1. Byzantium Capital city: Constantinople
From ~AD one of the greatest cities of the world
Geographic location on the Bosporus
Central to long distance trade
Asia
India
Russia
Western Europe
Economically mainly an importer
Merchant class had no political power

3. Argueably the legitimate Successor to the Roman Empire
4th-Century AD to 1453AD
Used as an adjective for “complex institutional arrangement” or “labyrinthine”
Justinian ( AD)
Greek as official language
Tried to restore the old Roman Empire
Ultimately unsuccessful
Codification of Law Codes- “Justinian’s Code”
Serves as basis for civil law codes that spread throughout most of Europe
Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom)(or, Great Church)
Ayasofya Camii- a Mosque after AD1453
Use of Domes in architecture

4. Bureaucracy Eastern Orthodoxy On a scale with Chinese bureaucracies
Officials recruited from all social classes
Talent vs. aristocracy
Bureaucratic specialization
Cultural life centered on the traditions of Hellenism
Eastern Orthodoxy
Christian but different than in the West
Caesaropapism
Political and Religious power
Precedent- Constantine
Emperor above the law

5. The Great Schism
“Irreconcilable differences”
geography
AD726- Iconoclast controversy
1054AD- mutual Excommunication
196AD- mutual pardon
The (4th) Crusade of 1204
Constantinople sacked by Western Christians
The Byzantine Empire falls to the Ottomans in 1453

6. Kievan Rus Develops outside of Western influence
Absorbed by the Mongols
Political & Religious institutions not disturbed
Kiev- a thriving trading center on the Dneiper
The dominant among other principalities
A blend of Slav and Viking culture; the ‘Rus’
Vladimir of Kiev
Converts to Orthodoxy
Why not Catholicism?
Why not Islam?
Cyril & Methodius
Russia adopts art, the alphabet, architecture, law codes and missions