The Oxford History of Byzantium

by Cyril Mango

  Monastery church of St Sophia at Trebizond, founded by the emperor Manuel I (1238–63). Exterior from the south. While basically Byzantine both in its architecture and painted decoration, St Sophia shows a curious intrusion of Caucasian, Italian, and even Seljuk elements.

  This acceptance of the vernacular must also be a factor behind the other feature shared by all the works mentioned so far, with the exception of Makhairas, and that is that they are written in verse. The metre used is a rhythmic fifteen-syllable line that first appeared in the tenth century, with no clear classical and learned antecedents. The lack of classical models meant that there were no established rules for its use. It would thus have been accessible to writers and audiences used to the patterns of everyday speech to whose rhythms and forms it was well suited. So well suited was the fifteen-syllable line to the rhythms of speech that it became in effect the national metre of modern Greek literature. It was given a subtlety that the earlier examples lacked in the flexible patterns of the Erotokritos (1590–1610), Cornaros’ romantic epic that, as much as Chortatsis’ dramas, epitomizes the social and literary fusions of Venetian Crete. In subsequent centuries the conscious compositions in the fifteen-syllable line of writers as diverse as Solomos (1798–1857), Palamas (1859–1943), Ritsos (1909–90), or even Elytis (1911–96) draw on an epic and ballad tradition of uncertain antiquity but with roots in an oral tradition which received a great impulse in the period of the Franco-Greek societies.

  The Palace of the Despots at Mistra, more western than Byzantine in style, is a three-storey rectangular building with a spacious throne room at the top. It is similar in disposition to the palace of Nymphaeum and Tekfur Sarayι at Constantinople.

  In many cases the areas which saw the creation of these texts are apparent from the texts themselves: this is so for Cyprus (Makhairas), Crete (Sachlikis, Dellaportas), the Peloponnese (the Chronicle of the Morea). In other cases, like the War of Troy, there are no clear statements in the text so one has to fall back on arguments that a work of such length and so closely connected to a French original must have been due to a patron operating in an area where there was close French and Greek contact, in this instance perhaps the Morea in the fourteenth century under the later Angevins. In other cases again it is very likely that the author was resident in Constantinople itself, since that city was also not immune to the pressures of a multicultural world. For many years there had been substantial communities of Italian traders, most notably the Genoese in Galata, while the imperial house had continued the practice, begun in the twelfth century, of marriages into western families. Theodore Palaiologos, the Marquis of Montferrat, for example, son of Andonikos II, eventually became virtually indistinguishable from any other Italian noble-man, and himself made a Latin version of the treatise on government that he wrote in Constantinople in 1327.

  The probable literary activity of a cousin of Theodore’s, Andronikos Palaiologos, highlights a number of the issues raised by the texts from this period. This Andronikos is generally taken to be the author of the romance Kallimachos and Chrysorrhoi, on the basis of a not particularly close paraphrase in which a romance is attributed to him. Kallimachos is on the fringes of the texts we have been considering—it is in verse, it is linguistically at the lower end of an acceptable register of Greek and is full of folk-tale elements, though the Frankish features are minimal. But this is the only romance for which we can even begin to think we can identify the author.

  Built in French Gothic style, the cathedral of St Nicholas at Famagusta (first half of the fourteenth century) has served as a mosque since 1571. It was here that the Lusignan kings of Cyprus were crowned kings of Jerusalem.

  Facing: The Crucifixion, inscribed in Latin, on a two-sided ‘Crusader icon’ of the thirteenth century in the monastery of St Catherine on Mount Sinai.

  The Byzantine composition of the Deisis in Queen Melisende’s Psalter, executed at Jerusalem probably in the 1130s. One of the four artists who illustrated it has signed his name on Christ’s footstool (Basilius me fecit).

  A surprising amount of the Franco-Greek writing is anonymous: in effect all the romances and all the history apart from Machairas, though none of the Cretan personal poetry. Here perhaps the role of the verse medium comes into play again for there are many stereotypical lines whose presence can perhaps be best explained as a reference to a traditional oral style which demanded anonymity, however elevated the writer’s social status.

