Introduction

What we now call “Byzantium” was, in fact, the Roman Empire from 330 to 1453, from the foundation of Constantinople (former Byzantion, renamed Constantinople after Constantine I the Great) to the conquest of the city by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Because of its size and importance it was often referred to as the “Queen of Cities.”

Constantinople can be viewed for much of its long history as the greatest of medieval cities. Geoffrey Villehardouin, who describes the reaction of his fellow knights when their fleet arrived at Constantinople on 24 June 1203, confirms this in the following passage: “I can assure you that all those who had never seen Constantinople before gazed at it intently, having never imagined there could be so fine a place in the world. They noted its high walls and lofty towers encircling it, and its rich palaces and tall churches, of which there were so many that no one would have believed it to be true if he had not seen it with his own eyes, and viewed the length and breadth of that city which reigns supreme over all others.”1

Some of these knights would have known Paris, which may have had around 20,000 people. Venice they all had seen; it was the largest city in the West with a population of about 80,000. Constantinople in 1204 had a population perhaps five times that of Venice. The magical city Venice became, with its glorious monuments that impress tourists today, did not exist until after 1204.2 The Venice of 1204 was Constantinople. The Latin knights may have been further surprised to find out that the “Greeks” of Constantinople called themselves Romans (Romaioi), and referred to their emperor as Emperor of the Romans (Basileus ton Rhomaion). They referred to their empire as Romania. Persians, Arabs, and Turks referred to it similarly as Rum.

That the people we now call “Byzantines” called themselves Romaioi, and their empire Romania, may have required some explaining to knights of the Fourth Crusade. It definitely needs explaining to the modern reader. One can begin with how, in modern times, the term “Byzantium” came to designate the Roman Empire in the East.

Defining “Byzantium”

History is always mediated and since 1453, when Constantinople fell, the Roman Empire as it existed from 330 to 1453 has been filtered through various lenses of perception, mediation as it were. There are odd things that have resulted from this process, beginning with “Byzantium,” and “Byzantine Empire,” terms unknown to Geoffrey Villehardouin and his fellow knights. How did these terms originate?

The term “Byzantine” was invented in 1557 by Hieronymus Wolf (1516–1580), a humanist who wanted a term that differentiated medieval Greek authors from ancient Greek authors. Thus, his 1557 collection of medieval Greek authors was published with the title Corpus Historiae Byzantinae. However, “Byzantine” did not become immediately established, for when Louis Cousin published the first history of the Byzantine Empire in 1672–1674, he entitled his work Histoire de Constantinople. A century later, in the Age of Reason, Lebeau’s Histoire du Bas-Empire (27 volumes published from 1757 to 1786) used “Bas-Empire” (“Lower Empire”), referring to the Roman Empire in its period of decadence. “Byzantium” and “Byzantine Empire” became more widespread in England and elsewhere in Europe and America only in the second half of the 19th century. George Finlay’s History of the Byzantine Empire from 716 to 1057, published in 1857, was the first occasion of “Byzantine Empire” being used in a modern historical narrative in English.3 Today “Byzantine” evokes the esoteric and complex, and the images from W. B. Yeats’s poem “Sailing to Byzantium,” where Byzantium is encapsulated in Byzantine court ceremonial, never changing, and as indestructible as the gold it lavished on every surface.

Historical Development

Byzantium can also be defined by its historical development, by periods that are mostly rather standard. For modern historians, Byzantium begins with Constantine I the Great. One can date his reign from 306 (when his father’s troops proclaimed him emperor), from 312 (when he converted to Christianity), or from 324 (when he defeated Licinius and proclaimed Constantinople a new capital). Constantinople was dedicated in 330, a date that some scholars prefer for the beginning of Byzantium.4 Keeping this variation in mind, the date of 330, the foundation of Constantinople, seems an obvious date for the beginning of Byzantium. Its first period of history, given its transitional nature, can be broadly termed “Late Roman,” from 330 to 642. For a more refined list of periods for Byzantine history, see section V (Modern Bibliography by Period).

Late Roman (330–642)5

The beginning date can vary from 284 (the beginning of Diocletian’s reign) to 324 (or 330). The end of Late Roman is usually placed around the middle of the seventh century. The year 642 is a convenient conclusion for Late Roman. It is the year that Alexandria fell to the Arabs, marking the conclusion of the initial stage of Arab expansion.

During the Late Roman period, life in the East continued much as it had previously in the Roman Empire. In the East the economy, administration, and society, as well as the common Mediterranean culture of Late Antiquity,6 were all maintained into the early sixth century.

The fourth century is the century of Constantine I the Great. He was the first emperor to convert to Christianity (in 312). He called the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 325, setting a precedent for imperial intervention in church affairs. He promoted the Christian church as a favored religion. At the end of the century is Theodosios I (379–395), who attacked paganism more broadly than Constantine I had done and who made Christianity the official religion of the Roman state.

The fifth century was when the western part of the Roman Empire was attacked by barbarians. Rome was sacked by Visigoths in 410, and sacked again by Vandals in 455. In 476, Romulus Augustulus, the last Roman emperor in the West, was overthrown, an event traditionally associated with the end of the Roman Empire in the West. Germanic kingdoms were established in North Africa (Vandalic), Spain (Visigothic), and Italy (Ostrogothic). Justinian’s conquests, beginning in 533, restored much of Roman territory in the West, but Justinian’s conquests were lost soon after the emperor died in 565.7

In the early sixth century, the more than 900 Byzantine cities in the East still shared a common Roman inheritance of public space with monumental architecture, and of basic public services that were without parallel until modern times. They were centers of state and church administration, of manufacturing and trade. Most eastern cities still maintained a reliable public water supply through its aqueducts and cisterns. Public baths made a high level of personal hygiene possible. There was free bread, as well as free entertainment in hippodromes, in the form of chariot races.

