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7 February

7 February

February 7 is the 38th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 327 days remaining, 328 in leap years.

Events


- 457 - Leo I becomes emperor of the Byzantine Empire.
- 1301 - Edward of Caernarvon (later King Edward II of England) becomes the first English Prince of Wales.
- 1550 - Julius III becomes Pope.
- 1613 - Mikhail Romanov becomes Tsar of Russia.
- 1795 - The 11th Amendment to the United States Constitution is passed.
- 1807 - Napoléon's French Empire begin fighting against Russian and Prussian forces of the Fourth Coalition at the Battle of Eylau in Eylau, Poland.
- 1812 - The strongest in a series of earthquakes strikes New Madrid, Missouri.
- 1842 - Battle of Debre Tabor: Ras Ali Alula, Regent of the Emperor of Ethiopia defeats warlord Wube Haile Maryam of Semien
- 1863 - HMS Orpheus sinks off the coast of Auckland, New Zealand, killing 189.
- 1882 - The last heavyweight boxing championship bare-knuckle fight takes place in Mississippi City, Mississippi.
- 1898 - Emile Zola is brought to trial for libel for publishing J'Accuse.
- 1900 - The British Labour Party is formed.
- 1904 - A fire in Baltimore, Maryland destroys over 1,500 buildings in 30 hours.
- 1940 - Walt Disney's Pinocchio, an animated feature based on the Carlo Collodi's story Pinocchio was first released.
- 1944 - World War II: In Anzio, Italy Nazi forces launch a counteroffensive.
- 1962 - The United States Government bans all Cuban imports and exports.
- 1964 - The Beatles arrive on their first visit to the United States.
- 1966 - Paul Williams creates the rock music magazine Crawdaddy!.
- 1967 - A fire at a restaurant in Montgomery, Alabama kills 25 people.
- 1971 - Women gain the right to vote in Switzerland.
- 1974 - Grenada becomes independent from the United Kingdom.
- 1976 - Darryl Sittler sets NHL record with 10 points in one game.
- 1977 - The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 24.
- 1979 - Pluto moves inside Neptune's orbit for the first time since either planet was known to science.
- 1984 - Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered space walk.
- 1985 - "New York, New York" becomes the official city anthem of New York City.
- 1986 - Twenty-eight years of one-family rule end in Haiti, when President Jean-Claude Duvalier flees the Caribbean nation.
- 1990 - Collapse of the Soviet Union: The Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party agrees to give up its monopoly of power.
- 1991 - Haiti's first democratically-elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, is sworn in.
- 1991 - The IRA launches a mortar attack on 10 Downing Street during a cabinet meeting.
- 1992 - The European Union is formed.
- 1998 - The 1998 Winter Olympic Games open in Nagano, Japan.
- 1999 - Crown Prince Abdullah becomes the ruler of Jordan on the death of his father, King Hussein.
- 2000 - Bahria University is established through the Presidential Ordinance No. V of 2000 of Government of Pakistan.
- 2003 - Last contact with Pioneer 10.
- 2005- Star Wars: Empire at War officially becomes available in the U.S.

Births


- 1102 - Empress Matilda, Princess of England and wife of Henry V of the Holy Roman Empire (d. 1169)
- 1478 - Sir Thomas More, English statesman, humanist, and author (d. 1535)
- 1693 - Empress Anna of Russia (d. 1740)
- 1812 - Charles Dickens, English novelist (d. 1870)
- 1842 - Alexandre Ribot, French statesman (d. 1923)
- 1867 - Laura Ingalls Wilder, American author (d. 1957)
- 1870 - Alfred Adler, Austrian psychologist (d. 1937)
- 1883 - Eubie Blake, American musician and composer (d. 1983)
- 1885 - Sinclair Lewis, American writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1951)
- 1895 - Anita Stewart, American film actress (d. 1961)
- 1898 - Dock Boggs, American musician (d. 1971)
- 1905 - Ulf von Euler, Swedish physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1983)
- 1905 - Paul Nizan, French author (d. 1940)
- 1906 - Puyi, Emperor of China (d. 1967)
- 1908 - Buster Crabbe, American swimmer and actor (d. 1983)
- 1914 - Ramón Mercader, Spanish assassin of Leon Trotsky (d. 1978)
- 1915 - Eddie Bracken, American actor (d. 2002)
- 1920 - An Wang, Chinese-born computer pioneer (d. 1990)
- 1922 - Hattie Jacques, English actress (d. 1980)
- 1926 - Konstantin Feoktistov, cosmonaut
- 1927 - Juliette Greco, French singer and actor
- 1927 - Vladimir Kuts, Russian runner
- 1932 - Gay Talese, American author
- 1932 - Al Worden, astronaut
- 1934 - Earl King, American musician (d. 2003)
- 1943 - Gareth Hunt, English actor
- 1945 - Gerald Davies, Welsh rugby player
- 1945 - Pete Postlethwaite, English actor
- 1949 - Paulo César Carpegiani, Brazilian footballer and coach
- 1953 - Dan Quisenberry, baseball player (d. 1998)
- 1954 - Dieter Bohlen German composer
- 1955 - Rolf Benirschke, American football player
- 1955 - Mario Coutinho Brazilian physician
- 1955 - Miguel Ferrer, American actor
- 1960 - James Spader, American actor
- 1962 - Garth Brooks, American singer
- 1962 - Eddie Izzard, British actor and comedian
- 1965 - Jason Gedrick, American actor
- 1967 - Chris Rock, American comedian and actor
- 1968 - Peter Bondra, Ukrainian-born hockey player
- 1968 - Sully Erna, American singer (Godsmack)
- 1974 - Steve Nash, Canadian basketball player
- 1975 - Wes Borland, American guitarist (Limp Bizkit)
- 1978 - Ashton Kutcher, American actor
- 1984 - Jonathan "Trueborn" Smith, American vocalist (Binswitch)
- 1985 - Tina Majorino, American actress
- 1988 - Ai Kago, Japanese singer (W (Double You), Morning Musume, and MiniMoni)

Deaths


- 1045 - Emperor Go-Suzaku of Japan (b. 1009)
- 1317 - Robert, Count of Clermont, French founder of the House of Bourbon (b. 1256)
- 1560 - Bartolommeo Bandinelli, Italian sculptor (b. 1493)
- 1626 - William V, Duke of Bavaria (b. 1548)
- 1642 - William Bedell, English clergyman (b. 1571)
- 1652 - Gregorio Allegri, Italian composer (b. 1582)
- 1690 - William Morice, English royalist statesman
- 1693 - Paul Pellisson, French writer (b. 1624)
- 1736 - Stephen Gray, English astronomer and scientist (b. 1666)
- 1779 - William Boyce, English composer (b. 1711)
- 1799 - Qianlong, Emperor of China (b. 1711)
- 1801 - Daniel Chodowiecki, Polish painter (b. 1726)
- 1823 - Ann Radcliffe, English novelist (b. 1764)
- 1837 - King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden (b. 1778)
- 1873 - Sheridan Le Fanu, Irish writer (b. 1814)
- 1878 - Pope Pius IX (b. 1792)
- 1920 - Aleksandr Vasilevich Kolchak, Russian military commander (b. 1874)
- 1937 - Elihu Root, American statesman and diplomat, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1845)
- 1938 - Harvey Firestone, American manufacturer (b. 1868)
- 1968 - Nick Adams, American actor (b. 1931)
- 1971 - Dock Boggs, American musician (b. 1898)
- 1979 - Josef Mengele, Nazi war criminal (b. 1911)
- 1980 - Secondo Campini, Italian jet pioneer (b. 1904)
- 1985 - Matt Monro, English singer (b. 1932)
- 1990 - Jimmy Van Heusen, American songwriter (b. 1913)
- 1993 - Lillian Gish, American actress (b. 1893)
- 1994 - Witold Lutosławski, Polish composer (b. 1913)
- 1994 - Stephen Milligan, British journalist and politician (b. 1948)
- 1996 - Phillip Davidson, US Army general (b. 1915)
- 1998 - Lawrence Sanders, American author (b. 1920)
- 1999 - King Hussein of Jordan (b. 1935)
- 1999 - Bobby Troup, American musician and actor (b. 1918)
- 2000 - Doug Henning, Canadian magician (b. 1947)
- 2000 - Big Pun, Puerto Rican singer (b. 1971)
- 2001 - Dale Evans, American actress and singer (b. 1912)
- 2001 - Anne Morrow Lindbergh, American author and aviator (b. 1906)
- 2003 - Augusto Monterroso, Guatemalan author (b. 1921)
- 2003 - John Reading, Mayor of Oakland, California (b. 1917)
- 2004 - John Hench, American animator (b. 1908)

