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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 June 2021
Half a century ago, the Greek academic Era Vranoussi presented Balkan and Byzantine studies with a new theory. She argued that the people named Albanoi in Michael Attaleiates’ History were not Balkan Albanians, but rather Normans in southern Italy. A debate ensued with French Byzantinist Alain Ducellier that was never resolved. More recently, some notable scholars have begun to incorporate Vranoussi's hypothesis into their work. This article re-examines Vranoussi's arguments and concludes that the evidence favours the traditional reading of Albanoi as Balkan Albanians over the interpretation of this ethnonym as an obscure reference to Norman mercenaries in territories south of Rome.
1 See Madgearu, A., ‘Problema originii albanezilor. Puncte de vedere (I)’, Revista de Istorie Militară 1–2 [93–94] (2006) 69–76Google Scholar.
2 Michael Attaleiates, Michaelis Attaliotae Historia, ed. W. Brunet de Presle and I. Bekker (Bonn 1853). On issues related to dating Attaleiates’ text, see E. Tsolakis, ‘Das Geschichtswerk des Michael Attaleiates und die Zeit seiner Abfassung’, Βυζαντινά 2 (1970) 251–68 (258).
3 Attaleiates, 9.1–15. The author is indebted to Robert Walker for his kind assistance with various Greek texts, and to Konstantinos Giakoumis for his useful comments on an earlier draft of this article.
4 Maniakes’ army likely included units that served with him in previous campaigns.
5 The admiral took revenge against Maniakes for flogging him in public after Stephen allowed the head of the Arab forces in Sicily to escape the island by sea.
6 E. L. Vranoussi, ‘Οἱ ὅροι «Ἀλβανοὶ» καὶ «Ἀρβανῖται» καὶ ἡ πρώτη μνεία τοῦ ὁμωνύμου λαοῦ τῆς Βαλκανικῆς εἰς τὰς πηγὰς τοῦ ΙΑ ̓ αἰῶνος’, Βυζαντινά Σύμμεικτα 2 (1970) 207–54.
7 Ducellier, A., ‘Nouvel essai de mise au point sur l'apparition du peuple albanais dans les sources historiques byzantines’, Studia albanica 2 (1972) 299–306Google Scholar.
8 Michael Attaleiates, The History: Michael Attaleiates, tr. A. Kaldellis and D. Krallis (Cambridge, MA 2012) 595, n. 11. See also D. Krallis, ‘The social views of Michael Attaleiates’, in J. Howard-Johnston (ed.), Social Change in Town and Country in Eleventh-Century Byzantium (Oxford 2020) 44–61 (55, n. 41); N. Webber, The Evolution of Norman Identity, 911-1154 (Woodbridge 2005) 87–9. More recent debates about ethnography and collective identity in Byzantium in the early middle ages lie beyond the scope of this article. For an overview of related issues see, Stouraitis, Y., ‘Reinventing Roman ethnicity in high and late medieval Byzantium’, Medieval World 5 (2017) 70–94Google Scholar.
9 Vranoussi, ‘Οἱ ὅροι’, 207.
10 Vranoussi, op.cit. 209–10.
11 Attaleiates, 9.8–15.
12 Attaleiates, 18.17–23.
13 Attaleiates, 297.20–2; Vranoussi, ‘Οἱ ὅροι’, 231.
14 Vranoussi, op.cit., 231, 235.
15 A. Ducellier, ‘Les Albanais dans l'empire byzantine: de la communauté à l'expansion’, in C. Gasparis (ed.), Οι Αλβανοί στο Μεσαίωνα (Athens 1998) 17–45 (38–9).
16 Vranoussi, ‘Οἱ ὅροι’, 210.
17 John Skylitzes, Ioannis Scylitzae Synopsis Historiarum, ed. I. Thurn (Berlin 1973); Skylitzes Continuatus, Ἡ Συνέχεια τῆς Χρονογραφίας τοῦ Ἰωάννου Σκυλίτση, ed. E. T. Tsolakes (Thessaloniki 1968).
