CHRISTIAN CULTURES:
BYZANTIUM AND EUROPE

Themes

• empire versus regionalism
• "Christian society"
• otherworldly worldviews: icons and relics

Environment and Development

Byzantium and Eastern Orthodoxy

• Constantinople
• foundations 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

Europe and Western Christendom

• migration and ethnogenesis:
  • Europe, c. 526
  • Europe, c. 600
  • Europe, c. 800
• Early Middle Ages: settlement and conversion, circa 400-1050
  • Visigothic Spain, 6th-7th centuries
  • Franks, c. 5th-9th centuries
    • Clovis 481-511
    • Charlemagne 768-814
  • Anglo-Saxon England, c. 600-1066
    • Alfred the Great 871-899
  • Scandinavians: Vikings, Normans, 8th-9th centuries
  • Italy: papacy, Ostrogoths, Lombards, Byzantines
    • Benedict 480-547
    • Pope Gregory I 590-604
  • Germany: Otto I 936-73
• High Middle Ages: urbanization and centralization, circa 1050-1350
• Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, circa 1350-1500

Byzantium

• synthesis:
• economic and social:
  • rural life: Farmer's Law
  • urban life: Thessalonica Fair
  • The Blues and the Greens: Procopius; Theopanes; in Egypt
• political order: emperor and patriarch
  • autocratic emperors: Justinian (527-65) and Theodora
  • law: Corpus Juris Civilis
  • 11th century emperors
  • caesaropapism: Theodore of Balsamon late 12th cen.; Patriarch Antony 1395
  • Byzantine commonwealth
  • expansion: 988 conversion of Russia; Russian Primary Chronicle
• religion and culture: Eastern Orthodoxy
  • theological controversy
  • otherwordliness:
    • Daniel the Stylite
    • Theodore of Studius
    • Hesychasm
  • sacred icons as doorways:
    • John of Damascus
    • Council of Constantinople, 754
  • sacred space: architecture (Hagia Sophia)
  • sacred sights: mosaics
  • sacred sound:
    • Byzantine chant
    • Russian chant
    • sound samples
    • hymn to the Virgin Mary
  • sacred literature:
    • history and chronicle
    • lives of saints and heroes: Mary the Younger
    • poetry and mysticism: Theodore of Studium

Europe

• synthesis:
• social and economic (Germanic):
  • tribal, nomadic
  • animistic, polytheistic
  • heroic warrior values: Beowulf; Song of Roland
• conversion
  • taming the wildness: Angelcyn West Stowe site
  • converting the pagan: Bede; warmth of the hall
• political: kingship and conversion
  • popes, bishops, and monks:
    • Pope Gregory the Great (590-604), Letters; Life of St. Benedict
    • Rule of St. Benedict
  • Franks: Clovis and Clotilde (Gregory of Tours)
  • Anglo-Saxons: Edwin and Ethelberga (Bede)
  • Saxons and Scandinavians: Anglo-Saxon and Frankish strategies
    • Boniface
    • Ansgar
    • Vikings at the court of Charlemagne: monk of St. Gall
    • treaty of Alfred and Guthrum, 871
    • Rollo and the founding of Normandy, 911
• "Christian Society"
  • popes and emperors: Gelasius' "two swords" theory
  • bishops and kings: Visigothic war blessing 7th century
  • Franco-Papal Alliance, c. 751 the Pope and Pepin
  • Christian kingship:
    • Charlemagne (Einhard)
    • Alfred the Great 871-899
    • Otto I 936-73
• christianizing the landscape:
  • Celtic sites
  • Wharram Percy Church of St. Martin: photos; artist's view; plan
  • Bede's Jarrow: monastery ruins; St. Peter's
  • Mont St. Michel
  • syncretism: Anglo-Saxon charms, Franks Casket *; *
  • saints, miracles, pilgrimage: relics, Conques

Conclusions