The Byzantine Empire

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Sibling Heirs of the Roman Empire

• The Byzantine Empire

• The Islamic Empires

• Western Europe

Constantinople

• Major city of Byzantium

• Western-most metropolis along the Silk Road

Language of Byzantium

Greek (at least after Justinian)

Government in Byzantium

Bureaucracy: a system of government in which most of the important decisions are made by state officials rather than by elected representatives.

Christianity in Byzantium

• Emperors were God’s regents of Earth

• Orthodox Christian

• Sought to defend Christianity against “the heathens”

Emperor Justinian

• Married to Empress Theodora

• Enlarged imperial territory to much of Rome’s former lands in the Mediterranean Basin

• Rebuilt Constantinople after the Nika Riots

• Erected Agia Sophia

• Codified Roman Law (emperor’s word is law, but more mercy to women and the enslaved)

Belisarius

• Justinian’s general

• Reconquered former Roman territory

Nika Riots of 532

A violent uprising in 532 C.E. Constantinople, sparked by discontent over Emperor Justinian I's government and a botched execution, that united the Blues and Greens chariot factions and nearly overthrew the emperor. Destroyed Agia Sophia. After Emperor Justinian's wife, Theodora, convinced him to stay and fight, his generals crushed the rebellion.

Emperor Heraclius (r. 610-641)

• Took on a Byzantine whose Justinian lands had been largely taken by the Persians

• Defined Byzantium as defensive rather than conquering

• Began to speak Greek

• “First Byzantine Emperor”

Leo the Isaurian (r. 717-741)

• Defended Constantinople against the Persians in the Second Siege of Constantinople

• Greek fire

• **One of the most significant battles in European history

Basil I

• Founded the “Macedonian” dynasty

• During his reign the saintly brother missionaries Cyril and Methodius work to convert the Slavs and Bulgars; they create an alphabet for the Old Slavonic language, still in use and now called the Cyrillic alphabet.

Basil II “Bulgar Slayer”

• campaigned year after year against the Bulgars and destroyed their army.

• Married his sister Anna off to Prince Vladimir of the Kievan Rus, now in Ukraine, also a precursor of Russia [this ruler died in 1015]. The condition for the union was that Vladimir and his people convert to Eastern Orthodox Christianity and send troops to Byzantium.

Iconoclasm

“Icon-smashing”

• Western Christianity heavily against it

• Byzantine leaders generally in favor

  • At least at first, and went back and forth

  • Against the veneration of idols over God

The Great Schism of 1054

• Formalized the division between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches due to a combination of centuries of growing theological, political, and cultural differences,

  • Including disputes over papal authority, the Filioque clause (the procession of the Holy Spirit), and liturgical practices such as the use of leavened or unleavened bread in the Eucharist.

• The schism was marked by mutual excommunications between Pope Leo IX's legate, Cardinal Humbert, and Patriarch Michael Cerularius of Constantinople, creating a permanent institutional split that continues to this day.