Byzantium

Byzantium Chapter 6 Origins of Byzantium Overcrowding in the eighth century B.C. led Greek city-states to send out colonies throughout the Mediterranean basin. Thus in the year 667 b.c. the legendary Byzas from the Greek city of Megara, after consulting the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, founded the seaport of Byzantium at the entrance of the Black Sea. In the second half of the fourth century b.c. King Philip II of Macedon (382­336 B.C.) and his son Alexander the Great (356­323 B.C.) dominated Byzantium as they built an empire reaching from Greece to India. After his death, Alexander's generals carved up his conquests into powerful kingdoms that valued their Greek heritage. By the first century B.C. these nations had been absorbed into the empire of ancient Rome. The non-Christian Roman state, founded in 753 B.C., lasted 1100 years. The Early Byzantine Period: The First Golden Age of Byzantium (324 A.D.-730A.D.) The Christianized eastern part of the Roman Empire, or Byzantium, as it came to be called, continued for another 1100 years. A vital figure in its earliest years was the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine the Great (274-­337), who established toleration for Christianity throughout the Roman Empire through the Edict of Milan in 313. Constantine legally transferred his capital from Rome to Constantinople, on the site of the Greek city of Byzantium. So it was that the empire continued to be ruled by Roman law and political institutions, with the elite communicating officially in Latin. Yet the population, now Christian, also spoke Greek. In school students studied the ancient Greek classics of literature, philosophy, science, medicine, art, and rhetoric. The church, which developed its own literature and philosophy, nonetheless looked favorably upon the intellectual tradition of classical scholarship. An incalculable benefit of this system was that often only that part of classical Greek literature preserved in Byzantine schoolbooks has survived into modern times. One of the advantages of Constantine's new capital was that it was on an easily fortified peninsula; as it was closer to the dangerous frontiers of the empire than Rome, imperial armies could respond more rapidly to crises. The strategic location of the city enabled merchants there to grow rich through their control over the trade routes between Europe and the East and the shipping lanes connecting the Black and Mediterranean Seas. Constantine lavished on his new capital a university, two theaters, eight public and fifty-three private baths, fifty-two covered walkways, four law courts, fourteen churches, and fourteen palaces. He imported staggering quantities of the best Greco-Roman art from throughout the empire. This infusion helped the art of the Early Byzantine period to remain close to its Greco-Roman heritage in its naturalism and classical subject matter. At the Eastern Empire's greatest expanse during the sixth century, the emperor Justinian (483­565) controlled most of the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. He was an ambitious builder, his greatest monument being the magnificent domed church of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom), which was constructed in just five years (532­37). In the seventh century the empire lost Syria, the Holy Land, Egypt, and North Africa to invading Islamic armies. For a time the Muslims merely tapped the economy of these regions, leaving intact many of the Byzantine institutions they had overrun. The Early Byzantine period ended with the onset of the Iconoclastic controversy, the violent debate over devotional religious images called icons that devasted much of the empire for over a hundred years. The Middle Byzantine Period: The "Second Golden Age" of Byzantium (843­A.D.-1261 A.D.) The era we now call the Middle Byzantine is considered to begin in 843, with the finish of the Iconoclastic controversy, and to end in the year 1261, when the Byzantines recaptured Constantinople from the crusaders, who had sacked the city in 1204. At its apogee in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, the Byzantine Empire stretched from Italy to Mesopotamia. In the tenth century Byzantium, through political pressure and missionary activity, began to convert the Bulgarians and the Rus' to Christianity. Key to these successes was the brothers Cyril and Methodius, who were conversant with the Slavic language. In the ninth century these men translated Byzantine Christian writings into the Slavic dialect, thus creating the first Slavic alphabet, the first Slavic literary language (called Old Church Slavonic), and the first Slavic literature. The imperial government was centralized and ordered. From the church and emperor to the peasant, ceremonies created a sense of order and stability for the members of Byzantine society. The emperors patronized the arts as policy, restoring and rebuilding Constantinople's palaces and churches; some promoted the study and preservation of ancient Greek literature. The official language of the state became Greek, not Latin. Monasticism burgeoned in the Middle Byzantine era, guiding the course of theology, the veneration of icons, and the piety and religious practices of Byzantium. In the cities monasteries administered orphanages, craft schools, poor houses, rest homes, and hospitals. In the countryside, monasteries functioned as agricultural communes. Mount Athos in northeastern Greece was the international center of Orthodox monasticism by the eleventh century.  