25.3 Europe: a.d. 1001 to 1100  (Page 2/11)

Many of the Bulgarian noble families settled in Constantinople and merged with the Greek and Armenian aristocracies. Next, in about 1027, came the Patzinaks, invading from north of the Black Sea. They were finally driven back over the Danube by Byzantine general, Constantine Diogenes. Lastly, near the end of the century there were several catastrophes. In 1083 all of Macedonia up to the Vardar was conquered by the Normans and in 1086 a religious heretic group, the Bogomils, obtained support of the Patzinaks and Cumans and defeated Alexius and a large army. The Cumans then ravaged the entire eastern Balkan region as far as Constantinople itself, when the emperor then bought them off and used them in 1091 to annihilate the Patzinaks in the battle of Leburnion. The final blow to the Balkans at the end of the century was the sacking by the 1st Crusaders, as mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. By this time Hungary had absorbed Croatia and Dalmatia while the Patzinaks were squeezed into a small area of old Bulgaria between Hungary and the Byzantine territory. On the western coast, Byzantine Slav cities like Zara (Zadar), Trau (Trogir) and Regusa (Dubrovnik) carried on a thriving commerce with the Moslem East. Soon Venice was to conquer Dalmatia with a mixed Dalmatian-Venetian culture resulting. (Ref. 119 , 206 , 137 )

Italy

Through most of the Middle Ages Italy was divided into three spheres of power as follows:

• The northern and part of central Italy, notably Tuscany, belonged to the Holy Roman Empire of the German kings and was known as "Regnum Italicum"
• Rome and the rest of central Italy was subject to the popes
• Southern Italy and Sicily were together as a separate kingdom called "The Two Sicilies". (Ref. 68 )

For awhile the Saracens were in control of Sicily, but they were expelled and replaced near the end of the century by the sea-going Normans who roved the area as pirates and robber-captains. Many came south in bands by land through the Rhineland and Italy, proper, also. Robert Guiscard, one of their leaders even crossed the Adriatic and captured the Byzantian stronghold at Durazzo, as noted in a previous paragraph. Overall it took the Normans about 20 years to completely take Byzantine Italy and Sicily, so that it was in 1071 that the last Italian possession fell to these raiders. (Ref. 137 , 8 ) In order to balance the power of the German emperor, the Cluny pope, Hildebrand courted not only the counts of Tuscany and the Lombards of north Italy but even the Norman conquerors in southern Italy.

There was an upsurge of commercial activity in the Mediterranean with the principal carriers being the Italian merchants of Venice, Genoa and other ports. (Ref. 279 ) Venice compensated for the decline in power of Rome and Ravena by shrewdly accepting a form of Byzantine suzerainty under cover of which it monopolized east-west trade for awhile. During the century, however, Venice did lose some commerce to Milan and other port cities. The main trade objects going from Europe to the East were amber, furs, fish, tallow, honey, wool and wine. (Ref. 137 , 211 , 279 ) It so happens that China had a marked increase in maritime business at this same time. Pisa occupied Sardinia in 1050 and Corsica in 1077.