I said this: “Ibn al-Bakilani came to no agreement with you; it was Ibn Kunis who made this compact and took a copy of it in the Greek language.” At this the Chamberlain broke out, and asked Ibn Kuinis “Who has authorized this?” to which he answered that neither he nor Ibn al-Bakilani had settled anything, and I withdrew.

Ibn Shahram

A few days later the Chamberlain summoned me and resumed reading the agreement. He paused at a point where it spoke of “what might be settled with Ibn Shahram on the basis of what was contained in the third copy,” and said that this was the one copy, but where were the other two? On referring to this passage I saw the blunder that had been committed in letting this stand, and said: “The meaning of the passage is that the agreement was to be in triplicate, one part to remain with the Byzantine ruler, one to be in Aleppo, and the third in the capital [Baghdad].”

This Ibn Kunis traversed, saying that his instructions had been to note down the exact sense of the agreement, and the Chamberlain said that this copy was the ruling one; that the second copy referred to giving up the fortresses, whilst the third omitted all mention of Aleppo; that the agreement had been signed on the terms agreed upon with Ibn al-Bakilani, and the sole object in sending this copy was to procure the sovereign’s hand and seal thereto.

To which I said: “This cannot be so; my instructions are merely what I have stated as regards Aleppo and the fortresses, in accordance with the agreement which you have seen.” He replied: “Were Bardas [i.e., Skleros] here in force and you had made us all prisoners you could not ask for more than you are asking; and Bardas is, in fact, a prisoner.”….

I replied: “Your supposed case of Bardas being here in force is of no weight, for you are well aware that when Abu Taghlib, who is not on a par with the lowest of ‘Adud al -Daula’s followers, assisted Bardas he foiled the Byzantine sovereigns for seven years; how would it be, then, were ‘Adud al-Daula to assist him with his army?

Read More about Report of his Mission to Constantinople part 17

From this nobility are descended those men whom you style ‘rulers of the world.’ But we Lombards, Saxons, Franks, Lotharingians, Bavarians, Swabians and Burgundians, so despise these fellows that when we are angry with an enemy we can find nothing more insulting to say than -‘You Roman!’ For us in the word Roman is comprehended every form of lowness, timidity, avarice, luxury, falsehood and vice. You say that we are unwarlike and know nothing of horsemanship. Well, if the sins of the Christians merit that you keep this stiff neck, the next war will prove what manner of men you are, and how warlike we.”*

An Arab Ambassador in Constantinople late 10th century

[Adopted from Geanokoplos]

In the late tenth century the most powerful states in Western Eurasia were Byzantium and the Abbasid Empire. These states exchanged embassies constantly. This itenis an extract from the detailed account of an Arab envoy to Constantinople in the late 10th century. His mission to the court of Basil II concerned Bardas Skleros, a claimant to the Byzantine throne who had gone to Baghdad seeking Arab support.

So I proceeded to Constantinople and made my entry after I had been met and most courteously escorted y court officials. I was honourably lodged in the palace of the Kanikleios N’cephorus (the envoy come with me) who stood in favour with the Sovereign. Next I was summoned to the presence of the Chamberlain [i.e., the eunuch Basil], who said: “We are acquainted with the correspondence which bears on your message, but state your views.”

Thereupon I produced the actual agreement, which he inspected and then said: “Was not the question of relinquishing the land-tax on Abu Taghlib’s territory [at Mosul], both past and future, settled with al-Bakilani in accordance with your wishes, and did he not assent to our terms as to restoring the fortresses we had taken, and as to the arrest of Bardas?

Your master accepted this agreement and complied with our wishes, for you have his ratification of the truce under his own hand.” I said that al-Bakilani had not come to any arrangement at all; he replied that he had not left until he had settled the terms of agreement, of which the ratification under the hand of his sovereign was to be forwarded, and that he had previously produced his letter approving the whole of the stipulations. Accordingly I was driven to find some device in order to meet this position.

