Was talking with C-- about why most people don't know much about the Byzantines. How many of you studied Byzantium in high school? In my "world history" class, our medieval history was exclusively European. The only thing I learned about Constantinople was in connection to the Crusades.I proposed two hypotheses. One was that GIbbon's disapproval of the Byzantines (he considered them effeminate, weakling, dying from the day of their foundation, and one of the causes of the decline of the Roman Empire-- an unfair characterisation, but that's not the point) has influenced later scholars. The problem with this is that Gibbon's views don't necessarily hold a lot of water among historians and haven't for a while. I buy that his views influenced the (lack of) study of Byzantium shortly after the book was written, but now? It's been a long time and I don't think these views would snowball that far. But it might have some effect on popular views of Byzantium.

Another opinion is a little weirder. I think some of it has to do with the fact that we (and by we I mean Americans and to some extent Western Europeans) don't identify with the Byzantines. Particularly I'm thinking of their societal emphasis on religion. To us, the Byzantines' ability to spend days arguing about theology is just weird and particularly in the twentieth century, a bit off-putting. We like to sweep religion under a rug and forget it's there at all. Also, the Byzantines (perhaps unfairly, perhaps not)are characterised as being good at religion and politics and not much else. Generally, these are things we as Americans don't like to emphasise. We can identify with medieval Europe more easily because we see ourselves as the descendents of their society. Even though medieval Europe was even farther than modern western society than Byzantium, we identify more with these people who are our ancestors than with the Byzantines.

I think that's unfortunate. From a purely selfish point of view, I find Byzantine history fascinating and the way the empire managed to meld Roman and medieval societies into something remarkably coherent difficult to get my mind around. The Byzantines also strike me as remarkably likeable too (ed-- You have this problem with overidentifying with things and people who lived long ago.). They weren't warlike, but they fought to defend what was theirs (ed-- that's problematic. What about all the reconquest between 920 and Manzikert? What about the taking of friendly Bulgaria? I imagine the Muslims and the Bulgarians saw the Byzantines as peacelike.). OK, maybe more like their society didn't glorify warfare in the same way that most other medieval societies did. They were supposed to be Christ's empire on earth, after all. I see the Byzantines as an essentially good-natured people and think even most of the squabbling over theology was more petty bickering than anything else. Yes, the world looks nice through my rose-colored glasses, thanks for asking.

The other reason that I think Byzantine history should be studied more in American high schools/ colleges is that I think we have a lot to learn from it. Their law was very good, they operated an almost federalist governmental system for 400 years, they are the most succesful empire ever. The balance they set up between Church and state influenced modern Europe, though the western Church was far more independent than the Eastern one ever was. Their military strategy until 1100 was superb.

This empire lasted for 1100 years, from 330 AD - 1453 AD. To put things into perspective, the Roman empire lasted barely 500 years, and that's if you count such 'Roman' emperors as Romulus Augustus, who was a Goth. But how many people reading this blog can identify more than four Byzantine emperors (and no, Theodora and Justinian don't count separately)? How many people have any concept of Byzantine wars other than Justinian's wars and the battle of Manzikert? Heraclius and his theme system may be the only reason that I don't pray facing Mecca, but I imagine 99% of graduating high school seniors have never heard of him.

I think in a marginally different world, I could have been a Byzantinist. Or a spy.