This is my first post on this thread, so to give it a bump I decided to ask a question.
Basileus, how much does anyone know about the helots opening Thessalonica's gates during the jurchen siege? As far as I can tell there's been absolutely zero backlash against them since then, so it seems that nobody knows or nobody cares, both of which seem really unlikely. Even if they opened the gates in complete secrecy (something I'd imagine would be hard to do, they'd have to overcome guards and so make quite a ruckus in doing so) and all died in the sack, somebody has to have noticed something, suspected them or just blamed it on them without evidence. Has any action been taken at all or am I missing something? Given the helots already have many enemies, if there was even a rumour the helots opened the gates or a possibility of one, one of them would have used it to awaken the Uniate-Roman inquisition.
(Also, given the helots were extreme enough to open the gates in the first place, they're probably stupid enough to proudly say that they did and proclaim their intent to do it again. That depends though on how centralised the helots movement is, and if the group that opened the gates was an even more radical sect or acting under the wider doctrine and orders of their movement. More information on the helots might be useful...)
As mentioned in Chapter 22, Constantine X was reluctant to directly punish the Helots and ignored the advice of his brother-in-law the
Caesar Gregory Maleinos to do just that. Indeed, attempts were made in the 1280s and 1290s to conciliate and strike up a dialogue with them, while at the same time ensuring that the large towns of Greece and Macedonia, the Helot heartland, were well fed with Egyptian grain to dampen down potential Helot support.
The Helots themselves became more of a philosophical and mystical movement than the violent revolutionaries they had been, and by the beginning of the fourteenth century the movement had attained a degree of intellectualism, moving away from its populist roots.
Nonetheless, they're another Chekov's gun: and don't worry, I will be returning to them.
Looks like this thread has gone all quiet... Too busy now with real, grown-up, politics, eh BG?
Pretty much, yes! I'll try to get some more done in 2016 than I did in 2015, though.
Hello there again, long time no see. I've done something useful out of the Carnival holidays and read this TL from start to finish. I have some general comments I wish to make (thanks for the summary in the last chapter, it helps me to give feedback
) and then onto the big feedback post for the latest update!
First of all, two points:
(I) Is George I's daughter considered an Empress in her own right? If so, why isn't she referred to as Theodora II in any of the updates? And did Eirene Nafpliotissa crown herself as Eirene II at some point? Oh, and since we're talking regnal numbers, why is George of Genoa numbered as the first and not the second, since there was another George reigning as an active Co-Emperor in the Komnenid era? I think it was John II's firstborn son.
(II) Manuel's reign somehow felt shallow, at a re-read. I know that he is supposed to be the greatest of the Komnenid Emperors, but that wasn't my impression. We spend a lot more time with the other Emperors than we did with Manuel (even with Isaac II, who reigned briefly but was a constant presence throughout Isaac I's and Alexios' reigns) and perhaps it is the fact that he rose to the purple as an old man already that further hurt my perception of his greatness. Of course, his achievement at Nicaea III is undoubtedly the greatest legacy of the Komnenoi, with everlasting consequences in the IE world... but I dunno, having his reign contained in one chapter was a mistake, I think.
1. Though Theodora initially rose to power as Empress in her own right after the brief intercession of the party of Patriarch Theodotos and Emperor Leo VII, she was far too wary of her grandmother Eirene to actually act as one. Very soon after her accession she married Isaac Palaiologos, Isaac III, and thereafter acted merely as an Empress-consort, staying very much in the background throughout the seven years of their marriage prior to her early death in childbirth. Technically you could call her Theodora II following on from Theodora the Macedonian, but that's why I've chosen not to.
2. Yeah, as for Manuel, I think you're probably right. I suppose it's just not especially interesting to write about a successful and peaceful imperial reign? Perhaps I'll revisit some of the events of his reign in more detail with "spin-off" stuff going forward. I've actually written a fair bit on contemporary Armenia which I don't think I published: or maybe I did? Hmmm. It's been too long!
