“Je veux être calife à la place du calife”: Michael Palaiologos in the Saljuq Sultanate of Rum

Jovanović, Aleksandar

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-09278-7_4

Aleksandar Jovanović⁵

Part of the book series: New Approaches to Byzantine History and Culture ((NABHC))

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Abstract

Thanks to the extant sources, the main focus of this chapter is the issue of Romanitas in foreign lands. By following Michael Palaiologos’ venture outside the Roman Empire into public service within the Saljuq polity, we have an opportunity to examine how Romanitas was negotiated vis-à-vis other communal identities—this time around, without the help of a state deliberately promoting a sense of Roman unity to the populace. In order to understand the social and political role of the Romans in the Sultanate of Rum, where Michael Palaiologos fled, we have to rely on Greek language textual production outside the borders of the Roman state, as well as on occasional mentions of Romans in non-Roman sources. Besides the historiographic narratives of Akropolites and Pachymeres, works of Michael Palaiologos’ rather famous contemporaries, Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi and his son Sultan Walad, both of whom dwelled in Ikonion, offer a rather peculiar insight into the Saljuq capital's public and daily life in the Saljuq capital. Complementing textual sources, material artefacts, and infrastructure also helps obtain a better sense of the multicultural character of the Saljuq state in AnatoliaAsia Minor. Of specific interest to this chapter is the architectural infrastructure that was built by or for the Romans living in Rum: churches, monuments of Roman antiquity, and similar exclusively Roman pieces of architecture.

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Notes

1.
On Kaykhusraw I and Kaykaus II see: C. Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey: A General Survey of the Material and Spiritual Culture and History (c.1071–1330) J. Jones and Williams (transl.) (New York: Sidgwick & Jackson 1968); for a critical overview of Saljuq history in the thirteenth century see: Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks, 81–110.
2.
.شریف ووضیع وکبیر ورضیع را جریع وقتیل حسام انتقام کردانیدند. (M. Th. Houtsma ed, Histoire des seldjoucides d’Asie Mineure d’après l’abrégé du Seldouknāmeh d’ibn- Bībī [Leiden: Brill 1902], 51).
3.
On the rebellion of 1211 in Attaleia see: Histoire des seldjoucides d’Asie Mineure, 51–57; Bar Hebraeus, The Chronography, E.A.W. Budge ed. and transl. (London: Oxford University Press 1932), 369.
4.
Akropolites, Chronike, 64–65; Pachymeres, Chronikon, 43–45.
5.
Ἐνταῦθα δὲ τοῦ λόγου γενόμενοι τὰ τῆς ἱστορίας, ὡς δέον ἐστίν, ἐμπλατύνομεν (Akropolites, Chronike, 65.1–2).
6.
For the life and opus of Rumi and Sultan Walad see: Lewis, Past and Present, East and West: The Life, Teachings, and Poetry of Jalal al-din Rumi (New York: One World Publications 2014).
7.
For the diverse literary legacies coexisting and influencing one another in the Sultanate of Rum see: M. Pifer, Kindred Voices: A Literary History of Medieval Anatolia (New Haven and London: Yale University Press 2021).
8.
For the Greek works of Rumi and Sultan Walad see: G. Meyer, “Die griechischen Verse in Rabâbnâma,” BZt 4 (1895), 401–411; R. Burguière and R. Mantran, “Quelques vers grecs du XIIIe siècle en caractères arabes,” Byzantion 22 (1952), 63–80; Δ. Δέδες, “Τα ελληνικά ποιήματα του Μαυλανά Ρουμή και του γιου του Βαλέντ κατά τον 13ον αιώνα,” Τα Ιστορικά 10 (18–19) (1993), 3–22.
9.
Most existing scholarship focuses on sacral architecture of the Romans in Asia Minor; for Christian architectural endeavours in Saljuq Anatolia as well as the maintenance of old and new ecclesiastic and monastic establishments, see: T.B. Uyar, “Thirteenth-Century ‘Byzantine’ Art in Cappadocia and the Question of Greek Painters at the Seljuq Court,” in A.S.C. Peacoks, B. de Nicola, and S. N. Yıldız (eds.), Islam and Christianity in Medieval Anatolia (New York: Routledge 2016), 215–232; M.V. Tekinalp, “Palace Churches of the Anatolian Saljuqs: Tolerance or Necessity,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 33, 148–167.
10.
R.P. McClary, Rum Seljuq Architecture, 1070–1220: The Patronage of Sultans (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2017); E.S. Wolper, Cities and Saints: Sufism and the Transformation of Urban Space in Medieval Anatolia (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press 2003).
11.
Questions of Roman identity both from top-down and bottom-up within the Roman polity have received significant scholarly attention in the past decade: Kaldellis, Hellenism in Byzantium; Kaldellis., “The Social Scope,” 173–210; L. Neville, Heroes and Romans; D. Krallis, “Popular Political Agency,” 11–48.
12.
