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. VIEW OF CONSTANTINOPLE 



BYZANTIUM 

AN INTRODUCTION TO 
EAST ROMAN CIVILIZATION 

Edited by 

NORMAN H. BAYNES 
and 

H. St. L. B. MOSS 


OXFORD 

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 



Oxford University Press, Amen House , London E.C.4 

GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON 
BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI KUALA LUMPUR 
CAPE TOWN IBADAN NAIROBI ACCRA 


FIRST PUBLISHED BY THE CLARENDON PRESS 1 948 
REPRINTED WITH CORRECTIONS I949 
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NOTE 

This book was being prepared for publication 
before the outbreak of war and all the translations 
of chapters written by foreign scholars had been 
approved by their authors. We desire to thank 
Miss Louise Stone (King’s College, University of 
London) for her help in rendering into English 
the French texts. Mr. Moss, besides contributing 
the section of Chapter I on Byzantine history down 
to the Fourth Crusade, has throughout helped me 
in the preparation of this book for the press and 
is solely responsible for the choice of the illustra- 
tions. I have added a few bibliographical notes 
which are placed within square brackets. 

N. H. B. 




CONTENTS 

Introduction, norman h. baynes . . . xv 

i. The History of the Byzantine Empire: an 
Outline 

(a) From a.d. 330 to the Fourth Crusade. 

H. ST. L. B. MOSS ..... I 

(b) From a.d. 1204 to a.d. 1453. ch. diehl 33 

11. The Economic Life of the Byzantine Empire: 
Population, Agriculture, Industry, Commerce. 

ANDr£ M. ANDR&A.D&S . $1 

hi. Public Finances : Currency, Public Expenditure, 

Budget, Public Revenue. andr£ m.andr£ad£s 71 

iv. The Byzantine Church, henri gr£goire. . 86 

v. Byzantine Monasticism. hippolyte delehaye . 136 

vi. Byzantine Art. ch. diehl . . . .166 

vii. Byzantine Education, georgina buckler . 200 

viii. Byzantine Literature, f. h. marshall and John 

MAVROGORDATO . . . . .221 

ix. The Greek Language in the Byzantine Period. 

R. M. DAWKINS ...... 252 

x. The Emperor and the Imperial Administration. 

WILHELM ENSSLIN ..... 268 

xi. Byzantium and Islam, a. a. vasiliev . . 308 

xii. The Byzantine Inheritance in South-eastern 

Europe, william miller .... 326 

xiii. Byzantium and the Slavs, steven runciman . 338 

xiv. The Byzantine Inheritance in Russia, baron 


MEYENDORFF and NORMAN H. BAYNES . . 369 

Bibliographical Appendix . . • 39 2 

A List of East Roman Emperors . . 422 

Index 4 2 4 




LIST OF PLATES 


i. View of Constantinople. From a drawing by W. H. Bartlett in 
Beauties of the Bosphorus , by J. Pardoe. (London, 1 840.) 

Frontispiece 


plates 2-48 (at end ) 


2. Walls of Constantinople. Ibid. 

3. Tekfur Serai, Constantinople. Ibid. 

This building, which may have formed part of the Palace 
of Blachernae, residence of the later Byzantine Emperors (see 
p. 181), has been variously assigned to the J ith— 12th and 
(owing to the character of its decoration) to the I3th-i4th 
centuries. 


4. Cistern (Yere Batan Serai), Constantinople. Ibid- 6th century. 

5. St. Sophia, Constantinople. Exterior. 532-7. See P- 167. From 
Ch. Diehl, L' Art chretien primitif et V Art byzatitin (Van Oest, 
Paris). 

6. St. Sophia, Constantinople. Interior. 532-7. See p. 168. 

7. Kalat Seman, Syria. Church of St. Simeon Stylites. End of 
5 th century. Seep. 172. 

8. Church at Aghthamar, Armenia. 915-21. From J. Ebersolt, 
Monuments d' Architecture byzantine (Les Editions d’art et 
d’histoire, Paris). 

9. Church at Kaisariani, near Athens. End of 1 oth century. Photo- 
graph by A. K. Wickham. 

10. Church of the Holy Apostles, Salonica. 1312-15’ Seep. 180. 
From J. Ebersolt, op. cit. 

11. Church at NagoriCino, Serbia. Early 14th century- See p. 194. 
From G. Millet, L'Ancien Art Serbe: les figliscs (Boccard, 
Paris). 

12. Church of the Holy Archangels, Lesnovo, Serbia- I 34 1 - See 
p. 194. From J. Ebersolt, op. cit. 

13. Fetiyeh Djami, Constantinople. Church of the Virgin Pamma- 
karistos. Early 14th century. See p. 192. Ibid. 

14. Mosaic. Justinian and suite (detail). San Vitale, Ravenna. 526- 
47. Seep. 176. Photograph by Alinari. 

15. Mosaic. Theodora (detail). San Vitale, Ravenna. 526-47. 
See p. 176. Photograph by Casadio , Ravenna. 



X LIST OF PLATES 

1 6. Mosaic. Emperor kneeling before Christ (detail). Narthex of 
St. Sophia, Constantinople. The Emperor is probably Leo VI. 
Circa 886-912. See p. 168, note. By kind permission of the 
late Director of the Byzantine Institute, Paris. 

17. Mosaic. The Virgin between the Emperors Constantine and 
Justinian. Southern Vestibule of St. Sophia, Constantinople. 
Constantine offers his city, and Justinian his church of St Sophia. 
Circa 986-94. See p. 168, note. By kind permission of the 
late Director of the Byzantine Institute, Paris. 

18. Mosaic. Anastasis. St. Luke of Stiris, Phocis. The Descent into 
Hell became the customary Byzantine representation of the 
Resurrection. On the right, Christ draws Adam and Eve out of 
Limbo; on the left stand David and Solomon; beneath are the 
shattered gates of Hell. Cf. E. Diez and O. Demus, Byzantine 
Mosaics in Greece. See p. 405 infra. Early nth century. See 
p. 184. From Ch. Diehl, La Peinture byzantine (Van Oest, 
Paris). 

19. Mosaic. Communion of the Apostles (detail). St. Sophia, Kiev. 
This interpretation of the Eucharist was a favourite subject of 
Byzantine art. Cf. L. Rdau, L'Art russe, Paris, 1921, p. 149. 
1037. See p. 184. From A. Grabar, L'Art byzantin (Les 
Editions d’art et d’histoire, Paris). 

20. Mosaic. The Mount of Olives. St. Mark’s, Venice. Cf. 
O. Demus, Die Mosaiken von San Marco in Vtnedig , 1 100-1300. 
Seep. 405 infra. Circa 1220. Photograph by Alinari. 

21. Mosaic Scene from the Story of the Virgin. Kahrieh Djami, 
Constantinople On the left, the High Priest, accompanied by 
the Virgin, presents to St. Joseph the miraculously flowering rod. 
Behind, in the Temple, the rods of the suitors are laid out. On 
the right are the unsuccessful suitors. Above, a curtain suspended 
between the two facades indicates, by a convention commonly 
found in miniatures, that the building on the right represents an 
inner chamber. Early 14th century. See p. 193. Photograph by 
Sebah and JoaHUer, Istanbul. 

22. Fresco. Dormition of the Virgin (detail). Catholicon of the 
Lavra, Mt. Athos. Group of Mourning Women. 1535. See 
p. 196. From G. Millet, Monuments deT Athos: 1 . Les Peintures 
(Leroux, Paris). 

23. Fresco. The Spiritual Ladder. Refectory of Dionysiou, Mt. 
Athos. On the right, monks standing before a monastery. Other 
monks, helped by angels, are climbing a great ladder reaching to 



LIST OF PLATES xi 

Heaven. At the top, an old monk is received by Christ On the 
left, devils are trying to drag the monks from the ladder. Some 
monks fall headlong, carried away by devils. Below, a dragon, 
representing the jaws of Hell, is swallowing a monk. 1546. 
See p. 196. From G. Millet, ibid. 

04. Refectory. Lavra, Mt. Athos. 1512. Seep. 196. By kind per- 
mission of Professor D. Talbot Rice. 

25. Fresco. Parable of the Talents. Monastery of Theraponte, 
Russia. In the centre, men seated at a table. On the left, the 
Master returns. His servants approach, three of them bearing 
ajar filled with money, a cup, and a cornucopia. On the right, the 
Unprofitable Servant is hurled into a pit representing the ‘outer 
darkness’ of Matt. xxv. 30. Circa 1500. From Ch. Diehl, La 
Peinture byzantine (V an Oest). 

26. Miniatures. Story of Joseph. Vienna Genesis, (a) On the left, 
Joseph’s brethren are seen ‘coming down’ into Egypt from a 
stylized hill-town. On the right, Joseph addresses his brethren, 
who stand respectfully before him. In the background Joseph’s 
servants prepare the feast (b) Above, Potiphar, on the left, hastens 
along a passage to his wife’s chamber. Below, Joseph’s cloak is 
produced in evidence. 5th century. See p. 176. From Hartel 
and Wickhoff, Die Wiener Genesis , vol. 2. 

27. Miniature. Parable of the Ten Virgins. Rossano Gospel. On 
the left, the Foolish Virgins, in brightly coloured garments, with 
spent lamps and empty oil-flasks. Their leader knocks vainly at 
a panelled door. On the other side is Paradise with its four 
rivers and its fruit-bearing trees. The Bridegroom heads the 
company of Wise Virgins, clad in white and with lamps burning. 
Below, four prophets; David (three times) and Hosea. (Cf. 
A. Mufioz, 11 Codice Purpurea di Rossano , Rome, 1907.) Late 
6th century. See p. 177. Photograph by Giraudon. 

28. Miniature. Abraham’s sacrifice. Cosmas Indicopleustes. Vati- 
can Library. See p. 176. 

29. Miniature. Isaiah’s Prayer. Psalter. Bibliotheque Nationale, 
Paris. Above is the Hand of God, from which a ray of light 
descends on the prophet. On the right, a child, bearing a torch, 
represents Dawn. On the left, Night is personified as a woman 
holding a torch reversed. Over her head floats a blue veil sprinkled 
with stars. Cf. H. Buchthal, The Miniatures of the Paris Psalter. 
See p. 407 infra. 10th century. See p. 186. From J. Ebersolt, 
La Miniature byzantine (Vanoest, Paris). 



Tii LIST OF PLATES 

30. Miniature. Arrival at Constantinople of the body of St John 
Chrysostom. Menologium of Basil II. Vatican Library. On the 
left, four ecclesiastics carry the silver casket. Facing it are two 
haloed figures, the Emperor Theodosius II, gazing intently, and 
Bishop Proclus, who swings a censer. In the background, behind 
a procession of clergy bearing candles, rises the famous Church 
ofthe Holy Apostles (seep. 173). ioth-uth century. Seep. 187. 

31. Miniature. St. John the Evangelist. Gospel. British Museum, 
Burney MS. 1 9. The Evangelist dictates his Gospel to his disciple 
St Prochorus, nth century. 

за. Miniature. The Emperor Botaniates. Homilies of St. Chrysos- 
tom. Bibliothbque Nationale, Paris, MS. Coislin 79. Behind the 
enthroned Emperor are the figures of Truth and Justice. Two 
high officials stand on either side of the ruler. Late 1 ith century. 
See p. 186. From H. Omont, Miniatures des plus anciens manu- 
scrits grecs de la Bibliothique Nationale du Vl‘ au XIV * silcle 
(Champion, Paris). 

33. Miniature. Story of the Virgin. Homilies of the Monk James. 
Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, MS. 1208. St. Anne summons 
the rulers of Israel to celebrate the birth of the Virgin. 12th 
century. Seep. 187. 

34. Miniature. Scene of Feasting. Commentary on Job. Biblio- 
theque Nationale, Paris, MS. Grec No. 135. The sons and 
daughters of Job ‘eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s 
house’. 1368. 

35. Marble Sarcophagus. Istanbul Archaeological Museum. Dis- 
covered at Constantinople in 1933. Front panel: angels support- 
ing a wreath enclosing the monogram of Christ. End panel: two 
Apostles. See A. M. Mansel, Ein Prinzensarbophag aus Istanbul , 
Istanbul Asiariatika MUzeleri nefriyati, No. 10, 1934. 4th~5th 
century. 

зб. Ivory. Archangel. British Museum. Seep. 177. Circa 500. 

37. Barberini Ivory. Triumph of an Emperor. Louvre. On the left, 
an officer presents a figure of Victory. Below, representatives of 
subject countries. Early 6th century. See p. 177. Archives 
Phot., Paris. 

38. Ivory. “Throne of Maximian.’ Ravenna. Front panels: St. John 
the Baptist (centre) and Four Evangelists. Cf. C. Cecchelli, La 
Cattedra di Massimiano ed altri avorii romano-orientali , Rome, 
I 93 + - (with full bibliography). 6th century. See p. 177. 
Photograph by Alinari. 



LIST OF PLATES xiii 

39. Ivory. Story of Joseph. ‘Throne of Maximian’ (detail), Ravenna. 
Above: Joseph sold to Potiphar by the Ishmaelites. Below: 
Joseph tempted by Potiphar’s wife; Joseph thrown into prison. 
6th century. See p. 177. Photograph by Alinari. 

40. Ivory. Romanus and Eudocia crowned by Christ. Cabinet des 
Mddailles, Paris. The two figures, formerly taken as representing 
Romanus IV (1067—71) and his consort, have recently been 
identified with Romanus II (959-63) and Bertha of Provence, 
who assumed the name of Eudocia on her marriage. 10th cen- 
tury. Seep. 187. Photograph by Giraudon. 

41. Ivory. Scenes from the Life of Christ. Victoria and Albert 
Museum: Crown copyright reserved. Above: Annunciation and 
Nativity. Centre: Transfiguration and Raising of Lazarus. 
Below: Resurrection. 1 ith-i 2th century. 

42. Silver Dish from Kerynia, Cyprus. David and Goliath. By 
courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 6th 
century. Seep. 177. 

43. Reliquary. Esztergon, Hungary. See p. 188. Silver-gilt, with 
figures in coloured enamel. Above: mourning angels. Centre: 
Constantine and Helena. Below: the Road to Calvary; and the 
Deposition. 12th century. From L. Brehier, La Sculpture et 
Us Arts Mineurs byzantins (Les Editions d’art et d’histoire, Paris). 

44. Wool Tapestries from Egypt, (a) Hunting Scene. Victoria and 
Albert Museum: Crown copyright reserved. ( b ) Nereids riding 
on sea-monsters. Louvre. 4th-6th century. Seep. 177. From 
L. Brdhier, op. cit. 

45. Silk Textile. Riders on Winged Horses. Schlossmuseum, Berlin. 
On a cream background, two helmeted kings in Persian dress, 
embroidered in green and dark blue, confront one another across a 
hom or sacred tree. Though following earlier models of Sassanian 
type, this textile is probably to be assigned to the 10th century. 
Photograph by Giraudon. 

46. ‘Dalmatic of Charlemagne.’ Vatican Treasury. Blue silk, 
embroidered in gold and silk. Christ summoning the Elect. 
Centre: Christ seated on a rainbow. Above: angels guard the 
throne of the Second Coming (Etimasia). Below: a choir of saints. 
On the shoulders: Communion of the Apostles. For the icono- 
graphy see G. Millet, La Dalmatique du Vatican , Bibliotheque 
de 1 ’Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Sciences religieuses, vol. Ix, Paris, 
1945. 14th century. See p. 197. 



xiv LIST OF PLATES 

47. Epitaphios of Salonica (detail). Byzantine Museum, Athens. 
Loose-woven gold thread, embroidered with gold, silver, and 
coloured silks. The body of Christ is guarded by angels holding 
ripidia (liturgical fans carried by deacons). 14th century. See 
p. 197. Photograph by courtesy of the Courtauld Institute of Art , 
London. 

48. St. Nicholas, Meteora, Thessaly. The earliest examples of this 
group of hill-top monasteries date from the 14th century. Photo- 
graph by Mr. Cecil Stewart. 

MAPS (at end) 

1. The Empire of Justinian I in 565. 

2. The Empire of Basil II in 1025. 

3. The Byzantine Empire after 1204. 



INTRODUCTION 

‘There are in history no beginnings and no endings. History 
books begin and end, but the events they describe do not.’ 1 
It is a salutary warning: yet from the first Christians have 
divided human history into the centuries of the preparation 
for the coming of Christ and the years after the advent of 
their Lord in the flesh, and in his turn the student of history 
is forced, however perilous the effort, to split up the stream 
of events into periods in order the better to master his 
material, to reach a fuller understanding of man’s develop- 
ment. What then of the Byzantine Empire? When did it 
begin to be? When did it come to an end? Concerning its 
demise there can hardly be any hesitation — 1453, the date 
of the Osmanli conquest of Constantinople, is fixed beyond 
dispute. But on the question at what time did a distinctively 
Byzantine Empire come into being there is no such agree- 
ment. J. B. Bury, indeed, denied that there ever was such a 
birthday: ‘No Byzantine Empire ever began to exist; the 
Roman Empire did not come to an end until 1453’ — of 
‘Byzantine art’, ‘Byzantine civilization’ we may appropriately 
speak, but when we speak of the State which had its centre 
in Constantine’s city the ‘Roman Empire’ is the only fitting 
term. 2 

But Bury’s dictum obviously implies a continuity of 
development which some historians would not admit. Thus 
Professor Toynbee has argued that the Roman Empire died 
during the closing years of the sixth century: it was a ‘ghost’ 
of that Empire which later occupied the imperial throne. 
During the seventh century a new Empire came into being 
and stood revealed when Leo III marched from Asia to 
inaugurate a dynasty. That new Empire was the reply of the 
Christian East to the menace of the successors of Mahomet: 
the State as now organized was the ‘carapace’ which should 

1 R. G. Collin gwood, An Atstobiography (London, Oxford University Press, 
1939), P- 98} and cf. his study of Christian historiography in The Idea of History 
(Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1946), pp. 49-52. 

* J. B. Bury, A History of the Later Roman Empire (London, Macmillan, 1889), 
vol. i, p. vj The Cambridge Medieval History (Cambridge University Press, 1923), 
vol. iv, pp. vii-ix. 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

form the hard shell of resistance against the Muslim attack. 
Here there is no continuity with the old Roman Empire: 
there is but a reassertion of imperial absolutism and of 
administrative centralization to meet changed conditions. 

Others, without employing Professor Toynbee’s forms of 
presentation, have expressed similar views. The loss of 
Syria, Palestine, and Egypt to the Arabs in the seventh 
century led, as a counter-measure on the part of the Empire, 
to the building up in Asia Minor of a new military system: 
land grants were made to farmers subject to a hereditary 
obligation of service in the imperial armies. It was on this 
system and its successful maintenance that the defence of the 
Empire was henceforth to depend, and since the Empire was 
continuously assailed by foes through the centuries, it was 
this new system, Ostrogorsky has urged, which serves to 
date the beginning of a distinctively Byzantine Empire: all 
the preceding history was but a Preface and a Prelude which 
can be briefly summarized . 1 

Perhaps an editor may be allowed in this Introduction to 
express in a few words a personal opinion, if it be clearly 
understood that he has not sought in any way to enforce that 
opinion upon contributors. ... If we ask the question can 
we still, despite Bury’s objection, use the term ‘Byzantine 
Empire’ ? that question may be answered in the affirmative, 
since thereby we are reminded of the historical significance 
of the fact that it was precisely at the Greek city of Byzantium 
and not elsewhere that Constantine chose to create his new 
imperial capital. Attempts have been made of recent years 
to minimize the importance of that fact; the capital, it is said, 
might equally well have been set in Asia Minor, just as the 
capital of the Turkish Empire has, in our own day, been 
transferred to Ankara. But Asia Minor of the Byzantines 
was overrun by hostile armies time and again and its cities 
captured by the foe. Constantinople, posted on the water- 
way between the continents and guarded by the girdle of its 
landward and seaward walls, through all assaults remained 
impregnable. At moments the Empire might be confined 
within the circle of the city’s fortifications, but the assailants 

1 'En 717 commence . . . 1 ’Empire byzantin’: Henri Berr in the preface to Louis 
Brihier’s Vie et Mort de Byzance (Paris, Michel, 1947), p. xiii. 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

retired discomfited and still the capital preserved the heritage 
of civilization from the menace of the barbarian. The city 
was Constantine’s majestic war memorial: the Greek East 
should not forget the crowning mercy of his victory over 
Licinius. By its foundation Constantine created the imperial 
power-house within which could be concentrated the forces 
of a realm which was sustained by the will of the Christians’ 
God and which, in the fifth century, was further secured by 
the acquisition of Our Lady’s Robe, the palladium of New 
Rome. It is well that we should be reminded of that act of 
the first Christian Emperor. 

And did the Roman Empire die at some date during the 
closing years of the sixth century or in the first decade of the 
seventh ? Is it true that a ‘ghost’ usurped the imperial 
throne ? It is not every student who will be able to follow 
Professor Toynbee in his essay in historical necromancy. 
To some it will rather seem that, ^the Roman Empire died, 
its death should be set during the breakdown of imperial 
power and the financial and administrative chaos of the third 
century of our era. With Diocletian and with the turbator 
rerum, the revolutionary Constantine, there is such a rebuild- 
ing that one might with some justification argue that a new 
Empire was created. For here, as Wilamowitz-Moellendorf 
wrote, is the great turning-point in the history of the 
Mediterranean lands. But may it not be truer to say that the 
Roman Empire did not die, but was transformed from 
within, and that the factor which in essentials determined 
the character of that transformation was the dream of the 
Empire’s future as Constantine conceived it? He had been 
called to rule a pagan Empire ; he brought from his rule in 
the West the knowledge of the tradition of Roman govern- 
ment. At the battle of the Milvian Bridge he had put to the 
test the Christian God, and the God of the Christians had 
given him the victory over Maxentius : that favour made of 
Constantine an Emperor with a mission, he was ‘God’s man’, 
as he called himself. When he went to the East he came into 
lands where language, literature, and thought were all alike 
Greek. There could be no idea of transforming the East into 
a Latin world. That was the problem: a pagan Empire 
based on a Roman tradition of law and government ruled by 



xvili INTRODUCTION 

a Christian Emperor who had been appointed to build up his 
realm upon the foundation of a unified Christian faith — an 
Empire centred in a Christian capital and that capital sur- 
rounded by a deeply rooted tradition of Hellenistic culture. 
Those are the factors which had to be brought ‘to keep house 
together’. And this Christian Emperor, incorporating in his 
own person the immense majesty of pagan Rome, could not, 
of course, make Christianity the religion of the Roman 
State — that was unthinkable — but the man to whom the 
Christian God had amazingly shown unmerited favour had 
a vision of what in the future might be realized and he could 
build for that future. Within the pagan Empire itself one 
could begin to raise another — a Christian — Empire: and 
one day the walls of the pagan Empire would fall and in their 
place the Christian building would stand revealed. In a 
Christian capital the Roman tradition of law and government 
would draw its authority and sanction from the supreme 
imperium which had been the permanent element in the 
constitutional development of the Roman State; that State 
itself, become Christian and Orthodox, would be sustained 
through a Catholic and Orthodox Church, while Greek 
thought and Greek art and architecture would preserve the 
Hellenistic tradition. And in that vision Constantine anti- 
cipated, foresaw, the Byzantine Empire. And thus for any 
comprehending study of that Empire one must go as far 
back at least as the reign of Constantine the Great. 

The factors which went to form Constantine’s problem — 
the pagan Hellenistic culture, the Roman tradition, the 
Christian Church — were only gradually fused after long 
stress and strife. The chronicle of that struggle is no mere 
Preface or Prelude to the history of the Byzantine Empire; 
it is an integral part of that history, for in this period of 
struggle the precedents were created and the moulds were 
shaped which determined the character of the civilization 
which was the outcome of an age of transition. Without 
a careful study of the Empire’s growing-pains the later 
development will never be fully comprehended. 

And from the first the rulers of the Empire recognized the 
duty which was laid upon them, their obligation to preserve 
that civilization which they had inherited, to counter the 



INTRODUCTION xix 

assaults of the barbarians from without or the threat from 
within — the menace of those barbarian soldiers who were in 
the Empire’s service. It was indeed a task which demanded 
the highest courage and an unfaltering resolution. ‘If ever 
there were supermen in history, they are to be found in the 
Roman emperors of the fourth century.’ And this duty and 
the realization that Constantinople was the ark which 
sheltered the legacy of human achievement remained con- 
stant throughout the centuries. The forms of the defence 
might change, but the essential task did not alter. When in 
the seventh century Egypt, Palestine, and Syria were lost, 
the system of imperial defence had perforce to be reorganized, 
but that reorganization was designed to effect the same 
traditional purpose. It is this unchanging function of the 
later Empire which, for some students at least, shapes the 
impressive continuity of the history of the East Roman 
State. Leo III is undertaking the same task in the eighth 
century as Heraclius had faced in the seventh, as Justinian 
had sought to perform in the sixth. It is this continuity of 
function which links together by a single chain the emperors 
of Rome in a succession which leads back to Constantine the 
Great and Diocletian. 

Professor Toynbee regards the reassertion of absolutism 
and the centralization of government under Leo III as a 
fatal error. But it is not easy to see what alternative course 
was possible. In the West the Arabs overthrew imperial rule 
in Africa and invaded Europe. What could have stayed the 
far more formidable attack upon the Byzantine capital if 
Leo III had not thrown into the scale the concentrated force 
of the Empire and thus repelled the assault? Could the 
Empire have survived ? The ruler was but shouldering his 
historic burden. 

And even if the continuity of the history of the East 
Roman State be questioned, the continuity of Byzantine 
culture it is impossible to challenge. Within the Empire 
the culture of the Hellenistic world which had arisen in 
the kingdoms of the successors of Alexander the Great 
lives on and moulds the achievement of East Rome. For 
the Byzantines are Christian Alexandrians. In art they 
still follow Hellenistic models; they inherit the rhetorical 



XI INTRODUCTION 

tradition, the scholarship, the admiration for the Great Age 
of classical Greece which characterized the students of the 
kingdom of the Ptolemies. That admiration might inspire 
imitation, but it undoubtedly tended to stifle originality. 
Those who would seek to establish that at some time in the 
history of East Rome there is a breach in continuity, that 
something distinctively new came into being, must at least 
admit that the culture of the Empire knew no such severance : 
it persisted until the end of the Empire itself. 

There are, however, scholars who would interpret other- 
wise the essential character of this civilization. For them 
East Rome was an ‘oriental empire’; they contend that it did 
but grow more and more oriental until in the eighth century 
it became etroitement orientalise. These assertions have been 
repeated many times, as though it were sought by repetition 
to evade the necessity for proof: certain it is that proof has 
never been forthcoming. It is true that Hellenistic civiliza- 
tion had absorbed some oriental elements, but the crucial 
question is: Did the Byzantine Empire adopt any further 
really significant elements from the East beyond those which 
had already interpenetrated the Hellenistic world? One 
may point to the ceremony of prostration before the ruler 
( proskynesis ), to mutilation as a punishment, possibly to 
some forms of ascetic contemplation, to the excesses of 
Syrian asceticism, to Greek music and hymnody derived 
from Syrian rhythms and rhythmic prose, and to cavalry regi- 
ments armed with the bow — what more? The Christian 
religion itself came, it is true, originally from Palestine, but 
it early fell under Hellenistic influence, and after the work of 
the Christian thinkers of Alexandria — of Clement and 
Origen — Christianity had won its citizenship in the Greek 
world. Until further evidence be adduced, it may be sug- 
gested that the Empire which resolutely refused to accept the 
Eastern theories of the Iconoclasts was in so doing but 
defending its own essential character, that the elements which 
in their combination formed the complex civilization of the 
Empire were indeed the Roman tradition in law and govern- 
ment, the Hellenistic tradition in language, literature, and 
philosophy, and a Christian tradition which had already been 
refashioned on a Greek model. 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

What were the elements of strength which sustained the 
Empire in its saecnlar effort? They may be briefly sum- 
marized. Perhaps the factor which deserves pride of place 
is the conviction that the Empire was willed by God and 
protected by Him and by His Anointed. It is this convic- 
tion which in large measure explains the traditionalism, the 
extreme conservatism of East Rome : why innovate if your 
State is founded on Heaven’s favour? The ruler may be 
dethroned, but not the polity; that would have been akin 
to apostasy. Autocracy remained unchallenged. And, with 
God’s approval secure, the Byzantine Sovereign and the 
Byzantine State were both Defenders of the Faith. To 
the Byzantine the Crusades came far earlier than they did to 
the West, for whether the war was waged with Persia or later 
with the Arabs, the foes were alike unbelievers, while the 
standard which was borne at the head of the East Roman 
forces was a Christian icon — at times one of those sacred 
pictures which had not been painted by any human hand. 
The Byzantine was fighting the battles of the Lord of Hosts 
and could rely upon supernatural aid. The psychological 
potency of such a conviction as this the modern student must 
seek imaginatively to comprehend — and that is not easy. 

And the concentration of all authority in the hands of the 
Vicegerent of God was in itself a great source of strength. 
On the ruins of the Roman Empire in western Europe 
many States had been created: in the East the single State 
had been preserved and with it the inheritance from an earlier 
Rome, the single law. In the West men’s lives were lived 
under many legal systems — tribal law, local law, manorial 
law — and the law of the central State fought a continuing 
battle for recognition: in the East one law and one law alone 
prevailed, and that Roman law emanated from a single 
source, the Emperor; even the decisions of the Councils of 
the Church needed for their validity the approval of the 
Sovereign. The precedents established by Constantine were 
upheld by his successors, and under the Iconoclasts the 
challenge to imperial authority raised by the monks demand- 
ing a greater freedom for the Church was unavailing. The 
Patriarch of Constantinople lived in the shadow of the 
imperial palace : within the Byzantine Empire there was no 



xxii INTRODUCTION 

room for an Eastern Papacy. The fact that the Book of 
Ceremonies of Constantine Porphyrogenitus has been pre- 
served has tended to produce the impression that the life of an 
East Roman Emperor was spent in an unbroken succession 
of civil and religious formalities, that its most absorbing 
care was the wearing of precisely those vestments which 
were hallowed by traditional usage. That impression is 
misleading, for the Emperor successfully maintained his 
right to lead the Byzantine armies in the field, while the folk 
of East Rome demanded of their ruler efficiency and personal 
devotion. In the constitutional theory of the Empire no 
hereditary right to the throne was recognized, though at 
times hereditary sentiment might have great influence. 
When, under the Macedonian dynasty, that sentiment placed 
a student emperor upon the throne, a colleague performed 
those military duties which remained part of the imperial 
burden. That immense burden of obligation imposed upon 
the ruler — the responsibility both for the temporal and 
spiritual welfare of his subjects — fashioned the Byzantine 
imperial ideal, and that ideal puts its constraint upon the 
Sovereign: it may make of him another man: 

The courses of his youth promised it not. 

The breath no sooner left his father’s body. 

But that his wildness mortified in him 
Seemed to die too. 

So it was with Basil II: ‘with all sail set he abandoned the 
course of pleasure and resolutely turned to seriousness .’ 1 
It is to wrong the Byzantine Emperors to picture them as 
cloistered puppets : the Emperor was not merely the source 
of all authority both military and civil, the one and only 
legislator, the supreme judge, but it was his hand, as George 
of Pisidia wrote, which in war enforced the will of Christ. 

The East Roman State demanded money — much money: 
no Byzantine Sovereign could ‘live of his own’. During the 
chaos of the breakdown of the imperial administration in 
the third century of our era a prodigious inflation sent all 
prices rocketing sky-high and the economy of the Empire 
threatened to relapse into a system of barter. But the fourth- 

1 Psellus, Chrtmographia, vol. i, ch. 4. 



INTRODUCTION ndii 

century reform restored a money economy and taxation 
which could be adapted to the current needs of the Govern- 
ment. While the west of Europe under its barbarian rulers 
was unable to maintain the complex financial system of 
Rome, the needs of the East Roman State were safeguarded 
by a return to a system which enabled it to pay its soldiers in 
money, while, if military force should fail, the diplomacy of 
Constantinople could fall back upon the persuasive influence 
of Byzantine gold. It was the tribute derived from the 
taxation of its subjects which enabled the Empire to main- 
tain a regular army schooled in an art of war — an art per- 
petually renewed as the appearance of fresh foes called for a 
revision of the military manuals. This small highly trained 
army must at all costs be preserved: no similar force could 
be hurriedly improvised on an emergency. War for the 
Empire was no joust, but a desperately serious affair. There- 
fore risks must not be run : ambushes, feints, any expedient 
by which irreplaceable lives could be saved were an essential 
element of Byzantine strategy . To us the numerical strength 
of East Roman armies seems preposterously small. As Diehl 
has pointed out, Belisarius reconquered Africa from the 
Vandals with at most 15,000 men; in the tenth century the 
great expeditions against Crete were carried out by a dis- 
embarkation force of 9,000 to 15,000. The grand total of 
the Byzantine military forces in the tenth century was at 
most 140,000 men. 

The Empire was always inclined to neglect the fleet when 
no immediate danger threatened from the sea. During the 
first three centuries of our era the Mediterranean had been a 
Roman lake. The only barbarian kingdom formed on Roman 
soil which took to the sea was that of the Vandals in North 
Africa and before their fleets the Empire was powerless : the 
seaward connexions between the East and the West were 
snapped. The Emperor Leo even feared that the Vandals 
would attack Alexandria : Daniel, the Stylite saint whom he 
consulted, assured him that his fears were groundless, and in 
the event the holy man’s confidence was justified. Justinian 
made an extraordinary effort in his sea-borne attack upon 
North Africa, but after the overthrow of the Vandal kingdom 
we hear of no further naval operations until the Arabs 



xxiv INTRODUCTION 

developed their sea-power in the seventh century. When 
Constans II reorganized the fleet and left Constantinople for 
Sicily (a.d. 662), his aim, as Bury suggested, must have been 
from a western base to safeguard North Africa and Sicily 
from the Arabs in order to prevent the encirclement of the 
Empire: ‘If the Saracens won a footing in these lands Greece 
was exposed, the gates of the Hadriatic were open, Dalmatia 
and the Exarchate were at their mercy’ (Bury). But Con- 
stans died, his successors kept the imperial navy in the 
eastern Mediterranean, and the Saracen fleet drove the 
Romans out of Carthage. North Africa was lost. 

When the Caliphate was removed from Syria to Mesopo- 
tamia Constantinople was released from any serious menace 
from the sea; the navies of Egypt and Syria were in decline, 
and in consequence the Byzantine navy was neglected. 
Under the Macedonian house the East Roman fleet played 
an essential part in the imperial victories, but later the 
Empire made the fatal mistake of relying upon the navy of 
Venice and thus lost its own control of the sea. The naval 
policy of the Byzantine State did but react to external stimulus 
much as the Republic of Rome had done in former centuries. 

Army and fleet defended the Empire from external peril, 
but the force which maintained its internal administration 
was the imperial civil service. Extremely costly, highly 
traditional in its methods, often corrupt, it was yet, it would 
seem, in general efficient: the administrative machine worked 
on by its own accumulated momentum. Under weak and 
incapable rulers it could still function, while the edicts of 
reforming emperors would doubtless be competently filed 
and then disregarded. We possess no adequate documentary 
evidence for the history of this imperial service : the historians 
took it for granted, and they tend to mention it only when 
some crying scandal aroused popular discontent. Yet its 
activity is one of the presuppositions which rendered possible 
the longevity of the Empire. 

And the service of the Orthodox Church to East Rome 
must never be forgotten in any estimate of the factors which 
sustained the Byzantine State. 

‘The Latin Church’, as Sir William Ramsay said in a memorable 
lecture in 1908, ‘never identified itself with the Empire. So far as it 



INTRODUCTION xxv 

lowered itself to stand on the same level as the Empire it was a rival 
and an enemy rather than an ally. But in the East the Orthodox 
Church cast in its lot with the Empire: it was coterminous with and 
never permanently wider than the Empire. It did not long attempt 
to stand on a higher level than the State and the people; but on that 
lower level it stood closer to the mass of the people. It lived among 
them. It moved the common average man with more penetrating 
power than a loftier religion could have done. Accordingly the Ortho- 
dox Church was fitted to be the soul and life of the Empire, to maintain 
the Imperial unity, to give form and direction to every manifestation 
of national vigour .’ 1 

That close alliance between the Byzantine Empire and the 
Orthodox Church, however, brought with it unhappy conse- 
quences, as Professor Toynbee has forcibly reminded us. 
Church and State were so intimately connected that member- 
ship of the Orthodox Church tended inevitably to bring with 
it subjection to imperial politics, and conversely alliance with 
the Empire would bring with it subjection to the Patriarch of 
Constantinople. The fatal effect of this association is seen in 
the relations of the Empire with Bulgaria and with Armenia. 

To us it would appear so obvious that, for instance, in 
Armenia toleration of national religious traditions must have 
been the true policy, but the Church of the Seven Councils 
was assured that it alone held the Christian faith in its purity 
and that in consequence it was its bounden duty to ride 
roughshod over less enlightened Churches and to enforce 
the truth committed to its keeping. And a Byzantine j 
Emperor had no other conviction : the order of Heraclius in ' 
the seventh century that all Jews throughout his Empire 
should be forcibly baptized does but illustrate an Emperor’s 
conception of a ruler’s duty. The Orthodox Church must 
have appeared to many, as it appeared to Sir William Ram- 
say, ‘not a lovable power, not a beneficent power, but stern, 
unchanging . . . sufficient for itself, self-contained and self- 
centred ’. 2 

But to its own people Orthodoxy was generous. The 
Church might disapprove of the abnormal asceticism of a 
Stylite saint; but that asceticism awoke popular enthusiasm 

1 Luke the Physician (London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1908), p. 145 (slightly 
abbreviated in citation). 

* Ibid., p. 149. 



xxvi INTRODUCTION 

and consequently the Church yielded: it recognized St. 
Simeon Stylites and made of Daniel the Stylite a priest. That 
is a symbol of the catholicity of Orthodoxy. And through the 
services of the Church the folk of the Empire became 
familiar with the Old Testament in its Greek form (the 
Septuagint) and with the New Testament which from 
the first was written in the ‘common’ Greek speech of 
the Hellenistic world, and the East Roman did truly believe 
in the inspiration of the Bible and its inerrancy. When Cosmas, 
the retired India merchant, set forth his ‘Christian Topo- 
graphy’ to prove that for the Christian the only possible view 
was that the earth was flat, he demonstrated the truth of his 
assertion by texts from the Bible and showed that earth is 
the lower story, then comes the firmament, and above that 
the vaulted story which is Heaven — all bound together by 
side walls precisely like a large American trunk for ladies’ 
dresses. If you wished to defend contemporary miracles it 
was naturally the Bible which came to your support: Christ 
had promised that His disciples should perform greater 
works than His own: would a Christian by his doubts make 
Christ a liar? ‘The Fools for Christ’s sake’ — those who 
endured the ignominy of playing the fool publicly in order 
to take upon themselves part of that burden of humiliation 
which had led their Lord to the Cross — they, too, had their 
texts: ‘The foolishness of God is wiser than men’, ‘the 
wisdom of this world is foolishness with God’. It was hearing 
a text read in Church which suggested to Antony his voca- 
tion to be the first monk: ‘If you would be perfect, go sell all 
that thou hast and give to the poor, and come, follow me.’ 
That summons he obeyed and it led him to the desert. In 
Byzantine literature you must always be ready to catch an 
echo from the Bible. 

And thus because it was the Church of the Byzantine 
people, because its liturgy was interwoven with their daily 
lives, because its tradition of charity and unquestioning 
almsgiving supplied their need in adversity, the Orthodox 
Church became the common possession and the pride of the 
East Romans. The Christian faith became the bond which 
in large measure took the place of a common nationality. 
And was their Church to be subjected to the discipline of an 



INTRODUCTION xxvii 

alien Pope who had surrendered his freedom to barbarous 
Frankish rulers of the West? Variations in ritual usage 
might be formulated to justify the rejection of papal claims, 
but these formulations did but mask a profounder difference 
— an instinctive consciousness that a Mediterranean world 
which had once been knit together by a bilingual culture 
had split into two halves which could no longer understand 
each other. The history of the centuries did but make the 
chasm deeper: men might try to throw bridges across the 
cleft — communion between the Churches might be restored, 
even Cerularius in the eleventh century did not say the last 
word, but the underlying ‘otherness’ remained until at last 
all the king’s horses and all the king’s men were powerless 
to dragoon the Orthodox world into union with the Latin 
Church. That sense of ‘otherness’ still persists to-day, and it 
will be long before the Churches of the Orthodox rite accept 
the dogma of the infallibility of a Western Pope. 

And, above all, it must be repeated, Constantinople itself, 
the imperial city (rj ^aoiXevovtra iroXis), secure behind the 
shelter of its fortifications, sustained the Empire alike in fair 
and in foul weather. The city was the magnet which attracted 
folk from every quarter to itself : to it were drawn ambassadors 
and barbarian kings, traders and merchants, adventurers and 
mercenaries ready to serve the Emperor for pay, bishops and 
monks, scholars and theologians. In the early Middle Age 
Constantinople was for Europe the city, since the ancient 
capital of the West had declined, its pre-eminence now but 
a memory, or at best a primacy of honour. Constantinople 
had become what the Piraeus had been for an earlier Greek 
world; to this incomparable market the foreigner came to 
make his purchases and the Byzantine State levied its 
customs on the goods as they left for Russia or the West. 
Because the foreigner sought the market, New Rome, it 
would seem, failed to develop her own mercantile marine, 
and thus in later centuries the merchants of Venice or Genoa 
could extort perilous privileges from the Empire’s weakness. 
Within the imperial palace a traditional diplomacy of 
prestige and remote majesty filled with awe the simple minds 
of barbarian rulers, even if it awoke the scorn of more 
sophisticated envoys. It may well be that the Byzantines 



xxviii INTRODUCTION 

were justified in developing and maintaining with scrupulous 
fidelity that calculated ceremonial. ‘But your Emperor is a 
God’ one barbarian is reported to have said — him, too, the 
magnet of Constantinople would attract and the Empire 
would gain a new ally. 

Yet this magnetism had its dangers. All roads led to New 
Rome, and a popular general or a member of that Anatolian 
landed aristocracy which had been schooled in military 
service might follow those roads and seek to set himself upon 
the imperial throne. Prowess might give a title to the 
claimant, and the splendid prize, the possession of the capital, 
would crown the venture, for he who. held Constantinople 
was thereby lord of the Empire. Yet though the inhabitants 
might open the gates to an East Roman pretender, the 
Byzantines could assert with pride that never through the 
centuries had they betrayed the capital to a foreign foe. 
That is their historic service to Europe. 

It becomes clear that the welfare of the Byzantine State 
depended upon the maintenance of a delicate balance of 
forces — a balance between the potentiores — the rich and 
powerful — and the imperial administration, between the 
army and the civil service, and, further, a balance between the 
revenues of the State and those tasks which it was incumbent 
upon the Empire to perform. Thus the loss of Asia Minor 
to the Seljuks did not only deprive East Rome of its reservoir 
of man-power, it also crippled imperial finances. Above all, 
in a world where religion played so large a part it was neces- 
sary to preserve the balance — the co-operation — between 
Church and State. ‘Caesaropapism’ is a recent word- 
formation by which it has been sought to characterize the 
position of the Emperor in relation to the Church. It is 
doubtless true that in the last resort the Emperor could 
assert his will by deposing a Patriarch; it is also true that 
Justinian of his own motion defined orthodox dogma with- 
out consulting a Council of the Church. But that precedent 
was not followed in later centuries ; an Emperor was bound 
to respect the authoritative formulation of the faith; and even 
Iconoclasm, it would seem, took its rise in the pronounce- 
ments of Anatolian bishops, and it was only after this 
episcopal initiative that the Emperor intervened. Indeed 



INTRODUCTION xxix • 

the Byzantine view of the relation which should subsist 
between Church and State can hardly be doubted: for the 
common welfare there must be harmony and collaboration. 
As Daniel the Stylite said addressing the Emperor Basiliscus 
and the Patriarch of Constantinople, Acacius: ‘When you 
disagree you bring confusion on the holy churches and in the 
whole world you stir up no ordinary disturbance.’ Emperor 
and Patriarch are both members of the organism formed by 
the Christian community of East Rome. It is thus, by the 
use of a Pauline figure, that the Epanagoge states the relation. 
That law-book may never have been officially published, it 
may be inspired by the Patriarch Photius, but none the less 
it surely is a faithful mirror of Byzantine thought. But it is 
also true that bishops assembled in a Council were apt to 
yield too easily to imperial pressure, even though they might 
reverse their decision when the pressure was removed. The 
breeze passes over the ears of wheat and they bend before it; 
the breeze dies down and the wheat-ears stand as they stood 
before its coming. But such an influence as this over an 
episcopal rank and file who were lacking in ‘civil courage’ is 
not what the term ‘Caesaropapism’ would suggest; if it is 
used at all, its meaning should at least be strictly defined. 

One is bound to ask: How did these Byzantines live? It 
was that question which Robert Byron in his youthful book 
The Byzantine Achievement sought to answer; he headed his 
chapter ‘The Joyous Life’. That is a serious falsification. 
The more one studies the life of the East Romans the more 
one is conscious of the weight of care which overshadowed 
it: the fear of the ruthless tax-collector, the dread of the 
arbitrary tyranny of the imperial governor, the peasant’s 
helplessness before the devouring land-hunger of the power- 
ful, the recurrent menace of barbarian invasion: life was a 
dangerous affair; and against its perils only supernatural 
aid — the help of saint, or magician, or astrologer could avail. 
And it is to the credit of the Byzantine world that it realized 
and sought to lighten that burden by founding hospitals 
for the sick, for lepers, and the disabled, by building hostels 
for pilgrims, strangers, and the aged, maternity homes for 
women, refuges for abandoned children and the poor, 



xxx INTRODUCTION 

institutions liberally endowed by their founders who in their 
charters set out at length their directions for the administra- 
tion of these charities. It is to the lives of the saints that one 
must turn, and not primarily to the Court historians if one 
would picture the conditions of life in East Rome. And 
because life was insecure and dangerous, suspicions were 
easily aroused and outbreaks of violence and cruelty were 
the natural consequence. The Europe of our own day ought 
to make it easier for us to comprehend the passions of the 
Byzantine world. We shall never realize to the full the 
magnitude of the imperial achievement until we have learned 
in some measure the price at which that achievement was 
bought. 

At the close of this brief Introduction an attempt may be 
made to summarize in a few words the character of that 
achievement: (i) as a custodian trustee East Rome preserved 
much of that classical literature which it continuously and 
devotedly studied; (ii) Justinian’s Digest of earlier Roman 
law salved the classical jurisprudence without which the 
study of Roman legal theory would have been impossible, 
while his Code was the foundation of the Empire’s law 
throughout its history. The debt which Europe owes for 
that work of salvage is incalculable; (iii) the Empire con- 
tinued to write history, and even the work of the humble 
Byzantine annalist has its own significance: the annalists 
begin with man’s creation and include an outline of the 
history of past empires because ‘any history written on 
Christian principles will be of necessity universal’: it will 
describe the rise and fall of civilizations and powers : it will 
no longer have a particularistic centre of gravity, whether 
that centre of gravity be Greece or Rome: 1 a world salvation 
needed a world history for its illustration : nothing less would 
suffice. And to the Christian world history was not a mere 
cyclic process eternally repeating itself, as it was to the Stoic. 
History was the working out of God’s plan : it had a goal and 
the Empire was the agent of a divine purpose. And Byzan- 
tine writers were not content with mere annalistic: in writing 

1 R. G. Collin gwood, The Idea of History (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1946), 
pp. 46-50. 



INTRODUCTION xxxi 

history the East Roman not only handed down to posterity 
r the chronicle of the Empire’s achievement, he also recorded 
the actions of neighbouring peoples before they had any 
thought of writing their own history. Thus it is that the 
Slavs owe to East Rome so great a debt; (iv) the Orthodox 
Church was a Missionary Church, and from its work of 
evangelization the Slav peoples settled on its frontiers derived 
their Christianity and a vernacular Liturgy; (v) it was in an 
eastern province of the Empire — in Egypt — that monasti- 
cism took its rise. Here was initiated both the life of the 
solitary and the life of an ascetic community. It was by a 
Latin translation of St. Athanasius’ Life of St. Antony, the 
f first monk, that monasticism was carried to the West, and 
what monasticism — Egypt’s greatest gift to the world — has 
meant in the history of Europe cannot easily be calculated. 
It was the ascetics of East Rome who fashioned a mystic 
theology which transcending reason sought the direct 
experience of the vision of God and of union with the God- 
head (i theosis ). Already amongst the students of western 
Europe an interest has been newly created in this Byzantine 
mysticism, and as more documents are translated that interest 
may be expected to arouse a deeper and more intelligent 
comprehension ; (vi) further, the Empire gave to the world 
a religious art which to-day western Europe is learning to 
appreciate with a fuller sympathy and a larger understanding. 
Finally, let it be repeated, there remains the historic function 
of Constantinople as Europe’s outpost against the invading 
hordes of Asia. Under the shelter of that defence of the 
Eastern gateway western Europe could refashion its own 
life: it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the civilization 
of western Europe is a by-product of the Byzantine Empire’s 
will to survive. 


N. H. B. 




THE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE: 
AN OUTLINE 

A. FROM a.d. 330 TO THE FOURTH CRUSADE 

I 

The history of Byzantium is, formally, the story of the Late 
Roman Empire. The long line of her rulers is a direct con- 
tinuation of the series of Emperors which began with 
Augustus ; and it was by the same principle — consent of the 
' Roman Senate and People — which Augustus had proclaimed 
when he ended the Republic that the Byzantine rulers 
wielded their authority. Theoretically speaking, the ancient 
and indivisible Roman Empire, mistress, and, after the 
downfall of the Great King of Persia in 629, sole mistress of 
the orbis terrarum, continued to exist until the year 1453. 
Rome herself, it was true, had been taken by the Visigoths 
in 410; Romulus Augustulus, the last puppet Emperor in 
the West, had been deposed by the barbarians in 476, and 
the firmest constitutionalist of Byzantium must have acknow- 
ledged, in the course of the centuries which followed, that 
Roman dominion over the former provinces of Britain, Gaul, 
Spain, and even Italy appeared to be no longer effective. 
Visible confirmation of this view was added when a German 
upstart of the name of Charles was actually, on Christmas 
Day, a.d. 800, saluted as Roman Emperor in the West. But 
there are higher things than facts; the Byzantine theory, 
fanciful as it sounds, was accepted for many centuries by 
friends and foes alike, and its influence in preserving the 
very existence of the Empire is incalculable. Contact with 
the West might become precarious; the old Latin speech, 
once the official language of imperial government, might 
disappear, and the Rhomaeans of the late Byzantine Empire 
might seem to have little except the name in common with 
their Roman predecessors. Liutprand of Cremona, in the 
tenth century, could jeer at the pompous ceremonial and 
ridiculous pretensions of the Byzantine Court; but the 



2 THE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 

Westerner failed, as did the later Crusading leaders, to 
comprehend the outlook of the classical world, strangely 
surviving in its medieval environment. For the ruler of 
Byzantium, the unshakable assurance that his State repre- 
sented Civilization itself, islanded in the midst of barbarism, 
justified any means that might be found necessary for its 
preservation; while the proud consciousness of his double 
title to world-dominion — heir of the universal Roman 
Empire and Vicegerent of God Himself — enabled him to 
meet his enemies in the gate, when capital and Empire 
seemed irretrievably doomed, and turn back the tide of 
imminent destruction. Ruinous schemes of reconquest and 
reckless extravagance in Court expenditure were the obvious 
consequences of the imperial ideal ; but what the latter-day 
realist condemns as the incorrigible irredentism of the 
Byzantine Emperors was not merely the useless memory of 
vanished Roman glories. It was the outcome of a confidence 
that the Empire was fulfilling a divine commission ; that its 
claim to rule was based on the will of the Christian God. 

II 

When Constantine founded his capital city on the Bos- 
phorus, his intention was to create a second Rome. A Senate 
was established, public buildings were erected, and the 
whole machinery of imperial bureaucracy was duplicated at 
its new headquarters. Aristocratic families from Italy were 
encouraged to build residences there, while bread and circuses 
were provided for the populace. The circus factions, trans- 
ported from the other Rome, formed a militia for the defence 
of the city. The avowed policy was to produce a replica of 
the old capital on the Tiber. 

One difference, indeed, there was. The new centre of 
administration was to be a Christian capital, free from the 
pagan associations of Old Rome, which had resisted, all too 
successfully, the religious innovations of Constantine. The 
Council of Nicaea, representing the Roman world united 
under a single Emperor, had given a clear indication of the 
main lines which subsequent sovereigns were to follow in 
dealing with the Church. The maintenance of religious 
unity was henceforth to form an even more essential principle 



AN OUTLINE 3 

of imperial policy. Rifts, however caused, in the structure of 
the Empire were a danger which, in view of the barbarian 
menace, the ruler could not afford to overlook. Constanti- 
nople was to be the strategic centre for the defence of the 
Danubian and Eastern frontiers; she was also to be the 
stronghold of Orthodoxy, the guardian of the newly-sealed 
alliance between Church and State. 

At the same time, emphasis was laid on the continuity of 
Greek culture, rooted though it was in pagan memories. 
The rich cities of Syria and Asia Minor, the venerated island 
shrines of the Aegean were stripped of their masterpieces of 
sculpture, their tutelary images, to adorn the new mistress 
of the Roman Empire. Education was sedulously fostered 
by the authorities, and before long the University of Con- 
stantinople, with its classical curriculum, was attracting 
students from all parts. The process of centralization con- 
tinued, and this was furthered by the closing in 551 of the 
school of law at Beirut, after the destruction of the city by 
earthquake. 

From the first, then, the three main principles of the 
Byzantine Empire may be said to have manifested themselves 
— Imperial Tradition, Christian Orthodoxy, Greek Culture. 
These were the permanent directing forces of Byzantine 
government, religion, and literature. 

Ill 

The administrative reforms of Diocletian and Constantine 
had given to the Roman Empire a renewed lease of life, a 
restoration, dearly bought though it was, of stability after 
the chaos of the third century. Important, however, as these 
reforms were, it is possible to regard them as the logical con- 
clusion of existing tendencies. The two acts of policy, on the 
other hand, by which Constantine became known to pos- 
terity — the foundation of Constantinople and the imperial 
favour increasingly shown to Christianity — may justly be 
considered a revolution, which set the Empire on new paths. 
That revolution took three centuries for its full develop- 
ment, but its final consequence was the creation of the East 
Roman or Byzantine State. Thus from Constantine (d. 337) 
to Heradius I'd. 641) stretches a formative period, during 



4 THE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 

which Byzantium gradually becomes loosened from her 
Western interests, until, with the transformation of the , 
Near East in the seventh century and the accompanying 
changes in her own internal structure, she assumes her 
distinctive historical form. 

In this period the reign of Theodosius the Great (379-9 5) 
marks a turning-point. He was the last sole ruler of the , 
Roman Empire in its original extent. Within a generation 
of his death, Britain, France, Spain, and Africa were passing 
into barbarian hands. Under his two sons, Arcadius and 
Honorius, the Eastern and Western halves of the Empire 
were sundered, never again to be fully reunited in fact, 
though remaining one in theory. In the relations of Church 
and State the reign was no less decisive. Constantine’s 
initiative had, in 313, led to an announcement by the joint 
Emperors, himself and Licinius, of toleration for the 
Christian faith, and at the Council of Nicaea (325) he had, 
in the interests of imperial unity, secured the condemnation 
of Arius. Constantine’s sons were educated as Christians, 
and Constantius II (337-61) zealously championed his own 
interpretation of the Christian faith; but the pagan reaction 
under Julian the Apostate (361—3), though finally ineffective, 
demonstrated the strength of the opposition. Julian’s imme- 
diate successors displayed caution and forbearance in 
matters of religion, and it was not until the reign of Theo- 
dosius I that the Roman Empire officially became the 
Orthodox Christian State. Henceforth legal toleration of 
paganism was at an end and Arianism, outlawed from 
Roman territory, spread only among the barbarian invaders. 

New heresies emerged during the fifth century; Trinita- 
rian controversy was succeeded by Christological disputes. 
The rift between East and West, steadily widening as their 
interests diverged, enhanced the political significance of the 
Church’s quarrels, and emperors could less than ever afford 
to remain indifferent. In the East the metropolitan sees had 
been placed in the chief centres of imperial administration; 
with the rise of Constantinople to the status of a capital, her 
ecclesiastical rank was exalted till she stood next in importance 
to Rome herself. A triangular contest ensued between 
Rome, Constantinople, and Alexandria, forming the back- > 



AN OUTLINE 5 

ground against which the Nestorian and Monophysite 
controversies were debated. The Council of Chalcedon 
(451), in which Rome and Constantinople combined to 
defeat the claims of Alexandria, ended the danger of Egyp- 
tian supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs, but it left behind it a 
legacy of troubles. Egypt continued to support the Mono- 
physite heresy, and was joined by Syria — two provinces 
where religious differences furnished a welcome pretext for 
popular opposition to the central Government. Meanwhile 
the Roman see, uncompromisingly Chalcedonian, com- 
manded the loyalty of the West. The problem which taxed 
all the resources of imperial statecraft was the reconciliation 
of these opposing worlds. The Henoticon of the Emperor 
Zeno (482), the Formula of Union which should reconcile 
Monophysite and Orthodox, did, it is true, placate the 
Monophysites, but it antagonized Rome. Justinian, in the 
sixth century, wavered between the two, and Heraclius, in 
the seventh, made a final but fruitless effort at mediation. 
The Arab conquest of Syria and Egypt ended the hopeless 
struggle by cutting off from the Empire the dissident 
provinces. The ecclesiastical primacy of Constantinople was 
now secure in the East, and with the disappearance of the 
political need for compromise the main source of friction 
with the West had been removed. By this time, however, 
the position of the two bishops at Old and New Rome had 
become very different. Church and State at Byzantium now 
formed an indissoluble unity, while the Papacy had laid 
firm foundations for its ultimate independence. 

The German invasions of the fourth and fifth centuries 
were the principal cause of the differing fortunes of East and 
West, and the decisive factor was the geographical and 
strategic position of Constantinople, lying at the northern 
apex of the triangle which included the rich coast-line of the 
eastern Mediterranean. The motive force which impelled 
the Germanic invaders across the frontiers of Rhine and 
Danube was the irresistible onrush of the Huns, moving 
westwards from central Asia along the great steppe-belt 
which ends in the Hungarian plains. This westward advance 
struck full at central Europe; but only a portion of the 
Byzantine territories was affected. Visigoths, Huns, and 



6 THE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 
Ostrogoths successively ravaged the Balkans, dangerous but 
not fatal enemies, and passed on to dismember Rome’s 
provinces in the West. The weakness of Persia, likewise 
harassed by the Huns, and the timely concessions made to 
her by Theodosius I in the partition of Armenia ( c . 384-7), 
preserved the Euphrates frontier intact, while the ascendancy 
of the barbarian magistri militum , commanders of the Ger- 
manized Roman armies, was twice broken at Constantinople, 
by the massacre of the Goths in 400, and again by the employ- 
ment of Isaurian troops as a counter-force in 471. Very 
different was the fate of Rome. In 410 the city itself was 
held to ransom by the Visigoths, and during the course of 
the fifth century Britain, Gaul, Spain, and Africa slipped 
from the Empire’s weakening grasp. In 476 came the end 
of the series of puppet emperors, and the barbarian generals, 
who throughout this century had been the effective power, 
assumed the actual government of Italy. 

In the economic sphere the contrast between East and 
West is yet more striking. Even under the earlier Empire, 
the preponderance of wealth and population had lain with 
the Eastern provinces. Banking and commerce were more 
highly developed in these regions, and through them passed 
the great trade-routes carrying the produce of Asia to the 
Western markets. The prosperous cities of Asia Minor, 
Syria, and Egypt were still, in the fifth century, almost 
undisturbed by the invader, and their contributions, in taxes 
or in kind, flowed in full volume to the harbours and 
Treasury of Byzantium. In western Europe the machinery 
of provincial government had broken down under the stress 
of anarchy and invasion. Revenues were falling off; long- 
distance trade was becoming impossible; the unity of the 
Mediterranean had been broken by the Vandal fleet, and 
even the traditional source of the corn-supply of the city of 
Rome was closed when the Vandals took possession of 
north-west Africa. With the establishment of the barbarian 
kingdoms, the organization of a civilized State disappears 
from the west of Europe. The centralized government of 
Byzantium could levy and pay its forces, educate its officials, 
delegate authority to its provincial governors, and raise 
revenue from the agricultural and trading population of its 



AN OUTLINE 7 

Empire. The German kings had only the plunder of con- 
quered lands with which to reward their followers; standing 
armies were out of the question, and the complications of 
bureaucracy were beyond their ken, save where, as in the 
Italy of Theodoric, a compromise with Roman methods had 
been reached. 


IV 

In 518 a Macedonian peasant, who had risen to the com- 
mand of the palace guard, mounted the imperial throne as 
Justin I. His nephew and successor, Justinian the Great 
(527—65), dominates the history of sixth-century Byzantium. 
For the last time a purely Roman-minded Emperor, Latin 
in speech and thought, ruled on the Bosphorus. In him the 
theory of Roman sovereignty finds both its fullest expression 
and its most rigorous application. It involved, in his view, 
the reconquest of the territory of the old Roman Empire, 
and in particular of those Western provinces now occupied 
by German usurpers. It involved also the imperial duty of 
assuring the propagation and victory of the Orthodox faith 
and, as a corollary, the absolute control of the Emperor over 
Church affairs. 

In pursuance of this policy Africa was retaken from the 
Vandals (534), Italy from the Ostrogoths (537). The south 
of Spain was restored to the Empire, and the whole Medi- 
terranean was now open to Byzantine shipping. A vast 
system of fortifications was constructed on every frontier; 
the defensive garrisons were reorganized, and the provincial 
administration was tightened up. Public works and build- 
ings of every description, impressive remains of which are 
still visible in three continents, owed their origin, and often 
their name, to the ambitious energy of Justinian. 

The same principles inspired his two greatest creations, 
the codification of Roman law and the building of St. Sophia. 
Conscientious government required that the law, its instru- 
ment, should be so arranged and simplified as to function 
efficiently; and the immense expenditure incurred by the 
Western expeditions could be met only by the smoothest and 
most economical working of the fiscal machinery. Imperial 
prestige was no less involved in the magnificence of the 



8 THE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 
Court and its surroundings ; and the position of the Emperor, 
as representative of God upon earth, gave special emphasis to 
his responsibility for the erection of the foremost church in 
Christendom. The centralization of all the activities of the 
Empire — political, artistic, literary, social, and economic — 
in its capital city was now practically complete, and the first 
great period of Byzantine art is nobly exemplified in the 
Church of the Holy Wisdom. 

The reverse of the medal, unhappily, stands out in higher 
relief when subsequent events are considered. The Western 
conquests, though striking, were incomplete, and ended by 
draining the resources of the Empire. Heavily increased 
taxation defeated the honest attempts of Justinian to remedy 
abuses in its collection, and alienated the populations of the 
newly regained provinces. The interests of East and West 
were now widely divergent, and to the Italian taxpayer the 
Byzantine official became a hateful incubus. Further, the 
main artery of communication between the Bosphorus and 
the Adriatic was threatened by the Slav incursions into the 
Balkan peninsula, which increased in frequency towards the 
end of the reign. 

Even before his accession Justinian had departed from 
the conciliatory policy of Zeno and Anastasius with regard 
to the Monophysites, and with an eye to Western goodwill 
had taken measures to close the schism between Rome and 
Constantinople caused by Zeno’s attempts to secure a 
working compromise in the dogmatic dispute. This, how- 
ever, did not end all troubles with the Papacy, for Justinian’s 
Caesaropapism’ demanded absolute submission of the 
pontiff to all pronouncements of the imperial will; and to 
enforce this, violent measures, moral and even physical, were 
required, as Pope Vigilius found to his cost. A more serious 
consequence was the persecution of Monophysites in Egypt 
and Syria. The influence of Theodora, the Empress, who 
possessed Monophysite sympathies and an understanding of 
the Eastern problem, prevented the policy from being con- 
sistently carried out; but enough was done to rouse the fury 
of the populace against the ‘Melchites’, or supporters of the 
Emperor , and the results of such disaffection were seen before 
long when Persian and Arab invaders entered these regions. 



AN OUTLINE 9 

At the death of Justinian it became evident that the vital 
interests of Byzantium lay in the preservation of her northern 
and eastern frontiers, which guarded the capital and the 
essential provinces of Anatolia and Syria. The rest of the 
century was occupied by valiant and largely successful 
efforts to mitigate the consequences of Justinian’s one-sided 
policy. Aggression in the West had entailed passive defence 
elsewhere, supplemented by careful diplomacy and a net- 
work of small alliances. This had proved expensive in sub- 
sidies, and damaging to prestige. Justin II in 572 boldly 
refused tribute to Persia, and hostilities were resumed. The 
war was stubbornly pursued till in 591 the main objectives 
„ of Byzantium were reached. Persia, weakened by dynastic 
struggles, ceded her portion of Armenia and the strongholds 
of Dara and Martyropolis. The approaches to Asia Minor 
and Syria thus secured, Maurice (582-602) could turn his 
attention to the north. The Danube frontier — barely 200 
miles from Constantinople — was crumbling under a new 
pressure. The Avars, following the traditional route of 
Asiatic nomad invaders, had crossed the south Russian 
steppes and established themselves, shortly after Justinian’s 
death, in the Hungarian plains. Dominating the neighbour- 
ing peoples, Slav and Germanic, they had exacted heavy 
tribute from Byzantium as the price of peace. Even this did 
not avert the fall of Sirmium (582), key-fortress of the Middle 
Danube, and the Adriatic coasts now lay open to barbarian 
attacks. After ten years of chequered warfare Maurice suc- 
ceeded in stemming the flood, and in the autumn of 602 
Byzantine forces were once more astride the Danube. Mean- 
while the Lombards, ousted by Avar hordes from their 
settlements on the Theiss, had invaded Italy (568), and by 
580 were in possession of more than half the peninsula. 
Byzantium, preoccupied with the East, could send no regular 
assistance, but efforts were made to create a Frankish alliance 
against the invaders, and with Maurice’s careful reorganiza- 
tion of the Italian garrisons a firm hold was maintained on 
the principal cities of the seaboard. 

All such precarious gains won by the successors of 
Justinian were swept away by the revolution of 602, which 
. heralded the approach of the darkest years that the Roman 



IO THE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 
Empire had yet known. Angry at the prospect of wintering 
on the Danube, the troops revolted. Phocas, a brutal cen- 
turion, was elected Emperor, and Maurice and his family 
were put to the sword. A reign of terror ensued, which 
revealed the real weakness of the Empire. Internal anarchy 
and bankruptcy threatened the very existence of the central 
power, while Persian armies, in a series of raiding campaigns, 
captured Rome’s outlying provinces and ravaged even her 
vital Anatolian possessions. The ruinous heritage of Justinian 
was now made manifest, and the days of Byzantium were, it 
seemed, already numbered. 


V 

The forces of revival found their leader in Africa, per- 
haps at this time the most Roman province of the Empire. 
In 610 Heraclius, son of the governor of Carthage, sailed 
for Constantinople. Phocas was overthrown, and the new 
Emperor entered upon his almost hopeless task. The 
demoralized armies were refashioned, strict economy re- 
paired the shattered finances, and the turbulent city factions 
were sternly repressed. The Sassanid forces, however, could 
hot be faced in open combat, and a Persian wave of conquest, 
more overwhelming than any since Achaemenid days, rolled 
over the Near East. In 61 1 Antioch fell, in 613 Damascus; 
in the following year Jerusalem was sacked, and its Patriarch 
carried off to Persia, together with the wood of the True 
Cross, the holiest relic of Christianity. In 619 came the 
invasion of Egypt, and with the fall of Alexandria, the great 
centre of African and Asiatic commerce, Byzantium lost the 
principal source of her corn-supply. Palestine, Syria, and 
Egypt were gone, Anatolia was threatened, and meanwhile 
the Avars ravaged the European provinces, and in 6 1 7 were 
hardly repulsed from the walls of the capital. 

By 622 Heraclius had completed his preparations, and the 
age-old history of the struggle between Rome and Persia 
closed in a series of astonishing campaigns. Boldly leaving 
Constantinople to its fate, the Emperor based his operations 
on the distant Caucasus region, where he recruited the local 
tribes, descending at intervals to raid the provinces of 
northern Persia. In 626, while he was still gathering his 



AN OUTLINE n 

forces for decisive action, a concerted attack was made on 
. Constantinople by the Avar Khagan, supported by Slav and 
Bulgarian contingents, and by the Persian army which had 
occupied Chalcedon. Fortunately there was no disaffection 
within the city; Heraclius had united Church and State in 
eager support for his crusade, and the inhabitants put up a 
desperate defence. Byzantine sea-power in the straits was 
perhaps the decisive factor in averting disaster. The Slav 
boats which had entered the Golden Horn were disabled, and 
effective contact between the European and Asiatic assailants 
was rendered impossible. After suffering heavy losses, the 
Khagan was forced to withdraw. The defeat was significant, 
for Avar supremacy in the Balkans declined from this point. 
The Slav tribes successively gained independence, and until 
the rise of the Bulgarian Empire no centralized aggression 
endangered the Danubian provinces. 

The following year saw the advance of Heraclius into the 
heart of Persia. A glorious victory was gained near Mosul, 
and although Ctesiphon, the Sassanid capital, could not be 
reached, the next spring brought news of Persian revolution 
and the murder of the Great King. His successor was 
obliged to conclude peace, and all the territory annexed by 
Persia was restored to the Empire. Egypt, Syria, and Asia 
Minor were freed from the invader, and the True Cross 
returned to its resting-place at Jerusalem. In 629 Hera- 
clius entered his capital in a blaze of glory, and the triumph 
of the Christian Empire was universally recognized. Rome’s 
only rival in the ancient world had been overthrown, and six 
years of fighting had raised Byzantium from the depths of 
humiliation to a position unequalled since the great days of 
Justinian. 

The defeat of Persia was followed closely by events even 
more spectacular, which changed the whole course of history, 
and ushered in the Middle Ages of Byzantium. At the death 
of Muhammad in 6 3 2 his authority scarcely extended beyond 
the Hedjaz. Within a few years, however, the impetus of his 
movement, reinforced by economic conditions in the Arabian 
peninsula, had produced a centrifugal explosion, driving in 
every direction small bodies of mounted raiders in quest of 
, food, plunder, and conquest. The old empires were in no 



12 THE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 
state to resist them. Rome and Persia had exhausted each 
other in the final struggle. The Sassanid realm, torn by , 
palace revolutions, fell an easy victim, while the absence at 
Constantinople of Heraclius, disabled by fatal illness, 
disorganized the defence of the Asiatic provinces. By 640 
both Palestine and Syria were in Muslim hands ; Alexandria 
fell to the Arabs in 642, and with Egypt as a base the con- 
querors crept slowly along the North African coast. Here 
they encountered more effective resistance, and it was not 
till the close of the seventh century that the capture of Car- 
thage laid open the way to Spain. Meanwhile from the 
naval resources of Egypt and Syria a formidable sea-power 
developed. Cyprus and Rhodes were taken, and became , 
centres of piracy from which the Muslims plundered the 
Aegean islands, ruining Mediterranean commerce. Con- 
stantinople itself was not immune, and a series of attacks 
from the sea (673-7) was repulsed only after desperate 
efforts and with the aid of the famous ‘Greek Fire’. Asia 
Minor, the last non-European possession of Byzantium, 
was fiercely contended for throughout the century; Armenia 
and the Caucasus regions finally succumbed, but in the 
south the Taurus passes, the principal gateway to the penin- 
sula, were successfully held. 

Under the pressure of invasion the Byzantine Empire 
took on its medieval, and final, form. The days of Rome as a 
great land-power were now over. Apart from Asia Minor 
and the immediate hinterland of the capital, Byzantine terri- 
tory was reduced practically to the fringes of the northern 
Mediterranean coast. During the course of the seventh 
century her Spanish outposts had been ceded to the Visigoths, 
and north-west Africa fell at length to the Saracens. Sicily 
and south Italy, the Magna Graecia of classical times, still 
owned allegiance to their Greek-speaking rulers; Naples, 
Venice, and I stria were still in Byzantine hands, and by her 
hold on the districts of Rome and Ravenna, joined by a 
narrow corridor, New Rome had succeeded in preventing 
the complete Lombard conquest of Italy. These, however, 
were all that remained of the Western conquests of Justinian. 
Between them and Constantinople the Slav tribes had 
established themselves in the Balkan peninsula, driving the ' 



AN OUTLINE 13 

Roman population to the Dalmatian islets or the coastal 
cities, and severing the great highway which connected East 
and West. Nearer home, a new menace had arisen. About 
680 the Bulgars, an Asiatic people, had crossed the lower 
Danube, and for the next three centuries their aggression 
was to prove a constant danger to the capital. 

To meet these altered conditions the imperial administra- 
tion was adapted for defence. The territories occupied by 
the Byzantine armies became provinces known as ‘Themes’, 
and their commanders exercised as governors both military 
and civil functions — an experiment first tried in the ‘exar- 
chates’ of Italy and Africa. The heart of the Empire now 
lay in Asia Minor, and here the armies were recruited from 
farmers to whom were given grants of land on a hereditary 
tenure with the obligation of military service. This new 
system of imperial defence was organized during the course 
of the seventh century, but the poverty of our sources for 
this period makes it impossible to trace the development in 
detail. By the early years of the eighth century the new army 
was already in being. 

Byzantium henceforth faced eastwards. The Latin ele- 
ment in her culture declined, though, in spite of its disap- 
pearance (apart from a number of technical terms) even from 
official language, the legal conceptions of Rome continued to 
form the basis of her constitution. Shorn of the greater part 
of her Asiatic and Western territories, she had become pre- 
dominantly Greek in speech and civilization, and a yet closer 
bond of unity within the Empire was found in common 
devotion to Orthodox Christianity. With the loss of the 
dissident provinces, a main obstacle to agreement with the 
Papacy had been removed, and in 681, after many storms, 
union was temporarily re-established by the Sixth Oecume- 
nical Council. 

Constantine IV (668-85), under whom this result was 
achieved, had not only done much for the safety of the 
Western provinces, but had also administered an important 
check to the advance of Islam towards Constantinople. His 
reign was the high-water mark of Byzantine success during 
this period. The Heraclian dynasty ended with his successor, 
Justinian II, and with its disappearance palace revolutions, 



14 THE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 
culminating in anarchy, filled the years from 695 to 717. As 
ever, the foes of Byzantium seized their opportunity. 
Revolts in Italy became more frequent and more serious. 
Carthage fell at last to the Islamic invader. The Bulgarians, 
profiting by political discord within the Empire, established 
themselves south of the Danube. In Asia Minor the loyalty 
of the Byzantine troops and of their leaders had been sapped 
by constant rebellions, while from Damascus the Umayyads, 
whose Empire was now approaching its zenith, mercilessly 
ravaged the unguarded provinces. In 717 the spearhead of 
the Islamic advance threatened the capital. A determined 
investment of Constantinople by land and sea followed, and 
for twelve months victory hung in the balance. In the same 
year Leo III (717-41) came to the throne, and the saving of 
Constantinople from the concentrated thrust of the first 
great Muslim Empire was the earliest achievement of the 
new dynasty. 


VI 

The birthplace of the so-called ‘Isaurian’ rulers is not 
certainly known, though northern Syria appears most 
probable. Their Asiatic origin is generally admitted, and 
many aspects of their policy, which, owing to the meagre 
and hostile character of the sources, has been much debated, 
seem to display an alien challenge to the Graeco-Roman 
traditions of the Empire. Of the military services of the 
Isaurian Emperors there can be no doubt; even their bitterest 
opponents gratefully remembered them as saviours of the 
commonwealth in its direst need. 

The contraction of the frontiers of East Rome had brought 
with it a straitening of her financial resources, a slowing- 
down of her commercial activities, and a narrowing of her 
intellectual and spiritual life. Under the stress of constant 
warfare, art and letters had declined, and the seventh 
century is perhaps the most barren period in the history of 
Byzantine civilization. The resulting paucity of records has 
left many gaps in our knowledge. Fuller information would 
reveal the transformation of the Empire, and the heroic 
efforts which must have been necessary to adapt it to the new 
and perilous conditions brought about by the invasions. It 



AN OUTLINE 15 

was these efforts which formed the foundation of the 
Isaurian successes. 

From the standpoint of European history Leo Ill's most 
important work was accomplished in the first year of his 
reign, when he repulsed the Arab forces from the walls of 
the capital. Even Charles Martel’s great victory of Poitiers 
in 732 was less decisive, for Byzantium had met the full 
force of the Umayyad Empire at the gateway of Europe. 
With the succession of the Abbasid dynasty in 750, after a 
period of internal strife, the centre of Muslim power moved 
eastward to Bagdad, and Asia’s threat to the Bosphorus was 
not renewed for many centuries. Constantine V was able to 
recover Cyprus in 746 and to push back the Anatolian 
frontier to the eastern boundary of Asia Minor. For the 
fortunes of the Roman Empire Leo’s initial success is com- 
parable with that of Heraclius, who overcame the Avars 
and Persians in the hour of their greatest strength. But the 
Bulgarians, who had replaced the Avars in the Danube 
region, found themselves on this occasion in the pay of 
Byzantium, and such was the military prowess of the Isaurian 
rulers that it was not until the close of the eighth century that 
Bulgaria began to present a real problem. 

The administrative policy of Leo and Constantine appears 
to have followed approved methods of safeguarding the 
central power, and to have included an extension of the 
theme-system which their predecessors had instituted for 
the defence of the threatened provinces. The publication of 
the Ecloga, a new legal code modifying the law in the direc- 
tion of greater ‘humanity’, was a more radical measure. 
Philanthropia was a traditional duty of Rome’s sovereigns 
towards their subjects, but the new code signified a departure 
from the spirit of Roman law, especially in the sphere of 
private morals and family life, and an attempt to apply 
Christian standards in these relations. It is a proof of the 
latent strength of the legacy left by pagan Rome that, de- 
spite the renewed influence of the Church, a reversion to 
the old principles took place later under the Macedonian 
regime. 

Most revolutionary of all, in Byzantine eyes, were the 
Iconoclastic decrees. The campaign opened in 726, when 



1 6 THE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 
Leo III issued the first edict against images, which in the 
Greek Church was directed specifically against the icons. 
Under Constantine V the struggle became more embittered, 
and in 765 a fierce persecution was set on foot. In 787 the 
Empress Irene, an Athenian by birth, succeeded in re- 
establishing the cult of images, but an Iconoclast reaction 
under three Emperors of Asiatic origin (8 1 3-42) renewed, 
though with more limited scope, the measures of Leo and 
Constantine. In 843 the images were finally restored. 

The Iconoclast movement can be treated neither in 
isolation from the secular reforms, nor as subordinate to 
them. In its later stages the attack was directed primarily 
against the power and influence of the monasteries, as being 
the strongholds of the cult of images ; and the monks reta- 
liated by boldly challenging the Emperor’s constitutional 
supremacy in Church affairs. But the Isaurians were neither 
rationalist anti-clericals nor dogmatic innovators. The use 
of images had not been favoured by the Early Church, and 
puritan tendencies had appeared sporadically in the fourth 
and sixth centuries. Asia Minor was their particular centre 
at this time, and Jewish or Muslim hostility in these parts 
to a religious use of an art of representation may not have 
been without effect, as the abusive epithet ‘Saracen-minded’, 
hurled at Leo III by his opponents, possibly indicates. 
Christological issues were deeply involved on either side, 
and it must always be emphasized that for the Byzantines 
the question was primarily a theological one. Popular 
feeling and the immense power of tradition were ultimately 
the deciding factors. The triumph of the icon-defenders 
was a victory for popular religion and popular ways of 
thought. The defeat, on the other hand, of the movement 
towards a separation between the spheres of State and 
Church reflected no less accurately the Byzantine conviction 
of the indissolubility of civil and religious government. 

The reign of Irene, first as regent, and later as Empress 
after the deposition and blinding of her son, appears at first 
sight to be merely an interlude between two periods of 
Iconoclasm. Actually, however, the Second Council of 
Nicaea (787), which temporarily restored the images, 
formulated the theory of icon-worship with such success 



AN OUTLINE 17 

that t)ie improved organization and tactics of the monastic 
party finally won the day. 

A sensational development at this time in the West may 
have appeared less important to the Byzantines than it does 
to us. On Christmas Day, 800, Charlemagne was proclaimed 
Emperor in the basilica of St. Peter at Rome. The constitu- 
tional significance of the coronation has been variously 
interpreted in modern days, and the views of contemporaries 
were in many cases no less divergent. So far as Byzantium 
was concerned, the situation in the West was hardly affected 
by the new pronouncement. In theory Charles was no more 
than an unusually troublesome pretender. Practically, the 
decisive period had lain in the middle of the previous 
century. Italian antagonism to Byzantine rule had been 
sharpened by the Iconoclast controversy, but the Papacy 
had continued to support the Exarchate as a check to the 
Lombard overlordship of Italy. In 751 Pippin assumed the 
crown of France, and in the same year Ravenna, the centre 
of Byzantine defence, was captured by the Lombards. The 
denouement was swift. In 754 Pippin, in answer to the 
Pope’s appeal, invaded north Italy. Lombardy became a 
vassal state of the Franks, until in 774 it was finally con- 
quered by Charlemagne. The Exarchate was delivered to 
the Pope, and Byzantine rule, save in a few coastal districts, 
in the southern extremity of the peninsula and in Sicily, 
came to an end. 

The position was not improved with the advent of the 
Amorian dynasty (820-67), f° r Campania and Venice 
remained largely independent of Constantinople, while 
Sicily soon fell to the Arab invaders from North Africa. In 
the East, Byzantine arms met with greater success. Asia 
Minor was recovered after a dangerous insurrection under 
Thomas the Slav (820-3), and his Arab supporters were 
disappointed of their prize. A fixed frontier-line was 
established from Armenia to northern Syria, and the rela- 
tions between the Christian and Muslim Empires came to 
resemble those which had formerly prevailed between Rome 
and Persia. Similar tactics and armament were employed on 
both sides; raids became periodical but produced no deci- 
sion; mutual understanding and respect were engendered — 



1 8 THE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 

conditions which are reflected in the epic of Digenes Akritas 
(see p. 245). Meanwhile, however, Muslim sea-power 
menaced the whole Mediterranean basin, and the capture of 
Crete (825) by the invaders was even more disastrous than 
the loss of Sicily, for the Aegean now lay open to sudden and 
destructive raids from the swift corsairs which gathered 
there. On the northern frontier the Bulgarians under their 
first great leader, Krum, had become a formidable enemy. 
A Byzantine army was ambushed and cut to pieces in the 
Balkan defiles (811); the Emperor Nicephorus was slain, 
and his head used as a drinking-cup by the savage conqueror. 
Only the strong walls of Constantinople prevented Krum 
from assaulting the capital, and perhaps it was only his death 
in 814 which saved it from destruction. The Frankish 
invasions of Croatia occupied Bulgaria for the next few 
decades, and decreased the immediate threat to Constanti- 
nople, much as, in the East, Turkish inroads had paralysed 
Byzantium’s other foe, the Caliphate. 

The Isaurian house had ended with the death of Irene: 
from 802 to 867 no dynasty had established itself securely, 
and a number of ferocious palace murders punctuated the 
continual series of revolts. Of these latter, the rebellion of 
Thomas the Slav had been the longest and most dangerous, 
approaching at times the dimensions of a civil war. Asia 
Minor had been the worst sufferer, and the small peasant- 
farmers, a class which the Isaurian Emperors had carefully 
fostered, were reduced to dependence on the powerful land- 
owners. The feudal tendencies thus encouraged were 
destined subsequently to prove a serious problem for the 
State. The Amorian period, however, was not all loss. 
Against military reverses in the West must be set the 
successful maintenance of the Eastern frontier. Against the 
bitterness of the Iconoclast controversy must be reckoned 
the marked revival of art and learning and the renewed 
missionary activities of the Orthodox Church, which carried, 
at the hands of Constantine and Methodius, her most potent 
civilizing agencies to the Slavs of Moravia. Finally, the 
conversion of Bulgaria (864) brought Byzantine influence to 
bear, with decisive effect, on the most immediate enemy of 



19 


AN OUTLINE 
VII 

The greatest period in medieval Byzantine history is the 
double century spanned by the reigns of the Macedonian 
dynasty. It may justly be called the Macedonian period, for 
the unity thus implied was a real, though curious, phenome- 
non. During the whole period members of the Macedo- 
nian house occupied the imperial throne. Few of the direct 
heirs played a leading part in the military and administrative 
triumphs of the Empire; apart from the two Basils the heroic 
figures are for the most part usurping generals, such as 
Nicephorus Phocas or John Tzimisces, whose imperial titles 
were gained by murder or threats, or by politic marriages 
into the royal house. Yet the need for such marriage alliances 
proves clearly the strength of the dynastic sentiment which 
swayed the population at this time. Loyalty to the families of 
Constantine and Heraclius had been witnessed in the fourth 
and seventh centuries; but so deep-seated a feeling as that 
evoked by the Macedonians was a new development in 
Byzantium. Strangest of all was its final demonstration, 
when two elderly princesses, Zoe and Theodora, last scions 
of the Macedonian house, were carried to power on the 
crest of that astonishing tumult which Psellus has so vividly 
described. Palace intrigues, assassinations, and conspiracies 
were rife throughout this violent and romantic period; but 
they did not break that fundamental loyalty to the house of 
Macedon, which, reinforced by the majesty of ceremonial 
and the semi-divine character of the Emperor — treason had 
now become a veritable act of impiety — formed the back- 
ground of the Byzantine achievement. 

The beginnings of that achievement were slow. Byzan- 
tium, centre of stability amid the swirling currents of three 
continents, had preserved her heritage and guarded her 
difficult frontiers only by superior skill in the manipulation 
of her limited military resources . 1 For over a century she 
had been fully occupied in holding her own, and the forward 
movement was now made possible only by the weakness 
of the surrounding nations. In the West the Carolingian 
Empire was in process of dissolution. Byzantine relations 

1 The total strength of the Byzantine army in the ninth century has been 
estimated at 120,000. 



20 THE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 
with the Papacy, though chequered, were no longer em- 
bittered by the Iconoclast dispute, and common cause was 
found in the defensive measures against Islam. The Saracen 
conquest of Sicily continued, but the imperial possessions in 
south Italy were firmly held, and spirited counter-attacks on 
the Muslim pirates in Tyrrhenian and Adriatic waters gave 
welcome signs of a revival of Byzantine sea-power. Nearer 
home the Bulgarians at this time presented no real menace, 
and Russia was beginning to admit Byzantine influences. 
The security of the Empire, both military and financial, 
rested, as ever, on the integrity of Asia Minor, and here, too, 
the position was favourable for Byzantium. The Abbasid 
dynasty, which had overthrown the Umayyads in 750, had 
removed the capital of Islam from Damascus to Bagdad, 
and with it the sword’s point from the throat of Europe. The 
Caliphate, which had hitherto been in the hands of able 
generals and politicians, supported by Syrian Arabs, soon 
fell under the dominance of Persian nobles or Turkish 
mercenaries. The Western provinces of Islam — Spain, 
North Africa, and Egypt — threw off in turn their political 
allegiance to Bagdad, and powerful rulers in Syria and 
Mesopotamia eventually rendered themselves independent 
of the Caliph. 

Asia Minor was vitally affected by these changes. Its 
traditional defences were two. In the south the formidable 
passes of the Taurus and Anti-Taurus had been successfully 
held by the Byzantines against repeated Saracen inroads. 
In the north control of the Armenian massif was necessary 
for any permanent conquest of the Anatolian hinterland. 
For nine centuries the mountain kingdom of Armenia had 
been a bone of contention between Rome and the successive 
rulers of Hither Asia. It had been partitioned at intervals 
into spheres of influence ; its princes had been supported in 
turn, or its territories temporarily annexed, by the rival 
Empires. From the accession of the Macedonian dynasty 
dates the beginning of its Golden Age, when the ascendancy 
of the great Bagratid family enabled it to assert a large 
measure of independence for two glorious centuries. 

Basil I was not slow to seize his opportunity. A treaty 
was made with Armenia, and intrigues were set on foot 



AN OUTLINE 


with a view to promoting Byzantine influence. In the south 
successive campaigns cleared the way from Cappadocian 
Caesarea — the starting-point for all Byzantine operations — 
to the Cilician plain, recovery of which was a necessary 
prelude to the advance on Syria. At the same time Byzantine 
garrisons were posted in the Taurus defiles, and a foothold 
was secured on the upper Euphrates. These advantages 
were held under Basil’s successor, Leo VI (886-912), more 
through the weakness of his enemies than for any other 
cause, since the Empire was preoccupied elsewhere. Muslim 
corsairs from Crete were terrorizing the Aegean, and in 904 
Salonica, the second city of the Empire, which had survived 
so many assaults by land and sea, was captured and barbar- 
ously sacked, while a large Byzantine naval expedition 
against Crete in 910 ended disastrously for the assailants. 
Even more dangerous was the rise of Bulgaria, under her 
greatest ruler, Simeon (893—927), whose ambition it was to 
wrest the sovereignty of the Balkans from East Rome. Until 
his death no security was possible for the Empire. 

Meanwhile internal recovery from the troubled period of 
Iconoclasm continued. The reigns of Basil I and Leo VI are 
the last of the creative ages of Roman legislation. In the 
great collection known as the Basilica the legal heritage of the 
past was selected and arranged to suit the requirements of 
the new times, and it is significant that one of its main 
characteristics was a return to the laws of Justinian, and an 
abrogation of the revolutionary principles introduced by the 
Iconoclast rulers. The absolutism of the imperial supremacy 
over both Church and State is the underlying conception, 
and the governing ideals of the Macedonian house are further 
displayed in the laws protecting the peasant class against 
the depredations of the rich landowners. Tradition — the 
aesthetic legacy of Hellas, its delight in form and colour, its 
many-sided knowledge — is also apparent in the revival of art 
and letters at this time. Its effect is seen in the churches and 


palaces, with their exquisite proportions and balanced schemes 
of decoration, and in the classical studies of the University, 
where its scholars were dominated by the encyclopaedic 
Photius, the most remarkable figure in the long story of 


Byzantine learning. 



24 THE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 
Bulgar-slayer’ (963-1025). The precarious tenure of a 
Byzantine ruler, menaced from without by hostile armies 
along every frontier, and from within by the fierce competi- 
tion of powerful nobles, ambitious for the throne, is well 
illustrated by the events of his reign. Dangerous revolts in 
Asia Minor, lasting for several years, were crushed only after 
long and exhausting struggles. Meanwhile Samuel, ruler of 
western Bulgaria, had united his people once more, and in 
successive conquests had extended his boundaries from the 
Danube to the Adriatic. Thirty years of stubborn fighting 
in the last and fiercest of the Bulgarian wars ended in the 
great Byzantine victory of 1014, when 15,000 Bulgarian 
prisoners were blinded and sent back to their sovereign. 
With this terrible vengeance the ruin of the Bulgarian Empire 
was consummated, and its territories were placed under 
Byzantine rule. 

The achievements of Basil II did not end here. In 999 he 
secured the Empire’s hold upon northern Syria, and in 1001 
a treaty was concluded with the Fatimid Caliph of Egypt, 
which lasted until the end of the reign. This in effect inter- 
preted the limits of Byzantine reconquest. The duchy of 
Antioch was recognized as an imperial possession, and a 
rather shadowy suzerainty over Aleppo was admitted ; south 
of this, the Fatimid sovereignty was acknowledged. The 
effects of this treaty were seen in the Crusading era. 

Byzantine action in regard to Armenia was no less 
decisive. In 1021 one of the Armenian chieftains, menaced 
by Turkish invaders from the east, was persuaded to cede 
his dominions to the Roman Empire. By 1045 the whole 
plateau had been annexed, and the Empire now held in its 
grasp both northern and southern entrances to the vital 
provinces of Asia Minor. Meanwhile in the West all 
Byzantine territory was placed under the control of a ‘cata- 
pan’, an officer combining military and civil powers. The 
weakness of the Papacy and of the Germanic Empire at this 
time contrasted unfavourably with the new solidarity of 
East Rome, whose star, even in western Europe, appeared 
once more in the ascendant. 

At the death of Basil in 1025 the Empire had reached its 
apogee. By the conquests of the preceding century, less 



AN OUTLINE 2$ 

extensive but more practical than Justinian’s, Roman terri- 
tory had been more than doubled, and the prestige thus 
acquired had surrounded it with a periphery of semi- 
dependent states. Naples and Amalfi acknowledged the 
imperial position in south Italy, while Venice, favoured by 
privileged trading concessions, patrolled the Adriatic in the 
Byzantine interest. Roman dominance was strongest in the 
coastal districts of the Empire, and the fortress of Durazzo 
in the West helped to secure the alliance of Serbs and 
Croats against possible Bulgarian uprisings, while in the 
north-east the Crimean city of Cherson was the centre of 
Byzantine diplomacy, playing successfully on the mutual 
rivalries of Patzinaks, Russians, and other peoples bordering 
on the Black Sea. The Caucasian tribal rulers were heavily 
subsidized, and Armenia, as we have seen, passed into 
Byzantine hands shortly afterwards, thus forming the 
northern bastion of the long eastern frontier. 

No less remarkable was the economic prosperity of the 
Empire. Basil II had filled the Treasury to overflowing, and 
its resources were maintained by the revenue of the new 
provinces, and by the dues levied on trade and industry, 
both of which were elaborately controlled by the State — a 
continuous development of those Roman principles which 
had found their first systematic expression in the edicts of 
Diocletian. Constantinople, the greatest commercial city of 
the Middle Ages, was at this time not only the chief pur- 
veyor of Asiatic luxuries to the West, but also the most 
important single formative influence on the budding arts of 
medieval Europe. In contrast with the semi-barbaric king- 
doms of the West, the Byzantine Empire presents the appear- 
ance of a fully civilized State, equipped with the scientific 
government and public services of the ancient world, 
administered by a cultured and literary bureaucracy, and 
guarded by troops whose tactical efficiency has perhaps 
never been surpassed. 

The end of the Macedonian house must be told briefly. 
Once the strong hand of Basil was removed, all the centri- 
fugal influences which he had checked resumed their sway. 
For thirty years after his death (1025-56) the Empire rested 
on the strength of its dynastic loyalties, while Zoe and 



28 THE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 
invaders. The Byzantine counter-thrust, led by the Emperor 
Romanus IV Diogenes in person, ended in the disastrous 
battle of Manzikert (1071) — one of the blackest days in the 
long history of Byzantium. Despite the capture of the 
Emperor and the annihilation of his troops, all was not yet 
lost; but the disorganized government at Constantinople 
failed to initiate any effective resistance. Asia Minor was 
rapidly overrun, and by 1081 the Turks ruled from the 
Euphrates to the Sea of Marmora, where Nicaea became the 
first capital of the Seljuk sultanate of Anatolia. 

Once more the Asiatic conqueror faced Constantinople 
across the narrow waters, and once more the Roman Empire 
found its saviour. Alexius Comnenus, member of one of the 
most powerful families in Asia Minor, was proclaimed 
Emperor by the military aristocracy, and inaugurated the 
brilliant dynasty which preserved the fortunes of East Rome 
for what must in truth be called the final century of her 
imperial existence. 


VIII 

The stage was now set for the last act, and the reign of 
Alexius Comnenus (108 1-1 1 18) revealed the main lines of 
its development. It marked the victory of the great land- 
owners over the civil servants of the capital — a victory 
of the forces held in check for so long by a succession of 
strong emperors. Its opening years witnessed the attack of 
Robert Guiscard the Norman on Durazzo, the fortress which 
guarded the western end of the Via Egnatia , the great Roman 
road leading from the Adriatic to Constantinople. This has 
been called a prelude to the Crusades, and it helps to explain 
the Byzantine attitude to the Crusaders, of whom the 
Normans formed a prominent part. The attack was defeated, 
with help from the Venetian fleet; Venice could not afford to 
see the mouth of the Adriatic occupied on both sides by the 
Normans. But the price paid by the Roman Empire was the 
opening of all ports to Venetian shipping, and freedom for 
Venetian commerce from the dues which contributed so 
greatly to Byzantine revenues. This concession made mani- 
fest the fatal error of Byzantine trading policy. In later 
centuries the Emoire for overseas trade, hnth exnort and 



AN OUTLINE 29 

import, had come increasingly to rely on foreign shipping to 
convey its merchandise. Its wealthy classes had preferred to 
invest in land rather than risk the losses of maritime venture. 
The stranglehold of Venice tightened during the whole of 
this century, and to the mutual hatred of Greeks and Latins 
which resulted was due in no small measure the final catas- 
trophe. Ominous, too, was the condition of Byzantine 
finances. The loss of her rich Asiatic provinces had deprived 
the Empire of the principal sources of taxation, and it is 
significant that the gold byzant, the imperial coin which had 
retained its full value in the markets of three continents 
since the days of Diocletian, was first debased under the 
Comnenian dynasty. It speaks well for the diplomatic and 
military genius of Alexius that, despite these difficulties, he 
was able to win back much of the European territory lost in 
the preceding period, to repulse a combined attack on the 
capital by Turks and Patzinaks, and by 1095 to be preparing 
for a sustained assault on his chief enemies, the Seljuks of 
Asia Minor. But in the following year the first Crusaders 
from the West made their appearance. Eastern and western 
Europe, more complete strangers to one another than per- 
haps at any other period in history, were suddenly thrown 
together by the impetus of this astonishing movement. 
Byzantium, drawn into the orbit of the Western States, and 
struggling to maintain her position amid changing coalitions 
of the Mediterranean powers, entered upon a tortuous policy 
of which only the barest outlines can be given here. 

To the realist outlook of East Rome the Crusades were 
largely incomprehensible. In a sense all her wars had been 
Holy Wars, for she was, almost by definition, the champion 
of Christianity against the barbarians. Her own survival 
was thus bound up with the future of Christian civilization, 
and it therefore behoved all Christians to fight on her behalf. 
She, too, had tried to recover the Holy Places, and Antioch, 
the limit of her success, had remained Byzantine until only 
a few years before. It was reasonable to suppose that the 
Western armies would help her, in return for generous 
subsidies, to regain her essential Anatolian and north Syrian 
provinces. Western contingents had for some time formed 
a considerable part of the Byzantine forces, and the Crusaders 



3 o THE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 
might well, on this analogy, prove useful mercenaries; while 
if their idealism were genuine, they should surely be eager to k 
assist the Empire which for so many centuries had held the 
gates of Europe against Asiatic heathenism. Alexius was 
soon undeceived. These undisciplined armies marching 
through his territories cared little for the security of Byzan- 
tium. Idealism led them to the conquest of Jerusalem ; other 
motives urged them to carve out principalities for them- 
selves. But Byzantine military science had not failed to study 
the psychology and tactics of the Westerners, and Alexius’s 
astute diplomacy, utilizing the Western concept of the oath 
of fealty, established Byzantine rights over much of the 
reconquered territory. 