Holidays and observances


- Independence Day in Grenada (1974)
- Bahá'í Faith - Feast of Mulk (Dominion) - First day of the 18th month of the Bahá'í Calendar
- Sapporo Snow Festival in Sapporo, Japan (2005)

External links


- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/7 BBC: On This Day]
- [http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/20050207.html The New York Times: On This Day] ---- February 6 - February 8 - January 7 - March 7 -- listing of all days ko:2월 7일 ms:7 Februari ja:2月7日 simple:February 7 th:7 กุมภาพันธ์



457

Events
- February 7 - Leo I becomes East Roman emperor.
- Childeric I succeeds Merovech as king of the Franks (or 458).
- Majorian is declared emperor by Ricimer.
- Victorius of Aquitania computes new tables for celebrating Easter.
- Hormizd III becomes king of Persia.
- Peroz I rebels against his brother Hormizd III.
- 4.000 Britons are slain at the Crayford in battle against Hengist and his son Esc. (According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle)
- In India, Skandagupta of the Gupta Empire defeats the Hunas (Ephthalites); not until 480 does the empire collapse under their attacks. Births Deaths
- October 28, Ibas, bishop of Edessa
- Marcian, East Roman emperor
- Theodoret, Christian bishop and theologian
- Yazdegerd II, king of Persia
- St. Valerian, bishop of Abbenza Category:457 ko:457년

Leo I of the Byzantine Empire

Imperator Caesar Flavius Valerius Leo Augustus or Leo I of the Byzantine Empire (401 - 474, reigned 457 - 474), sometimes known as Leo the Thracian, was the last of a series of emperors placed on the throne by Aspar, the Alan serving as commander-in-chief of the army. His coronation as emperor on February 7, 457, was the first known to involve the Patriarch of Constantinople. Leo I made an alliance with the Isaurians and was thus able to eliminate Aspar. The price of the alliance was the marriage of Leo's daughter to Tarasicodissa, leader of the Isaurians who, as Zeno, became emperor in 474. During Leo's reign, the Balkans were ravaged time and again by the West Goths and the Huns. However, these attackers were unable to take Constantinople thanks to the walls which had been rebuilt and reinforced in the reign of Theodosius II and against which they possessed no suitable technology. His reign was also noteworthy for his influence in the Western Roman Empire, marked by his appointment of Anthemius as Western Roman Emperor in 467. He attempted to build on this political achievement with an expedition against the Vandals in 468, which was defeated due to the treachery and incompetence of Leo's brother-in-law Basiliscus. This disaster drained the Empire of men and money. Whilst Leo's empire was well known for its military technology, it also managed important advances in other fields, most notably a primitive form of paperclip for binding official documents. Leo died of dysentery at the age of 73 on January 18, 474.

External links

Category:401 births Category:474 deaths Category:Byzantine emperors Category:House of Leo ja:レオ1世 (東ローマ皇帝)

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire is the term conventionally used to describe the Greek-speaking Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered at its capital in Constantinople. In certain specific contexts, usually referring to the time before the fall of the Western Roman Empire, it is also often referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire. There is no consensus on the starting date of the Byzantine period. Some place it during the reign of Diocletian (284-305) due to the administrative reforms he introduced, dividing the empire into a pars Orientis and a pars Occidentis. Others place it during the reign of Theodosius I (379-395) and Christendom's victory over paganism, or, following his death in 395, with the division of the empire into western and eastern halves. Others place it yet further in 476, when the last western emperor, Romulus Augustus, was forced to abdicate, thus leaving to the emperor in the Greek East sole imperial authority. In any case, the changeover was gradual and by 330, when Constantine I inaugurated his new capital, the process of Hellenization and Christianization was well underway.

The term "Byzantine Empire"

Main article: Names of the Greeks The name Byzantine Empire is derived from the original Greek name for Constantinople; Byzantium. The name is a modern term and would have been alien to its contemporaries. The Empire's native Greek name was Romanía or Basileía Romaíon, a direct translation of the Latin name of the Roman Empire, Imperium Romanorum. The term Byzantine Empire was invented in 1557, about a century after the fall of Constantinople by German historian Hieronymus Wolf, who introduced a system of Byzantine historiography in his work Corpus Historiae Byzantinae in order to distinguish ancient Roman from medieval Greek history without drawing attention to their ancient predecessors. Standardization of the term did not occur until the 18th century, when French authors such as Montesquieu began to popularize it. Hieronymus himself was influenced by the rift caused by the 9th century dispute between Romans (Byzantines as we render them today) and Franks, who, under Charlemagne's newly formed empire, and in concert with the Pope, attempted to legitimize their conquests by claiming inheritance of Roman rights in Italy thereby renouncing their eastern neighbours as true Romans. The Donation of Constantine, one of the most famous forged documents in history, played a crucial role in this. Henceforth, it was fixed policy in the West to refer to the emperor in Constantinople not by the usual "Imperator Romanorum" (Emperor of the Romans) which was now reserved for the Frankish monarch, but as "Imperator Graecorum" (Emperor of the Greeks) and the land as "Imperium Graecorum", "Graecia", "Terra Graecorum" or even "Imperium Constantinopolitanus". This served as a precedent for Wolf who was motivated, at least partly, to re-interpret Roman history in different terms. Nevertheless, this was not intended in a demeaning manner since he ascribed his changes to historiography and not history itself. Later, a derogatory use of 'Byzantine' was developed.

Identity

"Byzantium may be defined as a multi-ethnic empire that emerged as a Christian empire, soon comprised the Hellenized empire of the East and ended its thousand year history, in 1453, as a Greek Orthodox state: An empire that became a nation, almost by the modern meaning of the word".1 In the centuries following the Arab and Lombard conquests in the 7th century, its multi-ethnic (albeit not multi-national) nature remained even though its constituent parts in the Balkans and Asia Minor contained an overwhelmingly large Greek population. Ethnic minorities and sizeable communities of religious heretics often lived on or near the borderlands, the Armenians being the only sizeable one. Byzantines identified themselves as Romans (Ρωμαιοί - Romans) which had already become a synonym for a Hellene (Έλλην - Greek). Also, the Byzantines were developing a national consciousness as residents of Ρωμανία (Romania, as the Byzantine state and its world were called). This nationalist awareness is reflected in literature, particularly in the acritic songs, where frontiersmen (ακρίτες) are praised for defending their country against invaders, of which most famous is the heroic or epic poem Digenis Acritas. The official dissolution of the Byzantine state in the 15th century did not immediately undo Byzantine society. During the Ottoman occupation Greeks continued to identify themselves as both Ρωμαιοί (Romans) and Έλληνες (Hellenes), a trait that survived into the early 20th century and still persists today in modern Greece, albeit the former has now retreated to a secondary folkish name rather than a national synonym as in the past.

