Category: Culture

Slavery and Servitude in the Byzantine Empire

Slaves carrying a noblewoman on a litter

We often don’t think as much about slavery in the Eastern Roman Empire as we do about it in the Western, but the fact is, it existed, though perhaps not to the extent as its western predecessor,  at least after the middle and late periods. In the medieval period, enslaving Christians was forbidden and as many of the Slavic countries converted to Christianity, this impinged upon the source for slaves.  Before this occurrence, many Slavs were brought down the Dnieper by Norse-Russian traders. According to Youval Rotman in his  Byzantine Slavery and the Mediterranean World, the Greek word “δοῦλος” (doulos) was synonymous with “σκλάβος” (sklavos), from the root word for Slav.  Slavs were often the unfortunate ones sold in the slave markets of Constantinople.

He headed towards the Mese, wending this way and that, making a slow progress through the throngs that crowded around the stalls. Some had coin; many did not but loitered anyway to look at the fine things that were brought from afar. A line of slaves stood in the hot sun, their wrists shackled before them. Their sun-burnt skin and clothes trimmed in red thread marked them as Slavs. They were unused to the heat and baking sun of Constantinople and their faces bore a sheen of sweat. 

The Serpentine Key by G.S. Brown

Though castration as at various times outlawed, it was practiced widely and a castrated male slave could command three times the amount of an intact boy. For this reason, parents often had their younger male children castrated, in the hopes they might find places in upper class homes or perhaps even the Great Palace. Often, however, the sad reality was that many of these children ended up as catamati – male prostitutes. However, eunuchs, both slave and free represented a category of positions that often were only open to them, often on governmental and imperial positions.

In the Serpentine Key, Nikolas was just such a eunuch who had been castrated by his parents in the hopes he would end up serving in the Great Palace. He did indeed secure a position as a Keeper of the Doors, but at a great price and his tragic story was only one of many of his social status.

As in most societies, slaves could not have any ownership of their own, nor give evidence in court. However by the ninth century this had begun to change and they began to gain some modicum of property rights. By the end of the medieval period, slavery had largely declined to the point that few actually owned slaves any longer.

Byzantine slavery was largely an urban phenomenon and few rural landholders could afford many slaves. In the Great Palace, those serving within its walls were both hired servants and enslaved persons.  Many wealthy people provided for the care of their slaves after their death and for the education of their children. There was also a special church service specifically for the manumission of slaves.

In The Secret Testament the crumbling rural estate that Sophia inherits does come with some slaves as well as hired help. They knew only the farm as their home and would have been hard pressed to begin a life anywhere else.  It is this continuum that Ulf recognizes when he lingers over the possibility of selling the farm in Anatolia after Sophia’s death. A steward would have been a high ranking servant but never a slave, considered trusted enough to oversee the running of a farm, especially in the absence of the owner, in this case, Ulf.

The farm seemed to be thriving under Lukyan’s stewardship. It was hard to find an honest steward. He had stood one last time looking out over the land before he had ridden away. Micah was right. He came here not just to look over things, but to feed a tightening band of melancholy. He should have set it aside after all these years, but he could not. It had occurred to him several times to sell the farm, pay the servants and disperse them, giving freedom to the two or three slaves who were still part and parcel with the property. He was scarcely ever there anyway. He knew if he did so, however, he was sending all of them away from their home and everything familiar to them. Also, there would be a finality to it, he could not bear. It would be as if in doing so, he closed the door to everything he and his family had shared there. He languished in indecision.

The Secret Testament by G.S. Brown

Often slavery is equated in the modern mind with people from Africa, but as the Byzantines primarily enslaved those whom they captured in war and these were often people to the north, east and west of them, African slavery is rather unlikely in the scope of their civilization. Slaves mentioned are almost always sourced from the Slavic lands, though some are mentioned in the sources as being captured in war from the Saracens with whom the Byzantine were at war.

In rural areas, there was a system somewhat akin to feudalism, but might also be compared to the system of sharecropping in the rural south. These people leased the land they farmed and so technically were not enslaved, but were likely so connected to the land, that they were never able to leave.

Slavery, like castration and many other things in Byzantine culture, was questioned, especially in a Biblical context, but it never entirely went away. It is also likely that because of the common practice of bound tenancy (basically serfdom) it was considered to be technically not slavery in practice, many would not have considered themselves as slave owners. Just as child labor and many other forms of slavery continued in the western world long after slavery had supposedly been abolished and in face, the practice of white slavery continued well after abolition, Byzantines could look the other way at whatever might not be in practice considered true slavery.

