Chapter 20 Chapter 15 Traditional Byzantine Civilization
According to Edward Gibbon, the 1000-year history of Byzantium's survival "has always been a debilitating and tragic story".But for a long time, people have paid attention to and correctly evaluated its various contributions to human civilization, thus ignoring Gibbon's thesis.However, the exact method and context in which Byzantine history is presented remains somewhat of a mystery.Should these 1,000 years be described as the end of the history of the Roman Empire, the background of the Slavic civilization, or the prologue of the Ottoman Empire?
Either of these approaches is correct if Byzantine history is viewed from a regional perspective, but if it is viewed from a global perspective, as is the case in this book, then it is clear that Orthodox Byzantium was a European One of the few traditional civilizations in the subcontinent that survived barbarian aggression and continued uninterrupted from classical times to modern times (see Chapter 11, Section 6).
However, this continuous history eventually meant abandonment and extinction, especially politically.Because Byzantium was the most vulnerable, its civilization was the first to suffer this fate.China, for example, faced barbarian aggression only in the northwest, at the far eastern tip of Eurasia, which was inaccessible even to the warlike West until the mid-nineteenth century.Byzantium, on the contrary, suffered not only a series of aggressions from the barbarians on the north bank of the Danube, but also attacks from an expanding West and a revived East; Offensives were in the form of Venetian merchants and Norman knights, while eastern raids referred first to the Sasanian invasions of Persia and then to the Muslim Arabs and Turks.Thus, traditional Chinese civilization lasted until 1912, while Byzantium collapsed in 1204 and was partially restored in 1261, surviving until its final demise in 1453 (see Figure 18 "Byzantine Empire decline").
No Western capital can match the splendor of the Byzantine capital Constantinople in terms of continuity and scope of imperial rule.In 330 AD, when Constantine the Great rebuilt the city as New Rome, it was already an ancient city.Its origin should be traced back to the 7th century BC, when it was a colonial city established by immigrants from the Greek city-state of Megara, named Byzantion; Byzantium is its Latin name.Despite its geographical importance, Byzantium remained a second-rate commercial city for the next 1,000 years.It could not have risen to a position commensurate with its geographical position so long as the threat of the barbarian Thracian existed and cut off its connection with the interior.The conquest of the emperor Trajan and his successors brought the interior under the control of the Roman Empire and thus ended this unfavorable situation.Therefore, when Byzantium became the Monarch Constantinople, that is, the Monarch Constantine City, its land and waters were already very stable. It stands still.
Monarch Constantinople assumed the new role of capital of the Byzantine Empire for 1000 years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.Thereafter, Constantinople became the capital of a new empire whose territory expanded with the conquests of the Ottoman armies, from Morocco to Persia, from Venice to the Indian Ocean.Monarch Constantinople ruled over this vast area until modern times; and after the Turkish Republic replaced the Ottoman Empire, Kemal Ataturk moved the capital from the coast of the Bosporus to the Anatolian plateau. safe zone.
A miniature in the Vatican Library showing Emperor Justinian (527-565) helping to build the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. After the Turks captured Constantinople in 1453, they converted this famous cathedral into a mosque.
Constantinople's illustrious history is largely due to its strategic location between Europe and Asia.The city stands on a steep headland at the southern end of the Bosphorus; the headland juts out from the European side of the strait to the opposite Asian coast, as if to hold back the rapid flow from the Black Sea into the Sea of Marmara.Monarch Constantinople thus had the Sea of Marmara to the south and the Bosphorus to the north, thus forming an important port, the so-called Golden Horn.Of course, other cities also had good ports and important geographic locations, but the distinguishing feature of Constantinople was that there was a long, narrow and navigable strait to the north and south.Therefore, the city is protected by two sea gates, which prevent the passage of enemy ships, whether from the Aegean Sea or from the Black Sea.In order to strengthen these natural defenses, the Byzantine emperor built two tall walls on land: the first wall was four miles long; the second wall was 40 miles long and 20 feet wide, located about 30 miles.These two defensive walls, together with the natural barrier of the Balkan Mountains, guarded the overland entrance to Constantinople.Thus, the city survived the ten-century-long Byzantine reign, albeit mostly as a besieged fortress.
The history of Constantinople raises the question of when the Roman Empire ended and the Byzantine Empire began.The end of the Roman Empire did not end with the deposed emperor Romulus Augustulus in AD 476, because after that, the tradition of imperial unification continued for centuries.Even though Italy, Gaul, Britain, Spain, and North Africa had all been lost to the barbarians, the emperors of the Eastern Roman Empire still considered them Caesar's heirs.The backward, conservative Justinian (527-565) was bent on turning his dream of restoring the empire into reality.Thus, he conquered North Africa, Italy, and parts of Spain, and compiled the legal code of the Roman Empire (see Chapter XI, Section 4).Justinian declared, "We shall rebuild all that was past, though its value has now been reduced to a minimum. . Come".
Chaturdinian's efforts to restore the empire were short-lived and costly.His campaigns in the western Mediterranean drained the imperial coffers, leaving the Balkan and Asian provinces neglected and vulnerable.Less than a decade after his death, a new barbarian tribe, the Lombards, took over most of Italy.Likewise, on the Danube frontier, the Avars, along with Slavic and Bulgarian subjects, moved into the Balkans, displacing the Latinized Illyrians and weakening the hold of the empire.In the east, during the reign of Justinian.The Persians had made peace with Byzantium for taking bribes; now, under the ambitious Emperor Kosroes II, they set out to wipe out the Eastern Roman Empire.By 615 they had occupied Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, and had camped along the Bosphorus opposite Constantinople.
The succession of the great Emperor Heraclius (610-641) enabled Byzantium to mobilize all resources and arouse the will of the people to prevent the looming catastrophe.While the Avar-Persian forces were besieging Constantinople, Heraclius went on the offensive and defeated the Persians in Mesopotamia in 627; the same region where Alexander the Great had been 1,000 years earlier defeated the Persians.The following year, the Persians were forced to call off all conquests and conclude a peace treaty.
After eliminating the danger in the east, Heraclius discovered that the Slavs had now occupied and settled most of the northern Balkans.He had to make do with reality and designate a certain area for them.In return they recognized his suzerainty and agreed to pay annual tribute.As a result, the newly arrived Slavs gradually changed from invaders to settlers.Several centuries later, these Slavs scattered in the vast area of the Balyu Peninsula developed in different ways and formed four major races: the Slovenians living in the Cape of the Adriatic Sea; Croats in the area between the Adriatic Sea; Serbs in the central Balkan area between the Adriatic Sea and the Danube; Slavs in the remaining area of the Black Sea, who soon adopted the title of conqueror of Bulgaria.The latter two races, borrowing from Byzantine culture, established short but great medieval kingdoms.The Slovenians and Croats, on the other hand, became subjects of the Holy Roman Empire due to their location in the west of the peninsula, and were deeply influenced by Rome rather than Constantinople in terms of cultural development.
The struggle against the Avars and Persians was only a prelude to a larger and more fateful struggle with the Muslim Arabs.As noted in Chapter 13, Section 3, Islamic armies rapidly overran much of the Middle East during the 630s and 40s.The long struggle between Byzantium and Persia left both empires exhausted and weak.Byzantium was further weakened by the religious dissatisfaction expressed by the people of the Eastern Provinces over the issue of monospiritualism, which held that Christ had a single divinity, while orthodox Byzantine doctrine held that Christ Both divinity and humanity.The controversy was so intense that many Orthodox Christians would rather accept the rule of Islam than the religion of Constantinople.Thus a thousand years of Greco-Roman rule in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt came to an end in twenty years, despite the desperate efforts of the aging Heraclius.
In the latter part of the seventh century, even the very existence of the Byzantine Empire was threatened by a combination of Muslim sea raids and Bulgarian land attacks.The development of sea power is the achievement of the Arabs in adapting to the environment. , They thus conquered Cyprus and Rhodes, and then, from 669 onwards, besieged Constantinople several times.At the same time, Byzantium was also threatened by the Bulgarians from the north; an Asian people who had initially been used by the Byzantines against the Avars.But at this time, the Bulgarians were occupying the area between the Danube and the Balkan Mountains, and using this as a base, threatened the monarchy of Constantinople.
Byzantium was again saved this time by the inspired head of the empire, the ruler of the Isaurian dynasty, Leo III (717-744).Leo was originally a Syrian military commander who seized power while the Arabs besieged the monarchy of Constantinople.He not only crushed the Arab siege, but drove them out of Asia Minor.At the end of his reign, the empire's frontiers were firmer but much smaller than those of Justinian's time.Italy had been lost to the Lombards; the northern Balkans to the Slavs and Bulgarians; Syria, Palestine, Egypt and North Africa to the Arabs.
This reduced empire was, however, a more ethnically homogenous one, as the eastern provinces were predominantly monospiritual and non-Greek.In this case, the withdrawal to the Taurus Mountains strengthened rather than weakened Byzantium; the Taurus Mountains were the dividing line between Greek Asia Minor and the region that was becoming the center of the Islamic world.This dividing line has been reinforced by internal turmoil in the Muslim world.The establishment of the Abbasid dynasty (750) and the transfer of the Islamic capital from Damascus to Baghdad put an end to this turmoil.But at this time, the direction of Islam's expansion was to the east, not to the Mediterranean.Thus, the Byzantine and Muslim empires could coexist peacefully until the advent of the warlike Turks in the 11th century.
A dividing line similar to that between Byzantium and Islam was being formed between Byzantium and the West.The papacy had sought protection from Constantinople due to the Lombard invasion, but was unsuccessful because Byzantium was fighting the Arabs with all its might.So the Pope turned again to the Franks, and the two sides cooperated; in 500 the Pope gave Charlemagne the world-famous coronation.It was not until 812 that Constantinople reluctantly gave Charlemagne the title of "Emperor of the Romans", thereby recognizing the political unity of the West.But in the centuries that followed Byzantium was alienated from the West not only politically but also in language, ecclesiastical affairs, and general culture.