This changed during Justinian’s reign (527–565). The Persian invasions had a devastating effect, including the sack of Antioch in 540. Warfare with Persia resumed after Justinian’s death. Within two decades of Justinian’s death, Avars and Slavs were raiding the Balkan Peninsula. Slavs had settled in the Balkan Peninsula by the late sixth century. The reign of Herakleios (610–641) saw Byzantine forces triumphant over Persia (630). However, after the death of Muhammad the Prophet in 632, Arab armies took full advantage of the weakened condition of both powers to make great territorial gains, including much of the Byzantine eastern Mediterranean. Antioch fell in 637, Jerusalem in 638, and Alexandria in 642.

Dark Ages (642–843)

The fall of Alexandria was accompanied by the conquest of Egypt, the breadbasket of Byzantium. Thereafter, from 642 to 829, the “Dark Ages” aptly describes what Byzantium experienced.8 Constantinople was besieged by Arab forces on two occasions (in 674–678, again in 717–718). Asia Minor was subjected to continuous Arab raids, which prompted the development of local militias into new administrative units called themes.9 The Balkan Peninsula remained largely occupied by Slavs. In the late seventh century, around 680, the Bulgars even established a state on Byzantine territory, south of the Danube River. The Lombards took Ravenna in 751, and on Christmas Day, in 800, Charlemagne was crowned as a rival emperor in the West. Byzantium also underwent an internal struggle called Iconoclasm.

Of these events, what defines this period most is the expansion of Islam. The Arabs occupied much of the Near East, including all the great centers of Hellenism, notably Alexandria in 642. Between the death of the prophet Muhammad in 632 and the Arab conquest of Alexandria in 642, the Roman Empire in the East lost most of its most valuable territory, including its richest and most Hellenized cities.10

The cities remaining under Byzantine control were attacked repeatedly by Arabs, Slavs, and Avars, which created a fundamental change in the way Byzantine cities looked. Cities everywhere shrunk in size and in population. Even in Constantinople the population declined as large areas of the city were turned into fields and pastures. Cities that formerly had no walls, or whose walls provided little protection, now found it necessary to build a kastron, typically in the form of a hilltop citadel. The kastron became the new urban center. The rest of the city became a quarry site and squatters camp, where marble columns and statuary were burned for lime to make mortar. Public works and services were discontinued.

Another defining feature of the Dark Ages was Iconoclasm. Later condemned as an imperial heresy, Iconoclasm can be defined as an attempt by emperors (726–787 and 815–842) to prohibit the icons and their devotional use, which they considered rife with superstitious practices.11 The first period of Iconoclasm began in 726, when Leo III ordered the image of Christ above the Chalke of the Great Palace to be removed. Image veneration was restored at the Council of Nicaea in 787. Iconoclasm was revived from 815 to 843. Restoration of icon veneration in 843 ended a civil war in Byzantium, an important step toward the revival of Byzantine fortunes.

Revival (843–1025)

In 843 two periods of Iconoclasm (726–787 and 815–843) were concluded. Each period had produced considerable internal unrest. By 843, the state finance system, overhauled under Nikephoros I, had produced a remarkable increase in state revenues. These factors, in addition to the weakening of the Abbasid Caliphate in the 830s at the hands of Turkish mercenaries, created the conditions for Byzantine military success.

Military revival in Asia Minor was the first indication that the tide was turning against Arab raids. In 863, Umar, the emir of Melitene, was defeated, which inaugurated a period of gradual expansion against the Arabs that would lead to the significant recovery of former Byzantine territory in northern Syria. Much of Greece, with its extensive Slavic settlements, was brought under Byzantine control by the end of the ninth century. Crete was recaptured from the Arabs in 961. The reign of Basil II (976–1025) even saw Bulgaria conquered. In 1014 Basil II defeated an army of Bulgar Tsar Samuel, then blinded 14,000 prisoners, allowing each hundredth man one unblinded eye to lead the others back to Bulgaria. By 1018, Bulgaria had been utterly demolished, and its territory incorporated into Byzantium. Basil II also campaigned in northern Syria to bolster previous Byzantine conquests there. Finally, he dealt with major revolts in Asia Minor of two powerful military aristocrats, Bardas Skleros and Bardas Phokas. By the time of Basil II’s death in 1025, Byzantine military prestige had been restored from Antioch to the Adriatic.

Religious revival can be seen in the missions to the Moravians, Bulgars, and Rus. In the middle of the ninth century, the Byzantine missionaries Cyril and Methodios were sent to Moravia, where they introduced the Glagolitic script (a version of Old Church Slavonic), which Cyril invented to translate the Bible into the Moravian language. However, an even greater success was seen in the baptism of Bulgar khan Boris in 864. Kievan Rus was brought into the Byzantine religious orbit when Vladimir I, Prince of Kiev, was baptized along with the populace of Kiev in 988. These were religious missions, but missions that greatly expanded Byzantine political and cultural influence among the Slavs.

The Macedonian Renaissance expressed the cultural revival within Byzantium. Although it began in the ninth century, it is seen particularly in the reign of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos (945–959), who sponsored the copying of ancient Greek texts, which were then organized into manuals and encyclopedic works. Also notable were the manuals on state ceremonies (De Ceremoniis), state administration (De Thematibus) and foreign relations (De Administrando Imperio) that Constantine VII initiated.

Conflict with the West (1025–1261)

The conflict with the West is often seen as a crucial turning point in the history of the Byzantine Empire. The political decline that occurred after the death of Basil II in 1025 resulted from a conflict between military aristocrats who commanded the armies, and from the civilian bureaucracy at the court in Constantinople. The internal political weakness of the Byzantine state was compounded by a stunning Turkish victory at the Battle of Mantzikert in 1071 and by the Norman conquest of Bari in the same year. The Turkish victory was soon translated into Turkish expansion in Asia Minor; within 10 years of Mantzikert, Nicaea was conquered. The Norman victory of 1071 was the culmination of Norman expansion in Byzantine southern Italy since 1059.

