Anna Comnena S Alexiad As A Source For The Second Crusade

Journal of Medieval History 29 (2003) 41–54
www.elsevier.com/locate/jmedhist
Anna Comnena’s Alexiad as a source for the
Second Crusade?
P. Stephenson ∗
University of Wisconsin - Madison, Department of History, 455 North Park Street, Madison, WI
53706, USA
Abstract
This article presents an overview of recent work by Byzantinists on the Alexiad of Anna
Comnena, in particular her account of the First Crusade. It suggests that, since the Alexiad
was composed at the time of the Second Crusade, it reflects the concerns of the mid-twelfth,
not late eleventh century. In particular, Anna’s account of the First Crusade is coloured by a
concern to counter the claims of mid-twelfth-century panegyrical literature produced in praise
of her nephew, Emperor Manuel I Comnenus. Several points addressed in the Alexiad mirror
those in orations delivered by the panegyrist Manganeius Prodromus in praise of Manuel’s
handling of the Second Crusade. Examples from both texts are given in translation.
 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Alexiad; Anna Comnena; First Crusade; Second Crusade; Byzantine panegyric
The Alexiad by Anna Comnena contains the only full Byzantine account of the
First Crusade.1
It is also our principal source for several key episodes during the
∗
Tel.: +1-608-263-1800; fax: +1-608-263-5302.
E-mail address: pstephenson@wisc.edu (P. Stephenson).
1
Alexiad. Annae Comnenae Alexias, pars prior, prolegomena et textus, ed. D.R. Reinsch & A. Kam-
bylis, Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae, 40/1 (Berlin & New York, 2001); Anne Comnène, Alexiade,
ed. B. Leib, 3 vols., Paris (1937–45); English tr. E.R.A. Sewter, The Alexiad of Anna Comnena
(Harmondsworth, 1969). Cited henceforth as: Alexiad, (book, paragraph number); ed. Reinsch & Kambylis
(page number); ed. Leib (page number); trans. Sewter (page number). This should facilitate cross-referenc-
ing between the new and older editions. This paper was written for, and presented at, the Oxford Crusades
Circus at the invitation of Miri Rubin in the academic year 1997–8. At that time I held a British Academy
Postdoctoral fellowship at Keble College. However, I delayed producing a publishable version in the
knowledge that significant new papers on the Alexiad, and the Crusades from eastern perspectives, were
pending. Many have now appeared, which fortunately have supported my central proposition without
0304-4181/03/$ - see front matter  2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0304-4181(02)00056-8

42 P. Stephenson / Journal of Medieval History 29 (2003) 41–54
crusade, notably the siege of Nicaea (modern Iznik in Turkey), and affords us an
alternative perspective on many other incidents recorded by Latin historians. The
value of Anna’s account for our fuller appreciation of the First Crusade has long
been known, and no study of that enterprise is complete without an analysis of the
information she supplies. This paper is not intended primarily to question the value
of much factual information that only Anna provides, although the scepticism of
others is noted. Its intention, rather, is to draw the attention of historians of medieval
western Europe to recent pertinent research by those concerned principally with the
East, and in particular to some Greek verse panegyric concerned with the Second
Crusade. It may also serve as a contribution to the ongoing scholarly discussion of
the mutually antipathetic attitudes and perceptions held by the Crusaders and Byzan-
tines.2
The Alexiad is one of the few Byzantine sources regularly addressed by historians
of medieval western Europe. However, the role played by Byzantium and Byzantine
sources of information for the Crusades get short shrift in mainstream Crusader
scholarship, no doubt because so few Greek sources are available in translation.3
Thus, it has generally fallen to Byzantinists with an interest in the West to bridge
the divide, and to interpret the Alexiad for Latinists. The most radical recent interpret-
ation of the Alexiad has been advanced by James Howard-Johnston, who maintains
that Anna’s contribution to the Alexiad was for the most part as editor of passages
composed by her late husband Nicephorus Bryennius. This would explain, he
charges, why a nun with a philosophical bent should devote so much space to battle
narratives. The reliance on her husband’s notes, Howard-Johnston suggests, also
explains “the exclusion of those long digressions on the geography, customs, monu-
ments, curiosities and history of foreign peoples which convention required of high-
style classicising histories.”4
But the Alexiad was very much a high-style classicising
history, and the account of the First Crusade is presented in a language and manner
which served to obscure much of the ‘factual’ content.5
Anna’s concerns in the composition of the Alexiad, and within it her account of
the First Crusade, have been treated at length as a work of classicising history in
rendering this paper obsolete. In the intervening four years, this paper has benefited from comments by
Elizabeth Jeffreys, Margaret Mullett and Günter Prinzing.
2
Most recently: The Crusades from the perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim world, ed. A. Laiou &
R. Mottahedeh (Washington, D.C., 2001); C. Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic perspectives
(Edinburgh, 1999).
3
A recent collection of articles is a suitable illustration of this neglect: Autour de la première croisade:
actes du Colloque de la Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East: Clermont-Ferrand,
22–25 juin 1995, ed. M. Balard, Byzantina Sorbonensia, 14 (Paris, 1996), appears in a French Byzantine
series, yet none of the 49 papers addresses a Byzantine topic or source.
4
J. Howard-Johnston, ‘Anna Komnene and the Alexiad’, in: Alexios I Komnenos, I: papers, ed. M.
Mullett & D. Smythe, Belfast Byzantine texts and translations, 4.1 (Belfast, 1996), 260–302, at 297.
5
R. Macrides, ‘The pen and the sword: who wrote the Alexiad’, in: Anna Komnene and her times,
ed. T. Gouma-Peterson (New York, 2000), 63–81, refutes Howard-Johnston, demonstrating quite how
classicising Anna was.