The Byzantine Empire that arose in the eighth century was much smaller than the short-lived empire of Justinian, but it was more nationally unified.The various ethnic, cultural and religious elements of the eastern and western provinces have been discarded, leaving a core that is basically Greek, only, not absolutely.In this way, the transition from the Eastern Roman Empire in the 6th century to the Byzantine Empire in the 8th century was completed. The Byzantine Empire in the 8th century was an empire culturally distinct from Islam in the East and New Europe in the West.
From the beginning of the 9th century to the beginning of the 11th century, the Byzantine Empire reached its peak.At that time, the administrative division of the empire was based entirely on the province; each province was ruled by generals in charge of administrative and military affairs.This administrative militarization was effected by Heraclius as an emergency measure in case of imminent external danger.The empire distributed land in the provinces to the peasants to cultivate as payment for their military service.Under powerful emperors, this division of provinces ensured efficient administration, provided military stores, and filled the treasury, as peasants borne a heavy tax burden.
The Byzantine economy was also firmly based on free peasant communes, which functioned alongside the estates of the great landowners.In the surviving urban centers since the Greco-Roman classical period, the skill level of artisans was high.Arab writers describe Byzantine handicrafts, especially luxury goods, of a quality that only Chinese handicrafts can match.Equally important were the vast quantities of goods that passed through Constantinople from all parts of Eurasia, slaves and salt from the Black Sea region, condiments, spices and precious stones from India, papyrus and grain from Egypt, silk and porcelain from China and Western silver, wrought iron, linen, cotton, and woolen goods.
The increase in political, economic, and military power enabled the Byzantine emperors to launch reconquest wars; these wars were not as ambitious as the conquest wars launched by Justinian, but they were more practical.They regained the islands of Crete and Cyprus, thereby stopping the invasion of the Aegean sea by the Arab navy.The empire's territory also expanded to northern Syria, Armenia, and Georgia.The Bulgarians in the northern Balkan Peninsula have always been a threat to the empire. In 1014, Basil II won a decisive victory in the northern Balkan Peninsula. Since then, he has been called "the executioner who slaughtered the Bulgarians".
This period is culturally a stable and uniform period.The Byzantines still called themselves Romans, but Greek, both written and spoken, was the lingua franca of the empire.With the loss of the dissenting eastern provinces to Islam, and with the elimination of the violent and long-lasting dispute between the idolaters and the idolaters, iconoclasts and iconophiles, so did religious identity. further promotion.A compromise solution to the dispute was to ban religious sculpture but allow religious painting, which remains an important feature of Orthodox religious life to this day.
The conversion of Muslims in reconquered Crete, and of the Slavs in the northern Balkans, also revived the Byzantine Church. In 865, Grand Duke Boris of Bulgaria accepted Christianity in Constantinople in return for imperial recognition of his conquests.In the following years, Byzantine missionaries provided the Bulgarians with the alphabet, translated the Bible into Bulgarian, and prepared the Slavic liturgy.At about the same time, the Serbs, like the Russians in the Principality of Kyiv, converted to Orthodoxy (see Section VI of this chapter).Further west, however, Roman Catholicism prevailed among the Croats and Slovenes, who followed the example of the neighboring Italians, Hungarians, and Germans in converting to Catholicism.
14th century French clay manuscript: 800 Pope crowns Charlemagne.This event prompted Constantinople to grant Charlemagne the title "Empire of the Romans" in 812, thus acknowledging the political independence of the West.
The close relationship of mutual support between emperor and bishop also made the empire stronger.The principle of the church of the dependent state is traditional and recognized. The emperor not only called himself "Otekrat", that is, the monarch, but also called himself "Ayon Postro", that is, the person equivalent to the preacher. The 10th-century ritual book for the election of the Archbishop of Constantinople clearly stipulated this affiliation.The archbishops of the church gathered at the Hagia Sophia in accordance with the emperor's order to submit to the emperor a list of three candidates for bishop.The emperor can choose any one of the three at will, or refuse all three, and appoint a candidate he likes; and this candidate must be recognized by the archbishop as qualified for his position.Then, at the inauguration, the new leader of the Church was announced "by the will of God and the Emperor" as bishop.
In short, in these centuries, due to the gradual formation of a moderate peaceful coexistence relationship with the West and the Muslim world, Byzantium was stable, powerful and prosperous.Complacent and rather internally focused.These features are reminiscent of Ming China (see Section 5 of Chapter 17).In fact, like China, Byzantium did not have a university, and its main task was to train officials for the bureaucracy.However, the sporadic and irregular functions of the universities at Constantinople lacked the continuous effectiveness of the Chinese universities. The Confucian commentary of the sixth-century Byzantine historian Procopius on the long-running debate about divinity is also reminiscent of China.He said: "I think that all the debates about divinity are absurd and stupid. People can't even know their own nature, so all comments on divinity should be abandoned."
Byzantine culture never resolved its ambivalence between its classical heritage and its religious tendencies.On the eve of the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the Platonist Gimistus Plaisant (c. 1355-1450) openly expressed doubts about the prospect of a state deeply bound by Christianity and its organisation.As a famous teacher, Plaisang spent most of his life in Mystra, the provincial capital of Byzantium in the Peloponnese Peninsula.He dreamed of restoring ancient Greek society in the Peloponnese; a society organized according to a modified Platonic utopia, based on pagan rather than Christian faith.But this classical, secularist tendency never prevailed in Byzantine thought.Byzantine society was still dominated by religious belief.More representative of this society than Pleasant was the missionary Joseph Blaines, whose sermons offered religious explanations for the evils of the time:
When Basil, the "Executioner of the Bulgarians," died in 1025, the prominence of the Byzantine Empire seemed indisputably secure, with the Danube as its fixed northern frontier.By this time, the Arab-Islamic world was fragmented and no longer a threat; everything that emerged in the West seemed primitive and insignificant compared with the Second Roman Empire on the Bosphorus.But within half a century of Basil's death the empire was in trouble, and less than two centuries later, in 1204, the capital fell to the despised barbarians of the West.
One reason for the sharp setback was the growing resistance of the military generals in charge of the provinces, which undermined the military system of the empire.Basil II was powerful enough to control the army.But his successors were weak and unable to control the army, especially after the military generals united with the provincial landowners.Military leaders used the peasant army enlisted to defend the frontier against the Constantinople administration.In response, the bureaucrats dismissed the peasant army and made farmers pay cash instead of military service.Then use the collected funds to hire foreign mercenaries, including Normans, Germans, Patzinaks and Armenians.But these foreign mercenaries were clearly unreliable compared with the former peasant armies, and when they were paid, they often turned against the empire they ostensibly defended.
The political problem of feudalization of society was a closely related cause of imperial decline.Military generals and local landowners amassed vast estates, bringing entire provinces under the control of a few families.Emperors often issued decrees to check this trend. The following decree issued by Constantine VII in the early 10th century is very representative:
This order, and others like it, did not take effect for the simple reason that it was carried out by the very class against which it was directed.Even these efforts largely ceased after Basil II's death.Instead, the emperor began to grant usufructs of state-owned land to those who had made important contributions.These grants of land were connected with military service, and thus began to form something similar to the fiefdoms in the West, but without allegiance and fiefdom.Indeed, after the Latins conquered Byzantium in 1204, they divided it into fiefs, which the Greek nobles admitted were the Latin equivalent of their land grants.
Severe economic maladjustment also jeopardized the empire.Large private and monastic estates reduced the revenue of the empire, especially after Basil's successors reduced most of the taxes paid by the great landowners.At the same time, the extravagance of the court and the expenditure of foreign mercenaries kept the expenditure of the empire on the rise.The cavalry attacks of the Patzinaks and the Seljuk Turks were also very harmful. They made some areas barren and the grains were not harvested.The solida, the Byzantine gold coin whose value had been stable for seven centuries, also continued to depreciate at this time.
Like many other empires, Byzantium's internal weakness invited foreign aggression.In the west are the Norman adventurers.Originally Byzantine mercenaries, they now turned against the weakened empire, occupying southern Italian territories that had been preserved since the time of Justinian's conquest.Likewise, in the east were the Seljuk Turks.They entered the Islamic empire from their native Central Asia, where they were hired as mercenaries by the Caliph of Baghdad.Gradually these mercenaries became masters, occupying Baghdad in 1055 and establishing the Seljuk Empire.These Turks revived the dying Islamic world, reunited the vast area between India and the Mediterranean, and approached the frontier of the Taurus Mountains that had separated the Byzantine Empire from the Islamic world for centuries.
This was the backdrop for the two catastrophes that struck the Byzantine Empire in 1071, which marked the beginning of the centuries-long decline of the southern kingdom.A catastrophe occurred at Bari in southern Italy, where the Normans took one of the remaining Byzantine strongholds.Another disaster, and a more decisive defeat, occurred at Manzikert in Asia Minor.There, the Seljuks defeated the Byzantine emperor in a major battle that turned Asia Minor from a Greek base into a Turkic base.After this battle, two rival emperors fought for the Byzantine throne, each employing Turkic troops to fight each other.As a result, the Turks could enter Asia Minor at will, gradually turning Asia Minor from the base of the Orthodox Byzantine forces into the center of the Turkic nation.
The shrewd and tenacious emperor Alexis I Convenus (1081-1118) saved the Byzantine Empire from what seemed to be its impending collapse.He gave the Venetians great commercial privileges in return for their support against the Normans who threatened to attack Constantinople.He also turned to the Catholic nations for help against the Muslim Seljuks.But instead of the limited number of foreign mercenaries he had hoped for, he got a mass of scattered crusaders; led in part by the Normans whom Alexei had every reason to distrust.The contact of these two societies led to mutual suspicion and open hostility.Greeks and Latins each disliked the other's language, religion, politics and way of life.