The Black Sea, Jewel of Eurasia

The modern coast of the Black Sea

Constantinople lay at the  mouth of  Bosporus, leading to the Black Sea, surely one of her secrets to her expansive hold over commerce. Across from the Black Sea lay what is today Ukraine, but at the time was a constantly shifting arrangement of borders between the Varangian Rus, the nomadic Penchnegs and the ever opportunistic Khazars.  The Byzantine empire did business and war with all of them at one point or another.

Between the Black Sea and home, lay the Dnieper River for the Varangian traders that made their way  to and from the empire with their wares, furs, slaves, honey and many other  things. 

In The Serpentine Key, Sven sets sail across this sea on his mission with Vladimir of Kiev in a small, two-man boat. 

This was to be a clandestine operation. No need to leave from the main shipping area on the Sea. The boat was similar to the rigged faerings he was used to from back home, easily manned by two men, especially if one sailed close to shore. The waters themselves were usually calm, even at this time of the year. The Scythians called these waters Axinos – black. The Greeks called it the Euxine Sea.

The Serpentine Key by G.S. Brown

The Black Sea has not the biodiversity of flora and fauna of an area such as the Mediterranean.  However there are at least three species of dolphins living in the Black Sea as well as jellyfish a small type of shark, crabs, mussels and scallops. There is speculation that because of a lower layer of water saturated with hydrogen sulfide and that beneath this is a completely different world fed by an underwater river originating in the Bosporus. 

in 2018 one of the oldest intact shipwrecks ever found was confirmed at the bottom of the Black Sea. The Bronze age relic was dated to 2,400 years old and found at a depth of 2,000 meters.  It has been likened to the ship on a vase depicting Homer’s Odyssey.  The researchers said they would likely find items such as copper (a hot commodity at this time) and amphorae of wine.

At the height of the Byzantine Empire, the Black Sea continued to be an important avenue for trade and chief among these trades were slaves. As Islam did not allow the enslaving of other Muslims and Christianity did not allow the enslaving of other Christians, the prime victims for enslavement were the pagan Slavs. In fact, the name Slav is commonly cited as the origin of the word “slave” so often were these unfortunate people enslaved by both Christians and Muslims. As the Slavic tribes gradually fell under the sway of Christianity, they became less and less fodder for enslavement with the Christian empires, but many Europeans were still being captured and enslaved by Ottoman Turks as late as the nineteenth century. 

Because of the location of the Black Sea, it was not only an avenue to the Dnieper and Rus’ (now modern day Ukraine and Russia) but also a way to the East, especially the Levant. Commerce was alive and well and thriving throughout the time of the Byzantine Empire and it is safe to say that Black Sea more than helped to facilitate this as maritime travel was cheaper and faster than overland. 

Greek Fire being used against the Rus in 941

But just as the Black Sea brought silk and spices to the people of Constantinople it also brought violence.  in 941 the Rus, originally immigrants from Scandinavia,  launched a series of attacks with 1,000 ships (which must have been an incredible sight)  upon Constantinople and were only repelled with the aid of Greek Fire.  Though they were defeated, the Rus led another larger force in 944 and this time the Byzantines elected to settle the difference with trade agreements rather than prolonged warfare. The Rus’ were notorious for the brutality of their warfare, nailing the heads of captives and crucifying others. Clearly, the Byzantines felt they would make better trading partners than enemies and in the decades that followed there was a steady stream of commerce down the Dnieper into the Black Sea and the heart of the Empire. However, except for Varangian Guard, they were specifically forbidden from carrying weapons in the city or having too many of them in the city at one time. The Empire was not ready to go toe to toe with these fierce warriors again soon.  In 988, Vladimir the Great of Kiev became a Christian and the Emperor’ brother-in-law, effectively changing the Nordic/Slav culture north of the Black Sea forever. 

The Many Rebellions of Vidin

In The Secret Testament, Vidin was the home town of Desislava. It was also frequently the source of Bulgarian rebellion and often received the notice of Basil II during his Bulgarian wars. 

It is to Vidin that Desislava returns with her brother Dragan in hopes of finding her other brother Dimitri. They meet someone on the road who informs them of Vidin’s latest rebellion.

