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Arab Campaigns north of the Caucasus mountains beginning in 722 resulted in converting the Jewish Kingdom of the Khazars on the Volga River to Islam in 737. At some time not much later the Khazar's northern neighbors, the Volga Bulgars, were also converted to Islam. The Indus Valley in modern Pakistan was firmly in Muslim control by 745 and a campaign into western Chinese territory was launched late in Marwan II's caliphate (744-750). In 751 they defeated a Chinese army at Talas, ending Chinese power south of Lake Balkhash in eastern Kazakhstan.
After a century of rapid expansion that carried them great distances from Arabia there was a sudden, nearly half-century-long pause brought about by internal strife, indecision, retreat and re-organization. The Arabic Kingdom of the Umayyads ended in confusion and bloodshed and was superseded by the Islamic Empire under caliphs of the Abbasid dynasty.
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The Islamic Empire, 750-1055, was founded by Caliph Abu al-Abbas (750-754), who massacred every member of the Umayyad family he could capture. However, a single Umayyad, Abd al-Rahman, survived the purge of Abu al-Abbas and fled to Spain where he and his successors continued to rule, not recognizing the Abbasid caliphate. The Abbasid dynasty contains twenty-four caliphs, but only the second, fifth, seventh and ninth after Abu al-Abbas need be noted here. Al-Mansur (754-775), laid the foundations for Medinat al-Salam, "the city of peace", at the site of a Persian village named Baghdad in 763. Soon Baghdad became a very large city becoming the capital of the Islamic Empire. Harun al-Rashid (786-809) is sometimes considered the greatest of the Abbasid caliphs, but the picture is tarnished by the secession of Morocco and Tunisia during his reign. These independent Muslims of northwest Africa, known to the Europeans as Saracens, began, c. 808, aggressive raids against Christian Europe. Sicily was invaded in 827 and fell into their control after Palermo fell in 831. Corsica, Sardinia and the Balearic Islands were soon conquered. The first raids in Italy were in 808 leading to their conquest of southern (Byzantine) Italy by 841. Raids on the French coast began in 838 at Marseilles.
Caliph Al-Ma'mun (813-833), inaugurated a new phase in the history of the Caliphate by appointing a vizier as chief political and military administrator of the Empire while the Caliph remained the final authority. The viziers became more and more independent of the Caliph's authority. Finally, Al-Wathiq (842-847), marked another milepost in the development of the Caliphate by opening the way for the commander of the army at Baghdad to rise to political prominence at the expense of the now very powerful office of the vizier. This was but another symptom of the increasing political impotence of the Caliph, which at the end of this period (868) would see Egypt under the Tulunid dynasty declaring its independence from the Baghdad Caliph.
There were seventeen Abbasid caliphs after Al-Wathiq (d. 847) until the establishment of the Seljuk Sultanate in 1055. The Caliphs powers constantly eroded. We have already noted Egypt's independence under first the Tulunid dynasty after 868 and then the Fatimid dynasty established itself as ruler of all north Africa in the early tenth century. In 929 the Umayyad ruler of Spain again took the title of Caliph although his authority was confined to Spain. By this time the Supreme commander of the army of Baghdad had gathered to himself all the remaining political authority of the Caliphate leaving the Abbasid Caliph's task almost exclusively religious.
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Toghrul Beg was the grandson of a great Turkic chieftain, Seljuk, who had united his people in the region east of the Caspian Sea, earlier in the eleventh century. The Seljuks were but a single group of the tent nomads of Turkestan; we have already met the Pechenegs and will encounter the Ghuzz and others below. They were all expert horsemen and accomplished with the bow. The Seljuks, however, had abandoned paganism for Islam. In 1038 Toghrul Beg had led approximately 150,000 Muslim Suljuks south into Iran where they captured Merv and spread westward across Persia. Finally, in 1055, Toghrul Beg, the chief of the newly recruited mercenaries from Persia, overthrew the supreme commander and established himself as "the protector," i.e. Sultan, of the Caliph. After Toghrul Beg's death in 1063 his equally capable nephew, Alp Arslan, became the Sultan.
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The Muslim policy toward Christians was to deny them first class citizenship and tax them as subject peoples, but they allowed Christian institutions to exist and to function. Indeed, enclaves of believers continued to remain largely in tact nourished by their Christian identity and pride until late in the eleventh century.