Alexios I Komnenos, who came to power in 1081, halted Norman expansion in Greece. However, the high price for gaining naval support in the Adriatic against the Normans included the commercial privileges that Alexios gave to Venice. To compound Alexios’s Norman problems, the First Crusade, led by the Normans, passed through Constantinople in 1097, though without major incident. Alexios even managed to recover Nicaea with the aid of the Crusaders. Nevertheless, after Alexios I’s death, the crusading movement continued to be a serious long-term threat. In 1147, knights on the Second Crusade called for the overthrow of Byzantium, which finally happened in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade. Latin priests absolved the knights attacking Constantinople in 1204, telling them that the “Greeks” were heretics deserving punishment. The conflict with the West during this period resulted in the destruction of Byzantium in 1204.12

After the Fourth Crusade’s conquest of Constantinople, Byzantium was partitioned among the Venetians and the Latin knights. When Constantinople was captured in 1261, it was soon reconstituted as a mini-state, with disparate territories around Constantinople, along the western coast of Asia Minor and in southern Greece.

Decline and Ottoman Conquest (1261–1453)

Constantinople in 1261 was a shell of its former self, having been systematically looted by the Crusaders since 1204. The territory controlled by Emperor Michael VIII was a fraction of what it had been prior to 1204. Even in Greece, the Latin principality of Achaia remained intact, an enemy of the Byzantine Despotate of Morea. In northwestern Greece a rival Byzantine state, the Despotate of Epiros, also remained unconquered. Another rival Byzantine state called the Empire of Trebizond stretched along the southern coast of the Black Sea.

However, the most immediate problem occurred in 1273 when Charles I Anjou planned a Crusade to regain Constantinople. This was averted only when Michael VIII agreed to reunite the churches at the Council of Lyons (1274). The uprising in Sicily in 1282 called the Sicilian Vespers thwarted another planned attack on Constantinople by Charles I Anjou.

The successor of Michael VIII, his son Andronikos II Palaiologos (1282–1328), had to deal with the new threats of Serbia in the Balkan Peninsula and of the Ottoman Turks in western Asia Minor. His policies were shortsighted. He dismantled the Byzantine fleet to save money, but was forced to rely on the Genoese and was drawn into their naval war with Venice (1296–1302). He hired the Catalan Grand Company in 1304, which proved disastrous. The Catalans went on a rampage in Greece that lasted from 1305 to 1311. From 1321 to 1328 Andronikos II was at war with his grandson, who finally overthrew him to become Andronikos III. There was another civil war from 1341 to 1349. At the height of the second civil war the Black Death killed a third of the population of Byzantium.

To add to the general decline, the Ottomans conquered most of Asia Minor in the 1340s. In the 1360s they bypassed Constantinople to conquer the chief cities of Thrace, including Adrianople, which became their capital. The Ottomans conquered Thessalonike in 1394 (though Byzantium regained it in 1402). Timur’s defeat of the Ottomans at the Battle of Ankyra in 1402 only delayed the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople for a generation. In 1422 Murad II arrived in June before the walls of Constantinople with siege cannons, small firearms, catapults and other traditional siege equipment. When the general assault failed on 24 August, the sultan withdrew. Bigger, more numerous siege cannons and a concentration of Ottoman forces (Murad II had sent part of his army to besiege Thessalonike) were needed, in addition to a fleet for a naval blockade. These deficiencies the Ottomans would not remedy until 1453. Still, after 1422 Byzantium lived on borrowed time.

John VIII Palaiologos (1425–1448) attempted to gain military support from the West by reuniting the churches (the first reunion having been rejected by the Byzantine church) at the Council of Florence in 1439, but the signatures appended at this church council meant nothing, since the Byzantine church, indeed ordinary Byzantines, refused to accept the union. The Byzantine state entered its final years without the support of its church and of its people. Only the inhabitants of Constantinople, Greek and Latin alike, unified in spirit against the Ottoman foe, and soon the Ottomans turned the full weight of their army against the city. Mehmed II besieged the city on 6 April 1453. With a makeshift fleet of 120 ships blockading the city, and huge siege cannons pulverizing the outer land wall, Constantinople endured less than two months. It fell to the famed Jannisaries as day was dawning on Tuesday, 29 May. Emperor Constantine XI died fighting; his body was never found. Sultan Mehmed II, who had turned 21 barely two months before, rode slowly into the city in the late afternoon of 29 May. Entering Justinian I’s great church of Hagia Sophia he ordered one of his soldiers ripping up a marble pavement to cease. He then knelt in a prayer of thanksgiving, at which point Hagia Sophia became a mosque. What was left of the city was carried off by the Ottomans, along with many of its inhabitants, who were taken as slaves. The Despotate of Morea, in southern Greece, held out until its capital Mistra surrendered to the Ottomans on 31 May 1460.

Constantine I the Great

In the same way that all roads of investigation ultimately lead back to Constantinople, any discussion of Byzantium must begin with Constantine I the Great, founder of Constantinople. Constantine had a long reign, variously computed as from 306 (the death of his father, Constantius), from 312 (his conversion to Christianity), and from 324 (the victory over his final rival Licinius, and the date Constantinople was founded). However computed, it was a long reign by contemporary standards.

Constantine was the son of Constantius I Chloros and Helena. Constantius was a general whom Diocletian made one of his three co-rulers in what is known as the tetrarchy (293–305). When Constantius died in 306, a civil war ensued that was not completed until Constantine defeated his last rival, Licinius, in 324. Constantine was proclaimed emperor by Constantius’s troops in Britain, at York, in 306. By 312 he was marching through Gaul, about to enter Italy and confront his first rival, Maxentius, when he had a vision that he believed was sent by the Christian God; he related it to Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, shortly before he died in 337.

