Download PDF | Angold, Michael - A Byzantine Government in Exile_ Government and Society Under the Laskarids of Nicaea, 1204-1261-Oxford University Press (1975).
332 Pages
PREFACE
It can hardly be claimed that the history of the Nicaean Empire has been neglected by Byzantine scholars. Yet the fact remains that the last full-scale history of the period dates from 1912.' This is an admirable narrative history; and it is not my intention to embark upon another narrative history of the Nicaean Empire. The aim of this book is rather to examine its social and administrative structure. This has ‘seemed to me to be.a worthwhile undertaking largely because of the happy conjuncture of the place that the Nicaean Empire holds in the later history of Byzantium and the nature of the sources.
I think that it is true to say that the study of the social and administrative history of the Byzantine Empire during the period of its greatness is hampered by the nature of the sources. Scholars are forced to rely very heavily upon imperial legislation and government handbooks. These sources provide a rather artificial picture of Byzantine society and administration, since they present the government’s idealized view of how they ought to function. It is a bias that is not offset by the other available sources, such as histories, chronicles, and saints’ lives. Documentary sources, which allow us a glimpse of how the machinery of government worked in practice, only begin to survive in any numbers from the mid-eleventh century, and only in substantial quantities after the fall of Constantinople to the Latins in 1204.
Thanks largely to the riches of the cartulary of the monastery of Lemviotissa near Smyrna,” it is possible to examine in some detail the workings of government and society during the period of exile at Nicaea. This is perhaps the first time in Byzantine history that such an undertaking is feasible. There are of course difficulties. The: Lemviotissa cartulary only casts its beam of light on conditions in the region of Smyrna, but to a degree it is possible to use other sources to test how far the picture it gives of "A. Gardner, The Lascarids of Nicaea. The Story of an Empire in Exile, London, 1912. 2 The new edition which Mme H. Ahrweiler has promised for some time now had not appeared at the time of writing.
overnment and society in that district has any general ° application. nes The ‘strengths ‘and weaknesses of the Byzantine Empire are illuminated however weakly at‘a’ crucial period in its history. | One: glimpses the perennial conflict between the forces of ' order ‘represented by the government and an’ underlying instability that derived from the Opposing interests of different social groups..The Empire was restored in exile; imperial government appeared to have triumphed, but at the same time the final dissolution of the Byzantine Empire was being pre- * pared; for, if the seat of Empire was restored by the Nicaeans . to Constantinople in 1261, the rich provinces of western Asia Minor which had formed the core of the Nicaean Empire were to fall to the Turks’ in the course of the next fifty years. This book is therefore concerned not only with the problem of the astonishing recovery of the Byzantine Empire after the- fall of Constantinople to the Latins in 1204, but also with the problem of its collapse before the Turks. In a sense, the Empire’ of Nicaea appears to mediate between the fall of the City to the Latins and its final fall to the Ottomans in 1453.
This book took shape as a doctoral thesis which was submitted in May 1967 to the History Faculty Board of the University of Oxford. Since then, it has been largely rewritten and reshaped, mostly during the year 1971/1972. I have naturally incurred many debts of gratitude over the long period during which this book has been in gestation. I am particularly indebted to My supervisor, Professor Dimitri Obolensky, who has guided this work with great care and patience through its many Stages and guises. I also benefited from Professor Donald Nicol’s generous help and advice ata very delicate period of revision. Professor Nikos Oikonomides was kind enough to let me examine photocopies and transcripts he had made of a number of documents from the archives of the monastery of St. John of Patmos. It was due to the generosity of Professors Gerald Aylmer and Gwyn Williams of the University of York, where I taught tor a while, that I had the time and money to make a tour of the Empire of Nicaea in the spring of 1969. Finally, I should like to acknowledge my debt to Alec Gaydon, whose assistant I was on the Victoria History of Shropshire and who did a great deal to shape my historical interests.
I have dedicated this book to my wife not so much because of her devotion to Byzantium, more because of her sustaining and entertaining attitude to the ‘Grove of Academe’.
Edinburgh Michael Angold
September 1973
A NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION
I have tried to avoid the Latin transliteration of Greek proper names. Normally I have used a Greek form, e.g. Angelos instead of Angelus, Kantakouzenos instead of Cantacuzenus, but in. certain cases such a transliteration appears to offend. common English usage;.and I have preferred Nicaea to Nikaia, and Constantinople to Konstantinoupolis.’
