by Colin Wells
According to Kurbsky, Ivan had fallen under the influence of evil Possessor monks, who promised him absolution in exchange for granting them land and making useless pilgrimages. Maxim instead advised Ivan to look after the widows and orphans of soldiers killed in a recent military campaign against the Tatars. If Ivan persisted in the pilgrimage, Maxim prophesied, his young son, Vasily, would perish. “Flattered and urged to do this by those monks who love the world and love possessions,” Kurbsky writes, the arrogant Ivan insisted on ignoring the advice, and the boy indeed fell ill and died. A few years after this (possibly fictional) meeting took place, Maxim himself died quietly at the Trinity monastery, on January 21,1556, by the old Orthodox calendar.
Maxim and the Hesychast tradition he stood for had become symbols of resistance to the autocratic power that was now claimed by Moscow's expansionist rulers. A few years before his meeting with Maxim, Ivan the Terrible was the first Russian ruler to be crowned as tsar, although his father and grandfather had used the title on occasion. This was part of a deliberate campaign to appropriate the Byzantine legacy and use it to enhance Moscow's imperial power; as part of that campaign, the old idea of the Third Rome was now picked up and burnished for public consumption. In effect, the new Russia turned its back on Byzantium's spiritual legacy and instead embraced a propaganda version of its political legacy. Despite such claims, the imperial tsars were a Russian creation, not a Byzantine one.
Echoes of the Hesychast tradition would continue to resound in Russian culture. The mystical Tolstoy would have had much to talk about with Maxim Grek. And in the West, the ancient Greek heritage that at first had so entranced Michael Trivolis would also find new life and new meaning.
But Byzantium itself had ended a century earlier. It was now a fading memory, not a point of embarkation for travelers bearing the fruits of civilization. No one would follow in the footsteps of Michael Trivolis, the man who became Maxim, and whose fate so strangely recapitulates Byzantium's own: a passage into long captivity at the end of the road from Athens to Jerusalem.
*We met John Lascaris briefly at the end of Part I.
*Maxim hid this potentially incendiary information so effectively that not until 1942 was his original identity as Michael Trivolis uncovered, by the French scholar Elie Denissoff in his book Maxime le Grec et l’Occident.
*A recent scholar has argued that Kurbsky's account of Ivan's reign is a forgery. Even if so, it suggests much about later attitudes to Maxim.
Author's Note
originally met Byzantium in the eighth grade, when my Russian teacher and good friend, James Morris, suggested Cyril and Methodius as a topic for my first long research paper. Years later, as an undergraduate at UCLA, I was lucky enough to take several Byzantine history courses with Speros Vryonis, Jr., whose teaching brought a long-forgotten subject back to life for me. I'm grateful to every teacher I've ever had, but I'd especially like to thank Jim Morris and Speros Vryonis for enriching my life by introducing me to Byzantium with such warmth, enthusiasm, and skill.
This book originated in a comment that Professor Vryonis made one day in class: One of the most fascinating things about Byzantium, he said, was the way it influenced the younger civilizations that grew up around it. Despite a busy schedule, Speros Vryonis continued to offer his warm support as I undertook the research and writing ofSailing from Byzantium, generously reading some early versions of the outline and manuscript. I am very grateful to him for his efforts. If the book has strengths, they likely originate with him; its mistakes, I hasten to add, I have made entirely on my own.
With the same stipulation very much in mind, I thank Michael J. B. Allen, Dimitri Gutas, Henrietta Leyser, and Ingrid D. Rowland for help and advice at various stages of researching and writing this book; I owe a special additional debt to Henrietta Leyser for her ongoing encouragement and support. For inspiration, I thank Peter Brown, Averil Cameron, Fred Halliday, Dimitri Obolensky, Diana Wells, and Mark Whittow. Bob Loomis gave me a fair hearing long before I was ready, and I thank him for that. My father, Charles Wells, and my mother, Liz Jones, offered helpful comments on early drafts, as did Gordon Davis, George Davis, Charlie Davis, Dan Henderson, and Simone Stephens. They were wonderful exemplars of my intended audience, the curious general reader. I'm indebted also to the staffs of the following institutions: the University Research Library at UCLA; Firestone Library at Princeton University; the New York Public Library; Starr Library at Middlebury College; Feinberg Library at SUNY Plattsburgh; the Archiginnasio (Biblioteca Comunale) in Bologna, Italy; and the Westport Library Association and the Wadhams Free Library of Westport, NY.
