Download PDF | Sofia Kotzabassi - The Pantokrator Monastery in Constantinople-De Gruyter (2013).
281 Pages
Preface:
The most important imperial foundation from the Komnene age is the Monastery of Pantokrator, which continues to this day to impress both the scholar and the casual visitor. It is as clear to those who visit its three churches, which despite repeated devastation still inspire admiration for the perfection of their construction and the elegance of their decoration, as to those who read its typikon that John I Komnenos and his empress Eirene spared no cost to erect a splendid monastery complex, which absorbed a number of smaller foundations, mainly in the environs of Constantinople, and to make generous provision for its upkeep and operation. This lavish endowment, which would ensure among other things the continuous commemoration of the monastery’s founders, is directly linked to the fact that its middle church, which is dedicated to the Archangel Michael and described as a heroon, was built as a funerary chapel for the Komnenoi family. The importance of the monastery is further illustrated by the role it played alike under the Latin emperors and later, during the Palaiologan age, when the church of St Michael served the members of that family as their principal funerary chapel.
A monument of such magnificence could hardly fail to attract the attention and the interest of numerous scholars. In 1923 Gyula Moravesik collected all the then known evidence concerning the Monastery and published texts relating to its history. The new edition of its typikon published, with a French translation, by Paul Gautier in 1969 made this exceptionally important text accessible and led to numerous studies of the monastery complex. Particular mention must be made of the work done by Timothy Miller and Robert Volk, who studied its infirmary and other charitable institutions. The plans for the renovation of the monument and the recent studies by Robert Ousterhout have considerably expanded our knowledge of the architecture of the surviving part of the monastery complex, while David Jacoby’s articles have shed light on aspects of its history during the Latin occupation (1204-1261).
The first part of this book contains papers on the history of the Monastery of Pantokrator, based on the available textual and other material relating to the monument. The studies in the second part examine and give prominence to the wealth of texts referring or relating to the monument.
The editor of the volume wishes to express her gratitude to the contributors, to the editor of the Byzantinisches Archiv, Albrecht Berger, and especially to Robert Ousterhout for his initial encouragement and my colleague Ioannis Vassis for his support throughout the whole process of preparation and publication.
Sofia Kotzabassi
The Komnenoi and Constantinople before the Building of the Pantokrator Complex
VLADA STANKOVIC / BELGRADE with contributions by ALBRECHT BERGER / MUNICH
Introduction
The Pantokrator complex represented undoubtedly the most ambitious imperial foundation - architectonically and ideologically - outside the Great Palace and the old center of Constantinople after the time of the emperor Justinian." The Pantokrator complex’s dominant position at the crest of a hill overlooking the Golden Horn, together with its multidimensional structure and multifaceted purpose were in perfect accordance with the grandiose idea beyond its founding.” Richly endowed, overtly important for the imperial family - for the dynasty which John II Komnenos aspired to create and uphold - the Pantokrator complex, should have served as the new dynastic mausoleum, the first after the imperial mausoleum of the Holy Apostles church, situated in its vicinity.
We cannot determine with accuracy the time of the construction of the Pantokrator complex, other than to place it in the period between 1118 and 1136, assuming that it took more than a decade to finish it.* In a recent article, Robert Ousterhout stressed the thematic and stylistic unity of the complex and the rapidity of its expansion." It is a question that without doubt deserves a separate research that should combine an analysis of literary sources with the conclusions reached after the archaeological research.” Although my conviction is that John II had not commenced the construction of the Pantokrator complex immediately after his takeover of power in 1118, for a variety of reasons that cannot be examined in depth here,1118, the year of Alexios Komnenos’ death, will constitute the chronological limit of this analysis, mainly due to methodological principles: after 1118, with the new, the first purple-born generation of the Komnenoi in power, the phenomena pertaining to the Komnenian attitude to and impact on Constantinople changed drastically in nature, following the changes within the ramified imperial family, and adapting to the new circumstances that have risen from the family’s evolution.
