culture-imperial

From http://mem­ber­s.n­bci.­com/_XM­CM/ni­co­laa/im­per.htm­l|”Ni­co­laa’s ar­ti­cle of the same name, from her http://mem­ber­s.n­bci.­com/_XM­CM/ni­co­laa/rus­in­tro.htm­l|”Nov­gorod Hand­book”

====== Me­dieval Rus­sia — Cul­ture and Peo­ple ====== ===== The Im­pe­ri­al Ide­al — And Re­al­i­ty =====

Con­stantino­ple and Rus­sia in the ear­ly eleventh cen­tu­ry.

Byzan­tium be­lieved her­self to be the cen­tre of the civ­i­lized world, the liv­ing con­tin­u­a­tion of the Ro­man Em­pire, the im­pe­ri­al ide­al per­son­i­fied. There was no oth­er city like it in the West­ern world, and few to ri­val it in all of hu­man civ­i­liza­tion. Imag­ine, if you will, a city of one mil­lion — in an age that thought a set­tle­ment of ten thou­sand to be a me­trop­o­lis. Sur­round­ed by 12 miles of wall­s, lit by the Pharos light­house, Con­stantino­ple was lit­er­al­ly a bea­con to the rest of the world at the en­trance to the Black Sea, astride East and West and the trad­ing routes which con­nect­ed them. Her har­bours filled with war­ship­s, her streets lit by a sys­tem of light­ing, her cit­i­zens pro­vid­ed with ex­cel­lent drainage and san­i­ta­tion, hos­pi­tal­s, or­phan­ages, li­braries, and lux­u­ry shops which stayed open even at night, Con­stantino­ple stood at her apogee. The great cathe­dral of Ha­gia Sophi­a, built by Jus­tini­an in the sixth cen­tu­ry, it is said, could be seen for miles from its po­si­tion com­mand­ing the Gold­en Horn due to the huge num­ber of can­dles and lamps used to light it; the light of Or­tho­dox Chris­tian­i­ty shone even fur­ther, with the Pa­tri­arch of Con­stantino­ple over­see­ing near­ly as many souls as the Pope, from the city found­ed as the New Rome by Con­stan­tine the Great, first Chris­tian Em­per­or of Rome, him­self. No won­der the East­ern Church balked at claims of pa­pal suprema­cy!

In­side the Great Palace, a sec­ond city with­in this great city that many res­i­dents prob­a­bly nev­er even saw, the Im­pe­ri­al Court lived out their lives, amidst sev­en palaces (some roofed in gold) and halls with sil­ver and bronze doors equipped with foun­tains which could be made to flow with wine.

They sat on gold and jew­el-en­crust­ed thrones equipped with me­chan­i­cal de­vices

which could lift them to the ceil­ing to im­press the awe-strick­en au­di­ence be­low, and they ate soup gar­nished with pearls off of gold plates. When bored, they could wan­der the li­braries, gar­den­s, zoo, and aviary all con­tained in­side the wall­s.

The Em­per­or and his fam­i­ly did ven­ture out of the palace on oc­ca­sion — for fes­ti­vals and vis­its to the Hip­po­drome. One eye­wit­ness has de­scribed an im­pe­ri­al pro­ces­sion. The streets were strewn with mat­s, leaves, and branch­es for the even­t. First came Greeks in silks of red, white and green, fol­lowed by the Varangian Guard, clad in sky-blue silk and car­ry­ing gild­ed ax­es. Next came eu­nuch­s, pages, pa­tri­cian­s, and fi­nal­ly the Em­per­or, ac­com­pa­nied by the silen­tar­ius, whose job it was to hush the crowd. The Em­per­or wore his di­a­dem of pearls and gold, his state robes, and the pur­ple cloak and shoes which on­ly he was en­ti­tled to wear, but be­hind him walked his chief min­is­ter, who at ev­ery two steps re­mind­ed him to “think on death”, up­on which he opened a gold box he was car­ry­ing and kissed the earth it con­tained, tears in his eye­s. All of this was done by a strict set of rules, over­seen by a Mas­ter of Cer­e­monies, whose on­ly du­ty it was to or­ches­trate these events and to en­sure that prece­dence was ob­served— no small task, when one re­al­izes that there were eigh­teen sep­a­rate ranks of ti­tles and over six­ty lead­ing of­fi­cials in the Byzan­tine Court. These in­clud­ed heads of the chancery, the mas­ter of horse, the chief ad­vi­sor, the head of fi­nance, the re­ceiv­er of pe­ti­tion­s, and the state­gi , or mil­i­tary com­man­der­s, not to men­tion the Eparch of Con­stantino­ple, the act­ing gov­er­nor of the city it­self, just to name a few. Eu­nuchs were ev­ery­where. Of­ten they formed the Em­per­or’s most in­ti­mate coun­selors, as the post of Em­per­or was the on­ly one that by law they could not at­tain. Oth­er­wise, they held po­si­tions of great pow­er, in­clud­ing mil­i­tary com­mand­s.

