Download PDF | Alexios I Komnenos in the Balkans, 1081–1095 (New Approaches to Byzantine History and Culture), By Marek Meško (Author), Palgrave Macmillan 2023.
437 Pages
New Approaches to Byzantine History and Culture publishes high-quality scholarship on all aspects of Byzantine culture and society from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries, presenting fresh approaches to key aspects of Byzantine civilization and new studies of unexplored topics to a broad academic audience. The series is a venue for both methodologically innovative work and ground-breaking studies on new topics, seeking to engage medievalists beyond the narrow confines of Byzantine studies.
The core of the series is original scholarly monographs on various aspects of Byzantine culture or society, with a particular focus on books that foster the interdisciplinarity and methodological sophistication of Byzantine studies. The series editors are interested in works that combine textual and material sources, that make exemplary use of advanced methods for the analysis of those sources, and that bring theoretical practices of other fields, such as gender theory, subaltern studies, religious studies theory, anthropology, etc. to the study of Byzantine culture and society.
PREFACE
Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos is a historical person conceived rather differently by many scholars. Their opinions tend to gravitate toward two major points of view. The former group of historians holds that Alexios Komnenos was an undisputed savior of the crippled Byzantine Empire which in 1081 was tottering on the verge of disintegration because of the fateful defeat at Manzikert in 1071 and the ensuing civil war.
The latter group of scholars tends to view this emperor much more critically, and some of them even suggest that because of his rather inefficient way of handling military and political matters, the crisis after the battle of Manzikert lasted for a longer period than if a more capable emperor had reigned over the Empire.
The main goal of this monograph is to describe and analyze the military and also to some extent the political measures of Alexios Komnenos in the Balkans prior to the coming of the First Crusade. In this way it is possible from 1081 onward to discern and to evaluate the emperor’s steps and actions during the long-lasting conflicts endangering this very important geographical area, which was rapidly becoming the sole core territory of the Byzantine Empire after the loss of its eastern territories in Anatolia which had played this role from the seventh century until 1071.
The present detailed reconstruction focuses on Byzantium’s armed forces, whose evolution can be traced thanks to various historical Byzantine and nonByzantine accounts in the period under review, during which they had to provide safety and protection to the Byzantine Balkans against the onslaught of the Normans, the Pechenegs, and the Kumans.
By this it is also possible to furnish substantial support for the view of Alexios Komnenos as a capable and strong ruler and resourceful military commander who in spite of his hard-fought successes against the Normans in 1085, against the Pechenegs in 1091, and eventually against the Kumans in 1095 was during the whole period under concern finally not in a position to initiate and organize a full-scale Byzantine Reconquista of the lost territories in the East prior to 1095.
Hradec Kralové, Czech Republic Marek Mesko
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is the outcome of my more-than-a-decade long endeavor. It has been a very long time (with sporadic breaks, though) and a lot of significant changes have occurred in my personal and professional life.
The list of people who have inspired me in one way or another and to whom I am endebted for helping me process this great topic over the years has grown immensely long. First and foremost, however, I intend to express my gratitude to the late Professor Alexander Avenarius. Without him, and his initial proposal of the possible direction of my research, this work would never have come into existence. My great thanks, of course, also go to all the researchers in the field of History and Byzantine studies I have met and with whom I have had the opportunity to talk during my scholarship stays in Greece, France, Austria, the United States, and Turkey.
Professor Theodoros Korres, Professor Alkmini Stauridou-Zafraka, Dr Taxiarchis Kolias, Professor Jean-Claude Cheynet, Dr Constantin Zuckermann, Professor John Haldon, Professor Johannes Koder, Professor Werner Seibt, Professor Klaus Belke, Professor Renata Holod, and many others kindly devoted their time to answering my curious questions and encouraged me to look at some issues from different perspectives.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the library staff of all the scientific institutions I have visited during these years and also several colleagues in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, especially doc. Mgr. Martin Hurbani¢, PhD, Mgr. et Mgr. Vratislav Zervan, PhD, prof. PhDr Martin Hetényi, PhD, prof. PhDr Peter Ivani¢é, PhD, and doc. Mgr. et Mgr. Markéta Kulhankova, PhD, for their useful and kind support. The English version of this book would not be appearing without the tremendous amount of help of my current home institution—the University of Hradec Kralové and doc. PhDr. Zdenék Beran, PhD.
