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1994

Byzantine : Papers from the Twenty-Fourth Spring Symposium of , Cambridge, March 1990 (Review)

Martin Arbagi Wright State University - Main Campus, [email protected]

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Repository Citation Arbagi, M. (1994). Byzantine Diplomacy: Papers from the Twenty-Fourth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Cambridge, March 1990 (Review). Speculum: A Journal of , 69 (4), 1272-1274. https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/history/7

This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the History at CORE Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in History Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of CORE Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 1272 Reviews biographyof a medievalauthor withthe informationneeded for furtherresearch." At present,the seriescomprises two subseries,Historical and ReligiousWriters of the West, edited by PatrickJ. Geary,and EnglishWriters of the Late , edited byM. C. Seymour.Among the authors to be treatedin the latter,the subseriesin question here, are WilliamLangland, John Gower, the Gawain poet, Thomas Hoccleve, and Sir Thomas Malory,several of whom make poor subjects for biographicalresearch strictly speaking. Regardless of one's view of recent death-of-the-authortheories, one has to wonderabout the value of referencebiographies devoted to virtuallyuntraceable figures like Langland or the Gawain poet as well as ask what furtherresearch anyone could possiblyundertake into theirlives. It is not clear, in fact,what scholarly need the English Writersseries fills,apart from that of updating the bibliographiescontained in such referenceworks as the Manual of the Writingsin Middle English,1050-1500 (gen. ed. AlbertE. Hartung)and MiddleEnglish Prose: A CriticalGuide to Major Authorsand Genres (ed. A. S. G. Edwards). There is perhaps a case to be made for the utilityof Seymour'sSir JohnMandeville, since the onlyrecent critical survey of the authorshipquestion is Rita Lejeune's valuable 1964 study,"Jean de Mandevilleet les Liegeois" (in Melanges... offertsa M. Maurice Delbouille;J. R. S. Phillips's 1993 essay, "The Quest for Sir John Mandeville," in The Cultureof Christendom, ed. Marc AntonyMeyer, contains a brieferoverview but otherwise consistsof underinformedspeculation). Unfortunately, Seymour adds almostnothing to Lejeune's study,offering little more than a rehashof the evidence and opinions already available in the introductionsand notes to his several editions of the Middle English redactions.Some of his newer information(e.g., regardingthe author's use of biblical citations)is borrowedfrom Christiane Deluz's Le Livrede jehan de Mandeville:Une "ge'o- graphie"au XIVe s. (Louvain-la-Neuve,1988), an erudite studywhose worth Seymour does not sufficientlyrecognize, while some of his bolder claims (e.g., the author was "a fluentreader of Latin," p. 23) are offeredwithout evidence and contradictDeluz's better- supportedconclusions (e.g., the author's Latin was "assez incertain,"p. 67). In addition, Seymour'splausible but unprovableassertion that the still-unlocatedauthor of TheBook ofJohn Mandeville was French-not English,as both Lejeune and Deluz believe-makes nonsense of the subseries's proclaimed focus on English writers.The bibliographyis inadequate,omitting among otherthings S. A. J. Bradley'saccounts of the Danish version and MaryB. Campbell's Witnessand theOther World. A detailedpresentation of TheBook's complex textualhistory would have been a much more valuable aid to furtherresearch.