I must confess that I thought replacing the Mongols was a mistake, at first. I remember you mentioning how it was the desire to write the Hellespont Battle and a Mongol siege of Constantinople that encouraged you to start writing IE, and the Mongols certainly had their charm back in 1.0. My concerns were unfounded, as you proved yourself a great worldbuilder yet again and managed to turn the Jurchens into something as threatening in the IE world as the overused Mongols had been previously, and most importantly unique to IE. The Greek fire battle was as awesome as always, but I do have a feeling that the Siege of Constantinople was severely anticlimatic. Akutta's death was perfect (dying like an ordinary man and all that), but after building up the Jurchen threat throughout most of the 13th century, only to have them defeated solely by weather at the end didn't do anything for me. I'd suggest having the Jurchens meaningfully assault the Theodosian Walls, perhaps even breach into the peribolos or Blachernae before being thrown back in descriptive battles. It would add a lot more to the siege than them just sitting around, with only a few minor skirmishes. I felt that the Jurchens arrived with a thunder and left with a whimper. I liked the massive sense of foreboding in 1.0, but it just wasn't there in the 2.0 siege.
Sorry for the disappointment on that front. I tried to cover it by making more of the continued Jurchen attacks on Anatolia throughout the period, and of course the Jurchens will continue to be a thing going forwards in their new Iranian heartland, but hey: one for IE 3.0?
This remains one of the weak spots of the TL, imho, one which requires a bit of suspension of disbelief and a great deal of praise to Michael Photopoulos. It was more believable back in 1.0, when the Mongols behaved as the destroyer of worlds they were, utterly wrecking Egypt, but the Jurchens are more reasonable conquerors in 1.0 who didn't destroy the Egyptian society. No doubt there is a great power vacuum following Akutta's death and his army's disintegration, but how is it enough to allow the previously beaten Roman armies to capture not only the Holy Land, but to capture and hold Egypt too? If possible, I recommend having one of those updates where you look back in time to further detail the conquest of Egypt by Photopoulos, which was reduced to one line in the update iirc.
Egypt itself was, but I did try to convey how it happened. Following Akutta's early death, various Jurchen governors began to jockey for power, and the army of Michael Photopoulos threw in its lot with one David, a Christian convert based out of Damascus.
David then defeated his Egyptian counterpart and his army, and, to seal the terms of his new Rhomanian alliance, married his sister to Photopoulos. Vague promises of respecting Photopoulos' conquest of Cilicia and Antioch in exchange for the
Strategos' guarding of David's back followed, and, using that pretext, imperial troops were sent south to garrison the various strongpoints in Palestine and Syria. Photopoulos himself entered Egypt at about the time news arrived of David's defeat and death.
As mentioned in the update, all this happened only six years after the initial Jurchen conquest of Egypt by Akutta Khan back in 1276 which had killed a lot of fighting men, and more had been levied by him for the attack on Constantinople in 1281. Yet more troops were killed or deployed elsewhere in 1282 by the unnamed Egyptian governor defeated by David the Jurchen, and David himself in his ill-fated Mesopotamian bid for power. And remember, as mentioned in Chapter Twenty One, that Akutta himself only took power after a four year civil war between 1270 and 1274. Egypt was, basically, completely exhausted, with the Roman
Tagmata the only sizeable military forces left anywhere west of Iran.
Nonetheless, the country wasn't exactly quiescent to rule. There was an armed revolt in 1284, several attempts to organise one later in the decades, and a really serious uprising in 1294/95 that took two campaigning seasons, and the movement of a number of large armies, to put down: this was the revolt that the "One Hour Emperor" Constantine Maleinos really made his name in, and he remained as Catapan of Egypt until the launch of his revolt in 1301.
Going forward, David I Pegnonites attempted to conciliate Egyptian opinion by reaching out to the anti-Chalcedonian Christians in his reign (1314-1327) while at the same time continuing with the heavy military presence. By the end of the reign, however, anti-Roman sentiment was beginning to die down, with a generation having grown up under imperial rule. The country is not secure, far from it, and imperial rule extends little further than the Nile valley itself: but bit by bit, it is putting down roots.
