W chapter 6

Dynastic Marriages

Even without a diplomatic service or foreign ministry, the Byzantines could and did exploit every tool of diplomacy, and this naturally in- cluded dynastic marriages intended to cement relations with powerful foreigners.1 That had not been a Roman practice, for lack of valid coun- terparts, but for the Byzantines there was the precedent of the dynastic marriages between the rival Hellenistic autocracies established by the successors of Alexander the Great. Initially ruled by his direct subordi- nates and then by their descendants or near enough, these Greek-speak- ing kingdoms not infrequently made peace agreements by marriages, though more frequently they warred, with or without divorces. Matters were rather more delicate for the of the Romans. For himself, for a sister, or for his palace-born children, intermarriage with lesser mortals was inconsistent with the claimed position of the emperor as God’s viceroy on earth and overlord presumptive of all Christians, who must exist on a higher plane than all other rulers. Be- sides, the notion of consigning the daughter or sister of an emperor to the bed of a barbarian, howsoever Christian, or to a nomad’s tent, even if filled with golden treasure, or worse still a Muslim harem, was revolt- ing, offending both Greek racial pride and Christian propriety. Things were easier when or their sons married the daugh- ters of foreign potentates. Justinian II, dubbed the “slit-nosed” (rhinotmetos), who ruled from 685 only to be dethroned, symbolically mutilated, and exiled to the remote outpost of in in 695, formed a dynastic alliance with the who ruled the adja- cent steppe. He married the sister of the qagan, Glavan (Ibousiros 138 •

Gliabanos to the ), who took the name Theodora—though it was with the help of the Bulghar qan or khan Tervel that he eventually re- gained the throne in 705 to misrule until 711, when he was overthrown again. A century later, Leo III (717–741), to seal his alliance with the steppe of the Khazars against the Muslim , whom they separately vanquished on their respective fronts, arranged the marriage of his son and successor (741–775) to the qagan’s daughter, who took the name Irene—her son and his successor, Leo IV (775–780), was nicknamed “The Khazar.” Incidentally this Irene is remembered for two rather contrary accomplishments. The first was that, upon embracing Christianity, she acquired a reputation for intense piety. Under the year 6224 since the creation, that is, 731/732 CE, Theophanes Confessor re- cords: “In this year the emperor Leo [III] betrothed his son Constantine to the daughter of the Chagan....Hemade her a Christian and named her Irene. She learned Holy Scripture and lived piously, thus reproving the impiety [] of those men.”2 Her second accomplishment was that she introduced to the Byzantine court her national dress, a well-decorated caftan—the horse-nomads’ long coat that can be opened in front to mount the horse—which came to be called tzitzakion at the Byzantine court. Starting out as nomadic outerwear, it migrated to the very summit of middle-Byzantine court costume, for the tzitzakion was worn by the emperor himself and only on the most solemn occasions. This was explained much later by Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos (912–959), himself a keen anti- quarian: “You must know that the tzitzakion is a Khazar costume that appeared in this God-protected imperial city since the empress of Khazaria.”3 In spite of this precedent, the official version was that the imperial family would not marry into lesser ruling families, no matter how great their pretensions. No requests were anticipated from religiously inimi- cal Muslim powers; the steppe powers were in no sense anti-Christian, but they too were to be refused. In De Administrando Imperio there is the crib of a suggested reply to fob off such requests

[if] any nation of these infidels and dishonorable tribes of the north shall ever demand a marriage alliance with the emperor of the Romans, and ei- ther take his daughter to wife, or to give a daughter of their own to be the wife to the emperor or the emperor’s son.

To this “monstrous and unseemly” demand, a typically arch reply is suggested: Dynastic Marriages • 139

[A] dread and authentic charge and ordinance of the great and holy Con- stantine is engraved upon the sacred table of the universal church of the Christians, Hagia , that never shall an emperor of the Romans ally himself in marriage with a nation of customs differing from and alien to those of the Roman order, especially with one that is infidel and un- baptized...4

Nothing could be more categorical—except that what directly follows is an exception:

. . . unless it be with the alone; for they alone were excepted by that great man, the holy Constantine, because he himself drew his origin from those parts...[and] because of the traditional fame and nobility of those lands and races.