For Byzantine perception of foreigners see: A. Kaldellis, Ethnography after Antiquity: Foreign Peoples and Lands in Byzantine Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 2013); for Byzantine views on Persian and Turkic identities see: A. Jovanović, “Imagining the Communities of Others: the Case of the Seljuk Turks,” ByzSym 28 (2018), 239–273.
13.
For the Turkish settlement in Asia Minor post 1071 see: Beihammer, Byzantium and the, 169–304. Beihammer convincingly deconstructs traditional views of religious motivation and rhetoric surrounding the Turkish conquest of Anatolia: ibid., 18–19.
14.
For the state of the Great Saljuqs with its seat in Baghdad see: A.C.S. Peacock, The Great Seljuk Empire (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2015); C. Lange and S. Mecit (eds.), Seljuqs: Politics, Society and Culture (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2011). For the Turkmens see: D. Korobeinikov, “Raiders and Neighbours: the Turks (1040–1304),” in J. Shepard (ed.), The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press 2008), 692–727; R. Shukurov, “Christian Elements in the Identity of the Anatolia Turkmens (Twelfth-Thirteenth Centuries),” in Cristianità d’Occidente e Cristianità d’Oriente (secoli VI–XI): 24–30 aprile 2003 (Spoleto: Fondazione Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo 2004), 707–764.
15.
Beihammer, Byzantium and the Emergence, 198–243.
16.
For Byzantine authors’ views on the endemic presence of Turkish mercenaries in the armies see: Neville, Heroes and Romans, 64–67, 72–74.
17.
Beihammer, Byzantium and the Emergence, 215–224. The foundational date of the Saljuq Sultanate of Rum is as problematic as the foundational date of the Byzantine Empire. Just as scholars reached an agreement upon the year 330 CE as a starting point of Byzantium, so too was a consensus reached to date the Saljuq Sultanate of Rum’s history from 1077, when Sulayman ibn Qutlumush proclaimed himself sultan in the occupied city of Nikaia. The problems around choice of the year 1077 are greater in number and significance than those surrounding the foundational year of Constantinople. The first major issue is the very act of Sulayman I’s sultanic acclamation, which is mentioned for the first time in the twelfth century. The very act of a politically conscious state building process is brought into question. Sulayman ibn Qutlumush, instead, appears to have been a leader of a Turkmen band which in the post-Manzikert havoc managed to occupy the cities of Nikaia and Nikomedia. The story of sultanic proclamation and legitimization through the official recognition by the khalif in Baghdad was conveniently crafted in the twelfth century when the Saljuq state in Anatolia was being consolidated into a cohesive political player in the region. The only recognition that Sulayman received in his lifetime was that by Alexios I Komnenos, who in a treaty with Sulayman acknowledged him as the autonomous ruler in Bithynia.
18.
For Sulayman ibn Qutlumush see: S. Mecit, The Rum Seljuqs: Evolution of a Dynasty (London and New York: Routledge 2014), 23–27; for his relations with the Byzantine notables see: Beihammer, Byzantium and the Emergence, 215–224.
19.
For negotiations between Alexios I and the Turks independently of the Crusaders see: Beihammer, Byzantium and the Emergence, 309–311.
20.
For the life and tenure of Qilij Arslan I see: Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey, 81–90; Mecit, The Rum Seljuqs, 27–39.
21.
Beihammer, Byzantium and the Emergence, 277.
22.
For the mosque see: S. Redford, “The Alâeddin Mosque in Konya Reconsidered,” Artibus Asiae 51 (1991), 54–74.
23.
Beihammer, Byzantium and the Emergence, 245. For settling of the Turks see: ibid., 265–303.
24.
For the reign of Masud I see: Mecit, The Rum Seljuqs, 42–53. For the Danishmends role in Masud I’s rise to the throne see pages 43–44.
25.
S. Vryonis, The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor (Los Angeles: University of California Press 1971), 133–134, 185–194.
26.
For more on the presence of significant Roman populations in thirteenth-century Saljuq Anatolia see: Vryonis, The Decline, 59; D. Korobeinikov, “Orthodox Communities in Eastern Anatolia in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, Part 1: The Two Patriarchates: Constantinople and Antioch,” Al-Masaq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean 15 (2003), 197–214; and idem, “Orthodox Communities in Eastern Anatolia in the Thirteenth to Fourteenth Centuries, Part 2: The Time of Troubles,” Al-Masaq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean 17 (2005), 1–29, idem, Byzantium and the Turks, 154. For socio-cultural negotiations between the Muslim elite and Christian subjects see: A. Beihammer, “Christian Views of Islam in Early Seljuq Anatolia: Perceptions and Reactions,” in A.S.C. Peacoks, B. de Nicola, and S. N. Yıldız (eds.), Christianity and Islam in Medieval Anatolia (New York: Routledge 2016), 51–76; D. Korobeinikov, “How ‘Byzantine’ were the Early Ottomans? Bithynia in ca. 1290–1450,” in Ocмaнcкий миp и ocмaниcтикa: cбopник cтaтeй к 100-лeтию co дня poждeния A.C. Tвepитинoвoй (1910–1973) (Mocквa: Инcтитyт вocтoкoвeдeния PAH 2010), 224–230; A. Beihammer, “The Formation of Muslim Principalities and Conversion to Islam during the Early Seljuk Expansion in Asia Minor,” in P. Gellez and G. Grivaud (eds.), Les Conversions a l’Islam en Asie Mineure, dans les Balakns et dance le monde Musulman: Comparaisons et perspectives (Athenes: École française d'Athènes 2016), 77–108.
