[Partly edited Spring 2008.  Use with caution.  The last part is really rough.]

Byzantium


For convenience sake, historians divide history up into three major periods, the ancient period, the medieval period and the modern period.  The first 2/3 of this course we spent on the ancient period.  We now move on to the medieval period.  Once again, for convenience sake, we divide the medieval period into three phases:
Today, we'll talk about the first important great society to arise during the Middle Ages, the Byzantine Empire.

The Byzantine Empire probably should be thought of simply as the Eastern Roman Empire, a direct continuation of the empire of Augustus and his successors.  So how does this empire get it's start?

You will remember that, in the 3rd century, Rome was in tremendous trouble, no longer able to provide physical security, ethical guidance, and emotional fulfillment the way that it once had.  The emperor Diocletian started to get things on track again, but, shortly after his reign, civil war and confusion break out again.  In the midst of all these struggles comes the great surprise, the rise of Christianity.

Christianity gave Roma a new lease on life.  Particularly in the east, the Christianized Roman Empire, what we call the Byzantine empire, remained strong for centuries.  But the Byzantine empire wasn't always quite as Christian as it might have  been, nor was Christianity always as helpful as it might have been.

The key figure in establishing the Byzantine empire was Constantine.  Constantine became co-emperor in 313 AD, and sole emperor in 324.  He continued to rule until his death in 337 AD.

Constantine faced enormous challenges, and realized he was going to have to make major changes if Rome was to survive.  But old Rome was not the place to do this.  The entrenched Roman bureaucracy (led by the senators) was not going to be easy to get on board with any significant changes.  So Consantine decided to create for himself a new capitol.  He chose the old Greek city of Byzantium for this capitol, calling it "New Rome."  Later, the city was called Constantinople, the city of Constantine, and today that same city is called Istanbul.

Constantinople was well situated for dealing with some of the most important threats to Roman security, e.g., invasion across the Danube and across the Euphrates.  Also, the new capitol gave Constantine the chance to appoint new senators, senators who would support his changes rather than stand in the way.  It was a perfect place from which to Christianize the empire.  Perhaps 50% of the population in that region was Christian already, and that proportion soon increased.  Constantine favored Christianity, building beautiful churches and subsidizing Christian clergy.

The latter was particularly important in trying to restore Roman morality.  Consantine, like earlier emperors, issued laws designed to restore Roman morals.  Now you've all heard people say you can't legislate morality.  Thats' a phenomenally stupid thing to say.  All law is legislated morality.  Legislating against murder is legislating morality.  Passing laws to help the poor is legislating morality.  As we've talked about "ethical guidance" in the various societies we've studied, we end up again and again looking at the laws of those societies.

But there is a small element of truth in the "can't legislate morality" view.  One can't get a moral people *only* through legislation.  New Kingdom Egypt is a great example.  Many laws, lots of  harsh penalties, but not much success.  In addition to law, one needs something else.  People need to internalize the values of their society.  And here's where Constantine had a great advantage.  His moral legislation wasn't much different than that of earlier emperors, but it was a lot more effective because he had the help of Christian preachers in getting people to internalize sound ethical precepts.  And many of  Rome's ethical problems did begin to disappear.  Marriages became more stable.  Infanticide comes to and end.  Reliance on slavery decreases as well.  Consantine also influences morality by a change in entertainment emphasis: no longer the bloody gladiatorial shows, but now entertainments in the hippodrome--chariot races!

Further, Christianity helped Constantine unify  his people.  Christians regarded him as a 13th apostle, a man who had done as much as Simon, Andrew, James, John and the rest to further the gospel.  And, in many ways he did.   Within a few decades, 90% of people in the empire were Christians, at least nominally.  This gave Constanine a fervent core of supporters.  More than that, Constantine had found a tremendous force for unity in the empire.  The old idea of a god-leader had sometimes worked to unify people, but it carried with it enormous problems as well.  Christianity taught people to respect leadership ("There is no power but of God," says Paul, "and the powers that be are ordained of God."  But now the leader can have peoples allegiance without the baggage of being a God-man.

Now this didn't completely solve the instablility problem.  There were 88 Byzantine emperors, 29 of whom were assassinated.  Not so good, but much better than the 25 out of 26 assassinated during the 235-284 AD period!  Constantine's reforms meant that civil war was far less of a problem, and, while Constantine himself was alive, he kept outside invaders pretty well in check.

After Constantine's death, however, the invasions resumed.  Franks, Visigoths, Ostrogoths and Vandals invaded, plundering the eastern empire, and occupying the west.  But here, too, Christianity helped somewhat.  Each of the Barbarian groups converted to Christianity, and, once converted, they could be absorbed into the empire.  Rome had for a long time been a sort of melting pot, but Christianity makes it even more effective, giving it an exceptional ability to assimilate people from all kinds of backgrounds.