18 Attaleiates, 9.12–13. Kaldellis and Krallis, History, 13, rendered this phrase as ‘those who abut upon the Italian regions by the Elder Rome’.
19 Attaleiates, Michael, ‘Michel Attaliatès, Histoire, traduction française’, tr. Grégoire, H., Byzantion 28 (1958) 325–62Google Scholar, 328.
20 Vranoussi, ‘Οἱ ὅροι’, 212, described it as ‘ἡ δυσνόητος φράσις’.
21 For Rosenstein's translation, see Attaleiates, 9.
22 However, V. von Falkenhausen, Untersuchungen über die byzantinische Herrschaft in Süditalien vom 9. bis ins 11. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden 1967) 47, gave evidence for a broader range of meaning for Italia in tenth-century Byzantine writings.
23 Michael Psellos, Michaelis Pselli Chronographia, ed. D. R. Reinsch, I (Berlin 2014) 138, 78.4–6: ἀλλὰ μόνον δὴ τὸ πρὸς ἡμᾶς τμῆμα, τὸ κοινὸν ἰδιωσάμενον ὄνομα. ὁ μὲν οὖν τοῖς ἐκεῖσε μέρεσι μετὰ παντὸς ἐπιστὰς τοῦ στρατεύματος, πᾶσιν ἐχρᾶτο τοῖς στρατηγήμασι. Engl. tr., Michael Psellos, Fourteen Byzantine Rulers, tr. E. R. A. Sewter (Harmondsworth 1966) 193.
24 Vranoussi, ‘Οἱ ὅροι’, 214. See also, Ducellier, ‘Les Albanais dans l'empire byzantin’, 36–7, and 37, n. 86.
25 Vranoussi, ‘Οἱ ὅροι’, 213–14.
26 G. Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, tr. J. Hussey, 2nd English edn (Oxford 1968) 35; J. Fine, The Early Medieval Balkans: a critical survey from the sixth to the late twelfth century (Ann Arbor 1991) 18–19.
27 Ostrogorsky, op.cit.
28 Fine, Early Medieval Balkans, 15.
29 A. Ducellier, La façade maritime de l'Albanie au moyen âge: Durazzo et Valona du XIe au XVe siècle (Thessaloniki 1981) 92. On Dyrrachium's establishment as a theme, see J. Ferluga, ‘Sur la date de la création du thème de Dyrrachium’, Byzantium on the Balkans (Amsterdam 1976) 215–24.
30 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De thematibus, ed. Agostino Pertusi (Vatican City 1952) 9.35–6 and 40. See H. Hunger, Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur der Byzantiner I (Munich 1978) 533; J. Shepard, ‘Aspects of Byzantine attitudes and policy towards the West in the tenth and eleventh centuries’, in J. D. Howard-Johnston (ed.), Byzantium and the West, c. 850–c. 1200 (Amsterdam 1988) 67–118 (69–70). Vranoussi, ‘Οἱ ὅροι’, 212, also cites this passage, but only as an example of how Byzantine authors used ‘Italia’.
31 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Administrando Imperio, ed. G. Moravcsik, tr. R. J. H. Jenkins, rev. edn (Washington, D.C. 1967) 138, 30.8–140, 30.13: Ἐκ παλαιοῦ τοίνυν ἡ Δελματία τὴν ἀρχὴν μὲν εἶχεν | ἀπὸ τῶν συνόρων Δυρραχίου, ἤγουν ἀπὸ Ἀντιβάρεως, καὶ παρετείνετο μὲν μέχρι τῶν τῆς Ἰστρίας ὀρῶν, ἐπλατύνετο δὲ μέχρι τοῦ Δανουβίου ποταμοῦ. Ἦν δὲ ἅπασα ἡ τοιαύτη περίχωρος ὑπὸ τὴν Ῥωμαίων ἀρχήν, καὶ ἐνδοξότερον τῶν ἄλλων ἑσπερίων θεμάτων τὸ τοιοῦτον θέμα ἐτύγχανε; Engl. tr., 139, 141.