27.
Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks, 94–95. For comparative purposes, on the issues of amicable and hostile cohabitation between the Romans and the Franks that informed the negotiation of identities and allegiances in crusading Greece see: T. Shawcross, The Chronicle of Morea: Historiography in Crusader Greece (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2008), 203–219; 224–237.
28.
While no data is available for Saljuq Asia Minor, it is useful to keep in mind that the process of converstion from Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and other religions to Islam in West Asia was a long one and it took a couple of centuries before Muslims comprised a significant minority or, in some cases, majority of the populace: R. Bulliet, Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period: An Essay in Quantitative History (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press 2013).
29.
M.V. Tekinalp, “Palace Churches of the Anatolian Seljuks,” 148–167.
30.
O. Turan, «Les souverains seldjoukides et leurs sujets non-musulmans,» Studia Islamica 1 (1953), 65–100.
31.
On Byzantine emperors’ duties to the populace see: Kaldellis, The Byzantine Republic; Angelov, Byzantine Imperial Ideology; Blemmydes, On Imperial Statue.
32.
Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks, 95, 105–106.
33.
Ibid., 100–105; D. Korobeinikov, “‘The King of the East and the West’: the Seljuk Dynastic Concept and Titles in the Muslim and Christian Sources,” in A.C.S. Peacock– S.N. Yıldız (eds.), The Seljuks of Anatolia: Court and Society in the Medieval Middle East (London and New York: Routledge 2013), 68–90.
34.
Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks, 82–83.
35.
On the origins of the terms Turks and Turkomans in Byzantine literature see: R. Shukurov, The Byzantine Turks (Leiden and New York: Brill 2016), 401; for the list of ethnonyms used to designate different Turkic communities see: K. Durak, “Defining the ‘Turk’: Mechanisms of Establishing Contemporary Meaning in the Archaizing Language of the Byzantines,” JÖB 59 (2009), 65–78.
36.
Jovanović, “Imagining the Communities of Others,” 239–273.
37.
A. Beihammer, “Defection across the Border of Islam and Christianity: Apostasy and Cross-Cultural Interaction in Byzantine Seljuk Chronikon,” Speculum 86 (2011), 597–651.
38.
Ibid., 597–651.
39.
For Qilij Arslan II’s visit to Constantinople see: P. Magdalino, The Empire of Manuel I Komnenos 1143–1180 (Cambridge 1993), 76–77. For Manouel I Komnenos’ relationship with Qilij Arslan II see: Magdalino, The Empire, 76–78; 95–100; Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks, 112–115.
40.
For Ioannes Axouch see: K. Μ. Μέκιος, Ὁ μέγας δομέστικος τοῦ Βυζαντίου, Ἰωάννης Ἀξούχος καὶ πρωτοστράτωρ ὁ ὑιὸς τοῦ Ἀλέξιος (Αθῆναι: Ἀκαδημία Ἀθηνῶν 1932). For a general overview of the Turks in Byzantine service, as well as Turkish Romans, see: C.M. Brand, “The Turkish Element in Byzantium, Eleventh-Twelfth Centuries,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 43 (1989), 1–25.
41.
R.J. Macrides, “The Byzantine Godfather,” BMGS 11 (1987), 139–162; idem., “Kinship by Arrangement: The Case of Adoption,” DOP 44 (1990), 109–118.
42.
For Manouel Mavrozomes and his relationship with Kaykhusraw I see: S.N. Yıldız, “Manouel Komnenos Mavrozomes and His Descendants at the Seljuk Court: the Formation of a Christian Seljuk-Komnenian Elite,” in S. Leder (ed.), Crossroads between Latin Europe and the Near East: Corollaries of the Frankish Presence in the Eastern Mediterranean (12th–Fourteenth Centuries) (Würzburg: Ergon Verlag 2011), 55–77.
43.
Akropolites, Chronike, 9–10.
44.
Ibid. 9.
45.
Yıldız, “Manouel Komnenos Mavrozomes,” 55–66.
46.
S.N. Yıldız and H. Sahin, “In the Proximity of Sultans: Majd al-Din Majd aI-Din Isqaq, Ibn 'Arabi and the Seljuk Court,” in A.C.S. Peacock and S.N. Yıldız (eds.), The Seljuks of Anatolia: Court and Society in the Medieval Middle East (London and New York: Routledge 2013), 179; Yıldız, “Manouel Komnenos Mavrozomes,” 66–67.
47.
