What makes an empire? What are the driving forces and mechanisms that sustain it as a system and, when the level of internal pressure becomes critical, cause its dissipation? Do all empires subscribe to an identical developmental model or do they follow separate paths? Byzantium, which is the archetypal Christian state, serves as a case study in the present monograph by Leonora Neville, lecturer at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Its temporal scope covers a period of 150 years during the 10th and 11th centuries, a period that witnessed enormous changes.
After the acknowledgments, a list of abbreviations and a map, the author sets the scene in a very succinct introduction. One would expect to read here a full-blown discussion of previous historiography, but Neville prefers to deal with it in the course of her narrative, an unusual approach, to say the least. Her sources include treatises, charters, lives of saints, seal inscriptions, etc.
She aims to disprove the prevailing view among scholars that Byzantium was a hermetic, inflexible, and overtly sophisticated society steeped in bureaucracy and strongly dominated by central authority. Her opinion is that expressions of political culture should be separated from administrative phenomena in order to understand the problem. Neville contends that the period in question was “a turning point in the administrative history of the Byzantine Empire, in which government through a pseudo-meritocracy of officials gave way to government through the personal relationships of aristocratic kin” (P. 6). Imperial authority was exercised very loosely or was absent altogether in the Byzantine provinces except through military presence and taxation. At the same time emperors prevented ambitious figures from becoming rivals, but when they appeared and tried to win power usually by revolt, no effort was spared to crush the budding opposition. Society was formed and governed by households possessing considerable autonomy.
Chapter 1 explores changes in the government administration of Byzantium during the 10th and 11th centuries. Initially they included recovery of territory in the East and its partial conversion into imperial estates, and monetization of the economy accompanied by devaluation of the coinage and increase of the population, but in the second half of the 11th century the situation worsened. Emperor Alexios I Komnenos (1081-1118) implemented reforms that abolished the traditional salaries paid to title-holders, gave them land to subsist on, introduced stricter taxation, and defended the frontiers by largely relying on the loyalty of local potentates. Neville presents the numerous titles, offices, and gifts that were provided to nobles and tied them to the throne. When the political culture of the Komnenoi changed, it became closer to the culture of medieval Western Europe. Alexios bestowed new titles and honors, mainly to the members of his family. This change from a ceremonial culture to a political one did not mean a shift in the manner of government or the number of officials. It is impossible to distinguish closely between Byzantine civil and military aristocracy either.
In Chapter 2, Neville poses the question about the preoccupations of imperial authority. In contrast to some attempts to dismiss it as weak and ineffective, Neville argues that this was hardly the case in Byzantium. The empire set itself limited goals that were largely achieved: preservation of territorial integrity, building and refurbishing fortifications, and resettling conquered populations. In exchange, the administration extracted taxes which the population naturally and in many cases successfully resisted. In the early 11th century revenue increased by direct exploitation of imperial estates. But Eastern Anatolia was lost to the Seljuks in the 1070s.
Chapter 3 begins by stating that Byzantine terms to describe people and things were not fixed but depended on relationships. Neville posits the literal or metaphorical prevalence of the oikos (household) as a dominant unit in all aspects of Byzantine society. Dynamics of life comprised competition and alliances between households. This model, as the author admits, calls “for a change of emphasis more than revealing anything new” (P. 68). It has already been adhered to by Paul Magdalino in a number of studies. In Neville’s view, the households are much more productive than the categories of dynatoi (powerful) and village communities in analyzing Byzantine society. She dwells at length on the structure of and the links between the family, empire, confraternity, military, slave households, and their common elements and their difference of status. The sources never exhibit any racial or social prejudice, which seems rather far-fetched (P. 80). Households were allied by marriage, god-parenting, adelphopoiia (ritual brotherhood), child adoption, monastic vows, friendship, geographic proximity, and common neighborhood.
Chapter 4 deals with the options available to some provincial households to negotiate with and manipulate the imperial administration. Poorer families lacked such connections while the “upper crust” communicated with the emperor. Authority depended on connections rather than on rank and office. Many held honorary titles without being salaried members of the administration. In the 11st century, provincial judges had both legal and administrative prerogatives that were difficult to balance. Medieval Byzantine law, which may seem too harsh today, was often mitigated by the principle of oikonomia expressed via lines of friendship, contact, and solidarity. Hence, well connected people preferred to appeal directly to the court. Households used to avoid or reduce taxation by hiding wealth, obtaining fiscal privileges, bribing, or even rebelling.
The regulation of Byzantine provincial society is covered in Chapter 5. Absence of overt control by imperial and local authority resulted in a high frequency of robbery and fraud. Many of the dishonest people were monks and priests, but the ecclesiastical hierarchy took little interest in controlling their impious behavior. In many cases public structures such as roads, bridges, and especially churches and monasteries were built and maintained by local communities. Imperial determination to maintain classical forms of urban space strongly declined between the 4th and 6th centuries. Rulers were interested only in building and rebuilding fortifications. Neville points out that religious devotion was expressed by erecting private chapels and monasteries rather than donating to community churches (Pp. 127-128). Often the authority of local bishops was disputed in spite of church canons. Although the empire was legally Orthodox Christian, many sects and religions existed and no systematic crusades ever took place against them.
“Contention and authority” is the title of Chapter 6. In the absence of state control, conflicts were settled with little regard to propriety or Christian ethics. The sacred character of churches and monasteries was often violated for personal gain. Coercion worked through associations and households even when the perpetrators were individuals. The role of documents in disputes was important but not vital because they tended to be reinterpreted, faked, or lost, after which evidence relied on often biased or insecure personal witness. On-site inspections were often resorted to for objective judgment. Neville claims that in Byzantium human witness was more authoritative at court than written documents, but in some cases the opposite was true. Outside intercession and appeals were typical but they could be withdrawn. Authority relied on public perception of proper behavior and all members of society were expected to fit their role and function.
A survey of the sources (which rather should have been included in the introduction) concludes the monograph. In spite of Neville’s heavy reliance on the evidence of sygillography and a quite extensive bibliography, she does not seem to be aware of the new publications of Byzantine seals from Bulgaria and Russia.^[1] It is odd that Neville’s book fails to consider the lives of three Bulgarian saints who lived in what is now Northern Macedonia during the 11th century – Prohor of Pchinia, Gabriel of Lesnovo and Joachim of Osogovo. Still, it is matter of dispute to what extent hagiographic vitae reflect real life because they tend to contain various traditional topoi transmitted from work to work.
All in all, this is a useful and illuminating but not sensationally novel book. It attempts to disclose that Byzantine society was much more prone to change, initiative, and mutual dependence than previously thought. In the ongoing argument about the essence of Byzantine administration, Neville tries to refute the prevailing view that it was a rigid bureaucracy and tilts the pendulum of argument too much to the other side. She tends to interpret the Byzantine Empire as a system of patriarchal networks providing grassroots democracy and personal freedoms in which imperial rule was hardly felt. Such a view seems to be influenced by modern political notions, so the truth should be sought somewhere between the two poles.