Origin

Greece, Illyricum and Oriens, roughly analogous to the four Tetrarchs' zones of influence after Diocletian's reforms.]] Caracalla's decree in 212, the Constitutio Antoniniana, extended citizenship outside of Italy to all free adult males in the entire Roman Empire, effectively raising provincial populations to equal status with the city of Rome itself. The importance of this decree is historical rather than political. It set the basis for integration where the economic and judicial mechanisms of the state could be applied around the entire Mediterranean as was once done from Latium into all of Italy. Of course, integration did not take place uniformly. Societies already integrated with Rome such as Greece were favored by this decree, compared with those far away, too poor or just too alien such as Britain, Palestine or Egypt. The division of the Empire began with the Tetrarchy (quadrumvirate) in the late 3rd century with Emperor Diocletian, as an institution intended to more efficiently control the vast Roman Empire. He split the Empire in half, with two emperors (Augusti) ruling from Italy and Greece, each having as co-emperor a younger colleague of their own (Caesares). After Diocletian's voluntary abandonment of the throne, the Tetrarchic system began soon to crumble: the division continued in some form into the 4th century until 324 when Constantine the Great killed his last rival and became the sole emperor. Constantine decided to found a new capital for himself and chose Byzantium for that purpose. The rebuilding process was completed in 330. 330 Constantine renamed the city Nova Roma, but the populace would commonly call it Constantinople (in Greek, Κωνσταντινούπολις, Constantinoúpolis, meaning Constantine's City). This new capital became the centre of his administration. Constantine deprived the single preatorian prefect of his civil functions, introducing regional prefects with civil authority. During the 4th century, four great "regional prefectures" were also created. Constantine was also probably the first Christian emperor. The religion which had been persecuted under Diocletian became a "permitted religion", and steadily increased his power as years passed, apart from a short-lived return to pagan predominance with emperor Julian. Although the empire was not yet "Byzantine" under Constantine, Christianity would become one of the defining characteristics of the Byzantine Empire, as opposed to the pagan Roman Empire. Constantine also introduced a new stable gold coin, the solidus, which was to become the standard coin for centuries, not only in Byzantine Empire. Another defining moment in the history of the Roman/Byzantine Empire was the Battle of Adrianople in 378 in which the Emperor Valens and the best of the remaining Roman legions were killed by the Visigoths. This defeat has been proposed by some authorities as one possible date for dividing the ancient and medieval worlds. The Roman Empire was divided further by Valens' successor Theodosius I (also called "the Great"), who had ruled both parts since 392: following the dynastic principle well established by Constantine, in 395 Theodosius gave the two halves to his two sons Arcadius and Honorius; Arcadius became ruler of the eastern half, with his capital in Constantinople, and Honorius became ruler of the western half, with his capital in Ravenna. Theodosius was the last Roman emperor whose authority covered the entire traditional extent of the Roman Empire. At this point, it is common to refer to the empire as "Eastern Roman" rather than "Byzantine."

Early history

The Eastern Roman Empire was largely spared the difficulties of the west in the 3rd and 4th centuries (see Crisis of the Third Century) in part because urban culture was better established there and the initial invasions were attracted to the wealth of Rome. Throughout the 5th century, various invasions conquered the western half of the Roman Empire and at best only demanded tribute from the eastern half. Theodosius II fortified the walls of Constantinople, leaving the city impenetrable to attacks: it was to be preserved from foreign conquest until 1204. To spare the Eastern Roman Empire from the invasion of the Huns of Attila, Theodosius gave them subsidies of gold. Moreover, he favored merchants living in Constantinople who traded with the barbarians. His successor, Marcian, refused to continue to pay the great sum. However, Attila had already diverted his attention from the Western Roman Empire and died in 453 after the Battle of Chalons. The Hunnic Empire collapsed and Constantinople was free from the menace of Attila. This started a profitable relationship between the Eastern Roman Empire and the remaining Huns. The Huns would eventually fight as mercenaries in Byzantine armies during the following centuries. At the time since the fall of Attila, the true chief in Constantinople was the Alan general Aspar. Leo I managed to free himself from the influence of the barbarian chief favouring the rise of the Isauri, a crude semi-barbarian tribe living in Roman territory, in southern Anatolia. Aspar and his son Ardabur were murdered in a riot in 471, and henceforth, Constantinople became free from foreign influences for centuries. Leo was also the first emperor to receive the crown not from a general or an officer, as evident in the Roman tradition, but from the hands of the patriarch of Constantinople. This habit became mandatory as time passed, and in the Middle Ages, the religious characteristic of the coronation had totally substituted the old form. The first Isaurian emperor was Tarasicodissa, who was married to Leo's daughter Ariadne in 466, and ruled as Zeno I after the death of Leo I's son, Leo II (autumn of 474). Zeno was the emperor when the Western Roman Empire finally collapsed in 476 and the barbarian general Odoacer deposed Emperor Romulus Augustus without replacing him with another puppet. In 468, an attempt was made by Leo I to conquer North Africa again from the Vandals had failed. This showed that the Eastern Roman Empire had feeble military capabilities. At that time, the Western Roman Empire was already restricted to Italy (Britain had fallen to Angles and Saxons, Spain fell to the Visigoths, Africa fell to the Vandals and Gaul fell to the Franks). To recover Italy, Zeno could only negotiate with the Ostrogoths of Theodoric who had been settled in Moesia. He sent the barbarian king in Italy as magister militum per Italiam ("chief of staff for Italy"). Since the fall of Odoacer in 493, Theodoric, who had lived in Constantinople during his youth, ruled over Italy on his own while maintaining a mere formal obedience to Zeno. He revealed himself as the most powerful Germanic king of that age, but his successors were greatly inferior to him and their kingdom of Italy started to decline in the 530s. In 475, Zeno was deposed by a plot to elevate Basiliscus (the general defeated in 468) to the throne. However, Zeno was again emperor twenty months later. Yet, Zeno had to face the threat coming from his Isaurian former official Illo and the other Isaurian, Leontius, who was also elected rival emperor. Isaurian prominence ended when an aged civil officer of Roman origin, Anastasius I, became emperor in 491 and after a long war defeated them in 498. Anastasius revealed himself to be an energetic reformer and an able administrator. He perfected Constantine I's coin system by definitively setting the weight of the copper follis, the coin used in most everyday transactions. He also reformed the tax system in which the State Treasury contained the enormous sum of 320,000 pounds of gold when he died.

