Download PDF | War In Eleventh Century Byzantium, By George Theotokis , Routledge Research in Byzantine Studies, 2020.
367 Pages
War in Eleventh-Century Byzantium presents new insights and critical approaches to warfare between the Byzantine Empire and its neighbours during the eleventh century.
Modern historians have identified the eleventh century as a landmark era in Byzantine history. This was a period of invasions, political tumult, financial crisis and social disruption, but it was also a time of cultural and intellectual innovation and achievement. Despite this, the subject of warfare during this period remains underexplored. Addressing an important gap in the historiography of Byzantium, the volume argues that the eleventh century was a period of important geopolitical change, when the Byzantine Empire was attacked on all sides and its frontiers were breached.
This book is valuable reading for scholars and students interested in Byzantine history and military history.
Georgios Theotokis is a lecturer at Ibn Haldun University, Istanbul.
Marek Me&Sko is a research employee at the Institute of History at the University of Hradec Kralové, Czech Republic.
Contributors
Raffaele D’Amato earned his second PhD in Roman Archaeology from the University of Ferrara. He is the author of some 40 books and numerous articles on the military of ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, Byzantium and the European Middle Ages. He taught at Fatih University, Istanbul, for two years as a visiting professor. He currently works as a lawyer and as an external researcher for the Laboratory of the Danubian Provinces at the University of Ferrara, Italy.
Konstantinos Karatolios is a PhD candidate in Byzantine history at the University of Crete. He holds a postgraduate degree in Byzantine studies from the Department of History and Archaeology at the University of Crete (with a scholarship from the State Scholarships Foundation of Greece). He is also a graduate of the Department of Primary Education of the University of Crete and the Department of Social Anthropology and History of the University of the Aegean. He has authored three monographs and 14 articles on Byzantine history, and he has contributed to two collective volumes. Currently, he is part of a research programme funded by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (HFRI) titled ‘The World of the Palaiologian Romance. Representations of Self and Society in the Greek Narrative Works of the Late Medieval Period (Thirteenth-Fifteenth Centuries). A Multidisciplinary Approach to Identity, Otherness, Gender, and Ideology’.
Savvas Kyriakidis earned his PhD from the Centre of Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, at the University of Birmingham. He is an adjunct tutor at the Hellenic Open University. He has been a Byzantine studies fellow at Dumbarton Oaks, twice a research fellow at ANAMED (Kog University), research fellow at New Europe College in Bucharest and a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University (Hellenic Studies Program) and at the University of Johannesburg. He has taught at the Open University of Cyprus and at Ko¢ University. His research focuses on historiography and on the military history of the Byzantine Empire, from the eleventh through the fifteenth century. He is preparing a monograph on mercenary service in the Byzantine Empire and participates in a project that aims to produce an English translation of the histories of John Kantakouzenos. His main publication is Warfare in Late Byzantium, 1204-1453 (Leiden, 2011).
Georgios A. Leveniotis is an assistant professor in Byzantine history at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (School of History and Archaeology — Faculty of Philosophy). He has also taught Byzantine history to graduates at the Byzantine Research Center of Thessaloniki. He has participated in several international historical conferences. He has published three major historical monographs: To otaciaotik6 Kivyua tov Nopyavdot Ovpoediov otn Mixpa Aota (1073-1076) (Thessaloniki, 2004), H zoditixy katéppevon tov Bogavtiov otnv Avatody. To avatodixo obvopo Kai yn Kevtpixn Mixpa Acta Kata to Bp’ nutov tov Ilov ai. (Thessaloniki, 2007) and Abydos of Hellespont and Its Region (Thessaloniki, 2017). Moreover, he has compiled and posted an official online manual of Byzantine history, which covers the period 324-1081 CE (2015). Finally, he has also translated into Greek the historical handbook of professor Warren Treadgold, A Concise History of Byzantium (Palgrave Macmillan, 2001); in Greek, it was published as Boavtio. Exitoyin Iotopia, Exddoeic Obpabev (Thessaloniki, 2007).
