounced. A necklace of market-administrative centers surrounded Kiev;
Chernigov was a large central city with a mature urban network of secondary
towns and villages. In southwest Rus’ from 1150 Volodimer was the central
place of Volyn’. But neither it nor Galich, now very large, retained
hegemony, which went with their senior princes to new towns in their
regions. Smolensk suddenly had become the center of a hierarchy of towns;
Novgorod was larger and its per capita wealth enviable, but it had only four
intermediate towns. The sudden emergence of Suzdalia in the Volga-Oka
triangle as a mature society was truly surprising. The new town of
Volodimer, its central place, had at least six satellite towns in addition to
ancient Rostov and Suzdal’.
The pattern of tillage, settlement, and population growth illustrated in
this succession of transparencies had both “inner” and “outer” frontiers. The
proliferation of settlements, seen in the increasing number of dots as one
transparancy is superimposed on another, filled in the empty spaces on the
map as clusters which thickened and grew in area. They created inner frontiers
pushing into the shrinking “wilderness” of empty spaces within and between
the clusters. These were the “building blocks” of a progressively integrated
civilization. The outer frontiers of these clusters also expanded, if unevenly,
in successive transparencies. The living organisms represented so abstractly
on the map were pushing their frontiers into neighboring areas.
I have noted the emergence a hierarchy of central towns and their
satellites within each cluster. Central places were “receivers” of economic,
cultural, and political currents in large networks extending to other central
places and beyond. Internalizing and transforming what they received, central
places forged unique economic, cultural, and political institutions and self-
identities. Central places also acted like dynamos that generated economic,
cultural, and political power. Their reach depended on the density of the
networks. Secondary towns acted like boosters, radiating these currents to the
smallest hamlets. In the following pages I will examine the frontiers of these
processes of integration and expansion.
Drawing on the rich data provided by archaeological investigations since

B. A. Rybakov’s magisterial study of the crafts, it is now possible to draw
general conclusions about the sophistication and magnitude of manufacturing
and commerce in pre-Mongol Rus’. We have fascinating accounts of the
development of glass making and other crafts and Thomas Noonan has
sketched a comprehensive hypothesis about processes of technological
transfer and the rising volume of commerce that was one of the dynamics
structuring the expansion of the clusters of urban life I have described.4
Ancient sources testify to the co-existence of long distance trade in 1000
across a Rus’ in which local market relationships and urbanization are hardly
attested. Scandinavian, Finnic, Balt, Arab, Slavic, and Turkic merchants
plied routes between the Baltic and the central Volga—the Bulgar land—and
beyond. They also tapped the forest wealth of Rus’, its honey, wax, and furs.
Similar groups organized the movement of such goods, as well as amber and
slaves, along north-south river routes to Kiev, and ultimately to the Crimea
and Constantinople. The enterprise was partly tribute-taking and coercive,
partly commercial. The permanence and high value of the commodities made
it profitable even under the primitive circumstances prevailing in Rus’; in no
small degree it underwrote the political power of Volodimer the Saint’s
family. The enterprise had no ethnic or political frontier.
4. B. A. Rybakov; Remeslo -drevnei Rusi (Moscow: Izdat. AN SSSR, 1948); Kolchin on

crafts and Darkevich on archaeological evidence of commerce in Drevniaia R u s\ ed. B. A.
Koichin, 243-65, 387-400; Kolchin and V. I. Ianin, “Arkheologiia Novgoroda 50 let,” in
Novgorodskii sbornik. 50 let raskopok Novgoroda, eds. B. A. Kolchin and V. I. Ianin (Moscow:
Nauka, 1982), 71-91; P. P. Tolochko, Kiev i kievskaia zemlia v epokhu feoda! noi razdrob-
lennosti Xlt-XIH vekov (Kiev: Naukova dumka, 1980), 21-66; idem et al., eds., Novoe v
arkheologii Kieva (Kiev: Naukova dumka, 1981), 265-378; L. V. Alekseev, Polotskaia zemlia
(Moscow: Nauka, 1966), 66-111; E. A. Rybina, Arkheologicheskie ocherki istorii novgorodskoi
torgovli X-XIX vv. (Moscow: Izdat. Moskovskogo un-ta, 1978); P. A. Rappoport, “Stroitel’nye
arteii Drevnei Rusi i ikh zakazchiki,” Sovetskaia arkheologiia 4 (1985): 80-89; Miller,
“Monumental Building,” 11-16; Mühle, Die stàdtischen Handelszentren; V. M. Petegmch, “Iz
istorii ekonomicheskikh i kul’tumykh sviazei Galitsko-Volynskoi Rusi v X-XIII vv. (po arkheo-
logicheskim dannym),” in Slavianskie drevnosti i etnogenez, ed. V. D. Koroliuk (Kiev:
Naukova dumka, 1980), 151-62; Thomas S. Noonan, “The Flourishing of Kiev’s International
and Domestic Trade, ca. 1100-ca. 1240,” in Ukrainian Economic History, ed. I. S. Koropeckyj
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1991), 102-45; idem., “The Monetary History of Kiev
in the Pre-Mongol Period,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 11 (1987): 384-443.
An imaginary transparancy showing manufactures and commerce in 1100

would also register an embryonic pattern of local technological and
commercial development. Noonan’s work and case studies of glass making,
masonry construction and other crafts make clear it that Kiev was the great
receiving point for technologies introduced into Rus’. Conversion to
Orthodox Christianity was the catalyst, foreign artisans, especially Greeks,
were the carriers, and Kiev’s princes the transfer agents. The same sources
supplied rival princes in Chernigov with skilled artisans, and an independent
center of masonry construction perhaps emerged in Galich. The process of
diffusion began immediately. Local apprentices learned from foreign masters.
By 1050 apprentice masons and church decorators had become masters of
local collectives of artisans. Usually relying on princely patronage, they
practiced their skills in the central Dnepr basin and extended them to
Novgorod and probably to Polotsk. The employment of new technologies
was urban-based as were their patrons. Kiev, a frontier town of the Orthodox
commonwealth, had become the nerve center of a sub-system of technological
transfer.
By 1100 and certainly before 1150 Kiev was a major manufacturing
center. In construction, probably because it was so costly, princely patronage
remained the principal transfer agent that introduced skills of stone cutting,
brick making, and building, and also esthetic norms to Volyn’, Smolensk,
Goroden’, Suzdalia, and Riazan’. By 1160 local construction teams were
working independently in these lands. The pattern of technological transfer in
this industry resembled that of the formation of urban networks: building
skills spread to new central places and secondary towns, while in vital central
places like Chernigov, Kiev, Novgorod, and Polotsk, they continued to be
practiced intensively. The lands of Riazan’ and PereiaslavF-Russkii, where
urbanization was stunted, were exceptions.
Rich urban communities like Kiev and Novgorod over time multiplied
the number and variety of workshops producing objects for their elites.
Between 1100 and 1200 there is also evidence of specialization and
commercialization of those crafts that did not require the large intitial
investments needed for masonry construction. The most important of these
were glass making, pottery turning, the production of glazed tiles, and the
working of ferrous and non-ferrous metals. While production for commission
of luxury items spawned new technologies and innovations in existing skills,
shops produced growing quantities of crockery, amphorae, glass beads and
bracelets, and the ubiquitous slate whorls for looms for mass markets.
Commercialization was accompanied by simplification and cheapening of
ceramic products. Something analogous took place in construction: in
Novgorod, but also in other towns, by 1200 builders built simpler, more
uniform, and smaller churches for a wider pool of less affluent clients—urban
parishes, merchant groups, small monasteries, secondary towns, and boiar

families. The evidence Noonan has organized and interpreted also shows that
market expansion produced technological transfer that shows up in the
appearance of shops in other towns by 1200 producing for the market goods
once fabricated in one place.
The most obvious pattern exhibited in these imaginary transparencies
was of an expanding frontier o f technical knowledge, output, and trade
spreading outward from Kiev and the central Dnepr basin, its lines
superimposed on the ancient and, from the 1140s, diminishing flow lines of
tributary commerce toward Kiev. Given the sparsity of reciprocal urban
centers initially, lines of the new commerce had to “leap” great distances
before showing up in Novgorod where the pattern intersected with the old
Baltic-Volga trade route. Kiev’s trading partners over time grew in number
and proximity. By 1200 they traded with one another and their products
turned up outside Rus’ in northern and eastern Europe. This phenomenon
resembled that in successive transparencies of settlement development, and
for good reason. Technological transfer and manufacturing, in all but
construction, followed commercial expansion, expanding the areal of
economic community. The transparencies also reveal another sort of frontier,
an inward-moving frontier based on town formation, one that integrated
small settlements with larger ones in commercial networks and brought new
technologies from an increasing number of big towns to a growing number of
smaller ones.
* * *
The emergence of a common written culture left much the same pattern
on a map of Rus’ as the development of manufacturing and commerce. It
came to Kiev with Orthodox Christianity; it had expanding frontiers that
spread from Kiev thoughout the central Dnepr basin to other towns in Rus’
and with town formation to new areas. The Orthodox faith and writing also
possessed internal frontiers. Like the church, they were initially and foremost
urban phenomena that were diffused downward through the social order from
a small clerical and an even smaller lay elite to touch ordinary folk. The
development of urban networks facilitated their diffusion into the
countryside. From central places, then secondary towns and major villages,
this culture extended tentacles along traditional paths traced by family,
commercial, and cult ties that connected them with the surrounding
countryside. In addition to zealous clerics, the agents that defined the process
are familiar: ambitious princes, their retinues, and their urban allies; boiar
entrepreneurs; craftsman seeking markets, and merchants who sought
integrated markets.
After his baptism Prince Volodimer Sviatoslavich established Orthodoxy

in Kiev in 988 or 989 by having its people baptized, an event extolled by
Metropolitan Ilarion in his “Sermon on Law and Grace,” and by establishing
a Greek metropolitan there.5 In 995-96 he built the Church of the Tithe, the
first masomy church in Kiev. Probably in his lifetime a Greek bishop was
seated in Novgorod. Volodimer’s son Iaroslav the Wise (d. 1054) with the
guidance of Greek monks organized the first monasteries, a male monastery
of St. George and a female monastery dedicated to St. Irene. It was Iaroslav
who employed Greek builders to built the Cathedral of St. Sophia for the
metropolitánate. In name, form, and dignity it too had Greek antecedents.
Thus Kiev became a jewel on the frontier of the greater community of
Orthodox Christendom; thus it entered Christian history. The subsequent
proliferation of religious institutions in Rus’ provides a good indication on
my transparencies also of the spread of Orthodox written culture.
A few more bishoprics appeared in the eleventh century. Polotsk had one
by about 1050, while the Kievan land had two: one at Belgorod in a highly
settled area, the other on the southern frontier in Iur’ev for missionary work
among Turkic steppe peoples. Iur’ev was overrun by Polovetsian raiders
around 1100. The appearance of bishops in Chernigov and PereiaslavF-
Russkii was coincident with their political autonomy after 1054. From the
vita of St. Feodosii of the Caves Monastery we learn that Kievan Prince
Iziaslav appointed one of its monks bishop of Rostov in Suzdalia (1070s?).
Then or soon after Volodimer-Volynskii and Turov became bishoprics.
Princes were prime movers in founding bishoprics outside the Kievan land.
The sources, when they mentioned princely motives, did so in formulas of
Christian piety. We can infer a kindred motive: that princes founded sees to
promote settlements into ruling centers either to establish their legitimacy or
to extend their political sway.
The next wave of episcopal foundation placed a bishop in Smolensk in
the 1130s, another in Galich, and re-established the Suzdaiian see, the earlier
effort evidently having not taken root on that wild frontier. In the first two
local princes were promoters and Iurii Dolgorukii was behind the third. A
final transparancy indicates that diocesian development continued to the
Mongol invasion with autonomous local authorities as sponsors. By 1174
5 . 1 rely esp. on Andrzej Poppe, “The Original Status of the Old Russian Church,” and
“L’organization diocésaine de la Russie aux Xle-XIIe siècles,” in idem., The Rise o f Christian
Russia (London: Variorum Reprints, 1982); idem, Parstwo i Kósciói na Rusi w XI wieku
(Warsaw: Parstwowe wydawnistwo naukowe, 1968); E. Golubinskii, Istoriia russkoi tserkvi, 2
vols. (Moscow: Universitetskaia tip., 1901-1 i), 1, pt. 1; A. I. Komech, Drevnerusskoe zodch-
estvo kontsa X-nachala XII v. (Moscow: Nauka, 1977); Miller, “Monumental Building,” 339-
55; Vladimir Vodoff, Naissance de la chrétienté russe: La conversion du Prince Vladimir de
Kiev (988) et ses conséquences (Xle-XHIe siècles) (Paris: Fayard, 1988).
Andrei Bogoliuskii transferred the Suzdalian see to Volodimer-Suzdal’skii.

Rostov was made a second bishopric in Suzdalia in 1214. About 1190
Riazan’ became a bishopric. Kiev re-established its missionary see to the
steppe in Kanev, then returned it to Iur’ev. In the southwest Peremyshl’ split
from Galich and Lutsk and Ougrovsk from Volodimer-Volynskii to become
eparchies. Later Prince Daniilo Romanovich transferred that of Lutsk to his
new residence of Kholm.
In Rus’ monasteries arguably were more important than episcopal sees in
training local aspirants in the written culture of Orthodox Christianity. The
Monastery of the Caves near Kiev was the nerve center of this culture. By
larosiavs death it was self-governing, its charter modeled on that of the
Studion Monastery in Constantinople. Its monks excelled in copying,
translating, and educating. They wrote many of the finest works produced in
Rus’. Its pool of educated monks furnished abbots and bishops for
monasteries and sees everywhere. However, Iaroslav’s example of lay
patronage was the model for most monastic foundations. These were
“domainal” (<ktitorskie, votchinnye) monasteries.
In the 1000s monasteries existed only in the central Dnepr basin.
Novgorod’s first monastaries, those of St. George and St. Antonii, were
founded soon after 1100 and sources begin to mention the foundation or
existence of monasteries in other towns. Church historian Evgenii
Golubinskii estimated that there were seventy monasteries in Rus* by the
Mongol invasion—seventeen in Kiev and Novgorod, six in Volodimer-
Suzdal’skii, five in Smolensk and Galich, three in Chernigov, three in
Polotsk, two in Pereiaslavl ’-Russkii, one each in Volodimer-Volynskii,
Suzdal’, Murom, Pskov, Staraia Russa, Nizhnii Novgorod, and IaroslavP.
All were situated within or near town walls.
Building records confirm the connection between town formation and the
extention of Christian culture. Thus Prince Iurii Vsevolodovich built a major
church in Nizhnii Novgorod with the founding of the town in 1221 on the
eastern frontier of Suzdalia. Its missionary objectives in the Mordvinian land
were political as well as religious. Data about the building of masonry
churches also help in estimating the extention of the inner frontier of written
culture down the social order in Rus’ towns. If princes and high churchmen
were the only patrons in the first transparancy, at least in Kiev and Novgorod
after 1100 people other than princes displayed their wealth and piety as
patrons of this culture. In Novgorod patrons of thirty-eight of fifty-four
masonry buildings can be identified. Here princely patronage virtually ceased
after the 1130s; thenceforth boiar families and other commoners built at least
two-thirds of the churches that went up. Elsewhere princes and clerics (a
distant second) were still the patrons of record, evidence perhaps that as late
as 1200 in most places an appreciation of high Christian culture, and the

wealth to display it, was still a combination enjoyed by only a few.
A count of wooden as well as masonry churches would be a better
measure of the extent to which the church socialized the people of Rus’
towns. However, fires and decay have obliterated them, chroniclers ordinarily
were uninterested in celebrating them or their builders, and contemporary
reports, such as those for Kiev by Thietmar of Merseberg around 1000 of four
hundred churches and in Laurentian Chronicle of six hundred churches
destroyed in the great fire of 1124, exaggerate. But other fire narratives, such
as those for Volodimer-Suzdal’skii under 1185 and for Novgorod under
1227, contained knowledgeable, even meticulous, counts.6 They indicate that
by 1200 Rus’ towns contained many wooden churches. Such counts do not
tell us the sophistication with which townspeople integrated Christianity and
its written culture into their lives, but they are proof that no one living
within town walls could escape the influence of that culture.
Records of masonry construction suggest also that the expansion of
urban networks into rural areas was the vehicle that advanced a second inner
frontier of Christian culture, its penetration of rural areas. Around Kiev,
excepting Belgorod and, temporarily, lur’ev, the only secondary town with a
masonry church in 1100 was Vyshgorod, site of the pilgrimage Church of
Sts. Boris and Gleb. My final transparency would show that before 1240
there were new masonry churches in Kanev (1144), Ovruch (1190s), Belgorod
(ca. 1200), and near present-day Bila Tserkva. Masonry monuments mark the
penetration of Christian culture into secondary centers in my final
transparency for parts of the Novgorod land, for the lands of Suzdalia,
Smolensk, and Chernigov, and in a more weakly developed pattern in
Galich, Volodimer-Volynskii, Goroden’, and Polotsk. By analogy, one must
assume that many more wooden churches existed as outposts of Christian
culture everywhere in intermediate and small towns.
Greek prelates, bookmen, and artisans were the first importers of
Christian high culture, but the written language they introduced was a variant
of Common Slavic used in translations in the first Bulgarian state I refer to
as Old Slavic. By the time Iaroslav the Wise summoned bookmen, it was
written in Cyrillic. Our interest is in the subsequent growth of literacy in
Rus’ in Old Slavic, the study of which presents many vexing questions. To
what degree, for example, did locals master Orthodox high culture? Was Old
Slavic similar enough to Slavic dialects of Rus* to be comprehensible to
6. Die Chronik des Bischofs Thietmar von Merseburg, ed. Robert Holzmann -
Monumenta Germaniae H istorica, n.s., 9 (Berlin: Weidmannsche Verlag, 1955), 530;
Novgorodskaia pervaia letopis' [hereafter NPL], ed. A. N. Nasonov (Moscow-Leningrad:
Izdat. AN SSSR, 1950), 57, 257. Polnoe sóbrame russkikh letopisei [hereafter PSRLl 2d ed.
(St. Petersburg: Imp. Akad. nauk, 1908-), 1: 293, 392.
broad elements of the population so that people might easily master and use
it? Recently scholars have advanced new and interesting arguments about
these matters and it is important to examine them, preliminary though they
are. In estimating the extent to which a culture of the written word had come
into being and the degree to which a common culture had integrated the
peoples of Rus’, one should anticipate answers phrased according to levels of
literacy and degrees of familiarity, and according to the impact of written
culture on traditional oral cultures in Rus’.7
The roughly one hundred seventy-five manuscripts that survive from this
period and the collections dating from later centuries that included items
thought to have originated in the pre-Mongol period constitute the source
base for understanding the sway of Orthodox high written culture. These and
collections of writing on birchbark, graffiti, seals, and markings on artifacts
constitute the inventory on which generalizations can be made about the
popular culture of writing and counting. The rest is inference informed by
analogies with other cultures.8
Virtually all surviving manuscript evidence reflects a culture of elite
churchmen and, where it can be inferred, of their patrons. Virtually all such
texts may be subsumed under categories of scripture, canonical works,
hagiography, and collections of fathers of the church. Virtually all were
translated into Old Slavic elsewhere. Most were prepared for liturgical
purposes, although several Byzantine chronographs and a chronicle or two
7. M. T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England, / 066-1307 (Cambridge,

MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1979); Brian Stock, The Implications o f Literacy. Written Language
and Modes o f Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Princeton: Princeton Univ.
Press, 1983); Simon Franklin, “Literacy and Documentation in Early Medieval Russia,”
Speculum 60 (1985): 1-38.
8. Gerhard Podskalsky, Christentum und theologische Literatur in der Kiewer Rus* (988-
1237) (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1982); Franklin, “Literacy;” idem, “Bookleaming and Bookmen in
Kievan Rus*: A Survey of an Idea,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 12-13 (1988): 830-48; idem.,
“The Writing in the Ground; Recent Soviet Publications in Early Russian Literacy,” Slavonic
and East European Review 65 (1987): 411-21; V. I. Ianin and A. A. Zalizniak, Novgorodskie
gramoty na bereste (i raskopok 1977-1983 gg.) (Moscow: Nauka, 1986); S. A. Vysotskii,
Kievskie graffiti XI-XVII vv. (Kiev: Naukova dumka, 1985); Svodnyi Katalog slaviano-russkikh
rukopisnykh knig, khraniashchikhsia v SSSR, Xl-XIH vv., S. O. Shmidt et al., eds., Moscow:
Nauka, 1984); Henrik Birbaum, “The Balkan Component of Medieval Russian Culture,” and
Dean Worth, “Toward a Social History of Russian,” California Slavic Studies 12 (1984): 3-30,
227-46; J. Thomson, “The Nature of the Reception of Medieval Byzantine Culture in Russia in
the Tenth to Thirteenth Centuries and its Implications for Russian Culture,” Slavica Gandensis 5
(1978): 107-39; Ihor Sevcenko, “Remarks on the Diffusion of Byzantine Scientific and Pseudo-
Scientific Literature Among Orthodox Slavs,” Slavonic and East European Review 59 (1981):
321-45; A. A. Medyntseva, “Gramotnost’ zhenshchin na Rusi X-X1II vv. po dannym epi-
grafiki,” in"Slovo o polka Igoreve’ i ego vremia, ed. B. A. Rybakov (Moscow: Nauka, 1985),
218-40.
were known in Rus’. Excepting the extraordinary “Tale of the Host of Igor’“
and several other isolated writings, the small, by comparison, inventory of
surviving works written by local people fall within these genres. Some local
creations were not without distinction compared to Byzantine models:
Metropolitan Ilarion’s sermon (before 1050) for its elegance of style,
erudition, and multiple levels of meaning; Metropolitan Klim Smoliatich’s
epistle to Presbyter Foma (soon after 1146), a unique example of a local
engaging in biblical exegesis and revealing a subversive acquaintance with
classical writers. These qualities earned Klim the odd (for Rus’) title “the
philosopher.” Then there were Prince Volodimer Monomakh’s (d. 1125)
literate but literal minded (“I often fell from my horse, fractured my skull
twice. . .”) testament; and the learned—in a monkish sense—allegories,
homilies, exhortations, and sermons ascribed to Kirill of Turov (mid-late
1100s); the newsy paterik of the Caves Monastery written almost entirely
from earlier texts by its one-time monks Simon and Policarp (early 1200s);
and the plaintive “Supplication” of Daniil the Exile (ca. 1200).9
A survey of the frontiers of this culture would not be complete without
discussing its patrons, the sophistication of audiences, and matters of
chronology and geographical distribution of sources. Simon Franklin’s
investigations and R. R. Rozov’s study of the book in pre-Mongol Rus’
agree that its language was not so distant from the spoken tongue to make it
inaccessable to princes and their retinues. They also agree that, beginning
with Prince laroslav’s invitation to bookmen, this milieu acquired a lively if
largely passive literacy in the culture. Rozov lists twenty-two identifiable
patrons of books, ten being laymen. Posadnik Ostromir of Novgorod was
one of the first, donating a Bible to Novgorod’s bishop dated 1056. The
inscription also mentioned his wife Feofana, his lord Prince Iziaslav
Iaroslavich of Kiev and his brother Volodimer, indicating that they too
shared in the Christian culture of the written word. Iziaslav’s wife Gertrude, a
9. See esp. Simon Franklin’s remarks in idem, tr. and intro., Sermons and Rhetoric of
Kievan Rus* (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1991), xcv-cix, and in his “Echoes of
Byzantine Elite Culture in Twelfth Century Russia?” in Byzantium and Europe, ed. A.
Markopoilos (Athens: European Cultural Center of Delphi, 1987), 177-88, where he argues
that Daniil’s “Petition” and Klim’s letter echoed stylistic techniques of contemporary
Constantinopolitan secular discourse. Texts with Russian translations of the Igor’ tale and other
works specifically cited, excepting Kirill’s sermons and Monomakh, are in Pamiatniki liter-
atury Drevnei Rusi [hereafter PLDR] XU veka, eds. L. A. Dmitrieva and D. S. Likhachev.
(Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1980); English translations of Ilarion, Klim, and Kirill
by Franklin, Sermons, and of the paterik by Murial Heppell, The Paterik of the Kievan Caves
Monastery (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1989); for Kirill: I. P. Eremin, “Literatumoe
nasledie Kirilla Turovskogo,” Trudy Otdela drevnerusskoi iiteratury 11 (1955): 342-67; 12
(1956): 340-60; 13 (1957): 409-26; 15 (1958): 331-48; for Monomakh’s “Testament”: PSRL, 2d
éd., 1: 240-52, esp. 251.
The Many Frontiers of Pre-Mongol Rus* 245
daughter of Mieszko II of Poland, was also literate. Franklin has

demonstrated that Iaroslav’s son Vsevolod and some of his descendents over
several generations were literate, that they married foreign wives who were
literate, and that they were connected with virually every surviving document
of twelfth-century origin. Rozov’s list of copyists is larger and the proportion
of churchmen greater. Much of their output was intended for daily readings or
were rhetorical works, reflecting an oral tradition and meant to be read
publicly. Such texts obviously had an audience that extended from the clergy
to communities of laity.
The foregoing description of the high written culture of R us\ superficial
though it may be, suggests that in some superanuated form it was to extend
well beyond a small elite of literate clerics and bookmen. Anecdotal evidence
supports this interpretation. Initially only a few noteworthy ecclesiastical
centers generated high literacy and most of the texts; in Kiev the chancellory
of the metropolitan, many of the administrators of which were probably
Greek, and the Caves Monastery founded on Greek lines. By the mid-twelfth
century the bishopric of Novgorod, especially under its Byzantinophile
prelate Nifont (Í 130-56), who was an initiate of the Caves Monastery, and
Smolensk under its first bishop Manuel (1136-?), who was Greek, were
centers of high written culture. The tradition of writing continued in church
circles of Smolensk. The vita of St. Avraamii (1200s) says he loved books
and founded a scriptorium in his monastery. A chronicler associated Bishop
Kirill of Rostov with the possession of a library; another said Prince
Volodimer VasiFkovich of Volyn’ (d. 1289) was a devoteé of the book.10
One should not overstate the sophistication of this achievement. In
major centers bookmen often failed to grasp what they copied and Franklin’s
search for locals sufficiently “at ease” in this culture to converse with it
turned up three names. Also, the few texts that contained information about
the natural world had been available for a long time in Old Slavic and
aroused no unusual curiosity in Rus’. But cannot one conclude that by 1200
central places and nearby monasteries throughout Rus’ were populated by
resident admirers, not always dextrous imitators, and a few creative
manipulators of this high culture?
It is now fairly certain that princely courts and a considerably larger
element of the laity generated a more common sort of written culture.
Chronicles, written in a simplified version of Old Slavic, was an
intermediate genre between high and popular culture that was very popular. In
the early 1100s monks of the Caves Monastery wrote chronicles and their
product shows signs of an earlier tradition. Before 1200 annals were produced
in Kiev, Novgorod and probably Pskov, Suzdalia, Riazan’, Smolensk, and
10. Rozov, Kniga, 77; PSRL, 2d éd., 1:457, and 2: 921,925-27.

Polotsk. The Galich chronicle began with the year 1201. it was continued in
Volyn’ at the court of Daniil Romanovich and his descendents and possessed
an ornamental style and celebration of warrior virtues that set it off from
other annals which generically were quite similar. But these in time also
diverged somewhat from one another as they assimilated elements of local
East Slavic folk culture, and some of that of their neighbors, and by their
development of distinctive local visions of events.11
Documents, law codes, and related writings were further evidence of the
extent of popular literacy. Although the inventory of texts is slight—ten
princely and church charters (from the early 1100s), collections of legal
precedents (from the mid- and late-1200s), and sources indicating that Rus’
knew one or more South Slav translations of canon law and the Byzantine
code known as the Ecloga—it reveals several things. Law codes, written in a
simplified Old Slavic contain the archaic syntax of an older East Slavic oral
tradition; they are evidence of an interest in setting down ancient precedents
and procedures. Remaining texts may be taken as attempts of a few to refine
legal practices in the light of Byzantine codes. These things and some
archaeological evidence persuade me that a written legal tradition gradually
took hold widely from 1100 on.
The earliest archaeological materials surviving from Kievan Rus’ were
wooden tally sticks and officially marked cylinder bindings used to seal
inventories or documents (late 900s, early 1100s). At least twenty-three,
mostly lead, pendant seals that were attached to documents also have been
catalogued. And, from the discovery of the first fragment in 1951 until 1983,
archaeologists have catalogued one hundred ninty-four birchbark writings for
the pre-Mongol period. More than a few of them indicate that urban citizens
were familiar with precedents and procedures set down in the codes and shed
light on passages in the few extant charters. V. L. Ianin thought tally sticks
were official records, possibly those called doski (literally tablets) in later
Pskov codes, of private transactions. He also argued that the finds were proof
of the existence of private documentary archives and an official written legal
culture. Franklin is skeptical of this but, even if he is correct, it would seem
11. Cf. Henrik Bimbaum, “The Subcultures of Medieval Russia: Chronology, Regional
Distribution, Internal Links, and External Influences,” Viator 15 (1984): 181-235, with Carsten
Goehrke, “Zum Problem des Regionalizmus in der russischen Geschichte: Voriiber eine kiin-
ftige Untersuchung,” Forschungun zur osteuropâischen Geschichte 25 (1978): 75-107; also M.
D. Prisëlkov, Istoriia tusskogo letopisaniia (Leningrad: Izdat. Leningradskgo un-ta, 1940), 16-
96; Rybakov, Russkie letopisi i avtor "Slava o polku Igoreve’ (Moscow: Nauka, 1972); A.
Hens’ors’kyi, Halyts'ko-Volyns’kyi litopys (Protses skladannia; redaktsii i reàaktory) (Kiev:
Vyd-vo AN URSR, 1958); Iu. A. Limonov, Letopisanie Vladimiro-SuzdaVskoi Rusi (Leningrad:
Nauka, 1967); A. G. Kuz’min, Riazanskoe letopisanie (Moscow: Nauka, 1965); idem.,
NachaVnve etapv drevnerusskogo letopisaniia (Moscow: Izdat. Moskovskaia un-ta, 1977).
The Many Frontiers of Pre-Mongol Rus* 247
that prominant people were becoming accustomed to preserving written

records in their homes alongside or in place of memory. Novgorod was
atypical in the degree commerce dominated its culture. But, knowing what
we do of Kiev’s industrial and commercial vitality and that business cultures
existed elsewhere, one may be reasonably certain, even in the absence of
written materials, that some townspeople everywhere by 1200 were
accustomed to proceedings in which legal documentation, if only
infrequently or in certain types of litigation, was used.
Birchbark writings, graffiti on walls of Kievan churches and St. Sophia
in Novgorod, and marks, phrases, and initials inscribed on artifacts that were
part of everyday life, were further proof that some townspeople commanded a
common sort of literacy. Franklin says an index of people involved in
literacy—owners, writers, senders, recipients, and so on—in the eleventh-
twelfth centuries would yield about one hundred names, not to mention
about a thousand more who were anonymous. People wrote in many different
genres on birchbark. In addition to petitions, wills, and other legal materials,
there were private correspondence, school exercises, religious material (lists,
orders for icons, fragments of prayers, admonitions), and jottings. It would
seem that the written word was common enough in the households of the
rich to involve their officials and retainers, and also among ordinary clergy
and simple monks in Novgorod. Some writings, but even more marks and
inscriptions on bricks, tools, and other artifacts suggest that artisans and
workers were part of this culture. There is evidence female literacy went
beyond the few famous princesses I referred to: graffiti, marks and
inscriptions on slate whorls, and other epigraphical evidence shows that other
well-born women and their courts could write, and that some o f their
domestics were literate to some degree. It may be that I have understated the
degree to which the written word had become part of pre-Mongol culture. The
digs in Novgorod which have furnished so much of our evidence have opened
up no more than one-fortieth of the total area of the ancient town.
Obviously popular literacy was an urban phenomenon. Hard evidence, as
well as the arguments by analogy regarding documentation, however, shows
that the culture was not confined to Novgorod, let alone a few major cities,
but spread throughout Rus’. Birchbark documents have been found in Staraia
Russa (9 from the eleventh-thirteenth centuries), Smolensk (10), Pskov (4),
Vitebsk and Mstislavl’ (1 each). The geographical incidence of epigraphical
evidence is wider yet, coming from Kiev, Vyshgorod, Liubech, TerebovF,
Volkovysk, Drutsk, Goroden’, Pinsk, Smolensk, Riazan’, Novgorod, and
Beloozero. In pre-Mongol Rus’ Slavic vernaculars were not so different from
Old Slavic. Ordinary people seem to have taken to the written word rapidly.
While archaeological evidence cannot substantiate unequivocally that the
frontiers of everyday literacy spread from Kiev to Novgorod and then to the
chief towns of Rus’ in the same manner as material culture and the high
written culture of Orthodoxy did, that was probably the case. Thus far the
evidence does confirm that town formation and the emergence of urban
networks were processes by which the frontiers of literacy penetrated the
countryside.
My final premise is that literacy grew steadily over time and that the use
of writing and the number of people involved in written culture quickened
noticably in the period around 1200. Very few writings dated from the 1000s
and only a restricted circle of princes and clerics were associated with those
that did. Arranging the manuscript inheritance and lists of those connected
with writing in time, the second and third transparancies would show that
literacy, defined in this manner, progressively extended from the older towns
throughout Rus’ and had progressively wider circles of admirers. The
incidence of surviving documents begins with the early 1100s, but the
majority of them and of ancillary materials date from the last half century
before the Mongol invasion or the period immediately after. Only then were
documents becoming more than symbol, a habitual way of doing business.
The dating of Novgorod birchbark writings reported through 1983 tells the
same story regarding general literacy : the earliest dated to 1025 and nineteen
were written in the eleventh century. One hundred forty-one date from the
twelfth century and thirty-four from the early thirteenth century.
* * *
Another set of imaginary transparancies defines changes in frontiers of

ethno-linguistie groups. Viewing these transparancies, we must anticipate
three problems. The first has to do with evidence. It many instances one
cannot authoritatively distinguish between closely related groups, for
instance, between Balts and Slavs, from the layout and artifacts of
settlements and burial mounds; nor can one date closely a culture identified
from toponymie evidence. The others are problems of interpretation. “Real”
frontiers separating ethno-linguistic communities could not have had the
sharp definition of lines on a transparency. Also, more than one ethno-
linguistic community often inhabited a region and many communities were
themselves multi-ethnic. Frontiers then must be understood to divide a
region in which one ethnos enjoyed a preponderance from one dominated
by another.12
12. Roman Serbyn, “The Character o f the Rus Commonwealth, 1140-1200” (unpublished
Ph.D. Dissertation, McGill Univ., 1975), 27-44, 71-161; I. L Liapushkin, Slaviane vostochnoi
Evropy nakanune obrazovaniia drevnerusskogo gosudarstva = MIA, no. 152 (Leningrad:
Nauka, 1968); idem., Dneprovskoe lesostepnoe levoberezh’e v epokhu zheleza = A/M, no. 104
(Moscow-Leningrad: Izdat. AN SSSR, 1961); A. N. Nasonov, “Russkaia zemlia” / obrazovanie
In this context it is safe to say that by 1000 Slavic settlement had

overwhelmed and largely assimilated former inhabitants of the mixed forest-
steppe of south Rus’. We know these peoples from a legacy of Iranian and
Turkic toponyms and hydronyms, and from archaeological evidence of
settlement, the ethnos of which remains controversial. Some probably were
Balts, and unassimiiated Turkic peoples continued to live on the edge of the
steppe. Elsewhere Slav migrants lived among Balts and Finns. Slavs, called
the Slovene, penetrated the Novgorod land from the mid-800s. In southern
regions they lived among a Balto-Finnic population; to the north and east
they lived among Finns. Except at points of concentrated settlement, Slavs
then were a minority. On the Pripiat’, the Western Dvina, the upper Dnepr,
and the upper Desna, Slav settlement was well established by 1000 and Slav
migrations into these areas continued in historical time. From the late 900s
into the 1100s from the south the Slavic Viatichi tribe (or confederation)
settled along the Oka as far east as Riazan’ and Krivichi Slavs in great
numbers followed the upper Volga into Suzdalia. In these areas from the
Baltic to the Moscow River in 1000 Balts were a numerous and distinctive
ethnos. On the upper Volga and Kliazma Slovene from the Novgorod area
also settled among the Finnic Meria.
Scandinavians—Variagi to Rus’ chroniclers—in 1000 were a small but
important ethnos in Rus’. They were a prominent component of the urban
population in the Novgorod land and present in other towns as merchants.
The princely line of Volodimer the Saint descended from Norse raiders, long
maintained ties to Scandinavia, and recruited Variagi warriors for its retinues.
territorii drevnerusskogo gosudarstva (Moscow: IzdaL AN SSSR, 1951); L P. Rusanova, B. A.

Timoshchuk, Drevnerusskoe Podnestrov’e (Uzhgorod: Karpati, 1981); L. V. Alekseev,
Polotskaia zemlia (Moscow: Nauka, 1966), 28-65; Ia. G. Zverugo, Verkhnee Poneman'e v IX-
XIII vv. (Minsk: Nauka i tekhnika, 1989); V. V. Sedov, Slaviane verkknego Podneprov ia i
Podvin’ia = MIA, no. 163 (Moscow: Nauka, 1970); idem, Proiskkozhdenie i rannaia istoriia
Slavian (Moscow: Nauka, 1979); idem., “Etnicheskii sostav naseleniia severo-zapadnykh
zemel’ Velikogo Novgoroda (IX-XIV vv.),” Sovetskaia arkheologiia 18 (1953): 190-232;
Marija Gimbutas, The Balts (New York: Praeger, 1963); Finno-Ugry i Baity v epokhu sredn-
evekov'ia, ed. V. V. Sedov (Moscow: Nauka, 1987); V. N. Toporov, “Etimologicheskie za-
metki po gidronimii srednego Dnepra,” in Studia Lingvistica Slavica Baitica, ed. Astrid
Baeckiund-Ehler (Lund: Slaviska institutionen vid Lunds universitet, 1966), 299-308; idem.,
“Drevniaia Moskva v fcaltHskoi perspective,” Balto-slavianskie issledovaniia 1981 g. (Moscow:
Nauka, 1982), 3-61; idem, and O. N. Trubachev, Lingvisticheskii anaiiz gidronimov verkknego
Podneprov* ia (Moscow: Izdat. AN SSSR, 1962); 1.1. Goriunova, Etnicheskaia istoriia VoVgo-
Okskogo mezhdurech'ia = MÍA, no, 94 (Moscow: Izdat. AN SSSR, 1861); Max Vasmer, Die
Iranier in Siidrussland (Leipzig: Markert arid Peters, 1923); Stepi Evrazii v epokhu sredn-
evekov'ia, ed. S. A. Pletnëva (Moscow: Nauka, 1981); John Lind, “The Martyria of Odense
and a Twelfth Century Russian Prayer,” Slavonic and East European Review 68 (1990): 1-21;
Robert Cook, “Russian History, Icelandic Story, and Byzantine Strategy in Eymunder pattr
Hringssonar,” Viator 17 (1986): 65-89.
Although Volodimer, his father, and his grandfather had Slavic names in
Rus’ chronicles, Scandinavian sources knew the line by Norse names.
Iaroslav the Wise married a Swedish princess; his daughter married Harald
Hardradi of Norway. Thrice Iaroslav used Variagi to fight his brothers.
My second imaginary transparancy in this series shows new Turkic
settlement on the southern fringe of the central Dnepr basin which otherwise
was densely populated by Slavs. By 1100 the assimilating power of numbers
and the power of a Slavic written culture in urban centers also made Slavs the
predominant and fastest growing part of the population across central Rus’.
Viatichi colonists continued to settle the Oka valley and spread along the
Moscow River meeting the eastward flow of Krivichi. Slavs from Novgorod
continued their easterly expansion to settle both north and south of the upper
Volga. The Slavic areal also stretched north and west on the Northern Bug
and lower Neman, and west on the Western Dvina. In the Novgorod land
Slavs predominated in towns and west and north-west of Novgorod Slavs
lived alongside Baits and Finns in their settlements and surrounded these
older settlements with new ones; and in the Finnic north Slavs increased
their outposts of settlement. Finally, the Scandinavian presence in Rus’
continued but on a much diminished basis. Norse merchants lived in
Novgorod and in towns on the Western Dvina and Rus’ princes maintained
Scandinavian marriage alliances into the 1140s, but there is no longer
evidence of important Scandinavian communities in Rus’ towns or the
presence of Norse warriors in princely retinues.
The final transparency delineating ethnic borders around 1200 would
look much the same. Perhaps Slav westward settlement on the Western
Dvina ended. On the Neman Slavs may have been crowded out or assimilated
by Liths. But Slavs expanded areas of preponderance in more westerly parts
of Galich and Volyn’ and in the northeast where Suzdalian princes
established Nizhnii Novgorod as a frontier colonizing outpost in Mordvinian
lands. This transparency would also show that Balt speakers such as the
Iatviagi maintained distinctive communities or strengthened them with
increasing numbers in western reaches of Rus’. Within the areal of Slav
dominance stretching eastward in regions south of where once Balts had a
common linguistic border with Finnic speakers and as far south as the Desna
Balts were not entirely assimilated. As late as 1147 the Goliadi (Galindian
Balts) were a functioning community on the upper Protva and north of the
Oka. Moscow probably originated as a Galindian fort, the name itself a Balt
toponym. South of the Gulf of Finland and the Neva River Finnic-speaking
Vod’ and Izhory maintained autonomous communities after 1200. Thus,
although the Slavs outnumbered others in most places by 1200 and their
culture was an assimilating force, Rus’ remained a patchwork of ethno-
linguistiç groups. Linguistic analysis of writing on birch bark indicate that
The Many Frontiers of Pre-Mongol Rus ’ 251
Balt and Finnic speakers lived on in Novgorod and that Novgorod’s oral
culture to some degree was multilingual.
Imaginary transparancies of ethno-linguistic frontiers would be
incomplete if they ignored the dialectical differences that existed among
Slavs in Rus’. The qualities that defined these dialects are in general well
known. But how to interpret them? Horace Lunt pointed out that about 1000
they were dialects of Late Common Slavic, as yet so undifferentiated that the
dialects of Bulgaria and south Rus’ were “very close.” By about 1150 the “jer
shift” in all Late Common Slavic dialects affected those in Rus’ in ways that
set them apart as a separate group known as East Slavic. Lunt argued that one
can therefore speak of a single written “Rus’ian” language as a variant of Late
Common Slavic. Yet each East Slavic dialect also underwent unique
changes; by 1200 they were moving in direction of greater regional
differentiation. From this George Shevelev concluded that it is best not to
assume the existence of a common language but of a configuration of
dialectical groups. Linguists also differ about the number of distinct dialects
and, therefore, about the frontiers dividing them: A. A. Shakhmatov posited
the existence of three dialects, a northern, an eastern, and a southern; T. Lehr-
Splawinski, N. S. Trubetzskoy and recently A. A. Zalizniak argued for two,
a northern (for Zalizniak divided into sub-dialects) and a southern. Shevelev
has proposed four dialects: one composed of Novgorod and SuzdaP sub-
groups; a second having Polotsk and Riazan’ sub-groups, a Kiev-Podlessa
dialect, and a Galician-Podolian dialect. By 1240 neither in their
characteristics nor the areal of their sway were any of the dialects forerunners
of modem Belorussian, Russian, or Ukrainian.13
Imaginary transparancies created by historical geographers to illustrate
political frontiers run to extremes: V. T. Pashuto and others portrayed pre-
Mongol Rus’ as a great state, albeit with local divisions. I. Ia. Froianov and
13. Cf. Horace G. Lunt, wThe Language of Rus’ in the Eleventh Century»*’ H arvard
Ukrainian Studies 12-13 (1988/99): 276-313; idem, “History, Nationalism, and The Written
Language of Early Rus’,” Slavic and East European Journal 34 (1990): 1-29, with Y. Sherekh
(George Shevelov), Problems in the Formation of Belorussian = Supplement to Word 9 (Dec.
1953), esp. v, 52-64; idem., “Mezhdu praslavianskim i russkim,” Russian Linguistics 6
(1981/82): 353-76. Also: A. A. Shakhmatov, Ocherk drevneishego perioda istorii russkogo
iazyka (Petrograd: Tip. Imp. AN, 1915); T. Lehr-Splawirski, Stosunki podkrewierstwa jczyków
ruskich = Rocznik Slawistyczny 9 (Kraków:, 1921), 23-71; N. S. Trubetzkoy, “Einiges Uber die
russische Lautenwicklung und die Auflosung der gemeinrussischen Spracheinheit,” Zeitschrift
fiir Philologie 1 (1925): 287-319; A. A. Zalizniak, “K istoricheskoi fonetike drevnenovgorod-
skogo dialekta,” Balto-slavianskie issledovaniia. 198J (Moscow: Nauka, 1982), 61-80; idem,
“Nabliudenita nad berestiannymi gramotami,” Istoriia russkogo iazyka v drevneishii period
(Moscow: Nauka, 1984), 36-153; idem, “Berestiannye gramoty peredlitsom traditsionnykh
postulatov slavistiki i vice versa,” and Henrik Bimbaum, “Reflections on the Language of
Medieval Novgorod,” in Russian Linguistics 15 (1991): 217-45, 195-216.
A. Iu. Dvomichenko are the most recent to envision pre-Mongol Rus’ as in

transition from tribal domains into territorial principalities of varying degrees
of independence.14 Whatever the model, in the earliest sources East Slavic
tribal loyalties were still alive, if losing meaning; the land was criss-crossed
by trade routes in which many peoples participated; and for chiefs and their
retinues loyalty to clan and client, and attention to one’s place in clan
hierarchies, mattered more than territorial loyalty. As far as one can tell, they
did not hold estates and worried not at all about boundaries. The term Rus’
referred to Variagi (Viking) princes, possibly some or all of their retinues
and, in the treaties with the Greeks recorded in 907 and 944 in the Primary
Chronicle, also designated towns they ruled (“Kiev, Chernigov, PereiaslavF,
Polotsk, Rostov, Liubech, and the other towns”). It is impossible to
ascertain how ordinary people identified themselves, so a transparency for
1000 would reflect an elite consciousness such as that expressed in
Metiopolitan Ilarion’s sermon (late 1040s) celebrating Volodimer’s bringing
of Christianity to the “Rus’ nation,” or that refracted through the lens of the
early twelfth-century compiler of the Primary Chronicle.15 Ilarion said
nothing of the outer reaches of Rus’. Perhaps he thought Christianity was
everywhere except where it faded into the “pagan” wilderness. When he
14. V. T. Pashuto, Vneshniaia politika Drevnei Rusi (Moscow, Nauka, 1968); restated in
‘Osobennosti struktury drevnerusskogo gosudarstva,” in Drevnerusskoe gosudarstvo i ego
mezhdunarodnoe znachenie, eds. V. T. Pashuto and L. V. Cherepnin. (Moscow: Nauka, 1965),
77-127; and Omel’jan Pritsak’s critique, Kritika 5t no. 2 (Winter 1969): 1-11, of Pashuto’s view
that Rus’ at its origin was a unitary state and by 1200 a confederation with a “state territory” of
princes who were “great diplomats” with a “foreign policy.” These Fictions only overstated
conceptions implicit in works of B. D. Grekov, Kievskaia Rus’, 3rd ed. (Moscow-Leningrad:
Izdat. AN SSSR, 1939); B. A. Rybakov, Kievskaia Rus’ i russkie kniazhestva XII-XIII vv.
(Moscow: Nauka, 1982); P. P. Tolochko, Drevniaia Rus’ (Kiev: Naukova dumka, 1987), and
others. Cf. I. Ia. Froianov and A. Iu. Dvomichenko, Goroda-Gosudarstva Drevnei Rusi
(Leningrad: Leningradskogo un-ta, 1988); Mikhailo Hrushevs’kyi, Ocherki istorii Kievskoi
zemli ot smerti laroslava do kontsa XIV stoletiia (Kiev, 1891), esp. 296*344; A. E. Presniakov,
Kniazheskoe pravo v drevnei Rusi (St. Petersburg: Tip. M. A. Aleksandrova, 1909), 34-157;
idem., Lektsii po russkoi istorii, 2 vols. (Moscow: Sotsekiz, 1938-39).
15. That Rus’ were Scandinavians, PSRL, I, 2d ed.: 17,21, 19, 28,32-34,36-38; the Rus’
land originally as Novgorod, 20; as meaning the central Dnepr basin and its inhabitants, c.
1000, 17, 28; in the treaties, 31, 46-53. For Ilarion, Franklin, Sermons, 14, 18, 23; also E. A.
Melnikova and V. Ia. Petrukhin, “The Origin and Evolution of the Name Rus’,” Tor 23 (1991):
203-27; Wladimir Vodoff, “O nekotorykh osobennostiakh drevnerusskogo etnopoliticheskogo
samosoznaniia”; Petrukhin, “Normanny i Khazary na iuge Rusi”, and V. A. Kuchkin,
“Russkaia zemlia’ po letopisnym dannym Xl-pervoi treti XII vv.,” in O brazovan ie
drevnerusskogo gosudarstva. Spornye problemy, eds. A. P Novosel’tsev et al. (Moscow: In-t
russkoi istorii Rossiiskoi AN, 1992), 11-13, 60-62, 79-82; but cf. with argument that Rus’ were
Eastern Slavs in chapter by A. I. Rogov and B. N. Floria in Razvitie etnicheskogo samosoz-
naniia siavianskikh narodov v epokhu rannego srednevekov’ia, ed. V. D. Koroliuk (Moscow:
Nauka, 1982), 96-120.
composed the sermon, except for a few points, this wilderness began when
one left the central Dnepr basin.
The council at Liubech in 1097, at which Chernigov, Pereiaslavl’-
Russkii, and Turov went to Iarosiav’s eldest surviving sons and their clans as
permanent inheritances, is often seen as the defining event leading to the
proliferation of territorial principalities. In these towns, and probably most
others, princely clans held sovereignty, and the council probably intended
that the senior of Iaroslav’s sons would rule in Kiev. If one relied only on the
views of high churchmen, a transparency interpreting the political realities of
this time would reflect a sharper and occasionally a broader self-identity than
a century earlier. For the metropolitans and their entourages Rus’ consisted of
the eparchies owing allegiance to the Kievan metropolia and their documents
expressed this understanding of Rus’ as lists of eparchies named by their see.
The definition came from Constantinople and all but two o f the
metropolitans who expressed it in Rus’ were Greek. In other words, Rus’ was
defined by its major towns, those that gave meaning to other trends in my
sets of transparencies. Ecclesiastical jurisdictions stretched to the—
undefined—borders of each eparchy. In this context, Rus’ was not an ethnic
designation*. Greater Rus’ thus defined was in fact a multi-ethnic
configuration. High clerical circles in Kiev c. 1100 also supplied another
formulation of self-identity, one common in the medieval world. It was
expressed by juxtaposing their self-image against that of neighboring Others
who were characterized perjorativeiy. I found five such sources, all written by
Greek metropolitans of Rus’, and all reflecting Byzantine preoccupations
with Latin errors after the schism o f 1054 rather than a Rus’ self-
consciousness. They were Leontios’s sermon (c. 1060), Georgios’s “Debate
with a Latin Georgios” (ca. 1070), Ioannos Podromos’s (d. 1089) letter to
Pope Clement, and letters of Nicephorus (1104-21) to Princes Volodimer
Monomakh and larosiav Sviatopolkovich of Volyn’ about the Latins.16
16. Martin Dimnik, “The ‘Testament’ of IarosIav*The W ise’: A Re-examination,”

Canadian Slavonic Papers 29 (1987): 369-86, and citations, n. 13; Poppe. “L'Prince et l’Église
en Russie de Kiev depuis la fin du Xe siècle jusqu’au debut de Xlle siècle,” in idem., The Rise,
95-119. On medieval ethnie designations, see Andreas Kappeler, “Ethnische Abgrenzung:
Bermerkungen zur ostslavischen Terminologie dés Mittelalters,” in Geschickte Altrusslands in
der Begriffswelt ihrer Quellen. Festschrift zum 70. Gehurtstag von Günther Stôkl, eds. Uwe
Halbach et al. (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1986), 124-25; idem, Russlands Erste Natinatítaten. Das
Zarenreich und die Vôlker des Mittleren Wolga vom 16. vont 19. Jahrhundert (Koin-Wien:
Bôhlau, 1982), 2-12. The texts: L. E. Makhnovets, Ukrainski pys'mennyky. Bio~bibliografich~
nyi slovnik, 1 (Kiev: Derzh. vyd. khudozhn’oi literatury, 1960), 36-37, 70-72; Golubinskii,
Istoriia, 2, no. 2: 799-807, 820-28; A. N. Popov, I s toriko-literaturnyi ohzor drevnerusskih
polemicheskikh sochinenii protiv latinian XI-XV vv. (Moscow: T. Ris, 1875), 14-69, 81-118; A.
G. Kuzmin and A. lu. Karpov, eds. Zlastostrui, Drevniaia R us\ X-X1IÍ vekov (Moscow:
Because these formulations, and the princely clan’s conviction that it

was Rus’, inspired a similar self-identification by its polyethnic retinues, it
is not so surprising that such conceptions filtered into the works of local
writers who wrote for them. Here one finds the earliest popular notions of a
greater Rus5. Several examples: in a narrative of his pilgrimage to the Holy
Land (early 1ÎOOs) the Rus’ monk Daniil recorded a prayer for the princes of
Rus’, one which Ianin has decoded for us, that defined Rus’ in terms of
princely patrimonies. Daniil identified each prince according to his Christian
name and his rank in the ruling clan. The formulation in the prayer was not
unlike the list of eparchies in documents of the metropolis In this case,
however, it was the aggregate of patrimonies of the ruling clan that defined a
greater Rus’. The multi-ethnic description of the “land of Rus’“ that began
the Primary Chronicle, was another, more complex, way of defining Rus’.
Otherwise chroniclers referred to themselves in traditional and, usually,
religious contradistinctions to Others. The author of the well-known legend
of the baptism of Rus’ denigrated Moslems, Jews, and Catholics in
substantiating that Rus’ was a proper Christian land. In the Primary and
Novgorod First Chronicles Catholics were nemtsy, dumb, for refusing to say
the liturgy in the vernacular. Such formulations led to an important reversal
of self-identity found in the earlier period where Rus’ was equated with
Scandinavians. For the compiler of the Primary Chronicle his newly baptized
land was the Rus’ land and Scandinavians were now an Other—Variagi. In
recording the first Polovetsy attack in 1068 he also said Rus’ was a Christian
land and the invaders “pagans,” whom God called on Rus’ for its sins. Not
surprisingly, the monk of the Caves Monastery who survived to provide the
tale of its sack in 1096 in the Primary Chronicle had the learning to give the
contradistinction between local Christians and Others a more literary
rendering, calling the marauding Polovetsy “godless sons of Ishmael,” and to
provide an unfavorable origin for them in contrast to the favorable origin for
the Slavs elaborated in the same work and based on the same Byzantine
chronograph.17
Molodaia gvardiia, 1990),. 141-45. Ioannos’s letter was in Greek; a Slavic translation appeared
in the fourteenth century.
17 Daniil’s prayer, PLDR. XÎI vek, 14; Ianin, “Mezhdukniazheskie otnosheniia v epokhu
Monomakha f Khozhdenie Igumena Danila’,” Trudy Otdela drevnerusskoi literatury 16 (1960):
112-31 ; and PSRLy 2d ed., 1: 1-6, for “aggregative” descriptions of greater Rus’; self-identity
expressed as a distinction from others: NPL, 132, and PSRL, 1, 2d ed.: 45, 85, 167-68, 231-36;
also Kappeler, “Ethnische Abgrenzung,” 124-27; Melnikova and Petrukhin, “The Origin,”
227-29; Kuchkin, “Russkaia zemlia’,” 80-82; Thomas S. Noonan, “Rus’, Pechenegs, and
Polovtsians: Economic Interaction Along the Steppe Frontier in the Pre-Mongol Era,” and
Leonid S. Chekin, “The Godless Ishmaelites Image of the Steppe in Pre-Moscovite Rus’,” pa-
pers presented at the Conference “The Frontier in the History of Rus’/Russia,” 29-31 May
in non-literary sources c. 1100 the term Rus’ hardly appeared at all. It is

not in S. A. Vysotskii’s dictionary of Kievan graffiti. It appears but once in
the word-index to birch bark documents and writing on talley sticks
compiled by A. A. Zalizniak. In this instance, a text (#105) of about 1134-61
found in Novgorod, Rus’ meant the central Dnepr basin around Kiev.
Moreover, examples of self-identity that I cited from literary sources in the
preceding paragraph are overwhelmed by volumes of evidence suggesting
popular indifference to such distinctions. It is well known that the princes of
Rus’ and nomadic Polovetsian chiefs arranged marriages and alliances with
one another, and against rivals of their own ethnos in much the same way
that they allied with princes of their own ethnos. Noteworthy in this respect
is the fact that the entry for 1096, the same year it reported the barbarian sack
of the Caves Monastery, mentioned that the Polovetsy chief Tugoikan was
the father-in-law of his opponent in battle, Grand Prince Sviatopolk
Iziaslavich of Kiev; further it reported that after Tugorkan died in battle,
Sviatopolk transported his body to Kiev for burial as if he were a member of
the ruling clan of Rus’. Rus’ marriages with Catholic rulers were also a
matter of record and treated neutrally.18
From the 1L3Q&princes became entangled in local politics and developed
personal ties and common interests with local boiars and citizens in the
central places of every principality of greater Rus’. Personal, clan, and
territorial loyalties were often confused, so much so that it is as difficult to
distinguish between them as it is between elements of public and private
authority. Novgorod and Kiev, the greatest towns, were exceptional in that
the power of local elites and the rivalry of outside princes to control them
made it impossible for one clan to dominate permanently. In Novgorod rival
boiar factions had their outside favorites, but solidarity enough to assure the
integrity of the principality. In Kiev exterior forces were overwhelming,
taking turns—sometimes by agreement, more often by war—in ruling the
city and dividing up Kiev’s secondary towns. By 1200 elites of secondary
towns seeking independence from their central places combined with junior
1992 at the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL., and published in revised form in this collec-
tion.
18. Serbyn, “The Character,” 71-161; Vysotskii, Kievskie graffiti, 205-6; Ianin and
Zalizniak, Novgorodskie gram oty, 296, 308; PSRL, 2d ed., 1: 231-32, on Tugorkan and
Sviatopolk; the list of “foreign” marriages in Pashuto,” Vneshniaia politika, 419-29, and Lind,
“The Martyria.” See also Kappeler, “Ethnische Abgrenzung,” 128; and particularly on the
Rus’-nomad dichotomy, see Anatoly M. Khazanov, Nomads and the Outside World
(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1984), esp. 198-227; S. A. Pletnëva, “Polovetskaia zem-
lia,” in Drevnerusskie kniazhestva X -Xlll vv., eds. L. G. Beskrovnyi et al. (Moscow: Nauka,
1975), 260-300; Noonan, “Rus’, Pechenegs, and Polovtsians,” and Peter B. Golden, “Aspects
of the Nomadic Factor in the Economic Development of Kievan Rus’,” in Ukrainian Economic
History, ed. Koropeckyj, 58-62, 87-101.
princes who wanted patrimonies of their own to create smali principalities in

the major ones. These developments make my third transparency most
complex. The struggle of secondary towns to be independent ruling centers
and then competitors for hegemony in combination with a princely ethic
defined by insatiable ambition for power and glory, obligations of clan and
marriage, and love of fighting, guaranteed political instability, particularly in
south Rus’.
The career of Prince Roman Mstislavich was not unusual. Sent to rule
Novgorod in the 1160s, Roman then ruled Volyn’ more or less permanently.
From there he temporarily ruled Galich and Kiev, and fought and intrigued in
Chernigov, Poland, Hungary, and the German Empire.19 In Galich and
Volyn’ after his death (1205) secondary towns surplanted older central places
as “capitals.” The clan that ruled Suzdalia was more sedentary and successful
in maintaining its territorial integrity. But my third transparancy shows that
Suzdalia also had subdivided into a hierarchy of semi-independent
principalities. Novgorod, with Pskov as the only significant secondary town
and rival, maintained its grip on an otherwise vast and sparsely populated
land. The configuration of power elsewhere fell somewhere within these
parameters.
What of loyalties and frontiers? By 1200 local chronicles and patronage
records of masonry construction spoke to the formation of local political
cultures throughout Rus’. Chroniclers frequently described larger entities as
the “Novgorod land,” the “Riazan’ land,” the “Galich land,” the “Suzdal’
land,” etc. In most cases they still meant the central Dnepr basin by “Rus’“
or “Rus’ land.” These local patriotisms, if that is the correct word, were
focused inward on the central place. In the political culture of Novgorod the
town itself—"Lord Novgorod the Great”—was symbol of its independence;
the detinets housing its autonomous archbishop was the town castle; the
veche the seat of sovereignty. This body politic undoubtedly had some idea
of its tribute-taking reach, but documentary and narrative sources rarely
mentioned frontiers. Pskov, while subordinate to Novgorod, had its own
body politic by the 1130s and by 1211 a prince. There must have been
borders where the writ of the mother city ended and that of its dependent
began, but they were not mentioned, either. In Volodimer-Suzdal’skii Iurii
Dolgorukii’s sons were central figures of the body politic and Andrei’s
suburban citadel at Bogoliubovo rivaled the town as “capital” of Suzdal’.
After 1200 virtually independent rival towns ruled by junior princes of the
19. Citations in n. !4; Hrushevs’kyi, Istoryia Ukrainy-Rusy, 8 vols, (reprint of Lviv-Kiev

ed. of 1904-19; New York: Knyhospilka, 1954-56), 1: 181-86; 2: 359-68, 445-54; 3: 1-17;
Pashuto, Ocherki po istorii Galitsko-Volynskoi Rusi (Moscow: îzdat. AN SSSR, 1950), 200-65;
John Fennell, The Crisis o f Medieval Russia (London-New York: Longman, 1983), 12-15, 23-
36.
Dolgorukii clan surrounded Volodimer. The historian of Suzdalian politics

Iu. A. Limonov described the pattern as polycencentric.20 But no one thought
it important to define borders between central place and secondary towns that
had become princely centers, or between the towns of Suzdal’ and those of
other lands. The irrelevance of frontiers to expressions of identity also held
true elsewhere in a Rus’ where secondary towns had become independent and
sometimes overshadowed central places.
Nevertheless, around 1200 references to borders began to appear.
Novgorod and Suzdal’ chronicles, even the Kiev Chronicle, mentioned Novyi
Torg (Torzhok) as Novgorod’s “gateway” to Suzdal’ or Smolensk, although
never explicitly calling it a border town. But under 1189 the word oukrairi
in the Kiev Chronicle designated a frontier area of Galich from which an
invading army from Smolensk seized two villages, and the Galich chronicler
under 1213 applied the same word to the frontier of Voiyn’ with Little
Poland.21
What of visions of a greater Rus’ c. 1200? Writers everywhere generally
continued to use Rus’ or the Rus’ land to mean the central Dnepr basin; but
they used it in other ways and especially td mean greater Rus’. Also, as once
for the monk Daniil, so for the, probably, lay author of the ‘Tale of the Host
of Igor’“ writing no earlier than 1186, Rus’ was the sum of lands presided
over by a large, if unruly, family of princes.22 Another well-known text
should interest us as a harbinger of a new consciousness. It is the “Lament on
the Destruction of the Land of Rus’“ by the Mongols, and it closes my
analysis chronologically. The author, this time probably a churchman,
envisaged a greater Rus’ that was clearly a whole entity, not the sum of
urban-centered sub-units, with borders defined in part by names of
neighboring peoples, in part by geographical frontiers:
20. Iu. A. Limonov, Vladimiro-suzdaVskaia Rus’ (Leningrad: Nauka, 1987), 107fF, and on
the central question of local and “national” loyalties, Goehrke, “Zum Problem,” 82-84.
2Í. Torzhok mentioned in NPL (from 1167), 32, 37, 42, 43, 51, 54, 55, 60, 64, 68; in
Suzdal’ and Kiev chronicles, PSRL 1, 2d ed.: 285 (1178), 288, 435, and PSRL, 2, 2d ed.: 510;
for oukrain\ ibid., 663,732.
22. Cf. Serbyn, “The Character,” 71-161, with B. A. Rybakov, “Drevnie Rusy,”
Sovetskoe arkheologiia 17 (1953): 29-104; and the sources: Novgorod Chronicle: NPL, 52, 53,
60, 62,71; Suzdal’ Chronicle: PSRL, 1 ,2de&: 345, 347, 357, 394, 399,411,414, 416-18,419,
420, 422, 429-30, 445, 446-47, 449, 450, 457; Kiev Chronicle: PSRL, 2, 2d éd.; 478, 538, 54Î,
554, 555, 568, 575, 591, 605, 683-84, 686; Galich Chronicle: PSRL, 2, 2d ed: 715, 717, 725,
730, 738, 743, 759, 766, 772-73, 781, 784, 787; Igor’ Tale, PLDR. XU vek, 372-87, and cf.
Norman W. Ingham, “Zemlia Russkaia and Zemlia Polovetskaia in the Poetic Structure of
Slovo o Polku Igoreve” paper presented at the Conference “The Frontier in the History of
Rus’/ Russia, 29-31 May 1992 at the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL (and published in re-
vised form in this collection) with my reading of it.
from the Hungarians to the Poles and the Czechs, from the Czechs to
the latviagi and from the Iatviagi to the Liths and the Germans, from
the Germans to the Korely, from the Korely to Ust’iug where the pagan
Toimitsi live as far as the Breathing Sea [Artie Ocean], and from the
sea to the Bulgars, from the Bulgars to the Butras, from the Butrasy to
the Cheremiss, from the Cheremis to the Mordvinians.23
By 1200 broad elements of the population of Rus’ also exhibited a

stronger, if not more precisely defined self-identity. Usually they expressed it
in juxtaposition to others. No doubt the anti-Catholic diatribes that flowed
through the Byzantine-Orthodox world after the Latin sack of Constantinople
in 1204 or, closer to home, the Catholic crusading in the Baltic area that
began about the same time enhanced anti-Latin sensitivities. They in turn
began to shape expressions of ethnicity. Thus, in the anonymous Discourse
12 of the paterik of the Kiev Caves Monastery the elder Matfei discerned a
demon as the cause of his brethren’s distraction during prayer. The demon
was dressed as a Pole. The paterik also contained a discourse (37) about
Latin errors attributed to St. Feodosii (d. 1074) that could not have appeared
before 1150.24 The Kiev chronicler shifted gears about the same time in
describing struggles with the Poiovtsy in 1183-85. Unlike the author of the
Igor’ tale, he saw them as Christian conflicts with pagans. Such value-laden
annalistic descriptions were more common in the 1200s than in the early
1100s. But not by much. Nor were they consistent in defining Otherness. In
the battle on the Kalka in 1223, for instance, the Tatars, not the Poiovtsy,
were the “Godless.” The Novgorod First Chronicle mentioned Liths regularly
from 1183, but only three times (from 1213) as pagan or godless Others. One
also finds such inconsistencies in references to Poles—allies one time,
“godless” Others (e.g., under 1143 bezbozhni Liakhove) the next— ,
Hungarians, Bulgars, or Mordvinians in the chronicles. A final example: in
the Novgorod First Chronicle for the 1000s and 1100s Swedes and Germans
along with Finnic and Balt peoples were mentioned by name as inhabitants
of the same undifferentiated cultural sphere in which Novgorod’s citizenry
lived. But in 1188, as John Lind pointed out, it referred perjoratively to
Germans as nemtsy. After 1200 this became a commonplace, one applied
indiscriminately to Catholic Swedes.25
23. PLDR: XIII vek (Moscow; Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1981), 130-31, and
Rappeler, “Ethnische Abgrenzung,” 126.
24. PSRL, 2: 311, and Kappeler, “Ethnische Abgrenzung,” 127-ff; cf. The Paterik, tr.
Heppeil, 109, 211-14, with Eremin, “Literatumoe nasledie Feodosiia Pecherskogo,” Trudy
Otdeleniia drevnerusskoi literatury 5 (1957): 159-84; Popov, Istorifco-literatumyi obzor, 69-81.
25. NPL> 37, 39, 52, 61-62,71-74, ; PSRL, 2d éd., 1: 345,435, 440, 444,460, and 2: 630-
51, esp. 632, 648, and cf. PLDR: XII vek, 380, 382. Also: Lind, “Varaeger, nemcer, op nov-
In other words, a consciousness of “we-they” relationships with

neighbors in Rus’, long largely a mindset of clerics, became more prevalent
and widespread, if not always consistently applied, shortly before 1200. Just
how ambiguous these distinctions were may be seen by the fact that annalists
frequently used the same “we-they” rhetoric to distinguish between local
patriotisms within Rus’. The pro-Daniil Romanovich chronicler of Galich in
1238 placed reigning Prince Rostislav Mikhailovich (son of Prince Mikhail
of Chernigov and Kiev) in the category of “foreign princes” {inoplemen nykh
kn iazii). Was he no different than the “foreigners, called Tatars”
(inoplemen nitsi, glagolemu Tatarove) who in the same year the Novgorod
annalist said invaded Riazan’?26 That Rus’ princes and princesses intermarried
with Poiovtsy, Poles, Hungarians, and other “Others” for their own ends as
much in not more than a century earlier tends to support this line of
argument.
* * *
These imaginary transparencies of the development of political culture in

Rus’ call up the same images of frontiers that informed transparancies of
economic and cultural development. In pre-Mongol Rus’ a self-identity
appeared first in terms of a united clan, then became a matter of religion or
morality that set off elites from others. Such notions were most lively in
Kiev but involved very few people. Duplicating the process of urban creation,
on one hand they reveal an integrated network of political organisms that
over the centuries pushed out frontiers from the central Dnepr basin and
several other isolated points to become greater Rus’. As independent and
secondary political units multiplied around 1100 or soon thereafter, the
political map became denser and more complex as independent and secondary
political units multiplied. The population of these towns also grew and civic
consciousness grew apace. Urban elites naturally forged local patriotisms,
vital sub-cultures that competed for some with greater loyalties of religious
belief, commercial connections, and princely clan. By 1200 the nodes of
civic culture were more numerous, their civil loyalties greater, and their
political sway extended over neighboring rural areas leaving little or no space
free of the authority of urban-princely elites. Political power and
consciousness were strongest at the core of each land, at the central place; on
the periphery they were weak, with a corresponding diminished sense of self,
gorodar ar 1188/’ Historisk tidskrift (for Finland, 1981), 145-65; idem, “The Martyria,” 21
n.54.
26. PSRL, 2, 2d ed.: 777; NPL, 74; Dmitri Obolensky, “Nationalism in Eastern Europe in
the Middle Ages,” in his The Byzantine Inheritance of Eastern Europe (London: Variorum,
1982), 1-16.
unless they collided with some threatening Other. The vitality of core towns
and the absence of well-defined frontiers characterized pre-industrial societies
in many places. As elsewhere, so in Rus\ given the lack of defined frontiers,
it was inevitable that proliferating and aggressive, although often small,
political cultures would regularly “collide.” This, of course, is an abstract
description of the warfare endemic to Rus’ c. 1200. It was to be expected that
the conflicts would be for hegemony over towns and, rarely, over frontier
zones.
Yet, as technologies, commerce, and political power radiated from Kiev
to new centers, so too did the ideal of a greater Rus’. It found more forceful
expression than ever before when juxtaposed to Others and it created a
creative tension with “local patriotisms” that was never resolved. Even c.
1200 few defined such notions of community territorially. In many respects
the term “segmentary state,” used by some social scientists to describe
descentralized societies worldwide that were less than empires but more than
tribal confederations, best comprehends the seeming contradictions that
characterized the dynamic political, economic, and cultural life of pre-Mongol
Rus’; the qualities that gave it a self-identity, however, were not those we
employ to describe some sort of pre-modem national consciousness; and
certainly not those associated with the origins of modem national states.27
Roosevelt University
27. My thinking here was inspired by John LeDonne’s paper, “The Frontier in Russian
History,” presented at the Conference on The Frontier in Rus’/Russia, 28-30 May 1992, Univ.
of Chicago, Chicago, IL; Edward A. Shils, Center and Periphery. Essays in Macrosociology
(Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1975), esp. 39-48; and articles on characteristics of political
life in pre-industrial societies worldwide by John Gedhili, John W. Fox, Matthew Spriggs,
Mogen Trolle Larsen, and others, in State and Society: The Emergence and Development of
Social Hierarchy and Political Centralization, eds. J. Gledhill et al. (London: Unwin Hyman,
1988).
10
Mission Impossible: Ups and Downs in Byzantine
Missionary Activity from the Eleventh to the Fifteenth
Century
Sergey A. Ivanov
(i)
The spread of Christianity from Byzantium to the outer world saw two main peaks: the first was
in the sixth century, when the empire brought its religion to Sudan, Persia, Arabia, Abkhasia
and beyond; the second fell in the ninth and tenth centuries when Great Moravia, Bulgaria,
Serbia, Alania, Hungary and Rus’ were brought within the orbit of imperial Christianity. Not
all these efforts proved to be long-lasting. Moreover, it is open to discussion whether in all the
above-mentioned cases it was Byzantium rather than the barbarians themselves who initiated
the conversion. In any case the early period of Greek missionary activity is widely known and
has been the subject of numerous scholarly publications. The later period still remains in the
shadows - maybe because it witnessed no conversions which would last until the present day.
We shall try to fill this gap.
There exists a Byzantine ivory plaque of the eleventh century depicting the Pentecost.
The Apostles, according to the iconographie canon, are seated at a horseshoe-shaped table;
in the foreground the emperor is shown, clad in a ceremonial garment, side by side with
people in exotic clothes and turbans, who are gesticulating vigorously. This relief conveys the
Byzantine concept of the emperor as ‘equal to the Apostles’, whereas the gift of ‘speaking in
tongues’ is reinterpreted as the sovereign’s ability to convince foreign pagans of the advantages
of Christianity.1
And in fact, Byzantine emperors of the eleventh century did eagerly, as it were, convert
barbarians. Constantine Monomachos in 1048 christened two Pecheneg rulers. The first one,
Tirach, was a captive,2whereas the second, Kegen, visited Constantinople of his own free will
and ‘accepted holy baptism, both he himself and those around him; a pious monk Euthymios
was sent, who installed the divine font near the river Danube and endowed everyone with
holy baptism’.3
John Mauropous eulogises Constantine’s success in the following words:
1 R. Staats ‘Missionsgeschichte Nordeuropas. Eine geistesgeschichtliche Einführung’, in M.

Müller-Wille (ed.), Rom und Byzanz im Norden. Mission und Glaubenwechsel im Ostseeraum wáhrend
des 8.-14. Jahrhunderts (2 vols, Stuttgart, 1997), vol. 1, pp. 14-17, fig.l. See other examples in N.
Ozolin, Pravoslavnaia ikonografiia Piatidesiatnitsy (Moscow, 2001), pp. 163-71. However, Ozolin does
not mention the Berlin plaque.
2 John Skylitzes, Synopsis historiarum, ed. H. Thurn (Berlin-New York, 1973), p. 459.
3 Skylitzes, Synopsis, pp. 456-7.
All corners of the world are aware of God’s majesty, and all nations proclaim (ta ethnë panta
këryttei) His great and invincible might. Some of them bow their heads under the yoke of the
humanitarian kingdom, others are preparing to do so, and yet more are expected. ‘Princes shall
come out of Egypt’ (Psalms 68.31). Such is the prophecy, and its fulfilment is manifest: although
not all at once, embassies (presbeiai) come from there day by day.4
Yet there exist other documents which depict the imperial attitude towards Kegen’s
conversion as being somewhat lukewarm. In his panegyric to the same emperor, Michael
Psellos compares the Pechenegs with the Gibeonites in the Bible, the despicable tribe who
were allowed to join Israel only by mistake; their conversion comes as a complete surprise.5
Among Psellos’ letters there is a draft of an appeal to a barbarian ruler, presumably Kegen,6
written on behalf of the emperor Constantine. The most striking feature of this letter is not
its tedious rhetoric but its unexpectedly sincere confession that the emperor does not propose
to involve himself in instructing his convert in matters of faith: ‘I do not send you countless
embassies, for I do not want to interrupt your constant and persistent thoughts of God; I
liberated my soul and mind from caring about you’.7
There is abundant evidence of the missionary zeal of Alexios I Komnenos. This is what
his daughter Anna writes: ‘He was a great teacher of our creed, had apostolic zeal and speech;
he wanted to convert to our faith not only the nomadic Scythians, but also the whole of Persia
and the barbarians who inhabit Egypt and Libya, and who deliver Mohammed’s sacraments’.8
Theophylact of Ohrid extols the same qualities in Alexios:
His most divine trait is that he betroths them (the barbarians) to God... and having washed these
‘men of blood’ in the spring of salvation, he makes them ‘children of light’ and dresses them in
the raiment of incorruptibility ... for Christ to receive from his hands the ‘offering of pagans’ (see
Romans 15.16) as He has received it from St Paul’s. Look at the emperor showing himself as an
apostle ... this could call to mind the fabulous Prometheus who moulded (plattona) humans. I,
for my part, will point to the Promethian foresight of the emperor who recasts (metaplattonta)
barbarians into a human or even divine image. What is more, (Alexios) ordained ‘a teacher of the
Gentiles’ (didaskalon ethndn) (1 Timothy 2.7) for them to direct the furrow of the Word and to
multiply God’s harvest ‘in faith and truth’, in Paul’s words’.9
Another panegyrist, Manuel Straboromanos, also praises the missionary achievements of

Alexios I,10 as does St Cyril the Phileote:
4 John Mauropous, Quae in codice vaticano graeco 616 supersunt, ed. P. A. de Lagarde
(Gottingen, 1882), pp. 143-4. It is noteworthy that Mauropous slightly alters the biblical quotation:
the Psalm speaks of the ‘elders’ (presbeis), while he prefers to regard them as official embassies
(presbeiai).
5 Michael Psellos, Orationes panegyricae, ed. G. T. Dennis (Stuttgart, 1994), pp. 177-87.
6 G. Moravcsik, Byzantinoturcica (2 vols, Berlin, 1958), vol. 2, p. 435.
7 Michael Psellos, Historikoi logoi, epistolai, kai alia anekdotas in K. N. Sathas (éd.), Mesaiônikë
bibliothëkë (Bibliotheca graeca medii aevi) (1 vols, Venice and Paris, 1872-94), vol. 5, pp. 405-06.
8 Anna Comnena, Alexiade. Règne de l ’Empereur Alexis I Comnène, 1081-1118, trans. and ed.
B. Leib (4 vols, Paris, 1937-76), vol. 2, p. 81.
9 Theophylact of Ohrid, Discours, traités, poésies, ed. P. Gautier (Thessaloniki, 1980), pp. 227-9.
10 P. Gautier, ‘Le dossier d’un haut fonctionnaire d’Alexis Ier Comnène, Manuel Straboromanos’,
REB, 23 (1965): 190.
If I wanted to remember those from all tongues, whom you brought to Christ with your God-loving
teaching, there would not be enough time to enumerate them. I will recall only the Scythians.
They had been wolves, until with God’s help and mercy you subdued them, both physically and
spiritually and turned them into sheep and brought them to Christ’s flock through the font of
rebirth.11
And yet we do not have a scrap of evidence that Alexios actually sent missionaries to any
independent barbarians.
Much of the twelfth century was propitious for Byzantium. Consequently, the rhetoric of
subduing barbarians largely displaces the rhetoric of converting them. Aggressive statements
abound.12 Sometimes imperialistic phraseology intermingles strangely with missionary
rhetoric. Nikephoros Basilakes characterises the emperor John Komnenos in this way: ‘He
tamed the world with his hand and proclaimed Christ as king, while wandering everywhere
with his fair feet, offering salvation and preaching (<evangelizomenos) peace to those who do
not feign deafness’.13 Here, as in other places, the words ‘salvation/rescue’ and ‘proclaiming/
evangelising’ can be understood both in a political and a religious sense. More popular than
preaching was the policy of forceful conversion of those barbarians who found themselves
under the Byzantines’rule. Eustathius of Thessaloniki used to call external barbarians not only
‘wild beasts’, but also the ‘Devil’s tool to harm God’s flock’.14 Nevertheless he compliments
Manuel Komnenos on his measures to make Christians out of captive Moslems: ‘You bring to
God those who are alien by creed, you lead apostates to the knowledge of God and fill God’s
pen with sheep which are accepted by the Good Shepherd’.15
Some revival of missionary activity can be traced during the reign of Manuel Komnenos.16
Although the majority of his measures were connected with the forced conversion of Moslems
and Jews, he also took steps to preach the faith to pagans. This is obvious from the writings
of Euthymios Tomikes. This author was no admirer of barbarians17 and yet he paid much
11 La Vie de saint Cyrille le Philéote, moine byzantin, ed. and trans. E. Sargologos (Brussels,
1964), p. 230. These ‘Scythians’ were most probably Pechenegs, defeated and relocated by Alexios: see
John Zonaras, Epitome historiarum, ed. M. Pinder and T. Biittner-Wobst (3 vols, Bonn, 1841-97), vol.
3, pp. 740-1.
12 See, for example, Theophylact of Ohrid, Discours, p. 225; Michael Italikos, Lettres et
discours, ed. P. Gautier (Paris, 1972), p. 224; Nikephoros Basilakes, Gli encomi per Vimperatore e
per il patriarca, ed. R. Maisano (Naples, 1977), p. 92; Euthymios Malakes, Ta sdzomena, ed. K. G.
Bonis (2 vols, Athens, 1937-49), vol. 2, pp. 526-8, 550. More on bellicose rhetoric in N. Rodosevic,
‘L’oecuménè byzantine dans les discours impériaux du XIe et XIIe siècle’, BSl, 54 (1993): 156-61.
13 Basilakes, Gli encomi, p. 116; see also p. 102.
14 Eustathios of Thessaloniki, Opuscula. Accedunt trapezuntinae historiae scriptores Panaretus
et Eugenicus, ed. T.L.F. Tafel (Frankfurt-am-Main, 1832; repr. Amsterdam, 1964), p. 44.
15 Fontes rerum byzantinarum, ed. W. Regel (Petrograd, 1917; repr. Leipzig, 1982), p. 49; see
also ibid., p. 60: Eustathios of Thessaloniki, Opuscula, p. 526.
16 K. Bonis, ‘O Thessalonikës Eustathios kai oi tomoi tou autokratoros Manouël B’ Komnënou
(1143-80) yper ton eis tën christianikën orthodoxian methistamenôn Môamethanôn’, Epetëris Etaireias
Byzantinôn Spoudôn, 19(1949): 162-4.
17 Euthymios Tomikes, ‘Syngraphai’, in A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus (éd.), Noctes Petropolitanae
(St Petersburg, 1913), p. 183; see also ibid., p. 168.
attention to their conversion. In the epitaph for Nicholas Aiotheodorites, the Metropolitan of
Athens who died in 1175, he writes:
I saw you manifesting ancient precepts of salvation to incoming pagans (tois ek ton ethnon
epistrephousi); together with St Paul you were proclaiming God’s name and you became the
teacher of pagans (ton ethnon didaskalos echrëmatisas). O, mighty tongue, which was able to melt
even barbarians! O, cogency and forcefulness of words which ... can bring even boastful and
arrogant pagans (ethne) to learn the true Faith.18
Describing the Turkish sultan’s visit to Constantinople, Tomikes, in an intricate and indirect
form, suggests that he might accept Christianity.19 However, even more emphasis is put on
taking care of existing Christian communities in the lands now occupied by Moslems:
You (the emperor) persuaded barbarians to stop violence against Christians and to grant them more
opportunities to practise their piety ... You urged (the sultan) to accept spiritual leaders (bishops)
in every city ... You give out widows in marriage, yet, not the young ones, as the apostolic
commandment admonishes, but those widowed for a long time and yearning for conjugal love.20
Hinting metaphorically at the Gospel (1 Timothy 5.11), Tomikes insists that the reopening of
bishoprics in their old sees is more important than founding new ones.
Both the Byzantines’ renewed interest in missions and their inability to overcome their
innate cultural snobbery are shown clearly in an extensive description of scenes of apostolic
preaching. This is to be found in Nicholas Mesarites’ ekphrasis of the church of the Holy
Apostles, written at the turn of the thirteenth century. Although the pictures were centuries old
by the time he described them, Mesarites gives his own reactions to them:
The Saracens and Persians are near Simon, dressed in Persian robes, rather slack in the care of their
beards, with their eyebrows puckered up, and with their hair ruffled over their faces, and looking at
him with Titan-like gaze, adorning their heads with many-coloured headdresses, sky-blue, intense
red, and white. They seem to resist the apostolic teaching; for each of them, as one can see, jostles
his neighbour with his elbows, trying to come face to face with Simon, so as to be able to reply
to his questions. He, on the other hand, is all the more zealous because of this (ho d ’ epi pleon
kantautha zëloi), attempting to overcome their ignorance and their age-old guile.
From this passage one may assume that apostolic zeal is finally winning the upper hand over
the incredulity and - even more important - the exotic appearance of the barbarians. But as
we resume the interrupted quotation, the prospect grows grimmer:
Opposite these [scenes] ... is Bartholomew ... in Great Armenia ... The faces of the Armenians are
shameless even though they strive to conceal and indeed disguise by softness the shamelessness
which lurks beneath. This, however, is revealed all the more because it is not possible to drive
out or alter what exists by nature. They are ... like ... Gibeonites ...The faces of these Armenian
Gibeonites are tense and their walk is like their faces, and they are like wild beasts in every respect,
and unpolished (thëriôdë ta panta kai anapoxesta), while a sense of honour and reasonableness are
completely absent from them ... He, however, greets them and calls them to him and converses with
them like the most loving father, speaking words which sweeten, more than honey and the comb,
18 Euthymios Tornikes, ‘Syngraphai’, pp. 159-60.

19 Euthymios Tornikes, ‘Syngraphai’, p. 168.
20 Euthymios Tornikes, ‘Syngraphai’, p. 183.
the souls of those who listen in a spirit of understanding, in simplicity of heart and uprightness of
thought; but he does not receive a simple answer from the Armenian Gibeonites, because their race
is not simple, but secretive and crafty.21
In Mesarites’ description, Armenians combine all the shortcomings of barbarians with all the
dark sides of (future) heretics. But what is even more important is that Psellos’ metaphor of
the Gibeonites reappears here (see above, p. 252). The author, speaking from a rather less than
apostolic viewpoint, hints that the pagans, even if they do join the Christian abode, are still a
‘fifth column’.
The catastrophe of 1204 did not change the general image of the emperor as ‘equal to the
apostles’. Both the despots of Epirus22 and the sovereigns of Nicaea,23 as well as the emperors
of the reborn Constantinopolitan state24 were eulogised for converting barbarians, and all
these praises carried with them a sense of utter contempt for the object of Christianisation.
The idea that an ‘alien’, for example, the Turkish sultan, might become an orthodox was
regarded with suspicion.25
The belief that the imperial faith went hand in hand with membership of the empire
led to positive reluctance to propagate the faith among independent barbarians, in spite of
all declarations to the contrary. However, Byzantine attitudes towards mission-work were
not unanimous. At one extreme we see the above-cited John Mauropous, who was very
enthusiastic about the conversion of nomads. On the occasion of the Pechenegs’ baptism
in 1048 he delivered a speech which may be regarded as the high tide of Byzantine cultural
tolerance:
Who are these alien people with a strange language and where do they come from? Who managed
to domesticate, in the most improbable way, their wild appearance, beast-like souls and outlandish
clothing? Who remodelled everything completely and imparted to them more humanity? Who
brought this tribe to God Whom they did not know? ... This nation - let me say a few words about
it in this speech - were a faithless tribe, as you all know, impious and lawless. They were Scythians
by birth, nomads by way of life, wild by mood, vile and foul in their everyday habits. One may
argue that they did not deserve anything better: they knew neither literacy nor laws and were not
organised into any kind of statehood, nor were they tied by any bonds of solidarity.26
21 Nicholas Mesarites, ‘Description of the church of the Holy Apostles at Constantinople’, ed.
and trans. G. Downey, Transactions o f the American Philosophical Society, 47 (1957): 905 (trans.:
876).
22 Theodore II Doukas Lascaris, Encomio dell’imperatore Giovanni Duca, ed. L. Tartaglia
(Naples, 1990), p. 100; George Acropolites, Opera, ed. P. Wirth (2 vols, Stuttgart, 1978), vol. 2, p. 24.
23 V. G. Vasilievsky, ‘Epirotica saeculi XII: Iz perepiski Ioanna Navpaktskogo’, Vizantiiskii
Vremennik, 3 (1896): 269; Nikephoros Blemmydes, Curriculum vitae et carmina, ed. A. Heisenberg
(Leipzig, 1896), p. 118; see also A. Savvides, ‘Oi Komanoi (Koumanoi) kai to Byzantio llos-13os ai.
m.Ch.’, Byzantina 13.2 (1985): 953.
24 Manuel Holobolos, Orationes, ed. M. Treu (2 vols, Potsdam, 1906-07), vol. 2, p. 95; Manuel II
Palaeologus, Funeral oration on his brother Theodore, ed. and trans. J. Chryso stomides (Thessaloniki,
1985), p. 91.
25 See also George Pachymeres, Relations historiques, ed. and trans. A. Failler and V. Laurent
(CFHB 24) (5 vols, Paris, 1984-2000), vol. 2, pp. 336-9, 344-9.
26 Mauropous, Quae in codice vaticano graeco 676 supersunt, pp. 143-4.
Yet John does not agree with this point of view: after the Pechenegs were, with God’s help,
defeated:
... they began to implore with their barbarous and garbled voices ... And now they stand by our
side, to the amazement of all that see, as if transmuted (metaplasthentes) from wild beasts into
humble people, brought from their previous ugliness and outlandishness to their present affability
and charm. The most beautiful and amazing thing is that from being impious and infidel they
became pious and faithful, as soon as they were vouchsafed the font of incorruptibility ... The
emperor himself marked them with the light of grace, and they received their new appearance and
transformation (metapoiësin) from the Spirit ... And so the lawless tribe became a holy tribe, a
new people of God emerged from the old which had been impious. The calling of the nations is at
work again, the Faith has once more gained an increase, and the Gospel has managed to reach the
ends of the earth... You, o most orthodox of emperors ... shepherd this harsh flock (baryn laon)
as if it were sheep.27
While Mauropous really believed that barbarians could transcend their nature,28 most
Byzantines regarded their conversion as a mere masquerade. This is how Michael Attaleiates
describes the same baptism of the Pechenegs:
They put on a show of submissiveness and obtained mercy ... The emperor vouchsafed them the
font of rebirth and rewarded them with great honours ... But then he discovered that it would be
vain to try and whitewash an Ethiopian (matën Aithiopa leukanai tis epiballetai) ... When they
found themselves among their fellow tribesmen, they began to practise without restraint what their
customs urged them to.29
The last statement seems to be a polemical response to the optimistic view expressed
half a century before by Symeon Metaphrastes when he extolled Thomas the Apostle for
‘whitewashing’ the souls of dark-skinned Indians.30
The case of the nomads was especially hopeless in Byzantine eyes since their very way
of life was wholly incompatible with Christianity. For example, in 927 Theodore Daphnopates
wrote that Bulgarians ‘broke away from the life of carts and pasturing, and learned the
Gospel of Christ instead’.31 To convert nomads to Christianity meant to make them sedentary.
According to John Kinnamos, the Emperor John Komnenos, having defeated the Seljuks in
Asia Minor in 1124, ‘baptised them into the pious creed and, therefore, augmented the Roman
army; for previously they did not till the soil but drank milk and ate meat, like Scythians; and
they put up their tents in different places in the open air and were easy prey to anybody’.32
This passage is very telling: first, Christianisation is regarded as a natural consequence of a
27 Mauropous, Quae in codice vaticano graeco 676 supersunt, pp. 145-6.

28 E. Malamut, ‘L’image byzantin des Petchénègues’, BZ, 88 (1995): 123.
29 Michael Attaleiates, Historia, ed. I. Bekker (Bonn, 1853), pp. 30-1.
30 Symeon Metaphrastes, ‘Commentarius rerum gestarum sancti et gloriosi apostoli Thomae’, in
PG, 116(1864): col. 566B.
31 R. Jenkins, ‘The Peace with Bulgaria (927) celebrated by Theodore Daphnopates’, in P. Wirth
(ed.), Polychronion. Festschrift fiir Franz Dôlger (Heidelberg, 1966; repr. in R. Jenkins, Studies on
Byzantine history o f the ninth and tenth centuries (London, 1970), no. 21), pp. 290-1.
32 John Kinnamos, Epitome rerum ab Ioanne et Alexio Comnenis gestarum, ed. A. Meineke
(Bonn, 1836), p. 9.
military victory; second, it helps to incorporate barbarians within the Byzantine army;33 third,
this incorporation would be impossible without a change of life-style; fourth, the barbarians
themselves would also benefit from this change, but materially, not spiritually: Kinnamos
does not have a word to say about things sublime! Security is what really counts.
Yet, even a sedentary barbarian population had virtually no chance of becoming civilized
in Byzantine eyes. All barbarians were regarded as sub-human and therefore impervious to
Christian sermonising. This applied, paradoxically, even to already baptised nations, such
as the Bulgarians. Having been converted already in the ninth century, they are depicted at
the beginning of the eleventh century in the Vita of St Athanasios of Athos as wild beasts.34
In the middle of the eleventh century Michael Psellos extolls Leo the Paphlagonian, the first
Greek metropolitan of conquered Bulgaria, as if he had been an apostle in a pagan land.35
Theophylact of Ohrid, the Byzantine archbishop in Bulgaria at the beginning of the twelfth
century, calls himself ‘teacher of the Bulgarians’,36 whereas his successor, Leo Moungos, is
simply attested in one source as didaskalos ton ethnôn, that is ‘teacher of the pagans’!37In the
fourteenth century the Vita of Gregory of Sinai depicts his monastic activities in Bulgaria as if
it were still a pagan land,38while Archbishop Gregory of Ohrid was eulogised in an inscription
of 1316-17 in the church of St Sophia of Ohrid for his ‘teaching of the Mysian tribes («ethnë
ta Myson ekdidaskei)' ?9Nikephoros Gregoras mocks the very concept of Bulgarians being of
the same creed as Greeks.40 Thus even four and a half centuries after their baptism barbarians
could not claim to be mature Christians - only novices!
When Constantine Akropolites at the beginning of the fourteenth century decided to write
a panegyric to a much venerated saint of Aetolia with the telling name ‘Barbaros’,41 he began
his florid sermon with a declaration of human equality: ‘It is amazing that people who are
mostly base and of the lowliest mentality may demonstrate subtlety, nobility and wisdom’.42
Afterwards Constantine describes his hero, a former pirate from Africa, ‘looking wild and
mumbling even more savagely, and pronouncing inarticulate and mostly meaningless sounds.
Indeed, even those Greek words which he gradually learned, he uttered in a barbarous manner.
So that when he spoke, his speech sounded beastly and cacophonous’.43 Later we read that
Barbaros expresses his desire to be baptised. The priest, who had failed to make the first move
33 Nikephoros Gregoras, Historia Byzantina, ed. L. Schôpen and I. Bekker (3 vols, Bonn, 1829-
30), vol. l,p p . 248, 379.
34 I. Pomialovsky, Zhitieprepodobnogo Afanasiia Afonskogo (St Petersburg, 1895), pp. 109-11.
35 Psellos, Historikoi logoi, vol. 5, p. 144.
36 S. Maslev, Proizvedeniia na Teofilakt Okhridski (Sofia, 1974), pp. 80-1.
37 V. Tapkova-Zaimova, ‘Diukanzhov spis’k’, Palaeobulgarica, 2000, no. 3: 47.
38 I. Pomialovsky, ‘Zhitie izhe vo sviatykh ottsa nashego Grigoriia Sinaita’, Zapiski istoriko-
filologicheskogo fakuVteta Sankt-Peterburgskogo Universiteta, 35 (1894): 43-4.
39 H.K.G. Gelzer, Der Patriarchat von Achrida. Geschichte und Urkunden (Leipzig, 1902), p. 14.
40 Nikephoros Gregoras, Epistulae, ed. P.A.M. Leone (2 vols, Matino, 1982-83), vol. 2, p. 109.
41 On him, see D. Zakythenos, ‘Agios Barbaros’, Eis mnëmën K. Amantou, 1874-1960 (Athens,
1960), pp. 444-5.
42 Constantine Akropolites in Analekta lerosolymitikës Stachyologias, ed. A. Papadopoulos-
Kerameus (5 vols, St Petersburg, 1891-98), vol. 1, p. 405.
43 Akropolites, Analekta, vol. 1, p. 412.
and was in fact scared to death, duly performed the rite of baptism and addressed the neophyte
with the following admonition:
Stand by our side against the Hagarenes [Moslems] who are impious and of an alien tongue to
us and from whom you apostasised ... after you took a liking to our way of life and joined the
Christians ... Fight for our country, wage war against our enemies, defend the sceptre of our
empire!44
Thus, we see that, in order to become a Christian, Barbaros had to cease being barbarian.
The author sees this as a highly improbable miracle: ‘God who created existence out of non-
existence, can produce a saint even from a barbarian! ’.45H.-G. Beck once made the perceptive
and apposite remark that ‘Greek and Roman pride ... became an obstacle to mission-work.
Barbarians were regarded as unworthy of Christianity’.46
It should be noted that Moslems were seen as much more sophisticated spiritually than
pagan barbarians. For example, the scenario for a Moslem’s catechism had it that a convert
would read aloud a long text and take part in a dialogue. Efforts must be made to ensure that
he understands what is going on: ‘These words he must say either himself or through an
interpreter, if he does not know Greek’.47 The pagan convert, on the other hand, is perceived
in the Byzantine Euchologion as absolutely passive: during the whole ceremony he does not
utter a word and he is not expected to understand anything.48 The formulation for his baptism
most closely resembles the formulation for the baptism of babies.49
(ii)
Very little is known about the everyday life of Byzantine missionaries working in a barbarian
milieu. The most famous of them, Cyril and Methodius, are honoured with Slavic Vitae, but
not with Greek ones. Less famous yet still important Byzantine monks, the Christianisers
44 Akropolites, Analekta, vol. 1, p. 420.

45 Akropolites, Analekta, vol. 1, p. 406. Greek epitaphs to St Barbaros underline the point that to
become a saint he had to overcome his own nature; see also K. Ivanova, ‘Zhitieto na Varvar Mirotochets
Pelagoniiski’, Palaeobulgarica, 2000, no. 2: 49, n. 35.
46 H.-G. Beck, ‘Christliche Mission und politische Propaganda im byzantinischen Reich’,
Settimane di studio della Fondazione Centro Italiano di studi su ll’alto Medioevo, 14 (1967): 658 (repr.
in H.-G. Beck, Ideen und Realitàten in Byzanz (London, 1972), no. 4).
47 Niketas Choniates, ‘Thesauri liber XX’, in PG, 140 (1865): col. 124. This text is ascribed
to Choniates and in fact his ‘History’ touches upon some dogmatic problems related to this matter:
Niketas Choniates, Historia, ed. J.-L. van Dieten (Berlin-New York, 1975), p. 312. However, the extant
manuscripts of the text date from some two centuries earlier: M. Arranz, ‘La tradition liturgique de
Constantinople au IXème siècle et l’Euchologe Slave du Sinai’, Studi sulVOriente Cristiano, 4.2 (2000):
75. This procedure was probably devised when Moslems first began to convert to Christianity in the
ninth century: see, for example, Niketas Byzantinus, ‘Confutatio falsi libri quem scripsit Mohamedes
Arabs’, in PG, 105 (1862): col. 672A.
48 M. Arranz, L ’Eucologio Costantinopolitano agli Inizi del Secolo X I (Rome, 1996), p. 294.
49 M. Arranz, ‘Les sacrements de l’ancien Euchologe constantinopolitain (2)’, Orientalia
Christiana Periodica, 49 (1983): 81-3.
of Ethiopia, are not mentioned in a single Greek text, but are memorialised in Geez.50 The
only surviving Byzantine example of a missionary Vita (a form of hagiography which
flourished in western Christendom51) is a strange one: the above-mentioned Theophylact of
Ohrid, the Greek-born archbishop of Bulgaria, wrote a Vita of Clement of Ohrid, his own
distant predecessor. The hagiographer praises his hero’s missionary efforts but at the same
time hints that the rudeness of Slavs made it impossible to teach them ‘real’, i.e. Byzantine
Christianity. Clement therefore admonished his flock with primitive sermons in the barbaric
Bulgarian tongue.52 The same line is drawn by the anonymous late Byzantine narrative of the
baptism of Rus’: this fabulous source tells of two Greeks, Cyril and Athanasios who were
sent to Prince Vladimir by Basil I (sic): ‘When they saw that these people were absolutely
barbarian and uncouth, the wise men were at a loss how to teach them 24 Greek letters.
Therefore, they invented 35 letters for them, not to let them lapse from piety’.53 As for the
Slavs, they reciprocated the contempt of the Greeks. In the twelfth- to fourteenth-century54
Bulgarian Legenda Thessalonicensis, St Cyril tells the story of his mission in the following
way: he was ordered by God to convert the Bulgarians to Christianity, but the metropolitan of
Thessaloniki ‘harshly cursed me and said: “O, mad father, the Bulgarians are cannibals and
they will exterminate you!” I went out into the market-place and heard Bulgarians speaking
and my heart trembled inside me and I felt as if I were in hell and darkness’.55 Afterwards,
thanks to a miracle, Cyril gains knowledge of the Slavic language - and immediately forgets
his Greek. Cyril is arrested by the authorities in Thessaloniki, but Slav princes besiege the
city, demanding that the man sent to them by God be handed over.56
The conduct of the Greek clergy in newly baptised Rus’ was highly ambiguous. On the
one hand, Byzantine bishops kept such a low profile that from 988 until 1037 we have no
information which would prove even the existence of a Russian metropolitanate. On the other
hand, the Greeks participated in the canonisation of the first Russian saints. Boris and Gleb
were the sons of Prince Vladimir of Kiev, and they were both assassinated in 1015 during the
bloody struggle for their father’s succession. The phenomenon of the politically motivated
beatification of Boris and Gleb and, moreover, of its rapid growth into a broadly-based cult
became the first original step of vernacular Russian Christianity. It could not be approved
by the Greek clergy, since the two martyred princes did not qualify for sanctity from the
Byzantine point of view. However, the Greeks decided to pre-empt a process which they could
50 See, for example, C. Conti Rossini, ‘La leggenda di Abba Afse in Etiopia’, in Melanges syriens
offerts à Monsieur René Dussaud (2 vols, Paris, 1939), vol. 1, pp. 153-4; M.-A. van den Oudenrijn, La
vie de saint Za M ika’el Aragawi (Friburg, 1939), pp. 42-50; O. Raineri, “‘Galda Sadqan” o “Vita dei
Giusti’” , Nicolaus 6 (1978): 143-63.
51 See I. Wood, The missionary life: saints and the evangelisation o f Europe, 400-1050 (Harlow,
2001), esp. pp. 247-71 (conclusion).
52 A. Milev, Gr ’tskite Zhitiia na Kliment Okhridski (Sofia, 1966), pp. 78-80, 124-34.
53 Narratio de Russorum ad fidem Christianam conversione, in W. Regel, Analecta Byzantino-
Rossica (St Petersburg, 1891), p. 50.
54 B.N. Floria, ‘Kirillo-Mefodievskie traditsii v razvitii srednevekovoi bolgarskoi kul’tury’, in
I.I. Kostiushko (ed.), Istoriia, kuVtura, etnografiia i foVklor slavianskikh narodov. X mezhdunarodnyi
s ’ezd s lavis tov (Moscow, 1988), pp. 162-3.
55 I. Ivanov, B ’Igarski Starini iz Makedoniia (Sofia, 1931; repr. 1970), p. 282.
56 Ivanov, B ’Igarski Starini, p. 282.
not prevent: it is highly probable that the first Russian hagiographical cycle, the ‘Martyrion of
Boris and Gleb’, had a Greek prototype.57
Also contradictory are the missionary precepts given by John II, the Greek metropolitan
of Kiev at the end of the eleventh century. His main advice is: ‘Follow the hard line rather than
local customs!’58 These words are the metropolitan’s answer to a very innocent question as to
whether it is acceptable to eat the meat from animals killed by wild beasts. John condemns
everything ‘that is far from the piousness and decency of the present Roman way of life {tes nyn
eusebeias kai tës Rhômaïkës euschëmonos politeiasy.59 On the other hand, the metropolitan
calls for clemency towards condemned wizards and pagan magi.60 This is contrary to the
Byzantine law which demanded the death penalty for them.61Another example of some kind
of tolerance is John’s attitude towards the dress code. Insisting that priests should officiate
at the liturgy in prescribed Byzantine garments, even if they contradict the ‘customs of the
country’, the metropolitan lets his clerics ‘enjoy the local habit’ in their everyday life62 and
grants them permission to put pelts under their garments ‘because of the terrible frost and
cold’.63
Beyond this, we know next to nothing about the whereabouts of Greek clergy in Rus’.
The Old Russian Vita of St Leontios of Rostov claims a Byzantine descent for him, but this
is most likely a twelfth-century literary fiction. We can suspect that Greek clergy did not
try hard to learn the local language, and the population looked upon them with suspicion.64
Metropolitan Nikephoros addressed his Kievan flock with sad words: ‘The gift of tongues
was not vouchsafed to me - that which, according to St Paul, could help me fulfil my duty.
Therefore I stand speechless before you and keep silence all the time’.65
(iü)
It seems that as the empire neared its end, the Greeks became understandably less arrogant
and more sensitive. Around 122366 Germanos, the patriarch of Nicaea, sent Bishop Theodore
to Alania. The country had been formally baptised some three hundred years earlier, but its
Christianity remained fairly superficial. Theodore admits that ‘the Alans are Christians only
57 L. Müller, ‘Studien zur altrussischen Legende der Heiligen Boris und Gleb’, Zeitschrift fur
slavische Philologie, 25 (1956): 356-61.
58 ‘Otvety mitropolita Ioanna IP, Sbornik pamiatnikov po istorii tserkovnogo prava, ed. V.N.
Beneshevich (St Petersburg, 1915), p. 109. The text is preserved both in Greek and in Slavic versions,
and they do not wholly concur.
59 ‘Otvety’, ed. Beneshevich, p. 110.
60 ‘Otvety’,ed. Beneshevich, pp. 110-11.
61 S. Troianos, ‘Mageia kai dikaio sto Byzantio’, Archaiologia, 20 (1986): 42-3.
64 L. Müller, ‘Russen in Byzanz und Griechen im Rus’ Reich’, Bulletin d ’information et de
Coordination, 5 (1971): 107-14.
65 ‘Pouchenie mitropolita Nikifora v nedeliu Syropustnuiu’, in Makarii, Istoriia russkoi tserkvi
(7 vols, Moscow, 1995), vol. 2, p. 569.
66 M. Nystazopoulou, ‘O “Alanikos” tou episkopou Alanias Theodôrou kai ë eis ton patriarchikon
thronon anarrësis Germanou tou 2” , Epetëris Etaireias Byzantinôn Spoudon, 33 (1964): 273.
in name’.67 He was sent there on account of irregularities in the ordination of the local clergy.
Theodore began his journey in Cherson, where he was confronted with the hostility of the
local bishop: ‘He did not know that we are apostles of God’. Theodore left the city to preach
to those Alans who lived in the Crimea.68
Indeed, it was a herd scattered through mountains, deserts and precipices, having neither enclosures
nor huts, and thus easy prey for predators. They did not have a shepherd, although it was the duty
of many ... They never knew what a bishop should look like, although St Paul ... the teacher of
pagans, had expounded on this subject. Therefore they think that our bishopric serves only for
luxury and cares only about worldly things.69
The bishop of Cherson objected fiercely to Theodore’s activity. The latter had to justify
his desire to preach to barbarians, while the bishop shouted: ‘The Devil take {all’es koraltas
erre) the godless Alans who are even worse than the Scythians [i.e. pagan Mongols]’. When
Theodore finally reached his see, he was appalled by what he saw: ‘Alas, on the apostolic
foundation a building of reed and straw was raised, and it was consumed by flame’.70Theodore
found that the clergy ordained from Trebizond acted negligently in Alania ‘under the pretext
of the simple-mindedness of this people’. And they practised extortion claiming that they
should be remunerated for their efforts among barbarians.71 The predecessor of Theodore
used to ordain priests recklessly: ‘In several days he produced ant-hills of priests ... He did
everything quickly, and quickly did he go back’.72 The Alans’ own indifference sowed seeds
of doubt in Theodore’s soul that maybe they deserved their fate: ‘The sheep have followed
the wolf, as if they had never seen a shepherd ... Whoever may fool them, they do not care
... Like the flock, like the shepherd’.73 His letter is full of resentment and yet it shows some
pride: ‘What an ill-fated shepherd am I and a luckless husbandman! And yet, by preaching
“from the rooftops” (Matthew 10.27) little by little, I have gathered a harvest. This consists
of those who overcame, albeit only slightly, the overwhelming delusion ... and now reap the
Word as best they can’.74
In the eighteenth century, when Russia was conquering the Northern Caucasus, General
Eropkin found in the Baxan village of Kabarda a decrepit codex of the Gospels in Greek. The
locals explained that they knew only one way to apply it: they used to put it on a sick man’s
head.75 This is an ironic epitaph to Byzantine missionary efforts in Alania.
67 Theodore of Alania, ‘Sermo epistolaris sive Alanicus’, inPG, 140 (1865): col. 409.
68 See F. Miklosich and J. Müller, Acta et diplomata graeca medii aevi sacra et profana (6 vols,
Vienna, 1860-90), vol. 1, pp. 67, 150.
69 Theodore of Alania, ‘Sermo’: col. 393.
75 S.N. Malakhov, ‘O grecheskoi pis’mennoi traditsii u narodov Severnogo Kavkaza v X-XVII
vv.’, Mirpravoslaviia, 1 (1997): 35-6.
(iv)
Theodore was carrying out his mission in the era of the empire of Nicaea when the Greeks
were especially weak. Yet even though the Byzantines managed to recapture Constantinople
in 1261, the empire never regained the material strength that it had possessed before 1204.
Consequently, evidence of a wiser approach can be traced in the conduct of the Palaeologan
clergy vis-à-vis the barbarians.
In 1261 a bishopric was instituted with the designation ‘of Sarai and Pereyaslavl” . It
united the ‘civilized’ Russian city of Pereyaslavl’ with the predominantly pagan capital of the
Golden Horde. In 1269 this see was assigned a Greek, Theognostos, as its bishop.76 In 1276
Theognostos sent to the Patriarch John Bekkos a list of questions which had arisen during his
missionary work among the Tatars. The text is preserved in two diverging variants, Greek and
Old Russian; we shall draw on both of them indiscriminately.
The life of the see, it emerges from the questions, is very hard. Consequently, the
Patriarch tries to make as many concessions as possible. He gives sanction to using the Host
after it has been gnawed away by mice77 and to dispensing Holy Communion made of grape
juice rather than wine.78 He does not condemn those who live together out of wedlock and
he lets different clergymen substitute for one another. In the Russian variant of the text a
priest who has taken part in warfare (!) and killed people is even permitted to celebrate mass.
Among the questions there are some which apply to the missionary aspects of Theognostos’
activity. ‘How should I baptise these who come from the Nestorians and the Jacobites?’, he
asks. Another exchange is: ‘If Tatars come who want to be baptised and there is no font large
enough, where should they be immersed? - They should be sprinkled over three times, while
the words are pronounced “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’” .79 It is
obvious from the questionnaire that the bishop spent nearly all his life in the saddle:
May the holy sacrament be carried on the roads? - Let it be so.80... Is it admissible to move the altar
from place to place and to celebrate on it? - It is admissible, so long as there is need for it: nomadic
people have no permanent abode. Therefore it may be done, though with fear and veneration. The
altar should be put in a clean place and you may celebrate.81
This example indicates that the Patriarch showed not only great tolerance, but also deep
understanding of nomadic psychology.82
Another instance of the Byzantines’ more nuanced treatment of ‘barbarian’ Christianity
is the establishment, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, of two new archbishoprics:
76 M.D. Poluboiarinova, Russkie liudi v Zolotoi Orde (Moscow, 1978), pp. 27-8.
77 RIB: col. 135.
78 RIB: appendix, col. 9.
79 RIB: col. 136.
80 RIB: appendix, col. 9.
81 RIB: col. 136.
82 Some time before that Demetrios Chomatenos had explained to other barbarians - the Serbs
- that the liturgy may be celebrated even in a tent, but only on a special altar: Analecta sacra et classica
spicilegio Solesmensiparata, ed. J.B. Pitra (7 vols, Paris and Rome, 1876-91; repr. Farnborough, 1967),
vol. 7, cols. 705-06.
‘Lithuania’83 and ‘the Caucasus’.84 The size of the baptised population in the former diocese
was, as the Byzantines themselves admitted, ‘very small’85 and the archbishops resided
far from their flock;86 nevertheless, it was a very significant, though late, step beyond the
historical borders of the Roman ‘oikoumene’. One patriarchal document of 1364 mentions a
new bishopric of ‘Achochia’.87 This place-name may refer to the region of the upper valley of
the Kuban’ river, where by that time parts of the Christian Abazin (Alanian) population had
settled after a migration. If this identification is correct, it suggests that the Byzantine church
authorities ‘monitored carefully the ever changing ethno-political situation’88 in the Northern
Caucasus.
Numerous baptismal fonts, found in the late Byzantine cave monasteries located in the
northern foothills of the Crimean mountains, provide evidence for Greek missionary activity
in the Crimea. Baptisteries in the archeological complexes of Shuldan and Chelter-Koba, as
well as in the ‘Sudilishche’ church of the ‘cave town’ Eski-Kermen, and in the ‘Atka’ church
of the Inkerman complex89 contain fonts designed for adults and not babies. One can assume
that incoming Tatars were baptised there on a massive scale. The attitude of the Byzantines
towards the converted barbarians can be traced by the marginalia of the Sugdaean Synaxarion.
This unique document, a kind of sporadic, spontaneous set of city annals in an outpost of
the ‘oikoumene’, shows the development of local religious identities throughout the Late
Byzantine epoch. If in the thirteenth century every converted barbarian mentioned there was
still identified by his tribe, like ‘Christianised Tatar’, the picture is different in the fourteenth
century. Christian Tatars became so common in the city that their provenance was no longer
important. They could even receive ordination as priests without changing their ‘barbarous’
names!90
In 1354 the famous leader of the Hesychast movement Gregory Palamas was captured by
the Turks. He decided that his misfortune was designed by God, ‘so that His truth would be
revealed even to these, most barbaric of all the barbarians’.91 Fulfilling his vocation, Palamas
not only engaged in a religious dispute with Ismail, the grandson of the Ottoman Emir, and
some literati at his court: far more importantly, he initiated a discussion on matters of faith
with ordinary Muslims in the streets of Nicaea. He was not predisposed towards martyrdom
and he acted as a skilled diplomat; according to his own account:
83 On Lithuanian orthodoxy, see J. Meyendorff, Byzantium and the rise o f Russia (Cambridge,
1981), pp. 95, 146, 161-72, 182-4, 186-8, 193-9, 207-08, 241-5; D. Baronas, ‘The three martyrs
of Vilnius: a fourteenth-century martyrdom and its documentary sources’, Analecta Bollandiana, 122
(2004): 83-134.
84 Notitiae episcopatuum ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae, ed. J. Darrouzès (Paris, 1981), p. 182.
85 Notitiae, ed. Darrouzès, p. 409.
86 M. Nystazopoulou, Ë en të Taurikë chersonësô polis Sougdaia apo tou 13 mechri tou 15
aiônos (Athens, 1965), p. 131; see also ibid., pp. 152-3.
87 Notitiae, ed. Darrouzès, pp. 447-8.
88 S.N. Malakhov, ‘K istorii alanskoi mitropolii Konstantinopol’skogo patriarkhata (mesto-
nakhozhdeniie vizantiiskoi Akhokhii)’, Mirpravoslaviia, 2 (1998): 21-2.
89 I.M. Mogarichev, Peshchernye tserkvi Tavriki (Simferopol, 1997), pp. 36-7, 45-6.
90 Nystazopoulou, Ë en të Taurikë chersonësô Sougdaia, pp. 69-70.
91 A. Philippidis-Braat, ‘La captivité de Palamas chez les Turcs’, TM, 7 (1979): 137.
when Christians saw that the Turks were seething with indignation and began to make signs to
me to restrain my speech, I turned everything into a joke, smiled and addressed them again: ‘If
we could agree on the terms, we could obtain a common teaching’. One of the Muslims replied:
‘The time will come when we shall speak with each other in the same tongue’. I agreed with him
(synethemën) and prayed for such a time to come soon. Why did I say these things to people who
now live by a religion that is more alien to us than anything else? I agreed, because I remembered
the Apostle’s words, that every tribe will bow before the name of Jesus Christ and every tongue
will preach Him (see Romans 14.11) ... Yet, all this will happen at the Second Coming.92
The idea that the ‘vocatio gentium’ should not be a matter for the weak human mind was
widespread in Byzantium from patristic times onwards. But whereas in the earlier period this
concept served as a veil for imperial snobbery, now it became an excuse for the weakness of
the Byzantines.
We saw in Palamas’ example that it could be dangerous to Christianise Muslims. If
pagans, in the worst case, stayed indifferent to missionary sermons, Mohammedans were
strictly forbidden to change their faith. When at the beginning of the fifteenth century a
Turkish prince who lived as a hostage in Constantinople, ‘addressed Emperor Manuel asking
to be baptised according to the Christian rite and kept asserting that he was a Christian, the
Emperor refused even to listen to him, fearing that a scandal could come out of this’.93 So
it was very difficult for the Byzantines to convert Muslims, whereas in dealing with pagans
their ingrained Greek snobbery was still the main obstacle, because their cultural pride did not
fade away with the decline of imperial might. As we have noted, there was in the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries some tendency towards greater flexibility, but it was by no means
universal. If Theognostos of Sarai tried to adjust Christian precepts to nomadic realities, his
fellow-clergymen reacted quite differently. When the western emissary William of Rubruk
passed through the Tatar lands in 1253, he was perplexed at the attitude of local Christians
towards horse milk, kumys. The Mongol governor asked William if he would like to taste
it, ‘since the Christians living there, Russians, Greeks and Alans ... do not drink it and do
not regard themselves as Christians if they should happen to drink it, and then their priests
have to bring them back to Christ’.94 William was approached by some Alans who ‘asked
whether they had a chance of being saved, since ... they had nothing to drink but kumys ...
and Greek priests called it a sin’.95 The ominous connotations given to kumys by Byzantine
clergymen show that they charged cultural differences with intense religious meaning.96
Although the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate tried to revise its attitude towards barbarians, it
92 Philippidis-Braat, ‘Captivité de Palamas’: 137.