If there is anyone whom I have mistakenly not named here, it is only because the list of people who have supported me in any way in my efforts is indeed very long and my memory of names is poor. Last, but by no means least (as she holds the first place in my mind) I would like to thank my dear wife Jana, who has patiently endured my changeable moods throughout the period of working on this monograph, which has taken considerably longer than originally expected. Thank you.
Introduction
Presumed there are “grand” themes in the study of the Byzantine history, one of them would undoubtedly be the crisis of the Byzantine Empire in the eleventh century and its subsequent rapid decline after the infamous battle of Manzikert in 1071. Both of these topics have drawn the attention of a number of prominent researchers worldwide, but indeed the first major interest in them was triggered by Paul Lemerle, a distinguished French Byzantologist who examined eleventh-century Byzantium extensively in the 1970s.
In his five groundbreaking studies, published in the collection Cing études sur le XI siécle byzantin, he strived to identify the fundamental causes of the long eleventh-century crisis. Simultaneously, he outlined the processes that definitely changed Byzantium and which, in retrospect, proved to be irreversible.” The interest raised by Lemerle continues with undiminished intensity to this day and has generated a large volume of published works and specialized studies examining this era from various points of view—political, social, economic, military, and cultural.’
This boom has resulted in remarkable progress in some areas of research. For example, in the study of the Byzantine economy and the economic aspects of the eleventh-century crisis,* its impact on various important aspects of administration, and the overall organization of the Byzantine Empire.° There has also been a thorough and exhaustive examination of the political and military collapse of the Byzantine Empire in Asia Minor® or the analysis of gradual changes in individual Byzantine provinces.’ However, despite the development of scholarly knowledge, the fundamental questions already asked by Lemerle continue to be raised and provoke further debate among researchers.
Therefore, it is natural that one of them shall run through the entire text of this monograph like the proverbial red thread. It is a question related to the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos, who stood at the head of the Byzantine Empire between 1081 and 1118. Alexios Komnenos became the supreme ruler of the Rhomaioz, thanks to a military coup in 1081, ten years after the disastrous battle of Manzikert. This emperor can be said, without exaggeration, to have devoted virtually his entire adult life to correcting the negative consequences of this great Byzantine defeat. Most scholars tend to see Alexios Komnenos almost as the miraculous savior of the Byzantine Empire, who ascended to the historical scene as a deus ex machina to lead the crisis-torn state out of the abyss and steer it into a new era of political stability and prosperity.’
The celebratory historical work on Alexios Komnenos written about half a century after his death by his daughter Anna Komnene, the Alexiad, holds the primary merit for the emergence of this laudatory image.’ However, there are also less favorable accounts of this emperor, such as the historical work Epitomé historion by Toannes Zonaras,!° proving the well-known axiom that there are two sides to every coin. Following Zonaras’ footsteps, there are scholars who perceive Alexios Komnenos from a revisionist point of view and subject his actions to both direct and indirect criticism. For example, following this line of reasoning Lemerle argues that it was not Alexios Komnenos who was the true savior of Byzantium, but eunuch Nikeforitzes—the “last reformer” and omnipotent politician and administrator at the court of the emperor Michael VII Doukas (1071-1078)."
