Chapter 7: The Classical Legacy in the East: Byzantium and Islam

• Justinian was the emperor of the Byzantine Empire
  • Wished to restore power, territory, and prestige of Roman Empire
  • Chief advisor was his wife, Theodora
  • Byzantine Empire capital was Constantinople
  • Started building projects that almost caused the empire to go bankrupt
  • Invaders fought for territories he had acquired after his death
• The Byzantine state was an autocracy
  • The Emperor had absolute authority
  • Women ruled empire as regents for young sons or as sole rulers
• Empire’s bureaucracy was made up of military and civilian officers
• Eunuchs held the most important positions in court
  • Eunuchs: castrated men
  • As Eunuchs couldn’t have children, there was no danger of them turning their offices into hereditary positions or scheming for the future of their children
• Lives of women in the Byzantine Empire were focused around families
  • Wore veils that covered their heads
  • Couldn’t act on their own, legally
  • Imperial women could be sovereigns or regents
  • Poor women either worked in agriculture or worked outside their homes
• The Eastern Church practiced Orthodox Christianity
• Rise of Islam started with Muhammad who claimed to have heard the voice of the angel Gabriel, telling him to spread God’s words
• Islam spread from Egypt of Asia Minor by 650
• Women played an early role in the conversion to Islam with Muhammad’s wife being his first convert
• Women in Islam had the right to inherit, own, and go on to manage property
• Islamic civilizations had large irrigation systems which made Iraq and Iran rich. agricultural areas
• Seljuk Turks were victorious over the Byzantines in 1071 and acquired Asia Minor
• After the collapse of the Mongol Empire, the Turkish principality, the Ottoman, expanded and weakened the Byzantine Empire
• Constantinople fell to Ottoman Turks in 1453, marking the end of the Byzantine Empire’s reign which had lasted 1000 years

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