That was entirely spurious—Constantine never left instructions on mar- riage, and in any case he was born in Superior (now southern ) whereas the Frankish confederacy emerged in the lower Rhine valley—but the fiction did justify dynastic alliances with the strongest power of west, the of and his descendants, then the that became the Regnum Teutonicum, the Kingdom of , in the tenth century with the Ottonian . In 781 Irene, widow of Leo IV “The Khazar” (775–780) and regent for her only son, the ten-year-old Constantine VI, arranged his betrothal to Rotrud, the six-year-old daughter of Charlemagne, still “king of the Franks” and not yet crowned emperor, as he would be in 800, but al- ready the ruler of much of . There was as yet no significant friction between the two , but with Charlemagne still expanding his reach and increasingly active in , collisions were highly predictable, because the Byzantines still possessed the southern coastal enclaves of , Reggio in , and Brindisi in Puglie, and also as the residue of the extinct of , and the port towns of the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic—though at its head already belonged to the Franks. A precautionary dynastic alli- ance with the most powerful western potentate since Roman times was certainly prudent. Eschewing the barbarian sound of “Rotrud,” the Byzantines named her Erythro and sent the Elissaios to educate her in the and court manners. But in 786, when she was still only eleven, the formidable and scheming Irene broke off the engagement for rea- sons unknown—as for Constantine VI, he would end his life deposed and blinded by will of his mother. 140 • Byzantine Diplomacy

In the absence of a dynastic alliance, relations with Charlemagne did not prosper, although direct warfare was avoided till much later. Charlemagne’s acceptance of the title of Imperator at his crowning by Leo III on Christmas Day, December 25, 800, was a direct challenge to Byzantine supremacy, regardless of his own in- tentions. His official biographer Einhard or Eginhard or Einhart, monk, Frankish historian, and Charlemagne’s dedicated courtier, entirely blamed Pope Leo III for the deed:

The [Roman populace] had inflicted many injuries upon the Pontiff Leo, tearing out his eyes and cutting out his tongue, so that he had been com- pelled to call upon the King for help. Charles accordingly went to , to set in order the affairs of the Church . . . and passed the whole winter there. It was then that he received the titles of Emperor and Augustus [Im- perator Augustus], to which he at first had such an aversion that he de- clared that he would not have set foot in the Church the day that they were conferred, although it was a great feast-day, if he could have foreseen the design of the Pope. He bore very patiently with the jealousy which the Ro- man emperors [of ] showed upon his assuming these titles, for they took this step very ill; and by dint of frequent embassies and let- ters, in which he addressed them as brothers, he made their haughtiness yield to his magnanimity, a quality in which he was unquestionably much their superior.5

It is true that the pope and the Roman Church had a more urgent need of a western emperor to protect them than Charlemagne had need of a title—by then his personal preeminence and his hegemony within conti- nental western Europe were both unchallenged. The recent emperors of Byzantium had become heretical in Roman eyes because of their icono- clasm, but their even greater offense was that they were too far away to safeguard the from the savagery around them, not all of it barbar- ian—it was a Roman gang sent by disgruntled relatives of his noble pre- decessor Adrian I that attacked the commoner Leo III, driving him to es- cape to Charlemagne. The Byzantine view of Charlemagne’s coronation, as a calculated - litical act by both sides, is much more plausible:

[After he was attacked, Pope Leo] sought refuge with Karoulos, king of the Franks, who took bitter vengeance on his enemies and restored him to his throne, Rome falling from that time onwards under the authority of the Franks Repaying his debt to Karoulos, Leo crowned him emperor of the Romans in the church of the holy apostle after anointing him with oil Dynastic Marriages • 141

from head to foot and investing him with imperial robes and a crown on 25 December.6 Irene, effectively emperor from 797 to 802 as regent for her son, would not compromise the imperial primacy by recognizing Charlemagne as Imperator Augustus. What next ensued is both attested by the best source for the period and also hard to believe:

