Posted on 07/31/2006 7:33:40 PM PDT by freedom44
IIRC, stirrups show up in Europe during the Carolingian era and as you probably know Charlemagne (r. 771-814) reigned long before Genghis Khan (r. 1206-1227). I'm not sure who brought them to Europe.
Koreans and Mongols are related peoples; when the Mongols conquered Korea in the time of Kublai Khan, they left some genetic residue, but not noticeably so. I have heard that modern day Mongolians like Koreans and hate and fear the Chinese.
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Well, if Koreans and Mongols are related, wouldn't Korean be considered a ALtaic language? I believe that it's usually considered a language isolate.
Some classify Korean as an Altaic language. Kublai Khan considered Koreans to be distant cousins.
B.
Via the Mongols. It was the Mongols who first used the stirrup to great effect, allowing them to fight from horseback, remaining both lethal and mobile at the same time.
My take is that both the Persians and the Arabs learned about the stirrup from Genghis and his boys. Experience is the cruelest teacher, but it's also the most effective.
bookmark
I am a former military officer, Defense Engineer, and yes, amateur historian.
Keeper of Odd Knowledge? Nice ring to it!
Sovereignty and Identity in the Byzantine Eokoimene
The Byzantines were a deeply spiritual people. In their worldview the imperium romanorum or eokoimene was the centre of a Cosmic Empire, eternal and indivisible. The Empires fortunes rose or fell upon the will of God; God chose to chastise the Byzantine with wars and defeats or crown them with victories according to His will. This cosmology allowed the Byzantines to constantly adjust their worldview to accommodate the loss or reacquisition of territory. Control of territory was therefore less important than the recognition of the emperor’s place in the Divine order. In the Byzantine universe the emperor was God’s vice regent on Earth and protector of the eokoimene, or civilised world. Those outside the eokoimene, were either barbarians or rebels against the Divine order. So, while the Seljuks may have defeated the Byzantines in battle and seized their territories in Anatolia, Suleyman’s recognition of the emperor’s authority allowed Byzantines to incorporate the Seljuks within the eokoimene, or at least maintain the fiction that Anatolia had been restored to the Romans. The fact of the Seljuks incorporation into the Empire is highlighted by the descriptive clarification appended to Suleyman’s title of Sultan.
Ethnicity was irrelevant in the multi-ethnic Empire that was Byzantium. Anna Comnena might call the Turks barbarians, but it was a term she also used to describe the Normans, Italians and Franks. To be considered a Byzantine one needed accept Orthodox Christianity and have an appreciation for civilised culture, that is, classical literature, order, rule of law and other such amenities of civilisation. Accepting the Turks as foederati was the first step in a longer process aimed at transforming them from barbarians into Byzantines, much as the Byzantines had transformed the pagan Slavs, Bulgarians and Russians before them.[78] Even the Turks’ Islamic faith was not considered an insurmountable obstacle to their hoped for integration as the Turks in the eleventh century did not distinguish greatly between Islam and Christianity. The Rum Seljuks placed no restrictions on the Christians within their territories. This was significant as many Byzantine officials occupied key posts at Seljuk court. Some, such as Philaretos’ son converted to Islam, but this was not a requirement. Many Byzantines stayed true to their Christian faith and this does not seem to have hindered their career. Indeed, the Rum Seljuks recognised the right of the Patriarchate of Constantinople to exercise full ecclesiastic authority over the Orthodox Christians within their territories, despite having a rival Patriarchate under their control at Antioch.[79]
The mythologizing of Manzikert
History is rarely about what actually happened but more about how events are interpreted. For Michael Attaleiates and the Armenian cleric Vardapet, Manzikert was a disaster and they described it as such. For Michael Psellus, Manzikert was a convenient misfortune and he described it as such.[82] By the time Anna Comnena wrote her history in 1148AD, Manzikert was recognized as an important key historical event, but it had not become the disaster of later legend.[83] The Byzantines themselves seemed not to have imbued Manzikert with any great significance. For them their defeat and decline were simply God’s punishment for their sins. It was later, with the rise of modern secular history that people began searching for an identifiable event that would mark the beginning of the decline. Thanks to Michael Attaleiates mythologising of Romanus and his ‘doomed’ campaign and the triumphalism of later Arab historians, Manzikert had taken on the necessary romantic qualities to become ‘that terrible day.’ None of this was necessarily true. The real causes of the loss of Anatolia were far more diverse and had little to do with battles and conquests, although these did occur and were in their own way significant.
