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Andrew F.

Stone

Gregory Antiochos on the "Crusade" of 1179


In: Revue des études byzantines, tome 63, 2005. pp. 151-166.

Abstract
The author analyses the funeral oration given on January 20th, 1182 by Gregory Antiochos and tries to identify who were Manuel
Komnenos's enemies referred to, as is usual in this literary genre, in a rather allusive, yet precise way. They may have included
Louis VII King of France who gave up the leadership of the crusade due to illness and was replaced by Henri de Troyes, a
relation of his, also referred to in the oration. The enemy in the East would be the Seljuk sultan Kilic Arslan allied with Louis VII
against their common enemy, Saladin.

Résumé
REB 63, 2005, p. 151-166.
Andrew F. Stone, Gregory Antiochos on the «Crusade» of 1179. - En analysant l'oraison funèbre délivrée le 20 janvier 1181 par
Grégoire Antiochos, l'auteur essaie d'identifier les ennemis de Manuel Comnène désignés, comme à l'habitude dans ce genre
littéraire, de manière allusive, mais précise. On compterait parmi eux le roi de France, Louis VII, qui avait renoncé, en raison de
sa maladie, à conduire une croisade dont il avait laissé le commandement à son parent, Henri de Troyes, aussi mentionné dans
l'oraison. L'ennemi en Orient serait le sultan seldjoukide Kilidj Arslan qui se serait allié au roi Louis VII dans leur commune
hostilité à Saladin.

Citer ce document / Cite this document :

Stone Andrew F. Gregory Antiochos on the "Crusade" of 1179. In: Revue des études byzantines, tome 63, 2005. pp. 151-166.

http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/rebyz_0766-5598_2005_num_63_1_2309
GREGORY ANTIOCHOS

ON THE "CRUSADE" OF 1 179

Andrew F. STONE

The two surviving funeral orations for the emperor Manuel I Komnenos are,
each in its own way, very significant documents. The oration by Eustathios1, who
delivered it even though he was no longer maistor ton rhetoron, "master of the
rhetors", but had been serving for several years as Metropolitan bishop of Thessal
oniki, is of general interest by virtue of its description of Manuel as an individual
and its justification of the main policies that Manuel pursued over his reign ( 1 143-
1 180). The other oration is by Eustathios' pupil Gregory Antiochos , delivered, as
the title tells us, 120 days after Manuel's death (i.e. 20 January 1181, or, if by the
"120 days" a period of four months is meant, 24 January). It is particularly interest
ing as a result of one image that it introduces: a picture of the emperor crucified as
a second Christ, stretching his palms to the west and the east, with a robber cruci
fiedon either side. The purpose of this article is to investigate this image, ascertain
the historical identity of these two robbers and determine which events or intrigues
are alluded to in this way. The unstable political climate following Manuel's death
can then briefly be considered1. We shall then offer judgement, in the light of this
oration, on the validity of the commonly-held view that the tensions which were
to splinter the Byzantine nobility into opposing factions" were already simmering
under the surface during Manuel's reign".

1. Ed. T.L.F Tafel. Eustathii metropolitae Thessalonicensis opuscula, Frankfurt-am-Main 1832;


repr. Amsterdam 1964. p. 196-214.
2. Ed. W. Regel. Fontes Renan Byzantinarwn, Saint-Petersburg 1917, p. 191-228.
3. The most recent treatment of the question of the "'civil war" of 1 18 1 is by C. Cupane, La Guerra
Civile della primavera 1181 ne] racconto di Niceta Coniate e Eustazio di Tessalonica: Narratologica
historiae ancilla'?, JOB 47. 1997. p. 179-194; perhaps the best-known, however, is that of F. Cognasso.
Partiti politici e lotte dinastiche in Bisanzio alla morte di Manuele Comneno, Reale Accademia della
Scienze di Torino, memorie classe II 62, 1 9 1 2. p. 21 3-3 17. esp. p. 237-254; see also C. Brand. Byzantium
Confronts the West 1180-1204. Cambridge Mass. 1968, p. 31-38.
4. One of these was centred on the regent, the dowager empress Maria-Xene. and her lover, the
protosebastos Alexios Komnenos; the other, more popular, party was at first led by the Porphyrogenneta
princess Maria, the elder sister of the boy emperor Alexios II. and then by Manuel's cousin Andronikos
Komnenos.
5. Apart from the articles by Cognasso and Cupane cited above, there is the recent treatment by
R.-J. Lilie. Des Kaisers Macht und Ohnmacht. Zum Zerfall der Zentralgewalt in Byz.anz vor dem vierten
Kreuzzug. Varia Ι (ΠΟΙΚΙΛΑ ΒΥΖΑΝΤΙΝΑ 4). Bonn 1984. p. 11-119. esp. p. 87-88. Lilie puts forward
the thesis that the deceased emperor's increased reliance on the Latins from the west and east was the
result of his wishing to decrease his dependence on his family, the so-called "Comnenian system", or
Revue des Etudes Byzantines 63. 2005. p. 151-166.
152 ANDREW F. STONE

In attempting to answer the first question, that of the robbers' identity, we must
be mindful that the twelfth century was the era of the crusades, enterprises which
the Byzantines viewed with great distrust. The funeral orations of 1 1 80- 1181 fall
between two crusades proper, that is, expeditions of western soldiers to the Holy
Land in response to a call for military action by the pope of the day. Louis VII
of France and Conrad III of Germany had participated in the disastrous Second
Crusade (1147-1148). Conrad's nephew Frederick I Barbarossa had accompanied
his uncle on this venture. The Third Crusade (1187-1192), in which Barbarossa
also took part, had not yet taken place. We shall adduce evidence (a letter of Pope
Alexander III to the French clergy of 1171, a passage from Robert of Torigni and
the evidence of the Antiochos oration) to support an argument that King Louis had
plans to crusade towards the end of his life; he died, like Manuel, in 1180.
The evidence of the Antiochan funeral oration will be considered step by step
as it appears, and we shall work our way towards positive identification of the three
main protagonists in the intrigue that the rhetor alludes to (i.e. Manuel, the robber
on the west, the robber on the east). There are many pitfalls for the unwary here:
the description of one of the protagonists as having an "Israelite" mind might sug
gest to some that this person was one of the crusader princes, in pursuit of the 1 1 80
alliance with Saladin, something which a Byzantine might well have regarded with
mistrust, for in this year a two years' truce had been agreed upon by the young king
of Jerusalem, Baldwin IV, and that increasingly powerful sultan of Egypt and large
parts of the Levant6 (we shall come to consider the question of Baldwin's participa
tion in events in due course). Alternatively, the Byzantine suspicion of the motives
of crusading European monarchs and their alliances might lead us to think of the
negotiations between Barbarossa and Kilidj II Arslan, sultan of Ikonion7.
Both interpretations, I believe, are blind alleys. Let us first present paragraph
nineteen of the Antiochos oration and see why. The first part of this paragraph in
Regel 's edition may be translated as follows8:

