International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Lee Mordechai
Princeton University, Princeton NJ, United States; 
[e-mail] 
Families, Feuds and Friends: 
Imperial Succession in the Eleventh Century Eastern Roman Empire
Leading up to the Crusades, the eleventh century was a period of political instability in the 
Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, with fifteen legitimate emperors holding the throne over less 
than six decades. This frequent turnover triggered a series of social and cultural changes over the 
century, as emperors and elites challenged past orthodoxies and experimented with new ideas. My 
talk discusses the development of the recurring procedure of imperial succession, alongside the 
dynamic re-organization of the imperial kinship networks in response to political instability. Making 
use of several literary traditions alongside non-literary evidence such as numismatics, sigillography 
and works of fine art, I identify three distinct phases over the century.
At the beginning of the century, imperial families were small and seditious. Imperial relatives 
frequently led or participated in intra-familial plots. Male family members rarely received the 
highest positions in the state and were instead mollified with honorary titles and kept in the capital. 
Female family members were commonly sent abroad as part of marriage alliances with other 
polities on the empire’s frontiers. These weak familial ties within most imperial families contributed 
to emperors’ decisions to postpone succession as much as possible, often waiting until they were on 
their deathbed before announcing the next emperor’s identity.
Things changed in the middle of the century after a period of acute instability. Using the 
available resources at hand, emperors began promoting their family members almost overnight to 
the highest positions in the state. At the same time, they began planning – and proclaiming – their 
intended succession as early as possible. To cement their plans, they re-introduced the institution of 
co-emperor, which had remained unused for decades. This coincided with an increase in imperial 
family size, while monarchs paid closer attention to the marriage alliances they fostered, becoming 
more reluctant to send away their family members. At the same time, the standing of palace eunuchs 
as a group began to decrease, while elite women gained considerable informal power.
Since these changes were not enough to stabilize the political system for more than a decade, 
contemporaries shifted their strategies of kinship again, opting for an even more centralized style. 
Families grew even larger, while pater/materfamilias used junior family members as resources to 
advance the family’s goals as a group. The increased number of available family members allowed 
these individuals to take over the most important positions in the state. As a result, a few families 
succeeded in consolidating their central power over the state bureaucracy. This had a stabilizing 
effect although it also considerably changed the state’s nature.
These changes were an integral part of the upheavals that shook the Eastern Roman Empire’s 
foundations over the eleventh century. In my talk I move chronologically throughout the century, 
providing a nuanced and contextualized analysis. I conclude by showing that rather than pursuing 
a clear long-term plan, contemporary emperors and elites were most concerned with how to use 
recent events to reach conclusions that would in turn help them formulate a policy to increase their 
survivability on an inherently unstable throne. The fact that the system as a whole survived these 
upheavals is undeniable proof of its resilience.

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