Author: Gretchen Brown

A Giant of His Time – Georgios Maniakes

“I have seen this man myself, and I wondered at him, for nature had bestowed on him all the attributes of a man destined to command. He stood ten feet high and men who saw him had to look up as if at a hill or the summit of a mountain.”

Thus the 11th century historian and writer Michael Psellos described Georgios Maniakes in his Chronorgraphia.  Maniakes was an 11th century Byzantine strategos (general) and catepan of Italy.

It is telling in the work of modern researchers  that they cherry pick which of Psellos’ writing to take seriously and dismiss out of hand his claim that the notorious general stood as tall as Psellos described him. Yet, it was not uncommon to describe gigantic human beings and indeed there are numerous archaeological examples of humans ten feet and taller. Armenian warriors are described elsewhere as ten feet tall.  I am inclined to believe that the Armenian strategos really was this tall.

In any case, he was a giant of his time, as he had a reputation for numerous military accomplishments. It is a shame, that as a brilliant military strategist, he had not the control necessary over himself and his temper as he did over his troops, or he might have been truly great. The element in his army that author and historian John Julius Norwich describes as “heterogeneous” was largely Varangian. Yet this was also an element that as an almost general rule, had a strong independent streak and did not take well to coercion, which as we will see, worked to undermine Maniace’s control in the Mediterranean.  In addition to the Varangian, were the Lombards, led by a man named Arduin and a contingent of Normans led by William de Hauteville. The Normans were largely mercenaries and were hard to control without coin,

Psellos went on to speak of Maniakes: “There was nothing soft or agreeable about the appearance of Maniakes but put one in the mind of a tempest; his voice was like thunder and his hands seemed to be made for tearing down walls or smashing doors of bronze. He could spring like a lion and his frown was terrible. And everything else about him was in proportion. Those who saw him for the first time discovered that every description they had heard of him was an understatement.”

Given this, admittedly rather epically written description of the famous strategos, one can only imagine the effect he had on the emperor’s brother-in-law, Stephen the Caulker. Stephen was a completely unremarkable man who, due to his favorable juxtaposition by marriage and happenstance, found himself appointed to naval commander, a position to which he was in no way suited or qualified.  In short, he was an idiot and was better suited at caulking ships rather than commanding them. Maniakes was not a man to suffer fools gladly, so it was only a matter of time before these two would clash.  As it turns out, Maniakes did not get along with very many of his men and there was an inevitable clash with the Varangian leader Haraldr Hardrada, a man who was not a fool, but did not get on well with the bullying Maniakes. He certainly made enough of an impression on Haraldr, for Maniakes was mentioned in the Norse sagas where he was known as Gyrgir.

He did manage to get a nice fortress named after him. Castle Maniakes in Sicily.

The campaign in question was Sicily and the enemy was the Saracens who had long held the island.  Maniakes and his men took Messina and Rometta almost, it seems, without trying. The problem began at Syracuse. The Byzantines had won much booty from the Saracens, gold, jewels, precious fabric military equipment and horses. Given that the Varangians had a long standing agreement as part of their service, that they would receive a lion’s share of the booty. It is only reasonable to assume that there were stipulations made for booty on the part of the other commanders, such as, in this case Arduin the Lombard. For his part, he chose a magnificent Arab stallion.  It was a shame that Maniakes also had his eye on the same stallion. He demanded that Arduin relinquish it. Arduin refused. He was soon relieved of the horse anyway and stripped and beaten for his audacity. This humiliation seated within Arduin a deep and abiding hatred that would eventually lead him to switch sides and rebel against the Byzantines. As for the other troops, the Normans led by William de Hauteville and the Varangians looked upon this treatment of their fellow Germanic warrior and turned and walked out. The Normans would go on to revolt against the Byzantines and continue the Sicilian campaign independently and solely for their own gains. The Varangians returned to Constantinople. Maniakes was left with a reduced army with a depleted morale.

Once again Maniakes’ overbearing ego and his enormous temper, got him into trouble. However the real conflict between Stephen and Maniakes did not truly come to a head until the Battle of Dranginai, which according to all accounts, was a win for the Byzantines. They used special metal cases on their horses feet to protect them from the devastating caltrops that the Saracens had left to cripple and disable them. With the unexpected development, that they faced a cavalry charge that they thought they had completely incapacitated, the Saracens were left surprised and bewildered.

In addition, a dust storm rose up on the plain and left them blinded and disoriented. In the midst of all this, Stephen the caulker had one job and one only. As the naval commander, he was supposed to guard the cost with his fleet and prevent the escape of Wallah Abdullah, the Saracen commander. There is no record on what exactly happened here. Was Stephen sleeping? Was there a fog that enabled Abdullah to escape? Whatever happened, the Saracen commander slipped through the Byzantine network of ships sitting off the coast. The result was a furious Maniakes when he discovered what he supposed was Stephen’s brash ineptitude. When he confronted Stephen, reportedly with the handle of a whip. And while he is said to have beaten him, he must have, for all his size, used a modicum of restraint, as Stephen was able to escape alive and send word to the emperor, his brother-in-law. The result was that Maniakes was recalled to Constantinople. He was not given a chance to defend himself and found himself in prison, where he languished until the throne again received a new imperial behind in the person of Michael V.  The command of the Sicily expedition went by default to Stephen, a most unwise choice, as the campaign deteriorated under his inexpert leadership. Two years later Michael V released Maniakes from prison and he was sent back to Sicily which is found in a shambles, much of what he had won for the empire had been lost once again to the Saracens. Perhaps his name would have been remembered with more fondness had he been able to restrain his ego and his ambition. Yet the very things that had made him great were also his downfall.