In view of the above, it is clear that a thorough and comprehensive assessment of Alexios Komnenos’ personality and his concrete impact on the historical development of the Byzantine Empire is very complex and beyond the grasp of any researcher. In fact, a large number of events connected to the states neighboring with Byzantium intersected in his person and in the period in which he found himself at the helm of the Byzantine state. As the emperor of the Rhomaioi, Alexios Komnenos maintained active contacts with various Muslim rulers in the Middle East; he established friendly relationships with Seljuk sultans as far away as in distant Khorasan and engaged with their emirs and governors in Asia Minor. Furthermore, he cultivated links with the Fatimid caliphate, the Pechenegs, the Kumans, and the Kievan Rus’. In Europe, his letters and envoys reached almost all the important rulers of his time—he communicated on a regular basis with the papal curia, as well as with the Roman-German emperor, and he maintained long-term friendly relations with the Flemish dukes or the venerable abbots of the Monte Cassino monastery. Various exiles and emigrants from all over the Western Europe found refuge at the imperial court in Constantinople.
The most famous among them were certainly the Anglo-Saxons, who were leaving England en masse during this period, fleeing the consolidation of the Norman domination established as a result of the 1066 battle of Hastings.'? As we will see later, it is not by chance that during the reign of this emperor the First Crusade took place, which, in its consequences, fundamentally redefined the relations between the Byzantine Empire and the Latin West. Therefore, the examination of characteristics of Alexios Komnenos’ reign is of great importance for numerous researchers and, by its very significance, goes far beyond the field of Byzantine studies.
The first researcher to devote considerable attention to the reign of Alexios I Komnenos was French historian Ferdinand Chalandon in his work entitled Essai sur le régne d’Alexis I” Comnéne published at the turn of the twentieth century.'* His views were accepted almost without challenge until the 1970s and 1980s. Recently, however, a number of serious problems have come to the foreground because of the shifting focus of interest compared to mainly positivistic perception by Chalandon. The most significant attempt to summarize this new development concerning Alexios Komnenos is a collective monograph from the 1989 Byzantine conference entitled Alexios I Komnenos—Papers of the Second Belfast Byzantine International Colloquium, edited by Margaret Mullett and Dion Smythe.'* One of the most recent works demonstrating the continued interest of scholars in Alexios Komnenos and his era is the rather popular publication Alexis I” Comnéne composed by the renowned French scholar Elisabeth Malamut.'
In spite of all this scholarly interest devoted to the founder of the Komnenian imperial dynasty, many questions remain unanswered. For instance, was Alexios Komnenos really the rescuer of the Byzantine Empire, a man who corrected the mistakes of his incompetent predecessors, as Anna Komnene induces us to believe, or, on the contrary, was he an unscrupulous power-hungry politician, who at the right moment ascended to the imperial throne only to reap the achievements of his now underrated predecessors, and who, with his yet another military coup, delayed the end of the political and military crisis in the Byzantine Empire after the battle of Manzikert for at least another decade or two? What is more, was Alexios Komnenos responsible for the definite loss of Asia Minor and, if so, to what extent?!° Was he really incapable to conquer Asia Minor in its original territorial extent, or did he intentionally leave much of the eastern provinces in the hands of the Seljuks?!” Finally, could this Byzantine emperor have organized a major military expedition to recapture the lost territories in the East before 1095, and did he sincerely intend to do so?!8
Since almost three decades have passed since the publication of the Belfast collection, I deem it necessary to re-examine some of the questions and topics discussed on its pages. However, it should be noted that even in the present monograph and in spite of best efforts, it will be virtually impossible to provide a definitive answer. Therefore, I decided to take an indirect approach that is highly selective in many ways and, as a result, subject to certain limitations. First of all, only some aspects of Alexios Komnenos’ reign are analyzed here, especially the military and political ones.'? This makes perfect sense, bearing in mind that Alexios Komnenos came to power as a successful military commander who had already demonstrated his political and military qualities prior to his rise to the imperial throne.”° Alexios Komnenos had to deal with numerous and urgent problems along both the political and military lines for most of the first half of his rule. Immediately after his ascension on | April 1081, he had to protect his realm against the ambitions of Robert Guiscard and_ his Normans. Simultaneously, another serious threat posed by the nomadic Pechenegs was building up in the north of the Balkans, which Alexios Komnenos could only begin to deal with seriously once the war against the Normans was over in July 1085.
