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The Making and Breaking of Kinetic Empire: Mobility, Communication and Political Change in the Eastern Mediterranean, c. 900–1100 CE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2022

Catherine Holmes
Catherine Holmes*
Affiliation:
Faculty of History, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
*
Email: catherine.holmes@univ.ox.ac.uk
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Abstract

This paper applies the concept of ‘kinetic empire’ to the eastern Mediterranean world in the tenth and eleventh centuries. The term ‘kinetic empire’ is borrowed from Hämäläinen's analysis of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century north American Comanche Empire. It refers to the way in which trans- and supra-regional power could be created, expressed and enforced through mobile means. The article focuses primarily on the role of mobility in the expansion of the Byzantine Empire between c. 900 and 1050, but also makes comparison with the contemporaneous Fatimid caliphate and other regional polities which we might usually regard as sedentary states. Recovering the role of the kinetic not only extends our understanding of the modalities of power in this crucial region of the medieval world, it also allows us to question the nature and degree of transformation wrought by mobile newcomers, such as Normans, crusaders and Turks in the later decades of the eleventh century. In this sense of developing and exploring concepts useful for the study of the transregional in premodernity and questioning standard periodisations, this article is also a practical exercise in medieval global history.

Keywords

kineticempireByzantiumFatimid
Type
Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 32 , December 2022 , pp. 25 - 45
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Royal Historical Society

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References

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24 A more maximalist approach is taken by Oikonomides, ‘L’Évolution de l'organisation administrative de l'empire byzantin’, and James D. Howard-Johnston, ‘Crown Lands and the Defence of Imperial Authority in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries’, Byzantinische Forschungen, 21 (1995), 76–99; for the involvement of local agents, see Vera von Falkenhausen, Untersuchungen über die byzantinische Herrschaft in Süditalien vom 9. bis ins 11. Jahrhundert (1967), 84–7; P. Stephenson, Byzantium's Balkan Frontier (Cambridge, 2000); Catherine Holmes, Basil II and the Governance of Empire, 976–1025 (Oxford, 2005), 299–447.

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30 For this campaign see Robert Thomson (tr.), Rewriting Caucasian History: The Georgian Chronicles (Oxford, 1996), 281–4, 374; Aristakes of Lastivert, Récit des malheurs, 11–21; Yahya ibn Sa'id, ‘Histoire’, Patrologia Orientalis, 47 (1997), 459–63, 467–9; Skylitzes, Synopsis, 366–7; tr. Wortley, John Skylitzes, 346–7; Holmes, Basil II, 482. For Herakleios's campaigns in this region see James Howard-Johnston, The Last Great War of Antiquity (Oxford, 2021), chs. 7 and 9. Indeed it is possible that Basil's own reputation as a raider in the east may have inspired his own successors to seek to emulate him, as with Romanos III's ultimately unsuccessful campaign against Aleppo in 1030 (Yahya, ‘Histoire’, PO, 47 (1997), 493–501).

31 Stephenson, Byzantium's Balkan Frontier, 59–79; idem, The Legend of Basil the Bulgarslayer (Cambridge, 2003), 1–48; Holmes, Basil II, 394–428.

32 Skylitzes, Synopsis, 346; tr. Wortley, John Skylitzes, 328; Holmes, Basil II, 414–18; Stephenson, Byzantium's Balkan Frontier, 65.

33 Skylitzes, Synopsis, 357–64; tr. Wortley, John Skylitzes, 338–44; Holmes, Basil II, 421, 501.

34 A. Pertusi, ‘Venezia e Bisanzio nel secolo XI’, repr. in Storia della civiltà veneziana, ed. V. Branca (3 vols., Florence, 1979), i, 195–8; Donald Nicol, Byzantium and Venice: A Study in Diplomatic and Military Relations (Cambridge, 1988), 39–40.

35 Holmes, Basil II, 510–15; Simon Franklin and Jonathan Shepard, The Emergence of Rus, 750–1200 (New York, 1996), 160–8.

36 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, The Book of Ceremonies: With the Greek Edition of the Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae (Bonn, 1829), tr. Ann Moffatt and Maxeme Tall (Canberra, 2012), 664–7.

37 Luigi Andrea Berto, Christians and Muslims in Early Medieval Italy: Perceptions, Encounters and Clashes (Milton, 2019), 5 (for Garigliano); Paolo Squatriti, The Complete Works of Liudprand of Cremona (Washington, DC, 2007), 181 (for Fraxinetum).

38 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, Book of Ceremonies, 660–2.

39 Whittow, Making of Orthodox Byzantium, 321; Averil Cameron, ‘The History of the Image of Edessa: The Telling of a Story’, Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 7 (1983), 80–94; Riedel, Meredith, ‘Demonic Prophecy as Byzantine Imperial Propaganda: The Rhetorical Appeal of the Tenth-Century Narratio de Imagine Edessena’, Fides et Historia, 49 (2017), 11–23Google Scholar.

