The Oxford History of Byzantium Read online

  THE OXFORD HISTORY OF

  BYZANTIUM

  THE OXFORD HISTORY OF

  BYZANTIUM

  EDITED BY

  Cyril Mango

  Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP

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  First published 2002

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  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

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  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

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  ISBN 0-19-814098-3

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

  Printed in Great Britain

  on acid-free paper by

  Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome, Somerset

  Preface

  I shall not repeat the adage that Byzantium has been and continues to be unduly neglected. That may have been true a hundred, even fifty years ago: it is certainly not the case today. The contemptuous abuse that was heaped on Byzantium by the likes of Montesquieu and Edward Gibbon kept some of its malignity into the Victorian era, but was generally dismissed well before the end of the nineteenth century in favour of a more positive assessment. The exclusion of Byzantium from the academic curriculum has been rectified, if not as fully as some may desire. At present Byzantine studies are taught at a great many universities in Europe and the USA; well over a dozen international journals are devoted exclusively to Byzantine material; the volume of relevant bibliography has risen at an alarming rate; the number of conferences, symposia, round tables, and ‘workshops’ has passed all count, and the same may be said of exhibitions of Byzantine artefacts. The last International Congress of Byzantine Studies (Paris, 2001) had an attendance of one thousand.

  The rehabilitation of Byzantium forms an interesting chapter in the development of European historical thought and aesthetic trends in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. What had been seen as a monotonous tale of decadence, intrigue, and moral turpitude has been transformed into a stirring and colourful epic; what was regarded by Gibbon as superstition has emerged as spirituality; an art that had been ridiculed for its clumsiness and lifelessness became in the early twentieth century a source of inspiration in the campaign against dead academic classicism. Have these changes occurred because we are better informed than our great-grandfathers? There has certainly been since about 1850 an enormous enlargement of our knowledge of Byzantine ‘material culture’, but the same does not apply to the written word. Practically all the Byzantine texts we read today were available in 1850 if anyone cared to consult them. Byzantium has not changed: our attitudes have, and will doubtless change again in the future.

  Byzantium needs no apologia. Its crucial role in European and Near Eastern history is a matter of record. Its literature (if one may use this term for the entire corpus of writing) is very extensive and has suffered few significant losses. Its legacy in stone, paint, and other media is more lacunose, but sufficiently representative of what no longer exists. On this basis it is possible— not that everyone will agree on the result—to pass an informed judgement on the Byzantine achievement compared with other contemporary civilizations, notably that of the medieval West and that of Islam. Such comparisons have seldom been made.

  The urge to reinterpret, to question accepted opinions has affected Byzantine history no less than that of other periods. On many issues of broad importance there is no longer a scholarly consensus. I have not tried, therefore, to impose either my own views or mutual consistency on the contributors to this volume.

  C. M.

  Acknowledgements

  The editor should like to thank Marlia Mundell Mango for planning the illustration of this volume and the following persons and institutions for supplying or helping to obtain individual photographs and drawings:

  M. Achimastou-Potamianou (Athens)

  S. Assersohn (OUP)

  J. Balty (Brussels)

  L. Brubaker (Birmingham)

  St Catherine’s Monastery, Mount Sinai

  A. Ertug (Istanbul)

  A. Guillou (Paris)

  R. Hoyland (Oxford)

  C. Lightfoot (New York)

  J. McKenzie (Oxford)

  Ch. Pennas (Athens)

  Y. Petsopoulos (London)

  M. Piccirillo (Madaba)

  Index compiled by Meg Davies

  N. Pollard (Oxford)

  J. Raby (Oxford)

  L. Schachner (Oxford)

  I. Sevcenko (Cambridge, MA)

  J. Shepard (Oxford)

  R. R. R. Smith (Oxford)

  A.-M. Talbot, for the Dumbarton Oaks Library and Collection (Washington, DC)

  N. Thierry (Etampes)

  S. Tipping (OUP)

  L. Treadwell (Oxford)

  Contents

  List of Special Features

  List of Colour Plates

  List of Maps and Figures

  List of Contributors

  Introduction

  CYRIL MANGO

  1. The Eastern Empire from Constantine to Heraclius (306-641)

  PETER SARRIS

  2. Life in City and Country

  CLIVE FOSS

  3. New Religion, Old Culture

  CYRIL MANGO

  4. The Rise of Islam

  ROBERT HOYLAND

  5. The Struggle for Survival (641-780)

  WARREN TREADGOLD

  6. Iconoclasm

  PATRICIA KARLIN-HAYTER

  7. The Medieval Empire (780-1204)

  PAUL MAGDALINO

  8. The Revival of Learning

  CYRIL MANGO

  9. Spreading the Word: Byzantine Missions

  JONATHAN SHEPARD

  10. Fragmentation (1204-1453)

  STEPHEN W. REINERT

  11. Palaiologan Learning

  IHOR SEVCENKO

  12. Towards a Franco-Greek Culture

  ELIZABETH JEFFREYS AND CYRIL MANGO

  Chronology

  Select Bibliography

  Illustration Sources

  Index

  List of Special Features

  Faces of Constantine

  CYRIL MANGO

  Status and its Symbols

  MARLIA MUNDELL MANGO

  Constantinople

>   CYRIL MANGO

  Pilgrimage

  MARLIA MUNDELL MANGO

  Icons

  CYRIL MANGO

  Commerce

  MARLIA MUNDELL MANGO

  Monasticism

  MARLIA MUNDELL MANGO

  List of Colour Plates

  Mosaic scroll border. Great Palace, Constantinople. Sixth century.

