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Surveying the Aspect of the Medieval West Anatolian Town


Jason T. Roche Available online: 14 Dec 2010

To cite this article: Jason T. Roche (2010): Surveying the Aspect of the Medieval West Anatolian Town, Al-Masaq, 22:3, 249-257 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09503110.2010.522384

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Al-Masa q, Vol. 22, No. 3, December 2010

Surveying the Aspect of the Medieval West Anatolian Town

JASON T. ROCHE

ABSTRACT

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The aim of this short article is modest: it means to fill a lacuna in scholarly output by offering a concise and accessible survey of the physical structure of the typical west Anatolian town in the High Middle Ages. Attempts to locate such a study meet with disappointment. If one wishes to look through the eyes of medieval travellers in Anatolia, whether they be merchants, pilgrims or soldiers, and discover what type of construction they witnessed when approaching and entering a typical town, one is compelled to trawl through a great number of specialist articles and monographs dealing with specific archaeological sites or particular narrow periods of history. This laborious exercise will be made somewhat redundant by a brief synthesis of the appropriate evidence which historians and archaeologists have addressed and compiled since the late 1950s when attempting to reconstruct the development of the Byzantine city. The article traces the slow development of the typical Anatolian urban form and aspect from the late fourth century, through the mid-seventh to mid-eighth centuries, and then through to a period of urban recovery until the latter part of the twelfth century. The choice of periods separated by some 800 years is not arbitrary: the physical character (and function) of the typical town began to change in the late fourth century, and the form it obtained during the seventh and eighth centuries continued to be the one retained (with inconsequential variations to the general pattern) during the intermediate periods of Byzantine recovery Keywords: Anatolia towns; Byzantine empire towns; Towns in Byzantium; Nicaea/Iznik, Bursa, Turkey

The aim of this short article is modest: it means to fill a lacuna in scholarly output by offering a concise and accessible survey of the physical structure of the typical west Anatolian town in the High Middle Ages. Attempts to locate such a study meet with disappointment. If one wishes to look through the eyes of medieval travellers in Anatolia, whether they be merchants, pilgrims or soldiers, and discover what type of construction they witnessed when approaching and entering a typical town, one is compelled to trawl through a great number of specialist articles and monographs dealing with specific archaeological sites or particular narrow periods of history. This laborious exercise will be made somewhat redundant by a brief synthesis of the appropriate evidence which historians and archaeologists have addressed and
Correspondence: Jason T. Roche, Room A-308, Department of History, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Faith University, Bu ekmece 345000, Istanbul, Turkey. E-mail: jason.t.roche@gmail.com yu kc
ISSN 09503110 print/ISSN 1473348X online/10/030249-9 2010 Society for the Medieval Mediterranean DOI: 10.1080/09503110.2010.522384

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compiled since the late 1950s when attempting to reconstruct the development of the Byzantine city.1 We will first consider the contemporaneous documentary evidence which scholars investigated for valuable insights into the form of the archetypal west Anatolian town. Did contemporary terminology employed in narrative works provide historians with accurate information, or were there, for example, official state documents which proved more useful? After reflecting upon the value of a philological approach to the aims of this article, we will assess the value of archaeological data. Archaeologists have until recently tended to overlook the medieval period, choosing instead to concentrate on unearthing the ruins of antiquity. Clive Fosss seminal work has done much to address this neglect. Archaeological surveys in Lycia and Pamphylia, for example, have discovered remains of medieval civic and ecclesiastical buildings. Others have uncovered evidence of the proliferation of domiciles at famous ancient towns such as Ephesos (modern Selc uk) and Sardis (near modern Salihi). However, Fosss work on Byzantine fortifications has had the greatest impact. Reliable narrative sources provided him with the year of construction for named strongpoints. Following surface surveys at such sites, he was then able to attribute types of mortar, varieties of masonry and methods of construction, defence and decoration to a particular limited period. The previously unknown construction chronology of other fortifications could then be ascertained via analogy and historical probability. Through Fosss work, the construction date of a large number of previously obscure walls and towers in a great part of western Anatolia has been established. More recently, the work of archaeologists such as Chris Lightfoot have built on Fosss work whilst breaking new ground through excavations and other techniques. Excavations in progress at Amorion (near modern Emirdag ), for example, are discovering vital information on the towns history, such as its patterns of settlement throughout the late Roman and Byzantine Ages. This article will trace the slow development of the typical Anatolian urban form and aspect from the late fourth century, through the mid-seventh to mid-eighth centuries, and through to a period of urban recovery until the latter part of the twelfth century. The choice of periods separated by some 800 years is not arbitrary: the physical character (and function) of the typical town began to change in the late fourth century, and the form it obtained during the seventh and eighth centuries continued to be the one retained (with inconsequential variations to the general pattern) during the intermediate periods of Byzantine recovery. Greek hagiographies, literary works and historians of the Byzantine age concerned themselves primarily with the court, church, army and the frontier. They therefore provide little in the way of detailed specific information on any particular fortress, town or city they may mention. Such a place may be called a kastron or polis. A kastron was technically a castle; a polis was a city, equivalent to the Latin urbs. But we cannot glean from this vocabulary if the place in question was a castle or a flourishing city: the official and unofficial kastron and polis civic and military forms and functions, and contemporaneous traditional assumptions concerning their physical character and civic and military responsibilities, blurred and changed over time reflecting an inconsistent lexis. Islamic literary geographical
This survey of primary and secondary sources does not profess to be inclusive. The aim is to offer a synthesis of representative studies and evidence.