The First Crusade, after initial setbacks, proved a brilliant 
success. The Seljuk rulers, mutually suspicious, failed to 
combine, and Bagdad gave no effective aid. Nicaea fell in 
1097, and the Crusaders marched through Asia Minor. 
Antioch was taken in 1098, and in the following year the 
object of the expedition was attained with the capture of 
Jerusalem. Alexius had recovered most of western Anatolia, 
and Crusading States came into existence shortly afterwards 
at Jerusalem, Antioch, Tripoli, and Edessa. A new situation 
had arisen in the Near East. The Western conquerors 
entered into a complex system of balanced alliances which 
was necessary to maintain their existence, and Turco-Arab 
emirs soon became useful allies against the claims of Sultans, 
Caliphs, or Byzantine Emperors. Alexius had long been at 
home in this world, and his aims were consistently pursued. 
Asia Minor was essential to the Empire, and Antioch, which 
had been in imperial hands only ten years earlier, was recog- 
nized by most of the Crusaders as a Byzantine fief. Only the 
Normans, implacable enemies of Byzantium, proved recalci- 
trant, and Bohemond, son of Robert Guiscard, after his 
intrigues in Antioch and his attack on Durazzo, was finally 
crushed by Alexius. 

John II Comnenus (1 1 1 8-43) continued the foreign policy 
of his father; Cilicia and the Taurus, where Armenian 
refugees had begun to found independent States, were sub- 
dued, and Byzantine suzerainty over Antioch was success- 
fully demonstrated. His efforts were wisely concentrated on 



AN OUTLINE 31 

the East; but the crowning of Roger II at Palermo in 1 130, 
which united the realms of south Italy and Sicily, consti- 
tuted a new threat, in face of which an alliance was con- 
cluded between Byzantium and the Germanic Emperor. 

This alliance was destined to play an important part 
during the reign of Manuel I Comnenus (1 143-80), which 
saw a complete change in Byzantine policy. It can be 
roughly summarized as a diversion of interests and activities 
to the western Mediterranean. Manuel hoped to check the 
Normans, who in 1 147 had invaded Greece, by a united 
front of both Empires; and the policy seemed successful 
when a dangerous coalition, which was headed by Roger II, 
of France, the Papacy, Hungary, and Serbia failed to win 
over the Western Emperor. But in 1154 Byzantine troops 
once more landed in Italy; Venice, alarmed at the threat to 
her Adriatic trade, joined the Normans, and the Emperor 
Barbarossa followed suit. It was clear that Rome’s last bid 
for Western dominion had failed, and in 1158 Byzantine 
troops left the Italian shores for ever. Manuel, reversing his 
policy, made overtures to the Papacy, and supported the 
Lombard cities in their successful struggle against Bar- 
barossa. But the futility of this was shown in 1177, when 
the Congress of Venice reconciled the Pope, the German 
Emperor, and the cities of north Italy. Venice had been 
alienated by the harsh treatment of her merchants in Con- 
stantinople, and Manuel had thus made enemies of all his 
Western allies. Nor were events in the East more favourable. 
In the preceding year the disastrous defeat of Myriokepha- 
lon in the Phrygian mountains had destroyed all hopes of 
reconquering Asia Minor from the Seljuks, and the defence 
of the coastal districts was henceforth the limit of Byzantine 
endeavour. 

A sunset glow pervaded the Court of the later Comneni. 
Art and letters flourished under this brilliant dynasty, and it 
is significant that even at the eleventh hour the poets, histo- 
rians, and philosophers of ancient Greece continued to inspire 
their spiritual descendants. But within the capital there 
festered a fatal feud between the Greeks and the men of the 
West. Manuel’s policy had raised many Latins to places of 
influence, and this brought to a head the accumulated hatred 



32 THE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 
of the Greeks for the ‘barbarian’ soldiers and merchants 
whose insolence and rapacity had invaded all sections of 
Byzantine life. Its fruits were shown in the accession to 
power of Andronicus I Comnenus (1183-5) on a wave of 
nationalist feeling, which had already found vent in a bloody 
massacre of the Latins in Constantinople (1182). The 
revenge of the West was the sack of Salonica by the Normans 
(1185) and, when their forces approached the capital, 
Andronicus, who had lost influence by his oppression of the 
aristocracy, was deposed and murdered. The Comnenian 
house was replaced by the incapable Angeli, and the Western 
powers, further consolidated by the politic betrothal of the 
heirs of the Germanic Emperor and the Sicilian kingdom, 
waited only for an opportunity to humiliate Byzantium. 

That opportunity was furnished by the Fourth Crusade. 
The complicated issues involved cannot be discussed here. 
The objective was Egypt, where Saladin had rallied the 
forces of Islam. But the controlling spirit of the Crusade 
was Venice, whose ships constituted the only means of 
transport. With the Crusading armies was a Byzantine 
prince, whose father, Isaac II Angelus, had recently been 
dusted from the throne. His presence, and the influence of 
Venice, turned the Crusade from its original purpose, and the 
fleet sailed for Constantinople to restore the fallen ruler. A 
popular anti-Latin tumult was the result. Isaac II and his 
son met their deaths, and the Crusaders assaulted the capital 
by land and sea. 

On 13 April 1204 Constantinople fell. Three days of 
pillaging and outrage followed, and the palaces and churches 
of western Europe were presently filled with the stolen 
treasures of the East Roman Empire. Its territories were 
divided among the conquerors, Venice receiving the lion’s 
share. Feudal principles determined the government both 
of the capital and of the petty principalities which came into 
being in Greece and the Aegean. Thus the decentralizing 
forces which, with the barbarian invasions, had destroyed 
the fabric of Roman organization in western Europe, ex- 
tended their influence to the East, erasing the last vestige of 
Rome’s unification of the ancient world. 


H. ST. L. B. MOSS 



( 33 ) 

THE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 
B. FROM a.d. 1204 TO a.d. 1453 

I 

In the history of the Byzantine Empire the taking of 
Constantinople by the Latins is an important date. It was 
the first time, since its foundation, that the Byzantine capital 
had fallen into the hands of the foreigners attacking it, and 
the result of this event was the dislocation of the monarchy. 

The victorious Latins settled on the ruins of the Byzantine 
Empire. A Latin Empire was established at Constantinople, 
of which Baldwin, count of Flanders, one of the leaders or the 
Crusade, was the first sovereign; a Latin Kingdom of 
Thessalonica was formed for Boniface of Montferrat. Latin 
States were founded in Greece, of which the principal were 
the duchy of Athens, governed by the Burgundian family of 
La Roche, and the principality of Morea or Achaia, which, 
under the Villehardouins, was undoubtedly the most lasting 
consequence in the East of the Crusade of 1204. Finally 
Venice, which had for a moment thought of appropriating 
the entire Byzantine heritage, established in the Mediter- 
ranean a wonderful colonial empire, both by directly occupy- 
ing the most important strategic points, Crete, Euboea, 
Gallipoli, and a whole quarter of Constantinople, and by 
enfeoffing the islands of the Archipelago to her Patrician 
families. The appearance of the Eastern world was com- 
pletely transformed. 

Some Greek States, however, remained, and at first, in the 
collapse of the Empire, they were multiplied to infinity. But 
among the ambitious, eager to carve out principalities for 
themselves, three only were to succeed in forming permanent 
States. At Trebizond there were two princes, descendants of 
the Comneni, whose empire was to continue until the middle 
of the fifteenth century. In Epirus there was Michael 
Angelus Comnenus, a bastard of the family of the Angeli, 
who founded a ‘despotat’ extending from Naupactus to 
Durazzo. Lastly, at Nicaea, Theodore Lascaris, son-in-law 
of Alexius III Angelus, collected together what remained of 
the aristocracy and the higher ranks of the clergy of Byzan- 
tium, and in 1 206 had himself crowned by the Patriarch as 



34 THE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 
‘Emperor of the Romans’. And in these States, where the 
Latin victory had had the effect of reawakening patriotism 
and national feeling, it was but natural that all the Greek 
sovereigns should be filled with the same ambition; at 
Nicaea, as in Epirus, they were dreaming of the recapture of 
Constantinople, the holy city, from the usurpers who 
occupied it. Which of the two rival Greek Empires, that of 
Epirus or that of Nicaea, would realize this dream was, at 
the beginning of the thirteenth century, difficult to foresee. 
Faced by these two rival states, and menaced by Bulgaria, 
the feeble Latin Empire was in a singularly dangerous 
position. In fact during the sixty years of its miserable 
existence (1204-61), its fate was, as has been said, that ‘of a 
city perpetually besieged and knowing full well that it is 
destined to fall’. 1 

Yet in the first moments of confusion which followed the 
fall of Constantinople it seemed as if the Latins would 
triumph everywhere. But the invasion of the Bulgarian Tsar 
Johannitsa and the defeat which he inflicted on the Emperor 
Baldwin at Adrianople (1205) saved Theodore Lascaris from 
what appeared certain ruin. For a time under Henry of 
Flanders, the successor of Baldwin (1 205-1 6), without doubt 
the best prince amongst the rulers of the Latin Empire of 
Constantinople, it was possible to believe that the Latins 
would consolidate their position and that a sort of tetrarchy, 
formed by the four empires of Constantinople, Nicaea, 
Epirus, and Bulgaria, united by marriages and alliances, 
would definitely divide between them the Near East. 2 The 
premature death of Henry ruined these hopes. Henceforth 
Greeks and Bulgarians, allied for a joint enterprise, had their 
hands free to combat the feeble Latin State. 

At first it might have been thought that to Epirus would 
fall the glory of re-establishing the orthodox Empire. The 
despot of Epirus, Theodore (1214—30), who had succeeded 
his brother Michael, had greatly extended his dominions at 
the expense of the Latins and the Bulgarians, conquering 
Durazzo and Corfu, Ochrida and Prilep, seizing Salonica, 
where he had himself crowned Emperor, advancing into the 

1 Iorga, Histoin de la ’vie byzantme, vol. iii, p. 1 10. 

1 Cf. Iorga, op. cit., vol. iii, pp. 108-9. 



AN OUTLINE 35 

neighbourhood of Adrianople and Philippopolis and threat- 
ening Constantinople. But Bulgaria, which he imprudently 
attacked, was ruled by an intelligent and energetic sovereign, 
John AsSn (1218—41). The Greek Empire in Europe 
dashed itself unavailingly against him. Beaten and taken 
prisoner at Klokotnitza (1230), Theodore was forced to 
abdicate, and his brother Manuel, who succeeded him, lost 
most of the conquests made by Theodore, retaining only 
Salonica and Thessaly. 

During this time, under Theodore Lascaris (1205-22), 
and under his successor, John Vatatzes (1222-54), the most 
remarkable of the sovereigns of Nicaea, the Greek Empire in 
Asia was growing in strength and in extent. Master of almost 
the whole of western Asia Minor, Vatatzes had retaken from 
the Latins all the large islands of the Asiatic littoral, Samos, 
Chios, Lesbos, Cos, and had extended his authority over 
Rhodes. He then decided to enter Europe, and with the 
Bulgarians as his allies attempted to take Constantinople 
(1236). The capital of the feeble Latin Empire was saved 
for the time by the intervention of the West, but despite this 
intervention Vatatzes succeeded in re-establishing Byzantine 
unity in face of the hated foreigner. 

The Greek Emperor of Salonica had to renounce his 
imperial title and acknowledge himself the vassal of Nicaea 
(1242), and four years later Vatatzes took possession of 
Salonica (1246). From the Bulgarians, who had been much 
weakened since the death of John AsSn, he took a large part 
of Macedonia. Finally the despot of Epirus, Michael II, 
accepted the suzerainty of Nicaea and promised to cede 
Serbia, Albania, and Durazzo to Vatatzes (1254). As ally 
of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, whose daughter he had 
married, and of the Seljuk sultan of Iconium, Vatatzes when 
he died left the Empire of Nicaea rich, powerful, and 
prosperous. The sojourn of the Byzantine monarchy in 
Asia had, as it were, spiritually purified the State of Nicaea 
and had given to it a national character which Constantinople 
no longer possessed. ‘A faithful nobility, active and pious 
Emperors, had governed and led for half a century a people 
of shepherds and peasants of simple manners and customs.’ 1 

1 Iorga, ibid., p. 120. 



36 THE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 

A new spirit was born there, and it was to this spirit that the 
restored Byzantine Empire was to owe for two more cen- 
turies ‘a life which was not always humble and threatened’. 

It only remained for the rulers of Nicaea to recapture 
Constantinople. The Mongol invasion, which forced 
Theodore II Lascaris (1254-8), the son of Vatatzes, to return 
to Asia, postponed for a time the Byzantine restoration. 
Further, Theodore was compelled to subdue the Bulgarians, 
who were seeking their revenge (1256), and later to repress 
the revolt of the intriguing despot of Epirus, Michael II. 
The latter, who was allied with die king of Sicily, Manfred, 
and the prince of Achaia, Guillaume de Villehardouin, was 
crushed, after an obstinate resistance, at the battle of 
Pelagonia (1259). This was the first victory of Michael 
Palaeologus, who on the death of Theodore II had usurped 
the throne of Nicaea. Shortly afterwards he crossed the 
Hellespont and took from the Latins all that they still 
possessed outside Constantinople, whilst, by the treaty of 
Nymphaeum (i26r), his able diplomacy secured the alliance 
of the Genoese, who were jealous of the Venetians. Hence- 
forth the Greeks only needed an opportunity and the capital 
was won. This opportunity was given to the Caesar Alexius 
Strategopoulus on 25 July 1261. The Latin Emperor 
Baldwin II, followed by die Latin Patriarch and the Venetian 
settlers, fled without any attempt at resistance, and on 15 
August 1261 Michael Palaeologus made his formal entry 
into ‘the city protected by God’. Kneeling before the Golden 
Gate, the Emperor and his soldiers listened to the thirteen 
prayers composed by Acropolites as a thanksgiving to God. 
Then, preceded by the image of the Virgin, the imperial 
procession went on foot to the monastery of Studius. Michael 
then mounted his horse, and rode amidst popular acclama- 
tion to St. Sophia, there to renew his thanksgiving to the 
Lord; this done, he took up his residence in the imperial 
palace. Some days later, in the ‘Great Church’, he solemnly 
reinstated the orthodox Patriarch, and in words of deep 
emotion expressed his faith in the destiny of the Empire. 
The Byzantine monarchy seemed to be reborn under the 
national dynasty of the Palaeologi, which was to govern it 
for nearly two centuries. Popular enthusiasm, intoxicated by 



AN OUTLINE 37 

this unhoped for success, hailed in the new reign the sure 
promise of a glorious age. 


II 

In actual fact this restored Byzantine State was but the 
pitiful remains of an empire. The Latins were driven from 
Constantinople; but they were still masters of the duchy of 
Athens and the principality of Achaia; the Venetians still 
held Euboea, Crete, and most of the islands of the Archipe- 
lago ; the Genoese occupied Chios and had important colonies 
on the coast of Anatolia and on the Black Sea. Elsewhere, 
side by side with the reconstituted Empire of Constantinople, 
other Greek States existed which were to be feared as rivals: 
the empire of Trebizond in Asia, the despotat of Epirus 
in Europe. And above all, confronting the old Byzantine 
Empire, other States, young and vigorous, made their 
appearance on the stage of history and were quite ready to 
contend with Byzantium for the hegemony that it had once 
possessed. There were the Bulgarians who, in the course of 
the thirteenth century, under great sovereigns such as the 
three Johannitsas and John AsSn, had risen to prominence in 
the Balkan peninsula. There were the Serbians who, under 
Stefan Nemanja (1 151-95) and his immediate successors, 
had established themselves as an independent State with its 
own national dynasty and its own Church freed from the 
authority of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and who 
were to become, in the fourteenth century, the great power 
in the Balkans. In Asia there were the Ottoman Turks, who 
were daily becoming a greater menace to the territories 
which the Greeks still retained in Anatolia. Thus with 
diminished territory, labouring under financial exhaustion 
and military weakness, and above all having no longer ‘that 
moral energy which had so vigorously maintained itself in 
the isolation of Nicaea’, 1 the Byzantine Empire, in spite of 
the efforts of several great sovereigns, sank slowly towards 
its ruin. Michael VIII (1261-82), John VI Cantacuzenus 
(1347-55), and Manuel II (1391-1425) were alike unable 
to arrest the decline. In fact, during the last two centuries of 
its existence, there was no longer anything to be found in 

1 Iorga, op. cit., vol. iii, p. ijj. 



38 THE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 
Constantinople ‘but a brilliant sovereign fallen in prestige 
and splendid in externals, ceaselessly squabbling monks, 
and foreigners exploiting the riches of the State’. 1 And the 
situation was all the more tragic and lamentable since to 
external dangers were added internal difficulties — political, 
religious, social, and economic — which were, in fact, insur- 
mountable. 

Michael VIII Palaeologus made a heroic effort to put 
things to rights, but by his surrender to the Papacy he did 
but awake the bitter opposition of his own subjects. 

From the day of his accession Michael VIII had shown 
his intention of reconquering from the Greeks as well as 
from the Latins the provinces that had been taken from the 
Empire. He forced the prince of Achaia, who had fallen 
into his hands at the battle of Pelagonia, to cede to him, as 
the price of his freedom, the three strongholds of Monem- 
vasia, Mistra, and Maina, and thus he regained a footing in 
Frankish Morea (at the end of 1261). He seized Janina 
from the Epirots (1264); he recovered from the Bulgarians 
Mesembria, Anchialus, Philippopolis, and Stenimachus, 
while, to ensure the defence of the northern frontier, a 
march of Adrianople was created. The Emperor reoccupied 
several of the islands of the Archipelago belonging to the 
Venetians ; he repressed the insolence of the Genoese whom 
he forced to leave Constantinople and settle in Heraclea. 
At the same time, very skilfully, by a whole series of family 
alliances, he brought into subordination to Byzantium the 
sovereigns of Bulgaria and Epirus, and even the powerful 
Tartar Khan Nogai, whose support he secured by giving to 
him in marriage his natural daughter Maria. A little later 
(1272) he once more placed the Bulgarian and Serbian 
Churches under the authority of a Greek prelate. These 
were great successes, and already at Constantinople the 
moment was foreseen when the despotat of Epirus — still 
regarded as part and parcel of the Roman Empire — should 
be recovered in its entirety. 

But very soon Michael VIII came into collision with the 
hostility of the West. The Papacy and Venice had in fact by 
no means abandoned the hope of restoring the Latin Empire, 

1 Iorga, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 157. 



AN OUTLINE 39 

and the Emperor Baldwin II had been favourably received 
at the court of Manfred, the king of Sicily. The situation 
became still more grave when Charles of Anjou became 
master of southern Italy (1266). In 1267, by the treaty of 
Viterbo, the new sovereign forced Baldwin II to surrender 
to him all his rights over the Latin Empire and married his 
daughter to the son of the fallen Emperor. By the marriage 
of his son to the heiress of Villehardouin he made sure of 
the suzerainty and eventual possession of the principality of 
Achaia. Soon his ambitious designs on the East and his 
policy towards Byzantium became even more clearly mani- 
fest. He seized Corfu (1267), sent troops into the Pelopon- 
nesus, occupied Durazzo and the coast of Epirus (1272), 
and even assumed the title of King of Albania. At the same 
time he allied himself with all the enemies of the Empire in 
the Balkans. Bulgarian and Serbian ambassadors appeared 
at Naples; the despot of Epirus and the prince of Great 
Wallachia promised their support to the Angevin sovereign. 

In this terrible crisis Michael VIII showed his diplomatic 
skill by preventing a general coalition of the West against 
Byzantium. At first, to obviate this danger, he had thought 
of soliciting the help of St. Louis, and had sent ambassadors 
to ask for his intervention ‘in support of the reunion of the 
Greek and Roman Churches’. After the death of the king 
he adopted the same policy in dealing with the Papacy. 
Adroitly taking advantage of the anxiety of the sovereign 
pontiff, who had no wish to see an unlimited increase in the 
power of Charles of Anjou, and playing upon the constant 
desire of the Papacy to re-establish the authority of Rome 
over the Greek Church, he concluded with Gregory X, at 
the Council of Lyons (1274), the agreement by which the 
Eastern Church was again subjected to the Papacy. But in 
exchange Michael VIII obtained the assurance that Con- 
stantinople should be his without dispute, that he should be 
left a free hand in the East, and that, to reconquer territory 
that had once been part of the Empire, he should be allowed 
to fight even the Latins themselves. Thus, in 1274, he took 
the offensive in Epirus against the Angevin troops; he inter- 
vened in Thessaly where he besieged Neopatras (1276); he 
fought the Venetians in Euboea and made further advances 



40 THE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 
in Achaia, where the death of Guillaume de Villehardouin 
(1278) had greatly weakened the Frankish principality. 
Charles of Anjou, kept very busy at this moment by his 
difficulties with Genoa, and secretly thwarted by the policy of 
the Papacy, looked on impotently at the triumphs of Byzan- 
tium. 

Unfortunately the Greeks’ inveterate hostility towards 
Rome defeated the Emperor’s ingenious schemes. It was in 
vain that Michael VIII, in order to force the acceptance of 
the Union upon the Byzantine clergy, replaced the uncom- 
promising Patriarch Joseph by John Bekkos (1275), a 
prudent man who was of the opinion that one could attain 
truth without first insulting one’s opponents, and who con- 
sidered that many of the points under discussion between 
Byzantium and Rome were only ‘the sound of poor words’. 
A violent opposition spread throughout the East. At 
Constantinople and in the monasteries of Mount Athos 
impassioned pamphlets were published against the union 
with the Latins. Outside the Empire all the adversaries of 
Michael VIII pronounced against his religious policy. A 
council held in Thessaly condemned the Emperor and his 
Patriarch; in Epirus, in Bulgaria, in Serbia, and even in 
distant Jerusalem the censure was decisive and unanimous. 
A veritable schism was produced within the Eastern Church, 
and John Bekkos, defeated, was compelled finally, at the 
death of Michael, to abandon the patriarchal see. The 
demands of Pope Martin IV, who was strongly attached to 
Charles of Anjou, still further aggravated the situation. 
Michael VIII had hoped to mitigate the antagonism between 
the two worlds; he had only made it more acute and more 
formidable. 

Moreover Charles of Anjou did not disarm. He reor- 
ganized the forces with which he dominated Epirus (12 78 ), 
won over the Papacy to his views, and formed, ‘for the 
recovery of the Empire of Romania which Palaeologus was 
withholding from them’, a league with Rome and Venice 
which was joined by the Serbians, the Bulgarians, and even 
by the Greeks of Thessaly and Epirus. The Byzantine 
Emperor everywhere opposed this alliance with determina- 
tion. He defeated the Angevin army at Berat; and above 



AN OUTLINE 4 j 

all, to crush the ambition of Charles of Anjou, he helped to 
prepare the Sicilian Vespers (March 1282). In the end he 
did thereby, it is true, succeed in holding the West in check, 
but, when he died in 1282, he left the Empire in an anxious 
situation. Too exclusively preoccupied by his Latin policy, 
he had been neglectful of Asia; the danger from the Turks 
was becoming more and more menacing. By allowing, for 
financial reasons, the Empire’s system of defence to become 
disorganized and by transporting to Europe the best Asiatic 
troops, Michael VI 1 1 at the end of his reign, in the words of a 
Byzantine chronicler, had lost almost the whole of Anatolia. 
Thus his undeniable successes were dearly bought. And 
although his reign seemed to mark for the Empire the 
beginning of a renaissance, decadence was to follow, swift 
and irremediable. It has been said, not without reason, that 
Michael Palaeologus ‘was the first and also the last powerful 
Emperor of restored Byzantium’. 

Ill 

The sovereigns who succeeded Michael VIII were, in fact, 
nearly all mediocre: and this was a primary cause of the 
monarchy’s weakness. Andronicus II (1282-1328) was a 
well-educated prince, eloquent, devoted to learning, and very 
pious, but weak, and susceptible to every influence, especially 
to that of his second wife, Yolande de Montferrat. He was 
devoid of any political qualities. It has been justly said of 
him that he ‘had been destined by nature to become a pro- 
fessor of theology; chance placed him on the throne of 
Byzantium’. Andronicus III (1328-41) was intelligent, but 
frivolous, restless, and fond of his pleasures. After him the 
throne passed to his son John V, a child of scarcely eleven 
years, and this minority was the cause of prolonged distur- 
bances, which had at least the happy result of bringing to the 
throne John VI Cantacuzenus (1347-55), the only really 
remarkable prince that Byzantium had in the fourteenth 
century. He made an energetic attempt to restore the 
Empire. Too intelligent not to understand that the glorious 
days of domination could return no more, he realized that 
‘what Byzantium had lost whether in material power, terri- 
tory, finance, military strength, or economic prosperity, 



42 THE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 
could be regained in two ways; through the Byzantine 
civilization which continued to preserve ana develop the Hel- 
lenic inheritance, and through the oecumenical sovereignty 
of its Church over the whole of the East’. 1 Because of this 
his stormy reign is of real historic importance. But Cantacu- 
zenus only governed for a few years. In 13 SS John V 
Palaeologus, whom he had put into the background, over- 
threw the usurper; but his long reign (134 1-9 1) only 
precipitated the decadence of the Empire. And although his 
son Manuel II (1391-1425) was a distinguished prince of 
whom it could be said ‘that in more favourable times he 
would have saved the Empire’, it was now only too clear that 
the Empire could no longer be saved. Manuel II and after 
him his son John VIII (1425-48) could only devote them- 
selves to the utmost of their ability to postponing the inevitable 
catastrophe. The last emperor of the dynasty, Constantine 
XI (1448-53), could do no more than die a heroic death in 
defence of his capital when the walls were stormed by the 
Turks. The fact was that even men of ability were unable to 
arrest the decadence; circumstances were stronger than their 
good intentions. There was no longer any remedy for the 
conditions both external and internal which threatened the 
Empire with ruin. 

In face of the dangers from without, domestic unity, 
tranquillity, and strength were essential. The period of the 
Palaeologi, on the contrary, was full of civil strife, of 
political, religious, and social struggles. First there were 
incessant wars for the possession of the throne. Against 
Andronicus II rose up his grandson, the future Andronicus 
III, whom the old Emperor sought to deprive of his rights 
to the throne, and for several years war laid waste the 
Empire (132 1-8); the final result was the fall of Andronicus 
II. Then during the regency of Anne of Savoy there was 
the usurpation of John Cantacuzenus (1341) followed by 
the six years of conflict (134 1-7) which divided the Byzan- 
tine world and ended in the triumph of Cantacuzenus. 
During the latter half of the fourteenth century the Empire 
suffered from a succession of revolutions, and the serious 
thing in all these civil wars was that the opposing parties 

1 Iorga, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 193. 



AN OUTLINE 43 

without scruple called to their aid external enemies, Serbians, 
Bulgarians, Turks, Genoese, and Venetians, thus opening 
the door to those very nations which were contemplating the 
destruction of the monarchy. And this shows clearly to 
what extent all patriotism, all political sense even, had 
disappeared in these conflicts, the result of ambitions which 
had lost all scruple. 

This was not all, for the Empire was further troubled by 
social and religious quarrels. About the middle of the four- 
teenth century a profound social agitation was disturbing 
the monarchy. The lower classes rose up against the aristo- 
cracy of birth and of wealth. At Constantinople, at Adria- 
nople, and elsewhere as well, the populace attacked the rich 
and massacred them. At Salonica the party of the Zealots 
filled the city with terror and bloodshed, and the town, in 
fact, became an independent republic, which maintained 
itself for seven years (1 342-9) \ its tempestuous history is 
one of the most curious episodes in the life of the Empire of 
the fourteenth century. 

This was the victory of ‘democracy in rags’. The dispute 
of the hesychasts was the victory of ‘democracy in a cowl’. 
. . . For ten years (1341— 51) this dispute disturbed and 
divided the Empire, bringing oriental mysticism, repre- 
sented by the monks of Mount Athos and their defender 
Gregory Palamas, into conflict with Latin rationalism, the 
champions of which, Barlaam and Akindynus, were brought 
up on St. Thomas Aquinas and trained in the methods of 
Western scholasticism. And since Cantacuzenus sided with 
Athos, just as he sided with the aristocracy, the struggle, in 
appearance purely theological, soon became political and 
thus added to the confusion. 

But the question of the union of the Churches caused the 
dying world of Byzantium still more trouble. From the 
time of Michael VIII the East Roman Government had 
realized the political advantage of friendship with the 
Papacy, which would thus secure for the Empire that 
support of the West which it so sorely needed. From this 
had resulted the agreement of Lyons. In order to conciliate 
public opinion Andronicus II had thought it wise to 
denounce the treaty concluded with Rome. But political 



44 THE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 
necessity forced the Emperor’s hand. To combat the Turkish 
menace the help of the West was for the Empire indispen- 
sable. To procure it John V went to Italy and was even 
solemnly converted to Roman Catholicism (1369); Manuel 
II negotiated with Rome for the same end (1417). And 
lastly, at the Council of Florence (1439), John VIII signed 
the agreement with Eugenius IV which put an end to the 
schism between the two Churches. But imperial policy still 
came into conflict with the stubborn resistance of the Byzan- 
tine clergy, who could not bring themselves to accept the 
supremacy of Rome, with the fierce opposition of the national- 
ist Orthodox party, who were convinced that the Latins, 
in spite of their promises, were seeking only the ‘destruc- 
tion of the Greek city, race and name’, and with popular 
hatred, which was fanned by violent controversialists who 
represented* all sympathy for Latin ideas as a betrayal of 
the Church. In vain did John VIII and his successor Con- 
stantine XI attempt to impose by force a union which was 
made even more difficult by the tactless demands of the 
Papacy. Clamours of discontent were heard even under the 
dome of St. Sophia itself (1452). On the eve of the cata- 
strophe which was to overwhelm Constantinople, in spite of 
the tragic situation of the Empire, the question of the 
Union seemed to be the essential problem, and some promi- 
nent folk did not hesitate to declare that they ‘would rather 
see the Turkish turban reigning in Byzantium than the 
Latin mitre’. 

In addition to all this there was the financial distress. In 
an Empire ruined by war and possessing ever less and less 
territory, taxation no longer yielded adequate resources; the 
treasury was empty, and the Government was reduced to 
debasing the currency and, in order to procure a little money, 
to pawning the crown jewels with the Venetian bankers. 
The Empire no longer had an army with which to defend 
itself, and it was forced to have recourse to the services of 
mercenaries. On sea there was the same weakness. Michael 
VIII had attempted to reconstitute the fleet. His successors 
considered it a useless expense, and from this time the 
command of the Eastern seas passed to the squadrons of 
Venice and Genoa, who also dominated the whole economic 



AN OUTLINE 45 

life of the monarchy. The Empire stood at bay, and the 
most surprising thing is perhaps that it should have lasted 
so long, especially if the external perils by which it was 
threatened are taken into consideration. 

After the death of the Tsar John AsSn (1241) the Bulgarian 
Empire became much weaker, and thus less dangerous to 
Byzantium. But in its place a great State had arisen in the 
Balkans. Serbia, under ambitious princes such as Stephen 
Milutin (1282-1321) and Stephen Dushan (1331-55), 
boldly contended with Byzantium for supremacy in the 
peninsula. Milutin, relying on his alliance with the Epirots 
and the Angevins, seized Upper Macedonia from the 
Greeks, and by the occupation of the districts of Seres and 
Christopolis gained access to the Archipelago; Andronicus 
II was obliged to recognize all his conquests (1298) and to 
give him in marriage his daughter Simonis. The defeat 
which the Serbians inflicted on the Bulgarians at Velboudj 
(1330) further increased their power. Dushan could thus 
dream of greater things. An able general and a skilful 
diplomat on good terms with Venice and the Papacy, he 
began by completing the conquest of Macedonia, where the 
Byzantines now held no more than Salonica and Chalcidice, 
and where the Serbian frontier on the east reached the 
Maritza. He seized part of Albania from the Angevins, and 
part of Epirus from the Greek despot. In 1346, in the 
cathedral of Skoplie, he had himself crowned ‘Emperor and 
Autocrat of the Serbians and Romans’. The Serbian Empire 
now extended from the Danube to the Aegean and the 
Adriatic, and its ruler was recognized as the most powerful 
prince in the Balkans. In 1355 he attempted to seize Con- 
stantinople. He had already taken Adrianople, and con- 
quered Thrace, when he suddenly died — unfortunately for 
Christendom — in sight of the city which he had hoped to 
make his capital. After his death his Empire soon disinte- 
grated. But from this struggle which had lasted for half 
a century Byzantium emerged in a singularly weakened 
condition. In 1355 the Venetian envoy at Constantinople 
wrote to his Senate: ‘This Empire is in a bad state, even, to 
be truthful, in a desperate one, as much because of the Turks 
who molest it sorely on all sides, as because of the Prince and 



46 THE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 
his government with which there is general discontent; the 
people would prefer the rule of the Latins, mentioning as 
their first choice our seigniory and commune, if they could 
obtain it. For in truth they cannot remain as they are for 
anything in the world.’ 

The Venetians and Genoese did, in fact, occupy in the 
dying Empire a place that was daily more important. The 
former, driven from Constantinople in 1261, had soon 
returned, and, having lost hardly any of their possessions in 
the Archipelago, were all-powerful in the eastern Mediter- 
ranean. The Genoese, established since 1267 at Galata on 
the Golden Horn, with settlements on the coast of Asia 
Minor, at Chios, Lesbos, and Phocaea, and on the Black 
Sea at Caffa and Tana, were no less to be feared. And 
although the rivalry of the two great maritime cities often 
brought about strife between them, they were united in 
exploiting the Empire and in profiting from its distress, 
‘closing to the Romans’, as a Byzantine historian wrote, ‘all 
the maritime trade routes’. Confident in their strength, the 
two republics treated the Empire as if they had conquered it, 
defying the Byzantine Emperors and imposing their will 
upon them. When they thought they had a grievance, they 
did not hesitate to attack Constantinople itself. Involved in 
) all the internal affairs of the Empire, they spread trouble 
everywhere in the capital, provoking revolutions, and inter- 
vening on every hand. The Byzantines, although angered, 
bore with these indignities, while the dominating influence 
of the Latins was more and more completely pervading the 
Empire, yet instead of borrowing from the West ‘the virtues 
of work, economy and enterprise’, they permitted, almost 
without resistance, the completion of the economic ruin of 
their country. 

But it was from Asia that the most terrible danger came. 
From the end of the thirteenth century the Osmanli Turks, 
who, after having been subjects of the Seljuk sultans, had 
gained their independence owing to the Mongol invasion, 
began to attack the Byzantine possessions in Anatolia. In 
vain had Michael VIII attempted to stop them; in vain in 
order to resist their advance had Andronicus II taken the 
Catalan Grand Company into his pay. Commanded by 



AN OUTLINE 47 

energetic leaders, Osman (1289-1326) and Orkhan (1326- 
59), in less than half a century the Turks had made them- 
selves masters of nearly the whole of Asia Minor. Brusa fell 
into their hands in 1326, Nicaea surrendered in 1329, and 
Nicomedia in 1337. The fleet built up by the Ottomans 
ravaged the islands of the Archipelago, and the Crusade 
which in 1343 reconquered Smyrna produced no permanent 
results. Already the Turks were hoping to settle in Europe. 
Soon, summoned by the Byzantines themselves, they crossed 
the Hellespont. John Cantacuzenus, who had solicited the 
alliance of the Ottomans and given his daughter in marriage 
to the son of the Sultan Orkhan, allowed the Turks to estab- 
lish themselves in Gallipoli in 1354. The Balkan peninsula 
was open to them. Soon they had occupied Didymotica 
and Tzouroulon (1357), and then a large part of Thrace, 
including Philippopolis and Adrianople, which the Sultan 
Murad I (1359-89) made his capital (1365). Constanti- 
nople, isolated, encircled, and cut off from the rest of the 
Empire, appeared only to await the final blow which seemed 
inevitable. 

Two circumstances prolonged the existence of the Byzan- 
tine State for a century. Murad I next turned to attack the 
other Christian States in the Balkans, crushing the southern 
Serbians and the Bulgarians on the Maritza (1371), invading 
Albania (1385), and destroying the Serbian Empire at the 
battle of Kossovo (1389). In his relations with the Byzan- 
tines he insisted only that John V should acknowledge him- 
self as his vassal and, after having for a moment threatened 
Salonica (1374), he was content to surround Constantinople 
with an ever closer investment. 

Bajazet (1389-1402) from the moment of his accession 
appeared inclined to act more vigorously; so much so that, as 
early as 1390, the Venetians were wondering if he would not 
very soon be master of Constantinople. However, in spite of 
the prolonged attack (139 1-5) which he made on the Greek 
capital, in spite even of the disastrous defeat which, at the 
battle of Nicopolis (1396), was inflicted on the Crusade 
undertaken by the West to save Byzantium, the Sultan failed ; 
the valour of Marshal Boucicaut, sent by Charles VI to the 
Greek Emperor, protected Constantinople against the 



48 THE HISTOKY OE THE EYZ.AJN 1 1JNE EME 1 KE 

attacks of the Turks for two more years (i 397-9). But the 
situation remained singularly critical. Manuel II decided to 
go to the West to ask for help (1402). He was courteously 
welcomed at Venice, Paris, and London; but he obtained 
only fair promises. Happily for the Greeks, at this precise 
moment a serious event took place in the East. The Mongol 
invasion and the resounding defeat which Timur inflicted on 
the Turks at Angora (1402) gave the Empire a few years of 
respite. Bajazet had fallen into the hands of his conqueror; 
his sons fought with each other for the succession, and 
Byzantine diplomacy, seconded by the personal influence of 
the Emperor Manuel, skilfully took advantage of their 
quarrels. The existence of the Empire was thus prolonged 
for another half century. 

But, in 1421, Murad II (1421— 51), having triumphed 
over the other pretenders, again took the offensive. He 
unsuccessfully attacked Constantinople, which resisted 
heroically (1422); he captured Salonica (1430), which in 
1423 the Venetians had bought from the Greeks; one of his 
generals penetrated into the Morea (1423) where the Greek 
despotat of Mistra remained one of the parts of the Empire 
which had suffered least from invasion ; he himself led his 
forces into Bosnia and Albania, and imposed the payment of 
tribute upon the prince of Wallachia. In spite of the heroic 
efforts of John Hunyadi and Scanderbeg, the Ottomans 
followed up their advantage. The situation was so serious 
that eventually even the West was alarmed. In consequence 
of the visit of John VIII to Italy, Pope Eugenius IV preached 
a new Crusade; but the expedition met with utter disaster at 
the battle of Varna (1444). It was the last attempt made by 
the West to save the Empire of Byzantium in its agony; 
henceforth Constantinople was left to its fate. 

Murad II followed up his successes. The duchy of 
Athens submitted to the Turks; the principality of the 
Morea, invaded in 1446, was forced to acknowledge itself 
their tributary; John Hunyadi was defeated at the second 
battle of Kossovo. Constantinople alone, behind the formid- 
able defence of its walls, appeared impregnable. Ever since 
his accession in 1451 it had been the chief ambition of 
Muhammad II to capture the city. On 5 April 1453, with 



AN OUTLINE 49 

an immense army supported by heavy artillery, he marched 
against the Byzantine capital. On 29 May 1453 the city 
was taken by storm; at the Gate of St. Romanus the Emperor 
Constantine XI died heroically, thus shedding a last ray of 
beauty on the closing scene of Byzantine history. The next 
day Muhammad II entered Constantinople and in St. Sophia 
gave thanks to the God of Islam. 

IV 

Thus ended the Byzantine Empire, after more than a 
thousand years of often glorious existence. But what should 
be remembered — for this is as unexpected as it is remarkable 
— is that, in spite of the almost desperate external situation, 
in spite of internal troubles, the period of the Palaeologi still 
occupies an important place in the history of Byzantine 
civilization. Although Constantinople had ceased to be one 
of the centres of European politics, it remained nevertheless 
one of the most beautiful and renowned cities in the world, 
the metropolis of Orthodoxy and Hellenism, and the centre 
of a magnificent literary and artistic renaissance, which 
clothed the dying city with a glorious light. In this period 
can be observed a new spirit, more comprehensive and more 
humane, which distinguishes these cultured Byzantines of 
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and makes them the 
forerunners of Humanism — the circle of John Cantacuzenus 
or the University world are proofs of this. Here, too, in this 
city which had so long claimed to inherit the Roman tradi- 
tion, it is important to notice the surprising revival of 
memories of the past of Hellas, and to observe the birth of a 
Greek patriotism, which, on the eve of the final catastrophe, 
might seem only a vain illusion, but which is none the less 
an expression 01 one of the ideas that eventually led to the 
restoration of modern Greece in the nineteenth century. 
And lastly one must not forget that artistic renaissance, the 
originality of which is proved by the remarkable works of art 
which it produced, and through which Byzantium exerted, 
for the last time, a powerful influence over the whole of the 
Eastern wotld. 

But Constantinople was by no means the sole centre of 
this civilization. At Mistra, the capital of the Greek despotat 



So THE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 

of Morea, there was to be found a brilliant, artistic, and 
cultured Court, not unlike the Italian Courts of the fifteenth 
century, a real home of Hellenism and Humanism, and 
rendered illustrious by the name of Gemistus Pletho. On 
the Black Sea Trebizond, the birthplace of Bessarion, was, 
under the dynasty of the Comneni, another centre of Hellenic 
civilization. The despotat of the Morea and the Empire of 
Trebizond survived the fall of Constantinople by only a few 
years. The first was conquered by the Turks in 1460, and 
the second succumbed in 146 1 . With the latter disappeared 
for nearly four centuries the last remembrance of Byzantine 
greatness. But it was no small glory for this dying Empire 
that it was able ‘to summon all its spiritual energies at the 
moment of the final collapse and thus to fall in sunset 
radiance’. 


CHARLES DIEHL 



II 

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE BYZANTINE 

EMPIRE 

POPULATION, AGRICULTURE, INDUSTRY, COMMERCE 

I. POPULATION 

Two English writers, E. A. Foord 1 and W. G. Holmes , 2 
are, to my knowledge, the only historians who have attempted 
to estimate the entire population of the Empire. But their 
calculations refer to the end of the fourth and the beginning 
of the fifth century — before the distinctively Byzantine form 
of the Empire had come into being. Moreover, the figures 
that these writers give are entirely conjectural and therefore 
worthy of little confidence. The truth is that the elements 
which might serve as a basis for a scientific calculation are 
lacking. One can indicate only what was the demographic 
evolution of the Empire and furnish a few data concerning the 
population of its capital . 3 

The population of Western Europe diminished very 
greatly after the break-up of the Roman Empire. Did a 
similar phenomenon occur in the provinces which the Greek 
Emperors succeeded in saving from the Arabs and from the 
northern barbarians ? If we consider the effects of the bar- 
barian invasions and of piracy, of epidemics and famines 
and of the growth of monasticism, it is probable that we 
should answer that question in the affirmative. 

The invasions of the Muslims and the Bulgars, accom- 
panied, as they were, by massacre, mass enslavement, and 
the headlong flight of the population, were a terrible scourge. 
It is true that the fortified coast-cities and the islands were 
often spared these horrors, but they suffered from the not 

1 The Byzantine Empire (London, A. Sc C. Black, 1911), p. 10. 

2 The Age of Justinian and Theodora (and ed., z vols., London, Beil, 191a), 
voL i, p. 137. 

2 Cf. A. Andidad&s, ‘De la population de Constantinople sous les empereurs 
byzantins’ (in the statistical review Metron, vol. i, no. z, 1920). In the present 
chapter no attempt will be made to go back farther than the seventh century. It 
would be futile to include in our calculations provinces later lost to the Empire 
or, on the other hand, to consider the period after the twelfth century when the 
Byzantine State retained but the shadow of its former greatness. 



52 ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 

less formidable scourge of piracy. 1 When the Arabs estab- 
lished themselves in Crete, even cities as large as Salonica 
were sacked. 

The Greek Church has placed in the first rank of the 
evils that it prays Heaven to avert from the faithful pesti- 
lence and famine (loimos and limos). This conjunction of 
words is not due to a mere love of alliteration. Both evils 
were equally formidable and constantly menaced the popula- 
tion of the Empire. One can appreciate the extent of their 
ravages by a single instance : in the reign of Constantine V 
the pestilence so greatly reduced the population of Constan- 
tinople that the Emperor did not hesitate to fill up the gap 
by a forcible settlement in the capital of folk from several 
provinces, chiefly from the Peloponnesus. The pestilence 
of a.d. 746-7 was, in point of fact, the most terrible epidemic 
known to medieval Hellenism, but there were many others. 
Similarly, famines, general or local, were frequent. 

‘Celibacy’, says St. Jerome, ‘populates Heaven.’ This is 
beyond dispute. But it does not populate our earth, espe- 
cially when practised on so vast a scale as it was in the Byzan- 
tine Empire. The attraction exercised by the monasteries 
upon all classes of society, from the members of the imperial 
family down to the lowliest peasant, was indescribable. 
Undoubtedly the reaction against this evil contributed not a 
little to the Iconoclast movement. But the persecutions of 
the monks under the Isaurian and Amorian dynasties were 
of small effect. Even before the restoration of icon-worship 
the Lives of the Saints give examples of whole families 
embracing the monastic life. And later on, the enormous 
growth in wealth of the monasteries added material tempta- 
tions to the hope of celestial rewards. 

The population of the Empire would, indeed, have 
suffered a very large reduction, if a series of circumstances 
had not diminished the effects of the factors which we have 
just enumerated, and if a series of favourable factors had not 
in turn played their part in counteracting these effects. Thus 
for many centuries the ‘themes’ — the frontier provinces — 

* So widespread was this evil that a tariff of ransoms was established (cf. Th. 
Reinach, Un control de manage du tempt de Battle U Bulgaroctont , Melanges 
Schlomberger, Paris, 1924, vol. i, pp. 118-32). 



ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 53 
both in Asia Minor and in Europe were protected from 
invasion, while during the prosperous reigns it was the 
Byzantines who invaded foreign territories. Even piracy 
was repeatedly restricted, notably when Crete was delivered 
from the Arabs. 

Further, famine, which was one of the most terrible 
scourges of western Europe during the Middle Ages, 
seems to have had much less serious effects in the Eastern 
Empire, thanks to the measures taken for the revictualling 
of the cities and to the aid distributed in emergencies to the 
peasantry. 

Among positive factors tending to increase the population 
it will suffice to mention three : 

(i) Statistics teach us that the population increases in 
countries where there is no birth-control and where the 
prosperity of commerce and industry favours the develop- 
ment of urban centres. Now, at about the time of the down- 
fall of Paganism, the voluntary restriction of births, which 
had been so prevalent both in Greece and in Italy, ceases. 
In all classes of society large families appear to become the 
rule; Christianity established afresh the sanctity of marriage 
and thus served to compensate for the spread of celibacy 
caused by monasticism. On the other hand, industry and 
commerce were more highly developed in the Empire of the 
East than in any other medieval State. Also the number of 
cities was very large. Benjamin of Tudela found them on his 
route in almost every day’s journey; the Golden Bull of the 
Comneni conceded to the Venetians the right of establish- 
ing privileged communities in twenty-eight provincial 
towns, 1 while other sources reveal the existence of a large 
number of towns not mentioned either by the Jewish traveller 
or in the Venetian charter. 2 This would indicate a very 
considerable urban population, doubtless exceeding several 
millions, especially if one bears in mind that the population 
of Constantinople in its palmy days cannot have been under 
500,000 souls and occasionally, perhaps, was in excess of 
that figure. 

1 Nine in Alia, nineteen in Europe. 

* This feet merits special attention, because often mention is made only of 
Salonica and of Trebizond, which were merely the most important provincial cities. 



54 ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 

(ii) The loss of numerous provinces to Arabs and bar- 
barians brought about, by way of compensation, a rein- 
forcement in wealth and population within the remaining 
provinces. The commerce of Tyre and Alexandria, says 
Gibbon , 1 was transferred to Constantinople, and Christians 
from Africa, Syria, Armenia, and the Danubian districts 
flocked to reinforce the population of the Empire . 2 

(iii) Gibbon praises the imperial Government for having 
utilized these refugees for the creation of new towns and for 
the cultivation of deserted lands, and still more for having 
gradually subjected to the laws of Church and State the 
barbarian tribes which had forced their way vi et armis into 
the Empire. This raises the important question of the 
imperial policy in home-colonization. Prof. P. Boissonade 
has ably outlined the essential features of this policy . 3 He 
has shown that it employed a great variety of methods. 
Asylum was afforded to the Christian refugees; lands were 
distributed to soldiers, accompanied by the obligation of 
military service; to the provinces which it was desired to 
repopulate the Government transported either religious 
dissenters (e.g. Manichaeans, Jacobites, and Paulicians) or 
persons of foreign race (Avars, Bulgars, and Turks), while 
slaves were emancipated on condition that they would 
colonize deserted districts. Sometimes individuals, at other 
times large masses, were thus settled in depopulated dis- 
tricts . 4 This policy of colonization was extended to nearly 
all parts of the Empire, including Italy, but its results were 
felt chiefly in the Balkan peninsula. 

From all these facts one may conclude that the diminution 
of population, which is recorded in the provinces of the 
Western Empire, did not extend to the Eastern Empire, or, 
at least, not in anything like the same degree. It is, however, 

1 The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. 53 (ed. J. B. Bury, vol. vi, 
1898, p. 69). 

* This movement continued nearly to the end. Also, in the ninth century many 
Christians of Sicily and southern Italy found refuge in Greece. 

* L* travail dans 1 ’ Europe chritienne au Mayen-Agc V-XV* siicles (Paris, Alcan, 
1921), pp. 40-1. 

4 Thus, Justinian II at one time settled 70,000 Slav prisoners in Asia Minor. 
On another occasion 14,000 Turkish prisoners were established as settlers in 
Macedonia. 



ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 55 
impossible to estimate even approximately the number of the 
inhabitants of the Byzantine Empire . 1 


II. AGRICULTURE 

The agricultural question presents itself under a double 
aspect. The one, which one might call the legal aspect, 
concerns the form of land tenure. The other is the economic 
aspect, in other words, the nature and the conditions of 
agricultural production. Of these two aspects the latter is 
one of the most obscure; but even as to the first there is 
much less information than is generally supposed. 

On the strength of various imperial constitutions pro- 
mulgated during a period of about ten centuries, it has 
frequently been contended that landed property underwent 
the following evolution. Concentrated at first in the hands 
of great landowners in the early days of the Empire, the land 
is seen, in the time of the Iconoclasts, to be divided between 
the agriculturists and the peasant communities; later there 
is a reversion to the earlier system of large estates. The 
struggle for the protection of small holdings, which was 
carried on vigorously from the days of Romanus I Leca- 
penus to those of Basil II, finally ended in failure. This 
summary is exact only in general outline; the dates of the 
beginning and close of each of the periods are very uncertain 
and neither form of ownership (great or small) ever pre- 
vailed absolutely over the other. Thus, apart from the fact 
that we do not know whether the Rural Law really dates 
from the time of the Isaurians, it seems certain that great 
landed estates continued to exist while this law, which con- 
cerns only the small holdings, was still in force. And, on 
the other hand, from the time of Justinian to the period of 
the Palaeologi, small holdings seem never to have com- 
pletely disappeared. Further, though we know why small 

1 Formerly Professor Andr&d&s had conjectured chat under the Comneni the 
population of the Empire may have numbered from 10 to 15 millions} later he 
felt that it was safer to refrain from attempting any estimate. See his paper on 
‘La Population de 1 ’Empire byzantin’, in Bulletin dt I’lnstitut archiologique bulgare, 
vol. ix (1935), pp. 117-26, which was read at the Byzantine Congress in Sofia 
(September 1934). 



56 ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 
holdings were protected by the central Government, the 
causes which led at first to the development of the system 
of small holdings and later to the disappearance of that 
system are much less clear. The struggle against the landed 
aristocracy undertaken by the Macedonian dynasty, and 
before them by certain other Emperors, is generally ex- 
plained by reference to military, political, and fiscal con- 
siderations. If the ‘military lands’ were swallowed up in the 
large private estates, then the Empire would be compelled 
to maintain an army of mercenaries which would prove both 
costly and unreliable. 

The great landed proprietors, who had become veritable 
‘feudal’ barons, frequently rebelled and occasionally claimed 
the imperial throne. It was important to prevent the growth 
of their power, while the East Roman State found that it was 
much easier to collect from small holders than from large 
landowners the various taxes and the numberless contribu- 
tions in kind. 

To these reasons one must add another, which the 
materialistic interpretation of history too often overlooks, 
although it is clearly apparent in the text of the laws. 
Byzantine society was impregnated with the spirit of 
Christianity. The Government felt itself in duty bound to 
protect the weak and humble. It should be noted that 
Romanus I Lecapenus, who led the struggle against the 
‘powerful’, was himself distinguished by his philanthropic 
activity. 

One can only conjecture how it was that the system of 
moderate and small holdings came to be prevalent in the 
eighth century. This fact was formerly explained as due to 
the substitution of Slav settlers for the original cultivators. 
But this ‘Slav’ theory, which moreover could apply only to a 
part of the Empire, has been abandoned by the Slavs them- 
selves. The tendency to-day is to believe that the great 
diminution in the number of large estates (they never 
disappeared entirely) was due to the terrible invasions in 
Europe of the barbarians of the north and in Asia of the 
Persians and the Saracens, and also perhaps to the oppressive 
administration of Phocas and of Justinian II. Concurrently, 
the composition of the agricultural class was completely 



ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 57 
altered by the migrations into the Empire of populations 
from beyond its frontiers and from province to province — 
migrations which were partly due to the policy of internal 
colonization, of which we have already spoken. Conse- 
quently in nearly all the provinces (even those which 
suffered comparatively little from the invasions) one saw 
peasant immigrants arriving who were dependent upon no 
lord of the soil. At about the same period the administration 
of the Empire assumed a military character, 1 and the organi- 
zation of a provincial army composed of nearly 60,000 holders 
of ‘military lands’ must have entailed a parcelling-out of the 
vast domains which in one way or another had come into 
the hands of the State. 

The later return to a system of large estates which began 
in the ninth and tenth centuries may be attributed to a 
variety of causes, economic, administrative, political, and 
religious. From the beginning of the ninth century, certainly 
from the reign of Theophilus (829-42), one notes an 
economic expansion; the precious metals become more 
plentiful and prices rise. The big landed proprietors, owing 
to the rise in the prices of agricultural products, a number of 
high public functionaries, owing to imperial favour or to the 
elasticity of their conscience, and many private individuals 
find themselves in command of considerable capital. In our 
day they would have invested this capital in portable 
securities, have laid it out at interest, or employed it in 
trade or industry. But in the East Roman world portable 
securities were unknown; money-lending at interest was 
forbidden by law or subject to very rigorous restrictions; 2 
commerce and industry, while not attended with loss of 
social position, as in the West, yielded but limited profits 
owing to the guild system and the State control of produc- 
tion, as well as of prices. 3 Thus, only agriculture remained; 
and when the country had less fear of invasion and the urban 
and rural population developed rapidly, agriculture must 

1 On the constitution of the themes see p. 297 infra, 

* [Cf. Gr^goire Cassimatis, Les InUrlts dans la Legislation de Justmien et dans U 
Droit byzantin (Paris, Recueil Sirey, 1931); G. Ostrogorsky, Geschichte des byzan - 
tmschen Staates (Munich, Beck, 1940), p. 131.] 

* See p. 6 $ infra. 



58 ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 
have become more and more profitable, especially for those 
who had the means of purchasing slaves. 

While economic reasons thus led the ‘powerful’ to acquire 
landed property, the ‘poor’ were forced by fiscal, or rather 
by administrative, reasons to sell their lands. The humiliores 
were burdened by taxes payable in cash, rendered still more 
oppressive by the epibole , the forced labour and contributions 
in kind, that were even heavier than the taxes . 1 Beyond 
these there were, in addition, various obligations which a 
policy of State intervention imposed upon the people . 2 In 
theory, no doubt, the fiscal and administrative laws did not 
discriminate between the rich and the poor, but in practice, 
the ‘powerful’, who possessed ready capital, could pay the 
taxes with infinitely greater ease ; 3 moreover, by reason of 
their social position, being better able to withstand the tax- 
collector, they frequently evaded fiscal contributions or 
administrative regulations and, in any case, saw to it that 
these measures did not degenerate into oppressive exactions. 
This was so generally the case that the free peasant came to 
envy the serf of the great landowner or of the monastery, 
who lived protected against the State official and who, in 
case of a bad harvest, could look to his master to supply his 
needs; and no doubt, in many cases, this comparison 
induced the freeman voluntarily to embrace the state of 
serfdom. 

In the sphere of politics Emperors might themselves 
belong to the landed aristocracy or might be too dependent 
upon the support of that class to combat it with any deter- 
mination. This was the case with the weak successors of 
Basil II and even, to a certain degree, with the Comneni. 
Moreover, the example of the West, with which the Crusades 
brought the Comneni into contact, the powerful attraction 
exercised by Western chivalry , 4 the abandonment of the 
system of ‘military lands’ for the semi-feudal system of 

1 For details, see pp. 83-4 infra. 

* Some of these obligations were very unexpected, as, for example, the obligation 
of widows to marry barbarians settled by the Emperor in the district. 

3 It is well known, even in our day, how heavy a burden the taxes payable in 
cash constitute for the farmer, who is always short of ready money. 

* On the development of this idea, cf. N. Iorga, Histoire de la •vie bytumtine 
(Bucharest, 1934), vol. iii, chap. 1. 



ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 59 
■pronoiat , were in themselves sufficient to cause that dynasty 
to relinquish a struggle which neither the Emperors of the 
early centuries nor the great sovereigns of the Macedonian 
line had succeeded in bringing to a successful issue. 

Lastly, one must not forget that foremost amongst the 
great landed proprietors were the monasteries. In a nation 
so piously inclined, not to say so bigoted, as the Byzantine, 
it was to be expected that the monastic establishments would 
be the recipients of many donations and bequests; and the 
monasteries themselves were not backward in soliciting 
such pious gifts; indeed one may say that in this method of 
enrichment they demonstrated the greatest ingenuity . 1 For 
the development of the large estates the monasteries were 
thus largely responsible. 

When we turn to consider the condition of agriculture 
we find that our evidence is contradictory. The material 
collected by Boissonnade 2 shows that agriculture in the 
eighth and ninth centuries was in a suite of ‘astounding’ 
prosperity and was able not only to feed the Empire but 
also to provide for an ‘active exportation’. The Byzantines 
did not confine themselves to growing cereals and cultivat- 
ing the vine, but devoted themselves with like success to the 
cultivation of fruits, medicinal herbs, cotton, and mulberry 
trees (whence the name ‘Morea’ given to the Peloponnesus). 
A flourishing bee-culture supplied the place of a sugar 
industry, while abundant horned cattle, sheep, and pigs 
were bred as well as horses for the racecourse and for the 
needs of the army. The forests gave the material necessary 
for house construction and shipbuilding. 

Other sources, however, some of them official, tell us of an 
agricultural population harassed by Muslim and Bulgarian 
invasions, decimated by pestilence and famine, crushed by 
fiscal burdens, and exploited by the ‘powerful’ and by the 
monks. The latter two classes of landed proprietors are also 
accused of negligent farming and of leaving their domains 
partly uncultivated. 

1 Amongst other sources cf. Epishepsis Biou Monachitou, by Eustathius, the 
learned Bishop of Salonica (twelfth century); of this L. Fr. Tafel published in 1847 
a German translation under the title Betrachtungen liber den MSnchsstand. 

* Op. cit. See note 3, p. 54 supra. 



60 ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 

Probably neither of these two pictures, although contra- 
dictory, is wholly untrue. Doubtless there were periods and 
districts in which agriculture was prosperous, while in others 
it was in a miserable condition. The great landed estates 
were not always prejudicial to agriculture. 1 In the absence 
of documentary data, it is not easy to say what was the exact 
situation in normal times. 

Yet it is difficult to believe that misery was the rule and 
not the exception. Agriculture benefited both by the 
absence of foreign competition and by the presence of a 
large urban population. After the loss of Egypt, the 
numerous cities of the Empire derived their means of 
subsistence from the national agriculture. Good communica- 
tions by sea and surprisingly good roads in the interior 2 
facilitated the exchange of commodities. In the twelfth 
century foreigners were struck by the abundance of provi- 
sions of every kind to be found in Constantinople. In the 
eighth century one landed proprietor, who did not belong to 
the aristocracy, owned IOO yoke of oxen, 500 grazing oxen, 
80 horses and mules, x 2,000 sheep, and a large number of 
serfs. Another indication of the agricultural resources of the 
Empire is the land-tax, which was one of the two main 
sources of public revenue. 3 

But one must avoid all exaggeration, and the complaints of 
the misery of the peasants offer sufficient ground for sur- 
mising that, apart from certain exceptional periods, agri- 
culture enjoyed but a relative prosperity and that often the 
lot of the peasant was far from enviable. 

1 On principle the great estates are better fitted than the small holdings to 
organize the production and the distribution of agricultural products. There are 
indications that certain big landowners and monasteries realized this fact. 

1 At least in Asia Minor. The network of roads in Asia Minor was due in large 
measure to military considerations. [Cf. W. M. Ramsay, The Historical Geography 
of Asia Minor, Royal Geographical Society, Supplementary Papers, vol. iv (London, 
Murray, 1890); D. G. Hogarth and J. A. R. Munro, Modem and Ancient Roads 
in Eastern Asia Minor, Royal Geographical Society, Supplementary Papers, vol. iii, 
part 5 (London, Murray, 1893); and cf. W. Leaf, ‘Trade routes and Constantinople’, 
Annual of the British School at Athens, vol. xviii (1911-iz), pp. 301-13; J. A. R. 
'Munro, ‘Roads in Pontus, Royal and Roman’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. zxi 
(1901), pp. 52 -66 (with map).] 

3 The other being the customs. 



ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 61 


III. INDUSTRY 

In the Byzantine Empire industry occupied as important 
a place as did agriculture. But its forms underwent much 
fewer disturbances; and, in general, Byzantine industry 
presents much fewer historical problems than Byzantine 
agriculture. 

The Character of Byzantine Industry 

Given the density of the urban population, it is probable 
that the manufacture of articles of common use employed 
infinitely more hands than the manufacture of luxuries. 
Nevertheless, if Byzantine industry is usually associated 
with the idea of the manufacture of luxuries, this is not due 
solely to the fact that Byzantine articles de luxe (owing to 
their artistic character) have a special interest for modern 
students, but also to the fact that such articles undoubtedly 
had in the Byzantine world an importance relatively greater 
than they have in our own times. As a matter of fact, such 
articles, much sought after by the Churches of the West and 
by foreign grandees (both Christian and non-Christian), 
constituted the most important item of Byzantine exports. 
On the other hand, the home demand for such articles was 
also very great. The numerous ceremonies of the Byzantine 
Court have aptly been compared to a succession of theatrical 
representations (Kondakov); they required an enormous 
quantity of costumes, fabrics, vases, and ornaments of all 
kinds. The monuments and ceremonies of the Church 
demanded an even greater supply; for while there was only 
one Court, there were tens of thousands of churches, monas- 
teries, and chapels; the treasures of the richest of them 
literally dazzled the Westerners, but even the smallest con- 
tained many objects of great value . 1 

The descriptions given by travellers and the lamentations 
of Church Fathers prove that luxury was very widespread in 
society. Benjamin of Tudela tells us of rich Byzantines clad 
in sumptuous fabrics; they also loved to live in grand houses 
and to adorn their tables with gold and silver ware . 2 

1 Cf. O. M. Dalton, Byxemtim, vol. i (1924), p. 995. 

2 This custom prevailed to the very last [cf. 1 $. GuiUand, ‘Le Palais de Theodore 
Mdtochite', Revue des itudes grecquet, vol. xxxv (1922), pp. 82-95]. F° r 



62 ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 
To meet this great demand at home and from abroad, the 
artisans of a number of towns, and principally those of 
Constantinople, Salonica, Thebes, Corinth, and Patras, were 
obliged to manufacture incessantly the articles, which are 
still the admiration of connoisseurs — the magnificent silk 
fabrics, the heavy gold brocades and fine cloths, the wonder* 
ful products of the goldsmith’s art (jewellery, enamelled 
cloisonni plates, reliquaries, and other objects of religious 
devotion, bronzes, &c.), elegant glass-ware, ivories — in 
brief, to quote Diehl , 1 ‘everything that was known to the 
Middle Ages in the way of precious and refined luxury’. 

The Organization of Industry 

Thanks to the publication by J. Nicole of the Edict on the 
Guilds of Constantinople, more generally known under the 
name of the ‘Prefect’s Book’ ( eparchikon biblion ), one can 
form an approximate idea of the organization of Byzantine 
industry and petty trade . 2 

The guild system was in full force. Every branch of 
industry formed a corporation and some of the corporations 
(such as those concerned with the silk industry) were sub- 
divided into several guilds. Each guild enjoyed a real mono- 
poly but, on the other hand, was subject to a rigorous control 
by the State, which fixed the profits, the conditions of 
admission of new members, the restrictions upon the exporta- 
tion of goods, and a number of other points, including (in 
certain cases) even the localities where booths and workshops 
could be established. The prefect of Constantinople also 
exercised a close surveillance over the members of corpora- 
tions and had the right to inspect their workshops. 

This order of things, combining economic monopoly and 
State intervention, shocked the learned scholar who dis- 
covered and published the Edict. Had Professor Nicole 
been an economist living in our day, he would have been 
much less surprised . 3 He called Byzantium ‘the paradise of 

luxury of the banquet-table see the exhaustive article by Prof. Phaedon Koukoul&s, 
’Enenjpts Bvlavrw&v SrnvSt 2v, vol. x (1933), pp. 97-160. 

1 Byzance. Grandeur et Decadence (Paris, Flammarion, 1919), p. 95. 

* For studies on the Boot of the Prefect, see p. 397 infra. 

1 For what follows see my article: ‘Byzance, paradis du monopole et du privilege', 
Byzantion, vol. ix (1934), pp. 171-81. 



ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 63 
monopoly and privilege’, and this has become an everyday 
phrase. In reality, a legislation resembling in many respects 
that of Byzantium may be found wherever the regime 
corporatif has been tried, whether in the Eastern Roman 
Empire or in western Europe of the Middle Ages or in 
Japan under the Tokugawas. In most of these cases the 
system has had a less liberal form than at Byzantium. 
Certainly, in the long run, the guild system impedes progress 
and breeds abuses. But it possesses some important advan- 
tages; thus, it assures the quality of the goods produced, it 
does away with middlemen, it also forestalls both the 
exaggerated advance of prices and the crises of over-produc- 
tion. That is why this system seems to be a necessity in 
certain stages of economic development. In any case, it 
appears to have worked in the Greek Empire without arous- 
ing any complaints. Nor does it seem to have excited 
unfavourable criticism on the part of foreigners. Ganshof 
has discovered in the Western laws of the twelfth century a 
number of provisions which resemble those of the Prefect's 
Edict ; 1 and the Turkish Sultans appear to have copied that 
Edict slavishly . 2 

IV. INTERNATIONAL TRADE 
The Byzantine Empire was situated at the junction of the 
communications between Asia and Europe, and Europe and 
Africa; all routes, by land, sea, or river, connecting eastern 
Europe with the Mediterranean passed through Byzantine 
territory. This geographical position was a veritable cala- 
mity from a political point of view; for no Italian State nor 
any region in the Danube lands or in Hither Asia could 
develop without being tempted to invade Greek territory. 
On the other hand, from the commercial standpoint, that 
geographical position was of inestimable benefit, for auto- 
matically it made Byzantium the centre of international 
trade. 

Nature had also favoured the Empire by endowing it with 
a great number of ports, on all its coasts, from Trebizond to 

1 Bytzantiat, vol. iv (1928), p. 659. 

1 Father Jannin pointed out that certain provisions of that Edict were still in 
force in the Istanbul of Mustafa Kemal Pasha. 



64 ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 
Dyrrachium and from Crete to Anchialos. Some of these 
ports were the natural outlets of vast inland territories. 
Thus, Trebizond and Salonica were the ports not only of 
Persia and the centre of the Balkan peninsula respectively, 
but also of the hinterland of those regions . 1 2 Cherson, a sort 
of colonial possession, occupied for Russia a similar position.* 
But indisputably the greatest trade centre was Constanti- 
nople, with its unique situation and its incomparable harbour. 

In the course of centuries man had completed the work 
of nature. We have already seen that for a long time Byzan- 
tium monopolized the trade in articles de luxe, so important 
in an age in which international trade relied for its customers 
to a great extent upon churches, royal palaces, and seigneu- 
rial castles; it may also be remarked that some agricultural 
products, such as certain wines and dried fruits, were much 
sought after, even by the barbarians . 3 We shall see, in the 
chapter on public finances, that at least down to the eleventh 
century the Emperors maintained the intrinsic value of their 
gold coinage, whence the nomisma or besant became a truly 
international coin and supplied the Empire with an indis- 
pensable instrument for drawing to itself the trade between 
the various nations. In the same chapter we shall speak of 
the great public edifices, where merchandise was stored; 
these bazaars or caravanseries were to be found in fortified 
cities, which afforded protection against invaders and pirates 
and thus furnished commerce with that security which is 
as necessary to it as a sound currency. 

One must also remember that, beside the efficacious 
measures taken at various times against piracy, the Byzan- 
tines possessed a large mercantile fleet. Down to the 
Mussulman era this fleet was mistress of the seas; after 
centuries of reverses, it succeeded in developing a new 
prosperity, and its decadence did not really set in until the 

1 ‘Trebizond became the great port of the East.’ S. Runciman, Byzantine 
Civilisation (London, Arnold, 1933), p. 167. 

2 Direct relations between Constantinople and Russia do not date farther back 
than the ninth century. 

3 Thus the Russians brought their furs, honey, wax, and slaves, and received in 
exchange articles of the goldsmith’s art, silk fabrics, wine, and fruits. Cf. A. Vasiliev, 
‘Economic Relations between Byzantium and Old Russia', Journal of Economic 
History, vol. iv (1932), pp. 314-34. 



ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 65 

twelfth century. Even during the period of reverses, the 
Emperors strove to protect their merchant shipping by 
special laws , 1 and, it would seem, relaxed, in favour of ship- 
owners, the law against lending money at interest. Lastly, 
though we possess only fragmentary information on this 
point, it seems to be incontrovertible that international trade 
was encouraged by diplomacy and even by treaties. The 
treaties concluded with the Russians contributed, in no less 
a degree than the occupation of Cherson and the possession 
of the Straits, to make of the Black Sea a ‘Greek sea’, to use 
the expression of the Arab geographer Ibn Khordadbeh. In 
a more general way Byzantine policy towards foreigners 
contributed to making Constantinople and, in a lesser 
degree, certain other cities extremely busy centres of a re- 
exportation trade. That is why in the capital one saw 
‘strangers from every quarter of the world’. For nations 
that were of special importance special warehouses and even 
special quarters were reserved . 2 

Such are, in brief summary, the reasons why the Empire 
of the East remained for several centuries the centre of 
international trade. The imperial administration has been 
accused of hampering the development of that trade not only 
through the interference of its officials but also by a series 
of legislative measures. Some of these criticisms are well 
founded; others are more or less exaggerated. Too little 
account is taken of those economic ideas which, after having 
prevailed in the Middle Ages and down to the eighteenth 
century (Mercantilism), have now reappeared in another 
form in these times of ‘State-controlled economy’. 

Thus, it is probable that the customs authorities applied 
in a meddlesome and vexatious spirit the measures for regulat- 
ing trade; and it is also probable that the customs duties (10 
per cent, both on exports and on imports) were too high. 

On the other hand, criticisms of the prohibitions placed 
upon imports and exports are much exaggerated. Prohibi- 
tions upon imports were practically unknown; those upon 

1 Cf. the Rhodian Law which has been attributed to the Isaurian Emperors. 
[It is not possible to say more than that the law was issued between a.d. 600 and 800: 
so Ostrogorsky.] 

* This was notably the case with the Russians, the Venetians, and the Genoese. 



66 ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 
exports were limited to a few cases and were justified by 
special reasons. Thus, only one article (soap) is cited the 
importation of which was forbidden — no doubt in order to 
protect manufacturers within the Empire. As for the goods 
whose exportation was forbidden (except by special permis- 
sion), they can be classed under four categories : (a) ceremonial 
clothing, of which the State was in constant need for Court 
festivities, for distribution to high public functionaries, and 
for gifts to distinguished foreigners — together with unsewn 
fabrics ( arrapha ) and raw silk; (b) raw materials, which it was 
desired to reserve for home industries; (c) salt fish, which 
formed one of the staple foods of the capital; (d) gold, 
because of the State’s anxiety not to deplete the monetary 
reserve — a principle thoroughly familiar to us to-day. To 
this same anxiety must be attributed the occasional recourse 
to barter or mutual exchange of products — the obligation 
imposed upon importers to pay for certain goods (e.g. 
Bulgarian honey and flax) not in cash but in goods. This 
system, which shocked us until recently, has to-day become 
once more the fashion. 

Let us pass on to another class of criticisms. In the Byzan- 
tine Empire the guild system prevailed in commerce as much 
as in industry; lending at interest (at least from the time of 
the Iconoclasts) was forbidden or fixed at a low rate; 1 it was 
the public authorities, and not the law of supply and demand, 
that determined prices; admission to the capital was refused 
to certain aliens or subjected to very stringent regulations. 
It is but a few years ago that the conviction was prevalent 
that economic and commercial prosperity goes hand in hand 
with freedom in the matter of labour, prices, interest rates, 
and admission of aliens ; one was asked to believe that one of 
the causes of the decadence of the Byzantine Empire was the 
absence of all forms of liberty. This is too sweeping a 
simplification of questions of economic history that are 
admittedly very complex. Doubtless the criticisms which 
we have mentioned are justified in theory. On the other 
hand, how can it be overlooked that the guild system and 
the principle of State intervention are, in certain stages of 
economic development, almost inevitable? Side by side 
j,. e- , s j- j 1 Seep, mpra. 



ECONOMIC' LIFE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 67 
with some manifest inconveniences, they possess many 
advantages. For instance, the regulation of prices forestalled 
speculation; while the guild system tended to encourage 
exports by assuring the good quality of industrial products 
and even to favour imports, since occasionally the guild was 
obliged to buy up whole stocks imported into the market 
of Constantinople 1 ; and it must never be forgotten that the 
system of guilds and State intervention prevailed also in 
those great cities of the West which robbed Byzantium of 
its economic and commercial supremacy. 

As for the aliens, whose sojourn in Constantinople was 
subjected to so strict a surveillance, they were mostly bar- 
barians from the north, whom there was every reason to fear. 
Apart from these ‘undesirables’, foreigners appear to have 
obtained, without much difficulty, permission to sojourn 
and even to settle in Constantinople. Even before the forma- 
tion of the strong Italian communities, foreigners (for 
instance, Syrians) resident in the capital were much more 
numerous than in any other city of the medieval world. 

This is true to such an extent that one of the most generally 
accepted explanations of the economic decadence of Byzan- 
tium is that the Byzantines adopted the principle of not 
carrying their wares to foreign parts but of waiting for the 
foreign purchaser to come to them. The Italian communities 
were undoubtedly the cause of the Empire’s political and 
financial ruin and also, perhaps, of its industrial decline. It 
was they who prompted the Fourth Crusade; by their 
privileges they deprived the imperial Treasury of the cus- 
toms duties, which were its largest source of revenue; their 
industrial products little by little took the place of Greek 
manufactures; and it was their merchant shipping that 
supplanted the fleet of the Byzantine shipowners. Yet from 
the purely commercial standpoint these foreign communities 
had far less influence. As Charles Diehl says, ‘Constanti- 
nople remained the great distributing centre of the world’s 
trade up to the fall of the Byzantine Empire, even when it 
was no longer the Empire but the great Italian cities that 
profited by the situation’. In my opinion the truth is that 

* For instance, all fabrics imported from Syria. Cf. Tie Prefect's Boot, 
ch. v, 54. 



68 ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 
commercial decadence was not an independent phenomenon 
at Byzantium; it was the consequence of that economic 
decadence, the causes of which will be summarized in the 
concluding section of this chapter. 

V. CONCLUSION 

From the fifth to the end of the twelfth century the Byzan- 
tine Empire was indisputably the richest and most populous 
State in Christendom. Its prosperity was due in a large 
measure to its population, which was composed of citizens 
who were perhaps lacking in the political spirit, too much 
given to religious controversies and civil strife, but, on the 
other hand, were good heads of families, well endowed with 
the spirit of business enterprise, attracted by arts and com- 
merce — in one word, marked by the virtues, as well as by the 
defects, of the Greek race. But this prosperity was equally 
due to the State, which took measures, often efficacious, 
against depopulation, or for the protection of small land- 
owners or for the encouragement of industry and commerce. 
It was out of the combined efforts of Government and people 
that there grew again and again that wealth which, with the 
multitude of sacred relics, was whgt most impressed the 
foreign visitor. When Robert de Clari assures us that ‘two- 
thirds of the world’s wealth is to be found at Constantinople’, 
when so many other travellers use the same, or nearly the 
same, expressions, and even cite details as to the wealth of 
various provinces , 1 doubtless they are exaggerating, but at 
least they attest that the richest Christian State of the West 
appeared poor in comparison with the Empire of the East. 
In the following chapter we shall see that the Byzantines 
themselves had the feeling that this national wealth, from 
which the public Treasury could draw sums that were 
enormous for those times, constituted one of the principal 
forces of their country. 

1 When, for instance, John Brompton and Arnold of LObeck affirmed that the 
public revenues of Corfu and of Cyprus, toward the dose of the twelfth century, 
amounted annually to 1,620,000 and 7,j6o,ooo gold francs, respectively, they 
implied that the inhabitants of those islands had an annual income much larger 
than these sums, which to-day would have an infinitely greater (perhaps quintuple) 
purchasing value. 



ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 69 
How did this Great Prosperity fall into Decline? 

In many ways and for many reasons. In the first place, 
societies, like individuals, grow old. The Byzantine ship- 
owners, merchants, and manufacturers, probably rooted 
firmly in antiquated methods of business, could not keep 
pace with their younger Italian competitors. On the other 
hand, as we have seen, the Byzantine economic organization 
was a State, and hence a bureaucratic organization, and 
bureaucracies are even more swiftly overtaken by decadence 
than communities. From the eleventh century the Byzantine 
administration was no longer capable of defending the small 
landowners; one may also conjecture that by the incessant 
interference of its officials (who themselves deteriorated, as 
time went on) the State caused more harm than good to 
commerce and industry. Oh the other hand, taxation, 
increasingly indulgent toward the monasteries and the 
powerful classes, became necessarily more and more oppres- 
sive for the mass of the people. 

Nevertheless, all these causes of decadence weighed little 
in comparison with the political misfortunes which (with 
certain periods of respite 1 ) continued to befall the Empire 
after the death of Basil II. The first of these successive 
disasters (each more terrible than the other) was the loss of 
the rich agricultural provinces of Asia Minor, in conse- 
quence of the rapid advance of the Seljuks. In the course of 
the twelfth century came the Norman invasions, one of 
which (that of the year 1147) was accompanied by the 
transfer to Sicily of the silk industries of Thebes and of 
Corinth. Almost simultaneously followed the first three 
Crusades, which, amongst other harmful consequences, 
brought about the displacement of the Syrian trade from 
Constantinople to Italy. In the reign of Isaac Angelus the 
restoration of the Bulgarian State brought about the loss 
of those Danubian provinces which for long had been a 
compensation for the loss of so many Asiatic provinces. The 
capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders and the partition 
of the Empire crowned this long series of disasters. 

This last catastrophe was, from an economic point of view, 


1 Especially under the first three Comnene Emperors. 



70 ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE 

the death-blow of the Empire. Under the dynasty of the 
Angeli the Empire was in fiill political and military decline. 
Its wealth was less impaired, as shown by the testimony of 
the travellers quoted above, who belong to the times of that 
inglorious dynasty. So long as Constantinople remained 
intact, there was always the possibility of a revival like that 
which took place after the great Arab and Bulgarian inva- 
sions of the early Middle Ages. An example of this recupera- 
tion is to be found in Villehardouin’s mention of Salonica as 
an extremely rich city, although only a few years before 
(i 1 85) it had been sacked by the Normans. Constantinople 
can be considered the heart of the economic life of the Empire. 
It was there that for the most part the portable wealth and 
the principal branches of industry and commerce were 
concentrated; hundreds of thousands of working people 
lived within its walls. Of all this, after several days of pillage, 
massacre, and conflagration, hardly anything remained. 

To sum up, and without overlooking the internal causes 
mentioned above, one may say that the economic decadence 
of the Empire was chiefly the work of its foreign enemies, 
who by fire and sword depopulated its cities and its lands, 
destroyed its industries, and took away its commerce, which 
had already been partly deflected to their own countries 
since the beginning of the Crusades. When the Palaeologi 
succeeded in reuniting under their sceptre a part of the old 
Empire, they found everything in ruins. The combined 
efforts of the enemy on the north, on the west, and (this time 
especially) on the east (the Turks) did not allow the Empire’s 
economic life permanently to recover a portion of its ancient 
splendour. 1 

The Byzantine people paid a fearful price for the loss of 
their military virtues and for their passion for civil war. 2 

ANDRfi M. ANDR£AD£S 

1 The economic revival, which occasionally was noticeable, was both local and 
ephemeral (e.g. at Salonica). 

* It was these civil wars which paved the way for the foreign invasions; as, for 
instance, the rivalries between Isaac II and his brother Alexius III, or between 
Andronicus Palaeologus and Cantacuzenus. 



Ill 

PUBLIC FINANCES 

CURRENCY, PUBLIC EXPENDITURE, BUDGET, PUBLIC REVENUE 

I. THE CURRENCY 

Of the Byzantine coinage it will suffice to say that from 
Constantine to Alexius Comnenus the Emperors hardly ever 
had recourse to the practice, then so common, of debasing 
the coinage. In consequence, for many centuries the Byzan- 
tine gold piece, the nomisma, became a veritable international 
coin. 

But from the time of the Comneni and especially under 
the Palaeologi, the practice of debasing the coinage became 
frequent and gradually the gold coin, now known as the 
hyperpyron, came to be worth but a third of its original value, 
which was about 15 gold francs. 1 

The precious metals at that time had, of course, a far 
greater purchasing value than they have in general to-day; 
it is estimated that that purchasing value was five times 
greater. Many modern historians, when quoting a figure 
from the sources, are in the habit of multiplying it by 
five. Thus Paparrigopoulos, who introduced this practice, 
reckons the revenues of Constantinople at 530 million gold 
francs because, according to the information of Benjamin 
of Tudela, the Emperor drew an annual revenue from the 
capital of 106 million gold francs. This method of calcula- 
tion doubtless gives the reader a more concrete idea of what 
this or that item of revenue or expenditure would represent 
in present-day money, but it is perhaps safer simply to quote 
the figures as they are given by our sources. As a matter of 
fact, the purchasing value of gold and silver fluctuated very 
much during the ten centuries of the Empire; and what is 
more serious, there is no period during those centuries for 

1 Byzantine literary sources mention moneys of account, such as the gold pound 
(worth 1,080 gold fiancs) and the silver pound (worth 75 gold francs), while on 
the other hand, the gold nomisma was subdivided into miUiartsia of silver, each 
of which was subdivided into keratia. 



7 * 


PUBLIC FINANCES 


which one can determine with precision what that purchasing 
value was. 1 


II. PUBLIC EXPENDITURE 

No Christian State in the Middle Ages and even few 
kingdoms of the Renaissance had to meet such great public 
expenditure as the Greek Empire of the East. This arose, 
on the one hand, from that Empire’s geographical situation, 
which exposed it to countless dangers, involving enormous 
sums for national defence, while at the same time the political 
and social structure of the Empire demanded an expenditure 
at least as great as that required for national defence. 


( a ) National Defence 

We have already pointed out the exceptional situation of 
the Empire at the junction of the great arteries of com- 
munication between Europe, Asia, and Africa. But this 
geographical position, while affording immense economic 
advantages, caused the Eastern Empire to be the object of 
attack from all sides. After the Persians came the Arabs, 
and then the Turks; after the Slavs, the Bulgars, and then 
the Russians; after the Goths and the Lombards, the 
Normans and then the Crusaders. 

At first the Byzantines flattered themselves with the 
belief that they could stop these successive waves of invasion 
by a system of frontier and mountain-pass fortifications 
resembling the Great Wall of China, as well as by the 
fortification of every city of any importance. This system no 
doubt rendered great services ; but besides being so costly as 
to call for special taxes, permanent or temporary, it was 
in itself inadequate. Therefore without abandoning it the 
imperial Government turned its attention more particularly 
to the creation of a strong army. 

In fact, the Byzantines succeeded in forming an army and 
a navy superior in numbers and ships, as well as in organiza- 
tion, to those of most of the other States of the Middle 
Ages. But these land and sea forces, which repeatedly 

1 For the details see A. Andrdad&s, ‘De la monnaie et de la puissance d'achat des 
mdtaux precieux dans 1 'Empire byzantin’, Byzantion, vol. vii (1924), pp. 75-115; 
and cf. G. Ostrogorsky, *L6hne und Preise in Byzanz’, Byzantinischc Zeitschrift, 
vol. xxxii (1932), pp. *93-333. 



PUBLIC FINANCES 73 

saved the Empire and enlarged its boundaries, were ex- 
tremely costly. 

It is true that the State reduced the annual charge on the 
budget by sacrificing large tracts of public land and distribut- 
ing them to citizens in return for a hereditary obligation to 
serve in the army, but the charges on the budget continued 
to be very heavy. In the first place the Treasury had to 
provide for the building and upkeep of several hundreds of 
ships , 1 for arms and engines of war (including Greek Fire), 
and for the auxiliary services, which were so greatly deve- 
loped that, as Manuel Comnenus wrote to Henry II of 
England, the Byzantine army, when on the march, extended 
for ten miles. Moreover, the ‘military lands’ did not furnish 
a sufficient number of soldiers. Hence, recourse was had to 
the enlistment of mercenaries, and the demands of these 
foreigners were exorbitant. We know, for instance, that the 
Scandinavian mercenaries used to return to their distant 
homes laden with riches. 

If to all this expenditure we add the pay of the officers, 
who were numerous and well rewarded , 2 one can understand 
why the wars entailed heavy taxes in money and in kind, and 
why in consequence some of the most glorious Emperors 
(such as Nicephorus Phocas) were often so unpopular. One 
can also understand why the Byzantine Empire preferred to 
employ gold rather than the sword in its foreign policy. This 
employment of gold assumed two distinct forms. First, that 
of tribute. Tribute was in principle quite a wise arrangement; 
it was more economical to pay an annual sum than to expose 
the country to an invasion, even if that invasion were 
repulsed successfully. Thus the Bulgars paid to the Hunga- 
rians the greater part of the money they received from the 
Byzantines. Yet, as Procopius had already observed, if 
tribute kept away one set of barbarians from the frontiers, it 
attracted other races. It was, therefore, more profitable to 
utilize the great resources of the Empire in procuring allies 
amongst the neighbours of the Empire’s enemies. The 


1 From the eighth to the twelfth century the historical sources repeatedly 
, mention fleets of 500 to 1,000 ships, in addition to 1,000 to 2,000 transports. 

* It may be estimated that their number amounted to 3,120 and their pay to 
3,960 pounds (or, 4,276,800 gold francs) per annum. 



74 PUBLIC FINANCES 

Byzantine annals furnish many instances in which recourse 
was had to this latter method, which became a permanent 
element in East Roman foreign policy. 1 

The Emperors were also fond of creating a great impres- 
sion of their wealth by the magnificence of their embassies. 
Thus, the chroniclers relate that Theophilus provided John 
the Grammarian with 400 pounds in gold, so that the latter 
was enabled to dazzle the Court of Bagdad by scattering 
‘money like sand’. 

( b ) Expenditure on the Civil Administration 

The Byzantine Empire was a complex organism. It v/as 
at once a bureaucratic State, a semi-Orientai absolute 
monarchy, a Greco-Christian community, and, lastly, a 
nation in which the capital played a role almost as pre- 
ponderant as in the States which, like Athens, Rome, or 
Venice, were the creation of one city. The budget being, as 
Napoleon said, the mirror of a country’s political and social 
life, all the above traits were necessarily reflected in the 
finances and each of them formed a separate item of expendi- 
ture in the budget. We shall therefore examine in succession 
the expenditure for the administration, the Palace and Court, 
the churches and public charities, and the city of Constan- 
tinople. For lack of space we must pass over items of lesser 
importance such as, for example, universities, public works 
in the provinces, or the police force. 

1. Diehl has justly praised the Byzantine administration 
as ‘strongly centralized and wisely organized’. It was 
the administration no less than the army which placed the 
Empire of the East so far above the other States of the 
Middle Ages and which enabled it to survive the frequent 
changes of Emperors without lapsing into anarchy. On the 
other hand, this civil administration entailed heavy expendi- 
ture, inasmuch as the public officials were numerous and 
with few exceptions were paid by the State. Like the States 
of our own day the Empire of the East maintained a policy 
of ‘State-directed economy’ and insisted upon controlling 
and regulating all manifestations of the life of the com- 
munity (production, labour, consumption, trade, movement 

1 See below what the ministers of Nicephorus Phocas said to Liutprand. 



PUBLIC FINANCES 75 

of the population, or public welfare). For this supervision a 
vast number of officials was needed. Further, the State 
possessed immense landed property and itself engaged in 
various industries. The kingdoms of the Renaissance, 
which also practised economic intervention, if not centraliza- 
tion, and also possessed State property, both agricultural and 
industrial, adopted the system of the sale of public posts. 
But in the Byzantine Empire only a few Court posts or 
empty titles were sold. 1 It was therefore necessary to give 
salaries to the public officials and each salary was composed 
of three parts: the siteresion (provisions), the roga (cash- 
payment), and the supply of clothing. The roga and the 
clothing were distributed once a year, to the higher function- 
aries by the Emperor himself, to the others by the para- 
koimomenos. Liutprand ( 'Antapodosis , vi. xo) tells us that the 
file past the Emperor lasted three days, while that past the 
parakoimomenos lasted a week. From other sources we learn 
that the higher functionaries received a handsome roga 2 and 
costly clothing. Hence, while we lack evidence for the 
monetary value of the siteresion and the salaries of the lower 
officials, it is clear that the bureaucracy, like the army, con- 
stituted a heavy charge upon the public treasury. 

2. In consequence of an evolution, which had its origin 
in Diocletian’s time and was reinforced by the contact with j 
the Caliphs of Bagdad, the Roman principals had gradu- 
ally changed into an Oriental monarchy. To this form 
of government corresponded the splendid palaces and the 
magnificent Court of Constantinople. From the financial 
standpoint alone it is difficult to estimate the cost of con- 
structing the imperial residences (the chief Palace was in 
itself a small city) and the expense of the thousands of nobles, 
clerics, soldiers, eunuchs, and servants who swarmed therein. 
Yet it is certain that even under the most parsimonious 
Emperors what to-day we call the ‘civil list’ must have been 
enormous. It was swollen by all the largesses which the 
sovereign was expected to distribute to the army, the 

1 Cf. A. Andread^s, 'La Vinalitd des charges est-eUe d’origine byzantine ?’, 
Nawvtlle Revue historique de droit franfais, vol. xlv (1921), pp. 232-41. 

* Thus the roga of the Dean of the Law School amounted to four gold pounds 
per annum (equivalent in purchasing power to £1,000 sterling at least). 



7 6 PUBLIC FINANCES 

Church, and the populace; these under prodigal Emperors, 
like Tiberius II, 1 reached extravagant sums. The banquets 
given on great feast-days or on the arrival of foreign mon- 
archs or embassies entailed an expense much more con- 
siderable than in our day, seeing that the guests, whose 
number occasionally reached 240, received presents both in 
money and in kind. 

3. But the Emperor was not only a prince, whose ideal of 
sovereignty had been influenced by the neighbouring Asiatic 
Courts; he was also the head of the Christian Church and as 
such he was expected to discharge many obligations and 
thereby to incur great expense. Even though the majority 
of the pious foundations were the work of private individuals, 
the churches and the monasteries must have cost the public 
treasury as much as the walls and fortifications. According 
to Codinus, St. Sophia alone cost 300,000 gold pounds — a 
sum much greater than the 60 million scudi spent on the 
erection of St. Peter’s. The upkeep of churches and 
monasteries, which on principle was supposed to be at the 
expense of these institutions themselves, could not be over- 
looked by the logothetes of the genikon , the imperial Minister 
of Finance. In the first place, the Emperor, in founding an 
ecclesiastical institution or church, endowed it with lands 
(thus, Justinian assigned to St. Sophia 365 domains, one for 
each day of the year, within the suburbs of Constantinople) 
or else with an income, as in the case of the monasteries 
founded by Nicephorus Phocas on Mt. Athos or that built 
by Manuel Comnenus at the entrance to the Bosphorus. 
Moreover, some of the more important churches were in 
receipt of an annual subvention. That to St. Sophia, fixed at 
first at 80 pounds, was raised by Romanus III to 1 60 pounds 
of gold. Likewise the Christian religion required the 
Emperor to be charitable, good, and merciful. Hence both 
he and his family competed with his wealthy subjects in the 
endowment of innumerable charitable institutions, such as 
hostels for pilgrims ( xenodocheia ), refuges for the poor 
( ptochotropheia ), hospitals for the sick ( [nosokomeia ), homes for 
die aged (gerokomeia ), which were the ornament and pride of 

1 The successor of Justinian II, not content with reducing taxation by one-fourth, 
spent 7,200 gold pounds in largesses in one year. 



PUBLIC FINANCES 77 

the ‘city guarded of God’ and the administration of which 
represented one of the most important public services. 

4. Alfred Rambaud has aptly remarked: ‘Constantinople 
constituted the Empire, occasionally it reconstituted the 
Empire, sometimes it was the whole Empire.’ This excep- 
tional position of the capital is reflected in the enormous 
sums expended on its protection and embellishment, on the 
aqueducts, markets, and streets lined with arcades, which 
made Constantinople ‘the sovereign of all cities’, to use 
Villehardouin’s phrase. 

If Constantinople made and remade the Empire, its in- 
habitants made and unmade the Emperors. And that was a 
fact that the latter took good care not to forget; one of them, 
Isaac Angelus, compared the people of his capital to the wild 
boar of Calydon and all the Emperors were assiduous in 
cajoling the monster. The Roman tradition provided the 
populace with the games of the circus 1 and with free distribu- 
tions of bread. These civic loaves (artoi politikoi) were indeed 
abolished by Heraclius, but reappeared in the infinitely more 
modest form of largesses in money or in kind, which were 
distributed on the occasion of happy events or at times of 
great scarcity. 


III. THE BYZANTINE BUDGET 

Paparrigopoulos, on the authority chiefly of foreign 
travellers and chroniclers, has estimated the budget of the 
Empire at 640 million gold francs, which, of course, had a far 
greater purchasing value. Ernst Stein puts it at only 100-1 15 
millions. Elsewhere 2 I have discussed these figures at some 
length, and I still believe that both are equally erroneous, 
the former being too high, the latter too low. On the other 
hand, it seems to be impossible to suggest any definite figure, 
not only for the whole budget but even for any one of its 
principal heads. The data furnished by Byzantine sources 

1 Cf. Novel 81 of Justinian. 

* Cf. A. Andr&d&s, Le Montant du Budget de 1 ’ Empire byzantm (Paris, Leroux, 
192a). [This separate publication contains Appendixes which are not given in the 
article which appeared in the Revue des itudes grecques, vol. xxxiv (1921), no. 156. 
Cf. Ernst Stein, Byzantmsche Zeitschrift, vol. xxiv (1923-4}, pp. 377-87, and his 
Studien zur Geschichte des byzantinischen Reiches (Stuttgart, Metzler, 1919), 
pp. 141-60.] 



78 PUBLIC FINANCES 

are in some cases doubtful and in all cases fragmentary, and 
those given by foreigners are even more so. Moreover (and 
this is a point that has not been sufficiently emphasized) a 
considerable proportion of the expenditure was made in 
kind. This consisted of articles of every sort, including food- 
stuffs, derived from the land or the workshops owned by the 
State, or from requisitions made upon private individuals. 
It is manifestly impossible, after so many centuries, to say 
what value these supplies represented in cash; nor is it 
easier to estimate the cash value of the hours of forced 
labour (the corvee), which were a public burden laid upon the 
citizens. 

An additional difficulty lies in the fact that though the 
principal heads of expenditure remained practically the same 
since the characteristic features of the Empire remained 
unchanged, the amounts raised under these different heads 
varied greatly according to the character of the reigning 
sovereign. Under an ambitious and magnificent Emperor 
like Justinian or Manuel Comnenus the expenditure 
entailed by campaigns and buildings predominated. Under 
a monarch more conscious of the real situation of the Empire, 
such as Constantine V, Nicephorus Phocas, or Alexius 
Comnenus, it was the expenditure for national defence. 
Under an Empress there would be heavy expenditure for 
the monasteries, for charities, and for popular largesses; 
lastly, under a stupid or debauched Emperor, favourites and 
buffoons absorbed a large part of the public treasury’s 
resources. 

But even after all this has been said, it is probable that, 
except in the days of the Palaeologi (1261— 1453), when the 
Empire was but the shadow of its former greatness, and in 
certain peculiarly disastrous reigns, the State revenues must 
have exceeded, and sometimes greatly exceeded, the sum of 
100 million gold francs. Those who assert the contrary 
forget, amongst other things, 1 that one must not take into 
account only the expenditure in money, since a part of the 
expenditure, as well as of the revenues, was in kind; that the 

1 As, for instance, the fact that from the ruins of the first Byzantine Empire 
sprang up a number of kingdoms and principalities, each of which had a luxurious 
Court and a costly army. 



fUBUL 1 nNAiNCKS 79 

principal heads of expenditure in the budget (army, admini- 
stration, Court, Church and charities, Constantinople) were 
not susceptible of great retrenchment, and that, taken in the 
aggregate, they necessarily amounted to a heavy total, and 
further, that vast wealth appeared, in the eyes of foreigners, 
to be the principal characteristic of the Empire. These out- 
siders considered Byzantium ‘a kind of Eldorado’ (Lujo 
Brentano). This wealth was also its principal weapon in the 
eyes of the Byzantines themselves; the ministers of Nice- 
phoros Phocas said to Liutprand: ‘We have gold and with 
this gold we shall rouse all peoples against you and break 
you like an earthen vessel’ ( Legatio , 58). It must also be 
remembered that all the information supplied by foreigners, 
as well as many data given by the Byzantine sources them- 
selves, imply very great revenues and expenses. This is true 
also of the figures given by our sources of the wealth left by 
certain Emperors, 1 whose character and the circumstances 
of whose reigns (especially prolonged wars) did not permit 
them to adopt a policy of economy. 

No comparison with the budgets of the medieval kings of 
the West can help us, since these princes reigned over 
feudal States and therefore knew nothing of most of the 
items of expenditure which we have enumerated above, 
especially expenditure for a paid army and a large body of 
bureaucratic officials. The only budget which could serve 
us for the purpose of comparison is that of the Caliphs of 
Bagdad; and the documents published by A. von Kremer 
tell us that under Harun-al-Rashid the budget amounted 
to a figure approximating to that given by Paparrigopoulos. 2 

Finally, it is to be noted that for the Byzantine Empire 
property belonging to the State had a much greater financial 
importance than it has to-day, while by taxation the Treasury 
absorbed a proportion of the national revenue which before 
1914 would have seemed greatly exaggerated. 

1 Anastasius left 355,600,000 gold francs, Theophilus and Theodora 140 millions, 
Basil II 250 millions. 

* Or 530 million dirhans, not counting taxation in kind. It is true that the 
territories of Harun-al-Rashid were more extensive than those of the Emperors, 
and his system of taxation more onerous; nevertheless, the official figures of the 
Caliph’s revenue that we possess are an indication which we should not overlook. 



BO 


ruDLU. r ixNAi>n-r.o 


IV. REVENUE 

Public revenue was derived from the property of the 
State, the taxes properly so called, and the extraordinary 
contributions. 

Property belonging to the State was of three kinds — 
industrial, agricultural, and urban. 

