The Byzantine Empire (476-1453) never called itself that. That is a name made up by the French 400 years later. The Byzantines called themselves Romans: when Rome fell, in 476, the richer, eastern, Greek part of the Roman empire still stood. It did not fall for good till nearly a thousand years later in 1453. Its glory days were from 500 to 1000.
There is no real break between the Roman and Byzantine empires – they are just names. But because the Byzantine empire was Greek and Christian it is hard to see it as the same empire that Augustus had founded. And yet even Justinian, its most famous ruler, spoke mostly Latin and, unlike us, considered the loss of the west as only a passing thing.
At the heart of the empire stood the city of Constantinople. It was one of the largest cities in the world at the time. Constantine I had founded it in 330 as the “New Rome”. It became the seat of Roman power in the east.
Just as the law, religion and ways of Rome form the foundation of the West, so the Byzantine empire forms the foundation of eastern Europe and especially Russia. Russia is the daughter of the Byzantine empire and Moscow the third Rome.
The Western system of laws (except for the English-speaking world, which follows common law) is Byzantine. Justinian made Roman law into something that can apply to Christian society in his Corpus juris civilis.
The Byzantine empire was the universal state of the Christian world until two things happened:
- Charlemagne was made the ruler of the west in 800 by the pope.
- The Christian church broke in two in 1054 into Catholic and Orthodox churches.
From this point on the Byzantine empire was simply a Greek empire. Even its religion was no longer a universal faith.
In the 500s Justinian sent Belasarius to take back the west. He conquered quite a bit of it, but he left the cities of Italy in ruins. Most of what he conquered was soon lost.
The First Crusade was called in 1095 to save the empire: Romanus IV lost the battle of Manzikert to the Turks and was in danger of losing all of Anatolia and Constantinople itself. The Crusaders drove back the Turks before going on to the Holy Land to conquer kingdoms of their own.
The Fourth Crusade broke the empire’s back. The Crusaders took over Constantinople in 1204 and set up the Latin empire. It was short-lived – the Byzantines took back Constantinople in 1261. But from 1261 till 1453, when Constantinople fell to the Turks, the empire was no longer an empire – just a kingdom centred on Constantinople.
The Fourth Crusade also destroyed a great deal of Greek learning and literature.
Better dates for the Byzantine Empire would be from 395 to 1204. That is when it was an empire and when it had its own emperors. As late as 395 the western and eastern Roman Empire still had a common emperor.
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nice blog…. thanks for sharing….
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There are some excellent books on Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire- “The Fourth Crusade and the sack of Constantinople” by Jonathan Phillips and “1453” by Roger Crowley.
Although J.R.R Tolkien famously detested allegory he did draw on elements of Byzantine history ( the remaining half of an ancient empire defending the West against the alien hordes) in creating his own imaginary country of Gondor.
If Constantinople and the Eastern Roman empire had survived longer the world would likely be quite different indeed.
BTW there are several priceless Byzantine artifacts in Italy that were stolen in the 1204 sack of Constantinople. Even for the times the 1204 Crusader sack was considered shocking in the amount of murder, rape and looting.
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Nice job, disappointed there aren’t more comments here.
Ever heard of the Digenis Akritas epic of the Byzantine Empire? It’s quite interesting, and the titular hero is part Arab, part Byzantine/Greek. Fascinating stuff…the history of Byzantine relations with the Islamic societies nearby is more complicated than we realize, and as you mentioned here, the Western Christians often made things worse, like in the Fourth Crusade.
The Byzantines also seemed to have influenced Christianity in Nubia. Somehow, the Christian kingdoms of Nubia built churches that bear elements of Byzantine art (and Coptic), and their writing script is heavily inspired by the Greek alphabet.
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@ talibmensah
My older posts went up when I had few commenters. Some of them are pretty cringeworthy – Jefe found at least one of them – so I do not mind.
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@ talibmensah
I do not think I have heard of that epic.
I am surprised Byzantine influence extended as far as Nubia.
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Yeah, I was surprised that the Christian kingdoms in Nubia seemed to, at least initially, favor the Christians from Constantinople over Coptic Egypt, but one can see it in the architecture and art of the period. Some beautiful churches in Nubia have been excavated, like the cathedral at Faras.
http://www.mnw.art.pl/en/collections/permanent-galleries/faras-gallery/
After the Arab conquest of Egypt and the rise of Islam, Christians in Nubia seem to have fallen on the influence of the Coptic patriarch, possibly because communication with the Byzantine Empire was cut off. There’s an African-American scholar who has written about this, Christian Nubia, etc. The Copts also had monatic communities in Nubia.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSZxGu8gE-Y)
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This Idea that Russia is the “Third Rome” is russian pseudohistory, it was invented by the self-named Romanovs to claim that they were roman
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