43
P. Stephenson / Journal of Medieval History 29 (2003) 41–54
several complementary articles by Ralph-Johannes Lilie and Jonathan Shepard.6
Lilie
has maintained that certain passages in the Alexiad were replaced, distorted or
entirely invented by Anna, whose intention was to make her narrative more exciting
and, indeed, Homeric.7
Shepard has developed this line, suggesting that it was in
Anna’s interests to portray her father as, like Homer’s Odysseus, an unwitting victim
of a series of assaults and challenges as he attempts to steer the ship of state to safe
harbour. Thus, Alexius was no sooner victorious over the Normans than he turned
to confront the Pechenegs. As soon as he had won a great victory over those fierce
steppe nomads, he was obliged to wage war on the nomad Turkomans and the Seljuk
Turks who had penetrated Anatolia. And just as he was making progress in that arena
he was surprised by the massive congregation of ‘barbarian Kelts’, who marched east
with the express intention of capturing Constantinople. The most notorious barbarian
of that evil lot was Bohemond, whom Alexius had confronted first in the Norman
wars of 1081–4, and who reappeared as leader of the Norman contingent in the First
Crusade. Lilie and Shepard have shown conclusively that we cannot merely believe,
but must interpret Anna’s version of the First Crusade.8
Western medievalists would appear to agree with this conclusion. For example,
in his excellent military history of the First Crusade, John France tends to question
or discount much of Anna’s evidence. This follows his earlier, independent study
of the Alexiad, which contains the following valuable insight: “[Anna’s] entire
account of the crusade is coloured by her anxiety to defend her father from the
charge of oath-breaking . . . which was still a living issue at the time she wrote”.9
6
R.-J. Lilie, ‘Der erste Kreuzzug in der Darstellung Anna Komnenes’, in: Varia, vol. II, ed. P. Speck &
R.-J. Lilie, Poikila Byzantina, 6 (Bonn, 1987), 49–148; R.-J. Lilie, ‘Anna Komnene und die Lateiner’,
Byzantinoslavica, 54 (1993), 169–82. Lilie has also offered coverage in a monograph, now in English
translation as: Byzantium and the crusader states 1096–1204, trans. J.C. Morris & J.E. Ridings (Oxford,
1993). J. Shepard, ‘Aspects of Byzantine attitudes and policy towards the West in the tenth and eleventh
centuries’, Byzantinische Forschungen, 13 (1988), 67–118; J. Shepard, ‘When Greek meets Greek: Alexios
Comnenus and Bohemond in 1097–1098’, Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies, 12 (1988), 185–277; J.
Shepard, ‘ “Father” or “scorpion”? Style and substance in Alexios’s diplomacy’, in: Alexios I Komnenos,
I, 68–132; J. Shepard, ‘Cross-purposes: Alexius Comnenus and the First Crusade’, in: The First Crusade:
origins and impact, ed. J. Phillips (Manchester, 1997), 107–29.
7
According to J. Ljubarski, ‘Why is the Alexiad a masterpiece of Byzantine literature’, in: ⌳EIM⍀N.
Studies presented to Lennart Rydén on his sixty-fifth birthday, ed. J.O. Rosenqvist (Uppsala, 1996), 127–
41, at 130, Reinsch and Kambylis were to have noted in their new edition 58 references to the Iliad and
9 to the Odyssey. In fact, the completed indices note 95 references to the Iliad and 30 to the Odyssey:
Annae Comnenae Alexias, pars altera, indices, ed. D.R. Reinsch & A. Kambylis, Corpus Fontium Histor-
iae Byzantinae, 40/2 (Berlin & New York, 2001), 264–5. For further comments: D. Reinsch, ‘Zur literar-
ischen Leistung des Anna Komnene’, in: ⌳EIM⍀N, 113–25; A.R. Dyck, ‘Iliad and Alexiad: Anna Com-
nena’s Homeric reminiscences’, Greek, Roman & Byzantine Studies, 27 (1986), 113–20; Macrides, ‘The
pen and the sword: who wrote the Alexiad’, 68–9, which draws on unpublished suggestions by J. Shepard
that Anna was comparing Alexius implicitly to Odysseus.
8
These conclusions directly contradict the testimony of G. Buckler, Anna Comnena. A study (Oxford,
1929), 456–68.
9
J. France, ‘Anna Comnena, the Alexiad and the First Crusade’, Reading Medieval Studies, 10 (1984),
20–38, 21. See also J. France, Victory in the East. A military history of the First Crusade (Cambridge,
1994).

