Download PDF | Byzantium Greatness And Decline, By: Charles Diehl, Rutgers University Press ( 1957).
390 Pages
The Byzantine Empire was one of man’s great achievements. It endured for a thousand years, and the influence of its art and institutions upon the modern world has been far greater than is commonly supposed. Its history has tended to be neglected and misinterpreted, although it is “the greatest, most active, and most enduring political organism that the world has yet seen.”
Byzantium: Greatness and Decline is a survey of the Empire as a human organization, an analysis of its institutions, modes of life, and forms of art, and a synthesis of its accomplishments. As an introduction to Byzantine civilization it is without a peer. Its author, Charles Diehl (1859-1944) , was one of the most distinguished of Byzantine scholars. First (continued on back flap)
The Pierpont Morgan Library has generously permitted the publishers to reproduce on the front of this jacket a picture of the famous Stavelot triptych from its collection. This large copper-and-silver-gilt triptych of the mid-twelfth century, possibly executed by Godefroid de Clair, enshrines two Byzantine reliquary triptychs. These were probably brought from Constantinople by Wibald (1098-1158), Abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Stavelot, Belgium. The upper one, c. 1150, contains a nail relic, the lower, c. 1100, holds a relic of the wood of the True Cross.
Introduction
O,. need no longer apologize for offering to the general public a book on Byzantium. We have gone far since the eighteenth century, when it was thought that the history of the Byzantine Empire “is nothing but a tissue of revolts, seditions, and perfidies” (Montesquieu ), “a tedious and uniform tale of weakness and misery” (Gibbon ), or “a monotonous story of the intrigues of priests, eunuchs, and women, of poisonings, of conspiracies, of uniform ingratitude, of perpetual fratricide” (Lecky).
The meticulous work of hundreds of scholars, philologists, historians, archaeologists; our broadened conceptions of history; our everincreasing familiarity with, and appreciation of, cultures other than our own; the rise into prominence of peoples whose cultural inspirations came from Byzantium; the Graeco-Roman roots of Byzantine civilization—all these have made us view Byzantium in terms quite different from those used in the eighteenth century.
That the Byzantine Empire was great both as a political and military power and as a center of civilization, there is today little doubt. It endured for over a thousand years, a fact which, when viewed in the light of the external pressure to which the Empire was continuously subjected, is by itself sufficient proof of its greatness. During the major part of this period, down to the end of the eleventh century, the Byzantine Empire was the center of civilization in Christendom.
It produced great statesmen, soldiers, and diplomats, as well as reformers and renowned scholars. A highly developed system of law and a remarkable administrative machinery enabled it to maintain stability and order; at the same time, it was not adverse to change and more than once adjusted its institutions to changing conditions. Its powers of renewal were extraordinary, though in the end it became exhausted and finally succumbed. Heir to the great cultural tradition of the ancient Greeks and Romans, particularly of the Greeks, the Byzantine Empire had the will and vigor to study that tradition, preserve it, transmit it to posterity. In so doing, it was influenced by it.
Its own cultural forms, the Empire passed on to the surrounding barbarians and so brought these barbarians within the orbit of civilization. The eastern Slavs in particular owe virtually all their past to it. Byzantium, wrote a Czech historian, “moulded the undisciplined tribes of Serbs, Bulgars, Russians, Croats even, and made nations out of them; it gave to them its religion and institutions, taught their princes how to govern, transmitted to them the very principles of civilization—writing and literature.” ?
The Byzantine cultural achievement in many of its aspects compares favorably with any that history has to offer. It has been said of St. Sophia that it is and will remain one of the most remarkable works of architecture, sufficient in itself to classify the culture of Byzantium among the greatest.’ Alfred N. Whitehead, perhaps with a little exaggeration, but certainly not without some basis in fact, has placed this culture on a level higher than that of the culture of the classical Romans.*
And the noted English historian, F. M. Powicke, has said of Byzantium: “So far from being a moribund society of decadent voluptuaries and half-imbecile theologians, it was the greatest, most active and most enduring political organism that the world has yet seen, giving for centuries that opportunity for living which we associate with the spacious, but transitory peace of Augustus or Hadrian.” *
There is, of course, another side to the picture. Byzantium had its weakness and failures. There is much in its culture which is obscure and lifeless. A great deal of its literature is characterized by empty form and meaningless rhetorical declamations. When there is substance and keenness of observation, as is often the case, archaisms in language and literary expression make this literature most difficult to read, and this difficulty has often discouraged study. In Byzantium’s external relations all was not triumph and glory. There were times, even during the period of its greatness, when it suffered serious military reverses and losses of territory.
