Medieval Academy of America

Aspects of Twelfth-Century Byzantine Kaiserkritik

Author(s): Paul Magdalino
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Speculum, Vol. 58, No. 2 (Apr., 1983), pp. 326-346
Published by: Medieval Academy of America
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SPECULUM
58,2 (1983)
Aspects
of
Twelfth-Century
Byzantine
Kaiserkritik
By
Paul
Magdalino
The
History
of Niketas
Choniates,
covering
the
period
of
Byzantine history
from 1118 to
1206,
is one of the
acknowledged masterpieces
of medieval
Greek
historiography.1
Not the least
masterly
of its features is its full and
nuanced
portrait
of the
emperor
Manuel I Komnenos
(1143-80).
In
itself,
the
appraisal
seems
neutral,
for the author has both
good
and bad to
say
about Manuel and his
policies.
However,
in
comparison
with the other
literary
sources for Manuel's
reign
-
the histories of
John
Kinnamos and
William of
Tyre,
and the numerous
prose
and verse encomia
celebrating
the
emperor's
achievements
-
Choniates is
highly
critical. Whether this criticism
is as accurate or as fair as most modern
scholars,
seduced
perhaps by
Choniates'
sophistication,
seem to have assumed2 must be
disputed
else-
where.
My present
concern is with the
general principles
on which
Choniates'
disapproval
is based. These
principles
are
apparent
in three
passages
of his work.
Firstly,
in Book I of his section on
Manuel,
in
pointing
out that Manuel's
early generosity
did not
last,
he observes: "when he came to
manhood,
he
ruled more
autocratically (archikoteron),
treating
his
subjects
not as free
men,
but as if
they
were servants who
belonged
to him
by
inheritance."3
Later,
in Book
IV,
after
describing
how two of the
emperor's
cousins fell
foul of
him,
Choniates launches into a tirade
against
the
envy
of rulers
in
general,
who feel themselves threatened if
any
of their
subjects
excel:
This
paper
was written in
1981,
during my
tenure of a
Humboldt-Stipendium
as the
guest
of
Professor Dieter Simon at the Institut fur
Rechtsgeschichte
of the
University
of Frankfurt am
Main. It was submitted for
publication
before I could take account of the relevant material in
Alexander Kazhdan and Giles
Constable,
People
and Power in
Byzantium (Washington,
D.C.,
1982).
1
Niketas
Choniates, Historia,
ed.
J.
L. Van Dieten
(Berlin, 1975).
Reference will also be
made,
in
parentheses,
to the
page
numbers of the old edition
by
I. Bekker
(Bonn, 1835).
For
discussion of Choniates as a
writer,
see Alexander P.
Kazhdan,
Kniga
i
pisatelj
v Vizantii
(Moscow,
1973),
ch.
3;
and Herbert
Hunger,
Die
hochsprachliche profane
Literatur der
Byzantiner,
1
(Munich,
1978),
pp.
429-41.
2
E.g.,
Frederic
Chalandon,
Les
Comnene,
2:
Jean
II Comnene et Manuel I Comnene
(1143-1180)
(Paris, 1912),
pp.
607-8;
Helene
Ahrweiler,
L'idbologie politique
de
l'empire byzantin
(Paris, 1975),
pp.
85-86.
However,
attention has been drawn to what
appear
to be cases of deliberate
misrepresentation:
see
Kazhdan, Kniga
i
pisatelj, pp.
104-5;
Charles M.
Brand,
Byzantium
Confronts
the
West,
1180-1204
(Cambridge,
Mass., 1968), p.
24.
3
Choniates,
p.
60
(79).
326
Byzantine
Kaiserkritik 327
So
they mostly fight against
Providence and take arms
against
the
Divinity, pluck-
ing
out all
good
men from the crowd and
slaughtering
[them]
like sacrificial
victims,
so that
they may squander away
in
peace
and have the
public
finances all to
themselves as a
paternal
inheritance to do with as
they please,
and treat free men
as
slaves,
and behave towards men who are sometimes worthier to rule than
they
as
if
they
were hired servants.
[They
do
this]
being
mistaken in their
minds,
having
lost their reason under the influence of
power,
and
misguidedly forgetting
what
happened
the
day
before
yesterday.4
Finally, introducing
the section where he describes Manuel's interference
in church
affairs,
Choniates writes:
It is not
enough
for most
emperors
of the Romans
simply
to
rule,
and wear
gold,
and treat common
property
as their own and free men as
slaves,
but if
they
do not
appear
wise,
godlike
in
looks,
heroic in
strength,
and full of
holy
wisdom like
Solomon,
and
divinely inspired dogmatists,
and more canonical than the canons
-
in
short,
unerring experts
in all human and divine affairs
-
they
think
they
have
suffered
grievous wrong.5
These
passages, especially
the last
two,
are remarkable for two reasons.
Firstly,
Manuel is
presented
not as an
exception
to the
imperial
rule,
but as a
typical emperor. Secondly,
this
typical emperor
is criticized for
making
it
normal
policy
to exceed his conventional
rights,
in that he has failed to
respect
the
liberty
of his
subjects
and the common or
public
nature of the
state's wealth.
For the modern
reader,
such utterances have "constitutionalist"
overtones,
which have not
escaped scholarly
comment.
Hans-Georg
Beck,
most
percep-
tively,
drew attention to the fact that this is "basic criticism . of a series of
attributes,
which the
imperial
oration took for
granted."6
Franz
Tinnefeld,
after
comparing
the Kaiserkritik of all
Byzantine
historians and chroniclers
from
Procopius
to
Choniates,
felt able to state that "Niketas is the first
and indeed the
only Byzantine
historian who
applies
such basic criticism to
the idea of
imperial power.
With him . . .
Kaiserkritik,
hitherto
applied only
on an individual
basis,
appears
to broaden into
Systemkritik;
it is the voice of
the
Byzantine ruling
class,
seeing
its
power
threatened from the
imperial
eminence.
Granted,
the
imperial monarchy
is not
explicitly rejected
in
prin-
ciple,
but there are
perceptible
tendencies to limit the absolute
position
of
the
emperor
in favor of the
aristocracy."7
These are not wild
remarks,
and one
might
have
expected
them to have
had some
follow-up
in
Byzantine
studies over the
past
decade,
especially
in
4
Ibid.,
p.
143
(186-87).
5
Ibid.,
209
(274).
For the
significance
of
"wearing gold,"
see
below,
n. 100.
6
Hans-Georg
Beck,
"Res Publica Romana: Vom Staatsdenken der
Byzantiner," Sitzungs-
berichte der
Bayerischen
Akademie der
Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische
Klasse
(Munich, 1970),
Heft
2,
p. 1,
n. 10.
7
Franz H.
Tinnefeld,
Kategorien
der Kaiserkritik in der
byzantinischen Historiographie
von
Prokop
bis Niketas Choniates
(Munich, 1971),
pp.
161-62.
328
Byzantine
Kaiserkritik
view of Beck's
attempts
to
point
to the existence of another side to the
familiar,
absolutist face of the
Byzantine ideological
coin.8 It
seems, however,
that
Byzantinists
have been reluctant to abandon the notion of an unchal-
lenged, unwavering
Kaiseridee. It is
probably
not unreasonable to assume that
Herbert
Hunger's passing
comment in his
recently published
contribution to
the
updating
of Krumbacher's
History of Byzantine
Literature will find
general
acceptance;
for
him,
"We should not
expect
Niketas to
question
the value of
the
political system
as
such;
the criticism remains more or less on the
surface."9
Both
parts
of this statement are in themselves
correct,
but
they
do not
dispose
of the
problem.
It is
possible
to believe in a
system
and
yet
to
disagree fundamentally
with the
way
that
system
is run.
Every political
critique
of the Middle
Ages
was based on the
premise
that the
system
had to
be
protected
or rescued from abuse. That the criticism
expressed by
Choniates did not culminate in a
Byzantine Magna
Carta does not mean that
it was
superficial by Byzantine
standards. The less room that a
society
allows
itself in which to
develop,
the more
striking
is
any complaint against
the
current
development;
in
Byzantium,
the sheer
weight
of
continuity
and
tradition,
the
myopia
and
pessimism
of
eschatological thought,10
and,
above
all,
the concentration of
political, spiritual,
commercial,
and cultural life in
ConstantinopleT1
made the frame of reference and the
range
of
expecta-
tions much narrower than in the
contemporary
West.
Certainly, everything
seen in the
"distorting
mirror" of
Byzantine
literature must be treated with
caution,
but the solution is not to
ignore everything
that smacks of com-
monplace,
as if the imitation of ancient models and the use of cliche were
proof
that an author has
nothing
to
say.12 Topoi might actually
serve to
underline the
importance
of what was
said,
by giving
it the
stamp
of univer-
sal truth and
finding
a
place
for it in the
hierarchy
of
political, religious,
and
literary orthodoxy.
We are most
likely
to be deceived
by
the
distorting
mirror if we take its
apparent banality
too much at face value. This
banality
8
Hans-Georg
Beck,
"Senat und Volk von
Konstantinopel:
Probleme der
byzantinischen
Verfassungsgeschichte," Sitzungsberichte
(as above,
n.
6) (1966),
Heft
6,
repr.
in the author's Ideen
und Realitdten in
Byzanz
(London, 1972);
"Res Publica
Romana";
and Das
byzantinische Jahrtausend
(Munich, 1978),
ch. 2.
9
Hunger,
Die
hochsprachliche profane
Literatur,
1:434.
10 See
Cyril Mango, Byzantium:
The
Empire of
New Rome
(London, 1980),
ch.
11,
for introduc-
tion and
bibliography.
"1 The
"tadpole
model" of
Byzantine society
has its limitations: see Ihor
Sevcenko,
"Constan-
tinople
Viewed from the Eastern Provinces in the Middle
Byzantine Period," Eucharisterion:
Essays
Presented to
Omeljan
Pritsak on His Sixtieth
Birthday by
His
Colleagues
and
Students,
Harvard
Ukrainian Studies 3-4
(1979-80),
712-47.
However,
it remains valid for
purposes
of
comparison
with less centralized
societies,
especially
in the
period
after the Turkish
occupation
of eastern
and central Anatolia.