In Syria and Palestine Christians were thus able to survive although their resources were meager and divided. The numbers of Chalcedonian Christians, known as the Melkites, were depleted by emigration, particularly their leaders. Melkite congregations were left with mediocre leadership or, in some cases, they were virtually abandoned. Melkite monasteries in Palestine seem to have thrived somewhat better than those in Syria. But over the long haul these Melkite congregations and monasteries were abandoned and forgotten by the Christian organization in the Roman Empire. Jacobite congregations and monasteries in Syria, Arabia, and parts of Iraq were Monophysite. The Sixth Ecumenical Council, of course, condemned the Monophysite Christians in 681, but this was not a disability in Muslim eyes. The Christians adjusted rather quickly, especially those highly skilled and trained craftsmen and scholars. The Arabs appreciated both the skills and the knowledge resources of the Christians. The authoritative scholarship of Hellenistic civilization passed to the Arabs largely by means of translations into Arabic by Christians. Translations were made either from Greek originals or from Syriac translations from the Greek. During the ninth and tenth century Christian and Muslim scholars studied together and worked side by side in government offices.
Byzantine (i.e., Melkite) Christianity in Egypt had become increasingly a tool of tyrannical oppression during the two centuries before the Arab conquest. The Melkites lumped the Copts unjustly together with those guilty of the heresy of Eutyches and labeled them all Monophysites. The Coptic Christians had been intensively harassed.
The Arab conquest of Egypt did exchange the burden of Byzantine taxation for Arab taxation, a burden that grew increasingly difficult to bear. But the Coptic Patriarch and his bishops were from the first allowed to come out of hiding and discharge all the customary and regular activities of their leadership positions. The great majority of the rank and file Melkite Christians in Egypt were not Copts; a very large percentage of them, but not all, emigrated from Egypt to the Byzantine realm. Coptic Christians as a result stepped into economic niches and government staff positions vacated by the emigration. They also "inherited" church properties and even vacated private properties. Coptic Christians soon became bilingual after Arabic became the official language in 705. By the late ninth century under the Tulunids and in the tenth and eleventh centuries under the Fatimid Caliphs Coptic Christians held high offices in the central government and enjoyed many honors.
Christians in Cyrenaica (Libya Pentapolis) and in northwest Africa had been largely confined to the sedentary populations of the towns and cities. A very large proportion of these populations migrated to the Byzantine area, and by the early decades of our period Arab tribes were moving into these areas from Arabia and amalgamating with the native nomadic populations of the Sahara fringe, the Berbers. The Berbers had never been evangelized; their religions and life styles very similar to those native to Arabia. They converted to Islam and became full participants in the further expansion. Hence, even though these areas of North Africa had been extensively Christianized in the ancient period, Christianity did not long survive here in the eighth century.
Christians in Spain did not benefit as much from the Roman peace of 678 as those in the eastern areas. Since hostilities between western Europe and the Spanish Muslims continued throughout this period Christians in that areas continued to represent a threat to the Muslim governments. This threat was lessened by the fact that the Christians of Spain quickly mastered Arabic although they continued to use ecclesiastical Latin in their worship. Even the Arab and Berber minority who ruled the land came to rely on the Ibero-Latin in everyday affairs.
Christians in Iraq and Iran were, of course, not troubled by any stigma of identification with a foreign power. The Romans, of course, called them "Nestorians". The Christian Empire's distorted understanding of their position may have saddened these Christians, but they were equally alienated from the Jacobite Christians in Syria.
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Emperor Leo VI, the Wise, 886-912, was a likable and charming person, intelligent and industrious. Several sermons and hymns survive from his pen. He completed the task of reforming the law codes that his father, Basil, had begun reconciling secular law to canon law whenever there was a conflict between the two. Also like his father Basil I, Leo continued to strengthen the newly acquired frontier regions in both east and west.
When Photius was summarily dismissed on December 25, 886, Leo's younger brother, Stephen, became Patriarch. In 887 there was a detailed inquiry into the activities and motives of Photius and his agents during the years of Basil's erratic behavior. As a result some of Photius' minions were blinded and exiled while Photius was allowed to take monastic vows and spend his last years in utter obscurity.
When Patriarch Stephen's early death in 893, a nonpartisan, middle-of-the-road Patriarch, Anthony, assisted Leo in bringing peace between the extremists and the moderates. Then in April 906 the furor broke out again, provoked by Leo's dynastic dilemma. Leo's first wife, Theophano, had born him no children before her death in 897, but Zoe Zautzina, his part Nubian, part Armenian mistress, (whose father was Leo's chief advisor) bore him a daughter out of wedlock in 898. He promptly married her, but she too died without further children less than two years later. Leo was given a dispensation by the Patriarch to marry a third time, and this he did in 900. His chosen bride died in childbirth and her son survived only long enough to be baptized. Suffice it to note that the Eastern Church's canons on marriage since the days of Basil of Caesarea (fourth century) had considered third marriages as instances of "fornication" (i.e. not marriage at all) for which the guilty party must endure four years of excommunication. Fourth marriages were subject to similar penalties but were, after all, repeat offenses. Roman civil law had always been more lenient than canon law. In the revision of the Byzantine civil law Leo VI had personally authorized the amendment forbidding fourth marriages and denying legitimacy to offspring of such liaisons.
