The Historical Ethnology of Steppe Nomadism in the Empire of New Rome, c .450–1100 Michael Attaleiates and John Skylitzes on the Turks

The eleventh century is a paradox and watershed in East Roman history. One essential element is new nomadic polities entering imperial space from the Central Eurasian steppe, the Oghuz Turkish groups following members of the Seljuq lineage in the east, and Pecheneg polities in the west. In their attempts to develop narratives that explain their historical role, Roman historians engaged in historical ethnology. The traces lead back through six centuries of contact with “Turks”. Against “archaising” characterisations I argue that these writers took a critical approach to steppe ethnology, revealing a discourse stretching back for some half a millennium. Even so, Roman historians did not engage in historical ethnology for its own sake, but to utilise it in “policy debates”. In the twelfth century new conditions demanded new strategies of identification, leaving the eleventh-century ethnology a witness to a particular historical moment.