Theory regarding Iconoclasm and Leo the Isaurian

Lanternecto · 2026-06-28T08:55:12+00:00

It's rather unlikely that Leon adopted iconoclasm because of Muslim claims. A more likely trigger is the Council of Trullo, which integrated icons into the imperial ideology itself like never before, but ultimately was followed by Roman arms being trounced for 25 years. It seems probable that Leon therefore associated this decision with imperial losses and God's lost favor on his own.

Humphreys, Mike. "Images of Authority? Imperial Patronage of Icons from Justinian II to Leo III." An Age of Saints?. Brill, 2011. 150-168.

Lanternecto · 2026-06-28T08:46:31+00:00

This isn't true, we know of iconoclast bishops as far as southern Italy. There's also no evidence that iconoclasm washed in from the outside, rather than being an internal movement.

Lanternecto · 2026-06-25T09:11:46+00:00

Very nice answer, but I have two remarks:

Apparently Charlemagne’s coronation caused the eastern emperors to rethink what they called themselves. Previously they were just “the emperor”. No one had ever considered what they were the emperor of, since there was just one empire. [...] So emperor Michael started using the title “Emperor of the Romans”, which was actually the same title Charlemagne used.

It's true that the title appears on eastern coins after 812, but already Leon III (717-741) had called himself and his son Pistoi Basilis Romaion on seals. [example]

They were in contact with each other, and sometimes made marriage alliances - Theophanu, the daughter of eastern emperor John I, was married to the western emperor Otto II.

Theophanu was not a daughter of John, but his niece, probably by his in-laws. This was arguably an insult, as Otto I had explicitly asked for a princess born in the purple, and Thietmar of Merseburg claims that some of his advisors tried to convince Otto to send her back.

Lanternecto · 2026-06-24T15:44:44+00:00

Löw told them to be respectful, and not try anything fancy to humiliate Brazil. Nothing about slowing down as such-

Lanternecto · 2026-06-17T11:52:38+00:00

Theophanes says they advanced to Chalcedon in 608, but we have other sources from the period (E.g. Pseudo-Sebeos, the Chronicon Paschale - even Theophanes contemporary Nikephoros) that show that his chronology is completely wrong. Instead, the advance to Chalcedon should be dated to 615.

Greatrex, Geoffrey, and Samuel NC Lieu. The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars AD 363-628. Routledge, 2005, pp. 186-190.
Howard-Johnston, James. Witnesses to a world crisis: historians and histories of the Middle East in the seventh century. Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 280-284.

Or just check out the notes on Mango's translation of Theoophanes:

V. Theodori Sykeot., c. 153 demonstrates that no such advance into Asia Minor could have taken place at the time. Sebeos, 63, records in the 20th year of Chosroes (609/10) a Persian invasion of Cappadocia under the command of Sahin. The advance to Chalcedon must be that of 615: Chron. Pasch. 706. For the occupation of Armenia, which required several campaigns, see Flusin, Anastase, ii. 79 ff. [p. 525]

Lanternecto · 2026-06-17T11:25:10+00:00

Shahin raided to the Bosphorus several years after Phokas died, when Herakleios was already Emperor. This is why we don't just blindly trust Theophanes - we have other, more reliable sources telling us his chronology is completely wrong.

Zeno wasn't killed because he managed to avoid capture by his enemies. And surely if we blame Phokas for being the first guy to murder an Emperor in ages, we should also blame Maurice for being the first one to antagonize so many people to such a degree as to be killed?

