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Emperor John II Komnenos: Rebuilding New Rome 1118-1143
Oxford Studies in Byzantium consists of scholarly monographs and editions on the history, literature, thought, and material culture of the Byzantine world.
Theodoros Prodromos: Miscellaneous Poems
An Edition and Literary Study
Nikos Zagklas
John Zonaras’ Epitome of Histories
A Compendium of Jewish-Roman History and Its Reception
Theofili Kampianaki
Symeon Stylites the Younger and Late Antique Antioch
From Hagiography to History
Lucy Parker
Homer the Rhetorician
Eustathios of Thessalonike on the Composition of the Iliad
Baukje van den Berg
Depicting Orthodoxy in the Russian Middle Ages
The Novgorod Icon of Sophia, the Divine Wisdom
Ágnes Kriza
The Beginnings of the Ottoman Empire
Clive Foss
Church Architecture of Late Antique Northern Mesopotamia
Elif Keser Kayaalp
Byzantine Religious Law in Medieval Italy
James Morton
Caliphs and Merchants
Cities and Economies of Power in the Near East (700–950)
Fanny Bessard
Social Change in Town and Country in Eleventh-Century Byzantium
James Howard-Johnston
Innovation in Byzantine Medicine
The Writings of John Zacharias Aktouarios (c.1275–c.1330)
Petros Bouras-Vallianatos
Emperors and Usurpers in the Later Roman Empire Civil War, Panegyric, and the Construction of Legitimacy
Adrastos Omissi
The Universal History of Stepʻanos Tarōnecʻi
Introduction, Translation, and Commentary
Tim Greenwood
The Letters of Psellos Cultural Networks and Historical Realities
Edited by Michael Jeffreys and Marc D. Lauxtermann
Holy Sites Encircled
The Early Byzantine Concentric Churches of Jerusalem
Vered Shalev-Hurvitz
Emperor John II Komnenos
Rebuilding New Rome 1118–1143
MAXIMILIAN C. G. LAU
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom
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Acknowledgements
This monograph would never have been possible without the support of many people at Oriel College, St Benet’s Hall, Worcester College, the programme in Late Antique and Byzantine Studies, Oxford, the Oxford University Byzantine Society, the University of St Andrews, Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, the Muintir Uí Chroidheáin in Blackrock (‘the working group’), the Stabi in Berlin, and many in Guernsey too.
Without Mary Whitby and Ida Toth, I would never have been able to translate all that Greek. This work would never have been as critical without the ideas and feedback from my doctoral examiners and readers Paul Magdalino and Catherine Holmes, nor my editors James HowardJohnston and Marc Lauxtermann. Further feedback and ideas came from Peter Frankopan, Elizabeth and Michael Jeffreys, Yasuhiro Otsuki, Jonathan Lewis, Ian Forrest, Kirsty Stewart, Tim Greenwood, John Ritzema, Aoife Ní Chroidheáin, and João Dias. Equally, I have immense thanks to many other scholars who were very willing to share their work early so that it could be included in this publication. Above all, I would like to thank my late, great supervisor Mark Whittow for setting me down this path, and I wish he could have seen the final result.
The best part of this research was the fieldwork across the Balkans and the Middle East, where people were incredibly welcoming and helpful, especially when I was still a postgraduate scholar very much out of my depth. Of particular note are Sami and his people at the hostel in Jericho in the West Bank, and the variety of characters at the Old Town Hostel in Pristina, Kosovo. I would never have been able to do this research without grants from All Souls, Oriel and the British Institute at Ankara, and without the companionship of Aoife Ní Chroidheáin (all of those Pontic backroads), Douglas Whalin (getting lost in Serbia and fortress hunting in Bithynia), Hal Bigland (the Konya-Antakya road trip), Benjy Mason, Will Yates
(Georgian auto-repair), and then those two with Rufus Stirling and Esteban Ramírez (down and out in Israel and Palestine).
Finally, I would like to thank my parents and Aoife for supporting me throughout this journey, as well as my school teachers Chris Fothergill, Ronnie Womersley, and Peter Brakewell for getting me into history in the first place.
Contents
Maps
Author’s Notes
Abbreviations
List of Figures
Introduction: Overshadowed by Father and Son?
