What Empire did Byzantine claim to be an extension of?
Naming of the Byzantine Empire
While the Western Roman Empire roughshod, the Eastern Roman Empire, now known as the Byzantine Empire, thrived.
Learning Objectives
Describe identifying characteristics of the Byzantine Empire
Key Takeaways
Key Points
- While the Western Roman Empire vicious in 476 CE, the Eastern Roman Empire, centered on the city of Constantinople, survived and thrived.
- After the Eastern Roman Empire's much afterward fall in 1453 CE, western scholars began calling it the " Byzantine Empire " to emphasize its distinction from the earlier, Latin-speaking Roman Empire centered on Rome.
- The "Byzantine Empire" is now the standard term used amid historians to refer to the Eastern Roman Empire.
- Although the Byzantine Empire had a multi-ethnic character during virtually of its history and preserved Romano-Hellenistic traditions, it became identified with its increasingly predominant Greek chemical element and its own unique cultural developments.
Key Terms
- Constantinople: Formerly Byzantium, the majuscule of the Byzantine Empire equally established by its beginning emperor, Constantine the Great. (Today the city is known as Istanbul.)
The Byzantine Empire, sometimes referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire in the east during Tardily Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul, originally founded equally Byzantium ). It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century CE, and continued to be for an additional chiliad years until information technology roughshod to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its beingness, the empire was the nigh powerful economical, cultural, and military forcefulness in Europe. Both "Byzantine Empire" and "Eastern Roman Empire" are historiographical terms created afterward the finish of the realm; its citizens connected to refer to their empire equally the Roman Empire, and idea of themselves as Romans. Although the people living in the Eastern Roman Empire referred to themselves as Romans, they were distinguished by their Greek heritage, Orthodox Christianity, and their regional connections. Over time, the culture of the Eastern Roman Empire transformed. Greek replaced Latin as the language of the empire. Christianity became more important in daily life, although the culture's pagan Roman past all the same exerted an influence.
Several signal events from the fourth to 6th centuries marker the period of transition during which the Roman Empire's Greek due east and Latin west divided. Constantine I (r. 324-337) reorganized the empire, made Constantinople the new majuscule, and legalized Christianity. Under Theodosius I (r. 379-395), Christianity became the empire'southward official state religion, and other religious practices were proscribed. Finally, under the reign of Heraclius (r. 610-641), the empire's military and administration were restructured and adopted Greek for official use instead of Latin. Thus, although the Roman state connected and Roman state traditions were maintained, modern historians distinguish Byzantium from ancient Rome insofar as it was centered on Constantinople, oriented towards Greek rather than Latin culture, and characterized by Orthodox Christianity.
Just as the Byzantine Empire represented the political continuation of the Roman Empire, Byzantine art and civilisation developed directly out of the art of the Roman Empire, which was itself profoundly influenced by ancient Greek art. Byzantine art never lost sight of this classical heritage. For instance, the Byzantine upper-case letter, Constantinople, was adorned with a big number of classical sculptures, although they eventually became an object of some puzzlement for its inhabitants. And indeed, the fine art produced during the Byzantine Empire, although marked past periodic revivals of a classical aesthetic, was above all marked by the development of a new artful. Thus, although the Byzantine Empire had a multi-ethnic character during most of its history, and preserved Romano-Hellenistic traditions, it became identified past its western and northern contemporaries with its increasingly predominant Greek chemical element and its ain unique cultural developments.
Nomenclature
The first employ of the term "Byzantine" to label the afterward years of the Roman Empire was in 1557, when the German historian Hieronymus Wolf published his work, Corpus Historiæ Byzantinæ, a drove of historical sources. The term comes from "Byzantium," the name of the urban center of Constantinople before it became Constantine's capital. This older proper name of the urban center would rarely be used from this point onward except in historical or poetic contexts. All the same, it was not until the mid-19th century that the term came into full general use in the western world; calling information technology the "Byzantine Empire" helped to emphasize its differences from the earlier Latin-speaking Roman Empire, centered on Rome.