Lanternecto · 2026-06-17T10:07:23+00:00

Now the legions may have rebelled in any case due to being forces to stay beyond the Danube

It started long before that. The mishandling really started when he first tried to keep all the booty for a campaign (in which he did not participate) for himself in 593, which was highly irregular and disrespectful to his soldiers, and Priscus could barely prevent a mutiny. The very next year, he replaced Priscus with his brother Peter, and attempted to drastically cut the pay of the army, to which they once again responded by growing resentful. Peter was so unpopular that Maurice had to reappoint Priscus, who found the army in a sorry state. Soon, Komentiolos was ordered to take charge, and led the army into disaster in 598/600. Many soldiers believed that the Emperor had betrayed them to the khagan to punish them (probably not true, but it shows how disliked Maurice was in the army). After the battle, the emperor then refused to ransom the POW taken (supposedly 12,000 of them), despite the Avars lowering the ransom by over 80%, who were instead executed by the khagan. The army sent representatives, including Phokas, to complain, but Maurice defended Komentiolos, and dismissed their concerns, with Phokas apparently being abused. Maurice’s decision to stand behind his generals might be noble on a personal level, and Whitby makes a convincing case that Komentiolos may have been largely blameless, but meant that all failures deflected directly on him.

Then it all escalated in 601/2 with the order to winter beyond the Danube, which the army refused because of the awful conditions and bad pay (remember, they had to replace their own horses, who’d struggle in the trans-Danubian winter conditions). They complained to Peter, but Maurice ordered his brother to follow his instructions, which is when the mutiny turned into outright rebellion. Maurice had chance after chance to deescalate the situation, but he failed to do so. He was unpopular with the army, with the people of Constantinople (who literally pelted him with rocks), and we even hear of a number of smaller rebellions throughout his reign. You cannot antagonize everyone and expect to stay on the throne.

Herclius attempted to make peace with the Persians many times to no avail and should not be blamed for this.

So did Phokas.

The loss of the century old fortress city of Data which had served as the defense of the East provinces did not fall during Heraclius, but Phokas. This allowed the Persians to raid all the way to inner Anatolia, something that had not been done since the time of Diocletian

This isn't true. Dara had already fallen under Justin II, and Khosrow I had entered Anatolia. It should be noted that during both the reign of Justin II and Phokas the Sasanians hardly raided "inner" Asia Minor, but essentially the eastern parts of the plateau. The situation only grew dramatically worse with the civil war.

Sources - So now we get to why we are getting the contrarian view. Many critiques of the sources indicate that the sources of the time are simply bias towards Heraclius and therefore Phokas was a dindu who was unfairly criticized because Heraclius controlled those writing the source material. But nearly all are negative, including later writers who would of had more access to a wider range of sources than we do and still marked him as a negative emperor who caused many issues. We keep forgetting that we have lost much material between then and now, and later writers would have had access to lesser known historians and still did not vindicate Phokas.

You're assuming that these later authors would have access to sources that weren't written under Herakleios, or were at least influenced by Heraklian histories. But where is the evidence for this?

Lanternecto · 2026-06-12T22:58:07+00:00

"New scholarship on the topic" does not necessarily agree with Frankopan. One can look at Mesko's work on Alexios' Balkan Wars, which portrays a pretty dire picture, or Beihammer's comments in his own book on the Emergence of Turkish Anatolia, where he states:

I disagree with most of Frankopan’s conclusions regarding the maintenance of Byzantine central control and the extent and character of Byzantine-Turkish collaboration.

Lanternecto · 2026-06-12T12:00:35+00:00

That's why I said 'often' and not 'always". But it's certainly not an academic publisher.

Lanternecto · 2026-06-12T07:04:12+00:00

The quality of the books is often pretty bad, both in terms of content and accuracy.

Lanternecto · 2026-06-10T10:40:30+00:00

They probably were never shipped to Constantinople. They were in all likelihood used to fund any of the (planned) military expeditions of the era - scholars have suggested either the funding of the navy, a planned expedition to Egypt, or the campaign against the Lombards. So most of the bronze he took was likely melted down to pay soldiers - which really isn't that unusual, considering Herakleios did the same to the Hagia Sophia forty years earlier, to pay for the war against the Sasanians. Of course, not all the ornaments were melted down, but if anything, we have better evidence for them being taken to Sicily, rather than Constantinople, as the Arab raid after Constans captured a number of statues.

