I meant more in terms of rewriting it so that icons had always been a central part of the Roman Church rather than making them so by the time of their writing, as the controversy itself had caused sides to harden. That hasn't happened here.
The Eternal Empire: Emperor Maurice dies before being overthrown
- Thread starter wcv215
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yes true but like i said icons had been on the rise ever since the 4th century and before by 600 they were integral while not as harden do to no controversy and extra 300 years since the pod means that the trend has continued as there is no explanation as to why it would stop since there has not been any iconoclast movement or new heresy that is against icons .
any iconoclastic movement in the 10th century would face just a much if not more backlash than the otl in the 8th century
Part 54: The Anatolian War I
Part LIV: The Anatolian War I
Manuel set up his headquarters at Nicaea in 1019 and dispatched Romanos Abbasios to Dorylaeum along with the majority of the Imperial army. The invasion was envisioned as a pincer, with Romanos’s army moving out of the West and the Armenians out of the East. The two would move inland, with the Western Army moving to retake Ankyra, and the Eastern force moving to take Sebastea. The two would repair the fortifications and leave significant garrisons behind to defend the cities before moving to link up at Caesarea. It was hoped that with these key positions retaken the Turks would be forced to retreat off of the Anatolian Plateau.
While this occurred Manuel himself would lead a third, much smaller, army south to retake Amorium and secure a solid victory for himself, one which no other commander could be pointed to as the real architect of victory, even though his victory would only be possible due to the actions of his subordinate commanders. The first phase of the campaign worked well in the West, where Abbasios was able to sweep up across the northern part of the plateau in mid-April and surround the city of Ankyra without significant resistance.
The Turks inside were offered a deal to surrender in exchange for positions in the Roman army, and with no way to escape the commander accepted the deal. Eight hundred Turks were given a Roman escort and sent across the Hellespont, and then north of the Hemus mountains to reinforce the Danube defenses.
Across the peninsula though the Armenians rapidly ran into trouble. The Turkic kingdom established in Anatolia had set its capital up at Caesarea, and when they learned of the Roman invasion the khagan had set about gathering the local tribes around his banner, and soon he had an army of twelve thousand. Facing the choice of fighting the Western or Eastern army the Turks chose the smaller Eastern force, and attacked the Armenians near Nicopolis. As our primary source was not present for this battle we don’t know exactly what happened, but it seems that the Armenians discovered the attack just before crossing a river, and so instead swung north to Colonia, where they set about building small fortifications and waiting for the Turks to make their next move.
The Turkic commander however refused, and instead moved four thousand East to attack Armenia itself. The army, not wanting to see their homes destroyed followed, leaving eight thousand Turks to meet up with additional forces massing to attack Romanos Abbasios’s army in Western Anatolia.
The Roman commander was completely unaware of the disappearance of his relief force as he moved south toward Caesarea. He was met by a massed Turkish force of twenty-five thousand near Parnassus however, and facing a force larger than his own, which had had to leave six thousand men behind at Ankyra Romanos chose to withdraw rather than fight a pitched battle immediately. The Turks pursued, but Romanos stayed slightly ahead even as his own light cavalry fought a series of rearguard actions to hold the nomads at bay.
At Pessinus Romanos finally found the Emperor’s army of twelve thousand, a force that when combined with his own gave the Imperials numerical supremacy at a total of about thirty-two thousand men. So reinforced Romanos whirled his army around to fight. The Turks were ready to meet them, and both sides set up for a battle. The account we have is directly from Manuel’s own testimony of his reign, and so in some respects it needs to be considered carefully. However, modern analysis of the site has backed up much of what the Emperor claimed.
A river flanked both armies, on the Roman right and the Turkish left. On the right Abbasios deployed most of the Pedinoi. These men wore heavy army, had large shields, and carried axes. Their solid protection mean they were unlikely to fear the storms of arrows that the Turks would unleash, and their weaponry meant that Turkic cavalry would hesitate before charging them. On the left was placed the Roman light cavalry, with orders to repel Turkic flanking moves, but not to chase any bands of fleeing nomads. Abbasios did not want his men out of position during this first test of the men in the center. The men in the center were the new recruits, scutarii and hoplites. These forces were mixed together, with the entire front two ranks being made up the scutarii. These crossbowmen were deployed so that the long spears of the hoplites extended far enough to protect them from melee attack, while their own large shields would protect them from arrows when the man behind it was on one knee.
Their crossbows meanwhile allowed this position to be taken easier than would a normal bow, presenting a smaller and target to the nomad archers, and protecting most of the man’s body with his shield. But in battle these men likely would run when they faced the arrow showers of the Turks, and so behind them were placed the Frankish knights, dismounted and forming a solid wall of men who wore heavy Western armor and shields, even heavier than the Pedinoi on the right. They feared little from the Turkic arrows, at least in their current position, and so would prevent the men in front of them from having an avenue of retreat. Scattered among the Pedinoi were light skirmishers armed with bows and sometimes darts.
The Emperor was also among them, with his banners for everyone to see, and his personal deployed around him to display to any wavering man the faith that Manuel was placing in his soldiers. The Turks advanced first, loosing waves of arrows onto the Roman center, with light casualties among the front ranks. As the Turks neared the front line of scutarii leveled their crossbows and fired, before ducking beneath their shields again to reload. When this first line was out of the way the second line fired as well. The Turks were undaunted by the damage inflicted on them, and whirled away, firing back at the Romans as they did so. There was some panic among the inexperienced Roman infantry, but any men who tried to fall back ran into the solid wall of Frankish knights who blocked any retreat.
