1. Features of the development of Byzantium. Unlike the Western Roman Empire, Byzantium not only withstood the onslaught of the barbarians, but also existed for more than a thousand years. It included rich and cultural areas: the Balkan Peninsula with adjacent islands, part of Transcaucasia, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt. Since ancient times, agriculture and cattle breeding have developed here. Thus, it was a Euro-Asian (Eurasian) state with a population very diverse in origin, appearance and customs.
In Byzantium, including in the territory of Egypt and the Middle East, lively, crowded cities remained: Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem. Crafts such as the production of glassware, silk fabrics, fine jewelry, and papyrus were developed here.
Constantinople, located on the shores of the Bosphorus Strait, stood at the intersection of two important trade routes: land - from Europe to Asia and sea - from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea. Byzantine merchants grew rich in trade with the Northern Black Sea region, where they had their own colony cities, Iran, India, and China. They were also well known in Western Europe, where they brought expensive oriental goods.
2. The power of the emperor. Unlike the countries of Western Europe, Byzantium maintained a single state with despotic imperial power. Everyone had to be in awe of the emperor, glorifying him in poetry and songs. The emperor's exit from the palace, accompanied by a brilliant retinue and large guards, turned into a magnificent celebration. He performed in silk robes embroidered with gold and pearls, with a crown on his head, a gold chain around his neck and a scepter in his hand.
The emperor had enormous power. His power was inherited. He was the supreme judge, appointed military leaders and senior officials, and received foreign ambassadors. The emperor ruled the country with the help of many officials. They tried with all their might to gain influence at court. The cases of petitioners were resolved through bribes or personal connections.
Byzantium could defend its borders from barbarians and even wage wars of conquest. At the disposal of a rich treasury, the emperor maintained a large mercenary army and a strong navy. But there were periods when a major military leader overthrew the emperor himself and became the sovereign himself.
3. Justinian and his reforms. The empire especially expanded its borders during the reign of Justinian (527-565). Intelligent, energetic, well-educated, Justinian skillfully selected and directed his assistants. Beneath his outward approachability and courtesy hid a merciless and insidious tyrant. According to the historian Procopius, he could, without showing anger, “in a quiet, even voice, give the order to kill tens of thousands of innocent people.” Justinian was afraid of attempts on his life, and therefore easily believed denunciations and was quick to take reprisals.
Justinian's main rule was: "one state, one law, one religion." The emperor, wanting to enlist the support of the church, granted it lands and valuable gifts, and built many churches and monasteries. His reign began with unprecedented persecution of pagans, Jews and apostates from the teachings of the church. Their rights were limited, they were dismissed from service, and sentenced to death. The famous school in Athens, a major center of pagan culture, was closed.
To introduce uniform laws for the entire empire, the emperor created a commission of the best lawyers. In a short time, she collected the laws of the Roman emperors, excerpts from the works of outstanding Roman jurists with an explanation of these laws, new laws introduced by Justinian himself, and compiled a brief guide to the use of the laws. These works were published under the general title “Code of Civil Law”. This set of laws preserved Roman law for subsequent generations. It was studied by lawyers in the Middle Ages and Modern times, drawing up laws for their states.
4. Justinian's wars. Justinian made an attempt to restore the Roman Empire within its former borders.
Taking advantage of the discord in the Vandal kingdom, the emperor sent an army on 500 ships to conquer North Africa. The Byzantines quickly defeated the Vandals and occupied the capital of the kingdom, Carthage.
Justinian then proceeded to conquer the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy. His army occupied Sicily, southern Italy and later captured Rome. Another army, advancing from the Balkan Peninsula, entered the capital of the Ostrogoths, Ravenna. The Kingdom of the Ostrogoths fell.
But the oppression of officials and the robberies of soldiers caused uprisings of local residents in North Africa and Italy. Justinian was forced to send new armies to suppress uprisings in the conquered countries. It took 15 years of intense struggle to completely subjugate North Africa, and in Italy it took about 20 years.
Taking advantage of the internecine struggle for the throne in the Visigoth kingdom, Justinian's army conquered the southwestern part of Spain.
To protect the borders of the empire, Justinian built fortresses on the outskirts, placed garrisons in them, and laid roads to the borders. Destroyed cities were restored everywhere, water pipelines, hippodromes, and theaters were built.
But the population of Byzantium itself was ruined by unbearable taxes. According to the historian, “the people fled in large crowds to the barbarians just to escape from their native land.” Uprisings broke out everywhere, which Justinian brutally suppressed.
In the east, Byzantium had to fight long wars with Iran, even cede part of its territory to Iran and pay it tribute. Byzantium did not have a strong knightly army, as in Western Europe, and began to suffer defeats in wars with its neighbors. Soon after the death of Justinian, Byzantium lost almost all the territories it had conquered in the West. The Lombards occupied most of Italy, and the Visigoths took back their former possessions in Spain.
