Download PDF | Angeliki E. Laiou_ Cécile Morrisson_ Rowan Dorin - Byzantium and the Other_ Relations and Exchanges-Variorum (2017).
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PREFACE
DaJ3 wir erschraken, da du starbst, nein, daJ3 dein starker Tod uns dunkel unterbrach, das Bisdahin abreif3end vom Seither: das geht uns an; das einzuordnen wird die Arbeit sein, die wir mit aUem tun. Rilke, Requiem fur eine Freundin (1908) Angeliki Laiou (1941-2008) was among the leading Byzantinists of her generation.! Armed with a penetrating intellect and graced with an uncommon clarity of thought and expression, she broke new ground in the field of Byzantine social and economic history. Fruitfully drawing on the insights of other historical periods and scholarly disciplines, but always sensitive to the specificities of the Byzantine experience, she published pioneering studies of topics ranging from family structure to economic ideology. The articles gathered here bear witness to these qualities, as well as to her readiness to revisit her own earlier work in light of new insights and discoveries. They testify equally to the tragedy of her swift and unexpected passing, which left Byzantine Studies bereft of one of its most eloquent defenders and robbed her colleagues and students of a beloved friend and mentor. It is on behalf of these colleagues and students that we have undertaken the task of preparing three collections of her articles to be published posthumously in the Variorum series.2 Though the vitality of her presence is now but a treasured memory, it is our hope that these volumes will ensure that her scholarly legacy remains alive and well. We are particularly grateful to David Jacoby for suggesting this project in the first place, to John Smedley for shepherding it through the publication process with patience and good humour, and to Vassili Thomadakis for his support and encouragement. We would also like to thank David Jacoby for generously agreeing to write the Introduction to this volume, and Gilbert Dagron, Michael McCormick, Nevra Necipoglu, and the staff at Dumbarton Oaks for their assistance.
CECILE MORRISSON & ROWAN DORIN
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following persons, institutions, journals and publishers for their kind permission to reproduce the papers included in this volume: Vittorio Klostermann GmbH, Frankfurt am Main (for article I); The Robbins Religious and Civil Law Collection, and The Regents of the University of California, Berkeley, CA (II); Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington D.C. (III, VII, VIII, X, XIII); Editions Lethielleux, Paris (IV); Aristide D. Caratzas (V); Casa Editrice CLUEB, Bologna (IX); Glauco Brigati, Genoa (XI); Bertrand Hirsch, Publications de la Sorbonne, Paris (XII); and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY (XIV). Every effort has been made to trace all the copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangement at the first opportunity.
INTRODUCTION
The doctoral thesis of Angeliki Laiou, published in a revised version as Constantinople and the Latins. The Foreign Policy of Andronicus 11, 1282-1328 (Cambridge, Mass., 1972), her first book, signaled the beginning of her lasting interest in two closely interrelated topics: first, the encounter between Byzantines and foreigners, both at the individual and collective level, whether within or outside the Empire, and secondly, the economic history of Byzantium. These major topics remained at the focus of her research over the years. She repeatedly returned to them, each time exploring different aspects of their complexities, as illustrated by the fourteen papers assembled in this volume. The first group of papers examines Byzantine definitions, perceptions, attitudes, institutional issues, and mechanisms of integration regarding foreigners and strangers residing in the Empire. The perception of 'self' and 'other' among intellectuals and the bureaucracy of Constantinople underwent an important development in the period preceding the twelfth century.
By then the relative weight of religion and state service as defining group identification and differentiation from foreigners had been largely replaced by a cultural and especially a linguistic criterion. With respect to the state, political considerations, namely hostility and friendship toward Byzantium, defined respectively foreign-ness and Byzantine identity, as illustrated by the Venetians. In dealing with foreigners Byzantium strove to bring them into a status of dependence to the emperor by oaths and quasi-legal devices. Acculturation and assimilation, primarily by mixed marriages, were the path to the full integration of individual foreigners within the Byzantine system and to the loss of their foreign-ness (article I). The foreigners' self-perception of their own identity, rights and place within the Byzantine system and the Byzantine perception in that respect differed according to the circumstances.
Byzantine admission of the specific self-identity of foreigners residing and operating within the empire, namely Georgians and Armenians, and imperial service furthered their assimilation. This is illustrated by Gregorios Pakourianos, imperial subject and orthodox Christian, though considering himself Georgian. On the other hand, the insertion of crusaders within the Byzantine system gave rise to disagreement and was unsuccessful.
The emperors considered the legal link between themselves and crusaders as entailing the latter's subordination, whereas the crusaders viewed it as creating bilateral feudal obligations that granted them certain rights, amplified by their status as fighters in the service of the Christian faith. The gap between these two interpretations was an important factor of dissension and occasional conflict between the two sides in the twelfth century (article II). The Empire used its judicial system and taxation to integrate or assimilate various ethnic groups and foreign individuals.
While maintaining the principle that all residents were subject to the same state law, the Byzantine judicial system displayed flexibility at the practical level regarding the application of foreign custom and individual arrangements in private legal transactions, as illustrated with respect to Georgians and Jews.
The special tax delivered by the Milingoi and Ezeritai in the Peloponnese were in fact the payment of a tribute and a recognition of imperial sovereignty which, while integrating these peoples within the Byzantine political system, reinforced in their midst ethnic solidarity running counter integration. Foreign merchants permanently residing in the Empire created a different challenge. The emperors imposed Byzantine law on these foreigners and maintained it in cases opposing them to imperial subjects. The breach of this principle in 1198 resulted in the Palaiologan period in the loss of Byzantine jurisdiction and taxation within the extraterritorial enclaves of Venice and Genoa in Constantinople (article Ill).
The Western crusades compelled the Empire to confront new political and ideological issues, examined in the second section of this volume. The Normans of South Italy and Sicily were paramount in the development of plans for a crusade against Byzantium and in the formation of the Byzantine response. The Norman attacks on the Empire led by Robert Guiscard in 1081 and especially the one by Bohemond of Taranto in 1101 generated Byzantine fears of an assault on Constantinople. Proper plans to that effect were elaborated following the failures of the crusades against the Muslims in 1101 and 1147--49. However, three factors delayed the attack, namely the resolve of the crusaders to carry out the crusade, the opposition to war against Byzantium, considered a perversion of crusading, and effective Byzantine activity to thwart the enterprise.
The successful propaganda campaign waged by Emperor Alexios I Komnenos and the astute diplomacy of Emperor Manuel I, which exploited the rifts between the Normans, the Papacy and the German emperors, were decisive in that respect. However, by 1203 Manuel's policy had collapsed under his successors and the Western opposition to an attack on Constantinople had considerably diminished, paving the way for the city's conquest in 1204 (article IV). The Byzantine encounter with the crusading movement also raised the issue of war and its justification. The Byzantine approach is examined in the light of Anna Komnene's Alexiad which, though lacking a systematic statement, nevertheless provides a fairly coherent idea about 'just war', as fought by her father Alexios 1. War is justified as a measure of self-defense, aimed at recovery of lost territory, the result of breached agreements, and as a pursuit of peace, based on the idea that the Empire sought peace but was forced into war.
Most of Anna Komnene's ideas were supported by Aristotelian and Roman concepts already found in earlier Byzantine writings (article V). The Byzantines considered 'just war' a secular concept, the state being competent to declare war. Foreign to them was the western 'holy war' ideology of the crusades elaborated in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which implied a fight for the Christian faith by God's army, ordered by the Church and entailing the remission of sin and martyrdom as a reward for death in battle. At the socio-political level the opposition between the two different ideologies of war reflected the contrast between upward mobility largely through the civil service of a bureaucratic state headed by the emperor, versus a knightly military class partly achieving wealth, power and social status through war. The clash between these ideologies contributed to the breakdown ofthe Christian alliance and to the sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade, which turned the rift between eastern and western Christendom into a permanent feature (article VI). The ideology of 'holy war' also impacted upon the encounters between western colonizers and native populations from the eleventh century onward, and was reflected by the social structure of conquered territories. Expansion based on Christian ideology was an important factor in creating a predisposition toward a profound formalized and institutionalized intolerance toward the subjugated non-Christian population involving three options, namely assimilation, annihilation or separation.
