Hello everyone and welcome to the history of Byzantium.

Episode 186 The Petsch and Egg Wars

Last time we saw our people pleasing Emperor Constantine IX face down yet more challenges

to his rule. One was the settlement in the Balkans of thousands of stepp nomads from

across the Danube and possibly connected to that decision a revolt by his Balkan troops

who tried to replace him with their general Leo Tornicius.

Constantine survived in part because of the loyalty he'd generated in the hearts of the

people of Constantinople. And I closed our last episode promising to talk about how

he'd achieved this. The short answer is of course that he'd pleased people. He doled

out a lot of money to worthy and less worthy causes. He promoted those who craved advancement

and he built a huge new church complex in the capital creating work for builders, artisans

and landscape gardeners alike. All while leaving Zoe and Theodora alone and financing

their own generous spending habits. But I've decided to leave the longer answer to that

question for next episode. As our title suggests the settlement of thousands of Petsch and

Egg's on Imperial land was a ticking time bomb. And it was the first encounter between

Byzantium and the Turks which set it off. These are the crucial events which start us

down the path towards Manzekert and the Crusades. They require an episode all to themselves

and they prompt huge financial problems which we can talk about along with the Emperor's

generosity next time.

A healthy animal with a thoroughly strong constitution is not altered in a moment at the first symptoms

of illness. So with the Empire in the reign of Constantine it was by no means moribund

and its breathing was still energetic, the neglect from which it was suffering seemed

...