|
HOME | GREEK LANGUAGE | LIBRARIES | BLOG | HELP | SEARCH | FREEWARE | BOOKSTORE |
|
|
Ιnternal affairs under the Comneni and Angeli
|
Page 9
As far as the relations of the Angeli to the pope are concerned, the pope was guided by political expediency, desiring, of course, to induce the eastern church to adopt union. The pope's plan failed. The complicated international situation, especially just before the Fourth Crusade, brought forward the king of Germany, who seemed to take an important part in the solution of the Byzantine problem. As the king of Germany was the most dangerous foe of the papacy, the pope, in order to prevent the western Emperor from getting possession of the Eastern Empire, endeavored by all means to support the schismatic eastern Emperor, even a usurper such as Alexius III who had dethroned his brother Isaac. Innocent III was in a rather embarrassing position during the Fourth Crusade, when the head of the Catholic church, at first acting very energetically against the diversion of the crusade, was gradually forced to change his mind and to declare the compliance of God with the sack of Constantinople by the crusaders, almost unexampled in barbarity as it was.
In summary, religious life under the Comneni and Angeli, a period of one hundred and twenty-three years (1081-1204), was marked by extraordinary intensity and animation in external relations and especially by conflicting and contradictory internal movements. Without doubt, from the point of view of religious problems this epoch is of great importance and of vivid interest.
Page 9
Internal administration. Financial and social conditions. As a general thesis one may say that the internal situation of the Byzantine Empire and the administrative system changed little in the course of the twelfth century. Whereas the history of the Byzantine church under the Comneni and Angeli has been more or less fully investigated, conditions are quite different for internal social and economic life. And if the internal history of Byzantium has been inadequately investigated, there is a particular lack of thorough research in the period beginning with the epoch of the Comneni. Even today histories usually offer on this subject short chapters, based sometimes only on general speculations, some occasional remarks or excursus, or at the very best, small articles on one problem or another, so that, at least for the present, there is no adequate conception of the internal history of this epoch. The most recent investigator of this period, the French scholar Chalandon, died before he could publish the promised continuation of his book in which the problem of the internal life of Byzantium in the twelfth century was to have been fully discussed.
A representative of the large landowning nobility of Asia Minor, Alexius Comnenus, became Emperor of a state in which the financial system was entirely disorganized both by numerous military enterprises and by internal troubles of an earlier period. In spite of the crippled financial condition, Alexius, especially in the beginning years of his rule, had to remunerate his partisans, who had supported him in gaining the throne, and to present the members of his family with rich gifts. Fierce wars with the Turks, Patzinaks, and Normans, and the events connected with the First Crusade also required enormous expenditures. The estates of large landowners and of monasteries served as a means for replenishing the treasury.
As far as one can judge from the fragmentary information of the sources, Alexius had no scruples in confiscating the property of large landowners; even in the case of political plots capital punishment was often replaced by confiscation of land. The lands of the monasteries, which were given as grants (in Greek kharistikia) for life to recipients who were thence called kharistikarioi, were exposed to similar confiscation.
The system of kharistikia was not invented by the Comneni, but because of their financial difficulties, they perhaps resorted to it more frequently than anyone else. The system is connected with the secularization of the monastic estates under the iconoclastic emperors and probably with some phenomena of the social life of a still earlier time. In the tenth and eleventh centuries the system of kharistikia was already in frequent use. Monasteries were granted both to ecclesiastics and laymen, even to women, and it happened sometimes that monasteries for men were granted to women, and those for women to men. The kharistikarios was expected to defend the interests of the monastery granted to him, to watch over it in order to secure it from the caprice of the governor or tax gatherers and from illegal taxes, and to manage skillfully monastic economy, converting to his own benefit the revenues which remained after he had fulfilled his obligations. Of course, in reality he neglected his duties, and the monastic donations in general were nothing but a source of revenue and profit. Accordingly monastic economy was growing weak and declining. The kharistikia were very profitable for the receivers, and the Byzantine high officials sought for them eagerly. The ordinance of Alexius which provided for the conversion of some sacred vessels into money was later abrogated by him.
A History of the Byzantine Empire - Table of Contents
|
|
Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/vasilief/internal-affairs-angeli.asp?pg=9
