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Power and Usurpation in Byzantium: Some Aspects of Communication, Legitimacy, and Moral Authority

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Power and Usurpation in Byzantium: Some Aspects of Communication, Legitimacy, and Moral Authority ‘THE GLORY OF RULING MAKES ALL THINGS PERMISSIBLE’: POWER AND USURPATION IN BYZANTIUM: SOME ASPECTS OF COMMUNICATION, LEGITIMACY, AND MORAL AUTHORITY By ALISTAIR JAMES DAVIDSON A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman, and Modern Greek Studies Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology College of Arts and Law University of Birmingham September 2017 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT In Byzantium, usurpation was made possible by the conflict between hereditary-dynastic and meritocratic-republican theories of rulership. Legitimacy was founded upon subjective notions of idealized moral-behavioural norms drawn from the imperial virtues and Christian ideology. Authority could be challenged when it was perceived to deviate from these norms. Investitures transformed a usurper from a private individual to an emperor on the basis of ratification by popular consent. The historic ritual of reluctance allowed emperors to present themselves as ‘moral ideals’ at the moment of proclamation, ridding them of blame for a usurpation. Guilt and sin were inevitable byproducts of usurpation, but imperial repentance facilitated an expiation and legitimized imperial authority in relation to moral ideals. On occasion a usurper’s successors would perform repentance on his behalf, freeing the dynasty from the sins of its foundation. The treatment of defeated usurpers could take a variety of forms: reconciliations enabled a peaceful ‘healing’ of the community. Political mutilations transformed the victim’s appearance and rendered him ‘other’ in an attempt to demonstrate his immorality and illegitimacy. Degradation parades inverted recognised investiture rites in order to permanently alter a victim’s identity and reveal him to be a tyrant, acting against the interests of the people. CONTENTS CONTENTS _______________________________________________________ Acknowledgements _____________________________________________ i A Note on Transliteration ________________________________________ iii List of Tables _________________________________________________ iv I. INTRODUCTION ______________________________________________ 1 Initial considerations ____________________________________________ 3 II. USURPATION: MECHANISMS AND JUSTIFICATIONS __________ 7 Justifying revolution ____________________________________________ 19 Romanos I ____________________________________________________ 22 Isaakios I _____________________________________________________ 28 Alexios I _____________________________________________________ 33 Andronikos I __________________________________________________ 38 Discussion ____________________________________________________ 46 Chapter Summary ______________________________________________ 58 III. AUTHORISING INVESTITURES _____________________________ 61 Proclamations and acclamations ___________________________________ 62 Authorising attire ______________________________________________ 70 Constantinople: political capital ___________________________________ 76 Coronation ___________________________________________________ 80 Chapter Summary ______________________________________________ 92 IV. RELUCTANT EMPERORS ___________________________________ 94 Permutations and functions ______________________________________ 94 Origins and parallels ___________________________________________ 119 Rhetoric and ritual? ___________________________________________ 133 Chapter Summary _____________________________________________ 140 V. THE SOURCES OF GUILT __________________________________ 143 Oaths and loyalties ____________________________________________ 145 Bloodshed versus the ideology of peace ___________________________ 156 Civil War ___________________________________________________ 162 Considerations _______________________________________________ 169 VI. REPENTANT EMPERORS __________________________________ 171 Penitential models and theology __________________________________ 171 Romanos I ___________________________________________________ 179 Ioannes I ____________________________________________________ 184 Michael IV __________________________________________________ 191 Alexios I ____________________________________________________ 197 Discussion ___________________________________________________ 202 VII. VICARIOUS REDEMPTION _______________________________ 216 Theophilos __________________________________________________ 216 Leon VI _____________________________________________________ 224 Andronikos II ________________________________________________ 231 Chapter Summary _____________________________________________ 243 VIII. THE DEFEATED AND DETHRONED _______________________ 247 Reconciliations _______________________________________________ 247 Sanctuary, tonsure, and exile ____________________________________ 271 Body politics and the body politic ________________________________ 280 Amputation and castration ______________________________________ 283 Rhinokopia and tongue-cutting __________________________________ 287 Blinding ____________________________________________________ 295 Degradation ceremonies ________________________________________ 309 What remains to be seen? _______________________________________ 323 He’ll be back? Apolitical afterwords ______________________________ 333 Chapter Summary _____________________________________________ 338 IX. CONCLUSIONS ____________________________________________ 342 Tables ______________________________________________________ 348 BIBLIOGRAPHY ________________________________________________ 413 Editions and Translations _____________________________________ 413 Secondary Literature _________________________________________ 424 Acknowledgements This project would never have been completed without financial support from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, in the form of a three-year studentship (Award Ref. 1363220). It was during the period of that studentship that the principal research was accomplished and the majority of this volume was written. Many people, both friends and colleagues in the fields of medieval studies and late antiquity, contributed in one way or another to the final work. I would like to start by thanking my fellow students at the CBOMGS for sharing interesting conversations, mutual support, and friendship, throughout my time at Birmingham. They are responsible, in no small measure, for making the Centre such a welcoming and exciting community of which to have been a member. I am indebted to far too many of the academic staff within the history department to list them all individually, however, particular gratitude must be expressed to those who taught me as an undergraduate; especially to Rhoads Murphey, Dimiter Angelov, and Gareth Sears. I am grateful to Leslie Brubaker for her invaluable guidance throughout my Master’s degree, for her support with my application to study for a PhD, and for reading first drafts of the early chapters of this volume. Her feedback and probing questions improved each of them immensely. The staff of the university library also deserve far more than a little acknowledgement for helping me to locate obscure volumes, for arranging inter-library loans, and for providing scans and photocopies, even during the transition of the main collection from the old library to the new. I would like to give particular thanks to my examiners, Catherine Holmes and Michael Grünbart, for their generous comments after reading the completed manuscript, for a stimulating conversation on the implications of my research, and for their invaluable suggestions regarding potential avenues for future study. Their enthusiasm for the topic was greatly appreciated, and most heartening. By far my greatest debt is owed to Ruth Macrides, who has acted as my research supervisor throughout my studies at Birmingham. She is responsible for my first real introduction to the history of medieval Byzantium, instilled the importance of close reading of the primary sources (“Have you checked the Greek?”), and taught me to continually question existing scholarship. Without her unwavering support, guidance, and enthusiasm for all things Byzantine, I could not have started this work and almost certainly would not i have finished it. She has kept me on schedule, saved me from errors on more than one occasion, and given freely of her time and expertise. A student could not hope for a better teacher. Finally, I would like to thank my family for their continued love, support, and good humour. I could not have done any of this without them, and it is to them that this work is dedicated. ii A Note on Transliteration As the present work must frequently refer to technical terms as well as the names of people, places, and institutions that were not originally written with the Latin alphabet in mind, a few words on transliteration are required. No single system of transliteration is universally acceptable for a work that covers more
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