Read More about The Accession of Alexius and Interfamily Power Struggles part 21

On this same day he ordered me to be his guest. But as he did not think me worthy to be placed above any of his nobles, I sat fifteenth from him and without a table cloth. Not only did no one of my suite sit at table with me; they did not even set eyes upon the house where I was entertained. At the dinner, which was fairly foul and disgusting, washed down with oil after the fashion of drunkards and moistened also with an exceedingly bad fish liquor, the emperor asked me many questions concerning your power, your dominions and your army. My answers were sober and truthful; but be shouted out:”You lie. Your master’s soldiers cannot ride and they do not know how to fight on foot.

Dissolution sobriety panic

The size of their shields, the weight of their cuirasses, the length of their swords, and the heaviness of their helmets, does not allow them to fight either way.” Then with a smile he added: “Their gluttony also prevents them. Their God is their belly, their courage but wind, their bravery drunkenness. Fasting for them means dissolution, sobriety, panic. Nor has your master any force of ships on the sea.

I alone have really stout sailors, and I will attack him with my fleets, destroy his maritime cities and reduce to ashes those which have a river near them. Tell me, how with his small forces will he be able to resist me even on land? His son was there: his wife was there: his Saxons, Swabians, Bavarians and Italians were all there with him: and yet they had not the skill nor the strength to take one little city” that resisted them. How then will they resist me when I come followed by as many forces as there are Corn fields on Gargarus, grapes on Lesbian vine, Waves in the ocean, stars in heaven that shine?”

I wanted to answer and make such a speech in our defence as his boasting deserved; but be would not let me and added this final insult: “You are not Romans but Lombards.” He even then was anxious to say more and waved his hand to secure my Silence, but I was worked up and cried: “History tells us that Romulus, from whom the Romans get their name, was a fratricide born in adultery. He made a place of refuge for himself and received into it insolvent debtors, runaway slaves, murderers and men who deserved death for their crimes. This was the sort of crowd whom he enrolled as citizens and gave them the name of Romans.

Read More about Discover Varna

“It is past seven o’clock,” said Nicephorus “and there is a church procession which I must attend. Let us keep to the business before us. We will give you a reply at some convenient season.”

I think that I shall have as much pleasure in describing this procession as my masters will have in reading of it. A numerous company of tradesmen and low-born persons, collected on this solemn occasion to welcome and honor Nicephorus, lined the sides of the road, like walls, from the palace to Saint Sophia, tricked out with thin little shields and cheap spears.-As an additional scandal, most of the mob assembled in his honor had marched there with bare feet, thinking, I suppose, that thus they would better adorn the sacred procession.

His nobles for their part, who with their master passed through the plebeian and barefoot multitude, were dressed in tunics that were too large for them and were also because of their extreme age full of holes. They would have looked better if they had worn their ordinary clothes. There was not a man among them whose grandfather had owned his tunic when it was new.

More disgusting than ever

No one except Nicephorus wore any jewels or golden ornaments, and the emperor looked more disgusting than ever in the regalia that had been designed to suit the persons of his ancestors. By your life, sires, dearer to me than my own, one of your nobles’ costly robes is worth a hundred or more of these. I was taken to the procession and given a place on a platform near the singers.

As Nicephorus, like some crawling monster, walked along, the singers began to cry out in adulation: “Behold the morning star approaches: the day star rises: in his eyes the sun’s rays are reflected: Nicephorus our prince, the pale death of the Saracens.” And then they cried again: “Long life, long life to our prince Nicephorus. Adore him, ye nations, worship him, bow the neck to his greatness.”

How much more truly might they have sung:-“Come, you miserable burnt-out coal; old woman in your walk, wood-devil in your look; clodhopper, haunter of byres, goat-footed, horned, double-limbed; bristly, wild, rough, barbarian, harsh, hairy, a rebel, a Cappadocian!” So, puffed up by these lying ditties, he entered St. Sophia, his masters the emperors following at a distance and doing him homage on the ground with the kiss of peace. His amour bearer, with an arrow for pen, recorded in the church the era in progress since the beginning of his reign. So those who did not see the ceremony know what era it is.