We do not agree that her entire account is thus coloured, but it is clear that the oaths
were one of Anna’s principal concerns, and among several live issues which gave
focus and direction to her narrative. More pertinently, R.D. Thomas correctly drew
attention to the fact that Anna composed most of her account of her father’s reign
during that of his grandson, her nephew, the emperor Manuel I Comnenus (1143–
80).10
Manuel, of course, was confronted by the Second Crusade, which offered
numerous opportunities for comparison between his behaviour and that of his grand-
father, and we will return to this presently.
A common aim of recent considerations of the Alexiad has been to establish the
correct context for its composition, or more correctly contexts for the compositions
of its various parts.11
This is also our intention, and we will focus only on those
sections which relate directly to the First Crusade, that is the last part of Book 10
and the whole of Book 11. Nevertheless, it is important to note that the Alexiad
consists of 15 books, each of which addresses a topic which follows on in rough
chronological order from the last. Thus the first Crusade is sandwiched between
accounts of the Norman and Pecheneg wars of 1081–1094 and the second Norman
invasion of 1105–7. Each book is, we believe, sufficiently coherent, that it can be
read alone with profit and interest. Indeed, it is even possible that each was presented
or performed individually. Byzantine literature was very much an oral and aural
medium, to be read aloud in groups as well as to oneself. This applies not only to
obvious cases, such as enkomia, panegyrical orations, to which we will turn later,
but also to letters. Ostensibly private missives to concerned friends were written in
a language that required wider appreciation. If the recipient alone might understand
every nuance, an assembled group of friends and acquaintances could wonder
together at the style and erudition displayed in conveying sentiments and, occasion-
ally, information. History was no different in that it was intended for an educated
audience, and, where books were prohibitively expensive, best reached that audience
through public readings. Therefore, there is every reason to suppose Anna’s history
would have been presented in coherent chunks to small gatherings.
The audience for the Alexiad did not enjoy Anna’s work in isolation. While they
may not have enjoyed more than one of her books at a sitting, they would certainly
be familiar with other works produced before and contemporaneously. This demands
that we explore more fully two issues before turning to an analysis of the text itself.
First, the date of the composition of the Alexiad, and particularly the sections dealing
10
R.D. Thomas, ‘Anna Comnena’s account of the First Crusade. History and politics in the reigns of
the emperors Alexius I and Manuel I Comnenus, Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies, 15 (1991), 269–312.
11
Margaret Mullett has recently promised an analysis of the Alexiad “not as a work of the reign of
Alexios but in response to productions of the mid-twelfth century”. M. Mullett, ‘Introduction: Alexios
the enigma’, in: Alexios I Komnenos, I, 1–11, 4–5. Mullett’s full exposition will be included in a second
volume on Alexius, which will also include an English translation of the Mousai, traditionally attributed
to that emperor (but there reassigned to the reign of his son John). For now one should begin with P.
Magdalino, ‘The pen of the aunt: echoes of the mid-twelfth century in the Alexiad’, in: Anna Komnene
and her times, 15–43.

45
with the First Crusade, and secondly, the nature and content of contemporary litera-
ture produced in Constantinople.
The Alexiad was certainly begun after the death of Anna’s husband, Nicephorus
Bryennius, which occurred probably late in 1138. This much is certain even if we
set aside the suggestion that he was largely responsible for the text. Anna died poss-
ibly as early as 1153, but probably in, or shortly before, 1155 when a funeral laud-
ation was delivered by one George Tornikes, leaving at least a 15-year period for
the production of the history in its finished form. If Howard-Johnston is right in
believing she inherited a vast corpus of written material, then the process of organis-
ation and editing would have taken significantly less time than accumulating infor-
mation and composing from scratch. There is no reason to believe that it would have
taken Anna the whole 15-year period to complete her project. The best evidence for
dating the Alexiad as a whole is presented by Anna herself. In Book 14 she informs
us that at the time of writing (that book) the ruling emperor was the third since her
father.12
Counting inclusively, as Byzantines did, this was the reign of Manuel, who
acceeded in 1143. Anna further informs us that she had been in her nunnery for 30
years. She was thus banished at the accession of her brother John II, against whom
she had plotted, in 1118.13
So Book 14 at least was written in, or around 1148. There
is every reason to believe that Books 10 and 11 were composed at the same time.
Again Anna is the source of this suggestion.
Before she gives us dating clues, Anna offers a reason for writing the Alexiad.
She did so, she states, because “All men flatter the current ruler, but nobody makes
the slightest attempt to praise the departed”.14
She implies that in the welter of flattery
for the current emperor, Manuel, her father was being ignored or even disparaged.
But who was responsible for this ‘flattery’? She is not referring simply to the idle
words of courtiers and hangers-on, but also to the elaborately articulated enkomia
performed by court orators.15
We are extremely fortunate to have a corpus of this
panegyric, composed at exactly this time (between 1143 and 1155) by the so-called
‘Manganeius’ Prodromus’.16
This minor court orator found favour in the thirteenth century — by his own
12
Alexiad, XIV, vii; ed. Reinsch & Kambylis, 451–2; ed. Leib, III, 175; trans. Sewter, 460.
13
P. Magdalino, The empire of Manuel I Komnenos, 1143–1180 (Cambridge, 1993), 207–8.
14
Alexiad, XIV, vii; ed. Reinsch & Kambylis, 452; ed. Leib, III, 175; trans. Sewter, 460.
15
Magdalino, ‘The pen of the aunt’, 22: “It is surely significant that the long passage in which she
describes the sources and composition of her work, and refers to her treatment by her brother and nephew,
was written in the year 1148, the year after “Manganeios Prodromos”, and no doubt others, had compared
Alexios’s handling of the First Crusade with Manuel’s handling of the Second Crusade.” Magdalino, The
empire of Manuel I Komnenos, 331–56, sets out the broader context of rhetorical production and perform-
ance.
16
The name is a modern invention, reflecting the facts that the imitator ended his life in the monastery
of the Mangana in Constantinople, and that his poems imitate, often poorly, the style of his contemporary
Theodore Prodromus. We are very grateful to Elizabeth and Michael Jeffreys for permission to use parts
of their working edition and translation of Manganeius’ orations. On poems 20 and 24, and for substantial
quotations in Greek, see now E. Jeffreys & M. Jeffreys, ‘ “The wild beast from the West”: immediate
literary reactions in Byzantium to the Second Crusade’, in: The Crusades from the perspective of Byzan-
tium and the Muslim world, 101–16.