Eusebius had never heard the story before, and he made Constantine swear that it was true. Constantine told Eusebius that while marching to Rome in 312 to encounter his rival Maxentius, he prayed to his father’s God, the Supreme God, symbolized by the sun. What he saw, Constantine told Eusebius, was a cross just above the sun (for it was still early afternoon), with the words “By this, conquer!” The vision was given a Christian interpretation by Christian priests whom Constantine summoned. The vision was then confirmed by a dream in which Christ appeared to Constantine.13 In Rome, on 28 October 312, Constantine defeated Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge with troops carrying a new Christian standard called the labarum.

After this victory, Constantine’s support of the Christian church was unflagging throughout the entirety of his reign (in the West, from 312 to 337; in the East, from 324 to 337). He exempted the clergy from public service, built churches at state expense, restored confiscated church properties, intervened in the church to resolve the Arian controversy, and made symbolic gestures to attack paganism (for example, destroying prominent temples at Aegae and Heliopolis). Also important was his transfer of the capital of the Roman Empire to Byzantion in 324, soon called Constantinople (City of Constantine), as well as his convening of the Council of Nicaea in 325. In retrospect, Constantine appears as among the most important and revolutionary of all Roman emperors. He was the first Christian emperor, and the prototype of all future Christian emperors. He was regarded as both a saint and the Thirteenth Apostle.

Emperor and State

Hellenistic and Roman conceptions of monarchy emphasized the sacral nature of monarchs, and their special relationship to gods. Constantine shaped this model into a Christian one. The state’s divine ruler became Christ Pantokrator, whose earthly representative was the emperor. The emperor’s court was in the Great Palace, surrounded by ceremonial that reflected the emperor’s status as God’s earthly viceroy.14 Like Constantine I, each emperor was the protector of the church and of its doctrine. This meant, for example, that an emperor could intervene in church affairs, even to remove bishops whose doctrinal purity was questionable. Each emperor was an autokrator (Greek for imperator, meaning “emperor”) and Basileus ton Rhomaion (Emperor of the Romans). He was the source of all law. He was also commander in chief of the armed forces, which itself produced numerous emperors.

Emperors commanded a state bureaucracy that was impressive, though small by modern standards. Bureaucratic offices, which are recorded in documents such as the Notitia Dignitatum (ca. 395–429), as well as later Taktika, comprised an aristocracy of service closely connected to the imperial court. Of fundamental importance to the state treasury was the kommerkiarios, commercial officers who were responsible for collecting customs and excise taxes at all frontier points, including ports, and who supervised the sale and export of strategic materials like gold, military equipment, and silk. There were other bureaucrats who dealt with judicial matters, including handling imperial correspondence. The state’s bureaucracy was also relied on for various aspects of diplomacy, since there was no separate diplomatic corps. Imperial ideology promoted the concept that other states were part of a family of nations that surrounded Byzantium, each one ranked according to its significance. A neighboring ruler could be called a brother, a son, or a friend of the emperor. All diplomatic relations (including where diplomats were seated at state receptions) were made to conform to this hierarchical world order.

The state depended on the army for its survival, since diplomacy and fortifications alone could not defend the bulk of Byzantine territory. Byzantium was continuously at war, so emperors had to be generals, or know how to pick good generals. The army defended agrarian and urban taxpayers who, in turn, supplied the tax revenues to support the army. Constantinople had to be defended at all costs. Trade coming in and out of the capital had to be maintained, along with basic services within the city (e.g., the water supply). The conquest of Constantinople meant the conquest of the state, which is why foreign enemies often attacked the city, though almost always without success. The attack of the Fourth Crusade in 1204 succeeded, resulting in a Latin Empire from 1204 to 1261. In 1453 the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople succeeded as well, extinguishing Byzantium.

Economy

Byzantium had a monetary economy based on agriculture and trade, which the state regulated to a limited extent. Taxation was on land and other property (e.g., vineyards, draft animals) as well as on imported and exported goods. Imports and exports were taxed by the state officials (kommerkiarioi) at frontier markets, at the entrance to the straits leading up to Constantinople, and at other port cities. Tolls and commercial taxes varied, depending on the commodity.

State domination over the economy included the right of the state to mint coins and to exercise control over the production of goods defined as strategic by the state. Strategic goods varied enormously in type, including items such as wheat, barley, olive oil, silk, military equipment, lumber, iron, silver, and gold. The state had vast estates that produced agricultural products. All goods and services were regulated through guilds, which were state-controlled corporations of traders and artisans. The guilds had extensive state regulations to deal with the quality of goods and their prices. During the Dark Ages taxes in gold coins (nomismata) were often replaced with taxation in kind. However, as a general rule the state expected to receive taxes in the form of its gold coins. The first and foremost requirement of the state was that its guilds provide the necessary goods and services for Constantinople and for the army and navy that defended it. Because Constantinople absorbed enormous quantities of food and other staples, the guilds’ main goal was the continuous provisioning of the capital, the Queen of Cities.15

The Byzantine economy was always dependent on the security of Constantinople and the security of its frontiers, which is why invasions of Persians, Slavs, and Arabs in the sixth and seventh centuries reduced economic activity. When the Arabs gained a fleet in the mid-seventh century, the eastern Mediterranean became somewhat dangerous for Byzantine shipping. When the economy revived in the ninth century, the heart of Byzantine territory was reduced to Asia Minor and its possessions in the Balkan Peninsula. Ever concerned to maintain agricultural production, Byzantium transferred large numbers of people from populous regions to regions with reduced population. In the 10th and 11th centuries the state fought the military aristocracy in Asia Minor, in an effort to reduce their large estates that were absorbing free peasant holdings, which were important to the agricultural economy.

