Latin Rulers of Constantinople 1204-1261AD Byzantine Coin Virgin Christ i33407

Item: i33407

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Byzantine – Latin Rulers of Constantinople 1204-1261 A.D.

Billon Trachea 27mm (2.98 grams) Constantinople mint: 1204-1261 A.D.
Reference: Sear 2026
Christ enthroned.
Emperor left, crowed by Virgin right.

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Mary  variously called
Saint
Mary, Mother Mary, the Virgin Mary, the
Theotokos
,
the
Blessed Virgin Mary
, Mary,
Mother of God
, and, in
Islam
, as
Maryam
, mother of
Isa
‘, was an
Israelite

Jewish

woman of Nazareth
in Galilee
who lived in the late 1st century BC and early 1st century AD, and
is considered by Christians to be the first
proselyte

to Christianity
. She is identified in the
New
Testament
and in the
Qur’an
as the mother of
Jesus

through
divine intervention
. Christians hold her son Jesus to be
Christ
(i.e.
the messiah
)
and God
the Son

Incarnate
(see
Trinitarian monotheism
), whereas Muslims regard Jesus as the messiah and
the most important prophet of God sent to the people of Israel (and the
second-most-important prophet of all, lesser than
Muhammad

alone).

The
canonical gospels
of
Matthew
and
Luke
describe Mary as a virgin (Greek παρθένος, parthénos).
Traditionally,
Christians
believe that she conceived her son miraculously by the agency of
the
Holy Spirit
.
Muslims
believe that she conceived by the command of God. This took place
when she was already
betrothed
to
Saint
Joseph
and was awaiting the concluding rite of marriage, the formal
home-taking ceremony.
She married Joseph and accompanied him to
Bethlehem
,
where Jesus was born.
In keeping with Jewish custom, the betrothal would have taken place when she was
around 12, and the birth of Jesus about a year later.

The New Testament begins its account of Mary’s life with the Annunciation,
when the angel Gabriel
appeared to her and announced her divine selection to be the mother
of Jesus. Church tradition and early non-biblical writings state that her
parents were an elderly couple,
Saint Joachim
and
Saint Anne
.
The Bible records Mary’s role in key events of the life of Jesus from his
conception to his Ascension.
Apocryphal
writings tell of her subsequent death and bodily
assumption
into heaven.

Christians of the
Catholic Church
, the
Eastern Orthodox Church
,
Oriental Orthodox Church
,
Anglican Communion
, and
Lutheran
churches believe that Mary, as mother of Jesus, is the Mother of
God and the
Theotokos
,
literally Bearer of God. Mary has been venerated since
Early Christianity
.
Throughout the ages she has been a favorite subject in Christian art, music, and
literature.

There is significant diversity in the
Marian
beliefs
and devotional practices of major Christian traditions. The Catholic
Church has a number of
Marian dogmas
, such as the
Immaculate Conception of Mary
the
Perpetual Virginity of Mary
, and the
Assumption of Mary
into Heaven. Catholics refer to her as
Our Lady
and
venerate

her as the
Queen of Heaven
and
Mother of the Church
; most
Protestants
do not share these beliefs.^[8][9]
Many Protestants see a minimal role for Mary within Christianity, based on the
brevity of biblical references.

In ancient sources

New Testament

The
Annunciation
by
Eustache Le Sueur
, an example of 17th century
Marian art
. The
Angel
Gabriel
announces to Mary her pregnancy with
Jesus

and offers her
White Lillies

The New Testament account of her humility and obedience to the message of
God have made her an exemplar for all ages of Christians. Out of the details
supplied in the New Testament by the Gospels about the maid of Galilee,
Christian piety and theology have constructed a picture of Mary that
fulfills the prediction ascribed to her in the Magnificat (Luke 1:48):
“Henceforth all generations will call me blessed.”

— “Mary.” Web: 29Sep2010 Encyclopædia
Britannica Online.

The Icon

of Our Lady of the Sign (Greek:

Panagia

or Παναγία;
Old Church
Slavonic
: Ikona Bozhey
Materi “Znamenie”;
Polish
:
Ikona Bogurodzicy “Znak” ‘) is
the term for a particular type of
icon

of the Theotokos

(Virgin Mary), facing the viewer directly, depicted either full length or
half, with her hands raised in the
orans

position, and with the image of the
Child Jesus

depicted within a round
aureole

upon her breast.

Our Lady of the Sign (18th century,

iconostasis
of the Transfiguration church,
Kizhi

monastery, Karelia, Russia).

The icon depicts the Theotokos during the
Annunciation

at the moment of saying, “May it be done to me according to your word.”(Luke
1:38). The image of the Christ child represents him at the
moment of his conception in the womb of the Virgin. He is depicted not as a
fetus, but rather vested in divine robes, and often holding a scroll,
symbolic of his role as teacher. Sometimes his robes are gold or white,
symbolizing divine glory; sometimes they are blue and red, symbolizing the
two natures of Christ (see
Christology
).
His face is depicted as that of an old man, indicating the Christian
teaching that he was at one and the same time both a fully human infant and
fully the eternal God, one of the Trinity. His right hand is raised in
blessing.

The term Virgin of the Sign or Our Lady of the Sign is a
reference to the
prophecy

of Isaiah

7:14
:
“Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall
conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name
Immanuel
“.
Such an image is often placed in the
apse

of the sanctuary

of an Orthodox
church

above the
Holy Table

(altar).^[2]

As with most Orthodox icons of Mary, the letters ΜΡ ΘΥ (short for ΜΗΤΗΡ
ΘΕΟΥ, “Mother
of God“) are usually placed on the upper left and right of
the head of the Virgin Mary.

This type of icon is also sometimes called the Platytéra (Greek:
Πλατυτέρα, literally wider or more spacious); poetically, by
containing the
Creator

of the Universe

in her
womb
,
Mary has become Platytera ton ouranon (Πλατυτέρα των Ουρανών): “More
spacious than the heavens”. The Platytéra is traditionally depicted
on the half-dome that stands above the
altar
.
It is visible high above the
iconostasis
,
and facing down the length of the
nave

of the church. This particular depiction is usually on a dark blue
background, often adorned by golden stars.

History

The depiction of the
Virgin Mary

with her hands upraised in prayer (“orans”) is of very ancient origin in
Christian art
.
In the
mausoleum of St
Agnes
in
Rome

is a depiction dating to the 4th century which depicts the Theotokos with
hands raised in prayer and the infant
Jesus

sitting upon her knees. There is also an ancient Byzantine
icon

of the Mother of God “Nikopea” from the 6th century, where the Virgin Mary
is depicted seated upon a
throne

and holding in her hands an oval shield with the image of “Emmanuel”.

Icons of the Virgin, known as “The Sign”, appeared in
Russia

during the 11th to 12th centuries. The icon became highly venerated in
Russia because of what
Orthodox
Christians
believe to be the miraculous deliverance of
Novgorod

from invasion in the year 1170.

Among the more famous variants of this genre are the Icons of the Mother
of God of
Abalatsk
,
Kursk-Root
,
Mirozh
,
Novgorod
,
Sankt Petersburg
,
Tsarskoye Selo

and Vologda
.

The
Church of St.
Stanislaus Kostka
, one of
Chicago
‘s
famed
Polish Cathedrals
,
is home to a 9-foot-wide (2.7 m) Iconic
Monstrance

of Our Lady of the Sign as part of the planned
Sanctuary

of
The Divine Mercy

that is being constructed adjacent to the church. The Monstrance will be
found within the sanctuary’s adoration
chapel

which will be the focus of 24-hour
Eucharistic
Adoration
and where there will be no liturgies or vocal
prayers, either by individuals or groups as the space will be strictly meant
for private meditation and contemplation.

The English name “Mary” comes from the
Greek
Μαρία, which is a shortened form of Μαριάμ. The New
Testament name was based on her original
Hebrew
name מִרְיָם or
Miryam
. 
Both Μαρία and Μαριάμ appear in the New Testament.

Specific references

• Luke’s gospel mentions Mary most often, identifying her by name twelve
  times, all of these in the infancy narrative.
• Matthew’s gospel mentions her by name five times, four of these  in the infancy narrative and only once  outside the infancy narrative.
• Mark’s gospel names her only once
  (6:3)
  and mentions her as Jesus’ mother without naming her in
  
  3:31
  .
• John’s gospel refers to her twice but never mentions her by name.
  Described as Jesus’ mother, she makes two appearances in John’s gospel. She
  is first seen at the wedding at Cana of Galilee
  which is mentioned only in the fourth gospel. The second reference in John,
  also exclusively listed this gospel, has the mother of Jesus standing near
  the cross of her son together with the (also unnamed) “disciple whom Jesus
  loved.
  John 2:1-12
  is the only text in the canonical gospels in which Mary
  speaks to (and about) the adult Jesus.
• In the Book of Acts, Luke’s second writing, Mary and the “brothers
  of Jesus” are mentioned in the company of the eleven who are gathered in
  the upper room after the ascension.
• In the Book of Revelation,^[12:1,5-6]
  John’s apocalypse never explicitly identifies the “woman clothed with the
  sun” as Mary of Nazareth, the mother of Jesus. However, some interpreters
  have made that connection.

Family and early life

The New Testament tells little of Mary’s early history. The 2nd century
Protoevangelium of James
is the first source to name her parents as
Joachim
and
Anne
.

According to Luke, Mary was a cousin of
Elizabeth
, wife of the priest
Zechariah
of the priestly division of
Abijah
, who was
herself part of the
lineage of Aaron
and so of the tribe of Levi.
Some of those who consider that the relationship with Elizabeth was on the
maternal side, consider that Mary, like Joseph, to whom she was betrothed, was
of the House of David and so of the tribe of Judah, and that the
genealogy of Jesus
presented in
Luke 3
from
Nathan, third son of David and Bathsheba
, is in fact the genealogy of Mary,
while the genealogy from
Solomon
given
in Matthew 1

is that of Joseph.
(Aaron’s wife
Elisheba
was of the tribe of Judah, so all his descendents are from both
Levi and Judah.)

The Virgin’s first seven steps mosaic from
Chora Church
, c. 12th century.

Mary resided in “her own house”
in Nazareth

in Galilee
,
possibly with her parents, and during her betrothal – the first stage of a
Jewish marriage
– the
angel
Gabriel
announced to her that she was to be the mother of the promised
Messiah
by
conceiving him through the Holy Spirit.
After a number of months, when Joseph was told of her conception in a dream by
“an angel of the Lord”, he was surprised; but the angel told him to be unafraid
and take her as his wife, which Joseph did, thereby formally completing the
wedding rites.

Since the angel Gabriel had told Mary that Elizabeth – having previously been barren – was then
miraculously pregnant, Mary hurried to see Elizabeth, who was living with her
husband Zechariah in “Hebron, in the hill country of Judah”.
Mary arrived at the house and greeted Elizabeth who called Mary “the mother of
my Lord”, and Mary spoke the words of praise that later became known as the
Magnificat

from her first word in the
Latin
version.
After about three months, Mary returned to her own house.

According to the Gospel of Luke, a decree of the Roman emperor
Augustus
required that Joseph return to his hometown of
Bethlehem

to be
taxed
. While he was there with Mary, she gave birth to Jesus; but because
there was no place for them in the inn, she used a
manger
as a
cradle.
After eight days, he was
circumcised
according to Jewish law, and named “JESUS”
in accordance with the instructions that the angel had given to Mary in
Luke 1:31
, and Joseph was likewise told to call him Jesus in
Matthew 1:21
.

After Mary continued in the “blood of her purifying” another 33 days for a
total of 40 days, she brought her burnt offering and sin offering to the temple,
so the priest could make atonement for her sins, being cleansed from her blood.
They also presented Jesus – “As it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male
that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord” . After the prophecies of
Simeon
and the prophetess
Anna
in
Luke 2:25-38
concluded, Joseph and Mary took Jesus and “returned into
Galilee, to their own city Nazareth.”.

Sometime later, the “wise
men” showed up at the “house” where Jesus and his family were staying, and
they fled by night and stayed in Egypt for awhile, and returned after Herod died
in 4 BC and took up residence in Nazareth.

Mary in the life of
Jesus

Stabat Mater
in the
Valle Romita Polyptych
by
Gentile da Fabriano
, c. 1410-1412

Mary is involved in the only event in Jesus’ adolescent life that is recorded
in the New Testament. At the age of twelve Jesus, having become separated from
his parents on their return journey from the
Passover

celebration in
Jerusalem
,
was found among the teachers in the temple.

After Jesus’ baptism
by
John the Baptist
and his temptations by the devil in the desert, Mary was
present when, at her suggestion, Jesus worked his first
Cana miracle during
a marriage they attended, by
turning water into wine
.
Subsequently there are events when Mary is present along with
James
, Joseph, Simon, and
Judas
, called Jesus’ brothers, and unnamed “sisters”.
Following Jerome
,
the Church Fathers
interpreted the words translated as “brother” and “sister” as
referring to close relatives.

There is also an incident in which Jesus is sometimes interpreted as
rejecting his family. “And his mother and his brothers arrived, and standing
outside, they sent in a message asking for him^[ 3:21Mk]
… And looking at those who sat in a circle around him, Jesus said, ‘These are
my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and
sister, and mother.'”

Mary is also depicted as being present among the
women at the crucifixion
during the
crucifixion
standing near “the disciple whom Jesus loved” along with Mary of
Clopas and
Mary Magdalene
,^{[ 19:25-26Jn]}
to which list
Matthew 27:56
adds “the mother of the sons of Zebedee”, presumably the
Salome
mentioned in
Mark 15:40
. This representation is called a
Stabat Mater
.
Mary, cradling the dead body of her Son, while not recorded in the Gospel
accounts, is a common motif in art, called a “pietà”
or “pity”.

After the
Ascension of Jesus

In
Acts 1:26, especially v. 14,
Mary is the only one to be mentioned by
name other than the
eleven apostles
, who abode in the
upper room
,
when they returned from mount Olivet. (It is not stated where the later
gathering of about one hundred and twenty disciples was located, when they
elected
Matthias
to fill the office of
Judas Iscariot
who perished.) Some speculate that the “elect lady” mentioned
in
2 John 1:1
may be Mary. From this time, she disappears from the
biblical accounts, although it is held by Catholics that she is again portrayed
as the heavenly woman of
Revelation
.

Her death is not recorded in the scripture. However, Catholic and Orthodox
tradition and doctrine have her
assumed
(taken bodily) into
Heaven
. Belief in the corporeal assumption of Mary is universal to
Catholicism
, in both
Eastern
and
Western Catholic Churches
, as well as the
Eastern Orthodox Church
. 
Coptic Churches
, and parts of the
Anglican Communion
and
Continuing Anglican Churches
.

Later
Christian writings and traditions

 

The Dormition
: ivory plaque, late 10th-early 11th century (Musée
de Cluny).

According to the
apocryphal

Gospel of James
Mary was the daughter of
Saint Joachim
and
Saint Anne
.
Before Mary’s conception Anna had been barren. Mary was given to service as a
consecrated virgin in the Temple in Jerusalem when she was three years old, much
like
Hannah
took
Samuel
to the
Tabernacle
as recorded in the
Old
Testament
.^[29]
Some
apocryphal
accounts state that at the time of her betrothal to Joseph Mary
was 12–14 years old, and he was ninety years old, but such accounts are
unreliable.

According to
Sacred Tradition
, Mary died surrounded by the
apostles
(in either
Jerusalem

or Ephesus
)
between three days and 24 years after Christ’s
ascension
. When the apostles later opened her tomb, they found it to be
empty and they concluded that she had been
assumed
into Heaven
.
Mary’s Tomb
, an empty tomb in Jerusalem, is attributed to Mary.
The Roman Catholic Church teaches
Mary’s assumption
, but does not teach that she
necessarily died.

Hyppolitus of Thebes
claims that Mary lived for 11 years after the death of
her Son, dying in 41 AD.

The earliest extant biographical writing on Mary is
Life of the Virgin
attributed to the 7th century saint,
Maximus the Confessor
which portrays her as a key element of the
early Christian Church
after the death of Jesus.