Alexandru Madgearu graduated from the University of Bucharest and since 1991 has been a researcher at the Institute for Political Studies of Defence and Military History in Bucharest, Romania. His publications deal mainly with Balkan and Byzantine military history, the late Roman history and archaeology of Romania and the early medieval history of Romania. He has attended many international conferences, including the congresses of Byzantine Studies and South-East European Studies. His latest monographs in English are Byzantine Military Organization on the Danube, 10th-12th Centuries (2013) and The Asanids. The Political and Military History of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1280) (2016).
Christos G. Makrypoulias earned his PhD in Byzantine history from the University of Ioannina, Greece (2012). Until recently, he was a tutor in the e-learning program of the University of Athens (a position he held for 13 years), teaching courses in Hellenism and the West. He has also worked as a junior research fellow of the Athens War Museum (1997-8) and in research projects administered by the Foundation of the Hellenic World (2000-8), the University of Athens (2005-7) and the National Hellenic Research Foundation (2014-15). His research interests lie in the field of the history of the Middle Byzantine period, focusing on the military and administrative history of the Byzantine Empire, the development of siegecraft and naval technology in the Eastern Mediterranean and the organisation and composition of the empire’s armed forces.
Serban V. Marin is a Romanian medievalist. His research area focuses on how the Venetian chronicles represent various events in the past, mostly those related to Byzantium, Muslims and the classical crusades. Since 2009, he has held a PhD degree in medieval history (University of Bucharest), with a thesis dealing with the myth of the origins of Venice according to the Venetian chronicles. A part of it was published in 2017 at Aracne printing house in Rome, under the title of I] mito delle origini. La cronachistica veneziana e la mitologia politica della citta lagunare nel medio evo. Between 2008 and 2012, he edited the Venetian chronicle of Giovanni Giacomo Caroldo in five volumes. Currently, he is the head of a department at the National Archives of Romania and editorin-chief of ‘Revista Arhivelor. Archives Review’. He has published more than 70 articles and studies in various prestigious periodicals and in collective volumes and presented much research focused on the Venetian chronicles at more than 40 international congresses and conferences.
Marek Me&ko is a Slovak byzantinist currently working as a research employee at the Institute of History at the University of Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic. Both his MA thesis and his PhD thesis focused on the military history of Byzantium, mainly during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. He expanded on these research areas, especially on the history of military clashes of the Byzantines with nomad tribes of Turkic origin like the Pechenegs and the Cumans. He is also interested in the history of the Byzantine land and naval forces of the Komnenian period (1081-1185).
Deyan Rabovyanov is an associate professor at the National Institute of Archaeology with Museum, in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria. He is a medieval archaeologist who has led excavations in the former Bulgarian capital of Tyrnovgrad, and in various other medieval archaeological sites and those of late antiquity. He is the author of over 60 scientific publications in different spheres of Byzantine archaeology and medieval military culture — fortifications, siege warfare, medieval arms and armour, medieval urbanisation, the material culture of the Second Bulgarian Empire and so on. He has also authored two monographs, the first about nonresidential stone fortresses of the First Bulgarian Empire (ninth to eleventh century) and the other about the outcomes from the excavations of the large living quarters on Trapezitsa — the second citadel of the former Bulgarian capital of Tyrnovgrad.
Lukasz Rozycki is a history professor at Adam Mickiewicz University; he also has an education in archaeology and participated in numerous excavations at Roman and Byzantine sites. His main research interests include the study of the Roman and Byzantine theory of warfare, with a particular focus on military treatises; the study of Byzantium in the sixth century, especially in the context of the work of Theophylact Simocatta; and the study of the Byzantine art of war in the tenth and eleventh centuries. He is the author of a number of books, articles and translations of sources related to the study of late antiquity and the history of the Byzantine Empire.