Yıldız, “Manouel Komnenos Mavrozomes,” 68–69.
48.
For the Arabic inscriptions of Ioannes Mavrozomes see: S. Redford, “Mavrozomês in Konya,” in 1. Uluslararası Sevgi Gönül Bizans Araştırmaları Sempozyumu Bildiriler, İstanbul, 25-26 Haziran 2007 = First International Byzantine studies symposium proceedings, Istanbul 25-26 June 2007 (Istanbul 2010), 48; Yıldız, “Manouel Komnenos Mavrozomes,” 68–69. For the Greek seal see: S. Métivier, “Les Maurozômai, Byzance et le sultanat de Rūm. Note sur le sceau de Jean Comnène Maurozômès,” Revue des Études Byzantines 67 (2009), 197–207; Yıldız, “Manouel Komnenos Mavrozomes,” 69–70.
49.
P. Wittek, “L’épitaphe d’un Comnène Konia,” Byzantion 10 (1935), 505–515; idem, “Encore l’épitaphe d’un Comnène Konia,” Byzantion 12 (1937), 207–211.
50.
For the crisis of the empire under the Angeloi see: Kyritses, “Political and Constitutional Crisis at the End of the Twelfth Century,” in A. Simpson (ed.), Byzantium 1180–1204: ‘The Sad Quarter of a Century’? (Athens: National Hellenic Research Foundation 2015), 97–111.
51.
For an overview of Lusignan Cyprus’ history see: A. Nicolaou-Konnari and C. Schabel, “Introduction,” in A. Nicolaou-Konnari and C. Schabel (eds.), Cyprus: Society and Culture 1191–1374 (Leiden and New York: Brill 2005), 1–11.
52.
For the Paritio Romaniae see: Lock, The Franks in the Aegean, 41–51.
53.
D. Jacoby, La féodalité en Grèce médiévale: Les “Assises de Romanie,” sources, application et diffusion (Paris and The Hague: De Gruyter 1971); A. Papadia-Lala, “Society, Administration and Identities in Latin Greece,” in N.I. Tsougarakis and P. Lock (eds.), A Companion to Latin Greece (Leiden and New York: Brill 2015), 115–116. On the productivity of the feudal lordships and the serfs’ dues see: Lock, The Franks in the Aegean, 245–251.
54.
Lock, The Franks in the Aegean, 184–189.
55.
Ibid., 161–191.
56.
For the names and roles of the Latin Empire’s aristocrats see: Van Tricht, The Latin Renovatio, 251–306.
57.
With the notable exception of Alexios and Georgios Laskaris who, after a failed rebellion sponsored by the Latins against Ioannes III, fled to the Empire of Constantinople, see: ibid., 282.
58.
Macrides, “Introduction,” 7, Lock, The Franks in the Aegean, 48.
59.
For the hellenophone Cypriots and their role on the island see: A. Nicolaou-Konnari, “Greeks,” in Cyprus: Society and Culture, 13–62. For the Cypriot notaries see: J. Richard, “Aspects du notariat public à Chypre sous les Lusignan,” in A.D. Beihammer, M.G. Parani and C.J. Schabel (eds.), Diplomatics in the Eastern Mediterranean 1000–1500 Aspects of Cross-Cultural Communication (Leiden and New York: Brill 2008), 207–221.
60.
A.D. Beihammer, Griechische Briefe und Urkunden aus dem Zypern der Kreuzfahrerzeit (Nicosia: Zyprisches Forschungszentrum 2007), 158–169.
61.
Ibid., 170–173.
62.
Lock, The Franks in the Aegean, 48.
63.
Beihammer, Griechische Briefe, 170–173.
64.
For the Assizes see: Jacoby, La féodalité en Grèce médiévale.
65.
Lock, The Franks in the Aegean, 266–309; Shawcross, The Chronicle of Morea, 190–219.
66.
Ἀκούσατε οἱ ἅπαντες, Φράγκοι τε καὶ Ρωμαῖοι (Το χρονικόν του Μορέως: Το Ελληνικόν κείμενο κατά τον κώδικα της Κοπεγχάγης μετά συμπληρώσεων και παραλλαγών εκ του Παρισινού, Π. Π. Καλονάρος (επιμ.), Ρ. Αποστολίδης (εισαγ.), (Αθήνα 1990 (1940)) v.724).
67.
N. Coureas, “The Latin and Greek Churches in former Byzantine Lands under Latin Rule,” in A Companion to Latin Greece, 145–184, Lock, The Franks in the Aegean, 193–221, Shawcross, The Chronicle of Morea, 198–202, C. Schabel, “Religion” in Cyprus: Society and Culture, 157–218.
68.
Ibid.
69.
R. Beaton, The Medieval Greek Romance (New York and London: Routledge 1996²), 91–100, Shawcross, The Chronicle of Morea, 123–149, 220–237, G. Grivaud, “Literature,” in Cyprus: Society and Culture, 219–284.
70.