One: Sources: Problems and Opportunities
Two: Young Emperor John and the Rule of Constantinople
Three: The Horizons of 1118
Four: Nomad Invasion
Five: Client Management and the Crisis of 1126
Six: The Raškan Insurrection and the Hungarian War
Seven: Betrayal and Conquest in Anatolia
Eight: The Great Eastern Campaign for Cilicia and Syria
Nine: The Last Campaigns
Ten: Fortresses, the Provinces, and the Army
Eleven: The Church under John: Philanthropy and Ecumenism
Conclusion: New Rome Rebuilt?
Bibliography
Index
Maps
Map One:
Eastern Mediterranean
Map Two:
Black Sea
Map Three:
Map Four:
The Venetian War
The Balkans, 139
Map Five:
Map Six:
John’s Balkan Fortress Network
Anatolia, c.1130
Map Seven:
Cilicia and the Levant
Map Eight:
John’s Anatolian Fortress Network, 289
Map Nine:
Map Ten:
Eastern Campaign, spring/summer 1137
Eastern Campaign, autumn/winter 1137
Map Eleven:
Eastern Campaign, spring/summer 1138
Map Twelve:
Danishmendid Civil War, 1142
Author’s Notes
Note on Transliteration
In general, I have transliterated Greek names and terms as closely as possible, but not with absolute consistency. Common names, places and ethnonyms are given in their most familiar form, for example, ‘Kinnamos’ and ‘Komnene’ are used but alongside ‘Constantinople’, ‘Choniates’, and ‘Cuman’ rather than Konstantinoupolis, Khoniates, and Kouman. I tend to have used ‘Latins’ rather than ‘Franks’ for clarity, though the terms are both used in Greek, Syriac, Armenian, and Arabic texts to refer to western Europeans.
Note on Citation
Where one page number is given for a primary text, it will refer to the text in its original language. Where two page numbers are given (e.g. NC, p. 14; tr. p. 10), the first will be to the text in its original language, and the second to the translation. Where two numerals such as ‘10.5’ are used, they refer to the book and chapter, respectively. All maps and photos are the author’s own from fieldwork in 2014 and 2015 unless otherwise stated. Numerals given to poems and seals are those used in the published editions, e.g. ‘Prodromos XV’ refers to Hörandner’s numbering.
Note on Translations
Greek and Latin translations of the court sources are my own unless otherwise stated. When translations to aid clarification for common sources such as Choniates are required, standard editions are used unless otherwise stated. French, German and Italian have been consulted first hand. For other languages such as Russian, Hungarian, Syriac, or Norse, I have either used standard translations or consulted fellow scholars at Oriel College, Oxford and the Central European University, Budapest. I am hugely indebted to them for these additional translations.
Abbreviations
AIPHOS
AK
al-Azimi
BMGS
Byzantion
BZ
CFHB
CFHH
Chron. 1234
CSHB
DHGE
DO
DOC
DOP
FRA
FSI
Gregory the Priest
IRAIK
Italikos
JK
L’Annuaire de l’Institute de Philologie et d’Histoire Orientales et Slaves
Anna Komnene, Annae Comnenae Alexias, ed. D.R. Reinsch and A. Kambylis (Berlin, 2001)
F. Monot, F, ‘La chronique abrégée d’al-Azimi années 518–538/1124–1144’, Revue des études islamiques 59 (1991), pp. 101–64
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies
Byzantion: Revue internationale des études byzantines
Byzantinische Zeitschrift
Corpus fontium historiae byzantinae
Catalogus fontium historiae Hungaricae, ed. F. A. Gombos, 4 vols (Budapest, 1937–43)
Anonymi Auctoris Chonicon ad A.C. 1234 Pertinens, vol. II, ed. I. Chabot (Leuven, 1974); English tr.: A. Tritton and H. Gibb (ed. and tr.) ‘The First and Second Crusades from an Anonymous Syriac Chronicle’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1 and 2 (1933)
Corpus scriptorum historiae Byzantinae
Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques
Catalogue of Byzantine seals at Dumbarton Oaks and in the Fogg Museum of Art, ed. J. Nesbitt and N. Oikonomides, 7 vols (Washington, DC, 2001–20)
Catalogue of Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and in the Whittemore Collection. Vol. IV: Alexius I to Michael VIII 1081–1261, ed. M. Hendy (Washington, DC, 1999)
Dumbarton Oaks Papers
Fontes Rerum Austriacarum
Fonti per la Storia d’Italia
‘Continuation of Matthew of Edessa’, Armenia and the Crusades: Tenth to Twelfth Centuries: The Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa, tr. A. E. Dostourian (Belmont, MA, 1993)
Izvestija Russkago Archeologičeskago Instituta v Konstantinopole
Michael Italikos, Michel Italikos Lettres et Discours, ed. P. Gautier (Paris, 1972)
John Kinnamos, Ioannis Cinnami Epitome rerum ab Ioanne et Alexio Comnenis gestarum, ed. A. Meineke (Bonn, 1836); Deeds of John and
JÖB
KC
Matt. Ed.