“A bad business. Vidin has rebelled again. The emperor and his army are there. There is nothing for you there. There were those that fled there following the siege of Kastoria and they have dissolved into rebellion and incurred the emperor’s wrath.”

Desislava searched Dragan’s face. “It would be like Dimitri to be there.”

“Then you wish to go on to Vidin to find our brother hanged with the other rebels? You hold out for much, Desi.”

The idea left a hard, gnarled knot in her stomach. She had refused to entertain any notion of Dimitri’s demise. It was as if doing so might give it form and substance. 

“We would have been better off staying among the Bogomils!” he snarled at her. Desislava turned her face away, glad that Dragan could not see how the words tore at her. Guilt swarmed inside her. Would it have been better to have left Dragan and gone on her own to pursue her search for Dimitri? And what if it all came to naught? For the first time, she allowed the thought that always lurked in the periphery of her mind to have a place by the hearth. What if he really was dead? Or even, if not dead at Kleidion, about to meet his end with other rebels at Vidin. The tether of her thoughts began to slip, as if she had once given them their head, they must now run away. On what slender filaments she had based her search for Dimitri! They both became silent. They continued on the road, because neither could break the silence to decide what to do. By midday, the air had become humid and sweltering. 

Vidin is still known today for the fortress Baba Vida. Baba Vida is named for a young woman Vida who was given the lands north of the Carpathians, while her tow younger sisters Kula and Gamza  were given Zajecar and the Timok Valley and  the lands west up to the Morava. Her sisters married disreputable men, but Vida remained unmarried and in control of her own lands and buil the fortres in her city of Vidin. The name of the castle means “Granny Vida“ While the story is a Slavic one, the area was originally a Celtic settlement known as Dunoniaand the site of the fortress was probably originally Roman.  It withstood an eight month siege against Basil II with the Bulgaria rebels finally capitulating to him.  Basil is said to have led an incursion against Vidin in 1002, whereupon Basil is supposed to have negotiated a ten year peace deal with Tsar Samuil. Whether this peace deal was violated and not negotiable for renewal or it was merely agreed upon to resume war upon it expiration is something that seems a little murky in the history books.  During this siege, Samuil attempts diversionary tactics against the Byzantine themata of Strymon and Macedonia and sacks Adrianople. However these failed to draw Basil away and Vidin fell to his army.

A conquered city could expect, in eleventh century terms, fairly humanitarian treatment from Basil. It usually meant mass resettlement in a far off place such as Anatolia. He would then resettle the city with a notably Greek population. This resettlement policy was not altogether successful, as evidently Bulgarians moved back into the city or they may have even had a considerable influence upon the Greek population.  Only sixteen years later, firmly under Byzantine rule, the people of Vidin rebelled again under Petar, a man who claimed to be the son of Tsar Gavril Radomir by his Hungarian wife. Whether he was or not was immaterial. The people rallied around him, in Vidin and the rest of Bulgaria. Basil had died and left the control of his vast empire, first to his useless brother and then to his equally ineffective nieces, in particular Zoe, who had extraordinarily bad luck with her husbands.

When the fictional Desislava and her brother Dragan return to Vidin, it is to the city once again being brought low by Basil II, though it is not clear if the current fortress was in service at the time as it was rebuilt during the time of Ivan Stratsimir in the fourteenth century. The records are scanty at this time for Vidin, but it seems the people were once again resettled. Vidin, for all her rebellious audacity had yet again been brought under the heel of the Eastern Roman Empire. A year later, Ivan Vladislav would be dead and the Bulgarian rebellion would come to a grinding halt. 

John the Orphanatrophus

Zoe asks Sgouritzes to poison John the Orphanotrophos – illustration from History of John Skylitzes, 13th century

Anyone who has read the series A Song of Ice and Fire, by George R. R. Martin is acquainted with the fictional character Lord Varys, a prominent eunuch.  Without a doubt, John the Orphantrophus must have been the inspiration for this devious and avaricious character.  If there was ever a man made for the corruption of politics and the greed of empire, it had to be the eunuch, John the Orphanatrophus, the parakoimomenos (imperial chamberlain). He served in some capacity  to at least three emperors in the middle period. 

