Lewis Read
University of Vienna
The period after 1071 is often considered one of collapse for the Greek-speaking world of Anatolia. Contemporary sources record their shock at the devastating arrival of the Seljuk Turks during the second half of the eleventh century, culminating in the defeat of the Byzantine army at Manzikert and the disintegration of the Empire’s eastern frontier. These narratives make for compelling reading, but they were created in specific literary and ideological frameworks – studies of this historical material should exert caution not to accept these narratives at face value. Yet, this representation has remained remarkably durable and it continues to define our understanding of the years after 1071. This framing has also been applied to Armenian communities in Anatolia and the Armenian highlands, many of whom had been absorbed into the Byzantine Empire during the expansion period of the late tenth and early eleventh century. This idea of collapse has led to the assumption that Armenians, who constituted a majority population in the Empire’s east, were unable or unwilling to maintain their contact with the Byzantine Empire after Manzikert and were gradually cut off from it. The reality, however, is more complex. In my proposed paper, I aim to examine evidence from three Armenian colophons which demonstrate the continued transmission of Greek literature amongst Armenian communities from 1071 to 1095 and use this as a device to explore enduring aspects of legal, intellectual, and cultural contact between Armenians and the Byzantine Empire. This material illustrates that Armenians still looked to Constantinople long after the battle of Manzikert and maintained the enduring forms of influence and exchange which characterised their longstanding relationship with the Empire.