Constantine V
Constantine V | |
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Maria | |
Religion | Chalcedonian Christianity |
Constantine V (
Religious strife and controversy was a prominent feature of his reign. His fervent support of
However, the Byzantine Empire enjoyed a period of increasing internal prosperity during Constantine's reign. He was also responsible for important military and administrative innovations and reforms.
Early life
Constantine was born in
Historical accounts of Constantine make reference to a chronic medical condition, possibly epilepsy or leprosy; early in his reign this may have been employed by those rebelling against him to question his fitness to be emperor.[12]
Reign
Rebellion of Artabasdos
Immediately after Constantine's accession in 741, his brother-in-law
Artabasdos struck against Constantine when their respective troops combined for an intended campaign against the Umayyad Caliphate; a trusted member of Constantine's retinue, called Beser, was killed in the attack. Constantine escaped and sought refuge in Amorion, where he was welcomed by the local soldiers, who had been commanded by Leo III before he became emperor.[14][15] Meanwhile, Artabasdos advanced on Constantinople and, with the support of Theophanes Monutes (Constantine's regent) and Patriarch Anastasius, was acclaimed and crowned emperor. Constantine received the support of the Anatolic and Thracesian themes; Artabasdos secured the support of the theme of Thrace in addition to his own Opsikion and Armeniac soldiers.[16][17]
The rival emperors bided their time making military preparations. Artabasdos marched against Constantine at
Constantine's support of iconoclasm
Like his father Leo III, Constantine supported
Constantine questioned the legitimacy of any representation of God or Christ. The
The synod of Hieria was followed by a campaign to remove images from the walls of churches and to purge the court and bureaucracy of iconodules. Since monasteries tended to be strongholds of iconophile sentiment and contributed little or nothing towards the secular needs of the state, Constantine specifically targeted these communities. He also expropriated monastic property for the benefit of the state or the army. These acts of repression against the monks were largely led by the Emperor's general Michael Lachanodrakon, who threatened resistant monks with blinding and exile. In the hippodrome he organised the pairing of numerous monks and nuns in forced marriage, publicly ridiculing their vows of chastity.[29] An iconodule abbot, Stephen Neos, was beaten to death by a mob at the behest of the authorities. As a result of persecution, many monks fled to southern Italy and Sicily.[30] The implacable resistance of iconodule monks and their supporters led to their propaganda reaching those close to the Emperor. On becoming aware of an iconodule influenced conspiracy directed at himself, Constantine reacted uncompromisingly; in 765, eighteen high dignitaries charged with treason were paraded in the hippodrome, then variously executed, blinded or exiled. Patriarch Constantine II of Constantinople was implicated and deposed from office, and the following year he was tortured and beheaded.[31]
By the end of Constantine's reign, iconoclasm had gone as far as to brand relics and prayers to the saints as heretical, or at least highly questionable. However, the extent of coherent official campaigns to forcibly destroy or cover up religious images or the existence of widespread government-sanctioned destruction of relics has been questioned by more recent scholarship. There is no evidence, for example, that Constantine formally banned the cult of saints. Pre-iconoclastic religious images did survive, and various existing accounts record that icons were preserved by being hidden. In general, the culture of pictorial religious representation appears to have survived the iconoclast period largely intact. The extent and severity of iconoclastic destruction of images and relics was exaggerated in later iconodule writings.[32][33]
Iconodules considered Constantine's death a divine punishment. In the 9th century, following the ultimate triumph of the iconodules, Constantine's remains were removed from the imperial sepulchre in the Church of the Holy Apostles.[34]
Domestic policies and administration
Assiduous in courting popularity, Constantine consciously employed the
Constantine carried forward the administrative and fiscal reforms initiated by his father Leo III. The military governors (στρατηγοί, strategoi) were powerful figures, whose access to the resources of their extensive provinces often provided the means of rebellion. The Opsikion theme had been the power-base that enabled the rebellion of Artabasdos, and was also the theme situated nearest to the capital within
Constantine was responsible for the creation of a small central army of fully professional soldiers, the imperial
The fiscal administration of Constantine was highly competent. This drew from his enemies accusations of being a merciless and rapacious extractor of taxes and an oppressor of the rural population. However, the empire was prosperous and Constantine left a very well-stocked treasury for his successor. The area of cultivated land within the Empire was extended and food became cheaper; between 718 and c. 800 the corn (wheat) production of Thrace trebled. Constantine's court was opulent, with splendid buildings, and he consciously promoted the patronage of secular art to replace the religious art that he removed.[44][45]