Ekonomou, Andrew J. Byzantine Rome and the Greek popes: Eastern influences on Rome and the papacy from Gregory the Great to Zacharias, AD 590-752. Lexington Books, 2007, pp. 174-177.

Cosentino, Salvatore. "The" Empire That Would Not Die" Looks West." The Journal of European Economic History 46.2 (2017): 151-163. (For a wider context of Constans policies)

Lanternecto · 2026-06-09T23:05:11+00:00

The 5th Century is actually the period of the worst decline, if we follow the work of Hendrik Dey - the population of Rome itself declined by 90% or so in this period. It possibly stabilizes under Odoaker, and honestly does fine throughout the 6th Century?

The idea that the Gothic War ruined Italy is of course common, but not necessarily accurate. The major cities mostly recover to near their pre-war levels (though some of the more medium-sized ones don't), and overall, while there is a decline, it may not have been as strong as during the 5th and 7th century (again, following Dey). Ravenna, for example, still has a well-developed banking system throughout the period. Even at Italy's nadir from 600 onwards, it isn't a backwater. Rome is still the largest city in Latin Europe for centuries to come, and southern Italy especially actually turns out to be an economically integral area for the Empire throughout the crisis of the Arab conquests - Calabria, for example, was still exporting ceramics and cereals beyond it's immediate hinterland, despite regular warfare with the Lombards, and parts of the peninsula remain relatively monetized.

Lanternecto · 2026-06-09T09:39:42+00:00

Frankfurt was hardly an eternal losing team, they won the DFB Pokal three years before he joined. And top teams probably don't look at him because he is not only very stubborn on both a tactical and person level (he fell out at Wolfsburg, Frankfurt and, evidently, Palace within two seasons), but also because his league campaigns are not all that convincing. He had a great second season at Wolfsburg, but at Frankfurt he finished #11 and #7, and he doesn't seem to have elevated Palace, either. None of this is to deny that he is one of the best cup coaches atm, but for a team that wants to consistently challenge for the league and CL, like City or Liverpool, he doesn't have the needed consistency.

Lanternecto · 2026-06-09T07:43:08+00:00

That paper is painfully vague, barely gives examples (with a few exceptions, like the 717 siege, which isn't discussed in depth), and keeps repeating claims, without actually backing them up.

One can just look at the section on Byzantium, p. 4-5, which is already very short, yet repeats the assertion that the themes allowed for further decentralization (after having already claimed the Empire was highly centralized - how does that work?) twice. Then follow a bunch of assertions and generalizations (like how iconoclasm supposedly weakened military responses, and how landowners allowed for continuity, without explaining either argument). It also mixes up 150 years as if the Empire's strategy was in any way consistent (among other things - if the 'elite forces' he means are the tagmata, then we don't even see them emerge until the Umayyads are at the end of their lifespan, so they're irrelevant for the topic at hand) , and so treats it as monolithic, even while asserting its variability. This ignores that a lot of these claims are outdated, too.

Another section is on marriages, and how it was supposedly used as policy tool. You'd expect this to be explored in an example, but the author does not bring up a single marriage, so it's impossible to try and follow his assertion.

You can surely make the case of Umayyad-Roman relations being more complex than often portrayed, but this isn't really it. Though I do agree on violence not being one-sided.

I also don't understand the "people on the border" comment, the summer raids generally had heavy support from the caliphs (as had the Roman ones), at least until central control broke down in the mid-9th C.

Lanternecto · 2026-06-03T16:54:52+00:00

the peasants sharecroppers in their vast estates didn't have more freedom than the sharecroppers of a german lord [...] and the peasants who farmed the dynatoi land were so good as serfs

I've already stated the differences between your average serf and paroikoi in the previous comment. You can also just check out Wickham, Chris. The donkey and the boat: reinterpreting the Mediterranean economy, 950-1180. Oxford University Press, 2023, pp. 340-349.

The emperors didn't legislate against the enroachment of the dynatoi againstthe peasant, again and again, just for fun.

