Christian Cultures: Byzantium
Themes
- empire versus regionalism
- "Christian society"
- otherworldly worldviews: icons
Environment and Development
- division and conversion of the empire
- Diocletian r. 284-305
- Constantine r. 317-337
- Theodosius r. 379-395
- collapse in the west
- Byzantine Empire 4th-7th cen. C.E.
- 340 transfer of govt to Constantinople
- 527-565 Justinian and Theodora
- 726-843 Iconoclastic controversy
- high pt: Macedonian dynasty 867-1056
- decline, retrenchment, cultural flowering 12th-15th centuries
- 1071 B. of Manzikert
- 12th cen. Komnenian dynasty
- 1202-04 4th Crusade
- 1453 Ottoman Turks
Splitting the Empire
- the "three heirs of Rome:"
- East versus West
- Diocletian and the tetrarchy
- Constantine's Nova Roma (330)
- Rome and Constantinople
- Greek versus Latin
- Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Roman (Catholic) Christianity: 1054 schism
- conversion of the Empire:
- hegemony of Christianity:
- "Fall of Rome" in the west:
- Who is the real Roman?
Byzantine Society
- synthesis:
- economic and social:
- political order: emperor and patriarch
- Byzantine commonwealth: expansion
- cross-cultural interaction
Worldviews: Eastern Orthodoxy
- otherwordliness: monasticism and mysticism
- religion and the arts
- the iconoclastic controversy
Conclusions
- politics, religion, and cultural identity: a Christian Empire
- worldviews: Hagia Sophia, icons
Explore!
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kjolly@hawaii.edu 8/24/01