Download PDF | Nicolas Drocourt_ Sebastian Kolditz - A Companion to Byzantium and the West, 900-1204-Brill (2021).
591 Pages
Preface
Some books have long histories. This is also the case with the present volume, the roots of which go back to 2014 when Stefan Burkhardt, at that time researcher at the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, developed the first draft for this volume’s structure together with Sebastian Kolditz, who had just joined Heidelberg University. The first contributions arrived already in 2016: those of Juan Signes Codoñer, Dominik Heher, Hans-Werner Goetz, Daniel Föller, Nicolas Drocourt, Jonathan Shepard and Saskia Dönitz. But several changes in the group of contributors emerged over the following years and led to some major changes in the structure of the volume as a whole. We are very grateful to a number of authors who readily joined the ongoing project and wrote comprehensive articles in a relatively short period of time. Their readiness to contribute helped us keep the basic structure of the volume and even enlarge its contents in a very fortunate way.
Furthermore, Stefan Burkhardt unfortunately had to abandon his participation in the editorial activities due to new professional duties in 2017, and Nicolas Drocourt kindly stepped in. It is thus due to many troubled circumstances that the manuscript of this volume could only be finished in summer 2020. Against this background we wish to express our deep gratitude to all the contributors whose cooperation and patience during a prolonged process of editing we really appreciate, as well as to the anonymous reviewer of this volume who provided us with many helpful suggestions, to Michael Mulryan for copyediting the manuscript and to Alessandra Giliberto for her invaluable support on the publisher’s part. We are particularly grateful to the series editor Wolfram Brandes for his kind advise and to our colleague Stefan Burkhardt whose conceptual ideas laid the basic foundations of this volume and the specific way it treats Byzantine-Western relations in the High Middle Ages. Finally, we deeply regret that David Jacoby, an outstanding Byzantinist and scholar of Mediterranean history, passed away before this volume, which contains one of his last articles, could be published. It has been a great privilege for us to work together with him. We also want to commemorate the late Filippo Burgarella, a distinguished scholar of the Byzantine tradition in southern Italy, who initially had accepted our invitation to contribute but passed away before he could finish his article. Sebastian Kolditz and Nicolas Drocourt Heidelberg / Nantes, September 2020
Notes on Contributors
Axel Bayer studied history and Byzantine studies in Cologne and Rome and obtained his Ph.D. in 2000. He is a historian and Byzantinist. His main field of research is the history of the schism between the Churches of Rome and Constantinople. His publications include the monograph Spaltung der Christenheit. Das sogenannte Morgenländische Schisma von 1054, several articles on Byzantine-Western ecclesiastical relations, such as “Die Byzanzreise des Erzbischofs Gebhard von Salzburg” (Byzantinische Zeitschrift 96 (2003)), and the lemma “Schisma, 2. Orthodoxe Kirchen” (Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit 11 (2010)). Juan Signes Codoñer was Professor of Greek at the University of Valladolid (1996–2020) and is currently a professor at the Universidad Complutense of Madrid (since October 2020). He is president of the Spanish Society of Byzantine Studies. He studied classical philology at the University of Salamanca and Byzantine studies at the Freie Universität in Berlin (1987–89) and spent research stays at the Universities of Vienna, Paris, Birmingham, and Oxford and at the Dumbarton Oaks Centre in Washington. He has published monographs and contributions on Byzantine history and historiography, Byzantine law, Greek grammatical tradition, Homer, the origins and diffusion of the Greek alphabet, and Hellenism in the Early Modern era. Saskia Dönitz is a researcher at the Institute for Judaic Studies at Goethe-University Frankfurt. She specializes in medieval Jewish history and literature, Byzantine Jewry, cultural transfer, reception history, and Jewish-Christian relations. Her relevant publications include: Überlieferung und Rezeption des Sefer Yosippon (2013); Transkulturelle Verflechtungen im mittelalterlichen Jahrtausend (as co-author, 2016); and “Jüdisch-christliche Begegnungen in verschiedenen Kulturräumen des Mittelalters: Byzanz und Ashkenaz im Vergleich” (Frankfurter Judaistische Beiträge 38 (2013)). Nicolas Drocourt is Associate Professor of Byzantine and Medieval History at the University of Nantes (France). He published Diplomatie sur le Bosphore. Les ambassadeurs étrangers dans l’Empire byzantin des années 640 à 1204 (Leuven, 2015), and numerous articles on Middle Byzantine diplomacy. He also edited or co-edited different volumes on medieval diplomacy, notably La figure de l’ambassadeur entre mondes éloignés (XIe–XVIe siècle) (Rennes, 2015) and La diplomatie byzantine, de l’Empire romain aux confins de l’Europe (Ve–XVe siècle) (Leiden-Boston, 2020). Leonie Exarchos studied at the University of Heidelberg and at the Institut Catholique de Paris, and has held academic positions at the Department of History (Byzantine Studies) at the University of Mainz and at the University of Göttingen, where she was a member of the DFG-funded Research Group “Cultures of Expertise from the 12th to the 18th century”. In 2016, she was a visiting researcher in Oxford. She gained her Ph.D from the University of Göttingen, and is currently preparing a monograph investigating Western experts in Byzantium between 1143 and 1204. Her research interests include Western-Byzantine relations, Mediterranean history, cultural exchange, and transculturality in the Middle Ages. Daniel Föller is a historian working on medieval Europe, with a special interest in Viking Age Scandinavia and its relations to Byzantium. Currently, he is finishing his habilitation on Carolingian military culture at Frankfurt University. Christian Gastgeber is senior research associate and group leader of the research group “language, text, and script” of the division of Byzantine Research in the department for Medieval Studies of the Austrian Academy of Sciences; he is editor of several Byzantine texts (Register of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, Cartulary of St Paul on Mount Latros, Chronicon Paschale) and conducts research on Byzantine manuscripts, documents, and text transmission. Hans-Werner Goetz is Professor Emeritus of Medieval History at the University of Hamburg, where he held a chair from 1990–2012. He is specialized in the history of medieval concepts. His recent publications include Gott und die Welt. Religiöse Vorstellungen des frühen und hohen Mittelalters (3 vols, 2011–16) and Die Wahrnehmung anderer Religionen und christlich-abendländisches Selbstverständnis (2 vols, 2013).
