ABSTRACT
Psellus himself illustrates the paradoxes of Byzantine society. Byzantine politics had been dominated for many years by two powerful groups: the military, landed aristocracy and the court officials, the bureaucracy of Constantinople. The political history of Byzantium between 1025 and 1081 appears to the modern eye like a labyrinth of senseless intrigue. Alexius Comnenus succeeded in 1081 because he was a soldier who could outmanoeuvre the court officials at their own favourite game of palace intrigue. The First Crusade was essentially a land operation; ships took part only at a late stage, but were then crucial in ensuring supplies; sea power only became an essential part of the Crusades with the Third Crusade. In Spain and Portugal the Christian kingdoms had been advancing with some reverses for a century before 1147. After the collapse of the caliphate of Cordoba, Muslim Spain broke up into a number of petty emirates, the taifas, each centring in a cultivated city and court.