In this year, on 25 December, . . . [800] Karoulos, king of the Franks, was crowned by Pope Leo. He intended to make a naval expedition against Sic- ily, but changed his mind and decided instead to marry Irene. To this end he sent envoys the following year.7 Moreover, the long-anticipated territorial conflict had started over Ven- ice and its surroundings—Istria on the other side of the Adriatic had al- ready been claimed by Charlemagne’s father, Pippin III, in 789. Irene’s successor, I (802–811), reached a peace agree- ment in 803 but still refused to recognize Charlemagne’s imperial title. Fighting later resumed and continued until under emperor (811–813) a new peace agreement was reached in 812 whereby Venice and Istria were returned to the empire, and an imperial title was allowed to Charlemagne: not Imperator Augustus or Imper- ator Romanorum but at least the awkward and temporary-sounding Imperator Romanorum gubernans imperium, or Emperor of the Romans Governing an Empire; Charlemagne and his secretariat were content with Imperator et Augustus plain, and rex of the Franks and , leaving “Emperor of the Romans” to Michael I and Byzan- tium.8 That Frankish marriage never took place, but others did. Most notably, emperor John Tzimiskes (969–976) agreed to wed Theophano, proffered as his niece, to the son of Otto I, king of Germany and Italy, the future emperor Otto II. Negotiations had begun under his predeces- sor, Nikephoros II Phokas (963–969), who had spurned the proposal, provoking the acerbic tit for tat of Otto’s irascible negotiator, Liutprand of , who also wrote a polemical account of the negotiations.9 This was more than a dynastic marriage, it was a strategic marriage, an integral part of a war plan. Under his predecessor Nikephoros II Phokas, the two empires had been colliding in Italy, but Tzimiskes wanted to resume the offensive at the opposite extremity of the empire, against the Muslim Arabs. The marriage of Theophano and Otto was celebrated in Rome on April 14, 972, apparently putting an end to confrontation in the west. In the 142 • Byzantine Diplomacy same year, Tzimiskes launched his successful campaign to drive back the Muslim Arabs. Ioannis Scylitzes is brief: “The cities which...hadbeen appropriated by the Emperor [Nikephoros] and made subject to the Romans had now kicked up their heels and thrown off Roman domina- tion; so the Emperor set out against them and advanced as far as Da- mascus.”10 There would be many more dynastic, strategic, and increasingly exotic marriages with powers old and new. I (1057– 1059) married Catherine of , a daughter of the long-dead tsar Ivan Vladislav; Michael VII (1071–1078) went much farther afield to marry Maria of Alania, daughter of King Bagrat IV of of the millennial Bagration clan—and she was also taken as legitimizing spouse by Michael’s successor Nikephoros III Botaneiates (1078–1081), who overthrew her ex-husband (who was generously allowed to retire as a monk, thereupon starting a new career that culminated with his in- stallation as metropolitan archbishop of Ephesus). Ioannes II Komnenos (1118–1143) also went far afield, marry- ing Piroska—civilized into Irene—daughter of King Ladislaus I of Hun- gary, gaining nothing thereby but entanglement in Hungarian quarrels; (1143–1180) married , sister-in- law of Conrad III of Germany, and after her death in 1159, Maria of , daughter of Raymond of Antioch, a French noble from Aquitaine. All such distant connections were exceeded by Michael VIII (1259–1282), reconqueror of Constantinople from the Lat- ins, and the Ulysses among emperors for his unending series of strata- gems. In addition to seven legitimate children, including his successor Andronikos II (1282–1328), he had two known illegitimate daughters, both of whom he married into the geographically most expansive empire in history. By 1279 the successors of Temujin, the Cinggis Qan or Genghis Khan (Oceanic Ruler) of the Mongols had conquered east- ward even the southern part of China as well as Korea, westward as far as , and southwest from Central into Afghanistan, , and Iraq. Everywhere agile Mongol horsemen outmaneuvered su- perior numbers to inflict devastating defeats, as in the battle of Wahlstatt (“battlefield”) near Liegnitz in historic Germany (now Po- land’s Legnica) known to every German schoolboy; there on April 9, 1241, Henry II the Pious was killed along with most of his Polish, Moravian, and Bavarian forces and a few Knights Templar and Hospitaller by what was imagined to be the Mongol army, but was only Dynastic Marriages • 143 a secondary column. Others were wiser: by 1243 the Seljuk Turks, who had been fighting Byzantium for almost two hundred years, became obedient Mongol vassals. Those who resisted were destroyed: an army under Temujin’s grandson Hülegü destroyed both the Ismailis of and the remnants of the Abbasid , sacking and ruining Bagh- dad in 1258.11 Consolidation rapidly ensued on both sides of Constantinople as the descendants of Temujin—Cinggis Qan organized enduring states that must be defined as “Cinggisid” rather than simply Mongol, because they recruited increasingly from local populations, remaining Mongol only in their higher leadership, and not for very long. In the east, as subordinate il-qan of the ruler of all the Mongols, Hülegü established a state that stretched from what is now western Af- ghanistan to eastern Turkey by way of Iraq, encompassing all of Iran; this il-qanate also dominated the Seljuk rulers in , who became its subjects to avoid destruction. On the other side of the Caspian and Black seas, the entire vast expanse of the steppe from what is now Moldavia all the way east to what is now Uzbekistan, and north to en- compass much of came under the domination of the western army or “horde” (from orda, Mongol for “camp,” hence the chief’s camp, and his army).12 It is still remembered today by all Russians as the Zolotaya Orda, the Golden Horde—a later blanket term for the succes- sive Mongol and Turkic powers that collected tribute from Russian towns and potentates as late as 1476, and whose last remnant was the Giray qanate of Crimea, which lingered until 1783. When first estab- lished, the Mongol state dominated the peoples of Central Asia, the Volga Bulghars, and the Qipchaq of the Pontic steppe north of the known as Cumans to the Byzantines, as well as the Russians even north of Moscow. Mongol raiders from both Cinggisid states reached imperial territory, but the same Michael VIII Palaiologos who would discomfit Charles d’Anjou by supporting Peter of Aragon at the other end of the Mediter- ranean, was fully up to the challenge. His illegitimate daughter Euphrosyne Palaiologina was successfully married to Nogai, son of Baul son of Jochi son of Cinggis Qan himself, indefatigable commander of the western army who never claimed formal leadership but dominated the western Orda all the same. His other illegitimate daughter, Maria Despina Palaiologina, was be- trothed to a greater man than Nogai, Hülegü the destroyer of Baghdad, but upon his death married instead his son and successor Abaqa or 144 • Byzantine Diplomacy

