The Byzantine Empire in the 7th century was wrecked by military strife. The empire was halved, with its richest territories in Egypt, North Africa, and the Levant lost to the expanding Islamic Caliphate. However, the empire not only survived its losses but had a resurgence in the 9th to 11th centuries, with a revival of classical Hellenic art and literature that coincided with the reconquest of nearly half of its lost territories. This had an irreversible impact on Byzantine culture and society, as the definition of “Roman” would go through an evolution during the Macedonian Renaissance.
The State of the Byzantine Empire During the Dark Ages
The Byzantine Empire during the late 6th to late 7th centuries was in decline. Following the reconquest of the Western provinces of Italy and North Africa under Justinian the Great, the empire was left financially exhausted and also militarily overextended. Coupled with the constant war in the east with the Sassanid Dynasty of Iran, the empire was in a weak position by the end of Justinian’s reign. In addition to the Plague of Justinian from 541-549 CE which killed 20%-40% of Constantinople’s population, the empire was left in material ruins by the dawn of the 7th century.
The production of buildings and literature reached a low in the empire during this period, as the emperors had neither the resources nor time to patronize the arts like in previous centuries. As a result of the weakness of the Byzantines, the rising Islamic Caliphate had conquered rich Roman provinces from the Levant to North Africa by 647 CE. The situation in Italy was equally grim, as the Lombards took over half the Peninsula, permanently weakening the Byzantine presence there.
The empire was also struggling with religious tensions. The Iconoclasm Dispute which divided the empire on a theological level began due to different interpretations of the Ten Commandments, with the iconoclasts believing that all religious images and icons went against the correct doctrine. Starting in 726 CE under Emperor Leo III, state-sanctioned iconoclasm—meaning the “breaking of icons”—occurred until 787 CE. A second period of iconoclasm happened between 814 and 842 CE.
Aside from the vast loss of art and icons, the theological dispute split the empire in half, as the papacy in Rome opposed the doctrine throughout both Iconoclast periods. This further weakened the Byzantine position in Italy, as by 752 CE the popes no longer sought imperial recognition from Constantinople. This would be the first of many breakdowns in relations between the Eastern and Western Churches.
Revival of Learning and the Arts
The Iconoclasm dispute and the Macedonian Renaissance are two seemingly polar opposite events that are more intertwined than what meets the eye. The Iconoclasm dispute was a struggle against the reliance on monastic art to venerate religious figures, and despite its ultimate failure, it did succeed in opening up Byzantine art and culture to different influences and traditions.
“Iconoclasm had also challenged the monastic domination of culture, which had been a feature of the seventh century. The level of education rose; secular learning was cultivated for its own sake and there was a recovery of many aspects of classical culture” (Angold 96).
As a result, the 9th and 10th centuries saw a revival of art and literature. This was reflected in a new Greek writing style called the minuscule hand, which featured smaller and more connected letters that made reading more accessible and books cheaper.
Most of the scholars of the early Macedonian Renaissance were civil servants and part of the imperial hierarchy. During this era, the emperors recruited many scholars as civil servants through patronage. A prominent example is Leo the Mathematician, one of the greatest scientists in Byzantine history. He is credited with creating a beacon system in Anatolia, which was a series of nine towers that stretched over 720 km (447 miles). If a raid occurred, a bonfire was lit to alert the emperor of any incoming Arab raids within the hour. In addition, a series of synchronized clocks were implemented in each tower, as different messages could be conveyed by the timing of when the fire was lit.
Aside from creative inventions like the beaconing system, the Byzantines also looked toward the past. A feature of the Macedonian Renaissance was the departure from Late Roman art forms and the revival of Hellenistic styles. Byzantine artists during this era blended Hellenistic art with religion, as they depicted Christian scenes and Biblical references through Classical Art. The Paris Psalter manuscript is one prominent example.
The Economic and Military Revival
With the revival of art and learning well underway by the late 9th century, the empire entered a military and economic golden age during the Macedonian Dynasty. The first ruler of this dynasty was Basil I, a poor peasant from Macedonia who rose up the imperial hierarchy and eventually became emperor of the Romans in 867 CE. Under subsequent emperors, the empire managed to make advances against the weakening Abbasid Caliphate.
