No More Learning

It may at least be said that there was no
official schism between East and West before 1054. In 1026 the Emperor
and the Patriarch offered the most cordial welcome to Richard, Abbot of
St Vannes, the very man who two years previously had wrecked the
attempt of the Greek Church to win recognition of its autonomy.
Churches of the Latin rite existed at Constantinople, such as St Mary of
the Amalfitans, founded by the famous family of the Mauro; St Stephen,
due to the munificence of the King of Hungary; and finally the church
of the Varangian guard, composed of Scandinavians and Anglo-Saxons.
There is no evidence that these had been more disturbed than the churches
of the Greek rite which existed at Rome.
Still less was there any desire on the part of the other Eastern Patri-
archs to break with Rome. Only two years before the definitive rupture
with Rome, in 1052, Peter, elected Patriarch of Antioch, sent, in accord-
ance with traditional custom, his synodica, his profession of faith, to Pope
Leo IX. This letter, entrusted to a Jerusalem pilgrim, was slow in
reaching its destination, but the answer dated 1059 is extant, in which
Leo IX, after congratulating the Patriarch on his election and approving
his profession of faith, sent him in return his own'.
The agreement concluded in 898 and renewed in 920 between the two
Churches had on the whole been observed, and, if the opinion of the large
majority of the ordinary members of the two communities had found
means of expression, schism would have been permanently averted. But
during this long period, which was a period of eclipse for the papal
power, the Patriarchs of Constantinople, whose influence had been
strengthened by the external successes of the Empire, had grown ac-
customed to an almost absolute independence of Rome. Far from
repudiating the tradition of Photius, they had continued to manifest
their hostility to the Latin usages. Peace prevailed officially, but in reality
the champions of the two rituals were secret enemies. The Greek mission-
aries, who instructed Vladímir in the faith at Cherson in 989, were
solicitous to warn him against Latin errors, and went the length of
forging, for the purpose of explaining them, a veritable romance, full of
calumnies as hateful as they were coarse? . Finally, even if the attempt
made in 1024 by Eustathius to obtain official recognition of the autonomy
of the Greek Church had miscarried, it shews that on this question
1 L. Bréhier, Le Schisme Oriental, pp. 16–18.
2 Chronique de Nestor (French translation by Leger), p. 96.


## p. 265 (#307) ############################################

Michael Cerularius
265
as on others the Patriarch had remained loyal to the programme of
Photius.
This peace, equivocal as was its nature, might have lasted longer had
not fresh historical conditions at the middle of the eleventh century
tended to modify the character of the relations between the Patriarch
and the Pope and to accelerate the rupture.
The schemes of the Patriarch of Constantinople had encountered in
1024 the resistance of the Western party of ecclesiastical reform. This
party had for the first time a champion on the Papal throne in Leo IX
(1049). In his diocese of Toul he had already favoured reform; and
when made Pope he determined to extend it to the Church and to claim
vigorously the rights of the Papacy to universal jurisdiction.
Precisely when Leo IX was thus proposing to restore the pontifical
authority, the patriarchal throne of Constantinople was occupied by a
man whose character was as inflexible as his own. Michael Cerularius,
who had succeeded the Patriarch Alexius in 1043, belonged to a family of
bureaucratic nobility long established at Constantinople. Destined to fill,
as his ancestors had done, some high civil post, he as well as his brother
had been carefully educated. But in 1040 he was entangled in a con-
spiracy against Michael IV and John Orphanotrophos. Denounced and
arrested with his brother, he suffered close confinement on Princes
Islands. His brother, unable to endure prison, committed suicide, and as
a result of this tragic event Michael became a monk. Recalled to By-
zantium after 1041, he won the favour of Constantine IX, a former con-
spirator like himself, and became one of his counsellors. Having been for
some time syncellus of the Patriarch Alexius, he was selected by the Em-
peror to succeed him, and was consecrated Patriarch on 29 March 10431.
His contemporaries, and especially Psellus, represent him as a man of
strong and haughty character, ambitious of playing a prominent part in
the Church and even in the State. Of an unforgiving nature, he had his
ancient persecutor John Orphanotrophos deprived of his sight in his
prison (1043). “The anger and the spite of the Patriarch pursued any
man who had once resisted him, at an interval it might be of ten years or
more, and even if submerged among the masses"? From the first days of
his government he assumed towards the Emperor an attitude by no
means customary with the Patriarchs. He was not so much a submissive
subject as a power who was on an equal footing with the Emperor.
Constantine seems to have been afraid of him, and it is noteworthy that
after the death of the Empress Zoë he did not venture on a fourth mar-
riage, in spite of the senile affection which he shewed for his Alan
favourite. Fear of the Patriarch no doubt restrained him.
1 L. Bréhier, Le Schisme Oriental, pp. 52–81.
? Psellus, Accusation de l'archevêque devant le Synode, 63, Revue des Études
Grecques, xvii. 1904. (Extrait L. Brehier, Un discours inédit de Psellos. Paris,
1904, p. 74. )
CH, IX.