come to that, the nobility at large. He cites Niketas Choniates as evidence of anti-Latin sentiment during
the Regency, although he does not discuss the possibility that such anti-Latin sentiment could have been
retrospective, the result ofthat author's experience of the Fourth Crusade. We shall adduce the evidence
of William of Tyre in due course.
6. The literature on the crusades is extensive. Apart from general histories such as those of
K.M. Setton and M.W. Baldwin, A History of the Crusades, Vol. I, The First Hundred Years,
Philadelphia 1958, p. 575; S. Runciman, A History of the Crusades, Vol. Ill, The Kingdom of Jerusalem,
Cambridge 1952; H.E. Mayer, tr. J. Gillingham, The Crusades, Oxford 1972; R. Grousset, Histoire
des Croisades et du Royaume Franc de Jérusalem, Paris 1935; there are also specialist histories of the
career of Saladin, e.g. M.C. Lyons and D.E.P. Jackson, Saladin: the Politics of the Holy War, Cambridge
1982, p. 144, 165; as well as specialist histories of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: R. Röhricht,
Geschichte des Königreichs Jerusalem, 1100-1291, Innsbruck 1898; R.L. Nicholson, Joscelyn Hl and
the Fall of the Crusader States 1134-1199, Leiden 1973, p. 93; M. Baldwin, Raymond 111 of Tripolis
and the Fall of Jerusalem (1140-1187), Princeton 1936, p. 33-35.
7. Cf W. Georgi, Friedrich Barbarossa und die auswärtigen Machte: Studien zur Außenpolitik
1159-80, Frankfurt-am-Main 1990, p. 334-6, with further literature. As B. Hamilton points out, Frederick
also had diplomatic exchanges with Saladin, Manuel I Komnenos and Baldwin IV of Jerusalem, in
Καθηγήτρια. Essays presented to Joan Hussey or her 80th Birthday, ed. J. Chrysostomides, Camberley
1988, p. 353-375, esp. p. 355.
8. Regel, p. 211s17.
GREGORY ANTIOCHOS ON THE "CRUSADE" OF 1 1 79 153

But where now for us is the Phinehas, who at this time assumed zeal in pursuing
that pious Israelite mind, which also boasted most justly of its exhortation from
Christ, as it prostituted itself in a lawless collusion with an irreverent soul, a second
Midianite woman of another race, and thus he (i.e. Phinehas) distributed his stabbing
in all directions in a manner similar to them; and who, with his warlike barbed lance,
pierced this soul of a foreign race, and brandished the arrow with its sharpened quill
of rumour, which went swiftly and flew across from east to west, and then pricked
the Israelite at the same time to a death which cheated us of our hope of seeing it
make a true expression of shame on his face?

To be noted here is the fact that we are dealing at this point of the oration with
three personages in metaphorical guise. The first, the context of the passage will
reveal, is the emperor, now absent. He is compared to the Lévite Phinehas of one of
the less-well known stories of the Book of Numbers in the Bible (Numbers 25. 1-9):
the Israelites had incurred God's wrath by having sexual intercourse with the
inhabitants of Edom and worshipping the Baal of Peor. The plague that had been
visited on them was stopped only when Phinehas, finding an Israelite man who
was copulating with a Midianite woman, drove a spear through them both. The
other two parties, described as being in collusion in an unholy alliance, are repre
sented, in the first case, as the sinning "Israelite" of the story, likewise killed (by the
rumour of the defeat of the third party), while the other is compared to the Midianite
woman.
Who then was this person who was said to have an "Israelite mind", and was
punished by the emperor's action? As I hope to show, the metaphor need not be
referring to one of the crusading Franks already in Outremer. An "Israelite mind"
may have the signification of "having the intention to go to the Promised Land like
an Israelite". Whoever it was had some form of alliance with a non-Christian, our
"Midianite woman". The deadly rumour, responsible for the "Israelite's" death, is
said to have travelled from east to the west. A western prince, then? The boast of an
"exhortation from Christ" might suggest that this western personage was about to
embark on a crusade. Now Frederick Barbarossa, who, as we have seen, went on
both the Second and the Third Crusades, did not die until 1190, drowning when
trying to cross the River Selef. However, king Louis VII, another western crusading
monarch, did indeed die, like Manuel, in 1180, indeed, a few months before him.
The mention of an "Israelite mind" may then have two significations; it could be a
reference to the kinship between Louis and his Frankish ex-compatriots in Outremer,
and it could also, as we have suggested, refer to the act of journeying to the Holy
or Promised Land. Let us make the tentative assumption that the person in the guise
of an "Israelite" is indeed Louis VII, who, as we shall see, is reported to have taken
the cross before the end of his life, and see where this hypothesis leads us. The
speech then continues ':

9. Ibid.. p. 21
1 54 ANDREW F. STONE

Where is there for us the man who was as zealous as David at that time at seeing
peace over the lawless sinners? They made treaties with one another and went
together in peace, a wicked treaty, a peace transgressing the law, and those men did
not come to terms in reverence and observe religion, but rather they poured out their
hearts together in a single channel of plots, those men who were fashioned and
coloured with dissimilar complexions and separate in terms of their reverence and
irreverence, but being copied into the same form by the infection of their similar
intentions, and while they knew these figures outside themselves by different titles,
one of them recognising them as our Lord Christ, and the other under the name of a
teaching prophet, they put a single title on the monuments of their souls, because
they were of one mind.

