I like how a bunch of Byzantines went, "...Well, it worked out great for the Roman Empire in the 3rd century crisis! Why not do it again? Maybe I can be the new Constantine!"
Yes indeed. And it keeps happening! You'd think they'd have learned the third time or so around, because the pattern of inner strife + outer invasions = huge loss of territory and influence isn't hard to miss, but noooo.
Incidentally, a more positive pattern is that most Emperors who were succesful (success in the sense that they weren't maimed, exiled or killed but kept themselves and their dynastry on the throne and handed over the Empire either larger than they'd gotten it or, in later years, not worse off) had either a strong right hand man or a capable Empress or both at their side, all the way from Justinian + Belisarius + Theodora. And like I said, in Alexios Kommenos' case it was the fact that not only did he have a very capable mother but also that his older brother (Isaac) did not resent not having been the one to gain the purple but instead remaind solid supporting guy instead of backstabing relation) that enabled him to stabilize an Empire torn apart again. If he'd had to fear yet another candidate for Emperor would try every time he left the capital, or would try at one border while he was busy at the other, he couldn't have done it. The Byzantine Emperors were far more absolute monarchs than the German Emperors unless it was time for civil war again, but with all that concentrated power came the danger that if the Emperor wasn't up for the job, as poor Isaac Angelos was not, having swept into power more or less by sheer accident and the beheading of a guy with the courage of desperation, collapse happened far quicker and easier.
BTW, if you listen to the pod cast with its half an hour installments, something else that's noticeable is the transition from Emperors with mainly Latin names early on - Justin, Justinian, Leo, the occasional Tiberius - to Emperors with Greek and Jewish originated names - Heraclios, Alexios, Isaac, Manuel, even a David - which made me realize that the later isn't true for the HREs, whose names never seem to hail from the Bible. Which in turn reminded me of how the Byzantine self image changed in the century where Byzantium went straight from finally winning the eternal Rome vs Persia struggle that started all the way back in the days of the Roman Republic to losing province after province to the big wave of conquest following the birth of Islam and the first Caliphate, going from "We're the New Rome, Fuck Yeah" to "We're the new Jerusalem, surrounded by powerful enemies but holding on, unite, ye faithful!"
The Alexiad: according to the podcast, which includes an interview with a philogist about it, it's written in Attic Greek, i.e. Anna didn't use her contemporary Greek but deliberately went for the style of the Ancients, and also is a strange and unique mixture of historian style and performative feminity, i.e. every now and then Anna interrupts the narrative with an emotional lament to show she's not an unnatural unfeminine woman despite daring to write history, and then she switches back to continue with the story.
Disfigurement as something that disqualifies you from kingship: indeed that was the reason, and it was seen as a compromise, i.e. this way you didn't straight out murder your rival, which, well, bad in theory for Christians. It was cutting or slitting noses at first, but then the Emperor Justinian II, whose nose was cut and who was banished to Cherson (the podcast episode in question being made years ago, the podcaster could not count on Cherson being in the headline news, of course, so explained Cherson was as far as you could be banished in the Byzantine Empire), from which he made a spectacular comeback with a golden nose in place of the old one, a marriage to a Khan's daughter to supplement himself with a fighting force, and a gigantic grudge to those who deposed him. Ever after, deposed Emperors got blinded instead. Rebels who didn't make it to the throne still could get either option. BTW, Justinian "Slit-Nose" II's new wife had to baptized first before he could marry her, and the name he chose for her was, inevitably, Theodora. Alas he and his Theodora still had a far worse end than the original Justinian and Theodora.
Name outrage: There's also this episode of how the Great Schism came to be. Now Western and Eastern Europoean Christian habits and concerns had begun to drift apart for a while. For example, for the Byzantines, the big "Iconoclasm: yes or no?" question was a gigantic one, whereas the Latins couldn't have cared less. Moreover, as far as the Eastern Romans were concerned, the Bishop of Rome was one of five Patriarchs (of Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Constantinople and Rome) like in ye olde early Christian days, and okay, maaaaaybe the first among equals, but not by that much. Needless to say, that's not how the Popes in Rome saw it. Still, it was one united church able to come togeether in ecunomical synods until ca the 800s, when the Byzantines in their big iconoclasm: yes or no? struggles kept declaring the pro icons synod valid or invalid depending on who ruled in Constantinople, while the Latins ignored this, and so the number of synods were counted differently in West and East. It still was one church until this happened:
Western Europe: less and less priests learn Greek. Eastern Europe: less and less priests learn Latin.