5. Invasion of the Slavs and Arabs. From the beginning of the 6th century, the Slavs attacked Byzantium. Their troops even approached Constantinople. In the wars with Byzantium, the Slavs gained combat experience, learned to fight in formation and storm fortresses. From invasions they moved on to settling the territory of the empire: first they occupied the north of the Balkan Peninsula, then penetrated into Macedonia and Greece. The Slavs turned into subjects of the empire: they began to pay taxes to the treasury and serve in the imperial army.
The Arabs attacked Byzantium from the south in the 7th century. They captured Palestine, Syria and Egypt, and by the end of the century - all of North Africa. Since the time of Justinian, the territory of the empire has shrunk almost threefold. Byzantium retained only Asia Minor, the southern part of the Balkan Peninsula and some areas in Italy.
6. The fight against external enemies in the VIII-IX centuries. In order to successfully repel enemy attacks, a new procedure for recruiting into the army was introduced in Byzantium: instead of mercenaries, soldiers from peasants who received plots of land for their service were taken into the army. In peacetime, they cultivated the land, and when the war began, they went on a campaign with their weapons and horses.
In the 8th century there was a turning point in the wars of Byzantium with the Arabs. The Byzantines themselves began to invade the possessions of the Arabs in Syria and Armenia and later conquered from the Arabs part of Asia Minor, regions in Syria and Transcaucasia, the islands of Cyprus and Crete.
From the commanders of the troops in Byzantium, nobility gradually developed in the provinces. She built fortresses in her domains and created her own detachments of servants and dependent people. Often the nobility raised rebellions in the provinces and waged wars against the emperor.
Byzantine culture
At the beginning of the Middle Ages, Byzantium did not experience such a cultural decline as Western Europe. She became the heir to the cultural achievements of the ancient world and the countries of the East.
1. Development of education. In the 7th-8th centuries, when Byzantium's possessions declined, Greek became the official language of the empire. The state needed well-trained officials. They had to competently draw up laws, decrees, contracts, wills, conduct correspondence and court cases, respond to petitioners, and copy documents. Often educated people achieved high positions, and with them came power and wealth.
Not only in the capital, but also in small towns and large villages, children of ordinary people who were able to pay for education could study in primary schools. Therefore, even among peasants and artisans there were literate people.
Along with church schools, public and private schools were opened in cities. They taught reading, writing, arithmetic and church singing. In addition to the Bible and other religious books, the schools studied the works of ancient scientists, the poems of Homer, the tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles, the works of Byzantine scientists and writers; solved quite complex arithmetic problems.
In the 9th century, a higher school was opened in Constantinople, at the imperial palace. It taught religion, mythology, history, geography, and literature.
2. Scientific knowledge. The Byzantines preserved ancient knowledge of mathematics and used it to calculate tax amounts, in astronomy, and in construction. They also widely used the inventions and writings of great Arab scientists - doctors, philosophers and others. Through the Greeks, Western Europe learned about these works. In Byzantium itself there were many scientists and creative people. Leo the Mathematician (9th century) invented sound signaling for transmitting messages over a distance, automatic devices in the throne room of the imperial palace, driven by water - they were supposed to capture the imagination of foreign ambassadors.
Medical textbooks were compiled. To teach the art of medicine, in the 11th century, a medical school (the first in Europe) was created at the hospital of one of the monasteries in Constantinople.
The development of crafts and medicine gave impetus to the study of chemistry; Ancient recipes for making glass, paints, and medicines were preserved. “Greek fire” was invented - an incendiary mixture of oil and tar that cannot be extinguished with water. With the help of “Greek fire,” the Byzantines won many victories in battles at sea and on land.
The Byzantines accumulated a lot of knowledge in geography. They knew how to draw maps and city plans. Merchants and travelers wrote descriptions of different countries and peoples.
History developed especially successfully in Byzantium. Vivid, interesting works by historians were created on the basis of documents, eyewitness accounts, and personal observations.
3. Architecture. The Christian religion changed the purpose and structure of the temple. In an ancient Greek temple, a statue of the god was placed inside, and religious ceremonies were held outside in the square. Therefore, they tried to make the appearance of the temple especially elegant. Christians gathered for common prayer inside the church, and the architects cared about the beauty of not only the external, but also its internal premises.
The Christian church's plan was divided into three parts: the vestibule - a room at the western, main entrance; nave (ship in French) - the elongated main part of the temple where believers gathered for prayer; an altar where only clergy could enter. With its apses - semicircular vaulted niches that protruded outwards, the altar faced the east, where, according to Christian ideas, the center of the earth Jerusalem is located with Mount Golgotha - the site of the crucifixion of Christ. In large temples, rows of columns separated the wider and higher main nave from the side naves, of which there could be two or four.
A remarkable work of Byzantine architecture was the Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Justinian did not skimp on expenses: he wanted to make this temple the main and largest church of the entire Christian world. The temple was built by 10 thousand people over five years. Its construction was supervised by famous architects and decorated by the best artisans.
The Church of Hagia Sophia was called “a miracle of miracles” and was sung in verse. Inside it amazed with its size and beauty. A giant dome with a diameter of 31 m seems to grow from two half-domes; each of them rests, in turn, on three small semi-domes. Along the base, the dome is surrounded by a wreath of 40 windows. It seems that the dome, like the vault of heaven, floats in the air.
