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War and Peace: Historiography and Seventhcentury Embassies

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War and Peace: Historiography and Seventhcentury Embassies War and peace: historiography and seventh- century embassies PAUL S. BARNWELL The evidence for, and circumstances of, seventh-century embassies are examined, and it is suggested that the lack of documented diplomacy is partly accounted for by what may have been relatively peaceful condi- tions in the west, and partly by the nature of the sources for the period. Before the Renaissance, when ambassadors and consuls of one state began to be permanently based in the territory of another," communi- cation with foreign rulers was conducted by means of legates sent between kings for speci¢c purposes. The objects of such contact were many and varied, including the resolution of disputes (before or after armed con£ict arose); making alliances and seeking aid against third parties; the negotiation of rights for traders and other wayfarers, including the giving of assurances concerning the intentions of o¤cial travellers. There may also have been an element of information gathering ^ or spying ^ on at least some occasions, while at other times the purpose of contact may have been no more speci¢c than opening and maintaining lines of communication in the hope of procuring good relations in case of future requests for assistance, and of avoiding the kind of mutual suspicion which often results from lack of dialogue.á It is generally recognised amongst those who have written about early medieval diplomacy that the majority of the evidence for diplomacy in the sixth- and seventh-century west relates to the period before the middle of the seventh century, and particularly to the sixth. After the uni¢cationoftheregnum Francorum in the hands of Chlothar II, and the accession to the imperial throne of Heraclius, there is no record of " For the development of permanent embassies in the early modern period, see G. Mattingly, `The ¢rst resident embassies: medieval Italian origins of modern diplomacy', Speculum "á ("ñâæ), pp. ãáâ^âñ. á For an analysis of the objects of early Byzantine diplomacy, see [E.] Chrysos, `Byzantine diplomacy[, AD âòò^ðòò: means and ends', in J. Shepherd and S. Franklin (eds) Byzantine Diplomacy: papers from the áãth spring symposium of Byzantine studies (Aldershot, "ññá)], p. âá. For the late-Roman background, especially in relation to spying, see A.D. Lee, Infor- mation and frontiers: Roman foreign relations in late antiquity (Cambridge, "ññâ). Early Medieval Europe "ññæ å (á) "áæ^"âñ # Blackwell Publishers Ltd "ññæ, "òð Cowley Road, Oxford OXã "JF,UK and âäò Main Street, Malden, MA òá"ãð,USA 128 Paul S. Barnwell diplomatic activity comparable with that of the tortuous (and much debated) relations between the Visigoths, Franks and Byzantines in the preceding generation;â nor is there anything to equal the evidence for Theoderic the Great's relations with his contemporaries earlier in the sixth century. This has been discussed in relation to Frankish diplomacy by two scholars in particular, but the conclusions they have drawn from it are di¡erent. Ganshof attributed the fact that most of his examples were drawn from earlier than Dagobert I's death, and particularly from the sixth century, to a combination of the diminution in the quantity and quality of the evidence for the later period, and the growing weakness of the Merovingians.ã Ewig, on the other hand, when discussing the more speci¢c ¢eld of Franco-Byzantine relations, suggested that the lack of evidence re£ects genuine breaks in contact.ä Both interpretations could be applied almost equally well to Visigothic and Lombard diplomacy, as well as to Byzantine contact with the west: what is attempted here is an evaluation of the evidence for the seventh century on that wider scale. The historical circumstances of the seventh century di¡er from those of the sixth in several ways which may have a¡ected the conduct of foreign relations. Within the west, one of the most signi¢cant factors is likely to have been the uni¢cation of the Frankish kingdom for much of the period: this reduced the number of Merovingians with whom foreign rulers had to negotiate. In addition, for most of the period, it eliminated any requirement for the sending of legates between the kings of the Frankish Teilreiche, instances of which, although not perhaps strictly relevant to kings' `foreign' relations, account for roughly half the (more â The main sources are [Gregory of Tours, Decem] L[ibri] H[istoriarum,ed.B.Kruschand W. Levison, M[onumenta] G[ermaniae] H[istorica] S[criptores] R[erum] M[erovingicarum I part i (Hannover, "ñâæ^ä")], Epistolae Austrasicae,áä^ãð,ed.