An Update After an Extended Time Away…

I have come back to my blog after an extended time away. It has not been for a lack of writing as I have begun on my fourth book The Red Empress. The Red Empress is set around the events that led up to the dethroning and eventual restoration of the Empress Zoe and the exploits of the Haraldr Sigurdsson, who would later be known as Haraldr Hardrada – “the Hard Ruler” and king of Norway. Haraldr is accompanied by a fictional character from Rus, Asbjørn Ulfsson. It certainly leads one down some fascinating historical avenues, not least of which is the role Haraldr Sigurdsson played as a Varangian Guardsman and part of the armed escort to the pilgrimage of the Imperial family to Jerusalem as stonemasons were sent there to rebuild the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

In the early eleventh century, the son of the “mad caliph” al-Ḥākim bi-Amr Allāh had the church completely destroyed, but his successor, Al-Zahir li-i’zaz Din Allāh, was the son of a Byzantine woman and had no such compunctions against the Christians and graciously allowed them to begin rebuilding the church in 1027. During this time, around 1034, a great procession made its way to Jerusalem not only of the builders and stonemasons who would commit to the work, but some of the imperial family, to whom the Varangians were tasked with guarding on the possibly treacherous journey from Jaffa to Jerusalem.

It has been an interesting journey for myself to commit to the research surrounding such an event. A pilgrimage, even from Constantinople was no small task. To disembark in Jaffa was perhaps not to the liking of those who were used to finery and luxuries within the Imperial City. Jaffa was the only way at the time to get to Jerusalem by sea. However there was no harbor and one had to be rowed to shore, navigating the choppy open water and hazardous rocks. Here the travelers and their baggage would be loaded ashore and transported up narrow stone steps, through the crowded narrow streets. To decide upon the itinerary has been interesting, because I have found that pilgrimages, even if they were for the purpose of the forgiveness of sins, had within them something of a touristy affair. And while seeing such sights as the the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, believed to be the site of Jesus’ tomb; the Church of the Nativity, the supposed site of the birth of Jesus; Mount Zion and the Sea of Galilee might have been held with great reverence by the Christian pilgrims, how might these same sights been viewed by men such as Haraldr or Asbjørn to whom the Biblical stories were foreign. As a non-religious person myself, I get to view these things with much the same lens as they might have and see them for the strange and foreign wonders that they were without the subjectivity of religion attached to them. Or perhaps Haraldr Sigurdsson had recently taken up Christianity, the religion, after all, of his new employers and also got to see these things with same mystic awe. We may never know.

Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Wikimedia commons

One thing for sure, the pilgrims were certainly a gold mine for those who preyed upon them, whether they were bandits, or those, who in the spirit of all who have ever made a quick buck upon holidaymakers everywhere, sold them everything from fragments of “the true cross” to – in earlier centuries – small flasks known as monz ampulae containing either holy water or soil from the ground where Jesus walked. Later, small badges, often in the shape of a palm leaf, were popular mementos to bring back from the Holy Land.  There have been many such mementos found all over Europe, Some things just never change.

Bronze monz ampulae from 7th century. Wikimedia Commons

Slavic Sorcery Among the Leaders of Early Russia

The first two decades or so of the eleventh century in Rus’ were a volatile time. Early Russia was nominally Christian. The old pagan idols had been pulled down by Vladimir in accordance with his new marriage to the Byzantine princess Anna and his newfound faith and alliance with Anna’s brother Emperor Basil II.

As in all volatile times when there is an attempt to change a regime and do away with a previous culture, statues and idols were pulled down and churches were built on old Slavic sacred sites. Regime change means culture change. It would be nearly another millennium before Mother Russia would again see an assault on her culture in the form of Soviet Communism which always destroys the cultures it infects.

Yet, while the ruling Rus’ elite had taken on Orthodox Christianity, many in the hinterlands had not and there would still be pockets of paganism lasting even to the sixteenth century in Russia. They would not be suppressed. Even today, Eastern Orthodoxy in Russia and the Ukraine still retain many remnants of old Slavic Paganism and there is now a resurgence of return to the old ways called Rodovery. It is a very nationalistic faith and brings ethnic unity to the Slavic descended people of eastern Europe.

In the early eleventh century there was an uprising of volkhvs against Dobrynya, the Rus posadnik of Novgorod (who also happened to be the uncle of Vladimir the Great) in which they burned his house and killed his wife and family. It was said not to have ended well for the pagan volkhvs. The incident made it into my third book:

Rastislav watched as the last volkhv dropped from the ramparts of Novgorod. Even from this distance, he fancied he could hear the creak of the rope as they contorted in their death throes. Helpless rage constricted his heart, but he kept silent. It had begun to rain early in the morning and now the streets of Novgorod were a quagmire wherever there was not a stretch of planks. The damp smoke of cooking fires mingled with the misty haze.

From The Bone Goddess by G.S. Brown
Vseslav the Seer

In fact, in the mid eleventh century, there was a Grand Prince Vseslav of Polotsk, known as a great seer and a sorcerer, who may have been a volkhv. He is depicted on a modern commemorative coin with a wolf running in the background, perhaps an indication that he was said to transform as a werewolf. Indeed, Slavic volkhvs like their Norse counterparts, the volvas, were shamanic in nature and were said to be able to transform to animals or at least inhabit their forms. This may be the origin of the werewolf legend.

Volkhvs were indeed said to be shapeshifters and shamans, the name was cognate to the Norse volvas, who could also change form and both were said to walk the branches of the World Tree, that is, move in other realms and dimensions. They were very powerful and influential in their communities. Earlier Rus’ leaders would have looked to them for advice in leadership. Later rulers (with some exceptions) would have had them suppressed and hunted down, fearing for their influence over the only very nominally Christian Rus’ people.


 Málfríðr, mother of Vladimir the Great

The earlier mentioned Dobrynya of Novgorod had a sister known as Malusha or the more Norse name Málfríðr who is also a significant character in my books. Legend tells us she lived to be one hundred years old. After Vladimir married the Christian Anna, Málfríðr was banished from Kiev, but still occasionally summoned from her cave to give prophesy. Could Málfríðr have been a Norse volva or seiðkona? She was said to be the “housekeeper” of Vladimir’s grandmother Olga. She could just as easily have been a seer kept on at the ruling residence to give prophesies and oracles. She is denounced as a “bondswoman” by Rogneda of Polotosk who refused Vladimir’s suit. She said she could never be affianced to Vladimir as he was the “son of a bondswoman”. Málfríðr’s brother and Vladimir’s uncle, Dobrynya took such offence to this that he arranged for the forced marriage and rape of Rogneda and both of her parents and her brothers were killed before her eyes. Was there truth to this claim?  Seiðkonas in Norse lore were highly respected women who were not likely to be bondswomen. However, there is always the possibility she entered into a binding contract with Olga and was forced to become her personal seeress.  This is mere speculation however and while I always try to base my fictional narratives as closely as possible to the truth available, at times I am forced to stray into conjecture, walking the line between “plausible fiction” and historical accuracy.

