Chapter Four: Heart and Soul
Embarrassing though it was, the capitulation to Pope Gregory had yielded a significant prize for the Emperor Alexios- direct Papal support for the campaigns in southern Italy. The Normans had already antagonised Gregory thanks to their aggression in southern Italy and interference with Church politics- and now, seizing the chance for revenge, he sent money and several thousand Italian soldiers to reinforce the armies of Isaac Komnenos the Younger, who was able to win a couple of small victories over the Normans and push them out of Apulia by the end of 1082. The following year, Alexios sent across his loyal general Nikēphoros Bryennios, who, acting in concert with Isaac the Younger, managed to capture the Normans in a pincer attack and destroy their forces at the Battle of Kaulōnia in Kalabria (i).
The Battle of Kaulōnia marked the beginning of the end of the Norman ascendancy. In the autumn of 1083, Bryennios and Isaac contracted an alliance, betrothing the former’s daughter Sophia to Isaac’s young son Manuel. Bryennios thereafter crossed over to Sicily, and compelled Messina to surrender before the year was out. Isaac, meanwhile, concentrated on mopping up the remnants of Norman resistance in Italy, taking care to send the spoils of war east to his brother in Constantinople.
Alexios Komnenos had now enjoyed two consecutive years of success on the Italian front, but this period of relative calm would not last. Noting that Imperial troops were largely tied up in Sicily the Western Emperor Henry, eager to exact retribution on Pope Gregory, took the correct decision and struck rapidly down towards Rome the moment the Alpine snows had melted. Gregory, for his part, decided discretion was the better part of valour and fled south to Barion, where he threw himself on the mercy of the Katepánō Isaac Komnenos. It was, for Alexios, a golden opportunity. He stripped the Balkan provinces of their troops (ii) and proceeded at all haste towards Italy. By September, he was in Apulia, and then, four weeks later, had arrived in Rome at the head of a massive army. Now it was Henry’s turn to flee, and Alexios Komnenos found himself the first Eastern Roman Emperor to set foot in the Eternal City since the seventh century (iii).
The Imperial troops did not stay long, however. Pope Gregory was safely reinstalled in the Lateran Palace (iv), where he would spend another year drifting into senility before his death (v). Alexios had little desire to stay in Rome, which was by his standards a rather small, shabby little town, another Adrianople or Philadelphia and certainly nothing to compare with the true seat of the Roman Empire at Constantinople. Even had he wanted to stay, the barely disguised hostility of the Roman people and aristocracy at the sight of an invading schismatic Greek was enough to make up his mind. The Pope was bullied into confirming the ecclesiastical transfers imposed upon the Holy See by Leo III nearly four centuries previously (vi), and, in addition to this, he donated the divided island of Sardinia to Constantinople (vii).
During Alexios’ first absence in Italy, control of the civil administration had largely been in the hands of his mother, the redoubtable Anna Dalassēnē (viii). In 1084, Alexios had once more entrusted her with the controls of the state, but found, upon his return to Constantinople, that things had gone increasingly awry. Dalassēnē, a headstrong and intelligent woman, had found her match in the Patriarch John Italos (ix), one of the few characters of Constantinople who could equal her for that brand of self-confidence that often tips into arrogance. In the summer of 1084, the two had come to repeated blows over the education of Alexios’ young son Michael Komnenos, who was under the tuition of one Basilios, a pupil of Italos. Dalassēnē considered the influence of Basilios and Italos upon her grandson to be corrosive and near heretical, and had tried to arrange for him to be sent out to the old Komnenid estates in Anatolia for his education (x), but this had been strongly resisted by Alexios’ wife, the Empress Euphemia, a born metropolitan and the daughter of Michael Psellos. Tensions had rapidly begun to rise, splitting the Imperial family. Ignatios gleefully records that by the time of Alexios’ return to the city, his wife and mother had not spoken for weeks.
