THREE KINDS OF LIBERTY AS POLITICAL IDEALS IN BYZANTIUM,

TWELFTH TO FIFTEENTH CENTURIES

Dimiter G. Angelov
University of Birmingham, UK

A diverse and wide-ranging semantics characterizes the understanding of liberty

in Byzantium. A cursory glance at dictionaries and thesauri reveals that the words
(the noun freedom) and (the adjective free) are part and parcel of
the discursive repertory of secular and religious authors. Modern historians have tra-
ditionally paid attention to new and unusual connotations of freedom in Byzantium,
mostly in documentary usage during the middle and late periods.1 There is, however,
scope for much wider analysis. Scholars have yet to examine the cultural and histori-
cal significance of the usages of the concept of freedom and the interplay of its dif-
ferent meanings. Such an investigation of Begriffsgeschichte and historical semiotics
would be complex and interdisciplinary, pertaining to history and political thought
as well as theology, law, literature, and the reception of the classics. Almost by neces-
sity, therefore, my focus here is restricted thematically and chronologically: liberty as
a political ideal from the twelfth through the fifteenth century. What I mean by lib-
erty as political ideal is not merely its descriptive application to the social realities,
such as governance and landed relations. Rather I am interested in cases and contexts
where liberty was politicized to the degree of becoming an ideological credo and a
catchword that encapsulated the interests of social groups and individuals. Here I
discuss some patterns and in the process raise questions for further study, especially
regarding earlier periods of Byzantine history.
The approach to liberty in which I am interested emerges from various texts
composed during an eventful period of historical change, which saw successive cycles
of reconstruction and consolidation of central authority (by the Komnenoi in the
twelfth century and the Laskarids and the Palaiologoi in the thirteenth) followed
by periods of rapid or gradual disintegration under external and internal pressures.
Epideictic and deliberative public oratory mostly in the form of traditionally con-
ceived panegyrics of emperors and advisory speeches composed in high-style Greek
is particularly revealing about the political uses of liberty. My method is to identify
interpretative currents and suggest ways in which divergent views of liberty were able
to converse with, or build on, one another. This diachronic approach privileges the
history of thought over the study of the agendas of individual authors, even though
often more can be said about the synchronic context than I can offer here.

1
A. Kazhdan, The Concept of Freedom (eleutheria) and Slavery (duleia) in Byzantium, in La
notion de libert au Moyen Age: Islam, Byzance, Occident, Penn-Paris-Dumbarton Oaks Col-
loquia, IV, 1215 October 1982 (Paris, 1982), 215226; K. Khvostova, K voprosu ob up-
otreblenii termina elevter v vizantiiskikh opisiakh XIIIXIV vv., Vizantiiskii Vremennik, 44,
1983, 1826. See also the contributions by Demetrios Kyritses cited in n. 19.
312 Proceedings of the 22nd International Congress of Byzantine Studies

The political views of liberty in the later centuries of Byzantium fed on tradi-
tional modes of understanding the concept. Three received traditions were, in my
opinion, particularly powerful and influential: the classical, the legal, and the scrip-
tural. As Kurt Raaflaub has demonstrated, liberty was initially conceptualized during
the 470s BC, when the ancient Greeks saw their recent wars with Persia as a strug-
gle between freedom and servitude. It is at that time that the noun is first
attested.2 In the same period, was understood as an antonym to tyranny,
in the sense of arbitrary and oppressive rule. The term acquired domestic political
meaning and became an ideological slogan of the Athenian democracy in Perikles
era.3 Aristotle notes in the fourth century BC that the basis of a democratic state is
freedom, which, according to the common opinion, can be enjoyed in such a state.4
The dichotomy of freedom versus servitude () marked the origins of the con-
cept in the Greek tradition and persisted during the Byzantine centuries, as demon-
strated by specific examples below. At the same time, ancient as well as Byzantine
discourses of freedom, especially political ones, moved beyond the confines of binary
opposition, whether with or with tyranny, and turned freedom into a posi-
tive, self-constituted, and reified value.
Byzantine law understands liberty as an individual status: the status of a free man
or a woman in contrast to that of a slave. Two ways of acquiring legal freedom are
envisaged in law. Ninth- and fourteenth-century legal collections classify free men
and women into those who are freeborn (, literally well-born, noble) and
emancipated slaves ().5 A late Byzantine manumission formulary is ti-
tled Document of Liberty of a Slave.6 Slaves were indeed a valuable commodity
in the later centuries of Byzantium, while an international slave trade, dominated by
Italian merchants, flourished in the eastern Mediterranean. In areas controlled by
the Byzantine empire, the use of slaves has traditionally been seen as confined to the
household after the twelfth century.7 The booming long-distance slave trade and
2
K. Raaflaub, The Discovery of Freedom in Ancient Greece, trans. R. Fransiscono, Chicago, 2004,
5867, 8489. The study is a revised edition of idem, Die Entdeckung der Freiheit: Zur histo-
rischen Semantik und Gesellschaftsgeschichte eines politischen Grundbegriffes der Griechen, Mu-
nich, 1985.
3
Raaflaub, Discovery of Freedom, 96102.
4
Aristotle, Politics, 1317a40b2.
5
See the ninth-century Eisagoge XXXVII, 5 (attributed to Patriarch Photios) in Jus Graecoro-
manum, II, ed. P. Zepos and I. Zepos, Athens, 1931, 347; and Constantine Harmenopo-
ulos, Hexabiblos, I, 18, 6 (compiled in the fourteenth century), in
, ed. K. Pitsakes, Athens, 1971, 92.
6
. Sathas, , VI, Venice, 1877, 617618. The tenth-century Beneficial
Tales of Paul of Monemvasia refer to the manumission document as a charter of freedom
( ). See J. Wortley, Les rcits difiants de Paul, vque de Monembasie, et
dautres auteurs, Paris, 1987, 40.
7
On slavery in Byzantium in this period, see H. Kpstein, Zur Sklaverei im ausgehenden By-
zanz: philologisch-historische Untersuchung, Berlin, 1966, esp. 94100, 103118. The subject
 Fourth Plenary Session: Liberties and Limitations in Byzantium 313

the domestic use of slaves may have imparted to the traditional dichotomy of free-
dom versus slavery a renewed sense of realism and contemporary relevance.
The Christian New Testament redefines the meaning of the words freedom and
servitude by infusing liberty with spiritual and eschatological meaning and by para-
doxically reversing the binary opposition.8 The followers of Jesus are presented as tru-
ly free by virtue of their belief, and freedom is associated with works of faith and indi-
vidual responsibility.9 Pauls Epistle to the Galatians (4:2426) represents the upper
Jerusalem the kingdom of God, originating from Abrahams wife, Sarah as free,
in contrast to the enslaved community on earth, which is descended from the servant
girl Hagar. The truly free on earth are said to be Gods slaves a positive reevaluation
of the meaning of that was influential in the Middle Ages.10 Further research
on Byzantine homiletic and theological literature may clarify the role and functions
of this understanding of liberty, which was socially inclusive and universal, although
restricted to the Christian community. It is perhaps notable that authors of the late
period who constructed a secular political ideal of liberty sometimes employed the
same concept in a religious sense in theological writings.11
The classical Greek understanding of liberty may appear the most likely model
for the politicization of the concept. The interpretation of the word liberty as free-
dom from foreign domination is indeed amply attested in Byzantium after 1204 and
merits detailed discussion. Less common and not politicized in any meaningful
way in the period of interest here is the association of liberty with the rights of citi-
zens in a communal form of government. Byzantines throughout the centuries were
aware that liberty had been an ideal of the Athenian democracy and the Roman re-
public. In works critical of contemporary emperors, John Lydos in the sixth century
and John Zonaras in the twelfth considered freedom to have been an essential char-
acteristic of the Roman republic and expressed nostalgia for a distant and lost past.12

could benefit from a fresh reexamination. On the role of non-Byzantine merchants in the in-
ternational slave trade, see A. Laiou-Thomadakis, The Byzantine Economy in the Mediterra-
nean Trade System: Thirteenth-Fifteenth Centuries, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 34, 19801981,
180 n. 8, 184, 189, 191, 195; S. A. Epstein, Purity Lost: Transgressing Boundaries in the Eastern
Mediterranean, 10001400, Baltimore, 2007, 5759, 6971, 8188.
8
D. Nestle, Freiheit, Reallexikon fr Antike und Christentum, 8, 1972, cols. 269306, esp.
280304; W. Coppins, The Interpretation of Freedom in the Letters of St. Paul, Tbingen,
2009.
9
See especially John 8:3137; 1 Corinthians 10:29, 2 Corinthians 3:17; Galatians 5:122; 1
Peter 2:16.
10
Romans 6:1822; 1 Corinthians 7:2124.
11
See, for example, Nicholas Kabasilas, Life in Christ, II, 43; IV, 82, in La vie en Christ, I, ed.
M.-H. Congourdeau, Paris, 1989, 170172, 334, and Manuel II Palaiologos, Dialogues with
a Persian, XXI and XXIV, in Manuel II. Palaiologos: Dialoge mit einem Perser, ed. E. Trapp,
Vienna, 1966, 251255, 280281.
12
On Lydos, see A. Kaldellis, Republican Theory and Political Dissidence in Ioannes Lydos,
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 29, 2005, 116, with a survey of the passages. See also
314 Proceedings of the 22nd International Congress of Byzantine Studies