"David" must again be a reference to the deceased emperor, a popular point of


comparison for the emperor among the encomiasts of Manuel's reign. Now we
must see what is said of the other two protagonists. Again they are represented as
colluding, and the rhetor stresses that one of them did not hold Christ to be divine,
but rather a "teaching prophet", in the manner of a Muslim. The impression that we
are in fact dealing with a Muslim in this instance is reinforced by the mention of
dissimilar complexions and differing degrees of reverence (i.e. for the Christian
faith). Let us read on10:

Pilate, one would have said, and Herod were not of the same race or of the same
religion, and did not share a friendship until the suffering of Christ provided an
excuse, and again because of Christ, divinely named the Lord, who chose to suffer
for the sake of what had been allotted to him; and just as Herod and Pilate had
been hostile to each other because of various grounds for hatred and the enmity
previously which existed before them, as we learn from the divine history, these men
also intermingled in friendship, in order that a draught of death should be mixed for
the Anointed One, and they are on a second coming to a conspiracy, in order that the
emperor may undergo suffering on our account, and "the heathen and the people
rage", and those who are so far separated from each other because of a difference
in place and in religion, "as far as the west is from the east", as the ancestor of the
Lord said, "rulers take counsel together", and join hands, not being without knowl
edgeof the one in the middle on account of their proximity. . .

The idea that Antiochos was talking of an alliance between a Muslim potentate
and a western prince who intended to crusade is affirmed by the mention of "a
separation in place (τόπου διαστάσει)", and an allusion to the fact that the two
potentates were on either side of Manuel, one in the west, one in the east. The
concomitant sandwiching of the Byzantine empire between two powers which
were perceived to have dishonourable motives resulted in a discomfort which
found expression in our oration. Allusion is also made to the fact that the two
potentates (if my identification of them as Louis VII of France and Kilidj II Arslan

10. Ibid., p. 21128-21214.


GREGORY ANTIOCHOS ON THE "CRUSADE· OF 1 79 155

1
of Ikonion is correct) had had personal experience of the emperor , whose domain
lay between them. That the alliance has as its end another crusade is convincingly
shown by the final part of the nineteenth paragraph' ::

. and due to their extreme separation they contribute plans and contrive wicked
..

schemes, but you on the other hand, powerful emperor, have broken through the
bonds of the common plans made by them, and have cast away from them the yoke
(which unites them), which was on the necks of these fat bulls which underwent it
and plough evil and have savage spirits, these bulls maddened by the gadfly coming
from afar from the European land and from the Asian one, and they had it in their
minds to pull one plough and cut the Roman land into clods and turn it up and turn
it upside-down, and to tread again on our land, imprinting their tracks far and wide
in our lives.

First let us note the mention of a European and an Asian land, which supports
our hypothesis so far. The suspicion of the motives of the crusaders is a recurring
motif throughout Byzantine historiography and rhetoric' . John Kinnamos says of
the Second Crusade, to adopt Charles Brand's translation' :

Normans and French and the nation of Gauls and whoever lived around old Rome,
and British and Bretons and simply the whole western array had been set in motion,
on the handy excuse that they were going to cross from Europe to Asia to fight the
Turks en route and recover the church in Palestine and seek the holy places, but
truly to gain possession of the Romans' (i.e. Byzantine) land by assault and trample
everything down in front of them.

We should note here, that since John Kinnamos' history was probably written
during the reign of Alexios II, he too was subject to the suspicion of Latins that we
see in the Antiochos oration. Eustathios of Thessaloniki, in his 1174 Epiphany
oration, also gives voice to distrust of the Latins' motives". We might conclude
then, that any rumour of a further crusade would have caused the Byzantines
consternation.

1 1 . I see the final sentence as referring to the 1 147 visit of King Louis VII to Constantinople (John
Kinnamos. ed. A. Mrineke. CSHB. Bonn 1836. p. 82-83 [thereafter Kinnamos]) and that of Kilidj II
Arslan of Ikonion in 1161 (Kinnamos. p. 204-208); Niketas Choniates, ed. J.-L. Van Dieten, CFHB 1 1.
Berlin and New York 1975 [thereafter Choniates]. p. 118-121).
12. Regel, p. 212"21.
1 3. A. Kolia-Dermitzake discusses this mistrust in a recent brief monograph. Συνάντηση 'Ανατολής
και Δύσης στα εδάφη της Αυτοκρατορίας- οί απόψεις των Βυζαντινών για τους Σταυροφόρους.
Athens 1994, making an important connection with the Byzantine experience not only in relation to the
First Crusade, but also the Norman wars of Alexios Is reign.
14. CM. Brand, Deeds of John and Manuel Komnenos by John Kinnamos, New York 1976. p. 58
= Kinnamos. p. 67.
15. Some thirty years after the Second Crusade. Eustathios of Thessaloniki declared in his 1 174
Epiphany oration (Regel, p. 105:i-106'= Eustathii Thessahmicensis opera minora, ed. P. Wirt h.
CFHB 32. Berlin and New York 2000 [thereafter Eustathios (Wirth)]. p. 2721MS4): "And who of those
still surviving does not know the Germans and all their neighbours, who. as it were, poured the west.
156 ANDREW F. STONE

If then our parallel to Pilate is King Louis, surely is not the natural parallel to
"Herod" Kilidj Arslan? Louis, like Pilate, was a Latin, and Kilidj Arslan, like
Herod, an easterner. If Louis VII, near the end of his life, took the cross and inten
dedto crusade one last time, the Muslim potentate to whom he would most profit
ablyally himself was the incumbent sultan of Rum, for two principal reasons. The
first is that the Seljuk sultanate lay directly in the path of the land route to the Holy
Land; this route passed diagonally across Asia Minor by way of the Byzantine for
tress of Dorylaion and the Seljuk capital of Ikonion. The second reason, perhaps
more telling as events transpired, was that Kilidj Arslan was a Muslim rival of
the sultan Saladin, against whom the crusaders in the Holy Land were struggling,
and, accordingly, a natural ally for Louis. We have been told that the one with
an "Israelite mind" was located in the west, ruling out Baldwin IV or any other
crusader prince of Outremer.
We shall come to the most difficult question, that of the participation of an
"Italian" shortly. Let us adduce further argumentation by abandoning temporarily
the order of events used in this oration, and turning back to the latter portion of the
sixteenth paragraph (Regel's divisions)10:

Such were these events of the fortunate day on the Maiandros experienced by the
Romans, when by encircling the Persian barbarians they completed the circuit
around them, and they were defended by your name, the Lord Emperor; if you were
not illustriously present in body at this time with your valiant deeds, all the same the
matter was recorded as a deed completed by you alone of all people, and the ways
trodden by you then were in many watered places, on the Maiandros, when fear
imprinted your presence upon the barbarians and cast a shadow from your manifest
ation over their sallying against us, as if they were going under you, as you pursued
them also in the direction of the waters, although your footprints could not be recog
nised as manifest for the eyes; thus there was both your presence and absence, thus
you were very near and far away, thus not even pursuing him, you were making a
fugitive of the barbarian; for also your hand did not think it worthy to accomplish
the deed itself, but your mind was to the fore doing everything excellently, even
if your hand was distant, and the intelligence within you summoned the abyss
mentioned by David of a strongly flowing river, which gaped wide to gulp down
the treaty-breaking Persian people.

on the yonder side of the Adriatic, into our land, who, as another might say, came around like the
leaves and blossoms of springtime and were like stars in number or like the pourings of sand, care
lessly exaggerating their number according to the custom of rhetoric?..." (and at Regel, p. 1O73"IO =
Wirth, p. 2732t) 27): "... They were aroused not only by boldness in their invincible numbers, but by the
fact that the reign was still in its early stages. And not long before, you were entrusted with the govern
mentof the universe and therefore it came upon them to reckon that if they heaped themselves up to a
great height like a wave they would knock the steering-oars out of the helmsman's hands and place
some great evil in this vessel of the world, for which God, after building it and setting it at other times
under other helmsmen, has now found the best man and ceased from his labours."
16. Regel, p. 2092 '7.
GREGORY ANTIOCHOS ON THE '"CRUSADE" OF 1 1 79 157

The mention of the River Maiandros makes it unequivocal that at this point
of the oration the enemy in question is the Seljuk Turks of the Sultanate of Rum, or
at least the Turkoman nomads nominally subject to their sultan. We know from
Niketas Choniates that Manuel did campaign in person on the Maiandros against
this foe, as well as sending an army against them under the command of John
Vatatzes which likewise was victorious1 . The fact that we have a campaign on the
Maiandros in which the emperor was absent, as he was in the Vatatzes campaign,
might suggest to some that this was the campaign referred to by our rhetor. As for
the broken treaty in question, one thinks first of the treaty made in the aftermath of
Manuel's advance on Ikonion of 1176'*. There were, however, campaigns subse
quent to this, and treaties could have been concluded following any of these.
Therefore it is equally, perhaps more, possible that the reference is to a later
campaign on the Maiandros, of 1 180, from which the emperor, due to his terminal
illness (which set in March 1 180"), was also absent.
The ensuing part of the Antiochos oration is interesting by merit of the amplifi
cationof an image used in an earlier oration, by Gregory's master Eustathios, of
what is probably the same campaign on the Maiandros. Gregory says °:

Ο only you have persuaded at this time all the satraps, who were drunken and took
their wine neat and revelled in their stupor, which went as late as and into the middle
of their nights, to learn new ways recently and to drink water, from their diving
headlong into the middle of the currents of the waters of the river and being borne
along by them until they have had their fill. Ο you have shaken into them that great
affliction of fear of water which is in their thoughts as a result, so that they cower
with fear at the very nature of the waters from now henceforth and a trembling surge
is made in their hearts at the sight of them alone, even if they are waveless and still
and steadfastly unmoving and they do not quiver, and so that, as in a mirror of water,
imagining for the most part images of the bravery of the Romans, these men remain
close by them, and, since they are sent below, they break ranks in the face of us.

We must not forget our purpose here, and must substantiate our suggestion that
the foe on the eastern side of Manuel to whom our rhetor was referring was indeed
the Sultan of Rum. Let us look at the eighteenth paragraph in two segments, the first
of which says ':

17. These two victories are recorded by Choniates, p. 192-195. The event is also celebrated in
an encomium for Manuel by Eustathios (Wirth), p. 229-249. For the dating of the oration, refer to
A. F. Stone, Manuel I Komnenos, the Maiandros campaigns of 1 177-1178 and Thessaloniki, Balkan
Studies 38. 1997, p. 21-29. 1 stand by my dating of these campaigns, even though I now believe the
oration by Eustathios for John Doukas (Ει stathios [Wirth"|. p. 195-201 ) belongs to Lent 1 179. and the
oration for Manuel also belongs to 1 179.
18. Chômâtes, p. 189.
19. Ibid.. p. 220.
20. ki;c,t-.i p. 209ls:"; 245"".
21. Rrghi.. p. 210' -'λ
.
158 ANDREW F. STONE

But where now for us is the one who alone squeezed out the fat from the Persian
armies with the meat-eating mouth of his sabre furiously and scattered them, as
David says, like chaff in the face of the wind22? The revered book of the law says that
Moses reduced a calf, the golden image, the one of cast metal, the calf-headed one,
to little pieces in his heart's rage, and strewed them into the water, and made the sons
of Israel drink them; for here also if the fullness of the Persians' despicable natu
re has not been ground to mince, nevertheless, being cut up in the custom of war
with swords limb from limb and being reduced to pieces, they were strewn upon the
waters of the river. I think that, if he also mixed the water to become a drink for the
sons of the New Israel among us, not sullying their history, all the same this draught
was made and it was found not good to drink, with the stream sullied by barbarian
blood.