12
Cyril Mango, Byzantine
Literature as a
Distorting
Mirror
(Oxford, 1975);
Herbert
Hunger,
"On the Imitation
(MIMHIIS)
of
Antiquity
in
Byzantine
Literature,"
Dumbarton Oaks
Papers
23-24
(1969-70), 15-38,
repr.
in
Byzantinische Grundlagenforschung
(London, 1973).
Byzantine
Kaiserkritik
does not
necessarily
reflect the
complacency
and indifference of men who
had their minds made
up;
in it we
may perhaps
discern the
public
face of a
culture which embraced
many
doubts and differences of
opinion
and was
only
too aware of the
joys
and
dangers
of intellectual
excitement,
and which
therefore
sought,
for
precisely
these
reasons,
to build itself a
perfect
cosmos
with the aid of
logos, synthesizing
elements that remained
contradictory,
and
imposing
order,
certainty,
and
security through
the
repetition
of ancient
platitudes.13
In
any
case,
Choniates
happens
to be one of the least
platitudinous
of
Byzantine
writers.14 Attention has been drawn to his
"thoroughly unbyzan-
tine attitude to
monasticism,"15
and his readiness to voice certain crusader
criticisms of
Byzantium;16
one
might
also mention his
laudatory description
of Frederick Barbarossa in terms reminiscent of those used
by
Manuel I's
encomiasts.17 The "constitutionalism" of this author's Kaiserkritik therefore
deserves further attention. What follows is an
attempt
to set it in the
literary
and
political background
of
twelfth-century Constantinople.
Tinnefeld is not
quite
correct in
asserting
that Choniates is the
only
Byzantine
historian to have
applied
such
thorough
criticism. The
complaint
that the
emperor
had treated the
public
resources as his
private property
is
voiced
by
another
twelfth-century
historian,
John
Zonaras,
with
regard
to
Alexios I.18 The relevant
passages
are worth
quoting
in full.
Firstly, relating
how Alexios fulfilled the "contract" which he had made with
Nikephoros
Melissenos at the time of their simultaneous revolt
against Nikephoros
III
Botaneiates in
1081,
Zonaras describes how Melissenos was made Caesar and
received Thessalonica as his
residence,
together
with
large
allowances for
him and his relatives:
With the
imperial
or rather one should
say
the common and
public
revenues thus
dissipated,
the
imperial treasury
-
or the common fund
-
was reduced. And the
ruler,
lacking money,
cut the annual
payments
attached to the
[court]
dignities
and
confiscated the senators'
properties.19
13
See
George
L.
Kustas,
Studies in
Byzantine
Rhetoric,
Analecta Blatadon 17
(Thessaloniki,
1973),
pp.
119
ff.,
147-58.
14
On Choniates as
religious
and
political "skeptic,"
see
Kazhdan,
Kniga
i
pisatelj, pp.
89-96.
15
Choniates,
p.
383
(498-99); Hunger,
Die
hochsprachliche profane
Literatur,
1:440.
16
Choniates,
pp.
66-67
(88-89);
cf.
O.
Kresten
inJahrbuch
der
isterreichischen
Byzantinistik
20
(1971),
324-25.
17
Choniates,
p.
416
(545-46); Kazhdan,
Kniga
i
pisatelj, pp.
99-100.
18 References below are to the edition in
Corpus Scriptorum
Historiae
Byzantinae:
vols. 1-2
ed. M. Pinder
(Bonn, 1841-44);
vol. 3 ed. Th. Buttner-Wobst
(Bonn, 1897).
For other
editions,
and
commentary,
see Karl
Krumbacher,
Geschichte der
byzantinischen
Literatur
(Munich, 1897),
pp.
370
ff.;
K.
Ziegler,
article in
Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopddie
der classischen
Altertumswissenschaft,
2nd series, 10A:718-32;
and
Hunger,
Die
hochsprachliche profane
Literatur,
1:416-18.
19
Zonaras
18.21.12-14, 3:732-33. For confiscations under
Alexios,
see also P.
Gautier,
"Le
dossier d'un haut fonctionnaire d'Alexis Ier Comnene,
Manuel
Straboromanos,"
Revue des etudes
byzantines
23
(1965),
183.
329
330
Byzantine
Kaiserkritik
Later,
in his final assessment of
Alexios,
Zonaras
points
out that the em-
peror's easygoing
and informal manner did not
necessarily
make him a
good
ruler:
In addition to
these,
the
qualities proper
to a basileus are care for
justice, provision
for
[the
welfare
of]
his
subjects,
and the
preservation
of the old customs of the
state. But his concern was rather the alteration of the ancient customs of the
polity,
and
changing
them was his most
urgent
task,
and he did not treat the state as
common or
public property,
and he considered himself to be not its steward
(oikonomos)
but its owner
(oikodespotes),
and he
thought
of the
palace
as his own
house,
and called it that. And he did not allow the members of the senatorial
council the honor that was
due,
nor did he
provide
for them
appropriately,
but
rather he made it his business to humble them. Nor did he observe the virtue of
justice
in all
things,
for the essence of this is
distributing
to each man
according
to
his worth. But he
gave away public money
in cartloads to his relatives and certain
of his
servants,
and allotted them fat
pensions
so that
they
were able to surround
themselves with
great
wealth and
appoint
servant staffs more
appropriate
to
kings
than to
private
individuals,
and to
acquire dwellings, resembling
cities in
mag-
nitude,
and in
magnificence
in no
way
dissimilar to
palaces.
To the rest of the
wellborn he did not show similar favor.20
Zonaras,
even more
clearly
than
Choniates,
bases his criticism on an
explicit
differentiation between the
imperial
and the common
good.
The
differentiation is
applied
not
only
to
Alexios,
against
whom Zonaras
may
have had a
personal grudge,
and to Constantine IX
Monomachos,21
the
universal
scapegoat
for the
eleventh-century
crisis,
but also to
respectable
emperors
of the
past.
Basil II is
portrayed
as a
tyrant
who had no
respect
for
the unwritten law of the land.22 The
philanthropy
of Romanos I could not
atone for his
sins,
because the
goods
with which the
emperor
made free
belonged
not to him but to the
public.23
The author even inclines to the view
that Constantine the Great was not to be
praised
for his
magnificence
(megaloprepeia),
because he must have
imposed
burdensome taxes in order to
pay
for it.24 Most
eloquent
of all is the
passage
where Zonaras describes the
encaenia of
Constantinople
on 11
May
330 and comments on the
prophecy
made at the time
by
the
astrologer
Valens that the
city
would last 696
years:
These have
long
since run
by;25
so one must either
suppose
that Valens's
prophecy
was false and his art
faulty,
or else one must think that he meant those
years
in
20
Zonaras
18.29.19-25,
3:766-67.
21
Ibid. 17.27.16
ff.,
3:646-47
(see below,
Appendix).
22
Ibid.
17.8.20-22,
3:561
(see below,
Appendix).
23
Ibid.
16.20.2-6,
3:478-79.
John Skylitzes expresses
similar sentiments with
regard
to
Michael IV:
Synopsis
historiarum,
ed.
J.
Thurn
(Berlin, 1973),
p.
398.
24
Zonaras
13.4.29,
3:25.
25
I.e.,
in
1026; however,
Zonaras does not seem to attach
specific importance
to this date.
Byzantine
Kaiserkritik
331
which the customs of the
polity
were
kept up,
and the
protocol (katastasis)26
and the
senate were
honored,
and the citizens
flourished,
and there was a "lawful domin-
ion"27 and
not,
in
contrast,
a
tyranny,
with the rulers
considering
the common
property
their own and
using
it for their own
enjoyment
(and
this not
always
of the
right
kind),
and
granting public
revenues to whomsoever
they please,
and behav-
ing
to their
subjects
not like
shepherds, merely shearing
off excess wool and
sparingly drinking
their
milk, but,
after the manner of
thieves,
slaughtering
the
sheep
and
devouring
their
flesh,
or even
sucking
the marrow from their bones.28
To a
greater
or lesser
extent,
Zonaras must have been influenced
by
his
sources. His critical
portrait
of
Justinian
seems to owe
something
to Pro-
copius,29
and his
laudatory
account of Basil I no doubt derives from the Vita
Basilii
-
a text in which the
emperor
is
praised
for
having
tried to
pay
for
his
conspicuous consumption
out of domain
revenues,
rather than from the
proceeds
of taxation.30 As we shall
see,
Zonaras's attitudes are
present
in
works of the
early Byzantine period.31
As a
historian,
he had much in
common with his immediate
precursors
of the late eleventh
century,
Michael
Psellos,
Michael
Attaleiates,
and
John Skylitzes,32
whose works he used and
with whom he shared the interests and outlook of an
increasingly
self-
confident
professional bourgeoisie.33
His
Kaiserkritik,
like
theirs,
was no
doubt
largely
determined
by
the need to
explain
the recent decline of the
state in terms of the sins or errors of one or more
emperors.
He followed
Psellos in
deploring
Constantine Monomachos' lack of discrimination in the
awarding
of
money
and
titles,
"the two
things
which sustain the Roman
26
The reference is to court
ceremonial,
and in
particular
to the strict
hierarchy
of rank to be
observed on ceremonial occasions: cf. the treatise of Philotheos the
atriklines,
ed. Nicolas
Oikonomides,
Les listes de
preseance byzantines
des IXe et Xe siecles
(Paris, 1972), pp.
81-83.
27
"
Evvopog rcSxtaacia:
a characterization of the monarch which is found in the
Epanagoge
and later
pieces
of
Byzantine legislation
and which
probably goes
back to
pre-Christian
times: I.
and P.
Zepos,Jus
Graeco-Romanum,
8 vols.
(Athens,
1931;
repr.
Aalen, 1962) (hereafter
cited as
Zepos),
6:57; 1:321, 389,
619. See also St.
Basil,
PG 29:345.
28
Zonaras
13.3.5-9, 3:14-15;
cf. Gilbert
Dagron,
Naissance d'une
capitale: Constantinople
et ses
institutions de 330 a 451
(Paris, 1974), p.
32.
