Download PDF | Charles M. Brand - Byzantium Confronts the West, 1180-1204-Harvard University Press (1968).
406 Pages
PREFACE
‘Tue climactic event of Byzantine history is the capture of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. At first sight, the decision of the crusade’s leaders to assist the exiled Prince Alexius appears to have been the result of their financial difficulties and the prince’s fortuitous arrival in Italy. From that point they seem to advance by unplanned steps to the seizure of the city for themselves.
If their actions are placed against the background of previous Byzantine-Western relations, however, they may assume a different aspect. All elements in the crusade—French and Flemish knights, the Marquess of Montferrat, his friend Philip of Swabia, the Venetians, and Pope Innocent II himself—had directly or indirectly been in contact with Byzantium. They had reasons to like or dislike, woo or scorn the government at Constantinople, Consciously or unconsciously, their course was governed by their ideas and feelings.
The purpose of this book is to analyze the relations between Western Europe and the Byzantine Empire from 1180 to 1204; some of the underlying motivations of the Fourth Crusade will thus become evident.
To understand the attitudes of the empire toward the West and its weakness in the face of the crusade, we must look at internal conditions. In 1180 Manuel Comnenus died, leaving the reins of power to an cleven-year-old son and his mother. From that moment, Byzantine fortunes sink ever downward. The last Comneni and the Angeli emperors inherited all the troubles of an aging social system and few of the talents needed to rescue a state. Their policies, efforts, and encounters with Western powers form the burden of this history.
In the text that follows, strange titles abound: “protosebastos,” “protostrator,” ‘‘cacsar,” “megaduke,” and the like. Some, like “ protosebastos,” were honorary and meaningless; those which indicate true responsibility have been defined in the text. One recurring set may be briefly noted: the commander of the Byzantine army in the Balkans was the “domestic of the west,” and troops in Asia Minor were led by the “domestic of the east”; when these two posts were held by the same man, he was designated the “‘great domestic.” For further information, the reader is referred to the second volume of Le monde byzantin, by Louis Bréhier, and to the various works of Franz Délger and Rodolphe Guilland.
More confusing is the plethora of similar names. Between 1180 and 1204 the emperors Alexius I, Alexius II, Alexius IV, and Alexius V reigned; furthermore, a number of persons pretended to be the deceased Alexius II, Isaac Angelus ruled at Constantinople simultaneously with Isaac Comnenus on Cyprus. Two important government servants bore the name John Dukas, whom I have distinguished as John (Angelus) Dukas and John Kamateros Dukas. Between 1180 and 1204, five persons were called “John Kamateros”’: one became patriarch of Constantinople, one archbishop of Bulgaria (Ochrida), one master of the orators, another logothete of the drome, and the last a minor clerk of the maritime board. The Comnenus family displayed little originality in the matter of names: Joha, Alexius, Isaac, Andronicus, Anna, Theodora, Maria, and Eudocia recur endlessly. In any of the lesser branches, therefore, it is necessary to define the individual’s place in the genealogy. Last names had not yet become fixed or definitely heritable. The attempt to keep individuals separate has led to periphrasis.
In some cases, I have retained something of the original names even when marked contradiction resulted. Thus the reader will encounter the French princess Marie of Antioch and the Byzantine princess Maria Comnena. Furthermore, foreigners were given new names when they intermarried with the imperial family: Marie of Antioch, for example, became Empress Xena. I have followed an established convention in hyphenating such names, placing the foreign element first: Marie-Xena, Renier-John. Byzantine sources use the new name, Latin sources the old.
Spelling of proper names and titles has occasioned considerable difficulty. Where an established English form exists (Comnenus, Angelus, John) I have followed it; otherwise, I have striven to transliterate as directly as possible from the Greek. In the Middle Ages, Greek beta was pronounced v, I have usually written it as b, in Branas for instance. But occasionally, for the sake of convention or clarity, I have used v, as in protovestiarios. For Arabic and Turkish names, I have followed forms in the Encyclopaedia of Islam ot the History of the Crusades, edited by K, M. Setton.
