Nathan Websdale
‘DEFENDING TWO CRADLES OF CHRISTIANITY:’ THE
AGENCY OF PHILARETOS BRAAKHAMIOS AND THE
POST-MANZIKERT CONTEST FOR ANTIOCH AND
EDESSA.
In the fallout of the Battle of Manzikert and the resulting Byzantine civil war of 1071-72, the
dissolving fabric of eastern Byzantium enabled the construction of several smaller polities based upon
ethnic, cultural, and linguistic grounds and by the force of sheer ambition. One such of these was the
proto-principality of Antioch and Edessa ruled by the Chalcedonian-Armenian general Philaretos
Braakhamios. Much maligned by both modern historians and of the eleventh and twelfth centuries,
the last Eastern Christian ruler of Antioch before its fall to the Seljuk Turks and the Crusaders was the
archetype for both Cilician Armenia and the Principality of Antioch. His fascinating career sought to
safeguard and unite the Armenian people against the Turkish invasions despite the divisions of their
Apostolic faith. Moreover, in the collapse of Byzantine organisation across Anatolia, Philaretos’ career
is notable for its longevity and the factors that enabled this. For fifteen years until c.1085, Philaretos
blended the court cultures of Armenia, Byzantium and the Arabic world while leading armies to the
delivery of Edessa, the massacre of the exiled princes of Greater Armenia, and against the brother of
the nascent Alexios Komnenos before Philaretos’ own ultimate apostasy to Islam. The complex
relationship between Alexios and Philaretos is the focus of this paper, the first produced in English in
forty years as we discuss that what has been previously dismissed as a turbulent and ‘nominal’ vassal
relationship between the two developed into a working partnership and a dynamic use of traditional
Byzantine deputation.
Nathan Websdale
Royal Holloway, University of London