Dominik Heher is a freelance exhibition curator. Holding a Ph.D. from the University of Vienna, his main research focus is on rituals of power and punishment in Byzantium, historical geography, and material culture of the Byzantine Empire. He co-edited the exhibition catalogues Das goldene Byzanz und der Orient (2012) and Byzanz und der Westen. 1000 vergessene Jahre (2018). His further publications include the monograph Mobiles Kaisertum: Das Zelt als Ort der Herrschaft und Repräsentation in Byzanz (10.–12. Jahrhundert) (2021), as well as several articles on harbours and port cities in the Byzantine Empire. Klaus Herbers is Senior Fellow for Medieval History at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg as well as a full member of the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz, plus a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen. His areas of research include papal history of the Early and High Middle Ages, pilgrimage and pilgrim reports, along with hagiography and the veneration of saints. His most recent publications are Prognostik und Zukunft im Mittelalter. Praktiken – Kämpfe – Diskussionen (2019), Papsturkunden in Spanien III. Kastilien (2020), the fourth volume of the Regesta Pontificum Romanorum (2020), and the anthology Das Buch der Päpste: Der Liber pontificalis. Ein Schlüsseldokument europäischer Geschichte, which he published with Matthias Simperl (2020). Christopher Hobbs completed his doctoral thesis in 2017, a historiographical study of the 15th-century historian Doukas. Thereafter, he was a Teaching Fellow in Byzantine and medieval History at Royal Holloway, University of London. His main research area is Byzantine historiography with a focus on identity, East-West relations, and Byzantine responses to the fall of Constantinople. David Jacoby (1928–2018) was Professor of Medieval History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research covered a broad range of the central topics in Mediterranean history, among them transmediterranean trade in numerous objects, and transcultural relations in the eastern Mediterranean during the Middle Ages, landholding in Frankish Greece, and the history of traders based in the Italian maritime republics. He published extensively on these issues, and his numerous articles have been collected in several volumes, among them Travellers, Merchants and Settlers in the Eastern Mediterranean, 11th–14th centuries (2014), and Medieval Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean and Beyond (2018)
Sebastian Kolditz has been Academic Assistant at the Chair of Medieval History at Heidelberg University since 2013. His research interests focus on diplomatic relations in the Middle Ages, Church councils and the maritime history of the Mediterranean. His publications include the monograph Johannes VIII. Palaiologos und das Konzil von Ferrara-Florenz (1438/39). Das byzantinische Kaisertum im Dialog mit dem Westen (2014), as well as articles on Christian-Muslim diplomacy (together with Nikolas Jaspert) and Byzantine-Western contacts. He has also written on the Carolingians and the Mediterranean, and on Byzantine-Venetian treaties in the later Middle Ages. Savvas Neocleous BA (University of Cyprus), MPhil and Ph.D (Trinity College Dublin), LMS (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto), is an independent researcher focusing on relations and interactions between the Byzantine Empire, Latin Christendom and the Muslim world. He is the author of Heretics, Schismatics or Catholics? Latin Attitudes to the Greeks in the Long Twelfth Century (2019). He has also published several articles in edited volumes and peer-reviewed journals, including Crusades, Journal of Medieval History, Medioevo Greco, Al-Masaq, and Byzantion. His papers focus on aspects such as the question of the so-called Byzantine-Muslim alliances against the Crusades, the blame game for the failure of the Second Crusade, the motives behind the diversion of the Fourth Crusade and the crusader conquest of Constantinople, the representation of Andronikos I Komnenos’s tyrannical rule in 12th-century European narratives, and the image of the Latins in Byzantine accounts. Johannes Pahlitzsch studied medieval history, Byzantine studies, and Arabic studies and is Professor of Byzantine Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz (Germany). He wrote a monograph on the history of the Greek Orthodox patriarchate of Jerusalem in the crusader period, is co-editor of Christian-Muslim Relations. A Historical Bibliography and published the edition of the Arabic translation of the Byzantine law book Procheiros Nomos. He is the author of numerous articles on the situation of oriental Christians under Muslim rule in the Middle Ages, and the relations between Byzantium and the Islamic world. He was awarded fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and Dumbarton Oaks, and was Visiting Scholar at Wolfson College, Oxford. He is a member of the board of the Leibniz ScienceCampus Mainz project “Byzantium between Orient and Occident”, and is spokesperson for the Research Training Group 2304 “Byzantium and the Euro-Mediterranean Cultures of War. Exchange, Differentiation and Reception”. Annick Peters-Custot is full Professor of Medieval History at the University of Nantes. Her research is mainly devoted to the history of southern Italy from Byzantine rule to the Swabian period (8th–13th century), and focuses in particular on the interactions and connections between the Byzantine Empire and the Western world in the religious field (monasticism, liturgy, hagiography) as well as on the notion of “imperiality” of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily. She is currently working on the circulation of the so-called regula S. Basilii in the Western world from the 5th to the 15th century. She led several research programmes for the École française de Rome, notably “L’héritage byzantin en Italie, VIIIe–XIIe s.” with Jean-Marie Martin and Vivien Prigent (four volumes published between 2011 and 2017), and is the main coordinator of the programme “Imperialiter” (2017–21). Her publications include the monographs: Les Grecs de l’Italie méridionale post-byzantine. Une acculturation en douceur (IXe–XIVe siècles) (2009); and Bruno en Calabre. Histoire d’une fondation monastique dans l’Italie normande: S. Maria de Turri et S. Stefano del Bosco (2014). Miriam Salzmann is Academic Assistant at the Chair of Byzantine History at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. Her research focuses on cultural contacts between Late Byzantium and the Latin world, the social and cultural history of Medieval Cyprus, and late Medieval translations. She has recently published her dissertation under the title Negotiating Power and Identities. Latin, Greek and Syrian Élites in Fifteenth-Century Cyprus (2021) and is currently working on a fifteenth-century Venetian translation of the Doukas chronicle. Jonathan Shepard was University Lecturer in Russian History at Cambridge. With S. Franklin he co-authored The Emergence of Rus (1996) and co-edited Byzantine Diplomacy (1992), and 12 of his studies appear in his Emergent Elites and Byzantium (2011). Edited volumes include The Expansion of Orthodox Europe (2007), The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire (rev. ed. 2019); Byzantium and the Viking World (with F. Androshchuk and M. White, 2016); Imperial Spheres and the Adriatic (with M. Ančić and T. Vedriš, 2018); and Viking-Age Trade: Silver, Slaves and Gotland (with J. Gruszczyński and M. Jankowiak, 2020).