Werner Seibt is an honorary fellow of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (Department for Byzantine research) since 2007. Until then, he was a professor of Byzantine studies and medieval history of Armenia and Georgia, and he was the director of Byzantine and modern Greek studies at the University of Vienna and deputy director of the Byzantine Commission of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
Boris Stojkovski is an associate professor at the University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Philosophy, Serbia. His field of research and interest include the history of Srem (Syrmia) and modern Vojvodina in the Middle Ages, Byzantine history, church history, the history of the medieval Mediterranean Sea, Arab and Ottoman history and their links with Southeastern Europe during the Middle Ages, and Byzantine-Hungarian and Serbian-Hungarian relations. He has published two monographs and a coauthor of another one; he has also had several dozens of articles and conference papers published in renowned scholarly journals. He is amember of the Comité international des études préottomanes et ottomanes, the Hungarian Society for Byzantine Studies, and the Board of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences for Researchers Outside Hungary.
Denis Sullivan, a recently retired professor at the University of Maryland, USA, taught courses on warfare in the ancient world and engineering in the ancient world. He was awarded Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine fellowships for the academic years 1991-2, 1998-9 and 2006-7. His publications include The Rise and Fall of Nikephoros II Phokas (Leiden, 2019), ‘Byzantine Fronts and Strategies 300-1204’ in The Byzantine Culture of War, ed. Y. Stouraitis (Leiden, 2018), with A.-M. Talbot and S. McGrath; The Life of Saint Basil the Younger (Washington, DC, 2014); ‘Byzantine Military Manuals; Prescriptions, Practice, Pedagogy’ in The World of Byzantium, ed. P. Stephenson (London, 2010), with A.-M. Talbot; The History of Leo the Deacon. Introduction, Translation and Annotations (Washington, DC, 2005); ‘A Byzantine Instructional Manual on Siege Defense: the De obsidione toleranda’ in Byzantine Authors: Literary Activities and Preoccupations, ed. J. Nesbitt (Leiden, 2003); and Siegecraft: Two 10th-Century Instructional Manuals by the so-called Heron of Byzantium (Washington, DC, 2000).
Konstantinos Takirtakoglou received his PhD in Byzantine history in 2017 (thesis title: H Appevia wetacgd Bocavtiov kai Xadigatov (885—929), [‘Armenia between Byzantium and the Caliphate (885—929)’] Athens, 2018). His scholarly interests focus on the political and military relations between the Byzantine Empire and the peoples of the East, with a particular emphasis on the Arabs and the Armenians. He has taught as an adjunct lecturer at the Department of History and Archaeology, University of Ioannina.
Mamuka Tsurtsumia is a Georgian historian whose research focuses on medieval military history and military technology. He is the author of many academic and encyclopaedia articles. He received a PhD in history from the Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University in 2014, and later, he published his expanded PhD thesis as a monograph under the title Medieval Georgian Army (900-1700): Organization, Tactics, Armament [in Georgian] (Tbilisi, 2016). He won the Gillingham Prize in 2015 from De Re Militari (The Society for the Study of Medieval Military History) for the best article (“Couched Lance and Mounted Shock Combat in the East: The Georgian Experience’), published in the Journal of Medieval Military History. His current affiliation is with the chair of the Standing Committee at the State Council of Heraldry at the Parliament of Georgia. His most recent monograph is The Ideology of War in Georgia and the Near East: Christian Holy War and Islamic Jihad (Tbilisi, 2019).
Introduction
Modern historians have identified the eleventh century as the landmark of Byzantine history. This was a period of geopolitical turmoil, financial pressure and social disorder, but it was also a time of great cultural and intellectual progress. Four years ago, Marc D. Lauxtermann and the — tragically — late Mark Whittow published the proceedings from the 45th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, held at Exeter College, Oxford, 24-6 March 2012, and they summed up the significance of this century for the empire as follows:
The eleventh century in Byzantium is all about being in between, whether this is between Basil II and Alexios Komnenos, between the forces of the Normans, the Pechenegs and the Turks, or between different social groupings, cultural identities and religious persuasions. It is a period of fundamental changes and transformations, both internal and external, but also a period rife with clichés and dominated by the towering presence of Michael Psellos whose usually self-contradictory accounts continue to loom large in the field of Byzantine studies. !