In Slavic lands heavy German immigration and uncompromising religious approach resulted in the extermination or expulsion of some Prussian tribes and the assimilation of others. In the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem the colonists erected a closed, exclusionist and defensive system to preserve their identity, leaving the fabric of the native society unchanged. No true assimilation occurred, and the two societies lived side by side, each with its own culture and language. In contrast, economic expansion fueled by trade and carried out by merchants and sailors is illustrated in Crete, where the Christian population, composed of Greeks and Latins, became an integrated society following the acculturation and assimilation of the foreign Western elite (article VII). The impact of the crusades and the existence of the crusader states in the Levant also extended to economic issues, both within the Empire and in the latter's commercial relations with other regions.
The first paper in the third section of this volume deals with the problems involved in the provisioning of the crusaders and their cash payments in various currencies during their j oumey across Byzantine territories.
These problems were solved by a combination of state intervention and free market operations. A reorientation of Byzantine trade relations with the Seljuks and Egypt took place, and the Byzantine attitude toward the Italians evolved over time. In addition, the crusades and the crusader states were instrumental in the development and spread of institutions facilitating trade in the entire eastern Mediterranean. These included exchange and negotiation mechanisms and the expansion of the law of salvage, first elaborated in Byzantium (article Vlll). The Byzantine reaction to the early phase of Genoese expansion in the Black Sea is expressed in a letter sent by the Patriarch of Constantinople, Georgios Kyprios, to Theodoros Mouzalon, the Grand Logothete from the 1280s.
It states that Byzantine merchants are compelled to sail with their goods on the ships of the Genoese and presumably also to sell them their merchandise. In addition, the Genoese have neutralized the imperial fleet patrolling the Black Sea, thus preventing it from ensuring the safety of navigation. Angeliki Laiou argued that the letter signals a new attitude of the emperors and the Byzantine elite toward the merchants, elaborated after 1261, which involved support for their activities and the defense of their interests.
Twenty years after Georgios Kyprios Patriarch Athanasios I advocated control over the grain trade feeding Constantinople to protect consumers and gave practical advice to prevent the privileged Italians from acquiring a monopoly in this trade. The new attitude toward the Empire's merchants is illustrated by a short-lived attempt to protect their interests by the lowering of the kommerkion or trade tax in Constantinople in the late 1340s (article XI).
The influence ofthe Italians on the Byzantine economy and, more generally, on the destiny of late Byzantium raises the question how much the Byzantines knew about Italy and how much they cared about that region, its people and its politics. The investigation of the three major narrative historians of the fourteenth century reveals an evolution in this respect. George Pachymeres uses 'Italian' as a generic name for Westerners and Catholics and has some knowledge of politics in Italy and of Genoese commercial policy.
Some fifty years later John Kantakuzenos and Nikephoros Gregoras revert to the generic name 'Latin'. In the meantime the Empire had lost Asia Minor and there was a growing Byzantine interest in Italy and the Italians, especially in Genoa on which the fate of Constantinople rather than the Empire depended. This shift reflects the weakness of Byzantium and its inclusion in the broader Mediterranean world in which the Italian maritime powers were the main players, the decline of the Byzantine navy being as a major factor in Genoese supremacy in the Black Sea in that period (article X). Trade between Byzantium and the West also generated cross-cultural exchanges. Venice played a far more important role than Genoa in this respect, as a result of the accelerated expansion of its trade, the establishment of its colonies, and Venetian settlement in the eastern Mediterranean after the Fourth Crusade. The impact of trade on artistic exchange is reflected by the minor arts and by luxury items.
A transfer of marble columns and plaques taken from a temple or a church from the Peloponnese to Venice occurred in 1292. The pivotal function of Crete in trade stimulated the island's economy and artistic symbiosis, illustrated by Venetian and Greek painters. Angeliki Laiou ascribes Corinth's decline after the twelfth century to a large extent to the weakening of its glass production and the flourishing of the Venetian industry, which was already exporting its products to Romania by 1276. The Venetian export of crystal objects and miniatures under crystal was yet another aspect of the substitution of Byzantium by Venice as major producer of precious objects (article IX). Angeliki Laiou returned to several aspects of the Empire's economic policies and enlarged the scope of her investigation in a study devoted to the interplay between monopoly, protected trade, privileged free trade, and the liberalization of trade conditions from the eighth through the late fourteenth century.
The Byzantine economy was never fully controlled or directed, yet the state acted until some time in the eleventh century as a restraining agent. This is primarily illustrated by silk economics. The prohibition to export certain foodstuffs was a protectionist policy safeguarding until the twelfth century the interests of the consumers in times of shortage. By then Italian merchants both exported and traded within the Empire. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries a progressive lowering of duties and the development of a common law of the seas promoted the establishment of an integrated Mediterranean market.
The growing role of Byzantium and the Black Sea as sources of grain for the West prompted the Empire to establish some control over its trade, yet the Byzantine quasi-monopoly was replaced by free trade and competition, economic factors that eroded 'national' sovereignty (article XlI). The following study deals with a topic that has not enjoyed the attention it deserves, namely regional trade, based upon exchanges within a limited geographic range and involving commodities produced within that area. Regional trade and the networks fueling it in the Balkans in the Middle and Late Byzantine periods responded to demand that could not be adequately met by local exchange, either because it was too large or because it involved specific industrial products. Large concentrated demand for alimentary products was typically associated with the existence of large cities.
Angeliki Laiou dwells upon the distribution of various commodities, including ceramics which offer important insights into regional trade networks. She especially explores the evolution of those related to Constantinople, Thessalonike, Thebes, Corinth, Athens, and Sparta. To emphasize the importance of regional trade she states in her conclusion that it "occupies a nodal place in a society's
economic development. It is the point where both demand and production become differentiated and specialization sets in; where the productive forces of a large segment of the population become active; where demography, urbanization, and monetization meet and reinforce each other; it is the point at which products become commodities" (article XIII). In the last study included in this volume Angeliki Laiou argued, with the support of chaos theory, that there was a dialectic relation between the political and territorial fragmentation of the Byzantine empire and economic unification in the eastern Mediterranean in the aftermath ofthe Fourth Crusade. The fragmentation initiated in the late twelfth century and accelerated by the Fourth Crusade reached a peak by the end of the fourteenth century.
Multipolarity increased the areas of instability and the likelihood of war, to the extent that the small-scale units became unsustainable economically. Networks linking small units in temporary and shifting alliances were cemented by marriage alliances between Byzantium, Serbia, Bulgaria, Trebizond and the Albanians, yet did not halt the process of political and territorial atomization. The absence of large internally self-sufficient, protectionist political units furthered economic integration within an international market organized by and for the profit of Venice and Genoa (article XIV).
The fourteen papers collected in this volume, divided in three groups, duly reflect the intimacy of Angeliki Laiou with an extensive body of primary sources, both Byzantine and non-Byzantine, her analytical power, her novel approaches, partly based on theoretical models elaborated in the social sciences, and the broad range of issues and developments she investigated in original ways.
Jerusalem September 2011
DAVID JACOBY
The Foreigner and the Stranger in 12th century Byzantium: Means of Propitiation and Acculturation
The categories of "foreigner" and "stranger," are by no means co-terminous. The concept of foreigner is predicated upon a collective self-awareness which depends on ethnic or political identification, signifying those who do not participate in the political group of the subject, the national group in modern societies. The term foreigner often has a juridical meaning.
The concept of stranger is both broader and narrower: broader because it would normally encompass that of foreigner without being limited to it; and narrower, because it is dependent on a self-awareness whose boundaries can be much narrower than those of ethnicity : boundaries of clan, of class, of family, of small social groupings. The Byzantines too had different terms to describe the two concepts. The word ~evoc; meant someone "other" than self, self being a unit of social identification!.
The word aAAO'tpwc; has the same significance as ~evoc;, i.e. someone outside the small grouping, often meaning outside the family2. The terms that denote foreigners, i.e. the other by reference to a political unit, are many: 'tIX ei}VT], aU6qlUAoC;, 't(} aU6YAw't'tOV, hep6q>UAoV ebvoc;, are among them3 • We will return to these terms.
I will concentrate here on the Byzantines' view of the "foreigner" in the twelfth century, with only a passing glance at their view of the "stranger." Furthermore, my discussion will center on a particular point of view. That is the view from the center, the capital, Constantinople. It will be the view of the intellectuals who were also members of the civil bureaucracy, occasionally members of the high clergy, the first reporting or representing, to some extent, but only to some extent, the views of the government, including the Emperors.