Read More about Report of his Mission to Constantinople part 32

“But,” said be, “there is one of Adalbert’s vassals here, and he does not acknowledge the truth of this.” “If he denies it,” I replied, “one of my men, at your command, will prove to him to-morrow, in single combat that it is so.” “Well,” said he, “he may, as you declare, have acted justly in this. Explain now why he attacked the borders of our empire with war and conflagration. We were friends and were thinking by marriage to enter into a partnership that would never be broken.”

“The land,” I answered, ” which you say belongs to your empire, is proved by race and language to be part of the kingdom of Italy. The Lombards held it in their power, and Louis, emperor of the Lombards or Franks, freed it from the grip of the Saracens with great slaughter. For seven years also Landulf, prince of Benevento and Capua held it under his control.

Match between King Hugh’s bastard daughter

Nor would it even now have passed from the yoke of slavery to him and his descendants, had not your emperor Romanos bought at a great price the friendship of our King Hugh. It was for this reason also that be made a match between King Hugh’s bastard daughter and his own nephew and namesake. I see now that you think it shows weakness in my master, not generosity, when after winning Italy and Rome he for so many years left them to you.

The friendly partnership, which you say you wished to form by a marriage, we bold to be a fraud and a snare: you ask for a truce, but you have no real reason to want it nor we to grant it. Come, let us clear away all trickeries and speak the plain truth. My master has sent me to you to see if you will give the daughter of the emperor Romanos and the empress Theophano to his son, my master the august emperor Otto.

If you give me your oath that the marriage shall take place, I am to affirm to you under oath that my master in grateful return will observe to do this and this for you. Moreover he has already given you, his brother ruler, the best pledge of friendship by handing over Apulia, which was subject to his rule. I, to whose suggestion you declare this mischief was due, intervened in this matter, and there are as many witnesses to this as there are people in Apulia.”

Read More about Report of his Mission to Constantinople part 29

To him I made this reply: “My master did not invade the city of Rome by force nor as a tyrant; he freed her from a tyrant’s yoke, or rather from the yoke of many tyrants. Was she not ruled by effeminate debauchers, and what is even worse and more shameful, by harlots? Your power, methinks, was fast asleep then; and the power of your predecessors, who in name alone are called emperors of the Romans, while the reality is far different.

If they were powerful, if they were emperors of the Romans, why did they allow Rome to be in the hands of harlots? Were not some of the holy popes banished, others so distressed that they could not procure their daily supplies nor money wherewith to give alms? Did not Adalbert send insulting letters to your predecessors, the emperors Romanos and Constantine? Did he not rob and plunder the churches of the holy apostles? Who of you emperors, led by zeal for God, troubled to punish so heinous a crime and bring back the holy church to its proper state?

Justinian, Valentinian, Theodosius

You neglected it, my master did not. From the ends of the world be rose, and came to Rome, and drove out the ungodly, and gave back to the vicars of the holy apostles all their power and honor. Those who afterwards rose against him and the lord pope, as being violators of their oath, sacrilegious robbers and torturers of their lords the popes, in accordance with the decrees of such Roman emperors as Justinian, Valentinian, Theodosius etc., he slew, beheaded, hanged, or exiled. If he had not done so, he himself would be an impious, unjust, cruel tyrant.

It is a known fact that Berengar and Adalbert became his vassals and received the kingdom of Italy with a golden scepter from his hand and that they promised fealty, under oath in the presence of your servants, men still alive and now dwelling in this city. At the devil’s prompting they perfidiously broke their word, and therefore he justly took their kingdom from them, as being deserters and rebels. You yourself would have done the same to men who had sworn fealty, and then revolted against you.