93 Ducas, Istoria Turco-Bizantinâ, 1341-1462, ed. V. Grecu (Bucharest, 1958), p. 20.
94 William of Rubruk, Itinerarium, 10.5, in Itinera et relationes fratrum minorum saeculi XIII et
XIV, ed. A. van den Wyngaert (Sínica Franciscana 1) (Florence, 1929), p. 191; trans. C. Dawson, The
Mongol mission (London, 1955), p. 109.
95 William of Rubruk, Itinerarium, 11.2, ed. van den Wyngaert, p. 192; trans. Dawson, Mongol
mission, p. 110.
96 Non-orthodox churches were much more flexible in this respect. When in 1009 the Khan of
the eastern Turks who lived around Lake Baikal sent his envoys to the Metropolitan of Merv asking for
baptism, he pointed out that being nomads they could not fast, since they ate only meat and drank milk.
The Antiochene Nestorian catholikos John decided that the nomads should be granted leave to drink
milk: A. Mingana, ‘Early spread of Christianity’, Bulletin o f the John Rylands Library, 9-10 (1925-26):
could not change the general perception of its own hierarchs. Greek bishops were appalled by
the prospect of going to barbaric lands. From the moment they were appointed, they would
postpone going to their sees or would escape from them, using every conceivable pretext.
Patriarchs had to demand from their hierarchs written statements to the effect that they
understood all the hardships awaiting them and would not pester Constantinople with their
complaints.97Even those bishops who did go to foreign countries very often lived in complete
seclusion from the world beyond their residence. Gregory Chioniades, a Byzantine bishop of
the turn of the fourteenth century, is sometimes called a missionary. This is incorrect, since he
was sent to Tabriz not to preach to pagans but to ‘take care of the local Christians’.98 We have
some letters written by Gregory in which he says nothing of his life in Tabriz, but roundly
curses ‘the numerous barbarian breeds that surround us’.99
In spite of the progress made by the Byzantines of the later period, they could
not break out from their general world outlook in which the essential watershed between
‘Romans’ and ‘barbarians’ was impassable. In practice this meant that the Greek clergy were
reluctant to learn the languages of their new flocks; were unable to share any useful knowledge
(technological or medical) with them; and refused to adjust their precepts to the mentality of
the converts. The results of this cultural ‘autism’ of Byzantium had a great impact on the
historical fate of orthodoxy. Many of the conversions of nomads proved to be short-lived; the
chance to include Lithuania within the Constantinopolitan patriarchate was lost. After Pope
John XXII installed a missionary school in Caffa on the Crimea to teach ‘barbaric’ languages
to Catholic preachers, western religious influence in the Northern Caucasus easily overcame
the Greek presence.100 The domain of orthodox Christianity was expanding after the year
1000, but this was predominantly due to the territorial expansion of Rus’.
308-09; see also E.K. Fowden, The Barbarian plain: Saint Sergius between Rome and Iran (Berkeley-
London, 1999), p. 123.
97 Miklosich and Müller, Acta et diplomata, vol. 1, p. 182.
98 Gregory Chioniades, Epistolai 16, ed. T. Evangelides (Athens, 1902), p. 7; see also J.
Papadopoulos, ‘Une lettre de Grégoire Chioniades, évêque de Tabriz’, in Etudes sur l ’histoire et sur
l ’art de Byzance. Mélanges Charles Diehl (2 vols, Paris, 1930), vol. 1, p. 262.
99 Gregory Chioniades, Epistolai, ed. I. Papadopoulou (Thessaloniki, 1929), p. 48.
100 E.S. Zevakin. and N.A. Penchko, ‘Ocherki po istorii genuezskikh kolonii na Zapadnom
Kavkaze v 13 i 15 vv.’, Istoricheskie zapiski, 3 (1938): 116-17, 121-4.
11
The ‘Second Bulgarian Empire’.
Its Origin and History to 1204
Robert L. Wolff
T serve barbarian slaves (the Bulgars), impure and reeking of stinking goatskins,
poorer in their way of life than they are rich in evil disposition. Release me from the dread-
ful servitude. For what inhabitant of Achrida is not a headless neck, understanding how
to honor neither God nor man? Among such wild beasts as these have I been condemned
to live, and the worst of it all is that there is no hope that these necks will ever be given
heads with stronger powers.’ (Letters of Theophylact, Archbishop of Achrida, Migne,
Patrología Graeca, cxxvi, 508.)
‘Since the race of Vlachs is altogether faithless and perverse, and does not keep faith
with God or with the Emperor or with its own kindred or with a friend, but works to
undo them all, and lies a great deal, and steals all over the shop, and swears the most
solemn oaths to its friends and lightly disregards them, never put faith in a one of them.
I advise you not to trust them at ali/ (Cecaumeni Strategicon [ed. V. Vassilievsky and V.
Jernstedt, St Petersburg, 1896], Zapiski Istoriko-filologicheskago Fakulteta Imperator-
skago S-Peterburgskago Universiteta, Chast* xxxvm , p. 74).
‘This (the Scyths or Cumans) is a people which is not stationary, and does not stay in
one place, or know how to settle down, and therefore it has no institutions. It moves all
over the earth and rests nowhere, and is constantly wandering. These are flying men, and
hard to catch therefore, and have no cities, and know no villages, but bestiality follows
in their path. Not even the vultures, that carrion-eating and loathed tribe, can be com-
pared to these people. Rather are they to be likened to the griffins, whom kindly nature
has placed in uninhabited places, as she has done too with the Scyths. Only habits like
those of wolves could have produced such men: bold and greedy, the wolf knows well how
to flee whenever something terrifying appears. So too it is with the Scyths : if they meet
with brave resistance they wheel about and take to their heels. A Scyth is near, and at
the same time out of reach. He plunders, but before he has filled his hands he grasps his
bridle, and strikes his horse with his heel and with his whip, and gives himself to the
winds in flight, and he boasts that he flies more quickly than the hawk. He barely comes
into view before he disappears again. This is the sort of people that the wandering nomads,
the Scyths, are, with no houses: wild beasts among mankind, or, though it would be a
bold man who would venture to call them so, men among the wild beasts.’ (Eustathius,
1 This study was prepared in the course of the author’s work on the Latin Empire of Constantinople.
It is designed to serve as an introduction to the full account of the relations between the Latins and
the Vlacho-Bulgarian state after 1204 which will form part of a forthcoming book on the Latin Em-
pire. Unless otherwise indicated, all references to the Byzantine historians are to the Bonn edition of
the Corpus. For a grant in aid of publication the author is indebted to the University of Wisconsin.
168 The *Second Bulgarian Empire9

Bishop of Thessalonica, Address to Isaac Angelus, Eustathii Metropolitae Thessalonicensis
Opuscula [ed. T. L. F. Tafel, Frankfort, 1832], p. 44. Translations mine.)
I
Af t e r its arrival on the Balkan peninsula in the late seventh century, the Hunnic
tribe of the Bulgars was gradually assimilated by the Slavic population which
had preceded it by more than a century, and which it had conquered.2The an-
cient Bulgar language apparently fell out of use except for the formal dating of
inscriptions, where its appearance, transcribed in Greek letters, has given rise to
several scholarly efforts at interpretation, the more recent of which are now ac-
cepted.3In 813 (says Theophanes) Khan Krum drank with the Slav boyars from
2 For the early history of the Bulgarians the best general work is V. Zlatarski, Istoriya na Btil-
garskata Dürzhava, i, Pürvo Bülgarsko Tsarstvo, chast 1, ‘Epocha aa Chunno-Bülgarskoto nadmozh-
ie,’ (Sofia, 1918); chast 2, ‘Ot Slavënizatsiyata na dürzhavata do padaneto na pürvoto tsarstvo’
(Sofia, 1927); n, Bülgariya pod Vizantiisko vladichestvo (1018-1187), (Sofia, 1934). Zlatarski died
in 1935, and his third volume, Vtoro Bülgarsko Tsarstvo, Bülgariya pri Asënevtsi (Sofia, 1940), ap-
peared five years later, edited by Professor P. Nikov. This volume deals with the period 1187-1280.
It was not available to me during the preparation of this article, but I have since obtained the loan
of a copy through the kindness of Professor C. E. Black of Princeton, and have been able to make full
use of it. No basic revision of the account here presented appears to be required in the light of Zla-
tarski’s third volume. Also by him is a brief sketch in German: W. N. Slatarski, Geschichte der Bulgaren,
I . Teil, Von der Griindung des Bulgarischen Reiches bis zur Tiirkenzeit (679-1396) (Bidgarische Biblio-
thek, ed. G. Weigand, 5, Leipzig, 1918). S. Runciman, A History of the First Bulgarian Empire (Lon-
don, 1930), while based on Zlatarski, goes back to the sources. It stops in 1018. For the early period
Zlatarski and Runciman supersede the standard but now somewhat outdated work of K. Jirecek,
Geschichte der Bulgaren (Prague, 1876). See also N. S. Derzhavin, Istoriya Bolgarii, 2 vols. (Moscow
and Leningrad, 1945), a large portion of which is devoted to pre-history, and which follows and much
abridges Zlatarski for the later period, with no references to primary sources, and many to the works
of Marx and Engels. J. B. Bury, A History of the Eastern Roman Empire (London, 1912), which stops
in 867, is still excellent. For a valuable bibliography of recent Bulgarian works in the field, see I.
Duicev, ‘Die bulgarische Geschichtsforschung wahrend des letzten Vierteljahrhunderts, 1918-1942,’
off-print from Südost-Forschungen, im Auftrag des deutschen Auslandsioissenschaftlichen Instituts, etc.,
ed. F. Valjavec, no volume number or year, but presumably 1943. For the use of this article I am
greatly indebted to Professor C. E. Black of Princeton who loaned me his copy. Duicev confines him-
self of course almost exclusively to the works of other Bulgarians, and makes no attempts to deal with
the Rumanian contributions. Still very useful, though needing to be supplemented by recent contri-
butions, is the series of articles by F. Racki, ‘Borba Juánih Slovena na dráavnu neodvistnost u X I
vieku,’ Rad Jugoslovenski Akademija x x iv (1873), 80-149; xxv (1873), 180-244; xxvn (1874),
77-131; xxvm (1874), 147-182; x x x (1875), 75-138; x x x i (1875), 196-239 (Croatian). This was
reprinted in book form, Srpska Kralyevska Akademiya, Posebna Izdanya, l x x x v h , (Belgrade,
1931), 1-333. For the economic side, see I. Sakazov, Bulgarische Wirtschaftsgeschichte in Grundriss der
slavischen Philologie (ed. R. Trautmann and M. Vasmer, Berlin and Leipzig, 1929), pp. 1-171. For
a good, if selective, bibliography, see G. Moravcsik, Byzantinoturcica. I , Die Byzantinischen Quellen
der Geschichte der Tiirkvolker (Budapest, 1942), pp. 50-58.
3 See Runciman, op. cit., Appendix ii, pp. 272 ff., where the arguments of Bury, Marquart, Mikkola,
and Zlatarski are summarized, and those of Fehér are adverted to. V. Beshevliev has recently edited
all the surviving inscriptions: see ‘Pürvobülgarski nadpisi,’ Godishnik na Sofiiskiya TJniversitet, Is-
toriko-filologichekskifakultet, x x x (1934), 162 ff.; and ‘Zu der Inschrift des Reiterreliefs von Madara,’
Byzantinisch-Neugriechische Jahrbücher ix (1932), 1-35. See the article of H. Grégoire, ‘Les sources
épigraphiques de l’histoire Bulgare,’ Byzantion, ix (1934), 745-786. See now also I. Venedikov,
‘Novootkritiyat v Preslav pürvobülgarski nadpis,’ Izcestiya na BiUgarskiya Archeologicheski Institut,
The ‘Second Bulgarian Empire9 169
the skull of the Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus I;4 and Krurn’s ambassador,
Dargomer, who appears in the sources in the year 812, has a name that is clearly
Slavic.5 Soon afterward, Slavic names were given in the family of the Khans
itself.6 The aristocracy seems, however, to have remained Bulgar beyond this
date; and, as a counterweight to it, the Khans apparently created a Slavic nobil-
ity, and favored the Slavic peasantry. When the great Khan Boris abdicated in
889, and went into a monastery, his son and successor Vladimir fell under the
influence of the Bulgar nobles. They seem to have attempted to restore paganism,
which Boris had finally abandoned, accepting Christianity under the aegis of
Byzantium after experience had convinced him that he could not hope to control
and administer the church himself if he received the new religion under the
auspices of Rome. When Vladimir and the Bulgar nobles appeared determined to
turn back the clock, Boris emerged from the monastery, deposed and blinded
Vladimir, put down the Bulgar nobles, installed his second son Symeon on the
throne, and enforced the final adoption of Christianity, this time with Slavic as
its official language.7
Under Symeon began the long and bitter struggle with Byzantium, during
which the Bulgar Tsars, now Khans no longer, strove to make themselves
ISatriXeis — Emperors not only over the Bulgars but over the Romans (Rhomae-
ans, citizens of the Byzantine Empire) as well. There was no inherent reason
why Symeon, like many other non-Greeks before him — none of whom, however,
it is true, had already been rulers of a foreign state — should not have succeeded
to the Byzantine throne by means of a dynastic marriage. He hoped to carry
through this plan by marrying one of his daughters to the young Constantine
Porphyrogennetos, whom he then expected to join as co-emperor — or perhaps to
supplant. But his arrangements miscarried, and Romanos Lekapenos, the
xv (1946), 146-160. For an article assessing the role and influence of the ‘Protobulgars,’ see I. Duicev,
‘Protobulgares et Slaves,’ Annales de Vlnstitut Kondakov, Seminarium Kondakovianum9 x (1938)»
145-154.
4 Theophanes, Chronographia (ed. C. de Boor, Leipzig, 1883), 1, 491 : 'rr¡v <5è Nuoj^ópov K&j>akr)v eacónpas
ó K p o D /x ju o s . . . . y vfiváxTas rô ¿ct t o v v apyvpóv re kvbícr a s ££c odev ir iveiv eis abrrjv to v s t 5>v 'Lk Ko^ l v 5>v apxovras
kiroÍ7)(xev kvKavxúf¿évos.’ In discussing this passage, Zlatarski, op. cit., i, 1, p. 260, note 1, expresses the
view that Theophanes had no intention of distinguishing between Slavs and Bulgars; and quotes
several other Greek authors and the old Slavonic translation of Simeon the Logothete, all of which
refer to ‘Bulgarian’ nobles. I cannot feel that this is convincing: even if the boyars were Bulgars,
Theophanes’ use of the term Slav would show some confusion in his mind about the difference be-
tween the two peoples; and this in turn would argue that the process of assimilation w a3 under way.
Apparently Runciman thinks so; for (p. 57), he even embroiders on the source, saying that the Khan
gave the Slavic toast of ‘Zdravitsa.’ I have not found this picturesque detail in the sources or in
Zlatarski.
5 Theophanes, ed. De Boor, i, 497.
6 E.g., Malamir and Vladimir. See Runciman, op. cit., p. 93, note 3.
7 For this celebrated series of episodes, see Runciman, op. cit.y pp. 99-134; see Zlatarski, i, 2, pp.
254 ff. for the arguments in favor of dating the adoption of Slavonic as the liturgical language in
893. See also F. Dvornik, Les Slaves, Byzance et Rome au IXe siècle (Paris, 1926), pp. 283 ff. A. A.
Vasiliev, ‘The “Life” of St. Peter of Argos and its Historical Significance,’ Traditio, v (1947), 163-191,
discusses (pp. 177 ff.) the process of Slavonization, and brings together from little known and seldom
cited sources considerable evidence bearing on the early Bulgarian campaigns in Greece.
170 The 9Second Bulgarian Empire9
Byzantine Admiral, succeeded where Symeon had failed, and became Constan-
tine’s father-in-law and Emperor.8
In 925, balked of his ambition and growing old, Symeon proclaimed himself
fiaaiktvs Kai avroKparcop of the Bulgarians and the Romans; and in this way in-
directly declared his intention of achieving mastery of the Empire. He also ele-
vated the Bulgarian church to the rank of a patriarchate, thus doubly challenging
Byzantium. Despite protests from Romanos Lekapenos, Symeon clung to his
title, which may have been confirmed by a papal legate,9and endeavored to make
it a reality.10 After his death, when the Bulgarian military threat had much
8 Symeon was called by Liudprand ‘emiargon,’ a term which Liudprand himself interprets as mean-
ing ‘half-Greek,’ because of his education at Constantinople: ‘Hunc etenim Simeonem emiargon, id
est semigrecum, esse aiebant, eo quod a puericia Bizantii Demostenis rhetoricam Aristotelisque sillo-
gismos didicerit/ (Antapodosis, chapter 28; Liudprandi Opera in Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum in
usum scholarum [ed. J. Becker, Hanover and Leipzig, 1915], p. 87). Professor R. P. Blake suggests the
possibility that ‘argon’ may be the same word as ‘arkatin,’ the later Mongol term for Christians, itself
a loan-word in Mongol from Turkish. See N. Marr, ‘Arkaun, Mongolskoe Nazvanye Christian, v
svyazi s voprosom ob Armyanach-Chalkedonitach,’ Vizantiiski Vremennik, x ii (1906), 1-69. In 913,
during the minority of Constantine Porphyrogennetos and the regency headed by the Patriarch
Nicholas Mysticus, Symeon may have secured the promise that the young Constantine should marry
one of his daughters. The ‘two vague references’ in the sources to this possibility are discussed by
Runciman, Appendix x, pp. 299-301. His arguments are fairly convincing. The documents are a
letter of Nicholas Mysticus, Migne, PG, cxi, col. 112; Eutychius of Alexandria, Migne, PG, cxi, p.
1151. Eutychius knew that a projected Bulgarian-Byzantine marriage had fallen through, and that
war resulted. Nicholas in 920 -921 offered Symeon an alliance, but by this time it was too late for the
only marriage he wanted: one that would make him father-in-law of Constantine. This post — and
that of co-Emperor with it — had been acquired by Romanos Lekapenos, whose daughter had been
married to Constantine; and Symeon’s repeated efforts to secure the deposition of Romanos failed.
9 D. Farlati, Illyrium Sacrum III (Venice, 1765), pp. 102-103, tells of the mission of Madalbertus,
the papal legate, to Symeon in 926, and of Madalbertus’ synod at Split on the return journey, and of
his efforts to make peace between Symeon and the Croats; but says nothing of his having confirmed
Symeon’s title. This is deduced by Runciman, op. cit., pp. 173-176, chiefly from a letter of Innocent
III to Ioannitsa (cited below, note 66), of the year 1202. All that Innocent really says in this letter
is that he has checked over the papal registers, and has discovered that there had been many kings
crowned in Bulgaria; that at the time of Pope Nicholas (858-867) the Bulgarian king was baptized
in the Roman Church; and that in the pontificate of Hadrianus (Adrian II, 867-872) the Bulgarians
had gone over to the Greeks and expelled the Roman clergy. He never says that the Roman Church
had given crowns to the early Bulgarian kings, whom he never calls emperors. So there is no proof
that the Popes ever crowned or confirmed the title of the kings of Bulgaria, or that Madalbertus in
particular was authorized to do so. Innocent’s sending of a crown to Ioannitsa, however (see below),
creates, I think, a reasonably strong possibilty that there was some precedent for this.
10 I. Sakellion, "Pw¡xàvov fiatrik&os tou Acucair^pov kicurTohíu,* AeXriov rrjs 'laropucijs ttaX ’EOvoSoytKiis
'Ercupeías rrjs 'EXXáóos, I (1883), 658 ff. This is a long rhetorical letter, the burden of which is con-
tained in the one query (p. 659) : Vi y á p , diré fxoi,, Kai irepurabrepov k$-eykveró croi he rov creavrov ypà<f>eiv
fiaaiÁka T&ovkyapoiv Kai * P co /ta ito v , rov dkov pi) <jv p €v 0o ko v v t o s , p1¡ avvepyovvros r w irpayiian',’ and the remark
a little later, *Ei ôè Kai Kàkeïcrdai revà @a<n\éa 'Poifxaicov Kai BovXyàpcov eôa, rjfiels 25et ¡xaXXov KaXeiadai—
In a later letter (ibid., n (1885) 40 ff.) Romanos makes his specific objection only to the use of the
term t û v 'Fœnalcov saying that Symeon could, if he wished, call himself BcuriXeús in his own country,
although it would not be a correct term even there. For a Bulgarian translation of the correspondence,
and a discussion of its implications, see V. Zlatarski, ‘Pismata na Vizantiiskago Imperator Romana
Lekapena do Bülgarskiya Tsar Simeona/ Sbomik za narodni umotvoreniya, nauka i knizhnina,’ x m
(1896), 282-322. For the patriarchate, see Runciman, op. cit., especially p. 174, note 3. A passage in
The €Second Bulgarian Empire9 171
diminished, his son and successor, Peter, was in 927 actually granted the title
of fiaaiXevs — not, however, it is to be noted, of the Romans — ; and the Bulgarian
patriarchate was given limited recognition.11Although in theory there could be
only one PaatXevs, in practice the title seems to have been granted, when it be-
came expedient, to Charlemagne in 812.12But on the rare occasions when a for-
eigner was called âacXtvs, the Byzantine Emperor invariably called himself
i3a<r¿\evs Kai avroKparoop; and the full title, f3a<n\evs teal avroKparco p t cov 'Voojjlcl Loj v , was
never bestowed on a foreigner. Thus Basil I protested in 876 to Louis the Pious
all the chroniclers (Theophanes Continuatus, p. 385; Georgius Monachos Continuatus [Symeon the
Logothete], p. 878; Theodosius Melitenus, ed. Tafel, p. 205; Leo Grammaticus, p. 292; Slavic trans-
lation of the Logothete, ed. Sreznevski, p. 126) describes Symeon’s reception by the patriarch, Nich-
olas Mysticus, in 913, when he came to parley at Byzantium. It says that ‘instead of a stemma/
Nicholas placed ‘his own epirriptarion’ on the head of Symeon. For some time ignored, this passage
was interpreted by Zlatarski, i, 2, pp. 364-374 to mean that Symeon had been crowned Caesar (not
(3acn\evs) by the patriarch. Runciman does not mention the passage. G. Ostrogorsky, ‘Die Kronung
Symeons von Bulgarien durch den Patriarchen Nikolaus Mystikos,’ Actes du IVe Congrès Interna-
tional des Études Byzantines, Izvestiya na Bülgarskiya archeologicheski institut, ix (1935) 275-286,
arguing that Symeon would never have been satisfied with the lesser title of Caesar, interprets the
passage to mean that Symeon was actually crowned /ScuriXefo, though not with the Roman imperial
diadem, the crrkixfxa, and though it was understood that he was pcurtXek only of the Bulgars. I cannot
accept this, but admit that Nicholas’ act is mysterious in view of Romanos’ later statement (cited n.
10 supra) that Symeon could call himself Pam\€vs in his own country, but that even there it would not
be true. This passage Ostrogorsky ignores. See also Ostrogorsky, ‘Avtokrator i Samodrzhats,’ Glas
Srpske Kralyevske Akademiye clx iv , Drugi Razred 84 (Belgrade, 1935), 95-187 (Serbian).
u At the peace treaty which accompanied the marriage of Symeon’s son and successor Peter to
Maria Lekapena, granddaughter of Romanos, and daughter of his son, the co-emperor Christopher,
(Theophanes Continuatus, pp. 412-415; George Monachos [ed. de Boor, Leipzig, 1904], pp. 904-906).
The chroniclers agree that Maria was pleased to be marrying an emperor (âcrcXevs). Romanos had
previously elevated three of his sons to the rank of emperor, and his son-in-law, Constantine Porphy-
rogennetos, had, of course, been emperor all along. There was nothing incongruous about the elevation
of a grandson-in-law, especially as Romanos seems to have felt able to take the title away again at
will. See Runciman, op. cit., Appendix xi, pp. 301-303. The evidence for this is found in Constantine
Porphyrogenitus, De Cerimoniis, pp. 681, 682, and 690. See also J. B. Bury, ‘The Ceremonial Book of
Constantine Porphyrogenitus,’ English Historical Review, x x h (1907), 423 ff.; A. Rambaud, L'Empire
Grec au Xe Siècle (Paris, 1870), pp. 340 ff.; S. Runciman, Romanos Lekapenos (Cambridge, 1929),
pp. 97 ff. Constantine Porphyrogennetos himself (De Administrando Imperio, pp. 87-88), looked
with disfavor upon the marriage to a foreigner.
12 Annales quod didtur Einhardi, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, i, 199: ‘Graeca
lingua . . . imperatorem eum et basileum appellantes.’ The term ‘Imperator’ E. Stein believes to be
the equivalent of aÙTOKpàrwp, the avroKpaTcapLa then just coming into vogue as the successor of vrareia,
— the post-consulate; but this has been disputed by F. Dolger ; see note 14 below. It was Nicephorus
I, Stein believes, who made the distinction between jScwriXefc and j3acnXevs aúroKpáríop. See ‘Post-
consulat et AirroicpaTupLa,’ Annuaire de Vinstitut de philologie et d’histoire orientales n (1934), Mélanges
Bidez, n, 898 ff. Stein also believes (p. 907, note 4) that the additional words tQv *Pco/xaUcv, hitherto
used only sporadically, became a final part of the Byzantine title only after Peter had been recognized
as ftaaiXem teal avroKpàrccp. See also E. Stein, ‘Zum mittelalterlicher T ite l. . . Kaiser der Rômer,’
Forschungen und Fortschritte, vi (1930), 182-183. See also, on Charlemagne’s title, P. E. Schramm,
Kaiser, Rom, und Renovatio (Studien der Bibliothek Warburg, Leipzig and Berlin, 1929), I, 31 f., 83 f.;
G. Ostrogorsky, ‘Das Mitkaisertum im mittelalterlichen Byzanz,’ in E. Komemann, Doppelprinzipai
und Reichsteilung im Imperium Romanum (Leipzig and Berlin, 1930), p. 172, note 1.
172 The ‘Second Bulgarian Empire*
when the latter took the title ‘Imperator Romanorum/13 It may be safely con-
cluded that the Byzantine grant of the title to Peter was rather a testimony to
his harmlessness than an admission of his equality. The relation of Byzantine
Emperor to Bulgarian Tsar appears to have been a sort of spiritual paternity.14
This interpretation is challenged, though not explicitly, by Arnold Toynbee,
one of the keenest students of Greek history throughout its course. Of the period
after 927 he writes:
It was now demonstrated that in Orthodox Christendom, the jurisdiction of the East Ro-
man Emperor and the Oecumenical Patriarch must be geographically coextensive; and,
since Symeon had failed to bring about this necessary and inevitable state of affairs by his
expedient of annexing the Empire politically to . . . Bulgaria, it followed that sooner or
later the indispensable political unification would have to be brought about by the in-
verse process of annexing Bulgaria to the Empire.’16
Whether or not Toynbee’s interpretation is to be accepted, it is certain that

Byzantine-Bulgarian rivalry deepened and sharpened during the tenth and early
eleventh centuries. With the details of the struggle — the campaigns of John
Tsimisces, the rise of the new western Bulgarian dynasty of Samuel the ‘Comito-
poulos/ and the bitter warfare under Basil II, the Bulgar-slayer, which lasted
from 977 to 1019 —we need not deal here.16 Toynbee believes the immense
13 Stein, Mélanges Bidez n, 902-903, points out that Louis was /3eunXefc, but that by this time
(HcurCkebs alone was to the Byzantines the mere equivalent of Michael III alone was fíao-tXevs
Kal aÙTOKpàrup.
14 For discussions see S. Bobcev, ‘Bulgaria under Tsar Simeon/ The Slavonic (and East European)
Review, vm (1929), 99-119 (especially 100-102). More important is F. DtSlger, ‘Bulgarisches Cartum
und byzantinisches Kaisertum,’ Actes du IV e Congrès Internationale des études Byzantines, Izvestiya
na Biilgarskiya Archeohgicheshi Institut, ix (1935), 57-68. A brief summary of this article in Forsch-
ungen und Fortschritte, xi (1935), 19-20. Ddlger is convinced that Symeon s assumption of the title
clearly demonstrates that he hoped and intended to succeed to the Byzantine throne and to theo-
retical mastery of the world. Like Runciman and Zlatarski, Dolger relies on Romanos’ letters already
cited, and on the correspondence of Nicholas Mystikos, Migne, PG, c x l . His views and those o f
Ostrogorsky (article cited above, note 10) have been challenged by N . Iorga, Revue Historique du
Sud-Est Européen, xin (1936), 96—97, who takes the extreme position of not believing even in Sy-
meon’s wish to arrange a dynastic marriage, or in the cession of an imperial title of any sort to
Charlemagne. (How he explains away the passage of the A n n a l s of Einhard is not clear.) Later
Dolger wrote Iorga that he considered the title granted to Charlemagne as empty (‘einen leeren
TiteF), and again made the distinction between ftao-ikevs and /3a<n\eùs rS>v Taiiàuav. He also indi-
cated that he was convinced that Stein was mistaken in his view that Charlemagne was called
avTOKparasp as well as /3atr¿Xe¿s. Iorga again reiterated that, in his view, there could be only one
fiotaiXevs; and that Charlemagne, to the Byzantines, was only a rex. (Ibid., pp. 226-227.) Dolger’s
ideas were further developed in ‘Der Bulgarenherrscher als geistlicher Sohn des byzantinischen
Kaisers/ Sbomik v pamet na Profesor P . NiJcov, Izvestiya na bülgarsko istorichesko druzhestvo xvi—
xvm (Sofia, 1940), pp. 219-232.
16A. J. Toynbee, A Study of History (London, 1940), iv, 388.
18 Still the best single work on this is G. Schlumberger, V Épopée Byzantine, n (Paris, 1900). For
an important recent article on the origin of Samuel’s Bulgarian Empire, see D . Anastasijevié, ‘L’H y-
pothèse de la Bulgarie occidentale/ L'Art Byzantin chez les Slaves, les Balkans, Premier Recueil dédié
à la mémoire de Théodore Uspenskii (Paris,¡1930), i, 20-40. Samuel’s Armenian origin was first recog-
nized by I. Ivanov, ‘Proizchod na Tsar Samuiloviya rod/ Sbomik v chest na Vasil N . Zlatarski,
(Sofia, 1925), 55-63. Zlatarski himself ignored this, but it was brilliantly demonstrated by N . Adontz,
‘Samuel l’Arménien, Roi des Bulgares/ Académie Royale de Belgique, Classe des lettres, Mémoires,
xxxrx (1938), 3-63.
The 4Second Bulgarian Empire' 173
Byzantine expenditures in manpower during this war proved the determining

factor in weakening the Empire for the military catastrophes which were to follow
later in the same century at Bari and Manzikert.17These disasters in turn led to
the accession of the Comnenoi, and to the triumph of Byzantine feudalism,
which left the Empire a prey to the Latins.18 Whether the Bulgarian wars of
Basil II are to be given so central a position in all Byzantine history is doubtless
a matter for debate; but it seems clear that, with the exception of those with the
Latin west, no foreign relations of the Empire — with Germans, Persians, Avars,
Arabs, Russians, Magyars, and Pechenegs — had ever been of more crucial im-
portance than those with the so-called first Bulgarian Empire.
n
With the defeat of the Bulgarians and the annihilation of their state there
begins in 1018 a period of one hundred and sixty seven years which is badly
documented. The Byzantine historians deal very little with Bulgaria, now a por-
tion of the Empire, and such information as they give is often contained in sub-
clauses and phrases of sentences and paragraphs dealing primarily with other
matters. The details of Basil IPs own administrative reform of the Bulgarian
Church (1 0 2 0 ), including the list of bishoprics, is preserved in a later chrysobull
of Michael Palaeologus, from which we known in general that the jurisdiction
of the new archbishopric of Achrida was left as great in extent as that claimed
by the former Bulgarian patriarchate, now abolished.19 Seals of local Byzantine
officials also provide valuable information as to the nature of local Byzantine
administration in Bulgaria.20
17 A. J. Toynbee, op. cit., in, 26-27 : ‘The breakdown of the Orthodox Christian civilization may be
dated by its most prominent symptom: the Great Bulgaro-Roman War of a . d . 977-1019. The land'
marks in the subsequent disintegration of Orthodox Christendom were the military débâcle of the
East Roman Power at Manzikert in a . d . 1071, which left the interior of Anatolia at the mercy of the
Seljuqs; the successful insurrection of the Bulgars against the East Roman domination in a . d . 1186;
and — crowning catastrophe — the capture and sack of the East Roman capital, Constantinople,
itself in a . d . 1204 by the Western military and commercial adventurers who were seeking their for-
tunes on the so-called Fourth Crusade.’
18 These points will be treated in detail elsewhere.
19 F. Dolger, Regesten der Kaiserurkunden des Ostrômischen Reiches, Abtheilung i, Reihe A. Corpus
der griechischen Urkunden des Mittelalters und der neueren Zeit (Munich and Berlin, 1932), pp. 103 f.,
no. 806. See also L. de Thalloczy, C. Jireiek, and E. de Sufflay, Acta et Diplomata res Albaniae mediae
aetatis illustrantia (Vienna, 1913), i, 15-16, numbers 58 and 59. The basic discussion is H. Gelzer,
‘Ungedruckte und wenig bekannte Bistümerverzeichnisse dei- orientalischen Kirche,* Byzantinische
Zeitschrift, u (1893), 41 ff.
20 Seals recently discovered at Silistria (Dristra) were first published by their discoverer, P. Papa-
hagi, ‘Sceaux de plomb byzantins inédits trouvés à Silistrie/ Revue Historique du Sud-Est Européen,
vni (1931), 299-311, with rough sketches, and, as it turns out, many misreadings. They were repub-
lished with photographs and discussed by N . Bânescu, ‘Les sceaux byzantins trouvés à Silistrie,*
Byzantion, vn (1931), 321-331. See also Bànescu’s even more recent and conclusive discoveries,
‘Sceau inédit de Katakalon, Katepano de Paradounavon,’ Échos d*Orient, x x x v (1936), 405-408; and
‘Sceau de Demetrios Katakalon, Katepano de Paradounavon/ Ibid., xxxrx (1940), 157—160. See
also the splendid historical article of M. Lascaris, ‘Sceau de Radomir Aaron/ Bymntinoshmca in
(1931), 404-413, who gathers all the available evidence about one of the last of Samuel’s descendants
to rule in Bulgaria, who entered the Byzantine service. For others see G. Schlumberger, Sigillo-
graphie de VEmpire Byzantin (Paris, 1884), pp. 316-317; M. Lascaris, in a review of K. M.
174 The *Second Bulgarian Empire’
One of the developments which may certainly be ascribed to this dark period
is the growth in importance of the Vlach population. Essentially a pastoral and
usually a nomad people, the Vlachs of the Balkans have throughout their history
regularly been at least nominally subject to some other national group. Speaking
a Latin dialect closely allied to modern Rumanian (the language of the Vlachs
north of the Danube), the Vlachs disappear from our sources during the Middle
Ages for as much as several hundred years at a time; but the probability is.high
that they were always resident in the Balkans, watching their flocks, and practic-
ing transhumance and brigandage. Just before the outbreak of Basil’s wars with
the Bulgarians the Vlachs reappear — after over four hundred years — in the
Byzantine sources. From then on, throughout the eleventh century, references
to them multiply, and their traces become more frequent, until, by the third
quarter of the eleventh century, we find them in large numbers wintering on the
eastern slopes of the Pindus mountains and in the Thessalian plain, and summer-
ing in the high mountains to the north, living in close communion with the Bul-
garians, and revolting against the high taxes imposed upon their herds by Con-
stantine X Dukas (1059-1067).21
Because the sources are on the whole so scanty, and because they sometimes
lend themselves to conflicting interpretation, this period (1018-1185) and the
one which follows (1185-1204), with which we are most concerned, have become
the subject of much controversy between chauvinist Bulgarian and Rumanian
scholars. In general, it is the Bulgarians’ purpose to proclaim, so far as they can
make the testimony of the sources conform to their preconceptions, that Bulgaria
remained a single administrative unit until late in the period; that the Bulgarians
were always restive under and rebellious against Byzantine rule; and, above all,
that the Vlachs played no part in the developments at the end of the period of
Byzantine occupation which led to the formation of the second ‘Bulgarian’Empire.
Of this school the most famous representative is Vasil Zlatarski, although Peter
Mutafciev, Peter Nikov, and Ivan Duicev have not been far behind'. The Ru-
manians, for their part, are eager to show that the Byzantine government divided
Bulgaria into at least two military ‘Duchies’; that the Bulgarians of this period
were a primitive people with no culture of their own, willing to submit to Byzan-
tium; and, above ail, that it was the Vlach portion of the population who led the
revolt of 1186 and brought new glory and independence under a Vlach dynasty
to the submerged and apathetic Bulgarians. Of this school the most famous repre-
sentative is, of course, the incredibly prolific Nicolae Iorga; but the most effective
scholarly research has been performed and the most notable contributions to
Kcw<rTavTivàirovXos, Bv£avripu<á MoXu/9ôo/3o6\Xa (Alousian) Byzantinoslavica, n (1930), 424; V. Zlatarski

‘Molivdovul na Samuela Alusiyan,’ Izvestiya na Biilgarskiya Archeologischeski Institut, I (1921)
86-101; ‘Molivdovulüt na Alusiyana/ Izvestiya na Istorioheskoto Druzhestvo v Sofiya, x (1930), 49-63.
B. A. Panchenko, ‘Katalog Molivdovulov kollektsii russkago archeologicheskago Instituta v Kon-
stantinopolye,’ Izvestiya russkago archeclogischeskago Instituta v Kanstantinopolye, vra (1903), 225,
no. 66, is a seal of a ‘strategos of D istra/ This was republished, Ibid. x (1905), 296. Bânescu does
not refer to its first appearance.
21 See below, Appendix A.
The *Second Bulgarian Empire9 175
knowledge made by Nicolae Bànescu. Iorga and Bànescu have sometimes been
challenged by Constantin Giurescu.
I feel no sympathy for either party to the polemic, behind which, during the
nineteen-twenties and thirties, there lay ill-concealed the wish to impugn or to
justify, as the case might be, Rumanian possession of the southern Dobrudja.
This is a matter which western scholars would not ordinarily study with reference
to mediaeval conditions. But in the Balkans mediaeval data accumulated by
scholars are often regarded as providing strong arguments for the settlement of
present-day controversies. For this reason the contributions of the Bulgarian
and Rumanian historians must be used with great care, and the sources them-
selves examined afresh.
It should be said at once that such a new study of the sources produces con-
vincing evidence that in this controversy the Rumanians on the whole have
much the best of it. Between 1018 and 1185 the administration of Bulgaria, con-
trary to the views of the modern Bulgarian scholars, was almost surely divided
by the Byzantines into two ‘duchies.’ One of these, Paristrion, sometimes called
Paradounavis, included, as its name indicates, that part of Bulgaria between the
Danube and the Balkan mountains, and its arpaTTjyós, ôov£, apxoov, or KaTeiràvœ
had his seat at Dristra (Silistria) on the river. The other ‘duchy’ was called Bul-
garia; its commander had his seat at Skoplye in Macedonia. With regard to the
Bulgarian attitude toward Byzantine domination, which became increasingly
oppressive after Basil II, it may fairly be said that, despite several revolts in the
eleventh century, there were no uprisings under the Comnenoi; the revolt of 1186
was the first for more than a century. Moreover, the testimony of the sources is
overwhelming that the brothers Peter (Kalopeter) and Asen (Assen, Asan),
who led the revolt of 1186, were Vlachs. A brief review of the controversy over
these points will serve to guide the student through the confusing polemic of
both sides and to provide him with an understanding of the origins of the ‘second
Bulgarian Empire.5
In 1920, Iorga published an article in which he tried to demonstrate that during
the reign of Alexius Comnenus (1081-1118) certain local chieftains mentioned
by Anna Comnena as living along the right bank of the Danube in Paristrion
were Vlachs. Iorga relates their names — Tatos, Chalis, Sethslav and Satzas — to
similar Vlach proper names. An examination of the passage in Anna Comnena
indicates that there were only three of these chieftains, and not four, as Iorga
mistakenly thought.22 Anna says that one of them ruled in Dristra (Silistria)
and the others in Vitzina and elsewhere; and that the ‘Scyths’ (Pechenegs) who
were invading the Empire from the north came to an agreement with these rulers
before crossing the Danube, and moving on to harass Byzantine territory, where,
between 1086 and 1091, they were to cause Alexius grave concern. Anna does not
give a name to the people to whom the chieftains belonged. Iorga argues that
since the ‘Scyths’ had to consult with them, the chieftains themselves could not
22 t o v re T c l t o v t o v nai Xakrj ovofxaÇoiikvov teal roO Head'káfiov nal t o v Sarja.* (Alexias, ed. Reiffer-
scheid, i, 222; ed. Leib [Paris, 1948], n, 81.) Tatos is also called Chales; the two are the same person.
See below, note 82.
have been ‘Scyths’; there is nothing to show that they were Bulgarians; their
lands are said to have been planted with wheat and millet, which were common
Vlach crops. Iorga therefore concludes that they were Vlachs, and that the chief-
tains dominated miniature imitations of Byzantine frontier duchies under a
loose Pecheneg control, and out of Byzantine jurisdiction. He adds — without
any evidence whatever — that their sway extended across the Danube into those
portions of modern Rumania long known as ‘Vlasca.’23
These conclusions were accepted by Bánescu, who accumulated evidence to
show the nature of Byzantine administration in Bulgaria between Basil’s con-
quest in 1018 and the revolt of Peter and Asen in 1186. From passages in Ced-
renus and Attaliotes and from seals, he began in 1922 to construct the lists of
Byzantine ‘dukes’ of Bulgaria and Paristrion. Dukes of Bulgaria are attested to
under Basil, who sent Constantine Diogenes and John Triacontopoulos, irpovoerits
and 7Tpairwp BovXyapias with residence perhaps at Nish or Sofia (Triaditza,
Serdica). Dukes of Paristrion, Bánescu then thought, did not appear until the
reign of Constantine IX Monomachus (1042-1055), when Katakalon Kekau-
menos held the post. His immediate successors, Michael, son of Anastasius, Basil
Apokapes, Nicephorus Botaneiates, the Vestarch Nestor, and George, son of
Dekanos, are also known. Their title was apx&v T&v Trapicrpixav iroktœv or some-
times Kar€7rávco rtjs Apwrpias after the site of their headquarters; sometimes the
word irapaôovvaPis is used as the equivalent of Tapiarptov. After the accession of
the Comnenoi in 1081, no mention of the individual dukes’ names had previously
been noted; but Bánescu concluded that their office was maintained until the
death of Manuel. To the evidence, such as it is, provided by Anna Comnena’s
mention of the three ‘Vlach’ chieftains Bánescu adds that which Cedrenus and
Attaliotes indirectly supply, and maintains that the Vlach element emerged
under the Comnenoi as effective local rulers. Pushing aside Zonaras’ clear state-
ment that Tatos was a Pecheneg, and clinging to Attaliotes’ vague mention of the
polyglot population of the Danube river cities, Bánescu, like Iorga, concludes
that Tatos and his colleagues were ‘Rumanians.’24
Returning to the subject, Bánescu later added new and reliable evidence from
Cedrenus and Cinnamus to show that, by the time of Basil’s conquest, ‘Bulgaria’
meant to the Byzantines only that western portion of the country which had so
long held out against them. He shows that Skoplye was its capital, and that
there the ‘Duke of all Bulgaria’ (once called a r p a r r j y ô s a v r o K p a r c o p , once ó ev
X k o t í o l s bitircov TTjv à p x n v t o v h o m o s ) exercised supervisory authority over the local
military commanders at Strumitza, Prilep, Prizren, Achrida, Castoria, and

28 N. Iorga, ‘Les premières cristallisations d’état des Roumains,5Académie Roumaine, Bulletin de la
Section Historique, v-vrn (1920), 33-46. The chief source is Anna Comnena, Alexias, ed. Reiffer-
scheid, i, 222 ff; ed. Leib, n, 81 f.
24 N. Bànescu, ‘Les premiers témoignages byzantins sur les Roumains du Bas-Danube,’ Byzan-
tinisch-Neugriechische Jahrbûcher, n i (1922), 287-311. Chief sources are Cedrenos, n, 476, 483, 487,
497, 583, 584, 585, 587, 602, 607, 610; Attaliotes, p. 204; Zonaras n, 713, which Bànescu prefers to
ignore. For the seals, see Schlumberger, Sigillographie, pp. 240, 103, 241, 710-711. See also Bânescu’s
shorter article, ‘La “Roma nuova” aile foci del Danubio,* L*Europa Orientale, in (1923), 580-585, in
which chauvinism is more apparent than in some of the others.
Stip. In the east the Dukes of Paristrion—the term which had replaced ‘Bulgaria’
as applying to the territory along the river — were subject directly to the
Emperor. Newly discovered seals, and a close study of Skylitzes enabled Bánescu
to draw up a fuller list of the Byzantine dukes of Bulgaria, and to add to the
list of dukes of Paristrion a new founder of the line, Simeon Vestes (1030).25
Although further data were added in later articles,26the basic Rumanian position
in the controversy has not been altered: it emphasizes the division of former
Bulgarian territory into two duchies and the importance of the Vlach element.
In 1925 the Bulgarian response to the articles began. Mutaf&ev referred Iorga
and Bánescu to articles by Vassilievskii and Kulakovskii, and to Skabalanovich’s
book on the Byzantine church and state in the eleventh century, maintaining
that these authorities had long since disproved the Rumanian theories.27 But,
as Bánescu was quick to point out, Mutafciev had only clouded the issue: these
authorities’ views turned out to be not germane, out of date, or in substantial
agreement with the Rumanian position. Indeed, Bánescu proceeded to demon-
strate that the duchy of Paristrion dated as far back as the victory of John
Tsimisces over the Russian Svyatoslav in 972.28 During the next ten years
Mutafciev wrote in Bulgarian and then translated into French and expanded an
26 N. Bánescu, ‘Changements politiques dans les Balkans après la conquête de l’Empire Bulgare
de Samuel (1018). Nouveaux Duchés Byzantins: Bulgarie et Paristrion/ Académie Roumaine,
Bulletin de la Section Historique., x (1923), 1-24 (separate pagination). Almost all the new evidence
is supplied by seals published by J. Mordtmann, 'Mo\v¡38o¡3ovX\a fivÇtanivè. t G>v 'O h>
KœmravTLVovrôXeL 'E\\r¡vucds ÿikdkoyiKos cvWoyos, xvn (1886), supplementary volume, 14*4 ff. Some
additional data from Georgian sources (Vita beati •patris nostri Ioannis atque Euthymii, ed. P.
Peeters, Analecta Bollandiana, x x x v i-x x x v ii [1917-1919], 50).
26 N. Bánescu, ‘Ein neuer Kareiràvœ BovXyapias,’ Byzantinische Zeitschrift xxv (1925) pp. 331-332.
The new addition is mentioned by Kekaumenos (ed. Vassilievsky and Jemstedt), p. 181. This brings
the total for ‘Bulgaria* to thirteen. See also N. Bánescu, ‘Unbekannte Statthalter der Themen
Paristrion und Bulgarien: Romanos Diogenes und Nicephorus Botaneiates/ Ibid., x x x (1930), 439—
444, containing new data provided by a seal, cited above note 20, as published by Panchenko, and by
another passage in Attaliotes (p. 97). Here Bánescu specifically equates <5où£, Kareiravoo, and &px&v.
27 First in BZ, xxv (1925), 211; then in a note in BZ, x xvi (1926), 250-251. V. G. Vassilievskii,
‘Vizantiya i Pechenegi/ Trudy (St Petersburg, 1908), I, 1-175; Yu. Kulakovskii, ‘Gde nachodilas’
vidrinskaya eparchia konstantinopolskago Patriarchata?’ Vizardiishi Vremennik, iv (1897), 315-336.
Kulakovskii tries to show (pp. 327 ff.) that Tatos and his three (really two) fellow local rulers were
Russians. His line of argument, up to the conclusion, is tbe same as that followed by Iorga to show
that they were ‘Rumanians/ Exactly the same passages from Anna, Cedrenus, and Attaliotes are
cited; but the proof that Tatos=Tatush (Russian) is no more (and no less) convincing to me than
Iorga’s that Tatos=Tatul (Rumanian). Iorga’s work was all done for him by Kulakovskii; he should
at least have cited the article; and, to that extent, Mutafciev’s indignation is justified. N. Skabalano-
vich, Vizantiiskoe gosudarstvo i tserlcov v X I veJce (St Petersburg, 1884), pp. 225-227, gives a very
short account, now out of date. V. N . Zlatarski, ‘Kaküv narod se razbira u Anna, Komnina pod iz-
raza ybos ri Zkvôlkôv/ Izvestiya na Istoricheskoto Druzhestvo v Sofiya, x i-x n (1931-1932), 71-83,
concludes that the local rulers were Uzes, not Pechenegs, Cumans, Russians, or Vlachs. See the most
recent work of Gyóni, cited note 32 below.
28 N. Bánescu, ‘À propos des duchés byzantins de Paristrion et de Bulgarie/ Revue Historique du
Sud-Est Européen, n i (1926), 321-325; ‘La domination byzantine sur les régions du bas-Danube,
Académie Roumaine, Bulletin de la Section Historique, xrn (1927), 10-22; ‘Ein ethnographisches
Problem am Unterlauf der Donau aus dem XX Jahrhundert/ Byzantion, vi (1931), 297-307.
178 The ‘Second Bulgarian Empire9
attack on the Rumanians. Here for the first time he argued that the word ‘Vlach’
does not mean Vlach, that is to say a Latin-speaking person, but is a device used
by the Byzantine sources to avoid saying ‘Bulgarian.’29 In this way he turned
the Rumanian arguments against their authors : if ‘Bulgaria’meant to the Byzan-
tines only the southern and eastern portion of the country (which the Bulgarian
historians are prepared to admit only for the period of the Comnenoi) then the
word ‘Bulgarian’ means only an inhabitant of that part of the country; and the
word ‘Vlach’ is simply a way of designating Bulgarians from the northern and
western parts of Bulgaria. ‘Vlach’ is only a façon de parler ; it means a Bulgarian
from tha^ part of Bulgaria no longer called Bulgaria. These views were developed
and expanded by Zlatarski, who disagrees with Mutafciev on details, but whose
basic position is the same.30 All the detailed arguments of the Bulgarians were
once again, and I think conclusively, answered by Bánescu.31
This is not to say that the Rumanian position on the period 1018-1081 is to
be adopted in ioto. I am convinced by their demonstration that from the time
of Basil II on, the Byzantines had a divided military administration for Bulgaria.
I believe that the reappearance of the Vlachs in the sources betokens perhaps an
increase in their numbers, and surely an increase in their participation in the
national life. But I cannot accept Iorga’s thesis that the right bank of the Danube
was held by Vlach local chieftains as early as the time of Alexius Comnenus.
Indeed, Iorga’s view, accepted by Bánescu, has not won universal acceptance
even by Rumanians, but was combatted by Giurescu, who correctly refers to it
29 P. Mutafciev, ‘Bülgari i Rumüni v istoriyata na Dunavskitë zem li/ Qodishnik na Sofiiskiya
Universitet, Ist-Jilfak. xxm (1926-1927), 1-24; Bulgares et Roumains dans l’histoire des pays danubiens
(Sofia, 1932). See Iorga’s review in Revue Historique du Sud-Est Européen, x (1933), 67-72.1 have not
seen the response to Mutafóiev by P. Panaitescu, ‘Les relations bulgaro-roumains au moyen âge,’
Revista Aromâneasca i (1929), 9-31. BZ, x l i (1941), 262, reports an article by I. Duicev on the ‘theme’
of Bulgaria, reference to which he has found in MS Vat. gr. 299 of the fourteenth century, containing
a text of the eleventh or twelfth. The article, which I have not seen, and whose Bulgarian title is not
recorded in BZ, appeared in the Godishnik of the National Library and National Museum of Plovdiv,
1937-1939 (Sofia, 1940), p. 797.
30 V. Zlatarski, ‘Ustroistvo Bolgarii i polozhenie bolgarskago naroda v pervoe vremya poslye
pokoreniya ich Vasiliem II Bolgaroboitseyu/ Seminarium Kondakovianum, iv (1931), 49-68. F. Dol-
ger, in a brief notice of this article BZ, x x x i (1931), 443-444, points out the ineffectiveness of Zlatar-
ski’s argument that Basil’s maintenance of unity in the ecclesiastical administration of Bulgaria
necessarily implies maintenance of a unified civil and military administration. See also ‘Politicheskoto
polozhenie na severna Bülgariya prez xi. i xn. vëkove,’ Izvestiya na Istoricheskoto Druzhestvo v Sofiya
IX (1929), pp. 50, separate pagination. Zlatarski has also written an article on the subject in the
Festschrift for the Yugoslav scholar, Sisió (Zagreb, 1929), pp. 143-148, inaccessible to me. ‘Edna
datirana pripiska na Grütski ot srëdata na X I vëk,’ ByzantinSslavica, I (1929), 23-24, maintains
that Trapaôobva^Ls, far from being the equivalent of Paristrion, is a family name. This point was
met by S. V. Kougeas, "Ettí rod (3i(3\urYpa4>ucov <rijfi€iáj¡jíaT<K rod vir’ àpiB. 263 KourXiPtciPou kcoSckos,’
'EXA^t/cá, in (1930), 458-462, and K. Amantos, 'Tlapabobvafiov,’ ibid., iv. (1931), 80, who show clearly
that Zlatarski is wrong.
31 N. Bánescu, ‘La Question du Paristrion,’ Byzantion, vm (1933), 277-308, where he lists Zlatarski’s
seven chief points, and answers them one by one. See also the still more recent sigillographie evidence
published by Bánescu, and cited above, note 20.
The ‘Second Bulgarian Empire' 179
as a mere conjecture.32So much then for the problem of administration after the
conquest.
During the years between 1018 and the accession of Alexius Comnenus in 1081
there were three Bulgarian revolts. The first (1040-1041) arose because of the
intolerable exactions of Michael IV’s minister, John the Orphanotrophos, who
for the first time demanded that taxes be paid in Bulgaria in money rather than
in kind. The rebellion was led by Peter Deljan, probably a son of Gabriel Rado-
mir, himself the son of the great Tsar Samuel. Gabriel Radomir had been mur-
dered by his rival John Vladislav, son of Aaron, who, it is now believed, was the
representative of the legitimate Bulgarian royal family against the Armenian
‘Comitopouloi.’ The hostility between the rival families continued into the third
generation: Alusian, son of John Vladislav, first left Byzantine service in Asia
Minor to join Deljan’s revolt, then betrayed and blinded Deljan, and finally be-
trayed the rebels to the Byzantines,33who had in any case defeated them outside
Thessalonica. Whatever conclusions may be drawn from the sources as to the
legitimacy of Deljan, there can be little doubt that this was a genuinely Bulgarian
revolt, inspired by popular discontent, and made possible by popular loyalty to
the old dynasty.
Thereafter, the influx of Pechenegs and Cumans turned Bulgaria into a battle
ground between Byzantium and these Turkish tribes; and we hear of no expres-
sions of Bulgarian national self-consciousness or of rebellion until 1073. Then a
new revolt broke out during a lull in the Pecheneg war. This was engineered by
Bulgarian nobles under George Voitech, (Botraxos) with the assistance of the Serbs,
32 C. Giurescu, ‘0 noua sinteza a trecutului nostru,’ Revista Istorica Româna, n (1932), 2, calls
Iorga’s conclusions on the Rumanian origin of the three chieftains ‘nedovedita’ (unproved), and cor-
rects Iorga’s misreading of the passage in Anna, rightly reducing the number of the chieftains from
four to three. See also V. Bogrea’s note published, Universitatea din Cluj, Anuarul Institutvlui de
Istoria Nationda, i (1921-1922), 380-381. For Giurescu’s views on the Vlachs of the Balkans see his
Istoria Roviânilor (Bucharest, 1938), i, 310 ff. The subject has most recently been thoroughly re-
viewed by M. Gyóni, Zur Frage der Rumânischen Staatsbildungen im X I. Jahrhundert in Paristrion
(Archaisierende Volksnamen und ethnische WirUichkeit in der ‘Alexias' von Anna Komnene) [OsU
mitteleuropaische Bihliothek, ed. E. Lukinich, no. 48 (Budapest, 1944)] pp. 106. Like the other works
of Gyóni, here cited, this became available only after the completion of this study. It examines all
the polemic on the subject of the national origin of the three chieftains, makes a searching study of
the vocabulary of Anna Comnena, and concludes that they were probably Pechenegs.
33 Zlatarski, Istoriya, n, 41 ff.; and ‘Wer war Peter Deljan,’ Suomalaisen Tiedeakatemian Tozmitak-
sia, Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, Series B 27 (Helsinki, 1932), 354-363. Psellus, who,
Zlatarski is sure, got his information from Alusian, a friend of his, says that Deljan was illegitimate;
and Zonaras copies Psellus. From Skylitzes-Cedrenos Zlatarski derives a tradition that he prefers:
Deljan was legitimate. He could not have been accepted by the Bulgarians, Zlatarski argues, had he
not been so. See also Schlumberger, Épopée, m , 286 ff.; Vassilievsky, Trudy, I , 258 ff; and N. P.
Blagoev, ‘Delyan i negovoto vüstanie v Moravsko i Makedoniya protiv Vizantiitsitë,* Makedonski
Pregledy rv (1928), 1-2,175-176. Harold, son of the king of Norway, took part in the Byzantine cam-
paign against the rebels. Other sources are Kekaumenos and the Armenian Matthew of Edessa.
See Adontz, loc. cit. (note 16 above), pp. 40 ff. for the proof that these murders were not, as had pre-
viously been believed, all committed within the family of the Comitopouloi. Samuel and Aaron were
not brothers, as has been thought; Samuel had only one brother, David.
who supplied a new ‘Tsar’ in the person of their prince Constantine Bodinus,
who took the name of Peter. The revolt was put down by Byzantine troops.34
Shortly thereafter, a third revolt {ca 1078-1080) broke out, headed by a Greek
Bogomile named Lika and by a Slavic Bogomile named Dobromir or Dragomir.
The country was being overrun by the Pechenegs, who seem to have supported
the revolt; and the Bogomile religious views of its two leaders indicate that there
was more behind this movement than mere political discontent with Byzantine
rule. It is virtually impossible to decide what role was played by the Bulgarian
population during this uprising.85
But, to judge from the decreasing effectiveness of the three successive revolts,
and from the cessation of all rebellion for a period of more than a century under
the Comnenoi, it seems reasonable to suppose that, after the mid-eleventh cen-
tury, the ability of the Bulgarians to revolt successfully against Byzantium was
diminished. The first revolt seems to have been purely Bulgarian; the second was
partly Serbian in inspiration; the third was probably religious rather than na-
tional. This diminishing effectiveness may be attributed partly to the exhaustion
and depopulation suffered during the wars with Basil II; but it is surely to be
explained in large measure by the fact that Bulgaria had become the scene of the
war between Byzantium and the Pechenegs and Cumans, as well as the staging
ground for military operations against the Normans on the Adriatic coast, and
the thoroughfare for the armies of the first three Crusades. Even Zlatarski refers
to this period before 1185 as the ‘period of Grecization.’36 Here too, then, the
views of the Rumanian scholars are substantially borne out.
in
When, after more than a century, the fourth uprising did take place in 1186, it
was under the auspices of two local chieftains, Peter and Asen, whom all the
sources, Byzantine and western, agree in calling Vlachs, and who lived in the
Balkan mountains.37The most elaborate theories have been resorted to by Bul-
84 Zlatarski, Istoriya, n, 138 ff. (Source Skylitzes.) See also the Presbyter of Dioclea, ed. F. SiSié,
Letopis Popa Duklyanina, Srpska Kralyevska Akademiya, Posebna Izdanya xvm (Belgrade-Zagreb,
1928), 357-358. (Latin text.)
35 Zlatarski, Istoriya, n, 162 ff., and especially Appendix 5, pp. 495-496, where Attaliotes and Sky-
litzes’ accounts are compared and discussed.
36 Ibid.y p. 167, ‘Epocha na Komeizatsiyata.’ See also Zlatarski’s article, ‘Namëstniki-upraviteli na
Bülgariya prez tsaruvaneto na Aleksiya I Komnin/ Byzardino$lavicayiv (1932), 139-158 and 371-398,
based almost entirely upon the letters of Archbishop Theophylact of Achrida.
37 For the period of the outbreak of the revolt the only source is Nicetas Choniates. (It may be of
some interest to note that all the passages of Nicetas dealing with the Asen brothers have been
collected and translated into Rumanian with an introduction by G. Mumu, ‘Din Nichita Acominatos
Honiatul/ Andele Academiei Române, Seria n, 28 [1905-1906] Memorvile Sectiunii Istorice, 357-467).
A few years later we have as well the testimony of Ansbert and of the other western sources for the
Crusade of Frederick Barbarossa. Then comes the papal correspondence with Ioannitsa, continuing
on after the fourth Crusade, and the flood of materials for the Crusade itself, with Villehardouin and
Robert of Clari as the most important. It is worth noting that a few years before the revolt, and about
the same time as their appearance in Benjamin of Tudela (1160) — see Appendix A below — the
Vlachs appear in an important passage of Cinnamos as an element of the Byzantine army being
garian historians to prove that the word ‘Vlach’ had by 1185 come to mean a
‘Bulgar from the northwest part of the country/ They explain this phenomenon
as the result of a conspiracy of silence on the part of Byzantine writers, who,
they argue, were trying to avoid the use of the word ‘Bulgar’ and to substitute
‘Vlach.’ In fact, however, it can be demonstrated that Byzantine writers use the
word ‘Bulgar5quite freely when they are talking about Bulgars, and use ‘Vlach’
only to refer to Vlachs. It has long been realized that any other interpretation
involves the twisting of the sources until they bear no relationship to the ascer-
tainable facts about the origin and development of the ‘second Bulgarian Em-
pire.’38
recruited for duty against the Cumans. The historian even refers to the Italian (Roman) origin of the
Vlachs. (Cinnamos, p. 260: ' . . . Keovro. Be riva Barár^v kirUXijírur bépcaOev crrparevpa kTra.y6¡ietfov
a XX o r e airxyov nal 8r¡ koX B\áx<¿>v tvóXvv 6¡jll \ o v , ót rœv *e£ 'IraXLas anoiko l 7 r á X a t elvai Xéyojnai, he rcov
Trpós JZvêivcp KaXovfikvq tóptc# x^pu^v ¿lu¡3a\eiv knkXeoev eis ri¡v Ovvvlk^v. . . . * The ‘Black Sea
regions’ referred to are presumably in the Dobrudja, south of the Danube. See note 62. Rumanian
historians themselves have differed as to the locale of the Vlach revolt. D . Onciul, Origínele Prici-
patelor Romane (Bucharest, 1899), pp. 28-29, 151-153, placing it north of the Danube, and Iorga,
Geschichte des Rumanischen Volkes (Gotha, 1905), p. 96, in the Pindus mountains of Thessaly, while
A. Xenopol, I storia Românilor din Dacia Traiana (Bucharest, 1926), m , 224, maintains that the
Balkan range and the land between it and the Danube was never called Vlachia. This anxiety to
locate the revolt away from the Balkan range and north of the Danube can be attributed to the
Rumanians’ determination to defend (against the Hungarians) their favorite theory of ‘Daco-Roman
continuity’ north of the Danube. (The Hungarians maintain that all the Rumanians [Vlachs, Daco-
Romans] were withdrawn from present-day Rumania and established in the Balkan mountains
[Moesia] by Aurelian when he abandoned Dacia in the late third century.) To admit the presence of
Vlachs in the Balkan mountains in 1186 would strengthen the Hungarian contention that the Vlachs
disappeared north of the Danube, even though it would refute the Bulgarian argument that the
Vlachs had nothing to do with the revolt of Peter and Asen. The most sensible Rumanian discussion
of the problem — which correctly locates the origin of the brothers Peter and Asen in the Balkan
mountains — where Nicetas (who knew) put it (p. 808: 'ôs Tpa&els & tQ AZa*v’)> is that by C. C.
Giurescu, ‘Despre Vlahia Asenestilor,’ Lucrarüe Institutidui de Geografie at Unwersitatii din Cluj,
iv (1928-1929; Cluj, 1931), 109-124. See also C. Bràtescu, ‘Nume vechi ale Dobrogii: Vlahia lui
Asan, Vlahia Alba,’ Arhiva Dobrogei, n (1919), 18-31. Bràtescu makes much of the evidence supplied
by a well-known passage of William of Rubruck, the celebrated thirteenth-century Franciscan travel-
ler, locating Vlachia between the Danube and the Balkan mountains. See also A. Sacerdoteanu,
Guillaume de Rubrouck et les Roumains au milieu du X lIIe siècle (Paris, 1930).
For the likelihood that the name Asen (Asan), generally admitted to be of Turkish origin, is con-
nected with a word in use among the Khazars, meaning ‘king,’ see Ibn Fadlaris Reisebericht (ed.
A. Zeki Validi Togan) in Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgerdandes, xxiv, 3 (Leipzig, 1939),
Excursus 99a, p. 270; who refers to Eudud al 'Alam (tr. V. Minorsky, E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series,
New Series, Oxford, 1937), pp. 161-162 and 451. See Études Slaves et Roumaines, i (1948), 64, for a
review of Togan.
88 The bibliography of this controversy is as follows: The most recent book to examine the evidence
is the brief work of N. Bànescu, TJn problème d'histoire mediévale. Création et caractère du second
Empire Bulgare (Bucharest, 1943). This is essentially an answer to V. Zlatarski, ‘Potekloto na Petra i
Asënya, Vodachitë na vüzstanietov 1185 god,’ Spisanie na Bülgarskata Akademiya na Naukitë, x l v
(1933), 8-48; and Istoriya, ii, pp. 410-483; but it reviews the previous literature as well. Cf. JireSek,
op. c i t y pp. 217 ff. Zlatarski’s theories go back to F. I. Uspenskii, Obrazovanie vtorago Bolgarskago
Tsarstva (Odessa, 1879), extract from the Zapiski Imperatorskago Novorossiiskago Universiteta. It was
Uspenskii (p. 57) who first broached the theory that the Byzantine sources (Nicetas and Cinnamos)
for the twelfth centuiy — the reigns of John II and Manuel Comnenus — for political reasons sup-
182 The *Second Bulgarian Em pire’
These are about as follows: in the year 1185, the Emperor Isaac Angelus, cele-
brating his marriage with the daughter of King Bela III of Hungary,138a found
himself short of ready cash. He proceeded to levy a tax on flocks and herds, which
pressed the word Bulgar and replaced it with the word ‘Vlach.* This is easily proved false; Bânescu
(Un Problème, pp. 13 ff.) gives numerous examples of the appearance of the word ‘Bulgar’ in the
sources, arguing also that the official title 6o6£ or tcareirávco rr}s BouXyapias which appears on the seals
of Byzantine officials in the province is sufficient evidence that the name was still in use. To Uspen-
skii’s other chief argument against a Vlach origin for the brothers Peter and Asen — that they called
their state the ‘Bulgarian Empire,’ — Bânescu replies that the tradition of the first Bulgarian Empire
was so strong that it was essential for any later state on the same territory and making the same pre-
tentions to bear the same name. Zlatarski tries unsuccessfully to show that Boril, successor of Peter,
Asen, and Ioannitsa, was the descendant of another Boril, who was an influential (Bulgarian) courtier
at the court of Nicephorus Botaneiates (1078-1081), and was an early enemy of his influential young
general, Alexius Comnenus. Some of Bânescu’s points refuting Zlatarski and Uspenskii had first
been made by V. G. Vasilievskii, in his review of Uspenskii’s book, Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnago
Prosveshcheniya, cciv (1879), 144-217 and 318-348, who also showed that the name of Bulgaria and
Bulgarians was not dropped by Byzantine authors. Arguing from the evidence of later folk-tradition,
Vasilievskii concluded that the brothers had grown up in an area where a kind of fusion between
Vlachs and Bulgars had taken place. Vasilievskii’s strictures went unnoticed by most later scholars,
J. L. Pic, for example, in his Über die Abstammung der Rumanen (Leipzig, 1880), pp. 87 ff., following
Uspenskii. Meanwhile, C. R. von Hôfler (‘Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiete der slavischen Geschichte,
I , Die Walachen als Begründer des zweiten bulgarischen Reiches der Aseniden, 1186,’ Sitzungsbe-
richte derK. Wiener Akademie derWissenschaften, xcv [1879], 229-245), considering the sources inde-
pendently of Uspenskii, and without any Slav parti pris, concluded that the new kingdom was founded
by Vlachs, and that the Cumans played a large part in the struggle for its creation, with the Bulgari-
ans simply a third element in the movement. Other significant treatments of the subject are those of
A. D . Xenopol, ‘L’Empire Valacho-Bulgare,* Revue Historique, x lv h (1891), 277-308 stressing the
role of the Vlachs; P. Mutaféiev, ‘Proizchodüt na Asënevtsi,’ Makedonski Pregled, iv (1928), 1-42,
149-152 which supports a ‘Cumano-Russian’ origin for the name of the Asens. Bânescu’s demon-
stration that Mutafciev and Zlatarski have misread the sources and created hypotheses out of
nothing, is altogether convincing. Zlatarski reverts to the subject Istoriya, hi, 16 ff., but presents no
new evidence or arguments. Recent works which add nothing are P. Nikov, Vtoro Bülgarsko tsarstvo
(Sofia, 1936), which, Duicev, in the bibliographical article cited above (note 2) refers to as a ‘Biich-
lein’; another book with the same title (Sofia, 1937), containing essays by Nikov, Duicev, and others,
which Duicev calls ‘ein Sammelwerk mit popularen Aufsatzen’ ; and some popular articles in the
periodical Bülgarska Istoricheska Biblioteka.
In Sofia, during the summer of 1948, after this study had been completed, I was able to secure a
copy of the most recent Bulgarian work on the subject: Vsevolod Nikolaev, Potekloto na Asënevtsi i
etnicheskiyat charàkter na osnovanata ot tëch diirzhava (Sofia, 1944), pp. 140 with French and Russian
résumés. Nikolaev quite rightly maintains that, irrespective of the racial origin of the founders, the
‘second Bulgarian Empire’ was primarily a Bulgarian state, and argues that the Rumanian claims
that it was a manifestation of the Rumanian national genius are chauvinist and meaningless. Having
demonstrated the irrelevancy of the founders’ racial origin, however, Nikolaev devotes much inge-
nuity to an effort to prove that they were not Vlach, or, perhaps, Vlach on their maternal side only.
His work is a tissue of misunderstandings and false assumptions: he even concludes that Peter and
Asen were descendants of the rulers of the first Bulgarian Empire. Professor Dimiter Angelov of the
University of Sofia, in conversation with me, himself gave the same estimate of Nikolaev’s book, and
expressed his personal belief that Peter and Asen were Vlachs who successfully led a revolt and
founded a state predominantly Bulgarian in traditions, population, and language. See now Angelov’s
review of Nikolaev’s book, Istoricheski Pregled, in (1946-1947), 374-383.
38a The bride, Margaret or Maria, then only ten years old, was to have a remarkable career. After
the death of Isaac and the second Latin conquest of Constantinople in 1204 she married Boniface of
Montferrat, and became Queen of Thessalonica.
fell especially heavily upon the region of Anchialus. The Vlachs of the Balkan
mountains sent Isaac, who was at Kypsella in Thrace, two messengers, the
brothers Peter and Asen. These petitioned to be enlisted in Isaac’s armies, and
to be given by imperial decree some small property in the mountains. Isaac
refused; the brothers, especially Asen, were loudly and rudely insistent, and
threatened to revolt unless their wishes were granted. The sebastocrator John
struck Asen in the face; and the brothers left in a fury.39When they reached their
home in the mountains, the Vlachs at first refused to rebel against the Empire;
but Peter and Asen built a church, into which they gathered many ‘people of
both sexes possessed by devils,’ who were told to prophesy that ‘God had decided
upon the freedom of the Bulgarians and of the Vlach people and upon the re-
moval from their necks of the yoke they had borne so long.’ The inspired prophets
added that St Demetrius, who was a name to conjure with, had left Thessalonica
and its temples and had come over to them to preside over the rebellion.40
This convinced the rank and file of the Vlachs, who then opened a bloody
campaign, giving no quarter to prisoners. Peter crowned himself with a golden
diadem, and donned the purple boots symbolic of the office of Emperor. The
Vlachs swept down from the hills, taking cattle and men from the cities. Advanc-
ing to meet them, Isaac scored a signal success in a battle in a fog, which pre-
vented the Vlachs from retreating to their mountains; he drove them — like
the Gadarene swine — into the Danube. But they were not drowned. They
crossed the river, and joined the Cumans (Scyths). The grave difficulties of the
terrain helped decide Isaac not to follow up his advantage or to garrison the in-
accessible Vlach mountain villages. He retired after burning their harvest, misled
by their false promises of submission. On his return to the capital he was re-
proached by Leo Monasteriotes, one of the judges in the city, who said that the
spirit of Basil the Buigar-slayer was grieved at Isaac’s conduct. Monasteriotes
recalled that, after destroying the Bulgarians, Basil had advised that, if the Vlachs
should ever revolt, the Emperor of the day should follow his example, and garri-
son their country. Monasteriotes and Basil both proved to be right. Reenforced
by their Cuman allies, the Vlachs re-crossed the Danube, and, finding no Byzan-
tine army in Moesia, Nicetas says, they were not contented to rule over Moesia
alone, but did as much harm as they could to the Rhomaeans, uniting the rule
39 Nicetas, pp. 481-482. Here occurs the first clear account of the word ‘Vlach,* and the identifica-
tion of Peter and Asen as Vlachs (p. 482) : * . . . r o d s K a r a r o v A ï f i o v r à Ô p o s f i a p f í á p o v s , 6 c M v c r o l T r p ó r c p o y
ó vo ¡J .á £ o v T O , v v v i ô è B X á x o t K iK X -fjcn covT ai . . . . r ¡ a a v ¿>¿ o l r o v k o j c o v i r p o n o v p y o i K a l t o W v o s ÔAo v á v c u r e U r o a n 'ts
TLs K a l *Ácráv, ó f x o y e v e is r a v r ó c n v o p o i .' In spite of this and of all the other evidence, F. Cognasso,
T lé r p o s
‘IJn imperatore Bizantino della decadenza, Isacco II Angelo/ Bessarione, x x x i (1915), 44, calls them
‘Due bojari bulgari.’ In addition to the works already cited, an account of the Bulgarian wars is
included in M. Bachmann, Die Rede Johannes Syropoidos an den Kaiser Isaak II Angelos (1185-1195)
(Munich, 1985), pp. 72-98, drawn especially from the hitherto little-used ‘rhetorical’ sources.
40 The propaganda about St Demetrius was likely to be enhanced by the great impression pro-
duced by the Byzantine loss of Thessalonica, his city, to the Normans, a few months before. It was
clear that he must have abandoned Thessalonica, which he had so often protected; why should he
not have come to the aid of the Vlachs and Bulgars? Apparently Isaac Angelus later captured an
icon of St Demetrius in the house of Peter; Theodore Balsamon wrote a poem on the subject:
'Eis ayvov Arjtirjjpiov evpedevra irapà rov fiatnXeox els rrjv oUcíav rov àiroaràrov 'ZdXafioTerpov,’ ed. K. Homa,
‘Die Epigramma des Theodor Balsamon,’ Wiener Studien, xx v (1903), 192.
184 The <Second Bulgarian Empire’
of Moesians (Vlachs) and Bulgarians under one sovereign, as it had been before.41
Isaac himself did not march against the rebels this time, but sent an army
under the sebastocrator John, who was a good general, but under suspicion of
plotting for the throne, and who was replaced by the Emperor’s brother-in-law,
the Caesar John Cantacuzene. Through carelessness in failing to post guards,
Cantacuzene was badly defeated by the Vlachs in a night attack, Peter even
capturing and putting on the gold-embroidered robes of the Caesar. Cantacu-
zene’s successor, Alexius Branas, tried to usurp the Byzantine throne, leading
a rebellion against Isaac, from which the Emperor was saved only by the inter-
vention of Conrad of Montferrat.42 When this was over (1187) Isaac took the
field in person against the rebels in Bulgaria. Although he pursued the Vlachs
from Adrianople to Philippopolis to Sofia (Triaditsa), he won no majorvictory, and
the enemy escaped from the liberated territory with all his booty. The imperial
armies were caughjt by winter, and Isaac himself went back to Constantinople
for recreation at the games. When he renewed the campaign in the spring (1188),
it was to spend three months in the fruitless siege of Lobitsos. Operations were
suspended after Isaac had captured Asen’s wife, and had been given a third
brother of Asen and Peter, John — the later King Ioannitsa — as a hostage. But
these Byzantine successes were illusory. Nicetas says things went from bad to
worse.43
In the next year, the forces of Frederick Barbarossa, moving on Constanti-
nople, presented a grave threat to the Empire. As they crossed the Balkans in
July 1189, they received letters from Peter, who had joined with two Serb
zhupans in an alliance against Isaac. The allies now offered Frederick aid in any
operation he might undertake against Byzantium. The offer was renewed that
winter, when Peter specifically promised Frederick 40,000 Vlach and Cuman
archers for an attack on Constantinople, scheduled for the beginning of spring
1190; and this offer Frederick was tempted to accept. But he reached an agree-
ment with Isaac during the winter, and decided not to attack Constantinople.
Isaac’s ‘dapifer magnus’ asked Barbarossa for aid against the Vlachs, and, on the
same day, a representative of Peter the Vlach arrived, eager to get Frederick’s
aid against the Greeks. Frederick refused both requests. This is almost all we
know of the relations between Barbarossa and the Vlach brothers: one source
adds that, when Peter offered Frederick the 40,000 auxiliaries for use against
41 Nicetas, pp. 485-489. * . . . rr¡v t &v Mv<rœv Kai t S>v BovXyapcov bwa<xreL<xv els h> avvwpowiv ws 7rá\cu
7tot€ rjv. . . . ’ The specific equation of Móctoi with BAaxoi (see note 39) above plus the specific reference
in this passage to Mixroi and Botikyapot as separate peoples is in itself enough to dispose of the ‘Bul-
garian’ theory that ‘Vlach* meant ‘Bulgar’ or that there was a conspiracy of silence among Byzantines
to drop the word ‘Bulgar* from usage.
42 Nicetas, pp. 489 ff. For Branas’ revolt, see Cognasso, loc. cit., pp. 47 ff.
48 Nicetas, pp. 515-516, and 517-521. For the military tactics of the speedy Cumans, who at-
tacked the heavy armed and slow-moving Byzantine forces, see the letters of Nicetas reporting on
the campaign to the Patriarch. Nicetas, who took part in the operations in person, was logothete
t S>v acKpérœv and reports the entire campaign as a great victory. See Metrauow/o) BL^\uodi]Kr¡, (ed.
K. Sathas, Venice, 1872), i, 77 ff. Eustathius of Thessalonica also congratulated Isaac on the victory
in an oration delivered at Philippopolis, Opuscula, (ed. Tafel), pp. 41-45. See head of this article.
The €Second Bulgarian Empire9 185
Isaac, he also asked Frederick to crown him ‘with the diadem of the realm of
Greece’; and explains that Barbarossa in a friendly way turned the request aside,
since he was more anxious to get on with the Crusade across the Straits than to
delay in ‘Greece’ to help claim an empire for somebody else.44
After the pressing danger from the crusaders — or a crusader-Vlach alliance
— had passed, Isaac undertook in 1191 a new expedition against the Vlachs, who
were ravaging Byzantine territory. By way of Anchialus he marched into the
narrow passes of the Balkans. He found the fortresses supplied with newly-built
walls and towers, and the enemy leaping up the inaccessible heights as lightly as
deer and as sure-footed as goats. Isaac made the mistake of taking a short-cut
near Berrhoea through a narrow valley, where there was a waterfall, instead of
keeping to the main road, which was suitable for marching. He was set upon, and
lost the greater part of his army, escaping himself, Nicetas says, only through
divine aid. The action was so hot — the Vlachs hurling stones upon the Greeks
44 The passages from which this account is drawn are all in ‘Ansbert’ and the Historia Peregrinorum,
(ed. Chroust), MGH, SS, new series, v (1928). For the first account of the Asen brothers (p. 83):
4 . . . in Bulgarie maxima parte ac versus Danubium, quousque mare influat, quidam Kalopetrus
Flachus ac frater eius Assanius cum subditis Flachis tyrannizabat. In ea fluctuatione regni Grecie
prefati comites de Saruigia (Serbia) et Grazzia (Rascia) eo tempore quo exercitus crucis Bulgariam
transmeabat, occasione accepta, partem Bulgarie sue ditioni subiugaverant, federe inito cum Kalo-
petro adversus imperatorem Constantinopolitanum. Qui scilicet Kalopetrus dominum imperatorem
(Frederick) scriptis et nuntiis officiose salutare debita reverentia et fidelis auxilii contra hostes spon-
sione maiestati eius inclinabat.’ This shows again that Peter and Asen were Vlachs, although Bul-
garian scholars argue that the Latin sources followed the Greek in calling them Vlachs instead of
Bulgars. This cannot be supported: the Latins were dealing with the Vlachs directly, not through
Greek intermediaries, and the Latins were hostile to the Greeks, and would not have adopted such a
Greek usage, even if it had existed, which it did not. The Latins were well informed as to who was
who in the Balkans. For the offer of 40,000 men (p. 58) : ‘Kalopetrus, Blacorum et maxime partis
Bulgarorum (note the distinction between the peoples) in hortis Tracie dominus, qui se imperatorem
. . . (lacuna probably to be filled by ‘nominabat et legatos misit ad imperatorem [Frederick] qui eum
salutabant’ see below, passage from Historia Peregrinorum) et coronam imperialem regni Grecie ab
eo sibi imponere efflagitabat seque ei circa initium veris quadraginta milia Blacorum et Cumanorum
tenentium arcus et sagittas adversus Constantinopolim transmissurum constanter asseverebat. Quem
nuntium domnus imperator benigne a se pro tempore remisit et Kalopetro placentia rescripsit.’ See
pp. 64—65 for terms of Frederick’s peace with Isaac, which made the Vlach alliance unnecessary to
him. For the end of his negotations with the Vlachs, p. 69: ‘ . . . dapifer magnus Constantopolitani
imperatoris (Isaac) qui exercitum pergrandem adunaverat, ut Blachorum hostium publicorum agmina
perturbaret, transmissa legatione supplicavit domno imperatori (Frederick) et, quoniam pax inter
ipsum (Frederick) et dominum sum Constantinopolitanum imperatorem fratrem imperii eius (Isaac)
unita esset, gloriosum exercitum peregrinorum Christi sibi transmitteret in adiutorium ad dimicandum
contra Blachos. Ipsa nichilominus die Kalopetrus Blachorum dominus itemque a suis dictus impe-
rator Grecie, litteris directis auxilium Christi peregrinorum adversus exercitum Grecorum expoposcit;
sed utrique nuntii a domino imperatore (Frederick) inefficaciter ad sua sunt reversi.’ Finally, see
the Historia Peregrinorum (ibid., p. 149) : ‘Interea Kalopetrus qui cum Assanio fratre suo dominabatur
populis Blacorum, misit legationem Adrianopolim, diadema regni Grecie de manu imperatoris capiti
suo rogans imponi et adversus imperatorem Constantinopolitanum promittens se venturum illi in
auxilium cum quadraginta millibus Cumanorum. Imperator vero illius petitioni amicabile et placens
pro tempore dedit responsum, quamvis alia cura et maiori sollicitudine propositum iter proficere
moneretur. Amplius namque desiderabat partibus transmarinis succurrere et videre bona Hierusalem
quam in Grecia demorando alienum sibi imperium vendicare.’
from above, and attacking on the ground at the same time — that Isaac lost his
own helmet in his headlong dash for Berrhoea. As a result of this imperial defeat,
the Vlachs recaptured Anchialus, took Varna, destroyed Sofia, and removed the
inhabitants and cattle from Stoumpion and Nish.
Isaac was like a honeycomb with bees buzzing all around it, says Nicetas; he
did not know what to do first. Dividing his army between the military leaders,
he rebuilt Varna and Anchialus, from which the Vlachs had apparently with-
drawn, and installed garrisons. In the fall of 1192 near Philippopolis he attacked
the Vlachs and also the Serb Zhupan, who had destroyed Skoplye. Again, how-
ever, his luckless forces were caught, this time crossing the Morava, as they
pushed on into south Serbia, and many soldiers were drowned or pierced by
spears. But Isaac passed Nish, and moved across the Sava to a rendezvous with
his brother-in-law, King Bela of Hungary. After a conference with him, planning
joint action against the Vlachs, Isaac returned at once to Constantinople via
Philippopolis.46
Isaac then appointed his cousin Constantine Angelus governor of Philippopolis,
with the title of arpar-qyos, and, for a while, this young but able general kept
the Vlachs at a distance. They feared him more than they did the Emperor. But,
like so many successful provincial governors, Constantine fancied himself as
Emperor, and put on the purple boots. His attempted usurpation came to nothing
(he never had an effective following), and Isaac had him blinded. Peter and
Asen rejoiced at his misfortune, saying that Isaac could have done them no
greater favor, and that they hoped Isaac’s family, the Angeloi, would continue
in power for many years, and never die, if possible. Vlach depredations began
again on a scale greater than ever.46
In 1194 Isaac put Alexius Gidos, commander of the troops in the east, and
Basil Vatatzes, commander of the troops in the west, in command of a force,
which engaged the Vlachs near Arcadiopolis, and suffered a severe defeat, Va-
tatzes being killed in the field. So the Emperor decided to take command in
person once again, and in the spring of 1195 began to assemble a large army,
which included auxiliaries sent him by Bela as arranged at their conference in
Serbia. But once more the Vlachs won a victory, which was Isaac’s last defeat.
A group of discontented nobles headed by his brother, Alexius Angelus, suc-
ceeded in winning over the army; Isaac was dethroned; he escaped, was captured,
blinded, and remanded to that captivity from which the arrival of the Latins of
the fourth Crusade some eight years later was so briefly to rescue him.47
Alexius III Angelus proceeded to disband the army, and send the troops home,
paying no heed to the ravages of the Vlachs and Cumans.48 He made an effort
to negotiate a peace, sending ambassadors to Peter and Asen. But the conditions
proposed by the Vlachs were intolerable for the Empire, and, while Alexius was
in the east — attempting to deal with the insurrection of a Cilician rebel49— the
45 Nicetas, pp. 561-569. Recueil des Historiens des Croisades — Historiens Grecs, n, 738-741, where,
as an appendix, is published an oration previously unprinted.
46 Nicetas, pp. 570-573. 47 Nicetas, pp. 587-596.
48 Ibid., p. 600. 49 Ibid., pp. 608-610.
The *Second Bulgarian Empire* 187
Vlachs destroyed another Byzantine army near Serres, captured the com-
mander, Alexius Aspietes, seized numerous fortresses, and garrisoned them, taking
away a great amount of booty. The Emperor countered this move by sending
his son-in-law, the sebastocrator Isaac, at the head of another army. When
Asen’s spies warned him that the Emperor had sent troops, and urged him to
take proper precautions before he went on another raid, because Alexius was a
much better soldier than his brother Isaac, Asen responded somewhat senten-
tiously that rumors ¡iai) were not to be heeded, and that he would have to be
convinced by the evidence of his own eyes rather than take hearsay. If one took
Alexius’ previous achievements as a guide, Asen said, one found that he had no
military experience, and that, unlike Isaac, he had never won a victory. He had
got the crown altogether by chance. There was no reason for the Vlachs to worry
about him. Then, in a rhetorical flight, suspiciously like Nicetas’ own style for a
barbarian chieftain, Asen went on to show that, by all calculations, Alexius was
no better general than Isaac, and that the Byzantine armies would not be found
formidable by the Vlachs, who had so often defeated them. In the end, this proved
to be the case. The sebastocrator Isaac fell into a trap, and his army was an-
nihilated and he himself captured near Serres. The Cuman who captured him
tried to keep it a secret, in the hope of getting a large ransom, but the rumor
spread about, and Isaac was delivered to Asen.50
Not long thereafter, one of Asen’s captives, a priest, who spoke the Vlach
language, begged for his freedom, and was refused, Asen saying with a grim pun
(a pun, it is true, only in Greek, and we are told that they were speaking Vlach)
that he intended not to let him go (airoXbetv) but to kill him (awoWvetv). The
priest, weeping, told Asen that God would show no future mercy to a man who
had refused to heed the request of a poor suppliant. And indeed Asen was shortly
thereafter killed by Ivanko, a Vlach, who was having an affair with Asen’s wife’s
sister. Angered at the scandal, Asen had begun by threatening his wife, but soon
turned his anger against Ivanko, whom he sent for late at night, refusing to
postpone the interview. Taking council with his friends, Ivanko concealed a
sword under his cloak for use only if Asen drew first. Asen reached for his sword
immediately, and Ivanko struck. It was said that the captive sebastocrator Isaac
had been at the root of the plot, and that he had promised Ivanko his own
daughter in marriage. But even before the killing of Asen, Isaac had died in his
chains. Ivanko’s friends agreed that he would make a better ruler than the tyran-
nical Asen; and, seizing Tirnovo, Ivanko prepared to hold out against Asen’s
brothers Peter and Ioannitsa.
He requested Byzantine aid, offering to hand over Tirnovo, Vlach capital and
the key to their Balkan defenses. Alexius sent Manuel Kamytzes at the head of
an army, which had hardly left Philippopolis and entered into Vlach territory
when it mutinied and demanded to go home, unwilling to tackle the Balkan ter-
rain, which had proved fatal to so many previous armies. Kamytzes’ forces broke
and fled, fearing that the enemy was upon them. A second attempt by Alexius
60 Ibid., pp. 612-617.

to send an army to relieve Ivanko in Tirnovo came too late. Troubled because
the Greeks had not arrived, and beset by Peter and Ioannitsa, Ivanko fled to
Constantinople, where he was well received, entered imperial service, and married
the widow, rather than the young daughter, of the sebastocrator Isaac. ‘Why,’
said Ivanko, who was a crude chap, and who lived with the Byzantines but
never learned their ways, ‘should I bother with the suckling lamb when I can
have the ewe, who is ready to be covered?’ Ivanko distinguished himself fighting
against his fellow Vlachs, and Alexius III put great trust in him, hoping that he
had finally found an answer to this threat to the Empire, which had been in-
creasing steadily for more than twelve years, and to whose seriousness the devas-
tation of all Macedonia and Thrace, Nicetas says, bore witness more eloquently
than any commemorative inscriptions or historical writings.51
The assassination of Peter, surviving leader of the original Vlach revolt,
seemed another piece of good fortune for the Byzantines. Rule over the Vlachs
and their allies then passed (1197) to Ioannitsa, the third brother, who had once
been a hostage in Byzantine hands, but who had escaped, and fled back to his
home. Nicetas expresses the view that Ioannitsa was just as deadly as Peter or
Asen.52 How true this was both Byzantines and the successful warriors of the
fourth crusade were shortly to learn.
It was at this juncture, in 1198 or 1199, that local Vlach chieftains other than
the family of the Asen brothers began to set up independent principalities.
Chrysos (Dobromir Chrysos), a Vlach, had at first not joined in the original in-
surrection of Peter and Asen, but had helped the Byzantines against them with
a force of 500 men. Later he was captured, and drawn over to the side of his own
people, disappointing Alexius by setting himself up as local ruler at Strumnitsa.
The Emperor undertook one fruitless expedition against him, and some time later
set out on a second, Chrysos having by this time taken possession of the virtually
impregnable fortress of Prosakon (Prosek) on a cliff jutting out into the Vardar,
and almost surrounded by water.53Here Alexius foolishly undertook siege opera-
tions, which, however, nearly succeeded. Had it not been for a shortage of batter-
ing rams, Prosakon might have fallen, and much later trouble saved.64
61 Ibid., pp. 617-624. Ivanko’s personality, and his comment on the ladies of the sebastocrator’s
lamily; p. 623: * . . . Toj/íoíois p.b> <rvvav\iÇô(xevos, fxerappvdixiÇhuevos ¿>¿ fxijSapûs irpós rà t o v <¡>povq¡xaro$
b¡xaXbv nal tbkvborov. . . . “T¿ jmot Kal reo & yaha£iv,” t<f>acncev, "àpveuj) àfMvâôos irpos *ct <uyos Tthdas
eTTLÓeofxévq};” * The effect of the Vlach wars, p. 624: 'TLs 5’ âv nal ápid¡ieív bvvano óaai Kal ore t o v erovs
'Zk Woov Kal B\á%coy kyívo vt o kjtodot, Kal ola ípya tbpoiv àvôcta; fxaprvpovcn ôrjirov rà ireirpaynkva r¡ t û p tt pos
AÎjjlov xupûv hprjjjía MaKeôovLas re Kal 0 p ^ kt js ol Xrjurjitol <
t t t ¡\ cúv Kal Kvpfüecav àKpLpkaTepov Kal ierropías
rpavÓTepov.’
62 Nicetas, pp. 621-622.
63 Ibid., pp. 643-644. For the first name Dobromir see Nicetas* address to Alexius III Angelus, in
M&rauoviKÍ¡ fiifikix>di)KTi (ed. K. Sathas, Venice, 1872), n, 90. For Prosakon and its rulers including
Chrysos see N. Radoychich, ‘O nekim gospodarima grada Proseka na Vardaru,’ Letopis Matitse
Srpske c e u x (1909), 1-19, and c c l x (1909), 32-40 (Serbian); P. Mutafciev, ‘Vladëtelitë na Prosëk,’
Sbomik na Bülgarskata Akademiya Na Naukitë, i (1913), 1-85; V. N. Zlatarski, ‘Ansbertoviyat
“zhupan ili satrap na Bülgariya” ne e bil Dobromir Chriz/ Godishnik na Sofiiskiya Universitel,
Ist.-Fil. Fak. xxrx (1933), 1-20. Zlatarski, Istoriya, m , 108 ff.
54 Nicetas, pp. 665-672.
The 4Second Bulgarian Empire9 189
Then Ivanko, so useful for the brief period he had fought against the Vlachs,
also deserted. Alexius sent his sons-in-law, Theodore Lascaris and George
Palaeologus, to catch him, but they could not do so. Although wiser heads felt
that this sort of pursuit of an eagle from crag to crag or of a serpent gliding
through the rocks was inadvisable, Alexius tried once again, and a Byzantine
army retook several castles; but Ivanko, who had now changed his own name to
Alexius, captured Manuel Kamytzes, the protostrator, by a stratagem, and
scored a series of important military successes, exhibiting great cruelty when in
his cups by chopping off the limbs of his captives.65 But the Emperor Alexius,
having sworn to respect the person of Ivanko at a conference on terms of peace
(Ivanko wanted an imperial grant of all the cities he had captured, and the
person of his wife, whom he had left behind in Byzantium when he had deserted)
broke his oath — an act which Nicetas condemns — and took Ivanko prisoner.56
The next year (1201 or 1202) the Vlachs and Cumans raided Byzantine territory
as usual, and this time the capital was saved only by some Russian mercenaries.57
Manuel Kamytzes, Ivanko’s prisoner, was now ransomed by Chrysos, and
joined him at Prosakon, whence, together, they raided and subdued a large area
of Macedonia and Thessaly,58 while John Spiridonakis, imperial governor of
Smolena, a Cypriot by birth, also set himself up as independent. But Alexius
defeated Spiridonakis, and made peace with Chrysos, sending him Ivanko’s wife,
Theodora, widow of the sebastocrator, Isaac. This broke up the alliance between
Chrysos and Kamytzes, who was now driven out of Thessaly, and took refuge at
Stanon. We hear no more of him. These were real successes for Alexius, and he
crowned them by signing a truce with Ioannitsa, whose terms Nicetas does not
give,59 but which, it may be conjectured, included the granting of the imperial
title, and the establishment of the Bulgarian patriarchate. The evidence for this
will be presented below.
But it was now the eve of the Latin conquest; these last events are to be as-
cribed to 1202 or 1203; the ‘y°un&Alexius/ son of the dethroned Isaac Angelus
and nephew of Alexius III, had gone to the west, to enlist sympathy and aid for
his imprisoned father, and was soon to return with the forces of the fourth
Crusade. This is all that Nicetas tells us about the Vlach-Bulgarian-Cuman revolt
from 1185 to the Latin conquest; and, except for Ansbert’s brief references to the
negotiations between Frederick Barbarossa and the Vlach leaders, it is almost all
we know. The emergence, toward the end of the period, of semi-independent
local rulers, Chrysos, Ivanko, Kamytzes, and Spiridonakis, all of whom were in
and out of Byzantine service, and Nicetas’ shift of the major part of his attention
to them, should not obscure the fact that the most important political formation
on the territory of the old Bulgarian Empire was the loose conglomeration of
Balkan peoples in revolt led by the Vlachs Peter and Asen, and later by their
brother Ioannitsa.
Of their political institutions we know absolutely nothing, except for a single
65 Ibid., pp. 675-680. w Ibid., pp. 685-687. 67 Ibid., pp. 691-692.

