Byzantium
today is renowned for two things; its brutal politics and its artistic legacy,
in particular its religious art. It was an empire plagued by intrigues and
obsessed with icons. During two turbulent periods in the Eighth and Ninth
Centuries however, the Byzantines turned against and wilfully destroyed these
precious and venerated objects. The repercussions from these destructive
movements went beyond the spiritual life of the Empire to have a profound
impact on both its politics and its relations with the west.
The Arab
conquests of the Seventh Century had seen vast tracts of formerly Christian
territory come under Islamic rule. Of the four Patriarchates of Eastern
Christendom, three; Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria lay within the
territories of the Umayyad Caliphate. As ‘people of the book’, Christians
living under Arab rule were generally tolerated but under the reign of the
austere and pious Caliph Umar II interference with Christian practices which
were offensive to Islam had increased. In 723 AD Umar's successor Yazid had issued a decree that
all holy images in Christian churches within his territories should be
destroyed and his brother Hisham who succeeded Yazid upon his death in 724 took
an equally hard line. This reaction of the Muslim rulers against what they saw
as flagrant idolatry also struck a chord with many Christians, fuelling a
growing movement in the east which would sweep across the Byzantine Empire with
profound consequences.
Iconoclasm
as it is known to posterity; literally the smashing of icons, was a policy
first adopted by Emperor Leo III in response to the growing cult of icon
worship amongst his subjects. The emperor was of Syrian descent and as such was
likely to have Monophysite leanings, seeing Christ as wholly divine with no
mortal aspect. He may also have been influenced by being exposed to Islamic and
Jewish thought. He therefore took a dim view of the widespread practice among
his fellow Christians of openly worshipping icons of Christ, the Virgin and the
saints; treating these inanimate representations of the divine as divine
objects in their own right. For Leo and those who shared his views this was a
clear violation of the commandment which forbade bowing down before graven
images. In 726 he made his feelings clear by ordering the violent and shocking
destruction of Constantinople’s largest and most beloved icon of Christ which
was displayed above the main gate of the imperial palace.
Byzantine icon of Christ 9th Century - from St Catherines Sinai
This
deed polarised opinion in the capital and beyond. Those of an iconoclast
persuasion could rejoice that the first great blow against idolatry had been
struck whilst a great many were appalled by what they saw as an act of wanton
vandalism and sacrilege. Everywhere emotions ran high. In Ravenna anger at the
emperor’s actions turned into a full scale revolt which claimed the life of the
governor and an uprising in the islands of the Aegean had to be put down with
Greek fire. There was violence too on the streets of the capital but Leo was
unperturbed. In 730 he issued an edict calling for all icons to be destroyed
and those who persisted in protecting and venerating them faced the threat of
torture and death. In Rome Pope Gregory II condemned Leo’s edict as blasphemy
and promptly excommunicated him. The emperor paid little heed and pressed ahead
with his mission to cleanse the capital of idols. Churches, private homes and
monasteries were raided and their treasured and precious icons were confiscated
and destroyed. Many more were hidden away to keep them safe from the
iconoclasts.
Following
Leo’s death in 741 the iconoclast movement gained new momentum with the
accession of his son Constantine V. The new emperor was an even more fervent
iconoclast than his father and continued the persecution of those who persisted
in the veneration of icons. He particularly despised the monasteries, both as
purveyors of idolatry and more generally as a waste of space. Too many young
men were wasting their lives in prayer in the emperor’s opinion, when they
should be usefully employed in the service of the Empire. Many monasteries were
forcibly closed down; their wealth appropriated by the treasury and their
inhabitants forced back into the outside world on pain of death. The Byzantine
chronicler Theophanes the Confessor, who himself lived through a later
resurgence of iconoclasm and was exiled as a result of his opposition to it,
understandably takes an especially dim view of Constantine, calling him Copronymus; literally ‘baptised in
shit’. This is a reference to the fact that Constantine defecated in the font
during his baptism; a clear sign of things to come. He does not hold back in
further lambasting the iconoclast emperor, describing him as a ‘Totally destructive bloodsucking wild
beast.’
The
later hostility of Theophanes was shared by many at the time in Constantinople.