Pope: By papal decision, religious services in Italy, and we do mean all of Italy, will take place in Latin. This includes you, Greek churches in Southern Italy.
Patriarch of Constantinople: How dare! Lemme shut down all Latin service churches in Constantinople in retaliation.
Pope: Argghh, with all these newly arrived Normans in Italy and my temporary imprisonment by same I actually wanted to send a delegation to Constantinople to ask the Emperor for help. Legates, make nice! But if the Patriarch behaves too high handedly, show him what's what.
Greek Bishop of Ohrid: Lemme add to this situation via sending a letter to the Pope detailing in great detail how very wrong several practices of the Latin service churches are, and how he needs to listen to the Patriarch of Constantinople instead. This letter will send in copies to a lot of other people, so the Legates will have read it upon arrival in Constantinople.
Papal Legates: HOW DARE!!!!! We need to do something about this. Hey, I've heard the Pope is in bad health. So let's go for broke and demand the Patriarch recognizes the Pope as his superior and the head of Christianity once and all. If he says no, well, we could, in theory, deliver excommunications in his name which the next Pope can take back. That surely will send a strong message to the Patriarch without destroying inter church relations for good. Yeah, that's what we'll do.
Patriarch: No way I am recognizing the Bishop of Rome as my boss.
Legates: Decide to excommunicate the Patriarch of Constantinople. In Constantinople.
Patriarch: HOW DARE!!!!!!!!! I'm excommunicating the lot of you, impudent Westerners!
Emperor: Under these circumstances, I don't think I can help the Pope against the Normans.
Pope: You know what, I've changed my mind. Normans, let's make a deal. I'll grant you Byzantine territory in Southern Italy, you help me out when I need some military backup, y/y?
=> Schism. Not immediately recognized as such, and reconciliation seemed to be possible for a while longer, but today, that's seen at the occasion.
Re: Byzantine tales, brought to you by virtue of me having finished the available podcast
Yes indeed. And it keeps happening! You'd think they'd have learned the third time or so around, because the pattern of inner strife + outer invasions = huge loss of territory and influence isn't hard to miss, but noooo.
Incidentally, a more positive pattern is that most Emperors who were succesful (success in the sense that they weren't maimed, exiled or killed but kept themselves and their dynastry on the throne and handed over the Empire either larger than they'd gotten it or, in later years, not worse off) had either a strong right hand man or a capable Empress or both at their side, all the way from Justinian + Belisarius + Theodora. And like I said, in Alexios Kommenos' case it was the fact that not only did he have a very capable mother but also that his older brother (Isaac) did not resent not having been the one to gain the purple but instead remaind solid supporting guy instead of backstabing relation) that enabled him to stabilize an Empire torn apart again. If he'd had to fear yet another candidate for Emperor would try every time he left the capital, or would try at one border while he was busy at the other, he couldn't have done it. The Byzantine Emperors were far more absolute monarchs than the German Emperors unless it was time for civil war again, but with all that concentrated power came the danger that if the Emperor wasn't up for the job, as poor Isaac Angelos was not, having swept into power more or less by sheer accident and the beheading of a guy with the courage of desperation, collapse happened far quicker and easier.
BTW, if you listen to the pod cast with its half an hour installments, something else that's noticeable is the transition from Emperors with mainly Latin names early on - Justin, Justinian, Leo, the occasional Tiberius - to Emperors with Greek and Jewish originated names - Heraclios, Alexios, Isaac, Manuel, even a David - which made me realize that the later isn't true for the HREs, whose names never seem to hail from the Bible. Which in turn reminded me of how the Byzantine self image changed in the century where Byzantium went straight from finally winning the eternal Rome vs Persia struggle that started all the way back in the days of the Roman Republic to losing province after province to the big wave of conquest following the birth of Islam and the first Caliphate, going from "We're the New Rome, Fuck Yeah" to "We're the new Jerusalem, surrounded by powerful enemies but holding on, unite, ye faithful!"
