Decline and Catastrophe

1025 – 1081 A.D.

Stagnation and Schism

The Decline Begins

The Great Schism

Manzikert

Prelude to Catastrophe

The Battle of Manzikert

The Rise of Alexius Komnenos

With the death of Basil II the Empire began a period of decline. While the fundamentals of the Empire remained sound, incompetent and corrupt leaders squandered these advantages and allowed threats both internal and external to chip away at the gains made by previous rulers. While all this was going on, an event many centuries in the making was about to take place, one that would alter the future of Western Civilization forever.

After Basil’s death his brother Constantine VIII assumed sole power. He was a pleasure loving nonentity who appointed cronies to positions of power and inflicted horrific punishments on those who he thought opposed him.

Emperor Constantine VIII

One favorite method was to spare a person from death and ‘merely’ gouge their eyes out, a punishment referred to as ‘the divine clemency of the emperor’.

Dying after only three years, the emperor left no male heirs, but did leave behind three daughters through whom this inheritance could pass. The first man to assume the mantle of leadership after Constantine VIII was to be Romanus III, who married the late emperor’s daughter Zoe.

Empress Zoe

An intelligent man, he nonetheless had a seriously inflated sense of his own abilities. As he muddled through his reign, a powerful civil servant known as John the Orphanotrophos was planning against him. Emperor Romanus III

John introduced his handsome younger brother Michael to Zoe, and when Romanus died under questionable circumstances, the two were married.

Michael then took the throne as Michael IV. While he had assumed power in a most underhanded way, Michael IV proved to be a good and thoughtful ruler. While his elder brothers were mostly useless parasites, his brother John was extremely capable and was dedicated to him.

John’s dedication to his family did have downsides however. He appointed his brother-in-law, a humble working class man, as one of the commanders of the upcoming expedition to retake Sicily (which had been planned but not executed in the last days of Basil II reign).

While this campaign began well (it included a large force of Varangians along with the legendary warrior Harald Hardrada), conflicts between its commanders combined with uprisings in Italy led to it being abandoned.

Closer to home the Emperor, despite suffering from horrific illness, led his forces to defeat a renewed Bulgar uprising. Shortly thereafter the young ruler died, and when compared to his thoughtful reign, those of his successors made his loss all the more bitter.

Emperor Michael IV

John the Orphanotrophos then installed his nephew on the throne, ruling as Michael V. This insolent youth soon exiled Zoe, hoping to rule on his own, but the people would have none of it, and rose against him.

Emperor Michael V

Thousands died as rag-tag citizens fought against fully armed and armored imperial troops.

The end result could not be in doubt however: Zoe was confirmed in office, and her sister Theodora (who she despised) was made her co-ruler. Michael V was blinded and exiled, and ignominious end to an ignominious dynasty.

Empresses Zoe & Theodora

Co-rule by two mutually hateful sisters was a rather unstable arrangement, and so once more Zoe was married in 1042 A.D., this time to the man who would rule as Constantine IX Monomachus.

Emperor Constantine IX

While Constantine was not a bad person, he ruled irresponsibly, and in the process set the Empire up for the unmitigated disasters that were to follow. Along every frontier the Empire’s enemies were active, with little being done to address the situation.

On the western frontiers the Normans rampaged into South Italy, where the Byzantines like many others tasted the martial prowess of this dynamic people.

In the Balkans, various barbarian peoples were breaching the Danube, adding to the woes of this conflict plagued region.

Finally, to the east, the Seljuk Turks had established their rule in Baghdad, and were already casting their eyes covetously upon the Empire’s Anatolian territories.

All the while Zoe and Constantine IX indulged in ruinous spending.

Constantine’s foolish ways led to revolts against his rule, but miraculously the Emperor survived in power despite the overwhelming disadvantages he faced. He liked to claim he lived a charmed life, and it would be hard to argue with him.

While things may have been great for him, this lucky fool would now preside over one of the greatest disasters in Western history: the Great Schism.

While the eastern and western Christian churches had been growing apart for centuries, a series of escalating personal attacks led to the unthinkable. A western cardinal, displeased with the progress of negotiations in Constantinople over a dispute between the two churches, laid a bull of excommunication on the Patriarch of Constantinople.

The Patriarch responded in kind, and what started as a series of personal attacks ended up becoming a permanent breach between the western ‘Catholic’ church and the eastern ‘Orthodox’ Church.

While many factions and sects existed previously, this severing of Christianity into two distinct halves permanently divided what had until then been the unifying faith of all Western Civilization.

While diplomatic and theological disasters abounded, Constantine IX could at least claim to preside over a flowering of Byzantine culture. The Empire’s centuries of power and prosperity allowed it to build up a thriving educational institution (led by men such as the great intellectual and chronicler Michael Psellus)

Michael Psellus

In the preceding years the intellectual heart of the world, which had for the previous centuries resided mostly in the Arab world, shifted back towards Constantinople.

Nevertheless, the stage had been set by the low calibre of Byzantium’s recent rulers for a serious reckoning, and it was not far off.

