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8 - Advancing the frontier: the annexation of Sirmium and Dalmatia (1156–1180)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 August 2009

Paul Stephenson
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Madison
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Summary

Although they were far less virulent than has hitherto been imagined, the Byzantine-Hungarian conflicts of 1150–55 unsettled the situation in RaŠka and the north-western marches. The instability was not just the result of opportunism by semi-autonomous źupans who allied with whichever power was temporarily in the ascendant. Rather, it was indicativeof a new balance of power that had emerged in the northern Balkans through neglect by Alexius I, John II and, in the early years of his reign, Manuel I. Both Hungary and Venice had encroached on Byzantine spheres of influence and offered alternative sources of patronage for local rulers. This seemed of secondary importance while Byzantium was allied with Germany, for the two imperial powers imagined they might control or, if necessary, crush the smaller powers that lay between them. The continued problem with the Normans must have led both emperors to question this confidence, and by the time Manuel came to realize this, his authority had more or less been eradicated in the maritime cities of Dalmatia and the Slavic lands to the north of Duklja-Zeta.

Between 1156 and 1160 the Byzantine understanding with Germany broke down. Paul Magdalino (1993:62–6) offers a trenchant analysis of this deterioration, which I will not reproduce. However, much seems to have turned on the unexpected success Byzantine agents had enjoyed in southern Italy in 1155.

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Byzantium's Balkan Frontier
A Political Study of the Northern Balkans, 900–1204
, pp. 239 - 274
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2000

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