114-600: Armida is the fictional character of a Saracen sorceress, created by the Italian late Renaissance poet Torquato Tasso . In Tasso's epic Jerusalem Delivered (Italian: Gerusalemme liberata ), Rinaldo is a fierce and determined warrior who is also honorable and handsome. Armida has been sent to stop the Christians from completing their mission and is about to murder the sleeping soldier, but instead she falls in love. She creates an enchanted garden where she holds him
228-431: A 14th-century survey of the village of Aphetos, donated to the monastery of Chilandar , the average size of a landholding is only 3.5 modioi (0.08 ha). Taxes placed on rural populations included the kapnikon (Greek: καπνικόν) or hearth tax, the synone (Greek: συνονή) or cash payment frequently affiliated with the kapnikon , the ennomion (Greek: εννόμιον) or pasture tax, and the aerikon (Greek: αέρικον, meaning "of
342-537: A Byzantine Greek woman could be divided into three phases: girlhood , motherhood , and widowhood . Childhood was brief and perilous, even more so for girls than boys. Parents would celebrate the birth of a boy twice as much and there is some evidence of female infanticide (i.e. roadside abandonment and suffocation), though it was contrary to both civil and canon law. Educational opportunities for girls were few: they did not attend regular schools but were taught in groups at home by tutors. With few exceptions, education
456-664: A Greek society. Linguistically, Byzantine or medieval Greek is situated between the Hellenistic ( Koine ) and modern phases of the language. Since as early as the Hellenistic era, Greek had been the lingua franca of the educated elites of the Eastern Mediterranean , spoken natively in the southern Balkans , the Greek islands, Asia Minor, and the ancient and Hellenistic Greek colonies of Southern Italy ,
570-420: A constant supply of muscle power for the building projects and rural work. Their numbers apparently increased in the late fourth and early fifth centuries as barbarian raids and a desire to avoid taxation pushed rural populations into cities. Since Homeric times, there were several categories of poverty: the ptochos ( πτωχός , "passive poor") was lower than the penes ( πένης , "active poor"). They formed
684-693: A hill which therefore took the name of Mount Saraceno on the Gargano . From there they often came down to plunder and burn towns, villages and cities, to desecrate temples and commit all sorts of cruelties and atrocities. Defeated numerous times by different peoples, the Saracens, who fled from the Gargano in 967, fortified themselves in Bari. The campaign against Bari was long and between various negotiations, alliances and treaties it took place from 855 to 871, with
798-531: A lovesick prisoner. Eventually Charles and Ubaldo, two of his fellow Crusaders, find him and hold a shield to his face, so he can see his image and remember who he is. Rinaldo barely can resist Armida's pleadings, but his comrades insist that he return to his Christian duties. At the close of the poem, when the pagans have lost the final battle, Rinaldo, remembering his promise to be her champion, prevents her from giving way to her suicidal impulses and offers to restore her to her lost throne. She gives in at this and like
912-517: A nest at the mouth of the Garigliano (Traetto), from which they also held Rome at gunpoint: they were finally expelled only in 915, when the Byzantine empress Zoe Porphyrogenita managed to get the Italian lords to agree on the need to expel the Saracens from the Italian peninsula and began a campaign against them which - thanks to the commitment of Berengar I of Italy , of Pope John X , and of
1026-487: A normal part of everyday life, much more so than in modern Western societies. While it is difficult to draw a distinction between Roman and Byzantine soldiers from an organizational aspect, it is easier to do so in terms of their social profile. The military handbooks known as the Taktika continued a Hellenistic and Roman tradition, and contain a wealth of information about the appearance, customs, habits, and life of
1140-761: A patriarch in Constantinople who was considered the equivalent of the pope . This position of strength had built up over time, for at the beginning of the Byzantine Empire, under Emperor Constantine the Great ( r. 306–337 ), only a small part, about 10%, of the population was Christian . Use of the Greek language was already widespread in the eastern parts of the Roman Empire when Constantine moved its capital to Constantinople, although Latin
1254-432: A place in the literature of abandoned women such as the tragic Dido , who committed suicide, and the evil Circe , whom Odysseus abandoned to return home, but she is considered by many to be more human and thus more compelling and sympathetic than either of them. The story of Armida and Rinaldo has been the basis for a number of operas: On 1 May 2010, Rossini's Armida was performed and broadcast live to theaters around
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#17327836157271368-677: A region in the northern Sinai Peninsula . Ptolemy also mentions a people called the Sarakēnoí ( Ancient Greek : οἱ Σαρακηνοί ) living in the northwestern Arabian Peninsula (near neighbor to the Sinai). Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical history narrates an account wherein Pope Dionysius of Alexandria mentions Saracens in a letter while describing the persecution of Christians by the Roman Emperor Decius : "Many were, in
1482-641: A swift reaction against the Saracens. A first attempt to expel the Saracens from southern Italy was made in 866-871 by the emperor and king Louis II , who, having descended into Italy with an army of Franks , Burgundians and Provencals , in addition to the allied troops of Pope Sergius II , of the Doge of Venice , the Duke of Spoleto and that of Naples, he took back Benevento, Capua, Salerno, Bari, destroying Matera and Venosa . Now uncontrollable Saracen troops had been hired by Adelchis , Duke of Benevento: he forced
1596-455: A territory of Byzantine prerogative for centuries: Basil allied himself with Sawdan and he fomented a revolt of the Lombards of Benevento, who took the emperor prisoner for about two months, while a new Saracen army of twenty thousand men, sent by Kairouan, devastated Calabria and Campania . In 873 Ludovico returned to Campania and defeated the Saracens, but died two years later. Therefore,
