rendered the Byzantine government more dependent on foreign mercenaries in the eleventh and twelfth centuries than it had been in the ninth and tenth. At the same time, the rapid advances which the population of the other European nations was now making in wealth and civilisation rendered it more difficult than formerly for the emperors to purchase the military services of the best European warriors. From this period the Byzantine armies begin to be inferior to those of the western nations; their military system was conservative, while that of the western nations was progressive. The Normans were already superior to the Byzantine troops in valour and endurance, and almost their equals in tactics and science: they soon became their superiors in every military accomplishment, science, and virtue. The reign of Isaac Comnenus, though short, proves that he was a man of no ordinary powers of mind.' He saw clearly the downward tendency of Byzantine affairs, and he made a vigorous effort to arrest their descent. His education had afforded him the opportunity of becoming acquainted with the whole fabric of the government, and his natural talents enabled him to profit by the advantages of his position. Hence, although he was placed on the throne as the leader of an aristocratic revolution, his policy was to preserve and not to alter the ancient system of administration. His father, Manuel Comnenus, had been a favourite 1 From the accession of Isaac Comnenus to the conquest of Constantinople by the Crusaders, the Byzantine annals possess a more authentic character than in the period between Constantine VII. and the extinction of the Basilian dynasty. There are now several contemporary historians. John Scylitzes, who was a native of the Thrakesian theme, and held successively the offices of protovestiarios, drungarios of the watch, and curopalates, may be considered as a contemporary for the history of the period from the accession of Isaac I. to that of Alexius I. Anna Comnena gives us her father's reign. Cinnamus, who was imperial secretary of Manuel J., gives us the reign of John II. and nearly the whole of that of Manuel. And Nicetas, who held the offices of logothetes and governor of Philippopolis, was a witness of the storming of Constantinople by the Crusaders. His history embraces the period from the accession of John II. to the establishment of the Latin empire of Romania. A. D. 1057-1067. BOOK III. officer of the Emperor Basil II.; and, when he died, that CH. I. § 1. prince had undertaken the guardianship of his two sons, Isaac and John.1 They received the best education which the age afforded in the monastery of Studion, and Isaac commenced his career of public service in the emperor's body-guard. Under the eye of the indefatigable Basil he learned the steady application to business and the active warlike habits of that prince; but with these virtues he acquired also something of the grave, melancholy, and inflexible character of his patron. The powerful partisans who had raised him to the throne naturally shared the principal dignities of the empire among themselves; but Isaac, in as far as he was able, conferred on them rewards which induced them to quit the capital, and leave him free to direct the central administration without their interference.2 Katakalon received the office of curopalates, which was also conferred on the emperor's brother John Comnenus, in whose person it was united with that of megas domestikos, or commander of the forces. The support of the patriarch Michael Keroularios, whose boldness and activity made him an important ally, was purchased by an imprudent augmentation of his political power. The right of nominating the grand economus or chancellor, and the skevophylax or treasurer of the church of St Sophia, had been hitherto vested in the emperor, who now resigned it to the ambitious patriarch. The dilapidated state of the finances, caused by the extravagant expenditure of Constantine IX. (and indeed of most of the emperors who had filled the throne since the death of Basil II., all of whom had wasted 1 Manuel, who defended Nicæa against Bardas Skleros, is called Erotikos by Cedrenus, 690, and Zonaras, ii. 217, but his family name was Comnenus, as appears from Nicephorus Bryennius, 16. 2 Zonaras, ii. 268. immense sums in gifts to their favourites, in courtly splendour, and in ecclesiastical buildings), called for Isaac's immediate attention, and his first care was to reform the administration of the public revenue. He annulled the grants of the state domains made by the successors of Basil II. to private individuals, and resumed the sums affected for the foundation and maintenance of a number of monasteries in which the monks were living together rather like clubs of wealthy bachelors than as holy societies of virtuous cenobites. To each monastery the emperor made an allowance of a pension, fixed according to the number of the monks by which it was tenanted. This reduction of the wealth of men who in many cases had sought retirement to