INTRODUCTION One of the most brilliant medieval civilizations was the Byzantine Empire In 395 CE the Roman Empire was divided into two parts The Western half ruled from Rome fell to the tribal Germanic peoples known as barbarians barbarians in the fifth century But the Eastern half now known as the Byzantine Empire lasted for more than one thousand years In fact the Byzantine Empire maintained its position as one of the leading civilizations civilizations in the world until its decline began in the mid-eleventh century In 324 CE Constantine the first Christian emperor became sole ruler of the Roman Empire He set up his Eastern headquarters in the ancient Greek colony of Byzantium in 330 The city was renamed Constantinople in his honor and became known as the new Rome After the Roman Empire was formally divided sixty-five years later Constantinople became the capital of the Byzantine Empire Constantinople was located on the shore of the Bosporus midway between the Aegean and Black seas in what is now Turkey The city brought together people from the lands of Europe and Asia In 1453 when the Ottoman Turks conquered the
Byzantine Empire Constantinople Constantinople became the capital of the new Ottoman Ottoman Empire The city’s name was changed to Istanbul in 1930 In their own time the citizens of the Byzantine Byzantine Empire were known as Romaioi or In Romans their eyes they remained firmly part of the Roman Empire despite the fact that as early as the eighth century state and society in the East differed significantly significantly from their earlier earlier Roman forms The Byzantine Romans were distinct from the Western Western Romans in two key ways they spoke primarily primarily Greek instead of Latin and they practiced Eastern Orthodox Christianity rather than Roman Catholic Christianity In an effort to recognize that distinction seventeenth-century scholars renamed them and their empire Byzantine A colossal marble head of Constantine the Great 7 9 feet 2 41 meters high c 313 CE Originally it was part of a giant statue in the Basilica of Constantine in the Roman Forum 5 IntroductIon
THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE During the ten and a half centuries that the Byzantine Empire lasted its boundaries continually changed Barbarian Western and Arabic conquerors captured territories that were sometimes retaken by the Byzantines before being lost again At its largest the Byzantine Empire included Greece Italy Egypt Syria North Africa and southern Spain At its weak est it consisted of just a few scattered outposts far from Constantinople Comprising numerous ethnic groups Byzantium was also a melting pot and the empire was characterized during its earlier centuries by a degree of social mobility that goes against the oft applied ste reotype of a rigid caste based society FRANCE Venice Genoa Ravenna Black Sea SPAIN Danube LGARIA Corsica ALY Rome Trebizond Sardinia SERBIA GARI Constantinople BU MACEDONIA Byzantium THESSALONICA Nicea ASIA GREECE MINOR Naples Athens NORTH AFRICA Sicily Syracuse SYRIA Cyprus Crete Mediterranean Sea BYZANTINE EMPIRE Extent of the empire under Justinian I 527 565 PALESTINE Jerusalem The empire in about 1020 EGYPT The empire in about 1360 0 0 100 200 300 mi 200400 km Encyclopædia Britannica Inc The boundaries of the Byzantine Empire were constantly in flux This map shows the extent of the empire's territory at three distinct points in its history
Early Byzantine court dress is pictured in a mosaic that was probably completed during the sixth century Byzantine garments were traditionally ornamented with gems and precious metals and were frequently woven with silk and gold threads For centuries Byzantines enjoyed their status as the most powerful and influential people in Europe and the Middle East Scholars preserved the literature of Rome and Greece through the darkest centuries of the Middle Ages Statesmen developed pioneering legal codes which were used as a basis for imperial monarchies for more than one thousand years Artists 7 INTRODUCTION