The Mediterranean remained the easiest mode of transportation, especially for bulk items like grain, wine, and oil, and building materials like marble. It follows from this that port cities along the Mediterranean coast were best suited to benefit from long-distance sea commerce. During the 11th century Byzantium saw its maritime economy gradually slip away, as Italian city-states encroached on Byzantine trade. In 1082, Venice was given unrestricted trading privileges throughout the empire, in addition to exemption from customs duties, warehouses, and quays in Constantinople. In 1204, Venice led the Fourth Crusade to conquer Constantinople, after which Byzantium truly lost control of its maritime economy.

When Byzantine forces regained Constantinople in 1261 they found a city stripped of its wealth. After 1261, the Byzantine nomisma, the dollar of the Middle Ages until then, declined in value and was replaced by Italian currencies. When Basil II passed away in 1025, Byzantine territory had shrunk beyond belief of any Byzantine living. The tax base had shrunk accordingly. After 1261, what was left of Byzantine territory was subject to continuous foreign raids that disrupted local economic activity. In the 14th century the Ottoman Turks took much of Asia Minor, the territorial heart of Byzantium. The vitality of the Italian maritime states, especially Venice with its huge arsenal and less regulated imports and exports, had long proven that their economies were superior in every way. The pitiful condition of the economy in the 14th century reflected the general weakness of the Byzantine state.

Society

The nuclear family was the basis of Byzantine society, and most families consisted of peasants who lived in rural villages. Their status varied according to their wealth and freedom. Up to the sixth century, most peasants probably lived on large estates or in villages that were controlled by cities. With the decline of cities during the sixth and seventh centuries, villages gained greater independence. From the 7th to the 10th centuries, villages could include the land of free peasants and of large estates as well. Villages were taxed as individual units, so all landowners, both large and small, in a village had joint tax liability to the central government. Villages had their own courts as well as officials who dealt with tax collectors. Local monasteries, with their large estates and dependent peasants, could exert a great deal of influence over villages.

By the 10th century, large estates, both monastic and aristocratic, had increased at the expense of free peasants. Some were large monastic estates, some imperial estates, while many others belonged to the aristocracy. The encroachment of monastic and aristocratic estates on free peasant lands was of particular concern to the central government, which relied on free peasants for taxes and, in the case of landholdings called stratiotika ktemata, for peasant soldiers. One consequence of the expansion of large estates was the increase in dependent peasants, called paroikoi. From the 10th century onward paroikoi increased and independent village communities declined. From the 11th century onward, the status of paroikoi became hereditary, and the Byzantine peasantry began to resemble the European serfdom. By the 13th century paroikoi were the norm in the Byzantine countryside.

In cities the top echelon was the urban aristocracy, consisting chiefly of bureaucrats who served the state, but also landed aristocrats who preferred to live in cities. The urban aristocracy in Constantinople was the upper of the upper urban crust, for Constantinople was the “Queen of Cities,” unlike any other city in its size and wealth. Merchants, though they might prosper through state guilds, were not accorded high social positions. Byzantium had no hereditary titles, no feudal system like the aristocracy of the medieval West. However, aristocratic families became more entrenched in Byzantine society after the 10th century. Upward mobility was never easy, and when it was achieved it was primarily by rising through the ranks of the army.

By modern standards, women had little freedom. Their lot was mostly to stay at home and raise children. In cities, however, many were seen outside the home, though typically veiled. Nevertheless, the markets of Constantinople were filled with women vendors. Wealthy women existed, mostly as widows, since women could inherit property in Byzantium. Women also retained possession of their dowries. Aristocratic women had restricted lives, but most were literate, and some wielded great influence within their families. Such was the case with Anna Delassene, the mother of Alexios Komnenos. Alexios Komnenos turned over the affairs of state to his mother when he was away from Constantinople. Justinian I married a stripper and courtesan named Theodora. Once empress, she was given great authority by Justinian. Her vendetta against male aristocrats reflected a kind of revenge on patriarchy that few women of her former status could ever achieve. Empresses were, of course, rare, and few actually wielded significant power. Byzantium was a man’s world, so to speak, but one that produced the occasional Anna Delassene, Theodora, and Anna Komnene, one of the greatest historians of the Middle Ages.16

Byzantine society was ethnically diverse, despite the fact that most foreign peoples were viewed as barbarians. Various groups of foreign mercenaries served in Byzantine armies, including Germanic peoples who were settled on Byzantine territory. In the late sixth century, the Slavs settled in the Balkan Peninsula in great numbers and were gradually Christianized. By the ninth century Thessalonike had so many Slavs settled around it that many Greek speakers within the city spoke Slavic. Armenians were a significant minority within the empire. In the sixth century, Justinian’s general Narses was Armenian. The emperor Maurice (582–602) may have been Armenian. In the ninth and 10th centuries there were several Armenian emperors.

Constantinople was cosmopolitan by medieval standards. By the 12th century there were Arabs in Constantinople who even had their own mosque. Latin-rite churches existed there as well. Cultural diversity was not a concept known to Byzantium, but in practice it existed in Constantinople if only because a certain degree of toleration was a necessity in so diverse a city population. The view of themselves as the new Chosen People and of neighboring peoples as barbarians was not a view that encouraged easy social acceptance of foreign peoples and their customs.

Religious Life

The church directed much of the religious life of Byzantium. Constantine I the Great established a close relationship with the church. It was Constantine who called the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea (325) to deal with the Arian heresy, and Constantine who favored the church with many privileges and benefices. The history of the church is, to a large extent, the history of its relationship to the state and to heresies. In the century after Constantine’s death in 337, religious life in Byzantium was dominated for two subsequent generations by Arianism, and the fifth-century heresies of Nestorianism and Monophysitism. These heresies produced great turmoil in the church and generated popular dissent. Monophysitism, for example, took hold in Egypt. The Coptic church in Egypt still espouses Monophysitism, the view that Christ had one, divine nature.

