C

CAESAR. A title equivalent to emperor-designate during the tetrarchy of Diocletian. Subsequently it was assigned almost exclusively to the emperor’s sons until the 11th century, after which time its conferral became more widespread (e.g., as an honorary title awarded to foreign rulers). See also AUGUSTUS.

CAESAREA. Chief city of Cappadocia. Basil the Great, the great church father of the fourth century, was born in Caesarea and was one of the so-called Cappadocian church fathers, along with Gregory of Nazianzos and Gregory of Nyssa. Its strategic location astride a major highway network explains its fate at the hands of Persian and Arab invaders. Despite Justinian I’s rebuilding of its walls, the Persians under Chosroes II captured and burned the city in 611. The Arabs captured it briefly in 646. In the 10th century Caesarea was the center of the Phokas family, producing Nikephoros II Phokas and the rebel Bardas Phokas. The Danishmendids conquered the city in 1092. See also ARISTOCRACY; DYNATOI; SABAS.

CAESAREA MARITIMA. Port city and major commercial and cultural center of northern Palestine. It was rebuilt on a grandiose scale by Herod the Great, king of Judaea (37–4 b.c.). Caesarea Maritima still maintained its public architecture and cultural splendor in the time of Eusebios of Caesarea, historian of the early church and bishop of Caesarea from 313 to his death in 339. The city was seized by the Persians in 604 and held by them until 628. It returned to Byzantine possession before the Arabs conquered it around 640, after which it was not recovered by Byzantium.

CAESAROPAPISM. A term invented by 19th-century Western European scholars to describe how the Byzantine emperor allegedly acted as both “caesar” (i.e., emperor) and pope.

The term infers that, in effect, the Byzantine church was under the control of the state and that emperors could decide matters of church doctrine. This needs much qualification, but at its core is a conceptual truth, namely, how difficult it was for Byzantines to separate their church from the emperor. Emperors were conceived of as God’s representatives on earth, with a duty to defend the faith and watch over the church. In practice, this often resulted in emperors appointing (and deposing) bishops, including patriarchs, calling church councils and, on occasion, confiscating church property.

Nevertheless, few emperors attempted to pronounce on dogma as Justinian I did, and Justinian I was forced to call the Fifth Ecumenical Council at Constantinople to validate his Three Chapters. Even Iconoclast emperors used church councils for this purpose. Emperors who defied the church at large, as happened at the Council of Lyons in 1274, and at the Council of Ferrara-Florence in 1438–1439, when the Byzantine church was subjected to the papacy for reasons of political expediency, faced popular opposition from both laity and clergy.

If used at all, the term caesaropapism needs qualification, depending on the particular emperor and on the particular area of church-state relations the term is said to refer to. See also GREGORY II; GREGORY III; THEOCRACY.

CALABRIA. From about the middle of the seventh century the term no longer designated all of southern Italy, but only the peninsula (Bruttium in antiquity) that forms the toe of the Italian “boot,” separated from Sicily by the Strait of Messina. After the Arab conquest of Sicily in 902, Calabria was reorganized into a theme, which continued to be threatened by Arabs and Lombards in the 10th and 11th centuries. Norman expansion in southern Italy resulted in the conquest of Calabria by 1059. Norman suppression of the Greek rite in Calabria and Apulia was closely intertwined with the schism between the churches in 1054.

CALIPH. “Successor” in Arabic, the title given to the successors of Muhammad the Prophet. Caliphs had secular and spiritual authority, but not the prophetic authority of Muhammad himself. The first Caliphs were Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthma, and Ali. The first Caliphate was founded in 661 by the Umayyads with its capital at Damascus. Its immediate successor was the Abbasid Caliphate, which ruled from Baghdad.

CALIPHATE. See CALIPH.

CANON LAW. Canon law comprised church regulations combined with selected legislation from civil law. Regulations issued by councils, including Ecumenical Councils, comprised the core of canon law. Supplemental collections like the nomokanones, which included church regulations and excerpts from civil laws (e.g., from the Corpus Juris Civilis), were also important. Among the noteworthy later commentators were Theodore Balsamon, who defended the use of charistikion, and Demetrios Chomatenos.

CANTACUZENE, JOHN VI. See JOHN VI KANTAKOUZENOS.

CAPELLA PALATINA. Latin term for “palace chapel,” referring to the palace chapel of the Norman king of Sicily, Roger II. Its construction began soon after 1130. Its plan is typical of the architecture adopted by the Norman rulers of Sicily, namely that of a longitudinal three-aisle basilica. A cupola is situated before the main apse. The interior shows Islamic and Byzantine decorative influences, the former in the wooden ceiling of the nave, derived from Islamic palace architecture.

The earliest mosaics are in the Byzantine style, with Greek inscriptions. The later wall mosaics are in the same style but were created by Sicilian craftsmen and have Latin inscriptions. The interior decoration is so overwhelmingly Byzantine that the Capella Palatina can be said to be chiefly a monument of Byzantine art.

CAPITATIO-JUGATIO. Tax system inaugurated by Diocletian that lasted until the beginning of Justinian II’s reign. It combined, in some fashion that is not entirely clear, both a land tax and a poll tax, as a way to assess the annona in an equitable way. Each jugum, a unit of land, was assessed along with each caput (person, livestock) who cultivated the land. See also TAXATION.

CAPPADOCIA. Region of central Asia Minor famous for the Cappadocian Fathers, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzos, and Gregory of Nyssa. Its strategic importance from the seventh century onward lay in its close proximity to frontier passes through the Taurus Mountains, from either Caesarea or Tyana.

The route from Tyana led to the famous Cilician Gates. Attacks by Persians and Arabs made it imperative that the theme system include Cappadocia, hence the themes of Anatolikon and Armeniakon. In the ninth century, the smaller themes of Charsianon, Cappadocia, and kleisoura were carved from these larger themes. By that time the Paulicians were a threat as well.

Fortified refuges (kastra, the singular being kastron) were built to protect the imperiled indigenous population, and Slavs, Syrians, and Armenians were resettled to make up for civilian losses. Under these circumstances the military aristocracy increased its power, as reflected by the revolt of Bardas Phokas against Basil II. For a while, the extension of the eastern frontier by Basil II and his immediate predecessors took pressure off Cappadocia until the advent of the Seljuks. The Seljuks sacked Caesarea in 1067. After the Battle of Mantzikert in 1071 they annexed all of Cappadocia. See also GÖREME; fortifications; HIGHWAYS AND ROADS.

CAPUA. See BENEVENTO; CITIES; LONGOBARDIA.

CARAUSIUS. See CONSTANTIUS CHLORUS.

CARIA. Region of southwest Asia Minor. In the early fourth century it became a province whose metropolis was the city of Aphrodisias. In the seventh century it was incorporated into the theme of Kibyrrahaiotai. See also LATROS.

CARTHAGE. The great African port city in the Bay of Tunis that had no rival in the western Mediterranean outside Rome. It exported massive amounts of grain, oil, and other agricultural products, also fine pottery, including African red slipware. Conquest by the Vandals in 439 did little to hinder its commercial exports.

The Vandals made Carthage their staging area for piratical raids throughout the western Mediterranean, the pillage of Rome in 455 being the most famous of those raids. Its church suffered persecution by the Vandals, who were Arian, but previous to the Vandals it was embroiled in controversy over Donatism. Despite Justinian I’s reconquest (533) and refurbishment of the city, and the subsequent creation by Maurice of the Exarchate of Carthage, the city declined in the seventh century. By the middle of the seventh century Arab raids were having an effect on the economy. In 698, Carthage fell to the Arabs, and thus into the orbit of the Islamic world. See also ABD AL-MALIK.

CASPIAN GATES. Passes in the Caucasus Mountains north of Georgia (Iberia) used to defend against barbarians to the north of the Caucasus. Treaties between Byzantium and Persia in 363, 422, and 442 provided for a joint defense of the passes, with Byzantium contributing a fixed sum to keep the fortifications in repair. See also BARBARIANS; WAR.

CASSIODORUS. Latin historian; senator and high official under Theodoric the Great. Unfortunately, both his world chronicle (from Adam to 519) and his History of the Goths have not been preserved, except in an abridgment of the latter by the historian Jordanes. See also GOTHS; HISTORY; OSTROGOTHS.

CATACOMB. An underground cemetery consisting of corridors, rooms (cubicula), and burial niches (loculi and arcosolia). The most famous catacombs are those around Rome, which contain wall paintings (frescoes) that comprise the earliest Christian art.

CATALAN DUCHY OF ATHENS. See CATALAN GRAND COMPANY.

CATALAN GRAND COMPANY. Band of Spanish mercenaries hired by Andronikos II Palaiologos. They were supposed to halt the Ottoman expansion in what little was left of Byzantine Asia Minor; instead, they wreaked havoc on Byzantine territories from 1304 to 1309. Estimates of their numbers vary; there may have been as few as 2,000.

Despite some initial success, relations with Andronikos II soon broke down, and in 1305 their leader Roger de Flor was assassinated. After this, the Catalans went on a rampage that eventually led them into Thrace and Macedonia, where they besieged monasteries on Mount Athos, devastated Chalkidike, and unsuccessfully besieged Thessalonike by land and sea. In 1309 they attacked Latin territories farther south, and in 1311 they took control of Athens, creating the Catalan Duchy of Athens and Thebes, which lasted until 1388.

The Catalan Grand Company was hardly unique as a fighting band. The Navarrese Company took over the Principality of Achaia in 1381. In 15th-century Italy such companies, led by professional generals (condottieri), were often employed by city-states, and were just as often out of control. See also EPHESUS; GALLIPOLI; KYZIKOS; PHILADELPHIA.

CATALANS. See CATALAN GRAND COMPANY.

CATALAUNIAN FIELDS. Site of an important battle in Gaul in 451 between Attila and Aetius, Roman general of the West. Even though the armies fought to a standstill, Aetius won a strategic victory, since Attila was forced to withdraw his Huns from Gaul. See also BARBARIANS.

CATHARS. See BOGOMILS; PAULICIANS.

CATHEDRA. See APSE.

CATHERINE, MONASTERY OF SAINT. Famous fortified monastery built by Justinian I at the base of Mount Sinai (in the Sinai Peninsula, which is north of the Red Sea) to protect the monks who tended a church on the site of the Burning Bush. Catherine of Alexandria, martyred in 305, became the monastery’s patron saint in the 10th or 11th century. The walls were meant to protect against Bedouin raids, and its isolation helped to protect its icons and manuscripts from destruction by Iconoclasts. It remains a repository of priceless art. See also MONASTICISM; RELICS.

CAUCASUS. Mountain system that extends 1,210 kilometers from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea, acting as a divide between Asia and Europe. Through this divide were several passes, the most famous being the Caspian Gates, which, if left undefended, steppe peoples from the north could penetrate.

The defense of these passes was shared mutually by Byzantium and Persia from 363 to 422, after which Byzantium arranged to subsidize the Persian defenses. The wars with Persia during the reign of Justinian I included fighting in Abchasia and Lazika, just south of the Caucasus along the Black Sea coast, with the aim of preventing the Persians from gaining access to the Black Sea. Justinian I also had an interest in the region as a way of connecting with northern trade routes to China, thus circumventing Persian middlemen who controlled the silk trade. Maria of Alania came from Iberia in the Caucasus. See also GEOGRAPHY.

CAVALRY. See ARMY.

CEFALÙ. See ROGER II; SICILY.

CELL. A monk’s private room, or individual dwelling. The largest early Christian monastery in Egypt, dating from the sixth to eighth centuries, was named “Kellia,” which in Greek means “cells,” for it was a collection of about 1,600 individual dwellings. The lavra developed from this, as a clustering of individual cells under the direction of an archimandrite, where monks lived solitary lives, assembling only occasionally during the week. The koinobion was a more developed form of communal monasticism. See also ASCETICISM; EREMITE.

CEYLON. Modern Sri Lanka, called Taprobane by the Byzantines. The island was the focal point for goods in transit from the Far East, including pepper, cloves, silk, sandalwood, musk, and copper. Kosmas Indikopleustes describes Byzantine merchants trading there, but much of the trade was carried on by merchants from south Arabia, Axum (Abyssinia), and Persia. Direct Byzantine trade with Ceylon, always endangered by aggressive Persian merchants, ended in the early seventh century with the Arab conquest of ports along the Red Sea that had served to offload goods destined for Byzantium. See also TRADE AND COMMERCE.

CHALCEDON. One of the chief cities of Bithynia, where the important Council of Chalcedon was held in 451. It originated as a sister city to Constantinople, for both were founded by Megarian colonists in the seventh century b.c. across the Bosporos from each other. Persian and Arab attacks on Asia Minor occasionally aimed at Constantinople. When they did, they inevitably imperiled Chalcedon. The Persians captured Chalcedon twice. It was attacked by the Arabs in the seventh century. In 1350 it was conquered by the Ottomans. See also ECUMENICAL COUNCILS.