The Alexiad: according to the podcast, which includes an interview with a philogist about it, it's written in Attic Greek, i.e. Anna didn't use her contemporary Greek but deliberately went for the style of the Ancients, and also is a strange and unique mixture of historian style and performative feminity, i.e. every now and then Anna interrupts the narrative with an emotional lament to show she's not an unnatural unfeminine woman despite daring to write history, and then she switches back to continue with the story.
Disfigurement as something that disqualifies you from kingship: indeed that was the reason, and it was seen as a compromise, i.e. this way you didn't straight out murder your rival, which, well, bad in theory for Christians. It was cutting or slitting noses at first, but then the Emperor Justinian II, whose nose was cut and who was banished to Cherson (the podcast episode in question being made years ago, the podcaster could not count on Cherson being in the headline news, of course, so explained Cherson was as far as you could be banished in the Byzantine Empire), from which he made a spectacular comeback with a golden nose in place of the old one, a marriage to a Khan's daughter to supplement himself with a fighting force, and a gigantic grudge to those who deposed him. Ever after, deposed Emperors got blinded instead. Rebels who didn't make it to the throne still could get either option. BTW, Justinian "Slit-Nose" II's new wife had to baptized first before he could marry her, and the name he chose for her was, inevitably, Theodora. Alas he and his Theodora still had a far worse end than the original Justinian and Theodora.
Name outrage: There's also this episode of how the Great Schism came to be. Now Western and Eastern Europoean Christian habits and concerns had begun to drift apart for a while. For example, for the Byzantines, the big "Iconoclasm: yes or no?" question was a gigantic one, whereas the Latins couldn't have cared less. Moreover, as far as the Eastern Romans were concerned, the Bishop of Rome was one of five Patriarchs (of Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Constantinople and Rome) like in ye olde early Christian days, and okay, maaaaaybe the first among equals, but not by that much. Needless to say, that's not how the Popes in Rome saw it. Still, it was one united church able to come togeether in ecunomical synods until ca the 800s, when the Byzantines in their big iconoclasm: yes or no? struggles kept declaring the pro icons synod valid or invalid depending on who ruled in Constantinople, while the Latins ignored this, and so the number of synods were counted differently in West and East. It still was one church until this happened:
Western Europe: less and less priests learn Greek.
Eastern Europe: less and less priests learn Latin.
Pope: By papal decision, religious services in Italy, and we do mean all of Italy, will take place in Latin. This includes you, Greek churches in Southern Italy.
Patriarch of Constantinople: How dare! Lemme shut down all Latin service churches in Constantinople in retaliation.
Pope: Argghh, with all these newly arrived Normans in Italy and my temporary imprisonment by same I actually wanted to send a delegation to Constantinople to ask the Emperor for help. Legates, make nice! But if the Patriarch behaves too high handedly, show him what's what.
Greek Bishop of Ohrid: Lemme add to this situation via sending a letter to the Pope detailing in great detail how very wrong several practices of the Latin service churches are, and how he needs to listen to the Patriarch of Constantinople instead. This letter will send in copies to a lot of other people, so the Legates will have read it upon arrival in Constantinople.
Papal Legates: HOW DARE!!!!! We need to do something about this. Hey, I've heard the Pope is in bad health. So let's go for broke and demand the Patriarch recognizes the Pope as his superior and the head of Christianity once and all. If he says no, well, we could, in theory, deliver excommunications in his name which the next Pope can take back. That surely will send a strong message to the Patriarch without destroying inter church relations for good. Yeah, that's what we'll do.
Patriarch: No way I am recognizing the Bishop of Rome as my boss.
Legates: Decide to excommunicate the Patriarch of Constantinople. In Constantinople.
Patriarch: HOW DARE!!!!!!!!! I'm excommunicating the lot of you, impudent Westerners!
Emperor: Under these circumstances, I don't think I can help the Pope against the Normans.
Pope: You know what, I've changed my mind. Normans, let's make a deal. I'll grant you Byzantine territory in Southern Italy, you help me out when I need some military backup, y/y?
=> Schism. Not immediately recognized as such, and reconciliation seemed to be possible for a while longer, but today, that's seen at the occasion.