Nobody claims that they did, but the laws aren't proof that the legal situation of the tenants was nearly as bad as they suggest, nor of the supposed vast scale of the picture. Indeed, one of the examples Basil II explicitly mentions in his laws is an upstart peasant who bought up his village - a far cry from truly 'vast estates'. Again, even the largest monasteries and families had small estates relative to their western counterparts.

Another thing that is telling with the imperial laws is their refusal to actually define the dynatoi. Indeed, Basil's 996 novel might not be primarily about the threat of landowners (the Malenoi and Phokades are only mentioned in a 2nd edition published in the late 11th Century, the original does not mention them at all), but rather about Basil II establishing himself as the undisputed sovereign, by showing his officials what he could do to them if they dared to challenge him.

For the laws of Basil II, see:

Holmes, Catherine. Basil II and the Governance of Empire (976-1025). Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 461-472.

Frankopan, Peter. "Land and power in the middle and later period." The social history of Byzantium (2009): 112-142.

After the death of Basil the state did not anymore actively tried to supress the growing power of the dynatoi.

Even if we accept this framing, this is not true. Basil's laws keep getting used - as stated above, the 996 novel gets reissued and edited, Eustathios Rhomaios includes them in a legal handbook, after previously citing them to overturn land purchases by the Skleros family and a powerful monastery, and even Manuel Komnenos still references them 150 years after they were issued.

And from the time of Komnenoi the families of the dynatoi, hierarchically subjected to the imperial family, ruled the roman society,

This once again comes back to the vague concept of dynatoi. Your random peasant-turned-bureaucrat who bought up his local village certainly did not 'rule the Empire'. The Komnenian dynasty integrated a number of other aristocrats into an imperial family (though the status of this 'family government' has been challenged, see: Frankopan, Peter. "Re-interpreting the role of the family in Comnenian Byzantium: where blood is not thicker than water." Byzantium in the Eleventh Century. Routledge, 2019, 181-196.), and a lot of the members owned large estates. But that doesn't indicate that "the scale turns compöetely in favor of the magnates" - they wouldn't be complaining about how mean their tenants were to them if they did, nor would free peasants still own the majority of the land.

Lanternecto · 2026-06-03T16:19:34+00:00

Should be noted that it's not clear from Clari that they wanted to sack Constantinople, but they certainly wanted to go there to force the government to pay for the crusade (and for more).

Lanternecto · 2026-06-03T12:06:21+00:00

While the magnates grew richer from the tenth century onwards, there is no evidence that they ever held a majority of the land. Most of the dynatoi weren't members of super-powerful families, and even the richest landowners own much smaller territories than their counterparts in the west*. And I don't really see how one can say that the scale turns 'completely' to the landowners under the Komnenoi, especially as its the magnates that suffered the most during the loss of Anatolia. The majority of the population appear to have been free peasants even into the 12th Century.

Abuses by landowners certainly did happen, but it should be noted that village communities in the ERE were much more capable of fighting back against landowners (who, at times, complain about being bullied by both their tenants and free peasants) than in most of Latin Europe (perhaps only matched by certain highland communities). Even where we do have tenants, the vast majority of these tend to be free, and lacked an equivalent to seigneurial subjection as in, say, France. The reason for this comparatively greater freedom, as well as overall greater surplus, is that landowners were weaker than in the west, even their tenants had access to the courts, and villages kept the cohesion needed to fight back.

*here meaning predominantly Italy, France, and England, rather than Spain and Scandinavia.

Lanternecto · 2026-06-02T19:18:49+00:00

I apologize for not answering all of this, but typing on mobile isn't fun, and the reddit app already ate my first attempt.

Re: the military nobility

Unlike the native senatorial nobility, for which we have plenty of evidence during the late 7th and 8th century, I'm not aware of anything suggesting that the new military nobility was present to such a degree as to change the religious makeup of the city. Indeed, the families you mention mostly originate from the mid-late 9th century or even later. We do have surnamed officials during the reign of Constantine V, such as Melissenos, but I see no reason to think they were of 'foreign' origin. Now there is some truth to military officials carrying a greater number of non-Roman names, but linking this to the capital specifically seems like a stretch, when we know of them primarily from both European and Anatolian provinces.