1710-749: Is srq "to steal, rob, thief", more specifically from the noun sāriq ( Arabic : سارق ), pl. sāriqīn ( سارقين ), which means "thief, marauder". In his Levantine Diary , covering the years 1699–1740, the Damascene writer Hamad bin Kanan al-Salhi ( Arabic : محمد بن كَنّان الصالحي ) used the term sarkan to mean "travel on a military mission" from the Near East to parts of Southern Europe which were under Ottoman Empire rule, particularly Cyprus and Rhodes . Ptolemy 's 2nd-century work, Geography , describes Sarakēnḗ ( Ancient Greek : Σαρακηνή ) as
1824-479: Is beginning to change for that of mobile, pro-active agents. The merchant class, particularly that of Constantinople , became a force of its own that could, at times, even threaten the Emperor as it did in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. This was achieved through efficient use of credit and other monetary innovations. Merchants invested surplus funds in financial products called chreokoinonia ( χρεοκοινωνία ),
1938-574: Is in The King of Tars , a medieval romance. The Song of Roland , an Old French 11th-century heroic poem, refers to the black skin of Saracens as their only exotic feature. The term Saracen remained in use in the West as a synonym for "Muslim" until the 18th century. When the Age of Discovery commenced, it gradually lost popularity to the newer term Mohammedan , which came into usage from at least
2052-444: Is still an open question. From then on, professional recruiting replaced conscription, and the increasing use of mercenaries in the army was ruinous for the treasury. From the 10th century onwards, there were laws connecting land ownership and military service. While the state never allotted land for obligatory service, soldiers could and did use their pay to buy landed estates, and taxes would be decreased or waived in some cases. What
2166-733: The Annales Bertiniani , and from there they raged in the Rhône valley. The Balearic Islands were finally conquered by the Andalusian Umayyad cause in 902. From 827 the Aghlabid emirs of Kairouan , in today's Tunisia , began the conquest of Sicily , which took a long time, but which marked the apogee of Saracen rule in the Mediterranean for at least two centuries. The conquest was completed in 902, thanks to
2280-631: The equites from Phoenicia and Thamud . In one document, the defeated enemies of Diocletian 's campaign in the Syrian Desert are described as Saracens. Other 4th-century military reports make no mention of Arabs, but refer to Saracen groups ranging as far east as Mesopotamia who were involved in battles on both the Sasanian and Roman sides. The Saracens were named in the Roman administrative document Notitia Dignitatum , dating from
2394-653: The Arab people called Tayy , were located around Khaybar (an oasis north of Medina) and also in an area stretching up to the Euphrates . The Saraceni were placed north of them. These Saracens, located in the northern Hejaz , were described as people with a certain military ability who were opponents of the Roman Empire and who were classified by the Romans as barbarians . The Saracens are described as forming
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#17327836157272508-537: The Black Sea , Western Asia and North Africa . At the beginning of the Byzantine millennium, the koine (Greek: κοινή) remained the basis for spoken Greek and Christian writings, while Attic Greek was the language of the philosophers and orators. As Christianity became the dominant religion, Attic began to be used in Christian writings in addition to and often interspersed with koine Greek. Nonetheless, from
2622-500: The Pope in Rome . The ecclesiastical provinces were called eparchies and were headed by archbishops or metropolitans who supervised their subordinate bishops or episkopoi . For most people, however, it was their parish priest or papas (from the Greek word for "father") that was the most recognizable face of the clergy. The Eastern Roman Empire was in language and civilization
2736-471: The Roman Empire ), a term which in the Greek language had become synonymous with Christian Greeks. The Latinizing term Graikoí (Γραικοί, "Greeks") was also used, though its use was less common, and nonexistent in official Byzantine political correspondence, prior to the Fourth Crusade of 1204. While this Latin term for the ancient Hellenes could be used neutrally, its use by Westerners from
2850-640: The Varangian Guard like Greece runestones and the Piraeus Lion which we meet the terms Grikkland (Greece) and Grikkr referring to their ventures in Byzantine Empire and their interaction with the Byzantines. While social mobility was not unknown in Byzantium the order of society was thought of as more enduring, with the average man regarding the court of Heaven to be the archetype of
2964-573: The laymen , the clergy of the Eastern Roman Empire remained in close contact with the rest of society. Readers and subdeacons were drawn from the laity and expected to be at least twenty years of age while priests and bishops had to be at least 30. Unlike the Latin church , the Byzantine church allowed married priests and deacons, as long as they were married before ordination . Bishops, however, were required to be unmarried. While
3078-505: The lingua franca of commerce became Italian. In the areas of the Crusader kingdoms a classical education (Greek: παιδεία, paideia ) ceased to be a sine qua non of social status, leading to the rise of the vernacular. From this era many beautiful works in the vernacular, often written by people deeply steeped in classical education, are attested. A famous example is the four Ptochoprodromic poems attributed to Theodoros Prodromos. From
3192-548: The 12th century, "Saracen" developed various overlapping definitions, generally conflating peoples and cultures associated with Islam , the Near East and the Abbasid Caliphate . Such an expansion in the meaning of the term had begun centuries earlier among the Byzantine Greeks , as evidenced in documents from the 8th century where "Saracen" is synonymous with "Muslim". Before the 16th century, "Saracen"