In the 19th century, a house near
Ephesus
in
Turkey
was
found, based on the visions of
Anne Catherine Emmerich
, an
Augustinian nun
in Germany
It has since been visited as the
House of the Virgin Mary
by Roman Catholic pilgrims who consider it the
place where Mary lived until her assumption.^{[41][42][43][44]}
The Gospel of John states that Mary went to live with the
Disciple whom Jesus loved

identified as
John the Evangelist
.
Irenaeus

and
Eusebius of Caesarea
wrote in their histories that John later went to
Ephesus, which may provide the basis for the early belief that Mary also lived
in Ephesus with John.

Christian devotion

2nd to 5th centuries

Christian devotion to Mary goes back to the 2nd century and predates the
emergence of a specific Marian liturgical system in the 5th century, following
the
First Council of Ephesus
in 431. The Council itself was held at a church in
Ephesus which had been dedicated to Mary about a hundred years before.
In Egypt the veneration of Mary had started in the 3rd century and the term
Theotokos

was used by Origen
,
the
Alexandrian
Father of the Church.

The earliest known Marian prayer (the
Sub tuum praesidium
, or Beneath Thy Protection) is from the 3rd
century (perhaps 270), and its text was rediscovered in 1917 on a papyrus in
Egypt.
Following the
Edict of Milan
in 313, by the 5th century artistic images of Mary began to
appear in public and larger churches were being dedicated to Mary, e.g.
S. Maria Maggiore
in Rome.

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages saw many legends about Mary, and also her parents and even
grandparents.

Since the Reformation

Key articles on Mariology
General perspective Mother of Jesus
Specific views Anglican • Eastern Orthodox • Lutheran • Marian veneration • Muslim • Protestant • Roman Catholic
Prayers & devotions   Hymns to Mary • Hail Mary • Rosary
Ecumenical Ecumenical views
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Over the centuries, devotion and veneration to Mary has varied greatly among
Christian traditions. For instance, while Protestants show scant attention to
Marian prayers or devotions, of all the saints whom the Orthodox venerate, the
most honored is Mary, who is considered “more honorable than the
Cherubim
and more glorious than the
Seraphim
.”

Orthodox theologian
Sergei Bulgakov
wrote: “Love and veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary is
the soul of Orthodox piety. A faith in Christ which does not include his mother
is another faith, another Christianity from that of the Orthodox church.”

Although the Catholics and the Orthodox may honor and venerate Mary, they do
not view her as divine, nor do they worship her. Catholics view Mary as
subordinate to Christ, but uniquely so, in that she is seen as above all other
creatures.
Similarly Theologian
Sergei Bulgakov
wrote that although the Orthodox view Mary as “superior to
all created beings” and “ceaselessly pray for her intercession” she is not
considered a “substitute for the One Mediator” who is Christ.
“Let Mary be in honor, but let worship be given to the Lord” he wrote.
Similarly, Catholics do not worship Mary, but venerate her. Catholics use the
term
hyperdulia
for Marian veneration rather than
latria
that
applies to God and
dulia
for other saints.
The definition of the three level hierarchy of latria, hyperdulia
and dulia goes back to the
Second Council of Nicaea
in 787.

Devotions to artistic depictions of Mary vary among Christian traditions.
There is a long tradition of
Roman Catholic Marian art
and no image permeates
Catholic art
as does the image of
Madonna and Child
.
The icon of the Virgin is without doubt the most venerated icon among the
Orthodox.
Both Roman Catholics and the Orthodox venerate images and icons of Mary, given
that the
Second Council of Nicaea
in 787 permitted their veneration by Catholics with
the understanding that those who venerate the image are venerating the reality
of the person it represents,
and the 842 Synod of Constantinople established the same for the Orthodox.^[66]
The Orthodox, however, only pray to and venerate flat, two-dimensional icons and
not three-dimensional statues.

The
Anglican
position towards Mary is in general more conciliatory than that of
Protestants at large and in a book he wrote about praying with the icons of
Mary,
Rowan Williams
, the
Archbishop of Canterbury
said: “It is not only that we cannot understand
Mary without seeing her as pointing to Christ; we cannot understand Christ
without seeing his attention to Mary”.

Titles

Eleusa

Theotokos
with scenes from the life of Mary, 18th century

Titles to honor Mary or ask for her intercession are used by some Christian
traditions such as the
Eastern Orthodox
or
Catholics
, but not others, e.g. the
Protestants
. Common titles for Mary include
Mother of God
(Theotokos), The Blessed Virgin Mary (also
abbreviated to “BVM”), Our Lady (Notre Dame, Nuestra Señora, Nossa
Senhora, Madonna) and the
Queen of Heaven
(Regina Caeli).

Specific titles vary among
Anglican views of Mary
,
Ecumenical views of Mary
,
Lutheran views of Mary
,
Protestant views on Mary
, and
Roman Catholic views of Mary
,
Latter Day Saints’ views of Mary
,
Orthodox views of Mary
. In addition to
Islamic views on Mary
.

Mary is referred to by the
Eastern Orthodox Church
,
Oriental Orthodoxy
, the
Anglican Church
, and all
Eastern Catholic Churches
as Theotokos, a title recognized at the
Third Ecumenical Council
(held at Ephesus to address the teachings of
Nestorius
,
in 431). Theotokos (and its Latin equivalents, “Deipara” and “Dei genetrix”)
literally means “Godbearer”. The equivalent phrase “Mater Dei”, (Mother of God)
is more common in Latin and so also in the other languages used in the
Western Catholic Church
, but this same phrase in Greek (Μήτηρ Θεοῦ), in the
abbreviated form of the first and last letter of the two words (ΜΡ ΘΥ), is the
indication attached to her image in Byzantine icons. The Council stated that the
Church Fathers “did not hesitate to speak of the holy Virgin as the Mother of
God”.

Some titles have a Biblical basis, for instance the title Queen Mother
has been given to Mary since she was the mother of Jesus, who was sometimes
referred to as the “King of Kings” due to his lineage of King David. The
biblical basis for the term Queen can be seen in the
Gospel of Luke
1:32 and the
Book of Isaiah
9:6, and Queen Mother from
1 Kings 2:19-20
and
Jeremiah 13:18-19
.
Other titles have arisen from reported miracles, special appeals or occasions
for calling on Mary, e.g.
Our Lady of Good Counsel
,
Our Lady of Navigators
or
Our Lady of Ransom
who protects captives.

The three main titles for Mary used by the Orthodox are
Theotokos
,
i.e., Mother of God (Greek Θεοτόκος),
Aeiparthenos
, i.e. Ever Virgin (Greek ἀειπαρθὲνος), as confirmed in
the
Fifth Ecumenical Council
553, and
Panagia
,
i.e., All Holy (Greek Παναγία).
A large number of titles for Mary are used by Roman Catholics, and these titles
have in turn given rise to many artistic depictions, e.g. the title
Our Lady of Sorrows
has resulted in masterpieces such as
Michelangelo
‘s
Pietà
.

Marian feasts

The earliest feasts that relate to Mary grew out of the cycle of feasts that
celebrated the
Nativity of Jesus
. Given that according to the
Gospel of Luke
(Luke
2:22-40), forty days after the birth of Jesus, along with the
Presentation of Jesus at the Temple
Mary was purified according to Jewish
customs, the Feast of the Purification began to be celebrated by the 5th
century, and became the “Feast of
Simeon
” in
Byzantium
.

 

Village decorations during the
Feast of the Assumption
in
Għaxaq
,
Malta.

In the 7th and 8th centuries four more Marian feasts were established in the
Eastern Church
. In the
Western Church
a feast dedicated to Mary, just before Christmas was
celebrated in the Churches of
Milan
and
Ravenna
in
Italy in the 7th century. The four Roman Marian feasts of Purification,
Annunciation, Assumption and Nativity of Mary were gradually and sporadically
introduced into England by the 11th century.

Over time, the number and nature of feasts (and the associated
Titles of Mary
) and the venerative practices that accompany them have varied
a great deal among diverse Christian traditions. Overall, there are
significantly more titles, feasts and venerative Marian practices among
Roman Catholics
than any other Christians traditions.
Some such feasts relate to specific events, e.g. the Feast of
Our Lady of Victory
was based on the 1571 victory of the
Papal
States
in the
Battle of Lepanto
.

Differences in feasts may also originate from doctrinal issues – the
Feast of the Assumption
is such an example. Given that there is no agreement
among all Christians on the circumstances of the death,
Dormition
or
Assumption of Mary
, the feast of assumption is celebrated among some
denominations and not others.
While the
Catholic Church
celebrates the Feast of the Assumption on August 15, some
Eastern Catholics
celebrate it as
Dormition of the Theotokos
, and may do so on August 28, if they follow the
Julian calendar
. The
Eastern Orthodox
also celebrate it as the
Dormition of the Theotokos
, one of their 12
Great Feasts
. Protestants do not celebrate this, or any other Marian feasts.

Christian doctrines

There is significant diversity in the Marian doctrines accepted by various
Christian churches. The key Marian doctrines held in Christianity can be briefly
outlined as follows:

• Mother of God
  : holds that Mary, as mother of Jesus is therefore
  Theotokos

  (God-bearer), or Mother of God.

• Virgin birth of Jesus
  : states that Mary miraculously conceived Jesus by
  action of the
  Holy Spirit
  while remaining a virgin.
• Dormition
  : commemorates Mary’s “falling asleep” or natural death shortly
  before her Assumption.
• Assumption
  : the doctrine which states that Mary was taken bodily into
  Heaven either at, or before, her death.
• Immaculate Conception
  : states that Mary herself was conceived without
  original sin
  .
• Perpetual Virginity
  : holds that Mary remained a virgin all her life,
  even after the act of giving birth to Jesus.

The acceptance of these Marian doctrines by Christians can be summarized as
follows:

The title “Mother of God” (Theotokos)
for Mary was confirmed by the
First Council of Ephesus
, held at the
Church of Mary
in 431. The Council decreed that Mary is the Mother of God
because her son Jesus is one person who is both God and man, divine and human.
This doctrine is widely accepted by Christians in general, and the term Mother
of God had already been used within the oldest known prayer to Mary, the
Sub tuum praesidium
which dates to around 250 AD.

The
Virgin birth of Jesus
has been a universally held belief among Christians
since the 2nd century,
It is included in the two most widely used
Christian
creeds
,
which state that Jesus “was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin
Mary” (the
Nicene
Creed
in what is now its familiar form)
and the
Apostles’ Creed
. The
Gospel of Matthew
describes Mary as a virgin who fulfilled the prophecy of

Isaiah 7:14
. The authors of the Gospels of Matthew and
Luke
consider Jesus’ conception not the result of intercourse and assert
that Mary had “no relations with man” before Jesus’ birth.
This alludes to the belief that Mary conceived Jesus through the action of God
the Holy Spirit, and not through
intercourse
with Joseph or anyone else.

The doctrines of the
Assumption
or
Dormition
of Mary relate to her death and bodily assumption to
Heaven
. While
the
Roman Catholic Church
has established the
dogma
of the Assumption, namely that Mary went directly to Heaven without a
usual physical death, the
Eastern Orthodox Church
believes in the Dormition, i.e. that she fell
asleep, surrounded by the Apostles.

Roman Catholics believe in the
Immaculate Conception of Mary
, as proclaimed
Ex Cathedra
by Pope
Pius IX
in 1854, namely that she was filled with grace from the very moment
of her conception in her mother’s womb and preserved from the stain of original
sin. The
Latin Rite
of the
Roman Catholic Church
has a liturgical
feast by that name
, kept on 8 December.
The
Eastern Orthodox
reject the Immaculate Conception principally because their
understanding of ancestral sin (the Greek term corresponding to the Latin
“original sin”) differs from that of the Roman Catholic Church.

The
Perpetual Virginity
of Mary, asserts Mary’s real and perpetual
virginity

even in the act of giving birth to the Son of God made Man. The term Ever-Virgin
(Greek ἀειπάρθενος) is applied in
this case, stating that Mary remained a virgin for the remainder of her life,
making Jesus her biological and only son, whose
conception
and
birth
are held to be miraculous.

Perspectives on Mary

Blessed Virgin Mary
Annunciation , Philippe de Champaigne , 1644
West: Mother of God , Queen of Heaven , Mother of the Church East: Theotokos
Honored in	Catholicism , Eastern Orthodoxy , Oriental Orthodoxy , Anglicanism , Lutheranism
Canonized	Pre-Congregation
Major shrine	Santa Maria Maggiore (See Marian shrines )
Feast	See Marian feast days
Attributes	Blue mantle, crown of 12 stars, pregnant woman, roses, woman with child
Patronage	See Patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Christian
perspectives on Mary

Christian Marian perspectives include a great deal of diversity. While some
Christians such as Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox have well established
Marian traditions, Protestants at large pay scant attention to Mariological
themes.
Roman Catholic
,
Eastern Orthodox
,
Oriental Orthodox
,
Anglican
,
and Lutherans

venerate

the Virgin Mary. This veneration especially takes the form of
prayer
for
intercession with her Son, Jesus Christ. Additionally it includes composing
poems and songs in Mary’s honor, painting icons or carving statues of her, and
conferring titles on Mary that reflect her position among the saints.

Anglican view

The multiple churches that form the
Anglican Communion
and the
Continuing Anglican
movement have different views on Marian doctrines and
venerative practices given that there is no single church with universal
authority within the Communion and that the mother church (the
Church of England
) understands itself to be both “catholic” and “Reformed“.
Thus unlike the Protestant churches at large, the Anglican Communion (which
includes the
Episcopal Church
in the United States) includes segments which still retain
some veneration of Mary.

Mary’s special position within God’s purpose of salvation as “God-bearer”
(Theotokos)
is recognised in a number of ways by some Anglican Christians.^[99]
All the member churches of the Anglican Communion affirm in the historic creeds
that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, and celebrates the feast days of the
Presentation of Christ in the Temple
. This feast is called in older
prayer books
the
Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary
on 2 February. The
Annunciation
of our Lord to the Blessed Virgin on March 25 was from before
the time of Bede

until the 18th century New Year’s Day in England. The Annunciation is called the
“Annunciation of our Lady” in the 1662
Book of Common Prayer
. Anglicans also celebrate in the
Visitation of the Blessed Virgin
on May 31, though in some provinces the
traditional date of July 2 is kept. The feast of the St. Mary the Virgin is
observed on the traditional day of the Assumption, August 15. The
Nativity
of the Blessed Virgin is kept on September 8.

The Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary is kept in the 1662 Book of Common
Prayer, on December 8. In certain
Anglo-Catholic
parishes this feast is called the
Immaculate Conception
. Again, the
Assumption of Mary
is believed in by most Anglo-Catholics, but is considered
a pious
opinion by moderate Anglicans. Protestant minded Anglicans reject the
celebration of these feasts.

Prayers and venerative practices vary a great deal. For instance, as of the
19th century, following the
Oxford Movement
,
Anglo-Catholics
frequently pray the
Rosary
, the
Angelus
,
Regina Caeli
, and other litanies and anthems of Our Lady that are
reminiscent of Catholic practices.
On the other hand,
Low-church

Anglicans rarely invoke the Blessed Virgin except in certain hymns, such as the
second stanza of
Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones
.

The
Anglican Society of Mary
was formed in 1931 and maintains chapters in many
countries. The purpose of the society is to foster devotion to Mary among
Anglicans.The high-church
Anglicans espouse doctrines that are closer to Roman Catholics,
and retain veneration for Mary, e.g. official Anglican pilgrimages to
Our Lady of Lourdes
have taken place since 1963, and pilgrimages to
Our Lady of Walsingham
have gone on for hundreds of years.

Historically, there has been enough common ground between Roman Catholics and
Anglicans on Marian issues that in 2005 a joint statement called Mary: grace
and hope in Christ was produced through ecumenical meetings of Anglicans and
Roman Catholic theologians. This document, informally known as the “Seattle
Statement”, is not formally endorsed by either the Catholic Church or the
Anglican Communion, but is viewed by its authors as the beginning of a joint
understanding of Mary.

Catholic view

Madonna of humility
by
Domenico di Bartolo
, 1433; one of the most innovative
Marian images
from the early
Renaissance
.

In the
Catholic Church
, Mary is accorded the title “Blessed,” (from
Latin
beatus,
blessed, via
Greek
μακάριος, makarios and Latin facere, make) in
recognition of her
ascension
to Heaven and her capacity to intercede on behalf of those who
pray to her. Catholic teachings make clear that Mary is not considered divine
and prayers to her are not answered by her, they are answered by God.^[106]
The
four Catholic dogmas
regarding Mary are:
Mother of God
,
Perpetual virginity of Mary
,
Immaculate Conception
(of Mary) and
Assumption of Mary.