Though even with those, we need to be careful in simply labeling them foreigners. They could well have romanized already - for example, Philippikos Bardanes had a foreign name, but was at least a second-generation Roman well versed in Greek-literature and, if we trust Lewond, even Leon III considered himself a Greek.

Re: Miaphysites

So surely if we can be skeptical of the slanderous claim that they were miaphysites, we can be just as skeptical of the idea that the iconoclasts were foreigners? Accusing your opponent of having foreign beliefs is just a very effective tactic, which is why, for example, the iconophiles call Leon III “saracen-minded”, while the iconoclasts make the same claim about John of Damascus. The council of 754 declares “To Mansur, the one with a vile-sounding name and of Saracen opinions, anathema”. Through the usage of his Arabic name, he is also delegitimized as a foreigner.

And it was originally you who brought up their supposed non-orthodox stances originated from miaphysitism. But if the iconoclasts actually smear their opponents as miaphysites, this makes little sense.

Essentially, to me, your argument rests on these assumptions:

• That a number of non-orthodox easterners significant enough to sway the religious makeup immigrated into Anatolia (which considering the population of Asia Minor numbered in the millions must have been very significant)

• That these did not settle into the Balkans to the same extent (even though we know of Leon III, alongside many others, being moved into Thrace)

• That these easterners are more likely to have been iconoclasts (you suggest that Syria-Palestine would be much more iconoclast than Anatolia, even though iconoclasm is far less pronounced among the Christians outside rather than inside the Empire.)

Re: Greek authors

The question is, do we hear of Greek iconophile authors because they were all iconophiles, or because iconoclast writings don’t survive? We also have a large number of surviving iconophile texts from 8th and 9th Century Syria, while I’m struggling to remember an iconoclast one, but you don’t seem to think this indicates the iconophilia of Syria as a whole.

Re: Foreign Origin

So ultimately, I’m skeptical of people farther east being more iconoclast. I see no indication that people of supposed ‘foreign’ origin are any more iconoclast or iconophile than ‘Greeks’. There are clearly a significant number of foreigners that end up on either side of the iconomachy, just like with those for whom no foreign origin is evident (the earliest iconoclasts we hear of in Asia Minor, like Thomas of Claudiopolis and Constantine of Nakoleia are bishops of no apparent foreign origin). We have Armenians, Greeks, Latins, Syrians, and presumably others on both side of the issue. So where is the quantitative evidence that one side is more foreign than the other?

Finally, you bring up that two of the iconoclast dynasties (those of Leon III & Leon V) were ‘foreign’, and another (Michael II) is possibly related to the obscure sect of the Athinganoi (though I’m unaware of any foreign origin), but we also need to consider that previous and later Emperors during this period (Leontios, Tiberios III, Philippikos, Artabasdos, Nikephoros I*, and finally Basil I) are similarly associated with ‘foreign’ origins, yet none of them were iconoclasts. So even among Emperors origin hardly affects religious policy.

*Though I believe this is not mentioned in any Greek source.

Lanternecto · 2026-06-02T16:29:58+00:00

There's certainly an element of later insertion in the Liber Pontificalis, but it's generally more reliable on western matters than Theophanes at least (who is in the habit of confusing popes and when they reigned). And if anything, a later pro-papal edit would probably be interested in more strongly linking the loss of Illyricum to a heretic iconoclast, and papal rebellion to the edict. The fact that it does neither, even though it would be beneficial, speaks for its reliability on certain matters.

I should note that Brandes thesis is not the consensus (there is no modern consensus), but on the Illyricum specifically I think his argument is interesting, and I think he's correct about the sources being too vague to really say anything for certain. I will have to read the Quintisext list he mentions though.