3306-552: The 13th to the 15th centuries, the last centuries of the Empire, there arose several works, including laments, fables, romances, and chronicles, written outside Constantinople, which until then had been the seat of most literature, in an idiom termed by scholars as "Byzantine Koine". However, the diglossia of the Greek-speaking world, which had already started in ancient Greece, continued under Ottoman rule and persisted in
3420-480: The 16th century. After this point, Saracen enjoyed only sporadic usage (for example, in the phrase " Indo-Saracenic architecture ") before being outmoded entirely. In the Wiltshire dialect , the meaning of "Sarsen" (Saracen) was eventually extended to refer to anything regarded as non-Christian, whether Muslim or pagan. From that derived the still current term " sarsen " (a shortening of "Saracen stone"), denoting
3534-438: The 5th century BC. It comprised a tripartite system of education that, taking shape during the Hellenistic era, was maintained, with inevitable changes, up until the fall of Constantinople . The stages of education were the elementary school, where pupils ranged from six to ten years, secondary school, where pupils ranged from ten to sixteen, and higher education. Elementary education was widely available throughout most of
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3648-453: The 6th at least until the 12th century, Attic remained entrenched in the educational system; while further changes to the spoken language can be postulated for the early and middle Byzantine periods. The population of the Byzantine Empire, at least in its early stages, had a variety of mother tongues including Greek. These included Latin, Aramaic , Coptic , and Caucasian languages , while Cyril Mango also cites evidence for bilingualism in
3762-765: The 7th century, in the Greek-language Christian tract Doctrina Jacobi . Among other major events, the tract discusses the Muslim conquest of the Levant , which occurred after the rise of the Rashidun Caliphate following the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad . The Roman Catholic Church and European Christian leaders used the term during the Middle Ages to refer to Muslims . By
3876-670: The 827 Muslim conquest of Sicily . Also in this year, an autonomous Andalusian kingdom was founded in Alexandria , Egypt, which the Abbasid Caliphate put an end to in 825. Then the Andalusians left for the Aegean , where they established the Emirate of Crete , independent and flourishing from a commercial and cultural point of view, as well as powerful from a military point of view, until the Byzantine reconquest in 961. Crete became
3990-508: The 9th century onwards in order to challenge Byzantine claims to ancient Roman heritage rendered it a derogatory exonym for the Byzantines who barely used it, mostly in contexts relating to the West, such as texts relating to the Council of Florence , to present the Western viewpoint. The ancient name Hellenes was synonymous to " pagan " in popular use, but was revived as an ethnonym in
4104-758: The Arabian mountain, enslaved by the barbarous 'sarkenoi'." The Augustan History also refers to an attack by Saraceni on Pescennius Niger 's army in Egypt in 193, but provides little information as to identifying them. Both Hippolytus of Rome and Uranius mention three distinct peoples in Arabia during the first half of the third century: the Taeni , the Saraceni , and the Arabes . The Taeni , later identified with
4218-485: The Byzantine Empire's existence, in towns and occasionally in the countryside. This, in turn, ensured that literacy was much more widespread than in Western Europe, at least until the twelfth century. Secondary education was confined to the larger cities while higher education was the exclusive provenance of Constantinople . Though not a society of mass literacy like modern societies, Byzantine society
4332-473: The Byzantine Greeks was primarily supported by a rural, agrarian base that consisted of the peasantry , and a small fraction of the poor. These peasants lived within three kinds of settlements: the chorion or village, the agridion or hamlet , and the proasteion or estate . Many civil disturbances that occurred during the time of the Byzantine Empire were attributed to political factions within
4446-405: The Christian society of Byzantium to create a large network of hospitals ( iatreia , ιατρεία ) and almshouses, and a religious and social model largely justified by the existence of the poor and born out of the Christian transformation of classical society. Byzantine state and society relied on the Hellenistic system of joint tax liability due to the easy handling, fast and simple revenue for
4560-631: The Church of San Marco dei Veneziani was built in old Bari. From Sicily in the 9th century the Arabs continued to plunder the coasts of southern Italy, also establishing new, occasional bridgeheads , such as at Agropoli or Santa Severina , which, despite the unsuccessful intervention of Otto II (in 982), they lasted for a long time, falling away only after 1036, when the death of the Sicilian emir of al-Akhal led to an irreversible fragmentation of power on
4674-490: The Dukes of Spoleto and Camerino - reaped the promised fruit. In reality the raids continued, in fact one of the most serious episodes seems to be the new sack of Oria and Taranto which occurred in 925/926, on which occasion the family of the well-known Oritan Jewish scholar Shabbethai Donnolo was captured. In 970, they returned again to the Gargano, devastating places (the two Roman cities of Siponto and Matinum were razed to
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4788-486: The Empire rather than to this large popular base. Soldiers among the Byzantine Greeks were at first conscripted amongst the rural peasants and trained on an annual basis. As the Byzantine Empire entered the 11th century, more of the soldiers within the army were either professional men-at-arms or mercenaries . Until the thirteenth century, education within the Byzantine Greek population was more advanced than in