The imagery of this part of the oration, apart from the interesting synkrisis with
the action of Moses over the golden calf, is not particularly original, since similar
imagery had been used previously in the Eustathian oration mentioned above. More
telling is the second part of this paragraph (presented in abbreviated form)21:

For even if he has struck the Persian beast from the east, and it has now been cast
down before your feet, and, wounded, by this and the one from the west who conspi
red with it against us, the Italian, it has struck at the same time; and that thing which
an ambidextrous spearman and one who brandishes two spears tipped with bronze
will do to those fighting from up close, who are broken together, when he has over
thrown them with a sword wielded by both hands, this, one cast of the spear from
the emperor, will be revered by me after it has thrust and sunk into their chests with
its head, and brought on destruction shared by both of those men, who have struck
instantaneously. So like that truly far-shadowing spear, it has gone beforehand from
the east to the western climes and divided its two-edged spear-head so that it cut the
hearts of both dynasts with its piercing; like the single stretching of a bow and one
arrow flying from it, although that bow is formed from two tongues" , it was thus
held open, it thus opened wide, so as to stretch at the same time to the east and the
west, and divide the extremities of the ribs of the untameable beasts which form it
and somehow lurk on either side in a double slaughter.

The image is then one of a bow formed from two ribs, one from the beast on the
east, one from that on the west. The "ambidextrous spearman" in question, refer
ence to other panegyrics will show, could either be the new emperor Alexios II s,
and this excerpt will then deal with the question of his revenge, or perhaps more
likely, his deceased father, who is properly the subject of the oration. Not only is
the imagery not immediately obvious, but this passage is, from the point of view

22. Psalm 18.42 of the Septuagint.


23. Regel, p. 21020-2117.
24. In a double -entendre διγλώχι ν has both the sense of "from two ribs (of the bow)" and "of two
different languages".
25. Cf. Eustathios, p. 89" 12 = Wirth, p. 25755".
GREGORY ANTIOCHOS ON THE "CRUSADE" OF 1179 159

of the historian, the most interesting, and problematic, portion of the oration. We
could well imagine that the references to the slaughter of an enemy on the east
refers to Seljuk casualties in a battle in which the previous emperor was not there
in person. But then we are left to explain away the other half of the double slaught
er of Regel, 2 1 1 \ Perhaps this refers to the death of king Louis, who, if I am correct,
once again is said to die as a result of the news travelling from east to west. The
difficulties aside, it can be appreciated that the contents of this passage reinforce
the argumentation that has already been made.
How, however, should we interpret the rhetor's claim that this "Italian" or
"Latin"
(terminology which was frequently applied to the French as well as Italians
proper in the time of Antiochos !1), καίρια συμπέπληγενΊ It seems that there may
have been a fourth protagonist involved, a third conspirator. Indeed, as we shall
see, there were in fact four parties altogether who were regarded as being in collu
sion by our rhetor. Now, Conrad, Marquis of Montferrat, brother unto Manuel's
son-in-law Renier, travelled to Constantinople in 1179/1180" to negotiate what
should happen to his new prisoner, Archbishop Christian of Mainz, one-time be
sieger of that Byzantine foothold in Italy, Ancona (and enemy of Manuel and
Conrad both). Could this be our "Italian", collaborating with Louis in his design
for a crusade? But Conrad of Montferrat, it must be appreciated, was evidently on
good terms with Manuel. However, as it transpires, we have a second candidate:
Henry of Troyes, Count of Champagne and brother-in-law of King Louis, who, as
we are told by the Continuator of Sigebert of Gembloux, took the cross in 1 177 and
with "many others" set out for the Holy Land (in 1 1 79). This anonymous Continuator
says briefly s:

Louis, King of the French, and Henry, Senior King of the English, formed a magn
ificent pact. Henry, Count of Troyes, with many others, intending to set out for
Jerusalem, took the cross. Philip Count of Flanders was received by the princes
and knights of Outremer with great honour.

William of Tyre, historian of early Outremer, mentions meeting Henry of Troyes


at Brindisi in Autumn 1179, together with Louis' brother Peter of Courtenay and
Louis' nephew Philip, bishop-elect of Beauvais, who were about to take ship for
Outremer \ We therefore have a better candidate for our "Italian" here, Henry of
Troyes, a powerful figure in France of his day.

26. E.g. Choniates. p. 6736 et al.


27. Pseudo-Benedict of Petersborough, Rerum Britannicarum Scriptures Medii Aevi 49, repr. 1 965,
p. 243-244; L. Usseglio, / marchesi di Monferrato, Casale 1926, p. 424; T. Ilgen. Markgraf Conrad
von Montferrat, Marburg 1880, p. 162.
28. The continuator of Sigebert of Gembloux, MGH SS 6, ed. Betuman, p. 416.
29. William of Tyre, ed. R.B.C. Huygens, Guillaume de Tyr, Chronique. Turnhout 1986, cit.
Cupane = PL. vol. 201 (thereafter William of Tyre] =A History of Deeds done beyond the Sea by
William, Archbishop of Tyre. tr. E.A. Babcock. and A.C. Krey. New York 1976). NM. 30 (29). PL.
col. 846. Babcock and Krey, p. 443-444. who tells of meeting Henry of Troyes. Peter of Courtenay and
Philip at Brindisi.
1 60 ANDREW F. STONE

Let us now consider the high point of the oration, which uses a very moving
device, the imagery of the Crucifixion, with the Anointed (Em)manuel crucified,
and a crucified robber on either side30:

Ο how were you, our Jesus, taken from such a wicked conspiracy along the way to
death because of a simultaneous zeal for the divine and desire for a lot of piety
among us from you as you inflicted a two-ply scourge upon yourself; Ο how did this
whole drama of the passion of Christ come to be visited (upon us) and a cross be
planted for you, the pain from the battle on our behalf, and how have you been fas
tened to this stake of the pangs of war and received nails from casts and shootings,
and the piercing from lances and hurlings of javelins, so that they would not go into
your hands, feet, side, and against your entire body? Ο how then until the last expiry
of breath have you observed the scheme of the one who was crucified, stretching to
the right and the left, and spreading out your hands at the same time to the east and
the west and dividing your palms between the rising sun and the setting one, and
stretching them back again heavily against the dynasts at either extreme of the earth,
whom my speech and everything sees as two wicked thieves hanging on either side
of you, pinned to the wood of a prevailing lack of sense that they possess, and they
are lifted together with insubstantial aspirations against us on high, both spitting out
idle ranting and using words of ill omen against us with overwheening foolishness.
But you yourself have broken the legs of one with the blows of a club in divinely-
ordained war and you have checked his running and advances against us, when he
knew that he was stricken and agreed that you were lord, and not conforming to the
command "remember", he sought only forgiveness for his lawlessness, and he has
received it; but you did not indeed break the legs of the other in the same way, but
crushed him totally from head to foot, with rumour alone fluttering swiftly as far as
even him.