In 961 CE and 967 CE, respectively, the Byzantines reconquered Crete and Cyprus which reaffirmed Byzantine naval superiority in the Aegean Sea, and in 965 CE, Cilicia in Anatolia was also retaken from the Arabs. The most impressive series of reconquests came during the reign of Basil II (976 CE-1025 CE), as he destroyed the Bulgarian Empire in 1018 CE and absorbed the entire state into the empire.
During this era, the empire saw its last resurgence in Italy after Otto II of the Holy Roman Empire failed to conquer the south in 982 CE. As a result, a temporary peace ensued in the region. This was followed by an alliance with Venice that traded lower tariffs for naval support in Italy.
The expansion of the empire’s territorial possessions also increased its tax base and the amount of resources it had. For example, Basil II left the treasury with a surplus of 14,400,000 nomismata and an annual income of 5,900,000 nomismata by 1025 CE, in comparison to an annual revenue of 2,900,000 nomismata right before the reign of Basil I.
The Byzantine Emperors depended on the urban bureaucracy for vital functions such as tax collection and balancing accounts, and the rise of literacy during the Macedonian Renaissance no doubt enlarged the pool of talent that the empire could draw from. As a result, it is no coincidence that the greatest economic and military successes of the Macedonian Dynasty came during the late 10th century when the intellectual revival of the empire had already been ongoing for more than 50 years.
Change in National Identity
The Byzantine Empire was in a very different position by the end of the Macedonian Renaissance than it was in the 7th and 8th centuries. Although the empire was in military and economic decline during the two centuries of the Islamic Conquests, it still had an undisputed claim as the sole Roman Empire. The empire was still a largely multiethnic state, holding pockets of land in Italy, Spain, Greece, and North Africa.
By the 10th century, the empire was a largely homogenous state of Greeks under the name of “Roman.” As a result, the Roman identity shifted to a more narrow term that only encompassed somebody who was raised speaking Greek and was an Orthodox Christian living in the Byzantine Empire. The empire still had minority populations, but as long as they assimilated into the cultural norm of the empire, they could be recognized as Romans.
“Overall, Romania (Byzantium) looked more like a Roman Kingdom that had minorities than a true multiethnic empire, though in the later tenth and eleventh centuries, the balance would shift toward imperial rule over recently conquered or annexed foreign territories. Still, the boundaries between Roman and barbarian were never as stark as our sources suggest” (Kaldellis, 2).
This is reflected in the perception of the Byzantine Empire by other states and peoples during the Macedonian Renaissance. For example, the coronation of Charlemagne in 800 CE as emperor of the Western Roman Empire caused the Latin West to view the Byzantines as Greeks, whose rulers in Constantinople were not emperors of the Romans but the emperors/kings of the Greeks. The Macedonian Renaissance also had a hand in this perception. Although citizens during this era considered themselves Roman, the revival of literature and art was directly inspired by ancient Greece.
Laws and codes were still written in the Hellenistic Koine Greek despite the spoken form of Greek being far evolved by the 10th century. Consequently, the Macedonian Renaissance was also the first period in Byzantine history that the empire consciously drew on its Hellenic heritage for literary and artistic inspiration.
The Impact of the Macedonian Renaissance
The Macedonian Renaissance was a fascinating period in Byzantine History that has multiple meanings. A rebirth in Hellenic art and literature? A revival in the military and economic fortunes of the empire? All of these things are interconnected, and the result was a period of rapid change in Byzantine identity from the 10th to 11th centuries.
Rather than the wide-reaching Roman Empire of the ancient era, the medieval Byzantines were limited to a predominately Hellenic sphere of territories. This had an irreversible impact on the definition of “Roman,” which became far more specific to Hellenized citizens of the reduced Roman Empire.
Despite the changes in identity and culture, the empire reached its largest extent since the 6th century. Although its economic and military golden age would not last long after Basil II, the revival of learning and literature during the Macedonian Renaissance would continue for centuries longer.
Bibliography
Angold, M.J. (2001). Byzantium: the Bridge from Antiquity to the Middle Ages.
Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Kaldellis, A. (2017). Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood: The Rise and Fall of Byzantium, 955
A.D. to the First Crusade. Oxford University Press.
Treadgold, W. T. (1979). The Revival of Byzantine Learning and the Revival of the
Byzantine State. The American Historical Review, 84(5), 1245–1266.
https://doi.org/10.2307/1861467