The multifaceted character of the Pantokrator complex, like its manifold purpose, stands at the end of more than half a century of the Komnenos family’s building activities in the Byzantine capital. Komnenian buildings in Constantinople and the ideas that stood behind them were developing gradually, becoming richer and more complex with every subsequent generation. Some of the phases of this development - practical, political and ideological implications of the Komnenian impact on physical look of Constantinople or the city’s structure, can be traced down, studied and analyzed in detail, especially from the time of Alexios Komnenos’ accession to the throne.° More problematic aspects of the presence of the Komnenoi in the capital remain, however, the questions regarding the time when the family took up the residence in Constantinople, the circumstances under which that happened, and the early stages of the family history. An analysis of the early history of the Komnenoi in Constantinople, their relationship with and influence on the capital should therefore be presented at the outset of this contribution
The early history and the geographical origins of the Komnenian family were rightly labeled a vexed question.’ Rising practically out of nowhere to obtain the imperial crown in 1057, leapfrogging more influential and more powerful aristocratic families in what seems to be one giant (crucial) step that drew the family out of obscurity, and placed it forever in the highest stratum of Byzantine society — the Komnenian early history in Constantinople represent doubtlessly one of the puzzles of Byzantine history.
The problem of the beginnings of the family of the Komnenoi cannot be clarified satisfactorily at the present level of our source-knowledge. The family roots remain still obscure, and moreover, the entire issue is usually approached and studied inadequately, with the premise that the Komnenoi belonged to the “military aristocracy’, which is based on the obsolete concept of a clear division between the ‘military and ‘civil’ aristocracy, especially in the 11th century Byzantium. ® Let it be said that Anna Komnene’s information that young Alexios has stopped in his grandfather's town” on his return to Constantinople after successfully dealing with Ourselios (1073) - surmised to be Kastamon"® does not confirm that the family originated from that town (m0Atc), and that John Skylitzes stated only that Isaac Komnenos oikocg was at Kastamon, without specifying whether that was also the Komnenos place of origin."* It is very significant that Theodore Prodromos in his several contemporary praises of John II’s repeated recaptures of Kastamon have never even hinted that the emperor, or the Komnenoi originated from, or that they had any personal connection with that town,'” and the same can be said for John Kinnamos as well.'? When talking about the family’s early history at the very beginning of his History, Nikephoros Bryennios did not mention or allude to the place of the origin of the Komnenoi.*
From the reign of Isaac Komnenos, until the accession of Alexios in 1081 too, a little is known about the evolution, the growth and gradual strengthening of the family, and even less about the bases owing to which these developments were possible. The Komnenoi were out of the scope of Byzantine historians, and they were certainly not much discussed in the capital’s higher circles. Unprovocative in their behavior, apparently acquiescing to the existing rhythm of gradual rise through hierarchy, outwardly more than a bit dull, too - excluding Anna Dalassene, the head of the family, who had the peculiar “advantage” of her gender not to be held politically absolutely accountable for her opposition to the emperor’” — the Komnenoi gave the impression of a family which sank into the mediocrity of eleventh century middle aristocracy. Were it not for the story conveyed by Nikephoros Bryennios about the refusal of the protobestiarios John Komnenos, the father of the future emperor Alexios, to accept the imperial crown from his ailing brother Isaac in November 1059, it would be much more difficult for modern scholars to understand the audacity of young Alexios in 1081 to demand the throne for himself and to comprehend his eventual success." Without Bryennios piece of information that kept the Komnenoi, Alexios I’s parents, John Komnenos and Anna Dalassene,’’ within the circle of the most influential families and serious pretenders to the throne, a crucial ideological link between the reign of the first Komnenos, Isaac I, and Alexios’ aspiration for the imperial crown in 1081 would be missing, especially regarding the position and the role of more powerful family of the Doukai, who could base their claim to the imperial crown on more solid arguments.
But we will return to Bryennios'’ story later in the text, as well as to the same author’s tale about the upbringing in Constantinople of the future emperor Isaac and his brother John. What is of primary interest for us, though, is the place the Komnenoi had in Constantinople, their behavior in, and influence on the Byzantine capital from the first time they were mentioned in the sources in direct connection with the Queen of Cities, how they used the structures and the fabrics of the capital or how they influenced the development of Constantinople, before and after they metamorphosed into a dominant, vast and ramified imperial family.