## p. 266 (#308) ############################################

266
The Eastern Empire, Leo IX, and the Normans
Such was the man who was destined to face Leo IX. It required the
contact of two characters so headstrong and so unyielding to kindle the
conflict.
The occasion for schism was found when the two powers met in
Southern Italy. The Norman adventurers, who had first of all supported
the revolt of the Lombards against the Empire, were not slow to work
for their own hand and ruthlessly ravaged the rich country of Apulia.
Desirous of ending their pillaging, Leo IX, after vain recourse to spiritual
arms, set about enrolling bands of soldiers and took the offensive against
the Normans. But his interests here coincided with those of the govern-
ment of Constantinople. So at the close of 1051 a military alliance was
concluded between the Pope and the Lombard Argyrus, who, at first
chief of the Normans, had entered the service of the Empire and received
the command of the imperial armies in Italy.
Now this alliance had been concluded against the will of the Patriarch,
who was eager to uphold the jurisdiction of Constantinople over Southern
Italy, and feared to see Leo IX restore the authority of Rome over the
bishoprics of Apulia. This same year, 1051, the inhabitants of Bene-
vento had driven out their prince and had submitted themselves to the
Pope, who had sent them two legates, Cardinal Humbert and the
Patriarch of Gradol.
Thus the interests of the Empire were in formal contradiction with
those of Michael Cerularius, and it was at the very moment when the
imperial government needed the support of the Pope that the Patriarch
shewed his enmity to the Roman Church.
The course of events can be pieced together from the actual cor-
respondence of the Patriarch and the Pope. Argyrus left Italy in 1046
and came to Constantinople, where he stayed until 1051. He was well
received by the Emperor and was a member of his council at the moment
of the revolt of Leo Tornicius (1047). It was then that he quarrelled
with the Patriarch as a result of the dispute with him about the Latin
ritual, and in particular on the use of unleavened bread in the Eucharist.
When it is borne in mind that, even if Calabria was completely hellenised,
Apulia had remained to a large extent faithful to the Latin ritual, the
cause of this controversy is explicable. Argyrus had come to Constanti-
nople to inform the Emperor of the state of Southern Italy and to urge
him to conclude an alliance with Leo IX. His duty then was to defend
a policy of conciliation and prudence towards the Latin ritual prevailing
in Apulia. He himself, besides being by birth a Lombard, belonged to
this ritual, and as he declined to be convinced Michael Cerularius boasted
of having refused him the sacrament more than four times? .
In spite, however, of the Patriarch, Argyrus returned to Italy in 1051
with a mandate for the signature of a treaty of alliance between the
Gay, L'Italie méridionale et l'empire byzantin, pp. 469, 482 ff.
2 Gay, op. cit. p. 471. L. Brehier, Le Schisme Oriental, pp. 92–93.
1


## p. 267 (#309) ############################################

Michael Cerularius and Rome
267
Empire and Leo IX. But at the very time when this alliance was going
to produce its effect Michael Cerularius commenced hostilities against
Rome. It cannot be denied that he had adopted a policy in contra-
diction to that of the Emperor.
In 1053, indeed, he writes to the new Patriarch of Antioch, Peter, ex-
pressing surprise that the name of the Pope is always mentioned in the
liturgy of Antioch. He falsely declares that this name did not appear
in the diptychs of Constantinople after the council of 692 ; but Peter,
who had just submitted his profession of faith to Leo IX, had no diffi-
culty in pointing out the intentional inaccuracy'. In the same letter
Michael Cerularius related his dispute with Argyrus about unleavened
bread.
At the same moment a former cleric of Constantinople, Leo, Arch-
bishop of Ochrida in Bulgaria, addressed to an Apulian Bishop, John of
Trani, a letter which was a veritable indictment of Latin uses. It was no
longer, as in the time of Photius, a question chiefly of the double Pro-
cession of the Holy Ghost, but of ritual and discipline. The use of un-
leavened bread for the Eucharist and the Saturday fast were quoted as
regrettable instances of persistence in the Mosaic law. Through the
agency of the Bishop of Trani, a rival of the Archbishop of Bari who
was devoted to the Holy See, Michael Cerularius tried to draw the other
bishops of Apulia into a dispute with the Pope'. The letter was com-
municated by John to Cardinal Humbert, who had it translated into
Latin and forwarded to Leo IX 4.
Cerularius further took care that a treatise written in Latin by a
monk of the monastery of Studion, Nicetas Stethatus (Pectoratus), was
circulated. The attacks on the Latins were presented in it under a more
violent form than in the letter of Leo of Ochrida. He not only denounced
the use of unleavened bread and the Saturday fast, but, and this point
must have gone home to Leo IX and the Western reformers, he con-
demned the celibacy of priests as contrary to ecclesiastical tradition.
These charges, interspersed with coarse insults, were bound to cause keen
irritation to the Westerners and to embitter the quarrels.
Finally, to cut short any attempt at conciliation, the Patriarch took a
decisive step. On his own initiative he ordered the closing of the churches
of the Latin rite which existed at Constantinople. The abbots and monks
of the Greek monasteries grouped round these churches were commanded
henceforward to follow the Greek ritual, and on their refusal were treated
as “Azymites” and excommunicated. Some of them resisted, and scenes
1 L. Bréhier, Le Schisme Oriental, p. 92. Vide the two letters in Will, Acta et
scripta, quae de controversiis ecclesiae graecae et latinae saeculi xi composita exstant,
pp. 178 and 192.
2 L. Brehier, op. cit. pp. 93–94.
3 Gay, L'Italie méridionale, p. 495.
4 Wibert, Vita Leonis, ix. 11. 11 (Muratori, III. p. 296).
6 L. Bréhier, op. cit. pp. 94-96.
CH, IX.