Yet criticism of Byzantine governance was not the only occasion for a retrospective
look at democratic or republican liberty. In his practice speeches on antique themes
derived from the corpus of Hermogenes and composed most probably for the use of
his students, George Pachymeres (1242after 1309) presents democratic freedom as
the antithesis to tyranny. When accused of tyrannical aspirations, Perikles, accord-
ing to Pachymeres, is likely to have said that one cannot find a better thing than
democracy, where the inequality of fortune is made equal and all people are without
slavery, and all are free.13 In a well-known philosophical essay, Theodore Metochites
(12701332) describes freedom (), free-spiritedness (), and
equality under the law () as essential characteristics of the democratic polity,
which he dismisses as a faction-ridden and dangerous form of politics practiced in
ancient Athens and his contemporary Genoa.14
A native Byzantine view of freedom proved as capable of entering political dis-
course as the classical Greek one. As Alexander Kazhdan has shown, by the elev-
enth century, the adjective free () acquired a new technical meaning, that
of immunity from taxation.15 Peasants not registered for taxation when settled on
the properties of landlords, and some other categories of peasants, were called free
() in tax documents and inventories from the thirteenth through the fif-
teenth century.16 Helga Kpstein and Alexander Kazhdan have also pointed to a se-
the more guarded approach by M. Maas, John Lydus and the Roman Past: Antiquarianism and
Politics in the Age of Justinian, London, 1992, 8396. On the passages by Zonaras, see Ioan-
nis Zonarae Annales, I, ed. M. Pinder, Bonn, 1841, 13.810, 213.817. On Zonarass annals
as a work of critique, see P. Magdalino, Aspects of Twelfth-Century Byzantine Kaiserkritik,
Speculum, 58, 1983, 326346.
13
Georgii Pachymeris Declamationes XIII, ed. J. F. Boissonade, Paris, 1848, 45. On the juxtapo-
sition of freedom and tyranny in ancient Athens, see ibid., 2021, 23, 2735. The rhetorical
corpus of Hermogenes provides the theme of an imaginary defense speech by Perikles, accused
of tyranny after the discovery of weapons in his house, the speech of a philosopher requesting
the prize for tyrannicide for persuading a tyrant to resign from power, and the speech of an
indicted general who has won a victory despite burning the ships of his own navy. See Her-
mogenes, On Staseis and On Invention, in Hermogenis opera, ed. H. Rabe, Leipzig, 1913, 51,
5960, 105. On the teaching activities of Pachymeres, see most recently P. Golitsis, Georges
Pachymre comme didascale, Jahrbuch der sterreichischen Byzantinistik, 58, 2008, 5368.
14
G. C. Mller and T. Kiessling, Miscellanea philosophica et historica, Leipzig, 1821, essay 116,
pp. 605, 606, 610, 618. Metochites uses also a different meaning of freedom in the same es-
say. See ibid., 608, on how Themostikles, the man most responsible for the freedom of the
Hellenes from the Persians, was ostracized. See also L. Mavrommatis, La pense politique
Byzance du XIIe au XIVe sicle, in La civilt bizantina dal XII al XV secolo: aspetti e problemi,
Rome, 1982, 94100.
15
Kazhdan, The Concept of Freedom, 215217. See also A. Kazhdan and A. W. Epstein,
Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, Berkeley, 1985, 59; A. Ka-
zhdan, Freedom, in A. Kazhdan, ed., The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, vol. I, Washing-
ton, 1991, 804.
16
G. Ostrogorsky, Pour lhistoire de la fodalit byzantine, Brussels, 1954, 330347; Khvostova,
K voprosu ob upotreblenii termina elevter.
 Fourth Plenary Session: Liberties and Limitations in Byzantium 315

mantic shift in Byzantium of the words slave () and slavery (), which
acquired positive connotations under the influence of Christian ideology and came
to signify imperial subjects and subject status under the emperor.17 Self-designated
were members of the social elite in the Palaiologan period: the imperial oikeioi,
a large inner circle of trusted men that included holders of high court titles, signed
their names as the emperors .18 In documentary evidence from the Palaiologan
period, the word refers both to service linked to conditional grants of land
and to service to the state generally (usually military).19 In his Advisory Speech to the
Thessalonicans, a fascinating work dating to 1383 to which I will return, the emperor
Manuel II Palaiologos notes that there are various kinds of greatly differing
from each other and describes three of them without including slavery among them:
the of the well-treated subjects of lawful rulers; the humiliating of
the subjects of tyrants; and the oppression of the Christian subjects of the impious
barbarians, that is, the Ottomans.20
The adjective free and the noun freedom were also used metaphorically. This figu-
rative usage was common among high-style authors and deserves mention, even if it is
not of immediate interest here. Examples drawn from the History of George Pachym-
eres illustrate the rich discursive phraseology and semantic breadth of both words.
Thus one could be free in ones mind and in manners and actions.21 Sailors were
said to have freedom and independence of mind, although they found it beneficial
to relinquish their freedom and serve under a captain.22 The Mongols are described
as having liberty of the soul ( ) in their simple lifestyle and the
justice of their social organization. Liberties at the table ( ) is an
expression synonymous with sumptuous dining.23
Political realities sometimes color Pachymeres use of the word freedom. Freedom
is paired with freedom of speech ().24 In 1259 the newly crowned emperor
Michael VIII, in the midst of usurping authority from his colleague, the underage co-
17
Kpstein, Zur Sklaverei, 3334; Kazhdan, Concept of Freedom, 219220.
18
M. Bartusis, The Late Byzantine Army: Arms and Society, 12041453, Philadelphia, 1992, 65,
221226, 382.
19
D. Kyritses, The Byzantine Aristocracy in the Thirteenth and the Early Fourteenth Centuries, PhD
diss., Harvard University, 1997, 169172, 169 n. 99; D. Kyritses, The Common Chrysobulls
of Cities and the Notion of Property in Late Byzantium, Symmeikta 13, 1999, 240241 n. 51.
On military service as , see Bartusis, Late Byzantine Army, 237, 240, 306.
20
B. Laourdas, , Make-
donika 3, 195355, 296.34297.3.
21
George Pachymeres, Relations historiques, vols. I and II, ed. A. Failler, trans. V. Laurent, Paris,
1984, I: 79.810, II: 363.21, II: 395.48.
22
Ibid., I:109.47. This is a reported opinion, and it is possible that the author used this paradox
to subvert the views of its proponents.
23
Ibid., I: 447.2025; ibid., vol. III, ed. and trans. A. Failler, Paris, 1999, 215.26.
24
Ibid., I: 71.67 ( ); II: 619.2930 (, taken away from the free
people).
316 Proceedings of the 22nd International Congress of Byzantine Studies

emperor John IV Laskaris, is said to have reminded his officials and courtiers about
the gracefulness of earlier statesmen, who had the habit of combing their beards and
displaying openly their joy, a symbol of their freedom ( ).25 The
Genoese are reported to have freedom and immunity ( ) from
taxation when trading in Byzantine territory a usage of the word freedom with fis-
cal connotations.26 Pachymeres complains that the patriarch Athanasios (128993,
13039) violated during his second term in office the freedom of the patriarchal
officials of the Great Church, which meant their right to adequate annual salary.27
With a few exceptions, mostly in administrative usage, the diverse meanings of
freedom examined above were not neutral but carried positive values. Liberty was
a word that excited the imagination in multiple directions and pertained to power
relations of various kinds. Yet what kinds of political and social credos did liberty
express?