The first (?) generation in Constantinople: the Komnenoi of the Peira
The decades after the long reign of Basil II were marked by a strong reshuffling within Byzantine society. The Byzantine short 11th century — the period between 1025 and Alexios Komnenos accession to the throne - witnessed a change in the structure and hierarchy of the Byzantine aristocracy, the outcome of which determined the balance of power in the empire in the centuries that followed. The impression that the death of Basil II opened wider cracks in the system, which enabled new families to flood the highest circles of the state administration, although certainly exaggerated to a degree, could be supported by the rise of new families, who drew their power and influence principally from familial solidarity.
The “Paphlagonians’, John Orphanotrophos, Michael IV and their three brothers, who had risen to power gradually strengthening their hold on the imperial court in the 1020s and early 1030s, are typical examples of the new solidarity by blood that characterized the new families from the higher strata of Byzantine society, distinguishing those who could rely on the support of the relatives from others, who were forced to search for the alliances outside the family circle, as was the case with the most powerful eunuchs from the court of Basil II’s. The significance of the success of the “Paphlagonians” lay primarily in the confirmation of both the significant restructuring of Byzantine society at the beginning of the 11th century and of the fact that the family became the nucleus from which its members drew their power, with relatives invariably becoming the closest political associates. For the “Paphlagonians” themselves the major setback was the fact that three of the five brothers were eunuchs (John Orphanotrophos, Constantine, George) - with Michael IV being married to the empress Zoe and suffering from epilepsy, and Niketas who died probably already during 1034 - and that they were thus unable to create a strong and functional familial network on which they could rely."®
While the collective family attempt of the “Paphlagonians” to obtain the total dominance in the empire ultimately failed, the activities of one of the brothers in Constantinople, the nobelissimos Constantine,’ offer an interesting and valuable insight into the habitudes [mores] and attitudes of the most prominent and most powerful members of the Byzantine elite in the 1030s and 1040s, exactly at the time when we find the first documentary mention of the Komnenoi in the capital. The nobelissimos Constantine was the staunchest, and eventually the only supporter of his sister’s son Michael V within the family of the “Paphlagonians’, insomuch that his destiny was inseparably intertwined with that of his ambitious nephew. In the description of the revolt in the capital in April 1042 that brought the short, four-month long rule of Michael V to an end, Constantine emerges as the energetic hardliner of the family, who had at his disposal some private troops, with which he rushed to the Great Palace in order to assist his nephew.”° Since we lack any additional information it is hard to assess the number, the strength, and the quality of these troops, but John Skylitzes provided another detail which could be of even greater interest to us. According to Skylitzes’ account, Constantine's residence, his oikos, was situated in the vicinity of the Holy Apostles, and it was there that he had kept his private troops too, as well as a great amount of gold.”* Although the more precise location of the nobelissimos Constantine's oixoc cannot be ascertained, this example confirms the prominence and even the fame of the neighborhood around the Holy Apostles and its attractiveness for the well-off upstarts in the 1030s.
One of the reasons for the Komnenian preference for this part of Constantinople, limited by the northern branch of Mese near the Valens’ aqueduct, the Golden Horn and the Blachernai, could be sought after in the character this neighborhood acquired in the decades before their rise to power. Equally important, the Pantokrator complex was erected on maybe the most prominent spot within this quarter.
It is thanks to the invaluable information contained in the collection of the decisions of one Eustathios Rhomaios, judge and magistros, known as the Peira that we have the evidence of the first Komnenoi in Constantinople in the 1030s, exactly at the time when the nobelissimos Constantine’s oikos near the Holy Apostles was functioning.” We learn that, most probably during the latter years of the reign of Romanos Argyros there was an 18-year old son of the Komnenos in Constantinople, and that he was officially engaged to the daughter of the protospatharios Elijah, and the engagement approved by the emperor.’ Some time later,”* however, this Komnenos who is now referred to simply as 6 Kopvnvoc,”* tried to cancel the engagement, and eventually succeeded under the pretext that he was underage at the time the engagement deal was brokered, but not before paying the enlarged sum than previously agreed upon for such an eventuality. Apart from testifying for the relatively high position of the Komnenoi in Constantinople in the 1030s which placed them in the same stratum as the protospatharioi,”° the Peira bears witness that a Komnenos (the father of the 18-year old boy whose engagement had been arranged), had bought a property (t6 KTHMa Tapa tis KavucAtvys), which he gave as a part of the engagement deal before he died.*” Whether the property this Komnenos had bought should be situated in the neighborhood of the monastery tou Kanikleiou in the southwestern part of the city is hard to tell. The Komnenoi were certainly well established in Constantinople in the 1030s but it is not possible to determine where precisely was the center of their family, where their oikos at the time was situated.