The political and ethnic transformation of Anatolia was a much more complex process and can be summarised as follows:
· Byzantium’s military success during the tenth century eroded both the internal and external defences of the empire. Allowing the decline of the thematic armies and city fortifications was permissible if the Empire was able to maintain the offensive capabilities of the Byzantine army, but this was neither economically nor politically possible in the long term;
· The decision to conquer and directly administer territories in Armenia, Mesopotamia and Syria was a strategic error that removed natural buffer states and over-extended the military resources of the Empire. Given that the central government was demonstrably unable to control the magnates on its own territory, the incorporation of large, non-assimilated populations into the Empire created significant problems of policing and governance that the Byzantines were ill equipped to cope with at that time;
· Basil II’s failure to adequately plan for the succession invited political disorder after his death, resulting in two key developments detrimental to the state. Firstly, the Anatolian magnates, who Basil had antagonised during his lifetime, either withdrew entirely from the political process, or else used their influence to restore and extend their privileges. Secondly, the general political instability of the period encouraged the growth of a strong, but generally corrupt and self-serving civil administration. None of Basil’s immediate successors had either the strength, the ability or the legitimacy to prevent these developments;
· As the central government’s authority disintegrated during the 1060’s and 70’s it was forced to dramatically reduce its expenditure. As the largest single expense in the Byzantine budget, the military bore the brunt of the budget cuts. These cuts proved untenable given the extended borders the military had to police and defend. And, as the central government proved increasingly unable to secure the interests of the provinces or protect them from raiding, the provinces broke down in rebellion and separatism;
· Romanus’ Manzikert campaign was tactically sound if he was aiming to strike a blow against the Great Seljuks of Iran, but it completely failed to solve the problem of Turcoman raiding, which could only have been addressed by providing additional resources to the local garrisons. Nevertheless, having chosen to attack the wrong enemy, Romanus’ fought a textbook action at Manzikert and was only defeated by poor intelligence and treachery. The majority of the Byzantine army escaped intact however and Romanus managed to secure an equitable peace treaty from the Seljuks;
· After Manzikert, Byzantine separatism was allowed to run its destructive course. Had the Empire been better run and the civil war not occurred a coordinated defence against Turkish raiding may have diverted the Seljuk’s back towards Fatimid Egypt;
· For a variety of reasons the Byzantines did not recognized the Turks as a long-term threat. The Seljuks who conquered Anatolia had little or no centralized political structure and were undisciplined and fractious, likely as not to attack each other as the Byzantines. Nor were the Seljuks an unstoppable military force. After the Manzikert the Georgians expanded their territory at the Seljuks expense, as did many of the Armenian principalities of Cilicia. The Byzantines, however, were more interesting in fighting challengers to their throne than repelling the Seljuks;
· As Anatolia broke apart in disorder the Turks began to exercise an increasingly important role in Byzantine politics. Sultan Suleyman variously assisted the Byzantine central government or rebellious magnates to his advantage and by the time Alexius Comnenus secured the Byzantine throne the Seljuks occupied the entire Anatolian plateau;
· From the central government’s perspective the economic loss of the Anatolian plateau was not as significant as it might appear, given the amount of territory lost, as it had long ago lost control of those territories. It was therefore sensible policy to concentrate the government’s limited resources on the defence of western Anatolia and Rumelia;
· The repopulation of Anatolia and the subsequent revival of several deserted Byzantine cities under the Rum Seljuk provided a stimulus to the Byzantine economy, at least in the short term;
· Cut off from its traditional Armenian recruiting grounds, the Byzantine army was quick to utilise the Turks as an abundant supply of available military manpower. By the eleventh century the Byzantine army was completely dependent on Turkish manpower and would remain so until the fourteenth century;
· To a great extent, the Sultanate of Rum owed its existence to the Byzantines. Byzantines occupied positions in the Rum court and help guide and structure its administration, at least in the early decades. The Byzantines conferred legitimacy on its rulers and recognised the states borders and possessions. Sultan Suleyman enjoyed good relations with Michael Ducas, Nicephorus Botaniates, Nicephorus Melissenus and Alexius Comnenus and was generally a good ally to the Byzantines throughout his life. If Suleyman’s successors were less reliable vassals this was simply because they were in a position put Seljuk interests ahead of their relationship with the Byzantines;