The inquiry is therefore clearly biased, although the sense ofthe bias is not necessarily evident. It can, perhaps, be assumed that this group of intellectuals/bureaucrats, which possessed high (but not the highest) social status and created ideology had a well developed conscience of their own group identity, and thus of the difference between themselves and the other4 •
The other strata of the population may have had different concepts of both the foreigner and the stranger, but these will be mentioned only briefly here. Finally, the fact that my inquiry will be limited to the twelfth century needs a little elaboration. The twelfth century was a time of important developments as far as our topic is concerned. The Byzantines lived in a world where contact with foreigners, in the most simplistic definition of the term, not only was constant, but was taking place under new conditions.
Western Europe was then in an expansionary phase, undergoing its own process of self-definition; its contacts with Byzantium were aggressive in the political and economic sphere5 • At the same time, hostile contact with the Turks, the Petchenegs and others was endemic, as also was friendly contact with some foreigners both within the Byzantine Empire and outside it.
A little after the turn of the century, the process culminated with the conquest of Constantinople by western European troops, a traumatic event which once again would force a clearer self-definition. Furthermore, the 12th century is marked by the existence of highly educated, perceptive intellectuals, whose writings allow us to try to examine their view of the world and of themselves. What I will discuss is both perceived exclusion and the means of inclusion. In the twelfth century, traditional Byzantine views of the world, of the place of the Byzantines in it, and therefore of the place of the foreigner, still survive. The Byzantine Empire is, as it always was, still the center of the Universe,
which is oriented by reference to Constantinople6 • It is still buffeted by hostile foreigners from all sides. ""Ew<; fle xai &UOflTJ flaxoflevov epAeljJev, 't& npo<; CXflq>W 't&<; T]neipou<; Htvll fle'tfjAiJOV," says the Emperor John II Comnenus on his deathbed, and in Anna Comnena's narrative the transitional sentence when she shifts from one front of war to another is often a sentence which suggests that the foreigners on either side of the Empire and on the northern frontier do not let the state (and her imperial father) rest? In the perception of the Byzantines, Constantinople remains the center of the world, against which the world measures itself.
In the late twelfth century, in a reversion ofthe model, the city becomes, in the by then jaundiced view of Choniates, a model of evil to the rest of the world, promoting civil war by example: "Fratricide came out of the Queen of Cities, as though from a model, a typos, a common law, and it invaded the ends of the earth, so that not only the Persians and the Tauroscythians (Russians), the Dalmatians and the Pannonians, but also the other dynasts of nations (eiJvll) filled their countries with rebellions and murder, raising their swords against their own people"s.
What are the factors defining a foreigner,
and how do they develop? On the other side of the same coin, what is the definition of self for the Byzantines of this period?
An old, general terminology is still in place: Byzantium is surrounded by people who are called "eiJvll", or "pcippapot", (that is, peoples who are acknowledged as having their own distinguishing traits). Such peoples are also called
labored under the burden of an old tradition, going as far back as Herodotus. The historiographic commonplaces by which old traits are ascribed to old and new peoples function in a way similar to the use of classical designations for comtemporary peoples, that is, calling the Turks Persians or the Petchenegs Scythians. This is a way of taming the barbarians, by inscribing them in the category of known peoples, for whom there are also known and venerable remedies12• Only rarely and briefly do ethnographic observations appear, specifically in the case of the Petchenegs13• The nomadic element is stressed, perhaps because nomadic peoples traditionally function as the quintessential foreigner / barbarian. Being on the other side of civilisation, they preserve a fascination, and are given some specific attention.
Still, there is nothing like the ethnographic recording of contemporary Western Europe, for example, the description of the Welsh by Gerald of Wales14• So the 12th-century Byzantines could and did use traditional designations for foreigners. These were, as we have seen, stereotypical descriptions and as such incorporated past experiences and past traditions15• Nevertheless, the Byzantines were not limited to traditional ways of conceptualising what constituted a foreigner - and what constituted a Roman. Indeed, their view had changed since the tenth century in one very important way. No longer was religion seen to create a community the members of which were held together by common bonds, which transcended whatever other elements differentiated them. Gilbert Dagron has called Christianisation a "savonette a ethnies," a factor which blunted ethnic differentiation, and created one Christian community, fundamentally different from that of the world of the pagans or non-Christians, and dividing the world into Christian and non-Christian. In the first half of the twelfth century, reflecting perhaps the late eleventh-century situation, this concept still had a life, at least in rhetorical statements16• Anna Comnena could report her father as saying that Christians should not fight each other, and certainly not during major holy days17. But in the passages ofKinnamos and Choniates, religion plays a very minor role in defining the foreigner. Peoples long Christianised, like the Bulgarians, the Serbs, the Hungarians, Western Christians are
called barbarians just as easily and in the same way as are the Turks or the Petchenegs18. As an example of this phenomenon, one may take the letter ofTheophylact of Ochrid to Gregorios Taronites, celebrating the latter's victory when he "defeated the arrogance of two nations (ebvT)" 19. Theophylact praises him for having brought down, with a single victory, the tower of "Persian" folly and the mountain of "Frankish" folly (a1tOVOla, in both cases). The Turks and the Franks are always mentioned together and in a parallel way in this text, and the differentiation between them, although it exists, is subsumed in the similarities: "Because of you, the most godless Turk bends his head and looks only at what is at his feet, he who yesterday cast his insolent eyes ('ta~ oof36:oa~ xopa~ 'tWV 6q>baAIJ.Wv), everywhere, and thought of destroying the entire earth and the sea. Now, his only hope of salvation lies in treaties ... And the Frank [Bohemond] who once had an iron neck, now is shown to be softer than wax, and does obeissance to you, and through you to our mighty Emperor ... For the Turk, forced by your hand, has been persuaded despite himself to make treaties and, among other things, to turn the Frank over to our victorious Emperor ... All those who bear the name of Christ and who counsel and wish the best for the Empire of the Romans, owe a debt to you." 20 Only occasionally does religion differentiate specifically between Christians and non-Christians: thus, the Turks are called aUoq>uAOl xai aoef3ei~21. And on occasion the church reminded people, including the Emperor himself, that the Turks should not enter churches, whether Santa Sophia or others22.
On occasion, too, Nicetas Choniates could reproduce a view of the Byzantines and the Turks which had the Bible as a point of reference, and as a model of prose: the Turks were the sons ofthe servant Hagar, and he asked the Lord how long He would suffer the legitimate heirs, the sons of a free woman, His "holy people" ('to OOV iXytov ebvo~) to be destroyed by the Hagarenes23. But this signifies very little. For the same historian records, without adverse comment, the triumphs celebrated in Constantinople by Byzantine Emperors after their victories against Christian nations, and the part played by the Virgin or the saints in such victories; thus invalidat
ing any special weight we might be tempted to give to Manuel's prayer in Santa Sophia before he left for his ill-fated encounter with the Turks at the battle of Myriokephalon24. Prayers, triumphs, the intercession of the saints played a part in all Byzantine wars of the period, whether these were undertaken against pagans or against peoples Christianised long ago25• The Christian world-view, differentiating between pagans and Christians, a world-view which had adherents in the tenth century, was no longer operative. Hostile foreigners were, for all intents and purposes, undifferentiated, or differentiated only as to the manner in which one could best deal with them26• Religion in the Middle Ages served as a powerful means of self-identification, and as an important distinguishing trait between one large group and the others, the foreigners. Ifit did not play this role in twelfth-century Byzantium, what did the Byzantines substitute?
We have, here, an early effort toward a secular definition of ethnicity and of the foreigner. As in Western medieval Europe, there is a duality between one's community and the foreigner, but since the duality no longer functions in religious terms, a secular basis for distinction is sought. The basic distinction the Byzantines made was between the "Romans", i.e. themselves, and the others, the non-Romans. The term "Roman", however, as used in the twelfth century, lacks a specific and consistent content. It certainly lacks any ethnic content. It can function as a means of inclusion as well as of exclusion. Thus, the army which was collected by the Byzantines to fight against the Hungarians (1167) is called a "Roman" army; but Kinnamos who reports its composition says that it was made up of Cumans, Turks, Germans, Serbs, Italian mercenaries and "Romans", the term here designating a subset of the Roman army. This "Roman" army fought against the Hungarians, here qualified as "barbarians", whom they eventually slaughtered27• It need hardly be pointed out that the Roman forces included pagans, while the barbarian Hungarians were Christians.