IAIN HIGGINS, Universityof BritishColumbia

JONATHAN SHEPARD and SIMON FRANKLIN, eds., ByzantineDiplomacy. Papers from the Twenty-FourthSpring Symposium of ByzantineStudies, Cambridge, March 1990. (So- cietyfor the Promotionof ByzantineStudies, 1.) Aldershot,Hampshire: Variorum, 1992. Pp. xi, 333; 6 black-and-whiteillustrations. $69.95. The Society for the Promotion of ByzantineStudies has begun its publication series auspiciouslywith the present book. I have complained previouslyin the pages of this journal about pro forma editing,but Shepard and Franklinhave done theirjob well here. Usage, includingabbreviations in footnotes,is uniform.Authors are aware of each other's work,and theirarticles are laced withcross-references. The editors are a bit less successfulin dealing with another dilemma that plagues anthologies:the problemof theme.To be entirelyfair, the difficultymay be an insoluble one, especiallywith as stellar a cast of writersas this group (Ihor Sevcenko, Robin Cormack,John Haldon, JudithHerrin, Alexander Kazhdan, Hugh Kennedy,Ruth Ma- Reviews 1273 crides, and Nicolas Oikonomides,among others). In theoryByzantine Diplomacy has a narrowfocus: it is concerned with the techniquesof Byzantinediplomacy rather than the narrativehistory of individualmissions or of Byzantineforeign relations as a whole. But it is rarelypossible entirelyto eliminatenarrative; and some articles,notably in the section "Byzantiumand Others," are more chronologicalthan analyticalin scope. One problem thisbook touches only lightlyis how one can treatinternational diplomacy as a separate categorywhen Byzantium(like most statesbefore the Renaissance and most nonwesterngovernments until the nineteenthcentury) did not clearlydifferentiate be- tween foreignand domesticaffairs. Afteran introductionby Alexander Kazhdan, "The ByzantineNotion of Diplomacy," ByzantineDiplomacy is dividedinto five further sections: "Phases of ByzantineDiplomacy," "Byzantiumand Others," "Sources on Diplomacy," "Art in Diplomacy," "Social As- pects," and an afterword,"The Less Obvious Ends of ByzantineDiplomacy." My usual procedure-that of notingthose articlesthat most attractedmy attention-is admittedly idiosyncratic,but it has not elicited complaintsin previous reviewsand so I follow it again here. Evangelos Chrysos,Jonathan Shepard, and Nicolas Oiknomidesdelineate the problem of periodization.One possibility(especially appealing to westernmedievalists) is to do so in termsof Byzantinerelations with the Latin West.Until 800 theold empire'sdealings withthe were those of a patron witha client.Between 800 and ca. 1200 the two were on an approximatelyequal footing.After 1204 Byzantiumincreasingly "appeared in the role of an impoverishedand feeble supplicant" (p. 5). But such a periodization is at times inappropriatefor Byzantinediplomacy with the Muslim world or with the peoples of the north.A professionaldiplomatic corps was in all periods frequentlysup- plementedby courtiersor civil servantswho, though experienced, were withoutspe- cialized trainingor knowledge. Especially in the late period, one even comes across outrightamateurs, such as membersof the nobility,medical doctors,clergy, or scholars, as diplomats. "Byzantiumand Others" deals withdiplomacy with (old) , the ,Khazars, , the Russian church, and the Ottomans. Hugh Kennedy makes the surprising observationthat Byzantine diplomacy with the Arabs was largelyrestricted to negotiations for exchanges of prisonersof war, truces,and other short-termissues. There was little attemptat "creat[ing] the conditionsfor longer termsecurity" (p. 133). The section on sources contains two of the most interestingarticles in the book and one disappointment.Roger Scott's short piece, "Diplomacy in the Sixth Century:The Evidence ofJohn Malalas," is succinctand packed withinformation. Scott at least alludes to the questionof whetheror not premodernstates could adequatelydistinguish between internaland foreignpolicy, venturing the opinion that theywere indeed able to do so (p. 163). Ihor Sevcenko's learned and witty"Re-Reading ConstantinePorphyrogenitus" is actuallyan annotatedtranslation of a memorandumfrom Constantine himself, now a residentof "Ouranoupolis." The once shy and reclusivebasileus waxes merryover his apotheosisby modernscholars as a scholar-emperorwhose enlightenedpatronage of art and learningstarted the classical revivalof the Macedonian epoch. In fact,Constantine observes,he was not well educated. Althoughhe did do some writing,many of the works attributedto him were actuallyauthored by others. His classical allusions in some cases were merelycribbed fromsecondary sources, and in others exist only in the minds of modern scholars,eager to see humanisticerudition in textswhere thereis none. Adding insult to injury,the imperial author goes on to write that much of the Macedonian "renaissance" is itselfa fiction.Indeed, Byzantinecivilization does not compare favorably withroughly contemporary cultures further to the east-the Porphyrogenituscites India and Japan as comparisons.It seems to thisreviewer that Constantine has been sneaking 1274 Reviews out of Ouranoupolis to visitThe Other Place and conversingwith the likes of Gibbon and Voltaire.Medieval civilizationhad its collectivemind fixedon the next world (as the basileusshould well understandby now), not thisone, and thatis reflectedin its art and .Constanze Schummer'sbrief piece on Liudprand of Cremona makes the ob- vious point thatdespite his sophisticationand knowledgeof Greek,the Lombard bishop was not by temperamentfitted for diplomacy-somethingthat also could be said of Humbertof Silva Candida in the next century. Aftera sectionon the diplomaticuses of art,Byzantine Diplomacy concludes withP. T. Antonopoulos's essay,"The Less Obvious Ends of ByzantineDiplomacy," showing how a skillednegotiator (in thiscase Peter the Patricianin the sixthcentury) could frequently wringat least partial success fromwhat was apparentlya failed mission. Some recentresearch has contended that the Byzantinediplomatic corps was consid- erablyless well informedand more amateurish-in short,less byzantine-thanscholarly legend would have us believe. But I suspect most of the contributorsto thisbook would agree withOikonomides' remarkthat especially in periods where militaryvictories were fewor entirelyabsent, "the survivalof the empireall thistime was .. . due to its efficient foreignpolicy and to its efficientdiplomacy" (p. 88).