In the 10th-11th centuries, instead of an elongated rectangular building, a cross-domed church was established. In plan, it looked like a cross with a dome in the middle, mounted on a round elevation - a drum. There were many churches, and they became smaller in size: the inhabitants of a city block, a village, or a monastery gathered in them. The temple looked lighter, directed upward. To decorate its exterior, they used multi-colored stone, brick patterns, and alternated layers of red brick and white mortar.
4. Painting. In Byzantium, earlier than in Western Europe, the walls of temples and palaces began to be decorated with mosaics - images made of multi-colored stones or pieces of colored opaque glass - smalt. Smalt
reinforced with different inclinations in wet plaster. The mosaic, reflecting the light, flashed, sparkled, flickered with bright multi-colored colors. Later, the walls began to be decorated with frescoes - paintings painted with water paints on wet plaster.
There was a canon in the design of temples - strict rules for the depiction and placement of biblical scenes. The temple was a model of the world. The more important the image was, the higher it was placed in the temple.
The eyes and thoughts of those entering the church turned primarily to the dome: it was represented as the vault of heaven - the abode of the deity. Therefore, a mosaic or fresco depicting Christ surrounded by angels was often placed in the dome. From the dome the gaze moved to the upper part of the wall above the altar, where the figure of the Mother of God reminded us of the connection between God and man. In 4-pillar churches, on sails - triangles formed by large arches, frescoes with images of the four authors of the Gospels were often placed: Saints Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Moving around the church, the believer, admiring the beauty of its decoration, seemed to be making a journey through the Holy Land - Palestine. On the upper parts of the walls, artists unfolded episodes from the earthly life of Christ in the order as they are described in the Gospels. Below were depicted those whose activities are connected with Christ: prophets (messengers of God) who predicted his coming; apostles - his disciples and followers; martyrs who suffered for the sake of faith; saints who spread the teachings of Christ; kings as his earthly governors. In the western part of the temple, pictures of hell or the Last Judgment after the second coming of Christ were often placed above the entrance.
In the depiction of faces, attention was drawn to the expression of emotional experiences: huge eyes, a large forehead, thin lips, an elongated oval face - everything spoke of high thoughts, spirituality, purity, holiness. The figures were placed on a gold or blue background. They appear flat and frozen, and their facial expressions are solemn and concentrated. The flat image was created specifically for the church: wherever a person went, he everywhere met the faces of saints turned to him.
For more than a thousand years, Byzantium was a link between East and West. Originating at the end of antiquity, it existed until the end of the European Middle Ages. Until it fell to the Ottomans in 1453.
Did the Byzantines know that they were Byzantines?
Officially, the year of the “birth” of Byzantium is considered to be 395, when the Roman Empire was divided into two parts. The western part fell in 476. Eastern - with its capital in Constantinople, existed until 1453.
It is important that it was called “Byzantium” only later. The inhabitants of the empire themselves and the surrounding peoples called it “Roman”. And they had every right to do so - after all, the capital was moved from Rome to Constantinople in 330, during the time of the unified Roman Empire.
After the loss of the western territories, the empire continued to exist in a reduced form with the same capital. Considering that the Roman Empire was born in 753 BC, and died under the roar of Turkish cannons in 1453 AD, it existed for 2206 years.
Shield of Europe
Byzantium was in a permanent state of war: in any century of Byzantine history, 100 years will hardly have 20 years without war, and sometimes there will not even be 10 years of peace.
Often Byzantium fought on two fronts, and sometimes enemies pressed it from all four corners of the world. And if the rest of the European countries fought mainly with an enemy that was more or less known and understandable, that is, with each other, then Byzantium was often the first in Europe to meet unknown conquerors, wild nomads who destroyed everything in their path.
The Slavs who came to the Balkans in the 6th century so exterminated the local population that only a small part remained of it - modern Albanians.
For many centuries, Byzantine Anatolia (the territory of modern Turkey) supplied the empire with warriors and food in abundance. In the 11th century, the invading Turks devastated this flourishing region, and when the Byzantines managed to recapture part of the territory, they could not gather any soldiers or food there - Anatolia turned into a desert.
Many invasions from the east crashed against Byzantium, this eastern bastion of Europe, the most powerful of which was the Arab one in the 7th century. If the “Byzantine shield” had not withstood the blow, prayer, as the 18th-century British historian Gibbon noted, would now be heard over the sleeping spiers of Oxford.
Byzantine Crusade
Religious war is by no means an invention of the Arabs with their jihad or the Catholics with their Crusades. At the beginning of the 7th century, Byzantium stood on the brink of destruction - enemies were pressing in from all sides, and the most formidable of them was Iran.
At the most critical moment - when enemies approached the capital from both sides - the Byzantine emperor Heraclius makes an extraordinary move: he proclaims a holy war for the Christian faith, for the return of the True Cross and other relics captured by Iranian troops in Jerusalem (in the pre-Islamic era, the state religion in Iran there was Zoroastrianism).