4902-458: The Greek concepts of charity for the sake of the polis ; nevertheless it was the Christian concepts attested in the Bible that animated their giving habits, and specifically the examples of Basil of Caesarea (who is the Greek equivalent of Santa Claus ), Gregory of Nyssa , and John Chrysostom . The number of the poor fluctuated in the many centuries of Byzantium's existence, but they provided
5016-578: The Islamic Empire between themselves between the 8th and 9th centuries ( Córdoba , Cairo and Baghdad ), were substantially independent. The repression of the Umayyad insurrection in al-Andalus was bloody and it is in this period (818) that the mass emigration of Andalusians (so indicated, regardless of ethnic origin and religion) took place along two lines, partly to Morocco and others to Egypt. From here they supported their co-religionists for
5130-686: The Middle Byzantine period (11th century). While in the West the term "Roman" acquired a new meaning in connection with the Catholic Church and the Bishop of Rome , the Greek form "Romaioi" remained attached to the Greeks of the Eastern Roman Empire. The term "Byzantine Greeks" is an exonym applied by later historians like Hieronymus Wolf ; "Byzantine" citizens continued to call themselves Romaioi (Romans) in their language. Despite
5244-571: The Muslims to create a fleet capable of undermining Byzantine supremacy in the Mediterranean in a relatively short time. Especially on the Maghreb and Spanish coasts, various emirates had been established where the local component soon merged with the Arab and Berber ones. Each emirate was headed by an emir who, apart from formal subjection to one of the three caliphs who divided
5358-619: The Ottoman fleet. The commonly used name "Saracen Tower" is incorrect. Byzantine Greeks The Byzantine Greeks were the Greek-speaking Eastern Romans throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages . They were the main inhabitants of the lands of the Byzantine Empire ( Eastern Roman Empire ), of Constantinople and Asia Minor (modern Turkey), the Greek islands , Cyprus , and portions of
5472-487: The Roman Empire's population were Christians , with most of them being urban population and generally found in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. The majority of people still honoured the old gods in the public Roman way of religio . As Christianity became a complete philosophical system, whose theory and apologetics were heavily indebted to the Classic word, this changed. In addition, Constantine, as Pontifex Maximus ,
5586-452: The Saracen port of Taranto remained, from which a very rich slave trade took place. It was the Byzantines who recovered Taranto in 876. However, the Saracen raids in the Adriatic did not end with the reconquest of Taranto, indeed in those years the Muslims completed the conquest of Sicily ( Syracuse in 878, Taormina in 902). In 882, once again allied with the Campanians, they destroyed the abbeys of San Vincenzo and Montecassino, establishing
5700-409: The Saracens as followers of a "false" prophet and "forerunner[s] to the Antichrist," and further connected their name to Ishmael and his expulsion. By the 12th century, Medieval Europeans used the term Saracen as both an ethnic and religious marker. In some Medieval literature, Saracens were equated with Muslims in general and described as dark-skinned, while Christians lighter-skinned. An example
5814-421: The Saracens found a way to prosper thanks to their raids and their offering themselves as mercenaries to the most diverse Christian lords of the time. In 843 the Saracens went so far as to destroy Fondi and Monte Cassino , arriving in Ostia and going up the Tiber to reach Rome where they sacked St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican and Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome. The gesture prompted
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#17327836157275928-412: The Slavs of the Balkans and east-central Europe. This involved Cyril and Methodius having to translate the Christian Bible into the Slavs' own language, for which they invented an alphabet that became known as Old Church Slavonic . In the process, this cemented the Greek brothers' status as the pioneers of Slavic literature and those who first introduced Byzantine civilization and Orthodox Christianity to
6042-466: The West, particularly at primary school level, resulting in comparatively high literacy rates. Success came easily to Byzantine Greek merchants, who enjoyed a very strong position in international trade. Despite the challenges posed by rival Italian merchants, they held their own throughout the latter half of the Byzantine Empire's existence. The clergy also held a special place, not only having more freedom than their Western counterparts, but also maintaining
6156-452: The West. Throughout the later centuries of the Byzantine Empire and particularly following the imperial coronation of the King of the Franks, Charlemagne ( r. 768–814 ), in Rome in 800, the Byzantines were not considered by Western Europeans as heirs of the Roman Empire, but rather as part of an Eastern Greek kingdom. As the Byzantine Empire declined , the Roman identity survived until its fall in 1453 and beyond. The Ottomans used
6270-448: The abbots of Monte Cassino and San Vincenzo al Volturno . In the meantime, an emir reigned in Bari who juggled between the various local powers, without denying the granting, upon payment, of safe conducts for pilgrims who wanted to embark for the Holy Land . He also protected the learned Jewish community of Oria . Expelled for the first time from Bari, a nucleus of them entrenched themselves near Monte Matino ( Horace 's Mons matinus ) on
6384-430: The active combat phase in the four years between 867 and 871. The emir Sawdan, who had also sacked the Sanctuary of Monte Sant'Angelo on the Gargano, was allowed to spend his life in golden captivity by his friend Adelchis, prince of Benevento. But this move turned out to be wrong for the German emperor due to the entry into the scene of the Byzantine emperor Basil I , who frowned upon the intervention in Southern Italy,
6498-438: The air") which depended on the village's population and ranged between 4 and 20 gold coins annually. Their diet consisted of mainly grains and beans and in fishing communities fish was usually substituted for meat . Bread , wine , and olives were important staples of Byzantine diet with soldiers on campaign eating double-baked and dried bread called paximadion (Greek: παξιμάδιον). As in antiquity and modern times,
