Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire

Examples of Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire in the following topics:

• Naming of the Byzantine Empire

  • While the Western Roman Empire fell, the Eastern Roman Empire, now known as the Byzantine Empire, thrived.
  • The Byzantine Empire, sometimes referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire in the East during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul, originally founded as Byzantium).
  • Both "Byzantine Empire" and "Eastern Roman Empire" are historiographical terms created after the end of the realm; its citizens continued to refer to their empire as the Roman Empire and thought of themselves as Romans.
  • Over time, the culture of the Eastern Roman Empire transformed.
  • A map of the territories controlled by Eastern and Western Roman Empires as of 476 CE.

• Byzantium's Legacy

  • The Byzantine Empire has had a lasting legacy in religion, architecture, art, literature, and law.
  • Following the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453, Sultan Mehmed II took the title "Kaysar-i Rûm" (the Ottoman Turkish equivalent of Caesar of Rome), since he was determined to make the Ottoman Empire the heir of the Eastern Roman Empire.
  • The Byzantine Empire had kept Greek and Roman culture alive for nearly a thousand years after the fall of the Roman Empire in the west.
  • The Byzantine Empire had also acted as a buffer between Western Europe and the conquering armies of Islam.
  • Give examples of how the Byzantine Empire continued to have an impact even after its collapse

• The Eastern Roman Empire, Constantine the Great, and Byzantium

  • It is a matter of debate when the Roman Empire officially ended and transformed into the Byzantine Empire.
  • Constantine I ("the Great") is usually held to be the founder of the Byzantine Empire.
  • It would later become the capital of the Empire for over one thousand years; for which reason the later Eastern Empire would come to be known as the Byzantine Empire.
  • Usually, there was an emperor of the Western Roman Empire ruling from Italy or Gaul and an emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire ruling from Constantinople.
  • Thus the Eastern Roman Empire was the only Roman Empire left standing.

• The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

  • The Fall of the Western Roman Empire was the period of decline in the Western Roman Empire in which it disintegrated and split into numerous successor states.
  • The Fall of the Western Roman Empire was the process of decline in the Western Roman Empire in which it failed to enforce its rule, and its vast territory was divided into several successor polities.
  • It is important to note, however, that the so-called fall of the Roman Empire specifically refers to the fall of the Western Roman Empire, since the Eastern Roman Empire, or what became known as the Byzantine Empire, whose capital was founded by Constantine, remained for another 1000 years.
  • The whole of Italy was quickly conquered, and Odoacer's rule became recognized in the Eastern Empire.
  • Analyze, broadly, the causes of the fall of the Roman Empire.

• Crisis and Fragmentation

  • Tensions between Eastern and Western European powers boiled over during the Komnenian Dynasty; the West destroyed Constantinople and, with it, the Byzantine Empire.
  • Urban saw Alexios' request as a dual opportunity to cement Western Europe and reunite the Eastern Orthodox Churches with the Roman Catholic Church under his rule.
  • The sack was a disaster for the Byzantine Empire, which for all purposes ceased to exist.
  • They fought each other and the Latins for control of the former lands of the Byzantine Empire.
  • Analyze the relationship between the Holy Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire

• The Great Schism of 1054

  • The centuries-long gradual religious separation between the Eastern and Western Roman Empires culminated in the institutional separation known as the East-West Schism.
  • By the turn of the millennium, the Eastern and Western Roman Empires had been gradually separating along religious fault lines for centuries, beginning with Emperor Leo III's pioneering of the Byzantine Iconoclasm in 730 CE, in which he declared the worship of religious images to be heretical.
  • From this point on, the Frankish Empire is usually known as the Holy Roman Empire.
  • With two Roman Empires, the Byzantines and the Franks, the authority of the Byzantine Empire was weakened.
  • The religious distribution after the East-West Schism between the churches of the Byzantine Empire and the Holy Roman Empire in 1054 CE.

• The Theme System

  • The themes (themata in Greek)  were the main administrative divisions of the middle Byzantine Empire.
  • During the late 6th and early 7th centuries, the Eastern Roman Empire was under frequent attack from all sides.
  • Abandoning the professional army inherited from the Roman past, the Byzantines granted land to farmers who in return would provide the Empire with loyal soldiers.
  • By the end of the Heraclian Dynasty in 711 CE, the empire had transformed from the Eastern Roman Empire, with its urbanized, cosmopolitan civilization, to the medieval Byzantine Empire, an agrarian, military-dominated society in a lengthy struggle with the Muslims.
  • However, this state was also far more homogeneous than the Eastern Roman Empire; the borders had shrunk such that many of the Latin-speaking territories were lost and the dynasty was reduced to its mostly Greek-speaking territories.

• The Byzantine Empire

  • The Byzantine Empire began as a continuation of the Roman Empire but gradually became distinct through cultural changes.
  • After the death of Theodosius I in 395, the Roman Empire was divided into an Eastern half based in Constantinople and a Western half based in Rome.
  • However, the Eastern portion (what historians call the Byzantine Empire) would continue for approximately another millennium.
  • Even Roman Catholicism remained the official religion of the Byzantine Empire until the eleventh century.
  • Early Byzantine architecture drew upon earlier elements of Roman architecture.

• The Double Disasters

  • A Byzantine defeat in 1071 proved decisive for the disintegration and collapse of the Empire.
  • The Norman adventurer Robert Guiscard allied with the pope to drive the remaining Byzantines from southern Italy and replace them with a Roman Catholic Norman kingdom.
  • Guiscard was incredibly successful and he turned his eye to conquering the entire Byzantine Empire.
  • The Byzantine Empire was now vulnerable to conquest.
  • It was not an immediate disaster, but the defeat showed the Seljuks that the Byzantines were not invincible—they were not the unconquerable, millennium-old Roman Empire (as both the Byzantines and Seljuks still called it).

• The Fall of Constantinople

  • The restored Byzantine Empire was surrounded by enemies.
  • A new empire arose in the western Balkans, the Serbian Empire, who conquered many Byzantine lands.
  • By 1400 CE, the Byzantine Empire was little more than the city-state of Constantinople.
  • The capture of Constantinople (and two other Byzantine splinter territories soon thereafter) marked the end of the Roman Empire, an imperial state that had lasted for nearly 1,500 years.
  • The borders of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires in the Eastern Mediterranean just before the fall of Constantinople in 1453 CE.