The Light of Liberty: Freedom from Foreign Rule

In a speech composed in 1206 or 1207, shortly after the Latin conquest of Con-
stantinople, the historian and court orator Niketas Choniates praised Theodore I
Laskaris, the first emperor of the revived Byzantine state in Asia Minor, for valiantly
confronting the Latin knights and putting his life in danger on behalf of the com-
mon liberty.28 Choniates prayed for Laskaris to follow in the footsteps of the lib-
erator Moses and become the expected liberator of Constantinople.29 In a piece
addressed to the same emperor and delivered after his spectacular victory over the
Seljuk sultan at the battle of Antioch-on-the-Maeander in 1211, Choniates exclaims:
Now we all have seen clearly the light of liberty ( ).30 Interestingly, the
phrase reappears in an imperial oration in the fifteenth century. In a speech addressed
to the emperor Manuel II Palaiologos on his return from Thessaloniki to Constanti-
nople in 1408 or 1416, Ioannes Chortasmenos presents the ruler as the light of free-
dom ( ), delivering his people from the danger of slavery. The orator
speaks of the freedom of great cities, a reference to the restoration of Thessaloniki
to Byzantine possession after the Ottoman defeat by Timur in the battle of Ankara
(1402).31

25
Ibid., I: 147.2224.
26
Ibid., II: 221.2, II: 535.1113.
27
Ibid., vol. IV, ed. and trans. A. Failler, Paris, 1999, 721.2832, with an interesting play on the
Christian idea of freedom and Roman law.
28
Nicetae Choniatae orationes et epistulae, ed. J.-L. van Dieten, Berlin, 1973, 132.5.
29
Ibid., 147.12; see also ibid., 128.2426 (a speech to the troops, or selention, composed on
behalf of Theodore I Laskaris), 175.3234 (an oration in praise of Theodore I Laskaris).
30
Ibid., 170.6. The expression freedoms light is found in Aeschylus, Libation Bearers, line 808.
I find the possibility of direct quotation unlikely.
31
H. Hunger, Johannes Chortasmenos (ca.1370ca.1436/37), Briefe, Gedichte und kleine Schrift-
 Fourth Plenary Session: Liberties and Limitations in Byzantium 317

The appearance of the catchy phrase light of liberty in imperial panegyrics dat-
ing to the early thirteenth and the early fifteenth centuries points to two different pe-
riods when liberation from foreign rule was deemed a political value worth advertis-
ing in the most solemn court oratory. This is all the more remarkable because freedom
was never among the common virtues associated with the emperor and imperial rule
in Byzantine kingship literature. Twelfth-century court oratory features references to
freedom rarely and with varying meanings. Euthymios Malakes imperial oration on
Emperor Manuel I on Epiphany 1176, which celebrates the rebuilding of Dorylaion
and Soublaion in Asia Minor, ends by urging the ruler to raise his sword, immerse
it in the blood of the barbarians, and secure freedom for the Romans.32 The word
freedom here is synonymous with the restoration of Byzantine rule in Seljuk-held ar-
eas. In a speech in praise of Isaac II Angelos (118595), the metropolitan of Athens,
Michael Choniates, Niketass brother, consistently comments on liberty as the aboli-
tion of the tyranny of the previous emperor, Andronikos I (118385). A man con-
cerned with the economic well-being of his bishopric, Michael Choniates subtly calls
attention to Athens by comparing the liberator Isaac II to Thrasyboulos, a success-
ful rebel against the regime of the Thirty Tyrants in ancient Athens, and by noting
that Isaac II granted liberty to cities not only as a tyrant-killer but also through the
abolition of taxes.33 Michael Choniates thus juxtaposes two different understandings
of liberty: as the antithesis to tyranny, buttressed with classical allusions, and as tax
privilege, a Byzantine semantic development.
In the twelfth century, the word freedom referred also to deliverance from west-
ern invaders. Niketas Choniates writes in his History that in 1185, people flocked
to the side of the new emperor Isaac II Angelos in the hope that he would become
the liberator Moses and Zorobabal leading back the captives of Zion and would
reclaim Thessaloniki from the Sicilian Normans, who sacked it in the same year.34
After 1204, Choniates orations expressed the idea of liberty from foreign rule with
en, Vienna, 1969, 220.110113, 223.251224.258. On the date, see ibid., 5460.
32
() , ed. . G. Bones,
Athens, 1949, 550.67. See P. Magdalino, The Empire of Manuel I Komnenos (114380) Cam-
bridge, 1993, 455456. In the Alexiad, Anna Komnene praises her father for restoring and
salvaging lost lands without ever using the word freedom in this context. See J. Bompaire, La
notion de libert chez Anne Comnne, in La notion de libert, 227238, esp. 231232.
33
, I, ed. S. Lampros, Athens, 1879, 232.21, 234.79,
236.1820. For references or allusions to Athens, see ibid., 229.1422, 234.27235.2,
235.24236.2. G. Stadtmller, in Michael Choniates, Metropolit von Athen, ca. 1138ca. 1222,
Rome, 1934, 246247, suggested 1187 as the likely date of the speech. Michael Choniates had
tried unsuccessfully during the reign of Andronikos I to secure the remission of outstanding
taxes due from his bishopric. See J. Herrin, Realities of Byzantine Provincial Government:
Hellas and Peloponnesos, 11801205, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 29, 1975, 268.
34
Nicetae Choniatae Historia, ed. J.-L. van Dieten, Berlin, 1975, 356.2836. The title of Eusta-
thios of Thessalonikis account of the capture of Thessaloniki by the Normans attributes to
Isaac II Angelos the epithet liberator. See Eustazio di Tessalonica. La espugnazione di Tessalo-
nica, ed. S. Kyriakidis, Palermo, 1961, 3.5.
318 Proceedings of the 22nd International Congress of Byzantine Studies

the same Old Testament imagery of exile and redemption.

Court speeches dating to 120461 consistently highlight the importance of lib-
eration from Latin rule. For example, George Akropolites funeral oration on the
Nicaean emperor John III Vatatzes (122154) extols the freedom and prosperity of
all the Romans established by Vatatzes and refers specifically to the liberation of the
eastern regions, that is, Asia Minor, from the Italians during the early years of his
reign.35 Indeed, sources originating from the two main successor states established
after the Latin conquest of Constantinople, the empires of Nicaea and Epiros-Thes-
saloniki, attribute to their rulers the epithet liberator.36 After 1261, Michael VIII
Palaiologos, the reconqueror of Constantinople, was lauded as savior and liberator
() of the imperial city.37
Although this understanding of freedom lost its force in the second half of the
thirteenth century, it reappeared prominently in the middle of the fourteenth cen-
tury under vastly different historical conditions. The voices were now stronger and
more numerous, and the subject matter was mostly the expansion of the Ottoman
Empire. In a letter to John VI Kantakouzenos around 1345, which deplores inter-
necine strife and barbarian devastations (alluding to the capture of Serres in 1345
by the Serbs), Demetrios Kydones (c. 1324c. 1398) addresses him as a champion of
freedom: If you do not take care of freedom, the rest will drown, for they are unable
to resist such great waves.38 Not long afterward, Kydones was to speak in a public
oration about maintaining independence from the Ottomans. In 1354 the Ottomans
captured the strategic town of Gallipoli and acquired a firm foothold in the Balkans,
encircling the Bosporus and posing a perceptible threat to Constantinople. Lay and
ecclesiastical authors who observed these events responded by stressing the value of
liberty. A prayer composed by the patriarch Kallistos (135053, 135563) during
his second term in office calls for the restoration of the desolated and captivated

