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“The throne is a glorious sepulcher.”

Empress Theodora

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EASTERN CHRISTENDOM With the collapse of the Roman Empire in the

West, its eastern half, now known as the Byzantine Empire or Byzantium, continued the traditions of the Roman Empire on a smaller scale until its conquest by the Muslim Ottoman Turks in 1453

Centered on the magnificent city of Constantinople

-Great location for trade -Between Asia and Eastern Europe Particular form of Christianity known as

Eastern Orthodox

E.NappUnlike most empires, Byzantium has no clear

starting point. Its leaders, neighbors, and enemies viewed it as a continuation of the Roman Empire but historians date its beginning to 330 CE when the Roman emperor Constantine, who became a Christian, established a new capital, Constantinople, on the site of an ancient Greek city called Byzantium.

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With the fall of Rome, the Roman Empire was formally divided into eastern and western halves, thus launching a division of Christendom that lasted into the twenty-first century

Although the western Roman Empire collapsed in the fifth century, the eastern half persisted for another thousand years

The eastern Roman Empire was far wealthier, urbanized, and more cosmopolitan than its western counterpart

-Possessed a much more defensible capital -A shorter frontier to guard -Access to the Black Sea and command of the

eastern Mediterranean Sea -Stronger army and navy – able to deflect the

Germanic and Hun invaders who had overwhelmed the West

E.NappLike Tang dynasty China seeking to restore the

glory of the Han era, Byzantium consciously sought to preserve the legacy of classical civilization and the Roman Empire.

E.Napp Constantinople was to be a “New Rome” and

Byzantines referred to themselves as “Romans”

Fearing contamination by “barbarian” customs, emperors forbade the residents of Constantinople from wearing boots, trousers, clothing made from animal skins, and long hairstyles

-Only Roman-style robes and sandals But the western Roman Empire was

permanently lost to Byzantium, despite the Emperor Justinian’s (reigned 527-565) short-lived attempt to reconquer the Mediterranean basin

The rapid Arab/Islamic expansion in the seventh century resulted in the loss of Syria/Palestine, Egypt, and North Africa

E.NappYet until the 1200s, a more compact Byzantine

Empire remained a major force in the eastern Mediterranean, controlling Greece, much of the Balkans, and Anatolia.

E.Napp Political authority remained tightly

centralized in Constantinople, where the emperor claimed to govern all creation as God’s worldly representative

-The imperial court tried to imitate the awesome grandeur of what was believed to be God’s heavenly court which in fact resembled ancient Persian imperial splendor

Yet this centralized state only lightly touched the lives of most people

-Focused primarily on collecting taxes, maintaining order, and suppressing revolts

After 1085, Byzantine territory shrank, owing to incursions by aggressive Christian European powers, Catholic Crusaders, and later Turks.

E.NappThe end came in 1453 when the Turkic

Ottoman Empire, then known as the “sword of Islam,” finally took Constantinople.

E.Napp Intimately tied to the Byzantine state was the

Church, a relationship that became known as caesaropapism

-Unlike Western Europe, where the Roman Catholic Church maintained some degree of independence from political authorities, in Byzantium the emperor assumed something of the role of both “Caesar,” as head of state, and the pope, as head of the Church

-The emperor appointed the patriarch, or leader, of the Orthodox Church and generally treated the Church as a “government department”

Orthodox Christianity had a pervasive influence on every aspect of Byzantine life

-It legitimated the rule of the emperor

E.NappByzantine churches were filled with icons –

religious paintings of Jesus, Mary, and other saints which many believed conveyed the divine presence to believers.

E.Napp As Eastern Orthodoxy evolved, it came to

define itself against an emerging Latin Christianity centered on papal Rome, as a deepening divide opened within the world of Christendom

This growing religious divergence reflected the political separation and rivalry between the Byzantine Empire and the emerging kingdoms of Western Europe

As the growth of Islam, submerged earlier centers of Christianity in the Middle East and North Africa, Constantinople and Rome alone remained as alternative hubs of the Church

Disagreements about the nature of Trinity or the relative importance of faith and reason gave rise to much controversy

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E.Napp One major issue involved the veneration of

icons, popular paintings of saints and biblical scenes, usually painted on small wooden panels

-Between 726 and 843, the Eastern Orthodox Church, on orders from Byzantine emperors, took the offensive against the use of icons, arguing that they became “idols,” distracting believers from the adoration of God himself

-This effort, known as iconoclasm, involved the destruction of icons and generated opposition within Byzantium until it was ended

-But while it lasted, iconoclasm was highly offensive within Roman Catholic circles for most Roman Popes were supporters of icon veneration

E.NappPriests in the West shaved and, after 1050 or

so, were supposed to remain celibate, while those in Byzantium allowed their beards to grow long and were permitted to marry and Eastern Orthodox leaders sharply rejected the growing claims of Roman popes to be the sole and final authority for all Christians everywhere.