Eleni Tounta is Associate Professor in Medieval History at the Aristotle University of Thessalonica. Her research interests focus on the history of medieval political thought, medieval historiography, identities and power relations, and social history, especially in the Holy Roman Empire and southern Italy in the High and Late Middle Ages. Her publications include the monograph Medieval Mirrors of Power: Historians and Narratives in Norman Southern Italy (2012) [in Greek], an article on “Conflicting Sanctities and the Construction of Collective Memories in Byzantine and Norman Italo-Greek Southern Calabria: Elias the Younger and Elias Speleotes” (Analecta Bollandiana 135 (2017)), and an article on “The Italo-Greek Courtiers and their Saint: Constructing the Italo-Greek Elite’s Collective Identity in the Twelfth-Century Norman Kingdom of Sicily” (Mediterranean Studies 28.1 (2020)).
Introduction
Approaches to Byzantine-Western Relations in the Period from the Late 9th Century to 1204: Some Introductory Remarks Nicolas Drocourt and Sebastian Kolditz In a letter sent to the basileus John II Komnenos in 1142, the German King Conrad III stated programmatically: Amicitiam, honorem et gloriam, ut parentes nostri, videlicet Romanorum imperatores, antecessores nostri, ad antecessores vestros, scilicet regnum et populum Grecorum, constituerunt, constituo et, sicut servaverunt, conservabo. Non est gens, regnum aut populus, qui non noverit nostrae Romanae rei publicae vestram novam Romam et dici et fore filiam, ex huius radice ramos et fructus eius processisse […] Sint ergo res utriusque communes, utriusque amicus idem, idem inimicus, sive in terra, sive in mari, et cognoscat ac timeat matris virtutem et valentiam, qui non honoraverit filiam, sive Normannus sive Siculus sive quis alter quicumque ubicumque.1 Conrad characterizes the relationship between his own quasi-imperial dignity as rex Romanorum – he would never be crowned emperor in Rome – and the Byzantine basileia as a long-lasting friendship, which should materialize in mutual support against common enemies. Nevertheless, in his view, this state of friendship was structured by a quasi-familial hierarchy, and he claimed parental honour and precedence for himself as representative of the elder Rome, while John Komnenos was labelled as lord of the Greek people and as emperor of Constantinople, the new Rome. The special relationship between both rulers is thus traced back to a common Roman identity which would bind them to cooperate and subjugate their enemies.2 As is well known, Byzantine identity was indeed based in the Roman imperial tradition that had continued without interruption – though completely Hellenized – at the Bosporus, and thus found its expression in the Byzantine self-designation as Rhōmaioi.3 Instead, the use of the Latin language in the ecclesiastical as well as the political sphere can be seen as the major common characteristic defining the heterogeneous plurality of Byzantium’s “western” partners, who thus often appear as Latinoi in the Byzantine sources, though only from the later 11th century onwards.4 In ecclesiastical matters, this terminology generally refers to those who were subject to the Roman Papacy, but at the same time, Rome continued to be considered the highest ranking patriarchate within the Pentarchy, and thus did not only belong to the “others” but remained an essential point of reference in Byzantine ecclesiology.5 The Latin world, instead, usually simply referred to the people of Byzantium as Greeks according to their language.6 These terminological difficulties have to be taken into consideration when speaking about medieval “Byzantine-Western” relations. Such a label is, of course, completely anachronistic and at the same time seems to be rather blurred with regard to “the West”. First of all, this term has a purely geographical meaning, but at the same time it risks evoking inappropriate and essentialist overtones about distinctive features of “the Occident” or a nascent “Western World” viewed in contrast with the Byzantine tradition.7 Instead of such generalizing ideas we shall on the one hand emphasize the diversity of the Latin Christian sphere in the period considered here. On the other hand, it should be underlined that there were important factors of identity both “Byzantines” and “Latins” essentially had in common.
These were at least twofold: on the one hand, their belonging to Christendom, more specifically to Chalcedonian Christianity once defined as the orthodox faith of the late Roman Empire and distinguished from Miaphysite doctrines influential in the East.8 On the other hand, both sides shared the ancient Roman imperial tradition as a common point of reference. Against this background, Byzantine-Western relations have traditionally been understood as the relations between two empires. One of the earliest substantial studies in this field thus focused on Byzantine-Ottonian relations throughout the 10th century.9 In the late 1940s the German medievalist Werner Ohnsorge established an overarching paradigm to the study of relations between Byzantium and the Occident in the Middle Ages. He claimed that these relations were in fact primarily determined by the so-called “problem of two emperors” (Zweikaiserproblem),10 that is the structural tension between the de facto coexistence of two imperial powers in the East and the West and their ideological claim to unlimited, universal rule over Christendom. Thus, the imperial coronation of Charlemagne at St Peter’s in 800 became the natural point of origin for understanding the complex relations Byzantium entertained not only towards the later Carolingians, but towards the entire Occident, a term continuously used by Ohnsorge. Simultaneously, the history of political and diplomatic contacts became closely interwoven with the study of medieval concepts of imperial rule, and Ohnsorge himself postulated the existence of well-distinguished “ideas of empire” in the Latin West: a Frankish imperial idea of Charlemagne, a papal one, and a Roman one which substituted the Frankish idea in the reign of Otto III.11 In contrast it was usually assumed that the Byzantine Empire, as heir to the universalist tradition of ancient Rome, claimed universal rule over the entire 8 Whereas Latin Christendom displays a basically homogeneous landscape in terms of oikoumenē for itself.12 This assumption was only questioned when Telemachos Lounghis, a leading expert in the study of Early and Middle Byzantine diplomacy, coined the term “limited oikoumenē” in order to describe an alleged Byzantine political doctrine in the era of the Macedonian emperors.13 According to Lounghis, the emperors of this dynasty deliberately renounced their claim to universal suzerainty with regard to the Latin world.