58 Ibid., pp. 707-708. Also Radoychich, loc. ait, 59 Nicetas, pp. 708-709.
190 The <Second Bulgarian Empire9
mention (see below) of a ‘constable/ who appears to have been a trusted servant
of Ioannitsa, and who may have been an officer of the royal household. We do
not know what was the relationship of the three peoples — Vlachs, Bulgarians,
and Cumans — to each other, how much power their nominal ‘Emperor’ had
over them or over the local chieftains like Chrysos, how it was exercised or dele-
gated, or how wide was its territorial extent. Nicetas does not even tell us whether
Ioannitsa took the title of ‘Emperor’ after the death of Peter, although we know
from another source, as will be seen, that he did. We can be sure, however, that
the long succession of military victories over the Angeloi had gained the brothers
great prestige. This is perhaps best indicated by the fact that in 1199 Pope In-
nocent III had begun to correspond with them. Much of the correspondence
survives; it is second in importance only to Nicetas as a source for the develop-
ment of the ‘second Bulgarian’ Empire.60
IV
In his first letter, written during the last two weeks of December 1199, Innocent
III addressed his correspondent as ‘the noble man Ioannitsa.’ He opened the com-
munication by attributing the Vlach military victories over the Byzantines to
God, who had been rewarding Ioannitsa’s humility and devotion to the Roman
church. Having heard, the Pope says, that your ancestors came originally of a
noble Roman line, and that this explains your devotion to the Apostolic See, I
have long since been meaning to send you ambassadors, but have been delayed
by the pressure of church affairs, and am just now getting around to it. I am
60 The letters in this correspondence have recently been re-edited by I. DuiSev, ‘Prepiskata na
Papa Innokentiya s bülgaritë’ (‘Innocentii III epistolae ad Bulgariae historiam spectantes’), Go-
dishnikna Sofiiskiya Universitet,Ist-Fil. Fak. x xxvm (1942), no. 3, pp. 116, with II plates. This has not
been accessible to me. It is referred to in Duicev’s bibliographical article cited above (note 2), and
is reviewed with care by M. Lascaris, Revue Historique du Sud-Est Européen, x ix (1942), 621-623.
In an earlier article printed Izvestiya na BiUgarskoto istorichesko druzhestvoy xra (1933), 113-141 —
also inaccessible to me — Duicev pointed out minor inexactitudes in the text of the letters as they
are published in A. Theiner, Vetera Monumenta Slavorum Meridionalium (Rome, 1863), hereafter
Theiner, Mon. Slav, which, however, I have had to use. But Duicev never mentions — so Lascaris
says — the edition of the letters in E. de Hurmuzaki and N. Densusianu, Documente privitáre la
Istoria Românilory i (Bucharest, 1887), hereafter H .-D. Documentey which is in effect a new edition,
and which I have also used. Neither Theiner nor Hunnuzaki-Densuçianu presents the letters in chron-
ological order, which is often to be inferred only from internal evidence. I have attempted to follow
the course of the correspondence as it actually took place. Quotations from Duicev in Lascaris’ review
indicate that Duicev affirms the most extreme version of the Bulgarian theory: ‘L’étude des sources
contemporaines . . . confirme complètement l’opinion que la renouvellement du second empire bul-
gare a été effectuée uniquement par les Bulgares.’ There was, he says, among twelfth and thirteenth-
century authors ‘un mode qui consistait dans l’emploi du nom de Vlaque pour designer les Bulgares
du mont Balkan et de la Bulgarie du nord,* the name ‘Bulgar’ being reserved for the inhabitants of
southern Bulgaria. This is, of course, the Zlatarski theory, which I cannot accept. The Greek and
Latin sources were written independently of each other by well-informed eyewitnesses. A Vlach was
a Vlach to them, and a Bulgar a Bulgar. Peter, Asen, Ioannitsa, Chrysos, and Ivanko were Vlachs,
and spoke a Vlach language. The testimony of every source so far considered bears this out; the papal
letters are no exception, as we shall see. Zlatarski (Istoriya, hi, 108), calls them Bulgars. For the
papal correspondence see pages 173 ff.
The 4Second Bulgarian Empire9 191
sending you as envoy Dominic, the archipresbyter of the Greeks at Brindisi, and
urge you to receive him with the proper honor and kindness, and tell him further
of your devotion to us. When he shall have reported back on the sincerity of your
proposal and the degree of your affection, I shall send you ambassadors of higher
rank, legates, who may strengthen you and your people in their love for the
Apostolic See, and who may tell you of our good will.61
This letter is clearly marked as an answer to a prior appeal of some sort from
Ioannitsa or from Peter and Asen. At least informal representations had been
made suggesting that the Vlach-Bulgarian princes were ready to leave the Greek
ecclesiastical fold and enter the Roman. Only such a situation could account for
Innocent’s confidence in Ioannitsa’s loyalty to Rome, past and future, or his
explanation that he had long since been intending to send Ioannitsa an embassy.
Incidentally the reference to Ioannitsa’s claim to Roman ancestry, which modern
Bulgarian scholars dismiss as mere diplomatic flattery, is, it seems to me, strong
further evidence, if any were needed, that Ioannitsa was a Vlach and not a Bul-
garian.62These conclusions are borne out by the remainder of the correspondence.
61 Migne, Patrología Latina, ccxiv, col. 825, Book h, no. 266; A. Potthast, Regesta Pontificum
Romanorum, 931; Theiner, Mon. Slav., i, 11, no. 18; H.-D. Documente i, 1, no. 1. ‘Nobili viro Iohan-
nitio etc. Respexit dominus humilitatem tuam et devotionem, quam erga Romanam ecclesiam cog-
nosceris hactenus habuisse, et te inter tumultus bellicos et guerrarum discrimina non solum potenter
defendit, sed etiam mirabiliter et misericorditer dilatavit. Nos autem, audito quod de nobili Urbis
Romae prosapia progenitores tui originem traxerint, et tu ab eis et sanguineis generositatem contrax-
eris et sincere devotionem affectum, quem ad apostolicam sedem geris quasi hereditario iure, iam-
pridem te proposuimus litteris et nuntiis visitare; sed variis ecclesie sollicitudinibus detenti hactenus
non potuimus nostrum propositum adimplere: nunc vero inter alias sollicitudines nostras hanc etiam
assumendam duximus. . . . Dilectum . . . Dominicum archipresbiterum Grecorum de Brundisio ad
te personaliter destinantes, monemus . . . quatenus ipsum humiliter et devote recipiens, honorifice
ac benigne pertractes, et per eum plenius nobis tuam devotionem exponas. Cum enim plene nobis per
ipsum de sinceritate tui propositi et devotionis affectu constiterit, ad te proposuimus maiores nuntios
vel legatos potius destinare, qui tam te quam tuos in apostolice sedis dilectione confirment, et te de
benivolentia nostra efficient certiorem/
62 That contemporaries were conscious of the Roman origin of the Vlachs (sometimes calling it
‘Italian*) is indicated by the passage of Cinnamos, already cited, note 37 above. Even better in-
formed was Kekaumenos, who says they were originally the descendants of the Dacians and the
‘Bessoi,* and was aware of their King Decebalus, whom Trajan had defeated. Strategicon, op. cit.,
p. 74 : 'TroXefiTjd&Tes ira pà t o v jSactXews Tpaïavov kc u xai/rcXws kKTpifikmes ifcXoxrav, ¡caí rod /3o<rtXéa» abrâv
t o u \eyopkvov AacafiaKov &TTO(r<f>ay&TOs . . . . o v t o l y à p eierip oi \e y6 p evo i Aâtcai icai B«rot. Qicovv dk irpórepov
t \rj<rioy to v Aavov(3lov xora/to0 nai t o v Sáou, Ôv vvv irorapáv 'Làfia.v KaXóvfxev, IvOa, Xépfioi áprtcos biKowLV . . . .
o í icol é£eX 0Ó P T €s T&v hcétce óiecnrápijcrav kv T ráa# ry ’H x eíptfi KaiMaKedovLq., oi Sé irXeíoves abr&v Qnyaav t í ¡v
*EXXá¿>a/ M. Gyóni, in his interesting study, ‘L’Oeuvre de Kekaumenos, Source de l’histoire Rou-
maine/ Revue de VHistoire Comparée, xxni, nouvelle série m (1945), 96-180, -analyses the passage
carefully. His demonstration that Kekaumenos took from Dio Cassius, or from some epitome of
Dio current in eleventh-century Byzantium, all his information on Trajan and Decebalus is quite
convincing. (It had been suggested but not demonstrated by Tomaschek, ‘Hâmushalbinsel/ loe. cit.,
493-494.) But Gyóni’s effort to explain Kekaumenos* identification of the Dacians and ‘Bessai/ on
the one hand, with the Vlachs, on the other, as archaizing typical of the Byzantine sources (pp.
175 ff.) does not entirely come off. It is true that Kekaumenos made an error in locating the Dacians
and Bessai ‘near the Danube and the Sava, where the Serbs now live*; it is true that he uses the
entire passage about these people of antiquity to illustrate perfidy, in connection with a warning to
his son against the same trait in the Vlachs. But it would be an extraordinary coincidence if these
192 The ‘Second Bulgarian Empire9
It was not until some time in 1202 that Ioannitsa replied, probably early in
the year, since Innocent’s next letter is dated November; and communication
between Tirnovo and Rome was very slow. A note in the papal register says that
Ioannitsa’s letter had been translated from Bulgarian into Greek and then into
Latin.63 Calling himself ‘Caloiohannes Imperator Bulgarorum et Blachorum/
Ioannitsa thanked the Pope for his letter, told him that his late brothers Peter
and Asen and he himself had previously tried to get into touch with him, but had
been blocked by enemies, asked to be taken into the Roman Church, and re-
quested a crown, just as one had been bestowed on ‘our old Emperors.’ Our books
tell us, wrote Ioannitsa, that Peter was one, and Samuel was another, and that
there were others before them who had crowns. Of course, this Peter is the Bul-
garian who was recognized as Emperor by the Byzantines in 927. Ioannitsa also
told Innocent not to be surprised at his delay in answering: at first he had
suspected that the archipresbyter of Brindisi was not a genuine envoy; but a
certain Pretextatus (otherwise unknown) had vouched for his authenticity. He
asked Innocent to send him the high-ranking ambassadors of whom the Pope’s
letter had spoken.64
In this letter Ioannitsa not only acquiesces in the attribution to him of Roman
blood (‘Deus qui reduxit nos ad memoriam sanguinis et patrie nostre a qua de-
scendimus’) but also claims lineal descent from the Emperors of the first Bul-
garian Empire. His constitutional position as Emperor was defensible only if he
could claim to be in the Bulgarian line of descent. At this time a Vlach Empire
was not a possible concept, while there was a splendid precedent for a Bulgarian
Empire. Basil, the metropolitan of Zagora, also sent greetings to the Pope; and
factors alone, as Gyóni argues, explained away the flat identification of the Vlachs of the eleventh
century with the Dacians and ‘Bessai’ of Trajan’s day. Awareness of the Roman origin of the Vlachs
is not expressed by any source before Kinnamos known to me, but it became a truism of sixteenth
and seventeenth-century comment on them even by Hungarians. I have not seen the latest work on
this subject, A. Cioranescu, La tradition historique et Vorigine des Roumains, which is reviewed by
G. Brâtianu in Revue Historique du Sud-Est Européen, x ix (1942), 663-665. For the ‘Bessoi’ see
Tomaschek, ‘Hâmushalbinsel,* loe. cit. 478 ff., especially 499 ff.
63 ‘Litterae Caloioannis domini Bulgarorum et Blacorum missae domino Innocentio papae III
transíate de Bulgarico in Graecum et de Graeco postea in Latinum.’ It is highly likely that Ioannitsa,
who though a Vlach, was now claiming descent from the emperors of the first Bulgarian Empire,
conducted his correspondence in Bulgarian, the official language of the first Empire. There would
have been plenty of scribes available; and models would have been furnished by the archives of the
earlier emperors, which, in part at least, seem to have fallen into Ioannitsa’s hands. (See the refer-
ences below, note 64, to the ‘books’ in which he had discovered that crowns had been sent by the
Popes to Peter and Samuel.) There is, however, it seems to me, the barest possibility that the first
version of the letters was in Vlach, although there is no evidence that Vlach was a written language
at this time. If, by chance, it was written, it surely would have been set down in cyrillic characters,
and, to an official of the papal chancery, would have looked just like Bulgarian. I doubt if certainty
on the original language is attainable, although Lascaris, loc. cit., says that Duicev professes to see
traces of the original Bulgarian through the Latin version, which alone has come down to us.
64 Migne, PL, ccxiv, col. 1112 f., Book v, no. 115; Theiner, Mon. Slav., i, 15 f., no. 26; H.-D.
Documente, i, 2, no. 2. ‘In primis petimus . . . coronam et honorem tamquam dilectus filius, secundum
quod imperatores nostri veteres habuerunt. Unus fuit Petrus, alius fuit Samuel, et alii, qui eo imperio
precesserunt sicut in libris nostris invenimus esse scriptum/
The ‘Second Bulgarian Empire* 193
a ‘prince’ named Bellota wrote asking that he and his family be admitted to the
church of Rome.66
Innocent replied, 27 November 1202, to ‘Caloiohannes, lord of the Bulgars
and Vlachs,’ saying that, upon consulting papal records, he found that there had
indeed been many kings (‘reges’) crowned in the land now subject to Ioannitsa.
He referred particularly to the correspondence of Popes Nicholas (858-867) and
Adrian (867-872) with the King of the Bulgarians. Boris (852-889), who had been
christened Michael. Adrian, Innocent recalled, had sent to Bulgaria Roman
priests, whom the Bulgarians had slighted, preferring the Greeks. This was a
disquieting precedent, Innocent wrote, which tended to make him cautious; he
would send Ioannitsa no Cardinal at present. Meanwhile, however, he would
send his chaplain and personal friend, who was to regulate all church affairs in
Ioannitsa’s realm. The chaplain was to bring a pallium for the Archbishop Basil,
and would have the right to ordain priests and consecrate bishops. He was also
charged with the task of investigating the problem of a Bulgarian crown, in an-
cient books and other documents, and was to make recommendations on this
matter to the Pope. In closing, Innocent once more reminded Ioannitsa of the
ties which bound a population of Roman origin to Rome.66
Here the Pope’s cautious approach is clearly revealed: the crown, which was
of course the matter of greatest concern to Ioannitsa, was still to be a subject for
investigation. But enough hope was held out by Innocent’s references to the
precedent he had discovered for Bulgarian kingship to keep Ioannitsa on the
hook; although a careful reading of the letter would have shown the ambitious
Vlach that the Pope was talking not of an imperial crown but only of a royal
crown. Innocent was a skillful fisher of men, and knew how to play his fish.
Meanwhile a start could be made on bringing order on the Roman model to the
Vlacho-Bulgarian church; and no commitment would have been made to Ioan-
nitsa. Moreover, while Ioannitsa called himself imperator. Innocent still called
66 Migne, PL, ccxiv, col. 1115-1116, Book v, no.’s 117 and 118; Theiner, Mon. Slav., I , 17 and 18,
no/s 28 and SO; H.-D. Documente, I, 5 and 7, no.’s 4 and 6.
66 Migne, PL, ccxiv, col. 1113, Book v, no. 216; Potthast, 1775; Theiner, Mon. Slav., i, 16, no. 27;
H.-D. Documente, i, 3-4, no. 3: ‘P etisti. . . ut coronam tibi ecclesia Romana concederet, sicut illustri
memorie Petro, Samueli et aliis progenitoribus tuis in libris tuis legitur concessisse. Nos ergo, ut super
hos maiorem certitudinem haberemus, registra nostra perlegi fecimus diligenter, ex quibus evidenter
comperimus, quod in terra tibi subiecta multi Reges fuerant coronati. . . . Cumque idem Adrianus
illuc cum duobus episcopis quendam subdiaconum direxisset, Bulgari corrupti donis Gre eorum et
promissionibus circumventi, Romanis eiectis, Grecos presbiteros receperunt. Licet igitur tanti me-
moria levitatis nos usque adeo induxerit ad cautelam, ut nullum ex fratribus nostris, Cardinalibus
scilicet, presentialiter ad tuam presentiam mitteremus, nichilominus . . . capellanum et familiarem
nostrum . . . ad te duximus destinandum . . . ut in tota terra tua quoad spiritualia corrigat, que cor-
rigenda cognoverit et statuat quae . . . fuerint statuenda. . . . Mandavimus . . . ipsi et de corona
progenitoribus tuis ab ecclesia Romana collata tam per libros veteres quam per alia documenta in-
quirat diligentius veritatem, ut cum . . . de omnibus redditi fuerimus certiores, consultus et maturius,
prout procedendum fuerit, procedamus. . . . Expedit. . . tib i. . . ut sicut genere, sic sis etiam imita-
tione Romanus, et populus terre tue, qui de sanguine Romanorum se asserit descendisse, ecclesie
Romane instituta sequatur. . . . ’ For the papal relations with the first Bulgarian Empire, see Runci-
man, op. cit., chapter 3, pp. 99 ff.
him only dominus. Simultaneously Innocent replied to Archbishop Basil, enjoin-

ing upon him obedience to Rome; and wrote a similar letter to Prince Bellota.67
But before the papal chaplain had arrived in Tirnovo with this letter, Ioan-
nitsa wrote to Innocent again, in August 1203. Six years had now passed, he said,
since he had first tried to get in touch with Rome. He had been delighted to
receive the archipresbyter of Brindisi, to whom he had given a letter for the
Pope, but he did not know whether the Pope had ever received it. The Greeks had
heard of the papal mission to Tirnovo, he wrote, and had sent Ioannitsa a patri-
arch; and the Emperor (it must have been Alexius Angelus, and the negotiations
those for the final truce mentioned above) had said: ‘Come to us, and we will
crown you Emperor and make a patriarch for you, because there can be no Em-
peror without a patriarch.’ Ioannitsa went on to say that, not wishing to accept
this offer, he had maintained his loyalty to Innocent and to St Peter; he was
sending his archbishop to Rome as his representative with a large train and
cattle, and silken cloths and wax and silver, horses and mules, to adore the Pope,
and he requested Innocent once more to send cardinals empowered to crown
him Emperor, and to make a patriarch in his country. To this letter, which
was entrusted to the Archbishop Basil to carry with him, the archbishop him-
self appended a note saying that he and his party had reached Durrazzo, but
had there been denied passage across the Adriatic by a Greek, who had got the
Duke of Durrazzo to warn him that if the archbishop went to Italy Ioannitsa
would be in trouble. The local Latin clergy had also advised him not to go. He
was sending on Ioannitsa’s letter to the Pope by Sergius, Ioannitsa’s imperial
constable, and Constantine a priest.68
In this letter we can clearly discern Ioannitsa’s impatience, and his own not
very subtle effort to bring pressure to bear on the Pope. His weapon against
Innocent was the threat, here only hinted at, that he might go over to the Greeks.
Innocent had in mind, we know, the previous failure of the papacy in Bulgaria;
and was presumably the more anxious to secure Ioannitsa’s allegiance. By his
emphasis upon his refusal so fa r to be won over by the blandishments of the
Greeks, Ioannitsa let it be seen that another time his patience might have run
out. What he wanted of Innocent was still the same thing; and he re-stated his
demands more emphatically: after all, the Greeks were ready to grant them. We
can be fairly confident that, in order to keep Ioannitsa out of the Roman church,
and to make peace with him, they would have made good their offer, with the
same mental and titular reservations they had had in the case of the Bulgarian
Emperor Peter nearly three hundred years before.
Innocent’s response both to Ioannitsa and to Basil said simply that their letters
had crossed; and repeated once more the instructions which his chaplain had
been ordered to carry out. He informed the anxious pair that the chaplain was
now on his way to them via Hungary. He urged Archbishop Basil to try again
67 Migne, PL, ccxiv, col. 1116 and 1118, Book v, no.’s 119 and 120; Potthast, 1776 and 1777;
Theiner, Mon. S l a v 1 ,17 and 18, no.’s 29 and 81; H .-D. Documente, i, 6 and 7, no.’s 5 and 6.
68 Theiner, Mon. Slav., I, p. 20, no. 36; H .-D. Documente, i, p. 10, no. 10. For Basil’s postscript and
date see also De Thalloczy, Jirecek, and de Sufflay, Acta . . . Albaniae, op. cit., I, p. 41, no. 127.
The ‘Second Bulgarian Empire* 195
to come to Rome in person if possible, advising the crossing to Apulia; and he

promised Ioannitsa that his demands would receive due consideration.69From a
later letter of Archbishop Basil, we know that the Pope’s chaplain, John, arrived
in Tirnovo while Basil was still waiting near Durrazzo in the hope that he might
be able to cross over to Italy. Ioannitsa sent word to him that the long-awaited
papal envoy had arrived; and summoned him back to the capital. In September
1203 Basil returned to Tirnovo, found John there, and received the papal bene-
diction and the pallium on 8 September. He wrote thanking Innocent, and asking
for some holy oil, and for instructions as to its use, as well as for pallia for the
metropolitans of Preslav and Belebuzda (Kustendil).70
The papal registers contain the Latin text of a chrysobull (chrysobolum) almost
surely first written in Greek, which Ioannitsa now issued. Calling himself ‘Lord
and Emperor’ of all Bulgaria and Vlachia, he recounts how he consulted ‘our’
ancient books and the laws of ‘our’ predecessors to find out where the Bulgarian
Emperors had got their empire, their imperial title, their crown, and their patri-
archal benediction. Symeon, Peter, and Samuel, ‘our predecessors/ had got these
from the Roman church and from the Pope. So he had asked the present Pope
for the same things. And now Innocent III, he wrote, had given a patriarchal
blessing to Tirnovo; henceforth all churches of his empire and his patriarch and
clergy were to be subject to Rome. In order that the chrysobull might be valid,
Ioannitsa wrote, he had given his empire into the hands of John, the Pope’s
chaplain.71 Actually Basil had received only an archbishop’s pallium, not the
rank of patriarch; but Ioannitsa’s chrysobull simply brazens this out.
To Innocent, however, Ioannitsa wrote expressing joy at the arrival of John
69 Migne, PL, ccxv, col. 156 and 158, Book vi, nos. 143 and 144; Potthast, 1994 and 1995, 10
September 1203; Theiner, Mon. Slav., I, 20, no. 37; H .-D. Documente, i, 11, no. 11.
70 Theiner, Mon. Slav., I, 28, no. 44; H .-D. Documente, i, 27, no. 19: ‘Sed littere michi ex parte
domini mei Imperatoris venerunt. . . dicentes michi: Revertere cito, quia hic pervenit cardinalis
(but it was not a cardinal — see what follows) a domino papa . . . reversus sum et perveni Drinaum
per mensem Septembrem, et inveni virum sanctum, iustum et rectum a tua sanctitate directum,
nomen eius Iohannes cappellanus. . . . Et dominus Iohannes capellanus . . . vestram michi dedit
benedictionem et largiens pallium ad plenitudinem pontificalis officii, mense Septembris VIII die
. . . . Sanctum erisma non habemus, imo a Grecis reciperamus: sed de cetero nos tamquam et vos
Greci exosos habent. . . de sancto erismate nos doceas . . . et mittas m ich i. . . pallia ad opus duorum
metropolitanoruin Priosthlave et Belebusdii. . . . *
71 Theiner, Mon. Slav., i, 27, no. 43; H .-D. Documente, i, 26, no. 18: ‘ . . . inquisivi antiquos nos-
trorum scripturas et libros et beate memorie imperatorum nostrorum predecessorum leges, unde ipsi
sumpserint regnum Bulgarorum et firmamentum imperiale, coronam super caput eorum et patriar-
charum benedictionem: et diligenter perscrutantes in eorum invenimus scripturis quod beate memorie
illi imperatores Bulgarorum et Blachorum Symeon, Petrus et Samuel et nostri predecessores coronam
pro imperio eorum et patriarchalem benedictionem acceperunt a sanctissima dei Romana ecclesia et
ab apostólica sede, principe apostolorum Petro. . . . patriarchalis benedictio et mandatum in civi-
tate . . . Trinovi data . . . a domino papa . . . Ecclesie enim omnes totius im perii. . . et patriarcha
meus, Metropolitani, Archiepiscopi, episcopi, et cuncti sacerdotes Romane subsint ecclesie. . . . Et
ut presens chrysobolium imperii mei ratum et firmum habeatur, dedi imperium meum in manibus
Reverendissimi viri Iohannis sacrosancte Romanae sedis legati et domini pape cappellani.
For the probable Greek original of this, see Lascaris’ review of Duicev’s edition of these letters, lac.
cit., p. 623.
the chaplain, who had made Basil ‘primate’ of all Bulgaria; but asking in the
strongest terms that the Pope now send the staff of a patriarch, and the other
insignia which a patriarch was wont to have; and make the present ‘primate’ a
patriarch. He also asked, because of the long distance to Rome and because of
the ‘wars of men,’ that the Pope grant permission to the church of Tirnovo to
elect patriarchs, Basil’s successors. He asked for holy oil; the Greeks, he said,
would give him none when they knew that he had gone over to Rome. He re-
peated his request that a cardinal be sent with a crown and sceptre for him, and a
golden bull for the church of Tirnovo. He concluded with an offer to have Inno-
cent mediate the boundary dispute between him and the King of Hungary, and
the announcement that he was sending presents : ‘examita dupplatria, et cupam
auream et yperperorum libras quatuor, et scutellas argenteas tres et gradale ar-
genteum.’72 This letter was carried by the Bishop of Blandizuber (Branichevo).
Here we can detect Ioannitsa’s anxiety that all the proper protocol be followed
and all formalities accomplished to set him on the level of his Bulgarian predeces-
sors and Byzantine rivals. He was by no means satisfied with the mere rank of
‘primate’ for Basil or with the further investigation which seemed necessary be-
fore he himself was to get his crown. The repeated reference to the Greeks in con-
nection with the holy oil may have been intended as a subtle reminder to the
Pope of the alternative still open to Ioannitsa.
This missive finally elicited a whole series of letters from Innocent, all written
on 25 February 1204. Perhaps the report of John the chaplain had also proved
satisfactory. For the Pope had now decided, at last, to send a cardinal, and to
fulfill Ioannitsa’s wishes — up to a point. This time Innocent formally saluted
him as ‘Karissimo filio in Christo Calaiohanni illustri Bulgarorum et Blachorum
regi/ told him at length of the calling of a king, and sent him the sceptre of a
kingdom and the diadem of a king by the hands of Leo, cardinal priest of Santa
Croce, a legate of the Holy See. In exchange, Ioannitsa was to swear loyalty to
Rome. Moreover, he granted Ioannitsa’s petition (of which we now hear for the
first time, the letter of request presumably having been lost) to be allowed to coin
money with his effigy on it. And he informed Ioannitsa that Basil was to be his
primate.73 He officially notified Basil of the change in Ioannitsa’s status (‘hac-
72 Theiner, Mon. Slav., I, 29, no. 46; H .-D. Documente, i, 29, no. 21: * . . . et rogo et deprecor mag-
nam sanctitatem vestram, ut compleat desiderium imperii mei et mittat virgam pastoralem ad con-
gregandos oves, et cetera quae patriarcha consuevit habere, et faciat presentem primatem patriar-
cham in sancta et magna ecclesia Trinove prime civitatis totius Bulgarie, et habeat ecclesia ipsa etiam
post mortem istius patriarche patriarcham . . . et quoniam grave esset propter longitudinem vie et
guerras hominum in obitu cuiusdam patriarchae recurrere ad ecclesiam Romanam, concedatur ec-
clesie Trinove, ut sibi possit eligere et consecrare patriarcham . . . sciat sanctitas tua quod cum sci-
verint Romei (Greeks) quod receperimus consecrationem a sanctitate tua non dabunt michi erisma.
Et aliud peto . . . ut mittas Cardinalem . . . et des . . . diadema et sceptrum . . . et mittas privi-
legium bullatum auro. . . . Et de confinio Hungarie, Bulgarie, et Blachie relinquo iudicio sanctitatis
tue . . . et cessent occisiones Christianorum. . . . *
73 Migne, PL, ccxv, coi. 277, Book vn, no. 1; Potthast 2135; Theiner, Mon. Slav., i, 23, no. 40;
H.-D. Documente, I, 17, no. 15: * . . . Regem te statuimus . . . et per dilectum filium L. tituli sancte
Crucis presbiterum Cardinalem . . . sceptrum Regni ac Regium tibi mittimus diadema, eius quasi
nostris tibi manibus imponendum, reciniendo a te iuratoriam cautionem, quod nobis et succesoribus
nostris et ecclesie Romane devotus et obediens permanebis. . . . Ad petitionem . . . publicam in
The Second Bulgarian Empire9 197
tenus dominum . . . regem statuimus’), and in his own, assuring him that a
primate and a patriarch amounted to the same thing. Basil could anoint, bless,
and crown future kings, and had a great many other privileges and duties.74The
primate also received a separate letter on the necessity of anointing priests, not
hitherto practiced in Bulgaria, and a matter of grave concern both to Basil and
to the Pope.75 Innocent wrote a special letter introducing the legate, who was
carrying all these communications, and also the form by which he would confer
the pallium and by which Basil would accept it.76He also sent Ioannitsa a cross
for use as a standard (vexillum) in war against ‘those who render the crucifix lip-
service only’ — the Greeks — and against the wild pagans.77 He also sent pallia
to the bishops of Preslav and Belebuzda (Kustendil).78 The Hungarians were
warned to give the cardinal legate safe transit.79This, however, they did not do
at first, despite their previous promises to the Pope. They held Leo up at the
Danube; and Innocent wrote angrily and sorrowfully in September 1204, urging
that this be remedied.80But apparently the Hungarian King Emeric had changed
his mind before hearing from Innocent; Leo was permitted to cross into Ioan-
nitsa’s territory. He arrived in Tirnovo safely on 15 October 1204, anointed
Basil on the seventh of November, and crowned Ioannitsa king on the eighth.81
regno tuo cudendi monetam tuo caractere insignitam liberam tibi concedimus facultatem. . . . Ar-
chiepiscopo Trinovitano . . . privilegium concedimus primatie. . . . ’ No coins of Ioannitsa are known,
and only one seal, published quite recently, on which he calls himself, in Bulgarian, and in Slavic
letters ‘Tsar of the Bulgars.’ N. A. Musmov, ‘Un sceau du plomb du Tsar Kaloyan, 1197-1207,’
Byzantinoslavica, iv (1932), 135-138. This is doubtless the same seal that the Revue Historique du
Sud-Est Européen, vni (1931), 322, reports as having been published in the newspaper La Bulgarie,
ix, no. 2487, not accessible to me.
74 Migne, PL, ccxv, col. 280, Book vn, no. 2; Potthast 2137; Theiner, Mon Slav., I, 25, no. 41;
H.-D. Documente, i, 20, no. 16: ‘Fraternitatem tuam scire volentes quod apud nos hec duo nomina
primas et patriarcha pene penitus idem sonant, cum primates et patriarche teneant unam formam,
licet eorum nomina sint diversa. Presente quoque privilegio tibi et per te tuis successoribus inungendi,
benedicendi, et coronandi reges Bulgarorum et Blachorum in posterum liberam concedimus facul-
tatem /
75 Migne, PL, ccxv, coi. 282, Book vn, no. 3; Potthast, 2138; Theiner, Mon. Slav., i, 25, no. 42;
H.-D. Documente, i, 22, no. 17.
76 Migne, PL, ccxv, coi. 292, 294, 295, Book vn, no. 8, 9, 10, 11; Theiner, Mon. Slav., i, 30, 31,
no/s 48,49, 50, 51 ; H.-D. Documente, i, 32 ff., no/s 23, 24, 25, 26.
77 Migne, PL, ccxv, coi. 295, Book, vn, no. 12; Potthast, 2141; Theiner, Mon. Slav., i, 33, no. 54;
H.-D. Documente, i, 38, no. 29; * . . . vexillum quo contra illos utaris, qui honorant labiis crucifixum,
cor autem eorum est longinquum ab ipso . . . et contra illos . . . qui non posuerunt deum adiutorem
sibi sed in feritate sua . . . nitentur. . . . *
78 Migne, PL, ccxv, coi. 292, Book vn, no. 7; Potthast, 2139; Theiner, Mon. Slav., i, 30, no. 47;
H.-D. Documente, i, 31, no. 22. On the identity of Belebuzda with Kustendil, see D . Rattinger, ‘Die
Patriarchat und Metropolitansprengel von Constantinopel und die bulgarische Kirche zur Zeit der
Lateinerherrschaft in Byzanz/ Historisches Jahrbuck, i (1880), 95 ff.
79 Migne, PL, ccxv, col. 296, Book vn, no. 13; Potthast, 2143; Theiner, Mon. Slav., I , p. 32, no.
52; H.-D. Documente, i, p. 36, no. 27.
80 Migne, PL, ccxv, col. 410, Book vn, no. 126; Potthast, 2282 (15 September); Theiner, Mon.
Slav., 1, 34, no. 56; H.-D. Documente, i, 40, no. 32.
81 See Innocent’s letter of thanks to Emeric, Migne, PL, ccxv, col. 427, Book vn, no. 137; Potthast,
2290 (4 October) ; Theiner, Mon. Slav., i , 38, no. 58; H.-D. Documente, I , 47, no. 33. For the date of
arrival see the letter of Basil, Theiner, Mon. Slav., i, 39, no. 61; H.-D. Documente, i, 49, no. 35.
198 The ‘Second Bulgarian Empire’
Ioannitsa, now calling himself ‘Rex totius Bulgarie et Vlachie/ wrote joyfully
thanking Innocent; he still referred, however, to Basil as a patriarch, and to his
own land as ‘imperium meum’ rather than as ‘regnum/ the word always used
by the Pope.82Basil also replied gratefully, reporting both ceremonies, and telling
the Pope in addition that the cardinal legate had left Tirnovo on 15 November,
taking with him two boys, one the son of Constantine the priest, and the other
Ioannitsa’s own son, to study Latin in Rome.83
Thus, in November 1204, negotiations which had extended over a period of
more than five years came to an end. Ioannitsa had obtained much but not
everything. When the Pope sent Cardinal Leo in February 1204, he had no ink-
ling of what was to happen at Constantinople two months later. The Crusaders,
who had taken the city for the first time in July 1203, restoring Isaac Angelus
and crowning his son, the young Alexius, sacked it again in April 1204, this time
establishing a Latin Empire with Count Baldwin of Flanders and Hainaut as
Emperor, and driving the Byzantines into exile. The second sack of the city
and the formation of the Latin Empire created an altogether new diplomatic
situation. The kingdom of Ioannitsa, newly sanctioned by the Pope, was now a
neighbor of the Latins, who were also papal protégés, Innocent having taken the
Latin Empire under his protection, despite his chagrin at the Latin atrocities
committed during the sack. Ioannitsa himself expressed his concern over the new
development in his last letter to Innocent, already cited: ‘Write to the Latins,’
he asked the Pope, ‘to keep away from my empire, and, if they do, my empire
will not harm them; but let them not set it at little worth. If they make an at-
tempt against my empire and set it at little worth, and some of them get killed,
do not your Holiness suspect my empire because it will not be my fault.’84Here
is an ominous forecast of the sort of relations which were to obtain between the
two states under papal protection.
V
Before examining these relations in their earliest stages, it remains to give a
brief account of the third people in the ‘second Bulgarian Empire/ the Cumans,
always mentioned by the sources with terror as providing the main strength of
Ioannitsa’s armies, but apparently never accorded any political status within the
state or mentioned in the title of its rulers. Yet, as we have seen, the Cumans had
been closely associated with the Vlachs ever since the days of the uprising of
1185, when Isaac Angelus had driven Peter and Asen across the Danube, whence
they returned with their Cuman auxiliaries.85
82 Theiner, Mon. Slav., i, 39, no. 60; H.-D. Documente, 1, 48, no. 34.
83 Reference as in note 81 above.
84 Reference as in note 82 above: ‘De Latinis quoque, qui Constantinopolim introierunt, scribo
sanctitati vestri ut eis scribatis, quatinus distent ab Imperio meo, et sic Imperium meum nullum
malum eis facit, neque ipsi nobis parvipendant. Si forte ipsi conati fuerint contra Imperium meum et
parvipenderint eum, et occidet ex eis, non habeat sanctitas vestra Imperium meum suspectum, sed
sint universa libera/ For Innocent’s letter taking Baldwin under his protection see Migne, P i, ccxv,
col. 454, Book vn, no. 153; Potthast, 2321.
86 The splendid series of articles by D. A. Rasovskii has unfortunately, so far as I know, been
carried down only to the year 1170; so that it contains little more than a mention of the activities of
The ‘Second Bulgarian Empire’ 199
A people whose language was clearly Turkish, the Cumans are none the less
distinguished from other Turkish tribes by the accounts of their appearance
given by the sources. Strikingly handsome physically, they had blond hair and
blue eyes: indeed, it is now generally agreed that the names Polovtsy, given them
by the Russians, and Falven, sometimes given them by the Germans, come from
words meaning ‘yellow/ It is therefore conjectured that ethnically the Cumans
may not originally have been Turks. Scholars explain the multiplicity of names
by which they have been called at various times — including Kipchak and its
variants — as the result of the amalgamation of various tribal groups into the
mass of the Cumans during the early Middle Ages in northern central Asia. This
was their original home, and it was there in the tenth century that the tribe of the
Kipchaks won supreme power over the other tribes. The expansion of the Kitai
state forced the Cumans south in the early eleventh century, and thereafter
west; so that between 1050 and 1080 Cuman tribes became supreme over the
plains of South Russia and Rumania, and as far west as the Carpathians, the
Danube, and the Balkan mountains. In the great area between these western
the Cumans after they had crossed the Danube at the invitation of Peter and Asen. I depend upon it*
however, for the brief sketch of the Cuman background in the text. D . A. Rasovskii, ‘Polovtsy/
Seminarium Kondakoñanum, vn (1985), pp. 245-262; vm (1936), 161-182; ix (1937), 71-85; x
(1938), 155-178 (see 156-160 for the Cumans and the Asen family); x i (Belgrade, 1940), 86-128. So
far as I am aware, the only significant work which Rasovskii’s fuU bibliography omits is the very
scarce book of the Rumanian Uniat priest, loan FerenÇ, Cumanii si Episcopia Lor (Blaj : Tipografía
Seminarului Teologii Gr.-Catolic, n.d., but preface dated 1931), pp. 152, of which I possess a copy.
The sections of interest here — not superseded because not yet reached by Rasovskii — are pp. 46-56,
‘Cumanii si înfiintarea împàràtiei româno-bulgare’ and ‘Cumanii si consolidarea imperiului româno-
bulgar.’ Ferent necessarily relies on Nicetas throughout, and on the treatment given Nicetas’ pas-
sages by G. Mumu, Vlahia Mare (Bucharest, 1913), not accessible to me. G. Moravcsik, op. cit.,
note 2 above, supplies (p. 48) references to an article inaccessible to me: D. Rasovskii, ‘Rol’ Polovtsev
v voinach Asyenei s Vizantiiskoi i Latinskoi Imperiami v 1186-1207 godach/ Spisanie na Bülgarskata
Akademiya na Naukitë, Lvni (1939), 203-211; see also G. Ostrogorsky and S. Radoyehich in By-
zantinoslavica, ix (1947), 140. A. Bruce Boswell, ‘The Kipchak Turks,* The Slavonic Review, vi (1927),
68-85, has some errors, but is not a bad introduction to the subject. Before Rasovskii the standard
work was J. Marquardt, ‘Über das Volkstum der Kumanen/ Abhandlungen der K . Gesellschaft der
Wissenschaften zu Gottingen, Phil. -Hist.- Klasse Neue Folge, x n i (1914), 25-236, an immensely learned
work, concerning itself chiefly with the philological evidence for the period of the origin of the Cumans.
P. Pelliot, ‘À propos des Couinains/ Journal Asiatique, 11 série, x v (1920), 125-185, pointed out
that Marquardt did not have access to many of the most valuable Chinese sources, and so reached
some conclusions which should be modified. The article of S. Salaville, ‘Les Comans/ Échos d’Orient,
xvn (1914), 193-209, contains some episodes from Assyrian history, with which the Cumans are,
perhaps somewhat fantastically connected; but for the period of the Middle Ages it is interesting,
since it includes some pages on the bishopric of Milcov, the short-lived thirteenth-century Roman
Catholic Cuman bishopric, with which Ferent’s work is particularly concerned. Salaville (p. 204,
note 7) cites C. Auner, ‘Episcopia M ilcoviei/ Revista Católica, i (1912), 533-551, and m (1914), 60-
80, not accessible to me, but which is presumably superseded by Ferent. Reference may also be made
to Rasovskii’s interesting general article, ‘Les Comans et Byzance/ Izvestiya na bülgarskiya Archeolo-
gicheski Institut ix (1935), 346-354. The chapters in F. Uspenskii, Obrazovanie vtorago Bolgarskago
tsarstva (Odessa, 1879), pp. 75-88, and in R. Roesler, Romànische Studien (Leipzig, 1871), pp. 328
ff., have been superseded by Rasovskii. For the Cuman language the most famous monument is the
so-called Codex Cumanicus, which belonged to Petrarch, and is now in the library of St Mark at
Venice (ed. G. Kuun, Budapest, 1888) and more recently K. Gr0nbech, Monumenta Linguarum
Asiae Minoris, i (Copenhagen, 1936).
boundaries and Lake Balkhach, the Tian-Shan range, and the Altai and upper
and middle courses of the Irtysh in the east — bounded by the forest zone in the
north and by the north coast of the Black Sea in the south — there was no central
political state formation.
Rasovskii, however, distinguishes five separate independent Cuman groups:
the central Asiatic, the Volga-Yayik (or Ural), the Donets-Don (between the
Volga and the Dnieper), the lower course of the Dnieper, and the Danube. It is
with the last only that we have to do. The Cumans remained nomads until the
Mongol invasion of the mid-thirteenth century. They seem never to have at-
tempted the establishment of a territorial state or to have taken the other steps
which might have led them to adopt a sedentary life. They assisted the Byzan-
tine Empire, in the late eleventh century, in the destruction of their fellow-
Turks, the Pechenegs; they assisted the Hungarians in various campaigns against
Byzantium; and they played a part in the internal struggle of Kievan Russia in
the eleventh century as well as in the wars of the Kings of Georgia against
Persians, Armenians, and Seljuks. Throughout they remained a steppe-people,
without cities or towns, living in felt tents on milk, cheese, and meat, as Robert
of Clari says.
Indeed, Robert’s description of them is perhaps the most valuable we possess,
giving as it does a complete picture, even to such aspects of their religion as im-
pressed a western observer. It deserves quotation here:
When he (Ioannitsa) was lord over them (the high men of Vlachia), he went to the
Cumans and he wrought so with one and with another that he became their friend and
they were all in his service and he was just like their lord. Now Cumania is a land border-
ing upon Vlachia, and I will tell you what kind of people the Cumans are. They are a
savage people, who neither plow nor sow, and they have neither huts nor houses, but they
have heavy tents made of felt in which they shelter themselves, and they live on milk and
cheese and flesh. In the summer there are so many flies and gnats that they scarcely dare
come out of their tents and sally forth from their country when they want to make a raid.
Now we will tell you what they do. Each one has at least ten or twelve horses, and they
have them so well-trained that they follow them wherever they want to take them, and
they mount first on one and then on another. When they are on a raid, each horse has a
bag hung on his nose, in which his fodder is put, and he feeds as he follows his master,
and they do not stop going by night or by day. And they ride so hard that they cover in
one day and one night fully six days’ journey or seven or eight. And while they are on the
way they will not seize anything or carry it along, before their return, but when they are
returning, then they seize plunder and make captives and take anything they can get.
Nor do they go armed, except that they wear a garment of sheepskin and carry bows and
arrows. They do not worship anything except the first animal encountered in the morning,
and the one who encounters it worships it all day, whatever animal it may be. Now John
the Vlach had these Cumans in his service, and he used to come every year to raid the
Emperor’s lands even up to Constantinople, and the Emperor was not strong enough
to defend himself against him.86
86 Robert de Clari, La Conquête de Constantinople (ed. P. Lauer, Paris, 1924), pp. 63-64; tr., E. H.
McNeal (New York, 1936), pp. 87-88. The story that the Cumans worship the first animal they see
on any given day is also told of the ‘Mordwit Tartar* in the sixteenth century by the celebrated Eng-
lish envoy to Russia, Giles Fletcher, Of the Russe Common Wealth (ed. E. S. Bond, London: Hakluyt
Society, 1856), p. 96. Cf. Eustathius’ description cited at the head of this article.
More valuable data on the Cumans as they appeared to the Latins of Con-
stantinople after they had got to know them better is supplied by Joinville,
famous biographer of St Louis. While St Louis was fortifying Caesarea in Pales-
tine in the year 1250, Philippe de Toucy, who had been bailli in Constantinople,
visited the camp, and told St Louis about the Cumans, with whom the Latin
Emperor Baldwin II was in alliance. This alliance, Philippe reported, had been
sealed by a blood-mingling ceremony: the Latin Emperor and the Cuman king
and their leading followers were all bled into a bowl of silver; wine and water were
added, and both parties drank of the mixture, making them brothers. Then a dog
was made to pass between the two parties, and the Cumans thereafter cut him to
pieces; the Latins followed suit with another dog. This was to symbolize the fate
of anyone who should betray the alliance. Philippe de Toucy also told St Louis
about Cuman burial customs : they had buried one of their great men fully clothed
and seated in a chair, and had put his horse and his ‘best serjeant’ alive into the
grave with him. The serjeant was given gold and silver by the other Cumans to
take into the other world, and to keep safe for them; and also a letter to be
delivered in the other world to the first king of the Cumans, in which the present
king testified to the serjeant’s good character.87
Although Rasovskii, the leading authority on the Cumans, objects to the com-
ment, reiterated by the Byzantine sources, that these people were uncivilized,
and although it is true that nomad civilization is not to be belittled, at least with
regard to the discipline and cohesion which permitted the conquest of so vast a
territory, it must be said that the Cumans represent a degree of political ma-
turity far less advanced even than that attained by the Vlachs and Bulgarians.
It is perhaps not to be wondered at, then, that we find them as auxiliaries in the
armies of the Asen brothers, but not as participants in the political life of the
country. Their importance as an element in the future struggle between Ioannitsa
and the Latins is very great; but it is almost exclusively military.
VI
Even before Ioannitsa wrote to Innocent III in November 1204, asking that
the Pope warn the Latins to let his ‘empire5strictly alone, he had made friendly
gestures to the Crusader armies. In the spring of 1204, before the second capture
of the city and the formation of the Latin Empire, and during the preparations
for the siege, Ioannitsa, according to Robert of Clari
sent word to the high barons that if they would crown him King, so that he would be lord
of his land of Vlachia, he would hold his land and kingdom from them, and would come
to their aid to help them take Constantinople with all of a hundred thousand men. . . .
87 J. de Joinville, Histoire de Saint Louis (ed. N. de Wailly, Paris, 1874), pp. 270-274. For the Latin-
Cuman alliance see also Alberic of Trois Fontaines, Chronica, MGH, SS, xxni, 947, 949, where more
details about Cuman burial customs are found. For the practice among Turkic peoples of killing dogs
to solemnize treaties, see V. Grumel, ‘Sur les coutumes des anciens Bulgares dans la conclusion des
traités/ Izvestiya na Istoricheskoto Druzhestvo v Sofiya, x iv -x v (1937), 82-92, where an alleged in-
stance of this practice by the Bulgarians after their conversion, is shown by Grumel to be attributable
rather to the Pechenegs. This is challenged by Yu. Trifonov, ‘Küm vüprosa za Vizantiisko-Bülgarski
dogovori s ezicheski obredi,’ Izvestiya na Bülgarskiya Archeologicheski Institut xi, 2 (1937), 263-292.
202 The *Second Bulgarian Em pire ’
When the barons heard this, they said they would consider it, and when they had taken
counsel, they came to a bad decision; for they answered that they cared nothing for him
nor for his help, but he should know well that they would hurt him and do him harm if they
could. This was a very great mischance and a very great misfortune. Now when he had
failed with them, he sent to Rome for his crown, and the apostolic sent a Cardinal to
crown him, and so he was crowned King.88
Robert’s sound judgment on the ineptitude of the policy-makers of the Cru-

sader host may itself provide the clue to Villehardouin’s silence as to Ioannitsa’s
embassy. As a leading official, Villehardouin may well have been partly responsi-
ble for the unfortunate decision. Nicetas, however, knows of the embassy. He
says that when Ioannitsa sent ambassadors to discuss friendship with the Latins,
they had asked him to address them not as a king would address his friends but
as a slave would address his masters. Otherwise, they threatened to invade his
lands and reduce him to his former state. For this reason, Nicetas says, Ioannitsa
welcomed the later advances to him of certain Greek nobles, Alexius I ll’s former
officers, who had also been rebuffed both by Boniface of Montferrat and by the
Emperor Baldwin.89 By their incredibly rash overconfidence the Latins drove
into each other’s arms Byzantine officials with a military following, and the
Byzantines’ traditional enemy, the king of the Vlachs and the Bulgars. Ioannitsa
at once assumed command of the new coalition; and in late 1204 the Latins began
to learn the painful lessons of inept diplomacy.
Ioannitsa was to capture and kill their Emperor Baldwin in April 1205, and
to jeopardize their entire position in the East. Thereafter, he wrote again to
Innocent III, telling how he had tried to reach a friendly agreement with the
Latins, and how they had responded that they would have no peace with him
unless he would return to them the lands which he had taken from the Empire.
To this he had replied that he had a better right to his territory than the Latins
had to theirs: he had recovered lands lost by his ancestors, and had been crowned
by the Pope; they had taken territory which had never been theirs, and had, in
fact, usurped a crown which belonged to him. Since the Empire was his rather
than theirs, he would fight beneath the standard sent to him by the Pope, and
bearing the papal keys upon it, against those who wore false crosses on their
shoulders.90This bold response to the Crusaders provides sure proof of Ioannitsa’s
88 Robert of Clari (ed. Lauer), pp. 63-65; tr. McNeal, pp. 86-88. The repeated use by Robert and
by Villehardouin of ‘Jehan li Blak’ for Ioannitsa, and of ‘Blakie’ for his country is of course further
evidence that he was not a Bulgarian. Robert also knows something about the origin of the ‘second
Bulgarian Empire’; he says that Ioannitsa was once in charge of the Byzantine Emperor’s horse
farms, and was struck in the face with a whip by a eunuch, one of the Emperor’s attendants. This is
obviously a reflection of the story told by Nicetas of Asen’s experience at the hands of the sebasto-
crator John (see above text and note 39). Robert did not know that Ioannitsa had been negotiating
with the Pope all along.
89 Nicetas, pp. 808-809.
90 Gesta Innocenta, Migne, PL, ccxiv, col. cxlvii-cxlviii, chapter cvni: ‘ . . . Joannitius . . . audita
captione regiae civitatis miserat nuntios et litteras ad Latinos, ut cum eis pacem haberet; sed ipsi
ei superbissime responderunt, dicentes, quod pacem non haberent cum illo, nisi redderet terram ad
Constantinopolitanum imperium pertinentem quam ipse invaserat violenter. Quibus ipse respondit:
quod terra illa justius possidebatur ab ipso quam Constantinopolis possideretur ab illis, nam ipse
continuing great ambitions: the Empire, he claimed, was his, and he boldly took
advantage of his good relations with the Pope, and of the papal keys upon the
standard under which Innocent had ordered him to do battle. The evidence
seems clear that Ioannitsa made at least one, and perhaps two efforts to gain
the friendship of the Latins, and to form an alliance with them. After the failure
of the first attempt reported by Robert of Clari, he seems to have hoped that
peace might be maintained if each side would leave the other alone, and this he
tried to accomplish through Innocent. When a second attempt at reaching an
agreement failed, Ioannitsa knew that war was inevitable, and hurled his défi.91
Thus the initial relations between the two nouveaux arrivés among the Balkan
states, the Vlach-Bulgar-Cuman establishment at Tirnovo and the Latin Empire
at Constantinople, both sponsored by the Pope, were destined to be hostile.
A detailed consideration of these matters down into the period after 1204 will,
it is hoped, be presented in a later study of the Latin Empire.
T h e U n iv e r s it y o f W is c o n s in .
APPENDIX A. See above, Note 21.

The bibliography on the Vlachs of the Balkans is very large. This note, which reviews all the
sources known to me, refers only to some of the better secondary books and articles. For the evidence
of place-names and the Vita Sancti Severini that the population living on the right bank of the Danube
in the sixth century were Romani, see N . Iorga, ‘La “Romania” danubienne et les barbares au Vie
siècle,’ Revue Belge de philologie et d'histoire, n i (1924), 35-51. The chief clue by which the ancestors
of the Vlachs are recognized in the earlier sources is their use of a Latin language. Thus, in Theo-
phylactus Simocatta there appears a famous passage, repeated and added to by Theophanes. In 586,
while a Byzantine army was marching in the Balkans against the Avars, the baggage on one of the
pack mules began to slip. A muleteer’s shout, in the language of the country (éxtx"pkf> rg yXorrry) of
%Tbpva, TÓpva (in some mss. peTÓpâ’), or, as Theophanes has it, 'rbpva, rbpva. <¡>párep* was misunder-
stood by the troops as a signal for retreat; and a panic ensued. ( Theophylacti Simocattae Historiae
[ed. C. De Boor, Leipzig, 1887], p. 100; Theophanes, ed. De Boor, i, 258.) Until recently this passage
has been universally accepted as demonstrating that the language of the Thracian region in which the
Byzantine troops were operating was Latin, and that the soldiers and the local population were
recuperaverat terram quam progenitores ejus amiserunt, sed ipsi Constantinopolim occupaverant,
quae ad eos minime pertinebat: ipse praeterea coronam regni legitimi receperat a summo pontifice;
sed ille, qui se appellabat Constantinopolitanum basileum, coronam imperii temere usurpaverat a
se ipso: quare, potius ad ipsum quam ad illum imperium pertinebat, ideoque sub uno vexillo, quod a
beato Petro receperat, ejus clavibus insignito, pugnaret fiducialiter contra illos qui falsos cruces suis
humeris praeferebant. . . . ’
91 In addition to the bibliography already cited, the following works deal with the initial relations
between the Crusaders and the ‘second Bulgarian Empire’ ; V. Makushev, ‘Bolgariya v kontse x ii
i v pervoi polovine xm veka,’ VarshavsJciya Universitetskiya Izvestiya, in (Warsaw, 1872), pp. 66,
(Separate pagination) ; E. Sayous, ‘Les Bulgares, les croisés français de Constantinople, et Innocent
III,’ Études sur la religion Romaine et le moyen âge oriental (Paris, 1889), pp. 252-270; V. Zlatarski,
‘Grütsko-Bülgarski Süiuz prez 1204-5 god,* Godishnik na Sofiislciya Universitet91st. Fil. Fah. vin-rx
(1911-1913), pp. 1-23; B. Barvinok, ‘Rolya Balkanskych Slov’yan v Istorii Vizantii za IVgo chrsto-
vago pochodu/ Ukrainska Akademiya Nauk, Yubüeini Zbimik na poshanu Akademika Dimitra
Ivanovicha Bagaliya, Zbimik Istorichno-jilologichnogo viddïlu, u (Kiev, 1927), pp. 1175—1187. (Ukrain-
ian.) B. Primov, ‘Grütsko-Bülgarski süiuz v nachaloto na X III vek,’ Istoricheski Pregled, iv (1947-
1948), 22-39; ‘Robert de Clari i otnosheniyata mezhdu Bülgariya i Latinskata imperiya,’ Godishnik
na Sofiiskiya UniversiteU Ist.-Fil. Fak., x u n (1946, 1947), 6-22.
204 The ‘Second Bulgarian Empire’

Vlachs. This has now been challenged by a Greek and a Hungarian scholar: G. Kolias, 'Topva —
¿7rtx¿Jptos yXùaaa,* '’Eirerijpls 'Eraipeias Bvâvrivcov Sirovb&v, xiv (1938), 295-299; and M. Gyóni, ‘Az
Állítólagos Legrégibb Román Nyelvemlék [Das angebliche alteste rumánische Sprachdenkmal],’
Archivum Philobgicwn [Egytemes Philólogiai Kozlony], l x v (1942), pp. 11 (Magyar with German
summary). They argue that toma is common to Serbian as well as to Romance languages other than
Rumanian or Vlach, that it had passed into the ordinary military language of command in the
Byzantine army and therefore cannot be taken as indicating anything particular about the origin of
the soldiers, and that the term epichorio simply means Latin, without reference to the country
through which the troops were moving. However this may be, after this now somewhat dubious
passage relating to the late sixth century, there is silence with respect to the Vlachs in the narrative
sources for about four hundred years. They do not reappear until a passage of Skylitzes referring to
the year 976.
The numerous articles of Rumanian historians which theorize about this interim period argue, for
example, that the word ‘Pio/iatot’ (Romani) in sources such as Procopius and Menander Protector
denotes this Latin-speaking people; but this, it seems to me, cannot satisfactorily be proved. See,
for example, I. Çiadbei, ‘Sur les plus anciens sources de l’histoire des Roumains,’ Annuaire de U In-
stitut de philologie et d'histoire orientales, n (1934), Mélanges Bidez, n, 861-868, who also cites, without
quoting the Greek, a passage from the life of St Demetrius of Thessalonica, of the second half of the
seventh century, Migne, PG, cxvi, col. 1367, which he thinks shows a clear distinction drawn between
the Greek language and the languages of the Romans, Slavs, and Bulgare. (Migne, PG, cxvi, col. 1368:
\ . . Kal r^v ko.9’ rjfxas e-KL(TTa.fíkvr¡v y\û<r<ra.v ical rfy ''PoijxaLav, 2n\á(3í¿v, nal BovXyapojv’.) H. Gelzer, ‘Die
Genesis der byzantinischen Themenverfassing,’ Abhandlungen der phil.-hist. Klasse der K . sachsichen
Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, xvni (1899), 49, also quotes this passage, indicating that he believes
the ‘language of the Rhomaeans’ is here Latin. Elsewhere in the same text, however, pœ/saîoi
seems to mean Greeks. I think that §iadbei’s conclusions cannot yet be accepted. For some of Iorga’s
attempts to bridge the gap between Theophylact and Skylitzes see ‘Le Danube d’Empire,’ Mélanges
offerts à M . Gustave Schlumberger (Paris, 1924), i, 14-22; ‘Les plus anciens états Slavo-Roumains
sur la rive gauche du Danube,’ Revue des Études Slaves, v (1925), 171-176; ‘Entre Slaves et Roumains,’
L'Art byzantin chez les Slaves. Les Balkans, Premier Recueil dédié à la mémoire de Théodore Uspenskii
(Paris, 1930), pp. 41-49. Further evidence on this intervening period, not noted by Iorga in these
articles, has been thought to exist in a text found at Kastamonitou by Porphyry Uspenskii. See
M. Lascaris, ‘Les Vlachorynchines, une mise à point,’ Revue historique du Sud-Est Européen, x x
(1943), 182-189. Referring to ‘the time of the iconoclasts’ this text mentions peoples called Richenoi
(or Vlachorichenoi) and Sagoudatoi as coming from Bulgaria across Macedonia to Athos: The
toxivoi, referred to elsewhere only in the Acts of St Demetrius already cited, are there said to be
Slavs. There has been considerable scholarly discussion of the Vlachorichenoi; but Lascaris’ demon-
stration that the manuscript in which the passage occurs is of the seventeenth century at the earliest
makes it unnecessary to summarize all the other learned conjectures, to which, in any case, he refers.
The appearance in the Acts of St Demetrius, in close connection with the ‘Richinoi,’ however, of the
Latin word «acra for house, leads Lascaris to surmise that the tradition at least of the Vlachorichenoi
may be genuine. Pending further discoveries, however, the text cannot be taken as a bona fide refer-
ence to the Vlachs or to a Latin-speaking Balkan people between Theophylact and Cedrenus. Finally,
Latin origin has been claimed for two little-known Bulgarian khans of the eighth century, who appear
in the (epigraphic) sources as Sabinus and Paganus; Iorga regularly refers to them as Vlachs without
further evidence. I am not in a position to judge the philological argument here (the Bulgarians ex-
plain their names from Turkish roots), but apparently the names may well be Turkish.
In the year 976 the Vlachs appear as such for the first time, when Skylitzes (ed. Bonn, n, 436) re-
ports that they killed David, eldest of the Comitopouloi, and brother of Samuel, at a place between
Kastoria and Prespa called ‘Fair Oaks.’ In 1014, {Ibid., p. 457), Basil II was defeated by Samuel at a
pass called Kimba Longus or Kleidion which is almost surely the equivalent of the Rumanian
Câmpulung (Campus longus), a frequently-used place name. (On these two passages, see now M.
Gyóni, ‘Skylitzes et les Vlaques,’ Revue d'histoire Comparée, xx v Nouvelle Série vi [1947], 155-173).
In 1017, during the same wars, the spies of John Vladimir, Aaron’s son and Samuel’s rival,
warned him of Basil’s approach (ibid., p. 466) : * .. . firjôèv &XXo (ioûvTts d jui) "PeÇeire, S> Taaîorap”,’
The *Second Bulgarian Empire’ 205

which may well represent a Vlach form ‘vgitsi’ from Latin ‘fugite.* In 1020, when Basil issued his
decree for the reorganization of the Bulgarian church, to which we have already referred, he spe-
cifically placed the ‘Vlachs of all Bulgaria* under the jurisdiction of the new Archbishop of Ochrida
(Gelzer, loc. cit., BZ, n, 46) : * . . . irapaKeXevófxeda . . . rbv airrbv à y t brarov àpxi&ctcrKxyirov Kai Xanfiávav
rb Kavovucov . . . Kai tûv à.và ircLarav BovXyapLav HXáx&v. . . . * and one of the bishoprics listed is
‘ó Bpeavùrrjs f¡ roi BXd\u>v* (ibid., i, p. 47). For more details on the Archbishopric of Achrida, see Gel-
zer, ‘Der Patriarchat von Achrida,* Abhandlungen der Sachsischen GeseUschaft ¿1er Wissenschajten
Phü.-hist. Klasse, xx (1902), 281 pages (separate pagination), especially pp. 3 -1 1 .1 have not seen
I. Snegarov, Istoriya na Ochridskata archiepiskopiya 2 vols. (Sofia, 1924).
At this time (s.a. 1027) comes the first reference to the Vlachs in a western source, Annales Barenses,
MGH SS, v, 58, where they are described as forming part of Constantine VIII’s expedition to Sicily:
‘ . . . descendit in Italiam cum exercitu magno, i.e. Russorum, Guandalorum, Tureorum, Burgarorum,
Vlachorum, Macedonum, aliarumque ut caperet Siciliam.*
It is Kekaumenos, however, whose Strategikon gives the first full description of the Vlachs of Thes-
saly (which was shortly to become known as fiey&Xij BXax£a) stressing their practice of transhumance
and their bad reputation (quoted at the head of this article), and telling the story of their revolt of
1066. His Logos Nouthetetikos reports that they were placed by Basil II under the rule of a special
official: Nikoulitza, grandfather of the author, was named to the post in exchange for his office of
domestic of the excubitors: \ . . à v ri tu>u í^kov^Ltcov SœpeÎTai croc tíjv à p x ty tQ v BAáxc»»' 'EXÀàôos.*
(Cecaumenos, ed. Vassilievsky and Jemstedt, p. 96.) The Hungarian scholar, M. Gyóni, is at present
in the midst of a series of studies submitting all the passages relative to the Vlachs in the Byzantine
sources to a searching re-examination. See his ‘L’Oeuvre de Kekaumenos, Source de l’histoire Rou-
maine,* Revue de VHistoire Comparée, xxm , Nouvelle Série n i (1945), 96-180. This is a French
translation of his Magyar monograph, A Legrêgibb Vélemény A Román Nêp Eredetérôl (Budapest,
1944), pp. 87 [The Oldest Theory on the Origin of the Rumanian People], Gyóni reproduces from
Vassilievsky and Jemstedt on pp. 75-87 all the passages relating to the Vlachs, with Hungarian trans-
lation; these are omitted from the French translation,
Anna Comnena repeatedly refers to the Vlachs in Macedonia and Thrace. She notes that they live
among the Bulgarians, and that they lead a nomadic life: in fact she equates nomadism with the
Vlachs. They had a village named ’E^t/Sá; (Alexias, ed. Reifferscheid, i, 169; ed. B. Leib [Paris,
1943], n, 24), recently plausibly identified with ’Efcpbs, called by the Latins ‘Nazoresca.* See
M. Gyóni, ‘Egy Vlách Falu Neve Anna Komnene Alexiasában’ [Un village vlacque de l’Alexiade],
Archivum Philologicum [Egyetemes Philologiai Kôzlony], l x x i (1948), 22-31, (Magyar with French
summary). They had a leader named Pudilos, and acted as guides for the Cumans in the Balkan
mountains: the first instance of a partnership which was to last for many years. (Alexias, ed. Reiffer-
scheid, n, 8, 61, 62; ed. Leib, n, 135,193,194.)
During the reign of Alexius Comnenus, in 1104, a group of three hundred Vlach families is re-
ported selling food, particularly cheese, to the monks on Athos; according to the source, they dis-
guised their wives and daughters as men, and, the Vlach ladies proving complaisant, there was a
great scandal upon the mountain, until the Vlachs were driven out by order of the Emperor, amid
a virtual revolt of the monks. P. Meyer, Die Haupturkunde fiir die Geschichte des Athosklosters (Leip-
zig, 1894), pp. 164 ff. W. Tomaschek, ‘Zur Kunde der H&mushalbinsel,’ Sitzungsberichte der K . Wiener
Akademie der Wissenschajten, x c ix (1882), 474-478, also mentions this incident, which he dates
in 1097. See A. Sacerdoteanu» ‘Vlahii din Calcidica,* In Memoria lui Vasile Pârvan (Bucharest,
1934), pp. 303-311. See also M. Gyóni, ‘Les Vlaques du Mont Athos au debut du XHe siècle,’ Études
Slaves et Roumaines, i (1948), 30-42, a careful study, in which it is argued that the Vlachs were
probably attempting to flee from onerous imperial taxation to the immune regions of Athos, and
that Vlach women frequently wore male attire. The date here used, 1104, results from the discus-
sion of Gyóni, based largely on Dôlger, Regesten, 2 Teil, p. 49, no. 1226. Two Georgian saints* lives,
belonging to the second and third quarters of the eleventh century, testify to the presence on Athos
of a people whose name the Georgian text gives as Borgalni, Bulgarians, and who are also called
Slavs, but who, Professor R. P. Blake informs me, may well have been Vlachs. P. Peeters, ‘His-
toires Monastiques Géorgiennes,’ Analecta Boüandiana, x x x v i-x x x v ii (1917-1919), pp. 51 and
105. The Georgian author calls them (according to Peeters* Latin translation): * . . . homines plane
206 The *Second Bulgarian Empire’

stupidi, brutis similes, inverecundi, impura reptilia depascentes/ and represents them as worshipping
an ancient marble statue as a goddess. This the saintly hero of the Vita (George the Athonite) de-
stroys.
Benjamin of Tudela in 1160 reports the brigandage of the Balkan Vlachs, and adds the interesting
detail that they rob but do not kill Jews, whom they regard as brethren, giving their own children
Jewish names. The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela (ed. M. N . Adler, London, 1907), p. 11. This is
often regarded as fabulous gossip; but the reference to Old Testament names among the Balkan
peoples has a real enough foundation: the Comitopouloi, for example, all bore them.
These are all the significant and unmistakable references in the sources to the Vlachs before the
revolt of 1186 and the foundation of the ‘second Bulgarian Empire/ No one secondary authority
makes use of them all. For the language of the Balkan Vlachs, see T. Capidan, Aromânii, dialectul
Aromân, Academia Româna, Studii §i cercetarii, x x (1982); the book of C. Murnu, Vlahia Mare
(Bucharest, 1913) has not been available to me, nor has his article ‘Les Romains de la Bulgarie
médiévale/ Balcania, i (1938), pp. 1-21. A. J. B. Wace and M. S. Thompson, The Nomads of the
Balkans (New York, n.d. but 1918) gives a good picture of these Vlachs in the twentieth century.
See also G. Weigand, Die Aromunen (Leipzig, 1895), i. Some portions of the first chapter of L. Tamas,
‘Romains, Romans, et Roumains dans l’histoire de la Dacie Trajane/ Archivum Europae Centro-
Orientalis, i (Budapest, 1935), 1-96, are useful, despite a strong Magyar bias. I have not seen
S. Puçcariu, ‘L’ancienneté des établissements macédoroumains/ Balcania, i (1938), 22-30. R. Rôsler’s
classic work (much disliked by Rumanians), Románische Studien (Leipzig, 1879), contains a mono-
graph (pp. 66-145) entitled ‘Die Wohnsitze der Romanen im Mittelalter’ of which pp. 100 ff. are
concerned with the Balkan Vlachs. See also N. Iorga, Études Byzantines (Bucharest, 1939) I, 3-33,
98-136, 205-223; and Histoire des Roumains et de la Romanitê Orientale (Bucharest, 1937), m , 7 ff.,
77 ff. A recent work, A. D. Keramopoulos, TL dvai oi Kovr<r6^\axot (Athens, 1939), has not been
accessible to me. It maintains that the Balkan Vlachs were originally Greeks, and has been un-
favorably reviewed by T. Elwert, Byzantinische Zeitschrift, x u (1941), 497-502. See also A. Sacer-
doteanu, ‘Considérations sur l’histoire des Roumains au Moyen-Âge,’ Mélanges de VÉcole Roumaine
en France (1928), pp. 103-245, especially pp. 216 ff.
12
Fragmentation (1204-1453)
Stephen W. Reinert
From the perspective of political history, the final two hundred and fifty years of the Byzantine
experience can strike the casual reader as little more than a sorry spectacle of accelerating
fragmentation, disintegration and decay. The trajectory begins in April 1204, with European
crusaders dismembering and occupying much of the empire, and ends in catastrophe on 29
May 1453, when an Ottoman army storms Constantinople and brings the Byzantine imperial
tradition to a close. Much of what transpires in between appears to be a tiny cauldron boiling
with endless inner and external conflicts, some of them unfathomably petty, yet earnestly
waged with alarmingly limited and feebly coordinated economic resources. Throughout these
centuries, in short, the once magnificent Byzantine empire seemingly devolves into little
more than caricature and contradiction, a disordered and dysfunctional polity - overall, a
biosphere of impoverishment, absurd pretensions and generalised angst. Seen against this
wider backdrop, its rarefied cultural flowering in art, architecture and classicising scholarship
seems to provide the only convincing rationale for exploring the final chapters in the history
of the Byzantine state.
The reader’s weariness is understandable, and certain summary impressions may indeed
be correct. But the historian is engaged as much with catastrophes, decline and decay as
with their polar opposites, and the narrative of late Byzantine history is in fact more
complexly textured than the novice may suppose. Our aim, therefore, is to sketch the fate
of late Byzantium with sympathy and appreciation for its component episodes, rejecting a
teleological obsession with 1453. To that end, we shall describe the political evolution in six
phases, none coinciding with dates of particular emperor’s reigns, and all of varying thematic
consequence. In general, notwithstanding its melancholy tone, we contemplate here a story
of persistent struggle against relentless and often overwhelming adversity, punctuated with
instances of valour and patriotism. And despite numerous examples of mediocre leadership,
at least one of the Palaiologan emperors - Manuel II (1391-1425) - justly ranks among the
greatest Byzantine statesmen, and as a brilliant figure in the fourteenth-century revival of
letters.
1204- 1261 : Dismemberment, Survivals and Competition for Constantinople
The structure of the Byzantine empire had in fact begun to fracture before the Fourth Crusade
arrived in Constantinople, as evidenced by the secession of Bulgaria and Serbia in the mid-
1180s, the rise of independent lordships in Cyprus, the Peloponnese and western Anatolia
from the 1180s through the early 1200s, and the establishment of the ‘empire of Trebizond’
in the Pontus in April 1204. This incipient fragmentation was, however, peripheral, whereas
the assault inflicted by the Crusaders in the storming and sack of Constantinople (12-15 April
1204) and the ensuing expeditions of conquest in that and the following years dismembered
Byzantium at its very core. By 1210, from this calculated orgy of violence - prosecuted ‘in
the name of God’ against ‘Greeks’ conceived as ‘the enemies of God’ - there had emerged on
formerly Byzantine soil some six new Frankish states, dozens of minor dependent lordships,
and a vast scattering of Venetian and Genoese colonies.
Four of the new Frankish states deserve mention. The immediate heir to the Byzantine
order in Constantinople was the so-called ‘Latin empire of Constantinople’, whose first
emperor was Baldwin, count of Flanders (1204-1205). This Latin empire endured fifty-
seven years, but its last truly vigorous ruler was Baldwin’s successor, Henry (1206-1216). It
was created with territorial claims to Constantinople, parts of coastal Thrace, Anatolia, and
the islands of Samos, Chios, and Lesbos - but by 1225 was reduced to little more than the
capital. The second-ranking Frankish state to emerge in the wake of 1204 was the ‘kingdom
of Thessaloniki’, founded by Boniface, marquis of Montferrat (d. 1207). Its original territorial
base was in Macedonia and Thessaly, but its fortunes quickly dissipated after 1207, when
Boniface was killed in a war with the Bulgarians. The lands of this kingdom returned to Greek
control in 1224, leaving little trace of the intervening Frankish presence. A more long-lived
Latin polity emerging after 1204 was the ‘principality of Achaia’, the conquest of William
of Champlitte and Geoffrey Villehardouin, the former being viscount of Dijon, and the latter
hailing from Champagne. Originally centred at Andravida, in the north-west Peloponnese,
it continued to exist, in increasingly emaciated form, down to 1430, when the Greeks of
Mistra absorbed its final remnants. Finally, the ‘duchy of Athens and Thebes’ was established,
again through conquest, by Boniface of Montferrat, who quickly transferred the territory to
a Burgundian knight, Otho de la Roche (d. 1225). Of its two centres, Thebes was the more
flourishing, with workshops producing silk and other fine fabrics, and colonies of Jewish
and Genoese merchants. In 1311, the duchy was conquered by a rampaging army of Catalan
mercenaries; in 1388, it was purchased by a Florentine family, the Acciajuoli, who controlled
it down to the Ottoman conquest in 1450. Such, then, were the chief Frankish principalities
taking shape after 1204, and theoretically forming a feudal hierarchy, with the Latin Emperor
of Constantinople at the top. Alongside this, the republic of Venice obtained a number of prime
maritime territories, which rapidly expanded her Mediterranean commercial empire. Venice’s
key acquisitions in these years included three-eighths of Constantinople, Dyrrachium, the
Ionian Islands, most of the Aegean Islands, the key ports of the southern Peloponnese (Modon
and Coron), Crete, and important harbours on the Black Sea coast of Thrace.
Surprisingly, this Latin appropriation of core Byzantine territories in consequence of the
Fourth Crusade did not entail a concomitant liquidation of the Byzantine political tradition.
While much of the Hellenophone element of the former Byzantine state was indeed absorbed
within the new Frankish and Italian entities, some of the Rhomaioi regrouped in three
peripheral areas which now assume the character of Byzantine successor states - Epiros,
Nicaea and Trebizond. As noted above, the empire of Trebizond actually took shape in April
1204, before the fall of Constantinople to the Latins. Its founders, Alexios and David, were
scions of the Komnenos dynasty, and it lasted down to 1461, when the Ottomans took the
capital and port city of Trebizond. Economically, this Pontic outpost enjoyed considerable
prosperity owing to the trade in luxuries, especially spices, coming from western Asia and
AFTER THE FALL 309
points further east. More central to our narrative, however, was the emergence of Epiros and
Nicaea as new Hellenophone centres, potentially poised to confront the Franks, above all the
Latin regime in Constantinople.
Roughly half the population in the area of Constantinople that managed to flee before
the Latin conquest migrated to north-western Greece - the highland area of Epiros, Acarnania
and Aetolia. Here a small principality took shape under the leadership of Michael Komnenos
Doukas, a cousin of the former Byzantine emperors Isaac II and Alexios III. The entity he
founded is customarily called the ‘despotate of Epiros’, although Michael himself never held
the title of despotes. In essence, Michael established himself as the accepted leader and rallying
force of Greeks in the vicinity of Arta, and under his rule (1204-1215) Epiros became the
European centre for preserving Byzantine culture, as well as formulating plans and military
agendas for curbing further Latin expansion in the region. Michael’s descendants would have
a long history. In fact, their polity may be traced, albeit with discontinuities, down to 1461,
when it was finally conquered by the Ottomans.
In Asia Minor, the chief Hellenophone successor state was the so-called ‘empire
of Nicaea’. This was situated in north-western Anatolia, and was founded by Theodore I
Laskaris, son-in-law of Alexios III Angelos Komnenos. Laskaris clearly aimed at rebuilding
the Byzantine imperial establishment - at translating to Bithynia the core institutions of
emperor, court, patriarch, bureaucracy and army. He was not actually crowned emperor
until 1208, by the newly elected patriarch Michael Autoreianos, but by that act he officially
proclaimed the existence of a Byzantine ‘empire in exile’. His successors ruled Nicaea down
to 1261, and it was nominally on behalf of the ruling Laskarid dynasty that Constantinople
was recovered in that seminal year. Since the empire of Nicaea eventually controlled the
western flank and rim of the Anatolian plateau, its economy became a prosperous mix of
grain production in the rich riverine valleys, and craft production and trade in roughly a dozen
key cities. The capital, Nicaea, was blessed with powerful walls, and was situated with rapid
access to Constantinople.
We cannot explore here the evolution of these new entities - Frankish, Italian and
Greek - over the period 1204-61 in any detail. A salient theme for future Byzantine history,
however, was the parallel ambition of Epiros and Nicaea to recover Constantinople, and the
eventual emergence of Nicaea as the stronger of the two, ultimately winning the prize. The
expansion of Nicaea was the collective achievement of three rulers - Theodore I, the founder;
his successor John III Vatatzes; and ultimately Michael Palaiologos, who usurped the throne
of Vatatzes’ grandson, John IV, and returned to Constantinople to found the last dynasty that
ruled the imperial city.
Theodore Laskaris rose to power in Nicaea as a resistance leader, organising refugees
and native Bithynian Greeks into a fighting force to block the Franks from expanding in
Anatolia, and likewise maintain the realm intact vis-à-vis the Seljuqs to the east. In the latter
endeavour he scored major successes, but by 1214, when he concluded a détente with the
Latins, the latter were still ensconced in the Nicomedian peninsula. By this treaty, however,
he established a modus vivendi with the Franks, and in 1219 he similarly made peace with
the Venetians of Constantinople on generous terms. At no point in these rapprochements,
however, did Theodore make major theological or ecclesiastical concessions; his concern
was to stabilise relations with the new European powers, and establish the fledgling Nicaean
state on secure foundations. The administrative apparatus that evolved in his reign was largely
court-centred, and evidently a simplification of the preceding Constantinopolitan pattern. In

sum, his was a credible, if frequently precarious, beginning.
It was especially in the reign of Theodore’s son-in-law and successor, John III Vatatzes,
that the rivalry between Epiros and Nicaea emerged in full form. During the 1220s it
seemed as if Epiros would attain the goal, particularly after Michael I’s successor, Theodore
Komnenos Doukas (c. 1215-1230), recovered Thessaloniki (1224) and Adrianople (1225),
and was crowned emperor a few years later. The Epirote upswing was cut short, however,
when Theodore was defeated and captured by the Bulgarians at the battle of Klokotnitsa,
following which a significant chunk of Epirote territory was provisionally annexed to the
Bulgarian empire. While the star of Epiros was waning, however, John III Vatatzes was steadily
consolidating his strength in Anatolia - expelling the Franks in 1224 (battle of Poimanenon),
and driving the Seljuqs from the Maeander Valley sometime before 1231. His subsequent
endeavours down to his death in 1254 were targeted at expanding in Europe, in hopes of
reconquering Constantinople. His campaign of 1246 was particularly successful: much of
Macedonia was seized from the Bulgarians, Thessaloniki was captured and the imperial
ambitions of Epiros were scotched.
The honour of restoring Greek rule to Constantinople would fall neither to John Ill’s
son, Theodore II (1254-1258), nor his grandson, John IV (1258-1261). The former was more
of a philosopher king - a scholar who gathered at his court a glittering coterie of literati,
whose achievements constitute the pre-history to the Palaiologan revival of letters. The latter
ascended the throne at the age of seven, but effective control of affairs quickly passed to
Michael Palaiologos, scion of one of the great military families of Asia Minor, initially as
regent and soon thereafter as co-emperor. Michael quickly proved his worth by organising
victory over a coalition of resurgent Epiros, Achaia and Sicily (1259) - safeguarding the
Nicaean position in Europe, and establishing, via the subsequent acquisitions of Mistra,
Monemvasia and Maina, a springboard for future recovery of the Morea. His most famous
accomplishment as co-emperor, the reconquest of Constantinople from the Latins in July
1261, was merely a stroke of good fortune, effected by his general Alexios Strategopoulos
with minimal military exertion. Nonetheless, when Michael solemnly entered ‘the City’ a
month later and was recrowned by Patriarch Arsenios, he celebrated the triumph of decades
of Laskarid strategic planning, and effectively his rise to sole rule. The following December,
he ordered John IV to be blinded.
1261- 1341 : The Early Palaiologan Attempt at Reconstruction
With an orthodox, Hellenophone imperial regime restored to Constantinople, the general

challenge that Michael VIII and his immediate successors faced was that of maintaining the
Laskarid legacy in Anatolia and Europe, and recovering and reintegrating the remaining array
of territories lost since the cataclysm of 1204. It was a formidable and ultimately impossible
challenge, but one of which the early Palaiologan emperors were acutely aware. Throughout
the interval from 1261 to 1341, the challenge was most successfully met by the founder of the
dynasty, Michael VIII (1261-1282). In the reigns of his son, Andronikos II (1282-1328) and
great-grandson Andronikos III (1328-1341), the fortunes of the state deteriorated markedly, yet
AFTER THE FALL 311
even in 1341, decades after the Anatolian component of the empire had been lost, Byzantium
still had the resources and possibilities of enduring as a fairly compact Balkan state.
Having attained the throne of Constantinople at the age of thirty-six, Michael VIII found
himself confronted with a plethora of agonising problems, a situation that would persist to
his death in 1282. His blinding of John IV immediately unleashed critiques of the legitimacy
of his rule - in the capital, Patriarch Arsenios responded with excommunication (for which
he was deposed in 1265, and replaced by Joseph I); in Bithynia, Michael came to be viewed,
particularly by the soldiers, as a usurper trampling upon the glorious Laskarid legacy. After
nearly six decades of Latin rule, Constantinople’s infrastructure was close to ruin, testimony
to the ineptness and profound impoverishment of the successors of Baldwin and Henry.
Michael fully anticipated, finally, that those recently dispossessed of Constantinople - notably
the Latin emperor Baldwin II, and the Venetians - would embark on agendas of reconquista,
necessitating a costly military and diplomatic response. To his credit, Michael established his
rule and dealt with these challenges with remarkable success. The attendant costs were indeed
enormous, and it would fall to his infinitely less talented son and successor, Andronikos II,
to digest their realities. But for this ‘new Constantine’, his very raison d ’être was to preserve
his throne, restore Constantinople with its traditional imperial and orthodox complexion, and
defend it from retaliatory western assault - no matter what the price.
Michael’s renovation programme included a major restoration of the Blachemai Palace;
an orthodox refurbishing of St Sophia; reconstruction of defence works (e.g. the walls, the
Kontoskelion harbour) and public buildings (e.g. markets, streets, baths, harbours, hospices);
and a rebuilding of several major monasteries. At the same time, private patronage was
responsible for the building or renovation of various other churches throughout the city. The
emperor himself even subsidised the construction of a new mosque, replacing the one burned
by the crusaders in 1203, with an eye to cultivating political, military and economic links
especially with the Mamluks.
On the military and diplomatic front, Michael VIII’s most serious challenge indeed came
from the Catholic west. The deposed Latin emperor, Baldwin II, was resolved to recover what
he deemed his legacy, and initially placed his hopes on his relative, the Sicilian king Manfred,
for aid to that end. Before Manfred could act, however, he fell victim to the continuing papal-
Hohenstaufen rivalry, when Pope Clement IV reiterated his predecessor Urban TV’s invitation
to Charles of Anjou, brother of the French king Louis IX, to take possession of the kingdom
of Sicily - that is, with full ecclesiastical sanction. At length Charles invaded and crushed
Manfred in a battle at Benevento (1266), whereupon Sicily and southern Italy came under
French rule, with Charles as its first Angevin king.
With a papal client now on the Sicilian throne, Clement IV readily espoused Baldwin
II’s cause. In May 1267, at Viterbo, the pope mediated a pact whereby Charles would provide
military aid to recover Constantinople, Baldwin would provide territorial concessions, and a
marriage alliance between the former’s daughter and latter’s son would be formed. Charles
was unable to deliver immediately on his campaign promise, and Michael VIII meanwhile
manoeuvered adroitly to negotiate a way to neutralise the enemy. In a protracted series of
negotiations with the papacy and Louis IX, Michael succeeded in staving off an Angevin
invasion by proffering the possibility of ecclesiastical union between Rome and Constantinople,
which eventually was achieved, in July 1274, at the Second Council of Lyons. In essence this
was a treaty between the emperor and the reigning pope, Gregory X; its key terms entailed
recognition of papal primacy, and the Catholic doctrines on purgatory and the filioque.
The aftermath of the Union of Lyons was a mixed and short-lived blessing for Michael.
While it temporarily stalled Charles of Anjou’s aggression (and as of 1273, when Baldwin II
died, he was still pursuing the project of recovering Constantinople on behalf of his son-in-law,
Philip of Courtenay), it simultaneously destroyed Michael’s credibility with his own people
- the vast majority of whom now regarded him as an odious traitor who had surrendered to the
Latins on the most sensitive of issues, the truths of the orthodox faith. Moreover, its military
value was nullified in 1281, when, through Charles’ influence, his friend Simon de Brie was
elected as Pope Martin IV. In July of that year, convinced that Michael’s adherence to the
union was hypocritical and politically motivated, Martin endorsed Charles’ and Philip’s plans
for an expedition to recover Constantinople. The following November he excommunicated
Michael, denouncing him as ‘patron of the Greeks who are inveterate schismatics and fixed in
the ancient schism’. For Charles, of course, this was effectively an ecclesiastical green light
to launch an invasion to reconquer Constantinople for the Latins.
Such an undertaking could easily have spelled disaster for Byzantium, but Michael
VIII cleverly manoeuvred to undermine Charles from within his own realm. Apprised that
Manfred’s son-in-law Peter III of Aragon aspired to recover the Hohenstaufen legacy for his
wife, Michael allied with him and dispatched generous subsidies for an invasion of Sicily. It
is likely, moreover, that monies found their way from Byzantium into the hands of Sicilians
chafing under the oppressions (chiefly fiscal) of Angevin rule, and who were coordinating
with Peter to stage a rebellion. The upshot was the famed Sicilian Vespers revolt, commencing
30/31 March 1281, which completely sidetracked Charles from his projected campaign to
Constantinople, and paved the way for Peter’s installation as the first of the Aragonese kings
of Sicily.
Michael VIII’s role in undermining Charles and saving Constantinople from a Latin
revanche is rightly regarded as one of his greatest diplomatic triumphs - and this in a career
replete with such exploits. Tellingly, it was barely appreciated by his subjects, who all but
rejoiced in his death a few months later, and registered no concern that he was denied a
decent orthodox burial. From the Byzantines’ perspective, Michael’s policies had alienated
the imperial regime from society at large, and the crushing burden of taxation imposed to
support them, particularly in Anatolia, was intolerable. It was now left to his son and successor
Andronikos to realign the imperial government with the orthodox populace, and attempt a
mode of government that would be financially sustainable.
In the judgement of many historians, Andronikos II, who came to the throne at twenty
four, was a sadly incompetent ruler, severely lacking in strategic vision and incapable of
effectively addressing the most critical military challenges of his time. His ecclesiastical
policy was a pragmatic and welcome healing measure - his first official act was to repudiate
the Union of Lyons, and to conciliate those who felt themselves victims of Michael’s
manhandling of ecclesiastical affairs - yet it only alienated the papacy further. The economies
he instituted early in his reign (e.g. reductions in naval and armed forces, extraordinary taxes
on pronoiars for campaign financing, debasement of the hyperpyron) were short-sighted and
destructive. His inability, finally, to avert major territorial losses in the Balkans and Anatolia
or to control the dynastic strife that erupted in the closing phase of his reign, were egregious
failures foreshadowing the irrevocable ravaging of the state in the period 1341-71.
AFTER THE FALL 313
Andronikos’ chief difficulty in the Balkans arose with the vigorous expansion of
Nemanjid Serbia under King Stefan Uros II Milutin (1282-1321), the highlights of which were
the conquest of Skopje (1282), and a continuing guerrilla-style assault along the Macedonian
frontier into the late 1290s. When Byzantine counter-attacks proved futile, Andronikos
attempted to stabilise relations in 1299 by a pact of appeasement - marrying his five-year-old
daughter Simonis to Milutin, and conceding ‘as dowry’ Serbian conquests north of the arc of
castles running from Ohrid to Stip to Strumica. This Serb penetration deep into Byzantine
territory would continue and climax in the reign of his grandson Stefan Uros IV Dusan (1331—
1355). Reciprocally, the treaty inaugurated a significant flow of Byzantine cultural influences
into the Serbian court, which would reach their apogee in Dusan’s reign.
The contraction of Byzantine territory in Anatolia under Andronikos II was particularly
tragic in that he, unlike Michael VIII, was seriously concerned by the Turkish expansion towards
the coasts that had accelerated throughout the 1270s, as the Seljuq state was disintegrating at
the centre, eventually to be replaced by a series of smaller principalities or lordships (beyliks).
Two years before his father’s death, Andronikos had personally seen the devastation and
depopulation wrought by Turkish raids in the Maeander Valley, in the early stages of the
rise of the Menteshe beylik. As sole emperor, Andronikos was resolved to establish a more
regular and vigorous military presence in Anatolia, although his preoccupation with Balkan
affairs prevented him from doing so until the 1290s. By this time, the Ottoman beylik had
crystallised under Osman south of the Sangarios River around Sôgüt, and booty raids, with
mixed Muslim and Christian participants, were being mounted regularly in the nominally
Byzantine territory across the river.
Between 1290 and 1307, Andronikos pursued a variety of measures for stemming the
Turkish tide, none of which had lasting effects. In 1290-3, the emperor moved his court
to Anatolia, where he personally oversaw the rebuilding of fortifications, and generally
attempted to boost morale. In 1294-5, his general Alexios Philanthropenos campaigned
quite successfully in the Maeander Valley, but these gains were summarily lost when Philan-
thropenos staged an abortive coup and was blinded. In the spring of 1302, Andronikos’ son,
Michael IX, and the general Mouzalon led expeditions respectively to recover control of the
Maeander defences, and expel the Ottomans from the vicinity of Nicomedia, which they were
harrying. Both were futile, the defeat Mouzalon experienced at Bapheus (July 1302) counting
as Osman Beg’s first major victory over the Byzantines. Later that same summer a desperate
Andronikos engaged the services of the Catalan Grand Company. For exorbitantly high pay,
the latter - some 6,500 strong, and led by the mercurial Roger de Flor - duly campaigned in
Anatolia in the spring and summer of 1303, driving back the Turks in a swathe from Cyzicus
to Philadelphia, and simultaneously pillaging and plundering at will. But again these gains
were ephemeral. No sooner did the Catalans vacate these territories than the Turks resumed
raiding and besieging key fortresses. At this juncture, however, the Catalans themselves
became a scourge to Byzantium, when Roger was assassinated whilst visiting Michael IX in
Adrianople. They now undertook a two-year war of revenge; the main theatre was Thrace,
whose cities and villages were mercilessly raided and pillaged. In summer 1307 the company
began moving west for new spoils, eventually establishing themselves as the masters of the
duchy of Athens and Thebes, after defeating Walter of Brienne in 1311. Thus, instead of
enabling a solid Byzantine recovery in Asia Minor, the Catalans reduced much of Thrace and
Macedonia to scorched earth, and likewise left Anatolia in chaos.
Thereafter Andronikos II sent few troops to Anatolia. Instead, he intensified negotiations

for an alliance with the Mongol Ilkhanids of Persia, hoping thereby to obtain troops to attack
the Turks, in particular the Ottomans, who by now had begun a regular siege of Nicaea.
Evidently these, too, were fruitless, and throughout the closing decades of his reign the
Ottoman and Karasi beyliks rapidly consolidated as the major Turkish successors to Byzantium
in north-west Anatolia, as did Saruhan, Aydin and Menteshe to the south. Meanwhile, the
Rhomaioi who opted not to live under Turkish rule fled into Byzantine territory across the
Marmara, or to the few unconquered strongholds - which in Bithynia amounted to Nicaea,
Nicomedia, and Prousa until 1326, when it capitulated to Osman’s son Orhan. South of these,
the only significant quasi-autonomous centre remaining at the end of Andronikos II’s reign
was Philadelphia (finally lost in 1390), and for that privilege its citizens paid tribute to the
neighbouring begs of Germiyan.
The dynastic strife marring the final eight years of Andronikos II’s reign was a simmering
conflict between a profoundly bewildered old man (in 1320, Andronikos was sixty) whose
policies were bankrupt, and a somewhat reckless and flamboyant grandson in his twenties -
namely Andronikos III, who anticipated inheriting the throne in direct succession to his father,
Michael IX. However, the elder Andronikos disinherited his grandson in 1320, following a
tragic incident wherein the latter’s brother was murdered and their father subsequently died of
shock and sorrow. The younger Andronikos promptly organised armed opposition, drumming
up popular support with promises of generous tax cuts. In all, the tensions between the two
Andronikoi were played out from 1320 through 1328 in three stages of open warfare. In
the first round (1321), the younger Andronikos marched on Constantinople and eventually
negotiated receipt of Thrace as an appanage. The second (1322) resulted in Andronikos Ill’s
formal investment as co-emperor, along with a stipend, state-supplied troops, and residence
in Didymoteichon. The third and final round of open warfare (1327-8) was something of
a miniature Balkan war, with Andronikos III backed by the Bulgarians, and Andronikos
II supported by the Serbs. The action culminated with the younger Andronikos taking
Constantinople on 23 May 1328, following which his grandfather abdicated. He would die
as the monk Antonios, in 1332. This lengthy period of transition clearly fragmented and
enfeebled government, and acutely damaged the economy, particularly agriculture. Still, its
negative effects do not appear to have been permanent.
Andronikos Ill’s accession at thirty-one brought a new circle of advisers to the helm,
most prominent of whom was the aristocratic and immensely wealthy John Kantakouzenos,
who served as Grand Domestic (army commander-in-chief). They collectively faced the
challenge of recovery and likewise retrenchment - of digesting the reduction of Byzantium to
the dimensions of a small European state in the face of increasingly powerful neighbours to
the north (primarily Serbia) and south (the rising beyliks in north-west Anatolia). Andronikos
Ill’s objectives in Anatolia appear to have been twofold - to retain control over the remaining
Bithynian outposts (Nicaea, Nicomedia), and likewise of the key eastern Aegean islands next
to the nascent maritime beyliks. A final attempt to relieve besieged Nicaea was mounted in
summer 1329, but imperial troops were defeated by Orhan at Pelekanos (10 June), and within
two years the city capitulated. Andronikos endeavoured to spare Nicomedia the same fate by
negotiating a tributary arrangement with Orhan in August 1333, the first of its kind with the
Ottomans, but its value was short-lived, and Nicomedia likewise surrendered in 1337. By
that date, then, Byzantine Bithynia had become substantially incorporated into the Ottoman
AFTER THE FALL 315
beylik, the prosperity and vitality of which at this time deeply impressed the contemporary
Arab traveller, Ibn Battuta. On the west coast, the Byzantines scored a significant victory in
recovering Chios in 1329, in which context Andronikos III personally met with the beg of
Saruhan and an envoy from Umur, the beg of Aydm. Six years later Andronikos would form
a close tie with the latter, also involving financial indemnities, that enabled him to recover
Lesbos.
In Europe, Andronikos and Kantakouzenos showed military and diplomatic finesse in
reincorporating Thessaly (1333) and Epiros (1340-1), which brought together a considerable
block of territory that had not been directly under imperial rule since 1204. The tragedy,
however, was that this region would soon be targeted for attack and settlement by the Serbs,
when Stefan Dusan created his Balkan ‘empire’ in the 1340s and 1350s, partly at Byzantium’s
expense. Stefan came to power in 1331, and quickly resumed Serbia’s southward expansionism
in a series of campaigns extending to 1334. In a peace negotiated that year, Andronikos
surrendered five key fortresses, including Ohrid and Prilep, and formally recognised Serbian
conquests of Byzantine territory effected since the days of king Milutin. It was an attempt at
stabilisation, and likewise at obtaining in Serbia an ally and, as with Aydm, a future supplier
of mercenary soldiers.
All in all, Andronikos Ill’s foreign policy showed signs of considerable vigour. It was a
sustained effort to take a difficult and deteriorated situation in hand, and make something new
of it; it constitutes the last important example of its kind in Palaiologan history.
1341- 1371/2 : The Irreparable Ravaging of the State
The interval 1341—71/2 was an agonising time of troubles from which Byzantium never
recovered. The state was again tom to shreds by civil wars, notably in 1341-7 (the so-called
‘second [Palaiologan] civil war’) and again in 1352-7, with new episodes of dynastic strife
brewing again in the early 1370s. These civil wars were accompanied and succeeded by
foreign invasion and settlement, notably Serbian and Ottoman, on a serious and devastating
scale. Throughout the ‘second civil war’ and after, Byzantine cities were simmering with
social unrest, with instances of bloody collision between rich and poor. At the same time,
society became divided by Byzantium’s last major religious controversy, hesychasm, the
outcome of which had a decisive impact on future directions of philosophical and theological
speculation. Finally, nature herself seemed to conspire against the Byzantines in those years,
with several major earthquakes of devastating impact. The general misery was compounded
from 1347 on by the appearance of bubonic plague. The interplay of all these factors makes
the interval 1341-71/2 a transition into serious decay. Indeed, that the state even survived
the 1340s and 1350s is amazing. As the fourteenth century progressed, the main objective of
its leaders became more and more the preservation of Constantinople, Thessaloniki and its
territories in the Morea.
The core problem throughout this time of troubles was a chronic power struggle within
the leadership, which fractured government and facilitated foreign encroachments. In essence
this would evolve as a protracted conflict between the Palaiologoi and the Kantakouzenoi, in
three major phases: 1341-7, 1347-54 and 1354-7.
The downward spiral was triggered in 1341 by the fact that Andronikos Ill’s son and
successor, John V, was barely ten years old at his father’s death. Thus a regency council
was established, its members being John’s mother Anna of Savoy, Kantakouzenos, and the
patriarch John XIV Kalekas. Difficulties arose in the summer of 1341, when the ambitious
Kalekas, in alliance with the high admiral Alexios Apokaukos, convinced the empress that
Kantakouzenos’ secret agenda was to overthrow Anna and John, and establish his own dynastic
rule. In September, while Kantakouzenos was in Thrace, Kalekas proclaimed himself regent,
and a violent assault on Kantakouzenos’ family and supporters was unleashed; in October,
Anna ordered Kantakouzenos to resign his command. Ostensibly to protect and secure the
rights of young John V, Kantakouzenos replied by accepting acclamation as emperor at
Didymoteichon. This opened the ‘second civil war’ that would last down to 2 February 1347.
It was especially devastating because both sides made extensive use of foreign mercenary
soldiers - Kantakouzenos engaging Serbs and Turks, and the regency relying mainly on Turks.
Throughout much of the struggle, Kantakouzenos’ Turkish mercenaries came from Umur, beg
of Aydm. In 1345, however, he formed close ties with the Ottoman sultan Orhan - to whom
he gave his daughter Theodora in marriage the following year. The five years of violence this
war entailed profoundly ravaged the Thracian and Macedonian countryside, with war bands
pillaging and looting at will, often in lieu of pay. The continuous intervention of foreign
mercenaries finally worked to their own expansionary advantage. Throughout this crisis,
down to his death in 1355, Stefan Dusan in particular exploited the chaos within Byzantium
to turn the Serbian state into a little empire, including much of Macedonia and large chunks
of northern Greece. Eventually Kantakouzenos triumphed, entering Constantinople in early
February 1347, and forming an accord with Anna whereby he and John V would rule as co-
emperors, the latter as the junior partner throughout the next decade. The liaison was sealed
later that May, when Kantakouzenos’ daughter, Helena, was married to Anna’s son, now aged
fifteen.
At this juncture Byzantium was truly in dilapidated shape, with its agricultural and
commercial foundations severely battered, an empty central treasury, and its populace
impoverished and demoralised. Against this background we can only assume that the impact
of bubonic plague, beginning in late summer 1347, was considerable - as indeed it was
in neighbouring areas like Cairo, where its horrors are well documented. Moreover, eight
subsequent outbreaks are recorded between the 1360s and 1420s.
While John V i’s ‘dual rule’ with his son-in-law between 1347 and 1354 is interesting
for his efforts, albeit futile, to impose a favourable balance of power and interests vis-à-
vis the re-established Italian colonies in Constantinople (Genoese and Venetian), and for
the support he gave to the triumph of hesychasm1 as championed by Gregory Palamas in
1351, ultimately it was a politically unstable arrangement that quickly unravelled. On the one
hand, Kantakouzenos’ own supporters felt that he should establish a dynasty in his own right,
elevating his son Matthew (b. 1325) as co-emperor and heir apparent. John V Palaiologos,
on the other hand, growing into his late teens and early twenties, began scheming to attain
full power, and be rid of Kantakouzenos’ tutelage. Down to 1353 Kantakouzenos attempted
1 A method of attaining divine illumination through meditation and the constant recitation of ‘the
prayer of the heart’, championed in the fourteenth century by St Gregory Palamas, but going back to
earlier ascetic practices.
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to conciliate the ambitions of both his son-in-law and his son, but finally, after John V had
unleashed a military attack upon Matthew, he relegated John V to exile on the island of Tenedos,
and in 1354 had Matthew crowned, with an appanage in Thrace. In effect, Kantakouzenos had
proclaimed what his antagonists had feared all along - the usurpation of Palaiologan rule.
The Palaiologoi, however, would not be displaced since popular and ecclesiastical opinion
supported the claims of John V, and the foundations of Kantakouzenos’ regime quickly
disintegrated. In 1354 the Ottoman Turks led by Orhan’s eldest son Süleyman Pasha occupied
the key fortress of Kallipolis. With this the Ottomans obtained an important crossing point
from Asia Minor to Thrace. In the ensuing months, Stileyman not only refused to surrender
Kallipolis, but began fostering Ottoman settlements throughout the Gallipoli peninsula, which
would form a spearhead for the Ottoman invasion of Thrace. This development created panic
in Constantinople. John V and the Genoese capitalized upon this to stage a coup that returned
him to the throne, in November 1354, now as sole occupant. Kantakouzenos abdicated and
became a monk, occupying himself with writing his memoirs and theological treatises until
his death in 1383.
John V’s final duel with Matthew Kantakouzenos in 1354-7 constituted the closing
stage of the protracted Palaiologan-Kantakouzenid rivalry. Throughout Matthew obtained
troops from Orhan, his brother-in-law, and Siileyman at Kallipolis may likewise have been
supportive. It climaxed in summer 1356 with Matthew’s capture, which derailed his planned
attack on Constantinople, and ended when he renounced his title (1357) and later withdrew
to the Morea (1361-83 or 1391). Thus, at the age of twenty-five John V finally established
himself as the rightful successor to Andronikos III.
As mentioned above, Stileyman Pasha’s movements into Thrace after spring 1354
represented the first steps in the Turkish expansion into south-eastern Europe. By the time
he died, in 1357, it was apparent to all that the Turks were well on the way to encircling
Constantinople from behind. The upper and middle stretches of the Maritsa River were under
Turkish control, and the key northern fortresses of Didymoteichon and Adrianople were
within striking distance. In occupied territory villages were being assigned as fiefs to various
commanders, some in fact being Turkified, as colonists from Anatolia moved into this new
‘land of opportunity’. The extent to which Orhan, the reigning Ottoman sultan, supported this
incipient expansion into Europe is not known, though he seemingly endorsed it without actively
participating himself. After a lull between 1357 and 1359, the Turkish commanders in Rumili
continued their raids, taking Didymoteichon in November 1361. These accelerated throughout
the 1360s, but without any central direction from Orhan’s successor, Murad I (1362-1389),
who was fully occupied in Anatolia during the first decade of his reign. Philippopolis, then
Bulgarian and a major fortification on the Belgrade-to-Constantinople highway, was captured
in 1363 or 1364. It seems, finally, that Adrianople was taken in 1369.
John V’s reaction to these setbacks cannot be plotted in detail, although he clearly
realised their gravity. At the outset of his sole rule, however, he concluded that the only viable
hope was aid from the west - judging from his appeal to Pope Innocent VI in 1355 for ships
and troops, proffering in return ecclesiastical union, and his son Manuel as papal ward and
guarantee of compliance. Innocent was unmoved. A decade later John placed his hopes on his
cousin, Amadeo VI of Savoy, who envisioned a crusade in the classic style, prefacing recovery
of the Holy Land with succour for Byzantium. Amadeo indeed sailed from Venice in June
1366 and seized Kallipolis from the Ottomans. Between April and early June 1367, John and
Amadeo explored a variety of possible stratagems in Constantinople, including an ecumenical

