LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATRICIDE: THE REVOLT OF THE ZEALOTS OF THESSALONICA

 

"...one after another the prisoners were hurled from the walls of the citadel and hacked to pieces by the mob of the Zealots assembled below. Then followed a hunt for all the members of the upper classes: they were driven through the streets like slaves, with ropes round their necks-here a servant dragged his master, there a slave his purchaser, while the peasant struck the strategos and the labourer beat the soldiers…."

Five hundred years before the anti-aristocratic purges of the French Revolution, Demetrius Cydones described in 1345, an orgy of violence that was visited upon the ruling classes of Thessalonica. For between 1342 to 1350, in the dying century of the Byzantine Empire, the people took control of the city for themselves. Known as the Zealots, scholars still debate as to whether they possessed a coherent ideological programme. While some suggest they represented a proto-Marxist movement focused on wealth redistribution, others argue they were primarily opportunistic, exploiting chaos to consolidate power. Regardless, it cannot be doubted that their rule, marked as it was by a rejection of external authority and emphasis on significant local self-governance, was seen as a horrific aberration by contemporary chronicles, one that disturbed the natural order of things.

Before the Zealots, there were others who went by that name. In the thirteenth century, according to the historian Gregoras, the “Zealots” were a faction predominantly composed of monks and lower-ranking clergy who gained significant influence among the Byzantine populace, likely due to their anti-aristocratic stance, which brought them into conflict with the “politicians,” a rival faction made up mainly of intellectuals and senior clergy. As a radical group, the Zealots often opposed imperial policies, particularly on contentious issues such as the union of the Churches.

Furthermore, their religious background informed their social beliefs. Thessaloniki, a thriving mercantile entrepot had already engendered the writings of theologians who stressed social reform. Saint Nicholas Cabasilas in his “Oration against Usury” condemned the widespread practice of moneylending in the city as usury: taking from something that provides no value. Both he and founder of Hesychasm, Saint Gregorios Palamas also argue that there was no absolute right to property and income if more is accumulated than is necessary, considering it to be a greater sin when the hoarding of money leads to the manipulation of the poor. In their view, profits derived from such endeavours were illegitimate and should be redistributed among the needy.

By the beginning of the fourteenth century, Thessalonica, the second largest in population and wealth city of the Byzantine Empire had begun to resent the overlordship of Constantinople and indeed had already revolted against it: Thus during the first Palaiologan civil war in 1322, the citizens of Thessalonica removed the despot appointed by Constantinople, Constantine Palaiologos from power and instead sided with the rebels Andronikos III and his ally John Kantakouzenos. In the second civil war, Alexios Apokaukos, rebel, arrived with a fleet and appointed renegade Michael Monomachos as governor. Despite these official appointments, the true power in Thessalonica rested with the Zealots, a radical group led by a certain Michael Palaiologos, who shared the title of archon with the governors. The city's administration also involved a council of local aristocrats and influential citizens, emphasising civic engagement in local governance.

Michael and his brother Andreas Palaiologos key figures in the Zealot administration that opposed Kantakouzenos identified with the imperial Palaiologos dynasty, indicating that despite authors describing theirs as a peasant revolt, they still attempted to draw legitimacy from the ruling family, even though their relationship to them was probably a political concoction. Despite their revolutionary activities, the Zealots continued to recognize the authority of Emperor John V Palaiologos, possibly while seeking a semi-autonomous status for Thessalonica.

Ostensibly, the Zealots constituted a political movement that seemed to favour and express the aspirations of the lower classes of Thessaloniki. Emperor John Kantakouzenos records their radicalism according to the following terms: “They roused up the people against the aristocracy, and for two or three days, Thessalonica was like a city under enemy occupation and suffered all the corresponding disasters. The victors went shouting and looting through the streets by day and by night, while the vanquished hid in churches and counted themselves lucky to be still alive. When order returned, the Zealots, suddenly raised from penury and dishonour to wealth and influence, took control of everything and won over the moderate citizens, forcing them to acquiesce and characterizing every form of moderation and prudence as “Kantakouzenism.””

Contemporary chroniclers describe how property was seized from the wealthy and redistributed in a manner anticipating the Bolshevik Revolution. Also prefiguring the Bolshevik Revolution was not only the Zealots’ single minded radicalism in a manner reminiscent of Lenin’s creation a tightly organized and ideologically disciplined corps of professional revolutionaries. They met at night in secret cabals or cells and determined on courses of action and the punishment of the wealthy. One grandee accused of crimes against the state was arrested in secret, tried in public and then was stripped, trussed up, and paraded through the streets, sentenced to be beaten up by five ‘notoriously vulgar’ women, before finally being set free. Again in a manner akin to the Bolsheviks alliance with the sailors of the Kronstadt naval base, the Zealots were assisted both in their seizure of power and the maintenance of their rule by the sailors and dock-workers of Thessalonica, the parathalassioi, who had been set up as a military association by Emperor Michael Palaiologos and as a result, already wielded significant political power in the city. In this regard, the late Father George Metallinos  observed: ‘It is indeed clear that - in spite of the confusion in the sources - the Zealots of Thessaloniki constituted a social group, as discerned by the People. It had ties to the "parathalassioi" - a well-known guild with Palaiologos family members at its head. The collaboration between Zealots and parathalassioi was obviously a coinciding of mutual interests. . . The Zealots identified with the people and they expressed the demands of the lower social strata, which partially coincided with those of the army as well.”

While playing to the desires of the city’s inhabitants, the Zealots’ agenda was multi-faceted. Confiscated properties from supporters of John Kantakouzenos were redistributed among the Zealot’s allies rather than benefiting the working-class. While the general population harboured anti-aristocratic sentiments, the Zealots' primary goals seemed more aligned with forging strategic alliances with power-brokers who would help to keep them in power, rather than with championing social equality or ideological reform as a primary aim. That they did so through consensus and collective decision-making may merely an outcome of their monastic background rather than a genuine revolution in their way of thinking and scholars still argue over the nature of their rule. Greek writer Kostas Lampou for example, emphasizes the more progressive aspects of their governance, maintain that the Zealots: “took measures towards intellectual freedom, freedom of speech and religious tolerance. They abolished all privileges, the right of private property and confiscated the wealth of the nobility. Direct election was established for all government offices, courts and religious offices. The wealth of the church was taken and separation of church and state established. They established status of equality before the law, released their serfs and gave equal rights to foreigners.”

Ultimately, Zealot rule proved to be of a transient nature. The threat of Serbian domination under the expansionist Stefan Dusan, their inability to protect the inhabitants from the ravages of a bout of the Plague and the reconciliation of the rebel John Kantakouzenos and the Byzantine Emperor eroded their legitimacy with the people. In 1349, the people of Thessaloniki rose up against the Zealots and deposed, culminating in the triumphal entry of the Emperor John Palaiologos into the city the next year.

Assessing the downfall of the Zealots, Matthew Raphael Johnson comments: “The zealots failed because the coalition against the landed oligarchy just meant that the poor were cooperating with the merchant class that sought to take their place. Their movement weakened and soon split into factions.” In his mind, their assumption of power was teleological: “There was some change in the form of redistributed property, the confiscated lands of the nobility and, most importantly, limitations on usury. This was a rebellion protesting a power vacuum, the domination of foreigners and the impending sense of dread knowing that the empire was near the end.”

A few decades later, Thessaloniki would fall to the Ottomans and though it would be recovered through diplomacy, it would soon share the fate of the rest of the Empire. The revolt of the Zealots in its dying days thus stands as a poignant and significant death throe of dignity, with social activism as its burial shroud.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on 14 December 2024