Lost to the West (33 page)

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Michael Psellus,
Fourteen Byzantine Rulers
(London: Penguin, 1966).

20

T
HE
M
ARCH OF
F
OLLY

T
he empire that Basil II left behind him was indeed glorious, stretching from the Danube in the west to the Euphrates in the east. No power in western Europe or the Middle East could approach it; its gold coin, the
nomisma
, was the standard currency of trade—and had been for centuries—and its Islamic enemies were cowed and crumbling. The Christian powers of Europe looked up to it as their great protector, and more than one German emperor traveled to southern Italy, where the imperial borders touched, to seek recognition of their titles.
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Those from western Europe who traveled to the imperial markets or cities found a world drastically different from the one they had left behind. Medieval Europe was locked in feudalism, with little chance to escape grinding poverty. Peasants spent their lifetimes toiling on land they didn’t own, and medicine offered “cures” to the sick that were often as lethal as the disease. The poor subsisted on a diet of coarse, dark bread and cheese, and were lucky to reach the age of thirty-five. Communication between cities was slow, travel was dangerous, and writing was restricted to the rich and powerful. The church provided what little education was available, but only if a literate priest could be found.

In the East, by contrast, wealth poured into the imperial treasury, the population boomed, and famine seemed to be a thing of the past. Men flush with the excitement of new fortunes seemed to be everywhere, carried about in their sedan chairs, endowing lavish public buildings, and playing polo on the broad public avenues. Confidence was in the air, and it was contagious. The addition of the Bulgarians, the Serbs, and the Russians to the cultural mix had added layers of diversity, but society—and the church—had never been more unified. Iconoclasm, the last great heresy to afflict the Byzantine church, had been settled for nearly two centuries, and the church and the state were infused with a spirit of cooperation. Education once again became a way for ambitious young men to advance, and vast libraries became a status symbol.

There had always been a guarded respect for the pagan classics of antiquity, but with paganism long dead and no longer a threat, there was a new appreciation of the secular classics. A spirit of humanism swept through the empire, and scholars began to consciously emulate the styles of antiquity. Copies of the literature of ancient Greece and Rome became highly valued, and clergy and laymen alike began to dutifully reproduce the dazzling masterpieces. This was among the finest gifts that the empire bequeathed to posterity. Since Egypt—and the source of papyrus—had long been lost to the empire, the crumbling old manuscripts were copied onto more durable and readily available parchment. This in turn enabled the literature to survive. Despite the general destruction that followed the collapse of the empire, most of the Greek classics that are extant today come down to us through Byzantine copies of this period.

The emperors, of course, had always had access to the peerless imperial libraries, but now they began to see a general promotion of schooling as one of their roles. By the time of Basil II’s death, Constantinople was home to brilliant poets, jurists, and historians—a glittering collection of literati that wouldn’t be equaled in the West until the last days of the Renaissance.

It was a pity that Basil II didn’t leave anyone worthy of receiving
such a glorious inheritance, but, unfortunately for Byzantium, the cultural flowering that had given the empire such a splendid educated class had also made its court arrogant and insulated, utterly convinced that they knew how to govern the empire better than anyone else. Basil’s death left power unexpectedly in their hands, and they deliberately chose weak and pliable emperors, interested more in keeping their newfound power than in what was best for the state. Ironically enough, this shortsighted policy of putting such mediocrities on the throne guaranteed their own decline. Ruthless taxation once again fell on the poor without burdening the rich, and the land laws of the Macedonian emperors were abandoned, leaving the peasants at the mercy of their predatory neighbors. The rich gobbled up virtually all of the land in their vast estates, while their contacts at court ensured that it was held tax free. Foolish emperors, confronted with a virtually independent aristocracy and now seriously short of funds, exacerbated the problem by devaluing their gold coins—a step the empire had managed to avoid for nearly seven hundred years. The value of the currency collapsed, sending inflation spiraling, and Byzantium’s prestige plummeted as international merchants abandoned the worthless coins.

Small farmers were virtually driven to extinction, frequently ending up as serfs on their own lands, and since military veterans could no longer afford to farm, the entire system of the peasant-soldier collapsed.
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The Byzantine army, now dangerously weakened, was forced to rely on mercenaries, and important commands were given to worthless political appointments. Foreign wars and political chaos fell like hammer blows on the rudderless empire, striking against both its spiritual and temporal strength. In the short space of fifty years, it was rocked by two tragedies that sapped its strength and undermined its foundations. Though the empire lasted for another
four centuries, it never fully recovered from the impact of these twin disasters.

The first, and more damaging, blow fell in 1054 and severely impaired relations with the West. The crisis that culminated that year had been building to a head for decades, and was by now nearly inevitable. Underneath the thin veneer of Christian unity that joined the lands of the old Roman Empire lay the deep divisions of an East and a West that had been drifting apart for centuries. Of the five great patriarchs of the Christian Church, four were in the East, and there the Greek love of disputation had kept the church somewhat decentralized. The patriarch of Constantinople may have been the closest to imperial power, but he was also the youngest of the patriarchs, and the older, more prestigious bishops in Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem zealously guarded their autonomy. Important decisions were made—as they always had been—by means of a council in which the whole voice of the church could be expressed. In the West, where the only patriarch was that of Rome, the pontiff had grown weary of the endless eastern speculation and heresy, and had begun to see himself as the final authority in Christendom. After all, hadn’t Christ himself “handed the keys of heaven” to Peter, the first pope, with the words “on this rock I will build my Church”? Clearly, the pope was not merely the “first among equals” as the easterners taught, but the undisputed head of the church.