Constantine constructed a number of notable buildings in the
With the impetus of having fathered numerous offspring, Constantine codified the court titles given to members of the imperial family. He associated only his eldest son,
Campaigns against the Arabs
In 746, profiting by the unstable conditions in the Umayyad Caliphate, which was falling apart under Marwan II, Constantine invaded Syria and captured Germanikeia (modern Marash, his father's birthplace), and he recaptured the island of Cyprus. He organised the resettlement of part of the local Christian population to imperial territory in Thrace, strengthening the empire's control of this region. In 747 his fleet destroyed the Arab fleet off Cyprus. The same year saw a serious outbreak of plague in Constantinople, which caused a pause in Byzantine military operations. Constantine retired to Bithynia to avoid the disease and, after it had run its course, resettled people from mainland Greece and the Aegean islands in Constantinople to replace those who had perished.[50]
In 751 he led an invasion into the new
Events in Italy
With Constantine militarily occupied elsewhere, and the continuance of imperial influence in the West being given a low priority, the Lombard king Aistulf captured Ravenna in 755, ending over two centuries of Byzantine rule in central Italy.[55][56] The lack of interest Constantine showed in Italian affairs had profound and lasting consequences. Pope Stephen II, seeking protection from the aggression of the Lombards, appealed in person to the Frankish king Pepin the Short. Pepin cowed Aistulf and restored Stephen to Rome at the head of an army. This began the Frankish involvement in Italy that eventually established Pepin's son Charlemagne as Roman Emperor in the West, and also instigated papal temporal rule in Italy with the creation of the Papal States.[57]
Constantine sent a number of unsuccessful embassies to the Lombards, Franks and the papacy to demand the restoration of Ravenna, but never attempted a military reconquest or intervention.[58]
Repeated campaigns against the Bulgarians
The successes in the east made it possible to then pursue an aggressive policy in the Balkans. Constantine aimed to enhance the prosperity and defence of Thrace by the resettlement there of Christian populations transplanted from the east. This influx of settlers, allied to an active re-fortification of the border, caused concern to the Empire's northern neighbour,
Constantine campaigned against the Slav tribes of Thrace and Macedonia in 762, deporting some tribes to the Opsician theme in Anatolia, though some voluntarily requested relocation away from the troubled Bulgarian border region. A contemporary Byzantine source reported that 208,000 Slavs emigrated from Bulgarian controlled areas into Byzantine territory and were settled in Anatolia.[61][62][63]
A year later he sailed to
In 775, the Bulgarian ruler
Assessment and legacy
Constantine V was a highly capable ruler, continuing the reforms – fiscal, administrative and military – of his father. He was also a successful general, not only consolidating the empire's borders, but actively campaigning beyond those borders, both east and west. At the end of his reign the empire had strong finances, a capable army that was proud of its successes and a church that appeared to be subservient to the political establishment.[71]
In concentrating on the security of the empire's core territories he tacitly abandoned some peripheral regions, notably in Italy, which were lost. However, the hostile reaction of the Roman Church and the Italian people to iconoclasm had probably doomed imperial influence in central Italy, regardless of any possible military intervention. Due to his espousal of iconoclasm Constantine was damned in the eyes of contemporary iconodule writers and subsequent generations of Orthodox historians. Typical of this demonisation are the descriptions of Constantine in the writings of Theophanes the Confessor: "a monster athirst for blood", "a ferocious beast", "unclean and bloodstained magician taking pleasure in evoking demons", "a precursor of Antichrist". However, to his army and people he was "the victorious and prophetic Emperor". Following a disastrous defeat of the Byzantines by the Bulgarian Khan Krum in 811 at the Battle of Pliska, troops of the tagmata broke into Constantine's tomb and implored the dead emperor to lead them once more.[72] The life and actions of Constantine, if freed from the distortion caused by the adulation of his soldiers and the demonisation of iconodule writers, show that he was an effective administrator and gifted general, but he was also autocratic, uncompromising and sometimes needlessly harsh.[73][74][75]
All surviving contemporary and later Byzantine histories covering the reign of Constantine were written by iconodules. As a result of this, they are open to suspicion of bias and inaccuracy, particularly when attributing motives to the Emperor, his supporters and opponents. This makes any claims of absolute certainty regarding Constantine's policies and the extent of his repression of iconodules unreliable.
Family
By his first wife, Tzitzak ("Irene of Khazaria"), Constantine V had one son:[79]
- Leo IV, who succeeded as emperor. He was crowned in 751.