Considered the representative of Christ by his subjects, the emperor of Byzantium was an absolute ruler. He centered his government at his palace and had thousands of educated bureaucrats throughout the empire carrying out imperial legislation and operations, including the tax and justice systems. This administration was unique in its efficiency. Ceremonials, held by both the male court of the emperor and the female court of the empress, sumptuously punctuated all state occasions, including imperial coronations, marriages, births, and birthdays; the promotion of officials; the reception of ambassadors; and the celebration of triumphs. On holy days the court magnificently processed to churches. These occasions of elaborate pomp not only put the internal structure of the court on stage, with the precise ranks of officials marked by their silk costume, but also presented to the public an idealized image of the Byzantine state in harmonious order. This sort of theater can also be seen in the visual and verbal portraits of emperors by Byzantine artists and orators, in which the condition of the court, and thus the state, was symbolically shown. In physique and deportment the ideal emperor was always decorous and handsome; even his costume and regalia expressed his majesty and quality. An emperor's portrayal might also link him to the virtuous prototypes of Christ, such as the Hebrew rulers David and Solomon, while in art the emperor's halo and the gold of his background associated him with the sun. //Byzantine// //Church// //during the Middle Byzantine Period// According to Orthodox belief, a Christian's ultimate goal is theosis, a Greek word meaning "becoming God." This is the belief that God became man so that man might become God. Christ was considered by the church to be both fully divine and fully human. His human will to act, however, always followed his divine will. Although human beings can never be fully divine, by following the teachings of the Orthodox Church, they can strive in their actions to come as close as possible to being God-like. The Byzantine Church's unique devotion to icons, or sacred images, was nourished by monasticism. Icons were brought out for special occasions, carried in processions, and were even used to protect cities in wartime. They were bowed to, prayed to, sung to, and kissed; they were honored with candles, oil lamps, incense, precious-metal covers, and public processions. Although an icon (in Greek eikon, or "image") could be a panel painted with a sacred subject intended for veneration, it could also be an image on a mosaic, an enamel, an ivory carving, a sculpture, and even a coin. What was essential was that the icon's imitation of the holy figure enabled the image to partake of the essence and sanctity of the actual figure portrayed. By venerating the likeness, the worshiper honored the sainted figure through the gateway of the icon. The Greco-Roman tradition of having painted panels of the gods placed in homes with candles lit in front of them may have inspired the development of icons. First used privately, icons with Christian subjects gradually entered the church. Possibly because of their pagan roots and possibly because they seemed to violate the second of the Ten Commandments, which forbade the making of idols, segments of society rejected icons, eventually leading to the Iconoclastic controversy. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 officially established the division of the Christian world into five patriarchates, or areas overseen by a patriarch, in order of precedence: Rome (the patriarch there later calling himself the pope), Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. When Islamic conquests of the seventh century absorbed the last three, the patriarch of Constantinople became the leader of most eastern Christians. The exceptions were the Armenians and the Christians in communities that still existed in imperial lands lost to Islam, all of whom still maintained their long-standing relationships with the empire. As the Slavs of Bulgaria, the Rus', and the Serbs were converted to the Orthodox religion in the tenth century, the patriarch of Constantinople also became their spiritual head. He remained, however, under the authority of the emperor. The Late Byzantine Period (1261 A.D.-1453 A.D.) The period known as the Late Byzantine lasted from 1261 until the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Ottoman Turks. The looting of Constantinople in 1204 was an irretrievable disaster for the Byzantines. With its territory and resources continually shrinking, Byzantium was never again able to fully quell internal disorders or to exercise independence from outside powers. The state became so impoverished that in 1369 Emperor John V was arrested for debt in Venice as he tried to obtain financial help from the West. Meanwhile, the Byzantine church increased in prestige and authority as the emperors weakened. Byzantine culture enjoyed a last flowering in literature, scholarship, theology, and art, which still followed the artistic traditions of the Middle Byzantine era. Byzantium also helped transform the West intellectually, as Italian Renaissance scholars, intent on translating Greek pagan and Christian writings, received vital help from Byzantine scholars, especially after many fled to Italy from Constantinople after the city's conquest in 1453. On May 29, 1453, the city fell to the Ottoman Turks, and again became the capital of a powerful state, the Ottoman Empire. The Turks called the city Istanbul (though not officially renamed until 1930) and it has remained Turkey's largest and most populous city, although Ankara is now the capital. Byzantium and Its Influence on Neighboring Peoples The citizens of Byzantium considered themselves to be the center of the civilized world, with good reason. Their civilization had far-reaching political and cultural influences in all directions during the Middle Byzantine period. //Kievan Rus' (Modern Day Ukraine)// Although Grand Prince Volodymyr of Kiev became an Orthodox Christian in 988, Byzantium never politically dominated his confederation of principalities, called Kievan Rus', which was a composite society of Vikings and eastern Slavs. Artists of the Rus' assimilated the style and iconography of Byzantine art and produced powerful works of their own. After the Mongol invaders of 1237­40 captured Kiev, the rest of the region suffered further attacks by the Mongols from the east and by the Teutonic knights from the west. 