6612-415: The center of numerous military expeditions in the Aegean, in southern Italy, where Traetto was also founded, and Rome was raided in 846, 849 and 876. In the western Mediterranean, due to the weakening of the Carolingian Empire and its fleet, Marseille was raided in 838 and 846, Arles in 842 and 850 and Fréjus in 869. The Muslims established a refuge in the Camargue in these years, as chronicled in
6726-509: The center of the Orthodox world, with subordinate metropolitan sees and archbishoprics in the territory of Asia Minor and the Balkans, now lost to Byzantium, as well as in Caucasus, Russia and Lithuania. The Church remained the most stable element in the Byzantine Empire." In terms of religion, Byzantine Greek Macedonia is also significant as being the home of Saints Cyril and Methodius , two Greek brothers from Thessaloniki (Salonika) who were sent on state-sponsored missions to proselytize among
6840-418: The church of Constantinople became, between the 6th and 11th centuries, the richest and most influential centre of Christendom . Even when the Byzantine Empire was reduced to only a shadow of its former self, the Church, as an institution, exercised so much influence both inside and outside the imperial frontiers as never before. As George Ostrogorsky points out: "The Patriarchate of Constantinople remained
6954-400: The county of Capua. The compromise solution did not please Pope Leo IV , who in those years was having Rome surrounded with the " Leonine belt " of walls, as proof of the fear that was still alive, so the pontiff sponsored the formation of a Campanian fleet which in 849 defeated the Saracens off the coast of Ostia. Ludovico, nominated emperor in the meantime, moved towards Bari, also begged by
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#17327836157277068-406: The designation " Rûm " ("Roman") distinctly for the Ottoman Greeks and the term " Rum millet " ("Roman nation") for all the Eastern Orthodox populations. It was kept by both Ottoman Greeks and their Ottoman overlords throughout the years of the Ottoman rule, increasingly transforming into an ethnic identity, marked by Greek language and adherence to Orthodox Christianity , a precursor that shaped
7182-428: The earliest known version of the claim that Ishmaelites chose to be called Saracens in order to identify with Abraham's "free" wife Sarah , rather than as Hagarenes, which would have highlighted their association with Abraham's "slave woman" Hagar . This claim was popular during the Middle Ages, but derives more from Paul's allegory in the New Testament letter to the Galatians than from historical data. The name Saracen
7296-706: The early medieval era also used the terms Rimljani or Romei . At least one 11th-century Bulgarian source is attested which refers to "Ellini rimski" (Roman Hellenes). In most medieval Bulgarian sources the Byzantine Emperors were the "Tsars of the Greeks" and the Byzantine Empire was known as "Tsardom of the Greeks". Both rulers of the Despotate of Epirus and the Empire of Nicaea were also "Greek tsars ruling over Greek people". Equally, among Nordic people such as Icelanders , Varangians ( Vikings ) and other Scandinavian people, "Rhomaioi" were called "Grikkr" (Greeks). There are various runic inscriptions left in Norway, Sweden and even in Athens by travellers and members of
7410-454: The eastern shore of the Hellespont , which out of 173 households classifies 113 as peasant and 60 as urban , which indicate other kinds of ancillary activities. The Treatise on Taxation , preserved in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice, distinguishes between three types of rural settlements, the chorion (Greek: χωρίον) or village, the agridion (Greek: αγρίδιον) or hamlet, and the proasteion (Greek: προάστειον) or estate. According to
7524-409: The emperor as a representative or messenger of Christ , responsible particularly for the propagation of Christianity among pagans, and for the "externals" of the religion, such as administration and finances. The imperial role in the affairs of the Church never developed into a fixed, legally defined system, however. With the decline of Rome, and internal dissension in the other Eastern patriarchates,
7638-483: The end of the eleventh century when political machinations allowed the landed aristocracy to secure the throne for a century and more. Following that phase, however, the enterprising merchants bounced back and wielded real clout during the time of the Third Crusade . The reason Byzantine Greek merchants have often been neglected in historiography is not that they were any less able than their ancient or modern Greek colleagues in matters of trade. It rather originated with
7752-403: The equivalent and perhaps ancestor of the later Italian commenda . Eventually, the purchasing power of Byzantine merchants became such that it could influence prices in markets as far afield as Cairo and Alexandria . In reflection of their success, emperors gave merchants the right to become members of the Senate , that is to integrate themselves with the ruling elite. This had an end by
7866-427: The government of Turkey to denote the Greek Orthodox natives ( Rumlar ) of Istanbul , as well as the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople ( Turkish : Rum Ortodoks Patrikhanesi , "Roman Orthodox Patriarchate" ). Among Slavic populations of southeast Europe, such as Bulgarians and Serbs the name "Rhomaioi" (Romans) in their languages was most commonly translated as "Greki" (Greeks). Some Slavonic texts during
7980-414: The ground), terrifying the inhabitants in massacres and robberies, who were forced to ask Otto the Great for help. It is on Mount Saraceno, where they were strongly entrenched for years, that the Saracens were defeated and driven from the place by Otto the Great. In 1002/03 Doge Pietro II Orseolo successfully led a fleet of 100 ships against the Saracens who had been besieging Bari for months. As thanks,