40 Whittow, Making of Orthodox Byzantium, 352.

41 Basil II carried an ikon of the Virgin into battle against the rebel general Bardas Phokas in 989 (Michael Psellos, Chronographie, ed. Emile Renauld (2 vols., Paris, 1967), i, 10; E. R. A. Sewter (tr.), Fourteen Byzantine Rulers: The Chronographia of Michael Psellus (1953), 36); in the final campaign of his reign against the Georgians, he carried the Mandylion (Thomson (tr.), Rewriting Caucasian History, 284). Later eleventh-century emperors carried ikons of the Virgin into battle: see Bissera V. Pentcheva, Icons and Power: The Mother of God in Byzantium (University Park, PA, 2006), 75–103.

42 Eric McGeer, ‘Two Military Orations of Constantine VII’, in Byzantine Authors: Literary Activities and Preoccupations: Text and Translations Dedicated to the Memory of Nicolas Oikonomides, ed. John W. Nesbitt (Leiden, 2003), 132–3; for Greek text see Vari, R., ‘Zum historischen Exzerptenwerke des Konstantinos Porphyrogennetos’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 17 (1908), 78–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 Helen C. Evans and William D. Wixom (eds.), The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, A.D. 843–1261 (New York, 1997), 282–3, 408, 434, 438.

44 The naval commander in question was Basil Hexamilites (McGeer, ‘Two Orations’, 130–1).

45 Eric McGeer, Sowing the Dragon's Teeth: Byzantine Warfare in the Tenth Century (Washington, DC, 1995), 365–8.

46 Aristakes of Lastivert, Récit, 16; one of the main objectives of embassies moving between Byzantium and the Islamic world, including between Byzantium and the Fatimids, was the redeeming of prisoners, some of whom remained in captivity for many years: Hugh Kennedy, ‘Byzantine–Arab Diplomacy in the Near East from the Islamic Conquests to the Mid-Eleventh Century’, in Byzantine Diplomacy, ed. Simon Franklin and Jonathan Shepard (Cambridge, 1992), 137–9; Yvonne Friedman, Encounter between Enemies: Captivity and Ransom in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Leiden, 2002), 33–47.

47 Samuel Hazzard Cross and Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor (tr.), The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text (Cambridge, MA, 1953), 110–11.

48 Nadia Maria el Cheikh, Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs (Cambridge, MA, 2004), 142–62, for Harun ibn Yahya's observations of Constantinople as transmitted by the early tenth-century geographer Ibn Rusteh.

49 Skylitzes, Synopsis, 291–4; tr. Wortley, John Skylitzes, 278–81.

50 Elizabeth Jeffreys, Digenis Akritis: The Grottaferrata and Escorial Versions (Cambridge, 1998); Roderick Beaton, David Ricks and Peter Mackridge (eds.), Digenes Akrites: New Approaches to Byzantine Heroic Poetry (Aldershot, 1993).

51 Sevcenko, I., ‘Byzantium Viewed from the Eastern Provinces in the Middle Byzantine Period’, Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 3–4 (1979–80), 732–5Google Scholar.

52 Catherine Holmes, ‘Basil II the Bulgar-Slayer and the Blinding of 15,000 Bulgarians in 1014: Mutilation and Prisoners-of-War in the Middle Ages’, in How Fighting Ends: A History of Surrender, ed. Holger Afflerbach and Hew Strachan (Oxford, 2012), 86–93; for the evolution of Basil's reputation as ‘Bulgarslayer’ see Stephenson, Bulgarslayer, passim.

53 McGeer, ‘Two Orations’, 131–2.

54 Squatriti, Liudprand of Cremona, 244.

55 Ibid., 271.

56 Walker, Paul E., ‘The “Crusade” of John Tzmisces in the Light of New Arabic Evidence’, Byzantion, 47 (1977), 301–27Google Scholar.

57 Skylitzes, Synopsis, 364; tr. Wortley, John Skylitzes, 344.

58 Holmes, Basil II, 461–8.

59 McGeer, ‘Two Orations', 119–20.

60 E. McGeer, ‘The Legal Decree of Nikephoros Phokas Concerning Armenian Stratiotai’, in Peace and War in Byzantium: Essays in Honor of George T. Dennis, ed. Timothy S. Miller and John W. Nesbitt (Washington, DC, 1995), 123–37.

61 Kekaumenos: G. Litavrin, ed. and Russian tr., Cecaumeni Consilia et Narrationes (Moscow, 1972), 268; English translation by Charlotte Roueché available online: https://ancientwisdoms.ac.uk/library/kekaumenos-consilia-et-narrationes. It is worth noting, however, that in the same work Kekaumenos also advises emperors on the wisdom of a mobile form of governance; leaving Constantinople was wise, so that the emperor had good knowledge of the state of the provinces.