The term "Byzantine" was also useful to the many western European states that too claimed to be the true successors of the Roman Empire, as it was used to delegitimize the claims of the Byzantines equally true Romans. In mod times, the term "Byzantine" has also come up to have a debasing sense, used to draw things that are overly complex or arcane. "Byzantine diplomacy" has come up to mean excess use of trickery and backside-the-scenes manipulation. These are all based on medieval stereotypes about the Byzantine Empire that developed as western Europeans came into contact with the Byzantines, and were perplexed past their more than structured government.
No such distinction existed in the Islamic and Slavic worlds, where the empire was more straightforwardly seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic world, the Roman Empire was known primarily as Rûm. The proper noun millet-i Rûm, or "Roman nation," was used by the Ottomans through the 20th century to refer to the erstwhile subjects of the Byzantine Empire, that is, the Orthodox Christian customs inside Ottoman realms.
The Eastern Roman Empire, Constantine the Great, and Byzantium
The Christian, Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire had its capital letter at Constantinople, established by Emperor Constantine the Swell.
Learning Objectives
Explain the role of Constantine in Byzantine Empire history
Central Takeaways
Key Points
- The Byzantine Empire (the Eastern Roman Empire) was distinct from the Western Roman Empire in several means; nigh chiefly, the Byzantines were Christians and spoke Greek instead of Latin.
- The founder of the Byzantine Empire and its first emperor, Constantine the Corking, moved the uppercase of the Roman Empire to the urban center of Byzantium in 330 CE, and renamed information technology Constantinople.
- Constantine the Great also legalized Christianity, which had previously been persecuted in the Roman Empire. Christianity would become a major element of Byzantine civilisation.
- Constantinople became the largest city in the empire and a major commercial eye, while the Western Roman Empire fell in 476 CE.
Key Terms
- Germanic barbarians: An uncivilized or uncultured person, originally compared to the hellenistic Greco-Roman civilization; ofttimes associated with fighting or other such shows of strength.
- Christianity: An Abrahamic religion based on the teachings of Jesus Christ and various scholars who wrote the Christian Bible. Information technology was legalized in the Byzantine Empire by Constantine the Great, and the religion became a major chemical element of Byzantine culture.
Constantine the Great and the Beginning of Byzantium
Information technology is a thing of contend when the Roman Empire officially ended and transformed into the Byzantine Empire. Most scholars have that information technology did not happen at once, only that it was a tiresome process; thus, tardily Roman history overlaps with early Byzantine history. Constantine I ("the Keen") is commonly held to be the founder of the Byzantine Empire. He was responsible for several major changes that would aid create a Byzantine culture distinct from the Roman by.
As emperor, Constantine enacted many administrative, fiscal, social, and war machine reforms to strengthen the empire. The authorities was restructured and ceremonious and armed forces say-so separated. A new gilded coin, the solidus, was introduced to combat inflation. It would get the standard for Byzantine and European currencies for more than than a thousand years. As the start Roman emperor to claim conversion to Christianity, Constantine played an influential part in the evolution of Christianity every bit the religion of the empire. In armed forces matters, the Roman regular army was reorganized to consist of mobile field units and garrison soldiers capable of countering internal threats and barbaric invasions. Constantine pursued successful campaigns against the tribes on the Roman frontiers—the Franks, the Alamanni, the Goths, and the Sarmatians—, and even resettled territories abandoned by his predecessors during the turmoil of the previous century.
The age of Constantine marked a distinct epoch in the history of the Roman Empire. He built a new imperial residence at Byzantium and renamed the urban center Constantinople after himself (the laudatory epithet of "New Rome " came later, and was never an official title). It would later become the capital of the empire for over one thousand years; for this reason the later Eastern Empire would come up to be known every bit the Byzantine Empire. His more immediate political legacy was that, in leaving the empire to his sons, he replaced Diocletian 's tetrarchy (regime where power is divided amidst four individuals) with the principle of dynastic succession. His reputation flourished during the lifetime of his children, and for centuries later on his reign. The medieval church upheld him as a paragon of virtue, while secular rulers invoked him as a prototype, a signal of reference, and the symbol of imperial legitimacy and identity.