Industrial property included both the manufacture of 
articles needed for the army and of articles of luxury, 
especially of fabrics. The products of the imperial factories 
were rarely sold; nevertheless they constituted an indirect 
revenue. Without them the State would have been obliged 
to purchase a multitude of articles indispensable to the army, 
the navy, the Court, and the administration. These factories 
furnished arms of all kinds (including ‘Greek Fire’) and the 
precious vestments which the Emperor required for his 
person and his Court, for gifts to foreign potentates and 
embassies, and also for the annual distributions, which, as 
we have seen, were one of the three forms of emolument 
received by public functionaries. 

The Byzantine Emperors had inherited from their prede- 
cessors vast agricultural lands. These were reduced by the 
distribution of ‘military lands’, and by donations to churches, 
charitable institutions, relatives or favourites of the Emperor, 
and even to colonists of all kinds settled in the Empire. On 
the other hand, these agricultural domains were increased 
from time to time by conquest and especially by confiscation. 
Confiscations were plentiful in troubled times because the 
leaders of insurrections were often nobles, with great landed 
estates. This explains why, in spite of the many donations, 
the agricultural domains continued to be very extensive, 
while their products served to cover no inconsiderable 
part of the public expenditure. Thus, the public lands 
in the suburbs of Constantinople supplied with victuals 
the Court, comprising several thousands of officials and 
attendants. 

The urban resources of the Byzantine State have often 
been overlooked by modern writers. To these resources a 
passage of Benjamin of Tudela should have called their 
attention. The Spanish traveller says that the daily revenue 



PUBLIC FINANCES 81 

of 20,000 gold pieces, which Manuel Comnenus received 
from his capital, came from foreign traders (i.e. from 
customs duties), from the markets (i.e. from taxation of con- 
sumption), and from the caravanseries. To understand this 
passage, one must recollect that at Constantinople, as 
throughout the Empire , 1 merchandise was concentrated in 
vast buildings — bazaars or caravanseries. These belonged 
to the State and were not ceded gratis for the use of the 
merchants. If one considers also that all mines, quarries, 
and salt-pans, according to a tradition going back to Athens 
and to Rome, were the property of the State, one is convinced 
that the public property of the Empire of the East was much 
more varied and extensive and yielded much greater revenues 
than in modern States. 

Since the time of Savigny much has been written on the 
Byzantine fiscal system. But these studies are confined almost 
exclusively to direct taxation; and indeed, it is chiefly of 
direct taxation that the Byzantine historical and legal 
sources treat. 

Nevertheless, the only taxes mentioned by Benjamin of 
Tudela as levied at Constantinople are the customs duties 
and the tax on consumption. Nor do the Byzantine sources 
speak of a capitation tax or a house-tax in the capital or even, 
as far as the latter tax is concerned, in the provincial cities. 
On the other hand, the disastrous consequences which 
resulted for the public treasury from the customs privileges 
granted to Italian traders imply that the customs duties 
were of capital importance. Taken all in all, the direct taxes 
were not of the first importance except in places where there 
were neither ports nor markets — i.e., in the country districts. 
This need not surprise us. It is what one finds in the 
finances of Greek States from antiquity down to the present 
day. But why do the Byzantine sources speak chiefly of 
direct taxes ? Probably because these taxes, always repugnant 
to the Greek temperament and rendered still more onerous 
to the rural population by reason of the scarcity of cash, were 
the most difficult to collect. Hence, the Emperors were 
forced from time to time to amend the legislation concerning 

i This is proved by the Byzantine caravanseries of Salonica and Larissa, whose 
walls are preserved to this day. 



82 PUBLIC FINANCES 

these taxes 1 and also to exempt from their payment (tempo- 
rarily or permanently) those to whom they wished to show 
favour, especially the monasteries. On the other hand, 
indirect taxation aroused much fewer protests and called for 
much fewer fiscal reforms; whence it is seldom mentioned 
by the chroniclers and legal sources. 

The fiscal importance of indirect taxation in the Byzantine 
Empire has, indeed, been insufficiently recognized. 

Of the direct taxes, the most frequently mentioned are the 
following : 2 

(a) The land-tax. This included, first, a tax on the land 
itself, assessed according to the area, the value of the soil, and 
the nature of its cultivation, and, secondly, a tax on the crops, 
having its origin in the old Roman annotia and varying 
according to the number of ploughing animals employed. 
Another peculiar feature of the land-tax was that each vil- 
lage formed a fiscal unit; if one landowner disappeared, the 
Treasury was not the loser; it simply allotted the defaulter’s 
land to his nearest neighbour, who had to pay the tax 
( epibole ). 

(h) The tax on grazing-lands ( ennomion ) and animals other 
than those used for ploughing (pigs, bees, &c.). 

(f) The capitation tax. This assumed a family character; 
it was laid upon each hearth, hence its name kapnikon. It 
was levied only upon serfs , 3 

( d ) All the foregoing taxes fell exclusively upon the rural 
population. The direct taxes levied upon the urban popula- 
tion were the chrysargyron, the aerikon, and the tax on inheri- 
tances. But the first-named of these three, a sort of tax on 
commercial profits, was abolished early in the fifth century 
by the Emperor Anastasius and was replaced later by a 
simple licence-tax. The aerikon , said to have been instituted 
by Justinian, has called forth a whole literature , 4 but remains 

1 This may be observed also in modern Greece. 

1 Cf. Andrgadis, Bytumtmische Zeitschrift, vol. xxviii (1928), pp. 287-323. 

3 Another tax under the same name was levied occasionally upon freemen; but 
it was a war contribution, an extraordinary tax. The sources mention a third tax, 
which, as shown by its title ( kefhalition ), was a real capitation tax. But, as Professor 
Dolger has proved, this tax was levied only on non-Christians, chiefly Mussulmans 
and Jews. 

4 Every self-respecting Byzantinologist thinks it his duty to give a new inter- 
pretation of this tax. 



PUBLIC FINANCES 83 

mysterious and the name seems to have been applied to 
several different taxes, while the tax itself would appear to 
have had a somewhat intermittent career. The same may be 
said of the tax on inheritances. As for the chartiatikon, it 
seems to have been a stamp-tax, i.e., an indirect tax. Hence, 
even if one admits that the kensos , the real estate tax properly 
so called, was levied on urban as well as agricultural land, 
the fact remains that the inhabitants of cities were at various 
times practically exempted from direct taxation. On the 
other hand, the indirect taxes fell heavily upon them in both 
forms — customs duties and excise. 

Customs duties, as in ancient times, were levied both on 
exports and imports and the imported goods that had paid a 
customs duty were not thereby exempted from the payment 
either of the tax on retail sale or of port or transit dues 
( skaliatikon , diabatikon). Moreover, the customs duties were 
fixed at 10 per cent., 1 whereas in ancient Athens they were 
only 2 per cent., and in Roman Italy per cent, (quadrage- 
sima ). 

Since sea-trade was very highly developed, one can easily 
understand that under these conditions the customs revenues 
were of vital interest to the Empire. The excise (or tax on 
internal consumption of commodities) is set forth in detail 
in one document, Novel xxvin of Andronicus Palaeologus 
(1317), which has so far not been the subject of any special 
study. The fact that each tax bears the name of a commodity 
or group of commodities indicates that the amount of the 
tax was variable. 2 This Novel of Andronicus also mentions 
a tax on weights and measures, which was paid by the buyer, 
and lastly, the licence-tax paid by merchants for the exercise 
of their calling, which tax, too, varied according to each 
calling and was named after it. 

Taken all in all, especially for the rural population, the 
Byzantine fiscal system would have been tolerable, if it had 
not been supplemented by a long series of extraordinary or 
supplementary obligations, on which a few words must here 
be said. 

1 At first, under Theodosius, the rate was lit per cent. 

* This method, in itself reasonable, is to be found in antiquity and in the Ionian 
Islands under the Venetian rule. 



84 PUBLIC FINANCES 

Anyone who peruses the charters of immunity from taxa- 
tion granted to certain monasteries, notably that granted to 
the Nea Mone of Chios by Constantine Monomachus and 
to the Monastery of Patmos by Alexius Comnenus, sees how 
numerous and varied these supplementary burdens were. 
One may class them as contributions in kind for the benefit 
of the army, the officers, and the public functionaries, and as 
forced labour, corvfes, properly so called, for public works, 
whether military (fortifications, &c.) or civil (roads, bridges, 
&c.). 

Both classes are in conflict with Adam Smith’s four rules 
of taxation. They were not equally distributed, because 
exemption was granted not only to a large number of 
privileged persons, but also to such cities and regions as for 
one reason or another were outside the circle of requisitions. 
They were not fixed, inasmuch as they varied according to 
circumstances. They were (by the force of circumstances) 
not collected at the time most convenient for the taxpayer. 
Lastly, their amount depended on the arbitrary decisions of 
the civil or military authorities; and this fostered numerous 
abuses to the detriment both of the taxpayers and of the 
Treasury. 

The only excuse that one can plead for this pernicious 
legislation is that it was not an invention of the Byzantines. 
These contributions in kind and coruies were but a survival 
of the munera extraordinaria et sordida , of which the Codex 
Theodosianus gives us a list and enables us to appreciate the 
burden. 


V. CONCLUSION 

Byzantine finances could not be satisfactory. As in our 
day, expenditure was too great and in part unnecessary. The 
Government could not meet it except by a system of taxation 
which was more oppressive and certainly more arbitrary than 
anything we know of to-day. 

One cannot, however, form an equitable judgement of the 
financial system of any State, except by comparing it with 
that of other States of the same period, or with that which the 
particular State had inherited. From these two points of 

VTIAttt ^1% A !- J i.1 J A — — C A. t* VMtM 



PUBLIC FINANCES 85 

of the East. In the first place one is struck by the fact that 
not only the monarchies which succeeded to the Empire of 
the West, but also the Bulgar and Russian Tsars, while 
failing to give their subjects a better administration, had the 
greatest difficulty in collecting revenues much inferior to 
those yielded without much effort by the smallest Byzantine 
‘province’. Their finances were in their infancy. The Caliphs 
of Bagdad did perhaps collect revenues which, at a given 
time, surpassed the revenues of the Byzantine Emperors, 
but they had a fiscal system even more crushing. Moreover, 
their financial prosperity was of brief duration . 1 Lastly, one 
must also bear in mind that, if the Greek Emperors retained 
in principle the fiscal system of the later Roman Empire, 
they improved upon it in many ways. They abolished certain 
taxes (notably the hated chrysargyrott), reduced others, and 
took measures which ameliorated the collection of revenue 
and rendered the epibole tolerable. They also strove, with 
more energy than their predecessors, to protect the small 
holders. 

In a word, the Byzantine financial administration must be 
condemned; but there is good ground for a plea in extenua- 
tion of its faults. 

ANDKfi M. ANDREADES 

1 It reached its zenith under Harun-al-Rashid (768-809); during the ninth 
century revenue steadily fell off; in the tenth century it had fallen to insignificant 
sums. On the contrary, the yield of Byzantine revenue continued abundant for 
many centuries — a feet which demonstrates the efficiency of the imperial fiscal 
machine. 



IV 

THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 

The Byzantine Empire being by definition the Roman 
Empire in its Christian form, it goes without saying that in 
Byzantium the Christian Church dominates at once both 
political and social life, the life of letters and of art just as 
much as the definitely religious life of the Empire. Its 
special problems thus become affairs of State: its interests, 
its grievances, its needs, its passions, its conflicts, whether 
external or internal, fill the history of the Eastern Empire 
both as that history was lived and still more as it was written. 
Those disagreements which in their origin belong specifically 
to the Byzantine Church have left deep marks upon the 
civilization of the Christian peoples of the East and have 
determined in many respects even down to our own day the 
relations of these peoples amongst themselves and with the 
West. To quote but two examples: the misunderstanding 
which after the Yugoslav unification still divided Croats and 
Serbs was in the last analysis the result of the breach between 
the Byzantine Church and the Church of Rome which dates 
from the year 1054; the antagonism between ‘Orthodox’ 
Georgians and Monophysite Armenians which in the gravest 
crisis of their history prevented them from co-ordinating 
their efforts to secure their independence — that antagonism 
was ultimately but a distant consequence of a Byzantine 
theological dispute of the fifth century. To-day the Byzan- 
tine Church and the autocephalous communities which are 
attached to it — or rather which have detached themselves 
from it in the course of the centuries — appear to be the most 
rigid, the most set of the Christian Churches; and it is true 
that their rites and their dogmas have had for centuries past 
a character of hieratic fixity. But the Byzantine Church has 
been a living force, a moral force of the first order. And to do 
it justice one cannot rest content to describe it merely in its 
present attitude or in one only of the attitudes which it has 
successively assumed. Nothing can be more superficial than 
the reproach of ‘Caesaropapism with which it has at times 



THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 87 

been branded; nothing more inexact so far as the Byzantine 
Church is concerned than the charge of ‘ceremonialism’, of 
formalism ‘stifling the life of mysticism’, for this mystic life 
never ceased to inspire the ascetes and during the last century 
of Byzantium even took possession of the masses. 

It is essential to trace not only the internal evolution of 
the Byzantine Church but also its external relations. For 
most of its characteristic features result from the accidents of 
these two aspects of its double history. These features we 
shall do our best to emphasize, but first it is necessary to 
bring before the reader the disorders and the tumults, the 
conquests and the losses of which these characteristics 
remain the witness, just as the motionless lines of a tor- 
mented landscape are to be explained only by the convulsions 
of which it has been the theatre in long past geological ages. 
The plan of our chapter is determined by this consideration 
which calls for a division into three parts : we shall first study 
the Church as seen from within — the Church militant, the 
Church finding itself, often divided against itself and often 
opposing the State, seeking to assert or to define its dogma; 
then we shall consider it from without, in its expansion 
beyond the limits of the Empire, conquering and civilizing, 
but also imperialist and even intransigent, provoking hatreds 
and national reactions ; finally we shall conclude by an attempt 
— doubtless a rash attempt — at synthesis, an effort, perhaps 
a vain effort, to attain to some understanding, through its 
manifestations in history, of the essence of the Church of the 
East, its spirit. . . . 

The Triumph of Christianity in the Empire. 

The Acceptance of the New Faith by the State, and 
of Hellenism by the Church. 

The Triumph of the Catholic Church over the 
Arian Heresy: Compromise between Philosophy 
and the Faith. 

The first great fact of the internal history of the Byzantine 
Church is its ‘march on Rome’, its conquest of power, and 
the foundation by Constantine of the New Rome on the 
Bosphorus (inaugurated in 330) which is its striking symbol. 
That triumph in which all the faithful saw and still see a 



88 THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 

miraculous confirmation of the divine institution of the 
Church belongs, it is true, to all Christian Churches, but in 
especial it illumines the Church of which the city of Con- 
stantine was soon to be the capital and which identifies itself 
with the Empire reorganized by Constantine; and, through 
the centuries, that triumph ever gives anew to the Byzantine 
Church the highest idea of its own powers, the proudest 
confidence in its future. The Church is certain that it is at 
once eternal and unique, and this certitude welded it, as it 
were, to the Roman State which has the same conviction. 
Between Rome and Christ there had, indeed, never been any 
antagonism on grounds of principle: Jesus had from the 
first assigned to Caesar as of right his own sphere. Anatolia, 
which was the heart and the body of the Byzantine Empire, 
was predestined for Christian conquest, and the Apostle of 
the Gentiles knew well what he was doing when he carried 
the good news of redemption into a country which but a few 
years before had welcomed with enthusiasm the ‘good news’ 
of the appearance of Augustus, ‘the Saviour God’. The 
whole history of Christian missions and of the spread of 
Christianity is, as it were, prefigured in the mission of Paul, 
the foe of the Greek idols, but the herald of the Unknown 
God — of whom thousands of the subjects of the first Caesars 
dreamed — and himself a loyal citizen of Rome. The peasants 
and the mountaineers of Asia Minor had only very super- 
ficially been won over to Hellenic polytheism and the higher 
culture of Greece. They knew ecstasy and religious fervour, 
personal devotion, the confession of sins, and the hope of the 
life beyond the tomb. The vulgar Greek spoken by Paul did 
indeed appear to them to be the language of the Holy Spirit. 
Amongst people such as these Christianity progressed 
almost without hindrance. The classical period of the 
orientalization of the Empire, that of the Severi at the 
beginning of the third century, saw upon the throne princes 
who were themselves half-Christian. The great persecutions, 
those of Decius and Valerian in the middle of the third 
century and that of Galerius and his colleagues at the begin- 
ning of the fourth, were but violent and desperate reactions 
against the peaceful conquest of the Empire by the new 
faith. These reactions sprang from the army of the Danube 



THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 89 

recruited amongst Balkan barbarians who had remained 
pagan — troops who were sacrificed in vast numbers for the 
defence of the Empire. They were at once passionate and 
interested defenders of the old religion, for the class-interest 
of the officers appealed to all the anti-Christian prejudices. 
The persecutions resemble the modern movements of anti- 
semitism. The last persecution caused widespread disgust, 
and the principal persecutor, Galerius, recognized his 
failure by promulgating on his death-bed the great Edict of 
Tolerance of the fourth century, the Edict of Sardica (Sofia, 
a.d. 31 1). Five Emperors, at least, between the years 306 
and 3 1 1 declared themselves more or less openly in favour of 
Christianity. Their attitude proves that the Empire in order 
to surmount a terrible economic and social crisis felt it 
necessary to resort to a religious mysticism which might 
buttress and sustain those political institutions which had 
themselves been refashioned upon Eastern models. 

That is not all : even such an enemy of Christianity as was 
Maximin Daia (died 313) — who ended his reign like the 
others with an edict of tolerance — as well as, half a century 
later, the last imperial adversary of the new faith, Julian the 
Apostate, sought in more than one point of their organization 
of pagan worship to imitate that of the Christian Church. If 
they had conquered the Galilaean, these Caesars would have 
borrowed from His Church its hierarchy of metropolitans 
and many another Christian institution. 

Shaken to its foundations, within an ace time and again of 
perishing in an unexampled cataclysm, the Empire realized 
that in order to survive it needed not only a dynastic, military, 
monetary, and administrative basis, it needed also a soul, a 
core of religion. And, indeed, it had no longer any choice. 
Christianity had on its side the mass of the people, at least in 
the heart of the Empire. Here the Orient made its decisive 
preponderance felt — a preponderance which was at once 
demographic, economic, and cultural. And Christianity 
brought to the Empire an organization already made, and 
the Empire in identifying itself with Christianity had seen 
in it a unifying factor. Christianity, however, had conquered 
the world not in the form of a great river with a single stream, 

Kut in i'll** fnrm nf nmriPfAnc tni*r*nte TKpcp A iincmno liorl 



9 o THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 

not been suppressed by the victory of the Church. On the 
contrary, that victory only brought into full light the dog- 
matic differences between which the Emperors were forced 
to make their choice, while they found themselves faced by 
disciplinary disputes to which the persecution itself had 
given rise. Many ancient ‘heresies’ although they had struck 
deep roots — especially in Anatolia and Syria — such as 
Montanism in Phrygia or the dualist sects issuing from the 
Gnosis of Marcion and Manes — were henceforth no longer 
a serious danger for the ‘Catholic’ Church. But Constantine, 
so soon as he became master of Africa, found there a Chris- 
tianity which was profoundly divided by Donatism, a move- 
ment which formed a rallying-point for the masses of the 
people who protested against the lukewarmness or the 
cowardice in the hour of persecution of those propertied 
classes who now, after the Christian victory, claimed their 
share of honours, though they had not shared the sufferings 
of the persecuted. And Constantine, such was the obstinacy 
of the schismatics, was forced to tolerate Donatism. Ten 
years later as conqueror of Licinius and master of the whole 
Empire he suffered his second disillusionment when he was 
faced with the Arian Controversy which was a far graver 
issue than Donatism, for Donatism divided only Africa, but 
Arianism divided the Roman world. 

Arianism is the price paid for the early and fruitful 
alliance of Christianity with Greek philosophy. From the 
moment that Christ is identified with the Logos, His re- 
lations with the Father must be defined in terms of the 
Alexandrian conception of the Word. The ‘savants’, the 
philosopher-theologians — Antioch was then the great school 
of Christian philosophy — could not bring themselves to attri- 
bute to the Father and the Son the same essence, the same 
degree of divinity; to do so would have led, in their view, to a 
heresy which had already been condemned, to Sabellianism. 
A priest of Alexandria, Arius, had preached — not without 
indiscretions and extravagance of speech — had popularized 
and vulgarized the faith of Antioch. Bold and precise 
formulas such as ‘There was a time when He was not’ roused 
the passions of the crowd for and against this ‘subordina- 



THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 91 

the dispute began afresh. For the first time doubtless in the 
history of the world the inhabited universe — the oikoumene — 
was divided into two camps on a point of religious meta- 
physics. An academic controversy was carried into the 
streets, a Church dissension became a political, a national, 
one might almost say a racial, issue, for it is generally true 
that while the hellenized East is Arian, the Latin West is 
solid in its opposition to Arianism. The bishops of Alex- 
andria, at least Alexander and after him the great Athanasius, 
from the first took their stand against the position of the 
priest who had appealed to the mob, who spread his teaching 
through popular songs 1 chanted by sailors or artisans; in 
this great battle which lasted for more than half a century 
they were the allies of the West. Arian ‘subordinationism’, 
it should be observed, is the faith of those Eastern countries 
which had long since been Christian, solidly Christian; the 
formula of the ‘Consubstantial’ — the Homoousion — which 
the East will find such difficulty in accepting — will be 
imposed upon it — paradoxically enough — by the West 
which under Constantine and Constantius is still largely 
pagan, which can hardly boast of any theologians, since 
philosophy whether pagan or Christian was the concern of the 
Greeks. Faced by these subtleties, Constantine shows him- 
self at once indifferent and ill-humoured. In a letter of un- 
doubted authenticity he begins by describing the study of the 
relations between the Father and the divine Son as ‘an idle 
inquiry’. But he soon saw that union between the hostile 
brothers in the faith would not come of itself, that he must 
throw his personal authority into the scale. He was com- 
pelled to turn theologian, and henceforth, until the fall of 
Byzantium, the Emperors of East Rome will never escape 
from this task which with many of them will become a 
passion, a mania: thus in the twelfth century Manuel 
Comnenus will raise a theological tempest over the text ‘My 
Father is greater than I’ (John xiv. 28). Constantius, son and 
successor of Constantine, will spend his life in the vain search, 
as his father would have called it, for a formula which might 
reconcile the differences of his Christian subjects. At Nicaea 
in 325 Constantine had wished, doubtless prematurely, 

1 complaintes. 



92 THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 

to play the part of bishop; he had cut the Gordian knot 
by imposing the Homoousion — a formula suggested by the 
simple faith of a Spanish bishop which was repugnant to the 
philosophical conscience of the Orientals. A little later he 
came to realize the strength of that hostility. Emperor of 
Nicomedia and of Constantinople, in the end he took the 
part of the bishops of Asia against Athanasius. Constantius 
II, living in the East, passes through various shades of 
Arianism, while his brother Constans, Emperor of the West, 
defends the faith of Nicaea. This duality in the government 
of the Empire produces a kind of equilibrium: the bishops, 
both in East and West, maintain their positions; the Council 
of Sardica (343), assembled symbolically at the frontier 
where two Empires met, could not reconcile the differing 
points of view, though out of respect for each other the two 
brothers were not intolerant. In 350 Constans was assassi- 
nated; during the years 35 1 to 353 Constantius reconquered 
the West from the usurper Magnentius. More and more 
Constantius sets his heart upon forcing the Consubstan- 
tialists to accept the creed of the Eastern bishops, or formulas 
of compromise invented by ingenious Oriental theologians, 
or even Anhomoean formulas of the left wing of Arianism, 
until the day when at the two Councils of Ariminum and 
Seleucia a neutral confession which proscribed even the 
name of substance is imposed upon East and West alike. 

The reign of Constantius is in many respects an anticipa- 
tion of the whole course of the religious history of Byzantium. 
A theological difference ranges one half of the Empire 
against the other. The Emperor to settle the dispute sum- 
mons council after council: the highways of the Empire 
are crossed and recrossed by ‘galloping bishops’: one sees 
now Court prelates or ecclesiastical assemblies won over or 
intimidated by the Government, now heroic athletes of the 
faith braying the Emperors themselves and gaining from 
these religious duels an immense popularity: one sees the 
Emperor seeking by any and every means to secure the 
support of the Bishop of Rome. And all this will recur — 
again and again. But in the fourth century the struggle 
between Christians is not without its danger: Constantius 
and Constans had thought that by their draconian edicts of 



THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 93 

the forties against superstition and sacrifices they could 
deal the death-blow to paganism, but paganism was not pre- 
pared to throw down its arms. Julian galvanizes it into new 
vigour: he turns to his own purposes the indignation aroused 
by the breakers of idols, by unlettered monks, by pamph- 
leteers who in their hatred hurled their insults against the 
gods of Homer. But he did a disservice to the cause of 
humanism in claiming to exclude from the literary and 
artistic heritage of Hellas — and even from culture itself — 
those Christians of goodwill who had been trained at the 
great seats of learning of the Empire and who did not reject 
civilization along with paganism. From this time the 
moderates sought for a compromise which might preserve 
that which was of essential value, while amongst the Chris- 
tians, weary of dogmatic disputes of which the reaction under 
Julian had proved the danger, there was an effort to recon- 
cile the Christian faith of the West, attached by a primary 
anxiety for unity to the formula of the Homoousion , with the 
more subtle doctrine of the Orientals. 

The peacemakers, the saviours of civilization, of the faith, 
and of the Empire, were the Cappadocians, Gregory of 
Nazianzus and Basil of Caesarea, men who had been brought 
up on the classics, themselves just as much rhetoricians and 
‘sophists’ as they were theologians. Their work has a twofold 
aspect. On the one hand, they establish a new orthodoxy; 
while accepting the Homoousion they interpret that formula 
afresh, restoring the Logos theology. They admit in the 
Godhead, like the strict Nicenes, only one substance — a 
single ousia, but they distinguish three hypostases — three 
persons. They thus prepare the way for the return to Nicene 
orthodoxy of the moderate Arians, who had been startled by 
the excesses of Constantius and above all of Valens. On the 
other hand, by the literary charm of their writings which 
observed the canons of the schools and could be admired by 
a cultivated public they reconciled Christianity and Hellen- 
ism. By refounding, or rather by founding, religious unity 
on the basis of formulas which were not merely diplomatic, 
the great Cappadocians and their Latin disciples and allies, 
like St. Ambrose, once more assured, at the critical moment 
when the two Empires were finally taking their separate 



94 THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 

ways, through the unity of Christian thought the unity of 
the Christian world. 

After the Council of 381 held under Theodosius the 
Great, 1 Arianism, repudiated by Greco-Roman society, was 
henceforth only a Christianity for German barbarians. Even 
after the fall of the Empire of the West in 476 the Latins 
reacted against this ‘barbarous religion’ with no less energy 
than did the Byzantines. 

Finally Christianity, hellenized and philosophic, as it was 
presented by Gregory of Nazianzus and Basil of Caesarea, 
was well fitted to become ‘a gentleman’s religion’, and the 
Empire could thus, without scandalizing men of intellect, 
persecute those who were still obstinately attached to pagan 
sacrifices and ‘superstition’, who refused to unite, as the 
State invited them to do, the cult of letters and the cult of the 
true God. 

THE MONOPHYSITE AND MONOTHELITE CONTROVERSIES 
AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES 

ALIENATION OF THE ARMENIAN, SYRIAN, AND COPTIC EAST 

As fifty years of relative peace — the Pentekontaetia — 
separate the Persian Wars from the Peloponnesian War, 
so a dogmatic peace of like duration extends from the close 
of the Arian controversy to the beginnings of the dispute 
over the Two Natures. The dates, indeed, present striking 
analogies: 480 and 431 before Jesus Christ, 381 and 431 
after Jesus Christ — the Councils of Constantinople and 
of Ephesus. Like the ancient quarrel, the Monophysite 
controversy will become an affair of State and will profoundly 
disturb the masses of the people. The Great Councils, the 
Parliaments of Christendom, will take an increasingly impor- 
tant place in the preoccupations of the world. The last 
refuge of free speech, they are, in a measure, the successors 
of the tumultuous assemblies of the Greek city-states. They 
proved, in general, to be less docile than were the synods 
presided over by the commissioners of Constantius. More- 
over, the subject-matter of the dispute is perhaps of greater 

I Cn fft rl infr'n rviiink Viim Amm Uib rnmn/lenn ‘1 TaA/l/lOI11fl T T 



THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 95 

import than the Homoousion or Homoiousion . And in any event 
the consequences of the century-long controversy will be 
very different from those of the Arian debate: the latter, 
as we have seen, finished by reinforcing the unity and the 
solidarity of the Romans, both Greek- and Latin-speaking, in 
face of the German invaders, while in the last analysis it is the 
Monophysite controversy which will detach from the Ortho- 
dox Church the majority of the Syrians, the whole body of 
the Copts and in their train the Ethiopians, and the Arme- 
nians, while this religious disaffection will facilitate the con- 
quests of Islam and the dismemberment of the Empire. 
Further, the Monophysite dispute is more ‘Byzantine’ than 
the Arian controversy, inasmuch as it concerns especially the 
Eastern world. The West has other interests. A few dates 
set side by side will bring into relief this contrast between 
Latin Romania, victim of the great conflicts of peoples, and 
the Byzantine East distracted by the conflicts of bishops and 
of monks. The leading Latin doctor, St. Augustine, was 
summoned to the Council of Ephesus, but that summons 
reached him too late: he had died in Hippo while the Vandals 
were besieging the city. 

The battle of the Catalaunian Fields, where all the West, 
Romans and Germans, stayed the advance of the Huns, was 
fought at about the same time as the great theological battle 
of Chalcedon. Still the West does not disavow all interest in 
the controversy; indeed, as in 325, it is the West which 
imposes a formula of too little subtlety — that of the two 
Natures without separation or confusion — which will re- 
main the rock of orthodoxy but also a terrible rock of 
offence. 

Nestorius himself spoke of his ‘Tragedy’: we may bear 
the word in mind and consider the whole history of the 
Monophysite controversy with its sequel the Monothelite 
dispute as a single drama in five acts of unequal length. The 
first act has for its central scene the Council of Ephesus (431). 
Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, disciple of the school 
of Antioch, is a true representative of its theology, more 
speculative than mystical. He sets before himself the task of 
pursuing and overthrowing the followers of another heresy, 
ADollinarianism. which carried to excess its opposition 



96 THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 

to Arianism by minimizing the human nature in the 
Incarnate Word. Nestorius insisted on the Man-Christ, for 
on the humanity of Christ depended, it would seem, the 
reality of His redemptive death. He taught that the Virgin 
was not Mother of God, but of Christ — not theotokos, but 
Christotokos. Now their faith always led the most ardent of 
the faithful to ‘go one better’. It was impossible, they 
thought, to give too much honour to the Mother of the 
Consubstantial Word, who had recently, it appears, become 
the object of a cult, full of tender emotion, which met a need 
of the Egyptians who, in spite of all, had not forgotten Isis 
and her worship. Just as Arius had seemed to humiliate the 
Word by saying ‘There was a time when He was not’, so 
Nestorius seemed to insult the divinity of the Redeemer, the 
more so as he permitted himself some irreverent and ill- 
timed sallies on ‘The God at the breast’. When Nestorius 
affirmed that the divinity had come to dwell in the humanity 
of the Christ ‘as in a temple’, the devout indignantly pro- 
tested that he was dividing, cutting into two, ‘tearing 
asunder’ the Christ. These protests came especially from 
Egypt: Egypt had every reason to keep a sharp lookout for 
errors of dogma or of language coming from a Patriarch of 
Constantinople. The bishops of Alexandria, absolute heads 
of the whole Egyptian episcopate, supported by a formid- 
able army of monks and hospital attendants — the notorious 
■parabolani 1 — were jealous of Constantinople, the proud 
upstart, once the humble suffragan-bishopric of Heraclea- 
Perinthus, but raised by the third canon of the Council of 
381 above the glorious sees of Alexandria and Antioch. 
Every opportunity to humiliate his colleague was welcomed 
by the prelate whom men styled the ‘Pharaoh’ of Egypt. 
Although no theological question had been at stake, Theo- 
philus of Alexandria had not failed to turn to account the 
feud between the Empress Eudocia and St. John Chrysos- 
tom : he had overthrown that generous Patriarch, the friend 
of the people and the bitter critic of the Court. Cyril, the 
nephew of Theophilus, in his turn was not slow to denounce 
the heresy of Nestorius. Behind him was the whole of 
Egypt, both Greeks and Copts. 



THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 97 

There had long been close connexion between Egypt and 
Rome: the Church of Alexandria had been founded, tradi- 
tion said, by Mark, the disciple of Peter. It was at Rome 
that Athanasius had sought a refuge from persecution. It 
was thus natural that Pope Celestine should trust the ortho- 
doxy and the energy of Cyril. The Council of Ephesus, 
summoned by Nestorius and by his protector the Emperor 
Theodosius II to judge Cyril, witnessed the triumph of the 
Egyptian and the decisive and final defeat of the ‘Byzantine’. 
The assembly met ‘in the church called Mary’ — it was a 
symbol and a prophecy. And yet the result of the Council 
could not be easily foreseen. Cyril, in the eyes of many 
moderates, had gone too far in his attack upon Nestorius and 
his ‘dyophysitism’. In his ‘anathemas’ he had made use of 
expressions which bordered on the left-wing heresy of the 
Single Nature in the Incarnate Christ — Monophysitism. 
But he manoeuvred with supreme skill. Even at the Council 
of Ephesus itself he carried through — with the complicity of 
the Roman legates — a coup d'eglise by opening the proceed- 
ings before the arrival of the Eastern bishops who were 
favourable to his adversary whose condemnation he forced 
through without a moment’s delay. Later every expedient 
was employed to influence the Court at Constantinople, 
particularly baksheesh. Cyril’s ‘benedictions’ took the form 
of ivory tables, costly carpets, even ostriches, and thus 
gained for his theology the support of high officials and their 
wives. And at last when everyone including the Emperor had 
sacrificed the embarrassing and compromising Nestorius, 
Cyril made the necessary concessions to the theology of 
Antioch, spoke as did the Antiochene theologians of the 
Divinity which dwelt in the Christ as in a ‘temple’, and 
admitted that there had been ‘a union of two natures’. The 
more fanatical of his partisans doubtless regretted the 
moderation of their great leader, but Mgr. Duchesne con- 
cludes that ‘the Pharaoh had become a Saint’. 

We have told the story of this first act at some length, 
because it both sets forth, as is fitting, the theme of the 
tragedy and is the prologue in which the characters are intro- 
duced. These, it is true, will at times change their names, 
will play different parts, but the rivalry between Alexandria 



98 THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 

and Constantinople, the arbitration of Rome, the vacillation 
of the Emperor, these remain throughout unaltered. We 
pass then to the second act. 

Egypt under its new Patriarch Dioscorus wishes to drive 
home its victory: it regrets the moderation of Cyril. It now 
confesses the Single Nature without equivocation. At the 
Second Council of Ephesus (449) history repeats itself, at 
least in part, since Flavian, Patriarch of Constantinople, 
accused of having condemned the Monophysite monk 
Eutyches, is in his turn anathematized and deposed. At 
Rome the Pope, St. Leo, protests against a hazardous 
Christology, and in his famous dogmatic letter proclaims 
the ‘orthodox’ doctrine of the future: ‘The true God is born 
with the complete and perfect nature of a true man, perfect 
in His own nature (divinity) and perfect in our nature 
(humanity).’ Henceforward the Monophysites will be 
accused by the Great Church, as was Nestorius, of denying 
the humanity of the body of Christ, and, as a consequence, 
the Passion. Logically the Monophysites should have main- 
tained that the death of Christ on the Cross had been only an 
appearance — a phantasia — unless they were prepared to 
confess that the God-Man had suffered ‘by a miracle’. But 
in fact the Monophysite theologians and even Eutyches him- 
self almost always declined to admit the extreme views which 
were imputed to them by their enemies. However that may 
be, passions had been unloosed in favour of a doctrine which 
exalted the divinity at the expense of the humanity of the 
Incarnate Christ. Almost throughout the East the masses of 
the people were in its favour, rising together with the monks 
against the Nestorianizing episcopate, while the feeble and 
vacillating Theodosius II, once the protector of Nestorius, 
impressed doubtless by the elemental force of the movement, 
gave to it his official support. His minister, the eunuch 
Chrysaphius, was the patron of Eutyches who, it was 
reported, had said that the body of Christ had descended 
from heaven. 

But a change of sovereign reversed the course of religious 
policy: Theodosius II died, while hunting, in 450: his sister 
Pulcheria ordered the execution of Chrysaphius and then 
married Marcian who shared with her the government of 



THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 99 

the Empire. The new rulers set before themselves the task 
of imposing upon their subjects the creed of Pope Leo. 

The third act of the tragedy begins : its scene is the Council 
of Chalcedon (451). The opening sessions of the Council 
were directed by a civil commission of nineteen high officials. 
But, despite this rigorous control, it was only with great 
difficulty that the assembly was brought to accept the new 
definition of the faith desired by Marcian and Pulcheria: 
‘We confess one Jesus, Lord, only Son, whom we acknow- 
ledge in two Natures' There were those who had sought the 
golden mean by proposing the formula 'of two Natures'. It 
was in vain that in later clauses of the creed emphasis was 
laid upon the indivisibility of the two natures: by admitting 
that they persisted without confusion after the union the 
doctrine of St. Cyril was implicitly rejected. It is for this 
reason that the definition of Chalcedon had on men’s minds 
so provocative an effect. Throughout a large part of the 
East it was believed that the Government and the official 
Church had gone over to Nestorianism. Few ecclesiastical 
assemblies have been so hated and so anathematized by 
millions of the faithful as was the Council of Chalcedon: 
even to-day it is still a rock of offence. No sooner had ‘the 
accursed Council’ finished its work than a double revolution 
broke out against it — at Jerusalem and in Egypt. The 
influence of the monks, drawn for the most part from Asia 
Minor, and the prestige of a few great solitaries reconquered 
Palestine for Chalcedonian orthodoxy, but Egypt remains 
and will remain uncompromising. In the valley of the Nile 
there is constituted a solid Monophysite opposition which 
nothing can break, while in Syria after bloody conflicts and 
many disturbances the deep-seated Monophysitism of the 
masses of the people will shake the columns of ‘the school of 
Antioch’. 

Then there begins the interminable fourth act (476-565), 
the century during which the Emperors seek to disarm the 
hatred of the East against Chalcedon. Prodigies of ingenuity 
and of theological diplomacy were devised, but in the result 
it was almost completely labour lost. The Emperor Zeno in 
484, in agreement with the Patriarchs of Constantinople and 

nf A lpYonHrla flip T-I wntihnn nr nf TThinn 



IOO 


THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 

the first in date of these subtle attempts to sacrifice Chalcedon 
to the Anti-Chalcedonians without rejecting expressis verbis 
the orthodox, but scandalous, Council. The Henotikon 
repeated the official creeds, except that of Chalcedon, and 
added : ‘If anyone has taught otherwise, whether at Chalcedon 
or elsewhere, let him be anathema!* But a silence which 
failed to satisfy the Egyptians appeared to the Romans a 
heretical pusillanimity; it caused a complete breach between 
Constantinople and the Pope (484—518). This first schism, 
known as the schism of Acacius from the name of the then 
Patriarch of Constantinople, is a sign of the times: Byzan- 
tium, since the whole West is now taken captive by the 
barbarians, prefers communion with Alexandria to union 
with Rome. 

Anastasius, the successor of Zeno, is a pure Monophysite, 
although at times he may disguise his extreme views, since 
the capital and the Balkans remain orthodox. One day the 
general Vitalian presented himself before the gates of 
Byzantium at the head of an army of Huns : he came as the 
soldier of the Pope. Everywhere the two confessions 
identified themselves with the political and social parties 
which took as their emblems the colours of the ‘factions’ of 
the circus : the Greens represented, as a rule, the lower classes 
which were Monophysite, the Blues the orthodox bourgeoisie . 
The latter triumphed with the Emperor Justin, a Latin of 
Balkan origin as was Vitalian. Justin re-established union 
with Rome and persecuted the Monophysites ; his nephew 
Justinian was, like his uncle, in principle a Blue and orthodox, 
but vacillated now to one side, now to the other, under the 
pressure of circumstances and still more under the influence 
of his wife Theodora, a convinced Monophysite, who 
united prudence with an unwavering purpose. 

After the reconquest of Italy from the heretic Goths it was 
essential for Justinian to pose as the champion of the orthodox 
faith and the ally of the Pope; he thus, in concert with Pope 
Agapetus, put an end to the Monophysite reaction of the 
Patriarch Anthimus. But Theodora would not surrender 
the hope of converting to her faith the Pope himself and the 
whole of the regained West, and Justinian devoted ten 
years of his life to this work — to ‘the seduction of the 



IOI 


THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 

Papacy’ and ‘the reconciliation of the Orientals’. His idea 
was to expurgate Chalcedon : to eliminate from the Acta of 
the Fourth Council that which was most offensive to the 
nonconformists. In 451 three enemies of Cyril — Theodore 
of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrus, and Ibas of Edessa — 
had been absolved or justified. If one pursued the dead even 
in their tombs, the fierce hatreds of the Monophysites might 
he appeased: so thought the pious sovereigns and their 
advisers. And all the West, if the Pope of Rome consented 
thereto, would bow before this posthumous condemnation 
pronounced in the cause of peace. 

Such was the affair of the ‘Three Chapters’ which is odious 
on more than one ground ; it was a strange charity towards 
separated brethren which appealed to their hatred rather 
than their love: the Emperor’s intervention in a purely 
theological dispute was direct, brutal, and repeated; the 
luckless Pope Vigilius was subjected to violence and mal- 
treatment: he was dragged from Rome to Constantinople: 
here he yielded, then resisted, retracted, again insisted, and 
at last at the Fifth Oecumenical Council (Constantinople 
553) he ratified the condemnation of the ‘Three Chapters’, 
i.e. of the writings of the ‘scandalous doctors’. Henceforth 
the Council of Chalcedon was emended, but nothing was 
gained thereby, for still the oriental dissenters refused their 
subscription. Moreover, in the course of the controversy 
over the Three Chapters the Monophysite Churches had 
reconstituted their hierarchy which had for a time been 
disorganized by ‘the Catholic terror’. The enthusiastic 
missionary Jacobus Baradaeus has given his name to the 
Syrian ‘Jacobites’. Coptic Egypt, in spite of the orthodox 
Patriarchs who had hardly any adherents save in Greek 
Alexandria, hesitated only between the different shades of 
Monophysitism. In 548 Theodora had died, doubtless full 
of hopes for the success of the great scheme of the Three 
Chapters and for the future of her co-religionists whom she 
sheltered and at need hid by hundreds in her palace. It was 
doubtless the memory of his wife which led the Emperor, 
exasperated by the failure of his efforts at conciliation, to join 
the extremists amongst the Monophysites and to profess 
Aphthartodocetism — to maintain the incorruptibility of the 



102 


THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 
body of Christ. This imperial heresy was but the hallucina- 
tion of a dying man ; his successors returned to ‘the catholic 
terror’. Yet in Egypt, as though to demonstrate the impos- 
sibility of repression in a country permanently disaffected, 
saints such as Eulogius and John the Almsgiver, who suc- 
ceeded each other on the patriarchal throne of Alexandria, 
proved themselves veritable heroes of Christian charity. The 
fruits of their activity were disappointing: there were few 
whole-hearted conversions to orthodoxy. 

Then there follows the fifth act of the great dispute: it, 
too, lasted for a century. Like Zeno and Justinian, Heraclius 
dreams of reconciling the dissidents. Never since Chalcedon 
had the prospects been more favourable for the re-establish- 
ment of religious peace. It must surely need a truly diabolical 
obstinacy in the Christians of the East to refuse to accept 
this peace from the hands of a holy Emperor, now crowned 
with victory, who after his overthrow of pagan Persia had 
restored in triumph the True Cross to Jerusalem (630). 
Heraclius was always henceforth in the eyes of Christians of 
the East and the West alike the Christian hero above all 
others, and his theological adviser, the Patriarch of Con- 
stantinople, Sergius, shared the Emperor’s aureole, since it 
was he who with the favour of the Mother of God had 
defended the capital against Avars, Slavs, and Persians. 
Consequently more readily, more frankly than Vigilius, the 
Pope Honorius allowed himself to be won over to the pacific 
policy of the Emperor and the Patriarch of the East. It was 
a marvellous success 1 It was a triumph for Heraclius and he 
felt himself more truly victorious than on the day when he 
announced to the peoples of the Empire the destruction of 
Chosroes in ‘the eternal fire’. 

The peace for the souls of his subjects which Rome had 
sanctioned the Emperor owed to his faithful Armenian 
compatriots: for Heraclius was a son of this heroic nation. 
Two-thirds of Armenia had been reconquered from Persia by 
Maurice, it had been lost again in part under Phocas, it had 
been regained and delivered from the Iranian yoke by him- 
self or rather by the prowess of its own warriors fighting in 
the service of Byzantium. Now Armenia, which for fifty 
years had been indifferent to the controversy on the Two 



THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 103 

Natures, had, at the beginning of the sixth century, become 
Monophysite, or rather anti-Nestorian. This was not 
surprising, since Nestorianism was in Persia, as it were, a 
second national religion, the only recognized form of 
Christianity. Heraclius knew well his good ‘Haikh’. After 
the hardships which they had shared with him, after the final 
victory, they asked for nothing better than to welcome as 
brothers both the Greek and the Latin Christians. But they 
desired to be reassured concerning Chalcedon which had 
divided the person of the Saviour. This Heraclius and 
Sergius undertook to do; without raising afresh the thorny 
problem of the Two Natures, they affirmed that in Christ 
there was at least only one energy. On this assurance the 
union with the Armenian Church was effected. Honorius 
went still further: he spoke of a single will and this latter 
formula was adopted in the imperial edict — the Ekthesis — 
of 63 8 . But when that edict appeared, it was already too late. 
The fair dream had faded. The diplomacy of so many 
eminent and far-seeing men was rendered vain by the magni- 
ficent and disastrous obstinacy of one man, Sophronius 
(since 634 Patriarch of Jerusalem), who declared that belief 
in two energies and two wills was essential for orthodoxy. 
The Patriarch Cyrus, sent to Alexandria to win the Copts for 
the new Henotikon, soon found himself isolated between the 
Orthodox and the uncompromising Monophysites. The 
successors of Honorius, who died in 638, rejected with 
horror his ‘Monothelitism’. And those for whom the subtle 
compromise had been framed, the Christians of Syria, Egypt, 
and Armenia, were either already conquered by the Arabs or 
would be subjected, one after the other, in the years which 
were to follow. Monothelitism which was designed to save 
the whole position in the East had ruined everything. But 
Armenia was not occupied until 6 5 2 , and at first the Heraclian 
dynasty did not give up all hope. Still in 648 Constans II, 
the successor of Heraclius, endeavoured to render acceptable 
the essential point in the compromise by forbidding all discus- 
sion either of ‘energies’ or ‘wills’. Pope Martin saw in this 
‘retreat’ a heresy worse than all the others and, like Sophro- 
nius, demanded, with the inflexible logic of an intransigent 
Chalcedonian, the explicit recognition of two energies and 



io4 THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 

two wills. All the efforts of a policy which aimed at peace and 
conciliation only served to make the ‘dualism’ more pro- 
nounced. The wish had been to translate, explain, expur- 
gate, tone down the definition of Chalcedon of which the 
‘Two Natures’ formed the stumbling-block. And in the 
result orthodoxy, more exigent than ever and more provoca- 
tive, imposed on men's consciences three ‘dyads’ in place of 
one. At the same time the West revolted against the lawful 
Emperor. It is not difficult to understand the anger of 
Constans, the arrest, trial, and banishment of Martin and 
other martyrs of orthodoxy. But Monothelitism was de- 
feated, because after the Arab conquest of Armenia it 
appeared to be at once useless and dangerous. Constantine 
IV surrendered: he accepted the Roman formulas, and at the 
Sixth Oecumenical Council (Constantinople 7 Nov. 680- 
16 Sept. 681) an ‘aggravated Chalcedon’. This was a 
repetition, in the sphere of theology, of the adieu of Hera- 
clius: ‘Farewell Syria, farewell for everl’; but that farewell 
was now extended to the Churches of all those territories 
which after centuries of religious disaffection were finally 
lost to the'Empire. 1 

Conclusion 

Chalcedon triumphed, but over ruins: it triumphed 
despite the power and the genius of Zeno, of Anastasius, of 
Justinian, of Theodora, and of Heraclius who for more than 
two centuries had sought with admirable devotion and 
perfect clear-sightedness to disarm hatreds, to conciliate the 
rival mysticisms. They had matched themselves against 
forces which were too strong for them. It has been urged 
that the losses sustained by the Empire in the seventh 
century did in one sense but strengthen the consciousness of 
Byzantine unity. It is certain that they made of it essentially 
a Greek State, its Latin possessions in the West being more 
and more eroded by invasion. And the faith of East Rome is 
crystallized. Men forgot the history of the ‘sublime’ con- 
troversies of the past: they remembered only the creeds of 

1 This fifth act of the Christological drama had a brief epilogue in 712 under 
an Armenian usurper, Philippicus Vardanes, the Julian the Apostate of Mono- 
thelitism. 



THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 105 

the six canonical councils — regarding them as identical, or, 
like the Gospels, as complementary — recalled only the ana- 
themas against the unhappy heroes of these theological 
disputes, Nestorius and Eutyches, Honorius and Sergius 
and, included in the medley, Theodoret of Cyrus and Ibas 
of Edessa. And since these condemned heresies exhaust 
almost all the possibilities of theological speculation, theology 
itself, living theology, henceforth ceases to play its pre- 
ponderant part in the story of Byzantium. 

THE ICONOCLAST CONTROVERSY 

For it is in vain that some modern scholars have sought to 
extend into the eighth and ninth centuries the history of the 
beginnings of Christology. The controversies of the ancient 
schools count for nothing in Iconoclasm and in the defence 
of the icons, even though their champions employ a -posteriori 
Christological arguments and hurl against each other 
charges of Nestorianism and Eutychianism. The distur- 
bances which we must now recount are concerned with any- 
thing but philosophical speculation. Leo the Isaurian and 
his son Constantine V had saved Anatolia and Constanti- 
nople, threatened after the reign of Justinian II and his 
ephemeral successors by a great offensive from Islam. They 
needed for this defence, this laborious reconquest, the 
country-folk of Phrygia and of Pisidia fighting on their own 
soil which had now become a military frontier. It was 
necessary to reward these good soldiers, to make concessions 
in their favour. The puritan bishops of Phrygia were 
emboldened by the murmurings of their flocks who con- 
stantly affirmed that the defeats of the Christians were to be 
explained by the corruption of the Christian Church; they 
instinctively reverted to the language once used by St. 
Epiphanius condemning the abuse of images as idolatry. 
Iconoclasm arises from an examination of conscience made 
by Christians who doubtless for centuries past had kept alive 
their scruples on this point. Despite the agreement, sealed 
about 400, between Christianity and the arts — of which 
Epiphanius did not approve — protests were heard from time 
to time which recalled the prohibition of the Pentateuch. It 
needed only a convinced preacher to convert this latent 



106 THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 

protest into formal opposition. The bishops of Nakoleia and 
of other places who were the advisers of Leo III must at the 
bar of history bear the responsibility for a step which was at 
once natural and legitimate. The Emperor only followed 
with timidity a movement which he had not initiated: he 
satisfied these conscientious objectors, but that satisfaction 
was but partial, and belated. It needed another quarter 
of a century from the beginning of the movement before 
iconoclast theory was given dogmatic statement. This 
ratification legalized, one may say, an idea which since 729 
had become very popular and very powerful, for it was 
recommended to the masses of the people by the striking 
military successes of the dynasty. The army stood almost 
solid behind Constantine V, who in his own lifetime became 
a legendary hero, and against the monks, the fanatical 
defenders of the images. On the other hand, by their overt 
resistance to the Basileus, certain ascetics for their part won a 
popularity which was perhaps somewhat questionable. They 
were in revolt, it must be remembered, not only against the 
decrees of the Emperor, but also against the canons of a 
council (753), and the cruelties of Constantine V were but a 
reply to a vast conspiracy hatched by these revolutionary 
monks. 

Byzantium was never, at any period, totalitarian. Con- 
quered parties, crushed under one reign or under one 
dynasty, revive and triumph under another reign, another 
dynasty. It is thus that, despite the martial glory of the great 
Isaurians, the religious revolution of 787 is to be explained. 
The military reigns, because of the burdens which they 
imposed upon the people and upon the monasteries, tradi- 
tionally the foes of the imperial Treasury, always tended to 
provoke serious opposition. To secure power the ambitious 
Irene, widow of Leo IY, son of Constantine V, galvanized 
into action the anti-Constantinian, anti-militarist, iconophil 
party. In despite of the ‘Old Guards’ of Constantine Y, in 
787 she carried through the religious restoration (Second 
Council of Nicaea) and ‘set up’ once more the images which 
had for so long been proscribed. The Council took care not 
to blacken the memory of the great Isaurians; on the con- 
trary it proclaimed the striking merits of these triumphant 



THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 107 

Emperors. Irene feared their shades. The better to secure 
her position she sought to create in her favour a movement of 
greater strength than was at this time the reaction in favour 
of the images: she allowed the monks and the people to 
protest against the divorce of her son Constantine VI and 
his ‘adulterous marriage’ with the lady of the bedchamber 
Theodote. She was thus able to depose and blind an 
Emperor, who was her own son, without the loss of her 
prestige or her renown for saintliness. The ‘Moechian 
Affair’ — the ‘Affair of the Adultery’ — thus took precedence 
in the passions of the people over die ‘Affair of the Images’. 
And Theodore of the monastery of Studius, an agitator 
beyond compare, will be able to arouse a greater enthusiasm 
than the champions of orthodoxy for having extorted from 
an Emperor respect for the moral law which bound all alike 
and from a Patriarch the strict application of canonical rules 1 
Theodore henceforth will defend all good and holy causes : 
when Leo V began once more (8 1 to play the part of a Leo 
the Isaurian, Theodore had the honour of fighting for the 
sacred icons themselves. For Irene had fallen through the 
unpopularity of her eunuch camarilla; under her successors 
Nicephorus I, Stauracius, and Michael Rangabe, the Bul- 
garian victories of 8 1 1 and 813 had precisely the same effect 
as the great Arab invasion a hundred years before: cries were 
raised against the corruption of the faith. On the approach 
of the Bulgars, the people of Constantinople betook them- 
selves to the tomb of Constantine V, the Iconoclast and 
victorious Emperor. The Council of 8 1 5 promulgated a kind 
of moderate Iconoclasm: it no longer ordered the destruc- 
tion of the images : they were to be hung out of reach of the 
faithful. The Council made a distinction between ‘images’ 
and idols. To this doctrine Michael II and his son Theo- 
philus, the princes of the Phrygian dynasty of Amorium, 
were content to adhere, until once more the opposition 
became a majority. And again a woman, a widow, an 
Empress, and a saint, Theodora, sees herself by the logic of 
events led to seek support in a party which she reorganizes. 
But the lessons of the past have told. In 843 orthodoxy was 
finally re-established, but the Festival of Orthodoxy is now 
in truth the festival of reconciliation: even the memory of 



108 THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 

the last heretical Emperor is saved as is that of those peace- 
loving Patriarchs who in spite of the Studites have given 
proofs of forbearance in the ‘Moechian Affair’. Michael III, 
the son of Theodora, and the generals of his family together 
with the sovereigns of the Macedonian dynasty founded by 
Basil I (867) understood what part of the Iconoclast legacy 
should be preserved. Orthodox Byzantium keeps the enemy 
at bay; the Emperors lead the army in person and success- 
fully resist the monks. For the third time a long religious 
controversy is brought to a close and this time it ends in 
harmony. The Byzantine Church maintains intact the com- 
promise of the fourth century which reconciled art with the 
faith. Orthodox Emperors gird on the armour of the Icono- 
clasts. Culture wins a victory over the barbarous rudeness 
of the Isaurians, imperial order triumphs over the revolu- 
tionary spirit of undisciplined fanatics who had refused to 
communicate with Patriarchs and had declared that 
Emperors were not above the laws. 

THE STRIFE OF PARTIES 

The subjects on which turn the great disputes of the 
Church and of Byzantine society descend more and more 
from heaven to earth, from the heights of lofty speculation to 
practical morals and then to pure politics. From controver- 
sies on the divine consubstantiality of Christ and on the 
mystery of the Incarnation to those which debate the legiti- 
macy of images the distance and the difference are already 
sensible. When all these points of doctrine and of ritual are 
fixed, the militant passions of Byzantine society find new 
grounds of difference; but like our modern parties, formed 
from the same social strata, the folk of East Rome came into 
conflict over claims that were frequently changing, and in the 
name of principles which were very impermanent. One has 
the impression that the parties and their organization are the 
essential and enduring elements, much more at any rate than 
the issues for which they struggle. In the eighth century and 
at the beginning of the ninth we have seen Theodore the 
Studite and his monks in open feud with the hierarchy and 
with the authority of the Emperor: from Constantinople 
they appealed to Rome to defend the moral law and ‘the 



THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 109 

independence of the religious power*. The Patriarch 
Methodius who suppressed this movement could rely upon 
the support of the moderates and the politicians, of culti- 
vated laymen, of the dynasty and the Court, and also of a 
large number of monks who were weary of the pride and 
dominating spirit of the men from the monastery of Studius. 
Ignatius, his successor, was the tool of Studite bitterness. 
Son of the dethroned Emperor Michael Rangabe, made a 
eunuch in infancy, Ignatius had also on his side all those who 
only unwillingly acknowledged the dynasty of Amorium. 
No one can deny the heroic virtues of the ascete, but these 
were accompanied by an inflexibility which dealt many 
wounds. Ignatius seems to have taken as his model Theo- 
dore the Studite accusing Constantine VI of adultery; thus 
he did not hesitate to impose a penance on the Caesar Bardas 
(uncle of Michael III) who was suspected of ‘incestuous’ 
relations with his niece. One can without difficulty conjure 
up a picture of the party — heterogeneous enough — which 
approved of the brutal reaction of the Government, a reaction 
which culminated in the deposition of the eunuch Patriarch. 
Bardas had as his allies the whole of the party which had 
supported Methodius, from the loyal defenders of the 
dynasty down to the anti-Studite monks, including the 
intellectuals of the University of Constantinople. It was a 
professor of this university, who was at the same time a high 
official, a diplomat, a man of letters whose width of reading 
was immense, the Byzantine who is most representative of 
Byzantium, Photius, who was chosen to replace the ascetic 
and impolitic Patriarch. We have reached the 25th of 
December 858. Ignatius had been ‘retired’ five days before 
and in the interval all the ecclesiastical orders had been con- 
ferred upon the layman Photius. The great dispute of the 
ninth century had begun. Rome forthwith intervened. At 
first Pope Nicholas I did not refuse to recognize this ‘irre- 
gular’ election, since for this irregularity precedents were 
not lacking; but he delayed his ratification. He hoped to 
receive in exchange for his recognition some advantages — 
he looked to recover jurisdiction over Tllyricum’, the 
countries lying between Pope and Emperor that Leo III 
after his quarrel with Pope Gregory II had withdrawn from 



IIO 


THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 
the latter in order to annex them to the Patriarchate of Con- 
stantinople. But Photius would not yield, and he was sup- 
ported in his refusal by the Emperor Michael III and the 
Caesar Bardas. The Pope ostentatiously allied himself with 
the party of Ignatius which he thought to be the stronger. 
Ignatius, indeed, always denied that he had retired of his 
own free will. 1 In 863 Nicholas condemned and excom- 
municated Photius at the Lateran Council. Then Photius 
took the offensive with vigour. The conversion of the Bul- 
gars, for long a matter of dispute between Rome and 
Byzantium, only embittered the quarrel. Photius trans- 
ferred the controversy into the sphere of dogma and began 
to denounce not only to the Bulgars but to all the Churches 
of the East (866) the errors of Rome, such as the celibacy of 
the clergy and the corruption of its creed into which had 
crept the heretical addition of the Filioque ? He summoned 
to Constantinople a Council (867) where Nicholas in his 
turn was anathematized. At this Council the whole episco- 
pate of the East was represented. Michael presided and 
doubtless also with him was the ‘subordinate Emperor’ 
Basil. 3 Photius was at the height of his success and glory. 
The Oriental patriarchates espoused his cause. Even in the 
West he had powerful allies in the Carolingian Emperor 
Louis II whom the Council acclaimed together with his wife 
Ingelberga; the latter was hailed as the ‘new Pulcheria’. 
Photius had indeed everything on his side: learning, elo- 
quence, imperial power, and incredible good fortune. 
Heaven seemed to bless his missions. The Moravians, the 
Bulgars, the Russians were converted. The aureole of 
Photius is associated with that of his imperial master Michael 
III who in 863 had exterminated the last great army of the 
Mussulmans of the Euphrates. By his side Photius, the 
homo regius, had become the national hero: his proud 
resistance to the pretentions of Rome had brought him that 
which he had previously lacked — popularity. 

If none the less he fell, he fell together with the dynasty 

1 It would seem that on this point he was wrong, and that his resignation was a 
fact. 

1 The procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son. 

1 Michael and Basil had joined in the assassination of the Caesar Bardas in the 
preceding year. 



THE BYZANTINE CHURCH in 

itself. Basil the Macedonian, the murderer of Michael III, 
could not count upon any of the friends of this prince, his 
benefactor and his victim, and thus appealed to the adver- 
saries of the fallen dynasty — to the Ignatians and their hero. 
Ignatius was re-established and at the Council of 869-70 
(Eighth Oecumenical Council of the Latins), while avenging 
Rome, avenged his own wrongs : Photius was struck down. 
But there the triumph of the Pope was ended; after all 
Ignatius by an involuntary homage to his enemy continued 
the national policy of Photius which was an essential part of 
the renewal of the power of the Empire. Ignatius retained 
Bulgaria and — irony of history — avoided the excommunica- 
tion of Rome only by his timely death, felix opportunitate 
mortis. Photius once more ascended the patriarchal throne 
and was recognized by Pope John VIII. Thus was peace 
concluded between Rome and Byzantium. At the Photian 
Council of 879—80 (Eighth Oecumenical Council for the 
Greeks) peace was solemnly proclaimed. Neither John VIII 
nor any of his successors will henceforth undo that which 
‘the good John’ (as the Patriarch styles him in his last work) 
had done. If Photius fell yet again and without recovery 
(887), that was once more in consequence of a change of 
sovereign. The young Emperor Leo VI, whom his father 
Basil had sorely ill-treated, on his accession changed his 
ministers and in order to reconcile both parties and at the 
same time to secure his own control over the Church he 
made his brother Stephen Patriarch. Yet the Ignatians con- 
tinued to fan the flame of the fierce hatreds of the past and 
pursued Photius in exile and in the tomb with a literature 
inspired by bitter animosity — a literature full of mangled 
citations and obvious forgeries. Until the year 898 they 
persisted in their refusal to communicate with the official 
Church, demanding from Rome and from the Patriarch a 
fresh condemnation of their enemy. It is they who have led 
mpn to believe in a ‘second Photian schism’. At that time 
there was no schism save within the Greek Church itself — a 
consequence of an inexpiable party strife which is even con- 
tinued under new names — the strife between Nicolaites and 
Euthymians. 

That which gave rise to the feud between Nicolaites and 



i iz THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 

Euthymians was a repetition of the former ‘Affair of 
Adultery’. The Emperor Leo VI wished in the Church’s 
despite to marry as his fourth wife his mistress Zoe Car- 
bonopsine, a beauty ‘with eyes black as coal’ who was already 
the mother of Constantine Porphyrogenitus. The Patriarch 
Nicholas, the Mystic, that is to say, the imperial secretary, 
twice dared to forbid the Emperor to enter St. Sophia. His 
place was taken by a monk Euthymius, a simple and saintly 
man who in the goodness of his heart and through love of 
peace settled the dispute. Thus on this occasion it is the 
‘Court prelate’ Nicholas, a man of letters, a minister and a 
diplomat like Photius, whose pupil indeed he was, and who 
like Photius had passed directly from the ‘world’ to the 
Patriarchate, who contrary to all expectation takes up once 
more the heroic role of censor of an Emperor’s morals, while 
the ascete Euthymius appears as the consecrator of a sacri- 
legious union. The Photian party which was that of Nicholas 
thus gains a new prestige while the former ‘Ignatians’ suffer 
from the complaisance of Euthymius. So when, on the 
death of Leo, Nicholas again becomes Patriarch, his ponti- 
ficate was of a truly imposing magnificence. Regent during 
the minority of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, actually prime 
minister, a Byzantine Richelieu who conducted corre- 
spondence and negotiated with the Arabs and the Bulgars, 
he appears to Christendom at the same time as the moral 
superior of the Pope of Rome with whom he virtuously 
refuses to communicate, since Rome had sanctioned the 
scandal of the Emperor’s fourth marriage. When in 920 the 
‘union of the Churches’ was re-established it was as victor 
that Nicholas signed the famous ‘Tome of Union’, humiliat- 
ing at the same time the Emperor Constantine who had been 
conceived in adultery. This moral superiority thus secured 
by the Byzantine patriarchate naturally caused the Govern- 
ment anxiety : after the pontificate of Nicholas, just as after 
that of Photius, the Basileus wishes to ‘confiscate’ the 
Patriarchate, by installing as Patriarch a prince of the blood 
royal : formerly it was Stephen, son of Basil I, now Theo- 
phylactus, son of Romanus Lecapenus. Had this precedent 
been followed, it would indeed have meant Caesaropapism. 
But these two attempts were not repeated in the sequel. 



THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 113 

The second experiment was rendered particularly un- 
fortunate by the character of Theophylactus who was an 
unworthy bishop, passionately interested in stables and 
horse-racing. Men grew accustomed to think that in all 
questions falling within his sphere, and above all whenever 
any moral issue was at stake, the Patriarch had undisputed 
rights even as against his master, the Emperor. Later Poly- 
euctus resumed this noble role of ecclesiastical censor when 
he forced John Tzimisces to repudiate the adulterous and 
criminal Theophano. 

Under Sergius II, the great-nephew of Photius (beginning 
of the tenth century), the two great parties which we have 
seen at feud with each other since the end of the eighth 
century were finally reconciled. In the course of the years 
each had had its truth, and each its own greatness. They had 
had in turn, or even simultaneously, their raison d'etre , their 
popularity. Each in its own way could justly claim to have 
incarnated the many-sided soul of Byzantium. And it 
was but logical that Byzantium should have adopted and 
canonized their leaders even while it opposed them. Who- 
ever should speak ill of their combative Patriarchs — above 
\all of Photius and Ignatius — was anathematized: Photius 
and Ignatius were at one in death and sanctity. When the 
final breach with Rome comes in 1054 it will find the 
Byzantine Church united: that breach is not caused by 
internal discords within Byzantium itself — the defeated 
party appealing to the arbitrament of Rome — as it had been 
previously in the Acacian and Nicolaite schisms. On the 
contrary, the energy of a Nicholas or a Polyeuctus doubtless 
inspired the action of the Patriarch Arsen Autorianus under 
Michael Paleologus when to the glorious founder of the last 
Byzantine dynasty, despite his reconquest of Constantinople 
from the Latins ( 1 2 6 1), he refused pardon for having blinded 
the luckless Emperor John, the last of the Lascarids. Arsen 
was deposed, but the Arseniates, like the Ignatians of an 
earlier day, refused to recognize the new Patriarch and 
pronounced his ordinations invalid and sacrilegious. They 
became a fanatical and revolutionary sect, a kind of little 
Church avoiding all contact alike with the clergy and the 
laymen of the official Church. Like the Ignatians again they 



i H THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 

produced against their adversaries legends and forgeries. 
But in itself the movement — this protest of more than half a 
century against the crime of an Emperor — is not without 
its greatness. And the Patriarch Arsen, however narrow- 
minded he might be, certainly added to the glory of the 
oecumenical see: he has something of the stoic resolution of 
his great contemporaries, the popes who conquered Frederick 
II and Manfred. 


PALAMISM 

Before she perished Byzantium was to give to the world 
the spectacle of a last theological joust and the proof that she 
was to the end, even when hard pressed by the barbarians, 
capable of fighting against herself for high ideals. One 
might say that Byzantium had sworn to give the lie to her 
future reputation for dogmatic immobility, since fourteenth- 
century ‘Palamism’ is a doctrine of surprising boldness, of 
unexpected novelty. It is not that the mystical current which 
feeds Hesychasm — the movement of which Gregory Pala- 
mas was the theorist and the prophet — does not reach far 
back in the history of Byzantine religious thought; indeed, 
it derives in a straight line from Origen and there had ever 
been those in the Church of East Rome who had aspired to 
reach ‘the delights of Contemplation’. But at an early date 
these speculations had been adjudged heretical. In the sixth 
century, at the very moment when the Great Council which 
was to condemn the Nestorian ‘Three Chapters’ was in 
session (55 3), anathemas had been launched against the 
errors of Origen and against the Origenist monks of 
Palestine. How comes it that eight centuries later practices 
and theories infinitely more hazardous not only appear 
openly in the light of day, but are straightway included 
amongst the treasured possessions of unchanging Ortho- 
doxy? The explanation of this paradox can be supplied by 
history alone. As we have seen, always, ever since the victory 
of Christianity, in the sphere of theology those opinions have 
triumphed, however daring they might be, which were held 
by the social strata of the population which circumstances 
had made the masters of the Empire. Egypt which for 
centuries was a necessity for the material existence of the 



THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 115 

Empire, Armenia which fought its battles, Anatolia which 
repelled the Arab invasion forced Constantinople to come 
to terms with Monophysitism and with Iconoclasm. At 
Constantinople and Thessalonica, under Andronicus III 
Palaeologus, John V Palaeologus, and John Cantacuzenus, 
the people, exploited economically by the Latins, was roused 
to fury against the nobles and the intellectuals, who for 
political reasons were prepared to treat with the Westerners, 
and was torn by social convulsions, while Serbs and Turks 
were settling in the territories of the Balkan peninsula. Half 
betrayed and more than half invaded and subjugated, the 
Greek people defended only with greater passion its soul and 
its faith. The monks of Athos appeared to the folk of East 
Rome as the heroic champions of their cause. It is for this 
reason that when a stranger, a Calabrian monk, Barlaam, 
undertook to refute by means of the ‘Western’ syllogism and 
to ridicule with impious sarcasm the traditional methods 
of prayer employed on the Holy Mountain, popular senti- 
ment immediately took the side of the Athonites. Gregory 
Palamas, an ascete of Athos, had built up a whole theology 
in justification of these methods of devotion : and this was 
unanimously adopted by the monks. John Cantacuzenus 
was at this time engaged in the struggle against his legiti- 
mate rival John Palaeologus: he desired to win over to his 
side the greatest moral force in the Empire now facing its 
death agony — the monks of Athos and the crowds which 
followed their lead: he therefore supported the innovator. 
The bishops, at first hostile or hesitant, saw in the new 
doctrine a rejuvenation of national orthodoxy, and the 
Council of St. Sophia gave to it its consecration (1351). At 
the outset the question was whether the Hesychasts were 
right in their claim that by holding the breath, by making 
the spirit re-enter into the soul, and by gazing fixedly upon 
the navel they could attain to the vision of the uncreated 
light which shone on Tabor. To justify their view Pala- 
mas, overturning the dogma which had been crystallized for 
centuries, proposed to distinguish between the divine essence 
and the operations of that essence. And the fathers of 1351 
had the hardihood to see in his writings only a simple 
development of the ancient creeds. Palamism constitutes 



1 1 6 THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 

the most astonishing of paradoxes. Formally it has never 
been disavowed by the Byzantine Church. Gregory Palamas, 
who at his death was Archbishop of Thessalonica, is regarded 
as a holy doctor and as a worker of miracles. Thanks to him 
his Church, which prided itself on its fidelity to the tradition 
of the ancient Fathers and of the seven Councils — that 
tradition which it opposed to the sacrilegious novelties of the 
West — created in a fevered atmosphere as of a state of siege 
an entirely new transcendent theology, a disordered mysti- 
cism full of unfamiliar formulas which its author himself 
presented as a divine revelation. It is in truth a mystical 
Reformation, a new Christianity, which was perchance 
intended to supply spiritual armour to a nation on the 
threshold of a slavery which was to endure for half a millen- 
nium. Yet instead of scourging Palamism with the sarcasms 
of Barlaam, of Voltaire, and of Gibbon would it not be better 
rather to admire that depth of Christian sentiment which 
animated until the end the Byzantine people — a people 
which, whenever we see it stirred by a collective emotion, 
places those values which it considers eternal far above the 
chances and the changes of politics ? 

EXTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH 

The Byzantine Church as a Christian Church and a State 
Church — rather as the Church of the universal State — had 
in double measure the duty of preaching the Gospel through 
the whole earth. Before the Church had conquered the 
Roman Empire it had already crossed the Empire’s frontiers. 
The kingdom of Armenia submitted to Christ at a time when 
the Christians were still persecuted by Rome. It is certain 
that Constantine thought of using Christian Armenia to 
defeat Persia, the hereditary enemy of Rome in Asia. And 
henceforth Christian missionary activity, always in the service 
of the Empire, whether it springs from the sects or from the 
Great Church, will never cease. The Christological con- 
troversies which contributed to the political dismemberment 
of Byzantium had at first served to extend the empire of 
Christ. When Zeno expelled the Nestorians, particularly 
the scholars of Edessa, they fled into Persian territory and 
there the persecuted faith became what may be called the 



THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 117 

second national religion of the Sassanid State. This heroic 
body of Christians, this Church of the Martyrs, will remain 
attached, despite cruel memories, to its original home. It 
will spread in Sassanid Iran and later in Mussulman Persia 
the science of Greece and will carry its knowledge and its 
faith across the solitudes of central Asia as far as China, where 
the stele of Si-gnan-fu is a moving witness to its fidelity. 
This prodigious Nestorian missionary activity has been 
spoken of as a second Alexander’s conquest of Asia. For 
Byzantium it is a sort of ‘involuntary’ mission. But on the 
other hand the conquests of the Monophysites have almost 
an official character. From Egypt, ‘heretical’ but passion- 
ately Christian, propaganda radiated towards Ethiopia 
(Axum) and Arabia, and Constantinople did not disavow the 
zeal of these heterodox missionaries. When the constancy 
of the Christians of Himyar is overborne by Jewish tribes, 
the Catholic Emperor Justin sends his Monophysite ally, 
the Ethiopian king, to deliver the heroic companions of the 
martyr Arethas. For the ‘interior Mission’ — the conversion 
of the pagans of Asia Minor — Justinian will make use of the 
Monophysite bishop, John of Ephesus, despite the brutality 
of his methods. Justinian and Theodora send concurrent 
missions to the tribes of Nubia, and the Monophysites, 
favoured by Theodora, will outdistance the Orthodox envoys 
dispatched by her husband. Henceforth the wars of Byzan- 
tium are holy wars, whether they are waged against pagans or 
against heretics. When the fleet of Belisarius sets forth for 
Carthage, on board the admiral’s vessel there is placed a 
Vandal newly baptized according to the Orthodox rite. The 
great campaigns of Heraclius are the first Crusades. In the 
ninth century when the Amorian and Macedonian sovereigns 
begin anew the offensive against Islam, the enthusiasm of 
the reconquest gives birth to a fresh missionary ardour and 
these new missions will be amongst the most fruitful. In 
exceptional cases political considerations may prove un- 
favourable to Christian propaganda. The Chazars of southern 
Russia, allied with the Empire against the Mussulmans but 
fearing the imperial supremacy, reject the faith both of Irene 
and of Harun-al-Rashid and choose rather to adopt Juda- 
ism for their religion. It is under the victorious reign of 



r 1 8 THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 

Michael III that Byzantium prepares its master-stroke, the 
conversion of the Slavs. The Court sends to Great Moravia, 
threatened by the German bishops, the two brothers from 
Thessalonica, Constantine and Methodius, who can speak 
the Slav language of Macedonia and who translate the scrip- 
tures into this tongue. And when in their turn the Bulgars 
to escape the weight of Byzantine arms accept Christianity, 
the disciples of Constantine and Methodius, the Apostles of 
the Slavs, ejected from Moravia, employ their zeal, their 
experience, and their books to make of Bulgarian Christianity 
the first-fruits of Great Slavia and in truth ‘the eldest 
daughter of the Church of the East’. 

Let us pause here for a moment. The adoption by the 
Greek Church of the Slav language for the use of its Slav 
converts is an important fact, yet it is not unnatural; it is 
indeed in conformity with its spirit and its liberal tradition. 
In the East the Church has always been polyglot, while in the 
West Latin was the sole liturgical language. The national 
liturgies, the diversity of ecclesiastical languages have at 
times been regarded as responsible for schisms and dis- 
memberments of the Church; but Byzantium knew what 
was her true course. She had the merit of bearing no ill will 
towards Armenian, Copt, or Syrian for the secession of the 
Monophysite and Nestorian Churches: had not Georgia 
remained loyal ? Byzantium granted freely to the Slavs that 
which Rome disputed or refused to them, and she had her 
reward. Along with the alphabet, the literature, even the 
thought of East Rome, the Slavs accepted Byzantine art in 
all its forms. 

But this Slav mission was not complete until after the 
conversion of that people which both numerically and 
politically was destined in this great family to play the 
principal part — the Russian people, an amalgam of tribes 
which had been organized by the genius of Scandinavian 
adventurers. In 8 39 they came as friends to Constantinople 
in little groups, and then returned home, fearing the Magyars 
or the Petchenegs, by way of the territories of Louis the 
Pious. ‘Home’? But where exactly was the residence of 
their chief or hacan ? We cannot say. But twenty-one years 
later in 860 it is an immense fleet of Rhos which all but 



THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 119 

captured Constantinople: it was only by a miracle, rendered 
famous by Photius, that the ‘God-guarded city’ was saved 
from this barbarian armada. Michael and Photius realized 
forthwith that they must convert these new neighbours now 
settled at Kiev, were it only to employ them against the 
terrible Petchenegs. The Rhos accepted a bishop, but this 
first planting of Christianity was suppressed. In 957 the 
princess Olga visited the Byzantine Court: not only is this 
visit a fact of history, but we still possess in the De Ceremoniis 
the protocol which described the visit in full detail. Olga 
was converted to Christianity. In 989 Vladimir, Olga’s 
successor, did not merely accept baptism for himself but 
baptized his people; by imperial favour he and his people 
became ‘the first friends of the Basileus’ and took the place of 
the Chazars as the allies of Rome in the far East. Vladimir 
had no cause to complain of his decision to reject both Islam 
which forbade wine to its converts — ‘To drink is a joy for 
the Russians and we cannot live without drinking’ — and 
Judaism, circumcised Jews, like the Mussulmans, being 
dispersed throughout the world. The Russian Chronicle 
further tells of an embassy of six boyars whom the Emperors 
Basil and Constantine conducted to St. Sophia: ‘We went to 
Greece,’ so runs the story, ‘and we were led to the place where 
they adore their gods and we knew not whether we were in 
heaven or on earth, for on earth nowhere are there such 
sights or such beauties.’ On that day ‘the third Rome’ was 
born. 

THE BYZANTINE CHURCH AND THE ROMAN CHURCH 
The conquest of Russia may be regarded as compensation 
for the later breach with Rome. In the perspective of the 
centuries this schism is the most important fact in the 
external religious history of Byzantium. Since the period of 
the Crusades it has influenced and still influences profoundly 
the relations between the East and West: it has contributed 
and still contributes to form the very ideas of ‘East’ and 
‘West’ — the concepts of the ‘Oriental’ Christian and the 
Christian of the Occident, of the ‘Roman Catholic’ on the one 
hand and the ‘Orthodox’ or ‘schismatic’ on the other. The 
dispute of the year 1054 determined the development of 



120 THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 

that conflict which has been waged through the centuries, of 
which the capture of Constantinople by the Latins in 1 204 
and by the Turks in 1453 are the most famous episodes and 
the most disastrous consequence. The mutual hatred caused 
by this quarrel produced during the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries the frescoes in the churches of Moldavia where the 
‘Latins’ are represented amongst the damned, in the same 
way as to the average ‘Catholic’ the enslavement of the 
Greeks to the Ottoman yoke appeared as a divine punish- 
ment as fully deserved as was the dispersion of the Jews. 
The quarrel has been in the past and still remains stronger 
than the ties of blood. Even to-day in despite of their 
political interests it separates the Slavs who have followed 
the older Rome — Croats, Slovenes, Slovaks, Czechs, and 
Poles — from those whose religious centre is the New Rome 
of Constantine — whether they be Serbs, Bulgarians, Rus- 
sians, or Latins of the Danube lands, the Roumanians, whose 
ecclesiastical language was for long the Old Slav. These 
profound divisions have produced the belief that Jong before 
1054 the schism was predestined in the nature of things: it 
is considered to have been from the beginning inescapable, 
fatally conditioned by the opposition of nationality and of 
language. This view is false. The differences alleged between 
the rites of East and West are, for the most part, such as 
existed naturally in different Churches of which the eccle- 
siastical historian Socrates, in the fifth century, after the 
manner of Herodotus gives a curious catalogue. Divergent 
customs, contradictory practices were in no wise a hindrance 
to communion : they did not cause a breach of the peace. Too 
great importance has been attributed to the severances 
between Byzantium and Rome which occurred during 
the long controversy over the Two Natures — the Acacian 
schism, the Monothelite dispute. When the great debate 
was concluded, it left behind it no trace any more than did 
the ancient disagreements between Constantinople and 
Antioch or Alexandria. Of greater significance, at first sight, 
is the conflict between Leo III and Gregory II. It is thus 
summarized in the conventional story: Leo the Isaurian 
having endeavoured to enforce Iconoclasm upon the Church, 
the Pope stirred up revolt against him in Italy, while the 



121 


THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 
Emperor by way of reprisal confiscated the papal patrimony 
and attached to the diocese of his Patriarch Sicily, Byzantine 
Italy, and Illyricum. This seizure anticipates, it is contended, 
the policy of Photius and of Cerularius : the heresy of Leo 
III and of Constantine V led the Popes to betray the Empire 
and to throw themselves into the arms of the Franks. In 
short, Leo the Isaurian, when he tore down the icon of the 
Christ from the Brazen Gate, had conjured up Charlemagne 
seventy years before his time — that Western Emperor who 
as an imperial rival was to be the great scandal to Byzantine 
pride! But this conception of history is legendary. It is not 
Byzantine heresy which has emancipated the Papacy from 
the Basileis. The Popes of the eighth century never dreamed 
of freeing themselves from the sovereignty of the Emperor 
until it was proved that Byzantium had neither the strength 
nor the leisure to defend them against Lombards and Arabs. 
The religious question counted for nothing. The true touch- 
stone of the sentiments of the Papacy is the attitude of the 
Pope in 753—4 at the moment when Constantine V had 
assembled his great Iconoclast Council. Pope Stephen II so 
far from anathematizing the Emperor appealed to him for 
the dispatch of a fleet with reinforcements. The Pope, 
perfectly loyal to an Emperor at once ‘heretic and perse- 
cutor’, would not have asked for anything better than to 
remain such a loyal subject. If Stephen II did decide to 
betray Byzantium and call the Franks to his aid, that is 
solely because Constantine V was compelled to employ all 
his land and sea forces in his struggle against the Arabs and 
the Bulgars. Besides this, it is easy to show that the cause of 
the images, as Byzantium knew it, was not espoused by the 
West. If the heresy of the Isaurians had indeed produced 
the disaffection of the West, one should have seen in the 
West a movement of sympathy for Orthodoxy when it 
triumphed after the Council of 787. But almost the exact 
contrary actually occurred: the bishops of Charlemagne 
found that Byzantium of the Iconodules — the champions of 
the icons — was at least as much in the wrong as had been 
Byzantium of the Iconoclasts. The Pope himself was less 
unjust, and down to the time of Nicholas I, the enemy of 
Photius, it does not appear that either the confiscation of 



122 


THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 

Illyricum or the coronation of the usurper Charlemagne 
separated the two Churches from each other. Nicholas, as 
we have seen, taking advantage of the delicate position in 
which Photius was placed, thought that he could extort from 
the Patriarch the restitution of Illyricum. But that was to go 
against a fait accompli in the political sphere, and on this 
point St. Ignatius himself was just as obstinate or as power- 
less as was Photius. Nicholas, in his attack upon Photius and 
his Bulgarian mission and in general upon the distinctive 
practices of the Greek Church, showed a singular impru- 
dence. Photius by his attack on the celibacy of priests and 
on the addition of the Filioque to the creed had no difficulty in 
proving to the Pope that alike in discipline and dogma it was 
the older Rome which was responsible for innovations: a 
great scandal would immediately be disclosed if only one 
should cease to keep the eyes shut in economic charity. We 
have seen how an intelligent Pope, John VIII, by recognizing 
Photius at the time of his second patriarchate allayed all 
these differences between Rome and Byzantium. It was 
agreed that the addition of the Filioque to the creed had been 
and should remain entirely unofficial, and the Papacy itself 
would see that the genuine text should be preserved. As is 
well known, to-day Rome on this point as on many others 
has returned to wisdom and truth, since it has authorized the 
Uniates to recite the creed without the Filioque. Charity on 
both sides could after all pass over minor differences: many 
of these had been charged against the Romans and denounced 
with great bitterness by the Byzantine Council in Trullo 
(691) and yet no breach between the Churches had ensued. 
But all the same the schism did come and persisted, like the 
Erinyes, as Aeschylus portrayed them, installing themselves 
in the house and refusing to be ejected. Why was there this 
schism ? 

We must reject completely the idea of those who seek to 
prove the existence of a schism already latent and to deter- 
mine its ‘terrain’ ; at the beginning of the eleventh century, 
it is urged, under Sergius II, great-nephew of Photius, it did 
but come once more to the surface: the Patriarch affirmed 
against Rome the sanctity of his great-uncle and re-edited 
the latter’s encyclical addressed to the Eastern patriarchates 



THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 123 

on the errors of the Western Church. These theories which 
are still widely maintained form a sort of corollary to the 
legend of the second Photian schism. The schism of Ceru- 
larius, it is true, arose from no superficial causes. The main 
cause is the justifiable scorn of the Byzantines for the bad 
Popes of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries. The folk 
of East Rome had never seen three oecumenical Patriarchs 
deposed by a single Emperor, as Henry III had deposed 
three Popes: they had never seen bishops fighting at the 
head of their troops, nor cases of simony as scandalous as 
those of the West. The comparison between Rome and 
Byzantium for the centuries which preceded the schism is 
all in favour of the latter. Contrary to that which is often 
ignorantly repeated, it is, in fact, the Popes who have fallen 
into slavery, it is the Patriarchs of Constantinople who are 
independent. Byzantium had a lively consciousness of its 
own strength, its dignity, and its privileges. Byzantium was 
in the right on most of those dogmatic and disciplinary 
questions which were in dispute, if in such matters it is 
occupation prescription, tradition which determine where right 
lies. But life also has its rights, and it is this fact which 
Byzantium failed to recognize. Here, indeed, is to be found 
the true cause of the schism. The Byzantines were fully 
justified in despising the bad Popes, but they did not realize 
with what kind of men they had to deal when they met Pope 
Leo IX and his advisers, Cardinal Humbert, Frederick of 
Lorraine, and their like. These men were not cowards, 
neither were they degenerate nor illiterate. Humbert, 
writing to the Patriarch of Antioch, approves the latter’s 
creed, although it lacked the Filioque. These leaders of the 
West were full of life and enthusiasm, they were about to 
begin their great struggle for the purification of the Church, 
for its complete enfranchisement from civil authority, for the 
establishment of the celibacy of the clergy. They knew that 
the fight would be long and bitterly contested, and that it 
would be fought on more than one front. 

The Norman conquests were already avenging Rome for 
the ecclesiastical annexations of Leo the Isaurian; as a conse- 
quence of these victories such towns as Otranto, Rossano, 
and Reggio had once more been attached to the Roman 



124 THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 

metropolitan see. As a counter-offensive, acting, it would 
seem, under orders from the Patriarch (Michael Cerularius), 
Leo, Bishop of Ochrida, indulged in an ill-timed attack upon 
the usages of the Latins. This was sent to the Bishop of 
Trani and by him transmitted to Rome. There it aroused 
sincere indignation. Leo had discovered a new ground of 
accusation which had been overlooked by Photius but which 
henceforth controversialists would never allow to be for- 
gotten: besides fasting on the Sabbath, he censured the 
Latins for using unleavened bread in the eucharistic sacri- 
fice, while another Greek disputant protested with violence 
against the celibacy of the clergy. The aggression of the 
Orientals was dangerous: it might compromise the whole 
work of the reformers, and arm against them the entire 
opposition of the West. It was for this reason that Rome’s 
reaction was of an unlooked-for violence. The feeble govern- 
ment of Constantine Monomachus needed the Pope, for 
Italy was not yet lost beyond recall. An arrangement might 
have been possible: it was the wish of the Emperor himself. 
But Leo IX sent to Constantinople ‘one of the violent men 
in Church history’, Cardinal Humbert. On both sides old 
grievances were exploited: the encounter was brutal. Each 
party to the dispute excommunicated the other (1054). 
Michael Cerularius carried with him his whole people: 
Latin insolence had been such that this time Rome had no 
supporters in Byzantium : even the party of the philosophers, 
Psellus at its head, who were the foes of Cerularius applauded 
him. The Emperor who had disapproved his action narrowly 
escaped expulsion from the city when a riot broke out in the 
capital; he hastened to make his peace with the Patriarch. 

This is not the place to recount the melancholy story of 
those fruitless efforts at union made almost without excep- 
tion by the Emperors of Byzantium who were driven thereto 
by political necessity. All the Eastern patriarchates, all the 
Churches of the East had followed Constantinople into 
schism. The Latin conquest did but deepen the cleft 
between the two worlds. When the Latin Empire and the 
Latin Patriarchate fell in 1261, the repugnance of the Greeks 
for the Union, henceforth synonymous with alien domina- 
tion, was stronger than ever. Yet Michael Palaeologus was 



THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 125 

a determined ‘Unionist’, especially during the years when 
under the menace of the Crusade of Charles of Anjou he 
sought on every side — whether at Rome or amongst the 
Arabs — to secure the help of allies against his redoubtable 
enemy. The Emperor gathered around him some prelates 
who wished him well; in particular the Patriarch Bekkos 
took his side. It is a curious fact: but at this time the 
prestige of the Latins and of their theological activity had a 
powerful effect upon some of the best minds in Byzantium. 
In all good faith these men were inspired by a Christian 
passion for unity and thus supported the policy of Michael 
which was crowned with success at the Council of Lyons 
(1274). But the union effected at Lyons had hardly more 
than a symbolic significance, and it further lost a great part 
of its value after the Sicilian Vespers of 10 March 1282. 
Charles of Anjou was thus deprived of his power to injure the 
Empire: Michael Palaeologus at the time of his death 
(December 1282) had won a complete triumph, and there- 
fore his son and successor, Andronicus II (1282-1328), 
straightway renounced the Council of Lyons, made his peace 
with the Orthodox, and deposed Bekkos, the partisan of the 
Latins; the Patriarch, although a man of high character and 
of real independence of mind, was reviled as a traitor by the 
nation. Michael had negotiated and concluded the Union 
in order to disarm the West, to prevent a repetition of the 
Fourth Crusade. His successors revived the idea to stay the 
invasion of the Turks. But the danger must be instant and 
pressing before the rulers of Byzantium will decide to resort 
to so desperately unpopular an expedient. During the four- 
teenth and fifteenth centuries, indeed, both the intellectuals 
and the politicians may quite voluntarily be drawn towards 
the Latins, but as soon as the pium votum begins to take con- 
crete shape, immediately it arouses against itself the fanatical 
opposition of the masses. During the disastrous quarrel of 
the two Johns (middle of the fourteenth century) in spite 
of the attitude of the people, solidly anti-Latin in its sym- 
pathies, the rival Emperors outdo each other in their zeal for 
the Union of the Churches. In 1 348 an embassy of Cantacu- 
zenus arrives at Avignon, in 1352 Cantacuzenus, although 
he welcomes the support of the monks and the crowds, yet 



126 THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 

writes to Clement VI. Stephen Dushan, the Serbian 
Emperor, precisely because he aspires to a rule which at 
least in the Balkans shall be universal, will for his part also 
affect an enthusiasm for the Union which, as he thinks, 
will win for him from the Pope the dignity of leadership in 
the Crusade as well as subsidies and reinforcements. The 
personal faith of John V Palaeologus, himself half-Latin 
through his mother Anne of Savoy, is beyond question, but 
all that he could do when in 1369 he visited Pope Urban V 
in Rome was to offer his individual ‘conversion’. The terrible 
disasters of the years 1422 to 1430 brought John VIII and 
the representatives of the Greek Church to Florence, and it 
was in that city on 6 July 1439, after emotional debates in 
which the best Byzantine theologians together with the 
Patriarch Joseph participated, that there was signed that 
Act of Union which is to-day exhibited in the rotunda of the 
Laurentiana. The Union of Florence was to lead on 10 
November 1444 to the catastrophe of Varna, while it also 
failed to preserve religious unity, for no sooner had the 
delegates of the Greek Church returned to their congrega- 
tions than they were met by the reprobation of the monks 
and of the people. Many of the signatories withdrew their 
consent to the Union. But it remains a great religious 
transaction : it is on the basis of that Act of Union that to-day 
several millions of Oriental Christians are united with Rome. 
These ‘Uniates’ are particularly numerous in the Ukraine 
and in Transylvania, while in Greek territory the movement 
towards union with Rome has of recent years been slow and 
difficult, opposed, as it is, by a public sentiment which is 
inspired by the rancours and bitterness of the centuries. 
Still Rome never ceases to encourage Uniate propaganda: 
to each of the separate Eastern Churches it presents a 
Church which, while it acknowledges the supremacy of the 
Pope, yet retains the liturgy, the language, and, so far as 
possible, the customs and the costume of the national 
Church. Thus the Holy See is ever multiplying its conces- 
sions to the Byzantine tradition. In the matter of language 
it is almost as liberal as East Rome itself. The canonist 
Balsamon in the thirteenth century refused to exclude any 
language from liturgical use. To-day Catholics of the so- 



THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 127 

called Byzantine rite are granted, besides Greek, the use of 
the Old Slav, Georgian, Roumanian, and Arabic languages. 
Rome goes farther still: not only does she tolerate, she 
claims even to impose upon the Orientals united with her the 
preservation of their distinctive ritual. In 1931, on the 
occasion of the fifteenth centenary of the Council of Ephesus, 
there were celebrated at Rome and at Grottaferrata masses 
and solemn offices according to the different Oriental rituals. 
Such are the results of the Council of Florence. 

THE ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE 
BYZANTINE CHURCH 

The Byzantine Church is the most important of Byzantine 
survivals. The Empire has disappeared, but the Church 
remains, and thanks to the Slavs it still has on its side the 
force of numbers. Despite the anti-religious persecutions in 
Red Russia and despite the multiplicity of the languages in 
which its liturgy is celebrated, it has kept an aspect, an 
appearance, just as characteristic as that of Islam, for example, 
and certainly much more traditional and more archaic than 
that of the Catholic Church which has been transformed 
almost beyond recognition by Jesuitic devotions and a kind 
of ritual Modernism. The preceding pages have shown the 
reader how the system of the Orthodox Church was con- 
stituted from century to century. Up to the time of the 
Iconoclast Controversy — up till the time of the Seventh 
Oecumenical Council (whose decisions alike for the Latin 
West and for the ‘Orthodox’ East are as canonical and binding 
as those of the other six) — Greek thought — the thought of 
Christianized Greek philosophy — provided the imposing 
‘structure’ whence the entire Christian Church took its 
dogmatic definitions, the subtlest distinctions of its Christo- 
logy. Despite the objections and the reservations of Rome, 
these Councils by their canons continuously consecrated and 
confirmed the hegemony of the Church of the capital, 
Constantinople, over all the other Churches comprised in 
the territories of the Eastern Empire, even over the Patriar- 
chates of Alexandria, of Antioch, and of Jerusalem, although 
in the political sphere the first and the third of these were 
never regained by the Byzantine Emperors after their 



128 THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 

conquest by Islam. The ecclesiastical ascent of Constan- 
tinople was at first justified solely on political grounds. It was 
only later that it was based upon the apocryphal legend of St. 
Andrew, the first called amongst the Apostles, who became 
Bishop of Byzantium. The story is a fabrication of the 
sixth century. It is towards the end of the reign of Justinian 
that the Church of the capital adopts the title ‘Apostolic’. If 
its head very early styles himself ‘Patriarch’, the epithet is 
at first only honorific and is used with great freedom by 
other metropolitans. The title ‘oecumenical’ or ‘universal’, by 
which Rome will on several occasions pretend to be scanda- 
lized, has in its origin but little significance. This qualifica- 
tion which is exactly equivalent to our ‘general’ or ‘superior’ 
only implies a relative and indeterminate authority: it may 
be granted to professors of the University or at times, like 
the term ‘patriarch’, to the ecclesiastical head of a province. 
The history of these titles does not differ from that of the 
word Pope to which the Bishop of Rome had no exclusive 
right, since it was borne and still is borne to-day by the 
Patriarch of Alexandria. But it is clear that the ambiguous 
term ‘oecumenical’ served to justify a posteriori a primacy of 
honour which is still respected by the different Orthodox 
Churches despite the decline of the see of Constantinople. 
The Arab conquest and the annexation of Illyricum in the 
eighth century make a reality of this ‘oecumenicity’, if 
the oikoumetie is to be identified with the State governed 
by the Basileus, and this ambitious predicate, precisely like 
the genitive ‘Romaion’ — ‘of the Romans’ — which after the 
eighth century is regularly attached to the title of Basileus, 
permits the Church of Byzantium to grant to its daughter 
Churches of more recent formation Patriarchates which are 
more or less autonomous, just as the imperial chancery can 
recognize other Basileis. Thus after the political conquest of 
Bulgaria Basil II conferred his sanction upon the Bulgarian 
Patriarchate, and similarly to-day, in conformity with Byzan- 
tine tradition, the Phanar takes no offence at the title of 
Patriarch borne by the heads of several autocephalous 
Churches. 

The organization of the Byzantine Church was from the 
outset modelled upon that of the Empire, and in particular 



THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 129 

upon the administrative divisions of the time of Diocletian 
or of Constantine. Even to-day the metropolitans can be 
said to be the bishops of the Constantinian provinces. In 
each city there was a resident suffragan bishop; in the 
Byzantine Empire the title of archbishop, if it is not merely 
an honorific synonym for bishop, denotes the head of an 
autocephalous bishopric, i.e. one which is directly dependent 
upon the Patriarch. It is only in Illyricum — which until the 
eighth century had for its ecclesiastical superior the Pope of 
Rome — that ‘archbishop* has its Western sense of ‘metro- 
politan*. In general the Byzantine Church had no bishops 
in partibus. One must come down almost until our own day 
to see residing in Constantinople prelates whose titles pre- 
serve the memory of those dioceses of Asia Minor where 
massacre or exchange of populations on a large scale has 
completely destroyed the former Christian congregations. 
While the dioceses, for example, attached to the Kingdom of 
Greece have already been or are in process of being emanci- 
pated according to the formula of the Oecumenical Patriar- 
chate and thus incorporated in the national Church, in theory 
the episcopate is recruited by popular election, although 
more and more in the course of Byzantine history higher 
authorities and even the direct influence of the Emperor 
come to play a preponderant part in the choice of bishops. 
An ancient rule which for a long period does not admit of 
any exception and which is often adduced in the controversies 
between Rome and Byzantium declared that a bishop is 
elected for life, that he is wedded to his church and that a 
divorce from his see by way of translation to another bishopric 
is unlawful. After the fourth century at least, the bishop 
cannot be married : on the other hand, simple priests, deacons, 
and subdeacons can live with their wives on condition that 
they have been remarried on being created subdeacon. The 
celibacy of the clergy was often denounced as a heretical 
innovation which was due, according to Byzantine theolo- 
gians, to the pernicious influence of Manichaeism. This 
essential difference in ecclesiastical discipline was one of 
those points of misunderstanding which were exploited by 
controversialists at the time of the schism. We have already 
said that nothing could be more false than the charge of 
art* f 


-'Jr 



1 3 o THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 

Caesaropapism which is generally brought against the 
Byzantine Church — the accusation that the Church ren- 
dered servile obedience to the orders of the Emperor even in 
the religious sphere. It is true that the Emperor always con- 
cerned himself with ecclesiastical affairs : he endeavoured to 
maintain or to impose unity in dogma but, as we have seen, 
his claims were by no means always submissively recognized. 
Indeed, the Byzantines became accustomed to the idea that 
organized opposition to the imperial will in religious matters 
was normal and legitimate. We have quoted some famous 
instances of opposition or victorious resistance to the 
Emperors of East Rome. 