35
Georgii Acropolitae opera, vol. II, ed. A. Heisenberg and P. Wirth, Leipzig, 1973, 18.1213,
19.2425. See also Jacob of Bulgarias speech to John III Vatatzes in S. Mercati, Collectanea
Byzantina, vol. II, Bari, 1970, 84.1620, 87.11. The thirteenth-century scholar and monk Ni-
kephoros Blemmydes extolled in a mirror of princes the Athenians of old who perfected
the observance of laws and preserved freedom. The immediate context suggests that the au-
thor has in mind the preservation of freedom against Persian aggression. See H. Hunger and
I. evenko, Des Nikephoros Blemmydes und dessen Metaphrase von Georgios
Galesiotes und Georgios Oinaiotes, Vienna, 1986, 86, ch. 136: ,
.
36
A. Stavridou-Zafraka, 13o .
, Thessaloniki, 1990, 94, 95, 101, 135.
37
Manuelis Holoboli orations, ed. M. Treu, Potsdam, 19067, 65.2.
38
Dmtrius Cydons, Correspondance, vol. I, ed. R.-J. Loenertz, Vatican City, 1956, pp. 3435,
no. 8.2124. F. Tinnefeld, in Demetrios Kydones: Briefe, vol. I.1, Stuttgart, 1981, 132135,
dates the letter to October or November 1345 and identifies the barbarians as the Serbs (133
n. 1).
 Fourth Plenary Session: Liberties and Limitations in Byzantium 319

land to its former freedom ( ).39 Two advisory speeches of Deme-

trios Kydones, addressed in 1366 and 1371 to high imperial councilors and officials,
make liberty a prominent rhetorical theme.40
The first speech, the Advisory Speech to the Romans (commonly known as Pro
subsidio Latinorum), comments on the arrival in 1366 of the expeditionary force of
Amadeo of Savoy and urges the audience to admit to Constantinople the Latin con-
tingent that had succeeded in recapturing Gallipoli in a surprise attack. The second
oration, Another Advisory Speech when Murad Requested Gallipoli (commonly
known as De non reddenda Callipoli), argues that Gallipoli should not be handed
back to the Ottomans. In a dramatic fashion, Kydones presents the foreign-policy
dilemma as leading to either or . The two concepts are frequently
paired antithetically, and the latter is understood as both subjection to the Ottomans
and enslavement.41 Kydones presents liberty as being of great value in and of itself.42
His agenda in the first speech was to demonstrate that the Latins were the best pos-
sible allies of Byzantium and in fact had traditionally helped the Byzantines to pre-
serve their freedom. The author calls attention to the First Crusade, more than two
centuries earlier, when mentioning that the crusaders restored freedom and piety
( ) to the Hellenes residing in Asia as though bringing back
a refugee and repulsed the barbarians as far as Syria and Palestine.43 But Kydones
refers also to an event not long ago: the capture in 1344 of the port of Smyrna by a
crusader force that wrested it from Umur Beg, the emir of Aydin.44
In his historical memoirs, completed during the 1360s, the ex-emperor John VI
Kantakouzenos (r. 134154) also uses the word liberty in reference to warfare against

39
J. Goar, Euchologion sive rituale Graecorum (Venice, 1730; repr. Graz, 1960), 650651. On the
context of the prayers, see now P. Slavin, From Constantinople to Moscow: The Fourteenth-
Century Liturgical Response to the Muslim Incursions in Byzantium and Russia, in Church
and Society in Late Byzantium, ed. D. Angelov (Kalamazoo, Mich., 2009), 201229; see esp.
204 for the dating of this prayer.
40
On the dating of the speeches, see Tinnefeld, Demetrios Kydones: Briefe, vol. I.1, 65. On the
context, see J. R. Ryder, The Career and Writings of Demetrius Kydones: A Study of Fourteenth-
Century Byzantine Politics, Religion and Society, Leiden, 2010, 4344, 5781, 136160.
41
Demetrios Kydones, Oratio pro subsidio Latinorum, in J. P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca (hereafter
Patrologia Graeca), vol. 154 (Paris, 1866), cols. 961BC, 965C, 968BC, 997B; Oratio de non
reddenda Callipoli, ibid., col. 1020B. Oratio pro subsidio Latinorum, ibid., col. 891C, mentions
that no one is aware of Latin slaves in Magnesia and Ephesos.
42
Demetrios Kydones, Oratio pro subsidio Latinorum, Patrologia Graeca, vol. 154, cols. 1004B,
1000D, 1005CD; Oratio de non reddenda Callipoli, Patrologia Graeca, vol. 154, cols. 1024AB,
1028D.
43
Demetrios Kydones, Oratio pro subsidio Latinorum, Patrologia Graeca, vol. 154, col. 980CD.
44
Demetrios Kydones, Oratio pro subsidio Latinorum, Patrologia Graeca, vol. 154, 981D. The
Latins are also said to have saved the fatherlands and freedom of many people who had re-
quested help from them. See ibid., col. 992A.
320 Proceedings of the 22nd International Congress of Byzantine Studies

the Ottomans.45 This is the sense found in his reports of speeches by other histori-
cal figures that he constructed with great rhetorical craft.46 Kantakouzenos puts the
following words into the mouth of the emperor Andronikos III in a rousing speech
to the army on the eve of the battle of Pelekanos (1329), where the Byzantines were
routed by the Ottomans: Do not think that you are fighting against the barbarians
for a land which does not belong to you, but rather that you are fighting for free-
dom () and each [of you] for his own fatherland.47 Herbert Hunger has
demonstrated that in this speech, Kantakouzenos quotes directly from Thucydides,
although the reference to freedom appears to be the authors own addition.48
A certain amount of apology can probably be read in Kantakouzenoss employ-
ment of the idea of freedom in his description of warfare against the Ottomans, for
the author faced reproach during his lifetime for the alliances he made as emperor
with the Ottoman ruler Orhan and with Umur Beg of Aydin. According to the his-
torian Gregoras, when Kantakouzenos stepped down from power in 1354, the popu-
lace of Constantinople accused him of having transgressed ancestral laws and of tak-
ing away the freedom () of the remaining Romans and giving them to serve
() barbarians and impious enemies.49 In his historical work, Kantakouzenos
acknowledges the importance of freedom through the words of his brother An-
dronikos III, who similarly failed to halt the Ottoman incursions.
The preservation of liberty against the incursions of the Ottomans is the main
subject of an advisory speech of the emperor Manuel II Palaiologos, composed dur-
ing his reign in Thessaloniki (138287). The occasion for this interesting work is the
demand of the Ottoman commander Hayreddin Paa of the andarl family that
Thessaloniki should pay a tribute of vassalage or face military assault. Manuel II ap-
pears to have appealed to a circle of the citys elite not to allow Thessaloniki to sur-
render but to engage the Ottomans in negotiations. If the negotiations failed, the
Thessalonicans would have to fight for liberty until the end.50 Manuel II took suf-
45
D. Nicol, The Byzantine Family of Kantakouzenos (Cantacuzenus) ca. 11001460, Washing-
ton, 1968, 100, has shown that Kantakouzenos completed his historical work before Decem-
ber 1369.
46
Ioannis Cantacuzeni eximperatoris historiarum libri IV, 3 vols., ed. L. Schopen, Bonn,
18311832, III: 56.22 (speech of the ambassador of Pope Clement VI), III: 346.1417
(speech of Kantakouzenoss son and coemperor Matthew).
47
Ibid., I: 345.2022.
48
H. Hunger, Thukydides bei Johannes Kantakuzenos: Beobachtungen zur Mimesis, Jahrbuch
der sterreichischen Byzantinistik, 25, 1976, 18193. A part of the speech of Andronikos III
(345.415 and 346.14) is lifted from the address of the Lacedomonian generals Knemos and
Brasidas in Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, II, 87, 34; II, 87, 9. I. evenko,
in The Decline of Byzantium Seen through the Eyes of Its Intellectuals, Dumbarton Oaks
Papers, 15, 1961, 172 n. 18, called attention to a section of the speech showing awareness of
Byzantiums decline.
49
Nicephori Gregorae Byzantina historia, 3 vols., ed. L. Schopen, Bonn, 182955, III: 242.210.
50
On the context and for a useful summary of the speech, see G. T. Dennis, The Reign of Manuel
 Fourth Plenary Session: Liberties and Limitations in Byzantium 321

ficient pride in this literary piece to send it to Demetrios Kydones in Constantinople