Alexius deftly urged the crusaders to cross the Bosphorus and enter Asia Minor, where the Byzantine forces together recovered part of the territory occupied by the Seljuks.But during the Second and Third Crusades, the relationship between the Greeks and the Latins became increasingly tense.In addition, in central Asia Minor, when the Byzantines attacked Konya, the capital of the Seljuk Empire, they suffered a disastrous defeat.They were defeated by the Turks at the midway battle of Myreosephalon (1176).This defeat eliminated any possibility of a Byzantine comeback in Asia Minor.At the same time, the Venetians were undermining Byzantium's economic base due to the commercial privileges they had earlier won from the financially strapped emperor.They were exempted from paying all taxes throughout the country, a privilege that gave them an absolute advantage over the Byzantine merchants who suffered heavy taxes.Thus, the Italians not only tied down the trade of the empire, but also deprived the treasury of Constantinople of a major source of tax revenue.The disparity between the wealth of the Venetians and the poverty of the Byzantines led to the riots of 1183 in which many Latins were killed and their property looted.
This is the background of the Fourth Crusade.This Eastern Expedition was aptly called the "Eastern Invasion of the Merchants".The economic schemes of the Venetian merchants, the pursuit of wealth and lands by Western adventurers, the flattery of Byzantine pretenders, the long-standing resentment in the hearts of the Latins against the so-called cunning, effeminate, greedy and heretical Greeks, all these made The Fourth Crusade changed direction from its original goal of liberating Jerusalem to attacking Constantinople. In the spring of 1204, the Frankish, Venetian, Flemish, and German armies captured Constantinople, subjecting it to ruthless looting and massacres for three consecutive days. "Even the Saracens," said a Byzantine chronicler, "are more merciful than they." However, it seems counterintuitive that the Fourth Crusade ended up being for Islam. Paved the way to rule the entire Middle East.Although restored in 1261, the Byzantine Empire never recovered from the trauma of the Latin conquest, but lingered on until the Ottomans captured Constantinople in 1453.
The victorious Latins built their feudal state on the ruins of the Byzantine Empire.They established a Latin Empire in Constantinople, a Latin Kingdom in Thessaloniki, and several Latin states in Greece.The commercially zealous Venetians occupied a quarter of Constantinople and annexed many strategically important islands and ports on the road to the eastern Mediterranean.These new states, however, were doomed from the start.The local Greek Orthodox residents were hostile to them.Moreover, the Latin conquerors held only a few isolated and precarious territories on the fringes of the Balkan Peninsula, surrounded by enemies on all sides.They not only faced the kingdoms of Serbia and Bulgaria in the interior of the Balkan Peninsula, but also faced the successive establishment of three Greek countries, Arta in Epirus, Trebizand on the south coast of the Black Sea, and Greece in the west of Asia Minor. Nicea.Among them, the first country is too poor to provide effective leadership, and the second country is very isolated.Therefore, only Nicaea, with its strategic location, abundant resources, and strong leadership, could organize the Greeks to resist the rule of the Latins.
Using diplomacy and military might, the rulers of Nicaea gradually weakened the Latin Empire until it was reduced to a single city, Constantinople.As a result, in 1261, the Latin emperors and the Venetian colonists fled Constantinople without any resistance; the Nicaean emperor Michael Paleolio solemnly entered the capital and, amidst public cheers, took up residence in the imperial royal palace.
The history of the last stage of the Byzantine Empire begins with Michael Paleolio's recapture of Constantinople in 1261, and his successor Constantine Paleolio's war against the Turks in 1453, Killed at the gate of the capital ended.During these two centuries, the restored empire consisted only of the two cities of Constantinople and Thessaloniki, a small unstable area around them, and two dependencies.The two possessions were Mystra in the Peloponnese and Trebizand in northern Asia Minor.
The prospects of this poor, remnant empire were no more promising than those of the former Latin empire.In Asia it faced the formidable Turks; in Europe it was surrounded by the small Latin states that remained in Greece, surrounded by Serbs and Bulgarians to the north.In addition to these external threats, there are also internal crises.By this time, the economy of the empire was bankrupt; the Italian stranglehold on trade continued.Thus, in the middle of the 14th century, the income of the Genoese settlement of Constantinople was seven times that of the imperial government's customs revenue.Emperors were forced to devalue their currencies and were forced to pawn their crown jewels to Venetian bankers.Growing taxes have no effect on the currency of politically powerful speakers.The poor revolted against the wealthy nobles of high birth, and as a result, social conflicts tore the city apart.
From 1342 to 1349, revolutionary leaders known as "fanatics" ruled Thessaloniki.They reduced the taxes of the poor, abolished the debts of the poor, confiscated the land of the monastery and distributed it to the poor; they adopted a sharing democracy, allowing citizens to participate in popular meetings, and the public elected officials.Their political program seems to have been influenced by that of the Italian republican city-states.But the moribund Byzantine Empire could not stand the political and social reforms that had naturally formed in the flourishing West.With the aid of the Serbs and Turks, the emperor suppressed the "Zanists" and wiped out their republic.However, this event revealed a deep and pervasive conflict at the time, as clearly illustrated by the following contemporary account:
In the spring of 1204, the Crusaders under the command of Baldwind of Flanders occupied the city of Constantinople, burning, killing and looting for three days.This is the scene in a painting by Eugène Delacroix in the 19th century.
In addition to this socioeconomic fragility, the empire was weakened by religious disputes.In order to obtain the aid of the West against the approaching Turks, the emperor promised three times (in the United Kingdom of Lyons in 1274; in Rome in 1369; in Florence in 1439) to submit the Orthodox Church to the Pope.But these promises meant nothing, as Western aid was insignificant, and Byzantium was further torn apart by popular opposition to any concessions to the monstrous Latins. "Islam is better than the Pope, and this is the popular answer to the atrocities of the Fourth Crusade, to the exploitation of Italian merchants.
Cries that the Turks were better used to be heard from time to time, but the mid-15th century was unique when the Turks were able to accept invitations.As described in Section 6 of Chapter XIV, the Ottoman Turks took over from the Seljuks and occupied the remaining Byzantine territories in Asia Minor; crossed the Dardanelles, entered Europe, and defeated the Bulgarians and Serbia people.By 1453, they were ready for a final assault on the besieged Byzantine capital.
By this time, the population of Constantinople had shrunk to between 50,000 and 70,000.All the forces capable of defending the city, including a small group of Westerners, totaled no more than 9,000 people.It is not enough for these people to hold the city walls and repair the gaps destroyed by the enemy's artillery.The Ottoman army, led by the able sultan Mehmed II, numbered at least 80,000 men. The siege began on April 2; under the heroic leadership of Emperor Constantine, the defenders repeatedly defeated the invaders; but Constantinople was finally captured on May 29.After the fall of the city, the invading army slaughtered and looted for three consecutive days.Ducas, the Byzantine historian at the time, described the end of the 1,000-year history of the Byzantine Empire in the following passage:
Looking back at history, Byzantium clearly made significant contributions in various fields.First, it served as a protective shield, enabling the West behind the shield to develop its own civilization freely.The full significance of this became clear after the fall of Constantinople in 1453; the Turks had reached the heart of Europe and besieged Vienna in just half a century.Equally important, Byzantium also facilitated the overall development of trade and economy.For centuries Byzantium was the economic powerhouse of the entire Mediterranean basin, while its currency was the international standard medium of exchange, its merchants and their commodities, essential to the self-sufficient economy that freed Western Europe from its feudalism, and Italy The city-states took the road to control Mediterranean commerce and played a huge role.