This book has been long in the making, and the author has many debts to acknowledge. I particularly thank Harvard University for scholarships; the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection for a Visiting Fellowship in 1961-1962; the American Council of Learned Societies for a grant-in-aid for the preparation of the manuscript; and the libraries and librarians of Harvard, University of California (Berkley), San Francisco State College, Stanford University, University of Pennsylvania, and Bryn Mawr College for much assistance. I am indebted for advice, help, and criticism to many people, including Cyril Mango, Romilly Jenkins, Charles Wood, John Barker, T. Robert S. Broughton, and my father; I am happy to express my gratitude to all of them. | owe much to the Stanford professors of history, especially William C. Bark, who opened to me the path of medieval and Byzantine history. My debt to Professor Robert Lee Wolff of Harvard, under whose guidance this work was commenced, cannot sufficiently be expressed.
Finally, my especial and heartfelt thanks go to my wife, Mary Shorrock Brand, who gave up a promising graduate career to support me through advanced study. She has struggled for long hours with the manuscript of this book:: to dedicate it to her is the least I can do.
Bryn Mawr College CHARLES M. BRAND September 1966
CHAPTER ONE THE STATE AND THE PEOPLE: INHERITED PROBLEMS
Tn 1081 THE BYZANTINE STATE HAD APPEARED ON THE VERGE OF COLLAPSE: invasion and civil strife had almost finished it. Heroic efforts by the first three emperors of the Comnenus family, Alexius I (1081-1118), John II (1118-1143), and Manucl I (1143-1180), had re-established the empire. The Balkans and the coastal regions of Asia Minor had been won again and imperial authority reasserted, although it was now based on the support of great landowners and Italian merchants. This situation, with its problems, was inherited by Manucl’s son Alexius II and his successors.
While the emperor’s autocracy was theoretically unchallenged, he had in practice to respect the position of the aristocracy. The court nobility (chiefly his own relatives) held honorary titles and sometimes great responsibility, especially when military commands were involved; in the provinces, the nobles had vast landholdings and were granted extensive tax-exemptions. The emperor’s freedom of action was likewise limited by the bureaucracy, for Byzantine government in the twelfth century had attained elaborate specialization, and its many departments required extensive staffs and record-keeping. No single official had the tight to be considered head of the administration, but there was often one chief adviser to the emperor. Cooperation or obstruction by the aristocrats and bureaucrats could decide the success of a ruler's policies.!
The governmental activity most vital to the emperor was tax-collection; most of his revenue came from taxes on land, cattle, and hearths. Imperial officials measured and assessed land according to its productivity. The beasts of wandering herdsmen (including Viachs) were taxed, and each household of free peasants owed a sum to the government. These ordinary taxes were supplemented by heavy emergency levies (often in animal labor), which became very commonplace. Certain taxes were required to be paid in gold coins (“‘hyperpers,” of which there were six to the ounce of gold); any change due the taxpayer was returned in silver, so that the ruler was assured an income in gold. Yet the government exempted large numbers of landed magnates from taxation, and numerous wealthy monasteries also enjoyed this privilege. At every harbor ships paid a standard port-due of ten percent, but the Venetians were freed from this tax and many monasteries had exemptions for vessels of limited size. There were also sales taxes, inheritance taxes, and many minor imposts. Yet the needs of the government far outran the normal revenue, so that extraordinary measures had to be taken. Taxfarming became usual, and the oppression and corruption of the collectors were notorious. Open resistance occasionally took place.?
The judicial system was part of the ordinary administration of the empire. Various local and regional judges existed, but provincial governors often assumed jurisdiction. In Constantinople there were several principal courts: Manuel I’s regulation of 1 166 lists four and other documents attest others. The divisions between their spheres of jurisdiction are unclear. The emperor himself could hear any case, turn it over to any court, or establish a special court if he chose. The judges were usually titled “judges of the velum,” from the name of a former court in the Great Palace. Being a judge was not a profession, but was instead an ordinary step (not a very advanced one) in a bureaucrats career. In the late twelfth century, the courts seem primarily to have enforced recent imperial decrees and privileges, rather than such older codes as the Basilics. In the countryside the quality of justice was low; but the courts of the capital strove to act by the letter of the law.>
The army occupied much of the emperor's attention. The Comneni depended for troops on a mixture of great landowners and foreign mercenaries. The core of the army consisted of heavily-armored knights, each of whom required substantial landholdings to maintain himself. The mercenaries included Slavs, Hungarians, Normans, and “Franks” (the generic term for west Europeans), while Scandinavians and AngloSaxons filled the Varangian Guard. The quality of these forces was always dubious: Byzantine soldiers occasionally behaved with courage and discipline, but morale was seldom high, and they sometimes refused. battle. The emperor himself frequently led his men, and in his absence one of his relatives usually assumed command. This expedient helped prevent military revolts, but it did not guarantee victories; as the commanders often proved utterly incompetent, many armies were lost. For naval support the Comneni relied on Venice, until Manuel perceived the untrustworthiness of this prop. He constructed a new fleet of considerable size: in 1169 two hundred Byzantine warships appeared at Damietta in Egypt. This naval force was dissipated by his successors. In 1203, when the Fourth Crusade approached, there were no ships and few soldiers to oppose it. Almost alone, the Varangians defended the city.