Forced to stand and fight the men did so.
On the Roman left a series of skirmishes were fought between the Turks and the Roman light cavalry, neither side able to manage any decisive blows as the Roman soldiers refused to be lured away from their position. As the day wore on it became clear that the Turkic horses were tiring, even as casualties on both sides remained light. Abbasios ordered the Pedinoi to advance on the far right, until they had formed a sharp angle with the rest of the Roman line. The skirmishers among them now loosed a hail of their own missiles into the slowing Turkic ranks, and seeing the situation as unsalvageable the Turkic commander ordered a full withdrawal.
The battle of Pessinus was over, and it was a decisive Imperial Victory. That is Manuel’s own take on the subject, but how true that is is up for debate. Neither side suffered heavy losses in the fighting. The Romans lost some one thousand men, mostly from among their light cavalry, while the Turks lost perhaps twice that. The Roman forces simply were not experienced enough yet to have inflicted significant damage on their Turkic counterparts. They had however now emerged from their first battle mostly unscathed, even if many of the men had to remove arrows from their shields.
With the Turkish army in retreat Abbasios turned further south and reached Amorium the a week later. The Romans again surrounded the city and demanded its surrender. The Turkish garrison refused.
Amorium had once been one of the great cities of Central Anatolia, but as overseas trade grew to dominate once again its status had declined, as had much of the Anatolian Plateau. The population was a fraction what it had been centuries before, but the city remained a key stronghold in the region. It was heavily fortified even during the centuries of peace preceeding the Turkic invasion. Thus to take the city using normal Roman methods, collapsing the walls and then assaulting it would take far too long in Abassios’s view, as the general was concerned the Turks would rally and come to face the Romans in battle yet again.
So he set about a two-pronged offensive. First, he had the Franks lay the groundwork for a full assault on the city, having the knights use their servants and Roman soldiers to build siege towers in full view of the city, making sure that both the population and the Turks knew the Romans were serious about retaking the area.
Second, he launched a massive charm offensive with the reigning Turkic chieftain. Bribes were offered, clemency was offered to all of the men, and the chief was offered a post in the Roman army, as well as a posting in Sicily where he would not have to fight his own people.
These offers were refused. Every day the chieftain believed that reinforcements would come over the horizon, and Dara would be repeated. He was not aware of the recent Turkik defeat Pessinus, and did not believe the Roman delegation when informed. As the charm offensive wasn’t working Abbasios changed tactics, instead now offering threats of cruel treatment when the city inevitably fell to the Roman attack. These threats were made in clear hearing of the Turkic soldiers, and the Greek servants who worked in the palace.
This tactic worked. Two days before Abbasios was planning to attack the city a group of Greeks inside the city got hold of weapons, and seized control of one of the city’s gates, and set fire to the central acropolis. Seeing his chance Abbasios sent the army in immediately. Leading the way were the Frankish knights, under orders to kill any Turk they came across.
The fighting was fierce, as the Turks knew that no mercy awaited them now. Of the seven hundred Turks inside the city all were killed or captured by sunrise. Amorium itself was badly damaged. The Acropolis was gutted by fire, and much of the city had burned as well. The Greek population was left to try and rebuild, but with Imperial aid less than forthcoming over the years that followed most of them moved on. Amorium would be abandoned by 1040, and would be passed over when Manuel began looking for good areas to settle the veterans of his wars, both foreign and domestic. A small trading outpost would grow up on the site using old buildings for material, but that too would not last. Pessinus will eventually grow to replace Amorium as the primary settlement on this part of the Anatolian peninsula. Amorium is a ruin.
It is however a very interesting ruin, and if you are ever touring Anatolia seeing the remains of the city is a fascinating look at a well-preserved city of this time period. Well worth checking out.
Next time we will remain in Anatolia as Manuel II and Romanos Abbasios look to retake Caesarea, and decisively defeat the Turks in Anatolia once and for all. And in the process avoid dealing them too decisive a defeat. Because even as the young Emperor aimed to settle the East he already had his eye on the next war in the West.
Interesting strategy, I thought it would be better to decisively smash the Turks to secure the Eastern border before turning West. How would a minor victory be better?
I feel kind of foolish but I just now realized that Romanos Abbasios is an ATL member of the Abbasids. Which was, in retrospect, probably obvious. Actually who is Romanos Abbasios roughly based on? I'm asking since you stated before I believe that you base your ATL figures roughly on historical ones.
Also, something I'm wondering, during Pax Romana 2: Eastern Boogaloo what was the population of Constantinople with the reestablished grain dole and peaceful, powerful empire? Back to it's height of 500 thousand or getting closer to the maximum population Ancient Rome had of a million?
Also, something I'm wondering, during Pax Romana 2: Eastern Boogaloo what was the population of Constantinople with the reestablished grain dole and peaceful, powerful empire? Back to it's height of 500 thousand or getting closer to the maximum population Ancient Rome had of a million?
