Harris - Byzantium and the Crusades

Byzantium and the Crusades

Byzantium and the Crusades

Second Edition

Jonathan Harris

In Memory of Jan (19322003) and Phil (19252010)

CONTENTS

Cover: Byzantine emperor and his courtiers, c.1080 (Bibliothque Nationale, Paris, MS Coislin 79, fol. 2)

The Land Walls of Constantinople

The cathedral of Hagia Sophia, Constantinople

Tenth-century Byzantine copper coin with portrait of Christ

Byzantine enamel plaque of King Gza I of Hungary (10747)

The eastern gate in the walls of Nicaea

John II Komnenos (111843), from a mosaic in Hagia Sophia

The Pantokrator Monastery (Zeyrek Camii), Constantinople

Roger II, Norman king of Sicily

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem

Marble roundel of a Byzantine emperor, Venice

Byzantine bas-relief of Hercules, Venice

Four bronze horses, Venice

Castle of Platamonas, Greece

Bromholm Priory, Norfolk

Deisis from Hagia Sophia

The port of Acre

The Byzantine empire, c.1050

The city of Constantinople

The Latin states of Syria and Palestine

The Byzantine empire, c.1150

The Latin empire of Constantinople and the successor states, c.1215

The Byzantine empire, c.1265

Since the first edition of Byzantium and the Crusades appeared in 2003, the eight-hundredth anniversary of the Fourth Crusade has produced a particularly rich crop of publications that explore many of the same questions. This new edition aims to take as much of this new scholarship as possible into account. That said, the main theme is unchanged and certainly I do not agree with all the novel arguments that have been advanced in recent years. I remain particularly unconvinced by the theories that Alexios I was intimately involved with the planning and directing of the First Crusade, that Michael Psellos and other Byzantine intellectuals were closet pagans and that the Latin empire of Constantinople was prosperous and stable.

During the rewriting process, the students who took my MA course options provided a constant flow of ideas and criticisms. I am indebted to David Jacoby, Paul Stephenson and a number of anonymous reviewers for pointing out errors and omissions in the first edition, to Eugenia Russell for drawing the maps, to Jonathan Phillips and Kroly Szelnyi for permission to use their photographs, and to Rhodri Mogford for suggesting and overseeing the new edition with Bloomsbury. A succession of heads of the History Department at Royal Holloway, Nigel Saul, Justin Champion and Sarah Ansari, gave great support and encouragement to me in my work. I should also record my continuing appreciation to Martin Sheppard and Tony Morris of Hambledon Press without whom the original book would never have appeared in the first place.

Finally, I should add that I have adopted a slightly different approach to the spelling of Byzantine names in the text and footnotes from that used in the first edition. In general, I have tried to transliterate them as closely as possible to the original Greek, Tornikios, rather than Tornicius, and Eustathios rather than Eustathius, but where there is a recognized English equivalent of a Greek first name, I have used it, hence Isaac rather than Isaakios, George rather than Georgios. I have done this not because I want to anglicize the Byzantines but because I want their history to be accessible to an international audience who will be more familiar with these versions. I have made certain personal choices such as Porphyrogenitos rather than Porphyrogennetos for the sole reason that, to my eyes, it looks better.

Royal Holloway

University of London

December 2013

969: Byzantine capture of Antioch

975: Campaign of John I Tzimiskes in Syria

1018: Byzantine conquest of Bulgaria

1027: Byzantine treaty with Fatimids; rebuilding of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

1031: Byzantine capture of Edessa

1054: Cardinal Humbert excommunicates the patriarch of Constantinople

1071: Battle of Manzikert

1074: Treaty between Robert Guiscard and Michael VII Doukas

1081: Accession of Alexios I Komnenos

1083: Defeat of Robert Guiscard in the Balkans

1089: First embassy of Alexios I to Urban II

1091: Victory of Alexios I over the Pechenegs at Mount Levounion

1095: Second embassy of Alexios to Urban II; preaching of the First Crusade

1096: The crusaders begin to arrive in Constantinople

1097: Capture of Nicaea and Battle of Dorylaion

1098: Crusaders capture Antioch

1099: Fall of Jerusalem; Bohemond seizes Antioch

1106: Tancred captures Laodikeia

1107: Bohemond lands at Avlona

1108: Treaty of Devol

1118: Death of Alexios I; accession of John II Komnenos

1126: John II renews commercial treaty with Venice

1137: First expedition of John II to Antioch

1142: Second expedition of John II to Antioch

1143: Death of John II; accession of Manuel I Komnenos

1147: The Second Crusade passes through Constantinople

1159: Manuel Is expedition to Antioch

1169: Joint Byzantine-Crusader attack on Damietta

1171: Visit of Amalric of Jerusalem to Constantinople; arrest of Venetians

1174: Saladin unites Syria and Egypt under his rule

1180: Death of Manuel I Komnenos; regency for young Alexios II

1182: Andronicus Komnenos enters Constantinople; massacre of Latins

1183: Andronicus crowned as emperor

1185: Overthrow of Andronicus I by Isaac II Angelos

1187: Capture of Jerusalem by Saladin

1189: Frederick Barbarossa in the Byzantine Balkans

1190: Death of Frederick Barbarossa

1191: Richard the Lionheart captures Cyprus

1192: Third Crusade ends without capturing Jerusalem

1196: Emperor Henry VI demands Byzantine finance for the crusade

1198: Pope Innocent III calls the Fourth Crusade

1201: Alexios Angelos arrives in the West

1202: Fourth Crusade captures Zara

1203: Fourth Crusade arrives at Constantinople

1204: Capture and sack of Constantinople

1205: Battle of Adrianople

1208: Imperial coronation of Theodore Laskaris

1216: Death of Henry of Flanders

1218: Fifth Crusade sails for Egypt

1221: Death of Theodore Laskaris; accession of John III Vatatzes

1224: Theodore Angelos takes Thessalonica

1225: Battle of Poimamenon

1227: Launch of Sixth Crusade

1228: Treaty of Jaffa returns Jerusalem to Christian rule

1230: Battle of Klokotnitsa

1244: Second fall of Jerusalem; Battle of La Forbie

1246: John III Vatatzes takes Thessalonica

1250: Defeat of the Seventh Crusade in Egypt

1254: Death of John III Vatatzes

1258: Michael Palaiologos seizes power at Nicaea

1259: Battle of Pelagonia

1260: Mamluks defeat the Mongols at Ain Jalut

1261: Recapture of Constantinople by Michael VIII

1265: Charles of Anjou becomes king of Sicily

1267: Treaty of Viterbo between Charles of Anjou and Baldwin II

1268: Mamluk sultan Baibars captures Antioch

1270: Crusade of Louis IX to Tunis

1274: Council of Lyons

1277: Charles of Anjou becomes king of Jerusalem

1282: Sicilian Vespers; death of Michael VIII

1289: Mamluk sultan Qalawun captures Tripoli

1291: Fall of Acre