He began his career under Basil II as a protonotarios which is a clerk of the court. Under Basil’s successor, Romanos, he served as praepositus sacri cubiculi. While serving under Romanos, he brought his attractive brother Michael to the attention of Romanos’ wife, Zoe, who was possessed of a wandering eye.  It might or might not be too much to say that he almost pushed Zoe into Michael’s arms. Considering the couple seemed to be behind the disturbing and suspicious death if Romanos (they were married one day later, which is not suspicious at all) and many were of the opinion that Zoe had been poisoning Romanos for some time before he succumbed to drowning in the imperial bath. It was certainly advantageous for John to have his brother become the emperor through his wife Zoe. Once Michael IV ascended, John’s own star rose. 


John did not come from money or power, but he certainly was able to readily lay his hands on both. His family was from Paphaloginia (in Anatrolia on the Black Sea coast) was said to in the business of money lending, considered to be disreputable, not withstanding the rumor that the family also dealt in counterfeiting. We have no record how he first came into Basil II’s service, but he quickly managed to garnish power for himself. After his brother was crowned he wasted no time in securing positions for his brothers and other family members. Position was guaranteed based on who you were not how qualified you were for the job. As head of the imperial navy, he appointed his brother-in-law Stephen the Caulker, whose only qualification for commanding a navy was caulking ships and to which he should have preferably left his expertise. He filled the Senate with men bought by himself and every position in government with men who were in some way dependent on the Paphlagonian dynasty.  While holding these offices, he also maintained his position as orphantrophus which basically meant he oversaw the managing of all the orphanages of the city, in particular the imperial orphanage of Constantinople. 

John’s brother was afflicted with epilepsy and often during imperial audiences, curtains had to be quickly drawn around the throne to shield him from public view in the event of a seizure.  Michael was also prone to dropsy and towards the end, he became so ill and infirm, much of the ruling was left to his parakoimemnos. It was clear to many that the empire was in reality in the hands of a despot. John the Eunuch had neither feeling nor a head for the power to which he had become accustomed. Even his own sister, Maria (who was married to the shameless excuse of a naval commander, Stephen) begged him to look upon the suffering of the Roman people. On a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint John the Evangelist, she was struck with pity at the suffering of the beggars she saw alongside the road and the great need of the people. When she approached her brother, imploring him to have compassion, he replied,  (and here we can almost hear the sneering mockery in his voice) “You reason like a woman, ignorant of the necessities of the imperial treasury.”

John even went to far as to attempt to place himself as patriarch over the church, claiming that the appointment of  Alexios the current patriarch was uncanonical. Alexios, countered this by pointing out that he had overseen the marriage of Michael IV to Zoe and to de-legitimize his position, would also make the current emperor’s position null and void and so by association, that of John the Eunuch. This seemed to hush up the wily old eunuch pretty quickly.

The complexities of a personality like John’s must have been great, as Michael Psellos was able to write about him with both loathing and admiration, perhaps exciting in the historian a sense of displacement in his feelings towards chronicling the eunuch. 

There was surely no love lost between the empress and the oily eunuch as in The Red Empress, as always, he negotiated imperial policy with little regard for the empress’ own feelings, all the while manipulating his often ill brother, Michael IV. Perhaps no stranger to the art of poison, as the title picture illustates, Zoe attempted to have the eunuch poisoned as he was a thorn in her side. John very likely employed a considerable multitude of food tasters and likely took no chances with a woman of Zoe’s reputation.

Michael didn’t seem to be listening to either his wife or the Orphanotrophus. He tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair. “This man, Bourtzes, is he not related to the Macedonian line?”

He is in fact, a cousin to your wife,” John replied.

“Then would not there be an issue with charging him as you so speak? His father is from a powerful noble family. We would be bringing dishonor on them and in fact making enemies with them.”

“If he seek to kill you or your wife, it is because  he seeks recompense for his father and he hopes to ingratiate himself to the line of succession.”

But as the child of a woman not born in the purple, he is not even in line for the succession,” Michael scoffed. “What have we to worry about him.”

“You do not understand, imperator,” John patiently explained. “He is a danger to you, regardless if his claims carry any weight or not. He must be arrested.”

“On what charges?”

“Conspiring assassination.”

“Has he, in fact, attempted to assassinate me or anyone in my family?”

“It doesn’t matter. You must take him out before he does. And as you do not have an heir to the throne, it makes you and your succession vulnerable. There will be those who say, as you have no children, the succession is there for the taking.”

