The Experience of Violence Inside and Outside the Walls of Constantinople between the Late 13th and Early 14th Century

Borders are changed by force and maintained by force. At the end of the 13th and beginning of the 14th centuries, Mediterranean powers clashed over territorial and maritime claims across the Mediterranean Region (the Crown of Aragon, the House of Anjou, the Italian maritime republics, and the Turkish emirates). By recapturing its historic capital in 1261, Byzantium reclaimed its position in Anatolia and the Greek mainland. However, the Byzantine administration’s inability to formulate a comprehensive long-term political and military strategy plunged the Byzantine population into a spiral of violence from which there was no escape. The existential fear of the aristocracy in the face of the expansionist drive of the Turkish emirates fostered political and social introversion, which, in turn, resulted in the economic suffocation of the inhabitants of Constantinople, political and physical abandonment of those in Anatolia and corruption in the tax and justice systems. Violence in everyday life led the masses to destitution and struggle for survival (loss of property and income, famine and impoverishment) coincided with the internal disorganization of the Byzantine (border) army. Violence as a response to violence epitomized by the recruitment of the Catalan mercenary Company brought Byzantium on the verge of destruction. In spite of its (short-lived) military victories, the Company left behind many victims of torture, rape, and murder. In a changing world full of opportunities and pitfalls, the Byzantine rulers missed the opportunity to lead its people toward extroversion and the assertion of geographical and political space, becoming instead the victim of other, more determined and violent claimants.