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The closest analogue is Agrippa, the military commander of Augustus Caesar. Similar to the way that anytime you read "Augustus won this battle" what is being said is "Agrippa won this battle for Augustus" Romanos Abbasios for Manuel II. He's not based on any of the OTL Abbasids, as his purpose is in a lot of ways to emphasize that once again the Romans are successful because they integrated people that were conquered into the Empire, in this case the old Arab elite. Also its to bring ideas of culture in as what the "Roman" culture that was already a blend of Italian and Greek is also adding Arab elements in. The cultural developments that impact this will mostly come along later when I do a larger look at the culture that comes to define the Romans after the TL ends when they've also added in at least one more huge influence.
Descendants of the Umayads are also running around in high positions in Syria.
In the 250,000-300,000 range. The Empire is more cosmopolitan than it was OTL during this time period, but the cities still aren't quite as large as they once were.
Yes. One will feature later during Manuel's reign, and they'll have a prominent place when the Caesarii takeover of the Empire after the Thalassans get themselves wiped out, and then in the very different Imperial structure that gets established afterwards.
Part 55: The Anatolian War II
Part LV: The Anatolian War II
While the Emperor’s army had been fighting the Turks in Western Anatolia the Armenians army had engaged smaller Turkic forces in the mountains of the northeast. The 4000 strong Turkic army that had caused them to break off from the pincer plan had been defeated and driven back onto the steppe sections of the central plateau. Following Abbasios’s victory however the main Turkic force had arrived back in the region, and the Armenian commanders had felt it imprudent to attempt the same move again. They were still only about fifteen thousand strong after all, and the reality was that raising more troops from the Caucuses was impractical.
The northerners were barely keep their men paid as it was, and shipments of coins from Constantinople were chronically late due to the difficult journey required. The army was kept intact through spiritual payment. The Jacoboi heresy had gone from significant minority to majority, and now was nearly universal among the soldiers with the knowledge that the Emperor himself was one of them.
I will discuss later what Manuel’s true religious feelings were at this point, since the evidence he actually was a Jacobian at this point is sketchy. His own history of course paints him as devout and devoted to that brand of the faith, but it needs to be remembered that his histories were being edited and released for domestic consumption nearly forty years after this war was over. By that point the reforms of the Council of Thessalonika were firmly entrenched in the Empire. The domestic foes beaten, and what had been heresy now triumphant.
Rewriting history to suit the Emperor’s later accomplishments is to be expected.
Regardless, the Armenian army was highly confident as they hunkered down in the mountain fortresses to face the Turks.
Meanwhile back in Amorium Abbasios was forming a new grand strategy to defeat the Turks once and for all. The first thing he did was discard the idea of defeating the Anatolian Turks during the current year. The failure of the previous plan made such an endeavor foolhardy at best. Marching across Anatolia during the summer without control of the peninsula looked to his eyes to be a march to his army’s doom. Instead he destroyed Amorium’s city walls and departed, marching back to the coast with his army. Phrourions were built in the region to maintain Imperial control, but for thirty thousand men arrived near the coast in early August. From here the army was split in two. Ten thousand men were taken by Manuel and loaded onto ships that then sailed for Syria, where they would meet up with the Syrian army and begin massing another large force to advance into Anatolia from the south the next year. Abbasios himself took the remaining twenty thousand north, circling the coast of Anatolia to arrive back at Doryleaum. Along the way he would pick up new raw recruits from cities, towns, and farms and get them equipped. His aim was to take Ankyra by the end of autumn and then use it as a base to march across the northern parts of the plateau and retake Sebastea the next spring.
From there he could link up with the Armenians, and advance out of the north toward Caesarea, while Manuel marched out of the south. Together they might have northwards of eighty thousand men, more than enough to force a Turkic surrender. And do not be mistaken, a surrender was what Manuel wanted and indeed what he needed. Crushing the Turks in the field would be nice, but it wouldn’t solve his long-term problem.
What problem? The problem of the West. Good as the new Imperial army was it had a critical weakness, it was built with the intention of fighting steppe nomads. Against Turks or Pechenegs the massed used of crossbows and spears would hold out indefinitely. But against the heavy knights of the West it would likely lose. The crossbows in use were not the powerful heavy things that will mark the early Caesarii. They were lighter weapons, even usable on horseback, which would do poorly against any kind of heavy armor.
Against lightly armored nomads who fought at range the crossbow was devastating, and the spears would keep the light horsemen at bay so the crossbowmen could not be attacked in melee. But the knights of the West were a totally different beast. The Emperor needed the Turks if he was to take the fight back to the Franks and remove them from the home peninsula permanently.
Additionally, if the Turks fled from Anatolia then the Emperor would have recaptured what was by now a very depopulated place. Much of the population of the Anatolian plateau had fled East to the coast, north to Armenia, or south to Syria and Cilicia. That meant the Turks now made up a large portion of the local population. Forcibly moving settlers back in would be laborious for the Empire, and the Eastern parts of the area where the Turks were now strongest had never been particularly rich. If the nomads could be convinced to settle down, pay taxes, and serve in the army then there wasn’t any real reason not to just let them stay. The Romans in the area were now clustered in the cities and towns, where the majority of the Turkic population weren’t interested in staying.
Long term the Turks would hopefully integrate into the Roman populace and become just one more group who had fought with, and then been brought into, the Roman world. If the Turks were destroyed or if they managed to escape Anatolia back to their brethren in Mesopotamia the Empire would gain little.