Read More about The Accession of Alexius and Interfamily Power Struggles part 15

He called you not emperor, which is Basileus in his tongue, but insultingly Rex, which is king in ours. I told him that the thing meant was the same though the word was different, and he then said that I had come not to make peace but to stir up strife. Finally he got up in a rage, and really wishing to insult us received your letter not in his own hand but through an interpreter. He is a man commanding enough in person but feigning humility: whereon if a man lean it will pierce his hand.

Falsehood a Ulysses

On the seventh of June, the sacred day of Pentecost, I was brought before Nicephorus himself in the palace called Stephana, that is, the Crown Palace. He is a monstrosity of a man, a dwarf, fat-headed and with tiny mole’s eyes; disfigured by a short, broad, thick beard half going gray; disgraced by a neck scarcely an inch long; piglike by reason of the big close bristles on his bead; in color an Ethiopian and, as the poet says, “you would not like to meet him in the dark”; a big belly, a lean posterior, very long in the hip considering his short stature, small legs, fair sized heels and feet; dressed in a robe made of fine linen, but old, foul smelling, and discolored by age; shod with Sicyonian slippers; bold of tongue, a fox by nature, in perjury and falsehood a Ulysses.

My lords and august emperors, you always seemed comely to me; but bow much more comely now! Always magnificent; how much more magnificent now! Always mighty; how much more mighty now! Always clement; how much more clement now! Always full of virtues; bow much fuller now! At his left, not on a line with him, but much lower down, sat the two child emperors, once his masters, now his subjects. He began his speech as follows: “It was our duty and our desire to give you a courteous and magnificent reception.

That, however, has been rendered impossible by the impiety of your master, who in the guise of an hostile invader has laid claim to Rome; has robbed Berengar and Adalbert of their kingdom contrary to law and right; has slain some of the Romans by the sword, some by banging, while others he has either blinded or sent into exile; and furthermore has tried to subdue to himself by massacre and conflagration cities belonging to our empire. His wicked attempts have proved unsuccessful, and so he has sent you, the instigator and furtherer of this villainy, under pretence of peace to act comme un espion, that is, as a spy upon us.”

Read More about The Accession of Alexius and Interfamily Power Struggles part 2

And when, after twenty days, I did go away, from there, that man to whom I had given the carpet ordered the ship’s master, after passing a certain promontory, to put me ashore and let me die of hunger. This he did because he bad searched my baggage to see if I had any purple vestments concealed, and, when he had wanted to take one, I had prevented him. Oh you Michaels, you Michaels, where have I ever found so many of you and such ones! For my ‘keeper in Constantinople gave me over to his rival Michael – a bad man to a worse, the worse one to a rascal.

My guide was also called Michael-a simple man, indeed, but one whose simplicity harmed me almost as much as the wickedness of the others. But from the hands of these little Michaels I came into you, O great Michael half hermit, half monk! I tell you and I tell you truly; the bath will not avail you, in which you do assiduously get drank for love of St. John the Baptist! For those who seek God falsely, shall never merit to find Him!

(The manuscript containing Liutprand’s report breaks off here suddenly.)

translated in the appendix of Ernest F. Henderson, , Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages , (London: George Bell, 1910), pp. 440-477 [pagination preserved] The text has been modernized slightly by the changing of archaic verb forms [“thou wert” and so forth], and by the Americanization of the spelling.

Liudprand of Cremona (c.922-c.972): Embassy to Constantinople, 963 excerpts

Liudprand of Cremona (c.922-c.972) made several trips to Constantinople. Embassy to Constantinople discusses his tmission to the Emperor Nicephorus Phocas on behalf of Emperor Otto I.of the Holy Roman Empire.

… On the fourth of June, as I said above, we arrived at Constantinople and waited with our horses in heavy rain outside the Carian gate until five o’clock in the afternoon. At five o’clock Nicephorus ordered us to be admitted on foot, for he did not think us worthy to use the horses with which your clemency bad provided us, and we were escorted to the aforesaid hateful, waterless, draughty stone house. On the sixth of June, which was the Saturday before Pentecost, I was brought before the emperor’s brother Leo, marshal of the court and chancellor; and there we tired ourselves with a fierce argument over your imperial title.