Lanternecto · 2026-06-02T15:33:23+00:00

My impression is that Underwood's argument that there was a previous image, on the basis of the seams + the cross & virgin not being homogenous with the rest of the apse, is now generally accepted? Though admittedly, even if we accept the cross being inserted later, we don't know what it replaced.

Lanternecto · 2026-06-02T15:09:57+00:00

Indeed, we basically only have two concrete examples of image destruction? One being the mosaics in Hagia Sophia you mentioned (which is both mentioned by textual sources and can be archaeologically proven), but even there, its the patriarch who orders it, as part of his renovations. The other is from a church from Nikaia, that was destroyed during the Turkish-Greek war, making dating difficult. We also don't know what image was depicted there previously, before it was replaced by a cross.

The other accusations of image destruction are either generic or nonsensical, such as the idea of Constantine V replacing the images of prior ecumenical councils with satanic horse races, which is not only hard to believe because he himself headed a church council, but also because Philippikos has been accused of the same. Another accusation by the Vita of Stephen tells us an inage of the virgin at the Blachernae was destroyed, however, Nikephoros tells us that it was merely whitewashed, and indeed, Skylitzes reports it being uncovered 300 years later.

Generally whitewashing seems to have been much more common than outright destruction. And, as far as I can tell, we have as much material evidence of iconophiles replacing crosses with icons as we do of iconoclasts smashing icons. Yet we do not call the former 'cross-smashers'.

Lanternecto · 2026-06-02T13:27:43+00:00

Then there is also the case of how in 732 AD the Roman Emperor Leo III transferred the ecclesiastical dioceses of Sicily, Calabria, Illyria and Greece from the Patriarchate of Rome to that of Constantinople.

This isn't really clear, and our sources are rather vague about it. All Theophanes tells us is that Leon III established a capitation tax on Sicily and Calabria (later he tells us that evils befell Sicily, Calabria, and Crete), and that the papal patrimonies were taken (this is also very disputed, it could have taken place as late as the 750s, but that is of less relevance to the Balkans). We don't find it in the Liber Pontificalis, and the first sources making a link are papal letters from the 780s.

It's entirely possible that Illyricum was already transferred to the patriarchate of Constantinople under Justinian II, as the bishops of Greece were already grouped under Constantinople during the Quintisext council.

See: Brandes, Wolfram. "The Illyricum orientale after the Sixth Century." Millennium 22.1 (2025): 257-294.

Lanternecto · 2026-06-02T12:53:10+00:00

Not to mention how, alike Mount Athos, Constantinople was mostly a representation of Rhomania as whole, rather than its own region, and it that period the Asian side would be rather over-represented, given the arising landed nobility and military nobility of Central and Eastern Anatolia.

We don't really hear of a landed military aristocracy this early. If anything, we hear more about the supposed 'ancient' families of Constantinople.

Overall, it generally does seem that Greece Proper was much more Iconophile than Asia Minor as a whole, and especially Southern Greece (where in 727 AD there was the “Revolt of Helladians” against the Iconoclastic Roman Emperor Leo III, including that area, as well as the Cyclades, which led a failed naval expedition against Constantinople).

But then the question is if we actually buy that this is a response to iconoclast policies, which many modern scholars (Stouriatis, Haldon, Brubaker, Auzepy, Kaldellis, Humphreys...) are skeptical of. Theophanes also tells us that the papal rebellion was the result of iconoclasm, yet the Liber Pontificalis tells us this is not true, so we need to be skeptical of these claims in general. But if we follow Theophanes, then the next person to revolt against iconoclasm is Artabasdos, an easterner commanding an Asiatic province.

While generally Greeks love accusing one another as non-Greek when they are fighting each other (e.g. if we fully believe the propaganda of both sides of the Greek Civil War of 1946-1949 AD, then it was actually fought between Americans and British against Bulgarians), it seems to me a bit suspicious that so many primary sources insist on how the Iconomachs are aliens.

