The Turkish Conquest of Anatolia in the Eleventh Century

Hawliyat is the official peer-reviewed journal of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Balamand. It publishes articles from the field of Humanities. Journal Name: Hawliyat ISSN: 1684-6605 Title: The Turkish Conquest of Anatolia in the Eleventh Century Authors: S P O'Sullivan To cite this document: O’Sullivan, S. (2019). The Turkish Conquest of Anatolia in the Eleventh Century. Hawliyat, 8, 41-93. https://doi.org/10.31377/haw.v8i0.335 Permanent link to this document: DOI: https://doi.org/10.31377/haw.v8i0.335 Hawliyat uses the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-SA that lets you remix, transform, and build upon the material for non-commercial purposes. However, any derivative work must be licensed under the same license as the original. The Turkish Conquest of Anatolia in the Eleventh Century S.P. O'Sullivan Many historical events are part of common knowledge yet are understood only superficially even by specialists. Usually this is because the historical records are insufficient, something we would expect for remote and inconse quential events. But an event, neither remote nor at all unimportant. which remains obscure even in its broadest outlines would be cause for surprise. Such is the case for the conquest of Anatolia by the Turks. which took place during the late II th century. specially between 1071 and 1085. The Turkish con quest was important mainly because it spelt the end of the Greek presence in Asia. The Hellenic movement to the East eventually reached the borders of India and then slowly fell back in stages, each territorial loss inevitably followed by the extinguishing of Greek culture. In this way. the Iranians retook Iran and Mesopotamia before the time of Christ. Incorporated into the Roman Empire. the Asian Greek lands resisted further pressure from the East until the Arab inva sions of the seventh century suddenly wrested away Syria and Egypt. Only Anatolia remained; the Roman Empire in the East, transformed into Byzantium, held it successfully against the Arabs for several centuries and even began to advance again. But a third Asian people. the Turks. broke down this last barrier. conquering Anatolia up to the Aegean Sea in the late II th century. This was not yet the end of the long story of the Greeks in Asia. Following the counter-attack of the First Crusade. the Byzantines were able to reconquer part of Anatolia and hold it for two centuries longer; even afterwards. Greek settlement remained in parts of what was now Turkey until all Greeks were expelled from the peninsula in 1922. But all this was only a very long death rattle; after the initial Turkish conquest of the late 11 th century. the end. if long in coming. was always in sight. The importance of the II th-century conquest of Anatolia needs no 42 The Turkish Conquest 0/ Anatolia in the EJevenJh CenJlJry emphasis. What is curious is that it should have been largely passed over. "The decade after 1071, one of the most momentous intervals in Byzantine history, has been unwarrantably neglected by modern scholars"(I) is the reproach made in a recent work. This study is an attempt to fill the gap in pan. Its principal aim is to reconstruct a coherent narrative for the central years of the Turkish conquest, 1071-85, and so it deals mainly with political and military events in Anatolia during those years. Problems of the Sources Naturally the main reason for the neglect of this subject is the lack of ade quate sources. To begin with, the conquest left no contemporary Turkish records. Epic poems on the origins and early history of the Turks in RUm were compiled in the 14th century from oral traditions"), but they provide almost no reliable information about the conquest from the Turkish side. It is true that Arab histo rians of the 12th century wrote much about the arrival of the Turks into the his torical arena. Yet these historians mention the Turks only in connection with events in Iran, Iraq, and Syria. After the Battle of Manziken in 1071, there is practically no mention of the conquest of Anatolia by Arab writers, whose out look was overshadowed by the First Crusade and the subsequent Byzantine reconquest'''. Armenian, Syrian and Latin writers, for their pan, have very little to say about Greek Anatolia. We must therefore rely on Greek sources, and particularly on the histories of Michael Attaliates, Nicephorus Bryennius, and Anna Comoena. On the posi tive side, these writers, taken together, provide a sizeable amount of information on the subject. All three occupied imponant positions in the Byzantine state and were well-placed to record events. Anna Comnena, daughter of the Emperor Alexius I Comoenus (1081-11\8), and her husband, Nicephorus Bryennius, wrote in the 1\30s and 114Os, when memories were still vivid. Michael Attaliates, on the other hand, had the priceless advantage of being a direct wit ness himself. He accompanied the Emperor Romanus IV on the Anatolian cam- (1) Treadgold. Warren. A HislOa' of me BYzantine State and Society ; Stanford 1997, p. 914. (2) Vryonis, Speros, The Decline of MedieYal Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Isiamis8tiQQ From the Eleyenth Throuib the fifteenth Century; Berkeley 1971 , p. 511 (index Danishmendnamc!) (3) eahen, Claude, "La premiere ¢n~tration turque en Asie Mineure" , Thrcobyz.antina et Driens Christiana, London 1914, pp. 5-7. 