Emperor leo iii the isau.., p.6
Emperor Leo III the Isaurian, page 6
Land Reform, Law and Language
The achievements of the themes and the Heraclian emperors in stemming destruction allowed for some further imperial administrative and legal reform. The expansion of the theme system had required land redistribution to the soldiers. While the extent to which this saw the thematic armies based on ‘soldier-farmers’ might be overplayed in favour of professional recruits from rural backgrounds, there would still seem to be significant land given to soldiers upon their retirement, aiding them to raise families and provide supplies and future recruits for the empire.50 And even if it is not directly connected to the theme system, the number of small landowners did increase during the seventh century. Territorial losses and the retreating of various military and civilian populations likely increased the population density of much of the empire. Providing land for these people saw the necessity of breaking up large holdings into smaller units, a policy which will have involved confiscations or the recognition of refugee occupations as legitimate. Such policies incurred the wrath of the land-owning aristocracy, who were losing out on some of their land to these new small landowners.
This presented emperors with a new avenue of popularity by supporting these small landowners in the face of greedy aristocrats. By doing so, the emperor was also preserving the expanded tax base and limiting the power of the super-rich to resist his control. The swing towards the small landowners may be seen in the Nomos Georgikos. Whether attributable to Justinian II or not,51 ‘the Farmer’s Law’ reflects regional and/or imperial interest in protecting the rights, customs and practices of small landholders in the eighth century.52 It provided mechanisms for dealing with ‘boundary disputes, property exchanges, leases, trespassing, hired labour, losses of livestock, theft, and related matters.’53
Another major land policy affecting the empire during this period was the organised movement of peoples. Population transfer was a long-standing imperial policy, with virtually every emperor involved in settling significant numbers of non-Romans on imperial territory.54 It could bring land back into circulation, build up the tax base and provide new recruits for the army in the regions where the settlers were planted, all the while diluting the strength of extramural enemies. For centuries, the empire had proven extremely capable in integrating such foreign settlers, and while this ability had faded somewhat, it had not gone completely. Internal transfers such as Armenians and Syrians being used to repopulate Thrace were an important development for the life of Leo III. The last decades of the seventh century alone saw large numbers of Cypriots, Mardaites and Slavs55 settled in different parts of the empire. While the Cypriot resettlement seems more about bringing land back into use, the Mardaite and Slav transfers were closer to military colonies, stationing populations in positions to provide military and naval recruits. Whatever they were, they proved of extended duration,56 although the possibility of further annoyance of Roman citizen landowners who had to accommodate these foreign settlers must have existed.57
These immense changes to Roman provincial organisation and land distribution may have necessitated a wide-ranging reform of the tax system.58 It would not be surprising that the pre-existing system of the capitatio (head tax) and the iugatio (land tax) would need to be replaced by the late-seventh/early-eighth century, given that it was over 400 years old by this point. There are issues with the sources about when these reforms were introduced. By the early-ninth century, the tax system was comprised of a hearth tax levied on families (to kapnikon) and a separate land tax (he synone). The references to the to kapnikon/he synone taxes under Nikephoros I (802–811) infer that they were well-established by that time, with some hint of them already existing under Leo III and possibly before.59
Such land and tax policies were not radical, born out of necessity or being the next logical steps in imperial development, but they were not necessarily good for the reputation of any emperor enacting such policies. This was because expanding the small landowner class and modernising the tax system required depriving others of some of their land and wealth. This raised opposition from urban dwellers and in particular the landed aristocracy; opposition that the biased sources claim that Justinian II met with imprisonment, confiscations, and even physical coercion.60 Such a concerted attack on the elite seems unlikely, but imperial bolstering of the small landowning class and protecting them from land-hungry aristocrats was a major policy of the emperor and perhaps not fully effective until the eleventh century.