For many today the Byzantine church will be seen chiefly in relationship to the Latin-rite church in the West, led by the papacy since the reign of Pope Leo I. The first schism between the Latin and Byzantine churches was the Akakian Schism of 484–519. The last of several church schisms since 519 was the church schism of 1054, which is not fully healed to this day. That schism revealed differences of doctrine and liturgical practices that could not be reconciled. Byzantines used leavened bread in the Eucharist. In the Latin rite unleavened bread (azyma) was used. The Latin rite used a creed that contained the Latin word filioque, whose Greek equivalent was not in the Byzantine creed. These differences were magnified by the Crusades, which were led by the papacy. Urban II called the First Crusade in 1095. The Fourth Crusade conquered Constantinople, which was sacked and occupied from 1204 to 1261. This incurred great Byzantine hatred toward the papacy—and toward Latins generally—and ensured the continuance of the 1054 schism.

Religious life is also represented by the significance that the average Byzantine accorded saints and icons. Both were believed vitally connected, since so many icons represented saints. The saint was the prototype; the icon was the representation that remained a door, always open and accessible, to the holy power of the saint. Such holy power was typically local and personal. It was to one’s own patron saint, or the patron saint of one’s village or city, that Byzantines typically directed prayers of intercession. The Virgin Mary was also seen as a personal intercessor, for she knew both the joys and sorrows of motherhood, and could intercede with Jesus, who was God’s Son, but hers as well.

Living saints existed at all times in Byzantine history. Some were priests or monks; others were not. But all had gained a reputation of holiness by hard-fought battles against demons, by perfecting their lives through asceticism, and by demonstrating through miracles that God’s power was extended through them. Once dead, they could still hear prayers of intercession. When Daniel the Stylite the Elder died, for example, his body was put on a plank and people venerated his corpse and beseeched him, as if he were an icon.

As repositories of holy power, icons, as well as relics, were transportable. Icons processed around the walls of a city when besieged by an enemy were seen as displays of holy power. Also transferable was the holiness of objects associated with saints, including oil left at their shrines, even earth collected from places where saints abided. Such objects were believed to possess miraculous power. Taken back by pilgrims, they became depositories of holy power that could be accessed as needed. Holy relics, like icons, were viewed like modern electrical outlets where holy power was available. The electric plug, so to speak, was prayer, and the results of prayer could be sudden and electric in effect.

Byzantine piety is too often seen as residing in the church and its history. Church councils that combated heresy and defined dogma, the relationship of church and state, the succession of bishops and patriarchs, church schisms, and the divide between the eastern and western churches are all important aspects of church history. However, the religious life of the average Byzantine was more personal, more intimate and informal. To understand Byzantine piety is to understand the role of saints and icons.

Neighbors

The Byzantines considered most neighboring peoples to be barbarians, a term used to describe anyone who lived outside Byzantine territory. The concept of barbarians was an invention of Greco-Roman antiquity that Byzantium inherited. Only the Persians escaped being labeled barbarians; the Byzantines considered them civilized and their equals. Byzantine information about barbarians was often outdated, even incorrect, which makes it sometimes difficult to understand Byzantine descriptions of how barbarians organized themselves, for example, as tribes, as confederations, as peoples under a charismatic leader like Attila. Barbarians included many Germanic peoples from across the northern frontier, also Slavs, and peoples from the Eurasian steppe, such as Huns and Avars.

The Germans were used as mercenaries in Byzantine armies and became, thereby, romanized, to one degree or another. Some Germans, like Stilicho, were given great military commands. Generally speaking, the impact of German barbarian neighbors was destructive, especially on the western provinces. First the Visigoths were settled across the Danube into Byzantine territory (in 376). They subsequently revolted under Alaric and wreaked great damage on Greece and Italy. The Huns under Attila threatened Italy in the fifth century, a century that saw much of the West taken over by barbarian kingdoms in North Africa (by Vandals), Italy (by Ostrogoths), and Spain (by Visigoths). The destructive impact of the “barbarian hordes” on the West is a theme in much modern historical literature, beginning with Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Interestingly, Anna Komnene viewed the western pilgrims of the First Crusade as barbarians. The conquest of Constantinople in 1204 by the Fourth Crusade can be seen as the last of the great barbarian invasions from the West.

Neighbors long settled could be dealt with by diplomacy. The Bulgars were in this category as were various Arab states. Diplomacy might include gifts and subsidies, typically in the form of cash payments of gold coins. The most threatening neighbors were those who could not be dealt with through diplomacy. These had to be defeated, but the decline of the Byzantine army in the 11th century made it difficult to defeat the Seljuk Turks (a dynasty of nomadic Oghuz Turks, who took their name from their founder, Seljuk). In 1054 Seljuk’s grandson Tugril Beg raided eastern Asia Minor. His successor, Alp Arslan, continued those raids, inflicting a devastating defeat on Romanos IV at Manzikert in 1071. As a result of their victory at Mantzikert, the Seljuks advanced into western Asia Minor, where they established the Sultanate of Rum, making its capital Nicaea (1081). Many neighboring peoples who threatened Byzantium were defeated. Some were converted. The Turks were neither defeated, nor converted to Christianity. Another Turkic people, the Ottomans, became hostile neighbors to Byzantium in the early 14th century. They replaced the Seljuks in Asia Minor and conquered Constantinople in 1453.17

Cultural Legacies

Byzantium left three chief cultural legacies. The first was to the Arabs, who in the ninth century acquired ancient Greek philosophy and science, including medicine, through the intermediary of Byzantium. In the ninth and 10th centuries the Slavs acquired from Byzantine missionaries a literary language, Old Church Slavonic, comprised of two scripts: Glagolitic and Cyrillic. With these two scripts the foundations of Christian literature and Byzantine culture were passed to the Slavs. The Moravians, Bulgars, and Kievan Rus converted, and their churches became satellite churches of Byzantium. Finally, before the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Byzantine scholars implanted ancient Greek literature deeply into the Italian Renaissance.

