possessed the full confidence of the army. But his great victory over the
Saracens had won him such popularity in the camp, that he was able to
despise the wrath of the populace, and carry out his schemes to their end.
Beside instituting ecclesiastical reforms he was a busy worker in all the
various departments of the administration. He published a new code of
laws, the first since Justinian, written in Greek instead of Latin, as the
latter language was now quite extinct in the Balkan Peninsula. He
reorganized the finances of the empire, which had fallen into hopeless
confusion in the anarchy between 695 and 717. The army had much of his
care, but it was more especially in the civil administration of the empire
that he seems to have left his mark. From Leo’s day the gradual process of
decay which had been observable since the time of Justinian seems to come
to an end, and for three hundred years the reorganized East-Roman state
developed a power and energy which appear most surprising after the
disasters of the unhappy seventh century. Having once lived down the
Saracen danger, the empire reasserted its ancient mastery in the East,
until the coming of the Turks in the eleventh century. We should be glad
to have the details of Leo’s reforms, but most unhappily the monkish
chroniclers who described his reign have slurred over all his good deeds,
in order to enlarge to more effect on the iniquities of his crusade
against image-worship. The effects of his work are to be traced mainly by
noting the improved and well-ordered state of the empire after his death,
and comparing it with the anarchy that had preceded his accession.
[Illustration]
Representation Of The Madonna Enthroned. (_From a Byzantine Ivory._)
(_From "L’Art Byzantin." Par Charles Bayet. Paris, Quantin, 1883._)
Leo died in 740, leaving the throne to his son, Constantine V., whom he
had brought up to follow in his own footsteps. The new emperor was a good
soldier and a capable man of business, but his main interest in life
centred in the struggle against image-worship. Where Leo had chastised the
adherents of superstition with whips Constantine chastised them with
scorpions. He was a true persecutor, and executed not only rioters and
traitors, as his father had done, but all prominent opponents of his
policy who provoked his wrath. Hence he incurred an amount of hatred even
greater than that which encompassed Leo III., and his very name has been
handed down to history with the insulting byword _Copronymus_ tacked on to
it.
Though strong and clever, Constantine was far below his father in ability,
and his reign was marked by one or two disasters, though its general tenor
was successful enough. Two defeats in Bulgaria were comparatively
unimportant, but a noteworthy though not a dangerous loss was suffered
when Ravenna and all the other East-Roman possessions in Central Italy
were captured by the Lombards in A.D. 750. At this time Pope Stephen, when
attacked by the same enemy, sent for aid to Pipin the Frank, instead of
calling on the Emperor, and for the future the papacy was for all
practical purposes dependent on the Franks and not on the empire. The loss
of the distant exarchate of Ravenna seemed a small thing, however, when
placed by the side of Constantine’s successes against the Saracens, Slavs,
and Bulgarians, all of whom he beat back with great slaughter on the
numerous occasions when they invaded the empire.
But in the minds both of Constantine himself and of his contemporaries,
his dealings with things religious were the main feature of his reign. He
collected a council of 338 bishops at Constantinople in 761, at which
image-worship was declared contrary to all Christian doctrine, and after
obtaining this condemnation, attacked it everywhere as a heresy and not
merely a superstition. In the following year, finding the monks the
strongest supporters of the images, he commenced a crusade against
monasticism. He first forbade the reception of any novices, and shortly
afterwards begun to close monasteries wholesale. We are told that he
compelled many of their inmates to marry by force of threats; others were
exiled to Cyprus by the hundred; not a few were flogged and imprisoned,
and a certain number of prominent men were put to death. These unwise
measures had the natural effect: the monks were everywhere regarded as
martyrs, and the image-worship which they supported grew more than ever
popular with the masses.
While still in the full vigour of his persecuting enthusiasm, Constantine
Copronymus died in 775, leaving the throne to his son, Leo IV., an
Iconoclast, like all his race, but one who imitated the milder measures of
his grandfather rather than the more violent methods of his father. Leo
was consumptive and died young, after a reign of little more than four
years, in which nothing occurred of importance save a great victory over
the Saracens in 776. His crown fell to his son, Constantine VI., a child
of ten, while the Empress-Dowager Irene became sole regent, and her name
was associated with that of her son in all acts of state.
