Table Of ContentEmerging Powers in Eurasian Comparison, 200–1100
Emerging Powers in Eurasian
Comparison, 200–1100
Shadows of Empire
Edited by
Walter Pohl and Veronika Wieser
leiden | boston
FWF, SFB ‘Visions of Community’, 2011–19. The project was funded from 2011 to 2019 by the Austrian
Research Fund FWF under the SFB (Spezialforschungsbereich) call, SFB ‘Visions of Community’ project
n. F42-G18.
Cover illustration: for credits, see List of Figures.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Pohl, Walter, 1953- editor. | Wieser, Veronika, editor.
Title: Emerging powers in Eurasian comparison, 200-1100 : shadows of empire
/ edited by Walter Pohl and Veronika Wieser.
Description: Boston : Brill, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022032866 (print) | LCCN 2022032867 (ebook) | ISBN
9789004518568 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004519916 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Middle Ages. | Eurasia--History--To 1500. |
Imperialism--History--To 1500. | East and West.
Classification: LCC CB353 .E87 2022 (print) | LCC CB353 (ebook) | DDC
940.1--dc23/eng/20220720
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022032866
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022032867
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Contents
Preface ix
List of Figures xi
Contributors xiii
Introduction: The Emergence of New Polities in the Shadows of Empire 1
Walter Pohl and Veronika Wieser
Part 1
The Later Roman Empire and the Post-Roman Kingdoms
in the West
1 When Did the West Roman Empire Fall? 55
Ian N. Wood
2 The Role of Peoples in the Emergence of the Post-Roman Kingdoms 78
Walter Pohl
3 In the Shadow of the Roman Empire: Layers of Legitimacy and
Strategies of Legitimization in the Regna of the Early Medieval
West 111
Stefan Esders
PART 2
The Carolingian Empire and the Emerging Polities in Its
Northern and Eastern Periphery
4 When the Bavarians Became Bavarian
The Politicization of Ethnicity and Crystallization of Ethnic Identities in
the Shadow of Carolingian Rule (8th to 9th Century) 137
Helmut Reimitz
5 Peripheral Polities North of the Carolingian Realm:
The Regnum Danorum 179
Ildar Garipzanov
vi Contents
PART 3
Byzantium and Its Peripheral Powers
6 The Lagoons as a Distant Mirror: Constantinople, Venice and
the Italian Romania 197
Francesco Borri
7 Countering Byzantium’s Shadow: Contrarianism among the Bulgars, Rus
and Germans 220
Jonathan Shepard
PART 4
Between Byzantium and the Islamic World
8 Early Medieval Armenia between Empires (Fourth–Eleventh
Century CE): Dynamics and Continuities 263
Johannes Preiser-Kapeller
9 Strategies of Legitimation in the Shadow of Empires: Byzantine–Turkish
Contact Zones in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Asia Minor 289
Alexander Beihammer
PART 5
The Abbasid Caliphate and the Formation of New Dynasties
10 Communication between Centre and Periphery in the Early
Fourth-/Tenth-Century Abbasid Empire 317
Maaike van Berkel
11 Local and Imperial Rule: Examples from Fārs (9th–10th Centuries) 329
Jürgen Paul
PART 6
Medieval China and the Foreign Dynasties
12 The Huai Frontier and the Ethnicization of Difference in Early
Medieval China 355
Andrew Chittick
Contents vii
13 ‘Cultural China’ from the Eleventh Century: Legitimacy, Metanarrative
and Historiography 376
Q. Edward Wang
14 In the Shadows of Empires: The Tuyuhun and Khitans
in Late Antiquity 399
Michael R. Drompp
15 Post-imperial Polities: Concluding Observations 425
Walter Pohl
Index 439
Preface
This volume looks at the end of Eurasian empires from an unusual perspec-
tive: it does not focus on the imperial centres that progressively lost control
over their provinces, but on the polities that emerged in the shadows of these
empires. The greatest empires of the first millennium – Rome, Han China, the
caliphate – were not swept away by new imperial formations, but gradually
replaced by more regional realms. Their authority did not vanish completely,
but remained available for later attempts at imperial renewal – Byzantine and
Carolingian Rome, Tang and Song China, the Fatimid and Ottoman caliphates.
In spite of this strikingly similar dynamic, much in the emergence of new poli-
ties on imperial ground diverged. This book looks at several cases across the
period from c. 200 to c. 1100 to explore these similarities and differences, and
offers a number of tentative comparative observations.1
The contributions were discussed at a small series of workshops in Vienna
and Beijing.2 The Vienna workshops were made possible by the project ‘Visions
of Community – Comparative Approaches to Ethnicity, Region and Empire in
Christianity, Islam and Buddhism, 400–1600 CE (VISCOM)’.3 Our thanks go to
the FWF for the generous funding of this adventure in cross-cultural compari-
son. The VISCOM project provided an interdisciplinary framework in which
the efforts to compare Eurasian empires received inspiring input and discus-
sion, for which we are grateful to the project team. A number of similar com-
parative studies and collaborative publications could be carried out thanks to
the project.4 We would also like to thank the two institutions that have hosted
1 The planned monograph Walter Pohl, Fallen Empires. Rome, China and the Caliphate, will
seek to explore lines of comparison more systematically.