The age of Justinian I

The reign of Justinian I, which began in 527, saw a period of extensive imperial conquests of former Roman territories (indicated in green on the map below). The 6th century also saw the beginning of a long series of conflicts with the Byzantine Empire's traditional early enemies, such as the Persians, Slavs and Bulgars. Theological crises, such as the question of Monophysitism, also dominated the empire. Justinian I had perhaps already exerted effective control during the reign of his predecessor, Justin I (518-527). Justin I was a former officer in the imperial army who had been chief of the guards to Anastasius I, and had been proclaimed emperor (when almost 70) after Anastasius' death. Justinian was the son of a peasant from Illyricum, but was also a nephew of Justin. Justinian was later adopted as Justin's son. Justinian would become one of the most refined people of his century, inspired by the dream to re-establish Roman rule over all the Mediterranean world. He reformed the administration and the law, and with the help of brilliant generals such as Belisarius and Narses, he temporarily regained some of the lost Roman provinces in the west, conquering much of Italy, North Africa, and a small area in southern Spain. In 532, Justinian secured for the Eastern Roman Empire peace on the eastern frontier by signing an "eternal peace" treaty with the Sassanid Persian king Khosrau I. However, this required in exchange a payment of a huge annual tribute of gold. Justinian's conquests in the west began in 533 when Belisarius was sent to reclaim the former province of North Africa with a small army of 18,000 men who were mainly mercenaries. Whereas an earlier expedition in 468 had been a failure, this new venture was successful. The kingdom of the Vandals at Carthage lacked the strength of former times under King Gaiseric and the Vandals surrendered after a couple of battles against Belisarius' forces. General Belisarius returned to a Roman triumph in Constantinople with the last Vandal king, Gelimer, as his prisoner. However, the reconquest of North Africa would take a few more years to stabilize. It was not until 548 that the main local independent tribes were entirely subdued. 548 In 535, Justinian I launched his most ambitious campaign, the reconquest of Italy. At the time, Italy was still ruled by the Ostrogoths. He dispatched an army to march overland from Dalmatia while the main contingent, transported on ships and again under the command of General Belisarius, disembarked in Sicily and conquered the island without much difficulty. The marches on the Italian mainland were initially victorious and the major cities, including Naples, Rome and the capital Ravenna, fell one after the other. The Goths were seemingly defeated and Belisarius was recalled to Constantinople in 541 by Justinian. Belisarius brought with him to Constantinople the Ostrogoth king Witiges as a prisoner in chains. However, the Ostrogoths and their supporters were soon reunited under the energetic command of Totila. The ensuing Gothic Wars were an exhausting series of sieges, battles and retreats which consumed almost all the Byzantine and Italian fiscal resources, impoverishing much of the countryside. Belisarius was recalled by Justinian, who had lost trust in his preferred commander. At a certain point, the Byzantines seemed to be on the verge of losing all the positions they had gained. After having neglected to provide sufficient financial and logistical support to the desperate troops under Belisarius' former command, in the summer of 552 Justinian gathered a massive army of 35,000 men (mostly Asian and Germanic mercenaries) to contribute to the war effort. The astute and diplomatic eunuch Narses was chosen for the command. Totila was crushed and killed at the Busta Gallorum. Totila's successor, Teias, was likewise defeated at the Battle of Mons Lactarius (central Italy, October 552). Despite continuing resistance from a few Goth garrisons, and two subsequent invasions by the Franks and Alamanni, the war for the reconquest of the Italian peninsula came to an end. Justinian's program of conquest was further extended in 554 when a Byzantine army managed to seize a small part of Spain from the Visigoths. All the main Mediterranean islands were also now under Byzantine control. Aside from these conquests, Justinian updated the ancient Roman legal code in the new Corpus Juris Civilis. Even though the laws were still written in Latin, the language itself was becoming archaic and poorly understood even by those who wrote the new code. Under Justinian's reign, the Church of Hagia Sofia ("Holy Wisdom") was constructed in the 530s. This church would become the center of Byzantine religious life and the center of the Eastern Orthodox form of Christianity. The 6th century was also a time of flourishing culture and even though Justinian closed the university at Athens, the Eastern Roman Empire produced notable people such as the epic poet Nonnus, the lyric poet Paul the Silentiary, the historian Procopius, the natural philosopher John Philoponos and others. The conquests in the west meant that the other parts of the Eastern Roman Empire were left almost unguarded even though Justinian was a great builder of fortifications in Byzantine territories throughout his reign. Khosrau I of Persia had, as early as 540, broken the pact previously signed with Justinian and destroyed Antiochia and Armenia. The only way Justinian could forestall him was to increase the sum he paid to Khosrau I every year. The Balkans were subjected to repeated incursions where Slavs had first crossed the imperial frontiers during the reign of Justin I. The Slavs took advantage of the sparsely-deployed Byzantine troops and pressed on as far as the Gulf of Corinth. The Kutrigur Bulgars had also attacked in 540. The Slavs invaded Thrace in 545 and in 548 assaulted Dyrrachium, an important port on the Adriatic Sea. In 550, the Sclaveni pushed on as far to reach within 65 kilometers of Constantinople itself. In 559, the Eastern Roman Empire found itself unable to repel a great invasion of Kutrigurs and Sclaveni. Divided in three columns, the invaders reached Thermopylae, the Gallipoli peninsula and the suburbs of Constantinople. The Slavs feared the intact power of the Danube Roman fleet and of the Utigurs (paid by the Romans themselves) more than the resistance of the ill-prepared Byzantine imperial army. This time the Eastern Roman Empire was safe, but in the following years the Roman suzerainty in the Balkans was to be almost totally overwhelmed. Soon after the death of Justinian in 565, the Germanic Lombards, a former imperial foederati tribe, invaded and conquered much of Italy. The Visigoths conquered Cordoba, the main Byzantine city in Spain, first in 572 and then definitively in 584. The last Byzantine strongholds in Spain were swept away twenty years later. The Turks emerged in the Crimea, and in 577, a horde of some 100,000 Slavs had invaded Thrace and Illyricum. Sirmium, the most important Roman city on the Danube, was lost in 582, but the Eastern Roman Empire managed to mantain control of the river for several more years even though it increasingly lost control of the inner provinces. Justinian's successor, Justin II, refused to pay the tribute to the Persians. This resulted in a long and harsh war which lasted until the reign of his successors Tiberius II and Maurice, and focused on the control over Armenia. Fortunately for the Byzantines, a civil war broke out in the Persian Empire. Maurice was able to take advantage of his friendship with the new king Khosrau II (whose disputed accession to the Persian throne had been assisted by Maurice) in order to sign a favorable peace treaty in 591. This treaty gave the Eastern Roman Empire control over much of Persian Armenia. Maurice reorganized the remaining Byzantine possessions in the west into two Exarchates, the Ravenna and the Carthage. Maurice increased the Exarchates' self-defense capabilities and delegated them to civil authorities. The Avars and later the Bulgars overwhelmed much of the Balkans, and in the early 7th century the Persians invaded and conquered Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Armenia. The Persians were eventually defeated and the territories were recovered by Emperor Heraclius in 627. However, the unexpected appearance of the newly-converted and united Muslim Arabs took the territories by surprise from an empire exhausted from fighting against Persia, and the southern provinces were overrun. The Eastern Roman Empire's most catastrophic defeat of this period was the Battle of Yarmuk, fought in Syria. Heraclius and the military governors of Syria were slow to respond to the new threat, and Byzantine Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, and the Exarchate of Africa were permanently incorporated into the Muslim Empire in the 7th century, a process which was completed with the fall of Carthage to the Caliphate in 698. The Lombards continued to expand in northern Italy, taking Liguria in 640 and conquering most of the Exarchate of Ravenna in 751, leaving the Byzantines with control of only small areas around the toe and heel of Italy, plus some semi-independent coastal cities like Venice, Naples, Amalfi and Gaeta.