Another important imperial development highlighted in the Nomos Georgikos was one of language – it was composed in Greek rather than Latin. Greek language and culture had always been prominent in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, but as the centre of imperial gravity had shifted from Rome to Constantinople, the prevalence of Greek had gradually increased. However, while the western provinces had been largely lost, there was no definitive break with the Latin heart of the empire. Latin influences on the vocabulary of the army and on imperial coins can still be seen in the eighth century. Indeed, what is claimed by some to be the new ‘Byzantine’ Empire was not a purely Greek state. It was instead an amalgam of Roman, Greek, oriental and Christian civilisation. This fusion of various civilisation traits may not have been complete by the Heraclian dynasty, but it was already clear that whatever this ‘Byzantine’ identity was going to look like in its final medieval form, it was going to permeate large sections of Roman society.
And this included right at the very top where the Roman emperor was no longer known by the title of Augustus but rather by the Greek βασιλευς (basileus). And yet, while this might seem a strong indication of the Hellenising of a Roman title, there is more cultural merging going on here than immediately meets the eye. Because basileus predated the title of Augustus, it had something of a different meaning, such as ‘hereditary ruler’ or ‘king’. It also had been used in a specific way – without a definite article – to refer to a Persian despot. So basileus was being used to describe a position beyond its original definition, with Roman and oriental influences altering its meaning. The Roman emperor was not suddenly just to be seen as a ‘king’; he was still an emperor – a ‘king of kings’ – only with a new/old name.
‘Byzantine’ Religion
While there was some dissemination of power to exarchs and strategoi, the ‘emperor of the Romans’ remained a paragon of absolute monarchy;61 however, there was a slight change in the reach of that absolutism. Virtually since its inception, the Roman imperial position had had a significant religious dimension, with the office being combined with that of pontifex maximus – ‘chief priest’ – and tied up with numerous other pagan beliefs and practices, not least the deification of emperors after their death. This became impractical following the Christianisation of the empire in the fourth century, necessitating the reinvention of the emperor’s position within the religious hierarchy of the empire.62 But this reinvention did not happen overnight and was not without pitfalls. By the time it was embraced by Constantine I, the Christian Church had already had over 300 years of hierarchical development behind it and inserting the emperor into or on top of that hierarchy caused significant friction. From the very outset, there were cries of ‘what has the emperor to do with the church?’63 and these would still ring true at the turn of the eighth century. This was despite the religiosity of the imperial position only increasing in the intervening years. From the mid-fifth century onwards, new emperors would be crowned by the patriarch of Constantinople, involvement in church councils increased, and religious ceremony incorporated into court life and the very person of the emperor. This culminated in the Heraclian portrait of the Roman emperor as God’s representative on earth.
But it was not just the imperial position itself that was becoming more Christianised. In response to the breaking of the Romano-Christian stranglehold on the Mediterranean world, rather than lose faith, large sections of the population saw the plight of the empire as a divine punishment for their sins; something to be fixed by a redoubling of their faith. This enabled the Christianity of the Roman Empire to become even more of a unifying factor in the face of pagan Avars, Slavs, Bulgars and Turks and the Islamic caliphate. However, the importance of religion at every stratum of Roman society could see any attempted change considered against ‘orthodoxy’ met with significant opposition. And under Leo III, such a challenge seems to have come against the prevalence of icons in virtually every household. The resultant iconoclasm would alter the fabric of the Roman Empire.
Such doctrinal division was hardly new. Throughout its history, Christianity had never been a united faith. And, if anything, this only increased when it became the faith of the empire. The ‘imperial orthodoxy’ expressed by the creeds endorsed by the Councils of Nicaea (325), Constantinople (381) and Chalcedon (451) were not accepted by all Christians, both without and within Roman territory. The seeming pedantry of some of the disagreements – the nature of the Trinity, the divine, human or mixed nature of Jesus – might seem strange today, but in the ancient world, these were of vital importance to the spiritual well-being of church, state and individual. They could see entire sections of the empire out of communion with each other for extended periods.
The major division faced by the Heraclian dynasty had its roots in the Council of Chalcedon two centuries earlier. Its elevation of the Constantinopolitan patriarch to a level second only to the pope in Rome was taken by the latter as a challenge to papal supremacy, while large sections of the eastern provinces rejected Chalcedon altogether. Even an emperor, Anastasius I (491–518), had rejected it and was therefore to be considered a heretic by the standards of church orthodoxy. He would not be the last … Attempts at fixing this Chalcedonian dispute had led to a generation of schism between Rome and Constantinople. Such examples of doctrinal compromise either being rejected or causing a slightly different but no less divisive disagreement were not uncommon.