The
Blessed Virgin Mary
, the mother of Jesus has a more central role in
Roman Catholic teachings and beliefs than in any other major Christian group.
Not only do Roman Catholics have more theological doctrines and teachings that
relate to Mary, but they have more festivals, prayers, devotional, and
venerative practices than any other group.
The
Catholic Catechism
states: “The Church’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin is
intrinsic to Christian worship.”

For centuries, Roman Catholics have performed acts of
consecration and entrustment to Mary
at personal, societal and regional
levels. These acts may be directed to the Virgin herself, to the
Immaculate Heart of Mary
and to the
Immaculata
. In Catholic teachings, consecration to Mary does not diminish or
substitute the love of God, but enhances it, for all consecration is ultimately
made to God.

Following the growth of Marian devotions in the 16th century, Catholic saints
wrote books such as
Glories of Mary
and
True Devotion to Mary
that emphasized Marian veneration and taught that “the
path to Jesus is through Mary”.
Marian devotions are at times linked to
Christocentric
devotions, e.g. the
Alliance of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary
.^[113]

 

The chapel based on the claimed
House of Mary
in Ephesus

Key Marian devotions include:
Seven Sorrows of Mary
,
Rosary and scapular
,
Miraculous Medal
and
Reparations to Mary
.
The months of May and October are traditionally “Marian months” for Roman
Catholics, e.g. the daily
Rosary
is
encouraged in October and in
May Marian devotions
take place in many regions.
Popes have issued a number of
Marian encyclicals and Apostolic Letters
to encourage devotions to and the
veneration of the Virgin Mary.

Catholics place high emphasis on Mary’s roles as protector and intercessor
and the
Catholic Catechism
refers to Mary as the
“Mother of God to whose protection the faithful fly in all their dangers and
needs”
Key Marian prayers include:
Hail Mary
,
Alma Redemptoris Mater
,
Sub Tuum Praesidum
,
Ave Maris Stella
,
Regina
Coeli
,
Ave Regina Coelorum
and the
Magnificat
.

Mary’s participation in the processes of
salvation
and redemption has also been emphasized in the Catholic tradition,
but they are not doctrines.^{[125][126][127][128]}
Pope John Paul II
‘s 1987 encyclical
Redemptoris Mater
began with the sentence: “The Mother of the Redeemer
has a precise place in the plan of salvation.”

In the 20th century both popes John Paul II and
Benedict XVI
have emphasized the Marian focus of the Church. Cardinal
Joseph Ratzinger
(later Pope Benedict XVI) wrote:

It is necessary to go back to Mary if we want to return to that “truth
about Jesus Christ,” “truth about the Church” and “truth about man”.

when he suggested a redirection of the whole Church towards the program of
Pope John Paul II in order to ensure an authentic approach to
Christology
via a return to the “whole truth about Mary”.

Orthodox view

Our Lady of Vladimir
, one of the holiest medieval
representations of the
Theotokos

Orthodox Christianity
includes a large number of traditions regarding the
Ever Virgin Mary, the
Theotokos
.
The Orthodox believe that she was and remained a virgin before and after
Christ’s birth.
The
Theotokia
(i.e.
hymns
to the Theotokos
) are an essential part of the
Divine Services
in the
Eastern Church
and their positioning within the liturgical sequence
effectively places the Theotokos in the most prominent place after Christ.
Within the Orthodox tradition, the order of the saints begins with: The
Theotokos, Angels, Prophets, Apostles, Fathers, Martyres, etc. giving the Virgin
Mary precedence over the angels. She is also proclaimed as the “Lady of the
Angels”.

The views of the
Church Fathers
still play an important role in the shaping of Orthodox
Marian perspective. However, the Orthodox views on Mary are mostly
doxological
,
rather than academic: they are expressed in hymns, praise, liturgical poetry and
the veneration of icons. One of the most loved Orthodox
Akathists

(i.e.
standing hymns
) is devoted to Mary and it is often simply called the
Akathist Hymn
.
Five of the twelve
Great Feasts
in Orthodoxy are dedicated to Mary.The
Sunday of Orthodoxy
directly links the Virgin Mary’s identity as Mother of
God with icon veneration.
A number of Orthodox feasts are connected with the miraculous icons of the
Theotokos.

The Orthodox view Mary as “superior to all created beings”, although not
divine.
The Orthodox venerate Mary as conceived immaculate and assumed into heaven, but
they do not accept the Roman Catholic dogmas on these doctrines.
The Orthodox celebrate the
Dormition of the Theotokos
, rather than Assumption.

The
Protoevangelium of James
, an
extra-canonical
book, has been the source of many Orthodox beliefs on Mary.
The account of Mary’s life presented includes her consecration as a virgin at
the temple at age three. The
High Priest

Zachariah blessed Mary and informed her that God had magnified her name among
many generations. Zachariah placed Mary on the third step of the altar, whereby
God gave her grace. While in the temple, Mary was miraculously fed by an angel,
until she was twelve years old. At that point an angel told Zachariah to betroth
Mary to a widower in Israel, who would be indicated. This story provides the
theme of many hymns for the Feast of
Presentation of Mary
, and icons of the feast depict the story.
The Orthodox believe that Mary was instrumental in the growth of Christianity
during the life of Jesus, and after his Crucifixion, and Orthodox Theologian
Sergei Bulgakov
wrote: “The Virgin Mary is the center, invisible, but real,
of the Apostolic Church”

Theologians from the Orthodox tradition have made prominent contributions to
the development of Marian thought and devotion.
John Damascene
(c 650─c 750) was one of the greatest Orthodox theologians.
Among other Marian writings, he proclaimed the essential nature of Mary’s
heavenly Assumption or Dormition and her mediative role.

It was necessary that the body of the one who preserved her virginity
intact in giving birth should also be kept incorrupt after death. It was
necessary that she, who carried the Creator in her womb when he was a baby,
should dwell among the tabernacles of heaven.

From her we have harvested the grape of life; from her we have cultivated
the seed of immortality. For our sake she became Mediatrix of all blessings;
in her God became man, and man became God.

More recently,
Sergei Bulgakov
expressed the Orthodox sentiments towards Mary as follows:

Mary is not merely the instrument, but the direct positive condition of
the Incarnation, its human aspect. Christ could not have been incarnate by
some mechanical process, violating human nature. It was necessary for that
nature itself to say for itself, by the mouth of the most pure human being:
“Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to Thy word.”

Protestant view

Protestants in general reject the veneration and invocation of the Saints.
Protestants typically hold that Mary was the mother of Jesus, but was an
ordinary woman devoted to God. Therefore, there is virtually no Marian
veneration, Marian feasts, Marian pilgrimages, Marian art, Marian music or
Marian spirituality in today’s Protestant communities. Within these views, Roman
Catholic beliefs and practices are at times rejected, e.g., theologian
Karl Barth

wrote that “the heresy of the Catholic Church is its
Mariology
“.

Some early Protestants venerated and honored Mary.
Martin Luther
wrote that: “Mary is full of grace, proclaimed to be entirely
without sin. God’s grace fills her with everything good and makes her devoid of
all evil”.
However, as of 1532 Luther stopped celebrating the feast of the
Assumption of Mary
and also discontinued his support of the
Immaculate Conception
.

In the text of the
Magnificat

(recorded in
Luke 1:46-55
), Mary proclaims “My soul rejoices in God my Savior”.
The personal need of a savior is seen by Protestants as expressing that Mary
never thought herself “sinnless”.

John
Calvin
said, “It cannot be denied that God in choosing and destining Mary to
be the Mother of his Son, granted her the highest honor.
However, Calvin firmly rejected the notion that anyone but Christ can intercede
for man.

Although Calvin and
Huldrych Zwingli
honored Mary as the Mother of God in the 16th century, they
did so less than Martin Luther.
Thus the idea of respect and high honor for Mary was not rejected by the first
Protestants; but, they came to criticize the Roman Catholics for venerating
Mary. Following the
Council of Trent
in the 16th century, as Marian veneration became associated
with Catholics, Protestant interest in Mary decreased. During the Age of the
Enlightenment any residual interest in Mary within Protestant churches almost
disappeared, although Anglicans and Lutherans continued to honor her.

Protestants acknowledge that Mary is “blessed among women”
but they do not agree that Mary is to be venerated. She is considered to be an
outstanding example of a life dedicated to God.

In the 20th century, Protestants reacted in opposition to the Catholic dogma
of the
Assumption of Mary
. The conservative tone of the
Second Vatican Council
began to mend the ecumenical differences, and
Protestants began to show interest in Marian themes. In 1997 and 1998 ecumenical
dialogs between Catholics and Protestants took place, but to date the majority
of Protestants pay scant attention to Marian issues and often view them as a
challenge to the
authority of Scripture
.

Lutheran view

 

Stained glass of
Jesus leaving his mother
in a
Lutheran Church
, South Carolina.

Despite
Martin Luther
‘s harsh polemics against his Roman Catholic opponents over
issues concerning Mary and the saints, theologians appear to agree that Luther
adhered to the Marian decrees of the
ecumenical councils
and dogmas of the church. He held fast to the belief
that Mary was a perpetual virgin and the
Theotokos

or
Mother of God
.^[145][146]
Special attention is given to the assertion that Luther, some three-hundred
years before the dogmatization of the
Immaculate Conception
by
Pope
Pius IX
in 1854, was a firm adherent of that view. Others maintain that
Luther in later years changed his position on the Immaculate Conception, which,
at that time was undefined in the Church, maintaining however the sinlessness of
Mary throughout her life.
For Luther, early in his life, the
Assumption of Mary
was an understood fact, although he later stated that the
Bible
did not say
anything about it and stopped celebrating its feast. Important to him was the
belief that Mary and the saints do live on after death.
“Throughout his career as a priest-professor-reformer, Luther preached, taught,
and argued about the veneration of Mary with a verbosity that ranged from
childlike piety to sophisticated polemics. His views are intimately linked to
his Christocentric theology and its consequences for liturgy and piety.”
Luther, while revering Mary, came to criticize the “Papists” for blurring the
line, between high admiration of the grace of God wherever it is seen in a human
being, and religious service given to another creature. He considered the Roman
Catholic practice of celebrating
saints
‘ days and
making intercessory requests addressed especially to Mary and other departed
saints to be idolatry
.
His final thoughts on Marian devotion and veneration are preserved in a sermon
preached at Wittenberg only a month before his death:

Therefore, when we preach faith, that we should worship nothing but God
alone, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, as we say in the Creed: ‘I
believe in God the Father almighty and in Jesus Christ,’ then we are
remaining in the temple at Jerusalem. Again,’This is my beloved Son;
listen to him.’ ‘You will find him in a manger’. He alone does it. But
reason says the opposite:

“What, us? Are we to worship only Christ? Indeed, shouldn’t we also
honor the holy mother of Christ? She is the woman who bruised the head
of the serpent. Hear us, Mary, for thy Son so honors thee that he can
refuse thee nothing. Here
Bernard
went too far in his Homilies on the Gospel: Missus est
Angelus.^[155]
God has commanded that we should honor the parents; therefore I will
call upon Mary. She will intercede for me with the Son, and the Son with
the Father, who will listen to the Son. So you have the picture of God
as angry and Christ as judge; Mary shows to Christ her breast and Christ
shows his wounds to the wrathful Father. That’s the kind of thing this
comely bride, the wisdom of reason cooks up: Mary is the mother of
Christ, surely Christ will listen to her; Christ is a stern judge,
therefore I will call upon St. George and St. Christopher. No, we have
been by God’s command baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit, just as the Jews were circumcised.^[156][157]

Certain Lutheran churches such as the
Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church
however, continue to venerate Mary and the
saints in the same manner that Roman Catholics do, and hold all Marian dogmas as
part of their faith.

Methodist view

The
Black Madonna of Częstochowa
, Poland.

The
United Methodist Church
, as well as other
Methodist

churches, have no official writings or teachings on the Virgin Mary except what
is mentioned in Scripture and the ecumenical Creeds, mainly that Christ was
conceived
in her womb through the
Holy Spirit
and that she gave birth to
Christ
as a
virgin
.
John
Wesley
, the founder of the Methodist Movement within the
Church of England
, which later led to the
Methodist Church
, believed that the Virgin Mary was a
perpetual virgin
, meaning she never had sex.^[159][160]
Many Methodists reject this concept, but some Methodists believe it. The church
does hold that Mary was a virgin before, during, and immediately after the birth
of Christ.

John Wesley stated in a letter to a Roman Catholic friend that:

“The Blessed Virgin Mary, who, as well after as when she brought him
forth, continued a pure and unspotted virgin.”

Article II of the Articles of Religion of the Methodist Church states that:

The Son, who is the Word of the Father, the very and eternal God, of one
substance with the Father, took man’s nature in the womb of the blessed
Virgin; so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the
Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in one person, never to be
divided; whereof is one Christ, very God and very Man, who truly
suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to
us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for
actual sins of men.

From this, the Virgin Mary is believed to be the
Theotokos
,
or Mother of God, in the Methodist Church, although the term is usually only
used by those of
High Church
and
Evangelical Catholic
tradition.

Article II of The Confession of Faith from The Book of Discipline states:

“We believe in Jesus Christ, truly God and truly man, in whom the divine
and human natures are perfectly and inseparably united. He is the
eternal Word made flesh, the only begotten Son of the Father, born of
the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit. As ministering servant
he lived, suffered and died on the cross. He was buried, rose from the
dead and ascended into heaven to be with the Father, from whence he
shall return. He is eternal Savior and Mediator, who intercedes for us,
and by him all persons are to be judged.”

From this statement, Methodists reject the Catholic ideas of Mary as a
Co-Redemptrix

and Mediatrix

of the Faith. The Methodist Churches disagree with
veneration of saints
, of Mary, and of relics; believing that reverence and
praise are for God alone. However, studying the life of Mary and the biographies
of saints is deemed appropriate, as they are seen as heroes and examples of good
Christians.
The Methodist churches reject the doctrines of the
Immaculate Conception
and the
Assumption of Mary
, stating that Christ was the only person to live a
sinless life and to ascend body and soul into Heaven.

Latter Day Saints

In the first edition of the Book of Mormon (1830), Mary was referred to as
“the mother of God, after the manner of the flesh,” a reading that was changed
to “the mother of the Son of God” in all subsequent editions (1837–).

Nontrinitarian view

Nontrinitarians
, such as
Unitarians
,
Christadelphians
and
Jehovah’s Witnesses

consider Mary as the mother of
Jesus Christ
. Because they do not consider Jesus as God, they do not
consider Mary as the Mother of God or the Theotokos. Since Nontrinitarian
churches are typically also
mortalist
, the issue of praying to Mary, whom they would consider “asleep,”
awaiting resurrection, does not arise.
Swedenborg
says God as he is in himself could not directly approach evil
spirits to redeem those spirits without destroying them (Exodus 33:20, John
1:18), so God impregnated Mary, who gave Jesus Christ access to the evil
heredity of the human race, which he could approach, redeem and save.

Islamic perspective

Mary, the mother of Jesus, is mentioned as Maryam, more in the
Qur’an
than in the entire
New
Testament
.^[169][170]
She enjoys a singularly distinguished and honored position among
women in the Qur’an
. A
Sura (chapter) in
the Qur’an is titled “Maryam”
(Mary), which is the only Sura in the Qur’an named after a woman, in which the
story of Mary (Maryam) and Jesus (Isa)
is recounted according to the Islamic view of Jesus.

Maryam (Mary) with her son Isa (Jesus), Persian miniature.

She is mentioned in the
Qur’an
with the honorific title of “our lady” (syyidatuna) as the
daughter of Imran and Hannah.

She is the only woman directly named in the Qur’an; declared (uniquely along
with Jesus) to be a Sign of God to mankind;
as one who “guarded her chastity“;
an obedient one;^[]
chosen of her mother and dedicated to God whilst still in the womb; 
uniquely (amongst women) Accepted into service by God;cared for by (one of the prophets as per Islam)
Zakariya
(Zacharias);
that in her childhood she resided in the Temple and uniquely had access to Al-Mihrab
(understood to be the
Holy of Holies
), and was provided with heavenly ‘provisions’ by God.

Mary is also called a Chosen One  a Purified One;^]
a Truthful one;
her child conceived through “a Word from God”;
and “exalted above all women of The Worlds/Universes (the material and
heavenly worlds)”.