Although it seems questionable whether such conceptions were actually formulated in Byzantium during these centuries, they certainly describe the pragmatism of Byzantine diplomacy towards its Western partners, be they of imperial rank or not. They were never treated as subjects – as was the case with local rulers in territories which at least formally remained parts of the empire (e.g. in Caucasia, but also with the dukes of Venice or Naples)14 – but as partners on a more or less equal level. To sum up, it should not be denied that imperial self-conceptions on both sides thoroughly influenced political attitudes and political action towards the other. But today it seems clear that our understanding of the complex developments, even in the sole field of inter-imperial relations over the course of several centuries, cannot be reduced to one determining factor. Ideological antagonism could thus be revived if appropriate in order to obtain concrete political aims,15 such as with the political clashes between Frederick I Barbarossa and Manuel I Komnenos.16 But it did not prevent close cooperation and even a cordial relationship at other times. A second traditional focus in the study of Byzantine-Western relations in the Middle-Byzantine period is the role Byzantium played in the history of the Crusades.17 Scholars have long since been aware of the importance of long-term developments in Byzantine-crusader relations. The First Crusade in particular has attracted much scholarly attention with regard to the interaction between the leaders of the crusading army and the basileus, or the attempts at defining a legal relationship between them.18 Furthermore, the growth of mutual distrust over the course of the crusade and its aftermath has been highlighted and viewed as a first step in a critical development of Western attitudes towards Byzantium throughout the 12th century.19 Finally, the fact that the Middle Byzantine Empire succumbed to the onslaught of a crusading Latin army in 1204 has long since posed a major question in this field of study. How could a military force of officially recognized milites Christi conquer the capital of a Christian Empire? It is obvious that a meticulous analysis of the events of 1203/04, as well as the narratives discussing these events, are indispensable in answering this question.20 But again, the history of political and military events is closely interwoven with the history of ideas and perceptions, and even economic aspects have to be considered with regard to the role of Venice. The Crusades furthered the penetration of the entire eastern Mediterranean by merchants from Venice, Pisa, and Genoa including Byzantine territory and its capital. The legal foundations for their presence in Byzantium, the features of their trading activities according to the documentary evidence, and consequently their role in the development and decline of the Byzantine economy, have also attracted much scholarly attention.21
The third major research tradition reflected in the present volume concerns the practice of diplomacy. Traditional approaches to the history of diplomacy and foreign relations often regarded the Middle Ages as a long prehistory to the actual formation of a system of international relations based on permanent embassies and a growing professionalization during the Early Modern period.22 It was only from the 1980s onwards that interest in the medieval practice of diplomacy and negotiations between political, as well as ecclesiastical actors, grew substantially.23 Nevertheless, long before this, aspects of Byzantine foreign relations were being approached systematically, such as the diplomatics of letters sent to non-Byzantine political authorities (Auslandsschreiben),24 aspects of treaty-making and negotiations,25 the internal organization of Byzantine foreign policy, and the office of the logothetes tou dromou.26 The general strategies and intentions of Byzantine diplomacy had been discussed at the International Congress of Byzantine Studies at Ohrid in 1961,27 but it was above all the symposium on Byzantine diplomacy held by the British Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies, and published in 1992, which provided a major and lasting impact on this field in the last few decades. A number of recent collective volumes has further deepened our knowledge and understanding of the mechanisms of Byzantine diplomacy.28 The spectrum of issues treated in depth in recent studies is indeed also broad. It includes the profile of diplomatic agents, the role of ceremonies and gift-giving, dynastic marriages and the bestowal of honorary titles on foreign rulers, communication routes, the use of languages, etc. Obviously, these questions not only concern political relations between Byzantium and the Occident, but also Byzantine relations with the Muslim world,29 as well as with the Nomadic steppe peoples that settled in the regions on the northern coasts of the Black Sea,30 the Slavs, and the Bulgar state, which dominated the Balkans up to the early 11th century.31 This plurality offers rich opportunities for comparison and contextualization of Byzantine-Western relations.32 Besides these three main research traditions, however, efforts to illuminate the interaction between Byzantium and other parts of the Latin world have long remained a relatively “provincialized” field. Although important contributions were published some time ago on relations between Byzantium and France, England, the Low Countries,33 Scandinavia, Poland, and Hungary,34 most of these studies remain rather isolated. Already in 1973, Karl Leyser insisted that “it would be mistaken to confine Byzantine interests in the West to the horizons of Italy”.35 But it was only with the publication of Krijnie Ciggaar’s fundamental monograph on Western travellers to Byzantium in the High Middle Ages36 that the broad spectrum of these contacts and their local historiographical and material repercussions became entirely visible, the first time this topic had been treated in a comprehensive and coherent manner. The present volume is dedicated only to a specific epoch in the long history of Byzantine-Western relations.
To cover the whole field from Late Antiquity to the Ottoman Conquest of 1453 would far exceed any reasonable endeavour. Our choice of temporal limits almost corresponds to that taken by James Howard-Johnston for a pioneering conference dedicated to Byzantine-Western relations.37 Nevertheless, the choice of the later 9th century as a beginning is not easy to justify, as it avoids a rather obvious starting point, namely the imperial coronation of Charlemagne in 800. However, this event necessarily has to be viewed in the context of prior Byzantine-Carolingian relations, which again would have extended the study into the 8th century, and the so-called Iconoclastic Controversy, and thus would have opened up discussions of the long traditions in ecclesiastical relations concerning the Ecumenical councils. Furthermore, there had been of course a long-ranging tradition of political exchange between Constantinople and the Franks since the early Merovingian epoch,38 but the rulers of other “barbarian” gentes had also maintained diplomatic contacts with the imperial court in Constantinople.39 Only when the Carolingians united most parts of the Christian West under their rule did Byzantine relations with the West in fact become Byzantine-Carolingian relations and, after 800, turn into a relationship between two empires.
