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The Transfer of Population as a Policy in the Byzantine Empire*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Peter Charanis
Peter Charanis
Affiliation:
Rutgers, the State University
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Extract

In his account of the revolt of Thomas the Slavonian (820) against the Emperor Michael II (820–829) the Byzantine historian Genesius lists a variety of peoples from whom the armies of the rebel had been drawn: Saracens, Indians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Medes, Abasgians, Zichs, Vandals, Getae, Alans, Chaldoi, Armenians, adherents of the heretical sects of the Paulicians and the Athenganoi. Some of these peoples are well known; the identity of others, despite efforts made to determine it, is by no means certain. But in any case, their listing by the Byzantine historian illustrates vividly the multi-racial character of the Byzantine Empire. This was in the ninth century, but the situation was no different for the period before, and it would not be different for the period after. The Byzantine Empire was never in its long history a true national state with an ethnically homogeneous population. If by virtue of its civilization it may be called Greek, it was never, except perhaps during the very last years of its existence, an empire of Greeks.

Type
Research Article
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , January 1961 , pp. 140 - 154
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1961

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References

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47 A large colony of Armenians is known to have existed in the Troad at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Although nothing is known of the circumstances of its establishment, it may have been the result perhaps of the transfer of Armenians from another region as that, for instance, which was effected by John II Comnenus when he took Anazarbus in 1138. Cf. Gregory the Priest, Chronique, tr. Dulaurier, , Recueil des Historiens des Croisades: Document Arménien, I (Paris, 1869), p. 619Google Scholar.

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50 The literature on the Gagauses is considerable. I cite here some of the more important works: Balaschev, G. D., The Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus and the Establishment with his aid of the state of the Gagauses on the Western Coast of the Black Sea (in Greek) (Sofia, 1930)Google Scholar; Manof, A., “Who are the Gagauses?” (in Greek), Epeteris Hetaereias Byzantinôn Spoudôn, 10 (1933), pp. 381–400Google Scholar; Mutafciev, P., Die angebliche Eīnwanderung von Seldschuk-Türken in die Dobrudscha īm XIII. Jahrhundert (Sofia, 1943)Google Scholar. But see Laurent, V., “La domination byzantine aux bouches du Danube sous Michel VIII Paléologue”, Revue Historique du Sud-Est Européen, 22 (1945), pp. 194 ff.Google Scholar; also G. I. Bratianu, “Les Roumains aux bouches du Danube”, ibid., pp. 199ff.; Wittek, P., “La descendance chretienne de la dynastie Seldjouk en Macédoine”, Echos d'Orient, 33 (1934), pp. 409, 412CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wittek, , “Yazijioghlu 'Ali on the Christian Turks of the Dobruja”, Bulletin of the Society of Oriental and African Studies, 14 (1952), pp. 639–668CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Laurent, V., “Une famille turque au service de Byzance: les Mélikès”, Byz. Zeitschrift, 49 (1956), pp. 349–368Google Scholar. I have not seen the work by Hoppe, E. M., “Die turkischen Gagauzen- Christen”, Oriens Christ., 41 (1957), pp. 125–137Google Scholar.

51 On the settlement of Albanians and other peoples in the Peloponnesus (the Morea) see now Zakythinos, D. A., Le Despotat grec de Morée, II: Vie et Institutions (Athens, 1953), 20–45Google Scholar.

52 Evagrius Scholasticus, op. cit., p. 215. The translation is taken from the English version of Evagrius which appeared in Bonn's Ecclesiastical Library: Theodoret, and Evagrius, , History of th?. Church (London, 1854), p. 444Google Scholar.

53 Anna Comnena, 2: 298: I have used the translation of Dawes, E. A. S., The Alexiad of the Princess Anna Comnena (London, 1928), p. 385Google Scholar.

54 Ibid., 2: 299 f.; Dawes, 385.

55 Charanis, P., “The Byzantine Empire in the Eleventh Century”, A History of the Crusades, I, ed. Baldwin, M. W. (Philadelphia, 1955), pp. 214 fGoogle Scholar.

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57 Ville-Hardouin, Geoffroi de, La conquete de Constantinople, ed. and tr. into modern French by Natalis de Wailly, M. (Paris, 1872), p. 239Google Scholar. For a general account in English on the Paulicians and Bogomiles: Runciman, S., The Medieval Manichee: A Study of the Christian Dualistic Heresy (Cambridge, 1947)Google Scholar; Obolensky, D., The Bogomiles: A Study in Balkan Neo-Manichaeism (Cambridge, 1948)Google Scholar.

58 On the attempts of the Byzantines to have the Armenians accept the orthodox point of view and the Armenian resistance to these attempts see the brief but excellent account of Speros Vryonis, Jr., “Byzantium: The Social Basis of Decline in the Eleventh Century”, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, 2 (1959), pp. 169 ffGoogle Scholar.

59 Matthew of Edessa, op. cit., pp. 152–54.

60 Michael Syrus, op cit., 3: 169; Attaliates, op. cit., p. 113.

61 Atlaliates, op. cit., p. 135.

62 Macler, F., “Erzeroum ou topographie de la haute Arménie”, Journal Asiatique, 11th series, 13 (1919), p. 223Google Scholar. Macler quotes an Armenian writer of the seventeenth century who says in effect: The Armenians hated the Greeks, the Greeks hated the Armenians and so God sent the Turks to punish both.