Leo VI had painted himself in a corner. Yet, he reasoned that dynastic considerations justified acting above and beyond the law. Consequently he secretly took a new mistress who in September 905 finally produced a male child named Constantine.
In 901 a new Patriarch, Nicholas Mysticus, was elevated. Already Leo VI was planning on having a fourth marriage and expecting Nicholas to both grant the dispensation and prevent a new schism between the extremists and moderates. Early in 906 Nicholas was able to get the extremists to agree for him to baptize the four month old Constantine as porphyrogenitus, "born to the purple," i.e., the son of a reigning Emperor. But beyond this Nicholas seemed unable succeed with his contradictory tasks. Meanwhile the Emperor and Zoe Carbonopsina, Constantine's mother, were married secretly and Leo crowned Zoe himself as Empress. Nicholas was eventually forced to resign and was replaced in 907 by Euthymius, the leader of the extremists, who promptly granted the dispensation because, at Leo VI' appeal, Pope Sergius III (904-911) approved it.
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Meanwhile Khan Boris' peace-making evangelical efforts among his people proved of great benefit not only to the Bulgarians' souls but to their pocketbooks. Along with Byzantine clergy came much economic activity. Finally in 889 he abdicated in favor of his older son Vladimir who was immediately embroiled in an uprising to restore paganism to Bulgaria. Vladimir released the reins of government to his younger brother, Symeon, about 893. Symeon had been educated in Constantinople and was both a Christian and a patron of Byzantine culture. He assumed the title Tsar in place of Khan and strengthened his state on the foundations built by his father. When the Byzantine government carelessly and without explanation disrupted its trade relations with Bulgaria in 894 Symeon attacked.
Emperor Leo VI retaliated quickly and not only defeated the invaders but encouraged the Bulgarian's northern neighbors, the restless Magyars, to ravage the unprotected lands of the Bulgars. The Magyars had just moved into the region of the Dniester and Prut rivers on the Bulgarian frontier the year before. Helpless for the moment Symeon sued for peace with Constantinople. Promptly Symeon called on the Turkic Pechenegs (or Patzinaks) from the northeast to take care of the Magyars. Once rid of the Magyars Symeon again in 896 opened hostilities with Byzantium. This time Emperor Leo VI was forced by 901 to sue for peace after serious losses and destruction.
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Once the marauding Magyar raiders under the leader Arpad realized that the Pechenegs had destroyed and occupied their recently acquired homeland to the north, they fled westward and conquered the old Moravian territory--where their descendants flourish to this day. As tent nomads they hesitated to adopt settled ways of life. Suffice it to say for the moment that the savage Magyars became the scourge of Europe in the early tenth century.
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Further to the north among the Rhos the half-legendary Oleg, Rurik's successor, had made himself supreme over all the other Swedish rulers and established himself at Kiev by about 880. He appears to have led a second major raid on Constantinople in c. 907. The Russian source testifies of 80,000 men and 2000 ships. While the Byzantine histories confirm no such attack, the first recorded commercial treaty between Kiev and Constantinople dates from the last years of Leo VI. From that point on the Byzantines began to employ "varangians" as mercenary troops.
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With the death of Leo VI in 912 his rebellious brother, Alexander, became Emperor for about one year before his death in 913. Patriarch Euthymius was deposed, physically abused and exiled by his vengeful replacement, Nicholas Mysticus. All the clergy who had been ordained or recognized by Euthymius were now defrocked and deposed from their positions. Many however, defied the Patriarch's orders and refused to vacate their appointments. The Pope's name was removed from the liturgical record at St. Sophia, the diptychs, and would not be restored for eleven months. The church was in chaos.