The Church donated its treasures to the holy war, thousands of volunteers were equipped and trained with church money. For the first time, the Byzantine army marched against the Persians, carrying icons in front. In a difficult struggle, Iran was defeated, Christian relics returned to Jerusalem, and Heraclius turned into a legendary hero, who was remembered even in the 12th century as his great predecessor by the crusaders.
Double headed eagle
Contrary to popular belief, the double-headed eagle, which became the coat of arms of Russia, was by no means the coat of arms of Byzantium - it was the emblem of the last Byzantine dynasty of the Palaiologos. The niece of the last Byzantine emperor, Sophia, having married the Moscow Grand Duke Ivan III, transferred only the family coat of arms, not the state coat of arms.
It is also important to know that many European states (Balkan, Italian, Austria, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire) considered themselves heirs of Byzantium for one reason or another, and had a double-headed eagle on their coats of arms and flags.[
For the first time, the symbol of the double-headed eagle appeared long before Byzantium and the Palaiologos - in the 4th millennium BC, in the first civilization on Earth, Sumer. Images of a double-headed eagle are also found among the Hittites, an Indo-European people who lived in the 2nd millennium BC in Asia Minor.
Is Russia the successor of Byzantium?
After the fall of Byzantium, the overwhelming majority of the Byzantines - from aristocrats and scientists to artisans and warriors - fled from the Turks not to their co-religionists, to Orthodox Rus', but to Catholic Italy.
Centuries-old ties between Mediterranean peoples turned out to be stronger than religious differences. And if Byzantine scientists filled the universities of Italy, and partly even France and England, then in Rus' there was nothing for Greek scientists to fill - there were no universities there.
In addition, the heir to the Byzantine crown was not the Byzantine princess Sophia, the wife of the Moscow prince, but the nephew of the last emperor, Andrei. He sold his title to the Spanish monarch Ferdinand - the same one for whom Columbus discovered America.
Russia can be considered the successor of Byzantium only in the religious aspect - after all, after the fall of the latter, our country became the main stronghold of Orthodoxy.
Influence of Byzantium on the European Renaissance
Hundreds of Byzantine scholars who fled from the Turks who conquered their homeland, taking with them their libraries and works of art, breathed new energy into the European Renaissance.
Unlike Western Europe, in Byzantium the study of the ancient tradition was never interrupted. And the Byzantines brought all this heritage of their Greek civilization, much larger and better preserved, to Western Europe.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that without the Byzantine emigrants the Renaissance would not have been so powerful and vibrant. Byzantine scholarship even influenced the Reformation: the original Greek text of the New Testament, promoted by the humanists Lorenzo Valla and Erasmus of Rotterdam, had a great influence on the ideas of Protestantism.
Abundant Byzantium
The wealth of Byzantium is a fairly well-known fact. But few people know how rich the empire was. Just one example: the size of the tribute to the formidable Attila, who held most of Eurasia in fear, was equal to the annual income of just a couple of Byzantine villas.
Sometimes a bribe in Byzantium was equal to a quarter of the payments to Attila. Sometimes it was more profitable for the Byzantines to pay off the invasion of barbarians unspoiled by luxury than to equip an expensive professional army and rely on the unknown outcome of the military campaign.
Yes, there were difficult times in the empire, but Byzantine “gold” was always valued. Even on the distant island of Taprobana (modern Sri Lanka), Byzantine gold coins were appreciated by local rulers and merchants. A treasure with Byzantine coins was found even on the Indonesian island of Bali.
Historians associate the birth of the Byzantine civilization with the founding of its capital, the city of Constantinople. The city of Constantinople was founded by Emperor Constantine in 324. And it was founded on the site of a Roman settlement in Byzantium. In the beginning, Emperor Constantine called this city a Roman city, and in everyday life the population simply called it a city. Then it received the name royal city. And then, due to the fact that this city was founded by Emperor Constantine, it acquired a name after his name.
In fact, the history of Byzantium as an independent state begins in 395. The subjects themselves called their civilization Roman, and themselves Romans. It was only during the Renaissance that the name Byzantine civilization was invented. Constantinople, which was the center of the founding of the Byzantine civilization, was well located. The Sea of Marmara approached on one side, and the Golden Horn on the other. Constantinople occupied an important military-strategic position, which ensured Byzantium dominance over the straits. The main trade routes that went to Europe from the east intersected here. Constantinople stood at the crossroads of trade routes. Traditionally, Byzantine civilization is assessed as the result of a synthesis of ancient institutions and views with the Eastern Christian picture of the world. Byzantium included the territory of the Balkan Peninsula, Asia Minor, Northern Mesopotamia, part of Armenia, Palestine, Egypt, the islands of Crete and Cyprus, Chersonesus in the Crimea, Vladika in the Caucasus and some areas of Arabia. The Silk Road from China to Europe and the route of incense through Arabia to the ports of the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean passed through Byzantium.
The economic development of the regions that were part of Byzantium is not the same. The regions of Greece were experiencing decline at this time; the breadbasket of the empire was Thrace and Egypt. Asia Minor was an area where viticulture, gardening, and cattle breeding were developed. The coastal areas, river valleys and plains of Byzantium specialized in the cultivation of grain crops, olives and other fruit trees.
