IMPERIAL IDEOLOGY AND POLITICAL
THOUGHT IN BYZANTIUM, 1204–1330

This is the first systematic study of Byzantine imperial ideology, court rhetoric, and political thought after the Latin conquest of Constantinople in 1204 – in the Nicaean state (1204–1261) and during the early period of the restored empire of the Palaiologoi. The book explores Byzantine political imagination at a time of crisis when the empire ceased to be a first-rate power in the Mediterranean. It investigates the correspondence and fissures between official political rhetoric, on the one hand, and the political ideas of lay thinkers and churchmen, on the other. Through the analysis of a wide body of sources (some of them little known or unpublished), a picture of Byzantine political thought emerges which differs significantly from the traditionally accepted one. The period saw refreshing developments in court rhetoric and political thought, some with interesting parallels in the medieval and Renaissance West, which arose in response to the new historical realities.

DIMITER ANGELOV is Research Fellow in Byzantine History at the University of Birmingham. He holds a doctorate from Harvard University (2002) and has taught as assistant professor at Western Michigan University (2002–5).

IMPERIAL IDEOLOGY AND
POLITICAL THOUGHT IN
BYZANTIUM, 1204–1330

DIMITER ANGELOV

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Cambridge University Press
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Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

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Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521857031

© Dimiter Angelov 2006

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2006

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

ISBN-13 978-0-521-85703-1 hardback
ISBN-10 0-521-85703-1 hardback

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or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any
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Contents

Illustrations

1.	Theodore Ⅱ Laskaris, Codex Monacensis gr. 442 (14th c.), f. 7 verso, Beyerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich	Page205
2.	Theodore Ⅱ Laskaris, gold hyperpyron, 1254–1255, courtesy of the Coin Department, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham	206
3.	George Pachymeres, Codex Monacensis gr. 442 (14th c.), f. 6 verso, Beyerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich	261
4.	Theodore Metochites, church of Christ Savior in Chora (Kariye Djami), Istanbul, courtesy of Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Photograph and Fieldwork Archives, Washington, DC	307

Tables

Preface

This project began as a doctoral dissertation submitted in 2002 to the History Department of Harvard University and was completed as a book at the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies at the University of Birmingham. I am most indebted to my mentor at Harvard, Angeliki Laiou, who introduced me to the issues and sources of late Byzantine history, directed the doctoral dissertation with great care, and offered me a great many useful comments as well as constructive criticism. Michael McCormick of Harvard University has discussed with me a number of points of conceptualization and detail, and his insistence on setting Byzantine civilization in a broader medieval context has been inspirational. John Duffy of Harvard University taught me Greek paleography and assisted me significantly in the study of unpublished manuscript material. I conducted a substantial portion of the research at the Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies in Washington, DC, where I held a Junior Fellowship in the years 1999–2000, and I have benefited from its library resources.

The book could hardly have been completed without the generous postdoctoral grant I have been awarded by the European Commission in the form of a two-year Marie Curie Fellowship at the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity, University of Birmingham. I should like to thank the History Department at Western Michigan University for its unreserved support for my research when granting me a leave and thus enabling me to take residence in Birmingham. Since its foundation in 1970–71 the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies in Birmingham has grown into a leading research institution, providing excellent conditions and a creative atmosphere for the cultivation of Byzantine studies. I have always benefited from my conversations with Anthony Bryer, the Centre’s co-founder, and have been fortunate to have as my colleague at the Centre Ruth Macrides, with whom I discussed innumerable issues related to the history and culture of the empire of Nicaea. I would also like to thank Dimitris Kastritsis, Adam Kosto, Paul Magdalino, Joseph Munitiz, Ihor Ševčenko, Kostis Smyrlis, and Alice-Mary Talbot, each of whom has contributed in his or her own unique way with comments and suggestions to the final shape of this book. I am grateful to Henry Buglass, graphic artist at the Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity at the University of Birmingham, for helping me in the production of the maps.

Finally I should express my immeasurable debt to my late grandfather, Dimiter S. Angelov, whose story-telling talent, erudition, and love for the past first kindled in me a passion for history at an age when I could hardly comprehend the meaning of complex concepts such as “ideology” or “political thought.”

Birmingham
April 2005

A note on style

This book is based on the study of a large body of texts, some of which are found in rare editions or are unpublished. The decision whether or not to quote the Greek has been made on a case-by-case basis. In the footnotes I have quoted passages or phrases from the sources whenever I have deemed that such quotations could help to illustrate better my argument. This approach has the virtue of making explicit for the reader the basis of some of the interpretations offered here. I have provided English translations of passages which are crucial or which pose difficulty. For the purpose of readability, I have avoided as much as possible the use of Greek characters in the main body of the text; Greek has been confined to the footnotes. I have adhered to the practice, now standard in the field of Byzantine studies, of transcribing Byzantine names and not latinizing them: thus Palaiologos, not Palaeologus; Athanasios, not Athanasius. In the case of Byzantine court titles and offices, I have attempted to strike a compromise between truthful rendition and conventional, reader-friendly English usage. I have offered a transcription of most titles, such as mesazon, sebastokrator or dikaiophylax. Sometimes a felicitous English rendition has been possible, in which case I have opted to use an anglicized equivalent of the Byzantine court office or title: for example, grand logothete instead of megas logothetes; grand constable instead of megas konostaulos. The only Byzantine court title which I have consistently capitalized is that of Despot (despotes). The reason for this is that the Despot was the second highest title-holder in the court hierarchy after the emperor; the rulers of Epiros titled themselves Despots during most of the history of this autonomous successor state to the Byzantine empire.

All references to the Old Testament follow the nomenclature and numeration of the Greek Septuagint. Classical authors are cited according to H. G. Liddell, R. Scott and S. Stuart Jones, A Greek–English Lexicon, 9th edn (Oxford, 1940), and the standard editions. The transliteration of bibliography entries published in Slavic languages using the Cyrillic alphabet is based on the Library of Congress transliteration system.

Abbreviations

The Balkans and Anatolia, c. 1214

Byzantium, c. 1265

Byzantium, c. 1330