32 H. G. Liddell et al., A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford 1968) 586.
33 See e.g. N. Horsfall, Virgil, Aeneid 3: A Commentary (Leiden 2006) 11, 153.
34 Attaleiates, History, 13.
35 A. Kazhdan, ‘Latins and Franks in Byzantium: perception and reality from the eleventh to the twelfth century’, in A. Laiou and R. P. Mottahedeh (eds.), The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World (Washington D. C. 2001) 83–100, 86, observed that the use of ‘ancient nomenclature’ was ‘in general typical of Attaleiates’. On classicisms in Byzantine writing, see N. G. Wilson, Scholars of Byzantium (London 1996) 4–8.
36 For evidence suggesting that these territories were the homelands of the Albanians, see Ducellier, A., ‘L'Arbanon et les albanais au XIe siècle’, Travaux et Mémoires 3 (1968) 353–68Google Scholar; G. Stadtmüller, Forschungen zur albanischen Frühgeschichte, 2nd edn (Wiesbaden 1966) 51, 118–24; A. Madgearu, The Wars of the Balkan Peninsula: Their Medieval origins, rev. edn (Lanham, MD 2008) 25–6.
37 It is assumed the term kata/meta describes some relationship between τοῖς Ἰταλικοῖς μέρεσι and ἑσπερίαν Rome, but not as Vranoussi suggests, ‘south of Rome’. See A. Ducellier, ‘Les Albanais dans l'empire byzantine’, 37.
38 P. Xhufi, ‘Krishtërimi Roman në Shqipëri, shek. VI–XVI’, in N. Ukgjini, W. Kamsi, R. Gurakuqi (eds.), Simpozium ndërkombëtar: Krishtërimi ndër shqiptarë, Tiranë, 16–19 nëntor 1999 (Shkodër 2000) 89–99 (91–2).
39 Shepard, ‘Aspects’, 96–7.
40 Vranoussi, ‘Οἱ ὅροι’, 215.
41 Vranoussi, op.cit. 215, 218. On tagmata, see Glykatzi-Ahrweiler, H., ‘Recherches sur l'administration de l'empire byzantin aux IXe-XIe siécles’, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 84/1 (1960) 1–111CrossRefGoogle Scholar (24–7).
42 For symmachoi, see J. Shepard, ‘Uses of the Franks in eleventh-century Byzantium’, Anglo-Norman Studies 15 (1993) 275–305, 280–1. For isopoliteia, see D. Zakythinos, ‘Byzance: état national ou multi-national?’, Δελτίον της Χριστιανικής Αρχαιολογικής Εταιρίας 10 (1981) 29–52 (45–6); P. Sánchez, ‘L’isopoliteia chez Denys d'Halicarnasse: nouvelle interpretation, Chiron 46 (2016) 45–83. G. Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman conquest (Harlow 2000) 75, observed that in southern Italy in the 1030s, ‘the Normans were far from being united’.
43 Loud, op.cit. 74–80.
44 J. Shepard, ‘Uses of the Franks’, 282, wrote of the Normans appearing ‘quite abruptly in Greek and Latin sources on mid-eleventh-century Byzantium – self-serving, materialistic volunteers, to whom pay was of overriding concern, and who were swift to mutiny if left unsatisfied’.
45 Attaleiates, 125.9–10: φύσει γὰρ ἄπιστον τὸ γένος τῶν Φράγγων. Engl. tr., Shepard, ‘Aspects’, 96.
46 Kazhdan, ‘Latins and Franks’, 91.
47 Vranoussi, ‘Οἱ ὅροι’, 218–20.
48 Skylitzes, 425.1–426.16.
49 von Falkenhausen, op.cit. 89.
50 Skylitzes, 426, 3.37.
51 Vranoussi, ‘Οἱ ὅροι’, 225.
52 Shepard, J., ‘Byzantium's last Sicilian expedition: Skylitzes’ testimony’, Rivista di studi bizantini e neoellenici 14–16 (1977–79) 145–159Google Scholar (151–2).
