by Colin Wells
“A superb survey of Byzantium's many cultural bequests … In this deft synthesis of scholarship, classicist Wells shows how the Byzantines exerted a profound influence on all neighboring civilizations…. Contains a useful glossary of historical figures, detailed maps and a timeline.” —
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“This history is a needed reminder of the debt that three of our major civilizations owe to Byzantium. Highly recommended.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“Comprehensive examination … Eye-opening in its vast cache of references.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A marvelous read for anyone interested in the history of civilization … Colin Wells has put together a masterpiece entailing the journey of knowledge through the medium of Byzantium.”
—UNRV.com (Roman history website)
“Wells brings vividly to life this history of a long-lost era and its opulent heritage.”
—Booklist
“Colin Wells's smart and accessible new history … Sailing from Byzantium offers the reader a fascinating lesson in the strange transience, and even stranger endurance, of empires…. Mr. Wells offers capsule summaries of important intellectual developments, while keeping vivid personalities—kings, monks, philosophers, travelers—to the fore. The reader comes away, accordingly, with a broad outline of a complex subject, and a whole bushel of interesting anecdotes.”
—New York Sun
“In this work of extraordinary learning … readers will find themselves guided on a fascinating journey through a story that has never before been presented in such an accessible and thought-provoking fashion.”
—Thomas R. Martin, Jeremiah O'Connor Professor of Classics at the College of the Holy Cross
For Gran and Grandma Petey
And for my parents
With love and gratitude
Contents
Major Characters
Concurrent Timeline
Maps
Introduction
Prologue
PART I: Byzantium and the West
Chapter 1 Toward a Parting of the Ways
Chapter 2 Between Athens and Jerusalem
Chapter 3 How Petrarch and Boccaccio Flunked Greek
Chapter 4 Chrysoloras in Florence
Chapter 5 Byzantine Émigrés in the Quattrocento
PART II: Byzantium and the Islamic World
Chapter 6 A New Byzantium
Chapter 7 The House of Wisdom
Chapter 8 The Arabic Enlightenment
PART III: Byzantium and the Slavic World
Chapter 9 A Threat from the North
Chapter 10 The Mission of Cyril and Methodius
Chapter 11 Wars of Emulation
Chapter 12 Serbs and Others
Chapter 13 The Rise of Kiev
Chapter 14 The Golden Age of Kievan Rus
Chapter 15 The Rise of Moscow
Chapter 16 The Third Rome
Epilogue: The Last Byzantine
Author's Note
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Major Characters
Byzantium
Humanists
Theodore Metochites (1270-1332). Statesman, scholar, patron of the arts. Founded Last Byzantine Renaissance; rebuilt Church of the Chora.
Barlaam of Calabria (c. 1290-1348). First opponent of Hesychasm; taught Greek to Petrarch.
Demetrius Cydones (c. 1324-c. 1398). Byzantine statesman; translated Thomas Aquinas into Greek.
Manuel Chrysoloras (c. 1350-1415). Diplomat and educator; first successful teacher of ancient Greek in the West.
George Gemistos Pletho (c. 1360-1452). Philosopher and scholar; stimulated interest in Plato among Italian humanists.
John Bessarion (c. 1399-1472). Expatriate scholar, translator, patron of Byzantine and Italian humanists in Italy; helped draft the decree of union between Orthodox and Catholic churches (1439), then became a Catholic cardinal.
John Argyropoulos (1415-87). Teacher and philosopher; completed the shift in interest toward Plato that Pletho had initiated among the Italians.
Monks
Gregory Palamas (c. 1296-1359). Mystical theologian and saint; main proponent of Hesychast movement in Orthodox monasticism.
Cyril (c. 826-69) and Methodius (c. 815-85). Orthodox missionary brothers and apostles to the Slavs; inventors and promoters of Old Church Slavonic, the Byzantine-inspired written language of Slavic Orthodoxy.
Emperors
Justinian (c. 482-565; ruled from 527). Carried out Reconquest of Italy; built Hagia Sophia.
Heraclius (c. 575-641; ruled from 610). Saved Byzantium from Persians, then lost wealthiest provinces to the Muslim Arabs at the onset of Byzantium's Dark Age.
Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (905-59; ruled from945). Emperor of the Macedonian dynasty and author of On the Administration of the Empire, an important historical source for his period.
Basil II (958-1025; ruled from 976). Emperor of the Macedonian dynasty; brought Byzantium to the height of its revived power in First Byzantine Renaissance.
Alexius I Comnenus (c. 1057-1118; ruled from 1081). Founder of Comnenan dynasty, which, after the collapse of the late eleventh century, temporarily revived Byzantine fortunes in the era of the Crusades.
John VI Cantacuzenos (c. 1295-1383; ruled 1347-54). Statesman, regent, emperor, theologian, historian, and finally monk; patron of humanists but also a committed Hesychast; formulated unity policy toward Russia.
Manuel II Paleologos (1350-1425; ruled from 1391). Grandson of John VI Cantacuzenos; friend and patron to many Byzantine humanists during Last Byzantine Renaissance.
Patriarchs of Constantinople
Photius (c. 810-c. 895; patriarch 858-67 and 877-86). Humanist scholar who brought the First Byzantine Renaissance to fruition; initiated the mission of Cyril and Methodius to the Slavs.
Nicholas Mysticus (852-925; patriarch 901-7 and 912-25). Regent for the young Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus during the wars against Byzantium of Symeon of Bulgaria.
Philotheos Kokkinos (c. 1300-c. 1378; patriarch 1353-54 and 1364–76). Hesychast monk who helped carry out unity policy toward Russia.
The West
Theoderic (c. 454—526). King of the Goths (from 471); educated in Constantinople and installed by Byzantines to rule in Italy.
Boethius (c. 480-c. 524). Late Roman philosopher and scholar; attempted to translate Aristotle into Latin.
Cassiodorus (c. 487-c. 580). Late Roman scholar and administrator, then monk.
Liudprand of Cremona (c. 920-c. 972). Lombard noble and diplomat who visited Constantinople twice in the service of Western monarchs.
Enrico Dandolo (c. 1107-1205). Venetian doge (from 1192) who orchestrated the sack and occupation of Constantinople by Western soldiers in the Fourth Crusade (1204-61).
Petrarch (1304-74). Italian poet who founded Renaissance humanism in Italy and tried to learn Greek.
Coluccio Salutati (1331-1406). Humanist chancellor of Florence who arranged for Manuel Chrysoloras to teach Greek there.
Leonardo Bruni (1370-1444). Rhetorician and historian; a student of Chrysoloras and the main proponent of civic humanism.
Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1449). Renowned Latinist who joined the Florentine circle of Chrysoloras as a young man.
Niccolö Niccoli (1364—1437). Elusive classicist who studied with Chrysoloras in Florence; wrote little but exerted a strong influence on artists and other humanists.
Guarino da Verona (1374-1460). Pioneer Italian educator who was Chrysoloras’ closest follower.
Tommaso Parentucelli (1397-1455). Italian humanist who became Pope Nicholas V (from 1446); founded
the Vatican Library and arranged for Bessarion to oversee the translation of Greek manuscripts there.
Lorenzo Valla (1407-57). Gifted Italian classicist and philologist; a protégé of the expatriate Byzantine humanist Cardinal Bessarion.
Marsilio Ficino (1433-99). Friend and associate of Cosimo and Lorenzo de Medici; founded the Platonic Academy in Florence after learning Greek.
The Islamic World
Muhammad (c. 570-632). Prophet and founder of Islam.
Muawiyah (c. 602-80). Fifth caliph (from 661) and founder of Umayyad dynasty, based in the former Byzantine province of Syria.
Abd al-Malik (646-705). Umayyad caliph (from 685); restored Umayyad power; built the Dome of the Rock.
Al-Mansur (c. 710-75). Abbasid caliph (from 754) and founder of Baghdad; initiated Greco-Arabic translation movement.
Al-Mamun (786-833). Abbasid caliph (from 813); carried on Greco-Arabic translation movement; associated in later sources with “House of Wisdom.”
Hunayn ibn Ishaq (808-73). Nestorian Christian translator of Greek medical and scientific texts into Arabic; traveled to former Byzantine territory to get texts.