Despite the small size of the empire, the provinces had increased in number. Large ones were repeatedly subdivided so that their governors would be too weak to rebel against the emperor. In 1198, Alexius III’s grant of privileges to the Venetians listed over eighty themes and distticts, though it did not include the Black Sea coasts. Relatives of the emperor and members of the great landholding families often governed these districts, frequently combining the office of “‘anagrapheus” (taxassessor) with the governorship. Such officials used their positions to line their pockets, to the great distress of their subjects. Discontent, hostility, and disobedience characterized the inhabitants of the provinces, who saw reforms inaugurated at Constantinople only to be ignored by their governors. The localism of these great magnates tended to withdraw the loyalties of the provinces from the capital.5
In the twelfth century the Byzantine Church was a branch of the government. The patriarch of Constantinople, an imperial appointee, could be dismissed under any pretext; metropolitans (archbishops) and bishops were similarly subject to state control. The emperor had the Tight to express an authoritative opinion on points of docirine, but only with the consent of the synod of bishops. Repeated clashes occurred, with the ruler usually imposing his will. Monasteries, exempt from most public burdens, persistently sought more liberty; but under the exigencies of war the emperors sometimes curtailed their privileges. Certain monasteries called “free” were not controlled by the church itself but were under the emperor's direct jurisdiction. The monks were very influential with the common people, while the secular hierarchy included a number of outstanding men. Eustathius, metropolitan of Thessalonica, was not only the foremost scholar of his age, but assumed secular leadership of his flock when in 1185 the Normans seized the city. Subservient to the state though the church might be, its spiritual and moral powers were far from dead.©
The economy of the Byzantine Empire was more diversified than that of medieval Western Europe. Agriculture occupied the bulk of the population, but grain-growing did not dominate the landscape as it did in the West. Much of the terrain was better suited to grazing than plowing, so that sheep-raising was widely practiced. Vineyards and olive groves were extensive, and in the Peloponnesus silk worms flourished on mulberry leaves. Byzantine agriculture was never subsistence farming, for there was always an urban market. In addition to the large cities, Constantinople and Thessalonica, there were numerous smaller towns (Thebes, Corinth, Nauplia, Philadelphia, Tralles, to name but a few) whose inhabitants could purchase the products of the countryside. Furthermore, oil, wine, and even grain were sold to Westerners for export. The sea’s harvest supplemented that of the land: at or near Constantinople there were said to have been sixteen hundred fishing boats, each of which paid a tax of a gold coin every fortnight. Agricultural and fishery profits fell chiefly to the great landlords, including the monasteries.”
The towns of the empire were the scene of an active handicraft industry. While simple items for everyday use made up the bulk of this manufacture, surviving sources speak chiefly of luxury goods. Silk and brocades were regularly exported to the West; Thebes in Boeotia rivaled the capital in their production. In metalwork, jewelry, and ivory carving, Byzantium excelled all but the Arabic world. Many of the workers were Jewish: in 1167, Benjamin of Tudela, traveling through the empire, found substantial colonies of Jewish artisans in the capital and chief towns. The finest products were still reserved for the court or used for diplomatic gifts, but Latin merchants exported all they could. Banking techniques were inadequately developed: Byzantine citizens customarily deposited their wealth in monasteries for safekeeping. Yet, merchant bankers similar to the founders of the great Italian houses did exist. Around 1200, one such, Kalomodios, barely escaped fleecing by the court.®
Nevertheless, Byzantine commercial prosperity was seriously impaired in the twelfth century by Italian traders, whom the Byzantines termed “Latins.” The Venetians had received extensive privileges from Alexius 1; Pisans and Genoese eventually rivaled them. Large numbers of Italian merchants came to settle in the empire. (Eustathius speaks of sixty thousand in Constantinople in 1182, but this figure is not to be trusted.) The Italians prospered because of their exemption from most taxes, which enabled them to undersell their Byzantine rivals. Nor did the Latins limit themselves to commerce: once established in the empire, they took a share in industry as well. To the Byzantines they seemed to be sucking the empire’s heart-blood.?