Abbasios waited in Dorylaeum until August, setting up supply lines from the Balkans and ensuring that Empress Maria kept the pay flowing and to keep the army obedient. I will also take a moment to answer a likely question here. How did the Empire, which still was having financial troubles pay all of these men? Well the answer is they didn’t pay them very much. The levies who were organized into the new armies were mostly raised from men who previously might have been on the grain dole, and many were paid not in cash but in food and other supplies. Effectively Abbasios and Manuel had turned what would have been free grain into a source of cash the men now had to earn, by being soldiers.
What’s more, the pay was significantly less than the professional troops that the Empire had previously been using. The average pay was equivalent to only about three nomismata per year for the new infantrymen, a fraction what the Empire had been paying their troops. To make up for this the Emperor promised land when the campaign was completed.
As the soldiers were marched across Anatolia they were constantly reminded that what they were retaking was going to be theirs just as soon as they defeated the Turks and made the land safe for them to farm once again. And for those of you reading ahead, yes this will cause a lot of problems down the road as the need to land the soldiers clashed with existing estates.
Abbasios laid siege to Ankyra at the beginning of September 1019, and began negotiations for the Turkic force to surrender. Before that could happen however Romans inside the town were able to seize one of the gates during the night and throw it open for the army. Abbasios’s force stormed the city and killed much of the garrison forces, and the remainder fled back East.
The city retaken Abbasios left a four-thousand-man garrison and departed the plateau for the year. He left a second force of six thousand at Dorylaeum with orders to reinforce Ankyra if it came under attack, and then went on to put the rest of the army into end of campaign quarters along the Anatolian Coast.
During late autumn the general crossed back into the Balkans and led a brief campaign against a force of Pechenegs who had taken the Empire’s distraction as a good opportunity to raid across the border. Utilizing the same tactics that were being used against the Turks Abbasios lured the Pechenegs into attacking what seemed to be a small and vulnerable Roman force. As the nomads descended however Abbasios’s infantry formed up int their pike and crossbow formation and let loose a wave of missiles that broke up the Pecheneg formation, and then Frankish knights hit both wings of the nomad force.
The Pechengs returned back across the Danube chastened and with little treasure. The battle was overall a small affair, but it greatly strengthened morale along the neglected Danube. Magyar leaders had begun to question their ongoing loyalty to an Imperial government which seemed to care little for the hardships they suffered in defending the great river, but the arrival of an Imperial army and then that army’s victory bolstered their loyalty. The Romans were still powerful, even if they sometimes had to look away.
New garrisons were put in place on the Danube of the new soldiers, and old troops were demobilized and put land that had been the property of the now largely dead themes. This also had a two-fold point. First, the retired soldiers were still drawing the higher pay they had become accustomed to, and replacing them with new levied recruits drastically reduced the amount of gold that needed to be sent to the Danube each year. Second, distributing unused land in this manner quieted mutinous mumbling among the levied soldiers who wondered if the promises of land were true. Seeing the men they were replacing get what was owed to them mollified men who might otherwise have questioned Imperial promises.
Returning south Abbasios passed through Greece, and picked up new levied soldiers as he went, planning to use the time in winter quarters to train them. These men took up positions in the now emptied European tagmatic headquarters, as the tagmata had all gone to Syria with the Emperor, and set about their training as winter drew on.
In Syria meanwhile Manuel had gathered the local Syrian army, and sent diplomatic feelers to Arslan Servet, one of the sons of Malik, who had won out in the Mesopotamian theater of the ongoing Turkic civil war. The course of this civil war are largely irrelevant to the wider Roman narrative, but here a key event happened when Manuel agreed to lend the Turkic leader Roman engineers in exchange for a portion of the tax revenue being collected from Assyria and Babylon.
Arslan needed Roman aid to overcome a group of old fortresses in the Zagros Mountains being held by one of his older brothers and being used to block an advance into Persia proper. Over the rest of 1019 the Romans built siege engines and instructed the Turkic soldiers in their use, leading to the fortresses falling early the next year. In exchange Manuel collected some fifty thousand nomismata from Mesopotamia in both gold and food to supplement the gold coming out of Egypt and in Syria.
This action in hindsight may have been a mistake, as it is a seminal event in granting the Turks information in how to conduct sieges and city assaults. That said, the amount of information was likely not significant when compared to the coming final stage of the civil war on the Persian Plateau itself, nor the general advancement in Turkic tactics as their hold over the ancient land strengthened. At the time the move was the right one, because it ensured that Arslan’s gaze was fixed firmly in the East, and away from Anatolia where he may have gone to the aid of the Turks there who would send calls for aid as their position weakened.
In May 1020 Manuel II led his army out of Antioch and headed for Melitene. The important city at the very northern edge of Mesopotamia functioned as a semi-official border between the Turkic Empire of the Servets and the kingdom of the Anatolian Turks. Taking it would sever the direct connection, and ensure that even if Manuel’s diplomacy failed that there would still be a Roman strongpoint defending the Plateau.
Distracted as they were by Abbasios’s assault on Sebastea the Turks were unable to send any relief to Melitene, and the city surrendered after a brief siege. The city was heavily garrisoned and Manuel returned to Syria to await word from the north. It would be slow in coming.