council to secure the union of the two churches, and John personally journeying to Rome to
formally confess the Catholic faith. When Amadeo returned to Italy with Byzantine envoys
the proposals were presented to Urban V, who rejected a council as useless, but welcomed the
prospect of an imperial visit. Perhaps moved by the fall of Adrianople, John V relented, and on
17 October 1369 professed the Catholic faith in the Hospital of the Holy Spirit in Rome. Three
days later he endured a public spectacle of submission on the steps of St Peter’s basilica.
No other Byzantine emperor had abased himself so profoundly to the papacy, which
ipso facto reveals the extent of John V’s despair over the future of his realm. After a further
five months’ stay in Rome, and another year in Venice, he returned to Constantinople in
autumn 1371. In the interim no help had materialised from the west, and the situation in the
Balkans had deteriorated even further. At this juncture, the epigonoi of Stefan Dusan’s empire
- principally King Vukasin, in the vicinity of Prilep, Skopje, and Ohrid, and his brother Jovan
Uglesa, based further south at Serres - attempted to organise a counter-offensive against the
Turks in the vicinity of Adrianople. On 26 September 1371, roughly a month before John
V ’s return, the Serbian forces confronted a Turkish army near the Maritsa River at Cemomen
and were annihilated. For the Serbs, the consequences of this defeat were momentous, since
Turkish absorption of the southern Slavic lands seemed virtually assured. Several of the
surviving lords now submitted to the Ottomans as tributary vassals, including the legendary
Marko Kraljevic, the son of King Vukasin, who had died in the battle.
Byzantium’s reaction to this disaster was mixed. On the one hand, John V’s most gifted
son, Manuel, then governor of Thessaloniki, exploited the Serbs’ defeat to recover Serres.
John V, conversely, drew the melancholy conclusion that he, too, must construct a modus
vivendi with the Ottomans on terms of vassalage. This was arranged with Sultan Murad
by treaty, according to which Byzantium was henceforth obliged to convey regular tribute
(kharadj), and contribute troops to the Ottoman army on demand. In return, John hoped
that Murad would restrain the Turks in Europe from attacking what remained of Byzantine
territory. In any event, the consequence of this pact was a new type of coexistence between
Constantinople and Bursa, one which drew the ruling elite on both sides into close contact
and collaboration.
1371/2- 1394 : The First Period of Vassalage to the Ottomans
After the initial treaty of vassalage between John V and Murad I was concluded in 1371/2,
Constantinople remained tributary to the Porte for a quarter of a century. On the Byzantine
side this encompassed the remainder of John V’s reign (he died in 1391), the usurpation of
his eldest son Andronikos IV (1376-9), the usurpation of the latter’s son John VII (summer
1390), and the early years of Manuel II, John V’s second bom. Murad I’s rule continued until
he was assassinated at the Battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389, when he was succeeded by his
remarkable son ‘Thunderbolt’ Bayezid, whom Tamerlane captured at the Battle of Ankara in
July 1402. The significance of this interval is twofold. Firstly, resurgent and persistent power
struggles within the Palaiologan clan intensified the entanglement between Byzantium and the
Ottomans, as ambitious competitors for the throne bargained with the sultans - and likewise
AFTER THE FALL 319
with the Italians, variously Venetians or Genoese - for support against the incumbent emperor.
In the process, the prestige of the imperial regime increasingly came to be questioned at
home and abroad. Parallel to this Byzantine political decay, the Ottomans continued their
steady advance into the central Balkans, establishing control largely through suzerainty over
a patchwork of Christian vassals. Under Murad, the highlights after c. 1371/2 included the
conquests of Sofia (1385) and Nis (1386), followed three years later by his fateful victory over
a large Serb and Bosnian coalition at Kosovo, which sealed the fate of the various Serbian
lordships. In 1393, Bayezid definitively annexed the core of Bulgaria to the empire. Against
the backdrop of this expansionary dynamic, let us sketch, now, the Palaiologan-Ottoman
interface in this first period of vassalage.
The ruinous ‘dependency relationships’ engendered by dynastic strife emerged when
John V became engulfed in a savage conflict with his son, Andronikos IV, who at that time
was the designated heir to the throne. In spring 1373 the latter staged a joint rebellion with
Murad I’s son, Savci Çelebi, their objective being to depose their respective fathers and rule in
their place. John V and Murad summarily co-ordinated strategies and forces (in the course of
which Murad probably made his first crossing into Rumili), and by late September Andronikos
had been captured and partially blinded (as was his three-year-old son John [VII]), and Savci
Çelebi most probably had been executed.
In punishment, Andronikos and his son were now imprisoned; John V elevated his
second son, Manuel, as co-emperor; and the seeds of a long vendetta were sown. In the next
episode, in July 1376, Andronikos and his son escaped, obtained Genoese and Turkish help,
and returned to Constantinople to wreak vengeance. John V and Manuel were captured and
put in prison, where they languished for the next three years, while Andronikos established his
rule, crowning his own son John as his co-emperor. Murad evidently shifted his support from
John V to Andronikos IV because the latter promised, in compensation for troops, the return
of Kallipolis (which Amadeo of Savoy had captured in 1366) - and this indeed transpired
by 1377. Beyond the dynamics of dynastic strife, the motives for Andronikos’ usurpation
are difficult to fathom, although he may have represented a faction that rejected John V’s
submission to the papacy as a humiliating return to the errors of Michael VIII.
The pattern of Andronikos’ coup in 1376 was repeated in June 1379, when John V and
Manuel escaped, predictably with Venetian help, and promptly journeyed to Bursa, offering
the sultan larger tribute if he would abandon Andronikos, and back the restoration of John
V. Again Murad nodded to the highest bidder, and thus in late June of that year, assisted by
Venetian ships and Turkish troops, John V and Manuel attacked Constantinople, managed an
entry, and re-established their regime. On this occasion, however, Andronikos evaded capture
and retreated with his family and hostages to Galata, where he fought on with Genoese
support until 1381. Finally, in May 1381, a family compact was reached whereby Andronikos
would be forgiven and reinstated as John V’s heir, and thereafter the succession would pass to
Andronikos’ son John, the future John VII.
This arrangement, however, failed to restore peace and harmony among the Palaiologoi.
Since Manuel had effectively been excluded from the succession, he angrily returned to
Thessaloniki in 1382, and thereafter pursued a rebellious course, embarrassing to John V’s
policy of compliance with Murad. By 1383 Manuel had established suzerainty over Thessaly
and Epiros, a wayward ‘expansionism’ that so alarmed the sultan that he dispatched troops to
obtain the surrender of Thessaloniki. This Manuel refused, and consequently, down to 1387,
he was occupied defending the city from an Ottoman siege. Meanwhile, Andronikos IV and
his son John had retired to their appanage centred on Selymbria, but were still embroiled in
territorial disputes with John V when Andronikos died in 1385.
The tragedy of Palaiologan political history in this decade and the next was that
Andronikos IV’s conflict with his kinsmen was not buried at his death. Instead, it persisted
as a legacy to his son, John [VII], who in 1385 was fifteen, and keenly ambitious to preserve
the provisions of the 1381 succession pact. His fears that his claims might be overturned were
exacerbated in spring 1387, when Thessaloniki capitulated to Hayreddin Pasha, and Manuel
began manoeuvring for reconciliation with his father - and likewise the sultan. Eventually
in the autumn of that year John V permitted his son to return to Constantinople at Murad’s
behest, and Manuel’s ambition focused on trying to recover his status as John V’s co-emperor
and designated successor. While the elder emperor was not unsympathetic (in 1387 he was
aged fifty-five), he resisted taking action that would push his grandson to rebellion, and thus
left Manuel’s political status undetermined, relegating him to provisional exile on the island
of Lemnos, where he would remain through late summer or early autumn 1389.
For John [VII], Manuel’s progress from Thessaloniki to Constantinople was sufficient
cause to begin preparations for a coup against his grandfather, which he intended to accomplish
with Genoese and Ottoman support. By May 1389 he was in Genoa, where he was recognised
as emperor and received loans. He returned east to approach the sultan early in 1390 - by now
Bayezid had replaced Murad - after rumours had reached him that John V had died. In point
of fact the latter had fallen seriously ill, which apparently prompted Manuel to rush from
Lemnos to his father’s side - strategically positioned, as it were, for immediate succession.
But John V miraculously recovered, and likewise seems to have sanctioned Manuel’s return,
anticipating that war with his grandson would shortly commence. Indeed, when the younger
John met Bayezid, the latter agreed to provide him with troops, though it is again unclear
precisely what was promised in compensation. In any event, John’s bid for power as John VII
was successful, sympathisers inside Constantinople facilitating his entry the night of 13/14
April 1390. His reign lasted only five months, however, throughout which his grandfather
remained blockaded in a little fortress near the Golden Gate, and his uncle Manuel scurried
for military assistance from other quarters to topple his nephew’s regime.
John VII’s grasp on power in Constantinople was undermined by Manuel’s success in
obtaining help from the Knights Hospitallers of Rhodes, for which he pawned a large stash of
ecclesiastical treasures. Once he and his father had re-established themselves on the throne,
their key problem was reconstructing a modus vivendi with Bayezid, and finding stratagems
to keep John VII from again subverting their rule. The latter challenge would occupy Manuel,
off and on, down to John VII’s death in 1408. An accommodation was reached with Bayezid,
part of which involved the dismantling of the Golden Gate fortification, and documentary
evidence suggests that the sultan did not oppose Manuel’s succession to John V, when he at
length died in February 1391. Thereafter down to 1394, Manuel behaved himself towards
Bayezid as a loyal vassal, however much psychological and ideological turmoil it caused him
(as is evident from his writings). Conversely, whatever reconciliation he achieved with his
nephew was transitory and superficial.
More than anything else, the political tergiversations that unfolded between 1373 and
1394 underscore how very much the fate of the Palaiologoi depended on the will of foreigners,
principally Italians and Turks, and how profoundly incapable that clan was of articulating
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power amicably within its ranks for the general welfare of its subjects. They also show how
skilfully Murad and Bayezid manipulated the family rivalries of their Christian vassals to
maximise their advantage.
1394- 1424 : Rebellion and Precariously Recovered Autonomy
Manuel IPs rationale for breaking with his father’s long-standing policy of subordination to
the Ottomans is profoundly mysterious, particularly since his material and military resources
were slender as ever. It is evident, however, that in 1393/4 Manuel had been negotiating with
John VII for a formal reconciliation, the crux of which entailed a redefinition of the succession
order, and that John betrayed this to Bayezid, who was furious. Indeed, during the assembly
of vassals Bayezid convened at Serres in 1393/4, after the reduction of Trnovo, he reportedly
ordered Manuel’s execution, but then relented. Manuel himself asserts that this episode
destroyed his ‘friendship’ with the sultan, and a further provocation may have arisen when
Bayezid demanded the construction of a new mosque, installation of a kadi, and establishment
of a large Turkish colony in Constantinople. Whatever the background, Manuel broke his ties
with the Ottomans in about spring 1394 - in essence, refusing to pay the kharadj, provide
troops, or simply answer the sultan’s summons. From the Ottoman perspective this was an act
of rebellion, the first of its type by a tekfur (tributary prince) of Constantinople.
Bayezid’s response was necessarily military, and he now launched an attack on
Constantinople that was to last, off and on, for about eight years. As is evident from Manuel’s
own writings, Bayezid’s initial objectives, or at least professed objectives, were not to displace
Palaiologan rule, but rather to reinstall John VII as the sultan’s loyal lieutenant. Whatever the
case, his assault on Constantinople certainly played a role (though hardly a decisive one) in
stimulating Philip the Bold of Burgundy and Sigismund of Hungary to organise one of the
last great international crusades. From spring 1394 to autumn 1396, the Ottoman action at
Constantinople was more a blockade than a determined siege. However, following Bayezid’s
spectacular victory over the forementioned crusaders at Nicopolis on 25 September 1396,
a major contingent of Ottoman forces was positioned at the walls, and a full-scale siege
unfolded. The situation quickly became desperate, but Manuel persevered in organising
defences through late 1399, when he was persuaded by Marshal Boucicaut (who had earlier
arrived with minor relief) to journey to France and appeal for more serious help from the
west. Through Boucicaut’s good offices, John VII and Manuel were reconciled, and John,
incredibly, was left in command of Constantinople while his uncle sailed west.
Manuel’s subsequent travels in Europe (from 10 December 1399 to 9 June 1403) involved
state visits to Venice, Padua, Milan, Paris, and London. Throughout he was generously
entertained, and he regarded King Henry IV as a particularly charming and likeable host.
Even so, his negotiations with the western princes resulted in no appreciable aid or military
commitments. Indeed, during the year and a half he resided in the Louvre as guest of Charles
VI, perhaps his most significant accomplishment was writing a lengthy treatise on the orthodox
view of the procession of the Holy Spirit.
In the Byzantines’ own view, Constantinople was saved by the timely intervention of the
Virgin Mary, and indeed it was a kind of deus ex machina, in the person of Timur (Tamerlane),
that averted its surrender in 1402. In late July of that year, while Manuel was still in Paris,
the great khan’s decisive clash with Bayezid took place at the battle of Ankara: the Ottoman
army was disastrously routed, and Bayezid himself was captured. It appears, moreover, that
John VII had negotiated with Timur in summer 1401, offering Byzantine solidarity against
the Ottomans. In the aftermath of Bayezid’s defeat, the Ottoman assault on Constantinople
evaporated, and early in 1403 a peace treaty was drawn up between John VII and other local
Christian powers, on the one side, and Bayezid’s successor in Rumili, Stileyman Çelebi. The
treaty favoured Byzantium. The emperors were formally absolved of tributary obligations and
recovered Thessaloniki, Mount Athos, a stretch of the Black Sea coast from Constantinople
to Mesembria or Varna, and a few Aegean islands. When Manuel himself returned to
Constantinople, the treaty was reconfirmed, and he additionally gave his illegitimate niece,
Theodora, in marriage to Süleyman.
The mood in Byzantium after 1402 was one of renewed, albeit qualified, optimism about
future chances for survival. Not only had the threat of Bayezid been eliminated, his empire
was now in ruins - deconstructed to its earlier dimensions by Timur, and reduced to chaos
by protracted wars of succession among Bayezid’s sons, played out between 1403 and 1413.
By the latter date Mehmed I had triumphed, with generous Byzantine support. Mehmed’s
sole, undisputed reign continued down to May 1421, and throughout these years a stable
coexistence prevailed between Constantinople and the Ottomans. Much of this was due to
the even hand of Manuel II, as well as the willingness of Mehmed to refrain from resurgent
expansionism.
This period of peace quickly disintegrated in late 1421, largely owing to a change of
leadership in Constantinople. By 1420 Manuel II was an exhausted man of seventy, and had
resolved to withdraw from public life. In 1421 he surrendered the helm to his eldest son,
John VIII, whose attitude to the Turks was less restrained and diplomatic than his father’s.
Simultaneously there was a change of leadership on the Ottoman side, when Mehmed I died in
May 1421 and was succeeded by his son Murad II. The latter’s attitude towards the Byzantines
was hardly accommodating and the stage was set for confrontations that ultimately would
restore the status quo ante 1403.
When John VIII and his advisers learned of Mehmed’s death, they stupidly resolved to
incite an internal rebellion against the new sultan. To that end, in August 1421, they backed
the pretensions of a certain Mustafa, who claimed to be a long-lost son of Bayezid, and
indeed gathered some support in Europe. Murad II’s reply, however, was swift and decisive.
In January 1422 his army smashed Mustafa’s troops, and Mustafa was captured and hanged.
The following June he dispatched an army to attack Constantinople, and another to besiege
Thessaloniki. In the face of these disasters Manuel counselled yet another trouble-making
stratagem to divert Murad - namely, supporting the claims of his brother in Anatolia, Küçük
Mustafa. After a general assault on Constantinople failed on 24 August, Murad withdrew
in early September to deal with Mustafa, who by now was besieging Bursa. Eventually, in
February 1424, Manuel and Murad negotiated a settlement whereby Constantinople was again
reduced to tributary status - the price for survival, according to the historian Doukas, was now
300,000 silver coins per year.
In essence, the entire interval from 1394 through 1424 was shaped by Manuel II’s vision
of liberation from ‘servitude’ to the Ottomans, and its genuine successes, aside from the
accidents of fortune or divine intervention, rested on his savoir faire as a statesman tempering
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the headiness of rebellion and recovered autonomy with the practicalities of coexistence and
accommodation. His successors were, unfortunately, made of lesser stuff.
1424- 1453 : Restored Vassalage and Final Defeats
Given the nastiness of the conflict that had unfolded between 1421 and 1424, the Ottomans
could hardly help but regard Palaiologan Constantinople as a liability, the direct absorption of
which was by now, if not before, a prime desideratum. Nonetheless, throughout the remainder
of Manuel IPs reign (he died in 1425), the sole rule of John VIII (1425-1448) and the early
years of Constantine XI (1449-1451) Murad II left Constantinople in peace, and the terms
of the 1424 treaty were observed. The critical shift in attitude came with the accession in
February 1451 of Mehmed II, for whom the conquest of the city was a driving ambition.
John VIII’s reign was suffused with a mood of profound apprehension and repeated
disappointments. While Constantinople enjoyed a measure of peace and security after 1424,
what remained of Byzantium elsewhere was in a state of chronic threat. As a punitive gesture,
the Morea (which, under Despot Theodore II (1407-1443) had begun to expand at the expense
of the Latins) was ravaged by the troops of Turahan Beg in late May 1423. In Macedonia,
the siege of Thessaloniki that Murad had launched in 1422 continued with such intensity
that famine was endemic. Under these dire circumstances, the Byzantines surrendered the
city to the Venetians (September 1423), who were quickly overwhelmed by the costs of its
defence. Finally in spring 1430 Murad II resolved to take Thessaloniki once and for all, and
personally led an enormous army into Macedonia. Since its leaders had refused to surrender
peacefully, Thessaloniki was now subjected to a fearful three days of destruction and plunder;
the captives unable to secure ransom were sent to the slave markets of Rumili and Anatolia.
When the canonical three days of license had passed, Murad immediately enacted measures
to reconstruct the city. At that time, the former second city of the empire numbered around
2,000 inhabitants.
Although the fall of Thessaloniki in 1430 was certainly considered a powerful portent
of doom, the Rhomaioi and their leaders still nurtured hopes over the next decade and a half
that their fortunes might again change for the better. Some still believed that the west might
rally to a vigorous defence, especially if the churches of Constantinople and Rome could
be brought into a sincere union. There was also the parallel hope that the central European
powers, especially the Hungarian kings, might finally sense a lethal danger across the Danube
and mount serious expeditions against the Ottomans in Europe. Indeed, in the late 1430s and
1440s, there was a bustle of anti-Ottoman activity, although the results were again transitory.
On the Byzantine side, John VIII renewed efforts to attain union with Rome in the late
1430s, negotiating for a resolution of dogmatic differences at a council to be held in Europe.
It was agreed that the locale would be Italy, and that the emperor and his retinue would
participate. This council was eventually held in two places, and hence is termed the Council
of Ferrara-Florence (1438-9). John VII, the patriarch Joseph, and other high dignitaries duly
arrived in Ferrara early in 1438, and after lengthy discussions a basis for agreement was
found. The orthodox substantially accepted the doctrine of papal primacy, and conceded that
thefilioque dispute was based on a semantic confusion. This solution failed to satisfy everyone
in the imperial party, and indeed some objected and left. Nonetheless, a formal union was
celebrated on 6 July 1439, in the recently built cathedral of Florence.
As in the past, the benefits of union turned out to be negligible for Byzantium. Most
importantly, it did not evoke much western sympathy for the plight of Constantinople. At the
same time, it again alienated the imperial regime from the orthodox community. At home and
elsewhere in the ‘orthodox commonwealth’, John VIII’s behaviour was branded as betrayal,
on a par with that of Michael VIII. In Constantinople, the division over union was particularly
serious, since it now fractioned a populace facing the inevitability of a renewed Ottoman
effort to conquer the city. Already, in the aftermath of Ferrara-Florence, there were those
wondering if the ‘mufti’s turban’ would be preferable to the ‘papal tiara’.
A Christian military revival in the 1440s initially showed some promise of success, but
ultimately failed to reverse the situation. At that time several powerful antagonists to the
Ottomans emerged in the western and northern Balkans. In Transylvania, the voivoda Janosh
Corvinus Hunyadi mounted a series of successful campaigns against the Turks in Serbia and
Wallachia. The same spirit was to be seen in the young Hungarian king, Vladislav III, and the
Serbian despot George Brankovic. In Albania, a colourful resistance leader appeared in the
person of Georgios Kastriotes or ‘Scanderbeg’ (a corruption of ‘Iskender Beg’). This spirit
of regionalised resistance eventually crystallised into another international crusade. In the
autumn of 1443, a combined force of some 25,000 warriors crossed the Danube under the
leadership of Vladislav, Hunyadi and Brankovic, defeating the Ottoman regional commander
at Nis, temporarily occupying Sofia, and then wintering back in the northern Balkans.
Overwhelmed with problems in Anatolia, Murad II negotiated an armistice (June 1444),
which the Hungarians promptly broke the following autumn. Inspired by his recent successes,
Vladislav believed the opportunity had come to drive the Ottomans from the Balkans, and
hence in September he organised another expedition, though without Serbian participation.
When this army clashed with Murad II at Varna (10 November 1444), it was annihilated, and
the revived hopes of the 1430s and 1440s perished with it.
With the end of the 1440s and early 1450s came the last change of rulership, on both the
Palaiologan and Ottoman sides, before the fall of Byzantium. In Constantinople, John VIII
died childless in 1448, to be succeeded by his brother Constantine, despot of the Morea, and
since 1447 likewise tributary to the Porte. In 1451, Murad II died and was succeeded by one
of the most fascinating figures of the entire fifteenth century - Fàtih Mehmed, or ‘Mehmed
the Conqueror’, in whose hands the fate of Constantinople now rested.
If the nineteen-year-old Mehmed ascended the Ottoman throne with vague plans of
taking the city, Constantine XI quickly supplied him with a pretext to act when, in autumn
1451, he threatened to foment a rebellion against the new sultan unless certain subsidies were
provided. Within six months Mehmed signalled the tenor of his reply, when he began building
an enormous fortification up the Bosporos (the ‘Boghaz-Kesen’ or ‘Channel Cutter’), intended
to control traffic plying those waters, and as a preliminary to his assault on Constantinople.
Constantine, in turn, was firmly convinced that the survival of the city depended on close
relations with the west. When the papal legate, Cardinal Isidore, arrived he was greeted with
the utmost courtesy, and a celebration of the union was held in St Sophia (12 December 1452),
something which John VIII had at least deferred. In point of fact, the union proved worthless
in defending Constantinople from Mehmed’s soldiers, who began their attack on 6 April 1453,
and penetrated the walls on 29 May. The fate of Thessaloniki in 1430 was repeated, and again
AFTER THE FALL 325
the conquering sultan would quickly turn his attention to the more difficult task of rebuilding,
repopulating and revitalising the city.
With Constantine XFs death in battle that mournful day, and Fàtih Mehmed’s triumphal
journey to St Sophia - henceforth the premier mosque in Constantinople - the core of the
Byzantine state was extinguished forever. The subsequent acquisitions of Mistra (1460) and
Trebizond (1461) were but aftershocks. Yet by this victory Mehmed had not destroyed a
culture, a faith, or a people. The essential rhythms of Byzantine life would endure within the
framework of the Ottoman order, and beyond.
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Angold, M., A Byzantine Government in Exile: Government and Society under the Laskarids o f Nicaea
(1204-1261) (Oxford, 1975).
Barker, J.W., Manuel II Palaeologus (1391-1425): a Study in Late Byzantine Statesmanship (New
Brunswick NJ, 1969).
Bartusis, M.C., The Late Byzantine Army: Arms and Society, 1204-1453 (Philadelphia PA, 1992).
Bosch, U.V., Kaiser Andronikos III. Palaiologos: Versuch einer Darstellung der byzantinischen
Geschichte in denJahren 1321-1341 (Amsterdam, 1965).
Cahen, C., Pre-Ottoman Turkey: A General Survey o f the Material and Spiritual Culture c. 1071-1330,
trans. J. Jones-Williams (New York, 1968).
Catalogue o f the Byzantine coins in the Dumbarton Oaks collection and in the Whittemore collection (5
vols, Washington DC, 1966-99), esp. vol. 4: Alexius I to Michael V III1081-1261, ed. M . Hendy (2
parts, 1999); vol. 5: Michael VIII to Constantine X I 1258-1453, ed. P. Grierson (2 parts, 1999).
Dennis, G., The Reign o f Manuel II Palaeologus in Thessalonica, 1382-1387 (Orientalia Christiana
Analecta 159) (Rome, 1960).
Djuric, I., Sumrak Vizantije: Vreme Jovana VIII Paleologa (1392-1448) [The Twilight o f Byzantium: The
Age o f John VIII Palaiologos (1392 1448)] (Belgrade, 1984) [with French synopsis pp. 431-48].
Ducellier, A., Chrétiens d ’Orient et Islam au Moyen Âge VIIe-XVe siècle (Paris, 1996), esp. pp. 260-
452.
Geanakoplos, D., Emperor Michael Palaeologus and the West, 1258-1281: a Study in Byzantine-Latin
Relations (Cambridge M A , 1959).
Gill, J., Byzantium and the Papacy 1198-1400 (New Brunswick NJ, 1979).
Fleet, K., European and Islamic Trade in the Early Ottoman State: the Merchants o f Genoa and Turkey
(Cambridge, 1999).
Imber, C., The Ottoman Empire 1300-1481 (Istanbul, 1990).
Laiou, A., Constantinople and the Latins: The Foreign Policy o f Andronikos I I 1282-1328 (Cambridge
M A, 1972).
Lindner, R.P., Explorations in Ottoman Prehistory (Ann Arbor M I, 2007).
Lock, P., The Franks in the Aegean 1204-1500 (London, 1995).
Lowry, H., The Nature o f the Early Ottoman State (Albany NY, 2003).
Nicol, D., Byzantium and Venice: A Study in Diplomatic and Cultural Relations (Cambridge, 1988).
Nicol, D., The Despotate o f Epiros 1267-1479: A Contribution to the History o f Greece in the Middle
Ages (Cambridge, 1984).
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Nicol, D., The Immortal Emperor: The Life and Legend o f Constantine Palaiologos, Last Emperor o f
the Romans (Cambridge, 1992).
Nicol, D., The Reluctant Emperor: A biography o f John Cantacuzene, Byzantine Emperor and Monk, c.
1295 1383 (Cambridge, 1996).
Oikonomides, N., Hommes d ’affaires grecs et latins à Constantinople (XlIIe-XVe siècles) (Montreal,
1979).
Radie, R., Vreme Jovana V Paleologa (1332-1391) [The Age o f John V Palaiologos (1332-1391)]
(Belgrade, 1993) [with English synopsis pp. 465-90].
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Langdon et al. (eds), To Hellenikon: Studies in Honor o f Speros Vryonis, Jr. (2 vols, New Rochelle
NY, 1993), vol. 1, pp. 289-365.
Ronchey, S., ‘Orthodoxy on Sale: the Last Byzantine, and the Lost Crusade’, in E. Jeffreys (ed.),
Proceedings o f the 21st International Congress o f Byzantine Studies, London 21-26 August 2006 (3
vols, Aldershot, 2006), vol. 1, pp. 313-42.
Runciman, S., The Fall o f Constantinople 1453 (Cambridge, 1965).
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Successors (Washington DC, 1984).
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Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century (Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1971).
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218-28) and ‘The Palaeologan Revival’ (pp. 229-64).
13
Some Observations on the Administrative Terminology of
the Second Bulgarian Empire (13th—14th Centuries)*
Ivan Biliarsky
To the memory of N. Oikonomidès

Abstract
The paper presents some aspects of the juridical terminology in the Second
Bulgarian Empire: the appellations of the titles of the hierarchical system
and those of the administrative services. The use of the statistical methods
offers some impressive results in regard to the correlation between the terms
of Byzantine origin (translated or transliterated from Greek) and those that
derive from Bulgar language, either purely Slavonic terms or ones of other
derivation. About three quarters of the terminology derives from the juridical
language of the Eastern Roman Empire! These results might be supported
by the observations on the fiscal terms, the appellations of the territorial
units and so on. Needless to say that these results are not unexpected —
they confirm again the affiliation of the mediaeval Bulgaria to the East
Roman or byzantine civilisation.
1. The juridical and political terminology of late mediaeval

Bulgaria. 2. The terms of Greek origin (transliterated or
translated). 3. Slavic terms. 4. Terms of Turk origin and those
linked to the traditions of the Eurasian Steppes. 5. Summary.
1. The choice of the institutional system of a state, as well as the

choice of its political doctrine, is and has always been a choice of
cultural affiliation, a sign of belonging to the civilisation. This was
the case of the mediaeval states of the Balkan Slavs who had done
* I completed this article at the University of St. Andrews/Scotland during my tenure

of a fellowship granted by Royal Society of Edinburgh/Caledonian Research Foundation.
IVAN BILIARSKY
their choice at the moment of their Evangelisation. They adopted the

East-Orthodox Christianity from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of
Constantinople and associated themselves to the community that
Dimitri Obolensky labelled about thirty years ago as ‘The Byzantine
Commonwealth V The administrative terminology is derivative of the
institutional system and its choice predetermines the type of
terminology. In this article I will not attempt to resolve all the
theoretical or historical problems concerning the reception of the
juridical and administrative order in the Balkan Middle Ages. My
aim is to propose a comparative presentation of the administrative
terminology of the late mediaeval Bulgarian state with its imperial
archetype of Constantinople.
The First Bulgarian Empire preserved both its institutions, related
to the traditions of the Eurasian Steppes, and its Turk state terminology.2
This system was destroyed during the conquest and political domination
of Constantinople’s authority that began at the outset of the 11th
century. The Second Bulgarian Empire, restored in the last decades
of the 12th century, was already a state of 6Byzantine ’ type. It
maintained the status quo from the rule of the Rhômaioi and created
an administrative and institutional order (or hierarchy ) following
strictly the model of Constantinople.
The institutions’ appellations, the titles and the administrative
services are very important for the study of the state system of late
mediaeval Bulgaria. Unfortunately, their study is hampered by the
shortage of documentary sources. We have only about fifteen original
mediaeval Bulgarian documents and most of them are concerned with
the estates of some of the major monasteries in Macedonia. The
evidence of the epigraphic sources is also meagre. There is neither
official list of dignitaries, description of the imperial court and palace,
nor tabula of the military and civil ranks, and order of the banquet
1. D. Obolensky, The Byzantine Commonwealth. Eastern Europe, 500-1453 (London

1971).
2. On the Protobulgarian institutions of the First Bulgarian Empire see: V. Besevliev,
Parvobulgarski nadpisi (Sofía 1992); M. Andreev, D. Angelov, Istorija na bulgarskata
feodalna darzhava i pravo (Sofía 1972); Iv. Venedikov, Voennoto i administrativnoto
ustrojstvo na Bulgaria prez IX-X vek (Sofia 1979).
70
AFTER THE FALL 329
ADMINISTRATIVE TERMINOLOGY OF THE SECOND BULGARIAN EMPIRE
table of the sovereign ... There also is no description of the positions

of the state offices and their hierarchy. Their duties and power, rights
and authorisation are not clear as well. The lack of evidence requires
an etymological approach to the sources. Studying the origin and
significance of institution’s name will help us to reach conclusions
on its status. In this way, the study of the administrative appellations
is important not only in order to understand the system and its units,
but also to estimate its historical, ideological and cultural significance.
We have fifty four names of state offices, apart from the imperial
title 6tsar’, that can be classified by their derivation as follows: forty
of Greek origin (thirty one are transliterated and nine translated or
translated literally, calqués ), eleven of Slavonic origin and only three
of Turk origin. The balance is significant and it is important to study
the particular cases in order to reveal the attitude demonstrated by
the creation of this type of terminology.
2. It will be appropriate to start with the G r e e k t e r m s that dominate

in the list of offices and have special importance for our study.
2.1. The t r a n s l i t e r a t e d GREEK t e r m s , including those of Latin origin
introduced in the Bulgarian state terminology through Greek, come
first. These are the three 6imperial dignities' (‘déliai roí) ¡3aaiXé(0C*):
despot, sebastocrator and caesar/kesar.
The term despot is of Greek origin, and is well evidenced in the

ancient Greek texts. It is composed of ‘ô ea-’ (‘ô&jua-’) and ‘- t t ot t ic ’
(see Latin 4possu m \ 6p o te sta s ’) and had the original meaning of
‘homelord’ or ‘lord’.3 It was part of the imperial title and is often
mentioned in the coin inscriptions. The history of this dignitary is
known and there is no need to discuss it in great detail.4 It is important
only to emphasise that the Slavonic term is undoubtedly a transliteration
of the Greek title. Moreover, the mediaeval Bulgarian and Serbian
3. Prellwit, Etymologische Worterbuch der griechischen Sprache (Gottingen 1905)

112 .
4. See the classical study of B. Ferjancic, Despoti u Vizantiji i u juznoslovenskim
zemljama (Beograd 1960) and earlier study o f R. Guilland, Recherches sur les institutions
byzantines, vol. II ( Berliner byzantinische Arbeiten , Bd. 35, 2) (Berlin-Amsterdam
1967) 1-24 (= Revue des études byzantines, 17 (1959) 52-89).
71
IVAN BILIARSKY
title with the same name derived and did not differ substantively
from the Constantinopolitan one.5
The title sebastocrator appears in the Bulgarian texts of the 13th
century but not in those from the 14th century.6 The Slavonic title
— ‘sebastocrator’ — is a transliteration of the Greek archetype
‘aePaaTOKparoop5. Despite the endeavours of certain scholars to
maintain that this institution had specific characteristics in the states
of the Balkan Slavs and especially in Bulgaria,7 it is obvious that it
derived and followed the Constantinopolitan model.8
The problem concerning the meaning of the title caesar/kesar in
mediaeval Bulgaria is more complicated because its existence is not
well confirmed by the sources.9 Although I insisted on its existence
I can only make reference to the well-known imperial title, which
has its roots in the later Roman Empire. The name of the institution
is Latin — 4C aesar\ but the Slavonic variant lk e sa f derived,
undoubtedly, from the Greek appellation ‘K a i a a p ’.10
It is also worth mentioning two other ‘pure titles’ that do not
designate a service in the administration (or the 4dignités oisives ’
5. Iv. Biliarsky, ‘The Despots in Mediaeval Bulgaria’, Byzantinobulgarica (1995)»

passim; idem, Institutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria. Vtoro bülgarsko tsarstvo (XII-XIV
vek) (Sofia 1998) 17-84. These studies present all the sources on the Bulgarian despots.
6. Our data on the title of sebastocrator derive from Bulgarian, Greek and Serbian
narrative texts, from the inscriptions of Boyna church, from the Synodicon of tsar
Boril and the treaty of tsar Michael II with Dubrovnik (AD 1253) — see note 5.
7. I allude to the very strange thesis of E. Kojceva (Savceva), following some ideas
of P. Petrov-E. Savceva, ‘The Office and the Title of Sebastocrator in Bulgaria’,
Etudes balkaniques 4 (1978) 70-74; eadem, ‘Particularités étatiques et juridiques du
titre “sebastocrator” en Bulgarie durant la période XlIIe-XIVe siècle’, Etudes balkaniques
3 (1979) 53-71.
8. See B. Ferjancic, ‘Sevastokratori u Vizantiji’, ZRVI II (1968) 141-190; idem,
‘Sevastokratori i cesari u Srpskom carstvu’, Zbornik Filozofskog fakulteta u Beogradu
XI, 1 (1970) 255 sq.; Biliarsky, Instituciite na srednovekovna Bulgarija, p. 96-99.
9. We know it only from a liturgical source — a prayer for the promotion of a
caesar and other axiai: Iv. Biliarsky, ‘Le rite du couronnement des tsars dans les pays
slaves et promotion d’autres axiaV, Orientalia Christiana Periodica 59, 1 (1993) 106,
133-134; idem, ‘Titlta “kesar” v srednovekovna Bulgarija’, Istoriceski pregled, 11
(1989) 54-57; idemy Instituciite 111-115.
10. Verpeaux, Pseudo Kodinos , 134 (1), 148 sq.; Oikonomidès, Les listes ..., 293;
Guilland, Recherches ..., II, 25-43 [= Orientalia Christiana periodica , 13 (1947)
168-194],
72
AFTER THE FALL 331
following the expression of N. Oikonomidès) — the protosebast and

the sebast.u There is no scholarly agreement about the character of
these institutions in Bulgaria and Serbia.12 The problem is that they
are usually mentioned among the clerks of the provincial administration
in the immunity formula of the edicts. It is improbable, however,
that these institutions had different juridical character from the
Constantinopolitan archetype. Moreover, it is clear that the Slavonic
terms 4protosevasf and ‘sevasf had been transliterated from the Greek
‘7rpoyroG£(3aaToc’ and 'a& âoioc’.13
The transliterated Greek terms also dominate among the palace
offices and the government administration. In this group very
interesting are the cases of a composite denomination of an institution
when its name is the compound of two words, one translated and
second transliterated. Usually, the adjective is added to the name of
the office (for example ‘great dux'). They are classified in this group
because the translated adjective was not definitive for the meaning
of the title.
11. The title of protosebast is known from a charter of the Serbian king Milutin for
Chilandari (AD 1300) and from the Synodicon of tsar Boril (Novakovic, Zakonski
spomenitsi ..., 391, 392; M.G. Popruzenko, Sinodik carja Borila, Bulgarski starini,
kn. VIII (Sofia 1928) 90, No. 132). The title of sebast is cited in some charters of
Bulgarians tsars (Vatopedi, Virginska, Mracka, Rila — v. IFinskij, Gramoty bolgarskih
carej, 15 (14), 18 (98-99), 25 (28, 38), 27 (53); M. Lascaris, Vatopedskata gramota
(Sofia 1930) 5 (9) and from two inscriptions — Satnimashki i Bozhenishki — v.
V. Zlatarski, ‘Asenevijat nadpis pri Stanimaka’, in: idem, Izbrani proizvedenija , t. II
(Sofia 1984) 405; P. Mutafciev, ‘Bozeniskija nadpis’, in: idem, Izbrani proizvedenija,
t. I (Sofia 1973) 493.
12. Mutafciev, ‘Bozhezeniskija nadpis’, 494-495; Lascaris, Vatopedskata gramota, 37;
V. Gjuzelev, ‘Nadpisa ot krepostta’, in: Bozheniski Urvich (Sofia 1979) 43; P. Petrov,
‘O titulah “sevast” i “protosevast” v srednevekovom bolgarskom gosudarstve’, VV17
(1959) 52 sq.; M. Andreev, ‘Sluzhbite na provincialnoto upravlenie na srednovekovna
Bulgaria i na srednovekovna Serbia spored dannite ot darstvenite gramoti na bulgarskite
i srabskite vladeteli ot XIII-XIV v .\ Godisnik na Sofijskija universitet, Juridiceski
fakultet, 2 (1967) 11, 16, 19, 26-27; Biliarsky, Instituciite ..., 119 sq., 125 sq.
13. On these titles in the Empire see J. Verpeaux, Pseudo Kodinos. Traité des offices
(Paris 1966) 137 (9), 139 (30), 175 (15-16); L. Bréhier, Les institutions de VEmpire
byzantin, (Le monde byzantin, vol. II) (Paris 1949) 138-139; N. Oikonomidès,
‘L’évolution de l’organisation administrative de l’Empire byzantin au Xle siècle (1025-
1118)’, TM 6 (1976) 126 sq.
73
IVAN BILIARSKY
It is very important that the institutions linked to the court and the
central administration had also the character of titles. The title’ hierarchy,
the sacred hierarchy of the Empire, determined the character of the
institutional system as a whole. It is important, then, to see what was
the leading principle in creating the terminology applied to them.
Almost all palace offices preserve the original Greek appellations,
but written in Cyrillic letters. We should begin with the title and the
service of the protovestiarios in Bulgaria14 mentioned in the History
of John Cantacuzenos.15 There is no evidence about the origin of the
Slavonic title, but we have sufficient reasons to confirm it was
transliterated into Slavonic from the Greek term ‘TrpcoroPeanapioc’
only with elimination of the nominative suffix. The Slavonic sources
from Serbia and Valachia and Moldova confirm this observation.16
The title 'great prim ikirios ’ 17 ( ‘velik primikjur’) is another example
of a court office that had a name transliterated from the Greek.
Although its archetype is ‘¡j-éyac 7rpi|Li|jiKrÍpioc’18 the whole
appellation was composed with the addition of a translated adjective.
The Latin word ‘prim icerius ’ entered the Slavonic language through
its Greek form. However, this is not evident for the institution of the
‘great comes' (probably ‘k o uric rou orauA ou'19). The problem is
that its existence is evidenced only in a Latin source.20 It is to
14. Guilland, Recherches . . ., I, 216-236; Bréhier, Les institutions ..., 130-131;

Verpeaux, Pseudo Kodinos, 134 (2), 167 (7-11); Oikonomidès, Les listes ..., 305;
Biliarsky, Institutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria, 156 sq.
15. Ioannis Cantacuzeni eximperatoris Historiarum libri IV, ed. L. Schopen (Bonnae
1828) t. I, 1. 11.26, 458 (19).
16. St. Novakovic, Zakonski spomenici srpskih drzhava srednjego veka (Beograd
1912) 97, 174-175, 198, 200, 213, 236, 601; Documenta Romaniae historica, ser. B,
vol. I, 43, No. 17 (protovistijar); ser. A, vol. I, 14, No. 10 (vistijar).
17. This title is known only from the citation of the great primikirios Tzamblak in
the Synodicon — v. Popruzenko, Sinodik carja Borila, 90, No. 135; Biliarsky, Institutiite
na srednovekovna Bulgaria, 164 sq.
18. Oikonomidès, Les listes 300; Verpeaux, Pseudo Kodinos, 137 (6), 174-175;
Guilland, Recherches ..., I, 300-332; Bréhier, Les institutions ..., 148.
19. Oikonomidès, Les listes . . . , 5 3 (20), 103 (16), 271 (16), 338-339; Guilland,
Recherches ..., I, 469-477.
20. Iv. Dujcev, ‘Prepiskata na papa Inokentij III s bulgarite’, Godîsnik na Sofijskija
universitet, Istorikofüologitcheski fakultet, XXXVIII, 3 (1942) 31, No. IX, 45, No.
XVI; Biliarsky, Institutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria, 181 sq.
74
AFTER THE FALL 333
underline, however, that we dispose of the documentary evidence on

the existence of the provincial institution of ‘comes’ Çkomis') whose
name derives certainly from the Rhômaic institution of Latin origin
‘KOHTjC’ (from ‘comes’).11 It is interesting to note that the name of
the cup-bearer in Slavonic — ‘epikemi’72 — is closer to the original
form ‘èmKépvioç’ than the Constantinopolitan appellation
‘7uyKepvr|C\23 There also is no evidence for the existence of a
Slavonic translation for the appellation ‘chdsnik’ despite its occurrence
in the Romanian principalities.24
Among other titles-offices transliterated from Greek we should
mention the military offices of the ‘great dux ’25 ( ‘velik dux’ or ‘duka
velik’ from ‘ô juéyac ôoi5Ç’) and, probably, the ‘protostrator.26 The
corresponding Slavonic term for the latter is not preserved,27 but we
have the term ‘strator’ known from the imperial charters (Virginska,
Rila and Vitosa) which marked probably a provincial office from the
same administrative service.28 The name of the head of the imperial
chancellery — the ‘(great) logothete’ that appears in Slavonic as
21. In the Virginska, Rila and Vitosa charters — ll’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej,
18 (99-100), 29 (10); Dujcev, Rilskata gramota , 52 (56); Biliarsky, Institutiite na
srednovekovna Bulgaria, 317-319.
22. The data on the palace service of ‘epikemios’ derive from the Synodicon, some
narrative sources and inscriptions and from a charter o f John V Plaiologos for Zorgaphou
(AD 1344) — see Biliarsky, Institutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria, 17 sq.
23. N. Oikonomidès, Les listes . .., 306; J. Verpeaux, Psuedo Kodinos , 137 (10);
L. Bréhier, Les institutions ..., 134, 151; Guilland, Recherches ..., I, 242-250; Biliarsky,
Institutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria, 167 sq.
24. Documenta Romaniae historica , ser. B, vol. I, Na 52, 56, 58, 60, 61, etc.; ser.
A, vol. I, Na 13, 23-25, 27-32, etc.
25. N. Oikonomidès, ‘Organisation administrative (1025-1118)’, 147; Verpeaux,
Pseudo Kodinos, 137 (3), 167; Guilland, Recherches ..., vol. I, 535 sq.; Biliarsky,
Institutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria, 210 sq. The unique mention of a Bulgarian
‘great dux’ derives from the inscription of ldouka Vrana’ — J. Ivanov, Bulgarski
stañni iz Makedonia (Sofia 1931) 47.
26. Verpeaux, Pseudo Kodinos, 137 (4), 173; Oikonomidès, Les listes ..., 337-338;
Bréhier, Les institutions ..., 132-133; Oikonomidès, ‘Organisation administrative (1025-
1118)’, 145; Guilland, Recherches ..., I, 478-497.
27. It is mentioned only by George Pachymeres: Georgii Pachymeris De Michaeli
et Andronico Palaeologis, 1.1,1. 1. VI, 19, 466-468; G. Pachymère, Relations historiques
(éd. A. Failler), t. II, 589-591; Biliarsky, Institutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria, 207 sq.
28. G. Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej (Moscow 1915) 18 (100), 29 (10-11); Iv.
Dujcev, Rilskata gramota na car Ivan Sisman ot 1378 g . (Sofia 1986) 52 (56).
75
IVAN BILIARSKY
‘(velik) logotef is a rendering of a Greek term (‘[ó jneyocç] ÀoyoBérric’)

as well.29
Similar transliterated designations can also be discovered among
the less important and not possessing titular character administrative
institutions. Thus, among the offices of the imperial chancellery we
have the secretary called ‘gramatik’.30The term unquestionably derived
from the Greek word ‘ypajujuariKoc’. It is important to distinguish
the term from the popular designation ‘a book-man' or ‘man of letters’
applied to certain representatives of the clergy. Another office linked
to the chancellery was the ‘apocrisiarios' ,31 the imperial courier or
messenger, rendered in the Slavonic texts as ‘apokrisiar' ,32 It was
transliterated from the Greek word ‘a 7roKpioiocpioc\ This office,
however, is usually found under the abbreviated name ‘poklisar’ that
certainly derived from the complete form of the term. I would like
to stress that in the mediaeval Balkan states the office of the
apocrisiarioi was not a centralised institution. There were both imperial
and government couriers and finally there were the clerks in the
provincial administration designated with the same name. It is
impossible, however, to distinguish the duties of the latter from the
appellations ‘izgonchia’ and ‘nahodnik’ also applied to them in the
sources (in the Virginska, Rila and Vitosa charters).33 The last term
of this group is ‘protokeliot' . It is mentioned twice in the Synodicon
of tsar Boril.34 The word is evidently Greek ( ‘7rp(0 T0 K£ÁAicúTr|C’)
transliterated with Cyrillic letters, but the archetype of this military
office in the capital is unknown.
29. Verpeaux, Pseudo Kodinos, 137 (8), 174; Bréhier, Les institutions 276-277; R.
Guilland, ‘Les logothètes’, REB 29 (1971) 5-16; Oikonomidès, ‘Organisation administrative
(1025-1118)’, 132; Biliarsky, lnstitutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria, 221-236.
30. Biliarsky, lnstitutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria, 240-248.
31. T. Koev, ‘Die Institution der Apokrisiarioi’, Etudes balkaniques, 4 (1978) 57-61;
Biliarsky, lnstitutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria, 190-194, 389-390.
32. We find it in this form in the text of the Vatopedi charter of the tsar John II Asen
(AD 1230) — M. Lascaris, Vatopedskata gramota (Sofia 1930) 5 (10); M. Andreev,
Vatopedskata gramota i vyprosite na bulgarskoto feodalno pravo (Sofia 1965) 193 (10).
33. Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 18 (100), 25 (30), 27 (57); Dujcev, Rilskata
gramota, 52 (57); Biliarsky, lnstitutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria, 391-392, 392-393.
34. Popruzenko, Sinodik carja Borila , 90; Biliarsky, lnstitutiite na srednovekovna
Bulgaria, 213-215.
76
AFTER THE FALL 335
More examples of transliterated Greek terms included in the

Bulgarian juridical terminology are provided by the sources concerning
the provincial administration. They are not frequently mentioned as
the government titles, but designated the top officials (except the
function-title 4voevoda ’) in the local power, thus forming its image.
There were titles with similar appellations and, probably, meaning to
the government offices like 'dux9, 4prim ikirios ’, 4com es \ 4stra tor ’
that will not be subject of this terminological study.
The term 4kephalia ’35 deserves special attention. It was applied to
the governor of certain territorial and administrative unit. The
institution is well represented in the sources.36Its name is a transcription
of the Greek word and designated a high office in the local
government during the Late Empire.37 The situation is similar with
the local military offices 4katepano ’ (cited in the Vatopedi and Mracka
charters)38 and 4kastrophylax ’ (Virginska and Vitosa charters),39 but
we have only the plural form of their names: ‘katepanV and
‘kastrophylatsV . Although it is clear that they both were transliterations
of Greek words a certain clarification of their Slavonic meaning is
needed. The Slavonic word was created by the fall of the sigma
nominative suffix of the term 4KaaTpO(j)uXa^ which means 4a fortress -
guardian \ The Slavonic term 4katepan(o)’ derived from the Greek
term 4K a T S 7 r d v c o ’ ( 4k < x t ’ S T r a v c o ’ = 4this one who is in the to p \
4commander ’) and had no connection with the Latin word 4capitaneus\
4capitanus’ (from 4ca p u f = ‘head').40 What we do not know is the
35. The main data on the kephaliai derive from the Virginska and Vitosa charters
and from the inscription of Bozhenitsa — Iv. Biliarsky, ‘Sluzhbata na kephaliite po
vreme na Vtoroto bulgarsko carstvo’, Târnovska knizhovna shkola, 5 (1994) 553-562;
Biliarsky, Institutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria, 286-292.
36. Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej , 16 (42), 29 (5-8); Mutaféiev, ‘Bozheniskija
nadpis’, 493.
37. Lj. Maksimovic, Vizantijska provincijska uptava u doba Paleologa (Beograd
1972)71 sq.
38. Lascaris, Vatopedskata gramota, 5 (9); Andreev, Vatopedskata gramota, 193 (9);
Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 25 (28); Biliarsky, Institutiite na srednovekovna
Bulgaria, 309-313.
39. Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 15 (14-15), 18 (98-99), 29 (7-8); Biliarsky,
Institutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria, 313-314.
40. A.N. Jannaris, ‘KaTe7ravco-Capitano-Capitain\ BZ 2 (1901) passim.
77
IVAN BILIARSKY
correct form in singular, which was either ‘katepano’ (I prefer that

form, which is closer to the Greek original) or ‘katepan’ (following
the principles in the formation of the Slavic masculine terms). The
last term in this group of transliterations is ‘alagator’, which apparently
was linked to the local equestrian forces.41
There are examples of Greek names for the offices of the local
fiscal administration, but they had never been popular. The most
interesting is the case of the ‘praetor' . Its Slavonic name (‘praetor’
or ‘prahtor’) 42 is a transcription of the mediaeval Greek term
‘TrpdtKTwp’, which is of Latin origin. The office of the praetor,
however, had different characteristics during the different periods. In
the text of the Vatopedi charter of AD 1230 the term designated the
clerks of the local imperial administration. This was something
exceptional in the Balkan tradition, and in all other documents
(Virginska, Mracka, Rila and Vitosa charters) the term signified the
head of the provincial fiscal administration.43
There is no doubt that the official called ‘perperak’ was an employee
of the local financial services who collected the synonymous pecuniary
taxes (from the name of the coin ‘ÚTrépTrupov’) . 44 The name of the
office is a transcription of the Greek term ‘i37rep7rupocKiç’.45
The ‘miiai’46 and the ‘gerakar’47 were not fiscal offices. Their
duties were related to the organisation of some corvées or statute
41. This service is known from the texts of the Rila and Vitosa charters — Il’inskij,
Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 27 (54), 29 (9); Dujcev, Rilskata gramota, 52 (54); Biliarsky,
42. Lascaris, Vatopedskata gramota , 5 (7, 10-11); Andreev, Vatopedskata gramota,
193 (7, 10-11), v. ibidem, 157-160; IFinskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej , 15 (14), 18
(98-99), 25 (38), 29 (7-8); Dujcev, Rilskata gramota, 52.
43. Lascaris, Vatopedskata gramota, 35; Andreev, Vatopedskata gramota, 157-160;
Andreev, ‘Sluzhbite na provincialnoto upravlenie 8; Biliarsky, Institutiite na
44. See the texts of the Rila and Vitosa charters — Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih
carej, 27 (54), 29 (9); Dujcev, Rilskata gramota, 52 (54); Biliarsky, Institutiite na
45. Dujcev, Rilskata gramota, 64.
46. Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 27 (53 sq.); Dujcev, Rilskata gramota , 52
(53 sq.); Biliarsky, Institutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria, 372-374.
47. Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej , 18 (100); Biliarsky, Institutiite na
78
AFTER THE FALL 337
labours: the gathering of the army and the breeding of falcons and
other birds for the imperial hunting. Their names derived from the
Greek terms ‘|ur|TaT0 v ’ and ‘Isp a x a p io c ’ .48 The fiscal office
‘apodochator’49 is interesting because the term, undoubtedly with
Greek origin, is known only from some Bulgarian texts and from the
charter for the monastery of St. George near Skopie of the Serbian
king Stephen Uros II Milutin of AD 1300.50 It is not preserved in
any Greek text; it is therefore a good example how the Slavonic
material contributes to our knowledge of the mediaeval Greek
administrative terminology.51
including the literal translations (calqués)

2 .2 . t r a n s l a t e d Gr e e k t e r m s ,
It will be appropriate to begin with a palace service that had also
a titular character. This is the high and distinguished title-office
‘couropalates’. Its existence in mediaeval Bulgaria could be rejected52
as well as the correct form of the institution’s appellation. The only
information for Bulgarian couropalates comes from the title of a
liturgical text that described the dignity: ‘Prayer for the promotion
of the caesar/fcesar and for the promotion of the keeper of the palace
who is also called couropalates' .53 The text is a translation of the
Greek prayer called: ‘’Ev>xr) £7n 7rpox£ipíüsi K aiaap o c,
NwPsAiaai|uou, KoupOTraXotrou’ .54 The Slavonic text of the prayer
48. See. ‘7rpo)ToispaKdtptoc’ in Verpeaux, Pseudo Kodinos, 138 (29), 184 (10-13).
49. U’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 18 (100), 25 (29), 27 (55), 29 (10); Lascaris,
Vatopedskata gramota, 5 (10), 40-41; Andreev, Vatopedskata gramota, 153-154, 193
(10); Dujcev, Rilskata gramota, 52 (55); Biliarsky, Institutiite na srednovekovna
Bulgaria, 370-372.
50. Novakovic, Zakonski spomenici srpskih drzhava 609, 620.
51. See the very interesting correspondence between Fr. Dolger and M. Lascaris in:
Lascaris, Vatopedskata gramotay 40-41.
52. Iv. Biliarsky, ‘Le rite de couronnement 134-135; Biliarsky, Institutiite na
53. M. Popruzenko, Sinodik carja Borisa, Odessa, 1898, 80; Biliarsky, ‘Le rite de
couronnement 106 (note 215).
54. J. Goar, ’ErxoXoyiov sive rituale Graecorum ... (Venetiis MDCCXXX) 730;
M. Arranz, S.J. ‘Couronnement royanl et autres promotions de cour. Les sacrements
de l ’institution de l ’ancien Euchologe constantinopolitan’, Orientalia Christiana
Periodica 56 (1990) 103 sq.
79
IVAN BILIARSKY
does not mention the title nobelissimus . In the Greek text the three
titles are in Genetivus obiecti. This is also the case in the Slavonic
text, but the couropalates is cited in nominative, with its Greek sigma
nominative suffix, following the genitive form of the Slavonic
translation: ‘hranitel p o la te \ The question is ‘whether the name of
the institution was translated or transcribed in Slavonic?’. It is safe
to conclude that the name of the office was translated. Otherwise it
would be very difficult to explain the preservation of the full Greek
nominative form of the name that was apparently cited in order to
define the origin of the Bulgarian institution. I have argued elsewhere55
that it implied certain duties in the palace in contrast to its
Constantinopolitan archetype ‘K0up07raXarrie’, which according to
the treatise of Philotheus was only a title (<dignité oisive, dc£ia Ôià
ppapsicov).56 This explains the reason for its translation in Slavonic
in contrast to other pure titles like despot , sebastocrator , sebast , etc.
Another appellation translated literally is 6stolnik\ known from the
inscription on the ring of the tsar’s cousin Slav.57 It designates the
official charged with the serving of the food at the imperial banquets.
Although the term derives from the Greek name of the similar office
‘ó 67TÍ tfjc TpaTTsCrjc’58 Cstol" = ‘Tpà7rsÇa’) it was formed following
the Slavonic lexical norms. The office ‘epikernV, which duties were
similar to that of the ‘stolnik\ i.e. to serve the wine at the imperial
table, is presented in the sources only by its Greek name, but transcribed
into Cyrillic alphabet.
The name for the important office and title ‘voevodcf was composed
during the early mediaeval period by a verbatim translation of an
55. Biliarsky, Institutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria, 153-154.

56. Oikonomidès, Les listes ..., 97, 293. The same in the treatise of Pseudo Codinos
— Verpeaux, Pseudo Kodinos, 137 (11), 175 (20-22).
57. Ph. Malingoudis, Die mittelalterlichen kyrillischen Inschriften der Haemus-
Halbinsel, Teii I, Die bulgarischen Inschriften (Thessaloniki 1979) 103; Biliarsky,
58. Oikonomidès, Les listes ..., 305-306; Verpeaux, Pseudo Kodinos, 138 (2), 157
(15 sq.), 207 sq.; Guilland, Recherches ..., I, 237-241.
80
AFTER THE FALL 339
official Greek term .59 It has to be underlined that the appellation is

actually a Slavonic combined word constituted by the substantive
4voja’ (= 4army\ "military force') and the verb 4voditV (= ‘lead'). As
a lexical form it corresponds to the Greek term ‘arp arriy o c’
(composed of ‘a r p a n a ’ or ‘oTpaTÓc’ and ‘ayoo’) and was literally
translated from the latter.60 Certainly, this is not a generally accepted
opinion. It is not impossible that the word originated during the
establishment of the first Slavonic states. One will note that the term
appeared for the first time after the evangelisation of the Bulgarians,
but actually there are no sources stemming from an earlier period.
Although the question remains open for the most patriotic scholars,
but I am convinced that this term was the creation of the spirit of
the Byzantine Commonwealth .61 A creation that had its own specific
development in the mediaeval states of the Central and Eastern Europe,
the Balkans and the Middle East.
From the offices of the imperial chancellery only the 4tainik ’62 was
translated. It derived from the Constantinopolitan office title
‘| u u g t i k ô ç \ 63 The term is composed after the Greek original, but its
meaning is also very close to the Latin 4sec reta riu s\ It will be
interesting to note that the term is currently used in the Croatian
administrative language.
59. On the institution of voevoda v.: P. Petrov, E. Grozdanova, ‘Woiwode in

mittelalterlichen Balkanlânder und im Osmanischen Reich’, Etudes historiques 9 (1979)
99-127; I. Bogdan, Originea voievodatului la români (Bucarest 1902) [= Analele
Academiei Române, Memoriile sectiuni istorice, III, t. 24, 191-207]; E. Vîrtosu,
Titulatura domnilor si asocierea la domnie in Tara româneascâ si Moldova (pîna la
secolul al XVI-lea) (Bucarest 1960) 105 sq.; Institutii feudale dîn tarile române,
Dictionar (Bucarest 1988) 168 sq.; Z. Wojciechowski, L'Etat polonais au moyen Age.
Histoire des institutions (Paris 1949) 243; Biliarsky, Institutiite na srednovekovna
Bulgaria, 201-207, 270-286.
60. Biliarsky, Institutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria, 270 sq.
61. A corresponding case in the very different German milieu is the term of ‘herzog’.
62. The term is cited only in the Life of St. Philothea of patriarch Euthymius — v.
Iv. Biliarsky, ‘Les institutions de la Bulgarie médiévale: taïnik-mystikos’, BS 53, 1
(1992) 53-56; idem, Institutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria, 237-239.
63. Oikonomidès, Les listes ..., 324; Verpeaux, Pseudo Kodinos, 138 (11), 160 (11
sq.), 179 (5-6); R. Guilland, ‘Etudes sur l’histoire administrative de l’Empire byzantin.
Le mystique, ó ju u a riK Ó c ’ , REB 26 (1969) 279-296; P. Magdalino, ‘The Not-so-secret
Function of the Mystikos’, REB 42 (1984) 229-240.
81
IVAN BILIARSKY
The bottom o f the list is occupied by the fiscal and communication

offices. The 'pisets'M from the verb ‘pisati' - ‘write’ was named after
the Greek terms ‘avaypa(t>ei5c’ and ‘ootoypocîJæÙç’. They designated
a similar office and had their roots in the verb ‘Ypo«j)eiv’. One o f
the most important fiscal agents was the ‘desetkar’6S who was in
charge with the collection o f the production tax called ‘desjatâk’ (in
Greek ‘Seicccreia’, ‘ÔeKcnrri’ or ‘Ôskoitov ’66 translated ‘tithe’ = 1/10
part o f the production). Undoubtedly, his appellation is a literal
translation of the office known as ‘S e K a n a r tic ’ .67 The name of the
clerk ‘zhitar’6S derived from the tax ‘zhitarstvo’69 (= ‘aiT apK Ía’, a
tax on the cereal production). Apparently the designation of the office
is a calqué o f the Greek term ‘a p x ic n r d p x > ic ’ .70 The term ‘p s a r ’
which is known from the Vatopedi, Virginska, Mracka, Rila and Vitosa
charters, derived from the Slavonic word ‘p e s ’ = ‘dog’, ‘hound’, is
indigenous of the Greek term ‘kv>vt|yÓc’ .71 And finally, the appellation
‘izgoncija ’ ,72 which derived from the verb ‘izgonitV (= ‘otTroKapivw’),
was translated from the Greek term ‘(X7roKpiaiapioc’.
64. In the Virginska and Mracka charters — Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 18
(100), 25 (26, see and 31); Lascaris, Vatopedskata gramota, 5 (13), 41-42; Andreev,
Vatopedskata gramota, 193 (13), 102-103; Biliarsky, Institutiite na srednovekovna
Bulgaria, 353-355.
65. In the Vatopedi, Virginska, Mracka, Rila and Vitosa charters — Il’inskij, Gramoty
bolgarskih carej, 18 (100), 25 (29), 27 (55), 29 (10); Lascaris, Vatopedskata gramota,
5 (9), 36; Andreev, Vatopedskata gramota, 153, 193 (9); Dujcev, Rilskata gramota,
52 (55), 63; Biliarsky, Institutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria, 357-361.
66. N. Oikonomidès, Fiscalité et exemption fiscale à Byzance (ÏXe-Xle siècles)
(Athènes 1996) 74-75, 127-128.
67. P. Gautier, ‘Diatribes de Jean l’Oxite contre Alexis 1er Comnène’, REB 28 (1970)
31 et notes 19 et 20; Oikonomidès, Fiscalité et exemption fiscale ..., 128. Thus I
would like to join these data to my text on the ‘desetkar’ in Bulgaria — v. Biliarsky,
Institutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria, 357 sq.
68. We know this service from the text of the Rila and Vitosa charters — Il’inskij,
Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 27 (54), 29 (9); Dujcev, Rilskata gramota, 52 (54); Biliarsky,
Institutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria, 361-364 with the cited previous literature. Thus
I would like to ameliorate my text (cited above) on this institution.
69. irinskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 23 (50, 58).
70. Oikonomidès, Fiscalité et exemption fiscale ..., 103-104.
71. irinskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej , 18 (100), 25 (29), 27 (57), 29 (11), 121,
146; Lascaris, Vatopedskata gramota, 5 (9-10), 39-40; Dujcev, Rilskata gramota, 52
(57), 64; Biliarsky, Institutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria, 379-382.
72. Cited in the Virginska and Mracka charters — irinskij, Gramoty bolgarskih
carej , 18 (100), 25 (30); Biliarsky, Institutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria, 391-392.
82
AFTER THE FALL 341
3. Having finished with the terms of Greek origin in the mediaeval

Bulgarian administrative practice we can now turn to the offices and
titles with a p p e l l a t i o n s o f S l a v o n i c o r i g i n . It would be appropriate
to note that these terms are associated mainly with the fiscal
administration.
Thus, the popular office and title 4knez’73 was of Slavonic origin,
despite the possibility that the word was borrowed from German
during the Palaeoslavonic period.74 Its original meaning is 4prince’
or 4duke’ and is preserved in almost all contemporary Slavic languages.
However, its meaning usually varies from one language to another.
It is not our aim to discuss the different variants of the word, but in
general it had the meaning of a 4sovereign’ or was used as a title of
nobility. This meaning, however, did not exist in the titular and
institutional system of the Second Bulgarian Empire. The knez was
a village elder or mayor, or the leader of a small community.75
Among the provincial military offices we encounter two of Slavonic
origin: 4varar’ and 'topstikaV. The first one, known only from the
Vitosa charter76 derives from the morpheme 4var\ which means "to
be before\ 4to guard’. Thus , the 4varar’ was probably the commander
of the city’s guards.77 the meaning of the term ‘topstikaV, cited only
in the Virginska charter, however, is not clear. It is possible to speculate
that the 4topstikaV had certain ‘police’ duties, but this is only a
suggestion.78 Moreover, it is not clear whether the term was of Slavonic
origin or not.
73. Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 15 (14-15), 18 (98-99); Ivanov, Bulgarski

starini iz Makedonia, 412. The data of Serbian sources are much more abundant —
v.: Novakovic, Zakonski spomenitsi ..., 105, 107, 108, 109, 177, 182, 255, 260, 310,
312, 389, 424, 453, 455, 456, 471, 473, 494, 601, 614, 616, 620, 662, 680, 683, 704,
720, 759.
74. M. Vasmer, Etymologicheskij slovar russkogo jazyka , t. II, 266.
75. P. Petrov, E. Grozdanova, ‘Mittelalterlische balkanamter und Titel im osmanischen
Orts- und Selbsverwaltungssystem’, Etudes balkaniques 4 (1978) 95 sq.; Biliarsky,
76. Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 29 (11); Biliarsky, Institutiite na srednovekovna
Bulgaria., 321-323.
77. Iv. Biliarsky, ‘Trois institutions méconnues de la Bulgarie médiévale: varnichij,
v a r a r povar’\ Ricerche slavistiche 4 (1994) 100-102.
78. Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 15 (14-15), 18 (98-99); Biliarsky, Institutiite
na srednovekovna Bulgaria, 335-336.
83
IVAN BILIARSKY
As has been said before, the Slavonic names of titles and offices
were associated predominantly with the tax administration. The names
of certain fiscal offices derived from the tax they collected. Thus,
the 4vinar’ collected the wine production tax called 4vinnyi namefk
(= ‘oívojuérpiov’ ) . 79 Similarly, the ‘senaf was responsible for the
collection of the hay tax (‘seno’ = ‘hay’) . 80 The name of the fiscal
office ‘pobivcija’ derives from the verb ‘brati (= ‘to take’, ‘to collect’),
which indicates that it was also related to the collection of taxes.81
Another class of terms with Slavonic origin is related to the
organisation of corvées. Two of them: the ‘gradar’ (from the verb
‘graditV = ‘to build’) 82 and the 4vamichij’ (from ‘var’nitsa’ = ‘lime-
pit’ or ‘lime-kiln’) 83 were related to the so called ‘gradozidanie" =
‘KaaTpoKTiaia’) i.e. the duty of the people to build or repair
fortifications. Next, the 4povar’ = ‘cooker’) had the duty to prepare
and to collect food for the soldiers.84 The service of the ‘nahodnik’
from the verb ‘nahoditV) was apparently related to the communications.85
4. There are three t e r m s o f T u r k i c o r i g i n preserved in the institutional

system of the Second Bulgarian Empire. However, only one of them
79. Cited in the Virginska, Mracka, Rila and Vitosa charters — Il’inskij, Gramoty
bolgarskih carej, 18 (99), 19 (101-102), 25 (29), 27 (53-54); Dujcev, Rilskata gramota,
53 (53-54); Andreev, Vatopedskata gramota , 193 (9-10); Oikonomidès, Fiscalité et
exemption fiscale, 99, 103; Biliarsky, lnstitutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria, 364-366.
80. Cited in the Rila and Vitosa charters — Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 27
(56), 29 (12); Dujcev, Rilskata gramota , s. 52 (56), 65; Biliarsky, lnstitutiite na
81. Cited in the Mracka and Rila charters — Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 25
(30), 27 (57); Dujcev, Rilskata gramota , 52 (57); Biliarsky, lnstitutiite na srednovekovna
Bulgaria, 368-370.
82. Cited in the Mracka and Rila charters — Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 25
(29), 27 (57); Dujcev, Rilskata gramota , 52 (57); Biliarsky, lnstitutiite na srednovekovna
Bulgaria, 382.
83. Cited only in the Rila charter — Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 27 (57);
Dujcev, Rilskata gramota, 52 (57); Biliarsky, ‘Trois institutions méconnues 98
sq.; idem, lnstitutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria, 383-384.
84. Cited only in the Mracka charter — Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 25 (29);
Biliarsky, ‘Trois institutions méconnues . ..’, 102-103; idem, lnstitutiite na srednovekovna
Bulgaria, 384-385.
85. Cited only in the Rila charter — Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 27 (57);
Dujcev, Rilskata gramota, 52 (57); Biliarsky, lnstitutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria,
392-393.
84
AFTER THE FALL 343
originated in the Bulgar traditions of the First Empire. This is the

term 4boljar(in)\ which is a plural form of the Bulgar word 4boila’
Ç b o ila f). The latter is usually applied in the sources to the upper
class of Bulgar aristocracy.86 It is one of the most important Bulgarian
contributions to the common Slavonic lexis. The word was very
popular in the Balkans and Eastern Europe until the last century.
However, it was not a specific administrative appellation during the
Second Bulgarian Empire. There was no institution 4boljarin ’ and the
term existed only as an everyday word for 4very important p erso n 9
or as a generalisation of the ruling class. The term 4s e r d a f appears
only in the Vitosa C harter of tsar John Sisman.87 It was a military
office of Eastern origin introduced during the Ottoman invasion in
the Balkans.88 The last term in the group is 4va ta h \ which is known
only from the text of the Virginska charter.89 Its etymology is rather
obscure, but perhaps it was introduced in Bulgaria by the peoples of
the steppe.
5. To summarise our research. It is evident that the great part of the

Bulgarian office and title appellations were borrowed directly from
the imperial institutions of Constantinople. Thus, forty (i.e. 74,07%
from the general number of fifty four) of the preserved names of
institutions in the Second Bulgarian Empire are of Greek origin.
Thirty-one of them (57,4%) preserved the Greek term transcribed
with Cyrillic alphabet and nine (16,6%) were translated literally. We
have only eleven clearly Slavic terms (20,3%) designed for the needs
of the state institutions. The Turk terms were almost excluded from
practical usage. Thus, only three Turk terms are found in the sources:
one informal term of class designation and two later, but not important,
additions to the list of offices.
86. S. Mladenov, ‘Kâm etimologicnoto objasnenie na dumata <boljarin>\ Jubileen

sbomik v cest na S. 5. Bobcev (Sofia 1921) 109-116.
87. Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 29 (11).
88. Biliarsky, Institutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria, 323-325.
89. Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih care], 15 (15); Biliarsky, Institutiite na srednovekovna
Bulgaria., 333-335.
85
IVAN BILIARSKY
These observations are confirmed by the study of the mediaeval

juridical terminology. As I stated elsewhere, all appellations of
territorial units in the local administration of the Second Bulgarian
Empire were of Rhômaic origin. They had been either translated or
transcribed from Greek — the official language of the
Constantinopolitan Empire.90
It is also interesting to study the terminology in the framework of
the fiscal system. Similarly to the terms in the local administration,
the appellations for the different taxes and corvées were borrowed
from the parallel financial institutions of the Empire. The principal
land tax is presented by two terms in the texts. The first one 6zevgar ’
is a transcription of the Greek word ‘Çsuyâpiov’, ‘CsuyoXoyiov’ or
‘ÇeuYOcpartKiov’. The second one ‘vtffoéereíma’ was created as an
allusion to pair of oxen (from ‘voV = ‘ox ’) . 91 The principal tax on
any production called ‘desjatâk ’ (‘which means ‘tithe’, ‘1 / 1 0 part of
the production’) was translated from the Greek term ‘ôsKOtTEÎa’.92
The ‘dimnincC (from ‘dim ’ = ‘smoke’, ‘fume’) was a tax paid by each
household and was translated literally from the Greek term
‘KGC7rvtK0v’.93 The ‘komod ’ is a transliterated form of the Greek term
‘OIKOJUOÔIOV’ .94 However, the similar supplementary tax inametâk>
preserved its Slavonic name.95 The term ‘zh itarstvo\ which designated
90. Iv. Biliarsky, ‘Les circonscriptions administratives en Bulgarie au 13e siècle’,

Z v h v s i k t c c 13 (1999) 177,202 and especially 190-192.
91. irinskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 18 (88), 19 (10); Lascaris, Vatopedskata

gramota, 5 (16); Dujcev, Rilskata gramota, 52 (62); Andreev, Vatopedskata gramota,
115, 193 (16); G. Tsankova-Petkova, Za agrarnite otnoshenija v srednovekovna Bulgaria
(Sofia 1964) 140, 160-161; Oikonomidès, Fiscalité et exemption fiscale, 84; îstorija
na Bulgaria, t. Ill (Sofia 1982) 214.
92. irinskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 25 (32); Lascaris, Vatopedskata gramota, 5
(14-15); Andreev, Vatopedskata gramota, 107-108, 193 (14-15); Oikonomidès, Fiscalité
et exemption fiscale, 74-76; Istorija na Bulgaria, t. Ill 212.
93. irinskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 18 (88); Andreev, Vatopedskata gramota,
115; Oikonomidès, Fiscalité et exemption fiscale, 30-31, 72; Istorija na Bulgaria, t. III
214.
94. irinskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 19 (101), 25 (31); Lascaris, Vatopedskata
gramota, 5 (13, 20), 42-43; Andreev, Vatopedskata gramota, 103-105, 193 (13, 20);
G. Tsankova-Petkova, Za agrarnite otnoshenija v srednovekovna Bulgaria 90-95;
Oikonomidès, Fiscalité et exemption fiscale, 82-83; Istorija na Bulgaria, t. III 213.
95. Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 19 (101).
86
AFTER THE FALL 345
a tax on cereal production, was a translation of the Greek ‘a v ra p K Ía ’.96

The name of the fiscal tax ‘perper’ derived from the name of the
coin ‘ÚTrépTTüpov’.97 And finally, the term for customs ‘koumerkï
was adopted in the Bulgarian mediaeval terminology from the Greek
transliteration ‘KOuuuépKiov’ of the Latin word ‘commercium'?%We
can also add the terms for corvées as ‘gradozidanie’ (literal translation
from ‘KaaTpoKTiüta’)," ‘mitaf (= ‘^ n râ ro v ’),100 etc.
Taken together with the results of our research in the practice of
giving names to government and local offices, this short review
confirms the dominance of Greek terminology in the state institutions
of mediaeval Bulgaria. The terminology was imposed not only by
the number of terms borrowed, but also by the importance of the
offices they designated. A Greek term was usually applied to a high
administrative office. The titles of the dignitaries with no administration
duties were transcriptions of the parallel Greek terms. In short, the
titles in the Bulgarian imperial hierarchy were designated, through
transliteration or translation, after the terminology applied in the
official language of the Empire. This fact is of particular importance
because of the special significance of the Sacred Hierarchy not only
for the institutional system, but also for the conception of the world.101
We should emphasise that the palace offices had also denominations
of Greek origin. The palace was the very place where the Rhômaioi
embodied their imperial conception with the ritual that accompanied
every action of the basileus. The official position of the Slavonic
96. Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 23 (50, 58); Oikonomidès, Fiscalité et

exemption fiscale , 103 sq.; Biliarsky, Institutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria , 340.
97. Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 18 (88, 93), 23 (49, 65); Dujcev, Rilskata
gramota, 64; G. Tsankova-Petkova, Za agrarnite otnoshenija v srednovekovna Bulgaria
145; Istorija na Bulgaria , t. Ill 214.
98. Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 13 (11), 28 (74), 156 (27); Dujcev, Rilskata
gramota, 53 (74); Biliarsky, Institutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria , 341-342.
99. S. Trojanos, ‘K a a r p O K T ia ia ’, B vÇ a v n v a 1 (1969) 39-57; Istorija na Bulgaria ,
III, 208; Biliarsky, Institutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria , 344 sq.
100. Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej, 19 (101), 25 (31), 121; Lascaris, Vatopedskata
gramota, 5 (13-14); Andreev, Vatopedskata gramota , 193 (13-14); Dujcev, Rilskata
gramota, 64; Oikonomidès, Fiscalité et exemption fiscale , 91 sq.
101. Iv. Biliarsky, Hierarchia. L'Ordre sacré, [= Freiburger verôffentlichungen aus
dern Gebiete von Kirche und Staat, Bd. 51] (Fribourg/Suisse 1997) 11-16.
87
IVAN BILIARSKY
language in Bulgaria remained intact, but it was used as a mediator

o f the political and cultural influence of the Empire. Thus, the extension
and complication of the administrative system during the last years
o f the 14th century and the inflation o f the Slavic terms must be
studied in this framework.
The Turkic terms — i.e. the terms which can be attached to a
certain Bulgar tradition — were denounced. The terms 4s e r d a f and
‘vatah’ were new, untypical and with unimportant place in the state
system. The word ‘boljarin although very popular was not part of
the juridical terminology and had almost informal meaning.
In conclusion we can say that the Bulgarian state was a state o f
entirely ‘Byzantine’ type, which had abandoned the traditions of the
Eurasian steppe typical for the First Empire, and had no common
characteristics with the pagan state o f the 8 th and 9th century. 102 This
was a 4Byzance à côté de B yzance’ (if we paraphrase N. Iorga) or a
‘Imperium extra Imperium’ (if we paraphrase a known Latin aphorism).
This is not an unknown fact and it confirms the decades-long study
o f mediaeval Bulgarian art, literature, law, etc. The question, however,
is concerned with the reasons for such a study. A quite difficult
question, indeed, because it concerns the meaning o f the historian’s
endeavour. I would dare to respond: ‘Because of the need to preserve
a tradition that we are going not to lose, but to leave.’
St. Andrews, Scotland
Abbreviations
Andreev, Vatopedskata gramota = M. Andreev, Vatopedskata gramota i vaprosite na
bulgaskoto feodalno pravo (Sofia 1965).
Biliarsky, Institutiite na srednovekovna Bulgaria = Iv. Biliarsky, Institutiite na
srednovekovna Bulgaria. Vtoro bulgarsko tsarstvo (XII-XIVvek) (Sofia 1998).
Biliarsky, ‘Trois institutions méconnues . . . ’ = Iv. Biliarsky, ‘Trois institutions méconnues
de la Bulgarie médiévale: varnichij, varar*, povar”, Ricerche slavistiche 41 (1994).
Bréhier, Les institutions ... = L. Bréhier, Les institutions de VEmpire byzantin (Le
monde byzantin, vol. II) (Paris 1949).
102. Here I do not wish to discuss the extent to which the administrative system of
Constantinople had influenced that of the First Bulgarian Empire after the Conversion.
This influence surely existed (we have evidence on the services and titles such as
‘voevoda*, ‘candidatus\ etc.) But this influence was certainly not as clear as during
the age of the Second empire.
AFTER THE FALL 347
Dujcev, Rilskata gramota ... = Iv. Dujcev, Rilskata gramota na car Ivan Sisman ot
1378 g. (Sofia 1986).
Guilland, Recherches I-II = R. Guilland, Recherches sur les institutions byzantines ,
vol. I-II (Berliner byzantinistische Arbeiten, Bd. 35, 1-2) (Berlin-Amsterdam 1967).
Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej = G. Il’inskij, Gramoty bolgarskih carej (Moscow
1915).
Lascaris, Vatopeuskata gramota = M. Lascaris, Vatopedskata gramota (Sofia 1930).
Novakovic, Zakonski spomenitsi ... = ST. Novakovic, Zakonski spomenici srpskih
drzhava srednjego veka (Belgrade 1912).
Oikonomidès, Les listes ... = N. Oikonomidès, Les listes de préséance byzantines des
IXe et Xe siècles (Paris 1972).
N. Oikonomidès, ‘Organisation administrative (1025-1118)’ = N. Oikonomidès,
‘L’évolution de l’organisation administrative de l’Empire byzantin au Xle siècle
(1025-1118)’, TM 6 (1976).
Oikonomidès, Fiscalité et exemption fiscale = N. Oikonomidès, Fiscalité et exemption
fiscale à Byzance (IXe-Xle siècle ) (Athens 1996).
Tsankova-Petkova, Za agrarnite otnoshenija = G. Tsankova-Petkova, Za agrarnite
otnoshenija v srednovekovna Bulgaria (Sofia 1964).
Verpeaux, Pseudo Kodinos = L Verpeaux, Pseudo Kodinos. Traité des offices (Paris
1966).
89
14
Tsar Stephen Dusan and Mount Athos
George C. Soulis
During the medieval period Serbia was in closer relation

with Mount Athos than any other Slavic country. The Nemanja
dynasty, under whose rule Serbia experienced the most brilliant period
of her medieval history, was directly and intimately connected with
the Holy Mountain. Josef Strzygowski’s statement that “Serbien
ist mit diesem Klosterland [sc. Mount Athos], seit die Nemanja den
Nationalstaat schufen, auf das innigste verwachsen” 1 is applicable
not only to the field of art, but to every manifestation of intellectual
life.
The founder of the dynasty, Stephen Nemanja, abdicated his
throne, assumed the monastic habit and the name of Symeon, and
retired to Mount Athos, where he joined his son, the celebrated Saint
Sava of the Serbian Church. Their dream of founding a Serbian
monastery on Mount Athos was realized when the Byzantine Em-
peror Alexius III granted them the Monastery of Chilandar, then
lying in ruins as a result of recent piratical raids. It was destined to
become a link between Mount Athos and Serbia and to play an im-
portant role in the spiritual life of the Serbs and the Slavs in general
until more recent times.2
Of all the Nemanja rulers it was, however, Stephen Uros IV, known
1Josef Strzygowski, “Die Miniaturen des serbischen Psalters der konigl.
Hof- und Staatsbibliotek in München,” Denkschriften der kaiserlichefi Akad. d.
Wissenschaften, Phil-Hist. Kl. , LII (Vienna, 1906), 128.
2See G. Ilinskij, “Znacenie Afona v istorii slavjanskoj pis’mennosti,” ¿urnal
Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosvescenija, new series, XVIII (1908), 1- 4 1 ; N.
Smirnov, “Znacaj Atona u istoriji srpske crkve,” Crkva i zivot, I (Skoplje,
1922), nos. 4 and 5 (inaccessible to me) ; M. Vasic, “L’hesychasme dans Péglise
et Fart des Serbes,” L’art byzantine chez les Slaves, Les Balkans [Recueil
Uspenskij], I (Paris, 1930), 110-123.
126 George C. Soulis

as Du§an ( 1 3 3 1 - 1 3 5 5 ), who displayed the most liberality toward
the Athonite monasteries. This policy oí Stephen Dusan was dictated
not only by the strong ties which existed between the Nemanjas and
Mount Athos (which he continued to support),3 but also by his
desire to win the support of -the Greek clergy. When Dusan had
completed the conquest of Macedonia, he began to cherish the idea
of founding a Byzantino-Serbian Empire and even eventually replac-
ing the Greek basileus himself. He clearly saw that in order to realize
this design he needed the support of the Greek nobility and especially
of the Greek clergy in the areas he had conquered. Recognition by
the Greek clergy would constitute not only a de facto recognition and
support of his authority by all the Byzantine subjects of his new
state, but also would provide religious sanction for his rule. Thus from
the very beginning he displayed great liberality toward the Byzantine
monasteries in Macedonia.4 Mount Athos, the greatest center of
Eastern Christianity — with its enormous influence within the Greek
Church and on the minds of all the Orthodox peoples — naturally
received special attention from Dusan. On the other hand, the
Athonite monasteries, which had suffered destruction and loss of
land as a result of the Serbian conquest,5 had no alternative a t that
moment but to submit to the powerful conqueror. In their eagerness
to make secure their privileges and their properties, many of which
“See Dusan’s numerous acts in favor of the Monastery of Chilandar in St.
Novakovié, Zakonski spomenici srpskih drzava srednjega veka (Belgrade, 1912)
402ff., B. Korablev, Actes serbes de Chilandar (Supplement to Vizantijskij
Vremennik, XIX [1912], SPb., 1915), 457ff-, and A. Solovjev, Odabrani
spomenici srpskog prava (od X II do kraja XV veka.) (Belgrade, 1926) i22ff.
Cf. the list of DuSan’s chrysobulls for the Monastery of Chilandar in T.
Florinskij, Juznye slavjane i Vizantija vo vtoroj èetverti X IV veka, II (SPb.,
1882), 137, note 4.
‘ Among these monasteries were the famous Monastery of St. John Prodromos
on Mt. Menoikeion and the Monastery of St. Anastasia near Zichna. See A.
Solovjev and V. Mosin, Grcke povelje srpskih viadora ( = Srpska kraljevska
akademija, Zbornik za istoriju, jezik i k n j i z e v n o s t srpskog naroda, third section,
vol. VII, Belgrade, 1936), 2-17, 18-21, 174-187. (This work will hereinafter be
cited as Povelje.) Cf. M. Orbini, II regno degli Slavi (Pesaro, 1601), 260, and
T. Florinskij, Juznye slavjane, II, n6ff. On the various problems concerning
the Menoikeion documents, see Solovjev and Mosin, Povelje, XXVII-LV, and A.
Solovjev, Jugosi, istor. casopis, III (1937), 447-449.
5 See Povelje, 58, lines 7iff., 88, lines 48ft., and 98, lines 43ft. Cf. V. Laurent,
“Xeropotamou et Saint-Paul, Histoire et légende à l’Athos,” Revue historique
du sud-est européen, XXII (1945), 280, 284; Fr. Dolger, Aus den Schatzkam-
mern des Heüigen Berges (Munich [1948]), 63, line 7.
AFTER THE FALL 351
Tsar Stephen Dulan and Mount Athos 127
had fallen into the hands of the Serbian conquerors,6 they did not
hesitate to recognize their new master and to seek an agreement with
him, just as they were to do later with the Ottoman Turks.
Thus, shortly after the conquest of Serres (September 2 4 , 1 3 4 s ) , 7
an event which marked the completion of the Serbian conquest of
Macedonia, Dusan sent his logothete, Chrysos, to Mount Athos.
According to our source’— a chrysobull of Dusan himself — the
purpose of Chrysos7 mission was to ask the monks to pray to God
for the Serbian ruler and to have his name mentioned in the prayers
of the monasteries throughout Mount Athos and the area of Hierissos.8
Such a request actually constituted a plea for official recognition from
the Athonite monasteries. When the monks agreed to this and
recognized him as their new master, Dusan issued in November, 1 3 4 5 ,
a chrysobull addressed to all the monasteries on Mount Athos in
which he acceded to a number of requests presented by them: 9
1. The name of the Greek Emperor should be commemorated in their
prayers before the name of the Serbian ruler.10
2 . Mount Athos should be governed according to the existing rules and
the customs of the monastic community.
6The Athonite monasteries possessed many lands in the Strymon and Serres
area. See Povelje, passim. The occupation of several Athonite lands by the
Serbs upon their conquest of Macedonia is mentioned in contemporary Athonite
acts. See Povelje, 32, lines 43-47; L. Petit, Actes grecs de Chilandar (Supple-
ment to Vizantijskij Vremennik, XVII [1910], SPb., 1911), 334. Cf. P. Lemerle,
Philippes et la Macédoine orientale à Vépoque chrétienne et byzantine (Paris,
1945), 238-239; P. Lemerle, Actes de Kutlumus (Paris, 1945)» 229.
7See A. Solovjev, “Car DuSan u Serezu,” Jugosl. istor. casopis, I (1935), 473.
8See Dusan’s chrysobull of November, 1345, in Povelje, 30. M. Lascaris thinks
that the Athonite monks went first to Dusan asking for an agreement and fpr
confirmation of their privileges, and that Dusan then sent his logothete to Mt.
Athos to negotiate {Vatopedskata gramota na car Ivan Asenja 11 [Sofia, 1930],
32-33; “Actes serbes de Vatopedi,” Byzantinoslavica, VI [1935— 36], 167). This
view seems to be shared by St. Binon (Les origines légendaires et l'histoire
de Xéropotamou et de Saint-Paul de VAthos [Louvain, 1942], 302). As far as
I know, this plausible hypothesis is not backed by any evidence from the
sources.
9See the most convenient edition, Poveljey 3off. Allusion to this document
is made in another chrysobull of Dusan, dated January, 1346, and issued in
favor of the Monastery of Iviron, Povelje, 38, lines 6-12.
“ This seems to be a strange concession. A reasonable explanation has been
provided by A. Solovjev, who wrote in this connection that “Dusan, although
he was at war with the Greeks and was dreaming of assuming the imperial title,
nevertheless recognized a certain moral authority in the legitimate Emperor, the
Emperor of Byzantium.” Arhiv za pravne i druftvene naukey XVIII (1929),

3. All their monastic possessions in Kalamaria near the river Strymon and
in other places would be returned to the Athonite monasteries; the
Serbian ruler undertook not to alienate these properties in the future.11
4. All these possessions were to be exempted from all taxes and corvées.
5. The city of Hierissos was to be governed, not by a kephale, but jointly
by its bishop and Mount Athos.
6. Athonite boats were to have the right to fish in the river Strymon with-
out paying any duties.
7. No governmental cadaster would be made either for Mount Athos or
Hierissos.
This “general chrysobull,” which Professor M. Lascaris has called

“une charte de la Sainte-Montagne sous le regime serbe/ ’ 12 clearly
indicates that the Athonite monasteries had recognized Dusan and
in exchange received these privileges which guaranteed the independ-
ence and the wealth of their monastic community. This “general
chrysobull’' naturally could not deal with all the problems of the
individual monasteries. For this reason, shortly after the promulgation
of the “general chrysobull/ 7 Dusan issued, at the request of the monas-
teries themselves, a number of acts addressed to individual monas-
teries on Mount Athos. Two of them issued in January 1 3 4 6 — one
for the Monastery of Philotheou 13 and the other for the Monastery
of Iviron 14 — have come down to us.
Although the Athonite monks recognized their new master, there is
no doubt that they did not wish to break away from Constantinople.
This explains why the Athonites in their agreement with Dusan
471. Lascaris thinks that this concession is understandable, since at the time of
the promulgation of this chrysobull Dusan had not yet been proclaimed emperor ;
Byzantinoslavica, VI, 167-168.
11In another copy of this chrysobull, found in the Monastery of Megiste
Laura and published by Alexander Eumorphopoulos Lauriotes, this item is
omitted altogether; “ 'H èv VA6cj lepà fxovr] MeyicrrTj A avpa Kal ai irpbs axirijv
aitroKparopLKal 8copeat Kal 7rp o vo fiia i” *0 èv ~K(av<TTavTivoTr0\€L
3>i\o\oyLKos 'Z vW oyos, XXIX (1902-1905), 119-120. According to St. Binon
(“Deux contributions importants à l’histoire de la Sainte Montagne,” Revue
d’histoire ecclésiastique, XXXIV [1938], 301) the Laura copy “offre à nos
yeux plus de garanties d’authenticité,” and consequently the item about the
expulsion of the Serbs from the Athonite possessions is a later interpolation.
12M. Lascaris, Byzantinoslavica, VI, 167.
13This document was discovered by Prof. Lascaris but has never been
published so far as I know. See his review of Solovjev and Mosin’s Povelje, in
Revue international des études balkaniques, III (1936-1937), 269.
14Povelje, 36-41.
AFTER THE FALL 353
Tsar Stephen Dusan and Mount Athos 129
demanded the right of placing the name of the Byzantine Emperor

before his in their religious offices. Moreover, the hesychasts, who
were numerous and powerful on Mount Athos, are known to have
been strong supporters of John -Cantacuzenus. However, it soon
proved impossible for the monasteries to remain on good terms with
both the Church of Constantinople and with Dusan. Having no
alternative, the Athonites cast their lot with the Serbs. They recog-
nized the newly founded Serbian Patriarchate, which was soon to be
anathematized by the Patriarch of Constantinople, and an Athonite
delegation headed by the Protos of Mount Athos was present at the
famous sabor at Skoplje on April 1 4 , 1 3 4 6 , which witnessed the
official proclamation and coronation of the Serbian Tsar .15 On this
occasion, one of the most significant events in the history of medieval
Serbia, Dusan promulgated a number of chrysobulls in favor of
Athonite monasteries, confirming their old privileges, granting certain
new ones, and once more guaranteeing their immunity.16
In order to cement his friendship with the Athonite monasteries
15See St. Novakovic, Zakonik Stefana Dusana (Belgrade, 1898), 5. Cf. N.

Radojcic, Srpski drzavni sabon u srednjem veku (= Srpska kralj, akad., Posebna
izdanja, CXXX, Belgrade, 1940), 124-125.
16From this group we have the following chrysobulls included in Solovjev
and Mosin’s Corpus (Povelje, 42ft,) : VII. Iviron (April, 1346), VIII. Philotheou
(April, 1346), IX. Zographou (April, 1346), XI. Vatopedi (May, 1346), XII.
Xeropotamou (April-May, 1346), XVI. Esphigmenou (April, 1346-December,
1347). The authenticity of these documents has been a matter of controversy.
D. Anastasijevic (Byzantion, XII [1937], 631; “Esfigmeniskie akty cara
Dusana,” Annales de l’Institut Kondakov, X [1938], 58) expressed the opinion
that no. XIV for Esphigmenou does not belong to Dusan, but is a Byzantine
chrysobull issued by. Andronicus II ; Binon thinks that it is a falsification, Revue
d’hist. eccl., XXXIV, 309. Binon further believes that no. XI for Vatopedi is also
false, and that nos. VII (Iviron), VIII (Philotheou), XII (Xeropotamou),
XIII (Esphigmenou) have been preserved in a very suspect form; loc. cit.,
304, 307-308, 311, and Les origines légendaires, 122. Anastasijevic, considering
no. XIII to be incorrectly dated by Solovjev and Mosin (Povelje, 94), placed
it, on the basis of internal evidence, at the beginning of 1348; Byzantion, XII,
637. Mosin rejected Anastasijevic’s theory, advocating the old view that this
document was issued at the Skoplje sabor in 1346 (“Akti iz svetogorskih arhiva,”
Spomenik Srpsk. kralj. a k a d XCI [1939], 222, note 8). Mosin has also ex-
pressed the opinion that no. IX (Zographou) is not the original document, but
“probably a copy or a falsification” (Spomenik, XCI, 227, note 32). On the
problem of issuing chrysobulls in medieval Serbian sabors, see A. Solovjev,
“Dva priloga proucavanju Dusanove drzave,” Glasnik Skopskog naucnog
drustva, II (1926), 25-46; T. Taranovski, Istorija srpskog prava u nemanjickoj
drzavi, I (Belgrade, 1931), i 75-

and at the same time to fulfill his desire to see the Holy Mountain
where his ancestor Stephen Nemanja, the celebrated Saint Symeon
of the Serbs, had spent the last years of his life, Dusan decided to
go to Mount Athos himself.
Thus in 1 3 4 7 the Serbian Tsar visited Mount Athos with Empress
Helen and his son Uros, bringing with them precious gifts for the
monasteries.17 The old regulation of the abaton,18 prohibiting women
from going to Mount Athos, was overlooked on this occasion. The
Serbian sovereign and his wife distributed largesse to those Athonite
monasteries which they visited and especially to the Serbian monas-
tery of Chilandar.19 The memory of their pilgrimage and their
liberality have been preserved up to the present day among the
monks of the different Athonite monasteries, regardless of nation-
17 See B. Korablev, Actes slaves de Chilandar, 494-495. DuSan and Helen
must have come to Athos earlier than September 1, 1347, because in a notice
dated 6855 (1346/47) in a manuscript written for Empress Helen, the scribe,
a certain father Joanikij, states that she had been on Mt. Athos. (Lj. Stojanovic,
Start srpski zapisi = Zbornik za istoriju, jezik i knjizevnost srpsk. naroda,
III [Belgrade, 1908], 40, no. 4939.) The distinguished visitors remained on
Mount Athos until the spring of the following year. From an act of Dusan
dated April 29, 1348, we learn that he was then in Prizren; Fr. Miklosich,
Monumenta Serbica <Vienna, 1858), 139. On Dusan’s visit to Mt. Athos see
mainly T. Florinskij, Pamjatniki zakonodatel’noj dejatel’nosti Dusana cara
Serbov i Grekov (Kiev, 1888), 80; G. Smyrnakis, To *Ayiov vOpos (Athens,
1903), 88; K. Vlachos, ‘H ' A y i o v vO/?oi/y * A $ t a (Volos, 1903),
t o v
60-61; N. Bees, *J& yK V K X o ir . Ae&icbv ’EX e v d e p o v d a K r j, I (1927), 423b~424a.

The date of Dusan’s trip is incorrectly advanced by the so-called “svoden
hrisovul” to 1351, Povelje, 366. This document is, according to A. Stoilov, who
has studied it thoroughly and analyzed it philologically and palebgraphically, “a
compilation made on the basis of perhaps authentic chrysobulls issued by the
issuing sovereigns [sc. Emperor Leo the Wise; John of Trnoyo, Tsar of the
Bulgarians; Stephen Dusan, Tsar of the Serbs; and Despot Ugljesa] composed
not before the seventeenth century and not after the eighteenth century.”
(“Svoden hrisovul za istorijata na Zografskija monastir,” Sbornik v cest na
F. N. Zlatarski [Sofia, 1925], 452.) The date it gives for the trip is, however,
quite arbitrary and must be a later addition; see N. Bees, Vizantijskij Vremennik,
XX (1913), 302, note 2. C. Hopf (Gesch. G rie c h I, 445b) equally arbitrarily
places the event in 1345. Of the gifts which Dusan presented to the Athonite
monasteries there still exists a cross in the Monastery of Philotheou; see G.
Millet, J. Pargoire and L. Petit, Recueil des inscriptions chrétiennes du Mont
Athos, I (Paris, 1904), 98, no. 299.
23 Qn the abaton, see K. M. Rallis, Ilepî t o v àpàrov rœv fiovaffrijplav icarâ
rà t t js *0 pO
ô I kol iov o$6£ov 'Avar. *E/c/c\ij<r/ay (Athens, 1 9 0 8 ).
“ See R. Grujic, “Hilandar,” Narodna Enciklopedija, I, 828-830, where all
the important literature is mentioned. T. J. Burkovic’s study Hilendar u doba
Nemanjiéa (Belgrade, 1925) was not accessible to me.
AFTER THE FALL 355
Tsar Stephen DuSan and Mount Athos 131
ality .20 Their great generosity entitled them to a place among the
patrons and great benefactors of various monasteries like those of
Esphigmenou,21 Saint Panteleimon,22 Kutlumus 23 and naturally the
Serbian monastery of Chilandar and its kellion at Karyes.24 In the
Synodikon of the Monastery of the Megiste Laura Dusan’s name is
commemorated, because as “patron, or rather as if he had taken the
place of a father in our entire Holy Mountain, he strengthened and
supported it with all his power and helped us both with words and
property.” 25
Both Greek and Serbian contemporary sources mention the visit
of Dusan and Empress Helen to Mount Athos.26 It is best described,
however, in one of Dusan’s own Serbian chrysobulls, issued in 1 3 4 8
in favor of the Monastery of Chilandar. In this document Dusan
expresses his long-felt desire to visit the monasteries of Mount Athos
and describes how, after he had received the benediction of the holy
fathers, he went around the entire Holy Mountain and made a pil-
grimage to all the monasteries, embellished them, and presented them
20G. Smyrnakis (To ' A y i o v * Q p o s , 88) informs us that there is a legend

among the Athonite monks according to which Dusan, when he visited Mt. Athos,
went on horseback to the top of the mountain and erected there the standard
which is now preserved in the Monastery of Chilandar. On this standard, see
Smyrnakis, pp. 492-493, and P. Popovic, “Iz hilandarske riznice,” Prilozi za
knjizevnost, XVIII (1938), 356-359. Cf. Florinskij, Juznye slavjane, II, 137.
For other traditions, see R. M. Dawkins, The Monks of Athos (London [1936]),
356; Fr. Dôlger (éd.), Mônchsland Athos (Munich [1943]), 70; Smyrnakis, 499.
21Povelje, 150.
22See Akty russkogo na svjatom Afone monastyrja sv. velikomucenika i
ceUtelja Pantelejmona (Kiev, 1873), 184. Cf. A. Solovjev, “Histoire du monastère
russe au Mont-Athos,” Byzantion, VIII (1933), 225-226. There are traditions
that Dusan had presented relies of St. Panteleimon to the Russian monastery;
see V. Mosin, Spomenik, XCI (1939), 253, 255-256.
23See P. Lemerle, Actes de Kutlumus, 112, and 116. Dusan’s donations to
Kutlumus are mentioned also in an act of the Patriarch of Constantinople Nil,
dated October 1386. Ibid.y 144, ix, 33 and 51.
24See St. Noyakovic, Zakonski spomenici, 473. Cf. R. Grujió, “Carica
Jelena i celija Sv. Save u Kareji,” Glasnik Skopskog naucnog drustva, XIV
(1935)» 33~42; S. Troicki, “Ktitorsko pravo u Vizantiji i u nemanjickoj Srbiji,”
Glas, CLXVIII ( 1 9 3 5 ), 97.
25D. Anastasijevic, “Srpski arhiv Laure atonske,” Spomenik, LVI (1922),
17. The námes of Dusan and of Helen are also commemorated in the Bp é f h o v
of the same monastery, ibid., 17.
26Besides the sources mentioned above in note 17, Dusan’s visit to Mount
Athos is also mentioned in Patriarch Philotheus’ Encomium Palamae, Migne, PG
CLI, col. 615.
with various g ifts .27 The most celebrated event was of course his visit
to the M onastery of Chilandar, which he visited twice. N ear the so-
called “T sar’s olive tree,” under which it is believed D usan rested,
there is a cross on a small w all base. According to tradition, the monks
of Chilandar welcomed Dusan, Empress Helen, and Kralj Uros in
this place .28
T he Serbian chrysobulls of D usan issued in favor of the M onastery
of Chilandar on the occasion of his trip to M ount Athos amply
indicate his liberality toward this Serbian m onastery .29 D usan in-
creased the lands of the M onastery of Chilandar and defined their
borders. H e further attem pted to resolve the differences between the
M onastery of Chilandar and the Bulgarian M onastery of Zographou.
From the so-called “svoden hrisovul” 30 we learn that D usan recon-
ciled the two monasteries, which had been quarreling over land
holdings throughout the fourteenth century . 31 T he document informs
us that D usan, while on M ount Athos, had invited Gregory the abbot
of Zographou to come to the M onastery of Chilandar. There he asked
him to produce all the imperial chrysobulls and Patriarchical acts
his m onastery possessed. After Gregory had shown D usan two
chrysobulls of Zographou, one in Greek and the other in Slavic,
D usán dictated a new chrysobull, settling the dispute b y arbitration.
D usan’s decision was in favor of Chilandar, but as compensation he
27B. Korablev, Actes slaves de Chilandar, 494.

2SArh. Leonid, Istoriceskoe opisanie Hilandara (Moscow, 1868), 67, quoted
by Florinskij, Juznye Slavjane, II, 137.
28See Dusan’s two chrysobulls issued in 1348 (Korablev, Actes slaves, 493-
497; Solovjev, Odabrani spomenici, 132-135). See also an act of donation of
certain villages to the kellion of St. Sava at Karyes. The document was issued
in 1348 in Prilep, but the donation was made apparently when Dusan was still
on Mount Athos (Korablev, 498-501. Cf. Mosin, Spomenik, XCI, 223). The
chrysobull of Dusan, dated December 12, 1347, by which he donated the place
of Livadia to the Monastery of Chilandar, and another dated April 26, 1348,
concerning the land property of the same monastery are considered by Mosin
{ibid., note 11) to be falsifications. The text of these two chrysobulls can be
found in Korablev, Actes slaves, 489-493, 501-505. The last one has been
reproduced along with a Greek translation of the seventeenth century also in
Povelje, 336-351-
BQPovelje, 367.
31 The most celebrated was of course the dispute over the mill of Chantax.
See Fr. Dolger, “Die Miihle von Chantax: Untersuchung iiber vier unechte
Kaiserurkunden,” E¿s fivifirjv 2 w. AáfjLTrpov (Athens, i 93S)> i 3~27- Cf. Binon,
Revue d’hist. eccl.} XXXIV, 304-305.
AFTER THE FALL 357
Tsar Stephen D usan and M ou nt Athos 133
gave the M onastery of Zographou two villages in the area of the

Struma river, Krusevo and Sotir, which were to enjoy fiscal im-
m unity .32
The “svoden hrisovul” is of course a suspect source, since it places
D usan’s visit to M ount Athos in 1 3 5 1 , and mentions a certain
Gregory as abbot of Zographou in 1 3 4 7 - 1 3 4 8 , while other trust-
worthy contemporary sources cite Macarius as the abbot during this
period .33 Nevertheless, the information given in the “svoden hrisovul”
cannot be com pletely disqualified merely because of this discrepancy,
and it is quite logical to think that Dusan did attem pt to settle the
differences between the two quarreling monasteries. An indication of
this is the fact that we possess a Serbian translation of the P raktikon
of Chilandar (irpaKriKov twv TrpocroSwv, an inventory of the revenues
of the possessions of the monastery in the area of Strym on) which
was probably made in connection with the land dispute between
Chilandar and Zographou during the Serbian domination under
D u san .34
There is no doubt that during his visit D usan issued many
chrysobulls in favor of the various Athonite monasteries. Besides the
chrysobulls for Chilandar we possess from this period one chrysobull
of the Serbian Tsar for the M onastery of Esphigmenou 35 and one
32 Povelje, 369. The same source speaks of the destruction of six acts of the
Monastery of Zographou.-by the Serbian Tsar during his visit to Athos; ibid.,
373. According to Mosin, the lost original of the Zographou act of 1049 and the
prostagma of Andronicus III of 1330, which inaugurated the feud between the
monasteries of Chilandar and Zographou, were probably among the acts de-
stroyed by Stephen Dusan; Spomenik, XCI, 171-172, and “Povelja cara Dusana
0 selu Luscu,” Jugosl. ist. casopis, V (1939), 116.
33See the act of the central council of Mt. Athos, dated December, 1347;
L. Petit, Actes grecs de Chilandar, 287. Macarius is mentioned also as abbot, of
Zographou in the chrysobull dated April 26, 1348 (Povelje, 346-347), which,
however, Mosin considers a falsification; cf. note 29, above.
34See Mosin, “Das Datum des Praktikon von Chilandar,” Byzantinisch-
neugriechische Jahrbücher, XIV (1937-1938), 116, and Spomenik, XCI, 201,
202, 217. Earlier, however, Mosin dated the Serbian translation of the Praktikon
about 1330; “Beleske 0 hiland. praktiku,” Zbornik u cast A . Bélica (Belgrade,
I 937)j 255-256. It is known that in Byzantium the praktika were taken into
serious consideration in lawsuits concerning quarrels over land property. Cf. Fr.
Dolger, Seeks byzantinische Praktika des 14, Jahrhunderts für das Athoskloster
Iberon ( —Abhandlungen der Bayer. Akad. der Wissenschajten, New Series, no.
28 [Munich, 1949!), 5*
35Povelje, ioóff.

for the Laura of Saint Athanasius,36 both issued in December, 1 3 4 7 ,
and another one for the Monastery of Vatopedi, issued in April,
1 3 4 8 . 37 Two undated prostagmata attributed to Dusan belong also
probably to this period. The first was issued in favor of the Mon-
astery of Esphigmenou, to which Dusan granted an annual revenue of
500 hyperperi. In the same document he transfered his rights as
ktetor of the monastery to his son Uros.38 The other is also a Greek
prostagma found in the Monastery of Kutlumus, but with a Serbian
date, in which the Tsar exempts all the dependencies (metochia) of
the Athonite monasteries from the tax called 7rop¿art/cov.39 According
to Professor P. Lemerle, who discovered and edited it, this prostagma
“se présente comme un complément au célèbre ‘chrysobulle général’
adressé par Dusan au vingt convents de l’Athos.” 40 No other docu-
ments of Dusan dating from this period are known, but there is some
reason to believe that a number of them have escaped destruction and
are still lying hidden in the Athonite archives.41
86 Povelje, u6ff.
87 Povelje, I38ff. Binon expressed the opinion that the present form of this
document bears traces of later interpolation; Revue d’hist. eccl., XXXIV, 307-
308, 311. Besides these chrysobulls of Dusan there is another one in favor of
the Russian monastery of St. Panteleimon, dated January, 1348; Povelje , 124ft.
It is believed by Anastasijevic to be a falsification (Byzantion , XII, 634), Dôlger
(“Empfangerausstellung in der byzantinischen Kaiserkanzlei? Methodisches zur
Erforschung der griechischen Urkunden des Mittelalters,” Archiv filr Urkunden-
forsckung, XV [1938], 395, 409-410), and Binon {loe. cit., 311). Mosin defended
the authenticity of the chrysobull (Spomenik, XCI, 224-230), but he was again
criticized by Dôlger (Byzant. Zeitschrift, XL [1940], 134, 137), who considers
also the Serbian chrysobulls of Dusan dated June 12, 1349 (Akty mss., 351-
357) and issued in favor of the same monastery to be false. Cf. G. Ostrogorsky’s
review of Mosin’s article in Annales de VInstitui Kondakov , XI (1940), 271-274.
88Povelje, 148-151. N. Bees attributes this act to Dusan’s wife Helen;
Vizantijskij Vremennik, XX (1913), 311. However the use of the expression
jSa<n\eia fiov, so common in Dusan’s acts, and certain other points led Solovjev
and Mosin to attribute this prostagma to Dusan (Povelje, 148), with good
reason.
39A. Solovjev and P. Lemerle, “Trois chartes des souverains serbes conservées
au monastère de Kutlumus (Mont Athos),” Annales de VInstitut Kondakov, XI
(1939), 130. It has ako been reproduced in Lemerle, Kutlumus, 229-230. On
7ToptartKov see Povelje, 483.
"Lemerle, Kutlumus, 229.
41 For example, the chrysobull for the Monastery of Dochiarou, which is men-
tioned in a later act of Duêan for the same monastery, was probably issued dur-
ing Dusan’s sojourn on Mount Athos. See Povelje , 170. For Dulan’s chrysobull
for the Monastery of St. Panteleimon see above, note 37.
AFTER THE FALL 359
Tsar Stephen D ulan and M ount Athos 135

When Stephen Dusan visited Mount Athos, Gregory Palamas, one
of the most important personalities of the fourteenth century, well
known from the role he played in the hesychastic controversy, was
living there.42 According to certain scholars hesychasm had had a
considerable influence on the Serbian monks on Mount Athos and
also on the clergy in Serbia since the time of Saint Sava 43 It has
been also claimed that the first articles of Dusan’s Zakonik , where
he speaks against heretics and of purging Christianity, reflect hesy-
chastic influence.44 Moreover, the fact that Dusan preferred the
writings of Matthew Blastares, a well known hesychast, as a source
for his legislative code to the treatises of the greatest legal authority
of the time, Constantine Harmenopoulos, has been attributed by
Professor A. Solovjev to Dusan’s hesychastic sympathies.45
The hesychasts constituted the majority on Mount Athos and
Gregory Palamas as their leader was indeed a powerful figure.46
42Palamas had been appointed metropolitan of Thessalonike in 1347, but as

he was not accepted by the population of the city he retired to Mt. Athos. See
M. Jugie, “Palamas, Grégoire,” Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, XI, 1740.
For essential literature on Palamas, see G. Georgiades Arnakis, “Gregory Palamas
Among the Turks and Documents of His Captivity as Historical Sources,”
Speculum, XXVI (1951), 116, note 2.
43See M. Vasic, “L’hésychasme dans l’église et l’art des Serbes,” Uart byzan-
tin chez les Slaves: Les Balkans [Recueil Uspenskij], I, (Paris, 1930), 110-123.
44See articles 6ff. (St. Novakovic, Zakonik Stefana Dusanaf 11fi. English
translation in Malcolm Burr, “The Code of Stephen Dusan,” The Slavonic and
East European Review , XXVIII [1949-1950], 199#.). Cf. Solovjev, Zako-
nodavstvo Stefana Dusana cara Srba i Grka (Skoplje, 1928), 81.
45See Solovjev, Zakonodavstvo , 80-81. Cf. his “L’oeuvre juridique de
Mathieu Blastares,” Studi bizantini i neoellenici, V (1939) [A tti del V Con-
gresso Internationale di Studi Bizantini, I], 698-707. This view, however, can
be questioned on the basis of an unpublished work of Açindynus (Marc. Gr.
155, fol. 79v-*9iv), which informs us that in 1346 Harmenopoulos had changed
his attitude toward the hesychasts. Although he had formally assumed a neutral
position, in reality he favored the Palamite doctrines. I owe this information to
Dr. Ihor §evcenko, who is preparing this text for publication.
46According to F. Uspenskij (“Filosofskoe i bogoslovskoe dvizenie v XIV
veke,” ¿urnal Minist. Narodn. Prosvescenija, CCLXXIX [Feb. 1892], 405)
Palamas “was not only the leader of the Greek national trend in the’struggle
against the Westerners, but, more important, he was at the head of the mo-
nastic movement which dominated Mount Athos and its dependent monasteries
in the Balkan peninsula. Besides, his name enjoyed tremendous authority among
the most powerful and widespread sect of the Bogomils.” For the relations be-
tween the Bogomils and Hesychasm see D. Obolensky, The Bogomils, A Study
in Balkan Neo-Manichaeism (Cambridge, 1948), pp. 2 $2 ft.
Dusan met Palamas personally during his trip to Mount Athos.47

Being a realistic statesman, fully aware of Palamas’ influence, he
tried to win his allegiance 48 because in this way he would win the
sympathy of all the hesychasts in his territory and consequently
weaken the position of his opponent, Emperor Cantacuzenus, whose
main supporters were the hesychasts.49 According to Philotheus,
Dusan first asked Palamas to sevçr his relations with the Byzantines
and follow him to Serbia, promising him offices, lands, and ijcioney.
Palamas simply refused them all. Then Dusan asked him to go as his
ambassador to Constantinople, but unfortunately we are not informed
about the nature of the proposed mission.50 Dusan’s real motive
must have been his desire to send a dangerous dissenter away from
the Byzantine lands he had conquered. We know, however, that
Palamas did go to Constantinople in the fall of 1348, returning to
Thessalonike at the beginning of the following year. But it is not clear
under what circumstances he went, or, more specifically, whether he
made the trip as Dusan’s ambassador.51
Dusan intervened in the affairs of Mount Athos in an even more
direct way. We have seen already how he settled the dispute between
the monasteries of Chilandar and Zographou to the advantage of the
47Solovjev (Zakonodavstvo, 68, note 2) expressed the opinion that Dusan

conversed in Greek with Palamas. This is, however, a simple hypothesis based
on the fact that Dusan had spent seven years (1314-1321) of -his childhood in
Constantinople. Cf. Lj. Stojanovie, Start srpski zapisi i natpisi (Belgrade, 1902),
I, 26, no. 56; Gregory Camblak’s Lije 0/ Stephen Decanski in Glasnik, XI (1859),
50, and Arhiv za povjest. jugoslavensku, IV (1859), 4.
48Philotheus, “Encomium Palamae,” PG, CLI, col. 615. Thispanegyric by
Philotheus Kokkinos, Patriarch of Constantinople (1354-1355, 1364-1376), is
the principal source for Palamas’ life, but it is a partial account. “C’est une
thèse, qui a pour but de démontrer la parfaite sainteté du héros.” (M. Jugie,
Diet, de théol. path., XI, 1735).
49See Ch. Diehl, R. Guilland, L. Oeconomos, and R.Grousset,L’Europe
orientale de 1 0 S1 à 1 4 5 3 (Paris, 1945), 318-319.
50Philotheus, PG , CLI, col. 615.
51 Ibid., col. 616. Cf. ibid., col. 623, where Philotheus informs us that in the
fall of 1351, Palamas, returning victorious from the Council at Constantinople,
arrived by sea in the port of Thessalonike, but his entrance to the city was for-
bidden by Emperor John Palaeologus who was at the time negotiating with
Dusan an alliance directed against John Cantacuzenus. See Cantacuzenus (Bonn),
III, 204; Gregoras (Bonn), III, 147. Cf. Nilus, “Panegyricus Gregorii Palamae,”
PG, CLI, coi. 675. Cf. also Uspenskij, ZMNP , Feb., 1892, 416; L. Petit, “Les
évêques de Thessalonique,” Échos d’Orient, V (1901-1902), 93; Jugie, Diet. de
théol. cath ., 1740.
AFTER THE FALL 361
Tsar Stephen Dusan and M ount Athos 137

former. In the long disputes between the Athonite monasteries and the
pronoiarioi he often took an active part, always supporting the
monasteries.52 In this way the Athonite possessions were considerably
increased during Dusan’s reign.5a From contemporary documents we
also draw the information that the Serbs on Mount Athos ordained a
great number of priests during this period.54 Besides, Dusan himself
had appointed his faithful friend, the Serbian monk Isaias, as abbot
of the Monastery of Saint Panteleimon.55 From that moment on the
Serbs seem to have entered that monastery in large numbers.56
There is no doubt that the Serbian and generally the Slavic element
52 G. Ostrogorsky, Pronija, prilog istoriji feudalismo, u Vizantiji i u juzno-

slovenskim zemljama ( = Srpska akademija nauka, Posebna izdanja, CLXXVI
[1951]), 139-140.
63The Athonite possessions were increased during Dusan’s reign also by
direct donations and by the purchase of private lands at very low prices from
persons who had been financially ruined by the prevailing political unrest in
Macedonia. Cf. the case of the estate of Philippa discussed on the basis of an
act of the Monastery of Xeropotamou by Lemerle, “Note sur la carrière judi-
ciaire de Constantin Harmenópoulos,” Tóf¿os 'Apfievowovkov (Thessalonike,
1951), 245-246.
54See Patriarch Philotheus’ letter of April 3, 1368, addressed to the bishop
of Hierissos concerning his rights on Mount Athos. The Patriarch instructs him
not to recognize the prelates who have been ordained by the Serbs. The most
convenient edition of this letter is in Fr. Miklosich and J. Müller, Acta et diplo-
mata, I, 555. An Athonite document of the beginning of the nineteenth cen-
tury, concerning the history of the dispute between the monasteries of Kutlumus
and Xeropotamou, informs us that Dusan had promoted the bishop of Hierissos
to the rank of metropolitan with the title of hypertimos. (Lemerle, Kutlumus,
246, 11. 14-20) This however does not seem to be true, because the head of
the Church of Hierissos already had the title of metropolitan in 1329 and 1330.
(Ibid., 75, 79). Perhaps Dusan had simply confirmed the title. On the title oí
hypertimos metropolites see V. Grumel, “Titulature de métropolites byzantins,
II: Métropolites hypertimes,” Mémorial Louis Petit (Bucharest, 1948), 154-184.
55On Isaias, see his Vita published in Glasnik, LVI (1884), 63-77. See also
Mosin, Spomenik, XCI, 243, and “Zitie starca Isaji, igumena russkogo monastyrja
na Afone,” Sbornik Russk. Arkeol. Obsc. v Jugoslavii, III (1940), 125-167.
Isaías is known from his participation in the Serbian embassy sent to Con-
stantinople in 1375 for the reconciliation of the two Churches. See Danilo (ed.
Danicic), Zivoti kraljeva i arhiepiskopa srpskih (Zagreb, 1866), 381-383. Cf.
Lascaris, “Le Patriarcat de Pec a-t-il été reconnu par l’église de Constantinople
en 1375?” Mélanges Charles Diehl, I (Paris, 1930), 171-175, and V. Laurent,
“L’archevêque de Pec et le titre de patriarche après l’union de 1375,” Balcania,
VII (1944), 303-310. On Isaias’ father see the recent article by M. A. Purkovic,
“Der Vater des Starez Isaias,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift, XLIV (1951), 461-462.
56Cf. Solovjev, “Histoire du monastère russe au Mont-Athos,” Byzantion,
VIII ( 1 9 3 3 ), 226.

on Mount Athos was strengthened under Dusan. For the first time in
the history of Mount Athos a Slav appears as Protos? 1 In an act of
the Monastery of Zographou, dated May, 1348, we find as Protos
of Mount Athos a Serbian monk Antony, who signs the document in
Slavic.58 Serbs held this office several times afterwards, and it is
interesting to note that in an Athonite document dated January,
1375, we find the special term 'ZtpfSorrp&Toi used for the Serbian Protoi
of Mount Athos.59
The active role of the Slavs on Mount Athos during the Serbian
domination and the appointment of Serbian Protoi do not, however,
in my opinion, justify V. Mosin’s statement that a “Slavicization of
Mount Athos” began with Dusan’'s visit to the Athonite monasteries.60
The Slavic signatures of Dusan which Mosin cites in the acts of Laura
(December, 1347) and of Vatopedi (April, 1348), cannot serve as a
convincing proof, since they are not considered authentic.61 Further,
Mosin’s assertion that the existence of Serbian translations of certain
Athonite Greek documents during that period indicates the spreading
of the Serbian language and the gradual Slavicization of Mount Athos
is open to serious question. The number of official Athonite docu-
ments written in Greek during this period is so great, and so large
a majority of the leading personalities bear Greek names that there is
no basis for claiming that the Greeks lost control of Mount Athos
during the Serbian domination. Moreover, these Serbian texts are
translations of documents relevant to the dispute between the Slavic
monasteries of Chilandar and Zographou which was settled by the
67On the office of Protos, see Ch. Ktenas, “ *0 n puros t o v 'Aylov *0povs *A0ta
koX i) 'M.eyá\ii Mé<rrj\” ’Eirer. 'Eraipeias Buf. Xirovdiov, VI (1929), 233— 281.
68W. Regel, E. Kurtz, and B. Korablev, Actes de Zographou , (Supplement to
Vizantijskij Vremennik, XIII [1907]), 92. The document is dated May, 1348.
Anthony signs also as Protos in Slavic in an act of Kutlumus, about 1350; see
Lemerle, Kutlumus, 97.
59Lemerle, Kutlumus, 123, line 14. In a number of Athonite acts we find the
signature of the Serbian Protos Dorotheus. (See Petit, Actes grecs de Chii., 307,
no. 145 [1356], 3I3j no. 148 [1364], 321, no. 153 [1366]; Akty russ., 102, no. 9
[r363], 106, no. 10 [1363], and 114, no. 11 [1366]. Cf. Lemerle, Kutlumus, 122-
124.) In acts of the period 1369-1370 we find the signature of the Serbian
Protos Sava. (Lemerle, Kutlumus, 101, 106, 109, 115, 121; Actes CkiL, 324,
no 153.) Finally in 1513 we find another Sava. (Actes Zogr., 127, no. 55; 129,
no. 5 6 .)
60V. Mosin, Spomenik , XCI, 243.
111See Povelje, 116; Binon, Revue d’hist. eccl., XXXIV, 307-308, 311. Cf. Fr.
Dolger, Aus den Sckatzkammern, 145, 335.
AFTER THE FALL 363
Tsar Stephen Dulan and Mount Athos 139

Serbian ruler himself.62 This might be sufficient reason to explain why
Serbian translations were needed.
It is essential to point out, however, that the position of the Serbian
monastery of Chilandar became more important and powerful in the
monastic community of Mount Athos and that the Slavic element
undoubtedly played a more active role, but it would be an error to
use the expression “Slavicization of Mount Athos” to apply to
Dusan’s reign.63 As a matter of fact, during Cantacuzenus’ campaign
against Dusan in 1350, Mount Athos fell into Byzantine hands again
for a short time,64 and the Athonite monks had often asked the
Byzantine Emperor to confirm their privileges during the period
of the Serbian domination.65
The privileged position of the Slavs on Mount Athos did not last
for long. With Dusan’s death and the subsequent decline of the
Serbian rule in Macedonia, we find the beginnings of a reaction
against the Serbs and the Slavs in general on Mount Athos 66
02 Like the Chilandar praktikon and the acts of Zographou. See MoSin,
Byz.-neugr. Jahrbücher, XIV (1937-1938), 115 and Spomenik, XCI, 170-185,
199-203.
68 It is commonly thought that the Monastery of Saint Paul (which belonged
to the Monastery of Xeropotamou) was made independent and passed into
Serbian hands during Dugan’s reign* The late St. Binon (Les origines légend-
aires, 261-262) has recently rejected this opinion and proved that the Monas-
tery of Saint Paul became independent only about 1365. It is interesting to note
that G. Smyrnakis (Tô HAy top v0pos, 638) reports that DuSan planned to found
a Serbian city on Mount Athos at the place called Samaria. Smyrnakis does not
mention the source of his information. Perhaps he drew it from local traditions.
64See Cantacuzenus (Bonn), III, 156; cf. also pp. 173#.
65See the two chrysobulls of Emperor John V Palaeologus, dated April, 1351
and 1353 respectively, (Petit, Actes grecs de Chii. 292-294, and Akty mss. mon.,
i7off. Cf. V. MoSin, Spomenik, XCI, 247).
66See Petit, Actes Chil., 329, 333-334; Lemerle, Kutlumus, 129, line 57, and
131, line 112. Conflict between the Greek and the Slavic monks existed also before
DuSan’s conquest. An act of Chilandar (Petit, Actes CM ., 279-282) informs us
that a Serbian monk had left a deposit of money with a monk of the Greek
Monastery of Esphigmenou. When it was heard that the Grand Duke Apokau-
kos was arriving with a fleet to conduct a campaign against Cantacuzenus and
his Serbian allies, the Greek monks pillaged the treasure of the Serbian monk
and seriously molested him. See P. Lemerle, Philippes et la Macédoine orientale
a Vépoque chrétienne et byzantine (Paris, 1945), 197, note 3.
15
Between Kingdom and Empire:
Dusan’s State 1346-1355 Reconsidered
r
Sima M. Cirkovic
It was during the reign of Stephen Du§an (1331-1355) that Byzantino-

Serbian rivalry reached its height. According to G. C. Soulis, author of the most
complete study on Dusan’s relations with Byzantium, «the assumption of the
imperial title signified undoubtedly the climax of Du§an’s struggle with
Byzantium. The new title, Emperor of the Serbs and the Greeks, did not imply
any basic change in the Byzantine notion of basileus as the head of the one and
only universal Christian empire, but it simply adjusted this concept to an ethnic
re-interpretation»1. But there was no attempt made in the scholarly literature to
provide examples of the meaning of such a re-interpretation and to show its
concrete realisation in Dugan’s policies. In the first outline of a critical
biography, C. Jireéek attributed to the Serbian ruler a constant desire to
conquer the Byzantine Empire, above all its capital: «Die Einnahme der
gro(3en Residenzstadt am Bosporus, die ihm aus den triiben Knabenjahren
wohlbekannt war, blieb ihm zeitlebens ein Traum, dem er nicht mehr entsagen
konnte»2. In the same spirit G. Ostrogorsky commented on Dugan’s coronation:
«Soon afterwards Du§an took the imperial title, styling himself from now on
Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks, which was a clear indication that the old
Byzantine Empire was to disappear to make room for a new Serbo-Greek
Empire»3. Taking into account results rather than supposed distant aims, G. C.
Soulis found that «DuSan thoroughly embraced the idea of ruling over a Serbo-
Greek empire based on Byzantine forms». He considered «the creation of the
1 Soulis,The Serbs, 30.

