Basil’s settlement of Bulgaria should be viewed against this background.
Ohrid and the other residences of Samuel and John Vladislav were divested
of their royal trappings. John’s widow,Maria, and her children were drawn
into Basil’s court circle, receiving titles. Several of the males eventually rose
to high office in the imperial administration. Basil is credited with the
desire ‘not to innovate at all’,93 letting revenues be raised in grain and wine
rather than coin. It is most probable that these and other administrative
duties were, in the remoter regions, left to local notables bedecked with
titles and offices. Basil had never recognised the patriarchal rank of Bulgaria’s
head churchman, but now he reaffirmed the special status of the
Bulgarian church. Basil’s appointee as archbishop was a Bulgarian monk
named John, a concession to his new subjects’ sensibilities, and his concern
for the church’s well-being is expressed in three imperial charters confirming
its rights. That of 1020 sternly forbids other metropolitans (subject
to the Constantinopolitan patriarch) from encroaching into the Bulgarian
province. Archbishop John is to have authority over the same number
of sees as his precursors in the time of ‘Peter the emperor and Samuel’.94
Imperial officials, including tax-collectors, were forbidden to interfere in
the churches’ or monasteries’ affairs on pain of the ‘great and pitiless . . .
wrath of our majesty’.95
To the north-west, Basil consolidated his possession ofVidin, and pushed
further north-westwards. The recalcitrant potentate who controlled Sirmium
was assassinated and the town became the headquarters of a new
Byzantine theme. Even the Croats, a people hitherto only spasmodically
connected with Byzantium, now came within its orbit. The ruling brothers,
Gojslav and Kreˇsimir III, formally submitted to Basil and received court
titles, thus acknowledging his commanding position in the Balkans and
beyond. King Stephen of Hungary was now his ally and may well have
taken part in the last stages of the campaign against John Vladislav and the
final occupation of Ohrid in 1018. That same year, Doge Otto Orseolo of
Venice drove the Croats back from the region of Zara, and imposed tribute
on some of the cities on islands off the Dalmatian coast. The Croats were
hemmed in by Byzantium’s possessions, allies and vassals.
Basil showed no signs of being prepared to let his ‘spear lie still’ after his
subjugation of the Balkans. Although now well into his sixties, he embarked
on a massive expedition to Caucasia in 1021 and 1022.He superintended the
takeover of the administration of Vaspurakan, whose lord, Sennacherim-
John Artsruni, had been induced to cede his realm to Basil (see also pp. 360,
696). He fought a series of engagements against King George I of Georgia,
in order to retrieve all the forts and lands claimed as the inheritance of
David of Tao. After George had renounced all title to Tao, Basil returned
to Constantinople. His energies now swung towards the central Mediterranean
and still more aggressive campaigning. He was about to embark
with reinforcements for an invasion of Sicily when he fell ill and died, on
13 or 15 December 1025.
World History