In terms of the level of development of crafts, Byzantium was ahead of the countries of Western Europe. Mining was especially developed. The Caucasus specialized in iron ore mining. Copper and silver - Armenia. Luxury goods were produced by Constantinople. In the first place was the production of various fabrics. The internal life of Byzantium was relatively stable. Unlike Western Europe, the largest cities of Byzantium were Alexandria, Antiophia, Syria, Edessa, Kirt, Hesolonica.
The population of Byzantium was multinational. Most of the population is Greek. But the Byzantine Empire included Syrians, Armenians, Georgians, Jews, Koftas, and Romans.
Before the 7th century, the Byzantines spoke Latin, after the 7th century, Greek. Greek became the official language. In total, in the early stages before the 10th century, Byzantium had approximately 20-25 million people. Considering that the world population at that time was, according to conventional estimates, 360 million people, this is not very much.
Byzantine civilization also, in its development, goes through several stages. The first period - early - is 4-7 centuries. The second period - middle - is 7-12 centuries. The third period is late - this is the 13th-15th centuries. In the early period, the Byzantine state was formed, Christianity became the dominant religion. In the middle period, a symphony of church and state took shape. There was a division between the Western and Eastern churches. The codification of law has been completed. Greek became the official language. This is the heyday of Byzantine civilization. In the late period, features of stagnation are revealed and the decline of civilization begins.
How did the history of Byzantium develop?
Byzantium was formed in conditions of barbarian invasions. There were two waves of invasions that Byzantium experienced. The first is the invasion of the Goths and Guts. The second wave is the invasion of the Slavs. The Slavic invasion ended with the formation of the first Bulgarian kingdom. This happened in the 7th century. And the Bulgarian kingdom became the first enemy of Byzantium for a long time. Emperor Justinian, who ruled in the 6th century, attempted to recreate the Roman Empire. To do this, he conquered the kingdom of the Vandals in Africa. Then the kingdom of the Ostrogoths in Italy. Emperor Justinian built the famous St. Sophia Cathedral. The new Persian kingdom remained a dangerous enemy of the empire in the east. This kingdom was the only worthy opponent of Byzantium, equal to it in its strength in economic and military development. The New Persian kingdom included the territory of present-day Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The New Persian kingdom attempted to seize the territories of Byzantium (5th-6th century). As a result, Byzantium lost part of its lands.
In the 7th century, the Arabs were serious rivals of Byzantium. Which by this time had created a powerful state. The Arabs conquered Syria and Palestine.
In the 9th century, a long struggle with the Dolbars began. The 9th-10th centuries for Byzantium are designated as campaigns against Constantinople, repeatedly undertaken by the princes of Kievan Rus Oleg, Igor, Svyatoslav and Yaroslav the Wise. 
At the end of the 12th century, the Seljuk Turks who came from the Prioral region completely ousted Byzantium from Asia Minor.
In the 13th century, as a result of the 4th Crusade, Byzantium fell into 4 parts. Latin Empire, Nicia, Trebizond and Etheric Kingdom. Soon the empire was restored, but it was already a feudally fragmented state with a weak central government. And economically, Byzantium fell under the rule of the Italian cities of the republics of Venice and Genoa. 
In the 15th century, the ring of possessions of the Ottoman Turks firmly closed around Byzantium. In 1453, the Turks laid siege to Constantinople. The siege lasted 53 days. The ships' entrance to the bay was blocked by chains, but the Turks, having smeared the boards with lard, dragged the ships overland. After the fall of Constantinople, it became the center of the Ottoman Empire and was named Istanbul.
Byzantine model of feudalism
The originality of the Byzantine civilization lies in the combination of a synthesis of ancient institutions and views with the Eastern Christian picture of the world. Byzantium managed to preserve all the main elements of the inheritance inherited from the Roman Empire. Namely:
* large cities (where crafts and trade predominated)
* slavery combined with communal farming
* developed culture
Byzantium received a strong state with developed Roman law. It included the territory of once powerful civilizations. The transition of Byzantium to feudal civilization was less painful than in the West. But the transition took place much more slowly; it was completed only in the 11th century. Basically, it was a long process of eliminating slavery within Byzantine society itself. And the same complex process of the birth of new relationships.
In the West, the barbarians, who were at the level of early statehood and the decomposition of primitive communal relations, accelerated the decomposition of the old slave-owning orders and contributed to the development of new feudal relations. This path of development of feudalism is called synthesis.
In Byzantium, the transition to feudalism was not synthetic until the 6th century. There was a slow formation of feudal relations. The synthetic development of feudalism began in the 7th-9th centuries.
In the 5th-12th centuries, large feudal property began to take shape in Byzantium. The Byzantine feudal lord was not the complete owner of his estates. The state controlled the amount of land, the number of dependent peasants; had the right to confiscate the land. The state kept the feudal lord's possessions under its supervision. The state itself was the owner of vast lands. And the feudal lords were dependent on state power.