The Qur’an relates detailed narrative accounts of Maryam (Mary) in two places
Sura 3
and Sura 19
These state beliefs in both the Immaculate Conception of Mary and the Virgin
birth of Jesus. The account given in Sura 19 
of the Qur’an is nearly identical with that in the Gospel according to
Luke
, and both of these (Luke, Sura 19) begin with an account of the
visitation of an angel upon Zakariya (Zecharias) and Good News of the birth
of Yahya (John), followed by the account of the annunciation. It mentions
how Mary was informed by an angel that she would become the mother of Jesus
through the actions of God alone.

In the Islamic tradition, Mary and Jesus were the only children who could not
be touched by Satan at the moment of their birth, for God imposed a veil between
them and Satan.
According to author Shabbir Akhtar, the Islamic perspective on Mary’s Immaculate
Conception is compatible with the Catholic doctrine of the same topic

The Qur’an says that Jesus was the result of a virgin birth. The most
detailed account of the annunciation and birth of Jesus is provided in Sura 3
and 19 of The Qur’an wherein it is written that God sent an angel to announce
that she could shortly expect to bear a son, despite being a virgin.

Other views

Pagan Rome

From the early stages of Christianity, belief in the virginity of Mary and
the virgin conception of Jesus, as stated in the gospels, holy and supernatural,
was used by detractors, both political and religious, as a topic for
discussions, debates and writings, specifically aimed to challenge the divinity
of Jesus and thus Christians and Christianity alike.
In the 2nd century, as part of the earliest anti-Christian polemics,
Celsus

suggested that Jesus was the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier named Panthera.
The views of Celsus drew responses from
Origen
, the
Church Father in
Alexandria, Egypt
who considered it a fabricated story.
How far Celsus sourced his view from Jewish sources remains a subject of
discussion.

In Judaism

The issue of the parentage of
Jesus in the Talmud
affects also the view of his mother. However the Talmud
does not mention Mary by name and is considerate rather than only polemic.
The story about Panthera is also found the
Toledot Yeshu
, the literary origins of which can not be traced with any
certainty and given that it is unlikely to go before the 4th century, it is far
too late to include authentic remembrances of Jesus.
The Blackwell Companion to Jesus states that the Toledot Yeshu has no historical
facts as such, and was perhaps created as a tool for warding off conversions to
Christianity.
The name Panthera may be a distortion of the term parthenos (virgin) and
Raymond E. Brown
considers the story of Panthera a fanciful explanation of
the birth of Jesus which includes very little historical evidence.
Robert Van Voorst
states that given that Toledot Yeshu is a medieval
document and due to its lack of a fixed form and orientation towards a popular
audience, it is “most unlikely” to have reliable historical information.

4th-century Arabia

According to the 4th century heresiologist
Epiphanius of Salamis
the Virgin Mary was worshipped as a
Mother goddess
in the heretical Christian sect
Collyridianism
, which was found throughout Arabia sometime during the 300s
AD. Collyridianism was made up mostly of women and even had women priests. They
were known to make bread offerings to the Virgin Mary, along with other
practices. The group was condemned as heretical by the
Roman Catholic Church
and was preached against by
Epiphanius of Salamis
, who wrote about the group in his writings titled
Panarion
.

Study of the
historical Jesus

To date, scholars continue to debate the accounts of the birth of Jesus from
several perspectives, including textual analysis, historical records and
post-apostolic witnesses.
Bart D. Ehrman
has suggested that the
historical method
can never comment on the likelihood of supernatural
occurrences (meaning that miracles can never be considered historical facts).

The statement in
Matthew 1:25
that “Joseph did not know Mary until she has given birth to a
son” has been debated among scholars, some suggesting that she did not remain
perpetually virgin
.  Other scholars contend that the Greek word hoes (i.e.
until) denotes a state up to a point, but does not mean that the state ended
after that point, and that Matthew 1:25 does not confirm or deny the virginity
of Mary after the birth of Jesus.

Other biblical verses have also been debated, e.g. that the reference in
Romans 1:3
of Jesus coming “of the seed of David according to the flesh” may
be hypothesized as St. Joseph being the father of Jesus.
However, most scholars reject this interpretation in the context of
virgin birth
given that Paul used the Greek word genomenos (i.e.
becoming) rather than the word gennetos and the reference to “seed of
David” is likely to Mary’s lineage.

Cinematic portrayals

Mary has been portrayed in various films, including:

• Das Mirakel
  (as a statue which comes to life)
• Saint Mary (Iranian film)
• Mary Mother of Christ
• Mary, Mother of Jesus
• Jesus of Nazareth
• Color of the Cross
• Ben-Hur (1959 film)
• The Last Temptation of Christ (film)
• The Greatest Story Ever Told
• The Living Christ Series
• The Nativity Story

The Latin Empire or Latin Empire of Constantinople (original
Latin
name: Imperium Romaniae, “Empire
of
Romania
“) is the name given by historians
to the
feudal

Crusader state
founded by the leaders of the
Fourth Crusade
on lands captured from the
Byzantine Empire
. It was established after the
capture of
Constantinople
in 1204 and lasted until 1261.
The Latin Empire was intended to supplant as titular successor to the
Roman Empire
in the east, with a Western
Roman Catholic
emperor enthroned in place of
the Eastern
Orthodox

Roman emperors
.
Baldwin IX
,
Count of Flanders
, was crowned the first Latin
emperor as Baldwin I on 16 May 1204. The Latin Empire failed to attain political
or economic dominance over the other Latin powers that had been established in
former Byzantine territories in the wake of the Fourth Crusade, especially
Venice
, and after a short initial period of
military successes it went into a steady decline. Weakened by constant warfare
with the Bulgarians and the unconquered sections of the empire, it eventually
fell when Byzantines recaptured Constantinople under Emperor
Michael VIII Palaiologos
in 1261. The last
Latin emperor,
Baldwin II
, went into exile, but the imperial
title survived, with several pretenders to it, until the 14th century.

Name

The original name of this state in the Latin language was
Imperium Romaniae (“Empire
of Romania“). This name was used based on the fact that the common name
for the Roman Empire in this period had been Romania (Ῥωμανία,
“Land of the Romans“).

The names Byzantine and Latin were not contemporary terms. They
were invented much later by historians seeking to differentiate between the
classical period of the
Roman Empire
, the medieval period (label the
Byzantine Empire
) and the late medieval Latin
Empire, all of which called themselves “Roman.” The term Latin has been
used because the crusaders (Franks,
Venetians, and other westerners) were Roman Catholic and used Latin as their
liturgical and scholarly language. It is used in contrast to the Eastern
Orthodox locals who used
Greek
in both liturgy and common speech.

History

Creation

By arrangement among the crusaders, Byzantine territory was divided: in the

Partitio terrarum imperii Romaniae
, signed
on 1 October 1204, three eighths — including
Crete
and other islands — went to the
Republic of Venice
. The Latin Empire claimed
the remainder, and did exert control over areas of
Greece
, divided into
vassal

fiefs
: the
Kingdom of Thessalonica
, the
Principality of Achaea
, the
Duchy of Athens
, the
Duchy of the Archipelago
and the short-lived
duchies of
Nicaea
,
Philippopolis
, and
Philadelphia
. The
Doge of Venice
did not rank as a vassal to the
Empire, but his position in control of 3/8 of its territory and of parts of
Constantinople itself, ensured Venice’s influence in the Empire’s affairs.
However, much of the former Byzantine territory remained in the hands of rival
successor states
led by Byzantine Greek
aristocrats, such as the
Despotate of Epirus
, the
Empire of Nicaea
, and the
Empire of Trebizond
, which were bent on
reconquest from the Latins.

The crowning of Baldwin and the creation of the Latin Empire had the curious
effect of creating three so-called Roman Empires in Europe at the same time, the
others being the
Holy Roman Empire
and the remnants of the
Byzantine Empire
(the direct successor of the
ancient Roman Empire), none of which actually controlled

the city of Rome, which was under the
temporal authority
of the

Pope.

In Asia Minor

Capture of Constantinople during the
Fourth Crusade
in 1204.

The initial campaigns of the crusaders in Asia Minor resulted in the capture
of most of Bithynia
by 1205, with the defeat of the forces
of
Theodore I Laskaris
at Poemanenum and Prusa.
Latin successes continued, and in 1207 a truce was signed with Theodore, newly
proclaimed Emperor of Nicaea. The Latins inflicted a
further defeat
on Nicaean forces at the
Rhyndakos river in October 1211, and three years later the
Treaty of Nymphaeum (1214)
recognized their
control of most of Bithynia and
Mysia
.

The peace was maintained until 1222, at which point the resurgent power of
Nicaea felt sufficiently strong enough to challenge the Latin Empire, by that
time weakened by constant warfare in its European provinces. At the
battle of Poimanenon
in 1224, the Latin army
was defeated, and by the next year Emperor
Robert of Courtenay
was forced to cede all his
Asian possessions to Nicaea, save
Nicomedia
and the territories directly across
Constantinople. Nicaea turned also to the
Aegean
, capturing the islands awarded to the
empire. In 1235, finally, the last Latin possessions fell to Nicaea.

In Europe

Unlike in Asia, where the Latin Empire faced only an initially weak Nicaea,
in Europe it was immediately confronted with a powerful enemy: the
Bulgarian
tsar
Kaloyan
. When Baldwin campaigned against the
Byzantine lords of Thrace
, they called upon Kaloyan for help. At
the
Battle of Adrianople
on 14 April 1205, the
Latin heavy cavalry and knights were crushed by Kaloyan’s troops, and Emperor
Baldwin was captured. He was imprisoned in the Bulgarian capital
Tarnovo
until his death later in 1205. Kaloyan
was murdered a couple of years later (1207) during a siege of
Thessalonica
, and the Bulgarian threat
conclusively defeated with a victory the following year, which allowed Baldwin’s
successor,
Henry of Flanders
, to reclaim most of the lost
territories in Thrace until 1210, when peace was concluded with the marriage of
Henry to
Maria of Bulgaria
, tsar Kaloyan’s daughter.

At the same time, another Greek successor state, the
Despotate of Epirus
, under
Michael I Komnenos Doukas
, posed a threat to
the empire’s vassals in Thessalonica and Athens. Henry demanded his submission,
which Michael provided, giving off his daughter to Henry’s brother Eustace in
the summer of 1209. This alliance allowed Henry to launch a campaign in
Macedonia
,
Thessaly
and
Central Greece
against the rebellious
Lombard
lords of Thessalonica. However,
Michael’s attack on the Kingdom of Thessalonica in 1210 forced him to return
north to relieve the city and to force Michael back into submission.

In 1214 however, Michael died, and was succeeded by
Theodore Komnenos Doukas
, who was determined to
capture Thessalonica. On 11 June 1216, while supervising repairs to the walls of
Thessalonica, Henry died, and was succeeded by
Peter of Courtenay
, who himself was captured
and executed by Theodore the following year. A regency was set up in
Constantinople, headed by Peter’s widow,
Yolanda of Flanders
until 1221, when her son
Robert of Courtenay
was crowned Emperor.
Distracted by the renewed war with Nicaea, and waiting in vain for assistance
from
Pope Honorius III
and the King of France
Philip II
, the Latin Empire was unable to
prevent the final fall of Thessalonica to Epirus in 1224. Epirote armies then
conquered Thrace in 1225–26, appearing before Constantinople itself. The Latin
Empire was saved for the time by the threat posed to Theodore by the Bulgarian
tsar
Ivan II Asen
, and a truce was concluded in
1228.

Decline and fall

After Robert of Courtenay died in 1228, a new regency under
John of Brienne
was set up. After the
disastrous Epirote defeat by the Bulgarians at the
Battle of Klokotnitsa
, the Epirote threat to
the Latin Empire was removed, only to be replaced by Nicaea, which started
acquiring territories in Greece. Emperor
John III Doukas Vatatzes
of Nicaea concluded an
alliance with Bulgaria, which in 1235 resulted in joint campaign against the
Latin Empire, and an unsuccessful
siege of Constantinople
the same year. In 1237,
Baldwin II
attained majority and took over the
reins of a much-diminished state. The empire’s precarious situation forced him
to travel often to Western Europe seeking aid, but largely without success. In
order to gain money, he was forced to resort to desperate means, from removing
the lead roofs of the
Great Palace
and selling them, to handing over
his only son, Philip, to Venetian merchants as a guarantee for a loan.

By 1247, the Nicaeans had effectively surrounded Constantinople, with only
the city’s strong
walls
holding them at bay, and the
Battle of Pelagonia
in 1258 signaled the
beginning of the end of Latin predominance in Greece. Thus, on 25 July 1261,
with most of the Latin troops away on campaign, the Nicaean general
Alexios Strategopoulos
found an unguarded
entrance to the city, and entered it with his troops, restoring the Byzantine
Empire for his master,
Michael VIII Palaiologos
.

Titular claimants

For about a century thereafter, the heirs of Baldwin II continued to use the
title of Emperor of Constantinople, and were seen as the overlords of the
various remaining Latin states in the
Aegean
. They exercised effective authority in
Greece only when actually ruling as
princes of Achaea
, as in 1333–83. Although they
are generally regarded as titular emperors, the continued existence of Latin
states in the Aegean that recognized them as their
suzerains
makes the term a misnomer; a more
accurate description would be emperors-in-exile.

Organization and
society

Administration

The empire was formed and administrated on Western European feudal
principles, incorporating some elements of the Byzantine bureaucracy. The
emperor was assisted by a council, composed of the various barons, the Venetian
podestà
and his six-member council. This
council had a major voice in the governance of the realm, especially in the
periods of regency, where the Regent (moderator imperii) was dependent on
their consent to rule. The podesta, likewise, was an extremely influential
member, being practically independent of the emperor. He exercised authority
over the Venetian quarters of Constantinople and
Pera
and the Venetian dominions within the
empire, assisted by a separate set of officials. His role was more that of an
ambassador and
vicegerent
of Venice than a vassal to the
empire.

Economy

The Latins did not trust the professional Greek bureaucracy, and in the
immediate aftermath of the conquest completely dismantled the Greek economic
administration of the areas they controlled. The result was disastrous,
disrupting all forms of production and trade. Almost from its inception the
Latin Empire was sending requests back to the papacy for aid. For a few years,
the major commodities it exported from the surrounding region of Thrace were
wheat and furs, as well as profit from Constantinople’s strategic location on
major trade routes. While the empire showed some moderate vitality while Henry
was alive, after his death in 1216 there was a major deficit in leadership. By
the 1230s, Constantinople – even with its drastically reduced population – was
facing a major shortage of basic foodstuffs. In several senses, the only
significant export on which the economy of the Latin Empire had any real basis
was the sale of relics back to Western Europe which had been looted from Greek
churches. For example, Emperor Baldwin II sold the relic of the Crown of Thorns
while in France trying to raise new funds.

The Byzantine Empire (or Byzantium) was the Eastern Roman
Empire during the periods of
Late Antiquity
and the
Middle Ages
, centred on the capital of
Constantinople
. Known simply as the “Roman
Empire” (Greek:
Βασιλεία Ῥωμαίων, Basileia Rhōmaiōn)
or Romania (Ῥωμανία) to its
inhabitants and neighbours, it was the direct continuation of the
Ancient Roman State
and maintained Roman state
traditions. Byzantium is today distinguished from
ancient Rome
proper insofar as it was oriented
towards
Greek culture
, characterised by
Christianity
rather than
Roman paganism
and was predominantly
Greek-speaking
rather than
Latin-speaking
.

As the distinction between Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire is
largely a modern convention, it is not possible to assign a date of separation,
but an important point is
Emperor Constantine I’s
transfer in 324 of the
capital from Nicomedia
(in
Anatolia
) to
Byzantium
on the
Bosphorus
, which became Constantinople, “City
of Constantine” (alternatively “New
Rome“).^[n
1] The Roman Empire was finally divided in 395 AD after the
death of Emperor
Theodosius I
(r. 379–395), thus this date is
also very important if the Byzantine Empire (or Eastern Roman Empire) is looked
upon as completely separated from the West. The transition to Byzantine history
proper finally begins during the reign of Emperor
Heraclius
(r. 610–641), since Heraclius
effectively established a new state after reforming the army and administration
by introducing
themes
and by replacing the official language
of the Empire from Latin to Greek.