account more than he enjoyed in his own day – when some 18 000 lines of his
verse were copied into the manuscript now known as Marcianus Graecus XI.22, a
compendium of twelfth-century court rhetoric. Among these poems, two, numbers
20 and 24, are concerned expressly and exclusively with the Second Crusade.17
Poem
20 begins in the middle of a speech detailing the passage through Thrace of the
German army under Conrad III. The earliest part, which may not be very long, has
been lost. However, the poem is still among Manganeius’ longest. It goes on to deal
with the arrival of the crusaders before Constantinople (II. 1–266), detailing the tragic
flash flood at Choirobacchoi (ll. 131 ff.), Conrad’s arrival at Pikridion, a suburb of
the Queen of Cities, and his crossing the Bosphorus (ll. 287–346). The second half
of the poem consists of praise for the emperor Manuel by the poet as poet (ll. 347–
473), and by the poet in the guise of the city of Constantinople (ll. 474–642). Poem
24, which is much shorter, is entitled ‘From the city to the emperor when the kings
of Alamania and Frangia arrived’. The city is made to thank and extol Manuel for
the trouble he has taken to restore her to her former beauty, magnifying and enhanc-
ing her, and protecting her by the efficient handling of the barbarian armies from
the West: the Second Crusade, referred to consistently as “The Kings”.18
At one
point the city announces that those “wild beasts [had] heard that my teeth had fallen
out . . . but the young Manuel showed that I, the old woman, am young with all
my teeth”. The reference is clearly to the emperor’s systematic renovations of the
city’s land walls in preparation for the arrival of the crusade, and we will return to
this below. These walls were bedecked with banners and flags: the blooms — white
lilies, red roses, golden crocuses and sky-blue hyacinths — alluded to in subsequent
lines (24.40–1).
Among his many and diverse means for praising Manuel’s handling of the leaders
of the Second Crusade, Manganeius draws a direct comparison between the emperor
and his predecessors. Thus, in poem 20, Manuel is addressed as “a brilliant ray from
your father himself, so great that it may be said in reverse that the former shines
forth from the latter, and the forebears are illuminated rather by the child”. Mangane-
ius then becomes more specific, and does exactly what Anna complained of in the
aforementioned exposition: “Your grandfather’s exploits against the Latins” he
declares, “I shall examine in comparison with your recent deeds” (20.405–6). He
does, and returns to the theme in poem 24, where Manuel is a new Alexander the
Great, ‘Christian and greater, [who] terrified the Latins, Kelts and Czechs, greater
than all your predecessors’ (24.189–90). Which predecessors are later identified
more specifically:
The virtues, advances and deeds of the fathers/ and the great achievements of
ancestors were for their/ children an honour, and a reason for boasting and glory./
But the former pattern has today been reversed,/ and your majesty becomes an
addition to the renown/ of the former emperors, your grandfather and father./ For
17
Jeffreys & Jeffreys, ‘ “The wild beast from the West” ’, 102–3, for fuller summaries of the poems.
18
Jeffreys & Jeffreys, ‘ “The wild beast from the West” ’, 115.

47
their half-finished victories against the Latins/ have been completely rounded by
your total victory;/ and to their crowns and glories you have added/ a much more
brilliant crown and glory. (24.257–66)
Manuel finished what his father, and more particularly his grandfather had started.
In fact, the ‘total victory’ was far from glorious. Both Poems 20 and 24 must have
been delivered shortly after the crusaders had passed into Asia Minor, for otherwise
Manganeius would have referred at length to the second reception of Conrad, his
transportation to Palestine on a Byzantine ship, and the ultimate failure of his
enterprise. But the relevant point is that Alexius’ achievements were being maligned
to bolster even the flimsiest advance by Manuel. Manganeius’ account can only have
been the tip of the iceberg when it came to panegyrical accounts of this episode.
Elsewhere he complains that his work is sometimes never heard, and lists other woes
of being the third- or fourth-string orator at a major celebration or ceremony. We
can surely conclude that he was one of many who praised the current ruler by draw-
ing flattering comparisons between his handling of the Second Crusade and his
grandfather’s handling of the First, just as Anna complained.
We have suggested elsewhere that this method is also employed by Manuel’s
biographer, John Cinnamus, who contrasts his subject’s achievements against the
Hungarians with the supposedly inadequate handling of affairs in that arena by John
II.19
His account is contradicted at many points by a second historian, Nicetas Choni-
ates, who must have had access to similar sources, and may even have written in
part to refute some of Cinnamus’ claims. It is important to remember that enkomia
were produced very soon after the events they purported to celebrate, and thus were
an excellent source for later historians. Cinnamus was concerned to praise Manuel,
and his tone is very similar to that of much panegyric. Choniates wrote later still,
in the aftermath of 1204, and began to identify flaws in Manuel’s dealings with the
West which he considered to be the background to the sack of Constantinople. Anna,
writing before both, and outside Constantinople, was well aware of the claims of
Manuel’s panegyrists.20
She addressed herself to refuting them, and to defending her
father against charges levelled at his dealings with the ‘Kelts and Latins’ a half-
century earlier. This suggests that we should further explore quite how closely her
concerns mirrored the themes and motifs employed by those involved in the represen-
tation of the Second Crusade, and how far this may have coloured her history, in
her words her “true history”, of the First Crusade.
Anna employs three characterisations of the crusaders: 1. All Latins were bar-
barians, and as such greedy and fickle; 2. All crusaders had as their true motivation
the capture of Constantinople; 3. Adherents of the Latin Church were heretics, and
their rites verged on Judaism, particularly their use of unleavened bread. These are
all themes that we find in panegyric composed at the time of the Second Crusade,
19
P. Stephenson, ‘John Cinnamus, John II Comnenus, and the Hungarian campaign of 1127–1129’,
Byzantion, 66 (1996), 177–87.
20
Indeed, on different occasions the same panegyrists addressed their works directly to Anna. See
Magdalino, The empire of Manuel I Komnenos, 341–2.