As Manuel was retaking Melitene his great general Romanos Abbasios was pressing across northern Anatolia toward Sebastea, fighting an endless series of skirmishes the entire way. Towns along the way submitted to the advancing Roman force, but the Turks burned any crops that were being planted in the region, leaving the Roman army undersupplied as they advanced further into the peninsula. Finally as April neared Abbasios was forced to admit that his advance was likely doomed if it continued and he veered the army north, settling into quarters as Amisos and gathering shipments of supplies sent from Constantinople.
It wasn’t until May then that Abbasios resumed his press into the Anatolian heartland. The Turks moved to meet him near Nicopolis, and there they were confronted by a contingent of two thousand Franks and another two thousand Roman cavalry. Locals had alerted Abbasios of a Turkic force in the area, and the Franks set a trap for them near Amasia. The Franks hid themselves behind a set of hills, and sent the Roman cavalry forward toward the Turks. The two sides exchanged a few volleys of arrow fire, before the outnumbered Romans turned and ran.
The Turks, failing to see the ruse, charged after them. As they did so the Franks emerged from hiding and charged down into the flanks of the Turkic force. Panic spread as the Turks realized they were now under attack from the side, and then when the Franks closed to melee range where they excelled. Soon the Turks on the flanks were in flight, trying to get away from the knights, and confusion spread like fire through the rest of the army.
Soon it was Turks who were fleeing, leaving several leaders dead on the field, and nearly a thousand men fleeing in the wrong direction, where they would soon be caught by the returning Roman cavalry. In total the battle of Amasia saw just over seven hundred Turks dead, a thousand prisoners taken, and a significant treasure secured along with provisions when the Turkic camp was captured after the battle.
The army reached Sebastea in early July, and surrounded the city, putting it to siege. But the city held out. For weeks, and then months progress in penetrating the walls was slow, the population inside were unable or unwilling to betray it, and the Turks refused to negotiate a surrender. As September approached and provisions began to run dangerously thin Abbasios broke off the siege and retreated north, looking to winter along the coast, meet up with the Armenians and continue the siege the next year.
He settled in Trebizond and sent word to the Armenians to send reinforcments. A force of five thousand came, though not without reluctance. It had now been several years since Manuel had departed to be Emperor, and so far as they could see little progress had been made on the religious front despite his promises.
Abbasios soothed them as best he could, and the next March he departed the coast once again, heading for Sebastea. This time again the Turks refused surrender, and a siege was laid on the city. Attempts to tunnel beneath the city were unsuccessful, and it soon became clear that maintaining the entire army, now numbering almost fifty thousand, was not possible. Abbasios therefore left ten thousand men in place, and moved East to resecure the best paths into Armenia with the rest of the army. The Turks took advantage, and in early June a force from the south struck at the remaining siege lines, surrounding them and forcing the Roman army to fight attacks from both within the city, and now from their own besiegers.
Abbasios learned of the situation and raced back, defeating the Turkic army in late July. Their hope of reinforcement now gone the Turks inside the city surrendered. Realizing he needed to mollify his Armenian allies Abbasios ordered the city’s church to be stripped of icons, and for the symbols to be smashed. His non-Armenian troops objected strongly to this desecration, but Abbasios spoke strongly of the proof that God was on the side of the Emperor. Were not their victories proof that God favored this new order, while the old had seen the lands lost in the first place.
The men were mollified by this, and also by the cash bonuses paid out from captured treasure in the city to remind them of just how much God favored them. The army settled in to fortify and wait for additional supplies, which would not arrive until the next year.
So, why did Abbasios stop at Sebastea? It has sometimes been suggested the general should have immediately marched south, captured Caesarea and ended the war. But from Abbasios’s perspective that was too dangerous. Marching across Central Anatolia during the middle of summer was a terrible idea due to the region’s climate, and he was unsure how long any siege of the fortress city of Caesarea would last, even with reinforcments from the south. If the Turks decided to hold out there was every possibility the siege would last months. Getting supplies all the way to the city was going to be extremely difficult. There were no good routes for supplies to move from north or south due to Anatolia’s natural geography. What the army took with them might be everything they would have.
Thus in March of 1022 Abbasios departed from Sebastea, headed toward Caesarea at the head of thirty-five thousand men. At almost the same time Manuel’s army departed from Antioch, crossing through the Taurus Mountains and heading toward the fortress as well, with an army of similar size. I say Manuel’s army, but the Emperor likely never personally commanded during a battle. Manuel II was an administrator and reformer, not a military man at his core. It was a group of generals who commanded during the campaign.
The hard fought campaign Abbasios had visualized though, never came to be. After years of defeats what unity had existed between the Turks was breaking down. These were after all groups that hadn’t wanted to submit to the Servets, and had never really wanted to submit to one another either. They had banded together for mutual protection when victory seemed imminent, but that was clearly not the case. The Romans were far stronger than the Turks had reckoned, and none of the tribal chiefs thought much of dying for another. Better to either flee back out of Anatolia, a dangerous proposition with the mountain fortresses all under Roman control, or throw yourself at the Emperor’s mercy.
One by one Turkic chiefs did just that, submitting themselves t the Roman Emperor and presenting gifts of gold and horses. By the time that Manuel II’s army reached Caesarea, a day ahead of Abbasios’s, the guards there had thrown the gates open, and welcomed the men with open arms. The fact that this also likely prevented a sack was of course not spoken aloud. Manuel had the Turkic king beheaded, and his body thrown wild animals. The man’s name was damned, and as such we have no records of who he was, or even of his family name. The remainder of the Turks were disarmed, settled on abandoned land, and required to serve in the Roman army.
