The defeats and territorial contraction which resulted from the expansion of Islam from the 640s in the east, on the one hand, and the arrival of the Bulgars and establishment of a permanent Bulgar Khanate in the Balkans from the 680s, on the other, radically altered the political conditions of existence of the east Roman state, and established a new international political context. The evolution of this context was characterised by the political, cultural and economic relations between the empire and its neighbours, on the one hand; and by the fluctuations in imperial political ideology and awareness of these relations, on the other. At the same time, the cultural imperialism of Byzantium, and the powerful results of this in the Balkans and Russia, had results which have influenced, and continue to influence, the Balkans and eastern Europe until the present day.
Under the Emperor Leo III (717-741) and his son and successor Constantine V (741-775), the period of contraction and defeat begins to change. Leo, who was from a military background and had come to power through a coup d’etat, seems to have been an able military and fiscal administrator; Constantine proved to be a campaigning emperor who introduced a number of administrative reforms in the army and established an elite field army (the so-called imperial tagmata) at Constantinople in the 760s. Political stability internally, the beginnings of economic recovery in the later eighth century, and dissension among their enemies, enabled the Byzantines to re-establish a certain equilibrium by the year 800. In spite of occasional major defeats (for example, the annihilation of a Byzantine force following a Bulgar surprise attack in 811, and the death in battle of the Emperor Nikephoros I [802-811]), and an often unfavourable international political situation, the Byzantines were able to begin a more offensive policy with regard to the Islamic power to the east and the Bulgars in the north - in the latter case, combining diplomacy and missionary activity with military threats. From the early ninth century imperial authority was re-established over much of the southern Balkans and the Illyrian coastal regions; while successive Byzantine victories in central Asia Minor from the 860s on (and in spite of occasional setbacks, such as the Arab sack of the important fortress town of Amorion in 842) stabilised a new frontier and pushed the Caliphate onto the defensive. By
The early tenth century, and as the Caliphate was weakened by internal strife, the Byzantines were beginning to establish a certain advantage; and in spite of the fierce and sometimes successful opposition of local Muslim warlords (such as the emirs of Aleppo in the 940s and 950s), there followed a series of brilliant reconquests of huge swathes of territory in north Syria and Iraq, the annihilation of the Second Bulgarian Empire, and the beginnings of the reconquest of Sicily and southern Italy.
During the last years of the ninth century and into the first two decades of the tenth, the recently-Christianised Bulgar state posed a serious threat to the empire - Constantinople was briefly besieged - but peaceful relations (followed by an increasing Byzantine influence on Bulgar culture and society) lasted for much of the tenth century. Resurgent Bulgar hostility resulted in a long and costly series of wars, culminating in the eventual destruction of an independent Bulgar Tsardom after 1014 and its absorption into the empire. By the time of the death of the soldier-emperor Basil II ‘the Bulgar-slayer’ (1025) the empire was once again the paramount political and military power in the eastern Mediterranean basin and south-east Europe, rivalled only by the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt and Syria.
The offensive warfare that developed from the middle of the ninth century reacted, in its turn, upon the administration and organisation of the state’s fiscal and military administrative structures. The provincial militias became less and less suited to the requirements of such campaigning, tied as they had become to their localities, to what was in effect a type of guerrilla strategy, and to the seasonal campaigning dictated by Arab or
Bulgar raiders. Instead, regular field armies with a more complex tactical structure, specialised fighting skills and weapons, and more offensive elan began to develop, partly under the auspices of a new social elite of military commanders who were also great landowners, partly encouraged and financed by the state. Mercenary troops played an increasingly important role as the state began to commute military service in the provincial armies for cash with which to hire professionals: by the middle of the eleventh century, a large portion of the imperial armies was made up of indigenously recruited mercenary units together with Norman, Russian, Turkic and Frankish mercenaries, mostly cavalry, but including infantry troops (such as the famous Varangian guard).
The expansionism of the period c. 940-1030 also had negative outcomes. Increasing state demands clashed with greater aristocratic resistance to tax-paying; political factionalism at court, reflecting in turn the development of new social tensions within society as a whole, and in the context of weak and opportunistic imperial government, led to policy failures, the over-estimation of imperial military strength, and neglect of defensive structures. Pecheneg raids in the Balkans, the appearance of Seljuk raiders in the Armenian highlands, and the appearance of Norman mercenaries in Italy were all harbingers of change to come. Yet in 1050 the empire was at the height of its territorial power, its international position appeared unassailable, and its capital city was one of the most populous, commercially vibrant and cosmopolitan in the western Eurasian world.
Map 5.3 Territorial losses and gains: the empire c. 1040.
World History