The Slavic World
Boris I (?-907). Khan of Bulgaria (852-89); converted to Christianity in 865; adopted Slavonic liturgy of Cyril and Methodius.
Symeon the Great (c. 865-927). Boris’ son and Bulgaria's first tsar (from 893); ardently Orthodox; carried out two major wars against Byzantium in an effort to capture Constantinople.
Stefan Nemanja (?-c. 1200). Ruler of medieval Serbia who brought it into the Byzantine Commonwealth; founded Serbia's ruling dynasty and numerous Orthodox monasteries; became a monk and an Orthodox saint.
Sava (1175-1235). Youngest son of Stefan Nemanja; became a monk at Mt. Athos; founded independent Serbian Orthodox Church; Orthodox saint.
Olga (?-c. 969). Russian princess and ruler (from 945) of Kiev; journeyed to Constantinople and converted to Orthodox Christianity.
Svyatoslav (c. 945-72). Russian prince of Kiev and son of Olga; a pagan warrior who was killed by the Petchenegs while crossing the Dnieper.
Vladimir the Great (c. 956-1015). Russian prince of Kiev and son of Svyatoslav; credited with converting his people to Orthodox Christianity; an Orthodox saint.
Yaroslav the Wise (978-1054). Russian prince of Kiev and son of Vladimir; rebuilt Kiev as an Orthodox capital and brought it to the height of its power.
Cyprian (c. 1330-1406). Bulgarian monk who, working with patriarch Philotheos, was the main exponent of Byzantine Hesychasm in Russia.
Sergius of Radonezh (1314-92). Russian Orthodox monk and saint; founder of Russian monasticism and promoter of Russian Hesychasm.
Euthymius of Turnovo (c. 1317-c. 1402). Bulgarian Hesy-chast monk and patriarch of Turnovo; founder of “second South Slavic” movement, the Hesychast revitalization of the Old Church Slavonic legacy.
Maxim Grek (c. 1470-1556). Born Michael Trivolis and educated in humanist circles in Florence before converting to Christianity; as the monk Maximos he spent a decade at Mt. Athos before going to Russia, where he was known as Maxim Grek, “Maxim the Greek.”
Introduction
he Byzantine empire was the medieval heir of ancient Greece and Rome, the continuation of the Roman empire in Greek territory and with Christianity as the state religion. It began in the early fourth century with the foundation of a new Christian capital, Constantinople, on the site of the old Greek city of Byzantium. It ended when the Ottoman Turks captured that city in 1453, making it the capital of their Islamic empire, which in territorial aspirations and imperial style essentially replaced the old Byzantine Greek empire.
Starting with Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Western historians have until quite recently depicted the history of Byzantium as a long, unedifying tale of imperial decay. If the measure of empire is territory alone, this might appear to be true. From the once vast reaches of the old Roman empire, a millennium's worth of adversity reduced Byzantium in its final decades to little more than the city of Constantinople itself.
Measuring by cultural influence, however, more recent historical research has revealed a story of lasting achievement and often vigorous expansion. Sailing from Byzantium tells this story for the general reader.
The book's organization comes from two ideas that together offer an easy handle by which to grasp the Byzantine cultural legacy. The first is the dual nature of that legacy, which is reflected in its embrace of both Christian faith and Greek culture. The book's second organizing idea is that the beneficiaries of this dual legacy were the three younger civilizations that emerged at first in lands wrested from Byzantium: the Western, Islamic, and Slavic worlds. Each of these three global civilizations was radically shaped by Byzantium— but each was highly selective about the side of Byzantium it chose to embrace. This book celebrates the energy and drive of these younger cultures as well as the extraordinary richness of Byzantine culture.