The fight for survival

The Eastern Roman Empire's loss of territory was offset to a degree by consolidation and an increased uniformity of rule. Emperor Heraclius fully Hellenized the Eastern Roman Empire by making Greek the official language, thus ending the last remnants of Latin and ancient Roman tradition within the empire. The use of Latin in government records, (Latin titles such as Augustus and the concept of the Eastern Roman Empire being one with Rome) fell into abeyance, which allowed the empire to pursue its own identity. Many historians mark the sweeping reforms made during the reign of Heraclius as the breaking-point with Byzantium's ancient Roman past. It is common to refer to the Eastern Roman Empire as "Byzantine" instead of as "East Roman" from this point onwards. Religious rites and religious expression within the empire were now also noticeably different from the practices upheld in the former imperial lands of western Europe. Within the empire, the southern Byzantine provinces differed significantly in culture and practice from those in the north, observing Monophysite Christianity rather than Chalcedonian Orthodox. The loss of the southern territories to the Arabs further strengthened Orthodox practices in the remaining provinces. Constans II (reigned 641 - 668) subdivided the empire into a system of military provinces called thémata (themes) in an attempt to improve local responses to the threat of constant assaults. Outside of the capital, urban life declined while Constantinople grew to become the largest city in the Christian world. Several attempts to conquer Constantinople by the Arabs failed in the face of the Byzantines' superior navy, the Byzantines' monopoly over the still-mysterious incendiary weapon (Greek fire), their strong city walls, and the skill of Byzantine generals and warrior-emperors such as Leo III the Isaurian (reign 717 - 741). Once the assaults were repelled, the empire's recovery resumed. In his landmark work The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the 18th century historian Edward Gibbon depicted the Byzantine Empire of this time as effete and decadent. However, an alternate examination of the Byzantine Empire shows instead that the empire was a military superpower during the early Middle Ages. Factors contributing to this view entail the empire's heavy cavalry (the cataphracts), its subsidization (albeit inconsistent) of a free and well-to-do peasant class forming the basis for cavalry recruitment, its extraordinarily in-depth defense systems (the themes), and its use of subsidies in order to make Byzantium's enemies fight against one another. Other factores include the empire's prowess at intelligence-gathering, a communications and logistics system based on mule trains, a superior navy (although often under-funded), and rational military strategies and doctrines (not dissimilar to those of Sun Tzu) that emphasized stealth, surprise, swift maneuvering and the marshalling of overwhelming force at the time and place of the Byzantine commander's choosing. After the siege of 717 in which the Arabs suffered horrific casualties, the Caliphate was no longer a serious threat to the Byzantine heartland. It would take a different civilization, that of the Seljuk Turks, to finally drive the imperial forces out of eastern and central Anatolia. The 8th century was dominated by controversy and religious division over iconoclasm. Icons were banned by Emperor Leo III, leading to revolts by iconophiles throughout the empire. After the efforts of Empress Irene, the Second Council of Nicaea met in 787 and affirmed that icons could be venerated but not worshipped. Irene also attempted a marriage alliance with Charlemagne. This alliance would have united the two empires and thus would have recreated the Roman Empire (the two European empires both claimed the title). Moreover the alliance would have created a European superpower comparable to the strength of ancient Rome. However, these plans were destroyed when Irene was deposed. The iconoclast controversy returned in the early 9th century, only to be resolved once more in 843 during the regency of Empress Theodora (9th century). These controversies further contributed to the disintegrating relations with the Roman Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire, both of which continued to increase their independence and power.

Golden era

Holy Roman Empire The Eastern Roman Empire reached its height under the Macedonian emperors of the late 9th, 10th and early 11th centuries. During these years the Empire held out against pressure from the Roman church to remove Patriarch Photios, and gained control over the Adriatic Sea, parts of Italy, and much of the land held by the Bulgarians. The Bulgarians were completely defeated by Basil II in 1014. The empire also gained a new ally (yet sometimes also an enemy) in the new Varangian state in Kiev, from which the empire received an important mercenary force, the Varangian Guard. In 1054, relations between Greek-speaking Eastern and Latin-speaking Western traditions within the Christian Church reached a terminal crisis. There was never a formal declaration of institutional separation, and the so-called Great Schism actually was the culmination of centuries of gradual separation. From this split, the modern (Roman) Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches arose. Like Rome before it, Byzantium soon fell into a period of difficulties caused to a large extent by the growth of aristocracy, which undermined the theme system. Facing its old enemies (the Holy Roman Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate), the Eastern Roman Empire might have recovered, but around the same time new invaders appeared on the scene who had little reason to respect its reputation. The Normans finally completed the expulsion of the Byzantines from Italy in 1071 due to an ostensible lack of Byzantine interest in sending any support to Italy. Also, the Seljuk Turks, who were mainly interested in defeating Egypt under the Fatimids, continued their military campaigns into Asia Minor, which was the main recruiting ground for Byzantine armies. With the surprise defeat of Emperor Romanus IV by Alp Arslan (sultan of the Seljuk Turks) at Manzikert in 1071, most of that province was lost.

The end of Byzantium

1071 After Manzikert, a partial recovery was made possible from the contributions of the Comnenian dynasty. The first emperor of this royal line, Alexius Comnenus (whose life and policies would be described by his daughter Anna Comnena in the Alexiad) began to reestablish the army on the basis of feudal grants (próniai) and made significant advances against the Seljuk Turks. His plea for western aid against the Seljuk advance brought about the First Crusade, which helped him reclaim Nicaea. However, the emperor soon distanced himself from western imperial aid. Later crusades grew increasingly antagonistic. Although Alexius' grandson Manuel I Comnenus was a friend of the Crusaders, neither side could forget that the other had excommunicated them, and the Byzantines were very suspicious of the intentions of the Roman Catholic Crusaders who continually passed through their territory. Although the three competent Comnenan emperors had the power to expel the severely outnumbered Seljuks, it was never in their interest to do so, as the expansion back into Anatolia would have meant sharing more power with the feudal lords, thus weaking their power. Ironically, re-conquering Anatolia may have saved the Eastern Roman Empire in the long run. The Germans of the Holy Roman Empire and the Normans of Sicily and southern Italy continued to attack the empire in the 11t and 12th centuries. The Italian city-states, who had been granted trading rights in Constantinople by Alexius, became the targets of anti-Western sentiments as the most visible example of western "Franks" or "Latins." The Venetians were especially disliked, even though their ships were the basis of the Byzantine navy. To add to the empire's concerns, the Seljuks remained a threat, defeating Manuel at the Myriokephalon in 1176. 1176 Frederick Barbarossa attempted to conquer the Eastern Roman Empire during the Third Crusade, but it was the Fourth Crusade that had the most devastating effect on the empire. Although the stated intent of the crusade was to conquer Egypt, the Venetians took control of the expedition when their chieftains could not pay the transport of the troops, and under their influence the Crusaders captured Constantinople in 1204. As a result, a short-lived feudal kingdom was founded (the Latin Empire), and Byzantine power was permanently weakened. At this time, the Serbian Kingdom under the Nemanjic dynasty grew stronger with the collapse of Byzantium, forming a Serbian Empire in 1346. 1346 and the Despotate of Epirus.]] After the sacking of Constantinople in 1204, three successor states were established. These states included the Empire of Nicaea, the Empire of Trebizond, and the Despotate of Epirus. The first state, controlled by the Palaeologan dynasty, managed to reclaim Constantinople in 1261 and defeated Epirus. This led to the reviving of the Eastern Roman Empire, but the empire's attention was more focused on Europe than on the Asian provinces that were the primary concern. For a while, the empire survived simply because the Muslims were too divided to attack. However, the Ottomans eventually overran many Byzantine territories except for a handful of port cities. Ottomans).]] Ottomans The Eastern Roman Empire appealed to the west for help, but they would only consider sending aid in return for reuniting the churches. Church unity was considered, and occasionally accomplished by law, but the Orthodox citizens would not accept Roman Catholicism. Some western mercenaries arrived to help, but many preferred to let the empire die, and did nothing as the Ottomans picked apart the remaining territories. Constantinople was initially not considered worth the effort of conquest, but with the advent of cannons, the walls (which had been impenetrable for over 1000 years except by the Fourth Crusade) no longer offered adequate protection against the Ottomans. The Fall of Constantinople finally came after a two-month siege by Mehmed II on May 29, 1453. The last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI Paleologus, was last seen entering deep into the fighting of an overwhelmingly outnumbered civilian army, against the invading Ottomans on the ramparts of Constantinople. Mehmed II also conquered Mistra in 1460 and Trebizond in 1461. 1461 Mehmed and his successors continued to consider themselves proper heirs to the Byzantine Empire until the demise of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century. By the end of the 15th century, the Ottoman Empire had established its firm rule over Asia Minor and parts of the Balkan peninsula. Meanwhile, the role of the emperor as a patron of Eastern Orthodoxy was now claimed by the Grand Dukes of Muscovy starting with Ivan III. His grandson, Ivan IV, would become the first Tsar of Russia (tsar, also spelled czar, is a term derived from the Latin word caesar). Their successors supported the idea that Moscow was the proper heir to Rome and Constantinople and the idea of a Third Rome was carried throughout the Russian Empire until its demise in the early 20th century.