CHALCEDON, COUNCIL OF. The Fourth Ecumenical Council, held in Chalcedon in 451. This council was presided over by the emperor Marcian, and it marked a personal victory for his consort Pulcheria. The 449 “Robber” Council of Ephesus was condemned, along with Eutyches and Dioskoros, and all others who supported Monophysitism.

The condemnation of Nestorianism at the Ecumencial Council of Ephesus in 431 was reiterated, although the omission of three Nestorian writers in the condemnation would later embroil Justinian I in the so-called affair of the Three Chapters. Nevertheless, the Council of Chalcedon was decisive in the formulation of Orthodoxy, confirming the existence of Christ’s dual natures, human and divine, united inseparably and unconfusingly into a single, unique person (hypostasis).

The council was also a serious blow to the prestige of the see of Alexandria, which had supported Monophysitism. This council raised the status of the patriarchate of Constantinople by increasing its territory with the addition of the dioceses of Thrace, Asia, and Pontos, allowing it to consecrate regional metropolitans and hear appeals from them. It also placed under the see of Constantinople the jurisdiction of missionary areas to the north of these three provinces. In effect, Constantinople was elevated to the most powerful see in the East. Canon 28 confirmed Constantinople’s ranking as second only to the see of Rome, and increased the power of all bishops by putting monasteries under the authority of their local bishops. See also CHRIST, THEOLOGY OF; CONSTANTINOPLE, FIFTH ECUMENICAL COUNCIL; CONSTANTINOPLE, SIXTH ECUMENICAL COUNCIL; DUIN; LEO I THE GREAT; MELKITES; PETER THE FULLER; THEOLOGY; UNION OF THE CHURCHES.

CHALDIA. Theme created by Theophilos on the southern coast of the Black Sea with its capital at Trebizond. The theme of Paphlagonia seems to have been created at the same time. Both themes strengthened Byzantine control of the Black Sea. After 1204 it was incorporated into the Empire of Trebizond.

CHALKE. The major ceremonial entrance to the Great Palace at Constantinople. The original structure was destroyed in the Nika Revolt of 532. It was rebuilt by Justinian I as an enclosed porch covered by a dome resting on the arches of four barrel vaults and their corner pendentives. Its great bronze doors are probably why it was called “brazen” (chalke). Its dome was decorated with mosaics showing Justinian I with Theodora and an entourage of senators, and the emperor victorious over the Goths and Vandals. The exterior was replete with statues of emperors, of Belisarios, as well as ancient statuary (four gorgon heads, two Athenian philosophers).

The icon of Christ, called Christ Chalkites, was the most famous part of the decoration. Leo III’s removal of this icon in 726 was the beginning of Iconoclasm. When Iconoclasm was finally defeated in 843, the patriarch Methodios asked the painter Lazaros to create a new icon of Christ to replace the one destroyed by Leo III.

CHALKIDIKE. Peninsula just southeast of Thessalonike that projects into the northern Aegean Sea. At its southernmost extremity are three smaller peninsulas, Kassandra, Sithonia (or Longos), and the easternmost one, Mount Athos. In the 14th century Chalkidike was pillaged by the Catalan Grand Company, then conquered by Stefan Urosh IV Dushan, before falling prey to the Ottomans.

CHALKOKONDYLES, LAONIKOS. Byzantine historian of the Ottoman conquest. Born in Athens, he was a student of the humanist George Gemistos Plethon at Mistra. In his old age, sometime after 1480, he composed his magisterial history of the rise of the Ottomans, carrying it down to the capture of Lemnos in 1463.

His sense of chronology leaves much to be desired, and the modern reader will not appreciate the contrived speeches (after the manner of Thucydides). However, he did use first-rate Turkish sources and his focus on an enemy of Byzantium is unique among Byzantine historians, of whom he was the last. See also DOUKAS; KRITOBOULOS, MICHAEL; SPHRANTZES, GEORGE.

CHANCEL. See BEMA.

CHARIOT RACES. See CONSTANTINOPLE; DEMES; HIPPODROME.

CHARISTIKION. The temporary leasing of a monastery’s administration to a layman, or institution, by an emperor, patriarch, or some other state or church official. The origins of the practice are obscure; the period of Iconoclasm has been suggested. Nevertheless, by the 11th century the practice was well established. When it worked well, it benefited both the lay administrator and the monastery, for it promoted the economic development of monastic lands. However, some bishops complained about poor lay management, loss of revenues, and improper interference in church affairs.

Patriarch Nicholas III Grammatikos supported these complaints, and he convinced Alexios I Komnenos to require that all such grants be registered with the patriarch so they could be monitored. A grant of charistikion differed from a grant of pronoia since the former, unlike the latter, had no obligation of service. See also MONASTICISM.

CHARLEMAGNE. His coronation as emperor by Pope Leo III at Rome on 25 December 800 provoked a major crisis with Byzantium. There could be only one emperor; this everyone agreed upon. Thus, in Byzantine eyes Charlemagne was a usurper. In western eyes, he appeared differently.

In 800 Irene sat on the throne of Byzantium, in contradiction to previous tradition that a woman could not hold sole imperial power. In effect, it could be argued that the throne was theoretically vacant. Moreover, Irene had come to power by blinding her son, Constantine VI. Irene’s support of icon veneration was attacked in the Libri Carolini (Books of Charles), issued ca. 793 by Charles’s advisors to attack the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea of 787. Despite these justifications, Charlemagne attempted to improve his position by proposing marriage to Irene, but Irene was overthrown and exiled in 802 by Nikephoros I. Years of negotiations followed, until in 812 Charlemagne was granted the imperial title, though the Byzantines considered him emperor of the Franks, not Emperor of the Romans. See also CROATS; HADRIAN I; HARUN AL-RASHID; ISTRIA.

CHARLES I OF ANJOU. King of Naples and Sicily, the so-called Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and brother of French king Louis IX, claimant to the Byzantine throne. Encouraged by Pope Clement IV to intervene in Italy for the purpose of destroying German control over the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Charles did so in 1266 by defeating Manfred. The next year he was planning a Crusade, approved by Pope Clement IV, to conquer Byzantium and force through the union of the churches.

After the death of Louis IX, who had disapproved of the project, Charles pressed ahead, capturing Dyrrachion and sending troops to the Peloponnesos to fight alongside William II Villehardouin, Latin prince of Achaia. However, when Michael VIII Palaiologos agreed to a union of the churches at the Council of Lyons in 1274, Charles was thwarted. Nevertheless, the election in 1281 of Pope Martin IV, a Frenchman and ardent supporter of Charles I of Anjou, allowed Charles to renew his plans to attack Byzantium.

Charles’s plans were spoiled in 1282 when the revolt of the Sicilian Vespers, and intervention of Peter III of Aragon, ejected the French from Sicily, ending the greatest threat to Byzantium in the second half of the 13th century. Charles died three years later in 1285. See also NICHOLAS III.

CHARSIANON. The name of a fortress in Cappadocia, subsequently of the kleisoura around it, then of the larger theme. The theme must have been created after 863, because Theophanes Continuatus still refers to it as a kleisoura in that year. By the end of the ninth century it is being called a theme; most likely Leo VI raised it to this status. See also DOUKAS, CONSTANTINE.

CHARTOPHYLAX. A church or monastic archivist, responsible for official documents, letters, and other records. The secular counterpart was the chartoularios. Alexios I Komnenos supported the right of the chartophylax of Hagia Sophia to preside over the patriarchal synod of Constantinople in the patriarch’s absence, something Patriarch Nicholas III Grammatikos opposed as an infringement of his own power. John XI Bekkos was a chartophylax before becoming patriarch under Michael VIII Palaiologos. See also SEALS.

CHARTOULARIOS. Typically an archivist, or a bureaucrat responsible for keeping of records. The ecclesiastical counterpart was the chartophylax. For example, the chartoularios tou kanikleiou (Chartulary of the Inkpot) kept the pen and purple ink used by the emperor to sign decrees, a position the eunuch Theoktistos held under Michael II the Amorion. The term could also refer to the chief administrator of a government bureau (sekreton). From the 10th century onward some chartoularioi held military commands. See also BUREAUCRACY.

CHERSON. Byzantine port city at the southwestern end of the Crimea that provided an important link to northern barbarian peoples, especially in terms of trade (e.g., furs, slaves, wax, honey, salted fish) and diplomacy. Its stout fortifications (rebuilt by Zeno and Justinian I) and a deep natural harbor played a crucial role in relations with the Khazars and Kievan Rus.

For example, Vladimir I may have been baptized in Cherson, and certainly clergy from Cherson played an important role as staff in Vladimir I’s new church. It also was a place of exile for two important personages, Pope Martin I and Justinian I, and a place of refuge for monks fleeing from Iconoclasm. Theophilos created the theme of Cherson, guarded by a fortress called Sarkel.

After the Latin conquest of Constantinople in 1204, Cherson fell under the sway of the Empire of Trebizond; its commercial importance declined when Genoa established trading colonies in the Crimea. See also BLACK SEA.

CHILIA. Port at the mouth of the Danube on the Black Sea that exported grain, honey, wax, wine, and slaves to Constantinople. In the 13th century it changed control from the Mongols to Byzantium and back again, only to pass to the Second Bulgarian Empire in the early 14th century, to Genoa, and then to the princes of Moldavia. The Ottomans captured it in 1484. See also TRADE AND COMMERCE.

CHINA. China was known to Byzantium through ambassadors from the Turks of central Asia. It was presumably from them that in the early seventh century the historian Theophylaktos Simokattes obtained detailed information about Chinese culture and imperial Chinese ceremonial. Trade was also done through intermediaries.

Chinese silk was imported from Persia until, according to Prokopios of Caesarea and Theophanes of Byzantium, Justinian I obtained its secrets from Nestorian missionaries, who also managed to smuggle out some silkworm eggs. Nestorian communities were established in China, and in 1278 Andronikos II Palaiologos received an embassy of Nestorians from Beijing. Paper was a Chinese invention that found its way to Byzantium by the ninth century, via the Arabs who learned it from Chinese they captured in Samarkand in 751.

Chinese awareness of Byzantium may have been primarily through the Byzantine gold solidus, which circulated in China, as well as through Byzantine glass, enamels, and other luxury items.

CHIONIADES, GREGORY. Astronomer who worked in Constantinople and Trebizond until he died around 1320. He journeyed to Tabriz, capital of the Mongol ruler of Persia, Ghazan Khan (1295–1304), where he studied Persian astronomy, and then returned to Trebizond to train students in it.

CHIOS. Island in the eastern Aegean Sea, where the famous monastery of Nea Mone is located. Chios is several kilometers from the coast of Asia Minor, and its history has often reflected the changing political fortunes of Asia Minor and of the Aegean Sea.

The Arabs made it one of their stations on the way to their siege of Constantinople in 674–678. By the end of the seventh century it was back in Byzantine hands, and in the ninth century it was included in the theme of the Aegean Sea. It stayed in Byzantine possession until 1204, when the Fourth Crusade partitioned Byzantium. Chios passed to Baldwin of Flanders, but John III Vatatzes recaptured it. Although the Treaty of Nymphaion gave it to the Genoese in 1261, they lost it to a Byzantine fleet in 1329. In 1346 the Genoese reconquered Chios, and it remained in the hands of the Genoese until the Ottomans conquered it in 1556. See also LEONARD OF CHIOS; TAFUR, PERO.

CHI RHO. Monogram of Christ’s name (Christogram) used by Constantine I the Great. It consisted of an overlap of the first two Greek letters for Christos, the Chi (X) and a Rho (P). The monogram developed from the original labarum, the military standard of Constantine I. The use of the monogram was apotropaic, which is to say to turn away evil, which is why it was used on the labarum of Constantine I’s army. See also MAGIC.

CHITON. (Greek for “tunic.”) The basic component of Byzantine dress, worn by both men and women. Chitons could be long or short, short-sleeved or long-sleeved. At court one’s rank was visible by the kind of chiton one wore (e.g., the kamision indicated a lower rank than the skaramangion). See also CHLAMYS; HIMATION.

CHLAMYS. (Greek for “garment.”) Broadly speaking, a cloak worn fastened at the right shoulder. The great, full-length chlamys was a feature of the imperial court. See also CHITON; LOROS; SAGION.

CHLEMOUTSI. See MOREA.

CHOIROSPHAKTES, LEO. Byzantine diplomat to the court of Symeon of Bulgaria. His letters illuminate Byzantium’s relations with Bulgaria during the reign of Leo VI. As a magistros under Basil I, and relative of Zoe Karbonipsina, he had good connections in the imperial court.

These connections may have helped him in 907, when he supported the revolt of Andronikos Doukas, but they were not enough to save him in 913 when he helped Constantine Doukas attempt to gain the throne. He was forced into a monastery, and thus out of public life. In addition to his letters, he authored epigrams, hymns, and theological works. Arethas of Caesarea wrote a pamphlet attacking his alleged paganism. Altogether, he was one of the most interesting personalities of Leo VI’s reign. See also DIPLOMACY.