  In the domain of the visual arts we also find from the twelfth-thirteenth century onwards a fusion of Byzantine and Latin elements. Most visibly, buildings in the western style were put up in Latin principalities and colonies, not only castles, but also churches, abbeys, and mansions. At Constantinople the Italian trading colonies, it seems, started erecting their own churches before 1204, and there was certainly some building activity in the period of the Latin Kingdom. The Genoese colony of Pera, established in 1303 on the opposite shore of the Golden Horn, was built in the Italian style. Mistra, capital of the Despotate of the Morea, was initially a Frankish foundation, and its multistorey Palace of the Despots was more western than Byzantine. In Cyprus the splendid cathedrals of Nicosia and Famagusta, not to mention a great number of other important foundations, were erected by French architects in the Gothic style. Greeks, therefore, came into daily contact with a tradition of architecture to which they had not been previously exposed and which was technologically more advanced than their own. The selective borrowings they made—the belfry, the pointed arch, decorative machicolations, possibly the stained glass window—show their willingness to learn. Figural sculpture, except for rather flat relief icons, had been underdeveloped in the Byzantine tradition and now assumed greater prominence under Frankish influence, e.g. in funerary monuments, although full-scale statues were avoided.

  In painting, the foremost medium of Byzantine art and, theologically, the most sensitive, influences appear to have flowed mainly in the opposite direction. When, fifty years ago, Hugo Buchthal was able to reconstruct a school of manuscript illuminators who were active in Jerusalem and Acre in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, he found that these French and Italian artists copied or adapted Byzantine iconographic models, while at the same time retaining typically western features such as full-page decorated initials. It seems, therefore, that they recognized the prestige or superiority of Byzantine figure style. More recently a large group of ‘Crusader icons’, also painted by westerners according to the conventions of Byzantine iconography, has been identified in the monastery of St Catherine on Mount Sinai, a pilgrimage centre that had at the time closer links with the West than with Constantinople. Most strikingly, a fragmentary cycle of the life of St Francis of the 1240s or 1250s has come to light in a church of Constantinople that must have been converted to the Latin rite.

  The age of the Palaiologoi, in spite of its political and economic decadence, saw a remarkable flowering of religious painting in a distinctive style that came to the attention of European scholars about a hundred years ago. The frescoes of Mistra and the mosaics of the monastery of Chora (Kariye Camii) at Constantinople were seen to bear an uncanny resemblance to the art of the Italian primitives like Pietro Cavallini, Cimabue, and Duccio. What came to be called the ‘Byzantine question’, i.e. who came first, has long been debated without being brought to a complete resolution. We now know that the Palaiologan style crystallized in c.1260: we first meet it in the monastery of the Holy Trinity at Sopoćani in Serbia, and something not unlike it in the church of St Sophia at Trebizond of about the same date. We assume without hard proof that these two monuments, standing as they do at opposite ends of the Byzantine periphery, were decorated by artists from the ‘centre’—but where exactly was the centre in the 1260s? The prevalent view is that the Palaiologan style, in spite of some iconographic borrowings from the West (e.g. the Tree of Jesse), was of Byzantine origin, going back to very old models, in particular illuminated manuscripts of the tenth century. If that is so, one may see it as a
conscious effort to create a school of Orthodox religious painting grounded in ancient precedent, yet satisfying a new taste for a fuller and more picturesque narrative style. It certainly emerged in a context of interaction between eastern and western artistic traditions.

  While losing some of its initial freshness, the Palaiologan style remained to the end the dominant form of Byzantine painting. It did not lead to the rapid development we witness in Italy. By the time Giotto painted the Arena Chapel (c.1306)—some ten years before the mosaics of Chora—Italy was well ahead and had nothing further to learn from Byzantium. By the middle of the fourteenth century, in any case, commissions must have been drying up at Constantinople, thus forcing artists to seek their livelihood elsewhere. The most famous of them, Theophanes the Greek, emigrated to Moscow, where he trained many disciples including Andrei Rublev. Others moved to Crete, which became the most active centre of Byzantine painting until its conquest by the Turks. Recent research in Venetian archives has revealed the activity of a large group (over a hundred) of named painters, who produced mostly icons, but occasionally did murals as well. They worked in a quasi-industrial manner both for export and home consumption, using stencils, which were handed down from generation to generation. What is particularly interesting is that they were able to switch from a Byzantine to a late Gothic manner depending on their clientele. In other words, their Orthodox customers eschewed western icons and vice versa. On the plane of individual religiosity the two traditions remained distinct.

  Detail of a highly damaged St Francis cycle in the church of the Virgin Kyriotissa (Kalenderhane Camii) at Constantinople. Painted no later than the 1250s, this is one of the earliest known cycles of the life of St Francis of Assisi, canonized in 1228.

