7th Ecumenical Council Nicaea 787
With Leo dead, Irene assumed
the regency of the empire for her ten year old son Constantine and immediately
embarked upon the course of reform; systematically sidelining all of those who
would oppose her agenda both for the restoration of the icons and to establish
herself as the de-facto ruler of the empire.
Sympathy for the iconoclastic
cause remained strong, particularly in the empire’s eastern provinces where the
majority of Irene’s armies were stationed. Following the old emperor’s death
some of these troops had attempted a revolt with the intention of placing his
brother on the throne. This had been swiftly put down and Irene thereafter had set
out to purge the army. Her willingness to dismember the empire’s forces;
removing capable commanders and disbanding troops whose loyalty was suspect, sparked
widespread mutiny and rendered the imperial frontiers vulnerable to invasion. The
highly capable Abbasid prince Harun al Rashid led an invasion in 782 which
swept into Byzantine territory meeting with little opposition and indeed many
of the imperial forces defected to the enemy. Irene was forced to buy peace
from the future Caliph.
For those who were dismayed by
the Empress’ actions, her son Constantine was an obvious focal point. The armies
in the east remained staunchly iconoclast and those in the capital who longed
to overturn Irene’s reforms therefore had a ready source of manpower to call
upon and a suitable figurehead in the form of Constantine. Matters came to a
head in 790 when Irene attempted to seize supreme power for herself; flinging
her son into prison when a plot by leading iconoclasts for her overthrow and
exile came to light. With Constantine behind bars, Irene demanded an oath of
loyalty from all of her armies. This galvanised the eastern opposition who marched
on the capital and restored Constantine to his throne. Irene, deposed, was left
to stew in the confinement of her palace and plot her revenge.
She did not have long to wait.
Within two years her son had shown himself to be hopelessly incapable of
government and had her recalled. For the next five years mother and son resumed
their uneasy partnership but Constantine through military blunders and an
ill-advised divorce steadily lost support until finally Irene felt safe enough
to make her move. For a second time Constantine was seized and imprisoned but
this time his mother was taking no chances and ordered her son blinded. The
punishment was carried out, in the very room in which he had been born, with
such brutality as to cause his death. It was a crime which sent a shockwave
through the empire and it left Irene as empress and sole ruler. (shown left depicted as such)
Her actions had an unintended
and far reaching consequence. Three years later as Pope Leo III was
contemplating how best to honour and reward his champion and saviour; Charles
King of the Franks, the son
of Pepin the Short, he could observe that the title of Emperor of the Romans was conveniently vacant, for the Pope did not recognise the right of a woman to hold that title.
of Pepin the Short, he could observe that the title of Emperor of the Romans was conveniently vacant, for the Pope did not recognise the right of a woman to hold that title.
On Christmas Day 800
therefore, since Irene remained the sole ruler in Constantinople, Leo was able
to confer the imperial title upon Charles; whose efforts in the cause of
Christianity had gone a considerable way towards the restoration of a western
empire.
In Constantinople such
presumption seemed ludicrous. Who was this semi-literate barbarian who laid
claim to the legacy of Augustus and Constantine? Nevertheless Irene had
continued to alienate her subjects. Her continuing appeasement of the
now-Caliph al-Rashid with ever greater payments of protection money and her increasingly
desperate attempts to buy her subjects’ affections through unaffordable tax
breaks, convinced many that her deposition would be vital for the future
wellbeing of the empire. When two years after his coronation Irene began
seriously to entertain proposals of marriage from Charlemagne; an act which
would unite the rival eastern and western claimants to the Empire of the Romans
and place the Frankish ruler on the throne of Byzantium, she had at last gone
too far. Her own officials convened an assembly in the hippodrome and declared
her deposed. She was exiled to an island in the Marmara and died a year later.
Irene has gone down in history
as a wicked schemer, driven by ambition to commit the worst crime any mother could
commit; the cold-blooded murder of her own child. In the iconoclastic struggle however,
she struck the decisive, if not the final blow. Although the findings of the council she had convened in Nicaea in 787, anathemitizing the writings of the iconoclasts, would be challenged anew within a decade of her death and ultimately overturned, it would in the end stand as the final word on the veneration of icons.
The present Canon decrees that all the false writings which the iconomachists composed against the holy icons and which are flimsy as children’s toys, and as crazy as the raving and insane bacchantes — those women who used to dance drunken at the festival of the tutelar of intoxication Dionysus — all those writings, I say, must be surrendered to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, to be put together with the other books by heretics — in such a place, that is to say, that no one will ever be able to take them therefrom with a view to reading them. As for anyone who should hide them, with a view to reading them himself or providing them for others to read, if he be a bishop, a presbyter, or a deacon, let him be deposed from office; but if he be a layman or a monk, let him be excommunicated.
The present Canon decrees that all the false writings which the iconomachists composed against the holy icons and which are flimsy as children’s toys, and as crazy as the raving and insane bacchantes — those women who used to dance drunken at the festival of the tutelar of intoxication Dionysus — all those writings, I say, must be surrendered to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, to be put together with the other books by heretics — in such a place, that is to say, that no one will ever be able to take them therefrom with a view to reading them. As for anyone who should hide them, with a view to reading them himself or providing them for others to read, if he be a bishop, a presbyter, or a deacon, let him be deposed from office; but if he be a layman or a monk, let him be excommunicated.
Leo III crowns Charlemagne
http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG0835/__P4V.HTM
Some good sites featuring iconographic art
http://www.mountathos.gr/active.aspx?mode=en{2aee45f1-c81e-4f0c-9cf9-c2efe471cfd1}View
http://econcept.dk/icon/dox.html
To continue the story of iconoclasm click the link below
http://slingsandarrowsblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/iconoclasm-byzantine-tragedy-part-three.html
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