29
Zonaras
14.6.1-9,
3:151-52. See
Krumbacher,
Geschichte der
byzantinischen
Literatur, 1:373;
and B.
Rubin,
Das
ZeitalterJustinians (Berlin, 1960),
1:230-31.
30
Theophanes
Continuatus,
ed. I. Bekker
(Bonn, 1838), p.
337. The
emperor
of Nicaea
John
III Vatatzes
(1222-54),
also a hero of
dynastic hagiography,
was celebrated for the same virtue:
George Pachymeres,
De Michaele
Palaeologo,
1.14.23,
ed. I. Bekker
(Bonn, 1835), pp.
38-39,
68-69;
see R.
Macrides,
"Saints and Sainthood in the
Early Palaiologan
Period,"
in The
Byzantine
Saint,
ed. S. Hackel
(Birmingham,
1981), p.
69.
31
Below,
pp.
341 ff.
32
Hunger,
Die
hochsprachliche profane
Literatur,
1:372-92.
33
The connection between economic and intellectual
expansion
in
eleventh-century Byzan-
tium is now
generally accepted:
R.
Browning, "Enlightenment
and
Repression
in
Byzantium
in
the Eleventh and Twelfth
Centuries,"
Past and Present 69
(1975), 3-23;
Paul
Lemerle,
Cinq
etudes
sur le XIe siecle
byzantin
(Paris, 1977),
chs. 4 and
5;
and
Mango, Byzantium, pp.
142,
246.
332
Byzantine
Kaiserkritik
hegemony."34
As author of a "monastic
chronicle,"35
he would
probably
have
agreed
with Attaleiates and
Skylitzes
that the barbarian invasions were divine
punishment, partly
for the heterodox beliefs of the
peoples
of eastern
Anatolia,
and
partly
for the unchristian lives of the Orthodox believers to
the west of them.36 His
complaints
of
tyranny
indicate a line of
thinking
close to that
expressed by
Attaleiates: how can the "Romans" of the
present
age expect
to
repeat
the achievements of their
forefathers, who,
even in
pagan
times,
never went on
campaign
without first
rooting
out
injustice
at
home?37
Now,
their leaders and monarchs do the worst and most hateful and lawless
things
in the
name of the
public
interest. ... I attribute the
catastrophic
turn of events
among
the Romans to divine retribution
(nemesis)
and the decision of
incorruptible judg-
ment.38 For it is said that
justice
is held in
high regard among
the
gentiles,
and that
they keep
their ancestral laws
unsullied,
and
they continually
acclaim
every piece
of
good
fortune which flies down to them from the Creator: these are
qualities
which
are common to all men and are
required by every religion."39
Zonaras' criticisms of Alexios I's financial
policy
and
family patronage
closely
echo those which a
churchman,
the titular
patriarch
of Antioch
John
Oxeites,
had made to Alexios'
face,
suggesting
that these offenses had
brought
on the Turkish and
Pecheneg
attacks of
1091-92.40
However,
in
noting
that Zonaras fits into a traditional
Byzantine
attitude
to historical
causation,
one should not lose
sight
of the fact that
he,
like each
one of the historians I have
mentioned,
chooses to
emphasize
one
particular
aspect
of the
problem.
This can be seen in
passages
where he is
evidently
reproducing
the account of Psellos or
Skylitzes,
and
yet interpolates
or
34
Michael
Psellos,
Chronographia
6.29,
ed. E.
Renauld,
2nd ed.
(Paris, 1967), 1:132;
cf.
Zonaras
17.21.1-2,
3:616-17.
35
Hunger,
Die
hochsprachliche profane
Literatur,
1:418.
36
Michael
Attaleiates, Historia,
ed. W. Brunet de Presle and I. Bekker
(Bonn, 1853),
pp.
96-97;
Skylitzes
Continuatus,
ed. E. Tsolakis
(Thessalonica, 1968),
pp.
140-41.
37
Attaleiates,
pp.
193-97; Tinnefeld,
Kategorien
der
Kaiserkritik,
p.
138.
38
I.e.,
the
incorruptible judgment
of God is contrasted with the
all-too-corrupt justice
of the
imperial
courts. It is
interesting
to note that the
judicial
reforms of the
Palaiologan emperors
Andronikos II and Andronikos III were occasioned
by
natural disaster and
military
defeat;
see
P.
Lemerle,
"Le
Juge-General
des
Grecs,"
Memorial Louis Petit
(Bucharest, 1948), pp.
294-95,
repr.
in Le monde de
Byzance:
Histoire et institutions
(London, 1978).
39 The ancient theme of the
uncorrupted
barbarian also
appears
in the
legislation
of Manuel
I,
and in the works of those authors who
sought
to
explain
the
second,
and
final,
collapse
of
Byzantine
Asia Minor in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries:
Zepos,
1:399, 405;
Ihor
Sevcenko,
"The Decline of
Byzantium
Seen
through
the
Eyes
of Its
Intellectuals,"
Dumbarton
Oaks
Papers
15
(1961), 167-86;
and
Speros Vryonis, Jr.,
The Decline
of
Medieval Hellenism in Asia
Minor
(Berkeley, 1971),
pp.
408-21. See also Kilian
Lechner,
Hellenen und Barbaren im Weltbild
derByzantiner (Munich, 1955),
pp.
115 ff.
40
Ed. P.
Gautier,
"Diatribes de
Jean
l'Oxite contre Alexis
Ier Comnene,"
Revue des etudes
byzantines
28
(1970), 5-55,
especially pp.
26-35,
41.
Byzantine
Kaiserkritik
corrects to make his
meaning
clear
(see
Appendix)
-
this in
spite
of the fact
that his main aim in
writing
his world
history
was to relieve the reader of all
the extraneous material with which
previous
writers had filled their
pages.41
In
expressing
a common
concern,
Zonaras takes a stand on the "constitu-
tional" issue and does not let it become clouded
by
other
criteria,
which
would also have been
relevant,
and in which he
undoubtedly
believed:
Orthodoxy,
Christian
morality,
the virtues of the ideal
ruler,
or the inten-
tions,
competence,
and achievements of individual
emperors.
There is an
essential difference in
emphasis
between his
concept
of limited
monarchy,
which stressed the
emperor's responsibility
to
earthly
institutions,
and that
expressed by
his near
contemporary
Kekaumenos,
which
begins
with the
premise
that "the
emperor
is not
subject
to the
law,
but is
law,"
and con-
cludes that "the
emperor, being
a
man,
is
subject
to the laws of
piety."42
Why
did Zonaras
go
further than his
predecessors
in
criticizing
the
"tyranny"
of the
age
in which he lived? He
may simply
have said what
they
could not afford to
say
in so
many
words:
writing
as a
monk,
in
exile,
he no
longer depended
on
imperial
favor.43 But it is also
possible
that the essential
difference lies in the fact that
he,
like
Choniates,
wrote with
experience
of
the Comnenian renovatio
imperii.
The Comnenian
period provides
one further
piece
of evidence for the
existence of antiabsolutist sentiments similar to those
expressed by
Choniates. It occurs in
John
Kinnamos' account of the fall of Theodore
Styppeiotes
(1158-59).44 Styppeiotes
was
epi
tou kanikleiou and
"grand
vizier"
(mesazon)
under Manuel
I,
and stood
high
in the
emperor's
favor until he
was accused of
having organized
a
conspiracy. According
to
Kinnamos,
he
had
proclaimed
like an oracle that Manuel's life would soon come to an
end,
and it would then be
necessary
for the senate to
give power
not to a
young
man,
but to a venerable
elderly figure,
"that the affairs of the
polity might
be
administered
by
him,
ruling by
the word
(logos)
as if in a
democracy."45
We
41
Zonaras,
Prooimion
1.1,
1:4-7.
42
Kekaumenos, NouO0zTIKOv ciS pa3cnta 1,
ed. B.
Wassiliewsky
and V.
Jernstedt (St.
Petersburg,
1896;
repr.
Amsterdam, 1965), p.
93;
ed. G. G. Litavrin
(Moscow, 1972), p.
274.
43 These facts
emerge
from his remarks in the
preface
and at the end of Book IX
(1:3-4;
2:297-98).
On the
dangers
of
criticizing
the
reigning emperor,
see
John Mauropous,
Poem
96,
ed. P. de
Lagarde, Abhandlungen
der
historisch-philologischen
Classe der
Koniglichen
Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu
Gottingen (G6ttingen,
1882;
repr.
Amsterdam, 1979), p.
50,
and G.
Weiss,
"Forschungen
zu den noch nicht edierten Schriften des Michael
Psellos,"
Byzan-
tina 4
(1972),
39-40
(discusses
an
unpublished
and
anonymous
text in Cod. Paris.
Suppl.
1188).
44Epitome
4.19,
ed. A. Meineke
(Bonn, 1836),
pp.
184-85,
trans. Charles M.
Brand,
Deeds
of
John
and Manuel Comnenus
(New York, 1976).
See also the detailed
analysis
of the
episode by
0.
Kresten,
"Zum Sturz des Theodoros
Styppeiotes," Jahrbuch
der isterreichischen
Byzantinistik
27
(1978),
49-103.
45 67oc KEIVOU
T
1O Xo6y
ap%ovTOg (jbg
V
6r1ToKpaTia1
T1
1T;g 1oktTliac;
jakXov 6toIKOtTo.
Kresten,
"Zum
Sturz,"
p.
57,
n.
32,
points
out the
inaccuracy
of Brand's translation of this
sentence,
but himself offers no
explanation
of what is meant
by
tz Xo6yp.
It
may
mean that the
333
Byzantine
Kaiserkritik
should,
of
course,
be cautious in
accepting
this
information,
since Choniates
gives quite
a different account of
Styppeiotes'
downfall:
according
to
him,
Styppeiotes
fell victim to the
intrigues
of a
jealous colleague.46
It is
possible
that what Kinnamos
reports
is a
charge trumped up
in order to
bring
the
minister down. But even if the
charge
were
completely
false,
it is
likely
that
the accusers would have tried to make it sound
realistic,
by alleging
treason-
able sentiments which had some basis in current discontent. Kinnamos men-
tions elsewhere that another
"conspirator"
of Manuel's
reign,
Alexios
Axouch,
was accused of
having
claimed that the
emperor
wanted to
destroy
the Greek
troops
in the
army;
this is credible in view of other evidence that
Manuel had a low
opinion
of his
countrymen.47
In
Styppeiotes'
case, too,
one
part
of the accusation
rings
true,
for there is some indication that Manuel's
youth
was held
against
him.48 This
suggests
that the other elements of the
alleged prophecy corresponded
to
contemporary
criticism of
Manuel, and
that there was
potential support
for a
plot
with aims such as Kinnamos
describes: the election of an older
(and
therefore less
bellicose?)
emperor,
and the establishment of a more
broadly
based
government,
in which men of
learning
would be
given
a
prominent
role.