In spite of the prevalence of Latin shipping, not all Byzantine vessels were driven from the seas. The Black Sea in particular remained their preserve: Andronicus Comnenus gathered a fleet in Pontus with which to attack Constantinople; Alexius ILI found it profitable to raid commerce there, partly to destroy Turkish ships sailing from Aminsos (modern Samsun). As to the Aegean, the metropolitan of Athens, Michael Choniates, pointed out on one occasion to a high imperial official the entire dependence of that city on maritime trade. A few years Jater, he casually alluded to a ship from Monembasia—a detail showing the continued existence of coastal trade in the Aegean, in spite of the large number of pirates there. Finally, when the men of the Fourth Crusade began serious attacks against Alexius IV on 1 December 1203‘. . . they seized in the harbor many ships of the Greeks, laden with many wares and food.”!0
Tweifth-century Byzantine society was elaborately structured, but class boundaries were ill-defined and easily crossed. The court aristocracy, related to the emperor, dominated Constantinople: families such as Dukas and (before 1185) the Angeli belonged to this group. In the provinces, the great landholding families (Branas, Melissenoi, Maurozomes, among others) were dominant. Some of the latter married into the palace nobility; and some courtiers held extensive lands. Further down the ladder were members of the imperial bureaucracy from petty clerks to ministers of state, who also occupied most of the important Positions in the church. Their status gave them great influence; some bureaucratic families (¢.g., the Kamateroi) intermarried with the court aristocracy. Of the city dwellers, especially outside the capital, we know too little. The better-off workers were those organized in guilds. At the base of urban society was a large mass of impoverished artisans and beggars. Outside the towns, a part of the peasantry was still free but the remainder had become virtual serfs to the great landowners."
Into this hierarchy the Latins came as intruders, although some of them could be fitted into the structure. Frankish mercenaries were a numerous and accepted part of the army and even of the emperor's personal guard. Manuel I’s fondness for Western knights was widely known; he was supposed to have preferred their steadfast courage to the treachery and cowardice of his own subjects. In the court itself Latins were prominent. Noble exiles, especially from the Kingdom of Sicily, found a ready reception in Constantinople, where they served as envoys to Western powers. Manuel successively married two Latin princesses, Bertha of Sulzbach and Marie of Antioch, and for his son and his daughter, he chose wife and husband from the West. Learned men such as the Pisan brothers Hugo Eterianus and Leo Tuscus found lifelong occupation in the Byzantine bureaucracy. These elements of the population did not compete with the natives; thus they were not unwelcome,|2
The position of the Italian merchants was quite different. In massive numbers, accompanied by Catholic priests and monks, they lived crowded in quarters along the Golden Horn, although some scattered to houses in the rest of the city. Intermarriage was frequent between the Byzantines and Latins, and binding friendships were known: in his hour of greatest peril, Nicetas Choniates and his family were sheltered by a Venetian merchant. The mass of Byzantines, however, were bitterly hostile to the Latins, deeming them schismatics or worse, and resenting their tax-exemptions and their wealth. Byzantine and Westerner despised one another for language, degree of civilization, and customs. The emperor strove to ensure the loyalty of the Latins by making them “ burgesses,” or oath-bound subjects of the Byzantine state. The situation was explosive: the authority of Manuel Comnenus alone held it in check.13
‘The city of Constantinople, the heart of the empire, was a scene of violent contrasts. The aristocracy and upper middle class dwelt in spacious townhouses clustered near the Great Palace at the eastern point of the city, around the new Comnenian palace of Blachernai at the opposite extreme, and along the main street, the Mese, toward the Golden Gate. The most prominent monuments of the city were the numerous churches, dominated by Sancta Sophia, many of which were attached to monasteries. The Hippodrome was still a center of political life: the citizens might riot there against the emperor, or the emperor use it as a place to punish alleged enemies of the state. Other public buildings served the needs of the greatest capital in the world, In this setting, the upper classes lived in splendor and luxury."
