British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences
The Eastern Mediterranean in the Thirteenth century:
identities and allegiances
Abstract
Nicaea
Vincent Puech
At first glance the project of the PBW for the period 1180-1261 gives the Empire of Nicaea a central position. After the Fourth Crusade of 1204, this state constituted not only the sole lasting and effective imperial reconstruction, but also it sheltered the patriarchate of Constantinople. However, if we look at the question of identities and allegiances in the east Mediterranean during the thirteenth century, the unifying role of the empire of Nicaea becomes less obvious. It was certainly challenged by the rival imperial efforts of the Angeloi in Thessalonike and the Komnenoi in Trebizond, to limit ourselves to the Greek powers. Relations between the Empire of Nicaea and those rival states must be left to those who specialise in their history, because their powers are the result of specific foundations. This communication will deal rather with the problems of the internal legitimacy faced by the emperors of Nicaea.
Michael Angold and Dimiter Angelov have studied the structures of this Byzantine government in exile and its political ideology. My approach will be directly guided by the prosopographical methodology. Inspired by the work of Jean-Claude Cheynet for the period before 1204, it will seek to analyse the supporters and opponents of the emperors of Nicaea. To grasp the nature of the thirteenth century Byzantine aristocracy, it is necessary to study the previous history of those families back in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. A number of internal spilts within this social group date from the period of the last years of the Komnenoi and the Angeloi, and this justifies the choice of period 1180-1261 for this project of the PBW.
It is clear that the aristocracy is marked by a considerable continuity of families holding power, even if the new dynasties, those of Laskaris and Palaiologos, remodel their family ties. Thus within the Empire of Nicaea political divisions can not be attributed to an opposition between 'nobles' and 'parvenus' (newcomers), which allegedly culminated under Theodore Laskaris (1254-8). The aristocracy was much more clearly divided by its territorial assets, which lay either in the East (Asia Minor) or the West (Europe). The Laskaris faction illustrates the former and the Palaiologos the latter. In this way the greatest success of the Empire of Nicaea, the reconquest of European provinces in the West eventually turned against the eastern dynasty based in Asia Minor. Even before the recapture of Constantinople in 1261, this explains the rise of the Palaiologans. Paradoxically, the events of the Nicaean period in Asia help to explain the final destiny of Byzantium in Europe.