It is
unlikely
that a real
democracy
in either the ancient or the modern
sense was
envisaged:
Kinnamos
may simply
have chosen his words in order
to discredit the
proposal,
for demokratia in the Middle
Byzantine period
acquired
the
meaning
of "turmoil" or "revolt."49
However,
educated
Byzan-
tines
may
not have been
unreceptive
to the ancient idea that the democratic
element was a
necessary component
of the ideal
constitution,
the "mixed
polity,"
which would combine the rule of
one,
the rule of the
best,
and the
rule of the
many.50
Kinnamos'
contemporary
Eustathios of Thessalonica
emperor
in
question
was to be bound
by
the written
law;
more
likely,
however,
is that
logos
refers to the consensus of learned
opinion,
and the cultivation of the arts of
peace
as
opposed
to
those of war: cf.
J.
Lefort,
"Rhetorique
et
politique:
Trois discours de
Jean Mauropous
en
1047,"
Travaux et memoires 6
(1976), 290-92,
299-303.
46
Choniates, pp.
110-13
(145-48); however,
in the
light
of Kresten's
study,
Kinnamos
appears
to be the more reliable
authority.
47
Kinnamos 6.6,
p.
268. Cf.
Choniates,
pp.
204-5
(267-68);
William of
Tyre
22.10,
Recueil
des historiens des
croisades,
Historiens occidentaux 1/2:1079-80.
48
Compare Choniates,
p.
219
(284-85),
and an encomium written
shortly
after Manuel's
accession to the throne in
1143,
where the author is at
pains
to
present
the
emperor's youth
as
an
advantage:
ed. P.
Gautier,
Michel Italikos: Lettres et
discours,
Archives de l'Orient Chretien 14
(Paris, 1972),
pp.
276-77.
49
Theophanes, Chronographia,
ed. C. de Boor
(Leipzig, 1883), 1:492; Attaleiates,
p.
53. Cf.
G.
Bratianu,
"Empire
et democratie a
Byzance," Byzantinische Zeitschrift
37
(1937), 87-91;
Speros Vryonis, Jr., "Byzantine
AHMOKPATIA and the Guilds in the Eleventh
Century,"
Dumbarton Oaks
Papers
17
(1963), 289-314,
repr.
in
Byzantium:
Its Internal
History
and Relations
with the Muslim World
(London, 1976),
pp.
305-6;
Alan
Cameron,
Circus Factions
(Oxford, 1976),
pp.
305-6.
50
See
below,
n. 101. On the "mixed constitution" in
antiquity,
see F. W.
Walbank,
Commentary
on
Polybius,
1
(Oxford, 1957),
pp.
638-41;
and Kurt von
Fritz,
The
Theory of
the Mixed Constitution
in
Antiquity (New York, 1954).
334
Byzantine
Kaiserkritik
describes the Christian order as a
"Trinity"
of
monarchy, aristocracy,
and
democracy,
in which the demos
represented
the element of free will.51 What
is remarkable is that Eustathios
goes beyond
the
literary
reminiscences and
mystical interpretations
and introduces a concrete
contemporary example.
The
only people,
he
says,
to have
preserved anything
like this constitution to
the
present
are the
Venetians,
with their
Doge
and consuls
(sic).
One won-
ders
why
he did
not, instead,
use the
analogy
of the
emperor,
senate,
and
people
of
Constantinople.
Did he consider this
analogy
too obvious to be
worth
drawing?
Or did he mean to
imply
that the
Byzantine polity
was less
well mixed than it could have been?
At all
events,
the evidence of Zonaras and Kinnamos is
unambiguous.
It is
important,
not
only
because it shows that there is more to Choniates' re-
marks than
personal
whim,
but also because it confirms that the sentiments
they express
were in circulation before he wrote
them,
that
is,
in the disas-
trous aftermath of Manuel's
reign.
One
might reasonably
have assumed that
he allowed his view of
Manuel,
and later
emperors,
to be colored
by
his
dissatisfaction at the course of events since
1180,
and that
he,
like the
eleventh-century
historians,
was
seeking
to
explain
disasters in terms of
imperial "tyranny."
The
assumption may yet
be valid.
However,
Choniates
himself
gives
the
impression
that the
Byzantines
criticized
Manuel,
and with
less restraint than he
does,
during
the
emperor's
lifetime.52 In view of the
evidence
just
considered,
it seems fair to conclude that the sentiments he
voices are those of the
opposition
to the Comnenian
emperors.
This is
indicated both
by
the case of
Styppeiotes
and
by
the text of
Zonaras,
who
criticizes
John
II as well as Alexios
I,
and wrote in circumstances which
suggest
that he had been
suspected
of involvement in a
conspiracy against
one of those
emperors.53
Kinnamos is no doubt
alluding
to Zonaras when he
writes,
in the
preface
to his
History,
that he need not deal with Alexios
I,
because his
reign
has been well described
"by
those historians who have not
written with
enmity
towards him."54
Zonaras also
gives
us clear indications as to the material basis of
hostility
to
the Comnenian
regime.
In
practical
terms,
he criticizes Alexios for the
emperor's
drastic
reforms, which,
as both
legal
and
literary
sources of the
period
show,
affected all
aspects
of
public
life.55 The
way
for these reforms
51
PG 136:717. Eustathios thus
anticipated by
more than two centuries a
commonplace
of
Renaissance humanism: see Felix
Gilbert,
"The Venetian Constitution in Florentine Political
1
hought,"
Florentine
Studies,
ed. Nicolai Rubinstein
(London, 1968),
pp.
463-500.
52
Choniates,
p.
203
(265).
53
Zonaras,
Prooimion
1, 1:3; 18.28.16-29.10,
3:761-64.
54
Kinnamos
1.1,
p.
5; the
expression
is
incorrectly
translated
by
Brand.
55 N. G.
Svoronos,
"L'epibole
a
l'epoque
des
Comnenes,"
Travaux et memoires 3
(1968), 375-95;
Armin
Hohlweg,
Beitrage
zur
Verwaltungsgeschichte
des ostromischen Reiches unter den Komnenen
(Munich, 1965);
Michael F.
Hendy,
Coinage
and Money in the
Byzantine Empire,
1081-1261
(Washington,
D.C., 1968),
Section 1; N.
Oikonomides,
"L'evolution de
l'organisation
administra-
335
336
Byzantine
Kaiserkritik
had been
prepared by
earlier
eleventh-century emperors, especially
the
Doukai,
and
they
were on the whole
justified by
the course of
political
events.56 As far as Zonaras was
concerned, however,
they
were
unpre-
cedented and
arbitrary
innovations,
whose main effect was to ruin the
"senators"57 and to
heap public
honors and resources
upon
a select
group
of
imperial
favorites and
relatives,
who were thus able to live like
emperors.
In
other
words,
what is criticized as "unconstitutional" is the new
system
of
rewards and honors introduced
by
Alexios and
developed by John
and
Manuel.58 As Kazhdan has
shown,
this
system
restructured the
top
of the
Byzantine
social
pyramid by dividing
the court
aristocracy
into two
fairly
distinct,
unequal groups
-
roughly speaking,
a
princely
"noblesse
d'epee"
and a senatorialbureaucratic "noblesse de robe."59 The first
group,
which
formed the
emperor's
inner
circle,
consisted of members of the extended
families of Komnenos and
Doukas,
distinguished by
titles of
imperial origin
which in a sense allowed their bearers a share in the
imperial majesty.60
This
group monopolized
the senior
military
commands,
and
although by
no
means
illiterate,
glorified hunting
and heroism.61 The most fortunate mem-
bers of the second
group occupied judicial
and administrative
posts,
and
were decorated either with those honorific titles which had survived from
the
tenth-century hierarchy
or with others which seem to have been revived
tive de
l'empire byzantin (1025-1118),"
Travaux et memoires 6
(1976), 125-52; Lemerle,
Cinq
etudes,
pp.
293
ff.;
C.
Morrisson,
"La
Logarike:
Reforme monetaire et reforme fiscale sous
Alexis
Ier Comnene,"
Travaux et memoires 7
(1979),
419-64.
56
The revival of
Byzantium
as a
major power
in the twelfth
century
was due
largely
to the
personal leadership
of
Alexios,
John,
and
Manuel,
but it is also
arguable
that,
in the short term
at
least,
the Comnenian
system provided
for
greater
internal
cohesion,
military efficiency,
and
even economic
prosperity:
see
Hohlweg, Beitrdge, passim;
and M. F.
Hendy, "Byzantium,
1081-1204: An Economic
Reappraisal,"
Transactions
of
the
Royal
Historical
Society (1970), pp.
31-52.
57
Synkletikoi.
Lemerle,
Cinq
etudes,
p.
287, writes,
"Etre
synkletikos,
c'est
appartenir
a la classe
supirieure
de la
societe,
en raison et en fonction de la
place occupee
dans la
hiirarchie
des
dignites."
However,
Zonaras seems not to have counted
military
officials as members of the
senate: Zonaras
18.28.22;
cf. Philotheos
atriklines,
ed.
Oikonomides,
p.
109; Psellos,
Chrono-
graphia
7.1,
ed.
Renauld,
2:83.
58
Hohlweg,
Beitrdge,
pp.
34-40; Oikonomides, "L'6volution,"
pp.
127-28.
59 A. P.
Kazhdan,
Sotsialnyi
sostav
gospodsvujeshchego
klassa Vizantii XI-XIIvv.
(Moscow, 1974);
French
summary by
I.
Sorlin,
Travaux et memoires 6
(1976),
367 ff.
