Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

Byzantium and the Crusades

Alexius I and external relations before the First Crusade 

Page 4

Struggle of the Empire against the Turks and Patzinaks. The Turkish danger from the east and north, from the Seljuqs and Patzinaks, which had already been very threatening under the predecessors of Alexius Comnenus, increased in intensity under that monarch. The victory over the Normans and Guiscard's death had permitted Alexius to restore the Byzantine territory in the west as far as the Adriatic coast, but on the other borders, the attacks of the Turks and Patzinaks were so successful that the Empire was considerably reduced in territory. Anna Comnena rhetorically declared that at that time the neighboring Bosporus was the frontier of the Roman Empire in the east, and Hadrianople in the west.

It seemed that in Asia Minor, which had been almost wholly conquered by the Seljuqs, circumstances were shaping themselves favorably for the Empire, because among the Turkish rulers (emirs) a struggle for power was weakening the Turkish strength and bringing the country into a state of anarchy. But Alexius was unable to take full advantage of the distractions of the Turks because of the attacks of the Patzinaks from the north. In their conflict with Byzantium the Patzinaks found allies within the Empire in the Paulicians who dwelt in the Balkan peninsula. The Paulicians represented an Eastern dualistic religious sect, one of the chief branches of Manichaeism, which had been founded in the third century A.D. by Paul of Samosata and reformed in the seventh century. Living in Asia Minor, on the eastern border of the Empire, and firmly adhering to their doctrine, they sometimes caused grave trouble to the Byzantine government by their warlike energy. One of the familiar methods of Byzantine internal policy was to transport various nationalities from one place to another; for example, the Slavs were moved to Asia Minor and Armenians to the Balkan peninsula. The Paulicians also had been transported in great numbers from the eastern border to Thrace in the eighth century by Constantine V Copronymus, as well as in the tenth century by John Tzimisces. The city of Philippopolis in the Balkan peninsula became the center of the Paulicians. Tzimisces, by settling the eastern colony in the vicinity of that city, succeeded first in removing the stubborn sectarians from their strongholds and castles on the eastern border, where it was very difficult to manage them, and also he hoped that in their new settlement the Paulicians would serve as a strong bulwark against the frequent invasions of the northern Scythian barbarians. In the tenth century the Paulician doctrine had been carried into Bulgaria by the reformer of that doctrine, Pope Bogomile, after whom the Byzantine writers named his followers Bogomiles. From Bulgaria the Bogomile doctrine later passed into Serbia and Bosnia, and then into western Europe, where the followers of the eastern dualistic doctrine bore different names: Patarins in Italy, Cathari in Germany and Italy, Poblicans (i.e. Paulicians) and Albigensians in France.

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Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/vasilief/alexius-i-external-relations.asp?pg=4