enjoy luxurious ease, very naturally excited much dissatisfaction among the higher classes, to whom the monasteries had been useful by affording the means of providing for near relations in a becoming manner without expense; but John Scylitzes, the best historian of this period, who himself attained the rank of curopalates, approves of the conduct of Isaac in curtailing the incomes of the monks.1 The emperor also carried his reforms into his own court by diminishing the expenditure of the imperial household, and abolishing many pensions conferred on senators, nobles, and courtiers, as a matter of favour, without their having any duties to perform. Whenever the arbitrary will of individuals can influence government, there is a great difficulty in preventing the unnecessary accumulation of high-paid and useless titled functionaries. Courtiers receive military rank for which they have no qualification, and without any reference to the numbers of the army or navy. The reforms by which Isaac sought to eradicate these abuses offended a considerable body of idle courtiers in the capital, who were enjoying the 1 Scylitzes, printed at the end of Cedrenus, 808. A. D. 1057-1067. CH. I. § 1. BOOK III. fruits of severe impositions wrung from the provinces, and he was assailed with murmurs of dissatisfaction. The poor had too many causes of suffering, which the emperor could do nothing to relieve, to have derived any immediate benefit from these reforms, or felt any gratitude to the reformer. Isaac, indeed, adopted his improvements for the purpose of rendering the public establishments of the empire more efficient, and without any view of diminishing the weight of the public burdens. Every report to his disadvantage was eagerly circulated among the ecclesiastics and the courtiers; they were disseminated among the people, and have coloured the views of historians concerning his character and policy. Every Byzantine writer cites as a proof of his unbounded arrogance that he changed the type of the gold coinage of the empire, and impressed on it his own figure, with a drawn sword in his right hand, thereby, as they pretend, ascribing his elevation to the throne, not to the grace of God, but to his own courage. The emperor vainly endeavoured to quiet the turbulent and ambitious disposition of the patriarch by bestowing offices of honour and profit on his nephews; the demands of the proud priest grew daily more exorbitant and his language more insolent. When Isaac at length refused his requests, he indignantly exclaimed to his followers, "I made him an emperor, and I can unmake him." 2 He proclaimed himself the equal of his sovereign by wearing the red boots which the severe ceremonial of the Byzantine court had set apart as one of the distinctive ensigns of the imperial power. This assumption was really equivalent to an act of 1 A representation of this coin may be seen in Sauley-Essai de Classification des Suites Monétaires Byzantines, planche xxiv. 4. Scylitzes, 807. Zonaras, ii. 268, versified by Ephræmius, 140, v. 3230. 2 The patriarch used a vulgar proverb-“ Oven, I built you, and I can knock you down." A. D. rebellion against the civil power; and when the patriarch was reproached with his pretensions, he defended 1057-1067. his conduct by declaring that there was little or no difference between an emperor and a patriarch, except in so far as the ecclesiastical dignity was more honourable. As such insolence could not be safely tolerated, the emperor determined to depose Michael Keroularios and appoint a new patriarch; but as it appeared dangerous to take any measures openly against the head of the church in the capital, Isaac watched for an opportunity to arrest Michael when he quitted the city to perform an ecclesiastical ceremony without the walls on the feast of the Holy Apostles. The patriarch was then taken into custody by a company of Varangians, and transported to the island of Proconnesus. Preparations were going on to depose him in a synod convoked for the purpose, when his death relieved the emperor from all trouble, and enabled him to name the president Constantinos Leichudes as his successor, who, though a layman, was elected by the metropolitans, the clergy, and the people, in regular form. The high reputation of Leichudes rendered his nomination popular. For a long time he had been the principal minister of the Emperor Constantine IX., and his prudent administration was supposed to have averted many of the evil consequences with which that prince's vices threatened the empire. An invasion of the Hungarians and Patzinaks suddenly summoned Isaac to the northern frontier in the summer of 1059. When he reached Triaditza, the Hungarians and the greater part of the Patzinaks retired, and concluded a treaty of peace. Selté alone, one of the four chiefs who had conducted the famous retreat of the Patzinak auxiliaries from Asia Minor 1 Scylitzes, 809. For the chronology, see Cuper de Patriarchis Constan., 126, who justly retains that of Baronius in preference to Pagi. |