Oxford history of the christian church

CHAPTER 6 (c. 1025-1204).

(Note: The division is not entirely satisfactory, but 1204 is at least significant in that it marks the intrusion of the greatly resented Latin hierarchy into Byzantine dioceses.) There is no single detailed work bringing out the contrast between a flourishing intellectual and economic life, the failure to deal with the challenge of the advancing Turk and the encroaching Latin crusaders and the increasing problems of the Church. Schlumberger, op. cit., to the mid-eleventh century and Chalandon on the three Comnenian rulers (1081-1180) reveal nothing of the present ferment of discussion on the nature of Byzantine life in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. F. Chalandon, Les Comnènes . . . I, Alexis Comnène; II, Jean II Comnéne . . . et Manuel I Comnène, 2 vols. (Paris, 1900-13) concentrates on political history and is solid but hardly stimulating, in fact it was said (I think by Diehl, probably by others too) that Chalandon had 'killed off' the Comnenian period as a subject for research for at least a generation or more. The last years before the Fourth Crusade (1180-1204) have more recently been covered by C. M. Brand, Byzantium Confronts the West (Cambridge, Mass., 1968) but very much from the political angle.

The ingredients for a reconsideration of the eleventh and twelfth centuries are now emerging. One constructive introduction to the period would be through P. Lemerle, “Byzance au tournant de son destin,” Cinq études sur le XI^e siècle byzantin (Paris, 1977) and the papers in Travaux et Mémoires,6 (1976), Recherches sur le XI^e siècle. A lively antidote to Chalandon can be found in A. Kazhdan, S tudies on Byzantine Literature of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Cambridge, 1984).

For an introduction to relations between Constantinople, Rome, and the western crusaders see P. Lemerle, L'Orthodoxie byzantine et l'œcuménisme médiéval: Les Origines du 'schisme' des Églises (Bulletin de l'Association Budé, 1965). A reference work on the crusades is the History of the Crusades, gen. ed. K. M. Setton, (1955-, in progress). There is an enormous amount of literature on these topics and there are many other approaches.