62 Michael McCormick, Eternal Victory: Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium, and the Early Medieval West (Cambridge, 1986), 159–230; Stephenson, Bulgarslayer, 49–65; Pentcheva, Icons and Power, 31–5; see also McGeer, ‘Two Orations’, 128–9.

63 Discussions of Byzantine military culture have focused very extensively on the significance of the revival of the late Roman military handbook tradition, especially in the tenth century. For a recent contribution to this literature see Georgios Chatzelis, Byzantine Military Manuals as Literary Works and Practical Handbooks: The Case of the Tenth-Century Sylloge Tacticorum (Abingdon, 2019). Examination of clear similarities in tactics and fighting personnel between Byzantium and its neighbours is less frequent, although this topic is touched upon in a thought-provoking discussion of Byzantine warfare with the Hamdanids, an aggressive mid-tenth-century emirate based in Aleppo and Mosul (McGeer, Sowing the Dragon's Teeth, 228–48).

64 Yaacov Lev, ‘A Mediterranean Encounter: The Fatimids and Europe, Tenth to Twelfth Centuries’, in Shipping, Trade and Crusade in the Medieval Mediterranean: Studies in Honour of John Pryor, ed. Ruth Gertwagen and Elizabeth Jeffreys (2016).

65 Skylitzes, Synopsis, 264–5; tr. Wortley, John Skylitzes, 253–4.

66 Hugh Kennedy, Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of Al-Andalus (1996), 119–20; Brett, Rise of the Fatimids, 230–5.

67 Haldon, John and Kennedy, Hugh, ‘The Arab–Byzantine Frontier in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries: Military Organisation and Society in the Borderlands’, Zbornik Radova Vizantološkog Instituta, 19 (1980), 79–116Google Scholar; Michael Bonner, Aristocratic Violence and Holy War: Studies in the Jihad and the Arab–Byzantine Frontier (New Haven, 1996).

68 Nora Berend, Jozsef Laszlovszky and Bela Zsolt Szakacs, ‘The Kingdom of Hungary’, in Christianization and the Rise of Christian Monarchy: Scandinavia, Central Europe and Rus’ c. 900–1200, ed. Nora Berend (Cambridge, 2007), 322–4; Liudprand of Cremona makes several references to tenth-century Magyar raids in the Balkans, Moravia, Germany and Italy (Squatriti, Liudprand of Cremona, 75–96, 111–14, 194, 266); Loud, G. A., ‘Southern Italy and the Eastern and Western Empires, c. 900–1050’, Journal of Medieval History, 38 (2012), 1–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially at 12.

69 De Administrando Imperio, ed. G. Moravcsik and tr. R. J. H. Jenkins (Washington. DC, 1967), 56–63.

70 Vassilios Christides, The Conquest of Crete by the Arabs (ca.824): A Turning Point in the Struggle between Byzantium and Islam (Athens, 1984); idem, ‘The Raids of the Moslems of Crete in the Aegean Sea: Piracy and Conquest’, Byzantion, 51 (1981), 76–111.

71 McGeer, ‘Two Orations’, 130–1.

72 For example, once in Egypt, the Fatimids also looked to employ Armenian troops. On the career of the Armenian commander Badr al Jamali in the later eleventh century, see Brett, Fatimid Empire, 199ff.; on the wider point of Armenians in the armies of Islamic powers, including the Fatimids, see John France, Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade (Cambridge, 1994), 205–6. On mercenaries serving in Hamdanid armies, and the eagerness of the Hamdanid emirs to employ such forces for the purposes of raiding, see McGeer, Sowing the Dragon's Teeth, 232–42.

73 Franklin and Shepard, Emergence of Rus, 139–51.

74 John Kameniates, The Capture of Thessaloniki, ed., tr. and commentary D. Frendo and A. Fotiou (Perth, 2000); see Shaun Tougher, The Reign of Leo VI (886–912): Politics and People (Leiden, 1997), 181–9, for the campaign of 904, and for an interpretation of eastern Mediterranean Arab naval activity in the early tenth century as devastating raids rather than attempts to occupy territory.

75 Tougher, Leo VI, 184–5.

76 Stephenson, Byzantium's Balkan Frontier, 89–91.

77 Kaldellis, Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood, 11–12, 275–6.

78 Graham A. Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest (Harlow, 2000); Brett, Fatimid Empire, 191ff.

79 Skylitzes, Synopsis, 367–8, 373; tr. Wortley, John Skylitzes, 347, 352; for a raid on the island of Gymnopelagisia by Muslim Arabs in Basil II's reign, see also Ostrogorsky, George, ‘Une Ambassade serbe auprès de l'empereur Basile II’, Byzantion, 19 (1949), 187–94Google Scholar; Holmes, Basil II, 406.

80 For example, the principality of Kars was annexed as late as 1065, only six years before the Battle of Manzikert.

81 Alexander Beihammer, Byzantium and the Emergence of Muslim-Turkish Anatolia, ca. 1040–1130 (2017).

82 There are hints of this argument in France, Victory in the East, 203.