  Cyril Mango

  Imperial palace of Ravenna. Church of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo. Sixth century.

  Scala, Florence

  Interior of the Church of San Vitale, Ravenna.

  Dagli Orti/The Art Archive

  The Theodora mosaic panel, San Vitale, Ravenna.

  Dagli Orti/The Art Archive

  Exterior of St Sophia, Constantinople. Sixth century.

  F. H. C. Birch/Sonia Halliday Photographs

  The theatre of Side. Second century.

  F. H. C. Birch/Sonia Halliday Photographs

  Silver gilt paten. Sixth century.

  Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC

  The Second General Council, Constantinople, 381. Miniature, c. AD 880.

  Bibliotheque nationale de France, MS gr. 510 f 355r

  Umayyad bath of Qusayr ‘Amra. Wall painting, c.AD 715.

  Marlia Mundell Mango

  Umayyad palace of Khirbet al-Mafjar near Jericho. Mosaic, c.AD 743.

  Scala, Florence

  Church of the monastery ton Latomon, Thessaloniki. Mosaic, sixth century.

  Cyril Mango

  Head of the archangel Gabriel. St Sophia, Constantinople.

  Cyril Mango

  Interior of the Umayyad Dome of the Rock. Jerusalem, AD 691-2.

  Jean-Louis Nou/AKG London

  Icon representing the Feast of Orthodoxy. Fifteenth century.

  ©British Museum

  Detail of the Pala d’Oro, St Mark’s, Venice, 1105.

  Scala, Florence

  Manuel I Komnenos with Maria of Antioch. Miniature.

  ©Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS gr. 1176

  Ezekiel’s Vision. Miniature. c.AD 880.

  Bibliotheque nationale de France, MS gr. 510 f 438v

  Moses receiving the tablets of the Law. Miniature, tenth century.

  ©Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Cod. Reg. Gr.1 f 155v

  Busts of the Minor Prophets. Miniature. Tenth century.

  Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, Turin, MS B.1.2. f iiv-12r/Index, Florence

  Ivory triptych featuring the Deisis. Tenth century.

  Scala, Florence

  Sardonyx and silver gilt chalice. St Mark’s, Venice, first/tenth century.

  Scala, Florence

  Pentecost mosaic in church of Hosios Loukas. Greece, eleventh century.

  Tony Gervis/Robert Harding Picture Library

  Deisis mosaic, St Sophia, Constantinople. Thirteenth century.

  Dagli Orti/The Art Archive

  Silk banner of archangel Michael.

  Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino, photo: Soprintendenza P.S.A.D. delle Marche/Index, Florence

  The Dormition of the Virgin Mary, church of the Holy Trinity, Sopoćani, Serbia, c.1265.

  Scala, Florence

  Castle of Rumeli Hisari, Bosphorus, 1452.

  T. Bognar/Art Directors & TRIP

  Initial B from Latin Psalter, c.AD1235.

  Biblioteca Riccardiana, Florence; MS Ricc 323 c 14v, photo by Donato Pineider

  Icon of the Crucifixion. Thirteenth century.

  Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Mount Sinai

  David playing the harp. Tenth century Psalter.

  Bibliotheque nationale de France, MS gr. 139

  David playing the harp. Thirteenth century Psalter.

  ©Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Cod. Pal. Gr 381 b f iv-11r

  Triptych of the Pietà, attributed to Nikolaos Tzafouris. Crete, 1489-1500.

  Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

  El Greco: Dormition and Assumption of the Virgin Mary. Syros, c.i567.

  Kostas Xenikakis

  List of Maps and Figures

  MAPS

  The Roman Empire, c.AD 390

  The War Zone Between Byzantium and Persia

  Justinian’s Empire in AD 565

  Pre-Islamic Arabia

  The Empire in 780

  The Empire’s Northern Neighbours

  The Empire in mid-Eleventh Century

  The Empire in Twelfth Century

  The Empire in the Second Half of the Fourteenth Century

  FIGURES

  Plan of Constantinople

  Plan of Antioch

  Plan of Alexandria

  Public baths at Alexandria

  Plan of Ephesus

  Plan and reconstruction of dyer’s shop at Sardis

  Plan of Side

  Plan of Apamea

  Plan of Justiniana Prima

  Plan of Dar Qita

  Plan of Jerusalem showing principal stations in pilgrim itineraries

  Plans of several cities showing their contraction over time

  Plan of Thessalonica

  Main types of transport amphorae from the late antique Mediterranean

  Types of medieval transport amphorae

  Ground plan of Round Church at Preslav

  Plan of Amorium

  Plan of agora area, Corinth

  Walled units at the lavra monastery of Kellia in Egypt

  Plan of the coenobitic monastery of St Martyrius

  Ground plan of the monastery of St Meletios on Mt. Kithairon

  Reconstructed elevation and plan of St Sophia, Kiev

  List of Contributors

  CLIVE FOSS is Professor of History, University of Massachusetts, Boston. Author of Byzantine and Turkish Sardis (1976); Ephesus after Antiquity (1979).