  Italian painting was, however, bound to prevail in the end. In the sixteenth century western infiltration, mostly through the medium of engravings, was still sporadic. The painter Theophanes the Cretan, who executed several large cycles on the Meteora and Mount Athos in the years 1527–46, followed in the main Byzantine tradition, but copied the Massacre of the Innocents from an engraving, after Raphael, by Marcantonio Raimondi. Also on Mount Athos the Apocalypse cycles in the monasteries of Lavra and Dionysiou were inspired by Dürer’s woodcuts. By 1600 the Byzantine style was in terminal decline. The most famous Greek painter hailing from Crete, Domenico Theotokopoulos (El Greco), started his career with some rather Italianate icons, but was then completely won over by contemporary Mannerism. Despite claims to the contrary, the only Byzantine element of his famous paintings was his signature in Greek lettering.

  Facing: The Journey to Bethlehem in the monastery of Chora invites comparison with Giotto’s nearly contemporary Flight into Egypt in the Arena Chapel, Padua. While the composition and rocky landscape are broadly similar, the Italian painting has figures that are more statuesque and step on real ground instead of tiptoeing on a stage set.

  Chronology

  Constantine I (306–37)

  312

  Constantine defeats Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge

  313

  Edict of religious Toleration; death of Maximinus

  324

  Constantine defeats Licinius at Chrysopolis; foundation of Constantinople

  325

  First General Council (Nicaea I)

  330

  Inauguration of Constantinople

  337

  Constantine’s baptism

  Constantius II (337–61)

  340

  Constans defeats Constantine II

  350

  Revolt of Magnentius and murder of Constans

  355

  Julian made Caesar

  Julian (361–3)

  363

  Julian invades Persia

  Jovian (363–4)

  363

  Retreat from Persia; surrender of Nisibis

  Valens (364–78)

  365–6

  Revolt of Procopius

  378

  Goths defeat Romans at Adrianople

  Theodosius I (378–95)

  381

  Second General Council (Constantinople)

  388

  Usurper Maximus defeated

  391

  Edicts against paganism

  394

  Usurper Eugenius defeated

  Arcadius (405–8)

  408

  Alaric invades Italy

  Theodosius II (408–50)

  410

  Alaric sacks Rome

  431

  Third General Council (Ephesus)

  439

  Vandals capture Carthage

  441–7

  Victories of Attila in the Balkans

  Marcian (450–7)

  451

  Fourth General Council (Chalcedon)

  453

  Death of Pulcheria and Attila

  Leo I (457–74)

  471

  Overthrow of Aspar

  Zeno (474–91)

  475–6

  Usurpation of Basiliscus

  476

  Deposition of Romulus Augustulus

  484

  Rebellion of Illus

  Anastasius (491–518)

  492–7

  Isaurian revolt

  502

  Persians besiege Amida

  505

  Construction of Dara

  513–15

  Revolt of Vitalian

  Justin I (518–27)

  525

  Destruction of Antioch by earthquake

  Justinian I (527–65)

  532

  Nika riot; ‘everlasting’ peace with Persia

  532–7

  Construction of St Sophia

  533–4

  Belisarius reconquers North Africa

  535–40

  Belisarius in Italy

  540

  Sack of Antioch by Persians

  542

  Plague at Constantinople

  544–9

  Belisarius’ second expedition to Italy

  548

  Death of Theodora

  552

  Narses defeats Totila in Italy

  553–4

  Fifth General Council (Constantinople)

  559

  Kutrigurs invade Thrace

  562

  Peace with Persia

  Justin II (565–78)

  568

  Lombard invasion of Italy

  572

  War with Persia

  574

  Tiberius named Caesar

  577

  Balkans invaded by Slavs and Avars

  Tiberius II (578–82)

  578

  War with Persia resumed

  582

  Avars take Sirmium

  Maurice (582–602)

  587

  Slav penetration into Peloponnese

  590–1

  Khusro II flees to Romans and is restored

  602

  Revolt of Balkan army

  Phokas (602–10)

  603

  Persian war

  608

  Revolt of Heraclius in Carthage

  Heraclius (610–41)

  614

  Persians capture Jerusalem

  616

  Persian invasion of Egypt

  622

  Hijra (flight of Muhammad to Medina)

  623

  Heraclius ambushed by Avars

  626

  Siege of Constantinople by Avars and Persians

  627

  Heraclius defeats Persians at Nineveh

  628

  Peace concluded with Persia

  630

  True Cross returned to Jerusalem

  632

  Death of Muhammad

  636

  Battle of Yarmuk

  638

  Arabs take Jerusalem

  640

  Arab conquest of Egypt

  Constantine III, Heraclius III, and Heraklonas (641) />
  641

  Ascendancy of Valentinus

  Constans II (641–68)

  647

  Arab invasion of Asia Minor

  655

  Naval defeat

  Constantine IV Pogonatus (668–85)

  671–8

  Constantinople blockaded by Arabs

  c.680

  Bulgarian state created

  680–1

  Sixth General Council (Constantinople)