European
Christendom
500-1300
Ms. Jerome
Emperor Diocletian
• Vast empire as ungovernable
• Split the Roman Empire in half
• Created two equal emperors to rule under the title
of Augustus.
• Created the Western Roman Empire and the
Eastern Roman Empire.
Persecution of Christians
under Diocletian 284-305
Constantine
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlnJRyZTfEo&fe
ature=related
• Under Constantine, the Christians are the favored
group in the empire
• Becomes Augustus in the West
• Signs the Edict of Milan, together with Augustus in
the east, Licinus
o Edict offers tolerance to the Christians
Constantine—Sole Ruler
• Licinus later returned to persecutions
• Defeated by Constantine at the Battle of
Adrianople
• Constantine becomes sole ruler of entire Roman
Empire
• Rome in the west was in decay
• Constantine created a new center in the east
Byzantium
• Constantine founded the Constantinople, the cite
of the old Greek city Byzantium
Byzantium
• Mediterranean and
Black seas
connected through
the Bosporus Strait
• As the West
collapsed the East
prospered
• The Byzantine Empire
was the heir to the
Roman Empire
Center of Trade
• Geographic location made Constantinople center
of trade, linking Asia with Mediterranean
• Became a rich and powerful city
• Peaked under rule of Justinian
The Old Rome—the three
siblings of Rome
• The Old Roman Empire was under three influences
by 700
o The west: Political disintegration –the Medieval story (Feudal Pumpkin)
o Eastern Roman Empire –wielded authority over the Balkans, Asia, Middle
East, Egypt (Byzantine Empire)
o South: a new power—Islam
• Would become the greatest of the three civilizations
Byzantine Culture
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Mostly Greek culture
Always considered themselves Roman
Completely disregarded Latin
Grew to have little regard for the Pope
Read a Greek Bible in the east
Byzantium
• Took religion form Christianity
• Took its culture form the Greeks
• Governmental structures were largely Roman
Justinian (527-565)
• The last of the Roman
emperors
• Driven to revive the old
Roman Empire by
recovering lost Western
provinces
• Co-ruled with his wife
Theodora
• Together, they had
three major
accomplishments
1. Construction of Hagia
Sophia
• One of Byzantium’s foremost works of art
• Gold, silver, ivory and dazzling mosaics in the interior
2. Corpus Juris Civilis
• The “body of civil law”
• Served as the basis of law in Western Europe and
Byzantium
• Law code favored autocratic law over popular
sovereignty
• Absolute rulers found much to admire in Justinian’s
precept that “the emperor’s decree should be the
unquestioned law”
3. Resurgence of Imperial
Rome
• Wanted to relive “imperial Rome”
• Attempted to recover all of the lost provinces in the
West
• For a short time, Justinian succeeded in bringing
almost all of the Mediterranean coastline under the
domination of his “Roman authority”
• “For a few glorious years, the Mediterranean was
again a Roman sea.”
• Campaigns were the “Gothic Wars”
o Drained the Roman treasury
o Bankrupted the Byzantine Empire
o Barbarians would reconquer the land (save the Southern Italian coast)
shortly after Justinian’s death
Eastern vs. Western
Christianity
• Byzantine Christians rejected the Pope’s claim to
authority over all Christians
• Byzantine clergy married
• Greek not Latin was the language of the Byzantine
Church
• The Church divides largely over the issue of icons
• In 1054 there was a break and the East no longer
recognized the Pope as the church Authority
• Byzantine Church—the Eastern or Greek Orthodox
• West became: Roman Catholic Church
Biblia Pauperum, the "Bible
of the Poor”
Byzantine Heritage
• Although the Byzantine Empire would fall to
Ottoman Turks (Muslims) the Ottomans would adopt
much of its culture
• A blend of Greek science, Christian religion,
philosophy, art, literature, engineering, law
• Preservation of classics
• Culture of Byzantine Empire would later influence
the West in what becomes known as the
Renaissance.