Michael Attaleiates and the Politics of Imperial Decline in Eleventh century Byzantium (original) (raw)

Abstract

This book is about a unique, rarely studied, contemporary account and interpretation of Byzantine decline. It is also a study of history as politics in eleventh-century Byzantium. Focusing on the History, the work of the judge and courtier Michael Attaleiates (c. 1022–c. 1080), I examine the place of historical narratives in Byzantine political and cultural debates of the 1060s and 1070s. My work sees the production of history as a highly political enterprise that allowed Attaleiates to communicate with his contemporaries and express his ideas about the empire’s military and political crisis. At the same time, through his work Attaleiates’ skills as a historian were presented as skills useful in governance. Intriguingly, Attaleiates’ study of the empire’s decline is coupled with images of Republican Roman glory. This walk down historical memory lane is not, however, evidence of idle antiquarianism. The civic virtue of Attaleiates’ Republican heroes attests to a quest for a new patriotism that was sorely needed in his days. By demonstrating his understanding of that past and its relationship with the empire’s troubled present Attaleiates hinted at his ability to plan the future. The History was therefore proof of his status as an active political man and a competent advisor. The portrait of Attaleiates emerging from this book is one of an ambitious, socially conscious, ‘patriotic’ and entrepreneurial political agent negotiating the pitfalls and intricacies of Byzantine court life while maintaining a dialogue with his contemporaries about the crumbling Roman world around them.

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