[W.]Gundlach,MGH Ep[istolae III (Berlin, "ðñá)], and Epistolae Wisigothicae, ""^"â, ed. Gundlach (as above). For discussions, see P. Goubert, Byzance avant l'Islam, á: Byzance et l'occident sous les successeurs de Justinien, ": Byzance et les Francs (Paris, "ñäå); W. Go¡art, `Byzantine policy in the west under T|berius II and Maurice: the pretenders Hermenegild and Gundovald', Traditio "â ("ñäæ), pp. æâ^""ð; A. Isla Frez, `Las relaciones entre el reino visigodo y los reyes merovingios a ¢nales del siglo VI', En la Espa·a medieval "â ("ññò), pp. ""^âá; J.L. Nelson, `A propos des femmes royales dans les rapports entre le monde wisigothique et le monde franc a© l'e¨ poque de Reccared', in Concilio III de Toledo: XIV centenario, äðñ^"ñðñ (Toledo, "ññ"), pp. ãåä^æå. ã F.L. Ganshof, `De internationale betrekkingen van het Frankisch Rijk onder de Merowingen', Mededelingen van de Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie vor wetenschappen, letteren en schone Kunsten van Belgie« , Klasse der Letteren áá.ã ("ñåò), pp. â^ã, áâ, `Merowingisches Gesandschaftswesen', in Aus Geschichte und Landeskunde: Forschungen und Darstellungen. Franz Steinbach zum åä. Geburtstag gewidmet von seinen Freunden und SchÏlern (Bonn, "ñåò), pp. "ðá^â; `Les Traite¨ sdesroisme¨rovingiens', T|jdschift voor Rechtsgescheidenis âá ("ñåã), pp. "ñ"^á; The Middle Ages. A history of international relations (New York, "ñæ"), chapters 1 and 3. ä [E.] Ewig, Die Merowinger [und das Imperium (Opladen, "ñðâ)], pp. äò^æ. Early Medieval Europe "ññæ å (á) # Blackwell Publishers Ltd "ññæ War and peace 129 than sixty) diplomatic events explicitly mentioned in the Histories of Gregory of Tours for the period after the death of Clovis.å Another di¡erence between the sixth and seventh centuries is that the `barbarian' kingdoms had, by shortly after åòò, established their frontiers in relation to each other (though the Lombards continued to expand their territory at the expense of the Empire) and had arrived at a modus vivendi, albeit a tense one.æ This had two important conse- quences. First, there may have been less need than earlier for complex marriage alliances which were designed to ensure peace between the peoples concerned, or to guarantee co-operation against third parties. The point may be illustrated by reference to England where the existence of a large number of rival kingdoms resulted in the prosecution of warfare on a scale with some parallels in sixth-century Gaul, and in a kaleidoscope of alliances, some backed by marriage agreements such as those of the children of the Northumbrian Oswiu to those of Penda the Mercian and Anna the East Anglian.ð The second consequence of the relative lack of warfare between the continental kingdoms was that there were many fewer embassies concerned with the negotiations which surround the making of peace: approximately half the legations recorded by Gregory of Tours were directly connected with the conduct of war or the conclusion of peace. A similar point may be made concerning relations between the west and the Empire. After the accession of Phocas, the abandonment of any serious attempt to re-establish the Empire in the west, and the conversion of both the Visigoths and (later) Lombards to Catholicism, there was less cause for hostility between Byzantium and any of the `barbarian' kingdoms. There were, therefore, fewer occasions on which it was necessary for the emperors to send emissaries to, or receive ambassadors from, the west, either to negotiate matters of war and peace (exempli¢ed in the early seventh century by Sisebut's dealings with Caesarius, å Precise numbers of embassies are di¤cult to calculate, as it is not always clear which events constituted formal embassies, or when one embassy ended and another began. In addition to the legations of which there is speci¢c mention, the existence of others (of equally uncertain number) is explicit in Gregory's account. æ [I.N.] Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms[, ãäò^æä" (London, "ññã)], p. "ðò, notes that the increased power of the Lombards and certain of the English kingdoms in the seventh century may have a¡ected Merovingian foreign policy. Ibid., pp. "æã^æ, suggests that relations with the Visigoths, though peaceful, were at times tense, drawing a speci¢c example from the rebellion against Wamba in the åæòs; after the death of Brunhild, however, one of the most severe cases of tension had been removed ^ see J. Fontaine, `Sisebut's Vita Desiderii and the political function of Visigothic hagiography', in E. James (ed.), Visigothic Spain: new approaches (Oxford, "ñðò), pp. "áâ^ã; see also [R.] Collins, [The] Arab Conquest [of Spain, æ"ò^æñæ (Oxford, "ñðñ)], pp. "â^"ã. ð [Bede,] H[istoria] E[cclesiastica],III."",á";IV."ñ,[ed.C.]Plummer,Venerabilis Bedae Opera Historica [(á vols, Oxford, "ðñå)]. # Blackwell Publishers Ltd "ññæ Early Medieval Europe "ññæ å (á) 130 Paul S. Barnwell patrician of Cartagenañ), or to construct alliances with western powers (as in the case of relations with the Franks and Visigoths in the late sixth century). If legations to the west were fewer at this date, however, those to the Avars, Slavs, Persians and Muslims, with whom the Empire was engaged in active hostilities for much of the period, were numerous.
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