Once assimilated, those with barbarian heritage could play important roles in the empire.  They were often recruited for the army, defending the empire against new waves of invaders.

The family of the emperor of Justinian is a good example.  Barbarian in background, they convert to Christianity, rise up through military service, and end up running the whole show!

Justinian (emperor between 527-565) at first looked like he was going to be a failure.  When he took over, the Western empire had already fallen to wave after wave of invasion.  There were riots in Constantinople as well, riots touched off by disputes among the sports fanatics.  Fans of the "greens" and the "blues" were engaged in violent altercations, and Justinian tried to bring these to and end.  No luck.  Arresting the leaders led to unity of the greens and blues--they both agreed that Justinian had to go.

Justinian would have abdicated, but his wife Theadora convinced him to gut it out.  Thirty thousand people died in the Nika riots, but, in the end, Justinian was in control of his capitol.  And, from there, he set out to rebuild the empire once again.  He reqconquered much of what had been lost, winning back Italy, N. Africa, and much else.  Not only that, Justinian rebuilt much of the infrastructure of the empire: roads, canals, harbors, etc.  He built beautiful churches including Hagia Sophia.

Justininian, however, is probably most famous for his law code.  By the time of Justinian, Roman law was a confused jumble.  There were laws passed by the senate, laws passed by the assemply, laws issued by emperors.  Justinian had his lawyers take this mess and come up with a coherent, consistent code.  In addition, his jurists came up with a philosophy of law to go with the code--using, in part, Christian teachings to do so.  Here's another way, then, that Christianity was helping rome get a new lease on life.

It's important to understand also that Byzantine Christians trulty believed in their society.  "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," says the Lord's Prayer, and the Byzantines certainly had the sense that they were doing God's will on earth.  Could there be a better source of emotional fulfillment, i.e., of reasons to believe your society is a good one?

Did they succeed in putting Christ's teaching into practice?  To a large extent, they did.  But the Byzantines could occasionally be cruel.  The empress  Irene blinded her own son in order to keep power in her own hands.  And then there's Basil the Bulgar slayer--a successful emperor and general.  But note this comment from Wikipedia:

"Finally, on July 29, 1014, Basil II outmaneuvered the Bulgarian army in the Battle of Kleidion, with Samuil separated from his force. Having crushed the Bulgarians, Basil was said to have captured 15,000 prisoners and blinded 99 of every 100 men, leaving 150 one-eyed men to lead them back to their ruler, who fainted at the sight and died two days later suffering a stroke. Although this may be an exaggeration, this gave Basil his nickname Boulgaroktonos, "the Bulgar-slayer" in later tradition."

   
  What follows is cut-and paste from Weatherstone notes.  There are errors.  Use only with caution.
 
    2) Religious divisions : Christological controversies
      i) Nature of Jesus
        a) Arianism - said that Jesus was created by God - and he had not always existed
          1) Had bishops from the empire form to meet and decide if this was a proper way to philosophize about Christianity - Bishops vote that the Arians are heretics at an Ecumenical Council at Nicaea - also developed Nicaean creed
        b) homousaious vs. homoiusaious (there is a difference in the spelling, notice the "i")
          1) argument about the essence of Jesus
            i) homousaious say that the essence of Jesus is of like matter of god
            ii) homoiusaious say that the essence of Jesus is of the same matter as god
           2) ecumenical council is held and the "like essence" people are called heretics
        c) Theotokos - is Mary the birth giver or mother of god
          1) all who say birth giver are condemned as heretics
        d) natures of Jesus, does he have a full human and full god nature?
          1) those who think this , Monophysite, are called heretics
        e) monothelites - both natures of Jesus are after the same goal =  heretics
        f) monoergasistes - Jesus is made of two common engeries = heretics
*Note - you probably don't need to know the details of these controversies, just know that the church went on a mad rash of condemning people heretics.
*I do know some of the details behind these controversies if you would like a deeper explanation to use on a test or something - study group every Monday and Wednesday at 7 in mj347.
*Note - people are arguing about nothing, these question that the church is trying to answer mean very little to the Christian faith, but they allowed simple disputes in philosophy to divide the church and divide the Roman empire.
    3) iconoclastic controversy
      i) Byzantine churches were filled with images of Christian art
      ii) controversy started by going to the ten commandments and the rule about worshiping idols and graven images
      iii) agreement was that Jesus was an image, and anyone holding the view that there should be no images was anti-Jesus.