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Byzantium

Johannes Preiser-Kapeller

The New Rome and the World of the Middle Ages

This book gives an overview of over 1000 years of history, from the fourth to the fifteenth century. What sets this account apart, however, is that it presents the period as another millennium of Roman history beyond the history of antiquity. In this, it mirrors the self-perception of the citizens of Byzantium, who viewed their empire as one spanning all the continents of the world, and as vital to the world order; in this way they made the Roman aspiration to world domination their own and maintained it until 1453.

The administrative language in this new Roman Empire on the Bosphorus was no longer Latin, but Greek – in the centuries following the fall of the Roman Empire, Latin had become a dead language even in the traditional dominions of the ‘old Romans’. Another new aspect of Byzantium was its close interrelationships – often in the form of bloody conflicts – with the Islamic world. But the threat from the ‘Latin West’, arising from the devastating Crusades, was almost as severe. And finally, Byzantium accelerated the globalisation of historical processes, through its contacts in East Africa, the Indian Ocean, the Caucasus, Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Johannes Preiser-Kapeller gives an exciting and informative account of the period.

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Published 2023-09-21T09:05:48.912Z by C.H.Beck , ISBN: 9783406806803

ISBN: 9783406806803