Legacy and importance

20th century It is said history is written by the winners, and no better example of this statement is shown in the treatment of the Byzantine Empire in history. It is an empire resented by Western Europe, as shown by the sacking of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade. A popular American university textbook4 on medieval history that circulated in the 1960s and 1970s, has this to say in the only paragraph in the book devoted to "Byzantium": :The history of Byzantium is a study in disappointment. The empire centering on Constantinople had begun with all the advantages obtained from the inheritance of the political, economic, and intellectual life of the 4th century Roman Empire ... Byzantium added scarcely anything to this superb foundation. The Eastern Roman Empire of the Middle Ages made no important contributions to philosophy, theology, science or literature. Its political institutions remained fundamentally unchanged from those which existed ... at the end of the 4th century; while the Byzantines continued to enjoy an active urban and commercial life they made no substantial advance in the technology of industry and trade as developed by the cities of the ancient world. Modern historians of the medieval Eastern Roman empire have strongly criticized the tendency of 19th-century scholars to write off Byzantium as the example of an atrophied civilization. Yet it is hard to find ... any contribution by way of either original ideas or institutions which the medieval Greek-speaking peoples made to civilization (pp. 248-9). The 20th century has seen an increased interest by historians to understand the empire, and its impact on European civilization is only recently being recognised. Why should the West be able to perceive its continuity from Antiquity and thus its intrinsic meaning in the modern world - in so lurid a manner, only to deny this to the "Byzantines"?5 Called with justification "The City," the rich and turbulent metropolis of Constantinople was to the early Middle Ages what Athens and Rome had been to classical times. Byzantine civilization itself constitutes a major world culture. Because of its unique position as the medieval continuation of the Roman State, it has tended to be dismissed by classicists and ignored by Western medievalists. And yet, the development and late history of Western European, Slavic and Islamic cultures are not comprehensible without taking it into consideration. A study of medieval history requires a thorough understanding of the Byzantine world. In fact, the Middle Ages are often traditionally defined as beginning with the fall of Rome in 476 (and hence the Ancient Period), and ending with the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Byzantium was arguably the only stable state in Europe during the Middle Ages. Its expert military and diplomatic power ensured inadvertently that Western Europe remained safe from many of the more devastating invasions from eastern peoples, at a time when the Western Christian kingdoms might have had difficulty containing it. Constantly under attack during its entire existence, the Byzantines shielded Western Europe from the Persians, Arabs, Seljuk Turks, and for a time, the Ottomans. In commerce, Byzantium was one of the most important western terminals of the Silk Road. It was also the single most important commercial center of Europe for much, if not all, of the Medieval era. The fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 closed the land route from Europe to Asia and marked the downfall of the Silk Road. This prompted a change in the commercial dynamic, and the expansion of the Islamic Ottoman Empire not only motivated European powers to seek new trade routes, but created the sense that Christendom was under siege and fostered an eschatological mood that influenced how Columbus and others interpreted the discovery of the New World.6 Byzantium played an important role in the transmission of classical knowledge to the Islamic world and to Renaissance Italy. Its rich historiographical tradition preserved ancient knowledge upon which splendid art, architecture, literature and technological achievements were built. It is not an altogether unfounded assumption that the Renaissance could not have flourished were it not for the groundwork laid in Byzantium, and the flock of Greek scholars to the West after the fall of the Empire. The influence of its theologians on medieval Western thought (especially on Thomas Aquinas) was profound, and their removal from the "canon" of Western thought in subsequent centuries has, in the minds of many, only served to impoverish the canon. The Byzantine Empire was the empire that brought widespread adoption of Christianity to Europe - arguably one of the central aspects of a modern Europe’s identity. This is embodied in the Byzantine version of Christianity, which spread Orthodoxy that eventually led to the creation of the so-called "Byzantine commonwealth" (a term coined by 20th century historians) throughtout Eastern Europe. Early Byzantine missionary work spread Orthodox Christianity to various Slavic peoples, and it is still predominant among the Russians, Ukrainians, Serbians, Bulgarians, people of the Republic of Macedonia, as well as among the Greeks. Less well known is the influence of the Byzantine religious sensibility on the millions of Christians in Ethiopia, the Coptic Christians of Egypt, and the Christians of Georgia and Armenia,though they all belong to the Orthodox Faith. Robert Byron, one of the first great 20th century Philhellenes, maintained that the greatness of Byzantium lay in what he described as "the Triple Fusion": that of a Roman body, a Greek mind and an oriental, mystical soul. The Roman Empire of the East was founded on Monday 11 May 330; it came to an end on Tuesday 29 May 1453 - although it had already come into being when Diocletian split the Roman Empire in 286, and it was still alive when Trebizond finally fell in 1461. It was an empire that dominated the world in all spheres of life, for most of its 1,123 years and 18 days. Yet although it has been shunned and almost forgotten in the history of the world up until now, the spirit of Byzantium still resonates in the world. By preserving the ancient world, and forging the medieval, the Byzantine Empire's influence is hard to truly grasp. However, to deny history the chance to acknowledge its existence, is to deny the origins of Western civilization as we know it.

See also


- Western Roman Empire
- List of Byzantine Empire-related topics
- Roman Empire
- Roman Emperors
- Byzantine Emperors
- History of Greece
- History of the Ottoman Empire
- History of the Balkans
- History of Europe
- History of the Middle East
- History of Rome
- Latin Empire
- Lombards
- Empire of Nicaea
- Empire of Trebizond
- Despotate of Epirus
- Despotate of Morea
- Byzantine currency
- Byzantine art
- Byzantine architecture
- Byzantine music
- Byzantine aristocracy and bureaucracy
- Byzantine army
- Byzantine battle tactics
- Byzantine navy
- Comnenus
- Palaeologus
- Eastern Orthodox Church Calendar
- Derogatory use of Byzantine

External links


- [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/byzantium/ Byzantium: Byzantine studies on the Internet] <

1301

Events


- February 7 - Edward of Caernarvon (later King Edward II of England) becomes the first Prince of Wales
- End of the reign of Emperor Go-Fushimi, emperor of Japan
- Emperor Go-Nijō ascends to the throne of Japan
- Dante was sent into Exile in Florence.