Did Constantine X leave any wider legacy to the world, other than defeating the Jurchens? As I understood it, he was a scholarly Emperor who often preferred the solitude of learning to other mundane matters. Did we see any major outbreaks in philosophy or political thought during his reign? Did we see the philosophers gaining ground in the Orthodox Church, at least in Constantinople (perhaps foreshadowing and setting the state for the clashes between Church and State under David I?)? Did we see something akin to the OTL Palaiologan Renaissance in this golden age, with Constantine being a major patron of arts and literature? Or perhaps some books by the Emperor, mirroring Constantine VII? I think that's an aspect of Constantine X's reign worth exploring.
The short answer to that is yes: but Constantine X himself wasn't really a major instigator of this. Though pious, gentle, and a talented singer and painter, Constantine X was nothing like as intellectual as his forebear and namesake Constantine VII.
Anyway, to summarise. The early part of Constantine's reign was lived under the regency of his uncle, Demetrious Simeopoulos, a man of humble origin who had contrived to marry the sister of Isaac III Palaiologos prior to Isaac's accession to the purple. Demetrios was kept in power during his Regency largely thanks to generous Jurchen subsidies, and remained extremely influential thereafter as Grand Logothete for his imperial nephew. Demetrios was keen to encourage new sources of revenue with the Empire's richest eastern provinces, notably Cilicia, now under Jurchen rule and so commercial activity grew under him. The 1250s and 1260s were a time of modest prosperity with some new building, but little court-sponsored frivolity, something Demetrios the Uncle had little interest in.
Following Demetrios' death in 1272, effective power now passed to the
Caesar Gregory Maleinos, Constantine's brother-in-law. A warlike man, Gregory devoted his energies to consolidating the Bulgarian frontier and also stirring up the ongoing Salghurid Egyptian civil war. From 1276 onwards, with the Jurchen conquest of Egypt and Rhomania now effectively encircled, yet more money was spent on the army. All in all, the 1270s were a time of relative austerity.
However, from 1282 onwards, the spending taps really came off, with revenue from the conquest of Bulgaria, Syria and Egypt coming on stream. Constantine X now began to take a more assertive role in his own government, and directed a number of ambitious building projects, notably at Thessalonica. This period was remembered by the historians of the 1360s as a great golden era, and was brought to an end by the revolt of Constantine X's nephew Constantine Maleinos in 1302/03.
Hopefully that about covers it!
About George of Genoa, may we get more information on his background? Back when he first became Emperor, I had the impression that he had a military background, but his reign would disprove that notion, especially his law-making. How did a commoner Genoese soldier become one of the brightest legal minds of the Empire, or was his Codex written by people hired to do so?
George wasn't quite a commoner: I'd say he was from a respectable upper-middle ranking Genoese family, perhaps one with a bit of Constantinopolitan blood since Genoa began to look East a century before George's birth. As such, he's received a standard legal and military education, and is of above average intelligence.
His Codex was written by others, that said.
Wise man. Did he share George's surname?
No: Basil is a member of another noble family: his mother and George's mother were sisters.
It's interesting that Strategos of Epirus was good enough for the Emperor's eldest son. Is Constantine XI actively trying to undermine Michael's ability to succeed him, or is this a genuine office for him to hold? If so, why not Strategos of one of the wealthier provinces, or Catepan of Italy or Egypt? Or a court office at Constantinople?
Epirus was chosen because it's relatively peaceable and hence (in theory) safe for the Emperor's heir, and also because it's important as the boundary with the Serbian client monarchs and the complex patchwork of Italian politics. Dyrrachion, as the Epirote capital, serves as a place where Michael can learn to rule over his client monarchs.
Also, were higher titles than Caesar ever created ITTL?
In short, no: though there are plenty of the OTT Byzantine court titles that we know and love going around, like that held by George II before his accession:
Megalodoxotatos.