Similarly, Manuel I, taking the road to his defeat in Myriokephalon, collected as large an army as he could; to the existing forces, he added foreigners (~evlxov oux oi..1yov), recruited especially among the "Latins" and the "Paristrian Scyths" (Petchenegs). This medley of peoples, who in other circum
stances would be called barbarian, is called the army of the Romans28. It might be added that the Byzantines were perfectly capable of perceiving distinctions between peoples in practice, if not in ideology: a seasoned soldier like John II organized his army by race, so that they would support each other as "friends," and fight better29. The general phenomenon is well known, and one can give a general explanation. The Byzantines, in good statist fashion, used the term "Roman" with a political meaning: a "Roman" was a Christian subject of the Byzantine emperor, or, at least, someone who temporarily or regularly acted for his interest and on his side. This answer is, indeed, correct, and underlies the argument that Byzantium, in the twelfth century, shows an impressive capacity for assimilating foreigners, and a growing liberalism in its attitude toward foreigners30• This is particularly true in the specific context of the assimilation of foreign generals or aristocrats. The explanation, however, which assumes that the Byzantines had a political or statist definition of the foreigner, is neither sufficient, nor entirely accurate. For there were, in the twelfth century, peoples who were Byzantine subjects, but who were considered barbarians, internal barbarians, for example the Bulgarians: Byzantine subjects, not strangers at all, but still foreigners in a sense. Pertinent in this respect is the well-known text of Theophylact, bishop of Ochrid, which discusses his flock, Christians and certainly subjects of the Byzantine Emperor, but clearly differentiated from the "Romans", and alien to himself: "Here I am," he says, "serving not a rich, clean, beautiful queen, but the barbarian dirty slaves who stink of the pelt of sheep, and are as poor in substance as they are rich in nastiness ... Rescue me from this shameful servitude, you, who have the power to do SO,,31. From his position of "exile," he wrote to the bishop ofVidin, telling him that the Cumans, who were attacking his area from the outside (and were pagans) were better than the Bulgarians who inhabited his own diocese32.
The distinction between Roman and foreigner is not simply a statist distinction: it is also a cultural distinction, and becomes increasingly so in the course of the twelfth century, as the intellectuals, at least, strive to define themselves. Under the pressure of political events, the older concepts, the older
statist definitions, become dysfunctional, and what remains at the end is a cultural distinction between Romans (increasingly identified as Hellenes) and barbarians. That distinction had always been there, but it emerges with clarity by the end of the twelfth century. Linguistic identification now becomes paramount, language functioning as an indicator of culture, of participation in Greek culture. Self-identification is based on language, a shared classical past, an appreciation of the classics and the virtues of the Greeks.
We can trace the evolution of the concept through a number of texts. Anna Comnena, speaking of John Italos, who was, like his father, Italian by birth but a Byzantine subject, says that he went to Constantinople, and studied with Michael Psellos, whose erudition she admired greatly. But Italos, "because of his barbarous and untutored ways, was unable to comprehend the profound truths of philosophy, nor was he at all capable of accepting his teachers, even in the act oflearning, but, full of arrogance and barbaric folly, thought he was better than anyone else, even before he had been taught ... ,,33. This is contrasted to Michael Psellos who, through his own native intelligence and with the help of God and his mother, was able to acquire all the wisdom of the Hellenes and the Chaldaeans. By the mid-twelfth century, when the term "Hellene" becomes more common, the situation is clearer.
George Tornikes, Metropolitan of Ephesos and of Greek origin, (i.e. from Greece proper) distinguishes between barbarians and Hellenes, those who are "slaves by nature" (tote; q>uaet &OUAOle;) ) and those who are free (f:A£uiJ£POl) (it is implied that they are free also "by nature"); those who speak a barbarous tongue, have barbarous mores and serve the God of war, and those whose tongue and behaviour is Greek, and who are disciples of the Muses and of Hermes: Mf) I.I.Ol 'tOte; ~ap~apOle; 'tOY "EAATJva I.I.TJ&£ 'tote; q>ua£l &OUAOle; 'tOY U£uiJ£pov auva1toypaq>£ 6 q>lAEAATJV xat q>lA£A£UiJ£poe; 34. The concept of Roman / Hellene as free by nature and of the barbarian as a slave by nature, perhaps deriving from Aristotle's Politics, becomes common in this period. The development culminates with Nicetas Choniates. This historian is as inconsistent as anyone in his use of the term "Roman", and quite subtle in his attitude toward foreigners; an intelligent man, he did not assume the pose of presenting all foreigners, collectively and individually, in a negative way. Furthermore, writing as he was in difficult times, he often presents the Byzantines,
or at least, the inhabitants of Constantinople and their rulers, in a worse light than he does foreigners. Indeed, sometimes the foreigner serves, as he had for Tacitus, for an adverse commentary on contemporary mores: a mirror through which the Byzantines could view their decline. However, Choniates' conceptualisations extend beyond such matters. For he, too, has a view of the collective self, with different connotations from the statist definition of the term "Roman." Events close at home forced him to differentiate between his own people and the foreigners.
The accession of foreigners to positions of power in the Byzantine Empire; the expulsion ofthe Venetians by Manuel I; the capture of Thessaloniki by the Normans, and, finally, the Fourth Crusade were all dramatic events. It is therefore not surprising that they forced self-definition. Choniates is much more conscious than Kinnamos ofthe ethnic background of highly-placed people, and of the differentiation between them and "true" Romans. He contests a basic principle underlying the concept of Romanity and the practice of the Byzantine state, i.e.
the inclusion of foreigners into Byzantine service: thus, his well-known criticism of Manuel I, that he despised the "Romans" as thieves, and used foreigners in his administration, and that the Romans were forced to pay taxes to half-barbarous little men, is inscribed into his larger developing cultural self-definition. The foreigners of whom he speaks are a1tO yevwv i:-tepoYAwHWV (from races who speak other languages); they have no culture, nor can they speak any Greek: "they have no education, and they search for the traces of the Greek tongue as the peaks and the rocks seek out the reverberating echo of the shepherds' flute" 35. Similarly, Andronikos I is blamed for appointing as his personal guard barbarian men, totally uncultured, and, for the most part, ignorant of the Greek tongue36.
Culture is sometimes thought to posit a superiority not only in the arts of peace but in the arts of war, as when Andronikos Kontostefanos makes an oration to his troops before the battle with the Hungarians, and tells them, among other things, that they (here qualified as Romans) are superior to the barbarians in reason and culture, and thus in their knowledge of strategy37.
Given the historical circumstances, it is not surprising that Choniates' most clear-cut definition of "foreigner" is undertaken in connection with Western Europe. This is understandable for other reasons as well. For it was the western Europeans who were most visible at Constantinople.
It was they who were closest to the "Romans", they with whom the "Romans" had had close historical and ecclesiastical ties, they whom Constantine VII had considered alone
worthy of marrying Byzantine princesses38• It was, therefore, with them that
the problem of differentiation had always been the most difficult. Choniates'
reaction is a refuge into cultural differences.
The capture of Thessalonika by the
Normans he ascribes to profound hatred against the Greeks: "UVTJP Il100pPWIlCtlOC;; )((Xi 'tooau'tTjv u1toi}Tjoaupioac;; ev eau't4'> :x:ai)' "EUTjvoC;; uvopOC;; 'tTJV U1tEXi}etav ... ,,39. The fall of Constantinople in 1204 urges the historian to press this
Hellenic identification still further, as he does the differentation with the western
barbarians. Constantinople, "the beautiful city of Constantine," had been the
common pride (ev'tpu<pTjlla 'te :x:ai 1teptAaATjlla) of all the nations; it was captured
and looted by wind-sown western races, mostly unknown and nameless40,
These westerners were barbarians, ignorant of the Graces and the Muses41.
The lament addressed to the statue of Helen of Troy, melted down by the crusaders,
reflects the cultural identification: Helen was "the prize of Greeks and Trojans."
Fully aware of the fact that the Franks considered themselves to be descendants of the Trojans, Choniates considers for a moment the possibility that they
melted down the statue in revenge for the burning of Troy; but he cannot
believe it, for he knows that these men are above all rapacious and money-grubbing. Besides, he says, "how can these unlettered and totally ignorant barbarians have read and known the epic verses written for you - 'it were no shame
for the Trojans and the well-greaved Achaeans to have suffered so long over
such a woman. For she resembles the immortal Goddesses"'42. In this passage,
the identification is clear: the Byzantines, i.e., Choniates' Byzantines, who
knew Homer, and cherished the ancient statues, are the descendants of the
ancient Greeks; the foreigners are barbarians, and the westerners cannot even
be the descendants ofthe Trojans, i.e.
they have no respectable classical antecedents. The Byzantines stand alone, as they did in the past - but not as the
Christian oikoumene; rather, as the cultural heirs of ancient Greece. This
becomes clear, too, when Choniates speaks of the crusaders' progress into
Greece - the area normally known as the :x:a'twn:x:cX IlEpTj. The text is replete with
classical cultural references: there is Corinth, glorious of old; Pylos, the birth-place
of Nestor; Lakonia; Alpheios, the "Greek river" CEUTjv 1to'taIlE 'AA<pelE),
which is being beseeched not to allow victory to the barbarians43. The self-iden
tification is now complete and obvious: the "Romans", for Choniates still speaks of Romans, are in fact the descendants of the Hellenes. What is paramount in this self-definition is the Greek language and classical culture.
