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Part I
Setting the Scene
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1 Keroularios in 1054
Nonconfrontational to the papal legates and loyal to the emperor
Anthony Kaldellis
The present chapter offers a radical reinterpretation of the events associated with the Schism of the Churches that took place in Constantinople in the summer of 1054.1 It focuses not on the liturgical, ecclesiastical, and theological issues but on the stance and politics of the patriarch of Constantinople Michael I Keroularios (1043–1058) and argues specifically, in contrast to the reconstructions of events found in almost all modern discussions, that Keroularios did not engage or seek out confrontation with the papal legates; in fact, that he deliberately avoided doing so even when provoked; that Keroularios was likely obeying imperial directives the entire time; that he never challenged or confronted the emperor Constantine IX Monomachos (1042–1055) or sought to undermine his foreign policy regarding Italy; and that the mutual excommunications did not, as far as we know, affect the emperor’s relations with the papacy regarding the Norman problem there, nor were the excommunications understood by any of the parties as having affected those relations. The issue at hand, then, is not whether Keroularios held liturgical, ecclesiastical, and theological views that were at odds with those of the reformist papacy. It is probable that he did, and so, I suspect, did most Byzantine prelates. In later Byzantine tradition, Keroularios was credited with formulating a series of objections to the beliefs and practices of the Latin Church (though the textual traditions are tangled and, in my view, surely postdate the events of the summer of 1054 [Kolbaba, 2000]). Nor is the issue here the modern debate over the definition of Schism and the attempt to ascertain whether the two Churches came to be in a state of Schism before, during, after, or long after the events of 1054. Rather, the issue is whether Keroularios engaged in confrontation with representatives of the Church of Rome over those issues and whether his actions in 1054 clashed with any aspect of the emperor Monomachos’ policies. My answer to both of these questions is no.
The reconstruction offered here, based on a fresh reading of the primary sources, stands in contrast to all scholarly discussions of the events known to me. The standard narrative can be illustrated from a sampling of general surveys. First, the emperor Monomachos is seen as an ‘ineffective’ and ‘weak emperor no longer capable of controlling the course of events’, while Keroularios was ‘the most strong-willed and ambitious prelate of Byzantine history’, he had a ‘restless and bellicose nature … [with] a ruthlessness which did not hesitate to go to any lengths’ (Ostrogorsky, 1969, 336). Keroularios behaved so poorly toward the legates that he exacerbated whatever prior tensions may have existed with Rome. It was he who ‘broke off discussions with the Roman delegation’ (Gallagher, 2008, 595). Then, ‘exasperated by the patriarch’s intransigence, the papal legates excommunicated him. While the emperor tried to calm the dispute, demonstrations in the capital supported the patriarch, who excommunicated the legates. [This] ruined the emperor’s alliance with the papacy’ (Treadgold, 1997, 596). Those riots were orchestrated by Keroularios: ‘He fomented an anti-Latin riot which destroyed the emperor’s efforts to build an alliance between Byzantium and the papacy’ (Holmes, 2008, 272).2 The counter-excommunication of the legates was also his doing, as he ‘managed to persuade the vacillating emperor to change his policy and fall into line. With the consent of the emperor, he summoned a synod which returned blow for blow by excommunicating the Roman legates’ (Ostrogorsky, 1969, 337). The emperor is sometimes cut out of the narrative, leaving the patriarch as the sole agent on the Byzantine side: ‘Keroularios together with his synod retaliated by excommunicating the papal legate’ (Gallagher, 2008, 595; cf. Smith, 1978, 103: ‘the emperor was unable to withstand the patriarch’s reciprocal excommunication of those who scorned the sanctity of Orthodox tradition’). The anti-Norman alliance with the papacy was now dead (Louth, 2007, 310). ‘It was a triumph for the patriarch, a setback for the emperor, whose Italian policy was now in ruins, and a humiliation for the papal legates’ (Angold, 1997, 52).
A substantial portion of this narrative, I will argue, is fiction, and the rest is a distorted twisting of the facts which ensures that Keroularios is blamed. Let us then go back to the sources and see if we can ascertain exactly what it was that Keroularios actually did. Even if not all readers are persuaded to accept the full conclusions reached here, the analysis should expose the tenuous documentary foundations of the traditional narrative.
No contemporary narrative recounts those events in detail. Instead, the story has come down to us as an ecclesiastical version of Les liaisons dangereuses, a scandalous epistolary narrative in which authors were misattributed and signals crossed even as events played out. A recapitulation of the sequence will allow nonspecialists to follow the trail. In 1053, Leon, archbishop of Ohrid, sent a brief letter to John, bishop of Trani in southern Italy, raising certain ecclesiastical issues, especially the use of leavened versus unleavened bread (azyma) in the eucharist. The Byzantine Church used leavened bread, whereas the Latins (and Armenians) used unleavened, and Leon argued against the azyma (in Will, Acta, 56–60). This letter came to the attention of the papal court, especially cardinal Humbert, who was outraged by it and made a rough translation (Will, Acta, 61–64). By this point, Keroularios had (mistakenly) been added as the co-author of Leon’s letter. This addition may have been made by Humbert himself, by Argyros (a Byzantine governor in southern Italy but of local origin Smith, 1978, 124–125)), or someone else, and it may have been made by mistake, or in the sincere belief (whether correct or not) that Keroularios held the same views as Leon or had authorized him to dispatch the letter, or it may have been done maliciously, to implicate Keroularios in an emerging controversy and embarrass him. Be that as it may, Humbert hereafter treated Keroularios as the (evil) instigator of the controversy.