There is far too much in the annals of old Russia to explore in the way of folklore and magic for the scope of this blog post, but I hope to delve into other aspects of it at another time.

And There Was Light

In our modern age, we enter a room, flick a switch, and instantly have light as if we have conjured it. Not too many think of what those before us used before the advent of electricity. Most of us might automatically assume candles. But not everyone could afford candles for every day. In any case, there were no paraffin candles as we have today. Most would have used beeswax candles, but beeswax was expensive to come by, even if it has a longer burn time. Some may have used tallow candles, though in Constantinople, the Book of the Eparch (an economic manual addressed for the use of the eparch or prefect of Constantinople) forbids the use of tallow candles within the city. Perhaps tallow candles were more of a fire hazard. They were certainly smelly and not the choice of lighting for those who could afford more suitable methods. In The Bone Goddess, they are used in the halls of Skadarska Krajina, though not by Theodora, but the soldiers she shelters there:

Every brazier and candelabra were lit in the great hall. The men seemed to have no objection to the malodorous tallow candles, cheaply made with a wick fashioned from a pith of rushes. In addition to bringing their own candles, they had brought much of their own food as Daphnomeles had said to have “no wish to be a trouble to the lady who has had so many of her own troubles”. Yet they seemed pleased that she brought them hot wine to take off the chill that the late winter rains brought to the damp, smoky halls.  

According to Daily Life in the Byzantine Empire by Marcus Rautman, candlemakers were required to sell their wares out of shops and not in the streets. Professional chandlers were known as keroularioi.  Monasteries and churches used so many candles; they were known to have employed men in their own workshops just to keep up with their demand.

Elaborate Byzantine Lamp
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

In the Byzantine era, oil lamps were frequently used, employing the fuel that could be so readily found in the Mediterranean – olive oil. They were frequently slipper shaped and often highly ornamented, though common folk were more likely to use simple clay lamps. Oil lamps were perhaps used less frequently than candles starting around the seventh century, but there can be little doubt, there were plenty who continued to use oil filled lamps, perhaps even because of the parable of the ten virgins from Christian literature that referenced the one woman who kept her oil lamp lit on a long vigil. Oil lamps are still used today by Orthodox Christians to illuminate the icon corner in the home, so it is unlikely they would have completely fallen from favor.

Simpler clay lamp
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

In an earlier chapter of The Bone Goddess, both forms of lighting are shown in this passage:

“One nomismata,” the Promitheftís Mystikón told Ulf tersely in a high voice. The man in the room seemed scarcely a man. He wore a veil over his face, spoke in a high, reedy voice and he kept to the shadows.  A eunuch then. Of course. What did he expect from a man whose whole stock and trade was the secrets swept into the shadows of the city? He had been escorted by a pale wisp of a woman carrying a thin, flickering beeswax candle through a warren of rooms, each darkened by shutters over the windows. The floorboards creaked ominously under his boots. Even in the dark, he could see where bits of the floor had broken away, revealing the light from the rooms below. One wrong step could send him crashing to the ground floor.  And yet this creaking, miserable creature who remained veiled and shuttered, exacted one nomismata from him for a single question? What did he do with all his money? Ulf glanced around, but the single guttering flame from an oil lamp, long past overdue to be cleaned and filled with fresh oil, barely illuminated his surroundings.

Light is integral for us when the sun goes down. We take it for granted. A flick of a switch is so much easier, not to mention safer now. Yet few could deny the warm, glowing ambiance of an oil lamp or beeswax candle, a fortification against the dark of an earlier time.

Moving Rivers-the Siege of Moglena

Replicated depiction of Basil II from the Menologion of Basil II
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

There is not a lot of information historically written about the battle of Moglena, which is a shame, because from what I could glean, it was certainly interesting.

Basil II, Byzantine emperor, had been hard at work, mobilizing his war machine to take down Bulgaria. The infamous Battle of Kleidion and the purported blinding of numerous Bulgarian soldiers now behind him, he retreated for a while, but again mobilized when word came to him that Tsar Samuil had died (possibly from stroke or heart failure brought on by the shock of seeing so many of his soldiers blinded) and that his son Gavril Radomir had taken charge of rebuffing the Byzantine Roman advances. Basil wanted to move quickly. Gavril’s support base was not strong, and he wanted to take advantage of this. He further fomented dissent in Bulgaria by appearing to support Gavrils’ nefarious cousin Ivan to the throne and even promising him he would support his assent to the throne if he killed Gavril and his wife and children, but that takes me away from the original point of the story.

Basil move in on Bitola, passing many Bulgarian towns, but leaving them be, forbidding rape and pillage. Bitola, Gavril’s capitol from which he had recently fled, however, he razed, biblically, “leaving not one stone upon another”.

Then he turned his attention to Voden which was always rebelling, quashing any hopes of rebellion and exiling the inhabitants. Finally, he turned to Moglena which his generals had been besieging without success. There is little to tell us why they had so little success and I have had to guess. In The Bone Goddess, they have resorted to siege towers which became stuck in the mud. Historically, Basil rolled up his sleeves and took control of the siege himself and to the astonishment of his generals, ordered the flow of the surrounding river the Moglenitsa to be diverted. The river ran around the outer walls of Moglena, serving effectively as a moat. It is hard telling how long such an operation might have taken. I would be very curious to know if the current river shows nay evidence today of this diversion of its flow. Searches of Google satellite images tell me little and it is difficult to ascertain accurately the position of the original town and fortress. It is now known as Almopia, Greece. The coordinates don’t appear to be anywhere near the river, but a lot can change in a thousand years.

After Basil had his engineers divert the river, he brought in the sappers. Sappers were low level grunts, low on the totem pole in the military, but like most low-level workers, very important. It was their job to tunnel beneath the walls. Doing so was a dangerous operation and often had to be done under the cover of night or behind screens so those on the fortress walls could not see what was being done, though I imagine after they saw the river being diverted, they certainly had to have their suspicions.