The foreigners are those who do not participate in this culture, Christian though they may be. This self-definition is the result of a crisis. It may be argued that the crisis, in its multiple forms, created a situation in which the concept "Roman" no longer provided sufficient means of self-identification to the members ofthe group we are examining. This is perhaps connected with the entrance of non-Greek speakers, or people of non-Greek culture into the "Roman" ruling class; those who spoke Greek and partook of a high Hellenic culture, i.e., the members ofthe upper bureaucracy, civil and ecclesiastic, would thus necessarily focus on language and culture as an important element of differentiation and group identification44• The insufficiency and non-functionality of the term "Roman", a statist term, is certainly also connected with the growing inadequacy and eventual dissolution of the twelfth-century state. Furthermore, the development of terminology carries with it a somewhat increased exclusivity. We start with a broad, flexible, open-ended concept of "Romans" (in the statist sense) versus non-Romans. This, then, develops into a differentiation bet. ween Greeks and barbarians. The older concept was potentially highly inclusive.
The new concept is more restrictive, but remains weak, and still allows the assimilation of some foreigners. It is true, as Hunger has argued, that once one qualifies the foreigners as "barbarians", they are then assumed to have certain characteristics by nature, that is, the nature of a barbarian45• But at the same time, acquiring Greek culture, or becoming part of the Byzantine social fabric, can act as a purifier, cleansing people of their barbarity.
The boundaries of foreignness become stricter, but are still elusive. In order to underline the fluidity ofthe Byzantine concept, one might usefully contrast it with a strain in western European attitudes toward foreigners, that strain which is exemplified by the historical accounts of the First Crusade, and the Song of Roland (early twelfth century ). In these writings, the differentiation of self and other is stark. The Song of Roland is much the clearest text, as works of literature often are. In the poem there is an express parallelism between the behavior and society of the Christians and the Muslims - a parallelism which is structural and conceptual. The political process, for example, is exactly the same in both camps. There is a process of consultation, a feudal court, with
which the poem opens: first in Saragossa, i. e. the Muslim court, then in Charlemagne's court; Charlemagne has twelve peers, as does the kings of the Saracens; Charlemagne meets a brave enemy in the Egyptian sultan Baligant. The means of battle are essentially the same, the heroes having special horses, swift steeds with pedigrees and names, and individual swords, with a pedigree, a history and a name. The Christian Trinity is paralleled by the fictitious Muslim trinity. In short, here are two societies, very similar to each other, conceived in feudal terms.
But there is one difference, which hovers above the similarities, and makes the two societies clearly antithetical. That is, of course, religion, which creates a stark and unbridgeable differentiation, encapsulated in a line of the poem, "Christians are right, Saracens are wrong." That means that the Saracens do not and cannot exist in a natural world, with its own moral and legal differentiations. They cannot be rightful lords or good knights; they cannot be pious. What they can be and are by definition is the negative aspect of a duality; they are the evil in a world separated by religion into good and evil. Even their names bear witness to this fact: thus there is Falseron, whose name carries a character evaluation, and whose description is that of an ugly man, with a huge head and a fearful aspect. Often, such characters are pitted against specific Christians, in fights with powerful symbolic overtones.
The parallelism ofthe two societies posits a duality: the other, the foreigner, who is also the enemy, is a negative image of self. The contact between the two is a cosmic conflict of good and evil. For example, Roland, the hero, a man surrounded by light, is pitted against Chernuble, "the ruler of that land men call the Hills of Darkness ... In that land, they say,/ The sun shines not, nor rain nor gentle dew/ Fall from the heavens, and not a grain of corn! May ripen; no stone is there that isn't solid black; some say it is the Devil's habitation" 46. In a generalised way, the war between what might have been two feudal forces becomes a cosmic battle between good and evil, the forces of light and the forces of darkness, the true God and the false deities, as can be seen in the reaction of nature itself to the fighting: "And meanwhile, far away in France, a storm/ Of rushing wind and thunder swept the land,/ And rain and hail were mingled, and the earth/ Trembled, and over all was fearful darkness,/ Save where the sky was split by thunderbolts,/ From Sens to Saint Michael of the Sea./ From East to West there is no house in France / Unshaken and men cry 'It is the end! / The end of all the world!' They do not know the truth.
Alas! It is the sorrowing/ Of land and sea and sky for Roland's death!,,47 To this duality there is only one solution: return to unicity, by the destruction of the enemy: either physical destruction, i.e. extermination, or moral destruction, i.e. conversion. The Song of Roland is, as I have suggested, the clearest statement of this attitude; and it is also the most powerful, because of its literary value. But the views it expresses are in complete accord with those of the writers who wrote on the First Crusade. The Turks, for them, were "an accursed race, a race utterly alienated from God, a generation forsooth which has not directed its heart and has not entrusted its spirit to God ... "48 Compare this with the description of Abysme in the Song of Roland: "spotted with many sins, believing not in God, the son of Mary, loving . .. treason and murder of his fellow man,,49. The ultimate statement is perhaps made in the Gesta Francorum, where the bravery of the Turks is posited and then negated: "What man ... would dare to write of the skill and prowess and courage of the Turks? .. Yet, please God, their men will never be as good as ours ... If only they had stood firm in the faith of Christ ... and had been willing to accept One God in three persons ... you could not find stronger or braver or more skillful soldiers; and yet, by God's grace, they were beaten by our men" 50. The translation of this attitude into action is to be found in the Annales Augustani: "Hierosolima a duce Gotefrido et sequacibus eius est capta; religio christiana per provintias dilatatur; barbari omnes aut extincti aut fugati sunt,,51.
As for the army of Charlemagne in the Song of Roland, it is composed of all those who were, in the early twelfth century, Catholic Christians, and its enemies were those who were, historically or in actuality, not orthodox Christians: Frenchmen - Normans, Burgundians, Bretons - Flemings and some Germans (Bavarians, Burgundians, Frisians); against an army composed of the Egyptian, African and Spanish contingents, Persians and Turks - all Muslim; but also Slavs (Christian or not, is not clear) and Petchenegs, still pagan; Avars
and Huns, long defunct; Hungarians (already Christianised); Armenians, Bulgarians, and Byzantines. The duality which we find in these texts is powerful, the self-identification is clear, the foreigner is the enemy, easy to identify and easy to describe, as a negative image of self, with religion as the main identifier of self. In Byzantium of the twelfth century, this was never the case, if it ever had been the case in the past. There is no equivalent to the Song of Roland in literature or historiography, nor is there an equivalent to the uncompromising western concept of the foreigner. In Choniates, the duality of Roman-barbarian, or Roman-Hellene is present, but it dissolves under pressure: the barbarians of various sorts have strange mores, and are desrcibed as beasts of various kinds; but the Emperor Andronicus I is also a beast, a \}fjp52. This may be the result of Choniates' own alienation, or of societal malaise: the positive correlation of "Roman" and good attributes no longer holds 53.
A clear example of this alienation is provided by Choniates' description of civil strife in the Empire: xal xa1:"' aUfjAWV eX1tE1tOAEj.LW1:"O 1:"() OJ.LOq>uAOV ~ap~apw\}ev xal 1:"fjc; oUYYEveiac; VOj.LOUC; ilYVOT]XOC;54. At the same time, Frederick Barbarossa, enemy of the Emperor and of the Byzantines, is an admirably pious man, and duly admired by Choniates55. The power of religion is rarely invoked, and martyrs are rarely accommodated; an exceptional case is that of Theodore Gavras, whom Zonaras calls a martyr because he fell in battle against the Turks56. In the romance ofDigenes Akrites, dualities become resolved, the hero himself is the embodiment of the conciliation of two cultures, and what remains is a disturbingly individualistic definition of self and a broad but not inflexible definition of the foreigner.