The Byzantine Empire existed for more than a thousand years, from its genesis
in the 4th century to 1453. During most of its existence, it remained one of the
most powerful economic, cultural, and military forces in Europe, despite
setbacks and territorial losses, especially during the
Roman-Persian
and
Byzantine-Arab Wars
. The Empire recovered
during the
Macedonian dynasty
, rising again to become a
preeminent power in the
Eastern Mediterranean
by the late 10th century,
rivalling the
Fatimid Caliphate
.

After 1071, however, much of
Asia Minor
, the Empire’s heartland, was lost to
the
Seljuk Turks
. The
Komnenian restoration
regained some ground and
briefly reestablished dominance in the 12th century, but following the death of
Emperor
Andronikos I Komnenos
(r. 1183–1185) and the
end of the
Komnenos dynasty
in the late 12th century the
Empire declined again. The Empire received a mortal blow in 1204 from the
Fourth Crusade
, when it was dissolved and
divided into competing Byzantine Greek and Latin realms.

Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople and
re-establishment of the Empire in 1261
, under
the Palaiologan
emperors, Byzantium remained only
one of many rival states in the area for the final 200 years of its existence.
However, this period was the most culturally productive time in the Empire.^[4]

Successive civil wars in the 14th century further sapped the Empire’s
strength, and most of its remaining territories were lost in the
Byzantine-Ottoman Wars
, which culminated in the
Fall of Constantinople
and the conquest of
remaining territories by the
Ottoman Empire
in the 15th century.

The designation of the Empire as Byzantine began in
Western Europe
in 1557, when
German
historian
Hieronymus Wolf
published his work Corpus
Historiæ Byzantinæ, a collection of historical sources. The term comes from
Byzantium
, the name of the city of
Constantinople
before it became the capital of
Constantine
. This older name of the city would
rarely be used from this point onward except in historical or poetic contexts.
The publication in 1648 of the Byzantine du Louvre (Corpus Scriptorum
Historiæ Byzantinæ), and in 1680 of
Du Cange
‘s Historia Byzantina further
popularised the use of Byzantine among French authors, such as
Montesquieu
.^[7]
The term then disappears until the 19th century when it came into general use in
the Western world
.^[8]
Before this time, Greek had been used for the Empire and its descendants
within the Ottoman Empire.

The Byzantine Empire was known to its inhabitants as the Roman Empire,
the Empire of the Romans (Latin: Imperium Romanum, Imperium
Romanorum, Greek: Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων,
Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn, Ἀρχὴ τῶν Ῥωμαίων,
Arche tôn Rhōmaíōn), Romania
^2][n (Latin: Romania, Greek:
Ῥωμανία, Rhōmanía), the Roman
Republic (Latin: Res Publica Romana, Greek:
Πολιτεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Politeίa tôn
Rhōmaíōn),^[10]
Graikía (Greek: Γραικία),^[11]
and also as Rhōmaís (Greek: Ῥωμαΐς).

Although the Byzantine Empire had a multi-ethnic character during most of its
history
and preserved
Romano-Hellenistic
traditions,^[14]
it became identified by its western and northern contemporaries’ with its increasingly predominant
Greek element
.^[15]
The occasional use of the term Empire of the Greeks (Latin: Imperium
Graecorum) in the West to refer to the Eastern Roman Empire and of the
Byzantine Emperor as Imperator Graecorum (Emperor of the Greeks)^[16]
were also used to separate it from the prestige of the Roman Empire within the
new kingdoms of the West.^[17]
The authority of the Byzantine emperor as the legitimate Roman emperor, was
challenged by the coronation of
Charlemagne
as
Imperator Augustus
by
Pope Leo III
in the year 800. Needing
Charlemagne’s support in his struggle against his enemies in Rome, Leo used the
lack of a male occupant of the throne of the Roman Empire at the time to claim
that it was vacant and that he could therefore crown a new Emperor himself.
Whenever the Popes
or the rulers of the West made use of the
name Roman to refer to the Eastern Roman Emperors, they preferred the
term Imperator Romaniæ instead of Imperator Romanorum, a title
that Westerners maintained applied only to Charlemagne and his successors.

No such distinction existed in the
Persian
,
Islamic
, and
Slavic
worlds, where the Empire was more
straightforwardly seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic
world it was known primarily as روم (Rûm
“Rome”).

In modern historical works, the Empire is usually called the Eastern Roman
Empire in the context of the period 395 to 610, before Emperor
Heraclius
changed the official language from
Latin to Greek (already the language known by the great majority of the
population). In contexts after 610, the term Byzantine Empire is used
more regularly.

 History

Early
history of the Roman Empire

The Roman army succeeded in conquering a vast collection of territories
covering the entire Mediterranean region and much of
Western Europe
. These territories consisted of
many different cultural groups, ranging from primitive to highly sophisticated.
Generally speaking, the eastern Mediterranean provinces were more urbanised and
socially developed, having previously been united under the
Macedonian Empire
and
Hellenised
by the influence of Greek culture.
In contrast, the western regions had mostly remained independent from any single
cultural or political authority, and were still largely rural and less
developed. This distinction between the established Hellenised East and the
younger Latinised West persisted and became increasingly important in later
centuries.

In 293, Diocletian
created a new administrative system,
(the tetrarchy
).
He associated himself with a co-emperor, or
Augustus
. Each Augustus was then to adopt a
young colleague given the title of
Caesar
, to share in their rule and
eventually to succeed the senior partner. After the abdication of Diocletian and
Maximian
, however, the tetrarchy collapsed, and
Constantine I
replaced it with the dynastic
principle of hereditary succession.

Constantine moved the seat of the Empire and introduced important changes
into its civil and religious constitution.
In 330, he founded Constantinople as a second Rome on the site of Byzantium,
which was well-positioned astride the trade routes between East and West.

Constantine built upon the administrative reforms introduced by Diocletian.He stabilised the coinage (the gold
solidus
that he introduced became a highly
prized and stable currency),
and made changes to the structure of the army. Under Constantine, the Empire had
recovered much of its military strength and enjoyed a period of stability and
prosperity.

Under Constantine,
Christianity
did not become the exclusive
religion of the state, but enjoyed imperial preference, because
the Emperor supported it with generous privileges
.
Constantine established the principle that emperors should not settle questions
of doctrine, but should summon
general ecclesiastical councils
for that
purpose. The
Synod of Arles
was convened by Constantine, and
the
First Council of Nicaea
showcased his claim to
be head of the Church.

The state of the Empire in 395 may be described in terms of the outcome of
Constantine’s work. The dynastic principle was established so firmly that the
emperor who died in that year,
Theodosius I
, bequeathed the imperial office
jointly to his sons:
Arcadius
in the East and
Honorius
in the West. Theodosius was the last
emperor to rule over the undivided empire.

The Eastern Empire was largely spared the difficulties faced by the West in
the 3rd and 4th centuries, due in part to a more established urban culture and
greater financial resources which allowed it to placate invaders with
tribute
and pay foreign
mercenaries
.
Theodosius II
further fortified
the walls of Constantinople
, leaving the city
impervious to most attacks. The walls were not breached until 1204. In order to
fend off the Huns
, Theodosius paid a tribute (purportedly
300 kg (661.39 lb)
of gold).

His successor, Marcian
, refused to continue to pay this
exorbitant sum. Fortunately
Attila
had already diverted his attention to
the
Western Roman Empire
.
After he died in 453, the
Hunnic Empire
collapsed; many of the remaining
Huns were often hired as mercenaries by Constantinople.

After the fall of Attila, the Eastern Empire enjoyed a period of peace, while
the
Western Empire
collapsed (its end is usually
dated in 476 when the Germanic Roman general
Odoacer
deposed the titular Western Emperor
Romulus Augustulus
).

To recover Italy, Emperor
Zeno
negotiated with the invading
Ostrogoths
, who had settled in
Moesia
. He sent the Gothic King
Theodoric
to Italy as magister militum per
Italiam (“commander in chief for Italy”) in order to depose Odoacer. By
urging Theodoric into conquering Italy, Zeno rid the Eastern Empire of an unruly
subordinate and gained at least a nominal form of supremacy over Italy.
After Odoacer’s defeat in 493, Theodoric ruled Italy on his own.

In 491,
Anastasius I
, an aged civil officer of Roman
origin, became Emperor, but it was not until 498 that the forces of the new
emperor effectively took the measure of Isaurian resistance.
Anastasius revealed himself to be an energetic reformer and an able
administrator. He perfected Constantine I’s coinage system by definitively
setting the weight of the copper
follis
, the coin used in most everyday
transactions.
He also reformed the tax system and permanently abolished the
chrysargyron
tax. The State Treasury contained
the enormous sum of 320,000 lbs (145,150 kg) of gold when Anastasius died in
518.

Justinian I depicted on one of the famous mosaics of the
Basilica of San Vitale
,
Ravenna
.

Justinian I
, who assumed the throne in 527,
oversaw a period of recovery of former territories. Justinian, the son of an
Illyrian
peasant, may already have exerted
effective control during the reign of his uncle,
Justin I
(518–527).
In 532, attempting to secure his eastern frontier, Justinian signed a peace
treaty with
Khosrau I of Persia
agreeing to pay a large
annual tribute to the
Sassanids
. In the same year, Justinian survived
a revolt in Constantinople (the
Nika riots
) which ended with the deaths of a
reported 30,000 to 35,000 rioters, on his orders.^[36]
This victory solidified Justinian’s power.
Pope Agapetus I
was sent to Constantinople by
the Ostrogothic
king
Theodahad
, but failed in his mission to sign a
peace with Justinian. However, he succeeded in having the
Monophysite

Patriarch Anthimus I of Constantinople

denounced, despite
Empress Theodora
‘s support.

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 control since 429 with
their capital at Carthage.
Their success came with surprising ease, but it was not until 548 that the major
local tribes were subdued.
In
Ostrogothic Italy
, the deaths of
Theodoric the Great
, his nephew and heir
Athalaric
, and his daughter
Amalasuntha
had left her murderer
Theodahad
on the throne despite his weakened
authority. In 535, a small Byzantine expedition to
Sicily
was met with easy success, but the Goths
soon stiffened their resistance, and victory did not come until 540, when
Belisarius captured
Ravenna
, after successful sieges of
Naples
and Rome.

The Ostrogoths were united under the command of King
Totila
and captured Rome on 17 December 546.
Justinian eventually called back Belisarius to Constantinople in early 549 from
Ravenna.^[40]
The arrival of the Armenian
eunuch

Narses
in Italy (late 551) with an army of some
35,000 men marked another shift in Gothic fortunes. Totila was defeated at the
Battle of Busta Gallorum
and his successor,

Teia, was defeated at the
Battle of Mons Lactarius
(October 552). Despite
continuing resistance from a few Gothic garrisons and two subsequent invasions
by the Franks
and
Alamanni
, the war for the Italian peninsula was
at an end.
In 551, Athanagild
,a noble from
Visigothic

Hispania
, sought Justinian’s help in a
rebellion against the king, and the emperor dispatched a force under
Liberius
, a successful military commander. The
Empire held on to a small slice of the
Iberian Peninsula
coast until the reign of
Heraclius
.^[42]

In the east, the
Roman-Persian Wars
continued until 561 when
Justinian’s and Khosrau’s envoys agreed on a 50-year peace. By the mid-550s,
Justinian had won victories in most theatres of operation, with the notable
exception of the Balkans
, which were subjected to repeated
incursions from the
Slavs
. In 559, the Empire faced a great
invasion of Kutrigurs
and
Sclaveni
. Justinian called Belisarius out of
retirement and defeated the new Hunnish threat. The strengthening of the Danube
fleet caused the Kutrigur Huns to withdraw and they agreed to a treaty which
allowed them safe passage back across the Danube.

In 529, a ten-man commission chaired by
Tribonian
revised the ancient
Roman legal code
and created the new Codex
Justinianus, a condensed version of previous legal texts. In 534, the Codex
Justinianus was updated and reorganised into the system of law used for the rest
of the Byzantine era.
These legal reforms, along with the many other changes to the law became known
as the
Corpus Juris Civilis
.

During the 6th century, the traditional
Greco-Roman culture
was still influential in
the Eastern empire with prominent representatives such as the natural
philosopher
John Philoponus
. Nevertheless, Christian
philosophy and culture were dominant and began to replace the older culture.
Hymns written by
Romanos the Melodist
marked the development of
the Divine Liturgy
, while architects and builders
worked to complete the new Church of the
Holy Wisdom
,
Hagia Sophia
, which was designed to replace an
older church destroyed during the Nika Revolt. The Hagia Sophia stands today as
one of the major monuments of Byzantine architectural history.
During the 6th and 7th centuries, the Empire was struck by a
series of epidemics
, which greatly devastated
the population and contributed to a significant economic decline and a weakening
of the Empire.

After Justinian died in 565, his successor,
Justin II
refused to pay the large tribute to
the Persians. Meanwhile, the Germanic
Lombards
invaded Italy; by the end of the
century only a third of Italy was in Byzantine hands. Justin’s successor,
Tiberius II
, choosing between his enemies,
awarded subsidies to the
Avars
while taking military action against the
Persians. Though Tiberius’ general,
Maurice
, led an effective campaign on the
eastern frontier, subsidies failed to restrain the Avars. They captured the
Balkan fortress of
Sirmium
in 582, while the
Slavs
began to make inroads across the Danube.
Maurice, who meanwhile succeeded Tiberius, intervened in a Persian civil war,
placed the legitimate
Khosrau II
back on the throne and married his
daughter to him. Maurice’s treaty with his new brother-in-law brought a new
status-quo to the east territorially, enlarged to an extent never before
achieved by the Empire in its six century history, and much cheaper to defend
during this new perpetual peace – millions of solidi were saved by the remission
of tribute to the Persians alone. After his victory on the eastern frontier,
Maurice was free to focus on the Balkans, and by 602 after a series of
successful
campaigns
he had pushed the Avars and Slavs
back across the Danube.

 Shrinking borders

After Maurice’s murder by
Phocas
, Khosrau used the pretext to reconquer
the Roman province of
Mesopotamia
.
Phocas, an unpopular ruler who was invariably described in Byzantine sources as
a “tyrant”, was the target of a number of Senate-led plots. He was eventually
deposed in 610 by
Heraclius
, who sailed to Constantinople from
Carthage
with an icon affixed to the prow of
his ship.
Following the ascension of Heraclius, the Sassanid advance pushed deep into Asia
Minor, also occupying
Damascus
and
Jerusalem
and removing the
True Cross
to
Ctesiphon
.
The counter-offensive of Heraclius took on the character of a holy war, and an
acheiropoietos
image of
Christ
was carried as a military standard.
(similarly, when Constantinople was saved from an
Avar
siege in 626, the victory was attributed
to the icons of the Virgin which were led in procession by
Patriarch Sergius
about the walls of the city).
The main Sassanid force was destroyed at
Nineveh
in 627, and in 629 Heraclius restored
the True Cross to Jerusalem in a majestic ceremony.
The war had exhausted both the Byzantine and
Sassanid Empire
, and left them extremely
vulnerable to the
Arab Muslim forces
which emerged in the
following years.
The
Romans suffered a crushing defeat
by the Arabs
at the
Battle of Yarmuk
in 636, and
Ctesiphon
fell in 634.

The Arabs, now firmly in
control of Syria and the Levant
, sent frequent
raiding parties deep into Anatolia, and between 674 and 678
laid siege
to Constantinople itself. The Arab
fleet was finally repulsed through the use of
Greek fire
, and a thirty-years’ truce was
signed between the Empire and
Ummayyad

Caliphate
.
The Anatolian raids continued unabated, and accelerated the demise of classical
urban culture, with the inhabitants of many cities either refortifying much
smaller areas within the old city walls, or relocating entirely to nearby
fortresses.
Constantinople itself dropped substantially in size, from 500,000 inhabitants to
just 40,000–70,000, as the city lost the free grain shipments in 618 after the
loss of Egypt to the Persians (province was regained in 629, but lost to Arab
invaders in 642).
The void left by the disappearance of the old semi-autonomous civic institutions
was filled by the
theme system
, which entailed the division of
Anatolia into “provinces” occupied by distinct armies which assumed civil
authority and answered directly to the imperial administration. This system may
have had its roots in certain ad hoc measures taken by Heraclius, but
over the course of the 7th century it developed into an entirely new system of
Imperial governance.