and we will explore each in turn. First the notion that the crusaders were barbarians,
which is apparent from Anna’s notorious first reference to the First Crusade:
[Alexius] had no time to relax before he heard a rumour that countless Frankish
armies were approaching. He dreaded their arrival, knowing as he did their uncon-
trollable passion, their erratic character and their irresolution, not to mention the
other peculiar traits of the Kelt, with their inevitable consequences: their greed
for money, for example, which always led them, it seemed, to break their own
agreements without scruple for any chance reason . . . What actually happened
was more far-reaching and terrible than rumour suggested, for the whole of the
West and all the barbarian people who lived between the Adriatic and the straits of
Gibraltar migrated en masse and with their whole families to Asia from Europe.21
For Anna the Franks were Kelts, an ancient people from the West, and barbarians.
Manganeius uses both terms to refer to the participants of the Second Crusade (Kelts:
24.120,24.190; barbarians: 20.14, 20.143, 24.143). Furthermore, they were the most
fickle of barbarians, and “unusually greedy for wealth”. Alexius knew this, and
rewarded them greatly, “stuffing their jaws with money”. According to Manganeius,
Manuel defeated the “Latins, Kelts and Czechs . . . by wisdom and constraining gifts
which are rich, luxurious, imperial and magnificent” (24.190–3). Jonathan Shepard
emphasised Anna’s adverse characterisation of the Franks.22
He also noted that Anna
portrays them in the same manner that she has already employed to describe the
Pechenegs, fierce steppe nomads who had invaded the imperial lands between the
lower Danube and Balkan mountains. The Pechenegs, also, were fickle, unable to
keep to treaties they had agreed, and greedy for imperial wealth. Just as Anna refers
to the Franks consistently as Kelts, so she refers to the Pechenegs most often as
Scythians. And Scythians occur also in Manganeius (20.336). But we must beware
of reading too much into these general similarities. Anna was not bound only by
the concerns of the mid-twelfth century, but also by the conventions of the genre in
which she was working. Manganeius was bound similarly, but by different con-
straints.
As a panegyrist Manganeius was concerned primarily with presenting those being
praised in a certain manner, and saw mere historical events as opportunities to allude
to models and draw from a corpus of imagery and motifs that were familiar to his
audience, but are only now being deciphered by scholars. The forthcoming edition
and translation of the enkomia of Manganeius Prodromus by Elizabeth and Michael
Jeffreys will contain an appendix of key words and motifs. The barbarity of the non-
Byzantine was a topos, and one to be developed with many and frequent allusions
to his lack of humanity (by animal metaphors) and refusal to observe written laws
(the breaking of treaties). Anna, as an historian, attributed greater import to recording
21
Alexiad, X, v; ed. Reinsch & Kambylis, 296–7; ed. Leib, II, 206–7; trans. Sewter, 308–9.
22
Shepard, “Aspects of Byzantine attitudes and policy towards the West”, 96; contra Buckler, Anna
Comnena, 459: “On the whole it is remarkable that Anna should have been so little prejudiced rather
than so much . . . ”.

