Chapter 5 Constantinopolitan Connections: Liudprand of Cremona and Byzantium

Andrew M. Small

Liudprand of Cremona has long been a Byzantinist bogeyman. His Relatio de Legatione Constantinopolitana, an account of his embassy to in 968 for the western , Otto I, has long been seen as definitive proof of the Latin West’s hostility to Constantinople many years before the Fourth Crusade in 1204.1 With its acidic descriptions of Nikephoros II Phokas and his court, including pieces of highly skilled Latin rhetoric defending Otto’s hon- our and legitimacy, it has also been mined for information about the workings of the Byzantine court in Constantinople.2 This paper will instead focus on Liudprand and his works as products of middle Byzantine client management. For, despite his constructed disdain for Byzantium in 969, Liudprand and his family had had a long and fruitful relationship with the court in Constantinople from the reign of Romanos I (920–944). Liudprand’s works there- fore offer an opportunity to examine tenth-century Byzantine diplomacy from the perspective of the client.3 There is plenty of evidence of Byzantine client management in the tenth century produced by the Byzantines themselves. Examples of this include the , a diplomatic handbook produced by Konstantinos VII Porphyrogennetos (945–959). There are also letter collections, such as those of Nikolaos Mystikos, a central source for Byzantine diplomatic relations

1 Speros Vryonis, Jnr., Byzantium and Europe (London, 1967), pp. 91–92; George Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, trans. Joan Hussey (New Brunswick, N.J., 1969), p. 291. 2 Nicolas Oikonomides, “Titles and Income At the Byzantine Court,” in Byzantine Court Culture from 829 to 1204, ed. Henry Maguire (Washington, D.C., 1994), pp. 199–215; Warren Treadgold, A History Of the Byzantine State And Society (Stanford, 1997), p. 910; Anthony R. Littlewood, “Gardens Of the Palaces,” in Byzantine Court Culture from 829 to 1204, ed. Henry Maguire (Washington, D.C., 1994), pp. 32, 36–37; Johannes Koder and Thomas Weber, Liutprand von Cremona in Konstantinopel. Untersuchungen zum griechischen Sprachschatz und zu realien- kundlichen Aussagen in seinen Werken (Vienna, 1980). 3 Liudprand of Cremona, Relatio de legatione Constantinopolitana in Liudprandi Cremonensis Opera, ed. Paolo Chiesa (Turnhout, 1998); The Complete Works of Liudprand of Cremona, trans. Paolo Squatriti (Washington, D.C., 2007) (henceforth Legatio).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi ��.��63/9789004307742_007 Constantinopolitan Connections 85 with figures like Symeon of Bulgaria, or Landulf of Benevento, but these sources have their problems.4 The De Administrando was by its own account compiled with a pedagogical intention, and created from the emperor’s unique vantage point in the administration of diplomacy.5 Moreover, the Byzantine letter was an edited piece of work meant for public consumption.6 Like Byzantine letter collections, Liudprand edited his works for a public audience with his own specific purposes, and only his interactions with Byzantium are recorded in his works. Nonetheless, by including Liudprand’s works in discussions of client management it is possible to create a fuller understanding of its mechan- ics and consequences. They comprise a unique set of texts written by a client that detail his relationship with Constantinople. This Constantinopolitan connection has perhaps been less appreciated in the past that it should have been. There have been several recent literary studies on Liudprand, particularly on his use of humour and gender politics.7 In terms of diplomatic history, Constanze Schummer suggested that Liudprand was not a diplomat and his anger at being successfully manipulated led to the writing of the Legatio, a private account merely reflecting his rage, and so unre- liable as a source.8 This same viewpoint had been rejected a decade earlier by

4 Konstantinos Porphyrogennetos, Constantine Porphyrogenitus De Administrando Imperio, ed. Gyula Moravcsik (Budapest, 1949) (henceforth De Administrando); James Howard- Johnston, “The De Administrando Imperio: A Re-examination of the Text and a Re-evaluation of its Evidence about the Rus,” in Les centres proto-urbains russes entre Scandinavie, Byzance et Orient, ed. Michel Kazanski, Anne Nercessian and Constantin Zuckerman (Paris, 2000), pp. 305–308; Nicholas Mystikos, Nicholas Mystikos I Patriarch of Constantinople, Letters, ed. and trans. Romilly J. H. Jenkins and Leendert G. Westernik (Washington, D.C., 1973) (henceforth Nicholas, Letters), 3, 5–11,14–31, 82–85. 5 Konstantinos Porphyrogennetos, Constantine Porphyrogenitus De Administrando Imperio, ed. Gyula Moravcsik (Washington, D.C., 1967) (henceforth De Administrando); Konstantinos Porphyrogennetos, De Administrando Imperio ii, Commentary, ed. Romilly J. H. Jenkins (London, 1962), pp. 1–8. 6 Margaret Mullett, “The Classical Tradition in the Byzantine Letter,” in Byzantium and the Classical Tradition: University of Birmingham Thirteenth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies 1979, ed. Margaret Mullett and Roger Scott (Birmingham, 1981), p. 77. 7 Ross Balzaretti, “Liudprand of Cremona’s Sense of Humor,” in Humour, History and Politics in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. Guy Halsall (Cambridge and New York, 2002), pp. 114–128; idem, “Men and Sex in Tenth-century Italy,” in Masculinity in Medieval Europe, ed. Dawn M. Hadley (London, 1999), pp. 119–127. 8 Constanze M. F. Schummer, “Liutprand of Cremona – a Diplomat?,” in Byzantine Diplomacy – Papers from the Twenty-fourth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Cambridge, March 1990, ed. Jonathan Shepard and Simon Franklin (Aldershot, 1992), pp. 197–201.