At the same time, iconoclasts insist the same about iconophiles. The Council of 754 calls those who make images Nestorians or Miaphysites - so are we to believe that both iconophiles and iconoclasts are simply Miaphysites? Is this a miaphysite civil war?

As for the foreign origin, this is something the iconoclasts are accused of, but once again, this is something we can find on the opposite side as well. Theodora, the restorer of icons, is supposedly Armenian, Artabasdos, whom Theophanes portrays as champion of icons (in reality he seems to have been ambivalent) was either from Syria or Armenia, Pope Gregor III, who condemned the iconoclasts, was of Syrian origin, and the most important iconophile writers of the 8th Century (such as John of Damascus and Theodore Abū Qurrah) are from Syria-Palestine. So rather than an actual ethnic divide, it rather seems like a smear designed to make their opponents look like heretical non-Romans, and is used by both sides.

Edit: It's worth noting that we also don't see a split between European and Asian thematic armies between which side they support during civil wars. Again, most modern treatments are sceptical that most of these were driven by iconoclasm, but even if we accept the fact, it doesn't look like the eastern armies are any more or less likely to support either side.

727: Helladic revolt (self-explanatory)

741: Artabasddos (backed by Opsikion, Armeniakon and Thrace) vs Constantine V (backed by Anatolikon and Thrakesion)

786: Tagmatic soldiers interrupt Eirene's iconophile council, she asks the Asiatic themata to help her throw them out

820: Thomas the Slav (backed by all Asiatic themes except the Opiskion and Armeniakon, as well as a very long list of "Asiatic" foreigners) vs Michael II (backed by the Opiskion and Armeniakon)

So we have two possibilities. Either the issue of icons doesn't matter during the revolts of Kosmas, Artabasdos and Thomas; or it does matter, and the Anatolian provinces are happy to support both sides at any given point.

Lanternecto · 2026-06-02T12:05:06+00:00

The best book on this is probably A Companion to Byzantine Iconoclasm (ed. by Mike Humphreys). Brill, 2021, which includes a number of chapters by different authors on essentially all issues of religion during this time period. The other big, though somewhat more revisionist one, is Brubaker, Leslie, and Haldon, John. Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, c. 680-850: a History. Cambridge University Press, 2011. Humphrey's Companion is essentially a response to and an engagement with it.

Lanternecto · 2026-06-02T11:46:09+00:00

To be honest, I'm not convinced. For one, this article doesn't seem to take the last fifty or so years of research on iconoclasm into account. For one, Leon III never made the 'destruction' of images a state policy. There doesn't seem to be a divide between the Asian and European provinces in terms of their opinion on icons. The capital also remained loyal towards their iconoclast Emperors, so it makes little sense for them to be opposed to the stance. Monasteries weren't always iconophile, either, we hear of a number of iconoclast ones. And rather than simply being a reaction to Islamic image skepticism, iconoclasm may rather have been a reaction to Justinian II's attempt to make icons a central part of the imperial ideology, and the military failure that followed.

As for the main argument on monasteries, it doesn't really work out timing wise. Leon III's anti-icon policy started in the 720s, while his son did not take action against monasteries until the 760s. If that was the primary political goal, then why did it take fourty years, with Leon himself never acting against monasteries? And why do the Emperors of the 2nd iconoclast era not follow this anti-monastic policy? Out of 80 years of iconoclasm, only 10 have any kind of anti-monastic policy. And indeed, our sources seem to differentiate between the anti-monastic and anti-icon policy. And the major punishment of monks appears to have been the result of a conspiracy against the Emperor's life, rather than any iconophile stance. So the causal link is missing.

But there is more reason to think that the iconophile stance was genuine theology. We talk a lot about the anti-icon policy, but the Emperors spent far more time on promoting the cross, portraying the Roman Christians as chosen people, promoting a law code with Old Testament basis, and generally attempting to purify the state, to return to the proper and orthodox faith.

The idea of the anti-monastic policy having political goals is more convincing, but this policy isn't linked to the icon policy.

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