Of all the diplomatic reports ever filed, few have been as intentionally provocative and genuinely hilarious, as the one written by Liutprand of Cremona, a 10th-century Italian bishop who traveled to the heart of the Byzantine Empire and roasted the Byzantine imperial court with his vitriolic comments. The details included in his report on life in Constantinople are truly a masterclass in diplomatic mockery.
His report was so sarcastic with such personal insults that it managed to become an iconic medieval work that shaped how the West viewed the Eastern Roman Empire for over a millennium.
Liutprand of Cremona’s hate for Byzantine grandeur
The year was 968 AD. Liutprand, a churchman and envoy used to the courts of the Germanic West, arrived in the magnificent Constantinople, the “Queen of Cities.” He had been sent by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I (yes, many people claimed to be Romans at that time) on quite an important mission: to negotiate a marriage between Otto’s son and a Byzantine princess—nothing unusual for the time.
Liutprand had been in Constantinople before, but this time, things were different. The man on the throne of Byzantium was Nikephoros II Phokas, a tough man and hardened soldier who wasn’t really the type of person that would be impressed by a churchman and diplomat of the West.
For Liutprand, the awkwardness in the atmosphere was immediately evident. He found the stunning and elaborate court rituals, shiny, silky outfits, and endless official ceremonies of the Byzantine palace unnecessary and over the top. In his own world, the worth of a ruler was proven on the battlefield rather than by how high his mechanical throne could lift him towards the ceiling of an extravagant palace.
This encounter is depictive of the clash in perceptions and worldviews between the East and West at the time. Both the Holy Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) perceived of themselves as the rightful heirs of ancient Rome and were not keen on sharing their precious title. Hence, when Liutprand showed up with a letter from the Pope that addressed Nikephoros as the “Emperor of the Greeks” instead of the “Emperor of the Romans,” you might imagine that the court in Constantinople was not at all impressed.
This might sound strange to us, as we associate Byzantium more so with the Greeks than the Romans, but today’s perceptions are more of a historical eccentricity than a fact. The Byzantines thought of themselves as nothing else but Romans. They spoke Greek and their territories were primarily situated around Asia Minor and Greece, but they identified as Romans. Hence, a Germanic diplomat and a Pope referring to them as those “Greeks” were perceived as partaking in the ultimate power play, deemed as a deliberate move that set the tone for the rest of Liutprand’s disastrous visit.
How Liutprand of Cremona wrote his scathing report
Liutprand decided to write up everything about this diplomatic train wreck in a report that has become his most famous work, the “Relatio de Legatione Constantinopolitana.” He did not hold back from his negative views on the Byzantine Empire and even described Nikephoros as a “monstrosity of a man,” a fat-headed dwarf with “tiny mole’s eyes.” Moreover, he compared the Byzantine Emperor’s voice to a pig’s squeal.
And what about the legendary Byzantine cuisine? Was that at least not interesting? Well, Liutprand certainly didn’t think so. He complained of being served rancid, greasy food drenched in garlic and noted that the wine was undrinkable and tasted of pine resin. He also complained about the palace, saying that he was given a room in a leaky, windswept palace and was guarded like a common criminal.
When Byzantine officials confiscated the luxurious purple silks he had bought, saying that only they were worthy of wearing the imperial color, he shot back that where he came from, purple was worn by “whores and conjurers.” You can almost hear the gasps of those listening to his remarks.
Did he focus on facts and write the events as they occurred, or was he a master of propaganda, trying to justify his own failure in securing the marriage alliance? From a historian’s point of view, it truly doesn’t matter. His words were so harsh, so biting that they resulted in a most memorable caricature of the “treacherous Greek” that stuck in the imagination of Westerners for centuries.
So what are we to make of Liutprand of Cremona today? He was undoubtedly a brilliant diplomat. His knowledge of Greek was rare for his time, and his writings are an invaluable, if deeply biased, window into the logistics and politics of the 10th century. Furthermore, we have him to thank for all the juicy details about everything from court mechanics to the underlying geopolitical tensions of the age. His vivid descriptions make a remote historical period feel astonishingly familiar to us as well as human and, at times, even funny.
What Liutprand of Cremona left us with is proof of the centuries of misunderstanding and hostility between the Latin West and Greek East. It was a rift that would eventually lead to the Great Schism of Christianity and the brutal sack of Constantinople by Western crusaders in 1204.
The insults of Liutprand of Cremona in his report were not a one-off incident of a diplomat who was upset with the way he was treated. It was a generalized idea people in the West had of the Greek-speaking East, and it lasted through the centuries with devastating consequences both for Christianity and the broader European civilization following the Ottoman conquest that got as far as the walls of Vienna.
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