The generation of Isaac and John Komnenos
Nikephoros Bryennios fairytale-like story about two orphan brothers, Isaac and John, growing up in the monastery of Stoudios under the protective eye of the emperor Basil II confirms, if anything, the uncertainty about the family’s origins, its earliest history, and the whereabouts of the first generations of the Komnenoi in Constantinople already at the time when Bryennios was writing his History, in the years between 1118 and 1136/8.”* Apart from being Anna Komnene’s husband, the wise Nikephoros Bryennios was also the first family historian of the Komnenoi, entrusted by the then ex-empress Eirene Doukaina with the difficult task of explaining Alexios’ (and her) pivotal role in the rise of the Komnenoi, and their establishment on the imperial throne. Notwithstanding all these aggravating circumstances, Bryennios’ story bears witness to the Komnenian connection with the capital, to the fact, known for certain from the Peira that by the fourth decade of the 11th century the family of the Komnenoi was firmly established in Constantinople. Curious as it is, Bryennios’ account remains the only attempt to write the early history of this imperial family: for the generation to which Nikephoros Bryennios belonged and for those that followed, the history of the Komnenoi began with the reign of Alexios.
The already blurred notion of the first generations of the Komnenoi in Constantinople from the time when Bryennios wrote his History ceases to be a theme of the Byzantine poets, historians and rhetoricians close to different members of the ramified imperial family in the 1130s and onwards, as a topic politically completely irrelevant, in the same manner as it was of no interest for Anna Komnene, and her version of Alexios’ rise to power and the account of the events from his long reign. In Anna’s Alexiad there is no special, emphasized connection of her ancestors to the capital, and the only reference to the origins or the early history of the family isfound in a passage where she relates her father’s visit to Kastamon.” Constantinople finds its place in Anna’s narrative primarily as the setting in which events take place, which is most apparent in a lively and almost theatrical description of the nocturnal adventures of her father and her uncle Isaac, and the escape of the Komnenian women to Hagia Sophia.*°
The main problem in analyzing both Bryennios’ and Anna Komnene’s narrative as far the descriptions of Constantinople are concerned, lies in the fact that they were both Constantinopolitans,** and that the scarce and circumstantial mention of the capital in their historical works could be considered more as reflections of their perception of Constantinople of the 12th century, the capital's structures and the fabrics of their own time when the Komnenoi dominated the city’s life and its development in every aspect. The relationship of the Komnenoi with and their status in Constantinople before Alexios’ accession to the throne, or even during his reign in Anna's case, was not among the principal literary concepts of the historical works of the imperial couple, and rightly so: they could not have had a clear image of Constantinople without the Komnenoi, and the fact that they - especially Anna - let so little of their knowledge about contemporary, 12th century Constantinople protrude into their narrative testifies to the seriousness of their attempt to present a persuasive historical discourse.