In the field of culture, Byzantium saved the treasures of ancient culture and art and passed them along with her own heritage to future generations.Byzantium bequeathed Roman law, codified by Justinian, and a religious art only recently properly understood and valued.以及由认真的学者们加以汇集、注释和保存的古典和希腊文化时期的文学、学术名著。最后，如下节所述，拜占廷对东斯拉夫人来说，如同罗马对日耳曼人而言一样，是伟大的教育者、伟大的引导者、宗教和文明的源泉。
这些成就与吉本有关拜占廷的历史意义的著名论断不相符合。然而，与此同时，拜占廷明显缺乏古典时期雅典的生气和光辉，尽管相比之下，后者在领土和年代上显得微不足道。原因是拜占廷的作用是绝对保守的。这并不是说它静止不变。它自始至终都在使自己适应时代和环境的变化。但命运注定它只是保存。而不是创新。它诞生在一个古老的国度，生活在过去的势力和荣誉的阴影之中，这种势力和荣誉正是它所试图维持和恢复的。它造就了一大批杰出的领袖人物——行政官员、军事将领、学者和神学家，但由于处在上述环境之中，他们很少有人真正具有创造力。
西罗马帝国灭亡之后，东罗马帝国整整生存了1000 年，这一点一开始就形成了一个巨大的优势。5至11世纪，同博斯普鲁斯海峡沿岸的第二罗马帝国相比，西方显得原始、无足轻重。但正是这几个世纪中，恰恰因为西方必须重新开始，所以，西方为新的文明打下了基础；而拜占廷却一直躺在光辉灿烂、占压倒优势的遗产上。这就是从11世纪起，西方随着经济迅速发展、国家君主国崛起、新的知识水平出现、扩张主义生气勃勃——首先是地方的十字军东侵，然后是向海外推进，在数世纪内导致全球性霸权——而稳步前进的原因。故而，相比之下，拜占廷很可怜，在较后的几个世纪中，它一直无力冲破过去的桎梏，因而，变成了一个陈旧的、与时代不合的存在物，它进行着一场勇敢且注定持久的斗争，直到1453年遭到耻辱的但却不可避免的灭亡为止。
尽管拜占廷的历史已经结束，但拜占廷的制度和文化，仍在北方的斯拉夫人中继续生存，正如它们很大程度上仍存在于已属土耳其人统治的、巴尔干半岛的基督教徒中一样。斯拉夫人起源于今俄国和波兰的多沼泽的边境地带，他们以巨大的弧形向四周颇有吸引力的平原扩散。
向西迁移的矫拉夫人形成了今天的捷克人、斯洛伐克人和波兰人，他们都称为西斯拉夫人。由于所处的地理位置，他们受到了西方的影响，因此，他们信仰的是天主教，使用的是拉丁字母。那些渡过多瑙河、移居巴尔干半岛的斯拉夫人，就是今天的斯洛文尼亚人、克罗地亚人、塞尔维亚人和保加利亚人。如本章第一节所述，这些南斯拉夫人中的前两者接受了西方的文化；而塞尔维亚人和保加利亚人的文化发展，则受到了君士坦丁堡而不是罗马的影响。最后，向东迁移的是苏联斯拉夫人的祖先，这些东斯拉夫人就是个苏联北部的大俄罗斯人、南部地区的小俄罗斯人即乌克兰人和西部边境的白俄罗斯人；西部边境显然是斯拉夫人的最早发源地。
东斯拉夫人居住在北起北冰洋沿岸，南至黑海，东到乌拉尔山脉的广阔的平原上。在北部平原，移住民一直以森林为居住地；在这里，他们未遭到分散、组织松弛的芬兰部落和立陶宛部落的什么抵抗；这些人不是同他们通婚，就是被他们轻易排挤掉。相反，在南部平原，森林逐渐让位于空旷的草原，移民们总易遭到其他民族的袭击；这些民族常出没于从中亚经乌克兰到多瑙河流域的漫长的游牧道路上。
这些东斯拉夫人，即今天所谓的俄罗斯人，从事渔猎和原始的刀耕火种的农业。因此，他们通常以分散的家宅和小村落，而不是以人口密集的村庄和城镇为单位。出现的城镇，很少发展成为主要河流沿岸的贸易中心。只有第聂伯河沿岸的基辅和伊尔门湖畔的诺夫哥罗德是当时的贸易中心；前者担负着南北运输，后者控制着东西贸易。
正是这种长途贸易，为第一个俄罗斯国家提供了基础。据传说，彼此不和的斯拉夫诸派别曾邀请北欧人的首领留里克为其统治者。“我们的国家富饶辽阔，但却没有秩序，快来管辖和统治我们吧！”于是862 年，留里克成为诺夫哥罗德的第一任王公；不久以后，他的追随者们南移基辅。有关这些北欧人，即东欧所谓的瓦朗吉亚人的确切作用，至今仍有争议。过去的猜测认为，他们独自创建了第一个俄罗斯国家，创造了最早的俄罗斯文化；现在普遍对此持怀疑态度。事实上，瓦朗吉亚人在文化领域中所做的贡献，即使有，也是微乎其微；而他们对早期俄罗斯人的政治体制的影响程度，至今也不明确。
不论确切情况如何，基辅已成为沿漫长的第聂伯河航线的、俄罗斯各公园自由联盟的中心。基辅的卓越是建立在同南面诸古老文明中心——拜占廷、亚美尼亚、格鲁吉亚和穆斯林世界——所进行的繁荣贸易的基础上。俄罗斯农村的各种原材料如毛皮、兽皮、粮食、木材和奴隶等汇集基辅，以换取各种奢侈品，其中包括细纹衣料、玻璃制品、香料、珠宝和酒。
早期俄罗斯人不仅同南面请文明中心进行贸易，而且还借用了它们的某些主要的文化，尤其是拜占廷的基督教。在此之前，异教的俄罗斯人一直崇拜各种自然力量，将这些自然力量化身为某些神，如热光之神达什伯格、雷电之神佩鲁恩和风神斯特里伯格。当时既没有寺院，也没有僧侣。宗教仪式仅限于向广阔天空中的诸神的天然形象献祭。据11世纪末至12世纪基辅僧侣编纂的编年史记载，基辅大公弗拉基米尔认为，斯拉夫人的原始的众神崇拜很不合适。他—一考虑了诸宗教代表所阐述的各自的论点，甚至派使节前往信奉这些宗教的国家，听取他们的汇报。最后，弗拉基米尔拒绝了天主教，因为“我们在那里看不到荣誉”；拒绝了犹太教，因为犹太人的上帝太不强大，无法使他们继续留在耶路撒冷；还拒绝了伊斯兰教，因为它戒肉禁酒，而他认为，“喝酒是俄罗斯人的乐趣。没有这种乐趣，我们就无法生存”。因此，弗拉基米尔决定赞成东正教；他的使者们为在君士坦丁堡圣索菲亚大教堂看到的仪式而倾倒：“……我们不知道是在天空，还是在人间。因为人间没有如此壮观、如此美丽的景象，简直叫我们难以形容。”
大约在988 年皈依东正教后，弗拉基米尔命令捣毁所有异教神像，佩鲁恩的像被挂在马尾上，拖进了第聂伯河。另外，基辅公国的全体居民，都到第聂伯河去集体洗礼，如《编年史》所述：“…看到如此众多的人得救，天堂、人间一片喜悦。”同几个世纪前欧洲西北部的天主教一样，皈依是统治者及其顾问们的决定，人民大众只是服从命令而已。虽然信奉多神教的斯拉夫人过去没有教士阶层，避免了有组织的抵抗，但人民大众仍坚持他们的传统信仰，相信巫术和预兆。因此，1274年，教会发现有必要颁布一条规定：不得任命过去从事巫术的人为司祭。
弗拉基米尔接受东正教，并非仅仅是宗教信仰的改变，它对俄罗斯人的风俗及其以后的历史产生了普遍、深刻的影响。以拜占廷为模式的教会统治集团，这时已经组成，首领是基辅大主教，由君主坦丁堡最高一级的主教伍命，且隶属于他的管辖。在长达两个世纪的时间里，大主教都是希腊人，不过，由大主教任命的主教，除最初几任外，绝大多数是俄罗斯人。基督教还给俄罗斯带来新的宗教文学和法律文学，其中包括《圣经》、拜占廷收集的早期基督教作家的作品、圣徒传记和法律书籍的译本。石造教堂、镶嵌工艺、壁画、油画、尤其是肖像画等拜占廷艺术，这时也被介绍进来。而且，在这些方面，俄罗斯人更胜一筹，形成了独具一格的俄罗斯- 拜占廷风格。另外，东正教过给俄罗斯带来了拜占廷教会的法律，建立了宗教法庭。如在西欧一样，这些法庭拥有非常广泛的司法权，处理包括道德，信仰、继承权和婚姻等各个方面的案件。
在政治领域中，新教会加强了大公的权力。如在西欧，罗马教皇曾将法兰克国王从部落酋长改变成神权帝王一样，如今，俄罗斯东正教将诸公国大公从一帮个人追随者的首领改变成“上帝的奴仆”和神权统治者。而且，按照拜占廷的传统，俄罗斯教会还接受了世俗的权力和控制权。在莫斯科，如在君士坦丁堡一样，没有强求皇帝和国王服从的、罗马教皇格列高利七世和英诺森三世这样的人物。例如：1389年，君士坦丁堡大主教安东尼曾写信给莫斯科大公瓦西利，抱怨大公不尊敬他及他的主人拜占廷皇帝：
拜占廷及其皇帝被消灭后，东正教的这一顺从性在俄罗斯教会对俄罗斯皇帝的屈从中显现出来；这种情况具有重大影响，并一直持续到拜占廷灭亡后的沙皇帝国。
综上所述，对俄罗斯来说，拜占廷的影响显然是一大促进因素，但同时又是一种麻醉剂。俄罗斯人所借鉴的，不论是教义、仪式、音乐，还是建筑，都已完全形成且相对稳定。在这一意义上说，拜占延对一个正在觉醒的民族的影响是毫无价值的，它只能阻碍，而不是鼓励这一民族的创造力和独创性。此外，俄罗斯人在接受拜占廷的基督教的同时，还继承和维持了天主教与东正教之间的长期不和，从而，在他们和西方之间设置了一个障碍。这无疑是一种倒退，因为在此之前，俄罗斯人已同欧洲其他国家取得了多种联系，即贸易的、朝廷的和外交的联系。例如，11世纪，雅罗斯拉夫大公曾同欧洲一些主要王朝联姻：他的妹妹嫁给了波兰的卡齐米日一世；他的儿子娶了拜占廷的公主；他的两个女儿分别嫁给了法国的亨利一世和挪威的哈拉尔三世。
不仅是宗教争端，而且更大程度上是蒙古人的侵入和占领，终止了俄罗斯同西方的这些联系。基辅因地处森林和平原交界处，总是最易遭受袭击。游牧民进攻的威胁如即将临头的危险笼罩全城，这种危险于1237年终于降临。当时，蒙古人象他们席卷欧亚大陆大部分地区那样，横扫了整个俄罗斯领土。除诺夫哥罗德因地处遥远的北方而幸免于难外，基辅和其他俄罗斯城市均被夷为平地。用一位编年史家的话说：“没剩下一个能为死者流泪的人。'
蒙古人虽自愿撤离欧洲中部，却愿意继续留在俄罗斯。他们在此建立了金帐汗国。其首都萨莱地处伏尔加河折向西流的拐弯处，是伏尔加河畔的战略要地。随后两个世纪的蒙古统治，不可避免地给俄罗斯人留下深刻的印记。他们被迫放弃平原上的小块居留地，撒进安全僻静的森林之中。在那里，只要他们承认蒙古大汗的宗主权，每年纳贡，便可自行其是。的确，大汗们颁布了某些豁免权，准许俄罗斯教会免交捐税，承认大主教对东正教的管辖权。作为回报，俄罗斯牧师为大汗及其亲属祈祷。大汗及其亲属虽然是穆斯林而不是基督教徒，却欢迎这样的祈祷，因为它可以减少可能发生的反抗。
俄罗斯人渐渐恢复了他们的实力，发展起一个新的民族中心——莫斯科大公国。莫斯科远离危险的平原，位于森林深处。莫斯科除了游牧民难以接近它外，还具有其他一些优点。它是从第聂伯河到东北各地区的两条重要干线的交通要冲；几条来自各方的河流也都汇集于这一地区，使它能利用内河水系得益。它所拥有的一系列统治者也是它的一个优势；这些统治者爱好和平、勤俭节约、善于算计，他们耐心而又无情地增加自己的属地，直到莫斯科成为新的民族核心。
伊凡三世（1462 —1505年）在“兼并俄罗斯各国”方面尤为成功，因此，他被认为是俄国的第一位民族统治者。他征服了邻近几个公国，如雅罗斯拉夫、特维尔和罗斯托夫；这些公国过去曾比莫斯科强大，但后来衰落下去。伊凡三世征服强大的诺夫哥罗德公国的胜利最为著名；诺夫哥罗德过去曾建立了自己的庞大的贸易帝国。伊凡三世到他统治本期，已使其疆土大大扩展，从距波罗的海几英里处向北扩展到北冰洋，向东扩展到乌拉尔山脉的北部地区。
伊凡还通过利用蒙古人内部出现的分裂，在彼此敌对的各派别之间徘拔离间，成功地向蒙古人的统治挑战。更重要的是，俄罗斯人与蒙古人截然不同，他们从西方进口了大炮和小型武器，并且拥有制造这些武器的兵工厂。由于具备了这些有利条件，伊凡便正式拒绝承认金帐汗国的宗主权。为此，1472年，金帐汗国大汗派出一支军队北进奥卡河；但伊凡在河对岸聚集军队予以抵抗，并坚守了三个星期。最后蒙军撤退，从此承认他们对俄罗斯的统治实际上已经结束。
另外，还值得注意的是伊凡1472 年同索菲娅的婚姻。索菲娅是1453年在君主坦丁堡城墙上被杀的拜占廷末代皇帝的侄女，她曾逃亡罗马，皈依了天主教。因此，罗马教皇竭力赞同这一婚姻，希望这能导致天主教和俄罗斯教会的联合。结果相反，索菲娅立即恢复了对东正教的信仰；莫斯科宫廷的宗教仪式和信仰日益拜占廷化和东正教化。
早期的俄罗斯教会和宫廷，坚决反对在佛罗伦萨（1439 年）达成的东正教会与天主教会联合的协议。无疑，俄罗斯人认为君士坦丁堡最后落入土耳其人手中，是上帝对东正教向天主教无原则屈从的惩罚。君士坦丁堡沦陷五年后，大主教约拿尖锐地评论了他所认为的这一事件的原因：“我的孩子们，你们都知道，都城君士坦丁堡被保加利亚人和波斯人团团包围达七年之久，在这七年中，曾有许多灾祸降落其头上，不过只要希腊人那时坚持他们的信仰，君士坦丁堡是不会蒙难的。”
君士坦丁堡陷落后，俄罗斯人将莫斯科视为真正信仰的中心。他们受上帝之命保卫它，维护它原有的纯洁。15世纪末，修土菲洛修斯写信给伊凡，清楚地表达了这一深刻信念：
伊凡完全理解地接受了这一信条，它极大地提高了他的地位，夸耀了他的使命。在索菲娅的怂恿下，伊凡采用了拜占廷宫廷的礼仪，选择了拜占廷的双头鹰为他的徽章。他效法前君士坦丁堡皇帝，成为沙皇和专制君主，他的头衔也相应地变得崇高辉煌：“感谢上帝的恩赐，伊凡是全俄罗斯人的皇帝，是弗拉基米尔、莫斯科、诺夫哥罗德、普斯科夫、特维尔、彼尔姆、乌格拉和波尔法以及其他公国的大公。”
这样，拜占廷在作为第三罗马的俄罗斯领土上继续生存。这一第三罗马之所以能幸存下来，是因为它拥有丰富的资源和坚固的根据地——它包括了辽阔的欧亚大陆平原及不久之后乌拉尔山脉以东的广阔无垠的西伯利亚地区。这完全不同于1453 年前苟延残喘了几个世纪、缩小了的拜占廷。红衣主教贝萨里翁所提倡的维新，丝毫未在注定灭亡的、与时代不合的拜占廷引起过任何反应。（见第十七章第三节）但在俄罗斯，某些沙皇却以贝萨里翁的角色出现。作为庞大帝国的专制君主，他们拥有将自己的愿望变为现实——不过是不完全地——的权力和财力，从而，如修土菲洛修斯所预言的那样，保证第三罗马不会遭到第二罗马的厄运。
A miniature in the Vatican Library showing Emperor Justinian (527-565) helping to build the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. After the Turks captured Constantinople in 1453, they converted this famous cathedral into a mosque.