Read More about Mrs Bullfrog Part 2

Leaving Leucate, their, on the nineteenth day before the Calends of January (Dec. 14), and navigating ourselves since, as we said above, our sailors had fled – on the fifteenth (Dec. 18) we came to Corfu; where, before we had left the ship, a certain war-commander met us – Michael by name, a Chersonite, born in the place called Cherson. He was a hoary-headed man, jovial faced, good-natured in his discourse, always pleasantly laughing; but, as it afterwards turned out, a devil at heart – as God showed to me even then by clear enough proofs, if only my mind could then have understood them.

Terrified that Michael

For at the very time when, with a kiss, he was wishing me the peace that he did not bear in his heart, all Corfu-a great island, namely-trembled; and not only once but three times on the same day did it tremble. Four days later, moreover, -namely on the eleventh day before the Calends of January (Dec. 22)-while, sitting at table, I was eating bread with him who was treading me under foot, the sun, ashamed at such an unworthy deed, hid the rays of his light, and, suffering an eclipse, terrified that Michael, but did not change him.

I will explain, then, what I had done to him for the sake of friendship, and what I received from him by way of reward. On my way to Constantinople I gave to his son that most costly shield, oiled and worked with marvelous art, which you, my august masters, gave to me with the other gifts to give to my Greek friends.

Now, returning from Constantinople, I gave the father a most precious vestment; for all of which he gave me the following thanks – Nicephorus had written that, at whatever hour I should come to him, without delay he should place me or a Greek ship and send me to the chamberlain Leo. He did not do this; but detained me twenty days and nourished me not at his own but at my, expense; until an envoy came from the aforesaid chamberlain Leo, who rated him for delaying me. But because he could not bear my reproaches, laments, and sighs, he went away and handed me over to a man so sinful and utterly bad that he did not even permit me to buy supplies until he had received from me a carpet worth a pound of silver.

Read More about The Accession of Alexius and Interfamily Power Struggles part 25

But may what I have written concerning this suffice until, being snatched from the hands of the Greeks, through the grace of God and the prayers of the most holy apostles I may come to you. And then it may not weary me to say what it burdens me now here to write. Now let us return to the matter in hand.

On the eighth day before the Ides of December (Dec. 6) we came to Leucate, where, by the bishop of that place a eunuch, as by other bishops everywhere, we were most unkindly received and treated. In all Greece – I speak truly and do not lie – I found no hospitable bishops. They are at the same time poor and rich; rich in gold, with which they play from full coffers; poor in servants and implements. Alone they seat themselves at their bare little tables, placing before themselves their ship-biscuit; and then not drinking, but sipping their bath-water from a very small glass.

They, themselves sell and buy; they themselves close and open their doors; they are their own stewards, their own ass-drivers, their own “capones”-but ha! I was going to write “caupones,” but the thing itself is so true that I was compelled to write the truth even when I did not wish to-for really, I say, they are “caupones “-that is, eunuchs- which is against the ecclesiastical law; and they are also ” capones,” that is, tavern keepers; which is also against the canons. One can say of them –

Lettuce does end the meal that with lettuce has had its beginning,
Lettuce, which too was wont to close the meals of their fathers.’
[Martial ep. Xiii]

I would consider them happy in their poverty if this were an imitation of the poverty of Christ.

Pay to Nicephorus

But nothing impels them to this save sordid gain and the cursed thirst for gold. But may God spare them! I think they do this because their churches are tributary. For the bishop of Leucate swore to me that every year his church had to pay to Nicephorus a hundred pieces of gold; and in like manner the other churches, more or less, according to their means. How wicked this is is demonstrated by the acts of our most holy father Joseph; for when he, ii; the time of famine, made all Egypt tributary to Pharaoh, he permitted the land of the priests to be free from tribute.

Read More about Report of his Mission to Constantinople part 26