THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF THE
BYZANTINE EMPIRE c. 500–1492

Byzantium lasted a thousand years, ruled to the end by self-styled ‘emperors of the Romans’. It underwent kaleidoscopic territorial and structural changes, yet recovered repeatedly from disaster: even after the near-impregnable Constantinople fell in 1204, variant forms of the empire reconstituted themselves. The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire tells the story, tracing political and military events, religious controversies and economic change. It offers clear, authoritative chapters on the main events and periods, with more detailed chapters on outlying regions and neighbouring societies and powers of Byzantium. With aids such as maps, a glossary, an alternative place-name table and references to English translations of sources, it will be valuable as an introduction. However, it also offers stimulating new approaches and important findings, making it essential reading for postgraduates and for specialists.

JONATHAN SHEPARD was for many years a Lecturer in History at the University of Cambridge, and was a Fellow of Selwyn College and of Peterhouse. He is the co-editor (with Simon Franklin) of Byzantine Diplomacy (1992), co-author (also with Simon Franklin) of The Emergence of Rus, 750–1200 (1996), author of Nespokoini s’sedi: b’lgaro-vizantiiska konfrontatsiia, obmen i s’zhitelstvo prez srednite vekove [Uneasy Neighbours: Bulgaro-Byzantine Confrontation, Exchange and Co-exist- ence in the Middle Ages] (2007) and editor of The Expansion of Orthodox Europe: Byzantium, the Balkans and Russia (2007). Shepard is Doctor Honoris Causa of St Kliment Ohrid University in Sofia.

THE CAMBRIDGE
HISTORY OF THE
BYZANTINE EMPIRE
c. 500–1492

Edited by
JONATHAN SHEPARD

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi

Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK

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

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521832311

© Cambridge University Press 2008

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 2008

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

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

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
The Cambridge history of the Byzantine Empire c. 500–1492 / edited by
Jonathan Shepard.
   p.   cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-521-83231-1
1. Byzantine Empire – History – 527–1081. 2. Byzantine Empire – History – 1081–1453.
I. Shepard, Jonathan. II. Title.
DF571.C34   2008
949.5^ʹ02 – dc22   2008038886

ISBN 978-0-521-83231-1 hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or
accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to
in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such
websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

Maps

Illustrations

Tables

GENEALOGICAL TABLES AND LISTS OF RULERS

Many of the dates and some of the names included in these tables are
debatable, and these lists are therefore somewhat provisional.

To Nicola

Preface

This is a short preface for quite a lengthy book, but it is a means of paying tribute to those principally involved in the development, shaping and production of The Cambridge history of the Byzantine empire (or CHBE). Like the empire itself, the process of formation has been protracted, without a clear-cut starting-point, and such sense of direction as has been attained owes more to collaborative effort than it does to untrammelled autocracy.

   Given the sizable number of persons contributing in one way or another, the preface’s brevity entails a mere sketch of those without whose help and advice CHBE would have been a far more onerous and lengthy task. It was Bill Davies who originally encouraged me to take on remodelling materials already available, and several anonymous readers helped structure the volume. Michael Sharp took over from Bill at Cambridge University Press and he has been an extremely patient and supportive editor, ably assisted at various times by Liz Davey, Sinead Moloney, Liz Noden and Annette Youngman. Particular thanks should go to the following key players: Bernard Dod, our indefatigable and eagle-eyed copy-editor, whose attention to detail and wise counsel averted many a mishap; to Barbara Hird, our expert indexer, whose care and clarity have created a valuable additional pathway to Byzantium; to Patricia Jeskins, our assiduous proofreader; and to David Cox, our cartographer, whose splendid maps are closely integrated with the text of our chapters.

   For bibliographic help I have to thank the following colleagues, who have supplied references and answered tiresome queries with speed and good grace: Jean-Claude Cheynet, Florin Curta, Peter Frankopan, Judith Gilliland, Michael Grünbart, Paul Herrup, James Howard-Johnston, Elizabeth Jeffreys, Lester Little, Margaret Mullett, Angel Nikolov, Paolo Odorico, Maureen Perrie, Günter Prinzing, Charlotte Roueché, Maciej Salamon, Alexios Savvides, Teresa Shawcross, John Smedley, Tsvetelin Stepanov, Alice-Mary Talbot, George Tcheishvili, Ida Toth, Vladimir Vavřínek and Mark Whittow. I should also like to thank the staff at the Bodleian, Taylorian Slavonic, Sackler, Oriental Institute and the other Oxford libraries, as well as the staff of the University Library in Cambridge.

