Table Of ContentByzantium and the Emergence
of Muslim-Turkish Anatolia,
ca. 1040–1130
The arrival of the Seljuk Turks in Anatolia forms an indispensable part of mod-
ern Turkish discourse on national identity, but Western scholars, by contrast,
have rarely included the Anatolian Turks in their discussions about the formation
of European nations or the transformation of the Near East. The Turkish pen-
etration of Byzantine Asia Minor is primarily conceived of as a conflict among
empires, sedentary and nomadic groups, and religious and ethnic entities. This
book proposes a new narrative, which begins with the waning influence of Con-
stantinople and Cairo over large parts of Anatolia and the Byzantine-Muslim
borderlands, as well as the failure of the nascent Seljuk sultanate to supplant
them as a leading supra-regional force. In both Byzantine Anatolia and regions
of the Muslim heartlands, local elites and regional powers came to the fore as
holders of political authority and rivals in incessant power struggles. Turkish war-
rior groups quickly assumed a leading role in this process, not because of their
raids and conquests, but because of their intrusion into pre-existing social net-
works. They exploited administrative tools and local resources and thus gained
the acceptance of local rulers and their subjects. Nuclei of lordships came into
being, which could evolve into larger territorial units. There was no Byzantine
decline or Turkish triumph, but rather, the driving force of change was the suc-
cessful interaction between these two spheres.
Alexander Daniel Beihammer received his PhD from the University of
Vienna and is a member of the Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung.
From 2001 to 2015, he taught at the University of Cyprus and is currently
Associate Professor of Byzantine History at the University of Notre Dame. He
has published widely on Byzantine official documents, diplomacy, and cross-
cultural communication between Byzantium and the Muslim world, as well as
on Byzantine- Latin contacts and mutual perception in the crusader states and
the Eastern Mediterranean.
Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies
General Editors
Leslie Brubaker
A.A.M. Bryer
Rhoads Murphey
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For a full list of titles in this series, please visit https://www.routledge.com/series/BBOS
The Emperor Theophilos and the East, 829–842
Court and frontier in Byzantium during the last phase of iconoclasm
Juan Signes Codoñer
Rebuilding Anatolia after the Mongol Conquest
Islamic architecture in the lands of rum, 1240–1330
Patricia Blessing
Imperial Lineages and Legacies in the Eastern Mediterranean
Recording the imprint of Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman rule
Edited by Rhoads Murphey
Byzantium and the Emergence of Muslim-Turkish Anatolia,
ca. 1040–1130
Alexander Daniel Beihammer
Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies
University of Birmingham
Byzantium and the
Emergence of Muslim-
Turkish Anatolia,
ca. 1040–1130
Alexander Daniel Beihammer
First published 2017
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© 2017 Alexander Daniel Beihammer
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this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and
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Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies Volume 20
Contents
List of maps vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Conquests, modern nations, and lost fatherlands 1
Sources, images, perceptions 26
PART I
First encounters in Byzantium’s eastern
marches, ca. 1040–71 49
1 The eastern provinces, Turkish migrations, and the Seljuk
imperial project 51
2 Byzantine-Seljuk diplomacy and the first Turkish footholds 92
3 Emperor Romanos IV and Sultan Alp Arslān, 1068–71 133
PART II
Decay of imperial authority and
regionalization of power, 1071–96 169
4 Sulaymān b. Qutlumush and the first Turkish
lordships in Syria 171
5 Revolts and Byzantine-Turkish coalitions in
Asia Minor, 1071–86 198
6 Seljuk rule between centralization and
disintegration, 1086–98 244
7 Turkish and Byzantine-Armenian lordships in Asia Minor 265
vi Contents
PART III
The crusades and the crystallization
of Muslim Anatolia, 1096–ca. 1130 305
8 Seljuk reactions to the First Crusade 307
9 New contact and conflict zones 358
Conclusions 387
Bibliography 395
Index 413
List of maps
1 Muslim emirates in the eastern borderland in the early eleventh
century xi
2 Turkmen attacks and the Seljuk campaigns in the reign of
Tughril Beg and Alp Arslān xii
3 Turkish raids on Byzantine territory during the 1050s and 1060s xiii
4 Frankish mercenary commanders and Turkish warlords xiv
5 Turkish lordships in Asia Minor in the 1080s and 1090s xv
6 Byzantium and the Muslim-Turkish emirates in Asia Minor in
the time of the First Crusade xvi
7 The southern coastland of Asia Minor in the time after the First
Crusade xvii
8 Seljuk campaigns and Byzantine defensive measures in western
Asia Minor in the years 1109–16 xviii
9 Asia Minor in about 1120 xix
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Acknowledgments
Tarih yazmak, tarih yapmak kadar mühimdir.
Yazan, yapana sadık kalmazsa
değişmeyen hakikat insanlığı şaşırtacak bir mahiyet alır
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
Ο τελευταίος χρόνος είν’ αυτός. Ο τελευταίος των Γραικών
αυτοκρατόρων είν’ αυτός. Κι αλίμονον
τι θλιβερά που ομιλούν πλησίον του.
Εν τῃ απογνώσει του, εν τῃ οδύνῃ
ο Κυρ Θεόφιλος Παλαιολόγος
λέγει «Θέλω θανείν μάλλον ή ζην».
Α Κυρ Θεόφιλε Παλαιολόγο,
Πόσον καημό του γένους μας, και πόση εξάντλησι
Οι τραγικές σου πέντε λέξεις περιείχαν.
Constantine Kavafis
My interest in Byzantine-Turkish contacts and the political transformation of
Anatolia from Byzantine territories into Muslim-Turkish principalities goes back
to 2007 when I began working on a series of articles on the perception of the
Seljuk Turks in Byzantine historiography. My student years at the Institut für
Österreichische Geschichtsforschung (1992–1997) made me aware of the fact
that the Anatolian Turks share many commonalities with all those entities lying
at the core of the genesis of modern European nations, although these Turks have
hardly ever been included in the relevant scholarly discussions. The current situ-
ation in Cyprus, where I had the privilege to teach over the past 15 years, bears
a certain resemblance to what happened in medieval Anatolia on a much larger
scale. Political and ideological discourses, however, tend to obfuscate the realities
of ongoing transformative processes.
During my research, I had access to the resources of a number of excellent
libraries. This book profited especially from the Turkish collection of the
University of Cyprus, the library of the Institut für Byzantinistik und Neogräzistik
at the University of Vienna, the Austrian National Library, and Hesburgh
Library at the University of Notre Dame. Savvas Neocleous (Cyprus), Miriam