Constantinople's illustrious history is largely due to its strategic location between Europe and Asia.The city stands on a steep headland at the southern end of the Bosphorus; the headland juts out from the European side of the strait to the opposite Asian coast, as if to hold back the rapid flow from the Black Sea into the Sea of Marmara.Monarch Constantinople thus had the Sea of Marmara to the south and the Bosphorus to the north, thus forming an important port, the so-called Golden Horn.Of course, other cities also had good ports and important geographic locations, but the distinguishing feature of Constantinople was that there was a long, narrow and navigable strait to the north and south.Therefore, the city is protected by two sea gates, which prevent the passage of enemy ships, whether from the Aegean Sea or from the Black Sea.In order to strengthen these natural defenses, the Byzantine emperor built two tall walls on land: the first wall was four miles long; the second wall was 40 miles long and 20 feet wide, located about 30 miles.These two defensive walls, together with the natural barrier of the Balkan Mountains, guarded the overland entrance to Constantinople.Thus, the city survived the ten-century-long Byzantine reign, albeit mostly as a besieged fortress.
The history of Constantinople raises the question of when the Roman Empire ended and the Byzantine Empire began.The end of the Roman Empire did not end with the deposed emperor Romulus Augustulus in AD 476, because after that, the tradition of imperial unification continued for centuries.Even though Italy, Gaul, Britain, Spain, and North Africa had all been lost to the barbarians, the emperors of the Eastern Roman Empire still considered them Caesar's heirs.The backward, conservative Justinian (527-565) was bent on turning his dream of restoring the empire into reality.Thus, he conquered North Africa, Italy, and parts of Spain, and compiled the legal code of the Roman Empire (see Chapter XI, Section 4).Justinian declared, "We shall rebuild all that was past, though its value has now been reduced to a minimum. . Come".
Chaturdinian's efforts to restore the empire were short-lived and costly.His campaigns in the western Mediterranean drained the imperial coffers, leaving the Balkan and Asian provinces neglected and vulnerable.Less than a decade after his death, a new barbarian tribe, the Lombards, took over most of Italy.Likewise, on the Danube frontier, the Avars, along with Slavic and Bulgarian subjects, moved into the Balkans, displacing the Latinized Illyrians and weakening the hold of the empire.In the east, during the reign of Justinian.The Persians had made peace with Byzantium for taking bribes; now, under the ambitious Emperor Kosroes II, they set out to wipe out the Eastern Roman Empire.By 615 they had occupied Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, and had camped along the Bosphorus opposite Constantinople.
The succession of the great Emperor Heraclius (610-641) enabled Byzantium to mobilize all resources and arouse the will of the people to prevent the looming catastrophe.While the Avar-Persian forces were besieging Constantinople, Heraclius went on the offensive and defeated the Persians in Mesopotamia in 627; the same region where Alexander the Great had been 1,000 years earlier defeated the Persians.The following year, the Persians were forced to call off all conquests and conclude a peace treaty.
After eliminating the danger in the east, Heraclius discovered that the Slavs had now occupied and settled most of the northern Balkans.He had to make do with reality and designate a certain area for them.In return they recognized his suzerainty and agreed to pay annual tribute.As a result, the newly arrived Slavs gradually changed from invaders to settlers.Several centuries later, these Slavs scattered in the vast area of the Balyu Peninsula developed in different ways and formed four major races: the Slovenians living in the Cape of the Adriatic Sea; Croats in the area between the Adriatic Sea; Serbs in the central Balkan area between the Adriatic Sea and the Danube; Slavs in the remaining area of the Black Sea, who soon adopted the title of conqueror of Bulgaria.The latter two races, borrowing from Byzantine culture, established short but great medieval kingdoms.The Slovenians and Croats, on the other hand, became subjects of the Holy Roman Empire due to their location in the west of the peninsula, and were deeply influenced by Rome rather than Constantinople in terms of cultural development.
The struggle against the Avars and Persians was only a prelude to a larger and more fateful struggle with the Muslim Arabs.As noted in Chapter 13, Section 3, Islamic armies rapidly overran much of the Middle East during the 630s and 40s.The long struggle between Byzantium and Persia left both empires exhausted and weak.Byzantium was further weakened by the religious dissatisfaction expressed by the people of the Eastern Provinces over the issue of monospiritualism, which held that Christ had a single divinity, while orthodox Byzantine doctrine held that Christ Both divinity and humanity.The controversy was so intense that many Orthodox Christians would rather accept the rule of Islam than the religion of Constantinople.Thus a thousand years of Greco-Roman rule in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt came to an end in twenty years, despite the desperate efforts of the aging Heraclius.
In the latter part of the seventh century, even the very existence of the Byzantine Empire was threatened by a combination of Muslim sea raids and Bulgarian land attacks.The development of sea power is the achievement of the Arabs in adapting to the environment. , They thus conquered Cyprus and Rhodes, and then, from 669 onwards, besieged Constantinople several times.At the same time, Byzantium was also threatened by the Bulgarians from the north; an Asian people who had initially been used by the Byzantines against the Avars.But at this time, the Bulgarians were occupying the area between the Danube and the Balkan Mountains, and using this as a base, threatened the monarchy of Constantinople.