CHOMATENOS, DEMETRIOS. Archbishop of Ohrid from 1216 to ca. 1236; jurist of canon law. Ohrid, situated in western Macedonia, belonged to the Despotate of Epiros in the first half of the 13th century. His literary works are the chief source for the internal history of the Despotate of Epiros, for its relations with neighboring states during the first half of the 13th century, and for the revival of law.

His coronation in Thessalonike of Theodore Komnenos Doukas as basileus and autokrator of the Romans created a schism between the churches of the Despotate of Epiros and the Empire of Nicaea that lasted from 1228 to 1233. Germanos II, the patriarch of Constantinople, condemned the coronation.

CHONIATES, MICHAEL. Metropolitan of Athens from 1182 to 1204; pupil of Eustathios of Thessalonike and elder brother of historian Niketas Choniates. He resisted Leo Sgouros during the latter’s siege of Athens, but the conquest of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade forced his retirement in 1205.

Michael Choniates is best known today for his letters, sermons, and speeches, which provide information about many topics relating to Athens and its larger environs. He paints a dismal picture of predatory tax collectors, marauding pirates, greedy local magnates encroaching on peasant properties, and growing decline of agriculture in the years leading up to the Latin conquest. See also GREECE.

CHONIATES, NIKETAS. One of the great historians of medieval Byzantium, along with Michael Psellos and Anna Komnene; he was the younger brother of Michael Choniates. His History deals with the period from 1118 to 1206, when hostility between Byzantium and the West reached the breaking point. His work, which is particularly important for the reign of Manuel I Komnenos and his immediate successors, relies on eyewitnesses, including his own personal experience as a high official during the reign of Isaac II Angelos. His treatment of the reign of John II Komnenos may derive from the work of John Kinnamos. He paints a tragic picture of the Crusader sack of Constantinople in 1204. See also HISTORY.

CHORA MONASTERY. See CONSTANTINOPLE; gregoras, nikephoras; METOCHITES, THEODORE; parekklesion.

CHORIKIOS OF GAZA. Teacher of rhetoric in Gaza in the sixth century. He was a pupil of Prokopios of Gaza, about whom he composed a funeral oration. Among his many works is a description of the Church of Saints Sergios and Stephen at Gaza, built prior to 536. The church is known only through this description.

CHOSROES I. Persian king (531–579) whose long reign was a glorious counterpart to Justinian I’s reign. He was a reformer, like Justinian I, who revamped the internal administration of his kingdom and made the Persian army more efficient and battle-ready. He also patronized scholarly works.

Yet his wars with Byzantium overshadowed all else. The first war (527–532) resulted in an “everlasting” peace (requiring annual tribute to Persia) that allowed Justinian I the freedom to pursue his conquest of the West. War resumed in 540 when Chosroes invaded Syria and captured Antioch. A struggle over Lazika dragged on until a general treaty, pledging peace for 50 years, was signed in 561. Byzantine control over Lazika was confirmed, but there was little else to show for decades of intermittent warfare. War erupted in 572 when Justin II refused tribute to the Persians. The main theater of war was Armenia. The war continued to be waged until 591 (after Chosroes I’s death in 579) by his grandson Chosroes II. See also DAMASKIOS; SERGIOPOLIS.

CHOSROES II. Persian king (590–628); the grandson of Chosroes I. He inherited a war with Byzantium that was begun in 572 and fought mainly over control of Armenia. The war ended in 591 after Maurice intervened in a civil war in Persia to put Chosroes II on the throne. The resulting treaty was advantageous to Byzantium, for it ended the annual tribute to Persia, ceded to Byzantium much of Persian Armenia and eastern Mesopotamia, and returned two important frontier towns, Dara and Martyropolis.

War erupted again when Phokas overthrew Maurice in 602. Chosroes II invaded Mesopotamia, Syria, and Asia Minor, allegedly to avenge the death of Maurice. When Heraklios came to power in 610, the war continued in Persia’s favor until Heraklios launched a counteroffensive in 622 that ended in the destruction of Persia’s army at the Battle of Ninevah in 627. Chosroes II was overthrown and murdered the following year.

CHRIST, THEOLOGY OF. The basic theology of Christ necessarily focused on the problems inherent in Christian monotheism, which posited one God with a Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Controversies concerning Christ’s humanity were considered in the first four Ecumenical Councils, culminating in the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The relationship of God the Father to God the Son was considered at the Council of Nicaea in 325, where it was resolved that Christ was not a created being (as Arius had thought), but fully equal to God the Father, having coexisted in eternity, if not in human time. Christ’s relationship to the Holy Spirit was considered at the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 381, where a similar equality of external existence was proclaimed for the Holy Spirit.

The relationship of Christ’s human and divine natures was considered at the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus in 431, where the attempt by Nestorios to separate the divine and human natures of Christ was condemned. At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, Monophysitism, which denied Christ’s humanity, was also condemned; Christ was proclaimed as both fully human and fully divine, in a unique personhood.

These problems concerned ordinary people as well as theologians, since personal salvation was connected to correct belief. A breakaway Nestorian church was created, also a Monophysite church, concentrated chiefly in Syria and Egypt. These churches were disaffected from the imperial church and with its Orthodox patriarch at Constantinople, creating the potential for political unrest.

There were also ramifications for Byzantine art. During the two periods of Iconoclasm (726–787, 815–843), Iconoclastic emperors maintained that by depicting Christ, the artist is either separating the two natures of God and thus, indirectly, professing Nestorianism, or combining the two natures into one divine nature (Monophysitism). After the final defeat of Iconoclasm in 843, standard representations of Christ, for example, as the Good Shepherd, as Pantokrator, as Emmanuel, as Antiphonetes (“the guarantor”) reappeared in Byzantine art. See also HERESY; ORTHODOXY; SCHISM.

CHRISTODOULOS OF PATMOS. See PATMOS.

CHRONICLE. A common format for the writing of history in Byzantium, in which events are recorded year by year. World chronicles, which begin with the Creation of the world, were particularly popular, and they were often translated into Latin, Church Slavonic, and Georgian. The authorship and readership of world chronicles were most often monastic, as in the works of John Malalas, George Synkellos, George Hamartolos, Glykas, and the so-called Chronicon Paschale, which extends from Adam to the year 628.

There were other kinds of chronicles, including those that concentrate on a particular region. For example, the Chronicle of Galaxeidi focuses on the region around Galaxeidi, a town on the northern shore of the Gulf of Corinth, and the Chronicle of Monemvasia deals with events in the Peloponnesos. The conceptual difference between chronicle and history seems distinct to modern eyes, but to the Byzantines it was not. See also CHRONOLOGY; EUTYCHIOS OF ALEXANDRIA; JOHN OF ANTIOCH; LITERATURE; MANASSES, CONSTANTINE; KEDRENOS, GEORGE; MICHAEL I THE SYRIAN; ZONARAS, GEORGE.

CHRONICON PASCHALE. See CHRONICLE.

CHRONICON VENETUM. See DANDALO, ANDREAS.

CHRONOLOGY. Before the ninth century there were considerable differences in the chronologies used for the writing of history and chronicles. Some pre–ninth-century chronologies started with dates of regional significance, such as the beginning date of the Antiochene Era, 1 October 49 b.c. The Diocletianic Era was used only in Egypt, and it began on 24 August 284.

Only in 537, when Justinian I decreed that each year would begin on 1 September, corresponding with each new Indiction, was the matter resolved. Nevertheless, until the ninth century there was no agreed-upon chronological system (based on the lunar cycle) for world chronicles. The chronicler Theophanes the Confessor, writing in the early ninth century, used the Alexandrine reckoning, which placed Creation 5,494 years before the birth of Christ. After Theophanes, the Byzantine Era (5,508 years before Christ’s birth for the age of the world) was widely accepted. See also CHALCOKONDYLES, LAONIKOS; SYNAXARION.

CHRYSAPHIUS. Eunuch and praepositus sacri cubiculi who gained great influence in the court of Theodosios II. A master of intrigue, he succeeded in removing from the palace the emperor’s wife, Athenais-Eudokia, and his sister, Pulcheria, and he made a pawn of the emperor. He embroiled Theodosios II in a failed plot to murder Attila, and he supported Eutyches by persuading the emperor to call the “Robber” Council of Ephesus in 449. Chrysaphius’s influence ended with Theodosios II’s death, when Marcian had him executed. See also CHALCEDON, COUNCIL OF; CYRIL; MONOPHYSITISM.

CHRYSARGYRON. A detested tax abolished in 498 by Anastasios I as part of his financial reforms. The loss to the treasury was made up by revenues from imperial estates. Those estates included confiscated property from Zeno and his Isaurian supporters. In the fifth century the tax was paid in gold and silver every four years by all those who conducted business transactions (e.g., merchants and tradesmen; even beggars and prostitutes).

The abolition of the tax was greeted with rejoicing in cities throughout the empire. It is not clear if Anastasios I introduced another tax, the chrysoteleia to replace the chrysargyron. See also TRADE AND COMMERCE; TAXATION.

CHRYSOBERGES, MAXIMOS. Theologian, student of Demetrios Kydones. He studied Kydones’s translations of Thomas Aquinas, converted to Catholicism and became a Dominican monk, as did his two brothers. In 1393, he left for the West, where Pope Boniface IX allowed him to celebrate the Dominican rite in Greek.

CHRYSOBERGES, NIKEPHOROS. See PATRIARCHAL SCHOOL.

CHRYSOBULL. Any important state document (e.g., treaties, laws, confirmation of privileges) affixed with the emperor’s gold seal. The weight and size of the seal indicated the importance of the recipient. The emperor signed his own name in purple ink. See also BUREAUCRACY.

CHRYSOKOKKES, GEORGE. Fourteenth-century compiler of astronomical tables who studied in Trebizond, where he had access to the works of Trebizond astronomer Gregory Chioniades. He was of the generation before the most famous Palaiologan astronomers, who included John Abramios. (He should not be confused with the 15th-century humanist George Chrysokokkes who taught Bessarion.) See also ASTRONOMY.

CHRYSOLORAS, MANUEL. Diplomat and scholar during the reign of Manuel II Palaiologos who introduced to the Italian Renaissance the systematic study of Greek literature. His impact on the humanists of Florence, where he taught from 1397 to 1400, was immense. All of the leading Florentine humanists, including Guarino and Leonardi Bruni, were his pupils. He inculcated in them skills for translation and textual analysis and an enthusiasm for Greek literature. The texts they used came from Manuel’s own library, which he brought with him. His skills as a diplomat were highly prized by Manuel II, who regarded him as a personal friend and advisor. He converted to the Latin rite, and toward the end of his life he spent two years in Rome, dying in 1415 while attending the Council of Constance. In the Louvre Museum there is a charming portrait of Manuel sketched by an anonymous 15th-century artist.

CHRYSOPOLIS. Called “Scutari” from the 13th century; one of the chief places to cross the Bosporos from Asia Minor to Constantinople. Inevitably any attack through Asia Minor, whether by Arabs or Turks, or by a rebellious thematic army, was drawn toward this Asiatic suburb of Constantinople. Not to be confused with the other Chrysopolis, a fortress in northern Greece near ancient Amphipolis. See also FORTIFICATIONS; THEMES.

CHRYSOTELEIA. The “gold tax” of Antasasios I, the purpose of which is unclear. It may have replaced the chrysargyron. Another alternative is that it commuted the annona into a cash tax, or that it may have been an irregular tax. See also TAXATION.

CHRYSOTRIKLINOS. Literally, the “Golden Hall,” a circular audience hall in the Great Palace at Constantinople. Below its dome of 16 windows were eight vaulted niches opening to other rooms. Because important ceremonial receptions took place there, in the apse was a throne for the emperor, along with beautiful tables and chairs. A famous cabinet called the Pentapyrgion displayed imperial treasures to further impress the guests.

CHURCH. The Christian church prior to Constantine I the Great had developed its basic hierarchy of bishops, priests, and deacons. The administrative organization of the church essentially paralleled that of the Roman Empire, with its basic administrative units of city, province, and diocese. Thus, the district of the bishop was the see, which included a city and its surrounding territory. The district of a metropolitan bishop was equivalent to its Roman province, and a church bishop called an exarch (not to be confused with the secular administrators of Exarchates) each administered the church in a Roman diocese.

Constantine I the Great’s historic role was to take a church already conformed administratively to the state and to promote it. This promotion took many forms, the most important of which included exempting the church from taxation and its clergy from secular duties. The church was allowed to receive benefices, its values were promoted as values the state embraced, and the emperor was soon seen as God’s viceroy on earth.

Constantine I also promoted the basilica as a desired form of church architecture, erecting Christian basilicas at state expense in Rome and in the Holy Land. (The term “church,” incidentally, can refer to an individual basilica, as well as to the institutional church.) He promoted the cult of the cross, and his mother Helena allegedly discovered the True Cross on which Jesus had been crucified. Constantine’s support also included intervening in the church civil war over Arianism by convening the First Ecumenical Council, the Council of Nicaea, in 325. The role of subsequent Ecumenical Councils in combating heresies of Nestorianism (at Ephesus in 431) and Monophysitism (at Chalcedon in 451) also demonstrate how Constantine I quite transformed the church, in this instance giving it a tool to deal with divisive issues. Of course it was a tool that emperors continued to try to make use of, often for political purposes, as Justinian I did at the Fifth Ecumenical Council during the Three Chapters controversy.

