nus with the Russian Prince Vladimir, whose name is closely connected with the conversion of Russia to Christianity. In the ninth decade of the tenth century the position of the Emperor and his dynasty seemed very critical. Bardas Phocas, the leader of the rebellion against Basil, won over to his side almost all of Asia Minor and drew close to the capital; at the same time the northern provinces of the Empire were in danger of being invaded by the victorious Bulgarians. Under these difficult circumstances Basil appealed for help to the northern Prince Vladimir, and succeeded in forming an alliance with him on the condition that Vladimir should send 6,000 soldiers to aid Basil, for which he was to receive the hand of the Emperor's sister, Anna, and promise to accept Christianity and convert his people. With the help of this subsidiary Russian regiment, the so-called "Varangian-Russian Druzhina" (Company), the insurrection of Bardas Phocas was suppressed and its leader killed. But Basil was apparently unwilling to live up to his promise of arranging the marriage of his sister, Anna, to Vladimir. Then the Russian prince besieged and took the important Byzantine city of Cherson (Chersonesus, or Korsun) in the Crimea and forced Basil to yield and fulfil his original promise. Vladimir was baptized and married the Byzantine princess, Anna. It is not known exactly whether Russia's conversion to Christianity took place in 988 or in 989. Some scholars accept the former date; others, the latter. Peaceful and friendly relations were established between Russia and the Byzantine Empire, and they lasted for a considerable length of time. Both countries engaged freely in extensive trade with one another. According to one source, during the reign of Constantine Monomachus, in the year 1043, "the Scythian merchants" (i. e., Russians) in Constantinople and the Greeks had a quarrel, during which a Russian nobleman was killed. It is very probable that this incident was used by Russia as a sufficient motive for a new campaign against the Byzantine Empire. The Russian Great Prince Iaroslav the Wise sent his older son, Vladimir, with a large army on numerous vessels to Byzantine shores. This Russian fleet was almost demolished by the imperial forces through the use of Greek 40 Georgii Cedreni, Hist., II, 551. fire. The remnants of the Russian army of Vladimir hastened to retreat. This expedition was the last one undertaken by the Russians against Constantinople in the Middle Ages. The ethnographic changes which occurred in the steppes of present-day Southern Russia in the middle of the eleventh century because of the appearance of the Turkish tribe of the Polovtzi removed all possibilities of direct relations between Russia and the Byzantine Empire. The Patzinak problem in the time of the Macedonian dynasty. In the eleventh century the Patzinaks of the Greek sources, or the Pecheniegs of the Russian chronicles, exerted enormous influence upon the fates of the Empire for a considerable length of time. There was even a moment, shortly before the first Crusade, when for the only time in their brief and barbarian historical existence the Patzinaks played a very significant part in universal history. We shall speak of this in its proper place. The Byzantine Empire had known the Patzinaks for a long time. They had settled some time in the ninth century on the territory of modern Wallachia, north of the Lower Danube, and in the plains of what is now Southern Russia, so that the territory occupied by them extended from the Lower Danube to the shores of the Dnieper, and some times even beyond this river. In the west the border line between their territory and the Bulgarian kingdom was definitely established, but in the east there was no district boundary because the Patzinaks were constantly forced to the west by other barbaric nomadic tribes, especially by the Uzes and the Cumans, or Polovtzi. In order to understand more clearly the subsequent historical events, we must keep in mind that the Patzinaks, the Uzes, and the Cumans were all tribes of a Turkish origin, and therefore akin to the Seljuq Turks, who began to menace Byzantine possessions in Asia Minor in the eleventh century. The Cumanian dictionary or lexicon, which has survived until our own days, proves convincingly that the language of the Cumans or the Polovtzi is so closely related to other Turkish tongues that the difference between them is only that of dialects. For the future historical developments this kinship between the Patzinaks and the Seljuq Turks was of very great importance. The Byzantine rulers considered the Patzinaks as their most significant northern neighbor because they were the basic element in maintaining the equilibrium of the Empire's relations with the Russians, Magyars, and Bulgarians. Constantine Porphyrogenitus devoted much space to the Patzinaks in his work On the Administration of the Empire, written in the tenth century and dedicated to his son Romanus, who was to succeed him on the Byzantine throne. The royal writer advises his son first of all to maintain peaceful and friendly relations with the Patzinaks for the benefit of the Empire; for so long as the Patzinaks will remain friendly to the Empire, neither the Russians, nor the Magyars, nor the Bulgarians will be able to attack Byzantine territory. From many things recorded by Constantine in this work it is also evident that the Patzinaks served as mediators in the trade relations of the Byzantine districts in the Crimea (the theme of Cherson) with Russia, Khazaria, and other neighboring countries.11 Hence the Patzinaks of the tenth century were of great importance to the Byzantine Empire, both politically and economically. In the Russian chronicles