The Arabs, when they burst out of the Arabian Peninsula in the mid-seventh century, had no civilization. Essentially, they borrowed from Byzantium and Persia to create their own unique fusion. What the Arabs conquered of Byzantium by 650 included Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, where all of the great Hellenistic cities, including Alexandria, were located. The first great Arab monument was the Dome of the Rock, built by Caliph Abd al-malik in 691–692, built on the legendary site of Abraham’s intended sacrifice of Ishmael (in Muslim tradition Abraham’s favorite son). It is also the site believed to be where Muhammad ascended to heaven. However, the architectural type is borrowed from Byzantine commemorative buildings, for example, martyria built to honor Christian saints. The type of wall decoration (in mosaics) is also borrowed from Byzantium.

In the ninth century, the caliph Mamun borrowed even more significantly when he created the “House of Wisdom” (Bayt al-Hikmat), a research center in Baghdad devoted to translating ancient manuscripts containing Greek philosophy and science, which he acquired from Byzantium. What particularly interested the Arabs in ancient Greek philosophy were the works Plato and Aristotle. The Arabs also preserved in part, or in their entirety, in Arab translations, the works of a number of ancient Greek writers, including those of Theophrastus, Euclid, Galen, Proclus, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Nicolaus of Damascus, and Porphyry. Medical texts were particularly prized, and Arab medicine owed much to ancient Greek medicine, through the intermediary of Byzantium.18

Byzantine missions to the Slavs were in the service of diplomacy, even war, for the Slavs had settled on Byzantine territory in great numbers in the late sixth and seventh centuries. The Bulgars, originally Turkic in origin, created a Slavic state in Byzantine territory in the late seventh century and were a continuous military threat thereafter. The conversion of Bulgar khan Boris in 864 was a military necessity. With Michael III standing as his godfather, the new church in Bulgaria could be expected to pacify Bulgar aggression against Byzantium. A mission to Moravia in 863 had a similar purpose, namely to bring a fledgling Slavic state into the orbit of the Byzantine church. For the Moravians, the missionary Cyril invented a script for the language of the south Slavs: Glagolitic, a form of Old Church Slavonic, which became a third international language, after Greek and Latin. This made possible a common civilization among the Russians, Bulgarians, Moravians, Croatians, Serbs, and Ukrainians that would otherwise have been difficult. In the following century, Vladimir of Kiev was converted.19 The Russians inherited from the Bulgars another Byzantine-invented script, Cyrillic, another form of Old Church Slavonic. Through these scripts the fullness of the Christian tradition, as well as Byzantine secular literature, was transmitted to the Slavs, most of whom became part of what can be termed a Byzantine cultural commonwealth.20

However, it was primarily Moscow that inherited Byzantium’s political legacy. In 1472 Ivan III, Grand Prince of Moscow, married Zoe Palaiologina, niece of the last emperor of Byzantium, Constantine XI Palaiologos, and the marriage was arranged by Pope Sixtus IV. Zoe, a Catholic, was rebaptized as Sophia. Ivan III began to refer to himself as tsar, and took the double-headed eagle, the great symbol of Byzantium in the Palaiologan period, on his seals. He inherited the role of defender of Orthodoxy and was referred to as a “New Constantine” by his church. As early as 1458, five years after the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans, the metropolitan of Moscow opined that God used the Ottomans to punish Byzantium for its union with the Catholic Church. The Russians (so went the logic) had rejected the church union achieved at the Council of Florence, preserved the true faith and, thus, inherited the mantle of protecting Orthodox Christianity. In 1512, the monk Philotheus wrote to Tsar Basil III, the son of Ivan III and Sophia Palaiologina, that two Romes had fallen, and in their place stood the tsar and his empire, the Third Rome. The Third Rome would survive as tsarist Russia until 1917.

The legacy to the West begins with Venice, a city whose impression today is most like that of medieval Constantinople. This is because Byzantine influence on Venice was greater than on any other western city. In 1204, Venice steered the Fourth Crusade to Constantinople, which was conquered and sacked. Some of the booty from the sack of Constantinople still adorns Venice. Venice’s most famous church, San Marco, built in the 11th century, is a Byzantine church in its plan, inspired by Justinian’s Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople.

The cultural influence of Byzantium continued in the Italian Renaissance, beginning with two scholars from southern Italy, Barlaam and Leontios Pilatus. Barlaam of Calabria was a theologian who met Petrarch in Avignon in 1342. Petrarch took Greek lessons from him. Another Calabrian, Leontios Pilatus, taught Boccaccio Greek in Florence and translated Homer’s Odyssey into Latin. Manuel Chrysoloras had more direct and even greater influence. Chrysoloras, a diplomat for Manuel II, taught in Florence from 1397 to 1400 using Greek texts from the library of Manuel II. The leading humanists of Florence, men like Guarino of Verona and Leonardi Bruni, were his pupils. George Gemistos Plethon, the philosopher from Mistra, inspired the Medici foundation of the Platonic Academy of Florence. Bessarion, a student of Plethon, was a collector of Greek manuscripts who bestowed his collection on the library of St. Mark in Venice. It was this collection that became the nucleus of famous first editions of ancient Greek authors from the Aldine Press. In sum, these scholars turned the attention of the Italian Renaissance to ancient Greece, providing instruction in the language itself, as well as teaching ancient Greek literature from texts gotten from Byzantium.