Constantinople and Civil Reform
Constantine moved the seat of the empire, and introduced important changes into its civil and religious constitution. In 330, he founded Constantinople as a 2nd Rome on the site of Byzantium, which was well-positioned astride the trade routes between east and west; it was a superb base from which to guard the Danube river, and was reasonably shut to the eastern frontiers. Constantine too began the building of the great fortified walls, which were expanded and rebuilt in subsequent ages. J. B. Bury asserts that "the foundation of Constantinople […] inaugurated a permanent partitioning between the Eastern and Western, the Greek and the Latin, halves of the empire—a partition to which events had already pointed—and afflicted decisively the whole subsequent history of Europe."
Constantine congenital upon the authoritative reforms introduced by Diocletian. He stabilized the coinage (the gold solidus that he introduced became a highly prized and stable currency), and made changes to the structure of the regular army. Under Constantine, the empire had recovered much of its armed forces force and enjoyed a period of stability and prosperity. He also reconquered southern parts of Dacia, after defeating the Visigoths in 332, and he was planning a entrada against Sassanid Persia as well. To divide administrative responsibilities, Constantine replaced the single praetorian prefect, who had traditionally exercised both war machine and civil functions, with regional prefects enjoying ceremonious say-so lone. In the course of the 4th century, four great sections emerged from these Constantinian ancestry, and the practise of separating civil from military authority persisted until the seventh century.
Constantine and Christianity
Constantine was the first emperor to stop Christian persecutions and to legalize Christianity, every bit well as all other religions and cults in the Roman Empire.
In February 313, Constantine met with Licinius in Milan, where they developed the Edict of Milan. The edict stated that Christians should exist allowed to follow the faith without oppression. This removed penalties for professing Christianity, under which many had been martyred previously, and returned confiscated Church property. The edict protected from religious persecution not simply Christians only all religions, allowing anyone to worship whichever deity they chose.
Scholars argue whether Constantine adopted Christianity in his youth from his mother, St. Helena,, or whether he adopted it gradually over the form of his life. Co-ordinate to Christian writers, Constantine was over forty when he finally declared himself a Christian, writing to Christians to make clear that he believed he owed his successes to the protection of the Christian High God lonely. Throughout his rule, Constantine supported the Church building financially, congenital basilicas, granted privileges to clergy (e.g. exemption from certain taxes), promoted Christians to loftier part, and returned property confiscated during the Diocletianic persecution. His nigh famous building projects include the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and Old Saint Peter's Basilica.
The reign of Constantine established a precedent for the position of the emperor as having great influence and ultimate regulatory authority within the religious discussions involving the early on Christian councils of that time (well-nigh notably, the dispute over Arianism, and the nature of God). Constantine himself disliked the risks to societal stability that religious disputes and controversies brought with them, preferring where possible to institute an orthodoxy. One way in which Constantine used his influence over the early Church councils was to seek to found a consensus over the oft debated and argued effect over the nature of God. In 325, he summoned the Council of Nicaea, effectively the first Ecumenical Council. The Quango of Nicaea is most known for its dealing with Arianism and for instituting the Nicene Creed, which is all the same used today by Christians.
The Fall of the Western Roman Empire
Later on Constantine, few emperors ruled the entire Roman Empire. It was too big and was under assail from too many directions. Usually, at that place was an emperor of the Western Roman Empire ruling from Italy or Gaul, and an emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire ruling from Constantinople. While the Western Empire was overrun by Germanic barbarians (its lands in Italy were conquered by the Ostrogoths, Spain was conquered by the Visigoths, Due north Africa was conquered past the Vandals, and Gaul was conquered by the Franks), the Eastern Empire thrived. Constantinople became the largest city in the empire and a major commercial heart. In 476 CE, the last Western Roman Emperor was deposed and the Western Roman Empire was no more. Thus the Eastern Roman Empire was the simply Roman Empire left standing.
Justinian and Theodora
Emperor Justinian was responsible for substantial expansion, a legal lawmaking, and the Hagia Sophia, only suffered defeats confronting the Persians.
Learning Objectives
Discuss the accomplishments and failures of Emperor Justinian the Neat
Key Takeaways
Central Points
- Emperor Justinian the Keen was responsible for substantial expansion of the Byzantine Empire, and for acquisition Africa, Spain, Rome, and about of Italy.