the Patzinaks are also well known. In the second half of the tenth and early part of the eleventh centuries conditions changed. Eastern Bulgaria, as we know, was conquered in the time of John Tzimisces, and Basil II continued the conquest until all of Bulgaria was under Byzantine sway. The Patzinaks, who had formerly been separated from the Byzantine Empire by the Bulgarian kingdom, now became direct neighbors of the Empire. These new neighbors were so strong and numerous and aggressive that the Empire was unable to offer adequate resistance to their onslaught, caused by the pressure of the Polovtzi from behind. Here is how Theophylact of Bulgaria, the church writer of the eleventh century, speaks of the irruptions of the Patzinaks, whom he calls Scythians: "Their invasion is a flash of lightning; their retreat is both heavy and light at the same time: heavy with spoils and light in the speed of their flight. . . . . The most terrible thing about them is that they exceed in number the bees of the springtime, and no one knows yet how many thousands, or tens of thousands they count; their number is incalculable."42 41 Constantini Porphyrogeniti, De administrando imperio, I-VIII, 67–74. Until the middle of the eleventh century, however, the Empire, apparently, had no cause to fear the Patzinaks. They became dangerous only when, in the middle of that century, they crossed the Danube. V. G. Vasilievsky, who was the first among historians to make clear the historical significance of the Patzinaks, wrote in 1872 concerning their advance into Byzantine territory, "This event, which has escaped the attention of all modern historical works, had enormous significance for the history of humanity. In its consequences it was almost as important as the crossing of the Danube by the Western Goths, which initiated the so-called migration of nations."43 Constantine Monomachus (1042-54) assigned the Patzinaks certain Bulgarian districts for settlement and gave them three fortresses on the shore of the Danube. It became the duty of the Patzinak settlers to defend the borders of the Empire from the attacks of their kinsmen who remained on the other side of the river, as well as against the campaigns of the Russian princes. 44 But the Patzinaks on the northern shores of the Danube were obstinately advancing to the south. In the early period of their irruptions they had crossed the Danube in large numbers (some sources speak of 800,000 people) which had descended as far as Hadrianople, while some of their smaller detachments had reached even the capital. Still, the troops of Constantine Monomachus were able to resist these hordes and deal them very painful blows. But toward the end of Constantine's reign it became more difficult to oppose the advance of the Patzinaks. The expedition against them organized by the Emperor toward the end of his reign resulted in a complete annihilation of the Byzantine army. "In a terrible night of slaughter the crushed Byzantine regiments were destroyed by the barbarians almost without any resistance; only a small number of them escaped somehow and reached Hadrianople. All the gains of former victories were lost." 43 V. Vasilievsky, "Byzantium and the Patzinaks," Works, I (1908), 7-8 (in Russian). G. Cedrenus, II, 585. 45 V. Vasilievsky, I, 24 (in Russian). This complete defeat made it impossible for the Empire to begin a new struggle with the Patzinaks, and the Emperor was forced to buy peace at a very heavy price. The generous gifts of the Empire to the Patzinaks induced them to promise to live peacefully in the provinces occupied by them north of the Balkans. The Empire also bestowed Byzantine court titles upon the Patzinak princes. Thus, in the later years of the Macedonian dynasty, especially in the time of Constantine Monomachus, the Patzinaks were the most dangerous enemy of the Empire in the north. The relations of the Byzantine Empire with Italy and Western Europe in the time of the Macedonian dynasty.-The Italian developments of this period consisted primarily of the successful Arabian campaigns in Sicily and Southern Italy. We must remember that by the middle of the ninth century the republic of St. Mark (Venice) freed itself completely of Byzantine power and became an independent state. The Empire and this new state treated each other like independent governments in all the negotiations which arose later, in the time of Basil I, for example. In the ninth century their interests coincided in many points in as far as the aggressive movement of the western Arabs and the Adriatic Slavs were concerned. From the time of Basil I an interesting correspondence with Louis II has come down to us. It appears from the letters exchanged by these two rulers that they were engaged in a heated dispute regarding the illegal adoption of the imperial title by Louis II. Thus, even in the second half of the ninth century the results of the coronation of 800 were still in evidence. Although some historians have asserted that the letter of Louis II to Basil is spurious," recent historians do not support this opinion. Basil's attempt to form an alliance with Louis II failed. The Byzantine occupation of Bari and Tarentum and the successful operations of Nicephorus Phocas against the Arabs in Southern Italy raised Byzantine influence in 47 40 See for example, Amari, Storia dei Musulmani di Sicilia (Firenze, 1854), I, 381. A. Kleinclausz, L'Empire Carolingien: ses origines et ses transformations (Paris, 1902), PP. 443 ff. 47 J. Gay, L'Italie Méridionale et l'Empire Byzantin (Paris, 1904), pp. 84, 87, 88; L. M. Hartmann, Geschichte Italiens im Mittelalter (Gotha, 1908), III, part 1, 306-7: F. Dvornik, Les Slaves, Byzance et Rome au IX siècle (Paris, 1926), pp. 220-21. |