//Bulgaria// Before the Orthodox Christian Bulgarian kingdom lost its independence to Byzantium for a hundred and seventy years (1018­1188), it enjoyed a cultural boom under Tsar Symeon (r. 893­927), who had been educated as a monk at Constantinople. Cities such as Preslav (Bulgaria) and Ohrid (former Yugoslavia) became centers of learning and for the creation of art, such as emamel, ceramics, and book illustration. After gaining independence from Byzantium, Bulgaria, still influenced by Byzantine models, had resurgence in its production of architecture and painting. //Georgia// Converted to Christianity in the fourth century, Georgia stayed within the Byzantine Orthodox world, despite being under Islamic domination for centuries. Its quarrelsome noble factions united under a dynasty in the early eleventh century, and the nation began to extend its control beyond its boundaries. The ensuing booty, tribute, and revenue from tariffs that flowed into unified Georgia enabled its arts to prosper. Byzantine influence continued to be important in Georgia's production of metalwork, embroidery, and ceramics. Ambitious building projects moved forward, decorated with Byzantine-derived iconographic programs. In music, Byzantine church melody blended with the Georgian. Monastic communities dotted Mount Athos (Greece) and the Black Mountain near Antioch (now in Turkey); using models from Constantinople, the Georgians revised their religious books. Influential citizens received their education in Constantinople. Rivalry for the Georgian throne and Mongol domination in the thirteenth century ended this cultural blossoming. //Armenia// The Armenians established a Christian state in the early fourth century. By the end of the century, the Sassanian Empire of Persia controlled most of the country. In the fifth century the church translated the Bible and its liturgy into the Armenian language. Due to the Sassanian occupation, the Armenians were unable to attend the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451. Because the Armenian Church eventually rejected the decisions of this council, a theological gulf opened between it and the Byzantine faith. Nevertheless, those who were assimilated into Byzantine culture often rose to high position within the empire. A potent and popular symbol for this state's Christians was the translation of the Gospels, which often opened with magnificent canon tables, an introductory index system for these texts. The finest decorated Armenian manuscripts revealed the influence of Byzantine style and iconography, though the models were sometimes centuries old Armenian artists, however, were never slavish in their borrowing, feeling free to modify standard Byzantine subject matter to reflect their culture's specific concerns. In 1071, after the Byzantine defeat at the Battle of Mantzikert, the Muslim Seljuk Turks captured Greater Armenia. Many Armenians fled and formed expatriate communities elsewhere, the greatest being the new independent Armenian state, the Kingdom of Cilicia (1099­1375). //Christians in Former Imperial Territories// The sizable Orthodox Christian communities of Syria, Egypt, and Nubia were under Muslim control by the seventh century; Ethiopia fell to Islamic forces in the thirteenth century. Orthodox monasteries, such as that of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai, still operated in the conquered areas. Although Syrian Christians and the Coptic Church in Egypt did not recognize the authority of the church in Constantinople, both were still influenced by its artistic traditions. //Crusader States// With their churches and monasteries still operating in the Muslim-held Syria-Palestine region and with their claim to that area still outstanding, the Byzantines were ambivalent about the First <span class="wiki_link_ext">Crusade (1096­99). The reconquest of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth by the crusaders, and the many overseas visitors who came to visit the holy places there, gave special status to the