The fact that the Byzantines basically forgot they ruled Sardinia will always be funny to me.
After the Muslim conquest of Sicily, Sardinia was isolated from the rest of the empire. The Byzantines had more pressing matters & through negligence, Sardinia slowly gained a measure of de facto independence.
The Sardinians repelled frequent raids from Sicily & Africa by Muslim pirates. Such attacks forced them to abandon many of the old ports and cities of the coast, further isolating them from the rest of the Byzantines by making the life-line of communication by sailing weaker.
The last mention of Sardinia that suggests it as province of the empire is from Constantine VII’s reign in the 10th century when Sardinian imperial guards are mentioned in Constantinople.
We have no sources on how Byzantine rule ended in Sardinia but by 1073 AD four separate kingdoms are mentioned by the Pope in a letter to the rulers of the island.
We, however, can guess. As Byzantine control weakened, authority was maintained by an archon, responsible for both civic & military functions. By the early 11th century a family had consolidated control as the sole archon of the island, passing rule from father to son.
With the Norman takeover of Italy, Byzantium drew even further away from Sardinia. Whatever support or authority the Archon had, collapsed. Rivals rose up on the island and carved out fiefdoms for themselves.
The ruler of Cagliari, a descendant of the archons, maintained Byzantine institutions, including the use of Greek, but he no longer derived his authority, even nominally, from Constantinople.
The fall of Sardinia seemed to not even register in Constantinople. No armies or fleets had ever been sent to reinforce it, no lamentations for its loss survive.
By the 10th century the only reason the emperor knew he ruled these lands were the strange islanders in his bodyguard, even then he didn’t seem to care.
Sardinia was too peripheral, too unimportant, & too well-managed to warrant any intervention by Constantinople.
When the government reminded itself that they controlled this far-off island, suzerainty seemed to serve it well enough.
Had Sicily been maintained or retaken things would have been different and considering how long Sardinia remained in Byzantine control without any support suggests it would’ve been a bastion to project power into the Western Mediterranean.
If you want to learn more about the world of Byzantium & the Varangians, subscribe to the suьsтаск.
The link is in bio.
New articles coming soon!
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
During the reign of Constantine VII, a raiding party from Tarsus attacked the sleepy village of Herakleos.
The villagers were celebrating Divine Liturgy when they received the grave news.
The village priest, Themel, decided to act. That decision would change his life forever.
As Themel prepared the Holy Mystery a messager burst into the church to announce that Muslim raiders had been spotted marching toward the village.
Themel stopped the liturgy and stormed out of the church at the head of his flock, wearing his priestly vestments and armed with a semantron, a big wooden or iron board to hit as a sort of bell.
If you’ve read Ibrahim you’ll know he isn’t a historian; he’s a polemicist. He uses primary sources to weave a narrative of constant, civilizational conflict between Islam & Christianity.
There is no scrutiny of sources or historiography, these are broad strokes to get the scene set for another chapter in a 1,400 year cage match.
If you are looking for Treadgold or Kaldellis here you won’t find him. Ibrahim understands that the Byzantines after Basil II struggled to adapt to new threats, yet is uninterested in the complex political, social, and material causes.
The Byzantine army was the most multi-ethic force in the pre-modern world.
Mongols, Turks, Africans (Zanj), Saxons, Norse, Rus, Normans, Huns, Alans, Cumans, Pechenegs, Germans, Italians, Georgians, Armenians, Iranians, Albanians, Catalans, and more.
How did they manage it?
Many came as mercenary warrior bands looking for employment. These were enrolled within the military and given regular pay & orders under the watchful eye of Byzantine officers.
This prevented mercenaries from becoming a nuisance & the Byzantines to use them expertly in battle.
Some of these mercenaries settled down with local women, eventually fading into the general population except for the preservation of their surnames and connections to their regiments.
During the reign of Emperor Theophilos, ships from the misty North slid into the harbor at Constantinople. The envoys entered the Imperial Court & sparked curiosity among the Byzantines. Who were these strangers?
The men explained to the Emperor that they were Rhos, and subjects of a Khagan who ruled the river lands north of the Black Sea. Their way home had been blocked by steppe nomads and they asked for his help in traveling back.
Theophilos agreed to help the men and sent them with his own envoys to the court of Louis the Pious in 839 AD. Their arrival was noted by Bishop Prudentius who confirms the men claimed to be “Rhos” and ruled by a Khagan.
Few people realize how close Europe was to a second Dark Age in the 9th century. The world that emerged from that chaos created the Medieval World far more than the Age of Charlemagne, a glorious & ephemeral vision of European unity not unlike Napoleon.
By the end of the 800s AD Charlemagne’s Empire had collapsed into a mess of squabbling warlords. Vikings overran England, besieged Paris. Magyars trampled over the fertile interior. Muslim raiders reached the walls of Rome itself. These attacks degraded central control further
Even the Papacy descended into chaos; the plaything of cynical nobles, scandalized continuously. Popes debauched and blood feuds worked their way all the way to his throne. Assassinations, hedonism, and even the trial of an exhumed Pope blackened the Papal reputation.
In the spring of 718 AD, the once mighty besiegers of Constantinople limped southwards. Sources say only 5 ships out of almost 2,000 returned to Syria.
The Byzantines smelled blood in the water & attacked ferociously, immortalized in Islamic prophecies of the apocalypse.
With most of the Caliphate’s fleet now charred flotsam in the Sea of Marmara, Leo III took advantage of his enemy’s weakness. In the same year of his victory at Constantinople a fleet was dispatched to Latakia, the main naval base of the Caliphate.
The Byzantines sacked the city in a shocking reversal. For decades Byzantine squadrons carried out devastating raids in Egypt & the Levant, repeatedly assaulting the major naval bases of the Caliphate in Latakia, Damietta, and Tinnis.