After the division of the Roman Empire into the eastern half and the western half, Cyprus came under the rule of Byzantium. The cities of Cyprus were destroyed by two successive earthquakes in 332 and 342 AD and this marked the end of the old era and at the same time the beginning of the new one, very much connected with the modern life on Cyprus. The majority of the cities were not rebuilt, save Salamis, which was rebuilt on a smaller scale and renamed Constantia after the Roman Emperor Constantius II, the son of Constantine The Great, residing in Constantinople. The new city became the capital of the island.
A significant event on Cyprus at that time was the spreading of Christianity. People were extremely religious and engaged greatly in the matters of faith, especially fighting against the efforts of the Patriarch of Antioch to put the Church of Cyprus under his control. They were finally successful in 488 AD when Archbishop Anthemius, guided by a vision, discovered the tomb of St Barnabas with the Saint’s body lying in a coffin and on his chest a copy of the Gospel by St Matthew in Barnabas’ own writing. Having the relics with him, Anthemius dashed to Constantinople and presented them to Emperor Zeno. The latter was very much impressed and he not only confirmed the independence of the Church of Cyprus but he also granted the Archbishop with three lifelong privileges that are as much alive today as they were then, namely to carry a sceptre instead of a pastoral staff, to sign with red ink and to wear a purple cloak during services. Up to the beginning of the 7th century, the Patriarch of Alexandria was St. John the Merciful from Amathus. Another important Cypriot of the time is the church writer Leontios of Neapolis.
In 650 AD the Arabs made their first attack on the island under the leadership of Muawiya. They conquered the capital Salamis (Constantia) after a brief siege, and drafted a treaty with the local rulers. In the course of this expedition a relative of the Prophet, Umm-Haram fell from her mule near the Salt Lake at Larnaca and was killed. She was buried in that spot and much later in 1816 the Hala Sultan Tekke was built there by the Turks. After apprehending a breach of the treaty, the Arabs re-invaded the island in 654 AD with five hundred ships. This time, however, a garrison of 12,000 soldiers was left on Cyprus, bringing the island under the Muslim influence.
When the Arabs invaded Cyprus in 688, the Byzantine Emperor Justinian II and the Caliph Abd al-Malik reached an unprecedented agreement. For the next 300 years, Cyprus was ruled jointly by both the Arabs and the Byzantines as a condominium, despite the nearly constant warfare between the two parties on the mainland. The collected taxes were divided among the Arabs and the Emperor. The isolation of Cyprus from the rest of the Greek-speaking world assisted the formation of a special Cyprian dialect. This period lasted until the year 965, when resurgent Byzantine Empire under the leadership of Nicephorus Phocas conquered the island.
In 1185, the last Byzantine governor of Cyprus, Isaac Comnenus of Cyprus from a minor line of the Imperial house, rose in rebellion and attempted to seize the throne. His attempted coup was unsuccessful, but Comnenos was able to retain control of the island. Byzantine actions against Comnenos failed because he enjoyed the support of William II of Sicily. The Emperor agreed with the sultan of Egypt to close Cyprian harbours to the Crusaders.
For two centuries thereafter the island enjoyed a peaceful, though heavily taxed, existence as a fully-fledged province of Byzantium. During this time the majority of modern Cyprian towns, e.g. Nicosia, Famagusta, Kyrenia, were founded and grew quickly, and impressive defensive fortifications such as the castles at Kantara, Buffavento and St. Hilarion were constructed.
Trouble loomed large again, however, in the twelfth century. The Byzantine Empire was in decline and unable to exert effective control over its provinces including Cyprus. This gave the opportunity for a rebel Byzantine prince, Isaac Comnenus, to seize control over Cyprus and declare himself the self-styled emperor of the island in 1184. His rule was despotic and unpopular, but for a brief period of seven years Cyprus could at least claim, for only the second time in its history, to be independent of external forces.
In the 12th century A.D. the island became a target of the crusaders. Richard the Lion heart landed in Limassol on the 1st of June 1191 in search of his sister and his bride Berengaria, whose ship had become separated from the fleet in a storm. Upon her arrival, the ruler Isaac Comnenus of Cyprus requested that Berengaria disembarked, which she refused, provoking Comnenus’s anger. Richard took this as a personal insult and attacked the island which was easily subdued. Comnenus was bound to lend aid to Richard in his crusade against Saladin, an oath which he later broke, and Richard had him put into silver chains (as he swore not to bind Comnenus in irons) and kept him prisoner till his death in 1194 or 1195. The Cyprian chronicler St. Neophytus gave Richard the epithet of “the wretch”. Richard married Berengaria in Limassol on the 12th of May 1192. She was crowned as Queen of England by John Fitzluke, Bishop of Evreux. The crusader fleet continued to St. Jean d’Acre (Syria) on the 5th of June.
