Basil II never married. The understanding was that the succession would
pass to his younger brother Constantine VIII, but he never produced a male
heir, only daughters – of whom Zoe was Basil II’s favourite. It was clear for
many years before his death that succession to the throne would go with
the hand of Zoe. Basil considered various matches, but all were rejected,
and when he died Zoe was in her early forties, still a spinster and unlikely
to bear children. Why Basil II was so negligent about the succession is
hard to fathom. It may be that the short-term advantages of leaving the
succession in doubt were too tempting. Constantine VIII (1025–8) seemed
in no more of a hurry than his brother to marry Zoe off, and it was only on
Constantine’s deathbed that Zoe was married to Romanos Argyros (1028–
34), who then succeeded in the right of his new wife.However, Argyros was
already somewhat elderly and unlikely to satisfy Zoe’s hopes for children;
increasingly frustrated, Zoe took a young lover,Michael the Paphlagonian,
who happened to be the brother of John the Orphanotrophos, one of
Basil II’s eunuch ministers. When Romanos died in his bath in suspicious
circumstances, Michael married Zoe and duly succeeded to the throne.
Michael IV (1034–41) was remembered as an effective emperor, but he
soon fell sick and his brother John sought to keep the throne within the
family by persuading Zoe to adopt one of his nephews, also calledMichael,
as her son. Michael V came to power in 1041 with no intention of being
beholden to his uncle; rather, he wished to rule as an autocrat in the style of
Basil II. He drove out John the Orphanotrophos and other members of his
family, before packing Zoe off to a convent. This produced a spontaneous
uprising on the part of the people of Constantinople, who did not want to be
deprived of their ‘Mother’, as they calledZoe; the emperor was cornered and
blinded, and Zoe brought back in triumph to the capital. For a few months
in 1042 she ruled jointly with her younger sister Theodora, who had been
at the centre of opposition to Michael V’s coup. Zoe then married again,
this time to Constantine Monomachos, who as Constantine IX (1042–55)
became the new emperor. Zoe died around 1050, so Theodora succeeded
on Constantine IX Monomachos’ death in 1055. Upon Theodora’s death
in the following year the Macedonian line came to an end, complicating
the succession still further.
There is no prima facie reason for supposing that a troubled succession
would necessarily weaken the fabric of the Byzantine state. After all, the
succession was in doubt on many occasions in the tenth century, but this
did not prevent Byzantium from going from strength to strength. It might
be argued that frequent change of the imperial regime was a positive benefit
because it made for a greater flexibility and ability to meet critical situations.
The rise to power of Romanos I Lekapenos (920–44) against a background
of the threat from the Bulgarian tsar Symeon or the spectacle ofNikephoros
II Phokas (963–9) and of John I Tzimiskes (969–76) holding the throne in
trust for the young Basil II are cases in point. They gave clear direction to
imperial government, as did Basil (see above, pp. 520–2).
Basil II’s death, however, was followed by a spate of conspiracies. The
uncertainty of the succession provides only a partial answer. The conspiracies
had more to do with a rapidly changing elite, and the tensions created
found some release in plots against the throne. In the early tenth century the
Byzantine elite was a less complicated social group than it was to become.
It was divided into a military and a civilian establishment. The former was
dominated by the great military families of Anatolia, while the latter could
boast a handful of civil service families whose members had held office
for generations. The great military families went into decline from the
end of the tenth century. The Phokas family, for example, virtually disappears,
but others were more fortunate; the Skleroi kept estates in Anatolia,
but transferred their centre of operations to Constantinople and gradually
abandoned their military traditions. Basil II relied on other families for his
commanders, such as the Diogenes, Dalassenoi and Komnenoi. The fortunes
of these families were made under him. The military aristocracy was
becoming wider and more diffuse. The same could be said of the civilian
elite. Alongside the old civil service families, there were others which had
made their fortunes in trade, but had converted their wealth into status
through education and the purchase of honours. There were many interests
to be satisfied. Conspiracy and revolt might become necessary to satisfy
supporters and clients or might simply be a gesture of political credibility.9
Thus instability came to be built into the political structure. Some modern
historians would like to see this as a struggle between the military and
civilian elites. There is some contemporary support for this interpretation,
but it was a matter of continuing to apply the political divisions of a previous
age, which had largely disappeared. The politics of the eleventh century
were instead dominated by families that transcended these divisions. They
drew their support from the whole spectrum of political society. They were
often old military families that had transferred their centre of operation to
Constantinople. It comes as no surprise that Romanos Argyros emerged
as the successful claimant for Zoe’s hand and the imperial throne. His age
apart, he was eminently well qualified. He came from one of the most
ancient of the Anatolian military families, but one which had long been
resident in Constantinople. Romanos Argyros made a career and a name for
himself within the capital, becoming the City prefect. He was also related
to many of the great families of the capital, including the Monomachoi.