2 Jireôek, Geschichte, 386.
3 G. Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, Oxford 1956,466-467.
Sima M. Cirkovic
imposing Serbo-Byzantine empire of Stephen Du§an» among the «most

important events of the century»4.
I have not quoted the opinions of scholars who have brilliantly advanced
our knowledge of Dusan’s reign in order to challenge them or to oppose them to
one another. Like poetic metaphors they embody some of the basic features of
the epoch. It is not their thesis but their excessively general character that
hinders us to resting satisfied. As the results of daring generalisation based on
incompletely known facts, such vague formulae are hardly in accordance with
available evidence, however scarce it may be.
On the other hand, even the very existence of something like an ‘imperial
idea’ that could have guided Dusan’s orientation in a time full of changes seems
to me doubtful. Dugan’s official documents and his acts as ruler reveal
inconsistent elements, which cannot be adduced from the same basic idea. For
instance, the separation of his capacities of King of Serbia and Emperor of
Romania, evidenced on his coins from 1345-13465 and continued in the partition
of power between himself and his son King UroS, cannot be brought in
accordance with the supposed ambition to replace the Byzantine Empire with
his mighty state6. Is it justifiable to consider as elements of the same policies
DuSan’s guarantee given to the monks of Athos not to prevent the liturgical
mention of the Byzantine emperor in the first place (November 1345) and his
asking for military assistance in Venice for a planned conquest of
Constantinople (February 1346)?
In looking for sources for DuSan’s ideas7 we must remind ourselves of the
discrepancy between the image of the empire as transmitted through legal and
historical writings and as perceived from reality or learned from the
controversial arguments of the factions in the Byzantine civil war. It is
4 Soulis, The Serbs, XI, 60. Cf. also: G. Ostrogorsky, Problèmes des relations byzantino-
serbes au XlVe siècle, Proceedings of the XlUth International Congress, of Byzantine Studies.
Oxford 5-10 September 1966, London-New York-Toronto 1967, 41-55 and the
Supplementary Paper by G. Soulis, ibid., 57-61.
5 Soulis, The Serbs, 30.
6 Reviewof prior opinions and results in exhaustive commentaries of B. Ferjanëié, VIINI VI,
262-270, 482-484.
7 On the sources of Dugan’s ideas with an insistence on the example of Bulgaria, cf. Soulis,
The Serbs, 30-32.
Ill
AFTER THE FALL 367
Sima M. Cirkovic
extremely doubtful that DuSan could have maintained the same attitude towards
the empire while supporting claimants and usurpers like Syrgiannes in 1333-34
or Cantacuzenus in 1342-1343, and as an ally of the legal government in
Constantinople and relative of the Palaeologoi as was the case in 1343-1344.
At home Dusan must also have been faced with different and diverging
tendencies and pressures. Preservation and affirmation of the dynastic traditions
of Nemanjici, assertion of the continuity of the inherited Serbian state,
especially in relation to Venice and Dubrovnik, all that was not easy to
harmonise with the role of a Byzantine emperor trying to identify himself with
the successors of Constantine the Great.
In any case, a general composite judgement of Dusan’s ambitions should
result from a careful analysis of all available sources rather than precede and
direct such an analysis. In a previously published paper8 I tried to examine a
similar underlying hypothesis, namely that the Serbian state had been
predestined to become an empire and to replace Byzantium. I came to the
conclusion that Serbia was only in its military strength superior to the remnants
of the Byzantine Empire on the eve of the second civil war. I found also that
some kind of imperial ambitions made their appearance relatively late and had
been expressed as the desire to participate in the Empire. Now I would like to
examine how far Dusan’s attitudes towards the Empire are reflected in his
documents and his acts. But before starting with our analysis, let us cast a
glance at the inherited dispositions, at the political traditions which might have
influenced the Serbian ruler.
In the long history of previous Byzantino-Serbian relations we are able to
distinguish some typical relationships between rulers, a kind of model effective
in providing balance and stability. From the christianisation to the downfall of
Byzantium in the late 12th century the model of toparches in which the ruler of
a Serbian principality was considered and treated in Constantinople as a local
governor might be regarded as representative. Although he had not been
appointed by the emperor, but inherited his high standing, or was elected
according to customary law, he nevertheless received his title, his symbols of
authority, his instructions, like any other local officer. We know of cases of
admission of Serbian rulers to the ranks of the Byzantine official hierarchy from
the 10th and 11th centuries: Michael ViSevié, prince of the Zahumljani was
8 S. Úrkovié, Srbija uo£i carstva, Dedani, 3-13.
112
Sima M. Cirkovic
antypatos and patrikios, the other Michael, son of Vojislav, was inscribed
among the friends and allies of the Romans (Romaioi) and honoured with the
dignity of protospatharios9.
A model for another typical relationship might be that of son-in-law, with
Nemanja’s son Stefan (1196-1227) as prototype. Married to Eudocia, daughter
of Alexios Angelos, Stefan won by this relationship priority as the heir to the
Serbian throne, and when his father-in-law became Byzantine emperor, he
obtained the high title of a sevastocrator10. But even before 1204 he neglected
his high Byzantine dignity and competed for the more prestigious rank of king.
In spite of opposition on the part of the Hungarian king, Stefan finally got the
royal crown from Pope Honorius III (1217). He became the first-crowned king
for his successors, who inherited the royal title. Serbia became the last newly-
established kingdom in the middle ages. To the Byzantines the title of king
(KQokr)ç, kralj) was totally strange and, as in the case of Hungarian kings, it
sometimes replaced the personal names of individual rulers11.
But after the restoration of the Byzantine Empire, dynastic marriages as a
means of providing peace and friendly relationships became attractive again.
The projected union between the princess Anna and the son of the Serbian king,
and the actual marriages of Milutin and Stefan Decanski, are the best
illustrations12. Both Milutin and his son considered the respective Byzantine
emperors as their fathers. Milutin was very proud of his relationship with the
Palaeologoi. In one of his charters he called his father -in- law: «my lord and
parent, the holy Greek Emperor kyr Andronikos and his beloved son, brother of
my kingdom kyr Michael the Greek Emperor»13.
The models just quoted, taken from a rather long period, reveal the fact
that the Serbian rulers had accepted the Byzantine imperial ideology and the
hierarchical order as its consequence. Even polemical texts, like Nemanja’s
charter for Hilandar, did not contest the superiority of the Byzantine emperor,
9 On Serbian rulers as Byzantine officials cf. VIINJII, 60; III, 82,86,125,204-206,212.

10 B. Ferjancic, Kada se Evdokija udala za Stevana Prvovenôanog, Zbor. Filoz. Fac. 8/1
(1964) 217-224; B. Ferjancic, Sevastokratori u Vizantiji, ZRVI11 (1968) 168-171.
11 Examples in the fragments of almost all authors of the 14th century in VIINJ VI.
12 M. Laskaris, Vizantijske princeze u srednjovekovnoj Srbiji. Prilog istoriji vizantisko-
srpskih odnosa od kraja XII do sredine X V veka, Beograd 1926.
13 Novakovic, Zakonski spomenici, 479, but also 391 and 482.
113
AFTER THE FALL 369
Sima M. Oirkovié
but aspired only to the immediate relationship with God of every ruler,
regardless of his position on the hierachical scale14.
Of course, all this applies only to periods of peace and normal
relationship; also very instructive are the alternatives in times of enmity,
rebellion, war, and rivalry: acceptance of the overlordship of the Hungarian
kings, the patronage of the Roman popes, or even of Western emperors, as was
the case with Stefan Nemanja in 1189.
In the historical perspective just outlined, the 14th century, or at least one
part of it, seems like an exception. As we have seen, the period between 1345
and 1371 is regarded as a time not only of temporary conflicts in daily politics
between Byzantium and Serbia, but of lasting rivalry; it even seems that a new
empire had been opposed to the old one. The change in the attitude of Serbian
rulers becomes even more dramatic if we take into account that as late as 1336,
in the eyes of Cantacuzenus, Du§an followed the example of his predecessors,
when on the occasion of a meeting with Emperor Andronicus III, he «showed
great intelligence and humbleness», and respected the Emperor as his lord15.
Does this correspond to the reality? If so, what are the reasons for such a
sudden change in the attitude of the Serbian ruler? There is no hint in the
contemporary documents. The instances of DuSan’s recollection of his own
elevation to imperial rank are very rare. Two of them are very short. In the
first of them all that is mentioned is the period «before my kingdom became a
tsardom», while the second alludes to the moment «when I by God’s grace
raised the dignity of king to empire, the archbishopric to patriarchate and the
14 «In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth and men on it and blessed them
and gave them power over all of his creatures and appointed some to be emperors, others
princes (kneze), and others lords (vladiki), and gave to each of them to graze his own flock and
to protect it from every evil that could endanger it. And so, brothers, the most gracious God
established the Greeks to be emperors, the Hungarians to be kings, and by His Wisdom to
every tongue that separated and gave laws and established customs, He appointed lords
(vladiki) according to the custom and law». Best edition in: Spisi sv. Save, ed. V. Êorovic,
Beograd-Sr. Karlovci 1928,1.
15 Cantacuzenus 1,474-475; VIINJV1,350-353; S. Órkovic, O sastancima cara Andronika
III i kralja Stefana DuSana, ZRVI29-30 (1991) 205-212.
114
Sima M. Cirkovié
bishoprics to metropolises»16. Consequently, in his own view it was a great

turning point, an elevation in rank, complex and embracing much more than a
ruler’s title alone. More details and more content may be found in Dugan’s
autobiographical reminiscence which accompanies his Code (DuSanov zakonik).
Preserved only in a late manuscript, copied arround 1700 from an earlier
transcript, this ‘epilogue’ to Dugan’s Code has hardly attracted any attention.
Although N. Radojcic succeeded in defending its authenticity, this document has
never been analysed in the context of Byzantino-Serbian relationship17.
In the part preserved the text starts with an account of the rule of Dugan’s
father, gives an account of the war against «seven rulers», and of the victory at
Velbuzd, and mentions Dugan’s dissent from his father and the beginning of his
own rule: «And... appointed me to be lord and ruler of all of my fatherland and
I ruled 16 years and then I was strengthened with greater honour by the right
hand of the Almighty Lord as the most magnificent Joseph was stregthened with
wisdom and appointed to be ruler of many peoples and of all of the Pharaon’s
land. In the same manner by His grace I was translated from the the kingdom
to the Orthodox empire. And He gave me in my hands as to the Emperor
Constantine lands and countries and coasts and large towns of the Greek
Empire, as we have already said. And I was crowned with the wreath donated
by God to the Empire in the year 6854, indiction 14, on the great and most holy
feast of the Resurrection by the hand and with the blessing of Most Holy
Patriarch Joanikije and by all the archpriests of the Serbian Council. Also by
the hand and with the blessing of the Most Holy Patriarch of Bulgaria Lord
Simeon and by all the archpriests of the Council of Bulgaria. And with the
prayers and blessing of the reverend Council of the Holy Mountain of Athos and
by all the elders (starci) of the Athonite Council, even by archpriests of the
16 Lj. Stojanovic, Stare srpske povelje i pisma I, Beograd 1929,65; Novakovic, Zakonski
spomenici, 677.
17 N. Radojéic published his study: Red cara Stefana DuSana uz njegov Zakonik as a sup-
plement to his own edition of the Code: Zakonik cara Stefana DuSana 1349 i 1354. izdao i
preveo N. Radojóié, Beograd 1960,145-162, edition of the text on p. 83-86 and translation
into modem Serbian, p. 142-144. This edition was not available when G. Soulis wrote his
dissertation, published posthumously. M. Burr did not include this important text in his
translation of Dugan’s Code (The Slavonic and East European Review 70 [1949] 187-217;
71 [1950] 516-539).
115
AFTER THE FALL 371
Sima M. Cirkovic
Greek throne and of all the Council, who had decided that I should reign as
emperor (da ja carstvujem). All that happened not according to my desire,
neither by some force, but according to the blessing of God and others (who)
appointed me to be emperor for all the Orthodox Faithful in order to glorify the
One -in essence-Trinity for ever». In the last part he mentions the motivation
of his legislative activity: his desire «to have a quiet and peaceful life in the
Orthodox Faith with all men of our Empire both small and great».
Leaving more detailed comment for another occasion, I shall stress only
features relevant to our subject. What is striking is the tendency to emphasise
the legality of all that had happened. We shall never be able to guess who could
have been the «archpriests of the Greek throne» who had sent their blessing for
Dusan’s coronation. But we must note that there is no claim to one only empire,
and that the existence of Bulgaria and of the Greek throne is not only taken for
granted but expressly accepted.
Our source makes evident that it was the rule over Byzantine territories
that gave substance to Du§an’s claim to the title of emperor. The right hand of
the Almighty gave to Dusan at first parts of the Greek empire and then the
wreath donated by God as well. Some of late medieval Serbian authors,
compilers of the L etopisi, as G. C. Soulis noted, believed «that Dusan was
proclaimed emperor in the Greek lands» 18. This opinion might have had its
origin in pieces of evidence referring to the well-known division of the state
between Dusan as tsar and his son UroS as king. Between November/ Decem-
ber 1345 and April 1346, while DuSan remained uncrowned, he did not separate
his capacities of tsar and kralj. On the basis of coins with legends REX
RASCIE-IMPERATOR ROMANIE, G. Soulis concluded «that Dusan while
proclaiming himself Emperor of Romania, had maintained the title of the King
of Serbia (Rascia)»19. It was his coronation that made him only tsar because the
crown and title of king was given to his son Uros.
The accounts of N. Gregoras and J. Cantacuzenus concerning the division
of Dusan’s state are well-known and much discussed. Du§an should have ruled
18 Soulis, The Serbs, 30. On the contrary, the unknown author of the Vita of the Patriarch
Sava perceived DuSan as the Serbian ruler who exceeded the bounds established by his
predecessors, and «desiring the dignity of emperor crowned himself emperor». Cf. ¿ivoti
kraljeva, 380-381.
19 Soulis, The Serbs, 30.
116
Sima M. Cirkovic
as emperor in the Byzantine lands from Skoplje to Christoupolis according to

Byzantine law, while his son Uro§ should have ruled as king from Skoplje as far
as the Danube according to the Serbian custom20. Rightly did G. Soulis call this
division a theoretical one.
In another paper, I compared Dugan’s Code and his charter issued to the
Ragusans from the same year (1349) and established two completely opposed
procedures21. In the Code, the King is barely mentioned; in the charter, on the
contrary, every mention of something that belonged to the Emperor was
followed by a symmetrical quotation of the King’s lands, King’s towns, King’s
market-places, King’s noblemen, etc. The privileges and obligations of the
Ragusans had to be the same in the land of the Emperor and in the land of the
King. In inquiring into the kind of ‘theory’ behind such a division and about the
causes of the difference in treatment, I found in the case of the charter a strong
tendency to stress the continuity of the Serbian state. Treaties with Ragusa had
a long tradition: many generations of rulers confirmed the charters of their
predecessors. In such a context, kingship could not have been neglected. On the
other hand, the Code is silent on the King because there was nothing in the
administrative system, in the hierarchy of jurisdiction, in the method of
government that would correspond to the division between the land of the
emperor and the land of the king. The reason for this theoretical partition might
be found in Dugan’s striving to affirm the continuity of the Serbian state and, at
the same time, to emphasise the continuity of his role of associate (ëesnik,
particeps) in the Empire.
Also striking is Dugan’s tendency in the autobiographical sketch quoted to
present the coronation in 1346 as the pivotal event in his rise to the imperial
rank. According to the contemporary sources it was rather a longer process,
which took place by degrees and not without hesitations. As we have seen, in
1336 Dugan still respected Andronicus III as his lord, and it was during his
alliance with Cantacuzenus that he manifested some of his imperial ambitions,
mainly by claiming Byzantine territories. It is well known that after his break
with Cantacuzenus, Dugan became an ally of the Empress Anna. Their alliance
was sealed by the betrothal of Dugan’s son Urog (at the age of 5) to one of
Anna’s daughters. The Venetians congratulated Dugan de nuptiis quas fecit de
20 VIINJV1,262-270,482-484 (B. FerjanSié).

21 S. Ùrkovié, Kralj u DuSanovom zakoniku, ZRVI33 (1994) 149-164.
117
AFTER THE FALL 373
Sima M. Ûrkovic
filio suo cum sorore domini imperatoris Constantinopolis. But it is almost

unknown that Dusan after that event, which coincided with his conquests in
Macedonia and Albania, styled himself «ëesnik Grkom» or in a Latin document
of October 1345 «...Bulgarie imperii partis non modice particeps et fere totius
Romanie dominus»22. This gradually increasing associate stage lasted until the
autumn of 1345, when after the capture of Serrai, Du§an made his next step by
proclaiming himself Emperor of the Serbs and the Greeks.
Immediately before his proclamation as emperor, in November 1345,
Dusan made his well-known arrangement with the community of Athos by which
he expressly allowed that the name of the Byzantine emperor should be
mentioned in prayers in the first place23. This point deserves attention in the
light of Cantacuzenus’ interpretation of the Roman law, according to which the
Emperor’s sons were obliged to obey the eldest one among them and to call
him emperor. This was quoted as an argument against the claims on the part of
the Bulgarian tsar Michael SiSmanic, who asked for a part of Byzantine
territories as his heritage, because his wife and Andronicus III had been
children of the same father. Andronicus III allegedly replied that he was ready
to leave more than the contested town, but on condition that his brother-in-law
recognized his superiority according to Roman law. Michael answered that as
an emperor he should not be under another emperor24. It seems that DuSan
accepted in 1345 what Michael refused in 1328.
But such an attitude toward the empire of the Palaeologoi, if sincere at all,
did not remain unchanged. In any case it is not in accordance with all the
available evidence. Dugan’s intention to conquer Constantinople was reported
to the Signoria of Venice in 1346 and 1350. In the latter case, Dugan’s envoys
in Venice announced that: dominus imperator per gratiam Dei acquisiverit
decem partes (=5/6) Romani imperii Constantinopolitani, praeter civitatem
ipsam Constantinopolis, quam expugnare et subiugare nequit But in the second
part of the same message it was said that all was aimed against Cantacuzenus
22 Ljubié, Listine, II, 192-193. The importance of the «ôesnik» title became clear only after
its chronology had been established. Cf. G. Subotié, Prilog hronologiji deóanskog zidnog
slikarstva, ZRVI 20 (1981) 118-120, n. 31; S. Ôrkovté, Hreljin poklon Hilandaru, ZRVI
21 (1982) 103-116.
23 D. Korad, Sveta Gora pod srpskom vlaSéu (1345-1371), ZRVI31 (1992) 50-54.
24 Cantacuzenus 1,325-329; S. Óirkovié, Srbija uoôi carstva (as n. 8), 10-11.
118
Sima M. Cirkovic
qui injuste et indebite captivatum detinet filium imperatoris 25 . It reminds us of

the fact that during half of all those years when he bore the title of emperor,
Dusan had to care about the interests of his ally, the young Emperor John V26.
This fact makes it even more improbable that Dusan planned to destroy the old
empire or to replace it in a way comparable to what the Latin crusaders had
done in 1204. It is more probable that it was the Bulgarian empire that served
as a model for Dusan’s policies towards the empire of the Palaeologoi. For a
century and a half the rulers of Bulgaria styled themselves emperors (tsars), in
such a way that they participated in the empire without determining to destroy
or to replace it.
By Dusan’s proclamation and coronation the number of emperors
increased, and because of divisions, doubled in the next generation. This meant
a decay of the one and only universal Christian empire, but this multiplication
did not lead to negation or oblivion of the century-old idea.
A kind of rehabilitation of the old imperial idea could be recognized in the
case of the Serbian despots in the 15th century. After 1402 the rulers of Serbia
accepted without any pressure or force the highest Byzantine dignity, by which
they were included in the imperial family and the court hierarchy of the
Palaeologoi. For three generations the Serbian despots submitted themselves to
the ceremonial of installation either in Constantinople (1402, 1410) or in Serbia
through the mediation of imperial envoys (1429, 1447)27. This ideal and sym-
bolical integration, which had no practical meaning and barely covered up the
gloomy reality of the double dependence of the Serbian rulers on Hungary and
the Ottomans, had its deep roots in an advanced cultural integration based on
the Byzantine heritage.
Under the influence of the way of thinking and ideas borrowed from the
world of nation states and their struggles for hegemony, we have excessively
25 The document is not clear. The latest edition of J. Valentini, Acfa Albaniae Veneta
saeculorum XIV et XV, I, Panormi 1967,130, is different from the previous ones of J. Safarik
and S. Ljubic: extrahendi de manibus illius debeat (?) generalis (?) Chatacusino, qui injuste et
indebite captivatum detinet filium imperatoris. Since Jireëek, Geschichte, 397, scholars believe
that John V is meant, although according to the text it should be Dugan’s son Uro§.
26 Cf. Radié, Vreme Jovana V, 185-188, 196-201, 204-208, 209-223, 229-237.
27 Ferjaniic, Despoti, 182-194; S. Cirkovic, I Seibi nel medioevo, Milano 1992,186-191,
245-248.
119
AFTER THE FALL 375
Sima M. Cirkovic
discussed what Dusan did and what he intended to do to the Byzantine Empire.
Almost no attention has been paid to the opposite side of Dusan’s proclamation
as emperor, to the problem of a possible Byzantine conquest of Serbia by
means of its identification with the empire. The problem was announced in the
formula of the Serbo-Greek empire (Ostrogorsky, Soulis), which also needs
further exemplification and specification. It is clear that DuSan’s assumption of
the title of emperor was followed by a process of Byzantinisation, imple-
mentation of Byzantine forms and traditions, initiated from above. In a state,
parts of which had been exposed to Byzantine influence in differing degrees, it
was no easy task to achieve uniformity and it was not achieved in a decade. But
the period of identification with the Empire opened the way to further
rapprochement and made possible the relationship typical of the last period of
Byzantino-Serbian relations.
120
16
Divine Wisdom as Part of Byzantine Imperial Ideology.
Research into the Artistic Interpretations of the Theme
in Medieval Serbia. Narthex Programmes
of Lesnovo and Sopocani
Zaga Gavrilovic
In memory ofSvetozar Radojcic
INemperors
court acclamations, panegyrics and other literary works, Byzantine
were often compared to Moses, David, Solomon or
Constantine and the wisdom by which they govern was thus praised. In the
letter addressed to Justinian II by the Council of Trullo in 6 9 2 , the holy
Fathers of the Church said: “You whom wisdom had conceived and to
whom she had rendered the service of a midwife, having educated you
handsomely and adorned you with virtues and filled you with divine spirit,
she revealed you as the eye of the Universe, illuminating all subjects with
pure and clear intellect.”1
This, and innumerable other texts confirm that exalting the wisdom of
the emperor meant recognising in him the proof of Divine Wisdom, the
bright-beaming light of the Logos, the Sun of Justice itself.2
* The text of this article is an augmented version of a paper read at the Fifth Annual
Byzantine Studies Conference (Dumbarton Oaks, October 26—28, 1979), within the session
devoted to “The Idea o f ‘Empire’ in Fourteenth-Century Serbia.”
1Mansi vol. XI, col. 932-933; cf. F. Dvornik, Byzantine Political Ideas in Kievan Russia,
Dumbarton Oaks Papers 9-10 (1955-6), p. 87.
2 For the patristic concept of Wisdom — Light of the Logos at the origin of Creation see
Marie-Thérèse D’Alverny, Les Anges et les Jours, Cahiers Archéologiques IX (1957),
pp. 271-300.
1. Lesnovo, Narthex, North side: The Investiture of Dusan and Jelema

and the Vision of Ezekiel (photo: D. Tasic).
AFTER THE FALL 379
2. Lesnovo, Narthex, West wall: The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste

and the Parable of the Ten Virgins (photo: D. Tasic).
3. Lesnovo, Narthex,
EUROPE
South-East pendentive
and base of the drum:
Teaching of Saint John
Chrysostom as source
OF ORTHODOX
of wisdom.
380 -----THE EXPANSION
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AFTER THE FALL 381
48
It is indeed essential to remember the importance of the element of

light in all glorifications of the emperor in Byzantium. Studies in imperial
ideology offer ample evidence for a whole system of ideas based on light
symbolism, structure inherited from Hellenistic and Eastern monarchies
and applied to the new political philosophy of Christianity.3
On the other hand, it is necessary to recall that in Byzantine theological
commentaries the idea of Divine Wisdom is closely linked with the sacra-
ment of baptism. Divine Wisdom is the incarnate light, the Logos who has
descended and taken on the human form in order to save mankind, but it
is only by being baptised that man can partake in that grace. By receiving
the seal of the Holy Trinity in baptism, man who was created in God’s wis-
dom is again enlightened. Baptismal exegesis explains that during the Easter
night, the night of cpamajia (when in the Early Church baptism took
place), the image of Christ which had been lost through Original Sin is
restored in the heart of the baptised. It shines like the imperial effigy on the
lost and found coin from the parable, as a result of the neophyte rejecting
the old Adam, putting on the new gleaming garments of purity and taking
Eucharist at the end of the initiation ceremony.4
Moreover, according to Byzantine mystics, the human soul is in perpet-
3 See especially E. H. Kantorowicz, Oriens Augusti — Lever du Roi, DOP 17 (1963), pp.
117-178; F. Dvornik, Early Christian and Byzantine Political Philosophy. Origin and
Background II, Dumbarton Oaks Studies 9 (Washington 1966), pp. 611-723; A. Grabar,
L’Empereur dans l A ’ rt Byzantin, Paris 1936, pp. 104—106; A. Cameron, Corippus: In laudem
Justini Augusti minoris (edition, translation and commentary), London 1976, pp. 135 and
161-163.
4 A homily by Pseudo-Chrysostom (Migne PG 61, col. 781-784) on the Parable of the
Lost Drachma and the Prodigal Son (Luke XV, 8—10; 11-32) gives a concise exegesis on the
connection between baptism and Divine Wisdom. The unusual illustration of that homily in
a tenth century manuscript (Athens, National Library gr. 211, fol 34 v.) with St. John the
Baptist holding a lamp of clay in which shines the bust o f Christ Emmanuel, contributes, in
my opinion, to the understanding of the theological complex Divine Wisdom — Baptism in
a remarkable way (see Z. A. Gavrilovic, La Résurrection d A’ dam: une réinterprétation, Cahiers
Archéologiques XXVII, 1978, pp. 101—115), repro. above, I, 1—27 A reference to Wisdom
and baptism in connection with the Parable of the Lost Drachma is made by St. Gregory of
Nazianzus in his oration on the Nativity (Migne PG 36, col. 328); the same paragraph is
repeated in the II oration on Easter (Migne PG 36, col. 660). The connection between
Wisdom and baptism is confirmed by the liturgy of Lent. Daily readings (lectio continua)
from the Book of Proverbs during Lent reflect the tradition of the baptismal liturgy of the
Early Church and the tradition of the instruction o f the catechumens from the Book of
Proverbs during the seven weeks preparation preceding baptisim on Easter night. This has
been pointed out to me by Father John Meyendorff to whom I again express my gratitude.
DIVINE WISDOM AS PART OF BYZANTINE IMPERIAL IDEOLOGY 49
ual migration towards the light o f Christ, but baptism is the first and indis-
pensable step on the path which leads to that light.5
Just as the symbolism o f light is o f param ount im portance in imperial
ideology, one finds that in the theology o f baptism every ordinary man is at
the centre o f a similar light symbolism where Divine W isdom is again the
essential idea.
I believe that by taking into account this parallelism between the illu-
mination by Divine W isdom o f the baptised and o f the emperor, one can
define with greater precision some im portant iconographie and stylistic
concepts in Byzantine art, particularly those which governed certain pro-
grammes o f m anuscript and church decoration.
In an article in which I discussed the mosaic o f the kneeling emperor at
Saint Sophia, Constantinople, I m entioned the sophisticated and somewhat
enigmatic programme o f illum ination o f the Paris, gr. 510, the famous
ninth century m anuscript made for Basil I in which Sirarpie Der
Nersessian6 had already noticed strong imperial connotations. In my opin-
ion, further research will prove that a great num ber o f pictures in the Paris
Gregory illustrate events which were types o f Christ s Baptism and which
indicated, in mystical thought, the possibility o f man approaching God by
the grace o f the Spirits wisdom. All those illustrations seem to point out
that by being baptised all m en are enlightened and can rejoin Christ, but
that leading them on that path is the em peror whose deeds are directly
inspired by Christ s wisdom .7
Turning to m onum ental art, I believe that by recognising the impor-
tance of the theological complex Divine W isdom-Baptism, combined with
the idea Divine W isdom-Emperor, one can indeed find a key to the expia- ,
nation o f m any elaborate programmes in M id- and Late-Byzantine
churches, especially those o f the narthexes.8 Again, the connection between
3 J. Daniélou, Platonisme et Théologie mystique, Paris 1944, pp. 23—35; G. B. Ladner, The
Philosophical Anthropology o f Saint Gregory o f Nyssa, DOP 12 (1958), pp. 90—93.
6S. Der Nersessian, The Illustration o f the Homilies o f Gregory ofNazianzus: Paris Gr. 510.
A Study o f the Connections between Text and Images, DOP 16 (1962), p. 219ff.
7Z. A. Gavrilovic, The Humiliation o f Leo VI the Wise. The Mosaic o f the Narthex at Saint
Sophia, Istanbul, Cahiers Archéologiques XXVIII (1979), p. 90, and n. 21, repr. above, II,
28-43.
8A study of repertoires of iconographie themes in the painted decoration of narthexes in
King Milutins churches by Gordana Babic, Ikonografski program zivopisa u pripratama
crkava kralja M ilutina. Vizantijska umetnost pocetkom 14. Veka, Beograd 1978,
pp. 105-130 (résumé in French), is an important step forward in an otherwise rather
AFTER THE FALL 383
50
the idea and its artistic manifestation in these painted ensembles is not easy
to grasp. However, it is precisely the presence of royal portraits within a par-
ticular setting, together with other iconographie themes related to the basic
meaning of the symbolism of light in Byzantine spirituality, that reveals a
profound intention of the ktitor or his advisor. Placed in the area leading to
the main body of the church, each programme as a whole is influenced by
the character of the liturgical function of the narthex and interprets by a
rich variety of means the essential Christian belief about mans soul and its
striving towards God.
This method of investigation can be successfully applied to wall-paint-
ings of medieval Serbia. Their rich repetrtoires and good state of preserva-
tion offer invaluable material for such an enquiry. In addition, textual
sources from the Serbian Medieval State contribute to the conclusion that
the Byzantine model of the emperor inspired by Divine Wisdom was
understood and adopted by the Serbian rulers. All Serbian kings from
Stefan the First Crowned to Dusan until his imperial coronation in 1346
styled themselves “autocrator”, in Serbian “samodrzac”, which, as
Ostrogorsky has shown, manifested their complete political independence.9
At first within their own realm, but soon with wider territorial aspirations,
they assumed, after their Byzantine example, the same role of the defenders
of orthodoxy, appointed directly by Christ, and, as we know, laying heavy
emphasis on the holiness of their Nemanjic dynastic lineage.10 It is quite
clear, and it is important to observe, that art was understood to be a com-
ponent of that ideology, indeed one of its most prominent and reliable pil-
lars. As in Byzantium, art was called upon to confirm and to enhance the
neglected field. — There is a need for a study o f the origin and development o f the narthex
(architecture, liturgical function, painted decoration) which would, ideally, combine efforts
o f specialists in all disciplines involved. See P. Lemerle, Philippes et la Macédoine Orientale à
ïépoque chrétienne et byzantine, Paris 1945, vol. I, pp. 323—332; H. Leclercq in DACL s. v.
Narthex.
9 G. Ostrogorsky, Avtokrator i Samodrzac, Glas Srpske kraljevske akademije CLXIV, d.r.
84, 1935, 141-160, reprinted in Sabrana delà IV (Vizantija i Sloveni), Beograd 1970,
pp. 321—338. See also V. Mosin, Samodrzavni Stefan Knez Lazar i tradicija nemanjickog suv-
ereniteta odMarice do Kosova, Le Prince Lazar, Symposium de Krusevac 1971, Beograd 1975,
pp. 13—43. G. Ostrogorsky, Srbija i vizantijska hijerarhija drzava, ibid. p. 125—137.
10 S. Radojcic, Portreti srpskih vladara u srednjem veku, Skopje 1934, p. 23 M. Corovic-
Ljubinkovic, U zproblem ikonografije srpskih svetitelja Simeona i Save, Starinar n.s. VII—VIII
(Beograd 1958), pp. 79-81. S. Curcic, The Nemanjic Family Tree in the Light o f the Ancestral
cult in the church of Joachim and Anna in Studenica, ZRVI 14-15 (Beograd 1973),
pp. 191-195.
kings or the emperors authority and wisdom, as well as to reflect the har-
m ony of G ods creation. It was a powerful means o f expressing the
m onarchs devotion, thus confirming his im portant role in the hopes and
expectations of his Christian people. But the fact that people themselves
were Christs true subjects, also illuminated by the Holy Trinity and free
from heresies, was the other im portant them e which the artistic language,
w ith all its numerous metaphors was called upon to glorify.
T he most impressive portrait o f D usan is preserved in the narthex of
Lesnovo dating from 1349.11T he panel representing the mystical investiture
o f the imperial couple and their son is situated above the family panel o f the
ktitor Despot Jovan Oliver and immediately under the vault occupied by
the vision of the prophet Ezekiel on the shore o f the river C hobar (Ezek. 1,
5-18) (Fig. 1).
It is certain that the symbolic m eaning o f this O ld Testament scene is
intended as a prologue to the scene o f Dus ans investiture. T he prophet is
represented twice: once fallen upon his face, w ith an angel beside him; the
second time, standing and contemplating the trem endous light which has
appeared in the sky — C hrist on a rainbow, in a m andorla, surrounded by
four four-faced living creatures. Two hands appear behind C hrists m an-
dorla, one holding a book, the other a scroll. Some fish and two birds can
be seen in the river and on its shore. An inscription in old Serbian reads:
“T he prophet Ezekiel saw this in a dream”. Immediately below, Christ, in a
segment, is extending crowns to D usan and to Jelena, both in full imperial
regalia (the figure o f the young king Uros is almost completely destroyed).
T he style of Dus ans portrait completes the dram a o f the highly symbolic
setting o f the investiture composition. Idealization and impassivity are
achieved by a clear linear treatm ent o f features and by the expression o f the
em perors wide open eyes, the gaze directed slightly upwards.12 Corippus’
verse “tranquillus princeps oculis pietate serenis . . . ‘, comes to m ind.13
In addition to the vision o f Ezekiel above D usans portrait, many other
O ld Testament themes are represented in Lesnovo narthex: Moses and the
Burning Bush, the Tabernacle o f Moses, Gideon and the fleece, the
Ascension of Elijah, Jacobs ladder and the fight with the angel, another
11 S. Radojcic, op. cit., 55-56; N. L. Okunev, Lesnovo, L’Art Byzantin chez les Slaves I,
2, Paris 1930, pp. 222-263; V. J.Djuric, Vizantijske freske u Jugoslaviji, Beograd 1975,
p. 64ff. with bibliography.
12 cf. S. Radojcic, ibid.
13A. Cameron, Corippus, pp. 70, 192.
AFTER THE FALL 385
52
composition inspired by the prophecy o f Ezekiel (Ezek. 44, 3), the Vessels
of the Temple and the illustrations o f Psalms 148, 149 and 150.
There are fewer New Testament compositions: C hrists Baptism, two
panels with the preaching o f St. John the Baptist and the Parable of the Ten
Virgins (M atthew 25, 1—13). There is also a large composition o f the Forty
Martyrs o f Sebaste (Fig. 2).
This at first glance heterogeneous iconography includes also a symbolic
picture o f the Mother o f G od — Source o f life, Christ the Unsleeping Eye,
the individual figures of Christ on the throne, the Virgin, St. John the
Baptist, St. Theodore Studite, St. John o f Damascus, Joachim and Anna
and other saints, portraits o f the bishops o f Zletovo and the representation
o f the patron o f the church, the archangel Michael on a horse.14 A bust of
the Pantocrator is represented in the dome, while in the pendantifs and
along the base of the drum four compositions interpret the teaching of St.
Gregory the Theologian, St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil and St. Athanasius,
as sources o f wisdom: the four Fathers o f the C hurch are writing at their
desks, each one receiving inspiration from an allegorical figure o f Divine
Wisdom. Their teaching is in its turn represented allegorically as a well or
as a stream to which people from all walks o f life come to drink (Fig. 3).
The m etaphor of the sources o f wisdom in connection with the teach-
ing o f the Fathers inspired by Divine W isdom is self-explanatory, but the
other scenes at Lesnovo are wrapped up in a more subtle symbolic system
which is, however, in my opinion, subordinated to the same idea.
In patristic commentaries O ld Testament theophanies were not only
interpreted as prophecies o f Christ, but they also evoked visions o f those
specially inspired Biblical figures to w hom it was granted to be illuminated
by the presence of God. W hile it is true that many O ld Testament events
were celebrated as préfigurations o f the Virgin, one should remember that
according to many authors, from St. Gregory o f Nyssa to Nicholas
Cabasilas, they were at the same time symbols o f the stages through which
the hum an soul moves in its mystical life in search o f unity with G od.15And
it was indeed in this context, and because certain O ld Testament episodes
were considered as figures o f m ans attem pt to rejoin the Logos, that they
14S. Gabelic, Crveni konjanicki lik arhandjela Mihaila u Lesnovu, Zograf 8 (Beograd
1977), pp. 55-58.
15J. Daniélou, Platonisme . . . pp. 175-258; M. Lot-Borodine, Nicolas Cabasilas, Un
maître de la spiritualité byzantine au XlVe siècle, Paris 1958, pp. 13—22.
DIVINE W ISDOM AS PART OF BYZANTINE IMPERIAL IDEOLOGY 53
became connected with Mariological typology since the Virgin was the seat
of the Logos and the proof above all other of the possibility of human
nature becoming impregnated with the divine light.16 A great variety of
metaphors is thus used to express the constant striving of the soul from
darkness towards light; as I said earlier, baptism is considered to be the basic
condition for engaging upon that road. That is why one finds, as in Lesnovo
narthex, Moses and the Burning Bush, the Ascension of Elijah and other
Old Testament themes figuring side by side with the cycle of Christs
Baptism and with scenes of events which have been interpreted as allusions
to baptism — such as the Forty maryrs and the Parable of the wise and fool-
ish virgins. (See Appendix.)
The illumination by Divine Wisdom is therefore the message which all
those representations have in common, the emphasis being on the passage
from darkness to light. The liturgical function of the narthex in Mid- and
Late-Byzantine churches, such as it is known from scattered information
(contained mostly in typica), supports this conclusion: penitents and can-
didates for baptism stood there during liturgy; baptism and offices for the
dead took place there; certain hours and parts of vespers and mattins were
sung in it.17The essential meaning of all those offices is expressed in prayers
for the transition from sin to purity, from ignorance to knowledge, from
obscurity to light eternal.18
The dominating figure of Dusan and the style of his portrait, in the
symbolic setting of the narthex at Lesnovo, show clearly what part the
divine inspiration of the emperor was supposed to play in the quest for
Divine Wisdom of all his subjects. Literary formulas in prooimia to Dus ans
numerous charters, in Serbian and in Greek, confirm the maturity of this
ideology in fourteenth century Serbia.19
16 S. Der Nersessian, Le L it de Salomon, ZRVI 8 (Mélanges G. Ostrogorsky I) Beograd

1963, pp. 78-79.
17 F. Mercenier, La prière des églises de rite byzantin /, Chevetogne 1948, p. XVIII; L.
Mirkovic, Pravoslavna Liturgika I, Beograd 1945, pp. 109-110.
,s On the characteristic theme of “passage” from the “old” to the “new” in Byzantine
lyturgical cycles, see J. Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology> London and Oxford 1975, pp.
120 121.
19 For example: Monumenta Serbica ed. Fr. Mikiosich, 1858 (Graz 1964), pp. 133;
124—125. It is clear that the arengas to Dus ans charters contain a great number of ideolog-
ical elements identical to those found in the charters o f the Byzantine emperors, as analysed
by H. Hunger, Prooimion. Elemente der byzantinischen Kaiseridee in den Arengen der
Urkunden, Wien 1964.
AFTER THE FALL 387
54
A detailed analysis o f the narthex decoration o f thirteenth and other

fourteenth century Serbian churches can reveal m any different combina-
tions o f themes whose symbolism was composed w ithin the ideological
framework just described and which prove the existence o f that ideology in
medieval Serbia ever since the times o f Prvovencani and Saint Sava. As an
example from the earlier period I shall consider the inner narthex at
Sopocani, dating from the years around 126020 where the programme
includes portraits o f king Uros I and his family approaching the Virgin on
the throne with Christ, the panel o f the Death o f Queen Anne, Uros s
mother, St. Constantine and Helena, the Sacrifice o f Abraham, the Three
Hebrews in a fiery furnace, the Tree o f Jesse, the Last Judgm ent, the Story
of Joseph and a cycle o f Seven Ecumenical Councils to which two more
compositions have been added: Nem anjas Council and the Last Supper.21
I shall deal with two o f those themes:
1. T he Story of Joseph (Genesis 37-50) illustrated on the West wall in
a series o f scenes forming four superposed strips (Fig. 4) and
2. The cycle o f seven Ecumenical Councils with Nemanjas Council and
the Last Supper occupying the East wall (Fig. 5). T he cycle o f Joseph has
been studied by R. Ljubinkovic,22 who saw parallels between certain details
of Josephs life as depicted on Sopocani frescoes and the life o f Nemanja, as
recounted in Serbian medieval biographies. According to Ljubinkovic, this
particular cycle of Joseph had the m eaning o f a direct tribute to Nemanja,
the founder o f the dynasty, whose deeds were praised by comparing him to
Joseph and Jacob and by representing, in Sopocani, Biblical analogies to the
events o f his life drawn from the history o f the leaders o f the chosen people
of Israel.
W ith reference to Ljubinkovic s study, A. Grabar23 has added observa-
tions concerning the princely character o f the Story o f Joseph in Byzantine
art. Similarly, in her study o f the miniatures o f Paris, gr. 510 S. Der
Nersessian had already noticed direct connections with the imperial icono-
20V. J.Djuric, Sopocani, Beograd 1963, pp. 43-47.

21 Id., Vizantijskefreske, p. 179; id,. Istorijske kompozicije u srpskom slikarstvu srednjeg veka
i njihove knjizevne paralele, ZRVI 10, Beograd 1967, pp. 139—141. Ch. Walter,
L’iconographie des conciles dans la tradition byzantine, Paris 1970, p. 107.
22 R. Ljubinkovic, Sur le symbolisme de l ’histoire de Joseph du narthex de Sopocani, L’art
byzantin du 13e siècle, Symposium de Sopocani, 1965, Belgrade 1967, pp. 207-219.
23A. Grabar, Les cycles d ’images byzantins tirés de l ’histoire biblique et leur symbolisme
princier, Starinar n. s. XX (1969) (Mélanges D. Boskovic), pp. 133—137.
4. Sopocani, Narthex, West wall: The Story of Joseph.

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AFTER
THE FALL
5. Sopocani, Narthex, East wall: Ecumenical Councils, Nemanjas Council and the Last Supper.
6. Decani, Narthex: the Nemanjic family tree and the baptismal

font (photo: V. J. Duric).
AFTER THE FALL 391
PEC DEÔANI
GRACANICA
7. Iconographical settings of baptismal fonts at Pec and Decani

(drawing: S. Curcic).
graphy in the illustrations o f the Story o f Joseph in that manuscript

(although the reason for including the whole cycle o f Joseph in the Paris
Gregory was not quite clear).24
It is generally accepted that in medieval commentaries which influenced
iconographie modes o f Josephs story, Josephs life is primarily treated as a
préfiguration o f C hrists life and passion. However, as I just mentioned, a
side-line in Josephs story connecting it in some way to the idea o f princely
life or giving it imperial overtones has been recognized by D er Nersessian,
Ljubinkovic and Grabar.25
It should be stressed that the virtue Joseph possessed and which
medieval authors wanted to emphasize in the princely context o f his story
was Josephs wisdom, the sum o f all virtues w ith which a divinely inspired
ruler is endowed.26
In the Orthodox C hurch the m em ory o f Joseph is celebrated on Holy
Monday.27 Hymns sung during M atins praise Jacobs righteous, wise and
glorious son who was “seated in a chariot and honoured as a king”; . . . “he
was glorified by G od who sees the hearts o f m en and bestows on them a
crown incorruptible”.28 W ritten m uch in the same vein is a hom ily by St.
John Chrysostom,29 as well as two Kontakia for Holy M onday by Romanos
the Melode.30
Josephs wisdom is often m entioned by the Serbian medieval authors. In
his biography o f Nemanja, Stefan Prvovencani (king Stefan the First
24 S. Der Nersessian, The Illustrations o f the Homilies, DOP 16 (1962), pp. 214—215;
223-224.
25A number of authors, on the other hand, maintain that commentaries which present
Joseph as a paragon of chastity and wisdom aim in fact at describing the type of an ideal
bishop: cf. M. Schapiro, The Joseph Scenes on the Maximian Throne in Ravenna, Gazette des
des Beaux-Arts XL (1952), pp. 23-38; V. J.Djuric, Sopocani, pp.44-45; id. Vizantijskefreske,
p. 197. That aspect of Josephs story is treated extensively by K. Wessel in Reallexikon zur
byzantinischen Kunst (1976) s. v. Joseph. Regrettably, opinions put forward by S. Der
Nerssessian, R. Ljubinkovic and A. Grabar were not taken into consideration in that
article.
26This could have been an influence, on the Christian writers, of a treatise on Joseph by
Philo (cf. M. Schapiro, op. cit., p. 29).
27 The Lenten Triodion translated from Greek by Mother Mary and Archimandrite
Kallistos Ware, London and Boston 1978, pp. 59-60, 511-523.
28 Ibid., p. 513.
29 Migne PG 56, col. 587-590.
30J. Grosdidier de Matons, Romanos le Mélode, Hymnes /, Sources Chrétiennes 99
(1964), pp. 195-245; 247-293.
AFTER THE FALL 393
60
Crowned) enumerates his fathers virtues: charity, justice and humility.

Paraphrasing Psalm 104 ( 105 ) 2 1 - 2 2 (“He made him Lord of his house,
and ruler of all his substance, to chastise his rulers at his pleasure, and to
teach his elders wisdom”). Prvovencani speaks of Nemanja as of another
Joseph, chosen by Christ; having had the same virtues as Joseph, he was ele-
vated to the throne “to teach his elders wisdom”. Prvovencani goes on to say
that Nemanja preserved his peoples orthodoxy by keeping his country
under the protection of the cross of Christ and teaching his lords wisely. 31
One may add that it is again to Josephs wisdom that Dusan refers while
speaking of himself in the introduction to his Code of Law.32
I believe therefore that all these literary and liturgical references to the
wisdom of Joseph, alluding to his enlightenment by God, give the basic
explanation for the presence of his cycle at Sopocani.
The model of the ideal ruler is applied here to Nemanja and ultimately
to all his successors. This more general point of view covers occasional par-
allels drawn between the events from Josephs and Jacobs life on the one
hand and from Nemanjas life on the other, in Serbian medieval biogra-
phies, which were the starting point of R. Ljubinkovics study.
Justice, humility and charity, contained in wisdom are also the virtues
implied by the subjects of the composition on the East wall of Sopocani
narthex: the seven Ecumenical Councils, Nemanjas Council and the Last
Supper (Fig. 5).
In Byzantine art, the emperor presiding over a church council is one of
the themes of imperial iconography created with the intention of praising
the competence of the monarch and of glorifying his divine inspiration.
One can say that it is a visual conterpart to the thoughts expressed by the
Fathers of the Council of Trullo quoted above.33
Clearly, Nemanjas prestige of a divinely inspired ruler of the Serbian
State and his efforts in eradicating Bogomilism and preventing the influ-
31 Zivot Stefana Neman]e od kralja Stefana Prvovencanog, chapter IV (transi. M. Basic,

Stara srpska knizevnost /, Novi Sad-Beograd 1970, p. 80). One should note that Psalm 104
(105) 21 is illustrated by a scene of coronation and triumph of Joseph in the Serbian Munich
Psalter, the Psalter “Tomic” in Moscow and the Hamilton Psalter in Berlin. See S. Dufrenne,
Tableaux synoptiques de 15 psautiers médiévaux, Paris 1978.
32 Rec cara Stefana Dusana uz njegov Zakonik (transl.N. Radojcic in Stara srpska
knizevnost III, Novi Sad-Beograd 1970, pp. 96-97-
33A. Grabar, L’E mpereur, pp. 90—92; Ch Walter, L’Iconographie des Conciles,
pp. 132-145.
ence of the Latin church in his country, thus protecting orthodoxy, explain
the insertion of one of his synods in the cycle of the seven Ecumenical
Councils in Sopocani. It corresponds to the reason for giving a prominent
place to the cycle of Joseph on the opposite wall, both compositions exalt-
ing the virtues of the founder of the dynasty and of his descendants.
I believe that the addition of the Last Supper to the representations of
the Councils enhances that intention.34
The liturgy of Holy Thursday in the Byzantine Church is permeated
with references to Divine Wisdom. The Kanon for Holy Thursday by St.
Kosmas of Maiouma paraphrases the Book of Proverbs and speaks of
Wisdom who has built a temple, has prepared a feast and having initiated
her friends to the mysteries, has invited them to eat and to drink at her
table.35 In other words, the Kanon recalls that during the Last Supper with
his disciples, Christ established the sacraments which were going to make
redemption possible and enable man to rejoin his Creator.
Through Eucharist and the Washing of the apostles' feet on the
Thursday of the Passover Christ gave his disciples the New Commandment
of mutual love and humility and the New Covenant of his own blood.
Old Testament lessons on Holy Thursday are read from the Book of
Jeremiah,36 and the Painter s Manual of Dionysius of Furna prescribes the
following prophecy on the feast of the Mystical Supper: “Behold the days
come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of
Israel, and the house of Judah” (Jeremiah 31 (3 8 ), 3 1).37 The same chapter
of Jeremiah continues: “I will surely put my laws into their mind, and write
them on their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me
a people”. It is important to observe that for the Sopocani composition of
the Last Supper the iconographie formula used is the one with the apostle
34The Last Supper occupies the centre of the composition of the Councils, above the
door leading to the naos (with a bust of Christ in the lunette). Two councils are represented
above the Last Supper: one presided by two personages (identified as the Council of Nicea
II by Ch. Walter, op. cit.y 107) and Nemanjas Council in the highest register of the same ver-
tical strip. As far as I know, the inclusion of the Last Supper among the Councils at Sopocani
has not received any particular attention from students of iconography.
35J. Meyendorff, L’Iconographie de la Sagesse Divine dans la tradition byzantine, Cahiers
Archéologiques X (1959), p. 261.
36 F. Mercenier, La prière II 2, Les Fêtes, p. 149.
37 P. Hetherington, The “Painter’s M anual” o f Dionysius o f Fourna, London 1974,
pp. 30; 99.
AFTER THE FALL 395
62
John leaning on Christ s bosom.38In the Commentary of the Song of Songs

by St. Gregory of Nyssa,39 John leaning towards Christ is compared to a
sponge absorbing grace from Christ’s heart and transmitting it to those who
approach to take part in the Mysteries of the Church. Among the Western
authors a characteristic sentence is found in the writing of the Venerable
Bede who interprets Johns leaning on his Teacher s bosom by his drinking
of the “flow of heavenly wisdom . . . from the most sacred fountain of His
heart”.40
It is easy to understand why in Byzantine hymnography the same bene-
ficial grace of the Holy Wisdom, the Incarnate Logos, is the theme for the
office of the celebration of the Ecumenical Councils. Hymns sung on that
feast praise the food offered by Christ-Wisdom, food which symbolises the
words of the true doctrine, opposed to heresies.41
The Sopocani fresco confirms therefore iconographically the connection
between the Mystical Supper and the Ecumenical Councils in Byzantine
liturgical tradition, the common theme to both being the grace of Christ's
Wisdom. If one remembers at the same time that the iconography of the
emperor presiding over the Ecumenical Councils was part of the imperial
iconographie repertoire, created first and foremost in order to enhance the
ideas concerning the wisdom and the authority of the monarch, the repre-
sentation of the Last Supper, carrying with it all the references to justice,
humility and charity, becomes a reinforcing element in such a scheme. As
we have seen, in the case of Sopocani, allusions to the person of the sover-
eign are already strongly suggested by the addition of Nemanjas Synod to
the East-wall ensemble and complemented by the meaning of the Story of
Joseph on the opposite wall.
On a late icon from Novgorod (fifteenth century) representing an elab-
orate composition of Divine Wisdom (including St. Kosmas of Maiouma
holding a scroll with the words from his Kanon for Holy Thursday), the
seven Ecumenical Councils are painted in the upper part of the picture, rep-
resenting the seven pillars of Wisdoms temple.42It has been rightly observed
that in each of those seven small scenes the emperors throne is placed
38 Cf. E. Lucchesi Palli in Lexicon der Christlichen Ikonographie (1968) s, v. Abendmahl,

col. 10-18; R. Haussher, Ibid., s. v. Christus-Johannes Gruppe, col. 454—456.
39 Migne PG 44, 785 C; J. Daniélou, Platonisme, pp. 25, 311.
40 Migne PL 94, 38 (Homily on the Nativity).
41J. Meyendorff, Llconographie de la Sagesse, p. 261.
42 Ibid., pp. 274-276, Fig. 10.
directly in front of each pillar, detail which points strongly to the idea of the
emperor 8JiiaxT]îovàQxr]ç.43
Three examples from the cerermonial tradition of the Byzantine court
display further symbolism connecting the New Commandment of Maundy
Thursday to the virtues of the emperor.
The first is the washing of the feet of twelve poor by the emperor,
described by Pseudo-Codinos.44Every Holy Thursday the emperor washed,
wiped and kissed the right foot of each of the twelve men brought to him,
thus repeating the gesture of humility and love shown by Christ.45
The other two instances are recorded by Constantine Porphyrogenitos
in the Book of Ceremonies.46 On Holy Thursday the emperor visited the
hospices for the elderly enriching them and comforting with treasures he
himself had received from God, thus accomplishing the words “He hath
dispersed abroad; he hath given to the poor; his righteousness remaineth for
ever” [II Corinth. 9 . 9 ; Ps. 112 (113 ) 9 ].
One more activity of the emperor recorded in the same chapter of the
Book of Ceremonies is the distribution of apples and cinnamon. After
liturgy on Holy Thursday the emperor sat either in the narthex of the
church of St. Steven or in the Chrysotriclinos and gave patricians and other
dignitaries two apples and a cinnamon each. The symbolism of that cere-
mony seems in complete harmony with the meaning of Holy Thursday.
One can detect in it the well known association of the imagery of the Song
of Songs with the grace of the Logos, found in patristic writing. According
to St. Gregory of Nyssas Commentary, the apple is the fruit which by its
look, taste and perfume symbolizes the spread of the grace of Christ on
human soul.47 Clearly, the ceremony was intended as yet another means of
manifesting the role of the basileus as Christ’s deputy on earth.
43 Ch. Walter, L’Iconographie des Conciles, p. 243.

44J. Verpeaux, Pseudo-Kodinos, Traité des Offices, Paris 1966, p. 228.
45 Cf. E. H. Kantorowicz, The Baptism o f the Apostles, DOP 9—10 (1956) pp. 237;
242-243.
46 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, De Cerimoniis, ed. Vogt, Paris 1935, Texte,
pp. 165-166.
47Migne PG 44, 841 D-844A; J. Daniélou, Platonisme, pp. 226-227. The theological
interpretations of the apple are briefly mentioned by A. R. Littlewood, The Symbolism o f the
Apple in Byzantine Literature, JOB 23, 1974, p. 34. The ceremony recorded by Constantine
Porphyrogenitus is not mentioned in the article by G. Moravcsik, Sagen und Legenden über
Kaiser Basileios /, DOP 15 (1961) pp. 61-126, although the symbolism of the apple is
treated on pp. 79-81.
AFTER THE FALL 397
64
It is easy to follow the same aspect of the Mystical Supper emphasized

once more through the tradition of the consecration of the Holy Myron
during liturgy on Holy Thursday. A substance containing oil and balm of
various plants, the Holy Myron is used for chrismation at baptism and since
the twelfth (or thirteenth) century in Byzantium, for anointing the emperor
at coronation.48
The representation of the Last Supper among the seven Ecumenical
Councils with Nemanjas Synod in the narthex of Sopocani appears there-
fore as a powerful symbolic element added with the intention of confirm-
ing and accentuating the reality of a wise Christian king under whose guid-
ance and protection salvation is assured to all his subjects. This idea, com-
bined with the meaning of the adjoining themes of Incarnation and
Redemption, dominates the intricate programme of Sopocani narthex as a
whole.49 It is clear that the finest points of Byzantine theology and political
ideology were known to the founder of Sopocani and to his artistic adviser.
The existance of such an intellectual climate in thirteenth century Serbia is
confirmed by the literary works. More particularly, with regard to the con-
cept of the painted programme and its artistic execution in the narthex at
Sopocani, the same ideology is paramount in the works of the monk
Domentijan who wrote during the reign of Uros l.50
48The Office for the consecration of the Holy Myron in Mercenier, La prière II, 2
(1948), Les Fêtes, pp. 154-161. For a recent discussion on the earliest date of the anointing
ceremony at coronations in Byzantium, see D. M. Nicol, Kaisersalbung, The Unction of
Emperors in Late Byzantine Coronation Ritual, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 2
(1976) pp. 37-52.
49The well known compositions representing King Uros I and his family in front of the
Virgin and the Death of Queen Anne above the place of her burial (bibliography in V. J.
Djuric, Vizantijske freske, pp. 196—198), although not treated here, are naturally the most
obvious component of that idea.
50The ideological and literary side of Domentijans work, long neglected, is receiving
attention and appreciation from modern scholarship, especially in Yugoslavia. Professor
Svetozar Radojcic who devoted the last years of his life to the analysis of Domentijans writ-
ing and its influence on thirteenth century Serbian art was indeed a pioneer in that field. For
instance, Radojcic’s observations on the aesthetic qualities of gold, and of light in general,
on the frescoes of Studenica, Miles eva, and Sopocani, seen as an expression of theological
and spiritual trends of the time, trends in which Domentijan stands as a well defined and
powerful figure, will serve as a stepping stone for further research (S. Radojcic, Zlato u srp-
skoj umetnosti XIII veka, Zograf7 (1976), pp. 28—35; id. Lik svetoga Save u Domentijanovom
zivotu i podvizima arhiepiskopa sve srpske i pomorske zemlje prepodobnog oca i bogonosnog nas-
tavnika Save, Recueil des travaux du Colloque International ‘Sava Nemanjic — Saint Sava,
Histoire et tradition”, Beograd 1979, pp. 215-221).
I will conclude by m entioning a particularity concerning the setting of

some representations o f the genealogical tree o f the N emanjic dynasty.
Derived from the Tree o f Jesse, the imperial genealogical tree was known
to Byzantine art proper,51 but the Nemanjics developed it w ith particular
care. S. Curcic has observed that in the narthex o f Decani and in the
exonarthex at Pec, (both dating trom the first half o f the fourteenth cen-
tury), the baptismal font is placed in front o f or facing the fresco depicting
Nemanjic family tree (Figs. 6-7); in other cases fonts were placed in the
proximity o f royal portraits.52This im portant detail is a m ost valuable con-
tribution to the understanding o f the symbolism which unites baptism with
My reference to Domentijan in connection with the narthex of Sopocani can be sum-

marized in the following way: In Domentijans lives of Saint Symeon Nemanja and Saint
Sava the dominant idea is the one of mans participation to God, the source of love, in whose
image man was made and to whom he constantly strives. My impression is that the method
in which Domentijan expounds that notion and the terminology he uses show his acquain-
tance, direct or indirect, with the great names of Byzantine patristic literature, but above all
with the mysticism of St. Gregory of Nyssa. Domentijans ideas of the ideal ruler, although,
as it is often mentioned, immediately influenced by the eleventh century “Treatise on Law
and Grace” by Ilarion of Kiev, are in fact part of the whole body of the Byzantine political
ideology, deeply connected with some of the basic principles of Byzantine spirituality.
There can be no question of criticizing Domentijan for any lack of originality. His value
lies in the profound assimilation of ideas, transformed into a creative conviction and
expressed by the means of a brilliant literary talent. For the art historian who believes that
an enquiry into the ideas governing the concepts of visual arts in the Middle Ages is advis-
able because it offers an opportunity of asking a whole range of questions on the way of life
of the medieval man to which there can be an answer, Domentijan is an ideal case although
by no means unique. His influence on the intellectual milieu of thirteenth century Serbia is
certain; at the same time a sufficient number of contemporary artistic monuments are
extant. In that respect the efforts of discovering the relationship between the ideology whose
exponent Domentijan was, on the one hand, and the visual counterpart to that ideology on
the other, in conditions which are totally appropriate, is a worth while exercise, with poten-
tial value for the study of Byzantine art as a whole.
51A. Grabar, Une Pyxide en ivoire à Dumbarton Oaks, DOP 14 (I960), pp. 132-133;
V. J. Djuric, Loza Nemanjica u starom srpskom slikarstvu, izd. kongres Saveza Drustava
istoricara umenosti SFRJ, Ohrid 1976, pp. 53-56. — A poem preserved in the Codex Marc,
gr. 524 almost certainly refers to a family tree in the narthex of a church built by “George
the Grand Hetaeriarch of the Palaeologus family.” . . . “And to indicate the origin of his fam-
ily, he has represented a holy group of seven emperors, heads of clans who support him like
pillars” . . . See C. Mango, The A rt o f the Byzantine Empire 312-1453, Englewood Cliffs
1972, p. 227.
52S. Curcic, The Original Baptismal Font o f Gracanica and its Iconographie Setting,,
Zbornik Narodnog muzeja IX-X, (Beograd 1979), pp. 313—323.
AFTER THE FALL 399
66
the ideas of kingship. Once again, it confirms the importance attached to

that symbolism in the political ideology in the Serbian Medieval State.
It seems certain that the method of investigation which I proposed for
the monuments created in medieval Serbia can yield important results, par-
ticularly supported by contemporary literary sources. I believe that it can be
successfully applied to other areas of the Byzantine sphere of influence. The
general conclusion is that the expression of the belief in the kingship of man
as a creation in the likenes of Christ and in the divine authority of the sov-
ereign, man and King both inspired by the light of the Spirit, formed a focus
onto which carefully planned and often ingenious systems of related themes
were meant to converge.
Appendix
The Representation o f the Forty Martyrs o f Sebaste and the

Illustration of the Parable o f the Virgins (Matthew 25, 1-13) in the
Narthex o f Lesnovo
These two compositions are placed on the West wall of the narthex. The
Parable of the Ten Virgins is immediately above the entrance. Christ is rep-
resented in the middle. On the left are five foolish virgins in a group behind
the closed door; on the right the five wise ones, carrying tapers, are already
in a celestial landscape.
The passion of the Forty Martyrs on the lake of Sebaste occupies the
upper register of the wall. The martyrs are disposed in two groups on each
side of the biphora. At the highest point of the composition Christ is rep-
resented in a segment, extending crowns to the Forty. In the centre of the
vault, above the West wall, Christ Emmanuel is represented in a medallion.
The iconography of the Forty Martyrs has been studied by O. Demus
who also pointed out the early veneration of their relics in Byzantine tradi-
tion and the popularity of their cult in the Byzantine court circles.1
My assertion that the representation of the passion of the Forty implies
an allusion to baptism13is based on references to baptism which abound in
1 O. Demus, Two Palaeologan Mosaic Ikons in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection, DOP 14
(1960), pp. 96-109.
la See above p. 53. See also my ardcle “The Forty in A rt (Summary)”, The Byzantine Saint
(Studies Supplementary to Sobornost 5), London 1981, pp. 190-194, repr. below, IV,
70-74.
the two Kontakia on the Forty Martyrs by Romanos the M elode2 and which
reflect the same concept in the homilies devoted to those saints by St. Basil3
and St. Gregory o f Nyssa.4
While every passion and death o f a m artyr is considered as a baptism in
his blood,5 the accounts o f the passion o f the Forty insist on the particular
circumstances o f their suffering, principally the water o f the freezing lake
combined with the divine fire which descended upon them (allusion to the
Holy Spirit in Christ s Baptism) and made their bodies glow with inner
heat, thus transforming their m artyrdom into a baptism through water and
fire.6 O ther elements o f the legend contribute to that concept. The saints’
nakedness is com m ented on in baptismal terms, symbolising the rejection
o f the old tunics o f sin. A great deal o f attention is paid to the sanctity of
the number 40, the num ber o f days o f the duration o f Lent, in other words
o f the preparation for death and resurrection in Christ through baptism. It
is a reminder o f the forty days Christ spent fasting in the wilderness, Elijah
in the desert, and Moses on the m ountain. T h at num ber was preserved in
spite of the fact that one o f the martyrs took refuge in the h ot bath near by:
he was replaced by the Roman guardian who undressed, stepped into the
freezing lake and was baptised.
The account o f the burning o f the Forty’s bodies while they were still
breathing and o f throwing their dismembered parts in the river is used with
the same intention o f creating an analogy between the Forty’s “agon” and
the baptism in water and fire.
Finally, the fact that the representations o f the Forty M artyrs were used
to illustrate Psalm 65 (66) 12 (“We w ent through fire and water; but thou
broughtest us into a place o f refreshment”) in a group o f psalters with mar-
ginal decoration,7 psalm with a meaning applicable to baptism 8 and quoted
2P. Mass and C. A. Trypanis, Sancti Romani Melodi Cantica; Cantica Genuina, Oxford
1963, pp. 487-495; 495-505. M. Carpenter, Kontakia o f Romanos (transi, and annot.),
University of Missouri, Columbia 1973, pp. 267—277; 279—289.
3Migne PG 31, 508-525.
4Migne PG 46, 749-756; 757-772; 773-788
5St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 1.10; XIII. 21.
6 References to the types of baptism in water and fire hold an important place in patris-
tic theological commentaries on baptism. Cf. J. Daniélou, Bible et Liturgie, Paris 1951,
pp. 109; 145-149.
7See S. Dufrenne, Tableaux Synoptiques ...
8St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures^ XXIII, 17.
AFTER THE FALL 401
68
in St. Basils homily, is one more p roof o f the symbolism at which St. Basil
was aiming.9
The passion of the Forty Martyrs is thus distinguished, by its baptismal
character, to a very high degree.
The representations o f the Forty Martyrs o f Sebaste in church decora-
tion programmes deserve further study. Im portant observations in that
direction were made by S. Radojcic in his study “Temnicki natpis” (The
Inscription from Temnic).10 Radojcic discussed the representation o f the
individual portraits of the Forty M artyrs in the arches supporting the dome
(or, more seldom, forming a circle aroung the base o f the drum ), a phe-
nom enon which occurs in a num ber o f churches from the eleventh century
(St. Sophia, Kiev) onward and which by the regularity o f the disposition o f
the martyrs portraits reveals the intention o f creating an “illustrated litany”
and placing it as a safeguard at the m ost vulnerable part o f the building.
In support of Radojcic s conclusions one can add the tradition o f the
rebuilding o f the roof on the damaged dom e o f the Anastasis church in
Jerusalem during patriarch Thom as (80 7 -8 2 0 ).11 Having seen in a dream
the Forty supporting the cupola, the patriarch ordered that 40 beams
should be inserted at the base o f the new roof; he also dedicated an oratory
on the South side of the church to the m em ory o f the saints.
T he baptismal aspect o f the passion o f the Forty Martyrs formulated by
the authors o f homilies and hymns which I described above, m ust have
been well known to the patriarch Thom as. H e probably also regarded the
Forty as the athletes who won their crowns through baptism in water and
fire and who by being marked w ith the Name o f Christ brought victory
over Satan. Thanks to that emphasized quality o f their suffering for which
they were obviously held in exceptional esteem their presence at the base o f
the dome would be equal in strength to those other signs o f the Name o f
9 Understood differently by Demus, op. cit., p. 100.

10Zbornik za likovne umetnosti 5 (Novi Sad) 1969, pp. 1—11; see also S. Radojcic,
Prilozi za istoriju najstarijeg ohridskog slikarstva, ZRVI 8 (Mélanges G. Ostrogorsky II)
(1964), pp. 364-365.
11 H. Vincent et F.-M. Abel, Jérusalem, Recherches de topographie, d ’archéologie et d ’histoire
II, Paris 1914, pp. 224-244.
Christ, such as the crosses,12 the revolving discs o f the Logos13 or the images
o f Christ on the M andylion — Keramion.
Individual portraits o f the Forty are in fact placed along the base o f the
drum in the naos o f Lesnovo, decorated three years before the narthex
(1346).14
W ith regard to the Parable o f the Ten Virgins it may be sufficient to
recall that the bridal train o f the wise virgins w ith lamps in their hands is
compared to the procession o f the neophytes carying tapers by St. Cyril of
Jerusalem in the Introduction to his Catecheses, and by St. Gregory of
Nazianzus in De Baptismo15 and the m eaning o f both explained by the ulti-
mate union of the soul w ith C hrist.16
The Parable o f the Ten Virgins is the them e celebrated on the Tuesday
o f the Holy Week. O ne o f the two hym ns on the same Parable for Holy
Tuesday by Romanos contains the following lines, appropriate for the com-
position in the narthex at Lesnovo, in the proxim ity o f D usans Investiture
panel. I am quoting it in the French translation by J. Grosdidier de Matons:
“Riche est renseignem ent de cette parabole qui pour tous est la route et
le guide menant à toute bonté et à toute hum ilité. Elle est la règle des rois,
elle enseigne la compassion à ceux qui gouvernent le peuple”.17
12G. Babic, Les croix à cryptogrammes, peintes dans les églises serbes des XlIIe et XTVe siècles>
Byzance et les Slaves (Mélanges Ivan Dujcev), Paris 1979, 1—13.
13S. Radojcic, Mileseva, Beograd 1963, p. 6 and note 12; E. C. Schwartz, The Whirling
Disc, Zograf 8 (Beograd 1977), pp. 24—29.
14N. L. Okunev, Lesnovo, p. 226.
15St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Cathechetical Lectures, Prologue 1; St. Gregory of Nazianzus,
Migne PG 36, 426 B-C.
16J. Daniélou, Bible et Liturgie, pp. 294-295-
17Grosdidier de Matons, Romanos, III, Sources Chrétiennes 114 (1965), pp. 335.
17
Khan or Basileus:
An Aspect of Russian Medieval Political Theory
Michael Cherniavsky
Every historian interested in Russia has to deal with one of the
most vivid and fundamental facts of Russian history: the Tatar
Yoke, when the larger portion of Russia was conquered in the thir-
teenth century, and remained for over two centuries, de jure at least,
a province of an Asiatic empire. Completely within the area con-
quered by the Tatars or Mongols was northeast Russia, the founda-
tion of the later Muscovite tsardom and of Imperial Russia. The
historians of Russia generally interpret the Mongol conquest and
yoke as a diabolus ex machina, an external factor, which interrupted
or distorted the natural, internal logic of Russian historical develop-
ment. As such the Tatar Yoke was mainly significant for its impli-
cations in later Russian history; the chief historiographic quest was
to find out in what way and to what extent it actually interrupted or
distorted Russian history. Underlying this procedure was, of course,
the particular view each historian had of the pattern and logic of
Russian history as a whole.1 A corollary of this view of the his-
toriography for Russia's thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centu-
ries is a relative paucity of works on the Tatar state and Tatar-
Russian relations ; 2 a corollary, because there seems to have prevailed
a vague desire to get rid of, to by-pass, the whole problem as quickly
as possible, and to get back to the “ natural course ” of Russian his-
tory no matter how badly it had become distorted by the long inter-
ruption.
The concern of the present paper is to deal with only one aspect
of the general problem of the Tatar Yoke and the changes in Russian
society and life induced by it. What consequences did it have for
1 An excellent summary of the opinions of the great historians is given in V. D.
Grekov and A. I. Iakubovskii, Zolotaia Orda i ee padenie [The Golden Horde and
Its Fall] (Moscow, 1950), 247-61. Three views are in evidence: that the Tatar
conquest meant a general barbarization (Karamzin, Bestuzhev-Riumin, Platonov
in the sense of isolation, as well as the Byzantinists Diakonov and Sawa) ; that the
Tatars contributed to the political and administrative unification (Kliuchevsky,
Kostomarov, the jurist Sergeevich and the Marxist Pokrovsky); finally, that the
Yoke was of little importance (Soloviev, Rozhkov, and, in particular, the great Rus-
sian historian of the 20th century, Presniakov).
2 The first serious study was the collection of sources on the Golden Horde in-
cluding its Russian relations edited by Baron V. G. Tizengausen, Sbomik materialov
otnosiashchikhsia k istorii Zolotoi Ordy [Collection of Sources Referring to the His-
tory of the Golden Horde], I (St. Petersburg, 1884), II (Leningrad, 1941). B.
Spuler’s Die Goldene Horde (Leipzig, 1943) does not concentrate on Tatar-Russian
relations primarily; the three major works known to me are all very recent: A. N.
Nasonov, Mongoly i Rus’ [The Mongols and Russia] (Moscow, 1940) ; Grekov and
Iakubovskii, op. cit.; and G. Vernadsky, The Mongols and Russia (New Haven,
1953).
460 M IC H A E L C H E R N IA V S K Y
Russia’s image of her ruler, the Grand Prince and later Tsar of
Russia? To answer this one must start by asking what was the med-
iaeval Russian image of the ruler? What models of rulership were
available?
The traditional and largely correct interpretation has been that,
for mediaeval Russia, the supreme image of absolute power and rule
was the Byzantine emperor, the basileus, the “ tsar.” From the mo-
ment of St. Vladimir’s baptism the Russian state entered the Uni-
versal Christian Empire, living under one holy emperor, the image
of God on earth, the source of orthodoxy and law and thus of salva-
tion. During the ensuing centuries, whatever the political realities
might be, Russians acknowledged the legitimacy of at least the spirit-
ual or eschatological sovereignty of the basileus.3 The dialectic of
this acknowledgment was finally completed after the fall of Con-
stantinople and the death of the last Roman Emperor on its walls,
when Moscow (the Third Rome) and its orthodox ruler acquired, in
Russian eyes, the prerogatives of the former Empire.4
3 The problem of determining in detail just what image the Russians had of the
emperor and how much of it they accepted at different times is a very complex one.
Much of Byzantine political theology was unknown to the Russians or, if known,
incomprehensible. The letter of the Emperor John Cantacuzene in 1347 to Grand
Prince Simeon the Proud, quoting the latter, probably expressed the general and
rather vague Russian view of the rôle of the emperor: “ Yes, as you wrote, the Em-
pire of the Romans and the most holy great Church of God are the sources of all
piety and the school of sanctity and lawgiving.” F. Miklosich and I. Müller, Acta
patriarchatus Const antinopolitani (Vienna, 1860), I, 263. Despite all the attempts
at ideological rebellion, Basil II, as late as 1451-2, after the Union of Florence,
which marked the apostasy of the Byzantines, and on the eve of the empire’s fall,
acknowledged in detail the supremacy of the emperor implied in Simeon’s state-
ment. Cf. letter of Basil II to Emperor Constantine XI, Russkaia Istoricheskaia
Biblioteka (St. Petersburg, 1880), VI, no. 71, p. 575. On the general problem of
Russian relations with and views of Byzantium, see F. Temovskii, Izucheniie
vizantiiskoi istorii i eiia tendentsioznoe prüozhenie v drevnei Rusi [ The Study of
Byzantine History and Its Tendential Application in Ancient Russia] (Kiev, 1875) ;
M. A. Diakonov, VlasV Moskovskikh Gosudarei [ The Power of the Muscovite Sov-
ereigns'] (St. Petersburg, 1889) ; V. VaPdenberg, Drevnerusskie ucheniia o predelakh
tsarskoi vlasti [Old-Russian Teachings on the Limits of Tsarist Power] (Petrograd,
1916) ; A. A. Vasiliev, “ Was Old Russia a Vassal State of Byzantium? ” Speculum,
VII (1932), 350-360; C. Chemousov, “ K voprosu o vlianii vizantiiskogo prava na
drevneishee russkoe ” [“ On the Problem of the Influence of Byzantine Law on
the Earliest Russian ”], Vizantiiskoe Obozrenie (Iurev, 1916), II, 303-322; I.
Sevcenko, “ A Neglected Byzantine Source of Muscovite Political Ideology,” Har-
vard Slavic Studies II (1954), 141-181.
4 The amount of literature on this subject is considerable and repetitive. See H.
Schaeder, Moscau das Dritte Rom (Hamburg, 1929) ; V. Malinin, Starets Eleasorova
monastyria Filofei i ego poslaniia [The Elder of the Eleazar Monastery , Phüotheus
and his Epistles] (Kiev, 1901); I. Sevcenko, “ Intellectual Repercussions of the
Council of Florence,” Church History , XXIV (1955), 291-323; M. Cherniavsky,
“ The Reception of the Council of Florence in Moscow,” ibid., 347-359.
AFTER THE FALL 405
K H AN OR BASILEUS 461
Though the basileus determined the image of rulership for medi-

aeval Russia, this did not necessarily mean th a t the Russians also
acknowledged his sovereignty over them ; on the contrary, tim e and
again, Russian princes usurped the privileges of the emperor. In
Kievan Russia, princes were sometimes portrayed as Byzantine pa-
tricians or despots, hierarchic members of the universal Christian so-
ciety, and sometimes portrayed in the garb and with the regalia of
the emperors themselves.5 The coins of Kievan Russia, patterned
on Byzantine money, show the Russian prince in the place of the
basileus.6 Finally, in the liturgy of the eleventh and twelfth centu-
ries the name of the Russian prince frequently replaces th at of the
emperor in the diptychs—the commemoration lists—where the priest
prays for and glorifies the ruler and all Christendom.7 B ut this very
usurpation of the formal and basic attributes of rulership—regalia,
coinage, liturgy—is in itself the best proof of the power em anating
from the image of the basileus. Recognition and usurpation created,
within the image of the ruler, a tension which found its expression
in the inconsistency of the Russian view itself.
T he same inconsistency appears perhaps even more crudely when
the Russian acknowledgment could be exploited after 1453, when
there no longer was a Byzantine-Roman emperor, while the vacant
throne which remained “ for as long as the world lasted ” demanded
a basileus.8
5 See N. P. Kondakov, Izobrazhenie Russkoi kniazheskoi sem’i v miniaturakh XI
veka [The Representation of a Russian Princely Family in Miniatures of the 11th
Century] (St. Petersburg, 1906); Kondakov, Russkie Klady [jRussian Treasure-
Troves] (St. Petersburg, 1896), I, 61f.; Russkie drevnosti v pamiatnikakh iskustva
[ Russian Antiquities in Monuments of Art], ed. I. A. Tolstoi and N. P. Kondakov,
vol. I ll, fig. 166, vol. IV, 35f.; A. Grabar, “ Les fresques des escaliers à Sainte-
Sophie de Kiev et l'iconographie impériale byzantine,” Seminarium Kondakovia-
num, VII (1935), 103-119.
6 A. V. Oreshnikov, Denezhnyie znaki domongoVskoi Rusi [ Moneys of Pre-Mongol
Russia], Trudy Gos. Istor. muzeia (Moscow, 1936); see also Oreshnikov, Russkie
Monety do 151^7 goda [Russian Coins till 1547], Imp. Ross. 1st. Muzei, Opisanie
Pamiatnikov I (St. Petersburg 1910), 1-5, pl. I., hereafter referred to as Monety.
7 Diakonov, op. cit., 24, note 2, argues, on the basis of three pre-Tatar missals,
that the name of the emperor was usually omitted from the liturgy; cf. also A.
Gorskii and K. Nevostruev, Opisanie slavianskikh rukopisei Moskovskoi sinodal’noi
biblioteki [Description of Manuscripts of the Moscow Synodal Library] (Moscow,
1894), III: 1, p. 2f., p. 250f. Considering the later history of the diptychs, how-
ever, this argument from silence is not very convincing. On diptychs in Eastern
liturgy, see I. M. Hanssens, Institutiones Liturgicae de Ritibus Orientalibus (Rome,
1932), III, 1340-1, 1354-5.
8 The monk Philotheos, ideologue of Moscow the Third Rome, expressed this’
idea most clearly; cf. Malinin, op. cit., Appendix, 50f. et passim. For the Byzantine
conception of the emperor, see 0 . Treitinger, Die Ostrdmische Kaiser- und Reichsidee
(Jena, 1938). The Russians never acknowledged the imperial rôle or position of
462 MICHAEL CHERNIAVSKY
The steps which the Russian Grand Prince took toward this
throne were slow and hesitant. Far more frequently than in the
Kievan period do the prayer-books contain a prayer for the emperor
when in fact there was no emperor; and only with the coronation of
Ivan IV as Tsar, in 1547, does the confusion in the diptychs cease.9
Titulature shows the same ambivalence. It is true, Dimitrii Donskoi
is called tsar in praise for his victory over the Tatars at Kulikovo in
1380, but the title refers to his tsarlike qualities and achievements
rather than to his actual status.10 The fall from Grace of the Byzan-
tine Empire at the Council of Florence and its final fall in 1543 does
not result in a consistent adoption of the imperial title on the part of
the Grand Prince. Only with the reign of Basil III ( 1505- 1533 ) do
Russian “ schoolmen,” writing for internal consumption, begin to
call the Grand Prince “ tsar” with any regularity;11 and, again,
only by the coronation of 1547 was the Russian ruler established,
the Western emperors, awarding to them the subordinate rôle of caesar (tsesar) ; cf.
D. I. Prozorovskii, “ 0 znachenii tsarskogo titula do priniatiia russkimi gosudariami
titula Inperatorskogo ” [" On the Meaning of the Title of ' Tsar ’ till the Adoption
by Russian Sovereigns of the Title of 'Emperor *”], Izvestiia Imp. Russkogo Ark-
heologicheskago Obshchestva, VIII (1877), 449f.
9 In a service book of 1457, for example, twice the prince is mentioned instead of
the emperor, and then twice again the emperor is referred to: Gorskii and Nevos-
truev, III: 2, no. 601, pp. 266-7, 273-4, in Chteniia v Obshchestve Istorii i Drev-
nostei Rossiiskikh (1917), 4. While a missal of ca. 1500 enjoins the priest to "me-
morialize . . . our princes and not the tsar, for there is no tsardom here in our
Russia” (Izvestiia Imp. Arkheologicheskogo Obschestva, V, 138), a service book of
about the same date speaks only of the tsar (Gorskii and Nevostruev, III: 1, 48).
The emperor is memorialized in prayer books of 1462 (Gorskii and Nevostruev, III:
1, 46), 1481 (Gorskii and Nevostruev, III: 1, 199) and in a number of codices of
the late 15th and early 16th centuries (Gorskii and Nevostruev, III: 1, 66 ; II: 2,
182; I. Sreznevskii, Svedeniia i zametki o maloizvestnykh i neizvestnykh pamiat-
nikakh [Studies and Notes Concerning Unknown and Little Known Sources], no.
LXXIX, in Sbomik otdeleniia russkago iazyka i slovesnosti Imp. Akademii Nauk,
XX: 4, 558). On the other hand, the prince is mentioned in a number of service
books (Gorskii and Nevostruev, III: 1, 37; III: 1, 53; III: 2, 259; III: 1, 45 where
both prince and tsar are mentioned; Pamiatniki Drevnei Pismennosti, III, 1880,
Protokol zasedaniia Komiteta, April 4, 1880) and even in one missal of 1551 or
later, i.e., after the coronation of Ivan IV as tsar (Gorskii and Nevostruev, III : 1,
60). It is probable, however, that, by the middle of the 16th century, the distinc-
tion between "tsar” and prince (“ kniaz’ ”) was slowly obliterated; see, for ex-
ample, the Minea of 1567 where the emperor is called prince, in Kh. Loparev,
Opisanie Rukopisei Imp. Ob. Liubitelei drevnei Pismennosti [Description of Man-
uscripts of the Imperial Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature'] (St. Petersburg,
1892), 45 et passim.
10Cf. Polnoe Sobranie Russkikh Letopisei, VI, app. " B ” 90f.; S. Shambinago,
“ Povesti o Mamaevom poboishche” ["Tales of Mamai's Battle”], Sb. otd. russ.
ias. i slov., LXXXI, no. 7. Hereafter, P.S.R.L. refers to the first work.
11 Cf. Prozorovskii, ov. cit.
AFTER THE FALL 407
KHAN OR BASILEUS 463
universally and formally, as tsar. Even this coronation, however,

presents us with problems. The first imperial coronation 12 was
anticipated with what seems to be typical ambiguity, when Grand
Prince Ivan III, in 1498 crowned his grandson Dimitrii as co-ruler
and Grand Prince. A glance at the coronation ceremony shows that
it was a copy of the Byzantine coronation ritual for a caesar only,
a junior co-emperor.13 This implies that Ivan III, as Grand Prince,
performed the rôle of the senior emperor, the augustus, the basileus.
What all this amounts to is that Russian reception of the basileus
image oscillated between the need to acknowledge and the desire to
usurp this very image. The process of assimilating this image, of
identifying the Russian ruler with the basileus took a long time .14
12 Compare Ivan’s coronation rite (E. V. Barsov, Drevne-russkie pamiatniki
sviashchennago venchaniia tsarei na tsarstvo [Old-Russian Sources for the Sacred
Coronation of the Tsars'], Chteniia, 1883: I, 42-90) with Constantine Porphyro-
genitus, Le Livre des Cérémonies, ed. A. Vogt (Paris, 1939), II, lf., and Codinus
Curopalates, De Officialibus Palatii Constantino?)olitani, ed. I. Bekker, C.S.H.B.,
XIV (Bonn, 1839), 86f. Cf. Val’denberg, op. cit., 275f.; G. Olsr, “ Chiesa e Stato
nelTincoronazione degli ultimi Rurikidi,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica, XVI
(1950), 290f. suggests that the coronation rite included the ceremony of unction;
however the statement about unction in the chronicle was probably added after
the coronation of Michael Romanov in 1613 (cf. “ Tsarstvennaia Kniga” [“ The
Imperial Book ”], P.S.RL., XIII, 452, note 1 ).
13 Olsr, op. cit., 285f., argues that the coronation ordo for Dimitrii differs sig-
nificantly from the Byzantine imperial coronation, and explains it by the greater
religiosity of the Russians who therefore assigned a greater rôle to the clergy than
was done in Constantinople. The coronation ordo of Dimitrii, however, is a trans-
lation of a Serbian manuscript of the 14th century, which in turn was a translation
of the Byzantine coronation ordo for a caesar or junior emperor. Cf. Barsov, op.
cit., for the coronation of Dimitrii, 33f.; for the Serbian and Byzantine rites, 25f.
14 The title “ By the Grace of God ” was introduced by Basil II still within the
"Byzantine” period, in 1449, in his diplomatic documents (Dukhovnye i Dogo-
vornye Gramoty Velikikh i UdeVnykh Kniazei XIV-XVIIvv. [Testaments and
Treaties of Grand and Appanage Princes of the 14th-16th Centuries'], ed. L. V.
Cherepnin [Moscow, 1950], 160, 163, hereafter referred to as Gramoty). The title
“ tsar ” appears in diplomatic documents (Pamiatniki Diplomaticheskikh Snoshenii
Drevnei Rossii s Derzhavami Inostrannymi (St. Petersburg, 1851), I, 46, 47, 59-61,
87, 96, 98, 114), but, for internal consumption, the title of “ Tsar ” is used to signify
spiritual qualities (cf. Paschalia for the year 7000, Russkaia Istoricheskaia Biblio-
teka, VI, no. 118, 795f.). Despite Ivan’s marriage (1472) to the Byzantine heiress,
Sophia Paleologus, which is supposed to have influenced Russian political thought pro-
foundly (cf. G. Olsr, “ Gli ultimi Rurikidi e le basi ideologiche della sovranita dello
stato russo,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica, XII [1946], 322-73), Byzantine court
ranks were introduced very gradually, beginning with 1495; V. Prokhorov, Khris-
tianskie i russkie drevnosti i arkheologia [Christian and Early Russian Antiquities
and Archeology] (St. Petersburg, 1872), 36f. The problem of the new Russian seal
with the two-headed imperial eagle on it is a very complex one. There is no doubt
that the eagle stood for the state symbol of the empire (cf. A. V. Soloviev, “ Les
So much so that for over a century the throne of the ideal “ universal
em pire” remained vacant before the Russian Grand Prince was
crowned as tsar and autocrat.
If the central, supreme image of rulership for the Russians was the
basileus, what was the significance for Russian political theory of the
fact that after 1240 another concrete image of rulership was avail-
able—that of the khan, who ruled over a vast empire of which north-
eastern Russia was only a province? What modifications, nuances or
distortions in tlie Russian ruler-image were induced by this fact?
From the beginning of the Mongol or Tatar period in Russia, the
Tatar ruler was always referred to in the chronicles as “ tsar.” 15 Rus-
sian pet names for the Tatars are hardly polite ,16 but even when used
as epithets for the ruler, the khan ,17 they are used in conjunction with
the title of tsar. This is to say that the Russians assigned to their
conqueror and his heirs the title which, both before and after the
Tatar Yoke, was reserved for only one ruler—the universal Christian
emperor.18 Some proof that the Russians used this title deliberately
and with full awareness of its implications lies in the careful distinc-
tions they drew between the various titles: the khan of Chingizide
blood, was always tsar; his heir and co-ruler was referred to as
“ tsesar,” i.e., the caesar or junior emperor. Members of the khan’s
emblèmes héraldiques de Byzance et les Slaves,” Seminarium Kondakovianum, VII

[1935], 149f.). A. V. Oreshnikov argues that Ivan III began to use the double-
headed eagle in 1472, immediately after his marriage with Sophia (“ Materialy k
russkoi numizmatike do-tsarskogo perioda ” [“ Sources for Russian Numismatics of
the Pre-Tsar Period”], Trudy Moskovskogo Numizmaticheskago Obshchestva, II
[1901], 12), but the first known use of the new seal dates from July 1497; Gramoty,
no. 85, p. 341.
15 It is curious that despite the long associations with the steppe nomads the
Sophia chronicler did not recognize " khan ” as a title but thought it part of the
name of the Tatar leaders; PJS.R.L., V, 175 et passim.
WPJ$.R.L., XXV, 126-7, 143, et passim. However, the Russians with great im-
partiality and good logic assigned the same epithets to Germans, Catholics in gen-
eral, and Lithuanians {ibid., 150, 193, et passim). On the popular view of the
Tatars see I. U. Budovnitz, “ Ideinaia osnova rannikh narodnykh skazanii o tatar-
skom ige” [“The Ideological Basis of Early Popular Tales About the Tatar
Yoke”], Trudy Otdela Drevnerusskoi Literatury Akademii Nauk, XIV (1958),
169-175.
17 P.S.R.L., XXV, 136. See, however, the very interesting study of R. Jakobson
where he shows that the epithet “ dog ” (sobaka) was not really a denigrating one
but derived from Tatar tribe names (O. Jansen, “ Sobaka Kalin'Tsar,” Slavia, XVII
[1939-40], 82-89). (Jakobson wrote under the pseudonym of O. Jansen.)
18 For the Russian attitude toward the title of “ tsar ” see Prozorovskii, op. cit.
For the general European view of the title and its significance, see E. Stengel,
“ Kaisertitel und Suverànitatsidee,” Deutsches Archiv, III, 1939, 1-57.
AFTER THE FALL 409
family were “ tsarevichi.” 19 But Mamai and Edigei, powerful de

facto rulers of the Golden Horde in the 1380s and the 1410s respec-
tively, but not of the blood, were called only princes; Mamai par-
ticularly was considered to be a usurper of the tsar’s authority over
Russia .20 Iconographie sources are as consistent as the chronicles
about the imperial status of the khan. In all images, including minia-
tures showing Russian victories over the Tatars, the khan is always
shown wearing a radiate crown, contrasted with the grand prince in
his cap .21
That the title “ tsar ” as applied to the khan carried definite con-
notations of legitimacy, is revealed by the chronicles in other ways as
well. In 1245-6 prince Michael of Chernigov travelled to the Horde.
Upon arrival, before being admitted to Khan Batu, he was required
to perform a purification ritual, passing between lines of fires and
stone idols. He was informed that the khan ordered him to go
through the ceremony but the prince was stubborn; according to the
chronicle, however, he prefaced his final refusal with the words: “ I
bow to you, oh Tsar, for God has given you the tsardom and the glory
of this world. . . 22 He will submit himself to the khan, the “ Tsar ”
but not to the pagan gods; for this Michael gladly suffered martyr-
dom. The Pauline note of all power being from God and thus legiti-
mate was also sounded in the summons of Batu to Grand Prince
Alexander Nevski, the defender and the “ sun ” of Russia, recorded in
the Grand Princely chronicle: “ God has subjected to me many
tongues. Do you alone wish not to submit yourself to my power; yet
™P.S.RL., XXV, 151, 152, 155, 238.
20“ I razgordeesia okannyi Mami i mnia sia iako tsaria . . . PJS.R.L., XXV,
201.
21 See the miniatures of the Nikon Chronicle, A. V. Artsikhovskii, Drevnerusskie
miniatiury kak istoricheskii istochnik [Old-Russian Miniatures as a Historical
Source] (Moscow, 1944), 53, 129, 144, 180; for discussion of regalia in general, see
ibid., 11If. For representations of Russian princely caps, see, e.g., icon of SS Boris
and Gleb, P. Mouratow, L’Ancienne Peinture Russe (Prague, 1925), fig. 33. For
Russian conception of a crown, see, e.g., the crown of King Solomon in 15th-century
fresco in the cathedral of the Assumption in Moscow, ibid., fig. 41 ; the crown of the
Byzantine emperor in the fresco of 1500-2 in the Ferapont Monastery, Istoriia
Russkogo Isskustva [History of Russian Art], ed. I. Grabar, A.N. SSSR (Moscow,
1955), III, 511. An interesting ideological problem is raised by a fresco of 1508 in
the cathedral of the Annunciation, Moscow, showing Grand Prince St. Vladimir in
a princely cap, while Iaroslav the Wise is wearing a tsar’s crown, ibid., 545. How
closely the crown was identified with tsardom can be seen in a miniature from the
Tsarstvennaia Kniga, 1560-70s, showing the coronation of Ivan IV. The young
tsar is shown in the radiate crown, just like the khans and the emperors (ibid., 601).
The point is, of course, that Ivan IV was crowned with the “ Cap of Monomachos ”
and Russian regalia did not include a radiate crown.
2 2 P.S.R.L., XXV, 138.
if you wish to preserve your land, then come to me and witness the
glory of my reign (tsarstviia) ” 23 As “ Tsar ” the khan was the ruler
ordained by God and he acquired the ideological freight of Christian
conceptions of the ruler. “ Fear God and honor the prince. And
whosoever opposed the ruler will be subject to Divine justice, because
he opposed the command of God ” states a thirteenth-century trac-
tate; 24 to attack the prince is to defy God, and this sentiment is
echoed in one of the earliest Russian epics in which the epic hero, Ilia
Muromets, knows that one is not allowed to, that one cannot actually
kill the Tatar “ tsar.” 25
There was a fundamental difference, however, between the basileus
and the khan. The one was the orthodox Christian emperor ruling
over all men insofar as the world was a Christian society; the other
was a pagan or, even worse, from the fourteenth century on, a Mos-
lem infidel. What effect did this difference have for the Russian
image of the khan? In 1393 patriarch Antonios of Constantinople
wrote his famous letter to Grand Prince Basil I in which he outlined
the whole doctrine of Byzantine imperial ideology. The occasion for
this letter was the disrespect supposedly shown by Basil to the patri-
arch and the emperor; among other things, the patriarch wrote:
“ people say that you do not allow the metropolitan to mention the
divine name of the emperor in the diptypchs, that is, you want to do
something which is quite impossible and you say: ‘ yes, we have the
church, but we have no emperor and do not wish to know him 26
The letter belongs properly to the history of Russo-Byzantine rela-
ions, of Russian ambivalence towards the imperial idea, and as such
does not concern us here. But it raises an interesting question: what
of the imperial name in the liturgy while Russia was part of the Tatar
state? The sources are extremely sparse, but except for the personal
missal of the Greek metropolitan Cyprian 27 (1374-1406) there is no
mention of the emperor during the thirteenth and fourteenth cen-
turies in any case.28 If we consider, however, that the liturgy of the
2 ZP.S.RL., XXV, 139; this corresponds closely with the usual Mongol imperial
diplomatic correspondence; cf, P, Pelliot, Les Mongols et la Papauté (Paris, 1923).
24 " Slovo sviatykh Otsov, kako zhiti krestianom ” [“ The Sayings of the Holy
Fathers, On How Should Christians Live”], Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnago
Prosveshcheniia (1854), no. 12; also see Sreznevskii, op. cit., 307; “ Izbornik Sviato-
slava,” Obshchestvo Liubitelei Drevnei Pismennosti, LV (1880), 95-6. For the legal
consequences of this view, see “ Merilo Pravednoe,” Arkhiv istoriko-iuridicheskikh
svedenii o Rossii [An Archive of Historico-Juridical Information About Russia] I:
3, 33.
25 Jakobson, op. cit., 95. Cf. supra, n. 17. 26 Acta patriarchatus, I, 190.
27Gorskii and Nevostruev, III: 1, no. 344, p. 14.
281 exclude the 15th century here because of the extreme difficulty in dating
the MSS. accurately, i.e., in the first or second halves of the century. For the
AFTER THE FALL 411
Kievan period frequently omitted the emperor in the diptychs, Basil’s

defiance seems to be the flogging of a very dead horse, unless it was in
response to an attempt by the Greek metropolitan to re-introduce the
basileus into the liturgy. Could this long omission lasting two cen-
turies have been affected, then, by the existence of the khan? The
Russian mediaevalist Grekov gives a very definite answer: “ The pub-
lic prayer of the clergy for the khans inculcated in the masses the idea
of the necessity of submission to Tatar power.” 29 The khan’s name
does not actually appear in any of the missals and service books, but
there is impressive evidence to support Grekov.
This evidence is contained in a number of iarlyks or charters given
by various Tatar khans to the Russian church in the person of the
metropolitan of all Russia .30 The contents of these charters are vir-
tually identical: all of them are immunity grants, exempting the
metropolitan and the entire clergy with all their possessions from all
civil duties and taxes. The khans based this immunity on the tradi-
tion established by the law code of Chingiz-khan himself,31 and it was
granted against the officials of the khan and against all Russian offi-
cials and princes, including the Grand Prince himself.82 The Russian
church was placed under the immediate jurisdiction of the khan-tsar,
retaining a universal rather than a national-territorial character under
a ruler of many states and peoples. In return for all these privileges
the church had but one duty—to pray for the khan: “ That they may
pray God in peace . . . and pray to God for Us and Our House
(plemiia) from generation to generation.” 33 And, as if anticipating
possible reservations, charter after charter warns: “ If any clergyman
prays with mental reservations, he commits a mortal sin.” 34
Even though the service books of the liturgy are silent on this
question, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that in practice the
prayer for the khan did replace the memorial for the basileus. The
fact that this did not enter into the missals is comprehensible, consid-
diptychs, see Diakonov, op. cit., 24, note 2; Gorskii and Nevostruev, III; 1, no. 347,
p. 29; no. 371, p. 130; no. 431, pp. 555-564, here the word “ tsar” is replaced,
throughout, by the words “ Grand Prince”; no. 350, p. 46 where the fifth offering
is for the “ tsars, princes and all laics ” but in the remembrances and prayers only
princes are mentioned. Compare this with Serbian missals of the early 15th cen-
tury, when, under the Turks, Stephan ( 1389-1427) is called despot and tsar (no.
373, p. 154; no. 374, p. 168).
29 Grekov and Iakubovskii, 223. The statement does go too far in its definitive-
ness considering the lack of proof.
30 The best edition is by M. D. Priselkov, Khanskii Iarlyki Russkim Mitro-
politam, [The Khans’ Charters to Russian Metropolitans] (Petrograd, 1916).
81 Priselkov, 83, 92, 96.
32 Iarlyk of khan Tuliak, ibid., 91-2, redaction “ a.”
33 Ibid., 92, 93, et passim. 34 97
ering that the ruler for whom one prayed was an infidel, a “ godless
one.” As such he could not be entered into the official cult, he could
not become part of the commemoration of all Christians, but he could,
and did, occupy the traditional rôle of the ruler who is from God, ap-
pointed by God and therefore prayed for to God. It is not necessary
here to argue the need for consistency on the part of the Russians, nor
to impose on them the need for a clear choice between the basileus or
the khan. In fact, such a clear-cut choice would be impossible and
ideological astigmatism could and did occur. What did exist was yet
another kind of tension, an atmosphere where the image of the khan
overlapped that of the basileus, vaguely fused with the latter; exactly
because it did not replace the latter, the image of the khan could bor-
row the attributes of the image of the basileus and could become
identified in the popular and in the official mind with it. All this is to
say that, through the encounter of political reality and ideological
tradition, the khan as “ tsar ” acquired, in the liturgy as in titulature,
the attributes of the universal and unique emperor.
One more area with implications and possibilities of image-making
remains—that of numismatic iconography. Russian coinage of the
Kievan period, patterned on Byzantine models, appears to have ceased
towards the middle of the twelfth century.35 For the next 250 years or
so Russian princes did not mint any coins. The minting of coins was
resumed sometime between the sixties and the eighties of the four-
teenth century, in Moscow .36 A purely economic cause for the re-
sumption of coinage is not very convincing.37 Of political causes,
three are suggested: desire on the part of the Tatars for another con-
crete acknowledgment by the Russians of Tatar sovereignty; desire
on the part of Dimitrii Donskoi, the Grand Prince, in the 1360s and
1370s to express nascent Russian nationalism which culminated with
the battle of Kulikovo in 1380; and (for those who suggest the 1380s
as the starting date) desire to celebrate the new national conscious-
ness won on the field of Kulikovo .38 The evidence which we shall
35 Oreshnikov, Denezhnye znaki, 76f.; G. B. Fedorov, “ Den’gi Moskovskogo
Kniazhestva vremeni Dimitriia Donskogo i Vasiliia I ” [“ Coins of the Moscow
Principality During the Reigns of Dimitrii Donskoi and Basil I ”], Materialy i
Issledovaniia po Arkheologii SSSR, Akademiia Nauk, Moscow, XII (1949), 145
(here after referred to as Fedorov).
36 Fedorov, 156f.; Y. L. Ianin and S. A. Ianina, “ Nachal’nyi period Riazanskoi
monetnoi chekanki” [“ The Beginning of Riazan Coin-Minting”], Numizmatich-
eskii Sbornik, Moscow, I (1955), 116f.
37 In order to be able to pay the tribute. Cf. A. A. IPin, Klassifikatsia russkikh
udeVnykh monet [The Classification of Russian Appanage Coins] (M.L., 1940), 32,
in Fedorov, 157. The Russians, however, had been paying tribute for over a cen-
tury by this time.
38 For the literature on this problem, see Fedorov, 158-9, Ianin, op. cit., 121f.
AFTER THE FALL 413
now examine appears to support the first of the political causes.

