Consequently, in a speech by a senior cleric delivered in the presence of the emperor and his closest advisers on 6 January 1088, the Feast of Epiphany, little mention was made of affairs in the east. In contrast to the western provinces which continued to suffer from the ravagings of the Pechenegs, this was no longer a region of major concern. After dwelling on the threat posed by the steppe nomads and commending Alexios on a peace treaty which had been concluded with the nomads shortly beforehand, Theophylact of Ohrid had nothing of note to say about Asia Minor. Alexios, pronounced the cleric, was fortunate to enjoy excellent relations with the Turks and above all with the sultan. Such was Malik-Shah’s admiration for the emperor that he raised a toast in his honour whenever he heard mention of the emperor’s name. Reports of the emperor’s courage and glory, noted Theophylact approvingly, resounded throughout the world.71
This upbeat assessment of 1088 could not contrast more sharply with the bleak view of the empire’s predicament in 1081 provided by Anna Komnene and long accepted by modern commentators. Stability, not collapse, marked the eastern provinces, even if occasional challenges required decisive action. The situation had been brought under control by the Byzantines – and there would have been no need to appeal to the Pope for help from abroad. In the late 1080s, there was no need for a Crusade.
4
The Collapse of Asia Minor
Apart from Nicaea itself where Abu’l-Kasim still held power, Byzantium retained control of many prime parts of the eastern provinces in the late 1080s, above all the crucial coastal regions, the fertile river valleys and the islands of the Aegean – that is to say the strategically sensitive locations that were critical for the empire’s trade and communication networks. Evidence that many of these areas were thriving under Byzantine control can be found in the intense lobbying of the emperor’s mother by monks on islands such as Leros and Patmos in 1088 and 1089. The monks were planning a considerable building programme and were hoping to secure valuable tax exemptions.1
The situation soon changed drastically. As we have seen, the threat posed by Pecheneg raids on the western provinces escalated sharply in 1090, with the random attacks of previous years replaced by the migration of the entire tribe deep into Thrace. The resulting pressure provided the perfect opportunity for Turkish warlords in the east to move against Byzantium. Abu’l-Kasim was one who did just that. Around the middle of 1090, he began preparations to attack Nikomedia, an important town north of Nicaea that lay barely fifty miles from Constantinople.2
Alexios took desperate steps to try to hold on to the town. Five hundred Flemish knights, sent by Robert, Count of Flanders, who had met Alexios on his way home from pilgrimage to Jerusalem at the end of 1089, were supposed to have been deployed against the Pechenegs.3 When they arrived in Byzantium in the middle of the following year, they were instead immediately transferred across the Bosphorus to help reinforce Nikomedia. Their presence proved vital in the short term, but when the Flemish knights were recalled to face the Pechenegs at Lebounion in the spring of 1091,4 one of the oldest and most famous towns of Asia Minor, which had briefly served as the eastern capital of the Roman empire in the third century, fell to Abu’l-Kasim.5 The loss of Nikomedia was a disaster for Byzantium and raised serious questions about the empire’s long-term ability to hold on to its eastern provinces as a whole.
Fears about Byzantine prospects in Asia Minor were raised further by the fact that others were also poised to exploit the problems facing the empire. Danishmend, a charismatic Turkish warlord, launched daring raids from eastern Asia Minor deep into Cappadocia and on major towns such as Sebasteia and Kaisereia.6 Then there was Çaka, an ambitious Turk who established himself in Smyrna on the western coast of Asia Minor and paid local shipbuilders to construct a fleet to attack a range of targets close to his new base, including islands in the Aegean.7 If anything, this was as serious as the loss of Nikomedia, for Çaka’s fleet gave him the power to strike further afield. It also allowed him to disrupt shipments from towns and islands along the coast, which were destined for Constantinople. At a time when the pro visioning of the capital was already under pressure because of the Pecheneg threat, this brought with it the prospect of shortages, inflation and social unrest. Matters were made worse by a particularly severe winter in 1090–1, the harshest in living memory, when so much snow fell that many were trapped in their houses.8
A poem from around this period described how a woman from one of the provinces in Asia Minor endured such deprivation that she was forced to eat snake meat: ‘Did you eat snakes whole or only in parts? Did you cut off the tails and heads of creatures or did you eat all their parts? How could you devour poisonous flesh full of poison and not die at once?’ Such were the consequences of a terrible winter, severe famine, and the barbarian scourge.9
Efforts to deal with Çaka went spectacularly wrong. One local governor fled without putting up any resistance at all, while a hastily assembled force sent by the emperor to secure the western coast of Asia Minor was a fiasco. Not only was the Byzantine fleet routed, but Çaka managed to capture several imperial vessels in the process. This only served to accelerate gains he made elsewhere.10
The building up of Çaka’s fleet was a worrying development for another reason. Constantinople was protected by formidable land walls, ditches and heavily armed towers, but the Byzantines had a particular anxiety about the prospect of attack on the capital by sea. A giant sea chain laid across the entrance to the Golden Horn gave some reassurance, though in practice this often did not prove effective. Seaborne assaults on the city, even by small numbers of raiders, triggered hysteria amongst the inhabitants, as had happened in the ninth and tenth centuries, when Viking and Russian raiders made surprise strikes on the suburbs, causing widespread panic. In Çaka’s case, the fear was that the Turk might come to an accommodation with the Pechenegs and launch a joint assault on the city. In the spring of 1091, rumours began circulating that there had been exchanges between the nomads and Çaka, with the latter offering his support against Byzantium.11
The mood in the capital became dark and poisonous. In the presence of the emperor and his retinue in the spring of 1091, the patriarch of Antioch, John the Oxite, delivered a damning assessment of the empire’s predicament. The contrast to the upbeat view provided by Theophylact barely three years earlier could not have been sharper. Khios had been lost, said the patriarch, as had Mitylene. All the islands in the Aegean had fallen, while Asia Minor was in complete turmoil; not a single fragment of the east remained.12 The Pechenegs, meanwhile, had reached the walls of Constantinople, and Alexios’ efforts to deal with them had proved singularly ineffective.13 Reflecting on why the threats had become acute, John reached a stark conclusion: God had stopped protecting Byzantium. The lack of military success and the terrible hardships being endured were the fault of the emperor, declared the patriarch. Alexios had been an outstanding general before he became emperor but since then he had brought one defeat after another. By seizing the throne in 1081 he had angered God, who was now using pagans to punish Byzantium. Repentance was urgently required if things were to change.14 This apocalyptic verdict is a stark indication of the scale of the problems affecting Byzantium at the start of the 1090s.