“Oh do go away with all your talk of money and politics,” Zoe moaned from the couch, “I have such an awful headache. How am I ever to bring about a successor if you will never visit my bed?”

“You might consider, kyria, that your time for giving the emperor an heir has expired,” put in the Orphanotrophus. “ You are not,” he searched for the right word. “Youthful any longer.”

“You have a lot of cheek!” she blazed at him. “If I wanted your opinion on the matter, I would have asked for it!”

The Red Empress by G.S. Brown

The Orphantrophus forced Zoe to adopt his nephew Michael V as her son, thus ensuring that power (so he hoped) would remain within his grasp, once his brother Michael IV breathed his last. Ironically and perhaps also karmically, this feat proved to be his undoing.  Once the young man assumed power, he proceeded to reduce the status in one way or another of those around him. Zoe he tonsured and exiled to the Princes Islands. But for his uncle John, he reserved most of his vitriol, even thought it was to him he owed his new status. He was deceived and brought on board a ship and exiled to the very islands to which he had condemned Zoe. Later, he was also blinded. While he was in office, he maintained an iron authority and exacted power that rivaled that of even the emperor. Ultimately, his overreach brought him low, ending his days in exile as so many powerful people did before and after him from Cicero to Napoleon. However, he never achieved such fame and few have read of the machinations of John the Orphantrophus.

Penchenegs and the Dnieper Journey

Þórsteinn strained against the carrying poles, sweat stinging his eyes. The land here was
steep and rocky. He and his companions made their way with their boat, poles placed through the oar holes. It was a small boat and could be transported thus overland. Still, laden down as it was, it was slow going. At their last portage they had paid some Slavs from a nearby village to help them roll it over a road, that could scarcely be called as such. This time, there was no suchnea by town and anyway, it was likely that few would wish to make such a journey. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and took the flask of water that one of them handed him. He was the only one from the northern isles. These other men were experienced and had made this journey every season from Kiev, some from as far as Novgorod.  He glanced up as the flash of sun off metal caught his eyes. Above them, on the steep embankment beyond the river, came a trilling cry. Gamli gasped and ordered the men to lower the boat and reach for weapons. Further, ahead the trees closed around the road. The boat tilted dangerously on its perch by the river. Þórsteinn grabbed his axe where it hung on the boat within easy reach. Horsemen poured over the slopes. The fringed horse equipment and felted caps, scarcely registered with him before his brain in some fevered way recognized them as Pencheneg tribesmen.

The Secret Testament by G.S. Brown

 A trip down the Dnieper was the most common way to traverse the territory from Rus’ to Constantinople. Waterways in general have been favored through the ages, whether the Dnieper or the Ohio river, as people could transport large amounts of goods on them and often roads were bad or even non existent. However, the Dnieper was not without its perils. Most famous of the dangers were the Dnieper Rapids, which in addition to the shallows of the river, made removing the craft and rolling it on the land necessary. There were seven to nine rapids (depending on whom you asked) and the travelers had to make portage which meant they had to bring their boat up on to shore and move it over land. This was done by rolling it over logs, moving the logs from the back to the front, a laborious and tedious endeavor. It was at this juncture that the travelers were most vulnerable. In the centuries in which travel was at its peak on this waterway during the eighth through the first half of the eleventh century, Penchenegs were a common menace to travelers. Pencenegs were nomadic horsemen of Turkic origin. Not much is known about them or their customs, even thought they were mentioned by many people from Anna Komene to Arabic and Polish sources.  They fomented frequent raids against the Rus for over two centuries,  putting Kiev under siege in 968.

 Basil II came to an agreement with them when they threatened to throw their allegiance in with Ivan Vladislav, tsar of Bulgaria with whom Basil was at war. Basil brought in loaded of carts of wealth, and quietly bought them off.  Whether bought off or fought off, the Penchenegs proved to be a thorn in the side of eastern Europe for a long time. They were known for their ferocity. Not a lot comes down to us about their customs, weapons, and mode of dress but I was able to piece a bit together from other nomadic steppe peoples.