The river had been perhaps the one thing that made the inhabitants feel most secure. In the days since the operation had begun, that had all changed. Even a steady spring rain did not deter the sappers. They slogged on in the mud. Bourtzes’ sappers had diverted the river to such an extent, that tunneling work could begin, concealed with cleverly disguised wattle screens. The entire operation was supported by wooden beams. The besieged could only watch from the parapets. Basil had sent constant patrols around the parameters, night and day to ensure that the sappers’ efforts were not hampered. Most castles had a sally port with which the besieged sent out men to impede efforts to tunnel under the walls. In addition, Basil kept Moglena busy with varying levels of assault from the helepoloi, which he had caused to be set around the city at assorted intervals. They returned the assault with similar missiles from within. Basil’s men were outside the range of the catapults within Moglena, but not so the sappers, who had to make the journey of five hundred paces or so to the entrance of their tunnel. A well-placed missile caught one man before he could make his subterranean descent. Even from where Ulf stood with Bourtzes on the bank, he could see the man’s head smashed into a pulpy mess of blood and brain and mud.

Often, those who were besieged, would put a bowl of water on the ground near the suspected operations and if tunneling was being done under their city or fortress, the rippling of water in the bowl would give it away.  In this case, Basil had another trick up his sleeves, as if undermining (the origin for this term in modern lingo, but the way comes from this practice) wasn’t enough to weaken Moglena’s walls.

I describe the next step in The Bone Goddess:

It was important that the mine be as dry as possible for the next stage of operation.  The earth was carried away on wagons under cover of night so it would not be apparent to the defenders what was going on. This had to be done without even the benefit of torches. Wagons of dry brush and stinking, bloated hog carcasses were pulled up to the entrance of the mines and pulled deep within its recesses. The hogs had been slaughtered days before when it was thought the mines were ready for their addition, Bourtzes told Ulf.

The result pretty much ensured the destruction of walls, though surprisingly, this did not always ensure the surrender of the remaining holdouts behind their crumbling walls:

In the warm humid air, the hogs had had a chance to putrefy. Added to these were bushel baskets of rags greased with cooking fats and oils. These would be taken into the very bowels of the mine directly to where the tunnel burrowed under the castle walls. The hog fat and greasy rags would catch fire quickly. The conflagration would bring down the support beams of the mines, the only thing that continued to hold up the walls of the fortress. By the time the sun had reached its zenith, the walls had begun to show definite signs of sinking.

In the case of Moglena, Basil was successful. Moglena was completely destroyed and Gavril Radomir could only watch the destruction of yet another of his fortresses from a neighboring city. By the autumn of that same year, he would have no more stake in the operations of Bulgarian independence. Ivan Vladislav would kill him one fine autumn afternoon while he was out boar hunting. Ivan himself would only hold out three more years before Bulgaria utterly and inexorably fell to Basil II, the “Bulgar Slayer”

Plague in Our Own Time

The angel of death striking a door during the plague of Rome; engraving by Levasseur after Jules-Elie Delaunay
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Images

The plague arose in Babylonia,
when a pestilential vapor escaped from
a golden casket in the temple of Apollo.

—JULIUS CAPITOLINUS

I have taken a hiatus from writing of late as I have turned my attention along with the rest of the world to the pandemic that spreads across our planet. Something like this has never been seen in our lifetime. Plague and quarantines, however, were well known to our ancestors. They came up and killed and then disappeared. Nature’s great leveler, a way perhaps of keeping the population in check. Shakespeare, Sir Isaac Newton and Marcus Aurelius all saw pandemics in their lifetime.

In my book, The Plague Casket, my fictional character Ahmed al_Zayeeb has a conversation with the historical boy caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr about the mysterious casket that carries something unknown within it.  He makes a reference to the great plague of Justinian, with an additional veiled reference to the pillaging of the plague jars in Babylon that launched the Antonine Plague of 165-80.

“Ah, yes, but if men knew, their hearts would cry within them and they would curse their mothers for the day of their birth.”

Ahmed remained silent.

“The infidels are a foolish lot,” the boy continued. They give much power to a few men and call all things well. Who was that emperor so many hundreds of years ago, the one who took a whore as wife?”

“Justinian,” Ahmed replied wearily.

“Ah yes. I have heard it said that he desired to take the reins of his throne himself and do as his own heart dictated. The Brotherhood would have none of this and so threatened to release plague upon the people of Constantinople. Justinian laughed with scorn in their faces and mocked them, saying ‘Is there any one of you who can command God and the heavens and call upon plague as Moses did with the seven plagues of Egypt? And the men of Lampros conferred with one another and sought to bring wisdom to Justinian, the great whore monger who elevated a street courtesan to the role of empress. He had no wisdom in his heart.

But again, he would not listen to their entreaties. He continued to mock them. And so, they sent plague upon the people. For they have kept plague in reserve in such times as these, within the sacred halls of the temple of Apollo in Babylon and as far back as the time of Sumer.

The Bone Goddess by G.S. Brown

My plot regarding a secret society controlling political leaders behind the scenes and unleashing plagues upon the populace is fictional of course. However Adrienne Mayor, author of Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World tells us that priests of Apollo kept “plague jars” hidden beneath their temples for use in times of crisis and it is one of these very plague jars that was reported to have unleashed the Great Plague of AD 165-80 when Roman soldiers broke open a golden chest in the temple of Apollo in Babylon. The circumstances suggest that the soldiers were “allowed” to pillage the temple and in so doing take the pestilence back home with them. This “golden chest” is the inspiration for my Plague Casket.  Incidentally and not coincidentally, Apollo among other things, was a god of plague. Soldiers, of course, make very handy vehicles for pathogen spread and in no time, the disease (that some scholars suspect may have been smallpox) had ravaged the empire. Whether or not this was, as the Romans described pestilentia manu facta, it had lasting consequences around the world.

On his deathbed, the most famous victim of the Antonine Plague, Marcus Aurelius, a Stoic to the end, whispered, “Weep not for me; think rather of the pestilence and the deaths of so many others.”

A Bird in a Gilded Cage: Maria, wife of Ivan Vladislav

Last week I talked about Jovan Vladimir and his clash with Ivan Vladislav. Ivan was an interesting and complex character, but his wife Maria is not as talked about. She has the distinction of being the last tsaritsa of Bulgaria.