The Anatolian War thus ended, not with a bang but a whimper. There will be sporadic fighting that continues as the Romans enforce the peace, but with the cities once again in Imperial hands and a large army left behind to keep watch the Turks will acclimatize to the new situation, going on to be a strong auxiliary arm in the army and slowly adopting Roman culture, which was beginning to take the sort of shape we would recognize today, as a hybrid of Greek, Latin, Arab, and now Turkic elements.
Additionally, Abbasios will be dispatched to the East once again when uprisings in Mesopotamia bring the Romans to march south into the Syrian desert to restore the old borders with the Sassanid Empire before the Arabs.
For now though, Manuel II and Abbasios took the bulk of their army and went back to Constantinople, going along the southern coast of Anatolia where groups of soldiers who had initially been levied were broken off and sent north to abandoned farms to be settled. These men were usually sent off with their weapons, so that if the Turks did cause more trouble they could be recalled to the Emperor’s banner.
In Constantinople the mood was cautiously optimistic. Manuel himself might not be a popular ruler, but his army had just won a series of key victories against the Anatolian invaders, and reconquered vast territories whose names were thundered in the Hagia Sophia.
Many expected the Emperor to hold a triumph for his conquests, but the Emperor demurred. He had his eyes on a grander triumph when the West was restored to its proper place as well. But to fight a war in the West the Empire had to be set right. Administratively, financially, militarily, and most importantly, spiritually. Division within the Imperial Church was unacceptable, and as such the Jacoboi question would have to be answered, an Ecumenical Council Would have to be held.
The site, of course, was Thessalonika.
Guess Iconoclasm is going to be more permanent that we thought.
Once the unrest dials down, I guess it'll put the Empire is a greater position economically but of course the church won't be as opulent and happy.
Part 56: The Council of Thessalonika
Part LVI: The Council of Thessalonika
I’ve put this off a long time, but its time to get into the finer details of the religious struggles that were going on throughout the Empire as the new millennium dawned, not that the modern calendar had been adopted yet. No, the millennium in question was the millennium since Julius I Caesar had marched on Rome and become the first Roman Emperor.
The trouble which culminated in the Council of Thessalonika actually began in the Balkans, with a group who today are a niche interest even for those who are interested in the early Church. A group of Christian in Greece were reading one of the pagan books, that of Daniel from the Jewish tradition. At the time however this was considered part of the Biblos, and as such was closely studied by Christian scholars.
To make a long story short a group of Greek monks studying the book of Daniel came up with a theory about the world. The book laid out four kingdoms on Earth, which would be succeeded by a kingdom of God. These were the Babylonians, the Medians, the Persians, and the Greeks (in this context meaning Alexander). This was succeeded by the new Israel. God’s kingdom on Earth, Rome.
Counting then from the days of the first Caesar many of these men believed that Christ would return on the anniversary of Caesar’s victory of Pompey, and so began preparing for his return by preaching this new interpretation of scripture. Imperial authorities were less than pleased, and levied fines, but the monks continued. When word spread to local bishops the monastery was closed, and the ringleaders were either imprisoned or exiled, normally to the East in Armenia. Here however they ran into a different group who had been gaining strength, the early Jacoboi. Named at this time the Paulicians due to their strong beliefs that they were carrying on the work of the Apostle Paul.
Their beliefs were heavily influenced by the various heretical groups who had ever been present in the Eastern frontier of the Empire, in particular from an old group called the Gnostics and the Manicheans. They were also influenced in part by the Islamic traders coming out of Arabia, Mesopotamia, and Syria. Their tenets were varied, but the most important for our purposes was their views on which books belonged inside the sacred scripture. Pointedly, the entire Old Testament, should in their view be removed. Going hand in hand with this was antisemitism which called for Jews to be branded not as a precursor to Christianity, but as pagans.
During the early-900s a monk named Jacobus began preaching widely on the topic, and gained many followers from among his people. Their views began to spread along the trade routes into Syria, and from there made their way south into Egypt, always a hotbed of heretical views.
In addition, smaller local heresies sprang up across Anatolia mostly relating to local customs.
This then led into Alexios II’s persecutions of heretics. The local heresies were mostly stamped out without an issue, but the Jacoboi in the East remained deeply entrenched due to their support not only from local apores, but also from the magnates. In particular the leader of Armenia itself as noted was a supporter of the heresy, and so did not implement Imperial edicts requiring persecution. In Egypt the attempt was half-hearted, as the strategoi were also dealing with short-lived resurgences of monophosytism, thought vanquished hundreds of years before.
By the time of Manuel II the Jacoboi were the dominant religious force in Armenia, and had significant followings in both Syria and Egypt. As these areas were now key players in the attempt to put the flailing Empire back together Manuel, regardless of his real religious views, had to work with the heretics rather than crush them if he wanted to stand a chance. It was for this reason, that he appointed Gregorios as the Patriarch of Constantinople. Well, that reason, and his need to melt down the golden statues in the city’s churches to help fund his early war efforts.