Far from cultivating a permanent ideological competition, they repeatedly sought cooperation and alliance against the Muslims operating in southern Italy, for example during the famous campaign of the Carolingian Emperor Louis II in the late 860s.40 Nevertheless, there was a fundamental structural difference between these two political entities. While imperial power in Byzantium was transmitted through a continuous series of rulers, the Carolingian Empire was founded on a dynastic principle comprising the partition of territories among royal heirs, which soon led to the empire’s decomposition into several de facto independent kingdoms. In this new constellation the imperial title became in fact related to rulership over the Kingdom of Italy and depended on the Papacy, as only the pope was considered sufficient to crown a Roman Emperor. Soon the vulnerability of the Carolingian states became more and more evident, notably due to the Norman attacks on its western and northern coasts. The necessity of defence in turn fostered the emergence of powerful aristocratic families, some of whom became competitors with the Carolingian kings. These processes contributed to the profound transformation of the “Latin World” during the long 10th century, which saw the emergence of a characteristic plurality of independent kingdoms and other regional powers, not only within, but also beyond, the former Carolingian Empire, especially on the Iberian Peninsula, in northern and in East Central Europe. By contrast, the so-called Macedonian dynasty, founded in 867 by the usurper Basil I, not only managed to keep the Byzantine Empire united under its rule, but even to expand it significantly in the later 10th and early 11th century, in the Balkans as well as into the Near East. This structural background basically persisted over the whole period studied here.
The reason for the date of 1204 as the final endpoint for our study in this volume is certainly more obvious. With the capture of Constantinople the traditional Byzantine Empire ceased to exist, but this caesura did not bring Byzantine-Western relations to an end. The successors to the Byzantine imperial and patriarchal tradition, resident in Nicaea, remained in contact with the Papacy and its envoys: for instance, John III Vatatzes had a close relationship with the Staufen Emperor Frederick II.41 Latin-Greek contacts were further intensified under the first Palaiologan emperors who used their networks in order to prevent a new Western invasion.42 It seems that Byzantine diplomatic activities towards the West finally reached their peak in the last century of Byzantium, especially during the reign of Manuel II.43 The underlying conditions of these relations, however, had changed fundamentally in comparison with the Middle Byzantine period: the territorial extension of Byzantium was shrinking almost continuously; Greeks and Latins now lived close to each other within a politically fragmented Romania, and, above all, both groups had to cope with the growing power of Turkish tribes and the emergent Ottoman Empire. Some recent studies have deepened our understanding of these complex modes of coexistence and symbiosis as well as the permanent conflict within the lands of Romania between the 13th and the 15th century,44 the structures of which were completely different from Byzantine-Western relations in Middle-Byzantine times.45 In the Middle-Byzantine period, it was a contrast between a unitary imperial power in the Greek East and a plurality of independent rulers in the Latin West, which can be seen as a fundamental condition for Byzantine-Western relations. Their course and development can therefore not be reduced to one single chronological thread of embassies and exchanges. Instead, it is composed of a number of parallel histories, each of which focuses on the relationship of a specific part of Latin Christendom towards Byzantium. This structure will be reflected explicitly in two sections of the present volume dedicated, respectively, to the Western Empire – including the Papacy and other parts of Italy – and to other parts of the Latin West, usually less close to Byzantium, but nevertheless showing very characteristic patterns of contact. In both cases, the main focus will be on political dimensions, but economic and cultural aspects will not be excluded either.
The remaining two sections of the volume reflect systematic approaches, highlighting patterns of perception, the linguistic and material aspects of diplomatic contacts, and various groups of agents. The first section of this book deals with “Perceptions and Linguistic Aspects”. Jonathan Shepard draws attention to the knowledge “of the West” as it appears in numerous Byzantine texts from the entire period under consideration. He demonstrates how far acquaintance with the West changed over these centuries. The ruling elite, some churchmen and a few monks had a kind of monopoly of this knowledge until the 11th century. Some events such as the Norman conquests in Italy and Sicily, the development of pilgrimages to Jerusalem passing through the empire, and the upswing in trade produced changes, notably in the way Byzantine authors named the Westerners. Official orators could admittedly still use conventional terms for denoting Westerners, but the latter were now better known and understood in Byzantium, even far from the imperial court and Constantinople. During the 12th century, there were many ways and occasions for both groups to gain a better understanding of each other. Nevertheless, opposition towards the Latins and the accentuation of differences also flourished, such as the lists of the Latins’ religious deviations tend to show. In the second chapter Hans-Werner Goetz looks at “The Image of the Greeks in Latin Sources”, based on a succinct overview of research positions. In Latin eyes the Graeci or “Greeks” could be seen as different from the Latins or Westerners by several criteria, primarily language, political belonging, culture, or ethnicity. Though one can also find a kind of admiration towards the Greeks in some sources, others seem to suggest the opposite. Goetz discusses these attitudes in their respective historical and political contexts. Furthermore, the question of the religion of the Greeks appears in some testimonies: the “Greek” is sometimes seen as a Christian whose faith was (at the very least) in danger of deviance. The linguistic basis for Graeco-Latin relations is analysed by Christian Gastgeber with a special focus on the language of documents produced in the course of negotiations or diplomatic missions, though these documents did not survive in large numbers.