  ROBERT HOYLAND is Leverhulme Research Fellow attached to the Oriental Institute, University of Oxford. Author of Seeing Islam as Others Saw It (1997); Arabia and the Arabs from the Bronze Age to the Comingof Islam (2001).

  ELIZABETH JEFFREYS is Bywater and Sotheby Professor of Byzantine and Modern Greek Language and Literature, University of Oxford and Fellow of Exeter College. Author of (with others) Studies in John Malalas (1990); The War of Troy (1996); Digenis Akritis (1998).

  PATRICIA KARLIN-HAYTER has taught at the Universities of Birmingham and Belfast. Author of Vita Euthymii Patriarchae Constantinopolitani (1970); Studies in Byzantine Political History (1981).

  PAUL MAGDALINO is Professor of Byzantine History, University of St Andrews. Author of The Empire of Manuel I Komnenos (1993); Constantinople medievale (1996).

  CYRIL MANGO is Bywater and Sotheby Professor Emeritus, University of Oxford. Author of Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome (1980); Le Développement urbain de Constantinople, IVe—VIIe siècles 1985); (with R. Scott), The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor (1997).

  MARLIA MUNDELL MANGO is University Lecturer in Byzantine Archaeology and Art, University of Oxford and Fellow of St John’s College. Author of Silver from Early Byzantium: The Kaper Koraon and Related Treasures (1986); (with A. Bennett), The Sevso Treasure. Part 1 (1994).

  STEPHEN W. REINERT is Associate Professor in Byzantine and Early Turkic Studies at Rutgers University. Author of numerous articles and principal editor of To Hellenikon: Studies in Honor of Speros Vryonis, Jr. (1993).

  PETER SARRIS is University Lecturer in Medieval History, University of Cambridge and Fellow of Trinity College. Author of Economy and Society in the Age of Justinian: The Oxford History of Medieval Europe, 500-700 (forthcoming).

  IHOR ŠEVENKO is Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Byzantine History Emeritus, Harvard University. Author of La Vie intellectuelle et politique a Byzance sous les premiers Paleologues (1962); Byzantium and the Slavs in Letters and Culture (1991).

  JONATHAN SHEPARD was until recently University Lecturer in Russian History, University of Cambridge. Co-editor of Byzantine Diplomacy (1992); co-author (with S. Franklin) of The Emergence of Rus, 750-1200 (1996).

  WARREN TREADGOLD is Professor of Late Ancient a
nd Byzantine History, Saint Louis University. Author of Byzantium and its Army (1995); A History of the Byzantine State and Society (1997).

  Introduction

  CYRIL MANGO

  Byzantion, Latinized to Byzantium, was the name of a Greek colony at the mouth of the Thracian Bosphorus—a situation of striking natural beauty as well as great strategic importance. About a thousand years after its foundation Byzantium was chosen by Constantine the Great as his imperial residence (AD 324) and renamed Constantinopolis nova (or altera) Roma. That was not an unprecedented step at the time: Constantine’s great predecessor, Diocletian (284-305), had already established his seat at nearby Nicomedia (now Izmit) and strove ‘to make it the equal of Rome’. But whereas Nicomedia and a number of other transient capitals soon lost their status, Constantinople proved a lasting success and was to remain ‘the Reigning City’ for the next eleven centuries, not counting another five under the Ottoman sultans.

  In the long perspective of history Constantine’s inspired action took on the appearance of what it was not in reality, namely a translatio imperii, a new beginning in a new place under the auspices of a new religion—a renovation, however, that did not entail a break with the past. The New Rome encapsulated the Old. It was even rumoured that Constantine secretly removed from Rome the Palladium of Troy and buried it under his great column of porphyry at Constantinople—a column, incidentally, that has stood until today against all odds. Anthusa, the mystic Tyche to whom Constantinople was dedicated, was a replica of Rome’s Flora.

  Constantine’s successors continued to regard themselves as the legitimate emperors of Rome, just as their subjects called themselves Romaioi long after they had forgotten the Latin tongue. They did not claim for themselves any other ancestry. To take one example at random, the eleventh-century polymath Michael Psellos, when called upon to produce an elementary history book for the instruction of his imperial pupil, Michael VII, started his narrative with Romulus and Remus, skipped quickly over the kings and consuls, then came to dwell in more detail on the succession of emperors who formed a single line from Julius Caesar, founder of the monarchy, to Basil II and Constantine VIII. Augustus, more than Constantine, was the key figure, for his reign had coincided with the Incarnation of Our Lord, the central event of universal history. Christianity and the Roman monarchy had virtually the same birthdate.