Georgii seu Gregorii Cyprii Patriarchae Constantinopolitani Vita (Venice 1753), i–iii.
71.
For Saljuq Turks in the thirteenth century see: Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey, 119–141; 269–371; Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks, 81–110. For the Mongol Ulus and empire-state building process see: T.T. Allsen, Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2001), T. May, The Mongol Empire (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2018).
72.
For the Turkmens in the Mongol period see: Korobeinikov, “How Byzantine,” 224–232; idem, Byzantium and the Turks, 228–234; D. Korobeinikov, “The Formation of the Turkish Principalities in the Boundary Zone: From the Emirate of Denizli to the Beylik of Menteshe (1256–1302),” in A. Çevik and M. Keçiş (eds.), Uluslararasi Batı Anadolu Beylikleri Tarih, Kültür ve Medeniyeti Sempozyumu-II: Menteşeoğullari tarihi, 25–27 Nisan 2012 Muğla: bildiriler (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu 2016), 65–76.
73.
ἐν τοῖς οἰκήμασι τῶν Τουρκομάνων ἀφίκετο—ἔθνος δὲ τοῦτο τοῖς ἄκροις ὁρίοις τῶν Περσῶν ἐφεδρεῦον, καὶ ἀσπόνδῳ μίσει κατὰ Ῥωμαίων χρώμενον καὶ ἁρπαγαῖς ταῖς ἐκ τούτων χαῖρον καὶ τοῖς ἐκ πολέμων σκύλοις εὐφραινόμενον, καὶ τότε δὴ μᾶλλον, ὁπότε τὰ τῶν Περσῶν ἐκυμαίνετο καὶ ταῖς ἐκ τῶν Ταχαρίων ἐφόδοις συνεταράττετο (Akropolites, Chronike, 65.4–9).
74.
Korobeinikov, “How Byzantine,” 224–232 idem., Byzantium and the Turks, 228–230.
75.
Akropolites, Chronike, 65.10–13.
76.
εἰς κεφαλὴν τεταγμένου Μεσοθινίας καὶ αὐτῶν Ὀπτιμάτων […] καὶ τὸν ποταμὸν περαιωθεὶς Σάγγαριν (Pachymeres, Chronikon, 43.6–7; 44. 25–6).
77.
Palaiologos, Autobiography, 5.1–10.
78.
For the themes of Mesothynia and Optimatoi during Michael Palaiologos’ stay there, see: K. Belke, Tabula Imperii Byzantini 13, Bythinien und Hellespont (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 2020), 200–201.
79.
Sangarios River was on the traditional route leading from Nikomedia to Klaudiopolis: Belke, Tabula Imperii Byzantini 13, 275–276.
80.
Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks, 233–4.
81.
Ibid., 234.
82.
Akropolites, Chronike, 65.16–18.
83.
For the road from Nikaia and Bithynia to Ankyra and from Ankyra to Ikonion dating back to Antiquity see: Belke, Tabula Imperii Byzantini 13, 263, 275–276; K. Belke, Tabula Imperii Byzantini 4, Galatien und Lykaonien (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 1984), 94–96, 106. For Byzantine use of Roman roads see: K. Belke, “Transport and Communication,” in P. Niewöhner (ed.), The Archaeology of Byzantine Anatolia: From the End of Late Antiquity until the Coming of the Turks (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2017), 30–32.
84.
Belke, Tabula Imperii Byzantini 4, 94.
85.
For the history of Ankyra from Augustus to the advent of the Ottomans in the fourteenth century see: Ibid., 126–130.
86.
Ibid, 127.
87.
Z. Sönmez, Başlangıcından 16. Yüzyıla Kadar Anadolu-Türk İslam Mimarisinde Sanatçılar (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi 1995), 220.
88.
A. Gökdemir and C. Demirel et al., “Ankara Temple (Monumentum Ancyranum/Temple of Augustus and Rome) Restoration,” Case Studies in Construction Materials 2 (2015), 55–65.
89.
The Turkish Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, E.S. Forster (transl.) (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press 2005), 50.
90.
For popular imagination around monuments available in local communities in crafting a sense of a unified Roman identity see: Krallis, “Popular Political Agency,” 41–45. On landscape theory in examining popular engagement with monuments in Byzantium see: S. Turner and J. Crow, “Unlocking Historic Landscapes in the Eastern Mediterranean: Two Pilot Studies Using Historic Landscape Characterisation,” Antiquity 84 (2010), 216–229; K. Green, “Experiencing Politiko: New Methodologies for Analysing the Landscape of a Rural Byzantine Society,” in C. Nesbitt and M. Jackson (eds.), Experiencing Byzantium: Papers from the 44^th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Newcastle and Durham, April 2011 (London and New York: Routledge 2016), 133–152.
91.