Far different was the lot of the poor. Aside from the main thoroughfares, the streets of the city were narrow and dark, and the wooden houses of workers and beggars posed a constant threat of fire. The artisans, depressed by Western competition, sometimes used their guild organization to defend themselves from the government. The impover- ished mass of beggars led a hand-to-mouth existence, in perpetual uncertainty and discontent, Drunkenness, prostitution, and criminal violence were rife. By the latter part of the century, the situation had developed to such an extent that demagogues spontaneously appeared, each of whom js said to have been a veritable king among the people of his district, Hatred of the Latins gave unity and direction to the populace. Once Manuel’s restraining hand was gone, the mob became a factor in politics.!$
Outside the cities, life was dominated by the great landowners. Since the ninth century families rich in land had sprung up in all parts of the Byzantine Empire. Between 1071 and 1097 the Anatolian landowners, formerly the wealthiest and most prominent, had been swept away by the Seljuk Turkish flood. Reconquest by the Comneni permitted their partial re-establishment. When, about 1196, a magnate of the town of Antiocheia on the Maeander celebrated his daughter’s wedding, the festivities were so lavish and noisy that a Turkish force seeking to surprise the place by night was frightened off. In the Balkan provinces, wealthy families remained deeply entrenched despite disturbances during the early years of Alexius [’s reign. The estates of such clans as Branas, concentrated around Adrianople, were enormous. Individual families clung together, supporting theit leading members and acting only after consultation, Marriage alliances and family agreements lay at the base of much Byzantine political strife. As they themselves had sprung from landowners, the Comneni appreciated the significance of the class, Alexius I devised a new series of titles honoring those who intermarried with the imperial family, so actively was that practice encouraged, Military careers had long been the custom for members of landowning families; under the Comneni this continued. At the end of the century, the historian Nicetas Choniates refers to the nobles as “those of blood.”!6 This concept of nobility-by-descent marked a completed change.
The magnates owed their position to inherited property, but in the Comnenian period they received much additional land from the government. These grants, available to foreigners as well as natives, were termed “pronoiai” (literally “ provisions”) and consisted of estates worked by peasants and awarded in return for military service. The state was chronically short of soldiers, especially armored cavalrymen, and each pronoiarios (holder of a pronoia) was required to furnish one or more fighting men. Although such grants had originated in the eleventh century the Comneni were the first to make extensive use of them. Indeed, the native part of the Comnenian army was comprised chiefly of pronoiarioi. In theory, the pronoia was temporary—for the lifetime of the holder or less. But in practice it tended to become hereditary, although the distinction between ancestral family lands and pronoiai was maintained. The great landlords, greedy for still more land, eagerly sought pronoiai from the government. As a substantial part of their holdings consisted of pronoiai, they would not permit any regime to alter this arrangement. Their landed wealth was thus vastly increased at the expense of the government; and they were able to obtain numerous soldiers for use in rebellions, The pronoiai, it may be noted, differed in several ways from western fiefs. No subdivision (subinfeudation) was permitted, nor did the pronoiarios ordinarily take an oath of fealty to the emperor. By the latter part of the twelfth century, the pronoia was the fundamental social institution of the countryside.!7
The behavior of the landed magnates suited their wealth and independence. On occasion, they manipulated the machinery of local government. Near the end of the century, for example, Alexius Kapandrites, a magnate of the western Balkans, seized a wealthy widow who was returning to her parents and compelled her to marry him. This act was doubly illegal, not only on account of the violence employed but also because they were related within the prohibited degree. Yet Kapandrites induced the archons (chief men) of the region, who were his relatives, and the local bishop to certify that no force had been exerted. Landowners, who utilized their official positions to increase their wealth, frequently preyed upon the broad monastic lands. Thus, John Karantenos, “primikerios” (administrator or chancellor) of the Theme of Mylassa and Melanudion in southwest Asia Minor, rented a piece of property from the monks of St. Paul on Mount Latros. He then refused. to pay the rent or restore the property; furthermore, his heirs retained it after him. Even imperial intervention failed to gain a speedy restitution. Such open defiance of the law, successfully carried out, betokened the breakdown of central authority in the empire.'®
‘The success of such acts of violence encouraged the landowners to go further toward complete separation from the empire. After the death of Manuel Comnenus, rulers were weak and insecure. Constantinople, rent by factionalism and attempted coups against the throne, exhibited little interest in the well-being of provincials. Consequently, when a rich magnate determined to strike out on his own, he could count on support from lesser landholders, the rural populace, and the inhabitants of small towns. Such local separatism repeatedly manifested itself. Philadelphia, the fortress-city which guarded the upper Maeander Valley, had once been a center of loyalty to the Comnenian dynasty. Yet Theodore Mankaphas in 1188 induced it to rebel, proclaimed himself emperor, struck silver coins in his own name, and seemed about to establish an independent state. Elsewhere in Asia Minor, after the death of Alexius Il, pretenders to his name gained extensive support. The Turkish sultans of Iconium fostered such movements for their own ends. In Greece, Leo Sgoutos made himself independent at Nauplia and gradually extended his power over Corinth and Thebes. The rebellion of the Viach magnates Peter and Asen differed from similar movements only in that they could appeal to the nationalism of the populace and draw ‘on memories of the First Bulgarian Empire. Thus they were able to enlist followers and attain a shadow of legitimacy. The imperial government struggled half-heartedly against this centrifugal pressure.