I'm unsure what to make of this. On one hand, Constantine XI is a fat old man and Anna is the greatest beauty of her age, and emotionally vulnerable at the time. On the other, Anna could surely find a better lover than a sixteen year old and Andronikos Xanthis is bound to have had many enemies seeking to discredit him through his daughter. I guess I'll make up my mind if John III and Anna end up marrying, or more clues are given.
Just to clear this up: Anna isn't the daughter of Andronikos Xanthis. She's the daughter of George II Dasiotes. She was married first to Romanos IV Pegonites following the death of his father David, and she bore him a posthumous daughter, Sophia. Following the death in relatively quick succession of her husband, brother-in-law and father, she remained
Augusta under the domination of Pope Samuel and his allies throughout 1331, before throwing in her lot with Xanthis' rebels and raising Constantine of Syria to the purple by marriage.
Constantine XI is a widower: his first wife, and the mother of his five sons, was Xanthis' sister but she died back in 1326.
It's also worth remembering, in this context, that Anna proactively chose to marry Constantine in 1331, rather than being coerced into it. But again, we're dependent upon 1360s sources, so...
EDIT: I've been reading A History of Private Life and it seems that the usual punishment for adulteresses was monastic exile and mutilation by having her noses cut off. Is there any special reason for Constantine going after Anna's tongue instead of her nose or was this unintentional?
Entirely unintentional!
It's endearing to see so many empowered women in IE, with all those scheming Empresses. This was something of a constant presence in the 12th century that I missed in the next two, probably because of Eirene II. I must ask, though: was Constantine X's wife an influential consort? The Emperor himself was a withdrawn ruler, a vacuum that could easily be filled by his wife, especially following George Palaiologos' death and before the Maleinoi became so prominent.
The short answer is no, Zoe Doukaina was not an influential consort. She attracted herself to Constantine X because of her otherworldly piousness. Demetrios Simeopoulos was suspicious of Zoe because of her blue-bloodedness and illustrious ancestry so took care to keep her out of power in favour of his nieces, Constantine's sisters Helena and Maria (Constantine's other sister Theodora became a nun). Following Demetrios' death, Helena and Maria's husbands continued to support their imperial wives as fulfilling many of the public roles of Empresses.
Zoe Doukaina was clearly very dear to Constantine, as he never married again following her early death in 1279 and built her an impressive tomb in the 1280s, but the suspicion of her husband's family, her own nature, and the fact that their marriage never produced any children meant she never held any real influence during the 1260s and 1270s.
Is there any particular reason for that?
A land trip from southern Italy to the Balkans rather than a sea one? Because the majority of the rebel fleet is tied up preventing loyalist troops crossing from Sicily, and because John wants to show himself to the Italian cities and Balkan princes who are providing him with his men.
Also, what is Constantine XI doing throughout all of the civil war?
Largely entrusting things to Xanthis, and praying: he's been badly traumatised by the events of the past year.
It's nice to see other powers doing well. Is Aragon still ruled by the House of Jimenez, or is the House of Barcelona dominant ITTL? Also, may I recommend having the Borjas do something interesting in Aragon further down the line, maybe usurping the throne? Aut Caesar, aut nihil.
(They needn't be the OTL Borgias, of course, but they could very well be another family that happens to come from the town of Borja)
I hadn't really thought of it in any great detail, to be honest. Feel free to write some spin-off stuff!
Harsh. You win or you die. But why wasn't there a middle ground of blinding + monastic exile?
As mentioned, it's odd that 1360s sources don't make more of this. What would your guess be?
Why is that regarded as an insult?
Basically, a bishop should be riding out far further to greet a party consisting not merely of an imperial prince but a crowned
Augusta and her porphyrogenite daughter.
---
Overall, a solid update. As others have mentioned before, it's nice to see a more detailed rise for Samuel.
Thanks for the detailed response to it! Going back through and responding has taken me several hours and really immersed me in the IE world of the past century, so thank you. Hope you enjoy the responses, and please do keep the queries coming!