The Byzantine Empire

Catalog description

This course examines the development and history of the Byzantine Empire from the decline of the Roman Empire to the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453. As the Roman Empire disintegrated, the West slowly developed into smaller kingdoms, while the East survived in a unified empire centered on Constantinople. Modern scholars call this eastern empire, and its culture, Byzantine. This course examines the process by which the Latin imperial culture of Rome was transformed into a profoundly Greek culture, which for centuries represented the model against which other civilizations ¿ the various kingdoms of the Latin West, the Islamic caliphates of Damascus and Baghdad, and the Slavic chieftaincies of eastern Europe ¿ measured themselves.