and ask for his critical judgment. Commenting on the leitmotif of the speech, Ky-
dones observed that through speeches you lift the spirit of the citizens and persuade
them hold on to their freedom.51 Manuel IIs advisory speech indeed stresses that
freedom is a value particularly dear to the Thessalonicans. For how could they bear,
he asks, to see other cities, from the Danube to the Eubea, and even in Asia Minor
near the enemies base, enjoy greater freedom than Thessaloniki did?52 In outlining
three types of , Manuel II presents submission to the non-Christian barbar-
ians as the worst choice, worse even than death itself, and urges his audience to bear
everything on behalf of freedom.53
Manuel II Palaiologos links the idea of freedom as nonsubjection to the Otto-
mans with the Thessalonicans tax-exempt status: You who are renowned and most
distinguished for freedom as much as there is height in the sky, even if there are many
heights and many free people, have never been debtors to the rulers themselves, not
only with regard to what the enemies now are requesting to impose on you, but also
with regard to the taxes that Romans and all the free people sometimes owed to the
emperors.54 By invoking the fiscal liberty that the Thessalonicans enjoyed through-
out the Palaiologan period, Manuel II further disparages the Ottoman demand for
tribute, with which he was amply familiar.55 He appears to have succeeded in con-
vincing the Thessalonican elite not to accept Ottoman suzerainty on this occasion,
but he failed in the long term: in 1387 the city surrendered.
Manuel II created an image of himself in court rhetoric as a ruler passionately
concerned with liberty and liberation. The disastrous defeat of the Ottomans at
Ankara in 1402, which led to the restoration of Thessaloniki and other areas under
Byzantine rule, doubtless fed this image. Panegyrics of Manuel II after 1402 present
him as a liberator, and a funerary oration composed in 1425 by an anonymous
Thessalonican praises Manuel for having secured the freedom of Thessaloniki: It

II Palaeologus in Thessalonica, 13821387, Rome, 1960, 8184.

51
For the letter with which Manuel II Palaiologos sent his speech to Kydones, see The Letters
of Manuel Palaeologus, ed. G. T. Dennis, Washington, 1977, 2830 n. 11. For Kydones re-
sponse, see Dmtrius Cydons, Correspondance, vol. II, ed. R.-J. Loenertz, Vatican City, 1960,
167168, no. 262.3233: ,
. See also F. Tinnefeld, Demetrius Kydones: Briefe, vol. III (Stuttgart, 1999),
112118 (no. 265).
52
Laourdas, , 298.47.
53
Ibid., 296.24297.3, 299.2439, 302.2124.
54
Ibid., 297.27. N. Necipolu, Byzantium between the Ottomans and the Latins: Politics and
Society in the Late Empire, Cambridge, 2009, 4445, has pointed out the relationship between
the speech and the privileged tax status of the Thessalonicans.
55
In 1379 John V Palaiologos, Manuel IIs father, was obliged to pay a heavy annual tribute to
the Ottomans. See O. Iliescu, Le montant du tribut pay par Byzance lEmpire Ottoman en
1379 et 1424, Revue des tudes sud-est europennes, 9, 1971, 42732; Necipolu, Byzantium,
128129.
322 Proceedings of the 22nd International Congress of Byzantine Studies

seemed that the freedom of the Hellenes was allotted to Fortune and the deeds of the
emperor.56

Liberty as Communal and Individual Rights

So far we have seen that the ideal of liberty advertised in post-1204 court rhetoric
was synonymous with the preservation and restoration of Byzantine rule in the face
of foreign aggression. This was not, however, the only understanding of liberty, es-
pecially once we look beyond court rhetoric and into polemical texts composed on
themes pertaining to internal politics and administration. Manuel IIs Advisory
Speech to the Thessalonicans reveals how a narrowly domestic view of liberty was
politicized: the privileged economic status of a free city fed into the idea of free-
dom as the preservation of independence. In the same vein, other fourteenth- and
fifteenth-century authors extolled liberty as an ideal pertaining to the rights of cities
and individuals. In so doing, these authors interpreted and further developed no-
tions of privilege, sometimes expressed in the language of liberty in contemporary
official documents.
Residents of a number of late Byzantine cities (such as Thessaloniki, Verroia,
Melnik, Kroai, and Monemvasia) enjoyed fiscal immunity from the main land tax
imposed on their urban and rural real properties by virtue of the so-called common
chrysobulls.57 The text of an imperial privilege granted to the citizens of Thessaloniki,
whom Manuel II encouraged to hold on to their liberty, does not survive, yet the
testimony of the historians and extant common chrysobulls to other urban commu-
nities show that the word was widely used. George Akropolites account
of the reincorporation of Thessaloniki in 1246 into the growing empire of Nicaea
describes a plot hatched by members of the city elite who planned to switch their al-
legiance to the emperor John III Vatatzes. They sent a delegate to the Nicaean ruler
to obtain a common chrysobull granting the former customs and rights belonging
to the Thessalonicans as well as their freedom (); on fulfillment of this re-
quest, the conspirators secured a peaceful and bloodless transfer of authority.58 Ak-
ropolites here employs the word freedom as a synonym of the tax-exempt status of
the Thessalonicans, which he calls a custom. This privileged status dates back to the

56
See n. 31 above and Isidore of Kievs speech in S. Lampros, ,
vol. III, Athens, 1926, 178.10: of the city, that is, Constantinople. On the fu-
neral oration, see C. Dendrinos, An Unpublished Funeral Oration on Manuel II Palaeologus
(1425), in Porphyrogenita: Essays on the History and Literature of Byzantium and the Latin
East in Honour of Julian Chrysostomides, ed. C. Dendrinos, J. Harris, E. Harvalia-Crook, and J.
Herrin, Aldershot, 2003, 447.195202, 447.204207.
57
Kyritses, The Common Chrysobulls of Cities. On Thessaloniki, see E. Patlagean, Lim-
munit des Thessaloniciens, : Mlanges offerts Hlne Ahrweiler, Paris, 1998, II:
591601.
58
Georgii Acropolitae opera, vol. I, ed. A. Heisenberg and P. Wirth, Leipzig, 1973, 45, 80.16.
 Fourth Plenary Session: Liberties and Limitations in Byzantium 323

Latin takeover of the city after 1204 and possibly even to the twelfth century.59
The common chrysobulls issued by Andronikos II Palaiologos on behalf of Mon-
emvasia in 1284, Kroai (the document dated by scholars to 1288 survives only in
Latin translation), and Ioannina in 1319 pair liberty () with , a
technical term for tax exemption.60 It appears that the imperial chancery preferred to
use the word in the company with another, less equivocal term that served to clarify
its meaning. This pairing also appears in the works of some late Byzantine histori-
ans who refer to immunity from taxation as and .61 Akropolites, on
the other hand, considers the term liberty to be sufficiently clear to stand on its own
when it refers to the tax-exempt status of the Thessalonicans.
A lengthy, polemical petition to the patriarch of Constantinople composed by
Isidore, the future metropolitan of Kiev and cardinal of Rome, complements the ad-
visory speech of Manuel II by offering a political interpretation of the liberty of a
privileged Byzantine city. The petition, which has been dated to 1428, deals with a
complicated dispute between the metropolitans of Monemvasia and Corinth over
ecclesiastical jurisdiction.62 Isidore adduces historical and mostly legal arguments, cit-
ing laws and official documents, to lend support to the claims raised by the metropol-
itan bishopric of Monemvasia.63 When giving an account of the fall of Monemvasia
to the Latin prince of Achaia, William II Villehardouin, in the thirteenth century,
Isidore calls Monemvasia a noble and free city that had resisted invasions and nev-
er submitted to .64 He writes that the governors of Monemvasia, bearing the
Latin royal title of reges, had been allies of the empire of the Rhomaioi and free in
everything, preserving the ancestral and ancient freedom and nobility (

