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| The Battle Over the Nature of Christ The Crusades Iconoclastic Controversy Byzantine Philosophy The Byzantine Legacy |
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The Byzantine Empire
330-1453
C.E.
Time Line
Covering the ancient world through the age of technology, this
illustrated lecture series by Eugene Weber presents a tapestry of political and
social events woven with many strands — religion, industry, agriculture,
demography, government, economics, and art. A visual feast of over 2,700 images
from the Metropolitan Museum of Art portrays key events that shaped the
development of Western thought, culture, and tradition. Below is a list
of media presentations by Dr. Weber; each one is approximately thirty-minutes
(30) in length. These are being offered to the student as a supplement to
other sources presented in this section. The student needs to provide
“log-on” information to get access to the presentations; there is no cost to
the student. Review Units.
The
Byzantine Empire
From Constantinople,
the Byzantine Empire carried on the traditions of Greece and Rome.
The Fall of Byzantium
Nearly a thousand
years after Rome's fall, Constantinople was conquered by the forces of Islam
Byzantine Empire
(Click on Map to see
Flash Presentation of Geographical Rise and Fall of Byzantine Empire)
It is not possible to effectually distinguish
between the later empire in Rome and the Byzantine empire centered on
Constantinople. For the Byzantines were the Roman Empire, not simply a
continuation of it in the East. The capital city, Constantinople, had been
founded as the capital of Rome by the Emperor Constantine, but a uniquely Greek
or Byzantine character to the Roman Empire can be distinguished as early as
Diocletian.
When Rome was seized
by Goths, this was a great blow to the Roman Empire, but it didn't effectively
end it. Although Rome was under the control of foreigners who themselves
claimed to be continuing the empire, the Byzantine empire continued as before,
believing themselves to be the Roman Empire.
Over the centuries, however, Byzantium evolved into a very different
civilization. The eastern Empire had always had a predominately
Greek character, but the Byzantines through the course of the first millennium
C.E. had to deal with cultural influences and political threats from European
cultures, Asian cultures and, primarily, Islam after the seventh century.
Through the later Middle Ages, however, Byzantium both
gradually declined politically and became more isolated from the rest of
Europe. While the last centuries of the European Middle Ages saw the
consolidation of the idea of Europe and the incorporation of European cultures
into a larger, overarching European monoculture, Byzantium was left
out of this new European concept. By the beginning of the modern
period, when "Europe" had become a solid, cultural idea, Byzantine
had come to an end with the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople.
Byzantine
history, then, stretches in a continuous line from the latter centuries of Rome
to the very beginning of the modern period. It transmitted the classical
culture of Greece and Rome but it also developed a unique historical and
cultural character based on a synthesis of Greek, Roman, European, and Islamic
elements. [1]
The Reign of
Justinian
527-565
C.E.
Most historians consider the
reign of Justinian (527-565) as marking a significant break with the Roman
past. This is difficult to support—Justinian not only considered himself the
emperor of all of Rome, including the territories occupied by the Goths, but
also spoke Latin as his primary language.
After the fall of Rome, the Byzantine emperors never gave
over the idea of reconquering Rome. They did, however, take a lesson from the
fall of Rome and all throughout the fifth century, the Byzantine emperors
wrought a series of administrative and financial reforms. They produced the
single most extensive corpus of Roman law in 425 and reformed taxation
dramatically. Most importantly, however, they did not entrust their military to
German generals—this had been the downfall of the Latin portion of the empire.
They could not, however, maintain a powerful military—the loss of territory in
the west had dramatically shrunk their financial resources.
Justinian was perhaps the last emperor that seriously
entertained notions of reconquering the west—the institution of the western
emperor fell permanently vacant in 476 CE and the Byzantine emperors claimed as
theirs. His expeditions against Italy, however, failed. Although he conquered
North Africa and retook Italy from the Ostrogoths, this Gothic War drained the
Byzantine Empire of much-needed resources. Most importantly, the Gothic War
devastated Italy economically.
The economic destruction of Italy was so total
that it destroyed Italian urban culture for centuries. The great cities of Rome
and her allies would be abandoned, as Italy would fall into a long period of
backwardness. The impoverishment of Italy and the drain on Byzantium made it
impossible for the Byzantines to hold Italy—only three years after the death of
Justinian, the Italian territories fell into the hands of another Germanic
tribe, the "Long Beards," or the Lombards.
Justinian, however, is most famous for the
body of laws that he promulgated—the Corpus iuris civilis.
This was not only a great legal achievement in codifying Roman law; it was also
the first systematic attempt to synthesize Roman law and jurisprudence with
Christianity. Although Byzantium would eventually fade in influence, from the
eleventh century onwards, Justinian's Corpus iuris civilis became the
foundation of all European law and legal practice (except for England).[2]
Justinian is also credited for founding Byzantine architecture with his building of the Santa Sophia in Constantinople and the church of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy. The Santa Sophia continued the Roman tradition of building domes, the architecture of the Roman basilica, but it was carried out on a scale unheard of in earlier centuries.