For composition and dating of the two collections see: Constantinople in the Early Eight Century: The Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai, A. Cameron and J. Herrin (eds., transl., and comm.) (Leiden: Brill 1984), 1–54; Accounts of Medieval Constantinople: The Patria, A. Berger ed. and transl. (Cambridge, MA and London 2013: Harvard University Press), vii–xxi. For the Patria and its composition and legacy see: G. Dagron, Constantinople imaginaire: étude sur le recueil des Patria (Paris: Presses universitaires de France 1984). For the medieval Romans engaging with statues see: P. Chatterjee, Between the Pagan Past and Christian Present in Byzantine Visual Culture: Statues in Constantinople, 4th-13th Centuries CE (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2021).
92.
Accounts of Medieval Constantinople, 64–67.
93.
D. Krallis, “Imagining Rome in Medieval Constantinople: Memory, Politics, and the Past in the Middle Byzantine Period,” in P. Lambert and B. Weiler (eds.), How the Past was Used. Essays in Historical Culture (London: British Academy 2017), 49–69, here 49–58 for the Patria and the Parastaseis.
94.
For the Ankyra version of the text of Res Gestae Divi Augusti see: Res gestae Divi Augusti das Monumentum Ancyranum, H. Volkman (ed. and transl.) (Leipzig: Reisland 1942).
95.
For Byzantines as readers of Plutarch see: Theophili Kampianaki, “Plutarch's Lives in the Byzantine Chronographic Tradition: The Chronicle of John Zonaras,” BMGS 41 (2017), 15–29. For Byzantines as active readers of Hellenic literature under Roman rule see: Krallis, Michael Attaleiates and the Politics, 72–89, Neville, Heroes and Romans, 35–38.
96.
θεάτρων οὖσα μεστή, καὶ τούτων οἵων γεγηρακότων καὶ μαρανθέντων τῷ χρόνῳ καὶ ὥσπερ ἐν ὑέλῳ τινὶ τήν ποτε δεικνυμένων λαμπρότητα καὶ τὸ μεγαλοπρεπὲς τῶν δειμάντων αὐτά. Ἑλληνικῆς γὰρ μεγαλονοίας ὑπάρχει ταῦτα μεστά, καὶ σοφίας ταύτης ἰνδάλματα· δεικνύει δὲ ταῦτα πρὸς ἡμᾶς ἡ πόλις κατονειδίζουσα, ὥσπερ ἀπογόνους τινάς, τοῦ πατρῴου κλέους τῷ μεγαλείῳ (Theodoros II Laskaris, Epistulae, 80.4–9).
97.
For Theodoros II’s Hellenizing impulses see: Angelov, The Byzantine Hellene, 202–216.
98.
παιόνειον δέ τι ὥσπερ τὸν τοῦ Γαληνοῦ οἶκον ὁρῶντες (Theodoros II Laskaris, Epistulae, 80.31–32).
99.
For Roman intellectuals’ engagement with material objects in their narratives see the example of Michael Holobolos describing a silk peplos sent to Genoa: Hilsdale, Art and Diplomacy, 31–87.
100.
Res gestae Divi Augusti, 1–5.
101.
Αὐτεξούσιόν μοι ἀρχὴν καὶ ἀπόντι καὶ παρόντι διδομένην [ὑ]πό τε τοῦ δήμου καὶ τῆς συνκλήτου Μ[άρκ]ωι [Μ]αρκέλλωι καὶ Λευκίωι Ἀρρουντίωι ὑπάτοις ο[ὐκ ἐδ]εξάμην (ibid., 5.1–4).
102.
οὐδὲ λόγος πειθοῖ σύγκρατος εἰς ἀκοὰς τοῖς πλήθεσι, τοῦτο μὲν δι’ ἡμῶν τοῦτο δὲ καὶ διὰ τῶν σπουδαστῶν ἐμπεσών, καὶ μεγάλων ἐμπλήσας ἐλπίδων, ἔπεισεν ἑαυτοὺς ἡμῖν ἐγχειρίσαι, ἀλλ’ ἡ σὴ δεξιά, κύριε, ἐποίησε δύναμιν· ἡ δεξιά σου ὕψωσέ με· καὶ κύριος κατέστην τῶν ὅλων, οὐ πείσας ἀλλὰ πεισθεὶς καὶ βιασθεὶς αὐτός, ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἀνάγκην ἐπαγαγών τινι. (Palaiologos, Autobiography, 6.12–17).
103.
Akropolites, Chronike, 76; Pachymeres, Chronikon, 73–79.
104.
For the road networks of the Byzantine period see footnote 411.
105.
τό τε γὰρ εὐγενὲς τοῦ ἀνδρὸς ἐμεμαθήκει, καὶ πάντες οἱ μετὰ τοῦ περσάρχου μεγιστᾶνες τελοῦντες τὸ εἶδος αὐτοῦ καὶ τὸ φρόνημα τεθαυμάκασι. (Akropolites, Chronike, 65.19–22).
106.
Akropolites, Chronike, 65.24–36. For Michael Palaiologos commanding specifically Roman troops see: Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks, 194.
107.
Ibid., 201–203.
108.