If my interpretation of the allusions is the correct one, the first robber, the one
who sought forgiveness, and only had his legs broken in Gregory's imagery, was
the Seljuk sultan. He evidently received clemency from Manuel. Louis would be
the other robber, who was totally crushed. Once again the news of the Seljuk defeat
on the Maiandros is represented as the cause of Louis' death.
The next two paragraphs, by the principle of amplification which was held by
rhetorical theory to be appropriate for panegyric, even the genre of the epitaphios,
flesh out this imagery of the Passion more fully. The rhetors speaking on this day
are like the soldiers who cast lots for the crucified Christ's tunic. It is bespattered
with spots of blood from the imperial campaigns. The purple of his mantle is the
purple of this gore. Paragraph twenty-two digresses, first comparing the tunic to a
Panathenaic robe, and then using an imagery of fowling and fishing for the massac
re of the Seljuk Turks, before the rhetor turns back to the subject of the Crucifixion
in paragraph twenty-three31:

30. Regel, p. 21222-21321


31. Ibid., p. 21726-218".
GREGORY ANTIOCHOS ON THE "CRUSADE1· OF 1 1 79 161

Such were your world-saving sufferings after the manner of Christ, like the cross,
like the nailing and the spearing. We know of the fame of Christ's cross, but your
crucifixion on the stake of your reputation is surpassingly famed because of its
power; the insolent race has been dragged down from its haughtiness by these
crucifiers of Christ; the Pharisees are shamed, the scribes have gone away unsuc
cessful; the two-horse team from the east and west, unfulfilled in their plots against
you, have been rid of, an Annas, one will say, and a Caiaphas, wolves gaping emptily,
branded with iron32 on the sinews of their necks, and casting their heads onto their
chests they, have left the one who held them in contempt alone; they have forgotten
their haughtiness and they have relaxed their tone to gaping and laxity, the brows of
their foreheads overshooting the mark; for it was necessary for them long ago to be
confused in their tongues and to obtain different dialects, from the time when the one
who descended from above divided and split their common voice to discord and the
one tongue to many tongues, so that they could no longer be emboldened because of
their one mouth and one voice, but in another way however that they should jump
over the boundaries which have been set down and dare to make battle against God,
with one purpose and conspiracy and consideration, raising as a tower against us
their diabolical designs.

It would be convenient if we could identify a pair of foes who were in a father-


in-law to son-in-law affinity, as in the case of the Biblical figures Annas and
Caiaphas, one in the west and one in the east; more on this below. We might add
here that the imagery of talking in different tongues as a result of an upset of a
common enterprise after the manner of the Tower of Babel story is another topos
that we find in the rhetoric of this period. Interesting however is the mention of a
common tongue once shared by our Annas and Caiaphas which has, it would seem,
developed into different dialects, if we take the passage literally as well as figura
tively. As for the reference to "brows overshooting the mark", this does not make
much sense unless we understand it be an oblique reference to an Aristophanean
phrase (Lysistrata 8) ου γαρ πρέπει σοι τοξοποιείν τάς όφρϋς: "you must not
make a bow with your brows".
follows'
The speech then develops another theme as :

And where is the one who cuts the Persian, this foe who is a wicked child of a slave
girl and a slave, in two, like the parable"*, who was at one with the Celt, who was
aware of the crime made in common with the other, whereas the former (i.e. the
emperor) has commanded him, who is his slave again and always a slave, but the
other participant of this, the Italian, clearly being separated and parted from his
common purpose, after assuming in the manner of hypocrites a false guise of friend
ship,in reality a veiled face of hostility as on the stage and hypocritical good will,
as in a drama? There there is wailing and the gnashing of teeth; yea. grieving deeply

32. Although the Greek says, "branded iron sinews" (νεύρα σιδηρά κεκαυμένοι). understanding
hypallage here makes for more satisfying sense.
33. Regiîl. p. 218:x219'.
34. Regel directs us to Matthew 24.48. 5 1
.
1 62 ANDREW F. STONE

for him, the whole of the like race from Italy sings its dirge, and it is the one who
gnashes its teeth against each other, because it would have lied about its calling from
Christ and participated in a plot of the impious and exchanged the calling of hete
rodoxy for the friendship of like faith, and in order that it should not even not be
maddened from the same cup as them, then from one mixing-bowl of conspiracy it
would partake in a long drunkenness made in common with them.

The identification of the co-conspirator of the "Persian", i.e. the Turk, on the
west as "the Celt" must surely clinch the argument that Louis VII is the robber
crucified on the western side of the empire, and Kilidj Arslan that on the eastern.
First, we see that the term "Celt" and "Italian" are used interchangeably here; then
we have a second reference to the reconciliation between Kilidj Arslan and the
emperor. The dirge sung in "Italy" would be a reference to the funeral rites and
aftermath of Louis' death.
Let us, however, turn back to the mention of an Annas and a Caiaphas, one in
the west and one in the east. We have mentioned Conrad of Montferrat. Now, the
youngest son of William V the Old of Montferrat, Renier, was married to Maria
Porphyrogenneta, Manuel's daughter by his first wife, Bertha-Irene of Sulzbach.
Therefore he was brother-in-law to the new emperor, Alexios II. Of interest here is
the fact that a third son, William Longs word (died 1 177) was King Baldwin IV of
Jerusalem's brother-in-law by virtue of the former's marriage to the heiress of the
kingdom, Sibyl \ The relationship between Alexios and King Baldwin was there
fore, in an admittedly tortuous kind of way, one of brotherly affines. Louis VII
was his father-in-law. It is these affinities to the emperor, I believe, that are evoked
here by Gregory Antiochos when he talks of an Annas (Louis) and a Caiaphas
(Baldwin IV) at Regel, 2182. If this seems a little far-fetched we may care to look
at the final part of the twenty-fourth paragraph ":

. . . and you have fallen into dangers from rivers, dangers from foreigners, dangers in
deserts and dangers in the sea; but since because of this great danger you are not able
to put in a number the dangers from false brothers, lo, that false brother, the latter
man (i.e. my Louis), restored them for you through his own actions, in letters, in
treaties, in things to be written, in things to be remembered in inscriptions, writing
beforehand and signing that he is the brother, and this man rekindled difficult
dangers for you, but God ameliorated those dangers, and rather dipped him into
the evils that resulted from that and his volte-face.