For the titles of offices. I. have’ sed, where’ possible, ‘an ” appropriate English ‘equivalent: Steward for epi’ tes trapezes, Butler for pinkernes, Chamberlain for parakoimomenos, Grand Constable for megas konstavios. Where there is no appropriate * equivalent I- have simply transliterated, e.g. - protovestiarios, kastrophylax. I have similarly transliterated all technical terms, but with one exception: I have sometimes translated vestiarion as Wardrobe, but occasionally, particularly in rather technical passages, it seemed better to transliterate rather than translate.
I have not been entirely consistent in my use of placenames. I have normally given Anatolian place-names in their Greek form, rather than in their modern form, e.g. Smyrna, not Izmir; Philadelphia, not Alasehir, but I have normally included in brackets the Turkish name, if the town or city in question was occupied by the Turks during the period 1204-61, e.g. Dorylaion (Eskisehir). I have followed a rather different practice in the case of European place-names. Where the modern place-name remains close to the medieval Greek name, I have for convenience sake used the modern, e.g. Skoplje for Skopia, Veles for Velesos, but where the modern name is further removed from the medieval, I have used the latter, e.g. Philippopolis and not Plovdiv, Stenimachos and not Asenovgrad, Tzouroulon and not Corlu, Adganople and not Edirne.
INTRODUCTION
The fall of Constantinople to the Latins on 18 April 1204 and the establishment of a Latin Empire of Constantinople has always been taken as a turning-point in Byzantine history. The very existence of Byzantium hung in the balance. The continuity. of its history stretching back to the ‘World of Late Antiquity’ appeared to have been:bréken; but.only»momentarily. Byzantine traditions of culture and government were to be preserved in a series of successor states that grew up on the ruins of the Byzantine Empire. The most important of these was one centred in western Asia Minor, which we have come to know as the Empire of Nicaea. It was founded by Theodore Laskaris, a son-in-law of a previous Byzantine emperor, Alexios ITI , Alexios II] Angelos. He had himself proclaimed emperor at Nicaea, at Nicaea, probably in 1206, and two_years later had-a patriarch installéd. The new y patriarch’ s first official act was to crown Theodore emperor. Thus was the Byzantine Empire reconstituted i in exile.
~~“ Theodore’s son-in-law and successor, John Vatatzes, in the course of a long and successful reign (1222-54) made his state the most powerful one in the Aegean region. He secured control of the whole of western Anatolia and the.islands along its coast, as well as conquering-Thrace.and Macedonia. Constantinople was ringed around by Nicaean territory, and it was to fall on 25 July 1261 to a small Nicaean force. The seat of Empire was restored to Constantinople. The task of the Nicaean Empire was completed.
The Empire of Nicaea forms by far and away the most important bridge between the Empire destroyed in 1204 and the Empire restored in 1261. The history ofthe last phase of Byzantium from 1261 down to the final fall of Constantinople in 1453 is virtually incomprehensible without reference to the history of the Nicaean Empire; for the experience of exile shaped the restored Empire.
The essentials of Byzantium were preserved in exile. The theory of empire inherited from Eusebius of Caesarea and Justinian was maintained unimpaired. The prerogatives of the Byzantine emperor and patriarch were upheld.. Nicaea was recognized as the new centre of the ‘Orthodox World’.
What is more, the traditions of Byzantine scholarship and education were kept alive by Nicaean emperors and scholars. The flowering of Byzantine scholarship that took place after the recovery of Constantinople has its roots in their work,
These traditional facets of Byzantine government and culture were of great importance for Byzantine self-respect and a sense of identity. They ensured a considerable measure of continuity, but beneath this facade there were changes. If the claims of the emperors of Nicaea to be the heirs of the emperors of Byzantium were to have any validity, they would have to be adapted to the circumstances prevailing during the period of exile. Currents of change that had been building up in the course of the twelfth century could no longer
be ignored. The autonomy_of the churches in Bulgaria and Serbia was official ized by the emperors of Nicaea; Se ie) owed ees coke es in another way. In the course of the period of exile treaties with foreign powers ceased to be drawn up in the form of an imperial bull. A claim to oecumenical authority was quietly abandoned.
