Eastern Roman Empire: Byzantine Empire – Universal History

The Eastern Roman Empire or also called Byzantine Empireoriginated in the year 395 AD when Emperor Theodosius divided the Roman Empire into two: East and West.
Unlike the Western Roman Empire, which was destroyed by the Germans in AD 476, the Byzantine Empire managed to survive the Germanic threat. That is why it lasted for almost ten centuries, until the year 1453 in which the Ottoman Turks occupied its capital, Constantinople.
Over ten centuries, the Byzantines, who were actually a plurality of peoples, managed to fuse the culture of the Greeks and Romans, the religious elements of Christians and pagans, and Western and Eastern customs. In this way they preserved the cultural contributions of antiquity and re-elaborated them under new forms.
Although they spoke Greek, the Byzantines called themselves Romans, considering themselves heirs to this ancient empire. That is why Constantinople was also known as the new rome

1. Constantinople

Currently this city does not exist with this name, today this ancient city is called Istanbul.
It was built by the Emperor Constantine in the year 330, it was built on the ancient Greek city of Byzantium. In only six years he built a city whose size and architecture were comparable to that of Rome and named it Constantinople.
Constantinople was located between the Black Sea and the Marmaro Sea; it was surrounded by sea and was the obligatory step for all the merchants who traveled by sea or by land between Asia and Europe. Until the 13th century it was one of the most populous cities in the world: only Baghdad, the great city of Islam, equaled it.
To protect Constantinople from the Germans, Emperor Theodosius II built a triple wall about 12 meters high in the 5th century that surrounded the city. This wall runs about 19 km and has 96 towers, from which the Byzantine soldiers could see the enemy.

2. The story of a great empire

Since the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Byzantine rulers longed for the days when this empire dominated the entire Mediterranean. One of them was the Emperor JustinianI try to restore the greatness of the old empire.

2.1 Justinian

Byzantine Empire map

Justinian, the Emperor Justin’s nephew, came to the throne in 527. Justinian was like his uncle, the son of a simple peasant. However, from a young age, he received excellent military training. At the time of his accession to the throne, the Byzantine Empire included the Balkan Peninsula, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. However, Justinian thought that the Christian world should have a single political authority: Byzantine emperor.
With these ideas and with the help of the generals Belisario and Narsés, Justinian seized the Vandal territories in North Africa, Corsica, Sardinia and the Balearic Islands; he conquered Italy and Sicily, dominated by the Ostrogoths and finally occupied the southwest of Visigothic Spain.
Then Justinian undertook the Byzantine state reform to renew the foundations on which the empire was based. He reorganized the central administration, resident in Constantinople, which supervised the officials of the provinces.
Besides, decided to classify and edit the Roman laws. For this, I entrust the jurist Triboniano with the drafting of the justinian codewhich includes all constitutions ruled from the time of Emperor Hadrian. Besides, improve the situation of public finances and tax collection, to sustain a more efficient civil and military organization.
Justinian died in the year 565, the year in which one of the most brilliant periods of Byzantine long history ended.

2.2 The empire of Justinian’s successors

Shortly after Justinian’s death, the Byzantines lost possessions conquered in Western Europe and had to face the advance of the Avars, Slavs and Bulgarians who pressed to enter the Balkan Peninsula.
The Persians for their part pushed deeper and deeper into the eastern provinces of the Byzantine Empire. However, the Persian danger was replaced by the Arabwhich became the most fearsome adversary, since in the 7th century it occupied Syria, Palestine and North Africa. So the empire was reduced to Greece, Asia Minor and southern Italy.
In the 11th century the situation worsened, when the Turks, especially the Seljuk tribe, took over Asia Minor. These events marked the beginning of the decline of Byzantium, which ended in 1453, when another tribe of Turks, the Ottomans, occupied Constantinople.