After the ninth century the Emperors no longer seek 
to attack orthodoxy: the orthodox faith is henceforward 
crystallized — it has, in a word, triumphed over the Emperors. 
Apart from a slight concession to the passions of the Mono- 
physites at the time of the Fifth Oecumenical Council (553) 
nothing ultimately remained from the long-continued efforts 
— in themselves not without their own wisdom and nobility 
— by which the Emperors, from Zeno to Constantine III, 
sought to escape from the strict line of Chalcedonian ortho- 
doxy. Neither did any trace of Iconoclasm survive, that 
movement which the Isaurian and Amorian sovereigns had 
sustained against a part of the nation which was later to 
become the majority of the Byzantine people. In the 
thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries the Basileis 
were unfortunately powerless to secure recognition from the 
clergy of the Union with Rome, and the last Palaeologi were 
so little Caesaro-Popes that they, together with a chosen few, 
belonged to the Uniate Greek rite, somewhat like some 
modern sovereigns who have been strangers to the religious 
faith of the majority of their subjects. 

Such is the truth concerning the religious tyranny of the 
Byzantine Emperors. Without any suspicion of paradox 
the religious history of Byzantium could be represented 
as a conflict between the Church and the State, a conflict 
from which the Church emerged unquestionably the victor. 
Further, it is not true that intolerance and the persecution of 
dissenters are to be imputed primarily to the civil power 
which thus imposed upon the Church for political ends an 



THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 13 1 

attitude which was sadly lacking in Christian charity. From 
the time of the persecution of the last remaining pagans 
down to the vexatious measures directed against the Pauli- 
cian dissenters and the Armenian Monophysites — measures 
which in the eleventh century weakened the resistance to the 
Seljuk Turks — there are numerous cases in which we see the 
Emperors subordinating the sectarian defence of orthodoxy 
to considerations of policy and of humanity. The Emperor 
Arcadius, the son of Theodosius the Great, has the reputa- 
tion of having dealt the decisive blow against paganism. His 
legislation on this subject is indeed pitiless, but a contem- 
porary document which chance has preserved for us shows 
the Emperor in October 400 refusing to the Bishop of Gaza 
his sanction for the destruction of the temple of Marnas for 
the same reasons which dissuaded Charles V from applying 
severe measures against the heretics in Antwerp, a commer- 
cial city and therefore of great moment to the State. ‘I know 
well’, said Arcadius, ‘that this town is full of idols: but it 
pays its taxes loyally and contributes much to the Treasury. 
If, suddenly, we terrorize these people, they will take to 
flight and we shall lose considerable revenues.’ We cannot 
catch in every case the echo of similar discussions in respect 
of those repressive measures which were constantly demanded 
by the Church against infidels and heretics. But, speaking 
generally, the policy of most of the Emperors of the fifth and 
sixth centuries is a policy of tolerance and of conciliation 
towards the heterodox. The Paulicians from 668 until about 
875 sought to win over to their dualist faith the Armenians 
and Anatolians, especially in the regions of Pontus and the 
Euphrates; through their military virtues the Paulicians 
were the useful allies of the Empire. We know that at least 
one Emperor, Leo the Isaurian, refused to persecute the 
Paulicians, and that another, in spite of his Patriarch, listened 
to the counsels of moderation which were given him by the 
Studite monks. In the tenth century the Byzantine recon- 
quest was accompanied and facilitated by the very liberal 
concessions granted to the Armenian and Syrian Mono- 
physites. If these good relations are later disturbed and if in 
the end there was a return to the mistakes of the past, the 
fault assuredly lies not with the Emperors but with the local 



132 THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 

orthodox clergy. In a word, the civil power and the religious 
authorities have each of them kept to their proper roles. One 
may justly reproach the Byzantine Church for its dogmatic 
rigidity which has cost it many a disappointment, but it 
would be unjust to be surprised on that account. This 
rigidity is but one aspect of the orthodoxy of the Byzantine 
Church — an orthodoxy only crystallized after desperate and 
century-long conflicts. This rigid dogma was for the 
Byzantine Church a conquest of which she was proud. It 
was because she was the loyal trustee of this unadulterated 
faith that she could proclaim herself to be superior to the 
other Churches, that she could arrogate to herself the right 
to condemn the vicious practices of the Church of Rome. 
The reader who has observed in these pages the relations of 
politics and religion cannot fail to recognize that, however 
disastrous it may have been from the temporal point of view, 
Byzantine intolerance is in its essence an affair of the spirit: 
it is not inspired by any nationalism. Here lofty minds are at 
work who place above everything else the treasure of the 
faith. And if anything can lend beauty to the decline of the 
great Byzantine Empire after 1071 — after the fatal day of 
Manzikert — it is precisely this impolitic and sublime refusal 
to compromise — it is the fact that the Byzantines were 
profoundly religious. The signature of their whole civiliza- 
tion is their faith. It is that which explains the character of 
their literature and of their art. It is true that Byzantium in 
its loyalty to the fourth-century compromise (see p. 93) 
preserved the essential works of profane literature, that it 
never ceased to transcribe them, to write commentaries upon 
them; Byzantium produced men of great learning, scholars 
of a curiosity which knew no bounds. History, for example, 
was passionately studied by an almost uninterrupted series 
of writers who at times were inspired by the great classical 
models. Yet almost all the Byzantine men of letters were 
first and foremost preoccupied with theology. Not only do 
the monastic chroniclers give pride of place to Church 
affairs, but the historians properly so called, like Nicephorus 
Gregoras, interrupt their narrative to recount through whole 
books high controversies over points of doctrine. Byzantine 
poets — or at least versifiers — are legion. But although some 



THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 133 

of them have sought to sing of the great events of history — 
and not merely of .Byzantine history but of the history 
of mankind — e.g. the glorious Crusades of the seventh 
century — yet not one of them can claim a place in world- 
literature — not even the Poet Laureate of Heraclius, George 
of Pisidia, nor the Poet Laureate of Nicephorus Phocas, 
John the Geometrician. There is no breath of the true spirit 
either of epic or of lyric poetry in their elegant, frigid, and 
pedantic works. If chance had not preserved for us some 
fragments of popular songs from the ninth and tenth cen- 
turies of an inspiration similar to that of the klephtic ballads 
of modern Greece, we might be tempted to believe that even 
the heroism of the war against the Arabs never awoke in a 
Byzantine bard that primitive enthusiasm which recurs in 
the historical songs of almost all barbarian peoples. Even 
the Armenians possess a large body of secular poetry. Such 
poetry was denied to Byzantium, doubtless partly because 
Byzantium neglected the language of the people which was 
full of poetic possibilities in order to write almost exclusively 
in a learned idiom. But the principal reason for this absence 
of a poetic literature is to be sought in the almost complete 
domination of the Byzantine by religious interests. The 
true, the only Byzantine poets are those who in their 
modesty styled themselves ‘melodes’, humble monks whose 
sole aim was the enrichment of the liturgy. They indeed are 
truly inspired, but the source of their inspiration is to be 
found in the Scriptures and in the drama of the liturgy; and 
it must also be said that their art does not follow classical 
models or the rules which govern classical poetry. The 
earliest of these poets are pupils of the Syrians whose 
strophes, refrains, and acrostics they imitate. One great 
name must be mentioned — that of Romanus ‘the Melode’. 
He was a deacon born in Syria who came to Constantinople 
in the sixth century: to him the Greek Church is indebted 
for hymns of deep feeling, though at times their effect is 
spoiled by an excess of eloquence — by those peculiarly 
Byzantine faults: superfluity of words and a prodigal misuse 
of elaboration. And among prose-writers — apart from some 
chroniclers using the vulgar tongue or some high functionary 
relating without pretention his own memoirs — those who 



1 3 + THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 

escape from the conventional style which stifles true senti- 
ment and simple expression are the mystics addressing them- 
selves to a picked audience of ascetes, or the hagiographers, 
happily fairly numerous, who are preserved by their igno- 
rance from the well-worn expressions of a literary tradition 
and who are almost the only Byzantines who can put us into 
immediate contact with the life of their day. That religious 
sentiment, however, which has saved from pedantry and 
archaism a few pages of Byzantine literature could fashion 
through art, above all through mosaic and painting, through 
architecture also and at times, though very rarely, through 
sculpture, a marvellously adequate expression of the Byzan- 
tine soul. But this art, like the poetry of the melodes, is only 
a perpetual illustration of dogma or of the liturgy. The 
theological and liturgical symbolism which was developed 
after the seventh century is an original creation of Byzan- 
tium. Thanks to that creation the Byzantine Church has 
something of beauty and of grandeur which can stand com- 
parison with the cathedral of the West — that book of stone 
with its wealth of spiritual teaching. In the West there are 
the statues and the stained glass of the windows: in the 
Byzantine East there are the frescoes and the mosaics which 
present to the eye the scenes of the two Testaments and 
the symbols which correspond to the different moments of 
the Eucharistic Drama. Here in this Eucharistic Drama, the 
Mystery of mysteries, the Sacrifice above all other sacrifices, 
is the centre of Byzantine faith, the centre of Byzantine life 
itself. Through the centuries Byzantine theologians sought 
to determine precisely its sublime significance. It is because 
in the Eucharist is contained man’s supreme hope, because 
here is the essence of Christianity, that the peoples of the 
East have met in violent conflict seeking with passionate 
intensity rigorously to define the dogma of their faith. 
Christians were Christians only because Christianity brought 
to them liberation from death. If one would penetrate to the 
heart of Eastern Christianity one must be present on the 
night when the Easter liturgy is celebrated: of this liturgy 
all other rites are but reflections or figures. The three words 
of the Easter troparion — the Easter hymn — repeated a 
thousand times in tones ever more and more triumphant, 



THE BYZANTINE CHURCH 135 

repeated to the point of ecstasy and of an overflowing mystic 
joy — Bavaru) davarov irarqcra s — 'By His death He has trodden 
death beneath His feet’ — here is the great message of the 
Byzantine Church : the joy of Easter, the banishing of that 
ancient terror which beset the life of man, this it is which has 
won and kept the allegiance of the masses: it is this creed of 
triumph which has been translated into all the languages of 
the Orient, and yet has never lost its virtue: this is the faith 
which found its material expression in the icon, so that even 
when the originality of the artist fell short, man’s short- 
coming could not veil the meaning of that joyous Mystery. 

HENRI GRtfGOIRE 



y 

BYZANTINE MONASTICISM 

It would be difficult to over-estimate the part played by 
monasticism in the history of Byzantium. It was on the 
territory of the Eastern Empire that this institution took its 
rise and on that soil it flourished amazingly. We shall not 
attempt, as others have done, to look outside Christianity 
for the origin of an institution which was deeply rooted in 
the Gospel. ‘If thou wilt be perfect’, said the Lord, ‘go and 
sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have 
treasure in heaven.’ This invitation, which any Christian 
could accept if he would, very early found an echo in the 
Church, and the state of perfection held up by Christ as an 
ideal met with a ready response in many hearts. Those who 
accepted the call did not at once separate themselves from 
the rest of the faithful. Ascetics of both sexes continued to 
live in the world, and like Origen, for instance, practised 
every form of sdf-discipline, without feeling bound to cut 
themselves off from all intercourse with their fellow men. It 
is in Egypt that we first hear of hermits. They began by 
building themselves huts in the outskirts of the towns and 
villages, and to these huts they withdrew in order to give 
themselves up to contemplation and the practice of ascetic 
exercises. 

In this way St. Antony (about 270) began his life as a 
solitary, but after fifteen years he withdrew to Pispir in the 
desert and there shut himself up in an empty tomb, in which 
he lived for some twenty years. His reputation for holiness 
brought him many imitators, who came to settle in the 
neighbourhood of his retreat in order to profit by his example 
and advice; he was obliged to listen to their appeals and to 
busy himself in giving them some guidance and the rudi- 
ments of an organization. We need not consider whether 
any other hermit preceded him in the desert, as St. Paul of 
Thebes may perhaps have done. St. Antony was undoubtedly 
the first solitary of whose influence we may be certain, 
extending as it did beyond his place of retreat. But the 



BYZANTINE MONASTICISM 137 

company of his disciples had none of the characteristics of a 
religious community. Though they received instruction 
from him, they were not bound to obey him, nor were they 
committed to any uniformly regulated way of life. The 
development of monasticism known as semi-eremitical arose 
shortly afterwards in the deserts of Nitria and Scete in Lower 
Egypt. We have descriptions of these communities in the 
works of Palladius and Cassian. These monks lived in 
separate cells, and in Nitria sometimes three or four cells 
were grouped together. They met at church for the liturgy 
on Saturdays and Sundays only, and were subject to no rule, 
the authority of the elders being purely personal. When 
visiting each other they occupied themselves with the study 
of the Scriptures or discussed questions of spiritual doctrine. 
Cassian’s Collations give us an idea of the nature of these 
conversations. 

At about the same time that St. Antony, after twenty 
years of strict seclusion, began to concern himself with his 
disciples at Pispir, there appeared in Upper Egypt another 
famous ascetic, who was to give the monastic movement a 
new direction. St. Pachomius, a disciple of the hermit 
Palamon, having doubtless observed the disadvantages and 
even the dangers of complete isolation, proceeded to organize 
a community for the hermits of his neighbourhood, and 
fo un ded at Tabennisi, near Dendera, the first monastery of 
the life in common ( 'koinobion ) to which disciples soon flocked. 
The monastery consisted of several separate buildings, each 
holding thirty to forty persons under the direction of 
a superintendent. The monks owed obedience to their 
Superior and were subject to a rule. Not only were their 
religious exercises, that is to say, prayer, instruction, and 
confession, strictly regulated, but manual labour, which 
consisted in the practice of different handicrafts, was also 
compulsory. This constitution of Pachomius met with very 
great success. Before his death in about 345 the Pachomian 
Congregation, as it may be called, comprised nine monas- 
teries, containing a great number of monks, and two con- 
vents for women. 

The work of Pachomius gave to monasticism its essential 
and final form. The hermit in his retreat practised continence 



138 BYZANTINE MONASTICISM 

and poverty, and to these virtues was added in the monas- 
teries that of obedience. The religious was henceforth a man 
cut off from the world and obliged to exercise these three 
virtues : that obligation was soon to be enforced through the 
sanction of a vow. He was pledged to observe an austere 
discipline which regulated his relations with God, his 
superiors, and the monastic community. The independent 
life of a solitary did not lose its attraction all at once; still for 
a long time it remained the form of asceticism preferred by a 
minority, while it was found possible to combine it with 
coenobitism, i.e. with the life in a community. But the 
advantages of the latter were so great that it was bound 
before long to predominate. For in the common life there 
was found scope for the exercise of charity and for a rivalry 
in well-doing of every kind which was denied to the hermits, 
while it gave an opportunity to practise the virtues of 
religion without going into the wilderness. 

In Egypt the monastic movement in all its forms met 
at first with incredible success. We need not discuss the 
fantastic figures given by certain authors. The Historia 
Monachorum would have us believe that there were more 
monasteries than private houses at Oxyrhynchus, and that, 
including those in the suburbs, monks numbered 10,000 
and nuns 20,000. These exaggerated figures show that the 
number of the monks was large enough to strike men’s 
imaginations and at the same time it is too large to allow 
us to believe that all who entered the monasteries were 
actuated by purely religious motives. It is therefore not 
surprising to find the Emperors Valentinian and Valens 
ordering the removal from the religious houses of those who 
had fled there in order to evade public duties. 

Monastic life satisfied an aspiration so widespread that it 
could not long be confined to the land of its origin. It was 
natural that the 'adjoining countries of Palestine and Syria 
should have been the first to be influenced, especially as 
the Holy Places were becoming more and more a centre of 
attraction and the scene of an intense religious movement. 
Two names stand out among the pioneers of the religious 
life in Palestine in the first half of the fourth century, namely, 
St. Hilarion, who lived as a hermit in the Gaza desert, and 



BYZANTINE MONASTICISM 139 

St. Chariton, to whom is attributed the foundation of the 
Laura of Pharan, in the desert of Judaea, and of other lauras, 
notably that of Souka, known as the Old Laura. The laura 
was a form of ascetic life much favoured in Palestine. It 
consisted of a group of hermits who lived in separate cells, but 
were under the direction of an abbot. The centre of the 
laura was often a monastery, where the hermits met on 
Saturdays and Sundays, and to which young aspirants to 
the solitary life were admitted in order first to undergo the 
severe tests demanded of those who wished to embrace this 
special vocation. During the fifth and sixth centuries 
monastic life in Palestine developed remarkably. On this 
movement we are exceptionally well informed through the 
work of Cyril of Scythopolis (sixth century), the author of a 
unique series of biographies of illustrious monks, among 
them St. Euthymius, St. Sabas, and St. Theodosius. The 
most famous of these monks, St. Sabas, founded no less than 
seven lauras, among them the Great Laura, where he lived 
until his death. At the beginning of the sixth century the 
peace of the monasteries of Palestine was disturbed by the 
Origenist disputes. The civil authority was forced to inter- 
vene, and the New Laura, which had become a centre of 
heretical unrest, was cleared of its occupants and handed 
over to the orthodox monks. Palestine admitted both the 
established forms of monasticism, the coenobitic organiza- 
tion and the life of the hermit. The one did not exclude the 
other, but the life of the solitary was generally more highly 
esteemed. In the seventh century Palestine was cut off from 
the Empire by the Arab invasion, and under the new govern- 
ment its monastic institutions suffered greatly, those which 
survived losing all contact with the religious houses beyond 
the frontier which had the same origin and observed the 
same rite as themselves. 

Syria and Mesopotamia were drawn into the movement 
by an irresistible force. We are told that Eugenius, one of 
the pioneers of Syrian monasticism, was apprenticed to the 
religious life in Pachomius’s monastery at Tabennisi, and 
that from Egypt he brought a company of seventy monks to 
Mesopotamia and founded a monastery near Nisibis. 

A certain Julian, mentioned by St. Jerome, is said to have 



i 4 o BYZANTINE MONASTICISM 

introduced monasticism into Osrhoene. It is not recorded 
who first inhabited the desert of Chalcis, near Antioch, but 
it was there that St. Jerome is known to have lived as a 
hermit for several years. In Syria there were monasteries, 
properly so-called, of which mention is made by various 
historians. All the monks whose exploits were recounted by 
Theodoret in his Philotheos Historia were hermits. They 
gave themselves up to penitential exercises differing by their 
great austerity and other special characteristics from those 
practised by the monks of Egypt. These latter, it has been 
observed, performed penances which may be called natural, 
such as fastings, long vigils, and a strict isolation from the 
world. It is true that some of them, as for instance Macarius 
of Scete, were led through a competitive spirit to establish 
records in self-mortification and in consequence fell into 
obvious excesses. But in general Egyptian asceticism was 
governed by a spirit of moderation which took account of the 
limits of human endurance. In Syria it was otherwise; the 
hermits mentioned by Theodoret, living alone in the desert, 
their own masters, and subject to no control, tortured their 
bodies without check or restraint. Their asceticism took 
violent and at times extravagant forms. It was in Syria that 
St. Simeon the pillar-saint appeared, and his example was 
to prove infectious; it created a class of ascetes which per- 
sisted for centuries. If one disregards the bizarre form of 
his self-mortification, Simeon Stylites may be regarded as 
typical of Syrian monasticism, for unlimited austerities 
united with unceasing prayer, individualism, and complete 
isolation are its characteristic features. 

The storms raised by heresy in the Patriarchates of Alex- 
andria and Antioch, and the intervention of the Arabs, 
separated from Orthodoxy and later from the Empire nearly 
all the monasteries in the Nile valley and a great number of 
those in the Orontes, Euphrates, and Tigris regions. They 
formed themselves into isolated groups which had hence- 
forth no share in the life of the great monastic family, the 
true heir of the traditions of Antony and Pachomius, which 
elsewhere was to exhibit so striking a development. 

From Egypt and Syria monasticism spread, and the 
current must soon have reached Asia Minor. We know little 



BYZANTINE MONASTICISM r4i 

more than that there were monks in Galatia before the end 
of the fourth century, and that there, as in the adjoining 
countries, the severity of the climate was unfavourable to the 
adoption of a hermit’s life. We are better informed with 
regard to Armenia Minor, Paphlagonia, and Pontus, into 
which countries monastic life was introduced by Eustathius 
of Sebaste, whose indiscreet zeal nearly wrecked the whole 
future of the movement. Especially in Armenia monasticism 
assumed exaggerated forms. Several decrees of the Council 
of Gangra (in Paphlagonia) are inspired by the desire to 
remedy excesses which could not but be censured by the 
ecclesiastical authorities. 

Cappadocia, which later sent into other countries such 
famous monks as SS. Theodosius and Sabas, gave to the 
Church one who may well be regarded as the lawgiver of 
the monastic life, namely, St. Basil of Caesarea. Under the 
influence of his sister Macrina, he resolved to leave the world, 
but before embracing the monastic life he determined to 
learn its secrets in the places where it had received its 
definite form. With this object he visited Egypt, Palestine, 
Syria, and Mesopotamia. On returning from his travels he 
withdrew to a retreat at Annesi on the River Iris in Pontus, 
and there proceeded to put into practice the ideal formed by 
his study of the lives of the anchorites on the one hand and of 
the coenobites on the other. The completely isolated life 
of the former could in his opinion be the goal only of the 
chosen few. Such a life was less in accordance with man’s 
social nature, gave no scope for charity, and for most men 
was accompanied with serious disadvantages. Ordinary 
minds, uncontrolled by any supervision or rule of obedience, 
were apt to give way to pride and self-deception, and at 
times the cares of a man’s mere material existence might 
become so absorbing as seriously to hinder communion with 
God. On these grounds St. Basil preferred coenobitism. 
But he fully realized the weakness of the Pachomian organi- 
zation as it existed in Egypt, namely, that the number of 
monks in each group was too great. The Superior could 
consequently neither know them intimately nor direct them 
effectively; and it was not easy to free these necessarily self- 
supporting communities from preoccupation with material 



142 BYZANTINE MONASTICISM 

needs. Basil, therefore, in choosing the coenobitic system, 
amended it by reducing the number of monks in each 
monastery to more modest proportions. Still, while not 
encouraging the hermit’s life, he did not altogether pro- 
hibit it. 

Profiting by the experience gained in his travels, he regu- 
lated the lives of his monks in every detail. The hours given 
to prayer, study, work, meals, and sleep were all fixed, and 
even the details of dress laid down. Basil did not leave 
behind him any Rule, properly so called ; and it is not easy 
to determine whether the ancient authorities who seem to 
attribute one to him are referring to the whole, or to a part 
of the Ascetica that have come down to us under his name. 
When writing to Gregory of Nazianzus 1 he traced in broad 
lines the life of the monk as he conceived it, and from the 
Ascetica, especially the 55 chapters known as The Longer 
Rules , 2 and from the monastic catechism in 313 questions 
and answers, known as The Shorter Rules, one could put 
together a series of fairly detailed regulations. In any case 
the tradition created by Basil and the writings which have 
circulated under his name have exercised a very great 
influence. The fame of the Bishop of Caesarea and the 
practical nature of his conception of the communal life 
assured the success of the moderate form of coenobitism and 
of the domestic discipline which he introduced into the 
groups under his control. 

There was never in the Greek Church any ‘Order of St. 
Basil’, and the title ‘Basilian’ as applied to the monks of the 
Empire is an invention of Western scholars. But there is no 
doubt that his monastic system spread almost at once from 
Pontus into Cappadocia, Paphlagonia, Armenia, and the 
whole of Asia Minor; in these countries it enjoyed a remark- 
able success. We have unfortunately no satisfactory statis- 
tics of the number of monasteries which sprang up there 
during the following centuries. But judging from the allu- 
sions to them scattered through the Lives of the Saints, from 
the evidence of Procopius, and from the constant discovery 
in charters of fresh names of religious foundations whose 
history remains unknown to us the number of monasteries 

1 Ep. 8. 2 Regulae Justus tractate*. 



BYZANTINE MONASTICISM H3 

throughout Asia Minor must have been very considerable. 
It is particularly in this part of the Empire that one finds 
colonies of monks formed in mountainous districts corre- 
sponding to those ‘Holy Mountains’ which in Europe are 
still represented by Athos or the Meteora. The origin of 
these communities is nearly always the same. A holy man, 
having determined to shun the world, seeks out an accessible 
spot in the recesses of the neighbouring mountain, and there 
retires into a cave or builds himself a hut. His retreat is 
presently discovered, and disciples place themselves under 
his guidance. A community is thus formed and the building 
of a monastery begins. The reputation of the master and his 
disciples spreads, bringing fresh recruits, and it soon becomes 
necessary to enlarge the accommodation and also to add to 
the number of hermitages that generally spring up in the 
neighbourhood of a monastery. We may cite as an example 
Mt. St. Auxentius, above Chalcedon in Bithynia, which takes 
its name from the famous hermit who established himself 
there in the second half of the fifth century; here the religious 
life flourished for at least eight centuries. In Bithynia, too, 
was Mt. Olympus, one of the most important of monastic 
centres, the home through the centuries of many famous 
ascetes, among them the great St. Johannicius. Mt. 
Admirable, near Seleucia, owed its renown to St. Simeon 
Stylites the Younger and his disciples; and opposite to it, in 
the Black Mountains, was the Scopelos — the Rock — made 
famous by the Abbot Theodosius. Near Miletus, the moun- 
tain celebrated in antiquity under the name of Latmus was 
taken over by monks, the most noted of whom was St. Paul, 
who died in 955, Consecrated to the worship of God, the 
mountain henceforth takes the name of Latros. 1 Monasteries 
were founded on Mt. Galisius, near Ephesus, for the disciples 
of the monk Lazarus (ob. 1 054), who lived several years upon 
a column. On Mount Kyminas, on the borders of Bithynia 
and Paphlagonia, we find in the tenth century several holy 
monks, notably St. Michael Maleinus and St. Athanasius. 
The latter went thence to found the monastery of Lavra on 
another holy mountain, destined to become yet more famous 
— Mt. Athos; and since we have now left the soil of Asia, 

1 Latreuein, to wanhip. 



144 BYZANTINE MONASTICISM 

we may add a mention of Mt. Ganos in Thrace, of which 
little is known, and of the Meteora monasteries in Thessaly. 

The capital of the Empire was not reached by the 
monastic tide as quickly as some have asserted. It has been 
maintained on documentary evidence of little value that the 
introduction of monasticism into Constantinople dates from 
the time of Constantine, and some fifteen monasteries are 
cited as having been founded there during his reign. From 
a study of more reliable sources, however, we are forced to 
the conclusion that the first monks established in the capital 
were heretics attached to the patriarch Macedonius, and 
that the few monasteries of those days had only an ephemeral 
existence. The true beginnings of Byzantine monasticism 
coincide with the reign of Theodosius. Jonas, a soldier from 
Armenia, founded the monastery of Halmyrissus in Thrace; 
and the oldest monastery in Constantinople itself, namely, 
that of Dalmatius, sprang from a hermitage founded by the 
monk Isaac. These two ascetes must be deemed to be the 
true fathers of monasticism in the capital. Isaac’s foundation 
was followed by that of Dius, but of its early history little is 
known. One of the most important monasteries was that of 
Rufinianae, founded by Rufinus on the coast of Bithynia. 
Its monks were brought from Egypt, but on Rufinus ’s 
fall they returned to their own country. Later Hypatius, 
a Phrygian, came to Rufinianae and there with two com- 
panions he settled. Gradually a small community grew up; 
Rufinus’s monastery was re-formed, and Hypatius was com- 
pelled to become its head. For forty years he governed the 
monastery with success. 

A long history is attached to the monastery of the Akoi- 
metoi. Its founder, Alexander, who came to Constantinople 
from the desert of Chalcis, bringing with him ideas of 
reform, introduced the practice of continuous prayer. The 
monks were divided into three choirs who relieved each 
other in singing the praise of God without ceasing by day or 
night. Hence the name Akoimetoi, those who never sleep. 
Under Alexander’s successor the monastery was trans- 
planted to Gomon, on the Black Sea, but it returned later to 
the neighbourhood of Constantinople and was re-established 
on the Bosphorus opposite the Bay of Sosthenes. Its founder, 



BYZANTINE MONASTICISM 145 

Alexander, whose reputation in later years was not un- 
challenged, was outshone by one of his successors, St. 
Marcellus. 

Once introduced into the capital, monasticism made rapid 
strides. In the Acts of the Council of 536 may be found the 
signatures of the representatives of sixty-eight monasteries 
in Constantinople and of forty in Chalcedon. Their number 
continued to increase and the list of the foundations that 
sprang up one after another in the city and its suburbs is 
interminable. Many of these have some history, some brief 
hour of fame, but we cannot give details here. It is interest- 
ing, however, to note that the strange form of asceticism 
originated by St. Simeon Stylites found its way to the 
capital. Daniel ( ob . 518), the first successor of the famous 
Syrian penitent, lived for many years on a pillar near 
Anaplus. A number of disciples congregated at its foot and 
for them the Emperor Leo I built a monastery and provided 
accommodation for strangers. Daniel was not the only 
stylite in Constantinople, and even as late as the tenth 
century he had a successor in the person of St. Luke, whose 
column stood in the quarter of Eutropius. 

With this great increase in the number of monks there 
immediately arose the necessity for a stricter discipline, and 
both the ecclesiastical authorities and the State were forced 
to take measures tqu-correct or forestall abuses and to giye a 
more solid foundation to the institution of monasticism. 
St. John Chrysostom, great champion as he was of the 
monastic state, was obliged to insist on the strict observance 
of the rule of seclusion and to admonish severely those 
monks who left their monastery and roamed through the 
streets of the city. More than one bishop doubtless had 
to recall to their duties the monks of his diocese who, for- 
getful of one of their principal obligations, were tempted 
to mingle with the world and busy themselves with secular 
matters. 

Legislation on the part of the Councils was sometimes 
necessary. We need not discuss the decrees, of limited scope, 
passed by the Council of Gangra against the Eustathians. 
More general measures were taken by the Council of 
Chalcedon, which began by recognizing that for many men 



146 a yaajn in Nil Mun A& x iciajvi 

the monastic life was nothing more than a pretext for bring- 
ing confusion into the affairs of Church and State. Such 
persons were accused of going from one town to another 
with the sole object of building monasteries for themselves, 
and in future no one might found a monastery without the 
consent of the bishop of the diocese. Monks are to be 
entirely subject to the bishop, and may not leave their 
monastery save in case of necessity and with his authoriza- 
tion. Their duty consists in fasting and prayer within the 
precincts of the monastery. The monastic habit may not be 
given to a slave without the consent of his master. The 
religious of either sex, once vowed to God, can never marry. 
No regularly established monastery can be secularized, nor 
can its property be alienated. 

At times circumstances gave to the Emperors the oppor- 
tunity of passing laws governing the monks, but these, 
inspired as they were merely by the need of the moment, 
were soon disregarded. To Justinian is due the credit of 
having formulated in his later laws — the Novels — the code 
of monastic legislation. This code gives legal authority to 
the ecclesiastical canons, and, following in the tradition of 
St. Basil, regulates the statutes and the main details of the 
religious life. These dispositions were inspired by a genuine 
regard for the institution of monasticism. ‘The monastic 
life’, said the Emperor in his preface, ‘with the contempla- 
tion which the monk practises is a holy thing; it leads men’s 
souls to God, and not only does this life serve those who have 
adopted it, but its purity and its prayers make it useful to 
all.’ Justinian deals mainly, and almost exclusively, with 
monasteries or coenobia, that is, with monks living, eating, 
and sleeping in common. He admits, however, a more 
perfect way, the life of hermits or solitaries, but refrains 
from detailed regulations for such. When the number of 
monks in a coenobium becomes very large, two or three 
buildings must be. provided to house them. No religious 
house may be built without the permission and blessing of 
the bishop. The monastery must be surrounded by a wall, 
the door of which is guarded by some of the older and most 
trusted monks, and no one may pass in or out without the 
permission of the Hegoumenos (abbot). Communities of 



BYZANTINE MONASTICISM 147 

monks and nuns must have separate quarters, and every 
precaution is taken that the rule of separation should be 
strictly observed. 

The monastery is placed under the authority of a Superior, 
elected by the monks. To four or five senior monks, who are 
in orders, is entrusted the regular performance of the reli- 
gious services. If they have no church of their own, the 
monks must attend service in the neighbouring church and 
immediately afterwards return to the monastery. The 
noviciate is for three years, during which the postulant 
wears the dress of a layman. If at the end of that time he has 
given satisfaction and can prove that he is not a slave, he is 
granted the habit of a monk. Up to this time he has had the 
free disposition of his goods, but from the moment of his 
assuming the habit his property passes to the monastery. 
The proportion of his fortune that reverts to the wife or 
children whom the monk has left in the world is fixed by law. 

A monk who leaves his monastery cannot be received into 
another, and property acquired by him reverts to his monas- 
tery and to that monastery he himself must be brought back. 
On a repetition of his offence he must be consigned to 
military service. No monk may accept the duties of a 
guardian or any other secular task that might turn him from 
the service of God. Property once in the possession of the 
monastery cannot be alienated. Rules are laid down to 
guide the Superiors in the administration of property, and to 
guard them against mistakes which might endanger the 
monastic endowments. 

These laws were evidently not made without the co- 
operation of the ecclesiastical authority. State intervention 
in such matters is almost always accompanied by dis- 
advantages which show themselves in the course of time. 
But in general Justinian’s legislation was beneficial and well 
adapted to the regularization of the monastic life. It was 
definitive and Justinian’s successors found little in it to alter. 
Nor did the Councils of the Church: the Council in Trullo 
laid down that no one might become a hermit who had not 
lived under coenobitic rule for three years. The Council of 
787, in calling for the suppression of double monasteries, 
that is to say, of those in which the monks’ dwelling was close 



148 BYZANTINK MONAbiKJlbM 

to and under the same administration as the nuns’, was 

merely restating an article of the original code. 

Under these regulations monasteries continued to multiply 
throughout the Empire. Emperors, princes, wealthy mer- 
chants, and other persons of note built monasteries or hospices 
to the glory of God and as atonement for their sins. A desire 
for ostentation was sometimes a contributing factor. Nice- 
phorus Phocas (963-9), though a great friend and bene- 
factor of monks, held that the number of monasteries had 
already passed the bounds of moderation, and that the 
excessive increase in religious establishments was prejudicial 
to the institution of monasticism itself. He forbade the 
creation of new foundations and the enlargement and 
enrichment of those already in existence. He did not 
definitely prohibit the bequest of property to the Church, 
but ordained that the money must be used only to restore 
buildings fallen into ruin and not to erect new ones. These 
dispositions were annulled in the reign of Basil II. 

Apart from legislation, in the strict sense of the term, the 
intervention of individuals had no small effect upon 
the development of the monastic life. The reformer who in the 
ninth and later centuries had most influence upon Byzantine 
monasticism was St. Theodore, of the monastery of Studius. 
Born in Constantinople, he left the world at the age of 
twenty-two and retired to an estate belonging to his family 
at Saccoudion on Mt. Olympus. Here, with several com- 
panions, he put himself under the guidance of his uncle, St. 
Plato, who had previously settled on the Sacred Mountain. 
As a monk Theodore made rapid progress and was soon 
fitted to assist his uncle in the control of the monastery. 
With the increasing number of postulants the burden 
became at last too heavy for the old man, and Theodore was 
called upon to take his place. When the monks of Saccou- 
dion, headed by their Abbot, took up an uncompromising 
attitude towards the question of the Emperor Constantine 
Vi’s divorce, they brought on themselves a sentence of 
exile. For a brief interval they returned to Saccoudion, but 
were obliged once more to leave and take refuge in Con- 
stantinople. There they were invited to establish themselves 
in the Psamathia quarter, in a large monastery founded in 



BYZANTINE MONASTICISM 149 

463 by the Consul Studius, and now almost abandoned 
as a result of the recent period of persecution which had 
only just come to an end. Under Theodore’s control the 
monastery developed in an extraordinary degree, and we 
read that the number of ‘Studite’ monks soon reached a 
thousand. 

But for the wise reforms instituted by Theodore, the 
weight of responsibility resting upon an abbot would have 
become well-nigh insupportable. He created a whole 
hierarchy of dignitaries, superintendents, and other monastic 
functionaries, each with well-defined duties, from choir- 
masters and stewards to cooks, infirmary attendants, and 
carpenters. Every head of a department had to render an 
account of his service to the abbot, who, by keeping the 
central control in his own hands, brought order and regu- 
larity into the working of the monastery. Theodore drew 
up a programme for each class of occupation. He even com- 
posed little pieces in verse, which summed up for each the 
duties of his charge, and thus recalled the particular virtues 
needed in his task. Many monastic regulations attributed 
to St. Theodore were in fact introduced at Saccoudion by 
St. Plato. Amongst these is the prohibition against admit- 
ting into the monastery not only women, but also female 
animals. In this Plato would seem not to have introduced 
any new rule, but only to have reinstated an ancient practice. 
It is well known how strict is the observance of this rule at 
Mt. Athos, and how greatly it adds to the austerity of the life 
in those monasteries. It is by no means certain that it was 
originally conceived as a safeguard of morality as it is usually 
interpreted. It would appear that St. Plato wished to remove 
the abuses that arose from too close an association of monks 
and laymen, and to remove any mercenary tendency that 
might easily result from trading in goods belonging to the 
monastery. In more than one monastery the breeding of 
cattle was carried on, obliging the monks to house lay ser- 
vants within their walls. In banning all female domestic 
animals, Plato put an end to that particular form of trading 
which specially called for the employment of workers from 
the world without the monastery. 

St. Theodore supplemented these regulations by 



1 5 o BYZANTINE MONASTICISM 

introducing a sort of penitential code, attaching punishments 
to breaches of the common rule or to failures in individual 
duty. Three times a week he called his monks together to 
be instructed by lecture or catechism in the virtues of the 
monastic life — piety, obedience and self-discipline, and 
the enthusiasm and the fervour which each should bring to the 
discharge of his own task. He established in the monastery 
of Studius (we must not call it the ‘Studion’, a term unknown 
to the ancients) a minute organization of the communal life, 
a rigorous discipline, and a severe though reasonable asceti- 
cism. These reforms, widely disseminated by his writings, 
especially by his will, the Hypotyposis, and his Catechisms, 
which last were frequently read in monasteries, gave a new 
vigour and a new lustre to the religious life of the Eastern 
Empire. Traces of Theodore’s influence are found in the 
Rule that St. Athanasius of Mount Athos gave to the monas- 
tery of Lavra, and in the special monastic constitutions 
known as typica. 

From a study of these charters of foundation, a certain 
number of which have been preserved to us, the oldest of 
them dating from the ninth century, we can form a vivid 
picture of life in the monasteries. The regulations of these 
typica are naturally adapted to the laws issued by Justinian 
which themselves were inspired by the Monastic Rules 
of St. Basil. As far as liturgical ordinances and the dates of 
fast-days are concerned they are content to follow the use 
of Jerusalem, or what is generally known as the typicon of St. 
Sabas. Taken as a whole, the details of these rules, as 
codified in the typica , though not expressly derived from the 
regulations of St. Theodore the Studite, are yet in such 
complete accord with his reforming spirit as to leave no 
doubt of his influence in their composition. 

We may take as an instance the Rule of the Euergetis 
monastery in Constantinople, which was drawn up by 
Timothy, monk and priest, and later abbot. He was the 
brother of the founder, Paul, who died in 1054. 1 This 
typicon may usefully serve to illustrate the character of these 
monastic regulations since it was later used by other founders 

' Typica of two kinds are here preserved together, the KrqroptKiv and the 
iavrovpyutiv. We have to deal here with the former only. 



BYZANTINE MONASTICISM 151 

and had itself drawn material from analogous texts. This is 
what it tells us of the organization of the monastery. 

Its essential part has reference to the life of prayer: the 
chanting of the services, private devotions, and the chief 
means of sanctification. The hours to be spent in prayer by 
day and night are laid down. Mass shall be celebrated daily; 
the more advanced monks may communicate three times and 
the others once a week, always by permission of the Superior. 
Communion must be preceded by confession. The sole 
confessor is the abbot, who must put himself at the disposal 
of the penitents twice a day, that is, in the morning and at 
evening after compline. 

During meals, which are eaten in common, someone 
reads aloud; at no other time may any food or drink be taken. 
The dietary is specified for ordinary days, for Lent and the 
two lesser times of fasting, and also for certain days on which 
better fare is permitted. The food is the same for everyone, 
except in case of illness. The Brothers are lodged two in a 
cell; their clothing is supplied from the common stock. 
Monks in good health are allowed three baths a year, those 
who are unwell may have more. The number of monks in a 
monastery is in proportion to its income. 

It was the founder’s intention that his establishment 
should be self-governing, and that no one, not even the 
Patriarch or the Emperor, should be able to take possession 
of it. The authority of the abbot is paramount, he is the sole 
spiritual director of the monks, and all owe him respect and 
obedience. He chooses his steward ( oeconomos ), who, unless 
unworthy, will ultimately succeed him. Besides the steward, 
the chief officials to help him are the skeuophylax or sacristan, 
in charge of the church and the sacristy; the dochiarios 
(custodian, treasurer) of money, and the dochiarios of goods, 
such as linen, shoes, and food. To the epistemonarchos is 
confided the maintenance of order and regularity in the 
monastery. The trapezarios has the management of the 
refectory, and below him come those in charge of the cellar 
and the bakery. 

Founder’s Day must be observed, and the anniversaries of 
certain other benefactors. On these days alms are distributed, 
but apart from these distributions no poor man should ever 



1 52 BYZANTINE MONASTICISM 

be sent away empty-handed. No women may be admitted 
except ladies of very high rank. Travellers and the sick poor 
are warmly welcomed and cared for in the hostel or hospital 
maintained on their behalf. 

The rules of the typica constituted a new consecration and 
a stricter regulation of the monastic communities. We must 
not expect to find in them any concrete details or special 
conditions of the life in different monasteries, due to differ- 
ences of time and place, which would give an individual 
character to each establishment. The interior life of a 
monastery as portrayed in the typica was everywhere the 
same: an orderly contemplative existence, in which prayer 
took the chief place and for which rules were laid down with 
regard to fasting and abstinence, and also concerning manual 
labour so far as this was compatible with the austerity of the 
ascetic life. Everything was arranged with a view to the 
personal sanctification of the monk, not with any idea of 
pastoral ministry. 

Some typica of nunneries have also come down to us. 
These are the more important since we have little informa- 
tion on the subject of female monasticism, which is, however, 
of very ancient origin and had a development as rapid as the 
male branch. Vowed to a strict seclusion in a narrowly 
limited field of action, nuns have naturally left less mark than 
monks on the history of their times. In Greek hagiography 
they play an unobtrusive part, and in order to measure the 
attraction of the cloister for the women of East Rome we are 
almost reduced to counting the number of convents. We 
know that there were a great many, but we can give no 
precise figures. Naturally a few special regulations occur, but 
otherwise there is little essential difference between the 
typica of the women’s convents (of which unfortunately few 
survive) and those of the monasteries. The most important 
of these typica are the one long familiar to students which was 
framed about u 18 by the Empress Irene for the convent of 
the Virgin (ttj? /eexapmu^o'jjs) and that of Our Lady of 
Good Hope, founded in the next century by Theodora and 
her husband, the famous general John Comnenus. Like 
most of the foundation charters, Theodora’s was designed 
to protect her new establishment from any hampering out- 



BYZANTINE MONASTICISM 153 

side interference. She wished Our Lady of Good Hope to be 
a free and autonomous convent. To safeguard the religious 
spirit and the material interests of the house the nuns needed 
the protection of some influential personage, and, with this 
object in view, she appointed her sons its ephoroi (guardians). 
The number of nuns, limited at first to thirty, was after- 
wards raised to fifty. They were divided into two categories, 
corresponding to the choir nuns and the lay sisters of our days. 

The nuns were to be on a footing of complete equality, 
and the rule permitted no mitigation of the rigour of the 
common life, except in illness, or in those special circum- 
stances in which, according to the usage of the times, some 
relaxation of austerity was allowed. For the convent was 
often the refuge of the victims of great misfortune, while 
members of the nobility and of the imperial family sometimes 
sought to end their days in its shelter. Allowance was made 
for the former state of these ladies, used as they had been to 
lives of ease and luxury, and, if they so desired, they were 
permitted to employ a servant. 

The convent should have a priest to celebrate the Holy 
Mysteries and to take the services. He must be of a certain 
age and of unquestioned honour and virtue. According to 
the typicon of Irene, priests attached to a convent must be 
eunuchs, but no such stipulation is made in that of Theodora. 
The obligations on which the foundress laid special stress 
were those of obedience and poverty. The nuns were not 
allowed to alienate any goods, and the fruit of their labour 
became the property of the convent. Rigorous seclusion was 
enforced and visits were strictly regulated. The day was 
divided between prayer and work, and it was impressed upon 
the nuns that they had not left the world in order to live in 
idleness. The Mother Superior, who is elected by the 
Sisters, has control of the convent with the help of several 
assistants, the chief of whom are the ecclestarchtssa and the 
steward. Less important duties are assigned to other nuns. 
The table fare on feast and ordinary days is regulated, as are 
also the details of dress. 

It was a matter of course that charity should be shown to 
the poor, and we learn from the typica that religious houses 
often had benevolent institutions, such as hospices, hostelries. 



t 54 is rZ,AIN I 11NI2. IVlUXN/tO A A^lOlVi 

or hospitals, attached to them as annexes which were not 
served by the monks or nuns, but were maintained by the 
funds of the community. Pacurianus, a ‘Great Domestic’ 
of the West under Alexius Comnenus, founded a hospice for 
old men near the monastery of Petritzos (in Bulgaria). In 
other places he erected three hostels dependent on this same 
monastery, where the poor were lodged and cared for free of 
charge. He also established a monastic school in which six 
young men were trained in holy learning with a view to 
ordination. The typicon of Michael Attaliates provided for 
the creation of a hospice at Rodesto and for the distribution 
of alms to the poor of Constantinople. Attached to the 
monastery of Pantocrator in the capital was an important 
hospital, containing fifty beds, which reminds us of a modern 
clinic. It had a medical staff of sixty persons in addition to 
supervisors or inspectors, accountants, and numerous sub- 
ordinates. It had a consulting-room and was divided into 
five sections, each for a different type of illness and under the 
care of two doctors with two assistants and several orderlies. 
A special ward was reserved for epileptics. Besides all this 
it had a hospice for the aged sick, which would accommodate 
twenty-six old men. Near the monastery of the Kosmosoteira 
the founder built a hospital containing thirty-six beds and 
drew up regulations for its proper management. It included 
baths to which the public was admitted. The hospital belong- 
ing to the monastery of Lips was of more modest proportions 
and had only fifteen beds. 

The typica do not as a rule confine themselves to a plain 
statement of precepts and rules, with an occasional supple- 
mentary chapter on the property of the monastery. The 
founder often prefaces them with an account of the lofty 
motives that have guided him, and introduces in more or less 
detail some spiritual instruction, generally inspired by a very 
high ideal. These documents give the most favourable view 
of the monastic life ; but they show only one side of the pic- 
ture, and we may be allowed to question whether the reality 
corresponded at all closely with so noble a conception. 

To imagine that the institution of monasticism could have 
persisted through so many centuries and in so many different 
lands, without any signs of weakness or decline, would be to 



BYZANTINE MONASTICISM i 55 

put too great a confidence in human nature. Only the strict 
observance, and not the mere framing of rules, however 
complete and detailed, can prevent abuses or sustain religious 
fervour, and it would be rash to assert that such regulations 
generally succeeded in maintaining at a normal level the 
practice of monastic virtues. On so delicate a matter as this 
one must not expect to find any precise information in our 
historical sources; here the gradual decline to laxity and 
decay is naturally not depicted. Those hagiographers who 
have described in most intimate detail the inner life of the 
monasteries, while avoiding its darker features, for the most 
part only record examples of holy living and noble action. 
Nevertheless a few contemporary documents have come down 
to us in which free expression is given to complaints of the 
faithlessness of monks to their duties, and the consequent 
decline of coenobitism. 

In his novel on religious houses the Emperor Nicephorus 
Phocas denounced the abuses arising from the accumulation 
of wealth by monasteries, and spared the monks no unpalat- 
able truth. One of the sharpest criticisms of the monastic 
life comes from the ranks of the clergy in a treatise by 
Eustathius, Archbishop of Salonica (ob. 1198). The picture 
he draws of the moral condition of monks was no doubt a 
true one for his time and diocese. He is careful, however, to 
note that there were many virtuous monks in the capital of 
the Empire and its suburbs, but that does not imply that 
outside Salonica none but regular and devoted houses 
existed. The causes he alleges for the moral decline of 
monasteries undoubtedly produced similar effects in other 
daces. The manner of enlisting new recruits to the order 
eft much to be desired, and men entered the monastic life 
ess with the object of serving God than of making sure of 
their daily bread without working for it. In this way monas- 
teries became filled with the coarse and ignorant, whose one 
idea was to profit by the material advantages thus provided 
and to live a life of ease. Their zeal went no further than an 
attempt to add to the property of the community; but greater 
wealth was accompanied by greater worldliness. Study was 
neglected, the most precious books in the library were 
judged useless and sold. The abbot, whose duty it was to 



1 56 BYZANTINE MONASTICISM 

train his subordinates in the paths of virtue, was content to 
instruct them in the things that concerned material existence 
and the administration of property. He was the manager of 
an agricultural estate rather than a spiritual director. Such 
according to Eustathius was the life of the monks as he knew 
it. He had seen the failure of his efforts at reform, and gives 
free rein to his feelings in a satire, in which, though many 
features are obviously exaggerated, the main causes of the 
decay of the religious spirit are clearly set forth. 

Among pernicious influences was the habit of granting 
monasteries to laymen. This custom, to which John IV, 
Patriarch of Antioch (1081-1118), devoted a pamphlet of 
vigorous protest and which was condemned by the Councils, 
was widely practised by the Iconoclast Emperors, notably by 
Constantine V. To these sovereigns it offered a means of 
rewarding political or military services to the detriment of 
the monks, their resolute opponents in matters of religious 
policy. The restoration of orthodoxy caused a temporary 
lull in a practice so harmful to the institution of monasticism. 
But it was soon revived in a form that seemed on the face of 
it completely beneficial. Monasteries with buildings in 
disrepair and likely to fall into ruin were made over to wealthy 
laymen or high officials on condition that they should be 
restored or rebuilt. By degrees this pretext was made to 
serve for the giving away of religious houses that were in no 
serious need of repair, then of others still less so, and finally 
of even the most richly endowed monasteries. 

This system proved disastrous for the monasteries. The 
grantee or charhtikarios ended by seizing all the goods of the 
monks, leaving them only a fraction of their revenue. It was 
impossible for them to celebrate their feasts with the cere- 
mony enjoined by the founder, or to continue their daily 
distribution of alms or food to the poor, and they were them- 
selves left with only just enough to live upon. They became 
entirely dependent on the goodwill of the new owner, and 
the abbot lost all authority over his monks, who were often 
forced to stoop to any dealings that would bring them the 
means of subsistence. This state of affairs was even more 
subversive of discipline in the women’s convents. The 
grantees, with their womenfolk and servants, were in con- 



BlfAAIN UlSii MUJN Ab UCIbJVI 157 

stant contact with the nuns, who had to tax their ingenuity 
to the utmost in order to obtain the necessities of life. The 
ill effects of the extension of such a practice from which soon 
only the most recently founded convents were free may 
easily be imagined, and measures to remedy the abuse were 
of little avail . 1 

Only by the gradual slackening of traditional observances 
can one explain the transformation of coenobitism into the 
system known as idiorrhythmicism which to-day may be 
studied on Mt. Athos, where it was introduced in the 
fifteenth century. Its main effect was to set aside the monastic 
rule of poverty. The money brought in by a monk on 
entering the monastery, as well as the product of his work 
there, remains his own property. If he is a tailor, he may sell 
the clothes he makes, if an artist, the works of art for which 
he is lucky enough to find a purchaser ; and he is free to deal 
as he pleases with the sums thus acquired and even to dispose 
of them by will. Another feature of idiorrhythmicism con- 
sisted in the grouping of the monks within the monastery 
into ‘families’. These families consist of a president with a 
few monks, perhaps five or six, adopted by him in propor- 
tion to the resources at his disposal for their upkeep; for, 
while bread, wine, oil, and wood are supplied by the monas- 
tery, the president has to provide everything else. Each 
family occupies quarters with a separate kitchen and refec- 
tory, but all assemble for the services, which are celebrated 
as in coenobitic monasteries. It has, however, been observed 
that the religious rites are much less impressive, since the 
system of division into families does not permit of sufficient 
attention being given to their preparation, especially to the 
adequate training of voices for the choir. Only three times a 
year do all the monks take a meal together in the common 
refectory. One would expect to find the abbot acting as the 
connecting link between the different groups, but idior- 
rhythmicism has no place for such a dignitary. The central 
authority lies with the council of presidents of families, which 
itself chooses one of its members to direct its discussions. 
So bizarre a system as this can only be regarded as an 
obvious sign of the decay of the religious spirit. 

1 Cf. the struggle against the system of Commendam in the West. 



i 5 8 BYZANTINE MONASTICISM 

The purity of monastic tradition found an enemy of 
mother sort in the mystic doctrines leading to Hesychasm, 
which deeply troubled the peace of Mt. Athos. The life of 
iolitude and contemplation (Hesychia) had long formed part 
>f Byzantine religion, though it will be remembered that 
5 t. Basil, while not forbidding eremitism, did not wish to see 
in increase in the number of hermits, and that Justinian’s 
egislation was inspired by a similar desire. Hermits or 
lesychasts were regarded as belonging to the highest grade 
jf the monastic life. To become one was a privilege reserved 
: or those coenobites who had given proof of their sanctity 
md were farthest advanced in perfection. St. Athanasius, 
:he founder of the Lavra, stipulates in his Rule that out of 
120 monks only five shall be permitted to live the life of a 
solitary, that is, to withdraw into separate cells in order to 
give themselves up to prayer and meditation whilst remain- 
ing under the control of the abbot. In the fourteenth century, 
thanks mainly to Gregory the Sinaite, daring theories, not 
unlike those of the Indian fakirs, spread among these soli- 
taries and other independent hermits concerning the vision 
of the Divine Light and the mechanical methods for its 
ittainment. The system may have developed from the 
mysticism of the celebrated Simeon, the New Theologian 
pb. 1022), in combination with the extravagant theories of 
he Massaliani and Bogomils. The Calabrian monk Barlaam 
rigorously attacked these aberrations, but they found a 
iefender, at least so far as concerns the theological side of 
he system, in Gregory Palamas. A lengthy controversy 
ollowed and much polemical writing. Councils debated the 
natter. It was Palamas who prevailed, and with him pre- 
vailed also Hesychasm, though freed from some of the more 
grotesque features which had proved attractive to rude and 
imple natures. But Hesychasm was incompatible with a 
lealthy spirituality or a reasonable asceticism, and it is to 
his day a running sore in the body of Greek monasticism. 

It has been impossible to ignore the harmful germs that in 
he course of centuries have threatened the existence and 
essened the vitality of the great institution of monasticism, 
hough without succeeding in destroying it, but the defects 
which we have been obliged to record did not prevent it 



BYZANTINE MONASTICISM 159 

from enjoying long and brilliant periods of prosperity. 
Amongst a people devoted to religion, in an Empire where 
the Church was so closely bound to the State, where the 
sovereign constantly intervened in ecclesiastical affairs, and 
monks were officially recognized, monasticism was bound to 
play an important part. In the first place by virtue of their 
reputation for saintliness famous monks often exercised a 
personal influence over Emperors and high officers of State. 
An unlettered man, like Simeon Stylites, was led to intervene 
in questions of general concern to which his mode of life 
seemed utterly foreign. ‘Never losing interest’, said Theo- 
doret, ‘in the welfare of the Churches, he led the campaign 
against Pagan infidelity, denounced the audacity of the Jews 
and scattered groups of heretics. He sent messages on such 
subjects to the Emperor, stimulated the zeal of magistrates 
for the things of God, and even warned the pastors of the 
churches to give more attention to the welfare of their 
flocks.’ 

Daniel, another famous stylite, 1 had frequent dealings 
with Emperors and ministers of State. The Emperor Leo I 
often visited him, and on one occasion brought the king of 
the Lazes in order to get the stylite’s decision on a disputed 
political question. There are many instances of sovereigns 
asking simple monks for impartial advice and the benefit of 
their prayers. 

It was not only by individual action that monks exerted 
their influence. In an Empire shaken by heresies continual 
meddling by the temporal power in matters that should 
properly be left to theologians inevitably brought about the 
intervention of religious bodies directly interested in the 
purity of the Faith. Monks often worked by secret and cir- 
cumspect methods that can only be guessed at by their 
effects; but it is rather the solemn demonstrations or pro- 
longed struggles, in which great numbers of monks, if not 
the whole monastic body, put their prestige and strength at 
the service of the Church, that have left visible traces on the 
pages of history. In times of crisis, when religious passions 
were aroused, when questions of dogma and discipline were 
bitterly disputed, and the tradition of orthodox doctrine was 

1 Cf. p. 14$ supra. 



threatened by innovators, the monks were willing temporarily 
to renounce the peace of the cloister. But it would be rash 
to claim that at all times and in all places their intervention 
in theological quarrels was happy and praiseworthy, or of 
service to religion. At a time when the army of monks 
formed a confused and undisciplined crowd and they had to 
be forbidden the ttfwns, lest, under pretext of doing good, 
they should upset the public peace, Theodosius could write 
to Ambrose: ‘Monachi multa scelera faciunt.’ It only 
needed a few bold spirits to launch them upon demonstra- 
tions, not only regrettable in themselves, but quite incom- 
patible with the life of prayer and contemplation to which 
they were vowed. 

The role played by the archimandrite Barsumas at the 
Robber Council of Ephesus, to which he had gone with a 
thousand monks in support of the doctrine of Eutyches, is 
only too well known. Bishop Flavian, having appealed to 
Pope Leo against his condemnation, was violently attacked 
by Barsumas’s band, who handled him so brutally that he 
died three days later of his wounds. One could give instances 
of similar interventions on the part of the monks, less violent 
perhaps, but hardly less regrettable. The great heresies of 
those times found all too often a favourable soil for their 
development in the monasteries. In the East, especially in 
Egypt, the Monophysite party had no keener supporters 
than the monks, and in Palestine the Origenist monks had 
to be dispersed. But it would be incorrect to extend the 
blame to all the monks of the Empire. While bearing in 
mind exceptional cases such as these, one may say that in 
general monks have readily ranged themselves on the side 
of orthodoxy and maintained happy relations with the sup- 
porters of the true doctrine. Thus Antony ‘the first monk’ 
did not hesitate to quit his desert retreat and appeared in 
Alexandria to champion orthodoxy and uphold the faith 
of Nicaea. St. Athanasius greatly befriended the monks. 
Theodoret, who was, with Flavian, a victim of the Robber 
Council of Ephesus, at the same time as he appeals to the 
Pope, writes to the monks of Constantinople, assuring them 
of his devotion to orthodoxy and of his anxiety to avoid the 
very appearance of being severed from their communion. 



BYZANTINE MONASTICISM 161 

Dalmatius, a monk of Constantinople, answered the appeal 
of the bishops assembled at the Council of Ephesus: leaving 
his monastery he led the monks of the capital to the imperial 
palace and received from Theodosius II the pledge of his 
adherence to the orthodox faith. When the usurper Basiliscus 
was favouring the Monophysites, it was to the pillar saint 
Daniel that the folk of Constantinople resorted : they finally 
persuaded him to descend from his pillar. His feet were so 
swollen that he could not walk, but he was carried into the 
city. In St. Sophia Basiliscus was constrained in the presence 
of Daniel to abjure his heresy. When in the seventh century 
the house of Heraclius sought to reconcile the upholders of the 
doctrine of the Single Nature in Christ by propounding 
the theory of the Single Will or the Single Energy it was 
again another monk, Maximus the Confessor, who was the 
life and soul of the orthodox resistance. Threats, exile, and 
finally torture all alike failed to break his indomitable 
resolution. 

It was during the period of the Iconoclast Emperors that 
the energy of the monks was seen at its brightest. Constan- 
tine V was fully aware of the influence which the monks 
enjoyed and tried at first to win them over to his own ideas, 
but he was met by a determined resistance. Exasperated by 
his failure, the Emperor persecuted his oppqnents. In 761 
he put to torture the hermit Andrew Calybites. Stephen the 
Younger saw his monastery sacked, and when thrown into 
prison he found more than 300 monks locked up for 
the same cause. At length in 765 he was put to death 
at the Emperor’s order. The populace was incited against 
the monks, a number of whom were made to file into the 
hippodrome amid shouts and jeers, each monk holding a nun 
by the hand. The persecution was not confined to the capital 
but spread to the provinces : monasteries were sacked and in 
the public square of Ephesus many monks were given the 
choice of marriage or death. 

In the later stage of the Iconoclast movement it was 
Theodore the leader of the Studite monks who headed the 
opposition to the Emperor. Under Leo the Armenian, in an 
assembly convened by the Emperor, Theodore insisted that 
the affairs of the Church concerned the clergy only and that 



1 62 BYZANTINE MONASTICISM 

the Emperor’s authority was limited to secular administra- 
tion. An imperial decree was forthwith issued which imposed 
silence on Catholics in matters of faith. To this Theodore 
refused to submit and organized public resistance. On Palm 
Sunday a great procession of monks carrying the forbidden 
images was seen to issue from the monastery. By order of 
the Emperor Theodore was then sent into exile. During 
that exile which lasted for twelve years, by his letters, his 
catechisms, and messages he never ceased to encourage the 
monastic resistance and continued to be the moving spirit 
in the opposition to the Emperor. Many of his disciples 
suffered martyrdom and from his own letters we learn of the 
sufferings — imprisonment, scourging, and torture — which 
he and his followers had to endure. On one occasion 
Theodore was himself condemned to a hundred strokes of the 
lash ; he was left lying on the ground unable to move, eat, or 
sleep; by the devoted care of his disciple Nicholas he was 
slowly nursed back to life, taking four months to regain his 
strength. 

The cause of the icons won the day; the heroic efforts of 
the Studite were apparently crowned with success, but we 
must not overestimate his triumph. The master idea in the 
life of Theodore was to win for the Church independence in 
its own sphere. In this he failed: the tradition of Caesaro- 
papism which dated back from the earliest days of Byzantium 
emerged from the Iconoclast controversy unshaken. While 
one must admire Theodore’s courage which never yielded 
under the brutal trials to which it was subjected, it must at 
the same time be admitted that his temperament was lacking 
in pliancy and breadth of mind and that his counsels were 
rarely inspired by moderation. Moreover, by no means all 
his monks, including even those who shared his views on 
orthodoxy, approved his intransigent attitude. Those of Mt. 
Olympus, for instance, led by St. Johannicius, were in 
favour of a more moderate course. That policy of uncom- 
promising opposition their master Theodore handed on to 
the Studites with serious results, as in their resistance to the 
Patriarch Methodius, and the atmosphere they created was 
perhaps not without influence on the troubles which marked 
the advent of Photius, or on the events under Michael 



BYZANTINE MONASTICISM 163 

Cerularius, with their well-known consequences. But with 
Theodore’s death there disappeared the last of the great 
monks to intervene decisively in times of crisis. 

That monastic intervention in politico-religious disputes 
was so often crowned with success is due not merely to the 
influence of a few outstanding personalities, but to the wide 
popularity of the monastic body as a whole. The monks 
were loved by the people, from whom indeed their numbers 
were mostly drawn; the name kalogeros , ‘good old man’, a 
usual way of addressing them, is evidence of their popu- 
larity. They were esteemed for their austerities and for the 
practice of those essential virtues which were the goal of the 
religious life. The rule of celibacy earned for them a peculiar 
respect and placed them far higher in popular regard than 
the married clergy, who were excluded from the episcopate. 
The glory of the holiness of the famous men who had come 
from the monasteries was reflected upon all the members of 
the order: they were looked upon as men of God. The older 
monks in particular inspired confidence, and their advice, 
known to be disinterested, was in constant demand. They 
were chosen as directors of conscience, and confession was 
often made to the more saintly of them, even though they 
were not in priest’s orders. Finally they were beloved for 
their traditional hospitality and their generosity in distribut- 
ing alms to the utmost limit of their resources. 

Nevertheless, the monastic life, as it developed in the 
Eastern Empire, was not specially organized with a view to 
the pastoral ministry — monks being for the most part lay- 
men — nor even with a view to charitable works or what we 
should call social service. The aspirant’s intention on enter- 
ing the monastery is to serve God by working for his own 
perfection and salvation ; it is no burning zeal for the welfare 
of others that moves him. Whether he wishes to consecrate 
to God the flower of his youth, seeks in the cloister a peaceful 
refuge after a life of storm and bitter disillusionment, or 
shuts himself up in expiation of his sins, the idea of apostle- 
ship does not seem to haunt him. Eastern monasticism has 
known no development parallel to that brought about in the 
West by the variety of Orders and religious Congregations, 
each of which responded to a special need and sprang up at 



164 BYZANTINE MONASTICISM 

the moment that this need made itself felt. In the West side 
by side with the contemplative Orders arose other com- 
munities whose members, while working for the salvation of 
their own souls, could at the same time engage in the works 
of mercy both corporal and spiritual. The great principles 
of religion which inspire the monk, whether he be Greek 
or Latin, were never in any way hostile to the creation of 
monasteries which admitted, alongside of the obligation of 
prayer and austerities, practical works of charity for the 
world outside, such as popular preaching, instruction, 
missions, and service in hospitals. But Greek monasticism 
seems to have been arrested in its free development; the 
causes of this arrested development are too complex for us 
to attempt to unravel. They were perhaps connected in 
some way with Justinian’s legislation, the effect of which was 
to mould all forms of monastic life to a definite and uniform 
pattern, subject it to the control of the civil administration, 
and discourage in advance any bold initiative. Greek 
monasticism never found its place within a powerful organi- 
zation; it has never been subjected to a rigorous discipline 
or controlled by a permanent and unquestioned authority. 
And thus, lacking this organization and direction, it has 
been unable to make full use of its spiritual forces which are 
clearly in large measure wasted. 

One is forced to think that here the Schism barred the 
way to progress and kept monasticism in a deplorable 
stagnation. 

The wonderful multiplication of religious Orders in the 
West from the twelfth century to this day, with their fresh 
blossoming in the sixteenth century, should have made 
manifest the happy fruits of a more flexible adaptability; it 
should have provoked imitation in the East, or better still 
emulation. The Greek Church either could not know of 
such developments or affected to ignore them, in the same 
way as a man will ignore his next-door neighbour, under the 
pretext that the fellow has no business to teach him how to 
behave. 

In this rapid review we have dealt with the essential 
features of the organization and religious action of Byzantine 
monasticism. But we would not entirely pass over another 



BYZANTINE MONASTICISM 165 


aspect of the monastic life, though there is no need to dwell 
at length upon so well known a subject. We refer to the 
intellectual activities of the monks and the traces left by them 
in the history of art and literature. In the monasteries 
painters found opportunity for, the development of their 
talent, and it was often the monks themselves who covered 
the walls of their churches with beautiful frescoes, or guided 
the hand of the artist in mosaic. But amongst the work that 
alternated with prayer and psalmody in the monastery, the 
copying of manuscripts unquestionably occupied the first 
place. It is needless to recall all that monks have done for the 
preservation of the works of classical literature, or to dwell 
upon the famous schools of calligraphy that arose among 
them. During the great periods of Byzantine history the art 
of the calligrapher was supplemented by that of the minia- 
turist, and many beautifully illuminated manuscripts from 
Byzantine monastic scriptoria are reckoned to-day among the 
greatest treasures of our libraries. 

It is not by copies alone that monks have enriched the 
storehouse of literature. They have produced many original 
works, ascetical, theological, and historical. A separate place 
must be reserved for poetry. Greek monks have composed 
many hymns with which Latin hymnography can but rarely 
stand comparison. Finally their Lives of the Saints bring 
before us the great figures of monasticism, and while record- 
ing the virtues of these holy men give details of the customs 
and events of their day that one would seek in vain elsewhere. 
Here again the Greek can more than hold his own : he has no 
need to fear the rivalry of the hagiographers of the medieval 


West. 


HIPPOLYTE DELEHAYE 



VI 

BYZANTINE ART 

The church of St. Sophia in Constantinople is the master- 
piece of Byzantine art, and it is at the same time one of those 
monuments where some of the most characteristic features 
of that art appear most clearly. Thus if one would understand 
the nature of the Christian art of the East and in what its 
originality consisted, one must go first of all to this essential 
building — to this ‘Great Church’ as it was called throughout 
the East during the Middle Ages. 

When, in 532, the Emperor Justinian decided to rebuild 
the church which Constantine had formerly erected and 
dedicated to the Holy Wisdom — for this is the meaning of 
St. Sophia — he was determined that the new sanctuary 
should surpass all others in splendour. In the words of a 
Byzantine chronicler, it was ‘a church, the like of which has 
never been seen since Adam, nor ever will be’. A circular 
was issued to all the provincial governors, instructing them 
to send to Constantinople the richest spoils in ancient monu- 
ments and the most beautiful marbles from the most famous 
quarries in the Empire. To add to the magnificence of the 
building and dazzle the eye of the beholder by a display of 
unrivalled wealth Justinian determined to make a lavish use 
of costly materials, gold, silver, ivory, and precious stones. 
A taste for the sumptuous in all its forms — a passion for 
splendour — is indeed one of the foremost characteristics of 
Byzantine art. 

For the execution of his design and the realization of his 
dream the Emperor was fortunate enough to discover two 
architects of genius, Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of 
Miletus, both of whom, it must be borne in mind, came from 
Asia. Contemporary writers are unanimous in praise of their 
knowledge, skill, daring, and inventive power; and, since 
Justinian grudged neither money nor labour, the work pro- 
gressed at an amazing speed. In less than five years St. 
Sophia was completed, and on 27 December 537 it was 
solemnly consecrated by the Emperor. 



BYZANTINE ART 167 

It has been truly said that the Great Church is ‘one of the 
mightiest creations in all architecture*, a statement the truth 
of which is clearly shown by a close study of this famous 
monument. The impression given by the exterior is, it is 
true, by no means striking; a sixth-century Byzantine build- 
ing, with its bare walls of brick, always presents a somewhat 
poor and monotonous aspect from without. But before 
entering the basilica, when one has crossed the space 
formerly occupied by the great atrium, surrounded by 
porticoes, and the narthex which opens into the church by 
nine doors, the effect produced by the interior is in truth 
incomparable. A vast rectangle, 77 metres by 71*70 in area, 
forms a broad nave flanked by aisles with galleries above them 
which pass over the narthex and extend all round the church. 
At a height of 55 metres from the ground this central nave is 
crowned by an enormous dome, 31 metres across, which 
rests upon four great arches supported by four massive piers. 
Whereas the arches on the north and south sides of the nave 
are filled by solid walls pierced with windows and carried on 
two tiers of pillars, those on the east and west are buttressed 
by two semi-domes, each of which in its turn is supported by 
two great semicircular niches and in this way strength and 
balance are given to this astonishing central dome. An apse 
projects from the middle of the hemicycle which is covered 
by die eastern semi-dome; exedrae, embellished with columns, 
together with the arcades on the right and left serve to 
connect the nave with the aisles. But what most impresses 
the beholder is the dome — henceforth a characteristic 
feature of Byzantine architecture — which has truly been 
described by a sixth-century writer as ‘a work at once 
marvellous and terrifying’, seeming, so light and airy it was, 
‘rather to hang by a golden chain from heaven than to be 
supported on solid masonry’. 

There was doubtless nothing new in such a plan. St. 
Sophia is related to the type of building, familiar in Asia 
Minor since the fifth century, known as the domed basilica. 
But, in virtue of its great size, harmony of line, boldness of 
conception, and constructive skill, it appears none the less as 
a true creation — ‘a marvel of stability, daring, fearless logic, 
and science’, as Choisy puts it. When on the day of its 



168 BYZANTINE ART 

inauguration Justinian saw the fulfilment of his dream, one 
can well imagine that in a transport of enthusiasm he did 
indeed exclaim: ‘Glory be to God who hath deemed me 
worthy to complete so great a work. I have outdone thee, 
O Solomon!’ 

The decoration which covers the interior of St. Sophia is 
of equal significance in the history of Byzantine art, the 
splendour of its ornament designed to dazzle the beholder 
being no less characteristic than its masterly use of archi- 
tectural forms. Tall columns of porphyry, white marble, 
and verd antique, crowned by marble capitals, wrought like 
goldsmith’s work and often picked out by touches of blue 
and gold, rise from the pavement of mosaic and marble, 
which has been likened to a garden where the rich lawns are 
strewn with purple flowers. In the spandrels and round the 
soffits of the arches, delicate decorative carvings of an 
unmistakably oriental style stand out around disks of 
porphyry and verd antique, like lacework against a dark 
ground. The walls are sheeted over with marbles of many 
colours, their tones blended as if by the most skilful of 
painters, giving the effect of rich and velvety oriental carpets. 
And above, on the curves of the vaults, on the pendentives, 
on the conch of the apse, the crown of the dome, and on the 
walls that fill the great lateral arches, brilliant mosaics shone 
out from the dark blue and silver backgrounds that the new 
art — and this was one of its most essential innovations — 
was beginning to substitute for the light backgrounds of 
Alexandrian painting. When St. Sophia had been converted 
into a mosque the Turks covered every representation of the 
human figure in these mosaics with a coating of whitewash 
or paint. Of recent years the process of uncovering the 
mosaics has been conducted under the authority of the 
Turkish Government ; 1 when the whole work is finished 
the church will recover still more completely its marvellous 
splendour. It must, however, be noted that most of the 

1 This work has been under the direction of Professor Whitteraore: he has 
completely cleared the narthex and over the southern door he has disclosed a fine 
mosaic which appears to date from the tenth century. In the interior of the church 
in the tribune over the right aisle he has uncovered some curious mosaics of the 
eleventh and twelfth centuries representing portraits of emperors. For the reports 
of Professor Whittemore’s work see the bibliographical note at p. 40J infra. 



BYZANTINE ART 169 

mosaics in Justinian’s church were of a purely ornamental 
character and that the majority of the figure subjects date 
from the tenth and eleventh centuries. But from the first the 
whole decorative scheme showed a wonderful sense of 
colour, which delighted in skilful combinations of tints and 
play of light; scorning simplicity, it aimed rather at a 
dazzling magnificence. To this wonderful decoration, which 
fortunately still exists, must be added the lost splendours of 
the pulpit or ambo — the dull gleam of its silver mingling 
with the glitter of precious stones and the radiance of rare 
marbles— of the iconostasis in chased silver that enclosed 
the sanctuary, of the altar in solid gold, shining with rare 
jewels and enamels; and of the silver canopy or ciborium 
over the altar, enriched with silk and gold embroideries 
between its columns. Add to that the beauty of the lighting 
which at night made the church shine with a fiery splendour 
and proclaimed to sailors from afar the glory of Justinian 
and the end of their voyage. Contemporaries, one can well 
understand, could not sufficiently admire this St. Sophia, 
‘the marvellous unique building which words are powerless 
to describe’. Procopius records in moving language its 
effect upon the visitor. ‘On entering the church to pray’, he 
says, ‘one feels at once that it is the work, not of man’s effort 
or industry, but in truth the work of the Divine Power; and 
the spirit, mounting to heaven, realizes that here God is 
very near and that He delights in this dwelling that He has 
chosen for Himself.’ And one can understand that the 
popular imagination, which had attached a whole cycle of 
picturesque legends to the dome of St. Sophia, should, even 
several centuries later, have easily believed that God in His 
mercy had received Justinian into Paradise for the sole 
reason that he had built the Great Church. 

Neither the striking success of St. Sophia nor the character- 
istic features of its style could, however, be understood or 
explained without presupposing a long period of patient 
research and resourceful experiment. From the day at the 
beginning of the fourth century, when by the will of 
Constantine Christianity became a State religion — and 
perhaps even before this splendid triumph — a great and 



i 7 o BYZANTINE ART 

fruitful artistic movement had developed during the course 
of two centuries and spread throughout the East, in Egypt, 
Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Armenia, and elsewhere. 
This movement, which was to culminate in the triumph of 
the new style in the sixth century, naturally took a different 
form in different places ; there was a Christian art peculiar to 
Egypt, one to Mesopotamia, and another to Asia Minor, 
each of which had its own character. But beneath this 
diversity of form a few general principles can be traced which 
show themselves in certain essential features. 

Christian art, as it took form in the East at the beginning 
of the fourth century, was faced by a twofold source of 
inspiration. On the one hand there was the classical tradi- 
tion of Hellenistic culture still living and brilliantly fostered 
in the large cities, such as Alexandria, Antioch, and Ephesus; 
and on the other, there was the oriental tradition, that of the 
old Iranian or Semitic East, which in contact with Sassanid 
Persia at this time came to life again throughout the interior 
of Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Armenia, and drove 
back the Greek influence which had long been triumphant. 
Christianity in its hatred of paganism, though unable to cut 
itself off completely from the splendour of classic antiquity, 
gladly adopted the methods of these indigenous arts which 
had suddenly awakened from sleep, and willingly set itself 
to learn from the East. Hence was to arise this dualism of 
two opposing influences which would endure as long as 
Byzantine art itself; indeed it is the combination of these two 
influences which gives to Byzantine art its peculiar character. 
The debt of the new art to this double tradition we must now 
seek to define. 

From the beginning of the fourth century triumphant 
Christianity had covered the whole East with a wealth of 
sumptuous churches, and for these new churches new archi- 
tectural forms were created. Alongside the Hellenistic 
basilica with its timber roof appeared the Eastern barrel- 
vaulted basilica (of which the origin, it seems, should be 
sought in Mesopotamia); while in addition to the plain 
rectilinear basilican form appeared the church of circular, 
octagonal, or cruciform plan. In particular, the new archi- 
tecture acquired from Iran the use of the dome, the model of 



BYZANTINE ART 171 

which it found in the Persian monuments of Seleucia and 
Ctesiphon, and crowned with it the new types of building 
that it invented, such as the domed basilica, or the churches 
on a centralized or radiate plan. The dome was supported 
either by squinches ( trompes d'angle) after the Eastern 
fashion, or, in the more scientific and more Greek manner, 
by pendentives. 

In the decoration of the churches a like development was 
taking place. A rich and complicated ornamentation of a 
somewhat heavy and wholly oriental exuberance covered the 
walls with luxuriant foliage, in which a host of birds and 
other creatures disported themselves amongst curving 
arabesques. From the East came also the technique of this 
decoration, in which the contrasting blacks and whites 
alternating on the neutral background supplied by the 
lightly incised stone gave a charming effect of colour which 
is absent from the high relief and bold modelling of antique 
sculptured ornament. On the walls the harmony of classic 
proportion was replaced by the brilliant effect of polychrome 
marbles. From Persia came also the arts of enamel and 
cloisonnd work, and the lavish use of sumptuous and 
coloured fabrics. All this gave to the new art a definitely 
oriental character. 

But the embellishment of the new churches consisted 
above all in the covering of their walls and vaults with long 
cycles of frescoes and resplendent mosaics, in which 
Christian heroes and the events of sacred story stand out 
against a background of dark blue. In representing them 
the simple and familiar lines which early Christian art had 
favoured gave place to majestic and solemn figures of a more 
individual and realistic type; the primitive symbolism of 
former times was replaced by the historical and monumental 
style, and a new iconography arose for the illustration of the 
sacred themes. 

Christian art undoubtedly retained many of the customs 
and traditions of pagan workshops — the secular motives, 
rustic themes, and mythological subjects dear to Alexandrian 
art; and from classical tradition it further inherited a feeling 
for beauty of design, dignity of pose, elegance in drapery, 
sobriety, and clearness of treatment. But its chief aim in the 



i 7 2 BYZANTINE ART 

decoration of its churches was the instruction and edification 
of the faithful. The wall-paintings and mosaics were intended 
to form, as it were, a vast volume open to the view of the 
illiterate, like a splendidly illuminated Bible in which they 
could learn with their eyes the great events of Christian 
history. From the first we find an attempt to illustrate the 
Sacred Books, and this illustration shows great differences 
of style in the different places of its origin. For the Gospels 
there was the version of Alexandria, still entirely under the 
spell of Hellenistic feeling and grace, and another version of 
Antioch, more dramatic and more faithful to realism. For 
the Psalter there was both an ‘aristocratic’ version, imbued 
throughout with classic tradition, and a monastic or theolo- 
gical version, remarkable for its realistic style, search for 
expression, and close observation of nature. Thus can be 
traced side by side the two opposing traditions, which were 
by their combination to form Byzantine art. 

As instances of the creations of this great artistic move- 
ment, we may mention the admirable basilicas still standing 
in the dead cities of central Syria, namely those of Rouweiha, 
Mchabbak, Tourmanin, Qalb Louzd, and the monastery of 
St. Simeon Stylites at Kalat Seman, justly called ‘the 
archaeological gem of Central Syria’; the oldest of the 
Armenian churches, the originality and influence of which 
must not, however, be exaggerated; those of Asia Minor, 
particularly that at Meriamlik in Cilicia, the earliest known 
example of a domed basilica, which seems to have played an 
essential part in the transformation of Eastern elements in 
accordance with the spirit pf Greece; at Salonica, the fine 
basilica of the Virgin (Eski-Djuma), the domed basilica of 
St. Sophia, and that of St. Demetrius, which with its five 
naves, lofty columns, and its walls brilliantly decorated with 
splendid mosaics and marble facing was, before its destruc- 
tion by fire in 1 9 1 7, one of the wonders of East Christian art; 
especially also at Salonica the mosaics of St. George and those 
of the chapel of Hosios David ; and at Ravenna, the Byzantine 
city where Oriental influences were paramount, the mosaics 
of the Baptistery of the Orthodox, and, perhaps the most ex- 
quisite example that survives of the Christian art of the time, 
the wonderful decoration of the Mausoleum of GallaPlacidia. 



BYZANTINE ART i 73 

It is primarily in the chief Hellenistic centres of the East 
— in ‘the triple constellation’ of Alexandria, Antioch, and 
Ephesus — that we must seek the sources of the great move- 
ment from which the new art was to arise. Constantinople, 
though the capital of the Empire, seems to have played a 
far smaller part than these three cities in the development 
of Christian art in the fourth and fifth centuries. But if she 
created little herself at that time, she has the great honour of 
having welcomed the varied elements offered by different 
regions within the Empire, of having co-ordinated, trans- 
formed, and hallowed them through the construction of a 
great masterpiece. It was in Constantinople that an ‘imperial 
art’ arose in the sixth century: an official art, the essential 
aim of which was the glorification of God and the Emperor, 
an oriental art embodying the lessons both of Greece and 
of the ancient Asiatic East, an art complex and manifold, 
secular as well as religious; and it is in Justinian’s time that 
this art, which may henceforth be called Byzantine, has 
expressed itself fully and in a definitive form. 

But St. Sophia is by no means the only creation of what 
has aptly been called the First Golden Age of Byzantine 
art. At this time, with unrivalled skill, use was made of 
every type of architectural construction: the Hellenistic 
basilica at Ravenna in Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo (between 515 
and 545) and Sant’ Apollinare in Classe (between 534 and 
549), and in the beautiful church of Parenzo in Istria (between 
532 and 543); the domed churches built on a centralized or 
radiate plan of Saints Sergius and Bacchus (between 526 and 
537) at Constantinople and of San Vitale (between 536 and 
547) at Ravenna; the domed basilica type in St. Irene (532) 
at Constantinople; the five-domed cruciform church in the 
Holy Apostles (536—45) at Constantinople (destroyed by 
the Turks shortly after 1453), and in the Church of St. John 
at Ephesus, the ruins of which have been exposed by the 
recent excavations. Already we may see in several buildings 
the plan of the Greek cross soon to become the classic type of 
Byzantine churches. Never has Christian art been at one 
and the same time more varied, more creative, scientific, and 
daring. The characteristic features of St. Sophia appear in a 



17 + BYZANTINE ART 

number of other buildings; for example in the cistern of 
Bin-bir-Direk at Constantinople, which experts are inclined 
to recognize as the work of Anthemius, or in the aqueduct of 
Justinian, the work of an unknown master who was un- 
doubtedly an engineer of great ability. In all these buildings 
we find the same inventive power, the same skill in the solu- 
tion of the most delicate problems of construction, the same 
alert activity, and in each of the churches there was, as 
in St. Sophia, the same wealth of decoration in the form 
of carved marble capitals, polychrome marble facings — a 
notable example of which is the apse of the basilica in Parenzo 
— and above all, in the play of light upon the mosaics. 

Of many of these great works there remains, alas, nothing 
but a memory. In St. Sophia, as we have seen, only some of 
the mosaics of Justinian’s time survive. The magnificent 
decoration of the Church of the Holy Apostles, one of the 
masterpieces of sixth-century art, is known to us solely from 
its description given by Nicholas Mesarites at the beginning 
of the thirteenth century: events in the life of Christ and in 
the preaching of Christianity by the Apostles were depicted 
in chronological order, and far above, in the height of the 
domes, there were represented the Transfiguration, Cruci- 
fixion, Ascension, and Pentecost. This decoration must have 
been one of the largest and most beautiful compositions of 
sixth-century Byzantine art, and it would seem that we must 
recognize in it the handiwork of an artist of genius. A note 
in the margin of Mesarites’ manuscript tells us that the 
artist’s name was Eulalius. From another source we learn 
that Eulalius, with a just pride in his work, inserted his own 
portrait into one of the sacred scenes, namely that of the 
Holy Women at the Tomb, ‘in his usual dress and looking 
exactly as he appeared when he was at work on these paint- 
ings’. This curious incident, doubtless unique in the history 
of Byzantine art, recalls to mind the practice of fifteenth- 
century Italian artists. 

The greater part of the mosaics of St. Demetrius at 
Salonica have also perished, having been destroyed by the fire 
of 1917. They formed a series of votive offerings recalling 
the favours granted by the Saint — the only instance of this 
theme found in Byzantine art. Three panels alone of this 



BYZANTINE ART 175 

beautiful decoration now remain, hanging, like icons, at the 
opening of the apse. One of them, which represents St. 
Demetrius standing between the founders of the church, is a 
masterpiece of vigorous expression and technical skill. It 
dates probably from the first third of the seventh century. 
It is in the West therefore, and above all at Ravenna, that 
we must look for works of Justinian’s century. 

Three of the Ravenna churches, namely Sant’ Apollinare 
Nuovo, Sant ’ Apollinare in Classe, and San Vitale, still retain 
an important part of their mosaics. In the first of these 
buildings there are three zones, one over another, represent- 
ing scenes from the life of Christ, figures of saints and pro- 
phets, and two processions, one of male and the other of 
female saints, advancing towards Christ and the Virgin. In 
the uppermost of these zones we may note the contrast 
between the series of miracles, still evidently inspired by the 
art of the Catacombs, and the cycle of the Passion, which is 
treated in a definitely historical style, and with obvious 
anxiety to detract in no way from the Divine Majesty. The 
two sumptuous processions of saints just referred to are 
worthy of special attention, for they have no parallel in 
Byzantine art. Their brilliantly clad figures in their charm- 
ing poses suggest a distant memory ofthePanathenaic frieze. 
From every point of view these mosaics of Sant’ Apollinare 
Nuovo hold an important place in the evolution of Byzantine 
iconography. Of no less historic interest is the decoration of 
Sant’ Apollinare in Classe where the curious representation 
of the Transfiguration appears as a last effort — at once 
complicated and subtle — of the symbolism of former days. 
But the most striking of all the compositions in the three 
churches is undoubtedly that in the choir of San Vitale. 
Round the altar are grouped episodes foretelling and glorify- 
ing the sacrifice of the Divine Lamb, and the whole design is 
inspired and unified by this sublime idea. Reminiscences of 
primitive Christian art are still blended with the feeling for 
realism and the sense of life and nature characteristic of the 
new style. The mosaics of the apse, a little later in date 
(about 547), show this style in its perfection. In the conch 
is the imposing figure of Christ, seated on the globe of the 
world, accompanied by saints and archangels. But most 



176 BYZANTINE ART 

remarkable of all are the two famous scenes in which 
Justinian and Theodora appear in all the glory of their 
imperial pomp, portraits full of life and expression, astonish- 
ing visions rising from a dead past. These magnificent 
decorations, amongst the most precious creations of Byzan- 
tine art which we still possess, enable us to form an idea of the 
nature of profane art at Byzantium, where it held an impor- 
tant place beside religious art. Unfortunately all too few 
examples of it have survived. We see, too, how powerful an 
effect could be obtained by employing mosaic, and why this 
method of decoration persisted in ordinary use for centuries 
in Eastern churches, whether the aim was solemn grandeur 
or historical realism. 

The same tendencies, the same interests, can be traced in 
all the artistic remains of the sixth century. Amongst 
existing fifth- and sixth-century illustrated manuscripts are 
some that are still throughout inspired by the Hellenistic 
spirit. In the Genesis MS. in Vienna, which dates from the 
fifth century, sacred episodes are treated as scenes from 
everyday life; the characters are placed against a landscape 
or an architectural background, and many allegorical figures 
are introduced, such as nymphs of the springs, gods of the 
mountains, and personifications of cities and virtues. We 
find a similar treatment in the seventh-century Joshua Roll 
in the Vatican, which reproduces models of undoubtedly 
earlier date, and in the Vienna MS. of the Natural History 
of Dioscorides, illuminated in the sixth century for a princess 
of the imperial family, in which there appear, among alle- 
gorical and mythological figures, portraits of the author 
himself — a common feature of the illustration of ancient 
manuscripts. There is, however, already a development in 
the illustrations of the Christian Topography of Cosmas 
Indicopleustes, which are a creation of sixth-century 
Alexandrian art, although the earliest extant copy, now in the 
Vatican, dates from the seventh century. New themes, new 
types, of a more serious and solemn nature, characteristic of 
the historical and monumental style, are mingled with 
picturesque scenes inspired by the Alexandrian tradition. 
And it is this new spirit which prevails in two sixth-century 
manuscripts of the Gospels, namely the beautiful Evangelium 



177 


BYZANTINE ART 

of Rossano in Calabria, of which the miniatures often seem 
to be a copy of mosaics, and the Syriac MS. at Florence. In 
each of these the richness of the ornament testifies to the 
growing influence of the East. 

The same dualism is manifest in the figured textiles, which 
have been found for the most part in the Egyptian cemeteries 
of Akhmim and Antinoe. The picturesque subjects which 
were the favourite motifs of Alexandrian art — mythological 
figures, genre scenes, dancing girls, and musicians — are 
followed under Persian influence by compositions in a 
different style, in which appear horsemen confronting each 
other, hunters, drivers of chariots, and also religious scenes; 
here more and more the supple freedom of Hellenistic art is 
replaced by the solemn realism of the monumental style, 
while the growing taste for polychromy is revealed in a 
richer and wider range of colours. The art of the sculptor 
shows similar tendencies. It is represented chiefly by carved 
ivories, for monumental sculpture tends to disappear and is 
reduced to a purely ornamental decoration. The Hellenistic 
style persists in such works as the Barberini ivory in the 
Louvre or the diptych of the archangel Michael in the 
British Museum. But for the most part Oriental influence 
predominates. A notable example is the celebrated throne 
of Bishop Maximian preserved at Ravenna, a masterpiece of 
technical skill and delicate craftsmanship. Here events in the 
life of Joseph, scenes from the life of Christ, and solemn 
figures of the Evangelists are placed in a richly decorated 
setting. In the gold- and silver-work from Antioch — as for 
example in the silver dishes from Kerynia (Kyrenia) in Cyprus 
and in the famous Antioch chalice, undoubtedly of the 
fifth or sixth century — we find the same note of realism, the 
same quest for truth combined with harmony and elegance. 

Thus by the end of the sixth century Christian art in the 
East seemed to be transformed. More and more under 
Oriental influence it had gradually abandoned the graces of 
the picturesque Alexandrian tradition for the solemn and 
stately grandeur of the historical style. In this development 
it had often shown novelty, originality, and creative power. 
It had proved that it could embody the glories and beauties 
of the Christian faith in great works of art, could invent 



x 7 8 BYZANTINE ART 

individual and expressive types for the characters of sacred 
history, and give living and often dramatic representations 
of the events of Gospel history. A great religious art had 
arisen, which, while always retaining something of classic 
tradition, had yet been strongly marked by Eastern influence. 
In its application to secular as well as religious subjects this 
art had produced not only great churches but masterpieces of 
civil and military architecture. And in spite of the difficult 
times that followed Justinian’s glorious reign, still in the 
seventh century it shone with unquestioned brilliance, as may 
be seen in some of the mosaics at Salonica and in the mosaics 
and frescoes of churches in Rome (St. Agnes, the Oratory of 
St. Venantius in the Lateran, the Oratory of Pope John VII, 
and the church of Santa Maria Antiqua). But notwithstand- 
ing its great qualities, this art tended to become fixed in 
those forms which tradition had consecrated. The Iconoclast 
revolution was, however, soon to reawaken and transform it 
by the introduction of fresh and living elements. 

The Iconoclast Controversy, which disturbed the peace of 
the Empire from 726 to 843, was- fated to have serious results 
for Byzantine art. The Iconoclast Emperors, though hostile 
to religious art, were by no means opposed to all display and 
all beauty. They had no liking for cold, bare churches, or 
for palaces without splendour, and were careful to put some- 
thing else in the place of the images they destroyed. They 
sought the elements of this new decoration in the picturesque 
motifs dear to Alexandrian art, which, as we have seen, 
monumental art had progressively abandoned. They had a 
liking for landscapes full of trees and flowers, circus and 
hunting scenes, portraits, too, and historical pictures in which 
their victories were recorded. This was clearly a return to 
the classical tradition that sixth-century art had gradually 
eliminated, and thus was foreshadowed the freer and more 
flexible imperial art of the tenth and eleventh centuries, in 
which imitation of antique models went side by side with a 
taste for colour and ornament derived from the East, while its 
creative power would be revealed through close observation 
of nature and of life in its search for expressive and picturesque 
detail. 



BYZANTINE ART i 79 

In spite of persecution, however, religious art had by no 
means disappeared. On the contrary, it had gained during 
the struggle an unexpected freshness and vigour, as may be 
seen in certain manuscripts, such as the Chloudoff Psalter, 
which were illuminated at this time under the influence of 
the monastery of Studius and are full of contemporary 
allusions. Thus arose in the face of imperial art a monastic 
or popular art, which after the triumph of orthodoxy would 
more and more set its stamp on the works of Byzantine art. 
We may infer that at the close of the Iconoclast crisis this 
art, under the influence of these two opposing currents, was 
ripe for a new renaissance. This renaissance, which has 
aptly been called the second golden age of Byzantine art, 
fills the period from the middle of the ninth to the end of the 
twelfth century. 

What St. Sophia had been for the architecture of the sixth 
century, that the New Church, the Nea, built at Constanti- 
nople by order of Basil I, was for the end of the ninth — the 
characteristic, the typical construction that was to serve as 
a model for numerous imitators. Like St. Sophia it was 
approached through a vast and magnificent atrium, but inter- 
nally all trace of a basilica had disappeared, its plan being 
that of an equal-armed cross inscribed in a square. It was 
crowned by five domes which were placed one at the inter- 
section of the arms and the others at the four corners of the 
building. Doubtless no more than in the case of St. Sophia 
was this plan a completely new departure, for, from the 
sixth century and even earlier, it occurs amongst the typical 
forms of Byzantine architecture. But from the tenth century 
onwards it became extraordinarily popular, and, although it 
never entirely supplanted the earlier forms of construction, it 
appears thenceforth as the habitual, one may say the classic, 
type of Byzantine architecture. It occurs in Constantinople, 
where there is an excellent example in the church of the 
Mother of God (Kilisse Djami), dating apparently from the 
eleventh century, and also at Salonica in the Kazan djilar 
Djami (1028) and the church of the Holy Apostles (twelfth 
century). It is met with in Greece and Asia Minor, in 
Bulgaria, and Serbia, in Roumania, as well as in Russia. While 



t8o BYZANTINE ART 

the plan in its application varies considerably, certain common 
tendencies appear everywhere of which it is important to 
underline the characteristic features : (i) an external emphasis 
on the main lines of the construction by means of four lofty 
vaults, ending in curved or triangular facades; and (2) the 
raising to a great height of the central dome by placing it on 
a lofty polygonal drum. Thus the somewhat heavy cubical 
mass of the older buildings is replaced by a more elegant and 
harmonious grouping of a series of diminishing vaults which 
combine to form a kind of pyramid, culminating in the 
central dome which completes the graceful outline of the 
whole. There was a like attempt to give more space and air 
to the interior of the building by substituting slender 
columns for the massive piers that formerly supported the 
dome, while the monotony of straight lines was relieved by 
hemicycles at the ends of the narthex or by a triapsidal 
termination of the sanctuary. Thus these Byzantine churches 
gained something of the grace and vigour of Gothic cathe- 
drals. And, greatest change of all, charming and skilful 
combinations of colour appeared on the external facades in 
place of the severe and depressing bareness of the great 
blank walls of former times. This was effected by alterna- 
tions of red brick with white rubble, to form geometrical 
patterns, such as chequers, key-patterns, crosses, lozenges, 
circles, and stars. Additional brilliance was attained by the 
use of glazed earthenware vessels and faience tiles. The 
curve of the apse was decorated with arcades and tall 
hollow niches, and the whole building was enlivened by the 
play of the contrasting colours of the decoration. At Con- 
stantinople in the churches of Kilisse Djami, Fetiyeh Djami, 
of the Pantocrator or Zeirek Djami, at Salonica in the church 
of the Holy Apostles, in Greece at Merbaca, and in Serbia at 
Krusevats and Kalenifi, are preserved charming examples of 
this style of decoration, which, gradually becoming richer 
and more complicated, lasted till the thirteenth and four- 
teenth centuries. All this shows to how great an extent 
Byzantine architects were able to give expression to their 
inventive talent and their desire for novelty in spite of the 
apparent fixity of forms. Their art was by no means clumsy, 
dry, monotonous, or bound by rigid formulas; it was on the 



BYZANTINE ART 181 

contrary distinguished throughout its history by astonishing 
diversity of type, by creative power, and by a scientific hand- 
ling of problems of constructional equilibrium, no less than 
by the life which inspired it. 