## p. 268 (#310) ############################################

268 Correspondence between the Pope and the Patriarch
of violence ensued in the course of which Nicephorus, the sacellarius of
the Patriarch, trod under foot the consecrated host? .
While Michael Cerularius was thus entering on the contest, the
liance between the Pope and the Emperor had met with a decisive
check. Argyrus, defeated by the Normans (February 1053), had been
forced to abandon Apulia and to fly northwards. Some months later
Leo IX in his turn was defeated and made prisoner at Civitate, and it
was no other than John, Bishop of Trani, whom Argyrus dispatched to
Constantinople to ask fresh help against the Normans.
These events naturally led to correspondence between the Pope and
the Patriarch; and pontifical legates were sent to Constantinople, but
opinions differ as to the exact order of the facts. According to some
authorities, even before Leo IX had replied to the attacks of the Arch-
bishop of Ochrida, that is to say after the close of 1053, Michael Ceru-
larius wrote the Pope a letter, very conciliatory in tone, in which he pro-
tested his zeal for unity and proposed a new alliance against the Normans.
By so acting he demonstrated his goodwill towards the political alliance
between Pope and Emperor, but he remained obdurate on the matter of
the customs which he condemned as heretical. It was not until after he
had sent this appeal for conciliation that Michael Cerularius received the
two letters addressed to him by the Pope. The first was an indignant
refutation of the attacks of Leo of Ochrida on the Roman uses. In the
second the Pope accepted the proposed alliance, but refused to treat with
the Patriarch as an equal, and reminded him that every Church which
broke with that of Rome was only “an assembly of heretics, a conventicle
of schismatics, a synagogue of Satan”. ?
But this manner of presenting the facts does not at all explain the
express contradiction which exists between the violently aggressive acts
of Michael Cerularius against Rome and the extremely conciliatory letter
which he wrote to the Pope. The text of this letter, it is true, is no
longer extant, but the purport of it can easily be gathered from the
answer of Leo IX and the allusions which Michael Cerularius himself
makes to it in his correspondence with Peter of Antioch. It is hard to
believe that the Patriarch, who had wished to break with. Rome in so
startling a manner, wrote it of his own free will. Further, the position
of the imperial army in Italy at the end of 1053 was so desperate, and
the cementing of the alliance with Leo IX appeared so necessary, that
we are led to believe in some governmental pressure being brought to
bear on the Patriarch. It was almost certainly by order of the Emperor
and at the instigation of Argyrus that he consented to this effort at
conciliation
But no compromise was possible between the obduracy of Leo IX
1 Letter of Leo IX (Will, op. cit. p. 801), L. Bréhier, op. cit. pp. 96-97.
2 Gay, L'Italie méridionale, pp. 492–494.
3 L. Brehier, op. cit. pp. 97-109.


## p. 269 (#311) ############################################

The Roman legates at Constantinople (1054)
269
and that of Michael Cerularius. Determined to obtain the submission of
the Patriarch, the Pope sent to Constantinople three legates whom he
chose from among his principal counsellors, Cardinal Humbert, Frederick
of Lorraine, Chancellor of the Roman Church, and Peter, Bishop of
Amalfi. Before departing they had an interview with Argyrus, who
posted them up in the political situation at Constantinople; and this
fact was made use of later by the Patriarch, who alleged that these
legates were mere impostors in the pay of Argyrus.
The legates arrived at Constantinople towards the end of April 1054,
and were given a magnificent reception by the Emperor, who lodged
them in the Palace of the Springs outside the Great Wall. They visited
the Patriarch, but this first meeting was the reverse of cordial. Michael
Cerularius was deeply affronted to see that they did not prostrate them-
selves before him according to Byzantine etiquette. At the ceremonies
they claimed to take precedence of the metropolitans, and, contrary to
custom, appeared at the Palace with staff and crozier,
This attitude conformed to the tone of the two letters which they
brought from the Pope. We know already that, in the letter intended
for the Patriarch, Leo IX, while thanking him for the desire for unity
which he expressed, sharply reproved him for his attacks on the Roman
Church. The letter addressed to Constantine IX was, on the contrary,
couched in deferential terms. With consummate skill he contrasted the
project of alliance against the Normans with the attitude of Michael
Cerularius towards him. After enumerating his principal grievances, he
threatened to break with the Patriarch if he persisted too long in his
obstinacy. In conclusion, he adjured the Emperor to help his legates
to restore peace in the Church. It was clear, therefore, that the Pope
looked only to the authority of the Emperor to get the better of the
Patriarch? .
Discussions were opened. The legates Humbert and Frederick wrote
rejoinders to the treatise of Nicetas Stethatus on the question of un-
leavened bread. While defending the Roman Church, they vigorously
attacked certain uses of the Greek Church, but the treatise, especially
addressed to Nicetas, was written in coarse and violent language. The ill-
starred monk was overwhelmed with epithets such as Sarabaita, veritable
Epicurus, forger.
Then, on 24 June 1054, the Emperor and the legates went across to
the monastery of Studion. After the treatise of Nicetas, translated into
Greek, had been read, a discussion followed, as a result of which the
monk declared himself vanquished. He himself anathematised his own
book and all those who denied that the Roman Church was the Head
of all the Churches. The Emperor then ordered the treatise to be
committed to the flames.
The next day Nicetas went to visit the
1 L. Bréhier, Le Schisme Oriental, pp. 105-107.
2 Will, op. cit. pp. 85-88.
сн. Іх. .


