In the twenty-five years following Basil II’s death the Byzantine empire
had lost direction and momentum. The policy of military expansionism
inherited from Basil II had little to commend it. Keeping the empire on
a war footing was expensive. Cutting back on the armed forces was the
simplest way of reducing expenditure. The Bulgarian rebellion, followed
almost immediately by the 1042 uprising of the citizens of Constantinople
against Michael V, was an urgent reminder that a new approach to government
was needed. The new emperor, Constantine IX Monomachos,
had an agenda: military expansionism seemed out of place at a time when
the empire appeared to have secure frontiers, and Monomachos wished
to cut back on the military establishment. To carry out his programme of
reconstruction he turned to Constantine Leichoudes and the team of clever
young men he had assembled about him. These included Michael Psellos,
the future Patriarch John Xiphilinos and their teacher John Mauropous.
The thrust of their reforms was to strengthen the civil administration of
the empire and to simplify its military organisation.14 In frontier regions
the local levies were stood down and defence was left to professional troops
stationed at key points. The armies of the themes continued to exist but
largely on paper. Provincial administration passed increasingly from the
strat¯egos to a civilian official known as the judge or the prait¯or. This had
been an ad hoc development over the preceding fifty-odd years. Monomachos
regularised it by creating a new ministry at Constantinople under the
epi t¯on krise¯on, to which the civilian administrators were now responsible.
It completed a process of demilitarising provincial government.15
Constantine IX Monomachos’ propagandists presented his reforms in
the guise of a renovatio of the empire. Imperial revivals punctuated Byzantine
history. Normally, they centred on a new codification of the law. The
Isaurians issued the Ecloga (see above, pp. 275–6), theMacedonians the Basilika
(see above, pp. 301–2). Monomachos judged the Basilika to be more
than adequate. What was lacking was an effective legal education. This was
either picked up informally or was in the hands of the guild of notaries.
Monomachos therefore instituted as the centrepiece of his reforms an imperial
law school, placing it under the direction of a new official called the
nomophylax and appointing John Xiphilinos as the first holder of the office.
It was opened in 1047 and attached to theMangana complex.Monomachos
also created the post of consul of the philosophers for Michael Psellos. His
duties included supervision of the schools of Constantinople. This measure
was designed to bring educational establishments in the capital under more
effective government control. Education was at the heart ofMonomachos’
reforms.16
However admirable, Monomachos’ reform programme was not carried
out in full, for it offended too many existing interests. John Xiphilinos found
himself under pressure from the legal establishment and preferred to retire
to monastic seclusion on BithynianOlympus. JohnMauropous, appointed
bishop of Euchaita in deepest Anatolia, treated this as a form of exile, which
indeed it was. At the same time, conditions along Byzantium’s borders were
changing rapidly. The Pechenegs were dislodged from the Black Sea steppes
by the Uzes, nomads from further east. In the winter of 1046–7 the main
body of Pechenegs crossed the Danube, seeking refuge on Byzantine soil,
somewhat as the Goths had done seven centuries earlier. The settlement of
the Pechenegs was equally mishandled. Constantine IX Monomachos was
forced to send out a series of expeditions to pacify them. They had little
success. The upshot was that the Pechenegs were left in possession of large
tracts of the Balkans. Around the same time the Seljuq Turks began to make
their presence felt along the eastern frontier. In 1048 they laid siege to Ani,
the Armenian capital, which had recently been annexed by the Byzantines.
The Turks might have been thwarted on this occasion, but it was a taste of
things to come. The tide was also turning against Byzantium in southern
Italy, as Norman freebooters harried Byzantine territories from their base
at Melfi where they had established themselves in 1041.
The rapidly changing conditions in the empire’s frontier provinces meant
that Constantine IXMonomachos had to improvise. Experience had taught
him that they were danger zones. They had been the launching pad for the
two most serious revolts he had to face. The first came early in his reign
and was the work of George Maniakes who had been sent as supreme
military commander to Byzantine Italy by Michael V. He was suspicious
of the new regime, if only because his great enemy Romanos Skleros was
close toMonomachos.He crossed over to Albania in 1043 and advanced on
Thessaloniki down the EgnatianWay.His troops brushed aside the imperial
armies sent to oppose him, but in the hour of victory he was mysteriously
killed and the revolt fizzled out. The centre of the other revolt was the
major military base of the southern Balkans, Adrianople. Its leader was Leo
Tornikios, a nephew of the emperor. In the autumn of 1047 he advanced on
Constantinople and only the emperor’s coolness saved the day. There are
good reasons to suppose that underlying this revolt was dissatisfaction on
the part of the military families of Adrianople withMonomachos’ policies.
The emperor was cutting back on military expenditure while recruiting
detachments of Pechenegs to serve on the eastern frontier.
Constantine IXMonomachos had to devise some way of neutralising the
danger from discontented generals. In southern Italy he turned to a local
leader called Argyros, who despite his Greek name was a Lombard. He had
seized the city of Bari in 1040 and proclaimed himself ‘prince and duke of
Italy’, but he had opposed Maniakes’ rebellion. Monomachos was grateful
and brought him and his family to Constantinople. Argyros again proved
his loyalty to the emperor in 1047 when he helped defend Constantinople
against LeoTornikios. In 1051Monomachos sent Argyros to Italy as supreme
commander, an appointment which showed thatMonomachos was willing
to work through the local elites, rather than relying on Byzantine governors.
Such a policy seemed to offer two advantages: it should have reconciled local
opinion to rule from Constantinople, as well as leading to some relaxation
of the grip exerted by the imperial administration. This may have been
deliberate. The changing political conditions along the Byzantine frontiers
would have alerted the imperial government to one of the disadvantages of
the military expansionism espoused by Basil II. Byzantium was left exposed
to new forces gathering strength beyond its frontiers. Byzantium had been
more secure when protected by independent territories in Bulgaria and
Armenia, however irksome they could seem at times. By working through
Argyros, Monomachos seems to have been trying to shed some of the
responsibilities for frontier defence which now burdened his government at
Constantinople.He seems to have been trying to do something of the same
kind in the Balkans and Anatolia with his attempts at settling Pechenegs
and Armenians. But these efforts were mismanaged and only produced
friction with the local population. Disengagement is always one of the
most difficult political feats to carry off.
Constantine IXMonomachos’ reign was pivotal. It is scarcely any wonder
that later contemporaries unanimously blamed him for the disasters suffered
by the empire later on in the eleventh century. He had a programme
for the restoration of the empire and it failed. The programme was well
conceived, but was not able to survive a combination of internal opposition
and changes occurring along the empire’s frontiers, and its failure left
the empire adrift. Around 1050 Monomachos dismissed Leichoudes, the
architect of his reforms. His last years were characterised by an oppressive
fiscal regime in a vain effort to restore the empire’s finances.
World History