The Isaurian dynasty was destined to end in a fearful and unnatural
tragedy. The Empress Irene was clever, domineering, and popular. The
irresponsible power of her office of regent filled her with overweening
ambition. She courted the favour of the populace and clergy by stopping
the persecution of the image-worshippers, and filled all offices, civil
and military, with creatures of her own. For ten years she ruled
undisturbed, and grew so full of pride and self-confidence that she looked
forward with dismay to the prospect of her son’s attaining his majority
and claiming his inheritance. Even when he had reached the age of manhood
she kept him still excluded from state affairs, and compelled him to
marry, against his will, a favourite of her own. Constantine was neither
precocious nor unfilial, but in his twenty-second year he rebelled against
his mother’s dictation, and took his place at the helm of the state. Irene
had actually striven to oppose him by armed force, but he pardoned her,
and after secluding her for a short time, restored her to her former
dignity. The unnatural mother was far from acquiescing in her son’s
elevation, and still dreamed of reasserting herself. She took advantage of
the evil repute which Constantine won by a disastrous war with Bulgaria,
and an unhappy quarrel with the Church, on the question of his divorce
from the wife who had been forced upon him. More especially, however, she
relied on her popularity with the multitude, which had been won by
stopping the persecution of the image-worshippers during her regency, for
Constantine had resumed the policy of his ancestors and developed strong
Iconoclastic tendencies when he came to his own.
In 797 Irene imagined that things were ripe for attacking her son, and
conspirators, acting by her orders, seized the young emperor, blinded him,
and immured him in a monastery before any of his adherents were able to
come to his aid. Thus ended the rule of the Isaurian dynasty. Constantine
himself, however, survived many years as a blind monk, and lived to see
the ends of no less than five of his successors.
The wicked Irene sat on her ill-gained throne for some five troublous
years, much vexed by rebellion abroad and palace intrigues at home. It is
astonishing that her reign lasted so long, but it would seem that her
religious orthodoxy atoned in the eyes of many of her subjects for the
monstrous crime of her usurpation. The end did not come till 802, when
Nicephorus, her grand treasurer, having gained over some of the eunuchs
and other courtiers about her person, quietly seized her and immured her
in a monastery in the island of Chalke. No blow was struck by any one in
the cause of the wicked empress, and Nicephorus quietly ascended the
throne.
[Illustration]
Details Of St. Sophia.
Though containing little that is memorable in itself, the reign of Irene
must be noted as the severing-point of that connection between Rome and
Constantinople, which had endured since the first days of empire. In the
year 800 Pope Leo III. crowned Karl, King of the Franks, as Roman Emperor,
and transferred to him the nominal allegiance which he had hitherto paid
to Constantinople. Since the Italian rebellion in the time of Constantine
Copronymus, that allegiance had been a mere shadow, and the papacy had
been in reality under Frankish influence. But it was not till 800 that the
final breach took place. The Iconoclastic controversy had prepared the way
for it, while the fact that a woman sat on the imperial throne served as a
good excuse for the Pope’s action. Leo declared that a female reign was an
anomaly and an abomination, and took upon himself the onus of ending it,
so far as Italy was concerned, by creating a new emperor of the West.
There was, of course, no legality in the act, and Karl the Great was in no
real sense the successor of Honorius and Romulus Augustulus, but he ruled
a group of kingdoms which embraced the larger half of the old Western
Empire, and formed a fair equipoise to the realm now ruled by Irene. From
800, then, onward we have once more a West-Roman empire in existence as
well as the East-Roman, and it will be convenient for many purposes to use
the adjective Byzantine instead of the adjective Roman, when we are
dealing with the remaining history of the realm that centred at
Constantinople.
XVI. THE END OF THE ICONOCLASTS. (A.D. 802-886.)
The Iconoclastic controversy was far from being extinguished with the fall
of the house of Leo the Isaurian. It was destined to continue in a milder
form for more than half a century after the dethronement of Constantine
VI. The lines on which it was fought out were still the same—the official
hierarchy and the Asiatic provinces favoured Iconoclasm, the clergy and
the European provinces were “Iconodules.”(22) Hence it is interesting to
note that through the greater part of the ninth century, while emperors of
Eastern birth sat on the throne, the views of Leo the Isaurian were still
in vogue, and that the eventual triumph of the image-worshippers only came
about when a royal house sprung from one of the European themes—the family
of Basil the Macedonian—gained possession of the crown.