We shall return now to Bryennios’ story about the young days of the future emperor Isaac and his brother John in Constantinople, and examine it in more detail, because, according to the family’s first historian, it constitutes the essence of the Komnenian connection with the Empire and its capital. Unlike the encomiastic excurse by Michael Attaleiates about the brave deeds, military prowess and victories of his hero’s ancestors who helped the emperor Basil II destroy the enemies in the West and in the East, Bryennios begins his History with a tale about the upbringing of the two young Komnenoi orphans in Constantinople.** The first two chapters of Bryennios’ Material of History are dedicated primarily to the positioning of two young Komnenoi within the closest circle of the emperor Basil II, whose personality and reign were held in the highest esteem by many in posterior generations, not least by Bryennios’ admired predecessor and historiography-wise role model, Michael Psellos, from whose Chronography he had drawn heavily.** To this goal, Bryennios emphasizes the patronage of the emperor Basil II over the young Komnenoi and the provisions he had made for their military upbringing, choosing the Stoudios monastery as their quarters in the capital, both because it was important for their spiritual education, and, in the first place, because in that way the brothers could easily leave the city to go hunting and training.**
Informative as it seems, both regarding the habitudes of the Byzantine aristocracy and the capital’s topography, Bryennios’ story cannot be verified by any other source. The circumstance that Isaac Komnenos had retired to the Stoudios monastery in November 1059 after leaving the imperial crown to Constantine Doukas, and died in this important urban center not long afterwards, does not help us select with absolute surety one of the ways in which Bryennios’ story could be interpreted:
— as an indication that Isaac’s connection with the monastery sprung from his youth, or
- that Bryennios invented Isaac's youthful association with the Stoudios, knowing that that was where the emperor had ended his life.
The external arguments which could be utilized as assistance are equally ambiguous, on top of being scarce to the point of almost non-existence: on the one hand, there are no sources confirming Isaac’s relationship with the Stoudios monastery before or during his reign; on the other hand, Basil II’s strong, and well confirmed ties with Stoudios in the latter years of his life, provides Bryennios’ entire story with a sense of plausibility due to its correct placement in an adequate historical context of the early 11th century Constantinople, making it hard to simply discard it as a complete, and much later invention of the learned caesar.*°
The marriages of Isaac and John with Ekaterina of Bulgaria, the daughter of Samuel's nephew John Vladislav,*° and Anna Dalassene, respectively, testify to their relatively high position, similar to that described by Bryennios, and, without doubt, a mark of the emperor being, at the very least, the nominal marriage broker. In summing up the early history of the Komnenoi in Constantinople it should be stressed that apart from the above facts little more can be concluded with any certainty about the association of the family with the capital in the generation of Isaac and John, Anna Dalassene included, about their household (oikog) in the city or parts of Constantinople they had had land in or buildings or other special interests.
The oikos of the Komnenian family and the first foundations
A hypothesis by Magdalino’’ — brilliant in its forward-leaping reasoning — that the Komnenian family house, the house of John Komnenos and Anna Dalassene could have been the “palace” of the sebastokrator Isaac that his eldest son John transformed into the monastery of Christ Euergetes, appears very probable, although Magdalino himself** raised doubts whether this could be taken for certain, when he analyzed Anna Komnene’s account of the nightly adventures of Alexios’ and Isaac’s during their flight from the City (February 14, 1081). By combining Anna’s narrative with the potential identification of a sebastokrator Isaac who owned a huge house near the port of Julian with the first sebastokrator Isaac, Alexios elder brother,” Magdalino lays out the possibility that that was the house of the sebastokrator Isaac and in that way the Komnenian family house at the time before Alexios’ accession to the throne. Eventually, Magdalino opted for the identification of the site of the later monastery Christ Euergetes (today Gil camii) with the sebastokrator Isaac’s and the Komnenian family house. Regarding the house Isaac apparently received from the emperor Nikephoros Botaneiates see further text.*°
Following Anna’s account*’ that Alexios and Isaac, together with the Komnenian women had walked to the Constantine’s Forum where they have split up - the brothers going in the direction of the Blachernai, the women towards Hagia Sophia, it would indeed be more logical to assume as their point of departure a location in the southern-southwestern part of Constantinople, as Magdalino rightly stressed, in order to avoid Alexios and Isaac going the longer way round and even crossing a part of the way twice. Anna Komnene relates further how the Komnenian women led by Anna Dalassene rushed to the small church of St Nicholas adjacent to Hagia Sophia
and the asylum it offered, simultaneously with the escape of Alexios and Isaac from Constantinople, and their practically open rebellion from that moment on. Zonaras, whose information about the Komnenoi in general usually differs from Anna’, gives a sequel to the story about the Komnenian women, different from Anna’ story that the emperor Botaneiates sent the Komnenian women headed by Anna Dalassene to the Petrion monastery.** According to Zonaras, the emperor Nikephoros Botaneiates transferred the women from Hagia Sophia to the monastery tou Kanikleiou, in order to prevent them from communicating with the rebels (iva uy gxotev mpdc Tovs anootatroavtas StarepmtéoBat).** The monastery tod Kavuc\eiov, as far as we know, was situated in the south-southwestern part of the city near the Sea of Marmara,** and it is interesting to consider whether it could have been easier for Botaneiates to watch over the Komnenian women in that neighborhood than in the always problematic Hagia Sophia with its huge premises and famous labyrinth-like structures, or in the monastery of Petrion, in the vicinity of the Blachernai palace.
