Significance of the Battle of Manzikert

[PanzerJaeger]

Very informative writeup! A+

Reading things like this reminds me of the vastness of human history and how little of it I, or any one person, will ever be able to know. Thanks for sharing it.

[Brandy Blue]

Thanks for your response Edyz. I'm glad the little grammar slip wasn't held against you. It shouldn't be.

It seems to me that losing a large and valuable territory will damage an empire's tax base and military capability with or without pronoia. Still, I take your point. The pronoia system's disadvantages tie in with the corruption and greed you mentioned in your essay.

So religious strife did not cause Armenian disloyalty. What about the Arab invasion of Egypt in the 7th century? Allegedly the Egyptians did not resist because they were fed up with heavy taxes and religious persecution. Do you happen to know if that is true, or just another myth?

[edyzmedieval]

Thanks for your response Edyz. I'm glad the little grammar slip wasn't held against you. It shouldn't be.

It seems to me that losing a large and valuable territory will damage an empire's tax base and military capability with or without pronoia. Still, I take your point. The pronoia system's disadvantages tie in with the corruption and greed you mentioned in your essay.

So religious strife did not cause Armenian disloyalty. What about the Arab invasion of Egypt in the 7th century? Allegedly the Egyptians did not resist because they were fed up with heavy taxes and religious persecution. Do you happen to know if that is true, or just another myth?

The Arab invasion of Egypt was somewhat different than the invasion of Anatolia/Byzantium. Most of the Arab rulers were competent and provided the whole territory with reforms, capable administration and expansion (Arab Caliphate of Egypt was quite powerful throughout the whole Medieval times) so it was not hard for the population to accept them. On a similar note, the Seljuq rulers weren't rejected either, there was not much the population could do about them because they were so many but at the same time they were eager rulers for a territory to settle down in and provide a base for future expansion so they had all the interest in the world to behave nicely.

What is surprising is the lack of a coherent reply against the Seljuqs until Alexios Komnenos came to throne. And that did not last long either (Manuel, 80 years later).

[Sarmatian]

You don't have to remove quotations, they don't infringe on copyright unless you literally copy/pasted entire section which you obviously couldn't as essay wouldn't be approved.

Now, I'm going to give you some, hopefully, constructive criticism.

It is a nice write-up, very informative but at the same time it is an extremely short text for such a complex subject. You're dealing with internal military and political organization of the Byzantine empire, a large battle and effect of that battle on the subsequent centuries and its influence in the eventual collapse of the empire. You should have chosen a more specific approach, or been given it (if it was given to you by your professors).

If this is for high school diploma, then it is great quality and kudos to you.

Overall, by org standards a very nice read, thanks for sharing...

[edyzmedieval]

You don't have to remove quotations, they don't infringe on copyright unless you literally copy/pasted entire section which you obviously couldn't as essay wouldn't be approved.

Now, I'm going to give you some, hopefully, constructive criticism.

It is a nice write-up, very informative but at the same time it is an extremely short text for such a complex subject. You're dealing with internal military and political organization of the Byzantine empire, a large battle and effect of that battle on the subsequent centuries and its influence in the eventual collapse of the empire. You should have chosen a more specific approach, or been given it (if it was given to you by your professors).

If this is for high school diploma, then it is great quality and kudos to you.

Overall, by org standards a very nice read, thanks for sharing...

Glad you enjoyed.

Indeed it is a very short write up because of a 4000 word maximum limit that I had to work with. The first draft had around 6500 but the excess had to be trimmed so I remained just with this. Indeed it was for my HS diploma, for the International Baccalaureate, Extended Essay.