De Administrandis Marcis: the 10th-Century frontier with

Islam, seen from Barcelona and Byzantium

Jonathan Jarrett

Barber Institute of Fine Arts

Borrell II Constantine VIICount-Marquis of Barcelona, Girona and Osona 945-993, with brother Miró 947-966 and son Ramon 990-993, and Count of Urgell 947-993

Emperor of the Romans 913-959, with mother Zoë 913-919, with general Romanos I Lecapenos 920-945, with son Romanos II Porphyrogennetos 945-959

Silver diner de transició of Barcelona, tenth century, from Acta Numismàtica 43 p. 253

Gold solidus of Constantine VII, Constantinople, 945, Barber Institute of Fine Arts B4855

De Administrando Imperii at a glance

• Cc. 1-8 allies against Pechenegs• C. 9 Rus’ route to Constantinople• Cc. 10-13 allies against Pechenegs• C. 13 how to decline treasure demands• Cc. 14-25 history of Islam up to 756• Cc 26-28 rule in Italy• Cc. 29-36 subject Slavic peoples• C. 37 Pechenegs• C. 38-41 Turks• C. 41 Moravia• C. 42 itinerary from Thessaloniki to

Pitsunda• Cc. 43-46 Caucasian princedoms• Cc. 47-48 resettlement of Cypriots• C. 49-50 jurisdictions over the Slavs• C. 50 organisation of Mesopotamia• C. 51 the imperial galleys• Cc. 51-52 tributes levied on Greece• C. 53 legends of Cherson, naphtha wells

there, sanctions against it

Carved ivory now in the Pushkin Museum, Moscow, image from Wikimedia Commons

Dominions compared, c. 990

Naval comparisons in Skylitzes

Two sites of ceremony

Ruins of Madinat al-Zahra’, Córdoba

Reconstruction drawing of Great

Palace of Constantinople

Invoking an imaginary past“These robes of state… were not fashioned by men… but when God made emperor the former Constantine the Great…, He sent him these robes of state by the hand of His angel…. Moreover, there is a curse of the holy and great emperor… engraved upon this holy table… that if an emperor… give them to others, he shall be anathematized….” (DAI c. 13)

“… the which I hold by voice of a precept of the King of the Franks that the most glorious Charles made of all the fiscal lands and their waste lands.”

(Catalunya Carolíngia IV no. 1122, 959)•(NB the most recent King Charles had died 35 years before!)

(From Catherine Holmes, Basil II and the Governance of Empire, 976-1025, p. 305)

Catalan kastra?

Castell de Llordà, Isona, Pallars Jussà (C12th as stands on C10th site)

Castell de Cardona, Cardona, Barcelona (C10th core with

substantial C11th-C14th additions)

With thanks to:Centre for the Study of

the Middle Ages, University of Birmingham

Barber Instituteof Fine Arts, University of Birmingham