Transcript The Byzantine Empire - Mr. Crossen's History Site

The Byzantine Empire
Eastern Roman Empire
• Capital moved to Constantinople by
Constantine
• Called selves Romans—but spoke Greek
• Closer contact to the east—Persia
• Able to hold off barbarians
• Roman law and bureaucracy survived
Justinian
• Attempted to recover the West
• Building projects—Hagia Sophia
• Revised codification of Roman law
Stable Borders (sorta)
• Survived Arab (Umayyad and Abbasid)
advances (but lost some in the Eastern
Mediterranean)
• Survived Bulgarian threat, but constant Slavic
pressures
• Even survive the Mongols
Politics and Military
• Kinda, sorta, comparable to China
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Emperor ordained by God
Emperor head of church and state
Elaborate court ritual
Women occasionally on the throne
Large bureaucracy, trained in traditional mores (Hellenistic
and Confucian)
• Well organized military
– Troops given land for service (brings in Slavs, Armenians…)
– Officer corps eventually becomes hereditary, acquire
regional power
Economy and Society
• Centered on Constantinople
• Regulated trade and food prices (note about Justinian!)
– Low food prices satisfy urban class
– Trade extended from Scandinavia to Russia, Western
Europe to Africa, the Middle East to the Far East (i.e. the
known world)
• Peasants supply grain and tax revenues
• Extremely large merchant class had no political power.
• Culture based on Hellenistic secular traditions and
Orthodox Christianity
• No innovations in literature, but architecture and art
flourish.
The Great Schism
• Latin bible in the west; Greek in the east.
– Spawns different rituals
• Conflict between the pope’s religious power
and the emperor’s political power
• 1054 C.E. formal break over bread and
celibacy of priests.
Decline
• Muslim Turks seize most Asian territory—
important source of grain and taxes
• Lose Battle of Manzikert to Slavs in 1071.
– Independent Slavic states pop up all over.
• Venetian Crusaders come to “help” but sack
Constantinople instead.
• Conquered in 1453 by Ottomans.
Influence on Eastern Europe
• Conquest, Commerce, Christianity
• St. Cyril and Methodius—Cyrillic—writing for
the Slavic language.
– Orthodox church allowed use of local languages in
Church service
• Competition with Catholic missionaries in
Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland.
East Central Regional Monarchies
• Poland, Bohemia, Lithuania
– Powerful land-owning aristocracies.
• Like the rest of Eastern Europe, lots of Jews
– Fled persecution from the West and Middle East
– Usually barred from agriculture, so involved in
commerce—See the origins of a stereotype?
– Maintain own, separate traditions
– Emphasize education for males.
Kievian Rus
• Slavic peoples from Asia
• Mixed with locals, brought iron and
agricultural practice to Ukraine and western
Russia
• Politically centered in family tribes and villages
• Animistic religion
• Highly developed musical taste and oral
legends
The Rus Rise
• Scandinavian traders introduce them to trade
with Constantinople
• Kievan monarchy under Rurik emerges as a
growing power c. 855 C.E. (and until… wait for
it… the Mongols)
• Vladimir I (980-1015) converts to Orthodox
Christianity.
• Formal law code (influence of Byzantines?)
• Largest single European state at the time
Rusian/Russian Culture
• Adopt much but not all of Byzantine patterns
– Yes to strong ruler, religion, architecture, and
ceremony
– No to central bureaucracy and education system
• Different from West
– Not catholic
– Most peasants were free farmers; boyars less
political power
Kievan Decline
• Rival princes vie for succession
• Asian invaders seize territory
• Trade with weaker Byzantines declines then
collapses
• Mongols!
– Orthodoxy preserved, but much else wrecked.
– Reemergence after decline of Romans.
The End of the World (as we know it)
• Mongols and Turks
– Russia falls
– Constantinople, Near East, North Africa, the
Balkans
• Thus Eastern Europe will develop separately
from the West.