49
events in the correct order — if not always the most appropriate context — and, for
the sake of a better term, accurately. But she was also obliged by the conventions
of the genre of historiography to compose in Attic Greek, which was not the language
spoken by her contemporaries.23
In their desire to demonstrate erudition and manipu-
late a dead language historians of the eleventh and twelfth centuries were prone to
refer to contemporary peoples with ancient ethnonyms. This custom was noted by
Alexander Kazhdan, who maintained that ethnic nomenclature in this period was
“woefully anachronistic, . . . Strabo’s terms were transmitted from generation to
generation without revision”.24
Thus, for writers of both history and court panegyric,
the first principle in selecting an appropriate ethnonym was not contemporary accu-
racy, but literary style and the demonstration of erudition.
The literature that provided authors of the eleventh and twelfth centuries with their
language and models also gave them a way of seeing the non-Greek world. For those
imbued with classical learning everything that was not Greek was barbarian. The
notion of the barbarian was an invention of fifth-century Athens, and was the result
of conflicts with Persia and of the Peloponnesian war.25
The barbarian was the uni-
versal anti-Greek against whom Hellenic culture was defined. The two identities
were polarities and together were universal: all that was Greek was civilized; all that
was barbarian was uncivilized. Therefore, according to the classicising tradition of
historiography within which Anna composed, the Franks were Kelts, and as non-
Greeks they were barbarians. Her use of the term barbarian is thus not peculiarly
noteworthy. It is familiar in all Byzantine accounts of foreign peoples, and cannot
be regarded as peculiar to the circumstances of the crusades, nor as a particular slight
against Latin Christians. So, we must beware of reading too much into the portrayal
of the Franks as barbarians, and certainly should not consider it a reaction to the
Franks’ portrayal of the Byzantines as effeminate and heretical Greeks.
What, then, should we make of Anna’s second accusation against the crusaders,
regarding their true intentions?
Peter [the Hermit] had in the beginning undertaken his great journey to worship
at the Holy Sepulchre, but the others (and in particular Bohemond) cherished their
old grudge against Alexius … They were all of one mind and in order to fulfil
their dream of taking Constantinople they adopted a common policy. I have often
referred to that already: to all appearances they were on pilgrimage to Jerusalem;
in reality they planned to dethrone Alexius and seize the capital.26
23
C. Mango, Byzantine literature as a distorting mirror. An inaugural lecture delivered before the
University of Oxford on 21 May 1974 (Oxford, 1975); ‘Historiography’, Oxford dictionary of Byzantium,
ed. A. Kazhdan et al., 3 vols. (Oxford, 1991), II, 937–8.
24
A.P. Kazhdan & Anne Wharton Epstein, Change in Byzantine culture in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1985), 68.
25
E. Hall, Inventing the barbarian: Greek self-definition through tragedy (Oxford, 1989). See also P.
Stephenson, ‘The Byzantine conception of otherness after the annexation of Bulgaria (1018)’, in: Strangers
to themselves: the Byzantine outsider, ed. D. Smythe (Aldershot, 2000), 245–57.
26
Alexiad, X. ix; ed. Reinsch & Kambylis, 309; ed. Leib, II, 220–1; trans. Sewter, 319.

Once again, and in far greater detail, we have a coincidence between Anna’s account
of the First Crusade, and the portrayal of the intentions of the leaders of the Second
Crusade by Manganeius Prodromus. Poem 20 begins with Conrad III pondering how
he would impose his authority within the city — we will return to this shortly —
and thus set out against “the new Jerusalem” (20.19). The flash flood which swept
through the Germans’ camp as they approached Constantinople is portrayed as divine
intervention to prevent their secret plans to attack the city.27
But was Manganeius’
account all bluster, or did the emperor Manuel I truly fear for his control of Con-
stantinople?
First we must note that every ‘barbarian’ people is suspected and accused of har-
bouring intentions of seizing the Queen of Cities. For example, the Tsar of the Bulga-
rians, Symeon, who ruled between c. 894 and 927, was consistently accused of desir-
ing to set himself on the imperial throne. Nevertheless, fears often expressed can
still often be felt. As we have noted, the whole of poem 24 was performed as if the
city of Constantinople were speaking, and thanking Manuel for restoring her ramparts
the better to defend her against the barbarians. These repairs actually took place,
and one can see evidence for some of the restorations today in Istanbul. Towards
their northern limit, the section of the Theodosian land walls adjoining the thirteenth-
century hunting lodge complex known today as Tekfur Sarayı, which is adjacent to
the twelfth-century Palace of Blachernae, show signs of twelfth-century restoration.
The rebuilt walls have features similar to other fortifications erected during Manuel’s
reign, for example the use of irregular stone courses and antique spolia, and the use
of triple bands of flat red bricks to provide a level surface for higher levels. This
technique is found at a second, contemporary fortification at Hieron of the Bosphorus
north-east of Constantinople, and it is likely that the latter was built at the same
time, and intended as a command post to monitor and police the passage of crusaders
across to Asia.28
So, Manganeius’ evocation of Byzantine concerns appears to reflect
very real fears felt within the city, which were to some extent quelled by the
emperor’s restoration of the northern land walls.
Returning to Anna’s account of the First Crusade, we cannot dismiss the notion
that the inhabitants of Constantinople were fearful when confronted by the first waves
of crusaders in 1096 and 1097, particularly when they were encamped outside Blach-
ernae and threatened the gate there. But we have no similar evidence that Alexius
undertook extensive repairs of the city’s fortifications. Anna’s account was composed
when the Second Crusade had been confronted and deflected from the same per-
ceived purpose, and this must have influenced her, even if simply in her desire to
give priority and precedence to her father’s handling of the new threat, which her
nephew merely reproduced. Chief among these were efforts to appease the crusaders,
27
There are separate accounts of this event by Otto of Freising and the Byzantine historians John
Cinnamus and Nicetas Chonates. For a fuller exposition, see P. Stephenson, Byzantium’s Balkan frontier:
a political study of the northern Balkans, 900–1204 (Cambridge, 2000), 218–22. See also S. Bagge, ‘Ideas
and narrative in Otto of Freising’s Gesta Frederici’, Journal of Medieval History, 22 (1996), 345–77,
at 355.
28
C. Foss & D. Winfield, Byzantine fortifications: an introduction (Pretoria, 1986), 145–50.