Later, in its declining years, it became a puppet in the hands of Venetians and Genoese and served the Ottoman Turks as vassal until it was finally destroyed by them. In its internal life acts of treachery and cruelty, revolts, social and religious strife were not uncommon. The internal strife in its various forms periodically weakened the Empire and in the end contributed greatly to its decline. Thus, Byzantine society reveals serious failings, but to put the emphasis upon the failings, as has often been done, is to draw a distorted picture of its history and civilization.
Among the hundreds of scholars whose work has made possible a reappraisal of the history and civilization of Byzantium, Charles Diehl (1859-1944) was one of the most distinguished. Trained in the classical tradition, Diehl early in his career turned his attention to Byzantium. His first great publication, issued in 1888, was on the exarchate of Ravenna, the Byzantine province in Italy which included Rome.® This was followed eight years later by another great book, the one on Byzantine Africa.’ Both these books are still standard.
In 1901 Diehl issued a general work on the sixth century which remained for many years the most comprehensive general account of the great age of Justinian.’ Three years later he followed this by offering to the public a biographical essay on Theodora, the enigmatic and seductive wife of Justinian.* In 1905 he published a collection of studies, most of which had already appeared in different periodicals.* They covered a variety of subjects relating to Byzantine history and civilization, including, among others, institutions, central and provincial administration, literature and bibliography, monuments and problems relating to art, Byzantium’s relations with the Papacy after the schism of 1054, the Venetian colony in Constantinople, and a plea for a more sympathetic approach to the study of Byzantine history.
Meanwhile he turned his attention to the study of Byzantine personalities and brought out two volumes, one in 1906,*° the other in 1908,7! of biographical essays, brilliant character sketches of significant or interesting Byzantine figures. The first of these two volumes, with some additional items, was translated into English in 1927,* the only work of Diehl’s relating to Byzantium to appear in English except for two short essays,’* a rather sketchy and superficial general history of Byzantium,"* and the important chapters which he contributed to The Cambridge Medieval History.’* Diehl also wrote an essay on Digenis ‘Akritas, the Byzantine epic, and another on two medieval Greek romances, and these he included in the second volume of his biographical essays.
Venice, which played such an important role in the history of Byzantium, interested Diehl too. A study which he published in 1883 and included in his collection of 1905 covered the Venetian colony in Constantinople in the fourteenth century; a book which he put out in 1915 dealt with Venice itself.1* The former is a substantial account of the Venetian colony in Constantinople, its internal organization, its relations with the Byzantine court, and its role as an instrument of Venetian policy; the latter is a penetrating essay on the growth, greatness, and decline of Venice. The study of Byzantine art was also a major preoccupation of Diehl's. His numerous studies in this domain prepared the way for the publication in 1910 of his Manuel dart byzantin, which, as revised in 1925-1926, has remained standard.
This summary listing, by no means complete, serves to illustrate the many-sided interests of Dieh]. With the exception of formal theology, for which he apparently had no sympathy, Diehl had explored virtually every phase of Byzantine civilization. The variety of his studies necessarily meant delving into the different literary and documentary sources and studying in detail the monuments of art and archaeology. Thus, Diehl came to have firsthand knowledge of his materials, knowledge without which it is not possible to draw an integrated and meaningful picture of the past. But Dieh] had something else. He had a flair for the general and a remarkable capacity for synthesis. This can be seen in virtually every one of his studies, no matter how limited the scope of its subject may be.