My agents, Edward Knappman and Elizabeth Frost-Knappman of New England Publishing Associates, have given me the best professional representation anyone could hope for, along with sage counsel and warm support. The talents of John J. Flicker, my editor at Bantam Dell, contributed significantly to this book's final shape and tone; anyone who says that old-school editing is a thing of the past hasn't worked with John. David Lindroth turned a tangle of notes into a series of crisp, attractive, and informative maps; Marietta Anastassatos’ beautiful dust jacket and Glen Edelstein's elegant interior design handsomely complement the content. Thank you all. Finally, the late Clyde Taylor believed in the book also, and I remain grateful for his efforts on my behalf.
Acknowledgments
his is a work of popular synthesis with no pretensions to original scholarship. Byzantium's interactions with its three neighboring civilizations constitute separate areas within the larger field of Byzantine studies, and to each of these areas some first-rate scholars have devoted all or part of their careers. In addition, Byzantium per se has also been blessed by the attention of some superb scholars; likewise the separate areas of Italian Renaissance history, Islamic and Arabic history, and Slavic studies, not to mention related fields such as the transmission of classical literature. Without the work of scholars in all of these fields this book would not have been possible.
While many of the points made in passing are my own, many have also come from the work of these scholars. Most often they have been picked up by other scholars and entered the common reservoir, so to speak, but doubtless sometimes they have not. Regardless, I have given notes not for individual ideas and insights, as one would ideally try to in a scholarly work, but only for quotations. To anyone familiar with the field in question, my debts should be readily apparent, but I would like to sketch them below on a chapter-by-chapter basis, not only for the sake of giving credit where credit is due, but also for the sake of helping the general reader who would like to learn more.
My greatest general debt is to the late John Meyendorff, whose learned and stimulating writings have done so much to illuminate the role of Hesychasm in the dissemination of Byzantine civilization to the Slavic world. Most importantly, I have adopted his conception of Byzantine civilization as a long dialogue between humanists and monks, between faith and reason, between Athens and Jerusalem, and of the Hesychast controversy as the final stage of that dialogue. Meyendorff also stresses the dismay and discomfort of the humanists with the controversy's outcome, and so my own thesis of the Hesychast controversy as an engine of Byzantine cultural influence in the West as well as in the Orthodox world owes much to his insightful scholarship. I have extended Meyendorff's picture of the Hesychast controversy and its implications to include Byzantium's influence on the West, and then used the tension between faith and reason on which the controversy turned to frame my discussion of Byzantine cultural diffusion to the Islamic world. Much of this, I think, is implicit in Meyendorff's analysis, but it needed to be worked out. Focusing on Byzantium's Orthodox legacy, Meyendorff had no interest in either of these latter two fields.
An Orthodox priest as well as a historian, Meyendorff was remarkably objective in many of his judgments, but he resisted mightily the imputation of obscurantism to the Hesychast monks that has commonly been made by sometimes hostile modern historians of a secular humanist bent. On one
hand, though I share these historians’ secular outlook, my view of the monks is less dismissive than they tend to be; on the other hand, I cannot follow Meyendorff in rescuing the monks from the charge of obscurantism. In the end I have been less interested in passing judgment than in telling the story—a story to which both sides made valuable contributions as well as perhaps more discreditable ones.
Prologue: My greatest debts are to the work of John Meyendorff, and especially to his article on the Chora in Paul A. Underwood, The Kariye Djami; and to the article by Ihor Ševšenko in the same volume.