If to-day one wishes to form some idea of the magnificence 
of a Byzantine church during the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth 
centuries, one should visit St. Mark’s at Venice. Doubtless 
the Venetian basilica, built on the model of the church of the 
Holy Apostles in Constantinople, differs in plan from that of 
the equal-armed cross inscribed in a square which was the 
ordinary type in Byzantine architecture at this time, but with 
the five domes that form its crown, with its decoration of many- 
coloured marbles which covers the walls both within and 
without, in the lofty columns of the nave, and the pierced and 
delicately carved screens, in the glowing mosaics and the rere- 
dos of dazzling enamel set above the altar, in its atmosphere 
of purple and gold, it realizes the ideal of this art in which 
colour holds pride of place. By the richness of its mosaics, by 
the brilliance of its gold, by the splendour of its rare marbles 
St. Mark’s appeared to the Venetians (in the words of an 
inscription in the basilica) as the glory of the churches of 
Christendom. For us it stands as the living embodiment of 
Byzantium during the centuries of her revived magnificence. 

Besides these great religious monuments, civil architec- 
ture produced its own masterpieces in the shape of the 
imperial palaces. Nothing remains above ground of the 
Great Palace , 1 which rose tier upon tier on the slopes which 
climbed from the sea to the hill upon which now stands the 
mosque of Sultan Ahmed ; nothing remains of the palace of 
Blachernae at the north-western end of the landward walls 
whither the residence of the Emperors was moved from the 
twelfth century onwards; their magnificence is, however, 
fully attested by the descriptions of contemporary writers. 
The Great Palace, to which almost every Emperor from 
Constantine until the tenth century had taken pride in 
making additions, consisted of a prodigious variety of splen- 
didly decorated structures. We learn that in those of the 

1 The Walker Trust of the University of St. Andrews has carried out excavations 
on the site of the Palace. These excavations were initiated by Professor Baxter 
in 193 $. (See the bibliographical note at pp. 405, 409 infra.) 



1 82 BYZANTINE ART 

ninth century the influence of Arabian art was clearly visible. 
As a whole, the Sacred Palace of Byzantium was not unlike 
the Kremlin of the Muscovite Czars, or the Old Seraglio of 
the Ottoman Sultans. 

The beauty of the decoration is in keeping with these 
features of the architecture. To-day on entering one of these 
twelfth-century churches, such as that of Daphni (near 
Athens), or that of St. Luke the Stiriote in Phocis, St. Mark’s 
at Venice, or the Palatine Chapel at Palermo, and above all 
if one enters a church on Mt. Athos, one is at first sight 
bewildered by the wealth of Gospel scenes and figures of 
saints with which the walls and vaults are covered. The 
arrangement of the designs is, however, by no means 
fortuitous ; it was a profound idea which inspired and ordered 
the disposition of the whole. The successful presentation to 
the eyes of the faithful of the doctrines of the Church through 
this new system of decoration was assuredly one of the finest 
creations of the art of Byzantium during the ninth and tenth 
centuries. The main object of sixth-century church decora- 
tion had been, as we have seen, to record upon the walls of 
the churches scenes from the Gospel story; now, however, it 
is dogma and liturgy that are to be expressed in the decora- 
tion. Once history had taken the place of symbols, now in 
its turn history gives way before theology. 

Each cycle of scenes occupied in fact a special place in the 
church in conformity with a profound theological concep- 
tion. At the crown of the dome the Heavenly Church was 
represented by the glorious and awe-inspiring image of the 
Christ Pantocrator surrounded by angels and prophets and 
dominating the assembly of the faithful. In the apse the 
Church on Earth appears in its loftiest manifestation, that of 
the Virgin, praying for humanity, or enthroned between two 
archangels ; and beneath her, over the altar, are other scenes, 
such as the Communion of the Apostles or the Divine 
Liturgy, which called to mind the mystery of the Eucharist. 
In the rest of the building devoted to the Church on Earth the 
saints and martyrs, heroes and witnesses of the Christian 
faith, are ranged in hierarchical order; while above them 
were scenes from the Gospels representing the twelve great 



BYZANTINE ART 183 

feasts of the Church, through which the essentials of 
Christian dogma are expressed. These are the Annuncia- 
tion, Nativity, Presentation in the Temple, Baptism, Raising 
of Lazarus, Transfiguration, Entry into Jerusalem, Cruci- 
fixion, Descent into Hell, Ascension, Pentecost, and Death of 
the Virgin. No attempt was made to arrange these scenes in 
chronological order, but prominence was given to those of 
the deepest dogmatic significance, so as to draw to them 
more forcibly the attention of the faithful : thus at St. Luke 
the Stiriote’s and at Daphni special places are set apart for 
the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. Again, on the western 
wall of the church, over the entrance, was the vast composi- 
tion representing the Last Judgement. Minor episodes, 
such as the Washing of the Disciples’ Feet, and the Doubting 
of Thomas, complete a great decorative scheme in which, in 
the words of a theologian, ‘all the mysteries of the Incarna- 
tion of Christ’ were combined. Lastly, scenes from the life 
of the Virgin were generally represented in the narthex. 

At the same time iconography was enriched by the crea- 
tion of new subjects and of new types, more individual, more 
expressive, inspired by a greater realism and sincerity. Under 
the influence of the Apocryphal Gospels scenes from the life 
of the Virgin took an increasingly prominent part in church 
decoration. Certain new subjects now make their appear- 
ance, such as the Descent into Hell, the Dormition of the 
Virgin, and the Communion of the Apostles, which are 
plainly inventions of artists of genius. Here, too, there is 
creative power which does honour to the Byzantine art of 
the tenth and eleventh centuries, and it is no small proof of 
its achievement that these models dominated for centuries 
the decoration of churches throughout the whole of the 
Christian East. 

The ‘New Church’ has long vanished. Nothing remains 
of its mosaics in which the precise formula of the new 
system of decoration seems for the first time to have reached 
its full expression, but already some of the later mosaics of 
St. Sophia have been disclosed, while outside the capital 
Eastern Christendom can still show several examples of 
these combinations of theological scenes which are of very 
real importance and. of a living interest. Thus dating from 



1 84. BYZANTINE ART 

the beginning of the eleventh century there is the church of 
St. Luke’s monastery in Phocis, its mosaics and the marble 
veneering of its walls almost intact and not marred by any 
restoration; and from the end of the same century the 
mosaics of the church of the monastery of Daphni, near 
Athens, have justly been called ‘a masterpiece of Byzantine 
art’. Between the beginning and the end of the eleventh 
century the successive stages in the development and pro- 
gress of the new art are illustrated in a series of other build- 
ings, such as St. Sophia of Kiev (mid-eleventh century), 
with its mosaics and its curious frescoes representing 
Byzantine court life and performances in the hippodrome; 
Nea Moni in the island of Chios, unfortunately seriously 
damaged; St. Sophia of Salonica, which has a representation 
of the Ascension in the dome ; the church of the Dormition 
of the Virgin at Nicaea, completely destroyed in the Greco- 
Turkish war of 1922; the cathedral of Torcello, famous for 
its great Last Judgement; and in St. Mark’s at Venice, 
which also dates from the end of the eleventh century, the 
decorations of the three domes of the nave and the cycle of 
the great feasts of the Church on the curve of the great 
arches. 

It is remarkable how much all these works still owe to 
ancient tradition. Some, particularly those of Daphni, are 
almost classic in their feeling for line, sensitive drawing, and 
delicate modelling. The beauty of the types, the elegant 
drapery, and harmonious grouping of some of these 
compositions show to what an extent the influence of anti- 
quity persisted, despite impoverishment, as a living force in 
Byzantine art. On the other hand, it is from the East that 
this art acquired its taste for a picturesque and vivid realism, 
and especially the feeling for colour and its skilful use which 
constitute one of the chief innovations of the eleventh 
century. Painting was formerly inspired in great measure 
by sculpture; sixth-century mosaic figures often resemble 
statues of marble or of metal. But this sober character now 
gives way to a variety, a complexity of effects, and a richness 
that mark the advent of a colourist school. The blue grounds 
of an earlier period are replaced by gold ones, already at 
times enlivened by the introduction of decorative landscape 



BYZANTINE ART 185 

or architecture. Against these backgrounds of gold the 
bright hues of the draperies, the interplay of complementary 
colours, and the neutral tones of incidental features are all 
combined ; the technical skill of the artist matches the refine- 
ment of his work; it is one of the characteristic features of 
this great artistic movement. 

Many of these works and still more the representations 
of secular subjects drawn from mythology or history which 
decorated the imperial palace and the houses of the great 
nobles of this period are derived from this imperial art which 
was steeped in memories of antiquity, but was freer and more 
elastic and showed a genuine creative power. But opposed 
to this official art and very different from it both in spirit and 
in method there was a monastic and popular art, more 
realistic and dramatic, which, under the growing influence 
of the Church, progressively freed itself from the traditions 
of Hellenism and in the end ousted imperial art imposing its 
own more rigid and austere programme. The tendencies of 
this religious art are seen in the newly discovered frescoes 
of the rock churches of Cappadocia and in those which 
decorate the chapels of hermits in southern Italy. They 
appear even more clearly in illuminated manuscripts. It was 
the ecclesiastic and monastic influences that finally pre- 
vailed, fixing the types, stiffening the poses of the figures, 
and eliminating everything that seemed too much the out- 
come of individual fantasy, or too suspect of ancient pagan- 
ism. Nevertheless, for a long time the two opposing schools 
reacted upon each other ; they had many qualities in common, 
and they shared in one and the same endeavour to inspire 
with a new spirit the art of Byzantium. 

The truth of these observations is borne out by a study of 
illustrated manuscripts. The epoch of the Macedonian and 
Comnenian Emperors (from the end of the ninth to the end 
of the twelfth century) was unquestionably the most brilliant 
period of Byzantine miniature painting. Many fine manu- 
scripts have come down to us from this time, several of which, 
illuminated expressly for Emperors, are real masterpieces, 
revealing the character and the dominating tastes of the age. 

What strikes one most in these works is the two opposing 
tendencies by which they are inspired. Without dwelling on 



1 86 BYZANTINE ART 

the relatively considerable part played in the art of this time 
by the illustration of classical works (such as the Nicander in 
the Biblioth&que Nationale at Paris and the Oppian in the 
Marcian Library at Venice), in which there is an obvious 
return to the traditions of Alexandrian art, we notice even in 
religious manuscripts the same current of antique inspira- 
tion. Instances of this may be found in the beautiful 
psalters of the so-called ‘aristocratic’ series, a particularly 
fine example of which is the tenth-century psalter now in the 
Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris; in illustrated manuscripts 
of the Gospels, a whole series of which shows the character- 
istics of the Hellenistic school of Alexandria; and in a whole 
group of manuscripts of St. Gregory of Nazianzus, in which 
an essential place is taken by picturesque scenes of everyday 
life and by episodes borrowed from mythology. The 
influence of this imperial and secular art is seen also in the 
very expressive portraits that adorn some of these manu- 
scripts, for instance those of the Emperor Nicephorus 
Botaniates (in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Par is) who 
appears in several miniatures with his wife or some of his 
ministers, and the fine portrait of Basil II in the Venice 
psalter. 

But this imperial art was strongly countered by the 
monastic tendency. Against the ‘aristocratic’ psalter stands 
the psalter with marginal illustrations, in a more popular and 
realistic style. In contrast to the Alexandrian version of 
Gospel illustration, we find the Eastern version from 
Antioch; and side by side with the literary and secular type 
of the miniatures of the manuscript of Gregory of Nazianzus 
there is the theological type, a fine example of which is the 
beautiful manuscript executed for Basil I in the Bibliotheque 
Nationale of Paris. This monastic art had assuredly no less 
creative power than its imperial rival: witness the illustra- 
tions of the Octateuch, where at times a distinctly novel 
effect is produced by the turn for realist observation which 
has made contemporary dress and manners live again for us; 
witness also the beautiful ornament, inspired by the East, 
that covers with a profusion of brightly coloured motifs the 
initial pages of many Gospel manuscripts. But in these 
miniature paintings, as in the larger works of Byzantine 



BYZANTINE ART 187 

painting, one notes the progressive weakening of classical 
tradition and the increasing ascendancy of religious in- 
fluences. The sumptuous Menologium in the Vatican 
Library, illuminated for Basil II, is somewhat monotonous 
and shows an obvious anxiety to conform to the traditional 
‘canon’, notwithstanding the apparent variety of subject and 
the skill of the eight artists who illustrated it. And the 
triumph of the monastic spirit is still more evident in twelfth- 
century manuscripts, such as that containing the Homilies of 
James the Monk. Art became more and more subject to the 
rule laid down by the Council of Nicaea in 787; ‘it is for 
painters to execute, for the Fathers to order and to prescribe’. 
In the end the Church succeeded in making her doctrinal 
and liturgical tendencies prevail. But it is none the less a 
fact that the miniature painting of the Second Golden Age, 
as conceived by the artists of the imperial school, with their 
love of incident, landscape, and the picturesque, contributed 
largely to prepare the development from which the last 
renaissance of Byzantine art arose. 

A further noteworthy characteristic of all the works of 
this period is the taste for magnificence and display. With 
its love of luxury and passion for colour, the art of this age 
delighted in the production of masterpieces that spread the 
fame of Byzantium in the Middle Ages throughout the whole 
of the Christian world. 

Amongst these were the beautiful silks from the work- 
shops of Constantinople, triumphs of Byzantine industry, 
portraying in dazzling colour animals — lions, elephants, 
eagles, and griffins — confronting each other, or representing 
Emperors gorgeously arrayed on horseback or engaged in the 
chase. There were also carvings in ivory, precious caskets 
adorned with classical or secular motifs, or, as on the casket 
at Troyes, with figures of Emperors, together with diptychs, 
such as the tenth-century plaque in the Cabinet of Medals at 
Paris, on which Christ is shown crowning Romanus II and 
Eudocia (tenth century). This is one of the finest achieve- 
ments which Byzantine art has bequeathed to us. There 
were ivories carved with religious subjects, such as the 
Harbaville triptych in the Louvre (tenth century), the Sens 



1 88 BYZANTINE ART 

casket, the Virgin from the former Stroganoff collection in 
Rome, now in the Cleveland (U.S.A.) Museum, and many 
others in which the lessons of classical tradition are combined 
with the inspiration of the East and with an observation 
of nature: there were bronze doors executed in a skilful 
combination of damascening with niello work, and the 
craftsmanship of goldsmiths and silversmiths, a fine example 
of which is the beautiful repoussd silver-gilt plaque in the 
Louvre, representing the Holy Women at the Sepulchre; 
and, above all, enamel-work, which Byzantium had borrowed 
from Persia, was specially popular in the tenth and eleventh 
centuries on account of its brilliant and gorgeous colouring. 
With a wealth of enamel the Byzantines adorned crosses, 
reliquaries, reredoses, icons, caskets and even crowns, rich 
bookbindings, and dresses for state occasions. Enamels, in 
fact, together with figured textiles represented the height of 
Byzantine luxury. A few beautiful examples which bear 
witness to the fine qualities of this art have happily survived : 
the reliquary at Limburg, which belonged to an Emperor 
of the tenth century ; the twelfth-century Esztergon reliquary ; 
the admirable figure of St. Michael in the Treasury of St. 
Mark’s at Venice (tenth or eleventh century) ; the crowns of 
Constantine Monomachus and St. Stephen at Budapest; the 
cross of Cosenza; and the dazzling Pala d’Oro over the high 
altar of the basilica of Venice. As Kondakov has truly said, 
‘nothing shows more clearly than these enamels the gross 
error of those who talk of the stiffness and poverty of 
Byzantine art’, and nothing else can so well account for its 
far-reaching influence. 

From the tenth to the twelfth centuries Byzantine Con- 
stantinople appeared to the whole civilized world to be a 
city of marvels: in the words of Villehardouin, ‘the city 
sovereign above all others’. In the cold fogs of Scandinavia 
and beside icy Russian rivers, in Venetian counting-houses 
or Western castles, in Christian France and Italy as well as 
in the Mussulman East, all through the Middle Ages folk 
dreamed of Byzantium, the incomparable city, radiant in a 
blaze of gold. As early as the sixth century the range of its 
influence was already astonishing, and its art had exercised 
a potent influence in North Africa, in Italy, and even in 



BYZANTINE ART ^9 

Spain. From the tenth to the twelfth centuries this influence 
became yet greater; Byzantine art was at that time ‘the art 
which set the standard for Europe’, and its supremacy can 
be compared only with that of French art in the thirteenth 
century. For any choice work, if it were difficult of execution 
or of rare quality, recourse was had to Constantinople. 
Russian princes of Kiev, Venetian doges, abbots of Monte 
Cassino, merchants of Amalfi, or Norman kings of Sicily — 
if a church had to be built, decorated with mosaics, or en- 
riched with costly work in gold and silver, it was to the great 
city on the Bosphorus that they resorted for artists or works 
of art. Russia, Venice, southern Italy, and Sicily were at 
that time virtually provincial centres of East Christian art. 
The twelfth-century frescoes of the churches of Nereditza, 
near Novgorod, Pskov and Staraya Ladoga, and especially 
those lately discovered in St. Demetrius at Vladimir, repeat 
the creations of the masters of the Byzantine capital. The 
same may be said of the eleventh-century mosaics at Kiev in 
the churches of St. Sophia and St. Michael of the Golden 
Heads. The bronze doors preserved in the churches of 
Amalfi, Salerno, at Monte Sant’ Angelo, and San Paolo 
Without the Walls are Byzantine works, as is likewise the 
beautiful fresco over the entrance to Sant’ Angelo in Formis. 
The art which arose in the eleventh century at the great 
Abbey of Monte Cassino and that which in the twelfth and 
thirteenth centuries decorated with mosaics the churches of 
Rome are profoundly marked by Oriental influence. By their 
style, arrangement, and iconography the mosaics of St. 
Mark’s at Venice and of the cathedral at Torcello clearly 
reveal their Byzantine origin. Similarly those of the Palatine 
Chapel, the Martorana at Palermo, and the cathedral of 
Cefalu, together with the vast decoration of the cathedral at 
Monreale, demonstrate the influence of Byzantium on the 
Norman Court of Sicily in the twelfth century. Hispano- 
Moorish art was unquestionably derived from the Byzantine. 
Romanesque art owes much to the East, from which it 
borrowed not only its decorative forms but the plan of some 
of its buildings, as is proved, for instance, by the domed 
churches of south-western France. The Ottoman renais- 
sance in Germany in the tenth and eleventh centuries was 



t 9 o BYZANTINE ART 

ikewise strongly affected by Byzantine influence which 
asted on into the twelfth century. Certainly one must not 
exaggerate either the range or the duration of the effect of 
the East on the arts of the West. The artists who sat at the 
r eet of Byzantine masters were not entirely forgetful of their 
national traditions, and Byzantine models tended rather, as 
lias been said, ‘to awaken in them a consciousness of their 
own qualities’. From the school of the Greeks they learned a 
feeling for colour, a higher technical accomplishment, and 
a greater mastery over their materials, and profiting by these 
lessons they were enabled to attempt works of a more 
individual character. It is none the less true that from the 
tenth to the twelfth century Byzantium was the main source 
of inspiration for the West. The marvellous expansion of 
her art during this period is one of the most remarkable 
facts in her history. 

At about the same time Byzantium exercised a similar 
influence in Asia. The churches of Armenia and Georgia, 
though highly original, are linked by many features to the 
Byzantine tradition, and there is doubtless some exaggera- 
tion in attributing to Armenia, as has lately been done, a 
paramount influence in the formation of Byzantine art. 
Eastern Europe certainly received much from Armenia, but 
in this exchange of influences Byzantium gave at least as 
much as she received. Arabian art also profited greatly by 
her teaching. Though Byzantium undoubtedly learnt much 
from the art of Arabia, in return she made the influence of 
her civilization felt there, as she did in the twelfth century in 
Latin Syria. 

From the end of the twelfth century one can observe a 
development in Byzantine art that was to have important 
consequences. In the frescoes of the church of Nerez (near 
Skoplie in Serbia), which are dated to 1 1 65, there appears an 
unexpected tendency towards dramatic or pathetic feeling in 
the representations of the Threnos, or the Descent from the 
Cross. The frescoes of the Serbian churches of MileSevo 
(1236) and SopoCani (about 1250), and of Boiana in Bulgaria 
(1259), show in the expression of the faces a remarkable 
sense of realism and life; and in the thirteenth-century 



BYZANTINE ART i 9 j 

Genesis mosaics which decorate the narthex of St. Mark’s 
at Venice we find landscape, architectural features, and an 
equally novel taste for the picturesque. These characteristic" 
tendencies mark the beginning of a transformation in 
Byzantine art. Moreover the well-known intellectual move- 
ment in Constantinople of the fourteenth century brought 
about a revival of the classical tradition and a return to the 
ideas and models of Greek antiquity. These facts might lead 
us to expect, and do indeed explain, the new aspect which 
Byzantine art was to assume in the fourteenth and fifteenth 
centuries and that last brilliant renaissance in which it found 
its expression. 

When fifty years ago mosaics dating from the beginning 
of the fourteenth century were discovered in the mosque of 
Kahrieh Djami at Constantinople, they revealed an art so 
different from that of the Byzantine monuments which were 
then known that they gave rise to much perplexity. They 
were at first taken for Italian work; it was proposed to credit 
them to some pupil of Giotto, who about this time was 
designing the frescoes of the chapel of the Arena at Padua in 
much the same style. Discoveries made in the East during 
the last thirty years have, however, demonstrated the falsity 
of this hypothesis and proved that the Kahrieh mosaics were 
by no means a solitary creation but one of a great series of 
works scattered over the whole of the Christian East. This 
powerful artistic movement can be traced in the frescoes 
which decorate the churches of Mistra in the Morea, as well 
as in the churches of Macedonia and Serbia: it appears in 
the churches of Roumania as at Curtea de Arges and in the 
Russian churches at Novgorod; it is even visible in the 
mosaics of the baptistery of St. Mark’s at Venice. Of the Mt. 
Athos paintings, while the earliest date from the fourteenth 
century, those of the sixteenth show the last flowering of this 
great artistic revival. In all these closely allied works the 
art is the same ; everywhere we find the same love of life, of 
movement, and the picturesque, together with a passion for 
the dramatic, the tender, and the pathetic. It was a realistic 
art, in which a masterly power of composition was combined 
with a wonderful sense of colour, and thus in the history of 
Byzantine art it appears as both original and creative. 



x 9 2 BYZANTINE ART 

One must admit that this art was influenced to some extent 
by the Italian masters of Siena, Florence, and Venice; from 
them it learned some lessons. And in the same way it may 
be admitted that, as has been said, the fourteenth-century 
Byzantine painters sought at times to revive their impover- 
ished art by imitating the narrative style of their own sixth- 
century models. Nevertheless imitation of Italy was always 
cautious and restrained, and it cannot be doubted that this 
art remained essentially Byzantine alike in arrangement, in 
style, and in iconography. Its incontestable originality and 
creative power are evidenced by the altered character of its 
iconography, which has become richer and more complex, 
reviving ancient motifs and at the same time inventing new 
subjects; it is manifested in its incomparable colour sense, 
which at times suggests modern impressionist art. These 
new qualities are in themselves the expression of a new 
aesthetic by virtue of which a particular value is attached to 
beauty of form, to technical skill, to graceful attitudes, and 
to the portrayal of facial emotions. One can therefore no 
longer dispute either the definitely Byzantine character or 
the originality of this last renaissance (from the fourteenth to 
the sixteenth century) which may be called a Third Golden 
Age of Byzantine Art. 

The architectural creations of this period need not long 
detain us. There are, however, some buildings worthy of 
note, such as the charming church of the Pantanassa at 
Mistra (first half of the fifteenth century) or that of the 
Serbian monastery at Decani (first half of the fourteenth 
century), both interesting examples of the combination of 
Western influence with Byzantine tradition. Their exterior 
decoration is also very picturesque, as is that of the Serbian 
churches of the Morava school (end of the fourteenth 
century). On the whole the Byzantine buildings of this time 
do little more than carry on the traditions of the preceding 
period, and though we find in them great variety and can 
even distinguish different schools of architecture, such as the 
Greek and Serbian schools, there are few really original 
creations. Beautiful churches were still being built, such as 
the Fetiyeh Djami at Constantinople, the church of the 



$ BYZANTINE ART 193 

Holy Apostles at Salonica, the Peribleptos at Mistra, or the 
church of Our Lady of Consolation at Arta, and many 
others; but though their architects made ingenious use 
of traditional forms, they seldom added anything new or 
individual. 

Further, in the impoverished state of the Empire, the arts 
of luxury began to decline. The production of works in 
costly material — gold and silver — or of those which needed 
patient or difficult technical proficiency, such as ivories and 
enamels, seems to have been almost abandoned. Fresco 
painting, on the other hand, which more and more took the 
place of the too costly mosaic, was of extreme importance in 
the art of this period. The flexibility and the wider possibi- 
lities of this medium responded better to the new tendencies 
of an art that aimed at refinement of execution and delicacy 
of colouring in its rendering of movement, expression, and 
the picturesque. For this reason the period from the begin- 
ning of the fourteenth century to the middle of the sixteenth, 
remarkable works of which are still extant, is perhaps the 
finest epoch in the history of Byzantine painting. 

Between 1310 and 1320 the Great Logothete, Theodore 
Metochites, caused the church of the monastery of Chora in 
Constantinople (now the Kahrieh Djami) to be decorated 
with the beautiful mosaics still to be seen there. It is the 
masterpiece of the school that flourished in the capital at that 
time. In the series of scenes taken from the life of the Virgin 
and from the life of Christ which decorate the walls of the 
church we find a masterly power of composition, as, for 
instance, in the Distribution of the Purple, or the Taking of 
the Census before Quirinius; a close observation, and often 
a singularly realistic rendering of life, as in figures of the 
scene where the Christ is healing the sick; a taste for the 
picturesque which finds expression in the landscapes and 
architectural features introduced in the backgrounds of the 
compositions, and in the tendency to transform sacred 
episodes into veritable genre scenes, as in the tenderness of 
the St. Anne at prayer in a flowery garden. The effect of the 
whole series was greatly enhanced by the brilliant and 
harmonious colouring with its deep rich tones and the lively 
play of its lighting. This church, which, in its founder’s 

3082 H 



i 9 4 BYZANTINE ART 

words, had assured him eternal glory amongst those who 

should come after him, is indeed a superb creation. 

Similar qualities are found in the paintings in the churches 
of Mistra. The unknown master who painted the frescoes of 
the Peribleptos (mid-fourteenth century) has shown more 
than once, it has been truly said, the expressive power of 
Giotto himself, as for instance in his admirable rendering of 
the Divine Liturgy. One feels that these works are the 
product of an art of the utmost erudition and refinement, 
penetrated through and through by the influence of human- 
ism and strongly attracted by the worldly graces that were 
always in the ascendant at Constantinople. The Mistra 
frescoes are also distinguished by a rare colour sense. From 
every point of view they may be regarded as the finest 
embodiment of the new style that arose in the first half of the 
fourteenth century. 

The artists, certainly of Greek origin and probably sum- 
moned from Constantinople, who decorated for the Serbian 
princes the churches of Studenitza (1314), Nagoricino 
(1317), Gracanica, and a little later that of Lesnovo (1349), 
show the same high qualities in their work. Some of their 
compositions, such as the Presentation of the Virgin at 
Studenitza and the Dormition of the Virgin at Nagoricino 
have a peculiar charm, and the portraits of their founders in 
most of these churches are no less remarkable. Equally 
worthy of attention are the Serbian frescoes of the end of the 
fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth, such 
as those at Ravanitza, Ljubostinja, Manassija, and Kalenid. 

But the influence of Byzantine art in the time of the 
Palaeologi extended even beyond Serbia and its neighbour 
Bulgaria. In the church of St. Nicholas Domnese at Curtea de 
Arges in Roumania there are some admirable mid-fourteenth- 
century frescoes — a masterpiece of composition and tender 
feeling. And even after the fall of Constantinople the 
picturesque churches of Northern Moldavia, so curiously 
decorated with paintings even on the outside walls, carried 
on the remote tradition of the wonders of Byzantium until 
the end of the sixteenth century. In Russia the churches in 
and around Novgorod were decorated towards the end of 
the fourteenth century with remarkable frescoes, attributed 



BYZANTINE ART 195 

to an artist known as Theophanes the Greek. Here, too, the 
Byzantine origin of these paintings is unquestionable; they 
afford another instance of the astonishing vitality and 
prestige of Byzantine art in its last phase. 

Once again it was in the capital of the Empire that this 
last great movement in Byzantine art seems to have origi- 
nated. At that time there was a brilliant school of art in 
Constantinople; many of its works have survived to testify 
to its excellence. From it, doubtless, were derived the two 
great currents into which the movement diverged, which 
have been called the Macedonian and the Cretan schools. 
Each of them had its own distinctive character. The former, 
open to both Eastern and Italian influence, owes to the East 
its realistic and dramatic style and the arrangement of the 
composition in long unbroken friezes, while from Italy came 
the tender feeling shown in certain gestures and the emotion 
expressed by certain attitudes, such as those of the Virgin 
Mother caressing the Holy Child or fainting at the foot of 
the Cross, or in the details of the grievous story of the 
Passion. Yet beneath this discreet borrowing the Byzantine 
foundation is always apparent. In the origin of its master 
artists as well as by the nature of its themes this Macedonian 
school descends from Byzantium. It is marked by a broad 
and spirited technique, definitely characteristic of fresco 
painting. 

By contrast the Cretan school was truer to Byzantine 
idealism. While not despising the graceful or the pic- 
turesque, it was remarkable rather for its lucidity, restraint, 
and aristocratic quality, which bear witness to its high ideal 
of distinction. It was characterized also by great technical 
skill. Its art was the refined and scholarly art of painters of 
easel pieces and subtle icons. Like the Macedonian school 
it had a profound knowledge of colour, which it applied with 
even greater skill and refinement, playing on the scale of 
tones and combining tone-values into exquisite harmonies. 
It would seem probable that it sprang directly from the 
school that flourished at Constantinople and that it learned 
there the traditions of the imperial city. 

During nearly three centuries these two great schools 
shared in guiding the course of art throughout Eastern 



i 9 6 BYZANTINE ART 

Christendom. The Macedonian School flourished especially 
in the fourteenth century. To this school we owe the paint- 
ings in the Macedonian and Serbian churches, which con- 
stitute one of the richest legacies which Byzantine art has 
bequeathed to us. From this school come the masterly 
frescoes of Curtea de Arges, the decorations of the Metro- 
politan Church at Mistra, and those of several churches in 
and around Novgorod. At about the same time the influence 
of the Cretan school made itself felt at Mistra in the frescoes 
of the Peribleptos, which are doubtless its great masterpiece. 
From the end of the fourteenth century it ousted its rival in 
Serbia and in Russia, where the great master Theophanes 
the Greek was working; similarly in the sixteenth century it 
was to supplant it also in the monasteries of Mt. Athos, where 
the two opposing schools met for the last time. 

On Mt. Athos in the fourteenth century the Macedonian 
school had been at first predominant. It had decorated the 
churches of Vatopedi, Chilandari, and notably that of the 
Protaton at Karyes, where the paintings which survive are 
perhaps the most remarkable of all those on the Holy 
Mountain. Then, in the sixteenth century, the Cretan 
school triumphed. We owe to it the decorations of the 
Catholicon of the Lavra (1535), of Dionysiou (1547), 
Dochiariou (1568), and many others. But at the same time 
the Macedonian school still retained its influence, and its 
work is seen in the refectories of the Lavra (1512) and of 
Dionysiou (154 5). The two schools were represented by two 
great rival painters, namely Manuel Panselinus of Salonica, 
and Theophanes of Crete. To the former, a somewhat 
mysterious artist who has in turn been called the Giotto and 
the Raphael of Byzantine painting, the monks of Mt. Athos 
are ready to attribute every outstanding piece of work 
preserved in their monasteries. The Painters' Manual says 
that ‘he towered above all painters, ancient or modern, as is 
abundantly proved by his frescoes and panel pictures’. He 
was the last and most illustrious representative of the Mace- 
donian school. With no less distinction Theophanes of 
Crete, with his sons and pupils, represented the Cretan 
school, as may be seen in the paintings bearing his signature 
which survive in the monasteries of Mt. Athos and the 



BYZANTINE ART 197 

Meteora. The admiration of contemporaries was divided 
between these two great artists. And it is a remarkable 
testimony to the versatility of this art that alongside of these 
clearly distinct schools one can also recognize powerful 
personalities, each having his own individual style and 
manner. 

There are other works from this last period of Byzantine 
art which still survive. First, there are the illuminated 
manuscripts. It is true that these miniature paintings seldom 
have the outstanding qualities characteristic of the preceding 
period. A poverty of ideas, and these often rendered by 
childish daubs — such is the scornful judgement which has 
been passed on them. Several works, however, such as the 
manuscript of John Cantacuzenus in the Bibliothfeque 
Nationale at Paris, or the Serbian Psalter at Munich, lack 
neither beauty nor interest, and the vigorous and glowing 
colour of the latter has justly received high praise. The 
manuscript of the Chronicle of Skylitzes (preserved at 
Madrid) in its six hundred curious miniatures seems to 
reflect the historical wall-paintings which decorated Byzan- 
tine palaces. In all these works one finds the same taste for 
the picturesque, power of realistic observation, and sense of 
colour which are found in the frescoes of that time. But 
apart from paintings on a large scale it is icons and embroi- 
deries that appear to have been the favourite forms of 
artistic production from the fourteenth to the sixteenth 
century. In particular the masters of the Cretan school seem 
to have been great painters of icons, and indeed this form of 
art accorded even better than fresco painting with the new 
aesthetic of the age. There have survived also from the time 
of the Palaeologi a large number of works in mosaic and 
tempera. In more than one instance there can be traced in 
these compositions the life and freedom, the love of the 
picturesque, and the tender feeling characteristic of four- 
teenth-century painting. The same may be said of certain 
masterpieces of embroidery, such as the so-called ‘Dalmatic 
of Charlemagne’ to be seen in the sacristy of St. Peter’s at 
Rome, or the beautiful Epitaphios of Salonica now in the 
Byzantine Museum at Athens, which are both undoubtedly 



198 BYZANTINE ART 

works of the school of Constantinople. In harmony of colour 
and beauty of design they both attain a very high levelj and 
they display the same qualities that can be seen in the 
mosaics of Kahrieh Djami, in the frescoes of Mistra, and the 
paintings of Serbian churches. Thus all the qualities of 
Byzantine art are preserved in these works of the fourteenth 
century; everywhere in the picturesque or pathetic elements 
of their compositions, and in the matchless skill of their 
colouring, we find the same observation of nature and life, 
the same contrast between elegance and realism, and the 
same creative impulse. If moreover due account is taken of 
the great inventive power of the new iconography which 
made its appearance at that time, it is not possible to deny 
the originality of this last phase of Byzantine art, whatever 
its remoter origins may have been. 

At this time once more, as in the sixth and as in the 
eleventh and twelfth centuries, the influence of Byzantine art 
spread far and wide. We have seen how great it was through- 
out the Christian East, and how Russian icon painting in the 
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries followed the teaching of 
Byzantium. In the West, especially in Italy in the twelfth 
and fourteenth centuries, it was no less significant; and it has 
aptly been said that ‘the two worlds, so widely separated in 
language, religion, customs and ideas, seem to be in com- 
munion with each other through their art’. We have men- 
tioned some of the resemblances — gestures and poses, for 
instance — that seem to have been copied from Italian models. 
But Byzantium in fact gave more to Italy than she received 
from her. A study of the mosaics of the Baptistery at 
Florence and the frescoes of the Baptistery of Parma, both 
of the thirteenth century, or of the remarkable paintings 
lately found in the church of St. Mary in Vescovio reveals the 
unmistakable imprint of Byzantine art. Duccio, in his 
famous reredos of the Maesti, and Giotto, in his frescoes of 
the Arena Chapel, have drawn freely from the treasury of 
Byzantine iconography, and in spite of all that is individual 
in their work it is evident that they owe much to the lessons 
and traditions of Byzantium. It is indeed hardly a paradox 
to maintain, as has been done, that Giotto was simply a 
Byzantine of genius. 



BYZANTINE ART 199 

Thus in the Christian East there arose between the 
thirteenth and the middle of the sixteenth century a great 
artistic movement which displayed its real originality in 
many remarkable creations. It was the final effort of this 
Byzantine art which after the middle of the sixteenth century 
was gradually to become fixed in what has been called a 
‘hieratic’ immobility, in a lifeless repetition, from which 
there was no escape. The technical handbook known as 
The Painters' Manual clearly shows the importance of the 
place that workshop formulae were henceforth to take in 
the creation of works of art. Such manuals, dignified by the 
famous names of Panselinus and Theophanes of Crete, ex- 
isted from the sixteenth century. But before it reached this 
decadence Byzantine art had had a glorious existence for 
many centuries. It was by no means, as has often been said 
of it, a stagnant art, incapable of self-renewal, nothing more 
than the imitation during a thousand years of the works of 
those artists of genius who in the fifth and sixth centuries 
had given it a new form. It was a living art and, like every 
living organism, it had known development and transforma- 
tion. At first in Justinian’s century, then under the Mace- 
donian and Comnenian Emperors, and again in the time of 
the Palaeologi, it knew successive periods of incomparable 
brilliance, each with its own characteristic differences. Not 
only so, but throughout every phase of its history it exercised 
a profound influence upon the world without. Such was 
Byzantine art, and for this reason it must always remain one 
of the most remarkable aspects of Byzantine civilization and 
one of its lasting glories. 


CHARLES DIEHL 



VII 

BYZANTINE EDUCATION 

To write about education in the Byzantine Empire is no 
easy task. The time embraced from Constantine to 1453 is 
eleven centuries, and the area covered, at least in the early 
days, is enormous, for a subject of the Emperor of Con- 
stantinople might be born and educated in Athens, Alexan- 
dria, or Antioch. Furthermore, information is hard to collect 
because, though scholars abound as the finished product, 
education is so rarely described at length and the allusions 
to its methods are often regrettably vague. 

With this proviso we shall attempt to ascertain (1) who 
were taught in the Byzantine Empire and what they learnt, 
(2) who gave the teaching and where. 

1 . St. Gregory Nazianzen confidently states : ‘I think that 
all those who have sense will acknowledge that education is 
the first of the goods we possess’, and J. B. Bury was doubtless 
right in saying that in the Eastern Empire ‘every boy and 
girl whose parents could afford to pay was educated’, in 
contrast to the West where in the Dark Ages book learning 
was drawn from monastic sources. Princes and princesses 
might of course command the services of instructors in 
public positions. St. Arsenius, ‘admired for Hellenic and 
Latin learning’, was summoned from Rome by Theodosius I 
to teach his two sons, and a daughter of Leo I studied 
with Dioscurius, afterwards City Prefect. The ex-Patriarch 
Photius taught in the family of Basil I ; young Michael VII 
learnt from Psellus, ‘chief of the philosophers’, and his son 
Constantine Ducas was the ornament of a School kept by 
Archbishop Theophylact. John of Euchalta tells us that 
St. Dorotheus the Younger, sprung from a noble family of 
Trebizond, spent the first twelve years of his life ‘as was 
natural to one well-born’ under the rule of ‘teachers and 
pedagogues’. But middle-class children also, like St. 
Theodore the Studite or Psellus, might be well educated. 
Even the Scythian slave St, Andreas Salos was taught Greek 
and the ‘sacred writings’ by his master’s orders, and St. 



V BYZANTINE EDUCATION 201 

Theodore the Syceote, son of a prostitute in a Galatian inn, 
went to the village school. The fourth-century philosopher 
Themistius, indeed, said that one could learn as well in a 
small town as a large ; Brdhier has, however, shown that rural 
education was by no means completely organized. 1 The 
parents of St. Simeon Stylites only had him taught to mind 
sheep; St. Joannicius was too busy tending his father’s pigs 
to acquire even the rudiments till at forty-seven he became a 
monk; St. Euthymius when he entered a monastery could 
neither read nor write. 

Naturally it is chiefly from the biographies of famous men 
that we can learn some details of educational practice. About 
obscurer boys we know next to nothing, and in the case of 
women we can only infer, from scattered hints, that handi- 
crafts and a knowledge of the ‘sacred writings’ learnt at 
home were usually, even for a scholar’s child like Styliane, 
daughter of Psellus, considered education enough. East 
Roman girls apparently went neither to school nor to 
university. Attention must therefore perforce be concen- 
trated upon the education of a few outstanding personalities. 

Although the Byzantines were eager to call themselves 
Romaioi and to claim for their own a Roman tradition, their 
training was purely Greek. Libanius in the fourth century 
neither studied nor taught ‘barbarian’ Latin, and though 
Theodosius II in a.d. 425 appointed to his University in 
Constantinople both Latin and Greek teachers, the latter 
outnumbered the former. Justinian, who published in Latin 
his Code, Digest, and Institutes of Roman law, yet issued his 
later constitutions in the Greek language that they might 
more readily be understood. In 1045 Constantine IX had to 
stipulate that the head of his new Law School must know 
Latin, and this knowledge was probably purely academic, as 
we have no evidence of spoken Latin in eleventh-century 
Byzantium. From the fourth century the language and 
the substance of education in the Eastern provinces of the 
Empire was Greek. Only in the last two centuries of the 
Empire’s history the attempts to unite the Churches of 
West and East necessitated a knowledge of Latin. There 

1 L. Brfhier, ‘Les Populations rurales au IX s si&cle d'apr&s I’hagiographie 
byzantine’, Byzantion, vol. i (1924), pp. 177-90, at p. 182. 



202 BYZANTINE EDUCATION 

was, as Professor Maas has said, ‘a perhaps unexpressed but 

none the less binding law’ to exclude Latin words from the 

‘Hochsprache’. 

Within the Eastern provinces of the Empire, indeed, the 
Latin language never took root. Berytus, with its famous 
school of Roman law, must have long remained a Latin island 
in a Greek sea. Latinisms, it is true, survived in the legends 
upon the coinage, in the technical, legal, and military terms, 
and in Court titles. Many Latin words found their way into 
popular speech and are used by the writers of chronicles and 
of biographies of the saints. Not a few of these Latinisms 
have persisted right through the Middle Ages and are still 
present in modern Greek. Psellus in his Chronographia 
praises Romanus III for having shared in the culture con- 
nected with Italian (i.e. Roman) letters, but it may well be 
doubted whether the Emperor could in fact even read Latin 
texts. 

Further, it must not be forgotten that the distinction was 
sharply drawn between ‘our’, that is, Christian, learning and 
the kind described as 'outside’, ‘foreign’, or ‘Hellene’, i.e. 
classical pagan culture. When Christianity had become the 
State religion, if ‘Orthography’ and ‘Grammar’ were to be 
taught at all, Christian children must of necessity still use 
pagan text-books and read pagan works. St. Basil, instancing 
Moses and Daniel as men who had profited by profane 
learning, advised the young to study classical history and 
literature, but purely for the moral conveyed. They were, 
like Ulysses with the Sirens, to close their ears against any 
poetry that told of bad men or evil gods, and in all literature 
they were to pick out the good as bees draw their honey from 
the flowers. In the Lives of the Saints we are frequently 
assured that, though the holy men studied astronomy, they 
piously referred all phenomena to God and not to the stars, 
and though they learnt the practice and copied the grace of 
Greek rhetoric, they avoided its ‘babble’ and ‘falsities’ no 
less than ‘the sophistical part’ of philosophy. It was his 
‘virtue’ quite as much as his ‘Hellenic culture’ that entitled 
John of Euchalta, as the Menaion of 30 January tells us, 
to pronounce on the intellectual merits of the three great 
Fathers of the Church, St. Basil, St. John Chrysostom, and 



BYZANTINE EDUCATION 203 

St. Gregory Nazianzen. The hymn-writer Romanus sent 
all pagan authors to hell. Though the Greek poets were 
largely studied, they were theoretically under suspicion as 
seductive liars, unless an ingenious teacher (like Psellus’s 
friend Nicetas) could discover some Christian allegory in 
their verse. If Homer was as a matter of fact read by all, it 
was partly as fairy-tales are by us, partly because men 
believed with St. Basil that ‘all the poetry of Homer is a 
praise of virtue’ disguised in a story. 

It is therefore small wonder that careful parents had their 
children grounded in ‘our’ doctrines first of all. In early 
childhood boys and girls, unless sent like St. Euphrosyne to 
a cloister, or handed over to some cleric at six years old like 
St. Lazarus the Stylite or even at the age of three like St. 
Michael Syncellus, were usually brought up by their own 
parents in the ‘nurture and admonition of the Lord’, being 
made to listen to the ‘Divine Scriptures’ and other ‘sacred 
writings’, and above all to learn the Psalter by heart. The 
training of the small child’s memory and pronunciation was 
the aim of the educators, and the Bible was their instrument 
ready to hand. St. Eutychius was taught until the age of 
twelve by a clerical grandfather; the father of St. John the 
Psichaite ‘trained the mind of his children’. The parents of 
St. Domnica made her read the ‘sacred writings’ ; the mother 
of St. Theodore the Studite (ninth century) did the same by 
his sister; Psellus’s mother (eleventh century) told him Bible 
stories at night. The influence of the mother on the child’s 
education and her power to coerce or punish, even by 
flogging, comes out in many biographies; thus Xiphilinus, 
a patriarch of Constantinople in the eleventh century, owed 
much to maternal upbringing. 

But we also find ‘Grammarians’ giving instruction in the 
‘sacred writings’ to tiny children, to St. Neophytus, for 
example, as soon as he had been baptized and weaned, to 
St. Agathonicus and Psellus at the age of five or to St. 
Stephen the Younger at six years old (when he already 
‘ought to have been working at profane studies’); St. 
Christodulus and the fourteenth-century monk Macarius 
also got their early teaching in ‘the art of the divine writings’ 
from masters and not from their parents. 



204 BYZANTINE EDUCATION 

Secular education began between the ages of six and eight, 
and the child studied with teachers in the elementary school 
of his native place the all-important ‘Orthography’, i.e. 
reading and writing, for in view of the change in current 
pronunciation it was essential to learn with toil and pains 
the old classical spelling. Libanius was allowed by his 
widowed mother to idle in the country till he was fourteen, 
and he left the Antioch School when he was sixteen, so he 
was mainly self-taught, but this was exceptional. So also was 
the early age of eight at which the soldier Germanus and the 
Patriarch St. Nicephorus left their homes in Illyria and 
Galatia for the capital, the one entering the ‘Schools of the 
grammarians’ there, and the other the religious ‘Museum’ of 
Mosellus or Mosele. 1 

At ten or twelve years of age the boy turned from this 
‘preliminary education’ to ‘Grammar’ which aimed at a 
complete ‘Hellenizing’ of the speech and mind, and strove 
to defend classical Greek against the inroads of the popular 
language. From papyri, from the biographies of St. John of 
Damascus and of St. Theodore the Studite, from Psellus’s 
autobiographical statements and Zonaras’s remarks about 
Anna Comnena, we gather that this process, in spite of any 
old prejudice against ‘pagan’ writers, involved a thorough 
study of the matter as well as the form of classical poetry, 
Homer especially being learnt by heart and explained word 
by word. This secondary education was sometimes described 
as the ‘beginning of learning’ {fa prota mathemata ). 

Finally, unless the call to ‘more perfect knowledge’ had 
already led to the monastic life — St. Nicolas the Studite 
entered a school for monks when he had ‘ended his first 
decade’ — the boy would go, like George Acropolites at 
sixteen, or, like Libanius and St. Basil, not until he was 
twenty years of age or over, to some university to acquire 
‘higher learning’ by studying rhetoric and philosophy on 
strictly classical lines. For rhetoric, ‘the power of artistic 
persuasive speech’, he would read and memorize Greek 
historians and orators, and write compositions or make 
speeches according to classical rules and in imitation of 
classical styles. In philosophy, like St. John of Damascus, 

1 Cf. Analecta BoUandiana, vol. xiv (1895), pp. 161-5. 



BYZANTINE EDUCATION 205 

he would ‘mount’ from logic to speculation, and in argument 
would try to entangle his opponent in a ‘Cretan labyrinth’ of 
perplexity. In reading he would pass from Aristotle to Plato 
and the works of the Neoplatonists, Plotinus, and Proclus, 
and would apply to his understanding of Platonic doctrines 
all his previously gained knowledge of the natural and 
mathematical sciences. One of these, astronomy, might 
lead on in certain cases to theology, the contemplation of 
Him Who created thestars, the ‘philosophy among ourselves’, 
‘divine learning’, the ‘science of more perfect things’. 

Of these higher studies rhetoric is pronounced by Syne- 
sius to be indispensable for serving one’s city, but ‘philosophy 
in itself is worth more’. Psellus tells us that few are proficient 
in both, but he himself claims to have mastered philosophy, 
rhetoric, geometry, music, astronomy, and even theology, in 
short, ‘every branch of knowledge, not Greek and Latin 
philosophy only, but also Chaldaean, Egyptian, and Jewish’. 

We must pause a moment to consider the disconcerting 
looseness in the Byzantine use of educational terms. Thus 
the adjective ettcyclios applied to education (paideia or pai- 
deusis ), which to Quintilian had meant ‘all-embracing’, was 
gradually degraded to signify ‘preliminary’. This change of 
sense came about in a curious fashion. The twelfth-century 
Tzetzes, following the etymology, seems at first sight to have 
kept the old wide meaning, for his ‘circle of learning’ com- 
prises the quadrivium of arithmetic, music, geometry, and 
astronomy, and also grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy. 
But when we realize that philosophy to him is merely the 
pagan philosophy which ever since the days of the Greek 
Fathers had been the step below theology, we see how in his 
view the ‘circle’ has become ‘preliminary’ to this highest of 
studies. But this is not all. Encyclios paideia in Byzantine 
literature usually means something lower still. It denotes 
‘school learning’ as preliminary to all higher studies (e.g. 
in Anna Comnena’s Alexiad) or it may mean simply ‘the 
rudiments’ as the ‘foundation’ for study of any kind (e.g. to 
the eighth-century monk Cosmas). It is thus equivalent to 
purely elementary instruction in language and the outlines 
of Grammatike to which it served as an introduction. Psellus 
(eleventh century) gives as the three stages of education 



206 BYZANTINE EDUCATION 

( i ) encyclios paideusis, ( i ) ‘grammar’, and (3) 'higher learning', 
i.e. rhetoric and philosophy. 

Again ‘grammar’ by which ‘Hellenic speech is regulated’ 
commonly means the second stage in a boy’s education, 
‘orthography’ or encyclios paideusis in the sense of ‘rudiments’ 
being the first. But as taught by Nicetas and described by 
Psellus ‘orthography’ is synonymous with Grammatike, or 
again ‘grammar’ is treated by the biographer of the seventh- 
century Maximus the Confessor as part of encyclios paideusis , 
and by the thirteenth-century George Acropolites as its 
equivalent. Sometimes ‘grammar’ covers all subjects that 
might be taught in a secondary school — literature, history, 
metre, geometry, and geography — and thus precedes 
rhetoric; sometimes, together with rhetoric, it forms a part 
of more advanced education. Finally ‘philosophy’, generally 
regarded as ‘the art of arts and science of sciences’ — the 
‘heights’, towering above encyclios paideusis , grammar and 
rhetoric alike — is found in certain passages to include the 
quadrivium , elsewhere differentiated as ‘the four servants of 
true knowledge’ with philosophy as their mistress. The 
letters of Synesius show that under Hypatia at Alexandria 
the ‘mysteries of philosophy’ comprised mathematics and 
physics. In common parlance ‘philosophy’ covered not only 
ethics and speculative ideas, but also logic and dialectic; 
being, as we have just said, essentially ‘Hellenic’ and ‘foreign’ 
it was not without danger, and the clergy especially needed 
to handle it judiciously or they might fall from orthodoxy. 

We have then to admit that neither the names nor the 
sequence of the different branches of Byzantine education 
are very clear to us. School and university subjects seem to 
have overlapped. St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Basil, full- 
grown men who had passed through their encyclios paideusis 
while in Cappadocia and had later studied in other schools, 
worked in the University of Athens at grammar, metres, 
politics, and history, as well as at rhetoric, philosophy, and 
medicine. The study of medicine up to a certain point 
figured in general education. Professionals like Caesarius 
who was given ‘first rank among the doctors’ in Constanti- 
nople, doubtless had a full practical training, but educated 
people generally, like St. Basil, Photius, Psellus, and Anna 



BYZANTINE EDUCATION 207 

Comnena, would diagnose the ‘causes of diseases’ and pro- 
nounce views on their treatment. Similarly legal knowledge 
of an elementary kind was not uncommon, but embryo 
lawyers or civil servants had to follow a special advanced 
course. Thus an official in fourth-century Egypt went to 
Elementary School, Latin School, and Law School, which he 
left, like the graduates from Berytus and later on from the 
law school of Constantine IX at Constantinople, as a certifi- 
cated advocate, qualified to take up his profession. Law 
students were early set apart from others; the Trullan 
Council (692) enacts: ‘Those who are taught the civil laws 
may not go to the theatre or indulge in athletic exercises or 
wear peculiar clothes.’ Finally theology was a separate 
branch of learning which was probably confined to the 
patriarchal school and to monasteries ; it was studied by few 
laymen. The edict of Theodosius II (a.d. 425) reorganizing 
the university at Constantinople is included in the section 
of the Theodosian Code headed ‘De Studiis liberalibus’, i.e. 
the studies concerned with profane as opposed to sacred 
knowledge. For though it is true that all classical literature 
tended, as in the case of Nicetas’ teaching, to be interpreted 
theologically, yet in a form of education so wholly deter- 
mined by classical tradition theology as a separate discipline 
had no specific place. It was this state of things which 
Alexius I (1081— 1 1 18) strove to remedy by precept and 
example. 

It may, indeed, be concluded that boys of all classes might, 
and frequently did, receive instruction from their babyhood 
to their twenties. The parents of St. John Calybita hoped 
that ‘science and letters’ would ensure him a good post, and 
in all the circles of trade and commerce the same motive and 
practice probably prevailed. The law in all its branches had 
its own requirements, imperial secretaries needed training in 
‘speed-writing’, monks learnt fine calligraphy and brush- 
work, and soldiers would turn early to ‘military matters’. 
But for the mass of the population the routine was : first, oral 
religious teaching at home, next, ‘orthography’ in the local 
elementary school. Beyond this primary education many 
children never went, but for those who continued their 
studies there was ‘grammar’ — a comprehensive term — to 



208 BYZANTINE EDUCATION 

be learnt in the middle school, and the course would be 
completed in some university by rhetoric and philosophy, 
the two broad classifications into which Psellus divides true 
learning. 

The thoroughness of the education can be judged from 
the reputation and the writings of those educated. Krum- 
bacher’s History of Byzantine Literature tabulates the 
enormous output of those eleven centuries in poetry and 
prose ; here a few examples must suffice. 

Beginning with the Emperors, we must take it on trust 
that Theophilus studied Greek, Latin, astronomy, natural 
history, and painting, copied manuscripts, invented a lamp, 
and argued with theologians, but we know positively that he 
had a learned wife, for some of her verses survive. Leo III 
revised the laws. So did Basil I and his son Leo VI, ‘most 
philosophical of Emperors’, who also composed poems, 
sermons, and a Life of his father. Constantine VII wrote and 
caused others to write volumes of encyclopaedic learning, 
while his daughter Agatha acted as his private secretary. 
Michael VII pored over books, neglecting his imperial 
duties. But the most numerous literary achievements come 
from the Comneni. Alexius I, though he wrote some verse, 
was essentially a controversialist, and he and his wife Irene 
put theology above all other study. But his son Isaac has 
been held to be a minor poet, his grandson Manuel I was an 
authority on dogma and had a ‘most Homeric’ wife, and his 
daughter Anna Comnena has given us in her Alexiad not 
only one of the finest products of Byzantine literature, but 
also a proof of her own wide education, though how that 
education was acquired we are not told. After the Restora- 
tion of 1261 Michael VIII (Palaeologus) appears as a patron 
of education and also as his own biographer. Finally John 
VI and Manuel II have left us, from the death- bed as it were 
of the Empire, remarkable specimens of letters, history, and 
polemics. 

In less exalted stations we find writers of every kind con- 
stantly imitating and citing the classical masterpieces on the 
study of which their education had been based. To the 
minds of ecclesiastical writers the Bible is always present; 
thus St. John Chrysostom, holding that ‘ignorance of the 



BYZANTINE EDUCATION 209 

Scriptures is the cause of all evils', makes 7,000 quotations 
from the Old Testament and 1 1,000 from the New. Photius 
is said even by an enemy to have rivalled the ancients and 
excelled all moderns in ‘almost every branch of profane 
learning’. He composed a dictionary, school-books, and 
treatises; in his letters he corrected his friends’ grammar and 

E rescribed for their ailments; he helped Basil I to revise the 
iws, and held in his house a debating society and study 
circle. His Bibliotheca , summarizing for an absent brother 
the 270 books read by this circle, shows a marvellous range; 
poetry only is excluded. Another encyclopaedic scholar, 
Psellus, has left poetical and prose works on philosophy, 
history, law, medicine, theology, and occult science, while 
his study of and love for Plato and his enthusiasm for all 
learning helped to pave the way for the fifteenth-century 
Humanists. John of Euchaita begins a religious poem with 
an obvious reminiscence of Euripides’ Hippolytus. The 
letters of Michael Italicus show familiarity with a remarkable 
range of subjects, exclusive, however, of La tin and legal 
science. And shortly before the catastrophe of 1453 we have 
one last great scholar in Joseph Bryennius, who after 
mastering grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, and the quadrivium 
proceeded to philosophy. He is well read in the Bible and 
the Greek Fathers, and even quotes Augustine and Thomas 
Aquinas; the Renaissance, with the mutual interpenetration 
of East and West, is near at hand. 

2. Passing to Byzantine teachers we are struck with the 
importance of their position. Private masters might com- 
-p lain of Lpeycrty, like Palladas or Prodromus or the Antioch 
guilds of rhetoricians who sold their wives’ jewellety to 
satisfy their bakers, but public professors, paid by the State 
or municipality primarily to train efficient civil servants, 
lived, in Synesius’s words, ‘magnificently’. Under the 
thirteenth-century Emperors of Nicaea teachers of rhetoric, 
medicine, and mathematics were financed by the munici- 
palities; teachers of law and philosophy had to be content 
with the pupils’ fees. Teachers were a necessity; Anna 
Comnena hints that only the crazily conceited try to study 
alone. Parents made real sacrifices, sometimes surrendering 
mules or asses to be sold for their sons’ tuition fees; to pay 



2ro BYZANTINE EDUCATION 

his own, one youth worked as a stoker in the bath. Libanius 
has depicted fourth-century student life. The masters were 
in loco parentis and could flog or even dismiss their pupils if 
‘the whip’ failed, as Psellus would say, to ‘draw them to 
learning’; but, as private teachers lived on the precarious 
fees settled by individual contracts, they wished to keep old 
students and acquire new. The ‘choruses’ of these young 
men acted as their professors’ press-gangs; Libanius on 
reaching Athens was coerced into becoming the ‘listener’ of 
an Arabian, and was initiated with bath and banquet. In 
Constantinople at a later date his popularity and the increased 
number of his pupils made other teachers jealous. The 
personal element was strong: Photius boasts of his adoring 
‘wise chorus’ of scholars; Psellus claimed to attract as 
followers Celts, Arabs, Egyptians, Persians, Ethiopians, and 
Babylonians; in religious controversies Nicephorus Gregoras 
counted on his pupils as his army. Grateful addresses to or 
funeral eulogies on teachers are common, and presentation 
portraits or busts are not unknown. 

The responsibility of professors for their scholars makes 
St. Gregory of Nyssa implore the pupils of his brother St. 
Basil to be worthy of their master; men judge teachers by the 
results of their teaching. Mosellus (Mosele) taught St. 
Nicephorus ‘sacred Scripture only’, fearing that profane 
studies might indelibly stamp evil on his young mind. The 
father of St. John of Damascus searched all Persia for a 
master who would not inspire in his son a passion for 
archery, soldiering, hunting, or athletics. There is a 
paternal tone in the ‘Princely Education’ addressed by 
Theophylact to Constantine Ducas, and in Psellus’s entreaties 
to his university pupils not to be kept away by bad weather 
or the usual seductions of student life, the theatre, dice, 
sports, or banquets. These are similarly deprecated by 
Libanius, by the biographers of St. Gregory Nazianzen and 
St. Theodore the Studite, and by Anna Comnena and 
Theodore Hyrtacenus (fourteenth century). Again, Psellus 
implores his hearers not to come to the classes late and half- 
asleep, and not to ask stupid perfunctory questions when he 
strives so hard to arouse their interest, often working over 
his lectures all night. 



BYZANTINE EDUCATION 211 

Byzantine youth came under various instructors. In the 
early home years the ‘pedagogue’ slaves heard lessons recited, 
or a mother, Theodote, helped her child Psellus. St. John 
Chrysostom speaks of the troubles of small scholars, labour- 
ing with stylus and wax tablet. Though university pro- 
fessors were not allowed to teach private pupils, an ordinary 
teacher, even if he might not teach in public, might open a 
private school anywhere; John of Euchaita and Michael 
Italicus taught in their houses, Libanius in a former shop. 
Public teachers officiated in a basilica, church, or municipal 
building. Private and public teachers alike taught a variety 
of subjects; the ‘School’ might also be termed museum , 
auditorium , or didascaleion. The boys stood in line or sat on 
benches or on the floor round the teacher’s ‘throne’, holding 
on their knees copies of the texts to be expounded. Teaching 
at Antioch was in the forenoon. At Berytus in the fifth 
century and down to 533 classes were held every afternoon 
except Saturday and Sunday, while the mornings were 
devoted to preparation by the scholars. In St. Theodore the 
Syceote’s village the boys had morning and afternoon 
lessons and, unless kept in for bad work, went home to a 
midday meal, an arrangement later advocated by Michael 
Apostolius (fifteenth century). Sometimes they brought 
food, which young ascetics, like St. Neophytus, would give 
away to poorer companions. ‘Pedagogues’ from home 
escorted the richer boys and carried their books; when St. 
Nicephorus’s mother performed this office it was probably 
because his way lay ‘through the market’ with its question- 
able attractions. The pupils read aloud or recited or held 
discussions or wrote, as the master might order; some of their 
lecture-notes still survive. They had to answer questions 
and might also ask them. Teachers composed verses to help 
their scholars’ memories; Psellus has left several, and a 
contemporary of his fitted grammatical rules into the metre 
of a hymn. One School Catechism of the eleventh century 
is presumably not typical, as the pupil is throughout scolded 
for ignorance. The teacher here supplies both questions and 
answers on grammar, rhetoric, philosophy including physics, 
the quadrivium, Platonism, Neoplatonism, and law. 

The boy studying away from home lived in lodgings. 



2i2 BYZANTINE EDUCATION 

St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Basil shared rooms in Athens; 
St. Marcellus boarded with a pious household in Ephesus. 
Often students visited successively three seats of learning, or 
occasionally even four as did Nicephorus Blemmydes. 
Private masters might be followed from one place to another, 
for they were always liable, like Libanius, Stephen of 
Alexandria, and Leo the Mathematician, to be called into the 
more honourable service of public education. The Emperors 
supported professors throughout the Empire; when Justi- 
nian ceased to pay salaries at Athens he virtually killed the 
Platonist School. Teachers received no special training; the 
great masters, St. Gregory Nazianzen, Photius, Psellus, John 
of Euchalta, and Michael Italicus seem to have taught 
directly their own student course was finished. All could 
draw from the supreme source of education, namely, books. 
Manuscripts of the Classics, many of them unknown for 
several centuries in the West, were transcribed by experts 
in the Palace from the fourth century onwards and by many 
other laymen, the number of surviving copies proving the 
prevalence of private reading. Furthermore, right down to 
the fall of the Empire, the Byzantines wrote text-books for 
every conceivable study, from syntax to high philosophy; 
very many are still extant, though unpublished. Univer- 
sities, schools, churches, monasteries, palaces, and private 
houses had their collections of books. The noble Caesaria 
spent all night reading her 700 volumes of the Fathers; it 
was with books in a neighbouring church that St. Lazarus 
the Stylite consoled himself after a flogging. Constantine 
VII thought campaigning Emperors should carry a travelling 
library; Cecaumenus urged generals on leave to study 
‘histories and the Church’s books’, culling tactics from the 
Old Testament and moral maxims from the New. The 
charge of the law library in the renewed university was 
committed by Constantine IX to the chief law officer of the 
Crown. From the Patmos monastery, where 260 manu- 
scripts still exist, we have three catalogues (1201, 1355, and 
1 3 8 2 ) '> the wealth of Mt. Athos in original documents is 
proverbial. A twelfth-century Archbishop reproved the 
monks in his diocese for selling their literary treasures and 
leaving their shelves as bare as their souls. Tzetzes boasts of 



BYZANTINE EDUCATION 213 

his library, and only poverty keeps Prodromus from buying 
books. 

We must now enumerate the Byzantine centres of learn- 
ing, almost all destroyed by the Arab conquest. The first is 
Athens, ‘mother of learning’, especially pagan philosophy. 
According to Synesius her scholars despised all others, and 
behaved ‘as demi-gods among mules’. Even after Justinian 
closed her schools Theodore of Tarsus studied here before 
becoming an English bishop. But the palmy days were over, 
and in the twelfth century an Archbishop of Athens bewails 
her desolate condition, though even his gloomy letters show 
that culture had not completely deserted the city. Next 
comes Alexandria, ‘workshop of varied education’. Before 
Hypatia’s day it was visited by St. Gregory Nazianzen for 
the sake of its library and by his brother Caesarius for its 
medical school. In 484 Severus of Sozopolis attended its 
‘museum’, learning grammar, rhetoric, philosophy, Latin, 
and law, in preparation for a legal training at Berytus. Both 
Caesarea, with its library of 30,000 Christian books, and 
Gaza had renowned schools of rhetoric. Antioch in Syria 
was the birthplace of Libanius, who taught there most of his 
life, keeping a day school with assistants under him; here, 
too, was born St. John Chrysostom, who completed his 
education by attending the local law-courts. The city never 
recovered from the 300 years of Saracen rule (635-969), 
though the Antiochene second wife of Manuel I is described 
as highly educated. At Ephesus St. Marcellus studied 
theology; nearer the capital we find great culture at Nicaea, 
which after the capture of Constantinople by the Latins 
became the seat of Empire (1204-61). The theological 
school of Edessa played an important part during the fifth 
century in the Christological controversy. For this a know- 
ledge of Greek was essential, and the Syrian scholars both 
spoke and wrote Greek. Later Syria became Monophysite. 
It is to Edessa of the sixth century that we owe the Chronicle 
of Joshua the Stylite (which gives a contemporary’s account 
of the events of the years 495-506) and also the Edessene 
Chronicle (written about 540). 1 In the ninth century 

1 For Edessa in the fifth and sixth centuries see R. Duval, Histoire politique, religieuse 
ettiitiraire d'&desse jusqu'd la premilre Croitade (Paris, Leroux, 189a), chs. x and xi. 



214 BYZANTINE EDUCATION 

Edessa supported a public teacher under whom Theodore of 

Edessa learnt grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy. 

But the most interesting provincial institution is the 
School of Law in Berytus, the principal training ground of 
lawyers and civil servants until the earthquake of 551 
shattered the city. Justinian’s Constitution recognizing 
Berytus, ‘nurse of laws’, as one of the three sanctioned legal 
schools (the other two being Rome and Constantinople) 
enacts that its students, whose ‘associations’ were addicted 
to riotous living and (as we learn elsewhere) to magic, were 
to be controlled by the Governor of Phoenicia, the Bishop, 
and the professors. So great were the temptations of the 
place that young Christians, for fear of falling away, would 
wait to be baptized till their studies were over. The School 
under its rectors (bearing the title of ‘oecumenical masters’) 
was at its zenith in the fifth century. The usual course of 
study lasted four years, with an optional fifth, and drew 
pupils from all parts of the Empire. 

Since the discovery of the Scholia Sinaitica we have gained 
a clearer conception of the methods adopted in teaching by 
the professors of the Law School. In the fifth century the 
teaching was in Greek, but students had in their hands copies 
of the Latin texts. Parallel passages would be cited and the 
opinions of different jurisconsults compared. Teachers 
would report their own opinions on disputed points as given 
to their clients. Students would be advised to ‘skip’ certain 
chapters of works, while important sections would be com- 
mented upon at length. To a modern teacher these Scholia 
bring a curious sense of actuality: the Byzantine professor of 
law seems much less remote. 

It is surprising how little we know of Byzantine literary 
education in the provincial centres of the Empire. It is of 
the culture of Salonica in the fourteenth century that we 
can gain the clearest idea. The city at this time was full of 
intellectual activity, thus carrying on the tradition which 
Eustathius’s commentaries on Homer had inaugurated in the 
twelfth century. Here thought was freer than in the capital : 
the control exercised by the Patriarch was not so rigorous. 
Cabasilas could contend that the saints themselves were 
incomplete personalities if they had not received sufficient 



BYZANTINE EDUCATION 215 

instruction in this world. Plethon overstepped even the 
liberty admitted in Salonica and urged a return to classical 
paganism. Here Hellenic feeling is so strong that the term 
‘Hellenes’ need no longer be used as synonymous with 
‘pagans’: it can revert to its older sense: the Byzantine 
monarch is not ‘Emperor of the Romans’, he becomes the 
‘Emperor of the Greeks’. A correspondence was maintained 
between the scholars of Constantinople and those of Salonica; 
writers exchanged their works and visited each other. There 
was much interest in education : parents were urged to send 
their children to school — they should postpone the teaching 
of a trade until adolescence. Higher education was in the 
hands both of lay teachers and of the clergy. In the city 
budget salaries were included for professors of medicine, 
mathematics, and rhetoric, while professors of philosophy 
and of law, since they ‘despised money’, received no salary . 1 

In the Byzantine Empire three types of educational 
institution must be distinguished: the secular university in 
Constantinople, the Patriarchal School, also in the capital, 
and the schools attached to the monasteries, (i) To these 
monastic schools St. Basil was prepared to admit the children 
of laymen — the children belonging to the world outside the 
walls of the monastery. But this practice was forbidden by a 
canon of the Council of Chalcedon which was later reaffirmed 
and was consistently observed. The monastic schools were 
confined to those who in early years had been dedicated by 
their parents to the life of the monk. Here there is a striking 
difference from the monastic schools of western Europe, which 
were freely attended by children who were not being trained 
for monastic asceticism. In the Eastern Empire it was only 
in the thirteenth century that the traditional rule was violated, 
when Planudes trained students for a public career in the 
civil service, the army, or in medicine. The teaching in the 
monastic schools was narrowly confined in its range: thus of 
the school of Mosellus or Mosele in the tenth century we are 
told that instruction was limited to the scriptures. The 
monastic libraries were composed in the main of the works 
of the Fathers of the Church: there was little opportunity for 

1 See an interesting chapter on the scientific, literary, and artistic movement in 
O. Tafrali, Thessaionique au quatonaime stick (Paris, Geuthner, 1913), pp. 149-69. 



216 BYZANTINE EDUCATION 

any wide learning and the preservation of the literature of 
classical Greece was, it would seem, due for the most part to 
lay scriptoria. Monks would copy and illuminate theological 
works and would paint the icons which held so outstanding a 
place in the devotion of the East Romans. In the monasteries 
were written those chronicles which for some periods are 
our only sources for the history of the Empire, and it is to the 
monasteries that we owe the works of the Byzantine mystics 
which to-day are being studied with a new interest and a 
fuller understanding. 

(ii) The University of Constantinople — unfortunately 
omitted by Rashdall from his study of medieval universities 
— depended directly upon imperial initiative and the support 
of the State. It is probable that Constantine founded in his 
capital the school where Libanius and Themistius subse- 
quently taught: it is certain that in a.d. 425 Theodosius II 
appointed thirty-one professors paid by the State, freed from 
taxation, and strictly distinguished from private teachers. 
While Alexandria was famed for its school of medicine, 
Constantinople, together with Rome and Berytus, was a 
centre for legal study. The Eastern capital often drew its 
professors of Latin from Africa. In the fifth century the 
teachers of philosophy were frequently pagans : it was only 
with Justinian that pagan teachers were finally banished from 
the university. 

Under Phocas (a.d. 602-10) all culture suffered, but 
with Heraclius there was a renewed interest in learning. It 
was in the metropolitan university that Cosmas a century 
later acquired that vast learning which he imparted to St. 
John of Damascus. Here, too, St. John the Psichaite 
‘despised’ the curriculum which his biographer gives in full : 
grammar, classical literature, rhetoric, secular philosophy, 
dialectics, astronomy, geometry, and arithmetic. 

Of the fortunes of the university under the Iconoclasts 
we have no certain knowledge. The statement, made by late 
writers who sought to blacken the memory of the Iconoclasts, 
that Leo III closed an institute of higher studies and burnt 
alive its professors is now generally regarded as a legend 
without historic foundation. We cannot use this report in 
any attempt to reconstruct the history of the university in 



BYZANTINE EDUCATION 217 

Constantinople, though it may truly reflect the policy of 
Leo III to favour the military class at the expense of the 
teachers of the university. 

After the restoration of the icons Bardas, the uncle of 
Michael III, wishing perhaps to emulate Bagdad, reor- 
ganized the university in the Magnaura Palace. He did so 
on strictly secular lines, though the head of the school, Leo 
the Mathematician, had previously lectured on philosophy 
in a church and had then become an Archbishop. Here 
Photius and others taught, and Cyril, the Apostle of the 
Slavs, learned all ‘profane’ branches of science but no 
theology. Under Constantine VII, with his passion for 
encyclopaedic knowledge, we hear of four chairs — those for 
philosophy, geometry, astronomy, and rhetoric, with supple- 
mentary teaching in arithmetic, music, grammar, law, and 
medicine. From the professors and students the Govern- 
ment, the Church, and the Courts of Law drew their highest 
officials. 

The reigns of the military Emperors Nicephorus II, 
John Tzimisces, and Basil II seem to have brought educa- 
tion to a low ebb. It is true that Simeon the Younger found 
teachers about a.d. 1000, and Psellus learned from Nicetas 
and John of Euchaita, but unless the latter’s complaints are 
purely rhetorical he and his fellow student Xiphilinus had to 
teach each other law and philosophy. In 1045 Constantine 
IX, wishing to create a body of intelligent public servants, 
re-founded the university and laid down the conditions under 
which the professors and students should work. The 
university was divided into two Schools — one a school of 
philosophy with Psellus at its head, the other a school of 
law with John Xiphilinus as its director {nomophylax). 
Admission to the university was to be open to capacity 
without payment of fees and here future judges and adminis- 
trators would receive their training. It would seem that from 
about a.d. 1150 the important post of director of the law 
school was generally held by one of the clergy attached to 
the church of St. Sophia. The last outstanding nomophylax 
was Harmenopulus (fourteenth century), who began to learn 
law at sixteen and to teach it at twenty-two years of age. 

The position of ‘Chief of the Philosophers’ was both 



218 BYZANTINE EDUCATION 

arduous and dangerous. Psellus taught, besides philosophy, 
eleven subjects, including geography, music, and astrology, 
and was ‘the soul of the university’ 1 as well as one of the 
imperial counsellors, yet he was compelled to make a public 
profession of the orthodox faith, while his successor John 
Italus fell into disgrace with his Emperor for teaching heresy. 
At one period of acute dogmatic dissension the office was 
vacant for fifty years, till Manuel I filled it with a deacon of 
St. Sophia. In 1 204 all that was left of the university moved 
to Nicaea, and the application of Baldwin I to the Pope for 
leave to found a ‘Latin’ School in Constantinople was 
frustrated by the jealous Faculty of Paris. Michael VIII 
restored the School of Philosophy under the Court official 
George Acropolites, who lectured in St. Sophia on mathe- 
matics and Aristotle, but not on Platonism, which the 
Emperor considered ‘unsound’. The next head, Manuel 
Holobolus, once an imperial secretary, was proposed by the 
Patriarch and called ‘Rhetor of the Great Church’. It was 
desired that provision should be made so as to allow the 
clergy to share in the lay education. The letters of the 
schoolmaster Theodore Hyrtacenus show that by a.d. 1300 
State-paid teachers were regular Government officials, but 
private education had become popular, and the erudition of 
Nicephorus Gregoras and Theodore Metochites was both 
acquired and imparted in private houses. In 1445 John 
VIII transferred the School of Philosophy to another build- 
ing because Argyropulus reported that schools in Italy were 
better housed. But Pope Pius II (1405-64) could still write 
of Constantinople as the ‘home of letters and citadel of high 
philosophy’ and the end came only with the Turkish con- 
quest in 1453. 

(iii) Of the School of the Patriarch no history can be 
written, for our sources are totally inadequate, but it would 
seem probable that this school existed side by side with the 
university throughout the history of the Empire. While the 
regular subjects of instruction were taught in the school, these 
subjects were all designed to lead up to the study of theology. 
The Rector of the School — the ‘oecumenical teacher’ — was 

1 Cf. F. Fuchs, Die hShertn Schulen von Kenstantinopel im Mittelalter (= Byzan- 
tmischet Anhiv, ed. A. Heisenberg, Heft 8), Leipzig & Berlin, Teubner, 1926, p. 31. 



BYZANTINE EDUCATION 219 

entrusted with the exposition of the Gospels, while there was 
a special teacher for the Epistles. There may have been 
several schools under the control of the Church. Thus under 
Constantine VII we find schools in two of the churches of 
Constantinople, though practically nothing is known of their 
teaching. An eleventh-century teacher begs the Patriarch 
to transfer him from a small school to a larger one. The 
institution where Alexius I educated his soldiers’ orphans 
was attached to St. Paul’s Church, but though Anna 
Comnena mentions the subjects of study it is not clear 
whether it was under Church or State; certainly Michael 
VIII reopened it after 1261 as a ‘School for learning 
Grammar’, and honoured both teachers and pupils with his 
personal favour. Br^hier believes that it gave secondary 
education in connexion with, yet distinct from, the uni- 
versity. Near the present Fetiyeh Mosque, 1 once the Church 
of the Holy Apostles, stood a school described about 1 200 
by Nicolas Mesarites, and it is open to question whether this 
was the old university under new patriarchal supervision, or 
merely a patriarchal school of special eminence. Ordinary 
elementary education was given in the halls around, but in 
the centre the higher branches were handled by the students 
themselves, who met in small groups — seminars — for (often 
noisy) discussion, when no Professor presided. The 
Patriarch John Camaterus went daily to settle disputes and 
answer questions. Finally, as the ‘oecumenical palace 
School’, where Bessarion and Gennadius studied in the first 
half of the fifteenth century, was directed by a celebrated 
‘Rhetor’, a deacon of St. Sophia, we may fairly conclude that, 
from the time of the dogmatic controversies under the 
Comnenian Emperors till the fall of the Empire, public 
education even when provided by the State was largely con- 
trolled by the Church and its Patriarch. And after the fall of 
Constantinople (1453) it was the Church which kept the 
Hellenic consciousness alive : it was in the schools maintained 
by the Church that was fostered the spirit which led to the 
War of Independence. A German scholar has written: the 
‘desire for schooling is implanted in the Greek nature from 
the times of late antiquity and ... it has prevented the Greeks 

1 See p. 192. 



220 BYZANTINE EDUCATION 

from losing their national consciousness. Even the Church is 
held so sacred by the Greeks only because she has been the 
bearer of national ideals in the times of slavery .’ 1 Such was 
the persistence of the Byzantine educational tradition. 

GEORGINA BUCKLER 

1 Karl Dieterich, Hellenism in Asia Minor (Oxford University Press, New York, 
1918), p. 44. 



VIII 

BYZANTINE LITERATURE 

Byzantine literature as a whole is not a great literature; few 
would study it for pleasure unless they were already inter- 
ested in the culture of the East Roman Empire. Yet as a 
mirror of Byzantine civilization this literature can claim per- 
manent significance. It is not on purely aesthetic or literary 
standards that it must be judged; in form and in language 
the works may be traditional, but the men who wrote them 
are representative of the vigorous life which sustained the 
Empire and it is they whom the reader seeks to know through 
the traditional medium. The Byzantine writers can never 
forget that they are the heirs of a great past which has created 
the literary moulds to which they must to the best of their 
ability loyally adhere. The form is determined : it is the task 
of a sympathetic scholarship to recover the individuality of 
the writer as it is expressed through that inherited form. 

Throughout the long history of Byzantine literature there 
is continuity; here there is no break with the ancient world 
as there is in western Europe. But in that continuous history 
it is possible to distinguish certain periods which have their 
own characteristic features. And the first of these is clearly 
marked: it stretches from the early years of the fourth 
century to the beginning of the seventh century — from the 
reign of Constantine the Great to that of the Emperor 
Heraclius. It is essentially the period of transition from the 
culture of the ancient world to the distinctively Christian 
civilization of the Byzantine Empire. This period saw the 
decline and extinction of pagan literature, while in nearly 
every sphere of literary composition it-created the new forms 
which were to serve as models for later Christian writers. 
Thus the literature of these centuries can naturally be con- 
sidered from two very different standpoints. The student of 
classical literature regards it as the melancholy close of a 
glorious achievement: he stands at the patient’s death-bed; 
to the historian of Christian literature the fourth and fifth 
centuries will appear as the climax of the patristic age, the 
period when the Church entered into and in large measure 



222 BYZANTINE LITERATURE 

appropriated the classical inheritance of ancient Greece, 
abandoning in fact, despite many protestations to the con- 
trary effect, its earlier hostility to the culture of the pagan 
world. It was not for nothing that the Christian scholars of 
Alexandria had become the disciples of the Greeks : the views 
of Origen might be condemned as heretical, but Origen’s 
influence remained of paramount significance. The leaders 
of the Eastern Church in the fourth century had studied at 
the same universities as their pagan contemporaries, and the 
rhetoric which all alike had learnt did not fashion pagan 
eloquence alone, it moulded also the form of Christian 
literature. The Church had allied itself with the imperial 
Court: with Eusebius in the reign of Constantine the Great 
a new courtly style arose to fit the changed conditions. The 
curiosity and subtlety of the Greek intellect were not dead: 
they did but take fresh spheres for their exercise: they de- 
serted pagan philosophy for Christian theology and on this 
ground fought their old battles. The creeds of Christianity 
stand as permanent witness to the debt of the Church to 
Greek thought. Thus, as pagan writers wearied and gave up 
the unequal struggle, Christian authors pressed into the new 
land, fired by the very novelty of their effort to a truly 
creative activity. Zosimus (fifth century) is the last of the 
pagan historians of the Empire, but the sixth century saw in 
Procopius, who recounted the triumphs of Justinian, a 
Christian successor in no way inferior to the champion of the 
older faith. In this period ecclesiastical history, which begins 
with Eusebius, comes to a close with Evagrius: only the 
monastic chronicler remains to record the history of the East 
Roman Church. Eunapius, the pagan, wrote the biographies 
of the Neoplatonist philosophers of the fourth century, but 
these are the memoirs of a narrow circle of enthusiasts : their 
disciple, Julian the Apostate, in his Misopogon acknowledged 
that their credo could win but little response from the 
citizens of Antioch, the capital of Roman Asia. But in 
Egypt a new ‘philosophy’ had been born, the asceticism of 
the Christian monk, and the greatest literary work of Athana- 
sius, the Life of Antony the Egyptian solitary, is a religious 
classic which was read alike in the East and, through the 
medium of a Latin translation, in western Europe. This 



BYZANTINE LITERATURE 223 

Christian ‘philosophy’ peopled the deserts which bordered 
the valley of the Nile and spread monasticism through the 
Western provinces of the Empire. The Life of Antony 
became the model which was followed by later Greek hagio- 
graphers. Neoplatonism itself profoundly influenced the 
theology of the Cappadocian Fathers, Gregory of Nazianzus 
and Gregory of Nyssa, while somewhere, it would seem, 
about the year a.d. 500 the unknown author who issued his 
writings under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, the 
contemporary of the Apostle Paul, borrowed largely from 
the work of the Neoplatonist Proclus. When those writings 
had once been accepted as the product of the Apostolic age, 
Neoplatonic thought became part of the orthodox theology 
of the Eastern Church, Proclus wrote Neoplatonic hymns, 
but in the first decade of the fifth century the pagan Synesius 
became a Christian bishop and on the model of the poetry of 
the classical world gave to the Greek Church some of the 
earliest of its Christian hymns. In the sixth century Greek 
religious poetry reached its climax in the hymns of the 
converted Jew Romanus, but these were no longer written 
in the quantitative metre of classical poetry, but in the 
accentual rhythm which was natural to the Christian congre- 
gations which thronged the churches of Constantinople. 
Under the early Empire the Stoic and Cynic missionaries 
had journeyed through the Roman world carrying their 
message to the common folk through the medium of the 
sermon (diatribe): the intellectualism of the Neoplatonist 
had no such popular message, but in Antioch, the city which 
had remained unresponsive to the religious zeal of Julian the 
Apostate, Chrysostom filled the Christian churches, and to a 
populace attracted by the spell of his oratory proclaimed 
alike on Sundays and on weekdays the moral demands of the 
new faith. The Neoplatonist could appeal to the lettered 
aristocracy of the Greek world : the Christian preacher could 
hold a wider audience. The same transformation can be 
traced in other branches of literature: the pagan epigram dies 
but the Christian epigrammatist follows only too closely the 
ancient models. In the fifth century Nonnus produces his 
Dionysiaca — the last pagan epic; in the seventh century 
George of Pisidia as poet laureate of the East Roman Court 



22+ BYZANTINE LITERATURE 

writes his Christian epics, in which he celebrates the victory 
of the Emperor Heraclius over Rome's hereditary enemy, 
the Persian : the altars of the fire-worshippers are overthrown 
and the True Cross, rescued from Persian captivity, is 
restored to the Holy City, Jerusalem. But this Christian epic 
is no longer written in hexameters : it preserves with faultless 
accuracy the quantitative iambic metre of the classical age, 
but in feeling it is already a twelve-syllabled line of accentual 
verse with an accent on the last syllable but one. 

These examples may serve to illustrate the character of 
this first period of transition and re-creation. It is followed 
by a gap in literary history of some 200 years (a.d. 650—850). 
The Empire was fighting its life and death struggle with the 
Arab invaders and the early Caliphate: Africa, Egypt, and 
Syria were lost to the infidel: new foes — the Slav and the 
Bulgar — were threatening Rome’s hold upon the Balkan 
peninsula. Men wielded the sword and not the pen. The 
literature of the Iconoclasts has perished, and even from the 
side of the defenders of the icons, apart from theological 
writings, we have only the world chronicles which were 
produced within the shelter of the monasteries. It is in the 
seVenth century, however, that Maximus the Confessor 
carried on the mystical tradition of Dionysius the Areopa- 
gite, while in the eighth John of Damascus restated in 
classical form the orthodox faith of the East Roman Church. 

The third period begins with the literary revival of the 
ninth century, which is associated with the name of the Pa- 
triarch of Constantinople, Photius. The University of the 
capital is re-founded. After the victories of the Macedonian 
house men have time to study once more their inheritance 
from the past, and in the tenth century the imperial traditions 
are renewed by the scholar Emperor Constantine Porphyro- 
genitus: the preservation of those traditions was in his view 
a service rendered to the commonwealth. Towards the 
middle of the eleventh century the popular songs which had 
celebrated the military triumphs of the Amorian and Basilian 
emperors are taken up and woven into the earliest form of the 
epic of Digenes Akritas, the defender of the Asiatic march 
against the Saracen emirs. 1 

1 See p. 245 infra. 



BYZANTINE LITERATURE 225 

In the literary revival of the eleventh century Psellus is 
the outstanding figure. Philosophy is studied and Neopla- 
tonism challenges the supremacy of Aristotle. Byzantine 
mysticism reaches its height in the hymns of Simeon the 
Young, and Anna Comnena, the Byzantine princess, writes 
her history of her own times. 

In a.d. 1204 the Fourth Crusade, by the capture and sack 
of Constantinople, strikes the felon blow from which the 
Empire never recovered. But some sixty years later, with the 
restoration of a Greek sovereign to the city of Constantine, 
literary activity revived and there follows the age of the 
Byzantine encyclopaedists — scholars such as Nicephorus 
Gregoras and Pachymeres. The continuity of tradition is 
reasserted with renewed enthusiasm, and the legacy of the 
past is studied afresh, though that study is not marked by 
any outstanding originality. 

Throughout the literary history of East Rome the centres 
of production are the Court and the monastery. Popular 
literature received little encouragement, and the centraliza- 
tion of the Empire’s life in the capital did not favour the 
growth of any literary activity in the provincial cities. Thus 
it is only from popular hagiography that we can hope to 
recover in any detail the daily life of the middle classes or 
that of the people. Byzantine literature is limited in its 
interests. East Roman writers either hold official positions 
or they are ecclesiastics, and many of the problems which 
perplex a student must perforce remain unsolved. In the 
present survey it will be unnecessary to consider technical 
works such as the military handbooks, while there is little to 
detain us in the fields of drama, of lyric poetry, or of secular 
oratory. It will be best to select a comparatively few writers 
as representatives of different types of literary composition : 
a mere enumeration of names would be at once futile and 
wearisome. 

The main division is naturally into Prose and Poetry. 
Prose may be subdivided into Theology; History and 
Chronicles; Hagiography, Biography, Letters, and Funeral 
Orations; the Novel; Satire and Miscellanea, Poetry into 
Hymns; the Epigram; the solitary ‘Drama’, the Christus 
pattens-. Romantic and epic poems; Lyric poetry as revived 

3982 



226 BYZANTINE LITERATURE 

under Western influence; and Miscellanea, including satiric, 

begging, and didactic poems. 

PROSE 

Theology. If its bulk were the criterion, Byzantine theo- 
logical literature would occupy a considerable part of this 
sketch. But it is convenient to regard it, broadly speaking, 
as a technical part of Byzantine writing, parallel in a sense 
to the technical treatises on military and naval tactics which 
it has been decided to exclude. Moreover, after the sixth 
century, apart from the revival associated with the Icono- 
clast controversy, it is only in the development of mysticism 
that Byzantine theological literature shows any marked 
originality. It is noteworthy that the three great theologians 
of the fourth century, Basil of Caesarea, his younger brother 
Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus, all come from 
Cappadocia, and it is perhaps to Eastern influences that their 
asceticism may be attributed. At the same time they show 
kinship with Hellenism in their leaning towards rhetoric and 
speculation ; most of their writings, unlike those of Chryso- 
stom, are learned and in no sense addressed to the masses. 
They are all under the influence of the Arian controversy of 
their time. Basil, in addition to drawing up rulings for 
reformed monasticism, wrote against the extreme Arian 
Eunomius. His expository side is illustrated by his homilies 
and commentaries. In his reform of Eastern monasticism 
common-sense labour was to accompany ascetic abstinence. 
‘The ascetic’, he says, ‘should pursue fitting occupations, 
provided that they are free from all trading, overlong atten- 
tion and base gain.’ In the face of the Arian peril Basil the 
statesman sought unremittingly to establish an alliance 
between the Western and Eastern Churches in defence of 
orthodoxy; despite successive rebuffs he persisted in his 
efforts to win Pope Damasus to his views. In the organiza- 
tion of asceticism on the basis of the common life that same 
statesmanship was crowned with success. The Byzantine 
monk as distinguished from the Christian solitary continued 
through the centuries to look to Basil as his teacher and 
guide. The sobriety of Basil’s literary style represented a 
return to Atticism, so far as that was possible without 



BYZANTINE LITERATURE 227 

pedantry, and that style reveals a familiarity with the 
masters of Greek prose, especially with Demosthenes and 
Plato. 

Basil’s brother Gregory was also an ardent foe of the 
Arians and Eunomius, against whom he wrote polemical 
treatises. Like his brother he composed homiletic works 
on various parts of the Bible, and his ascetic side is illustrated 
by his tract ‘On the true aim of the ascetic life’, the motto of 
which may be said to be: ‘It is the will of God that the soul 
be cleansed by grace.’ His eloquence and richness of style 
are manifested in his funeral orations and letters. 

Gregory of Nazianzus became at Constantinople the 
champion of the Orthodox against the Arians, but his 
polemics were relieved by the inculcation of a true Christian 
spirit, as shown in his speech ‘On the love of the poor’. He 
earned his title of ‘Theologus’ by his discourses on the 
Trinity. If his invectives against the Emperor Julian the 
Apostate repel the modern student by their unmeasured 
violence, they are yet of the greatest value as a historical 
source for the Emperor’s conception of a reformed paganism, 
while his letters are marked by naturalness and wit. His 
poems are of the greatest literary importance: in two of 
these — the Evening Hymn and the Exhortation to Virgins 
— we have the first examples of the use of the new accentual 
metre as distinguished from the quantitative poetry of the 
ancient world. Gregory’s autobiographical poems have often 
been compared with Augustine’s Confessions. 

Evagrius, a contemporary of the great Cappadocians, is of 
significance as reviving in the fourth century the thought of 
Origen. With Evagrius the monk takes his place in litera- 
’ ture. He first outlines the aims of Byzantine mysticism, and 
though his writings were condemned as heretical under 
Justinian, they formed the source of the ascetic works of the 
orthodox Maximus the Confessor in the seventh century, 
and thus permanently influenced the later development of 
Byzantine theological thought. The other primary source of 
East Roman mysticism is Dionysius the Areopagite (c. a.d. 
500), on whose works commentaries continued to be 
written until the thirteenth century. The aim of devotion 
for Dionysius is the ecstatic vision of God, when the soul in 



228 BYZANTINE LITERATURE 

complete passivity after long purification is enlightened from 
above and is united with God. Purification, illumination, 
union with God are thus the stages of man’s mystical 
ascent. 

The triumvirate of Basil and the two Gregories marks the 
acme of cultured Byzantine orthodox literature ; there follow 
the morasses of Monophysite and Monothelete controversy. 
But the Iconoclast struggle, which began in 7 26 and con- 
tinued at intervals until 842, created a kind of revival in 
religious literature. The writings of the Iconoclasts are not 
preserved, but the works of the defenders of the icons may 
be represented for us by those of John of Damascus and 
Theodore the Studite. John of Damascus, whose literary 
activity was prosecuted in the famous Sabas Cloister in 
Palestine in the time of Leo III, stoutly maintains in three 
treatises that the adoration of images rests upon ecclesiastical 
tradition, and that ‘it is not the part of Emperors to legislate 
for the Church’. His great work, The Fountain of Knowledge, 
has been called the Dogmatic Handbook of the Middle 
Ages. It is a compilation, starting with Aristotelian defini- 
tions of Being, going on to inveigh against heresies, and 
ending with an exposition of dogmatic theology. We shall 
meet with another side of this remarkable man’s activities 
when we consider Byzantine Hymnology. 

Iconoclast controversy occupied a relatively small part 
of the writings of that noble figure, Theodore, abbot of the 
monastery of Studius at Constantinople from the year 798, 
who exercised so great an influence on the reform of monastic 
life. In him we find a link with Basil the Great, for it was 
that father’s ascetic teaching and his views on the duty of 
common labour within the monastery which inspired the 
abbot’s reforms. Theodore held that Iconoclasm was a kind 
of heresy. His arguments against it are contained in three 
formal tracts, as well as in his letters. They are based on the 
principles that there was a human side of Christ’s nature and 
that symbolism in religious worship is a necessity. The 
defenders of the sacred icons admitted that God the Father 
could not be depicted in art, but since man could be thus 
represented, to deny the legitimacy of icons of Christ was in 
fact to deny the Incarnation. It was false to maintain as did 



BYZANTINE LITERATURE 229 

the Iconoclasts that the symbol must be of the same essence 
as that which it symbolized. Had that been true, the 
defender of images must have agreed with the Iconoclast 
that the only legitimate icon of Christ was the sacred ele- 
ments after the prayer of consecration. 

In the eleventh century Byzantine mysticism reaches its 
climax in the work of Simeon the Young. The Greek text of 
most of his writings is still unpublished, but even through 
the Latin translation of Pontanus the passion with which he 
sought the ecstasy of the vision of the Divine Light — that 
‘deification’ which is the supreme goal of Byzantine piety — 
is profoundly impressive. Here is the immediacy of spiritual 
experience. 

Theological writing was continued under Alexius 
Comnenus (1081—11x8). A representative figure is that of 
Euthymius Zigabenus, a monk in the monastery of Our 
Lady the Peribleptos (the ‘Celebrated’) at Constantinople. 
It was at the order of the Emperor, who himself had entered 
the arena against heretics, that Zigabenus — so Alexius’s 
daughter Anna Comnena tells us — compiled his Dogmatic 
Panoply, an armoury for the Orthodox theologian. It con- 
sists of dogmatic statements of Orthodox views on the 
Trinity, and attacks all kinds of heretics, among whom 
Zigabenus included Iconoclasts, Armenians, Paulicians, 
Bogomils, and Saracens. The author relies much on the 
three great Cappadocians, and thus Byzantine theological 
prose ends, as it had begun, on a note of dogma. 

History and Chronicles. In profane Byzantine literature the 
writing of history undoubtedly stands out most prominently. 
The educated classes, owing to their employment in the 
bureaucracy, were- compelled to take an interest in foreign 
affairs, whilst the man in the street was daily brought into 
contact with folk from other countries, and was often alarmed 
by threats to the city from Persian, Arab, Slavonic, and, 
later, from Turkish invaders. Under these circumstances it 
is not surprising that Byzantine historical writing falls into 
two well-marked classes — history proper, written by men of 
high education in a style reminiscent of the ancient Greek 
historians and intended for the intelligent reader, and popu- 
lar chronicles designed for the consumption of the masses. 



230 BYZANTINE LITERATURE 

These last were as a rule the work of half-educated monks, 
and consequently redolent of the cloister. 

As representatives of historical writing proper may be 
selected Procopius (sixth century), Constantine Porphyro- 
genitus and Leo Diaconus (tenth), Anna Comnena and 
Nicetas Acominatus (twelfth), and the four historians of the 
fall of Constantinople — Laonicus Chalcocondyles, George 
Phrantzes, Ducas, and Critobulus of Imbros (fifteenth). Of 
the long line of Byzantine chroniclers, we may choose John 
Malalas (sixth century), George the Monk (ninth), and John 
Zonaras (twelfth). 

Procopius, who heads our list, is a good representative of 
the highly educated Byzantine historian. Trained as a jurist, 
he became secretary to Justinian’s famous general Belisarius, 
whom he accompanied on his campaigns. His great historical 
work is his description of Justinian’s wars against the 
Persians, Vandals, and Goths, based mainly on his own per- 
sonal experiences. In style he is a follower of Herodotus and 
Thucydides. The work is of high merit and historical value, 
especially for the information it gives on geography and the 
peoples lying outside the Byzantine Empire. Apart from 
the panegyrics on Justinian the histories of Procopius are 
marked by a love of truth. As a supplement, he wrote later 
the famous Anecdota , the Secret History, which purports to set 
out facts formerly suppressed out of fear of Justinian and 
Theodora, who are now unsparingly attacked. ‘It was not 
possible’, he says in the Preface, ‘to record in a fitting manner 
events while the actors in them were still alive. It would 
have been impossible to escape the attentions of the swarms 
of spies, or avoid being detected and perishing most 
miserably.’ Though this outburst may lower our opinion of 
Procopius as a man, it does not shake his credit as a historian. 
It well illustrates the difficulties which beset a Court- 
historian, and the duty of writing his master’s panegyric 
finds an outlet in a third work of Procopius, On the buildings 
of "Justinian. As a whole Procopius is characterized rather by 
accuracy in fact than by a wide philosophic outlook. 

In Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus 1 of the tenth century 

1 For Constantine's literary activities, see A. Rambaud, L’Empire grec au 
dixiime siicle (Paris, Franck, 1870), pp. 51-174. 