By his second wife,
By his third wife,
- Christopher, caesar
- Nikephoros, caesar
- Niketas, nobelissimos
- Eudokimos, nobelissimos
- Anthimos, nobelissimos
- Anthousa (an iconodule, after her father's death she became a nun, she was later venerated as Saint Anthousa the Younger[80]
See also
References
- ^ a b PBE (2001) Konstantinos 7 (#3703)
- ^ Nikephoros 1990, p. 125 (chapter 56).
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- ^ Lampte, G.W.H. (1961). A Patristic Greek Lexicon. Oxford at Clarendon Press. p. 977.
- ^ G. W. H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon, Oxford at Clarendon Press, 1961, p. 977.
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- ^ Nicol, p. 72
- ^ Ostrogorsky, p. 165
- ^ Finlay, p. 43
- ^ Treadgold (1997), p. 349
- ^ Brubaker and Haldon, p. 76
- ^ Brubaker and Haldon, p. 157
- ^ Treadgold (1997), p. 356 (n. 12, p. 939)
- ^ Brubaker and Haldon, pp. 157–158
- ^ Treadgold (1997), pp. 156–157
- ^ Bury, p. 10
- ^ Ostrogorsky, pp. 165–166
- ^ Brubaker and Haldon, p. 159
- ^ Bury, p. 10
- ^ Ostrogorsky, p. 166
- ^ Garland, p. 9
- ^ Bury, p. 9
- ^ Barnard, p. 13
- ^ Ostrogorsky, p. 171
- ^ Brubaker and Haldon, p. 182
- ^ Ostrogorsky, pp. 171–173
- ^ Pelikan, pp. 111–112
- ^ Loos, p. 32
- ^ Brubaker and Haldon, p. 156
- ^ Ostrogorsky, pp. 173–175
- ^ Bury, p. 14
- ^ Brubaker and Haldon, pp. 208–211
- ^ Zuckerman pp. 203–204
- ^ Ostrogorsky, p. 175
- ^ Angold, Ch. 5, 'Constantine V', paragraph 7
- ^ Magdalino (2015), pp. 177–178
- ^ Rochow, pp. 60–62
- ^ Bury, p. 3
- ^ Treadgold (1997), p. 358
- ^ Treadgold (1995), pp. 71–72
- ^ Haldon, p. 78
- ^ Magdalino (2015), p. 177
- ^ Treadgold (1997), pp. 358–359
- ^ Bury, p. 11
- ^ Jenkins, p. 72
- ^ Herrin, p. 185
- ^ Magdalino (1993), p. 424
- ^ Freely and Cakmak, pp. 136–143
- ^ Jeffreys, Haldon and Cormack, p. 505
- ^ Treadgold (1997), pp. 359–360
- ^ Bury, p. 10
- ^ Ostrogorsky, p. 167
- ^ Treadgold (1997), pp. 360, 362
- ^ Bonner, p. 107
- ^ Moffat, p. 55
- ^ Ostrogorsky, pp. 169–170
- ^ Jenkins, p. 71
- ^ Treadgold (1997), p. 360
- ^ Bury, p. 11
- ^ Jenkins, pp. 71–72
- ^ Bury, p. 10
- ^ Ostrogorsky, p. 168
- ^ Fine, pp. 76–77
- ^ Bury, p. 11
- ^ Treadgold (1997), p. 363
- ^ Curta, pp. 85–88
- ^ Fine, p. 77
- ^ Bury, p. 11
- ^ Ostrogorsky, p. 169
- ^ Curta, p. 88
- ^ Brubaker and Haldon, p. 248
- ^ Garland, p. 95
- ^ Bury, pp. 9–10 (including quotations from contemporary sources)
- ^ Ostrogorsky, p. 167, 175
- ^ Fine, p. 78
- ^ Treadgold (2012), entire chapter
- ^ Brubaker and Haldon, p. 157
- ^ Zuckerman pp. 193–194
- ^ Dagron, p. 32 (for the wives and sons)
- ^ Constas, pp. 21–24
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- Zuckerman, C. (1988) The Reign of Constantine V in the Miracles of St. Theodore the Recruit, Revue des Études Byzantines, tome 46, pp. 191–210, Institut Français D'Études Byzantines, Paris,
Literature
- The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Oxford University Press, 1991.
- Prosopography of the Byzantine Empire (641-867). [Online edition http://www.pbe.kcl.ac.uk]
- ISBN 0-246-10559-3.
External links
- Media related to Constantine V at Wikimedia Commons