Briefly, Russian coinage from the reign of Dim itrii Donskoi till 1480,
the formal end of the T atar Yoke, falls into two periods: the first con-
sisting of the reigns of Dimitrii, Vasilii I, and the early years of Vasilii
II ; 39 and the second, of about 50 years, made up of the greater p art
of Vasilii IF s reign and of the first twenty years of Ivan I ll's . The
coinage of the first period shows a consistent p attern: on the obverse
of the coins is the name of the reigning Grand Prince and one of a
limited num ber of symbols, usually animals or birds; on the reverse
there is, in Arabic, the name of the reigning khan, sometimes accom-
panied by the slogan: “ M ay he live long ” ; sometimes by a profiled
head which was, in all probability, a portrait of the khan.40 Only
infrequently, on the coins of this first period is there found, on the re-
verse, an inscription which is just a scribble designed to im itate Arabic
lettering—at best an attem pt to copy Arabic by someone who did not
know the language.41 The second period presents us with coins
on which the meaningless copy of an Arabic inscription is the rule
rather than the exception; 42 in addition, a num ber of coins of Basil I I
carry, on the reverse, instead of the name of the khan in Arabic, the
inscription in Russian: “ Grand Prince Vasilii of all Russia.” 43
W hat significance can be attached to the evidence of Russian
coins? In 1383, at the beginning of the great struggle between T am -
erlane and the ruler of the Golden Horde of the Tatars, K han
Tokhtamysh, one of Tamerlane’s grievances was the m inting of coins
with Tokhtamysh's name in Khwarezm which Tamerlane considered
to be part of his own empire 44 In 1399, during the course of negotia-
tions between the Golden Horde (led by prince Edigei) and Lithuania
(under Grand Prince Vitovt), the Russian chronicle tells us th a t
. . V itovt desired th a t in all the Horde, there should be on the
money of the Horde his mark, his sign (or im age),” while Edigei de-
manded th a t: “ In all your principality, on your Lithuanian coins
there should be my Horde m ark.” 45 There is little doubt then, th at
the Tatars, the Lithuanians, and, considering the origin of the chron-
icle, the Russians, recognized the inscription of a ruler’s nam e on a
39 This periodization is suggested not only by the great changes in the political
situation in the 1430s, which are mentioned below, but also by the virtual impossi-
bility of distinguishing between most coins of Basil I and Basil II. The dating
suggested is based on the premise that there is a regular pattern of diminution of
weight of the coins throughout the reigns of Basils I and II.
40 Monety, nos. 320, 321, 367, 329, 749, 327; Fedorov, pl. 1, 16; pi. 2, 23, 27, 28.
41 Monety, nos. 325, 336; Fedorov, pi. 2, 21.
42 Monety7 nos. 374, 375-8, 383.
43 Fedorov, pi. 2, 19, 22. 44 Vernadsky, 269.
45 The Nikon Chronicle, P.S.R.L., XI, 173.
coin as a sign of sovereignty.46 The existence of the coins with the

distorted Arabic inscription has given rise to the argument that it was
placed on the coins for purely economic reasons, in order to present
Oriental merchants with familiar looking objects. The argument for
“ familiarity,” however, does not really negate the political content of
the coinage. It is clear that the name of the Khan on the early Rus-
sian coinage signified his sovereignty over Russia. With the civil
war of the 1430s and 1440s in Moscow, nationalist, anti-Tatar slogans
began tp be used; 47 this, at the same time that Tatar power declined
perceptibly. Coupled with the decline of Byzantine prestige and in-
fluence due to the Union of Florence and the finality of 1453, this
situation led to an ever-greater disregard for the khan’s privileges and
to attempts to indicate a new and independent status on the coins of
Basil II and Ivan III.
That this was the pattern of Russian thought during the century
and yet that the coins symbolized the sovereignty of the khan was
most clearly expressed after 1480. After this formal liberation from
the Tatar Yoke by Ivan III a new coin type appeared in Muscovite
Russia. The coins can actually be dated rather accurately and re-
markably from 1480, i.e., from the very same year of the liberation.48
On the obverse they display a crowned horseman, spearing a dragon
or a snake, with the inscription—“ Grand Prince Ivan Vasilievich ” ;
on the reverse, in Arabic, is the name “ Iban,” with a Russian inscrip-
tion around it—“ Sovereign of all Russia.” 49 The iconography of
these striking coins has been interpreted in terms of requirements of
eastern trade with Kazan and other Tatar states, the need for familiar
looking coins; as with the imitation Arabic coins, this is irrelevant for
our argument. What is relevant is the implicit recognition of coin-
iconography as symbol of sovereignty, and the explicit pronounce-
ment not so much of the independence of the Russian Grand Prince
from the khan, as the replacement of the khan by the Grand Prince of
all Russia.
46 It is interesting to note that this acknowledgment of sovereignty is not found
on the Russian Grand Princely seals. I would argue that this was because the seals
were personal ones, not state seals, and perhaps deliberately so. The Grand
Princely seals up to the time of Ivan III were personal in the sense that each had
on it the image of the personal saint of the prince. Ivan III introduced a new seal,
with a state symbol of the double-headed eagle, only after the liberation from Tatar
sovereignty (cf. Gramoty, 567f.).
47 P.S.R.L. VI, 172f.; XXV, 263f.; cf. N. M. Karamsin, Istoriia Godudarstva
Rossiiskogo [History of the Russian State] (St. Petersburg, 1892), V, 160f.
48 Fedorov, " Moskovskie Den'gi Ivana III i Vasiliia III ” [“ Moscovite Coins of
Ivan III and Basil III”], Kratkie Soobshcheniia, I.I.M.K., XXX (1949), 71-2.
49 Ibid., 72. Monety, no. 495.
AFTER THE FALL 415
One final consideration remains. The sources indicate quite clearly

th a t the consent of the khan and the participation of his representa-
tive were necessary and customary for the coronation of Russian
Grand Princes during the T atar period.50 Thus, p art of the ritual in-
volved the formal and ceremonial recognition of the suzerainty of the
khan. Moreover, the testam ent (1339) of the founder of the Moscow
dynasty, Ivan I Kalita, mentions for the first time the “ golden cap ”
which, from the early sixteenth century on became known as the cap
of Monomachos.51 The consensus of scholarly opinions seems to be
th a t the cap or crown of Monomachos is not of Byzantine origin but
is Central Asiatic, perhaps a gift from khan Uzbek to Grand Prince
Ivan I.52 W hat became with the centuries the main regalia of the
Russian state was originally, in this case, an expression of the sov-
ereign position of the T atar khan.
M y purpose has not been to document the obvious—th a t for over
two centuries the T atar Golden Horde and its ruler exercised more or
less effective political control over Russia. The evidence I have ad-
duced presupposes the political realities of the T atar Yoke. The
Grand Prince of Moscow had to be crowned with the participation of
the T atar envoy, no m atter what the Russian ideological rationale
m ay have been. The church necessarily depended on the supreme
political power for its rights and possessions, and, in the realm of
political realities was so much aware of this, th a t as late as 1500 it
used the khan’s iarlyks in order to defend itself against the expropria-
tions of the Russian ruler.53 No m atter w hat Russian ideologists
would have liked to think, the image of the Russian prince was limited
by the political situation, by the need to pay tribute and acknowledge
suzerainty. M y present purpose, rather, is to demonstrate the conse-
quences of the political realities in the realm of ideas. W hat these
50 Troitskaia Letopis’ [ The Trinity Chronicle], ed. M. D. Priselkov, Akademiia
Nauk (1950), 434; P.S.R.L., V, 264; PB.R.L., XXV, 211. Moreover, with the
death of the reigning khan, a new confirmation was necessary for the Russian prince
(P.S.R.L., XXV, 181); see description of miniature showing the coronation of Basil
I, Artsikhovskii, op. cit., 130.
61 Gramoty, 8.
52 For the Byzantine origin of the cap, see Kondakov, Russkie Klady, I, 75f.; for
the opposite view, see Vernadsky, 386, and the summary of the literature on the
problem by K. V. Basilevich, “ Imushchestvo Moskovskikh kniazei v X IV -X V Iw ”
[“ The Property of the Moscow Princes During the 14th-16th Centuries”], Trudy
Gosudarstvennogo Istoricheskogo Muzeia (Moscow, 1926), III, 20-21.
63 Cf. A. S. Pavlov, “ Istoricheskii ocherk sekuliarizatsii tserkovnykh zemeF v
Rossii ” [“ A Historical Sketch of the Secularization of Church Lands in Russia ”],
Zapiski Imp. Novorossiiskogo Universiteta, VII (1871), 41f.; V. Zhmakin, Mitro-
polit Daniil i ego Sochineniia [ The Metropolitan Daniel and his Writings] (Mos-
cow, 1881), 196f.
consequences were during the Tatar Yoke itself, has been shown: the
image of the Tatar khan as tsar, replacing or merging with the image
of the basileus in respect to the prerogatives—coronation, liturgy,
titulature, iconography. With the fall of Constantinople the Russian
ruler begins to emerge as the Christian tsar, in the image of the
basileus. What did the image of the Tatar khan signify for the Rus-
sian Grand Prince and tsar after 1480, after the lifting of the Yoke?
That the khan’s image could not be dismissed casually, that the
political realities created a strong tradition of Tatar sovereignty,54 can
be seen from a rather dramatic piece of evidence: the immediate re-
action of Ivan III, in 1480, to the invasion of khan Akhmet was ap-
parently a desire to abandon Moscow and retire with his family and
treasure to the north. To forestall this, to induce the Grand Prince to
fight, archbishop Vassian of Rostov wrote his famous “ Epistle to the
Ugra [River].” The letter begins: “ To the pious and Christ-loving,
noble and God-crowned, confirmed by God, in piety shining to the
ends of the universe, certainly the most glorious among tsars, the
Glorious Sovereign Grand Prince Ivan Vasilievich.. . . ” 55 Such is the
image of the Russian ruler that Vassian tries to create; it is in this
rôle of a God-crowned tsar, a basileus, that Ivan III ought to face the
enemies of his state and faith. The Grand Prince is the shepherd of
the flock of Christ, and the archbishop points out the responsibility
assumed by past leaders of the flock, the great Grand Princes of Rus-
sia who fought for the Christian people. He tries to anticipate any
possible arguments on the part of the advisers of Ivan III: “ And if
some will argue that you are under the oath of your ancestors not to
raise your hand against the tsar; listen God-loving tsar! If an oath
is made because of necessity, we are allowed to forgive the breaking
of it and to bless for it, the metropolitan and we, the whole God-
loving synod, [the oath being] not to a tsar but to a brigand and sav-
age and fighter against God---- And who of the prophets of the proph-
ecies or who of the apostles or saints have taught you to obey this
God-shamed and most evil so-called tsar, you, the great Christian tsar
of the Russian lands? ” 56 The archbishop is trying here to destroy
the image of the khan-tsar by raising the image of the tsar-basileus;
only one tsar is possible, the orthodox Christian one, and the other is
an impostor. Yet in order to fight this impostor it is necessary, Vas-
54 Cf. D. Likhachev, “ K voprosu o teorii Russkogo gosudarstva v kontse XV i v
XVI w .” [“ On the Problem of the Theory of the Russian State at the End of the
15th and During the 16th Centuries”], Istoricheskii Zhurnal, 1944, no. 7-8, pp.
31-39. This tradition accounted, in part, for the late date of the official liberation
considering the decline of Tatar power.
55 P.S.R.L., VI, 225. 56 ¡bid., 228.
AFTER THE FALL 417
K H A N OR BASILEUS 473
sian felt, to raise the Grand Prince to the rôle of tsar himself. What
Vassian was trying to do was to solve an ideological problem. Ivan
I ll's reluctance to face the khan in battle was caused by political and
military fears, not by his awe before his sovereign. Yet, politically
and militarily, the Tatars remained a most serious danger for Russia
not only during the 15th but also during the 16th century.57 Vas-
sian’s problem, the ideological problem, was not just to defeat the
Tatars in battle—it was to destroy the image of the khan as tsar. The
fall of Constantinople, by making available, suddenly and immedi-
ately, a whole new world of the “ Byzantine heritage ” for Russian
political theology, forced the issue and, at the same time, provided a
solution: the basileus versus the khan. That this solution was at least
partially adopted, can be seen in the case of the cap of Monomachos.
The fourteenth-century Tatar crown was drawn into the legend of
Russia's Byzantine heritage in the early sixteenth century ; 58 in accord-
ance with the Vassian solution, with the birth of the Russian tsar-
basileus, the Tatar period should come to an end, the continuity should
be broken.
The thesis that the continuity was not broken was the great con-
tribution of the “ Eurasian ” school of Russian historians in the 1920s,
and particularly of the distinguished mediaevalist, Professor George
Vernadsky. But if Russia became heir to the empire of Chingiz
Khan ,59 it remains to be seen in what sense this was true. What does
seem clear is that, for Russians of the sixteenth century, the title of
“ tsar ” was firmly connected with the image of the khan ; more so
than with that of the basileus. A Russian diplomatic note of 1556 to
Poland and Lithuania justified Ivan IV's title not only through the
Byzantine heritage but also through his possession of Kazan and
Astrakhan, and “ the throne of Kazan and Astrakhan has been a tsar’s
see from their origins.” 60 The seventeenth-century writer Gregory
57 Cf. K. V. Basilevich, Vneshniia P olitika Russkogo Tsentralizovannogo
Gosudarstva [ The Foreign Policy of the Russian Centralized S tate] (Moscow,
1952), 36ff.
58 Baron S. Herberstein, Zapiski o m oskovitskikh delakh [M em oirs of M usco-
vite Affairs'], A. I. Malein, trans. (St. Petersburg, 1908), p. 32, cited in Vernadsky,
386.
691. R . (prince E. Trubetskoi) Nasledie Chingiskhana [The H eritage of
Chenghis K han] (Berlin, 1925), 27f. et passim.
60 Sbom ik Rukkkogo Istoricheskogo Obshchestva, LIX , 437; 452. For a most
striking illustration of this, see Ivan’s letter to the patriarch of Constantinople in
1557, asking for confirmation of his imperial coronation and status on the part of
the Greek orthodox patriarchate and clergy, Sobornaia gramota dukhovenstva
Pravoslavnoi vostochnoi tserkvi [The Synodal L etter of the Clergy of the Orthodox
Eastern Church], ed. M. Obolensky (Moscow, 1850), 32-33.
Kotoshikhin explained that: “ Grand Prince Ivan Vasilievich of Mos-

cow, the Proud . . . went to war against the tsardoms of Kazan and
Astrakhan and Siberia; and with God’s will he captured the tsars of
these tsardoms, together with their states and lands. . . . And from
that time on he became Grand Prince over the Moscow State and over
the conquered tsardoms and over former principalities, [he became]
tsar and Grand Prince Ivan Vasilievich of all Russia, in this way did
tsardom originate in Russia .” 61 The titulature of the Russian tsar
confirmed the special rôle of the Tatar successor states: “ Great Sover-
eign, Tsar and Grand Prince of all Russia, of Vladimir, of Moscow, of
Novgorod, Tsar of Kazan, Tsar of Astrakhan, Sovereign of Pskov,
Grand Prince of Smolensk, Tver \ . . .” 62 It is significant that the
coronation of Ivan IV as tsar took place shortly before his campaign
against Kazan, in 1547, and while Kazan had been fought, defeated
and controlled already by Ivan III and Vasilii III, Ivan IV had him-
self crowned tsar before setting out on a campaign not just to defeat
but to conquer Kazan, the first tsardom to belong to the Russian
state. During Ivan IV’s reign, Tatar Chingizide princes retain a par-
ticularly high status,63 and the recognition of the very high ranking of
Chingizide blood remained alive at the Russian court throughout the
nineteenth century.64
Professor Vernadsky ends his monumental work with the state-
ment that autocracy was part of the price Russia had to pay for sur-
vival under the Tatars and in the period immediately following .65
Autocracy as such, however, is not a very rigid or definite form of gov-
ernment. The autocracy of the basileus was, after all, rule under
Law, the rule of the Christian emperor. Russian autocracy was most
clearly expressed by what was in effect, Basil Ill's belief about his sub-
jects: “ All are slaves (Vse kholopy) . ” 66 If this does not derive from
61G. Kotoshikhin, 0 Rossii v tsarstvovanie Alekseia Mikhailovicha [On Russia
in the Reign of Alexis Mikhailovich] (St. Petersburg, 1884), 1; cf. Vernadsky, 387.
62 Pamiatniki Diplomaticheskikh Snoshenii, I, 500-1.
63 See, for example, the description of a banquet at the court of Ivan IV, in
1557, by the English merchant Anthony Jenkinson. Jenkinson wrote that the
highest place next to the Terrible tsar was occupied by the ten-year-old captive
heir to the throne of Kazan* ( Izvestiia anglichan 0 Rossii vo vtoroi polovine XVIv
[English Memoirs on Russia in the Second Half of the 16th Century], ed. and
trans. S. M. Seredonin, Chteniia, 1884: 4, p. 32). Also see analysis of Gosudarev
Rodoslovets of 1555 in N . P. Likhachev, Razriadnye d’iaki XVI veka [The Clerks
of the Razriad in the 16th Century] (St. Petersburg, 1888), 415-6 et passim.
64 See Prince P. Dolgorukov, Rossiiskaia Rodoslovnaia Kniga [The Book of Rus-
sian Genealogy] (St. Petersburg, 1857), vol. I, for the numerous Central Asiatic
families, such as the princes Chingiz, who received from the emperor Nicholas I the
status of imperial princes.
65 Vernadsky, 290. 66 Cf. Herberstein, op. cit., 74.
AFTER THE FALL 419
K H A N OR BASILEUS 475
the image of the basileus, it may well derive from the image of the
khan.
Psychologically, the exaltation of one’s own conqueror is quite
understandable.67 If Russia was to be subject, let her be subject to a
great ruler, a legitimate tsar. The consequence of this, of course, is
the exaltation of the Russian prince who could successfully oppose
the tsar. This note is already quite clear after the victory of Dimitrii
Donskoi at Kulikovo in 1380. Contrasted with the power and glory
of the Tatars is the power and glory of the leader of all Russia, who
in reality was only the Grand Prince of Moscow .68 This note, too, is
sounded and proclaimed in 1480 by the new coinage of Ivan III where
the name “ Ivan ” replaces the name of the khan. What takes place
is not so much the liberation of Russia as a change of dynasty, the
conquest of Russia from its former legitimate ruler by the new legiti-
mate tsar, the Grand Prince of Moscow. The Arabic “ Ivan ” on the
coin may have been addressed, for economic reasons, to the eastern
subjects of the Horde; but to them, or to the Russians, it also meant
that in addition to the Russian Grand Prince on the obverse there
was a new khan, still, traditionally, on the reverse side.
I am not prepared, of course, to argue that ideas determine mate-
rial conditions and reality; but evoked by those conditions, ideas have
a logic and life of their own and carry their consequences into reality.
That the idea of conquest, of the Russian ruler as the khan existed,
implicitly at least, is suggested by the slogan of Basil I l l ’s time men-
tioned above. It was made quite explicit by Ivan IV the Terrible,
when official mythology departed from the traditional Kievan origin,
from the emphasis on St. Vladimir, and created the fantastic descent
of the Russian rulers from Prus, the brother of Augustus.69 Ivan IV
himself pointedly disclaimed any Russian blood in his veins .70 It is
doubtful whether the conquest idea expressed through the Roman
descent ever gained much currency. The image of the khan in that
context, however, did receive an expression, both sickly and fantastic
though it was, when Ivan IV “ abandoned ” the state, divided Russia
into two parts, taking one himself under a guise of great humility, and
giving the other, the greater and traditional part a ruler, a Grand
67 For the most vivid expression of this phenomenon one has only to think of the
English attitude towards William the Conqueror.
68 Cf. A. V. Soloviev, “ Avtor ' Zadonshchiny * i ego politicheskie ideii ” [“ The
Author of the 4 Zadonshchina ’ and his Political Ideas ”], T.O.D.R.L., XIV , 196f.
69 Skazanie o kniaziakh vladimirskikh [ The Tale About the Princes of Vladim ir],
ed. R. P. Dmitrieva, ANSSR, (M.-L., 1955), 162f.
70 See, for example, Giles Fletcher, 0 Gosudarstve Russkom [Of the Russian
Commonwealth] , trans. O. M. Bodianskii (St. Petersburg, 1905), 19.
476 M IC H A E L C H E R N IA V S K Y
Prince, in the person of a Tatar tsarevich from Kasimov, Simeon.71

The irony was not in the division, or in the use of a Tatar prince, but
in the reversal of rôles. For it was the traditional, orthodox Chris-
tian Russia that got the Chingizide prince, and the new absolutist
secular Russia that got the God-crowned tsar.
Speculations on the Asiatic-barbaric element in Russian history
have been innumerable in the course of the last two centuries, yet I
should like to add one more. Barbarism, of course, is not the issue ;
Western history has shown sufficiently that barbarism can be attained
without an Asiatic image or myth. If the image of the basileus stood
for the orthodox and pious ruler, leading his Christian people toward
salvation, then the image of the khan, perhaps, was preserved in the
idea of the Russian ruler as the conqueror of Russia and of its people,
responsible to no one. If the basileus signified the holy tsar, the
“ most gentle ” (tishaishii) tsar in spiritual union with his flock, then
the khan, perhaps, stood for the absolutist secularized state, arbitrary
through its separation from the subjects.72 The two images were not
really synthesized; both existed separately, if in a state of tension
which the first Russian Tsar, Ivan IV, exemplified so tragically: kill-
ing by day and praying by night.
Wesleyan University.
71 On the division of Russia into the Oprichnina of Ivan IV and the Zemshchina
and its meaning, see V. 0 . Kliuchevsky, Kurs Russkoi Istorri [Lectures on Russian
History'] (Moscow, 1937), II, 199f. and his Boiarskaia Duma [The Boyar Council]
(Moscow, 1883), 334f.
72 Carrying this speculation further, one might argue that the ideal of the ortho-
dox ruler of the orthodox people was the one retained by the masses (cf. m y study
“ Holy Russia: A Study in the History of an Idea/' American Hist. Review, L X III
[1958], no. 3, 617-637), while the government of imperial Russia relied upon the
practice of the conquering khan.
18
‘Know Thy Enemy’: Medieval Russian Familiarity with
the Mongols of the Golden Horde
Charles J. Halperin
The question of the role of the Mongols in Russian history' has always been a
controversial one. Patriotic national Russian historiography, both Imperial and Soviet, has
always been reluctant to admit that foreign conquest by Inner Asian pastoral nomads could
have brought any positive benefits to Russia. Indeed, much of the time in Imperial Russian
historiography the issue of possible Mongol influence was ignored altogether. Thus the
great multi-volume histories of S. M. Solovev and V. O. Kljucevskij do not contain a
“Mongol period” at all. Otherwise historians have mostly emphasized the negative
consequences of the Mongols on Russian history : economic losses in raids and exploitation
via taxes, Mongol political interference in the affairs of the Russian principalities, cultural
isolation, and even moral regression.1 This negative interpretation of Mongol influence
takes two forms : either it is argued that the Mongols had no effect upon Russian history,
since the political infrastructure, social structure, and Church were left alone, or that the
Mongol role was a catastrophic one for those areas of Russian life which the Tatars did
touch. Soviet scholarship2 and much historiography in the West3adheres to this consensus.
Even in the best of recent Soviet monographs on the Mongol empire it is presumed that
1 For surveys of the historiography consult B. D . G rek ov , A. Ju. jAKUBOVSKIJ Zolotaja orda i ee
padenie. Moskva, Leningrad 1950, pp. 247-251; MICHAEL CHERNIAVSKY Khan or Basileus: An
Aspect of Russian Medieval Political Theory, in: Journal of the History of Ideas 20 (1959)
pp. 459-476 (the most perceptive analysis, albeit the briefest), here p. 459; BORIS ISCHBOLDIN Essays
on Tatar H istoiy. New Delhi 1963, pp. 17-23 ; V. V. K a r g a lo v Vnesnepoliticeskie faktory razvitija
feodal’noj Rusi. Feodarnaja Rus i kocevniki. Moskva 1967, pp. 219-255 (the most extensive
discussion) ; N . S. BORISOV Otecestvennaja istoriografija o vlijanii tataro-mongoPskogo nasestvija na
russkuju kul’turu, in: Problemy istorii SSSR 5 (1976) pp. 129-148 (the most recent survey).
2 A. S a k h aro v Les Mongoles et la civilization russe. Contributions à l’histoire russe, in: Cahiers
d’histoire mondiale (Neuchâtel 1958) pp. 77-87, retains its validity as a summary of Soviet views; cf.
L. V. C erepnin Mongolo-Tatary na Rusi (XIII v.), in: S. L. T ich vin sk ij (ed.) Tataro-Mongoly v Azii
i Evrope. Moskva 1970, pp. 179-20.3.
3 Tne most elaborate theory that the M ongols “ruined” Russian history is that of Karl
A. Wittfogel, who argues that the M ongols brought “oriental despotism” to Russia. See K a r l
A. WlTTFOGEL Oriental Despotism. A Comparative Study of Total Power. N ew Haven 1957,
especially pp. 201-203, 219-225. For a discussion see: Slavic Review 22,4 (Dec. 1963): WlTTFOGEL
Russia and the East: A Comparison and Contrast, pp. 627-643; NICHOLAS V. RlASANOVSKY
“Oriental Despotism” and Russia, pp. 644-649; B e r t h o ld SPULER Russia and Islam, pp. 650-655,
and WlTTFOGEL Reply, pp. 656-662.1 do not find this analysis of W ittfogel’s interpretation of the role
of the Mongols in Russian history adequate, and shall try to present a full discussion elsewhere.
Although Wittfogel’s theory of Oriental Despotism is not universally accepted, its images of the
M ongol effect upon Russia are widely imitated ; see e.g. B. SZCZESNIAK A N ote on the Character of the
Tartar Impact upon the Russian Church and State, in: Études Slaves et Est-Européens 17 (1972)
pp. 92-98.
For an argument that the Mongols had no impact upon Russia other than destructive, see
VALENTIN A. RlASANOVSKY The Influence of Ancient M ongol Culture and Law on Russian Culture
and Law, in: Chinese Social and Political Science Review 20,4 (Jan. 1937) pp. 499-530.
162 Ch a r l es J. H a l pe r i n
military, economic and political harm exhaust the nature of Mongol influence upon any
country or area conquered by the Mongols.4
Political narratives of thirteenth-fifteenth century Russian history differ in how much
influence they assign to the Mongols in the evolution of the northeastern Russian
principalities, and most importantly in the rise of Moscow. Yet all these studies share a
perception of the Golden Horde as an external factor acting upon Russia, interfering or not
interfering in Russian matters. Rarely is the internal history of the Horde taken into
account in the formulation of Horde policy toward Russia. It is assumed the Mongols
wanted to exploit Russia and pursued whatever political program served that purpose. It is
not so much that this axiom is wrong but merely that it reduces Russo-Tatar relations to a
series of political, and military, machinations by cynical Tatar “foreigners.”5The Tatars
perform in the role given them by the medieval Russian sources, in which the infidel,
pagan, cruel and evil Tatars act at the inspiration of the Devil to destroy Russian orthodox
Christians out of natural malice.6 In the phrase of A. E. P r e s n ja k o v , Mongol authority
was “alien and strange” in Russia.7Thus the medieval Russian perception of the Tatars is of
a piece which, indeed, serves as the foundation stone for modern historiographic
treatments of the Mongols as an external, alien and negative actor in medieval Russian
history.
Some recent scholarship has parted company, in greater or lesser degree, with this
dominant paradigm of Russo-Mongol relations, and sought to present a more balanced
picture of the Mongol impact upon Russian history. It is possible that the Eurasian
movement of the Russian emigration after the Russian Revolution of 1917 played a
constructive role in this development, although their early publicistic works do not meet
acceptable scholarly standards and the Eurasian theory was considered too marred by
metaphysical geopolitical determinist dogma to be useful.8 Nevertheless out of Eurasian-
ism came G e o r g e V e r n a d s k y , who attempted to discuss the influence of the Mongols on
Russian history in an objective fashion, and who made a serious case for Muscovite
borrowing of Mongol political, fiscal, military, administrative, and diplomatic institu-
4 For example, TlCHViNSKIJ (ed.) Tataro-Mongoly v Azii i Evrope, or specifically on Russia,

Ka r g a l o v Vnesnepoliticeskie faktory razvitija feodaPnoj Rusi, and many other publications by
Kargalov.
5 Presnjakov restored an active Mongol role in Russian history after the neglect of Kljucevskij, but
as an external factor ; subsequent narratives retain this approach to the problem. See A. E. PRES-
NJAKOV Obrazovanie velikorusskago gosudarstva. Ocerki po istorii XIII - XV stoletija. Petrograd
1918; A. N . N a s o n o v M ongoly i Rus. Istorija Tatarskoj politiki na Rusi. Moskva, Leningrad 1940;
L. V. C e r e pn i n Obrazovanie russkogo centralizovannogo gosudarstva v XIV - XV w . Ocerki
sociaPno-ékonomiceskoj i politiceskoj istorii Rusi. Moskva 1960; and Jo h n L. I. Fe n n e l l The
Emergence of Moscow, 1304-1359. Berkeley, Los Angeles 1968.
6 For example, M. V. S ach m a to v Otnosenie drevne-russkich kniznikov k tataram, in: Trudy
IV S-ezda russkich akademiceskich organizacij za granicej v Belgrade 16-23 Sentjabrja 1928. Cast’ Î,
Belgrad 1929, pp. 165-173 ; or NICHOLAS V. RlASANOVSKY Asia through Russian Eyes, in: WAYNE S.
VUCINICH (ed.) Russia and Asia. Stanford 1972, pp. 3-29.
7 PRESNJAKOV Obrazovanie velikorusskago gosudarstva pp. 48-50. I have not found a way to
reproduce Presnjakov’s alliteration, cuzaja i cuzaaja v la st\ in English.
8 On Eurasianism see OTTO BOSS D ie Lehre der Eurasier. Ein Beitrag zur russischen Ideenge-
schichte des 20. Jahrhunderts. Wiesbaden 1961 = Verôffentliçhungen des Osteuropa-Instituts
München Band 15; NICHOLAS V. RlASANOVSKY The Emergence of Eurasianism, in: California Slavic
Studies 4 (1967) pp. 39-72; and G. EDWARD ORCHARD The Eurasian School of Russian Historiogra-
phy, in: Laurentian University Review 10,1 (N ov. 1977) pp. 97-106.
AFTER THE FALL 423
Medieval Russian Familiarity with the Mongols 163
tions.9 It is very difficult to deny that the Muscovites adapted the Mongol postal system,
the jam.10The Mongols have also been exonerated of some of the charges against them for
ruining Russian history. T h o m a s S. N o o n a n has cleared them of responsibility for the
fact that Russia “missed” the Renaissance.11 L a w r e n c e N . L a n g e r has demonstrated that
the Mongol campaigns of 1237-1238 or 1382 did not bring famine and plague to Russia;
the Black Death, not the Mongols, was the major cause of the creation of pustosi(literally :
wastes), i. e. abandoned villages no longer in cultivation.12S u z a n n e M c N a l l y has tried to
make a.case that the Mongols did not introduce the terem and the isolation of women into
medieval Russia.13 And J a n e t M a r t in has presented the Mongol role in the Russian fur
trade in a clearer light : Mongol interference did re-route the fur trade, but this alteration
benefitted some Russians while hurting others.14
Understanding of medieval Russian perceptions of the Tatars has also improved.
M ic h a e l C h e r n ia v sk y brilliantly demonstrated that the Russians assimilated the most
important political theory of the Mongol Empire, the legitimacy of the clan of Chinghis
Khan, and presented the khan with the legitimate regalia and prerogatives of the Byzantine
basileus}5 I have tried to show that Russian manipulation of Chingissid ideology went
beyond even Cherniavsky’s estimate; Chingissid precepts penetrated wider16 and were
applied more flexibly to justify Muscovite policy vis-à-vis the Tatars.17
It is now known that Old Russian literature functioned within the confines of a “literary
etiquette,” a combination of aesthetic, literary and moral norms which shaped how a given
topic could be described.18 It would appear that the “literary etiquette” of Russo-Tatar
relations precluded presenting the infidel Tatars in anything but a negative light. In effect a
single enormous cliché or literary topos dominated all narrative prose about the Tatars, the
imagery of the “scourge of God.” In every Tatar raid the infidels spare neither young nor
9 GEORGE VERNADSKY The Mongols and Russia. N ew Haven 1953. Vernadsky’s contribution to
the study of Russian history, and of the role of the M ongols, has not been studied adequately. I expect
to devote several studies to this subject.
10 GUSTAVE A lef The Origin and Early Development of the Muscovite Postal Service, in :
Jahrbiicher für Geschichte Osteuropas. N.S. 15 (1967) pp. 1-15.
11 T h o m a s S. N o o n a n Medieval Russia, the M ongols and the West: N ovgorod’s Relations with
the Baltic, 1100-1350, in: Medieval Studies 37 (1975) pp. 316-339.
12 L aw rence N . L an ger Plague and the Russian Countryside : Monastic Estates in the Late
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, in: Canadian-American Slavic Studies 10,3 (Fall 1976)
p p .351-368.
13 SUZANNE Janosik M c N a lly From Public Person to Private Prisoner: The Changing Place of
Women in Medieval Russia. Ph.D. diss., State University of N ew York at Binghamton, 1976,
pp. 142-148, 253-256.
14 JANET Ma r t i n The land of darkness and the Golden Horde. The fur trade under the Mongols.
XIII-X IV centuries, in: Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique 19 (1978) pp. 401-422.
15 C h e r n ia v s k y Khan or Basileus pp. 459-476. This article is not cited by JOHN L. I. FENNELL
The Ideological Role of the Russian Church in the First Half of the Fourteenth Century, in : Gorski
Vijenac. A Garland of Essays Offerred to Professor Elizabeth Hill. Cambridge 1970, pp. 105-111,
who therefore expresses surprise at the gingerly treatment of the khans in some texts. Fennell does not
distinguish between medieval Russian images of the Tatars and their more respectful attitude toward
the khans.
16 CHARLES J. H a l pe r i n A Chingissid Saint of the Russian Orthodox Church : c‘The Life of Peter,
tsarevich of the Horde”, in: Canadian-American Slavic Studies 9,3 (1975) pp. 324-335.
17 CHARLES J. H a l pe r i n The Russian Land and the Russian Tsar: The Emergence of Muscovite
Ideology, 1380-1408, in: Forschungen zur osteuropàischen Geschichte 23 (1976) pp. 7-103.
|8 D. S. LichaCEV telovek v literature drevnej Rusi. Moskva 1958; 2nd ed. 1970; LichaCev
Poètika drevnerusskoj literatury. Leningrad 1967 ; and L ichaC ev Razvitie russkoj literatury X - XVII
vekov. Èpochi i stili. Leningrad 1973.
164 C ha rl es J. H a l pe r i n
old, neither women nor children, neither monk nor nun, and so on. But more is involved in
this one-sided and hence distorted attitude toward Russo-Tatar historical experience.
Everywhere on the medieval ethno-religious frontier there were societies which had no
choice but to get along although they were engaged in frequent military hostilities and
shared antagonistic, exclusivist religions. Thus in addition to warfare and mutual scorn,
Spanish Catholics and Muslim Moors, Byzantine Christians and Arab or Turkic Muslims,
French Crusaders in Jerusalem and Muslim subjects, East Slavs and their Turkic and later
Mongol neighbors, and even Chinese and the “barbarians” beyond the Great Wall had no
choice but to learn enough about each other to carry on more pragmatic relations as well.
Bilingualism, trade, alliance, intermarriage, institutional borrowing, all took place. But
such pragmatism could never be articulated without imperiling the self-image of one’s
society and polity as possessed of a monopoly upon righteousness and salvation. So no
theory of cooperation akin to détente or peaceful coexistence was ever articulated to justify
non-military interaction. An ideology of silence rationalized the contradiction between the
desire for prejudice and the exigencies of pragmatism.19 Thus buried in the medieval
Russian sources is the evidence to substantiate the contention that Russo-Tatar relations
were more than martial. Only by asking what the sources tell us without wanting to tell us
can we mine this data, since it would have been embarrassing for the medieval Russian
intellectuals, the bookmen who wrote, copied, and preserved written manuscripts, to admit
to expertise in Tatarica. The- infidel Mongols were to be fought on the field of battle, not
studied in the pursuit of objective knowledge.
The Soviet scholar M. D. P o l u b o j a r i n o v a has concluded on the basis of the written
and archeological evidence that the Russian physical presence in the Golden Horde was
ubiquitous. Russian princes, nobles, warriors, merchants, clerics and slaves were frequent
long- or short-term visitors on the territory of the Tatars. But Polubojarinova does not
inquire whether prolonged and frequent sojourns in the Horde had any effect upon the
medieval Russian perception of the Tatars.20 It is difficult to imagine that the Russians
could know the Tatars so well and still think of them as, in Presnjakov’s words, alien and
strange. The portrayal of the Tatars in the medieval Russian sources would then seem to be
an ideological pose in order to buttress religious hostility and military.preparedness, since
conceiving of the Tatars as familiar but hostile apparently was not satisfactory. It is sad but
true that it is always easier to think of one’s enemies as sub-human or inhuman than as
merely different human beings whose interests clash with one’s own.
The Tatars were the enemies of the Russians; the Tatars had conquered Russia, their
raids and campaigns continued to devastate her, and the decisions of the Mongol khan
affected what happened in Russian politics. It was therefore imperative that the medieval
Russians get to know their enemy; defensive prudence alone dictated such a policy.
Religious prejudice and ideological pretension precluded talking about it, articulating it, or
generalizing about the expertise one had acquired. In this article I want to present the data
19 'I hope to present this theory properly in a separate article : The Ideology of Silence : Pragmatism
and Prejudice on the Medieval Ethno-Religious Frontier, and to apply it to Russia in a monograph :
Russia and the Golden Horde: The Impact of the Mongols on Russian History, both in preparation. It
is not practical to try to provide references to bibliography here.
20 M. D. POLUBOJARINOVA Russkie ljudi v Zolotoj orde. Moskva 1978; see my review in: Russian
Review 39,2 (April 1980) pp. 237-238. The omission of page references in this review, unbeknownst to
me, renders one sentence confusing: Polubojarinova devotes twice as many pages to archeological as
to written evidence, which reflects her expertise as an archeologist.
AFTER THE FALL 425
which supports the conclusion that the Russians became intimately acquainted with the
geography, personnel and language of the Mongols of the Golden Horde.
The Tatars did not move into the Russian forest zone; they stayed in the Pontic and
Caspian steppe. The Russians had little choice in learning more about the steppe ; they were
compelled to visit the Horde in order to conduct their political affairs. Yet the great
Russian orientalist V. V. B a r t o u d lamented in his masterful survey of the study of the
orient in Russia and Europe that the Russians had not taken full opportunity of this
situation. There were no Russian equivalents of the informative travelogues of the
Franciscan fathers of the thirteenth century. The Franciscans left us accounts of their
journeys to Karakorum rich in knowledge of the geography and society of the Mongol
empire. The Russians who visited Karakorum left no such written legacy to enrich the
tradition of European scholarship about the Orient.21
The absence of Russian travel accounts comparable to Carpini or Rubruck can be
extended to an even closer region too. There are no texts illustrative of Russian reactions to
Karakorum and the points in-between Russia and Mongolia. The Russian conscripts who
served in the Imperial Guard stationed outside Peking have also disappeared without
leaving any traces in the medieval Russian sources. Russian knowledge of the geography of
the Golden Horde was never codified in a single travel account, but it can be reconstructed
from various medieval Russian texts.
In 1 3 1 8 -1 3 1 9 prince Michail Aleksandrovie of Tver was summoned to the Horde to
answer a series of largely specious accusations inspired by his rival prince Ivan Kalita of
Moscow. For several months, while being tortured and tried, Michail accompanied the
Horde in its nomadizing. Because he was executed and canonized, he became the subject of
a vita.21 The author of this saint’s life describes the Horde’s itinerary with a sure hand :
Michail reached the Horde on the river Donee, at the Suroz Sea (Sea of Azov). He travelled
to the Terek river in the Caucasus near the Jasskij and terkasskij hills (gory of the Jasy
[Alans] and Cerkesy [Circassians], later corrupted to gorody—cities) at the city of
Dedjakov [Tjutjakov],23 on the river Sevenc. The Horde then crossed the river Adyz,
which was appropriately named, since the word in Tatar means “sorrow.” After his
execution Michail’s body was first buried in Mozd’zcara near the Iron Gates in the eastern
Caucasus (near Derbent). The body was later removed to Bezdez, at the confluence of the
Volga and Don rivers,24 before final relocation in Rus.25
21 V. V. BARTOL’D Raboty po istorii vostokovedenija. Moskva 1977, pp. 363-364 ( = Socinenija
vol. 9).
22 V. A. Ku Ck i n Povesti o Michaile Tverskom. Istoriko-tekstologiceskoe issledovanie. Moskva
1974, is a fairly comprehensive study of this text.
23 O n the location of this city consult M. G. Sa f a r g a l i e v Gde nachodllsja zolotoordynskij gorod
Dedjakovo?, in: Ucenye zapiski Mordovskogo pedagogiceskogo instituta imeni A. I. Polezaeva.
Serija obscestvennych nauk. Vyp 4. Saransk 1936, pp. 128-137 ; V. A. KuCkin Gde iskat* jasskij gorod
Tjutjakov?, in: Izvestija Severo-Osetinskogo naucnogo issledovatePnogo instituta. Vol. 25. Ord-
jonikidze 1966, pp. 169-183; and E. I. KRUPNOV Esce raz o mestonachozdenii goroda Dedjakova, in:
Slavjane i Rus. Moskva 1968, pp. 291-297 ( = Rybakov Festschrift).
1 V. L. EGOROV Razvitie centrobeznych ustremlenij v Zolotoj Orde, in: Voprosy istorii (1974)
N o. 8, pp. 36-50, here p. 49.
25 Polnoe sobranie russkich letopisej [hereafter PSRL refers to this series]. Vol. 1. 2nd ed.
Leningrad 1926; vol. 2. 2nd ed. S.-Peterburg 1908; vol. 4. S.-Peterburg 1848; vol. 5. S.-Peterburg
Obviously this is a first-hand account by an eyewitness with a thorough familiarity with

the heartland of the Golden Horde ; the vita of Michail is the most extensive and precise
extant source on the nomadic cycle of the Golden Horde. It was written, however, not to
record the movements of the Horde per se, but to illustrate the duration and hardship of
Michail’s via dolorosa to martyrdom. Shorter passages in the Russian chronicles also
manifest familiarity with the geography of the steppe. In 1346 a plague devastated not only
the Horde (the orda, the nomadizing capital of the khan) but also Saraj, the permanent
capital, Ornac (Urgenc, Chorezm in Central Asia), and Bezdez ; it struck the following
peoples: Muslims (Besermeny — Central Asian Muslims), Tatars, Armenians, Jews,
Italians (Frjazy, primarily Genoese in the Crimea), and Circassians.26 The Russians were
particularly familiar with the Volga river to and beyond Saraj. One passage lists the cities
along this waterway : Bolgar, Saraj, Bezdez, and Narucad,27Another annal recapitulates the
destructive path of a band of Novgorodian freebooters (uskujniki), from the Zasure,
Markvas and Vetluz to Bolgar, and down the Volga all the way to Astrachan.28The Russian
chroniclers must have appreciated the importance of Tebriz in Azerbajdzan to the Golden
Horde, since its capture from the Ilkhanids of Persia, the culmination of a century-long
struggle, was recorded in 1357.29 Russian knowledge extended eastward as well as
southward. Sub anno 1406 it was written down that Tochtamys, onetime khan of the
Golden Horde and erstwhile servitor of grand prince Vitovt of Lithuania defeated at the
battle on the river Vorskla, died in the Siberian tsarstvo (zemlja; khanate).30
In 1389 Ignatij of Smolensk accompanied metropolitan-designate Pimen down the Volga
river, en route to Constantinople. Ignatij paints a vivid portrait of the terrain of the
Cervlenyj Jar (purple mountains) district with its river bends and mountains of chalk. The
ecclesiastical suite traversed the ulusy (districts) of Sary Hoza, Bek Bulat and Ak Buga.31In
the fifteenth century the Tverian merchant Afanasij Nikitin eventually succeeded in
reaching India, but sailing down the Volga he passed Kazan, the Horde, Uslan, Saraj and
Berekezany. At the Buzan river Nikitin’s party ran into hostile Tatars. At Astrachan
Nikitin’s boat failed to outrun Kaisym sultan and three thousand Tatars ; the local horde
chased them to Bogun. They were intercepted yet again near Tarchi, on the north shore of
the Caspian Sea, en route to Derbent (the Iron Gates), by the Kaitaks. At Derbent the
ambassador of the Shirvanshah from Azerbajdzan, Asanbeg, under whose protection
Nikitin was travelling, secured the release of the men captured by the Kaitaks through the
good offices of Bulat Beg. Derbent ruler Bulat Beg was the brother-in-law of lord AliPbeg
of the Kaitak.32
1851; vol. 10. S.-Peterburg 1885; vol. 11. S.-Peterburg 1897; vol. 15. S.-Peterburg 1863; vol. 18.
S.-Peterburg 1913: vol. 20. S.-Peterburg 1910; vol. 23. S.-Peterburg 1910; vol. 25. Moskva, Leningrad
1949; vol. 27. Moskva, Leningrad 1962; vol. 32. Moskva 1975; here vol. 5, pp^ 207-215. Cf. the
comments on the Horde and its movements in H. A. R, GlBB (tr.) Ibn Batuta, Travels in Asia and
Africa 1325-1354. New York 1929, pp. 142-152.
26 Troickaja letopis. Rekonstrukcija teksta. Ed. M. D. Priselkov. Moskva, Leningrad 1950, p. 368
[hereafter TL refers to this chronicle].
27 TL p. 378.
28 TL p. 396. See JANET MARTIN Les uskujniki de Novgorod: marchands ou pirates?, in: Cahiers
du Monde russe et soviétique 16 (1975) pp. 5-18.
29 PSRL vol. 4, p. 63.
30 TL p. 465.
31 PSRL vol. 11, p. 96.
32 PSRL vol. 20, pp. 303-304, and: Chozenie za tri morja Afanasija Nikitina 1466-1472gg. Moskva
1948; 2nd ed. 1958, pp. 10-11.
AFTER THE FALL 427
Sometimes it is difficult to tell how much familiarity with the geography of the steppe is
conveyed by a particular source. The Mongol khans issued jarlyki to the metropolitans of
the Russian Orthodox Church guaranteeing the Church fiscal and judicial immunities.
Mongol chancellery practice dictated that the scribe note the location of the khan at the
time of issuance of the patent. A collection of jarlyki was translated into Russian and has
survived. One suspects the Russians recognized the sites at which the jarlyki were written,
most of which fell in Astrachan province {gubemija). The locations included Velikoluko,
Zeltoi, Trosti,'Saraj, Kaonga, and Gulistan. One jarlyk was composed nomadizing on the
Black Sea, and another just “in the steppe” {na Taly).33
In 1480-1481 khan Achmat of the Great Horde was killed by Nogai Tatars in the service
of Muscovite grand prince Ivan III. The chronicles identify the very spot at which this
event took place : at the Bela Veza between the Don and the Volga rivers, at the Malyj
Donee river [na Doncu na Malom] near Azov. Presumably this information came from a
report from the Nogais to Ivan III, and the region in which Achmat was killed was not
unfamiliar to the Russians.34
The medieval Russian sources exhibit a knowledge of the geography of more than just
the territory of the Golden Horde. The Russians were well-informed of the scope of the
conquests of the great Timur (Temir-Aksak in the Russian texts, better known in the West
as Tamerlane). They had to be : the Golden Horde was locked into a titanic struggle with
the Timurid empire in which Russian contingents fought in the forces of the Horde. The
chronicles list Timur’s acquisitions in Central Asia and the Middle East, not without some
Biblical adulterations.35 This list also served as the basis for a sixteenth-century
enumeration of the “Tatar lands” of Central Asia, the Caspian, the Caucasus and
Transcaucasus, the northern Black Sea and the Volga river basin.36 A recently discovered
fifteenth-century text demonstrated an excellent knowledge of the cities, rulers, climate,
geography and economy of the Iron Gates in the eastern Caucasus, near Derbent. This
region was long familiar to the Russians from the nomadic travels of the Golden Horde,
and it was also useful as a pathway to Persia.37
The Russians knew more about the geography of the Golden Horde than modern
scholars, who cannot always locate all of the sites to which the medieval Russian sources
allude with such ease. Such modern ignorance does not undermine V e r n a d s k y ’s
conclusion about Russian expertise in steppe geography : “The Russian chronicles of this
period display a good knowledge of the geography of the Golden Horde and on various
occasions mention not only Saray, but other commercial centers like Urgenj and
Astrakhan. [. . .] The Russians were also well acquainted with the . . . Azov region and the
Crimea.”38
33 M. D. PRISELKOV Chanskie jarlyki rnsskim mitropolitam. Petrograd 1916, pp. 57, 59, 61. For
identification of obscure locations see the Commentary in: Pamjatniki russkogo prava. Vol. 3, Moskva
1955, pp. 476, 477, 479, 480.
34 Ustjuzskij letopisnyj svod (Archangelogorodskij letopisec). Ed. N . K. Serbina. Moskva, Lenin-
grad 1950, pp. 93-94.
35 PSRL vol. 15, col. 448-449.
36 N . A. Ka z a k o v a „Tatarskim zemljam imena", in: Trudy Otdela drevnerusskoj literatury
[hereafter TODRL refers to this journal] 34 (1979) pp. 253-256.
37 V. A. Ku Ck i n „Skazanie o zeleznych vratach“, in: Archeograficeskij ezegodnik za 1964g. (1965)
pp. 274-277, and Russkij putesestvennik v Azerbajdzane v pervoj polovine XV veka, in: Voprosy
istorii (1965) No. 3, pp. 204-205; Ju. K. Be g u n o v Drevnerusskoe opisanie Derbenta i Sirvana, in:
TODRL 21 (1965) pp. 126-131.
38 V e r n a d s k y The Mongols and Russia p. 343.
The Russians knew their way around Saraj far better than around Constantinople ; yet
we have a rich Russian pilgrim literature with incomparable topographic and cultural
information about Constantinople,39 and no description of Saraj, let alone of Karakorum.
This disparity in the transmission of geographic knowledge is not a function of ignorance,
therefore, but of cultural and literary constraints which inhibited the presentation of
medieval Russian expertise in written form. To the medieval Russians only a religious
pilgrimage could be immortalized as a travelogue. The Franciscans, after all, were on a
religious mission with a thoroughly defensible religious purpose, the conversion of the
Mongols to Catholicism. Medieval Russia had no equivalent; of the secular travel literature
which produced the famous account of Marco Polo until Afanasij Nikitin. Nikitin was an
exception, and obviously found the zone of the Golden Horde too familiar compared to
the exotica of India to warrant full narration in his travels. The Russian princes and clerics
who went to Saraj did so for an embarrassing reason : because Russia had been conquered
by the Mongols. It would have been far too unseemly to preserve the geographic
knowledge acquired in such trips in a public fashion, although there are minor exceptions
in the course of narrating current events. In addition medieval Russia simply did not
possess a tradition of composing the kind of work which would summarize new “social
science” information in the manner of the western medieval universities. The relative
silence about the geography of the Horde is a function of the general Russian intellectual
response to the dilemma of infidel rule, which was silence. Nevertheless enough material
has been retained to glimpse the remarkable expertise of the medieval Russians in the
geography of the steppe.
The Tatars are most often referred to in the medieval Russian chronicles as just that, “the
Tatars” (Tatary), usually preceded by some pejurative adjectives. But the Tatars were not
an alien, strange people to the medieval Russians, and the anonymous collective generic by
which they were commonly called should not be construed as telling the whole story of
medieval Russian familiarity with the personnel of the Horde. Naturally the Russians had
to know the identity of their rulers, the khans. This was not as easy as it might have been,
since civil war and disorder were not unknown in the Horde and changes of ruler could be
frequent. But the Russian sources know much more than that. The chronicles contain the
names of at least two hundred Tatars embedded simply in the ongoing narrative of Russo-
Tatar relations.40 This data can best be appreciated when it is brought together in tabular
form.41
39 Professor George P. Majeska’s forthcoming monograph on the medieval Russian travel accounts
to Constantinople will definitively demonstrate the utility of the pilgrimages. For the moment see
GEORGE P. Majeska St. Sophia in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries : Tne Russian Travellers and
the Relics, in: Dumbarton Oaks Papers 27 (1973) pp. 69-87 for an indication of his resalts.
40 Different chronicles sometime mention different events under the same year, or the same event
under different years, or different Tatar notables in connection with the same event. Given the vagaries
of transliteration of oriental names into Russian, sometimes it is not obvious if two names refer to the
same individual. I have not tried to rationalize all this data. Only one allusion to any individual is
counted. It is very likely that my lists are incomplete, but the quantity of data should be sufficient to
substantiate the conclusion presented in this article.
41 See Appendix, pp. 173-175. NPL = Novgorodskaja pervaja letopis starsego i mladsego izvodov.
Ed. A. N. Nasonov. Moskva, Leningrad 1950.
AFTER THE FALL 429
Not only did the Russians record the names of khans (cari) ; they also sometimes
mention imperial princes (carevici) and the wives/widows of khans, caricy (khanshas,
khatuns). Non-Chingissid aristocrats are accorded the title “prince” (knjaz), which usually
translated “emir” or “beg.” Mongol officials are designated with their appropriate titles ;
the baskaki were governors who supervised the collection of tribute and conscription and
maintained public order; the darugihad administrative functions in the Horde itself; the
“envoys” (posoly, a literal translation of the Mongol il3ci) carried messages and orders
between the Horde and the Russian forest zone. Sometimes the Russian sources apply a
Russian title to a Tatar notable, such as “commander” (voevodd) or “courtier” (stol’nik).
Naturally, sometimes there is confusion among scholars as to the identity of a particular
Tatar,42 and even the Russian chronicles could not keep the musical chairs of the Saraj
throne straight all the time during the enormous unrest of the 1360’s and 1370’s.43
Nevertheless the Russian chronicles on the whole contain fuller and more accurate
information about the dynastic changes in the Golden Horde in the second half of the
fourteenth century than the Arabo-Persian sources; the Russian Christians followed
Horde politics closer than the fellow Muslim Mongols in Iran or the Mamelukes.44Indeed,
the Russian chronicles of the later fourteenth and early fifteenth century contain more
information about the Horde than about any of Russia’s neighbors,45 and with good
reason: none of Russia’s other neighbors posed as immediate and important a threat as the
Horde. Even given the vagaries of Russian spelling, on the whole the Russian chronicles
transcribe the names of Tatar carevici, such as those in the army of emir Edigej which
besieged Moscow in 1409, with remarkable accuracy.46Russian expertise in the society and
personnel of the Horde was immense.
The medieval Russian chronicles had a weakness for compiling lists, for example, of
metropolitans of the Church or the bishops of a particular city, of grand princes of
Vladimir or princes of a particular principality. It is hardly surprising that the chronicles
also contain a list of cari ordynskie (khans of the Horde).47 The names of the Tatar
commanders of specific raids or campaigns into Russia were so well known that the most
important raids were known by the name of their leaders ; thus we have references to the
“campaigns” (rati) of Nevrjui in 1251, Djudeñ in 1293 and Achmyl’ in 1322.48 With equal
consistency such raids were employed as chronological references ; for example, such and
42 N a S0N0V Mongoly i Rus p. 30, n. 3 thought Kutlubuga, s.a. 1262, referred to Kubilai Khan in
China, although he is called a Muslim. BERTHOLD SPULER Die Goldene Horde. Die Mongolen in
Rufiland. 2nd ed. Wiesbaden 1965, p. 36, refutes Nasonov, but calls Qutlug-Boga a baskaki a title
absent from the chronicle.
43 GREKOV, Ja kub ovs kij Zolotaja orda i ee padenie pp. 269-270 corrects some erroneous
information about khans during the civil war.
44 G r e k o v , Ja ku bo v sk ij Zolotaja orda i ee padenie p. 272 calls the superior knowledge of Horde
politics of the Russian chronicles “entirely characteristic.”
45 L. V. C e r e pn i n Otrazenie mezdunarodnoj zizni XIV - nacalo XV v. v moskovskom letopisanii,
in: Mezdunarodnye svjazi Rossii do XVII v. Moskva 1961, pp. 225-256, especially pp. 227-231,
244-247.
46 A. JAKUBOVSKIJ Iz istorii padenija Zolotoj Ordy, in: Voprosy istorii (1947) No. 2, pp. 30-45,
here p. 40, high praise from a reputable orientalist such as Jakubovskij !
47 M. E. By Ck o v a Rodoslovnye knigi XVI-XVII w . kak istoriceskij istocnik. Moskva 1975,
pp. 147-150.
48 M. N. T ich om irov Kulikovskaja bitva 1380 g., in: TlCHOMlROV, V. F. R2IGA, L. A. DMITRIEV
(eds.) Povesti o Kulikovskoj bitve. Moskva 1959, pp. 335-376, here p. 336.
49 A. D. GORSKIJ Otrazenie tataro-mongol’skogo iga v russkich aktach XIV-XV w ., in : Feodal’-
naja Rossija vo vsemirno-istoriceskom processe. Moskva 1972, pp. 48-58 ( = Cerepnin Festschrift).
such a piece of land was farmed by my ancestor forty years after the “Edigeeva rat’”
(campaign of Edigej = 1408 + 40 = 1448).49
The scores of names of Tatar cari, carevici, caricy, princes, baskaki, darugi, envoys and
commanders, and other Tatars without titles or ranks, recorded in the medieval Russian
chronicles bespeak an intimate familiarity with the people of the Golden Horde. The
Russians always knew who was, and who was not, a Chingissid. They frequently know of
familial relationships such as marriage ties, in-laws, siblings, even cousins. The sheer effort
that went into amassing this quantity and quality of social data is impressive. Given
political necessity the Russians had little choice but to stay au courant of Horde affairs. For
a Russian prince reliable information about the political situation in the Horde could be
crucial in an emergency, and unreliable information could prove fatal. Even normal
political functioning required knowing whom it was worthwhile to bribe or petition. Much
of the Russian familiarity with the political élite of the Horde was acquired by necessity,
not choice.
Yet the implications of this Russian penetration of the society of the Horde go further
than political exigency, because the information which the chronicles preserve goes beyond
barebones politics. The names of the Tatar notables utilized in the medieval Russian
chronicles must have been of interest to the intended audience of these texts, else the data
would not have been included. The élite of medieval Russia - the princes, bojare, hierarchs
of the Church, maybe merchants - knew the élite of the Golden Horde - rulers, officials -
by name. The names must have conveyed identities to the Russians who heard them, or the
nonchalance of the chronicles in dropping so many names makes no sense. To the Russian
élite “the Tatars” were an anonymous mass, probably as undifferentiated as “the Russians”
(Rus) or the “lower classes” (cern). But the Mongol élite was the exact opposite of a
nameless, faceless, undifferentiated mass. The Mongol élite had names, and the identities
which went with a name in medieval hierarchical societies. For the medieval Russian élite,
the élite of the Golden Horde could not possibly have been alien or unknown. On the
contrary, the élite of the Horde was familiar and known. It might still be dangerous to deal
with the Tatars, but the danger was a predictable one, known and weighed in advance on
the basis of knowledge of the people with whom one had to deal.
At no time does any medieval Russian source explain in so many words that the
Russians knew the names and roles and identities of the members of the Tatar élite with
whom they came into contact. Such a generalization would have raised too many questions
about the nature of the situation which threw Orthodox Christian Russians and shamanist
or Muslim Tatars into such social propinquity. Only by collating the social data half-
hidden in the Russian chronicles can a striking feature of Russo-Tatar social relations be
extracted for analysis, namely, the intimate social familiarity of the Russians with the
Tatars of the Golden Horde. The consequences of this phenomenon for our understanding
of the nature of Russo-Tatar relations are profound, and cast serieus_doubts upon the self-
conscious pose of the medieval Russian sources and the premise of much modern
historiography that the Mongols were an external factor in Russian history during the
thirteenth to fifteenth centuries.
There would have been no way for the Russians to communicate with the Tatars, to
acquire the geographic and social expertise about the Golden Horde they possessed, unless,
AFTER THE FALL 431
literally, the two groups spoke the same language. There has been surprising little
discussion of this fundamental aspect of Russo-Tatar relations.50 It would appear that the
medieval Russian sources maintain a discrete silence even about how they broke the silence
in order to converse with the Tatars.
In 1223 the chronicler claimed not to know who the Tatars were, where they came from,
what their religion was, or what language they spoke. Yet there were negotiations between
the East Slavic princes and the Tatars. The narration does not mention in what language,
nor does it allude to translators. That the lingua franca employed in 1223 must have been
some form of “Turkic” is a foregone conclusion. The Mongols did not speak Russian, nor
did the Russians speak Mongol ; neither had ever had any contact with the other. But the
Mongol confederation already included large contingents of Turkic-speaking nomads, and
the East Slavs had long enjoyed intense contact with the Turkic-speaking nomads of the
Pontic steppe. Turkic-speakers must have been common in the Mongol army, and Turkic-
speakers must have been readily available among the East Slavic political establishment.
Thus in 1223 Turkic must have been the medium of communication.
The Mongols remained in the steppe when they conquered Russia; there they
assimilated with the Turkic-speaking population, the Kipchaks (Polovcy in Russian). The
Turkicization of the Mongols of the Golden Horde entailed no changes in Russo-Tatar
communication. The “Tatar” language evolved into Chagatai Turkic by the fifteenth
century. But the Mongols were the conquerors, who stayed in the steppe; mostly they
would not have taken the trouble to learn to speak Russian. It is more likely that the
Russian princely and ecclesiastical delegations included a Turkic-speaker who served as
translator. Yet the chronicles almost never mention such bilingual speakers or translators.
The exceptions prove the rule. A Russian-speaking translator (tolmac) is mentioned as
having participated in the siege of Cholm; obviously he was a Tatar.51 Most references to
translators are late, very literary, and perhaps not reliable. The “Skazanie o Mamaevom
poboisce” (Narration of the Battle with Mamai) was written about the Russian victory in
the battle of Kulikovo in 1380. According to this highly rhetorical work the Russian envoy
Tjut’cov was sent to the Horde with two Polovtsian-speaking tolmaci?1(It was a common
“historicist” cliché of late fourteenth-early fifteenth century Russian literature to describe
the Tatars as Polovcy, so the language the Russian translators spoke was Tatar.)
The first bilingual translators were sometimes Russian-speaking Polovcy. Carpini
mentions two “knights” of grand prince Jaroslav, the Coman Temer and the Christian
Coman Sangor (who should have had a Christian name).53Some of the “Russian” princely
envoys (kilicei) to the Horde may not have been ethnic Russians either. In 1360 prince
Vasilij of Kasin sent Grigorcjuk Koreev to the Horde,54 and in 1380 Dmitrij Donskoj
dispatched Tolbuga and Moksej to carry a message to khan Tochtamys.55While names are
not a flawless indicator of ethnic identity, certainly these non-Russian non-Christian
50 The discussion in Spu l e r Die Goldene Horde pp. 285-293 seems inconclusive.
51 PSRL vol. 2, col. 851.
52 T ich om irov, R2iga, D m itriev (eds.) Povesti o Kulikovskoj bitve p. 49. O n this text see
H a lp er in The Russian Land and the Russian Tsar pp. 23-37.
53 CHRISTOPHER D a w so n (ed.) Mission to Asia. Narratives and Letters of the Franciscan
Missionaries in Mongolia and China in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. New York 1955,
pp. 66, 70.
54 PSRL vol. 15, col. 67.
55 TL p. 421. On kilicei see Po l u bo j a r in o v a Russkie ljudi v Zolotoj Orde pp. 18-19.
names do suggest the possibility that bilingual nomads in Russian service were, naturally
enough, employed as Russian envoys to the Horde.
Obviously some Tatars would have learned Russian, by preference or by necessity. A
baskak permanently stationed in a Russian city might have found it convenient to speak the
local language. The Tatar princesses who married Russian princes, such as Koncaka,
converted to Russian Orthodox Christianity. They would have had to learn Russian or
Slavonic in order to practice their new religion. The suites and servants of such Tatar
converts are also likely to have learned Russian since they were moving to Russia to live.
Tatar nobles who entered Russian service and converted, such as the three named sub anno
1393 in the chronicles, undoubtedly assimilated. The greatest movement of Tatars into
Russian service came only with the second half of the fifteenth century. Before then the
number of Russians who learned “Tatar” must have been far greater than that of Tatars
who learned Russian. The Russian princes, nobles, merchants or clerics who travelled to or
lived in the Horde, or who received Tatar envoys and officials who came to the Russian
forest zone, must have had ample incentive to acquire some facility in the Tatar language.
The jarlyki from the khans to the Russian Church were originally written in Turkic,
even though they were addressed to a Russian-speaking audience. Presumably someone in
the chancellery of the metropolitan had the ability to convey its message into Russian. The
best educated guess is that the extant collection of jarlyki was translated into Russian by a
clerk of the metropolitan’s chancellery in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth centuries.56
The pervasive silence of the Russian chronicles about bilingualism and the extreme rarity
of allusions to translators create a prima fade case that something is amiss. Conceivably
bilingualism and translators were too common to require comment, except that sometimes
they were mentioned explicitly. Rather it seems plausible that knowledge of “Tatar” was
culturally embarrassing. It was the language of the infidel, and no one could earn any
credits toward salvation by mastering it. During the Muscovite civil war Vasilij II was
accused of loving the Tatar language more than his own, one of the accusations of pro-
Tatar behavior which resulted in his overthrow and blinding.57 Neither is the case of
Afanasij Nikitin exemplary of the advantages of learning oriental languages. Nikitin spent
seven years living among Muslims, and may even have apostacized. For commerce, religion
and mere survival he had to become fluent in eastern languages. He seems to have mastered
Persian, Arabic and Chagatai Turkic so well that he subconsciously slipped in and out of
his oriental patois even when writing or dictating his travelogue.58 Nikitin suffered acute
56 A. A. Zimin Kratkoe i prostrannoe sobranija chanskich jarlykov, vydannych russkim mit-
ropolitam, in: Archeograficesluj ezegodnik za 1961g. (1962) pp. 28-40. Soviet orientalists have begun
addressing the problem of the original language of the Golden Horde jarlyki. See, for example, three
of the articles by A. P. G rigoR ev Évoljucija formy adresanta v zolotoordynskich jarlykach
XII-XIVw., in: Ucenye zapiski LGU No. 389, Seriia vostokovedceskich nauk (1977) vyp. 19.
Vostokovedenie 3, pp. 132-156; Obrascenie v zolotoordynskich jarlykach XIII-XIV w ., in: Ucenye
zapiski LGU No. 403. Serija vostok. nauk (1980) vyp. 23. Vostokovedenie 7, pp. 155-180; and: K
rekonstrukcii tekstov zolotoordynskich jarlykov XIII-XIV w ., in: Istoriografija i istocnikovedenija
istorii stran Azii i Afriki 5 (1980) pp. 13-38; and M. A. USMANOV Zalovannye akty Dzucieva ulusa
XIV-XVI vekov. Kazan 1979, especially pp. 94-115, pp. 192-193.
57 PSRL vol. 4, s.a. 1446, p. 125.
58 Chozenie za tri morja Afanasija Nikitina 1466-1472, passim and the recent revisionist studies by
G a il D iane L e n h o ff Beyond Three Seas : Afanasij Nikitin’s Journey from Orthodoxy to Apostasy,
in: East European Quarterly 13,4 (1979) pp. 431-447, and Chapter 6: Afanasij Nikitin’s Journey
Beyond Three Seas, in her doctoral dissertation: The Making of the Medieval Russian Journey.
University of Michigan 1980, pp. 198-248 (on Nikitin's oriental patois, pp. 228-239). I am grateful to
AFTER THE FALL 433
anxiety over his “deracination” and perhaps apostasy. Excessive familiarity with the
language, let alone the religion, of the infidel threatened doom for the Russian Orthodox
Christian.
Medieval Russian familiarity with the Tatar language must have been far greater than the
medieval Russian sources allow or admit. Yet like Russian expertise in the geography and
society of the Horde, bilingualism was a product of necessity best left unarticulated in the
works of the medieval Russian intellectuals.
A complete and comprehensive picture of the Mongol impact upon Russian history must
take into account not only what the Mongols did to Russia but also how the Russians
perceived the Tatars and how they dealt with them as people off the battlefield. Medieval
Russian familiarity with the geography, society and language of the Golden Horde
suggests that the Russians and Tatars did more than kill each other. But Russian knowledge
about the Golden Horde did not lead to cultural understanding or tolerance ; how could it,
when the motive for acquiring this knowledge was the military and political hostility
engendered by Mongol conquest? Moreover, the medieval Russian bookmen were loathe
to acknowledge their expertise in the Golden Horde, since excessive familiarity with the
infidel enemy was dangerous. As a result the expertise in Tatarica of the medieval Russian
élite is almost masked in the sources. But it is still so massive and significant that by
discounting the religious and literary limitations of the medieval Russian sources, it can still
be resurrected and analyzed in order to shed further light upon Russo-Tatar relations.
Professor Lenhoff for making a copy of this chapter of her dissertation available to me. Much more
attention should be paid to Ja . S. Lu He Poavig Afanasija Nikitina (k 500-letiju nacala ego
putesestvija), in: Izvestija Vsesojuznogo Geograficeskogo obscestva 99 (1967) pp. 435-442.
Appendix
Tatar Notables Named in the Medieval Russian Chronicles
Ye a r T a tar s So u r c e
1223 Gemjabeg, C’gyrkan, Tesiukan NPL pp. 61-63, 264-266

1237-1238 Batvi PSRL vol. 1, col. 470
1240 Tovrul, Urdju, Baidar, Birjui, Kaidan, Becak, Mengu, PSRL vol. 2, cols. 784-785
Kjujuk’, voevoda Sebedjai, voevoda Burundai
1243 Manmana, Balaa PSRL vol. 2, col. 794
1245 stol’nik (courtier) Eldega NPL pp. 298-303
1247 Berdebek PSRL vol. 10, pp. 134-135
1249 Sartak, son of Batyj PSRL vol. 1, col. 472
1251 Nevrjui NPL p. 304
1256 car Ulavcii TL p. 325
1259-1260 Kuremsa, Burundai PSRL vol. 2, cols. 841-848
1261 Baimu, Kuicija, Asika, Boljuja PSRL vol. 2, cols. 849-855
1262 posol Kutlubuga TL p. 327
car Berkaj NPL p. 312
1269 velikij baskak Amragan NPL pp. 319, 88
1274 Igurcina PSRL vol. 2, cols. 871-874

1277 car Nogai, posoly : Tegicag, Kutlubuga, Esimut, Mam-seja PSRL vol. 2, cols. 876-878
1280 Koncak, Kozej, Kubatan PSRL vol. 2, cols. 881-882
1282 Tura, Temer Alyn TL p. 339
1283-1284 Kursk baskak Achmat PSRL vol. 1, cols. 481-482;
TL pp. 340-342
1288 knjaz ordynskij Elortaj PSRL vol. 10, p. 167
1291 car Telebuga, car Alguj NPL p. 327
1293 car Toktomer, Djuden PSRL vol. 1, col. 483;
TL pp. 345-346
1294 car Tochta TL p. 347
1297 Nevrjui TL pp, 347-348
1305 baskak Kutlubuga PSRL vol. 1, col. 528
1306 Tair PSRL vol. 25, p. 393; vol. 18,
p. 86
1314 posol Aracij TL pp. 354-355
1315 ljaitemer TL p. 355
1316 Kazanci, Sabanci PSRL vol. 1, col. 529
1317-1318 Koncaka, Christian name Agafija, sister of car Uzbek, wife TL pp. 355-356; PSRL vol. 4,
of Jurij Danilovic of Moscow, p p .48-49
posol Kavgadyj, Astrabal
1318 Telebuga, posol Konchia NPL pp. 95-96; TL p. 356
1322 posol Achmyl, posol Sevenc’buga TL p. 357
1323 carica Bojalyn, wife of Uzbek TL p. 357
1327 posol Sevkal, Fedorcjuk, Turalyk, Sjuga TL pp. 358-359
1329 Gajancar PSRL vol. 15, col. 41
1330 velikij knjaz ordynskij Asan PSRL vol. 10, p. 203
cariki'. Kotlubaj, Katibej, Beker PSRL vol. 32, p. 43
1332 Dmitrij Soltan PSRL vol. 32, p. 43
1333 Toidyj, Kal-ntaj, Cirica PSRL vol. 15, col. 47
1338 Istorcej, Kindyk, Avdulja PSRL vol. 15, cols. 48-49;
TLp. 362
1340 Tovlubij TL p. 363
1341 car Uzbek, car Canibek, brothers of Canibek : Chydyrbek./TLp. 365; PSRL vol. 15,
Tinibek col. 54
1342 Kindiak TL p. 365
1347 posot Koga TL p. 368
1349 posol Totuj TL p. 369
1352 Ourdak PSRL vol. 15, col. 61
1357 Kosak, Itkara PSRL vol. 25, p. 180; vol. 18,
p. 100
carica Taidula, car Berdibek PSRL vol. 18, p. 100; TL
pp. 375-376
posol Iryncej PSRL vol. 15, col. 65
1358 carev syn Mamat Choza TL p. 376
1359 car Kul’pa, car Naurus, sons of Naurus : Michail and Ivan TL pp. 376-377
1360 car Chidyr, knjaz ordynskij Mualbuzin PSRL vol. 15, col. 69
posol ¿uKotnica TL p. 377
1361 Murat, brother of Chidyr; knjaz Mamai; car Avdulja, TL pp. 377-378; PSRL
puppet of Mamai; car Temirchoza; Kil’debek and Bolak- vol. 15, cols. 71-72
temir, sons of Canibek ; knjaz Narucad ;
Ardemelik, Uruzbuga, Aratechozja, Sekiz, Achmat
1362 posoly : Urus, Kairbek, Altyncbej PSRL vol. 27, p. 242
1363 car Amurat, posol Iljak PSRL vol. 11, p. 2
1364 car Aziz, posol Urusmandy PSRL vol. 15, col. 77
1365 knjaz Tagaj TL p. 381
posoly Baram Choza and Osan PSRL vol. 4, p. 65
1368 posoly: Karac, Oajdar, Tjutekas TLp. 386; PSRL vol. 11, p. 10
AFTER THE FALL 435
Medieval Russian Familiarity with the M ongols 175
1370 Mamant-Saltan, puppet car of Mamai ; posol Acichoza, TL pp. 389-390

knjaz Osan of Bolgar, Saltan Bakov syn;
posoly : Kap’tagai, Tjuzjak, Sarychoia PSRL vol. 15, cols. 92, 95
1374 posol Sarajko TL p. 396
1375 Astrachañ knjaz Salcej ; posol Azichozej TLp. 398; PSRL vol. 15, col. 110
1377 carevic Arapsa TL pp. 402-403
1378 Chazibej, Koverga, Karagaluk, Kostrok, Begicka TL pp. 415-417
1381 car Tochtamys, posol carevic Ak-choza TL p. 421
1382 posoly surin (brother-in-law) of Tochtamys, Sichmat TL pp. 422-424
1383 posol Adas TL p. 427
1386 carica Tovlunbeka, wife of car Tochtamys TL p. 430
1389 posoly: Sichmat, Ulan TL p. 435 ; PSRL vol. 4, p. 97
1391 Bekmt TL pp. 437-438
1393 Bachty chozja (Onanija after baptism), Chidyr chozja TL p. 443
(Ozarja after baptism), Mamat* chozja (Misail after baptism)
1398 car Temir-Kutluj, client of Temir-Aksak (Tamerlane) TL pp. 448-449
1399 posolyx Beksik, Satkin; knjaz Edigej; carevic Entjak TL pp. 450-453
1400 car Sadibek, posol Sofrja TL p. 454
1405 posol kaznacej (treasurer) Mirza TL p. 459
1407 car Bulat Saltan TL p. 465
1408 carevici'. Bucak, Tegri-Berdij, Altemir, Bulat; TL pp. 468-471
knjazi: Machmet son of Isup Sjulimen, Teginja son of Sich,
Saraj son of Urusach, Obrjagim son of Temirja, Jaksibij, son
of Edigej ; Seitjalibij, Burnak, Erikliberdij
posol Marnait Derbys PSRL vol. 15, col. 480
1412 car Zeledi Saltan, son of Tochtamys PSRL vol. 4, p. 113
1419 Barak PSRL vol. 5, p. 262
1424 car Kudaidat, Kogcja bogatyr PSRL vol. 5, p. 262
1429 Alibaba PSRL vol. 18, p. 170
1431 knjaz Aidar, car Ulumachmat PSRL vol. 18, pp. 170-171
1432 ulus doroga Min Bulat, knjaz ordynskij Sirin, Tjaginja, PSRL vol. 18, pp. 171-172
stoVnik Usein the cousin of Teginja
1438 posoly: El’berdej, son-in-law of car Ulumachmet, dara- PSRL vol. 18, pp. 188-190
ga knjaz Usein Saraev, Usen’chozja, son of Ulumachmat
Mamutek
Mustafa, murza Achmut, Aziberdej son of Miserovanov PSRL vol. 18, p. 192
1445 Acisan ; Bigic, posol of Machmet ; PSRL vol. 18, pp. 193-195
posoly: Seit Asan, Utes Kurais, Dylchozja, Aidar ; PSRL vol. 18, p. 195
carevici'. Kaisym, Jagub, Tregob, Berdodat PSRL vol. 20, p. 260;
vol. 23, p. 153
1450 Malyberdej ulan PSRL vol. 18, p. 206
1451 Mazavsa, son of Kiciachmat; Gediger PSRL vol. 5, p. 270
1460 car Achmat ; Teisufuj, Temir PSRL vol. 5, p. 272
1471 Rjazañ doroga Temir PSRL vol. 18, p. 224
Bocjuka, posol of car Achmut of the Bol’saja orda PSRL vol. 18, p. 252
19
Under Pressure from the Pagans? -
The Mongols and the Russian Church
Sergei Hackel
A t least one person came from Mongolia to participate in the millennial

celebrations which were held in Moscow. I did not meet him. But I
suspect that he was responding to an invitation addressed to a friendly
twentieth-century neighbor rather than to a putative descendant o f
Russia’s medieval masters. These were little mentioned at the celebrations,
and only insofar as Rus’ protected “ [Western! European faith and culture”
from “the multitudinous Mongolo-Tartar hosts” and herself survived “the
sombre years o f Tartar yoke” as the result o f church support. Rather was
liberation from that yoke remembered, the more so since the perceived
agent of that liberation was to be canonized on the evening of 6 June:
D im itri Donskoy, the victor of Kulikovo, a man who (according to the
curious designation of the recent Russian C hurch Council) “laid down his
life for his friends,” though in fact no martyr he . 1
It is not the canonization as such which poses problems, only its
incidental effect in diminishing or even distorting the role of Mongol
rulers vis-à-vis the Russian Church — thus underlining the perennial
need for a positive acknowledgement o f our indebtedness to those who
came as a disastrously disruptive force to Rus’, yet stayed to sustain and
salve her Church; and this to an extraordinary degree.
Disruptive and degrading, since ruthless military conquest alone had
been instrumental in establishing Mongol suzerainty in the vast, therefore
soon to be subdivided empire of the khans. For the Russian realm the
1. "Dokum enty Pomestnogo Sobora 1988 goda," Informatsionnyi biulleten otdela. vneshnikh
tserkovnykh snoshenii moskovskogo patriarkhatdy 1988 (6) 4 8 , 61.
48 THE LEGACY OF SAINT VLADIMIR
Mongol invasion was a sudden and swift affair involving hardly three
years (1237-1240). Russian writers o f the time were to speak o f the
invaders as “godless. ” 2 At the time neither churches nor church personnel
were spared. “G od’s churches were destroyed,” wrote Bishop Serapion o f
Vladimir, “holy vessels were defiled, sacred objects were trampled on the
ground, clergy provided fodder for the sword.” Together with many
another he saw the whole thing as punishment: “For it is we who have
provoked G od’s wrath against us. ” 3
The numerous victims of this assault would have reacted with justifi-
able skepticism to the information that the Mongols came with instruc-
tions, even laws regarding full religious toleration. To many it seemed as
if they only wished “to subjugate the Russian land and to uproot the
Christian faith . ”4 Yet as the Russians were to learn in the immediate
aftermath o f their initial blooding, these two propositions were to be
distinguished, and the second discounted altogether.
For in 1257, when the subjugated Russian lands were subdivided by
the Mongols for purposes of conscription and taxation, churchmen dis-
covered to their delight that they were utterly exempt from either. All this
was to involve the khan’s treasury in enormous losses, and — so it m ust
have been believed — in perpetuity. But there was a principle at stake,
and it was never to be waived. This had already been enunciated in
Chengis-Khan’s Great Yasa. Here, as far as can be ascertained, he ordered
that all religions be respected: no preference was to be shown to any one
of them. But the clearest expression of the esteem with which Russian
churchmen were to be treated was provided in the kind o f Mongol charter
or iarlyk by which consequential immunities and rights were guaranteed.
Thus Mengu-Temir’s iarlyk o í 1308 confirms that clergy were exempt
from tax. Neither should any kind o f tribute be exacted from them, nor
property seized in forfeit for any tax allegedly unpaid. Furthermore, “if
2. An early use o f the term
is by M etropolitan Kirill II in 1274 (Russkaia istoricheskaia biblioteka
[—RIB] vi, 86.
3. Ë. V. Petukhov, Serapion VÍa¿Umirskiit russkii propovednik X III veka, St Petersburg, 18 8 8,
Appendix, p. 8.
4. "Povest" o razorenii Riazani Batyern, Khrestomatiia po istorii russkogo iazyka, ed. S. G .
Barkhudarov and S. P. Obnorskii, M oscow, 1952, p. 226. A text o f the early fourteenth
century.
AFTER THE FALL 439
The Mongols and the Russian Church 49
anything has been taken, it shall be returned unconditionally.” Even

churchmens skills should not be borrowed or exploited: “let no-one,
whoever he may be, touch those who pertain to the C hurch — craftsmen,
falconers or huntsmen.” None of these should be required for work of any
kind. Neither should relatives be taxed: “those who eat the same bread
and live in the same house with a priest” are granted the same privileges as
he . 5 These include exemption from military service. By the same token,
privileges accorded to monastics were duly extended to those who regu-
larly shared their bread.
N ot unexpectedly this was to encourage many to migrate to lands
where such immunities prevailed. It also seems to have encouraged ordi-
nations. This was clearly a mixed blessing, and the associated payment of
dues brought immediate accusations of simony from the m onk Akindin.
His particular regret, he wrote, was that such things are done “under
pressure from the pagans. ”6
Undue exploitation of the iarlyki could not be avoided. Nevertheless
their aim remained unchanged: the protection and enhancement o f reli-
gion. O n the negative side, no one is “to seize, take, tear or destroy that
which belongs to their law: icons or books or anything else by means of
which they pray to God. And if anyone blasphemes against their faith or
curses it, that man shall not be pardoned and shall be cruelly put to
death.” But of primary importance to Mengu-Temir, as it would have
been to Chengis-Khan himself, was the requirement that the clergy
should use their freedom to offer intercessions for their distant masters:
“that they may pray to God for us and for our people with an upright
heart [...] and that they may bless us.” N ot that the masters were content
with formal prayer. With a fine sense of discrimination, the iarlyk envisag-
ed the possibility of prayer with inward reservations {nepravym serdtsern).
This would be sinful, and the responsibility of the priest involved: “that
sin shall be upon him . ”7
None of these arrangements were affected by the conversion to Islam
5. A M . Sakharov {ed), Sbomik dokumentov po istorii SSSR dlia seminarskikh i prakticheskikh
zaniatii (XIV-XV w .)y Moscow, 1971, pp. 183-4.
6. RIB vi, 155.
7. Sakharov, Sbom ik dokumentov, loc. cit.
of the khan Uzbeg (1313), nor by the Islamic faith of his successors. In
1347 the senior wife of Khan Janibeg, Taidula, could still write of the
Christian metropolitan as “our intercessor. ” 8
Two very different foreign rulers might now be commemorated in the
Russian Church. O ne of these had from the first required, and had
normally if not invariably received, commemoration. This was the ruler
of the oikoumene, the senior partner in that symphonic structure which
bound the Byzantine emperor and patriarch into an immutable and,
ideally, symbiotic relationship with one another and, together with them,
the empire and the Church. At least an honorary membership of the one
followed from integration with the other. Both had been received by Rus’
as part and parcel o f conversion and acculturation. The metropolitan o f
Kiev and all Rus’ was there to link his flock to each in due proportion.
By contrast, prayers for the khan could hardly fit the established
pattern, however much the Russians might attempt to modify the non-
Byzantine nature of his title in calling him by the name they also used for
the Byzantine emperor himself, tsar.9 For this was soon to be the designa-
tion of the distant emperor in Karakorum, as also of the khan at Sarai. In
either case, the Russians were no doubt mindful of the Pauline exhorta-
tion to the effect that “supplications, prayers, intercessions” be made for
all men, including “kings and for all who are in authority,” and this
regardless of their faith.
All the more curious is it that the new tsar’s name was conspicuously
omitted from the Russian diptychs, perhaps for fear of profaning them.
Each minister was thus required to make commemorations o f his own
accord. Only the coinage was allowed to carry an explicit textual invoca-
tion for the given khan: “Long may he live. ” 10
The Church’s intercessions for two different kinds o f tsar were to find
their counterpart in two kinds of diplomatic relations. The metropolitan
of all Rus’ was now required to represent his own metropolia and —
sometimes separately — the Byzantine patriarchate to the Mongol court.
8. Taidula’s letter in M. D. Priselkov, Khanskie iarlyki russkim m itropolitam, Petrograd, 1916,
pp. 75-81.
9. R S R L l.ll 483, 484.
10. G. B. Fedorov, “Den’gi moskovskogo kniazhestva vremeni Dimitriia Donskogo i Vasiliia I,”
M aterialy i issledovaniia po arkheologii S S S R , xii, 1949, pp. 167 - 168 .
AFTER THE FALL 441
This also meant that he would represent the state in either case. The
complexity o f this task was inadvertently increased by the appointm ent of
a bishop for Sarai, itself. The metropolitan might now at times be by-
passed by his very agent when the latter acted directly as the envoy o f the
patriarchate. Even more curious was the role which the bishop of Sarai
might play as the personal envoy of the khan himself. So in 1279,
Feognost, the second bishop of Sarai, was sent by the metropolitan to the
patriarch o f Constantinople and — at the same time — by the one tsar
(Mengu-Temir) to the other (Michael Palaeologos) in parallel, but no
doubt very different missions. 11
Located though he was in partibus infidelium, the bishop of Sarai
could still find himself a Russian flock to lead. The Mongols had con-
scripted and transported thousands to the Golden H orde and beyond.
There were uprooted Russians at the court itself, many o f them craftsmen.
Even in distant Karakorum, Giovanni de Plano Carpini had been be-
friended by a Russian goldsmith, Kuz’ma. Kuz’ma had been commis-
sioned to fashion the great khan’s throne and was clearly delighted by the
fact. 12 In Sarai there were many like him. Indeed by 1333 there was a
separate section for the Russians in the city. In addition, there were
emigres from the Byzantine world to whom he would have ministered,
including the occasional princess who found her way to court as the
consort of the khan himself.
At the same time the bishop looked beyond the exiles and the emigres.
W hen Feognost (on 1 2 August 1 2 7 6 ) consulted the patriarchal council in
Constantinople on a variety of questions, he clearly anticipated the bap-
tism of converts who were Mongols. Hence his question about the
necessary size o f a font, should there be need for one during some progress
of the khan. A sufficiently large vessel might not be available for those
“coming from the Tartars and wishing to be baptized.” In any case, he
must have had occasion when he needed to celebrate the Liturgy in the
field, for another of his questions relates to the propriety of using a mobile
altar table. The patriarchal council wisely made appropriate concessions,
for “nomadic peoples have no settled place o f their own . ” 13
11. P SR L1 8 ,7 7 n .l; PSRL 10„ 157.
12. W. R. Rockhill, ed. and tr., The Journey o f William Rubruck [ ...] w ith two accounts o f the
earlier journey ofJohn o f Plan de Carpine, London, 1900, p. 24.
13. RIB vl9 p. 129AO.
Sarai provided other opportunities as well. The bishop is likely to have

had inter-ecclesial, even inter-religious, work to perform. Certainly in
Karakorum, at the great khan’s court, were assembled representatives o f
different religions, Christians among them. Nestorians were prominent;
there were also resident Armenians. No doubt Sarai made similar provis-
ions. That being so, the Orthodox bishop may well have been required to
assist in the consecration of all those white horses which the Mongols
gathered from their various herds for the great Spring Festival each year.
For at Karakorum at least, “the Christian priests are obliged to do this
with their censer,” as William Rubruck noted in the 1250’s. No doubt he
referred principally to the local Nestorians, yet perhaps not only to
them . 14
The conversion of the khan to Islam did away with the rare opportu-
nities for inter-church and inter-faith cooperation provided by the toler-
ance of his predecessors.
That tolerance was no doubt laced with naive superstition. Moreover
it could verge on indifference, as William Rubruck was quick to observe.
And unequivocally proclaimed though it was on high, it could not always
prevail on the ground — least of all in so vast and varied an empire. But
at its best it safeguarded the interests of the Orthodox Church in the
conquered and impoverished Russian realm. So in this respect “ungodly”
was not the term which most appropriately described the Mongol’s aims
or even actions.
N ot that all their actions were in accordance with their aims. The veiy
statutes of the iarlyki which warned against infringements must be said to
provide an indirect description o f such cases as initially provoked the
legislation. Certainly, tax-gatherers were not paragons of virtue. In due
course the local Russian princes were themselves frequently at fault.
Erosion o f the Church’s gains is to be noted as Mongol authority declines.
But even in the fourteenth century all is not well.
Thus in 1342 an attem pt was made, and made by Russians, to manip-
ulate the khan himself. It was shortly after the installation of Janibeg as
khan. M etropolitan Feognost had arrived at Sarai in order to receive his
personal iarlyk from the new ruler. A group of Russian malcontents,
14. B. Spuler, H istory o f the Mongols, London, 1972, pp. 111.
AFTER THE FALL 443
possibly Novgorodians, used the moment to persuade the khan that even
the metropolitan should be taxed. The inexperienced khan was persuaded
to act counter to all precedent and to exact the tax. Fortunately Feognost
was sufficiently sure of his ground to resist. But his stand involved
imprisonment and, in the end, cosdy bribes. Nonetheless, here was pro-
tection money rather than a tax . 15
Such a conscious attempt to waive the Church’s immunity was rare,
probably unique. Almost equally rare were punitive measures taken by
Mongols in respect of someone’s Christian faith. Hardly two occasions are
usually cited. But neither was an example merely o f religious persecution,
still less of forced conversion.
All in all it was not the Mongols who stemmed the Church’s economic
rate o f growth. Year by year this increased comparatively as against secular
society at large. It increased also in absolute terms. For better or for worse,
the Church alone continued to provide a haven for property and person-
nel alike.
Throughout the land, even in unconquered Novgorod, the burden o f
Mongol taxation, whether direct or indirect, was sufficient to prom pt
pious or resourceful landowners to donate property to monasteries. The
piety was easily and touchingly recorded. W hen Sava Siuzev endowed a
monastery with a modest parcel of land in January of 1399, he asked for
only one reward: “when God has recalled my soul, let Archimandrite
Malafei and his brethren commemorate my soul and the souls o f my
parents . ” 16
But while the same conditions might be set even with the most
extensive o f estates, there could also be — unadvertised — an element o f
calculation in transactions such as this. For land granted to a community
could indeed be described as sacrosanct. Yet the donor, especially if he
were also the founder, might retain an interest in his apparendy devout
disinvestment. He might draw on profits in times of need, most obviously
in old age, most appropriately by joining the community and, in effect,
receiving his pension from it.
Russians were sufficiently well versed in such practices to curtail them
15. PSRLIO, p. 215
16. N . Kalachev (ed.), Akiy otnosiashchiesia do iuridicheskago byta dretmei Rossii, St Petersburg,
1857-84, i. p. 442.
in due course. In the first significant attempt to secularize church lands,

the imperious grand-prince o f Moscow Ivan III required that half the
monastic lands o f the Novgorod principality be surrendered to him when
that city yielded to his rule (1478). O n appeal, his demand was reduced
to something like half the domains of the six most prosperous monasteries
alone.17 The evidence suggests that the proportion finally demanded
correspond to that of secular investment in each case. The remainder was
deemed to have been acquired through the efforts of the monks them-
selves. And for the present this was left untouched.
But Ivan was not alone nor by any means the last in questioning the
equity and appropriateness, above all the permanence o f the inherited
norms. Even the best-endowed of monasteries were now under threat.
Anxiously they scrutinized and edited the iarlyki. O ne was even forged.
Not surprisingly it gave the Church additional rights. Thus did its authors
go beyond defense of the status quo ante to carefully devised counter-at-
tack.18
They had indeed good reason to feel insecure, and the church council
of 1503, convened by Ivan III, was to leave no one in doubt as to the
strength o f the forces — some of them internal — mustered against the
immunities o f yesteryear.
The Mongols had set a high standard as one Russian translator o f the
iarlyki was well placed to perceive. “But alack and alas,” he wrote, “I have
been overwhelmed by tears at the thought that the holy churches received
such favour [milost’] from these faithless pagans. As for you Orthodox
princes and boyars: strive to be as beneficent to the holy churches, lest you
be shamed by those barbarians on the day of judgment.”19 It was a
moving and a strong appeal. But it was to prove ever less effective as the
years went by.
In due course it proved uncomfortable for Russian writers even to
acknowledge the favour shown. It was tempting to forget that the result-
ing economic and social power of the Church had given her the means
with which to play so notable a part in the diplomatic, political, not to
17. PSRL 12, p . 184.
18. On the forgery: P. P. Sokolov, “Podlozhnyi iarlyk Uzbeka mitropolitu. Petru,” Russkii
istoricheskii zhum al 5, 1981, pp. 70-85.
19. PSRL 20, p. 189.
AFTER THE FALL 445
mention artistic and spiritual life o f the Russian realm. During those
“somber” Mongol years the metropolia o f all Rus’ had provided an image
o f stability and authority. The prevailing probity o f its leaders, moreover,
had provided a marked contrast to the wiliness and greed of many a local
prince. Had it been otherwise, the khans, the eastern tsars, would have
lacked the opportunity to divide and rule as effectively as they did.
However marked the Church’s earthly power, her spiritual life pro-
ceeded unimpeded in the Mongol years. If anything, she was so placed as
to provide a supportive framework within which monasticism could
flourish in an unprecedented way, even that newly-welcomed hesychasm
which itself sought no worldly security or support. The time o f D imitri
Donskoy is also that of Sergius o f Radonezh, the time o f Sergii that o f
Andrei Rublev — also canonized this past summer.
In the context of these thousand years, the gains of the Mongol period
in the economic sphere must now be seen more as an extended deviation
than a turning point. They were to prove ephemeral. They were to be
relendessly eroded by the secular authorities, and the legislation of such
years as 1764 or 1918 was to reveal how far the comparatively cautious
plans o f an Ivan III could eventually lead.
All the more gratifying, in this year of the millennium, to find that
new safeguards for church life are once more either agreed or pending:
new church statutes and, less clear as yet, new state laws. May they provide
a framework for times in which a timeless spiritual life may flourish.
Yet as Nil Sorskii would have stressed in 1503, and as twentieth-cen-
tury Russian Christians can repeat from experience, it is not safeguards
which prompt spiritual life, least of all guarantee it.
H ad the Mongolian delegate to the millennium celebrations the nec-
essary perspective and perception, he would have found few parallels with
earlier, Mongol-dominated times. No doubt he would have restrained
himself from claiming conscientious prayer for infidel authorities as his
forebears’ contribution to the present day. But he might have paused on
one parallel of some importance, though of a more general kind.
In the year o f the millennium, as in the testing years o f Mongol
domination, the Church is once again uniquely placed, and therefore
could be poised to stabilize, to guide and to uplift society at large. For this,
it could be added, she will much less require the newly-proffered safe-
guards than the faith, integrity and dedication of her saints through the
ages: saints both newly-canonized and yet to be acknowledged, not least
her neo-martyrs.
20
Cultural Ties:
Byzantium, the Southern Slavs and Russia
John Meyendorff
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the empire o f the

Palaeologi, restored after the Latin occupation o f Constantinople,
was politically and economically a very minor power, but its
intellectual and cultural prestige remained remarkably strong.
Historians used to insist upon the role played by Byzantium in
influencing the beginnings o f the Italian Renaissance. More recent
publications tend to lim it the importance o f this Greek im pact on
Italy. In any case, Byzantine civilization did indeed play a more
decisive role in shaping cultural history in its traditional sphere of
influence, the Slavic lands.
Indeed, the so-called ‘second South-Slavic 5 (Serbian and Bul-
garian) influence upon Russian civilization, which occurred in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and which admittedly had a
widespread impact upon cultural, religious, literary and artistic
developments in northern Russia, had its initial source in Byzan-
tium. Because o f their close ties and neighbourhood with Con-
stantinople, the Southern Slavs were instrumental in the
development o f a more literary and ornate style (pletenie sloves -
‘weaving of words’), o f more stabilized and hellenized principles
of spelling, o f a richer and more sophisticated vocabulary. These
traits appeared not only in translations from the Greek accom-
plished by bilingual, mostly Bulgarian and Serbian, monks , 1 but
also in original Slavic writings in Bulgaria, Serbia and Russia. The
Slavs were not only passive imitators o f Byzantine models: in
several areas - particularly art, hagiography and preaching - they
showed great creativity and, in the field o f art, Slavic artists were
certainly not inferior to the Greeks. Furthermore, the universalis-
tic ideology promoted by the Byzantine Church presupposed, on
the part of the Byzantines, a greater concern and respect for the
1 Cf. particularly Sobolevsky, Tuzhnoslavyanskoe ulryanie; also Likhachev, ‘Nekotorye
zadachi\
Byzantium and the Rise of Russia

Slavs than was ever shown in the past. The Slavs were grateful for
this friendship. For example, a Russian pilgrim, visiting St Sophia,
notes the kindness and humility o f Patriarch Isidore ( 1 3 4 7 - 5 0 ) and
remarks that the Patriarch loves Russians m uch 5 (veVmi lyubit
Rus' ) . 2 Patriarch Callistos, on the other hand, composed a Life o f a
Bulgarian saint, Theodosius o f Trnovo, and entertained close per-
sonal connections in Bulgaria, where his spiritual master, St
Gregory o f Sinai, had found refuge . 3 In 1 3 6 2 , the leaders o f the
Bulgarian Hesychast movement, Theodosius and Euthymius, were
warmly welcomed in Constantinople . 4 These examples, along
with many others, illustrate a new sense o f solidarity between
Greeks and Slavs, but they also show that the cultural primacy of
Byzantium was always maintained and recognized, particularly in
monastic circles. Translation work, transmission o f liturgical and
disciplinary reforms, travels o f pilgrims to Constantinople, and of
artists, ecclesiastics and diplomats to and from Byzantium con-
stituted the various channels through which ideas and patterns of
Byzantine civilization poured into Russia with greater intensity
than during the previous two centuries.
One can also find important examples o f Russian literary in-
fluence upon Southern Slavs , 5 which show that the Slavic Ortho-
dox world, together with Byzantium, really constituted a multi-
national religious and cultural community, conscious o f its unity
and allowing for great mobility o f persons and ideas.
I. N A TU R E AND L I M I T S OF T H E B Y Z A N T I N O - R U S S I A N
L I T E R A R Y TIES: R E N A I S S A N C E , P R E - R E N AISSANGE ?
I f the very fact o f closer cultural relations between Russia, the

Southern Slavs and Byzantium in the fourteenth century is readily
admitted by historians, there exists a great variety o f views as to
the specific character o f these relations. W hat was, first of all, the
2 Khozhdeniya Stefana Novgorodtsa, ed. M. N. Speransky, Iz starinnoi Novgorodskoi liieratwry

XIV veka, Leningrad, 1 9 3 4 , pp. 5 1 - 2 ; cf. also I. Sevcenko, ‘Notes on Stephen, the
Novgorodian pilgrim to Constantinople in the XIV-th century’, Sudost-Forschungen
xn, 1 9 5 3 , pp. 1 6 5 - 7 5 .
3 The original Greek text of the Life is lost, and the contemporary Slavic version may
have been interpolated by the translator (ed. V. I. Zlatarski, in Sbornik za narodni
umotvoreniya, nauka i knizhnina, xx, Sofia, 1 9 0 4 , pp. 1- 4 4 ; on the Life, see V. Kiselkov,
Zhitieto na sv. Teodosii Tmovski kato istoricheski pametnik, Sofia, 1 9 2 6 ); cf. letter of
Callistos to Bulgarian monks (including St Theodosius) in 1 3 5 5 , MM, 1, 4 3 6 - 4 2 .
4 Cf. I. Dujcev, ‘Tsentry’, pp. 1 1 2 - 1 4 ; also Obolensky, ‘Late Byzantine Culture*.
6 Cf. Speransky, Iz istorii, pp. 13 - 1 4 , 5 5 - 1 0 3 ; also Moshin, ‘O periodizatsii5, pp. 7 0 - 8 5 .
120
AFTER THE FALL 449
Cultural ties
nature o f the Byzantine ‘Palaeologan Renaissance5, and was it
passed on to the Slavs with all the implications which it had in
Byzantium ?
Both in literary pursuits, and in art, the Palaeologan period o f
Byzantine history saw a resurgence o f interest in Greek antiquity:
this is the most general and the most widely adm itted feature o f the
‘Palaeologan Renaissance5. However, most specialists would also
admit today that ‘antique literary and scientific culture was
endemic in Byzantium5, that ‘what we call Byzantine renaissances
are just intensifications o f the élite5s contacts w ith antiquity -
which were never lost - rather than rediscoveries o f ancient cul-
ture5, and that ‘the renaissance o f the early Palaeologi was one such
intensification of an uninterrupted tradition 5. 6 Clearly, as we have
also seen in the preceding chapters, the ideology represented by
the so-called ‘humanists5 - a narrow and aristocratic élite of
littérateurs - was far from possessing that dynamism and inspira-
tion which made possible the Renaissance in Italy. In Byzantium,
there was no real ground for a true ‘Renaissance5, but rather a
tradition of peaceful, frequently inconsistent, and sometimes
charmingly creative coexistence o f cultural features o f Greek
antiquity with Christian faith and spirituality . 7 In the preceding
chapter, we have also seen that, in the thirteenth century, during
the Empire's exile in Nicaea, the resurgence o f interest in Greek
antiquity became associated with a new and more specific national
and ethnic consciousness. Threatened by the Crusaders, members
o f the Byzantine social and intellectual élite gained awareness o f
their ‘Hellenism5, expressed primarily in the language which they
spoke and in the cultural tradition o f antiquity.
I f one now considers the general problem o f the transmission of
Byzantine culture to the Slavs, one is im m ediately faced with two
overwhelming facts which determined that transmission: (i) The
principle adopted from the beginning in Eastern Christianity to
translate both Scripture and liturgy into the vernacular, excluded
the Church from the role it played in the W est and which consisted
in giving the ‘barbarians5 a tool o f access to classical antiquity : the
Byzantine Church did not teach them Greek, as the Western
Church taught them Latin. (2 ) I f the newly emerging ‘Greek 5
consciousness of the Byzantines contributed to the revival o f
6 I. Sevcenko, Theodore Metochites, the Chora and the Intellectual Trends of

His Time’, in P. A. Underwood, ed., The Kariye Djami, vol. 4 , Princeton, N.J., 1 9 7 5 ,
p. 19.
7 Cf. Meyendorff, ‘Spiritual Trends’* p. 95.
121
Byzantium and the Rise o f Russia

secular Hellenic culture, this particular impulse was, by definition,
limited to Greeks and could not be transmitted to the Slavs. On
the contrary, as with all forms o f nationalism, it contained a
potential divisiveness, which contributed to the weakening of
Byzantine universalism and, in later times, to further antagonism
between Greeks and Slavs.
Added to the general élitist character o f Byzantine Hellenic
‘humanism3, these two factors clearly precluded any substantial
transmission o f secular Greek culture to the Slavs, and to the
Russians in particular. W e have already seen (cf. above Chapter
i), that the overwhelming majority o f Byzantine texts translated
into Slavic during the centuries which followed the baptism o f the
Rus' was religious and ecclesiastical in character. The same can be
said about the ‘second 5 Byzantine and South-Slavic influence : the
great mass o f translated literature reflected the ecclesiastical ties
between Byzantium and Russia. However, in the fourteenth cen-
tury, an even narrower selection was made in favour of two areas :
the liturgy and the general area o f monastic spirituality, which
included hagiography and patristic (particularly hesychastic)
literature on personal prayer.
The major factor in the development of the liturgy in Russia in
the fourteenth century is the generalized transfer, from Constan-
tinople to Russia, o f the Typikon o f Jerusalem, or, more precisely,
the Typikon o f the monastery o f St Sabbas in Palestine. No scholar
has, so far, given an exhaustive explanation of the remarkable fact
that, already in the twelfth century, the Church o f Constantinople,
then at the peak o f its prestige and influence, acquiesced in the
replacement o f the existing orders o f its liturgy (the Typikon o f the
Great Church, the Typikon o f St John o f Studios) with the Order
o f the Monastery o f St Sabbas in Palestine . 8 Obviously, the Arab
occupation o f the entire M iddle East had not suppressed the
prestige o f the H oly Land and o f ancient Palestinian monasticism,
its practices and traditions. T he change took place only gradually
and was not imposed through any formal decree. It did not involve
any spectacular modification o f the liturgy, but only the structure
o f daily and festal services and monastic discipline, whereas the
basic features o f these services remained the same, as they had
resulted from a synthesis between the ‘cathedral5 and the ‘monas-
tic 5 structures. This synthesis had occurred in the tenth and
8 The best compendium of information concerning these liturgical changes is still
to be found in M. Skaballanovich, Tolkouy Tipikon. Ob 'yasnitel 'noe izlozhenie Tipikona
s istoricheskim wedeniem, i, Kiev, 1 9 1 0 , pp. 4 1 0 - 1 6 .
122
AFTER THE FALL 451
Cultural ties
eleventh centuries. 9 It is, nevertheless, quite significant that the
pattern o f the reform was not Constantinople, but Jerusalem: the
symbolic, eschatological and spiritual dimension o f this influence
was strengthened by the fall o f Constantinople under Latin rule in
1 2 0 4 and by the subsequent monastic predominance in the Church.
Monastic pilgrimages to the H oly Land were a frequent occur-
rence during the Palaeologan period and involved important
leaders like Patriarch Athanasius I and Sabbas o f V atopedi . 10
T he adoption of the Palestinian Typikon among Slavs was in
progress at least since the time when St Sava o f Serbia introduced
it on M ount Athos, whereas his successor, Archbishop Nikodim,
translated it into Slavic in 1 3 1 9 . 11 The Pandectae and the Taktikon
o f Nikon of the Black Mountain, an author o f the eleventh century,
whose writings were widely known in Slavic translation, also con-
tributed to the popularization o f Palestinian traditions in liturgy
and discipline . 12
Elements of the Jerusalem Typikon appear in official pastoral
instructions coming to Russia from the patriarchate o f Con-
stantinople in the late thirteenth century, for example, in the
Responses o f the Patriarchal Synod to the bishop o f Sarai, Theo-
gnostos ( 1 2 7 6 ) 13 and in an Instruction o f the Greek metropolitan of
Kiev, Maximus ( 1 2 8 3 - 1 3 0 5 ) . 14 However the systematic unifica-
tion o f liturgical and disciplinary practices in accordance with the
Palestinian pattern will be accomplished during the tenures of
Cyprian ( 1 3 9 0 - 1 4 0 6 ) and Photius ( 1 4 0 8 - 3 1 ), as metropolitans o f
Russia . 15 One of the characteristics of this liturgical reform, both
in Byzantium and in Slavic lands, is that it was aiming at unifica-
tion and codification of liturgical practices: it is during that period
that very detailed sets o f rubrics, regulating the performance of
the eucharistie liturgy and of the daily office, appeared in Con-
stantinople and were immediately transmitted to the Slavs. These
collections are associated in the manuscripts with the name of
9 Cf. A. Schmemann, Introduction to liturgical theology, 2 nd ed., New York, 1 9 7 5 , pp.