The bulk of the pop­u­la­tion prob­a­bly caught glimpses of the Em­per­or in the Hip­po­drome as well, where, fresh from his morn­ing prayer­s, he would bless the crowd from his box and drop a white hand­ker­chief to start the games.

Most pop­u­lar were the four-horse char­i­ot races, but glad­i­a­tors and mock

hunts had their part­s, too. Af­ter the games, the peo­ple would re­turn to their du­ties — per­haps in the mas­sive Im­pe­ri­al ad­min­is­tra­tion, per­haps in crafts or trad­ing. Con­stantino­ple had hun­dreds of well-estab­lished guild­s; six alone — silk twister­s, silk weaver­s, dy­ers in pur­ple, deal­ers in raw silk, deal­ers in Syr­i­an silk, and deal­ers in silk cloth­ing— as­so­ci­at­ed with the silk trade. There were guilds for ev­ery trade imag­in­able, from cat­tle trader­s, fish­mon­gers and innkeep­ers to mon­ey-chang­er­s, gold­smith­s, and no­taries.

Mem­ber­ship was not hered­i­tary, but was based on ap­ti­tude. Nowhere else

in Eu­rope was the guild sys­tem so ful­ly de­vel­ope­d. Thus, while Byzan­tium’s claim to suprema­cy might have smacked of ar­ro­gance, it was a well-­found­ed claim.

To un­der­stand Byzan­tium’s poli­cies to­wards the Rus’ and oth­er near­by peo­ples in our pe­ri­od, it is nec­es­sary to know a bit about Byzan­tine pol­i­tics and his­to­ry at this pe­ri­od. Vladimir the Great (the con­vert­er of Rus­si­a)’s con­tem­po­rary in Byzan­tium was Basil II, who has been called the “a­pogee of Byzan­tine Pow­er”. His pre­de­ces­sors had been in­volved not on­ly in ex­ter­nal con­flicts against the Bul­gar­i­an Slavs and Arab­s, but al­so in in­ter­nal strug­gles be­tween mem­bers of the rul­ing dy­nas­tic fam­i­ly, pow­er­ful gen­er­al­s, and the feu­dal aris­toc­ra­cy, which was try­ing to con­sol­i­date its pow­er by grab­bing up land from small landown­er­s. Basil had just con­clud­ed a suc­cess­ful cam­paign in the Balka­ns when the feu­dal aris­toc­ra­cy in Asia Mi­nor re­volt­ed, sup­port­ing a pre­tender re­lat­ed to one of the gen­er­als who had worn the pur­ple while Basil was still a child and un­able to as­sume it him­self. These rebel­s, led by Bar­das Pho­cas, marched on Con­stantino­ple.

Basil turned to Vladimir, who him­self led 6000 men in aid of the em­per­or

at Chrysopo­lis. The re­sult was a splen­did vic­to­ry; with­in a year Bar­das Pho­cas was dead of a heart at­tack suf­fered in the midst of a fi­nal bat­tle at Aby­dus. A grate­ful Basil promised Vladimir his sis­ter An­na, on the con­di­tion that he and his peo­ple con­vert to Chris­tian­i­ty, which they did. Basil seems to have re­gret­ted his promise, be­cause Vladimir had to in­vade Byzan­tine pos­ses­sions to get him to keep it. And no won­der — no oth­er Eu­ro­pean lordling had ev­er been per­mit­ted to wed a pur­ple-born Im­pe­ri­al princess. That Basil even­tu­al­ly kept the prom­ise is tes­ta­ment to the strong bond now grow­ing be­tween the two pow­er­s.