## p. 270 (#312) ############################################

270
Excommunication of Michael Cerularius
legates at the Palace of the Springs. They received him cordially, and
removed his remaining doubts by answering all his questions. After he
had renewed his anathema against all the enemies of Rome, the legates
declared that they received him into communion”. The Patriarch
naturally did not take any part in these steps, which constituted an
absolute defeat for him. The monastery of Studion became once more,
as of old, the stronghold of the Roman party.
Michael Cerularius shrank from this open attack and declined to
meet the advances of the legates, protesting that they had not the
requisite authority for treating with him. Pope Leo IX died on 19 April
1054 and the Papal See remained vacant for a year, as Victor II was only
elected in April 1055. The fact of Leo's death was known at Constanti-
nople, as is shewn by the first letter of Michael Cerularius to Peter,
Patriarch of Antioch, in which he represented the legates as forgers in
the employ of Argyrus’.
The tactics of the Patriarch of Constantinople were obvious. By
refusing to recognise the powers of the legates he protracted the negotia-
tions, and was preparing against the Roman Church a manifesto from all
the Eastern Bishops. “Ought those," he wrote to the Patriarch of
Antioch,“ who lead the same life as the Latins, who are brought up in
their customs, and who abandon themselves to illegal, prohibited, and
detestable practices, to remain in the ranks of the just and orthodox ?
I think not”.
Nothing demonstrates better than this text the real wish
of the Patriarch for final schism.
The legates then decided to take the decisive action for which Michael
Cerularius was waiting. On Saturday, 15 July 1054, at the third hour,
they repaired to St Sophia at the moment when all the congregation was
assembled for the celebration of the daily service. After haranguing the
crowd and denouncing the obstinacy of Michael Cerularius, they deposited
a bull of excommunication on the altar, and then left the church, shaking
the dust off their feet 4.
In this bull, which the Patriarch caused to be translated into Greek and
inserted in his Synodal Edict, the legates said that they had received
from the Roman Church a mission of peace and unity. They rejoiced
at having found at Constantinople, as well in the Emperor as among the
clergy and people, perfect orthodoxy. On the other hand, they had
detected in the Patriarch ten heretical tendencies. In virtue of their
powers, therefore, they pronounced the anathema against the Patriarch
Michael Cerularius, against Leo, Archbishop of Ochrida, and against the
sacellarius Nicephorus and their followers. Thus the legates, unable to
induce the Patriarch to submit, and not venturing to take steps to depose
1 L. Bréhier, op. cit. pp. 109–113.
2 Will, op. cit. pp. 175 et seq.
3 lb. p. 183.
4 “Commemoratio brevis rerum a legatis apostolicae sedis Constantinopoli ges-
tarum. ” (Will, ib. pp. 151, 152. )


## p. 271 (#313) ############################################

The Synodal Edict of 1054
271
him, appealed to public opinion. In order to render their triumph more
complete, they consecrated, before leaving, some churches of Latin ritual.
Constantine IX continued to give proofs of his goodwill and heaped
splendid presents upon them? .
The triumph of the legates was, however, short-lived. Hardly had
they started on 17 July for their return journey to Rome, when the
Patriarch asked for an interview with them. They had already reached
Selymbria (Silivri) on 19 July, when a letter from the Emperor recalled
them. They turned back and reached the Palace of the Springs, where
they attended the imperial orders. Constantine IX, however, distrusting
the intentions of the Patriarch, did not consent to authorise the inter-
view of Michael Cerularius and the legates in St Sophia except in his
presence. The Patriarch refused this condition and the Emperor ordered
the legates to continue their journey. Subsequently Cardinal Humbert
asserted that Michael Cerularius wanted to draw the legates into a snare
and assassinate them? .
However that may be, the Emperor's answer exasperated the Patri-
arch. Enjoying unbounded popularity at Constantinople, he seems to
have had at this epoch a devoted party. A riot soon broke out in the
streets of the town. Constantine IX in alarm sent to the Patriarch
a veritable embassy of the principal dignitaries of the palace, who were
charged to appease him and to represent to him that the Emperor could
not offer any violence to the legates on account of their ambassadorial
rights. This answer did not satisfy the Patriarch, for soon a second
mission, in which the “consul of the philosophers,” Psellus, figured, arrived
with a new message from the Emperor. Constantine made truly humble
excuses for what had occurred and threw the blame on Argyrus. Two
citizens, Paulus and Smaragdus, guilty of having translated the bull into
Greek and of having circulated it, were handed over to him, after having
been scourged. The Emperor affirmed that he had given the order to
burn the bull and had committed to prison the son and the son-in-law
of Argyrus?
By this volte-face the Emperor surrendered to the will of the Patri-
arch and gave him a free hand for the future. It only remained for
Michael Cerularius to consummate his triumph by a sensational rupture
with Rome. With the authorisation of the Emperor he convened a
council on which were represented all the provinces of the Greek Church.
Twelve metropolitans and two archbishops signed the acts of it. The
opening sections of the Synodal Edict, published in connexion with this
assembly, contained a reproduction of the Encyclical sent by Photius
to the Eastern bishops. Michael Cerularius recapitulated in it all the
grievances of the Greeks against the Roman Church : the double Pro-
cession of the Holy Ghost, use of unleavened bread, the Saturday fast,
1 L. Bréhier, Le Schisme Oriental, pp. 118-119.
2 16. pp. 120, 121.
3 16. pp. 121–124.
יל
сн. Іх