53 W. Felix, Byzanz und die islamische Welt im früheren 11. Jahrhundert: Geschichte der politischen Beziehungen von 1001–1055 (Wien 1981) 211, n. 70. See also Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard, 79.
54 Around the time of the first crusade, Geoffrey Malaterra, in Italy, wrote a prose account of the Norman conquest entitled De rebus gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae comitis et Roberti Guiscardi ducis fratris eius.
55 J. Gay, L'Italie méridionale et l'empire byzantin depuis l'avènement de Basile Ier jusqu’à la prise de Bari par les Normands (867–1071) (Paris 1904) 453–4; F. Chalandon, Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en Sicile (Paris 1907) 94.
56 C. Holmes, Basil II and the Governance of Empire (976–1025) (Oxford 2005) 83, n. 41.
57 Skylitzes, 425.12.
58 Vranoussi, ‘Οἱ ὅροι’, 225–8. See also L. Melazzo, ‘The Normans and their languages’, in M. Chibnall (ed.), Anglo-Norman Studies XV: Proceedings of the Battle Conference 1992 (Woodbridge 1993) 243–50 (246–7).
59 William of Apulia, Guillaume de Pouille: La Geste de Robert Guiscard, ed. M. Mathieu (Palermo 1961) 126–7.
60 Shepard, ‘Uses of the Franks’, 284, n. 38.
61 Ducellier, ‘Les Albanais dans l'empire byzantin’, 36–7.
62 Vranoussi, ‘Οἱ ὅροι’, 235, 240.
63 From the new standard edition, with Spanish translation, Michael Attaleiates, Miguel Ataliates: Historia, ed. and trans., I. Pérez Martín (Madrid 2002) 5.5–9: Τὸ τῆς ἱστορίας χρῆμα πολλοῖς τῶν πάλαι σοφῶν σπουδασθὲν οὐ παρέργως χρήσιμον ἐς τὰ μάλιστα κατεφάνη τῷ βίῳ, τοὺς τῶν ἀρίστων καὶ μὴ τοιούτων βίους ἀνακαλύπτον καὶ πράξεις ἐπιφανεῖς ἐξ ἀνεπιλήπτου βουλῆς καὶ σπουδῆς διαγράφον καὶ ἀδοξίας αὖ πάλιν ἐκ δυσβουλίας ἢ ὀλιγωρίας τῶν προεστώτων τοῖς πράγμασιν. Engl. tr., History, 9.
64 Attaleiates, op.cit., 5.12–17: Ταῦτα τοίνυν διὰ τῆς ἱστορίας ἀπογυμνούμενα, πολλής, ὡς | ἔφαμεν, εἰσενηνοχότα τὴν χρησιμότητα, διδασκαλία σαφὴς χρηματίζοντα καὶ ῥυθμὸς τῶν μετέπειτα, πρὸς μίμησιν ἀτεχνῶς ἔλκοντα τῶν εὖ διακεκριμένων καὶ ἀποτροπὴν τῶν ἀσυμβούλως καὶ δυσκλεῶς πεπραγμένων ἐν πολέμοις καὶ μάχαις καὶ λοιποῖς ἀναγκαιοτάτοις ἐπιχειρήμασι καὶ προβλήμασι. Engl. tr., History, 11.
65 Attaleiates, op.cit., 7.1–4: Ἄρτι τὰ Ῥωμαίων σκῆπτρα διέποντος τοῦ τῆς εὐσεβοῦς λήξεως Βασιλέως Μιχαήλ, ᾧ πατρὶς ἡ τῶν Παφλαγόνων ἐγνωρίζετο ἐπαρχία, κατεπολεμήθη τὸ τῶν Ἀγαρηνῶν φῦλον πρὸς ἐσπέραν ἐν Σικελίᾳ ναυτικαῖς τε καὶ πεζικαῖς Ῥωμαίων | δυνάμεσι. Engl. tr., History, 11 (slightly revised).