MB
MDAI, AA
MGH (S)
Mich. Syr
MM
MPH
Muses
NC
ODB
Pantokrator Typikon
Manuel Comnenus by John Kinnamos, English tr. C. M. Brand (New York, 1976)
Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik
Kleinchroniken, Die byzantinischen Kleinchroniken, vol. 1, ed. P. Schreiner (Vienna, 1975)
Armenia and the Crusades: Tenth to Twelfth centuries: the Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa, tr. A. E. Dostourian (Belmont, MA, 1993)
Μεσαιωνικη βιβλιοθήκη, ed. K. Sathas, 8 vols (Venice, 1872–94)
Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung
Monumenta Germaniae Historica (Scriptores)
Michael the Syrian, Text and Translations of the Chronicle of Michael the Great. Vol. 1: The Edessa-Aleppo Syriac Codex of the Chronicle of Michael the Great, ed. G. Ibrahim, English Text Summary by S. Brock (New Jersey, 2009). French tr J. Chabot, Chronique de Michel le Syrien, Patriarche
Jacobite d’Antioche (1166–1199) (Brussels, 1963)
Acta et Diplomata graeca medii aevi sacra et profana, ed. F Miklosich and J. Müller, 6 vols (Vienna, 1968)
Monumenta Poloniae Historica, ed. A. Bielowski, 6 vols (Lwów, 1864–93)
‘Die Musen des Kaisers Alexios I’, ed. P. Maas, BZ 22 (1913), pp. 348–59; English Translation: The Alexian Komnenian Muses, R. H. Jordan, C. Roueché et al. (Belfast Agreed Translation, unpublished, 1989)
Niketas Choniates, Nicetae Choniatae Historia, ed. J. L. van Dieten (Berlin, 1975); English Translation: O City of Byzantium, Annals of Niketas Choniates, tr. H. J Magoulias (Detroit, 1984)
The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, ed. in chief A. Kazhdan (3 vols., Oxford, 1991)
‘Le Typikon du Christ Sauveur Pantocrator’, ed. and tr. P. Gautier, REB 32 (1974), pp. 1–145; English tr R. Jordan, ‘Pantokrator: Typikon of Emperor John II Komnenos for the Monastery of Christ Pantokrator in Constantinople’, Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents, ed. J. Thomas, and A. Constantinides Hero (Washington, DC, 2000), pp. 725–81
La Chronique attribuée au connétable Smbat, tr. G. Dédéyan (Paris, 1980)
Scriptores Rerum Danicarum
Scriptores Rerum Hungaricarum
Tabula Imperii Byzantini
Travaux et Mémoires
John Zonaras, Ioannis Zonarae Epitome Historiarum libri XIII–XVIII, CSHB 49, Vol III, ed, T. Büttner-Wobst (Leipzig, 1897)
Zbornik radova Vizantološkog Instituta
List of Figures
South-east corner Tower of Lopadion
South-western towers of Achyraous
Pantokrator Monastery/Zeyrek Camii
Church of Hagioi Anargyroi, Kastoria
Church of Hagios Nikolaos tou Kasnitze, Kastoria
Walls of Belgrade Castle
Northern view from the hilltop site of Braničevo
Northern view from the summit of Stari Ras
North-westerly view from the summit of Stari Ras
Rebuilt amphitheatre of Viminacium
View of Ram and the Danube
View taken from the north of Zvečan, looking south
View of Zvečan from the south looking north
Komnenian style cloisonné masonry at Zvečan
The river valley leading south towards Jeleč
The valley surrounding Studenica Monastery
Kastamon Fortress 2013
Model representing John’s offensive strategy in Anatolia Gangra 2014
Cisterns at Gangra and view from the citadel
Southern wall of Korykos
The twin castles of Korykos and Kızkalesi
The Cilician Gates 1935
The Cilician Gates 2019
Fortress of Gülek Gates and view of the northern walls
Cilician campaign order according to each source
Mopsuestia
The ‘main route’ up to Anazarbos
Alternative approach to Anazarbos from the south-east
Komnenian brick courses at Anazarbos
Anazarbos 1861
Fortress of Tell Hamdun
Gastin/Baghras Castle
Early nineteenth-century drawing of the Syrian Gates
Early nineteenth-century drawing of Antioch
Iron Gates of Antioch
Vakha Castle
Aleppo Citadel
Shayzar Fortress and modern town from the Orontes
River Kelkit/Lykos from the ‘Kundu’ road bridge
Western view across Neokaisareia’s citadel
Lake Beyşehir
Plan of Lopadion
Bridge over the Rhyndakos
Achyraous from across the dam
Sultançayır Makestos Constantinian bridge in 2014
Plan of the Makestos Bridge
The towers of Kotyaion
Walls and Harbour of Attaleia
Pegae towers
View from Kalanoros/Alanya Citadel northeast
Detail of Kalanoros citadel chapel and inner walls
Kızılcaşehir
Classical Street in Syedra and Komnenian brick in the Syedra citadel chapel
Sydran Outer Wall with Komnenian brick, and the view from Syedra Citadel
Iotape
Antiocheia-ad-Craggum
Kisleçukuru
Floor plan of the three Pantokrator churches
John and Piroska-Eirene mosaic of Hagia Sophia
Dedication Image in Tetraevangelion, Vat. Urb. gr. 2
Introduction
Overshadowed by Father and Son?