Crusader states. After about 1130 the second generation of settlers borrowed significantly from Byzantine art, both in style and subject matter. Striking examples are found in the paintings and ivory covers of the Psalter of Queen Melisende, dating to about 1135, but based on earlier eleventh- century Byzantine sources. After a series of catastrophic defeats of their forces at the hands of the Muslims, including the loss of Jerusalem in 1187, crusaders turned their energy to creating the Latin Empire out of Byzantine lands, conquering Cyprus in 1191, brutally sacking Constantinople itself in 1204, and taking control of central and southern Greece later. //Islamic States// Although the Arabs conquered the Byzantine land of Mesopotamia--much of Armenia, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt--during the first half of the seventh century, at first they merely harnessed the area's economy and tax system their own benefit. Soon they were influenced by the surviving Byzantine societal institutions, especially when the first Muslim-Arab empire, the <span class="wiki_link_ext">Umayyad dynasty (661­750), established its capital in the former Byzantine city of Damascus. This influence lessened as the new <span class="wiki_link_ext">'Abbasid dynasty shifted the center of the Islamic caliphate to Mesopotamia in 751 (ultimately to Baghdad) and the conquered Byzantine regions gradually became Arabized and Islamized. The exchange of rich diplomatic gifts and the desire for an opulent court and impressive state resulted in both the Byzantine and Islamic empires borrowing elements from each other's cultures, including art and architecture. Byzantium's classical literary and scientific heritage became known to the Islamic Empire when Islamic authorities, particularly caliph al-Ma'mun (r. 813­33), began translating ancient Greek texts into Arabic. The writings that the Arabs were keen to understand were those that they found useful for ruling their far-flung domain: works on medicine, geometry, mathematics, music, astronomy, geography, science, and philosophy. Greek poetry and writings on Christianity were all but ignored. // The Latin West // The Christian religion was the common denominator between Byzantium and the Latin states of Europe, and dynastic marriages, or plans for them, helped tie the East and West together. Over time the cultures grew further apart due to such differences as their languages (the language of high culture in the West was Latin; in Byzantium it was Greek) and the worsening relations between the Latin and Greek branches of Christianity, leading to their mutual excommunication in 1054. From the ninth to the eleventh century Byzantine works of art, such as patterned silks (ultimately used for shrouds or for wrapping <span class="wiki_link_ext">relics ), ivories, enamels, and bronze doors, flowed into the Latin West as diplomatic gifts, purchases and commissions from Constantinople, and trade goods. These imports, regardless of their original functions, were admired and valued in the West for their artistry. Perhaps the greatest proof of this came during the twelfth century, when the rulers of Norman Sicily, competing with Byzantium for regional power, invited Greek mosaicists to decorate their churches and imported Byzantine silk weavers to create fabrics. A further infusion of Byzantine artistic influence came to the West with the works carried away from Constantinople after its sack by crusader forces in 1204. When Western art borrowed from the Byzantine, it took much from its style but more from its <span class="wiki_link_ext">iconography. Even so, the appropriation consisted of single Byzantine compositions, usually inserted into a cycle of images already created in the West. (The so-called maniera greca [the Greek manner] found in thirteenth-century Italian painted panels was a term used by the famous critic and biographer Giorgio Vasari in the sixteenth century to condescendingly describe a painting style argued to have been influenced by Byzantine art.)

