Byzantium

“The Brilliant
Civilization”
330 AD to 1453 AD
Originally called the
Eastern Roman
Empire
 Geography
 Centered among the three
continents of Asia, Europe, and
Africa
 Capital city of Constantinople was
strategically located on the
waterways of the Black Sea and the
Aegean Sea.
 This location gave it both
protection and control of trade
The civilization was centered
on former lands of Greece
and therefore Greek became
the language of choice
Separate government and
difficult communication from
the west gave the
Byzantine Empire its
character
Byzantine Culture and
Law
 culture
Preserved the cultures of both
Greece and Rome
Maintained Roman because
the early leaders were from
Rome and Greek because it
was on former Greek lands
 law
 Emperor Justinian reorganized and
categorized Roman Law.
 This became known as the
Justinian Code.
 Based on the laws of
precedence and the beginnings
of innocent until proven guilty
 Became the basis of later laws
throughout Europe
Justinian’s Code contains four
parts
 Code: 5000 Roman laws still considered useful for the
Roman Empire

 Digest: summarized the opinions of Rome’s greatest

legal thinkers

 Institutes: instructed law students how to use the law

 Novellae (new laws): laws passed in the empire after
534 AD
Justinian Code served the
empire for 900 years in all
areas of life
Ex. Marriage, slavery,
property, inheritance,
woman’s rights, etc…
 Religion of the Byzantium
Empire
 The Christian church was
introduce/made legal by Roman
Emperor Constantine.
 Lack of communication between the
Eastern (Byzantium) and Western
Roman Empire caused Christianity
to develop in different ways.
 Due to later influences of Greeks and
Persians, the church in Byzantium
became know as Eastern Orthodox
Church
 Byzantine emperors had tremendous
influences within the Orthodox church
because they were seen as God’s
representatives on earth
 Emperor was crowned by the Patriarch
who was the head of the Orthodox
Church. In return the emperor had the
authority to appoint church officials.
 Spread of the Church
 Through trade and missionaries the
church began to spread to the Balkans
and northward to Russia
 The church influenced language and
Cyril introduced the Cyrillic alphabet
 Cyril and Methodius were the apostles
to the Slavs. They created an alphabet
for the Slavic people and brought
Christianity
Division of the Church: The Great
Schism
 As the Orthodox Church became more
established in the East, their ideas on
how to conduct church affairs became
different from the West.
 This uniqueness led to the Great Schism
or split between the Roman Catholic
Church and the Orthodox Church (Greek
and Russian) in 1054 AD.
 Reasons for the Great Schism
 Use of icons
 religious images used to
aid in devotions.
 Roman Catholics
supported the use of
icons in the church while
many iconoclasts
wanted them removed
in the Orthodox Church.
 Reasons for the Great Schism
 Disagreement over
authority.
 The pope in Rome
and the Patriarch
in Constantinople.
Reasons for the Great Schism
Who
controlled
the
Churches
in the
Balkans?
 Reasons for the Great Schism
 When Constantinople
refused to aid Rome while
fighting the Lombards, the
Franks under the
leadership of
Charlemagne did.
 Later the Pope crowned
Charlemagne Emperor.
 Remember
West=
Roman Catholic Church
(Rome, W. Europe)
East=
Eastern Orthodox Church
(Greek, E. Europe)
End of the Byzantium Empire
 After
Justinian’s
death in 565
AD the empire
weakened
due to a
number of
reasons.
 Plague-
 similar to the
plague in the
1300s
 approximately
10,000 people
died per day
during
outbreaks
 Foreign Invasions
 East- Sassanid
Persians, Slejuk
Turks, Ottoman
Turks
 West-
Lombards
 North- Avars,
Slavs, and
Bulgars
Poor
leaders
 Byzantines
used bribes,
political
marriages, and
military power
to keep empire
 but lose to the
Ottoman Turks
in 1453 AD.