And this growing divide between east and west was only exacerbated by further imperial efforts to heal the divisions of Chalcedon, even by the most prominent emperors – Justinian I’s anathematising of three controversial writings while they were received relatively well by eastern non-Chalcedonians, raised considerable opposition from the papacy, while Heraclius’ championing of Christ’s singular ‘energy’ – Monoenergism – as a possible avenue of agreement between pro- and anti-Chalcedonians was considered to be inadvertently providing justification for Monophysitism – the non-Chalcedonian doctrine of Christ’s single nature.
In the face of this initial failure, Heraclius and his allies doubled down, by issuing the Ecthesis, which promoted Christ’s dual nature and single divine will, and forbade debate over His ‘energy.’ Constans II even issued an imperial edict – the Type of Constans – making such discussion illegal. As can be imagined, this latest compromise – Monothelitism – and its imperial enforcement did little to bring about unity. Pope Martin I openly rejected this ‘doctrine of one will’, the Ecthesis and the Type, which led Constans to take the drastic step of arresting and exiling the pontiff. Other opponents of Monothelitism faced exile, torture, and even physical maiming in attempts to silence them.
The loss of Egypt, Syria and Armenia, the main centres of opposition to Chalcedon, removed the main reason for Monothelitism, although it, the Ecthesis and the Type remained imperial policy for a decade after Constans II’s murder in 668, possibly pragmatically in the face of military problems. And when Constantine did turn his attention to religious policy in 680, he not only abandoned the interventionist approach of his father, he abandoned imperial support for Monothelitism; a volte face that was officially confirmed at the Sixth Ecumenical Council at Constantinople in 680/681. Monothelitism and Monoenergism were condemned as heresy for diminishing Christ’s humanity – the imperial orthodoxy had it that Christ had ‘two natural wills and two natural energies, without division, alteration, separation and confusion.’64 Half a century of Heraclian heresy was gone almost overnight. Constantine built on the good relations with the papacy this volte face engendered, removing the need of imperial approval of a papal election, undertaking a symbolic ‘adoption’ of his sons by the pope65 and granting the papacy tax breaks in Sicily, Calabria and on the sale of grain.66
Justinian II sought to follow in his father’s orthodox footsteps, championing the Sixth Ecumenical Council, maintaining good relations with the papacy, extending its tax breaks to Bruttium and Lucania67 and targeting the heretical Paulicians.68 However, in wanting to display his orthodoxy more grandly, Justinian picked a fight with the pope. The emperor found that neither the Fifth nor Sixth Ecumenical Councils had published disciplinary canons – fixing that oversight gave him a reason to call his own council, known as the Quinisext Council in 691/692.69 The result was 102 canons ‘designed to upgrade the moral standards and practices of orthodox Christians, both clergy and laity;’70 however, in choosing to base those standards of clerical uniformity on Greek customs, Justinian and his allies were providing an avenue of significant opposition from the ‘barbaric’ Latin West.
Pope Sergius I refused to sign the Quinisext canons, claiming that they contained ‘new errors.’71 It is not clear what these were, but some rulings on clerical marriage (Canons 3, 13) and the forbidding of the depiction of Christ as a lamb (Canon 82)72 may be seen as novel. Justinian was furious at this rejection, arresting prominent allies of Sergius and then ordering the arrest of the pope himself.73 This move met with significant opposition in Italy, with the imperial officer sent to carry out the arrest reputedly forced to hide under the papal bed before being ejected from Rome.74 While this was not some large-scale rejection of imperial rule in Roman Italy, Justinian likely saw imperial and religious adherence as indistinguishable, such was the success of the sanctifying of the imperial position.
