Byzantine Empire: architecture, culture, and the arts rope developed, Byzantium was in decline and isolated from the West Thus Europe came into being without Byzantium, the successor to the Roman Empire By the time Europe was a full-blown concept, Byzantium was no longer a remnant of the Roman Empire, and Constantinople was part of the Ottoman Empire HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Constantine established Constantinople as Rome’s capital, so the fall of Rome to the Goths did not end the empire, it merely relocated its center Byzantine culture was a continuation of classical Greece and Rome but was distinctive in the way that it synthesized those influences with European and Islamic ones The early Byzantine period saw the replacement of the ancient gods by Christianity and the establishment of Roman law and Greek and Roman culture The golden age lasted until the Arab and Persian invasions in the seventh century and the iconoclasm of the eighth century The Byzantine emperors instituted administrative and financial reforms Eschewing the western approach of hiring foreign troops and lacking the tax base of the West, the emperors in Constantinople kept a small military Although the western area lacked an emperor after 476, Byzantine emperors claimed to be rulers of the entire old Roman Empire, even though Byzantium’s military was insufficient for the reconquest of the West For most Byzantine emperors the rhetorical commitment to recapturing Rome was sufficient Justinian I (527–565) undertook expeditions with some success, taking North Africa and Italy, but Justinian’s wars against the Ostrogoths destroyed Italy economically, devastating its urban culture His wars were also a great burden on the treasury Justinian’s successors had to focus on reestablishing Byzantine finances destroyed by Justinian They also had to deal with Persians in the east and Germans, Slavs, and Mongolians in the west Heraclius I (610–641) settled Huns in the Balkans to thwart the western threat Then he bested the Persians, ending that empire The year of Heraclius’s ascent to the throne, in Arabia Muhammad first heard the message that would send the forces of Islam across the world By the end of Heraclius’s reign, the Muslim threat in Syria and Persia would force Byzantine attention away from the west and toward the east and south After initial Muslim successes in Syria and Egypt the Muslims took Persia and pressed into Byzantium several times in the seventh and eighth centuries Leo the Isaurian (717–741) defeated the final Muslim effort to take Byzantium, and the empire stabilized Taking advantage of unsettled conditions in the Muslim Caliphate the 57 empire retook most of Syria and reestablished itself as dominant until the 11th century After besting the Byzantines at Manzikert in 1071, the Seljuk Turks controlled Byzantium’s eastern territory Byzantium called on its coreligionists in Europe for help against the Turks, sparking the Crusades, which produced European kingdoms in Syria and Palestine and the taking of Constantinople in 1204 Byzantium continued in Greece and retook Constantinople in 1261, but the reestablished kingdom was a small city-centered entity, and Ottoman Turks absorbed it in 1453, renaming it Istanbul The empire was Christian but its Christianity differed from that of the West The Latin popes won primacy in a Europe with no centralized secular ruler, but in Byzantium the emperor kept a powerful role in the church The Byzantine retention of the Roman concept that the emperor was nearly divine would generate a split with the West, particularly through the Iconoclastic Controversy THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY During the fourth century in the Roman Empire, classical forms declined and eastern influences became more important Constantinople became a new center for artists in the eastern part of the empire, especially Christians Other centers included Alexandria, Antioch, and Rome When the first two fell to the Arabs and Rome to the Goths, Constantinople was alone and supreme The first great age came during the reign of Justinian I (483–565) He established a code of law that imposed his religion on his subjects and set the stage for absolutism He built the Hagia Sophia and the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople and the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna (in Italy) After Justinian the empire declined, with Justinian’s conquests lost and Avars, Slavs, and Arabs threatening Religious and political conflict also disturbed the capital In 730 Leo III the Isaurian came into contact with Islamic beliefs during his successful wars against the Muslims Accepting the purity of the Muslim rejection of idols and images, he banned images of Jesus, Mary, and the saints The Iconoclastic period lasted until 843 Iconoclastic theologians regarded the worship of icons or images as pagan Worship was reserved for Christ and God, not for the product of human hands, during the Iconoclastic Controversy The Iconoclastic Controversy disoriented the Byzantine Church Byzantine religious culture and intellectual life, previously known for innovation and speculation, were stagnant from that point A wholesale destruction