Constantine I’s support lasted for some 25 years, until his death in 337. This was long enough to create the basic model of church-state relations that endured throughout the long history of the Byzantine Empire, an empire which Constantine himself can be said to have founded with the establishment of Constantinople in 330, Byzantium as modern scholars have called it. Before Constantine I, the Roman state had been hostile to the church, even persecuted it intermittently (most notably during the Great Persecution of 303–311). With Constantine I, the church and its relationship to the Roman Empire changed dramatically and irrevocably.

Beginning with Leo I the Great (pope from 440 to 461), the church in the West looked to the papacy, not to the Byzantine emperor, for leadership. This was because Byzantine authority in the West steadily eroded after the failed reconquest of Justinian I, whose caesaropapism (illustrated by Justinian’s treatment of Pope Vigilius during the Three Chapters controversy) was viewed as inappropriate intervention in church affairs. Moreover, the papacy asserted its right to primacy over the entire church, something the eastern bishops rejected in favor of authority that resided in the five patriarchs (governance by pentarchy) and in Ecumenical Councils. These differences, along with other differences (e.g., the noncelibate Byzantine clergy) provided the multilayered context for the church schism of 1054. The Crusades, particularly the Fourth Crusade that conquered Constantinople in 1204, embittered the Byzantine populace toward the West, and the papacy that had organized the Crusades.

Attempts to reunite the churches in 1274 at the Council of Lyons, and again in 1439 at the Council of Ferrara-Florence in 1439, failed. Of course these failures had long been preceded by the failure of Byzantium to hold on to Italy. Ravenna was lost to the Lombards in 751, and Bari, the last Byzantine stronghold in Italy, was lost to the Normans in 1071. In such fashion did the loss of Byzantine territory in the West, particularly in Italy, provide the circumstances out of which developed an independent church in the West, whose leadership the papacy claimed, and what can be called a Byzantine church, whose power was confined to those parts of the East under the control of Byzantium.

The eastern focus of the Byzantine church was not only due to events in the West. The land routes of the Balkan Peninsula became somewhat shut down during the seventh and eighth centuries with the invasions of Slavs and Bulgars. It was this region to which Byzantine missions were sent in the ninth century. In the 10th century, the northern focus of both church and state can be seen in the conversion of Vladimir I, prince of Kiev. Iconoclasm was a religious controversy that had relatively little impact on the West, but created intermittent turmoil in Byzantium in the seventh and eighth centuries. Byzantium became a territorial state with an eastern orientation during the Dark Ages, and its church followed suit. Italy, however, to some extent always remained a place where Byzantine cultural and religious influences were known, as Barlaam of Calabria demonstrated in his opposition to the eastern religious movement called Hesychasm.

Byzantine church architecture illustrates this growing separation of the churches. Constantine I the Great had established the basilica as the basic template for church plans. Justinian I’s innovative use of centralized plans where a dome rests on squinches or pendentives is seen most impressively in Hagia Sophia, which featured an immense dome resting on four piers and interspersed pendentives. The dome played a great role thereafter in Byzantine church plans, for example in the cross-domed church plan and in the cross-in-square church plan. See also SCHISM.

CHURCH SCHISM OF 1054. This was the last of several schisms in the church that began with the Akakian Schism of 484–519. Thus, the church schism of 1054, despite its circumstantial appearance, can be seen as a culmination of previous schisms, of a gulf between the churches that developed over centuries.

The immediate events are the following. Humbert, secretary and ambassador from Pope Leo IX left an intemperate bull of excommunication on the altar of Hagia Sophia. The bull was drawn up by Humbert himself, without authorization of the pope (who, in any case, had just died, making Humbert’s authority technically invalid). It contained what had become the usual litany of complaints about Byzantine church doctrine and liturgical practices, such as Byzantine use of leavened bread in the Eucharist (rather than azyma), and a creed that did not contain the filioque. That the schism was not healed has much to do with the stubborn resistance of Patriarch Michael I Keroularios, who reciprocated the excommunication. For the first time the Byzantine church learned of the Donation of Constantine and how it supported the doctrine of papal primacy.

The Crusades made differences in doctrine and liturgical practices enduring. In particular the Fourth Crusade’s conquest of Byzantium, which resulted in the forcible submission of Byzantine clergy to the papacy from 1204 to 1261, aroused widespread hostility against the western church. Further attempts to achieve a union of the churches at the Council of Lyons and at the Council of Ferrara-Florence were on paper only, done to gain military aid from the West. Thus, Humbert’s rash action mushroomed into something far more significant and enduring. See also ARGYROS; CAESAROPAPISM; ICONOCLASM; LEO I THE GREAT; THREE CHAPTERS; VIGILIUS.

CIBORIUM. A free-standing domed or pyramidal canopy, resting on four or six columns, over an altar or tomb.

CILICIA. Region in southeastern Asia Minor, between the Mediterranean Sea and the Taurus mountain range whose strategic importance is related to the Cilician Gates. From 703 to 965 the Arabs controlled Cilicia and were able to invade Asia Minor at will, despite the beacon system just north of the Cilician Gates that communicated to Constantinople the news of an Arab invasion.

After the Battle of Mantzikert in 1071, Armenians fleeing the Seljuks migrated to Cilicia, creating an Armenian state referred to as Lesser Armenia (ruled by the Rupenids, then by the Hetumids from 1226 to 1341). John II Komnenos and Manuel I Komnenos intervened in 1137 and 1159 to reestablish Byzantine control, but after the Battle of Myriokephalon in 1176, all pretense of Byzantine control over Cilicia evaporated. See also ATTALEIA; KARAMAN, EMIRATE OF; MATTHEW OF EDESSA; MOPSUESTIA; TIMBER.

CILICIAN GATES. A defile through the Taurus range that was the chief passage from the plain of Cilicia into Asia Minor. A beacon system at the west end signaled the appearance of Arab raiders. Cities situated near the Cilician Gates, such as Tyana, were attacked repeatedly in the eighth and ninth centuries. See also LEO THE MATHEMATICIAN; TARSOS; THEOPHILOS.

CIRCUS FACTIONS. Hippodrome factions (demoi in Greek, meaning “people”) in Constantinople and other cities. They were comprised of racing fans loyal to the traditional four chariot colors: the Blues, Greens, Whites, and Reds.

By the sixth century the most popular factions in Constantinople were the Blues and the Greens. They were noted for their tendency toward violence and hooliganism. The description of them in the Anekdota (Secret History) of Prokopios of Caesarea makes them sound like thugs sporting gang colors. In addition to defending the walls of Constantinople in times of peril, they can be seen as having a political function, for they created the illusion of popular participation in government. Sometimes their riots expressed support for popular causes or were complaints against imperial abuses. This is what happened in the Nika Revolt against Justinian I in 532. After the seventh century the circus factions in Constantinople were limited to strictly ceremonial functions.

CISTERNS. See AQUEDUCTS AND CISTERNS.

CITIES. Byzantium was chiefly an urban empire around its inland sea, the Mediterranean. Once beyond the coastal periphery of the Mediterranean, there were highways for transportation and communication, but these were more difficult. Constantinople, called the “Queen of Cities,” had a greater population by the sixth century than even Alexandria. In the early sixth century, most Byzantine cities (the East had more than 900 of them) still shared a common Roman inheritance of public space with monumental architecture, and of basic public services that were without parallel until modern times. Cities were centers of state and church administration, of manufacturing and trade.

In the early sixth century, most cities still maintained a reliable public water supply through aqueducts and cisterns. Public baths made a high level of personal hygiene possible. There was free bread, as well as free entertainment, in hippodromes, where chariot races took place. Nevertheless, by the early sixth century both foreign invasions and the Christian church were changing urban landscapes. Pagan temples were either destroyed or in ruins. In their place were huge Christian basilicas. Public spaces were often poorly maintained; public buildings damaged by earthquakes often were not repaired, as city fathers struggled to maintain former budgets. Where repairs were made, spolia from other damaged buildings was often used.

In the seventh century, due to multiple attacks on cities by Persians, Slavs, Avars, and Arabs, this trend got much worse, so much so as to create a fundamental change in the way Byzantine cities looked. Cities everywhere diminished in size, as was the case with Constantinople, where the population declined and large areas of the city were turned into fields and pastures. Public works came to an end. Public services in most cities were discontinued. Many provincial cities that formerly had no walls, or whose walls had provided protection, now found it necessary to build a hilltop citadel, called kastron in Greek. The kastron became the new urban center. The rest of the city became a quarry site and squatters camp, so to speak, where marble columns and statuary were burned for lime to make mortar.

Recovery began in the ninth century, by which time the number of Byzantine cities had diminished significantly. Nevertheless, Byzantine cities revived from the ninth until the early 12th century, although in Asia Minor cities gradually fell to the Seljuk Turks; Nicaea, for example, fell to the Seljuks in 1081.

After the Fourth Crusade conquered Constantinople in 1204, the city was plundered. Much of the rest of the Byzantine Empire was partitioned among the Venetians and Latin knights. When Byzantium was reconstituted in 1261 it was a paltry collection of cities, mostly around Constantinople, along the coast of Asia Minor, and in southern Greece (the Morea). In the 14th and early 15th centuries the Ottomans attacked what was left of Byzantine cities.

Overall, it can be said that the health of Byzantium was vitally dependent on its cities. By 1453 there were few cities left, and the Ottomans struck at Byzantium’s heart in that year when they besieged and conquered Constantinople.

CLARISSIMUS. The lowest of three senatorial ranks, the highest being illustris, and the second-highest spectabilis. By the middle of the sixth century clarissimus and spectabilis went out of use, in favor of new titles like gloriosus and magnificus. See also BUREAUCRACY.

CLAUDIAN. Claudius Claudianus (ca. 370–ca. 404), a Latin rhetorical poet from Alexandria, who made a career for himself in the West writing panegyrics for prominent personages such as Theodosios I, Honorios, and Stilicho, who was Claudian’s patron. Despite Claudian’s great talent and the many accolades by his contemporaries, much of his poetry seems like bombastic propaganda to modern eyes. Nevertheless, his poems are an important historical source for the first decade of Honorios’s reign, including the revolt of Gildo, the struggle between Rufinus and Eutropios, and the rise of Alaric. See also LITERATURE.

CLERGY. The priesthood, whose major orders included bishops, priests, and deacons who assisted priests, but who could not perform sacraments (e.g., baptism and the Eucharist). The archbishops of the five patriarchal sees were called patriarchs.

Unlike in the West, there was never a distinct separation of clergy and laity. Bishops were celibate, but other members of the clergy could marry. Although a priest could labor in the fields with his lay neighbors, he could not pursue most secular careers, especially those in commerce and banking. Exemptions from taxation, also from civil and military service, allowed priests to pursue church careers, which typically began at age 25 for deacons and subdeacons. One could not be ordained a priest before age 30. See also LITURGY.

CLERMONT, COUNCIL OF. See CRUSADES; GUIBERT OF NOGENT.

CLOISONNÉ. Enamel work in which the areas of colored glass are separated by thin strips (cloisons, in French) of gold. The term also describes a masonry technique used to decorate the exterior of churches by using bricks to frame small stone (“ashlar”) blocks. See also ART.

CLOVIS. See ALEMANNI; BURGUNDIANS; FRANKS; GREGORY OF TOURS.

CODEX. “Book” in Latin. Books became popular in the fourth century, replacing the rolled manuscript. Their advantages were several. Unlike rolled manuscripts, both sides could be written on, and information could be retrieved quickly. (It is hard to imagine, for example, that the Corpus Juris Civilis would have been as popular and useful a legal tool had it been issued in rolled manuscripts.) Once the folded pages, called quires, were stitched and bound, a book was also more durable than a rolled manuscript.

Exquisite page illustrations (called illuminations or miniatures) and rich bindings could make it a thing of beauty, reflecting the owner’s status. Pocket-sized codices of the Gospels, the psalms (psalters), as well as biographies (vitae) of saints, encouraged meditation and prayer. Book illuminations, many with rich gold backgrounds, were highly prized and exerted a significant influence over the art of Byzantium’s neighbors in the West, also in Armenia, Georgia, Bulgaria (e.g., the Codex Suprasliensis), and in Kievan Rus. Much of what modern audiences perceive about Byzantium has come through exhibits and reproductions of its art, including illuminated books. See also CODEX GREGORIANUS; CODEX HERMOGENIANUS; CODEX THEODOSIANUS; LIBRARIES; MINISCULE.

CODEX GREGORIANUS. A collection of imperial edicts from 196 to the reign of Diocletian, surviving only in fragments. Nothing is known about its compiler except that his name was Gregory. It is not even clear where Gregory compiled the codex.