A coin depicting Romanos I Lekepenos
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Some historians surmise that she was the daughter of Tsar Boris II and an unknown Byzantine noblewoman.  In addition, Boris was the son of Maria Lekapena, a granddaughter of Emperor Romanos I Lekapenos of Byzantium. A Bulgarian priest, Paisij de Chilendar, identifies Maria as “a Greek woman, daughter of a magistros”. If this is true, by marrying her, Ivan would have cemented for himself his right to the Bulgarian throne, as well as marrying someone related to the currently reigning Macedonian dynasty. Perhaps Ivan had even grander ambitions of using Maria to eventually ascend the Byzantine throne as well. To the modern mind, this gives Ivan a sense of cold, calculation. Marriage amongst nobility in medieval Europe was political and an ever upward climb. If we assume that Ivan was as cold and calculating as his biographers indicate, his marriage to Maria was certainly not one of love. Perhaps we could assume she felt the same about him.  She had several children attested to her with Ivan. They were Presian, Alusian, Aaron, Troian and Catherine, as well as Radomir and presumably an unknown son.

After her husband’s demise before the walls of Dyrrachium in 1018 (there are at least three versions as to how, exactly, he died) she expertly negotiated terms with the Byzantine emperor Basil II. This alone gives some credence to her noble upbringing and the respect with which the Byzantines accorded her. Furthermore, she was given the title of Zoste Patrikia, a very high honor and in fact one of the highest one could attain, short of empress. She was renamed Zoe, perhaps taking on the name from Basil’s niece who may very well have been her patroness. Paradoxically despite this honor, she was, even so, a part of the triumph, which by its very nature was designed to showcase a victory and subjugation of a conquered people. This fact could not have escaped her. I imagined such a triumph in The Bone Goddess: through the eyes of one of Basil’s Varangian Guardsmen, Ulf Svensson:

They waited patiently as all the elements of Basil’s triumph were carefully organized in the order in which they were to proceed into the city. Waiting behind them were the best of Basil’s victorious tagmata, and his thematic units, each bearing the banner of their themes. Eustathios Daphnomeles, as acting akolouthos, rode at Basil’s right. It should have been Micah in that place of honor. Micah who had stood side by side with them in numerous battles in the forests and glades of Bulgaria. Micah, the only friend he had ever had who truly understood the burden of the secrets he carried. Melancholy, at odds with the festive air, swept over him. Behind him, the dragon banner of the Varangian Guard whipped sharply in the wind. The finest horses from Ivan’s stables were ridden by members of the Anatolian aristocracy. Some of them were ridden by Ivan’s family and the families of his generals and boyars. Maria led this procession. Basil had remained unmoved by Maria’s impassioned pleas to be spared this humiliation. She must endure this and when it was done, she would be invested in the role of Zoste Patrikia for the remainder of her days. It was a great honor, not to be taken lightly. Perhaps it was for this and no other reason she rode her horse with her head held high. If she felt the sting of defeat, she was determined not to show it. Her daughters rode after her. All were clothed in green. Maria and her entourage were followed by a entourage of priests swinging censers. They were wreathed in ethereal smoke like twisting wraiths. At their center they bore an enormous icon of the Virgin. Following this, wagon after wagon of goods taken from Bulgaria. Most of it had been looted from Ivan’s palaces. The sun glanced off bronze amphorae, jewel encrusted chests and candelabrum of gilt bronze and inlaid with blue stones, so vivid he could see them from where he sat his horse in the procession.

Even though she was given high honor, it was likely that she was in fact, a political prisoner living in a gilded cage. Later, in 1029, not content with her cage, she along with her son Presian conspired against Emperor Romanos II Argyros. She was exiled and he was blinded.

A Medieval Fairy Tale Romance…Reimagined

A medieval religious icon depicting Jovan Vladimir (with second head) Image Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

In my third book The Bone Goddess, Jovan Vladimir, a real-life Serbian prince is a significant character, while his wife Theodora Kosara is even more prominent and is a viewpoint character. The story of Jovan and Theodora is a very interesting one, even if you strip away the veneer of romanticism that inevitably becomes attached to such tales.

Jovan was a medieval Serbian prince who, after his death, was later recognized as a martyr and a saint. He was married to a woman who was alleged to be the daughter of Samuil, tsar of Bulgaria, though some attest her to being related to Samuil though not as his daughter. Jovan was on good terms with the Byzantine empire and largely neutral in the conflict between the empire and the Bulgarians.  The city of Dyrrachium (Now Durrës, Albania) was a strategic one in this conflict and directly to the south of it lay Jovan’s lands of Duklja. It was instrumental for Samuil, therefore, to take Duklja and he attacked in 1009, with the intention of preventing him from joining Basil. With an intention of neutrality, it is not k own if that was Jovan’s plan, though there is a record in the charter of the Great Lavra Monastery of a Serbian diplomatic mission to Constantinople in 992. Jovan retreated with his people up into the mountains. Many of his nobles defected to Samuil and the young Serbain, prince refusing surrender to Samuil, was captured and thrown into prison. The story might have ended there and the young man could very well have rotted in prison and died in obscurity, were it not for Samuil’s daughter, Theodora Kosara, who with her ladies went down to her father’s dungeons to wash the feet of the prisoners. The Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja recounts it thus:

It came to pass that Samuel’s daughter, Cossara, was animated and inspired by a beatific soul. She approached her father and begged that she might go down with her maids and wash the head and feet of the chained captives. Her father granted her wish, so she descended and carried out her good work. Noticing Vladimir among the prisoners, she was struck by his handsome appearance, his humility, gentleness and modesty, and the fact that he was full of wisdom and knowledge of the Lord. She stopped to talk to him, and to her his speech seemed sweeter than honey and the honeycomb.