66 Attaleiates, op.cit., 7.4–8: Καὶ εἰ μὴ διαβληθεὶς περὶ τυραννίδος ὁ τὴν στρατηγίαν τῶν ὅλων ἐμπιστευθεὶς Γεώργιος ἐκεῖνος ὁ Μανιάκης, ἐκ μέσου γέγονε καὶ ἄλλοις ἀνετέθη τὰ τοῦ πολέμου, κἂν ὑπὸ Ῥωμαίοις ἐτέλει νυνὶ νῆσος οὕτω μεγάλη καὶ περιβόητος καὶ πόλεσι περιεζωσμένη μεγίσταις καὶ τῶν ἄλλων χρηστῶν οὐδενὸς ἀποδέουσα. Engl. tr., History, 11, 13.
67 Attaleiates, op.cit., 7.8–11: Νῦν δὲ ὁ φθόνος καὶ τὸν ἄνδρα καὶ τὰς πράξεις καὶ τοσοῦτον κατειργάσατο ἔργον, αἰσχρῶς γὰρ καὶ ἀγεννῶς βουλευσαμένων τῶν ὕστερον στρατηγῶν, σὺν αὐτῇ καὶ τὸ πλεῖστον τοῦ στρατεύματος ἀπολώλει Ῥωμαίοις. Engl. tr., History, 13.
68 Shepard, ‘Aspects’, 96, translates: ‘Even our former allies and partakers of an equal commonwealth (isopoliteia) with us, as being of the very same religious worship, Albans and those Latins beyond western Rome who live near the Italian regions…’.
69 Attaleiates, op.cit. 7, 11–15: Οὐ μὴν δὲ ἀλλὰ καὶ οἵ ποτε σύμμαχοι καὶ τῆς ἰσοπολιτείας ἡμῖν συμμετέχοντες, ὡς καὶ αὐτῆς τῆς θρησκείας, Ἀλβανοὶ καὶ Λατῖνοι ὅσοι κατὰ τὴν ἑσπερίαν Ῥώμην τοῖς ἰταλικοῖς πλησιάζουσι μέρεσι, πολέμιοι παραλογώτατοι ἐχρημάτισαν, ἐμπεπαρῳνηκότος εἰς τὸν ἄρχοντα τούτων τοῦ τότε τὴν στρατηγίαν ἰθύνοντος Μιχαὴλ δουκὸς τοῦ Δοκειανοῦ. Engl. tr., History, 13.
70 A. Kazhdan et al. (eds.), Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, II (New York 1991) 1187 for Latins; Kazhdan, ‘Latins and Franks’, 86; Shepard, ‘Uses of the Franks’, 276–82.
71 Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard, 77, observed that in response to Michael IV's request for assistance in the Sicilian campaign, Guaimar ‘appears to have used this opportunity to rid himself of potential trouble-makers’, by sending his Norman mercenaries to Maniakes. As to the number of Normans involved in Sicily, see von Falkenhausen, Untersuchungen, 72.
72 On the role of the Varangians and Harald Hardrada (Haraldr Sigurðarson harðráði) in Maniakes’ army, see S. Blöndal, The Varangians of Byzantium: an aspect of Byzantine military history, ed. and tr. B. Benedikz (Cambridge 1978) 66–71.
73 For example, see Shepard, ‘Aspects’, 96–7.
74 Skylitzes Continuatus, 167.7–12.
75 Anna Komnene, Annae Comnenae Alexias, ed. D. R. Reinsch and A. Kambylis, I (Berlin 2001) 20, 228, described them as καὶ τῆς τοῦ Μανιάκου ἐκείνου ἀποσπάδος (‘members of the detachment of the famous Maniaces’) in events dating to 1078, and τῶν καλουμένων Μανιακατῶν Λατίνων (‘the so-called Maniacate Latins’), in events dating to the early 1090s. Engl. tr., The Alexiad of Anna Comnena, tr. E. R. A. Sewter (Harmondsworth 1969) 40 and 238. See Glykatzi-Ahrweiler, ‘Recherches’, 34, n. 10; Shepard, ‘Uses of the Franks’, 284, n. 38.