Byzantium was again saved this time by the inspired head of the empire, the ruler of the Isaurian dynasty, Leo III (717-744).Leo was originally a Syrian military commander who seized power while the Arabs besieged the monarchy of Constantinople.He not only crushed the Arab siege, but drove them out of Asia Minor.At the end of his reign, the empire's frontiers were firmer but much smaller than those of Justinian's time.Italy had been lost to the Lombards; the northern Balkans to the Slavs and Bulgarians; Syria, Palestine, Egypt and North Africa to the Arabs.
This reduced empire was, however, a more ethnically homogenous one, as the eastern provinces were predominantly monospiritual and non-Greek.In this case, the withdrawal to the Taurus Mountains strengthened rather than weakened Byzantium; the Taurus Mountains were the dividing line between Greek Asia Minor and the region that was becoming the center of the Islamic world.This dividing line has been reinforced by internal turmoil in the Muslim world.The establishment of the Abbasid dynasty (750) and the transfer of the Islamic capital from Damascus to Baghdad put an end to this turmoil.But at this time, the direction of Islam's expansion was to the east, not to the Mediterranean.Thus, the Byzantine and Muslim empires could coexist peacefully until the advent of the warlike Turks in the 11th century.
A dividing line similar to that between Byzantium and Islam was being formed between Byzantium and the West.The papacy had sought protection from Constantinople due to the Lombard invasion, but was unsuccessful because Byzantium was fighting the Arabs with all its might.So the Pope turned again to the Franks, and the two sides cooperated; in 500 the Pope gave Charlemagne the world-famous coronation.It was not until 812 that Constantinople reluctantly gave Charlemagne the title of "Emperor of the Romans", thereby recognizing the political unity of the West.But in the centuries that followed Byzantium was alienated from the West not only politically but also in language, ecclesiastical affairs, and general culture.
The Byzantine Empire that arose in the eighth century was much smaller than the short-lived empire of Justinian, but it was more nationally unified.The various ethnic, cultural and religious elements of the eastern and western provinces have been discarded, leaving a core that is basically Greek, only, not absolutely.In this way, the transition from the Eastern Roman Empire in the 6th century to the Byzantine Empire in the 8th century was completed. The Byzantine Empire in the 8th century was an empire culturally distinct from Islam in the East and New Europe in the West.
From the beginning of the 9th century to the beginning of the 11th century, the Byzantine Empire reached its peak.At that time, the administrative division of the empire was based entirely on the province; each province was ruled by generals in charge of administrative and military affairs.This administrative militarization was effected by Heraclius as an emergency measure in case of imminent external danger.The empire distributed land in the provinces to the peasants to cultivate as payment for their military service.Under powerful emperors, this division of provinces ensured efficient administration, provided military stores, and filled the treasury, as peasants borne a heavy tax burden.
The Byzantine economy was also firmly based on free peasant communes, which functioned alongside the estates of the great landowners.In the surviving urban centers since the Greco-Roman classical period, the skill level of artisans was high.Arab writers describe Byzantine handicrafts, especially luxury goods, of a quality that only Chinese handicrafts can match.Equally important were the vast quantities of goods that passed through Constantinople from all parts of Eurasia, slaves and salt from the Black Sea region, condiments, spices and precious stones from India, papyrus and grain from Egypt, silk and porcelain from China and Western silver, wrought iron, linen, cotton, and woolen goods.
The increase in political, economic, and military power enabled the Byzantine emperors to launch reconquest wars; these wars were not as ambitious as the conquest wars launched by Justinian, but they were more practical.They regained the islands of Crete and Cyprus, thereby stopping the invasion of the Aegean sea by the Arab navy.The empire's territory also expanded to northern Syria, Armenia, and Georgia.The Bulgarians in the northern Balkan Peninsula have always been a threat to the empire. In 1014, Basil II won a decisive victory in the northern Balkan Peninsula. Since then, he has been called "the executioner who slaughtered the Bulgarians".
This period is culturally a stable and uniform period.The Byzantines still called themselves Romans, but Greek, both written and spoken, was the lingua franca of the empire.With the loss of the dissenting eastern provinces to Islam, and with the elimination of the violent and long-lasting dispute between the idolaters and the idolaters, iconoclasts and iconophiles, so did religious identity. further promotion.A compromise solution to the dispute was to ban religious sculpture but allow religious painting, which remains an important feature of Orthodox religious life to this day.
The conversion of Muslims in reconquered Crete, and of the Slavs in the northern Balkans, also revived the Byzantine Church. In 865, Grand Duke Boris of Bulgaria accepted Christianity in Constantinople in return for imperial recognition of his conquests.In the following years, Byzantine missionaries provided the Bulgarians with the alphabet, translated the Bible into Bulgarian, and prepared the Slavic liturgy.At about the same time, the Serbs, like the Russians in the Principality of Kyiv, converted to Orthodoxy (see Section VI of this chapter).Further west, however, Roman Catholicism prevailed among the Croats and Slovenes, who followed the example of the neighboring Italians, Hungarians, and Germans in converting to Catholicism.
14th century French clay manuscript: 800 Pope crowns Charlemagne.This event prompted Constantinople to grant Charlemagne the title "Empire of the Romans" in 812, thus acknowledging the political independence of the West.
The close relationship of mutual support between emperor and bishop also made the empire stronger.The principle of the church of the dependent state is traditional and recognized. The emperor not only called himself "Otekrat", that is, the monarch, but also called himself "Ayon Postro", that is, the person equivalent to the preacher. The 10th-century ritual book for the election of the Archbishop of Constantinople clearly stipulated this affiliation.The archbishops of the church gathered at the Hagia Sophia in accordance with the emperor's order to submit to the emperor a list of three candidates for bishop.The emperor can choose any one of the three at will, or refuse all three, and appoint a candidate he likes; and this candidate must be recognized by the archbishop as qualified for his position.Then, at the inauguration, the new leader of the Church was announced "by the will of God and the Emperor" as bishop.
In short, in these centuries, due to the gradual formation of a moderate peaceful coexistence relationship with the West and the Muslim world, Byzantium was stable, powerful and prosperous.Complacent and rather internally focused.These features are reminiscent of Ming China (see Section 5 of Chapter 17).In fact, like China, Byzantium did not have a university, and its main task was to train officials for the bureaucracy.However, the sporadic and irregular functions of the universities at Constantinople lacked the continuous effectiveness of the Chinese universities. The Confucian commentary of the sixth-century Byzantine historian Procopius on the long-running debate about divinity is also reminiscent of China.He said: "I think that all the debates about divinity are absurd and stupid. People can't even know their own nature, so all comments on divinity should be abandoned."
Byzantine culture never resolved its ambivalence between its classical heritage and its religious tendencies.On the eve of the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the Platonist Gimistus Plaisant (c. 1355-1450) openly expressed doubts about the prospect of a state deeply bound by Christianity and its organisation.As a famous teacher, Plaisang spent most of his life in Mystra, the provincial capital of Byzantium in the Peloponnese Peninsula.He dreamed of restoring ancient Greek society in the Peloponnese; a society organized according to a modified Platonic utopia, based on pagan rather than Christian faith.But this classical, secularist tendency never prevailed in Byzantine thought.Byzantine society was still dominated by religious belief.More representative of this society than Pleasant was the missionary Joseph Blaines, whose sermons offered religious explanations for the evils of the time:
When Basil, the "Executioner of the Bulgarians," died in 1025, the prominence of the Byzantine Empire seemed indisputably secure, with the Danube as its fixed northern frontier.By this time, the Arab-Islamic world was fragmented and no longer a threat; everything that emerged in the West seemed primitive and insignificant compared with the Second Roman Empire on the Bosphorus.But within half a century of Basil's death the empire was in trouble, and less than two centuries later, in 1204, the capital fell to the despised barbarians of the West.
One reason for the sharp setback was the growing resistance of the military generals in charge of the provinces, which undermined the military system of the empire.Basil II was powerful enough to control the army.But his successors were weak and unable to control the army, especially after the military generals united with the provincial landowners.Military leaders used the peasant army enlisted to defend the frontier against the Constantinople administration.In response, the bureaucrats dismissed the peasant army and made farmers pay cash instead of military service.Then use the collected funds to hire foreign mercenaries, including Normans, Germans, Patzinaks and Armenians.But these foreign mercenaries were clearly unreliable compared with the former peasant armies, and when they were paid, they often turned against the empire they ostensibly defended.
The political problem of feudalization of society was a closely related cause of imperial decline.Military generals and local landowners amassed vast estates, bringing entire provinces under the control of a few families.Emperors often issued decrees to check this trend. The following decree issued by Constantine VII in the early 10th century is very representative:
This order, and others like it, did not take effect for the simple reason that it was carried out by the very class against which it was directed.Even these efforts largely ceased after Basil II's death.Instead, the emperor began to grant usufructs of state-owned land to those who had made important contributions.These grants of land were connected with military service, and thus began to form something similar to the fiefdoms in the West, but without allegiance and fiefdom.Indeed, after the Latins conquered Byzantium in 1204, they divided it into fiefs, which the Greek nobles admitted were the Latin equivalent of their land grants.
Severe economic maladjustment also jeopardized the empire.Large private and monastic estates reduced the revenue of the empire, especially after Basil's successors reduced most of the taxes paid by the great landowners.At the same time, the extravagance of the court and the expenditure of foreign mercenaries kept the expenditure of the empire on the rise.The cavalry attacks of the Patzinaks and the Seljuk Turks were also very harmful. They made some areas barren and the grains were not harvested.The solida, the Byzantine gold coin whose value had been stable for seven centuries, also continued to depreciate at this time.
