Reconsideration of the relation between Byzantium and the West from the ninth to the eleventh centuries.

Research Project

Project/Area Number	10610389
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	History of Europe and America
Research Institution	Siebold University of Nagasaki (1999-2000) Nagasaki Prefectural Women's Junior College (1998)
Principal Investigator	TAKEBE Ryusho Siebold University of Nagasaki, Faculty of Global Communication, Assistant Professor, 国際情報学部, 助教授 (00236499)
Project Period (FY)	1998 – 2000
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 2000)
Budget Amount *help	¥2,600,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,600,000) Fiscal Year 2000: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000) Fiscal Year 1999: ¥1,000,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000) Fiscal Year 1998: ¥1,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000)
Keywords	the Byzantine Empire / the Pope / the Frankish Kingdam of Italy / 南イタリア
Research Abstract	The major object of this study is the influence of the Byzantine Empire on Italy during the early tenth century. There ware the conflicts of power among the Frankish margraves after the decline of the Carolingian dynasty. In those confusions all of them asked the Byzantine emperors for the alliance. The Byzantine Empire made reconquest of southern Italy under the Macedonian dynasty. Not only southern Italy, also the papal territory was under the Byzantine suzerain since Basil the first had sent the imperial fleets in defense of Rome against Arab's raids, though that was the frontire province of the Frankish Kingdom of Italy. Between double suzerains Byzantine was superior to Frankish one, becouse no powerful figure among those margraves could fight against the Byzantine emperors until Otto the great would come. Therefore no one tried to occupy the city of Rome by militaly force. They had to find the other way to rule the papal territory. The control through pope was the way that they choosed for the realization of their ambition. Thus the lay leaders intervened papal successions, and tried to make their own candidates elected as a pope. It was the beginning of the Dark Ages for the papal history. Consequently the men who took advantage of this situation were not any Frankish margraves but the aristocractic families of Rome. Among them, the Theophulakts' clan established the first dynastic domination in Rome. This study makes clear that these historical phenomena were produced by the restoration of Byzantine influence on the Italian peninsula.