MARTIN ARBAGI, WrightState University

GtRARD SIVtRY, PhilippeAuguste. : Plon, 1992. Paper. Pp. 429. It is not surprisingthat the observance in 1979 of the eight hundredthanniversary of Philip Augustus's accession stimulatednew interestin that pivotal figure.In that year MichelNortier brought out thelast volume of Philip'scharters; the following year Robert- Henri Bautier organized an impressivecolloquium in Paris (papers published in 1982); my own Governmentof Philip Augustusappeared in 1986 (French edition in 1991) and myedition of the Registresde PhilippeAuguste in 1993 (dated 1992). Now Gerard Sivery, professorat Lille, who previouslyhas concentratedon economic historyof the Flemish region,has broughtout stillanother book on Philip. Siveryproposes to step back and offera "long view of Philip and political power" (p. 7). Successive chapters treat the well-knowntopics of baronial rivalry,the crusade,governmental reforms, territorial con- quests,and the king'srelations with the churchand contemporarysociety. Framed chro- nologically,his narrativerecounts both the king'spersonal developmentand his political success. In his view Philip's finalachievement was to shape the royaldomain into a vast seigneurie,thereby outweighing the power of the great magnates and reducing their influenceover the kingdom. For three-quartersof a centurythe acknowledgedauthority on Philip Augustuswas the German scholarAlexander Cartellieri, whose PhilippII. August,Konig von Frankreich (1899-1922) assembled and interpretedthe chronicle evidence for the reign in four massiveand magisterialvolumes. Sivery respects Cartellieri but proposes to depart from his approach by making use of the "collected administrativeacts, inquests, financial accounts, and the remarkabledescription of the kingdom" (that is, the registers,p. 7); in fact,he has not done so. The publishedactes, the Layettesdu Tresordes chartes,and the various financialaccounts contributescarcely more to his narrativethan to Cartellieri's. He furtherignores the newlydiscovered account of 1221 publishedby Nortierin 1981 and makes littleuse of the registers,to which he has had access in manuscriptand on which he published an incompleteand flawed azrticlein 1984. Like Cartellieri,Sivery reliesprincipally on the contemporarychroniclers, particularly the royalhistoriographers Rigord and Guillaume le Breton, occasionallyadding others fromthe Flemish region and a later period.