59
See the hypothesis of Patlagean, Limmunit des Thessaloniciens, 598.
60
On Monemvasia, see F. Miklosich and J. Mller, Acta et diplomata graeca medii aevi sacra et
profana, V (Vienna, 1887), 15455. On Kroai, see A. Solovjev and V. Moin, Grke povelje
Srpskih vladara (Diplomata graeca regum et imperatorum Serviae), Belgrade, 1936, 318.9910,
318.103104 (immunitas et libertas). On Ioannina, see Miklosich and Mller, Acta et diplo-
mata graeca, V: 81.1017 (full freedom [] and according to its former
custom), 82.15 ( and ), 83.34 ( and of the Jews of
Ioannina).
61
Nicephori Gregorae Byzantina historia, I: 319.1316, I: 397.712. See also Pachymeres, n. 26
above.
62
Two petitions by Isidore were published by S. Lampros:
, Neos Hellenomnemon, 12, 1915, 258272, 272318. On
Isidore and Monembasia, see V. Laurent, Isidore de Kiev et la mtropole de Monembasie,
Revue des tudes byzantines, 17, 1959, 15057. On the dating, see P. Schreiner, Die byzantini-
schen Kleinchroniken, vol. II, Vienna, 1977, 43637.
63
E. Papagianni and S. Troianos, 15 , Byzanti-
nai meletai, 2, 1989, 1934.
64
Lampros, , 288.2934. Giving credence to Isidores petition, H. Kalligas, Byz-
antine Monemvasia: The Sources, Monemvasia, 1990, 8694, has recently redated the event to
125253, rather than 1248 as hypothesized earlier.
324 Proceedings of the 22nd International Congress of Byzantine Studies

) of the Spartans and the Doric order.65

This passage of Isidores petition has been interpreted as reporting a legend cir-
culating in Monemvasia about the foundation of the city by refugees from Sparta
during the sixth century.66 While the intriguing question of historicity is not of in-
terest to us here, the invocation of liberty is worthy of note. The words of Isidore
provide another example of a creative combination of the multiple traditions of the
understanding of liberty and of the allusiveness and heavy semantic load of the con-
cept. The pairing of the words liberty and nobility derives from Byzantine law, where
the freeborn are called well-born. The liberty of the Monamvasiots in the specific
context can be seen as a reference to their tax-exempt status and more broadly to the
autonomous aspirations of Monemvasia under the aegis of the Byzantine empire, to
which Isidore gives an elaborate historical justification.67
In the fourteenth century, liberty was not only an ideological slogan raised by
cities enjoying fiscal privileges but was also seen as pertaining to the property-hold-
ing rights of Byzantine subjects generally. This interesting interpretation of liberty
emerges from the highly polemical Discourse concerning Illegal Acts of Officials
Daringly Committed against Things Sacred by Nicholas Kabasilas (c. 1324after
1391). The circumstances of composition of this text, including its date, have proved
elusive. Kabasilas certainly revised the work during the last three decades of the four-
teenth century, and he could have composed it either then or earlier in his literary
career. His critique addresses mostly the governments policy of secularizing monas-
tic landholdings. Kabasilas inveighs, too, against the sale of offices, simony, and ec-
clesiastical taxation.68 The most probable historical context, therefore, is a measure
65
Lampros, , 289.1924.
66
Kalligas, Byzantine Monemvasia, 1925; H. Kalligas, Monemvasia: A Byzantine City State
(London, 2010), 17.
67
The historian Kantakouzenos on one occasion uses the word liberty to refer to such aspirations
to autonomy. When a Peloponnesian lord by name of Lampoudes (Lampoudios) rebelled not
long after 1349 against the imperial authorities in the area (the despot Manuel Kantakouze-
nos), he is said to have traversed villages and cities, accusing their inhabitants of voluntary
subjection () and urging them to prefer the freedom of their ancestors. See Ioan-
nis Cantacuzeni eximperatoris historiarum libri, III: 87.1288.23; Nicol, Byzantine Family of
Kantakouzenos, 123. In a different context (an oration in praise of Manuel II), Isidore describes
the Peloponnese as enjoying ancestral and Roman freedom. See Lampros, , III:
176.1011.
68
I. evenko, Nicolas Cabasilas Anti-Zealot Discourse: A Reinterpretation, Dumbarton
Oaks Papers, 11, 1957, 161170; idem, The Authors Draft of Nicolas Cabasilas Anti-Zealot
Discourse in Parisinus Graecus 1276, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 14, 1960, 187188; idem, A
Postscript on Nicolas Cabasilas Anti-Zealot Discourse, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 16, 1962,
407408. See also P. Charanis, Observations on the Anti-Zealot Discourse of Cabasilas,
Revue des tudes sud-est europennes, 9, 1971, 369376; K.-P. Matschke and F. Tinnefeld, Die
Gesellschaft im spten Byzanz, Cologne, 2001, 355. On the confiscation of monastic properties
after the battle of Maritsa, see K. Smyrlis, The State, the Land, and Private Property: Confis-
cating Monastic and Church Properties in the Palaiologan Period, in Angelov, Church and
 Fourth Plenary Session: Liberties and Limitations in Byzantium 325

enacted by the government of John V Palaiologos after the Ottoman victory at the
battle of Chernomen (irmen, Ormenio) on the Maritsa River in 1371: the confis-
cation of half of the landed properties of the Byzantine monasteries, which were used
to fund the army.
The discourse juxtaposes two different views of liberty. The proponents of the
confiscation of monastic properties are said to have based their argument on the
public benefit: the monks could live with less, and resources taken from them
could be used to equip soldiers. The soldiers are described as fighting on behalf of
their freedom, that is, providing security for the monks.69 Kabasilas demolishes this
argument in variety of ways. Most notably, he presents private property as inviolable
and elaborates on this point in a discussion of the differences between good rulers
and tyrants.70 The official who takes care of soldiers, ships, and military equipment by
transgressing the laws and betraying liberty is no different from a tyrant, Kabasi-
las claims, whereas good magistrates seek military strength in order to preserve for
the subjects the laws and liberty befitting a human being.71 Kabasilas bolsters his case
by claiming that rulers in the best polity prefer the weapons to be neglected rather
[than] that the laws . . . be destroyed and liberty be affronted.72 The author plays here
on the traditional antithetical pairs of tyranny versus legitimate rule (which he never
refers to as imperial rule, ) and tyranny versus liberty. At the same time, he
understands liberty as constituting secure property ownership, an economic inter-
pretation that is more profound than the tax concessions marking liberation from
tyranny mentioned in the twelfth-century oration by Michael Choniates.
The excursus on legitimate rule and tyranny leads Kabasilas to make a general ob-
servation about the political role and importance of liberty. Setting up a government
without freedom is self-defeating, for nothing is equal to and as precious as [lib-
erty], even if you should mention gold, the measures of the earth, and the ultimate
honors. For when people are not masters of their own possessions and fear lest they
lose them, they will not occupy themselves with money-making business, farming,
and commerce, knowing that the work of their own labor would benefit someone
else. In this situation, Kabasilas notes, the state would also be at disadvantage: From
where will tax revenue come, if there is poverty? This is the reason why provident
rulers pursue a policy of maintaining liberty along with justice for those who are
ruled.73
Society, 6672.
69
evenko, Nicolas Cabasilas Anti-Zealot Discourse, 93, 6.30:
.
70
Ibid., 9495, 10 (on the inviolability of private property); 103104, 2426 (on govern-
ment).
71
Ibid., 103, 24.910, 24.1821. See ibid., 152, for a full translation of this paragraph of the
discourse.
72
Ibid., 103, 25.14.
73
Ibid., 104, 26.116.
326 Proceedings of the 22nd International Congress of Byzantine Studies