Which language(s) were used in official correspondences and in those by ambassadors and diplomatic agents? A careful reading of the sources demonstrates that translators were everywhere, and at every level of official communication. Pragmatism was a key reality in the face of ideas of linguistic superiority adopted by both sides. At the same time, however, this did not exclude some kind of intentional text manipulation or even falsification in specific situations. Language thus was, above all, an instrument in politics. In the following section, the development of political as well as ecclesiastical relations between Byzantium and its imperial counterpart in the West is addressed, with the inclusion of the Papacy. For geographical reasons, Italy is situated at the crossroads of relations between Byzantium and successive Western imperial dynasties, The first of them, the Carolingians, still prevailed at the beginning of the period under examination, although it was past its peak after the mid-850s. In a kind of short introductory survey, Klaus Herbers characterizes the main aspects of Byzantine-Western Relations in the late 9th century. Even if a compromise had been found in 812 with the so-called Treaty of Aachen,46 the quarrel around the imperial title (Zweikaiserproblem) remained implicitly alive during the second part of the 9th century, as shown by Louis II’s famous letter to Basil I in 871. The military context and the decision of the two emperors to fight against Muslims in southern Italy conditioned their mutual understanding, but Western emperors’ direct contacts with Byzantium were rare after Louis II’s death in 875. Two other questions provoked tensions between Constantinople and Rome in the 860s and beyond: the so-called Photian Schism and the rivalry over the conversion of the Bulgarians. It created disputes and misunderstandings, as well as numerous embassies and letters. The ecclesiastical conflict caused by the fourth marriage (tetragamy) of Leon VI led to new tensions at the beginning of the following century, including with the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Ottonian 10th century has received a great deal of attention with regard to Byzantine-Latin relations, probably due to two major protagonists: Bishop Liudprand of Cremona and the famous Empress Theophano. Instead of focusing once more on their personalities, Sebastian Kolditz tries to give a long-term outline of political relations stretching from the pre-Ottonian Kingdom of Italy to the rule of Lothair III in the early 12th century. The diffuse contacts with Byzantium in the age of the Salian emperors (1024–1125) thus come to the fore, though they have been rather neglected in research so far. Furthermore, some general questions about the belonging of envoys and political mediators are discussed. On the ecclesiastical level, Axel Bayer examines the development of relations between the Papacy and the Patriarchate of Constantinople, primarily during the 11th century. The date of 1054 regularly comes to mind in this respect, as it has traditionally been associated with the “Great Schism” between Rome and Constantinople. However, the events of July 1054 on the Bosporus, treated in-depth in this contribution, were not considered to be significant in most of the sources at least until the end of the 12th century. Instead, the unity of the Churches was notably challenged by two main differences, one of a dogmatic nature (the procession of the Holy Spirit), the other concerning rites (the azyme question). In spite of discussions and courteous debates, a lasting rapprochement between the two Churches was never achieved; their separation endured. The Fourth Crusade and its consequences, including the sack of Constantinople, made the state of schism obvious for both Latins and Byzantines.
The 12th century is also known for the complex relations between two powerful dynasties in the Byzantine and Western empires. Leonie Exarchos studies them in her article “Komnenoi and Staufer: Ambition and Confrontation”. The Zweikaiserproblem (“Two-Emperors problem”) continued to remain an important ideological aspect of these relations. Beyond the question of the imperial title and all its consequences, reflected in some official correspondences, the rivalry between the two empires was particularly apparent in several spatial contexts, such as Hungary, the Crusader States and, most significantly, Italy. But this rivalry did not necessarily lead to enmity: from 1138 to 1152 there was even real cooperation between both sides, notably against common threats and enemies. Furthermore, a marriage alliance strengthened the cooperation and links between the two dynasties. With the election of Frederick I Barbarossa as king in 1152, tensions arose, notably after the temporary disappearance of a common enemy with Manuel I making peace with the Normans in 1158. The Byzantine Emperor also supported Western partners who were often among Frederick’s enemies, but the emperor always avoided direct confrontation with the latter. Nevertheless, after some failed Byzantine campaigns in Italy and Manuel’s death in 1180, the Byzantine policy of active intervention on its western front came to an end. The weakness of the empire under the last Komnenoi and the Angeloi faced the consolidation of Staufen rule in the Holy Roman Empire. As heirs to the Byzantine, as well as other traditions in southern Italy, the Normans were major actors in the framework of Byzantine-Western relations. Eleni Tounta points the reader to their political and cultural encounters with Byzantium in the course of the 11th and 12th centuries. Their military confrontation in southern Italy and on the western Adriatic coast under Robert Guiscard and his son Bohemond are well known events, as well as other Norman assaults on the empire like that which led to the seizure of Thessalonica in 1185. But these encounters also had other implications, such as diplomatic contacts, even if peaceful relations were infrequent. Besides that, however, various facets of cultural interaction between these two neighbours are recalled and investigated in this contribution. These concern, inter alia, the integration of Norman knights into Byzantium’s elite, and patterns of mutual perception. As such, the question of identity construction is examined; this had strong political implications since Norman kings exploited the heritage of Byzantine culture in order to enhance their own legitimacy. The following section of the book is devoted to relations between Byzantium and various parts of Europe beyond Italy and Germany. Based on a relatively broad research tradition, Daniel Föller gives a concise outline of contacts between Byzantium and the northern people of Scandinavia, not without some side-glances on the early Rus’. He thematizes aspects such as the specific source-problems related to the predominance of saga-traditions in the north, the role of trade and raids in the early relationship, and the presence of “Varangian” mercenaries in Byzantium in the 11th and 12th centuries, but also refers to occasional religious and diplomatic contacts. Furthermore, patterns of mutual perception and influences are discussed, for example with regard to the slow emergence of a differentiation between Rus’ and Scandinavians in Byzantine sources, and the presence of Byzantine artefacts in Scandinavia.
The “Varangian guard” and its composition is again discussed in Christopher Hobbs’ contribution, which gives a concise outline of what is known today about Byzantine contacts with Britain, primarily Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman England. Actual personal contacts seem to be virtually non-existent before the 10th century, but the Anglo-Saxon traditions of pilgrimage to Italy might have played a role in establishing them. The presence of some Greek monks in England in the late 10th and early 11th century predates the first known cases of diplomatic exchange. Besides that, there are strong indications of substantial Anglo-Saxon emigration towards Byzantium after the Norman Conquest, which possibly led to their settlement in regions on the Black Sea known as “New England”. The last section of this paper discusses aspects of cultural influence and material exchange. Similar to the British Isles, the Iberian Peninsula also had a rather peripheral position with regard to Byzantium in the period treated here, though it had contained regions under Byzantine rule in Late Antiquity and again became a major player in Byzantine foreign relations in Palaiologan times. Against this background, the contribution by Juan Signes Codoñer concentrates on five aspects. The first part concerns the rather close and official Byzantine relations with al-Andalus during the Umayyad period, thus forming a contrast with the scarcity of information on contacts between the Eastern Empire and the small Christian kingdoms in the northern part of the Iberian Peninsula. Even for Mediterranean Catalonia there is very little evidence, and artistic influence is difficult to interpret. After the First Crusade, Iberian pilgrimage and travel to the eastern Mediterranean increased considerably, while cases of Byzantine pilgrimage to Santiago are difficult to trace. In the fourth part of the paper, the author analyses two major Iberian accounts of travel from the later 12th century, those of the Muslim Ibn Jubayr and the Jew Benjamin of Tudela. Finally, Signes Codoñer outlines the intensification of political and even matrimonial relations towards the Crown of Aragon in the same period. Savvas Neocleous examines the history of relations between Byzantium and the Kingdom of France, including the County of Flanders, which developed slowly in the late 10th and throughout the 11th centuries. Besides mentioning some situations of diplomatic contact, Neocleous characterizes pieces of information concerning Byzantium in West Frankish historiography, as well as instances of contact in the ecclesiastical and monastic spheres.