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descriptions can be uniform and they tend to refer to Asia Minor during the Byzantine period as a country of fortresses rather than cities. This is important because, to Arab observers at least, most cities appeared to be little more than castles, regardless of the terms used in Greek narrative sources.2 Because of such problems and contradictions in the narratives, historians working over three decades ago turned to official documents such as the Notitiae Episcopatuum when attempting to reconstruct Byzantine urban history. The Notitiae Episcopatuum are lists of metropolitanates, bishoprics and archbishoprics which were composed for purposes of protocol and used in courts and synods. The council of Chalcedon in 451 decreed that every city or polis would be the seat of a bishop, and consequently the concept of a polis became associated with a bishops presence. As the number of sees on the lists remained near constant, accordingly, it was argued, so must have the number of cities. It is now accepted that the terminology in the lists represents an idiosyncrasy of church language and does not actually tell us anything about the size and nature of a settlement. When archaeological evidence is used in conjunction with written sources, one frequently notices that the seat of a bishop, that is, a supposed city/polis identified in the Notitiae Episcopatuum, was little more than rubble, and often at best, a hill-top fortress.3 A purely philological approach to discovering the form of medieval centres of habitation is clearly flawed. We must turn to archaeology for our answers. Ankyra (modern Ankara), for example, was a theme capital and the literary record reflects its commercial and military importance during the Byzantine age. Foss has revealed that it contracted around the mid-seventh century to a fortress-town occupying a site not much larger than its small citadel at 350 150 m. The recent series of archaeological excavations at Amorion suggest that whilst its antique/late Roman site was extensive (known as the lower city), the main seventh/eighth-century site contracted to the upper city and was comparable in size, form and function to Ankyra. In spite of this, it is clear from the textual record that Amorion remained a place of considerable commercial and military importance throughout the Middle Ages.4 There is relatively little archaeological knowledge about most of the other places within western Anatolias interior, but the transformation and contraction of Ankyras and Amorions urban forms during this period were paralleled further west. The studies cited here, which utilise both written and archaeological evidence, indicate there are many more examples of formerly major urban centres which underwent a similar transformation and contraction. The centralisation of state power during the course of the later fourth, fifth and sixth centuries was
John Haldon, The idea of the town in the Byzantine Empire, in The Idea and Ideal of the Town Between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. Gian Petro Brogiolo, Bryan Ward-Perkins (Leiden: Brill, 1999), pp. 123. 3 George Ostrogorsky, Byzantine cities in the Middle Ages, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, XIII (1959): 4766; Wolfram Brandes, Byzantine cities in the seventh and eighth centuries different sources, different histories?, in The Idea and Ideal of the Town, ed. Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins, 2557. 4 Clive Foss, Late antique and Byzantine Ankara, Dumbarton Oak Papers, XXXI (1977): 2787; Chris Lightfoot, The public and domestic architecture of a thematic capital: the archaeological evidence of Amorion, in Byzantine Asia Minor (6th12th cent.), ed. Stelios Lampakis (Athens: Institute of Byzantine Research, 1998), pp. 303320; Klaus Belke, Galatien und Lykaonien, Tabula Imperii Byzantini, sterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, 4 (Vienna, 1984), O pp. 122125.