In fact, it would remain the largest dome ever
built until Sinan built the Selimye Mosque in the sixteenth century. Both
Santa Sophia and San Vitale are decorated inside with a uniquely Byzantine
mosaic style, a style that was to characterize Byzantine architecture for
nearly another millennium. It is a style that fuses both Roman mosaic realism
and an otherworldly, almost abstract use of simple forms and dramatic colors.
[3]
The Battle Over the Nature
of Christ
The most serious and lasting mistake of Justinian's reign
was the persecution of
heretical Christians. The eastern empire had always been distinguished from
the western empire by the proliferation of religions and metaphysical
speculation as a characteristic of religions. This did not substantially change
with the advent of Christianity. Although non-Christians were stamped, the
eastern Christians engaged in high intellectual speculation on theological and
Christological questions with a fervor unmatched in the West. You might say
that the model of Christian belief in the east was more mystical and
philosophical while the Christian belief in the west was more practical and
obedience-centered. This meant that a number of competing doctrines circulated
in the Greek-centered areas of the Byzantine world. One of these doctrines, the
Monophysite
doctrine, was so serious a challenge to the western church that it was declared
heretical.
The Monophysite doctrine arose from Christological
speculation. What was the nature of Christ? This was one of the dominant
speculative questions in the eastern empire from the fifth century onwards. The
Monophysites argued that Christ had one and only nature (mono=one,
physis=nature) and that nature was divine—the orthodox
Christian church held that Christ had a double nature, that of divinity and
humanity. In the latter decades of the fifth century, the Byzantine
Emperor declared himself to be a Monophysite—this estranged the Byzantines from
the Roman Pope.
But Justinian—and his father before him, Justin I—needed the
support of the Pope in order to retake Italy. So both Justin and
Justinian renounced Monophysite belief and were reincorporated into the Latin
church. But Justinian went even further—to demonstrate his
commitment to Latin Christianity, he began a series of oppressive persecutions
of Monophysites in Syria and Egypt. This would have a profound effect on later
history—the Monophysite Christians, horribly persecuted by the Byzantines, and
welcomed Muslim conquerors with open arms based on their promise to tolerate
their religion.[4]
The Rise of Islam
Almost all of Byzantine energy over the next
centuries would be focused on Islam. The Muslims very quickly conquered
Byzantine territory in Syria and Egypt largely because of disaffected
populations of Christians and Jews who had been persecuted since the time of
Justinian. The patriarchal
caliphs
and later the Umayyad
caliphs, however, really had their sights on Byzantine territory—in fact, the
conquest of Byzantium itself. They easily conquered all the Persian
territories, but they could never quite conquer the heart of Byzantium itself.
In 670 CE, they attempted this conquest with a large fleet; in 717 CE, they
tried again with a land and sea operation against the city.
This operation, however, turned the tide away from the Muslims. Under the
emperor Leo the Isaurian (717-741), the Muslim invasion was turned back and the
Byzantines began to hold their own against Islamic incursions.
As the centralized Islamic government under the caliph began to disintegrate in
the ninth century, the Byzantines began to reassert their dominance over Asia
Minor. By the middle of the tenth century, they reconquered most of Syria and
were once again and powerful and influential empire stretching from Greece to
Arabia.
In
1071, however, the Seljuk
Turks conquered the Byzantine army at Manzikert in Asia Minor—after this
victory; the Seljuks quickly overran all of Byzantine territory in the east.
11th
Through the 13th Century
The Byzantines, however, turned to Europe for
help against the Muslims—the Byzantine emperor, Alexius Comnenius, called
upon the European states to push back the Muslim conquerors. While Byzantium
and the Europeans had drifted apart culturally, they still shared a common
religion, and the European states complied. They had, however, designs of
their own on Byzantine territories. While they successfully pushed back the
Seljuks and returned territory to the Byzantines, the western Europeans also
carved out kingdoms of their own in Syria and Palestine. This wasn't quite
enough for them—in 1204, the Crusaders attacked, conquered, and pillaged the
city of Constantinople, a goal that the Muslims had been trying for centuries.
The amazing thing about this event is that it did not spell
the end of the Byzantines. For a few decades, the Byzantine imperial government
continued to function in Greece—in 1261, they returned to Constantinople and
retook the city! But the Byzantine Empire was no longer an empire after 1261,
but rather a small kingdom centered on Constantinople. In 1453, the city was
finally and permanently conquered by the Ottoman Turks and
renamed Istanbul. Byzantine culture, law, and administration came to its final
end.