This was more than just family trouble. The argument between Dalassēnē and Euphemia ran to the very heart of contemporary politics- should one support simple Orthodoxy, or those who encouraged the study of philosophy as the key to approaching Christ? Nowadays, this is often simplified by historians into the issue of the rustic provincial Dalassēnē confronting the arrogant intellectuals of the Psellos faction, but the debate was much more complicated than that (xi). For a while, once Alexios returned, there was a degree of quiet. Alexios himself had been raised in the philosophical tradition, and was eager to throw himself back into intellectual culture once freed from the burdens of war in Italy- accordingly, in 1087 we find him writing a handbook for the layman setting out the basic philosophical concepts behind the teachings of Christ (xii). The controversy continued to simmer, but quietly.
In 1088, he placated his mother somewhat by marrying his eldest daughter Anna off to Basil Palaiologos, the son of his ally George and a member of the influential families of Palaiologos and Doukas (xiii)- Anatolian aristocracy both, even though the Doukai had long since based themselves in Constantinople. As it turned out, though, the marriage would prove to be an awkward thorn in Alexios’ side. His new son-in-law was just fifteen years old at the time of the marriage, and quickly came under the influence of Dalassēnē, who began to champion his right to the throne ahead of that of Michael. Matters were not helped by the death of the Empress Euphemia in childbirth at the beginning of 1089. Both Empress and baby (a son) died, and Alexios retreated from court politics into himself. At a stroke, Michael Komnenos, a boy of eleven, stood alone against the full might of the aristocracy.
Dalassēnē was quick to seize her advantage, and immediately proclaimed Basil Palaiologos to be a Caesar. Michael suddenly found himself being sidelined from politics by his own grandmother, and things became worse still, when, in the summer of 1090, Anna delivered Basil a healthy daughter (xiv). Michael was now thirteen and his family should have begun making active efforts to find him an eligible princess, but little was done. The young prince found himself alone and almost friendless, with his only constant companion being his eunuch tutor Basilios. It was Basilios, who, in desperation, played what he thought would be his only viable card. He sent messengers to Barion.
Isaac Komnenos the Younger had watched the developments on the Bosphorus with interest. He had never got on with his mother (xv), but had little love for his nephew Michael either. Nonetheless, the increasing prominence of the House of Palaiologos was troubling for him. Furthermore, the emissaries of Basilios had arrived at a fortuitous time. In the spring of 1091, the soldiers of the Katepánō had finally cornered and captured Robert Guiscard, the last Norman warlord still active in Sicily, restoring the island to Imperial rule in its entirety (xvi). Isaac sat at the pinnacle of one of the richest provinces of the Empire, with a large army that needed a new target. His sons Manuel and Stephen were both capable generals and administrators (xvii), and could, Isaac felt, be trusted to take care of Italy in his absence.
Accordingly, in 1092, he invaded the Balkans at the head of a large army, emphasising carefully his loyalty to his brother and nephew. The governors of the Balkan Themata did little to hinder Isaac’s passage, and, approaching Adrianople, he accepted the surrender of the Tagma of Thrace. The Palaiologoi family indignantly protested their own loyalty to the Komnenoi, and Alexios Komnenos himself was wheeled out from obscurity to attempt to reassure the Constantinopolitans of his trust for them (xviii).
The urban mob, though, had other ideas. Try as he might, George Palaiologos was quite unable to convince them of his earnest intentions (xix), and, as Isaac’s army approached, took the decision to head west to throw himself upon the mercy of the Katepánō. Isaac, for his part, was magnanimous, offering Palaiologos lands in western Sicily, far away from Constantinople. The aristocrat could do little but scuttle away into exile, and, with his fall, the whole situation engineered by Anna Dalassēnē collapsed. Isaac’s ceremonial entry into Constantinople was dressed up as a triumph over the Normans, but few were convinced- this was a demonstration of his power over his mother and her allies. Dalassēnē was forced into a monastery by her son, where she died a broken woman a few months later. Alexios was dragged out of his self-imposed political exile, with his son and brother at his side. Basilios, for his role in the coup, was promoted to the feted office of Parakoimomenos (xx), where he would remain for the best part of half a century.