But nowhere perhaps can it be seen more clearly than in the book which is being presented here for the first time to the English-reading public. Byzance, grandeur et décadence is an essay, rather than a formal history of Byzantium. But it is a sparkling essay, a penetrating analysis of Byzantine society, of the elements that made it strong and of those that made it weak, and of the services that it rendered to civilization. We see Byzantium in its grandeur and decadence, in its richness and misery, in its elegance and grossness, in its religiosity and worldliness. We learn of its institutions, its mixture of races, its military organization and diplomacy, its art and its literature, the greatness and the littleness of its people. We are given an analysis of Byzantine civilization, but at the same time also a synthesis, a picture whose various parts blend together into a fascinating whole.
Byzance, grandeur et décadence first came out in 1919. A second edition, but with virtually no changes, was issued in 1926. Much of its material was incorporated into another book called Les grands problémes de histoire byzantine, which Diehl brought out in 1943, but here again there were no material changes. Thus, the book remains very much as it was in 1919 when it was first published. Since then significant advances have been made in the study of the different phases of Byzantine civilization. Some of the old views have been altered, and much that is new has been added to what was previously known. These advances necessitate some revisions in the details of Diehl’s book; they do not, however, alter the general picture drawn by it.
Diehl’s view concerning the work of the Iconoclastic Emperors, for instance, can no longer be accepted without some qualifica-tions. No one, even today, denies the greatness of these emperors. Their reforming, legislative, and military activities were most significant. But the old view, which Diehl has not quite abandoned, that they transformed Byzantine society by abolishing the colonate and re-establishing the free village communities is no longer tenable.
The colonate was never abolished, while the re-establishment of the free village communities and the consequent increase in number of free peasant proprietors was the work of Heraclius and his immediate successors. Iconoclasm itself was a complex phenomenon, in which theological and other religious factors played a greater role than Diehl is willing to concede, and in which the anti-monastic measures taken by the emperors were a consequence, rather than an original motive. And it is not accurate to say that the Iconoclastic Emperors “emerged triumphant from the tussle with the Church.”
Indeed, Diehl’s whole position on the matter of Church-State relations in Byzantium may be questioned. Diehl follows the traditional view that the Byzantine Church was subservient to the State even in the religious sphere, both with regard to dogma and practice. This view has some basis in fact, but the fact has been exaggerated beyond measure. In reality, this alleged subservience is less characteristic of the Byzantine Church than its dogged, obstinate determination to defend all that it considered fundamental among its beliefs, practices, and privileges.
To be convinced of this, one need only recall its victory over the State when the latter tried to compromise with Monophysitism; its final triumph over Iconoclasm; and its successful resistance to all the efforts made by some emperors to subordinate it to Rome. As H. Grégoire has put it, “the religious history of Byzantium could be represented as a conflict between the Church and the State, a conflict from which the Church emerged unquestionably the victor.” ** Diehl, of course, analyses the different phases of this conflict and in so doing deviates somewhat from the traditional view, but he never abandons it.
Diehl’s account of the separation of the Byzantine and the Roman churches also needs to be revised. One can no longer say, as Diehl does, that “The West was gravely displeased by the reinstallation of Photius on the patriarchal throne, by his haughty refusal to submit to the papal conditions, and by the way in which, at the Council of 879, he annulled and anathematized the acts of his adversaries. . . .” Underlying this statement is the traditional view concerning the Photian schism, that the Pope refused to recognize the reinstallation of Photius and denounced the acts of the Council of 879, acts which constituted a triumph for the Byzantine Patriarch.
Recent researches, particularly those of Father Dvornik, have shown that there is no basis in fact for this view. The Pope did accept the reinstallation of Photius and did ratify the acts of the Council of 879, and as a consequence there was no renewal of the break which had occurred during the first patriarchate of Photius. Diehl also exaggerates when he puts virtually all the blame for the break of 1054 on Cerularius, the Byzantine Patriarch.