Yet the aforementioned collection of papers, which is aptly titled Byzantium in the eleventh century: being in between, though it constitutes a useful reading for all those interested in Byzantine history, literature, archaeology, theology and art history, does not engage with any important facet of Byzantine military organisation or attitudes to warfare and violence in the eleventh century, thus indicating how specialised the field of study of the military history of the Byzantine Empire has always been.
Both John Haldon and Warren Treadgold have written about this period, but both have done so only to bridge the gap between the wars before and after.’ Although these monographs are invaluable in providing a general overview of the transformation of the imperial army through the centuries, none of them puts any particular focus on the sociocultural, administrative and institutional evolution of the Byzantine army in the eleventh century. Recently, Yannis Stouraitis edited a volume on the Byzantine culture of war in the period between the fourth and the twelfth centuries, a collection of essays that offers a new critical approach to the study of warfare as a fundamental aspect of East Roman society and culture in late antiquity and the Middle Ages.*
John W. Birkenmeier has made a significant contribution to Byzantine military historiography with his succinct, wellresearched, circumspect and thoughtful book The Development of the Komnenian Army: 1081-1180, a revised and expanded PhD dissertation that offers a good understanding of the nature and parameters of warfare in the Komnenian era.‘ Alexandru Madgearu’s Byzantine Military Organization on the Danube, 10th— 12th Centuries also provides a comprehensive treatment of military history and strategy and considers the politics and economics of the empire’s Balkan frontier during two critical centuries for the history of Byzantium;> the author is also a contributor in this volume, exploring the centrifugal movements in Byzantium’s northern border regions of Macedonia and Paradounavon in the third quarter of the eleventh century.
Both editors of this volume have also added significantly to the ongoing research on warfare in the Byzantine Empire. Marek MeSko’s PhD dissertation provides a detailed analysis of the clashes between the Byzantine Empire and the Pechenegs at the end of the eleventh century and critically reassesses the chronological order of key events that decided the conflict that represents a turning point in the reign of Alexios Komnenos.® Georgios Theotokis’ revised and expanded PhD dissertation examines the strategies and tactics of the Normans and Byzantines in the Mediterranean, offering a unique perspective on the way each ‘military culture’ reacted and adapted to its enemies in Italy and the Balkans in the final quarter of the eleventh century.’ Theotokis’ latter monograph is coupled with a new biography of Bohemond of Taranto, in which the author analyses the Normans’ talents as strategists in the operational theatres of Italy, the Balkans, Asia Minor and the Middle East when facing a multitude of enemies, which included the multicultural armies of Alexios Komnenos.®
The aim of the present volume is to build on the momentum of the past two decades by bringing together scholars who would bring new insights into and critical approaches to warfare between the Byzantine Empire and its neighbours in the eleventh century. We have divided the volume into three main themes.
First, the greatest number of the chapters will focus on the issue of tradition and change in the perception of war in Byzantium in the eleventh century. By taking the (in)famous Battle of Manzikert as its focal point, Rozycki attempts to compare the tactics of the Roman armies of the second half of the eleventh century with the tactical schemata developed during major offensives against the Bulgars and Arabs in the tenth century, to expose the outdated fighting tactics and the deep structural crisis of the armies led by Romanus Diogenes in 1071. Then, Leveniotes deals with a much-less-known but crucial battle, that of Hades in 1057.
He examines several points about the battle, like the background of the uprising of 1057 that led to the abdication of the emperor, Michael VI Bringas; the simultaneous rise of Isaakios Komnenos (primary leader of the revolt) to the imperial throne; the conflict prelude that led to the final clash; the major opponents; the concentration and mobilisation of forces (recruitment and transfers); the strategy and tactics; the location of the Battle of Hades; the disposition of enemy forces, lines and tactics; the battle conduct (phases and manoeuvres); and the outcome and aftermath of the battle for the Turkish penetration and establishment in Asia Minor in the 1060s and 1070s.