152- 7 0 .
10 Vita Athanasii by Theoktistos, ed. A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, ‘Zhitiya dvukh
vse] enskikh patriarkhov X I W , in S. Petersburg, Universitet, Istoriko-filologicheskii
jakul'tet, âpiski, 7 6 , 1 9 0 5 , p. 7 ; Philotheos, Vita Sabae, ed. A. Papadopoulos-
Kerameus, ’AvocXektoc TepoaoXupimidjç Bi[3Xio0 y)K7)ç, V, pp. 2 6 4 , 2 8 5 - 6 .
11 L. Stojanovic, Stari srpski zapisi i natpisi, i, Belgrade, 1 9 0 2 , No. 5 2 , pp. 2 2 - 4 .
12 Cf. I. Mansvetov, Tserkovny Ustav (Tipik), ego obrazovanie i sud'ba v grecheskoi i
russkoi tserkvi, Moscow, 1 8 8 5 , pp. 1 8 7 - 9 2 , 2 6 5 - 9 .
13 RIB, vi, col. 1 2 9 - 4 0 (Slavic text); Prilozhenie, cols. 5 - 1 2 (Greek text); cf. V.
Grumel-Laurent, Régestes, iv, 1 4 2 7 .
14 RIB, vi, cols. 139 - 4 2 . 15 See particularly Mansvetov, Kiprian.
123

Patriarch Philotheos ( 1 3 5 3 - 4 , 1 3 6 4 - 7 6 ), who was certainly
instrumental in their widespread distribution, even if the original
set of rubrics was completed in Constantinople, as early as the
tenure o f Patriarch Athanasius I ( 1 2 8 9 - 9 3 , 1 3 0 3 - 9 ) . 16 This con-
cern for order and liturgical conformity is another indication
which should disprove the conception o f the Byzantine monastic
revival in the fourteenth century as a phenomenon o f mystical
esotericism. In their active concern for centralizing the patri-
archate and codifying the liturgy, the monks who had come to
control the Church saw a necessary framework for their equally
active promotion o f monastic spirituality.
In the fourteenth century, the vast corpus of Byzantine hymno-
graphy, which covers the various liturgical cycles - daily, weekly,
yearly and paschal —was preserved in the form it had taken in the
ninth and tenth centuries. However, some additions continued to
be made. For example, hymns and prayers written by Patriarch
Philotheos became particularly popular. N ot only did Philotheos
write the special office in honour o f St Gregory Palamas, whom he
canonized in 1 3 6 8 , 17 but he also became the author o f several
other devotional and liturgical texts. And since Philotheos had
permanent contacts with Slavic lands, his hymns and prayers were
translated into Slavic during his lifetime, either in Bulgaria, or in
Russia . 18
Together with the reform o f the Typikon and other liturgical
influences, Byzantium, in the fourteenth century, passed on to the
Slavs and, particularly, to Russia, an immense body of spiritual,
predominantly monastic and hesychastic literature . 19 The oldest
monastic library o f northern Russia, that o f the Lavra o f the
Trinity, founded by St Sergius (c. 1 3 1 4 - 9 2 ) contains a number of
fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Slavonic versions o f such authors
as St John Climacus, St Dorotheos, St Isaac o f Nineveh, St
Symeon the N ew Theologian and St Gregory of Sinai, who can be
considered as the classics o f hesychastic spirituality . 20 The same
16 I. Mansvetov, Tserkovnyi Ustav, pp. 1 9 2 - 6 ; the rubrics of the Eucharistie liturgy
of St John Chrysostom, ascribed to Philotheos, were translated into Slavic by
Metropolitan Cyprian and are found in his own autograph Sluzhebnik (Euchologion),
cf. Prokhorov, ‘Gimny’, p. 1 4 8 .
17 This office was included in the Triodion (liturgical book containing the hymns of
the Lenten period) for the Second Sunday of Lent; cf. Meyendorff, Introduction,
pp. 1 6 8 - 9 (A Study, p. 1 1 2 ).
18 Syrku, K istorii ispravleniya, pp. lxxix-lxxxvi, 17 2 - 5 ; Prokhorov, ‘Gimny’, pp.
140 - 9 .
19 Cf. Obolensky, ‘Late Byzantine Culture’, pp. 8 - 1 2 .
20 Prokhorov, ‘Keleinaya literatura’, pp. 3 1 7 - 2 4 .
124
AFTER THE FALL 453
Cultural ties
authors also appear in the fifteenth-century library o f St Cyril o f
Beloozero . 21 If one compares the content o f these major Russian
monastic libraries with their contemporary Byzantine counter-
parts - on Mt Athos, on Patmos, or on M t Sinai - one is im m e-
diately struck by their close parallelism : Russian monks read the
same Fathers, the same Lives o f saints, as their Greek brothers, and
the 'second South-Slavic 5 or ‘Byzantine 5 influence on Russia has
provided enough translations to put Russian monasteries practic-
ally on a par with those o f Greek-speaking lands. It is only in the
area o f pure theology that Russian libraries clearly differ from their
Byzantine counterparts : copies o f the theological treatises o f the
Cappadocian Fathers, o f St Cyril o f Alexandria, o f St Maximus
the Confessor, and, indeed, o f the polemical treatises published in
the fourteenth century by Palamite theologians are almost totally
absent in Russian libraries. Among the significant exceptions are
the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, with some scholia
by Maximus the Confessor, translated by the Serbian monk Isaiah
on M ount Athos in 1 3 7 1 : 22 a manuscript o f this version came to
Russia as soon as it was completed, and was copied personally by
Metropolitan Cyprian (before 1 4 0 6 ) . 23 Other exceptions include
short treatises on the debates between Palamas and his adversaries
composed by David Dishypatos , 24 and materials related to anti-
Jew ish 25 and anti-Latin polemics , 26 which were o f direct relevance
in Russia.
As these examples show, the flow o f literature com ing from
Byzantium to Russia was predominantly following ecclesiastical
and monastic channels. These ecclesiastical circles did not gener-
ally give a high priority to secular writings for transmission to the
21 N. Nikol 'sky, ‘Opisanie rukopisei Kirillo-Belozerskogo monastyrya sostavlennoe v
kontse XV veka’, in Obshchestvo lyubitelei drevnei pis'mennosti, Izdaniya, 1 1 3 , St
Petersburg, 1 8 9 7 .
22 Cf. B. Moshin, ‘Zhitie startsa Isaii, igumena Russkogo monastyrya na Afone’,
Sbornik Russkogo arkheologwheskogo obshchestva v korolevstve Tugoslavii, Belgrade, 1 9 4 0 ,
pp. 1 2 5 - 6 7 .
23 Cf. G. M. Prokhorov, Pamyatniki literatury vizantiisko-russkogo obskchestvennogo
dvizheniya epokhi Kulikovskoi bitvy, avtoreferat, Leningrad, 1 9 7 7 , pp. 2 5 - 6 .
24 See Meyendorff, Introduction, p. 4 0 4 ; on the Slavic transi., see G. Prokhorov, ibid.,
pp. 13 - 1 6 ; some theological writings of Palamas himself, including a short treatise
against Akindynos and his Confession offaith were translated in Bulgaria (see M. G.
Popruzhenko, Tz istorii religioznago dvizheniya v Bolgarii v X lV -m veke’,
Slavia, 7 ( 1928 - 9 ), pp. 5 3 6 - 4 8 and particularly K. Ivanova-Konstantinova,
‘Nyakoi momenti na Bulgaro-Vizantiiskite svyazi5, Starobulgarska Literatura, 1,
Sofia, 1 9 7 1, pp. 2 0 9 - 4 2 .
25 Cf. G. Prokhorov, ‘Prenie Grigoriya Palamy “s khiony i turki” i problema “zhidov-
skaya mudrstvuyushchikh” *, TODRL, xxvir, 1 9 7 2 , pp. 3 2 9 - 6 9 .
26 Cf. Popov, Obzor; Pavlov, Opyty.
125

Slavs. Among secular texts reaching Russia, there is an absolute
predominance o f chronicles and other historical texts, and prac-
tically no philosophical or scientific materials . 27
Under such circumstances, in what sense can one say that the
Talaeologan Renaissance 5 influenced the Slavs at all? As we have
noted earlier, the term ‘Renaissance 5 is already misleading when
applied to fourteenth-century Byzantium. It becomes even more
ambiguous in the Slavic context. In Byzantium, the humanists
who cultivated the literary and intellectual traditions o f Greek
antiquity were a narrow élite, increasingly attracted by the West.
Their connections with the Slavic world were non-existent, or
tenuous. O ne known exception is the interest o f Nicephorus
Gregoras in the affairs o f the Russian Church and his possibly
personal contacts with Metropolitan Theognostos o f Kiev and all
Russia ( 1 3 2 8 - 5 3 ), whom he mentions as a ‘wise and God-loving
man 5. 28 Theognostos, according to Gregoras, having received the
Palamite Tomes, recognized in them nothing but ‘Hellenic poly-
theism 5 ('EXXtqvixtjv 7ToXu0etav), ‘threw them on the ground and
refused to hear their content5. Gregoras further asserts that the
metropolitan composed long refutations o f Palamite theology, sent
them to the patriarch (obviously John Calecas) and the Synod,
including appropriate anathemas against the Palamites . 29
If the event described by Gregoras really took place,30 it would
be the only case of a Byzantine Church leader in Slavic lands tak-
ing part, on the anti-Palamite side, in the theological controversies
of the fourteenth century. One could presume that Gregoras has
in mind an act of official support by Theognostos of the anathemas
launched against Palamas by Patriarch John Calecas in 1344, and
which was presumably required from all the metropolitans of the
patriarchate, since the anathemas were proclaimed officially by
the patriarch and the synod.31 Even if Theognostos did support
27 R. P. Dmitrieva, ‘Svetskaya literatura v sostave monastyrskikh bibliotek XV i
XVI w . (Kirillo-Belozerskogo, Volokolamskogo monastyrei i Troitse-Sergievoi
Lavry)’, TODRL, x x i i i , 1 9 6 8 , pp. 1 4 3 - 7 0 .
28 Hist. Byz. xxxvi, 2 4 , Bonn, in, p. 5 1 3 . 29 Ibid., xxvi, 4 7 , p. 1 1 4 .
30 Gregoras was an emotional and partial adversary of the Palamites and ‘was apt
at times to select and twist the facts to conform with his political aims’, Obolensky,
‘Byzantium, Kiev and Moscow’, p. 2 9 . His information about the anti-Palamite
actions of Theognostos finds no confirmation in any other contemporary source:
however, the arguments proposed by A. Tachiaos to show that Theognostos was
an all-time friend of Cantacuzenos and therefore a supporter of Palamism even in
13 4 1 - 7 are based on conjectures only (see ’E 7ri§pà<j£iç, pp. 17 - 2 9 ).
31 Cf. Meyendorff, Introduction, pp. 1 1 0 - 1 2 (A Study, pp. 7 3 - 5 ). In that case, the
Palamite ‘Tomes’ mentioned by Gregoras, as condemned by Theognostos, are the
Haghioretic Tome and the Tome of 1 3 4 1 . This, however, may imply a contradiction,
126
AFTER THE FALL 455
Cultural ties
the official policies o f the patriarchate in 1 3 4 4 , there is no evidence
whatsoever that he had any conflict with the hesychast patriarchs
Isidore, Callistos and Philo theos, until his death in 1 3 5 3 , or that
he gave any support to the group of anti-Palamite bishops led by
M atthew of Ephesus (whom Theognostos must have known, since
M atthew had travelled to Russia in 1 3 3 1 - 2 ) 32 who opposed
Palamism after 1 3 4 7 . 33
There is therefore no reason to believe that anybody promoted
in Russia those intellectual trends which make up the so-called
‘Palaeologan Renaissance 5 in Byzantium, whereas there is ample
evidence of a massive influx o f traditional hesychastic literature,
w hich was accepted readily and without any need for theological
polemics. If polemics there were, they occurred on a level quite
different from the learned disputations between Byzantine theo-
logians. Thus, a Novgorodian Chronicle, under the year 1 3 4 7 ,
reproduces the text o f a letter o f Archbishop Basil Kalika of
Novgorod to his colleague, Bishop Theodore o f Tver, trying to
prove the existence o f an ‘earthly paradise 5: 34 the text implies that,
in Tver, this existence (in a geographically determinable sense)
was denied. The arguments used on both sides closely followed the
concepts, current in ascetical literature, o f a spiritual paradise
(TOxpdcSeiaoç v o y j t o ç ) accessible in the personal experience o f the
saints. Both sides also believed that God5s creation as a whole is, in
some sense, incorruptible. Attempts at identifying this very rudi-
mentary controversy between Russian bishops and the theological
debates between Palamites and anti-Palam ites 35 clearly led
nowhere. Neither Basil nor Theodore opposes the reality o f a real
vision of divine light: their difference lies only in the field o f
‘mystical geography5. O ne can only note the increased use o f a
mystical terminology, the recurrence o f references to spiritual
experience and to the vision o f light by the disciples on the M ount
o f Transfiguration which appear in the Letter o f Basil Kalika, and
illustrate the atmosphere which existed in Russia under the impact
damaging to Gregoras’ credibility: Patriarch John Galecas did not anathematize
the Tome of 1341 (which he had signed himself), but attempted to interpret it in
an anti-Palamite sense.
32 Kourouses, roc(3aXàç, pp. 2 4 8 - 5 2 .
33 J. Meyendorff, op. cit., pp. 13 2 - 4 , 1 5 2 - 3 ; our present-day knowledge of the history
of the events of this period eliminate the arguments of A. D. Sedel'nikov in favour
of an anti-Palamite reaction of Theognostos after 13 5 1 (cf. ‘Motiv o rae v russkom
srednevekovom prenii’, Byzantinoslavica, vn, 1 9 3 7 -9 5 pp. 1 6 4 - 6 ); on this point see
also A. Tachiaos, ’EmSpâaeiç, pp. 17 -Í29 .
34 PSRL, m, second edition, St Petersburg, 1 8 7 9 , pp. 2 2 4 - 3 0 .
35 As in A. D. Sedel'nikov, ibid., pp. 1 6 9 - 7 2 .
127
Byzantium and the Rise oj Russia

o f Byzantine Hesychasm. As shown also by other signs, such as the
remarkable revival o f monasticism, Hesychasm was bringing to
Russia a more personal form o f religion, which was promoting not
only monastic spirituality as such, but also ideas on the deification
o f the body and transfiguration o f the entire creation . 36
I f one uses the term ‘Renaissance 5 to designate this greater
personalism and creativity - and not in the more widely accepted
context of a revival o f Greek antiquity - one can indeed under-
stand the term Cpre-Renaissance 5 used by D. S. Likhachev to
designate the cultural developments in Byzantium, in South-
Slavic lands, and in Russia in the fourteenth century, a cpre-
Renaissance5 which, however, neither in Byzantium nor in Russia
(for admittedly different reasons) became a ‘Renaissance 5. 37
2. C H A N N E L S OF C O M M U N I C A T I O N
Constantine o f Kostenets, a Bulgarian monk writing in Serbia

around a . d . 1 4 1 8 and criticizing the incompetence o f copyists,
proclaims that only those Slavic texts can be relied upon which
were copied in Trnovo, or on M ount Athos, and which are pro-
perly imitating Greek models in content and in style . 3 8 There is no
doubt that Constantine was pointing to the two major centres of
distribution of Slavic manuscripts in the fourteenth century.
Since the pioneering works o f K . Th. Radchenko 39 and
P. Syrku, 40 the Bulgarian empire of TsarJohn Alexander ( 1 3 3 1 - 7 1 ),
with its capital in Trnovo, has been justly recognized as a major
workshop for the penetration o f Byzantine ideas, texts and per-
sonalities into the Slavic world. Liturgical texts and monastic
literature (including hagiography) constitute, as we have already
seen, the two major areas o f this penetration. The beginning o f the
hesychastic revival in Bulgaria is generally associated with the
36 Cf. my observations on this point in Introduction, pp. 1 9 5 - 2 5 6 (A Study, pp. 1 3 4 - 8 4 ) ;
also in cO vizantiiskom isikhazme’, pp. 2 9 5 - 7 .
37 The concept of a ‘pre-Renaissance’ repeatedly occurs in recently published works
by D. S. Likhachev. For a most comprehensive statement see Razvitie russkoi
literatury X-XIII vv. Epokhi i stili, Leningrad, 1 9 7 3 , pp. 7 5 - 1 2 7 ; cf. also his earlier
study ‘Predvozrozhdenie na Rusi v kontse XIV-pervoy polovine XV veka’,
Literatura epokhi Vozrozhdeniya iproblemy vsemirnoi literatury, Moscow, 1 9 6 4 , pp. 1 3 9 —
82.
38 On these ideas of Constantine, see D. Obolensky, ibid., p. 1 7 .
39 Religioznoe i literaturnoe dvizhenie v Bolgarii v epokhu pered Turetskim zavoevaniem, Kiev,
1898.
40 K istorii ispravleniya; see also M. Heppel, ‘The Hesychast Movement in Bulgaria:
the Tumovo School and its relations with Constantinople’, Eastern Churches Review,
7 > i975> PP- 9-20.
128
AFTER THE FALL 457
Cultural ties
name o f St Gregory of Sinai, whose Life was written by Patriarch
Callistos o f Constantinople . 41 H aving lived on M ount Athos,
Gregory, in 1 3 2 5 - 8 , moved to Paroria, over the Bulgarian border,
where he established a monastic centre. From there, hesychastic
spirituality spread throughout the Balkans, including the Rom an-
ian lands . 42 Callistos3 Bulgarian disciple, Theodosius, established
another monastery in Kilifarevo, where he was joined, and
eventually succeeded by, Ethymius, later patriarch o f Trnovo
(i 3 7 5 - 9 3 ). One of the major concerns o f these monastic leaders in
Bulgaria was the translation o f Greek texts into Slavic. In Russia,
the number of Byzantine literary texts available in translation
from the Greek, doubled between the years 1 3 5 0 and 1 4 5 0 : this
was largely due to translations imported from Bulgaria . 43 More
than anyone, Metropolitan Cyprian - whose career in Russia will
be discussed later - contributed to this importation: a Bulgarian
by birth, he personally spent much energy in translating Greek
texts, copying manuscripts and transmitting Byzantine ideas and
usage . 44 In 1 3 7 9 , he made a solemn visit to Trnovo, where he was
graciously received by Patriarch Euthymius . 45 During the patri-
archate o f Euthymius, the Bulgarian capital, Trnovo, had become a
major centre of communication between Byzantine traditions and
Slavic lands, and one understands w hy Constantine Kostenets
referred to it as one of the two major centres for the production of
Slavic manuscripts.
The second centre mentioned by Constantine is more ancient
and m ore traditional. Since the tenth century, M ount Athos has
been not only a place o f prayer and contemplation, but a point of
cultural encounter between Greek, Slavic, Georgian, Syrian and,
even, Latin monks. In the fourteenth century, the history o f Athos
is marked by the revival o f Hesychasm, but also by a renewed
41 Ed. I. Pomyalovsky, in Zapiski ist.-jil fakul'teta Sanktpeterburzhskago Universiteta,
xxxv, 1 8 9 6 , pp. 1 - 6 4 .
42 See particularly E. Turdeanu, La littérature bulgare du XlVe siècle et sa diffusion dans les
pays roumains, Paris, 1 9 4 7 , pp. 5 —1 5 .
43 A. I. Sobolevsky, Perevodnaya literatura, pp. 1- 1 4 .
44 Cf. particularly Dmitriev, ‘Rol' i znachenie’, pp. 2 1 5 —5 4 ; also I. Ivanov, ‘Bulgars-
koto knizhovno vliyanie v Rusiya pri mitropolit Kiprian’, Izvestiya na Institut za
bülgarska literatura, vi, Sophia, 1 9 5 8 . For an older, and also more critical view see
N. N. Glubokovsky, ‘Sv. Kiprian, mitropolit vseya Rossii ( 1 3 7 4 - 1 4 0 6 ), kak
pisatel'5, Chteniya v Obshchestve istorii i drevnostei rossiiskikh, 1 8 9 2 , 1, January, pp.
358- 424.
45 This visit to ‘the church which nourished and instructed us’ and to its ‘father*
(Patriarch Euthymius) is mentioned by another Bulgarian, Gregory Tsamblak,
who also became metropolitan of Kiev, in his Encomion of Cyprian (ed. Angelov in
Iz starata, p. 18 3 ).
I2 9

Slavic presence, connected primarily with Serbian predominance
in the Balkan peninsula. Connections between Mount Athos and
Serbia were very tight since the time o f St Sava, the founder of the
Serbian Church, whose early career was spent on M ount Athos:
both in terms o f Byzantino-Slavic relations and in terms o f pro-
duction o f Slavic manuscripts, the Serbian Athonite monastery of
Khilandari supersedes Zographou, its Bulgarian counterpart . 46
One should remember, however, that ethnic distinctions between
Slavic monks, especially on M ount Athos, were rarely emphasized,
that close personal contacts existed between the various local
branches o f the hesychast revival and that the Serbian empire of
Stefan Dusan, which exercised its sovereignty over Athos , 47 was
deliberately multiethnic. In any case, either in its Serbian, or in
its Bulgarian version, the Slavic monastic presence on Mount
Athos had a decisive influence in the Balkans : ‘The entire history
of the South-Slavic literatures is, in effect, a history of greater or
lesser impacts by Athonite ideals upon the spiritual culture o f
Orthodox Slavdom in the Balkan peninsula . ’ 48 In fact, all the
leaders of the Bulgarian literary renaissance - including Theo-
dosius, Euthymius and Cyprian o f K iev - were Athonite monks,
and their activities in Slavic lands were pursued in close contact
with other Athonite Hesychasts - Callistos and Philotheos - who
had become patriarchs o f Constantinople.
Contacts between M ount Athos and Russia were also numerous,
both through the presence o f Russian monks on the cH oly Moun-
tain 5 and through the mediation o f Southern Slavs. However,
Russians did also have direct connections in Constantinople itself,
which appear, in the fourteenth century, to be even better estab-
lished than those o f the Southern Slavs. Permanent quarters were
reserved in the city for the Russians, who occasionally shared them
with Serbians and Bulgarians. No evidence exists on the possible
direct continuity with earlier Russian settlements in the capital
city - commercial, diplomatic or military - which are well docu-
mented for the K ievan period, but the needs created by the
administrative dependence o f the metropolitanate o f Russia upon
46 Moshin, ‘O periodizatsii’j p. 9 4 .
47 For a list of the various largesses bestowed by Dushan upon the monasteries, see
I. Dujcev, ‘Le Mont-Athos et les Slavs du Moyen Age’, Le Millénaire du Mont-Athos,
9 6 3 - 1 9 6 3 , 11, Chevetogne, 1 9 6 4 , pp. 13 8 - 9 .
48 G. A. ïl'insky, ‘Znachenie Athona v istorii slavyanskoi pis'mennosti’ ZhMNP,
1 9 0 8 , No. 1 1 , p. 3 8 ; cf. the more recent and very complete survey of the Slavic
presence on Mount Athos in the fourteenth century by Dujcev, ‘Tsentry’, pp.
12 1 - 9 .
I3 0
AFTER THE FALL 459
Cultural ties
the patriarchate and the constant travelling o f diplomats and
pilgrims between Constantinople and its huge ecclesiastical depen-
dence in the north are quite sufficient to explain the existence of
‘Russian quarters’ in the city during the Palaeologan period.
W hen, on 2 8 June 1 3 8 9 , Ignatius o f Smolensk, who was accom-
panying Metropolitan Pimen on his voyage to Byzantium, reached
Constantinople, he was greeted by ‘the Russians who lived there’
(Rus' zhivushchaya tamo) . 49 The same author informs us that Rus-
sians (presumably, but not necessarily monks) living at the
monastery of St John the Baptist o f Studios entertained the
visitors. 50 Other sources signal the presence at the Studios o f
Euthymius (later patriarch o f Trnovo) and of Cyprian o f Kiev.
Another Russian monk, St Athanasius o f Vysotsk lived in Studios
after 1 4 0 1 . Occasionally, one finds mention o f the presence o f the
same monks at the monasteries o f the Virgin Perivleptos and o f St
Mamas, which was made famous in the eleventh century by the
mystic St Symeon the New T heologian . 51 W e also have material
evidence of the presence o f Russian scribes at the Studios - where
Metropolitan Cyprian in 1 3 8 7 personally copied the Ladder of
Paradise by St John Climacus - and at the Perivleptos. O f ten
manuscripts found in Russia and known to have been copied in
Constantinople at the end o f the fourteenth and at the beginning
of the fifteenth century, two were executed at the Studios, five at
the Perivleptos. 52 One understands, therefore, that the monastery
of Studios is associated by another Russian pilgrim, Stephen o f
Novgorod, with books coming to Russia . 53 It appears, therefore,
that the area where all three monasteries o f Studios, St Mamas
and the Perivleptos were located —i.e., the south-western corner
o f the walled city of Constantinople - was the Russian (and Slavic)
quarter, a home for Russian monks and pilgrims, a place for
literary contacts and personal friendships, which did play an
49 Nik., p. 9 9 ; the account of Ignatius, together with those of other Russian pilgrims
to Constantinople - a very important source for the history of the period - will be
the subject of a forthcoming publication by George P. Majeska, Russian Travellers
to Constantinople in the 1 4 th and the 1 5 th centuries, in the collection of Dumbarton Oaks
Studies.
50 Ibid. (tamo zhivushchaya Rus').
51 The sources concerning the presence of Slavic monks in the three monasteries
are conveniently referred to in I. Dujcev, ibid., pp. 1 1 4 —1 5 .
52 Vzdornov, ‘Rol' masterskikh’, pp. 1 8 9 - 9 4 . See also G. I. Vzdornov’s excellent
and very full review of literary contacts between Byzantium and Russia in
Issledovanie 0 kievskoy Psaltiri, Moscow, 1 9 7 8 , pp. 8 0 - 9 1 .
53 Stephen attributes the sending of these books to St Theodore of Studios himself,
an obvious anachronism (Speransky, Iz istorii, p. 5 6 ).
131

important role in Byzantino-Russian relations in the fourteenth
century.
Finally, as we have seen earlier, numerous travellers journeyed
back and forth between Constantinople and northern Russia.
These included Russian metropolitans seeking confirmation and
consecration by the patriarch, Greek prelates appointed to the
metropolitanate o f K iev and, occasionally, returning home for
officiai or personal business, bishops - particularly the bishop of
Sarai - invested with diplomatic assignments, Russian monks
seeking to witness monastic life in the M iddle East, Greek artists
(including the great Theophanes) hired to decorate Russian
churches. Five Russian pilgrims, who visited Constantinople in the
late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, have left accounts of
their visits. 54 In M oscow there seems to have existed a Greek
monastery, St Nicholas, and direct ties with Constantinople
existed at the monasteries Bogoyavlensky and Simonovsky , 55
so that at least some Russian churchmen were able to learn
Greek.
3. RUSSIAN MONASTICAM: ST S E R G I U S ,
ST S T E P H E N OF P E R M
The extraordinary revival o f monasticism in northern Russia in

the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries cannot be fully under-
stood, except in the context o f the renewed contacts with Byzan-
tium and the Southern Slavs. In the absence o f much positive
information about monastic life after its forced interruption in
Kiev by the Tatar onslaught in 1 2 4 0 , one must suppose that a
serious decline took place in the thirteenth century, to be followed
by a spectacular revival connected with the name o f St Sergius o f
Radonezh (c. 1 3 1 4 —9 2 ) and those o f his practically innumerable
disciples : during the second h alf o f the fourteenth century and the
first decades o f the fifteenth over 1 5 0 new monasteries were foun-
ded in the forests o f northern Russia . 56
54 These are Stephen of Novgorod (ed. M. N. Speransky, ed. cit., pp. 5 0 - 9 ), an
Anonymous of the early fourteenth century (ed. M. N. Speransky, ibid., pp.
12 8 - 3 7 ), Ignatius of Smolensk (ed. S. V. Arsen'ev, in PPS, i r , 3 , St Petersburg,
1 8 8 7 , pp. 1- 3 3 ), Alexander the diak (PSRL, 4 , St Petersburg, 1 8 4 8 , pp. 3 5 7 - 8 ) and
the monk, Zosima (ed. Kh. Loparev in PPS, vm, 3 , St Petersburg, 1 8 8 9 , PP- 1- 2 6 ).
55 Gf. Tikhomirov, Svyazi, pp. 1 8 - 1 9 , 2 4 .
56 Ikonnikov, 0 kul'turnom znaehenii, p. 1 1 9 ; for a general survey of monastic history
in Russia during that period, see I. Smolitsch, Russisches Mônchtum. Enstehung,
Entwicklung und Wesen, g 8 8 -ig iy , Würzburg, 1 9 5 3 , pp. 7 9 - 1 0 0 ; also Fedotov,
Religious Mind, 11, pp. 1 9 5 - 2 6 4 .
I3 2
AFTER THE FALL 461
Cultural ties
T he personality o f St Sergius is known to us primarily through
his Life, written originally by his disciple and contemporary,
Epiphanius the ‘Wise’ in 1 4 1 8 and later re-edited by an immigrant
from the Balkans, Pachomius the Serb in 1 4 4 0 - 5 9 . Both o f these
authors are themselves representative witnesses o f Byzantine and
South Slavic ideas and literary forms adopted in Russia: Epi-
phanius by his ornamented style (pletenie sloves) and Pachomius by
his deliberate emphasis on such character traits o f hesychast
literature as the vision o f divine light . 57 T he respective contribu-
tions o f Epiphanius and o f Pachomius to the very m any manuscript
versions o f the Life are not fully deciphered yet , 58 but the figure of
St Sergius himself emerges with sufficient clarity . 59
Following the ideals o f early Christian monasticism, Sergius
lives for years in complete ‘solitude’ (the Life uses the term
bezmolvie, the Slavic equivalent o f the Greek Yjcsn>xia) in the
‘desert5 - which, in Russia, was in fact a forest —north o f Moscow,
where he established friendship with a bear. Endowed with great
physical strength, he excelled in manual work, particularly car-
pentry. Against his will, he was eventually forced by circumstances
to accept the company o f other monks. H e was then ordained a
priest and became abbot o f a big monastery, H oly Trinity. H ow-
ever, even in this new position o f authority, he continued to work
with his hands, to wear rags and to enforce, more by his own per-
sonal example than by acts o f authority, the ideals o f monastic
poverty ánd detachment among his brothers, the monks. In 1 3 7 8
he refused the offer to succeed Alexis as ‘M etropolitan o f K iev and
all R us'5.
T he Life of Sergius always emphasizes his simplicity, humility
and brotherly love, and presents only a few examples o f mystical,
or miraculous events. According to his biographers, his disciples
Isaac and Simon saw Sergius surrounded with divine light, while
he celebrated the eucharistic liturgy. Another disciple, Micah,
witnessed a visit to Sergius by the Virgin Mary and the apostles
Peter and John. These accounts could easily have been considered
57 On Pachomius, see particularly V. Yablonsky, Pakhomy Serb i ego agiograficheskie

pisaniya, St Petersburg, 1 9 0 8 .
58 Cf. the latest study on the subject by V. P. Zubov, ‘Epifany Premudry i Pakhomy
Serb (K voprosu o redaktsiyakh Zhitiya Sergiya Radonezhskogo) TODRL, ix,
i953> PP- 14 5 - 5 8 .
59 Cf. a shortened English version of the Life in G. P. Fedotov, A Treasury of Russian
Spirituality, New York, 1 9 5 0 (Harper Torchbook, New York, 1 9 6 5 ), pp. 5 4 - 8 3 ; cf.
also, by the same author, an excellent chapter on St Sergius in Religious Mind, 11,
pp. 1 9 5 - 2 2 9 .
133

as hagiographie clichés, if they did not fit with other facts connect-
ing Sergius with the general atmosphere created in Russia by the
hesychast influence.
While certainly not an intellectual, Sergius belongs to a milieu
concerned with books and theology: as a boy, he miraculously
learns how to read and later dedicates his Church to the cHoly
Trinity 5. 60 Moreover, he belongs to a group o f Russian monks,
who - like their Bulgarian counterparts, Theodosius and Euthy-
mius - maintain direct contacts with Constantinople. In the case
of Sergius, these contacts illustrate the fact, which we have noted
above, that the term ‘Hesychasm5, applied to the religious
‘zealotism 5 in Eastern Europe in the fourteenth century, can be
used only in its broadest sense. W hile practising eremitism and
solitude, Sergius does not consider it as the only desirable form of
monasticism. After a direct correspondence with Patriarch Philo-
theos himself, he introduced community discipline at H oly Trinity.
It is unlikely that the text o f the letter by Patriarch Philotheos
to Sergius, found in the Life, is the actual text sent from Con-
stantinople 61 but the very detailed account o f the episode by
Epiphanius — Sergius5 contemporary - is certain proof that the
monastery o f the H oly Trinity cherished its connections with
Byzantium, particularly with the hesychast Patriarch Philotheos,
and respected the disciplinary and liturgical reforms introduced
by him. Another patriarchal letter, undoubtedly authentic, and
whose addressee was most probably Sergius, called the community
to obedience after it had resisted the introduction o f cenobitism . 62
60 On this see S. Bulgakov, ‘Bladodatnye zavety prep. Sergiya russkomu bogoslov-

stvovaniyu’. Put', 5 , Paris, 1 9 2 6 , pp. 3 - 1 9 .
61 Slavic text in the Life, ed. N. S. Tikhonravov, Drevniya £hitiya prepodobnago Sergiya
Radonezhskogo, Moscow, 1 8 9 2 (repr. with a useful introduction by L. Müller,
Munich, 1 9 6 7 ), pp. 4 4 - 5 ; Engl. tr. in G. P. Fedotov, A Treasury, p. 7 3 ; tentative
rerendering into Greek in A. Tachiaos, 5E 7uSpàa£iç, p. 4 8 . E. E. Golubinsky is
certainly right in supposing that the introduction of community life at Hbly
Trinity did not come about through the surprise arrival of a short patriarchal
letter (as the Life recounts it), but followed some debate and correspondence
involving the patriarch, Metropolitan Alexis (whom Sergius, according to the
Life, asks to translate the letter from the Greek) and St Sergius himself (E. E.
Golubinsky, Prep. Sergy Radonezhsky i sozdannaya im Troitskaya Lavra, Moscow,
1 8 9 2 , pp. 2 2 - 3 ).
62 RIB, vi, 2 1 , cols. 1 8 7 - 9 0 . The editor, A. Pavlov, identifies the author of the letter
as Patriarch Neilos ( 1 3 7 9 - 8 8 ). However the mention of the patriarchal deacon
Georges Perdikes, whose trip to Russia in 1 361 is firmly documented, points
rather at Patriarch Callistos (second patriarchate, 1 3 5 4 - 6 3 ) as the author (cf.
A. Tachiaos, ’E 7uSpàcj£iç, pp. 5 2 - 5 ). Perdikes had been to Russia also in 1 3 5 4
(MM, I , p. 3 4 9 ) and may have been the patriarchal envoy who brought to Sergius
the letter of Philotheos as well. A small golden cross which, according to tradition,
134
AFTER THE FALL 463
Cultural ties
W e will see below that St Sergius belonged to the group o f monks
who kept in close touch with Metropolitan Cyprian, whom
Philotheos had appointed to succeed Alexis. Before coming to
Moscow in 1 3 7 8 , Cyprian notified St Sergius and his nephew, the
abbot o f Simonovsky monastery, Theodore, o f his arrival63 and,
after his expulsion from Moscow, complained again to the same
monks o f his misadventure. 64
This particular episode involves the problems o f Sergius 5 politi-
cal commitments and activities, which cannot be fully understood
without a discussion o f the extremely complex situation which
prevailed in the relationships between the Grand-princes o f Mos-
cow and Lithuania, the various Russian principalities, which
gravitated in their orbit, and the khans o f the Golden Horde. There
is no doubt that, especially after the support he received both from
the patriarchate and from M etropolitan Alexis in building up a
disciplined community at H oly Trinity ( 1 3 6 3 ), Sergius remained
in close touch with the Muscovite court, became the God-father of
two o f Grand-prince Dimitri’s sons and accomplished for him
several diplomatic missions, including the conclusion o f an ‘eternal
peace 5 between Moscow and Ryazan in 1 3 8 5 . 65 M uch more ques-
tionable was his mission o f 1 3 6 3 to Nizhni-Novgorod, where
Prince Boris, with Tatar help, was challenging M oscow’s authori-
ties. On the orders from M etropolitan Alexis, who headed the
Muscovite government, he became part o f a delegation which
closed all the churches in the city, applying a sanction frequently
used in the Latin West, but unknown in Eastern tradition . 66 This
controversial episode, which took place at the very beginning o f
Sergius5 friendship with Moscow, is not reported in the Life of
Epiphanius, and most chronicles om it Sergius 5 name when they
list the members of the delegation. Clearly, the authors did not
consider that the visit to Nizhni-Novgorod contributed to St
Sergius5 holiness or historical merits. These omissions and other
indications point to the fact that the loyalties o f Sergius and his
circle to Moscow were not unconditional. Pachomios recalls the
was brought as a gift of patriarch Philotheos to St Sergius and was venerated as
such at the Trinity monastery, seems to be a piece of Russian, fifteenth-century
craft (cf. however, a plea for its possible authenticity in O. A. Belobrova, ‘Posol'stvo
Konstantinopol'skogo patriarkha Filofeya k Sergiyu Radonezhskomu’, Soobsch-
cheniya âgorskogo gosudarstvennogo istoriko-khudozhstvennogo muzeya-zapovednika,
Zagorsk, 1 9 5 8 , pp. 12 - 1 8 ).
63 Text in PS, i 8 6 0 , No. 2 , pp. 8 4 ; cf. below, app. 7 , pp. 2 9 2 .
64 Text in RIB, vi, cols. 1 7 3 - 8 6 ; cf. below, app. 8 , pp. 2 9 3 - 9 .
65 Rog., col. 1 5 1 .
66 On this episode, see Fedotov, Religious Mind, 11, 2 2 5 - 6 .
I35

‘great oppression 5 suffered by the city o f Rostov under Moscow5s
rule, which obliged Sergius5 family to leave for Radonezh. On the
other hand, we have seen the ties o f the monastic group, headed
by Sergius, with M etropolitan Cyprian who opposed the creation,
in Moscow, o f a separate metropolitanate without jurisdiction over
the entire territory o f ‘Russia5. And one wonders whether it is pure
coincidence that the most famous of all patriotic acts of St Sergius
- the blessing bestowed upon Grand-prince Dimitri before his
battle against the Tatars in 1 3 8 0 - was followed by the return of
Cyprian to Moscow and his acceptance by Dimitri. There are
many reasons to believe, therefore, that Sergius5 political position
corresponded to that o f Cyprian: while approving Moscow's claim
of leadership in Russia, he did not approve either Muscovite or
Lithuanian separation from the broader unity inherited from
Kievan times and strengthened by the Byzantine connection.
The great spiritual potentials which were emerging in the
framework o f the religious revival o f the fourteenth century are
seen not only in the unparalleled significance o f St Sergius, as the
patriarch o f Russian monastic revival, with his human traits and
gifts for leadership, but also in the case o f his contemporary, St
Stephen o f Perm, scholar and missionary ( 1 3 4 0 - 9 6 ). His biog-
raphy, as that o f his friend Sergius, was written by the same
Epiphanius the Wise, monk at H oly T rinity . 67 In the case o f St
Stephen, we discover that Greek manuscripts and their Slavic
translations, which were reaching Russia in great numbers, could
have a remarkable effect on some gifted and curious Russian
minds. Epiphanius informs us that Stephen, the son o f a cleric o f
Ustyug - a city in the remote north-east, located on the Dvina
river, the ‘land o f m idnight5, according to the biographer - could
learn at home ‘all the literary art and the power o f books 5 (vsei
gramotichnei khytrosti i knizhnei sile). 6 8 Eventually, Stephen received
monastic tonsure in Rostov, under the sponsorship o f the bishop
of Rostov, Parthenios, presumably a Greek . 6 9 In his monastery
there were many books, which he perused with diligence, and
acquired the reputation o f a good copyist (svyatyya knigi pisashe
khytre i gorazde i borzo). H e also learned Greek and always kept
Greek books in his cell . 70 This newly acquired knowledge allowed
him to become an apostle to the Zyrians, a Finnish people living
67 Ed. E. V. Druzhinin, Moscow, 1 8 9 7 ; repr. D. Cizevskij , JÇ/iitie su. Stejana episkopa

Permskogo (Apophoreta Slavica 11), 's-Gravenhage, 1 9 5 9 .
68 Ed. cit., p. 5 . 69 Cf. Golubinsky, Istoriya, 11, i, p. 2 6 7 .
70 Ed. cit., p. 8 .
136
AFTER THE FALL 465
Cultural ties
in the region of Perm, for whom he translated Scripture and litur-
gical books, as Saints Cyril and Methodius did for the benefit o f the
Slavs. His mission began in 1 3 7 8 - 9 , the year o f the death o f
Metropolitan Alexis, when he was ordained a priest. T he Zyrian
alphabet, which he invented, was a totally original creation, quite
unlike either the Greek or the Slavic script. In 1 3 8 3 , he was conse-
crated bishop by Metropolitan Pimen. Before his death in 1 3 9 6 ,
he wrote a refutation o f the Strigolniks, a heretical, anti-institu-
tional sect possibly connected w ith the Bogomils, or Cathars . 71
Comparing Stephen’s missionary activity to that o f the early
apostles of Christianity, Epiphanius gives examples o f his own
learning, quoting Byzantine sources to illustrate the universality o f
Christendom. At the end o f the Life, he paraphrases the famous
sermon of Hilarión o f K iev addressed to Vladim ir and applies it to
Stephen: ‘The Rom an land praises the two apostles Peter and
Paul; the land o f Asia honours and blesses John the Theologian;
Egypt, Mark the Evangelist; Antioch, Luke, writer o f the Gospel;
Greece, the apostle Andrew; the land o f the Rus', the great prince
Vladimir who baptised it; M oscow venerates and honours Peter,
its metropolitan, as its new wonderworker; the land o f Rostov, its
bishop Leonty; but you, O bishop Stephen, you receive the praises
o f the land of Perm, for through you we were shown the light .’ 72
Also, recounting his death, Epiphanius makes a significant re-
affirmation of his world-view. St Stephen’s demise occurred:
During the reign of the O rthodox Greek Em peror [Tsar] M anuel,

reigning in the Queen of cities, under Patriarch Anthony, Archbishop
of Constantinople, under Patriarchs Dorotheos of Jerusalem , M ark of
Alexandria, Neilos of Antioch, under the O rthodox Grand-prince Basil
Dmitrievich of all Russia, in the seventh year of his tenure, under
Archbishop Cyprian, M etropolitan of all Russia, who was in Kiev in
those days [of Stephen’s death], under the other pious and Christ-
loving princes [list of names, which include Vitovt, ‘grand-prince’ of
Lithuania who is not designated as 'Christ loving5, and the Grand-prince
M ichael of Tver], in the sixteenth year of the rule of tsar Tokhtamysh,
who also controlled the horde of M am aï, whereas a second tsar, Temir
Qutlug, ruled the empire beyond the V olga.73
71 Ed. in RIB, vi, cols. 2 1 1 - 2 8 . 72 Ed. cit., pp. 8 9 - 9 0 .

73 Ed. cit., p. 8 5 . On the use of the title tsar for both the Byzantine emperors and the
Tatar khans, Cherniavsky, £Khan or jBasileus3. One should note, however, the
clearly ‘Byzantine’ conception of Epiphanius which emphasizes the orthodoxy,
universality and uniqueness of the emperor of Constantinople, and the distinctive-
ness of his reign (tsarstvo), from the de facto rule (vladychestvo) of the several Tatar
khans.
137

Clearly, there was a unity o f ideology and inspiration between
the concerns and activities o f Greek and Russian monks in the
fourteenth century, which included ideological faithfulness to the
Byzantine ‘Comm onwealth5, renewed interest in Byzantine literary
traditions and books, a sense of legitimate cultural pluralism,
religious revival and missionary expansion.
4 . HESYGHASM AND ART
No written docum ent explicitly bears witness to the connections

which may, or m ay not have existed between the intellectual and
religious movements in Byzantium during the Palaeologan period,
and the development o f pictorial arts. Nevertheless, the issue is
often raised by art historians. W hat is the cultural and religious
background o f the so-called ‘Palaeologan Renaissance5, which led
Byzantine and Slavic artists to a more innovative style, to greater
closeness to life, to im itation o f antique models? In reference to
Byzantine painters o f the late thirteenth and early fourteenth cen-
turies, André Grabar writes: ‘We see them foreshadowing the
discoveries o f Cavallini and Giotto, and at the same time those of
the Italian painters o f the fifteenth century who will revive the
great style o f classical painting . 574
Most specialists tend to associate this artistic development with
the revival, in late Byzantine society, o f interest in classical
Antiquity. This view m ay find confirmation in the fact that, during
that period, most religious foundations ‘were instituted by repre-
sentatives o f the most illustrious and powerful of the noble
families . . . , repositories o f wealth and power5, and as we have
seen earlier, it is in the same rather narrow and sophisticated
milieu that the study o f antiquity was also promoted. T he example
o f Theodore M etochites, a noted and wealthy scholar-humanist,
renovating the monastery o f the Chora in Constantinople, comes
immediately to mind. Scholars who endorse this view also gener-
ally believe that the victory o f the Hesychasts at the councils o f
1 3 4 1 , 1 3 4 7 and 1 3 5 1 was detrimental to the development o f the
artistic ‘Renaissance5. Indeed, art historians detect, precisely in
the middle o f the fourteenth century, a change in the artistic pat-
terns and style. ‘T he modest innovations o f the preceding period
are not relinquished, but no new ones are made5, and this is
explained by the triumph o f ‘monastic rigorism5, the belief, sup-
74 ‘The artistic climate in Byzantium during the Palaeologan period’, in P. A.
Underwood, ed., The Kariye Djami, vol. 4, Princeton, N .J., 1975, pp. 7- 8 .
138
AFTER THE FALL 467
Cultural ties
ported by Palamite theology, that God could be known ‘directly5,
through a life of piety in the bosom o f the Church and through the
sacraments that lead every believer to a mystic communion with
Christ. . . . 5 ‘A program o f this kind, which would conform to the
Byzantine traditions o f the early M iddle Ages, obviously cut
religious art off from real life and prevented it from renewing itself
by means of individual initiative . ’ 75
This view o f Hesychasm as having had a stifling effect on
artistic style can find further support in the fact that monks
preached and practised poverty, and could not, therefore, sympa-
thize with the extraordinary expenses required for mosaic decora-
tions, or other works o f art: some of them, including Patriarch
Athanasius I and Gregory Palamas himself, were even accused o f
iconoclasm . 76
However, this simplified scheme involves the very nature of the
so-called Palaeologan ‘Renaissance5, discussed in the preceding
chapter. It can be easily countered with other facts. Monastic
rigorism was influential much before the triumph o f Palamism in
1 3 4 1 - 5 1 and its greatest promoters, Patriarchs Arsenius and
Athanasius, dominated the Byzantine church precisely during the
very flourishing o f the ‘Renaissance5, i.e., during the early
Palaeologan period. O n the other hand, one can note that quite a
number of Byzantine humanists not only continued, after 1 3 5 1 ,
their activities and writing in Constantinople, but also enjoyed the
support of the imperial court, establishing numerous contacts with
Italy, where their artistic tastes could only be strengthened : as late
as the first half of the fifteenth century, George Gemisthos Pletho
(c. 1 3 6 0 - 1 4 5 2 ) and his disciple and friend, Bessarion of Nicaea
( 1 4 0 2 - 7 2 ) were, among several other humanists, powerful per-
sonalities indeed, and certainly enjoyed the possibility of influenc-
ing artists. Moreover, members o f the officially Palamite hierarchy,
like Patriarch Philotheos himself, referred to secular learning with
respect , 77 or, like Neilos Cabasilas, archbishop o f Thessalonica,
were ‘passionately enthusiastic about the books of Thomas
[Aquinas ] 5, 78 because o f the latter’s use o f Aristotle.
I f the Palamite victory o f 1 3 4 7 - 5 1 did not put an end to such
75 Ibid., pp. 8 9 ; cf. also V. N. Lazarev, Istoriya vizantiiskoy zhiuopisi, 1, Moscow, 1 9 4 7 ,
p. 2 2 5 . References to recent art-historical publications, expressing the same view,
could easily be multiplied.
76 Cf. Meyendorff, ‘Spiritual trends’, ibid., p. 1 0 5 .
77 Cf. his reference to Theodore Metochites, the restorer of Chora, Encomion of
Palamas, PG, c l i , cols. 5 5 9 D - 5 6 0 A.
78 Demetrius Kydones, Apologia, m, in Mercati, Notizie, p. 3 9 1 .
139

intellectual pursuits, is it really legitimate to attribute to it alone
the interruption o f the admittedly only incipient Cpre-Renaissance 5
in art? No really hard fact can be presented in support o f this
view . 79 O ne wonders whether this interruption - which art his-
torians must still define and date with greater precision than they
were able to do so far - should not rather be associated with more
general factors, political, cultural and economic, which prevailed
in decaying Byzantium during the decades which preceded its fall.
More significant still is the fact that the artistic trends which
characterize the Palaeologan period greatly flourished in Slavic
lands, where the purely Greek interests in antiquity could not be
exported. Furthermore, as we have already shown, the monastic
movement, inspired by hesychastic ideals and literature, was
largely instrumental in all the contacts which existed between
Byzantium and the Slavic lands, including particularly Russia. It
would be difficult to imagine that an art to which the monastic
milieu was supposedly hostile in a systematic way could have
acquired such great popularity and official civic and ecclesiastical
sponsorship in Slavic lands.
It would be impossible to discuss here the well-known develop-
ment of Palaeologan art throughout the predominantly monastic
churches in the Balkans in the fourteenth century. In Russia, the
chronicles signal m any artistic contacts with Constantinople: in
1 3 4 4 , for example, Greek artists brought to Russia by Metro-
politan Theognostos decorated the church o f the Dormition in the
Moscow Krem lin . 80 But by far the most famous Byzantine master
working in Russia is undoubtedly Theophanes cthe Greek5. His
career is known to us from the chronicles, but also, quite in-
terestingly, from a letter written around 1 4 1 5 by Epiphanius the
Wise, author o f the Lives o f St Sergius and St Stephen o f Perm, to
the abbot Cyril o f T ver . 81 H aving first worked in Constantinople,
79 V. N. Lazarev (Feofan Grek i ego shkola, Moscow, 1 9 6 1 , p. 2 7 ) refers to a passage
by Joseph Bryennios, supposedly criticizing ‘movement’ in iconography. The
reference is based on a mistranslation: Bryennios complains that some people
‘throw the holy icons casually, and attempt to predict the future from the trajectory
they follow’ ( k i v o u v t s ç < x t< x k tc o £ t< x ç a y i a ç e Ik Ô v o c ç , T à (xéXXovTa SyjOsv Sià t c o v
KiW][xdcTG>v aÙTc5v T£Kfjtocipô[JLeOoc, ed. E. Voulgaris, m, Leipzig, 1 7 8 4 ; repr. in L.
Oeconomos, ‘L’état intellectuel et moral des Byzantins vers le milieu du X lV e
siècle d’après une page de Joseph Bryennios’, Mélanges Ch. Diekl, 1, Paris, 1 9 3 0 ,
p. 2 2 7 ). Bryennios clearly refers to an irreverent form of fortune-telling, not to
iconographie style. 80 Troits., p. 3 6 6 .
81 The letter was first published in PS, 1 8 6 3 , in, pp. 3 2 4 - 8 , and repr. by Archim.
Leonid in PPS, v, 3 , pp. 3 - 6 . For the addressee of the letter, see A. Sedel'nikov,
‘Iz oblasti literaturnogo obshcheniya v nachale XV veka (Kirill Tverskoi i Epifany
“Moskovsky”) AN, Otd. russhogo yazyka i slov.f Izvestiya, xxxi, 1 9 2 6 , pp. 1 5 9 - 7 6 .
I4 0
AFTER THE FALL 469
Cultural ties
Chalcedon, Galata and Caffa, Theophanes came to Novgorod and
decorated, in 1 3 7 8 , the Church o f the Transfiguration, and other
monuments. H e also worked in Nizhni-Novgorod and, finally, in
Moscow, particularly in the churches o f the Annunciation and o f
the Archangel M ichael in the Kremlin. His works at the church o f
the Transfiguration in Novgorod and his iconostasis in the church
o f the Annunciation are still preserved, and have accredited his
fame as one o f the greatest painters o f all times. Always personal,
dynamic and colourful, using slightly impressionistic methods and
original compositions, reflecting a very suggestive sense o f human
psychology, Theophanes succeeds in showing m an’s quest for God
and God’s gift o f ‘deification’ to man, in an unequalled way. In
his creations, personal genius is combined w ith the best achieve-
ments o f Palaeologan art.
But where does Theophanes stand in relation to the spiritual
and cultural crisis, exemplified in the ‘hesychast controversies’ ? I f
one were to agree with those who interpret Byzantine Hesychasm
as conservative reaction, as a rejection o f the humanum for the sake
o f the divinum, as a monastic refusal o f intellectual criticism and
cultural creativity, one has no other choice than to associate
Theophanes with the ‘humanists’ and even to interpret his depar-
ture for Russia as an exile from his monastic-dominated mother-
land, similar to the flight o f several Greek humanists to Italy . 82
O ne would also have to consider that the contemporary and quite
remarkable artistic flourishing in northern Russia also reflected
the same humanism and was therefore in spiritual contradiction
with the monastic literature and ideology brought from Constan-
tinople: indeed, in 1 4 0 5 , the great Andrei R ublev worked under
Theophanes’ direction in decorating the church o f the Annuncia-
tion in Moscow . 83
However, such a violent contrast between the hesychast move-
m ent and the most creative aspects o f Palaeologan art can be
upheld only if one accepts a m uch too narrow definition o f what
the religious movement in the fourteenth century really was: we
have insisted earlier on the fact that it was a m ovem ent promoting
not the cause o f exclusive asceticism (‘Hesychasm’, as eremitic
monasticism), but wide religious, cultural and social principles. It
is quite possible that, in m any concrete instances, monastic
rigorism was detrimental to artistic creativity in the fourteenth
century, as at other times, 84 but the principles and the theology o f
82 Cf. V. N. Lazarev, ibid., pp. 1 4 - 3 4 . 83 T r o its p. 459.
84 Cf. my own observations on this point in spiritual trends*, p. 1 0 6 .
141

Palamite Hesychasm cannot be accused o f deliberately stifling
artistic creativity.
The issue of the relationship between Byzantine Hesychasm and
art inevitably involves the debate on the very nature o f the Byzan-
tine theological trends in the fourteenth century, which had been
continuing during the past two decades and which cannot be
analysed here. Whereas some consider Palamism as stifling con-
servatism, others, on the contrary, see it as an innovation, contrary
to the traditions o f Greek patristic, best upheld by Barlaam and his
disciples. 85 Also, the view has been recently expressed that the
Hesychast and Palamite insistence on the possibility o f a direct
vision of the uncreated divine light by man eliminates, as un-
necessary, the christological and other arguments in favour of the
veneration o f icons, brought out by Byzantine Orthodox theo-
logians since the eighth and ninth centuries . 86
The author of the present book has given his own view on the
m atter 87 and considers these oppositions as based on misunder-
standings. Chalcedonian and post-Chalcedonianchristology, based
on the notion o f a ‘hypostatic union 5 in Christ of divinity and
humanity served as the conceptual framework for both iconodulic
theology and Palamite Hesychasm: without reference to this
common christological ground, neither one o f these two develop-
ments is understandable. ‘Hypostatic union 5 and the patristic
doctrine o f ‘deification 5 (Ôsoocriç), implies that divine life becomes
accessible through the human flesh o f Christ and o f the saints. The
innumerable references o f Palamas to such texts as the homily on
the Transfiguration by St John o f D am ascus 8 8 - the great defender
o f ‘matter5, as a legitimate channel o f grace during the iconoclastic
controversy or to the christology o f St Maximus the Confessor,
clearly indicate a basic unity o f theological inspiration. One may
certainly argue the point that monastic asceticism did not en-
courage the promotion o f expensive decorations o f churches, or
that the use o f mental prayer could - on the level of piety - make
such decorations unnecessary, but it remains obvious that nothing
85 Cf. for example Podskalsky, Theologie, pp. 1 2 6 - 6 0 ; for a very full bibliographical
review covering the current discussion on the nature of Palamism, see D. Stiernon,
‘Bulletin sur le palamisme’, REB, 3 0 , 1 9 7 2 , pp. 2 3 1 - 3 4 1 .
86 H.-G. Beck, ‘Von der Fragwürdigkeit der Ikone’, Bayerische Akademie der Wissen-
schaften. PhiL-Hist. Klasse. Sitzungsberichte, 1 9 7 5 , Heft 7 , Munich, 1 9 7 5 , pp. 4 0 - 4 .
87 See particularly Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, Washington, D.C., 1 9 6 9 (2 nd
ed., New York, 1 9 7 5 ).
88 PG, xcvT, cols. 5 5 7 C - 5 9 6 B; cf. particularly Palamas, Triads, hi, 1 , 2 2 , ed. J.
Meyendorff, Grégoire Palamas. Défense des saints hésychastes, 2 nd éd., Louvain, 1 9 7 3 ,
n, pp. 596-9-
142
AFTER THE FALL 471
Cultural ties
in Palamite theology challenged the legitim acy o f Christian art,
whose reality, in all epochs, was grounded on the ‘incarnational 5
message of Christianity.
Whether or not the triumph o f Palamism in Byzantium led to
stifling conservatism in art, it is obvious that the monastic move-
ment in Slavic lands, and particularly in Russia, produced quite
the opposite results. Theophanes the Greek was a close friend o f
Epiphanius the Wise, the author o f the Life o f St Sergius. Epi-
phanius praises him for his original style : w hen Theophanes was
painting, he ‘never looked on existing models5, but cin his spirit,
encompassed distant and intellectual realities, while his spiritual
eyes contemplated spiritual beauty 5. 89 W hen he was decorating
the churches of the Annunciation and o f St M ichael in Moscow,
he enjoyed the patronage o f M etropolitan Cyprian, and his
brilliant apprentice, Andrei Rublev, was a monk o f the monastery
o f the Holy Trinity.
In Russia, the monastic revival was based less on the technical
and conceptual side of Hesy chasm, than upon the general spiritual
and religious revival which accompanied it. A nd art was part of
this revival. Not only is there no incom patibility between the art
o f Theophanes and Rublev, on the one side, and Hesychasm on
the other, but, clearly, artists and monks belonged to the same
m ilieu . 90 This does not mean, however, that all the manifestations
o f individual genius, which appear in the art o f Theophanes, are
to be explained by references to hesychast theology , 91 or that,
among the Hesychasts, one has to draw a sharp distinction
between promoters o f authentic spirituality (like Nicholas Caba-
silas), and the ‘scholastic polemicists 5 (like Palamas ) . 92 The
Byzantine monastic revival came to Russia both as a consistent
world-view, and as a renewal o f personal religiosity, individual
prayer and a more conscious understanding o f culture and o f
Christianity. It must have also created an atmosphere favourable
to artistic creativity. No Barlaam arose to challenge it, so there was
89 Letter to Cyril, ed. Leonid, p. 4 ; repr. in V. Lazarev, op. cit., p. 1 1 3 .
90 Cf. M. V. Alpatov, ‘Iskusstvo Feofana Greka i uchenie isikhastov’, W , 3 3 , 1 9 7 2 ,
pp. 1 9 0 - 2 0 2 . One should add here that the official formulations of Palamite
theology were brought to Russia by metropolitan Cyprian, friend of St Sergius,
together with the Synodikon of Orthodoxy as it was used in Constantinople (RIB,
vi, cols. 2 3 9 , 2 4 1 ).
91 This is the tendency adopted by N. K. Goleizovsky, ‘Zametki o Feofane greke’, W ,
2 4 , 1 9 6 4 , pp. 1 3 9 - 4 9 ; ‘Isikhazm i russkaya zhivopis X IV -X V w .’, VV, 2 9 ,
1 9 6 8 , pp. 196 - 2 1 0 .
92 The distinction is drawn by Beck, Kirche, p. 7 8 0 and others. It also appears in
M. V. Alpatov, ibid., pp. 1 9 6 - 7 .
I43

no need to import and to translate the polemical writings o f con-
temporary Byzantine theologians. But the young and relatively
rich Grand-principality o f M oscow was able to supply, better than
impoverished Byzantium, opportunities for the development o f art.
The building o f new churches, the establishment o f monasteries,
the persistent admiration expressed by Russians for the Byzantine
cultural inheritance created the right conditions for the work o f
Theophanes, o f Andrei Rublev and for their numerous disciples.
Their message to their contemporaries pointed to communion
with God, as the most essential content o f human destiny: their
art, just as the spirituality and the theology o f the Hesychasts, in-
tended to show that such com munion was possible, that it depended
both on divine grace and upon human desire to achieve it, and
that it concerned not only a disincarnated human spirit, but the
totality of human existence, body and soul, assumed by God in
Jesus Christ. The identification o f this trend with ‘stifling con-
servatism 5 can only proceed from the unconscious belief, shared by
many historians, that ‘progress5 implies a ‘secular 5 understanding
of man. But if one adopts such a prejudicial view, basically in-
herited from the Enlightenment, there remains no possibility for
any positive understanding o f medieval civilization, and par-
ticularly the Byzantine inheritance, and for seeing it as anything
but the ‘dark ages 5 o f m ankinds history.
144
21
Late Byzantine Culture and the Slavs:

A Study in Acculturation
Dimitri Obolensky
The term «acculturation» has, it seems, at long last found its way
into the historian’s vocabulary. Borrowed from the terminology of
American cultural anthropologists, it was given a tentative accolade in
1965, when it figured, as the title of one of the «grands thèmes», in the
programme of the Twelfth International Congress of Historical Sciences
in Vienna. A leading anthropologist had defined acculturation as com-
prehending «those phenomena which result when groups of individuals
having different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact,
with subsequent changes in the original cultural patterns of either or
both groups» 1. He distinguished acculturation from cultural diffusion 2.
The historian, while taking note of this comprehensive sociological de-
finition, m ay well prefer another description of acculturation, proposed
by Alphonse Dupront in his m asterly introductory paper, presented to
the Vienna. Congress of Historians. «L’acculturation», he wrote, «sera le
mouvement d ’un individu, d ’un groupe, d ’une société, même d’une
culture vers une autre culture, donc un dialogue, un enseignement, une
confrontation, un mélange, et le plus souvent une épreuve de force» 3.
This historian’s definition, with its sense of the concrete, its suggestions
of a variety of specific situations, and its intimations of complex and
often dramatic human experience, may provide a helpful starting point
to our study of the encounter between Byzantine civilisation and the
1 . M.J. Herskovits, Man and his Works, New York, 1950, 523.
2. «When we follow the fortunes of a particular culture trait or complex or
institution through its meanderings from culture to culture, we call it a study of
diffusion. When we consider two cultures bombarding each other with hundreds
or thousands of diffusing traits, and appraise the results of such interaction, we
more commonly call it acculturation. Diffusion is a matter of what happens to
elements or parts of culture; acculturation, of what happens to cultures» : A.L.
Kroeber, Anthropology, New York, 1948, 425.
3. «De l’Acculturation», X I le Congrès International des Sciences Historiques,
Rapports, I ; Grands Thèmes, Vierina, 1965, 8.
Slav world in the later Middle Ages. At least it can point the way to
some of the things we should be looking for. In the first place,
movement. Byzantine civilisation, as it expanded northward across seas
and plains, along river valleys and trade routes, m ay be likened to
beams of light sent out from the Em pire’s cultural centres to the far-
thest regions of Eastern Europe. This, the m ost obvious aspect of
acculturation, is evoked by the word «radiation» (rayonnement, Aus-
strahlung), which stands in the title of this section of the Congress
programme. Y et this cultural m ovem ent was seldom in one direction
only : in the history of the encounter between Byzantium and the
Slavs there are m any examples which show that the latter actively
«reached out» for Byzantine civilisation and, when it became available
to them, made a selection among its component elements, accepting,
rejecting or transforming them.
The impact of Byzantine civilisation upon the peoples of Eastern
Europe was also, in Dupront’s terms, a kind of education. In the realms
of religion and law, literature and art, these peoples were the pupils of
Byzantium, and, in addition to the Empire’s cultural exports, products
of luxury and technological skill were avidly borrowed by their ruling
classes from the Empire. Here too, however, we m ust not forget that,
in its new peripheral environment, Byzantine civilisation was nearly
always adapted to local needs and conditions. In this sense at least, the
process of acculturation with which we are concerned was indeed a
«dialogue» and a «confrontation». That it was also at times a «mixture»
will be apparent to those who have learned to detect that in the fields
of religion and law, literature and art the Orthodox peoples of Eastern
Europe — the Bulgarians, the Russians, the Serbs and the Rumanians
— were able in the course of tim e not only to share in, but also to con-
tribute som ething to, the common culture of the Byzantine Common-
wealth.
How far was the encounter between Byzantium and the Slavs also,
in Dupront’s terms, «une épreuve de force»? We must expect to find
that Byzantine civilisation, as it spread northward to the Empire’s
neighbours, encountered some resistance. The social, moral and poli-
tical values which it represented were often quite alien to the patterns
of their own inherited culture. In the main, as far as we can judge from
the sources, resistance took two distinct forms. In the early Middle
Ages, the intrusive civilisation of Byzantium was fought by the Slavs
primarily on religious grounds : attem pts were made to halt the victo-
rious advance of the Christian faith by resorting, in the name of the
AFTER THE FALL 475
LATE BYZAN TINE CULTURE A N D THE SLAVS 5
threatened pagan traditions, to passive resistance or armed insurrec-

tions 4; while the success enjoyed by the Bogomil m ovement among
the Balkan Slavs shows that Byzantine civilisation could sometimes
be withstood and repelled with the very weapons — the moral and
theological teaching of Christianity — which the Byzantines used to
extend their influence 5. In the late Middle Ages the challenge to B y-
zantine hegemony became more explicitly political. In several Slavonic
countries it took the form of sporadic efforts to impugn the claims of
the imperial power and of the ecclesiastical authorities of Byzantium to
exercise by right a universal jurisdiction throughout Eastern Christen-
dom. As we shall see, these manifestations of local nationalism remained
on the whole in an embryonic state. Y et they are worth studying as
examples of the strains and stresses that so often developed in those
East European societies which were subjected to prolonged cultural
contact with the dominant Byzantine civilisation. Such encounters were
indeed, in Dupront’s term, «des rencontres - choc».
The concept of acculturation can thus be usefully applied to the
study of the impact of Byzantium upon the medieval Slav countries.
Were any more specific factors involved in this process? It seems to
me that Byzantine civilisation was successfully exported to the coun-
tries of Eastern Europe when three conditions were fulfilled. In the
first place, this civilisation needed to be, at the tim e of impact, in a
phase of growth and expansion; secondly, the receptivity to Byzantine
civilisation of a given country increased the more this country was in
a state of social and political change; thirdly, to be really fruitful, this
encounter between Byzantium and the Slavs had to take place within
a cultural ambience in some measure common to both worlds and ca-
pable of acting, in relation to them , as an intermediary or catalyst.
All three conditions were fulfilled in the early Middle Ages, when the
Byzantine Empire was in the full flush of the «Macedonian Renaissance»,
the nascent Slav states which embraced Greek Christianity were emerg-
ging from the tribal stage and developing centralized, monarchical
institutions, and the Cyrillo - Methodian tradition, whose idiom — the
Old Church Slavonic language — was at once modelled on Greek and
close to the Slav vernacular tongues, provided the Slavs with a channel
which ensured a regular flow of influence from the Byzantine world,
4. See D. Obolensky, The B yzantine Commonwealth, London, 1971, 283-28.

5. See D. O bolensky, The Bogomils. A Stu dy in B alkan Neo - M anichaeism ,
Cambridge, 1948.
enabling them to develop a culture that was Greek in content and

Slavonic in form.
I believe that the same three conditions were operative in the East
European world of the fourteenth and early fifteenth century. At our
Bucharest Congress proper emphasis was laid on that flowering of By-
zantine literature and art in the Palaeologan period which has been
described as «the last Byzantine Renaissance». It is clear that the four-
teenth century, in Eastern Europe, was a period of rapid and specta-
cular change : the Serbs, in the first half of the century, were mobilizing
their resources in a bid for hegemony in the Balkans, the Rumanian
principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia were, for the first time, deve-
loping articulate public institutions, while Muscovy, through a process
of internal transformation and foreign expansion, was, emerging as a
major power in north - eastern Europe.
In searching for the third operative factor, we must ask ourselves
whether, in the East European world of the late Middle Ages, there
existed a cultural tradition common to the Greeks, the Slavs and the
Rumanians, and capable of playing the role of an intermediary, ana-
logous to the role played by the Cyrillo - Methodian movement of the
ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries 6. We should expect this common
intermediary to have a number of definite characteristics : enough creative
energy to leave its mark on more than one cultural field, e.g. on religious
beliefs, social and political ideas, and literary fashions; a cosmopolitan
character, giving it power to cross state boundaries and linguistic front-
iers and to be seen by its contemporaries as a common East European
tradition; and an ability to attract and command the loyalties of an
international group of men, linked to each other by personal ties of
discipleship, friendship and cooperation. I believe that these necessary
qualifications are found in the late medieval movement known as He-
sychasm.
Let me here sound a note of warning. The term «Hesychasm» has
been used by modern scholars in a variety of meanings, some of which
overlap. These semantic shifts have had a confusing effect on many
students of history, theology and art, who have used this term. In an
endeavour to bring some order and clarity into this confusion, John
6. The concept of «intermediary culture» has been defined and discussed by

D.S. Likhachev. See, apart from his numerous works in Russian, his brief and sti-
m ulating article : The Type arrd Character of the B yzantine Influence on Old R us-
sian Literature, Oxford Slavonic Papers , 13 (1967), 16-32.
AFTER THE FALL All
LATE BYZANTINE CULTURE A N D THE SLAVS 7
Meyendorff has distinguished four different meanings of the word «He-

sychasm»7. (1 ) As a technical term derived from the vocabulary of the
spiritual life, it can be applied (in the form Tjaoyict.) to the «prayer of
the mind» ( v o s p à npoasuyri) o r «prayer of the heart», practised by the
early Christian hermits in Egypt, Palestine and Asia Minor. (2) Modern
writers often apply the term «Hesychasm» to the psychosomatic «me-
thod», accompanying the frequent repetition of the «Jesus prayer» and
designed to aid spiritual concentration. First clearly attested on Mount
Athos in the late thirteenth century, the «Method» was widely used in
Eastern Christian monasticism in the late Middle Ages. (3) Hesychasm
is also taken to denote the theology of St Gregory Palamas (1295-1359),
a central feature of which is the distinction between the essence and
the «energies» of God, which was accepted as Orthodox at the Church
councils in Constantinople in 1341, 1347 and 1351. (4) The term
has occasionally been applied to the cultural, social and political pro-
gramme devised and carried out in the fourteenth century by a suc-
cession of Byzantine Patriarchs who belonged to the Hesychast
movement. This programme, sometimes described as «political Hesy-
chasm», did much to strengthen the bonds between the Slav Orthodox
Churches and the Byzantine Patriarchate in the late Middle Ages, and
thus to cement the cultural unity of the Byzantine Commonwealth.
The role of Hesychasm as a cosmopolitan, unifying cultural mo-
vement in late medieval Europe has been discussed by a number of
contemporary scholars : foremost among them are D. Likhachev (1958)s,
G.M. Prokhorov (1968) 9, J. Meyendorff (1974) 10 and A.-E. Tachiaos
(1974) 11. This paper owes much to their researches. Its aim, however,
is more specifically linked to my central theme. I intend to consider
Hesychasm primarily as a factor in the process of acculturation in
7. 0 vizantiyskom isikhazme i ego roli y kuPturnom i istoricheskom razvitii

V ostochnoy Evropy v X IY v., Trudy Otdela Drevnerusskoy Literatury , 29 (1974),
291-305.
8 . Nekotorye zadachi izucheniya vtorogo yuzhnoslarvyanskogo vliyan iya y Ros-
sii, in Issledovaniya po slavyanskomu literaturovedeniyu i foVkloristike, Moscow, 1960,
95-151; also, by the same author, Predvozrozhdenie na Rusi v kontse X IV - pervôy
polovine XV veka, in Literatura epokhi Vozrozhdeniya i problemy vsemirnoy litera-
tury,, Moscow, 1967, 136-182.
9. Isikhazm i obshchestvennaya m ysl’ v V ostochnoy Evrope v X IV y ., Trudy
Otdela Drevnerusskoy Literatury , 23 (1968), 86—108.
10. Opxit.
11. Le m ouvem ent hésychaste pendant les dernières decénnies du X IVe siècle,
jKÀrjçovofita, 6 , 1 (1974), 113-130.
la te m edieval E a ste rn E u ro p e, and to show th a t it acted as a cu ltural

«intermediary» betw een B y zan tiu m and th e Slav world.
More specifically, I will en d eav o u r to show th a t : (1) th e m otive
force which gave H esychasm its sp iritu al co n ten t came from th e prin-
cipal m onasteries of th e B alkans, above all from M ount A thos. (2) The
ecclesiastical policy w hich su stain ed H esychasm and ensured its influence
as an intern atio n al m ovem ent originated in C onstantinople. (3) The im -
p ac t of H esychasm upon la te m edieval lite ratu re — especially in the
field of hagiography — was p artic u la rly pow erful in th e Slavonic O rth o -
dox countries and in R um ania. (4) T he cosm opolitan n atu re of the
H esychast m ovem ent was enhanced b y th e actio n of a group of m enr
m ost of th em of o u tstan d in g ab ility or achievem ent, who h ad close
personal links w ith each o ther, and, freq u en tly crossing n atio n al bou n -
daries, freely m oved from one p a rt of th e B yzantine C om m onw ealth
to another.
I. M o n a sti c Spi r it ua l it y
The role played b y M ount A thos as a sp iritu al nursery of th e He-

sychast m ovem ent is too well know n to require detailed su b stan tiatio n .
M any of th e m o v em en t’s leaders, including Gregory of Sinai, Gregory
P alam as, and th e P a tria rc h s K allistos and Philotheos, spent long pe-
riods of train in g on th e Holy M ountain. In th e fo u rteen th cen tu ry
M ount Athos was a tru ly cosm opolitan centre, w here Greeks, Slavs and
o th er O rthodox peoples lived in close p ro m ix ity to — and, it would seem,
am ity w ith — each other. A ch arter, g ran ted in 1342 b y th e B ulgarian
tsar Jo h n A lexander to th e M onastery of Zographou, states th a t on th e
Holy M ountain «are to be found buildings belonging to all O rthodox
peoples and n atio n s, of w hom th e first and th e m ost im p o rtan t are th e
G reeks and th e B ulgarians, and after th em th e Serbs, th e R ussians and
th e Georgians» 12. T h eir com m on language was Greek; th e gerontes, or
teachers of th e sp iritu al life, seem freq u en tly to have ta u g h t disciples
of various n ationalities. T he Slavs, who were num erous on M ount A thos
in th is period, w orked alongside th e ir Greek com panions in th e sketai
and coenobitic houses, stu d y in g Greek spiritu al (and som etim es secu-
lar) writings, copying and tra n sla tin g them . Such Graeco - Slav com m u-
n ities also existed in th is period in th e m onasteries of C onstantinople
12. Cited in P.A. Syrku, K istorii ispravleniya knig v Bolgarii v X I V veke, I,

St Petersburg, 1898, 57 (Reprinted in Variorum R eprin ts, London, 1972).
AFTER THE FALL 479
LATE BYZAN TINE CULTURE A N D THE SLAYS 9
(especially Stoudios) and Thessalonica, and in th e tw o n o rth B alkan

m onastic centres of P a ro ria and K ilifarevo, w hich, no less th a n M ount
Athos, becam e th e nurseries for th e p ro p ag atio n of H esychasm in E as-
te rn Europe 13.
The region of P aro ria, in th e S tran d zh a M ountains on th e frontier
betw een th e B y zan tin e E m pire an d B ulgaria, becam e a n o ted «spiritual
workshop» ab o u t 1330, w hen S t. G regory of Sinai settled th ere w ith
a group of m onks w hom he h ad in stru cted in «the p ray er of th e heart» 14.
Before his d ea th in 1346, he had g ath ered a large group of disciples,
including Greeks, B ulgarians and Serbs. Some of th em were highly
educated m en who sub seq u en tly rose to prom inent positions in th e
churches of th e ir respective lands. One of th em was th e B ulgarian m onk,
Theodosius of T rnovo. A fter G regory’s d ea th he left P aro ria, and eventu-
ally settled (c. 1350) in K ilifarevo, on th e n o rth ern slopes of th e B alkan
M ountains, n o t far from T rnovo, th e B u lg arian capital. There, w ith
th e support of th e T sar Jo h n A lexander, he founded a m onastic com-
m unity m odelled on th e P aro ria house. K ilifarevo soon inherited its
predecessor’s in tern a tio n a l role. Theodosius’ biographer, th e B yzantine
P atriarch K allistos, w rote th a t «no sooner had he (Theodosius) settled
in the m ountainous place called K ilifarevo th a n ru m o u r flew all around,
n o t only to th e B ulg arian people, b u t also to th e Serbs and th e H unga-
rians and th e R um anians and to those who live around Mesembria» 15.
These R u m an ian disciples of T heodosius were p ro b ab ly responsible
for spreading th e teachings of H esychasm n o rth of th e D anube. In th e
main, however, R u m an ian H esychasm cam e from M ount Athos, one
of whose m onasteries, K outloum ousiou, was placed (c. 1371) under th e
patronage of a prince of W allachia. T he cen tral figure in th e tran sm is-
sion of H esychasm to W allachia was th e m onk N icodem us (d. 1406).
B om of a Greek fa th e r and a S erbian m oth er, he received his m onastic
training on M ount A thos. Two fam ous W allachian m onasteries, V odita
13. See I. D ujev, Tsentry vizantiysko - slavyanskogo obshcheniya i sotrudni-

chestva, Trudy Otdela Drevnerusskoy Literatury, 19 (1963), 107—129. Id em ,Le Mont
Athos et les Slaves au Moyen A ge, in Medioevo Bizantino - Slavo, I, Rome, 1965,
487-510.
14. See Kallistos W are, The Jesus Prayer in St Gregory of Sinai, Eastern
Churches Review, 4 (1972), 3-22. Cf. P.A . Syrku, op. cit., 167-234, and, on Gregory’s
influence in Slavonic countries, A. -E . Tachiaos, 'Erndgdoeig t o v r¡ov%aofjiov eîç rrjv
éxKXr¡oiaoTi7tr¡v tz o à ltlk tjv êv P o jg îç l , 1328—1406, Thessaloniki, 1962, 65—7.
15. Zhitie i zhizn’ prepodobnago ottsa nashego Feodosiya, ed. Y .N . Zlatarski,
Sbornik za Narodni Umotvoreniya, Nauka i Knizhnina, 20 (1904), 22-3.
10
(c. 1374) and T ism an a (c. 1385) owe th e ir fou n d atio n to him 16. W ith
his B yzantine, S erbian, R u m an ian and B u lgarian connections, Nicode-
m us of T ism an a is a living im age of th a t cosm opolitan culture which,
centred in B y zan tiu m an d cem ented b y H esychasm , linked together
th e E ast E u ro p ean m onasteries of th e late Middle Ages.
The Serbs, like th e B ulgarians, seem to have owed th e ir initiation
into the doctrines and practice of H esychasm largely to th e Paroria
school of G regory of Sinai; th o u g h it seems likely th a t th e ir m onasteries
were touched b y th e m y stical revival even earlier, th ro u g h th e influ-
ence of th e S erbian m o n astery of H ilan d ar on M ount A thos. A nother
m onk of m ixed G reek and Slav descent, S t Rom il of V idin, afte r serving
a lengthy sp iritu al ap p ren ticesh ip in P aro ria as a disciple of Gregory
of Sinai, m oved to M ount A thos and th en ce (after 1375) to th e Serbian
m onastery of R avanica. He was a key figure in th e transm ission of
Hesychasm to m edieval Serbia 17.
I t is h ard er to gauge th e im p act of B y zantine H esychasm on four-
te e n th - cen tu ry R ussia. However, th ere is reason to believe th a t its
teachings were accepted in M uscovy b y th e m iddle of th e fourteenth
century. H istorians h ave rig h tly searched for evidence in th e records
of th e M onastery of th e Holy T rin ity , founded in th e m iddle of the
fourteenth ce n tu ry some 70 kilom etres n o rth of Moscow b y S t. Sergius
of Radonezh. His disciple and biographer, th e R ussian m onk Epipha-
nius, described his m a s te r’s m ystical experience in term s w hich suggest
a n analogy w ith P a la m a s’ teach in g on th e U ncreated L ig h t 18. It is
tem p tin g to n u m b er Sergius am ong th e «mystics of light», along with
Gregory of Sinai, an d to regard him as a H esychast for th is reason 19.
However, th e theological im plications of E p ip h an iu s’ account do not
seem specific enough for th is connection to be traced w ith certainty.
More specific, and convincing, are th e rep eated references in E p ip h an iu s’
biography to bezmlvie (literally «silence») and to th e synonym ous m lta nie,
16. See A. - E. Tachiaos, Le m ouvem ent hésychaste, 126-7.

17. See F. Halkin, U n erm ite des Balkans au X lV e siècle. La Vie grecque
inédite de Saint R om ylos, Byzantion , 31 (1961), 111-147; P. D evos, La version slave
de la Vie de S. R om ylos, ibid., 149-87. See also Tachiaos, Le m ouvem ent hésychaste,
123-4, and E. Turdeanu, La littérature bulgare du XIVe siècle et sa diffusion dans
les pays roumains, Paris, 1947, 47-49.
18. Die Legenden des Heiligen Sergij von Radonez, ed. L. Müller, Munich, 1967
[Slavische Propylàen, 17], 40-3, 64-67.
19. This opinion is held b y G.P. F edotov, The Russian Religious Mind, II,
Cambridge, Mass., 1966, 218-22, and by A .- E . Tachiaos, ' Emôçàaeiç, 55-60.
AFTER THE FALL 481
practised by St. Sergius and his disciples 20. These Slavonic terms were
used in this period as equivalents to the Greek word vjauxia 21. The
recurrence of these technical terms suggests that at least Epiphanius
lived within the thought - world of Byzantine Hesychasm; and it is
natural to assume that he had been initiated into it by St. Sergius.
Corroborative evidence pointing to Sergius’ involvement in the move-
ment is provided by his personal links with the Hesychast Patriarchs
Philotheos and Kallistos 22 and by the presence in the library of the
Trinity Monastery in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries of Slavonic
translations of many of the classics of Hesychast spirituality. In the
second half of the fifteenth century Byzantine Hesychasm flowered
again on Russian soil when St. Nil (Neilos) Sorsky (c. 1433 - 1508 ), after
visiting Mount Athos and Constantinople, revived the contemplative
tradition of the «semi - eremitical» life of the lavrai in the forests to the
north of the Volga. He seems to have been the first Russian spiritual
teacher to have instructed his disciples to combine the practice of
the «Jesus Prayer» with the psychosomatic methods used by the
Balkan Hesychasts 23.
It may seem suprising, in view of the manifest readiness of the
Slavs to adopt the tenets of Hesychasm, that the theology of Gregory
Palamas appears to have had little impact on Slavonic countries in the
late Middle Ages. A.-E. Tachiaos has argued persuasively that, contrary
to the assertions of Nicephoros Gregoras, the decisions of the Council
of Constantinople in 1351 vindicating the Palamite doctrines were ac-
cepted by Theognostos, the Greek Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia
(1328 - 1353 ) 24. It is true nonetheless that the Russians in the late Mid-
dle Ages showed no great interest in Palamas’ theology; and even Nil
Sorsky reveals no familiarity with his writings. Palamas’ dogmatic and
philosophical works were probably beyond the range of understanding
of most Russian theologians of the time. It was from Gregory of Sinai,
not from Gregory Palamas, that most medieval Slav readers derived
their knowledge of Byzantine Hesychasm. The Serbs were something
of an exception : it was in fourteenth - century Serbia that Palamas’
20. Die Legenden, 15, 27, 51, 60.

21. G.M. Prokhorov, Isikhazm i obshchestvennaya m ysl’ v V ostochnoy Evrope
v XIV v., loc. cit., 106-7.
2 2 . On this point, see A .-E . Tachiaos, 'Emôçàaeiç, 42-55.
23. See F. von Lilienfeld, N il Sorskij und seine Schriften, Berlin, 1963.
24. 'EmÔQdoeiç, 17-29.
12
writings were first translated into Slavonic; and the Serbs began to
venerate him as a saint even before his official canonisation in 1368 25.
A further surprise awaits the student of late medieval East Euro-
pean monasticism. The Hesychasts might have been expected to favour
the eremitical life, or at least the «semi - eremitical» type of monasti-
cism (in which a limited number of monks lived in separate huts, under
the guidance of an abbot or spiritual director, and met periodically
for a common celebration of the liturgical offices) as more conducive
to the practice of interior prayer. And indeed a number of hesychasteria
did belong to this type of settlement, typified by the lavra (in Greek),
or the skit (in Slavonic). Gregory of Sinai and Gregory Palamas both
lived this form of the monastic life on Mount Athos. Neither, however,
considered that the practice of hesychia should be confined to those
following the solitary life. There were advantages to be found in the
coenobitic monastery, whose members, living together in the same
building, owning no personal property, were subject to the same disci-
pline of prayer and work under the authority of an abbot — not least
he virtue of spiritual obedience, by which the Hesychasts set great
store. In addition, the coenobitic life provided some assurance against
the individualism and laxity of the «idiorrhythmic» monasticism which
was gaining ground in the fourteenth century, and of which the Hesy-
chasts strongly disapproved. In fact Hesychasm greatly contributed to
the revival of coenobitic monasticism in Eastern Europe 26. One example
of this revival may be cited. About 1355 St Sergius was visited by
envoys from the Patriarch Philotheos, with a letter urging him to
introduce the community rule into his monastery. Sergius, with the
agreement of the Russian Metropolitan Alexius, complied with this
request 27. The Trinity Monastery, by adopting the Studite Constitu-
tion, thus became the model for many late medieval koinobia which
arose in the forests of central and northern Russia. This network of
coenobitic houses, whose monks often travelled long distances to visit
some sister foundation, was a further factor facilitating the spread of
Byzantine Hesychasm throughout Eastern Europe.
25. See J. Meyendorff, Introduction à Vétude de Grégoire Palamas , Paris, 1959,

334-335; Tachiaos, Le m ouvem ent hésychaste, 126.
26. G.M. Prokhorov, op. cit., 98.
27. In his biography of St Sergius Epiphanius cites the Patriarch’s letter
(the original is not extan t) in a Slavonic translation : Die Legenden, 43-46. Cf.
Tachiaos, ' EmÔQàosiç, 42-55 ; O.A. Belobrova, P osol’stvo K onstantinopol’skogo
patriarkha Filofeya k Sergiyu Radonezhskom u, Soobshcheniya Zagorskogo Gosu-
darstvennogo Istoriko - Khudozhestvennogo Muzeya - Zapovednika , 2 (1958), 10-18.
AFTER THE FALL 483
LATE B Y Z AN TINE CULTURE A N D THE SLAYS 13
II. E cc l esi as ti cal P ol it ic s in Ea s t er n E ur o pe
If the spiritual impulse which caused the expansion of the Hesy-

chast movement came from Athos and other Balkan monasteries,
this movement was given an administrative structure and an organi-
sational support by the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Many of the
Hesychast leaders were far from unwordly. They shunned neither so-
cial nor political activity, doubtless in the belief, voiced by Gregory of
Palamas, that «our life is ordered by a common association of all : from
this arise communities and states, and man is a social animal» (xoivco-
vixov Çtoov £otlv ó àv0pa>7roç) 28. They fought, often vigorously, against
state interference in ecclesiastical appointments 29, and displayed a re-
markable zest for church administration. Much of their effort was di-
rected to maintaining and strengthening the authority of the Byzantine
Patriarchate over the Slav churches of Eastern Europe. In the four-
teenth century the Patriarch’s authority was, in documents issued by
his chancellery, often defined as x 7]§£(jiovia toxvtcov («guardianship» of,
«sollicitude» for, all). This doctrine was given forceful expression in a
letter, written in 1 370 , by the Patriarch Philotheos to the princes of
Russia. «God», wrote the Patriarch, «has appointed our Mediocrity ( t y )v
y)fjic5v pi£Tpt,ÓTY]Ta) as the leader of the Christians of the whole universe
and the guardian and curator of their souls; all are dependent on me
as the father and teacher of all... Since, however, it is not possible for
one man... to go the round of the universe, our Mediocrity choses
the best men and those most distinguished in virtue, and appoints
and consecrates them pastors and teachers and bishops, and sends them
to the various parts of the Universe» 30.
This, and other similar patriarchal declarations 31, which would
not have come amiss from the pen of a champion of papal supremacy in
the Roman Curia, were calculated to instill in their Slavonic recipients
the conviction that Orthodox Christendom was a single body whose spiri-
tual head was the Oecumenical Patriarch. In the late Middle Ages, as the
imperial goverment proved increasingly impotent in its foreign policy,
the Byzantine Patriarchate assumed the role of chief spokesman and
28. Cited by G.M. Prokhorov, op. cit., 99.

29. See D. Obolensky, B yzantium , K iev and Moscow : A Study in Ecclesiasti-
cal Relations, D O P , 1 1 (1957), 40-42.
30. Acta Patriarchatus Constantinopolitani , ed. F. Miklosich and I. Müller,
i, Vienna, 1860, 520-522.
31. See J. Meyendorff, O vizantiyskom isikhazme, 303, note 27.
14
instrument of the imperial traditions of East Rome. The Hesychast

Patriarchs were particularly determined and successful champions of
these traditions; and among them Philotheos was preeminent 32. Their
chosen instruments in this imperial and pan - Orthodox policy were
churchmen, many of them Slavs, who — by conviction and training —
could be counted upon to enhance the authority of the Oecumenical
Patriarchate among their flocks and to resist the growth of local forms,
of nationalism. It is not surprising to find that the leaders of the «pro -
Byzantine», «pan - Orthodox» parties in the different Slav countries all
belonged to the Hesychast movement. In Bulgaria it found a power-
ful spokesman in St Theodosius of Trnovo. The Bulgarian Patriarchate,,
established in 1235 with the agreement of the authorities of the Nicaean
Empire, had-been placed under the canonical jurisdiction of the Greek
Patriarchate. This primacy, in fact largely nominal,obliged the Bulga-
rian Patriarch to pay a tax to the Patriarch of Constantinople, to com-
memorate his name in liturgical celebrations, and to apply to him for
the chrism (myron) used in the churches of his country. In the mid -
fourteenth century the Bulgarian primate discontinued these practices,,
thus claiming in effect total independence from his Byzantine colleague.
Theodosius, condemning the action of his own ecclesiastical superior,,
wrote to Constantinople to protest against it. In 1355 the Patriarch
Kallistos, a Hesychast and close friend of Theodosius, wrote to him
and his community at Kilifarevo, strongly condemning the uncano-
nical actions of the Bulgarian primate 33. It seems that full canonical
relations between Trnovo and Constantinople were not restored until
1375 , when a disciple of St Theodosius, the Hesychast monk Euthy-
mius, became Patriarch of Bulgaria. He immediately recognised the
ecclesiastical primacy of Constantinople. During those critical twenty
years the international solidarity of the Balkan Hesychasts proved
strong enough to withstand the forces of Bulgarian nationalism and
to prevent the formation of a permanent rift in the structure of the
Byzantine Commonwealth.
A similar role was played in this period by the Serbian Hesychasts.
The coronation in 1346 of the Serbian monarch Stephen Dusan as.
«Emperor and Autocrat of Serbia and Romania» by the uncanonically
32. See J. Meyendorff, A lexis and Rom an : A Study in B yzantino - Russian

R elations (1352-1354), ByzsL, 28 (1967), 278-288.
33. Acta Patriarchatus Constantinopolitani , i, 436-442. Cf. the detailed analysis-
o f K allistos’ letter b y P.A. Syrku, K istorii ispravleniya knig v Bolgarii, 278-353*
AFTER THE FALL 485
LATE B YZ AN T INE CULTURE A ND THE SLAVS 15
appointed Patriarch of Serbia caused the Oecumenical Patriarch Kal-

listos to excommunicate the Serbian tsar, his religious leaders and all his
subjects. The resultant schism between the Byzantine and the Serbian
Churches was healed in 1375 by the action of a group of prominent
Serbian Hesychasts, led by the monk Isaiah, who mediated between
the Serbian prince Lazar and the Patriarch Philotheos 34.
In Russia, too, the concerted efforts of the Hesychast Patriarchs
of Constantinople and of their agents, or supporters, «in the field» ce-
mented closer links between the Byzantine Church and the Orthodox
populations of the Grand Principality of Moscow and of the Grand
Duchy of Lithuania. This required the exercise of tactful diplomacy; and,
although in the last quarter of the fourteenth century the Patriarchate
committed serious blunders in its dealings with the churches of Mus-
covy and Lithuania which caused a great deal of resentment 35, there
is no doubt that by the end of the century the prestige of Byzantium
stood high once again in Russia. In no small measure was this due to
the far - sightedness and diplomatic skill of the monk Cyprian, a Bul-
garian Hesychast who was appointed to the see of Kiev in 1375 by his
mentor and friend, the Patriarch Philotheos. Cyprian played an active
part in the politics of the Byzantine Patriarchate in Lithuania and
Muscovy, and from 1390 to 1406 was metropolitan of Moscow and All
Russia. It was thanks to him that the articles in support of Hesychast
theology, inserted into the Greek Synodicon for the Sunday of Ortho-
doxy after the Council of Constantinople of 1351, were added to the
tex t of the Synodicon's Russian version 36.
The Patriarch Matthew described Cyprian as a cpiX o p p c i)[jia io ç ocv0po>-
7 ro ç 37. It was Cyprian, no doubt, who reported to his superior, the Patriarch
A ntony IV, the unprecented behaviour of Prince Basil I of Moscow, who

decreed that the Byzantine emperor’s name be deleted from the comme-
morative diptychs of the Russian Church, on the grounds that in Rus-
sia «we have the church, but not the emperor». The Patriarch, in a let-
ter he wrote to the Muscovite ruler c. 1394, roundly rebuked him for
his revolt against the authority of «the universal emperor», «the lord
34. See Tachiaos, Le m ouvem ent hésychaste, 122-125 (with bibliography).

35. See D. Obolensky, B yzantium and Russia in the Late Middle Ages, in the
same author’s B yzantium and the Slavs : collected studies, (London, 1971) (Variorum
R eprin ts), 256-58.
36. See the perceptive stud y of Cyprian’s ecclesiastical career by Tachiaos,
9Emôgàasiç, 122-152.
37. Acta Patriarchatus Constantinopolitani, ii, Vienna, 1862, 361.
16
and master of the oikoumene» 38. W e must assume that Cyprian, as

Primate of Russia, did his utm ost to show Basil I the error of his ways
and to nip in the bud this outburst of late m edieval Russian nationa-
lism. He seems to have persuaded the Russian monarch fairly rapidly
to restore the emperor’s nominal suzerainty over the Muscovite realm :
for in a letter written by Cyprian between 1395 and 1406 to the clergy
of Pskov he states explicitly th at the Byzantine emperor is commemo-
rated liturgically in the churches of Moscow 39.
III. T h e E a st Eu r o pe a n L fte rar y Mo v e me nt

of T h e L at e Mi d d l e A ges
In the second half of the fourteenth century a notable increase in

literary production can be observed in several countries of Eastern
Europe. Bulgaria, Serbia, Rumania and Russia were all affected by this
movement. Its antecedents are still obscure. It is clear, however, th at it
owes much of its original impulse to Euthym ius, Patriarch of Trnovo from
1375 to 1393. A Bulgarian by birth, he joined the monastic community
of Kilifarevo, where he became the leading disciple of St Theodosius.
He displayed considerable literary activity, revising the Slavonic ver-
sions of church service books; translating from Greek into Slavonic
several liturgical texts; and writing biographies and panegyrics of a
number of Byzantine and Bulgarian saints. Several of his letters have
been preserved, including two addressed to the monk Cyprian and to
Nicodemus of Tismana 40. The literary school founded by Euthym ius
in Trnovo seems to have aimed at the wholesale replacement of the
earlier Slavonic versions of the sacred t e x t s — not excluding the Scrip-
tures — by a new corpus of translations from the Greek 41. The new
translations were expected to conform more closely to the grammar,
orthography and punctuation of the original translations of Cyril and
Methodius, and also to the morphology and syntax of their Greek ori-
ginals. Euthym ius’independent writings established the guidelines of
what became the standard literary style of Slavonic hagiography and
38. Ibid., 188-92.

39. Russkaya Istoricheskaya Biblioteka , vi, St Petersburg, 1880, col. 239.
40. Werke des Patriarchen von Bulgarien Euthymius (1375—1393 ), ed. E. Kalu-
zniacki, Vienna, 1901 (Variorum Reprints, 1971). Cf. Turdeanu, L a littérature bul-
gare du X I V e siècle, 67-135.
41. See Turnovska Knizhovna Shkola 1371—1971 , ed. P. R usev and others,
Sofia, 1974.
AFTER THE FALL 487
LATE BYZANTINE CULTURE A N D THE SLAVS 17
panegyrics of the late Middle Ages : a style emphatic, rhetorical and

ornate, striving for emotional and acoustic effect by frequent resort to
exclamations and rhythmical repetitions. These «literary reforms» soon
became the common patrimony of the Serbs, the Rumanians and the
Russians. In Serbia, it is true, the new style has been traced back to the
thirteenth century 42. B ut there is no doubt that it acquired clearer
shape and greater substance by contact with the Bulgarian literary
movement. It was in Serbia that a Bulgarian disciple of Euthymius
at one remove, Constantine of Kostenets, wrote c. 1418 his celebrated
treatise On Letters 43. Its main interest today lies in the light it sheds on
the theoretical basis and practical implications of Euthym ius’ linguistic
programme, of which it is no doubt a starker and more pedantic version.
Constantine was horrified by the errors isnd discrepancies which, through
the carelessness or ignorance of copyists, had crept into the sacred books.
Only in Trnovo, and on Mount Athos, he claimed, were the Slavonic texts
free from all taint of heresy. He urged that the copying of manuscripts
be made subject to the most rigorous control. The one safe rule was
to imitate the Greeks in all matters of style, grammar and orthography.
He himself aspired to play among the Slavs the role played in Byzan-
tium by the fourteenth - century grammarian Manuel Moschopoulos.
Constantine insisted on a completely literal translation of the Greek
texts, readily sacrificing clarity of sense to the need to achieve exact
equivalence between words, and even separate letters, in the two
languages; and he urged that Slavonic spelling should conform even to
the accentual conventions of Greek 44.
In the Rumanian principalities the writings of the Euthymian
school seem to have made their first impact on scholars in the second
quarter of the fifteenth century. Two biographies and three panegyrics
by Euthymius were copied in the Moldavian monastery of Neamtu in
1438 and 1441. The route they had followed from Bulgaria is unknown 45.
Euthym ius’ liturgical works, on the other hand, are known to have
been brought to Moldavia from the Bulgarian monastery of Zographou
42. See V. Mosin, O periodizatsii russko - yuzhnoslavyanskikh literaturnykh

svyazey X - X V vv., Trudy Otdela Drevnerusskoy Literatury, 19 (1963), 85-96.
43. The text was published by V. Jagic, Rassuzhdeniya yuzhnoslavyanskoy i
russkoy stariny o tserkovno - slavyanskom yazyke, St Petersburg, 1896, 78-293.
44. On Constantine of Kostenets and his work, see Turdeanu, La littérature
bulgare du X l V e siècle, 155-159; and the chapter by K. Kuev in Istoriya na bulgar-
skata literatura, ed. S. B ozhkov and others, I, Sofia, 1962, 315-25.
45. Turdeanu, op. cit., 135-137.
18
on Mount Athos 46. The Rumanian literature in Church Slavonic, culti-

vated in the princely courts of Arges and Suceava and in the monas-
teries of Wallachia and Moldavia, consisted almost entirely, until the
second half of the fifteenth century, of translations from the Greek
and of writings obtained from the Balkan Slavs.
Russia experienced the influence of the new literary movement a
little earlier. The Russian scholar A.I. Sobolevsky observed that between
about 1350 and 1450 a profound change took place in the content and
form of the writings available to the Russians in Church Slavonic trans-
lations from the Greek. Striking differences can be observed, especially
in the language, the script and the spelling, between manuscripts copied
in the first and the second of these periods. Even the tex t of the New
Testament and of liturgical works was affected by these changes. How-
ever, though the Russian texts written in 1450 and later are strikingly
different from those dating from the mid-fourteenth century, they
show remarkable similarities with manuscripts of the same works stemm-
ing from the Balkan Slavonic countries and from the period 1350-1450.
Moreover, translations of many Greek works, particularly those relating
to the spiritual life, are extant in Russian manuscripts of the mid -
fifteenth century, but not in earlier ones. Sobolevsky remarked that
during the hundred years between 1350 and 1450 the number of writings
available to the Russians in translation almost doubled; and he attri-
buted these changes to a powerful literary influence exerted in this period
by the Southen Slavs upon the Russians 47. His conclusions have been
generally accepted, and Russian literary historians have coined the phrase
«the second South Slav influence» to describe this phenomenon (and to
distinguish it from the earlier, Bulgarian, «influence» exerted on their
country in the tenth and eleventh centuries). It is worth noting that this
introduction of new versions of the Scriptures and the liturgical texts
appears to have raised no opposition; there were no signs of the storm
that broke over a similar issue in Russia three centuries later, when the
attempts of the Russian Patriarch Nikon to enforce upon his church the
liturgical texts and practices of the contemporary Greeks caused m il-
lions of «Old Believers» to go into schism. No doubt in 1400' religious
nationalism in Russia was still in its infancy, and the Byzantines, who
sponsored these textual emendations, still enjoyed a towering prestige.
46. Ibid., 138-139.

47. A.I. Sobolevsky, Perevodnaya literatura Moskovskoy R usi X I V - X V I I
vekov, St Petersburg, 1903, 1-14.
AFTER THE FALL 489
LATE BYZANTINE CULTURE A ND THE SLAVS 19
It is significant that in a Russian document dated 1403 Metropolitan

Cyprian is given high praise for his «correction of the [Church ] books» 48.
The most notable example of the «Second South Slav influence»
upon Russia are the hagiographical writings of Epiphanius «the Wise».
Between 1396 and 1420 this Russian monk, who seems to have had a
good knowledge of Greek, wrote two Vitae, devoted to St Stephen of
Perm 5 and to his own master, St Sergius of Radonezh. One of their no-
table features is their literary style. Mannered, ornate and rhetorical,
relying on verbal and euphonic effects, it shows every sign of conforming
to — and often greatly overstepping — the literary conventions of Eu-
thym ius’ «Bulgarian» school. Epiphanius himself described his own style
most felicitously as «the braiding of words» (pletenie sloves). Its sophisti-
cated craftsmanship and technical artistry have only recently begun
to be fully appreciated by literary historians 49.
We are now, perhaps, in a position to attem pt a more comprehen-
sive description of this late medieval literary movement, whose impact
we have detected in Bulgaria, Serbia, Rumania and Russia. It had
a marked antiquarian quality, in that its protagonists pinned their
hope on a return to a golden age, epitomized by the tradition of Cyril
and Methodius and by the unquestioned prestige of Byzantine civili-
sation; it was strongly élitist, for its leaders, by encouraging the use
of archaic and elaborate turns of phrase and of Greek semantic caiques,
were striving to dissociate the sacred and educated language from the
vulgar spoken tongue, to create a kind of Slavonic katkarevousa ; it
was overtly philhellenic; and, freely crossing national frontiers and
making use of the Church Slavonic language, the lingua franca of Eastern
Europe, it harnassed the forces of cosmopolitanism of the late Middle
Ages. One of the earliest and m ost distinguished students of this mo-
vem ent, the Russian scholar D.S. Likhachev, has defined it in these
terms: «We are confronted with the phenomenon of a single intellectual
movement, sufficiently powerful to embrace various countries and
sufficiently profound to have affected simultaneously literature, writing,
painting and religion» 50.
48. Ibid., 12-13, note 3.

49. On Epiphanius and his writings, see D.S. Likhachev, Nekotorye zadachi,
107-128; idem, Razvitie russkoy literatury X —X V I I vekov, Leningrad, 1973, 83-93;
D. Cizevskij, History of Russian Literature from the eleventh century to the end of
the Baroque, The Hague, 1960, 167-180; R .R. Milner - Gulland, Russia’s Lost R e-
naissance, in Literature and Western Civilization, vol. I l l , ed. D. Daiches and A.K .
Thorlby, London, 1973, 435-468.
50. Nekotorye zadachi, 107.
20
Likhachev was also the first to attem pt an assessment of the debt

which this literary movement owed to Byzantine Hesychasm 51. This
debt, in his view, was considerable. His thesis is argued with learning
and sensitivity, and — in this writer’s opinion — most of his arguments
are convincing. It has long been known that a large proportion of the
religious texts translated from Greek into Church Slavonic in the four-
teenth and fifteenth centuries, and which came to fill the monastic li-
braries of Eastern Europe, were ascetic and spiritual writings popular in
Hesychast circles : they included works by John of the Ladder, Isaac
the Syrian, Symeon the New Theologian, Gregory of Sinai and the
Patriarch Kallistos. Some of these works, translated for the first tim e,
brought their Slav readers into contact with the contemporary avant -
garde literature of Byzantium; others, already familiar in earlier trans-
lations, were retranslated in this period : among them was «The Ladder»
(KXtâÇ), whose new Slavonic version was done in Serbia, probably
c. 1370, and played a major role in the spread of Hesychast spirituality
throughout Eastern Europe 52.
In the second place, Hesychast doctrines and practices were widely
disseminated in Eastern Europe by contemporary hagiographical wri-
tings. Some of the leading Byzantine Hesychasts, notably the Patriarchs
Kallistos and Philotheos, were enthusiastic writers of saints’ lives, and
used them to extoll and propagate the ideal of hesychia 53. Their Sla-
vonic collaborators, above all Euthym ius of Trnovo and Epiphanius
«The Wise», followed suit. B etter than abstruse theological treatises,
the biographies of saints who had devoted their lives to «the prayer of
the heart» could publicize among the Slavs the values of the Hesychast
tradition. It is not surprising that hagiography became the most popular
literary genre of the period. Some of these saints’ biographies seem to
have stemmed from a bilingual Graeco - Slav milieu. Thus the Vita
of St Romil of Vidin, composed in the late fourteenth century, has come
down to us in a Greek and a Slavonic version, and it is quite possible
that it was written simultaneously in both languages 54.
51. See ibid,, 112-28; Razvitie russkoy literatury, 93—102.