The late Byzantine social context is essential for the proper understanding of this
passionate defense of property ownership. As Angeliki Laiou has noted, the ideas
of Kabasilas are heterogeneous: they incorporate concepts from Byzantine law and
notions arising from interlocking rights over property that were characteristic of con-
temporary land relations.74 Although Kabasilass thesis, the defense of private owner-
ship, is one enshrined in law, its articulation as liberty is an interpretation, I suggest,
derived from a specific way liberty was understood in documents pertaining to land-
holding. Public and private acts of the Palaiologan period employ the adjective free
and, less commonly, the noun freedom in several senses. Free and freedom refer mostly
to immunity from taxation. A property was also called free after the imperial govern-
ment removed restrictions on the alienation of conditional landholdings by lifting
the obligation to service () attached to them. Thus an imperial chysobull dat-
ing to 1324 grants a status described as free and without service ( )
to the estate of an imperial oikeios, who could sell, bequeath, and donate the property
without any constraint.75 A fiscal inventory of 1342 describes the estates granted to
Ioannes Margarites as free in every way and without any service, and besides (
) above any tax and levy.76 The conjunction besides reveals that the land granted
is made free not in the sense of being tax exempt but because it is to be held without
restrictions.
On the basis of this usage and in light of the occasional claims of the Palaiolo-
gan government to have discretionary control over the landed wealth of the empire,
Demetrios Kyritses has suggested that the notion of freedom in the documentary evi-
dence is synonymous with private property holding, replacing a largely obsolete legal
notion.77 This interpretation is a modern one, and it is remarkable that already in
the fourteenth century Nicholas Kabasilas appears to have arrived at this conclusion.
Kabasilas worked out a notion of liberty that was implicit and largely undeveloped
in the bureaucratic language of the imperial government, turning it into an ideologi-
cal slogan of liberty directed against rapacious policies of the same government. The
importance of Kabasilass ideal of liberty should not be exaggerated, for his was a
dissident and ineffective voice. The imperial authorities succeeded in confiscating
monastic lands in the second half of the fourteenth century. Kabasilass opposition to

74
A. Laiou, Economic Concerns and Attitudes of the Intellectuals of Thessalonike, Dumbar-
ton Oaks Papers, 57, 2003, 207208.
75
Actes de Chilandar, ed. L. Petit and B. Korablev, St. Petersburg, 1911, no. 96, 203204. The
document plays on the word : the oikeios Dragon is said to have displayed diligence
in his to the emperor, while his estate Melintzianis on the Strymon River is
.
76
P. Lemerle, Un praktikon indit des archives de Karakala (janvier 1342) et la situation en
Macdoine orientale au moment de lusurpation de Cantacuzne,
. , vol. I, Athens, 1965, 281: [sc. ] ()
() .
77
Kyritses, The Common Chrysobulls of Cities, 240242.
 Fourth Plenary Session: Liberties and Limitations in Byzantium 327

this policy demonstrates, however, a trend among Thessalonican as well as other late
Byzantine intellectuals: a vehement challenge to the economic claims of the impe-
rial government.78 Among the various arguments, liberty was invoked to defend the
rights of individuals.

Liberty of the Church

A third idea of liberty, the liberty of the church, was circulating among Byzantine
churchmen during Nicholas Kabasilass lifetime. This concept of liberty was removed
from the sphere of economic claims. In September 1303 the patriarch Athanasios I
was recalled from the monastery in Constantinople where he was residing and rein-
stalled as head of the Byzantine church. Before agreeing to resume his post, Athana-
sios composed and presented to the emperor Andronikos II a document obliging the
emperor to support an ambitious program of reforms. According to the promise, the
emperor committed himself to keep the church not only without subjection in eve-
ry way and free ( ), but to render servile submis-
sion to it and subordinate himself to its every legal and God-pleasing wish. The em-
peror was to aid the patriarch in his efforts to enforce the canons, mend the ways of
the clergy (especially the bishops residing in Constantinople, away from their sees),
and oppose heresy, magic, and prohibited marriages.79 In his letters to Andronikos II,
Athanasios elaborates on the meaning of liberty, which refers mostly to the eradica-
tion of uncanonical practices and the expulsion of the bishops from Constantinople.
The patriarch also exploits the idea of ecclesiastical freedom as tax-exempt status of
ecclesiastical properties, but he does not insist on the general application of this poli-
cy.80
The patriarch Athanasios is the only Byzantine ecclesiastic known to me to ar-
ticulate so zealously, both in the promissory document and his correspondence, an
ideal of ecclesiastical liberty. The concept reappears on two later occasions in the Pal-
aiologan period. In August 1353 the permanent synod in Constantinople discharged
the patriarch Kallistos, mostly on account of his refusal to crown John VI Kantak-
ouzenoss son Matthew after the latter was proclaimed emperor in April 1353. In his
historical memoirs, the ex-emperor John VI Kantakouzenos writes that he encour-
78
A. Laiou, Le dbat sur les droits du fisc et les droits rgaliens au dbut du 14e sicle, Revue
des tudes byzantines, 58, 2000, 97122. D. Angelov, Imperial Ideology and Political Thought in
Byzantium, 12041330, Cambridge, 2007, 286309.
79
V. Laurent, Le serment de lempereur Andronic II Palologue au patriarche Athanase Ier, lors
de sa seconde accession au trne oecumnique (sept. 1303), Revue des tudes byzantines, 23
1965, 136.
80
The Correspondence of Athanasius I, Patriarch of Constantinople, ed. A.-M. Talbot, Washing-
ton, 1975, 144, no. 62.24, where Athanasios refers to the law and the canons liberating the
church. See also ibid., 156, no. 66.7074, and n. 90 below. The historian Gregoras uses the
expression liberty of the canons. See Nicephori Gregorae Historia, II: 916.21. On freedom of
the church as referring to tax-exempt status, see Talbot, Correspondence of Athanasius I, 172,
no. 69.182185. For further discussion, see Angelov, Imperial Ideology, 400408.
328 Proceedings of the 22nd International Congress of Byzantine Studies

aged the synod to elect three patriarchal candidates without his interference, a prac-
tice which many emperors in the past, including himself, had ignored. Kantakouzenos
describes his benevolent action as a bestowal on the synod of its ancient freedom
( ).81 The language of liberty is made relevant to the same epi-
sode in the Apology composed by an anonymous member of the synod, who strives
to present the dismissal of Patriarch Kallistos and the election of Philotheos Kok-
kinos (135354, 136476) as consistent with canons and tradition. Kantakouzenos
is said not to have interfered in the electoral process, in contrast to the customary
actions of emperors who violated the divine grace.82 The members of the synod are
reported to have complied with the divine canons and with ecclesiastical and histori-
cal tradition; they also upheld the freedom given to the church from the beginning
( ).83 Liberty of the church is thus understood
as adherence to received tradition, an interpretation not dissimilar to Athanasioss
view of observance of the canons. It is clear that both John Kantakouzenos and the
Apology use liberty of the church in order to put a justifying gloss on a contestable
action. Yet it is still remarkable that the idea helped to construct separate spheres of
responsibility for the church and the imperial office.
The idea of the liberty of the church was also floated during the Council of Fer-
rara-Florence (143839), with a different and more radical meaning. In his memoirs
of the council, Sylvester Syropoulos reports that while staying in Venice on his way
to Ferrara, the patriarch Joseph II (141639) explained to some of his associates that
he wished to use the forthcoming meeting with the pope to further an item on his
domestic agenda. He hoped that the pope would free the church from the servitude
imposed on her by the emperor by means of the privileges. On subsequently meet-
ing the pope, Joseph II is reported to have said that the Roman pontiff received him
well and blamed us only for having subjected the church in great servitude to secular
authority.84
Our information on the meaning of ecclesiastical liberty in this context comes
solely from the account of Syropoulos, a high patriarchal functionary and partici-
81
Ioannis Cantacuzeni eximperatoris historiarum libri IV, III: 272274, esp. 274.1014. See also
D. Nicol, The Reluctant Emperor: A Biography of John Cantacuzene, Byzantine Emperor and
Monk, c. 12951383. Cambridge, 1996, 123124.
82
A. Failler, La dposition du patriarche Calliste Ier (1353), Revue des tudes byzantines, 31,
1973, 41.286292, 55.5368.
83
Ibid., 67.747748.
84
V. Laurent, Les Mmoires du grand ecclsiarque de lglise de Constantinople Sylvestre Syro-
poulos sur le concile de Florence (14381439), Paris, 1971, 230.2224 (

), 240.1112. The privileges of 1416 and the dynamics between emperor and pa-
triarch during the Council of Ferrara-Florence have been analyzed by B. Stephanides in