However, it was only in the context of the First Crusade, whose leaders first and foremost came from northern France and the southern “Low Countries”, that immediate contact between both sides, and consequently knowledge of each other, increased considerably. Similarly, the Second Crusade and the Fourth Crusade, leading to the halosis of 1204, are two major points of reference in the article’s following sections. In parallel, Neocleous traces the development of representations of Byzantium and its emperors in French literature, which did not only consist of the well-known growing anti-Greek sentiment. The First Crusade and its encounter with Byzantium also forms the point of departure for the contribution by Johannes Pahlitzsch, which focuses on Latin-Greek interaction during the Crusades and in the Crusader States. Pahlitzsch underlines the stereotypical and secular nature of early reproaches against the Greeks during the crusade. This contrasts with the ecclesiastical policy pursued by the Crusaders in the Holy Land, when they substituted Greek ecclesiastical institutions with Latin ones, and consequently established “a two-tier society” among Christians. As Pahlitzsch shows, the expulsion of the Orthodox patriarchs from Jerusalem and Antioch into exile in Byzantium strengthened the influence of the Patriarchate of Constantinople on Eastern patriarchal sees, their liturgy, and Church law. Byzantine influence grew further in the reign of Manuel I, who virtually assumed the role of a protector of the Crusader states, but did not succeed in improving the position of the Melkites, who ultimately favoured Saladin’s rule. A concise discussion of the contemporary position of the Latins at Constantinople closes the article. One major region of Latin influence is unfortunately missing in this volume though it had been included in our plans from the very beginning: the independent principalities or kingdoms in Bohemia, Poland, and Hungary. After their formation over the course of the 10th century, these areas of eastern and central Europe were another fundamental part of the Latin world. While the Piasts of Poland and the Bohemian Přemyslids were only occasionally in contact with Byzantium,47 Hungary formed another major bridge between the Eastern and the Western empires, thus comparable in some ways to southern Italy. There are numerous pertinent studies on Byzantine-Hungarian relations and on Orthodox Christians in the Hungarian Kingdom, and we can only refer to some of them here.48 In contrast to these polities, however, the early medieval Rus’ has consciously been left out of the conception of this volume. Though undoubtedly acting as a major intermediary between Byzantium and the northern parts of Europe from the 9th century onwards, and belonging, at least regarding the ruling and most dynamic strata of early Rus’ society, to the trans-European “Viking diaspora” of Norman warriors and traders,49 they nevertheless did not become a part of Latin Europe, neither linguistically nor religiously. Instead, the Rus’ adopted Greek Christianity and thus became a major part of what Dmitry Obolensky has famously termed the “Byzantine commonwealth”, as did the Bulgarians and Serbs.50 This neither precluded phases of deeply antagonist relations with Byzantium nor a depletion of contacts, as can be observed in the Rus’ian case from the later 11th century onwards, this an albeit less dramatic case than it has been assumed in earlier studies perhaps.51 This relative scarcity of information for contacts might reflect a structural similarity with Byzantine-Western relations. The last section of the book again unites some systematic approaches to Byzantine-Western relations. It is primarily devoted to the role of specific types and groups of agents, either defined by their functional role, such as diplomats and traders, or by their religious profile, such as orthodox monks and Jews. Nicolas Drocourt profiles the various agents of diplomatic relations, especially the envoys travelling in both directions. He recalls firstly that recent studies have demonstrated that these travellers were numerous. Furthermore, compared to other people on the move (pilgrims, refugees, merchants, or captives) they were certainly among those who travelled most, at least according to our documentation. Their political and social status is analysed. Be they Byzantines or of Western origins, they were part of the elite and, logically, close to the sovereign they represented abroad.
The so-called official or diplomatic questions they had to deal with were of various natures; though they often had a political or military dimension, they could also be associated with economic, cultural, or intellectual aspects. Thus, the power and influence, as well as the question of the immunity of these official travellers, are under the scope in this chapter. In this perspective, agents of official relations other than envoys are also considered, such as members of the retinue, hostages, interpreters, and so on. Annick Peters-Custot examines another important group of cultural brokers, namely Byzantine/Greek monks established in south Italy, the main zone of direct contact between the Greek and the Latin world. She first characterizes the religious landscape of this region and the sources it has produced. The later 10th century witnessed substantial migration from some of these areas to other parts of Italy, thus bringing Greek monks into contact with Latin monasticism (e.g. at Montecassino) as well. A special emphasis is duly put on the presence of Byzantine monks in Rome, which served as a continuous point of (spiritual) attraction not least because of the papal institution as a pillar of Pentarchy, as can be observed from the written “Lives” of saintly monks. These travels got a further “political” stimulus in the late 10th century due to the frequent presence of the Ottonian emperors in the Rome area, and the special relationship some protagonists of Italo-Greek monasticism, such as St. Neilos, developed towards them. Finally, Peters-Custot discusses the fields of actual cultural exchange, and some patterns of textual perceptions of the ascetism the monastic fathers displayed. Though Liudprand of Cremona showed a certain degree of disdain for them,52 his works give us an impression of the central role merchants played in early diplomatic exchanges between the West and Byzantium. Complementarily, David Jacoby examines the installation of Italian traders in Byzantine areas; he therefore looks back to the early 9th century when the first indications of a Venetian presence can be detected, soon followed by merchants from Amalfi in the 10th century. He discusses the role Italian traders played in the commercial distribution of agrarian goods and textiles within the empire and in the eastern Mediterranean area in the following century. Another focus is put on the development of Byzantine privileges for Italian traders, including those from Pisa and Genoa whose presence is widely visible in the 12th century; but also merchants from other Italian cities, such as Bari, Ancona, or Treviso, are occasionally found in the sources. In addition, Jacoby gives us an extensive in-depth discussion of the probable numbers of Italians resident in merchant communities within the Byzantine Empire, the legal conditions of their residence, and above all their geographical distribution in the Byzantine area beyond Constantinople. In this context, Italian presence on the islands of Crete and Cyprus and in Egypt is likewise outlined. The editors are very grateful to Miriam Salzmann and Johannes Pahlitzsch who kindly accepted our request to write a short addendum to this article which outlines the main research questions and debates in this field.