John II Komnenos has the intriguing honour of being one of Edward Gibbon’s few Byzantine heroes: the eighteenth-century historian, usually disdainful of all things Byzantine, judged that Marcus Aurelius, as a true Roman exemplar, ‘would not have disdained’ his successor of a millennium later.1 This generous appreciation of the twelfth-century emperor is a nearly word-for-word translation of the judgement made by Niketas Choniates at the end of his account of John’s life in his Χρονικη Διήγησις, or History of the Roman Empire from 1118 to 1207, with both Gibbon and Choniates calling him the greatest of the Komnenos dynasty.2 Gibbon’s reiteration of Choniates is indicative of a problem that has affected scholarship ever since: what we understand concerning John II Komnenos’ reign has been shackled to its presentation in the writings of Choniates, and his fellow twelfth-century historian John Kinnamos.
Unlike John’s father Alexios I Komnenos, and John’s son Manuel I, there is no detailed major primary source for John, such as Anna Komnene’s Alexiad for Alexios and Kinnamos’ and Choniates’ fuller biographies for Manuel. Instead, there are only the summary accounts found in the histories of Kinnamos and Choniates. They present seductively clear accounts of major events, their causes and effects, in spite of the passage of four or more decades between John’s reign and the times of writing. But modern histories of John’s reign have tended to do little more than recycle this limited material, presenting the reign as a sequence of campaigns by an active soldier-emperor, before concurring with Choniates’ and Gibbon’s original judgement.
However, there is much more to be said about this ‘overshadowed’ period, a reign which had a direct impact on the vast geopolitical changes
that swept Eurasia and Africa in the twelfth century. The emergence of territorial lordships under permanent western European rule in the Levant as a consequence of the First Crusade and responses in the Islamic world to these developments were only the most obvious of these changes. Old empires such as John’s in Constantinople were in competition with rising powers in an increasingly interconnected world, as political and military developments in central Asia and Western Europe were felt acutely in the lands between. John’s reign therefore merits closer scrutiny, in light of a wider range of sources than the histories of Kinnamos and Choniates alone. Foreign affairs need to be viewed holistically, and placed in their proper diplomatic and military context. Account must be taken at all times of the domestic context: the selection of key personnel, celebration of victory at court, and the Church. New questions should be asked of the sources, and more light cast on the state of New Rome in this period. Alexios’ beleaguered realm of the late eleventh century was transformed into Manuel’s grand empire of the mid and later-twelfth: John’s role in this metamorphosis should be examined.
A survey of modern work reveals the stranglehold of Choniates and Gibbon’s judgement on scholarly interpretations. The most important recent publication is that which resulted from a workshop held in 2014: John II Komnenos, Emperor of Byzantium, ed. A. Bucossi and A. Rodriguez Suarez (London, 2016). The conclusion, that John deserved the favourable opinion of historians on the basis of his military achievements but that ‘otherwise no significant political events took place’, do him insufficient justice. Nor does it alter the image of John conveyed in popular works, such as John Julius Norwich’s Byzantium: Decline and Fall (London, 1995), A. Carr’s The Komnene Dynasty: Byzantium’s Struggle for Survival 1057–1185 (Barnsley, 2018), or K. Lygo’s The Emperors of Byzantium (London, 2022). These all relate John’s life as one of continuous campaigning, with the emperor being a man of spartan tastes, characterized by faithfulness to his wife, who built a major monastery dedicated to Christ Pantokrator in Constantinople, but who was otherwise far less interesting than the rest of his family.