[5]
Byzantine
Christianity-Iconoclastic Controversy
Byzantine Christianity was a substantially
different religion and cultural practice than Latin Christianity. One of its
predominant characteristics was the role of the emperor in matters of faith.
The Latin church had battled emperors for control of the church and with the
disintegration of centralized authority in Europe and the proliferation of
European kingdoms; the primacy of the Pope in matters of faith was relatively
solidified.
The Byzantines, however, inherited the Roman idea that the emperor was
near divinity and practiced a form of Christianity where enormous ecclesiastical
and theological
authority was vested in the emperor. This would eventually create a
permanent breach in the world of Christianity between west and east and
the event that would produce this breach was the Iconoclastic controversy.
The Iconoclastic
theologians believed that the worship of images, or icons, was a fundamentally
pagan belief. Products of human hands should not be worshipped,
they argued, but only Christ and God should be the proper objects of
veneration.
Islam is itself opposed to the worship of images,
icons, and idols—one of the founding acts of Islam is Muhammad's destruction
of all the idols and images in the sacred Ka'aba in Mecca. There is no
doubt that the Iconoclasts were in part inspired by the religious purity of
the Islamic faith. There is also little doubt that Iconoclasm would help the
Byzantines regain territory conquered by the Muslims since it made Christianity
more in line with the Islamic faith.
Iconoclasm, however, was fiercely opposed by the papacy, which saw it as a
threat not only to Latin ecclesiastical practices, but also to the authority
of the pope himself. When Leo's son, Constantine V even more zealously carried
out the Iconoclastic program during his reign (740-775), the breach
between the Latin and Byzantine church became permanent. Eventually,
Iconoclasm would be abandoned in the ninth century—the breach, however, would
never be healed.
The most significant result of the Iconoclastic
controversy was the adoption of a strict traditionalism
in the Byzantine church. The eastern church had long been characterized by
speculation and innovation, but the Iconoclastic controversy was too disorienting.
Almost overnight, the Byzantine church became averse to innovation and speculation.
This created a more or less static religious culture and it also permanently
ended the intellectual dynamism of Byzantine life.
Byzantine Philosophy
Perhaps the single most salient aspect of
Byzantine culture was the transmission of classical culture.
While classical studies, science, and philosophy largely dissipated in the
Latin west, Byzantine education and philosophy still zealously pursued these
intellectual traditions. It was in Byzantium that Plato and Aristotle
continued to be studied and were eventually transmitted first into the Islamic
world and then back into Western Europe. A basic education in Byzantium
consisted first of the mastery of classical Greek literature, such as Homer
(largely unknown in the West during this period)—almost all of the Greek
literature we have today was only preserved by the Byzantines.
Unlike Greece and Rome during the classical period or the Latin West during the
Middle Ages, women actively participated in the intellectual life of the
culture. While they could not attend schools, aristocratic women were
often well educated at home by tutors in literature, history, composition, and
philosophy. The greatest of Byzantine writers, in fact, was the historian Anna Comnena, the daughter
of the emperor Alexius. Her biography of her father is one of the greatest
works of medieval historiography in existence—this includes the histories
written in Europe.
The Byzantine Legacy
Byzantine culture is important because of two lines of
transmission. One of line of transmission involved the exporting of
classical Greek and Roman culture into Islam and, to a lesser extent,
the transmission of Byzantine theological speculation into Islamic theology.
The second is the transmission of Byzantine culture and religion to
Slavic peoples, especially to the Russians.
We know very little about the Slavs before the Middle Ages—what we do know we
only know through archaeology. As Byzantium, however, turned less of its
attention towards Europe and the west, they became increasingly interested in
the peoples to the north. We don't know how cultural contact was initiated
between these two peoples, but sometime around 988 a Russian ruler named
Vladimir converted to Byzantine Christianity.
From that point
onwards, the Slavs in Russia became a kind of cultural inheritor of
Byzantine culture, adopting the religion, theology, some social
structures, and writing from the Byzantines to the south. In many ways
Russian and Slavic culture is the continuance of Byzantine culture and
many Byzantine cultural practices and beliefs are still practiced among Slavs
today. Russian religion, art, philosophy, and even literature, such as the
writings of Chekhov and Dostoevsky, show profound influences from Byzantine
culture. The Byzantine inheritance also included the sense that Byzantine
culture and practice was fundamentally different from European culture and
practice. This sense of Byzantine distinctiveness would also impress itself on
Slavic cultures up until the present.
So close was this cultural connection, that
Russians believed that they were the inheritors of the Byzantine Empire when it
finally collapsed in 1453. The Russian rulers assumed the title of
"Caesar," the title bestowed on Byzantine emperors—in Russian; the
word is "Tsar." With the government centered in Moscow, the Russian
Tsars declared Moscow to be the "third Rome," after Rome and
Byzantium, and so located themselves in a cultural and historical trajectory
that began with the Roman empire.[6]