Chapter 9

Chapter 9Civilizations in Eastern Europe:

Byzantium and Orthodox Europe

The Basics

• The Word Byzantine– Suggests the distinction from Rome itself• Political heir to Rome but still its own thing

• Constantinople

Constantinople

• Constantine names capital after himself– moves capital there 340 CE

• 1453 falls to Turks, renamed Istanbul– Major event in WH and the impact with be

resounding• Song

• One of the most important cities at the time– Located on a trading route

Meet Justinian

Justinian (527-565 CE)

• The “sleepless emperor”• Wife Theodora as advisor– Background: circus performer

• Uses army to contain tax riots, ambitious• construction program– Hagia Sophia

• Law Code– Codification of Roman Law– Body of Civil Law: made Roman law coherent basis for

political and economic life

Meet Theodora

Hagia Sophia

• First built by Constantine• Rebuilt by Justinian • The greatest surviving example of Byzantine

Architecture • It is an example of Eastern Orthodox, Roman

Catholic and Islam • It was the seat of the Orthodox patriarch

Byzantine Conquests

• General Belisarius recaptures much of western• Roman Empire under Justinian• Unable to consolidate control of territories• Withdrew to defend empire from Sassanids,

Slavs

The Byzantine empire and its neighbors 527-554 C.E.

The Byzantine empire and its neighbors about 1100 C.E.

Islam and Arab Pressure

• Constant vigilance against Muslim Invaders • The Byzantine Empire had to focus on

protecting the borders• This pressure from the Muslim world is going

to be one of the issues that brings about the split between east and west

The Eastern Schism

Split

• In 1054 a longstanding disagreement came to a head, and the Christian church split into two groups.

• The Western or Roman Catholic, and Eastern or Orthodox Catholic.

• The Byzantine Empire goes into slow decline

Disagreements

• Papal attempts to interfere over icons• Charlemagne claims to be Roman Emperor• Rituals in Latin not Greek• Pope as first bishop• Religious art• Celibacy for priests

Eastern Orthodox

• Requires services to be in Greek • Patriarch and bishops were head of the church– The emperor was above the patriarch

• Believed in a different interpretation of the Bible

• Eastern Orthodox missionaries spread northward into Russia and the Balkans

Cyrillic• Cyril and Methodius are the two most famous

of the missionaries.• Slavic language/alphabet derived from Greek

letters• Allowed for literature to be spread– HOW?

Icons

• Images of religious figures venerated by byzantine Christians

• Iconoclasm– The breaking of images – Religious controversy of the 8th century– Byzantine emperors attempted but failed to

suppress icon veneration– Believed it was the worship of idols

Decline

• 1071 Byzantine defeat in Asia• 1204 Constantinople sacked by Crusaders• 1453 Constantinople taken by Ottoman Turks

Very Similar to China

• The Byzantine political system had remarkable similarities to China.

• The emperor was held to be ordained of God.• He was head of the church as well as state.• Women could and did serve as emperor.• They had an elaborate bureaucracy to

administer the government.

KIEVAN RUSSIA

Who were the Slavs?• People who migrated from Asia– Mix with earlier populations– Family tribes, villages

• Trade – with Byzantines– Trade with Northerners

Scandinavian merchants

• Vikings• During the 6th and 7th centuries moved into the

region• c. 855, monarchy under Rurik (Danish)– Center at Kiev• Prosperous

commercial center

Meet Vladimir I •(980-1015)•Converts to Orthodoxy due to contact with Byzantium •Controls church

Meet Yaroslav I

• Issued a unifying code of laws, while not as advanced as Constantinople it still had nobles called Boyars.– Boyars: Russian landholding aristocrats• Possessed less political power than their western

European counterparts (feudalism)

The Tarters

• The Russian name for the Mongols. The Invasion of Russia by the Mongols and the destruction of Constantinople by Muslims, isolated Russia.

• The region was cut off from western contacts, stifling economic, political, and cultural sophistication.