60
I.e.,
the titles of sebastos
(first
"alienated"
by
Constantine
Monomachos), caesar,
and
sebastokrator
(invented
by
Alexios I for his brother
Isaac,
the title of caesar
having already
been
promised
to
Nikephoros
Melissenos):
see Anna
Comnena,
Alexiad
3.4.1,
ed. B.
Leib,
2nd ed.
(Paris, 1967), 1:113-14; Oikonomides, "L'ivolution,"
pp.
127-28.
61 The tastes of the Comnenian elite are reflected in the
"epic"
of
Digenis
Akritas,
which in
its
present
form
appears
to have been
produced
in
twelfth-century Constantinople:
see
N.
Oikonomides,
"L'
'epopee'
de
Digenis
et la frontiere orientale de
Byzance
aux Xe et XIe
siecles,"
Travaux et memoires 7
(1979), 375-98;
and E. M.
Jeffreys,
"The Comnenian
Background
to the Romans
d'Antiquite," Byzantion
50
(1980),
484.
Byzantine
Kaiserkritik
from the
early Byzantine period.62
The less fortunate were
obliged
to seek
service in
magnate
households.63
Among
the "noblesse de robe" were not
only
families which had
pursued
civil careers for
generations,
but also others
whose orientation before 1081 had been
entirely military.
There can be no doubt that all three of our critics
represented
the
"second-class"
aristocracy.
Zonaras had a civil
career,
as did other bearers of
his name in the twelfth
century.64 Styppeiotes belonged
to a former
military
family
which in terms of
status,
if not of
wealth,
had declined under the
Comneni.65 Choniates' case is
slightly
different,
since he was a newcomer to
Constantinople,
and his career there was a social advance for his
family.66
He also admired the noble soldier.67 He was nevertheless a
professional
bureaucrat,
and he married into an established civil
family,
that of Belis-
sareiotes. His
complaint
that Manuel had favored illiterate
foreigners
at the
expense
of learned Greeks shows where his
sympathies lay.68
Thus the "constitutionalism" of
Zonaras,
Styppeiotes,
and Choniates
may
be seen as the stand taken
by
those who felt cheated under the Comnenian
dynastic system
and
consequently
criticized the autocratic and
innovatory
policies
of the
emperors responsible. Autocracy
and innovation were all the
more
provocative
to those whom
they
failed to benefit in that
they
were
presented
as virtues
by
those who made it their rhetorical
duty
to cast the
emperor
in the best
possible light.
Thus for the
imperial
encomiasts and
biographers
of the
Komnenoi,
"innovation" meant the "renewal" of the
empire,69
and the
emperor
who strove to be
omnicompetent
was
fulfilling
62
Old titles:
curopalates,
nobellissimus;
revived titles:
megalodoxotatos
and
megalepiphanestatos
(derived
from Late Roman
gloriosissimus
and
illustrissimus,
and not to be found in
protocol
lists of
the tenth and eleventh
centuries).
The nature of the court
hierarchy
in the twelfth
century
is
well illustrated
by
the
synodal
lists of 1157 and 1166: PG
140:148, 152, 177-80, 236-37,
252-53.
63
Kinnamos
6.8,
pp.
275-76;
see the remarks of A. P. Kazhdan in Revue des etudes sud-est
europeennes
7
(1969), 469-73,
and cf. A.
Heisenberg,
ed.,
"Der
Epitaphios
des Nikolaos
Mesarites auf seinen Bruder
Johannes," Sitzungsberichte
der
Bayerischen
Akademie der Wissen-
schaften, philosophisch-philologische
und historische Klasse
(1922),
Heft
5,
p.
27.
64
Kazhdan,
Sotsialnyi
sostav,
pp.
135, 192,
206.
65
Kresten,
"Zum
Sturz,"
pp.
75-76,
81-84.
66
See
J.
L. Van
Dieten,
Niketas Choniates:
Erliuterungen
zu den
Briefen
und Reden nebst einer
Biographie
(Berlin, 1971),
pp.
8 ff.
67
Kazhdan,
Kniga
i
pisatelj, p.
98;
Sotsialnyi
sostav,
pp.
42-46.
68
Choniates,
p.
205
(267-68).
69
The theme of "renewal"
(anakainisis)
recurs
throughout
the
panegyrical
literature of Man-
uel's
reign;
Manuel's
exploits
and
policies
are hailed as "novel"
(kaina),
and one
encomiast,
"Pseudo-Prodromos,"
constantly
addresses Manuel as "renovator"
(kainourgos):
ed. S. Bernar-
dinello,
Theodori Prodromi de
Manganis (Padua, 1972),
no.
3,
11. 87
ff.;
no.
5,
11.
98-99;
on the
author,
see W.
Horandner, Jahrbuch
der
isterreichischen
Byzantinistik
24
(1975),
95-106. In two
still
unpublished
orations,
Eustathios of Thessalonica
develops,
a
propos
Manuel,
a theoretical
justification
of the
principle
of innovation: El
Escorial,
MS Gr.
Y-II-10,
fols.
169r,
368r.
337
Byzantine
Kaiserkritik
his
duty
to imitate Christ and sacrifice himself for his
subjects.70
At
any
rate,
one cannot fail to notice how the criticisms voiced
by
Zonaras and Choniates
contradict,
consciously
or
unconsciously,
statements made in encomia and in
the histories of Anna Comnena and Kinnamos. Anna
praises
her father for
having
been "an excellent
manager
in
peace
and war."71 Zonaras claims that
he behaved not as the oikonomos of the state but as its owner
(oikodespotes).
For
Anna,
Alexios created new titles because he was an
epistemonarches,
a master
of
statecraft,
the
highest
of all
sciences,
who knew how to innovate
(kainoto-
mein)
and invent
(epheurein)
in the state's
interest;72
for
Zonaras,
on the other
hand,
this
meddling
with the established order was what made Alexios
inadequate
as an
emperor.
Kinnamos states that Manuel
legislated
in order
to free those who had bound themselves to serve the rich and
powerful
for a
menial
wage,
because he wished to rule free
Romans,
not
slaves,73
and
according
to Manuel's
encomiasts,
his
costly
wars were
fought
for the "lib-
erty"
of his
subjects.74
Yet Choniates' most consistent
complaint against
Manuel is that he treated free men as slaves.75 He ridiculed the
emperors
of
his
day
for
aspiring
to
superhuman
wisdom and heroism
-
qualities
which
the rhetors of Manuel's
reign
had celebrated as the
emperor's
native charac-
teristics.
It
begins
to look as if the criticisms of Zonaras and Choniates were in some
sense the
arguments
used in rhetorical debate between the winners and the
losers at the Comnenian court. If
so,
we must
certainly
beware of
taking
their
arguments
more
seriously
than
they
were
meant,
and of
supposing
that
the losers had
anything
more radical in mind than a reversal of
roles,
under
an
emperor
who would surround himself with learned
men,
reward them
handsomely,
and take their advice
-
an
emperor
like Leo
VI,
without the
marital
problems,
or Constantine
IX,
without the
prodigality.
It is nevertheless
significant
for our
understanding
of the
political ideology
of the Comnenian
period
to realize that while the
imperial
establishment
found
support
in the Eusebian doctrine of the Christlike
ruler,
the
opposi-
tion looked
beyond
this
basically
Hellenistic
complex
of ideas to more
"classical" notions of the
"public"
nature of the state and the
"liberty"
of the
70 Theodore
Prodromos,
ed. W.
Horandner,
Historische Gedichte
(Vienna, 1974),
no.
30,
p.
359; Eustathios,
ed. W.
Regel,
Fontes rerum
Byzantinarum,
1
(St. Petersburg,
1892),
pp.
5-6, 33;
Euthymios
Malakes,
ed. K.
Bonis,
in
Theologia
20
(Athens, 1949), 524-58,
especially
543-44,
555-56.
71 Alexiad
14.7.9,
ed.
Leib,
3:177.
72
Ibid.
3.4,
1:114-15.
73
See
above,
n.
63;
also Eustathios of
Thessalonica,
Funeral Oration
for
Manuel
I,
ed. T. L. F.
Tafel, Eustathii
opuscula (Frankfurt
am
Main, 1832;
repr.
Amsterdam, 1964),
p.
200.
74
Michael the
Rhetor,
ed.
Regel,
Fontes, 1:181;
Euthymios
Malakes,
ed.
Bonis,
p.
550;
Pseudo-Prodromos,
ed.
Bernardinello,
no.
6,1.
252.
75
Above,
pp.
326-27.
Although contrary,
the
judgments
of Kinnamos and Choniates on this
point may perhaps
be seen as reflections of a
single phenomenon, namely,
the
growth
of feudal
patterns
of servitude at all levels of
society.
See
Kazhdan,
Sotsialnyi
sostav,
pp.
237 ff.
338
Byzantine
Kaiserkritik
citizen. It is
interesting
that such notions should have become
topoi
of
Byzan-
tine Kaiserkritik in the twelfth
century,
after five hundred
years
in which
emperors
had been
judged according
to their
orthodoxy,
their
morality,
and
their
competence,
and in which the state had been
governed successfully
on
the
assumption
that the
emperor
as
"living
law"
(empsychos
nomos)76
had the
right
to
regulate
the
existing
order
(taxis) through dispensation
(oikonomia)
as
he
thought
the
public
interest
required.77
Why
did
twelfth-century
critics feel
justified
in
making
the
very
different
assumption
that
contemporary emperors
had not
merely
abused their
right
of
oikonomia,
but
usurped
the
right
of
ownership (despoteia)
which did not
belong
to them? Was this
assumption
based on
any authority
other than that
of custom and unwritten tradition? Did the distinction between
imperial
and
public
interests have
any contemporary validity, except
insofar as it
belonged
to the
everyday language
of
public
life,
and was embedded in the structure
of the
state,
for
example,
in the formal acclamation of the
emperor by
senate
and
people,78
and in the historic division between domanial and fiscal admin-
istration?79
On the one
hand,
there is some indication that the
Byzantines
were
conscious of
having
"constitutional
rights"
of a kind.