## p. 272 (#314) ############################################

272
Definitive rupture (20 July 1054)
רי
celibacy of priests, shaving the beard, etc. He then complained of the
profanation of the altar of St Sophia by the legates, gave a biased
account of their stay at Constantinople, transcribed their bull of ex-
communication, fulminated an anathema against them, and lastly pro-
duced, as a trophy of victory, the pitiable letter which the Emperor had
addressed to him.
Finally, on 20 July 1054, at the patriarchal tribunal, in the presence
of seven archbishops or bishops and of the imperial delegates, judgment
was pronounced not only “against the impious document but also against
all those who had helped in drawing it up, whether by their advice or
even by their prayers. " Five days afterwards all copies of the bull
were solemnly burned before the eyes of the people; one copy only was
preserved in the archives of the Patriarchate?
By the solemn ceremonial with which he had invested these pro-
ceedings, Michael Cerularius had wished to shew that it was no longer
the question of a temporary schism like that of Photius but of a final
rupture. This schism was indeed his personal achievement and due to
his strong and domineering character, but it also reflects the opinion of
the Greek episcopate, which lent little support to the power
of
supreme
jurisdiction claimed by a bishop foreign to the Empire, and had only
an intolerant contempt for the peculiar uses of the Latins.
This separation was, as we have seen, rendered possible by the
weakening of the prestige of Rome in the East in the course of the
tenth century. Directly after the dispute about image-worship, there
had been in Constantinople an ecclesiastical party which saw no salvation
for the Eastern churches except in communion with Rome. This party
had been strong enough to resist Photius himself, and upon it the
Emperors had relied to re-establish unity. But a century later this
Roman party was non-existent in Constantinople. The scandals of
which Rome had continuously been the theatre during this period, and
the equivocal decisions on the marriage of Leo VI, had discouraged its
supporters. Michael Cerularius did not meet with the opposition that
had checked Photius.
Notwithstanding wide divergencies, the mass of the faithful followers
of the two Churches shrank from schism, and were satisfied with com-
promises which guaranteed the maintenance of normal relations between
Rome and Constantinople. Nevertheless, after the events of 1054,
although outside Constantinople no act of religious hostility between
Greek and Latins can be shewn, the members of the two Churches soon
regarded each other as enemies, and from this epoch dates the definitive
rupture between the Churches of East and West.
The results of this schism could not but be disastrous to the Byzan-
tine Empire. It took place precisely when the West was beginning to
1 L. Brehier, Le Schisme Oriental, pp. 124–125.


## p. 273 (#315) ############################################

The results of the Schism
273
lay aside barbarism. The highly-organised States, which were being
formed there, lost no time in turning these religious divergencies to
profit against the Byzantine Empire. The first consequence of the
schism was the final loss of Southern Italy. The Papacy, no longer
able to reckon upon the Byzantine Empire, made terms with the Nor-
mans?
But this schism was fated to have far more widely-reaching effects,
and, when the Empire fell on evil days, it was to prove a heavy burden
and a constant check on the goodwill of the West. For the Patriarch
of Constantinople the schism had been unquestionably a great victory.
His authority had been established without dispute over the Slav world
and the Eastern Patriarchates. Liberated from fear of subordination to
Rome, he had finally defended the autocephalia of his own Church. But
this victory of the Byzantine clergy was in reality a check for the states-
men who, like Argyrus, looked solely to the interests of the Empire.
After this epoch there are clear traces of that antinomy, which was
henceforward to dominate all the history of Byzantium, between the
political and the religious interests of the Empire. It was the schism
which, by rendering fruitless all efforts at conciliation between the Em-
perors of Constantinople and the West, paved the way for the fall of
the Empire.
1 At the Council of Melfi. Gay, L'Italie méridionale, pp. 516-519 (1059).
C. MED. H, VOL. IV. CH, IX.
18


## p. 274 (#316) ############################################

274
CHAPTER X.
(A)
MUSLIM CIVILISATION DURING THE ABBASID PERIOD.
When the Abbasids wrested from the Umayyads in 750 the headship
of the Muslim world, they entered into possession of an empire stretching
from the Indus to the Atlantic and from the southern shore of the
Caspian Sea to the Indian Ocean. It had absorbed the whole of the Persian
Empire of the Sasanians, and the rich provinces of the Roman Empire
on the eastern and southern shores of the Mediterranean; but though
Constantinople itself had been threatened more than once, and raids into
Asia Minor were so frequent as at certain periods to have become almost
a yearly occurrence, the ranges of the Taurus and the Anti-Taurus still
served as the eastern barrier of Byzantine territory against the spread of
Arab domination. In Africa, however, all opposition to the westward
progress of the Arab arms had been broken down, and the whole of the
peninsula of Spain, with the exception of Asturia, had passed under
Muslim rule. For ninety years Damascus had been the capital of the
Arab Empire, and the mainstay of the Umayyad forces in the time
of their greatest power had been the Arab tribes domiciled in Syria from
the days when that province still formed part of the Roman Empire ;
but the Abbasids had come into power mainly through support from
Persia, and their removal of the capital to Baghdad (founded by Manşūr,
the second Caliph of the new dynasty, in 762) on a site only thirty miles
from Ctesiphon, the capital of the Sasanian Shāhanshāh, marks their
recognition of the shifting of the centre of power.
From this period Persian influence became predominant and the chief
offices of state came to be held by men of Persian origin; the most
noteworthy example is that of the family of the Barmecides (Barmakids),
which for half a century exercised the predominant influence in the
government until Hārūn destroyed them in 803. It was probably due
to the influence of the old Persian ideal of kingship that under the
Abbasids the person of the Caliph came to be surrounded with greater
pomp and ceremony. The court of the Umayyads had retained something
of the patriarchal simplicity of early Arab society, and they had been
readily accessible to their subjects; but as the methods of government
became more centralised and the court of the Caliph more splendid and
awe-striking, the ruler himself tended to be more difficult of access, and