Bucossi and Rodriguez Suarez’s volume opens with an historiographical essay by Stathakopoulos, who summarizes scholarship on John as an emperor perceived as ‘very important on the one hand, and yet apparently not worthy enough of being the subject of a dedicated monograph’.3 The
closest thing to such a study is the first part of the second volume on the Komnenian dynasty by Ferdinand Chalandon published more than a century ago in 1912.4 This too echoes Choniates and Gibbon by portraying the reign as one of perpetual campaigning, with John himself being a morally upright and hardworking emperor as shown by his relationships with his family.5 This torch was passed undimmed to George Ostrogorsky who once echoed Choniates directly by calling John ‘the greatest of the Comneni’, again based upon his campaigning and personal character.6
This judgement has tended to be refined rather than re-examined since then: Angold, Karayannopoulos, and Magdalino have offered short evaluations as part of their broader studies of eleventh- and/or twelfthcentury Byzantium.7 Into these appraisals, John’s reign is squeezed into a gap between what are implied to have been more dynamic periods of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. They discuss some elements of continuity and change between Alexios and Manuel, and offer an updated examination of the sources, but the overall analysis of John as the campaigning, moral emperor remains largely the same.8 From these studies, Stathakopoulos chooses Magdalino’s contribution to the 2008 Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire as one that summarizes the consensus on John: (a) he campaigned in order to prove himself a legitimate emperor to a domestic audience rather than necessarily to expand the empire, and (b) the great change he could have brought about by reconquering the east was left undone by his early death. Stathakopoulos also echoes one of Ostrogorsky’s points: John did as much for the empire as was possible at the time.9
Angold and Magdalino’s consideration of John’s reign in the context of a broader historical investigation is replicated across the rest of the field. Examples from his reign are integrated into wider studies such as those on Byzantium and the Crusades by Harris and Lilie, or Byzantium and the Balkans by Stephenson and Madgearu. Only a very few works, notably Birkenmeier’s Development of the Komnenian Army, Stanković and Zlatar’s analyses of Komnenian Constantinople, or studies on the monastery of Christ Pantokrator, devote substantial sections to John.10 By contrast, in Angold’s Church and Society in Byzantium under the Comneni, John is barely mentioned, except as being preoccupied with campaigning and with little time for the church—a view echoed in the Cambridge History of Byzantium, where Magdalino characterizes John as remarkably non-
interventionist, with domestic matters in general being ‘conspicuously uneventful’.11 Stathakopoulos is right, therefore, when he remarks that John’s reign has often been included in studies ‘for reasons of completeness, and quite half-heartedly’, even if he excuses this as being ‘due to the constraints of the source material’.12
Beyond these general studies, there are a few that focus more directly on John and his era. These include the recently published PhD thesis on John by Papageorgiou as well as the various studies in the Shadow of Father and Son volume of essays on John edited by Bucossi and Rodriguez Suarez, which are complemented by the research presented in the recent Piroska and the Pantokrator volume.13 In the Shadow of Father and Son mainly contains studies that attempt, in Stathakopoulos’ words, to paint the shadows of John’s reign as ‘a chiaroscuro place of texture and nuance’, and to a great extent these studies and Papageorgiou’s thesis and the Pantokrator volume succeed in doing much of the foundational work needed for an extended study on John. Papers by Vučetić, Rodriguez Suarez, Jeffreys, Bucossi, and Ousterhout in the Shadow of Father and Son volume contextualize John’s reign within current research on how Byzantine emperors interacted with foreign rulers, and dealt with western intellectual culture, literary trends, the filioque controversy, architecture and patronage, even if the distinctiveness of John’s reign in this volume remains in its transitional character, as a ‘chiaroscuro’, an interval between better illuminated periods of history.14 John is more prominent in the chapters contributed by Stanković, Magdalino, Linardou, and Papadopoulou. They cover, respectively, John’s life before 1118, his triumph of 1133, the hidden references to John’s brother Isaac, and coinage and monetary policy.15 Finally, Stouraitis and Papageorgiou’s papers in the same volume tackle the big question of re-evaluating John’s campaigns and political ideology.16 They come to very different conclusions as to whether John acted according to some form of crusader ideology in particular, with the former advocating that John’s ideology operated within the traditional scope of the Roman emperors, whilst Papageorgiou champions John as an emperor who adopted the crusading ideology of the west. A similar range of papers is to be found in the Piroska and the Pantokrator volume. Refreshingly in this publication, John’s wife and empress takes centre stage. Of particular importance is Bárány’s re-evaluation of the politics surrounding Eirene-