Abakha, another great-grandson of Cinggis Qan and Hülegü’s succes- sor as ruler of the il-qanid state. Though widely separated, the two sis- ters were therefore married to husbands who were relatives. Driven by the dynamics of intra-Mongol competition, both Cinggisid states were expansive, at least in directions where there was grass for horses (which spared both mountainous central Europe and ), and so their forces collided in the Caucasus, where the two powers naturally met.13 It was not all-out war but only a jurisdictional dispute, in theory at least, because all territories under Cinggisid control across twelve thou- sand miles of Eurasia were supposed to be the collective possession of the clan of Temujin’s descendants; but Nogai was leading his men as usual and lost an eye in fighting the forces of his bother-in-law Abaqa. The reaction of the two sisters is not recorded. Michael VIII Palaiologos had certainly succeeded. Neither daugh- ter was merely lost to the harems of busy warriors. Both delivered. At one point Nogai Qan provided four thousand horsemen to fight for Michael in ; more important, no power to the north could freely contemplate attacks on the emperor without fearing a visitation by Cinggisid outriders. As for Abaqa Qan, he tried to convert his Muslim subjects to Bud- dhism, the pacifist religion that the warlike Mongols somehow found most congenial. Maria Despina Palaiologina was an influential figure, and neither the Seljuks nor other Turkish chieftains could attack her fa- ther with impunity in Anatolia. In Istanbul, in the Fener quarter facing the Golden Horn, stands the only Orthodox church that was not con- verted to a mosque after the conquest of 1453—Panaghia Muchliótissa, “All Saints of the Mongols,” rebuilt by Maria Despina when she re- turned to Constantinople after Abaqa’s death. Whatever else may be said of them, the Byzantines were not provincial.