The problem of how the Byzantine legacy was preserved during the period of exile and of how the emperors and patriarchs of Nicaea attempted to give a degree of unity to the fragments of the fallen Byzantine Empire, in short, of how the Empire of Nicaea fared as the successor of Byzantium, provides the general context of this study, but its main purpose is more specific. It is to examine the fate of the Byzantine legacy in government_durin e perio exile. In what form was it preserved and handed on, to the festored Empire? There is an intermingling of decisive change and marked conservatism. If the theory of imperial autocracy survives unchanged, the structure of government is altered in response to the conditions that exile brought and is adapted to the changing structure of society. _
This is not a theme that lends itself to a straightforward narrative treatment. In any case, there have been a number
INTRODUCTION 8
of good narrative histories of the ‘period of exile.’ Nor is it intended simply to describe the structure of the administration. It is rather an attempt to see gove i e
round, by examining the administrative structure (Parts IV-V) againce dhe backacound ohicansdniiensL pret ground of constitutional problems (Part II) and the changing character of the economy and society (Part III). The history of the Nicaean Empire lends itself rather well to this approach. It was reasonably self-contained and its society was reasonably homogeneous. The sources too are perfectly adequate. The combination of a history written by one of the chief ministers of the Empire, George Akropolites, _ and the documentary material contained in the cartularies of various monasteries of western Asia Minor, not to mention the archives of the monastery of St. John of Patmos, provides a solid foundation. Nevertheless, the problems of government and society in the Nicaean Empire have not yet been tackled comprehensively, although the work of Mme Ahr-
weiler provides a valuable starting-point.? The character of government at Byzantium depended upon
the _way in which imperial autocracy was exercised. Before {a0 chas huadl boon theoueh eennatamenb obs bareurey It succeeded in holding the Empire together through many centuries, but its defects were many; and they became increasingly apparent in the last decades of the twelfth century. This bureaucratic system_of government was not able to.sunvive the tall-of Coraendhople mi 1904 with theaiend. ant destruction of the departments of state and their archives.
The form of government that came into being during the period of exile and was bequeathed to the restored Empire is perhaps best described as a ‘household government’. It was
not clearly divided into departments with special functions and personnel. The vestiges of a bureaucracy survived only in the Impérial Wardrobe where the fiscal administration was concentrated. Virtually all other business coming before the central administration was conducted in the imperial court. Members of the imperial household and imperial clerks carried out most of the routine administrative work, while the chief officers of the imperial household, such as the Steward, the Butler, and the Chamberlain, were entrusted with important administrative and military posts and missions. Provincial_ governors, as well as imperial commissioners sent out to the provinces wueré Aram fromthe officers and members of the imperial household.
Although the creation of a household system of government marks a new stage in the history of Byzantine government, there was no complete break with the past, for the emperors of Nicaea were building on earlier administrative practice. The new form of government can be traced back in embryo long before 1204. In the course of the twelfth century the members of the private imperial chancery and other officers attached to the imperial household came to have a greater say in the direction of government and the formulation of policy. This ‘imperial cabinet’ was an ideal basis on which to res ministration after 1204.
The changes that occurred in the organization of the state during the period of exile were prepared by developments already apparent in the twelfth century. Their main characteristics were the simplification of the machinery of government and the association of members of the aristocracy in many aspects of government through the offices they held and the franchises they were granted. The old bureaucratic superstructure was swept away in 1204 and there emerged a household system of government.
This system of government reflected more clearly the shape of society. It appeared to prowide a means of reconciling imperial prerogative and aristocratic privilege. This perhaps explains the comparative effectiveness of imperial administration during the period of exile and the apparent vitality and strength of the Nicaean Empire. Any weaknesses tended to be masked by the burning desire-to recover Constantinople from the Latins, which united all sections of Nicaean society behind the emperor. They were only fully revealed after the recovery of Constantinople, when it became clear just how difficult it was to preserve the balance between imperial and aristocratic interests. It had already been weighted too heavily in the aristocracy’s favour by the lavish grants of lands, revenues, and privileges made by the Emperor John Vatatzes to_the great magnate families. After 1261 it it Became increas ingly apparent that both at home and abroad imperial aspirations rested on far too weak a base
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