Materials and Techniques

Gold
During the Middle Byzantine period gold came from Armenia and from mines and streams in Thrace (in Greece). Byzantine theologians described gold as condensed light and the sun, and they made it the symbol of incorruptibility, truth, and glory. Sometimes alloyed with silver or copper, gold was worked to create coins, medallions, enamel plaques, jewelry, luxurious dishes for the home, and containers for the church. Gold foil was used in mosaic cubes (tesserae), book illumination, and icon painting. Gold wires were even woven into textiles and used in embroideries.

Silver
Much of the silver used in the Middle Byzantine era came from mines in Armenia and Cyprus. It was used to create works of art for the church, including decorative pavements and icon frames. Little personal jewelry was ever made of silver, except for amulets. Byzantine techniques for working silver included carving it; hammering it as a sheet from the reverse side or over a wooden form to make a raised image (repoussé); gouging or incising it with sharp metal tools (engraving and chasing); inlaying these grooves with niello, a black compound of silver and other elements; and decorating it with cords made by soldering together metal grains or beads to create raised patterns on a metal surface (filigree). Silver works of art might be completely gilded to imitate gold, particularly if they were to be set with gold enamel plaques and gems.

Cloisonné Enamel
The Byzantines were well known for their cloisonné enamels, many of which were made in Constantinople. During the tenth to the twelfth century, enamels appeared on icons, reliquaries, book covers, chalices, and crowns, and were even sewn onto ecclesiastical vestments. Literally meaning "cell work," the technique of cloisonné involved the construction of small cells or compartments, called cloisons, made from wire or thin strips of metal bent to form the outline of a design. These shapes were soldered, edge on, to the surface of a metal plate. The resulting walled-in spaces were filled with glass paste, or enamel, in various colors and fired. Since the molten glass tended to sink in its cell as it cooled, it was usually necessary to refill the cloisons with glass and refire the object, sometimes several times. The final step was grinding and polishing the composite surface of glass and metal.

Icons and Manuscripts
Some painters of icon panels were monks, whereas others were lay artists. The profession had considerable prestige, since Saint Luke was believed to have painted icons (including the first image of the Virgin Mary), and many such artists were thought to have had supernatural aid in finishing their works. Although in the sixth and seventh centuries painters used both encaustic (pigment suspended in wax) and tempera (pigment suspended in egg yolk) to create the colors of sacred images on wooden panels, by the Middle Byzantine period only tempera was used. Painted icons could take the shape of a single rectangular panel, two joined panels, called a diptych (derived from ancient writing tablets), or three joined panels, called a triptych (which recall pagan Roman triptychs displaying images of the gods). No circular examples exist today, but they may have existed, since they are depicted in other media. Byzantine manuscripts (literally "written by hand") often reflected a deep devotion to Christianity and the state through the luxurious art on the parchment. Scribes, whose chief task was creating the script, and illuminators, who usually painted pictures in books after the scribe had made the text, mainly worked on copies of the Bible, collections of saints' lives, and sermons. They also produced illustrated volumes of classical Greek poetry, drama, philosophy, history, and secular poetry, as well as manuals on the law, veterinary science, military tactics, poisons, and medicinal plants. Although richly decorated at times, most of the nonreligious works had rather simple pictures that were intended merely to clarify meaning. Byzantine illuminators, who sometimes were scribes themselves, were influenced by mosaics, sculpture, and metalwork. To create their works of art, illuminators first made a sketch in the space left by the scribe, then covered it with opaque colors. Sometimes the paintings were made on a separate sheet, which was added to the book when it was bound. One of the most common Byzantine book illustrations was the author's portrait in each of the Gospels, in which the evangelist author is usually shown sitting in his study, writing or pausing to reflect, sometimes looking toward the text of the facing page.