The role of Jews as intermediaries between the Latin and the Byzantine world is concisely outlined by Saskia Dönitz. Against a background of scarce information, especially from the Byzantine sphere, it is nearly impossible to give a general profile of Jews as cultural brokers, but a few individual cases of trans-Mediterranean contacts can be traced, such as those between Jewish communities in Apulia with Constantinople and Córdoba. Jewish migration from Italy to the early centres of Ashkenaz on the Rhine, and the transfer of literary and liturgical traditions, is another link between a Byzantine and a Latin context, exemplified, for example, in the Qalonymus family tradition, or by cross references with Byzantine Jewish scholars in Ashkenazic texts, though evidence for influence in the opposite direction is virtually absent. A systematic approach to the functions and relevance of (precious) material objects and gifts in Byzantine-Western exchanges closes the volume’s last section. Here Dominik Heher states there was a fundamental imbalance in this respect: the often-exotic gifts Byzantine envoys brought with them enjoyed a much higher prestige than those of their Western counterparts. Besides that, he also draws attention to the economic and ideological aspects of gift-giving, relic transfer and the bestowal of titles, particularly in the case of Venice. Specific items played a particularly significant role in gift exchange; besides manuscripts, that occur only seldomly, Christian relics, and above all Byzantine silk fabrics were objects of high esteem, but sometimes also of fierce criticism in the West. Finally, we should also briefly refer to what is not contained in the present volume, which does not claim to cover each and every aspect of ByzantineWestern relations in the period addressed. One of the aspects consciously left out is the history of Byzantine Italy, i.e. those significant parts of the Italian south that were regained by Byzantine forces from the 870s onwards and were transformed into a larger provincial unit (the Catepanate of Italy) ruled from Bari.53 Although separated by the Adriatic and Ionic Seas, this substantial Byzantine territory – which bordered the Lombard principalities, and at least approached the sphere of interest of the Western Empire – existed up to the Norman conquest of Bari in 1071, and a strong Greek-Byzantine cultural influence continued to play a substantial role in larger parts of this region much longer than this.54 Besides providing us with a plethora of fascinating phenomena of Latin-Greek symbiosis and hybridization, this zone was also the primary scene of military confrontation between Byzantines and Latins (of various origins and ethnic denominations) throughout the 10th and large parts of the 11th centuries.
A profound discussion of these aspects of co-habitation and confrontation could well have formed the subject of another chapter in this book. We did, however, abstain, from a deeper penetration into this sphere here as it belongs to the subject of another volume within this Companion series.55 Only the central role of south Italian monasticism in trans-imperial relations demands a contribution of its own in the present volume, as mentioned above. Another subject which somehow seems missing in the present collection as a separate chapter is the development of the theological conflict between East and West. These questions are, of course, closely interwoven with the emerging rift between the two Churches, traced by Axel Bayer, yet at the same time they were also firmly anchored in the general developments of Eastern and Western theologies.56 Approaching the field of religious contacts from a broader angle of perception, the transfer of “non-orthodox” religious ideas, especially dualist beliefs, between the Greek and Latin sphere could also be taken into account. It is thus certain that a relationship existed between the Paulician movement in 9th-century Byzantium, Slavic bogomilism emerging in 10th century Bulgaria and spreading over the southern and western Balkans, and the formation of radical religious ideas in the West from the early 11th century onwards, particularly in northern Italy and the Occitan area, where it led to the establishment of the Cathars. The degree of Eastern influence on occidental religious phenomena is, however, disputed.57 Three other subjects had originally been planned as separate chapters but could not be completed due to several reasons. We have already referred to the missing of a chapter on East Central Europe in this respect. The basic geographical conditions of land- and sea-based communications between East and West and their historical developments have been analysed by Ewald Kislinger in a number of recent studies, which will serve as an excellent guide to these aspects not specifically treated in this volume.58 Furthermore, communications are closely interwoven with economic exchange, as Michael McCormick’s fundamental study on Mediterranean travel and commerce in the preceding early medieval epoch has shown.59 A study following similar paths for the 10th to 12th century would certainly be a promising subject of inquiry,60 but it clearly exceeds the limits of focus taken in the present volume. Nevertheless, individual aspects of material exchange and long term travel will be found, for instance, in the chapters on Scandinavia, the British Isles, and the Iberian Peninsula, but a comprehensive analysis of Mediterranean commercial relations would necessarily shift our focus onto the Islamic world and its numerous ports, which lie beyond the scope of the present volume, as well as on the role of the Rus’ as an economic mediator towards other parts of continental Europe. At the same time, an analysis of trade between Byzantium and other parts of Europe essentially depends on detailed archaeological studies.61 Therefore, the present book only contains a chapter on the relatively well-documented written material telling us about the activities of Italian merchants primarily from the emerging trade centres of Venice, Pisa and Genoa, in the Byzantine Romania. Finally, we also had to give up an article looking at the symbolic dimension of Byzantine-Western communications, as expressed – inter alia – in rituals, insignia, and depictions of rulers on objects such as seals, or the transfer of titles, etc. This is all the more regrettable as a comprehensive treatment of these subjects does not yet exist, though several studies of individual aspects can be adduced.62 This desideratum shows that the history of Byzantine-Western relations and transcultural influences still offers a lot of subjects to be further explored. The present volume thus hopefully will not “close” a field of study, but rather open up new perspectives for future research.
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