With relations between the east and west churches at an all-time low the downward spiral of Byzantium’s leadership continued. Pleasure lovers and mediocrities abounded as threats drew close on every frontier: a catastrophe was in the making.

With Zoe having died prior to her husband Constantine IX, her sister Theodora now ruled alone. Elderly and childless, plans were thus made for an eventual successor. Upon her death, the patrician Michael Bringas assumed the throne, ruling as Michael VI.

Michael VI

In this era a wise politician would attempt to strike a careful balance between the civil administration of the capital and the Anatolian military aristocracy: Michael VI did not do this.

Instead he heaped scorn and imprecations on the military aristocrats, and this essentially sealed his fate. The popular and successful general Isaac Komnenos led a successful revolt, and in 1057 A.D. assumed the throne, mercifully sparing the life of his predecessor.

Emperor Isaac I Komnenos

He immediately began the process of rebuilding strong military rule, confiscating ill-gotten lands from imperial cronies, defending the eastern frontiers, and fighting against barbarian tribes such as the Pechenegs and Magyars.

His rule was not to last, and in 1059 A.D. designating a successor as his health declined. The newly enthroned Constantine X Ducas was an intellectual, not a solider, and soldiers were what Byzantium needed at this hour.

Emperor Constantine X

Under his rule (much like Isaac’s predecessors) the Empire’s position continued to degrade, setting the stage for one of Byzantium’s most horrific disasters.

Constantine X may have been intelligent, but his policies seemed to involve little more than trying to decrease the power of the army. In doing so he and his supporters failed to realize 3 salient facts.

First and foremost, that this persecution increased the possibility of coups by the aggravated and put upon military aristocracy.

Second, the mercenaries who were increasingly replacing peasant-soldiers were by their very nature unreliable and had no inherent loyalty to the Empire.

Finally, that the Empire now faced a threat unseen since the days of the Arab invasions: the Seljuk Turks.

These warrior nomads had established control over the Abbasid Caliphate, and sought to battle the Fatimid Caliphate, but were also sidetracked by their campaigns into Armenia.

In 1063 A.D. the Seljuk throne was taken by Alp Arslan, who began leading expeditions into Anatolia, and in doing so brought down imperial retribution.

In 1067 A.D. a new emperor from the military aristocracy assumed the throne: Romanus IV Diogenes. Though brave and intelligent, he faced resistance from the likes of Michael Psellus and the family of the late emperor, the Ducas.

Emperor Romanus IV Diogenes

In 1071 A.D. he prepared an expedition to defeat the Seljuk Turks, and leading his army (which may have numbered between 60-70,000 men) east, he sought battle with Alp Arslan.

The two forces met in eastern Anatolia at the Battle of Manzikert.

While the intricacies of the battle are convoluted and somewhat hazy, the Byzantine army (the portion that was actually with the emperor, for it had split up) was crushed, and the emperor himself captured.

This was, to put it simply, catastrophe. No army of such size and importance had been so defeated since the Battle of Yarmouk over 400 years before, and no emperor had been captured by the enemy since Valerian in 260 A.D., eight centuries before!

While Alp Arslan released Romanus shortly thereafter, he was murdered by his enemies and the hapless Michael VII installed on the Byzantine throne

Emperor Michael VII

The new leadership of the Empire proved completely incapable of confronting any of the many threats facing it. In 1073 A.D. the Turks began to move systematically into Anatolia, and by 1080 A.D. the Empire had lost a huge swath of territory: while they still held western Anatolia along with the Black Sea and Mediterranean coasts, most of the interior had been lost.

Much of the Empire’s grain supply and over half its manpower was thus lost, and the strategic situation immeasurably worsened. Bulgars, Pechenegs, Magyars, Turks all encroached upon the weakened state. Byzantium looked to be in a tailspin that seemed impossible to stop anywhere short of complete collapse.

A hero was needed, a modern Heraclius to fling back the invaders and restore the power and dignity of the Empire: they were fortunate, because against all odds, one was at hand.

As The Empire reeled from the losses at Manzikert, the conquest of Bari by the Normans, Papal interference, and military insurrection, the Emperor Michael VII was overthrown by a general who ruled under the name Nicephorus III. He proved no great improvement, and it seemed that without an immediate change of leadership for the (much, much) better, the Empire was doomed. Emperor Nicephorus III

Unlike the emperor, someone whose popularity was rapidly increasing was the young general Alexius Komnenos. Having been a resounding military success and married into the powerful Ducas family, his imperial credentials were second to none.

Emperor Alexius I Komnenos

When cronies of the Emperor sought to move against him, Alexius and his brother Isaac fled. After an adventurous journey Alexius and his compatriots began their march on the capital, and so it was that in 1081 A.D. nearly 10 years after the tragedy of Manzikert Alexius was proclaimed emperor.

Advancing on Constantinople, his forces won entrance into the city, while the reigning emperor abdicated. Beginning his work at once, the army was brought swiftly back under control (after an unfortunate outbreak of looting), and various domestic issue put to rights.

While the installation of a popular, militarily successful general was cause for celebration, there could be no rest: the Normans were about to begin their assault upon the Byzantine Empire.