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The Regency of Zoe Carbonopsina. Emperor Alexander's death in 913 left Patriarch Nicholas Mysticus at the head of a council of regents for the seven year old Constantine VII--who, so far as Nicholas was concerned, was illegitimate. Constantine's mother, Zoe, whom Nicholas considered little more than a common prostitute, was barred from the palace. An attempted coup by one of the military aristocracy was swept away with excessive violence and bloodshed. Tsar Symeon of Bulgaria with his army suddenly appeared beneath the walls of Constantinople demanding recognition as Emperor of the Romans and offering his daughter as a wife for young Constantine. Even though Symeon did little more than sack the suburbs of the city, Nicholas gave in and secretly crowned Symeon! When the regency committee realized what Nicholas had done they offered the government to Zoe and her counselors.
The five years that Zoe acted as regent were tumultuous. She communicated to Symeon that though he was now indeed an imperial "brother" and "Emperor of the Bulgarians," he was not Emperor of the Romans. Symeon determined either to have the Empire or destroy it. For eleven years he ravaged all Greece and the Balkans sacking and destroying churches, monasteries as well as privately owned structures of all sorts. Zoe's leadership proved inadequate to inspire confidence and to reduce the threat of Symeon, so Zoe chose the commander of the army as her ally. However the admiral of the Byzantine navy, Romanus of the Armenian village of Lacape, supported by Patriarch Nicholas advanced himself and by December of 920 Romanus I Lacapenus was senior Emperor.
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The army commander had been captured and blinded. Romanus' daughter Helen had married Emperor Constantine VII. Zoe was sent to a nunnery, and a special synod of churchmen settled the question of Leo VI's fourth marriage. Then after the death of Patriarch Nicholas, Romanus appointed his own younger son, Theophylact, as Patriarch of Constantinople. Theophylact scarcely gave any attention to his ecclesiastical duties; he much preferred fussing over his two thousand pet horses.
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The tomus unionis, Tome of union, adopted in 920 elaborated on the canons regulating marriage. Fourth marriages in the future will be prohibited in all circumstances. Third marriages will be permitted only to men between thirty and forty years of age. If they have children by either or both their previous marriages they must endure four years of excommunication. If childless there is no penalty. Moreover, this instruction was to be read every year on the first Sunday of Lent. Patriarch Nicholas is reported to have eventually in 923 prevailed on the Pope John X to send delegates to a synod in Constantinople to approve the Tome of Union. The surviving Roman records bear not the slightest trace of any such approval that would have been a reversal of the rulings of Pope Sergius III in 907.
Romanus I Lacapenus ruled 24 years while Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus matured as a scholar, an author, a painter, generous--if not extravagant--patron of arts and letters, and a sometimes-immoderate drinker. Romanus I successfully put down several conspiracies against the central government, reduced the Bulgarian threat and saw his armies make steady advances against the Muslims in the East. He should also be credited with a sincere but largely ineffective effort to restrain the power and independence of the military aristocracy.
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After destroying the Byzantine army sent against them in 917 by Zoe, Tsar Symeon's forces were promptly again at the walls of Constantinople. In 918 the Byzantines stirred the Serbs to rebellion against the Bulgars, a rebellion which cost them dearly. Tsar Symeon now brazenly proclaimed himself "Emperor of the Romans and the Bulgars," and despite the protests of Romanus I Lecapenus, the Papacy recognized Symeon's claim. Nevertheless, the resources of the Bulgarian State were bankrupted and their subjects were migrating. His last effort in 925 ended in defeat the following year. Following Symeon's death in 927 his successor made peace with Byzantium and ruled 24 years. Tsar Peter (927-969) sought to maintain peace under the protection of the Byzantines in order to fend off four attacks by Magyars from their new home in the west (Hungary), one by the Pechenegs, and finally one by the Russians in 967.
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The Bogomil sect was founded by a priest named Bogomil who lived during those years in the early tenth century when Bulgaria under Tsar Peter enjoyed peace and protection in its relationships with the Roman Empire.
Bogomil doctrines are very similar to, but more elaborate than the Paulician and Massalian doctrines. Satanael (possibly deriving from Syriac for "the adversary god", i.e., the Devil) is the creator of the entire created universe. He was either a fallen angel or an unjust steward, but he was not equal with the true God. Adam was somehow the joint creation of God and Satanael, but the Old Testament is the testimony of man's relationship with Satanael. Satanael lost his creative powers and attractiveness because he seduced Eve and was the father of Cain. Satanael's angels followed the example of their master and ravished the daughters of mankind causing mankind to rebel. Later Satanael caused the flood to destroy all the rebellious human race except Noah who remained faithful (he had no daughters).
