History Online - Byzantine

The Byzantine Empire considered itself the only true inheritor both of the Roman Empire and of the Christian religion. This fact made the Empire something somewhere between an ally and an enemy to the West. Whether the two were cooperating or fighting, though, events in Byzantium were of great importance to Outremer (especially to Antioch) and to the Crusading movement. Constantinople was the capital and the greatest city in Christendom in terms of wealth, population, and political power. The Empire it ruled consisted of Asia Minor, the Balkans, and Greece. Over the 12th and 13th centuries, it lost most of its lands in all these areas, but its fortunes waxed and waned dramatically. By 1291, however, the "Empire" was reduced to the city of Constantinople and its hinterland, plus a few outposts.

The Greek Emperor regarded himself as the true inheritor of the Caesars and the true defender of the faith against the Muslims. The so-called Holy Roman Emperor was nothing but an upstart--at best, he might be considered the western Augustus, recalling the tetrarchy of Diocletian. Similarly, the Patriarch of Constantinople regarded himself as the true head of the Church. The Bishop of Rome (the pope) was the bishop of a great and honorable city, on a par with the Patriarch of Jerusalem or Antioch or Alexandria, but definitely a step below Constantinople and in any case tainted with unorthodoxy.

The Greeks themselves generally regarded the Latins with contempt: they were dirty, smelly, violent, treacherous, superstitious, superb warriors but untrustworthy allies. They were greedy and grasping, and were not to be trusted in business matters. For their part, the Westerners had much the same opinion of the Greeks, except they had no respect for the Greek soldier, either.

Byzantine history during our two centuries falls into three periods: the rule of the Comneni, the Latin Empire of Constantinople, and the rule of the Paleologoi. The Comneni rescued the Empire from near-destruction by the Turks and returned it to a position of strength. Around 1200, though, their leadership failed and Byzantium was torn apart by internal strife. The Fourth Crusade took advantage of this, with the result that for about fifty years, Byzantium was ruled by Latins, though there was always one or more Greek emperors in exile. Michael VIII Paleologus was the emperor in exile who finally drove the Latins back out, after the latter had managed to lose most of what the Comneni had gained. The Paleologoi emperors ruled a much-reduced empire for another two hundred years.

The Byzantine emperor (basileus in Greek; imperator in Latin) was a much more effective monarch than any of his counterparts in the West. His theoretical powers were greater, and most of the time he was able to turn theory into practice. He had most of the expectations and responsibilities of a Western king, but he was also more influential in religious matters.

But the emperor could not rule alone. His effective power was limited, and during the crusading centuries he could intervene in a particular area for a certain length of time only, or else risk losses on another front. A hallmark of this period in the Empire was the constant need for alliances and subtle diplomacy; we will see the emperors making temporary friends with enemies on every front. Within the Empire, government rested on four main pillars: the army, the Greek Orthodox Church, the imperial bureaucracy, and a handful of noble families. From the latter came the emperors themselves. From the great nobles, too, came much of the top level of imperial government--military commanders, provincial governors, and so on. From their estates came men for the army and money for governing, and from them, too, came plots and rivals. Every emperor had to court the great nobles while at the same time being careful not to let any of them grow too powerful.

As with any government, the army was of vital importance, but in the Empire it held a particular political significance. In the Western monarchies, armies existed only for the duration of a war and so did not become a political force. The Empire, however, had a standing army of professional soldiers. An emperor needed victory in the field to enhance his prestige and fend off rivals, so he needed the loyalty of the army and especially of its officer corps. Moreover, the most prestigious posting was at Constantinople itself, or nearby, making it tempting for the army to meddle in imperial politics. If the army's loyalty should go to a rival, an emperor was doomed.

The daily business of government, in matters great and small, was in the hands of a bureaucracy that was far greater than anything the Western monarchs could imagine. The layers of government--imperial, provincial and municipal--had been inherited from the old Roman Empire and never ceased to function. Local authority was at the municipal level; cities in the Empire were commercial and religious focal points as they were in the West, but they were also centers of administration, justice and tax collection. The next layer up was the province (theme, in Greek), ruled by governors, appointed by the emperor from among the great families. Their prime duties were the collection of taxes and the appointing of local officials. They were supplemented by military governors who commanded mostly native troops and who were to keep public order.

The Greek Orthodox Church was the fourth base on which the Byzantine Empire rested. As in the West, it was an enormous landowner and possessed vast wealth which it protected jealously but which emperors did tap when they could. In general, the Greek Orthodox Church was much more under the control of the state than the Roman Catholic Church was. The emperor could speak with authority on religious matters, and he had the privilege of nominating the Patriarch. At the same time, bishops in the major towns could become popular leaders in ways that western bishops rarely did. A bishop could pose as a champion of the poor, or a defender against oppression, and so stir the populace as to effect rebellion. The most dramatic case of this came in the 13th century, when for a time the Byzantine Emperor agreed to submit to the Catholic Church and allowed a Latin Patriarch at Constantinople.

The Byzantine Empire was polyglot, consisting of numerous peoples and cultures. At the imperial level it was Greek, which was the language of learning, commerce, religion, politics and the military. Greek philosophy ruled intellectual life, Greek Orthodox was the only faith officially supported by the state (others were tolerated). Its political structure and its law were Roman, and indeed its emperors called themselves Emperor of the Romans.
At the local level, national cultures prevailed. Local laws and customs were generally respected by the Byzantines, in the Roman tradition--as long as the locals behaved themselves, paid their taxes and contributed men to the army, they were allowed to keep their customs and sometimes even their own laws and governments.

One last point worth making: Constantinople was the keystone to it all. Political power and religious authority converged only here. Whoever controlled the city controlled the empire; similarly, no claimant to the throne could be successful until he had taken the city. Palace intrigues were therefore more important in the Empire, and the actions of a family member might weigh more heavily than the loyalty of entire cities.

The tenth century was a glorious time in the Empire, with strong rulers and general prosperity, but the eleventh century saw chaos and loss. A convenient place to mark the turning point is the death of Emperor Basil II in 1025. After his death, rival families contended for control, with the two leading rivals being the Ducas and the Comneni. Both sides made extravagant grants of privileges and power to anyone whom they thought might be of help, decreasing the ability of the emperor to govern. The army became almost independent, creating further disruptions.

Political disorder invites predators, and the Empire by mid-century found formidable enemies rising against it: the Slavs to the north, the Normans to the west, and the Turks from the east. The emperors were able to fend off the first two, but in 1071 the Turks inflicted a catastrophic defeat on the Byzantines at Manzikert. The Emperor Romanus Diogenes was captured, most of Asia Minor was lost, and the Empire fell into ten years of civil war.

Everyone invaded. The Empire lost its frontier along the Danube River to the Slavs, and it lost Italy to the Normans. Syria was gone, and many Greek islands soon followed. By the time Alexius Comnenus emerged as undisputed emperor in 1081, he had little more than Constantinople itself. He spent the rest of his reign trying to regain what had been lost since the days of Basil II.
This was the situation in Byzantium at the time of the First Crusade. Alexius had dealt successfully with the Petchnegs and the Normans, and now wanted to make some progress against the Turks. He had Vikings as his personal bodyguard (the famous Varangian Guard), and he had had more experience than he cared for with the Normans (who had repeatedly invaded his lands). So he knew the value of the Latin knights. But he wanted them firmly in his service, to help him recover Antioch and Nicaea and Iconium and the other lands so recently lost to the Turks.