Botaneiates was after all the second ktetor of the monastery of Theotokos Peribleptos in the western part of Constantinople, on the western branch of Mese, and he could have had a tighter control over the net of communication in the neighborhood in which he was the main patron at the time (he retired, in the end to the Peribleptos monastery**). Zonaras’ account of the deeds of the Komnenoi is always provocative with hardly, or even not concealed criticism at all, but his narration is nevertheless very significant, and his wording is usually carefully chosen (see only his toying with the term apostasia, that acquired greater significance after the reconstruction of the original text of the Alexiad by D. R. Reinsch,*® when it became obvious that Anna herself had used apostasia almost exclusively to describe her father’s takeover of power). Zonaras says*’ that after securing the power in Constantinople, the Komnenoi dispatched their mother and their wives from the monastery ta Kanikleiou to the palace ("H8n & év dogadet yeyovotec oi Kopvnvoi kai tiv untépa op@v Kal Tac OpEevveTtidac ek Tis Lovis TOU KavicAgiov mpdc ta Baciheta peteoteiAavto). It would seem, following Zonaras’ account, that the Komnenoi brothers had waited for the things in Constantinople to calm down before sending for their mother and wives, in order to move them from the distant part of the city to the palace — the Great Palace or, more probably the Blachernai, which meant that they had to cross a major part of the capital in which the rampage of Alexios’ troops and supporters lasted three days. Anna Komnene, on the other hand, leaves the narrative about the Komnenian women half-finished, without the exact explanation as to how they had departed from the Petrion monastery where they were confined after Alexios’ conquest of power, just mentioning that the Komnenoi went to greet their mother, soon after entering the city.** Anna essentially jumps over to the storyline important to her - about her former fiancée Constantine Doukas and his mother, the empress Maria of Alania, and the problem of her mother’s coronation.”
On the other hand, Alexios’ parents John and Anna Dalassene are most probably identical with John Komnenos and Anna Doukaina who founded, according to a now lost inscription, the monastery of Christ Pammakaristos in Constantinople, the first new monastery founded by members of the Komnenos family.*° It is unknown when this foundation took place, but this may well have happened before Isaac came to power in 1057. The Pammakaristos monastery, of which the church still stands, though with later additions and in a rather disfigured form,”’ lay in the north-western part of Constantinople, the future “Komnenian quarter” where some time later the monasteries of Pantepoptes, Philanthropos and Kecharitomene, and finally the Pantocrator were built.
What is certain is that the Komnenoi were firmly established in Constantinople, and remained with significant influence after the death of John Komnenos on July 12, 1067, and even during the reign of Michael Doukas.** We have to wait for the generation of the future emperor Alexios and his elder brother Isaac to mature, before we gain more insight into the life of the Komnenoi in Constantinople. In the narrative of Bryennios’ Material of History, however, the confirmation that the Komnenoi had come to represent one of the leading yévot in the City lay in the fact that the father of the future emperor Alexios, the protobestiarios John, could have easily become the emperor, had he acquiesced to become his brother’s successor.