That ambitious prelate did take the initial step in the controversy, but the violence which the quarrel assumed was due to the obstinacy and insolence of Cardinal Humbert, who headed the papal delegation sent to Constantinople in an effort to settle the differences which divided the two churches. What particularly irked the Byzantines was the arrogance with which Humbert insisted upon the doctrine of papal supremacy, which, as Diehl correctly observes, was the fundamental issue in the final break between the two churches.
Unacceptable also is Diehl’s belief concerning the financial resources of the Empire. That money was one of the most important elements in the power of Byzantium has never been doubted. But the calculations of some scholars, including J. B. Bury, that the annual budget of Byzantium during its great days amounted to about 43,800,000 nomismata or 119,136,000 gold dollars, a figure which Diehl] also accepts, is no doubt too high. E. Stein, whose estimate runs somewhere between 7,000,000 and 8,000,000 nomismata (19,040,000-21,760,000 gold dollars), is probably closer to the truth. It must be borne in mind, however, that the Byzantine Empire was a mediaeval state where, despite the money economy, prestations in kind were numerous.
Without laying claim to completeness, we have picked out certain premises in Diehl’s book which need to be modified and indicated the direction that this revision must take. It should be made clear, however, that our observations do not reflect on the general accuracy of the book. The merit of Diehl’s book lies in its penetrating analysis, the comprehensive picture that it draws, the feel that it gives of Byzantium. It is for these reasons that Naomi Walford offers it to the English-reading public.
The translation, made from the French text as it was printed in 1926, was carefully reviewed. It follows the original closely, except that here and there a few repetitious sentences have been omitted, and a few others have been recast for the sake of style, but without changing their meaning. The text itself has been altered only slightly. Two dates have been changed in order to have them conform with those generally accepted, and the figures, which Diehl gives as the equivalents in terms of the purchasing power of gold in modern times of certain Byzantine sums, have been eliminated.
We eliminated these figures for two reasons. First, because they assume a purchasing power of the Byzantine nomisma five times that of its gold equivalent in modern times, and this is really too high; and second, because they are based on the purchasing power of gold as of 1914, and this makes them meaningless for us today.
PETER CHARANIS Rutgers University
The history of the Byzantine Empire still remains the object of stubborn prejudice. To many moderns it appears, as it did to Montesquieu and Gibbon, as the continuation and decline of the Roman Empire. Byzantium was, in fact, something very different. It is true that its citizens liked to be regarded as the heirs of Rome, that, to the last, its emperors called themselves “basileis of the Romans,” that their ambitions often turned towards the West, and that they never relinquished their claims on the ancient capital. Nevertheless Byzantium soon became and continued to be an essentially Eastern realm, and should not be judged by the standards of mighty Rome. It has been justly described as “a mediaeval state on the boundary between Europe and Asiatic barbarism,” * and as such it was very great.
In the course of its thousand-year survival of the fall of Rome, Byzantium did not suffer a steady decline. Often, after crises that proved almost fatal, there followed periods of unparalleled splendour during which, in the words of a chronicler, “this old woman, the Empire, appeared like a young girl, bedecked with gold and precious stones.” Byzantium lived for a thousand years, not by some freak of fortune, but gloriously, governed and administered by great emperors, brilliant statesmen and diplomats, and fine generals, under whose guidance the Empire accomplished tremendous things.
Before the Crusades, Byzantium was the champion of Christendom against the infidel, and perhaps surpassed the Crusaders in tenacity of purpose; surrounded by barbarian neighbours, it developed a superb civilization, finer and more highly cultivated than any the Middle Ages knew for a long time. Byzantium was the tutor of the Slavic and Asiatic East, and its influence spread into the West, which learned more from the school of Constantinople than can well be estimated.
Certainly this Empire had its weaknesses, its faults, and vices; and in 1453 it crumbled at last beneath the hammer-blows of the Turks. Yet if a diagram were made of the course of its thousand years of history, it would not consist of a straight line running steadily downhill, but a series of rising and falling curves. This is something never to lose sight of in seeking to understand the Byzantine Empire and the deep-seated causes of its greatness and decline. Therefore, before beginning a closer study, a brief summary of the main events in its long history is necessary.
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