Byzantine

Belisarius: A General for all Seasons, Budgets; all Enemies, domestic and foreign. Part III

Biography Byzantine 35 Min Read

Belisarius in the center, pointing; two members of his bucellarii bodyguard stand behind him. The figure on the right appears to be a chieftain or high-status member of his Hun auxillaries; though many of his bucellarii were Huns and this may be one of these. In his new style of provincial warfare, Belisarius felt he could make up for the…

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Byzantine Crusades 27 Min Read

Constantinople 1204

The preaching of Fulk of Neuilly, Peter Capuano, and others bore fruit when Counts Thibaud III of Champagne and Louis I of Blois took the cross at a tournament at Ecry-surAisne on 28 November 1199. Other lords and knights followed suit, including Baldwin IX of Flanders, Hugh of Saint Pol,…

Byzantine History Ottoman 8 Min Read

The first challenge: Bayezid I’s siege of Constantinople (1394–1402) I

Contemporary Byzantine tradition ascribed the deliverance of Constantinople to a miraculous intervention by the Virgin Mary (Theotokos). Constantinople in 1422; the oldest surviving map of the city. Ottoman troops roaming the outskirts of Constantinople had seized almost all the lands surrounding the city by the year 1391, that is, a…

Battle Byzantine 22 Min Read

Manzikert I

In the period from the late 1040s until the late 1060s the Seljuk Turks under the Sultan Alp Arslan (1063-1073) had made considerable inroads into formerly Byzantine territory in eastern Anatolia. As ruler of Iran, Iraq and northern Syria – nominally for the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad – Arslan had…

Battle Byzantine 18 Min Read

Manzikert II

That evening, however, the mobility and speed of the Turkish troops was demonstrated once more, for while a number of the Oğuz mercenaries were outside the camp doing business with local traders and merchants, Seljuk warriors appeared once again in the semi-darkness and swept in to harry those caught off…

Byzantine Italy Medieval 14 Min Read

Sicily between Byzantium and the Islamic World

The Hariri Ship, the first known picture of an Arab sailing vessel. Map of the Arab–Byzantine naval conflict in the Mediterranean, 7th–11th centuries. Map of southern Italy in the 10th century. Byzantine provinces (themes) in yellow, Lombard principalities in other colours. Afterwards, the Saracens who had sailed from Rome came…

Byzantine 30 Min Read

‘Better the Turkish Turban than the Papal Tiara’

proverbial saying attributed to Loukas Notaras, grand admiral in the years 1444–53 Between the recovery of Constantinople from the Latins in 1261 and its fall to the Ottomans in 1453, Byzantine foreign policy was dominated by the question of the union of the churches. Political considerations required emperors to pursue…

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The Military of the Byzantines

Dominant military forces of the Middle East between the fourth and fifteenth centuries. At Manzikert…

The Sixth-Century Army of Justinian

The sixth-century army of Justinian’s era, like its earlier counterparts, was an entirely professional force,…

Roman to Byzantine Army Transition Part I

In 330 ce, Constantine I, Emperor of the Romans, founded a new capital for his…

Father and Son Save Byzantium in the 8th Century

Avar and Bulgar warriors, eastern Europe, 8th century AD. Leo III (717–741) Leo III, like…