Basil him­self nev­er mar­ried, but grew in­creas­ing­ly with­drawn and au­to­crat­ic. He hat­ed the cer­e­mony, art, rhetoric, and learn­ing that or­na­ment­ed the court — his on­ly wish was to in­crease the pow­er of the state and over­come its en­e­mies, both do­mes­tic and for­eign. In the case of the for­mer, he moved to halt the land-­grab­bing feu­dal aris­toc­ra­cy that he hat­ed by re­strict­ing their abil­i­ty to force small landown­ers to sell their prop­er­ty and be­come mere ten­ants, and he im­posed tax­es to both help the Em­pire fund its mil­i­tary and to keep the aris­toc­ra­cy from ac­cu­mu­lat­ing wealth that could be used to fu­el re­volt­s.

Ex­ter­nal­ly, Basil con­duct­ed cam­paigns against a num­ber of foes. He lit­er­al­ly wiped out the Bul­gar tsar­dom in the Balka­n­s, earn­ing the ep­i­thet “Basil the Bul­gar­-s­lay­er”. While ruth­less and in­hu­man on the field, he was mod­er­ate and sen­si­ble to­wards this new­ly-re­claimed Byzan­tine prov­ince once it was sub­dued, ex­empt­ing it from a num­ber of heavy tax­es. The Arabs were suc­cess­ful­ly kept qui­et as well, and to­wards the end of his reign, Basil an­nexed lands in the re­gion of Ar­me­ni­a. When he died in 1025, the Byzan­tine Em­pire was larg­er and more pros­per­ous than it had been for years; Basil had al­so been work­ing on a plan to ex­tend Byzan­tine in­flu­ence in­to Italy, where a Byzan­tine Princess had mar­ried the Holy Ro­man Em­per­or, Ot­to II.

Unfortunately, after Basil’s death, this all began to fall apart.

Con­stan­tine VI­I­I, Basil’s broth­er, as­sumed the pur­ple nex­t. An old man

by this time, Con­stan­tine cared lit­tle for any­thing but ban­quets and vis­it­ing the Hip­po­drome, and was Em­per­or in name on­ly. When he died in 1028, he left no son­s, but on his deathbed named Ro­manus Ar­gyrus, the Eparch of Con­stantino­ple, to mar­ry his 53-year-old sis­ter Zoe and thus suc­ceed him. Ro­manus was past 60 and had ab­so­lute­ly no abil­i­ty what­so­ev­er, pre­fer­ring the kind of deca­dent life Con­stan­tine had en­joyed. Dur­ing his reign, all of Basil’s poli­cies were com­plete­ly aban­doned, with the re­sult that the feu­dal aris­toc­ra­cy once again be­gan grab­bing up land from small landown­er­s, who were re­duced to a state of de­pen­den­cy. The tax­es went un­en­forced as well, with the re­sult that rev­enue de­clined, which led to a de­cline in the strength of the armed forces.

Ro­manus did not last long, how­ev­er. He had quick­ly tired of Zoe, who found a more at­trac­tive lover in Michael, the broth­er of the eu­nuch John the Or­phan­otro­phus, with the re­sult that Ro­manus died in his bath in 1034 and Zoe mar­ried Michael that very night. Michael as­sumed the pur­ple as Michael IV, but John the Or­phan­otro­phus ran the ad­min­is­tra­tion, reim­pos­ing the tax­es on the feu­dal aris­toc­ra­cy, thus win­ning the sup­port of the civ­il no­bil­i­ty.

Michael him­self was an im­prove­ment over his pre­de­ces­sors — he was a ca­pa­ble

lead­er and a brave gen­er­al, though he suf­fered from epilep­sy. In his reign, the Slavs be­gan to make in­roads once again in­to Byzan­tine ter­ri­to­ries, though a se­ri­ous re­volt in the Balka­ns was sup­pressed; how­ev­er, Michael him­self re­turned mor­tal­ly il­l, dy­ing in 1041.