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generally followed by urban and rural devastation caused by constant warfare during the period of the Persian wars in the first decades of the seventh century and the Arab conquests of the mid-seventh to the mid-eighth centuries. The subsequent economic and demographic decline was often exacerbated by forced migration and natural disaster. In consequence, most of the places which in Classical Antiquity were recognisably urban centres first began to lose their classical structures, and then to contract to become medieval fortresses with essentially a military existence, if they did not disappear altogether. This process of contraction and disappearance was often repeated in the countryside.5 There is little evidence of major building activity other than the construction and repair of religious structures, or (re)fortification as a defence against Arab incursions. Foss states that the reconstructed defences at Sardis are a good example of the building work typifying this period. The remaining wall which surrounded the acropolis is now inaccessible without a long, uphill hike, although its defensive function is evident to see from the plain of the ancient city. Archaeology has revealed that new fortresses were also built during this period. Examples include Malagina which was situated in a verdant region of the same name near the lower Sangarios River (approximately modern Geyve to modern Osmaneli) and a simple fortified refuge near modern Ku tahya. Any evidence of urban expansion at this time is exiguous, and it appears that contemporary Islamic geographers descriptions were accurate. Byzantine Anatolia generally consisted of cities and towns which appeared to be little more than fortresses.6 The rate of transformation of centres of habitation from the urban poleis of antiquity to the Byzantine kastra should not be overstated and neither should the abandonment of sites. The initial deterioration of classical structures was gradual. Most places had already begun to transform and exhibit archaeological and topographical features of the middle Byzantine kastron as early as the fourth and fifth centuries, but particularly in the sixth. The extensive excavations at Amorion and other sites indicate that whilst the main area of occupation contracted to a fortress-citadel during the seventh and eighth centuries, discrete settlements resembling villages continued to be inhabited within the old Roman walls. It is also argued that one result of the Arab incursions was a growth in importance of fortified towns such as Gangra (modern C ankiri), which provided refuge for the
5 James Russell, Transformations in early Byzantine urban life: the contribution and limitations of archaeological evidence, The Seventeenth International Byzantine Congress. Major Papers (Washington, de Kleinasiens im 7. und 8. DC: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1986), pp. 135154; Wolfram Brandes, Die Sta Jahrundert (Berlin: Berliner byzantinistische Arbeiten 56, 1989); Wolfgang Liebeschuetz, The end of the ancient city, in The City in Late Antiquity, ed. John Rich (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 149; John Haldon, Byzantium in the Seventh Century: The Transformation of a Culture, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 92124, 459461; Leslie Brubaker and John Haldon, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era (c.680850) (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), pp. 146156; Chris Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean 400800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 626635. Mark Whittow has recently questioned the consensus of opinion expressed in this paragraph. See The Middle Byzantine economy (6001204), in The Cambridge History of The Byzantine Empire c.5001492, ed. Jonathan Shepard (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 465492 (here 478486). 6 Clive Foss, Byzantine and Turkish Sardis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976), pp. 57 59; Clive Foss, Byzantine Malagina and the Lower Sangarius, Anatolian Studies, XL (1990): 161183; tahya, British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, Clive Foss, Survey of Medieval Castles of Anatolia I: Ku Monograph 7 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 9598.