BYZANTINE LITERATURE 231 

we reach the imperial historian and master of compilation, 
the fashion of which had been set in the previous century by 
the Patriarch Photius with his Myriobiblion. We may pass 
over with a bare mention the great historical compilations 
inspired by this monarch — The History of the Emperors by 
Genesius, the Continuation of the Chronicle of Theophanes 
(Constantine’s uncle), and the great Historical Collection in 
fifty-three books (only fragments of which are extant), and 
give a very brief account of the works in which Constantine 
seems to have taken a considerable personal share. The book 
On the Themes may be dismissed shortly as a youthful work 
based almost entirely on out-of-date library information of 
the sixth century. The Ceremonies is a patchwork, dealing 
with Emperors who preceded and followed Constantine — 
it thus embodies later additions — and containing catalogues 
of tombs, robes, and valuables, as well as descriptions of the 
ceremonies which justify the title. But these descriptions are 
of great value, as they give us much information about the 
Byzantine bureaucracy and the elaborate Court and religious 
ceremonial. Probably nearly contemporary with the earlier 
chapters of the Ceremonies is the handbook drawn up for the 
guidance of Constantine’s young son Romanus, afterwards 
Romanus II; this work, generally known as the De admini- 
strando Imperio , may be dated between 949 and 953. The 
style is somewhat bombastic, but the writer betrays a real 
pride in and affection for his son, and the book is a store- 
house of information concerning the peoples bordering on 
the Byzantine Empire. The Life of Basil , Constantine’s 
latest work, is a defence of his grandfather, and is chiefly 
remarkable for its skilful slurring over of the worst features 
of Basil I’s career, the murders of the Caesar Bardas and 
Michael III. 

Leo the Deacon was born about 950. His history 
describes in ten books the events of his own times (959-75), 
and embraces the important wars waged by Nicephorus 
Phocas and John Tzimisces against the Arabs in Crete and 
Asia, and against Bulgarians and Russians. His information 
is good, based partly on his own observation and partly on the 
authority of contemporaries, but compared with Procopius 
he is deficient in literary education, and his endeavours to 



2 3 2 BYZANTINE LITERATURE 

imitate Procopian style result in heaviness, affectation, and 
monotony. He is honest, but not free from the superstitions 
of his age. 

The historians of the twelfth century are marked by a 
great increase of learning, a continuation of the revival of 
literary studies ushered in by the polymath Michael Psellus 
(eleventh century), who included history-writing in his multi- 
farious activities. This tendency is well illustrated by the 
work of the princess Anna Comnena, daughter of the 
Emperor Alexius I, who wrote a history of her father’s 
achievements under the epic title of the Alexiad. Though an 
easy mark for ridicule on account of her pride in learning 
and horror of the vulgar, Anna is for all that an outstanding 
figure among Byzantine historians. In contrast to the 
ecclesiastic Leo she is a humanist, steeped in classical reading 
as well as in that of the Bible. She says in her Preface : ‘I was 
not without share in letters, but had brought my study of 
Greek to the highest pitch; I had not neglected rhetoric, but 
had read thoroughly the works of Aristotle and the dialogues 
of Plato.’ The Alexiad is really a continuation of the history 
written by her husband, the Caesar Nicephorus Bryennius, 
whom she lauds in her work, but subsequently accused of 
weakness for failing to support her attempt to win the 
Byzantine crown; the frustration of her hopes led to her 
retirement into a convent, where she had leisure to com- 
plete her task. There is no reason to suppose that Anna 
deliberately departed from the high standard of truth which 
she set herself, but she obviously tries to place the career of 
her father in the best light. Yet even so her history, based on 
personal and contemporary information, is a remarkable 
account of a remarkable man. Its deficiencies spring from 
an imperfect mastery of chronology and a feminine tendency 
to be led away by externals. Anna shares to the full, and not 
without some justification, the normal Byzantine prejudice 
against the Western Crusaders. 

Nicetas Acominatus, the historian of the capture of Con- 
stantinople by the Latins in 1204, is a contrast to Anna in 
more ways than one. Born at Chonae in Phrygia about 1 1 50, 
he received his education at Constantinople, and rose high in 
the imperial service. He lacks the classical leanings of the 



BYZANTINE LITERATURE 233 

authoress of the Alexiad : he shares her weakness in chrono- 
logy, but is less carried away by personal feeling. He begins 
with the reign of John Comnenus in order to link his history 
with the times of Alexius, but he pays chief attention to the 
period 1 180 to 1206 as lying within his own experience, and 
in his Preface he claims the reader’s indulgence on the plea 
that he is making a track through virgin soil. His sources, 
personal and contemporary, are good, and, though hostile 
to the Crusaders, he is on the whole fair and unprejudiced. 
A noteworthy feature is his interest in works of art; he gives 
a detailed description of the destruction of a bronze Athena 
in the Forum of Constantine, perhaps the Athena Promachos 
of Pheidias, by a drunken mob in 1203, and also wrote a 
valuable appendix on the artistic treasures destroyed by the 
Latins. 

A brightness is shed on historical prose at the close of 
the Byzantine Empire by the comparative excellence of four 
historians who recorded its overthrow. In the second half of 
the fifteenth century Laonicus Chalcocondyles of Athens, a 
man of good family, composed a history of the period 1298— 
1463, narrating the rise and progress of the Turkish Empire, 
and the momentous events, particularly the overthrow of the 
Byzantine Empire, brought about by that rise, a theme, 
which, as he asserts with some truth, is second in importance 
to none. Ducas writes of the progress of the Turks after the 
battle of Kossovo (1389). He was deeply religious, an 
advocate of the union of the Eastern and Western Churches, 
a patriotic Greek, and an ardent foe of Mahomet II. 
Though not an attractive stylist, he can occasionally rise to 
eloquence; he is honest, and valuable for his first-hand 
knowledge of the conditions of the western coast of Asia 
Minor and the adjacent islands. George Phrantzes records 
in detail events between 1402 and 1478. He again was a 
man of action and a trusted servant of the imperial family, 
particularly of Constantine Dragases, last of the Byzantine 
Emperors. His account of the siege and capture of Con- 
stantinople is especially valuable, since he was an eyewitness. 
He is also interesting for the strange vicissitudes of his own 
career. His style, unlike that of Ducas, is attractive. Crito- 
bulus of Imbros is the panegyrist of Mahomet II. He is 



234 BYZANTINE LITERATURE 

an avowed imitator of Thucydides, and changes contem- 
porary place-names into classical forms. His history is 
dedicated to the Conqueror, and is an account of his exploits. 
As a Greek he apologizes for this attitude, declaring that he 
is not deficient in sympathy for the misfortunes of his own 
nation. His account of the siege is good and reliable, and 
the history of Mahomet is of great value as written by an 
educated Greek from the Turkish standpoint. 

If in the writing of history the Byzantine owed his inspira- 
tion primarily to the writers of classical Greece, it would 
seem that the Jew of the Hellenistic period first fashioned 
the type of popular chronicle of world-history later adopted 
by the Christians of the Eastern Empire. Here the Old 
Testament story was the common basis. 

The series of Byzantine world-chronicles is opened by 
John Malalas in the sixth century. He provided the model 
for many successors. He was a Syrian, born at Antioch, and 
his view of world-history is dominated by Antioch and Con- 
stantinople. His work extends from legendary Egypt to the 
end of Justinian’s reign. It is a monkish production, utterly 
uncritical; snippets of undigested and often erroneous ‘facts’ 
are offered to the reader in the manner of popular journalism. 
Sallust, for example, is a distinguished poet. Chronology is 
mixed with complete insouciance: ‘And then twenty-three 
other (Macedonian) kings reigned up to Philip. At that 
time there were teaching Greek affairs, as philosophers and 
poets, Sophocles and Heracleides and Euripides and Hero- 
dotus and the great Pythagoras.’ Items culled from the lives 
of the saints bulk large, but are presented in the coarsest 
fashion. The curious and the miraculous especially appeal 
to Malalas : we have the itinerant Italian’s dog of the time of 
Justinian, which picked out buried rings and returned them 
to their owners, distinguished coins of different Emperors, 
and in addition showed an embarrassing knowledge of 
human character. But the whole is rendered amusing by its 
unconscious humour, and the style, evidently well preserved 
in the single surviving manuscript at Oxford, is instructive 
as an example of the popular Greek of Malalas’s day. 

Our next typical chronicler is George the Monk, known 
also as Hamartolus or The Sinner. His work was written 



BYZANTINE LITERATURE 235 

under Michael III (842—67), and claims modestly to be 
nothing but a compilation put together from the products of 
various chronographers. In time it stretches from Adam to 
the death of the Emperor Theophilus in 842, though there 
is a continuation to 948 by later hands. It has not the naive 
amusingness of Malalas, some use of whom is, however, 
discernible; its principal source is Theophanes Confessor 
(died 817). It is a typical monkish production, its author 
showing a preference for Greek mythology and monasticism. 
‘It is better’, says George, ‘to stammer in company with 
truth than to platonize with falsehood.’ So we are not sur- 
prised to find fanatical attacks on the Iconoclasts like this: 
‘Leo the Isaurian, that swinish man, hearkened to the counsel 
of the deceivers and turned all the churches of the East in 
his Empire upside down.’ The work, which throws much 
light on monasticism at the writer’s period, was borrowed 
from by the excerptors employed by Constantine Porphyro- 
genitus and by later chroniclers; as in the case of Malalas, 
George the Monk was used by the compilers of the Slav 
chronicles. 

John Zonaras, who completed his chronicle towards the 
middle of the twelfth century, produced a work of a rather 
different type. He was a man of superior education, who 
rose high in the imperial service, but subsequently withdrew 
to a monastery on one of the Princes’ Islands, where he com- 
piled his Epitome of Histories. He describes how he was 
urged to the work by his friends who said: ‘Use your leisure 
to produce a work of common benefit, and you will have 
recompense from God laid up for you from this also.’ The 
Chronicle begins with the Creation and ends with the acces- 
sion of John II Comnenus in 1 1 18. Zonaras takes a higher 
rank than his predecessors in the same field. He uses better 
sources while thinking it necessary to apologize for his 
interest in profane history. He draws upon Herodotus, 
Xenophon, Josephus, Plutarch, and Dio Cassius, as well as 
Procopius, George the Monk, and Psellus for later times. 
In style he is fairly fluent, but not uniform, being influenced 
by that of his sources. 

It is easy to criticize the manifold deficiencies of these 
popular historians. But the world owes a debt to the long 



236 BYZANTINE LITERATURE 

line of monks, since they at least provided some intellectual 
food for the masses, who would otherwise have been in 
danger of mental starvation, while for some periods they are 
our only historical sources. 

Hagiography , Biography , &c. The lives of the saints 
stand in close relationship to the chronicles, for which, as we 
have seen, they supplied material; like the chronicles, they 
were intended to interest and edify the masses, and were 
usually written in the popular language. When the period of 
the persecutions ceased, the saint took the place which the 
martyr had held in the early Church. It was to his mediation 
that the folk of East Rome trusted; it was the Virgin or the 
saint who was the most powerful defender of the cities of the 
Empire ; the relics of the saints were eagerly sought for and 
highly prized. The Life of Antony , written by Athanasius, 
formed, as was noted above, the model for subsequent bio- 
graphies. It is in the sixth and seventh centuries that Greek 
hagiography is seen at its best in the work of Cyril of 
Scythopolis and Leontius of Neapolis (in Cyprus). The 
former wrote, as a contemporary, memoirs of the great 
solitaries of Palestine, while Leontius in his life of John the 
Almsgiver, Patriarch of Alexandria, paints vivid pictures of 
life in the Egyptian capital. In the biography of John the 
Almsgiver we see the Patriarch, ‘like a second Nile’, pouring 
forth a rich stream of charity — helping refugees from the 
Persian invasion of Syria, founding poor-houses and 
hospitals, and not disdaining to secure the employment of 
just weights. It is these earlier biographies that are of most 
value. Simeon Metaphrastes, who in the eleventh century 
(as recent researches seem to show) collected and rewrote in 
the rhetorical style of his day the older and simpler docu- 
ments, has thus often destroyed the element which gives to 
them their freshness and their charm, though he affords us 
an indication of the extent of the material we have lost. 

Another life full of interest is that of Nicon Metanoites 1 
(died 998), who was the apostle of Crete after its recovery 
from the Saracens by Nicephorus Phocas. Nicon recon- 
verted the islamized inhabitants to Christianity, and subse- 

1 See Schlumberger, Vn Empercur byzemtm an dixiine stick (Paris, Firmin-Didot, 
1890), p. 96. 



BYZANTINE LITERATURE 237 

quently transferred his beneficent activities to Sparta. The 
biography of Nilus of Rossano 1 (died 1005), founder of the 
monastery of Grottaferrata, is instructive for lay and eccle- 
siastical conditions in Italy in the tenth century. The saint’s 
life was full of varied activity; he lived as an ascetic in caves, 
held diplomatic interviews with marauding Saracens, resisted 
extortionate Byzantine officials, and introduced Basilian rul- 
ings into Italian monasteries. 

Funeral orations are also a valuable source of biography. 
Striking examples are those pronounced by Theodore of 
the monastery of Studius (759-826) over his mother 
Theoctista, who stands out as the type of pious but practical 
Byzantine lady, and over his uncle Plato, abbot of the 
Saccudion monastery, whose rules supplied a pattern to 
Theodore for his own monastic reform. Michael Psellus 
(1018—78?) delivered funeral speeches over the famous 
Patriarchs of his own time — Michael Cerularius, Constan- 
tine Leichudes, and John Xiphilinus. The letters of both 
Theodore and Psellus also throw light on contemporary 
conditions, while those of Michael Acominatus (c. 1140- 
1220), which he wrote when Archbishop of Athens, depict 
the plight of the city, whose inhabitants were clothed in rags 
and fed mainly on barley-bread. 

Two special monographs of a historical character deserve 
mention on account of their intrinsic interest. In 904 the 
Byzantine world was stirred at the news of the terrible sack 
of Salonica by Saracen corsairs under their renegade leader 
Leo of Tripolis. We have a graphic account of this event 
from the pen of John Cameniates, a priest of the city, who 
with other members of his family was carried off into cap- 
tivity. The account was written at Tarsus, where Cameniates 
was awaiting exchange. The picture of the prosperity of 
Salonica, with its surrounding non-Greek population, is 
well drawn. The sufferings of the 22,000 young of both 
sexes in the heat and confinement of the galleys are described 
with unsparing realism, as are the circumstances of their 
sale into slavery at Chandax in Crete. Though not a man of 
very high education, Cameniates writes in a tolerable style. 

1 See J. Gay, L'ltalie miridimale et CEmpire byxantin (Paris, Fontemoing, 
1904), pp. 268-86. 



238 BYZANTINE LITERATURE 

The second monograph is the Strategicon of Cecaumenus, a 
Byzantine aristocrat, composed in the eleventh century. The 
work cannot be dismissed as purely technical, for besides the 
remarks on the art of war, it contains rules for good morals, 
Court-behaviour, and housekeeping. Its most valuable 
feature is the information it gives about the various peoples 
brought into contact with the Byzantine Empire. There are 
besides passages containing miscellaneous historical items 
from the time of Basil II to Romanus IV Diogenes. Cecau- 
menus considered that Constantine IX Monomachus ruined 
the Empire by paying tribute to frontier enemies instead of 
maintaining troops to repel them. 

The Novel. This is represented by a single work, an 
‘edifying’ tale of high merit, Barlaam and Ioasaph. It is of 
Indian origin, and is a life of Buddha turned into Christian 
Greek form. The Greek adapter, John the Monk of the 
cloister of St. Sabas, wrote it probably in the first half of the 
seventh century. 1 ‘It is a tale’, he says, ‘told me by pious 
men of the interior country of the Ethiopians, whom report 
calls Indians, having translated it from trustworthy memo- 
randa.’ It is noteworthy that the second century Apology of 
Aristeides, discovered in a Syriac version in 1889, has been 
incorporated in the Greek tale. The story relates how 
Abenner, a king ‘of the Hellenic faction’ in India, learned 
by astrology that his son Ioasaph would be converted to 
Christianity. To avert this he built his son a splendid palace 
in a remote spot. But his design failed, for even in his 
isolation Ioasaph could not be kept from the sight of the 
sick, the blind, and the dead. Under stress of feelings thus 
inspired, he met the ascetic Barlaam, disguised as a merchant 
and feigning to carry a stone of great price. Barlaam turned 
him to Christianity, whereupon the prince renounced the 
half of the kingdom bestowed on him by Abenner, con- 
verted his father, and ended his days as a pious hermit. His 
church-tomb became a place of miracles. 

This medieval Greek novel is written in a fluent and 
rhetorical style, and the character-drawing is good. The 

1 The adaptation has been attributed to John of Damascus. Cf. the English 
translation by G. R. Woodward and H. Mattingly, St. John Damascene, Barlaam 
and Ioasaph, in the Loeb Classical Library, London, Heinemann, 1914. 



BYZANTINE LITERATURE 239 

tale has spread far and wide; the Western versions begin in 
the twelfth century, and it is also diffused in Slavonic and 
Armenian editions. 

Satire and Miscellanea. There are three remarkable 
Byzantine prose-pieces which can be placed under the head 
of Satire, though this classification is least applicable to the 
earliest, the Philopatris. The situation revealed by it fits the 
reign of Nicephorus Phocas (963-9); there are discontents 
in the capital which threaten the security of the Emperor, 
such as those brought about by this monarch’s heavy taxation 
and limitation of church property, while on the other hand 
there are victories over the Persians (Arabs) and Scythians 
(Russians). In the first part of the work the author attacks 
the ‘pagans’ of Constantinople — the humanists who by their 
enthusiasm for the literature of classical Greece were once 
more introducing the gods of the ancient faith; in the second 
part he is more serious : here he turns against those who are 
plotting against the State. The true Patriot (Philopatris) will 
free himself from both. Religious orthodoxy mated with 
unquestioning loyalty to the commonwealth is the writer’s 
faith. The two other Byzantine satires — the Timarion and 
the Mazaris — are frank imitations of Lucian’s Nekyomanteia ; 
they belong to the twelfth and fifteenth centuries respec- 
tively. 1 The Timarion has much the greater literary merit, 
and satirizes types, such as physicians, rhetoricians, and 
sophists, in an amusing way. 

A brief mention of one curious work may here find a place. 
The Christian Topography of Cosmas was written in the sixth 
century and in it the author, a merchant who had traded with 
India and on his retirement had withdrawn into a monastery, 
sought to prove from the Scriptures that the earth was flat 
and not spherical. Geographers have always made use of the 
accounts given by Cosmas of Ceylon, of the ports, commerce, 
and animals of India, and of the Kingdom of Axum in 
Ethiopia. But his work has a further interest, for Cosmas 
can ask unusual questions, e.g., why did God take six 
days to create the world? And the answer which he gives 
to that question is unexpected : it was that the angels might 

1 For a full analysis of both these works cf. H. F. Tozer’s article in the Journal 
of Hellenic Studies, vol. ii (1881), pp. 233-70, on ‘Byzantine Satire’. 



240 BYZANTINE LITERATURE 

gain a full understanding of God’s purpose so that they 
might not fail in their service of man despite constant 
disappointments due to man’s sin and perversity. Having 
been led gradually into a comprehension of God’s ultimate 
aim they could take fresh heart and persevere. While 
Cosmas’s study of Gospel texts is remarkable, his account of 
the widespread expansion of Christianity forms a striking 
picture. His curiosity is alert and eager; in Ethiopia he 
copied inscriptions and incorporated them into his book. 
It is thus to him that we owe our only record of the expedi- 
tion which Ptolemy Euergetes made into Asia soon after 
247 b.c. Cosmas is one of the comparatively few Byzantine 
authors who have been translated into English : his work, if 
one has learned the art of ‘skipping’, is well worth reading. 


POETRY 

Hymns. Antiphonal hymns were very early in use amongst 
the Christians, as we know from Pliny’s famous letter to 
Trajan. The first Greek hymns were in classical metres — 
hexameter, elegiac, iambic, anacreontic, and anapaestic; 
such were those composed by Gregory of Nazianzus and 
Synesius in the fourth and fifth centuries. The gradual 
transition of Greek from a quantitative to an accented 
language brought about the great change associated with the 
name of Romanus, whereby the character of Greek hymno- 
logy was finally established. The discoveries of Cardinal 
Pitra confirmed the reputation of Romanus as the most 
forceful and original of Greek hymn-writers. Of his life 
little is known, save that he was born in Syria and became a 
deacon of the church at Berytus. He migrated to Constanti- 
nople in the reign of Anastasius I, and it was under Justinian 
that the greater number of his hymns were composed. 
Romanus was, it would seem, influenced by the poetry of 
Syria, the land of his birth, though the origin of the elaborate 
metrical scheme of his hymns is still obscure. Ephraem the 
Syrian in his hymns had dramatized Bible stories and intro- 
duced into them vivid dialogues which reappear in the poems 
of Romanus. The hymns of Romanus are sermons in poetic 
form, and they have much in common with such rhythmic 



BYZANTINE LITERATURE 241 

prose as that of the sermons of Basil of Seleucia. The music 
to which they were sung is lost; their content would suggest 
that they were rendered in a kind of recitative, the congrega- 
tion joining in the refrain. With Romanus the Greek hymn 1 
took on its specific form, consisting of a heirntos , which fixed 
the rhythm of the succeeding troparia , or stanzas; these 
correspond to the heirmos in the number of syllables, in 
caesura and accents. Some idea of the caesura can be gained 
from the pointing of the Psalms in our own Prayer Book 
version. A number of stanzas — from three to thirty-three 
— make up the Ode or Hymn. Romanus is said to have 
written a thousand hymns, some eighty of which are pre- 
served. The subjects range widely, and include Old Testa- 
ment stories such as that of Joseph, New Testament episodes 
like those of Judas’s Betrayal, Peter’s Denial, Mary at the 
Cross, and activities of Saints and Prophets; there are also 
hymns for festivals, e.g. Easter and Christmas. The hymns 
are characterized by their dramatic qualities, and bear some 
resemblance to oratorios, being of considerable length. This 
length and a certain dogmatic discursiveness tend to obscure 
for Western taste Romanus’s undoubted poetic qualities. In 
the Christmas hymn the Magi discourse on the moral 
condition of the East, and the Virgin instructs them in 
Jewish history; on the other hand, in the Easter hymn the 
women’s announcement of the risen Lord is full of poetic fire. 

A famous hymn, perhaps composed by the Patriarch 
Sergius, is the ‘Acathistus’, still sung in Greek churches in 
the fifth week in Lent. As its name implies, it is sung with 
the congregation standing. It consists of twenty-four stanzas 
in honour of the Virgin Mary, whose protection delivered 
Constantinople from the Avars and Persians in 626. 

As time went on, Greek hymns increased in elaboration 
of form, a change illustrated by the Canons, which consist 
nominally of nine Odes, but practically of eight. 2 They were 
mainly composed during the period of the Iconoclast 

1 See the introduction to J. M. Neale’s Hymns of the Eastern Church, 4th ed., 
1882 (Neale, however, had not the advantage of Pitra’s discoveries); Alice Gardner, 
Theodore of Studium, pp. 236-52. See, further, the Bibliographical Appendix 
at p. 412 infra. 

* Some idea of their content can be gained from the translations of portions 
given by J. M. Neale, op. cit., though the metres are admittedly changed. 



2+2 BYZANTINE LITERATURE 

controversy. The principal names associated with the 
writing of the Canons are those of Andrew, Bishop of Crete, 
author of the Great mid-Lent Canon, John of Damascus, and 
Theodore of the monastery of Studius, all of the eighth and 
ninth centuries. The main characteristic of these long hymns 
is an advance in refinement and elaboration, accompanied by 
some loss of spontaneity. This tendency grew in the ninth 
century and led to a progressive loss of feeling and vitality, 
with the result that Byzantine hymn-writing practically died 
out by the eleventh century. 

The Epigram. The Byzantine fondness for the epigram is 
an example of the links which unite Byzantine to Alexan- 
drian civilization. The epigram was alive from the fourth to 
the eleventh century. From the fourth to the sixth the 
classical tone predominates. Representatives of this period 
are the purely pagan Palladas of Alexandria, whose gloomy 
spirit is summed up in the pessimistic couplet: 

Thou talkest much, but soon art reft of breath; 

Be silent, and yet living study death, 

and Agathias and Paul the Silentiary, who illustrate the 
revival of the epigram in the reign of Justinian. Some Attic 
grace still clings to them, as in Paul’s verse inscription for a 
drinking-cup : 

From me Aniceteia wets her golden lip; 

Be mine to give her bridal draught to sip. 

In the eighth and ninth centuries the tone is chiefly Christian. 
Theodore the Studite generally uses the iambic trimeter, and 
his epigrams deal with saints, images, churches, and all sides 
of monastic life. The most interesting are those addressed 
to the humbler servants of the monastery, such as the shoe- 
maker or the cook. The shoemaker is bidden to remember 
that his work is the same [sic] as that of the Apostle Paul, and 
in general ‘making drudgery divine’ is the prevailing idea of 
these epigrams. They are a welcome change from the elegant 
trifles of an Agathias. 

John Geometres, who attained high rank in the tenth 
century, is typical of the mixture of the pagan and Christian 
elements which appear in the epigrams of this and the 
following century. He writes on Nicephorus Phocas and 



BYZANTINE LITERATURE 243 

John Tzimisces as well as on Plato and Aristotle, but does 
not neglect the Fathers of the Church, saints, and hymn- 
writers. A similar mingling of the sacred and profane 
characterizes the graceful epigrams of Christophorus of 
Mytilene in the eleventh century; with him and his con- 
temporary John Mauropous the Byzantine epigram dies out. 

A word, however, should be said on the two great collec- 
tions of Greek epigrams made respectively by Cephalas, 
probably under Constantine Porphyrogenitus in the tenth 
century (the Anthologia Palatina ), and by Maximus Planudes 
in the fourteenth. The latter is based on Cephalas ’s collection, 
but contains nearly four hundred additional epigrams. These 
anthologies are good examples of the Byzantine love of 
collecting to which the world is considerably indebted. 

The Drama. There has been of late much discussion of 
the question whether there was in the Byzantine Empire any 
acted religious drama corresponding to the mystery-plays of 
Western Europe. It was formerly thought that Liutprand 
of Cremona had reported ‘the taking up of the prophet 
Elijah in a stage play’ as happening during his visit to Con- 
stantinople, but it would now appear that this view is based 
upon a mistranslation: Liutprand was objecting to the 
performance of scenic games upon a religious festival com- 
memorating the ascension of the prophet Elijah. The 
evidence for the performance in tenth-century Constanti- 
nople of something in the nature of a mystery-play thus 
disappears. There is one literary religious drama — the 
Christus Pattens — which has been preserved, but this is a 
learned work and it is unlikely that it was ever acted. In it 
the central figure is the Virgin as the author himself indicates 
in the lines: 

Her first my story will to you present 
Mourning, as mother should, in hour of woe. 

The date of the work is probably the eleventh or twelfth 
century; the language is an almost comic mixture of Euri- 
pides, Sophocles, Aeschylus, and the Bible. The author 
starts by saying: 

Now in the manner of Euripides 
I will the Passion tell which saved the world. 



244 BYZANTINE LITERATURE 

The commingling of pagan and Christian elements in the 

play is very characteristic of the period. 

In 1931 Vogt published the text of a Greek mystery-play 
on the Passion. The manuscript which contains this text 
comes from Cyprus and the play, it appears, must have been 
composed under the Lusignan rule of the island. It is to be 
regarded, writes Samuel Baud-Bovy, as an effort to acclima- 
tize on Greek territory the mystery-plays which were then 
flourishing in the West. It is probable that the attempt was a 
failure. This is the sole text which gives clear evidence of an 
acted religious drama amongst the Greeks of the Middle 
Age, and Baud-Bovy has no hesitation in asserting that 
‘Byzance n’a pas connu de theatre religieux’. 

The Byzantine theatre knew only mime and pantomime, 
revues and music-hall sketches, dances and satiric interludes. 
Cultured students read the classic tragedies and comedies, 
but they were not acted. Of the ephemeral mimes no texts 
have been preserved, and thus, in a chapter on Byzantine 
literature, a discussion of the evidence for the influence of 
the Byzantine theatre would be out of place. 

Romantic and Epic Poems. The writers of the East Roman 
capital produced no genuine epics and we have only the most 
miserable specimens of Byzantine romantic poems. But in 
the provinces an important epic could be produced, as well 
as poems of real romanticism, when Greek imagination was, 
as it were, revivified by the fresher breezes blowing in from 
the West. 

The Byzantine ‘romantic’ poem is represented by two 
names — Theodore Prodromus, with whom we shall meet 
again, and Nicetas Eugenianus, both of the twelfth century. 
Their iambic trimeter productions are respectively Rhodanthe 
and Dosicles (based on Heliodorus), and Drosilla and 
Charicles (derived from Achilles Tatius and Longus). To 
the same class belongs the prose romance of Eustathius 
Macrembolites called Hysminias and Hysmine , also of the 
twelfth century. The machinery of all three is similar — 
capture of the beloved one, parting of the loving pair by 
pirates, and their miraculous reunion, or, as the argument 
prefixed to Eugenianus’s work puts it: ‘Flight, wander- 
ings, waves, captures, violence of brigands, imprisonment, 



BYZANTINE LITERATURE 245 

pirates.’ They are centos of the worst variety, marked by 
extreme coarseness. On the other hand, the romantic poems 
which appear in the next century reach, under Western 
influence, a higher plane. Such are Callimachus and Chry- 
sorrhoe (thirteenth century), whose theme is the rescuing of a 
princess from a dragon by a prince and includes a Wealth of 
magical apparatus, and Lybistrus and Rhodamne (? fourteenth 
century), in which a princess is won by a Latin prince from a 
Frankish rival at a tournament. Equally touched by Frankish 
influence is the interesting romance of Belthandrus and 
Chrysantza. 1 The three poems mentioned are all in the 
popular fifteen-syllable ‘political’ metre, as is an attractive 
poem of a rather later date (fifteenth century), Imberius and 
Margarona , which is entirely based on a French romance, 
though this has been modified to suit Greek taste. The poem 
describes the winning of the Neapolitan princess Margarona 
by the Proven5al prince Imberius, and the remarkable 
adventures of the pair. It is worth noting that this poem 
influenced the author of the great seventeenth-century 
Cretan romance, the Erotocritus. 

[At my request Professor Mavrogordato has generously contributed 
this section on the Digenes Akritas Epic-, it is to be hoped that he will 
publish an annotated English translation of the poem. N.H.B.J 

The Epic. The Epic of Digenes Akritas occupies a place 
of peculiar importance in Byzantine literature. It is not', as 
is sometimes said, the picture of a secular conflict between 
East and West. Such a notion would have been meaningless 
in the Byzantine world. The hero of the epic who gives to it 
the name of his origin and occupation brings peace to the 
borders of the Empire. It marks with its associated tales and 
ballads a transition between medieval and modern Greek 
literature. It draws not only on Byzantine histories and on 
local chronicles, but also, to an extent hitherto unrecognized, 
on Hellenistic writings and on a mass of folk-lore much of 
which is still current in the Greek world, and being untouched 
by Western influence it may be said to transmit through 
romance and ballad a faint folk memory of the ancient world. 

1 This and Lybistrus and Rhodamne have been translated into French by Gidel 
in his Etudes sur la literature grecqtse modeme (Paris, 1866). 



246 BYZANTINE LITERATURE 

The epic tells how there was once an Arabian Emir who 
was a prince in Syria. One day he came raiding over the 
frontier into Cappadocia and carried off the daughter of a 
Roman general of the Doukas family who had been banished 
from his estates. Her five brothers ride in pursuit and over- 
take the Emir who, having been outfought, reveals that the 
girl, sometimes named Eirene, is unharmed; if he may 
marry her he will come over with all his followers into 
Romania (the Roman Empire). His name is Mousour, and 
he tells them that he is a son of Chrysocherpes, a nephew of 
Karoes, and a grandson of the great Emir Ambron. His 
father is dead and he was brought up by his Arabian uncles 
as a Muhammadan. So they all returned rejoicing to Roman 
territory, where he was baptized and married to Eirene. A 
son was born to them called Basil, afterwards known as 
Digenes, because he was born of two races, and Akritas, 
because he chose to live alone on the frontiers. The Emir’s 
mother writes to him reproachfully from Edessa, and after 
some disagreement with his brothers-in-law he rides off to 
visit her and soon converts her, too, with all her household and 
brings them back with him rejoicing. The fourth book turns 
to the hero of the poem, the young Basil, and describes his 
first acquaintance with wild beasts and robbers and his court- 
ship of Evdokia, daughter of another general of the Doukas 
family. He carries her off by night, forces her father and 
brothers to consent, and takes her back to his own father’s 
castle for the wedding. The presents from the bride’s father 
included embroidered tents, golden icons, hawks, leopards, 
the sword of Chosroes, and a tame lion. Afterwards Digenes 
and his bride rode out to live alone; he destroyed many 
robbers and kept the peace on all the frontiers of the Empire. 
His fame reached the ears of the Emperor who rode down 
to the Euphrates (mentioned here for the first time) to 
congratulate and honour him while Digenes lectured the 
Emperor on his imperial duties. The next two books con- 
tain a collection of disconnected episodes. In the month of 
May he defends his bride against brigands and wild beasts. 
He describes some of his past adventures in love and fighting ; 
these culminated in a meeting with the Amazon Maximo. 
The picture of Maximo, appearing on her black horse before 



BYZANTINE LITERATURE 247 

daybreak on the river bank, has a poetical quality not attained 
elsewhere in the epic. Digenes built a palace on the Euphrates 
and made a garden, and here he lived devoting his wealth 
to good works and to the maintenance of peace. Here 
he fell ill and died after recalling to Evdokia the lovely 
adventures of their life in the wilderness, and she, seeing 
him die, fell dead in the middle of her prayer; so ends all 
earthly glory. 

Of this epic there are seven versions extant and there are 
also Ballads of the so-called Akritic Cycle: these picture a 
different world of supernatural exploits, magic weapons, and 
talking animals in which Digenes is only one among a 
number of half-effaced heroes. They represent a different 
level of interest in the same community: they are not to be 
regarded as the direct sources of the epic. 

Some of the characters of the epic have been identified: 
Chrysocherpes, father of the Emir Mousour, is Chrysocheir, 
a leader of the Paulician heretics who was defeated by the 
Byzantine forces in a.d. 873. Karoes, uncle of the Emir, 
reflects Karbeas, another Paulician leader, and Ambron, 
grandfather of the Emir Mousour, represents the Syrian 
Emir, Omar of Melitene, who became the ally of the 
Paulician Christians in the revolt against the Empire. The 
supposed period of the Digenes Epic is the century a.d. 860— 
960; its scene is laid in the parts of Mesopotamia between 
Samosata and Melitene, and also in Cappadocia where the 
Paulicians were persecuted. But the writer of the epic never 
mentions the Paulician heresy. He names the Paulician 
leaders only as brave enemies hardly distinguishable from 
the Arabs. The hero is set in a Paulician environment, but 
the resistance of the heretics is only a faded backcloth to the 
poem: its interest is not religious. 

The poem must have been written at a time when tran- 
quillity had been restored on the Euphrates frontier, which 
would point to the reign of Constantine IX Monomachus 
(1042-54): its composition may thus be placed about the 
middle of the eleventh century. 

Romantic histories like that of Alexander the Great, 
romantic biographies like those of Barlaam or of Apollonius 
of Tyana , biblical romances like the story of Joseph as told 



248 BYZANTINE LITERATURE 

by Josephus, novels containing one or two historical names 
like Chariton’s Chaireas and Callirrhoe (in which the heroine is 
a daughter of the Syracusan general Hermocrates) had 
established in Hellenistic literature a firm tradition of more 
or less historical romance. The writer of Digenes was well 
in the line of this tradition. Of the Alexander Romance he 
has many clear reminiscences. The figure of the Lonely 
Sage with the privilege of outspokenness in the King’s 
presence was authorized by Barlaam and by Apollonius and 
also by any number of Byzantine saints. For descriptive 
passages he borrowed freely and verbally from the pure 
novels of adventure, from Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius. 
The idea of the double descent of Alexander and other great 
men is a commonplace of Greco-Oriental romance. Kyria- 
kides has shown that Byzantine historians emphasized the 
double descent of Leo V (8 1 3-20) — of whom the very word 
digenes is used — and of Basil I (867—86). Our poet may 
have had local chronicles of places like Edessa and Samosata. 
He may have had some folk-chronicles in verse like those 
produced in Crete after the insurrection of 1 770. He would 
have found in Mesopotamia a reservoir of legend drawn 
from all the countries of the Near East and rediffused in all 
the languages that there overlapped. He clearly had access 
to both literary and popular sources and he had, further, the 
intellectual grasp to blend both in the popular medium of 
the fifteen-syllable ‘political’ verse. 

Although the poet lacked emotional depth, he had enough 
originality to give his romance a purpose — its theme good 
government and the guarantee of peace by a union of 
Christian and Arab. The first three books are entirely con- 
cerned with the hero’s father, the Emir Mousour: he, as son 
of Chrysocheir-Chrysocherpes the Paulician Christian who 
married Omar’s daughter, was himself a digenes, the son of a 
mixed marriage uniting two creeds and two races. Thus the 
poem is a duplication of the same story, two complementary 
versions, the first about the father and the second about the 
son, both father and son being heroes who were neither pure 
Christian nor pure Arab, but the best of both. In Digenes 
Akritas we have a double story of double descent, a romance 
reflecting old alliances between Syrian Arabs and Paulician 



BYZANTINE LITERATURE 249 

Christians from Commagene and Cappadocia presented as a 
message of peace upon the troubled eastern frontiers of the 
Byzantine Empire. 

JOHN MAVROGORDATO 

Lyric Poetry. Of genuine lyric poetry, before the influence 
of Western chivalry made itself felt, Byzantine literature had 
nothing. In a fifteenth-century manuscript, preserved in the 
British Museum, is contained an attractive group of love- 
songs, known, without much justification, as Rhodian . 1 
They form a kind of lover’s handbook. The lyrics include a 
dialogue between a youth and a maiden, arranged in alpha- 
betical stanzas, complaints of a lover, also arranged alpha- 
betically, and a love-test for a short and bashful youth, in 
which he has to compose a hundred stanzas beginning with 
the numbers one to a hundred, a sentence which is subse- 
quently reduced. The girl says : 

Young one, upon a hundred words I will now question thee; 

If thou resolvest these aright, kisses in full there’ll be. 

In reality these so-called Rhodian love-songs are popular 
songs belonging to the Archipelago, reminiscences of which 
can still be heard, though the freedom accorded to women 
is perhaps a Frankish trait. There seems little doubt that 
they go back to a date earlier than the fifteenth century. 

Miscellanea. In late Byzantine literature there is a large 
class of miscellaneous poetry in the popular fifteen-syllable 
‘political’ metre, at first unrhymed, then rhymed. Verses of 
a popular character emerge here and there at an early period, 
and they appear to have been used to give vent to the satiric 
strain inherent in the populace. Such were those shouted by 
the crowd to the Emperor Maurice at the end of the sixth 
century with allusion to his numerous illegitimate offspring, 
or to Alexius Comnenus in recognition of his cleverness in 
counteracting a plot against his family. A popular song of a 
different type is the spring-song quoted by Constantine 
Porphyrogenitus. Satiric poems were composed by the ever- 
fertile Theodore Prodromus in the twelfth century in the 
form of beast and bird fables; those of Archilochus and 
Semonides of Amorgos remind us how long a tradition lies 

1 See Hesseling and Pernot, Chansons d' Amour (Paris, 1913). 



250 BYZANTINE LITERATURE 

behind this form of composition. Others embodied a 
lamentation over his married life and a complaint against 
two abbots who presided over a monastery in which he was 
a monk. By other writers even religion is parodied after a 
fashion set by Michael Psellus in the eleventh century, when 
he attacked the drunken habits of a fellow monk in verses 
which are a parody of the Mass. This tendency to parody 
sacred things reaches its extreme form in the prose satire 
‘On a Beardless Man’, which consists of a series of curse- 
formulae arranged on the lines of the Mass. 

In the twelfth and following centuries flourishes the 
‘Begging’ poem, and here again Prodromus is forward with 
his grovelling, but not unamusing, complaints to the 
Emperor Manuel Comnenus. The concluding lines give 
the key to the whole production: 

Deliver me from poverty, save me from hunger’s pains; 

Drive off my creditors’ assaults and all the world’s disdains. 

An even lower pitch of grovelling is reached by Manuel 
Philes in his begging requests to the Palaeologi; his ambi- 
tions seem never to rise above the acquisition of food and 
clothing. 

A fondness for the moral didactic poem is characteristic of 
later Byzantine times, perhaps because the period was by no 
means distinguished for a high standard of morality. Such 
poems mainly advocate worldly wisdom as a means to attain- 
ing practical success in life. The most prominent of these 
poems is the Spaneas , which takes the form of an admonition 
by Alexius, son of John Comnenus, to his nephew (twelfth 
century). It is written in popular Greek, and the advice, 
though platitudinous, is on the high plane of ‘Love thy 
neighbour’. The poem was freely imitated in later versions, 
and in these the moral standard shows a decided change for 
the worse. 

Special mention may perhaps be made of the descriptive 
poem in Byzantine literature. The tradition here is un- 
mistakably Greek. It is as old as Homer’s portrayal of the 
Shield of Achilles, and the treatment of such themes, con- 
stantly imitated and improved upon during the whole 
classical period, had attained a notable standard of excellence. 



BYZANTINE LITERATURE 251 

The best-known Byzantine example is, perhaps, Paul the 
Silentiary’s contemporary description, in hexameters, of 
Justinian’s reopening (probably in 563) of his great Church 
of the Holy Wisdom, which had been damaged by an 
earthquake. Its main interest for modern readers lies in its 
accurate and scholarly delineation of the architectural 
features of St. Sophia. But the author, despite derivative 
mannerisms and occasional frigidity of treatment, was a true 
poet. In a memorable passage he pictures the great dome at 
night, with its illuminated windows shining reassuringly 
over city and harbour, and welcoming the sailor as he leaves 
the storm-tossed Euxine or the Aegean and faces the last 
perils of his homeward voyage. ‘He does not guide his laden 
vessel by the light of Cynosura or the circling Bear, but by 
the divine light of the church itself. Yet not only does it 
guide the merchant at night, like the rays of the Pharos on 
the African shore; it also points the way to the living God.’ 

Many features in the epic of Digenes Akritas , in the 
Romantic poems, the ‘Rhodian’ lover’s handbook, and in 
satiric verse point forward to modern Greek literature, where 
the love-song is prominent, the satiric element is common, 
and a high standard of morality and family life is inculcated. 
The centralization of life in Constantinople, which, it was 
noted, did not favour literary activity in the provinces in the 
earlier Byzantine period, gave way before Western influences. 
Thus it is that after the period of the Crusades a link is 
established between Byzantine and modern Greek literature. 

F. H. MARSHALL 



IX 


THE GREEK LANGUAGE IN THE 
BYZANTINE PERIOD 

The political results of the conquests of Alexander the 
Great could not but exercise a vast influence upon the 
language of Greece. The congeries of dialects, local and 
literary, which had hitherto constituted the Greek language, 
was now called upon to produce from its own resources a 
medium of intercourse fitted for the use of an immense area 
of the world, in much of which other and quite alien lan- 
guages had hitherto flourished. A certain simplification of 
the inflexions was natural, and a loss of the peculiar delicacies 
of Attic syntax was inevitable; the non-Greek world could 
hardly wield the idiom of Plato and of the orators and poets 
of the older Hellas. To this need the response of the Greek 
was the formation of the Hellenistic koine , 17 koivt) SiAXcktop, 
the ‘common language’. The very existence of such a 
generally accepted form of the language, whatever local 
differences it may have had within itself, was sooner or later 
fatal to the old dialects : the basis of modern Greek is quite 
naturally the koine. 

To this clean sweep of the ancient dialects we have one 
interesting exception : the dialect still spoken by the Tsako- 
nians in the Peloponnese does undoubtedly, in spite of recent 
objections to this view, retain among much that has come to 
it from the surrounding districts large elements from some 
ancient Laconian dialect. 1 Beyond this the remains of the 
ancient dialects are very scanty. 2 

1 There is a list of the Dorisms in Tsakonian in Hatzidakis’s Einleitung in die 
neugriechische Grammatik (Leipzig, 1892), pp. 8, 9. The anti-Doric view is ex- 
pounded by H. Pernot in Rennte phonitvjue, vol. iv (1917), pp. 153—88. This 
opinion Pernot has revised in his Introduction d Vitude du dialecte tsakonien (Paris, 
1934), p. ioz. He now thinks that Tsakonian is based on a local koine with a 
strongly Dorian tinge. 

1 Hatzidakis, Einleitung, p. 165. There is also a list of Dorisms in Hatzidakis’s 
Mixpii wfiftoXi] (Comptes rendus del' Acad. d'AtHnet, vol. iii (1926), p. 214). These 
have been disputed by Pernot in Bibl. de l’ Scale des Hautes Etudes, vol. xcii, pp. J2- 
66, where he again deals with Tsakonian. 



GREEK LANGUAGE IN THE BYZANTINE PERIOD 253 

This disappearance of the old dialects worked towards a 
certain uniformity in the language, but before it could be 
complete — and how far the old dialects may have lingered 
in out-of-the-way places, no one can say — the changes which 
were leading to the formation of modern Greek were well on 
their way, and with them came the entirely fresh dialect 
divisions which mark the new language. To assign dates is 
not easy, but Hatzidakis shows reasons for believing that 
these processes belong to the long period between Alexander 
the Great and the reign of Justinian in the sixth century a.d., 
and that in any case the modern language was in its main 
features formed long before the tenth century . 1 The 
changes involved were naturally carried out more rapidly in 
some places than in others, and of this we have very strong 
evidence in the conservative character of some of the con- 
temporary spoken dialects . 2 These dialectic differences 
throw, as we shall see presently, much light on the character 
of the spoken language of Byzantine times. 

But the victory of the koine and its progeny was not at 
first complete. To men with a scholarly or antiquarian turn 
of mind it seemed an inelegant declension from the ancient 
standards of literature: hence began the atticizing school, 
represented most typically by Lucian, and all through the 
Byzantine period writers were imbued with this same purist 
spirit, though their standard was no longer Attic but the 
koine itself. And as this was also the language of the Church, 
fixed and liturgical, it was possible to check the processes of 
linguistic change to a really very remarkable degree. This 
standardizing of Greek was not without its good effects, but 
it inevitably produced a certain deadness, as learning and 
literature became the close preserve of trained scholars rather 
than a field open to all comers. A crabbed obscurity was 
admired, and writers forgot the truth embodied in the dictum 

1 MeaCLicuviKa Kal v^a 'EXX-qVLKa (Athens, Bf\t,oOrjKTj MapaaAij. 190 j), vol. i, pp. 406, 

480. 

* Notably in tbe dialects of Asia Minor — I speak of the time before the cata- 
strophe of 1923 — Cyprus, south Italy, and certain oases, such as Chios, Rhodes, 
and Thrace: for which see Psaltis in Ac£umypa 4 >utov 1 Apxeiov (published by the 
National Dictionary now being compiled in Athens), vol. v, p. 238. For a summary 
account of the dialects, see ‘The Dialects of Modern Greece', in the Trans, of the 
Philological Society, 1940. 



254 GREEK LANGUAGE IN THE BYZANTINE PERIOD 
of Koraes, that it is not enough for a writer to be learned and 
clever (oo <f>6s ) ; he must be clear (mufrfs) as well. 

In the development of Greek we have therefore to follow 
up two parallel but interacting currents : one is of the spoken 
language and the other is of the Greek of the written, classical 
tradition. For the second our task is plain; we have only to 
examine the voluminous literature of Byzantium, nearly all 
of which is in this form of the language. But this very fact 
has inevitably concealed from us a great many steps in the 
shaping of spoken Greek ; of its local developments earlier 
than the thirteenth century we in fact know very little more 
than nothing. For what happened earlier than this date we 
have to depend upon contemporary documents — papyri and 
inscriptions — and still more upon the prohibitions of gram- 
marians and their distinctions between classical and vulgar 
words and expressions, and upon the slips and errors of 
writers who were all the time aiming at writing anything but 
the popular Greek whose course we are trying to trace. It is 
fortunate that by the side of the learned historians we have 
the more popular chroniclers, such as Malalas of the sixth 
and Theophanes of the eighth century, and the writers of 
lives of the Greek saints, all of whom allow themselves to use 
a less classical style. Here, of course, a knowledge of the 
modern language is indispensable ; it alone enables us to read 
the evidence correctly by letting us see the end towards 
which the language of the Byzantine period was tending. 

For the twelfth century and onwards we have a series of 
texts, beginning with the satiric poems of Theodore Ptocho- 
Prodromus, written with more or less consistency in the 
spoken language: in all these writings we find a mixture of 
old and new forms, the latter steadily advancing at the 
expense of the former. Much obviously depends on the 
method of interpretation applied' to these texts, and their 
evidence has, in fact, been read in two very different ways. 
Hatzidakis held that the inconsistency of their language 
arises from the writers using sometimes the ancient forms of 
the written tradition, and sometimes the forms with which 
they were themselves familiar as a part of the ordinary 
spoken Greek of the day, and that therefore what we are to 
see in these texts is the already formed modern language 



GREEK LANGUAGE JfN THE BYZANTINE PERIOD 255 

gradually forcing itself into literary use. By the side of these 
texts in popular Greek there are always the learned texts in 
which the authors as consistently as they could steadily 
followed the written, classical tradition. 

To this view of the matter Psychari was fundamentally 
opposed. He rejected Hatzidakis’s view of the mixed 
language, and therefore elaborately tabulated the increase in 
the texts of certain modern formations, and held that this re- 
flects not their gradual adoption into written Greek, but their 
actual creation and spread in the spoken language. 1 From 
this it results that he put the formation of the modern 
language centuries later than Hatzidakis, and held that the 
most we can say of the period before the tenth century is that 
the koine was then weakening; that from then to about the 
year 1600 modern Greek was shaping itself, and that this 
process was only complete in the seventeenth century. 
Hatzidakis’s evidence for the earlier centuries is largely 
drawn from the formation of new types of nouns and verbs 
regarded as involving the deep change in the language by 
which modern Greek was formed. All this very cogent 
evidence Psychari was able to set aside by a simple assertion 
that morphology, word-formation, and phonetic changes, 
being three different and separate things, may occur quite 
independently one of the other. I have no hesitation in 
following Hatzidakis in this matter. 

In discussing the double current of all later Greek it will 
be convenient to begin with the language of the written 
tradition, the parent of the ‘purifying speech’, the katha- 
revousa, of our own day. 

In no department of life is the innate conservatism of the 
Byzantines more marked than in their adhesion to the old 
written tradition of literary Greek. Pride in their nationality, 
in their culture, and in their past; the haughty distinction 
between themselves and the outside barbarian peoples; all 


1 Paychari’s views are expressed in hit Essais de grammaire historique nio-grecque, 
part i (Paris, 18S6), especially pp. 164-88. Hatzidakis criticized this paper very 
severely, both the method and the way in which it was applied, in the Zeitschrift flir 
vergletchendt Sprachforschung, vol. xxxi (1892), pp. 103-56, and gave his views 
on the early development of the modern language in bis Einleitung in die neugr. 
Grammatii (1892), pp. 172-229, repeated in MeaauavuA koX via 'EXMjviKa, vol. i, 
pp. 406-8 1, with a further criticism of Psychari, ibid., pp. 482-536. 



256 GREEK LANGUAGE IN THE BYZANTINE PERIOD 
these tended to confer on the language as handed down to 
them by a long chain of writers, always scholars and often 
saints as well, an almost sacred character, and produced 
from time to time revivals of classical style, when the written 
language was in the natural course of events showing signs 
of yielding to the pressure of the vernacular and following 
the new developments of the spoken Greek. Hence it is that 
later authors often write more classically than their pre- 
decessors: Photius in the ninth century is more classical than 
Theophanes in the eighth; Psellus in the eleventh and 
Eustathius of Thessalonica in the twelfth than the Emperor 
Constantine Porphyrogenitus in the tenth . 1 Such a revival 
was indeed very marked in the period of the Comneni, and 
Anna Comnena conspicuously uses a purer style than some 
of the earlier writers. These backward movements present 
us with the extraordinary result that in point of classical 
correctness there is not very much to choose between, say, 
Procopius, writing at the beginning of our period, and 
Critobulus, recording the conquests of the Turks and the 
end of the Greek Empire in the fifteenth century. The same 
tendency towards an artificial purism, again with the same 
patriotic motive behind it, was very apparent in the literary 
movement associated with the regained freedom of Greece 
in the early years of the nineteenth century. The Orthodox 
Church with its long, complicated, and much-loved liturgies 
and services disposed people in the same direction. Member- 
ship of the Church was a mark of nationality, and it is due 
to the use of the liturgical language that a great many words 
not used in ordinary speech are for all that perfectly intelli- 
gible to almost any Greek . 2 

Psellus was the great literary figure of the eleventh 
century. He uses the purest written Byzantine style, which 
he himself calls the koine , a Greek which is in the direct line 
of ascent from the ‘purifying speech’ of the present day. This 
Greek may be briefly described as being as classical as the 
writer could make it . 3 . In accidence Psellus keeps in the 

1 So Hatzidakis in ZtiUchriftfUr’vergleichendeSprachforschung, vol. xxxi, p. 108. 

* See Hatzidakis’a pamphlet Ilepl rfjs cvorrjros ri js ’EXXyvueijs rhhatrys (’Encrypts 
toO ‘EBnieov UavenurrypUou, Athens, 1909), p. 141. 

5 Here I follow fimile Renauld, Etude de la longue et du style dt Michel Pscllos 
(Paris, 1920). 



GREEK LANGUAGE IN THE BYZANTINE PERIOD 257 

main to the old rules, yet, when he comes to employ exactly 
those forms which we are most certain had been for a long 
time out of spoken use, there are distinct signs that he found 
himself in the difficulties natural to a man writing a language 
which he does not speak. Notably the verbs in [u are very 
much broken down, and the pluperfect has very often 
dropped its augment. In syntax we have the same story: by 
the side of classical constructions we find what we can only 
call ‘Byzantinisms’, cases in which Psellus’s lack of familiarity 
with ancient idiom caused him to make what, considering his 
aims, it is not unfair to call blunders. And another mark of 
artificiality is his predilection for precisely the forms which 
in the spoken language were most dead. Thus he has a 
particular liking for the dual and a strong tendency to over- 
work the optative, both being marks of forced purism, and 
to be seen as such when we remember that in the natural 
Greek of the New Testament the dual is not used at all and 
the optative is extremely rare. The perfect too is handled in 
a way that suggests that it is a dead and not a living form. 
Equally significant is the tendency to confuse the present 
and aorist imperative, a confusion which is at the back of the 
modern Cappadocian rule by which the contracted verbs use 
only the present, and all the other verbs only the aorist of the 
imperative, without any distinction of meaning . 1 

Rather more than a century later comes Anna Comnena . 2 
Her purist ideals are the same as those of Psellus, and she 
dislikes to record even the names of barbarians, for fear that 
they may defile the pages of her history. But she is less 
successful than Psellus in her imitation of the ancient models. 
We may even find a sentence in which she uses in successive 
principal clauses a future indicative, an aorist subjunctive, 
and an aorist optative, without any distinction of meaning. 
The prologue of the Alexias , her history of her father’s 
achievements, gives us her notion of the proper equipment 
for an historian. After remarking that history alone can 
save the memory of events from being swept away by the 

1 R. M. Dawkins, Modem Greek in Asia Minor (Cambridge, 1916), p. 139. 

' 1 Georgina Buckler, Anna Comnena, a Study (Oxford, 1929, p- 483). The 
sentence I refer to is in Alexias, xiii, p. 410 d. For her horror of ‘barbarian’ 
names cf. ibid., vi. 14, p. 182 B; x. 8, p. 289 D; xiii. 6, p. 393 c. 



258 GREEK LANGUAGE IN THE BYZANTINE PERIOD 
stream of time, she announces herself proudly as ‘nurtured 
and born in the purple, not without my full share of letters, 
for I carried to its highest point the art of writing Greek, 
nor did I neglect the study of rhetoric: I read with care the 
system of Aristotle and the dialogues of Plato, and fortified 
my mind with the quadrivium of sciences.’ The ideals of 
the writer of a ''traditional style could hardly be put more 
clearly. 

At the very end of the Empire we find the same ideals: 
Critobulus writes in the same purist style, and his opening 
words set the key to his book as a whole . 1 Just as Thucydides 
the Athenian announced himself as the author of his history, 
so nearly two thousand years later Critobulus of Imbros begins 
his book with the words : ‘ Critobulus the Islander , who traceshis 
origin to the men of Imbros , wrote this history > judging it not right 
that matters so great and marvellous , happening in our own time , 
should remain unheard , but that he should write them down , and 
so hand them on to the generations which will follow us.' 

But att the, world does, not go to school. No doubt the 
level of education in Byzantium was high, nor was there any 
lack of successors to the pedantic Ulpian, the orator of Tyre, 
who would never sit down to a meal without first making 
sure that every word on the bill of fare was to be found 
(xeirai) in the classical authors, for which he earned the 
nickname Keitoukeitos, a man who asked always ‘Is the 
word classical or not?’ (kcItcu; ov #cet«u ;) 2 We may be sure 
too that pains were not spared to keep the language spoken 
at the imperial Court and in official circles at least very much 
nearer to the classical norm than the Greek of the streets 
and of the market-place . 3 But at the same time no efforts 
can keep a spoken language entirely stable. Beneath the 
language of the written tradition the conversational idiom of 
everyday life was continually developing fresh forms, and 

1 Published in Carl Miiller’s Fragmenta historicorum graecorum, vol. v (Paris, 
1873). The prologue (p. 54) runs in the original: KptToflovhDs 0 vTjoutmjS, to it puna- twv 
’IpPpuaruv, rriv ^vyypa^rjv rqvSf (wtypatfie, SiKau&ms pjj npaypara oiJrai peyaXa k<u 
B avpaora tjpuiv yeyovora petvcu, amjKOVOTO, aAAd ^vyypajpdpcv os wflpaSovwu rats 
ptO' ids ytveaU, k.tX 

2 Athenaeus, Book I, ch. 1. In the Loeb edition, vol. i, p. 6 , line 5 - 

3 Evidence for the purity of the Greek spoken by the much secluded ladies of 
the Byzantine aristocracy is to be found in a letter of 14 jr from Fildfo to Sforza. 
The passage is on p. 183 of the 1478 edition of Filelfo's letters. 



GREEK LANGUAGE IN THE BYZANTINE PERIOD 259 
perhaps all the more easily as its work was untouched by the 
efforts of scholars, who were devoting themselves primarily 
to the preservation of their treasured inheritance, the 
written language, to the avoidance of solecisms and of such 
incursions of the spoken language into it as would seem from 
their point of view to be simply barbarisms. 

Here the question arises: what do we legitimately mean 
by the very frequently used word ‘barbarism’ P 1 If we look 
impartially at the formation of the modern language, we 
cannot call everything non-classical a barbarism - , to call the 
use of amo with the accusative a barbarism is patently 
absurd. Yet the word has a real meaning. What may 
properly be called a barbarism is an error made in speech or 
writing by a man trying to use a language of which he has no 
real knowledge, or aiming at using an obsolete type of his 
own language; of barbarisms of this latter sort the medieval 
Greek texts are full. Such errors are very instructive, for 
they tell us at once that the word or form so used was no 
longer a part of the living language; it was a thing for the use 
of which there was no longer a genuine linguistic conscious- 
ness. I give some examples. In ancient Greek els with the 
accusative and ev with the dative are kept distinct: in modern 
Greek both senses are rendered by els with the accusative, 
and this began very early. So when Byzantine authors use 
h> with the dative it is a purist archaism, and when they 
carry it so far as to use their ev to express ‘motion towards’, 
they are committing a barbarism, and one that tells us that, 
in fact, ev with the dative must at that time have been a dead 
form. This barbarous use of the preposition is, indeed, very 
common. Again, in the Chronicle of the Morea we find an 
aorist participle okovowv, and this is used for both the 
singular and the plural: 2 from this we can deduce that the 
writer was not really familiar with aorist participles, certainly 
not in their classical form. The present participle, on the 
other hand, supplies us with a set of examples which cannot 
properly be called barbarisms. Already in the papyri the 

1 The subject of ‘barbarisms' I hare treated at some length in a paper called 
‘Graeco-bar bara’, in the Trans, of the Philological Society for 1939. 

* John Schmitt’s edition (London, 1904), line 701, where the codex hafniensis 
reads 'Akovouiv raOra oi apxovrts toC fipayiciKoC faooarov, and the pansinus, not 
much better, ijmifoas, k.tA. There is another example in line 744. 



260 GREEK LANGUAGE IN THE BYZANTINE PERIOD 
masculine terminations of the present participle active are 
used for the feminine: an example is (the nominative) 
ywautes o/j-vvovras, women swearing. Then later the accusa- 
tive singular masculine is used without distinction of gender 
or number or case. These uses have been called barbarous, 
but when we find in modern Greek the indeclinable par- 
ticiple in -ovTo. and the more developed form in -ovras, we 
shall be likely to think that all these seemingly barbarous 
forms were in actual use : they are not real barbarisms, but 
rather they prove that in actual usage the linguistic sense for 
the declined participle was breaking down, and that the 
undeclined participle of the modern language, with its 
special use, was gradually taking its place. 1 A real barbarism 
is a sort of linguistic Melchisedek, ‘without father, without 
mother, without descent’: these masculine for feminine 
forms are a part of the history of the language. 

The use of the third person of the reflexive pronoun for 
the first and second persons is found already in Hellenistic 
Greek, and continues to be common: thus the eleventh- 
century text Barlaam and Ioasaph contains a number of 
examples. 2 3 This again we cannot call a barbarism, because 
in modern Greek «um5(v, and even though less commonly 
ifjMvr6(v, is used for all three persons : an example is Kv-rraga 
tov eavro fwv, I took a look at myself? 

Modern Greek usage can therefore help us towards a 
knowledge of the spoken language of the Byzantine period. 
Sometimes, however, in the medieval texts we meet with 
forms that belong neither to the classical nor to the modern 
language. Such forms, if well established, are not to be 
rejected as mere barbarisms, but are to be regarded as inter- 


1 For this see Hatzidakis, Einleitung in die neugriechische Grammatik, p. 144. 
with many examples, from which I take the one in the text. 

2 e.g. on p. 270 in the Loeb edition (St. John Damascene, Barlaam and Ioasaph, 
London, 1914) we find Srjuavpoy iavrw els t 6 pihXov aovhov dijaavpiao v, and on 
p. 290: rais dpsratr iauriv. I accept Peeters’s argument that this text is not 
by John of Damascus, but by Euthymius, Abbot of Iviron on Athos. For further 
discussion see Analecta bollandiana, vol. xlix (1931), pp. 276-312; and Byzantion, 
vol. vii, p. 692. 

3 For this and many other examples see Louis Roussel, Grammaire descriptive 
du RomHrjue litt/raire (Paris, n.d. [1922 ?]), p. 125. For instances of the usage 
in Barlaam and Ioasaph see Loeb edition (cited note 2 supra ) at pp. 40, 270, 
284, See. 



GREEK LANGUAGE IN THE BYZANTINE PERIOD 261 
mediate between the old and the new. 1 Thus the instru- 
mental dative went out of use very early, and gave place 
successively to h> with the dative, 8ta with the genitive, pxra 
with the genitive, and finally to what is in use to-day, /xerd or 
fie with the accusative. 2 Here is a whole series of inter- 
mediate forms. Again, between the old synthetic future and 
the modern future made with da and the subjunctive we have 
the medieval form made with egoi and the aorist infinitive; 
a form which still exists in the modern language, but 
expresses not the future but the perfect. 3 * A study of popular 
Greek will yield many more such instances. Thus we have 
already seen that the present participle has now been reduced 
to an indeclinable fragment of its old self. Yet there was in 
Byzantine Greek a tendency to extend its use by combining 
it, and other participles as well, with the verb to be , and 
in this way forming analytical tenses. We find plenty 
of examples in Barlaam and Ioasaph'. thus awaOpoitaiv fy 
and fy diroareDias are equivalent to an imperfect and a 
jluperfect, whilst owSuucovifav £077 is a durative future.* 
Jor this idiom there is no room in modern Greek with its 
oss of the participles, and it is a feature of the medieval 
anguage which led to nothing, but before it perished its 
extension was considerable. In the eighteenth-century 
translation into popular Greek of the Lausiac History 5 this 
usage is so frequent as to be a real mark of the style of the 
book; it has been preserved, too, in Tsakonian. Here the 
present and imperfect of the indicative have been lost — 
though not the subjunctive present — and in their place the 
present participle is used with the present and imperfect of 
the verb to be. Thus I see is for the masculine opovp evt 
(= opwv etjxai) and for the feminine opovap h>i (= opwaa 

1 For these forms see Hatzidakis, Einleitung in die neugriechische Grammatik, 
p. 15, and also his MeaauoviKa koX via 'EhXi\viKa, vol. i, p. 373. 

1 From Jean Humbert, La Disparitian du datif en Grec (Paris, 1930), pp. 99-160 
and p. 199. 

3 This form and the change in its meaning are discussed by Hatzidakis in 
McoauaviKa Kol via 'EXA-qvtKa, pp. 398-609. 

♦ The references to the Loeb edition (see p. 260, n. 2) are pp. 518, 458, and 602. 
Renauld finds examples in Psellus, though he takes occasion to remark that they 
are not quite equivalent to the corresponding tenses of the verb whose participle 
is used in this way; see Etude de la longue et du style de Michel Psellos, p. 378. 

5 Aavouutiv, ck&oois via. ’AOfjvai, 1913, f}t/ 3 \iomoAciov B. Kofinoyia. 



262 GREEK LANGUAGE IN THE BYZANTINE PERIOD 
cI/kw), and we see is opovvrep epx for both genders, the 
specifically feminine participle having been lost in the way 
already described . 1 

On these two lines the language developed, and it is not 
an exaggeration to say that these two currents of Greek, 
classical and popular, have existed side by side from the 
very beginning of our period, and very probably even a 
great deal earlier, right down to the present day with its 
disputes on the ‘language question’. What is particularly 
obnoxious to the modern champions of popular Greek is 
any coexistence of different forms of a language: any such 
‘doubleness of language’ ( SiyXoiaaia ) they regard as harmful 
and absurd . 2 

From the fifteenth century we have an interesting piece of 
testimony that the Greeks themselves were very well aware 
of this state of affairs. The Cypriot chronicler Makhairas 
says that before the Frankish crusaders had seized the island 
the people had been capable of writing ‘good Greek’, 
popxLiKa KaOoXixa, and had used it for correspondence with 
the Emperor, but that when French was brought into the 
island and they were cut off from their cultural headquarters, 
then their Greek became barbarous. He puts it in this way: 
‘we write both French and Greek, in such a way that no one 
in the world can say what our language is ’. 3 The traditional 
written Greek kept up by their connexion with the capital 
was lost, and the islanders were left with their uncultivated 
vernacular to which was added, as a further element of 
corruption, the influence of the language of their French 
conquerors. 

The Hellenistic ‘common language’ began very early to 
split up into dialects, of which the descendants are being 
spoken to-day. Evidence for the age of these fresh divisions 
may be seen in the preservation in certain districts of features 
of the ancient language which began very early to change 
in the direction of the norm of modern Greek. An example 
is the ending -os of the accusative plural; this began to dis- 

1 Forms quoted from C. A. Scutt, Annual of the British School at Athens, vol. xix 
(1942-3), p. 168. 

2 Representative here is Greek Bilingualism and some Parallel Cases, by Peter 
Vlas to; Athens, at the ‘Hestia’ Press, 1933. 

3 The Chronicle of Makhairas, ed. Dawkins, 1932, vol. i, p. 143. 



GREEK LANGUAGE IN THE BYZANTINE PERIOD 263 
appear in favour of -es- as early as the reign of Nero. But it is 
still preserved in Pontus as well as in Ikaria, and sometimes 
in Chios and Rhodes : in these islands it is still distinguished 
from the -«? of the nominative . 1 To take another example; 
the velar consonants k and x began very early to acquire a 
palatal sound before e and i, and the earliness of this change 
is attested by its spread over the whole area of modern 
Greek excepting the island of Therasia and certain villages 
in Karpathos. In these places there has never been any 
palatalization, and the old velar sounds of k and x are pre- 
served throughout, so that the k in, for example, k<u, has the 
same sound as the k in kwcd . 2 Again, at least as early as the 
eleventh century, the feminine plural of the article followed 
the masculine, and for ot, at we have ot, ot, pronounced i; but 
in the Terra d’Otranto villages the at has been kept and the 
plural runs masculine i\ feminine e, and the only difference 
from ancient Greek is that the neuter is not to but a . 3 It is 
interesting to note that in Kastellorrhizo there has been a level- 
ling change in the opposite direction and at, so far from dis- 
appearing, now serves for both masculine and feminine and 
for both numbers . 4 As a last example, an accented i before 
another vowel now, as a rule, throws the accent on to the 
second vowel, so that, for example, ira&la is pronounced naiSid. 
But in Terra d’Otranto, in Pontus, and in certain districts 
which fringe mainland Greece — Athens in its old dialect, 
Megara, Aegina, Mani, and in some of the Ionian islands — 
we still have the old accentuation na&la preserved . 5 This shift 
of accent cannot, so far as I know, be dated, but it is certainly 
old enough to have formed a distinction between dialects in 
the Byzantine age. And these ‘fringe’ dialects still resist to 
some extent the itacism which marks modern Greek, for in 

1 For the significance of several of these dialectical variations see Hatzidakis in 
Mar. k. via 'EX A., vol. i, p. 381; vol. ii, p. 438. 

2 MixaTiMSrris-Noudpas, Arjportxa rpayovSta KaprraBov (Athens, 1928), pp. 13, 14, 
with a review in the journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. xlviii, p. 249. 

2 Hatzidakis, Einl. tn d. neugr, Grammatik, p. 14, and for actual forms see 
Morosi, Studi sui dialetti Greet della Terra d'Otranto (Lecce, 1870), p. 118. 

♦ Forms are to be found in Diamantaras’s collections inZatypajtios 'Aymv in &1X0X. 
TifAAoyos K/miXetoc, vol. xxi (189a), pp. 3 1 5-66. Examples are i oipavif, e BaXamra, 
i Qpavra 01, tie Franks, 

* Thumb, Handbueh d. neugr. Volissprache, 2nd ed. (Strassburg, 1910), p. 9. 
There is an English translation of this edition, Edinburgh, Clark, 1912. 



*6 4 GREEK LANGUAGE IN THE BYZANTINE PERIOD 
them v still retains its old pronunciation ti or u, and has not 
as elsewhere become i. 1 

Similar evidence is provided by a study of the vocabulary 
of the spoken peasant dialects. 2 In them many words are 
preserved that have either entirely disappeared from the 
language as a whole — excepting of course the high written 
style — or else are represented in it merely by a few com- 
pounds, while at the same time the commonly used equiva- 
lents are sufficiently old to show that all through the 
Byzantine age the pairs of words existed side by side in the 
spoken language though in different areas. Thus 6<j>6aXp6s 
has everywhere given place to /xdrt (= dfip,dnov ), except that 
at Pharasa in the Taurus they used tfrrdp/ii : elsewhere 
6<f>daXp.6s survives only, so far as I know, in the island verb 
<fnapp.C£,w , to give the evil eye. Door is everywhere 7 ropra, 
just as oTkos has given way to the equally Latin omn 
( hospitium ), but in Cappadocia 6vpa was in use. In the Terra 
d’Otranto we have phrea and liri for -well and rainbow , 
instead of TnjyaSi and hol-apt. The word for bone is now 
kokkoXov, but in Terra d’Otranto we find steo, at Pharasa oro, 
and at Sinasos in Cappadocia crrovS i; all from oarovv. The 
rarer word sometimes has a very much larger area. Thus for 
sick, dppuoTos is usual; in the Greek of Cyprus and Asia 
darfinjs is preferred. 3 Of nvp only a few derivative com- 
pounds are left; the common word for fire is tfmmd. But in a 
song from Pharasa (unpublished) I find p/trvp* to <f>ovpvo for 
put (imperative) fire into the oven , and in Cappadocia forms 
from e'tm'a were used; in Pontus Sifnfio from dirrw ; in Cyprus 
Xaparpov ; all of them are ancient words and, except Xapn pos, 
not usual in any sense outside these special areas. Such 
variations must go back to the very beginning of modern 
dialect division if they do not go further and point to 

1 Hatzidakis, Men. k. via 'EXX., vol. i, p. J3. 

2 It is in household and country words that these survivals are for the most part 
to be sought. In Karpathos I note to rmnrapi, afterbirth, a diminutive of K&rrapas 
(AftxajjAi'Srjr, Aaoypaxfn.Ka avppetKra KapmBov p. 98)5 Xeptdixoprov, XcfUBoxopro (in 
which iX/iiv; is preserved), a seaweed used as a vermifuge’, and many others. 

3 Other such ‘easternisms’ are dwoigrapi for xXeiSt, avra/sa for /sa(ij, Bui pm for 
ftXimu, pan for xmoKapiao {shirt). A list of these words is in Dawkins, Philological 
Society’s Transactions, 1925-30, p. 318. For local differences in the koine itself and 
especially the question of an ‘eastern home', see Thumb’s Die Griechische Sfrache 
im Zeitalter des Hellenismus (Strassburg, 1901). 



GREEK LANGUAGE IN THE BYZANTINE PERIOD 265 
differences in the koine itself. Medieval Greek was, as 
Hatzidakis has said, anything but the plain and uniform 
successor to the koine which we find in the Byzantine authors 
of the written tradition . 1 To show its possible variations I 
give a piece from the story of the Cross; first as it appears 
in a version written probably somewhere in northern Greece 
and then as it is rendered into fifteenth-century Cypriot by 
Makhairas. 

Kal etSev oveipov deiKov, otl evas veos d.v6ptmros TTjV eXeyev' 'Kvpla 
'EXevrj, Kadajs eKap.es els rrjv ' I(epovcra)Xrip Kal epKohoprjcres rroXXoiis 
vaovs, er£i va,Kaprjs Kal eSdj.' 

In Cypriot we have : 

Kal etSev evav opcupav, Sri evas iraiSlos avdpomos elrrev ttjs- 'Kvpla pov 
'EXevrj, toy yoiov erroiKe s els tt/v 'IepovcraXrjp Kal eKriaes rroXXoiis vaovs, 
TjT^o v rrolae Kal wSe .’ 2 

These local dialects no doubt seemed very rough and 
rustic to educated persons. Thus the fifteenth-century 
satirist Mazaris, professing to give a few words from the 
Tsakonian dialect, in fact heaps together a few colloquial and 
dialectic forms, which would seem so uncouth and pro- 
vincial that they might well be from the incomprehensible 
speech of the Tsakonian peasants. Among the words he 
gives are two third plurals of the imperfect middle, epxovrtjoav 
and KaSetfivrrjaav , which in fact belong to the Peloponnesian 
speech of to-day, and some imperatives in -ov, which belong 
to-day, and probably then also, only to the Greek of Pontus 
and of south Italy. The forms are mdoovra, Swaovra, o<j>l£ov to . 3 

In the tenth century, too, the speech of Old Greece seemed 
barbarous to the educated. We have an epigram of this date : 
‘It was in no barbarous land but in Hellas that you became a 
barbarian both in speech and manners .’ 4 Again, at the be- 
ginningof the thirteenth century we find Michael Acominatus, 
the Bishop of Athens, writing that long residence at Athens 

1 Hatzidakis, MiKpa ovpfioXyj ei’r r. lampion t. cWtjviKrjs yXwaarjS] Comptes rendus de 
V Acadimie d'AtJibies, vol. iii (1926), p. 214. 

* Dawkins, The Chronicle ofMaihairas, vol. i, p. 6; vol. ii, p. 14; see also Ktmpuixa 
Xpovixd, vol. xi (1935), p. 10. 

3 Ellissen’s Analekten (Leipzig-, i860), vol. iv, p. 230. 

4 Oil fiapfiapuiv yrjv , oXA’ isdjf TTjV 'EAAaSa, 
iflapflap<v(h]S Kal A 6yov Kal t6v rpitrov. 

Printed in G. Soyter’s Byxantmische Dichtung (Athens, 1938), p. 24, and also in 
Gregorovius, Geschichte der Stadt Athen im Mittelalter , Bk. I, ch. vii. 



266 GREEK LANGUAGE IN THE BYZANTINE PERIOD 

had made him a barbarian : eflappaptofiai xpov to? wv h> 'AOrjvais . 1 

The Turkish conquest could not put an end to these 
tendencies in the language. The popular style, which had 
already appeared in writers of the period of the Comneni, 
came more and more to the fore, and Greek began to be 
written in a form closely resembling the common speech 
of everyday life. Good examples of this style are the books 
of the eighteenth-century geographer Meletius and the 
Chronicle of Dorotheus of Monemvasia. By its side the old 
classical style, increasingly filled, however, with Turkish 
words, continued its course, and after 1821 unfortunately 
eclipsed its rival, and the modern purifying language, the 
Kadapevovaa, took shape and became the language of the 
nation. Its excesses produced the anti-classical movement of 
Psychari and Pallis, which has certainly had the result of 
moderating the classical excesses of the purists. It would 
seem now that Greece has entered upon a fresh period of 
‘diglossy ’, by some writers regretted, by others regarded as 
the only means by which a writer can have at his command 
the whole resources of the language. 

The relations of the Byzantine Greeks with neighbouring 

! peoples naturally made their mark to some extent in the 
anguage. But these contacts were never so intimate as to 
have any influence on the morphology and syntax; the 
frequent gallicisms in modern phraseology and the quasi- 
Turkish syntax of the Asia Minor dialects belong entirely to 
the world of post-Byzantine Greek, 2 and we are left here with 
nothing to discuss but the loanwords. 3 Space compels us to 
leave aside the few stray words, many for merchandise, from 
the Arabian East, and also the mainly rustic words brought in 
by Slavs and Roumanians and later by Albanian immigrants. 
Nor can we do more than mention the Frankish words 
introduced by the Crusaders, notably in Cyprus and the 
Peloponnese, where Ramon Muntaner, the Catalan writer, 
was able to say that as good French was spoken as in Paris. 4 

1 Gregororius, GescMchte der Stadt Athtn im Mittelalter, Bk. I, ch. vii. 

2 For mutual influence of Balkan languages see Kr. Sandfeld, Linguistique bal- 
kanique (Paris, 1930). 

J Collected in the not very critical book of M. A. Triandaphyllidis, Die Lehn- 
leSrttr der mitulgriechsschen VidgSrtiteratur (Strassburg, 1909). 

4 Ch. ccbci: e parUmen axi bell Frances cam dins el Paris. 



GREEK LANGUAGE IN THE BYZANTINE PERIOD 267 

These French words have for the most part disappeared, and 
the immense number of Italian words brought to the Greek 
East by merchant colonies from Venice and Genoa and by 
the later Italian conquerors belong only to the end of our 
period. 

But a little more space must be given to the Latin words. 
Byzantium was a New Rome, and Roman administration, 
Roman law, and the Roman army system inevitably brought 
with them a great number of Latin words . 1 How deeply 
such professional words entered into the language of ordinary 
life may be doubted; nor can the test of survival be applied, 
as all such words naturally disappeared when the govern- 
ment fell into the hands of the Turks. But so many Latin 
words adopted for the common objects of life are still 
surviving that we may be sure that the Latin element played 
a real part in the ordinary language of Byzantium, spoken as 
well as written. We give a few examples of these words as 
collected by Gustav Meyer : 2 djcovpnrlt,ai, accumbere ; ippja,fem., 
arma\ appApi, armarium ; papfidros, barbatus (stallion); piy\a, 
vig(i)lare ; /JioAa, viola ; poB AAa, bulla ; 8 e<f>ev 8 eva>, defen dere\ 
KaXlyi, caliga. Then come the names of the months: revdpis, 
Qefipovapis, and popularly efidpis under the influence of 
<f>\ef}a , because of the swelling of the springs, Mdpns, ’AnptXis, 
and the rest. Further examples are aeXXa, saddle ; m rm; 
■nopra.\ cn-para, road ; <fx>vpvas, oven\ tr/cdAa, steps, landing-place 
— Latin words heard every day in Greece, though many of 
them have always belonged to the spoken rather than to the 
written language. It is to be remarked, however, that until 
the nineteenth century the extremest conservatism of Greek 
was shown rather in matters of morphology and in the 
preservation of ancient words than in any great dislike of 
foreign words; Latin words also were so closely entwined 
with the very centre of Byzantine life that, even if they were 
recognized as non-Greek, they were regarded as free from the 
stigma of barbarism which attached itself to later comers. 

R. M. DAWKINS 

1 Studied by L. Lafoscade, ‘Influence du Latin sur le Grec’, in Bibl. de I’tcolc 
des Hautes Etudes, vol. xcii, followed by Triandaphyllidis’a Lexique des mots latins 
dans Thiophile et les nave lie: de Justmien. 

2 In Neugriechische Studien, vol. iii ( Sitzungsb . d. k. Akad. d. Wiss. in Wien, 
Phibl.-hist. Kl., Band cxxxii (Vienna, 1895). 



X 

THE EMPEROR AND THE IMPERIAL 
ADMINISTRATION 

I. THE BYZANTINE AUTOCRACY 

For more than eleven centuries the absolutism of the 
Emperors was the mainstay of the State which throughout 
its history proudly bore the Roman name, although its 
territory soon became limited to the Greek-speaking East. 
As the bad years of civil war had at one time opened the way 
to the Principate of Augustus and so to the monarchy, in 
the same way the bitter experiences of the third century forced 
men to set their hopes upon an Emperor whose will alone 
should be the supreme authority in every department of public 
life. In internal affairs a closely organized bureaucracy, in 
foreign affairs an army and a diplomatic corps furthered the 
execution of the imperial will. Foreign enemies, although they 
varied in the course of centuries, rarely allowed the Byzantine 
Empire any considerable period of peace; this pressure 
explains the fact that the necessity for the imperial autocracy 
and its instruments was never questioned by the subjects of 
the Empire, in spite of occasional opposition to individual 
Emperors. 

The Byzantine Emperors considered themselves the true 
heirs of the Roman Caesars. In this they were right, if we 
are considering the Roman Emperors of the Diocletiano- 
Constantinian type. The absolute monarch had developed 
from the first citizen, the princeps , who, by the grant of the 
name of Augustus, had from the first been raised above 
common humanity, and who, on his death, had been num- 
bered amongst the gods. Now he was decorated with the 
diadem of the Hellenistic kings, as if to show by an external 
sign that the Hellenistic conception of the ruler as a divinity 
become man had won the day; indeed, in the Eastern pro- 
vinces the Roman Emperor had been thus regarded from the 
beginning, and subsequently the view had spread through- 
out the Empire. For his subjects the Emperor was Lord 
and God; and, to a greater extent than before, everything 



THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 269 
connected with his person was regarded as holy. And this 
remained so, even after Constantine, when the Emperors 
had become Christian, and when the conception of the God- 
Emperor had to give way before the belief in a special 
sanctification of the ruler conferred on him through God’s 
grace. Even then Adoratio^ the proskynesis , remained : every 
subject when allowed to approach the Emperor — a con- 
cession obtained with far greater difficulty than in former 
times — was obliged to throw himself at his master’s feet in an 
attitude of devotion. This ceremony and indeed the whole 
punctilious Court ceremonial with its hierarchy of rank 
were oriental in origin ; so, too, were the Emperor’s robes, 
glittering with pearls and jewels. Here Sassanid Persia pro- 
vided the model; and the general effect of the ceremonial 
at which both Courts aimed was the same: the superhuman 
unapproachable character of the Emperor’s person was de- 
liberately stressed. In pictures the Emperors are represented 
with a halo. Resistance to the will of the sovereign was a 
crime against something inviolably sacred: it was a sacrilege. 

The title of the Emperor remained for a time the old one, 
Imperator Augustus , and in the Greek official language 
Autokrator Augustos. Only in 629, after the final defeat of the 
Persians by Heraclius, was the Emperor called Basi/eus, 
the Greek word for king, which had always been used for 
the Emperor in non-official language. The names Autokrator j 
and Augustus then fell into the background ; the Empress was 
always called Augusta. After the coronation of Charlemagne 
as Emperor, the Byzantine ruler, as the true heir of the 
Roman Emperors, called himself Basileus Rhomaion — 
‘Emperor of the Romans’. In the tenth century the title of 
Autokrator was again added when the Tsars of the Bulgarians 
took the title of Basileus. Apart from being a title, the word 
Autokrator became the epitome of absolute power : hence our 
word autocracy. 

Another Roman heritage was the method of conferring 
Empire on the ruler. In principle the Emperor was elective. 
The Senate, the army, and the people co-operated. When the 
throne became vacant, the Emperor could be proclaimed 
either by the Senate, which in course of time had in fact 
dwindled to a small body consisting of the highest officials 



270 THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 
of the Empire, or by the army, where again a small part acted 
for the whole body. The consent of the other electoral body 
was needed to establish a completely constitutional proce- 
dure; hence the acclamation of the people which was repre- 
sented by the citizens of Constantinople assembled in festal 
array. This was a right which was maintained until the time 
of the Palaeologi. Finally, after the reign of Leo I (457), there 
was added the coronation, an important act which from the 
seventh century was usually performed in St. Sophia by the 
Patriarch. However, in contrast with the coronation of 
Western Emperors, which the Papacy made one of the 
most important rights of the Church, the Patriarch officiated 
at the coronation not as representative of the Church but as 
representative of the electors; and his co-operation was not 
regarded as essential for the legal institution of the Emperor. 
But only a relatively small number out of the long line of 
Emperors came to the throne in this way, for, by ancient 
usage, the sovereign chosen in that manner had the right to 
settle the question of succession during his lifetime by the 
nomination of one or more co-Emperors whom he selected 
freely according to his own judgement. On such an occasion 
the reigning Emperor usually performed the ceremony of 
coronation himself, as he always did when the Empress 
(Augusta) was crowned. The Emperor, the possessor of the 
undivided sovereignty, transferred the imperial power by 
conferring the diadem as symbol of office. On the occasions 
when the Emperor left the act of coronation to the Patriarch, 
the latter acted as his master’s servant and by his commission. 
After the seventh century the position of ‘co-Emperor’ no 
longer involved active participation in the government. It 
is true that there were often more Emperors than one at the 
same time, but there was never more than one ruler. All the 
co-rulers shared in the imperial honours, but only one 
possessed the imperial power which passed automatically to 
his successor at his death. The Emperor frequently crowned 
his own son. Thus, in spite of the elective principle, it was 
possible to build up dynasties; for instance there was the 
dynasty of Heraclius; then the Isaurian dynasty after Leo 
III; and, most markedly, the Macedonian dynasty of the 
descendants of Basil I. The subjects of the Empire con- 



THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 271 
nected the idea of legitimacy with their feeling for a dynasty. 
We already find tendencies in this direction in the time of 
the families of Constantine and of Theodosius the Great. 
But the idea of legitimacy grew especially strong with the 
advent of the Macedonian dynasty. The Porphyrogenitt, that 
is to say the children of the reigning sovereign who were born 
in the Porphyry Chamber of the palace, were regarded more 
and more as the legitimate successors to the throne. Finally, 
the succession could be bestowed upon one of the imperial 
issue simply by the expression of the ruler’s desire and 
without being preceded by a coronation. If the Emperor was 
under age or lacked the necessary qualities of a commander- 
in-chief, in the interests of the Empire the way out was 
found by granting the ruling power to a ‘co-Emperor’ — the 
government would then be carried on by him alone or a 
council of Regency might be appointed; during this time 
the rights of the legitimate successor to the throne were to be 
protected. It was certainly a popular step when such a ruler 
through marriage with an Emperor’s widow or with an 
Emperor’s daughter acquired a kind of claim to legitimacy. 
Loyalty to dynastic succession even brought women to the 
throne; this happened with the Princesses Zoe and Theodora 
(1042); their joint rule was the sole instance of a division of 
the supreme power. When Zoe in the same year took Con- 
stantine Monomachus for her third husband, the interlude of 
female government was ended; but it was revived for a short 
time after Constantine’s death when Theodora was the only 
sovereign. This brings to mind the Empress Irene, who 
transformed the guardianship of her son into a personal 
sovereignty. That personal sovereignty met with no opposi- 
tion, but the anomaly was expressed in the official titulary 
where Irene appeared as ‘the Emperor’ (Basileus). Such 
cases remained exceptions. 

When an Emperor was once on the throne, there was no 
constitutional way of deposing him. If, however, his rule 
gave reasonable ground for discontent, recourse was had to 
the last resort of the subject, i.e. revolution, an expedient 
which was indeed at times abused. A new Emperor was 
proclaimed. If the coup failed, he met with the shameful 
death of a usurper; if it succeeded, his victory was the sign 



272 THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 


that God’s favour had abandoned the dethroned Emperor. 
Not a few Emperors were forced to abdicate, or met a violent 
death as the result of revolts either in camp or in the palace. 
Success legitimized the revolution. In a somewhat modified 
sense Mommsen's description of the Principate — ‘the 
imperial power is an autocracy tempered by the legal right 
of revolution’ — is applicable also to the Byzantine Empire. 

Another quotation from the same historian is not less 
applicable here; arguing from the fact that the will of the 
people both raises the Princeps to the throne and overthrows 
him, he writes : ‘the consummation of the sovereignty of the 
people is at the same time its self-destruction’. For the 
Emperor, once he was acknowledged, was the only being in 
whom sovereignty rested. It is true that even as late as the 
reign of Justinian one can find in the legislation a memory of 


the fact that all power was conferred upon the Emperor by the 

? eople in virtue of an old law, the lex regia or lex de imperio. 

'hough Leo I in his order of the day to the army might say: 
‘the almighty Lord and your choice have appointed me 
Emperor’, Justinian begins one of his novels with the words: 
‘since God has placed us at the head of the Roman Empire’. 
No matter by what means an Emperor had reached the 
throne, the idea that his sovereignty was derived directly 
from God was always preserved. He is the ruler whom God 
has crowned and is greeted as such; and the Emperors them- 
selves make this conception their own. Michael II, writing 
to Louis the Pious, said that he held his power from God; and 
Basil I, who had risen from peasant stock, wrote in his advice 
to his son Leo : ‘you receive imperial power from God’, and 
‘you receive the crown from God through my hand’. No 
wonder that imperial power seemed to the Byzantines to be 
but an earthly image of the divine power. The thought is as 
ancient as the Christian Empire itself; it had already been 
expressed by Eusebius in the fourth century . 1 So Constan- 
tine Porphyrogenitus saw in the rhythm and order of the 
imperial power a reflection of the harmony and order displayed 
by the Creator of the world. The Emperor was the chosen 
of God and the Lord’s anointed, to whom, like Peter, God 


1 Cf. Annuaire de Vlnstitut de Philologie et d’Htstoirt orientates, vol. ii (1934) 
(Melanges Bidez), pp. 13-18. 



THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 273 
had given the commission to feed his flock; this belief found 
its symbolical expression in the anointing of the Emperor, 
a rite which was probably introduced — though this is not 
certain — as early as the ninth century. The Patriarch 
anointed the Emperor with the consecrated oil, and thus 
gave expression to the divine will. 

But God’s will could only be that a Christian sovereign 
should rule over a Christian world. A necessary condition 
for succession to the throne was membership not only of the 
Empire but also of the orthodox Church, as well as the full 
possession of bodily and mental powers. The Christian 
‘Autokrator’ is the heir of the idea of a universal Emperor, 
and at the same time he is the representative of Christianity, 
which is also conceived as universal. The whole world, the 
oikoumene } forms the ideal limit and the goal of his rule. He 
alone has the right and the claim to be overlord of the 
universe. In disregard of the facts the theory was still 
firmly held that other Christian princes could be, as it were, 
only the representatives of the Christ-loving Emperor, and 
that territory formerly belonging to the Empire but now 
in possession of unbelievers must some day return to him, 
the lawful sovereign, the protector and disseminator of the 
Christian faith. So the title of Basi/eus was again and again 
refused to the German Emperors — Isaac Angelus called 
even Frederick Barbarossa simply rex Alamanniae ; this clearly 
expresses the persistent nature of the fiction of the one , 
and only God-guarded Imperium — an Imperium which is ' 
represented by the Byzantine Emperor. 

His imperial power, founded in this way and fettered by 
no written constitution, was, theoretically at least, unlimited. 
Everything was subject to the imperial majesty. As in 
former times, the Autokrator held the supreme command 
over the army, and, not being obliged to follow the counsel 
of his advisers, could himself decide for war or for peace. 

A long line of capable soldiers exercised this right, down 
to the last Constantine, who was killed while fighting for 
his capital. Furthermore, the Emperor was the sole and 
unrestricted legislator. In this capacity he organized and 
supervised the administration. He appointed the officials 
and officers, allocated their powers, and determined their 


274 THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 
rank. He gave special care to the financial administration, 
for its successful management was an essential condition for 
the welfare of the State. He decided what taxes should be 
levied and how the moneys raised should be applied, and he 
alone controlled the income of the imperial treasuries. The 
Emperor was also supreme judge, for he was the final inter- 
preter of the laws. 

Another duty of the Christian ruler was the welfare of the 
Christian Church, whose unity was to be the strong cultural 
bond which held together the Empire. That conviction had 
been formulated at the outset by Constantine the Great as 
one of the axioms of imperial duty. Therefore the regulation 
of the Church as the support of the State was an essential 
duty and at the same time a right of the Emperor. The 
Church had become the State Church; it was within the 
State and was part of the State organization. Its victory had 
been gained with the assistance of the Emperors. That fact 
was never forgotten by the Church of the Eastern half of the 
Empire; it acknowledged the ruler’s authority. But the 
Emperor drew permanent constitutional conclusions from 
individual precedents. It is highly significant that Justinian’s 
code, the codification of the imperial legislation in the name 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, should begin with a section on the 
sublime Trinity and the Catholic faith, and should combine 
in the same first book the laws relating to the order of the 
Church and to defence against its enemies with the laws 
concerning the position of imperial officials. In this way the 
Emperor co-operated in the formation of canon law. He 
did this in another way too : following Constantine’s example, 
he summoned the General Church Councils and presided 
over their sessions either in person or by deputy. He con- 
firmed their canons, gave them the force of law, and took 
measures for their execution. Resistance to the decisions of 
the Councils was heresy, but at the same time it was opposi- 
tion to the authority of the State. When the Emperor 
appointed bishops and removed those who opposed him, so 
long as he did not violate the traditional forms of episcopal 
elections, he might well count such intervention as part of his 
duty to maintain good order in the Church. 

In this way the State preserved ecclesiastical discipline, 



THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 275 
while at the same time it upheld the dogmas of the faith. It 
is therefore not surprising that Emperors who were inter- 
ested in theology should also have sought personally to 
influence the formulation of dogma. Justinian can again be 
regarded as the model of such an Emperor. The Icono- 
clast controversy was the main occasion on which the 
claim of the Emperor to decide ecclesiastical questions by 
the authority of the State was emphasized. 

This autocracy, which expressed itself both in temporal 
and in ecclesiastical matters, has been described as a 
Christian caliphate or sacerdotal monarchy; it is more often 
known by the name of ‘Caesaropapism’. But when all is said, 
it is possible that the resemblance of this autocracy by the 
grace of God to a theocratic government has been over- 
stressed. It is true that the Emperor Marcian was acclaimed 
as Hiereus (priest) and Basileus (king) at the Council of 
Chalcedon, and before and after him Theodosius II and 
Justinian were even greeted as Archiereus . But the question 
may at least be raised: How great a part was played by 
memories of the title pontifex maximus borne by earlier 
Emperors and long since abandoned? Justinian himself 
clearly distinguishes in a law between sacerdotium and 
imperium as two gifts of God’s mercy to humanity, a thought 
which was also on occasion expressed by John Tzimisces. A 
reminiscence of this idea of the equality of these rival powers 
seems to live on in the ceremonial of the tenth century when 
both Emperor and Patriarch pay to each other the tribute of 
formal Proskynesis. Moreover, when in the above-mentioned 
law Justinian puts forward a claim to the Emperor's right of 
supervision of the affairs of the Sacerdotium , he does so not 
by virtue of any sacerdotal authority; this is also the case 
when he makes use of legislation to guard the souls of his 
subjects from the dangers of heresy. Again, this holds good 
when his Patriarch Menas expresses the subordination of the 
Church to the State in the words that nothing should be done 
in the holy Church contrary to the intention and the will of 
the Emperor. This does not prove that the Emperor was 
infallible in the spiritual domain as he was in the temporal. 
If that had been so, why should Justinian have needed the 
signatures of the Patriarchs or even of a general council for 



276 THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 
the recognition of his legislation on points of dogma ? Even 
if an Emperor called himself ‘Emperor and priest’ in the 
heat of the Iconoclast controversy, yet at the same time the 
champions of Church independence were vigorously main- 
taining the lay character of the imperial power. Not even 
the fact that the sacred person of the Emperor was admitted 
to the sanctuary, which was otherwise reserved for the clergy, 
makes him a priest. And the increasing penetration of 
ecclesiastical customs into the ceremonies of the Court has a 
parallel in the daily life of every single Byzantine which is 
equally regulated by religious usages. Can one really speak 
of ‘Caesaropapism’, when one remembers that even in those 
times when the Church was prepared to recognize the 
supreme right of imperial supervision over itself, the 
Patriarch as guardian of the discipline of the Church was 
.able to excommunicate an Emperor? It is true that such an 
action was directed only against the person of the Emperor, 
not against the institution. Yet in this right of the Patriarch 
we may see an indication that arbitrary despotism was kept 
within limits. 

Similar limits restricted the Byzantine imperial dignity in 
other ways, although the existence of the autocracy was based 
on the fact that there was no institution of equal authority 
which could legally oppose its will. For it was expected of 
the Emperor that he himself should observe the laws, 
although he was the only lawgiver; yet God had subor- 
dinated even the law to him in so far as He sent him to man- 
kind as a ‘living’ law; in these words of Justinian, we can 
catch yet another echo of Hellenistic constitutional theory. 
Justinian’s code conformed to this expectation by adopting a 
passage from an edict issued by Theodosius II, in which the 
sovereign professed himself bound by the law ( adligatum 
legibus ): ‘for our authority depends on the authority of the 
law, and in fact the subordination of sovereignty to the law 
is a greater thing than the imperial power itself’. The law, 
it is true, included also administrative regulations and in this 
sphere there were naturally many changes in the course of a 
long and agitated history. Yet the conservatism which can 
be traced even in this sphere — and the term ‘conservative’ 
does not necessarily mean ‘fossilized’ — is due to the binding 



THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 277 
force of legal tradition. Moreover, Byzantine officials may 
often have felt some sympathy with the opinion of the 
quaestor Proclus who on occasion would oppose his Emperor 
Justin I with the words: ‘I am not accustomed to accept 
innovations; for I know that in the making of innovations 
security cannot be preserved.’ In this way the Senate could 
exercise its influence even without constitutional rights, and 
in particular could impose its will on a weak Emperor, con- 
sisting as it did of high dignitaries, and being able to act in 
its capacity of a Council of State. And it must be remembered 
that down to the seventh century the people of Constanti- 
nople, politically organized in their demes i usually known as 
the parties of the Circus, frequently compelled the Emperor 
to parley, and even when the demes had lost their political 
significance and played their part only in an inherited 
ceremonial, the resistance of the people was often expressed 
in riots and rebellions, in which fanatical monks not seldom 
took the lead. 