The peculiarity of Byzantine feudalism was that a strong central government restrained the growth of large landownership; limited the autonomy of feudal duties. Feudalism in Byzantium was not completely state-based, since Roman law was preserved in Byzantium, which legitimized private property.
Byzantium Empire - Rommies
At the head of the Byzantine Empire was the emperor. The emperor of Byzantium was called Basileus. 
Basileus had almost unlimited power. He could make laws, he could change them, but he was not allowed to put himself above the law. The emperor led the army and determined the foreign policy of the empire. He was not the owner of the lands that were part of his possession. The empire was administered from Constantinople. Subordinate to Basileus was a huge state apparatus, which consisted of numerous judicial military tax departments. Along with the emperor, an important place in the life of Byzantium was occupied by the senate, which was called the symclid. Of course, he did not play the same role in Byzantium as the Roman Senate did in the Roman Empire. The members of the Senate were called Semklidics. The Senate was an advisory body to the emperor. Officials and Symcledics were represented not only by representatives of the nobility, but also by commoners who were distinguished by their talent; they sometimes even found themselves on the imperial throne.
This did not bother the Byzantines because they, like the Romans, believed that all citizens of the empire were equal to each other. And birth is a private matter for everyone.
The idea of empire was strengthened by Christianity. It was this that gave it its sacred character. In the 4th century, Eukernius of Caesarea, an associate of Emperor Constantine, created political history. According to this theory, the secular and spiritual power of Byzantium merged into a single one, forming a symphony. The emperor was not only a secular ruler, but also the head of the church. Not only the imperial power was deified, but also the orders of specific emperors. But the personality of the emperor himself was not deified.
Only the position of the emperor was deified. The Emperor was like a heavenly father. He had to imitate God. According to Eusterius of Caesarea, Byzantium became a stronghold of Christianity. She was under divine protection and led other nations to salvation. Royal power in Byzantium was not inherited. And despite the fact that the emperor’s personality was considered sacred, he could be removed. Byzantium had 109 emperors. And only 34 of them died of natural causes. The rest were displaced or killed. But the imperial power itself remained untouched.
In Byzantium, the emperor ruled, or he was also called autokrator (autocrat). The imperial idea helped preserve the integrity of Byzantium and the world idea. However, the imperial idea focused on the preservation of traditions and customs and constrained development. The feudal lords in Byzantium never became a class. The position of the aristocrats was unstable, and intrigues and conspiracies constantly took place at court.
The role of religion in Byzantine civilization
One of the characteristic features of medieval civilizations is the dominance of world religions. For the first time, ideology in its religious form becomes the dominant factor in the development of society.
In Byzantium the dominant ideology was Christianity. Which arose in the 1st century. Christianity gave a new understanding of the world. The world consists of two parts:
* earthly world (sinful)
* heavenly world (ideal, pure)
In the 4th century, Byzantium adopted Christianity as its official religion. And we can say that pagan consciousness gave way to Christian consciousness. Christian consciousness is directed to the inner world of man. With the establishment of Christianity in Byzantium, sritski (other interpretations of the main dogmas) appeared, and which exactly the Church did not allow dissent. She sought to strengthen her position. And the medieval consciousness was oriented towards authorities. The Church prescribed to comprehend divine truths, and not to change them. The subject of controversy for a long time was the dogma of the Holy Trinity. Which included God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. There were disputes especially in the early stages of Byzantine civilization about the nature of Christ.
What heresies arose at this time? The main heresy is Arianism. Many barbarian, Germanic peoples were subject to it. The Aryans believed that Christ was a man. And his divinity was transferred to him by God the Father. Along with the Arians, such a heresy as Meccorianism took place in Byzantium. The Meccarians argued that there was a difference between Christ the superior man and the son of God and their connection was only temporary. And finally, there was such an attitude as Monophysitism. Monophysites argued that the nature of Christ was divine. The Byzantine Church argued that Christ combines two essences, both human and divine. This was the basis of hope for salvation. And the Byzantines had the opportunity to discover the divine principle within themselves.
Not only disputes about the essence of Christ caused heated debates and gave rise to such heretical movements as Arianism, Meccorianism, and Monophysitism. But there were also other very important disputes. The next one is about the relationship between spiritual and physical man. These disputes still do not subside in modern society. But for Byzantium this dispute was very important. Such ideas as Paulicianism appeared in Armenia and Bogomilism in Bulgaria. Both the Paulicians and the Bogomils argued that heaven is the domain of God, and the earth is the domain of Satan, and that man was created together by both God and Satan (God the soul, and Satan the body). They called on believers to be faithful to Yaksikel. The Byzantine Church argued that the body cannot prevent the development of the divine principle within itself. It was created by God, for even the Apostle Paul argued that the body is a temple of the holy spirit.
It was Christianity that discovered human disharmony (physical beauty, spiritual beauty).
In the 11th century, two branches of Christianity finally formed. Catholic in the west and Orthodox in the east. There was a schism in the churches called schism (1054 - schism of churches). The reason was the attempt of the Catholic Church to supplement the creed. In the West, the church decided its affairs on issues of saving the human soul. She forgave sins, assessed the virtues and shortcomings of a person. A whole, so to speak, code of historical rules and forms of human behavior was developed.