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surrounding population. Nevertheless, the archaeological record appears to agree with John Haldons suggestion that by the ninth century generally small but distinct communities continued to consider themselves as citizens of the polis within whose walls their communities lived, and that the kastron, which retained the name of the ancient polis, provided a refuge in the case of attack.7 The anonymous Persian author of the geographical treatise Hadud al-Alam summarised the general situation in the tenth century. In the days of old, he writes, cities were numerous in Rum, but now they have become few. Most of the districts are prosperous and pleasant and have an extremely strong fortress on account of the raids which the fighters of the faith direct upon them. To each village appertains a castle where in times of flight they may take shelter. Such strongholds often retained a bishops presence and continued to act as focal points for markets and fairs. Indeed, the Byzantine economy began to flourish in the ninth century and continued to do so throughout the tenth and eleventh centuries. There is clear evidence of an economic revival and of construction work in Sardis, Amorion, Ankyra, and Attaleia (modern Antalya). But Foss has shown that the essential military nature of centres of habitation, firmly established during the seventh and eighth centuries, generally continued as the form of settlement when they were newly built and refortified during the period of demographic and economic growth under the Macedonian dynasty (8671025).8 The Turkish incursions into Anatolia, however, particularly those in the wake of the Battle of Mantzikert (1071) when the greater part of the country fell into Turkish hands, coupled with the resultant Byzantine internal anarchy and civil strife, understandably appear to have provoked a hiatus in urban development. Foss maintains that the break in development at Sardis, as evinced by the archaeological record, is a microcosm of the rest of western Anatolia. Successive Komnenoi (10811185) recovered parts of Anatolia, and concerned themselves with the founding and rebuilding of defensive structures and the re-colonisation of those areas which they had returned to Byzantine hegemony. The literary record shows that following his accession to the imperial throne in 1081, Alexios I Komnenos attempted to stabilise the geopolitical situation near his capital by constructing fortresses such as Kibotos (modern Hersek) in Bithynia. After the Turks had been pushed back from the western coastal plains and river valleys and on to the central Anatolian plateau in the wake of the First Crusade in 1097/8, Alexios began the reconstruction and repopulation of Aegean coastal towns,
John Haldon, Warfare, State and Society in the Byzantine World, 5651204 (London: Routledge, 1999), pp. 249250. Chris Lightfoot has produced a series of reports on the Amorion excavations; see, for example, Chris Lightfoot, Die Byzantinische Stadt Amorium: Grabungsergebnisse der Jahre merreich in Mittelalter, Teil 2,1 Schaupla tze, ed. F. Daim and J. 1988 bis 2008, in Byzanz - das Ro Drauschfe (Mainz: Monographien des Ro mischGermanischen Zentralmuseams 84/2, 1), pp. 293307. Foss, Byzantine and Turkish Sardis, 5562; Clive Foss, Archaeology and the Twenty Cities of Byzantine Asia, American Journal of Archaeology, LXXXI (1977): 469486; Clive Foss, The cities of Pamphylia in the Byzantine age, in Cities, Fortresses and Villages of Byzantine Asia Minor, Clive Foss (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1996), pp. 4, 162 (here 2446). 8 Vladimir Minorsky, ed. and trans., Hadud al-A lam: The Regions of the World (London: Gibb Memorial Trust, 1937), p. 157; Foss, Late antique and Byzantine Ankara, 2787; Clive Foss and David Winfield, Byzantine Fortifications, An Introduction (Pretoria: University of South Africa, 1986), pp. 142 144; Clive Foss, Cities of Pamphylia, 162; Foss, Archaeology, 469486; Foss, Byzantine and Turkish Sardis, 70, 7475; Lightfoot Die Byzantinische Stadt Amorium; Whittow, Middle Byzantine economy, 473476.