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Character of the Abbasid dynasty
275
the
presence of the executioner by the side of the throne became under
the Abbasids a terrible symbol of the autocratic character of their rule.
A further feature of the new dynasty was the emphasis it attached to
the religious character of the dignity of the Caliph. In their revolt
against the Umayyads, the Abbasids had come forward in defence of the
purity of Islām as against those survivals of the old Arab heathenism
which were so striking a feature of the Umayyad court. The converts
and descendants of converts, whose support had been most effective in the
destruction of the Umayyads, were animated with a more zealous religious
spirit than had ever found expression among large sections of the Arabs,
who, in consequence of the superficial character of their conversion to
Islām, and their aristocratic pride and tribal exclusiveness, so contrary
to the spirit of Islāmic brotherhood, had been reluctant to accord to
the converts from other races the privileges of the new faith. The
Abbasids raised the standard of revolt in the name of the family of the
Prophet, and by taking advantage of the widespread sympathy felt for
the descendants of 'Alī, they obtained the support of the various Shi'ah
factions. Though they took all the fruits of victory for themselves, they
continued to lay emphasis on the religious character of their rule, and
theologians and men of learning received a welcome at their court such as
they had never enjoyed under the Umayyads. On ceremonial occasions
the Abbasid Caliph appeared clad in the sacred mantle of the Prophet,
and titles such as that of Khalifah of Allāh (vicegerent of God) and
shadow of God upon earth came to be frequently applied to him. As
the power of the central authority grew weaker, so the etiquette of the
court tended to become more elaborate and servile, and the Caliph made
his subjects kiss the ground before him or would allow the higher
officials either to kiss his hand or foot or the edge of his robe.
The vast empire into the possession of which they had entered was
too enormous and made up of elements too heterogeneous to be long held
together under a system, the sole unifying principle of which was payment
of tribute to the Caliph. A prince of the Umayyad family, "Abd-ar-
Raḥmān, who had succeeded in escaping to Spain when practically all
his relatives had been massacred, took advantage of tribal jealousies
among the Arab chiefs in Spain to seize this country for himself, and to
detach it from the empire, in 756. North Africa, which had been placed
by Hārūn under the government of Ibrāhīm ibn al-Aghlab, became
practically independent under this energetic governor, who established a
dynasty that lasted for more than a century (800-909); though his
successors contented themselves with the title of emir, the Caliph in
Baghdad appears to have been powerless to interfere with their administra-
tion. Hārūn himself seems to have realised that the break-up of the Arab
empire was inevitable, since in 802 he made arrangements for dividing
the administration of it between his sons Amīn and Ma’mūn. But on the
death of their father in 809 civil war broke out between the two brothers.
18-2
CH. X.


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276
Decline of the Abbasid Caliphate
The Arabs lent their support to Amīn, and under his leadership made a
last effort to regain for themselves the control of the Caliphate; but in
813 Tāhir, Ma’mūn's brilliant Persian general, defeated him, and as a
reward for his successful siege of Baghdad was appointed by Ma’mūn to
the government of Khurāsān, where he and his descendants for half a
century were practically independent. Egypt broke away from the
empire when a son of one of Ma’mūn's Turkish slaves, Aḥmad ibn Țūlūn,
having been appointed deputy-governor of Egypt in 868, succeeded in
making himself independent not only in Egypt but also in Syria, which
he added to his dominions, and ceased sending money contributions to
Baghdad. This breaking away of the outlying provinces of the empire was
rendered the more possible by the weakness of the central government.
Ma'mūn's brother and successor, Mu'tasim (833-842), made the fatal
mistake of creating an army composed almost entirely of Turkish
mercenaries. Their excesses made life in Baghdad so intolerable that the
Caliph, in order to be safe from the vengeance of the inhabitants of his
own capital, moved to a site three days' journey up the Tigris to the
north of Baghdad, and from 836 to 892 Sāmarrā was the Abbasid capital
where nine successive Caliphs lived, practically as prisoners of their
own Turkish bodyguard. While the Turkish officers made and unmade
Caliphs as they pleased, the country was ruined by constantly recurring
disorders and insurrection. In 865, while rival claimants were fighting for
the crown, Baghdad was besieged for nearly a year, and the slave revolt
for fourteen years (869–883) left the delta of the Euphrates at the
mercy of undisciplined bands of marauders who terrorised the inhabitants
and even sacked great cities, such as Başrah, Ahwāz, and Wāsit, shewing
the weakness of the central power even in territories so close to the
capital. A further disaster was soon to follow in the great Carmathian
revolt, which takes its name from one of the propagandists of the Ismāʻilī
Shi'ah doctrine in 'Irāq during the latter part of the ninth century. His
followers for nearly a century (890-990) spread terror throughout
Mesopotamia, and even threatened Baghdad. They extended their ravages
as far as Syria, murdering and pillaging wherever they went. In 930
they plundered the city of Mecca, put to death 30,000 Muslims there,
and carried off the Black Stone together with immense booty.
These movements represent only a part of the risings and revolts that
brought anarchy into the Caliph's dominions and cut off the sources of
his revenue. In the midst of this period of disorder the Caliph Mu'tamid,
shortly before his death in 892, transferred the capital once more to
Baghdad, but the change did not bring the Caliphs deliverance from the
tutelage of their Turkish troops, and they were as much at their mercy
as before.
Deliverance came from Persia where the Buwaihids, who claimed
descent from one of the Sasanian kings, had been extending their power
from the Caspian Sea southward through Persia, until in 945 they
CH. X.


