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Timeline. 285 CE. The Roman empire is split into the Western and Eastern Roman empires. 312 CE. Constantine I introduces the gold nomisma (solidus) coin . 312 CE. Roman emperor Constantine I tolerates Christianity . c. 330 CE - c. 379 CE.
- Mark Cartwright
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Mar 11, 2024 · This comprehensive timeline highlights key events and milestones that played a significant role in the history of the Byzantine Empire, shedding light on its formation, expansion, cultural developments, religious shifts, and ultimate decline.
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Byzantine literature may be broadly defined as the Greek literature of the Middle Ages, whether written in the territory of the Byzantine Empire or outside its borders. By late antiquity many of the classical Greek genres, such as drama and choral lyric poetry, had long been obsolete, and all Greek literature affected to some degree an archaizing language and style, perpetuated by a long-established system of education in which rhetoric was a leading subject. The Greek Church Fathers were the products of this education and shared the literary values of their pagan contemporaries. Consequently the vast and imposing Christian literature of the 3rd to 6th centuries, which established a synthesis of Hellenic and Christian thought, was largely written in a language already far removed from that spoken by all classes in everyday life, and indeed from that of the New Testament. This diglossy—the use of two very different forms of the same language for different purposes—marked Byzantine culture for 1,000 years; but the relations between the high and low forms changed with the centuries. The prestige of the classicizing literary language remained undiminished until the end of the 6th century; only some popular saints’ lives and world chronicles escaped its influence. In the ensuing two and a half centuries, when the very existence of the Byzantine Empire was threatened, city life and education declined, and with them the use of classicizing language and style. With the political recovery of the 9th and 10th centuries began a literary revival, in which a conscious attempt was made to recreate the Hellenic-Christian culture of late antiquity. Simple or popular language was despised; many of the early saints’ lives were rewritten in inflated and archaizing language and style. By the 12th century the cultural self-assurance of the Byzantines enabled them to develop new literary genres, including romantic fiction, in which adventure and love are the main motifs, and satire, which occasionally made use of imitations of spoken Greek. The period from the Fourth Crusade (1204) to the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks (1453) saw both a vigorous revival of narrowly imitative, classicizing literature, as the Byzantines sought to assert their cultural superiority over the militarily and economically more powerful West, and at the same time the beginning of a flourishing literature in an approximation to vernacular Greek. But this vernacular literature was limited to poetic romances, popular devotional writing, and the like. All serious writing continued to make use of the prestigious archaizing language of learned tradition.
Byzantine literature’s two sources, classical and Christian, each provided a series of models and references for the Byzantine writer and reader. Often both were referred to side by side: for example, the emperor Alexius Comnenus defended his seizure of church property to pay his soldiers by referring to the precedents of Pericles and the biblical king David. Much of Byzantine literature was didactic in tone, and often in content too. And much of it was written for a limited group of educated readers, who could be counted upon to understand every classical or biblical allusion and to appreciate every figure of rhetoric. Some Byzantine genres would not be considered of literary interest today, but instead seem to belong to the domain of technical writing. This is true in particular of the voluminous writings of the Church Fathers, such as Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, and Maximus the Confessor.
Byzantine literature may be broadly defined as the Greek literature of the Middle Ages, whether written in the territory of the Byzantine Empire or outside its borders. By late antiquity many of the classical Greek genres, such as drama and choral lyric poetry, had long been obsolete, and all Greek literature affected to some degree an archaizing language and style, perpetuated by a long-established system of education in which rhetoric was a leading subject. The Greek Church Fathers were the products of this education and shared the literary values of their pagan contemporaries. Consequently the vast and imposing Christian literature of the 3rd to 6th centuries, which established a synthesis of Hellenic and Christian thought, was largely written in a language already far removed from that spoken by all classes in everyday life, and indeed from that of the New Testament. This diglossy—the use of two very different forms of the same language for different purposes—marked Byzantine culture for 1,000 years; but the relations between the high and low forms changed with the centuries. The prestige of the classicizing literary language remained undiminished until the end of the 6th century; only some popular saints’ lives and world chronicles escaped its influence. In the ensuing two and a half centuries, when the very existence of the Byzantine Empire was threatened, city life and education declined, and with them the use of classicizing language and style. With the political recovery of the 9th and 10th centuries began a literary revival, in which a conscious attempt was made to recreate the Hellenic-Christian culture of late antiquity. Simple or popular language was despised; many of the early saints’ lives were rewritten in inflated and archaizing language and style. By the 12th century the cultural self-assurance of the Byzantines enabled them to develop new literary genres, including romantic fiction, in which adventure and love are the main motifs, and satire, which occasionally made use of imitations of spoken Greek. The period from the Fourth Crusade (1204) to the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks (1453) saw both a vigorous revival of narrowly imitative, classicizing literature, as the Byzantines sought to assert their cultural superiority over the militarily and economically more powerful West, and at the same time the beginning of a flourishing literature in an approximation to vernacular Greek. But this vernacular literature was limited to poetic romances, popular devotional writing, and the like. All serious writing continued to make use of the prestigious archaizing language of learned tradition.
Byzantine literature’s two sources, classical and Christian, each provided a series of models and references for the Byzantine writer and reader. Often both were referred to side by side: for example, the emperor Alexius Comnenus defended his seizure of church property to pay his soldiers by referring to the precedents of Pericles and the biblical king David. Much of Byzantine literature was didactic in tone, and often in content too. And much of it was written for a limited group of educated readers, who could be counted upon to understand every classical or biblical allusion and to appreciate every figure of rhetoric. Some Byzantine genres would not be considered of literary interest today, but instead seem to belong to the domain of technical writing. This is true in particular of the voluminous writings of the Church Fathers, such as Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, and Maximus the Confessor.
Scope of Byzantine Literature. Strictly speaking, Byzantine literature includes the entire literary production, in all genres, of the occupants of the Byzantine Empire from the beginning of the reign of diocletian (284) to the fall of the empire on May 29, 1453.
Byzantine literature is the Greek literature of the Middle Ages, whether written in the territory of the Byzantine Empire or outside its borders. It forms the second period in the history of Greek literature after Ancient Greek literature.
Dec 6, 2023 · The history of Byzantium is remarkably long. If we reckon the history of the Eastern Roman Empire from the dedication of Constantinople in 330 until its fall to the Ottomans in 1453, the empire endured for some 1,123 years. Scholars typically divide Byzantine history into three major periods: Early Byzantium, Middle Byzantium, and Late Byzantium.
Jul 556 CE - c. Jul 572 CE. Samaritan revolt beginning in Caesarea Maritima, perhaps with Jewish support. A number of churches are destroyed and there is a significant loss of life. Explore the timline of Byzantine Period.