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including the fortress town of Adramyttion (modern Edremit) which the Turks had razed to the ground. Anna Komnene informs us that the fortresses of Korykos (modern Kizkalesi) and Seleukeia (modern Silifke) in Cilicia were rebuilt and refortified as early as 1099. Foss has shown that fortresses were also rebuilt or expanded by the Komnenoi at Telmessos, Xanthos, Patara, Myra and Limyra on the Lycian coast. The year after his accession in 1119, John II Komnenos retook and refortified Phrygian Laodikeia (near modern Denizli). Narrative sources corroborated by archaeological evidence demonstrate that he also built the fortresses of Lopadion (modern Uluabat near Karacabey) in 1130 and Akhyraous (near modern Pamukc a) around 1140. This evidence also confirms that Johns successor, Manuel I Komnenos, carried out a significant amount of construction work. For example, he rebuilt the walls of Attaleia in Pamphylia. A fortress was built and garrisoned around 1145 at Malagina in Bithynia, although there is evidence of a defensive construction from the seventh century. The fort of Pithekas (modern Ku plu ?) in Bithynia was rebuilt and garrisoned around the same time. Also in Bithynia (on the coast), Manuel constructed a fort named Pylai on a much older site. Other examples include the fortified refuges he built near the Lydian fortified towns of Pergamon (modern Bergama), Adramyttion and Chliara (near modern Soma), which themselves received new walls between 1162 and 1173. Manuel also rebuilt the fortresses of Dorylaion (near modern Eskis ehir) and Choma, also known as Soublaion (modern Homa), in 1175/6.9 Construction work was not restricted to fortifications during this later period, and some scholars have argued that the textual record suggests larger urban centres existed in the eleventh and twelfth centuries than in the preceding centuries. We know that ecclesiastical sources, contemporary histories and occasional
9 Jason T. Roche, In the wake of Mantzikert: The First Crusade and the Alexian reconquest of Western Anatolia, History: The Journal of the Historical Association 94 (2009): 135153; for Sardis, see Foss, Byzantine and Turkish Sardis, 6676; for Kibotos, see Anna Komnene, The Alexiad of Anna Comnena, trans. E. Sewter (Middlesex: Penguin, 1969), pp. 203204; for Adramyttion, see Anna Komnene, Alexiad, 436437; for Korykos and Seleukeia, see Anna Komnene, Alexiad, 363; for the Lycian coast, see Clive Foss, Lycia in history, in Foss, Cities, Fortresses and Villages, 1, 137; for Laodikeia, Lopadion and Akhyraous, see Anna Komnene, Alexiad, 453; John Kinnamos, Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus, trans. Charles Brand (New York: Colombia University Press, 1976), pp. 1415, 38; Niketas Choniates, O City of Byzantium, Annals of Niketas Choniates, trans. Harry Magoulias (Detroit, IL: Wayne State University Press, 1984), p. 9; William Ramsey, The Historical Geography of Asia Minor, Royal Geographical Society, Supplementary Papers 4 (London, 1890), pp. 160, 201202; Clive Foss, The defenses of Asia Minor against the Turks, Greek Orthodox Theological Review, XXVII (1982): 145205 (here 159161); for Attaleia, see Foss, Cities of Pamphylia, 50; for Malagina, which is also occasionally referred to in the sources as Metabole, see John Kinnamos, Deeds, 37; Niketas Choniates, O City of Byzantium, 31; Foss, Byzantine Malagina, 6183; for Pithekas, see John Kinnamos, Deeds, sterreichische 38; Klaus Belke and Norbert Mersich, Phrygien und Pisidien, Tabula Imperii Byzantini, O Akademie der Wissenschaften Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, 7 (Vienna, 1990), pp. 141142; for Pylai, see John Kinnamos, Deeds, 56; Ramsey, Historical Geography, 187; for the refuges in Lydia, see Niketas Choniates, O City of Byzantium, 85; Foss, Byzantine Fortifications, 147; Foss, Defenses, 166170; for Dorylaion, see John Kinnamos, Deeds, 220222; Niketas Choniates, O City of Byzantium, 99100; Bar Hebraeus, Political History of the World, part 1, trans. Ernest Budge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932), p. 306; Michael the Syrian, Chronicle, ed. and trans. Jean-Baptiste Chabot, Chronique de Michel le Syrien, Patriarche Jacobite dAntioche (11661199), 3 (Paris, 1905; repr. Brussels, 1963), p. 369; for Choma, see John Kinnamos, Deeds, 223; Niketas Choniates, O City of Byzantium, 100; Bar Hebraeus, Political History, 306; Michael the Syrian, Chronicle, 369; for Hierapolis, see Celal S ims ek, ze Kurtarma Kazilari Ikinci sezon Hierapolis Roma hamami (Mu alis malari, Mu ze Binasi) Kazi C Semineri 5: 243263.

