The so-called empire of Trebizond is the longest-lived of the Byzantine successor states which arose in the years following the Fourth Crusade. But in fact its origins lie in the civil conflict which engulfed the empire after the overthrow of the Emperor Andronikos I Komnenos in 1185. Shortly before the Fourth Crusade took Constantinople, the grandsons of Andronikos, Alexios and David Komnenos, had established themselves as independent rulers in Trebizond with the aid of their relative, Queen Thamar of Georgia. True to the claims of their family, their successors refused to recognise the emperors at Constantinople as having a superior claim and refused to renounce their own titles. Although restricted largely to the coastal zone along the Pontic coast and reaching inland as far as the high pastures separating coast from inland plateau, the ‘empire’ flourished for over 250 years through a combination of strategic good fortune, represented by the Pontic Alps, a natural defensive wall which was ably exploited by the Komnenian rulers, intelligent and careful diplomacy with all its neighbours, whether Muslim or Christian, the strong defences of the capital city, and the lack of a strong and united foe - until, that is, the Ottomans finally decided to extinguish Trapezuntine independence in 1461.
While retaining a tenuous independence, the Grand Komnenoi, as they styled themselves, depended very heavily on their status as vassals or allies of stronger neighbouring powers. Given the changing circumstances of the geopolitics of Asia Minor throughout this period, however, their flexibility in judging which side to support and when to offer diplomatic or military aid, limited though the latter may have been, served them well. Thus between 1214 and 1243 the Grand Komnenoi were tributary to the Seljuk Sultans of Konya, then to the Mongols, who invaded briefly in 1243, the Timurid Mongols after 1402 (when they defeated the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid at the battle of Ankara), and then the Ottomans after 1456. Marriage alliances with the Georgian kings on the one hand, and with the different, and competing, Turkmen rulers of the plateau (a number of imperial daughters and sisters were thus despatched as brides to Muslim lords) were a major element in the strategy of survival. But the empire also had a certain economic advantage, maintaining significant trade and commercial contacts with the Genoese and others, and serving also as a major entrepot in the trade between east and west. This brought in resources and gave the Grand Komnenoi a degree of flexibility which they would not otherwise have had. The Komnenoi may have had an additional advantage, insofar as they were effectively local rulers who had the support and loyalty of the local aristocracy as well as the church and the mass of the ordinary population in an area which had traditionally been somewhat separate. It is notable that traditional pre-1204 institutional arrangements in respect of provincial government and administration survived in Trebizond in a more conservative form than
Map 9.7 The empire of Trebizond. (After Bryer and Winfield, Byzantine Monuments and Topography of the Pontos.)
Elsewhere. At the end of its existence the empire still had banda organised for defence with a locally-recruited militia playing a key role, and with defence concentrated on a series of key strongholds controlling access to and egress from the fertile valleys which formed the agricultural heartlands of the empire in the hill regions between coastal plain and plateau.
The political bounds of the empire varied. In the period between 1204 and 1223 it controlled part of the Crimea, lost when pressure from the Tatars to the north became too great to resist effectively (although the Pontic family of the Gabrades remained important there in the following centuries). To the west it stretched at first as far as Sinope (until 1214 when it was taken by the Turks, and again from about 1254 to 1265); to the east as far as the coastal city of Bathys (Batumi). Fluctuation in territory was the norm: progressive incursions by Turkmen lords constantly ate away at the western borders, but were often made temporarily good by marriage alliances. This led both to a dual presence in many areas, and to a progressive assimilation of the Byzantine and some of the local Turk dynasties, so that while the western districts of the empire of Trebizond were already under Turkish overlordship by the 1380s, members of the ruling families of these regions could at a later date remain Muslims and be members of the Trapezuntine imperial court.
Administratively and militarily Trebizond retained in an evolved form much of the Komnenian system of the twelfth century, as did the other successor states. For much of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it was divided into seven banda, territorial units which reflected local geography, and concentrated resources in the hands of a local elite which could organise defence as well as a civil administration. A small imperial fleet existed until the later fourteenth century. The limited extent of the empire’s territory meant that central control, reinforced by frequent visitations by the court, was readily maintained. Only on the inland fringes of the empire were local lords more independent, co-existing in an uneasy relationship with their dangerous neighbours on the plateau, some of them surviving well beyond the political transformations around them as the power of first one and then another local ruler waxed or waned. But the Grand Komnenoi retained power until the end, when the power of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II, invigorated by the successful capture of Constantinople in 1453, demanded the surrender of the city, which passed peacefully into Ottoman hands in September 1461.
World History