Ivory
Elephant tusks were carved by Byzantine artists to create many works of art, including icons and panels covering furniture and doors. Many Byzantine ivories reached the West, where they embellished book covers. By the fourth century Constantinople was a center of ivory carving. Although records indicate that ivory carvers passed on their skills to their children, we have no knowledge of their production methods. Dependent on trade with Africa and India, the availability of ivory in Byzantium fluctuated widely over the centuries. For instance, ivory carving at Constantinople was interrupted in the late sixth and seventh centuries by Arab invasions in the Middle East, which cut Byzantium off from its supplies. When the art form was resumed in the tenth century, its themes were both religious and secular. In the twelfth century the supply of ivory to Byzantium seems to have vanished, perhaps because it was diverted at its source to the West. Byzantine ivory carvers then used walrus or narwhale tusks, bone, and steatite (soapstone).

Mosaic
Although Byzantine artists often painted walls with pictures on fresh plaster (called frescoes), mosaic was the most elaborate and expensive form of decoration for the walls of churches and palaces. Perfected by Byzantine artists during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Byzantine mosaics were so admired that mosaicists from Byzantium even traveled to Italy and the Kievan Rus' to practice their art. To create their mosaics, Byzantine artists employed durable multicolored stone and marble pieces as well as cubes (called <span class="wiki_link_ext">tesserae ) of more fragile materials, such as brick or terracotta, semiprecious gems, and opaque colored glass to create their wall mosaics. They also made gold and silver cubes by sandwiching foil between layers of translucent glass. <span class="wiki_link_ext">Tesserae were produced in many sizes, with the tiniest being used to model faces. To create a mosaic, the artist first covered a wall with one or more layers of plaster. A final layer of mortar was mixed with crushed pottery, called a setting bed, and often guidelines were painted on it. Finally the artist pressed the mosaic cubes into the setting bed, embedding them at different angles to create a glittering effect when light struck them. Depending on the size of the <span class="wiki_link_ext">tesserae used, a mosaicist could perhaps cover up to four meters (about fifteen feet) of wall a day with mosaics.

Silk
The term silk refers to the yarns and textiles made with filaments from the cocoons of several species of moth, especially the Bombyx mori, which feeds on white mulberry leaves and was cultivated in ancient China. Silk was always considered a luxury product in Byzantium; it was sold by weight and bought on speculation. Byzantium first imported silk from China and elsewhere; then, in the year 553/4, under Emperor Justinian I, silk moth eggs were reportedly smuggled into the empire by some monks who had learned the secrets of silk production in the Far East. From the seventh century onward the center of the Byzantine silk industry was Constantinople. Made either in imperial factories, located both within and near the emperor's Great Palace, or in private workshops, silk was used to make court and church clothing, altar cloths, curtains, couch fabrics, wall hangings, and embroidery. The Byzantine state tightly controlled its manufacture and trade and guaranteed its quality. This meant that Byzantine silks were used as an instrument of Byzantine foreign policy, since these highly esteemed fabrics could be acquired by states outside Byzantium only as official gifts or tribute. Most of the Byzantine silks still in existence date from the tenth and eleventh centuries. They mainly come from church treasuries of Western Europe, where they were often used to wrap the venerated remains of saints or objects associated with them. Their brightly colored designs in twill weave, created on draw looms, include rows of animals, such as eagles; series of lions, griffins, and elephants in circles; hunting scenes; and images of Byzantine emperors.

** Byzantium **** Worksheet **


 * 1) Where was the Byzantine Empire?


 * 1) What part of the Roman Empire was it?
 * 2) What was the capitol of the Byzantine Empire?
 * 3) What is this city known as today?
 * 4) What language did they speak?
 * 5) What was their religion like?
 * 6) What was their art like?
 * 7) Who were the enemies of the Empire?
 * 8) Who finally conquered the Byzantine Empire?
 * 9) What was their religion?
 * 10) Why was religion so important to the Byzantines?
 * 11) What role did the Byzantine Empire play with regard to religion and the rest of Europe?
 * 12) Why was the Emperor considered to be God’s representative on earth? How did he come to receive that power/authority?