CODEX HERMOGENIANUS. A collection of imperial edicts, only fragments of which survive, that contain chiefly edicts of Diocletian. The author, Hermogenianus, is thought to be the same Hermogenianus who was a praetorian prefect in 304. See also CODEX.

CODEX JUSTINIANUS. See CORPUS JURIS CIVILIS.

CODEX SUPRASLIENSIS. Discovered in the Suprasl monastery in Poland, this Cyrillic menologion is the largest surviving codex in Old Church Slavonic. The original on which this copy is based is thought to date to the reign of Symeon of Bulgaria, and it is representative of a large group of codices in both Cyrillic and in Glagolitic that originated in Bulgaria. See also CYRIL AND METHODIOS; MISSIONS.

CODEX THEODOSIANUS. Law code issued jointly by Theodosios II and Valentinian III in 438, and owing much to the previous Codex Gregorianus and Codex Hermogenianus. This collection of laws includes imperial edicts from the time of Constantine I the Great. It is the most valuable single historical source for social conditions in Byzantium during the fourth and fifth centuries, and it was the basis for the later Codex Justinianus in the Corpus Juris Civilis of Justinian I. See also CODEX.

COINAGE. Constantine I the Great introduced the gold nomisma (solidus, in Latin) at 72 nomismata per pound of gold. The nomisma was used primarily by the state to pay its soldiers and bureaucrats, and in its relations with other states. Beyond that it served as a constant standard to which the other gold, silver, and copper coinage (whose types were inevitably less long-lived) were related. Thus, the gold semissis was half a nomisma, and the gold tremissis was a third of a nomisma; both types lasted until 878.

The tetarteron, introduced by Nikephoros II Phokas was a quarter of a tremissis. The basic silver coin was the miliaresion, evaluated at 12 to the nomisma. The follis, the chief copper coin introduced by Anastasios I, was calculated at 288 per nomisma, and 24 per silver miliaresion.

Rigorous maintenance of an unadulterated nomisma of standard weight made it an international currency until the late 11th century, by which time it had been adulterated and was in need of reform. Alexios I Komnenos introduced a reformed nomisma, called the hyperpyron in 1092, an electrum worth one-third of the new nomisma, which became the standard gold coin until the empire fell to the Ottomans. It was much competed against by the foreign gold and silver coins that were increasingly used within the empire.

The state minted coins for public, not private purposes. They were necessary for tax payments, payments to the army and bureaucracy, subsidies and gifts to foreign peoples. The location of mints and the number of coins minted were determined by the needs of the state. Constantinople was always the main mint. Provincial mints were located in large cities, such as Thessalonike, but smaller provincial mints could change in location, depending on the needs of the state, particularly the army. See also MINES; TAXATION.

COLONUS. A hereditary tenant farmer in Late Antiquity whose status differed little from that of a slave. Though technically free and with some legal rights (e.g., they could not be ejected from their land), they were bound to the soil in perpetuity. Their freedom to marry was restricted, and they could not join the army.

The origin of the colonus lies in the unsettled conditions of the second half of the third century. It was then that many free peasants sought the protection of wealthy landowners to whom they transferred the ownership of their land in return for physical protection and payment of their taxes. The state seems to have worked with magnates to make this informal process a legal one that made the coloni chattel who were tied to their land, all in the interest of securing a stable base of agricultural workers.

Coloni were a fact of agricultural life throughout the empire from the fourth through the sixth centuries, their conditions varying from province to province. In the East, coloni disappeared after the sixth century. In the West, the coloni became the serfs of the Middle Ages. See also AGRICULTURE; ECONOMY; FEUDALISM; PAROIKOS; PEASANT; SLAVERY; TAXATION; VILLAGE.

COMES. See COUNT.

COMITATENSES. Mobile field troops, as opposed to stationary frontier troops (limitanei). In practice, comitatenses were often based in one place so long that they became, in effect, garrison troops, like the limitanei.

The idea of a select military retinue (comitatus) goes back at least to Diocletian, if not before. However, it was Constantine I the Great who gave the comitatenses a more final format, consisting of infantry and cavalry divisions, each under a magister militum. Constantine I also disbanded the old Praetorian Guard, replacing it with the scholae palatinae, elite troops consisting of five western and seven eastern regiments, each with about 500 soldiers. On campaigns, troops of the scholae palatinae, along with foreign auxiliaries, accompanied the comitatenses. See also ARMY; KATAPHRAKTOI.

CONCH. See APSE; ARCHITECTURE; tetraconch; TRICONCH.

CONRAD III. German king (1138–1152), first of the Hohenstaufen Dynasty. His alliance in 1140 with John II Komnenos against the Normans was sealed with the marriage of Conrad III’s sister-in-law, Bertha of Sulzbach, to John II’s son Manuel I Komnenos in 1146. This alliance was the cornerstone of Byzantine policy in the West, a policy that aimed at destroying Norman power in southern Italy.

After 1130, when Roger II united Apulia and Sicily into a single realm called the Kingdom of Sicily, Norman power increased substantially. Unfortunately, this policy unraveled when Conrad III advanced on Constantinople in 1147 with the Second Crusade, diverting his attention from Europe, and allowing Roger II to seize Kerkyra and pillage Corinth, Thebes, and Euboea. Conrad returned from the Second Crusade too ill to carry out a combined Byzantine and German campaign against the Normans in Italy. See also GERMANY.

CONRAD OF MONTFERRAT. Caesar and general who defeated Alexios Branas; famous defender of Tyre in 1187–1188 against the forces of Saladin. Conrad’s arrival in Constantinople in 1187 to marry the sister of Isaac II Angelos grew out of Manuel I Komnenos’s previous alliance with the Montferrat family (which dominated the region of Piedmont in northwest Italy) against their common enemy in Italy, Frederick I Barbarossa.

To seal the alliance, Conrad’s brother Renier Montferrat married Manuel I’s daughter Maria in 1180 and was given the title of caesar. When Isaac II Angelos came to the throne in 1185, he sought military support from all quarters, turning again to the Montferrat family, who suggested Conrad as a suitable general. Conrad’s service to the empire was sealed in 1187 when he married Isaac II’s sister Theodora. Soon after the wedding, Alexios Branas revolted and Conrad’s leadership was crucial in crushing the revolt. However, almost immediately after that he abandoned Byzantium, sailing to Tyre to organize the defense of that city against Saladin. His adventures made him famous in the West, as attested by the lengthy account of them in the memoir of Robert of Clari.

CONSISTORIUM. An imperial council that advised the emperor on important legislation and policy. Created by Constantine I the Great, its permanent members included a number of the highest officials in the central government, such as the magister officiorum, the comes sacrarum largitionum, and the quaester sacri palatii.

Its normal duties included consultation with the emperor about legislation and policy matters. The term silentium was given to its meetings. There were also ceremonial ones that included the reception of foreign dignitaries, and judicial functions that included trying important cases such as treason. It played no serious role in matters of state beyond the reign of Justinian I, who ended the consistorium as a select advisory council.

CONSTANS I. Youngest son of Constantine I the Great and Fausta; also emperor of the western half of the empire after 340, the year when his brother and co-ruler Constantine II was killed while invading Constans’s territory. Constans I was a firm supporter of the Nicene Creed and opponent of Arianism. He was killed in 350 fighting against the usurper Magnentius.

CONSTANS II. Called “Pogonatos” (“the bearded”), Constans II was emperor from 641 to 668, when Arab expansion was continuing at a dizzying pace. In 642 the Arabs captured Alexandria, the same year they attacked Armenia. In 647 the Arabs entered Asia Minor in force, raiding Cappadocia and capturing Caesarea. In 649 they raided Cyprus, and they pillaged Rhodes, Crete, and Cos in 654.

In 655 the Arabs defeated a Byzantine fleet in a sea battle in which Constans II escaped only because he changed clothes with a seaman (who died while taking the brunt of the Arab attack). As if by miracle, the Arab assault stalled from 656 to 661 due to a civil war in the Umayyad Caliphate.

The respite allowed Constans II to turn his attention to Greece, where, in 658, he attacked “sklavinia” (perhaps Macedonia). The Slavs who he captured he resettled in Asia Minor, where they were enrolled as troops. This experiment had mixed success, considering that in 665 some 5,000 Slav soldiers deserted to the Arabs.

In 663 Constans II opened up an inconclusive campaign against the Lombards, after which he went to Rome, where he was received by Pope Vitalian, a successor to Pope Martin I. Constans II had exiled Pope Martin to Cherson in 654 after the pope condemned the imperial edict (Typos) of 648 that sought to pacify the opponents of Monotheletism. Maximos the Confessor, who supported Pope Martin, was also exiled. He then retired to Syracuse in Sicily, whose defenses he intended to strengthen against Arab attacks, and where he considered moving the imperial capital. In 668 after having survived many rebellions, Constans II was murdered by a member of his entourage. See also EKTHESIS; GREGORY; MARONITES; TYPOS OF CONSTANS II; TRULLO, COUNCIL IN.

CONSTANTIA (SALAMIS). See CYPRUS; EPIPHANIOS.

CONSTANTINE. Usurper who from 407 to 411 controlled Britain, eastern Gaul (including Mosel, Trier, Lyons, and Arles), and who defended the Rhine River successfully from barbarian incursions. In 408 he occupied Spain and in 409 Honorios, preoccupied by Alaric, was forced to recognize him as a legitimate emperor. However, Honorios’s real intention was to destroy the usurper, which he did in 411 when he had Constantine assassinated.

CONSTANTINE I THE GREAT. First Christian emperor; saint. He reigned from 306 to 337; he was sole ruler from 324 to 337. Proclaimed augustus in York in 306 by his dying father Constantius Chlorus, Constantine gained control of the West by defeating Maxentius in Rome at the battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312. In 324 he gained control of the entire empire when he defeated his eastern rival Licinius at Chrysopolis in Bithynia.

He converted to Christianity (in 312 according to the famous story in the Vita Constantini by Eusebios of Caesarea), and he thereafter showed a favoritism to the Christian church (e.g., he constructed churches at state expense and allowed the church to accept bequests) that put Christianity on the road to becoming the state religion by the end of the fourth century. The role he played in church affairs, especially in the controversies over Donatism and Arianism, became a prototype for future church-state relations. This was seen especially at the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325.

The new imperial residence at Byzantion that Constantine founded in 324 would soon acquire the name Constantinople, the “City of Constantine,” and become the capital of the eastern half of the empire. Constantine perfected the administrative reforms of Diocletian by dividing the empire into four prefectures, each administered by a praetorian prefect, whose duties were only civil. Dioceses and provinces remained as before. However, he separated the civil and military functions in each prefecture; now each praetorian prefect had a magistri militum in charge of military forces. In 312, he disbanded the old Praetorian Guard, greatly enlarging the mobile field forces, the comitatenses. He reformed the currency, issuing a gold solidus that remained the “dollar” of the Mediterranean region for almost a millennium.

He was baptized in 337 as he lay dying by Eusebios of Nikomedia, having changed the Roman Empire more than any emperor since its founder Augustus. Indeed, Constantine I the Great laid the basic foundation for the medieval Roman Empire, what is called today Byzantium. See also CAESAROPAPISM; DOUX; ECUMENICAL COUNCILS; EXCERPTA VALESIANA; ORTHODOXY; SARMATIANS; SCHOLAE PALATINAE.

CONSTANTINE II. Eldest son of Constantine I the Great and co-emperor in the West with his brother Constans I from 337 until 340. A staunch opponent of Arianism, he ruled over Gaul, Spain, and Britain. In 340 he invaded Italy, ruled over by Constans I, and he was killed in battle, leaving Constans I sole ruler in the West.

CONSTANTINE III. Co-emperor (641) with Heraklonas. He was the son of Herakleios by the latter’s first wife Eudokia, and father of future Constans II. His stepmother Martina opposed him, favoring her own son Heraklonas. He died on 25 May 641, apparently of tuberculosis, after reigning about three months.

CONSTANTINE III LEICHOUDES. Imperial counselor and the patriarch of Constantinople from 1059 to 1063. He directed state affairs as the chief administrator (mesazon) for Constantine IX Monomachos, aided by a small circle of brilliant friends who included John Mauropous, Michael Psellos, and John Xiphilinus. In 1059 Isaac I Komnenos made him patriarch, a move that failed to gain Isaac the control over the church that he desired, in part due to the enduring hostility of those who adored the previous patriarch Michael I Keroularios. As patriarch, Leichoudes’s chief policy was a failed attempt to force the Syrian and Armenian Monophysites into communion with Constantinople.

CONSTANTINE IV. Emperor from 668 to 685. It was during his reign that the Arabs first besieged Constantinople from 674 to 678. At the siege Greek Fire played an important role in defeating the Arab fleet. Failing to take the capital, and facing defeats in Asia Minor, the Caliph Muawiya signed a 30-year peace treaty with Byzantium.