E.Napp By 1054, representatives of both churches

mutually excommunicated each other, declaring in effect that those in the opposing tradition were not true Christians

The Crusades, launched in 1095 by the Catholic pope against the forces of Islam, made things worse as Crusaders passing through the Byzantine Empire engaged in frequent conflict with local people

But the remarkable growth of the Arab Empire threatened the Byzantines

-Yet the Byzantines were able to hold off for a time with their military innovation known as “Greek fire”- a combination of oil, sulfur, and lime that was launched from bronze tubes

E.NappAnd the Byzantines were central players in the

long-distance trade of Eurasia, with links to Western Europe, Russia, Central Asia, and the Islamic world.

E.Napp The Byzantines preserved Greek and Roman

learning They transmitted this classical learning to the

Islamic world as well as to the Christian West Byzantine religious culture spread among

Slavic-speaking peoples in the Balkans and Russia

-Byzantine missionaries, Cyril and Methodius, developed an alphabet, based on Greek letters, with which Slavic languages could be written

The most significant expansion of Orthodox Christianity occurred among the Slavic peoples of what is now Ukraine and western Russia

-A modest state known as Kievan Rus - named after the most prominent city, Kiev - emerged in the ninth century CE

E.NappThe development of Rus was stimulated by

trade, in this case along the Dnieper River, linking Scandinavia and Byzantium. Growing interaction with the larger world prompted Prince Vladimir of Kiev to affiliate with one of the major religions of the area. The splendor of Constantinople’s Orthodox churches captured the imagination of Rus’s envoys.

E.NappIN CONTRAST: WESTERN CHRISTENDOM The western half of the Christian world

followed a rather different path than that of the Byzantine Empire

For most of the postclassical millennium, it was distinctly on the margins of world history, partly because of its location at the far end of the western half of the Eurasian landmass

-Not until the Eastern and Western hemispheres were joined after 1500 did Western Europe occupy a geographically central position in the global network

Internally, Europe’s geography made unity difficult

E.NappEurope’s population centers were divided by

mountain ranges, dense forests, and five major peninsulas and two large islands (Britain and Ireland). However, its extensive coastlines and interior river systems facilitated exchange within Europe, while a moderate climate, plentiful rainfall, and fertile soils enabled a productive agriculture that could support a growing population.

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The traditional date marking the fall of Rome is 476 CE, when the German general Odoacer overthrew the last Roman emperor in the West

-Much that had characterized Roman civilization also weakened, declined, or disappeared in the several centuries before and after 476

Any semblance of large-scale centralized rule vanished

Disease and warfare reduced Western Europe’s population by more than 25 percent

Urban life diminished as Europeans reverted to a largely rural existence

Germanic peoples, whom the Romans viewed as barbarians – Goths, Visigoths, Franks, Lombards, Angles, and Saxons emerged as the dominant peoples of Western Europe

E.NappEurope’s center of gravity moved away from

the Mediterranean toward the north and west. Yet much that was Roman persisted as regional kingdoms – led by Visigoths in Spain, Franks in France, Lombards in Italy, and Angles and Saxons in England – organized in small kinship-based tribes with strong warrior values had already been substantially Romanized.

E.Napp Several of the larger Germanic kingdoms also

sought to re-create something of the unity of the Roman Empire

Charlemagne (reigned 768-814), ruler of the Carolingian Empire, erected an embryonic imperial bureaucracy, standardized weights and measures, and began to act like an imperial ruler

-On Christmas Day of the year 800, he was crowned as a new Roman emperor by the pope, although his realm splintered shortly after his death

Otto I of Saxony (reigned 936-973) gathered much of Germany under his control and was likewise invested with the title of emperor by the pope – His realm became known as the Holy Roman Empire

E.NappThese efforts testify to the continuing appeal of

the classical world, even as a new political system and rival kingdoms blended Roman and Germanic elements.

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STRAYER QUESTIONS In what respects did Byzantium continue the patterns

of the classical Roman Empire? In what ways did it diverge from those patterns?

How did Eastern Orthodox Christianity differ from Roman Catholicism?

In what ways was the Byzantine Empire linked to a wider world?

How did links to Byzantium transform the new civilization of Kievan Rus?

How did the historical development of the European West differ from that of Byzantium in the postclassical era?