According
to
Psellos,
the
judicially
minded
emperor
Constantine X "used to
say concerning
those
who
conspired against
him that he would not
deprive
them of their rank and
wealth,
but would treat them as servants
bought
for
money
rather than as
free men. 'For I have not taken
away
their
freedom,
but it is the laws which
have excluded them from the
polity.'
"80 When Alexios I made over to his
brother,
Adrian
Komnenos,
the
rights
of the fisc in Kassandra
(Chalkidike),
where the
monastery
of the Great Lavra owned
property,
the monks
sought
a
guarantee
that
they
would not be reduced to the status of
dependents
(paroikoi).81 Pachymeres
records of the
thirteenth-century emperor John
Vatatzes that he
reproved
his son Theodore for
"wearing gold"
while hunt-
ing,
because the
imperial insignia represented
the blood of his
subjects,
and
should be worn
only
for the
purpose
of
impressing foreign
ambassadors
with the
people's
wealth. "For the wealth of
emperors
is held to be the
wealth of their
subjects,
for which reason the latter consider that to submit in
76
The
concept
is of Hellenistic
origin:
A.
Steinwenter,
"NOMOE EMTYXOE: Zur Ge-
schichte einer
politischen
Theorie,"
Anzeiger
der Osterreichischen Akademie der
Wissenschaften,
philosophisch-historische
Klasse 83
(Vienna, 1946), 250-68;
Francis
Dvornik,
Early
Christian and
Byzantine
Political
Philosophy,
2 vols.
(Washington,
D.C., 1966),
1:245-48.
77
On taxis and
oikonomia,
see
Ahrweiler,
L'idBologie politique, pp.
141 ff.
78
Beck,
"Senat und
Volk,"
pp.
29-36.
79
Oikonomides,
"L'evolution de
l'organisation
administrative,"
pp.
140-41.
80
Psellos,
Chronographia,
ed.
Renauld,
2:151.
81
Actes de
Lavra,
ed. P.
Lemerle,
A.
Guillou,
and N.
Svoronos,
1
(Paris, 1970),
no.
46,
p.
250;
F.
Dolger, Regesten
der Kaiserurkunden des ostromischen Reiches von
565-1453,
2
(Munich, 1925),
no. 1118.
339
Byzantine
Kaiserkritik
servitude to others is
greatly
to be
abjured."82
There is in all these cases the
implication
that
"liberty"
was to be valued for its own
sake,
and
lay
not
merely
in the fact of
legal emancipation,
or in the
possession
of wealth and
status,
but also in the
emperor's recognition
of a distinction between that
which was due to the state and that which was due to himself or his
representative.
The criticisms of Zonaras and Choniates would thus seem to
have been based on a traditional
conception
of the conditional nature of
imperial power.
On the other
hand,
it is difficult to see how this
conception
could have had
any
basis in the written
legal
tradition.
Zonaras,
himself a
jurist,
indeed
makes clear that it is
disregard
of custom to which he
objects.83
The
Corpus
iuris is
hardly
a
blueprint
for a constitutional
monarchy,84 except
to the
extent that it documents the historical evolution of Roman
legislation,
which
becomes less and less clear in the successive
abridgments
and manuals of the
Byzantine
tradition.85
Byzantine legal
commentators of the eleventh and
twelfth centuries were more or less aware of the historical
origin
of fiscal
land as
ager publicus,
and the administrative division between this and the
emperor's private
domain became of
legal significance
when
parts
of either
were
alienated,
but the
emperor
and the fisc were not
distinguished
as
legal
persons.86 Only paragons
of
imperial
virtue seem to have
recognized
the
principle
that the ruler should "live off his own."87 Leo
VI,
who has been
described as an
"enlightened despot," expressed
ideas about the
relationship
of law to custom and common consent with which Zonaras must have
agreed;88
he also
stated,
"It is
permitted
to those who have received the
oikonomia of
worldly
affairs from God to administer above the level of the
law which
governs subjects."89
82
Pachymeres,
De Michaele
1.23,
ed.
Bekker,
pp.
68-69.
83
Above,
nn.
20, 22,
25.
84
It contains statements to this effect:
Digest
1.4.1;
Const. Deo auctore 7. See E.
Chrysos,
"The
Title
Baateix6q
in
Early Byzantine
International
Relations,"
Dumbarton Oaks
Papers
32
(1978),
64-67.
85
However,
the main lines of it were clear to Michael Attaleiates in the 1070s: see his
Ponema,
ed.
Zepos,
7:415-16.
86
Peira
36.2.12,
ed.
Zepos,
4:142-43, 145;
Constantine
(H)Armenopoulos,
Hexabiblos 1.2.38
schol.,
ed. G. E. Heimbach
(Leipzig,
1851;
repr.
Aalen, 1969),
pp.
44-45:
excerpt
from the
twelfth-century Ecloga
basilicorum
(ad
Basilica
2.2.15),
itself
partly
derived from
Theophilos
Antecessor
2.1.40,
ed.
Zepos,
3:65. I am
grateful
to Dr.
Ludwig Burgmann,
who is
editing
the
Ecloga
basilicorum,
for these last two references.
87
I.e.,
Basil I and
John
III: see
above,
n. 30.
88
G.
Michaelides-Nouaros,
"Les idees
philosophiques
de Leon le
Sage
sur les limites du
pouvoir legislatif
et son attitude envers les
coutumes," 'E7tirltlovtK1i 'ElceTllpiS;
Tr
EXokf;
NOItKCOV K1ai OiKOVOIttKOV 'Ec1tiaTncov
TO I
navlcvarlCxtiou OeaooaoviKrS; (Mvrq6aovvov
T.
Btiou)Kidou) (Thessalonica, 1960-63),
pp.
25-54. The Novels of Leo are edited
by
P. Noailles
and A.
Dain,
Les Novelles de Leon le
Sage:
Texte et traduction
(Paris, 1944).
89 Novel 109.
340
Byzantine
Kaiserkritik
341
The
Byzantine jurist
who comes closest to
expressing
a
theory
of limited
monarchy
is Demetrios
Chomatenos,
chartophylax
and
archbishop
of Ochrid
(1215-36).
In one of his
IIovjCtlaa 6td(popa,
a
reply
to an
enquiry
from
the western Greek ruler Theodore Komnenos
Doukas,
he
justifies judicial
execution if the ruler orders it for the common
good (koinophelos):
For the
emperor
is the
equivalent
of
God,
wielding earthly authority,
and
just
as
when God
punishes,
he
punishes
for the common
good,
and not for his
private
advantage (idiophelos),
and in no
way transgresses
the laws of the
gospel
of
peace
which he has
established,
so the
emperor,
if he
punishes,
inasmuch as he is
emperor, punishes
for the common
good
and,
so to
speak,
in imitation of God
(theomimetos).
9 But if he
avenges
himself as a
private
individual,
that
is,
if he
punishes
to
indulge
his own
passion,
it is not for the
public,
and in this he is
breaking
the
law,
as has been said. The same is to be considered in
respect
of
wealth,
for the
emperor
does not have this for his own
convenience,
but for that of
his
subjects,
and in
general every person
who is
appointed
to rule is
obliged
to
possess
wealth not for himself but for those whom he
rules,
that it
may
thence flow
forth to them or for them as the occasion arises.91
These remarks do show a clear
conception
of the distinction between the
public
and
private capacities
of the
emperor.
Yet the distinction is left to
the ruler's
conscience;
the
arguments
used are those of the "mirror of
princes,"92
and the "laws" which
apply
are Kekaumenos' "laws of
piety."93
Elsewhere,
Chomatenos reveals that
Byzantine jurists,
himself
included,
found it
necessary
to
qualify
the maxim that the
emperor
was not bound
by
the
laws; however,
the
interpretation
he cites in no
way
affects the
emperor's
authority
outside matters of
judicial procedure.94
If the
imperial
critics of the twelfth
century required
written
authority,
they
are more
likely
to have found it in the traditional Greek
philosophical
and
literary
distinction between
kingship
(basileia)
and
tyranny,
and
espe-
cially
in certain works which had
applied
these terms to the Christian Roman
Empire: Synesios'
De
regno,95
and the
writings
of
sixth-century
authors who
90
On the
emperor
as "imitator of
God,"
see Herbert
Hunger,
Prooimion: Elemente der
byzan-
tinischen Kaiseridee in den
Arengen
der Urkunden
(Vienna, 1964),
pp.
58-63.
91
No.
110,
ed.
J.
B.
Pitra,
Analecta sacra et classica
spicilegio
Solesmensi,
6
(Paris, 1891;
repr.
1967),
cols. 473-78. A new edition is in
preparation by
Gunther
Prinzing.
Chomatenos' works
are the
subject
of an
unpublished
Ph.D. thesis
by
Andrew G.
Jameson (Harvard, 1957).
92
See P.
Hadot,
article
"Furstenspiegel,"
in Reallexicon
fur
Antike und
Christentum,
8
(Stuttgart,
1972),
cols. 555-631.
93
Above,
p.
333,
n. 42. cf. Nicholas
Kataskepenos,
ed. E.
Sargologos,
La vie de Saint
Cyrille
le
Phileote moine
byzantin,
Subsidia
Hagiographica
39
(Brussels, 1964),
p.
229.
94
Chomatenos,
ed.
Pitra,
col. 458.
95
Synesios, nIIpi PaoatXiaq 6, 16-17,
ed. N.
Terzaghi, Synesii Cyrenensis
opuscula (Rome, 1944),
pp.
13-15,
31-42
(=
PG
66:1061-64,
1077
ff.);
French translation and
commentary by
C. Lacombrade
(Paris, 1951).
On the
background,
see
Dvornik,
Early
Christian and
Byzantine
Political
Philosophy,
2:699
ff.;
G.
Dagron, "L'empire
romain d'Orient au IVe siecle et les tradi-
tions
politiques
de
l'Hellenisme,"
Travaux et memoires 3
(1968),
121-46.