The withdrawal of large numbers of troops from the Balkans to combat the
Persians and then the Arabs in the east opened the door for the gradual
southward expansion of
Slavic peoples
into the peninsula, and, as in
Anatolia, many cities shrank to small fortified settlements.
In the 670s, the
Bulgarians
were pushed south of the Danube by
the arrival of the
Khazars
, and in 680 Byzantine forces which had
been sent to disperse these new settlements were defeated. In the next year,
Constantine IV
signed a treaty with the
Bulgarian khan
Asparukh
, and the
new Bulgarian state
assumed sovereignty over a
number of Slavic tribes which had previously, at least in name, recognised
Byzantine rule.
In 687–688, the emperor
Justinian II
led an expedition against the
Slavs and Bulgarians which made significant gains, although the fact that he had
to fight his way from
Thrace
to
Macedonia
demonstrates the degree to which
Byzantine power in the north Balkans had declined.

The final Heraclian emperor,
Justinian II
, attempted to break the power of
the urban aristocracy through severe taxation and the appointment of “outsiders”
to administrative posts. He was driven from power in 695, and took shelter first
with the Khazars and then with the Bulgarians. In 705, he returned to
Constantinople with the armies of the Bulgarian khan
Tervel
, retook the throne, and instituted a
reign of terror against his enemies. With his final overthrow in 711, supported
once more by the urban aristocracy, the Heraclian dynasty came to an end.^[60]

Leo III the Isaurian
turned back the Muslim
assault in 718, and achieved victory with the major help of the Bulgarian khan
Tervel, who killed 32,000 Arabs with his army. He also addressed himself to the
task of reorganising and consolidating the themes in Asia Minor. His successor,
Constantine V
, won noteworthy victories in
northern Syria, and thoroughly undermined Bulgar strength.

Taking advantage of the Empire’s weakness after the revolt of
Thomas the Slav
in the early 820s, the Arabs
captured Crete
, and successfully attacked
Sicily, but on 3 September 863, general
Petronas
gained a
huge victory
against
Umar al-Aqta
, the

emir of
Melitene
. Under the leadership of Bulgarian
Emperor Krum
, the Bulgarian threat also reemerged, but
in 814 Krum’s son,
Omortag
, arranged a peace with the Byzantine
Empire.

The 8th and 9th centuries were also dominated by controversy and religious
division over
Iconoclasm
.

Icons were banned by Leo and Constantine, leading to revolts by
iconodules
(supporters of icons) throughout the
empire. After the efforts of
Empress Irene
, the
Second Council of Nicaea
met in 787, and
affirmed that icons could be venerated but not worshipped. Irene is said to have
endeavoured to negotiate a marriage between herself and
Charlemagne
, but, according to
Theophanes the Confessor
, the scheme was
frustrated by Aetios, one of her favourites.
In 813, Emperor
Leo V the Armenian
restored the policy of
iconoclasm, but in 843
Empress Theodora
restored the veneration of the
icons with the help of
Patriarch Methodios
.
Iconoclasm played its part in the further alienation of East from West, which
worsened during the so-called
Photian Schism
, when
Pope Nicholas I
challenged
Photios
‘s elevation to the patriarchate.

Macedonian
dynasty and resurgence

Byzantines, c. 700-1000.

The Byzantine Empire reached its height under the Macedonian emperors of the
late 9th, 10th, and early 11th centuries, when it gained control over the
Adriatic Sea, southern Italy, and all of the territory of the tsar Samuel. The
cities of the Empire expanded, and affluence spread across the provinces because
of the new-found security. The population rose, and production increased,
stimulating new demand while also helping to encourage trade. Culturally, there
was considerable growth in education and learning (the “Macedonian
Renaissance”). Ancient texts were preserved and patiently re-copied. Byzantine
art flourished, and brilliant mosaics graced the interiors of the many new
churches.Though the Empire was significantly smaller than during the reign of
Justinian, it was also stronger, as the remaining territories were less
geographically dispersed and more politically and culturally integrated.

By 867, the Byzantine Empire had re-stabilised its position in both the east
and the west, and the efficiency of its defensive military structure enabled its
emperors to begin planning wars of reconquest in the east.

The process of reconquest began with mixed fortunes. The temporary reconquest
of Crete
(843) was followed by a crushing
Byzantine defeat on the
Bosporus
, while the emperors were unable to
prevent the ongoing Muslim conquest of
Sicily
(827–902). Using present day
Tunisia
as their launching pad, the
Muslims
conquered
Palermo
in 831,
Messina
in 842,

Enna in 859,
Syracuse
in 878,
Catania
in 900 and the final Byzantine
stronghold, the fortress of
Taormina
, in 902.

These drawbacks were later counterbalanced by a victorious expedition against
Damietta
in Egypt (856), the
defeat
of the Emir of
Melitene
(863), the confirmation of the
imperial authority over
Dalmatia
(867), and Basil I’s offensives
towards the Euphrates
(870s). Unlike the deteriorating
situation in Sicily, Basil I handled the situation in southern Italy well enough
and the province would remain in Byzantine hands for the next 200 years.

In 904, disaster struck the Empire when its second city,
Thessaloniki
, was sacked by an Arab fleet led
by the Byzantine renegade
Leo of Tripoli
. The Byzantine military
responded by destroying an Arab fleet in 908, and sacking the city of
Laodicea
in Syria two years later. Despite this
revenge, the Byzantines were still unable to strike a decisive blow against the
Muslims, who inflicted a crushing defeat on the imperial forces when they
attempted to regain Crete in 911.

The situation on the border with the Arab territories remained fluid, with
the Byzantines alternatively on the offensive or defensive. The
Varangians
, who attacked Constantinople
for the first time in 860
, constituted another
new challenge. In 941,
they appeared on the Asian shore
of the
Bosporus, but this time they were crushed, showing the improvements in the
Byzantine military position after 907, when
only diplomacy had been able to push back the invaders
.
The vanquisher of the Varangians was the famous general
John Kourkouas
, who continued the offensive
with other noteworthy victories in
Mesopotamia
(943): these culminated in the
reconquest of
Edessa
(944), which was especially celebrated
for the return to Constantinople of the venerated
Mandylion
.

The soldier-emperors
Nikephoros II Phokas
(reigned 963–969) and
John I Tzimiskes
(969–976) expanded the empire
well into Syria
, defeating the emirs of north-west

Iraq and reconquering
Crete
and
Cyprus
. At one point under John, the Empire’s
armies even threatened
Jerusalem
, far to the south. The emirate of
Aleppo
and its neighbours became vassals of the
Empire in the east, where the greatest threat to the empire was the
Fatimid
caliphate.^[64]
After much campaigning, the last Arab threat to Byzantium was defeated when
Basil II rapidly drew 40,000 mounted soldiers to relieve Roman Syria. With a
surplus of resources and victories thanks to the Bulgar and Syrian campaigns,
Basil II planned an expedition against Sicily to re-take it from the Arabs
there. After his death in 1025, the expedition set off in the 1040s and was met
with initial, but stunted success.

Emperor
Basil II
the Bulgar Slayer
(976–1025).

The traditional struggle with the
See of Rome
continued, spurred by the question
of religious supremacy over the newly Christianised Bulgaria. This prompted an
invasion by the powerful

Tsar
Simeon I
in 894, but this was pushed back by
Byzantine diplomacy, which called on the help of the Hungarians. The Byzantines
were in turn defeated, however, at the
Battle of Bulgarophygon
(896), and obliged to
pay annual subsides to the Bulgarians. Later (912), Simeon even had the
Byzantines grant him the crown of basileus (emperor) of Bulgaria and had
the young emperor
Constantine VII
marry one of his daughters.
When a revolt in Constantinople halted his dynastic project, he again invaded
Thrace and conquered
Adrianople
.

A great imperial expedition under
Leo Phocas
and
Romanos Lekapenos
ended again with a crushing
Byzantine defeat at the
Battle of Acheloos
(917), and the following
year the Bulgarians were free to ravage northern Greece as far as
Corinth
. Adrianople was captured again in 923
and in 924 a Bulgarian army laid siege to Constantinople. The situation in the
Balkans improved only after Simeon’s death in 927. In 968, Bulgaria was overrun
by the Rus’
under
Sviatoslav I of Kiev
, but three years later,
Emperor
John I Tzimiskes

defeated
the Rus’ and re-incorporated eastern
Bulgaria into the Byzantine Empire.

Bulgarian resistance revived under the rule of the
Cometopuli dynasty
, but the new emperor
Basil II
(reigned 976–1025) made the submission
of the Bulgarians his primary goal. Basil’s first expedition against Bulgaria,
however, resulted in a humiliating defeat at the
Gates of Trajan
. For the next few years, the
emperor would be preoccupied with internal revolts in
Anatolia
, while the Bulgarians expanded their
realm in the Balkans. The war was to drag on for nearly twenty years. The
Byzantine victories of
Spercheios
and
Skopje
decisively weakened the Bulgarian army,
and in annual campaigns, Basil methodically reduced the Bulgarian strongholds.
Eventually, at the
Battle of Kleidion
in 1014 the Bulgarians were
completely defeated.^[65]
The Bulgarian army was captured, and it is said that 99 out of every 100 men
were blinded, with the remaining hundredth man left with one eye so as to lead
his compatriots home. When Tsar
Samuil
saw the broken remains of his once
gallant army, he died of shock. By 1018, the last Bulgarian strongholds had
surrendered, and the country became part of the Empire. This victory restored
the Danube
frontier, which had not been held since
the days of the emperor Heraclius.

Between 850 and 1100, the Empire developed a mixed relationship with a new
state that emerged to the north across the
Black Sea
, that of the
Kievan Rus’
. This relationship would have
long-lasting repercussions in the history of the
East Slavs
. The Empire quickly became the main
trading
and cultural partner for Kiev, but
relations were not always friendly. The most serious conflict between the two
powers was the
war of 968–971
in Bulgaria, but several
Rus’ raiding expeditions

against the Byzantine cities of the Black Sea coast and Constantinople itself
are also recorded. Although most were repulsed, they were concluded by
trade treaties
that were generally favourable
to the Rus’.

Rus’-Byzantine relations became closer following the marriage of the
porphyrogenita

Anna
to
Vladimir the Great
, and the subsequent
Christianisation of the Rus’
: Byzantine
priests, architects and artists were invited to work on numerous cathedrals and
churches around Rus’, expanding Byzantine cultural influence even further.
Numerous Rus’ served in the Byzantine army as mercenaries, most notably as the
famous
Varangian Guard
.

The Byzantine Empire then stretched from
Armenia
in the east to
Calabria
in
Southern Italy
in the west.^[64]
Many successes had been achieved, ranging from the conquest of
Bulgaria
, to the annexation of parts of
Georgia
and Armenia, to the total annihilation
of an invading force of Egyptians outside
Antioch
. Yet even these victories were not
enough; Basil considered the continued
Arab occupation of Sicily
to be an outrage.
Accordingly, he planned to reconquer the island, which had belonged to the Roman
world since the
First Punic War
. However, his death in 1025 put
an end to the project.

The 11th century was also momentous for its religious events. In 1054,
relations between the Eastern and Western traditions within the Christian Church
reached a terminal crisis. Although there was a formal declaration of
institutional separation, on July 16, when three papal legates entered the Hagia
Sophia during
Divine Liturgy
on a Saturday afternoon and
placed a bull
of
excommunication
on the altar, the so-called
Great Schism
was actually the culmination of
centuries of gradual separation.

 Crisis and
fragmentation

The Empire soon fell into a period of difficulties, caused to a large extent
by the undermining of the theme system and the neglect of the military.
Nikephoros II
(reigned 963–969),
John Tzimiskes
and
Basil II
changed the military divisions (τάγματα,

tagmata
) from a rapid response, primarily
defensive, citizen army into a professional, campaigning army increasingly
manned by mercenaries.
Mercenaries
, however, were expensive and as the
threat of invasion receded in the 10th century, so did the need for maintaining
large garrisons and expensive fortifications.^[66]
Basil II
left a burgeoning treasury upon his
death, but neglected to plan for his succession. None of his immediate
successors had any particular military or political talent and the
administration of the Empire increasingly fell into the hands of the civil
service. Efforts to revive the Byzantine economy only resulted in inflation and
a debased gold coinage. The army was now seen as both an unnecessary expense and
a political threat. Therefore, native troops were cashiered and replaced by
foreign mercenaries on specific contract.

At the same time, the Empire was faced with new enemies. Provinces in
southern Italy faced the
Normans
, who arrived in Italy at the beginning
of the 11th century. During a period of strife between Constantinople and Rome
which ended in the
East-West Schism
of 1054, the Normans began to
advance, slowly but steadily, into Byzantine Italy.
Reggio
, the capital of the
tagma
of Calabria, was captured in 1060 by
Robert Guiscard
, followed by
Otranto
in 1068. Bari, the main Byzantine
stronghold in Apulia, was besieged in August 1068 and
fell in April 1071
.
The Byzantines also lost their influence over the
Dalmatian
coastal cities to
Peter Krešimir IV of Croatia
in 1069.

It was in Asia Minor, however, that the greatest disaster would take place.
The
Seljuq Turks
made their first explorations
across the Byzantine frontier into Armenia in 1065 and in 1067. The emergency
lent weight to the military aristocracy in Anatolia who, in 1068, secured the
election of one of their own,
Romanos Diogenes
, as emperor. In the summer of
1071, Romanos undertook a massive eastern campaign to draw the Seljuks into a
general engagement with the Byzantine army. At
Manzikert
, Romanos not only suffered a surprise
defeat at the hands of
Sultan

Alp Arslan
, but was also captured. Alp Arslan
treated him with respect, and imposed no harsh terms on the Byzantines.
In Constantinople, however, a coup took place in favour of
Michael Doukas
, who soon faced the opposition
of
Nikephoros Bryennios
and
Nikephoros Botaneiates
. By 1081, the Seljuks
expanded their rule over virtually the entire Anatolian plateau from Armenia in
the east to Bithynia
in the west and founded their capital
at
Nicaea
, just 90 km from Constantinople.

Komnenian
dynasty and the crusaders

The period from about 1081 to about 1185 is often known as the Komnenian or
Comnenian period, after the Komnenos dynasty. Together, the five Komnenian
emperors (Alexios I, John II, Manuel I, Alexios II and Andronikos I) ruled for
104 years, presiding over a sustained, though ultimately incomplete, restoration
of the military, territorial, economic and political position of the Byzantine
Empire. The Empire under the Komnenoi played a key role in the history of the
Crusades in the Holy Land, while also exerting enormous cultural and political
influence in Europe, the Near East, and the lands around the Mediterranean Sea.
The Komnenian emperors, particularly John and Manuel, exerted great influence
over the Crusader states of Outremer, whilst Alexios I played a key role in the
course of the First Crusade, which he helped bring about. Moreover, it was
during the Komnenian period that contact between Byzantium and the “Latin”
Christian West, including the Crusader states, was at its most crucial stage.
Venetian and other Italian traders became resident in Constantinople and the
empire in large numbers (60–80,000 ‘Latins’ in Constantinople alone), and their
presence together with the numerous Latin mercenaries who were employed by
Manuel in particular helped to spread Byzantine technology, art, literature and
culture throughout the Roman Catholic west. Above all, the cultural impact of
Byzantine art on the west at this period was enormous and of long lasting
significance.

The Komnenoi also made a significant contribution to the history of Asia
Minor. By reconquering much of the region, the Komnenoi set back the advance of
the Turks in Anatolia by more than two centuries. In the process, they planted
the foundations of the Byzantine successor states of Nicaea, Epirus and
Trebizond. Meanwhile, their extensive programme of fortifications has left an
enduring mark upon the Anatolian landscape, which can still be appreciated
today.

 Alexios
I and the First Crusade

After Manzikert, a partial recovery (referred to as the
Komnenian restoration
) was made possible by the
efforts of the Komnenian dynasty
.^[72]
The first emperor of this dynasty was
Isaac I
(1057–1059) and the second Alexios I.
At the very outset of his reign, Alexios faced a formidable attack by the
Normans under
Robert Guiscard
and his son
Bohemund of Taranto
, who captured
Dyrrhachium
and
Corfu
, and laid siege to
Larissa
in
Thessaly
. Robert Guiscard’s death in 1085
temporarily eased the Norman problem. The following year, the Seljuq sultan
died, and the sultanate was split by internal rivalries. By his own efforts,
Alexios defeated the
Pechenegs
; they were caught by surprise and
annihilated at the
Battle of Levounion
on 28 April 1091.