The siege (and the later one in 717–718) saved Byzantium, and perhaps all of European civilization, from Islamic conquest. Nevertheless, the Arabs continued to make steady advances along the coast of North Africa, and Byzantium suffered considerably from other foes, including Asparuch, khan of the Bulgars, whose encroachments south of the Danube Constantine IV was forced to recognize. In reality, the region the Bulgars occupied contained Slavs who were not under Byzantine control. Also of significance during his reign was the Sixth Ecumenical Council at Constantinople, which condemned Monotheletism and reconciled the eastern and western churches.

CONSTANTINE V. Emperor from 741 to 775; ruthless proponent of Iconoclasm and military campaigner. His reign had scarcely begun when Artabasdos, strategos of the Armeniakon, revolted, seizing Constantinople and restoring the veneration of icons.

After regaining power in November 743, he was preoccupied with campaigning against the Arabs. From 746 to 752 he won a string of victories, aided by a civil war in the Umayyad Caliphate that ended in 750 when the new Abbasid Caliphate came to power. In 754 at Hieria Constantine V officiated over a church council comprised of supporters of Iconoclasm, which condemned Iconophiles and the idolatrous worship of icons. A severe persecution began, aided by imperial officials like Michael Lachanodrakon. Iconophiles were persecuted everywhere, but monasteries were especially singled out, and their properties confiscated and sold.

Public religious images were destroyed, including those at the popular church dedicated to the Virgin at Blachernai. Relics were also destroyed. Veneration was only allowed for the True Cross. Much popular hatred was aroused, and a rumor was circulated by his enemies that Constantine V had defecated in his baptismal font, resulting in his popular nickname kopronymos (“named in dung”).

In 756 hostilities resumed with the Bulgars, which continued until the end of his reign when he died on campaign against Khan Teleri. However, despite his victories against the Arabs and Bulgars, Constantine V neglected Italy to his peril, for the Lombards seized Ravenna in 751, extinguishing the Exarchate of Ravenna. It is no wonder that the papacy, alienated by Iconoclasm and by the previous removal by Leo III of several of its western dioceses to the patriarchate of Constantinople, looked to the Franks for protection.

In 754, with a Lombard army threatening Rome, Pope Stephen II journeyed north across the Alps to confirm Pippin III as king of the Franks and to award him with the rank of Exarch of Ravenna, a title that only the emperor had previously conferred. This set the stage for the subsequent papal coronation of Charlemagne. See also ANCHIALOS; SCHOLAE PALATINAE.

CONSTANTINE VI. Emperor from 780 to 797, in name only for the first part of his reign. The son of Leo IV and Irene, he was only 10 when Leo IV died suddenly in 780. Irene and her chief advisor, Staurakios, ran the affairs of state; her chief goal was to restore the veneration of icons. She did this, after much preparation, at the Seventh Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 787.

Thereafter, the history of his reign was dominated by the conflict with Irene. The conflict came to a head in 790 when, with the aid of Michael Lachanodrakon, Constantine forced Irene to leave the palace. However, once in power he became unpopular. His defeats by the Bulgars and Arabs inspired conspiracies and rebellion in the army. He blinded his uncle, the caesar Nikephoros, who was at the center of one conspiracy. The blinding of Alexios Mousele, the droungrios tes viglas, provoked another rebellion in the theme of Armeniakon. Constantine’s position was further eroded by the so-called Moechian Controversy, which originated in his marriage to his mistress Theodote, after he divorced his wife Maria. By 797, Constantine was so unpopular that Irene was able to depose him, blinding him in the very purple room (the Porphyra) of the Great Palace where he was born. See also PHILARETOS THE ALMSGIVER; THOMAS THE SLAV.

CONSTANTINE VII PORPHYROGENNETOS. Emperor from 945 to 959; writer and promoter of artistic and scholarly projects. He was co-emperor with Leo VI in 908, but then bypassed for almost 40 years. At first, due to his youth, his uncle Alexander ran the affairs of state. Subsequently, a regency headed by Patriarch Nicholas I Mystikos governed, followed by a regency headed by the dowager empress Zoe Karbonopsina.

As sole ruler, his external policy was dominated by warfare with the Arabs, with mixed results. An attempt in 949 to dislodge the Arabs in Crete failed. Germanikeia was captured in the same year, only to be recaptured in 953 by Sayf al-Dawla. Generals (and future emperors) Nikephoros II Phokas and John I Tzimiskes won victories from 954 to 958, including Samosata, which Tzimiskes captured in 958.

Constantine VII did not significantly modify the basic thrust of Romanos I’s agrarian policy. For example, he required the dynatoi to restore all peasant lands acquired since 945 without compensation, and he commanded that soldiers’ properties not be alienated. However, for land sales made between 934 and 945, peasants had to repay the purchase price, which was a concession to the magnates.

Constantine VII received various foreign embassies of note, including one from Olga, princess of Kiev. Embassies were exchanged with the court of Otto I the Great, and with the Muslim court at Cordoba.

Constantine VII is best known for his own literary works, which include De administrando imperio, De thematibus, and De cerimoniis. Also worth noting is his support of the minor arts (e.g., manuscript illustration and carved ivories), and for scholarly compilations and encyclopedias like the Geoponika, for his chief interest was cataloging and sorting information. Even his own asekretis, Constantine of Rhodes, described the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople by cataloging its elements.

However, it is particularly in the realm of historical writing, which had declined during the preceding century, that he created an enduring legacy. Genesios, Theodore Daphnopates, and the author of an anonymous historical work called Theophanes Continuatus, were among the historians associated with his court. Other luminaries he appointed as state officials, or as professors in the palace school. Constantine VII remains Byzantium’s preeminent scholar-emperor, as well as one of its great patrons of scholarship. However, not among his legacies is the palace in Constantinople referred to as Tekfur; it is now dated to the Palaiologan period. See also ART; CORDOBA; CROATIA; DIPLOMACY; EDUCATION; EXCERPTA; HISTORY; MACEDONIAN RENAISSANCE; PORPHYROGENNETOS.

CONSTANTINE VIII. Emperor from 1025 to 1028. His brother and predecessor Basil II set a high standard that Constantine VIII failed to emulate. Constantine was interested in little beyond chariot racing in the Hippodrome. His legacy, instead, lay in his two daughters, Theodora and Zoe. Both played important roles in the Byzantine court for the next quarter century, especially Zoe.

CONSTANTINE IX MONOMACHOS. Emperor from 1042 to 1055. Later Byzantine (and modern) historians have condemned his disbandment of the border theme of Iberia. He is seen as having further undermined the themes by limiting the civil authority of military governors in favor of appointed judges. His two serious military revolts, by generals George Maniakes and Leo Tornikios, owed something to dissatisfaction over these changes in policy.

Nevertheless, Constantine IX was a reformer of the empire’s internal administration. He desired a more professional civil bureaucracy, to which end he founded a new school of law, headed by future patriarch John VIII Xiphilinos. Xiphilinos was one of a circle of intellectuals who graced Constantine’s court, who included Michael Psellos, John Mauropous, and yet another future patriarch Constantine III Leichoudes.

However, his neglect of the armed forces, indeed their systematic reduction, was foolhardy. The acquisition of Ani from Gagik II and the defeat of the Rus fleet sent against Constantinople in 1043 by Jaroslav the Wise, Prince of Kiev, were small victories compared to the threat of new enemies on the empire’s borders. In the West, the Normans began their conquest of southern Italy. In the East, the Seljuks under Tughrul Beg raided eastern Asia Minor. In the Balkan Peninsula the Pechenegs crossed the Danube in 1048 and pillaged Thrace.

The portrait of Constantine IX and Empress Zoe drawn by Michael Psellos in his Chronographia is of an emperor who thought of imperial position as an opportunity for rest and relaxation. He spent lavishly on new monastic endowments (e.g., on the Nea Mone), on his mistress Skleraina, and on gifts to curry favor with the great families. Money was obtained by reducing funds for the army and by debasing the nomisma. In the church schism of 1054, Constantine had hoped for compromise, for he needed a papal alliance against the Normans in southern Italy. His capitulation to Patriarch Michael I Keroularios, who resisted any compromise, illustrates Constantine’s weakness before the power of the church. Although he tried to be an idealist and reformer, his efforts largely turned to dust when faced with the power of the church and of powerful aristocratic families (dynatoi). All the while, new enemies gathered strength along the borders of Byzantium. See also THEOLOGY.

CONSTANTINE X DOUKAS. Emperor from 1059 to 1067, whose incompetent administration and neglect of the army opened up Asia Minor and the Balkan Peninsula to new invaders. His accession, engineered by Michael Psellos, can be seen as a reaction against the reforms of the previous emperor, Isaac I Komnenos. He utterly neglected the army, while spending lavishly on his court, on the civil service, and on gifts to monasteries and to foreign rulers. Meanwhile, under Robert Guiscard, the Normans by 1059 had conquered all of southern Italy; by the time of Constantine X’s death in 1067 they were four years away from conquering Bari. When Uzes invaded Byzantine Macedonia in 1064–1065 Constantine X could only raise 150 soldiers to oppose them. Fortunately, the plague did to the Uzes what Byzantine arms could not do.

However, in the East the military situation was grave. In 1064 the Seljuks under Alp Arsan invaded Armenia, capturing Ani, whose garrison had been depleted by cutbacks. The defenses of Asia Minor began to crumble with the Seljuk sack of Melitene in 1058. In effect, Constantine X’s neglect of the army laid the foundation for the Seljuk victory at the Battle of Mantzikert in 1071. See also DOUKAS, JOHN.

CONSTANTINE XI PALAIOLOGOS. Byzantium’s last emperor (1449–1453), who died when the Ottomans captured Constantinople on 29 May 1453. He was a man of energy and integrity who did what he could to stave off the Ottomans.

Previous to his coronation at Mistra in 1449, he ruled the Morea as despot, with his brothers Theodore II Palaiologos and Thomas Palaiologos. He rebuilt the Hexamilion in 1444, which the Ottomans had destroyed in 1423. He then seized Athens and Thebes. These actions provoked a response from Sultan Murad II, who invaded the Morea in 1446, making Constantine XI his tributary. Once emperor, Constantine XI had no choice but to beg the western powers for military aid. Knowing that the prerequisite for this was the union of the churches, on 12 December 1452, in Hagia Sophia, the Roman mass was celebrated and the previously rejected decrees of the Council of Ferrara-Florence were reaffirmed, though not in any way implemented due to popular hostility.

The western powers were too divided to offer serious help and Sultan Mehmed II captured Constantinople after a siege of six weeks. Constantine XI was last seen fighting near the Gate of St. Romanos, where the battle was most intense, having discarded his imperial insignia so that his body might not be identified and made an Ottoman trophy.

CONSTANTINE BODIN. King of Zeta (Diokleia); proclaimed tsar of Bulgaria in 1072. He was the grandson of Stefan Voislav, who had rebelled against Byzantine control around 1034, and son of Michael Voislav, whose anti-Byzantine policy along the south Adriatic Sea coast culminated in 1077, when his Serbian kingdom was recognized by the papacy.

In 1072 Bodin joined the Bulgar rebellion of George Voitech, and he was acclaimed tsar at Prizren. However, Alexios I Komnenos soon reestablished Byzantine power and captured Bodin. Eventually he escaped and returned to rule over Diokleia (around 1082). From 1085 to 1094, Alexios I Komnenos waged war against Diokleia, capturing Bodin again and annexing Zeta.

CONSTANTINE MESOPOTAMITES. See EUPHROSYNE DOUKAINA KAMATERA.

CONSTANTINE OF RHODES. Poet, and asekretis of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos. His poetical description of the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople is of importance, given the church’s utter destruction by the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II.

CONSTANTINE THE PHILOSOPHER. See CYRIL AND METHODIOS.

CONSTANTINE TICH. See IVAJLO.

CONSTANTINOPLE. (Modern Istanbul.) Site of the ancient city of Byzantion, it was capital of Byzantium from 324 to 1453, except for 1204 to 1261 when it was the capital of a Latin Empire founded by the Fourth Crusade. Constantine I the Great’s motives for establishing the new capital in 324 (dedicated in 330) are not known. He may have viewed it initially as a new imperial residence, similar to those in Milan and Nicomedia. He may have seen it as a Christian capital, untainted by Rome’s long association with paganism. In any case, he called it “New Rome,” though people preferred Constantinople (literally “City of Constantine”), the name that stuck.

Certainly its strategic importance must have been obvious to him, for it lay at the end of the Via Egnatia where one crosses from Europe to Asia Minor. From Constantinople one had access north through the Bosporos to the Black Sea, and south through the Hellespont to the Aegean Sea. Once fortified with a land wall, which Constantine did, the city was difficult to take, for it had to be besieged by sea as well. It has a superb natural harbor called the Golden Horn, which itself was fortified by means of a chain across its entrance.

The massive Theodosian Land Walls of Theodosios II, stretching some six kilometers, were the most impressive urban fortifications of the Middle Ages. Its triple defenses involved a deep ditch, with successive outer and inner walls. Indeed, the developed city had no real western competitors in terms of its size, fortifications, sumptuous churches, and public monuments. This explains Geoffrey de Villehardouin’s description of his fellow Crusaders being struck dumb at their first sight of Constantinople (in 1203).