I think that this supports the hypothesis outlined above. King Louis is being
vituperated for his deceit in sponsoring a crusade led by Henry of Troyes, one in
which Baldwin was complicit. As for the talk of treaties, Louis had diplomatic

35. William ofTyrk, XXI, 13(12), PL, col. 826-827, Babcock and Krey, p. 415-416.
36. Regbl, p. 2191"27.
37. The Greek reads έπανεσώσατο, "recovered for himself. Since τούτους (se. κινδύνους) is in
the accusative, rather than the genitive, I have translated "restored them" rather than "saved himself
from them". It must be conceded that this translation is in accord with the remainder of the sentence.
GREGORY ANTIOCHOS ON THE "CRUSADE"' OF 79 163

11
exchanges with Manuel, and a treaty sealed by the marriage of his daughter Agnes
to Alexios, when heir-apparent, on March 2, 1180. Louis therefore had proved
himself to be "a false brother" unto Manuel. Baldwin IV could be considered by
the practice of rhetoric as having shown himself to be a second "false brother",
this time to the emperor Alexios, hence the plural at 219/21. Incidentally, Joscelin
of Courtenay, the Seneschal of the kingdom of Jerusalem, had been present in
Constantinople negotiating the terms of an alliance between the Byzantine empire
and Jerusalem on Baldwin's behalf at the time of Manuel's death".
The evidence of the speech, when considered together with western sources,
would therefore suggest that King Louis, as we shall see, as a belated response to
Pope Alexander Ill's calling for a crusade, authorised the pilgrimage of Henry of
Troyes some time prior to January 1181, made a pact of some kind with Kilidj
Arslan, but was prevented from seeing the achievement of his aim by his death.
There is also reference to a campaign waged by the Byzantines against Kilidj
Arslan's Turks, though the emperor himself was not present.
One might object to this hypothesis on the grounds that the argument, based on
an attempt to make sense of highly allusive imagery, is somewhat tenuous, if this is
all we have to base it on. However, we may add as a footnote two Western sources
for a French crusade, to be led by Louis VII at the end of his life, together with his
former enemy Henry Plantagenet, though the attempt was evidently aborted. The
most important source is Robert of Torigni, admittedly a source which is treated
with suspicion by some modern scholars, but now we have the reinforcing ev
idence of the Antiochos oration. This is what Robert says :

Louis, king of France, and Henry, king of England, met and had a parley not far from
Nonancourt; and there they made a treaty of peace and firm concord between them,
that they might take the Cross, and make a journey to Jerusalem; and if one if those
kings should meet his fate on that journey - may God forbid it - the survivor would
take possession of all the treasure and all the men and all the equipment as if it were
his own. and complete the journey on his behalf and on that of the deceased.

The passage reveals how it is probable that already in 1178 (the date supplied
by Robert) there were concerns for Louis' health, which could well have been a
reason for the aborting of his intended personal crusade; it transpires that the king
made a pilgrimage instead to the tomb of Thomas Becket ". Louis' motive? Proba
bly to be reconciled with his Creator before the moment of death. He hoped to
exonerate himself further by authorising a "crusade" made in his stead by Henry
of Troyes.

38. William of- Tyrl. XXII. 5 (6), PL, col. 852. Babcock and Krky. p. 453; Hamilton, ρ 370-37 1 :
Nicholson, p. 97-98: refer also to the histories mentioned in note 6.
39. Robkrt of ToRKiNi. Chronique de Robert de Torigni. ed. L. Df.i.isli·:. Vol. 2. Rouen 1873. p. 77;
for modern suspicion of the report, see M. Pacalt. Louis VII et son Royaume. Paris 1 964. p. 216.
40. RoBiki οι ToKiciNi. p. 83-84: Ρ μ απ. ρ. 216-217.
164 ANDREW F. STONE

Admittedly this passage of Robert of Torigni is suspect in the light of the


Continuator of Sigebert of Gembloux passage cited above, which says merely
that Louis and Henry Plantagenet "formed a pact". However, the alliance between
Louis and Kilidj Arslan that is alluded to by our funeral oration would make more
sense if Louis intended to crusade in person, retracing his footsteps of 1 147. Recall
Regel, 21214"21. His health decreed otherwise, and Henry of Troyes evidently led a
smaller-scale expedition, which could travel by sea.
We have suggested that this "crusade" was a belated response to a call of
Alexander III. The primary source in question is Alexander's 1171 encyclical letter
to the clergy of France41, which says in part:

Although all of you have been able to learn of the desolation, tribulations and op
pression of the cities, castles and other places of the eastern land from the accounts
of travellers, we nevertheless have considered it necessary, albeit after a delay, to
indicate this to you, and solicit urgently your charity in showing compassion in re
turn for such great evils. Indeed, through the agency of divine and obscure judge
ment, with the quaking of the land, many cities and towns, some totally, some in
part, are destroyed and convulsed from their foundations, in the ruins of which a
huge multitude of men has been suffocated. From this certain enemies opposed to
Christ, assuming boldness, have occupied many places by invasion and tyrannise
them. Among these they have captured the great and populous familial Church of
Nazareth with their totally sinful behaviour, and have taken the clergy and other
inhabitants into captivity so, we ask you all, we warn and exhort in the Lord and
enjoin you, in return for remission of your sins, to receive both devotedly and
humbly the brothers and messengers of the aforesaid clergy who are sent to you to
expound their burdens and needs, and extend to them the solaces of charity and
assistance and aid so that you may receive from the Almighty Lord, who lets no
good deed go unrewarded, prizes of an eternal reward, and may you earn from
thankful God, the boon of coming into the joys of happiness above.

Tusculum, December 8.