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mentions in hagiographies actually tell us little about the physical size of a place. There is, however, some archaeological evidence that Ankyra expanded beyond its citadels walls in the final centuries of Byzantine rule. Foss has shown that considerable building activity took place at Ephesos on the Aegean coast in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries both within and outside its fortified walls. The archaeological record shows that Sardis thrived after the Arab invasions and before Mantzikert, and distinct settlements flourished again amongst the remains of antiquity at the end of the twelfth century. Foss has revealed that in Lycia at Lebissos, a cathedral was rebuilt, other parts of the town were occupied, and settlements around Myra on the coast received new chapels and walls. Such developments are indicative of burgeoning urban populations and economies, and even twelfth-century Hierapolis (modern Pammukale), situated amongst transhumant Tu rkmen tribes and close to the Seljuk strong holds on the southwestern edge of the Anatolian plateau, witnessed small-scale industrial activity within the safety of its ancient walls. Invariably, however, such economic activity and construction work was on a much smaller scale compared to that conducted in antiquity.10 Newly built and rebuilt civic, ecclesiastical and military structures rarely compared in size with their late Roman equivalents. The newly built and reoccupied fortified towns, for example, were larger than the many simple fortresses which peppered the countryside, but not always a great deal larger. The ancient Bithynian town of Nikomedia (modern Izmit) is a good illustration of this. Described by Ibn Khurrada dhbih around 845 as now ruined, its location on a major route to Constantinople nevertheless ensured its continued importance and the Byzantines soon recovered the town after Mantzikert. Odo of Deuil described Nikomedia in the winter of 1147 as set amongst thorns and brambles and still with lofty ruins testifying her ancient glory. The populated part of the city had contracted from the coastal plain (with its lofty ruins) to its fortress-citadel during the seventh and eighth centuries. The fortress-city occupied an area of only about 1000 m 500 m on the hilltop overlooking the vast expanse of the ancient city, even following rebuilding work in the twelfth century.11 The Aegean coastal cities which were brought back within the imperial domain at the very end of the eleventh century gave the following impression to Odo of Deuil: we came upon many ruined cities, and others which the Greeks had built up from the ancient level above the sea, fortifying them with walls and towers. One of these ruined cities was Pergamon. Manuel Komnenos rebuilt its defensive walls between 1162 and 1173 to surround the ancient acropolis and enclose the settlements built on the slope of the citadel. This construction work can be viewed as typically representative of the greater extent of development
Alexander Kazhdan and Ann Wharton Epstein, Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985), pp. 3639; Foss, Late antique and Byzantine Ankara, 2787; Clive Foss, Ephesus after Antiquity: A Late Antique, Byzantine and Turkish City (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 116117; Foss, Byzantine and Turkish Sardis, 7076; Foss, Lycia, 137. 11 Ibn Khurrada dhbih, Kita b al-Masa lik wal-Mama lik, ed. Michael de Goeje, Bibliotheca geographorum arabicorum, 6 (Leiden, 1889; repr. Baghdad, 1967), pp. 106, 113; ruinis sublimibus antiquam sui gloriam . . . probat, Odo of Deuil, De Profectione Ludovici VII in Orientem, ed. and trans. Virginia Berry (New York: Columbia University Press, 1948), p. 88; Clive Foss, Survey of Medieval Castles of Anatolia II: Nicomedia, British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, Monograph 21 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 141. Compare with the fortress of Lopadion with walls at 475 m 150 m: Foss, Byzantine Fortifications, 145466.
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undertaken at any one existing site during this later period. Pergamons form can be taken as the archetype which Byzantine towns in the twelfth century had continued to acquire since the eighth century even with the growth and recovery accomplished under the Macedonian and Comnenian dynasties. Indeed, Pergamons development was entirely typical. It had retracted to a heavily walled fortress on the acropolis by the ninth century, and then it slowly recovered to occupy the slope of the hill. Manuels walls enclosed individual settlements of crudely built houses centred on a small number of churches by the end of the twelfth century. There is some archaeological evidence of limited industrial activity, and parts of the expanded town were set amidst the ruins of the monumental buildings of antiquity. Such sites, together with numerous smaller garrison forts and outposts generally situated on rocky outcrops and prominences typified the Anatolian provincial countryside well into the Seljuk period and beyond.12 Archaeology then, occasionally supporting, but often acting as a corrective to the written sources, demonstrates that the typical Byzantine town in the twelfth century had slowly expanded with demographic and economic growth beyond the limits to which it had contracted during the seventh and eighth centuries. It is nevertheless clear that such settlements did not resemble cities in any modern sense of the word. They began to lose this form and function by the late fourth century, and by the ninth, the typical urban centre of habitation no longer consisted of the monumental public buildings and permanent houses of the once flourishing classical city situated in a plain. The inhabitants of such centres in the middle Byzantine period generally continued to reside well within