The 11th century was a time of strength and stagnation for the Byzantine Empire. After the great victories of the legendary Emperor Basil II, what followed was a series of mediocre emperors who could not hope to reach Basil II’s heights of greatness. Despite this, the Empire continued to gather territory, especially on the edges of the Empire but it would take just one battle for that to greatly increase the problems that the empire had been ignoring for the greater part of 2 centuries. That battle was the Battle of Manzikert that occurred in 1071 AD between Emperor Romanos IV and Alp Arslan a Seijuk sultan.
Many historians recently have tried to downplay the importance of the battle and I can see why. In the past, history used to focus entirely on set piece battles as being the reason one empire was lost and the other was gained. However, it is important to remember what exactly was gained by the Sultan Alp Arslan’s victory over Romanos IV. The Battle of Manzikert was among one of the most important victories in the history of Asia, especially among a nomadic tribe of Muslim warriors. We had the tottering empire of the Byzantines having to deal with the fact that it was not all invincible and that new rivals were coming up to take its place.
The defeat of the Byzantines proved to have many important effects that change the course of history. First, there would be a power vacuum in the Byzantine power structure with the capture of the Emperor Romanos IV. The government had always been somewhat unstable times but had managed to pull itself from the brink multiple times. The most prominent of these times were the Islamic invasions of the 7th century. Even though Heraclius had managed to lose control of the wealthy provinces, he managed to create the foundation for a state to survive the incoming onslaught of Muslims that were swarming from Arabia. This time however, the Byzantine Empire was falling apart at the seams. There were no great emperors ready to step in and save the empire. Only the titanic efforts of the Alexios Kommenos, managed to the save the empire from disaster. This would be beautifully illustrated by his daughter, Anna Kommena, in her excellent book, the Alexiad.
The second reason for the importance of this battle is that it resulted in the Turkification of the Anatolian plateau. For thousands of years, this had been a place that had been Greek. Now it was turning Turkish due to the Turkish migrations that were occurring. The Turkification of the Anatolian plateau is an important dividing point in the history of the region. Previously, Anatolia was particularly famous for its Greek speaking population and was home to several important cities, such as Ephesus and Pergamon. It was this section of Asia that was able to put a fight against the Romans. This area had been dominated by Greeks for generations. The aristocracy of this region had been very important for the welfare of the empire, especially in economics and military. Its conquest by the Seijuk Turks would mean that the Byzantine Empire would become more focused on its Balkan and Greek provinces for recruitment of soldiers and bureaucrats.
Thirdly, the Byzantine state would see its economy start to become more dependent on the Italian city states like Venice and Genoa. The loss of Anatolia as a part of the imperial economy made the Byzantines look for other avenues to supply their state with money. This meant encouraging the development of lucrative trade deals that gave these city states a greater amount of autonomy in the trading ports of Constantinople. This meant the Byzantine economy was essentially being outsourced to wealthy merchants in the quarters of the great city. This would prove to be detrimental to the Byzantine Empire, as it would have to rely heavily on foreigners for its economy and defense.
Another important point that tends to get overlooked is that the Battle of Manzikert occurred at the same time that the Byzantines were defeated by the Normans in Southern Italy, resulting in their holdings being overrun by the Northern European warriors. This represented an important moment as the Byzantines were getting defeated by governments that were more militaristic than theirs. Southern Italy had been a stronghold of the Byzantines for centuries. With its loss to the Normans, the empire began losing opportunities for economic growth and development. The Normans would even take opportunities to invade the Byzantine Empire on multiple occasions in the 11th century and 12th century.
Most importantly though, the Battle of Manzikert began the process of the Latin West eclipsing the Greek East in political importance. Previously, while the Carolingians were not a small empire, their economy was still small compared to that the Byzantines. They did not have the influence that the Byzantines had on Christians in the Western world. Without the strength of the Byzantine state holding sway, the Byzantines would sink into a pit of irrelevancy. The Latin West would become more and more prosperous over time and the Byzantines would left fending the encroaching powers of the rising Ottoman sultanate.
The Byzantine Empire after 1071 would not be the same afterwards. While the Komnenian dynasty would be able to regain some degree of strength, but it wouldn’t be able to maintain its outwardly appearance of sophistication without competent warrior emperors. Once the Byzantines began having dynastic troubles in 1180s, the Byzantine Empire was at the mercy of the growing power of the Latin West.
The Battle of Manzikert was quite consequential for the Byzantine Empire and it resulted in the Latin West eventually surpassing the Greek-speaking East. Though the battle itself did not result in this outcome becoming the case quickly, it did occur during a time when the Byzantine Empire was in a state of decline. After 1071, the Empire no longer had the resources or the manpower to commit to reconquering its lost territories. At this point, the Latin West became the center of Christendom and lead the way towards the renaissance and become the true heirs of Rome during the Renaissance.
Byzantine-Empire.com 