Robert of Clari’s description betrays this same sense of wonderment at a city whose population may have been about 300,000. Venice, the largest city in the West at the time, may have had a population of around 80,000, and Paris not more than around 20,000. What Robert of Clari describes is a city without parallel in Christendom, one filled with both Christian and ancient monuments. Its central street, the Mese, ended at the Great Palace, around which were situated the Hippodrome, the Augustaion, the Baths of Zeuxippus, the underground Basilike cistern, and the churches of Hagia Sophia, Saint Irene, and Saints Sergios and Bakchos. Elsewhere in the city, at every turn, were monasteries and churches, such as Stoudios Monastery and the Chora Monastery.

Constantinople’s importance to every aspect of the history of Byzantium cannot be overemphasized. The city was a bastion of resistance against Arab expansion, in which regard the history of European civilization might have been dramatically different had the Arab sieges of Constantinople in 674–678, and in 717–718, succeeded. Ironically, the most destructive siege of Constantinople came in 1204, when Christian knights of the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople and partitioned Byzantium. Constantinople’s preeminent role in preserving ancient Greco-Roman civilization lasted until the city’s final conquest by the Ottomans on 29 May 1453. See also AQUEDUCTS AND CISTERNS; BARBARO, NICOLO; CHALKOKONDYLES, LAONIKOS; KRITOBOULOS, MICHAEL.

CONSTANTINOPLE, FIFTH ECUMENICAL COUNCIL AT. Ecumenical Council convened in Constantinople by Justinian I in 553 to condemn the Nestorianism of the Three Chapters. Justinian’s ulterior motive was to attempt to gain Monophysite adherence to the previous Council of Chalcedon. In this he failed. Justinian’s actions in these matters, which include his treatment of Pope Vigilius, can be seen as an example of caesaropapism. See also HERESY; ORTHODOXY.

CONSTANTINOPLE, LAND WALLS OF. See THEODOSIAN LAND WALLS.

CONSTANTINOPLE, SIXTH ECUMENICAL COUNCIL AT. Held in Constantinople in 680–681, the Ecumenical Council condemned Monotheletism, and the related heresy of Monoenergism. The subsequent Council in Trullo completed the work of this council in 691–692. See also CONSTANS II; EKTHESIS; ORTHODOXY; TYPOS.

CONSTANTINOPLE, UNIVERSITY OF. See EDUCATION; THEODOSIOS II.

CONSTANTIUS II. Son of Constantine I the Great and Fausta, caesar from 324 to 337, augustus after 337, and sole emperor from 353 to 361. After Constantine I’s death, Constantius ruled with his two brothers. Constantine II died in 340, and Constans I was killed in 350 fighting the usurper Magnentius. Constantius II became undisputed emperor after defeating Magnentius in 353.

He raised Gallus to caesar in 351, but executed him in 354. His promotion of Julian “The Apostate” as caesar in 355 proved his undoing, for Julian rebelled against him. Constantius died in Cilicia in 361 while marching against Julian. To some extent his reign is most noteworthy for his promotion of Arianism. See also GANGRA.

CONSTANTIUS CHLORUS. Member of the tetrarchy; father of Constantine I the Great. A career army officer, he fought in Syria under Aurelian (reigned 270–275), was governor of Dalmatia, and by 288 was praetorian prefect in Gaul of the augustus Maximian. In 289 he had married Maximian’s daughter Theodora, divorcing his previous wife Helena, the mother of the future Constantine I the Great. In 293 Diocletian made him caesar and part of the tetrarchy.

Constantius demonstrated his generalship by driving the usurper Carausius from Gaul, and then reclaiming Britain from the rebel Allectus in 296. In 305, when Diocletian abdicated, Constantius was elevated to augustus of the West, with Spain added to his jurisdiction. He venerated sol invictus (The Unconquerable Sun), but he did not persecute Christians during the Great Persecution of 303–311. He died in York in 306, with his son Constantine by his side. Constantine was proclaimed by his troops as the new augustus of the West, in response to Constantius’s last request. See also SEVERUS.

CONSUL. In the Roman Republic, two annual consuls were the chief magistrates of the Roman state. By the time Justinian I let the office lapse in 542, it had been an obsolete honorific title for centuries. It was an office that only the very wealthiest citizens could afford to accept, because each consul was expected to spend huge sums on public spectacles like Hippodrome races, banquets, and gifts of silver and gold. Numerous examples of one such kind of gift, the consular diptych, have survived.

COPTIC. The term can refer to the language of the Copts as well as the script in which it is written. Coptic originated in the first century A.D. using the Greek alphabet supplemented by seven signs from the demotic. Today Coptic is used only in the liturgy of the Egyptian Christian church. The term can also refer to the entire culture of Christian Egypt.

COPTS. The indigenous population of Egypt who spoke Coptic. The term derives from an Arabic corruption of the Greek word for Egyptian (Aigyptioi). In Byzantine times most of the Copts were Monophysites belonging to the Coptic church, which never subscribed to the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon. See also MONOPHYSITISM.

CORDOBA. City in southern Spain that was home to Bishop Hosios, the most influential member of Constantine I the Great’s entourage. Attacks on the city by the Visigoths began in 550, prompting Justinian I to send an expeditionary force to southern Spain. Nevertheless, Cordoba fell to the Visigoths in 572.

Cordoba was subsequently conquered by the Arabs in 711 when they conquered the Visigothic kingdom of Toledo. From 756 to 1031 it was capital of the Caliphate of Cordoba, which received embassies from both Theophilos (in 830) and Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos (in 949). Uprisings against the Caliph resulted in the expulsion of 15,000 of its citizens to Alexandria in 815; in 827 they were ejected from Alexandria by a general of the Caliph Mamun. The exiles chose Crete, which they wrested from Byzantine control.

CORFU. See Kerkyra.

CORINTH. One of the chief cities of medieval Greece, situated in the northeastern Peloponnesos on the Gulf of Corinth, overlooked by a powerful kastron called Acrocorinth. The city’s location, near the Isthmus of Corinth, coupled with its two harbors, made it a center of commerce. For example, in the 12th century it had a large textile industry (of silk, cotton, linen). It was also the object of attack for invaders of the Peloponnesos, for example, the Visigoths under Alaric in 396, and Roger II in 1147. See also ACHAIA; ACIAJUOLI.

CORIPPUS. African poet; author of the Johannis, an epic poem in eight books of Latin hexameters that extols the deeds of John Troglita against the Moors in 546–548. The Johannis is the chief source for Troglita’s campaign, besides including interesting information about the Moors. Corippus wrote another Latin panegyric composed in 565 and dedicated to Justin II, important for its description of court ceremonial. See also DE CERMONIIS; JUSTINIAN I; LITERATURE; VANDALS.

CORPUS JURIS CIVILIS. (Corpus of Civil Law.) The collective legislative work of Justinian I. It consists of the Codex (Codex Justinianus), the Digest (Digestum, or Pandectae), the Institutes (Institutiones), and the Novels (Novellae Consitutiones, meaning New Laws).

The work was begun by a commission of 10 legal experts assembled in 528 and headed by the greatest legal mind of the day, Tribonian. They worked with astonishing speed. In 529 they issued the Codex Justinianus, the collection of 4,562 imperial edicts from Hadrian to Justinian I that replaced the older Codex Gregorianus, Codex Hermogenianus, and Codex Theodosianus. It was subsequently revised, in the light of further work by Tribonian, and reissued in 534. The Digest, a compendium of legal opinions by famous Roman jurists, was issued in 533, as was the Institutes, a handbook to help guide law students through the Codex and Digest.

The Novels, the final part of Justinian I’s work, consist of those imperial edicts issued after 534, down to the end of Justinian’s reign in 565. Unlike previous legal works that were written in Latin, the Novels were issued in Greek, the language of the East. The Corpus Juris Civilis not only preserved Roman law, it provided the basis of law for emerging European nations. Its influence on western civilization is probably greater than any other book, except, of course, the Bible. See also ECLOGA; NOMOS STRATIOTIKOS.

CORSICA. See RICIMER; VANDALS.

COSMOLOGY. See KOSMAS INDIKOPLEUSTES; MICHAEL ITALIKOS.

COTRIGURS. Turks from Central Asia who migrated westward across the steppe, settling west of the Black Sea by the end of the fifth century. Justinian I tried to check the threat of Cotrigur raids by cultivating another Turkic people, the Utigurs, who lived to the east of the Sea of Azov.

In 551, when some 12,000 Cotrigurs, encouraged by their allies, the Geipids, crossed the Danube on a plundering expedition, Justinian I incited the Utigurs to attack them, and they were forced to withdraw. In 558 a Cotrigur chieftain named Zabergan invaded Thrace, sending one part of his forces into Greece as far as Thermopylae. Another part moved against Constantinople, which Belisarios defended heroically. Justinian I again stirred the Utigurs to attack the Cotrigurs, which they did once the Cotrigurs withdrew across the Danube. In the second half of the sixth century the Cotrigurs were subjugated by the Avars. Some Cotrigurs accompanied the Avars to Pannonia. Other Cotrigurs were incorporated into Bulgaria in the seventh century. See also DINOGETIA; LONG WALL; TURKS.

COUNT. Also, “comes,” an honorary term attached to various state offices, first used by Constantine I the Great, and translated loosely into English as “count,” for example, the Count of the Private Estates (comes rerum privatarum), who administered the imperial domains, and the Count of the Sacred Largess (comes sacrarum largitionum), who administered the central treasury, as well as all state-run industries, the mint, and customs. The term also refers to certain military officers, for example, the Count of the Tent, who was the chief aide of a strategos of a theme. The chronicler Marcellinus Comes served under Justinian I.

CRETE. Island in the eastern Mediterranean Sea located almost equidistant from mainland Greece and Africa. Its capital was Gortyna. The island was raided by the Goths in 268, by the Vandals in 457, and by the Slavs in 623. Arabs occupied it briefly in 674, and in ca. 827 thousands of Arabs who had originally been expelled from Cordoba, and who had resettled in Alexandria, were ejected from there and made their way to Crete. They conquered the island, establishing Chandax as their capital.

Crete became a base of operations for raids throughout the Aegean Sea until 961, when it was conquered by Nikephoros II Phokas. The island remained in Byzantine possession until the Fourth Crusade’s conquest of Constantinople in 1204, when it was awarded to Boniface of Montferrat. See also HIMERIOS.

CRIMEA. The Crimean Peninsula, separating the Black Sea from the Sea of Azov, was the locale where Byzantium traded and conducted diplomacy with its northern neighbors at Cherson and Bosporos. Cherson, located on the Crimea’s southwestern tip, was Byzantium’s northernmost outpost. The interior of the peninsula was occupied by Khazars from the seventh to 10th centuries, prompting Theophilos to create the theme of Klimata around 832 with its center at Cherson. See also KAFFA; TAFUR, PERO.

CRISPUS. Son of Constantine I the Great and Minervina; pupil of Lactantius. He was made caesar in 317 and was entrusted with Gaul, where he won victories over the Franks and Alemanni. He commanded the fleet that defeated the flotilla of Licinius in 324. His brilliant career was cut short in 326 when he was executed by his father for reasons that remain unclear. Hostile writers claim that it was because his stepmother Fausta falsely accused him of attempted rape. See also HELENA.

CROATIA. A Slavic state in the northwest of the Balkan Peninsula. The origins of the Croatians have been the subject of much controversy. According to Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos’s De administrando imperio the Croats entered the Balkan Peninsula at the invitation of Herakleios, who sought their aid against the Avars.

Having defeated the Avars, they were themselves settled there by Herakleios, converted to Christianity, and became the nominal subjects of Byzantium. The overlordship of Charlemagne was accepted in 803, but in 879, by which time Frankish power had declined, the Croats switched their loyalty to the papacy, and, in effect, became independent.

However, when it was advantageous to do so, Croatia allied itself with Byzantium, for example, as Prince Tomislav did in opposition to Symeon of Bulgaria. Byzantine influence declined in Croatia after 1060, when the liturgy in Old Church Slavonic was prohibited. By this time Croatia’s orientation had shifted decisively to central and Western Europe, as seen in 1102 when Croatia and Hungary were united.

CROSS. Symbol of Christ’s crucifixion, through which Christians believe their salvation comes. The power of the cross was thought to be immediately available. Constantine I the Great converted in 312 when he saw the vision of a cross in the sky. There is a legend that Helena, the mother of Constantine I, discovered the True Cross on which Christ had died. In 614 the Sassanians carried it off to Perisa. Herakleios returned it in triumph to Jerusalem in 631. This relic was subsequently taken to Constantinople, where the Fourth Crusade looted it.