The hero is "e\}VlXOC; j.LeV a1tO 1ta1:"poc;, ex oe j.LT]1:"POC; pWj.La'i:oc;,,57. When he builds his palace, no "Roman, Saracen, Persian or inhabitant of Tarsus" dares come near; his identification with the Romans is slight indeed. The Byzantine concept of foreigner in the twelfth century was subject for one thing to political considerations: this was to some extent connected to the concept of self as Roman, i.e. to the statist definition, which officially considered as Romans those newcomers (whether they be peoples or individuals) who served the Byzantine Empire or became subjected to it58. It also varies according to the sources and the nature of the source: official state documents sometimes contain a different concept of the foreigner than do narrative sources, which can present a more hostile picture of the foreigner. This may be due to differences between conceptualisation and actual behavior59• It is also connected with cultural biases, or with a cultural definition ofthe foreigner, and therefore becomes clearer by the end of the twelfth century. In both kinds of sources one must distinguish between friendly and unfriendly foreigners. The ambivalence and relative open-endedness ofthe Byzantine official concept of foreigner may be seen in connection with the Venetians who, because initially they were formally a part of the Byzantine Empire, had in any case an ambivalent positionBo• In the privileges granted to them, the Venetians are sometimes treated as foreigners and sometimes as Byzantines. The first privilege, granted by Basil II at the end of the tenth century, calls them extraneos: contrasting them to those who were sub manu nostra, even though the Venetians were still subjects of the Byzantine EmperorBl• In the chrysobull of 1082, they are considered as recti (or fideles) duli imperii mei. They have the right to inhabit and receive revenues from landed property in Constantinople and Durrazzo - although the right to own it is not explicitly statedB2• The reason why the Venetians are now considered Byzantines is political: it is the help the Venetians gave Alexius I against Robert Guiscard. This mark of Venetian devotion is repeated some generations later: John II says "fidelium gesta Veneticorum nullus de hominibus ignoravit"B3. More than one hundred years after the fact, in 1187, Isaac II Angelus still remembers, as the clearest token of Venetian devotion to the Byzantine Empire, their help against Guiscard. His predecessors, he says, because of this, made them into one body with Romania, under one head, the EmperorB4.
This, however, is rhetorical, since the Venetians are later called amici fideles, who have for the Byzantine Empire fides, servitus and amor, suggesting that they are not, in fact, the same as RomansB5• In 1189, the same Emperor, at a moment when he is courting the Venetians and negotiating the restoration ofthe property confiscated by Manuel I, produces another rhetorical statemtent: "verumtamen, quia non ut alienigenas, immo ut aborigines
Romanos genus Veneticorum nostra serenitas reputat,,66. The reason is, by now, familiar to us: " Tantumque pro Romania dolent, quantum et ipsi Romani, tantamque erga eam habent devotionem, quantam et erga terram qua eos emisit". They are Romans, at least ab origine, because of their devotion to the Byzantine cause. By 1199, the situation is even more complex: the privilege of Alexios Angelos distinguishes (I think for the first time) between Venetians and Greeks (Grecos), in connection with judicial disputes; it makes specifIc arrangements for the resolution of judicial disputes between Venetians and Greeks; it provides (at the request of the Venetians) for the disposition of the property of a Venetian who might die in the Byzantine Empire, which must be handed over to his heirs, even if he dies without a testament, or to his fideicommissarii; and it mentions a novel (lost) of Manuel I, which regulated judicial matters "inter extraneos et indigenas,,67. There is, thus, a vacillation of the official position, in which the Venetians are treated both as foreigners and as quasi-Byzantines. The vacillation is reflected in the fact that for one hundred years the privileges granted to the Venetians did not make specrnc dispositions for things such as ownership of property, rights of succession, judicial procedure, i.e., those things which might distinguish between a foreigner and a Byzantine subject. The chrysobull of 1199 treats the Venetians as foreigners in a new, more formal way, which may have something to do with the Venetians' own need for regulated relationships; the judicial dispositions are perhaps connected with the development of laws regarding foreigners in western Europe68• The ambiguity of the official position is reproduced in the narrative sources, but with signiflcant differences. Kinnamos, describing a highly charged political situation (Manuel's opposition to Frederick Barbarossa in Italy in the 1160s), has a Byzantine envoy, Chalouphes, say to the Venetians: "Since out of the rest who exist under his sway (Uno rilv 1tCXAcllJ.llV n:AouOl au'tou) he (Manuel) is particularly confident of your gratitude," thus making the Venetians almost into subjects ofthe Byzantine Empire69• For the rest, Kinnamos distinguishes dearly the Venetians from the "Romans". He focuses on their hostile actions against the Byzantines. He has Manuel I saying to them that they had "poured into the Romans' state as vagabonds (aAfj'tat) gripped by poverty" 70. He does not actually call them barbarians, but he describes them as follows: "eon ae 'to eit
vo<; i'ji}el j.leV 01e<pi}opo<;, PWj.lOAOXOV ebtep n leai aveAeui}epov", aveAeui}epia
being, as we have seen, a trait of the barbarians 71. He shows that, before 1171,
they had freedom of movement in the Byzantine Empire; that they married
Byzantine women, and lived outside the quarter given them by the Emperor
which suggests that they had rights similar to those ofthe Byzantines - but the
historian finds this improper 72. Therefore, the ambiguity probably derives from
the fact that the historian had to reproduce both the attitude of hostility and the
fact of contact.
There remains the case of Choniates, who was laboring under two important
conditions: he finished writing his history after the fall of Constantinople in
1204, and, writing and living in the late twelfth century, he had been used to a
situation where large numbers of Venetians had settled in the Byzantine
Empire, and acculturation had already taken place. He therefore sees them in
an interesting light. He says that, after 1082, they settled in Constantinople and
everywhere in the Romania; and they retained only their name, "in other ways
being of similar race and altogether Romans" (1:& 0' iiUa aUj.l<pUAOl QV1:e<; leai 1tcXvu ·PWj.lai'ol). Thus, they were no longer strangers, and perhaps not foreigners.
The passage is not friendly to them, finding them insolent and tricky, but does
show assimilation, and suggests that long domicile brings it about, although not
necessarily in legal terms 73. Indeed, according to Kinnamos, Manuel I had created a new category of foreigner, based on long domicile. These were the "bourgesioi", to be distinguished from merchants who were merely passing
through74. The Venetians Choniates is talking about as being very similar to the
Romans are those who had lived there for a long time: he mentions some of
them, who were his friends, and rescued him and other Byzantines from the
hands of the French crusaders, in 1204. We have, here, a case where the foreigner is seen not as a monolithic entity but with specific individual traits. This
points out an important configuration: at a group level, Choniates is intensely
hostile to the Venetians. At the level of individual interaction, he is perfectly
happy to dine with specific Venetians and to seek their protection. The one
position does not negate the other; they simply belong to different levels of
interaction 75.
Interestingly enough, Choniates does call the Venetians barbarians, in one
instance. It is an instance with little significance in terms of political ideology,
but of some importance in terms of cultural attitudes. It refers to the time, dur ing the campaign against Roger of Sicily, in which the Venetian fleet fought as allies of the Byzantines. There was a brawl between the Venetians and the Byzantines, and then the Venetians dressed a black man in imperial clothes, put him on the imperial ship which they had captured and mocked Manuel, who was himself dark. Choniates calls them "barbarian" on both ocasions: on the first occasion because they behaved like beasts in their refusal to stop the fighting, and in the second case because they behaved improperly76. In both cases, the objection is cultural, and this is what differentiates the Venetians from the Byzantines and makes them into foreigners, barbarians, not good Byzantines. This brings us to another topic, that is, to the question of the means through which foreigners became acculturated or assimilated in Byzantine society, and the perceived limits of such acculturation. We have seen one mechanism at work in the case of the Venetians. It is the port-of-trade situation, which, in the case of merchants who became settled (the "bourgesioi"), leads into acceptance and some acculturation. In more general terms, there a variety of mechanisms were at work at different stages. One must distinguish between the accommodation of foreigners, i. e.,
the acceptance of difference, coupled with mechanisms which mediate the difference, and acculturation or assimilation. Let us take first the means of accommodation. The purpose of accommodation is not to change the nature of the foreigner, but rather to turn unfriendly foreigners into friendly ones, and to bind them to the Byzantine state in a hierarchical way, i.e. make them into unequal allies. This is achieved by the creation of a quasi-legal contractual relationship. Where an entire people is concerned, the process involves treaties, but much more importantly, it involves oaths, which seal a treaty, and are more powerful than a treaty.