3. Political organization in the Byzantine Empire

In contrast to the German monarchies, the Byzantine Empire had a solid political organization.
The empire was a theocratic monarchy in which the emperor or basileus he was considered the delegate of God on Earth and therefore a sacred character. That is why he was the head of the Church and how he could name the patriarchs. The emperor was represented as the saints with their heads surrounded by a halo of light.
With absolute power, the emperor was also the supreme head of the Byzantine administration and army. For his government action he had three instruments.

• civil bureaucracymade up of officials who were true professionals of public administration.
• The army, very numerous, made up of soldiers of the most diverse nationalities. In the border areas, the defense was completed by the Stratiots, who were peasant soldiers who were paid by handing over land.
• the byzantine church that unlike what happened in the West, it was subordinate to the emperor. This feature is known as caesaro-papism.

4. Religion in the Byzantine Empire

Byzantine society was deeply religious: all daily activities were closely linked to the region. For this reason, lawsuits or complaints involved the entire town and created serious political problems.
This happened for example with the monophysitisma religious current that maintained that Christ had only one nature, the divine, and that contradicted the Christian position that invoked the double nature of Christ: human and divine.
Monophysitism was popular in Syria and Egypt, so these regions constantly tried to secede from the empire. The latter facilitated the conquest by the Arabs.
In the 8th century, another lawsuit arose promoted by the iconoclasts. They maintained that religious images or icons led to superstitious practices, because the image represented was worshiped in them and not the true God. In addition, the iconoclasts sought to diminish the economic and social power of the monks.
Unlike Monophysitism, the Iconoclasts were protected and encouraged by some Byzantine emperors. This fact caused a distance between these monarchs and the Roman Pope, who was opposed to this religious current.
This process culminated in the oriental schism between Western and Eastern Christendom, in 1054. While the former accepted the Pope of Rome as its spiritual leader, the East recognized the patriarch of Constantinople as its supreme leader. The Eastern Church was called Greek-Orthodox.

5. The economy in the Byzantine Empire

Throughout ten centuries of history, Byzantium was one of the most important economic centers of the medieval world. The Byzantine economy was largely agrarian.
The large agricultural properties were in the hands of the Church and the aristocracy, but there were also small owners who, over the centuries, disappeared, incorporating the large domains as settlers.
On the other hand, Byzantium did not neglect craft activities or trade. This empire developed an important International Trade. Thanks to this activity, products from areas as diverse as China, Persia and Spain could be found in the markets of Constantinople and other cities of the empire. Byzantine artisans in turn manufactured numerous pieces that were sold abroad.
For this reason, the Byzantine coin, the kissing, was accepted in all markets from the Middle Ages until the 11th century. It is therefore a international currency.

6. A culture of synthesis

Byzantine Empire St. Mark’s Church

Byzantine culture was an admirable synthesis of Greco-Roman, Oriental and Christian elements. The great works of the classical world were compiled in schools and universities, such as those of Athens or Constantinople, and in monasteries such as the famous ones on Mount Athos, in Greece.
In architecture, the Byzantines stood out for the beauty of their churches. In their constructions they used the dome on pendentives and a Greek cross plan.
The best examples of this work are in the church of Santa Sofia in Constantinople and in Italy in the Basilica of San Marco in Venice. The interiors of the churches were decorated with beautiful mosaics that covered the apses and domes with unusual luxury and colour. On the other hand, Byzantine sculpture produced beautiful reliefs on ivory plates.

7. The decline of the Byzantine Empire

The invasion of the Seljuk Turks in the 11th century deprived Byzantium of one of the richest parts of the empire: Asia Minor. From this moment on, the Eastern Empire experienced a slow and gradual decline that manifested itself in a severe agrarian and commercial crisis.
The Byzantines neglected their navy, and the commercial traffic gradually fell in numbers of Genoese and Venetians.
Thus, the ruin of the Byzantine state became inevitable: weakened at its bases, I had to cede territories to different powers. Finally, it suffered the invasion of the Ottoman Turks. When in the year 1453, the Turks took Constantinople, the empire was almost reduced to the same capital. This event put an end to a thousand years of history.