The crisis was precipitated when the stubborn patriarch Michael Cerularius wrote a letter to Pope Leo IX, addressing him as “brother” instead of “father” and comparing him to Judas for adding the
word fitioque
to the Nicene Creed. This was an old—and rather intemperate—argument that had split the church for generations. According to the original version of the creed—the central statement of Christianity—the Holy Spirit emanated from God the Father. So it had remained until the late sixth century when the
word filioque
(“and the son”) was added by the Spanish church in an attempt to emphasize Christ’s divinity to their Arian, Visigothic overlords. The Eastern Church could, of course, sympathize with the
spirit
of the Spanish addition (they had
after all fought the same battle against the Arians), but to their minds only the authority of a full council could alter the creed, and this arbitrary addition was therefore a vile heresy made all the more shocking when the pope officially endorsed it.
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The Scriptures are mostly silent on the topic of the Trinity, making it virtually impossible to resolve an argument about the relationship of its members. Both sides dug in their heels on the issue, and now the patriarch’s letter to the pope ripped aside the church’s veil of unity to expose its deep-seated divisions for the entire world to see.
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It was at this moment of rancor that the Byzantine emperor Constantine IX invited the pope to send some legates to Constantinople to discuss a military alliance against their mutual enemies. The pope accepted the invitation, but, unfortunately for everyone involved, he chose a virulently anti-Greek cardinal named Humbert to act as his representative. Humbert arrived in Constantinople ready to be insulted, and was soon given ample opportunity when the equally insufferable Patriarch Cerularius refused to see him. Annoyed by the oily Greek food, drafty accommodations, and poor hospitality, Humbert spent his time castigating his hosts for the eastern practices of allowing priests to marry, using leavened bread in the Eucharist, and eating meat during Lent. Tempers were soured further when news arrived in late April that the pope had died, depriving Humbert of what little authority he had, and making his entire infuriating mission pointless. Demanding an audience with the patriarch, the cardinal requested permission to leave, but Cerularius gleefully refused, keeping the enraged Humbert under virtual house arrest. For two months, the
papal legate fumed in Constantinople, but by July 16, 1054, with no end to his containment in sight, he had had enough. Marching into the Hagia Sophia, Humbert solemnly placed a note of excommunication on the high altar. Turning around, he shook the dust symbolically off his feet and left the building, vowing never to return. The damage done in that moment was equaled only by its tragically unnecessary circumstances. Christendom would never be united again, and it was the disgruntled representative of a dead pope without a single shred of authority who had dealt the blow.

A few weeks later, the patriarch returned the favor by convening a council that excommunicated the West right back. Each side hoped the other would back down, but it was too late—relations were permanently sundered. The pope maintained that the Latin Church was the “Catholic” or “universal” one, while the patriarch made the same claim, arguing that the Greek rite was “Orthodox” or “true.”

Christendom had been ripped in half, and Byzantium was now dangerously and terrifyingly alone. From now on, the powers to its west would offer no succor, and the empire would have to face the enemies to its east with only its own diminishing resources.

The weakened empire still had its army, but it was no longer the peerless fighting force that had made it the superpower of the Mediterranean. Years of neglect since Basil II’s death had reduced it to virtual impotence, and the court, terrified of a military uprising, did its best to weaken it further—even taking the insane step of disbanding the local militias that guarded the frontiers. Outwardly, the empire may have looked glorious, but on the inside it was rotten and hollow, waiting for an enemy to break the brittle shell. Trapped in the firm grip of squabbling aristocrats, the throne was unlikely to produce a figure capable of undoing the damage, and Byzantium was given no chance to recover its strength.

While the empire was still reeling from its struggle with the papacy, a new and devastating enemy made its military weakness all too apparent. The Seljuk Turks had already taken the Muslim world by surprise. Originally a central Asian nomadic tribe, they spread over
Iran and Iraq, managing to seize Baghdad in 1055, replacing the weak and crumbling Abbasid caliphate. After crossing the undefended Byzantine frontiers, by 1067 they were looting their way through Armenia virtually unopposed. Combining the hunger of nomads in search of plunder and pastureland with the predatory aggression of jihadists, the Seljuks were unlike anything the Byzantines had seen before. Their mounted raiders struck fast and without warning, making it difficult to know where to concentrate the defenses. The unwieldy empire was used to dealing with states and armies, not roving bands slashing across their borders. In any case, the humiliated, demoralized imperial army could no longer offer much resistance.

Emperor Romanus Diogenes was a determined if not a gifted general, and when the Seljuks crossed the border in strength during his reign, he somehow managed to push them back across the Euphrates. Unfortunately for the empire, the small victory awakened all the aristocratic courtiers’ old fears that a strong emperor would restrict their privileges. By the time the Turks returned the next year and seized a small Armenian fortress in the town of Manzikert, support for the emperor had begun to dangerously erode.

Oblivious to the mounting dissension, Romanus marched out with his army, determined to evict the Turks from Christian lands once and for all. On August 26, 1071, the two armies met, and the most fateful battle in Byzantine history began. Despite massive defections from his unreliable mercenaries, the emperor managed to push the Turks back, but at a critical moment his scheming nobles betrayed him and withdrew. The cream of the army was slaughtered on the spot, and Romanus Diogenes was captured and forced to kiss the ground while the sultan, Alp Arslan, rested a boot on his neck.