A remarkable instance of the limitations imposed by the 
Emperor on himself was the obligations which the newly 
chosen ruler undertook towards his electors. Thus Anas- 
tasius I took an oath that he would forget former enmities 
and would govern the Empire conscientiously. Besides this, 
being suspected of heretical inclinations, he signed, on the 
demand of the Patriarch Euphemius, a solemn declaration 
never to introduce innovations into the Church. There was 
thus a kind of pledge on election which had the effect of 
binding the Emperor morally, if not legally. Finally — we 
do not know exactly when — this developed into an arrange- 
ment by which a regular coronation oath was sworn. In this 
oath the Emperor assured the people of his orthodoxy, and 
promised to preserve inviolate the decrees issued by the 
recognized Councils, and also the rights and privileges of 
the Church; furthermore he undertook that towards his 
subjects he would be a mild and just sovereign, and that so 
far as possible he would refrain from inflicting the death 
penalty or mutilation. Justin I had already at his coronation 
made a similar promise to govern justly and mildly, while his 
predecessor Anastasius had expressed such sentiments more 
generally when he implored the Almighty to give him 



278 THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 
strength to govern in accordance with the hopes of the 
electors. The later coronation oath shows what the subjects 
expected from their sovereign. The theme of the Emperor’s 
duties occurs once; but the reference is not to the heavy 
burden of daily routine work and the toils borne by a pains- 
taking Emperor as the circle of his work widened, but 
rather to that spirit which was supposed to underlie all his 
actions. Here again we find an echo of an ancient tradition 
appearing as one of the principles binding on the autocrat. 
The conception of the love of mankind, of Philanthropia^ as 
conceived by Hellenistic philosophy in its picture of the ideal 
ruler, is applied to Constantine by Eusebius in his pane- 
gyric, and translated into the sphere of the Christian Empire. 
In the next generation the orator Themistius derived all the 
duties of the imperial office from this general conception of 
Philanthropia. This subject was taken up again and again. 
And it did not fail to make an impression on the Emperors. 
Justinian used similar formulas, including precisely this 
conception of Philanthropia , as the foundation of his legisla- 
tive activity. In one case where he prescribes the death 
penalty he gives his reasons in the following words : ‘this is 
not inhumanity (apanthropia ) ; on the contrary, it is the 
highest humanity ( philanthropia ), for the many are protected 
by the punishment of the few.’ From beginning to end the 
idea persisted that ‘philanthropy’ was the duty of the 
Emperor, who saw his task as justice and the protection of 
his subjects. There were exceptions enough. But the ideal, 
once accepted, was again and again a restraining force, all 
the more so since the sovereign’s actions were also always 
kept within certain limits by public opinion. However, 
neither this latter consideration nor the guidance of a moral 
standard could really be called a constitutional obligation, 
any more than the fact that the conception of imperial 
authority as a gift of God, in accordance with the prevalent 
religious feeling, cpuld increase the sense of responsibility 
even of the ablest sovereigns. 

The extent to which a Byzantine Emperor was bound by 
tradition is shown yet more clearly in what might seem 
at first sight to be mere formalities. The Court ceremonial 
with its usages set a limit which the arbitrary caprices of 



THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 279 
the autocrat never broke through. This is all the more re- 
markable since here in the pomp of these ceremonies the 
unapproachable majesty of the Emperor found its fullest 
expression. Constantine Porphyrogenitus indeed, who 
personally supervised the composition of a ‘Book of Cere- 
monies’, gives the motive for this activity, which he classes 
among the necessary duties.; he states that the imperial 
power shines in greater splendour and rises to greater dignity 
through a laudable ceremonial; and thus foreigners as well 
as his own subjects are filled with admiration. This Book of 
Ceremonies has rightly been called the codification of Court 
ceremonial and recognized as an essential characteristic of 
Byzantine statesmanship. The details of the ceremonies 
which were obligatory on all sorts of occasions pass in a 
lengthy catalogue before the reader, as for instance the pro- 
cessions at important Church feast-days, the solemn formali- 
ties of festivals in the imperial family, the reception of 
ambassadors, and the part taken by the Court in traditional 
popular festivities. Whether the matter in hand was the 
coronation of the Emperor or merely one of His Majesty’s 
excursions, the investiture of a high dignitary or a Court 
dinner party, all the arrangements were predetermined down 
to the last detail, with particulars of the time and place, the 
circle of those taking part, their dress, their behaviour, and 
their words of salutation. These fixed rules were laid down 
for the Emperor from the moment of his accession to the 
throne; they surrounded an imperial prince from the cradle 
to the grave. The christenings and the celebration of birth- 
days and weddings follow these rules in the same inevitable 
way as the funerals and the Court mourning. The attendance 
of a large imperial household, of numerous dignitaries and 
servants, of palace guards and of the people, the order of 
precedence which was always observed, all combined to 
increase the conservative effect. We discover the importance 
of such institutions when reading the kletorologion of the 
AtriklineSy the Court marshal, Philotheus, which is a treatise 
on the regulations governing precedence at a Court dinner 
in the year 899. Further proof of the strength of a tradition 
of many centuries which lasted until the Empire’s fall may 
be seen in the fact that, as late as the fourteenth century, at a 



28 o THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 
time when the splendour of the Empire was already dimmed, 
a book on the Offices , wrongly attributed to Georgius Codinus, 
discussed the same theme of the ceremonial, of the order of 
precedence, and of official and Court apparel. But the 
Emperor always remained the centre. Everything had 
reference to him; his presence was essential for the ritual 
and that presence determined the whole ceremonial. 

When all this is borne in mind, it becomes difficult, in 
fact impossible, to place this Byzantine autocracy within any 
category of the usual modern constitutional theories. It was 
taken as so much a matter of course by the Byzantines that 
it did not occur to them to theorize about it. It was so 
exclusive in its nature that no one ever thought of comparing 
it with other forms of government. But the fact that this 
institution as such was never questioned, apart from Utopian 
experiments in the last period of decline, is a proof that this 
autocracy in its own particular nature was admirably suited 
to the circumstances of its time. 

II. THE ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM 

A modification of the administrative system of the Empire 
was introduced simultaneously with the final autocratic 
development of the imperial power. This reform was 
intended to provide means for the defence of the Empire and 
for the administration of internal affairs, and at the same 
time to draw together the heterogeneous elements so as to 
form a united realm; for this purpose it aimed at building up 
a bureaucracy controlled down to the last detail. The 
system was centred in the will of the Emperor and the aim of 
the system was to render the expression of that will effective. 
Former Emperors had, of course, prepared the way. The 
permanent principles of the new administrative system were 
first established under Diocletian and Constantine. In spite 
of many changes and adaptations in detail these principles 
continued to be of great service in after years, and even sur- 
vived the revolutionary reforms of the seventh century. This 
fact serves to explain a certain rigidity in the system of 
administration, which was more the result of the pressure of 
circumstance than of any subtle theorizing. For just as the 
autocracy was necessary for the existence of the Empire, so 



THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 281 
external pressure, which hardly ever relaxed, caused a state 
of continuous strain upon all the resources of the Empire; 
thus to develop and control all these resources the establish- 
ment of the administrative system with its countless bureau- 
crats was in its turn a necessity. However, the maintenance 
of this bureaucracy, together with the defence of the Empire 
and the expense of a magnificent Court, entailed a con- 
siderable drain on the finances and was partly responsible for 
the fact that an inexorable fiscal policy, with all its conse- 
quences, gave the State its particular character. 

In order to protect the Emperor from a dangerous rivalry, 
which could have arisen if great military and civil power had 
been combined in one person, civil and military authority were 
completely separated. The division of large provinces into 
small administrative districts served the same purpose, and 
the governor profited by this arrangement, as he was able to 
manage his judicial and administrative work with greater 
efficiency, Several provinces forme d a diocese, several 
dioceses formed a prefecture. There were two prefectures in 
the Eastern half of the Empire: Oriens with five dioceses 
(comprising the Asiatic territory, Egypt, and Thrace), and 
Illyricum with two dioceses (comprising the rest of the Balkan 
peninsula as far as the Danube). To the Praetorian Prefect, 
now the highest civil official, fell the supervision of the 
administration and an extensive jurisdiction, which func- 
tioned as the highest court of appeal. He exercised supreme 
authority over the police, and, above all, controlled the 
administration of the important land tax, the annona , from 
the revenue of which he had to pay the salaries of the 
officials and the soldiers, and to feed the army. The dioceses 
were under the control of the representatives of the Prefect, 
the vicarii, who could also report directly to the Emperor, 
while an appeal lay from their decisions to the Emperor’s 
court. Similarly the Emperor was in direct communication 
with the vicarii and with the provincial governors, and sent 
special deputies to inspect the administration when the 
necessity arose. In this way a system of mutual control was 
established: such a system, it was true, might produce dis- 
putes between rival authorities through overlapping of their 
spheres of duty or from questions of precedence, but this the 



282 THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 
Government was content to accept, in order to increase its 
own powers of supervision. The same result was produced 
by the joint responsibility of the subordinates forming the 
staff ( officium ) of a high official; these subordinates, in the 
event of any error on the part of their superior officer, were 
held jointly liable and were therefore exposed to punish- 
ments which were often serious. Although decentralization 
obtained when the system of prefects was introduced in 
order to lessen the burden of the direct transaction of 
business by the Emperor, yet there was continuous opposi- 
tion to all attempts to establish too great an independence of 
the central Government. In spite or this the influence of the 
Praetorian Prefects was strong enough to secure in course of 
time that the officials who were in competition with them 
became more and more their own executive organs. In 
particular the officials charged with the collection of the 
taxes, working under the control of the prefecture, steadily 
gained in importance at the expense both of the provincial 
governors and also of the staffs of the central bureaux. The 
organization of the Taxation Department, which was under 
the scriniarii, increased in size as well as in influence in the 
civil service, and in the fifth century it had a number of 
subordinate departments of its own, among which were 
those for the pay and the commissariat of the army, for 
public works and arsenals; the prefect’s treasury was 
separated into two sub-departments, a special department 
for the salaries of the officials directly under the prefecture, 
and the general pay office for the rest of the salaries. The 
prefecture of the East had its official seat in Constantinople. 
The administration of the capital was carried out by the city 
prefect, who was next in rank below the Praetorian Prefect. 
He was supreme judge over all senators in civil and criminal 
causes arising within the boundaries of the capital. He was 
also responsible for the supervision of food supplies and of 
the collegia , the guilds. 

Constantinople, as the seat of the imperial Court, was also 
the seat of the central administration, with a number of high 
officials whom we may call ministers, although with some 
hesitation. Of these the most important was the Magister 
officiorum , who supervised the imperial chanceries (the 



THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 283 
Scrinia ), the arms factories, and the postal system, and had 
command over the bodyguard. As master of the ceremonies 
he also introduced embassies from abroad, thus performing 
the functions of a foreign minister. Assisted by Agentes in 
Rebus , who were at the same time couriers and secret police, 
he became the highest instrument of imperial control. From 
the Agentes in Rebus he formed his own staff; and he filled 
many of the highest posts in the civil and military administra- 
tion by sending seniors in rank to act as chiefs of staff 
( principes ). The Quaestor Sacri Palatii was the chairman of 
the imperial State Council, the Consistorium, and minister of 
justice; in this capacity he drew up drafts of legislation and 
answers to petitions with the assistance of the staff of the 
Scrinia. Secretaries of State, Magistri Scriniorum, were at his 
disposition for other branches of the imperial correspondence. 
As finance ministers the Comes Sacrarum Largitionum and 
the Comes Rerum Privatarum should be mentioned. The 
former derived his name from the largesses (/ argitiones ) 
which the Emperor used to distribute to his soldiers on 
certain occasions. He administered the Treasury proper, 
which succeeded the Fiscus, into which flowed the tribute 
paid in money, taxes paid by the senatorial order, taxes on 
trade and industry, and other revenues. Mines and the mint 
were also under his control. The Comes Rerum Privatarum 
administered the extensive domains belonging to the State, 
of which one part was set aside for the exclusive use of the 
Court; he also administered the imperial privy purse. The 
fact that the lower officials of the central finance departments 
were known as Palatini shows the extent to which these 
departments were regarded as offices of the Court. It is 
therefore not surprising that the highest Court official, the 
Lord Chamberlain, Praepositus Sacri Cubiculi , not only 
enjoyed a rank equal to the highest State officials, but was 
also at an early date entrusted with the administration of the 
domains reserved for the upkeep of the Court. Finally a 
new official arose to manage the Privy Purse, the Sacellarius , 
‘steward of the Privy Purse’. As this Privy Purse had again 
and again to cover the deficit of the Comes Sacrarum Largi- 
tionum , inevitably it also became a State Treasury, and the 
Sacellarius finally replaced the Comes. 



284 THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 

The precedence of the officials was settled comparatively 
early by dividing them into classes of rank. The high officials 
belonged to the classes of i/lustres, spectabiles, and clarissimi. 
The liberality of the Emperor in distributing titles caused 
these to become increasingly pompous; ‘Magnificence’ and 
‘Excellency’ survive to the present day. The original official 
name of an imperial attendant, Comes, also became a title of 
rank and was graded in three classes. The highest honour 
which was not connected with an office was that of a Patri- 
cian, which had been created by Constantine. It was sur- 
passed only by the Consuls, present and past, known in 
Greek as the Hypatoi, until finally, after the abolition of this 
magistracy, which for a long time had been an expensive 
distinction without real administrative authority, the office 
of honorary consul was turned into a new title of rank, that 
of Hypatos. Furthermore, the names of offices which had not 
become sinecures could also be granted as honorary titles, 
and later they, too, could become mere titles of rank. 

Admission to office and attainment of the highest honours 
were open to all, except to those who were bound to another 
class by hereditary obligation. Further, the lower officials 
needed the approval of the Emperor before taking their first 
post. Promotion followed in order of seniority. It must not 
be forgotten that very important positions could be reached 
in the staffs of the bureaux, from which promotion to higher 
posts was possible, and in some cases certain. The number 
of officials employed in both the Eastern prefectures was 
reckoned to be about ten thousand. The salaries of the 
officials formed an important part of the budget. In addition 
they received all sorts of extra fees (sportulae) which can 
almost be called indirect taxes. The bureaucratic machine 
was never entirely free from corruption, against which the 
Emperors struggled with varying success. The administra- 
tive organization, when once instituted, showed, both for 
good and for evil, a capacity for passive resistance to the 
imperial will which is not to be underestimated. The chief 
officials were often changed, but their highly trained sub- 
ordinates were more reliable agents for the effective dis- 
charge of business and at the same time jealous guardians of 
administrative tradition. Johannes Lydus, who had himself 



THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 285 
worked in the office of the Praetorian Prefect, gives examples 
of this in his book On the Magistracies. And the difficulties 
with which reforming Emperors had to contend in these 
offices are reflected in the imperial decrees, even in those of 
Justinian, although he had received the support of a man as 
energetic as the Praetorian Prefect John of Cappadocia. 

The gradation of the effective offices and of a small 
number of high ministers and correspondingly high military 
officers in the central department (see § III) is shown in the 
State manual, the Notitia Dignitatum , which dates from the 
fifth century, and apart from a few modifications the order 
remained the same until the sixth century. Philotheus’s 
above-mentioned ‘list of court officers’, written in the last 
year of the ninth century, gives us a completely different 
picture. The number of officials placed directly under the 
Emperor had considerably increased. The former system of 
subordination in the administration had been replaced in the 
course of time by an extensive co-ordination; this did not 
affect the order of ranks, which by then had been con- 
siderably further developed. Heavy fighting with Persia 
had forced the Emperor Heraclius to introduce a new mili- 
tary organization, the system of themes or military districts 
(see § III), which had perhaps been borrowed from his 
Persian opponents. As civil authority had been once more 
joined with the military command, these military areas had 
become new administrative districts. The themes took the 
place of the provinces, and this change was the more con- 
spicuous when smaller districts were formed from the themes 
which originally had been of very wide extent. The union of 
civil and military powers had already begun in those Western 
districts which had been reconquered for the Empire under 
Justinian; the exarchs combined the duties of a Master of 
Soldiers ( magister militum\ see § III) with those of the 
Praetorian Prefect. Justinian had also made the same 
arrangement for some of the Eastern provinces. The new 
order introduced by Heraclius came fully into operation in 
the time of the Isaurian Emperors, but neither here nor in 
the rearrangement of the central offices can any uniform and 
single plan be traced. The Praetorian Prefecture disap- 
peared. It lost its significance when civil and military 



286 THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 
jurisdiction were joined. Besides, its financial department 
had increased to such an extent that it was finally split up 
into independent offices directly under the Emperor’s control. 
It seems that the intention to do away with the former 
decentralization and the independence which was its conse- 
quence played an important part in these developments. 
The reduction of the size of the Empire, especially after the 
Arab conquests, made a strong policy of centralization easier. 
The gradual dissolution of the all too influential central 
office of the Magister Officiorum is in keeping with this 
general policy. The duties of the Lord Chamberlain, the 
Praepositus Sacri Cubiculi, were also divided up and carried 
out by different independent officials. The names of the 
offices which had thus disappeared remained as titles of 
rank. While Latin was very much in the background in the 
naming of the effective offices for which the uniform Greek 
official language was used, yet a relatively large number of 
Latin names was retained among the titles of rank. At the 
beginning of the tenth century there were fourteen such 
titles, and accordingly there were fourteen classes of rank, 
apart from those reserved for members of the imperial 
family and for the eunuchs of the Court. The highest rank 
was that of a Magister\ then followed the Patricii Anthypatoi , 
a revival of the Greek name for proconsul; then the Patricii , 
and so on down to the rank of a former prefect ( Apo Epar- 
choti) or of a general ( Stratelates ). The privileged position of 
those personally serving at Court is reflected in the prece- 
dence granted to eunuchs over others of equal rank. Apart 
from his official designation, as a rule every higher official 
bore such a title of rank, which was conferred on him by the 
Emperor in a ceremonial audience: a diploma or sign of rank 
(brabeion) was given him to be held for life. A Magister 
received a tunic interwoven with golden threads, a cloak 
laced with gold, and a belt set with precious stones. The 
Spatharii wore a sword with a golden hilt. Others received 
specially designed necklaces. 

The offices were conferred by an order from the imperial 
Cabinet. The Emperor alone controlled appointments, 
promotions, and dismissals. The prospect of promotion and 
with it a rise in rank and salary was the chief way of en- 



THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 287 
couraging the ambition of officials. The personal dependence 
of high officials on the Emperor was perhaps most clearly 
expressed in the scene when in the week preceding Palm 
Sunday the Sovereign, in one of the audience-rooms of the 
Palace, paid out the salaries with his own hands; this pro- 
cedure did not fail to make an impression on Bishop Liut- 
prand of Cremona, the ambassador of Otto I. Such a close 
connexion with the Court increased the self-respect of the 
high officials. There were still offices solely connected with 
the Court, mostly belonging to eunuchs, who served the 
sovereigns directly and conducted the administration of the 
household. At the head of every palace stood a Papas (or 
Warden of the Gate) and also the Protovestiarius , who was 
the head of the imperial private wardrobe and of the treasury 
connected with it. Largesse was given out of this treasury on 
festival occasions. The office of Praepositus survived in the 
more modest position of a master of ceremonies. The most 
influential member of this group was, however, the Grand 
Chamberlain, at this time styled the Parakoimomenos (i.e. one 
who slept next to the imperial bedchamber). The holders of 
this office often enjoyed considerable influence; Basil, for 
instance, the all-powerful minister under John Tzimisces 
and his successor, made use of his position to acquire a huge 
fortune. The possibility of such abuses was not overlooked, 
but it was realized that eunuchs were in all circumstances 
excluded from the imperial throne, and could therefore 
never become usurpers, nor had they descendants on whose 
behalf they might exploit their opportunities. 

The central imperial administration, with its seat in Con- 
stantinople, included only civil offices. The generals sta- 
tioned in the capital and the admiral of the home fleet had 
nothing to do with the administration, not even later when 
the Great Domesticus had become commander-in-chief of the 
army, and the Great Drungarius High Admiral. Philotheus 
distinguishes in the administration between Kritai, judicial 
offices, and Sekrettkot, chiefly financial offices. This separa- 
tion never became complete, especially as the tendency to 
widen the sphere of the activities of some departments 
became in the course of time more and more apparent. The 
highest official of the Kritai was the City Prefect, the Eparchos, 



288 THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 
who retained the old title and in the main still continued to 
discharge his former duties. He was the highest in rank 
among the civil officials. No eunuch was allowed to hold this 
office. He was the head of the city after the Emperor, and 
was addressed as ‘father of the city’. He was assisted in his 
judicial activities by the Logothete of the Praetorium , and in 
the administration of the city by the Symponos, and also by a 
numerous staff, as was always the case with the chief offices. 
The Eparchikon Biblion , which deals with the activities of the 
Prefect in the tenth century, gives detailed information 
regarding his sphere of duty. He was the chief officer in 
charge of the guilds, consequently he supervised trade and 
commerce, controlled the police who guarded roads and 
buildings, and formed a fire-brigade; he watched over the 
Sunday rest, and inspected foreigners engaged in trade. The 
supervision of aliens in the wider sense was under the control 
of the Quaestor , who also kept his former title. But his 
province was combined with that of an office created by 
Justinian, the Quaesitor. Some of the former imperial 
secretaries were now transferred to his department and 
acted as his subordinates. He was the head of a court of 
appeal, and was a court of first instance for questions of wills 
and guardianship. The department for petitions was the 
only one which continued independently in the office called 
J^epi ton dees eon. 

The Sekretikoi , named after their offices which were called 
Sekreta , were mostly financial officials; their superiors in 
rank were usually called Logothetes (literally accountants); 
the others were named Chartularii (actuaries), and the names 
of their departments were always specially added. Here the 
separate offices appear which had developed out of the 
finance department of the Praetorian Prefecture, though 
their field of activity could often be widened at the expense of 
other former offices : thus the Logothetes tou genikou who was 
responsible for the administration of the land tax, and was 
. therefore a particularly important official, also supervised the 
contributions for the upkeep of aqueducts and the revenues 
from mines. There were separate departments in his office 
for the assessment and for the collection of taxes. The 
Logothetes tou Stratiotikou controlled the pay and the commis- 



THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 289 
sariat of the army; he was thus a kind of Quartermaster- 
General and chief paymaster. The official named epi tou 
eidtkou controlled a special branch charged with the supply 
of equipment for the troops, for which purpose the State 
factories were under his control. The Chartularius tou 
Vestiariou may be mentioned next, as he had similar duties, 
some of which he inherited from the Comes Largitionum. He 
supervised the vestiarium , that is, the State wardrobe, from 
which other kinds of materials for purposes of peace or war 
were also supplied, and further controlled the imperial mint. 
A special branch of the office of the Comes rerum privatarum 
was now represented by the Logothetes ton agelon, who super- 
vised the domains in which stud horses were bred for the 
needs of the army, and he is accordingly classed by Philo- 
theus as an army official. The Sacellion , the origin of which 
we mentioned above, had gained in importance in that it 
had also attracted other business besides that of the Comes 
sacrarum largitionum. The independent chief of this State 
Treasury was the Chartularius of the Sacellion , originally a 
subordinate of the Sacellarius , who had in the meantime risen 
to the office of general controller of all Sekreta , that is, all 
offices of finance. 

Of those administering the domains we need mention only 
the Orphanotrophos , the director of the large orphanage in 
Constantinople, who was usually a priest. In general the 
institutions of social welfare such as hostels, poor-houses, 
and hospitals were left to the care of the Church; but the 
Emperors frequently provided property from the domain- 
lands for their establishment; in spite of the fact that these 
institutions were run by priests, they remained under the 
State’s financial control and were placed under the administra- 
tion of an office of the State domains. 

The postmaster-general also took the title of Logothete , 
Logothetes tou dromou; without properly belonging to the 
financial administration, he was counted among the Sekretikoi. 
This official contrived to extend his sphere of activity in the 
same way as had his predecessor, the Magister Officiorum. 
Like the Magister Officiorum, he, too, became the Minister 
for Foreign Affairs, and amongst other privileges had a staff 
of interpreters at his disposal. He was received in audience 



*9© THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 
every day by the Emperor, and finally became a kind of 
Chancellor, assuming later the title of Great Logothete. Some 
offices were called ‘special offices’, but they were not of any 
recognizable significance for the general administration; of 
these only that of the Syncellus need be mentioned. He was 
a high cleric, frequently succeeding to the Patriarchate, and 
was appointed by the Emperor in agreement with the 
Patriarch. He took precedence over all ordinary officials 
in the hierarchy, and might be regarded as a liaison officer 
between the Emperor and the Patriarch. 

In the administration of the provinces Philotheus knows 
of twenty-five themes, but at the beginning of the ninth 
century there were only ten. The number of the themes 
continued to increase, until in the eleventh century we know 
of thirty-eight. The extension of frontiers, and even more 
the desire to check the expansion of these independent 
districts, had contributed to this development; in troubled 
times many a military governor had succumbed to the 
temptation to make use of his power against the Emperor, 
while the formation of a land-owning military nobility also 
gave good reason for anxiety. The governors of the themes 
were mostly called Strategoi (generals); thus their purely 
military origin was indicated in their official title. They 
were directly subordinate to the Emperor. The themes 
appear to have been divided into two groups: an Eastern 
group consisting of those of Asia Minor, with the addition of 
Thrace and Macedonia, but excluding the maritime themes 
(see § III) which with the rest of the Balkan themes and those 
of southern Italy, together with Cherson in the Crimea, 
formed the Western group. The Eastern Strategoi always 
occupied a superior position. According to Philotheus, they 
ranked after the Syncellus and before the Prefect of the City, 
who was followed by the Western Strategoi. This privileged 
position accorded to the military officials gave the Byzantine 
Empire of the middle and late period its special character. 
The Eastern Strategoi , including the maritime ones, received 
their salaries from the central treasury, whereas those of the 
West were dependent on the revenues of their provinces. As 
already explained, the civil administration with its financial 
and judicial duties was also in the hands of these military 



THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 291 
governors. The military governor was assisted by a large 
body of civilian officials in addition to his military staff. But 
the Chartularius of the theme, who supervised the outgoings 
for the pay of the soldiers, was, while subordinated to him, 
at the same time responsible to the Logothetes tou Stratidtikou. 
Moreover, the judge of the theme and the Protonotary (who 
was also counted as an official of the Chartularius of the 
Sacellion) were, at least from the beginning of the tenth 
century, subordinate to the Strategos\ but this arrangement 
was subject to a certain reservation, which was expressed in 
the so-called ‘Taktikon of Leo’ in the following manner: 
‘They have to be under the orders of the Strategos in some 
matters, but we consider it safer that they should submit their 
statements of accounts to our imperial central administration, 
so as to enable us to know the state of the administration.’ 
It is not known how the duties were divided in detail, but in 
any case the central office reserved a certain right of super- 
vision, in order to control and restrain the Strategoi. The 
same purpose was served by officials sent out from the central 
office as overseers and inspectors. In addition to that, the 
bishops were exhorted to supervise the administrative pro- 
cedure in their dioceses, and the subjects were encouraged to 
seek legal redress against oppression. 

An appeal lay from the provincial courts. The Emperor 
remained the supreme court of appeal, and jurisdiction over 
the highest officials was reserved for him. It is known that 
some Emperors liked to receive complaints personally. By 
the side of the Emperor as high judicial authorities stood the 
Prefect of the City and the Quaestor. In the course of the 
eleventh century the place of the City Prefect was taken by 
the Great Drungarius. In addition Constantinople had a 
High Court with twelve judges for important cases. There 
is, however, plenty of scope for further research in this field. 
One feature characteristic of the whole period of the Byzan- 
tine Empire is the ecclesiastical jurisdiction in civil matters. 
Since Constantine the Great the bishops had rights of 
jurisdiction of varying extent. When an ecclesiastic was the 
accused, the ecclesiastical courts of justice were competent, 
and this was the case in all civil proceedings, given the 
consent of both parties. By the end of the eleventh century 



292 THE emperor and imperial administration 

the competence of these courts had been extended to all 
matrimonial cases and charitable bequests. After the inter- 
lude of the Latin Empire the distinction between lay and 
ecclesiastical jurisdiction was more and more obscured; and 
this confusion was the easier since during the last period the 
Church and the Patriarch played an increasingly important 
part in the administration. However, administration of 
justice and legal procedure continued to the end to follow 
faithfully the ways of juristic thought, although Roman law 
changed considerably through the penetration of Christian 
ideas. 

The fact that the cruel punishment of mutilation is so 
frequent in the Byzantine criminal law may at first sight 
appear inconsistent with such a statement. But mutilation 
often replaced capital punishment, and may to a sterner age 
than ours have seemed a mitigation of the former severity; 
it might be justified by a reference to the words of the Gospel 
about ‘plucking out the eye which offends’, or on the ground 
that it provided the offender with an opportunity for 
repentance. It must be admitted that, once they had been 
introduced, punishments such as blinding, cutting out the 
tongue, and cutting off of hands were also inflicted for 
offences which had not been previously punishable with 
death. Other punishments were the confiscation of property 
and fines. Imprisonment as a punishment was unknown in 
the old Byzantine law. 1 Only from the twelfth century 
onwards were many political offenders imprisoned, until a 
tragic death put an end to their troubles, in the Anemas 
tower in Blachernae, which was named after the rebel held 
prisoner there by Alexius I. Banishment to a monastery, a 
punishment which seems to show more clearly the influence 
of the penitential system of the Church, had been introduced 
earlier. The right of granting asylum, which had always 
been maintained by the Church, implied a certain mitigation 
of these punishments; when such a right was exercised, 
ecclesiastical punishment, even though hampered by a 
number of restrictions, replaced the civil penalty which had 
been incurred. This right of asylum, however, was denied 

1 [On imprisonment as a punishment cf. G. Buckler, Anna Comnena (Oxford 
University Press, London, 1929), pp. 95—6.3 



THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 293 
to those charged with high treason and to heretics, who were 
put on the same level with them ; and it was characteristic of 
the system that defaulting taxpayers and fraudulent tax- 
collectors were also deprived of it. 

The complicated and extensive apparatus of administra- 
tion continued to function even when repeated disasters 
abroad fell upon the Empire. The Seljuk invasion of Asia 
Minor made a reorganization of the themes necessary. The 
governors now received the official title Dux , and their 
sphere of activity was probably limited. The real position of 
the administration in the period of the Palaeologi has as yet 
been inadequately studied. Yet one is inclined to believe 
that the ‘Book of Offices’ of the fourteenth century, wrongly 
attributed to Georgius Codinus, is a picture rather of the 
outward appearance of the Empire than of the melancholy 
reality. It seems certain that many of the former offices had 
only a titular existence. In addition to the Patriarch who 
exercised wide influence in the civil administration of this 
period, the Great Logothete , together with those occupying the 
highest military positions, controlled the business of State 
which had now shrunk to very small proportions. 

A particular merit of the Byzantine bureaucracy was the 
excellent training of its members. The officials benefited by 
the high standard of general education which their class of 
society enjoyed at that time. The fact that Constantine 
Porphyrogenitus granted a salary to the students of his 
university showed that the State took a great interest in 
obtaining a well-trained bureaucracy. Legal education as it 
had been formulated by Justinian had declined in course of 
time and had been replaced by a narrowly professional 
instruction, until Constantine IX Monomachus reopened 
the old school of law in Constantinople. Admission to the 
influential and lucrative offices was in theory open to every- 
body; but in actual fact in course of time an aristocracy of 
office had been formed, which did not make promotion easy 
for a new-comer. At the same time in Asia Minor there 
developed another provincial aristocracy of large landowners, 
and against the growing influence of this landed nobility both 
Emperors and the highly trained civil service united. This 
provincial nobility frequently held high military command, 



294 THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 
and its popularity with the army only increased the jealousy 
of the bureaucrats of the capital. It must be admitted that 
this dislike of the bureaucracy for a military nobility which 
was always striving for power led finally to a neglect of the 
army and contributed to the collapse of the Empire’s 
defensive system. Thus the revival under the Comneni 
resulted in a reaction against the supremacy of the civilians 
and in consequence the Latin Empire found in the East 
conditions which were not unlike its own feudal organiza- 
tion. But under the Palaeologi the bureaucracy was still a 
support to the State which was fighting for its existence. 

There is no doubt that this bureaucracy was true to type, 
and showed a great capacity for resistance; it was partly 
responsible for the conservative appearance of the Byzantine 
Empire; but it was flexible enough at all times to perform its 
allotted task. It provided the means by which the Emperor 
could realize his policy and it was not its own mistakes that 
caused the constant complaints of the intolerable burden of 
taxation, even though in many cases we can trace bribery 
and selfish exploitation of the subject. For, often enough, 
these officials were regarded as the link between subjects and 
Emperor, and as upholders of law and justice. In concert 
with the Church and perhaps with greater success than the 
Church, the members of this bureaucracy, whose activities 
extended over the whole Empire and whose official language 
was Greek, contributed towards the Hellenization, or, as they 
themselves would have said, to the Romanization of foreign 
elements, and in this way helped to promote the unity of the 
Empire. To sum up: this was a bureaucracy which was 
costly and not always easy to manage, but it was one that 
with its inborn capacity for resistance not only gave the 
Byzantine State through the centuries its special character, 
but also provided it even in times of crisis with an invaluable 
support. 

III. THE ARMY AND THE FLEET. DIPLOMACY 

It is obvious that the army must have been of great 
importance in an Empire the history of which was for long 
periods a history of wars, and the organization of which was 
in large measure designed to meet military requirements. 



THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 295 
The army proudly called itself Roman, and this tradition 
was tenaciously preserved. The link with the military 
system of the early Empire has once more to be sought in 
the late period of imperial Rome, and the organization of 
the army at that time must be shortly outlined. We must 
return to Diocletian and to Constantine, the latter being this 
time the chief organizer. Apart from the garrisons stationed 
on the frontiers, the limitanei , which may be compared to a 
kind of militia of settled peasants in occupation of land which 
was burdened with the hereditary obligation of military 
service, there was a mobile field army which accompanied 
the Emperor and commander-in-chief on campaigns and 
these troops were therefore called comitatenses ; while certain 
‘crack' regiments among them occupied a prominent posi- 
tion as guard regiments, palatini. But since Constantine had 
dissolved the old Praetorian Guard the real bodyguards were 
the scholae palatinae. The officers of highest rank were the 
commanders-in-chief (m agist ri tnilitum ); they came after the 
prefects, but had the same titles of rank. Originally there 
had been two: one for the cavalry, who took precedence over 
the second owing to the superior position of the mounted 
troops, and one for the infantry. Each was Inspector 
General for his particular branch of the service, which he 
commanded under the Emperor when the latter took the 
field in person; but when holding independent commands 
each could lead mixed divisions of both cavalry and infantry. 
From the first this was always the case with the magistri 
equitum et peditum who were appointed for frontier districts 
of special military importance. Finally, in the Eastern half 
of the Empire from the time of Theodosius I there were 
five commanders-in-chief with separate districts under their 
command; each one was independent of the others and 
subordinate only to the Emperor; two were in praesenti at 
the Court, and there was one each for the armies of the 
Orient, Thrace, and Ulyricum; to these Justinian added yet 
another for Armenia. The dux held the military command 
in the provinces. The generals also had an office for the 
administration of military affairs and for matters of jurisdic- 
tion relating to their soldiers. The chief (princeps') of their 
bureaux came from the agentes in rebus of the central office. 



296 THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 
In spite of the general obligation of military service which 
still remained in force, conscription was by no means the 
rule. The sons of soldiers and the rural population were 
particularly liable to conscription; but the landowners could 
pay a contribution in money instead of the recruits which 
they were bound to send from the coloni on their domains. 
Thus recruits were enrolled mainly by voluntary enlistment; 
in that way many foreigners (barbart), especially Germans, 
were procured for the army, so that the word barbari could 
actually be used for soldiers in the language of the people. 
Foederati were compact divisions under their own leaders 
raised from tribes which were bound by treaty to supply 
soldiers. It was only the closing of the frontiers by Attila 
which compelled the Eastern Government to mobilize once 
again its own forces. When there was a fresh influx of 
Germans, Leo I tried to provide a counterbalancing force by 
using the Isaurians from Asia Minor, who formed later one 
of the picked regiments of the Empire. But as long as 
mercenaries were available they were always the main sup- 
port of the army. The buccellarii , named after a kind of 
baked food, perhaps the soldiers’ biscuit, played a special 
part, which was often not without danger for the State; as 
household troops of the general they formed the latter’s 
personal following, and were bound by an oath to serve their 
master as well as the Emperor. On account of their large 
numbers they formed a prominent corps d' elite in Justinian’s 
expeditionary force. But they were a sign of the decline of 
the Empire, inasmuch as their pay and equipment were left 
to their master. The distribution of the army still remained 
the same, except that the divisions of the comitatenses ( arith - 
mot or katalogoi) were called ‘Roman soldiers’ in the Greek 
language of the day, in so far as they consisted of subjects of 
the Empire. The troops which were named after their place 
of origin, for instance the Isaurians or the Thracians, also 
belonged to these divisions; and they were held in higher 
esteem than the other ‘Roman’ troops because of their 
magnificent fighting powers. Though they were not 
excluded from the ranks of the katalogoi , yet, owing to their 
method of recruitment, they had much in common with the 
foederati , whose regiments consisted chiefly of foreign 



THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 297 
mercenaries. Compact divisions of foreign troops under 
native leaders were at this time called symmachoi , allies. In 
Justinian's time, however, they were pushed somewhat into 
the background by the buccellarii and the foederati. In the 
meantime the cavalry had become more and more the chief 
fighting force; it included the mail-clad cavalry regiments 
formed on the Persian model which were first introduced in 
the third century. The bow had also been adopted from the 
Persians as an efficient long-distance weapon for preparing 
the actual attack. 

The weak state of the finances and the appearance of the 
Avars on the Danube frontier made it increasingly difficult 
for Justinian’s successors to procure mercenaries. The 
armies of the Emperor Maurice consisted chiefly of subjects 
of the Empire. Conscription became more and more fre- 
quent, especially among the inhabitants of the newly con- 
quered Armenian districts who came of good fighting stock. 
The Strategikon, a military manual ascribed to Maurice, 
speaks of military service for all subjects until their fortieth 
year. This book distinguishes between elite troups (epilektd) 
and ‘weaker’ troups ( hypodeestera ). The buccellarii , the foede- 
rati, and the optimates belonged to the elite. The foederati 
now included also the most warlike contingents raised from 
within the Empire, such as the Isaurians. The optimates were 
a selection of the best of the other troops. Orders were at 
this time still given in Latin. 

With this army Heraclius fought against the Persians. It 
provided him with the foundation of the new military 
organization, which was later to lead to a change in the 
system of government of the provinces. Being unable to 
obtain foreign mercenaries, Heraclius decided to settle his 
troops in the provinces which were most threatened by the 
Persians, in the hope that their strength would be reproduced 
in their descendants. He seems to have promised to his 
soldiers this opportunity of settling on the land before the 
decisive campaign, so that their desire for victory was 
considerably increased. We cannot determine the original 
scope of the Emperor’s plans. Their application was 
restricted to Asia Minor owing to the victorious invasion of 
the Arabs whose efficient military training was in part due to 



298 THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 

their former alliance with the Romans and the Persians. 
In Asia Minor there appear at first three large military 
districts which were called after the Themata (Themes), i.e. 
the army corps settled there: the Anatolikon , the army of the 
Orient, the Opsikion ( Obsequium , the troops of the former 
Magistri militum praesentales ), and the Armeniakon , the 
Armenian army. Their governors, the Strategoi, or, in the 
case of the Opsikion division, the Comes , may therefore be 
regarded as the successors of the former Magistri , masters of 
foot and horse. The picked troops from all divisions of the 
army, however, were established in separate districts which 
appear later (when the themes were split up) as independent 
themes; thus the buccellarii and the optimates were separated 
from the Opsikion, the Thrakesioi (Thracians) from the 
Anatolikon, while the foederati, who were also grouped 
together in one district, always remained with the Anatolikon. 
It is not certain when this organization spread to Europe, 
but, since the themes of Thrace and Macedonia were 
assigned to the Eastern group, we may conclude that these 
two themes were created at an earlier date than that of the 
other Western themes. For in the final arrangement of the 
system of themes the Eastern themes always had precedence, 
originally doubtless owing to their earlier formation, and 
later on owing to their brilliant defence of Asia Minor 
against the Arabs. Themes which were established later 
were given geographical names. 

The distribution of the military forces of the Empire was 
based on this organization into themes and these later 
developed into military and administrative provinces. Each 
province supplied one Thema (army corps, if we wish to 
introduce modern terms). The Thema was divided accord- 
ing to its size into two or three ttirmai , each under a turmarch , 
who was divisional commander as well as being administrator 
of one section of the province. The rest of the military 
scheme is not quite clear and was constantly changing, owing 
to the different sizes of the themes. The sixth-century 
division of army corps into turmai (divisions), moirai 
(brigades), and tagmata (regiments) continued, as is proved 
by the names turmai , moirai, and banda. The bandon was so 
called after the Germanic word for a banner. In Philotheus’s 



THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 299 
Kletorologion the turmarchs, the drungarii , and the kometes 
( comites ) of the banda are under the authority of the strategoi. 
According to a list given by an Arabian source the strategos 
controlled 10,000 men divided into two turmai , each of which 
was composed of five banda under a drungarius, the bandon 
being divided into five pentarchies under a komes. Each 
fames had under him five pentekontarchies (companies) each 
consisting of forty men under a pentekontarchos i who, as the 
name indicates, must at times have commanded fifty men; 
finally, there came the four dekarchies , each with ten men. 

Further, there were kleisurai (commanded by kleisuriarchs ), 
which were not included in the theme-system. Literally the 
word means mountain passes, and therefore refers to 
particular frontier districts where roads by which invaders 
might advance had to be protected and barred. As these 
districts grew in importance they were raised to the rank of 
themes. The akritai , whose name can best be translated by 
‘frontier defenders’ or margraves, were subordinated to 
them, at any rate from time to time. They carried on 
perpetual petty warfare on the frontiers. Digenes, the hero 
of the Byzantine national epic, in which are mirrored the 
conditions of the tenth century, is such an akritas. The 
continual fighting with the infidel and with robber bands, 
the apelatai (cattle thieves), is the foundation of the Akritas 
sagas. 

Besides the army in the provinces, troops were also sta- 
tioned in Constantinople and in its neighbourhood; these 
included the four mounted tagmata — the scholarii , the 
excubitores , the hikanatai (each under the command of a 
domesticus)^ and the arithmos or vigla, which was the guard of 
the imperial headquarters, under a drungarius. In addition 
there was an infantry regiment, the numeric under a domesticus , 
and furthermore the troop under the comes or domesticus of 
the Walls , a title which probably referred to the Long Walls 
built by Anastasius I, about forty miles to the west of the 
capital. With the exception of the Guards of the Walls, 
these troops went into battle with the Emperor. But his 
real bodyguard was the hetairia , literally the retinue, under 
the hetairiarchos. The domesticus of the scholarii was the 
officer of the highest rank after the strategos of the Anatolikon , 



300 THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 
and he became the commander-in-chief of the whole army in 
the tenth century, when the Emperors no longer took the 
field in person. The estimates of the number of troops in the 
tagmata vary greatly: they range from 4,000 and more down 
to 1,500. In the ninth century the total number of the 
troops has been calculated at 120,000, as against 150,000 in 
Justinian’s time; but considering the greatly lessened extent 
of imperial territory in the ninth century the former figure 
is a proof of the increased military needs of the Empire. 

The pay of the soldiers was relatively small. But it must 
be remembered that the military landholdings established by 
the theme system were in themselves a considerable com- 
pensation for the owners. In his first year of service the 
soldier of the themes received one solidus in cash; in later 
years the amount increased until in the twelfth year he 
received the maximum pay of twelve solidi. The soldiers of 
the tagmata and the subordinate officers of the themes 
probably reached a maximum allowance of eighteen solidi. 
The soldiers’ holdings were middle-sized peasant estates and 
formed the backbone of the whole military system. And for 
this reason the Emperors did their utmost to protect them 
from the pressure of the great landowners. It is true that in 
the end this protection failed, since the aristocracy of Con- 
stantinople always sought and found land in which to invest 
the capital accumulated in their hands. For this reason, and 
as a result of a certain neglect of the army by the central 
administration, during the eleventh century the defences of 
the Empire were weakened; the consequences of the defeat 
at Manzikert (107 1) and the permanent establishment of the 
Seljuk Turks in Asia Minor led directly to the collapse of the 
system which had existed up to that time. Therefore when 
we find ‘soldiers’ estates’ in later years, the words can hardly 
be used in the original sense, for the owners were, it would 
seem, the so-called Pronoiarii. By the pronoia (provision) 
landed property, to which was attached the obligation of 
supplying soldiers, was granted to superior officers, and the 
income from these estates belonged to them during their 
lifetime, but could not be inherited; this arrangement bears 
a certain resemblance to the Western feudal system. More- 
over, attempts were made to check the depopulation caused 



THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 301 

in certain parts of the Empire by the raids of the Seljuks, 
the Serbs, and the Hungarians : to secure this end foreigners 
were settled in the depopulated districts. The way had been 
paved for the decline of the old order by the practice, which 
had already begun to reappear in the tenth century, of 
purchasing exemption from compulsory military service by 
money payment ( adaeratio ). Foreign mercenaries, who had 
always played a prominent part in the hetairia (the body- 
guard), were again engaged in increasingly large numbers. 
In the course of the centuries Chazars and Patzinaks, 
Russians and Scandinavians, Georgians and Slavs, Arabs and 
Turks, and later on ‘Latins’ of every kind all served together 
in the imperial army. A crack regiment of the bodyguard 
was that of the Varangians which, under the Comneni, was 
for the most part composed of Anglo-Saxons. There was 
at times a hope of strengthening the defence of the Empire 
by using these mercenary troops under Byzantine leader- 
ship, thus counterbalancing the influence of the East Roman 
military nobles and of the troops of the themes which were 
dependent upon them; but this hope vanished when the 
leaders of the mercenaries were admitted to important 
commands, and, in the manner of cdndottieri, often enough 
put their own interests before those of the State. The loyalty 
of the mercenaries was ultimately a matter of money. One of 
the principal reasons for the rapid collapse of the Empire in 
face of the Latin attack in 1204 was the refusal of the 
foreigners to fight because they had not been paid. In the 
time of the Palaeologi there was no longer any question of a 
unified military organization. There was a system of make- 
shifts, and the army was for the most part a mercenary force. 

To return to the Byzantine army proper. The most 
important weapon remained the cavalry, the caballaria 
themata. The heavy cavalry, the cataphracts, with steel 
helmet and scale armour or coat of mail over the whole body, 
carried sword, dagger, lance, and bow. The war-horses were 
protected by breastplates and frontal plates. These were the 
squadrons used for attacks in massed formation. The light 
horse, the trapezitae , were used for rapid assault, for recon- 
naissance, and for harassing the enemy. Their chief weapon 
was the bow. The light infantry also used the bow, though 



302 THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 
there were detachments armed with javelins. The mail-clad 
heavy infantry carried spear, sword, and shield, and often 
the heavy batde-axe. Each bandon had its baggage-train, 
which frequently included a great number of non-comba- 
tants, servants, and slaves. Material for bridging rivers was 
also brought with the heavy baggage; and military engineer- 
ing was well developed. The Byzantine army had also its 
medical service with doctors and ambulance wagons. 

A number of military manuals from the fifth century 
down to the s trategikon of Cecaumenus in the eleventh cen- 
tury show that the Byzantines regarded the art of war as a 
practical science; they took into account the particular 
character of the enemy of the moment when considering the 
training of the troops, the execution of a campaign, or 
measures for defence. Stress was laid upon the defensive 
duty of the army. The conception of attack found full 
expression only in the orders regulating a siege. The 
defensive system was still modelled on the late Roman 
frontier (limes) plan, with fortified posts, small forts, and the 
safeguarding of passes and of roads by which invaders might 
advance. Towns in the interior were surrounded by ram- 
parts. A system of signals announced the approach of an 
enemy. If the frontier troops were not successful in warding 
off the invader, the infantry occupied the roads by which he 
might retreat, and the light cavalry stuck close to his heels 
until the strategos, who also informed the neighbouring 
themes, had collected the main troops to repel the attack. 
Regulations for conduct on the battlefield are given in full 
detail, but independence and new ideas were expected of the 
general. The ruling principle was to keep down the number 
of casualties if any opportunity of success offered itself 
without the risk of an engagement. The moving of troops 
and their protection, observation of the enemy, intelligence 
service and spying, negotiation as a pretext for gaining time, 
every kind of stratagem, feigned flight, ambuscades : all was 
considered. Efficient training, strict discipline, and ex- 
perience in battle made this army an effective weapon in the 
hands of the Emperors and their generals. The fighting 
spirit of the troops was sustained by the recognition and the 
rewarding of special services as well as by drawing attention 



THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 303 

to the high significance of their task. The ‘orators’, secular 
field-preachers, knew how to rouse the enthusiasm of the 
troops by speaking of the soldiers’ duties towards Emperor 
and Empire, towards God and the Christian religion, and by 
emphasizing the rewards of valour. The day was begun and 
finished with prayer; solemn services were held during the 
campaigns. The Greek war cry ‘the Cross has conquered’ 
and the earlier Latin one ‘the Lord is with us’ show that the 
ecclesiastical spirit had also penetrated into the camps. At 
times death on the battlefield was regarded as martyrdom. 
But Byzantine war songs in the forms of hymns show that in 
this army’s best days the fighting spirit combined trust in 
God with great self-confidence. In the Epic of Digenes 
Akritas, where in later times these ideals are wistfully 
recalled, this spirit of the Byzantine army lives on. Yet here, 
too, there are still echoes of the indomitable self-assurance of 
the military nobility which helped to discredit the organiza- 
tion of the army in the eyes of the Government and the 
bureaucracy. And yet, despite fluctuations of strength and 
weakness, to the Byzantine army must be ascribed the honour 
of having been Europe’s chief bulwark against the Arabs. 
Even when decay had set in, when, too, the Western powers 
fell upon it from the rear, it could still cripple the onset of 
the Turks, though it could not any longer stay their advance. 

The fleet shares with the army the credit of banishing the 
danger of the Arab attack. The organization of the fleet was 
an original creation of the Byzantines. For the Roman 
Empire the Mediterranean was in actual fact Mare Nostrum , 
and its fleet served more as a police force than as an instru- 
ment of war. Only when the Vandals took possession of 
Carthage and became masters of the western waters was the 
Empire forced for a time to take counter-measures. Yet the 
fleet played but a subordinate part in Justinian’s wars of 
aggression. When sea battles occurred, as for instance in the 
Gothic wars, the seamen of the coasts of the eastern Mediter- 
ranean showed themselves still to be superior in the art of 
manoeuvring. Under Heraclius a small fleet was able to 
prevent the Persians from crossing the Bosphorus when they 
planned to attack Constantinople in alliance with the Avars. 
A little later, when the Arabs threatened the existence of the 



304 THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 

Empire, the importance of a fleet first received full recogni- 
tion, particularly when Muaviah, already in possession of the 
Syrian coastline, followed the forces of the Empire on the 
sea, and appeared with his ships before Constantinople. It 
was not only the Greek Fire which checked the powerful and 
eager assault of the Arab seamen, but also the fleet, which 
had been organized as part of the system of the themes in the 
seventh century, when the militarization of the Empire was 
carried out. 

The commander-in-chief of the fleet was the Strategos of 
the Carab'tsiani , whose name was derived from the carabos , a 
class of ship. Under him were one or two admirals (Drun- 
garit ). The coast districts of Asia Minor and the Aegean Isles 
supplied the fleet and the men. Right from the beginning 
the Cibyrrhaeots, named after the town of Cibyra in 
Pamphylia, were to the fore. The share taken by the fleet in 
insurrections as late as the seventh and the beginning of the 
eighth centuries caused a division of the forces. Alongside of 
the now independent theme of the Cibyrrhaeots (south and 
south-west Asia Minor) there was constituted the theme of 
the Dodecanese or Aegean Sea; each was under a Drungarius\ 
the lower rank of the commander is a proof of the inferiority 
of the naval themes to those of the land army. Under the 
Isaurian Emperors of the eighth century the importance of 
the fleet diminished considerably, because pressure from 
external forces had slackened. The Abbasid caliphs likewise 
allowed their fleet to deteriorate. Only in the ninth century, 
when Andalusian Arabs raided the coast as pirates and settled 
in Crete, and the Aghlabids from Tunis took possession of 
Sicily, were efforts made to atone for past negligence. The 
perfected theme system recognized Samos (west Asia Minor) 
as a third maritime theme ; all three themes were now under 
Strategoi. There were also bases for the fleet in the European 
themes, especially in Cephalonia. In addition there was a 
fleet under the Drungarius tou Ploimou, who obtained an 
increasingly influential position under Basil I, and who 
finally became commander-in-chief of the navy. 

Foes of the Empire were once again forced to reckon with 
the activities of the imperial fleet. When Constantine 
Porphyrogenitus made a claim to maritime predominance 



THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 305 

from the Dardanelles to Gibraltar, that may indeed have 
been on his part but a historical reminiscence, but Nice- 
phoros Phocas, the conqueror of Crete, could tell the 
ambassador of Otto I with more justification that he alone 
possessed strong naval forces. The elasticity of the fleet, 
however, was lost again when demands on it diminished. If 
the navy had remained even in the days of its glory in the 
second rank, it now suffered a further setback. The organi- 
~-satien of the Asiatic provincial fleet was naturally affected by 
the invasion of the Seljuks. Later Alexius Comnenus tried 
once more to restore the navy. The increasing weakness of 
the fleet is shown by the engagement of mercenaries, and 
above all by the fact that, whereas the Empire had formerly 
been able to issue its orders to the Venetians, it now sought 
their help by granting trade concessions. The consequences 
of the complete decay of the fleet were quickly apparent. 
The Doge Dandolo knew only too well that the former master 
of Venice could not offer resistance to him on the sea. The 
fleet of the Palaeologi was always too weak to play a decisive 
part in the fight for predominance in the Mediterranean. 

Warships in general were called dromonds. Yet specifi- 
cally the dromonds were the actual battleships, i.e. boats of 
different sizes with sails and having two banks of oars, 
manned by a crew numbering up to 300, of whom 70 were 
marines, the others rowers and seamen. The average crew 
may be reckoned as 200 men. Ships of a special construction 
with two banks of oars were called pamphyli ; they were of 
greater speed and could turn more easily; but, in spite of 
being a type of cruiser, they were also used in set battles. 
The flagship of the admiral was always a pamphylus of a 
special size and speed. In addition there were lighter ships 
with only one bank of oars for observation and for carrying 
dispatches. During the tenth century the fleet at Con- 
stantinople was stronger than that of the maritime themes. 
Yet the figures mentioned in the sources do not give a basis 
on which to work out a reliable average strength, particu- 
larly as trading vessels were also sometimes manned for war, 
while old ships were brought back into service. The ram- 
ming spur of the ships was an excellent weapon, owing to the 
ease with which the Byzantines manoeuvred their vessels. 



306 THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 

But the superiority of the East Roman navy rested princi- 
pally upon the fact that it was armed with the Greek Fire, 
an invention of the Syrian Greek Callinicus, which was 
perhaps only a rediscovery, for the employment of a burning 
material which was inextinguishable was already reported 
under Anastasius I. The manufacture of this Greek Fire, 
which had been improved in the course of time, was a 
strictly guarded State secret. Catapults hurled the fire from 
the ship’s bows ; in the end it even seems that a kind of gun- 
powder in tubes was used for projecting it. The crew carried 
hand grenades loaded with the fire, which exploded when 
they hit anything. Yet even so the fleet was used with the 
same caution as were the land forces, while despite not a few 
brilliant technical achievements Byzantine naval science 
never attained to the development which might have been 
expected when one considers the importance of the fleet for 
the defence of the Empire. 

It remains to say a word on the diplomacy of Byzantium. 
For East Rome, as for any other State, war was only the 
continuation of the State’s policy with other means. Even 
to bellicose Emperors it seemed more advantageous to reach 
their political goal through the art of diplomacy than by the 
use of the sword. There were as yet no permanent repre- 
sentatives stationed in other countries, and although we have 
called the Great Logothete a kind of Foreign Minister, yet we 
must not entertain too modern an idea of his position. We 
can see the machine in action, but we know little of its con- 
struction or its working. Ambassadors went to and fro. It 
was the practice to try to impress foreign envoys or visitors 
by the splendour of the capital and by the pomp of Court 
ceremonial; usually these efforts succeeded. The foreigner 
was led into a magnificent hall in the palace through a crowd 
of richly clothed dignitaries and through rows of bodyguards 
with glittering arms. Finally a curtain was drawn back and 
he gazed on the Emperor clad in his robes of State and 
seated on his throne. On each side of the throne roared 
golden lions, mechanical birds sang on a gilded pomegranate 
tree, and while the visitor prostrated himself, the throne was 
raised aloft so as to make it unapproachable. Like the image 
of a saint, the Emperor, motionless, did not himself speak to 



THE EMPEROR AND IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION 307 

the astonished stranger; the Logothete spoke in his name. 
Only a few managed to avoid being impressed; Liutprand 
of Cremona boasted that he was able to do so, but he had 
to admit that it was only because he had previously made 
detailed inquiries from those who had seen the spectacle. 
How much information a Byzantine ambassador was ex- 
pected to bring back to his sovereign can be deduced from 
the careful supervision of foreign envoys in order to prevent 
them from seeing anything that they were not meant to 
see. Every missionary, every merchant proceeding abroad 
obtained information which could be of great value in dealing 
with the rulers of the countries visited, as, for instance, 
advice concerning the person who should receive presents 
and the kind of presents which should be chosen. The 
Byzantines did not necessarily regard it as a humiliation to 
make regular payments, which were often called tribute by 
the recipients, to countries with which they wished to live on 
terms of peace. They tried by subsidies to secure help in 
times of war. But they also did not hesitate to incite enemies 
against a peaceful neighbour, though at the same time 
observing the treaties which they themselves had concluded. 
They regarded it as a principle of good statesmanship to 
handicap a real or a potential opponent by placing difficulties 
in his way. Political marriages also played a part in diplo- 
macy, as indeed did the reception of people whose mejje 
presence at the Byzantine Court could exercise a certain 
pressure on foreign powers. Christian missions were an 
effective means of imperial policy, although the neighbour- 
ing States which had been converted to Christianity could 
not always be restrained from their cupidity. On the other 
hand attempts to achieve a union with the West by means of 
concessions in dogma were fruitless owing to the resistance 
of the Emperor’s own subjects. One thing is certain: 
diplomacy called for heavy expenditure in money. But it is 
precisely in this field that the Byzantines, who have been 
wrongly accused of clumsiness, showed a capacity for 
flexibility and for adaptability; although occasionally they 
did not shrink from objectionable methods, yet this capacity 
gave the Government a superiority of which full use was 
often made. WILHELM ENSSLIN 



XI 

BYZANTIUM AND ISLAM 

Byzantium and Islam have been for many centuries indis- 
solubly connected in both external and internal history. From 
the seventh century to the middle of the eleventh Islam was 
represented by the Arabs, from the middle of the eleventh 
century to the fall of Byzantium in 1453 by the Turks, first 
the Seljuks and later the Osmanli. 

A few years after the formation of Islam in the depths of 
Arabia about 622 and the death of Muhammad in 632 the 
Arabs took possession of the Byzantine fortress Bothra 
(Bosra) beyond the Jordan, a ‘trifling occurrence, had it not 
been die prelude of a mighty revolution’. 1 The Arabian 
military successes were astounding: in 635 the Syrian city of 
Damascus fell; in 636 the entire province of Syria was in the 
hands of the Arabs; in 637 or 638 Jerusalem surrendered 
and Palestine became an Arab province; at the same time 
the Persian Empire was conquered; in 641 or 642 the Arabs 
occupied Alexandria, and a few years later the Byzantine 
Empire was forced to abandon Egypt for ever. The con- 
quest of Egypt was followed by the further advance of the 
Arabs along die shores of North Africa. To sum up, by the 
year 650 Syria with the eastern part of Asia Minor and 
Upper Mesopotamia, Palestine, Egypt, and part of the 
Byzantine provinces in North Africa had already come under 
the Arabian sway. Towards the close of the seventh century 
the whole of North Africa was conquered, and at the outset 
of the eighth the Arabs began their victorious penetration 
into the Pyrenean Peninsula. 

The Arabs thus became the masters of a long coastline 
which had to be protected against Byzantine vessels. The 
Arabs had no fleet and no experience whatever in maritime 
affairs. But the Greco-Syrian population of Syria whom they 
had just conquered was well accustomed to seafaring and 

1 Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap, xlv 
near the end, ed. J. B. Bury, vol. y (London, 1898), p. 95. 



BYZANTIUM AND ISLAM 309 

had played an extremely important role in Byzantine trade. 
The first crews of the Arabian vessels, accordingly, were 
enlisted from the population of the newly won Byzantine 
provinces. As early as the middle of the seventh century 
Arabian vessels occupied the island of Cyprus, an important 
maritime station; then they defeated the Byzantine fleet, 
reached Crete and Sicily, crossed the Aegean Sea and the 
Hellespont, and shortly after 670 appeared before Constan- 
tinople. All attempts of the Arabian fleet to take the capital 
failed, however, and in 677 the Arabs departed. 

There is no doubt that one of the essential causes of the 
amazing military success of the Arabs was the discontent of 
the population of Syria and Egypt. This discontent was 
religious in character, for the Monophysite doctrine adopted 
by the great majority of the population of these provinces 
had been outlawed by the Byzantine Government. Perhaps 
Nestorianism or Monophysitism affected primitive Islam 
much more strongly than is usually believed. At first 
Byzantine theologians viewed Islam as a ramification of 
Arianism and placed it on a level with other Christian sects. 
In the eighth century John of Damascus, who lived at the 
Muhammadan Court, also regarded Islam as but another 
example of secession from the true Christian faith, similar to 
other earlier heresies. Recently F. W. Buckler has pointed 
out that the range of the authority of the Nestorian Patriar- 
chate, which had been established in Babylon (the future 
Bagdad) in a.d. 499, included the Sassanid Empire, India, 
China, Arabia, and, from time to time, Egypt. ‘After the 
failure of Nestorius to restore his doctrine within the 
Christian Church its restoration outside the Church, in 
Islam, became inevitable.’ ‘It was by the genius of Muham- 
mad that Nestorius’ doctrine was to be restored to the realm 
of religion.’ 1 On the other hand, Professor Gr^goire has laid 
particular stress on the closeness of Islam to Monophysitism; 
paraphrasing Pirenne’s striking but debatable statement 
that ‘Muhammad made Charles the Great’, Gr6goire 
declares that Eutyches, one of the founders of the Mono- 
physite doctrine, made Muhammad. Byzantine Christianity, 

1 F. W. Buckler, ‘Barbarian and Greek — and Church History’, Chunk History, 
vol. xi (1942), p. 17; ‘Regnum et Ecclesia’, ibid., vol. iii (1934), p. 38. 



3 io BYZANTIUM AND ISLAM 

in all likelihood, in the form of Monophysitism became one 
of the main foundations of Islam. 1 

In their newly conquered provinces the Arabs found to 
their hand a well-organized administrative machinery. As 
of course they had brought nothing of the sort from the 
desert whence they came, they adopted it, so that the 
administration of the early Caliphate followed the methods 
and system inherited from Byzantium and in part from 
Sassanid Persia. 

The Byzantine and Persian provinces which passed into 
the power of the Arabs were acquainted with Hellenistic 
culture. Such flourishing cultural centres as Antioch in 
Syria, Caesarea and Gaza in Palestine, and particularly 
Alexandria in Egypt with their writers, schools, museums, 
and general atmosphere of intense intellectual life and old 
Hellenistic traditions now belonged to the Arabs. Coming 
into contact with a well-established culture and without 
possessing a culture of their own, the Arabs naturally fell 
under the influence of these ancient civilizations. This 
influence was a powerful stimulus to their own cultural 
development. Through Hellenism the Byzantine provinces 
made the Arabs acquainted with the works of ancient learn- 
ing and art, and introduced them into the circle of nations 
with an inherited culture. 

The final goal of Arab policy in the second half of the 
seventh century and even more in the first half of the eighth 
was to gain possession of Constantinople. In 717 the new 
Isaurian dynasty ascended the throne in Byzantium, and its 
first representative, the Emperor Leo III, faced one of the 
most critical moments in the history of his Empire. The 
Arab land forces marched right through Asia Minor and 
appeared under the walls of the capital, while a strong Arab 
fleet surrounded it by sea. In 7 1 8 this daring undertaking 
ended in complete failure for the Arabs. After that defeat the 
Arabs never attacked the ‘God-guarded’ city. But the idea of 
taking Constantinople still persisted. In 838 the Caliph 
Mutasim, after his military successes in Asia Minor, 
dreamed of marching on Constantinople. 

1 H. Grigoire, 'Mahomet et le Monophysisme’, Melanges Charles Diehl , vol. i 
(Paris, 1930), pp. 107-19. 



BYZANTIUM AND ISLAM 311 

Before the Seljuk Turks appeared and established them- 
selves in Asia Minor in the eleventh century, almost con- 
tinuous fighting took place there between Byzantines and 
Arabs ; Arabic sources mention in almost every year military 
campaigns, often mere predatory razzias, accompanied by 
frequent exchanges of captives. Sometimes Byzantium was 
unsuccessful; e.g. at the close of the eighth century ac- 
cording to the terms of peace the Empire was obliged to 
pay to the Arabs a considerable amount of money ‘which 
(the Empress Irene) was to pay every year in April and in 
June’. This agreement gave rise to the erroneous idea that 
in the year 801 the famous Caliph Harun-al-Rashid was lord 
of the Roman Empire. 1 The Caliph might call this money 
tribute, but ‘to the Emperor it was merely a wise investment; 
when he was ready to fight, the payment would cease’. 2 In 
the Mediterranean, Cyprus (seventh century), Crete, and 
Sicily (ninth century) passed into the power of the Arabs; 
some cities were taken in south Italy. Under the pressure of 
the Arab invasion in North Africa many Greeks fled thence 
to Sicily, and later, when Sicily was gradually being con- 
quered by the Arabs, many Greeks left Sicily for south Italy 
and increased the Hellenic element there among the native 
south Italian population. The Mediterranean Sea, some 
scholars assert, though not without exaggeration, became the 
Muslim Lake. 

At first sight the interests of these two political and reli- 
gious enemies seem irreconcilable. But this was not the 
case. Warlike expeditions put no impenetrable barrier to 
cultural relations. This period was a long succession of war 
and peace, ruin and creation, enmity and friendship. There 
was no race hatred. According to Oriental sources, the 
Emperor Nicephorus I (802-11) was of Arabian, prob- 
ably Mesopotamian, origin. Under Leo III (717—41) a 
mosque was constructed in Constantinople, so that one 
Greek chronicler refers to this Emperor as the ‘Saracen- 
minded’. In the first half of the tenth century the Patriarch 
of Constantinople, Nicholas Mysticus, writing to the Emir 

1 The agreement was so interpreted by F. W. Buckler, Harumt’l-Rashid and 
Charles the Great (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1931), p. 36. 

* S. Runciman, Byzantine Civilization (London, 1933), p. 162. 



3 i2 BYZANTIUM AND ISLAM 

of Crete, addressed him as ‘most illustrious and most 
honorable and beloved’ and said that ‘the two powers of the 
whole universe, the power of the Saracens (Arabs) and that 
of the Romans, are excelling and shining like the two great 
luminaries in the firmament. For this reason alone we must 
live in common as brothers although we differ in customs, 
manners, and religion.’ 

As political intercourse with the Arabs, both in the East 
and in the West, was essential to Byzantium, the ritual of the 
reception of Arab embassies which were sent to Constanti- 
nople during the periods of peace was minutely elaborated, 
and the ambassadors were welcomed with all sorts of brilliant 
Court ceremonies, diplomatic courtesies, and the astute 
display of military strength. In the work on the Ceremonies 
of the Byzantine Court compiled under Constantine Porphyro- 
genitus in the tenth century are preserved formulas of very 
cordial welcome to the ambassadors from Bagdad and Cairo. 
At the imperial table the Agaren ‘friends’ (Arabs) occupied 
higher places than the Frank ‘friends’, and the Eastern 
Arabs were placed higher than the Western. Moreover, 
when Byzantine ambassadors made their appearance in 
Bagdad, e.g. in 917, they were solemnly received by the 
Caliph with full pomp of Oriental magnificence and mili- 
tary parade. In 947-8 the ambassadors of the Emperor 
Constantine Porphyrogenitus appeared at the Court of the 
famous Spanish Caliph Abdar-Rahman III and received a 
brilliant welcome. Among the gifts presented by the 
Byzantine ambassadors to the Caliph in the name of their 
Emperor was a beautiful Greek manuscript containing a 
medical work, and a Latin manuscript of the History of 
Orosius. Since the Caliph failed to find any Christian in 
Spain who knew Greek, the medical manuscript remained in 
his library untranslated. 

Treaties of peace between Byzantium and its neighbours, 
of course including the Arabs, were made for ever, ‘as long 
as the sun shines and the world stands fixed’ or ‘as long as the 
sun shines and the world .endures henceforth and for ever- 
more’. These flowers of Oriental style have survived up to 
the nineteenth century. In the agreement between Maskat 
(Muscat in Arabia) and Great Britain concluded in 1 800 we 



BYZANTIUM AND ISLAM 313 

read that ‘the friendship of the two States shall remain 
unshaken until the end of time, till the sun and moon have 
finished their revolving career’; and in the convention of 
amity and commerce concluded in 1833 between the United 
States of America and Siam we find the following clause: 
‘The Siamese and the citizens of the United States of 
America shall with sincerity hold commercial intercourse 
in the ports of their respective nations as long as heaven and 
earth shall endure.’ 

The Arab conquests of the seventh, eighth, and ninth 
centuries resulted in a considerable change in Byzantine 
trade and commerce. The economic prosperity of the early 
Roman Empire had been undermined by the internal 
anarchy of the third century as well as by the barbarian 
migrations into the Western provinces of the fourth and 
fifth centuries. In the sixth century the Emperor Justinian 
gave new life to the foreign trade of his Empire, especially 
in the East. But a fatal blow to the economic power of 
Byzantium in the East and South was inflicted by the Arabs, 
who wrested from the Empire the richest and most vital 
provinces whose economic life was most highly developed. 
Arab pirates with headquarters in Crete made the Medi- 
terranean so insecure for sailing that traders were forced to 
give up their ships and run the risk of long land journeys, 
which themselves were not always safe or comfortable, in 
order to escape ‘the Mavrousian barbarians’, as the Life of 
St. Gregory the Decapolite puts it. 1 

At first sight it might be thought that the whole economic 
structure of the Near East collapsed, and that trade relations 
with the East came to a close. But this was not so. In 
Arabia before the time of Muhammad besides the nomadic 
Bedouins there had been settled inhabitants of cities and 
hamlets which had developed along the trade routes, mainly 
on the caravan road from the south to the north, from Yemen 
to Palestine, Syria, and the Sinaitic peninsula. The richest 
among the cities along the route was Mecca (Macoraba in 
ancient writings), famous long before the time of Muham- 
mad. There were many Jews and Christians among the 

1 La Vie de Saint Grtgoire It Decapolite et let Slaves Mactdoniens au IX* silcle, 
ed. F. Dvornik (Paris, 1926), p. 53 (par. 9). 



3 14 BYZANTIUM AND ISLAM 

merchants in Arabia, and the Meccans were to such an 
extent absorbed in their commercial affairs that according to 
one scholar Mecca ‘assumed a materialistic, arrogantly 
plutocratic character’. 1 In other words, before Muhammad 
Syria and Palestine were economically connected with 
Arabia. Even in the Koran, if the passage is correctly inter- 
preted, we read that the Quraysh, the tribe to which Muham- 
mad belonged, were busy in sending forth caravans both in 
winter and in summer. 2 Adequate protection was of special 
value to the Quraysh in their trading journeys, in summer 
northward to Syria and in winter southward to Yemen. 
Moreover, local economic life in the Eastern Byzantine 
provinces before they were occupied by the Arabs was still 
well established, which is proved by the fact that under the 
Arab rdgime the Byzantine artisans in Syria continued to 
carry on their business. 

Of course Byzantium after losing the Eastern provinces 
derived no direct advantage from the economic order 
established there upon the termination of hostilities. But 
indirectly the advantage was great, for the well-established 
economic life in Syria and Palestine considerably helped the 
Empire, as long as it was possible to re-establish commercial 
relations with the East. In spite of their frequency and 
intensity the wars in Asia Minor were not continuous, and in 
the intervals of peace both the Empire and the Caliphate had 
time enough to realize the importance of establishing trade 
relations. Byzantine merchants appeared in many Arab 
cities, and Muslim traders came to Byzantium to transact 
their business. In the tenth century Trebizond became the 
most important centre of commercial relations between 
Byzantine and Muslim merchants; according to an Arab 
writer of the tenth century Trebizond during its annual 
fairs was crammed full of Muslim, Greek, Armenian, and 
other merchants. 3 In 961 after two unsuccessful attempts 
Crete, the base of the pirate Arabs, was at last restored to the 
Empire, so that the Emperor Nicephorus Phocas could say 

1 Goldziher, Die Religion des Islam, p. 103, in Die Kultur der Gegemoart, ed. 
by P. Hinneberg, Teil I, Abt. 3, Die Religionen des Orients (1913}, part e d. *• 

* Koran, surah 106, 2. See H. Lammens, ‘Mekka’, in the Encyclopedic de I’lslam, 
livraison 44 (1931), p. J07. 

3 Mafoudi, Let Prairies d’or, ed. Barbier de Meynard, vol. ii (Paris, 1861), p. 3. 



BYZANTIUM AND ISLAM 315 

to the Italian ambassador Liutprand : ‘Nor has your master 
any force of ships on the sea. I alone have really stout sailors. 

Economic relations with the Arabs were extremely 
important to Byzantium not only for their own sake but also 
for the international position of the Empire in relation to 
western Europe. Before the epoch of the Crusades the 
commerce of the Muslim East with Europe was carried on 
mostly through Byzantium, which derived large revenues 
from her position as intermediary between East and West. 
But the Crusades established direct commercial relations 
between Europe and the East, so that soon afterwards the 
economic prosperity of Byzantium came to a close, and the 
leading economic role passed to the Italian cities, with 
Venice and Genoa at their head. 

When we approach the problem of the mutual cultural 
relations between Byzantium and Islam, we must take into 
account the contribution made by other peoples to the 
intellectual life of the Arab State. From the middle of the 
eighth century, when the Abbasids overthrew the Ummayads 
(Ommiads) and transferred their capital from Damascus to 
Bagdad, the Persians began to play a preponderant role in 
the cultural progress of the Caliphate. Then the Arameans 
acquainted the Arabs with the treasures of Hellenistic 
culture. In a word the cultural development of the Arabs 
was mostly due to foreign activities and foreign materials. 
An eminent German Orientalist remarks: ‘Greece, Persia, 
and India were taxed to help the sterility of the Arab mind .’ 2 

During the Middle Ages before the Crusades there were 
three world cultural centres, one belonging to Christianity, 
two to Islam : Constantinople on the Bosphorus, and Bagdad 
and Cordoba on the two opposite borders of the Muhamma- 
dan world. Constantinople, ‘the city guarded by God’, ‘the 
glory of Greece’, was the richest and most brilliant city in 
the medieval world. Bagdad, the city called into existence in 
the middle of the eighth century ‘as by an enchanter’s wand’, 
was second only to Constantinople, and the Court of the 
Abbasids was a real garden of learning, science, and the arts. 
Cordoba in Spain in the tenth century was the most civilized 

1 Liutprand, Legatio, ch. xi. 

* Ed. Sacfaau, Albertan's India, vol. i (London, 188S), p. sxviii. 



3 16 BYZANTIUM AND ISLAM 

city in western Europe, ‘the wonder and admiration of the 
world’ ; it contained 70 libraries and 900 public baths. 

Hellenistic culture was the common possession which 
after the conquest by the Arabs of Syria and Egypt could 
draw together Byzantium and the Caliphate. In the monas- 
teries of Syria humble monks were assiduously translating 
the works not only of religious but also of secular literature. 
Among philosophers Aristotle held pride of place; among 
medical writers Hippocrates and Galen. The Nestorians, 
persecuted by the Byzantine Government and condemned at 
the Third Oecumenical Council in 431, found shelter in 
Sassanid Persia and brought with them the learning of the 
Greeks. Under the Abbasids many scholars set to work on 
translations from the Greek and on the search for new 
manuscripts. Particular attention was devoted to the transla- 
tion of philosophical, mathematical, and medical works. 

When in the eighth century the Iconoclast movement 
triumphed in Byzantium, one of the most ardent defenders of 
the icons, John of Damascus, was living under the Caliphate. 
Although, as good authorities assert, the Ummayad Caliph 
Yazid II (720-4), the contemporary of the Emperor Leo III 
(717—41), three years before the date of Leo’s edict had 
issued a decree by which he ordered the destruction of all 
images in the churches of his Christian subjects, yet John of 
Damascus was not hampered in his literary work. Among 
his numerous writings in the fields of dogma, polemics, 
history, philosophy, oratory, and poetry, his three famous 
treatises Against Those Who Depreciate Holy Images were 
written under the Caliphate, and became the best weapon of 
Byzantine defenders of th? icons. 

Religious tolerance was not a particular trait of the 
Byzantine system. From the period of Constantine the 
Great when for the first time Christianity was proclaimed 
legal, the history of Byzantium affords many striking examples 
of religious intolerance. Any deviations from the religious 
credo of the ruling Emperors were outlawed by the Emperors 
or condemned by the Councils, so that many sects and 
doctrines which appeared during the Middle Ages within 
the Christian Church and were important not only reli- 
giously but also politically were persecuted and forbidden; 



BYZANTIUM AND ISLAM 317 

this policy of intolerance sometimes led to serious political 
complications and important territorial losses. But the 
attitude of the Byzantine Government towards Islam was 
different. It is true Byzantine sources sometimes attacked 
Islam; to brand the Emperor Leo III for his Iconoclast 
tendencies a Byzantine chronicler, as we have noted above, 
calls him ‘Saracen-minded’; one of the accusations against 
John of Damascus which was set forth at the Iconoclast 
council in 754 was that he was ‘inclined to Muhammadan- 
ism’. But on the other hand, as we have seen, a mosque was 
built in Constantinople under Leo III (717-41). 

In 1009 the insane Fatimid Caliph of Egypt, al-Hakim, 
to whom Palestine belonged, ordered the destruction of the 
Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. After his death 
(1020) a period of tolerance towards Christianity set in again. 
His successor, al-Zahir, in 1027 made an agreement with 
the Emperor Constantine VIII which is an interesting 
illustration of the religious relations between Islam and the 
Empire. It was agreed that the Fatimid Caliph should be 
prayed for in every mosque in the Byzantine dominions, and 
permission was granted for the restoration of the mosque in 
Constantinople which had been destroyed in retaliation for 
the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 
Jerusalem, as well as for the institution of a muezzin, a 
Muhammadan priest to call the faithful to prayer. In his 
turn, al-Zahir agreed to permit the rebuilding of the church 
in Jerusalem. 

The Byzantines were not much addicted to travelling; 
there are no descriptions of Bagdad, Antioch, Jerusalem, 
Cordoba, or a number of other places under the Arab sway 
written by Byzantine visitors. There were few Muhamma- 
dan travellers either who before the Crusades visited Con- 
stantinople or other places within the Empire. As far as we 
know at present, the earliest Muhammadan traveller who 
described the capital was an Arab, Harun-ibn-Yahya. He 
visited Constantinople either under the Emperor Basil I 
(867-86) or under Alexander (912-13); 1 he was neither 

1 A. Vasiliev, ‘Harun-ibn-Yahya and his Description of Constantinople’. 
G. Ostrogorsky, ‘Zum Reiaebericht des Harun-Ibn-Jahja’. Both studies in 
Semittarium Kmdaitruianum , vol. v (1932), pp. 149-63, 251-7. 



3 1 8 BYZANTIUM AND ISLAM 

trader nor tourist, but was captured somewhere in Asia Minor 
and brought by sea to the capital as a prisoner. As an eye- 
witness he described the gates of the city, the Hippodrome, 
the imperial palace — where he was particularly impressed by 
an organ — the solemn procession of the Emperor to the Great 
Church (St. Sophia), the statue of Justinian, an aqueduct, 
some monasteries around Constantinople, and some other 
things. On his way from Constantinople to Rome he visited 
another important city of the Empire, Salonica (Thessa- 
lonica). Harun-ibn-Yahya’s description gives us very 
interesting material for the topography of Constantinople 
and for some Court and ecclesiastical ceremonies; it would 
repay further detailed study. In the tenth century another 
Muhammadan visited Constantinople; this was Masudi, the 
famous geographer and historian, who spent most of his 
life in travelling. Anxious to see the capital of ‘the Christian 
kings of Rum’, 1 he visited the city during the brilliant period 
of the Macedonian dynasty and left a succinct description of 
it. He remarks: ‘During the period of the Ancient Greeks 
and the early period of the Byzantine Empire learning did 
not cease to develop and increase.’ 

In spite of the almost continuous warfare in the East 
between Byzantium and the Arabs, the cultural intercourse 
between these at first sight irreconcilable enemies always 
continued, and the Caliphs, recognizing the superiority of 
Byzantine culture in many respects, as occasion arose, 
appealed to the Emperors for help in cultural enterprises. 
The Caliph Walid I (705-15) asked the Emperor to send 
him some Greek artisans to adorn with mosaics the mosques 
of Damascus, Medina, and Jerusalem. In the tenth century 
on the opposite border of the Muhammadan world in Spain, 
the Ummayad Caliph of Cordoba, al-Hakim II (961-76), 
wrote to the Emperor of Byzantium begging him to send a 
mosaicist to adorn the Great Mosque of Cordoba. Accord- 
ing to an Arab historian, al-Hakim ‘ordered’ the Emperor to 
send him a capable artisan to imitate what al-Walid had 
done for the completion of the mosque of Damascus. The 
Caliph’s envoys brought back a mosaicist from Constanti- 

1 The word ‘Rum’ is merely ’Roman’; it was applied by Muhammadan writers 
to the medieval Byzantine Greeks. ’Rum’ was also used as a name for Asia Minor. 



BYZANTIUM AND ISLAM 319 

nople, as well as a considerable number of cubes of mosaics 
which the Emperor sent as a present. The Caliph placed 
many slaves as pupils at the disposal of the mosaicist, so that 
after his departure al-Hakim had his own group of skilful 
workers in mosaic. In the tenth century also the Emperor 
Constantine Porphyrogenitus sent 140 columns to the 
Spanish Caliph Abd er-Rahman III who at that time was 
building Medinat ez-Zahra, his favourite residence, in Cor- 
doba. In the ninth century under the Emperor Theophilus, 
there lived in Constantinople a distinguished mathematician 
named Leo. Through his pupils he became so famous 
abroad that the Caliph Mamun, an active promoter of 
education in his country, asked him to come to his Court. 
When Theophilus heard of this invitation, he gave Leo a 
salary and appointed him as public teacher in one of the 
Constantinopolitan churches. Although Mamun sent a per- 
sonal letter to Theophilus begging him to let Leo come to 
Bagdad for a short stay, saying that he would consider this 
an act of friendship and offering for this favour, as tradition 
asserts, eternal peace and 2,000 pounds of gold, the Emperor 
refused to satisfy his request. In the ninth century also the 
Caliph al-Wathiq (842-7) ‘with a special authorization from 
the Emperor Michael III’ sent to Ephesus an Arab scholar 
to visit the caves in which were preserved the bodies of the 
seven youths who, according to tradition, had suffered 
martyrdom under Diocletian. For this occasion the Byzan- 
tine Emperor sent a man to serve as guide to the learned 
Arab. The story of this expedition, told by an Arab writer 
of the ninth century, that is, by a contemporary, is not to be 
rejected. It indicates that even at a time when hostilities 
between Byzantium and the Arabs were very keen and 
frequent, a sort of joint ‘scientific’ expedition was possible. 
The goal of the expedition was in absolute harmony with 
the medieval mind. 

Arabo-Byzantine wars affected the literature of both 
countries. The military conflicts created a type of national 
hero, intrepid, valiant, magnanimous; some of these heroes 
became legendary figures endowed with superhuman vigour 
and carrying out stupendous deeds. An Arab warrior, 
Abdallah al-Battal, probably fell in the battle of Acroinon 



320 BYZANTIUM AND ISLAM 

in Asia Minor in 740; later this champion of Islam became 
the historical prototype of the legendary Turkish national 
hero Saiyid Battal Ghazi, whose grave is still shown in one 
of the villages south of Eskishehr (medieval Dorylaeum) in 
Asia Minor. In the tenth century the Hamdanids at Aleppo 
in Syria created at their Court a centre of flourishing literary 
activity; contemporaries called this period of the Hamdanids 
the ‘Golden Age’. The poets of their epoch treated not only 
the usual themes of Arabian poetry, but also praised the 
deeds of the Muhammadans in the wars with Byzantium. 
The famous Byzantine epic on Digenes Akritas, a Byzantine 
chanson de geste, depicting the wonderful exploits of this 
Greek national hero, goes back to an actual person who 
apparently was killed fighting against the Arabs in Asia 
Minor in 788. The tomb of the hero himself is found not 
far from Samosata. The epic of Digenes Akritas and the so- 
called Akritic popular songs beautifully and in many cases 
accurately describe the warfare between the Arabs and 
Byzantium, especially in the ninth century, when in 838 
took place the great military success of the Arab armies over 
the Byzantine troops at Amorium in Phrygia. Now owing 
to some recent brilliant studies on Byzantine and Arabo- 
Turkish epics another extremely interesting problem arises, 
that of the close connexion between the Greek epic of 
Digenes Akritas, the Turkish epic of Saiyid Battal which is 
Turkish only in the language of its last version but is 
originally Arab, and the Thousand and One Nights. The 
Greek epic Digenes Akritas is a priceless mine of information 
for cultural relations between Byzantium and the Arabs. 

On account of the continued intercourse between Byzan- 
tium and the Arabs, many Arabic words passed into Greek, 
and many Greek words into Arabic. These borrowed words, 
whether Arabic or Greek, have very often taken distorted 
forms in which it is sometimes not easy to discover the 
hidden original. Similar borrowings may be observed in the 
West in Spain, where many Arabic words made their way 
into Spanish and Portuguese. 

The period from the beginning of the Crusades to the fall 
of Constantinople in 1453 differed considerably from the 
preceding period so far as mutual relations between Byzan- 



BYZANTIUM AND ISLAM 321 

tium and Islam are concerned. Three ethnic elements one 
after another became important in the Near East. In the 
course of the eleventh century the Seljuk Turks founded in 
Asia Minor the Sultanate of Iconium (Konia) ; in the 
thirteenth century the Mongols defeated the Seljuks; and 
in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Ottoman Turks 
established their supremacy, conquering Asia Minor and 
most of the Balkan peninsula and taking possession of 
Constantinople in 1453, thus putting an end to the political 
existence of the pitiful remnants of the Byzantine Empire. 
During this period political interests were predominant over 
economic and cultural interests in the relations between 
Byzantium and Islam. 

Before the Seljuks in the eleventh century began their 
advance through Asia Minor, this country, though it was 
for long a theatre of stubborn hostilities with Islam, had 
remained Christian. Only in the eleventh century did the 
Seljuks bring Islam into this newly conquered country which 
afterwards became mainly Muhammadan. The political 
situation in Asia Minor was essentially changed. In 1071 at 
the battle of Manzikert in Armenia the Seljuks crushed the 
Byzantine army and captured the Emperor Romanus 
Diogenes. About the same year the Seljuks took possession 
of Jerusalem and sacked it. Islam, represented now not by 
the Arabs but by the Seljuk Turks, became a real danger to 
Byzantium. It is of course useless to conjecture what would 
have happened in the Near East towards the end of the 
eleventh century had the Western Crusaders not made their 
appearance in Constantinople and thereby turned a new 
page in the history of the world. 

In the eighth century the question arose of the universal 
conflict of the whole European Christian world with the 
powerful Muslim State. The latter was the aggressor; the 
East threatened the West. At the end of the eleventh 
century a universal conflict of the whole European Christian 
world with the Islamic world again manifested itself; but in 
this case the Christian world was the aggressor; the West 
threatened the East. The epoch of the Crusades began, that 
epoch so manifold in its political, economic, and cultural 
consequences, so fatal to the Byzantine Empire, and so 

39&2 


M 



3*2 BYZANTIUM AND ISLAM 

fruitful to western Europe. The Muhammadans were 
perplexed and troubled. According to a contemporary Arab 
historian, in 1097 ‘there began to arrive a succession of 
reports that the armies of the Franks had appeared from the 
direction of the sea of Constantinople with forces not to be 
reckoned for multitude. As these reports followed one upon 
the other, and spread from mouth to mouth far and wide, the 
people grew anxious and disturbed in mind.' 1 

The position of the Byzantine Empire in the Crusading 
movement, which was a purely west European enterprise, 
was very complicated. In the eleventh century no idea of a 
crusade existed in Byzantium. The problem of recovering 
Palestine was too abstract and was not vital to the Empire. 
There was no religious antagonism to Islam; there were no 
preachers of a crusade in Byzantium. The Eastern Empire 
was reluctantly involved in the turmoil of the First Crusade. 
The sole desire of the Empire was to have some aid against 
the political menace from the Turks, and this had no con- 
nexion with the expedition to Palestine. 

Extremely interesting from the point of view of the 
attitude of Byzantium towards the Crusading movement 
were the years immediately preceding the Third Crusade. 
In 1187 the Kurd Saladin, ruler of Egypt, a talented leader 
and clever politician, captured Jerusalem from the Crusaders 
and succeeded in organizing a sort of counter-crusade 
against the Christians. This was the turning-point in the 
history of the Crusades. And at the moment when the Third 
Crusade started, the Byzantine Emperor Isaac Angelus 
opened negotiations with Saladin, against whom the crusade 
was being directed, and formed an alliance with Saladin 
against the Sultan of Iconium. 

Byzantium paid dearly for her forced participation in the 
west European expeditions against Islam. In 1204 the 
Crusaders took and sacked Constantinople, and established 
the Latin Empire. When in 1261 the Palaeologi retook 
Constantinople, they were too weak to make any serious 
attempt to recover what they had lost to the Seljuk Turks. 

‘Had there been in Asia Minor in the latter half of the thirteenth 

1 The Damascus Chronicle of the Crusades , extracted and translated from the 
Chronicle of Ibn al-Qalanisi, by H. A. R. Gibb (London, 1932)1 p. 4 1 - 



BYZANTIUM AND ISLAM 3*3 

century a predominant element, with an historical past and with a 
strong leader, we might have seen a revival of the Sultanate of Konia. 

Or we might have seen a revival of Hellenism, a grafting, perhaps, on 
fresh stock, which would have put new foundations under the Byzan- 
tine Empire by a reconquest of the Asiatic themes. But the Mongols 
and the Crusaders had done their work too well. The Latins at 
Constantinople, and the Mongols in Persia and Mesopotamia, had 
removed any possibility of a revival of either Arab Moslem or Greek 
Christian traditions .’ 1 

The last period, from 1261 to 1453, was, as we have noted 
above, a time of desperate political struggle — a protracted 
death agony of the remnants of the Empire in its unequal fight 
against Islam represented this time by the Ottoman Turks. 

Accordingly there was almost no cultural intercourse 
between Byzantium and Islam in the period from the 
Crusades to the fall of the Empire. Trade was interrupted 
and ceased to be well organized and regular. Many treasures 
of Islamic culture perished. Neither the Seljuks nor the 
Ottomans were at that time ready to carry on or stimulate 
real cultural work; in particular any co-operation with the 
Eastern Empire became impossible. 

During this period four Arab travellers visited Constanti- 
nople and left descriptions of the city. Two of them came to 
Constantinople during the brilliant rule of the Comnenian 
dynasty in the twelfth century. In his Guide to Pilgrimages 
Hassan Ali al-Harawy gives a brief account of the most j 
important monuments of the capital and specifies some 
monuments connected with Islam. He stresses once more 
the religious tolerance of Byzantium towards Islam. ‘Out- 
side of the city there is the tomb of one of the companions of 
the Prophet (= Muhammad). The big mosque erected by 
Maslamah, son of Abdel-Melik, is within the city. One can 
see the tomb of a descendant of Hussein, son of Ali, son of 
Abu-Thalib.’ At the end of his description he says, ‘Con- 
stantinople is a city larger than its renown proclaims’, and 
then exclaims, ‘May Goa, in His grace and generosity, deign 
to make of it the capital of Islam 1 ’ His wish was fulfilled in 
1453. Another Arabian traveller of the twelfth century who 

1 H. A. Gibbons, The Foundation of the Ottoman Empire (New York, 1916), 
pp. 13-14. 



32+ BYZANTIUM AND ISLAM 

visited Constantinople was the famous geographer Edrisi, 
born in Ceuta, in the west of North Africa. Under the 
Palaeologi two Arab travellers visited and described Con- 
stantinople. At the beginning of the fourteenth century an 
Arab geographer, Abulfeda, observes some traces of the 
decline of the capital. He remarks, ‘Within the city there are 
sown fields and gardens, and many ruined houses’. 

In the first half of the fourteenth century another famous 
Arab traveller, Ibn-Batutah (Battuta), who like Edrisi was 
born in the west of North Africa, at Tangier, visited Con- 
stantinople and gave a very interesting and vivid description 
of it. When his party reached the first gate of the imperial 
palace they found there about a hundred men, and Ibn- 
Batutah remarks, ‘I heard them saying Sarakinu, Sarakinu, 
which means Muslims’. He was the Emperor’s guest, and 
the people of Constantinople were very friendly to him. One 
day a great crowd gathered round him, and an old man said, 
‘You must come to my house that I may entertain you’. But 
Ibn-Batutah adds, ‘After that I went away, and I did not see 
him again’. 

In connexion with the ever-growing danger from the 
Ottoman Turks we may note some antagonism to Islam in 
the capital. A Byzantine historian of the fourteenth century 
says that while a Christian service was being celebrated in 
the imperial church, the people were angry to see Ottomans 
who had been admitted into the capital dancing and singing 
near the palace, ‘crying out in incomprehensible sounds the 
songs and hymns of Muhammad, and thereby attracting the 
crowd to listen to them rather than to the divine gospels’. 
The Emperor Manuel II (1391-1425) himself compiled the 
most thorough refutation of the doctrine of Islam which was 
written in Byzantine times. He defines Islam as ‘a falsely 
called faith’ and ‘the frenzy of the mad Muhammad’. In 
spite of this, on the eve of the final catastrophe the majority 
of the population was more antagonistic to the Union with 
the Roman Catholic Church than to the contamination of 
Islam. The famous words uttered at that time by one of the 
Byzantine dignitaries, Lucas Notaras, are well known: ‘It is 
better to see in the city the power of the Turkish turban than 
that of the Latin tiara.’ 



BYZANTIUM AND ISLAM 325 

In 1453 Constantinople, the ‘second Rome’, fell. Sultan 
Muhammad II, the ‘precursor of Antichrist and second 
Sennacherib’, entered the city. On the site of the Christian 
Eastern Empire was established the military Empire of the 
Ottoman Turks. This victory of Islam over Christianity had 
unexpected repercussions in far-off Russia, where Moscow 
and the Russian Grand Prince inherited in the imagination 
of many Russians the cultural legacy of Byzantium and 
the right and duty of defending the Greek Orthodox faith 
against Islam. 1 

Finally, perhaps, the cultural influence of both the Byzan- 
tine Empire and Islam may be noted in the origin and 
progress of the so-called Italian Renaissance. Classical 
knowledge, which was carefully preserved by Byzantium, 
and various branches of knowledge which were not only pre- 
served but also perfected by the Arabs played an essential 
role in the creation of the new cultural atmosphere in Italy 
and became a connecting link between ancient culture and 
our modern civilization. Here we have an example of the 
cultural co-operation of the two most powerful and fruitful 
forces of the Middle Ages — Byzantium and Islam. 

A. A. VASILIEV 


1 See Chapter 14 infra. 



XII 


THE BYZANTINE INHERITANCE IN 
SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE 1 

It is too much the fashion in western Europe to under- 
estimate the influence of Byzantium upon the States of 
south-eastern Europe. In the case of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, 
and Albania their Turkish past is emphasized; in that of 
Roumania Trajan and his ‘Roman’ legionaries are apt to over- 
shadow the Byzantine Empire and the Phanariote Princes; 
in that of Greece the classical past usurps the place of 
Romans, Byzantines, Franks, and Turks alike. But a survey 
of the Balkan peninsula from the standpoint of eastern- 
Europe puts Byzantium in a very different perspective. In 
Athens, for example, the home of lectures, no lecturer will 
attract such a large audience as a scholar who has chosen 
Byzantine history, literature, social life, music, or art for his 
subject. For the modern Greeks feel with reason that, if they 
are the grandchildren of ancient Hellas, they are the children 
and heirs of Byzantium. 

To begin, then, with Greece, where the Byzantine tradi- 
tion is naturally strongest, we find that from the foundation 
of the Greek kingdom down to the disaster in Asia Minor 
(1922) of which the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923 was the 
formal acknowledgement the Greeks were haunted by the 
spectre of Constantine Palaeologus. Otho and his spirited 
consort were enthusiastic adherents of ‘the great idea’, and 
Athens was long considered as merely the temporary capital 
of Greece, until such time as Constantinople should be 
regained. Religion being, as usual in the Near East, identi- 
fied with national and political interests, Greek participation 
in the Crimean War on the side of Orthodox Russia, despite 
the rival Russian candidature for Constantinople, was 
prevented only by the Anglo-French occupation. The more 
prosaic George I was compelled by public opinion to follow 
the same policy in 1866 and 1897, an< * it was no mere 

1 This chapter was written in 1933, and since Mr. Miller has died I have not 
attempted to adapt the text of his chapter. N.H.B. 



THE BYZANTINE INHERITANCE 327 

accident that his successor was christened Constantine, who, 
after his marriage with Sophia, was hailed as the future 
conqueror of the city which was called after the first, and 
defended by the last, Emperor of that name. Greece would 
be more prosperous and better organized to-day had not the 
lure of the Byzantine heritage monopolized her efforts and 
strained her resources during all the first and most of the 
second dynasty. The present friendship with Turkey, which 
is now the keystone of Greek foreign policy, has apparently 
ended Byzantine influence upon Greek politics, for the 
exchange of populations, while it has intensified the internal 
Hellenism of Macedonia, has ended that ‘outside Hellenism’, 
of which the University of Athens and the Greek Church in 
Turkey were the apostles. 

During the Turkish domination over Greece the Orthodox 
Church of that country depended directly upon the Oecu- 
menical Patriarch at Constantinople. Thus a Byzantine 
prelate, whose functions Muhammad II had preserved, was 
the ethnarches , or ‘National Chief’ of the Hellenes, and not 
only of the Hellenes but of the Orthodox Slavs and Rouma- 
nians, for the Turks made religion, not nationality, the dis- 
tinctive mark of their subjects, so that a ‘Greek’ meant 
any member of the Greek Orthodox Church of what- 
ever nationality, just as the writer was once described at a 
Greek monastery as not a ‘Christian’ (Greek), but a ‘lord’ 
(Englishman). When the Church of the Greek kingdom 
became autocephalous in 1833, Byzantine influences over it 
diminished, and the recent inclusion of the Metropolitans of 
‘New’ Greece in the Holy Synod of Athens has further 
weakened the Byzantine connexion. The Archbishop of 
Athens and All Greece has now a larger diocese than the 
Patriarch. Before the expansion of the Greek State in 1 9 1 2— 
1 3 those ecclesiastical dignitaries had been political mission- 
aries, as the history of the Macedonian question showed. 
The same Byzantine spirit, which has divided the masses on 
nice questions of dogma and ritual, caused Greek ‘Patriar- 
chists* and Bulgarian ‘Exarchists’ to kill each other in Mace- 
donia in the interests of their rival nationalities, but in the 
names of their respective ecclesiastical chiefs. 