The army of Richard the Lion heart continued to occupy Cyprus and raised taxes. After local revolts he decided to sell the island to the Knights Templar, who were unable to retain the power on the island because of further hostility from the local population due to tax raising. A rebellion which took place on April 6, 1192 made the Templars sell the island to Guy de Lusignan (1192-1194) who proclaimed himself a ruler of the island in May 1192.
Richard saw this sale as advantageous to himself, as the island didn’t cause him any more trouble, and as Guy had been captured by Saladin at the battle of Jerusalem. Though released later, in 1192 he was ousted in favour of Henry II of Champagne as a result, and was willing to buy Cyprus. He invited Palestinian barons, banished by Saladin, to move to the island, granting them feudal rights over huge estates, using the Cypriots as serfs.
So began a rather dark 300-year period of Cyprian history. The Lusignans were a mediocre lot and imported to Cyprus all the trappings of the western world’s medieval society. Power, wealth and privilege were heavily concentrated in the top strata of society while the local population was held in serfdom. Freedom of all sorts was restricted with punitive feudal laws and religious intolerance was the norm of life. The eviction of the Crusaders from the Holy Land offered some attractive commercial benefits during this period and Famagusta, in particular, prospered mightily but little benefit seems to have filtered down to the mass of the people. Due to the rising power of Islam, now apparent in and around the Holy Land, there was a lot of heavy expenditure on defensive installations and the Byzantine castles, already mentioned, were renovated and new ones built in Famagusta and Nicosia. With the influx of Christian refugees following the debacle in the Holy Land it was also a time of much church building and the establishment of monastic orders.Whilst the Lusignans governed the country the Genoese and Venetians were rivals for the commercial supremacy on Cyprus, and that power and rivalry continued to grow. As early as 1375 the Lusignans had to cede the political control of Famagusta to the Genoese and did not recover it until 1464 when they expelled the Genoese from the country. The Venetians now had the commercial field to themselves and could dictate their demands both economical and political.
The last king from the Lusignan dynasty was James, who won victories over several major forts, including Genoese Famagusta, and was crowned in 1464. His wife Caterina Cornaro was a successor to the Venetian throne, securing the passage of the island to their seigniory. James died in 1473, and his son died the following year, and the Venetians got eyed with suspicion. In 1473, the Catalans on the island organized a revolt against the Venetians with the support of Ferdinand II of Aragon, which was put down by the Venetians. In 1479, the party of Queen Charlotte concocted a plot to assassinate the Queen, but it was revealed and quashed. Due to the looming threat of the Ottoman Turks, Venice used the Queen’s brother to convince her to abdicate the throne in 1489, ushering in the Venetian period in the history of Cyprus.
Eventually in 1489 the Venetians stepped in and took political control over the island. Their tenure of power was, perhaps, more repressive than that of the Lusignans though, mercifully, much shorter. It lasted only until 1571 when, once more, there appeared a new superpower waiting ready and willing to dispossess the former masters.
Despite its early success solely as a sea power, Venice started accumulating lands, and Cyprus came under its jurisdiction. In a way like Pericles in Thucydides, or George Washington’s farewell address in American History, the Venetian Doge Moncinego had long ago warned Venice not to overextend itself in a land empire. In all of these cases, this advice was of course, ignored.
The Seigniory had great repute in Venice itself, indeed supposedly matching up to the Venetian myth, but its colonial administration was corrupt. The island was run by three people: the lieutenant and two councillors known as “the three lords”, as well as a captain for the army. The feudal lords feared these people’s becoming too powerful, so these posts were re-appointed every two years. As a result the country’s administration was greedy, lethargic, and overall inadequate, and although the taxes were high they were still not enough to govern the island. One pilgrim of that time noted that “all the inhabitants of Cyprus are slaves to the Venetians.”
Salt was the major item of production on the island at this period, taken from Larnaca. In earlier times it was used in the cult of Aphrodite, as the salt lake produced around a one-inch thick deposit. It was said that Larnaca provided enough salt to fill 34 ships, all of this profit went not to the island, but straight back to Venice.
Eventually in 1489 the Venetians stepped in and took political control over the island. Their tenure of power was, perhaps, more repressive than that of the Lusignans though, mercifully, much shorter. It lasted only until 1571 when, once more, there appeared a new superpower waiting ready and willing to dispossess the former masters.
Despite its early success solely as a sea power, Venice started accumulating lands, and Cyprus came under its jurisdiction. In a way like Pericles in Thucydides, or George Washington’s farewell address in American History, the Venetian Doge Moncinego had long ago warned Venice not to overextend itself in a land empire. In all of these cases, this advice was of course, ignored.