76 Shepard, op.cit.
77 In an encomium dedicated to Constantine IX, possibly composed before 1055, Michael Psellos, Μεσαιωνικὴ Βιβλιοθήκη. Συλλογὴ ἀνεκδότων μνημείων τῆς Ἐλληνικῆς ‘ιστορίας, ed. K. N. Sathas, V (Venice 1876) 138, stated, καὶ τῆς Ρωσικῆς μοίρας οὔκ ἐλάχιστον (‘not the least part of the Russian contingent’) fought for Maniakes when he fell at Ostrovo in 1043. See S. Papaioannou, Michael Psellos: rhetoric and authorship in Byzantium (Cambridge 2013) 5. This tr., Shepard, J., ‘Why did the Russians attack Byzantium in 1043?’, Byzantinische-neugriechische Jahrbücher 22 (1978) 147–212 (174)Google Scholar. According to W. Treadgold, A History of the Byzantine State and Society (Stanford 1997), 955, n. 8, Maniakes’ army ‘included many Varangians’. See also Blöndal, The Varangians of Byzantium, 116–17.
78 Tsolakes, Skylitzes Continuatus, 76–99, concluded that Skylitzes also authored the Continuation. See also Holmes, Basil II, 83, n. 41.
79 Holmes, op.cit., 130.
80 M. Bibikov, ‘Byzantine sources for the history of Balticum and Scandinavia’, in I. Volt and J. Päll (eds.), Byzantino-Nordica 2004: papers presented at the International Symposium of Byzantine Studies held on 7–11 May 2004 in Tartu, Estonia (2005) 12–28 (13), noted that in Psellos’ writings, ‘the Varangians were identified with “Italians”, which reflected their connection with the Normans of Sicily’.
81 See D. Smythe, ‘Insiders and outsiders’, in Liz James (ed.), A Companion to Byzantium (Malden, MA 2010) 67–80 (75–7).
82 Komnene, I, 79: οἱ δέ γε ἐπὶ τῶν ὤμων τὰ ξίφη κραδαίνοντες πάτριον παράδοσιν καὶ οἷον παρακαταθήκην τινὰ καὶ κλῆρον τὴν εἰς τοὺς αὐτοκράτορας πίστιν καὶ τὴν τῶν σωμάτων αὐτῶν φυλακὴν ἄλλος ἐξ ἄλλου διαδεχόμενοι τὴν πρὸς αὐτὸν πίστιν ἀκράδαντον διατηροῦσι καὶ οὐδὲ ψιλὸν πάντως ἀνέξονται περὶ προδοσίας λόγον. Engl. tr., Alexiad, 63.
83 Shepard, ‘Uses of the Franks’, 280–1; Glykatzi-Ahrweiler, ‘Recherches’, 34.
84 Perhaps by the time of writing Skylitzes Continuatus, the origin story of the Maniakatoi Latinoi had been largely lost to the Byzantines.
85 Michael Psellos, Chronographie, ed. E. Renauld, II (Paris 1967) 6, 86.4–5: τὸ δὲ περὶ ἐκεῖνον στρατόπεδον, μέρη μέν τινα ἐπὶ τὰς οἰκείας πατρίδας ἀπεληλύθεσαν ἀφανῶς, τὸ δὲ πλεῖστον μέρος τοῖς ἡμετέροις προσέθετο. Engl. tr., Psellos, Fourteen Byzantine Rulers, 197–8. The ‘enemy’ here is the imperial army. Psellos’ statement that ‘some got away to their native countries’, suggests that the ‘majority’ who ‘deserted’ were regular Byzantine soldiers who returned to the emperor's service after the death of Maniakes.
86 The hypothesis that the Maniakatoi operated outside of the imperial army's command is preferable to the surmise that Constantine IX allowed Maniakes’ deserters to remain as a unit and bear the name of their slain leader, the very general who had come so close to deposing the emperor.