Oaths played a major role in Byzantine relations with foreigners in this period, as they did in relations between the Byzantines themselves77• They were important, first of all, in regulating relations between states, i.e. between Byzantium and foreign potentates, or foreigners who expected to become potentates. Significantly, there does not seem to have been a differentiation between Christian and nonChristian foreigners as far as the expected potency of the oath is concerned. Thus, in 1161, after a Turkish defeat in the hands of John Kontostefanos, the Sultan (Kilidj Arslan) made a treaty of alliance with Manuel. The Emperor
"bound him with mighty oaths," before returning home78. Oaths were, it would seem, an important and perhaps necessary component of agreements or treaties, sealing them in ways more powerful than the agreement itself: thus, Manuel was offered an agreement by the King of the Czechs, but he did not entirely trust him: so he sent some envoys to the King (Vladislav II), and "ordered the agreement to be confirmed by oath, and the other unhesitatingly did this at once. Not only that, but he reiterated with additional oaths what ... he had previously pledged"79.
This is clearly the GWI-Lanxoc; opxoc; which, in Byzantine treaties with the maritime Italian cities is a necessary condition for the validation of the treaty. The oath must be taken in person by the representatives of the foreign power that negotiates the treaty; when the treaty is further ratified by the government of the city (i. e. the Doge, of the head of the government, and the people), this is done in the presence of imperial envoysBO. The oath is made on the Gospels and a cross, and is included in an 0pxwl-L0nxov eyypaqlov, i.e. is secured by a process similar to oath taking in ByzantiumB1. The Byzantine Emperor does not ever himself take an oath when dealing with foreign governments; he promises and grants through a chrysobull whatever privileges are being granted, but the oath seems to be demanded only of others. Where nonChristian potentates are concerned, we do not, as far as I know, have the texts of their oaths. We may, however, assume that they were asked to take the most serious oath prescribed by their religion and/ or customs. This assumption is based on Bas. 22.5, which says that one swears according to his own religion, and is further supported by a curious text of the 12th century, which details the oath a Jew must take in litigation against a Christian
It is, perhaps, pertinent to note that oaths were taken seriously by the Byzantines in the twelfth century, at least in a formalistic way, and that oath-breaking was as formal a business as oath-taking seems to have been. Perhaps because, in the period of the Comneni, oaths to the Emperor by some or all of his subjects had acquired a new importance, there was legislative interest in oath-taking, and juridical interest in oath-breaking. Alexius I passed a general law which affirms in an unequivocal way that minors who make an agreement and confirm it with a corporal oath may not break their oath, and that no private individual, nor his successor Emperors may allow them restitution. The decision was the result of a debate among jurists, and was resolved by the Emperor in an act which affirmed the power of the oath beyond what the law had required until then83•
An oath taken to the Emperor was even harder to break. The prime example is given by the oath which Manuel I exacted from his subjects (or, to be exact, his aristocratic subjects) on the matter of his succession. The story is instructive: Manuel, having no sons, betrothed his daughter Maria to Bela/ Alexis of Hungary, and made "everyone" swear that they would accept Alexis and Maria as his successors. While everybody took the oath, his cousin Andronikos declined, saying, among other things, that if the Emperor subsequently married again and had a son, "we would then swear to give the Empire to this new imperial offspring, and our recent oaths to his daughter will by necessity be broken (1111 eUopKeiv). This, indeed, is what happened. Manuel remarried, had a son, and at that point "transferred" the oaths from Alexis and Maria to his son. The oaths were given in a formal ceremony (oux 't"fj<; 't"eAwlOupyicx<; 't"wv OPKWV ... 't"11v OKT]1t't"OUXicxv ... lle't"cxi1Ellevo<;), in the church of Vlachernai, in the presence of the Emperor and his son. The oath was inscribed in a document (P1PAiov 't"OU opKOU), and included a general statement of defense of the Emperor's honor: this is not unlike a feudal contract, although we do not, of course, know whether the document included any reciprocal obligations on Manuel's part. In the end, Andronikos, who had taken this oath, killed Manuel's son Alexios. But nevertheless, he thought his oath sufficiently serious to ask the Patriarch (Basil Kamateros) and the synod to invalidate the oath he and others had taken. The Patriarch did so, but Choniates reports this action very negatively: w<; ei owIleiv aOlcxq>6pw<; KCXt AuelV 't"a mxV't"cx eiAf}q>CX01 npo<; i1eou84•
Foreigners, then, were bound to the Empire, in a formal way, by oaths, this being a link whose juridical importance was considerable in this period. They were thus brought into an orderly, hierarchical relationship with the Byzantine state; this is a process of normalisation, of inscribing the "other" into an order created and recognized by "self'. It is a process undertaken by the state; the historians who describe it give it negative value, by the stereotypical judgement that all foreigners break their oaths. If accommodation was sought with regard to those outside the Empire, assimilation was considered desirable for those within it. Marriage was an important mechanism of acculturation.
In Byzantium of the twelfth century this is visible mostly among the aristocracy, or in the case of foreigners who were good soldiers or administrators and thus entered state service. I assume that the mechanism worked in similar ways in the case of those merchants who married into Byzantine families. Women became the mediators, in a number of important ways, mediating both peace and alliance between two states, and the acceptance of individual foreigners in Byzantine society. Mixed marriages took two primary forms. Foreigners married or sought to marry Byzantine women, or foreign women came into Byzantium to marry Byzantines85• That second configuration is known primarily, although not only, within the imperial family. John Comnenus married a Hungarian, Manuel Comnenus married first a German and then a princess from Antioch, his son Alexius married Agnes of France, and Isaac Angelos married a Hungarian princess. I do not know of any cases where Byzantine men married foreign women and went to live abroad. When we look at imperial families, we find that the male offspring commonly married westerners, and the female ones married Byzantines, with only a few exceptions.
That is, the dominant partner, the male, was the one to marry outside, thus bringing his wife and her people into the Byzantine fold The first exception is the betrothal of ManuelI' s daughter Maria to Bela of Hungary and her later marriage to Renier of Montferrat
When foreign princesses married Byzantines, the purpose of the marriage was clearly political: the only thing that mattered was that the women be of good lineage. In the panegyrics, invariably the ancient race of the woman was praised, and sometimes the political aspect of the marriage was highlighted with the statement that it signaled the union of Old and New Rome86.Women were thus means through which foreign (as well as domestic) alliances were made. These women, who changed their name and presumably their religion upon their marriage, were expected to become Byzantine. If Choniates remembered, as late as 1203, that the Empress Bertha/ Irene, was ti £~ 'AAa\-1avwv oeonowa, if the Empress Mary of Antioch was considered a foreigner, nevertheless in general it was assumed that they would become Byzantine87•
At the same time, Byzantine women who married abroad were assumed to have become lost to their family and fatherland. When Theodora Comnena married Henry II Jasomirgott of Babenberg, her mother lamented: "I saw my beloved daughter defiled / when she married a western beast / and mourned her while she was still alive,,88. More interesting in terms of acculturation are the marriages between men who were foreigners and Byzantine women, within the Byzantine Empire, if only because a number of people were affected: soldiers who came to the Byzantine Empire and were successful, or sons offoreign potentates who for one reason or another found themselves in Byzantium, such as Bela, son of Stephen IV of Hungary whom Manuel I betrothed to his daughter Maria specifically in order to lay claim to the throne of Hungary89. These men were expected to change allegiances9o• Marriage with a Byzantine woman was supposed to change foreigners from enemies into friends, and even to alter their barbarous nature91. As part of the process of acculturation, men married to upper class Byzantine women changed their names, just as did foreign princesses who came to Byzantium. Thus, Bela became Alerios, and Ivanko also became Alerios (adopting the name of his wife's grandfather)92. Manuel Comnenus gave Renier of Montferrat the name John after John II, his own father93.
This change of name, especially if the new name was that of the wife's paternal grandfather, is symbolic of the man's acceptance into his wife's family: he
became a son of the Emperor as surely as Bela / Alexios became a son of Manuel
I in a formal ceremony. Non-Christians who were baptised may also have been
given a name which tied them into their sponsor's family: the one clear example
is that of the Turk John Axouchos, who was taken into the imperial family and
was given the name John, in an act which symbolically made him an adopted
son of the Emperor.