The treasurer, Nicephorus, who overthrew Irene, and so easily obtained
possession of the empire, was of Oriental extraction. His ancestor had
been a Christian Arab prince, expelled from his country at the time of the
rise of Mahomet, and his family had always dwelt in Asia Minor. Hence we
are not surprised to find that Nicephorus was an Iconoclast, and refused
to follow in the steps of Irene in the direction of restoring
image-worship. He did not persecute the “Iconodules,” as the Isaurians had
done, but he gave them no personal encouragement. This being so, it is
natural that we should find his character described in the blackest terms
by the monkish chroniclers of the succeeding century. He was, we are told,
a hypocrite, an oppresser, and a miser; but we cannot find any very
distinct traces of the operation of such vices in his conduct during the
nine years of his reign. He was not, however, a very fortunate ruler;
though he put down with ease several insurrections of discontented
generals, he was unlucky with his foreign wars. The Caliph
Haroun-al-Raschid did much harm to the Asiatic provinces, ravaging the
whole country as far as Ancyra, nor could Nicephorus get rid of him
without signing a rather ignominious peace, and paying a large
war-indemnity. A yet greater disaster concluded another war. Nicephorus
invaded Bulgaria in 811, to punish King Crumn for ravaging Thrace. The
Byzantine army won a battle and sacked the palace and capital of the
Bulgarian king; but a few days later Nicephorus allowed himself to be
surprised by a night attack on his camp. In the panic and confusion the
emperor fell, and his son and heir, Stauracius, was desperately wounded.
The routed army did not stay its flight till Adrianople, and left the body
of the Emperor in the hands of the Bulgarians, who cut off his head, and
made the skull into a drinking-cup, just as the Lombards had dealt with
the skull of King Cunimund three hundred years before.(23)
Stauracius, the only son of Nicephorus, was proclaimed emperor, but it
soon became evident that his wound was mortal, and Michael Rhangabe, his
brother-in-law, who had married the eldest daughter of Nicephorus, took
his place on the throne before the breath was out of the dying emperor’s
body.
Michael I. was a weak, good-natured man, who owed his elevation to the
mere chance of his marriage. He was a devoted servant and admirer of
monks, and began to undo the work of his father-in-law, and remove all
Iconoclasts from office. This provoked the wrath of that powerful party,
and led to conspiracies against Michael, but he might have held his own if
it had not been for the disgracefully incompetent way in which he
conducted the Bulgarian war. He allowed an enemy whom the East-Romans had
hitherto despised, not only to ravage the open country in Thrace, but to
storm the fortresses of Mesembria and Anchialus, and to push their
invasions up to the gates of Constantinople. The discontent of the army
found vent in a mutiny, and Leo the Armenian, an officer of merit and
capacity, was proclaimed emperor in the camp. Michael I. made no
resistance, and retired into a monastery after only two years of reign.
[811-13.]
Leo the Armenian proved himself worthy of the confidence of the army. When
the Bulgarians appeared in front of the walls of Constantinople they were
repulsed, but Leo tarnished the glory of his success by a treacherous
attempt to assassinate King Crumn at a conference—a crime as unnecessary
as it was unsuccessful, for the Emperor might, as the event proved, have
trusted to the sword instead of the dagger. In the next spring he took the
offensive himself, marched out to Mesembria, and inflicted on the enemy
such a sanguinary defeat that hardly a man escaped his sword, and Bulgaria
was so weakened that it gave no further trouble for more than fifty years.