Christ's mission was to dethrone Satanael, chain him up in Hell, and deliver the message of salvation to mankind. The Bogomils reject the incarnation saying that Christ, the Word of God, entered the body of the Virgin through her right ear. His body, his death and his resurrection were all mere apparitions. Salvation is to be achieved by rejecting the works of Satanael the three greatest of which are wine, meat, and sexual reproduction. For these tee-totaling vegetarians the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden was the vine, and sexual reproduction the "knowledge" that corrupted the souls of mankind while guaranteeing the longevity of the race.
They attributed the miracles of the New Testament to Satanael and understood that John the Baptist as the forerunner of the anti-Christ. They believed that church buildings honored Satanel more than Christ and taught that evil demons inhabited church buildings, icons, and relics, and often possess men. They rejected baptism and accepted only an allegorical interpretation of the Eucharist. They hated the cross, rejected the worship of saints, especially Mary, fasted and worked on Sundays, confessed their sins to one another, and emphasized prayer. [Next on Bogomils; on Paulicians].
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Igor, Rurik's son and Oleg's successor among the Russians, sailed against Constantinople with 1000 ships in 941, but Emperor Romanus I Lecapenus fitted out fifteen old boats (the main fleet was on maneuvers) with the "Greek fire" apparatus and scared him off. Igor's fleet was caught by the full Byzantine fleet off the north coast of Asia Minor and destroyed. Igor was back threatening Constantinople again in 944, but the Byzantines bought the Russians off and made a new treaty with them.
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His two older sons who resented not being advanced before their nephew, Romanus II, son of Constantine VII, overthrew Romanus I, Lacapenus. They relegated their father to a monastery where he quickly reconciled himself and lived as a monk his remaining years. Helen then proved her metal by compelling her brothers, the conspirators, to likewise become monks if they valued their lives. This series of events forced Constantine VII to emerge far enough from his scholarly seclusion and take the reins of government (944-959). He had the good fortune to enjoy relatively few threats during his reign. While Romanus I Lacapenus had arranged a treaty with one of the petty warlords of tenth century Italy the marriage which was to seal the treaty was prevented by the bride's death. Constantine VII now abandoned the first Italian warlord for another and also made overtures to the Saxon rulers of Germany. Constantine VII's son, Romanus II, was to marry the niece of Germanic Emperor Otto I, but instead he choose to marry the daughter of a varangian trader named Theophano.
One of Constantine's two most important works, De Cerimoniis aulae byzantinae, which
was the Latin title given this handbook on court ceremonial, may have been completed during the reign of Romanus I. The other was an untitled handbook on government prepared for his Son Romanus II which was probably completed about 952. It is usually referred to by its Latin title, De administrando imperio.
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A Russian Queen. Olga, Igor's widow, ruled the Russians from Kiev 945-962. The conversion of the Russians (Rhos) of Kiev began during the reign of Olga. In 957 she visited Constantinople. She had previously become a Christian and the Russian accounts insist that the Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus proposed marriage. We also know that she requested missionaries from Frankland in 961, but they returned to the west without success. Olga's son and successor Svyatoslav, 962-972, did not accept Christianity. He was a warrior who greatly expanded the Russian domination. He fought with the Volga Bulgars in 966; he defeated the Khazars, driving clear to their capital, Itil, on the lower Volga in 967, and began a war against the Bulgarians on the Danube in 969. This first invasion of Bulgaria was interrupted by a Pecheneg attack on Kiev.
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The short reign of Emperor Romanus II (959-962) saw the beginning of a surge of conquest and expansion over the next quarter century that brought the Macedonian Dynasty to the apex of its power. The general who virtually exterminated the Muslim s holding the island of Crete in 960 and enjoyed equal successes in the east was Nicephorus Phocas. When Romanus II died in 963 he left two sons, Basil and Constantine, ages 6 and 3 respectively.
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While the Grand Chamberlain was actually the regent, the Empress Theophano made a deal with Nicephorus Phocas, and married the fifty year old vegetarian and ascetic who reigned six years. While a gifted strategist, Nicephorus II cannot be so highly praised for his diplomatic actions. The people of Constantinople were alienated by his poor judgment in the case of Bulgaria just as his legislation encroaching on its independence alienated the Church.
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Nicephorus II provoked hostilities by flatly refusing in 965 to continue to pay the annual subsidy that had helped support the Bulgarian state in the years since Tsar Peter had made peace in 927. When the Bulgarians declared war on Byzantium, Nicephorus II called on the Russians under Svyatoslav to distract them. Svyatoslav who had just been victorious over the Pechenegs happily obliged. He occupied eastern Bulgaria, captured Preslav, the Bulgarian capital, and made Tsar Boris II (969-972) a political prisoner in 969. In 970 Svyatoslav stormed the city of Philippopolis and invaded Thrace. The Byzantine counter attack destroyed the Russian force.