Þórsteinn felt the hard impact of his axe blade as it made contact with the leather helm of the first man who came at him. His blow was poorly aimed and a hit that should have cut through helm, bone and brain, merely glanced aside. Knowing he would not have time to bring it back again for another strike at the man’s face where first he had aimed it, he instead thrust his shield boss into his opponent’s jaw, sending a rain of broken teeth and blood up into his face.
Putting his back into the prow of the boat, he waited for the press of men to advance upon him.
The smell of trammeled moss and soil mixed with blood, seemed a strange thing for him to
notice. The next Pencheneg who came at him wore a tunic of stained ox-hide. He carried a spear the shaft of which was decorated with locks of hair of many different colors. He aimed the spear at Þórsteinn’s belly and Þórsteinn parried his thrust with his axe, moving in close to the Pencheneg so his spear would be of little use, but he had not counted on the man dragging a knife from his belt with which he used to slash at Þórsteinn’s face.

The Secret Testament by G.S. Brown

Psellos tells us that the Penchenegs “wear no breastplates, greaves or helmets, and carry no shields or swords. Their only weapon and means of defense is the spear… in one dense mass , encouraged by sheer desperation , they shout their thunderous war cries and hurl themselves pell-mell upon their adversaries…pursuing them and slaying them without mercy.”

He goes on to relate their manner in the nomadic lifestyle to which they are accustomed: “…If there is no water, each man dismounts his horse and opens its veins with a knife and drinks the blood…after that, they cut up the fattest of the horses, set fire to whatever wood they find ready to hand and, having slightly warmed the chopped limbs of the horse there on the spot, they gorge themselves on the meat, blood and all. Their repast over, they hurry back to their primitive huts, where they lurk like snakes in the deep gullies and precipitous cliffs which constitute their home.”

They are frequently referred to as Scythians, but then so are the Nordic Rus in Byzantine sources, proving time and again that most people don’t know much about other people outside of their own experience. 

Furs, honey, slaves, amber, and beeswax were frequent commodities traded down the Dnieper to Constantinople (or Mikklegard as the Varangians called it). In return, they would carry back the luxuries of Constantinople, such as wine, spices, gold, glass and all manner of expensive things. Over time  the Dnieper carried back the faith and icons of Constantinople and Anna Porphyrogenita, the sister of Basil II, sent to be a bride of Vladimir of the Rus. 

In The Secret Testament, Þórsteinn is the sole survivor of such an attack, and only because the boat they were hauling overland slid down the embankment, pinning him underneath.

The Dnieper Rapids was where Svyatoslav met his end. Svyatoslav was a Rus prince and the father of the Grand Prince of Kiev, Vladimir. After the Penchenegs killed Svyatoslav, they made a drinking cup from his skull. As Svyatoslav was a pretty rowdy pagan himself, he might have approved this ending and might have done the same had the roles been reversed. 

Svyatoslav killed by the Penchenegs on the Dnieper

Constantine Monomachus attempted to use the Penchenegs as mercenaries, but they proved to be untrustworthy and were given to fighting amongst themselves. He then was reduced to fighting them himself, only to have to resort to bribery. But by this time, the Penchnegs were aware of the incredible wealth of the empire and would settle for nothing less  than large tracts of land and honorific titles. 

The journey traversed 1,200 miles to the Black Sea. Once they had reached the Black Sea, if the waters were calm enough, the hardest part of the journey was done.  This journey was estimated to take about six weeks. There is some evidence that winter travel was endeavored with sledges drawn by horses wearing crampons to keep their shod feet from slipping on the ice. 

Michael Psellos, Philosopher and Instigator

In my fourth book, The Red Empress, Michael Psellos, is a viewpoint character, not least of which is because he seemed to be in so many places, have so many opinions and write on such a plethora of subjects. He is best known for his Chonographia, a history covering at least a century leading up to the time of Psellos himself, in which in his contemporary writings, he maintains those opinions for which he himself was an eyewitness.  In addition to his historical writings, he was also known for bringing Plato back into serious study in Constantinople and was a disciple of music theory and philosophy.

In my last post, I mentioned his observations on the strategos Georgios Maniakes, including his prodigious height. He was also witness to the evacuation from Constantinople of the emperor Michael V and his uncle the nobilissimus when things began to take a dangerous turn for those two gentlemen of dubious character. From what Psellos leads us to understand, he was coerced by them, but given his position as an imperial secretary, it is likely that he went along because, after all, it was part of his job. In the tumult of the riots in Constantinople following the reinstatement of the empress Zoe (the erstwhile emperor Michael’s adoptive mother), when Michael and his uncle were forced to flee to the Studikon monastery, they clung to the alter of the monastery. When this proved to be fruitless in averting their fate, Psellos witnessed their eventual blinding at the hands of the Varangian Guard (some say by Harald Sigurdsson personally, who probably also had an axe to grind with Emperor Michael). 