The subsequent campaign however saw both the Emperor and his top general inundated with Jacoboi soldiers who they interacted with daily, and the pair gained even more sympathy for the heretical cause. Manuel had of course been raised among these men, but his education had largely been conducted by Imperial tutors, so it is likely that he hadn’t spent significant time among the common soldiers until the campaign began. So it was that in his stay in Syria he was surrounded by a cadre of local officers who were by and large either Jacoboi themselves, or had sympathies with them. His tagmatic officers were still Armenians by and large after all, and even if they had been willing to continue serving the Emperor despite the persecution many of them would still have been related to Jacoboi back home.
All of this is to say that by the time of the Council Manuel was, if not one of the Jacoboi, at least highly inclined to let them have a fair hearing. As such he set about arranging his council to take place in 1023. To do so he had Gregorios send invitations to church officials both in East and West, but critically, did not invite the Frankish controlled pope. Manuel’s predecessors might have been inclined to ignore the non-Roman pope in Rome, but Manuel was not. He intended to set right that particular wrong at the right time.
This had the critical effect of alienating the Frankish Church from the Council before it had even begun. Louis sent out an Imperial edict banning Frankish bishops from attending the Council. Thus, while the Rus, Bulgars, Goths, Arabs, and Normans would all send representatives to the Council; the Franks, the single largest source of non-Roman Christians would not. The Roman bishops therefore held a thin majority on all votes, allowing a unified Roman front to set the debate.
That’s not to say the Roman bishops were all that unified. The Jacoboi might have been the majority in the East, but in the West they were at this point little more than a nuisance so far as the bishops of Greece, Africa, Sicily, or Anatolia were concerned. But, because they were not on the radar of these Western Imperial bishops the danger of letting the Jacoboi Patriarch set the agenda and control debate was not immediately apparent. As the non-Roman bishops had little interest in the heretic group either there was thus no attempt to take this crucial power away from the Jacoboi, until it was too late.
The Council of Thessalonika therefore met in May 1023, and would continue for the next nine months. Throughout all of the proceedings Gregorios arranged for his best speakers to present the case of the Jacoboi, laying out their arguments firmly and solidly, in moves planned out well ahead of time. Against this constant barrage of arguments meanwhile the Chalcedonians were unprepared, and their oration countering the Jacoboi was often subtly undermined by the Patriarch in his role as head of the council.
As the weeks ticked by and the foreign church leaders began to be swayed by the heretic arguments the Chalcedonian side appealed directly to the Emperor for help getting the Council back under control. Manuel refused, stating that if the will of the Church should go against the current Orthodoxy then he would enforce such a decision. As time went on however it became clear that one of the central Jacoboi ideas, that the books of the Bible written after the Birth of Christ were the only legitimate holy texts would not be readily accepted, and indeed might bring about open revolt if implemented. Gregorios therefore shifted tactics, pushing instead for the Jews to be classified as pagans akin to the pre-Constantine Romans. There was no difference he argued between those who worshipped Jupiter, and those who rejected Christ. As anti-semitism was a universal trait among the men attending the Council resistance to this move was slow.
In August, a critical shift occurred as backrom dealings with the Normans and the Rus convinced both groups to openly take the side of the Jacoboi. Both were recent converts, and their customs had not yet been heavily influenced by Chalcedonian thought. The two groups had few votes, but they did present enough of a force that Gothic representatives also began to lean more toward the Jacoboi position. Not because they were pro-Jacoboi, but because they didn’t oppose it either. As more bishops began to go to Gregorios’s side then the more moderate voices within the Council began to favor those positions as well, wanting to end up on the winning side no matter which it was.
The process took a long time, and by October a bare majority was leaning the heretic’s way. By now however the Chalcedonians had gotten their own act together and were presenting far stronger arguments, and using their own best voices to present those arguments. A stalemate ensued as it became clear neither side could win the number of votes needed to defeat the other.
More backroom discussions were had, and in early November the Arab delegation reached a deal with Gregorios to exempt them from any extra religious taxation, and recognize them as a fully equivalent branch of Christianity with the new Church order when the Council was over. The deal was presented to the Emperor, and Manuel agreed. Suddenly the momentum was back on Gregorios’s side.
The Arabs had primarily dealt with the heretics for a number of reasons. First and foremost among these was that as the Arabs lived almost entirely in either the Eastern portions of the Empire, or in Arabia itself they had more sympathy for their neighbors than the Western bishops. Additionally, Islamic thought of the time leaned more toward the Jacoboi interpretation of Christ than that of Chalcedon.
When the Arabs broke toward the Jacoboi position the Bulgari were left in a tough position. Fundamentally they agreed with the Chalcedonians, but If they did not try to negotiate deals with the ascendant heretics there was ever possibility that their own concerns would be ignored. So they began talks behind closed doors, and soon had their arrangements worked out for the post Council Order.
The Bulgari thus satisfied the Chalcedonian position collapsed. Bishops moved over en masse, until only a hardcore group based in Greece were left. The opposition thus neutralized the new tenants of Thessalonikan Christianity were established. The key points being: the creation and veneration of icons which were not of Christ were a pagan practice, and were banned; Jews were stripped of the privileges they maintained over other non-Christian religions from the days of Justinian I; and Islamic Christianity was recognized as a valid alternative to Imperial Orthodoxy, occupying a run on the social ladder just under those who followed the Imperial Church.