Yet Keroularios was not behind Leon’s letter to John (Michel, 1924–1930, 2:282–289; Smith, 1978, 53–54, 85, 106–108). He may have agreed – and likely did agree – with its position (had he known it), but what is at issue here is how Keroularios acted as the head of the imperial Church. When he soon afterward entered the story (see below), he immediately tried to create a constructive relationship in order to promote imperial interests, not instigate or inflame a conflict. In fact, it is not certain that Leon of Ohrid himself meant to instigate one. We do not know how ‘explosive’ the azyma issue was perceived to be in the relationship between the Churches – except by Humbert, of course, who was incensed (the thesis of Smith, 1978). Later, Catholic advocates and polemicists naturally perpetuated the (co)attribution of Leon’s letter to Keroularios. But it has also crept into the mainstream, riding on the premise that Keroularios was a combative polemicist, ‘equally to blame’. So, even in the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, we read that Leon was Keroularios’ ‘spokesman’.3 It is important to stress that there is no proof of that. Leon was the autocephalous archbishop of Ohrid (i.e., Bulgaria), a most sensitive post in the Byzantine imperial Church, and had held it for thirty years, far longer than Keroularios had been patriarch. He had a mind of his own and could send letters of his own (for Leon, see Tăpkova-Zaimova 2011, 229–230).
Pope Leo, through Humbert, next wrote a long polemical response to Leon ‘and Keroularios’ (Will, Acta, 65–85; for Pope Leo, see Bischoff and Tock, 2008). Before that could be sent, however, the pope received two letters from Constantinople, one from the Emperor Monomachos urging the continuation of the anti-Norman alliance, something that Leo himself desperately wanted; and one from Keroularios, which was irenic, did not raise controversial issues, and also urged the anti-Norman alliance. We do not have these letters, but we know them from Leo’s responses to them and from later back-references. Keroularios’ tone must have confused the papal court, but only because of their prior misattribution of Leon of Ohrid’s letter to him. In reality, the patriarch was doing in this instance what he would do throughout this entire story, namely whatever the emperor told him to do in pursuance of imperial policy. Keroularios later referred to this letter (his first to Leo) as being extremely humble and solicitous, and no doubt it was that.4 There is no reason whatsoever to think that Keroularios sent this letter reluctantly or against his wishes, or that he had to be persuaded by someone else to send it on the a priori assumption that he was not the type to do any emperor’s bidding (Runciman, 1955, 43). This is just the bias against Keroularios churning up fictions to explain facts that cut against the standard modern narrative.
Pope Leo wrote two letters in response, the first to the emperor in favour of the alliance, praising Monomachos but condemning Keroularios on the azyma and other issues (Will, Acta, 85–89). Leo also wrote a hostile letter to Keroularios, calling him out on a number of points, including on his title (‘Ecumenical Patriarch’, which the Church of Rome had never accepted since its appearance in late antiquity) (Will, Acta, 89–92; see Demacopoulos, 2013). The pope’s letters were to be delivered by his legates, Humbert, Petrus, the bishop of Amalfi, and Frederick, the papal chancellor and architect of Leo’s anti-Norman strategy. And here we come to the events in Constantinople.
Despite the importance of the events of 1054 and the frequency with which they are retold in modern studies, we have only three sources for what happened in Constantinople, and they are not ideal. The first is Humbert’s brief Commemoratio, which he wrote after his return to preface the Excommunicatio of Keroularios and his sectatores (Will, Acta, 150–152). As historians have realized, Humbert’s account is extremely biased and must be treated with caution. But what it does not say is sometimes more revealing for our purpose. The second is the edict of counter-excommunication issued by the Byzantine Synod convened by Monomachos and Keroularios after the legates’ departure (Will, Acta, 155–188). This source contains a narrative that explains why the counter-excommunication was necessary at all. In addition to the usual doctrinal polemics, this is a fussy bureaucratic document, concerned with explaining procedural steps and justifying its existence. In my reading, it reflects Keroularios and the other bishops’ anxiety to appear to have done everything by the book, in full compliance with imperial instructions. And third, we have Keroularios’ first letter to Petros of Antioch, which conveys the patriarch’s side of the story and advances his feud with Argyros (Will, Acta, 172–184). Let us look again at all the events which these sources record because that has not yet been done outside of a framework which assumes that Keroularios had an agenda and was behind everything.
These sources record few specific events that took place in 1054 before the legates’ dramatic excommunication of Keroularios, in fact only three. When we look at them closely, the narrative of a ‘confrontation’ between the legates and Keroularios evaporates. But first, we have to remember that the legates’ primary business was presumably to work out the terms of an alliance with the emperor for dealing with the Normans. They would have spent most of their time in the palace or in discussion with Monomachos’ minister, at this time one John the logothetes (Skylitzes, Synopsis, 477; Psellos, Chronographia 6.177–181; idem, Orationes funebres 2.9). But we hear almost nothing about that. The legates were also going to investigate or resolve the religious controversies that had arisen in the meantime, in the letter of Leon of Ohrid misattributed to Keroularios (Humbert, Commemoratio, in Will, Acta, 153).
The legates arrived on Constantinople around the end of April. The three known events are the following. F...