Births


- June 19 - Prince Morikuni, Japanese shogun (died 1333)
- July 23 - Duke Otto of Austria (died 1339)
- August 5 - Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent, English politician (died 1330)
- September 24 - Ralph Stafford, 1st Earl of Stafford, English soldier (died 1372)
- William Montacute, 1st Earl of Salisbury, English nobleman (died 1344)
- Nitta Yoshisada, Japanese head of the Nitta clan (died 1338)

Deaths


- Zahed Gilani, Grandmaster of the Zahediyeh Sufi Order (born 1216) Category:1301 ko:1301년

Edward II of England

Edward II, (April 25, 1284 – September 21, 1327), of Caernarvon, was King of England from 1307 until deposed in January, 1327. His tendency to ignore his nobility, in favour of low-born favourites, led to constant political unrest and eventually to his deposition. He is today perhaps best remembered for the brutal method of his alleged murder, which was linked to his reliance on the corrupt Despenser family.

Prince of Wales

The fourth son of Edward I of England by his first wife Eleanor of Castile, Edward II was born at Caernarfon Castle. He was the first English prince to hold the title of the Prince of Wales, which was formalized by the Lincoln Parliament of February 7, 1301. (The story that his father presented Edward II as a newborn to the Welsh as their future native prince is unfounded; the story first appeared in the work of 16th century Welsh "antiquary" David Powel.) Edward became heir to the throne when he was just a few months old, upon the death of his elder brother Alfonso. His father, a notable military leader, made a point of training young Edward in warfare and statecraft starting in his childhood. The prince took part in several Scots campaigns, but "all his father's efforts could not prevent his acquiring the habits of extravagance and frivolity which he retained all through his life". The king attributed his son’s problems to his lover Piers Gaveston, a Gascon knight. Gaveston was exiled by the king after the then Prince Edward bestowed upon him a title reserved for royalty. Ironically it was the king who had originally chosen Gaveston to be a suitable friend for his son, in 1298. When Edward I died, on July 7, 1307, the first act of the prince, now King Edward II, was to recall Gaveston. His next was to abandon the Scots campaign on which his father had set his heart.

King of England

The new king was physically as impressive as his father. He was, however, lacking in drive and ambition and was "the first king after the Conquest who was not a man of business" (Dr Stubbs). His main interest was in entertainment, though he also took pleasure in athletics and in the practice of mechanical crafts. He had been so dominated by his father that he had little confidence in himself, and was always in the hands of some favourite with a stronger will than his own. In the early years of his reign Gaveston held this role, acting as regent when Edward went to France, where, on January 25, 1308, he married Isabella of France, the daughter of King Philip IV of France, "Philip the Fair"; she was the sister of three French kings. Although Edward and his wife had children, the marriage was doomed to failure almost from the beginning. Isabella was neglected by her husband, who spent much of his time with the few friends he shared power with, conspiring on how to limit the powers of the Peerage in order to consolidate his father's legacy for himself, and so appearing to prefer the company of his male favourites. This led to considerable rumours of Edward being homosexual. Many historians agree he was attracted to men. Their marriage nevertheless produced two sons, Edward, and John of Eltham, Earl of Cornwall (1316-1336), and two daughters, Eleanor (1318–1355) and Joanna (1321-1362), wife of David II of Scotland. Edward had also fathered at least one illegitimate son, Adam FitzRoy, who accompanied his father in the Scottish campaigns of 1312, and who died shortly after on 18 September, 1322.

Piers Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall

Earl of Cornwall Gaveston received the earldom of Cornwall with the hand of the king's niece, Margaret of Gloucester. The barons grew resentful of Gaveston and twice insisted on his banishment. On each occasion Edward recalled his friend, whereupon the barons, headed by the king's cousin Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, went to war against king and favourite and in 1312 assassinated Gaveston. Edward was not strong enough to avenge his loss. He stood aside, allowing the country to come under the rule of a baronial committee of twenty-one lords ordainers, who, in 1311, had drawn up a series of ordinances, which substituted ordainers for the king as the effective government of the country. Parliament meant to the new rulers an assembly of barons just as it had done to the opponents of Edward's grandfather, Henry III, in 1258. The Commons were excluded. The effect was to transform England from a monarchy to a narrow oligarchy.

Conflict with Scotland

During the quarrels between Edward and the "ordainers", Robert the Bruce was steadily re-conquering Scotland. His progress was so great that he had occupied all the fortresses save Stirling, which he besieged. The danger of losing Stirling shamed Edward and the barons into an attempt to retrieve their lost ground. In June 1314 Edward led a huge army into Scotland in the hope of relieving Stirling. On June 24, his ill-disciplined and badly led force was completely defeated by Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn. Henceforth Bruce was sure of his position as king of Scots, and took vengeance for Edward I's activities by devastating the northern counties of England.

Political factions

Edward II's disgraceful defeat made him more dependent on his barons than ever. Thomas of Lancaster now had an opportunity of saving England from the consequences of the king's incompetence. He had shown some ability as a leader of opposition, but lacked creativity. He was suspected of having made a secret understanding with Bruce, in hopes of keeping the king weak. Before long the opposition split into fiercely contending factions. Under Aymer of Valence, Earl of Pembroke, a middle party arose, which hated Lancaster so much that it supported the king. After 1318, the effect of its influence was to restore Edward to some portion of his authority. However, the king hated Pembroke almost as much as Lancaster, and now found a competent alternative adviser in Hugh le Despenser, 1st Earl of Winchester, a baron of great experience. His son, Hugh the younger Despenser, became a personal friend and favourite, who effectively replaced Gaveston. The fierce hatred which the barons had for the Despensers was equal to their hatred for his previous favourite. They were indignant at the privileges Edward lavished upon father and son, especially when the younger Despenser strove to procure for himself the earldom of Gloucester in right of his wife Eleanor de Clare, daughter of Gilbert de Clare, 7th Earl of Hertford and Joan of Acre and niece of Edward II.

Rule of the Despensers

In 1321, the barons met in parliament, and under Lancaster's guidance had Hugh le Despenser and his son banished. This inspired Edward to act. In 1322 he recalled the Despensers from exile, and waged war against the barons on their behalf. Lancaster, defeated at Boroughbridge, was executed at Pontefract. For the next five years the Despensers ruled England. Unlike the ordainers, they took pains to get the Commons on their side, and a parliament held at York in 1322 revoked the ordinances because they encroached upon the rights of the crown. From this time no statute was technically valid unless the Commons had agreed to it. This marks the most important step forward in Edward II's reign. But the rule of the Despensers soon became corrupt. Their first thought was for themselves, and they stirred up universal indignation. In particular, they excited the ill-will of the queen, Isabella of France.