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Ascendancy of the Buwaihids
277
entered Baghdad, nominally as deliverers of the Caliph from his rebellious
Turkish troops. For nearly a century from this date the Caliphs were
mere puppets in the hands of successive Buwaihid emirs, who set them
upon the throne and deposed them as they pleased. The Caliph Mustakfī,
whose deliverance from his mutinous Turkish soldiery had been the pre-
text for the Buwaihid occupation of Baghdad, was in the same year dragged
from his throne and cruelly blinded. So low had the office of Caliph
sunk by this period that there were still living two other Abbasid princes
who like Mustakfi had sat upon the Abbasid throne, but blinded and
robbed of all their wealth were now dependent upon charity or such
meagre allowance as the new rulers cared to dole out to them. His
cousin Muțī was set up to succeed him, but though he held the office of
Caliph for twenty-eight years (946–974) he had no voice in the adminis-
tration, and could not even nominate any of the ministers who carried
on the business of the state in his name; helpless in the hands of his
Buwaihid master, he lived upon a scanty allowance. He was compelled
to abdicate in favour of his son ļā'i', after a riotous outburst of religious
intolerance in Baghdad, and Tā'i' for seventeen years (974–991) suffered
similar humiliations. He was deposed at last in favour of his cousin Qādir
(991–1031), of whose reign of forty years hardly any incident is recorded,
because political events pursued their course without any regard to him.
Meanwhile in Upper Mesopotamia an Arab family, the Hamdānids,
at first governors of Mosul, extended their authority over the surrounding
country, and one member of the family, Saif-ad-Daulah, made himself
master of Aleppo and brought the whole of Northern Syria under his
rule in 944. In North Africa a rival Caliphate had arisen under the Shi'ah
Fāțimids, who annexed Egypt in 969, and after more than one attempt
occupied Syria in 988. By the beginning of the eleventh century the
power of the Buwaihids was on the decline and they had to give way before
the Ghaznawids and the Seljūqs, the latter a Turkish tribe which made
its first appearance in history about the middle of the tenth century. In
1055 the Seljūq chief, Țughril Beg, after having conquered the greater
part of Persia, entered Baghdad and delivered the Caliph from subservience
to the Buwaihids. From Baghdad Tughril Beg marched to the conquest
of Mosul and Upper Mesopotamia, and when he died in 1063 he left to
his successor, Alp Arslān, an empire which eight years later stretched
from the Hindu Kush to the shores of the Mediterranean.
Alp Arslān died in 1072 and his son, Malik Shāh, still further
extended the empire by the conquest of Transoxiana. One of the Seljūq
generals, Atsiz, drove the Fāțimids out of Syria and Palestine, and
occupied Jerusalem in 1071 and Damascus in 1075. Under the protection
of the Seljūgs, the Caliph in Baghdad enjoyed at the hand of these
orthodox Sunnīs a certain amount of respect such as he had failed to
receive at the hand of the Shi'ah Buwaihids, but his political authority
hardly extended beyond the walls of the city.
CU, X.


## p. 278 (#320) ############################################

278
The Seljūq empire
The death of Malik Shāh in 1092 was followed by a period of con-
fusion, during which his four sons fought one another for the succession,
but in 1117 the supreme authority passed to his third son, Sanjar, the
last of the Great Seljūqs to exercise a nominal sovereignty over the whole
empire; before his death in 1155 it had split up into a number of separate
principalities, some of them ruled over by Seljūq princes, others by
officers who, acting first as guardians (or Atābegs) to minors, later
assumed the reins of power and founded dynasties of their own.
One permanent result of the rise of the Seljūq empire was that the
way had been opened for Muslim domination in Asia Minor. During
the whole of the Abbasid period the ranges of the Taurus and Anti-
Taurus had formed the frontier line between the Roman and the Arab
Empires, and though incursions had frequently, and during certain
periods annually, been made by the Muslim troops into Anatolia, no
permanent result of these military expeditions into the great plateau of
Asia Minor had been achieved beyond the temporary occupation of some
fortresses. But the Seljūqs made their way into Asia Minor from Northern
Persia through Armenia, and before the end of the eleventh century had
occupied all the centre of Asia Minor, leaving only the kingdom of
Lesser Armenia and the coast-line which was held by Byzantine troops.
This western movement of the Seljüqs and the consequent alarm of the
Emperor of Constantinople who appealed for help to the Christian
powers of Europe, were among the causes of the Crusades.
When the crusaders entered Syria in 1098, the Seljūq empire had
already begun to break up; the greater part of Mesopotamia and Syria
had been parcelled out into military fiefs in which the military officers
of the Seljūgs had made themselves independent. The political situation
of the Muslim world was but little affected by the establishment of the
Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1099, and the most important effect of the
Crusades upon Muslim history was the rise of the Ayyübid dynasty,
established by Saladin in his long conflict with the crusaders culminating
in the battle of Hițțin and the conquest of Jerusalem in 1187.
Farther east, the fratricidal struggle still went on between rival
Muslim houses fighting one another for the possession of the fragments
of the Seljūq empire. For a brief period the Caliph in Baghdad succeeded
in exerting some authority in the neighbourhood of his capital, and Nāşir
(1180-1225), freed from the tutelage of the Seljūqs, restored to the
Caliphate some of its old independence, though the narrow territory
over which he ruled extended only from Takrīt to the head of the Persian
Gulf. His most formidable rival was the Khwārazm Shāh, whose king-
dom, founded by a descendant of one of the Turkish slaves of the Seljūq
Sultan Malik Shāh, had been gradually extended until it included the
greater part of Persia. Under 'Alā-ud-Din (1199-1220) the kingdom of
Khwārazm embraced also Bukhārā and Samarqand, and in 1214 Afghani-
stan; but his career of conquest was short-lived, for on his eastern border