Accordingly, Sailing from Byzantium is divided in three parts. Part I, “Byzantium and the West,” narrates the Byzantine legacy to Western civilization. This consists primarily in the transmission of ancient Greek literature. As Latin West and Greek East drifted apart during the Middle Ages, Byzantine scholars painstakingly preserved the ancient Greek classics. Then, at the dawn of the Renaissance, they came to Italy and taught ancient Greek literature to the first Italian humanists, who were only then beginning to hunger for knowledge of Greco-Roman antiquity. Were it not for this small but dynamic group of Byzantine humanist teachers, ancient Greek literature might have been lost forever when the Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453.∗
Part II, “Byzantium and the Islamic World,” goes back in time to describe the rise of the Arab Islamic empire on former Byzantine lands in the Middle East. Long before the Italians rediscovered ancient Greece, the Arabs took up ancient Greek science, medicine, and philosophy, building on these works to found the Arabic Enlightenment commonly known as the golden age of Islamic science. Again, these texts ultimately came from Byzantium, as did the scholars who taught and translated them for the Arabs. The Islamic world eventually repudiated the ancient Greek legacy, as religious authorities suppressed the rationalistic inquiry on which ancient Greek science and philosophy were based.
Part III, “Byzantium and the Slavic World,” explores the religious side of the Byzantine legacy. Over centuries of determined missionary work, the Byzantines turned the southern and eastern Slavs from uncivilized invaders into the great defenders of Orthodox Christianity. Converting first the Bulgarians, then the Serbs, and finally the Russians, Byzantine and Slavic monks worked together to create what a leading modern scholar has called “the Byzantine Commonwealth.”∗ This pan-Slavic cultural entity transcended national boundaries, blending Orthodox monastic traditions of mystical contemplation with energetic missionary zeal to utterly reshape the world north of Byzantium's borders.
Although these stories must be told separately, the reader should bear in mind that they happened, for the most part, concurrently. It has seemed best to tell them in the order in which they begin. Their climaxes fall in a different order. Part I begins with the sunset of Greco-Roman antiquity and moves forward to the humanistic rediscovery of that world in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Part II focuses on the rise of Arab Islamic civilization in Byzantium's shadow from the seventh to ninth centuries. Part III has successive narrative peaks from the ninth to fifteenth centuries, as the Slavic world coalesced to take its place as Byzantium's truest heir. For an overview of developments in all three areas, the reader is referred to the concurrent timeline at the front of the book.
*The terms humanism and humanist have been used in many ways since the mid-fourteenth century, when the Italian poet Petrarch revived the ancient concept of hu-manitas, which the Roman author Cicero had used as an equivalent of the Greek paideia, “education.” By the late fifteenth century, teachers in Italian universities of the studia humanitatis—literally, “the study of hu
manity,” a syllabus that included ancient grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy—were being called humanistas. In the nineteenth century, German scholars coined the term Humanismus from this usage. Most Renaissance scholars would restrict the words to the study and the student of ancient Greek and Latin literature and civilization in the West beginning with Petrarch. In this book, the terms are applied to Byzantium and its classical scholars, before Petrarch as well as after. Some modern authorities have argued against such a usage, which risks both anachronism and the blurring of some important differences. Yet, it seems like a good way of emphasizing what the Byzantine “humanists” had in common with their Italian counterparts: a deep interest in the world of classical antiquity.
*The phrase is Dimitri Obolensky's.
Prologue
n a secluded corner of Istanbul, tucked under the old city's massive land walls near where they begin sweeping down to the Golden Horn, a small Orthodox church sits in a quiet square. Guidebooks call it Kariye Camii, which is the Turkish version of its older Byzantine Greek name, the Church of the Holy Savior in Chora. Roughly equivalent to the American slang expression “in the sticks,” the tag “in Chora” reflects the church's remoteness from the busy urban heart of the old city. Vibrant, dirty, chaotic, thrilling, the modern city has spread far beyond the ancient land walls, but the Church of the Chora remains far removed from the herdpaths that shunt the bulk of tourists to bigger, better-known sites such as Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, or Topkapi Palace.
The Chora's plain exterior has nothing about it to attract the eye from the charming and recently restored Ottoman-era houses fronting the square, one of which has been converted into a pleasant café and another into a hotel. Yet, those lucky enough to have it included in their tours do not soon forget the the graceful, delicate mosaics and bold, dynamic frescoes that cover its interior walls and ceilings. Painstakingly restored during the 1960s, they depict scenes and stories from the Old and New Testaments. Their quality and emotional impact offer eloquent testimony to the achievement of the vanished civilization that flowered in the city before the coming of the Turks.