Whether the same symbolic action occurs in the case of men who married
Byzantine women not of the immediate imperial family cannot be easily determined. However, the general effect of mixed marriages is clear, and is most
clearly presented in the Romance of Digenis. The foreigner marrying into a
Byzantine family has first to negate his own: the Arab Emir abandons his family
and his religion to marry a Byzantine woman. He then turns around and persuades his mother and his people to convert, in an act redolent with symbolism
as he becomes the godfather of his mother and also of his people, in a reversal of
roles: nariJp of: oou YEVT)OOllal EV nVEullan uyi4>94. In the poem, it is love which
unites people of different races: "xai xa1:allut}1J uxplj3we; epw1:0e; 1:ae; OuvUIl£te;, /
nwe; UAAO<pUAOUe; T)vwo£V de; Iliav <pf:pWV nionv,,95. The Emir changes his clothing on re-entering the Romania after his trip to see (and convert) his mother; a
symbolic representation of the change of name and manners that was expected
of a foreigner who marries a Byzantine96.
Marriage therefore involves a change
in political allegiance and religion, and has as symbolic appurtenances a change
of name and change of clothing and manners. There is a further symbolism in
this: for commonly it was the woman who became incorporated into the husband's family, and a man took his wife's family name only when he was inferior
in social terms. Thus, the foreigner who marries into a Byzantine family retains
an inferior position, assimilated though he becomes.
The incorporation of the Emir into the new family and culture is not accomplished immediately. The brothers of the Emir's wife have accepted him but, it
seems, under conditions. When he wants to leave for his own country, to see his
mother, i.e., to return to his family and origins, his situation as a foreigner and
a stranger is reaffirmed. The girl's brothers insist that he may leave, but
without his wife. They are clearly afraid of her becoming, in her turn, a stranger
in a strange land. The Emir, their brother-in-law, becomes again an enemy, a 1tapavoj..LOe; Ex~pOe;. As for the Emir himself, he is conscious of his condition as a foreigner. The poet says, ljax\ive'to yap q>wpa~£ie;, we; ~evoe; eq>oj3et-w; the girl pleads with the brothers, j..Lf], 1tpOe; 0eoii, u&tAq>ta j..LOU, j..L" U&tXll~£'i 0 ~evoe;, oe; &t' ej..L£ i)pvf]aa'w auyyev£'ie; xai 't"v 1tianv97• There are, in fact, some limitations to the acceptance of foreigners who become Byzantines through marriage. Certainly, the first generation remains under scrutiny, almost on probation. A number of the Byzantine magnates said, in connection with Manuel's efforts to have Bela/ Alexios recognised as the future Emperor, that "it was not at all in the interest of the Emperor's daughter, or of the Roman people, to have the branch of an olive tree of different kind (e.epoq>uAoU) grafted on a cultivated olive-tree and prefer him to others in assuming the imperial power" 98. Ivanko may have changed his name to Alexios on his marriage, but some Byzantines thought it was impossible for him to change his barbarous nature and his hostility toward the Byzantines, and they were right99• Conrad of Montferrat married Theodora, sister of the Emperor Isaac Angelos. He was, says Choniates, of Italian race ('to yevoe; 'haAetw'tlle;), brave, wise, and a renowned soldier, certainly a much braver soldier than his brother-in-law. But eventually, a real or imagined slight made him forget all about his wife, to go to Palestine, to his OJ..LOq>UAOt, says ChoniateslOo•
He was clearly unassimilated, but then, he had been in Byzantium only a short time. Jean-Claude Cheynet has recently argued, on the basis of sigillographic evidence, that two generations (father to son) suffice for the development of Byzantine forms in the names of foreigners 10 1. If that is a mark of assimilation, it suggests that assimilation took place very rapidly. Indeed, with someone like John Axouchos, one generation, his own, sufficed. Certainly, two generations, especially if there was marriage to a high-class family, were sufficient indeed. Long service under the Emperor, and a long period of living in the Romania could make first-generation foreigners acceptable, although their roots were not forgotten. John Axouchos (megas domestikos), a brave soldier and wise statesman, was, Choniates informs us, "a Turk by birth", who, when Nicaea was taken in the late eleventh century, was given as a present to Alexios I, and grew 97 Digenes Akrites G. II, 481 ff., 533-534. The son himself is both Roman and up with Alexios' son John102• This is the only time his origins are mentioned by
Choniates, and Kinnamos does not mention them at all. For the rest, both
historians of the period are very well disposed toward him, and make no further
connection between his actions and his antecedents103. As a further example,
one may mention the family of the Kamytzai. The first known Kamytzes was a
Turkish soldier, sent by the Sultan to Alexios I in 1083 with 7000 mercenary
troopSI04. A son or nephew, Eustathios Kamytzes, appears in the Alexiad as
fully assimilated, to the extent of fighting the Turks and giving God thanks for
his victory; he also appears at the synod of Vlachemai105
• No mention of his
antecedents is made. He became pansebastos sebastos. A Constantine Kamytzes married Maria Angelina, granddaughter of Alexios 1106. This is not to say
that the Byzantines forgot consistently to mention the antecedents of assimilated foreigners: the descendants of Peter of Aliphas107, the Patralifai, had, according to Cheynet's standard, become assimilated; but Choniates still identifies
them by their race: EX 'tou 'twv <ppayywv yevou<.; 0PIlWIl£V01 !O8. Three processes
are at play here. First, in terms of behavior, one finds that assimilation offoreigners through marriage was possible. This process affected the ruling class,
which brings us to the second point: people like Choniates were a little reticent
to accept the inclusion of foreigners in the governing elite, for this was threatening to their own social status. Thirdly, however, since these were, by definition, individual cases, attitudes were to some extent derived from the behavior
(real or perceived) of individuals rather than of groupSI09.
There were, as we have pointed out, some limits to the assimilation of foreigners. It took place very quickly, especially through marriage. But, at least at
first, it implied an inferior position of the foreigner in the family, and the first generation was only rarely assimilated fully. By the second generation, assimilation was far advanced, although some people might remember and mention the non-Byzantine antecedents of a family. It is, perhaps, necessary to say a few words about the attitude of the people to all of this. There has been no work on the subject, and it is sorely needed. My suggestion is that their self-identification was much weaker than that of the aristocracy and the literati. True, one regarded outsiders with suspicion, whether these were strangers (i.e. from another locality, for example, Cappadocia), or foreigners. Thus, in the same cosmopolitan twelfth century, the governor of Athens was suspicious of some men from Rome, considering them as spies.
It took an intervention of a holy man, and, more importantly, imperial letters of safe conduct to change his mindllo. At the same time, people seem to have had rather limited patience with their rulers and with those who created the ideology I have been discussing, and little to do with their concerns. There are a number of examples of groups of people who changed allegiances and went over to the Turks in the course of the twelfth century, because of a general alienation from imperial rule111• The Turks were not strangers to them, and perhaps seemed less foreign than their Constantinopolitan rulers. There are also examples of acceptance of Latin rule after 1204, at least in the beginning. By way of conclusion, the following points may be made: In the twelfth century, traditional and stereotypical definitions of self and the other remain. The content ofthe stereotypes, however, has changed with time, and it differs according to the social status of the observer. The relative weight of religion as a factor defining the foreigner is now much less than it was two centuries earlier. The statist perception of self as including all those who serve the Roman state is also weakened, at least in the writings of the intellectuals and members of the bureaucracy. Progressively, this perception is replaced by a cultural differentiation, in which language plays a primary role. The new definition is a mark of weakness, partly due to disenchantment with the late twelfth-century state, and is evidence of a need to find and affIrm. clear distinctions. It is still a relatively flexible concept, to the extent that it is accepted that the cultural characteristics of self can be acquired; but it is much less flexible than the older concept.
Insofar as the actions, not the ideology, of the state is concerned, the situation is somewhat different, and the definition of a foreigner is open-ended: the same people or peoples may be considered foreigners when acting in a hostile manner to the Byzantine state, and Byzantines when they are friendly. This has been seen in the example of the Venetians. In dealing with foreigners, the Byzantines tried to bind them to their own society in ways which created dependence, and brought the foreigner into an orderly system. Groups of foreigners might be brought into the system through oaths, a ceremonial and quasi-legal mechanism, which did not at all affect their status as foreigners, or the stereotypical perceptions of them. Individual foreigners were dealt with differently. The ideal was to acculturate and assimilate them, and thus have them shed their foreign traits, an ideal achieved primarily through mixed marriages. We have seen that there is a certain ambivalence and ambiguity in both the concept and the position of the foreigner. That is the result of changing realities at a time when old concepts still had force, and newer ones had not been fully elaborated; it is also the result of the fact that our sources reflect the views and actions of diverse entities, primarily the state and the educated elite.
With the dissolution of the state in 1204 an important turning point was reached, after which political realities in the Eastern Mediterranean would change fast and profoundly; and that would force a further elaboration of the concepts of self and foreigner.
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