List of Byzantine emperors of Armenian origin

According to medieval and modern sources, a number of Byzantine emperors were allegedly Armenian or of partially Armenian heritage. The following list includes the Byzantine emperors to whom sources attribute Armenian origin. Speculation of Armenian ancestry in emperors remains a wide topic of debate.

History and criticism

In 1891 John Buchan Telfer reported to the Royal Society of Arts several Byzantine emperors of Armenian origin, including Maurice and John Tzimiskes.

The first work on Byzantine emperors of Armenian origin, Armenian Emperors of Byzantium (Armenian: Հայ կայսերք Բիւզանդիոնի), was authored by Fr. Garabed Der-Sahagian and published in 1905 by the Mekhitarist congregation of San Lazzaro degli Armeni in Venice. Anthony Kaldellis suggested that Der-Sahagian extended "western European modes of racial and nationalist historiography to the history of medieval Armenia." Kaldellis believes that it was Nicholas Adontz who "made the search for Armenians in Byzantium into a more scholarly and less romantic nationalist process." However, he is critical of Adontz as he saw "Armenians everywhere and injected them into as many important events as he could." According to Kaldellis it was later endorsed by Peter Charanis and Alexander Kazhdan and "has spread widely in the field of Byzantine Studies." Kazhdan's book Armenians in the Ruling Class of the Byzantine Empire in the 11th-12th Centuries was published by the Armenian Academy of Sciences in Russian in 1975.

Charanis suggested that "every emperor who sat on the Byzantine throne from the accession of Basil I to the death of Basil II (867—1025) was of Armenian or partially Armenian origin." However, he noted that "in Byzantium the ethnic origins of a person was of not significance, provided he integrated himself into its cultural life." Robert H. Hewsen counted "no fewer than sixteen emperors and eleven empresses" of Byzantium of Armenian origin and suggested that Armenians ruled "for almost a third of [the empire's] history." He conceded, however, that "[m]ost of these Armenians, of course, were thoroughly hellenized, membership in the Greek Church being the sine qua non for advancement in the Byzantine world."

Anthony Kaldellis is highly critical of what he calls the "Armenian fallacy" in Byzantine studies to which he dedicated a separate chapter (Armenian fallacy) and a sub-chapter specifically about emperors ('Armenian' emperors) in his 2019 book Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium, published by Harvard University Press. He wrote:

Even earlier, in 2008, Kaldellis wrote in a publication for Oxford University Press:

Kaldellis' criticisms of the "Armenian fallacy" have been subsequently praised and supported by historians such as Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, Alexander Beihammer, Marek Klatý, and C.J. Meynell, among others. Toby Bromige wrote that Kaldellis "may at times seem dismissive of the depth and influence that Armenians had within Byzantium, especially the strength of ancestral descent in certain individuals, but he correctly identifies a lack of relevant historical investigation and precision."

List

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

• Charanis, Peter (1963). The Armenians in the Byzantine Empire. Lisbon: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian Armenian Library. OCLC 17186882.
• Lilie, Ralph-Johannes; Ludwig, Claudia; Pratsch, Thomas; Zielke, Beate (2013). Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit Online. Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Nach Vorarbeiten F. Winkelmanns erstellt (in German). Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter.
• Treadgold, Warren (1997). A History of the Byzantine State and Society. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-2630-2.
• Der Nersessian, Sirarpie (1966). "Les portraits de Grégoire l'Illuminateur dans l'art byzantin [Portraits of Gregory the Illuminator in Byzantine Art]". Byzantion (in French). 36 (2): 386–395. JSTOR 44169213.
• Kaldellis, Anthony (2019). Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674986510.
• Mango, Cyril; Hawkins, Ernest J. W. (1972). "The Mosaics of St. Sophia at Istanbul. The Church Fathers in the North Tympanum". Dumbarton Oaks Papers. 26: 1–41. doi:10.2307/1291315. JSTOR 1291315.

1. List of Byzantine emperors
2. Problem of two emperors
3. List of Roman emperors
4. Leo V the Armenian
5. Decline of the Byzantine Empire
6. Theme (Byzantine district)
7. John I Tzimiskes
8. Basil I
9. List of Trapezuntine emperors
10. Byzantine Empire under the Heraclian dynasty
11. Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia
12. Muslim conquest of Armenia
13. Origin of the Armenians
14. Byzantine army
15. Maurice (emperor)
16. List of Roman and Byzantine empresses
17. List of Armenian monarchs
18. King of Italy
19. Constans II
20. Michael II