The barbarian, the heretic and the other in 9th century Byzantium: the case of the Paulicians

Résumé En

From the middle of the 9th century to 878 Byzantium eastern frontier had to contend with the Paulician threat. What was once a heretical movement transformed under persecution ordered by Constantinople into a full-blown insurrection. The Paulicians founded a military state in the city of Tephrike and allied with the Muslims of Melitene. It took multiple campaigns to finally sack Tephrike and disperse the Paulicians neutralizing the threat their raids posed and forcing them to flee inside and outside the Empire. The Paulician war and its aftermath is a unique opportunity to study the view of Byzantine society on heretics. A wide array of sources from the period addresses the issue from hagiography to history and heresiology. These sources allow us to glimpse at the perception of what was both a concrete military threat and the organization of a ‘counter-Christian society’ on the frontier opposing the dominance the Byzantine Empire had enjoyed over eastern Christians. As Paulicians came to represent a territorial as well as ideological danger. The Byzantine reacted by producing a series of stories and images, linking barbarism and heresy to disqualify a rival power composed of people who used to be imperial subjects. This discourse of barbarism and heresy did not start with Paulicianism, but by using it as a case study we can observe the tension between political and religious identity; As well as the way the Byzantines used the stereotype associated with barbarians and their presupposed cultural superiority to justify interior as well as exterior violence on those who strayed from social, political, and religious orthodoxy.