Friday, October 13, 2006

Dr. Florin Curta

Greece/Cyprus Advanced Area Studies Seminar

1. Recovery and victory (843-976)

858: Michael III forced the Patriarch of Constantinople, Ignatius, to abdicate and replaced him with Photius

        > 863: Constantine (Cyril) and Methodius' mission to Moravia (Glagolitic script)

        > 865: Boris of Bulgaria forced to accept baptism

        > conflict with the papacy over the issues of unleavened bread and the filioque       

under Leo VI (886-912), a new lawcode is adopted, the Basilica

the beginning of expansion across the eastern frontiers (see maps 1 and 2):

• 934: conquest of the emirate of Melitene
• 944: siege of Edessa and capture of the Mandylion
• 961: conquest of Crete and Aleppo
  
• 964: conquest of Cyprus
• 965: Cilicia turned into Byzantine province
• 968: conquest of Antioch
• 971: conquest of eastern Bulgaria
• 975: John Tzimiskes advances into Palestine and takes Beirut

2. Basil the Triumphant (976-1025)

    > civil war between Bardas Skleros and Bardas Phokas

Basil begins by attacking western Bulgaria under Samuel

offers his sister Anna in marriage to Vladimir of Kiev in exchange for baptism and military assistance

incorporation of Iberia (Georgia) into the Empire at the death of its ruler 

long war of attrition to conquer western Bulgaria > in 1018, Basil rules over the entire Balkan Peninsula

by 1020, the entire Caucasus region is under Byzantine domination

3. An expanding society

    > introduction of the cursive minuscule hand

    > large libraries, like that described by Photius in his Bibliotheca

    > history writing under the influence of the Classical authors (Leo the Deacon)

    > epic literature in vernacular (Digenis Akritas)

4. Wealth and weakness (1025-1204)

• Romanus III Argyros abandoned the policy of protecting small farmers against powerful landowners
• Michael IV lost southern Italy to rebel Norman mercenaries
• Constantine IX issued debased golden coins 
• 1054: Great Schism
• 1071: defeat of the Byzantine army at Mantzikert (Emperor Romanus IV Digenis taken prisoner)
• 1091: victory of the Byzantine army at Levunion over the Pechenegs; Alexius I Comnenus introduces the hyperperon
  
• 1095: Alexius I Comnenus appeals to the papacy for military assistance=> First Crusade
• 1147: under Manuel I Comnenus, the Normans sacked Corinth and Thebes
  
• 1171: all Venitians arrested and their property confiscated
  
• 1182: anti-Western violence in Constantinople
• 1185: under Andronicus I Comnenus, the Normans sacked Thessaloniki and the Vlachs and Bulgarians rebelled
  
• 1189: skirmishes with the crusading army of Frederick I Barbarossa
• 1204: Fourth Crusade and the conquest of Constantinople

5. Byzantine history and Greek nationalism

- the first instance of Byzantine history incorporated into the nationalist narrative is Konstantinos Papparigopoulos's History of the Greek Nation (5 vols., Athens, 1860-1874)