   Colleagues who clarified various points along the thousand-year trek, or who freely provided access to unpublished materials of value for this work include Jane Baun, Jeffrey Featherstone, Paul Fouracre, John Haldon, Rosemary Morris, Pananos Sophoulis and Monica White. Particular thanks are due to Catherine Holmes, Mike Maas and Andrew Roach, who read the introduction and some of the chapters that follow, and who warned of culs-de-sac and quicksands to be charted or – hopefully – avoided.

   On the technical side, help with translation and transliteration was given by Lawrence Conrad, Jeffrey Featherstone, Tim Greenwood, Mona Hamami and Marina Kujić. Jenny Perry saved me on several occasions when Macs failed to talk to PCs, and vice versa, while Nigel James of the Bodleian initiated me into the mysteries of digital map-making. Locating and sourcing illustrations was made easier through the assistance of Nancy Alderson, Michel Balard, Theodore van Lint, Cyril Mango, Nicholas Mayhew, Dorothy McCarthy, Denys Pringle, Michael Stone and Robert Thomson. Particular thanks go to our neighbours, Vanessa and Peter Winchester, to whom I am indebted for several pictures of Constantinople. These thanks should be accompanied by apologies for a certain lack of sociability in recent years – and extended to all remaining friends.

   It is a commonplace to thank one’s immediate family for their help and endurance in these endeavours. However, I must single out my wife, Nicola, who took on the role of editorial assistant on the project without, I think, appreciating the sheer scale of activity involved. As I have often pointed out to her, this could be seen as due penance for failing to attend my lectures on Byzantium and its neighbours all those years ago in Cambridge! Without Nicola, the volume would probably not have been published this decade, and I am profoundly grateful for her patience, counsel and support.

   However, those most indispensable are the volume’s contributors. The chapters whose first incarnation was in The Cambridge ancient history or The new Cambridge medieval history have been joined by important new contributions expanding and elaborating on relevant themes. But it goes without saying that, notwithstanding all the help and advice received along the way, I take responsibility for such mistakes or errors as may have crept into the finished work.

NOTES ON USING THIS VOLUME

Our approach to transliteration may induce unease among some colleagues – and invite charges of inconsistency – but we have tried to make proper names and technical terms accessible to the English-speaking world wherever possible. Greek has been transliterated and bars have been used to distinguish ēta from epsilon and ōmega from omicron in the case of individual words and technical terms, but abandoned for proper names. Greek forms of proper names have generally been adopted in Parts and – Komnenos instead of the Latinised Comnenus, for example – in contrast to Part I, set in late antiquity, when Latinised names seem appropriate. In general, we have adopted a ‘b’ and not ‘ⅴ’ when transliterating the Greek letter bēta. However, where a name is more or less domiciled in English usage, we have let it be, e.g. Monemvasia and not Monembasia. Where the names of places are probably so familiar to most readers in their Latinised forms that the use of a Greek form might distract, the Latinised form has been retained in Parts and – Nicaea instead of Nikaia, for example. Familiar English forms have been preferred out of the same consideration – Athens not Athenai, for example – and in Part , when the empire’s possessions were being taken over by speakers of other tongues, the place names now prevalent have generally been preferred – Ankara instead of Ankyra, for example.

   Arabic diacritics have been discarded in proper names, with only the ayn (’) and hamza (‘) retained in the form shown, on the assumption that the diacritics will not help non-Arabic readers and may actually distract from name recognition and recall; however, full diacritics have been retained for individual words and technical terms. We have tried to be consistent yet accessible in transliterating other key scripts, such as Armenian and Cyrillic, using for the latter a modified version of the Library of Congress system.

   Detailed notes on how to use the bibliography can be found below at pp. 936–8. Chronological sectioning for the secondary bibliography is – like the periodisation of history itself into mutually exclusive compartments – rather arbitrary. The bibliography of secondary works should therefore be treated as a whole and the reader failing to find a work in one section should try the others.

   The Glossary and Tables are not intended to be comprehensive guides. The Glossary offers a selection of the technical terms, foreign words and names of peoples and institutions appearing in CHBE. But wherever possible, these are explained in the context of a chapter and only the more problematic proper names have a Glossary entry (see also Maps 3 and 52). Likewise, the lists of rulers and genealogies have been kept to a minimum, since they are available in more specialised works. The list of alternative place names is intended to help the reader locate some towns and regions which were known under radically different names by diverse occupants or neighbours, and to offer modern equivalents where known.

   The maps are designed to reconcile accessibility for anglophone readers with a sense of the form prevalent during the chronological section of CHBE in question, not wholly compatible goals. The maps are intended to be viewed as an ensemble, and readers unable to spot a place in a map positioned in one chapter should look to adjoining chapters, or (aided by the list of alternative place names and the index) shop around.