the remaining walls of the classical polis, but in villages situated within the circumference of the walls. Perhaps separated by cultivated land and largely self-sufficient, the villages were often situated on the hill topped by the citadel of antiquity which afforded them protection a phenomenon which was to continue until the end of our period. Foss sums up the typical urban development: The medieval city developed with different considerations, in which security was paramount . . . The transformation took place in the Dark Ages [mid-seventh to mid-eighth centuries]: succeeding centuries brought no major change. The evidence for Lycia, Pamphylia, and indeed most of Asia Minor reveals the same picture of late antique prosperity, Dark Age catastrophe, and very limited Byzantine recovery. This deduction is repeated in the works cited in this article.13 The ancient fortified town of Nikaia (modern Iznik) may have been an important exception to the established pattern of contraction and expansion mainly because it was regarded as Constantinoples Bithynian bulwark against invasion from the central plateau. Although very little relevant archaeological work has been completed inside its great circuit of walls, studies of the impressive ancient fortifications, which dwarf the modern village in height and circumference, indicate that many repairs and improvements were made during the eighth and ninth centuries. Repairs to the existing fortifications were also carried out after the earthquake of 1065 and the crusaders siege of 1097. The archaeological record
multas urbes destructas invenimus et alias quas ab antiqua latitudine supra mare Graeci restruxerant, munientes eas muris et turribus, Odo of Deuil, De Profectione, 106; Foss, Archaeology, 469486; Manfred Klinkott, Die Stadtmauer, Teil 1: Die byzantinische Befestigungsanlage von Pergamon mit ihrer Wehr- und Baugeschichte, Altertu mer von Pergamon, XVI/1 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2001); Haldon, Warfare, 250251. 13 Foss, Lycia, 30; Foss, Cities of Pamphylia, 50.
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proves that the ancient walls were maintained, reflecting Nikaias significant defensive role. It is impossible to demonstrate that Nikaias occupied area retracted to a citadel before slowly expanding during the periods of Byzantine recovery until at least further archaeological excavations are undertaken in and around the modern village. One might conclude on the existing archaeological evidence that throughout the Byzantine Age, the ancient city of Nikaia resembled a classical polis in form and its inhabitants continued to occupy the same expansive area they had dwelt in since antiquity.14 It is unwise to treat Nikaia in isolation, however, even given the towns strategic importance. This would be to ignore 800 years of urban history and the analogous evidence presented here. It is safe to assume that during the twelfth century, the bulk of Nikaias monumental buildings were at least dilapidated, and that the citys inhabitants actually resided in a small number of disparate villages located well within the circumference of the ancient fortifications. Perhaps the major difference between Nikaia and, say, the other great town of eastern Bithynia, Nikomedia, was that a greater number of garrison troops resided in Nikaia to help defend her extensive walls, the towns inhabitants and, ultimately, Constantinople. Numerous, prosperous and thriving civil populations still existed in the late Roman period, and were to appear again with the peace of Ottoman rule, but during the geopolitical troubles of the High Middle Ages, populations were continually threatened and a towns function remained predominantly defensive despite economic and demographic growth; facts which are reflected in the relatively low number of inhabitants.15 This synthesis of primary and secondary source evidence has revealed that travellers in the High Middle Ages encountered kastra that at most appeared to be fortress towns actually consisting of a number of disparate villages. The urban form and function were essentially inherited from the eighth century, regardless of the recession and rebuilding in the decades after Mantzikert. We have seen that a strictly philological approach to achieving the modest aims of this exercise is flawed, and we must employ archaeological evidence in conjunction with literary sources. Archaeological studies of Anatolias medieval heritage are, nevertheless, still in their infancy, and yet the country is peppered with unstudied pre-modern remains which are disappearing under the twin threat of modern development and natural erosion. We may never know the size and form of twelfth-century Chalcedon, for example, which is buried under modern Kadiko y on the Asiatic coast of the Bosphoros. On the other hand, our knowledge of a medieval town such as Dorylaion, situated on the northwestern edge of the Anatolian plateau 3 km outside the modern city of Eskis ehir, may be greatly enhanced by a coordinated programme of excavations and field surveys. One looks forward to the future results from the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, which is now driving archaeological research in Turkey, and which promises to improve our understanding of the country in the Middle Ages.
On Nikaias defences, see Foss, Byzantine Fortifications, chapter 2. Also see Clive Foss, Nicaea: A Byzantine Capital and Its Praises (Brookline: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2005). A very small number of other significant towns also retained their ancient circuits of walls, but the sites have been continually occupied and it is impossible to trace their development. Foss, Cities of Pamphylia, 49. 15 Alan Harvey, Economic Expansion in the Byzantine Empire, 9001200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 199.
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