The Seigniory had great repute in Venice itself, indeed supposedly matching up to the Venetian myth, but its colonial administration was corrupt. The island was run by three people: the lieutenant and two councillors known as “the three lords”, as well as a captain for the army. The feudal lords feared these people’s becoming too powerful, so these posts were re-appointed every two years. As a result the country’s administration was greedy, lethargic, and overall inadequate, and although the taxes were high they were still not enough to govern the island. One pilgrim of that time noted that “all the inhabitants of Cyprus are slaves to the Venetians.”
Salt was the major item of production on the island at this period, taken from Larnaca. In earlier times it was used in the cult of Aphrodite, as the salt lake produced around a one-inch thick deposit. It was said that Larnaca provided enough salt to fill 34 ships, all of this profit went not to the island, but straight back to Venice.
General Lala Mustafa landed near Larnaca on July 1, 1570. The island suffered from incompetent military leadership; there was only one capable leader on the island who was defending Famagusta. Nicosia was defended by bumbling Matteo Dandalo, who held his troops within the walls leaving Mustafa free range of the island, which he eventually plundered.
The Venetians also couldn’t rely on the Cypriots themselves, who hated their overbearers. Mustafa pursued the nobility of the island and attacked Nicosia first. Though Nicosia had proper supplies and great architecture, its inactivity under the leadership of Dandalo, led to the fact that the fort was surrendered after only 6 weeks, and a mosque was erected in honor of the deceased standard bearer, who had been the first to set upon the walls.
Mustafa then doubled his army to almost 200,000 for the siege of Famagusta. The city was led by the only great leader on the island, the Venetian Marc Antony Bragodino though the fort itself was neither strengthened nor well-supplied, and the harvest hadn’t been brought in for the year either. Bragodino had only about 10,000 men defending Famagusta. The Venetian gunners had to fire sparingly as their powder supplies were quickly dwindling, and the best tactic against the enemy was short-time firing at them. The wealthy Venetians offered financial incentives to those who would fight the Turks in a single combat. After about a year, the ravelin fell, and Bragodino surrendered, seeing further defense as useless.
The fall of Famagusta marked the beginning of the Ottoman period in Cyprus. Two months later, the naval forces of the Holy League, composed mainly of Venetian, Spanish, and Papal ships under the command of Don John of Austria, defeated the Turkish fleet at Battle of Lepanto in one of the decisive battles of world history. The victory over the Turks, however, came too late to help Cyprus, and the island remained under Ottoman rule for the next three centuries, until 1878, the beginning of the British period, and Lala Mustafa Pasha became the first Turkish Governor of Cyprus, challenging the claims of Venice.
The local population welcomed the change of ownership and important reforms were introduced. Serfdom was abolished and the Orthodox Church, the church of the local people, was instated as the Church of Cyprus. Ottomans also made being Catholic a punishable offence, so Cypriots had to choose between Orthodox Christianity and Islam. The majority chose Christianity, but the result was that the population began to take on the ethnic structure it still possesses today, namely Greek and Turkish. It is from this time, of course, that most of the Turkish Cypriots can date their ancestry and the (rather relaxed) practice of their religion on the island.
During the Turkish period Greek was accepted as an official language together with the Turkish. The Greek Cypriots were not obliged to learn Turkish or use it to correspond with government departments and officials. They could use their own language in all official correspondence and documents. Appeals and reports sent to the Turkish Government in Istanbul relating to issues which they wanted to be considered by the Porte (Bab-i Ali) could also be written in Greek. The names of streets, squares, public places, and offices were displayed in both the Turkish and Greek languages.
Turkish justice and tolerance provided a stable and peaceful life for the people of the island as a whole, and apart from the minor incidents that took place during the revolt against the Turks on the Greek mainland in the 1820s, the 308 years of Turkish rule in Cyprus saw friendly relations between the two communities. This balance was maintained by applying the principle of give and take, compromise, and justice.
It is important to note that relations between the two races during the Turkish period were sometimes so harmonious that the two communities actually joined together to resist a number of tax increases. A less well-known feature of Ottoman tolerance was the granting of special concessions to Greek merchants. This policy led to the rise of Greek commerce and the Greek merchant marine at the expense of the Italian city-states after the fall of Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453.
The stability, peace and repopulation of towns achieved by Ottoman rule regenerated the economy of the eastern Balkans and of the eastern Mediterranean as a whole. Turkish rule in Cyprus must therefore be seen in this wider context. The tolerance and justice it brought to all Cypriots were based on this universality. It was not prejudiced, and was therefore able to establish and maintain friendly relations and solidarity among Moslems and Christians, Turks and Greeks of the island for more than three centuries.
The last Turkish Berat (Imperial decree), which was granted to Archbishop Sophronius in 1865, only thirteen years before the end of Turkish rule is considered to be one of the finest examples of respect towards the religion of the ruled by those who were in power. This Berat was similar to others granted to the Orthodox Church, its archbishops, and bishops from the beginning of the Turkish rule in 1571. Even today it can be regarded as an excellent example of Turkish tolerance towards other religions and faiths.
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