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The day after Nicephoras II Phocas was murdered another highly respected general, John Tzimisces, was crowned by Patriarch Polyeuctes with the full support of the city, and the non-military aristocracy. Emperor John dispatched Theophano to a nunnery and married the juvenile Emperor's aunt Theodora, the daughter of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. In 971 Emperor John I Tzimisces liberated the former Bulgarian capital, Preslav, rescued Tsar Boris II and forced the Russian prince Svyatoslav to surrender. The Russian prince was killed in an ambush by the Pechenegs as he marched back to Kiev. Eastern Bulgaria henceforth became a Byzantine province and Tsar Boris II was now taken as a prisoner to Constantinople. While the Byzantine Empire was exercising its power and control more efficiently than in previous centuries, Emperor John Tzimisces forced the migration of large numbers of Paulicians from eastern Asia Minor to the depopulated regions of Philippopolis and Sardica along the Bulgarian frontier in Thrace and Macedonia. These may have contributed to the spread of the Bogomil movement discussed above.
Nicephorus II's short-tempered policies nearly provoked the Germanic Emperor, Otto I to take the Byzantine provinces in southern Italy when all Otto I wanted was a wife for his son, Otto II. John I Tzimisces saved the day by offering to send Theophano Porphyrogenita, the sister of Emperors Basil II and Constantine VIII. She was, of course, the daughter of past Emperor, Romanus II, and the niece of the reigning Emperor, John Tzimisces.
After a successful seven year reign during which he also conquered most of Syria and northern Palestine from the Muslims John died of natural causes. His death ushered in another nine years of tumult as the Grand Chamberlain and the leading members of the military aristocracy maneuvered and fought for preeminence while young Basil II, going on twenty-five, was learning the ropes.
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Basil II "The Bulgar Slayer", was, without question, the greatest of the Macedonian Emperors. A military genius driven by an ascetic sense of the essentials, he exhibited none of the cultural refinements or characteristics of Macedonian dynasty. Speculating, we can say that his character seems surely to depend on his mother's heritage, whatever that may have been--possibly Scandinavian. He succeeded more than any member of his dynasty in gathering all the reins of government into his own hands. He removed the Grand Chamberlain and took over the task of administering the central government. He eventually out lasted, out maneuvered and subdued the semi-independent leaders of the military aristocracy so that he did not have to depend on their military leadership. Beginning in 996 he dissolved the huge landed estates for which the possessors' titles dated no more than seventy-five years previously. Such lands acquired by landlords from soldier-peasants and small farmers in the last seventy-five years were to be handed back to the heirs without any compensation. The Emperor's policy not only dismantled the estates of the military aristocracy, it likewise dispossessed the non-military aristocracy who often had enriched themselves at state expense. Landlords found in possession of former state lands might keep them only if they could show titles dating from before the days of Caesar Augustus, i.e. 1000 years! Basil II was powerful enough and organized enough to enforce these regulations. Alternating between Syria, Armenia and the Balkans Basil met every threat with decisive and effective measures. For example, in 994 he marched with a seventeen thousand man force about 600 miles from the central Balkans to north Syria in 26 days to surprise and demoralize an invading Muslim force from Fatamid Egypt. Armenia and Georgia were annexed and organized. All Bulgaria was conquered and made provinces. He was planning next to recover Sicily when he died.
Basil considered the Church little more than an agency of the government. While early in his career he was forced to cancel Nicephorus II Phocas' legislation limiting the growth of church properties, after 985 he taxed all church properties very heavily refusing more than one request to be more lenient. During his reign the office of Patriarch was allowed to go vacant for more than seven years and the three men who filled the office left no record of aggressive administration. In opposition to the best wisdom of the church he established an archbishopric for the Bulgarians who were now his subjects. When the Patriarch of Antioch would not cooperate with the Byzantine governor, Basil deposed him and nominated a more servile individual in his place.
