Byzantium and the Crusades: Constantine X's Embassy to Honorius II in 1062

Abstract

The Byzantine emperor Alexios I's 1095 embassy to Pope Urban II has been characterized in three different ways: as a request for troops that inadvertently triggered the First Crusade, as a manipulation of western reverence for the Holy Sepulchre and as active Byzantine–papal collaboration. An earlier approach to the papacy by Alexios’ predecessor, Michael VII, has also been highlighted. One piece of evidence has been neglected, however. According to Benzo of Alba, as early as 1062, Emperor Constantine X sent a letter to the anti-pope Honorius II in which oblique mention is made of the liberation of Jerusalem. This document has usually been regarded as a fabrication designed to advance Benzo's own agenda. By contrast, this article considers whether Benzo's text might in fact be his rendering of a genuine Byzantine letter, full of errors and misunderstandings, but retaining elements of the original. On that basis, three areas in which the 1062 embassy may be of significance will be explored: Constantine X's response to the changing situation in Italy during the 1060s, Byzantine attempts to link ecclesiastical reconciliation to an anti-Norman alliance, and a possible early example of exploitation of western reverence for the Holy Sepulchre to bring in aid against new enemies in the east. On the basis of the last point, it will be suggested that Byzantine involvement in the genesis of the First Crusade may have begun over thirty years before it was launched.