Four

Political Communities Reordered (c.900–c.1050)

THE LARGE-SCALE centralized governments of the ninth century dissolved in the

tenth. The fission was least noticeable at Byzantium, where, although important

landowning families emerged as brokers of patronage and power, the primacy of the

emperor was never effectively challenged. In the Islamic world, however, new

dynastic groups established themselves as regional rulers. In Western Europe,

Carolingian kings ceased to control land and men, while new political entities—some

extremely local and weak, others quite strong and unified—emerged in their wake.

Byzantium: The Strengths and Limits of Centralization

By 1025 the Byzantine Empire once again touched the Danube and Euphrates

Rivers. Its emperors maintained the traditional cultural importance of Constantinople

by carefully orchestrating the radiating power of the imperial court. Yet at the same

time, powerful men in the countryside gobbled up land and dominated the peasantry,

challenging the dominance of the center.