Constantine IX Monomachos came from a very similar background to
Romanos Argyros and was an obvious candidate for the hand of Zoe and
the imperial office.He had already plotted to seize the throne fromMichael
IV, who was regarded as an upstart, being one of those newcomers who had
recently risen to prominence. One ofMichael’s brothers had been a trusted
agent of Basil II and a sister married into the new wealth of Constantinople,
her husband having made a fortune out of shipbuilding. It was their son
who succeeded as Michael V: indeed, he was known contemptuously as
the ‘Caulker’ in reference to his father’s activities.
The snobbery of the Constantinopolitan crowd told against Michael V.
The citizens of Constantinople brought about his downfall and, although
their rising may have been spontaneous, it showed howpowerful a force they
were. Thereafter emperors had to placate Constantinopolitan opinion. This
was another factor making for political instability in the eleventh century.
In the tenth century internal tensions could be absorbed through a policy
of conquest and expansion. This became less easy after Basil’s death.
Basil II’s immediate successors attempted to pursue his policy of expansion
and annexation, but with little success. Large and expensive expeditions
were mounted against Sicily, Syria and even Egypt. All there was to show
for this costly effort was the annexation of Edessa in 1032 by the military
commander George Maniakes. Against this, there was a serious revolt by
the Bulgarians in 1040. Although it was suppressed, it suggested that Basil
II’s conquest was not that securely based. It was a watershed; the period of
expansion was over. The empire was beginning to turn in on itself and in
these circumstances internal divisions would only be magnified.
Keeping the empire on a war footing may explain why the imperial
government was faced with increasing financial difficulties after Basil II’s
death. Tax revolts were a feature of this phase of Byzantine history.10 Basil
must bear some of the blame; at the end of his life, as an act of charity, he
remitted two whole years’ taxation and his generosity was more than his
brother could afford. The new emperor had to rescind the measure and
collected five years’ taxation within the space of three years. This caused
hardship and sparked off at least one tax revolt. The next emperor Romanos
Argyros instituted a laxer and more humane fiscal regime. The opening years
of his reign coincided with drought and a plague of locusts in Anatolia,
forcing the peasants off their land and towards Constantinople. To get
them to return to their native villages Romanos Argyros provided each
with a donative of three nomismata, the rough equivalent of the tax on a
substantial peasant holding.He also abandoned Basil II’s practice of forcing
the ‘powerful’ landowners to pay any arrears of taxation. Instead he farmed
these out, which hints at financial difficulties. His successor Michael IV
seemed equally in need of ready cash: he forced the Bulgarians to pay
their taxes in coin, despite Basil II’s promise that they would be taxed in
kind, and this action sparked off the Bulgarian revolt (see below, p. 670).
Michael IV was also accused of tampering with the currency, while his
brother John the Orphanotrophos exploited the state’s right of monopoly
over the corn trade.