The emperor knew the risk of leaving his capital but nevertheless leave it he
did. In 742, in response to an Arab invasion of Anatolia, both Constantine and
his brother-in-law Artabasdus had set out from the capital in command of separate
armies. Mistrusting Artabasdus, Constantine requested that he should send his
sons to the emperor as hostages. Artabasdus refused and then having made this
implicit admission of guilt, raced back to Constantinople at the head of his
forces to stage an anti-iconoclast coup. Cheering crowds welcomed the
restoration of the images and Artabasdus was crowned by the turncoat Patriarch
Anastasius who quickly forgot his iconoclast sympathies. Constantine meanwhile
pressed on and raised further troops who were loyal both to his person and to
the iconoclast cause from the frontier garrisons with which he then marched
against Artabasdus, leaving the Arab invaders with a free hand whilst civil war
raged.
Following
a series of military reverses at the hands of Constantine’s veterans,
Artabasdus realised that the game was up and attempted to flee by sea but was
captured and handed over to the emperor. The rebel and his sons were blinded
and exiled whilst the patriarch was stripped, scourged and paraded around the
hippodrome seated backwards on a donkey before being reinstated as a
discredited laughing stock. Following Constantine’s victory, the iconoclast
edict was reinforced with hitherto unseen vigour and a council of sympathetic
bishops was assembled to pronounce on its validity on behalf of all Christendom
in an act which further enraged the Pope and alienated the subjects of
Constantine’s remaining Italian territories. From here on in Rome would look
increasingly towards the Franks rather than the Empire for protection and deliverance
from the Lombard invaders who had taken over much of Italy in the late Sixth
Century.
In 751
the aggressive new Lombard king Aistulf succeeded in capturing Ravenna. The
permanent loss of this key imperial enclave was a major blow to the Byzantine
Empire but despite an increased threat to the remaining imperial territories
including Rome itself, Constantine V did little but send ineffectual embassies
asking for the Pope’s intercession. Pope Zacharias had been successful in the
past in dissuading Lombard rulers from marching against Rome but Aistulf was of
a more belligerent persuasion than his predecessors and it seemed only a matter
of time before the eternal city faced a Lombard attack. Despairing of any
useful assistance from the emperor who was at any rate an iconoclast heretic in
his eyes, Pope Zacharias instead looked to cultivate Pepin the Short; the
de-facto ruler of the Franks. An opportunity to gain Pepin’s good will had
presented itself when a Frankish delegation arrived with a question for the
Pontiff. Was it right, they asked, that the King of the Franks was a powerless
puppet whilst true power rested in the hands of the Mayor of the Palace?
Zacharias’ answer was of course precisely what Pepin wanted to hear. It was
better, he pronounced, that he who wielded the power of a king should be called
king. Armed with this Papal endorsement Pepin was able to secure the support of
the Frankish aristocracy in order to depose the last Merovingian king Childeric III and to have himself crowned as King of the Franks. In 754 Zacharias’
successor Stephen made his way over the Alps to meet with Pepin and in a
ceremony in Paris anointed him as King. In return for Papal approval of his seizure of power, Pepin
undertook to come to the defence of Rome against the Lombards and marched
against the Lombard King Aistulf. The Frankish forces proved irresistible and
the Lombard king soon found himself besieged in Pavia and forced to agree to
terms. According to this agreement known as the Donation of Pepin, all of the
imperial territories previously incorporated into the Exarchate of Ravenna were
henceforth ceded to the Pope. Aistulf failed to adhere to the terms and two
years later Pepin was back to enforce them, laying siege to Pavia once more
until the Lombard king relented. This time the Donation of Pepin was honoured
by the Lombards and the ribbon of formerly Imperial territory stretching across
central Italy including Ravenna, Rimini and Perugia became the Papal States,
much to the impotent fury of Constantine. Rome at last had turned its face away
from the man who claimed the title of Emperor of the Romans. Realpolitik had triumphed over old
established loyalties which had been weakened over the years by imperial
high-handedness and neglect of military responsibilities and stretched to
breaking point by the iconoclast controversy. The relationship between Rome and
Constantinople was changed forever.
Coronation of Pepin the Short
I was lazy for this article and reused material from my own book The Battles are the Best Bits, but if you liked it please check out the book.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Battles-Best-Bits-ebook/dp/B008GT05IY
To continue the story of iconoclasm click the link below
http://slingsandarrowsblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/iconoclasm-byzantine-tragedy-part-two.html
To continue the story of iconoclasm click the link below
http://slingsandarrowsblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/iconoclasm-byzantine-tragedy-part-two.html
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