Almost the moment that he was freed from the Bulgarian war, Leo became
involved in the fatal Iconoclastic controversy. Being a native of an
Oriental theme, he was naturally imbued with the views of his great
namesake, the Isaurian, and inclined to reverse the policy of the
monk-loving Michael I. But being moderate and wary he tried to introduce,
without the use of force, a middle policy between image-breaking and
image-worship—a fruitless attempt, which only brought him the nickname of
“the Chameleon.” Leo’s idea was the quaint device of permitting the use of
images, but of hanging them so high from the ground that the public should
not be able to touch or kiss them! This pleased nobody; on the one side,
the patriarch and his monks inveighed against the moving of the images,
while, on the other, tumultuous companies of Asiatic soldiery broke into
churches and mutilated all the pictures and figures they could find. The
seven years of Leo’s reign were full of ecclesiastical bickerings, but it
should be remembered to his credit that no single person suffered death
for his conscience’ sake in the whole period. The most violent of the
opponents of the Emperor were merely interned in remote monasteries, when
they ventured to set their will against his. Long ere the end of his
reign, Leo had been compelled to leave his half measures and prohibit all
use of images. Like Constantine Copronymus, he called a council to endorse
his action, and a majority of the Eastern bishops resolved that Iconolatry
was a dangerous heresy, and anathematized the patriarch Nicephorus and all
other defenders of the images.
Leo’s reign was prosperous in all save the matter of his religious
troubles. But he was not destined to die in peace in his bed. Michael the
Amorian, the best general in the empire, was detected in a conspiracy
against his master. Leo cast him into prison, but delayed his punishment,
and left his accomplices at large. Michael had many friends in the palace
who determined to strike a blow ere the Emperor should have discovered
their guilt. They resolved to slay Leo in his private chapel, as he
attended matins on Christmas Day, for he was accustomed to come unarmed
and unguarded to the early communion. Accordingly, the conspirators
attended the service, and attacked the Emperor in the midst of the
Eucharistic hymn. Leo snatched the heavy metal cross off the altar and
struck down some of his assailants, but numbers were too many for him, and
he was cut down and slain at the very foot of the holy table. [Christmas
Day, 820.]
Michael the Amorian was dragged out of his dungeon, saluted as emperor,
and crowned, even before the fetters were off his feet. It was not till
the ceremony had been performed that time was found to send for a smith to
strike away the rings.
Michael was by birth a mere peasant, but had raised himself to high rank
in the army by his courage and ability. He is sometimes styled “the
Amorian,” from his birth-place, Amorium in Phrygia, but more often
mentioned by his nickname of “the Stammerer.” He had been the friend and
adviser of Leo the Armenian at the time of the latter’s elevation to the
throne, and his conspiracy must be reckoned a gross piece of ingratitude,
even though we acknowledge that he was not personally responsible for his
master’s murder.
Though rough and uncultured, Michael was a man of very considerable
ability. He strengthened his title to the crown by a marriage with the
last scion of the Isaurian house, the princess Euphrosyne, daughter of the
blind Constantine VI. The religious difficulties of the day he endeavoured
to treat in an absolutely impartial way, so as to offend neither
Iconoclasts nor Iconodules. He recalled from exile the image-worshipping
monks whom Leo the Armenian had sent to distant monasteries, and
proclaimed that for the future every subject of the empire should enjoy
complete liberty of conscience on the disputed question. This was far from
satisfying the image-worshippers, who wished Michael to restore their
idols to their ancient places: but the Amorian would not consent to this,
and obtained but a very qualified measure of approval from the monastic
party.
It was not to be expected that the reign of a military usurper, with no
title to the throne whatever, would be untroubled by revolts. Michael had
his share of such afflictions, and though he finally slew Thomas and
Euphemius, the two pretenders who laid claim to his crown, yet by their
means he lost two not inconsiderable provinces of his empire. While the
rebellion of Thomas was in progress, an army of Saracens from Alexandria
threw themselves on the island of Crete, and conquered it from end to end.
When Michael’s hands were free he sent two great armaments to expel the
intruders, but both failed, and Crete was destined to remain for a whole
century in Moslem hands. Its hundred harbours became the haunts of
innumerable Corsairs, who grew to be the bane of commerce in the Levant,
and were a serious danger to the empire whenever its fleet fell into bad
hands and failed to keep the police of the seas.
A similar rising in Sicily under a rebel named Euphemius led to the
invasion of that island by an army of Moors from Africa, who landed in
827, and maintained a foothold in spite of all efforts to expel them. At
first their gains were not rapid, but in the time of Michael’s successors
they gradually won for themselves the whole of the island.