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It was 980 before Vladimir, Svyatoslav's son, gained control over the Kievan state. He ruled till 1015. In 987 Emperor Basil II promised Vladimir the hand of the Emperor's sister, Anna, in return for military assistance against the generals in the Byzantine army and his conversion to Christianity. He was apparently already considering the adoption of Christianity and determined to respond to Basil's requests. It was over a year before Vladimir was able to deliver the desired military assistance. When Anna did not come immediately, Vladimir seized Cherson in 989 (on the Black Sea coast) and threatened to attack Constantinople. Anna arrived at Cherson before the year was over and the clergy that accompanied her baptized Vladimir. The partly legendary account tells us that the Russian people were "converted" by Vladimir's decree commanding both the abolition of pagan gods and practices and the baptizing of his subjects en masse. We also hear that the Bishop of Cherson baptised the people of Novgorod in 991. Sometime in the following decade a Greek bishop seems to have been sent to Kiev to head the church in Russia, but this too is not well authenticated. At any rate three bishoprics seem to have been created in Russia by the end of his reign. Yaroslav (1015-1054), Vladimir's son, continued the Christianization of the Russian people.
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After the death of Tsar Boris II in 972 western Bulgaria (Macedonia) seems to have continued hostilities against the Empire under the leadership of Tsar Samuel Cometopulos. Basil II's first campaign against Samuel in 986 was a disaster. But beginning in 990 Basil II launched a campaign for the restoration of Byzantine power throughout the Balkans. By 1019 he had restored Byzantine boundaries in the Balkans where they had been in Justinian I's days. This involved a new alliance with Venice in the west as well as alliances with various national groups such as the Croats and Serbs. The military campaign was aimed at the elimination of Bulgarian power in the Balkans. The final phase of that bloody struggle occurred in 1014 when Tsar Samuel lost what was left of his army. Basil's forces succeeded in capturing virtually his whole surviving army--fourteen thousand men. Basil released the whole group after having ninety-nine out of every hundred blinded. Samuel died within days; his two sons were eliminated by 1018.
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This Bulgarian sect survived the conquest of Bulgaria to crop up in the Bulgarian region after Basil II annexed that territory to the Empire. Indeed some of the survivors migrated to western Asia Minor by the beginning of the eleventh century. These Bzyantine Bogomils in western Asia minor did not reject the Psalms and the books of prophecy from the Old Testament. They allegedly believed that the chief earthly abode of Satan (= the conquered Satanel) was the great church of Constantinople, St. Sophia. They had a baptismal practice that involved no water. It is also reported that they would eat no eggs, meat or cheese before 3 o'clock in the afternoon on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. They made a habit of reciting the Lord's Prayer seven times a day and five times a night.
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In the 46 years between the death of the great Basil II in 1025 and the disastrous battle of Manzikert in 1071, the Bzyantine Empire rapidly weakened. None of ten emperors who ruled during this time had the understanding of what was necessary nor the strength of character to accomplish it. During the short reign of Basil II's brother, Constantine VIII, all the great families of the military aristocracy rose in a factional but utterly disorganized revolt. This allowed the nonmilitary (actually anti-military) aristocratic bureaucracy of Constantinople to persuade Constantine VIII to name their sixty-year-old candidate, a high official in the city administration, as his successor.
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Constantine's fifty year old unmarried daughter, Zoe, agreed to marry Romanus III Argyrus whose wife voluntarily retired to a nunnery. Romanus III displayed his total military incompetence in 1030 in northern Syria as a foreshadowing of worse to come. Being unable to resist the clamoring of the non-military aristocracy the efficient and economical tax collection policy was scrapped in favor of tax farming.
The day after Romanus III Argyrus was found dead in his bath the now 54 year old Zoe married Michael IV, the Paphlagonian, who was a puppet on the strings manipulated by his older brother, a palace eunuch, John Orphanothropus. Michael IV ruled seven years (1034-1041) during which time the eunuch John was the power behind the throne. Many new taxes were created ultimately for the benefit of the tax farmers. The poor bore the brunt of these new taxes, for the wealthy refused to pay. The Bulgarians rose in revolt over the harmful tax policy.
In 1041 Michael IV developed a debilitating case of dropsy which perhaps triggered an onset of remorse for grim duty he had performed on the eve of his wedding day. Michael IV spent his last few months as a monk. Zoe and her old maid sister, Theodora, intended now to rule jointly, but the eunuch John persuaded Zoe to adopt his young cousin and make him Emperor Michael V, Calaphates. This Paphlagonian was the son of a dockworker and mentally unstable. When after four months he attempted to put Zoe in a nunnery, there was universal support for Zoe. John and Michael V were both arrested and blinded.
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Again the two equally hardheaded daughters of Basil II tired to rule jointly without success. This time the sixty-five-year old Zoe married Constantine IX, Monomachus, another of the anti-military aristocracy of Constantinople. Contemporary sources are unanimous in describing Constantine IX's incompetence. They generously ascribe to him all the blame for the rapidly tarnishing glory of Byzantium. His creativity in wasteful and ostentatious display was equaled only by his foolish and unredeemable policies. His financial solutions included selling exemptions from military service to his most capable military forces and debasing the coinage.