8094-405: The heartland of the later empire: modern Cyprus , Greece , Turkey , and Sicily , and portions of southern Bulgaria , Crimea , and Albania . Over time, the relationship between them and the West, particularly with Latin Europe , deteriorated. Relations were further damaged by a schism between the Catholic West and Orthodox East that led to the Byzantine Greeks being labeled as heretics in
8208-488: The imperial court in Constantinople . This society included various classes of people that were neither exclusive nor immutable. The most characteristic were the poor, the peasants, the soldiers, the teachers, entrepreneurs, and clergy. According to a text dated to AD 533, a man was termed "poor" if he did not have 50 gold coins ( aurei ), which was a modest though not negligible sum. The Byzantines were heirs to
8322-483: The intimate connection between Church and State, a legacy of Roman cultus . Also, the creation of a Christian philosophy that guided Byzantine Greeks in their everyday lives. And finally, the dichotomy between the Christian ideals of the Bible and classical Greek paideia which could not be left out, however, since so much of Christian scholarship and philosophy depended on it. These shaped Byzantine Greek character and
8436-514: The island. They were expelled from Sicily in 1071, after ten years of war, by the Normans . The chain of coastal towers along the Tyrrhenian coast, connected to each other within sight to exchange signals, had the purpose of spotting pirate ships from afar in order to give the alarm to the defenseless populations in time, but they were only built in the 16th century to protect themselves by
8550-586: The islands of Ischia and Ponza fell under Islamic rule. Again, the Neapolitans, to weaken Benevento, had invited the Saracens to attack Brindisi in 838, from which they extended to Taranto and Bari , which became the seat of the eponymous emirate from 840 to 871. Having defeated a Venetian fleet in the Kvarner Gulf , the Saracens now took advantage of the rivalries between the local powers, acting as masters and now also putting themselves at
8664-482: The keeping of bees , was as highly developed in Byzantium as it had been in Ancient Greece . Aside from agriculture, the peasants also laboured in the crafts, fiscal inventories mentioning smiths (Greek: χαλκεύς, chalkeus ), tailors (Greek: ράπτης, rhaptes ), and cobblers (Greek: τζαγγάριος, tzangarios ). During the Byzantine millennium, hardly a year passed without a military campaign. Soldiers were
8778-587: The kind of stone used by the builders of Stonehenge , long predating Islam. The rhyming stories of the Old French Crusade cycle were popular with medieval audiences in Northern France, Occitania and Iberia. Beginning in the late 12th century, stories about the sieges of Antioch and Jerusalem gave accounts of battle scenes and suffering, and of Saracen plunder, their silks and gold, and masterfully embroidered and woven tents. From
8892-569: The majority of the infamous Constantinopolitan mob whose function was similar to the mob of the First Rome . However, while there are instances of riots attributed to the poor, the majority of civil disturbances were specifically attributable to the various factions of the Hippodrome like the Greens and Blues. The poor made up a non-negligible percentage of the population, but they influenced
9006-533: The modern Greek ethnic identity . The self-identity as Roman among the Greeks only began to lose ground by the time of the Greek Revolution , when multiple factors saw the name 'Hellene' rise to replace it, given the prior revival as self-identification from the 13th century onward by the Nicaenean elite and in the intellectual circles by Georgios Gemistos Plethon and John Argyropoulos , that sowed
9120-481: The modern Greek state until 1976, although Koine Greek remains the official language of the Greek Orthodox Church . As shown in the poems of Ptochoprodromos, an early stage of modern Greek had already been shaped by the 12th century and possibly earlier. Vernacular Greek continued to be known as "Romaic" ("Roman") until the 20th century. At the time of Constantine the Great (r. 306–337), barely 10% of
9234-437: The most common cultivations in the choraphia (Greek: χωράφια) were olive groves and vineyards . While Liutprand of Cremona , a visitor from Italy , found Greek wine irritating as it was often flavoured with resin ( retsina ) most other Westerners admired Greek wines, Cretan in particular being famous. While both hunting and fishing were common, the peasants mostly hunted to protect their herds and crops. Apiculture ,
9348-535: The offensive against the Byzantines, who had cut off supplies by conquering Crete (827) and Malta (870). The settlement of the Saracens was sometimes also encouraged and supported by local lords, as help in disputes, as in the case of Andrea, consul of Naples , who was harassed by the Lombard prince of Benevento Sico and after turning in vain to Louis the Pious he asked the Saracens for help. The intervention
9462-519: The onset of puberty , which was followed shortly after by betrothal and marriage. Although marriage arranged by the family was the norm, romantic love was not unknown. Most women bore many children but few survived infancy, and grief for the loss of a loved one was an inalienable part of life. The main form of birth control was abstinence, and while there is evidence of contraception it seems to have been mainly used by prostitutes. Due to prevailing norms of modesty, women would wear clothing that covered
9576-405: The other Saracen woman, Clorinda , earlier in the piece, becomes a Christian and his "handmaid". Many painters and composers were inspired by Tasso's tale. The works that resulted often added or subtracted an element; Tasso himself continued to edit the story for years. In some versions, Armida is converted to Christianity, in others, she rages and destroys her own enchanted garden. She occupies
9690-620: The people of Bari to accept the protection of the Berber Khalfun, who as payment was promised nothing less than permission to sack and burn some sacred buildings in the area, but he went so far as to raze the city of Capua to the ground. Ludovico, then in Italy, managed to free Benevento from the mercenaries and pacify the Lombard princes, acting as guarantor for the division of the duchy into the two principalities of Salerno and Benevento and