 

The very brief first coinage of the
Thessaloniki
mint, which Alexios
opened as he passed through in September 1081 on his way to confront
the invading Normans under Robert Guiscard.

Having achieved stability in the West, Alexios could turn his attention to
the severe economic difficulties and the disintegration of the Empire’s
traditional defences.
However, he still did not have enough manpower to recover the lost territories
in Asia Minor
and to advance against the Seljuks.
At the
Council of Piacenza
in 1095, Alexios’ envoys
spoke to
Pope Urban II
about the suffering of the
Christians of the East, and underscored that without help from the West they
would continue to suffer under Muslim rule. Urban saw Alexios’ request as a dual
opportunity to cement Western Europe and reunite the
Eastern Orthodox churches
with the
Catholic Church
under his rule.
On 27 November 1095,
Pope Urban II
called together the
Council of Clermont
, and urged all those
present to take up arms under the sign of the
Cross
and launch an armed
pilgrimage
to recover Jerusalem and the East
from the Muslims. The response in
Western Europe
was overwhelming.

Alexios had anticipated help in the form of mercenary forces from the West,
but was totally unprepared for the immense and undisciplined force which soon
arrived in Byzantine territory. It was no comfort to Alexios to learn that four
of the eight leaders of the main body of the Crusade were Normans, among them
Bohemund. Since the crusade had to pass through Constantinople, however, the
Emperor had some control over it. He required its leaders to swear to restore to
the empire any towns or territories they might conquer from the Turks on their
way to the Holy Land. In return, he gave them guides and a military escort.
Alexios was able to recover a number of important cities and islands, and in
fact much of western Asia Minor. Nevertheless, the crusaders believed their
oaths were invalidated when Alexios did not help them during the siege of
Antioch
(he had in fact set out on the road to
Antioch, but had been persuaded to turn back by
Stephen of Blois
, who assured him that all was
lost and that the expedition had already failed).
Bohemund, who had set himself up as
Prince of Antioch
, briefly went to war with the
Byzantines, but agreed to become Alexios’ vassal under the
Treaty of Devol
in 1108, which marked the end
of Norman threat during Alexios’ reign.

John II, Manuel I and the Second Crusade

Alexios’s son
John II Komnenos
succeeded him in 1118, and was
to rule until 1143. John was a pious and dedicated Emperor who was determined to
undo the damage his empire had suffered at the
Battle of Manzikert
, half a century earlier.
Famed for his piety and his remarkably mild and just reign, John was an
exceptional example of a moral ruler, at a time when cruelty was the norm.
For this reason, he has been called the Byzantine
Marcus Aurelius
.

In the course of his twenty-five year reign, John made alliances with the
Holy Roman Empire
in the West, decisively
defeated the Pechenegs
at the
Battle of Beroia
,
and personally led numerous campaigns against the
Turks
in
Asia Minor
. John’s campaigns fundamentally
changed the balance of power in the East, forcing the Turks onto the defensive
and restoring to the Byzantines many towns, fortresses and cities right across
the peninsula.
He also thwarted Hungarian, and Serbian threats during the 1120s, and in 1130
allied himself with the
German emperor

Lothair III
against the Norman king
Roger II of Sicily
.
In the later part of his reign, John focused his activities on the East. He
defeated the
Danishmend
emirate of
Melitene
, and reconquered all of
Cilicia
, while forcing
Raymond of Poitiers
,
Prince of Antioch
, to recognise Byzantine
suzerainty. In an effort to demonstrate the Emperor’s role as the leader of the
Christian
world, John marched into the
Holy Land
at the head of the combined forces of
the Empire and the
Crusader
states; yet despite the great vigour
with which he pressed the campaign, John’s hopes were disappointed by the
treachery of his Crusader allies.
In 1142, John returned to press his claims to Antioch, but he died in the spring
of 1143 following a hunting accident. Raymond was emboldened to invade Cilicia,
but he was defeated and forced to go to Constantinople to beg mercy from the new
Emperor.

John’s chosen heir was his fourth son,
Manuel I Komnenos
, who campaigned aggressively
against his neighbours both in the west and in the east. In Palestine, he allied
himself with the Crusader
Kingdom of Jerusalem
and sent a large fleet to
participate in a combined invasion of
Fatimid Egypt
. Manuel reinforced his position
as overlord of the Crusader states, with his hegemony over Antioch and Jerusalem
secured by agreement with
Raynald
, Prince of Antioch, and
Amalric
, King of Jerusalem respectively.
In an effort to restore Byzantine control over the ports of southern Italy, he
sent an expedition to Italy in 1155, but disputes within the coalition led to
the eventual failure of the campaign. Despite this military setback, Manuel’s
armies successfully invaded the
Kingdom of Hungary
in 1167, defeating the
Hungarians at the
Battle of Sirmium
. By 1168, nearly the whole of
the eastern Adriatic coast lay in Manuel’s hands.
Manuel made several alliances with the Pope and Western Christian kingdoms, and
successfully handled the passage of the
Second Crusade
through his empire.

In the east, however, Manuel suffered a major defeat at the
Battle of Myriokephalon
, in 1176, against the
Turks. Yet the losses were quickly made good, and in the following year Manuel’s
forces inflicted a defeat upon a force of “picked Turks”.
The Byzantine commander John Vatatzes, who destroyed the Turkish invaders at the
Battle of Hyelion and Leimocheir
, not only
brought troops from the capital but also was able to gather an army along the
way; a sign that the Byzantine army remained strong and that the defensive
program of western Asia Minor was still successful.

Twelfth century
Renaissance

John and Manuel pursued active military policies, and both deployed
considerable resources on sieges and on city defences; aggressive fortification
policies were at the heart of their imperial military policies.
Despite the defeat at Myriokephalon, the policies of Alexios, John and Manuel
resulted in vast territorial gains, increased frontier stability in Asia Minor,
and secured the stabilisation of the Empire’s European frontiers. From c.1081 to
c.1180, the Komnenian army assured the empire’s security, enabling Byzantine
civilisation to flourish.

This allowed the Western provinces to achieve an economic revival which
continued until the close of the century. It has been argued that Byzantium
under the Komnenian rule was more prosperous than at any time since the Persian
invasions of the 7th century. During the 12th century, population levels rose
and extensive tracts of new agricultural land were brought into production.
Archaeological evidence from both Europe and Asia Minor shows a considerable
increase in the size of urban settlements, together with a notable upsurge in
new towns. Trade was also flourishing; the Venetians, the
Genoese
and others opened up the ports of the
Aegean to commerce, shipping goods from the Crusader kingdoms of Outremer and
Fatimid Egypt
to the west and trading with the
Empire via Constantinople.

In artistic terms, there was a revival in
mosaic
, and regional schools of
architecture
began producing many distinctive
styles that drew on a range of cultural influences.
During the 12th century, the Byzantines provided their model of early
humanism
as a renaissance of interest in
classical authors. In
Eustathius of Thessalonica
, Byzantine humanism
found its most characteristic expression.

Dynasty of the Angeloi

Manuel’s death on 24 September 1180 left his 11-year-old son
Alexios II Komnenos
on the throne. Alexios was
highly incompetent at the office, but it was his mother,
Maria of Antioch
, and her Frankish background
that made his regency unpopular.
Eventually,
Andronikos I Komnenos
, a grandson of Alexios I,
launched a revolt against his younger relative and managed to overthrow him in a
violent
coup d’état
. Utilizing his good looks and
his immense popularity with the army, he marched on to Constantinople in August
1182, and incited a massacre of the Latins.^[96]
After eliminating his potential rivals, he had himself crowned as co-emperor in
September 1183; he eliminated Alexios II and even took his 12-year-old wife
Agnes of France
for himself.

Andronikos began his reign well; in particular, the measures he took to
reform the government of the Empire have been praised by historians. According
to
George Ostrogorsky
, Andronikos was determined
to root out corruption: Under his rule, the sale of offices ceased; selection
was based on merit, rather than favouritism; officials were paid an adequate
salary so as to reduce the temptation of bribery. In the provinces, Andronikos’s
reforms produced a speedy and marked improvement.
The aristocrats were infuriated against him, and to make matters worse,
Andronikos seems to have become increasingly unbalanced; executions and violence
became increasingly common, and his reign turned into a reign of terror.
Andronikos seemed almost to seek the extermination of the aristocracy as a
whole. The struggle against the aristocracy turned into wholesale slaughter,
while the Emperor resorted to ever more ruthless measures to shore up his
regime.

Despite his military background, Andronikos failed to deal with
Isaac Komnenos
,
Béla III
who reincorporated Croatian
territories into Hungary, and
Stephen Nemanja
of Serbia who declared his
independence from the Empire. Yet, none of these troubles would compare to
William II of Sicily
‘s invasion force of 300
ships and 80,000 men, arriving in 1185.^[99]
Andronikos mobilised a small fleet of 100 ships to defend the capital but other
than that he was indifferent to the populace. He was finally overthrown when
Isaac Angelos
, surviving an imperial
assassination attempt, seized power with the aid of the people and had
Andronikos killed.

The reign of Isaac II, and, still more, that of his brother
Alexios III
, saw the collapse of what remained
of the centralised machinery of Byzantine government and defence. Although, the
Normans were driven out of Greece, in 1186 the Vlachs and Bulgars began a
rebellion that was to lead to the formation of the
Second Bulgarian Empire
. The internal policy of
the Angeloi was characterised by the squandering of the public treasure, and
fiscal maladministration. Imperial authority was severely weakened, and the
growing power vacuum at the center of the Empire encouraged fragmentation. There
is evidence that some Komnenian heirs had set up a semi-independent state in
Trebizond
before 1204.
According to
Alexander Vasiliev
, “the dynasty of the Angeloi,
Greek in its origin, accelerated the ruin of the Empire, already weakened
without and disunited within.”

In 1198,
Pope Innocent III
broached the subject of a new
crusade through
legates
and
encyclical letters
.
The stated intent of the crusade was to conquer
Egypt
, now the centre of Muslim power in the
Levant
. The crusader army that arrived at
Venice
in the summer of 1202 was somewhat
smaller than had been anticipated, and there were not sufficient funds to pay
the Venetians, whose fleet was hired by the crusaders to take them to Egypt.
Venetian policy under the ageing and blind but still ambitious
Doge

Enrico Dandolo
was potentially at variance with
that of the Pope and the crusaders, because Venice was closely related
commercially with Egypt.
The crusaders accepted the suggestion that in lieu of payment they assist the
Venetians in the capture of the (Christian) port of
Zara
in
Dalmatia
(vassal city of Venice, which had
rebelled and placed itself under Hungary’s protection in 1186).
The city fell in November 1202 after a brief
siege
.
Innocent, who was informed of the plan but his veto disregarded, was reluctant
to jeopardise the Crusade, and gave conditional absolution to the crusaders—not,
however, to the Venetians.

After the death of
Theobald III, Count of Champagne
, the
leadership of the Crusade passed to
Boniface of Montferrat
, a friend of the
Hohenstaufen

Philip of Swabia
. Both Boniface and Philip had
married into the Byzantine Imperial family. In fact, Philip’s brother-in-law,
Alexios Angelos
, son of the deposed and blinded
Emperor
Isaac II Angelos
, had appeared in Europe
seeking aid and had made contacts with the crusaders. Alexios offered to reunite
the Byzantine church with Rome, pay the crusaders 200,000 silver marks, join the
crusade and provide all the supplies they needed to get to Egypt.
Innocent was aware of a plan to divert the Crusade to Constantinople and forbade
any attack on the city, but the papal letter arrived after the fleets had left
Zara.

The crusaders arrived at the city in the summer of 1203 and quickly attacked,
started a major fire which damaged large parts of the city, and seized control
of it (first of two times). Alexios III fled from the capital, and Alexios
Angelos was elevated to the throne as
Alexios IV
along with his blind father Isaac.
However, Alexios IV and Isaac II were unable to keep their promises and were
deposed by Alexios V. Eventually, the crusaders took the city a second time on
13 April 1204 and Constantinople was subjected to pillage and massacre by the
rank and file for three days. Many priceless icons, relics, and other objects
later turned up in
Western Europe
, a large number in Venice.
According to Choniates, a
prostitute
was even set up on the Patriarchal
throne.
When Innocent III heard of the conduct of his crusaders, he castigated them in
no uncertain terms. But the situation was beyond his control, especially after
his legate, on his own initiative, had absolved the crusaders from their vow to
proceed to the Holy Land.^[64][104]
When order had been restored, the crusaders and the Venetians proceeded to
implement their agreement;
Baldwin of Flanders
was elected
Emperor
and the Venetian
Thomas Morosini
chosen as Patriarch. The lands
divided up among the leaders included most of the former Byzantine possessions,
however resistance would continue through the Byzantine remnants of the
Nicaea
,
Trebizond
, and
Epirus
.

 Fall

After the sack of Constantinople in 1204 by Latin
Crusaders
, two Byzantine
successor states
were established: the
Empire of Nicaea
, and the
Despotate of Epirus
. A third one, the
Empire of Trebizond
was created a few weeks
before the sack of Constantinople by
Alexios I of Trebizond
. Of these three
successor states, Epirus and Nicaea stood the best chance of reclaiming
Constantinople. The Nicaean Empire struggled, however, to survive the next few
decades, and by the mid-13th century it lost much of southern Anatolia.^[109]
The weakening of the
Sultanate of Rûm
following the
Mongol Invasion in 1242–43
allowed many
Beyliks
and
ghazis
to set up their own principalities in
Anatolia, weakening the Byzantine hold on Asia Minor.^[110]
In time, one of the Beys,
Osman I
, created an empire that would
eventually conquer Constantinople. However, the Mongol Invasion also gave Nicaea
a temporary respite from Seljuk attacks allowing it to concentrate on the
Latin Empire
only north of its position.

Reconquest of
Constantinople

The Byzantine Empire c. 1263.

The Empire of Nicaea, founded by the
Laskarid dynasty
, managed to
reclaim Constantinople
from the Latins in 1261
and defeat Epirus. This led to a short-lived revival of Byzantine fortunes under
Michael VIII Palaiologos
, but the war-ravaged
Empire was ill-equipped to deal with the enemies that now surrounded it. In
order to maintain his campaigns against the Latins, Michael pulled troops from
Asia Minor, and levied crippling taxes on the peasantry, causing much
resentment.
Massive construction projects were completed in Constantinople to repair the
damages of the Fourth Crusade, but none of these initiatives was of any comfort
to the farmers in Asia Minor, suffering raids from fanatical ghazis.

Rather than holding on to his possessions in Asia Minor, Michael chose to
expand the Empire, gaining only short-term success. To avoid another sacking of
the capital by the Latins, he forced the Church to submit to Rome, again a
temporary solution for which the peasantry hated Michael and Constantinople.
The efforts of
Andronikos II
and later his grandson
Andronikos III
marked Byzantium’s last genuine
attempts in restoring the glory of the Empire. However, the use of mercenaries
by Andronikos II would often backfire, with the
Catalan Company
ravaging the countryside and
increasing resentment towards Constantinople.

Things went worse for Byzantium during the civil wars that followed after
Andronikos III
died. A
six-year long civil war
devastated the empire,
allowing the Serbian ruler
Stefan IV Dushan
to overrun most of the
Empire’s remaining territory and establish a short-lived “Serbian
Empire“. In 1354, an earthquake at
Gallipoli
devastated the fort, allowing the
Ottomans (who were hired as mercenaries during the civil war by
John VI Kantakouzenos
) to establish themselves
in Europe.
By the time the Byzantine civil wars had ended, the Ottomans had defeated the
Serbians and subjugated them as vassals. Following the
Battle of Kosovo
, much of the Balkans became
dominated by the Ottomans.

The Byzantine emperors appealed to the West for help, but the Pope would only
consider sending aid in return for a reunion of the Eastern Orthodox Church with
the See of Rome
. Church unity was considered, and
occasionally accomplished by imperial decree, but the Orthodox citizenry and
clergy intensely resented the authority of
Rome
and the
Latin Rite
.
Some Western troops arrived to bolster the Christian defence of Constantinople,
but most Western rulers, distracted by their own affairs, did nothing as the
Ottomans picked apart the remaining Byzantine territories.