Some of these ancient Greek texts that Bessarion and others provided to the Italian Renaissance were the product of another renaissance, the Macedonian Renaissance. Without the Macedonian Renaissance it is doubtful that the Italian Renaissance would have received so much of ancient Greek literature. For example, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, which had a huge impact when published in 1559 by Andreas Gesner of Zurich, was read and admired in Byzantium. The 10th-century bibliophile Arethas of Caesarea possessed an older copy in poor condition, which he had recopied, he informs us, so that future readers could also benefit from it. Although that copy is lost, other copies must have been made. Only one copy survives today, the Vatican Graecus (1950), a Byzantine manuscript that dates from the 14th century. Without Byzantium the Italian Renaissance would have been deprived not only of the Meditations of Marcus Aureliius, but of much other great literature from ancient Greece. 21

Notes

1. See M. R. B. Shaw (trans.), Joinville and Villehardouin: Chronicles of the Crusades (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963), 58–59.

2. See A. E. Laiou, “Byzantium and the West,” in Byzantium, A World Civilization (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1992), 66–78, for an imaginative reconstruction of what Constantinople might have appeared like in 1162 to two western merchants traveling from Venice.

3. For a more detailed sketch of the early secondary literature about Byzantium see A. A. Vasiliev, A History of the Byzantine Empire (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1928), 13–54.

4. However, most basic surveys of Byzantium begin with the reign of Diocletian (284–305), because some aspects of Constantine I’s reign overlap significantly with the reign of Diocletian.

5. For each period, see section V for secondary sources. For primary sources in translation, see section XII. However, note that the primary sources in section XII are arranged alphabetically, not by dates. For a discussion of the most important primary sources by period, see W. Treadgold, A History of the Byzantine State and Society (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1997), 893–920, and, more recently, J. Harris, ed., Palgrave Advances in Byzantine History (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 7–67.

6. “Late Antiquity” is a conventional term for the common Mediterranean culture that existed from ca. 200 to ca. 750. It is a field pioneered by Peter Brown, one that overlaps considerably in time with “Late Roman.” Late Roman is also a conventional term, but one that infers a basic historical narrative that concentrates on the early “Byzantine” state.

7. The emperors Constantine I the Great and Herakleios are justifiable bookmarks, at the beginning and end of the Late Roman period. Justinian I, on the other hand, seems more problematical. His legal and architectural achievements are undeniable. Those achievements, coupled with his foreign policy failures and excessive expenditures, make him appear rather like Louis XIV, in my estimation.

8. It is also “dark” because we know so little about this period, compared to others. The wealth of source material for the previous period just dries up. One relies primarily on the chronicle of Theophanes. Theophanes was no Prokopios of Caesarea. As a result, modern scholarly works are diminished in number as well.

9. How themes originated, when they appeared, have been the subject of great scholarly controversy. Also controversial is the effectiveness of thematic armies in dealing with Arab and Bulgar invasions. Thematic armies also revolted with some frequency in the eighth and ninth centuries.

10. The rather sudden loss of the most prosperous provinces of Byzantium is best explained by the weakness of Byzantine military forces after their long war with Persia. Frontier defenses had deteriorated, and Khalid, the brilliant commander who led these Arab raids, took advantage of this fact. The large Monophysite populations in Egypt, Syria, and Palestine were hostile to the Byzantine state, which may have played some role as well.

11. The origins of Iconoclasm have been much debated by modern historians. However, the consensus view is that this was an argument about what can be deemed holy. To ascribe holiness to icons and to pray to them was a form of idolatry, in Leo III’s eyes. The natural disasters and defeats at the hands of the Arabs Leo III viewed as God’s divine wrath, as punishment for idolatry. For this view, see, for example, W. Treadgold, A History of the Byzantine State and Society (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1997), 350–353. See also S. Tougher, “Political History (602–1025),” in Palgrave Advances in Byzantine History, edited by J. Harris (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 32.

12. The Fourth Crusade, one of the most significant events in the history of Byzantium, has produced a great deal of scholarly literature (see section V.G of the bibliography). Most of this literature is focused on the origins of the diversion of the Crusade to Constantinople. The chief primary sources are Geoffrey de Villehardouin, Robert de Clari, and Niketas Choniates. For translations, see section XII of the bibliography.

13. The sincerity of Constantine’s conversion is supported by the many edicts he enacted in favor of the Christian church. Eusebius of Caesarea, in his Vita Constantini, transcribes a number of such edicts.

14. This concept of divine monarchy is explored fully in F. Dvornik, Early Christian and Byzantine Political Philosophy: Origins and Backgrounds, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C., Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, 1966).

15. See the entry for “Economy.” Private enterprise did exist, especially outside major cities, where commerce was controlled by urban guilds; the wealthy widow Danelis, and the career of Goudeles Tyrannos, are examples of this.

16. The other great historian of the 11th century is Michael Psellos, whose Chronographia covers the years 976–1078; see section XII of the bibliography for English translations of the works of Anna Komnene and Michael Psellos.

17. For a broad survey of this topic, see S. Vryonis, The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971).

18. See I. Shahîd, “Byzantium and the Islamic World,” in A. E. Laiou and H. Maguire, Byzantium: A World Civilization (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1992), 49–59, for a brief and elegant exposition of this aspect of Byzantium’s legacy to the Islamic world.

19. According to the Russian Primary Chronicle (section XII of the bibliography), Vladimir’s conversion was influenced by the great impression that Justinian I’s great church of Hagia Sophia made upon the Rus emissaries to Constantinople.

20. The phrase “Byzantine commonwealth” comes from D. Obolensky, The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe, 500–1453 (New York: Praeger, 1971). See also Obolensky’s essay “Byzantium and the Slavic World,” in A. E. Laiou and H. Maguire, Byzantium: A World Civilization (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1992), 37–47, for a brief introduction to the topic.

21. For this compelling example of Byzantium’s legacy to the Italian Renaissance, see P. Hadot, The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, translated by M. Chase (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), 21–30. Unfortunately, many works from classical antiquity were lost, as the Bibliotheca of Photios illustrates. More broadly, the works of D. J. Geanakoplos, in section VII.E of the bibliography, can be consulted for this topic.