9804-449: The perceptions of themselves and others. Christians at the time of Constantine's conversion made up only 10% of the population. This would rise to 50% by the end of the fourth century and 90% by the end of the fifth century. Emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565) then brutally mopped up the rest of the pagans, highly literate academics on one end of the scale and illiterate peasants on the other. A conversion so rapid seems to have been rather
9918-506: The religious hierarchy mirrored the Empire's administrative divisions, the clergy were more ubiquitous than the emperor's servants. The issue of caesaropapism , while usually associated with the Byzantine Empire, is now understood to be an oversimplification of actual conditions in the Empire. By the fifth century, the Patriarch of Constantinople was recognized as first among equals of the four eastern Patriarchs and as of equal status with
10032-523: The result of expediency than of conviction. The survival of the Empire in the East assured an active role of the emperor in the affairs of the Church. The Byzantine state inherited from pagan times the administrative and financial routine of organising religious affairs, and this routine was applied to the Christian Church . Following the pattern set by Eusebius of Caesarea , the Byzantines viewed
10146-670: The reverse was not unknown, as in Theodore Prodromos's description of a battered husband in the Ptochoprodromos poems. Although female life expectancy in Byzantium was lower than that of men, due to death in childbirth, wars and the fact that men married younger, female widowhood was still fairly common. Still, some women were able to circumvent societal strictures and work as traders, artisans, abbots, entertainers, and scholars. The traditional image of Byzantine Greek merchants as unenterprising benefactors of state aid
10260-473: The seed for it. Today, the modern Greek people still sometimes use, in addition to the terms "Greeks" and "Hellenes", the Byzantine term "Romaioi," or "Romioi," ("Romans") to refer to themselves, as well as the term "Romaic" ("Roman") to refer to their Modern Greek language. During most of the Middle Ages, the Byzantine Greeks self-identified as Rhōmaîoi ( Ῥωμαῖοι , "Romans", meaning citizens of
10374-527: The service of the unscrupulous Beneventans themselves. In the year 840, Siconulf , lord of Salerno , fighting with Radelchis and Landulf , lords of Benevento and Capua , called to his aid the Saracens settled in the colony under the Traetto hill, at the mouth of the Garigliano , often and willingly hired by the Duke of Naples , Andrew II . After bloody incursions into some parts of southern Italy ,
10488-519: The shift in terminology in the West, the Byzantines Empire's eastern neighbors, such as the Arabs, continued to refer to the Byzantines as "Romans", as for instance in the 30th Surah of the Quran ( Ar-Rum ). The signifier "Roman" ( Rum millet , "Roman nation") was also used by the Byzantines' later Ottoman rivals, and its Turkish equivalent Rûm , "Roman", continues to be used officially by
10602-438: The soldiers. As with the peasantry, many soldiers performed ancillary activities, like medics and technicians . Selection for military duty was annual with yearly call-ups and great stock was placed on military exercises, during the winter months, which formed a large part of a soldier's life. Until the 11th century, the majority of the conscripts were from rural areas, while the conscription of craftsmen and merchants
10716-474: The south and southeast. These influences, as well as an influx of people of Arabic, Celtic, Germanic, Turkic, and Slavic backgrounds, supplied medieval Greek with many loanwords that have survived in the modern Greek language. From the 11th century onward, there was also a steady rise in the literary use of the vernacular. Following the Fourth Crusade , there was increased contact with the West; and
10830-494: The southern Balkans , and formed large minorities, or pluralities, in the coastal urban centres of the Levant and northern Egypt . Throughout their history, the Byzantine Greeks self-identified as Romans ( Greek : Ῥωμαῖοι , romanized : Rhōmaîoi ), but are referred to as "Byzantine Greeks" in modern historiography. Latin speakers identified them simply as Greeks or with the term Romaei . The social structure of
10944-418: The state are the peasantry ( geōrgikē , γεωργική , "farmers") and the soldiers ( stratiōtikē , στρατιωτική ). Peasants lived mostly in villages, whose name changed slowly from the classical kome ( κώμη ) to the modern chorio ( χωριό ). While agriculture and herding were the dominant occupations of villagers they were not the only ones. There are records for the small town of Lampsakos , situated on
11058-413: The state did allocate to soldiers, however, from the 12th century onwards, were the tax revenues from some estates called pronoiai ( πρόνοιαι ). As in antiquity, the basic food of the soldier remained the dried biscuit bread, though its name had changed from boukelaton ( βουκελάτον ) to paximadion . Byzantine education was the product of an ancient Greek educational tradition that stretched back to
11172-450: The state from the different towns and villages chorio , komai mostly made up of peasants, who were the main income. There are no reliable figures as to the numbers of the peasantry, yet it is widely assumed that the vast majority of Byzantine Greeks lived in rural and agrarian areas. In the Taktika of Emperor Leo VI the Wise (r. 886–912), the two professions defined as the backbone of
11286-480: The story of the Frankish knights at the tent of Saracen leader Corbaran: The tent was very rich, draped with brilliant silk, and patterned green silk was thrown over the grass, with lengths of cut fabric worked with birds and beasts. The cords with which it was tied are of silk, and the quilt was sewn with a shining, delicate samit . The Islamic conquest of countries such as Egypt and Syria had allowed
11400-498: The time and sometimes in villages. Nikolaos Oikonomides , focusing on 13th-century Byzantine literacy in Western Asia Minor, states that Byzantine society had "a completely literate church, an almost completely literate aristocracy, some literate horsemen, rare literate peasants and almost completely illiterate women." Ioannis Stouraitis estimates that the percentage of the Empire's population with some degree of literacy