Constantinople by this stage was underpopulated and dilapidated. The
population of the city had collapsed so severely that it was now little more
than a cluster of villages separated by fields. On 2 April 1453, Sultan Mehmed’s
army of some 80,000 men and large numbers of irregulars laid siege to the city.
Despite a desperate last-ditch defence of the city by the massively outnumbered
Christian forces (c. 7,000 men, 2,000 of whom were foreign),
Constantinople finally fell
to the Ottomans
after a two-month siege on 29 May 1453. The last Byzantine Emperor,
Constantine XI
Palaiologos, was last seen
casting off his imperial regalia and throwing himself into hand-to-hand combat
after the walls of the city were taken.

By the time of the fall of Constantinople, the only remaining territory of
the Byzantine Empire was the
Despotate of the Morea
, which was ruled by
brothers of the last Emperor and continued on as a
tributary state
to the Ottomans. Incompetent
rule, failure to pay the annual tribute and a revolt against the Ottomans
finally led to
Mehmed II
‘s invasion of
Morea
in May 1460; he conquered the entire
Despotate by the summer. The
Empire of Trebizond
, which had split away from
the Byzantine Empire in 1204, became the last remnant and last de facto
successor state to the Byzantine Empire. Efforts by the Emperor
David
to recruit European powers for an
anti-Ottoman crusade provoked war between the Ottomans and Trebizond in the
summer of 1461. After a month long siege, David surrendered the city of
Trebizond
on August 14, 1461. With the fall of
Trebizond, the last remnant of the Roman Empire was extinguished.

The nephew of the last Emperor, Constantine XI,
Andreas Palaeologos
had inherited the title of
Byzantine Emperor
. He lived in the Morea
(Peloponnese) until its fall in 1460, then escaped to Rome where he lived under
the protection of the
Papal States
for the remainder of his life. He
styled himself Imperator Constantinopolitanus (“Emperor of
Constantinople”), and sold his succession rights to both
Charles VIII of France
and the
Catholic Monarchs
. However, no one ever invoked
the title after Andreas’s death, thus he is considered to be the last titular
Byzantine Emperor. Mehmed II and his successors continued to consider themselves
heirs to the Roman Empire until
the demise of the Ottoman Empire
in the early
20th century. Meanwhile, the
Danubian Principalities
(whose rulers also
considered themselves the heirs of the Eastern Roman Emperors)
harboured Orthodox refugees, including some Byzantine nobles.

At his death, the role of the emperor as a patron of
Eastern Orthodoxy
was claimed by
Ivan III
,
Grand Duke
of
Muscovy
. He had married Andreas’ sister,
Sophia Paleologue
, whose grandson,
Ivan IV
, would become the first

Tsar of Russia (tsar, or czar, meaning
caesar
, is a term traditionally applied by
Slavs to the Byzantine Emperors). Their successors supported the idea that
Moscow was the proper heir to Rome and Constantinople. The idea of the
Russian Empire
as the new,
Third Rome
was kept alive until its demise with
the
Russian Revolution of 1917
.

The Byzantine economy was among the most advanced in Europe and the
Mediterranean for many centuries. Europe, in particular, was unable to match
Byzantine economic strength until late in the Middle Ages. Constantinople was a
prime hub in a trading network that at various times extended across nearly all
of Eurasia
and North Africa, in particular being
the primary western terminus of the famous
silk road
. Some scholars argue that, up
until the arrival of the Arabs in the 7th century, the Empire had the most
powerful economy in the world. The
Arab conquests
, however, would represent a
substantial reversal of fortunes contributing to a period of decline and
stagnation.
Constantine V
‘s reforms (c. 765) marked the
beginning of a revival that continued until 1204. From the 10th century until
the end of the twelfth, the Byzantine Empire projected an image of luxury, and
the travellers were impressed by the wealth accumulated in the capital. All this
changed with the arrival of the Fourth Crusade, which was an economic
catastrophe.
The
Palaiologoi
tried to revive the economy, but
the late Byzantine state would not gain full control of either the foreign or
domestic economic forces. Gradually, it also lost its influence on the
modalities of trade and the price mechanisms, and its control over the outflow
of precious metals and, according to some scholars, even over the minting of
coins.

One of the economic foundations of the Empire was trade. Textiles must have
been by far the most important item of export;

silks were certainly imported into Egypt, and appeared also in
Bulgaria, and the West.^[124]
The state strictly controlled both the internal and the international trade, and
retained the monopoly of issuing
coinage
. The government exercised formal
control over interest rates, and set the parameters for the activity of the
guilds
and corporations, in which it had a
special interest. The Emperor and his officials intervened at times of crisis to
ensure the provisioning of the capital, and to keep down the price of
cereals
. Finally, the government often
collected part of the surplus through taxation, and put it back into
circulation, through redistribution in the form of salaries to state officials,
or in the form of investment in public works.

The writings of
Classical antiquity
never ceased to be
cultivated in Byzantium. Therefore, Byzantine science was in every period
closely connected with
ancient philosophy
, and
metaphysics
.
Although at various times the Byzantines made magnificent achievements in the
application of the
sciences
(notably in the construction of the
Hagia Sophia
), after the 6th century Byzantine
scholars made few novel contributions to science in terms of developing new
theories or extending the ideas of classical authors.
Scholarship particularly lagged during the dark years of
plague
and the Arab conquests, but then during
the so-called Byzantine Renaissance at the end of the first millennium
Byzantine scholars re-asserted themselves becoming experts in the scientific
developments of the Arabs and Persians, particularly in
astronomy
and
mathematics
.

In the final century of the Empire, Byzantine grammarians were those
principally responsible for carrying, in person and in writing, ancient Greek
grammatical and literary studies to early
Renaissance Italy
.
During this period,
astronomy
and other
mathematical sciences
were taught in Trebizond;
medicine attracted the interest of almost all scholars.

In the field of law,
Justinian I
‘s reforms had a clear effect on the
evolution of
jurisprudence
, and Leo III’s Ecloga
influenced the formation of legal institutions in the Slavic world.

Religion

As a symbol and expression of the universal prestige of the
Patriarchate of Constantinople, Justinian built the Church of the
Holy Wisdom of God,
Hagia Sophia
, which was completed
in the short period of four and a half years (532–537).

The survival of the Empire in the East assured an active role of the Emperor
in the affairs of the Church. The Byzantine state inherited from pagan times the
administrative, and financial routine of administering religious affairs, and
this routine was applied to the
Christian Church
. Following the pattern set by
Eusebius of Caesarea
, the Byzantines viewed the
Emperor as a representative or messenger of
Christ
, responsible particularly for the
propagation of Christianity among pagans, and for the “externals” of the
religion, such as administration and finances. The imperial role, however, in
the affairs of the Church never developed into a fixed, legally defined system.

Christianity
was never fully united and the
Christians in the Byzantine Empire were diverse throughout the Empire’s history.
The
state church of the Roman Empire
, which came to
be known as the
Eastern Orthodox Church
, never represented all
Christians in the Empire.
Nestorianism
, a view promoted by
Nestorius
who was a 5th century
Patriarch of Constantinople
, split from the
imperial church leading to what is today the
Assyrian Church of the East
. In a greater
schism during the 6th century the
Myaphysite
churches split from the imperial
church over the declarations of the
Council of Chalcedon
. Aside from these
communions, Arianism
and other Christian sects existed in
the early Empire, although by the time of Rome’s fall in the 5th century
Arianism was mostly confined to the Germanic peoples of Western Europe. By the
Empire’s late stages, though, Eastern Orthodoxy represented most Christians in
what remained of the Empire.
Jews
were a significant minority in the Empire
throughout its history. Despite periods of persecution, they were generally
tolerated, if not always embraced, during most periods.

With the decline of Rome, and internal dissension in the other Eastern
Patriarchates, the Church of Constantinople became, between the sixth and 11th
centuries, the richest and most influential center of
Christendom
.
Even when the Empire was reduced to only a shadow of its former self, the
Church, as an institution, had never exercised so much influence both inside and
outside of the imperial frontiers. As
George Ostrogorsky
points out:

The
Patriarchate of Constantinople
remained the
center of the Orthodox world, with subordinate
metropolitan sees
and archbishoprics in the
territory of Asia Minor and the Balkans, now lost to Byzantium, as well as
in Caucasus
, Russia and
Lithuania
. The Church remained the most
stable element in the Byzantine Empire.

Art and literature

Byzantine art is almost entirely concerned with religious expression and,
more specifically, with the impersonal translation of carefully controlled
church theology into artistic terms. Byzantine forms were spread by trade and
conquest to Italy and Sicily, where they persisted in modified form through the
12th century, and became formative influences on
Italian Renaissance
art. By means of the
expansion of the Eastern Orthodox church, Byzantine forms spread to eastern
European centres, particularly Russia.
Influences from Byzantine architecture, particularly in religious buildings, can
be found in diverse regions from Egypt and Arabia to Russia and Romania.

In Byzantine literature, therefore, four different cultural elements are to
be reckoned with: the
Greek
, the Christian, the
Roman
, and the Oriental. Byzantine literature
is often classified in five groups: historians and annalists, encyclopedists
(Patriarch Photios,
Michael Psellos
, and
Michael Choniates
are regarded as the greatest
encyclopedists of Byzantium) and essayists, and writers of secular poetry (The
only genuine heroic epic of the Byzantines is the
Digenis Acritas
). The remaining two groups
include the new literary species: ecclesiastical and theological literature, and
popular poetry. Of the approximately two to three thousand volumes of Byzantine
literature that survive, only three hundred and thirty consist of secular
poetry, history, science and pseudo-science.^[136]
While the most flourishing period of the secular literature of Byzantium runs
from the ninth to the 12th century, its religious literature (sermons,
liturgical books
and poetry, theology,
devotional treatises etc.) developed much earlier with
Romanos the Melodist
being its most prominent
representative.

In the Byzantine state, the
emperor
became the sole and absolute ruler, and
his power was regarded as having divine origin.
The Senate ceased to have real political and legislative authority but remained
as an honorary council with titular members. By the end of the 8th century, a
civil administration focused on the court was formed as part of a large-scale
consolidation of power in the capital (the rise to pre-eminence of the position
of sakellarios
is related to this change).
The most important reform of this period is the creation of
themes
, where civil and military administration
is exercised by one person, the
strategos
.

Despite the occasionally
derogatory use of the word “Byzantine”
, the
Byzantine bureaucracy had a distinct ability for reinventing itself in
accordance with the Empire’s situation. The Byzantine system of titulature and
precedence makes the imperial administration look like an ordered bureaucracy to
modern observers. Officials were arranged in strict order around the emperor,
and depended upon the imperial will for their ranks. There were also actual
administrative jobs, but authority could be vested in individuals rather than
offices.
In the 8th and 9th centuries, civil service constituted the clearest path to
aristocratic status, but, starting in the 9th century, the civil aristocracy was
rivalled by an aristocracy of nobility. According to some studies of Byzantine
government, 11th century politics were dominated by competition between the
civil and the military aristocracy. During this period, Alexios I undertook
important administrative reforms, including the creation of new courtly
dignities and offices.

After the fall of Rome, the key challenge to the Empire was to maintain a set
of relations between itself and its neighbours. When these nations set about
forging formal political institutions, they often modelled themselves on
Constantinople. Byzantine diplomacy soon managed to draw its neighbours into a
network of international and inter-state relations.
This network revolved around treaty making, and included the welcoming of the
new ruler into the family of kings, and the assimilation of Byzantine social
attitudes, values and institutions.
Whereas classical writers are fond of making ethical and legal distinctions
between peace and war, Byzantines regarded diplomacy as a form of war by other
means.
For example, a Bulgarian
threat could be countered by
providing money to the
Kievian Rus
.
The
Orthodox Church
also maintained a diplomatic
function, and the spread of Orthodox Christianity was a key diplomatic goal of
the Empire.

Diplomacy in the era was understood to have an intelligence-gathering
function on top of its pure political function. The
Bureau of Barbarians
in Constantinople handled
matters of protocol and record keeping for any matters dealing with
“Barbarians”, and thus had, perhaps, a basic intelligence function itself.
J. B. Bury believed that the office exercised supervision over all foreigners
visiting Constantinople, and that they were under the supervision of the
Logothete of the Course
.
While on the surface a protocol office—its main duty was to ensure foreign
envoys were properly cared for and received sufficient state funds for their
maintenance, and it kept all the official translators—it clearly had a security
function as well. On Strategy, from the 6th century, offers advice about
foreign embassies: “[Envoys] who are sent to us should be received honourably
and generously, for everyone holds envoys in high esteem. Their attendants,
however, should be kept under surveillance to keep them from obtaining any
information by asking questions of our people.”

Byzantines availed themselves of a number of diplomatic practices. For
example, embassies to the capital would often stay on for years. A member of
other royal houses would routinely be requested to stay on in Constantinople,
not only as a potential hostage, but also as a useful pawn in case political
conditions where he came from changed. Another key practice was to overwhelm
visitors by sumptuous displays.
According to
Dimitri Obolensky
, the preservation of
civilisation in
Eastern Europe
was due to the skill and
resourcefulness of Byzantine diplomacy, which remains one of Byzantium’s lasting
contributions to the history of Europe.

The original language of the government of the Empire, which owed its origins
to Rome, had been Latin and this continued to be its official language until the
7th century when it was effectively changed to Greek by
Heraclius
.
Scholarly Latin
would rapidly fall into disuse
among the educated classes although the language would continue to be at least a
ceremonial part of the Empire’s culture for some time.^[148]
Additionally,
Vulgar Latin
continued to be a minority
language in the Empire, and among the
Thraco-Roman
populations it gave birth to the
(Proto-)Romanian
language.
Likewise, on the coast of the
Adriatic Sea
, another neo-Latin vernacular
developed, which would later give rise to the
Dalmatian language
. In the Western
Mediterranean provinces temporarily acquired under the reign of Emperor
Justinian I
, Latin (eventually evolving into
Italian
) continued to be used both as a spoken
language and the language of scholarship.

Apart from the Imperial court, administration and military, the primary
language used in the eastern Roman provinces even before the
decline of the Western Empire
had always been
Greek, having been spoken in the region for centuries before Latin.^[150]
Indeed early on in the life of the Roman Empire, Greek had become the common
language in the Christian Church, the language of scholarship and the arts, and,
to a large degree, the lingua franca for trade between provinces and with other
nations.
The language itself for a time gained a
dual nature
with the primary spoken language,
Koine
, existing alongside an older
literary language
with Koine eventually
evolving into the standard dialect.

Many other languages existed in the multi-ethnic Empire as well, and some of
these were given limited official status in their provinces at various times.
Notably, by the beginning of the Middle Ages,
Syriac
and
Aramaic
had become more widely used by the
educated classes in the far eastern provinces.
Similarly
Coptic
,
Armenian
, and
Georgian
became significant among the educated
in their provinces,
and later foreign contacts made the
Slavonic
, Vlach, and
Arabic
languages important in the Empire and
its sphere of influence.

Aside from these, since Constantinople was a prime trading center in the
Mediterranean region
and beyond, virtually
every known language of the Middle Ages was spoken in the Empire at some time,
even
Chinese
.^[156]
As the Empire entered its final decline, the Empire’s citizens became more
culturally homogeneous and the Greek language became integral to their identity
and their religion.

King David
in robes of a Byzantine
emperor. Miniature from the
Paris Psalter
.

As the only stable long-term state in Europe during the Middle Ages,
Byzantium isolated Western Europe from newly emerging forces to the East.
Constantly under attack, it distanced Western Europe from Persians, Arabs,
Seljuk Turks, and for a time, the Ottomans. The Byzantine-Arab Wars, for
example, are recognised by some historians as being a key factor behind the rise
of Charlemagne
,
and a stimulus to
feudalism
and
economic self-sufficiency
.

Following the
conquest of Constantinople
by the Ottoman Turks
in 1453, Sultan
Mehmed II
took the title “Kaysar-i-Rûm”
(the Turkish equivalent of Caesar of Rome)
since he was determined to make the Ottoman Empire the heir of the Eastern Roman
Empire.

Since the early 20th century, the terms Byzantine and Byzantinism
have been used
as bywords for decadence, duplicitous politics and complex
bureaucracy
. There was also a strongly negative assessment of
Byzantine civilisation and its legacy in
Southeastern Europe
.
Byzantinism in general was defined as a body of religious, political, and
philosophical ideas which ran contrary to those of the West