The cross was the great symbol of Iconoclasm. It was seen in every religious process and decorated each church in numerous ways. The cross was thought capable of warding off every evil, and so was sewn into clothing, placed on storage jars, put above door lintels, and displayed in public places. Priests, of course, used it in the liturgy, but so did farmers, doctors, scholars, and soldiers, for life was precarious and no Christian would fail to have the symbol of the cross somewhere on his person, or to make the sign of the cross when in need. See also MAGIC; MIRACLE.

CROSS-DOMED CHURCH. Church whose core consists of four barrel-vaults radiating from a central bay surmounted by a dome with the north, south, and west sides of the core enveloped by aisles and galleries. Hagia Sophia in Thessalonike, perhaps early eighth century in date, is an example. See also CROSS-IN-SQUARE CHURCH; DOMED OCTAGON CHURCH; GREEK CROSS-DOMED OCTAGON CHURCH.

CROSS-IN-SQUARE CHURCH. Also called a quincunx, this church plan is the most common Byzantine church plan from the 10th century until 1453. It has a core of nine bays, the central bay consisting of a dome over a large square resting on four columns. The corner bays can be either domed or groin-vaulted.

Examples include the church dedicated to the Theotokos at Hosios Loukas, and the Church of St. Panteleemon at Nerezi, near Skopje, built ca. 1164. A variant of this design is the late Byzantine five-domed church plan, with a central dome and four minor domes over the four corner bays between the arms of the cross. Examples include Gračanica in Serbia, begun ca. 1311, and the Church of the Holy Apostles (ca. 1329) in Thessalonike. See also ARCHITECTURE; DOMED BASILICA; DOMED OCTAGON CHURCH; GREEK CROSS-DOMED OCTAGON CHURCH.

CROTONE. Fortress city in Calabria, important during the long war with the Ostrogoths in Italy. Like Ancona, Crotone remained in Byzantine hands throughout the war, despite a determined effort by Totila to conquer it in 551–552. Justinian I sent a fleet to reinforce the city; according to Prokopios of Caesarea he also sent the garrison at Thermopylae to Crotone. See also FORTIFICATIONS.

CRUSADES. The crusading movement began when Pope Urban II called the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont in 1095. The object was to regain Jerusalem from the forces of Islam, and to aid the Byzantine church in the process. The conquest of Jerusalem by the First Crusade in 1099, its subsequent loss after the Battle of Hattin in 1187, and further attempts to reconquer Jerusalem comprise the chief historical theme of the early Crusades.

Less obvious, but arguably more historically significant in the long run, is the threat that the Crusades posed to Byzantium. For the first time in centuries, large numbers of westerners passed through Constantinople. Many viewed the Byzantines as heretics who had previously been condemned in the church schism of 1054. The First Crusade, which contained a contingent of Normans, well-known enemies of Byzantium, was viewed as a menace by emperor Alexios I Komnenos. Indeed, the Normans took advantage of the Second Crusade to attack Corinth and Thebes. The Third Crusade resulted in the capture of Byzantine Cyprus in 1191.

With the Fourth Crusade the peril to Byzantium was realized. The conquest of the city in 1204 resulted in the Partitio Romaniae, a triumph for the long-term commercial interests of Venice, resulting in the destruction of Byzantium and the division of its empire between Venice and its partners. In sum, what the Crusades had attempted to support, they ended up destroying; only in 1261 were forces from the Empire of Nicaea able to regain Constantinople.

Though restored, Byzantium never fully recovered from the destruction wrought by the Fourth Crusade. Other Crusades followed the Fourth Crusade, but in hindsight it can be argued that chief among the results of the entire crusading movement was not the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, but the conquest of Christian Byzantium in 1204. In a much larger historical context, the Crusades, especially the Fourth Crusade, can be seen as prototypes for later European expeditions for plunder and conquest. For example, in 1521 Hernán Cortés viewed his conquista of Mexico as the culmination of a glorious Crusade comprised of milites Christi (Knights of Christ) who waged a just guerra santa (holy war) against the hated Infidel. See also UNION OF THE CHURCHES.

CTESIPHON. See SASSANIANS.

CUMANS. Turkish-speaking nomads from central Asia who served as standing troops for Byzantium in the 12th–13th centuries. They moved into the south Russian steppe in the mid-11th century, driving the Pechenegs across the Danube, and attaching themselves to Byzantine armies as mercenaries. Their most memorable service to Byzantium was in 1091, when Alexios I Komnenos used them to annihilate the Pechenegs at the Battle of Mount Lebounion.

In the 12th century they were enrolled into the army in substantial numbers, where their skill as mounted archers was renowned. They also began to settle in Byzantine territory, where some were given pronoia grants. However, even while some Cumans served Byzantium, other Cumans remained intermittent threats, or served other masters.

Manuel I Komnenos, for example, turned back a Cuman raid across the Danube in the aftermath of the Second Crusade. Cumans played a role in the revolt of Peter of Bulgaria and Asen I against Byzantium in 1186. They served in the army of Kalojan that in 1205 destroyed a Latin army, capturing Baldwin of Flanders. They were decisive in the victory of John Asen II at Klokotnitsa in 1230.

Around 1241 the Mongols defeated the Cumans, forcing many to flee to Byzantine territory. Some were settled along the frontiers of Thrace and Macedonia, and in Asia Minor in the Meander valley and in Phyrgia. Some fled to Hungary and Bulgaria, while others became Mamelukes. The Cumans played an important role in the army of Michael VIII Palaeologos, including his victory at the Battle of Pelagonia in 1259. See also BARBARIANS; DNIEPER; TURKS.

CURIA. The council of the urban elite that ran municipal affairs, looking after public works such as aqueducts and cisterns. Each curia chose new members, called decurions, or curiales. They were inevitably composed of wealthier citizens drawn from the local senate because their duties were burdensome.

Each curia had to maintain public services, including such services that one might have expected the central government to shoulder (e.g., the horses and mules for the imperial post). They were also responsible for maintaining the public infrastructure, and for the collection of taxes. It is this latter burden that was particularly onerous, for if collected taxes were insufficient the curia was expected to make up the difference from its members, which could impoverish them. This was one of the reasons Anastasios I relieved urban councils of collecting the annona.

Curias declined in the sixth century, but they were officially abolished only during the reign of Leo VI. See also LATE ANTIQUITY; TAXATION.

CURRENCY. See COINAGE.

CYPRUS. Island in the eastern Mediterranean Sea whose Roman capital was Salamis (renamed “Constantia” following the earthquakes of the mid-fourth century). The island’s historical importance lies in its strategic location near the coasts of Syria and southern Asia Minor. Beginning ca. 647 the island was raided by the Arabs, resulting in the abandonment of some coastal cities, including Kourion. A treaty of 688 with Abd al-Malik made Cyprus a neutral zone with tax revenues divided between the Abbasids and Byzantium; and Justinian II resettled a number of Cypriots at Kyzikos. Basil I reconquered the island for several years, but only with the conquest of Nikephoros II Phokas in 965 was it brought securely back into Byzantine possession.

Its close proximity to the Holy Land made it a source of food and supplies for the Crusader principalities. However, that same proximity allowed Reynald of Châtillon to plunder it in 1157. In 1184 the self-proclaimed emperor of the island, Isaac Komnenos, declared Cyprus independent. However, in 1191 Isaac was captured when Richard I Lionheart conquered Cyprus during the Third Crusade. Thereafter, Cyprus remained in Crusader hands under the Lusignans until 1489, when the Venetians acquired it. The Ottomans conquered it from the Venetians in 1571.

The Byzantine monuments of Cyprus are numerous and renowned. They include important Christian basilicas at Kourion, Lythrankomi, Salamis/Constantia, and Paphos. An extraordinary wall mosaic of the Virgin and Christ Child, thought to date from the sixth or seventh century, survives from a basilican church at Kiti. Among the later Byzantine monuments is the 12th-century monastic cell, called the enkleistra, of the hermit Neophytos. The frescoes decorating his dwelling (one shows him between archangels) are excelled only in the contemporary churches at Asinou and Lagoudera. Alexios I Komnenos is believed to have constructed the defenses that guarded Cyprus’s northern coast, including the castles of St. Hilarion, Buffavento, Kantara, and Kyrenia. See also ATTALEIA; CRUSADES; ESTOIRE D’ERACLES; EUTROPIOS; TIMBER.

CYRENAICA. A province in North Africa that included the east coast of Libya. Under Diocletian it was divided into two provinces, Libya Superior (Pentapolis) and Libya Inferior. The Arabs conquered the region ca. 643.

CYRENE. See SYNESIOS.

CYRIL. Patriarch of Alexandria from 412 to 444, and arch-opponent of Nestorianism. He opposed Jews and pagans, indeed any rival to church authority, and he was inclined to resort to violence and intrigue to overcome his opponents. Until 428 the scope of Cyril’s ambition was Alexandria itself, where he became locked in a power struggle with the civil governor, a pagan named Orestes who was friends with the brilliant pagan philosopher Hypatia. Cyril’s henchmen included 500 monks from the Nitrian desert, and hundreds of lay brothers, some of whom assassinated Hypatia, chopping her body up and burning it.

In 428 Cyril’s ambition moved to a larger struggle with Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, whose rivalry with Alexandria went back to 381, when the Second Ecumenical Council ranked the see of Constantinople above that of Alexandria.

Moreover, Cyril was a theologian who had wrestled with the nature of Christ’s human and divine natures. He disagreed with Nestorius’s view that the Virgin Mary had given birth only to the man Jesus, and could not, therefore, be called Theotokos, meaning Mother of God. In 431 at the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus Cyril engineered the condemnation of Nestorius, with the help of street violence and 1,500 pounds of gold used to bribe members of Theodosios II’s court.

Ironically, Cyril’s own theological views about Christ inspired Monophysitism, which Cyril’s successor Dioskoros embraced. Condemnation of Monophysitism in 451 at the Council of Chalcedon was a stinging humiliation for the see of Alexandria. See also JOHN I, PATRIARCH.

CYRIL AND METHODIOS. Saints, missionaries to the Slavs, creators of the Glagolitic alphabet. Cyril was the monastic name taken by Constantine, sometimes referred to as Constantine the Philosopher because of his fame as a teacher of that subject. Cyril and his brother Methodios grew up in Thessalonike and they spoke the dialect that Slavs around the city spoke. Methodios had been a governor (archon) of a Slav principality in Macedonia. Cyril was a brilliant linguist who had previously been sent on a diplomatic mission to the Khazars.

Their mission to Moravia in 863 was requested of Michael III by Prince Rastislav of Moravia. Cyril, with the help of Methodios, invented a Slavonic alphabet called glagolitic, which he used to translate the liturgy of John Chrysostom and the New Testament. Ultimately, the Moravian mission failed in the face of intensive pressure from the Frankish clergy in Moravia, and because of Cyril’s premature death in Rome in 869. However, Methodios continued the work of translation, and his disciples in Bulgaria invented another alphabet for the Bulgars called Cyrillic, adapted from the Greek alphabet.

Most important is the long-term effect of their work in attracting much of the Slavic world to Byzantine Christianity, and, thus, to Byzantine culture and civilization. See also BARDAS; CHURCH SLAVONIC; HADRIAN II; NAUM OF OHRID; NICHOLAS I.

CYRILLIC. The oldest manuscripts in Old Church Slavonic are in two different scripts, Glagolitic and Cyrillic. Cyril and Methodios invented the former, but the latter script, which incorrectly bears Cyril’s name, is thought to be an invention of the disciples of Methodios, perhaps Kliment of Ohrid. It uses a Greek-based script for the Slavonic language, one based on Greek Miniscule.

Thus, while Glagolitic is a highly original script, Cyrillic is adapted from the Greek alphabet. Versions of the Cyrillic script are used for the Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, and Macedonian alphabets. See also CODEX SUPRASLIENSIS; MISSIONS.

CYRIL OF SKYTHOPOLIS. He and John Moschos are the most important sixth-century writers of hagiography. Born in Palestine, he pursued the monastic life first as a hermit, then in the monastery of Saint Euthymios the Great at Jericho, and, finally, from 557 until his death, in the famous Great Lavra of St. Sabas on Mount Athos.

He planned to write a large collection of Palestinian monastic biographies, but did not, probably because he died prematurely. However, several of his biographies survive, including the life (vita) of St. Sabas. The biographies contain a wealth of accurate details, making them a rich source for the social history of the sixth century. See also ASCETICISM; KOINOBION; LITERATURE; MONASTICISM.

CZECHIA. Czechia, or Bohemia, was a vassal of Moravia when Cyril and Methodios arrived in Moravia in 864. According to Czech tradition Methodios baptized the first Christian duke, Borivoj of Prague. Borivoj and his wife Ludmila, and their grandson Saint Wenceslas, continued with the liturgy and priesthood bequeathed to them by Byzantium. For some two centuries, this tradition flourished in Czechia, centered at the Benedictine abbey of Sazava, near Prague. However, by the late 11th century this began to change when, in 1096, Old Church Slavonic was banned.

Although 12th-century King Vladislav of Bohemia referred to himself as a vassal of Manuel I Komnenos, his link with Byzantium was tenuous. Byzantium was too far away to compete with influences emanating from Germany and Hungary.