The handing over of the crown from Isaac Komnenos to Constantine Doukas represents the other pillar of Komnenian imperial legitimacy in Nikephoros Bryennios’ Material of History, and the author’s (or perhaps even the benefactor’s’, the exEmpress Eirene Doukaina and Bryennios’ wife, Anna Komnene’s?) firmest argument to support Alexios’ right to claim the throne for himself.** As already mentioned above, following strictly Bryennios’ account, it could be concluded that a kind of family government of the Komnenoi was in existence in Constantinople already at the time of the reign of Isaac Komnenos (September 1/4, 1057 - November 22, 1059), with the crucial evidence being the ailing emperor's offer to his young brother, the protobestiarios John, to accept the imperial crown.** Given its uniqueness, Bryennios story of John Komnenos decline to carry on the Komnenian family rule was mainly accepted by the scholars, even if with caution.** Bryennios’ narrative that presupposes the Komnenian influence in the capital to have been at a much higher level than could be ascertained by an analysis of both the other sources and the historical context of mid-eleventh century Byzantium and its capital, should be reassessed and regarded as not much more than an invention of the later generations, eager to bring forward the agenda of, at the time described in the narrative, the lesser family line of the Komnenoi. Whether it was a plain invention by Nikephoros Bryennios himself, who just switched the roles, and inverted Michael Psellos’ narrative from the Chronography, or whether he was presenting an exaggerated version of a family legend already in existence at the time when he was writing the Material of History is of lesser significance.
Both the difference with the accounts of other historians, and the similarity of Bryennios and Psellos’ scene (with only changed protagonists) was rightly stressed by the editor of the Material of History, Paul Gautier.*° In his parallel narrative, Psellos mentioned, without naming them, the emperor's brother John and a nephew (Theodoros Dokeianos), but only as mourners, rushed to what everybody supposed would be the emperor's death bed.*” There is not a single allusion in Psellos’ account that Isaac’s successor could have been his brother John, and the harsh words that Bryennios ascribes to Anna Dalassene in his historical work, resound in tone the angry criticism of the empress Ekaterina addressed to Psellos himself.** The official letter announcing the change on the imperial throne was also, it seems, composed by Michael Psellos, and it bears witness to the gradual takeover of power by Constantine Doukas, and to the interdependence of the allies who expelled the emperor Michael VI in the coup of 1057.°°
Even if the protobestiarios John was at the first opposed to the election of Doukas - as it could be surmised after Gautier’s correction of the otherwise quite unclear passage in the text - that could hardly be taken to mean that he was a candidate for the crown, since he was mentioned in the Chronography, as well, as present near Isaac at the Blachernai palace when the problem of his heir was being discussed, but that would rather strengthen the impression that there was no place for John in the new government of Constantine Doukas. On the other hand, the peculiar affinity of Bryennios to “revise” the history in order to either give strength to his argument or, primarily, to obtain a more positive judgment on his ancestors is well known. Bryennios °° three most obvious personal reasons for presenting the relationship of the two brothers in such a manner could be named here, apart from his evident borrowing from Psellos, as being: firstly, that it was important to stress the virtues of the ancestor of the current ruling line of the Komnenoi, who in the ovyxptoig with Isaac emerged as the better warrior, with a charming personality and political skill that drew supporters and even “barbarians” to his side; secondly, praising John Komnenos’ military and political prowess, Bryennios demonstrated the advantage the younger brother had over the elder, in much the same manner as Alexios’ talent and successes, on top of his marriage with Eirene Doukaina, made him more suitable for the imperial crown than his elder brother Isaac;** and lastly, the way by which John displayed political prudence in a very sensitive moments in November 1059, greatly resembled Nikephoros Bryennios himself, whose cautiousness in a similar situation did deprive him and his wife Anna of the imperial crown, but contributed to the more general impression in Constantinople that he was wise not only regarding the letters but in political matters too.
What matters primarily is the clear impression that at the moment of Isaac Komnenos’ withdrawal from the throne his brother John and his young family line were much less influential in the Byzantine capital than Bryennios (and the later Komnenoi of Alexios line) wanted us to believe.