51
to secure their favour and loyalty by the exaction of oaths and by giving gifts, and
to move them swiftly away from Constantinople and into Asia.
Incidentally, there is documentary proof that Manuel was well aware of the con-
ditions imposed by Alexius on the participants in the First Crusade, and sought to
reproduce them even before the crusaders set out. Two letters from the emperor to
Pope Eugenius despatched in August 1146 and March 1147 demand that the pilgrims
swear the same oath to him as their predecessors had to his grandfather.29
They
further demand that the pope appoint a legate to accompany the crusade, as Adhemar
of Le Puy had accompanied the First Crusade, to ensure that they kept their vows.
This latter point is of great significance, for Anna consistently omits all mention of
the papal role in calling the First Crusade, and fails to mention Adhemar in her
history, attributing his deeds to others. It is not feasible to suggest that she did not
have this information to hand, and we must suppose that she omits it deliberately.
In this way she suggests that Alexius had no foreknowledge of the pope’s role in
the crusade. This was only one implicit device that Anna employed to diminish the
spiritual side of the crusade. More explicit were her attempts to disparage the Latin
clergy and the practices of Latin Christians in general. On the peculiar and misguided
practices of the Latin Christians, Anna states the following:
The Latin customs with regard to priests differ from ours. We are bidden by canon
law and the teaching of the Gospel “Touch not, complain not, attack not — for
thou art consecrated.” But the Latin barbarian will at the same time handle sacred
objects, fasten a shield to his left arm and grasp a spear in his right. He will
communicate the Blood and Body of Christ and meanwhile gaze on bloodshed
and become himself a “man of blood”, as David says in the psalm.30
Clearly Anna intends to draw an unfavourable comparison between the behaviour
of Latin priests and their Orthodox counterparts. The former not only accompanied
the Latin knights on their armed pilgrimage, but also bore arms. They not only
performed holy communion, and thus transformed wine into the Blood of Christ,
but spilt the blood of men.
The First Crusade was not the first time that the Byzantines had confronted the
issue of clergy participating in warfare. However, the Orthodox Church had ruled
on the issue, and those whose hands had been stained with blood were ineligible to
administer the sacrament. A synod had been held in Constantinople during the reign
of Nicephorus I Phocas (963–9), who had requested that his troops who fell in battle
against the infidel be accorded the status of martyrs. At this gathering, the twelfth-
century canonist Theodore Balsamon later noted, several Byzantine priests, even
bishops, “confessed that they had fought with the enemy and killed many of them”.
Therefore, the synod “desired that they no longer exercised the priesthood”. The
29
V. Grumel, ‘Au seuil de la IIe
Croisade: deux letters de Manuel Comnène au pape’, Revue des
études byzantines, 3 (1945), 143–67; P. Lemerle, ‘Byzance et la Croisade’, in: Relazioni del X Congresso
Internazionale di Scienze Storiche, vol. III: Storia del Medievo (Florence, 1955), 595–620.
30
Alexiad, X, viii; ed. Reinsch & Kambylis, 306–7; ed. Leib, II, 218; trans. Sewter, 317.

synod went further, drawing attention to the canons of St. Basil of Caesarea.31
His
thirteenth canon translates thus: “Our fathers did not reckon killings in wars to be
among murders, it seems to me, giving pardon to those who defended on behalf of
chastity and piety, but perhaps it is to be well advised that those whose hands are
not clean be prohibited from communion alone for three years.”32
There is no evi-
dence that this advice, which, as a second twelfth-century canonist Zonaras noted
did not amount to legislation, was ever enforced. Indeed, it was argued by Balsamon
that if it were “soldiers who are engrossed in successive wars and slaying of the
enemy would never partake of the divine sanctified elements”.33
Not only did Latin clergy continue in their sacred duties with blood-stained hands,
they might even use the consecrated elements as missiles. Anna comments thus on
a Latin priest who made war on a Byzantine general, Marianus, with maza, barley
bread:
The polemarch, for he was more than a priest, was far from sated with battle,
although he had exhausted his stones and arrows . . . and was ready to use anything
at hand, and when he found a sack full of loaves of barley bread (maza), he threw
them like stones as he took them from the sack. It was as if he were officiating
at a ceremony or service, turning war into the solemnisation of sacred rites.34
The association of the barley bread and the Host, the Body of Christ, as an element
of the sacrament is made explicitly. Anna’s choice of terms may also hint at the
inferiority of the Latin rite, for maza is inferior to artos, wheaten bread, which is
the term used for the leavened bread used in the Orthodox sacrament. The most
common concern among Orthodox theologians in the period when Anna was writing
was the use by the Latin Church of unleavened bread, azyma. Indeed the importance
of use of azyma concerned Byzantine theologians far more than the Latin belief in
the double procession of the Holy Spirit, and the incorporation of the filioque clause
in the Nicene Creed.35
It should by now come as no surprise that Manganeius Pro-
31
Ioannis Scylitzae synopsis historiarum, ed. I. Thurn, Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae, 5 (Berlin,
1973), 274.
32
Saint Basile, Letters, ed. Y. Courtonne (Paris, 1961), II, 130; ep.188,13.
33
Zonaras’ and Balsamon’s interest in the decision reflects an increased awareness in Byzantium in
the mid-twelfth century of the Latin notion of holy war, which Byzantine thought continued to reject.
For analysis and references, see P. Viscuso, ‘Christian participation in warfare: a Byzantine view’, in:
Peace and war in Byzantium. Essays in honor of George T. Dennis, S.J., ed. T.S. Miller & J. Nesbitt
(Washington, D.C., 1995), 33–40. See now also T. Kolbaba, ‘Fighting for Christianity: holy war in the
Byzantine Empire’, Byzantion, 68 (1998), 194–221. Also G. Dennis, ‘Defenders of the Christian people:
holy war in Byzantium’, in: The Crusades from the perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim world, 31–
40, which presents a starkly contrasting view to the monographic analysis by A. Kolia-Dermitzaki, O
vizantinos “hieros polemos” [Byzantine holy war], Istorikes Monographies, 10 (Athens, 1991).
34
Alexiad, X, vii; ed. Reinsch & Kambylis, 307–8; ed. Leib, II, 219; trans. Sewter, 318.
35
T. Kolbaba, ‘Byzantine perceptions of Latin religious “errors”: themes and changes from 850 to
1350’, in: The Crusades from the perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim world, 117–44. These themes
have also been developed in Kolbaba’s recent book: The Byzantine lists. Errors of the Latins
(Chicago, 2000).