Piroska’s marriage to John. The papers by Sághy, Jeffreys, Franchi, Mielke, Demirtiken, Kiss, Shlyakhtin, and myself focus on what the evidence tells us about her as an empress, and those by Ousterhout, Wolford, and Jeffreys update scholarship on the Pantokrator.17
These studies have already highlighted some new methodological approaches that this investigation will also adopt. In the first place, they confirm that the narrative accounts by Choniates and Kinnamos should be appreciated as carefully wrought pieces of literature with defined rhetorical purposes. They were not written to let readers know what occurred, but they were instead texts that used historical events to make a convincing argument, and should therefore be used with the utmost care. This can be done by reading them in context with the many other written sources that have not hitherto been exploited to their full potential. The most useful, because they are concerned with the people and events of the time, are those non-Byzantine histories written in neighbouring regions. These exist in a variety of languages, such as Latin, Arabic, Armenian, and Syriac, and though some were written at a similar distance to events as the histories of Kinnamos and Choniates, others were written almost as these events occurred. These texts give us unique insights, above all into a more contemporary, non-Constantinopolitan, and non-Emperor-focused view on events. Of particular relevance are the Chronicle of the so-called Priest of Diokleia and the history of Michael the Syrian: regional texts that allow us to focus on developments in areas outside Constantinople that Choniates and Kinnamos gloss over in favour of what the emperor was doing, or what occurred in the capital. In addition, there are numerous non-historical or semi-historical Byzantine sources: letters (official and private), documents, legal texts, saints’ lives, and, most important of all, contemporary poetry and orations that celebrated the emperor’s achievements. John’s reign can be better understood in the light of these texts: the political pulse of the time is contained within them; they allow us a window into how John, his administration, and his rivals wished events to be portrayed. These texts are a portal into the type of world in which these authors lived and the one they sought to construct, and, equally, the means to understand better why their authors represented their worlds in specific ways. Beyond the written word, not much use has been made of the growing volume of material evidence. This category of evidence allows us to read texts in entirely new ways, especially in the case of the archaeological remains of the many
fortifications John built. Far from there being few extant sources, there is in fact a plethora of evidence that survives testifying to John’s reign: however, it must be identified and a means found to piece it together, and thus evidence is the focus of the first chapter of this volume.
Following the opening chapter, attention turns to the events of John’s life. It may seem surprising to say so, but the chronology of John’s reign is far from secure. Byzantinists have been inclined to adopt a thematic approach within the framework of the more general studies mentioned above. This approach does not take account of the evolving priorities of John and his contemporaries from year to year, and at times even from one day to the next, as circumstances developed, and goals shifted. Choniates and Kinnamos also give a deceptive impression that John dealt with the various challenges facing him sequentially, and that he dealt with them according to some form of grand plan. On closer inspection, it becomes clear that his choices, and the events themselves, can be better understood once it is acknowledged that the emperor had to balance multiple demands at once, often facing various challenges in the same year, and therefore having to change his priorities accordingly. The significance of a number of key events changes radically once they are seen in a context which is sensitive to chronology. The fundamental principle governing the arrangement of the majority of the material in this book is therefore chronology. The aim is to watch policy as it evolved in time, in carefully documented changing circumstances. At first sight, such an approach may appear dated compared to modern scholarship, more in keeping with the work of J. B. Bury, Steven Runciman, or latterly John Julius Norwich.18 However, it is only when the two Byzantine histories (by Kinnamos and Choniates) are supplemented with previously unused textual and nontextual evidence, and when developments are placed in their specific historical contexts, that a full understanding of the pressures upon John and his empire, and the emperor’s responses to those pressures, can be obtained, and more probing historical analysis can be undertaken.