In this way, a kind of regulation of human life took place. The positive point in this is that the person has developed internal discipline and internal organization. 
Byzantium. Church of the Apostles in Thessaloniki
In Byzantium, the church argued that the path to salvation, the path to God could occur without the participation of the church; a person could directly turn to God through prayer by uniting with him. Thus, in Christianity the emotional individual principle prevails. Hence the system of values, behavior, and a slightly different ideal of personality. It began to take shape in Byzantium, and then it transferred this system to Russia, and thus the formation of the Russian type of person, a very emotional person with mystical views, took shape over many centuries. The religion of Byzantium also performed a stabilizing function. It was a single shell of the formation of Byzantine spirituality and culture. The cultural values of pagan antiquity were not denied by the Byzantine Church. The study of antiquity, philosophy, and literature was encouraged. The Byzantine school differed from the Western European school. Unlike the West, education in Byzantium was influenced by the church, but it was not so strictly tied to the church. Byzantine science developed under the strong influence of antiquity and the successes and achievements of the Byzantines were associated with the needs of economic development and management of the country.
Thus the Byzantine civilization is a Christian civilization. Its main achievements can be considered the following: religion becomes the dominant factor in society. Orthodoxy is the ideological basis of the Byzantine religion. “The exceptional combination of Byzantine life with the Christian religion, Hellenistic culture and Roman statehood made the Byzantine civilization unlike any other.” Byzantine civilization influenced the development of Russians and the formation of the Russian idea. Ideas of unity, ideas of statehood.
Enemies continuously attacked the Empire “on all fronts” - in the East, an all-crushing wave of the victorious invasion of Muslim Arabs rolled across its former lands; by the mid-640s, the Empire had already almost or irretrievably lost, as a result of the terrible defeats of the previous decade, Syria and Palestine , Mesopotamia, Egypt, Cyrenaica - Arab troops invaded the lands of Armenia, Asia Minor and Tripolitania.
In the West, the remnants of the imperial possessions in Italy were periodically attacked by the Lombards, who at the end of the 6th century captured most of the Apennine Peninsula and created their own kingdom there, thereby dividing the territories still held by imperial troops into semi-isolated enclaves, the defense and administration of which was concentrated in the hands of “ exarch" - the highest military and civilian representative of the Empire in Italy, with a residence in Ravenna, who had almost imperial power in relation to the population and troops of the territories subordinate to him.
At the same time, the onslaught of the Lombards on these imperial enclaves periodically resumed with renewed vigor - so in 640 they captured Genoa, and three years later they inflicted a heavy defeat on the troops of the exarch in Emily, as a result of which the Empire lost a number of cities and fortresses. The last remnants of the possessions of the Eastern Roman Empire in Spain, which once formed the special province of “Spania”, were lost even earlier - in 625 they fell under the crushing blows of the troops of the Visigoth king Svintila (only individual fortresses in the extreme south of the peninsula in the area of modern Algeciras were held by imperial garrisons, according to archeology, at least until the early to mid-630s, but then they were abandoned).
In the North, on the Balkan Peninsula, the situation also continued to remain extremely difficult for the Empire - despite the fact that its most terrible enemy here - the Avar Khaganate, after the defeat suffered under the walls of Constantinople in 626, was extremely weakened, literally collapsing in a row internal turmoil and suffered defeat after defeat from the Slavic tribes who rebelled against the power of the Avars and thereby lost the opportunity to fight with the Empire for a long time, but this, nevertheless, did not at all improve the situation in this region for the Eastern Romans.
On the contrary, the Slavic tribes, during the years of the wars between the Kaganate and the Empire, broke through and destroyed the Danube Limes and settled in large numbers on the conquered lands of the former imperial provinces in Thrace, Illyria, Greece, Epirus and Dalmatia, during the 630s - 640s continued, either for a while “making peace” with Constantinople, then again starting military operations against it, stubbornly destroying the Roman fortresses and cities that still held out here and there in the Balkans - the last strongholds of the military and civil power of the Empire in these lands, simultaneously occupying more and more new territories.
Moreover, the Slavs, who settled on the shores of the Adriatic and on the lands of Greece by the end of the 630s - beginning of the 640s, “mastered” navigation and moved on to active sea piracy on imperial communications in Aegis, starting to carry out predatory raids on both the islands there and on the coast of Italy (where the Lombards also suffered from them).
However, the troubles of the Eastern Roman Empire were far from being exhausted by this - a huge problem, which largely contributed to the internal destabilization of the state, was a very long and severe conflict between the followers of orthodox (“Chalcedonian”) Christianity and the followers of the ancient Eastern churches, which recognized the decrees and professed doctrinal dogmas only the first two or three Ecumenical Councils.
The attempt of Emperor Heraclius in the 630s to reconcile the warring parties by introducing and planting, as it seemed to him, a compromise doctrine of monothelitism (often this activity was carried out quite harshly and was often accompanied by violence, as for example the Patriarch of Alexandria Cyrus did in Egypt - based on imperial army, he actively dealt with his opponents from among the Coptic clergy), only further worsened the already difficult situation with religious contradictions in the Empire.