- Justinian was responsible for the construction of the Hagia Sophia, the center of Christianity in Constantinople. Even today, the Hagia Sophia is recognized as 1 of the greatest buildings in the world.
- Justinian besides systematized the Roman legal code that served as the ground for police in the Byzantine Empire.
- After a plague reduced the Byzantine population, they lost Rome and Italia to the Ostrogoths, and several important cities to the Persians.
Fundamental Terms
- Hagia Sophia: A church building built by Byzantine Emperor Justinian; the center of Christianity in Constantinople and i of the greatest buildings in the world to this day. It is now a mosque in the Muslim Istanbul.
- Nika riots: When angry racing fans, already angry over ascent taxes, became enraged at Emperor Justinian for absorbing two popular charioteers, and tried to depose him in 532 CE.
Byzantine Empire from Constantine to Justinian
Ane of Constantine'south successors, Theodosius I (379-395), was the final emperor to rule both the Eastern and Western halves of the empire. In 391 and 392, he issued a series of edicts essentially banning pagan religion. Pagan festivals and sacrifices were banned, as was access to all pagan temples and places of worship. The state of the empire in 395 may be described in terms of the outcome of Constantine'due south piece of work. The dynastic principle was established so firmly that the emperor who died in that year, Theodosius I, could bequeath the imperial function jointly to his sons, Arcadius in the Eastward and Honorius in the West.
The Eastern Empire was largely spared the difficulties faced by the west in the third and fourth centuries, due in role to a more firmly established urban civilisation and greater financial resources, which immune it to placate invaders with tribute and pay foreign mercenaries. Throughout the fifth century, various invading armies overran the Western Empire merely spared the east. Theodosius II further fortified the walls of Constantinople, leaving the metropolis impervious to most attacks; the walls were not breached until 1204.
To fend off the Huns, Theodosius had to pay an enormous almanac tribute to Attila. His successor, Marcian, refused to continue to pay the tribute, but Attila had already diverted his attention to the west. After his death in 453, the Hunnic Empire collapsed, and many of the remaining Huns were often hired as mercenaries by Constantinople.
Leo I succeeded Marcian equally emperor, and after the fall of Attila, the true master in Constantinople was the Alan general, Aspar. Leo I managed to free himself from the influence of the not-Orthodox chief by supporting the rise of the Isaurians, a semi-barbarian tribe living in southern Anatolia. Aspar and his son, Ardabur, were murdered in a riot in 471, and henceforth, Constantinople restored Orthodox leadership for centuries.
When Leo died in 474, Zeno and Ariadne's younger son succeeded to the throne as Leo II, with Zeno as regent. When Leo II died afterwards that year, Zeno became emperor. The end of the Western Empire is sometimes dated to 476, early in Zeno'due south reign, when the Germanic Roman general, Odoacer, deposed the titular Western Emperor Romulus Augustulus, but declined to replace him with another boob.
Emperor Justinian I
In 527 CE, Justinian I came to the throne in Constantinople. He dreamed of reconquering the lands of the Western Roman Empire and ruling a single, united Roman Empire from his seat in Constantinople.
The western conquests began in 533, as Justinian sent his general, Belisarius, to reclaim the former province of Africa from the Vandals, who had been in command since 429 with their capital at Carthage. Belisarius successfully defeated the Vandals and claimed Africa for Constantinople. Next, Justinian sent him to accept Italia from the Ostrogoths in 535 CE. Belisarius defeated the Ostrogoths in a series of battles and reclaimed Rome. Past 540 CE, most of Italy was in Justinian's easily. He sent another ground forces to conquer Spain.
Accomplishments in Byzantium
Justinian also undertook many important projects at home. Much of Constantinople was burned downward early in Justinian's reign afterwards a serial of riots called the Nika riots, in 532 CE, when angry racing fans became enraged at Justinian for arresting two popular charioteers (though this was really just the last harbinger for a populace increasingly angry over ascent taxes) and tried to depose him. The riots were put downwards, and Justinian set up about rebuilding the city on a grander scale. His greatest achievement was the Hagia Sophia, the most of import church building of the city. The Hagia Sophia was a staggering work of Byzantine architecture, intended to awe all who set foot in the church. It was the largest church in the globe for nearly a thousand years, and for the residual of Byzantine history it was the center of Christian worship in Constantinople.