Chapter Two therefore covers the first thirty years of John’s life before the death of his father and his succession. This is a stage of John’s life which has rarely been examined before, but during which we can see the policies and personnel of John’s government taking shape. This chapter will, therefore, also include an overview of twelfth-century imperial government. Moving on from domestic affairs, Chapter Three examines the
world as it appeared to John from Constantinople, providing a tour of the recent history of the emperor’s geographical and political neighbours near and far. This is followed by a consideration of the key military and diplomatic events in Alexios’ last years, and of the ways in which John sought to complete his father’s plans in both the Balkans and Anatolia. Chapter Four focuses on the emperor’s response to the nomad invasion of 1122–3, perhaps his greatest victory, and then the disposition of his Danubian lands thereafter. Chapter Five covers the years 1123–6, which focus on the potential gains and pitfalls of client management in this period. At this time, John involved himself in the affairs of Turks, Serbs, and Hungarians while battling the Venetians over trading privileges. He ended up overextending his resources, and was forced temporarily to abandon some of his initiatives in order to salvage his position. John’s decision to focus on the Balkans led to war with Hungary as well as with the Serb prince of Raška; this 1127–9 conflict is covered in Chapter Six. John’s victory there settled the Balkans, such that he could return to Anatolia in the 1130s. Anatolia is therefore the focus of Chapter Seven, although John’s engagement in this region was as much driven by his brother Isaac’s attempted coup as any vision of reconquest. Both old and new dynamics were, however, at play with regards John’s greatest campaign during the years 1136–9, when he conquered Cilicia and brought his battle-hardened army to the Levant and Syria. His successes and failures in this region resulted in an even more intense set of campaigns from 1140–3, which took John from the rugged mountains of northern Anatolia to the lakes of the central plateau and then back to the Levant, before his sudden death left his designs stillborn.
Despite this sudden end to John’s life, the two final chapters of this investigation look deeper into what the emperor was able to achieve, and the scope of his plans for both his empire and his church. Chapter Ten examines John’s fortification building programme and how that led to the re-establishment of secure Byzantine provinces in Anatolia in particular. Coupled with this, it takes a closer look at John’s army and its successes. Chapter Eleven finally turns to ecclesiastical history, highlighting that for all of John’s campaigning he also poured resources into philanthropic, legal and ecumenical initiatives that attest to both his personal piety and hint at further objectives had he lived out his last years in Constantinople. These last two chapters draw on material from John’s entire reign, and they point
ahead to the conclusion of the book, where this previously overshadowed emperor can at last be brought into the light.
Across the book as a whole, we come to appreciate how John rebuilt New Rome on the battlefield, in the landscape, and in the capital city. He did this through campaigning and the construction of a network of fortifications and monasteries; with these achievements he left his mark on the ideology of crusading, the iconography of imperial coinage, and in the positive judgement he received from both his own court and many outside his realm. We can also acknowledge that his ambitions stretched yet further, even if imperfectly accomplished: the encirclement of the Anatolian plateau and further territorial gains in the west, and the advancement of ecumenical relations and legal reform bold initiatives that were first delayed by his missteps, and which were then left incomplete at his early death. His reign was therefore just as dynamic as any of his contemporaries, and it is only as memories faded, and New Rome with it, that his legacy became obscured.
1 E. Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 3, ed. D. Womersley (London, 1994), pp. 70–2.
2 NC, pp. 46–7; tr. p. 72, cf. Gibbon.
3 D Stathakopoulos, ‘John II Komnenos: A Historiographical Essay’, John II Komnenos, Emperor of Byzantium: In the Shadow of Father and Son, ed. A. Bucossi and A. Rodriguez Suarez (London, 2016), p. 8.
4 F Chalandon, Jean II Comnène, 1118–1143, et Manuel I Comnène, 1143–1180, 2 vols (repr, New York, 1912).
5 Ibid., vol. II, pp. 9–10. Stathakopoulos, ‘Historiographical Essay’, p. 8.
6 G. Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, tr J. Hussey (New Brunswick, 1969), p. 377; Stathakopoulos, ‘Historiographical Essay’, pp. 8–9.
7 M. Angold, The Byzantine Empire, 1025–1204. A Political History (London, 1984), pp. 181–90; I. Karayannopoulos, Ιστορία
Vol. III:
(1081–1453), Part 1:
(Thessalonike, 1990), pp. 108–23; P Magdalino, Empire of Manuel I Komnenos 1143–1180 (Cambridge, 1993), passim, but especially pp. 35–41.
8 Although Karayannopoulos offers a more negative assessment of John’s strategic choices.
9 P. Magdalino, ‘The Empire of the Komnenoi (1118–1204)’, Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c.500–1492, ed. J. Shepard (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 629–34; Stathakopoulos, ‘Historiographical Essay’, p. 10; Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, p. 377.