(14161439), , 23, 1953, 2740. See also J. Gill,
Personalities of the Council of Florence and Other Essays, Oxford, 1964, 2324.
 Fourth Plenary Session: Liberties and Limitations in Byzantium 329

pant in the Council of Ferrara-Florence. The reported words of the patriarch refer
to an event at the beginning of Syropouloss memoirs. Displeased with the way the
emperor Manuel II managed church affairs and transferred bishops from one see to
the other, the previous patriarch, Euthymios II (141016), openly voiced his dissat-
isfaction. When Euthymios II passed away in 1416, the emperor selected his succes-
sor by arranging beforehand that the patriarchal synod and select imperial officials
convened in the church of the Holy Apostles and agreed on the emperors privileges
() in the church, just as had been done on an earlier occasion.85
The text of the document of 1416 has probably been lost, although a similar
document, signed by the synod and granted to the emperor John V Palaiologos in
138082, has survived and seems to be the one to which Syropoulos refers. 86 This
document, in nine chapters, points to the nature of the emperors rights over the
church, which were considered ecclesiastical servitude by Patriarch Joseph II. The
agreement of 138082 tightens imperial control over the bishops in a period of civil
war and Ottoman conquests, curiously omitting to mention the emperors traditional
and evidently uncontested right to select the patriarch from three candidates elected
by the synod. The emperor was given the right to veto the election of a metropolitan
before his ordination by the patriarch (chapter 1), to transfer bishops from one see
to another, which is called a privilege of old (chapter 2), to keep in Constantinople
or send away bishops without asking for the patriarchs consent (chapter 6), and to
require from newly ordained bishops a formal promise to be the emperors friends
and remain loyal to the empire and Rhomania (chapter 7). One of these provisions,
the right of the emperor to transfer bishops between sees, was challenged both by
Patriarch Euthymios II and a contemporary, Symeon of Thessaloniki, even though
the agreement of 138082 calls it a traditional privilege and it had been recognized
as such in the past.87
The liberty that Patriarch Joseph II was planning to secure for the Byzantine
church from the pope involved, therefore, curtailing the emperors recently renego-
tiated rights. His conception of the liberty of the church, unlike the one raised by
Patriarch Athanasios, was directly turned against imperial authority and was no after-
the-fact justification, as in the Apology. Insofar as we can judge from Syropouloss ac-
count, some Byzantine ecclesiastics viewed the emperors assertive claims of control
85
Laurent, Les Mmoires, 102104.
86
V. Laurent, Les droits de lempereur en matire ecclsiastique. Laccord de 1380/82, Revue
des tudes byzantines, 13, 1955, 520.
87
Symeon of Thessaloniki, De Sacris Ordinationibus, in Patrologia Graeca, vol. 155, col. 433A.
The thirteenth-century canonist Demetrios Chomatenos recognized the transferral of bishops
as an imperial right. See Analecta sacra et classica spicilegio solesmensi parata, VI, ed. J. Pitra,
Paris, 1891, cols. 63132. This issue, always a disputed one in canon law, seems to have become
particularly important during the dislocations caused by the Ottoman conquests. It was fur-
ther accentuated by the controversial case of the triple transfer of Patriarch Matthew I. See V.
Laurent, Le trispiscopat du patriarche Matthieu Ier (13971410). Un grand procs canoni-
que Byzance au dbut du XVe sicle, Revue des tudes byzantines, 30, 1972, 5166.
330 Proceedings of the 22nd International Congress of Byzantine Studies

over the episcopal hierarchy, and the generally heavy-handed approach of the em-
peror John VIII Palaiologos during the Union, as servitude from which the church
needed to extricate itself.
The ideological slogan of the liberty of the church raises the interesting possibil-
ity of cultural influences from the West. After all, libertas ecclesiae was an integral
element of papal ideology after the eleventh century.88 The question has no easy and
obvious answer. The channels of intellectual communication with the Roman church
remained open after the schism of 1054. The papal idea of libertas ecclesiae was some-
times mentioned in confessional polemic and could thence have entered Byzantine
ecclesiastical discourse.89 That Byzantine churchmen would be reluctant to admit
influence from the Latin West and preferred to gloss borrowing as adherence to tra-
dition is not surprising. Thus, Patriarch Athanasios chooses to exploit the scriptural
connotations of ecclesiastical liberty. In a letter to the emperor Andronikos II Pal-
aiologos, which an anonymous commentator titled a letter to the emperor about
the church of Christ enjoying freedom, Athanasios describes the free church as one
flying up to heaven and not falling to the ground. The allusion is to the free heavenly
Jerusalem in Pauls Epistle to the Galatians (4:2426), which early Christian exegesis
identified as the church of Christ.90
Byzantium was also capable of arriving at the idea of ecclesiastical liberty inde-
pendently of the West. An application of the word freedom to the church in a histori-
cal narrative dating to a relatively early period points in this direction. Commenting
on the annulment of a law introduced by Nikephoros II Phokas (96369) that had
given the emperor the authority to control the election and consecration of bishops,
the eleventh-century historian John Skylitzes notes that this brought the church back
to its former freedom ( ).91 The idea of liberty is made relevant to
the church here without being a cultural importation. It is worth remembering that
liberty was a semantically rich and versatile word in Byzantium. When it referred to
collective and individual rights, it clearly was an indigenous construct, although one
with close parallels in the medieval West, where the word libertas, meaning privi-
lege, is ubiquitous in charters and legal collections.
88
The classic study is by G. Tellenbach, Libertas. Kirche und Weltordnung im Zeitalter des Investi-
turstreites, Stuttgart, 1936.
89
Thus a letter of Pope Gregory IX to Patriarch Germanos II in 1232 accuses the Byzantine
church of having fallen slave to secular authority and forfeiting its liberty. See J. D. Mansi, Sac-
rorum Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima Collectio, vol. 23, repr. ed., Graz, 1961, 5560.
90
Talbot, Correspondence of Athanasius I, 126 no. 57. An unknown interpolator added the title of
the letter in his own hand. He may have been a close associate of Athanasios (see ibid., XXX-
VII). In the letter, Athanasios threatens to resign should the emperor refuse to maintain the
liberty of the church as he had undertaken to do in the promissory document. On the upper
Jerusalem as the church in Christian exegesis, see Eusebios of Caesarea in Patrologia Graeca,
vol. 24, col. 37C; John Chrysostom in Patrologia Graeca, vol. 61, col. 662.
91
Ioannis Scylitzae synopsis historiarum, ed. I. Thurn, Berlin, 1973, 286.12. On the law, see ibid.,
274.5658.
 Fourth Plenary Session: Liberties and Limitations in Byzantium 331

Three Kinds of Liberty

This discussion has demonstrated that liberty represented more than one political
ideal in Byzantium between the twelfth and the fifteenth century. Different and dis-
cordant voices created their own credos, including freedom against oppressive for-
eign rule, freedom as rights, and freedom of the church. These three kinds of liberty
had different intellectual origins. Liberty in the face of aggression harks back to a
classical Greek ideal, whereas liberty as rights and liberty of the church derive from
Byzantine ideas and institutions. The three ideals build on traditional understand-
ings of the word liberty, occasionally entering into dialogue with these understand-
ings or indeed among themselves. In particular, Byzantine authors imaginatively
combined the economic idea of liberty with those of liberty as freedom from tyranny
and as independence from foreign rule. Similarities in the interpretation of liberty
in Byzantium and in kindred ancient and medieval cultures are obvious. Further sys-
tematic research in comparative historical semantics may be able to yield illuminating
conclusions.
The three political ideals were an uneasy fit. Liberty against foreign rule was the
one ideal of freedom that radiated from court circles during critical historical peri-
ods of warfare against the Latins and the Ottomans. Classically educated authors
also seized on this ideal when arguing against policies and actions that could lead
to submission to Ottoman rule. By contrast, the other two ideals of liberty liberty
as rights and liberty of the church were pitted against claims raised by imperial
authority. The notion of liberty as collective and individual rights opposed the eco-
nomic claims of the central government. Liberty of the church posed a challenge to
the imperial management of church affairs. In the fourteenth and the fifteenth cen-
turies, the slogan of liberty was as much directed against the authority of Constanti-
nople and the emperor as it was articulated at the court with a sense pertaining to the
entire political community.
The three ideals of liberty open a side chapter in the history of Byzantine political
and social thought. Unlike philanthropy, generosity, and equality, liberty was never
a common imperial virtue in kingship literature or an idea describing operational as-
pects of government. From this point of view, it may be considered to be of marginal
importance. Yet this ever-alluring concept was not without a historical significance.
Particularly illuminating is the way it served to further the agendas of individuals,
urban communities, and the church as a corporate body. This political approach to
liberty bears witness once again to the diverse challenges raised by centrifugal forces
and dissident voices in the later centuries of Byzantine history.