It is not quite clear what the political destiny of the protobestiarios John was after his brother’s withdrawal from the throne. Although he is not mentioned as a participant in any action of relative significance or as a dignitary in the regime of the Doukai brothers, his early death on July 12, 1067 does not allow a constructive estimation of his position or activities in Constantinople between 1059 and 1067. The relationship with the ruling family of the Doukai might not have been as hostile as later presented through Anna Dalassene’s enmity and political grudge against them, and accepted by modern scholarship.®* Barzos’ estimative proposition that the eldest son of John and Anna Dalassene, Manuel, was born around 1045, and the second Isaac around 1050 (with Alexios being born in 1056/7) does not seem com- pletely convincing. That would make Manuel around 26 years of age at the time of his death in Bithynia in 1071, and it would be prudent to bring forward his birth by a couple of years, since Manuel's daughter was already betrothed to the emperor Nikephoros Botaneiates’ grandson (although Anna uses the term yauBpdc for him) at the beginning of 1081.°* Since Manuel died in 1071 his daughter could not have been around three years old in 1081.°*
The generation of Alexios Komnenos and the sebastokrator Isaac
The victorious entry into Constantinople on Easter Thursday, April 1, 1081 of Alexios and Isaac Komnenoi, and the three-day pillaging of the City by the troops that had supported Alexios’ bid for the imperial crown, marked the beginning of a new era for the Komnenoi, for the Empire in general, and for the relationship of the now ruling yévoc regarding Constantinople. Byzantium’ “short eleventh century” that started after Basil II’s death in December 1025, had its symbolical end with the overthrow of the emperor Nikephoros Botaneiates who in his deeds and attitudes followed his eleventh century predecessors, exemplified in his renovation of Romanos III Argyros’ monastery of Theotokos Peribleptos, of which he became the second ktetor and in the seclusion of whose walls he had ended his life. Maybe consciously attaching himself to the emperors from the previous generation, the generation that had enjoyed a period of peace before the seemingly incessant civil wars started, Nikephoros Botaneiates attached himself much more closely to the immediate successors of Basil II and Constantine VIII than to his real predecessors, who, from Isaac Komnenos onwards, did not show a particular interest in leaving their visible, physical mark on Constantinople through churches, monasteries or other buildings.°° The Komnenoi would, over the next three generations, essentially transform the character of the City, both regarding the imperial and ceremonial side of the capital, and the more private, although highly ideologically coloured expressions of beliefs and attitudes by the emperor and the members of the vast imperial family. However, it was a process that developed gradually, with every subsequent generation upgrading the previous concepts by adding its own ambitions, and the values and ideas of their times.
Once in power in Constantinople the Komnenoi immediately proceeded to strengthen their position. The confusion of the first weeks after Alexios’ coronation, chiefly marked by the attempts of the emperor's mother Anna Dalassene to thwart the influence of the Doukas family that would allow them to dominate the new regime,”’ was swiftly forgotten and followed by the creation of a three-headed government in which, along with the new emperor, his elder brother Isaac participated with the new, highest dignity of sebastokrator coined for him personally, and their mother Anna Dalassene, who actually held all the reins of power both within the governing family, and as widely in the Empire as possible.
A sort of scanning of the situation in Constantinople immediately after the Komnenian conquest of the imperial throne with the aim of tracing the distribution of the properties and wealth among the new ruling family is almost as impossible a task as determining the starting position of the Komnenoi in these aspects on the eve of Alexios and Isaac’s rebellion. The sources, or rather the lack of them, are to blame for our inability to probe more deeply into the organization of the Komnenian family in those times and the structures of Constantinople that engendered the new generation of the Byzantine elite. To the possibilities discussed above, that the family house of the Komnenoi could have been situated either at the site of the later monastery of Christ Evergetes on the slope of the hill near the Golden Horn, or that it was actually Alexios’ brother Isaac who owned a palace near the port of Julian,®* should be added a curious and to some extent overlooked record by Nikephoros Bryennios, who stated that the future sebastokrator Isaac Komnenos received a house within the palace from the emperor Nikephoros Botaneiates.®” With Bryen- nios’ story, however, not being verifiable, it is doubtful whether Isaac, and the family of the Komnenoi through him, did acquire a house within (or adjacent to?) either the Great palace or the Blachernai palace, which would have positioned them politically, and topographically, much more conveniently both before and after their takeover of power in 1081. On the other hand, the Komnenian preference for the Blachernai palace and the region stretching south of it to the site of the Pantokrator complex-tobe is well-known and soundly evidenced, and there is no need to reiterate it here.”
Link
Press Here
0 التعليقات :
إرسال تعليق