High Jidapa Atipakkul 1004

The Byzantine Empire

In the early fourth century, there were many great changes in this period, including the
fall of Roman Empire. The Roman Empire was the most extensive political and social structure
in western civilization. By 285 CE, the empire had grown too vast to be ruled from the central
government at Rome and was divided into a Western and an Eastern Empire.
The Roman Empire began when Augustus Caesar became the first emperor of Rome and
ended, in the west, when the last Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed by the
Germanic tribe in 476 CE. In the east, the emperor Constantine established a new capital for
the Roman empire. This capital was situated on the site of a Greek colony called Byzantium.

The term “Byzantine” derives from Byzantium, an ancient Greek colony founded
by a man named Byzas. Located on the European side of the Bosporus, the strait linking
the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. After Roman Empire completely fell in 476 BCE. It
was divided into 2 parts: Western and Eastern Roman Empire. During the third and fourth
centuries, the emperor Constantine briefly united them and converted the empire to
Christianity. The city was named after its founder, the emperor, that people called it Tsargrad,
and it got its current name Istanbul after being conquered by the Turks. The emperor
Constantine spent a lot of time on the Eastern borders of the Empire due to the war with
Germania, so he mostly resided close to Little Asia, and rarely in Rome. In 330 A.D.,
Byzantium was become the site of a “New Rome”. Five years earlier, at the Council of
Nicaea, Constantine had established Christianity as Rome’s official religion.

Though the Byzantines emphasized their Roman origins, as time passed, they gradually
distinct from their origin. For instance, after the fall of Roman empire, there was the spread of
Christianity throughout the Roman empire. The eastern half of the Roman empire benefited
greatly from an internal political stability, as well as great wealth compared with other
regions at that time. The eastern emperors were able to exert more control over the
empire’s economic resources and more effectively muster sufficient manpower to
combat invasion. The empire included most of the land surrounding the Mediterranean
Sea in the reign of Justinian I.
 Justinian I was the Byzantine Emperor from 527 to 565. Unlike other great rulers,
he was not born into a royal family. He was born from a peasant woman named Vigilantia in
the Macedonian town of Tauresium. His uncle Justin brought him to Constantinople for an
education. During his reign, Justinian reorganized the government of the Byzantine Empire
and enacted several laws in order to increase responsibility in people and reduce corruption in
the society. This emperor enacted one of the famous laws in Medieval era called “Code of
Justinian”. It is the collections of laws and legal interpretations. It is important because it
became the basis for legal systems of most modern European countries. He also kept and copied
the works of the ancient Greeks; eventually, the Roman’s knowledge and wisdom turned up in
the city-states of northern Italy and help originate the Renaissance in Western Europe.
The Byzantine empire confronted several wars and problems. For instance, in 568,
Lombards invade Italy, eventually taking Northern Italy from the Byzantines. In 1054, there
was a great schism which the Latin Roman Church and the Greek Orthodox Church
excommunicate each other. It was event that precipitated the final separation between
the Eastern Christian churches, led by the patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Cerularius, and
the Western church, led by Pope Leo IX. There were different believes between Jesus Christ,
the nature of God and the day of Easter. The separation has been continued until today. The
Byzantine Empire aggravated more and more continuously. The beginning of the end of
Byzantium was the Fourth Crusade. Civil and religious unrest between, "Greeks and Latins,"
during the early 1,200s had erupted into bloody riots. Matters were further exacerbated by lack
of a clear leader since the Byzantians unfortunately elected bad emperors. Fourth Crusade
captured Constantinople. The Latin Empire of Constantinople was formed as well as many
Byzantine successor states. The capture of Constantinople in 1204 was a important point which
the Byzantines was never fully recovered.

The weak Byzantine empire continued until the final sack of Constantinople by the
Ottoman Turks in 1453. The land was renamed “Istanbul”. The majority of churches was
replaced by mosques since the Ottomans were originally Islamic. Finally, Turkisk culture took
over, and the Byzantine Empire was gone forever.

High Jidapa Atipakkul 1004