Since monothelitism was almost unanimously condemned as a heresy, both by representatives of one and the other of the warring parties, which in turn sowed the seeds of hatred and distrust in the activities of the government, and this very soon affected, for example, in the form of cooperation of many Copts with the Arabs, during the latter's invasion of Egypt and in the growing number of local "separatist" sentiments in the western possessions of the Empire.
Such sentiments, in the western territories of the Empire, were fueled not only (albeit to a significant extent) by contradictions with the “center” in religious matters - by the early to mid-640s, a “critical mass” of increasingly deepening cultural and linguistic differences between the Empire, which finally switched to the Greek language during the reign of Heraclius, the center of the Empire located in the East, and the still predominantly Latin-speaking West, which became a “distant outskirts”.
In conditions of extreme instability of the state machine, constant military defeats and the destruction of the economy throughout the 7th century, there was an inevitable weakening of Constantinople’s control over its western possessions, which was particularly expressed in problems with the payment of regular salaries to military units stationed in Italy and which were the pillar of power of the Empire in these territories, thereby giving rise to problems with their loyalty: the regular Byzantine regiments, the “numbers”, who came here in the middle of the 6th century, gradually naturalized in the Apennines.
They began to replenish, mainly due to local natives, city possessors. Soldiers and officers who came from the East acquired property in Italy, bought and rented land. The army acquired a territorial character: militias (“militia”) were formed - Ravenna, Pentapolitan, Roman. The army increasingly lost its regularity.
There was no talk of reducing its fighting qualities or the number of troops (according to some sources, their “listed personnel” reached 32 thousand people) - the main problem gradually became that, like any militia, it was a local army, with its own local interests , often increasingly at odds with the policies pursued by distant Constantinople authorities. In addition, the peculiar “historical memory” that persisted in the 7th century about the times of “old Rome”, about the times of the division of the Empire into Western and Eastern and the presence at that time in the West of its own emperor or “emperor for the West” continued to circulate in the minds of representatives of the local elites and the worse things went for the central government in managing and defending its Latin-speaking possessions in the West, the more these sentiments intensified.
Basically, this “state of mind” was true for Italy, but it also had a certain influence on Latin-speaking imperial North Africa. Ultimately, this could not but lead to attempts to usurp power and attempts to restore the Western Roman Empire in one form or another - so in 619, the Exarch of Ravenna Eleftherius became a kind of “pioneer” in this matter, who proclaimed himself emperor and even went to coronation in Rome, but was soon killed on the way there by his own soldiers (at that time they were still receiving salaries from the Empire and, feeling like soldiers of a regular army, they were mostly loyal to it).
And in 640, the charterary of the Roman garrison of Mauritius, with the help of local soldiers, tried to raise a rebellion in order to seize power in the Roman ducat, and although the punitive detachment that arrived from Ravenna managed to restore order and the instigator of the rebellion was eventually executed, “alarm bells” about that that the central government of the Empire has big problems with the loyalty of the troops and population of the western (in particular Italian territories) has already been voiced. [In the subsequent period there was a more “successful” usurpation of the Exarch Olympius, who ruled the Empire's possessions in Italy independently of Constantinople from 649 to 652.]
The only, more or less relatively calm part of the Empire in the early to mid-640s was North Africa, which had been conquered from the Vandals during the reign of Emperor Justinian, for the management and defense of the provinces of which the Carthaginian exarch was responsible (the Spanish possessions of the empire, before their losses of about 625 were also legally part of the Carthaginian (“African”) Exarchate with a special status).
During the previous century, this territory of the Empire also experienced many dramatic events, but however, by the end of the 6th century, as a result of the victories won by the imperial commanders John Troglita and Exarch Gennady (I), over the Berber (“Moors”) tribes surrounding the lands of the exarchate and arose during in the second half of the 5th century by independent Romano-Moorish principalities, the situation on the borders of the African possessions of the Empire stabilized and at the beginning of the 7th century was quite calm - the defeated Berbers - the “Moors” became either “federates” of the Empire, or were in the status of its allies and were actively among them Christian missionary activity was successfully carried out, so much so that, for example, ancient Kidamus (modern Ghadames on the border of Libya and Tunisia), located quite far from the borders of the exarchate, where there was no Empire power since the second half of the 3rd century, was already Christian by the beginning of the 7th century city, with its bishop. Among the Romano-Moorish principalities, by the beginning of the 7th century, Altava (Djedar) came to the forefront, headed by Latin-speaking Christian princes, descended from Roman officers of local origin - preposites of the Limes and who claimed royal power over both the Moors and the local “Romans” ", and having conquered to one degree or another all the main Romano-Moorish principalities, so that their dominion extended from the mountainous regions of Numidia in the east to the ancient city of Volubilius, inclusive of modern times. Morocco in the west, they entered the path of military clashes with the Carthaginian Exarchate, however, after brutal defeats from the imperial troops, the rulers of Altava became quite