Part I
Chapter One: See the work of Averil Cameron, Judith Herrin, Peter Brown, Margaret Gibson, and James J. O’Donnell as cited in the Bibliography. Chapter Two: John Meyendorff, as cited in the Bibliography. Chapter Three: Kenneth Setton, “The Byzantine Background to the Italian Renaissance;” Donald Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium; and the articles of Frances Kianka as cited in the Bibliography. Chapter Four: Michael Baxandall, Giotto and the Orators; George Holmes, The Florentine Enlightenment; Roberto Weiss, “Jacopo Angeli da Scarperia;” and N. G. Wilson, From Byzantium to Italy. Chapter Five: Eugenio Garin, Portraits from the Quattrocento; the works of Deno John Geanakoplos as cited in the Bibliography; Joseph Gill, Council of Florence; George Holmes, Florentine Enlightenment; and N. G. Wilson, From Byzantium to Italy.
Part II
Chapter Six: See Averil Cameron as cited in the Bibliography; Patricia Crone, Meccan Trade; Garth Fowden, From Empire to Commonwealth; H. A. R. Gibb, “Arab Byzantine Relations Under the Umayyad Caliphate;” Walter Kaegi, Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests; and Speros Vryonis, Jr., “Byzantium and Islam, Seven-Seventeenth Century.” Chapter Seven: The works of Sebastian Brock as cited in the Bibliography; Garth Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth; Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture; Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam; and Hugh Kennedy, The Early Abbasid Caliphate. Chapter Eight: The works of Dimitri Gutas as cited in the Bibliography; the works of Fred Halliday as cited in the Bibliography; Majid Fakhry, A History of Islamic Philosophy; and Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, vols. I and II.
Part III
Chapters Nine through Twelve: See the works of John Fine, Dimitri Obolensky, Ihor Sevcenko, and Mark Whittow as cited in the Bibliography. Chapters Thirteen and Fourteen: Obolensky and Whittow as cited in the Bibliography, and Simon Franklin and Jonathan Shepard, The Emergence of Rus. Chapters Fifteen and Sixteen: Dimitri Obolensky, The Byzantine Commonwealth and Six Byzantine Portraits; John Meyendorff, Byzantium and the Rise of Russia; Daniel Pipes, Russia Under the Old Regime; and Janet Martin, Medieval Russia, 980-1584.
Epilogue: See Dimitri Obolensky, Six Byzantine Portraits, and Jack V. Haney, From Italy to Muscovy.
Notes
Bibliography
To help the general reader, I have marked with an asterisk (∗) those primary and secondary sources that I consider especially valuable, accessible, or both.
Texts
Boethius. The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy. Translated by H. F. Stewart, E. K. Rand, and S. J. Tester. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973. Bilingual Latin and English text in the Loeb series.
St. Basil (Loeb Classical Library). The Letters (vol. IV). Translated by Roy J. Deferrari. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1934. Bilingual Latin and English text in the Loeb series.
Boccaccio. The Genealogy of the Gods. In Charles Osgood, Boccaccio on Poetry. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1930.
Cassiodorus. Institutiones. Edited by R. A. B. Mynors. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1937. English translation by L. W. Jones in An Introduction to Divine and Human Readings. New York: 1946.
Cassiodorus. Variae. Translated and edited by S. J. B. Barnish. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1992.
Choniates, Nicetas. O City of Byzantium: Annals of Niketas Choniates. Translated by Harry J. Magoulias. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1984.
∗Comnena, Anna. The Alexiad of Anna Comnena. Translated by E. R. A. Sewter. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969. A good read. Combine with Michael Psellos and Procopius’Secret History (see p. 311) for a Penguin sampler of Byzantine history.
Constantine Porphyrogenitus. De Administrando Imperio. Greek text edited by Gy. Moravcsik. English translation by R. J. H. Jenkins. New, revised edition. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1967. Bilingual Greek and English text.
Cydones, Demetrius. Apology for His Own Faith = Mercati, G., Notizie di Procoro e Demetrio Cidone. Vatican: Biblioteca apostolica vaticana, 1931.
Cydones, Demetrius. Letters I = Démétrius Cydonès Correspondance. Edited by R.-J. Loenertz. (2 vols.) Vatican, 1956-60.
Cydones Demetrius. Letters II = Démétrius Cydonès Correspondance. Edited by G. Cammelli. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1930.
∗Geanakoplos, Deno John. Byzantium: Church, Society, and Civilization Seen Through Contemporary Eyes. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1984. Selections from a wide variety of Byzantine sources, arranged thematically.