Modern numismatists have reluctantly exonerated Michael IV from the
charge of debasement. It was left to Constantine IXMonomachos to carry
out a controlled debasement of the Byzantine gold coinage. It was done
quite openly and deliberately. The fineness of the gold coinage was lowered
by stages from twenty-four carats to eighteen. Each stage of the debasement
was clearly signposted by the issue of different types of coin. This
debasement of the coinage is a feature of the history of eleventh-century
Byzantium which has attracted a great deal of attention from modern historians,
because it seems to provide a key to the economic developments of
the time. There are two major interpretations. The first is straightforward:
debasement was a solution to a budget deficit and was a way out of the
long-standing financial difficulties of the Byzantine state. The other interpretation
is more sophisticated; it sees debasement as a reaction to the
problems of rapid economic growth which the Byzantine empire was supposed
to be experiencing in the early eleventh century.11 The argument goes
that the Byzantine economy was consequently facing a liquidity crisis: not
enough coinage was in circulation to meet demand. Given the inelasticity
of the supply of precious metals, the only solution was to debase.
The second of these interpretation has its merits, and indeed someByzantine
civil servants did show a surprisingly advanced grasp of economics.
However, even if they had an inkling that an inelastic money supply was
a barrier to economic growth, they were not likely to consider this sufficient
justification for debasing a coinage that had remained more or less
unchanged since the days of Constantine the Great. Budgetary difficulties
are surely the only explanation for the debasement carried out by Constantine
IXMonomachos. The emperor could cite as a precedent the temporary
debasement carried out by Nikephoros Phokas in the tenth century. However
unpopular at the time, it had eased a period of financial embarrassment.
Even if budgetary difficulties are the explanation, debasement may still
have helped to ease a liquidity problem. But was there economic growth in
the early eleventh century on a scale sufficient to create a liquidity problem?
There are certainly signs of economic growth, but they mostly relate to the
Greek lands, where towns were prospering and becoming centres of trade
and manufactures. Thebes, for example, became a major producer of silk,
which in the tenth century had been a monopoly of the capital. There are
indications that coastal trade round the Aegean was prospering and that the
population of the region was growing. But this scarcely represents growth
of such an order that it would have induced the imperial government to
debase the gold coinage in order to increase the circulation of coinage.
In any case, it would be hard to square the financial difficulties that the
imperial government faced from the death of Basil II onwards with rapid
economic growth. Would the state not have been the chief beneficiary,
given that it imposed a value-added tax of 10 per cent on every commercial
transaction? This ought to have gone some way towards balancing the budget.
Admittedly, the continuing growth of population was not matched by a
corresponding increase in the basic tax yield. The agrarian legislation of the
tenth century was applied less stringently. As significant was the extension
of tax exemptions for the great estates. Blanket immunities were probably
less important than preferential rates of taxation, such as those enjoyed in
the eleventh century by the Athonite monasteries for their estates. This
was all part of the creation of a dependent peasantry, which paid taxes and
owed labour services to a lord. Ostrogorsky connected this manorialisation
of rural society with economic decline. He was certainly wrong, but he was
correct to see it as a drain on imperial revenues (see also above, pp. 488–91).
It seems safe to assume that there was economic and demographic growth
in the early eleventh century, but scarcely on a scale to create liquidity
problems. Debasement was a response to the government’s financial problems.
Tax exemptions were partly to blame, but these were symptomatic of
financial mismanagement on the part of the imperial government.Michael
Psellos blamed the government’s financial difficulties on the extravagance of
Zoe and her consorts. This may have been a little unfair on Zoe. Dabbling
in perfumes and alchemy may have been unnecessary, but was unlikely to
bankrupt the state. It was at best a reflection of lax government. Zoe was not
a great builder, unlike her husbands who expended colossal sums on their
building activities. Romanos Argyros erected the monastery of the Peribleptos
to serve as his last resting place and a memorial of his reign.Michael IV
was a patron of the monastery of Sts Cosmas and Damian at Kosmidion,
outside the walls of Constantinople, which he rebuilt on a lavish scale.