53
dromus also demonstrates a keen interest in the crusaders’ bread. Thus Poem 20
begins with Conrad III announcing that once he has captured Constantinople, he
“will establish on the throne one of [his] own tongue: a bishop according to the
Roman rite who will make the lawful sacrifice with unleavened bread” (20.1–3).
Manganeius returns to the bread shortly after, and speaking for himself opines: “For
he who refuses to sacrifice leavened bread (artos) to God prevents bread from being
offered to Him; and again he who prevents priests from sacrificing the artos both
slays them and worships the Law”. It is clear from the context and later comments
that the panegyrist is seeking to associate Conrad with Jewish practices, where
unleavened bread was first used, and question his Christianity.36
Anna was not above
such tactics also, and we must regard the episode of the priest and Marianus as her
own invention, or at least a suitably refined vignette intended to reflect contemporary
concerns, that is concerns in 1147–8, and not necessarily those of 1096–1102.
So what was Anna hoping to achieve by her innuendo and invention? In Thomas’
article of 1991, although it shows no knowledge of Manganeius and the common
themes in Anna’s history and mid-twelfth-century enkomia, attention is drawn to the
context of Anna’s composition, and to her animosity towards her nephew, the reign-
ing emperor Manuel I. The article highlighted the degree of fraternization that, by
Manuel’s urging, took place between eastern and western Christians (particularly the
Franks) during the passage of the Second Crusade. It noted that “On the feast day
of St. Denis, Manuel sent a group of selected clergy to Louis [VII]’s camp where
they made a favourable impression . . . through their chanting and singing; the cru-
saders being particularly moved by the melodious singing of the castrati.” It noted
also that this form of communality was anathema to certain groups within Byzantium,
and Anna was among them. Thus the context for the production of her work was
the debate over possible Church union with Manuel as the single, recognised Chris-
tian emperor in full communion with the pope. Here then, we meet a serious omission
from Anna’s account of the First Crusade, to place alongside her failure to mention
the role of the papal legate Adhemar of Le Puy. That is, she fails to record Alexius’
offers of Church union to the pope in the years prior to the calling of the First
Crusade. This omission has often been noted, but its significance may be highlighted
in the context we have here drawn. We cannot, of course, state certainly whether
Anna deliberately failed to mention her father’s offer, even as she condemned her
nephew’s, or whether she was unaware of the negotiations. However, the former
seems far more likely.
It is perhaps not surprising that Anna would be implacably opposed to her
nephew’s efforts to appease the Latins, given her loathing for Manuel, nor that she
would make every effort in her history to appeal to an audience who might feel
similarly towards their emperor and the crusaders. It is also not surprising that she
should make full use of themes which concerned contemporary panegyrists, among
them Manganeius, whose poems were written to praise Manuel. Indeed, it is quite
possible that Anna’s history was produced in order to refute the implicit and explicit
36
Jeffreys & Jeffreys, ‘ “The wild beast from the West” ’, 113.

attacks on Alexius I’s character and record by Manuel’s panegyrists. To prove this
would require much more reading between the lines of her text. For example, a fuller
analysis of her treatment of the Normans, who re-emerged as the eastern empire’s
arch enemy in 1147, would complement Shepard’s treatment of Alexius’ alter ego,
Bohemond. As we indicated at the start of this paper, this task is being undertaken
by others, most notably Margaret Mullett. But we may conclude provisionally that
Anna’s concerns in 1147–8, which were not necessarily those of her father or his
subjects at the end of the eleventh century, coloured her account of the First Crusade
and her portrayal of the crusaders. In the past 20 years it has become clear that the
Alexiad may not provide wholly reliable ‘factual’ information for the First Crusade.
It is now becoming clear that the Alexiad should be considered a source of the first
order for exploring contrasting Byzantine attitudes and politics at the time of the
Second Crusade.
Paul Stephenson is John W. and Jeanne M. Rowe Professor of Byzantine history at the University of Wiscon-
sin – Madison, and research associate in Byzantine studies at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection,
Trustees for Harvard University. He is author of Byzantium’s Balkan Frontier. A political study of the northern
Balkans, 900–1204 (Cambridge University Press, 2000), and the forthcoming monograph The legend of Basil
the Bulgar-slayer (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

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