What then of the larger picture, the ramifications of the evidence of this speech
as regards the political climate in Constantinople in early 1 1 8 1 ?
Niketas Choniates42 and Eustathios of Thessaloniki11 are our Byzantine sources
for the events subsequent to the death of Manuel, those of the tumultuous reign
of Alexios II Porphyrogennetos and his successor, the usurper Andronikos I
Komnenos. We have additional sources in William of Tyre and Michael the Syrian.
When Manuel lay dying he assumed the monk's habit and the monastic name
Matthew, and he dictated that his widow-to-be Maria of Antioch should similarly

41. PL 200, col. 757-758; for this, see also M. Pacaut, Louis VII et Alexandre III, in Revue
d'histoire de l'Église de France 39, 1953, p. 5-45, especially p. 43.
42. Chômâtes, p. 223-241, deals with the events surrounding the Kaisars Maria Porphyrogenneta
and her husband, whereas 243-274 deal with Andronikos' rise to power.
43. Eustathios, p. 18-27, on the conspiracy of the Kaisars, and p. 26-53 on the rise of Andronikos.
GREGORY ANTIOCHOS ON THE "CRUSADE" OF 1 79 ] 65

1
take the veil as the nun Xenes . He appointed a regency council of twelve, includ
ing the patriarch Theodosios Boradeiotes, to govern for his successor, the minor
Alexios, and entrusted the care of his son to Maria-Xene4. It was not long before
the nephew of Manuel, the protosebastos Alexios, in his thirst for power and lust
for Maria-Xene's beauty, predominated over the others of the regency council, to
their resentment J".
1181"
The; leading
result of the
this conspirators
envy was a plotted
was Maria
coup dPorphyrogenneta,
'état to be carried who,
out onas2 1a February
princess

born in the purple, resented the upstart protosebastos particularly. This Maria and
her followers are commonly known as the Caesarean party or the party of the
Kaisars (to use the Greek form of the title). The planned coup did not proceed
according to plan, and it was revealed by one of the conspirators41. A trial was held
and those revealed to have taken part in the conspiracy were condemned to impris
onment, save Maria Porphyrogenneta and her husband Renier-John, who fled to
take sanctuary in the Great Church4. The subsequent intrigues and battles are not of
direct interest to this article, suffice it to say that the Caesarean party was defeated
in battle by that of the protosebastos and the empress-dowager, despite the popu
lace being on their side, and it awaited the arrival of Andronikos on the scene to
break the protosebastos' hold on power.
It may be seen then, that the outbreak of hostilities, the eruption of a backswell
of resentment against the intruding Latins (whose influence became even stronger
under the protosebastos' regime'*'), was due to take place within the space of a
month after the delivery of Antiochos' oration. Interesting is the fact that, despite
the empress-dowager and the protosebastos being undoubtedly in his audience,
Antiochos feels free to vent a typically Byzantine anti-Latin sentiment against king
Louis. In other words, as Paul Magdalino has recognised, the court rhetor was not
merely a justifier of imperial policy, but could declare his personal views, or those
of the group whom he represented, on the matters with which his speeches dealt.
The conventional wisdom, shared by such scholars as Cognasso and Brand,
is that it took an individual emperor as forceful as Manuel to prevent disruption
between the native Byzantines and the Latins in Constantinople \ Eustathios numb
ers the latter at 60 000 at the time of Andronikos' massacre of them . Niketas

44. This detail is not stated explicitly by our two Byzantine historians, but is mentioned by Wn.i iam
oeTyrk. XXII. II (10), 12-13. PL. col. 858, Babcock and Krey. p. 462.
45. Chômâtes, p. 253-54; Eustathios, The Capture of Thessaloniki, ed. J.R. Melville-Jones, p. 18-
19 (Greek text with facing English translation); Michael the Syrian, Chronique de Michel le Syrien,
ed. J.-B. Chabot. Paris 1899. repr. Brussels 1963. ill, p. 381. who supplies the number.
46. Chômâtes, p. 224: Eustathios. Capture, p. 18-21.
47. Chômâtes, p. 231, supplies the date as the feast day for St Tiro, the first Saturday of Lent.
2 February in 8 I
I

11
.

48. Chômâtes, p. 23 1-32; Elstathios, Capture, p. 20-21 (as n. 45); William of; Ύ\ kl. XXII. 5. PL.
col. 852. Babcock and Kri-λ . p. 453; Ci pane, p. 181.
49. ("homvus. p. 232; hi stmhios. Capture, p. 20-23.
50. SoCotiwsso. p. 226-227.
51. Coci.nasso. p. 217: Brand, p. 14.
52. Ει siaihios. Capture, p. 34-35.
166 ANDREW F. STONE

Choniates, living with the memory of the sack of Constantinople in 1204, claims
that the Latins are more outrageous in their treatment of the Byzantines than even
the Ishmaelite infidel \ William of Tyre is a witness to the long-standing antago
nismbetween Greek and Latin that Manuel's favouritism towards the latter had
created"'.
To be sure, Choniates and Eustathios came to their conclusions with the clarify
ing lens of hindsight. The oration with which we are dealing predates the attempted
kaisars' attempted coup. Nevertheless, it contains unflattering, even condemning
imagery for the one described as a thief and a second Pilate, which we have argued,
is Louis VII of France in metaphorical guise. Since the oration dates to early 1181,
the assumption that Latin anti-sentiment was already present in Constantinople
very soon after Manuel's death is warranted. The conventional wisdom, that there
was tension between native Byzantines, particularly the populace of the city, and
privileged Italian traders and other Latins already present, but simmering below the
surface, in Manuel's reign, which was managed by the emperor by his forceful
personality, therefore would seem to be justified.
So it is that we have seen two interesting aspects of the genre of panegyric, even
in the case of funeral oratory. First there is the allusion to historical details which
are not fully documented by other primary sources. Secondly, we gain a feel from
it for the political atmosphere in Constantinople at the time. Further study of this
often overlooked panegyrical material promises to yield yet further historical info
rmation as it is taken in hand and subjected to close scrutiny.

Andrew F. Stone

53. Choniates, p. 576.


54. William of Tyre, XXII, 10 (9), PL, col. 858, Babcock and Krey, p. 461-462.

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