11514-516: The time of Theodosius I in the 4th century , as comprising distinctive units in the Roman army . They were distinguished in the document from Arabs. No later than the early fifth century, Jewish and Christian writers began to equate Saracens with Arabs. Saracens were associated with Ishmaelites (descendants of Abraham 's firstborn Ishmael ) in some strands of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic genealogical thinking. The writings of Jerome (d. 420) are
11628-546: The way history was written in Byzantium, which was often under the patronage of their competitors, the court, and land aristocracy. The fact that they were eventually surpassed by their Italian rivals is attributable to the privileges sought and acquired by the Crusader States within the Levant and the dominant maritime violence of the Italians. Unlike in Western Europe where priests were clearly demarcated from
11742-439: The whole of their body except their hands. While women among the poor sometimes wore sleeveless tunics , most women were obliged to cover even their hair with the long maphorion ( μαφόριον ) veil. Women of means, however, spared no expense in adorning their clothes with exquisite jewelry and fine silk fabrics. Divorces were hard to obtain even though there were laws permitting them. Husbands would often beat their wives, though
11856-511: The world in the series MetLive in HD . Johannes Brahms composed a cantata entitled Rinaldo based on the story. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Wood, James , ed. (1907). The Nuttall Encyclopædia . London and New York: Frederick Warne. {{ cite encyclopedia }} : Missing or empty |title= ( help ) Saracen Saracen ( / ˈ s ær ə s ən / SARR -ə-sən )
11970-400: Was a profoundly literate one. Based on information from an extensive array of Byzantine documents from different periods (i.e. homilies, Ecloga , etc.), Robert Browning concluded that, while books were luxury items and functional literacy (reading and writing) was widespread, but largely confined to cities and monasteries, access to elementary education was provided in most cities for much of
12084-568: Was a term used both in Greek and Latin writings between the 5th and 15th centuries to refer to the people who lived in and near what was designated by the Romans as Arabia Petraea and Arabia Deserta . The term's meaning evolved during its history of usage. During the Early Middle Ages , the term came to be associated with the tribes of Arabia . The oldest known source mentioning "Saracens" in relation to Islam dates back to
12198-537: Was also requested again by his successor Sicard , with the cities of Amalfi , Sorrento and Gaeta joining the Neapolitans: the Saracens behaved correctly towards the cities of Campania, helping them to defeat the Beneventans and signing peace and trade agreements. In exchange the Neapolitans helped the Saracens during the siege of Messina in 843 and maintained a complicit neutrality when Punta Licosa and
12312-593: Was at most 15–20% based primarily on the mention of illiterate Byzantine tourmarchai in the Tactica of Emperor Leo VI the Wise (r. 886–912). In Byzantium, the elementary school teacher occupied a low social position and taught mainly from simple fairy tale books ( Aesop's Fables were often used). However, the grammarian and rhetorician , teachers responsible for the following two phases of education, were more respected. These used classical Greek texts like Homer's Iliad or Odyssey and much of their time
12426-572: Was commonly used in Western languages to refer to Muslims , and the terms "Muslim" and "Islam" were generally not used, with a few isolated exceptions. The term gradually became obsolete in favor of "Muslim" following the Age of Discovery . The Latin term Saraceni is of unknown original meaning. There are claims of it being derived from the Semitic triliteral root šrq "east" and šrkt "tribe, confederation". Another possible Semitic root
12540-402: Was limited to literacy and the Bible ; a famous exception is the princess Anna Komnene (1083–1153), whose Alexiad displays a great depth of erudition, and the renowned 9th century Byzantine poet and composer Kassiani . The majority of a young girl's daily life would be spent in household and agrarian chores, preparing herself for marriage. For most girls, childhood came to an end with
12654-509: Was not indigenous among the populations so described but was applied to them by Greco-Roman historians based on Greek place names. As the Middle Ages progressed, usage of the term in the Latin West changed, but its connotation remained associated with opponents of Christianity, and its exact definition is unclear. In an 8th-century polemical work, the Arab monk John of Damascus criticized
12768-410: Was responsible for the correct cultus or veneratio of the deity which was in accordance with former Roman practice. The move from the old religion to the new entailed some elements of continuity as well as break with the past, though the artistic heritage of paganism was literally broken by Christian zeal. Christianity led to the development of a few phenomena characteristic of Byzantium. Namely,
12882-479: Was taken with detailed word-for-word explication. Books were rare and very expensive and likely only possessed by teachers who dictated passages to students. Women have tended to be overlooked in Byzantine studies as Byzantine society left few records about them. Women were disadvantaged in some aspects of their legal status and in their access to education, and limited in their freedom of movement. The life of
12996-433: Was the language of the imperial administration. From the reign of Emperor Heraclius ( r. 610–641 ), Greek was the predominant language amongst the populace and also replaced Latin in administration. At first, the Byzantine Empire had a multi-ethnic character, but following the loss of the non-Greek speaking provinces with the 7th century Muslim conquests it came to be dominated by the Byzantine Greeks, who inhabited
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