Geoffroy de Villehardouin. “The Conquest of Constantinople,” in Chronicles of the Crusades. Translated with an introduction by M. R. B. Shaw. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963.
Ibn Khaldun. The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History. Translated by Franz Rosenthal. Edited and abridged by N. J. Dawood. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967. A handy one-volume abridgment of this classic work of historiography.
Kantor, M., trans. Medieval Lives of Saints and Princes. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1983. Includes vitae of Cyril and Methodius.
Koran. Translated by N. J. Dawood. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968.
Kurbsky, A. M. Prince A. M. Kurbsky's History of Ivan IV. Edited with a translation and notes by J. L. I. Fennell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965.
Patrologia graeca. Edited by J.-P. Migne. Paris, 1866. This monumental collection of Greek patristic texts is the place to find (in Greek) the writings of John Cantacuzenos, Barlaam, Chrysoloras, Manuel II, and a great many of the other Byzantine authors referred to in the text and in the secondary sources.
Petrarch. Francesco Petrarcha: Le Familiari. Edizione critica per cura di Vittorio Rossi, vol. 3. Florence: Sansoni, 1937.
Photius. The Homilies of Photius. Translated by Cyril Mango. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958.
∗Procopius. History of the Wars III. Translated by H. B. Dewing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1919. Bilingual Greek and English text in the Loeb series. Covers Justinian's Gothic Wars in Italy.
∗Procopius. The Secret History. Translated by G. A. Williamson. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966. Racy gossip on Justinian and Theodora. See note on Anna Comnena above.
∗Psellus, Michael. Fourteen Byzantine Rulers. Translated by E. R. A. Sewter. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966. See note on Anna Comnena above.
Robert of Clari. The Conquest of Constantinople. Translated by Edgar Holmes McNeal. New York: Octagon, 1966.
∗ Rosenthal, Franz. The Classical Heritage in Islam. Translated by Emile and Jenny Marmorstein. London and New York: Routledge, 1992 (1975). Includes English translations of selections from Hunayn ibn Ishaq, Ibn an-Nadim (Fihrist), and other Arabic sources. An easily available and extremely helpful book for the curious reader, since many of these writings are not otherwise available in English.
Russian Primary Chronicle (Laurentian Text). Translated and edited by Samuel Hazzard Cross & Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor. Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America, 1973.
A Source Book for Russian History from Early Times to 1917. Vol. I: Early
Times to the Late Seventeenth Century. George Vernadsky, senior editor. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972.
Two Renaissance Book Hunters: The Letters of Poggius Bracciolini to Nicolaus De Niccolis. Translated with notes by Phyllis Walter Goodhart Gordan. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991 (1974).
Modern Scholarship
Angold, Michael. The Byzantine Empire 1025-1204.
Second edition. London: Longman, 1997. Good political history of the late Macedonian and Comnenan periods.
Armstrong, Karen. A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. New York: Ballantine, 1993.
Islam: A Short History. New York: Modern Library, 2000.
Bark, William. “Theoderic vs. Boethius: Vindication and Apology.”
American Historical Review 49 (1943-44): 410-26.
Baron, Hans. The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955. In this influential work Baron introduces the widely accepted idea of Florentine civic humanism.
∗Baxandall, Michael. Giotto and the Orators: Humanist Observers of Painting in Italy and the Discovery of Pictorial Composition, 1350-1450. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971. Credits Chrysoloras with inspiring the development of pictorial composition and linear perspectives in painting.
Baynes, Norman. The Byzantine Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1925.
Berlin, Isaiah. Russian Thinkers. Henry Hardy, ed. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979.
∗ Billington, James H. The Icon and the Axe: An Intepretive History of Russian Culture. New York: Vintage, 1970 (1966). A well-written and insight-ful narrative account of Russian cultural history, with an enlightening discussion on Hesychast mysticism vs. rationalism in Russian history.
Bolgar, R. R. The Classical Heritage and Its Beneficiaries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954.
Bowersock, Glenn. Hellenism in Late Antiquity. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996 (1990).
Brock, Sebastian. “Greek into Syriac and Syriac into Greek.” Reprinted with original pagination (Study II) in Sebastian Brock, Syriac Perspectives on Late Antiquity. London: Variorum, 1984.