Emperor Justinian'south most of import contribution, perhaps, was a unified Roman legal lawmaking. Prior to his reign, Roman laws had differed from region to region, and many contradicted one another. The Romans had attempted to systematize the legal code in the fifth century just had not completed the endeavour. Justinian ready up a commission of lawyers to put together a single code, listing each law by discipline then that information technology could be easily referenced. This not only served as the basis for police force in the Byzantine Empire, merely information technology was the main influence on the Catholic Church building's development of canon law, and went on to go the basis of police in many European countries. Justinian'southward law lawmaking continues to have a major influence on public international law to this twenty-four hour period.
The impact of a more unified legal code and military machine conflicts was the increased ability for the Byzantine Empire to establish trade and improve their economic continuing. Byzantine merchants traded non just all over the Mediterranean region, but also throughout regions to the e. These included areas effectually the Black Sea, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean.
Theodora
Theodora was empress of the Byzantine Empire and the wife of Emperor Justinian I. She was one of the well-nigh influential and powerful of the Byzantine empresses. Some sources mention her as empress regnant, with Justinian I as her co-regent. Forth with her husband, she is a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church building, commemorated on November 14.
Theodora participated in Justinian's legal and spiritual reforms, and her involvement in the increase of the rights of women was substantial. She had laws passed that prohibited forced prostitution and closed brothels. She created a convent on the Asian side of the Dardanelles chosen the Metanoia (Repentance), where the ex-prostitutes could support themselves. She also expanded the rights of women in divorce and property ownership, instituted the death penalty for rape, forbade exposure of unwanted infants, gave mothers some guardianship rights over their children, and forbade the killing of a wife who committed adultery.
Justinian'southward Difficulties
A terrible plague swept through the empire, killing Theodora and almost killing him. The plague wiped out huge numbers of the empire's population, leaving villages empty and crops unharvested. The regular army was also afflicted, and the Ostrogoths were able to effectively regain Italy in 546 CE, through guerrilla warfare confronting the Byzantine occupiers.
With Justinian's ground forces bogged downward fighting in Italy, the empire's defenses against the Persians on its eastern frontiers were weakened. In the Roman-Farsi Wars, the Persians invaded and destroyed a number of important cities. Justinian was forced to establish a humiliating fifty-yr peace treaty with them in 561 CE.
Still, Justinian kept the empire from collapse. He sent a new general, Narses, to Italy with a small force. Narses finally defeated the Ostrogoths and drove them back out of Italia. Past the time the war was over, Italian republic, once ane of the most prosperous lands in the ancient world, was wrecked. The city of Rome inverse hands multiple times, and near of the cities of Italy were abased or fell into a long flow of decline. The impoverishment of Italian republic and the weakened Byzantine military made it incommunicable for the empire to agree the peninsula. Shortly a new Germanic tribe, the Lombards, came in and conquered most of Italy, though Rome, Naples, and Ravenna remained isolated pockets of Byzantine control. At the same time, another new barbarian enemy, the Slavs, appeared from north of the Danube. They devastated Greece and the Balkans, and in the absence of strong Byzantine military might, they settled in small communities in these lands.
The Justinian Code
Justinian I accomplished lasting fame through his judicial reforms, peculiarly through the consummate revision of all Roman law that was compiled in what is known today as the Corpus juris civilis.
Learning Objectives
Explain the historical significance of Justinian's legal reforms
Key Takeaways
Key Points
- Shortly after Justinian became emperor in 527, he decided the empire's legal system needed repair.
- Early in his reign, Justinian appointed an official, Tribonian, to oversee this task.
- The project every bit a whole became known every bit Corpus juris civilis, or the Justinian Code.
- Information technology consists of the Codex Iustinianus, the Digesta, the Institutiones, and the Novellae.
- Many of the laws contained in the Codex were aimed at regulating religious exercise.
- The Corpus formed the basis not only of Roman jurisprudence (including ecclesiastical Canon Law ), merely also influenced ceremonious law throughout the Center Ages and into modern nation states.