Thus, af­ter Vladimir’s con­ver­sion, the Rus’ for the most part left Byzan­tium un­mo­lest­ed, pre­fer­ring in­stead to pur­sue the more lu­cra­tive route of trade with Con­stantino­ple. The fact that a spe­cial bond now ex­ist­ed be­tween Kiev and Con­stantino­ple is quite clear when one notes that in the trou­ble­some years af­ter Basil’s death, the Rus’ did not seize the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­pand at Byzan­tium’s ex­pense.

What of this trade, then? It is not sur­pris­ing that Con­stantino­ple at­tract­ed peo­ple, both friend­ly and hos­tile, from afar. The Rus’ at­tacked the city a num­ber of times, each time con­clud­ing hos­til­i­ties with a treaty which al­lowed them trade priv­i­leges. The Vikings, who had pre­vi­ous­ly plied the Vol­ga Riv­er routes in search of Ara­bic sil­ver, looked west­ward for new sources when the Kuf­ic sources be­gan to dry up in the ninth and tenth cen­tu­ry. The Dneiper Riv­er sys­tem was an ob­vi­ous choice as a route to Con­stantino­ple, but un­til the tenth cen­tu­ry, the pas­sage was haz­ardous due to hos­tile tribes in the area. Once Kiev se­cured con­trol over the area, there was less dan­ger of at­tack, though still oth­er dif­fi­cul­ties to sur­moun­t.

The items most in de­mand in Con­stantino­ple were fur, and to a less­er de­gree, slaves. Sheep, cat­tle, goatskin­s, leather, hawk­s, hon­ey, wax, nut­s, co­rian­der, fish, ivory, am­ber, ar­rows, sword­s, and mail-­coats were just a few of the oth­er items in de­mand. The boats which plied the low­er Dneiper had to leave by June if they hoped to get to Con­stantino­ple and back be­fore the riv­er froze. The jour­ney took 5-6 week­s. The traders trav­eled in boats (monoxy­la) made of a large, hol­lowed tree trunk, planked up on the sides to hold more good­s; these seem to have been well suit­ed for riv­er trav­el;

once in­to the Black Sea, they were fit­ted with sails for the last leg of

the jour­ney.

The jour­ney was quite gru­el­ing. Be­sides the ev­er-p­re­sent threat of raiders and ban­dit­s, there were sev­en sets of rapids on the low­er Dneiper, and pas­sage was pos­si­ble on­ly dur­ing a nar­row win­dow when the riv­er was full of spring meltoffs and thus high­er than nor­mal. Once out of the Dneiper, the boats made their way to the Danube es­tu­ary, where they picked up sail­s, mast­s, and rud­ders and sailed for Con­stantino­ple. Once in the city, the Rus’ were af­ford­ed spe­cial priv­i­leges, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter 988, when a grate­ful Byzan­tium thanked the Rus’ by ex­tend­ing them the right to stay six months (rather than the cus­tom­ary three­), the guar­an­tee of cer­tain pro­vi­sions (food, sail­cloth, rope) and the right to buy ex­tra silk (the amount of silk one was al­lowed to ex­port from the city was strict­ly reg­u­lat­ed). These spe­cial priv­i­leges prob­a­bly al­so had some­thing to do with the fact that the main Rus’ trade good, furs, was in high de­mand in Byzan­tium. The Rus’ had their own sec­tion out­side the walls on the Bosporus and their own church­es with­in this quar­ter. Af­ter 988, they al­so con­trib­uted men to the Em­per­or’s Varangian Guard.

The goods brought back were the lux­u­ries in de­mand among the Rus’: silk, ex­treme­ly pres­ti­gious to those at home; wine, un­avail­able oth­er­wise; fin­ished good­s, spices, and Byzan­tine mon­ey. The re­turn trip was at least as treach­er­ous as the jour­ney there, but the trou­ble was def­i­nite­ly worth it in the eyes of the Rus’ elite.

//­Copy­right 1997 Su­san Car­rol­l-Clark. All rights re­served//

The bib­li­og­ra­phy for this ar­ti­cle can be found at http://mem­ber­s.n­bci.­com/_XM­CM/ni­co­laa/bib­lio.html