Then, MeSko analyses the ‘nomadic’ tactics adopted and applied to the field of battle by Alexius Comnenus at the end of the eleventh century and, more importantly, how these changed the structure of the Byzantine army of the period. Kyriakides’s chapter explores the Byzantine concepts and definitions of mercenary service in the eleventh century and their ties and relations to the Byzantine society and state and compares and contrasts them to the mercenary models in the medieval West at the time. Karatolios attempts to trace the many changes both in the imperial ideology of the period and in the education of princes and young emperors, through the study of the Paoiixoi d&vdpiavtes [Mirrors of Princes], texts written by the teachers of the young princes or by individuals of some recognised prestige in their environment that aim to advise the princes or kings on how they should rule.
The second theme of the volume is on enemies and allies in Byzantium’s ‘military peripheries’ and includes chapters on Byzantium’s relations with its neighbours. Madgearu’s chapter examines the centrifugal movements in Byzantium’s northern border regions of Macedonia and Paradounavon, in the third quarter of the eleventh century, and will explain the details behind these movements, the empire’s political and military reaction and repercussions for its army and the critical transformation of the Pechenegs from allies to the most dangerous internal enemies of the empire. Seibt will subsequently deal with Byzantium’s relations with the Kievan Rus’ and will identify the role of Rus’ soldiers in the Byzantine army of the period, including the geopolitical role of the Kievan Rus’ in the Byzantine periphery during a time of new arrivals on the northern shores of the Black Sea.
Stojkovski’s intention is to reinterpret the Byzantine Empire’s relations both with Serbia and with Hungary by studying a number of lesser-known sources, like the Hungarian Chronicon pictum (also known as Chronici Hungarici compositio saeculi XIV), and by considering recent archaeological findings (like the lead seal of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos). Then, Marin moves the spotlight further west, to the Adriatic Sea; his chapter will focus on Alexius Comnenus’s war against the Normans between 1081 and 1085 and Alexius’s strategy against his enemies in the west, as it is reflected in the Venetian Chronicles, those in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice in particular, the library of Museo Civico Correr in Venice and Osterreichische Nationalbiblothek in Vienna, all written between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries.
Takirtakoglou’s chapter aims to explain the integration of Armenian warriors into the Byzantine and Fatimid armies during the eleventh century. He focuses primarily on the extent to which the medieval reputation of the Armenian ‘cataphract’ cavalry resulted in the Armenians’ being used mainly as equestrians by the armies of the period, and he attempts to show the reasons that made the two warring empires’ use of Armenians so attractive. Finally, Tsutsumia’s chapter deals with the art of war in Georgia in the eleventh century and examines in detail several aspects of the state’s organisation of war: specifically with military equipment, tactical changes, the level of development of the siege warfare, the transition of military knowledge from Byzantium into Georgia and the military aspects concerning the confrontation with Byzantium. Tsutsumia also explains in detail both the Byzantine and the Western European influences on the Georgian military tradition of the period.
The third and final theme of the volume is about the technical aspects of the organisation of the Byzantine army. Makrypoulias explores the tactical role of foot soldiers in the military operations of the eleventh century while comparing it to tenth-century theory and practice, to trace the development of the infantry arm during this pivotal point in Byzantine military history, from the later phases of the Byzantine-Bulgarian war in the 1020s to Manzikert and beyond.
Rabovyanov’s chapter focuses on the specific use of war-flails by the Byzantine armies in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, according to recent archaeological excavations in Bulgaria and the province of Paradounavon, and points out the strong influence of the steppe nomads on the Byzantine army of the period. D’Amato’s chapter then deals with the equipment of the Byzantine army during the time of Emperor Basil IH. D’Amato’s analysis of seals, of epigraphic and iconographical sources, of literary evidence and of the archaeology on the field sheds more light on the names and the units that composed the forces used by the Byzantine Empire against Tsar Samuel of Bulgaria. Finally, Sullivan’s chapter examines primarily the technical operations of the numerous sieges of the eleventh century and the individual factors involved in choosing a technique. It focuses on sapping, scaling ladders, artillery, mobile towers, protective moveable sheds, battering rams, incendiaries and various hand tools and on the engineering skills required for their construction and use. The chapter seeks to reconcile the details found in multiple accounts of individual sieges where these operations occur.
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