Constantine IX Monomachos added the church of St George and other
buildings to theMangana complex. Accounts by later travellers provide an
impression of the magnificence and scale of these churches, but none of
them survives.Only StGeorge of theMangana has been partially excavated:
its dimensions were imposing, with a dome of approximately ten metres
in diameter, thus rivalling some of the Justinianic foundations in size.12
One of ConstantineMonomachos’ foundations does survive, however: the
monastery of Nea Moni on the island of Chios. Its intricate planning and
rich mosaics give some idea of the care and money lavished on these imperial
foundations. But the costs did not end with construction and Nea Moni,
like St George of the Mangana, was generously endowed by the emperor.
There had not been building on this scale in the Byzantine empire since
the sixth century. Emperors had mostly been content to restore the public
monuments and churches inherited from the fifth and sixth centuries and
to add to the Great Palace of the emperors. Basil II’s main contribution
had been the repair of St Sophia in 989 after it had suffered damage in
an earthquake. The emperors of the eleventh century in good aristocratic
fashion wanted to leave their mark on the capital through their monuments
and used state revenues to this end. Again building even on this grand scale
was unlikely by itself to bankrupt the state, but taken in conjunction with
an extravagant court life it placed a substantial extra burden on the state’s
revenues. They were in any case likely to be declining because of Romanos
Argyros’ decision to abandon Basil II’s strict control over the arrears of
taxation.
Government expenditure was rising for quite another reason: the civil list
was increasing dramatically as more and more honours were granted out.
Michael Psellos was of the opinion that the honours system had been one of
Byzantium’s strengths, but was nowbeing abused. This he singled out as one
of the fundamental causes of the decline of the Byzantine state. Byzantium
had developed a complicated system of honours with a double hierarchy
of office and dignity. Both brought with them pensions and salaries. While
sale of office was rare, sale of dignities was an accepted part of the system.
If a dignity was purchased, then the holder received a pension at a standard
rate. It has been calculated that this brought a return of around 3 per cent,
but it was also possible to purchase at an augmented rate which brought
a rather higher rate of up to 6 per cent. The state was creating a system
of annuities. It almost certainly worked very well while it was properly
supervised. The potential cost to the state was also limited by the relatively
restricted number of dignities on offer. But this changed rapidly in the
eleventh century as new orders of dignities were created to meet a growing
demand. It was also the case that they might pass under the control of
individuals who could distribute them as they saw fit. They were regarded
as an investment which a father might make for his sons. Imperial largesse
to monasteries sometimes took the form of a grant in perpetuity of the
pensions attached to dignities. It is tempting to connect the debasement
of the coinage with the inflation of honours, all the more so because of
contemporary criticism of Nikephoros Phokas’ earlier debasement of the
coinage. One of his purposes was apparently to pay salaries and pensions in
debased currency and to collect taxation in the old coinage. The temptation
to debase would be all the stronger in the eleventh century as the honours
system got out of hand.
However, it is difficult, if not impossible, to establish such a connection
on a valid statistical basis. Our evidence is anecdotal. Jean-Claude Cheynet
discounts such evidence as unreliable.13He contends that the rate of pension
for each dignity is a better guide to the costs of the honours system. The
very highest dignities were always granted out sparingly. The inflation of
honours affected the lesser dignities from spatharokandidatos to vestarch¯es,
their pensions ranging from 36 nomismata to 1,008 nomismata or 14 pounds
of gold in weight, which was a considerable sum. But here the argument
breaks down; there is simply no way of computing the numbers of office
holders. All that remains is the anecdotal evidence. Contemporaries were
adamant that by the reign of Nikephoros III Botaneiates (1078–81) the
honours system had broken down, because the state was unable to meet
the cost of the pensions involved. The honours system had bankrupted
the state. Alexios I Komnenos’ reform of the honours system was equally
seen as an essential step towards restoring soundness to the body politic.
It has to be admitted, however, that complaints about the failure of the
honours system coincide with, rather than antedate, the debasement of
the coinage. The two worked together to undermine the fabric of the
state: the inflation of honours combined with other items of unnecessary
expenditure and with various fiscal measures to cause budgetary difficulties,
leading to debasement under Constantine Monomachos. Thereafter the
combination of debasement and a galloping inflation of honours ensured
that the financial position would continue to deteriorate andwell-conceived
measures of reform had little chance of success.
World History