10
J. Harris, Byzantium and the Crusades (London, 2007); R-J. Lilie, Byzantium and the Crusader States, 1096–1204 (Oxford, 1993), pp. 96–141; Lilie, ‘Twelfth-century Byzantine and Turkish States’, ed. A. Bryer and M. Ursinus (Amsterdam, 1991), pp. 35–52; P. Stephenson, Byzantium’s Balkan Frontier: A Political Study of the Northern Balkans, 900–1204 (Cambridge, 2000); A. Madgearu, Byzantine Military Organization on the Danube, 10th–12th Centuries (Leiden, 2013); J. Birkenmeier, The Development of the Komnenian Army 1081–1204 (Leiden, 2003), especially pp. 85–99; The Pantokrator Monastery in Constantinople, ed. S. Kotzabassi (Berlin, 2013). V Stanković, Komnini u Carigradu 1057–1185: Evolucija jedne vladarske prodice (Belgrade, 2006); Z. Zlatar, Golden Byzantium: Imperial Power in Komnenian Constantinople (1081–1180) (Istanbul, 2015); Zlatar, Red and Black Byzantium: Komnenian Emperors and opposition (1081–1180) (Istanbul, 2016). Additionally, see the corresponding thematic chapter sections in the Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire, especially: P. Stephenson, ‘Balkan Borderlands (1018–1204)’, Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c.500–1492, ed. J. Shepard (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 678–82; D. Korobeinikov, ‘Raiders and Neighbours: The Turks (1040–1304)’, Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c.500–1492, ed. J. Shepard (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 710–11, together with: E. Baraton, La Romanie orientale L’empire de Constantinople et ses avatars au Levant à l’époque des Croisades (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Rouen-Normandie, 2018).
11 M. Angold, Church and Society in Byzantium under the Comneni, 1081–1261 (Cambridge, 1995); Magdalino, ‘Empire of the Komnenoi’, p. 634. This tends to be typical of similar general studies, for example M. Angold, The Byzantine Aristocracy IX to XIII Centuries (Oxford, 1984), where most papers tend to cluster around the earlier and later periods and brush over the section in the middle with very few exceptions. A partial exemption can be found in: J. Roskilly, Λογιώτατοι ποίμενες: Les évêques et leur autorité dans la société byzantine des XIe–XIIe siècles (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Paris I, 2017), which though focused on bishops rather than emperors uses evidence from John’s reign to make general conclusions as to the Komnenian emperors and bishops.
12 Stathakopoulos, ‘Historiographical Essay’, p. 10.
13 A. Papageorgiou, Ο Ιωάννης
του (1118–1143) (Athens, 2017), see all: Papageorgiou, ‘
των Σέρβων’,
και
8 (2008–12), pp. 353–67.
14 John II Komnenos, Emperor of Byzantium: In the Shadow of Father and Son, ed. A. Bucossi and A. Rodriguez Suarez (London, 2016), pp. 71–120, 135–54.
15 Ibid., pp. 11–21, 53–70, 155–200. Linardou’s study is supplemented by: A. Rodrigues Suarez, ‘The Sebastokrator Isaac Komnenos: Manuel’s Latinophile Uncle?’, Byzantium in Dialogue with the Mediterranean History and Heritage, ed. D. Slootjes and M. Verhoeven (Leiden, 2019), pp. 182–98.
16 I. Stouraitis, ‘Narratives of John II Komnenos’ Wars: Comparing Byzantine and Modern Approaches’, Shadow of Father and Son, ed. A. Bucossi and A. Rodriguez Suarez, pp. 22–36; A. Papageorgiou, ‘The Political Ideology of John II Komnenos’, pp. 37–52, in ibid.
17 M. Sághy and R. Ousterhout (eds.), Piroska and the Pantokrator: Dynastic Memory, Healing and Salvation in Komnenian Constantinople (Budapest, 2019), pp. 11–38, 63–96, 97–120, 121–42, 143–52, 153–73, 175–94, 195–224, 225–60, 261–90, 291–304, respectively
18 I take them as examples of hugely popular but traditionalist authors and scholars, whom I recall as an undergraduate being told that if I truly wanted to be inspired by the medieval world I should read and enjoy, but whom I should never cite in a serious academic essay or in works such as this book. From Bury in particular I also take my cue that I am not a ‘Byzantinist’ but a medieval Roman historian: J. B Bury, A History of the Later Roman Empire from Arcadius to Irene, 2 vols
(London, 1889); S. Runciman, A History of the Crusades, 3 vols (Cambridge, 1951–54); J. J. Norwich, Byzantium: The Decline and Fall (London, 1995).