Like many other empires, Byzantium's internal weakness invited foreign aggression.In the west are the Norman adventurers.Originally Byzantine mercenaries, they now turned against the weakened empire, occupying southern Italian territories that had been preserved since the time of Justinian's conquest.Likewise, in the east were the Seljuk Turks.They entered the Islamic empire from their native Central Asia, where they were hired as mercenaries by the Caliph of Baghdad.Gradually these mercenaries became masters, occupying Baghdad in 1055 and establishing the Seljuk Empire.These Turks revived the dying Islamic world, reunited the vast area between India and the Mediterranean, and approached the frontier of the Taurus Mountains that had separated the Byzantine Empire from the Islamic world for centuries.
This was the backdrop for the two catastrophes that struck the Byzantine Empire in 1071, which marked the beginning of the centuries-long decline of the southern kingdom.A catastrophe occurred at Bari in southern Italy, where the Normans took one of the remaining Byzantine strongholds.Another disaster, and a more decisive defeat, occurred at Manzikert in Asia Minor.There, the Seljuks defeated the Byzantine emperor in a major battle that turned Asia Minor from a Greek base into a Turkic base.After this battle, two rival emperors fought for the Byzantine throne, each employing Turkic troops to fight each other.As a result, the Turks could enter Asia Minor at will, gradually turning Asia Minor from the base of the Orthodox Byzantine forces into the center of the Turkic nation.
The shrewd and tenacious emperor Alexis I Convenus (1081-1118) saved the Byzantine Empire from what seemed to be its impending collapse.He gave the Venetians great commercial privileges in return for their support against the Normans who threatened to attack Constantinople.He also turned to the Catholic nations for help against the Muslim Seljuks.But instead of the limited number of foreign mercenaries he had hoped for, he got a mass of scattered crusaders; led in part by the Normans whom Alexei had every reason to distrust.The contact of these two societies led to mutual suspicion and open hostility.Greeks and Latins each disliked the other's language, religion, politics and way of life.
Alexius deftly urged the crusaders to cross the Bosphorus and enter Asia Minor, where the Byzantine forces together recovered part of the territory occupied by the Seljuks.But during the Second and Third Crusades, the relationship between the Greeks and the Latins became increasingly tense.In addition, in central Asia Minor, when the Byzantines attacked Konya, the capital of the Seljuk Empire, they suffered a disastrous defeat.They were defeated by the Turks at the midway battle of Myreosephalon (1176).This defeat eliminated any possibility of a Byzantine comeback in Asia Minor.At the same time, the Venetians were undermining Byzantium's economic base due to the commercial privileges they had earlier won from the financially strapped emperor.They were exempted from paying all taxes throughout the country, a privilege that gave them an absolute advantage over the Byzantine merchants who suffered heavy taxes.Thus, the Italians not only tied down the trade of the empire, but also deprived the treasury of Constantinople of a major source of tax revenue.The disparity between the wealth of the Venetians and the poverty of the Byzantines led to the riots of 1183 in which many Latins were killed and their property looted.
This is the background of the Fourth Crusade.This Eastern Expedition was aptly called the "Eastern Invasion of the Merchants".The economic schemes of the Venetian merchants, the pursuit of wealth and lands by Western adventurers, the flattery of Byzantine pretenders, the long-standing resentment in the hearts of the Latins against the so-called cunning, effeminate, greedy and heretical Greeks, all these made The Fourth Crusade changed direction from its original goal of liberating Jerusalem to attacking Constantinople. In the spring of 1204, the Frankish, Venetian, Flemish, and German armies captured Constantinople, subjecting it to ruthless looting and massacres for three consecutive days. "Even the Saracens," said a Byzantine chronicler, "are more merciful than they." However, it seems counterintuitive that the Fourth Crusade ended up being for Islam. Paved the way to rule the entire Middle East.Although restored in 1261, the Byzantine Empire never recovered from the trauma of the Latin conquest, but lingered on until the Ottomans captured Constantinople in 1453.
The victorious Latins built their feudal state on the ruins of the Byzantine Empire.They established a Latin Empire in Constantinople, a Latin Kingdom in Thessaloniki, and several Latin states in Greece.The commercially zealous Venetians occupied a quarter of Constantinople and annexed many strategically important islands and ports on the road to the eastern Mediterranean.These new states, however, were doomed from the start.The local Greek Orthodox residents were hostile to them.Moreover, the Latin conquerors held only a few isolated and precarious territories on the fringes of the Balkan Peninsula, surrounded by enemies on all sides.They not only faced the kingdoms of Serbia and Bulgaria in the interior of the Balkan Peninsula, but also faced the successive establishment of three Greek countries, Arta in Epirus, Trebizand on the south coast of the Black Sea, and Greece in the west of Asia Minor. Nicea.Among them, the first country is too poor to provide effective leadership, and the second country is very isolated.Therefore, only Nicaea, with its strategic location, abundant resources, and strong leadership, could organize the Greeks to resist the rule of the Latins.
Using diplomacy and military might, the rulers of Nicaea gradually weakened the Latin Empire until it was reduced to a single city, Constantinople.As a result, in 1261, the Latin emperors and the Venetian colonists fled Constantinople without any resistance; the Nicaean emperor Michael Paleolio solemnly entered the capital and, amidst public cheers, took up residence in the imperial royal palace.
The history of the last stage of the Byzantine Empire begins with Michael Paleolio's recapture of Constantinople in 1261, and his successor Constantine Paleolio's war against the Turks in 1453, Killed at the gate of the capital ended.During these two centuries, the restored empire consisted only of the two cities of Constantinople and Thessaloniki, a small unstable area around them, and two dependencies.The two possessions were Mystra in the Peloponnese and Trebizand in northern Asia Minor.
The prospects of this poor, remnant empire were no more promising than those of the former Latin empire.In Asia it faced the formidable Turks; in Europe it was surrounded by the small Latin states that remained in Greece, surrounded by Serbs and Bulgarians to the north.In addition to these external threats, there are also internal crises.By this time, the economy of the empire was bankrupt; the Italian stranglehold on trade continued.Thus, in the middle of the 14th century, the income of the Genoese settlement of Constantinople was seven times that of the imperial government's customs revenue.Emperors were forced to devalue their currencies and were forced to pawn their crown jewels to Venetian bankers.Growing taxes have no effect on the currency of politically powerful speakers.The poor revolted against the wealthy nobles of high birth, and as a result, social conflicts tore the city apart.
From 1342 to 1349, revolutionary leaders known as "fanatics" ruled Thessaloniki.They reduced the taxes of the poor, abolished the debts of the poor, confiscated the land of the monastery and distributed it to the poor; they adopted a sharing democracy, allowing citizens to participate in popular meetings, and the public elected officials.Their political program seems to have been influenced by that of the Italian republican city-states.But the moribund Byzantine Empire could not stand the political and social reforms that had naturally formed in the flourishing West.With the aid of the Serbs and Turks, the emperor suppressed the "Zanists" and wiped out their republic.However, this event revealed a deep and pervasive conflict at the time, as clearly illustrated by the following contemporary account:
In the spring of 1204, the Crusaders under the command of Baldwind of Flanders occupied the city of Constantinople, burning, killing and looting for three days.This is the scene in a painting by Eugène Delacroix in the 19th century.
In addition to this socioeconomic fragility, the empire was weakened by religious disputes.In order to obtain the aid of the West against the approaching Turks, the emperor promised three times (in the United Kingdom of Lyons in 1274; in Rome in 1369; in Florence in 1439) to submit the Orthodox Church to the Pope.But these promises meant nothing, as Western aid was insignificant, and Byzantium was further torn apart by popular opposition to any concessions to the monstrous Latins. "Islam is better than the Pope, and this is the popular answer to the atrocities of the Fourth Crusade, to the exploitation of Italian merchants.
Cries that the Turks were better used to be heard from time to time, but the mid-15th century was unique when the Turks were able to accept invitations.As described in Section 6 of Chapter XIV, the Ottoman Turks took over from the Seljuks and occupied the remaining Byzantine territories in Asia Minor; crossed the Dardanelles, entered Europe, and defeated the Bulgarians and Serbia people.By 1453, they were ready for a final assault on the besieged Byzantine capital.
By this time, the population of Constantinople had shrunk to between 50,000 and 70,000.All the forces capable of defending the city, including a small group of Westerners, totaled no more than 9,000 people.It is not enough for these people to hold the city walls and repair the gaps destroyed by the enemy's artillery.The Ottoman army, led by the able sultan Mehmed II, numbered at least 80,000 men. The siege began on April 2; under the heroic leadership of Emperor Constantine, the defenders repeatedly defeated the invaders; but Constantinople was finally captured on May 29.After the fall of the city, the invading army slaughtered and looted for three consecutive days.Ducas, the Byzantine historian at the time, described the end of the 1,000-year history of the Byzantine Empire in the following passage:
Looking back at history, Byzantium clearly made significant contributions in various fields.First, it served as a protective shield, enabling the West behind the shield to develop its own civilization freely.The full significance of this became clear after the fall of Constantinople in 1453; the Turks had reached the heart of Europe and besieged Vienna in just half a century.Equally important, Byzantium also facilitated the overall development of trade and economy.For centuries Byzantium was the economic powerhouse of the entire Mediterranean basin, while its currency was the international standard medium of exchange, its merchants and their commodities, essential to the self-sufficient economy that freed Western Europe from its feudalism, and Italy The city-states took the road to control Mediterranean commerce and played a huge role.