  She and Jovan fell in love and she begged her father to be allowed to marry him.  Her father, seemingly magnanimously, agreed. On closer inspection, however, his motives may not have been as altruistic as at first glance. By giving his daughter to Jovan and as a wedding gift (or perhaps a dowry) ceding Jovan’s lands and castle back to him, he effectively now controlled the young Serbian. It was a decisive political arrangement on Samuil’s part. The young lovers settled in comfortable in Skadarska Krajina and had some children. All might have gone on very comfortably in this happily-ever-after fairy tale but for one scheming spider: Ivan Vladislav. Ivan was Samuil’s nephew and Theodora’s cousin. By 1015 he had ascended the throne himself, through a combination of events that worked in his favor and outright murder. He was likely no great admirer of Samuil, as many years before Samuil had order the execution of his parents and siblings. He himself, was spared only at the request of his cousin Gavril Radomir, Samuil’s eldest son. In 1014, Samuil fell victim to something that was probably a stroke brought about by the enormous shock of his defeat at Kleidion and possibly the horror of seeing scores of his soldiers, blinded on the orders of Basil II. The throne fell to Gavril who then was a target of his less-than-grateful cousin Ivan, who killed Gavril (most likely at the behest of the Byzantine government) while the latter was out boar hunting. The throne was now Ivan’s and he set his sights as his uncle had done, on the lands of Duklja which was an inconvenient block on his way to the strategic port city of Dyrrachium. He sent envoys to Jovan requesting his presence at Prespa. Theodora, knowing full well the treachery her cousin was capable of, implored her beloved husband not to listen to Ivan’s demands. The Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja tells us that she went herself to the court at Prespa. At this point, Ivan urged her husband to follow sending a golden cross as a promise of good faith and safe conduct, whereupon the chronicle tells is he replied: “We believe that our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, was suspended not on a golden cross, but on a wooden one. Therefore, if both your faith and your words are true, send me a wooden cross in the hands of religious men, then in accordance with the belief and conviction of the Lord Jesus Christ, I will have faith in the life-giving cross and holy wood. I will come.”

Whether this was simply a matter of diversionary tactics or stalling for time, we may never know. In any case, Ivan then sent two bishops and a hermit (presumably trusted and known to Jovan) with a wooden cross that they attested that Ivan had given his kiss of good faith. Jovan then came, taking the wooden cross (so the chronicle tells us) with him to Prespa.

The chronicle does not tell us what words were spoken at this meeting nor exactly what took place, though I attempt to reimagine it fictionally in The Bone Goddess:

Theodora stood on the stone steps of the church, the wind buffeting her veil over her face. Ivan stood near her, his hands clasped before him. He had chosen to wear full ring mail today with a surcoat bearing the Cometomuli colors. On her other side stood the Lombard mercenary Audoin. He rested his hands on the pommel of his unsheathed sword, the point on the stone step, midway between his toes. He seemed to like to keep it unscabbarded. Perhaps so all could read the inscription on the blade: I do not await eternity. I am eternity. Theodora could make out her husband among the men he rode with. Even at this distance, she recognized the set of his shoulders. How fine and handsome he looked astride a horse! He rode with a contingent of about a dozen or so retainers. She was surprised. She had expected he would bring more.

 He should have known that the guileful Ivan could not be trusted. In imagery that is almost evocative of the death of the fictional Lord Eddard Stark in Game of Thrones, Jovan was summarily beheaded by Ivan’s soldiers in front of the church at Prespa. According to the chronicle, Jovan was killed while still holding the cross. In religious art, he is depicted – rather improbably – carrying the cross in one hand and his own severed head in the other.

I chose a rather more mundane way of depicting his tragic end:

He was still holding the wooden cross on which Athenasius had inscribed his blessing. He seemed disoriented. A soldier came forward and kicked the cross from Jovan’s hands.  His retainers and guards had been forced back by Ivan’s men. Saganek drew his sword and rushed Ivan’s guards. He was yelling something, but Theodora could not hear what it was. It seemed intended for Ivan. Then Saganek went down and she saw he had a spear sunk into his belly. He was clutching it, convulsing, deep scarlet spreading over the front of his linen tunic.

Ivan nodded to the soldiers who flanked him, and they moved in.  Jovan’s arms had been jerked roughly behind him. They forced him to his knees. She darted forward to Jovan, but she was pulled back by one of Ivans’ soldiers who wrapped his burly, mail-clad arms around her, restraining her. Audoin came forward now at a nod from Ivan. He raised his great Lombard sword over his head.

“No Ivan, please, no! You must not do this!” Her words came in sobbing gasps. She had promised herself she would not beg anything of Ivan. She would not grovel at his feet.

Jovan looked up at her. He seemed to say something to her. She could not hear. More soldiers moved in front of her, blocking her view.

Mihail growled, “For the love of God and His Mother, take the lady away, my lord. Do not let her be witness to this.”

Ivan shook his head. “No, Mihail. She insisted on doing the work of a man, coming here as her husband’s ambassador. Let her now not have any concession made to her because of her womb.”

 His remains were interred at Prespa, though his distraught widow had them later removed to Duklja. He was then made into a saint and his feast day is May 22, the day in which his life was ended via Ivan’s treachery. As for Theodora Kosara, she faded into obscurity, presumably to end her days in a monastery, giving a not-so-happily-after ending to what was otherwise an enchanting fairytale romance.

An Imperial Ménage à Trois

Art from the Hagia Sophia depicting Constantine Monomachos and the Empress Zoe on either side of Christ. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Last time I hinted briefly on the subject of Maria Scleraina, the mistress of Constantine IX Monomachos. Very little can be found about this lady save a few interesting tidbits here and there.  When Constantine agreed to marry Zoe Porphyrogenita, his one condition was that he be allowed to bring his mistress with him. Zoe expansively agreed to that, even to the extent that Maria was given a title equal to her own – sebastea – and was present in all formal official occasions and processions. After years of clawing her way to the top, and numerous love affairs (she was now on husband number three) Zoe seemed surprisingly relaxed about the situation. By now she was in her sixties and while Constantine was a lover from back in the day, he was her junior by at least twenty years. Perhaps she no longer felt the need for competition for men’s affections. Perhaps she found Maria’s influence useful in some way. Whatever the reason, Maria was given full honors and prestige alongside her lover and his wife.

