BYZANTINE EMPIRE

Byzantine" redirects here. For other uses, see Byzantine (disambiguation).
Βασιλεία ῬωμαίωνVasilía RoméonImperium RomanumRoman Empire
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330 – 1453
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Flag of the late Empire[1]
Imperial Emblem(Palaiologoi)[2]
The Byzantine Empire during its greatest territorial extent under Justinian. c. 550.
Capital
Constantinople¹
Language(s)
Latin until the 7th century, Greek thereafter
Religion
(Greek) Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Government
Monarchy
Emperor
- 306–337
Constantine the Great
- 1449–1453
Constantine XI
Legislature
Byzantine Senate
Historical era
Middle Ages
- Foundation of Constantinople²
May 11, 330
- East-West Schism
1054
- Fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade
1204
- Reconquest of Constantinople
1261
- Fall of Constantinople
May 29, 1453
Population
- 4th cent³ est.
34,000,000
- 8th cent (780 AD) est.
7,000,000
- 11th cent³ (1025 AD) est.
12,000,000
- 12th cent³ (1143 AD) est.
10,000,000
- 13th cent (1281 AD) est.
5,000,000
Currency
Solidus, Hyperpyron
Preceded by
Succeeded by

Roman Empire
Ottoman Empire

Empire of Trebizond

Despotate of Morea

Duchy of the Archipelago

Lordship of Negroponte

Kingdom of Cyprus

Duchy of Athens

¹ Constantinople (330–1204 and 1261–1453). The capital of the Empire of Nicaea, the empire after the Fourth Crusade, was at Nicaea, present day İznik, Turkey.² Establishment date traditionally considered to be the re-founding of Constantinople as a capital of the Roman Empire although other dates are often used³ See Population of the Byzantine Empire for more detailed figures taken provided by Mcevedy and Jones, "Atlas of world population history", 1978, as well as Angeliki E. Laiou, "The Economic History of Byzantium", 2002.
The Byzantine Empire[3] and Eastern Roman Empire are recent names used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople. The term Byzantine takes its name from the city of Byzantinium, which was the former name of Constantinople.
It was referred to by its inhabitants and neighboring nations simply as the Roman Empire or (Empire of the Romans) (in Greek Basileia Romaion Βασιλεία Ῥωμαίων), or Romania (Ῥωμανία). Its emperors continued the unbroken succession of Roman Emperors, preserving Greco-Roman legal and cultural traditions.
To the Islamic world it was known primarily as روم‎ (Rûm "Rome"). Due to the linguistic, cultural, and demographic dominance of medieval Greek,[4] it was known to many of its western European contemporaries as Imperium Graecorum, The Empire of the Greeks (see also the etymology section).
The definition of this empire as a distinct entity in itself constitutes an implicit or explicit rejection of its emperors and people's claim to be Romans and succesors of the Roman Empire - a rejection based on the assumption that only an empire using Latin as its official language and based in Italy can be considered truly "Roman", and that geographical move into Greek territory and linguistic-cultural adoption of Greek constituted a transformation into an inherently different identity.[citation needed]
As an outgrowth of the eastern portion of Empire founded in Rome, the Byzantine Empire's evolution into a separate culture from the West can be seen as a process beginning with Emperor Constantine's transferring the capital from Nicomedia in Anatolia to Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople, on the Bosphorus.
By the 7th century, under the reign of Emperor Heraclius, whose reforms changed the nature of the Empire's military and recognized Greek as the official language, the Empire had taken on a distinct new character.
During its thousand-year existence the Empire suffered numerous setbacks and losses of territory but remained one of the most powerful economic, cultural and military forces in Europe. The empire's influence also spread into North Africa and the near East for much of the Middle Ages.
After a final recovery under the Komnenian dynasty in the 12th century the Empire slipped into a long decline culminating in the capture of Constantinople and the remaining territories by the Ottoman Turks in the 15th century.
The Empire, a bastion of Christianity and one of the prime trade centers in the world, helped to shield Western Europe from early Muslim expansion, provided a stable gold currency for the Mediterranean region, influenced the laws, political systems, and customs of much of Europe and the Middle East, and preserved much of the literary works and scientific knowledge of ancient Greece, Rome, and many other cultures.