· Despite occasional conflicts, Byzantium and the Rum Sultanate enjoyed unusually close relations throughout their existence. There was a constant exchange of personnel and personalities between their respective societies, and, surprisingly considering their religious differences, regular intermarriage. Both states provided sanctuary and employment for the others exiles and adventurers, such as the future Emperor Michael Palaeologos, who commanded a Byzantine contingent in Sultan Kay Kuwas’ army in the twelfth century.[84] This constant exchange of personnel and culture between Byzantium and Seljuk Rum ensured that the interests of their respective elites were, if not always aligned, at least understood. Nevertheless, Byzantine endeavours to acculturalise the Rum Seljuks, who in the eleventh century at least were only vaguely Islamic, were half hearted and hampered by religious and political arrogance. The Byzantine’s failure to impress their culture on the Rum Seljuks made it inevitable that they would eventually realign with the Islamic world;
· Finally, the Seljuks use of Byzantine coinage, while important symbolically, permanently disrupted the Empire’s carefully balanced economic cycle. The Byzantines had very limited gold reserves and so carefully regulated the circulation of gold nomisma within their economy. All taxes had to be paid in currency, which guaranteed that most coinage circulated through the economy but ultimately returned to the treasury.[85] Unless politically sanctioned, gold exports were strictly prohibited. The Seljuk court however became a significant consumer of coinage, which over time eroded Byzantium’s gold reserve.[86] This significance of this cannot be overstated and over time was probably more damaging to Byzantium’s long-term viability than any loss of territory.
http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/articles/markham.htm
Korea was one of the conquered territories of the mongols, for a while.
It was only conquered by China after the Mongols had conquered China. I would trace the "flow" of the stirrup as follows:
Korea
Mongols
China..............Persia:
Japan............Arabia: Turks: Armenia
................... Samartians!
Long before the stirrup, a saddle with back rest permitted Partian cataphracts (against Crassius about 44 BC) to lay their lance in rest, but longer lances designed specifically for this tactice didn't get there until the Samartians.
With regard to the second point, your author seems to regard "an equitable peace treaty from the Seljuks" as less than a disaster. I don't. The author goes on to touch on all the reasons why the defeat at Manzikert - or, more precisely, the failure to deflect the Seljuks to Egypt or Iran or wherever - catalyzed the inexorable decline of the Byzantine Empire that culminated with the Ottoman Turks at the gates of Vienna. Had the Byzantines prevailed at Manzikert and ejected the Turks from Anatolia, not only would they have preserved a vastly superior strategic posture for Byzantium, but they would have remained in a position to project power and security to the Crusader States in the Holy Land. We don't know what twists and turns history may have taken, but it's not much of a leap from there to a Christian reconquest of Egypt as well, which was the public intent of the 4th Crusade.
In my view, a 'non-disaster' is the sequence of events that results in the dissolution of the Islamic sphere, rather than the actual sequence of events that 'equitably' expanded the Islamic sphere...
As for the foederati question, we seem to have a bit of a chicken/egg semantic disagreement. With regard to the Visigoths, they were given permission to enter the Roman Empire in 376, mainly due to a spectacular misjudgment on the part of Emperor Valens, who thereby met his doom at Adrianople. Similarly, the Ostrogoths were permitted to settle Pannonia after 454 as a buffer between Rome and Constantinople. By contrast, the Seljuks invaded Anatolia, defeated the supremely incompetent Romanus at Manzikert, and then Constantinople merely acknowledged a fait accompli. The difference being that 4th and 5th Century Rome could have chosen an alternative course whereas the Byzantine diplomatic fictions of the 11th and 12th Century were of no meaningful consequence to the actual sequence of events.
The Seljuks shattered the Theme system, drove an insurmountable wedge between Constantinople and Jerusalem, utterly failed to assimilate into the Christianized Greco-Roman West, and displaced the Romanized Hellenists with an influx of Turkic Muslims. I will grant that Manzikert didn't rise to Yarmuk disaster proportions, but that's not saying much when Yarmuk was far and away the greatest disaster to befall not just the West but the entire world, IMHO.
PS. Thanks for that interesting link, BTW. I've bookmarked it to read in full when I have the chance.
The Arabs, Persians, and Europeans all had the stirrup well before the 12th century, I think.
PS. And lemme just be clear that I realize the First Crusade was after Manzikert. My point is that a 12th Century Byzantine Empire with the strength of, say, Basil II's (r. 976-1025) would've been a powerful component of the resurgent West.
bookmark for later (just in case someone posts pix of the foxy persian ladies)
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