Psellos was actually born Constantine (arguably one of those most popular names for men at this time and place) and chose the name Michael when he entered a monastery later in life. Psellos, as a last name was probably more of a nickname and meant “stammerer”, an ironic appellation given that he was known for his copious writings, but perhaps, he was, like most writers, better at expressing himself through the pen than the voice.

When my story opens, he is a young man who has just been able to return to his studies under the venerable Ioannes Mouropous. His studies had been interrupted by the need to earn a dowry for his sister, and so at the age of ten, he was sent outside the city where he was employed as a secretary to a provincial judge. When his sister passed away, he was allowed to return to study under Mouropous. The latter was undoubtedly responsible for the social climb of the young Psellos, who, under his influence, would meet and rub elbows with many who would later be notable such as the emperor Constantine X. As John Julius Norwich says in his book Byzantium – The Apogee, “[Psellos] thus writes of events in which he not only experienced but frequently himself helped to shape and control.”

As he was a personal friend of Constantine X, it is hardly surprising that some of his writings regarding that man were rather prejudiced in his favor.  Yes he spared no gushing rhetoric on the aforementioned Stephen who fancied himself a naval commander. We see some of the true Psellos in his snide assertion that “I saw him after the metamorphosis. It was as if a pygmy wanted to play Hercules and was wanting to make himself look like the demi-god. The more such a person tries, the more his person belies him – clothed in the lion’s skin but weighed down by his club.”

I find such scathing assertions make Psellos one of the more readable biographers of his time.  He is witty and opinionated. Perhaps not the best attributes of an impartial historian, but without a doubt, he gives us a peek into politics as only politics in Constantinople could truly be.  We are given a hint of the real Michael Psellos who was known to write a taunting letter to the disgraced emperor Romanos Diogenes as he lay in exile, dying of the infection in his blinded and bleeding eyes. Here he congratulated him on his martyrdom and the loss of his eyes as God had found him worthy of a “higher light”. It should not be lost on the reader that it was Psellos himself who had engineered the emperor’s downfall.

As such, Psellos was a product of his environment and the times, equally avaricious and opportunistic, once given a taste for power, he was not likely to let it go. The term “byzantine politics” comes to mind when speaking of Psellos here. In all the chaos of the riots in Constantinople following the reinstating of the empress Zoe, Psellos’ greatest concern was that the empress Zoe see that he was not personally affiliated with Michael V and this his loyalty was instead reserved for her. Yet he did not spare her, acerbically commenting on the “transformation of a gynaeconitis [women’s quarters] into an emperor’s council chamber.”

He was even more blunt later on the Chronographia as he wrote on their political blundering (diplomatically after both the sisters had passed on of course):

“For those who did not know them it may be instructive if I give here some description of the two sisters. The elder, Zoe, was the quicker to understand ideas, but slower to give them utterance. With Theodora, on the other hand, it was just the reverse in both respects, for she did not readily show her inmost thoughts, but once she had embarked on a conversation, she would chatter away with an expert and lively tongue. Zoe was a woman of passionate interests,

prepared with equal enthusiasm for both alternatives—death or life, I mean. In that she reminded me of sea-waves, now lifting a ship on high and then again plunging it down to the depths. Such characteristics were certainly not found in Theodora: in fact, she had a calm disposition, and in one way, if I may put it so, a dull one. Zoe was open-handed, the sort of woman who could exhaust a sea teeming with gold-dust in one day; the other counted her staters when she gave away money, partly, no doubt, because her limited resources forbade any reckless spending, and partly because inherently she was more self-controlled in this matter.

 To put it quite candidly (for my present purpose is not to compose a eulogy, but to write an accurate history) neither of them was fitted by temperament to govern. They neither knew how to administer nor were they capable of serious argument on the subject of politics. For the most part they confused the trifles of the harem with important matters of state. Even the very trait in the elder sister which is commended among many folk today, namely, her ungrudging liberality, dispensed very widely over a long period of time, even this trait, although it was no doubt satisfactory to those who enjoyed it because of the benefits they received from her, was after all the sole cause, in the first place, of the universal corruption and of the reduction of Roman fortunes to their lowest ebb. The virtue of well-doing is most characteristic of those who govern, and where discrimination is made, where the particular circumstances and the fortune of the recipients and their differing personal qualities are taken into account, there the distribution of largess is to be commended. On the contrary, where no real discernment is exercised in these questions, the spending of money is wasted.”