Korobeinikov, “How ‘Byzantine’,” 221–222; R. Shukurov, “Harem Christianity: The Byzantine Identity of Saljuq Princes,” in A.C.S. Peacock and S.N. Yıldız (eds.), The Seljuks of Anatolia: Court and Society in the Medieval Middle East (London and New York 2013), 129–133.
109.
For Christian architectural endeavours in Saljuq Anatolia as well as maintenance of old and new ecclesiastic and monastic establishments see: T.B. Uyar, “Thirteenth-Century ‘Byzantine’ Art in Cappadocia,” 215–232; M.V. Tekinalp, “Palace Churches of the Anatolian Seljuks,” 148–167.
110.
For instance, a Greek language inscription probably commissioned by a local magistrate is still seen on the walls of Attaleia: H. Gregoire, Recueil des inscriptions grecques chretiennes d’Asie Mineure (Paris: Adolf M. Hakkert 1922), 103–104; Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks, 152–153.
111.
Korobeinikov, “How ‘Byzantine’,” 221–222.
112.
G. Meyer, “Die griechischen Verse in Rabâbnâma,” 401–411; R. Burguière and R. Mantran, “Quelques vers grecs,” 63–80; Δ. Δέδες, “Τα ελληνικά ποιήματα,” 3–22.
113.
Comparatively, for the Greek-language public performers of various songs and epics, as well as their being influenced by Frankish conquerors of Greece in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, see: Shawcross, The Chronicle of Morea, 116–118. For the multicultural and multilingual nature of Saljuq literature see: Pifer, Kindred Voices.
114.
For Rumi’s ghazals about Jesus see: The Essential Rumi, C. Barks with J. Moyne (transl.) (San Francisco: Penguin 1997), 201–205.
115.
On inverting the content of the story see: A. Schimmel, A Two-Colored Brocade: The Imagery of Persian Poetry (Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press 2004), 149–150, 380.n.25.
116.
Essential Rumi, 121.
117.
On changes in the narrative to fit the needs and the wants of the audiences and their ideologies see: Shawcross, The Chronicle of Morea, 187–189 for the changes made in Greek manuscripts of the Chronicle in the depiction of the Battle of Prinitsa (c.1261/1263) to depict the loss of the Romans to the Franks in a more neutral light; also, see ibid., 252–254 for making The Chronicle of Morea more suitable for Byzantine sensitivities. Rumi, in his poem, undertakes a similar task to adjust the narrative to the wants of his listeners.
118.
Essential Rumi., 1–8, 54–76. For active cultural exchange and original adaptation between Roman and other societies see: C.J. Hilsdale, “Worldliness in Byzantium and Beyond: Reassessing the Visual Networks of Barlaam and Ioasaph,” The Medieval Globe 3 (2017), 57–96. Here, Hilsdale looks at process of “creative adaptation, particularization, and local inflection of a medieval cultural phenomenon so widespread as to be truly global—in a very medieval sense” in order to offer a fresh argument about medieval Roman artistic originality and challenge the traditional scholarly narrative “that reduces Byzantium to a mere storehouse for rich source material on its predetermined journey towards western Europe” (Hilsdale, “Worldliness,” 58).
119.
Να ειπώ εδώ ρωμαίικα, ήκουσες καλή ρόδινη.
τ' είδες εις ση εστία μου, να έλθης αν σε φαίνη.
Πόσα λαλείς γοιον παιδίτζι, Πείνασα εγώ, θέλω φαγί.
Πόσα λαλείς γοιον το γιόρον, Ρίγωσα εγώ, θέλω γωνή.
Πόσα λαλείς, Η ψιλή μου καυλώθηκεν, θέλω μουνί.
Η ψυχή μου μαυρώθηκεν, ηύρα νερό να λούνη.
(Δέδες, “Τα ελληνικά ποιήματα,” 17)
120.
The italicized text of the translation is originally written in Turkish (1a) and Farsi (2a).
کردل سن سن که بن دیری الم (1a).
Έλα απόψε κοντά μου, χρυσή κυρά. (1b).
روز و شب شادی تو از خوبی خود (2a).
Έλα 'δώ να ιδώ κ' εγώ καρδιά, χαρά. (2b).
(Δέδες, “Τα ελληνικά ποιήματα,” 18)
121.
Προκοπίου μὲν μάρτυρος χεῖρας δέκα,
Θεοδώρου δὲ πεντεκαίδεκα γνάθους.
καὶ Νέστορος μὲν ἄχρι τῶν ὀκτὼ πόδας,
Γεωργίου δὲ τέσσαρας κάρας ἅμα.
καὶ πέντε μασθοὺς Βαρβάρας ἀθληφόρου.
(The Poems of Christopher of Mytilene and John Mauropous, F. Berbard and C. Livanos trans. and eds. [Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press 2018], 242–243).
122.
δὲ μόνος κοιμηθεὶς δίχα παραμυθίας.
χωρὶς δείπνου καὶ σκοτεινὰ καὶ παραπονεμένα. (223–224)
123.