342
Byzantine
Kaiserkritik
had reacted more or less
critically
to the autocratic
theory
and
practice
of
Justinian.96 Procopius provided
a model for criticism of the
tyrannical,
innovating emperor
who
despised
his Greek
subjects.97 Evagrios
Scholastikos
had
questioned
the value of
imperial philanthropy
which was
paid
for
at
public expense.98
John
the
Lydian
had stated that a basileus should
be
completely
bound
by
the
law,
and declared that
nothing
was more hateful
to
the Romans than
despoteia;99
he had also hinted that the monarchical
insignia
and the land tax introduced
by
Diocletian were
tyrannical
innovations.100
An
anonymous
author had
composed
a treatise
advocating
a mixed
constitu-
tion,101
and
John Philoponos
had
gone
so far as to
suggest
that monarchical
government
was not of divine
origin.102
Zonaras and Choniates and their like-minded
contemporaries may
well
have drawn their
opinions
from some of these authors.
They may
also have
been affected
by
their
reading
of more ancient texts. If an
eleventh-century
commentator of Aristotle could
apply
some of the statements of the Politics
to his own
times,103
it was
certainly
not
impossible
for a
twelfth-century
historian to have based his criticism of
contemporary emperors
on his
96
On
Byzantine political thought
of the sixth
century
in
general,
see Ernest
Barker,
Social and
Political
Thought
in
Byzantium (Oxford, 1957),
pp.
54-80; Dvornik,
Early
Christian and
Byzantine
Political
Philosophy,
2:706-23;
P.
Henry
III,
"A Mirror for
Justinian:
The Ekthesis of
Agapetus
Diaconus," Greek,
Roman and
Byzantine
Studies 8
(1967),
281-313.
97
Procopius, Anecdota,
passim, especially
11.1-2, 24.7,
and
30.26,
ed.
J. Haury,
rev. G.
Wirth,
Opera
omnia
(Leipzig,
1963), 3:70, 147,
184-85. On
Procopius
as Kaiserkritiker and his
possible
influence on
twelfth-century
historians,
see
Rubin, ZeitalterJustinians,
pp.
197-226, 234-44,
esp.
240;
and
Tinnefeld,
Kategorien
der
Kaiserkritik,
pp.
17
ff.,
180-93. But cf. Averil
Cameron,
"Early Byzantine
Kaiserkritik: Two Case
Histories,"
Byzantine
and Modern Greek Studies 3
(1977),
1-17,
for the view that the
importance
of
Procopius
has been overrated.
98 Historia ecclesiastica
4.30,
ed.
J.
Bidez and L. Parmentier
(London, 1898;
repr.
Amsterdam,
1964),
pp.
178-79.
99
De
magistratibus 1.3.6,
ed. R. Wuensch
(Leipzig, 1903),
pp.
9-10, 12;
cf.
Procopius,
Anecdota
30.26,
ed.
Haury-Wirth,
3:185.
100
De
magistratibus
1.4.
Synesios
had also criticized the "barbarian"
splendor
with which the
emperors
of his
day
surrounded themselves
(De
regno
15-17,
ed.
Terzaghi, pp.
31
ff.;
PG
66:1077
ff.).
One
may
note that Zonaras was
fully
aware of the
significance
of Diocletian's
adoption
of
gold
and
jewelled insignia (12.31, 2:617),
and that
"wearing gold"
was one of the
imperial
characteristics of which Choniates
disapproved (above,
n.
5).
101
Fiepi lCOkvTIKxtc 7ItirLTR, fragments
ed. A.
Mai,
Scriptorum
veterum nova
collectio,
2
(Rome,
1827),
pp.
197-246. See
Barker,
Social and Political
Thought, pp.
63
ff.; Dvornik,
Early
Christian
and
Byzantine
Political
Philosophy,
2:706-7;
C.
Behr,
"A New
Fragment
of Cicero's De
republica,"
American
Journal of Philology
95
(1974), 141-49;
Hunger,
Die
hochsprachliche profane
Literatur,
1:
300-305, who
accepts
the identification of this
piece
with that described
by
Photius,
Bibliotheca
37,
ed. R.
Henry,
1
(Paris, 1959),
p.
22. On this
question
see also the
important
article
by
Angelos
Fotiou,
"Dicaearchus and the Mixed Constitution in
Sixth-Century Byzantium," Byzan-
tion 51
(1981),
533-47.
102
De
opificio
mundi,
ed. W.
Reichardt,
Scriptores
sacri et
profani, i
(Leipzig,
1909),
p.
263;
Dvornik, 2:711-12.
103 Scholia of Michael of
Ephesos,
ed.
O.
Immisch at the back of his edition of the Politics
(Leipzig, 1909),
pp.
313, 315, 324;
see
Barker,
Social and Political
Thought, pp.
139-41.
Byzantine
Kaiserkritik
knowledge
of Roman
history.
Zonaras
may
be a case in
point.
He had read
Plutarch and as much of Dio Cassius as he could
obtain,104
and he makes
Roman
history
an
integral part
of his Weltchronik. In the
preface
he states his
intention to describe the evolution of the Roman constitution.105 At the end
of Book IX he
expresses regret
that he did not have the "ancient histories"
to hand in order to narrate the
history
of Rome under the consuls and
dictators, "so
passing unwillingly
over these
topics,
I shall recount the affairs
of the
emperors,
but
giving
a few words of
introduction,
that it
may
be clear
to readers of
my history
how the Romans were
brought
to
'autarchy'
from
aristocracy
and/or
democracy."106
That his
knowledge
of ancient Roman
history may
have influenced his attitude to his own
society
seems not im-
plausible
in view of a
passage
in his work where he summarizes
Skylitzes'
account of the revolt of Bardas Skleros
against
Basil II:
relating
how the
protovestiarios
Leo was sent with full
power
to
negotiate
with the
rebel,
he
remarks,
"in the Latin
tongue
one would have called the man a dictator."107
Zonaras'
attempt
to make the essentials of Roman
history
more accessible
to
Byzantine
readers
corresponds
to a wider
literary
revival of interest in
things
Roman which can be discerned in other works of the late eleventh
and twelfth centuries.108 This Roman
antiquarianism may
have had some-
thing
to do with the revival of "academic"
legal
studies under Constantine
IX;
it was also not
unconnected,
at least in its later
stages,
with the
political
need to assert the
supremacy
and
pedigree
of the New Rome in the face of
the
expansion
of Latin
Europe.109
Indeed,
the
Byzantine
interest in Roman
antecedents is
perhaps
best understood when it is seen as
having developed
104
On Zonaras's use of Dio
Cassius,
see
Ziegler, Pauly-Wissowa
article,
cols. 728-29.
105
Zonaras,
Prooimion
4,
1:12-14.
106
Ibid.
9.31,
2:297-98.
107
Ibid.
17.5.24, 3:542;
cf.
Skylitzes,
ed.
Thurn,
p.
320.
108
Ancient Rome was
evidently
much in
vogue
at the court of the Doukas
emperors, espe-
cially
Michael VII
(1071-78).
See the
preface
to Attaleiates' Ponema (ed.
Zepos,
7:415-16);
Psellos'
Synopsis legum
with its obsolete
Latinisms,
ed. G.
Weiss,
Fontes
minores,
2
(Frankfurt,
1977),
pp.
147-214; and,
above
all,
the
summary
of a
large
section of Dio Cassius
by John
Xiphilinos,
a
nephew
of the
patriarch
of that name: Cassii Dionis Cocceiani historiarum Romanarum
quae supersunt,
ed. U. P.
Boissevain,
3
(Berlin, 1891),
pp.
479-709. The letters and Chiliads of
John
Tzetzes,
who seems to have
thought
of himself as a
latter-day
Cato the
Younger,
are full of
Roman embellishments drawn
mainly
from Dio Cassius.
Bogus
Roman
genealogies
also became
fashionable in this
period:
Kazhdan,
Sotsialnyi
sostav,
p.
54.
109
Such assertion is evident in the
slightly
later world chronicle of Constantine
Manasses,
which echoes the
political propaganda
of Manuel I: see E. M.
Jeffreys,
"The Attitudes of
Byzantine
Chroniclers Towards Ancient
History," Byzantion
49
(1979), 199-238,
especially
202-7.
Jeffreys
notes that Manasses
virtually skips
the whole of Roman
Republican history
and
suggests by way
of
explanation
that the institutions of the ancient
city
state must have been
"almost
incomprehensible
when viewed from the centre of the
Byzantine
world
empire
in the
twelfth
century" (p. 207).
This view is difficult to reconcile with Zonaras' evident interest in and
understanding
of the Roman constitution.
Perhaps
more to the
point
is that Manasses was
writing
for
patrons
who
belonged
to the
imperial family
(ibid., 202-3;
see the
opening
lines of
the
chronicle,
and 11.
2546-52).
343
Byzantine
Kaiserkritik
parallel,
and in reaction
to,
the far more
thorough
Roman revival which was
taking place
in the West.110 Both revivals were
motivated,
in different
ways,
by
the need to bolster the
imperial monarchy.
In
Italy,
however,
on this and
later
occasions,
the
quest
for the
imperial past inevitably
came
up against
the
fact that the
imperial monarchy
had
originated
in a transfer of
power
from
the
people
and senate.1l Is it
impossible
that a similar
process
took
place
in
twelfth-century Byzantium,
mutatis
mutandis,
and that the
imperial
renovatio
of official literature was
accompanied by
an unofficial renovatio more or less
senatorial in character?
Naturally, any
Roman revival in
Byzantium
was bound to be emasculated
by
Greek distrust of
Westerners,
and
by
the
disappearance
of Latin as a
learned
language
in
Constantinople.
The twelfth
century
was also the
period
when
Byzantine
intellectuals
began
to call themselves Hellenes.112 Their
Rome was the Rome of
Polybius,
Plutarch,
Dio
Cassius,
and
John
the
Lydian,
not that of
Cicero,
Livy,
Tacitus,
and
Cassiodorus;
their democratic and
aristocratic traditions were those of the Hellenistic
megalopolis;113
their revival
was the revival of an earlier renovatio a la
grecque,
that of
Justinian
and his
age,
itself
experienced through
the filter of the "Macedonian Renaissance."
Within these
limits, however,
they
were
capable
of
identifying
with Roman
antiquity.