Deposition by Isabella of France

A dispute broke out between England and France over the building of a fortified town in English possession of Aquitaine by Isabella's brother Charles IV of France. The Despensers then sequestered the queen's vast estates, banished Isabella's loyal French servants and took three of her children into their custody. Eleanor de Clare was also imposed on Isabella as her 'housekeeper' to control her actions. Queen Isabella kept silence until 1325, when she went to France to negotiate a solution to the dispute. Her eldest son, Edward of Windsor, followed on later to do homage for Aquitaine to Charles IV when a settlement was reached. Isabella's polite attitude to Despenser and her husband concealed her deep animosity and she was considered loyal. When her business was over, Isabella declined to return to her husband as long as the Despensers remained his favourites. In Paris, she formed a liaison with Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, one of the barons, who had exiled in 1323 when he rebelled after his lands had been seized by the Despensers. On 24 September 1326 Isabella landed with a large force in Essex accompanied by Mortimer and her son, declaring that she was come to avenge the murder of Lancaster and to expel the Despensers. Edward's followers deserted him, and on October 2 he fled from London to the west, where he took refuge in the younger Despenser's estates in Glamorgan. When Isabella entered London, there was a violent revolution in her favour and weeks of anarchy followed. His wife and her army followed Edward and the Despensers, and after a futile effort to escape by sea, Edward and a handful of supporters were captured on 16 November and escorted to Monmouth Castle. According to legend, his capture took place at Pant-y-Brâd ("the dell of treachery"), near Llantrisant. He was later transferred to Kenilworth Castle. It was thought prudent to compel the captive king to resign the crown, and this occurred on January 20. The Articles of Deposition accused Edward of many offences including: being incompetent to govern, unwilling to heed good counsel, allowing himself to be controlled by evil councillors, giving himself up to unseemly works and occupations, and plundering the kingdom. A parliament met at Westminster in January 1327, which proclaimed Edward's son to be king as Edward III. Both Despensers were tried and executed.

Life in captivity and death

Edward III The government of Isabella and Mortimer was so precarious that they dared not leave the deposed king in the hands of their political enemies. On April 3 he was removed from Kenilworth and entrusted to the custody of two dependants of Mortimer. He was imprisoned at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire. Contrary to the polemical chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker, record evidence shows that he was well-treated in captivity. It was later rumoured that Edward had been killed by the insertion of a piece of copper into his anus (later a red-hot iron rod, as in the supposed murder of Edmund Ironside. This was elaborated in a history by Sir Thomas More:
- "On the night of October 11 (1327 AD) while lying in on a bed (the king) was suddenly seized and, while a great mattress... weighed him down and suffocated him, a plumber's iron, heated intensely hot, was introduced through a tube into his secret parts (into his anus) so that it burned the inner portions beyond the intestines." This method is unnecessarily complicated, as simple suffocation would have met the objectives and so is unlikely. Following the king's death, the rule of Isabella and Mortimer did not last long. Mortimer and Isabella made peace with the Scots with the Treaty of Northampton but this was highly unpopular. On March 19, 1330, the Earl of Kent, brother of Edward II, was executed for plotting the restoration of Edward II. Some say Mortimer had fed him the information that Edward was still alive hoping to entrap him. However Mortimer's execution of the earl lost him his remaining support. Consequently as soon as Edward III came of age in 1330, he executed Roger Mortimer on charges of treason, the most important of which was the murder of Edward II. Edward III spared Isabella and gave her a generous allowance, but he ensured that she retired from public life. She died at Hertford on 23 August 1358.

The Fieschi Letter

A letter was written to Edward III in circa 1337 by a Genoese priest Manuele de Fieschi, Bishop of Vicelli, which has been a source of controversy ever since a copy was discovered in 1878 in Montpellier, because it claims that Edward II was not murdered but escaped. Supporters of this letter say that the accounts of the murder, including le Baker's, were not written until long after Edward's death. Edward's tomb was a valuable source of revenue from pilgrims and the story of a gruesome murder would have been useful. Furthermore the events at Berkeley Castle were only known to a few people who were sworn to secrecy. No-one doubts the authenticity of Fieschi's letter, only its veracity, and it contains details that few people knew at the time and was written long before the accepted accounts of the flight, imprisonment and murder. In the Fieschi letter the flight to Wales, the arrest, the escape to Glamorgan and imprisonment at Kenilworth and Berkeley are described. According to Fieschi Edward heard that he was to be killed and changed clothes with a servant. On reaching the gate, he is reported to have killed the gate-keeper and went to Corfe Castle where he stayed for 18 months. Edward is then said to have stayed in Ireland for nine months, crossed to the Low Countries and travelled to Italy, visiting the Pope in Avignon on the way. Edward is then reported to have lived in monastic hermitages near Milan. Supporters of the letter say that he knew that he had no support at home and never tried to regain the throne, especially after his son, Edward III, had removed Mortimer. In the Italian town of Cecima, (75 km from Milan), there is a tradition that a king of England was buried there and there is an empty mediaeval tomb said to be the place of his burial before his body was repatriated to England by his son. Supporters of the letter say that the elaborate funeral in Gloucester of the person supposed to be Edward II may have been that of the gate-keeper. Many local dignitaries were invited to view the body from a distance, but it had been embalmed and may have been unrecognisable. For the first time a carved wooden effigy of the dead king was carried through the streets rather than the body on a bier. Diplomatic documents also show in 1338 that Edward III travelled to Koblenz to be installed as Vicar of the Holy Roman Empire and there he met someone called William le Galeys, or William the Welshman, who claimed to be the king's father. (Edward II was born in Caerarvon and was the first Prince of Wales.) Claiming to be the king's father would have been dangerous, and it is not known what happened to William. Many historians claim that the person was William Ockle. Opponents of the letter say that the letter is an attempt by the bishop of Maguelone who had been sent to Germany to disrupt an Anglo-German alliance. The letter may therefore be an attempt to blackmail Edward III by undermining his position at the German court. Fieschi held various church appointments in England from 1319 and may also have been attempting to gain royal patronage.

Fictional accounts of Edward II

Holy Roman Empire AD]] The most famous fictional account of Edward II's reign, of course, is that of Christopher Marlowe in his play Edward II. In recent years, several acclaimed productions have been staged in the United Kingdom, although the play is seldom performed in the United States outside of large cities and university towns. Derek Jarman's cinematic version of the play has much more to do with twentieth-century sexual politics than it does with Marlowe's drama. Margaret Campbell Barnes' Isabel the Fair, Hilda Lewis' Harlot Queen, Maureen Peters' Isabella, the She-Wolf, and Brenda Honeyman's The Queen and Mortimer all focus on Queen Isabella. Eve Trevaskis' King's Wake starts shortly after the fall of the Despensers and ends with the fall of Mortimer. Jean Plaidy's The Follies of the King is a rather plodding look at the reign, though it livens up when it comes time for the red-hot poker. In A Secret Chronicle by Jane Lane, Edward II's youngest daughter sends a trusted servant to investigate the circumstances of her father's death. Jean Evans' A Brittle Glory is narrated mostly by the king's fool. Chris Hunt's Gaveston is a sexually explicit account of the king's relationship with his first favorite, while Sandra Wilson's Alice breaks tradition with an emphatically heterosexual Gaveston, whose mistress is the title character. In Cashelmara, Susan Howatch updates the story to 19th century Ireland. Shootings, stabbings, and poisonings replace beheadings and red-hot pokers. There has also been a ballet of his story produced by Birmingham Royal Ballet, which adheres to the red hot poker myth. Most recently, Susan Higginbotham in The Traitor's Wife: A Novel of the Reign of Edward II looks at the reign and its aftermath through the eyes of Hugh le Despenser's wife, Eleanor de Clare. Medieval mystery novelists Paul Doherty and Michael Jecks have set a number of their books against the backdrop of Edward II's reign. A Victorian novelist, Emily Sarah Holt, set several historical novels during this period. Holt's appendices to her books show that she researched her novels thoroughly, though her religious prejudices (she appears to have been strongly anti-Catholic) and her strong sense of propriety make her books rather odd reading. She is far harsher on Isabella than on E