Maria came from a noble family and was in fact, the great-granddaughter of the rebel Bardas Scleros who twice revolted against the rule of Basil II. She was a lively and intelligent lady who enjoyed conversation and literature. Among her favorite things to read and discuss was the poet Homer. This was apparently well enough known that there is an anecdote by the historian Michael Psellos describing a procession in which Maria took part. As Maria passed by, an onlooker whispered, “It were no shame…” the first line of a verse from Homer’s Illiad. The entire verse is: “It were no shame that Trojans and well-greaved Achaeans should long suffer for the sake of this woman.” It is in reference to Helen of Troy. Maria was naturally delighted to be compared to Helen of Troy and, while maintaining serenity and poise during the procession, later had the speaker located and brought to the palace where he was accordingly rewarded with lavish gifts.  This was the passage from Michael Psellos’ Chonographia:

There was an instance when we the imperial secretaries processed alongside the Empress (Zoe). Her sister Theodora and the Sebaste (Maria) also processed… This was the first time the people had seen the empresses together. One of the flatters whispered a quote from The Poet; ‘It were no shame…’ but did not finish the lines. Maria did not immediately acknowledge the words. However, when the procession finished, she both separated out the speaker and closely examined the comparison, not butchering the words, but pronouncing the quote correctly. So, the speaker recounted the comparison at length and in exactness. The audience heard the words at the same time expressed approval. At that moment Maria was filled with pride.

Maria is a personality that lends itself well to an interesting fictionalized character and as such, she is rapidly finding her way into the plot of what will be my fourth book in the Varangian Saga, The Red Empress. In this, her love of literature (in particular Homer) has made her seem to leap off the pages, as in this instance her encounter with my fictional character Asbjørn: 

Asbjørn stood in the entryway to the gynaikonitis, ill at ease and unsure of himself. When the eunuch motioned him to come forward, he did, but reluctantly. Maria was seated, surrounded by her ladies in front of an alcove with windows that opened out onto the sea. From where he stood, Asbjørn could smell the sea, even over the heady floral aromas that pervaded the room. Someone had thrown sandalwood on the brazier. It was strong and it made his head feel clouded.

            He made obeisance to her. She made a gesture with her hand to one of her serving women who brought a large bound codex forward. “This is for you to read. Homer’s Iliad,” she added, by way of explanation. Asbjørn took the bound volume in his hands, as one might a newborn child. A shock went through him, as he touched the leather binding. It was as Rastislav had always said. Words were powerful. They contained a magic that could not be explained. Was this not why Óðinn had hung on the Great Yew Tree, to gain the power of the runes for all mankind? Holding a volume like this took his breath away. It had been a long time since he had held any book in his hand.  “I cannot do this, kyria,” he told her.

            “You read well. Any man that can read Plato can read Homer.” She smiled at him.

            “It is not that. I cannot be responsible for such an expensive book. I fear something would happen to it. I fear being beholden to you.”

            “You would be beholden to me if you did not read it. It is my very favorite of all writings. I desire that you should know it as well.”

            His unease, rather than being diminished, only heightened. He had not come here to read the Iliad. His sole purpose in Constantinople was to find the men who had been the scourge of his family and see their society torn asunder. In spite of himself, he opened the cover. He could smell, only faintly, the odor of old parchment and the distinctive aroma of gum arabic and cuttlefish ink. The copyist had a fine hand, clear and legible, though the manuscript was old enough that the ink had begun to fade. The first words reached out and pulled him in: Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans.

The only thing he had to compare were the old stories of the gods of his people that his sister had told him by the fire on winter nights. Part story, part poetry, part incantation.

He looked up at her, lost in a space of time, wondering how long they had all been looking at him. How long he had been lost in the page.

            “It is not like the Church Fathers or even Plato at all, is it now?” Her eyes sparked at him, daring him to disagree. He had no words.

             “I will read it,” he said. “Thank you.”

            She clapped her hands together. “I am so glad. And when you have finished, I want to hear which parts you favored best.”

Somewhere I read that Maria gave Constantine a daughter, Anastasia who was later given in marriage to Vsevolod I of Kiev. Anastasia is certainly mentioned as a relative to Constantine IX, but it is not entirely clear if this is how. Maria had a good deal of influence on her lover and perhaps used to it to some effect to bring about the destruction of George Maniakes. It is known that her brother Romanos Skleros had land adjacent to Maniakes and there was no love lost between these two men. He was said to have pillaged Maniakes’ land and to have “desecrated the marriage bed” which one could take to interpret that he either raped Maniakes’ wife or seduced her. This certainly must have had some bearing on the reason Maniakes finally rebelled in 1043, having his troops declare him the true and rightful emperor. It almost makes American politics pale by comparison. Almost.  In any case, Maniakes’ forces were destroyed by the emperor’s at Ostrovo and he was killed.

The emperor’s preferential treatment of Maria unsurprisingly led to theories among Byzantines that there was a conspiracy against the true empresses Zoe and Theodora and even rumors that she was planning on murdering them. This led to an uprising in 1044 in which a mob actually threatened harm to Constantine during a procession. The empresses made an appearance on a balcony to assuage the fears of the people. Soon after this, Maria passed away. Not all influential women made history books as did Cleopatra, Joan of Arc or Elizabeth I. Maria was one of those who was content to play her role quietly behind the scenes. Some historians would like us to think that Byzantine women spent their whole lives cloistered behind the walls of the gynaikonitis, never speaking for themselves or showing their faces. (The riot in 1042 in Constantinople spoken of in a previous post in which the women of the city emerged to protest the cloistering of the Empress Zoe refutes this notion.) In fact, women like Maria appear to be as fully educated as their male counterparts and even at times, as outspoken. Yet perhaps sometimes they found their greatest influence exhibiting their sparkling charm, wit and gracious femininity as did Maria Scleraina. This, then, is the true power of a woman.

Chaos in Constantinople

Last week I attempted to somewhat shallowly cover the exploits of Harold Hadrada. It was a feeble attempt, because there is more to cover than can be attempted in the format of a blog. Sígfus Blöndal devoted an entire chapter of his Varangians of Byzantium to Harold Hadrada alone and he is far more qualified to write about him at length.

I mentioned that among the many events that occurred during Harold’s time in the empire, was an uproar surrounding the Empress Zoe Porphyrogenita and her adopted son Michael V, who had seized the throne upon the death of her second husband and his kinsman Michael IV. There will be a lot of Michaels in this article, so bear with me.