52. D. Bogdanovic, Jovan Lestviónik u vizantijskoj i staroj srpskoj knjizevnosti,
Belgrade, 1968, especially 28-29, 172, 194-196, 200.
53. See H.-G. Beck, Kirche und theologische Literatur im byzantinischen
Reich, Munich, 1959, 272, 725, 774-775.
54. See I. Dujcev, Rapports littéraires entre les Byzantins, les Bulgares et
les Serbes aux X lV e et X V e siècles, extrait du recueil de travaux L'École de la
Morava et son Temps, Belgrade, 1972, 90; idem, Slawische Heilige in der byzanti-
nischen Hagiographie, Südost - Forschungen, 19 (1960), 83-84.
AFTER THE FALL 491
LATE B YZANTINE CULTURE A ND THE SLAVS 21
Thirdly, the urge to «correct» the liturgical books by removing the

scribes’ errors and bringing the texts into line with the Greek originals,
also had roots in the Hesychast movement. The Hesychasts showed a
lively interest in matters of ritual, and their «purist» attitude to eccle-
siastical practice led them to work for a purification and a renewal of
the Church’s liturgical life. In the late Middle Ages they made a no-
table contribution to Byzantine liturgical theology. The Patriarch Phi-
lotheos, while still abbot of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos,
composed a set of rules for the correct celebration of the Liturgy of
St John Chrysostom, known as the AiàraÇiç rf¡q detaç xaî leqâç Xeixovqytaç.
It was translated into Church Slavonic by the Patriarch Euthymius 55.
This concern for liturgical reform was communicated to the Russians
by their Hesychast metropolitan Cyprian 56. The same anxiety lest
linguistic errors in the sacred texts should result in heresy led, as we have
seen, the purists of the Bulgarian «Euthymian» school to undertake a
wholesale revision of the Slavonic versions of the Scriptures, including
even the Gospels.
This readiness of churchmen to tamper with the very texts of Holy
Writ may seem at first sight surprising. Y et in several respects —
notably in its idealization of the Church Slavonic past and its appeal to
the authority of Byzantine models — this programme of linguistic re-
form was rooted in the outlook of East European intellectuals of the
late Middle Ages. In the troubled world of late fourteenth century Bal-
kan politics, the victories of the Turks could be seen as a consequence
of the spiritual disunity and moral decline of Christians. A sense of
impending doom and a despondent belief that the present times were
inferior to the glorious past were then fairly widespread in Byzantium 57.
The notion that the corruption of morals was a result of a corruption
in the spelling of manuscripts m ay seem far - fetched to the modem
man; yet, at a tim e of widespread belief in the literal truth of the sacred
texts of Christianity and in the supernatural efficacy of ritual, the
knowledge that the accuracy of the former and the purity of the latter
were in jeopardy could easily generate a feeling of acute anxiety 58.
55. E. Kaluzniacki, Werke des Patriarchen von Bulgarien E uthym ius, 283-306.
56. Tachiaos, 9EmÔQàoeiç,. 149-150, note 40.
57. See I. Sevcenko, The Decline of Byzantium seen through the eyes of its
intellectuals, D O P , 15 (1961), 167-186.
58. A hint of such an xiety is conveyed by the complaint of Constantine of
Kostenets that in his time «all the true writings» were «ruined» «in Romania up to the
22
In this situation of crisis, it was perhaps only natural to conclude that

the salvation of the individual and of society lay in the «correction»
of books and of ecclesiastical rites, in the promotion of the unity of
Orthodox Christendom, and in the striving for spiritual perfection.
These conclusions were in fact widely drawn in Hesychast circles between
1350 and 1450.
A ttem pts have been made to demonstrate the influence of H esy-
chasm on the literary style (as distinct from the contents) of Slavonic
hagiography of the late Middle Ages. The most consistent and sophisti-
cated of these attempts was made by Likhachev. He has argued that
the importance ascribed by the Euthym ian school to verbal and ortho-
graphic accuracy stemmed from the belief that the word contains the
essence of what it designates and that the name is consubstantial with
the named, just as the name of God participates in God’s nature. This
belief he ascribes to the Byzantine Hesychasts 59. For all its subtlety and
ingenuity, this argument has failed to convince the present writer. There
appear to be no grounds for regarding this attitude to words and names
as specifically Hesychast; nor is it possible, without risking the charge
of over - intellectualizing the aims of the Slavonic hagiographers, to
ascribe such a theory to them. It is, in this writer’s opinion, equally
hazardous to try and trace such a filiation on the purely literary plane.
While it is probable that Epiphanius was «influenced» by the Euthymian
school of Trnovo, and the latter by the stylistic conventions of four-
teenth - century Byzantine hagiography, this double connection has
not yet been firmly established. Only by a detailed stylistic comparison
of the writings of the Byzantine Patriarchs Kallistos and Philotheos,
of Euthymius and his Balkan Slavonic disciples, and of the Russian
writers of the late fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries, could the theo-
ry of a direct transmission of the new hagiographical style from B yzan-
tium to the Balkan Slavs and from them to Russia, be accurately tested.
This comparative analysis has yet to be done 60.
Maritsa and Belgrade and Thessalonica», except for the scribes of Trnovo and Mount
Athos, and of some Athonite monks resident in Serbia : V. Jagic, Rassuzkdeniya, 190.
59. Nekotorye zadachi, 111-114; Predvozrozhdenie na Rusi, 147-148, 163-164.
60. A welcome beginning is Tsvetana Vranska’s thorough study : Stilni pokh-
vati na Patriarkh Evtim iy, Sbornik na Bulgarskata Akadem iya na N aukite i IzkusU
vata, kl. istor. - filolog. i filosof. - obshch., 37 (1942), 105-280. As a rule the B y -
zantine influence on the style of E uthym ius’ hagiographical writings is taken for
granted : «ces oeuvres hagiographiques reflètent fortement l’influence de l ’hagiogra-
phie byzantine du X IY e siècle» (I. Dujcev, Rapports littéraires, 91).
AFTER THE FALL 493
IV. S o m e Le a d in g P ro t ag o ni st s
The monasteries of Eastern Europe, the pan - Orthodox policy of

the Hesychast Patriarchs of Constantinople, and the literary movement
of the late Middle Ages were, we have seen, the sinews by which the
cultural cohesion of the Byzantine Commonwealth was maintained
during the last century of its history. In the final resort, however,
the decisive role in maintaining this unity — and in ensuring the conti-
nuing spread of Byzantine culture to the Slavs — was played by indi-
viduals. Some of these have already been mentioned. In this concluding
section an attem pt will be made to show that the contribution of
these men to the cultural life of late medieval Europe was greatly
enhanced by two characteristics which they shared : the personal bonds
of friendship or discipleship which, transcending state boundaries, linked
them together within a single international community; and their ama-
zing mobility.
The tendency of these Hesychast monks to travel widely would
have astonished their Benedictine contemporaries, bound by the rule
of stability. But extensive travelling was common enough in early
Eastern monasticism. In the fourteenth century monastic journeys
eould be regarded as a form of spiritual endeavour : the biographer of
St Romil of Yidin writes of «wandering for the sake of the Lord» 61.
The motives which prompted these travels were doubtless varied :
among them were an urge to seek qualified teachers of hesychia, the
desire to spread the knowledge of the «prayer of the heart», and some-
tim es the wish to escape the embarassing consequences of wordly fame.
An extreme example of m obility for the last of these motives is that
of Maximos Kausokalyvites, an Athonite hermit, friend of Gregory of
Sinai, who — to avoid the influx of visitors and disciples — would
regularly burn down his hut made of grass and move further afield 62.
Most of the leading Hesychasts of the time were great travellers.
Gregory of Sinai, before settling in Paroria, was trained in the ascetic
life in monasteries of Cyprus, Sinai, Mount Athos, Mytilene and Constan-
tinople. Theodosius, before founding the Kilifarevo community, served
his apprenticeship in several Bulgarian monasteries, on Mount Athos
61. P. Devos, La version slave de la Vie de S. Romylos, B yzantion, 31 (1961), 176.

62. F. Halkin, D eux vies de S. Maxime le Kausokalybe, ermite au Mont Athos
(X IV s.), A nBoll., 54(1936), 38-112. Cf. I.P. Mamalakes, T o "Ayiov ”O q o ç C'Adœç)
ôià ixèoov Tcov alœvcov, Thessaloniki, 1971, 175-176.
24
and in the neighbourhood of Mesembria; he ended his life in Constanti-

nople. Euthym ius, before becom ing Patriarch of Bulgaria, lived as a
monk in Kilifarevo, Constantinople, Mount Athos and Lemnos. Cyprian
received his training in Kilifarevo, Constantinople and on Mount Athos;
his later ecclesiastical duties took him to Lithuania and Muscovy. Gre-
gory Tsamblak ranged in his travels more w idely still. After spending
several years on Mount Athos, he became in the closing years of the
fourteenth century abbot of the Monastery of Decani in Serbia. Between
1401 and 1406 he was in Moldavia, working as a priest. From there he
went to Lithuania, and travelled to Moscow and Constantinople. In
1415 he was consecrated m etropolitan of Kiev by the Lithuanian bi-
shops. Three years later'he appeared in the W est as a delegate of his
Lithuanian sovereign to the Council of Constance, charged with
the duty of negotiating a union with the Boman Church 63.
In the late fourteenth century this international m ovem ent of men
was given a further impetus by the Ottoman advance in the Balkans.
After the battle of Kosovo (1389) and the capture of Trnovo (1393)
the northward movement of refugees, seeking to escape from the Turkish
invasion, gathered momentum. Some of them were distinguished church-
men and scholars. Bulgarian disciples of Euthym ius migrated to northern
Serbia; Serbs to the Bum anian principalities; Greeks and Balkan
Slavs to Bussia. The role played by these learned refugees in spreading
Byzantine culture in its late medieval Slavonic form has sometimes
been exaggerated by historians who persisted in viewing the East Euro-
pean world of that time as a collection of separate national cultures. Some
of the m ost distinguished of these expatriates, such as Nicodemus of Tis-
mana, Cyprian, Gregory Tsamblak, and the Byzantine painter Theophanes
the Greek 64, moved north for reasons, it would seem, quite unconnected
63. See A.I. Yatsimirsky, Grigory Tsamblak, St Petersburg, 1904; Turdeanu,

La littérature bulgare du X I Ve siècle, 149-155; Muriel Heppell, The Hesychast Move-
ment in Bulgaria : the Turnovo School and its Relations with Constantinople,
Eastern Churches Review, 7 (1975), 9-20.
64. Theophanes’ work in Novgorod and Moscow has led to speculation about
the possible influence of Hesychasm on «Palaeologan» painting of the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries. The problem has been much discussed of late : see the bi-
bliography in D. Obolensky, The Byzantine Commonwealth, 413, to which should
now be added : M.V. Alpatov, Iskusstvo Feofana Greka i uchenie isikhastov, V V ,
33 (1972), 190-202; J. Meyendorff, Spiritual Trends in Byzantium in the Late
Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries’, in The Kariye Djami, ed. Paul A.
Underwood, IV, London, 1975, 93-106 ; and E. Bakalova, La Société et l’ Art,
AFTER THE FALL 495
LATE BYZANTINE CULTURE AND T H E SLAVS 25
w ith the Turkish advance. To judge their role in proper perspective,

we should recognise that these monks, churchmen and scholars moved
w ithin the same cultural area, whose unity had recently been strength-
ened by the spread of Hesychasm and of E uthym ius’ literary reforms.
In migrating from one part of the Byzantine Commonwealth to ano-
ther, they faced no formidable problems of adaptation : they expected
to find, and generally did, similar conditions for their scholarly or
ecclesiastical work. It is important to realise that these men were not
so much innovators as heirs to one and the same international tradi-
tion of religion and letters.
Their effectiveness as acculturators was increased by the strength
and endurance of their personal links with each other. During the
hundred years between 1325 and 1425 four generations of prominent
Hesychasts succeeded each other on the East European scene : Gregory
of Sinai was the spiritual master of Theodosius of Trnovo; the latter was
the teacher of the Patriarch Euthym ius who, in his turn, was Gregory
Tsam blak’s mentor. If it is remembered that, in Eastern Christian mo-
nasticism, the relationship between teacher and disciple is the most
sacred and unbreakable of human bonds, this spiritual genealogy will
be seen as evidence of an impressive continuity of precept aud practice.
Each of these men, in addition, had personal links with fellow - Hesy-
chasts, at home and abroad : the Patriarch Kallistos was a disciple of
Gregory of Sinai, and a friend of both Theodosius and Euthymius;
Cyprian was (in all probability) a pupil of Theodosius and (certainly)
a friend of Euthymius; while Euthym ius, apart from his contacts with
colleagues in Bulgaria, on Mount Athos and in Constantinople, was
also in correspondence with Nicodemus of Tismana in Wallachia.
The lives, no less than the outlook, of these leading protagonists
of the Hesychast m ovement thus display a feature typical of the cosmo-
politan Graeco - Slav (and in part Rumanian) world in which they lived.
Dispersed throughout Eastern Europe, th ey remained in close touch
w ith each other. Many shared a common loyalty to a spiritual alma
mater, such as Mount Athos, Paroria or Kilifarevo. Most of them were
<3Q Bulgarie au X lV e siècle (L* influence de 1' hésychasme sur 1* a rt), Actes
du X lV e Congrès International des Études B yzantines, ed. M. Berza et E. Sta-
nescu, 2, Bucharest, 1975, 33-38. In m y opinion, the attem pts to detect signs
o f Hesychast theology in Byzantine monumental painting of this period have not
been successful. The problem is not necessarily insoluble, though specific connections
are hard to trace. No doubt further search for acceptable common theological and
aesthetic criteria is needed. Visual art lies outside the scope of this paper.
26
linked, in successive generations, w ith one or the other of the great

names of the H esychast m ovem ent : w ith Gregory of Sinai, Theodosius
of Trnovo, the Patriarchs Kallistos, Philotheos and Euthym ius, and
with Cyprian - men who (together w ith Gregory Palamas) dominated
this movement w ith the same authority which Cyril and Methodius
and their immediate disciples had enjoyed among the Slavs of the
early Middle Ages. And, belonging as th ey did to the supra - national
community that has been termed «the H esychast International» 65,
they all, directly or by proxy, retained contact with the religious and
cultural life of Byzantium , whose hagiographical literature and Hesy-
chast spirituality remained models for the whole of Eastern Europe-
65. The expression is A. Elian’s : Byzance et les Roumains à la fin du Moyen*

Age, Proceedings of the X lIIth International Congress of Byzantine Studies (Oxford„
1966), London, 1967, 199.
22
The Holy Man and Christianization from the Apocryphal

Apostles to St Stephen of Perm
Richard M. Price
P eter Brown’s article on ‘The Rise and Function of the Holy Man
in Late Antiquity’, first published in 1 9 7 1 , immediately added a
n ew dim ension to the study of the ascetic m ovem ents within the
Christian Empire, by drawing attention to the w ays in which holy
m en could contribute to the easing of social relations, as well as of
the anxieties of individuals, in a time of rapid econom ic and politi-
cal change. One change that the holy man could certainly assist
w as th e process of Christianization. This essay will explore the ways
in w h ich the holy m an, as represented in the Lives of the saints,
could make a distinctive contribution to this process. I shall use a
wide range of hagiographical narratives, w hich will extend in time
from the apocryphal Acts of the late second century, through the
hagiographical literature generated by the m onastic movem ent, to
texts from the late medieval period, and in location from Egypt to
Ireland, and from the Loire to beyond the Volga. The texts vary
enorm ously in their historicity, extending from the reliable to the
w h olly fictitious. I hope to show how this literature, despite its huge
range, show s striking continuity in ideology and narrative motifs,
and h o w texts from widely different times and countries can be
m utually illuminating.
EARLY M ISS IO N A R Y LIVES
R am say MacMullen, in a study of the Christianization of the Roman

Empire, begins with a scene from the fifth century at the foot of the
colu m n o f St Symeon Stylites, where the saint is surrounded by
hundreds of Arab tribesmen, w h o had made a journey of 2 5 0 miles
or m ore to break their idols and embrace the Christian faith under
216 Richard M. Price

the eyes of the holy man.1 What was their motivation? MacMullen
opines that they came in quest of an immediate source of super-
natural power. Certainly, the account in Theodoret’s Religious
History lays stress on the miracles of healing that Symeon wrought
on their behalf. But does this really mean that they renounced their
ancestral faith simply in order to have access to the miraculous,
with little thought of ‘conversion’ beyond that? The story can be
read differently. The Arab tribesmen of the Syrian desert who were
confederates of the empire had many motives for embracing
Christianity at a time when the Eastern Empire was developing a
new identity as a specifically Christian State (in contrast to its
fourth-century character as a State whose emperors promoted
Christianity). Why did they come all the way to Symeon’s column
to make their act of faith? It was, most simply, a way of maximiz-
ing publicity. To this the miraculous powers attributed to the holy
man could contribute powerfully. If a miracle was deemed to occur,
it would serve to dramatize their conversion, and to express in
memorable form the new status of the tribe as part of God’s holy
people, under his immediate protection. Everyone was to gain—the
converts who achieved a resonant expression of their new status,
the holy man who proved his power, the pilgrims round the column
who were the fortunate witnesses of so stirring an event, and the
monastery and pilgrimage centre serving St Symeon and his visi-
tors, which doubtless received a generous contribution from the
grateful tribesmen.2 In any event, the story illustrates the drawing
power of the most static of holy men, and the way in which the
unique status of the man of God, displayed in his miraculous pow-
ers, made him a prime agent in the process of Christianization.
This can be illustrated from further material in Theodoret, such
as his account of the ñfth-century Thalelaeus of Gabala in Syria.3
Thalelaeus set up his monastic cell by a great pagan shrine on a hill
not far from the city. The demons tried to scare him away by wail-
ing at night and waving torches; once they uprooted five hundred
trees in a single storm. Theodoret heard of this from the peasantry
of the surrounding plain, who we¿e gradually converted to
1 R. MacMullen, Christianizing the Roman Empire, a .d . 100-400 (New Haven and
London, 1 9 8 4 ), 1 - 3 , citing Theodoret, HR, xxvi. 1 3 - 1 4 (ii, 1 9 0 - 3 ).
2 The financial interest of the pilgrimage centres in promoting recourse to holy
men is noted by Peter Brown, AS, 6 3 - 4 , as a factor he omitted in the ‘Holy Man’
article of 1 9 7 1 .
3 Theodoret, HR, xxviii (ii, 2 2 4 - 3 1 ).
AFTER THE FALL 499
The holy man and Christianization 217

Christianity as they witnessed the holy man’s indifference to
demonic attack and his ability to cure the animals whose ailments
were attributed to demonic malice.
The link between Christianization and the miraculous powers of
the holy man had received a strong emphasis as early as the sec-
ond century in the developing corpus of the apocryphal Acts. The
Acts of Andrew, as they survive in Gregory of Tours’ epitome, have
a whole series of stories in which the apostle achieves the conver-
sion of his hearers through raising their dead and liberating them
from demons. A particularly striking story occurs in the Acts of
John.4 On the great feast day of Artemis of the Ephesians, St John
enters her shrine wearing the colour of mourning; the enraged
bystanders seize him and try to murder him. At this he challenges
Artemis to strike him dead, while he prays to his own God to dis-
play his power. The altar of Artemis shatters into pieces, and half
the temple falls down, killing the pagan priest. This spurs the people
to demolish the rest of the temple themselves, while John further
manifests his power by raising the priest to life. What has this rather
crude and wholly fantastic story to tell the historian? It illustrates
the link between miracles as manifesting the power of holy men and
belligerent Christianization through the destruction of pagan
shrines. It also contains a mass of related motifs which recur in later
Lives of saints: the attempt to kill the holy man which, in an unex-
plained way, comes to nothing; the formal ordeal, in which the
saint, representing Christ, is pitted against the heathen and the
demons they serve; the proof of the weakness of the idols in their
inability to defend themselves; the mercy shown by the holy man
to the enemy he has now no reason to fear. We shall find all these
motifs again in later and less legendary Lives.
Christianization through the smashing of idols, demolition of
temples, and cutting down of sacred trees was more than a com-
monplace of pious fiction: however distasteful it may be to modem
susceptibilities, it recurs repeatedly in the Lives of historical saints
famous as missionaries. What kind of Christianization does it imply?
As Peter Brown has brought out well, for fourth-century Christians
the triumph of Christ was in the first place a victory not over men’s
souls but over the demons who for millennia had dominated the
4 Acta Joannis, 3 8 - 4 7 , in The Apocryphal New Testament, ed. J. K. Elliott (Oxford,

1 9 9 3 )) 3 2 2 - 4
.

cosmos.5 The destruction of their earthly shrines was a continua-
tion of the supernatural victory of Christ over the powers of dark-
ness. Numerous Christian texts that celebrate the destruction of
idols echo the Old Testament denunciation of idols that neither see
nor hear, but the actual belief of Christians was that pagan statues
and temples were the abode of real spirits with (for the unprotected)
terrifying power. The demolition of the objects of pagan cult was
therefore a direct act of defiance against Satan and his angels, and
only God’s true warriors could undertake it with impunity. This
made the smashing of temples and idols an end in itself. We have
seen how texts as early as the apocryphal Acts celebrate the
destruction of temples, but of course they are fictitious. How soon
were Christians able to act out in reality this form of spiritual war-
fare?
In the Acts of the Martyrs the voluntary martyr, who brings
about his own arrest and death, is a prominent figure. Although
there are stories of martyrs who after their arrest insult or overturn
idols when ordered to sacrifice in front of them,6 there is a dearth
of stories of voluntary martyrs destroying idols as their initial act of
defiance. This reflects the general attitude to idolatry of the
Christians of the first three centuries, which was simply to remain
at a distance from it: thereby they maintained their own purity,
without attempting to change the world. The story of St John’s
destruction of the Temple of Artemis discussed above dramatizes a
conflict between Christians and the demonic which in actual fact
was fought out not as yet in pagan shrines but in the more domes-
tic setting iniwhich were celebrated the rites of exorcism.7 From the
fourth century we may observe a change. Take for example the Life
of St Abercius of Hierapolis—a fictitious fourth-century account of a
historical figure of the second century. In a dream he receives from
Christ a rod with which to destroy the idols of the heathen, which
he proceeds to do in temple after temple. The pagans are dumb-
5 AS, ch. I.
6 A common variant in later legends is for martyrs ,'l.er their arrest to agree to
go to a temple, where they destroy the idols through the power of prayer: see H.
Delehaye, Les passions des martyrs et les genres littéraires, SHag. 1 3 b, 2 nd edn.
(Brussels, 1 9 6 6 ), 1 9 0 .
7 MacMullen, Christianizing the Roman Empire, 2 7 , notes the stress in Christian
writers of the second and third centuries on the observed power of Christian exor-
cism as a public proof of the truth of the gospel.
AFTER THE FALL 501

founded by the Inability of their gods to defend themselves, and
there are numerous conversions.8
In a famous fourth-century text from the pagan side, the orator
Libanius protested against a wave of attacks on rural temples by
Syrian monks in the mid-38os, which deprived the peasantry of the
symbols both of their sense of community and of their trust in the
divine.9 As described by Libanius, these attacks were notable for
their wanton destructiveness, as ancestral shrines, one after
another, were recklessly destroyed without anything taking their
place. He bears witness to a ‘Christianization5that consisted of prov-
ing the impotence of the demons by destroying their abodes, rather
than implementing a programme of evangelization in which the
demolition of temples was simply one stage in the work of convert-
ing countryfolk to the Christian faith.
The text from this time best known for the destruction of shrines
as an act of spiritual warfare is Sulpicius Severus’ Life of St Martin,
written in the 390s, a decade after Libanius5 protest. In a series of
episodes, Martin pits himself dramatically against the idols and
shrines of paganism. The prominence of miraculous motifs in this as
in other sections of the work has excited scepticism among twentieth-
century critics, but the systematic analysis of the text in Jacques
Fontaine's massive commentary shows how we can discern, under
the dramatization and symbolism that the miraculous elements con-
fer, a solid bedrock of historical fact, firmly rooted in the distinctive
features of Gallic paganism and of the spirituality of Martin himself.10
A good case in point is the episode of the destruction of the temple at
Levroux, one of the most important sanctuaries of the Celtic tribe of
the Bituriges.11 Martin found himself rudely repelled by the local pop-
ulation when he endeavoured to demolish this great sanctuary. He
withdrew out of danger's way, and prayed in sackcloth and ashes for
three days. At the end of this time two angels, armed with lances and
8 Vita S. Abercii (BHG 2 ), 6 - 2 4 (ed. T. Nissen (Leipzig, 1 9 1 2 ), 6 - 1 9 ). This
episode is the probable source of the similar story told in the legendary Life of Abramy
of Rostov (a thirteenth-century text otherwise known as the Story of the Establishment
of Christianity in Rostov), in which St John the Divine gives the saint a staff with
which to smash the great idol of Volos in Rostov.
9 Oratio, XXX. 9 (ed. R. Foerster, Libanii opera, 1 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1 9 0 3 - 2 7 ), iii, 9 2 ).
10 Sulpicius Severus, Vita S. Martini (BHL 5 6 1 0 ), §§ 1 2 - 1 5 (ed. J. Fontaine,
Sulpicius Sévère Vie de Saint Martin, 3 vols., SC 1 3 3 - 5 (Paris, 1 9 6 7 - 9 ), i, 2 7 8 - 8 7 ).
Fontaine discusses the problems of historicity at length in ibid., i, 1 7 1 - 2 1 0 .
11 Vita Martini, § 1 4 .3 - 7 (i> 2 8 4 - 5 ). See also Fontaine, Vie de Saint Martin, ii,
778-93-

shields, came to his assistance. While they (invisibly) held the crowd
at bay, Martin demolished the altars and statues of the shrine. The
bystanders realized that their failure to intervene was an act of God
and a proof of the impotence of their idols; ‘almost all’, we are told,
embraced the faith of Martin. Fontaine has suggested that we can
demythologize the warrior angels as a troop of imperial soldiers: such
humdrum support is explicitly mentioned in a similar episode nar-
rated in another major work on Martin’s life by Sulpicius, the
Dialogues. The story is rich in biblical allusions, which we may accept
as more than literary motifs, since they express what we may take to
have been the understanding of Martin himself. The destruction of
pagan shrines fulfilled the injunctions of the Lord to Moses (Leviticus
26: 30) and renewed the great deeds of Josiah (2 Kings 23: 8).12
Martin’s withdrawal to pray follows the dominical injunction of
Matthew 17: 21 (‘This kind never comes out except by prayer and
fasting’), and at the same time invokes the theme of monastic with-
drawal into the solitude of the desert.
The dominant theme of these chapters of the Life is that St Martin
carried out his work of evangelization by means of spiritual combat
against the powers of darkness. Sulpicius uses literary motifs from
hagiography and even Virgilian epic to add dignity to his narrative,
but the biblical models remain central: he presents Martin as a man
in whom the great biblical events of the history of salvation could
endlessly repeat themselves. Martin as a man of power continues
and manifests the once-for-all victory of Christ over the demonic.
This does not explain to the modem reader how Martin could
achieve the destruction of pagan shrines and the partial conversion
of rural populations. The historian must invoke his alliance with
Christian landowners and the use of military force. But such
demythologization should not be taken so far as to obscure Martin’s
own understanding of what he was about: we have no reason to
doubt that the biblical motifs we have been considering were as
dominant for him as for his biographer. Martin was concerned to
achieve a real Christianization, as is evidenced by his programme of
founding parishes in the countryside;13 but this does not alter the
12 Dialogi (BHL 5 6 1 4 - 1 6 ), iii. 8 . 6 (ed. C. Halm, CSEL, 1 ( 1 8 6 6 ), 2 0 6 ). The impor-
tance of Josiah for Martin’s circle is illustrated by his treatment in Sulpicius, Chronica,
i, 5 2 (ed. ibid., 5 3 ).
13 See C. Stancliffe, ‘From Town to Country: The Christianization of the Touraine
3 7 0 - 6 0 0 ’, in The Church in Town and Countryside, ed. D. Baker, SCH 1 6 (Oxford,
I 979 )>43 - 59 -
AFTER THE FALL 503

fact that he shared an ideology that interpreted the destruction of
pagan shrines as more than a preliminary to church-building in
that it was the acting out of a spiritual battle against the demonic
forces of evil.
There is no shortage of later material that provides further exam-
ples of this ideal of aggressive evangelization, linked to the theme of
spiritual combat with the powers of darkness. One significant body
of medieval Latin texts, which illustrate the influence of St Martin
and his biographer, consists of the Lives of the eighth-century
Anglo-Saxon missionaries in Germany—Lives which vary in histor-
ical reliability but which testify alike to the vitality of the Martinian
ideal.14 We read in Alcuin’s Life of St WiUibrord of an occasion when
the saint smashed an idol and was miraculously protected when its
custodian struck him on the head with his sword; the saint’s com-
panion rushed forward to avenge the blow, but he insisted that the
man be left to go free.13 The theme of the refusal of the holy man
to punish his adversaries serves, here and elsewhere, to pinpoint
that his true enemies are not the benighted pagans but the powers
of darkness: ‘for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but
against the principalities, against the powers, against the cosmic
rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wicked-
ness in the heavenly places’ (Ephesians 6: 12).
The best-known of these works is Willibald’s Life of St Boniface.
The text betrays the influence of the Life of St Martin. We read how
Boniface, at an early stage in his mission, ‘destroyed pagan temples
and shrines, and built churches and chapels’,16 though it is clear
from the following chapter that his church-building was very grad-
ual. One vivid episode is the cutting down of an oak sacred to
‘Jupiter’. A great crowd of pagans stood around, ‘bitterly cursing in
their hearts the enemy of the gods’. To everyone’s amazement, no
14 For a balanced treatment see R. Fletcher, The Conversion of Europe (London,

1 9 9 7)3 1 9 3 - 2 2 7 . Vita S. Vulframni (BHL 8 7 3 8 ), ed. W. Levison, MGH SS rer. Merov.,
v ( 1 9 1 0 ) 3 6 6 1 - 7 3 , illustrates h ow religious houses could have an interest in dis-
seminating dramatic stories of evangelization in Germany that were wholly fictitious,
as pointed out by I. N. Wood, ‘Saint Wandrille and its Hagiography’, in idem and
G. A. Loud (eds.), Church and Chronicle in the Middle Ages: Essays presented to John
Taylor (London, 1 9 9 1 ), 1 - 1 4 , esp. 1 3 - 1 4 .
15 Alcuin, Vita S. Willibrordi (BHL 8 9 3 5 - 6 ), § 1 4 (ed. W. Levison, MGH SS rer.
Merov., vii ( 1 9 2 0 ), 1 2 8 ); tr. C. H. Talbot, The Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany
(London, 1 9 6 4 ), 1 2 - 1 3 .
16 Willibald, Vita S. Bonifatii (BHL 1 4 0 0 ), § 6 (ed. G. H. Pertz, MGH SS, :i ( 1 8 2 9 ),
3 4 1 ); tr. Talbot, Missionaries, 4 1 .

sooner had he made a first shallow incision, than the whole tree,
shaken by a mighty gust of wind, fell to the ground and broke into
four great pieces. The pagans no less than Boniface, we are told,
interpreted this event as proof of the power of the Christian God.17
An episode from the Life of St Lebuin (of dubious historicity) pro-
vides a particularly striking illustration of the belligerent spiritual-
ity we are exploring. Lebuin insists on attending a general assembly
of the Saxons, despite warnings that he is likely to be roughly han-
dled. He interrupts the assembly, and threatens the Saxons th at if
they do not renounce their ancestral idolatry God will subject them
to alien rulers (that is, the Franks). The Saxons lose their patience,
and a number of them pull stakes out of a nearby fence as weapons
to use against Lebuin. But the saint suddenly vanishes from their
sight, and the Saxons immediately repent of their murderous intent.
This story is told plainly, but tellingly, in the original anonymous
version of the Life.18 But when Hucbald of St Amand came to write
his more elaborate version of the text in c. 900, he added a num -
ber of details that bring out the meaning of the story.19 Lebuin, as
he arrives at the assembly, is described as ‘a good soldier .. . clothed
in the breastplate of righteousness . . . protected with the shield of
faith, crowned with the helmet of salvation, armed with the sword
of the Spirit’. He makes the sign of the cross ‘like the advance stan-
dard-bearer of his King’. In the presence of the pagans he imitates,
we are told, the zeal of Elijah the prophet (against the priests of
Baal), and raises his voice like a trumpet. The Saxons react ‘deliri-
ous with a demoniacal spirit, full of fury and madness’. Lebuin
walks away unharmed through their ranks, like Christ escaping
‘from the perfidious Jews’. He is proud of this divine protection, but
disappointed to have been deprived of the crown of martyrdom. All
these details are added by Hucbald, but they simply bring out more
vividly what is already implicit in the original text. One of the char-
acteristics of the late antique holy man was the frankness of speech
17 Vita Bonifatii, § 8 (pp. 3 4 3 - 4 ); tr. Talbot, Missionaries, 4 5 - 6 . This story is

indebted to the famous episode of the felling of the sacred pine tree in the Vita
Martini, § 1 3 (on which, see below). It is itself echoed in the Heliand, a ninth-cen-
tury Old Saxon paraphrase of the Diatesseron, which refers to the power of the gospel
to ‘fell every evil creature and work of wickedness’ (tr. G. R. Murphy, The Heliand
(Oxford, 1 9 9 2 ), 4 ).
18 Vita S. Lebuini antiqua (BHL 4 8 1 0 b), § 6 (ed. A. Hofmeister, MGH SS, xxx . 2
( 1 9 3 4 ) 3 7 93-4); tr. Talbot, Missionaries, 2 3 1 - 3 .
19 Vita S. Lebuini (BHL 4 8 1 2 ), ed. G. H. Pertz, MGH SS, ii ( 1 8 2 9 ), 3 6 2 - 3 .
AFTER THE FALL 505

with which he addressed those in authority; it was part of his role
to speak, when appropriate, with the firmness of a mouthpiece of
God. But in this story this frankness is raised to a higher level as a
frontal attack against the demonic. The pagans, in their resistance
to his words, take on the aspect of demons themselves, raging, mad-
dened, and malicious. The holy man may die a martyr, or he may
with God-given power render their fury impotent. In either event he
makes present the victory of Christ, the crucified King.
Another form of the confrontation between the man of God and
the powers of evil consists of a trial of strength between the holy
man, as the representative of Christ, and pagan priests or sorcerers,
as representatives of evil sources of supernatural power. There were
biblical precedents for this in the tests of power between Moses and
the magicians of Pharaoh and between Elijah and the priests of
Baal; the example most cited by medieval writers, in both West and
East, was the contest between St Peter and Simon Magus described
in the vivid fiction of the late second-century Acts of Peter.20
The best-known fourth-century example is the following story
from the Life of St Martin. On one of his missionary excursions
Martin demolished a village temple, without any resistance from the
villagers (cowed, perhaps, by the armed guard that generally seems
to have attended Martin on these raids), but excited determined
opposition when he set about cutting down a sacred pine-tree. (The
contrast doubtless reflects the fact that sacred trees and wells had a
longer history and a more central place in Celtic cult than temples,
which were a Roman importation.) Agreement was reached that
Martin should stand, bound, under the tree while the pagans them-
selves cut it down: if the tree did not strike Martin on its descent,
that would be proof of the power of his God. With consummate art
Sulpicius Severus describes the felling of the tree and Martin’s all
too predictable escape in a way that makes us share the excitement
of the original onlookers:
And now the tree began to totter, and to look as if it were about to fall. The
monks, standing a distance, grew pale, terrified as disaster drew near; they
had lost all hope and confidence, and expected only the death of Martin.
But he, trusting in the Lord, waited calmly. A loud crack had already been
heard from the felled pine, it was already coming down and already crash-
ing upon him, when he raised his hand against it and made the sign of the
20 Exodus 7 - 9 ; I Kings 1 8 : 2 0 - 4 0 ; the Vercelli Acts of Peter, 2 2 -2 9 , in The
Apocryphal New Testament, ed. Elliott, 4 1 5 - 2 J .

cross. But then, as if driven backwards by some hurricane, it swept round
to the opposite side—so much so that it almost crushed the peasants who
had taken their places there in what had seemed a safe spot. Then indeed
a great shout went up to heaven, the pagans were stunned by the miracle,
while the monks wept for joy; all together extolled the name of Christ.21
One striking variant of this theme is the public trial of strength

between a Christian holy man and a pagan sorcerer (or heretic), in
which both submit to an ordeal which flesh and blood can only sur-
vive by miracle. The best early example is to be found in the History
of the Monks of Egypt, a fourth-century Egyptian text widely dis-
seminated in the East and influential in the West through Rufinus’
translation. We read there of the monk Apa Copres who enters into
debate with a Manichee.22 When intellectual argument proves
indecisive, they agree to undergo trial by fire: each in turn will walk
onto a burning pyre. The Christian spends half an hour in the
flames, sound and unharmed—like the three youths in Nebuchad-
nezzar’s fiery furnace. The Manichee loses his nerve, and has to be
pushed by the crowd into the flames, which give him bums all over
his body.
A similar contest is described in Muirchú’s Life of St Patrick, a text
of the late seventh century. Patrick and a Druid are pressed by the
King of Tara to undergo an ordeal of water and fire. The ordeal by
water is to consist of throwing their sacred books into the water, to
see which emerge undamaged. This test is rejected by the Druid on
the ground that water is the Christian God (presumably a reference
to baptism). So they agree to ordeal by fire. A wooden hut is con-
structed with two rooms, in one of which, made of green wood,
stands the Druid, wearing Patrick’s chasuble, while in the other,
built of dry wood, is placed one of Patrick’s boy acolytes (the future
bishop Benignus), wearing the robes of the Druid; we are doubtless
not meant to think that Patrick is being pusillanimous in putting a
21 Sulpicius, Vita Martini, § 1 3 . 6 - 9 (i, 2 8 0 - 3 ). The story is not credible as it
stands: why would the pagans be happy to cut down their most sacred object, even
as a way of disposing of Martin? Fontaine, Vie de Saint Martin, ii, 7 4 7 - 8 , pointed out
that there was an annual feast of Cybele in which a pine-tree, bearing the image of
Attis, was cut down, as a symbol of his sacrificial death. 1Í such a feast was indeed
the occasion, the cutting down of the tree becomes believable but now suffers from
over-explanation. We begin to doubt whether Martin’s presence under the falling
tree (which is credible enough) was a formal trial by ordeal. It remains significant
that this is how Sulpicius chose to present it.
22 Historia monachorum sive de vita sanctorum patrum, ix. 7 . 9 - 1 5 (ed. E. Schulz-
Fliigel, Patristische Texte und Studien 3 4 (Berlin, 1 9 9 0 ), 3 2 0 - 1 ).
AFTER THE FALL 507
boy in his place. The hut is then set alight, and—the reader is sur-
prised to hear—the green w ood, the Druid, and his garb are con-
sum ed by the flames, while the boy and Patrick's chasuble are
unharm ed . 23
The credibility of these stories is not their strong point. Certainly
the Life of St Patrick is agreed to be wholly imaginary, once w e leave
the material derived from Patrick’s own writings. But a strikingly
similar story, only far more credible, is told in the next work that
will receive our attention—the Life of St Stephen of Perm¡ written
near M oscow by Epifany Premudry in the late fourteenth century.
THE LIFE OF ST STEPHEN OF PERM
Epifany Premudry (Epiphanius the Most Wise) was a m onk first in

Rostov and later in the famous Trinity Monastery of St Sergius of
Radonezh, w hose life he w as to write. The only one of his works
that survives in its original form is the Life of St Stephen of Perm,
written, it would appear, immediately after the death of the saint in
1 3 9 6 . 2 4 The work is notable for its highly rhetorical style, richly
w rough t to the point of m onotony: the author loves strings of bib-
lical citations, sequences of synonym ous expressions, the colloca-
tion of different words from the same root, paratactic clauses that
begin w ith the same word or end with words with the same termina-
tion. It is the style of the work that has won it close study from stu-
dents of Old Russian literature, while its religious content has
received scant attention . 2 5 It relates how Stephen, at first a fellow
23 Vita S. Patricii (BHL 6 4 9 7 ), i. 1 9 - 2 0 (ed. L. Bieler, The Patrician Texts in the Book
of Armagh, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae 1 0 (Dublin, 1 9 7 9 ), 9 2 - 6 ). Note how in these
stories the belligerent note so strong in accounts of the contests between holy men
and the demonic is significantly modified by the comparative passivity of the holy
man w ho submits patiently to an ordeal which might lead to his death. Here the
theme of the holy man as akin to the martyr enriches the dominant theme of the
holy man as warrior.
24 Zhitie sv. Stefana Episkopa Permskogo, ed. V. Druzhinin (St Petersburg, 1 8 9 7 );
repr. with an introduction by D. Cizevskij (’S-Gravenhage, 1 9 5 9 ).
25 The outstanding discussion is J. B0 rtnes, Visions of Glory: Studies in Early
Russian Hagiography, tr. idem and P. L. Nielsen, Slavica Norvegica 5 (Oslo, 1 9 8 8 ),
r 3 6 _ 9 3 * Much of this had been published before as ‘The Function of Word-Weaving
in the Structure of Epiphanius5 Life of Saint Stephen, Bishop of Perm9, in H. Birnbaum
and M. S. Flier (eds.), Medieval Russian Culture> California Slavic Studies 1 2 (Berkeley
and Los Angeles, 1 9 8 4 ), 3 1 1 - 4 2 . Bortnes offers a structuralist analysis that is illu-
minating on the themes as well as the style of the work. Other studies in English are
monk of Epifany’s in Rostov, persuaded the Muscovite authorities to

send him as a missionary to a group of Finno-Ugric tribes around
Perm in the region north-east of Kazan towards the Ural M ountains.
There he devoted the rest of his life to preaching the gospel, apart
from periodic visits to Moscow, on one of w hich he was consecrated
as the first bishop of Perm, and on another of w h ich he died. His
burial in M oscow did nothing to stimulate the development of a
cult, since he w as not a figure of lasting interest to the inhabitants
of the capital. The Life lacks the stories of posthum ous miracles that
are a standard feature of Russian hagiography. It was Epifany’s
work that stimulated interest in Stephen and w on his belated ca n -
onization in 1 5 7 4 .
How well did Epifany know his subject? They had been m onks
together in Rostov, but that w as before Stephen’s mission. Epifany
claims to derive his material partly from w hat he learnt from
Stephen’s disciples, partly from w hat he saw w ith his ow n eyes
(which cannot have been very m uch), and partly from w hat he
him self heard from the saint .2 6 Such claims are a hagiographical
com m onplace, but it is possible, indeed likely, that Stephen paid vis-
its to Sergius’s monastery w h en on his w ay to or from M oscow and
did indeed speak with Epifany there. The general view of students
of the Life is that, once w e set aside the flamboyance of Epifany’s lit-
erary style, there remains factual content that is sober and credible,
and markedly free of obviously legendary elements; indeed the Life
contains not a single miracle story. Far more of the text is devoted
to developing biblical types and theological com monplaces th an to
narration, but since Epifany and Stephen cam e from the same
milieu, and shared the same devotion to the literary inheritance
from Greek Orthodoxy, we m ay presume that Epifany’s interpreta-
tion of Stephen’s mission is reasonably close to Stephen’s ow n ide-
ological world. Certainly, there w as not the cultural distance
between Stephen and Epifany as there was between, say, Sym eon
Stylites and Theodoret, or betw een Martin of Tours and Sulpicius
Severus.
Doubts have been cast on the historical reliability of the Life in
an article by Michael Dane w h ich argues that Stephen as portrayed
F. C. M. Wigzell, ‘Convention and Originality in the Life of Stefan of Perm: A Stylistic

Analysis’, Slavonic and East European Review, 49 (1971), 3 3 9 -5 4 , and F. C. M. Kitch,
The Literary Style ofEpifanij Premudryj: Pktenije Slaves (Munich, 1976).
26 Zhitie sv. Stefana, x.
AFTER THE FALL 509
in the Life is a very different figure from the historical Stephen

revealed in a surviving exam ple of his own writing, the Tract against
the Strigolniki.27 While the Stephen of the Life promotes the reading
of Scripture (by translating it into Permian), adopts a life of volun-
tary poverty, and practises non-violence, the Stephen of the Tract
regards the study of Scripture as dangerous, defends clerical wealth,
and is ferocious in his denunciation of heretics. But surely these
contrasts are forced. There is nothing incompatible in Stephen’s
promoting biblical study in Perm and yet at the sam e time deplor-
ing the w ay in which heretics interpret Scripture ‘w ith ou t meekness
and hum ility ’2 8 in support of their own errors. We m ay admit that
the Life’s insistence on Stephen’s poverty is partly a hagiographical
stylization, since, as Dane points out, it is clear from the Life itself
that h e possessed funds for church-building and far-flung almsgiv-
ing. The defence of clerical property in the Tract w as in any case
necessitated by the claims of the Strigolniki that clerical wealth
invalidated the sacraments of the official Church. Even so, Stephen’s
defence is hardly enthusiastic: he observes that, even if som e of the
clergy are accum ulating estates, they should be left to the judge-
m ent of God .2 9 Finally, so far from the Stephen of the Tract being
a fanatical hounder of heretics, his tone is comparatively mild by
the standards of medieval polemic, and there are no personal
attacks on the heretical teachers; his main complaint is that their
self-righteousness and censoriousness is Pharisaical and un-
Christian. The tone is no different from the extended warnings
against the dangers of heresy in the farewell discourses towards the
end of the Life . 30 The Tract fills out our picture of Stephen by sup-
plem enting hints in the Life, such as Stephen’s repeated visits to
M oscow and his influence as a patron, that point to him as a pow -
erful presence in the Russian church scene and not just a humble
m onk working in a backwater; but it is a mistake to use it to cast
doubt on th e reliability of the Life. Though hagiographical conven-
tions reduce the individuality of Stephen in Epifany’s account, they
27 ‘Epiphanius’ Image of St. Stefan’, Canadian Slavonic Papers3 5 ( 1 9 6 1 ), 7 2 - 8 6 .

The Pouchenie protiv StrigoVnikov (‘Tract against the Strigolniki’) is to be found in
N. A. Kazakova and Ya. S. Lur’e, AntifeodaPnye Ereticheskie Dvizheniya na Rusi
(Moscow and Leningrad, 1 9 5 5 ), 2 3 4 - 4 3 .
28 Pouchenie, 2 4 2 . 29 Ibid., 2 4 1 .
30 Zhitie sv. Siefana, 8 0 - 4 . Note how the use of Galatians 1 : 8 as a key anti-hereii-
cal text occurs in both this passage and the Pouchenie, 2 3 9 .
do not exclude a quantity of reliable detail on the nature and con -

duct of his m ission .31
The realism of the narrative is apparent in its description o f the
gradualness of the process of conversion. When Stephen builds a
churchy the Permians* we are told* are attracted at first simply out
of curiosity and delight in the beauty of the architecture . 32 Stephen
accompanied his preaching of the gospel (in the Permian language.,
his third after Russian and Greek) by that frontal assault on idolatry
that w e have found to be a standard feature in the Lives of m is-
sionary saints. The following text m ay serve as an exam ple of
Epifany’s development of this them e 3 as well as of his baroque prose
style:
He destroyed all their idols, and demolished their sanctuaries, and pulled
down their altars, and overthrew their images, as one with great author-
ity; and so with a clatter their memory perished from among men. The
Permians were exceedingly amazed at another thing too, and said: cHow
does he smash images and yet remain whole and immune? How does he
day and night go among idols, casting them down, and yet stay whole and
unharmed by them? Why can the images not harm him? Why can
demonic spells not cause him any hurt or do him any ill?’ In Perm up till
this time, until they received baptism, their custom had been the following:
if one of the Permians touched an image, or took any of the offerings given
and presented to idols and assigned and destined for demons, or desecrated
any of the sacrifices prohibited and forbidden to them, he would be cast
down, broken and crushed, as their sorcerers attacked him with sorcery.
Because of this no one ever dared to take anything, either openly or in
secret, or to steal anything from the sanctuaries or from the offerings or
from the sacrifices. But good Stephen, courageous victor as he was, felt no
31 Dane relates the contrast, in his view, between the Life and the Tract to the
conventional division of Old Russian spirituality into two sharply differentiated and
opposing strands: the emphasis on love, interior religion, and renouncing wealth and
power in the hesychast and ‘kenotic’ tradition, on the one sides and the emphasis
on fear and external religion, and the avarice and power politics, of much of the
church hierarchy, on the other. This schematization of the tensions in early Russian
spirituality is far too crude. To Dane’s scepticism, oddly endorsed by B0 rtnes, Visions,
1 4 1 , contrast two highly regarded Russian treatments—V. Klyuchevsky,
Drevnerusskie Zhitiya Svyatykh (Moscow, 1 8 7 1 ), 8 8 - 1 1 2 , ?.nd O. F. Konovalova,
‘Printsip otbora fakticheskikh svedeniy v “Zhitii Stefana Permskogo” Trudy Otdela
Drevnerusskoy Literatury, 2 4 ( 1 9 6 9 ), 1 3 5 - 8 —both of which acknowledge the reli-
ability of Epifany’s narration and claim that Stephen’s own words are often appar-
ent beneath Epifany’s rhetorical embellishments, both generally in the account of
Stephen’s preaching and specifically in the narrative of his confrontation with the
sorcerer Pam, discussed below.
32 Zhitie sv. Stefana, 2 9 - 3 0 .
AFTER THE FALL 511
anxiety, but without fear and without terror went round their sanctuaries
day and night, through wood and field, without the people or in front of
the people. He struck the idols on the forehead with the butt of an axe, shat-
tered their legs, severed them with a hatchet, cut them into pieces, broke
them into logs, divided them into faggots. He utterly rooted them out, and
burnt them with fire, and incinerated them with flame. He himself stayed
whole and remain unharmed j the idols could not harm him, the demons
could cause him no ill. What could demons bring about, what harm could
idols do, what could idol-worshippers effect, what could be accomplished by
sorcerers, idolaters and magicians, when God protected his servant,
watched over his devotee, and surrounded him with hosts of angels?33
Here again is the familiar them e that the pagans lose faith in
their gods w hen these gods prove unable to defend themselves; but
that this is more than a hagiographical commonplace is show n by
the distinctive detail about the threat of sorcery to deter sacrilege.
The effect of such spells on those who believed in their power can
easily be imagined, and Stephen’s imperviousness is indeed likely to
have impressed the Permians. Another aspect of the matter was
S tephen’s refusal to appropriate the furs laid as offerings on the
idols. Sacrilege that was not mere theft lay outside the m ental hori-
zons of the Permians, and w e are told that this confirmed their
grow ing sense that he w as not an adventurer but the servant of
God . 3 4
As Stephen’s mission bore fruit, he w on a body of faithful fol-
lowers w ho aided him in his work of desecration and could defend
h im from attack. But up till then he was highly vulnerable, and
there is a series of three episodes in the Life w hen the pagans make
a determined attempt to kill h im . 35 In all three of them the saint’s
escape is very vaguely narrated or not narrated at all, w hile the text
m oves into top gear in eloquent passages of prayer, preaching, and
biblical citation. This has been treated by literary historians as an
artistic flaw, and as evidence of Epifany’s only cursory interest in
narrative. But, as we noted above in the context of the Acts of
Andrew, the motif of the murderous attack on a saint that simply
peters out was a traditional one. Indeed it has a biblical precedent
in Luke’s account of Christ’s return to Nazareth: 'Rising up, they
drove him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill on
w h ich their city was built, in order to cast him down headlong. But
going through the midst of them he went on his w a y ’ (4 : 2 9 - 3 0 ).
33 Ibid., 3 6 - 7 . 34 Ibid., 35- 35 Ibid., 1 9 - 2 8 .
This passage is indeed directly echoed in one of these passages o f

Epifany .3 6
Stephen’s evangelization of the Permians, as narrated by Epifany,
was well advanced w hen it was interrupted by the return (after a
strangely long interval) of their chief sorcerer, one Pam , w h o
attempted (with minimal success, w e are assured) to pervert
Stephen’s recent converts . 3 7 There followed a series of debates
between Stephen and the sorcerer, w h ich (Epifany admits w ith h o n -
esty) were utterly inconclusive. Some of Pam’s arguments are strik-
ingly distinctive, and are generally accepted as authentic and n o t
the inventions of Epifany. He appeals to the Permians’ resen tm ent
at Russian rule: ‘W hat good can com e to us from Moscow? Is it n o t
from there that w e receive heavy taxes and dues, and every kind o f
burden ? ’3 8 Against the argument that the pagan gods have proved
their impotence by failing to harm Stephen, Pam replies th a t th e
gods could have destroyed Stephen long ago but have chosen to be
merciful. In an argum ent singled out by most com mentators o n th e
Life he insists that the Permians’ success in hunting (their m ain
source of livelihood) depends on the assistance of the m a n y gods
who h aunt every part of the natural world, in contrast to th e o n e,
distant God of the Christians; for example, he adds, w h en o n e o f our
people goes bear-hunting he can kill a bear and skin it w ith ou t a n y
assistance, but w h en Russians go hunting, they need one or even
two hundred hunters to catch a single bear, and even th en the
anim al often escapes . 3 9 In contrast, Stephen’s argum ents, w h ich
simply repeat the commonplaces of Christian dogmatism, strike a
modern reader as ineffective.
Finally, after a particularly prolonged debate over a w h o le day
and night, attended by a great crowd of Permians, the tw o dis-
putants agree to put their rival faiths to the test. Pam proposes that
they should light a fire and both enter it together, to see w h ich of
them can come out unharmed. Ordeal by fire is to be followed by
ordeal by water (w e are reminded of the very similar ordeal in
Muirchu’s Life of St Patrick, treated above): the priest and th e sor-
cerer are to descend, arm in arm, through an ice-hnle in th e river,
and then after a watery perambulation re-emerge out of another
36 Zhitie sv. Stefana, 2 8 .

37 The confrontation between Stephen and Pam (or Pan) is treated at Length
(ibid., 3 9 - 5 8 ) and is the narrative climax of the Life.
38 Ibid., 4 0 . 39 Ibid., 4 6 - 7 .
AFTER THE FALL 513
one. Stephen agrees to the test, hoping, w e are told, in divine pro-
tection, but quite prepared to undergo a martyr’s death. But it is the
sorcerer w h o now loses his nerve. Stephen takes him firmly by the
arm and tries to drag him into the fire. The tussle goes on for some
time, until a humiliated Pam admits his inability to cope with fire
and begs for mercy. He is then taken to the river, w here a similar
scene follows, and the sorcerer is finally and totally defeated. W hy
did Pam him self propose these two ordeals, and then refuse to go
through w ith them? Under pressure he reveals his reasons to
Stephen and the crowd. He had learnt from his father a whole
repertoire of spells and enchantments; earlier in the debate he had
m entioned that, in contrast to the Christians w ho need days to hear
w h at has happened at a distance, the traditional skills of the
Permians enable them to know at once w hat is happening even in
far-distant lands . 4 0 Pam ’s repertoire did not, how ever, contain
spells to control fire and water. But did the Christian know this?
W hen Pam first mentioned the possibility of an ordeal by fire and
water, Stephen had replied immediately; ‘I don’t k n ow h ow to
enchant fire and water, I’ve never learnt h o w . ’41 It w as this reply
that led Pam to insist on the ordeal: he too could not tam e fire and
water, but Stephen did not know this, and therefore w as bound to
admit defeat w hen pressed to undergo the ordeal. But, the sorcerer
continues, w hen Stephen insisted on going through w ith it, he
(Pam) realized to his horror that he had been tricked: manifestly
Stephen did know how to enchant fire and water. So, Pam ruefully
concludes, he has been defeated as a result of his ow n cunning. The
crowd n ow insist that the sorcerer must become a Christian or die.
Stephen, however, is more merciful, and simply banishes him for
ever from the land of Perm.
W hat are w e to make of this memorable narrative, incomparably
the m ost lifelike and also the most skilfully narrated of all the sto-
ries of thaumaturgie contest that I have come across in the long
sweep of hagiographical literature? The narrative is convincing as
a piece of accurate reporting, deriving from Stephen himself. Of
course, it is partly a literary construction. Pam ’s exposition of his
train of thought reads like guesswork on the part of Stephen, w hen
later he narrated the episode to fellow churchmen in M oscow; but
Stephen’s guesswork is likely to be close to the truth, certainly
40 Ibid., 4 7 . 41 Ibid., 5 4 .
closer to the truth than any alternative explanation that might occur
to the modern scholar. The contrast that emerges between the holy
m an and the sorcerer is that, while the holy man is not a m agician
but knows that his God can do anything, the pagan sorcerer has on ly
a limited repertoire of spells; consequently, once he is moved on to
unfamiliar terrain he has no resources to put against the confidence
of the man of God. In what is in reality a test not of thaum aturgie
power but of self-confidence, this puts the holy man at a distinct
advantage, quite apart from his freedom from fear of death and h is
readiness, if need be, to die for his faith. This, surely, is the real sig-
nificance of the stories of trial by ordeal. Whether true, partly true,
or wholly legendary, they express the strongest card in the hand of
the holy man as missionary— a complete lack of fear, which is likely
to impress both his companions and his intended converts as a sign
of the presence within him of a power not of this world.
One com mon feature of early evangelization that reappears in th e
Life of St Stephen of Perm is that of intensified expectation of the End
of the Age and the Second Coming of Christ, as part of a distinctive
Christian vision of history. The first church that Stephen built in th e
land of Perm w as dedicated to the Annunciation of Our Lady. This
leads Epifany into a lengthy discourse on the significance of th e
Annunciation in relation to other events in the history of salvation
w hich {according to tradition) m ay also be assigned to the m on th
of March: these include the creation of the world, the Exodus, the
entry into the Promised Land, the Passion and Resurrection o f
Christ, the Second Coming, the General Resurrection, and the Last
Judgement .4 2 The implication is that Stephen’s building of a
church, as the first decisive step in the conversion of the Perm ians,
belongs to this great cycle.
Equally notable is Epifany’s retelling of the parable of th e
Labourers in the Vineyard (Matthew 2 0 : 1 - 1 6 ). After following th e
first part of the Gospel text closely, he expands the rest of it as fol-
lows:
At the eleventh hour he found others standing idle, and said to them, ‘Why
do you stand here all day idle, Permians? Has no one hired you?’ And they
answered, ‘No one has hired us—that is, no one has taught us the
Christian faith, no one has illuminated us with holy baptism, no one has
42 Zhitie sv. Ste/ana, 2 3 - 4 . Bortnes, Visions, 1 6 5 , provides a translation of this

passage.
AFTER THE FALL 515
led us into the rational vineyard, that is, the Law of God.’ . . . But when
our Saviour was well pleased, in the last days, at the end of the years, in
the final times, at the close of the seventh millennium, the Lord had pity
on them.43
This bold application of the parable may be related to a long dis-

quisition o f Epifany’s on w h y the conversion of the Permians
occurred so late in history. W hy did the apostles not com e to the
land of Perm? In an apology for their neglect of this clearly essen-
tial part of their mission, Epifany lists the great missionary journeys
that legend attributed to the apostles, com menting several times
th at this or that apostle ‘did not come to the land of Perm ’ .4 4 The
clear implication, sham eless in its boldness, is that the work of
Stephen completes and redeems the labours of the apostles. This
com pletion was linked in Epifany’s mind (and doubtless in Stephen’s
also) to the expectation of the end of the world in the not so distant
future. According to the traditional chronology that assigned seven
thousand years to world history, the world, created in 5 5 0 8 b c , was
due to com e to an end in a d 1 4 9 2 , less than a century after
S tephen’s death and the writing of the Life. This ‘fact’ is brought up
several times by Epifany, once in the mouths of critics of Stephen’s
m ission, w ho think that it is now too late to lay the foundations of
a Christian culture in the land of Perm .4 5 This belief w as indeed so
widespread in late medieval Russia that it could not but affect the
perception of Stephen’s m ission .4 6 Epifany’s purpose remains clear:
the conversion of the Permians is to be seen as the fulfilment of
Christ’s commission to the apostles to preach the gospel to the ends
of the world. This makes the conversion of Perm virtually the cli-
m ax of salvation history. Certainly, it places it firmly within that
history and links it closely to the great events narrated in Scripture.
This eschatological dimension in missionary work had recurred
repeatedly in the earlier history of Christian evangelization. It is a
familiar fact that St Paul preached an imminent parousia, and saw
his ow n missionary work as an essential prelude to the return of
Christ .4 7 The monastic m ovem ent of the fourth century (which had
43 Zhitie sv. Stefana, 1 2 - 1 3 . 44 Ibid., 1 0 - 1 2 . 45 Ibid., 7 0 .

46 See Bartnes, Visions, 1 7 4 - 5 , f°r the intensity of eschatological expectation in
Russia at this time.
4 7 See J. Christiaan Beker, Paul the Apostle (Edinburgh, 1 9 8 0 ), 1 3 5 - 8 1 , and J. W.
Thompson, ‘The Gentile Mission as an Eschatological Necessity’, Restoration
Quarterly, 1 4 ( 1 9 7 1 ), 1 8 - 2 7 .
such a decisive influence on the Christianization of Egypt and Syria)

was accompanied by heightened eschatological expectation: w e
read in the History of the Monks of Egypt that for the fathers in the
desert ‘there is only the expectation of the coming of Christ in the
singing of psalm s ’ .4 8 St Martin of Tours w as convinced that h e w as
living in the last days, and that already in his ow n lifetime the
Antichrist had been born and was soon to manifest him self .4 9 St
Patrick (not the legendary figure of th e Lives, but the authentic
Patrick of the Confessio) wrote that he w as preaching in the last
days, that the coming of Christ was near, and that in preaching to
the Irish just before the end of the world he was fulfilling the words
of Christ, ‘This gospel of the kingdom w ill be preached throughout
the whole world, as a testimony to all the nations, and th en will
come the en d . ’ 5 0 St Gregory the Great, in the wake of A ugustine of
Canterbury’s mission to England, wrote to King Ethelbert o f Kent
that ‘the end of the present world is n o w nigh and the reign of the
saints is about to com e ’ . 51 This eschatological theme w as m ore th an
icing on the cake, a sort of homiletic extravaganza. W e h ave to
remember that evangelization was not central in the Church’s m is-
sion until modern times. Citizens of the Roman Empire or of the
Byzantine Empire, of sub-Roman Britain or of medieval M uscovy,
had very mixed feelings about the spread of the faith to barbarians
who were the enem ies of Christian civilization and did not deserve
the benefits of the gospel. The belief that missionary expansion
could herald the completion of history and the return of Christ in
glory was an important part of the m otivation for evangelization.
Expectation of the End also contributed something to the spirit in
w hich evangelization w as carried out. The End was foreseen as the
full manifestation of the powers of darkness, who w ould th en be
overcome by the forces of light led by Christ in glory. ‘And then the
lawless one will be revealed, and the Lord Jesus will slay him w ith
48 Historia Monachorum, prol., § 8 (p. 2 4 5 ).

49 Sulpicius Severus, Dialogi, ii. 1 4 (pp. 1 9 7 - 8 ). See also idem, Vita Martini, §
2 4 . 1 - 3 (i, 3 0 6 - 7 ).
50 Confessio, 4 (‘adventum ipsius mox futurum’), 3 4 (‘in novissimis diebus . . .
ante finem mundi’), 4 1 (citing Matthew 2 4 : 1 4 ). According to Joachim Gnilka, Das
Matthausevangelium (Freiburg, 1 9 8 8 ), ii, 3 1 8 , the meaning of the Matthaean text is
not that worldwide evangelization is a sign of the End but that it is a precondition
for it. The distinction is a fine one.
51 Bede, HE, i . 3 2 (pp. 1 1 0 - 1 5 ). For other passages where Gregory expresses this
conviction, see G. R. Evans, The Thought of Gregory the Great (Cambridge, 1 9 8 6 ), 1 9 .
AFTER THE FALL 517
the breath of his m outh and destroy him by his appearing and his
com in g’ ( 2 Thessalonians 2 : 8 ). It was this scenario that stimulated
the belligerent note in evangelization. The holy m an w ho overcame
the demonic powers through openly defying them w as in the
advance-guard that announced and anticipated the final victory of
Christ.
CONTINUITY IN MI SSI O NA RY HAGIOGRAPHY
The similarities between Epifany’s view of mission and that of ear-

lier Greek and Latin hagiography have turned out to be consider-
able. They are evidence of a degree of stability in Christian ideology
in general and in Christian hagiography in particular. The narra-
tive parallels between the Life of St Stephen and Western texts such
as the Life of St Martin and the Life of St Patrick m ust be explained
by a com m on source in the Greek tradition, since no Latin hagio-
graphy w as know n in Russia. Epifany’s knowledge of the Greek tra-
dition is likely to have been extensive. It has been pointed out that
the rhetorical laments w h ich conclude the Life are heavily indebted
to Greek rhetoric and in particular to Gregory of Nyssa’s Funeral
Oration over Meletius.52 The story of the trial by ordeal between
Stephen and Pam has as its closest Greek parallel know n to m e the
story o f Apa Copres and a M anichee in the History of the Monks of
Egypt, related above. It is therefore relevant to note that this text
was available to Russians in a vernacular translation , 53 though in
any case Epifany had direct knowledge of Greek texts, as did
Stephen himself. The recurrence of narrative motifs through bor-
row ing by hagiographers from their predecessors or the Scriptures
often arouses doubts as to historicity—and quite rightly so, w h en
the biographer is writing on som e aspect of his subject’s life where
the historical facts were either unknown to him or incompatible
w ith his ideal of sainthood. But w e also have to reckon w ith latter-
day h oly m en w ho consciously emulated their great forebears from
52 For a detailed analysis, see Yu. A. Alissandrâtos in Drevnerusskaya Literatura:

Istochnikovedenie, ed. D. S. Likhachev (Leningrad, 1 9 8 4 ), 6 4 - 7 4 .
53 For the Old Slavonic translation of the Historia Monachorum in Aegypto, made
as early as the ninth century, and the Old Russian recension of the eleventh or
twelfth century, see D. S. Likhachev, Slovar' knizhnikov i knizhnosti drevney Rusi, vol.
i (Leningrad, 1 9 8 7 ), 3 0 5 - 6 .
the early centuries of Christianity. W e m ay recognize in Epifany’s

account of Stephen’s mission som ething more interesting th an
hagiographical com m onplace—nam ely, the work of a m issionary
w ho, without neglecting the needs of the present, hoped to fit into
sacred history by imitating it.
The Life of St Stephen of Perm takes us, in one sense, a long w a y
from our starting-point in the legends of the apostles and the m is-
sionary labours of Martin, Patrick, and Boniface in the early
medieval West; but the similarities are extrem ely striking. Of course,
the student of Christian texts living in a post-Christian society is n o t
well trained in detecting varieties of paganism , and the texts th em -
selves encourage us to see paganism, at whatever time and w h a t-
ever place, as m uch of a m uchness. For the early or m edieval
Christian paganism always represents the same thing. From th e
hum an side it represents a m indless traditionalism, uncivilized and
irrational: consuetudo, as used by Sulpicius and others, takes on a
markedly pejorative connotation in this context, and corresponds
precisely to Epifany’s use of its Russian synonym poshlina. But th e
texts lay heavy em phasis on the more sinister side of paganism : it
is the cult of demons masquerading as gods. The pagans, in th ese
stories, have no constant personality: they veer wildly and in ex-
plicably (often within the same episode) from being childlike and
amiable to being furious and bloodthirsty (as the victims and agen ts
of demons) and then, to their ow n surprise, to becom ing passive
and docile under the sudden influence of the Spirit present in th e
holy man.
We may raise again a question w e m entioned at the beginning:
w hat concept of Christianization do these texts imply? Peter B row n,
developing the insights of Robert Markus, 5 4 has recently pointed
out how the ascetical m ovem ent of the fourth century cam e to view
real Christianization as the creation of a w holly Christian culture,
incompatible w ith the traditional civic values and custom s of Greece
and Rome; according to this model, Christianization is alw ays par-
tial and never complete. Earlier view s of Christianization, in co n -
trast, were content w ith a more superficial victory over the public
manifestations of paganism. The hagiographical material w e h ave
been looking at rarely touches on the problem of a superficial ev a n -
gelization that places a thin veneer of outward Christian profession
54 AS, 1-265 after Markus, End, 1-43.

AFTER THE FALL 519
over an uneradicated paganism (though the Life of St Boniface is an

exception); the texts are all too ready to narrate repeated episodes
w here a crowd of pagan onlookers are converted by som e feat of a
holy m an, w ithout answ ering our questions about h o w this ‘con-
version’ w as consolidated. The Christianization celebrated in these
texts is rather that of the older model, with its em phasis on the
m anifestation on earth of a heavenly victory. The missionary enacts
again and again the victory of Christ over the demonic, and the
faith of the hagiographer and his audience in the com pleteness of
this victory (in theological terms) excludes a sober assessm ent of the
imperfections of the actual process of Christianization.
Missionary work has m any aspects, only some of w hich appealed
to the writers of hagiography. The texts we have exam ined do not
provide a template to define the ‘typical’ missionary of antique or
m edieval times; and of course their historicity varies enormously.
But w h at they do reveal is a long and continuous tradition in which
the agent of evangelization is endowed with the characteristics of
the holy m a n —independence of action, confidence before God, bold-
ness before men. They present an interpretation of the work of a
m issionary in terms of the basic biblical m ythology of the battle
betw een light and darkness, a battle that has in essence already
been w on , so that there is no possibility of real defeat, even a tem-
porary one. The holy m an is essentially performing a mopping-up
operation. He does so w ith urgency and zeal, because he knows that
he has been entrusted w ith this final task that m ust be completed
before Christ can return in a cloud of glory, to consum m ate the
m anifestation of his kingship.
St Martin once encountered on a country road a burial proces-
sion w h ich he mistook for a pagan lustral procession. Charging in
w ith the sign of the cross (Sulpicius makes use of military lan-
guage), he brings the procession to an immediate halt, only to dis-
cover his mistake. Jacques Fontaine unkindly compares the St
Martin of this episode to Don Quixote and the windm ill . 55 The story
certainly illustrates a spirituality that read life as a constant warfare
of the spirit and w as alert to detect the enem y behind every bush.
It was a spirituality that interpreted the work of Christianization in
terms of a closely related set of biblical images, in w hich (to borrow
the language of Rom ans 1 3 : 1 2 ) the armour of light is arrayed
55 Vie de Saint Martin, ii, 7 2 0 , on Sulpicius, Vita Martini, § 1 2 . 2 (i, 2 7 8 ).

against the works of darkness. These texts are more than literary
stylization: missionaries of the early and medieval epochs possessed
this mentality no less than their biographers. The ideology w e h ave
been exploring reveals the relevance of the figure of the holy m an
as warrior of Christ to early and m edieval notions of evangelization.
Index
(References to illustrations are in bold) Antichrist, predictions of 50, 53, 55-6

Antioch 81, 133
Abu’l Aswar (emir) 86 capture by Seljuk Turks 134
acculturation of, definition 473 Apocalypse, o f St John 35, 36, 51, 55
Achaia, principality of 308 apocrisiarios 334
Acre 106, 145, 151 Appian 66
recapture o f 102 Arabs
Adana 81 attack on Constantinople 45, 46, 67, 68
Adrianople (modern Edirne) 88, 91, 317, 318 conquests 45, 67
Agathias 32, 34, 35 Arethas o f Caesarea 51, 56
A IM A (blood) prophecy 53, 98 Arichis, (Lombard duke of Benevento) 72-3
Akropolites, Constantine 257 Armenians 254-5
al-’A ziz (caliph of Egypt, 975-96) 118 Arsenios (patriarch o f Constantinople, 1254-9,
Alcuin, Life o f St Willibrord 503 1261-5)311
Aleppo 85, 86, 87, 120, 132 Asen (Bulgarian emperor, 1185/6-96) xli, 280,
Alexander, Paul J. 9-28, 30 283, 287
Alexandria 112-13, 125, 126, 135-6, 138, 139 Ashot I II (Armenian king of kings, 953-77) 82
merchants in 144, 145-6, 147-8 astrology, at Byzantine court 53
Alexios I Komnenos (emperor, 1081-1118) Athanasios o f Athos, St, Vita 257
xxxvii, 93, 129, 133, 275, 279 Athanasios I (patriarch o f Constantinople,
as ‘Last Roman Emperor’ 52 1289-93, 1303-9) 452, 467
missionary zeal 252 Athos, Mount xxix
Alexios II Komnenos (emperor, 1180-3) 93, 104 Constantinople, contacts with liii, 353
Alexios I I I Angelus (emperor, 1195-1203) xli, cosmopolitanism of Hi, 478-9
93, 106, 286, 287-8 as cultural contact centre 457-8
Amadeo V I of Savoy 317-18 and Hesychasm Hi, 478-9
Amatus o f Monte Cassino 86 Russia, contacts with 458-9
Anacopia (Novyi Afon) 85 Serbia, contacts with 349-63, 458
Anastasios I (emperor, 491-518) 30, 31, 37 Stefan Dusan’s visit xlvi, 351-5, 359, 373
Andreas of Caesarea 35, 36, 63 see also Chilandar monastery
Andronikos I Komnenos (emperor, 1183-5) xl, Attaleia 141
53, 93, 104 Attaleiates, Michael 26-7, 256
Saladin, alleged pact with 94, 96, 104-5
Andronikos II Palaiologos (emperor, 1282-1328) Baldwin I o f Flanders (Latin emperor of
xliii, xlvi, 5 3 ,3 1 0 ,3 1 1 ,3 1 2 -1 3 Constantinople, 1204-05) 298, 308
losses in Anatolia 312-14 Baldwin II o f Courtenay (Latin emperor of
Andronikos I I I Palaiologos (emperor, 1328- Constantinople, 1237-61) 311, 312
1341) 310,314-15, 372 Balsamon, Theodore 95
Andronikos IV Palaiologos (emperor, 1376-9) Bànescu, Nicolae 275, 276, 277
318,319, 320 barbarians see also mission work
Ani 86, 88 Byzantines’ attitude to 1,2, 253-4, 265
Ankara, Battle o f (1402) 322 conversion to Christianity 253-4, 257-8,
Annunciation o f Our Lady 514 262-3
522 INDEX
Barberini ivory 43, 44 Bulgaria

Basil I the Macedonian (emperor, 867-86) xxxiii, administration by Byzantium 275-7
24, 49, 77 conquest by Byzantium 273
anti-corruption edicts of 20-1 conversion to Christianity 257, 259
attempts to convert Jews 50 revolts against Byzantium 275, 279-80,
biography 19 280-90
buildings of 19-20, 21 see also Bulgars
church building o f 50 Bulgarian Empire, First 328
Life 19 Bulgarian Empire, Second
see also Constantine V II Porphyrogenitus, fiscal terminology in 344-5
Vita Basilii Greek terms, use of 329-40
Basil II ‘the Bulgar-Slayer’ (emperor, 976-1025) juridical terminology in xlv, 329-46
3 ,5 1 ,5 2 , 93, 118, 120, 133,283 Slavic, as language of worship 341-2
Bulgarian Church, reforms o f 273 Slavic terms, use of xliv
Bulgarian wars 273 scholarly controversy about 274-8
expansionism of 84-5, 86-7, 92 sources for 328-9
Basil I I I (grand prince of Moscow, 1505-33) see Turkic terms, use of 342-3
Vasilii I II Bulgars 67-8
Basilakes, Nikephoros 253 assimilation by Slavs 268-9
basileus Byzantine Empire, conflict with 269-73
adoption as title 45, 46 see also Bulgaria
autocracy of 418 Byzantine Empire
khan, difference from xlix, 410-12 Ancient Rome, comparison with 26, 91
as model for rulership in Russia 404-5, Bulgars, conflict with 269-73
418-19 Christian West, confrontations with xxvi
see also khan; tsar church/state conflicts xxvi
Bayezid I (Ottoman sultan, 1389-1402) 318, 320 civil wars 315
Constantinople, attack on 321 defensiveness 78
defeat by Timur 322 ‘diplomacy o f hospitality’ xxxii, xxxv
Baynes, N .H . 9 economic expansion xxv, xxxi
Bela I I I (king o f Hungary, 1173-96) 282, 286 Egyptian trade see under trade
Belisarius 90 expansionism o f 67, 76-7, 79-83, 85-6, 93
Beloozero, amphorae excavations 164-5 Basil II 84-5, 86-7, 92
Benjamin of Tudela 145, 147, 151 discourse on 90-1
Biliarsky, Ivan 327-47 halt to 89
Birley, A.R. 66 Isaac II 95-6, 98
Blachernai Palace, Constantinople 311 purpose o f 87-8
Bogomilism 475 foreign trade 107-9
and Stefan Nemanja 393 frontiers 69-70, 73-4, 79, 91
Bohemond I II (prince o f Antioch) 104 Kiev, trade with 161
boljar(in) 343, 346 military rebellions 88-9
Boniface, marquis o f Montferrat (d. 1207) 308 navy xl
Book o f the Eparch 121, 124 Ottomans, dependency on 318-21
Boris and Gleb, first Rus-born saints 259-60 ‘Palaiologan Renaissance’ 449
Brand, Charles 104 Persian Empire, defeat of 44-5
Brandes, Wolfram 62 political decay 318-19
Brown, Peter 40, 497, 499, 518 role o f emperors xxxii
Bulgarian Church, Russia
Basil IPs reforms 273 influence on 161, 175
Hesychasm in 456-7, 484 wine exports to 170-80
INDEX 523
Serbia, relations with 367-9 Stefan Dusan’s visit to xlvi, 356-7

Venice, relations with 101-3 Chioniades, Gregory 265
see also Constantinople Chios, recovery by Byzantines 315
Byzantines Chômâtes, Niketas 95, 96-7, 98, 105, 146
barbarians, attitude to 1,2, 253-4, 265 Chora monastery, Constantinople 466
Bulgarians, conquest o f 273 Christianity
change, attitude to 29 conversion o f barbarians to 253-4, 257-8,
defeat 262-3
at Manzikiert 26 Bulgarians 257, 259
by Seljuks 26, 27, 93 nomads in general 256
o f Seljuks 256 Pechenegs 251-2
eschatological thinking of xxxiv, xxxvi, Rus 259-60
29-36, 42, 47, 49-59 spread of
Jerusalem, conquest o f 52 from Byzantium 251
justification o f empire 24-7 and Roman Empire 23, 37
mercantile shipping 148-9 Christianization
mission work xxxiv-xxxv, 251-65 and holy men 499-520
Manuel I Komnenos 253-4 and idol smashing 499-503
missionaries 258-9 as process 518-19
painting (13-14 century) 466 churches see under Constantinople
religio-political ideology of 10, 11-17 Cirkovic, Sima M . 365-75
Old Testament parallels with 16-17 Clement IV (pope, 1265-8) 311
Roman Emperors, claim to be 70-2, 79 Clement o f Ohrid, St 5 259
self-image 26 comes 332-3, 335
Hellenic tradition 10-11 Comnena, Anna 149, 252, 275
perception 10 Constantine I (emperor, 324-37) 11, 22-3, 71
theory of kingship 10, 18-24 emperor as redeemer 24
Kaisergedanke 18 Constantine IVPogonatus (emperor, 668-85) 17
rejuvenation m otif 19-20, 21 Constantine V II Porphyrogenitus (emperor,
Byzantium and the Slavs 945-59) xxxiii, 71,79, 81,82
acculturation 473-96 Book o f Ceremonies (De Cerimoniis) xxxi,
common culture 476-7 72, 80, 396
communication channels between 456-60 De Administrando Imperio xxxvi, 17, 176-7
influence/receptivity 447-72, 475-6 Vita Basilii 19, 20, 21, 22
Constantine V III (emperor, 1025-8) 120, 133
Cabasilas, Nicholas 385 Constantine IX Monomachos (emperor, 1042-55)
caesar/kesar 330 86, 89, 128, 251,276
Cairo 115 Constantine X Doukas (emperor, 1059-67) 90,
markets 274
Greek xxxviii, 116-17 Constantine X I Palaiologos (emperor, 1449-53)
Pisan 143-4 323, 324, 325
Cameron, Averil 42 Constantine of Kostenets 456
Catalan Grand Company 313 On Letters 487
Charlemagne (Frankish emperor, 800-14), Constantinople
recognition by Byzantium 70 Arab attacks on 46, 67, 68
Charles I of Anjou (king o f Sicily) 311,312 Avar-Persian siege of (626) 44
Chengis-Khan, Great Yasa of 438 Bayezid I, attack by 321
Cherniavsky, Michael 403-20 Blachernai Palace 311
Cheroubikon hymn 42 capture
Chilandar monastery xlv, 349, 355, 480
524 INDEX
by Crusaders (1204) xxviii, xlii, 53, 93, Cyril the Phileote, St 252-3
98, 106, 156, 255, 298, 307, 308, 451
by Ottoman Turks (1453) 53, 307 Damascus 132
churches Dane, Michael 508-9
building o f 38, 50 Daniel, Book of, Four Kingdoms xxxiv, 36, 55
Chora monastery church xxviii, 466 Daphnopates, Theodore 256
Hagia Sophia xxxiii, 32, 38, 40, 43, 50, Decani monastery, wall painting in narthex 390
93,311 desetkar 340
of the Holy Apostles 254 despot 329-30
Nea Ekklesia 50 Diehl, Charles 13
St Polyeuktos 38 Byzantium: Greatness and Decline 9
ecclesiastical union with Rome 311-12 Dio Cassius 65, 66, 87
Forum Tauri 13 Diocletian (Roman emperor, 284-305) 70
foundation o f 11 Divine Wisdom, and Byzantine emperors 377,
Franciscans in xxvii 381-402
as frontier city 76 Domitian (Roman emperor, 51-96) 33
‘God-protected’ 12-13, 74 Dositheos, (patriarch of Constantinople, 1189-91)
imperial symbols in 13 xli, 96, 97, 98, 103, 104, 105, 106
literary praise of 11-13 origins 101
Michael V IIF s renovation o f 311 prophecies 99-100
as microcosm of empire xxxiii dux 331, 333
mosque in 147 Dvin 88
Mount Athos, contacts with 353
Muslim merchants in 117 Ecloga , law code o f Leo I I I 47
as New Jerusalem 37-8, 55, 57 Ecumenical Council, Sixth 48
Patria Constantinopoleos 13 Edessa 31, 85
prophecies about 13-14 image of 41
recapture by Byzantines (1261) xxviii, 156, Egypt
262,310 Byzantine Empire, trade with see under trade
Russia, contacts with 460 Fatimid conquest o f 111, 129
tremors 32, 74 End o f Days 516-17
vulnerability of xxxv see also eschatology; Second Coming
walls, rituals of 74-5, 91 Ephraim the Syrian 33, 44
wooden gate 97, 100 Epiphanius the Wise 461, 462, 464, 465, 468,
Corippus 15 480-1, 489
couropalates 337-8 Labourers in the Vineyard, retelling o f
Crete 140 514-15
Byzantine reconquest o f 82, 117 Life o f St Stephen o f Perm 507-8, 510-11,
Crimea, amphorae excavations 163, 165 514, 517, 518
Crusades Epiros
Second 53 Nicaea, rivalry with 310
Third xlv, 93, 94, 102, 103 under Michael I Doukas 309
Fourth xlii, 26, 93, 307 eschatology
Cumans xli, 279, 283, 286, 298-301 Byzantines and 29-36, 42, 47, 49-59
Cyprian (metropolitan of Russia, 1390-1406) and iconoclasm 49
li-lii, 451, 485-6 key dates in 62
travels o f 494 studies on 61-3
Cyprus xli, 77-8, 105, 117, 141 uses of 58-9
Latin conquest o f 142 see also End of Days; Second Coming
Cyril and Methodius, Sts 5, 258, 259 Eusebius o f Caesarea 22, 24, 40
INDEX 525
Ecclesiastical History 23 Gregory X (pope, 1271-6) 312

Eustathius o f Thessaloniki 253 Guy o f Lusignan 105, 131
Euthymius (patriarch of Trnovo, 1375-93), literary
school of 486-8 Hackel, Sergei 437-46
Eutychios 43 Hadrian (Roman emperor, 117-138) 92
expansionism see under Byzantine Empire Hagia Sophia 32, 38, 40, 43, 50, 93, 311
see also Constantinople, churches; Divine
‘family of princes’ Wisdom
doctrine of 1-2, 25 hagiography, continuities in 517-18
antecedents of 3 -4 Halperin, Charles J. 421-35
Favreau-Lilie, Marie-Luise 102-3 Henry of Champagne 140
Ferrara-Florence, Council of (1438-9) liv, 323-4 Henry of Hainault (Latin emperor of
Fibonacci, Leonardo, Liber abbaci 156 Constantinople, 1206-16) 308
Franciscans, in Constantinople xxvii Heraclius (emperor, 610-41) 44
Frederick I Barbarossa (western emperor, adopts title of basileus 45
1152-90) 97, 98, 102, 103, 105, 284-5 Jews, attempts to convert 45
frontiers Hesychasm 263-4, 315, 316, 353, 448, 462
Byzantine 69-70, 73-4, 79, 91 and art 466-72
ethno-religious, examples of 424 in Bulgaria 456-7, 484
Rus 238-42 cosmopolitanism of 495-6
Fustat 116, 118, 119, 143 influence on Stefan Dusan 359-60
literature 452
Gavrilovic, Zaga 377-402 meanings of 477
Genghis Khan see Chengis-Khan Mount Athos, role o f Hi, 478-9
Gennadios II Scholarios (patriarch of and new literary movement 490-2
Constantinople, 1454-6, 1463, 1464-5) 53 in Russia 485
Genoese and Byzantine-Egyptian trade 138-40 in Serbia 480, 484-5
Geometres, John 82 and travel 493-4, 495
George o f Pisidia 15, 20, 21 in Wallachia 479-80
Georgia 86 Hilandar see Chilandar
gerakar 336 Hippolytos of Rome 30
Germanikeia 81 History o f the Monks o f Egypt 506, 516, 517
Germanos I (patriarch o f Constantinople) 49 holy men
Historia Ecclesiastica 48 and Christianization 499-520
Golden Horde 409, 413, 415 role of 497
Russian knowledge o f 425-33 versus pagan sorcerers/heretics 506-7,
Golubeva, L.A . 174 512-13
Grabar, André 1-7 Hypathian (Hypatian, Ipatevskaia) Chronicle 173
gradar 342
Graecia 10, 11 Iaroslav the Wise (Rus prince o f Kiev, c.
Graecus/i 10, 11 1019-54) 230, 232, 240
gramatik 334 Ibn Battuta 315
Grasso, Guglielmo 154 IbnHawqal 114, 115, 117, 118
Great Schism (1054) 101, 243 iconoclasm 33
Gregory of Nyssa, St 385, 396 and eschatology 49
Funeral Oration over Meletius 517 Leo I I I and 47, 49
Gregory o f Sinai, St 478, 479, 480, 481 icons
travels o f 493-4 apocalypticism and 42 -4
Vita 257, 457 symbolism of light and imperial ideology
Gregory of Tours, Acts o f Andrew 499 381-2
and imperial Divine Wisdom 377, 381-402
526 INDEX
veneration o f 41, 48-9 fall to Saladin 105

ideology see Byzantines; icons Latin Kingdom of 96
idol smashing see also New Jerusalem; Typikon of
and Christianization 499-503 Jerusalem
St Martin and 501-3 Jews, attempted conversion by
St Stephen of Perm and 510-11 Basil I 50
Ignatius o f Smolensk liii, 426, 459 Heraclius 45
images, imagery see icons Leo I I I 46
Indikopleustes, Kosmas 51 Jirecek, C. 365
Christian Topography 36-1 John I Tzimisces (emperor, 969-76) xxxvi, 16,
Innocent I II (pope, 1198-1216) xlii, 290-1, 292, 87, 118
293, 294-8, 301 Syrian campaign 82
Innocent V I (pope, 1352-63) 317 John II Komnenos (emperor, 1118-43) 53, 93,
intercession, development of 39-40 253, 256
Ioannitsa [Kalojan] (Bulgarian emperor, 1197— John I II Doukas Vatatzes (emperor of Nicaea,
1207) xli, 289, 290, 291, 292-3, 294-8, 1221-54)3 09 ,3 10
301-3 John IV Lascaris (emperor of Nicaea, 1258-61)
Iorga, Nicolae 274, 275-6, 278 310,311
Isaac, Benjamin 65 John V Palaiologos (emperor, 1341-76, 1379-91)
Isaac I Komnenos (emperor, 1057-9) 89, 105 3 1 6-1 7,318 ,319 , 320
Isaac II Angelos (emperor, 1185-95, 1203-4) 53, John V I Kantakouzenos (emperor, 1347-54) 314,
93, 94, 103, 104, 147 3 1 5,31 6,31 7,35 3, 372
Bulgarians, war against 282-7 John V II Palaiologos (emperor, 1390) 318, 320,
expansionism o f 95-6, 98 321, 322
fall of 106 John V III Palaiologos (emperor, 1425-48) 322,
prophecy, receptiveness to 99-100 323, 324
restoration o f 298 John X IV Kalekas (patriarch o f Constantinople,
Saladin, agreement with xl, xli, 94, 96, 105 1334-47) 316
Isidore (patriarch o f Constantinople, 1347-50) John II (metropolitan of Kiev) 260
448 John the Almsgiver 40
Islam, predicted destruction of 50 John Chrysostom 44
Ivan II Alexander (Bulgarian emperor, 1331-71) John o f Damascus, St 48
xliv Joseph I (patriarch of Constantinople, 1266-75,
Ivan I Kalita (grand prince o f Moscow, 1325-40) 1282-3) 311
415 Joseph the Hymnographer 75
Ivan I I I (grand prince o f Moscow, 1462-1505) lv, Joseph, St, wall painting recounting story o f 388
41 6,4 1 7 ,4 1 8 ,4 1 9 , 427, 444 Joshua the Sty lite 31
Ivan IV ‘the Terrible’ (Russian tsar, 1530-84) Justin II (emperor, 565-78) 15, 41, 50, 377
406, 417-18, 419, 420 Chrysotriklinos o f 42
Ivanka, E. von 24 Justinian I (emperor, 527-65) liv, 31, 33, 34, 40,
Ivanko the Vlach 287-8, 289 43
Ivanov, Sergey A. 251-65 Justinian II (emperor, 685-95, 705-11) 46, 67,
Izbornik o f 1076 170-1 68, 69
izgoncija 340
Kallipolis, capture by Ottoman Turks 317
Jacoby, David 107-59 Kalojan see Ioannitsa
Jaffa 119-20 Kamouliana image 41-2
Jerusalem Kantakouzenoi, Palaiologoi, power struggles
Byzantine conquest o f 52 315-17
Byzantine pilgrims to 119 katepano 335-6
INDEX 527
Kekaumenos, Strategikon 90 Leo V the Armenian (emperor, 813-20) 49, 51,

kephalia 335 76, 77, 117
khan Leo V I the Wise (emperor, 886-912) Oracles of
basileus, difference from xlix, 410-12 3, 99-100
recognition of 415 Leo the Deacon 15-16, 51, 58
on Russian coinage 414 Leo the Paphlagonian 257
tsar, need to differentiate from 417 Leontios (patriarch of Jerusalem) 104
use o f term 408, 409, 419, 440 Life 104, 105
see also basileus; tsar Leontios (bishop o f Rostov), St
Khusraw I (Persian shah, 531-79) 31 Vita 260
Khusraw I I (Persian shah, 591-628) 44 Leontios o f Neapolis 40
Kiev Lesnovo monastery, wall paintings in narthex
amphorae excavations 161-2 xlvi, 378- 80, 399-402
Byzantine Empire, trade with 161 Libanius 501
Church of the Tithe 230 light, symbolism of, and imperial ideology 381-2
craft industries 228-9 Likhachev, D.S. 489-90, 492
glass industry 161, 227 Lilie, Ralph-Johannes 104
monasteries, foundation in 230 liturgy
olive oil, uses of xxxviii, 198-201 Palestinian traditions 450-1
population 225 Liturgy of the Faithful 42
satellite towns 226-7 Liturgy of the Word 42
wine reform o f 491-2
cellars 196-8 Liudprand of Cremona 71
drinking vessels 201-5 Lobitsos, siege o f 284
shortage 171-3 Logos (the Divine Word) 23, 25
use and abuse xxxviii, 205-6 Louis IX (king of France, 1226-70) 311
Kingdom o f Heaven, identification o f Roman/ Lyons, Second Council o f (1274) xliii, 311, 312
Byzantine Empire with 37-41
Kinnamos, John 256-7 McCormick, Michael 73
knez 341 Macedonia, conquest by Serbia 351
Knights Hospitallers of Rhodes 320 MacMullen, Ramsay 497, 498
Kosovo Polje, Battle of (1389) 318, 319, 494 Magdalino, Paul 29-63, 93-106
Kourkouas, John 80 Magnus the Priest, German chronicler 94, 96,
Kovalev, Roman K. 161-84, 185-219 104
Malalas, John 32
Ladner, Gerhard 18 mandylion of Christ see also Edessa, image o f 80
Laodikeia 133, 134 Mango, Cyril 30, 37, 45
Last Roman emperor Manuel I Komnenos (emperor, 1143-80) 53, 93,
Alexios I Komnenos as 52 94, 104, 139
legend o f 45, 46, 57 missionary work o f 253-4
see also Byzantine Empire, eschatology Manuel II Palaiologos (emperor, 1391-1425)
Latin Empire of Constantinople (1204-61), xliii, 307, 318, 320, 321, 322, 323
extent o f 308 Manzikiert, Battle of (1071) 26
Lebuin, St 504-5 effects of 27
Lekapenos, Basil 83 Marcus Aurelius (Roman emperor, 161-180) 66
Lemerle, Paul. 358 Markus, Robert 518
Leo I I I (emperor, 717-41) 49 Martin IV (pope, 1281-5) 312
attempts to convert Jews 46 Martin o f Tours, St
Ecloga law code 47 idol smashing 501-3
iconoclasm 47, 49 sacred tree felling 505-6
528 INDEX
Mastropiero, Aureo, (doge of Venice) 103 Muslims, conversion to Christianity, problems

Maurice (emperor, 582-602) 44 of 264
Mauropous, John 89, 90, 251-2, 255
Maximos the Confessor, Mystagogia 39, 42, 48 nahodnik 342
Mehmed I (Ottoman sultan, 1413-21) 322 Nemanjid family tree 390- 1, 398-9
Mehmed II the Conqueror (Ottoman sultan, New Jerusalem, Constantinople as 37-8, 55, 57
1451-81) liv, 323, 324 Nicaea
Mesarites, Nicholas 254-5 Empire of xlii, 309
Metaphrastes, Symeon 51, 256 Epiros, rivalry with 310
Methodius of Patara see Pseudo-Methodius of Ottoman siege of 314
Patara Nicomedia, Ottoman capture of 314
Metochites, Theodore xxviii, 58, 466 Nicopolis, Crusade of 321
Meyendorff, John 447-72 Nikephoros I (emperor, 802-11) 269
Michael of Attaleia see Attaleiates, Michael Nikephoros II Phokas (emperor, 963-9) xxxvi,
Michael IV the Paphlagonian (emperor, 1034-41) 44, 83, 87
87, 279 Crete, reconquest of 82
Michael VIII Palaiologos (emperor, 1258-82) Niketas the Paphlagonian 50-1, 53, 56
53, 309 nomads, and Christianity 256
death 312 see also mission work
reconquest of Constantinople 310 Noonan, Thomas xxxix, 161-84, 185-219, 227,
renovation programme in Constantinople 311 228
Michael I Doukas (ruler of Epiros, 1204-15) 309 Normans, Southern Italy, control of xxxvii
Michail Aleksandrovic (prince of Tver) 425-6 Novgorod, amphorae excavations 162-3, 165
Vita 426 Nureddin (sultan of Egypt and Syria) death of
Miller, David B. 221-50 104
Miracles o f St Demetrios 40
mission work, Byzantines and xxxiv-xxxv, Obolensky, Dimitri 328, 473-96
251-65 The Byzantine Commonwealth xxx
see also barbarians, conversion to Six Byzantine Portraits li
Christianity Old Slavic, Rus 232-3, 235
mitat 336 Oleg (prince of Rus) 170
Môhring, Hannes 104 Omar (caliph, 634-44) 45
monasticism Orhan (Ottoman sultan, 1326-62) 317
in Russia (14-15 century) 460-6 Origen 23
and travel, motives for 493 pan-Orthodoxy 483-4, 493
Mongols Ostrogorsky, G. 365
conversion to Islam 440, 442 Otto I (western emperor, 962-73) 71
Russia Ottoman Turks
conquest of 403, 417, 424, 438 Byzantines’ defeat at Bapheus (1302) 313
historiography on 421-3 Byzantines’ dependency on 318-21
in Russian chronicles 433-5 Constantinople, capture of (1453) 53, 307
and the Russian Church xlix-li, 437-46 Kallipolis, capture of 317
Turkicization of 431 Nicaea, siege of 314
see also Golden Horde Nicomedia, capture of (1337) 314
Monophysites 43 Thessaloniki, capture of (1387) 320
Monotropos, Philip 57 Trnovo, capture of (1393) 494
Muirchú, Life o f St Patrick 506, 507, 512, 517 oukrain 247
Murad I (Ottoman sultan, 1362-89) 317, 318
victories 319 ‘Palaiologan Renaissance’ 449, 454, 455-6, 466,
Murad II (Ottoman sultan, 1421-51) 322, 323 467
INDEX 529
see also Hesychasm, and art Roman emperors

Palaiologoi, power struggles with Kantakouzenoi Byzantines’ claim to be 70-2, 79
315-17 expansionism of 65-6
Palamas, Gregory, St Hi, 263-4, 316, 452, 467, Roman Empire see also Byzantine Empire
478, 481-2, 483 Kingdom of Heaven, identification with
meeting with Stefan Dusan 359-60 37-41, 51, 55
Paroria region, spirituality in 479, 480 and spread of Christianity 23
Patrick, St 506-7, 516 Roman Mstislavich (prince of Volyn [Rus]) 246
Paul the Silentiary 40, 43 Romania 10, 11
Paulician heresy 50 Romanos I Lekapenos (emperor, 920-44) 17,
Pechenegs 279, 300 115-16, 117
conversion to Christianity 251-2, 255-6 Romanos II (emperor, 959-63) xxxvi
rising 89 Romanos III (emperor, 1028-34) 85, 86, 87
Perkri 85 Romanos IV Diogenes (emperor, 1068-71) 5
Permians, conversion by St Stephen 510-12, 515 Romanos the Melodist 38
perperak 336 On the Last Judgement 33
Persian Empire, defeat by Byzantine Empire On the Ten Virgins 32
44-5 Rome, ecclesiastical union with Constantinople
Peter (Bulgarian emperor, 927-69) xli, 280, 283, 311-12
284, 290 Rublev, Andrei xxviii
Philoponos, John 31, 35 al-Rum , meaning of xxxviii, 109-11
Philotheos (patriarch of Constantinople, 1353-4, Rumania, literary movement 487-8
1364-76) li, 452, 462, 478, 483, 484 Rus see also Russia
Photius (metropolitan of Russia, 1408-31) 451 agriculture 224
Pisans, and Byzantine-Egyptian trade 137-8, amphorae excavations 161-9
143-4 Northern Rus xxxviii, 194-6
pisets 340 scholarship on 186-7
Podskalsky, Gerhard 31 Southern Rus xxxviii, 187-94
povar 342 bishoprics 230-1
praetor 336 book patrons 234-5
Price, Richard M. 497-520 Byzantine Empire
primikirios 332 influence of xlviii-xlix, 161, 175
Procopius 11, 69 (olive) oil imports from 162, 174-5, 178
Secret History 33, 34 trade with 161-84, 185-219
protokeliot 334 wine imports from 170-80
protosebast 331 Christian culture, spread of 229, 232
protostrator 333 Christianity 259-60
protovestiarios 332 churches 232
psar 340 city states 221
Psellos, Michael 87, 89, 90, 252, 255, 257 communities xxxix, 221
Pseudo-Dionysios the Areopagite 39 frontiers 238-42
Pseudo-Methodius f Patara 14, 46, 61 and loyalties 246-7
legal tradition 236-7
Revelation, Book of xxxiv, 35, 55, 63 literacy, evidence of xxxix, 235-6, 237-8
Reinert, Stephen W. 307-26 manuscripts, surviving 233-4
Richard I the Lionheart (king of England, monasteries founded 231
1189-99) 105 nationalism 242-3, 244
Roger II (king of Sicily, 1130-54) 131 Old Slavic 232-3, 235
Romaioi 10 Orthodox Christianity 229-30
principalities 245-6
530 INDEX
Scandinavians 239-40 Seljuk Turks

self-identity 243-5, 248-50 capture of Antioch 134
settlements 222-4 defeat
Slav dialects 241 by Byzantines 256
towns of Byzantines 26, 27, 93
and Christianity 231-2 senar 342
growth of 224-6 Serbia
trade networks 227 Byzantine Empire, relations with 367-9
use of term 245, 247-8 Hesychasm in 480, 484-5
wine drinking, admonitions on 170-1 Macedonia, conquest of 351
Russia Mount Athos, contacts with 349-63, 458
basileus as model of rulership 404-5 Nemanjid dynasty 349
chronicles, Mongols in 433-5 serdar 343, 346
Church, and the Mongols xlix-li, 437-46 Sergius of Radonezh, St 452, 460-4, 480, 481
clergy, tax exemption of 438-40 Shepard, Jonathan xxv-lv, 65-92
coinage 412-14 Sicilian Vespers (1281) 312
khan title on 414 silence, ideology of 424
Constantinople, contacts with 460 Simplicius 35
Golden Horde, knowledge of 425-33 on Aristotle’s De caelo 31
Hesychasm 485 Slavs
image of ruler 404 adoption of Typikon of Jerusalem 450, 451,
literary movement 488-9 452
liturgy, development 450-1 Byzantium
monastic libraries 452-3 acculturation 473-96
monasticism (14-15 century) 460-6 common culture 476-7
Mongols communication channels 456-60
conquest by 403, 417, 424 Smolensk, amphorae excavations 169
historiography on 421-3 Sophronios (patriarch of Jerusalem, 643-8) 45
Mount Athos, contacts with 458-9 Sopocani church, wall paintings in narthex 387,
see also Kiev; Novgorod; Rus 388- 9, 393, 395
Russian Primary Chronicle 170 Soulis, G.C. 349-63, 365, 371
Rybakov, B.A. 227 Southern, Richard 55
Stefan Dusan (Serbian emperor, 1331-55)
Saif ad-Daula (emir) 81, 82 xxix-xxx, 313,316, 318, 349-50
Saladin (sultan of Egypt and Syria) 93, 98, 104, Byzantine territory, claims to 371-2
143 Byzantinisation of 374-5
Andronikos I, alleged pact with 94, 96, 104-5 Law-code xlvi-xlvii, 370-1
Isaac II, agreement with xl, xli, 94, 96, 105 Gregory Palamas, meeting with 359-60
Samuel (Bulgarian emperor, 987/8-1014) 84 hesychastic sympathies 359-60
Sarai, bishop of 441, 442 imperial ambitions 365-7
Scandinavians, Rus as 239-40 portrait 378, 384
Scipio Africanus 90 visits to
Scott, Roger 33 Chilandar monastery xlvi, 356-7
se bast 330 Mount Athos xlvi, 351-5, 359, 361-2, 373
sebastocrator 330 Stefan Milutin (Serbian emperor, 1282-1321)
Second Coming liv, 30-1, 33, 36, 37, 38, 49, 52, xxviii, xlvi, 313, 337
54, 74,514 Stefan Nemanja (Serbian grand zupan , c.
imminence of 515-16 1165/8-1196) xlv, 368, 369
see also End of Days; eschatology and Bogomilism 393
wall paintings, as tribute to 387, 388- 90, 393
INDEX 531
Stephen of Alexandria 50 Trade

Stephen of Perm, Stxxxiv, liii, 464-5, 507-17 commodities
canonization 508 grain 128
idol smashing 510-11 mastic 127
Permians, conversion of 510-12, 515 pepper 141
Tract against the Strigolniki 509 silk 123-4
versus sorcerer 512-14 spices 112, 113, 125-6, 128, 140-1, 150
stolnik 338 storax resin 117
Straboromanos, Manuel 252 textiles xxxviii, 121-3, 141, 150
Strzygowski, Josef 349 timber 117-18, 119, 128
Sulpicius Severus, Life o f St Martin 501, 502, 517 methodology for studying 112
Sviatoslav, (prince of Rus, c. 960-72) 170, 173 participants in
Symeon the Fool for Christ 40 Amalfitans xxxviii, 129-32
Symeon Stylites, St 497-8 Byzantines 107-60
Symeon Stylites II, St 41 Egyptians 107-60
Genoese 138-40
tainik 339 Italian
Tarsus 68 integration xxxviii, 129-43, 157
Tatars see Mongols shipping 149-55
Tervel (Bulgar khan , 701-18) 68, 73 Pisans 137-8, 143-4
Thalelaeus of Gabala 498-9 Rus 161-84, 185-219
Theodore I Laskaris (emperor of Nicaea, Venetians 132-7
1205-21) 309-10 sources for 111, 113-14, 120. 157
Theodore II Lascaris (emperor of Nicaea, 1254-8) see also Byzantine Empire; Kiev; Novgorod
310 Trajan (Roman emperor, 98-117) 65, 87, 92
Theodore Komnenos Doukas (emperor of Trebizond, Empire of (1204-1461) 307-8
Thessaloniki) 310 Tripoli 120-1, 149
Theodore of Alania (bishop) 260-1 Trnovo
Theodore Syncellus 25 cultural contact centre 456, 457
Theodosioupolis 81 patriarchate established xliv
Theodosius III (emperor, 715-17) 46 Trullo, Council in (692) 377
Theodosius of Trnovo 479, 484 tsar
Theophanes ‘the Greek’ xxviii, 468-9, 494 khan, need to differentiate from 417
Theophanes Continuatus 80 use of term 406-7, 408, 409-10, 416-17, 440
Theophanios 49 see also basileus; khan
Theophilos (emperor, 829-42) 77, 133 Turks, expansion in Anatolia 313
Theophylact of Ohrid 252, 257, 259 see also Ottoman Turks; Seljuk Turks
Institutio Regia xxxii, 4, 5-6 Typikon of Jerusalem, adoption by Slavs 450,
Theophylact Simocatta 44 451,452
Thessaloniki Tyre 105
capture by Ottomans (1387, 1430) 320, 323 defence of 102
siege of 67
Timur the Lame, (Tamerlane) defeat of Bayazid Urban IV (pope, 1261-4)311
1322 Urban V (pope, 1362-70) 318
Tinnis 121, 122
topstikal 341 varar 341
Tornikes, Euthymios 253-4 Varna, Battle of (1444) 324
Tornikios, Leo, rebellion of 88, 89, 91 varnichij 342
Vasiliev, A. 30
532 INDEX
Vasilii [Basil] I (prince of Moscow, 1389-1425) Wallachia see also Vlachs

xxviii Hesychasm in 479-80
Vasilii [Basil] III (grand prince of Moscow, William of Champlitte 308
1505-33)406,418,419 William of Rubruck 177, 264
vatah 343, 346 Willibald, Life of St Boniface 503, 519
Venetians, and Byzantine-Egyptian trade 132-7 winebags see also Kiev, wine 178
Venice, relations with Byzantine Empire 101-3 Wolff, Robert L. 267-306
Vernadsky, George 417, 418, 422
Vettius Valens 50 Yahyâ of Antioch 110
Villehardouin, Geoffrey 308 Yovhannes-Smbat III, (Armenian king of kings,
vinar 342 c. 1017-1041) 86-7
Virgin Mary, cult of 39-40, 75
Vlachs xli, 93, 274, 275, 283, 284-7 zevgar 344
as ‘Bulgarians’ 278, 281 zhitar 340
principalities of 288 Zonaras, John 52
sources on 303-6
Vladimir of Kiev, St (prince of Rus, c. 978-1015)
3, 221
conversion to Christianity xxxiii, 161, 166,
170, 230, 259
voevoda 338-9

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The Expansion of Latin Europe, 1000-1500

The Expansion of Orthodox Europe

General Editors: James Muldoon and Felipe Fernández-Armesto

The Expansion of Orthodox Europe: Byzantium, the Balkans and Russia

Medieval Ethnographies: European Perceptions of the World Beyond

Religion and Expansion: the Missionary Impulse

The North Atlantic Frontier: Vikings and Celts

Please note titles may change prior to publication

The Expansion of Orthodox Europe

Published 2016 by Routledge

Routledge is an imprint o f the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Published in The Expansion of Latin Europe, 1000-1500 Series

ISBN 9780754659204 (hbk)

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

US Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

THE EXPANSION OF LATIN EUROPE, 1000-1500

General Editor’s Preface xxi

PART ONE - THE BUOYANCY OF BYZANTIUM BEFORE 1204:

2 The Strength of Empire and Capital as Seen Through Byzantine Eyes

4 Emperors and Expansionism: From Rome to Middle Byzantium

5 Isaac II, Saladin and Venice

9 The Many Frontiers of pre-Mongol Rus’

11 The ‘Second Bulgarian Empire’. Its Origin and History to 1204

12 Fragmentation (1204-1453) (with bibliography)

13 Some Observations on the Administrative Terminology of the Second Bulgarian

14 Tsar Stephen Dusan and Mount Athos

15 Between Kingdom and Empire: Dusan’s State 1346-1355 Reconsidered

17 Khan or Basileus: An Aspect of Russian Medieval Political Theory

18 ‘Know Thy Enemy’: Medieval Russian Familiarity with the Mongols of

20 Cultural Ties: Byzantium, the Southern Slavs and Russia

21 Late Byzantine Culture and the Slavs: A Study in Acculturation

Chapter 4: Jonathan Shepard, ‘Emperors and Expansionism: from Rome to Middle

Chapter 17: Michael Chemiavsky, ‘Khan or Basileus: An Aspect of Russian Medieval

AB (or AnBoil) Analecta Bollandiana

Abbreviations given here supplement those explicated within individual articles.

Golubinsky, Istoriya E.E. Golubinsky, Istoriya russkoi tserkvi (2 vols, Moscow,

Pavlov, Opyty A.S. Pavlov, Kriticheskie opyty po istorii drevneishei greko-

Tachiaos, ’EmSpáaeig A. Tachiaos, Epidraseis tou Ësychasmou eis tën ekklësiastikën

James Muldoon and Felipe Fernández-Armesto

1 J. Shepard. ‘Byzantium’s overlapping circles’, in E. Jeffreys (ed.), Proceedings o f the 21st

Part I: The Buoyancy o f Byzantium before 1204

16 S. Reinert, ‘Fragmentation’, pp. xxxiii-xxxv.

1996); SA . Ivanov, Vizantiiskoe missionerstvo. Mozhno li sdelat’iz varvara’khristianina? (Moscow,

Manuel Komnenos’ venture in Ancona is easily dismissed as an example of him overreaching

48 Miller, ‘Many frontiers of pre-Mongol Rus’, p. 238.

Part II: After the Fall

63 Reinert, ‘Fragmentation’, p. xxx.

This is illustrated by the case of Rus. As emphasised in Part I, geo-political circumstances

92 J. Meyendorff, Byzantium and the rise o f Russia. A study o f Byzantino-Russian relations in

98 B. Martin-Hisard, ‘Christianisme et Église dans le monde géorgien’, in G. Dagron et al. (eds),

God and the ‘Family of Princes’ Presided Over by the

A long tradition, extending back to the origins of the Chris-

118 André Grabar

the seemingly insurmountable contradictions, between the notions of

The “Family of Princes” 119

120 André Grabar

The “Family of Princes” 121

èv à p ’rjvy r à rr¡<; e ív o fíía s (Tv¡nrpo0 1yxoi yxei'os'. T ís ovv oXfiiMTepos t o v t o v

In other words, for the pious Emperor of Byzantium, God is simul-

122 André Grabar

The “Family of Princes” 123

O n e of the best syntheses in the field of Byzantine history, Charles Diehl’s

340 Em pire and Capital Through B yzantine Eyes