Primal Terms
- Corpus juris civilis: The modern proper name for a drove of fundamental works in jurisprudence, issued from 529 to 534 by guild of Justinian I, Eastern Roman Emperor.
- Justinian I: A Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565. During his reign, he sought to revive the empire's greatness and reconquer the lost western half of the historical Roman Empire; he also enacted important legal codes.
Byzantine Emperor Justinian I achieved lasting fame through his judicial reforms, especially through the complete revision of all Roman law, something that had not previously been attempted. There existed three codices of imperial laws and other individual laws, many of which conflicted or were out of date. The total of Justinian'southward legislature is known today as the Corpus juris civilis.
The piece of work as planned had three parts:
- Codex: a compilation, by selection and extraction, of imperial enactments to date, going back to Hadrian in the 2nd century CE.
- Digesta: an encyclopedia equanimous of more often than not cursory extracts from the writings of Roman jurists. Fragments were taken out of various legal treatises and opinions and inserted in the Digesta.
- Institutiones: a student textbook, mainly introducing the Codex, although it has important conceptual elements that are less adult in the Codex or the Digesta.
All three parts, fifty-fifty the textbook, were given force of law. They were intended to be, together, the sole source of police; reference to any other source, including the original texts from which the Codex and the Digesta had been taken, was forbidden. Nonetheless, Justinian found himself having to enact further laws, and today these are counted equally a fourth role of the Corpus, the Novellae Constitutiones. As opposed to the remainder of the Corpus, the Novellae appeared in Greek, the mutual linguistic communication of the Eastern Empire.
The work was directed past Tribonian, an official in Justinian's courtroom. His team was authorized to edit what they included. How far they made amendments is not recorded and, in the main, cannot be known because most of the originals have not survived. The text was equanimous and distributed almost entirely in Latin, which was still the official language of the government of the Byzantine Empire in 529-534, whereas the prevalent linguistic communication of merchants, farmers, seamen, and other citizens was Greek.
Many of the laws contained in the Codex were aimed at regulating religious practice, included numerous provisions served to secure the status of Christianity as the state religion of the empire, uniting church and country, and making anyone who was not connected to the Christian church a non-citizen. It also independent laws forbidding particular pagan practices; for instance, all persons present at a pagan sacrifice may be indicted as if for murder. Other laws, some influenced by his married woman, Theodora, include those to protect prostitutes from exploitation, and women from existence forced into prostitution. Rapists were treated severely. Farther, by his policies, women charged with major crimes should be guarded by other women to foreclose sexual abuse; if a woman was widowed, her dowry should be returned; and a husband could non take on a major debt without his wife giving her consent twice.
Legacy
The Corpus forms the ground of Latin jurisprudence (including ecclesiastical Canon Law) and, for historians, provides a valuable insight into the concerns and activities of the later Roman Empire. As a drove, it gathers together the many sources in which the laws and the other rules were expressed or published (proper laws, senatorial consults, imperial decrees, case law, and jurists' opinions and interpretations). Information technology formed the footing of later Byzantine law, as expressed in the Basilika of Basil I and Leo Half-dozen the Wise. The but western province where the Justinian Code was introduced was Italy, from where information technology was to laissez passer to western Europe in the 12th century, and get the ground of much European law code. It eventually passed to eastern Europe, where it appeared in Slavic editions, and information technology as well passed on to Russia.
Information technology was non in full general use during the Early Centre Ages. Later the Early on Eye Ages, interest in it revived. It was "received" or imitated as private law, and its public law content was quarried for arguments by both secular and ecclesiastical regime. The revived Roman constabulary, in turn, became the foundation of constabulary in all civil law jurisdictions. The provisions of the Corpus Juris Civilis as well influenced the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church; it was said that ecclesia vivit lege romana—the church lives by Roman law. Its influence on common law legal systems has been much smaller, although some basic concepts from the Corpus have survived through Norman police—such as the dissimilarity, specially in the Institutes, betwixt "law" (statute) and custom. The Corpus continues to accept a major influence on public international police force. Its four parts thus constitute the foundation documents of the western legal tradition.
Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/byzantium-the-new-rome/
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