The Crusades

As the cities of the western Roman Empire fell victim to Germanic invaders, Constantinople seemed to prosper. By 330 the emperor Constantine had rebuilt the Greek city of Byzantium and renamed it Constantinople. From this new center, trade began to flourish from the Eastern Europe to the Middle East and North Africa. Roman political  concepts, Greek culture and the Christian faith were the main elements which determined Byzantine development. The Byzantines considered themselves Romans, and their emperor considered himself a Roman ruler, successor and heir to the Roman Caesars.

There were different characteristics, however, that began to differentiate this Eastern empire from the West. In language and culture Greek  elements gained in importance, and the Church increased its influence in daily life.

Politics

The Emperor was not only the highest military commander, the supreme judge and the only legislator, but also the protector of orthodoxy. Emperors continued to live in splendor with entertainment with great arenas such as the Hippodrome.

The Byzantine empire reached its greatest size under the emperor Justinian who ruled from 527-565. With his objective to regain the glory of the ancient Roman Empire, he spared no expense. With competent generals he reconquered North Africa, Italy , and Southern Spain. The endless fighting, however, lay Italy in ruin while exhausting Justinian's treasury and weakened his defenses. In the end, these costly victories were
temporary and Justinian's successors lost the lands in the west. Other legacies of Justinian's reign were the construction of the Hagia Sophia and Justinian's code of laws, his attempt to codify previous Roman laws.

During the Arab conquests in the 7th and 8th centuries, Arab armies overran wealthy Byzantine provinces of Egypt and Syria before advancing on Constantinople. The city held out, eventually turning back the Arabs. Thus, when the European Crusaders set off on their first campaign in the Orient, Byzantine society had already experienced centuries of fighting and confrontation. There had been no sign of a crusading spirit, no union of a"Christian world against an Islamic one." Nor was there a need to unify with the western crusading powers.

For medieval times, Constantinople was a gigantic city. Its population in the 6th century was about 400,000 people and it could not have been much less than this in the centuries leading up to the Crusades. It was protected by mighty walls with multiple fortifications, ramparts and ninety-six towers. It would make a tremendous impression to a visitor.

Economy

All the essential trades were in Constantinople; the city was very famous for luxury items. Fine silk fabrics were woven here and jewellers,  goldsmiths, ivory carvers and other craftsmen produced fine artistic works. Architecture, painting, and glassware also achieved high artistic quality. These object, along with exceptionally large number of palaces, churches, and cloisters of the city always excited the admiration of even those visitors who were familiar with such artistic goods.

Constantinople was the trade center of Eastern Europe. From here, merchants sold silks from China via the "Silk Road", wheat from Egypt, gems from India, spices from Southeast Asia, slaves from Western Europe, and furs from the Viking lands. Merchants from all over the world, Arabs, Jews, Russians, Venetians and Genoese bought and sold their goods here.

 

Religion

Religion also played an important role in the division of eastern and western Europe. Primarily there were differences in the structure. Although the Byzantine emperor was not a priest, he controlled Church affairs and appointed the patriarch, or high Church official in Constantinople. Over time other traditions began to separate the Roman and Byzantine churches. Unlike priests in western Europe, the Byzantine clergy retained the right to marry. Greek, not Latin, was the language of the Byzantine church.

In the 700s a controversy divided Christians over the use of icons. In 730, Emperor Leo III banned the worshipping of holy images in the churches. At this time the veneration of icons had assumed unprecedented importance. The common people believed that praying to these objects could assist them against poverty, natural catastrophes and personal  misfortune. Opposing them were iconoclasts who rejected this idea and saw that worshipping these images had gone beyond symbolism and were coming between God and man. Although many Byzantines were divided on this issue, a synod at Constantinople in 843 allowed for the continuation of the veneration of icons.

The differences had increased so much that A Great Schism formed in 1054. The Byzantines had begun to look away from the pope in Rome and put more importance to the Patriarch in Constantinople. The Council of Chalcedon had established five patriarchs, church officials in a particular region: Antioch, Alexandria, Rome, and later Jerusalem and Constatinople. The patriarch of Constantinople slowly increased in power also was seen as more important than the other eastern patriarchs of Jerusalem, Antioch,  and Alexandria. The rift widened even more when Charlemagne was crowned as a new Roman emperor by the pope in 800, when an emperor was already ruling in Constantinople. In 968, the German king Otto I gave himself the title Holy Roman Emperor which brought scorn and indignation from the Byzantines. By 1054 the difference had grown so great that the pope and patriarch excommunicated each other over a theological debate.

 

The Byzantine church did continue to see itself as a role of protecting Christians living or making pilgrimages to the Orient. There were close contacts with the other Patriarchs in Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria and other orthodox churches in the Levant. Favored by the religious tolerance of Islam, these contacts were even maintained in times of war.

 

The Crusades

 

 By the time of the Crusades in the latter 11th century Byzantium (or the Roman Empire) was no longer the power as it was. The Church had lost some prestige. Although trade flourished, the agricultural economy was weak and stagnant.

A new power began to upset the balance of power in the East. A Turkish nomadic people, called the Seljuks, migrated from the central steppes. They adopted Islam as early as the 10th century and rapidly absorbed Islamic culture. In the 11th century, groups advanced westward and overran the eastern states of the Arab Caliphate. Baghdad fell to them in 1055 although they maintained the Abassid Caliph as merely a symbolic power. Around 1070, led by Alp Arslan, they conquered Syria and Jerusalem. Byzantium was not as concerned for religious sites such as the Church of the Holy Sepucher in Jerusalem as they were for the threat of being overcome by this new force. A Seljuk army pushed forward to Anatolia and destroyed the Byzantine forces in the battle of Manzikert in 1071 where the emperor was taken prisoner. The emperor was upset at having to fight this battle not with a well-trained military but with mercenaries hastily put together. Although the Seljuks were not a direct threat, the emperor felt the need to call for assistance. 

 

This call for help marked the beginning of the end of its power. By 1204 during the Fourth Crusade, Constantinople will be taken over by western Crusaders. Although a dynasty eventually returns, the city will fall to a new power, the Ottoman Turks in 1453.