Early Middle Ages and Crusades
Forced conversions of Romanus Lecapenus
932-936·Empire byzantin
The toll is reproduced exactly as the source states it — never rounded, never added to another. Tolls overlap from one event to the next.
entire communities baptized, others flee to Khazaria and Southern Italy
Romain Lécapène resumed the policy of Basile Iᵉʳ and forcibly baptized entire communities of the Byzantine Empire. A Khazar letter and the correspondence of Hasdaï ibn Shaprut preserve the trace of this: many fled to Khazaria, whose sovereign reportedly retaliated by persecuting the Christians of his kingdom.
Others made their way to southern Italy, then Byzantine but less tightly controlled, and to Muslim lands. The persecution ceased after a few years without any law having formally abrogated it, and most of the baptized returned to their faith — a sign that the coercion had weighed upon bodies more than upon consciences.
- Period :
- Early Middle Ages and Crusades
- Type :
- Forced conversion
- Region :
- Near and Middle East
- Country :
- Empire byzantin
Lettre de Hasdaï ibn Shaprut ; document de Schechter ; chroniques byzantines.