Various religious and legal texts from the late-seventh/early-eight century – Justinian’s iussio of 687, the opening address of the Quinisext Council, the preamble of the Ekloga – ‘imply an emperor who was both the divinely appointed and divinely guided ruler as well as the shepherd and defender of the Christian flock under God’s divine protection.’75 The emperor was now more than ‘just’ the leading lay person on the planet. Furthermore, the pronouncements of Quinisext take orthodoxy, the church, the civilised world and the Roman Empire as one and the same.76 In such circumstances, it could well be imagined that Sergius was readying himself for another expression of imperial outrage; however, Justinian’s first deposition and exile in 695 halted any immediate repercussions, but upon his restoration a decade later, Quinisext was quickly back on the imperial-papal agenda.77
By then, Justinian had matured enough to seek accommodation with the papacy rather than confrontation. But even in this air of compromise and concession, the new pope John VII did not capitulate over Quinisext.78 He died soon after, but there was no suggestion of foul play, nor was there over the rapid death of his successor, Sisinnius.79 The next pope was Constantine, another man of eastern extraction and possibly even known personally to Justinian.80 Before he could raise Quinisext with the new pontiff, the emperor showed his want of better relations with the papacy by siding with Constantine against a recalcitrant archbishop of Ravenna, going as far as to sack the city itself for its religious and political rebellion.81 There then followed a peculiar episode where the new exarch, after meeting with Pope Constantine in Naples, marched to Rome and executed several members of the papal court.82 The exarch is unlikely to have acted so violently without the consent of either the emperor or the pope, with there being some suggestion of financial impropriety or opposition to the burgeoning rapprochement between Justinian and Constantine.83
Any worries that Pope Constantine would capitulate over Quinisext were ill-founded, for the new pontiff proved ‘a distinctly skilled politician.’84 Even when he accepted an ‘invitation’ to Constantinople to meet personally with Justinian,85 he refused to be cowed. Justinian ‘renewed all the church’s privileges’86 – likely restating the primacy of Rome, its authority over Ravenna and tax exemptions, although exactly what arrangement was arrived at over Quinisext is unclear. It is likely that Justinian released the papacy from adherence to the canons it found objectionable,87 which would be a significant climb down. The Liber Pontificalis gives a significant role in the formulating of whatever compromise was reached to a member of Constantine’s entourage, the future Pope Gregory II,88 who would face an even more momentous doctrinal dispute with Leo III.
A more cynical view would be that there was no compromise, with the emperor and pope merely agreeing to disagree over the offending canons. Certainly, the doctrinal and practical variances at the centre of Quinisext were to continue, with vague compromises over the succeeding centuries growing into definitive schism between east and west. While being willing to compromise with the pope might reflect well on an emperor with a poor reputation, that Justinian felt the need demonstrates a decline of imperial power and influence in Italy. Despite the sacralising of the empire and its emperor, several popes had been able to reject Quinisext and resist pressure from Constantinople. This also shows that the Romano-Christian world remained ripe for doctrinal and/or practical dissension. Anything that could be portrayed as a major change to the ‘orthodoxy’ of the Church was likely to cause significant division. But this was not something that seemed to discourage Leo III; he would face ferocious opposition to his doctrinal ‘innovation’, and not just from the papacy.
Even with the frontiers settling down somewhat after the previous 50 years of retreat, the Roman Empire of 685 was still trying to understand its place in the new reality of the end of Late Antiquity, while not completely giving up on turning back the clock against these ‘ephemeral’ conquests. Under the Heraclians, it had proven itself resilient in the face of battlefield and territorial losses of a scale that would have (and in the case of Persia had) overthrown other states, able to reshape its provincial and military infrastructure on the fly. And having achieved some semblance of equilibrium, it undertook to reshape its laws and tax system to reflect new political realities, which in the process began the moulding of the Roman Empire into something a little different. As of 685, that final transition from the Late Antique Roman Empire to the Early Medieval ‘Byzantine’ Empire had yet to make contact with its major catalyst – the religious, social and cultural transformation that was iconoclasm… However, even before the Romans had the opportunity to entertain/reject that epochal shift, they would have to face not only a bout of ‘Military Anarchy’, but a concerted attempt against the very heart of the Roman world … An existential threat in perhaps the truest form that the Roman Empire had not faced in a millennium.