As
regards
their Western
contemporaries, they
were
perhaps
bet-
ter aware than is
usually
assumed that
they
had not
only
their
religion,
but
also their laws and institutions in common with the "Italians."114
They
were
also aware that the social
organization
of the Latins was
superior
to their
own. Eustathios of Thessalonica could see
something
to be admired in the
constitution of Venice.115 Michael Choniates wrote, "Now . .. one
may
see
Celts, Germans,
and Italians
making speeches
in an
orderly
manner and
holding
assemblies with
dignity,
but
[one sees]
the
Hellenes,
whose education
governs
them as far as
speech
and
gait
are
concerned,
all but
raving
and
making
their conventions for common deliberation
unruly,
and for that
reason hateful to men of
any
sense."116 Theodore Balsamon had to admit
that Latin monks adhered to the rules of communal
living
much more
strictly
than their Greek
counterparts.17
Each one of these remarks
by
Byzantines
of the late twelfth
century
is not in itself of
great significance.
Yet
taken
together,
and added to Niketas Choniates'
"unbyzantine"
comments,
110
Percy
E.
Schramm, Kaiser,
Rom und Renovatio
(Leipzig,
1929),
1:251-301.
111 Ferdinand
Gregorovius,
Geschichte der Stadt Rom im
Mittelalter,
book
8,
chs. 3
ff.,
and book
11,
chs. 3
ff.;
Robert L.
Benson,
"Political Renovatio: Two Models from Roman
Antiquity,"
Renaissance and Renewal in the
Twelfth Century,
ed. Robert L. Benson and Giles Constable
(Cambridge,
Mass., 1982),
pp.
339-86.
112
Lechner,
Hellenen und
Barbaren,
pp.
56 ff.
113
Beck,
"Senat und
Volk,"
pp.
22-29.
114
George Acropolites, Opera,
ed. A.
Heisenberg (Leipzig,
1903;
rev. ed.
Stuttgart,
1978),
2:64.
115
Above,
n. 51.
116
Michael Choniates, ed.
Sp.
P.
Lampros, MtXakL
'AKoltvdcoi
to
o
Xovwtdlto) ta
acor6gova
(Athens, 1879-80;
repr. Groningen,
1968),
1:183.
117
Theodore
Balsamon,
Commentary
on Canon 48
of
the Council
of Carthage,
PG 138:176.
344
Byzantine
Kaiserkritik
they
constitute evidence for a serious internal intellectual
challenge
to the
East Roman
system,
or lack of
it,
on the eve of the Fourth Crusade. Of
course,
self-deprecation
was in order at a time when it
may
have seemed that
God was
rewarding
the barbarians for their
superior
virtue;
all the more
significant,
therefore,
that virtue was seen in terms of
public organization,
and not
simply
of
private morality
and
judicial incorruptibility.
Moreover,
the
challenge
does not seem to have been
purely
academic. The
events of 1204 led to the
emergence,
in the exile to Asia
Minor,
of an
imperial system
which
corresponded
much more
closely
to the ideal of
Zonaras and Choniates
(as
historian)
than to that of the
twelfth-century
encomiasts. The
attempt
to resurrect the latter ideal after 1261 was
arguably
one of the factors which
compromised
the success of the
Palaiologan
restora-
tion.
Beck has
posed
the
question
"... whether beside the
imperial
ideal in
Byzantium,
and in latent
competition
with
it,
there were not also theoretical
considerations,
perhaps
in the area of
political theory,
or
law,
or also of the
economy,
which
betray
some sort of
conception
of the state
tending
towards
the
imperial
ideal
yet challenging any attempt
to
legitimize
an
imperial
L'etat
c'est
moi,
such as is not
infrequently projected
onto
Byzantium
from the
seventeenth
century.
The
question
is
relevant,
because it seems
improbable
that in a state which made monarchical absolutism the measure of all
politi-
cal
business,
and
yet
which was
always violating
this ideal
by
constant
revolt,
there were not also considerations aimed at
justifying
revolution, i.e.,
at
constructing
a
complex
of ideas
incompatible
with the
emperor's
claim to
absolutism."'18 The evidence discussed in this
paper perhaps
allows us to
answer this
question positively.
If the "alternative"
ideology
found
expres-
sion in
literary
rather than
legal
texts,
this is no
argument against taking
it
seriously,
for the
Justinianic
conception
of the
political
order could
hardly
be
challenged
from within the
Justinianic
legal
tradition. In
any
case,
written
law was
only
one
aspect
of
authority
in
Byzantium.
Without rhetoric it was a
dead letter119
-
and the
"double-tongued
rhetor"120 could
always argue
the
other side of the case. As a
holy
man of Alexios I's
acquaintance
remarked,
books were for
saying
all the
things
that an
emperor's
friends dared not
say
to his face.121
UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS
18
Beck,
"Res Publica
Romana,"
p.
12.
119
Psellos,
Encomium to
John, Metropolitan of
Euchaita,
ed. K.
Sathas,
MeaalcovtKl
Btlpto0nlKrl
5
(Venice-Paris, 1876;
repr.
Hildesheim, 1972),
p.
149;
cf. the Novel of Constantine
IX,
com-
posed by John Mauropous, establishing
the law school at the
Mangana
(104),
ed.
Lagarde,
no.
187,
p.
200;
ed.
Zepos,
1:625. See
Barker,
Social and Political
Thought, p.
133;
Dieter
Simon,
Rechtsfindung
am
byzantinischen Reichsgericht
(Frankfurt
am
Main, 1973), passim;
Lemerle.
Cinq
etudes,
p.
210.
120 The
expression
is
John
Tzetzes': Chiliads
7,
1.
299,
ed. P. A. M. Leone
(Naples,
1968),
p.
267
(Otlopog &a9poTepoyc6aaouv).
121 Nicholas
Kataskepenos, Life of
Saint
Cyril
Phileotes
26.2,
ed.
Sargologos, p.
119; d&irp
oi
(piXot gong paottaiXeOv
o6
OappoiOat tapaltvev,
taiOa v
TOg
3it3Xioit
yypatixal.
345
Byzantine
Kaiserkritik
APPENDIX
Examples
of
John
Zonaras' Use of Sources
1. BASIL II
Psellos,
ed.
Renauld,
1:18
6 O
palotebf;
BacTito; re6a TE
a'ka Kaara
7okflv
U7LEpoViaV
TOV
TrnlKO6COV
68pa,
Kait o VVK
Evoiat; 1adkov i1 (p6potI TflV
apZjv
avuzD
oocpapoTcpav
(d; ar06)g;
lteTiOeEo
o*
T05;
6
Tzect TnpoCoTl0Ei
Kai
eIEpav adtavTcOv
CTUVEtirk(p, axpooScyE/
(oCTREp zT6v
CoopcOTrpOV ET7zyXaVev
(OV.
AToz;
yoOv ipXE
Kcai Tz&v
poueugdazov,
acT6;
G 8tetqi
Kai
rx
oTpaTxC6ea
'* T6 0
noLITIKOtv oV tp6s; to;s
7yEpapCggvoUv
v6oou;, akkxa
p6;
tob;
& ayp6(pou; Tq;
auTo5
E(puECxTaT6xrq K9ppVa V%uZf.
2. CONSTANTINE IX
Skylitzes,
ed.
Thurn,
p.
476
MovaCoyTfptov
8i
oiKoSopogv
6
paoitLe;
cKata
a
Ex 7y6pevca M6yyava
... &
cpEt6S;
Tr
8qo$7cfLfa
KaTavakicKOv v eV Tat
oiKoSopati Xprbtara.
...
3. ISAAC I
Psellos,
ed.
Renauld,
2:119
T6ov
dyp
6avo
Paotikcov,
a6;
Iot 7Tod6KK;t
EicprqTat,
TO;
pacotLtioi; 0rocyaupoo; Ei;
Taxd oiKtcias;
a&avkLouvTcov
i7;1tOucag,
Tat; TE
SqgoCyiot; CouvEt(cpopatq;
oViK
Eis
oTxpaTlOTIKx0t CrtVTacE1;
&0nCozp1c0pvCV,
&aL'
Eit; TcotitKd;
%aptitaq
c ai
kaCTcp6xotlTa [and monasteries]
.. . .
Pgv dTa
T6v
&avacKT6powv
&nosoKevoDvT
Tactela, txda
&
TK;
rqocTioou;
aK&:poT0t ptiaovt Tv
vKOIV)v
oCTveCTcpopv &poppAq
....
Zonaras,
ed.
Pinder,
3:561
To)
p6vpq
yap Kai cTa c
viK(cat
a&Tcavrcv
KaTxeTCtpOei; 7CEpo7tlKco; tCp6; 7cvTavc;
68etiKVDTo ai OVK
EoDvoev avct),
(pofpEtCoat
'
Ep0o6Txo
T6
xTCqKcoov,
Kai
T6
TE CTpaTlcOTlKOV
C6
TE TCOkITIKOV Ou
xcp6;
T6
KpaTfCTav
EOo;, 6
Kai
v6piov
OOK'ev T0ot
vogo0ETau;t TETTClaTcTat,1
SteCa6yev 0EkEV,
akkda
xp6;
Triv
oiKEiav KpiCTlv
Kai T6
Okrgcta
EavTOO.
Zonaras,
3:646-47
Kai
TTlV
pgoviv Tilv
Tc)v
Mayyavov
oiKo0oo)v ...
v.
.
EVTrqC TOV0i
pao-Lreiovq
) KOlVOV
07)ocravpovi
....
Zonaras,
3:667
Tcov
xp6O
acToi
pacyticov,
6cot ol xTa
TOv
n7op(pupoy7vvqTov
E
KEYVOV Baoietlov
Ti;S pacLteciaq ECx;3prlav,
ov KcakL6)
XploaCLTavcov Totv; rqiooiot;
Kai
KotvoIt
xpayyaCotv,
aLa ta t 15v Ei; oiKtlFia
a&okaCh6aet Kai
eit
adCTK1rTqpiov
KaTacTnaIrao6TvTcov
oiKo6o~ag; ,
ra
CopoOut!voV
olt ETuxcv i Two; otcycEp
;po6kovTo,
oi
paotktKoi o0crCaupoi
icKKKcVCoVTo Kcai ax 6Ta
oqg6oC
a
tpuvaveta
XPlg6aTOV Tondavtlov....
1
Cf. Basilica 2.1.41.
346