Michael V did not long hesitate to seize power for himself. He claimed that Zoe had attempted to murder him. Unfortunately, her history regarding husbands was not the most exemplary. Her first husband had been Romanos Argyros III and while it had not been her idea to marry him, it most likely was her idea to do away with him. Michael Psellos and Mathew of Edessa, both contemporary historians maintain that Zoe poisoned him, Psellos saying it was hellebore. Indeed, hellebore may have been what weakened him, causing him to succumb to exhaustion in the baths. Hellebore is not a fast-acting poison, but perhaps Zoe and her lover who later became Michael IV only wanted to incapacitate Romanos with the intention it would appear he was drowning. Romanos’ attendants pulled him from the water and Zoe was called immediately whereupon she set up a great fuss at his predicament but then left. It was reported that her lover’s men later strangled him. In any case he died and Psellos, who witnessed many of the events, certainly seemed to think that Zoe was somehow culpable for his demise. Her younger lover, once urbane and handsome, was given to epileptic fits and soon gave way to deteriorating health. In time, not even yet thirty, he lay on his deathbed and Zoe was persuaded, perhaps even forced, to accept Michael’s nephew also named Michael as her adopted son. Her husband refused to see her before he died and before long, her newly adopted stepson was planning to take the throne completely for himself. He knew that Zoe, while now getting on in years, had been much spoiled by her father Constantine VIII would consider herself entitled to the throne, despite being a woman. First, he exiled his uncle who had been instrumental in getting him on the throne. Then he found a way to get rid of his adoptive mother as well. She was accused of plotting and conspiracy, had her head shorn and was exiled to an island in the Marmara Sea.

Zoe Porphorygenita (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons from a mosaic at the Hagia Sophia)

In the meantime, the man who might have been her champion, Harold Hadrada had been dumped in prison, possibly on trumped up charges. Sígfus Blöndal gives his place of incarceration as the cells below the quarters of the Excubitore, the original imperial guard prior to the Varangian contingent. Michael V was said to have had the Varangian Guard replaced by more tractable troops called “Scythian slaves” who may well have been Slavic captives.

The new emperor moved quickly to secure his position on the throne. He not only had his adoptive mother exiled, but also his uncle John Orphanotrophos, a eunuch who had been in a place of special council since the time of Zoe’s uncle Basil II.  He also attempted to entrap the Patriarch of Constantinople, Alexios. Sígfus Blöndal indicated that Michael V had the Varangians surround the Stenon Monastery where Alexius had taken refuge while elsewhere indicating the Varangians had been replaced by “Scythian slaves” so there is some confusion over this discrepancy. It is likely that he would have used replacements, as the Varangians swore an oath not to the empire, but the emperor himself. As the rightful Porphyrogenita, a title that literally means “born in the purple” all men on the throne would have received their right to rule directly through Zoe and her ties to the Macedonian bloodline. Zoe was nothing if not wily and while I have found no actual historical notes verifying it, it seems to me that she would have found it propitious to have the Varangian Guard swear personally to her, as they would to a male reigning sovereign. Michael would know that he had no hold on the elite military unit, mostly comprised of Scandinavians to whom oath breaking was an anathema instilled in them since birth.

 Alexios managed to bribe his way out of the monastery and ran to the Hagia Sophia, summoning the officials of state and military to meet him there.

 Even as this was happening, Michael V called the Senate together and announced that the empress had attempted to poison him, perhaps readily believable considering the very suspicious way her first husband had died, and he had her deposed and exiled to the Prinkipo Islands. Michael had the sebastocrator (a very high ranking official at court) of Constantinople declare the new order in the forum of Constantine. However, Alexios was one step ahead of him and had the bells rung and the people summoned out into the streets to oppose the emperor’s treason. There ensued outright anarchy for the next forty-eight hours or so. As the mobs began first to attack the home of the emperor’s uncle the nobilissimus, and the emperor’s palace itself, the latter panicked and sent a boat to the empress’ island prison to bring her back. He had her vested once more in imperial robes and brought out on a balcony in the hippodrome that all might see she had been returned. He and the nobilissimus made a great show of bowing to her. However, the mob refused to believe that she would be anything more than a helpless pawn in the hands of Michael V and the nobilissimus. They demanded that she reign in her own right and that Theodora, the empress’ despised sister be brought from monastic life (where she was quite happy, by the way) and made to rule with her. They dragged the old one-time empress out from the monastery and forced her also to wear imperial vestments.  The palace was still under siege and in the midst of all this chaos, the strategos Maniakes (Hadrada’s old nemesis) returned from Sicily with a military contingent of his own. If indeed Michael still had Varangians on his side, it was to soon become apparent that those mustered with him and those on the side of the insurgents, would not long conceive to fight one another. He realized he would soon be abandoned, and his own troops would turn on him, before they would turn on their sword brothers.

Harold Hadrada had by this time been released from prison (Psellos said it was a woman, but never tells us exactly who) and had come to lead his Varangians against the insufferable Michael.  Under the cover of darkness, the emperor and his uncle fled by boat to the Studite Monastery where they were not long able to take sanctuary as they were dragged out and returned to Palace. The mobs had destroyed the Archives and the Imperial Treasury (the Norse sagas state that it was burned). Power changed hands very quickly. There was a new sebastecrator and he had given orders that Michael and his uncle were to be publicly blinded. It naturally fell to Harold Hadrada and his men who had so rudely fell afoul of Michael V to throw themselves to this task. Psellos was apparently a witness to all this. He records that the nobilissimus underwent his punishment bravely with no complaint or resistance but that the emperor “howled pitifully”, beginning when he saw what was in store for him. After this, they were both exiled to a monastery to end their days.

Constantine IX (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons from a mosaic at the Hagia Sophia)

            Theodora’s return to the palace did not suit Zoe at all who did not fancy sharing power with her sister. She quickly decided that the only way to remedy this was to take yet another husband. After perusing the lists of a few of her former beaux, she decided on Constantine Monomachos. The Patriarch Alexios refused to marry them as it was a third marriage for them both. They got married anyway and Constantine was recognized as IX of his name. His only requirement was that he keep his mistress with him. Perhaps no one was more surprised than Constantine when the empress readily agreed, and his mistress Maria Scleraina (who was, by the way, the granddaughter of none other than that old rebel Bardas Scleros). She was given the official title sebastea and in any public procession involving Constantine and the empress, she was always included and given much the same respect. This curious ménage à trois continued until her death in 1044.  She was truly an interesting person and Psellos hints at an exuberant and sparkling personality, but more on Maria Scleraina must wait for another day.