The events of 1084-1092 have baffled modern scholars, and there is a tendency by many to dismiss their significance (xxi). Rather, these writers point to events in the East, where the Seljuk Sultanate’s hold over the Levant first splintered, and then collapsed altogether, in the same period (xxii). Alternatively, they look north to Germany, where a process of political centralisation had begun that would be the dominant theme in German history for the next two hundred years (xxiii). These historians are fools. The triumph of Michael Komnenos marks the victory of the philosophers in the battle for the Imperial soul that had been fought since the death of Basil II. It had been won, ironically, by a practical military man with little interest in either the welfare of his nephew or the Platonic contribution to the Christian faith. Had the career of Isaac Komnenos the Younger ended here, it would have been enough. Of course, it did not, and the summit of this man’s achievement was still decades off. But for now, we must leave him in the shadows.
For events of the coup had shaken Alexios Komnenos out of the stupor of depression, and back into vigorous action. And it was not a moment too soon.
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i. Kaulonia is the modern city of Caulonia, in eastern Calabria.
ii. Relatively easy to do with the Petchenks now subdued. Bulgaria is restive, but troops can finally start to be withdrawn now.
iii. The last was Constans II in the 660s.
iv. Still at this point the seat of the Papacy, as it had been since the fourth century.
v. Gregory lives a year longer than IOTL.
vi. These transfers took place at the very beginning of the Iconoclastic Controversy in the 720s, when the Emperor Leo III arbitrarily confiscated all Papal revenue from Calabria, Sicily, and Dalmatia (Apulia remained Papal). The Papacy never accepted this IOTL.
vii. Gregory's authority to do this is limited to say the least, but the Emperor in Constantinople is probably the most legitimate person to "donate" the island to. In this period, Sardinia was ruled by the remnants of a Byzantine aristocracy that had been left high and dry by the Arab conquest of Sicily in the ninth century.
viii. This is OTL behaviour from Alexios, who had a very close relationship with his mother.
ix. One of Michael Psellos' former pupils. IOTL he was a University professor and accused of heresy, but here, he was raised to the Patriarchate in 1076.
x. To be precise, in Paphlagonia and Pontus.
xi. As we will see, the Uniate Church after the 1350s becomes very keen on re-writing its own history, especially under the influence of the nascent Dragon Society. This makes it rather difficult for historians of the IE Universe to properly get to grips with Church history.
xii. A name for this book would be appreciated, Greek-speakers!
xiii. George Palaiologos was married into the house of Doukas.
xiv. This is medieval politics after all, and fifteen year old Anna is just about old enough to be pressed into the important business of childbearing.
xv. Isaac believes that Anna manipulated her brother-in-law the Emperor Isaac Komnenos the Elder into favouring Alexios, even though Alexios is the younger brother.
xvi. Guiscard is not killed, however. You'll see more of him and the Normans, fear not.
xvii. Isaac is in his early forties in 1091. Manuel is twenty one, and Stephen nineteen.
xviii. In a couple of staged speeches at the Hippodrome, to be precise.
xix. IOTL, the influence of the urban mob of Constantinople was minimal under the Komnenoi- but this isn't the case ITTL, as we shall see. In this respect, there's a small element of democracy in Byzantium- one simply cannot become Emperor without the support of Constantinople's urban poor.
xx. "The One Who Sleeps Nearby". The Parakoimomenos was the most important eunuch in the Imperial hierarchy. IOTL, the importance of the role disappeared with the Komnenoi, but not here.
xxi. See above comments about the Uniate Church.
xxii. I may do a short update specifically focusing on this, if there'd be interest in it? In short, the Seljuks get distracted by revolts in Iran in the 1080s, as well as a civil war. The local Turkish governors in the west are never reincorporated into the main Sultanate, and by 1095 run small, independent Turkish states in the Levant.
xxiii. This is the genesis for what will become the Holy German Empire. At this stage, it consists mostly of Henry IV going round and battling with various lords.