While the landowners waxed so strong the peasantry could scarcely be prosperous. The free farmers of the tenth century, living in communes which paid taxes directly to the government, were now almost a thing of the past. The ordinary peasant was a “paroikos,” a virtual serf who worked property belonging to a monastery or great landowner. ‘When the land changed hands, the paroikoi went with it. All taxes formerly rendered to state officials were now collected by the land‘owner, who might or might not pass them on to the government. The lowest categories of paroikoi were not subjects of the state, nor did they have access to public courts, They suffered heavily from oppression by their landlords. About 1197 the sultan of Iconium founded a colony for Byzantine refugees near Philomelion, granting broad tax-exemptions and favorable conditions of tenure to its inhabitants. Whole Byzantine communities voluntarily crossed the frontier to live in this demi-paradise, In 1204 Latin conquerors were welcomed in many places; but Byzantium’s former nobles, fleeing in beggary and nakedness from the cccupied capital, were grected with derision by the peasantry. Official efforts at reform had come to nothing; the rural population was alicnated from the empire?
Cultural life in the twelfth century followed class lines. The peasantry, unable to escape from rural bondage, was exposed only to such spiritual life as the church provided in its liturgy; the lower classes revered monks as carthly inhabitants of the heavenly city, and many aspired to enter monasteries at the end of their lives. The aristocracy, on the other hand, lived luxuriously. The feasts and sports of the emperor set the fashion for his leading subjects: banquets were lavish and prolonged, and clowns and acrobats amused the guests. Hunting was an established recreation of the upper class, while, under Manuel, tournaments were introduced from the West.
Outside the capital were pleasant country retreats for the rich. Nicetas complained that the pleasures of Constantinople and the region about the Sea of Marmara captivated the emperors of his age and drew them away from the field of war. He deemed the softness and luxury of the aristocracy one of the chief causes of the empire’s downfall. The upper class was generally well educated; that his audience would be familiar with Homer and the Bible was assumed by every writer. Elaborate orations, filled with learned allusions and phrased in antique style, marked festal occasions. A reproduction of Attic Greek, far removed from the speech of the people, was attempted for use as the literary language. The meeting ground of noble and commoner was superstition: all were devoted to prophets who could foretell what was to come. Astrology, favored in Manuel’s court, retained its popularity under his successors. Doubt and insecurity regarding individual and national survival inspired these earnest attempts to read the future.21
Out of this complex economic and social situation came the beginnings of political parties. The arrival of the Latins as a major force inside the empire precipitated the formation of alliances based on economic interests. The workers and merchants of Constantinople, who felt severely the competition of the tax-free Italians, opposed the Latin element and wished to drive it out of the empire, The great landowners, on the other hand, had found a ready market in the West for their agricultural products, particularly oil and wine, and had come to depend on the Italian merchants for shipping and marketing, The landowners were therefore favorable to the Latins and defended them at court.
The magnates also desired to loosen the bonds of imperial control for the sake of establishing greater local independence; the bureaucracy, to preserve its own authority, opposed such decentralization. The officialdom of the capital was thus drawn into the anti-Latin camp of the city-dwellers, in opposition to the pro-Latin aristocracy of court and countryside.
These two factions were currents of opinion rather than organized political parties, but each espoused a broad plan for the future of the empire. The clash of their views shaped Byzantine political history in the late twelfth century. Once Manuel’s protecting hand was removed, the Italian merchants, storm center of the controversy, were in for a difficult time. But they were far from helpless, and ultimately imposed their will upon a defeated Byzantine Empire.
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