2 The contributions to the workshop at Peking University, which was organized by Q. Edward
Wang and Li Longguo, were published separately in Chinese: 断裂与转型：帝国之后的欧
亚历史与史学 Duanlie yu zhuanxing : Diguo zhi hou de Ou Ya lishi yu shixue (Between Empires:
Rupture, Transformation and Transmission), ed. Wang Qingjia 王晴佳 and Li Longguo 李隆国
(Shanghai, 2017). A publication in English is planned for the journal Medieval Worlds.
3 The project was funded from 2011 to 2019 by the Austrian Research Fund FWF under the SFB
(Spezialforschungsbereich) call, project n. SFB F42–G18.
4 Among them are the collaborative volumes Meanings of Community across Medieval Eurasia, ed.
by Walter Pohl, Christina Lutter and Eirik Hovden (Leiden and New, York 2016); Narratives of
Ethnic and Tribal Origins. Eurasian Perspectives, Special issue, Medieval History Journal 21/2 (2018);
Cultures of Eschatology. Volume 1: Empires and Scriptural Authorities in Medieval Christian, Islamic
and Buddhist Communities. Volume 2: Time, Death and Afterlife in Medieval Christian, Islamic and
Buddhist Communities, ed. by Veronika Wieser, Vincent Eltschinger, Johann Heiss (Berlin and
New York, 2020); Historiography & Identity, vol. 4: Writing History across Medieval Eurasia, ed. by
Walter Pohl and Daniel Mahoney, Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages 30
(Turnhout, 2021); and Empires and Communities in the Post-Roman and Islamic World, c. 400–1000,
ed. by Walter Pohl and Rutger Kramer (New York and Oxford, 2021).
x Preface
the VISCOM project: the University of Vienna, and in particular its Institute of
Austrian Historical Research; and the Austrian Academy of Sciences. At the
Academy, the Institute for Medieval Research provided a stimulating environ-
ment for the coordination of the project and for ventures such as the ‘shadows
of empires’ workshops and publication. Several people helped with preparing
this book; in particular, we would like to thank Stefan Donecker, Nicola Edel-
mann, Lena Sadovski-Kornprobst and Sandra Wabnitz for the copy-editing,
Thomas Gobbitt, Christina Pössel and Cynthia Peck-Kubaczek for correcting
the English, Dagmar Giesriegl for taking care of IT and illustrations, Erik Goos-
mann for creating the maps, and Cinzia Grifoni for help in coordinating the
publication process. And finally, we are grateful to the contributors for sharing
this exciting scholarly venture with us.
Figures
Cover illustration: compilation containing the following items:
– Al-Idrisi’s World Map, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6000547t/f14.item
.r=arabe%202221 Bibliothèque nationale de France. Last accessed April 12, 2022.
– Cavalry of Northern Wei, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cavalry_of
_Northern_Wei_05.jpg Flickr user Gary Todd, CC0. Last accessed May 11, 2022.
– Cavalryman on armoured horse, China, Northern Wei dynasty, c. 500-534, https://
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cavalryman_on_armoured_horse,_China,
_Northern_Wei_dynasty,_c._500-534,_earthenware_-_Royal_Ontario_Museum
_-_DSC04074.JPG Daderot, CC0. Last accessed May 11, 2022.
– Emperor Justinian I., detail of a contemporary portrait mosaic in the Basilica of
San Vitale, Ravenna https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mosaic_of
_Justinianus_I_-_Basilica_San_Vitale_(Ravenna).jpg Photo taken by Petar
Milošević. Last accessed April 12, 2022.
– Fan Ye, Hou Han Shu 後漢書 (5th century ‘History of the Later Han Dynasty’,
published in Song Gaozhong’s reign era Shaoxing, 1131-1162), https://commons
.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:後漢書（宋紹興）.jpg. Last accessed May 11, 2022.
– Han coin, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hancoin1large.jpg; User
Randy Benzie. Last accessed April 12, 2022.
– King’s throne, Aachen Cathedral, © https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
File:Aachener_Dom_BW_2016-07-09_13-49-15.jpg Photo taken by Berthold Werner.
Last accessed April 12, 2022.
– Persepolis, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gate_of_All_Nations,
_Persepolis.jpg; Photo taken by Alborzagros. Last accessed April 12, 2022.
– Pilastri Acritani in front of the South portal of San Marco basilica in Venice, which
originally belonged to the St. Polyeuktos church in Constantinople (6th c.), https://
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:San_Marc_Pilastri_Acritani_1.jpg?uselang=de;
Spoliast. Last accessed May 11, 2022.
– Tigranes II, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tigran_Mets.jpg, Unknown
author. Last accessed April 12, 2022.
1.1 T he late Roman Empire, c. 400 CE (Map © Erik Goosmann, Mappa Mundi
Cartography, 2021) 53
1.2 T he post-Roman world, c. 500 CE (Map © Erik Goosmann, Mappa Mundi
Cartography, 2021) 54
4.1 T he Carolingian world, c. 800 CE (Map © Erik Goosmann, Mappa Mundi
Cartography, 2021) 139
5.1 S outh Scandinavia in the Early Middle Ages (Map © Erik Goosmann, Mappa
Mundi Cartography, 2021) 183