Three societies with three periodicals have diffused 



328 THE BYZANTINE INHERITANCE 

Byzantine learning in Greece, and their members make 
pilgrimages to the Byzantine sites, which that country 
possesses in such abundance. Such are the Byzantine 
Churches of Athens, the adjacent monastery of Daphnf, 
Hosios Loukas, the aerial monasteries of Met^ora, the 
churches of Arta, Salonica, Hagia Mon£ in Chios, and, above 
all, the Greek Ravenna, Mistra, the Medieval Sparta, once 
the capital of a Byzantine despotat, which was no incon- 
siderable portion of the waning Byzantine Empire, and like 
that of Trebizond, its survivor by a few years. The Byzan- 
tine castle and city of Mouchli between Argos and Tripolis 
(explored by Professor Dark6) bears the very name of a 
monastery at Constantinople. Even in Cyprus, so long under 
the domination of the Lusignans, and in Crete, still longer 
under that of Venice, where even then inscriptions were dated 
by the regnal years of the Byzantine Emperors, Byzantine 
traditions have been preserved, while the ‘Holy Mount’ of 
Athos, a theocratic republic under Greek sovereignty, is the 
most perfect existing example of Byzantine monasticism, now 
declining in other parts of Greece. When the monks in 1931 
solemnly asked the Greek Foreign Office whether they might 
be allowed to keep hens, despite the exclusion of the female 
sex from their sacred peninsula, we were, indeed, transported 
back to the atmosphere of Byzantine dialectics on dogma. 
The practice of the Knights of Rhodes of training children 
to enter the Order was Byzantine, as was originally their 
hospital in Jerusalem. Byzantine music is still used in the 
services of the Greek Church, and Byzantine art exercised an 
influence upon the later Greek painters of the Turkish period, 
whose works may be seen in the Churches of Kaisarian£ at 
the foot of Hymettus and Phaneromdne in Salamis. Byzan- 
tine literature served as a stepping-stone between ancient 
Greek and the ‘pure language’ of to-day, although the 
modern school of Greek novelists and poets is far removed 
from the stilted style and archaisms of some Byzantine 
historians and theologians, while the contemporary novel 
can find no models in that — the least successful — form of 
medieval Greek composition. That the ‘language question’, 
now happily less acute than thirty years ago, should have 
caused two riots and the downfall of the Ministries in 



IN SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE 329 

1 90 1-3, is in itself a proof that the Byzantine spirit long 
survived the establishment of modern Greece. Even in 
democratic Hellas, where titles are forbidden, and the only 
titular distinction is to have been ‘president’ of some council 
or society, the descendants of Phanariote families still enjoy 
a certain social prestige, and one Athenian family, that of 
Ranghabes, traces its descent from a Byzantine Emperor. 
When, in 1933, a Monarchist organization was founded, it 
connected its propaganda with the name of the last Emperor 
of Constantinople, adopted the Byzantine double-eagle as its 
badge, and sought to justify the return of the Danish 
Gliicksburgs by recalling the achievements of the Palaeologi. 

But Byzantium has left traces not only on the Greek State, 
with which it is linguistically and racially more closely con- 
nected, but on the Slav nationalities of die Balkans. There 
two organizations, the imperial Government and the Ortho- 
dox Greek Church, collaborated in their efforts to convert 
the Slavs into good Byzantine citizens and Orthodox Greek 
parishioners. Bulgaria, the nearest Slav Balkan State to 
Byzantium, twice rebelled against this government by aliens, 
and the first and second Bulgarian Empires were the result, 
until the all-conquering Turks, availing themselves of the 
rivalries between these two Christian nationalities, ground 
the Empire of Trnovo to powder. A recent writer 1 has shown 
that the ‘Byzantinisation and Christianisation of the Balkan 
Slavs were two aspects of the same process’; Christianity 
brought Byzantine culture and customs with it, and the 
language of the primitive Bulgarian Chancery was Greek. 
For, when Boris was wavering between the Western and the 
Eastern Churches, the unyielding attitude of the Popes 
threw him into the arms of the Patriarch, so that the first 
Bulgarian Empire, and, as a natural consequence, the 
second, were orientated away from the old towards the new 
Rome, whence the modern Greeks, even to-day, style them- 
selves in the vernacular, Romatoi. When, largely owing to 
the educational activities of Clement and Nahum at their 
Macedonian seminary, Slav priests took the place of Greek, 
and Slavonic became, instead of Greek, the official language 
of the Bulgarian State and Church, the traces of Byzantium 

1 Spinka, A History of Christianity in the Balkans, p. 18$. 



330 THE BYZANTINE INHERITANCE 

in the religious life of Bulgaria became indirect. But Boris’s 
learned son and ultimate successor, Simeon, trained in Greek 
literature at the palace school of Constantinople, incor- 
porated the Byzantine ideas and literary forms into the 
language of his own country. The books which he ordered 
to be translated or adopted were Greek 1 , his Court was copied 
from Constantinople. Greeks called him ‘half a Greek’, but, 
if he was so by culture, he was a Nationalist by policy, in 
whose reign and at whose instigation Bulgaria for the first 
time had a Patriarch of her own — an epoch-making event, 
which centuries later affected her relations with Greece and 
was one of the causes of the Macedonian question. 

Simeon’s son and successor, Peter, by his marriage with 
the masterful Byzantine Princess, Maria, introduced into 
Bulgaria a new and powerful agent of Byzantine culture; his 
Court was filled with Greeks and its etiquette modelled on 
that of the Empress’s birthplace. With the fall of the first 
Bulgarian Empire in 1018 under the blows dealt by Basil 
‘the Bulgar-slayer’, who characteristically celebrated the 
victory of Byzantium by a service in the christianized 
Parthenon, the Church of Our Lady of Athens, Byzantine 
influence, temporal and ecclesiastical, again predominated; 
the Bulgarian Patriarchate was abolished, and Ochrida, the 
place to which it had been transferred from Silistria, Great 
Preslav, and Sofia, became the see of a Greek Archbishop, 
chosen at Constantinople from the clergy of the capital. 
Byzantium, however, found a powerful opposition in the 
adherents of the Bogomil heresy — a thorn in the side of both 
the Western and Eastern Churches — which, like Welsh 
Nonconformity and Irish or Polish Catholicism, identified 
itself with the Nationalist Movement, so that a good 
Bogomil was also a good Bulgarian. Byzantine persecution, 
as usual, furthered the cause of the persecuted, and public 
opinion was ripe for rebellion when, in 1 1 86, the Second 
Bulgarian Empire arose out of the confusion of the Byzantine 
State. Even then the peasants were taught to believe that the 
patron saint of Byzantine Salonica, St. Demetrius, had 
emigrated from the great Macedonian city to Trnovo, the 
Bulgarian capital, to protect the brothers Asen. But even 
under this second Empire with its national rulers the 



IN SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE 331 

Byzantine spirit continued to dominate the Court, the army, 
the administration, and the legal procedure. Although the 
Bulgarian Patriarchate was restored to Trnovo in 1235, the 
National Church ceased to lead the nation; in the next 
century it was, like the Byzantine Church, afflicted with the 
mystic doctrine of Hesychasm , whose founder, Gregory the 
Sinaite, won many Bulgarian and Serbian followers, chief 
among them Theodosius of Trnovo. At Trnovo there was 
established a settlement of Hesychasts , modelled on the 
monastic life of Mt. Athos. This foreign importation led its 
Bulgarian promoter to take the side of the Oecumenical 
Patriarch, Callistus I, against his own Patriarch, who had 
sought to obtain formal, as well as practical, independence 
by omitting Callistus’s name from the prayers and ceasing to 
obtain the holy oil from him. Thus, theological affinity was 
a more powerful motive than patriotism. Another important 
product of Hesychasm was the Bulgarian Patriarch Euthy- 
mius, an opponent of the Bogomils and a compiler of 
theological and biographical works, for which Byzantine 
books were models. Thus, alike in dogma and literature, 
Bulgaria went back to Byzantium, and originality and 
nationalism were eclipsed at a time when the Turks were 
approaching the Balkans. In 1393 Trnovo fell; Bulgaria 
remained a Turkish province till 1878; the Bulgarian Church 
was under the Oecumenical Patriarch from 1394 till 1870. 
The Bulgars were subject to the temporal power of the 
Turkish Sultan and to the spiritual authority of the Greek 
Patriarch, who, living at Constantinople, could, as Muham- 
mad II had shrewdly foreseen, be used as an instrument of 
Ottoman policy in the Balkans. Hence, one of the first acts 
of the Modern Greek kingdom was to throw off his authority 
— an act imitated by Bulgaria in 1870, but as the prelude, 
not as the result, of her liberation. 

The history of the southern Slavs has been profoundly 
marked by the division between the Eastern and the Western 
Churches, which made the Croats and Slovenes face west- 
ward and the Serbs eastward. The Austro-Hungarian 
Monarchy, which embraced the two first branches of the 
Yugoslav stock, completed what Virgilius of Salzburg had 
begun in the case of the Slovenes and Charlemagne in that 



332 THE BYZANTINE INHERITANCE 

of the Croats, and the difficulties besetting the later 
Triune Monarchy of Yugoslavia may be traced in great 
measure to the struggle between the Papacy and the 
Oecumenical Patriarchate in the ninth century. Such 
historical causes have more practical results in the Balkans 
than with us, for Serbian politicians are apt to speak of 
Stephen Dushan as if he had lived yesterday, whereas no 
British statesman would cite Dushan’s contemporary, 
Edward III, as a precedent for the reacquisition of large 
parts of France. But, when the Balkan States were reborn 
in the nineteenth century, they naturally and nationalistically 
looked back to the medieval Serbian and Bulgarian Empires 
as to their progenitors, and inevitably inherited Byzantine 
traditions which had been preserved through the dull 
centuries of Turkish domination. Hence to understand the 
Balkan questions of to-day it is often necessary to know 
something of their medieval struggles, whereas to the British 
politician the reign of Victoria is already ‘ancient history’. 
Stephen Nemanja, by adopting the Eastern creed, instead 
of the Latin Church, permanently decided the aspect of 
Serbian culture; his son, Sava, and he himself in his later 
years, sought inspiration among the Byzantine monks of 
Mount Athos, and the still-existing Serbian monastery of 
Khilandar testifies to the connexion between the ‘Holy 
Mountain’ and the modern Yugoslav monarchy. Both 
Alexander of Serbia and Alexander of Yugoslavia visited 
this foundation, and a recent question, arising between 
Greece and Yugoslavia out of the expropriation of the lands 
belonging to Khilandar outside the peninsula of Athos, 
served as a reminder that the germs of modern Balkan 
politics are sometimes found in the Middle Ages. The Latin 
conquest of Mount Athos indirectly assisted the diffusion of 
Orthodox and Byzantine ideas in Serbia, for Sava, emigrat- 
ing thence to Studenitza, spread the Eastern ritual among 
the Serbs, and in 1219 obtained from the Oecumenical 
Patriarch (then resident at Nicaea) his consecration as 
‘Archbishop of all the Serbian lands’ together with the 
creation of an autocephalous Serbian Church. 

Byzantium’s weakness was Serbia’s opportunity; as usual 
in the Balkans politics and religion were yoke-fellows. Sava 



IN SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE 333 

identified the dynasty with the national religion ; Khilandar 
was the nursery of the Serbian Church, whence came its 
earliest prelates and priests. Dushan completed the double 
work of Nemanja and Sava; when he became ‘Emperor of 
the Serbs and Greeks’, the imperial crown was placed upon 
his head at Skoplie by the newly appointed Serbian Patriarch 
of Petch. The brand-new Serbian Empire, after the fashion 
of -parvenus , slavishly copied the ceremonial of the ancient 
Empire of Constantinople. The Serbian Tsar sought to 
connect himself with the historical figures of the rulers of 
Byzantium by assuming the tiara and the double eagle. 
The officials of the Serbian Court were decorated with 
grandiloquent Byzantine titles, and contemporary docu- 
ments reveal to us the existence of a Serbian ‘Sebastocrator’, 
‘Great Logothete’, ‘Caesar’, and ‘Despot’, while Cattaro and 
Scutari were governed by Serbian ‘Counts’, and smaller 
places like Antivari, the seat of the ‘Primate of Serbia’ in the 
Catholic hierarchy, by ‘Captains’. Thus, as of old, Graecia 
capta ferum victorem cepit. The way had already been pre- 
pared by the six marriages of Serbian kings with Greek 
princesses. Thus, when Stephen Urosh II, ‘the Henry 
VIII of the Balkans’, took, through Byzantine theological 
sophistry, as his fourth wife, Simonis, the only daughter of 
Andronicus II, his marriage with this Byzantine child was 
prompted alike by snobbishness and ambition. But the 
Court of the third Stephen Urosh, also the husband of a 
noble Byzantine, was ridiculed by the historian Nicephorus 
Gregoras, who came thither on a diplomatic mission from 
the Byzantine Empire. ‘One cannot expect apes and ants to 
act like eagles and lions’ was his complacent remark when he 
recrossed the Serbian frontier. But he failed to recognize 
the sterling natural qualities of the Serbian race which 
underlay this thin veneer of alien culture. If rough Serbia 
gained prestige, decadent Byzantium acquired strength from 
these intermarriages; the only loser was the unfortunate 
princess, sacrificed to make a diplomatic triumph. In 
Serbia, as in Greece, the Church became the centre of 
Nationalism under the Turkish domination; but in 1690 its 
centre of gravity was transferred from Petch to the more 
congenial atmosphere of Karlovitz in Austrian territory. 



334 THE BYZANTINE INHERITANCE 

Bosnia and the Herzegovina, now integral parts of Yugo- 
slavia, had a separate medieval history, in which the Bogo- 
mils were important figures. Alternately under Byzantine 
and Hungarian rule in the twelfth century Bosnia found in 
its concluding decade a strong native ruler in the Ban Kulin, 
who patronized the Bogomils. For a time both his family and 
over 10,000 of his subjects actually adopted their creed 
because the sect was opposed alike to Orthodox Byzantium 
and to Catholic Hungary. Thus the Bogomil heresy became 
the Bosnian ‘national faith’, and in the fourteenth century 
received the official title of ‘the Bosnian Church’. Orthodox 
Byzantium, by provoking opposition, and arousing alarm, 
combined with its rival, Catholicism, to strengthen Bosnian 
Nationalism. But the great Bosnian King Tortko I, like 
Dushan, paid Byzantium the compliment of- copying the 
Court of Constantinople at his rustic residences of Sutjeska 
and Bobovac, where Bosnian barons held offices with high- 
sounding Greek names. Thus, in his reign, the Byzantine 
tradition had spread to the Eastern shores of the Adriatic, 
from Constantinople to Castelnuovo, his outlet on the sea. 
But the adoption of Catholicism by King Stephen Thomas 
Ostoii£ and the decision to proceed against the Bogomils 
(1446) caused the wholesale emigration of the persecuted 
sect to the Duchy of the Herzegovina, and led to the ulti- 
mate ruin of the Bosnian kingdom. The traitor of Bobovac, 
who opened its gates to the Turks, was a Bogomil, forcibly 
converted to Catholicism. Most of the Bogomils preferred 
Islam to Rome, the Turkish master of Byzantium to the 
Papacy; many became fanatical converts of Muhamma- 
danism, preserving thereby their feudal privileges and their 
lands. Bosnia was for four centuries ‘the lion that guards the 
gates of Stamboul’; even to-day the Bosnian Muslim is a 
powerful factor among his fellow Yugoslavs of the Christian 
faith. 

The Republic of Ragusa, long under Byzantium, showed 
fidelity to Byzantine traditions in her coinage and language. 
It was natural that a trading community like Ragusa, whose 
‘argosies’ were frequent visitors to the Levant, should have 
been closely affected by tne culture and the luxury, the 
customs and the laws of so wealthy a capital as Constanti- 



IN SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE 335 

nople. Yet ‘the South Slavonic Athens’, as Dubrovnik has 
been called, has remained Slav rather than Greek or Italian. 
Albania, with its autochthonous inhabitants and mountainous 
fastnesses, was too savage a country to be attracted by the 
civilization of the distant city on the Bosporus. Still Durazzo, 
the ancient Dyrrhachium, was the capital of a Byzantine 
theme, and, therefore, governed by officials sent from the 
new Rome; its wide Byzantine walls were the outward sign 
of its importance as a bulwark of the East against western 
invaders; and, even after the break-up of the Byzantine 
Empire in 1204, a Greek prince, Michael Angelus, included 
it in the despotat of Epirus which he founded to keep the 
spirit of Byzantium alive amid the Frankish States of Greece. 
But the many vicissitudes of Durazzo after his time cut that 
link with Byzantium, which for centuries had been symbo- 
lized by the Via Egnatia. The Albanians, however, after the 
Turkish conquest, became more closely connected with and 
more attached to the Sultan than were the other Balkan races. 
They furnished his best soldiers and were specially selected 
to form his bodyguard. Ecclesiastically the Orthodox 
Albanians have only recently freed themselves from the 
jurisdiction of the Oecumenical Patriarchate at Constanti- 
nople, thus cutting their last-tie with Byzantium ; they now 
have an Albanian Patriarch. 

Roumania was so long connected with Greeks that Byzan- 
tine influences were inevitably engrafted upon the native 
stock in both the Danubian principalities. Their princes 
dated their official documents by die Byzantine calendar, 
according to which the year began on 1 September, and 
those of Wallachia signed, like the Byzantine Emperors, in 
purple ink, as does the present autocephalous Archbishop of 
Cyprus — and as did one of its recent governors. In Roumania, 
as in Bulgaria and Bosnia, Bogomilism played a part and was 
the national religion till 1350. 

Byzantine art, as Professor Iorga has shown, was adapted 
to Wallachian and Moldavian surroundings, but he con- 
siders that ‘all art produced within the theoretical boundaries 
of the Empire, as far west as the Adriatic and east to the 
Danube is Byzantine’. Long after the fall of Constantinople, 
the Greek families of the Phanar, Byzantine in ideas and in 



336 THE BYZANTINE INHERITANCE 

some cases by descent, furnished the Hospodars who ruled 
over the two principalities during a large part of the eigh- 
teenth and nineteenth centuries, and who were regarded as 
‘the eyes of the Ottoman Empire, turned towards Europe’. 
Historians have often stigmatized the Phanariote period of 
Roumanian history, its corruption and its luxury. But these 
defects must not blind us to the services rendered by the 
more cultured Phanariote Greeks to the less advanced 
Roumanian population. The Greek Princes and the Greek 
priests alike represented this foreign rule, and the Greek 
Church until the drastic reforms of Cuza in the second half 
of the nineteenth century held vast properties in Roumania. 
But even to-day closer ties unite the Greeks to the Roumanians 
than to any other race of south-eastern Europe, and, 
although with the spread of modern agricultural methods 
there are fewer nomadic Koutzo-Wallachs in Greece, there 
are larger Greek colonies in the Roumanian cities — a relic of 
the Phanariote days. It was not a mere coincidence that the 
War of Greek Independence began on the Pruth ; to historical 
and racial causes are due the large donations made to modern 
Athens by rich Greeks of Roumania. 

In Asia Minor Byzantine civilization was continued for a 
few years after the Turkish capture of Constantinople by the 
Empire of Trebizond, founded at the time of the Latin con- 
quest of Byzantium. The historian Chalcocondylas empha- 
sizes the fact that the orientation of Trebizond was ‘towards 
the Greek character and mode of life’ ; it was a Byzantine 
Government; and, if the popular speech was known as 
‘Greek of Trebizond’, the local scholars wrote in the literary 
Greek of Byzantium, although the Chronicle of Panaretus 
contains an admixture of foreign expressions. The historical 
mission of the Trapezuntine Empire was to save the 
Hellenism of Pontus for over two and a half centuries. 

Thus not only in Greece, but in the Slav and Latin States 
of south-eastern Europe Byzantine forms and traditions have 
had their share in shaping the national life. The chief 
instrument in this work was the Church, closely interwoven 
as it was with the Court and politics of Constantinople. 
Byzantine art was largely connected with the Church, and 
worked as one of its handmaidens; Byzantine music was 



IN SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE 337 

another, while much of Byzantine literature was theological. 
Even after the Turkish Conquest the Church remained as 
the heir of the Byzantine tradition in the Near East, as it is on 
Mount Athos to-day. In little Montenegro till the middle of 
the last century such was the influence of the ecclesiastical 
tradition that the Bishop, or Vladika , was also the secular 
ruler. Even now wherever in the Christian East political life 
is rendered impossible by the form of the Government, the 
public finds a substitute in ecclesiastical discussion: shall, 
for instance, the Metropolitan of Rhodes be head of an auto- 
cephalous Church or dependent upon the Oecumenical 
Patriarch? The form of Balkan and Aegean Christianity 
came from Palestine by way of Byzantium ; the Oecumenical 
Patriarch was the propagandist of the Byzantine Empire. 

WILLIAM MILLER 



XIII 

BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAYS 

The great work of the Byzantines in conserving the culture 
of the ancients is well known and often emphasized. Their 
achievement, of almost equal importance, in disseminating 
their own civilization to barbarian nations is less fully 
recognized, chiefly because the nations which benefited most 
stand somewhat apart from the main course of European 
history. These are the nations of the Slavs, in particular the 
Slavs of the south and the east. 

The early history of the Slav peoples is obscure. Their 
migrations followed in the aftermath of the better-known 
movements of the Germans, at a time when the Greco- 
Roman world was distracted by troubles nearer home. 
Consequently we know little of the process by which they 
spread from the forests of western Russia that were their 
original home, till by the close of the sixth century they 
occupied all the territory eastward from the Elbe, the 
Bohemian Forest and the Julian Alps into the heart of 
Muscovy and into the Balkan peninsula. Indeed it is only 
about their Balkan invasions, which brought them into 
contact with the authorities of the Empire, that our informa- 
tion is at all precise. 

The Slav tribe that first appeared in imperial history was 
that known by the Romans as the Sclavenes, who gave their 
name as the generic term for the whole family of tribes. 
They and a kindred tribe called the Antae were wandering 
as pastoral nomads north of the Danube in the middle of the 
sixth century, and more than once during the reign of 
Justinian I raided the Balkan provinces in the train of other 
tribes such as the Bulgars. The Antae seem to have become 
foederati of the Empire before Justinian’s death; but under 
Justin II the situation on the Danube frontier was altered by 
the aggression of the Avars, a Turkish tribe moving up from 
the east. The Avars conquered the Antae and by 566 were 
crossing the Danube to attack the Empire. 

It was during the Avar wars that the Slavs found the 



BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAVS 339 

opportunity of settling south of the Danube. In 558 
Justinian came to terms with the Avars and agreed to pay 
them a yearly subsidy. In 582, after a long siege, the Avars 
captured the great frontier - fortress of Sirmium; and the 
siege and fall of Sirmium were the signal for a Slav invasion 
of the peninsula that penetrated as far as the Long Walls 
outside Constantinople. It is probable that many of these 
invaders remained permanently within imperial territory. 
During the next decade the imperial authorities were 
engrossed with the Persian War; and by the close of the 
century, when next they could turn their attention to the 
Danube frontier, they found the Slavs too firmly entrenched 
in the north-west corner of the peninsula to be dislodged. 

In 597 a new wave of Slav invasion swamped the penin- 
sula. On this occasion the invaders’ goal was less ambitious 
than in 582, but more valuable for them. The easiest road 
from the middle Danube to the sea runs not across the rough 
mountains that border the Adriatic but from Belgrade or 
Sirmium up the Morava and down the Vardar to Salonica. 
To possess Salonica has always been, therefore, the aim of 
every power on the middle and lower Danube. The invaders 
of 597 were a motley collection of Slav tribes with a few 
Avars and Bulgars amongst them. Their ambition was 
probably only to sack Salonica, but their onslaught was none 
the less very vehement; and the pious Thessalonians con- 
sidered that only the personal intervention of their patron 
saint, St. Demetrius, preserved the city. 

Though they failed to take Salonica, it is probably from 
this campaign that the Slav settlements in the city’s hinter- 
land, in Macedonia, begin. The account of the Miracles of 
St. Demetrius gives a picture of life in Salonica at the time. 
The Empire was distracted by the anarchy of Phocas’s reign 
and its energies were later fully employed in the wars of 
Heraclius against the Persians. There was no opportunity 
for punitive action in the Balkans. So the Slavs poured in 
across the Danube and the Save, gravitating mainly towards 
Macedonia, while the Avars protected their flanks by attack- 
ing Constantinople. It was seldom safe to wander far from 
the gates of Salonica. Twice again Slav armies appeared 
before the walls, though in neither case was a definite siege 



340 BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAVS 

attempted. Meanwhile the Slavs pressed southward into the 
Greek peninsula, penetrating even- to the Peloponnese and 
extinguishing the old country life of Greece, while they 
advanced eastward through Moesia towards the Black Sea. 
New waves of invaders overran Dalmatia and destroyed its 
former metropolis Salona. By the fourth decade of the 
seventh century the whole peninsula, except only the sea 
coasts, the Albanian mountains, and Thrace, was occupied 
more or less thickly by Slavs. 

The Slav is naturally a democrat, who when he settled 
down chose to live in small isolated villages where all men 
were equal save the elected head-man, the 2upan ; and this 
tendency was enhanced by the fact that during their earlier 
movements the Slavs were vassals to stronger nations like 
the Avars who kept them in a state of brute subjection. It 
was difficult therefore for them to co-operate and set up a 
central organization, to turn themselves, in fact, from groups 
of petty tribes into nations. Only the Antae had achieved it, 
in the sixth century; and they now were gone. The other 
Slavs waited for an outside stimulus. In the seventh century 
the Slavs on the German frontiers were moulded together 
into a kingdom by a renegade Frank called Samo. But 
Samo’s kingdom did not survive his death, and two centuries 
were to pass before the Slavs of the north-west evolved 
more stable States of their own, such as the great but short- 
lived kingdom of Moravia, and the duchies of Bohemia and 
Poland. Even so the stimulus was the proximity and the 
influence of the Germans. 

The Balkan Slavs were similarly chaotic, and thus pro- 
vided a unique opportunity for the Empire. Could they 
be given the blessings of imperial civilization quickly, they 
might be absorbed into the Empire before they acquired 
racial and national consciousness. The Emperor Heraclius 
was aware of the situation. As soon as he was free of the 
Persian War, he tunned his attention to the Balkans. First, 
probably by some show of force, he induced the Slavs south 
of the Danube to acknowledge his suzerainty; he then 
sought to seal their submission by securing their conversion 
to Christianity. 

The invaders had extinguished Christianity as they came. 



BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAVS 341 

The lists of Bishops from the Balkans attending the great 
Councils grow steadily smaller from the middle of the sixth 
century till by Heraclius’s later days scarcely any inland city 
except Adrianople and Philippopolis seems to have main- 
tained its church. The bulk of the peninsula belonged to 
the ecclesiastical province of Illyricum, a province as yet 
under the bishopric of Rome. Heraclius therefore sent to 
Rome for missionaries to re-establish Balkan Christianity. 
This was probably a mistake. To the barbarian in the Balkans 
Constantinople represented the glamour and majesty of 
imperial civilization. Rome to them was not a reverend city 
in Italy but an idea personified by Constantinople. Priests 
from Rome lacked the prestige that priests would have who 
came from the eastern capital. Moreover the Popes of the 
seventh century were no great missionaries and had anxieties 
nearer home to distract them, while the imperial Government, 
face to face now with the terrible menace of the Saracens, 
troubled itself no more about its Balkan vassals. The 
missions faded away; and the only Slavs to become Christian 
were those whose lives brought them into contact with the 
Christian cities of the coast. Amongst the Slavs round 
Salonica St. Demetrius began to be paid a proper reverence; 
but that was almost all. 

The opportunity was missed. It was left to another race 
to organize the Balkan Slavs, and to lead them against the 
Empire. The Bulgars were a nation of Hunnic origin who 
on the decline of the Empire of the Avars established them- 
selves on the northern shores of the Black Sea. After 
Heraclius’s intervention the peninsula seems to have enjoyed 
a rare interval of tranquillity; but in 679, when attacks from 
the Chazars had broken up the short-lived kingdom known 
later as Old Great Bulgaria, a large section of the Bulgars 
crossed the Danube under their Khan Asperuch and settled 
in the Delta and the Dobrudja. The Emperor Constantine 
IV set out to defend the frontier, but an attack of gout 
brought him home from the war. His leaderless army was 
forced to retire; the Bulgars followed, and in the course of 
the year 680 established themselves between the river, the 
Black Sea, and the Balkan range, roughly from Varna for a 
hundred miles to the west. The Emperor Constantine made 



34* BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAVS 

peace granting them this territory; but nine years later his 
son Justinian II broke the peace and invaded the land that the 
Greeks were beginning to call Bulgaria, only to be heavily 
defeated on his return from a successful campaign. As a 
result Khan Asperuch spread his realm farther to the west, 
to the river Isker, which flows into the Danube above 
Nicopolis. 

During the next decades the Bulgars steadily increased 
their power, helped largely by the civil wars of Justinian II. 
In 716, with the Saracen siege of Constantinople in sight, 
the Emperor Theodosius III made a peace with them that 
allowed their frontier to extend south of the Balkan range, 
from the Gulf of Burgas to the upper waters of the Maritza, 
gave them a yearly payment of silks and gold, provided for 
the exchange of prisoners and refugees, and set up free trade 
between the two countries for all merchants armed with a 
passport. This peace lasted for nearly forty years. We know 
little of Bulgarian history during this period. Probably it 
was spent partly in internal struggles amongst the Bulgars, 
partly in organizing the Bulgar control of the Slavs. 

The Bulgar invasion had been the signal for the Slavs to 
forget their allegiance to the Empire. From 675 to 677 the 
Slavs of Macedonia, led by a band of Bulgars coming 
probably from the middle Danube, besieged Salonica, and, 
as usual, it needed St. Demetrius himself to -save the city. 
The Serbs and behind them the Croats (who had both 
reached their present homes in the days of Heraclius) 
established their independence. But the Slavs of the eastern 
half of the peninsula found the change of masters a change 
for the worse. We do not know the numbers of the invading 
Bulgars but they must have been considerable. They made 
their headquarters in the rolling plain and among the foot- 
hills at the north-east end of the Balkan range, between 
Varna and the Danube. From here round their capital of 
Pliska the Slavs were entirely driven out, and the population 
was purely Bulgar; farther afield the Slavs were kept as a 
broad fence round the Bulgar centre. These Slavs either 
maintained their old chieftains or soon evolved a native 
aristocracy encouraged by the Bulgars; but the administra- 
tion would seem to have been conducted by Bulgar officials. 



BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAYS 343 

The Bulgars themselves, like all Finno-Ugrian tribes, were 
composed of clans, and the Khan was little more than the 
leader of the most powerful clan, though Asperuch’s 
dynasty, the House of Dulo, enjoyed a special prestige, 
owing, no doubt, to its probable descent from Attila himself. 

How much culture the Bulgars brought with them is 
uncertain. The buildings erected by the Bulgar Khans in the 
ninth century are reminiscent of Sassanid architecture and 
it has been suggested that the Bulgars derived their art 
from the lands north of the Caucasus where they were settled 
in the sixth century. But we know that in the ninth century, 
the date of the earliest Danubian Bulgar buildings, there were 
many Armenians in the employ of the Bulgar Khan: the 
Armenians were great builders, and their art long preserved 
Sassanid features. It is thus probably simplest to explain 
early Bulgarian architecture as the work of Armenian 
employees of the Khan. In the other arts nothing has been 
preserved which might elucidate the problem of the charac- 
ter and sources of early Bulgarian civilization. 1 

The slow encroachment of the Bulgars continued through- 
out the early years of the eighth century. But in 739 the old 
royal dynasty, the House of Dulo, died out. Its first succes- 
sor, a boyar called Kormisosh, managed to maintain himself 
till his death in 756, but henceforward disputed successions 
and civil wars became frequent. Moreover the Empire was 
being reorganized under the great Isaurian sovereigns, and 
the Saracens had for the moment been checked. In 755 the 
Emperor Constantine Y was ready to turn his attention to 
Bulgaria. At the time of his death twenty years later after a 
series of glorious campaigns he had confined the Bulgars to 
the northern slopes of the Balkan mountains and had reforti- 
fied a long line of fortresses to hem them in, Mesembria, 
Develtus, Berrhoea, Philippopolis, and Sardica. Only the 
coup de gr&ce remained to be given. In 777 the Bulgar Khan 
h i m self fled to the imperial Court, and accepted baptism and 
a Greek bride. Now was the Empire’s opportunity. A 
vigorous missionary policy backed by the imperial army 
would probably have brought all Bulgaria into a state of 
political and cultural vassaldom and then absorption could 

1 Except possibly the bas-relief horseman on the cliff side at Madara. 



344 BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAVS 

easily have Followed. But, as in Heraclius’s day, Byzantium 
missed its opportunity. The Iconoclast controversy was 
dragging on. The Iconoclasts lacked the spirit and the 
Iconodules the power to be missionaries. And Bulgaria 
seemed no longer a menace of any importance. The matter 
could wait. 

In the meantime, free from the Bulgar danger, the imperial 
Government occupied itself usefully in taming the Slavs. 
At the close of the century the Empress Irene, herself an 
Athenian by birth, saw to the pacification of the Slavs of the 
Greek peninsula. And though a century later there were still 
distinctive Slav tribes in the Peloponnese, such as the 
Milengi, who might be restive, especially if the Bulgars 
approached from the north, henceforward the history of 
Greece is mainly one of steady and orderly amalgamation. 

But Byzantium was to pay dearly for her inaction towards 
Bulgaria. At the turn of the century the Avar kingdom on 
the middle Danube was destroyed by Charlemagne. The 
Avars had long been declining, but they had served to keep 
in check the Slavs and Bulgars of central Europe. Numbers 
of Bulgars had been settled in Transylvania for some 
centuries under Avar domination. Now they were emanci- 
pated, and they found a leader in a certain Krum, probably a 
scion of their old ruling house. Krum was ambitious ; having 
freed his people he succeeded, we do not know how, in 
uniting them with the Bulgars of the Balkans in one great 
realm under his rule. Nor did his ambitions stop there. He 
aimed at further expansion, at breaking through the line of 
imperial fortresses that isolated Bulgaria, and he dreamed of 
taking Constantinople. In 807 war broke out. In 809 Krum 
captured and dismantled the fortress of Sardica; and Bulgars 
poured across the frontier to settle amongst the Slavs of 
Macedonia. In 81 z the Emperor Nicephorus I marched 
northward in force and sacked Krum’s capital of Pliska, only 
to perish with all his men, caught in a narrow defile by the 
hordes of Krum. 

This battle, which took place on 26 July 81 1, was com- 
parable in Byzantine eyes only to the rout at Adrianople, 
where Valens had fallen, four centuries back. It meant that 
Bulgaria was come to the Balkans to stay; and it meant 



BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAVS 345 

that the prestige of the Empire was for ever lowered in the eyes 
of the Balkan nations. Constantinople became an attainable 
goal. Yet Krum was not to achieve it, nor were any of his 
successors. The Empire was saved by its admirable organiza- 
tion and by the walls of its city. 

War lasted till Krum’s death in 814, on the eve of his 
second expedition against Constantinople. The capital 
remained unconquered; but he had achieved enough. In the 
course of the war he had destroyed one by one the great 
imperial fortresses that hemmed him in, and thus made for 
Bulgaria an untrammelled passage into Macedonia. Only 
Adrianople and Mesembria, the guardians of Thrace, were 
rebuilt by the Emperor. Krum had united Pannonian with 
Balkan Bulgaria. He apparently performed considerable 
works of internal reorganization and made a simple codifica- 
tion of the laws. With material stolen from the churches and 
villas of the Bosphorus and with captive architects he made 
himself palaces worthy of a great king. When he died 
Bulgaria was one of the great powers of Europe. 

Krum’s son Omortag (815-31) made a Thirty Years 
Peace with the Empire. He wished to consolidate his father’s 
conquests; he feared for his eastern frontier on the Dniester, 
where the Magyars were pressing; and his territorial 
ambitions lay in the north-west, in Croatia, where he opposed 
successfully the Carolingian Franks. His internal policy was, 
it seems, to enhance his own glory as ruler arwf to -encourage 
his Slav subjects, playing them off against the aristocratic 
Bulgars in the interest of his autocracy, a policy probably 
initiated by Krum. Meantime the peace and the size of his 
realm gave wonderful opportunities for trade; merchants 
from the Empire passed to and fro through his dominions 
as far as Moravia on the north-west frontier, while Bulgarian 
and Slav merchants paid visits to Constantinople. Byzantine 
civilization began to spread through Bulgaria, at first in the 
form of luxuries for the richer classes. But with the mer- 
chants came missionaries; and Christianity began to be 
known in Bulgaria particularly amongst the Slavs. The 
Bulgar authorities disapproved. To them Christianity seemed 
merely an insidious branch of imperial propaganda. Omortag 
indulged freely in persecution ; but the virus slowly spread. 



3+6 BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAYS 

It continued spreading under his son Malamir, 1 but as yet 
to no great extent. Malamir’s reign was, rather, remarkable 
for the development of Bulgaria as a Slav power. It is 
probably about this time that the Bulgars adopted the 
Slavonic language; Bulgar names henceforward have a 
Slavonic form. This slavization was undoubtedly helped by 
the Bulgarian expansion into Macedonia. Soon after the 
year 846 (when Omortag’s Thirty Years Peace ended) the 
Bulgarians annexed Philippopolis and steadily moved south- 
westward till by the end of Malamir’s reign the hinterland of 
Macedonia, hitherto occupied by unruly Slavs, had been 
given order under the Bulgarian Government. But the 
Bulgarians could not prevent a small Serbian State from 
being founded in the Bosnian hills. 

The accession of many more Slavs gave the Bulgar Khan 
fresh support against the Bulgar aristocracy. But the coping- 
stone was needed to complete the building of autocracy. 
Christianity in the early Middle Ages was the great ally of 
monarchy. The monarch was the Lord’s Anointed, his 
authority sanctified by Heaven. Malamir’s successor Boris 
saw its value, and he saw that Christianity need not neces- 
sarily mean Byzantine influence. But before he could decide 
on his plans his hand and the hand of the Emperor at 
Constantinople were forced by a new situation in European 
politics. 

Charlemagne’s destruction of the Avars, that movement 
which had resulted in the growth of a Greater Bulgaria, had 
also let loose the Slavs of the Middle Danube. A few decades 
later the Carolingian conquerors themselves were defeated 
by the nation of the Moravians, whose King Rostislav, 
originally a client of the Germans, had by 850 established 
himself as overlord over roughly the districts that now 
comprise Austria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. Thus the 
central European situation was very simple. Between the 
Western Empire of the Carolingians and the Byzantine 
there were two strong powers, Moravia and Bulgaria. 

1 Professor Zlatarski believes that Malamir reigned from 831 to 836 and was 
succeeded by Presiam who reigned from 836 to 8jz. Bury maintained that Presiam 
was Omortag“s successor and took the name of Malamir during the slavization of 
the country. There ait disadvantages in both views, particularly the former; and 
I am inclined to doubt the existence of any Khan called Presiam. 



BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAVS 347 

Rostislav, like Boris of Bulgaria, saw the advantage of 
Christianity for an autocrat. German missionaries had 
worked in Moravia, but, like the Byzantines in Bulgaria, they 
were suspected of nationalist propaganda. Rostislav decided 
to import Christianity from elsewhere. Constantinople had 
already considerable trade relations with Moravia, 1 and the 
Moravians probably realized that Byzantine culture was 
something higher and more splendid than the culture of 
Carolingian Germany. Moreover Rostislav feared the 
danger of a Bulgar-Frankish alliance and sought for the help 
of Bulgaria’s natural enemy. Byzantium was not a far-off 
legendary power in the eyes of the Moravians, as sometimes 
has been made out, nor was Rostislav’s scheme for introduc- 
ing Christianity from the Byzantine Empire a wildly imagina- 
tive experiment. It was merely a natural outcome of the 
international situation. But it was nevertheless one of the 
greatest turning-points in the history of the Slavs. 

In 863 the embassy reached Constantinople and asked the 
Emperor Michael III for a teacher who could preach 
Christianity to the Moravians in their own tongue. The 
Emperor was fortunate in having such a teacher. There was 
a Thessalonian called Constantine, better known by his later 
religious name of Cyril, who had in his varied career been a 
University professor, a diplomatic agent, and a monk; but 
his main interests were philology and religion. He had 
already dabbled in Slavonic studies and had probably 
evolved an alphabet for the Slavs of the neighbourhood of 
Salonica. Certainly in a very short time he was ready to set 
out for Moravia with his brother Methodius bearing a Bible 
and other liturgical books translated into the language of 
the Macedonian Slavs, a language that was intelligible to the 
Moravians and has remained the liturgical language of the 
Slavonic Churches to this day. 

The Moravian alliance forced the Emperor’s hand else- 
where. Boris of Bulgaria would be tempted to play a game 
analogous to Rostislav’s and secure his Christianity from the 
Latin West. The imperial Government acted quickly. The 
threat of a sharp campaign induced Boris, already aware of 

1 This is home out emphatically by the excavations at Stard Misto under- 
taken in 1927. 



348 BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAVS 

the merits of Christianity, to accept Christianity from Con- 
stantinople. There was a wholesale baptism of Bulgars, and 
Greek priests flocked into the country. A short heathen 
rebellion was firmly suppressed. 

By the year 865 Constantinople had established daughter 
churches to spread Byzantine influence as far as the frontiers 
of Germany, a triumph of ecclesiastical diplomacy all the 
more gratifying in that the Patriarch Photius was now in full 
schism with Pope Nicholas I. But in the second round Rome 
was to win. The Moravian Mission began well. Rostislav 
welcomed Cyril and Methodius gladly. But the Moravian 
Court was largely Germanophil ; German bishops made 
trouble from over the frontier. The young Moravian 
Church could not stand alone ; Cyril decided to counter the 
Germans by placing it directly under the supreme bishop of 
the West, the Pope of Rome. It was an embarrassing gift 
for Rome, for Cyril had taught his converts the usages of the 
Church of Constantinople and had introduced its liturgy 
translated into Slavonic. Rome desired uniformity and 
disliked the use of the vernacular. But the prize was too 
valuable to miss. Cyril and Methodius were summoned to 
Rome to discuss the organization of the new church; and 
there Cyril died. 

Meanwhile things went less well in Bulgaria also. Boris, 
once the military pressure from the Empire was removed, 
began to resent the religious dictation of the Patriarchal 
Court. He had meant Christianity to enhance his autocracy; 
he had thought that he himself would control the Bulgarian 
Church. In 866, in the hope of securing a better bargain, he 
sent to ask for priests and a Patriarch from Rome. 

The struggle over the Bulgarian Church and the fate of 
the Moravian Church belong to the story of the Photian 
schism with Rome. In Bulgaria Boris found Rome a stricter 
master than Constantinople. Even an Archbishop was 
denied him, though twice he found Latin priests to whom, he 
pleaded, the post should be given, Formosus and Marinus, 
both actually to become Popes themselves. At last, tempted 
by the subtle diplomacy of Constantinople, in 869 he cleared 
the country of Latin priests and welcomed back the Greeks; 
and not all the wiles nor the thunder of Rome would make 



BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAVS 349 

him reverse his decision. The Greeks gave him an Arch- 
bishop of his choice, and soon would give him greater 
benefits still. 

In Moravia Methodius on his return met with lessening 
success. In 869 Pope Adrian II consecrated him Bishop of 
Sirmium, the frontier city of Moravia, intending that he 
should tempt the Bulgars back to Rome by his Slavonic 
liturgy. But it was in vain. In 870 Rostislav was deposed by 
his Germanophil nephew Svatopulk, who disliked Methodius 
and his ways. Methodius could win no support from Rome, 
where Adrian’s successors were turning against the methods 
of Cyril, and resented Methodius’s firm refusal to add the 
Filioque to the creed; he believed with Photius that it was 
heresy. Till his death in 885 Methodius struggled on to 
maintain the Cyrillic Church in Moravia, persecuted by the 
Court and half-disowned by Rome, but too venerable a figure 
to be touched himself. After his death the edifice collapsed. 
German influence won. His more prominent disciples were 
driven into exile down the Danube to Bulgaria; his humbler 
followers were sold by the Moravian Government to the 
slave-dealers of Venice. 

Bulgaria accepted what Moravia rejected, and Con- 
stantinople gave assistance. The Moravian exiles were 
received into Bulgaria gladly by Boris; and the imperial 
Ambassador at Venice bought up their disciples and sent 
them to Constantinople, where it seems that Photius estab- 
lished them in a School of Slavonic Studies, to be a seminary 
for providing priests for the Slavs. In the course of the next 
few years the Bulgarian Church found its solution in becom- 
ing a Slavonic Church enjoying autonomy under the suze- 
rainty of the Byzantine Patriarch. Cyril had worked in 
Moravia, but Bulgaria reaped the benefits, and in so doing 
Bulgaria bound herself to the Balkans and the civilization of 
Byzantium. 

In particular Macedonia benefited. Boris sent Cyril’s 
disciple Clement to spread Slavonic Christianity there; and 
Clement organized the Macedonian Church, founding the 
bishopric of Ochrida. This missionary-work bound Mace- 
donia to Bulgaria with a tie that was to show its strength a 
century later. 



350 BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAVS 

About the same time the conversion of the Serbian tribes 
was effected. How much it was due to pressure from Con- 
stantinople and how much to the enterprise of the Serbian 
princes we cannot tell. By the early years of the tenth 
century the various Serbian tribes had their own Cyrillic 
churches, with the exception of the Narentans, heathen 
pirates on the shores of the Adriatic, who were only properly 
subdued and civilized by Venice a century later. To the 
north and west in Croatia and Dalmatia, Christianity took a 
different form. There contact with the Franks and with the 
old Roman cities of Dalmatia had introduced Latin rites. 
The Slavonic Church spread there, and under the Bishops 
of Nin (Nona) put up a strong fight for its existence. But 
after the turn of the century Byzantine influence, the main 
prop of the Slavonic Church, was barely extant in Croatia, 
and King Tomislav of Croatia decided at the synods of 
Spalato (924 and 927) to bring his people unitedly into the 
Latin fold. And so Byzantium was to play no direct part 
in building up the civilization of Croatia, which followed 
rather in the wake of its Catholic neighbours, Italy and 
Hungary. 

Meanwhile Moravia suffered for its desertion of Cyrillism. 
At the close of the ninth century there was a war between 
Bulgaria and Byzantium. The Magyars were now living 
beyond the Bulgarian frontier on the Pruth, and beyond 
them was another Turco-Ugrian people, the Petchenegs. 
During the war the Byzantines called in the Magyars against 
Bulgaria; but during their invasion the Petchenegs were 
induced by the Bulgars to occupy their vacant home. The 
Magyars, terrified of the Petchenegs, decided to move else- 
where, and in about the year 900 they crossed the Carpa- 
thians. In a very short time not only had they occupied the 
Bulgarian province of Transylvania, but the whole Moravian 
kingdom had crumbled away and its surviving inhabitants 
were restricted to the small district to the north known in 
later years as Moravia. In its place was the heathen militarist 
State of the Magyars, Hungary. Constantinople was not 
displeased. Moravia was punished ; the Magyars now would 
raid western rather than eastern Europe; and, to the relief of 
the Germans no less than the Byzantines, the great Slav bloc 



BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAYS 351 

stretching from the Baltic to the Adriatic, the Aegean, and 
the Black Sea was broken in its centre by the Magyars. The 
Magyars were later to receive their Church and most of 
their civilization from Germany. 

In Bulgaria Byzantine influence, half-disguised as Cyril- 
lism, was now all-triumphant. Under Boris’s son Symeon 
(892-927) Bulgaria reached its zenith. Symeon had been 
educated at Constantinople and was eager to adapt its 
culture for his subjects. The arts were patronized. In his 
capital of Preslav his architects, probably Bulgarians trained 
in Armeno-Byzantine methods, built him churches and 
palaces. Books were eagerly translated from Greek into the 
Slavonic dialect that Cyril had made a literary language; and, 
in the works of John the Exarch and the Monk Chrabr, 
signs of native talent were revealed. Commerce was fostered ; 
indeed the war with Byzantium at the close of the ninth 
century had arisen out of a trade dispute. But it seems that 
there was never a large commercial middle class in Bulgaria; 
the traders remained mostly Greek and Armenian. Super- 
ficially the administration took on a Byzantine complexion. 
Government was in the hands of a centralized bureaucracy 
controlled from the pompous Court of Symeon. But, 
beneath, the old life endured. In the provinces Bulgar and 
Slav nobles ruled, in a fashion more resembling the Feudal 
West, over a primitive peasantry. Even when a centralized 
system of taxation was introduced, the taxes were paid in 
kind. There was no money economy in the Bulgarian pro- 
vinces. 

The civilization of Symeon’s Bulgaria was thus, like its 
literature, an attempt to translate Byzantium into Slavonic 
terms. To what extent the old Bulgar element lingered on 
we cannot tell. As yet the civilization did not penetrate far 
below the surface; but the Church was slowly spreading it 
amongst the people. 

Bulgaria was, however, to decline before the penetration 
was completed. Symeon’s ambition rose too high; he was 
the first great Balkan monarch to fall victim to the dream of 
Constantinople. He thought to unite in his person the 
majesty and traditions of Rome with the fresh vigour of the 
Bulgars and Slavs. The troubled minority of the Emperor 



352 BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAVS 

Constantine VII gave him his opportunity. War broke out 
in 913. In 914 Symeon was before the walls of Constanti- 
nople. The attempt of the Empress-Regent Zog to crush 
him once and for all failed in the slaughter of her troops at 
Anchialus. By the end of 919, when Romanus Lecapenus 
won the imperial throne through marrying his daughter to 
the young Emperor (thus blocking Symeon’s chance of 
using the same method), Symeon had all the European 
provinces of the Empire at his mercy. But the walls of 
Constantinople and Byzantine diplomacy defeated him. 
Fruitless attempts against the city and continual irritation 
from Serbs and Petchenegs in his rear wore him out. In 
924, after a personal interview with Romanus, he abandoned 
his ambitious aim. He was still haughty; he assumed an 
imperial title, Basileus or Tsar; he declared his Church 
independent, and raised his Archbishop to be Patriarch; but 
he now turned his attention elsewhere. In 925 he annexed 
Serbia. In 927 his troops invaded Croatia. But there they 
met their match. The news of their annihilation brought 
Symeon to the grave. 

Symeon’s son and successor, Peter, hastened to make 
peace with the Empire. The peace was not inglorious. The 
Tsar and his Patriarch kept their titles; Peter was even given 
the rare honour of a bride of imperial blood dowered with an 
annual subsidy from Constantinople. But these terms were 
given the more willingly since Bulgaria was clearly exhausted ; 
they were only empty honours, and honours tending to 
increase Byzantine influence at the Bulgarian Court. The 
Empire of Bulgaria was now an inert mass, worn out before 
it was adult, a playground for any foreign invader that chose 
to cross its borders; and many so chose. 

The work of civilization continued but at a reduced 
pressure. The priest Kosma who wrote at the close of the 
tenth century was more sophisticated than the writers of 
Symeon’s day, but he was an almost isolated phenomenon. 
Saints, like John of Rila, the patron of Bulgaria, rather than 
men of letters were the product of the time. Meanwhile the 
peasantry underwent a reaction against the graecized Court, 
a reaction that was expressed in Bulgaria’s most curious 
contribution to the religious thought of Europe. In the 



BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAVS 353 

course of the ninth century rebel Armenian heretics, known 
as Paulicians, had been settled by Byzantine authorities on 
the Bulgarian frontier. The Paulicians were styled Mani- 
chaeans, a term inaccurately applied in the medieval world 
to all Dualist sects. They believed in the equality of the 
Powers of Evil with those of Good, assigning to the former 
the realms of the Flesh and to the latter the realms of the 
Spirit. Paulician doctrines apparently spread into Bulgaria; 
and in Tsar Peter’s reign they were preached there in a 
slightly different, rather simpler, form by a village priest 
called Bogomil, whose followers were known as Bogomils 
after him. 

By the time of Peter’s death (969) the Bogomils were 
numerous all over Bulgaria amongst the peasant classes. 
Their crude doctrines, the absence of a priesthood amongst 
them, their simplicity and purity, all attracted men oppressed 
by an elaborate hierarchy whose morals they suspected and 
whose subtleties they could not grasp. But their own 
practices caused alarm to the State. The Flesh is wicked, 
therefore abstain as far as possible from the things of the 
Flesh, meat and drink, marriage and the procreation of 
children, even manual labour. Amongst them was a special 
class, the elect, whose abstention was complete. The others 
did their best. Politically they expressed their views in 
apathy and passive resistance to authority; and the Bulgarian 
Government found itself obliged to persecute them. The 
persecution was ineffective. Bulgaria had to suffer this 
disease of apathy and hostility within herself at a time 
when every resource was needed to repel the enemies from 
outside. 

It was not indeed for another three centuries that Bogo- 
milism faded out of Bulgaria, despite the persecutions of 
Alexius Comnenus, who had also to suppress it in Con- 
stantinople whither it had spread. In the meantime it was 
flourishing farther to the west. In eastern Serbia it met with 
a qualified success, but in Bosnia and Croatia it found a 
second home. In Bosnia, indeed, it was the State religion for 
the greater part of the period from the end of the twelfth 
century till the Turkish Conquest. From Croatia the heresy 
reached northern Italy and France, and the Cathari ana 

3982 


N 



354 BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAVS 

the Albigensians talked darkly of their Black Pope in 

Bulgaria. 1 

The canker was especially dangerous in view of the foreign 
problems that Bulgaria had to face. Peter’s reign was peace- 
able enough, despite two Magyar invasions and one Russian, 
but at its close the war party came into power and by their 
insolence provoked an attack from Constantinople. The 
Emperor Nicephorus Phocas was busy in the East; so he 
called on the Russians to punish Bulgaria. The Russians 
did the work all too thoroughly; by 969, when the Emperor 
was murdered, they had overrun all eastern Bulgaria and 
were advancing on Constantinople. The next Emperor, 
John Tzimisces, spent the first year of his reign in driving 
the Russians back to the Danube. By 972 eastern Bulgaria 
was liberated from the Russians, only to be annexed to 
Byzantium. During the war the Bulgars, in helpless apathy, 
had seen their lands overrun ; they made no resistance now. 

But John Tzimisces left the work unfinished. The great 
province of the West, the Rilo country, the valleys of the 
Vardar and the Morava and Upper Macedonia, remained 
unconquered. There was probably very little Bulgar blood 
in these districts, but they had long been part of the Bulga- 
rian realm, and Bulgaria had given them their Slavonic 
Cyrillic civilization. Their inhabitants considered themselves 
Bulgarian, and amongst them a new Bulgaria was born. 

Its history is the history of its Tsar Samuel (976-1014), a 
local governor’s son, who took advantage of rebellion amongst 
the Byzantines and the inexperience of the young Emperor 
Basil II to build up an Empire as extensive as Symeon’s. 
The Eastern provinces were reconquered. The centre of 
this Empire was in Macedonia by the high mountain lakes 
of Ochrida and Prespa. Samuel’s Court was wilder than 
Symeon’s ; it produced little literature and little art. Of his 
government we know almost nothing, not even on what 
terms he was with his Bogomil subjects. Given time he 
might have established his government on a lasting basis; 
but most of his reign was filled with a struggle for existence. 

1 The connexion between the Bogomils and the Albigensians is sometimes 
doubted, but to anyone who compares Slavonic Bogomil literature with Albi- 
gensian it is obvious* 



BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAVS 355 

By 990 Basil II had overcome internal rebellion and was 
determined to destroy this dangerous Balkan kingdom. 
After long campaigns, brilliant on either side, the Bulgarians 
nearly achieving their age-long ambition of capturing 
Salonica, at last Samuel’s army was destroyed by the 
Emperor in the defile of Cimbalongus (10x4) and the old 
Tsar died broken-hearted. 

Samuel’s successors were unequal to the task of saving 
Bulgaria. During their family quarrels Basil advanced and 
conquered their country. By 1018 the whole Balkan penin- 
sula was his as far as Belgrade and the borders of Dalmatia; 
and his grateful countrymen surnamed him Bulgaroctonus, 
the Bulgar-slayer. 

Those of the Bulgars whom he spared Basil treated wisely. 
They were allowed to keep many of their local customs. 
Their taxation remained taxation in kind at the same rate as 
before. Their Slavonic Church was left to them. Their 
Patriarchate was removed, and the Archbishop of Bulgaria, 
the new head of the Church, was placed under the Patriarch 
of Constantinople, ranking in the hierarchy after the 
Patriarchs of the East. A Greek was almost always appointed 
to the post. But in the less exalted ranks nothing was 
altered; the Cyrillic liturgy kept alive both the Bulgaro- 
Slavonic language and national self-consciousness. 

The annexation of Bulgaria was followed by the submis- 
sion of the eastern Serbian princes to the Empire. Their 
vassalage was never very strict; Serbia developed along her 
own lines. But politically and culturally the influence of 
Byzantium was paramount. 

Meanwhile Byzantine influence had triumphed elsewhere, 
with even more far-reaching results. The Russians, like the 
Bulgars, were a non-Slavonic people who had superimposed 
themselves on Slavonic territory and had given their sub- 
jects the organization that the Slavs so seldom managed to 
achieve. In the course of the ninth century Swedish 
adventurers, known to the Eastern world as Varangians or 
the Russ, overran the districts round Lake Peipus and Lake 
Ilmen, establishing their rule over the Slavs there and 
extending it slowly down the River Dnieper towards the 
Black Sea. In about 860 the semi-legendary Rurik founded 



356 BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAVS 

a strong State at the old Slavonic town of Novgorod. His 
successor Oleg added Kiev to the principality and Kiev 
became the capital of the dynasty of Rurik. 

The expansion of the principality was directed by economic 
considerations. From Novgorod to the Dnieper past Kiev 
ran the great trade-route from the Baltic to the Black Sea. 
From the outset commerce was the main interest of the 
Varangians. Their State had a feudal aspect; each town was 
the domain of some prince or noble who administered the 
district and drew military levies from it, and the princes were 
the vassals of the Great Prince or Grand Duke of Kiev. But 
the princes were also the chief merchants of their districts, 
collecting and carrying its merchandise and leading the 
local contingent on the yearly commercial expeditions to 
Constantinople. These expeditions soon became a regular 
feature in Russian life. When exactly they began we do not 
know. By the middle of the tenth century there was a 
definite route that the Russians followed, there was a 
quarter at Constantinople assigned to them for their visits, 
rules were drawn up determining their rights and obliga- 
tions there, and these rules were confirmed in the various 
treaties between the Russians and the Empire. 

But the Russians did not always come as peaceful visitors. 
The wealth of the great capital was a constant temptation ; and 
if their trade was in any way interrupted, they retaliated with 
an armed attack; indeed to secure new markets or new com- 
mercial concessions they would raid as far afield as Persia. 
Constantinople was several times in the ninth and tenth 
centuries threatened by a Russian attack; and its statesmen 
were anxious to find some means of checking the menace. 
Their solution was to convert the Russians. 

Already in the mid-ninth century Photius had sent mis- 
sions to Kiev, where apparently they met with some initial 
success but declined on the conquest of Kiev by the Varan- 
gian Oleg. In the tenth century missionaries began to work 
again, helped now by the perfected weapon of the Cyrillic 
liturgy; and in 954 they made an eminent convert in the 
person of the Dowager Grand Duchess Olga. Olga’s con- 
version and her subsequent visit to Constantinople did much 
to popularize Byzantine civilization in Russia. But the bulk 



BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAVS 357 

of the Russian people remained heathen for another forty 
years. The Balkan policy of the Emperor Nicephorus II and 
John Tzimisces brought Byzantium into conflict with 
Russia, and a little later the conflict was renewed owing to 
Russian ambitions in the Crimea. In the first conflict the 
Emperors succeeded in keeping Russia out of the Balkans, 
but to keep her out of the Crimea was less easy. However, 
the time was come for a compromise. Olga’s grandson, the 
Grand Duke Vladimir, saw, as so many princes before him, 
the value of Christianity in building up the autocracy. 
Already he had done much to assert the authority of Kiev 
over the other Russian districts. Now, in 989, he agreed to 
be baptized, and in return he was to receive the hand of the 
Emperor Basil II’s sister Anna. 

Vladimir’s conversion was of paramount importance in 
Russian history. It was followed by the rapid conversion of 
the Russian people — only a few outlying tribes remained 
heathen; the last of them, the people of Murom, embraced 
Christianity in the thirteenth century. And the adoption of 
Christianity, though it could not destroy at once Varangian 
feudalism, contributed largely to the hegemony of Kiev and 
the prestige of its ruler, the Emperor’s brother-in-law. It 
led in time, after the Mongol interruption, to the Byzantine 
autocracy of the Muscovite Empire. It fixed Russia in the 

{ jolitico-cultural system of Byzantium. When a few years 
ater Boleslav of Poland attempted to introduce Latin 
Christianity into Russia his agents received a rebuff so firm 
as to discourage any repetition of the attempt. 

The influence of Byzantine civilization in Russia reached 
out in every direction. In art Byzantine pictures, such as the 
famous twelfth-century icon known as Our Lady of Vladimir, 
set the model for Russian iconography; Russian architecture 
is based on Byzantine principles, modified however by 
direct Caucasian influences, while the characteristic onion- 
shaped dome of the Russians was probably their own 
invention to deal with the winter snows. In religious thought, 
in daily life Byzantine ideas could long be everywhere 
traced, 1 and the language of St. Cyril became in Russia, as 
in the Balkans, the basis of the native literature. 

1 Cf. Chapter 14. 



358 BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAVS 

But the political influence of Byzantium in Russia was less 
than might have been expected. Barbarian movements in 
the twelfth century and the Mongol conquest in the thir- 
teenth cut Russia off from the Black Sea. The centre of 
Russian life moved northward, to Vladimir, Tver, and 
Moscow. To the last Constantinople, Tsarigrad, remained 
in Russian eyes the capital of the world; occasional Russian 
pilgrims would journey there, and were certain of a welcome 
from their fellow Orthodox; a Russian princess might even 
become an Emperor’s bride, popular in Constantinople 
because she was not of hated heretic Latin blood; but con- 
tacts grew fewer; Russia was left to develop her Byzantinism 
in her own less adaptable manner. She remained a potential 
guardian of the flank of the Orthodox East, but steadily less 
useful. It was not till the nineteenth century that the Greeks 
reaped the fruit of their conversion of Russia. 

Thus by the eleventh century Byzantium was dominant 
over the eastern Slavs. But her domination had come too 
late; nations had already appeared amongst the Slavs, and 
Byzantium had recognized the fact by using as her method of 
domination the Cyrillic church-system. The Slavs of Serbia, 
of Bulgaria, or of Russia would never be absorbed into the 
Greek Christian world. They would therefore submit to the 
domination of the Greek Christian world only so long as 
Constantinople remained the great inviolable city with the 
power to make her views felt. In the twelfth century this 
power declined. Attacks from the Seljuk Turks and from 
the West, the embarrassment of the Crusades, the commer- 
cial rivalry of Italy and, to crown it all, the ineptitude of the 
imperial house of Angelus, brought the Empire to a state of 
obvious decay. 

The southern Slavs had long been restive under the suze- 
rainty of Byzantium; but fear of Hungary and of the strong 
armies of the Comneni made revolts abortive. The troubles 
that followed the death of the Emperor Manuel Comnenus 
in 1180 gave them their opportunity. The leading Serbian 
figure of the time was the Zupan Stephen Nemanya of the 
Zeta (Montenegro), who by the time of his abdication in 
1196 had made himself Grand Zupan of the Serbs, the 
independent ruler of all the Serbian lands save the little 



BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAVS 359 

district of Hum (Herzegovina) where his brother Miroslav 
reigned. Farther north, about the same time, the Bosnian 
Kulin established the independent monarchy of Bosnia. 
Byzantium was powerless to prevent them. Hungary inter- 
vened more effectively for a time in Bosnia and Hum but 
without any permanent result. In 1186 Bulgaria, for a 
century and a half an imperial province, 1 was whipped by 
unjust taxation into revolt, and the brothers John and Peter 
Asen proclaimed the independence of the country in the 
little church of St. Demetrius at Trnovo. With the help of 
the Cumans beyond the Danube and of the Vlachs in the 
peninsula (the Asen were probably of Vlach origin) they 
defeated the Byzantine armies and established a kingdom 
stretching from the Black Sea to Sofia and into Macedonia, 
and assumed an imperial title. 

John Asen was murdered in 1196 and Peter in 1197. 
Stephen Nemanya retired to a monastery in 1196 and died 
on Athos in 1200. Kulin died early in 1204. Under their 
successors an event occurred that made certain the inde- 
pendence of their kingdoms. The capture of Constantinople 
by the Crusaders in 1204 is a turning-point in the history of 
the southern Slavs. Hitherto, vassal or free, they had 
regarded Constantinople as the centre of their universe, the 
source of their culture and religion. Now suddenly and 
unexpectedly they were orphaned. 

Their first reaction was to believe that the lords of Con- 
stantinople must be masters of the world and to make terms 
with the Latin West. In 1205 the Bulgarian monarch 
Kalojan, youngest of the Asen brothers, sent to Pope 
Innocent III and was given by him a royal crown; 2 and 
similarly, as late as 1217, the second Serbian Stephen, the 
‘first-crowned’, won a royal crown from Pope Honorius III. 
But by then Bulgaria had evolved a better policy. 

The thirteenth century saw the zenith of the Second 
Bulgarian Empire. The Latin Empire soon showed itself a 
pathetic farce. The exiled Byzantine Emperors of Nicaea 
were too busy piecing together the shattered Greek world to 

1 There had been Bulgarian revolts in 1040 and 1073 but both had been sup- 
pressed without much difficulty. 

* He had asked for an imperial crown. 



360 BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAVS 

be aggressive against the Slavs. The smaller succession- 
states, Epirus and Salonica, were transient and weak. It 
was Bulgaria’s opportunity to come forward as the leading 
power, the new centre of the Christian East. Kalojan quickly 
saw his new role. In 1205 he took Philippopolis from 
the Latins, defeating and capturing the Latin Emperor Bald- 
win I before Adrianople. In 1 206 he slew the Latin King 
Boniface of Salonica. But in 1 207 he fell himself in a palace 
intrigue. 

The weak reign of the usurper Boril delayed the growth of 
Bulgaria for eleven years; but in 1218 Kalojan’s son John 
Asen II assumed the throne and his father’s aggressive 
policy. But it was a little late now. The Greeks had re- 
covered much of their lands from the Latins, and the local 
inhabitant who preferred a Slav to a heretic Westerner was 
now content under his own fellow countrymen. The goal of 
every Balkan statesman who has not been deluded by vain 
hopes for Constantinople is Macedonia and its great port of 
Salonica. To hold the Balkan hinterland without Salonica is 
to hold something incomplete. Kalojan had died on the eve 
of an expedition against Salonica. John Asen II was aware 
of its importance. Early in his reign he expanded his king- 
dom towards the south-west. The medley of races in Mace- 
donia (from which the culinary term macedoine is derived) 
could not oppose any strong military invader. But Salonica 
was a Greek city, and remained beyond his reach. Twice, in 
1230 and 1240, it lay almost in his power, but in his fear of 
the growing Empire of Nicaea he allowed the Angeli of 
Salonica to retain their rule. Similar complex considerations 
marred his policy elsewhere. He could not decide whether 
to win Frankish Thrace by an alliance with Nicaea or to 
regard Nicaea as a menace to be opposed. He hesitated, and 
the Nicaeans benefited by his hesitations. 

Nevertheless his reign was a great age for Bulgaria. His 
personality won him the respect even of his enemies, and his 
international prestige was great. In his Court at Trnovo he 
ruled with Byzantine pomp and ceremony through a bureau- 
cracy formed on the Byzantine model. The Bulgarian 
Church was reorganized under the Archbishop of Trnovo, 
to whom the Patriarch of Nicaea conceded in 12 35, as the 



BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAVS 361 

price of an alliance against the Latins, autonomy and the 
Patriarchal title. Commerce was encouraged and conducted 
partly by Greek merchants, as in the old days, but mainly 
through the Ragusans who had trading rights throughout 
the Bulgarian Empire and introduced many of the products 
of the West. But civilization remained fundamentally 
Byzantine, modified to suit the temperament of the Balkan 
Slav. Bulgarian buildings such as the churches of Trnovo 
or Boiana are Byzantine in their conception. Only a greater 
simplicity in their construction, a cruder touch in the 
colouring of their decorations, show them to be the work of a 
different people. 

John Asen II died in 1241 ; and at once Bulgaria began to 
crumble. Its decline was due partly to the lack of a per- 
sonality to hold the kingdom together, partly to the growing 
power of the Nicaeans and their recovery of Salonica in 
1 246 and of Constantinople in 1261. John Asen’s sons Kali- 
man I (1241-6) and Michael Asen (1246-57) and his nephew 
Kaliman II (1257-8) were active but unwise; and on 
Kaliman II’s death the Asen dynasty was extinct. For the 
next twenty years Bulgarian history is the tale of a sequence 
of usurpers, supported by or reacting against the influence of 
Constantinople, while Thrace and Macedonia fell from 
Bulgarian hands. 

In 1280 a stronger dynasty was founded by a Cuman, 
George Terteri, which was to last till 1323, holding its own 
against Tartar invaders and losing no ground to its Balkan 
rivals. In 1323 Michael Shishmanitch of Vidin founded the 
last Bulgarian dynasty. Its career started well; Michael all 
but captured Constantinople; but in 1330 the Bulgarians 
were badly defeated by the Serbs on the field of Velbuzd; 
and Bulgaria became hardly more than a vassal of Serbia. 
During the reign of John Alexander (1331-61) Bulgaria 
enjoyed little political power. Defeatism even crept into that 
great nationalist organization, the Church, where Bulgarian 
ecclesiastics such as St. Theodosius of Trnovo opposed the 
attempts of the Bulgarian Patriarch to assert his complete 
equality with the Patriarch of Constantinople. But it was a 

I jeriod of culture ; St. Theodosius and his disciples formed the 
ast literary coterie of medieval Bulgaria. The Tsar caused 



362 BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAVS 

works to be translated from the Greek, such as the Historical 
Synopsis of Manasses ; this translation is now in the Vatican 
Library, illustrated in the somewhat crude but no longer 
vigorous style of fourteenth-century Bulgaria. Architecture, 
too, flourished, but again with neither new inspiration nor 
improved technique. 

In 1361 John Alexander died, dividing his inheritance. 
His elder son, John Sracimir, was left the family fortress of 
Vidin; his favourite, John Shishman, inherited the kingdom: 
while a usurper, Duvrotik, took the district called the 
Dobrudja after him. The division only led to trouble. Five 
years earlier the Ottoman Turks had established themselves 
in Europe intending to stay. 

Meanwhile the hegemony had passed to Serbia. The 
Serbian monarchy founded by Stephen Nemanya had been 
put on a firmer basis by his sons, Stephen ‘the First-Crowned’ 
and St. Sava. Stephen was crowned first by a papal legate in 
1217, then more popularly by St. Sava as Archbishop of 
Serbia in 1222. Before his death in 1228 he had reasserted 
once more the authority of his line over the other Serbian 
princes. St. Sava’s work was even more valuable. His 
diplomacy and the respect accorded to his high personal 
qualities not only made him of great international use to his 
brother but also enabled him to reorganize the Serbian 
Church and win recognition of its autonomy from Byzan- 
tium. St. Sava was a man of wide experience, a traveller and 
a scholar. The Serbian Church had hitherto been ruled 
from Constantinople or Ochrida with little care or sympathy, 
with the result that the Bogomils had vastly increased in 
number. Sava understood the essential spirit of Cyrillism 
and made Christianity more real to the Serbs by absorbing 
many of their national beliefs and customs, and produced a 
Church that was popular, linked to the new nationalist 
dynasty but still in touch with the higher civilization of 
Constantinople. In consequence the Bogomil faith soon 
faded out from Serbia. His more political work in favour of 
a Balkan entente was less permanently successful. 

During the reigns of Stephen the First-Crowned’s elder 
sons, Radoslav and Vladislav, Serbia was overshadowed by 
Bulgaria. But in 1243 the youngest, Stephen UroS I, sue- 



BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAYS 363 

ceeded, shortly after the death of John Asen II of Bulgaria. 
Stephen Uro§ I reigned for thirty-three years, a period of 
peace, during which the natural resources of the country and 
its commerce were developed, largely by merchants from 
the neighbouring Dalmatian coast. The King shocked the 
Byzantines by the crude simplicity of his life; nevertheless 
they sought his alliance — in vain, as he was disinclined to 
embark on restless political activities. Moreover, thanks 
perhaps to his Latin wife, his sympathies were more Latin 
than Greek. 

In 1276 Stephen Uros was ousted by his son Stephen 
Dragutin, a fanatical cripple, who eventually gave place to 
his brother Stephen Milutin, Stephen Uros II (1281-1321). 
Dragutin became Duke of Belgrade and Lower Bosnia, a 
convert to Catholicism and an earnest persecutor of Bogo- 
mils. Stephen Uros II was a man of few scruples. His 
diplomacy was bewildering in its sudden betrayals; Con- 
stantinople, Rome, Naples, and Hungary were all wooed and 
deserted; Venice was given commercial privileges and then 
saw the Serb issuing counterfeit Venetian coin. Neverthe- 
less, by the time of his death Stephen had extended his 
kingdom into Macedonia and Bosnia and down the Adriatic 
coast. He had even for a while thought of winning Con- 
stantinople in the right of his wife, the Byzantine Princess 
Simonis. 

His heir was his bastard Stephen Decanski, Stephen Uros 
III, a worthy disciple of hjs father’s methods. He, too, 
increased the kingdom, his great feat being the battle of 
VelbuSd, which left Serbia unquestionably supreme amongst 
the southern Slavs and made the annexation of Bulgaria a 
matter of practical politics. But Decanski, probably wisely, 
preferred to leave Bulgaria a vassal state. A year later, in 
1331, DeCanski was deposed and strangled by his son 
Stephen Dusan (Stephen Uros IV). 

Under DuSan Serbia reached its zenith. His campaigns 
in Bosnia and on the Adriatic coast were not wholly success- 
ful; he neither crushed the former nor conquered all the 
latter, though his influence was paramount there, as in 
Bulgaria also. But his main political activities were directed 
against Byzantium. Like so many great Balkan rulers he 



364 BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAVS 

dreamed of being Emperor there, and his dream was his 
people’s undoing. The civil war between John V and John 
Cantacuzenus, which broke out in 1 34 1 , furnished the oppor- 
tunity. By 1 345 Dusan had conquered all Macedonia except 
Salonica; a few years later he was master of western Thrace, 
and by 1349 of Epirus and Thessaly. In 13 55 he marched 
on Constantinople, with every hope of success; but on the 
march he died. 

Dusan’s titles rose with his ambitions. In 1345, in 
defiance of Constantinople, he raised the Archbishop of 
Serbia, whose seat was Ipek, to the rank of Patriarch. In 
1346 the Serbian and Bulgarian Patriarchs crowned him 
Emperor or Tsar of the Serbs and the Greeks. As new 
provinces were added to his Empire so their names were 
added to his titles. Realizing that Macedonia is the centre 
of the Balkan peninsula he moved his capital thither, to 
Skoplie (Uskub); and so Macedonia, once the seat of a 
Bulgarian Empire, became the seat of the Serbian. But 
Salonica eluded his grasp. Further to complete the working 
of his realm he collected the laws of Serbia and issued in 
1349 1 his great Zakonnik, or code. 

DuSan’s code is less important from the purely legal point 
of view; its significance rests upon the picture that it gives 
of Serbian civilization. In Decanski’s reign Serbia, though 
rich, was primitive. The Armenian Archbishop Adam who 
passed through the country says that there were no walled 
castles; all houses were of wood except on the Dalmatian 
coast. The Byzantine writer Gregoras depicts the Serbian 
Court as highly pretentious, yet sadly wanting in comforts 
and decencies. But gold- and silver-mines were being 
worked; the valleys were fertile and the hills well wooded. 
Duian’s code shows that fortresses and palaces were now 
being built. The Court has become a Byzantine bureau- 
cracy, each high-titled official with clear-cut functions. The 
towns were under the Tsar’s officials, Counts for the cities 
and Captains for the smaller towns. But the country-side 
remained unaffected by Byzantine autocratic methods. 
There the nobility ruled, limiting the power of the Tsar. 

1 The last sixteen articles of the code were actually issued in 1365, ten years 
after his death. 



BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAVS 365 

There were the Vlastele , the great nobles, and under them 
the Vlastelititi. Their fiefs were hereditary and commanded 
jurisdiction over the peasants and serfs, though the peasants 
had clearly defined rights so long as they did not meddle in 
politics; the magnates even controlled the local church, as 
patrons of every living that they founded. They paid a tithe 
to the church and a death duty of their best armaments to the 
Tsar to whom they owed military service. The Tsar, on the 
other hand, summoned them to a parliament or sobor before 
he could legislate and maintained a permanent council of 
twenty-four of the greatest nobles. The Church organization 
was officially under the Crown; but the Patriarch could 
count on public support sufficiently to maintain his spiritual 
freedom. The Code shows Serbia to be a preponderantly 
agricultural society. The merchant classes were almost all 
alien and restricted to the Adriatic cities; the mines, mostly 
state-owned and worked by slave labour, employed only a 
tiny section of the community. The Code itself displays a 
diversity of influences. The Church law is purely Byzantine, 
as are the arrangements for the bureaucracy. The commercial 
law is Dalmatian in origin. Trial by jury had been introduced 
by Stephen Urol II, probably in imitation of the West. The 
law of the country-side is derived from the ancient customs 
of the Serbs. 

Serbian culture was not very high. Church architecture 
flourished. At first crudely Byzantine, it had in the mid- 
thirteenth century undergone an Italo-Gothic influence, due 
partly to the connexion with Dalmatia and Venice, partly to 
the work of Stephen Urol I’s Latin queen. By Dulan’s time 
it had developed its own characteristics. The architects were 
probably usually Ragusans. Their buildings were funda- 
mentally Byzantine but lighter, more fanciful, less classically 
restrained on the outside, and inside more lavishly if more 
crudely decorated. Serbian painting copied Byzantine. 
Serbian literature barely existed, save for the great popular 
epic-ballads that were now beginning to be sung, poetry that 
owes nothing to Byzantium. 

In 1355 Stephen Dulan died and his Empire crumbled, 
leaving behind only a memory and an ideal that no Serbian 
patriot can forget. It crumbled because it was too diverse. 



366 BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAVS 

It contained too many races, Bulgarian, Italo-Dalmatian, 
Vlach, Albanian, and Greek as well as Serb; the Dalmatians 
and Albanians were largely Catholic, the Bosnians largely 
Bogomil; the Greeks resented the nationalism of the 
Serbian Church. Serbian civilization was itself too synthetic 
to bind this mass together; the ceremonial and hieratic 
aspects of Byzantium without its traditions, its outward 
luxuries without its inward culture, superimposed on 
Serbian agrarian feudalism, ornamented with a touch of 
Latin chivalry and Italo-Dalmatian commercialism, made 
up a medley acceptable to no one. Had DuSan won Con- 
stantinople with its oecumenical past and prestige, he might 
have founded a lasting realm, but the Serbian would have 
been swallowed up in the Byzantine. Had he been content 
to be a Slav monarch with Macedonia as his centre and 
Salonica as his port, again his realm might have survived. 
But his Byzantine ambitions and his failure to acquire 
Salonica led to the downfall of his Empire. 

The rest of the story is the chronicle of the steady Turkish 
advance and need not be recounted in detail. From 1 360 to 
1370 the Turks were busy establishing themselves in 
Thrace. The battle of the Maritza (1371) sealed the fate of 
Bulgaria; Serbians and Bosnians were crushingly defeated 
on the field of Kossovo (15 June 1389). The freedom of the 
Balkans was lost. Four years later Bulgaria was annexed, 
and Serbia suffered the same fate in 1459. It was not until 
1463 that the Turks formally took over Bosnia. 

The fourteenth century had seen the rise of another 
Balkan people, the Roumanians of Wallachia and Moldavia. 
The Roumanians claimed Roman origin and so were eagerly 
susceptible to the influence of Byzantium. Moldavia never 
acquired great political power, though its importance as a 
mart of Byzantine and Slavonic culture during the next 
centuries is vast if dimly known. Wallachia had its brief 
eminence under the house of Bassaraba, but was too tightly 
wedged between Hungary and the Turks to develop a 
lasting position. Even its greatest prince, Mircea, was 
a tributary of Hungary, and its hero John Hunyadi, the 
White Knight of Wallachia, a soldier in the Hungarian 
army. But Roumania, despite its Roman andHungarian— Latin 



BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAVS 367 

connexions, was firmly attached by religion to the Slavonic 
world. Its Church had been organized under the Church of 
Ochrida in the great days of Bulgaria. It was therefore Cyrillic 
and inappropriately Slavonic-speaking, though it looked to 
Constantinople as its true metropolis. But the story of 
Roumanian civilization lies outside the scope of this chapter. 
It developed after the Turkish Conquest at the close of the 
fifteenth century, along lines that were very Byzantine, 
thanks chiefly to the Viceroys that the Sultan provided, 
scions of the Greek nobility of the Phanar. 

Thus all the Balkan nations fell once more into the hands 
of Constantinople, now the deadening fist of the Turk. It 
remains to estimate what the old Constantinople, Christian 
Byzantium, had done for them. It was inevitable that the 
proximity of Constantinople should make the Slavs regard 
her as the centre of the world; nor was there in medieval days 
any other city as rich or as cultured. In art they owed every- 
thing to her. Russia and to a lesser extent Serbia evolved 
their own art from a Byzantine basis; Bulgaria, too close to 
the source, never succeeded so well. Politically Byzantium 
failed in her first object, to absorb the Slavs; she missed her 
opportunities till it was too late. But she succeeded in 
winning them to her sphere of influence by the most generous 
and far-reaching of her gifts, the Cyrillic Church. The Slav 
nations of Russia and the Balkans, with their national churches 
in communion with one another and deriving from a common 
source, could co-operate without antipathy, while each 
preserved its own individuality. It has been argued that the 
Slavs would have fared better under the ecclesiastical 
authority of Rome, or that at least Constantinople should not 
have led them into schism with the West. Then they would 
have had the full sympathy of the West at the time of crisis 
in the Ottoman invasions. But the sympathy of the West was 
of little help to Catholic Croatia; it did not save Hungary at 
Mohacs. The autocratic tendencies of the Roman Church 
were incompatible with Cyrillism, and Cyrillism was what 
the Slavs needed, both to preserve them first against the 
over-great cultural might of Byzantium and later against 
the over-great militarist might of the Turks. The nationalism 
of the Balkans is now to be deplored; but the nationalism 



368 BYZANTIUM AND THE SLAVS 

supplied by the Cyrillic Churches during the long night of 
Turkish domination meant hope and a basis on which to 
build, when the dawn at last should rise. 1 In religion, above 
all else, Byzantium did well by the Slavs, better perhaps than 
she intended; and the heroes of the story are the brothers 
from Salonica, St. Cyril and St. Methodius. 

STEVEN RUNCIMAN 

1 The same is true, mutatis mutandis , of Russia under the Mongols. 


i 



XIV 

THE BYZANTINE INHERITANCE IN RUSSIA 

The Byzantine inheritance in Russia — to that title objection 
might with some reason be taken, for the heir comes into his 
inheritance only after the death of his ancestor, and it is true 
that East Rome had evangelized Russia centuries before 
Constantinople fell into the hands of the Muslim. But the 
phrase may perhaps be justified, since it is also true that it 
was only after 1453 that Holy Russia became fully conscious 
that she and she alone could claim as of right the inheritance 
which the Second Rome had been powerless to defend. 

To estimate the range and the intensity of Byzantine 
influence upon pre-Mongolian Russia one must always bear 
in mind the historical background. It is now generally 
recognized that the creation of the Kievan State was the work 
not of the Slavs but of the predatory Northmen who raided 
far and wide round the coasts of Europe in the early Middle 
Ages. The Scandinavian advance was at the first directed 
^towards the south by way of the Volga and it is the Russians 
of this eastern route who are known to the Arabic geogra- 
phers. Their statements have been supported by the 
evidence of archaeology: post-Sassanid ornaments and Arab 
coins dating from the ninth century have been found in 
Sweden and Arab coins (a.d. 745-900) in north Russia. 
But it is with the later western Scandinavian advance that 
the future lay. Here the Swedes first established themselves 
in the neighbourhood of Novgorod under the half-legendary 
figure of Rurik. After a repulse he withdrew to his own 
country only to be recalled by the disunited tribesmen. 
Such is the account given in the saga which is preserved in 
the Russian Primary Chronicle. From Novgorod the North- 
men made their way southward down the Dnieper under the 
leadership of Askold and Deir until they reached Kiev 
which they captured from the Slavs. The invaders found in 
their path Slav cities: they were not city-founders but 
organizers, warrior-merchants entering into possession 
where others had already builded. It was from Kiev that 



370 THE BYZANTINE INHERITANCE IN RUSSIA 
Askold and Deir following the course of the Dnieper reached 
the Black Sea and in a.d. 86o delivered the first Russian 
attack upon Constantinople at a time when the Emperor was 
campaigning against the Arabs in Asia and the Byzantine 
fleet was operating in the Western Mediterranean. Photius, 
the Patriarch of Constantinople, had inspired the successful 
defence of the capital and when the attack had been repulsed 
it was ecclesiastical statesmanship which presented to him 
a vision of a new world to conquer: not only should the 
Christian message be carried to the Slavs and Bulgars of the 
Balkans, here was yet another mission-field for the Christian 
Church. A bishop was consecrated and later Photius could 
proudly report the progress of the work of conversion. After 
the fall of Photius his successor Ignatius appointed an arch- 
bishop for the Russian Church, while the Emperor Basil I 
sent an embassy which concluded a treaty of peace between 
the Russians and the Empire. 

It was, however, a false dawn. From Novgorod by way of 
Smolensk there came a new invasion of pagan Northmen, 
and when Askold and Deir had been treacherously slain 
Oleg, as guardian of Rurik’s young son Igor, ruled in Kiev, 
and by his successes over the Slav tribes of the south was the 
real founder of the Russian State. Kiev, said the victorious 
Oleg, was to be ‘the mother of the Russian cities’. The 
economic and political centre of Russia shifts from the north 
to the south — from Lake Ilmen to the banks of the Dnieper. 
The overlordship of the Great Prince of Kiev was recognized, 
though other Scandinavian princes or Slav tribal chiefs 
might retain a wide independence. Trade with the Empire 
was extended and was regulated by a succession of treaties 
(9°7> 9 1 ij 945, 971) the text of which is preserved only in 
the Russian Primary Chronicle. 

‘It has never been satisfactorily determined whether the copies 
preserved in the Chronicle represent Old-Russian texts of the treaties 
made when they were negotiated or whether they are translations 
afterwards prepared from Greek originals which subsequently came 
to light in Kiev itself. It is not likely that the Russian princes of the 
tenth century, who were by no means superior to Scandinavian free- 
booters elsewhere on the Continent, attached any grave significance to 
these scraps of paper, and the fact that there is but one Greek allusion 



THE BYZANTINE INHERITANCE IN RUSSIA 371 

to them would indicate that to the Byzantine authorities they were 
more a gesture than a contract’ (S. H. Cross). 

Their importance lies in the fact that they permit to Russian 
merchants during the summer months free access to the 
capital, while we know that Russians early served as sailors 
in the Byzantine navy. Thus constant contact was main- 
tained with the Christian civilization of the Empire; Igor’s 
attack upon Constantinople in 941 did but lead after the 
defeat of the Russian navy to a renewal of the former treaty 
with Byzantium. 

When Igor had been murdered leaving as his successor a 
young son Svyatoslav, the government was undertaken by 
Igor’s widow Olga, of whose subtlety and diplomatic skill the 
Primary Chronicle gives a lengthy account. While Svyatoslav 
followed the warrior pagan tradition of the Northmen and 
engaged in one campaign after another, Olga turned to 
Christianity: she was received by the Emperor in Con- 
stantinople (a.d. 957) and on baptism assumed the Empress’s 
name of Helen. Her son refused to follow her example: his 
men, he said, ‘would laugh him to scorn’. 

After Oleg’s capture of Kiev we have no further report of 
any direct missionary activity on the part of the Greek 
Church, yet Christianity must have gained a foothold in 
Russia. Southern Slavs would have come in contact with 
Christians in the imperial outpost of Cherson in the Crimea; 
we know that there was already a Christian church in Kiev, 
while in the treaty of 944 the Christian Russians are dis- 
tinguished from the pagan Northmen. In 969 Olga, the 
first Christian Russian princess, died and in 972 Svyatoslav 
fell in battle with the Petchenegs; while his bastard son 
Vladimir governed Novgorod, the territory of the Great 
Prince of Kiev was divided between Svyatoslav’s two sons. 
When civil war had broken out between the brothers and one 
had been killed, Vladimir, fearing an attack from the survivor, 
Yaropolk, fled to Scandinavia and there gathered a strong 
force of Northmen. As in the days of Rurik, from Novgorod 
the Scandinavians advanced against Kiev. Vladimir removed 
Yaropolk by treachery and re-established the unity of 
government with Kiev for his capital. And it was Vladimir 
who accepted Christian baptism and made Christianity the 



372 THE BYZANTINE INHERITANCE IN RUSSIA 

religion of the Russian State. The date and the circumstances 
of this conversion are disputed. It is strange that there is no 
mention of Vladimir’s baptism in the Greek sources. It 
would seem, however, that we may accept the account of the 
Russian Primary Chronicle and date the conversion to a.d. 
989. According to that account, when the Emperor was 
hard pressed by the revolt of Bardas Phocas he appealed to 
Vladimir for military aid. The Russian saw in this appeal 
an opportunity to rid himself of some of his dissatisfied 
followers and agreed to send support, but his price was high: 
he was to be given in marriage a Byzantine princess. The 
Emperor on his side must have stipulated that Vladimir 
should accept baptism. But when Vladimir’s Northmen had 
won a victory for the Emperor over his rival, East Rome was 
unwilling to fulfil the terms of the contract. To force the 
Emperor to send the princess Anna to Russia Vladimir 
attacked and captured the imperial city of Cherson. Thereby 
he carried his point: at Cherson he was baptized and 
married. At his baptism he assumed the Emperor’s name, 
Basil, as Olga at her baptism had taken the Empress’s name 
of Helen. Vladimir returned to Russia and began the 
destruction of idols and the imposition upon his subjects of 
his new faith. Such is the historical framework of delayed 
conversion within which the introduction into Russia of 
Byzantine influence must be placed. 

Since Christianity was brought to Russia from East Rome 
the Russian Church followed from the first the Byzantine 
model. Already within the Empire orthodox dogma had 
attained to its full expression : the Iconoclast attack upon the 
tradition of the Eastern Church had been repulsed. That 
system of dogma was transported in its entirety to Russia 
and was never questioned. There are no controversies 
concerning the fundamental issues of the faith within the 
Russian Church, and to the Russian liturgical forms were 
part of the same deposit which was hallowed by the authority 
of the Fathers. The strands of the inherited faith and the 
liturgical tradition were interwoven and each element in that 
interweaving was sacrosanct. 

The Russia to which Christianity came was a primitive and 
barbarous land: all culture necessarily emanated from the 



THE BYZANTINE INHERITANCE IN RUSSIA 373 
Church and in this field there was no rival to contest the 
ecclesiastical supremacy. Greek architects planned and 
Greek workmen built the early Russian churches. The 
decoration of the churches naturally followed the pattern set 
by Constantinople: through mosaics and icons the Greek 
view of the ascent by way of the saints and the angelic 
hierarchy up to the majesty of Christ as Pantokrator — Lord 
of All — was faithfully reproduced. In time Russia would 
introduce her own architectural developments such as the 
characteristic ‘onion dome’, but however deeply the Greek 
might later be suspected as a renegade from the faith of the 
Fathers, the Russian converts did but cling the more 
tenaciously to the creed which Greek thinkers had formu- 
lated in the Seven Oecumenical Councils. 

Yet from the outset — from the conversion of Vladimir, 
‘the new Constantine’ — it was clear that the Christian 
Church on Russian soil was a very different thing from the 
Church within the Roman Empire. The Christian faith 
had penetrated East Roman society from below before it had 
been adopted as his personal belief by the first Christian 
Emperor. The Church had developed through centuries of 
conflict and had in the course of that development secured 
the passionate loyalty of the Byzantine people: it had become 
an integral part of a long-established social organization. In 
Russia Christianity was not thus securely founded in history: 
it had no such deep roots. It was an alien religion set against 
a pagan world; it had been imposed from above upon Slav 
and Northman alike. There was no wealth of native tradition 
to which it could appeal for support. The Christian clergy 
was therefore, of necessity, bound in close alliance with the 
Great Princes of Kiev. The Church needed the tithe which 
the Prince of Kiev granted to it from the revenues of the 
State: it was the Prince who founded monasteries and built 
churches; the State placed its powers of compulsion at the 
service of the bishops who sought to suppress paganism and 
to turn the ‘double faith’ of the converts — half-pagan and 
half-Christian — into a complete allegiance to the ethical 
demands of the new religion. And since the higher clergy 
represented culture, the State for its part needed the advice 
of bishops and monks, needed their intermediation in the 



374 


THE BYZANTINE INHERITANCE IN RUSSIA 


ceaseless princely feuds, needed a bishop’s consecration 
when the Prince at his accession ‘was set upon his throne’ or 
an episcopal blessing when the ruler started upon a campaign. 
It was through the Churcli that provision was made for the 
poor, the sick, the widow, and the orphan, while it was in 
monasteries that the Councils of the princes assembled. It 
was thus imperative that the Russian State and the Russian 
Church should be closely integrated in mutual defence and 
co-operation. 

What, in the period immediately following on Vladimir’s 
conversion, the relation of the Russian Church to the 
Patriarchate of Constantinople may have been we do not 
know; some have suggested that the Russian Church was 
independent: while it may from the first have had, as it 
undoubtedly had in the eleventh century, a single Metro- 
politan appointed by and under the authority of the Patriarch. 
Thus the Patriarch could summon the Metropolitan to the 
Byzantine capital for trial and could entertain appeals from 
the judgement of the Metropolitan; he might write advocat- 
ing the adoption of the monastery of the common life rather 
than the system of separate cells for monks, but in general, so 
far as records show, he did not interfere in the administration 
of the Russian Church. Of the Metropolitans themselves 
during the pre-Mongolian period our sources tell us little. 
We know that the princes, when they had chosen a diocesan 
bishop, sent him for consecration to the Metropolitan, and 
while it is regarded as needing no comment in a chronicle 
that a prince should remove his bishop there is apparently no 
record of the deposition of a Metropolitan by a Great Prince 
of Kiev. 


Thus through the appointment by the Patriarch of the 
Metropolitan Byzantine influence in the Church of Russia 
was continually reinforced ; for in the pre-Mongolian period 
(down to 1237), apart from two exceptional cases, the 
Metropolitan was always a Greek. Since there was only 
one Metropolitan for the whole of Russia representing the 
Church in Kiev by the side of the Great Prince, since all 
claims to appoint a second Metropolitan in the north (as, for 
example, in Rostov-Suzdal in the twelfth century) were 
rejected by the Patriarch of Constantinople, the Church acted 



THE BYZANTINE INHERITANCE IN RUSSIA 375 
as a unifying influence in a world of warring princes, while 
the Metropolitan, being a Greek coming to Russia from the 
Empire, was committed to neither of contending Russian 
parties and could thus with impartiality attempt to perform 
the task of peacemaker, could seek to persuade princes to 
abide by their oaths which had been solemnized by ‘kissing 
the Cross’. 

It would be easy, but it would be false, to idealize the 
relation between State and Church in early Russia: that 
relation, it has been said, was rather one of might than of 
right. If he were strong the Russian prince could and did 
ignore priestly admonitions; he would imprison outspoken 
bishops: the formal respect shown to monks and clergy was 
compatible with actual disobedience which set at nought 
the threat of excommunication. The Church might, and did, 
proclaim to the princes that they held their power from God 
and that this fact imposed upon them the duty of punishing 
evil-doers, of ruling with mercy and judging with justice, 
that breach of faith would bring upon them vengeance in 
this world and perpetual damnation after death, but perjury, 
it appears, was so general that an archbishop forbade the 
taking of an oath by the kiss upon the Cross on account of 
the spiritual danger of broken pledges. In the civil wars 
monasteries and churches were laid waste or burned down 
without scruple. One Metropolitan, at least, weary of his 
failures to control the feuds of the princes, retired dis- 
heartened to Constantinople. 

The literature of early Russia came of necessity from the 
Church as the only source of culture. It was naturally a 
religious and monastic literature. It was fed by Slav transla- 
tions of Byzantine works and its original compositions were 
moulded on Byzantine models. Of 240 Russian writers who 
are known to have lived before the close of the sixteenth 
century no less than 190 were monks, 20 belonged to the 
secular clergy, and only 30 were laymen. Such in literature 
is the debt of Russia to the Church. Byzantine influence can 
be traced in the Russian Primary Chronicle , formerly known 
as the Chronicle of Nestor, which is our principal source for 
the history of pre-Mongolian Russia. Scandinavian sagas 



376 THE BYZANTINE INHERITANCE IN RUSSIA 
may have been drawn upon in the early parts of the Chronicle, 
but its author, a monk from the Kievan monastery of the 
Caves, probably derived from East Rome the whole concep- 
tion of writing a continuous history of the Russians, while 
the annalistic form of his work would have been suggested 
by Slav translations of Byzantine chronicles — the Brief 
Chromgraphy of Nicephorus, the Patriarch of Constantinople 
(died a.d. 828), and the Chronicle of Georgius Hamartolus 
(George the Monk). The author of the Primary Chronicle 
twice quotes by name Georgius Hamartolus, and his debts 
to this Chronicle have been tabulated by the late Professor 
S. H. Cross of Harvard University. These borrowings 
extend from a.d. 858 to a.d. 943, while it is to the same 
source that the Chronicle owes its account of the original 
apportionment of the earth, of the tower of Babel and 
the long description of the customs of the alien peoples. 
Among other debts of the Chronicle to Greek sources may 
be mentioned the lengthy creed taught to Vladimir I ; this 
is translated from a Greek text of the ninth century 
written by Michael Syncellus, the friend of St. Theodore of 
the monastery of Studius in Constantinople. 

Russia’s devotion to Byzantine ascetic and anchoritic 
ideals is reflected in its hagiography; the monumental 
collection of Lives of the Saints compiled by Macarius in the 
sixteenth century fills 27,057 folio pages of script. Anyone 
who is conversant with the Greek biographies of saints feels 
that he is on familiar ground when he reads the Life of a 
Russian Saint such as that of St. Sergius of Radonezh. 
Indeed one may wonder whether accounts given in such a 
Life which have customarily been treated as resting upon 
fact have not been simply incorporated from Greek hagio- 
graphy. The story of the early difficulties of St. Sergius in 
learning to read is suspiciously like the similar difficulties 
experienced by St. Theodore of Edessa. It would be 
interesting to study such a Life as that of St. Sergius in the 
light of Greek hagiographic texts : the forms of exorcism, the 
miracles granted during the celebration of the Eucharist