[Illustration]
Byzantine Metal Work (Our Lord and the Twelve Apostles). (_From "L’Art
Byzantin." Par Charles Bayet. Paris, Quantin, 1883._)
After nine years of reign the Amorian died a natural death, still wearing
the crown he had won. It was just fifty years since any ruler of the
empire had met such a peaceful end. He was succeeded by his son
Theophilus, a vehement Iconoclast, whose persecuting tendencies had been
with difficulty restrained in his father’s life-time. His accession was
the signal for a new campaign against image-worship; he induced the
patriarch John the Grammarian, a strong Iconoclast like himself, to
excommunicate as idolaters all who differed from him, and began to flog,
banish, and imprison their leading men. His persecution would have been
almost as vehement as that of Constantine Copronymus, but for the fact
that he did not ever inflict the punishment of death; branding and
mutilation however he did not disdain.
The Iconodules saw the vengeance of heaven for the misdeeds of Theophilus
in the disasters which he suffered in war from the Saracens. He fell out
with the Caliph Motassem, and in the first campaign took and burnt the
town of Zapetra, for which the Commander of the Faithful had great
regard.(24) This roused Motassem to furious wrath; he swore that he would
destroy in revenge the town which Theophilus held most dear; he collected
the largest Saracen army that had been seen since Moslemah beleaguered
Constantinople in 717, and marched out of Tarsus with 130,000 men, each of
whom (if legend speaks true) had the word Amorium painted on his shield.
For it was Amorium, the birth-place of the Emperor, and the home of his
ancestors that Motassem had sworn to sack. While one division of the
Caliph’s army defeated Theophilus, who had taken the field in person,
another headed by Motassem himself marched straight on Amorium, and took
it after a brave defence of fifty-five days. Thirty thousand of its
inhabitants were massacred, and the town was burnt, but the Caliph then
turned home satisfied with his revenge, and the empire suffered nothing
more from this most dangerous invasion. The Saracen war dragged on in an
indecisive way, but no further disaster was encountered.
There are other things to be recorded of Theophilus beside his persecution
of image-worshippers and his war with the Caliph. He was long remembered
for his taste for gorgeous display; of all the East-Roman emperors he
seems to have delighted the most in gold and silver work, gems and
embroidery. His golden plane-tree was the talk of the East, and the golden
lions at the foot of his throne, which rose and roared by the means of
ingenious machinery within, were remembered for generations.
Nor should the curious tale of his second marriage be left untold. When
left a widower he bade the Empress-dowager Euphrosyne assemble at her
levée all the most beautiful of the daughters of the East-Roman
aristocracy, and came among them to choose a wife, carrying like Paris a
golden apple in his hand. His glance was first fixed on the fair Eikasia,
but approaching her he found no better topic to commence a conversation
than the awkward statement that “most of the evil had come into the world
by means of women.” The lady retorted that surely most of the good had
also come into the world by their means, a reply which apparently
discomposed Theophilus, for he walked on and without a further word gave
the golden apple to Theodora, a rival beauty. The choice was hasty and
unhappy, for Theodora was a devoted Iconodule, and used all her influence
against her husband’s religious opinions.
Theophilus died in 842, while still a young man, leaving the throne to his
only son Michael, a child of three years, and the regency to the young
empress. The moment that her husband’s grave was closed Theodora set to
work to undo his policy. Amid the applause of the monks and the populace
of Constantinople she proclaimed the end of the persecution, sent for the
banished image-worshippers from their places of exile, and deposed John
the Grammarian, the Iconoclastic patriarch who had served Theophilus.
Within thirty days of the commencement of the new reign the images had
appeared once more on the walls of all the churches of Constantinople. The
Iconoclasts seem to have been taken by surprise, and made no resistance to
the revolution: however the empress did not take any measures to persecute
them; it was only power and not security for life and limb that they lost.
The sole permanent result of the long struggle which they had kept up was
a curious compromise in the Eastern Church on the subject of
representation of the human figure. Statues were never again erected in
places of worship, but only paintings and mosaics. It was apparently
believed that the actual image savoured too much of the heathen idol, but
that no offence could possibly be given by the picture, which served as a
pious remembrance of the holy personage it represented, but could be
nothing more. Nevertheless the veneration of the Byzantines for their holy
“Eikons” became almost as grotesque as idol-worship, and led to many
quaint and curious forms of superstition.