5.p. O'Sullivan 43 paigns of 1068 and 1069 and on the third campaign of 1071, which ended in the disastrous battle of Manzikert. After being evacuated by sea to Constantinople, Attaliates seems to have spent tbe rest of the 1070s in the capital. By late 1080, the closing date of his history, he had reached a high position in the civil hie rarchy. In addition, there are other contemporary sources of less direct relevance. Michael Psellus wrote his Chrono~hia. a collected biography of the 11 th cen tury emperors, not long before his death in early 1078, and the chronicles of Zonaras, Glycas, and Manasses were all written before 1150. There is no dearth of historical writing during this most critical period of Byzantium's long and erratic history. Yet the Greek sources do not give a satisfactory account of the fall of Anatolia. In the first place, they are too biased. Bryennius and, especially, Anna Comnena portray Alexius Comnenus as the saviour and restorer of an empire which was on the verge of collapse after the disastrous reigns of his two prede cessors, Michael vn (107\-1078) and Nicephorus III Botaniates (l078-108\). This interpretation is too simple, because Alexius restored the collapsed Empire on very weak foundations; the new edifice stood up imposingly for two genera tions but then rapidly crumbled away. Whether Alexius could have achieved more is another question; nonetheless, Anna Comnena's Alexiad is very biased, to the extent that events in Anatolia which are detrimental to her father's repu tation have been firmly suppressed. Attaliates' History is chiefly characterised by unrestrained praise for Alexius' predecessor, Nicephorus Botaniates. Attaliates wrote his history while holding a high position in Botaniates' administration, so he could hardly have criticised the emperor. Yet Attaliates probably regarded his master with genuine admiration and loyalty, seeing him as the saviour of Anatolia, which was both his and the emperor's homeland. To dismiss Attaliates as a mere sycophant would be a mistake. Although too superstitious for modem tastes, he comes across as a person of integrity and compassion. A final example is Michael Psellus, who was Michael VII's chief minister for a short time. After his dismissal, PseHus wrote the ChronoEraphia, in which he praises Michael's personal qualities, while blaming the previous emperor, Romanus IV, for the collapse in Anatolia. Yet Psenus is condemned by his own writings as a scheming and unscrupulous politician. His positive description of Michael is mere flattery. That emperor has gone down in history, irredeemably, as one of the most incompetent rulers in Byzantine history. Contemporary Byzantine sources on this subject were not written - how 44 TM Turkish COnqlUst of AlUJlolia in 1M Elewnlh Century could they be? - with the purpose of giving an impartial account of events. On the contrary, their primary aim was to exculpate the reigning emperor, the pro tagonist of all Byzantine historiography, from responsibility for the sudden loss of Anatolia, the backbone of the Empire. Previous emperors, courtiers, generals, mercenaries, and allies - each and all played the role of scapegoat in these ten dentious histories. Such bias from sources so close to the event is inevitable and can be dis counted; indeed, opposing biases helpfully cancel out. What is left, however, is still not satisfactory. For in the second place the sources are remarkably unin formative - and this is their more serious fault. None of them properly attempts to describe how the Turks conquered Anatolia. The first impression is that the conquest happened quicldy and almost without resistance, "when the fortune of the Turks overcame that of the Romans, and when the latter were driven back like sand underfoot'''>' But plain reason and the information we have oblige us to reject such a simple conclusion. As we shall see, the conquest proceeded in stages for almost fifteen years, not a short time; it certainly met with determined, and in some cases successful, resis~ce. It was not an easy affair. Why were Byzantine writers so reticent on Anatolia, compared with what they tell us about events elsewhere? If they had wished to find information, they could certainly have done so. But Anatolia was the mainstay of the Empire, without which it could not survive for long.

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