At the start of the 1090s, however, physical survival – rather than grants or tax exemptions – had become the main concern for Christodoulos and the monks on these islands. Attacks by Turkish pirates and raiders forced them to take urgent steps to reinforce their settlements. On Patmos, Leros and Lipsos, small castles were built in an attempt to protect the communities, but it soon became clear that Christodoulos was fighting an uphill battle.27 The monks fled, in fear of being captured by the Turks, and in the spring of 1092 Christodoulos himself gave up, escaping to Euboea where he died a year later. As a codicil to his will reveals, written shortly before his death, he was the last to leave Patmos; relentless attacks by ‘Agarenes, pirates and Turks’ had made life impossible.28
There was little improvement in the situation in the Aegean or the western coast of Asia Minor in the years that followed. Although Anna Komnene belittled Çaka, mocking him as a poseur who strutted about Smyrna wearing sandals styled on those of the emperor, and implying that he was easily and quickly dealt with, the truth was very different.29 In 1094, Theodore Kastrisios, who had been appointed caretaker of the monastery of St John on Patmos following the death of Christodoulos, felt he had no option but to resign his position. He did so, he said, because he was unable to fulfil any of his duties: constant Turkish raids in the eastern Aegean meant that he could not even reach the island, let alone look after the monastery.30
The near total collapse of Asia Minor was rapid and spectacular. While the Pecheneg threat had played an important role in creating opportunities for individual Turkish leaders, such as Abu’l-Kasim and Çaka, it was the failure of Alexios’ previous policy of forging local alliances that lay at the heart of the problems now facing Byzantium. In the past, Alexios had been able to win over Turkish warlords and had backed this up with an effective agreement with the sultan of Baghdad, who had his own interests in maintaining control over emirs on the periphery of the Seljuk world.
This alliance with Malik-Shah was still active in the spring of 1091, when Alexios complained that reinforcements sent to him by the sultan were being diverted and recruited by Çaka.31 Malik-Shah was also perturbed by the dramatic shift in power, and in the summer of 1092, sent a major expedition under the command of one his most loyal officers, Buzan, deep into Asia Minor to teach Abu’l-Kasim a lesson. Although Buzan advanced decisively on Nicaea, he was unable to make an impression on the town’s formidable defences and eventually withdrew.32 Nevertheless, diplomatic exchanges between Constantinople and Baghdad were still ongoing in the autumn of that year, continuing to explore how the two rulers could best co-operate against Abu’l-Kasim and other renegades in the region.33
The death of Malik-Shah in November 1092 therefore served as a body blow for Alexios’ policy in the east. In the months before he died, the sultan found his grip on power weakening as rivals in Baghdad jockeyed for position. In an attempt to consolidate his authority, MalikShah demoted many of his leading officers, which only stoked dissent further.34 Antagonism focused on the sultan’s vizier, the polymath Nizam al-Mulk, a powerful figure who had played a fundamental role in shaping the Seljuk world in the later eleventh century. Towards the end of 1092 he was disposed of, murdered by a secretive sect of fanatics known as the Assassins, if not on the direct instructions of the sultan, then at least with his knowledge, according to one well-informed source.35 The death of Malik-Shah just a few weeks later – after eating contaminated meat – threw the Turkish world into turmoil, as uncertainty raged as to who amongst the sultan’s immediate and extended family would succeed to the throne. The result was two years of almost constant civil war.36
Many scholars have argued that this upheaval within the Turkish Empire presented Alexios with the ideal opportunity to strengthen Byzantium’s position in Asia Minor. In fact, the opposite was the case. Malik-Shah’s death robbed the emperor of an invaluable ally at the worst possible moment. What is more, the problems over the succession meant there was a power vacuum in Anatolia which was quickly exploited by local Turkish warlords. This made things much more difficult for Alexios, who struggled to make an impression on the succession of Turkish leaders who were making the most of both their new-found freedom and the weakness of the Byzantine response.
By 1094, the situation was critical. At a church synod in Constantinople, attended by bishops from all over the empire, discussion turned to those with pastoral responsibilities in the east. Many were present in the capital not by choice but because they could not get back to their respective sees because of the Turks. Acknowledging the problems they faced, the emperor tartly noted that bishops from western regions had no such excuse, and ordered them to leave Constantinople and return to their duties.37 Bishops from Anatolia, it was acknowledged, could not be expected to do the same, and furthermore needed financial support while they remained in the capital, cut off from their sees. A resolution was duly passed to this effect.38
The failure of Byzantine Asia Minor was universaclass="underline" the collapse of the interior, together with the loss of the seaboard, meant that it was not possible to reach important locations such as Antioch either by land or by sea; John the Oxite, the patriarch of Antioch, was unable to travel to his see for several years.39 Town after town fell into Turkish hands in the early 1090s. According to Michael the Syrian, whose twelfth-century chronicle is one of the few sources to focus on this period, Tarsos, Mopsuetia, Anazarbos and all the other towns of Cilicia were taken around 1094/5.40 This corresponds with what the western knights found as they crossed Asia Minor not long afterwards. When they reached Plastencia, ‘a town of great splendour and wealth’, they found it besieged by the Turks, its inhabitants still holding out;41 a nearby town, Coxon, was also still in Christian hands.42
The loss of the western coast of Asia Minor and of the rich river valleys of its hinterland was a catastrophe for Byzantium. Something had to be done urgently to reverse the series of setbacks and to lay a platform on which to build a later recovery; if not, it was likely that the eastern provinces would be lost forever. Attention turned to Nicaea, superbly fortified and controlling access to the interior as well as the land routes to the coast. Taking the city would be the key to any wider restoration of imperial control in the east; its retrieval now became the principal thrust of the emperor’s strategy.
Making an impression on the city was not easy: a masterpiece of defensive fortification, it was all but impregnable. As one Latin chronicler observed: ‘Nicaea has a very favourable site. It lies in the plain, yet is not far from the mountains, by which it is surrounded on almost every side ... Next to the city, and extending to the west, is a very wide lake of great length ... this is the best defence the city could have. A moat surrounds the walls on the other sides, and this is always full to overflowing by the influx of springs and streams.’43
Alexios knew that there was little prospect of taking the town by force.44 Apart from anything else, the Byzantine military was already overstretched. As John the Oxite had noted, a decade of near constant campaigning against the Normans and the Pechenegs had worn out the imperial forces and inflicted many casualties.45 In addition, the situation was still tense to the north of Constantinople. There was danger of an imminent attack on imperial territory from the Danube region by Cuman steppe nomads, while incursions by the Serbs across the north-western frontier were becoming increasingly troublesome.46