There were a myriad of other changes, but these were the core ideas.
Which then leads us to the next question, which is how were these implemented. The answer is…they weren’t. At least not quickly. The bishops went home, made the announcements (or didn’t), and life just kind of carried on. There was no mass destruction of the icons. The core tenents of the new formulation of Christianity would take decades to enforce, and even today has exceptions built into every stage. While Manuel will have brought the Imperial Church in line by the end of his reign, the Bulgars would not even begin a crackdown on pagans until the 1500s, in events completely unrelated to the Church decrees. The Franks as noted weren’t even present, and never implemented many of the changes.
Thessalonika therefore should be seen as a seminal Church Council, because it brought about not Church unity, but division. And as such it laid the foundation for the modern Catholic Church. With the individual branches of Orthodoxy made up not of one unified creed or belief system, but rather of a number of these influenced by local customs, all unified under the completely symbolic office of the Roman pontiff, though of course that had not been established yet.
Within the Empire though the Council did bring about significant changes. Churches in the capital had already begun removing statues and pictures of saints, and in particular taking down symbols that might be seen as venerating these figures. There was significant resentment among the population as these measures were carried out, but for now this resentment was kept in check by the Emperor’s major victories in the East. As always to this point military success was accepted as a sign of God’s favor. It seemed that so long as Manuel and his generals were victorious in war that the reforms would be accepted.
As we will see however this attitude will not last forever, and Manuel will be the first Emperor since Justinian I to be face a major revolt in the City itself. Further persecution of Jews however was taken up with gusto by Imperial officials, who were more than willing to levy harsher taxes on the wealthy non-Christians. This got to the level that Jews began a major exodus from Imperial lands, mostly departing for the far more friendly lands of Bulgari which was willing to overlook this particular section of the new religious decree in order to advance its own wealth.
The most zealous adopters of the new rules were the Normans and the Rus. Both recent converts to Christianity the icons were not present in large quanities in their lands. The Goths meanwhile ignored many of the new rules, only slowly adopting them over the next century after Roman control on the Hispani Peninsula returned.
One key point however had not been settled, the status of the monasteries. Manuel looked on them with envy as he thought of the tax revenue that could be generated on the lands, and the gold that could be confiscated from the monks and added to the Imperial treasury. He wouldn’t yet be able to act on it though, as he feared such a move might well provoke domestic opposition. He had wider ambitions for now.
Next time we will look at the next three years as Manuel II, his wife Maria, and Romanos Abbasios take the next steps to restoring full Roman power as they put the Empire’s financial house in order, and make further military reforms as the new model of the Roman army took a more permanent shape.
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Frankish Christianity is closest to OTL Christianity in that regard, I assume.
Honestly Turkish probably is. The Franks will not be iconoclasts, but they will eventually join the other Catholic Orthodox Churches in removing the 46 books of the Old Testament from the Bible.
I should also note so that its clear: the Jacoboi are based heavily on a
The Church of the East meanwhile avoids pretty much all of this stuff.
So, Turkish Christians, as strange as it might be to an OTL observer, are the nearest thing to OTL Christianity, considering that even today, small communities of Nestorians hang on in the Middle East, even if their situation, to put things mildly, is growing untenable.
Jeez, ITTL medieval Europe is even worse for the jewish people than IOTL, which was already fucking shit. At least IOTL the Roman Catholic church was at least neutral if not at time encouraging of toleration for the jewish people, eve if it was pretty much always half-hearted and was worthless in actually protecting the safety or rights of jewish people. ITTL it's accepted religious doctrine to screw over jewish people.
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So freaking Marcionism made a comeback?!? That banning the Old Testament and declaring judaism a pagan cult reeks of that heresy which had long been declared anathema since the second century! I don’t see any way in which the council would have in anyway come to have supported it. By this point biblical canon had been set for over five centuries, there would have been riots in the streets from the laity when the bishops announced this!
I’m sorry but there no way I can believe that this would have been accepted by anyone no matter how long it would have taken, if anything there would have been another council after Manuels death where he and his supporters would have been in post-mortem declared heretics and traitors.
Especially since the western Christian bishops were barely represented, which would severely weaken the councils authority. Look I understand what you’re trying to do, but this point in history is far to late to alter biblical canon and everything that entails. Manuel would have suffered his own Nika riots in Constantinople and his Patriarch torn apart in the streets for what he’s attempting to enforce, and unlike Justinian I doubt he would have survived it.
I mean look at the pushback Emperors had when trying to find compromise with stuff like Monothelitism and the Three Chapters, those pale in comparison to what throwing out the entire Old Testament would have had on the populace.
I’m sorry but there no way I can believe that this would have been accepted by anyone no matter how long it would have taken, if anything there would have been another council after Manuels death where he and his supporters would have been in post-mortem declared heretics and traitors.
Especially since the western Christian bishops were barely represented, which would severely weaken the councils authority. Look I understand what you’re trying to do, but this point in history is far to late to alter biblical canon and everything that entails. Manuel would have suffered his own Nika riots in Constantinople and his Patriarch torn apart in the streets for what he’s attempting to enforce, and unlike Justinian I doubt he would have survived it.
I mean look at the pushback Emperors had when trying to find compromise with stuff like Monothelitism and the Three Chapters, those pale in comparison to what throwing out the entire Old Testament would have had on the populace.