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The Mongol conquests
279
appeared the Mongol army of Jenghiz Khān which soon involved in a
common devastation and ruin the greater part of the various Muslim
kingdoms of the East. Muslim civilisation has never recovered from the
destruction which the Mongols inflicted upon it. Great centres of culture,
such as Herāt and Bukhārā, were reduced to ashes and the Muslim
population was ruthlessly massacred. With the Mongol conquest of
southern Russia and of China we are not concerned here, but their armies
after sweeping across Persia appeared in 1256 under the command of
Hūlāgū before the walls of Baghdad, and after a brief siege of one month
the last Caliph of the Abbasid House, Musta şim, had to surrender, and
was put to death together with most of the members of his family;
800,000 of the inhabitants were brought out in batches from the city to
be massacred, and the greater part of the city itself was destroyed by
fire. The Mongol armies then moved on into Syria, where first Aleppo
and then Damascus fell into their hands, but when they advanced to the
conquest of Egypt they met with the first check in their westward move-
ment. Egypt since 1254 had been under the rule of the Mamlūk sultans,
and the Egyptian army in 1260 defeated the Mongols at 'Ain Jālūt in
Palestine, and following up this victory drove them out of Syria altogether.
After the death of Jenghiz Khān in 1227, the vast Mongol empire had
been divided among his four sons; of Muslim territories, Transoxiana
fell to the lot of his second son Jagatai; one of his grandsons, Hūlāgū,
the conqueror of Baghdad, founded the Īl-khān dynasty of Persia and
included in his kingdom the whole of Persia, Mesopotamia, and part of
Asia Minor. The Seljūqs of Asia Minor had managed to maintain a
precarious existence as vassals of the Mongols by making a timely sub-
mission; and, under the rule of the Mamlūk Sultans of Egypt, Syria kept
the Mongols out. Such remained the general condition of the eastern
provinces of what had once been the empire of the Abbasid Caliphs,
during the remainder of the thirteenth century.
The Abbasid epoch has dazzled the imagination of the Muslim world
with the vision of a period of great wealth and splendour, and the de-
gradation of its latter days was blotted out by the remembrance of its
earlier glories, though these lasted barely 83 years. The shadowy Abbasid
Caliphate of Cairo bore witness for two centuries and a half (1261-1517)
to the impressive character of the ideal of a united Muslim Empire, under
the leadership of the Imām-Caliph, regarded as the source of all authority,
in spite of the fact that the disruptive influence of national movements
and the self-assertion of provincial groups had irremediably destroyed
the reality centuries before. As the rule of the Caliph was an absolutism,
tempered only by the divinely-inspired law, to which he with every other
Muslim had to submit, the state perished with him. For Muslim political
theory contained no principle of growth, to provide for the development
of self-governing institutions; no attempt had been made to widen the
сн. х.


## p. 280 (#322) ############################################

280
Muslim political theory
basis of government, or train the subjects to co-operate with the state,
and the continuity of city life-so characteristic a feature of political
life in the West-was unknown in the Muslim East.
By its elaboration of systems of law, however, the Abbasid period
bequeathed to succeeding generations authoritative codes which are still
in operation in various parts of the world, but the theocratic origin of
this law, based as it is on the unalterable, eternal Word of God, has
continuously hampered its adjustment to the changing conditions of
political and social life. In other branches of intellectual activity, not-
ably mathematics and medicine, permanent results were attained, of
which some account is given in the following sections.
The foundation for the political theories that find embodiment in
the organisation of the Abbasid Empire was laid during the period of
the Umayyads. These theories were in the main the outgrowth of two
definite factors. In the first place, the conquering Arabs were faced with
the problem of administering the vast Empire that, in the brief space of
a few decades, had fallen into their hands, while their past history had
given them no experience of organised methods of government and
administration, and their tribal system had ill prepared them for any
large outlook upon material problems. But they found in Palestine,
Syria, and Egypt, a large body of trained officials, accustomed to the
smooth working of the traditional method of administration in the
Roman Empire, and familiar with the departmental routine of bureaux
of government. Similarly, within the Persian empire, in spite of the
anarchy that had prevailed after Chosroes II, the administrative machi-
nery of the Sasanids, with its large body of officials for the collection
of taxes, was still available. There is abundant evidence to shew
that in the provinces of both these Empires the Arabs made very little
change in the methods of administering the country. Accordingly, at a
time when Muslim theory was formless and inchoate, it came under the
powerful influence of one of the greatest attempts to systematize social
and political life that the world has ever seen, and just as Muslim law
bears the imprint of the Roman legal system, and the earliest systematic
treatises of Islām
appear to have been modelled on catechisms of Christian
doctrines, so the fiscal system of the Arabs followed the lines that had
been laid down centuries before by Roman administrators.
On the other hand, during the whole of the Umayyad period, there
had been living in Medina the representatives of the apostolic age of
Islām, engaged in attempts to reduce to order the incoherent materials
for a Muslim theory of life based upon the ordinances of the Koran
(Qur'ān) and the traditionary sayings of the Prophet. As these legists
and theologians viewed with horror the heathenish ideals and manners
of the Umayyad court, and accordingly kept aloof from practical con-
cern with the details of political life, the theories of the state and of
legislation which they worked out very largely ignore the more stable


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Theory of the Caliphate
281
development of the Arab state. Muslim political and legal theories have
consequently never been able wholly to shake themselves free from the
unreality that marked their beginnings in the rarified atmosphere of
speculation in which early Muslim thinkers lived in Medina. When the
Abbasids came into power, largely with the help of an orthodox reaction
against the alleged heathenism of the Umayyad house, and with the
support of Persian converts whose theological zeal was unknown to the
latitudinarian Arabs, they attracted to their new capital, Baghdad, the
legists and theologians of Medina and lavished a generous patronage on
students of theology; at the same time they exercised control over
these thinkers and, while helping orthodoxy to triumph in the state, the
Abbasids took care to make use of it for their own selfish ends.
According to Islāmic theory, religious dogma, maxims of statecraft,
legal ordinances, and the details of the social life of the believer, all have
their source in the revealed text of the Koran and in the traditionary
sayings and practices of the Prophet; where these fail to provide the
required guidance, the consensus of the community is decisive, and most
Muslim thinkers have allowed also an analogical deduction from the first
two sources to particular cases not expressly mentioned in either of them.
During the third century of the Muslim era were compiled the six great
collections of traditions that are held to be authoritative in the Sunni
world.