να γαμῇ το μουνίν σου παπάς (H. Hunger, Zum Epilog der Theogonie des Johannes Tzetzes, BZ 46 (1953), 305.1).
124.
Η ψιλή μου καυλώθηκεν, θέλω μουνί. (Δέδες, “Τα ελληνικά ποιήματα,” 17).
125.
For popular inspiration in Byzantine comic literature see: M. Alexiou, “The Poverty of Écriture and the Craft of Writing: Towards a Reappraisal of the Prodromic Poems,” BMGS 10, 1–40; idem., “Of Longings and Loves: Seven Poems by Theodore Prodromos,” DOP 69 (2015), 209–224, A. Pizzone, “Towards a Byzantine Theory of the Comic?,” in M. Alexiou and D. Cairns (eds.), Greek Laughter and Tears: Antiquity and After (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2017), 146–165; P. Marciniak, “Laughter on Display: Mimic Performances and the Danger of Laughing in Byzantium,” in Greek Laughter and Tears, 232–242.
126.
A comparable trend emerged across the Mediterranean on the Islamicate Iberian Peninsula where the genre of kharjat poems revolving around the themes of love, desire, and lust addressed to women or having female speakers tend to be written in the vernacular Romance language, while male dominated ones are in Arabic: A. Jones, “Sunbeams from Cucumbers? An Arabist’s Assessment of the State of Kharja Studies,” La corónica 10 (1981), 38–53.
127.
N.M. El-Cheikh, Women, Islam, and Abbasid Identity (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press 2015), 77–96.
128.
Ibid., 83–88.
129.
For the Greek scriptorium in the Saljuq court see: Σ. Λάμπρος, “Ἡ Ἑλληνική ὡς ἐπίσημος γλῶσσα τῶν Σουλτανῶν,” Νέος Ἑλληνομνήμων 5 (1908), 40–78; M. Delilbaşi, “Greek as a Diplomatic Language in the Turkish Chancery,” in N.G. Moschonas (ed.), Η επικοινωνία στο Βυζάντιο (Αθήνα: Κέντρο Βυζαντινών Ερευνών 1993), 145–153.
130.
Beihammer, Griechische Briefe.
131.
Shukurov, “Harem Christianity,” 116–150.
132.
A. Beihammer, “Defection across the Border,” 597–651.
133.
Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey, 119–141, 173–201, 216–233.
134.
Korobeinikov, “Orthodox Communities,” 197.
135.
For Saljuq Turks in the thirteenth century see: Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey: 119–141; 269–371; Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks: 81–110.
136.
Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks: 194.
137.
ὁ δὲ ἐπεὶ ἐν ἀλλοδαπῇ ἐτύγχανεν ὤν, συμμαχεῖν μὲν Μουσουλμάνοις ἀπευκταῖον ἡγεῖτο, μή ποτε, ὡς ἔφασκεν οὗτος, ἐν μάχῃ πεσόντος εὐσεβὲς αἷμα αἵμασι συγκραθείη ἀνοσίοις καὶ ἀσεβέσι, χάριτι δὲ θείᾳ ἀναρρωσθεὶς καὶ γενναῖον ἀναλαβὼν φρόνημα πρὸς τὴν μάχην ἐξώρμησε. τὸ μὲν οὖν μέρος τοῦ στρατεύματος τὸ παρὰ τοῦ Κομνηνοῦ Μιχαὴλ τεταγμένον τοὺς ἀντιτεταγμένους αὐτῷ Ταχαρίους κατὰ κράτος νενίκηκε, τοῦ Μιχαὴλ αὐτοῦ πρώτως δόρατι παρὰ μαζὸν βαλόντος τὸν τοῦ στρατεύματος προηγούμενον (Akropolites, Chronike, 65.37–45).
138.
Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks, 42–68; J. Crow, “Alexios I Komnenos and Kastamon: Castles and Settlement in Middle Byzantine Paphlagonia,” in M. Mullett and D. Smythe (eds.), Alexios I Komnenos (Belfast: The Queen's University of Belfast 1996), 12–36.
139.
Akropolites, Chronike, 69.
140.
Pachymeres, Chronikon, 45.7–12.
141.
Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks, 202.
142.
“Aksaraylı Mehmed oğlu Kerimüddin Mahmud,” in O. Turan (ed.), Müsâmeret ül-ahbâr. Moğollar zamanında Türkiye Selçukluları Tarihi (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu 1944), 49–51; For the translation and analysis of the relevant part see: Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks, 201–203.
143.
Bugünden sonra divanda, dergâhta, bargâhta, mecliste ve meydanda Türkçeden başka dil kullanılmayacaktır (N.S. Banarlı, Resilmli Türk Edebiyatı Tarihi [Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu 1984], 299).

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Aleksandar Jovanović

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Jovanović, A. (2022). “Je veux être calife à la place du calife”: Michael Palaiologos in the Saljuq Sultanate of Rum. In: Michael Palaiologos and the Publics of the Byzantine Empire in Exile, c.1223–1259. New Approaches to Byzantine History and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09278-7_4

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