Michael Psellos, Chonographia

Whether this was the misogynistic temperament of the times that influenced Psellos’ writing or an actual candid observation, it may be noted that many of the failings in a male ruler might have been forgiven him would be called into greater scrutiny on the part of a woman. However, as a contemporary biographer, within the confines of the imperial residence, he was certainly closer to the facts that we are today.

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

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.

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.”

Birchbark Manuscripts

Yes. It has been a long time. It has been a busy summer and when I have had writing time, I have devoted it to my third novel The Bone Goddess, or on research.

My research has taken me down many pathways. One of the recent pathways has been learning about writing as it pertains to the culture of the Rus in the time period about which I am writing.

In The Bone Goddess, Rastislav is a former volkhv – a Slavic pagan priest or magician – and a recent convert to Christianity. He wishes to learn to train to be a monk in Novgorod. Even this more minor aspect of the story led me down an interesting rabbit-hole of research.

Rastislav hesitated. “I have seen the ruthless retaliation of Dobrynya and I fear for those at home. That he may turn his attention next to them.”

Now it was Nicetas’ turn to sigh. “Rastislav, even though you are convinced that your people are being persecuted for their faith, you must remember that the men and women you saw hanged on that wall, were hanged for inciting rebellion, and for murder in their role in the deaths of Dobrynya’s family. As long as the people you speak of have done nothing to incite rebellion and violence against their rulers, I do not see why you should fear for them. If you must go to see to their welfare, then go. But I should hate to see you interrupt your studies now when you have been doing so well. If you can finally learn to let go of your heathenish leanings, we might make a proper monastic of you yet.”

Rastislav sat on the rain-slick log next to Father Nicetas. Ignoring how the damp soaked through his clothes, he clasped his hands together and looked at them in silence. “You are right, Father. I should not be so hasty.”

“Very well then. I do believe there is still some copying to do from the Gospel of Saint John. I have some freshly prepared ink. But I think you would do better to ply your chicken scratches on birchbark as yet.  Bring a little water from the spring and I shall make an infusion of mugwort. It does well for mental clarity and focus, which I think you need much of, Rastislav.”

To a young neophyte like Rastislav, birchbark would have been a readily available resource for practicing writing on or copying down the gospels and Psalter in order to commit them to memory.

Simon Franklin writes in his Writing, Society and Culture in Early Rus c. 950-1300 “Birch bark was primarily (though not exclusively) a medium associated with economic activities in the urban community.”

A case in point is the following example from the middle of the 14th century.

Here, Yakov has settled with Gyurgiy and with Khartitonvby courtless deed Gyurgiy has gotten [at court] concerning trampled [by horses] wheat and Khariton concerning his loss. Gyurgiy got one rouble [money], three grivnas [money], and basket [measure] of wheat for all that, and Khariton got ten cubits of cloth and one grivna. And Gyurgiy and Khariton have no more concern to Yakov, nor Yakov to Gyurgiy and Khariton. And arrangers and perceivers to that are Davyd, son of Luka, and Stepan Taishin.

Some are poignant and touching with at least one being a letter from one lover to another. Still another one, pictured below could be the scrawl of any child today.

Birch bark was easily procured and cheap. Franklin further elaborated the common preparation of birchbark for writing: “To prepare birchbark for writing, the coarse layers were stripped away to leave a smooth, flexible strip which then perhaps was soaked or boiled for additional elasticity. Letter were scored on the inner – and softer – surface with a sharp-pointed stylus of metal, wood or bone.”

Parchment, by contrast, was far more expensive and laborious to produce. The parchment for a modest sized book would be prepared from as many as half a dozen calf skins.

As many things as you can think of to scribble on a notepad today, were scribbled on the Novgorodian birchbarks. Sermons, prayers, jokes, school lessons, and household advice. Wills, receipts, deeds etcetera were also written on birchbark. Thousands of these documents have been unearthed, not just at Novgorod, but throughout Russia and the Ukraine.

These documents have survived largely due to the nature of the clay soil they were found in that prevented oxygen from reaching them. Thanks to this and the tireless efforts of archaeologists, we have a peek into the past through the eyes of the men and women of Novgorod.