In 1043 Constantine IX nominated Michael Cerularius to become the Patriarch of Constantinople. Cerularius would have been a excellent choice if made by one of the stronger Emperors like Basil II. However, he had become a monk for the purely mundane reason that he had been implicated as the nominee for the purple in an aborted conspiracy against Zoe's second husband Emperor Michael IV, the Paphlagonian. Michael Cerularius was an ambitious, well-educated man with penetrating insight and administrative competence. He soon discovered that he was more than a match for the listless and preoccupied Constantine IX Monomachus. The results of his freedom for the whole church will be discussed elsewhere.
Not the least of Constantine IX's problems was his public disregard for common decency. The imperial family at public functions and in royal portraits included three women as long as Zoe lived. Aside from the aged Zoe and her sister, Theodora, daughters of Basil II, Constantine's mistress, the niece of his second wife, was always present.
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On the death of Constantine IX, Theodora, the only surviving member of Basil II's family, ruled for twenty months. Some see the Patriarch Michael Cerularius as the power behind the throne. Before her death she had chosen to forward Michael VI as her successor. Certainly a more bitter and arrogant example of anti-militarism could not have been found. He had the wisdom promptly to depose the powerful Patriarch, Michael Cerularius, but his wisdom was not sufficient to prevent his public humiliation of the senior military commander, Isaac Comnenus. As a result all Isaac's fellow generals rallied, rebelled against Michael VI and named their old colleague as Emperor.
As the leader of the military aristocracy Isaac Comnenus put corrective measures in place to retard, if not reverse, the rapid deterioration of the state's power and prosperity. But Isaac's sudden death caught the military faction off guard.
The anti-military bureaucrats of Constantinople quickly crowned Constantine X, Ducas (1059-1067), whose family had ancient ties to the aristocratic military faction, but whose more recent generations had migrated to the city. Constantine X made it his business to dismantle and impoverish the military foundations of the state. Meanwhile new enemies were appearing ever stronger; namely, the Normans in Italy, the Seljuks at Baghdad, the Pechenegs and the Ghuzz on the Danube.
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When Constantine X Ducas died the alarm was sufficient to secure the election of a soldier, Romanus IV Diogenes who married Constantine X's widow. But the Empire was a fragile façade of its former greatness, its internal strength had been eaten away. Romanus did what he could in the time he had to patch up his starving and bedraggled military, but time was not on his side. No longer able to generate the kind of numerical strength that Basil II could raise at the snap of his finger, Romanus had to rely on dangerous and unreliable mercenaries from both inside and outside the Empire. The battle of Manzikert in 1071 was not so much a military defeat as it was a collapse of the façade revealing the pathetic impotency of the Empire. The same year the city of Bari, the Byzantine stronghold in south Italy, fell to the Normans. The year 1071 was the threshold of an age of precipitous decline.
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The battle of Manzikert was precipitated primarily by the fact that the mercenaries had arrived and had to be used or paid anyway and sent home. Otherwise those like the pagan Ghuzz and the Pechenegs would think nothing of sacking the provinces of their employer. Romanus IV placed Ghuzz and Pecheneg mercenaries in front and kept reserves of Georgian, Norman and Russian mercenaries. The Emperor divided his imperial troops in two sections. The center that was commanded by the Emperor himself and the rearguard that was commanded by Andronicus Ducas, a relative of former Emperor, Constantine X. When the order to advance on the enemy was given Romanus IV expected the reserves to come into sight behind the rearguard. They never appeared and Romanus never knew why. The Seljuk leader, the Sultan Alp Arslan, refused to engage and led his troops in an orderly but slow retreat as the Byzantines advanced. Late in the afternoon Romanus realized he needed to pull back in orderly fashion to prepare for making camp for the night. The order given, the Pechenegs and Ghuzz complied, but when the Byzantine troops in the center turned they saw the force of Andronicus Ducas leaving the field at full speed either because they misunderstood the order or it was Andronicus' command. Perhaps Andronicus had decided on his own that the situation was helpless and rode off in the opposite direction hoping to reconnect with the reserves instead of following the advancing army. In terror the whole Byzantine host began to run for their lives followed by the Ghuzz and the Pechenegs. Alp Arslan's ten thousand fresh horsemen charged into the rear of this disorganized and demoralized horde with deadly effect. Romanus IV was captured by the Sultan and treated with courtesy and respect, but he was not released.
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Most recently edited 21 October 2008