The conflict with the Pechenegs subsequently kept him occupied until the spring of 1091. Even after the victorious end to this exhausting warfare, Alexios Komnenos had to continue to pay close attention to the Balkan provinces and gradually between 1093 and 1094 to deal with the inroads of the Serbs and with the incursion of another group of nomadic peoples of the steppe—the Kumans. These key conflicts (apart from campaigns against the Serbs who did not represent a significant military threat)’ are described and analyzed in detail in the following chapters.”” In conclusion, based on my findings and hypotheses I will endeavor to provide a short but balanced assessment of Alexios Komnenos as the emperor and supreme military commander.**
The second limitation is of chronological nature, as it is not possible to analyze in detail the entire, relatively long reign of this emperor within the frame of this monograph. Given that the First Crusade radically changed the international status of Byzantium after 1095, it seems the most fitting to deal with Alexios Komnenos’ rule only until this crucial event, that is to focus on the period between 1081 and 1095. In other words, the scope of this monograph is based on the premise that the First Crusade altered the geopolitical position of the Byzantine Empire to such an extent that the negative effects of the battle of Manzikert gradually dissipated.
During the second half of his reign, Alexios Komnenos, as well as his successors John II (1118-1143) and Manuel I (1143-1180), had to tackle strategic and political problems of different nature, although from time to time they attempted to reassert imperial authority over all previously lost territories in Asia Minor. At the same time, within this relatively narrowly timedefined period, I shall try, in the relevant sub-chapters, to resolve several complex chronological issues and uncertainties that have persisted in the field of Byzantine studies until nowadays.
The last significant limitation is geographical. Although my ultimate goal is to throw some light on Alexios Komnenos’ policies toward Asia Minor (Byzantine East—Amnatolé), paradoxically, on the pages of this monograph I focus on the Byzantine territories located in the Balkans (Byzantine West—Dysis) because, with some exceptions, the territories in Asia Minor had already been under the control of the Seljuk Turks when Alexios Komnenos ascended to the throne.”*
Therefore, it was only reasonable that Alexios Komnenos (or the Byzantine elites in the capital) needed first to attempt to consolidate their rule in the Balkans before he was in the position to initiate the reconquest of Asia Minor and thus counter the effects of the battle of Manzikert. This limitation is based not only on my lack of knowledge of Oriental languages (Arabic, Turkish, and Persian), which, in my opinion, is necessary for the detailed research of this topic, but also because of the planned scope of this study. Therefore, where this text refers to events related to Asia Minor and Byzantine-Seljuk relations, I rely heavily on the already existing secondary literature written by renowned orientalists and historians.”
As a consequence, my main focus is Alexios Komnenos and his activities during the first fifteen years of his reign, that is, between 1081 and 1095. In particular, I discuss his military and political actions aimed at protecting and safekeeping the remaining Byzantine territories in the Balkans and try to identify the measures he adopted in order to maintain combat capabilities of the Byzantine army and navy, the two main components that allowed Alexios Komnenos to implement his policies.
Through a detailed description of military campaigning and important events over a limited period of time, I will attempt to answer some of the fundamental questions raised above. For instance, what’s the overall assessment of Alexios Komnenos as a military commander? Was he from the early years of his rule in a position to fend off hostile attacks on the Byzantine Balkans, but also to consider the possibility of an offensive in Asia Minor?
In addition, I also try to indirectly assess the value of the Alexiad, the historical work of his daughter Anna Komnene. By revisiting the text, I will try to understand whether it is indeed a purely celebratory work full of uncritical admiration of a daughter to her father, or a reliable historical source, that more or less accurately presents the actions and motives of one of the most extraordinary Byzantine emperors.
Link
Press Here
0 التعليقات :
إرسال تعليق