In the field of culture, Byzantium saved the treasures of ancient culture and art and passed them along with her own heritage to future generations.Byzantium bequeathed Roman law, codified by Justinian, and a religious art only recently properly understood and valued.以及由认真的学者们加以汇集、注释和保存的古典和希腊文化时期的文学、学术名著。最后，如下节所述，拜占廷对东斯拉夫人来说，如同罗马对日耳曼人而言一样，是伟大的教育者、伟大的引导者、宗教和文明的源泉。
这些成就与吉本有关拜占廷的历史意义的著名论断不相符合。然而，与此同时，拜占廷明显缺乏古典时期雅典的生气和光辉，尽管相比之下，后者在领土和年代上显得微不足道。原因是拜占廷的作用是绝对保守的。这并不是说它静止不变。它自始至终都在使自己适应时代和环境的变化。但命运注定它只是保存。而不是创新。它诞生在一个古老的国度，生活在过去的势力和荣誉的阴影之中，这种势力和荣誉正是它所试图维持和恢复的。它造就了一大批杰出的领袖人物——行政官员、军事将领、学者和神学家，但由于处在上述环境之中，他们很少有人真正具有创造力。
西罗马帝国灭亡之后，东罗马帝国整整生存了1000 年，这一点一开始就形成了一个巨大的优势。5至11世纪，同博斯普鲁斯海峡沿岸的第二罗马帝国相比，西方显得原始、无足轻重。但正是这几个世纪中，恰恰因为西方必须重新开始，所以，西方为新的文明打下了基础；而拜占廷却一直躺在光辉灿烂、占压倒优势的遗产上。这就是从11世纪起，西方随着经济迅速发展、国家君主国崛起、新的知识水平出现、扩张主义生气勃勃——首先是地方的十字军东侵，然后是向海外推进，在数世纪内导致全球性霸权——而稳步前进的原因。故而，相比之下，拜占廷很可怜，在较后的几个世纪中，它一直无力冲破过去的桎梏，因而，变成了一个陈旧的、与时代不合的存在物，它进行着一场勇敢且注定持久的斗争，直到1453年遭到耻辱的但却不可避免的灭亡为止。
尽管拜占廷的历史已经结束，但拜占廷的制度和文化，仍在北方的斯拉夫人中继续生存，正如它们很大程度上仍存在于已属土耳其人统治的、巴尔干半岛的基督教徒中一样。斯拉夫人起源于今俄国和波兰的多沼泽的边境地带，他们以巨大的弧形向四周颇有吸引力的平原扩散。
向西迁移的矫拉夫人形成了今天的捷克人、斯洛伐克人和波兰人，他们都称为西斯拉夫人。由于所处的地理位置，他们受到了西方的影响，因此，他们信仰的是天主教，使用的是拉丁字母。那些渡过多瑙河、移居巴尔干半岛的斯拉夫人，就是今天的斯洛文尼亚人、克罗地亚人、塞尔维亚人和保加利亚人。如本章第一节所述，这些南斯拉夫人中的前两者接受了西方的文化；而塞尔维亚人和保加利亚人的文化发展，则受到了君士坦丁堡而不是罗马的影响。最后，向东迁移的是苏联斯拉夫人的祖先，这些东斯拉夫人就是个苏联北部的大俄罗斯人、南部地区的小俄罗斯人即乌克兰人和西部边境的白俄罗斯人；西部边境显然是斯拉夫人的最早发源地。
东斯拉夫人居住在北起北冰洋沿岸，南至黑海，东到乌拉尔山脉的广阔的平原上。在北部平原，移住民一直以森林为居住地；在这里，他们未遭到分散、组织松弛的芬兰部落和立陶宛部落的什么抵抗；这些人不是同他们通婚，就是被他们轻易排挤掉。相反，在南部平原，森林逐渐让位于空旷的草原，移民们总易遭到其他民族的袭击；这些民族常出没于从中亚经乌克兰到多瑙河流域的漫长的游牧道路上。
这些东斯拉夫人，即今天所谓的俄罗斯人，从事渔猎和原始的刀耕火种的农业。因此，他们通常以分散的家宅和小村落，而不是以人口密集的村庄和城镇为单位。出现的城镇，很少发展成为主要河流沿岸的贸易中心。只有第聂伯河沿岸的基辅和伊尔门湖畔的诺夫哥罗德是当时的贸易中心；前者担负着南北运输，后者控制着东西贸易。
正是这种长途贸易，为第一个俄罗斯国家提供了基础。据传说，彼此不和的斯拉夫诸派别曾邀请北欧人的首领留里克为其统治者。“我们的国家富饶辽阔，但却没有秩序，快来管辖和统治我们吧！”于是862 年，留里克成为诺夫哥罗德的第一任王公；不久以后，他的追随者们南移基辅。有关这些北欧人，即东欧所谓的瓦朗吉亚人的确切作用，至今仍有争议。过去的猜测认为，他们独自创建了第一个俄罗斯国家，创造了最早的俄罗斯文化；现在普遍对此持怀疑态度。事实上，瓦朗吉亚人在文化领域中所做的贡献，即使有，也是微乎其微；而他们对早期俄罗斯人的政治体制的影响程度，至今也不明确。
不论确切情况如何，基辅已成为沿漫长的第聂伯河航线的、俄罗斯各公园自由联盟的中心。基辅的卓越是建立在同南面诸古老文明中心——拜占廷、亚美尼亚、格鲁吉亚和穆斯林世界——所进行的繁荣贸易的基础上。俄罗斯农村的各种原材料如毛皮、兽皮、粮食、木材和奴隶等汇集基辅，以换取各种奢侈品，其中包括细纹衣料、玻璃制品、香料、珠宝和酒。
早期俄罗斯人不仅同南面请文明中心进行贸易，而且还借用了它们的某些主要的文化，尤其是拜占廷的基督教。在此之前，异教的俄罗斯人一直崇拜各种自然力量，将这些自然力量化身为某些神，如热光之神达什伯格、雷电之神佩鲁恩和风神斯特里伯格。当时既没有寺院，也没有僧侣。宗教仪式仅限于向广阔天空中的诸神的天然形象献祭。据11世纪末至12世纪基辅僧侣编纂的编年史记载，基辅大公弗拉基米尔认为，斯拉夫人的原始的众神崇拜很不合适。他—一考虑了诸宗教代表所阐述的各自的论点，甚至派使节前往信奉这些宗教的国家，听取他们的汇报。最后，弗拉基米尔拒绝了天主教，因为“我们在那里看不到荣誉”；拒绝了犹太教，因为犹太人的上帝太不强大，无法使他们继续留在耶路撒冷；还拒绝了伊斯兰教，因为它戒肉禁酒，而他认为，“喝酒是俄罗斯人的乐趣。没有这种乐趣，我们就无法生存”。因此，弗拉基米尔决定赞成东正教；他的使者们为在君士坦丁堡圣索菲亚大教堂看到的仪式而倾倒：“……我们不知道是在天空，还是在人间。因为人间没有如此壮观、如此美丽的景象，简直叫我们难以形容。”
大约在988 年皈依东正教后，弗拉基米尔命令捣毁所有异教神像，佩鲁恩的像被挂在马尾上，拖进了第聂伯河。另外，基辅公国的全体居民，都到第聂伯河去集体洗礼，如《编年史》所述：“…看到如此众多的人得救，天堂、人间一片喜悦。”同几个世纪前欧洲西北部的天主教一样，皈依是统治者及其顾问们的决定，人民大众只是服从命令而已。虽然信奉多神教的斯拉夫人过去没有教士阶层，避免了有组织的抵抗，但人民大众仍坚持他们的传统信仰，相信巫术和预兆。因此，1274年，教会发现有必要颁布一条规定：不得任命过去从事巫术的人为司祭。
弗拉基米尔接受东正教，并非仅仅是宗教信仰的改变，它对俄罗斯人的风俗及其以后的历史产生了普遍、深刻的影响。以拜占廷为模式的教会统治集团，这时已经组成，首领是基辅大主教，由君主坦丁堡最高一级的主教伍命，且隶属于他的管辖。在长达两个世纪的时间里，大主教都是希腊人，不过，由大主教任命的主教，除最初几任外，绝大多数是俄罗斯人。基督教还给俄罗斯带来新的宗教文学和法律文学，其中包括《圣经》、拜占廷收集的早期基督教作家的作品、圣徒传记和法律书籍的译本。石造教堂、镶嵌工艺、壁画、油画、尤其是肖像画等拜占廷艺术，这时也被介绍进来。而且，在这些方面，俄罗斯人更胜一筹，形成了独具一格的俄罗斯- 拜占廷风格。另外，东正教过给俄罗斯带来了拜占廷教会的法律，建立了宗教法庭。如在西欧一样，这些法庭拥有非常广泛的司法权，处理包括道德，信仰、继承权和婚姻等各个方面的案件。
在政治领域中，新教会加强了大公的权力。如在西欧，罗马教皇曾将法兰克国王从部落酋长改变成神权帝王一样，如今，俄罗斯东正教将诸公国大公从一帮个人追随者的首领改变成“上帝的奴仆”和神权统治者。而且，按照拜占廷的传统，俄罗斯教会还接受了世俗的权力和控制权。在莫斯科，如在君士坦丁堡一样，没有强求皇帝和国王服从的、罗马教皇格列高利七世和英诺森三世这样的人物。例如：1389年，君士坦丁堡大主教安东尼曾写信给莫斯科大公瓦西利，抱怨大公不尊敬他及他的主人拜占廷皇帝：
拜占廷及其皇帝被消灭后，东正教的这一顺从性在俄罗斯教会对俄罗斯皇帝的屈从中显现出来；这种情况具有重大影响，并一直持续到拜占廷灭亡后的沙皇帝国。
综上所述，对俄罗斯来说，拜占廷的影响显然是一大促进因素，但同时又是一种麻醉剂。俄罗斯人所借鉴的，不论是教义、仪式、音乐，还是建筑，都已完全形成且相对稳定。在这一意义上说，拜占延对一个正在觉醒的民族的影响是毫无价值的，它只能阻碍，而不是鼓励这一民族的创造力和独创性。此外，俄罗斯人在接受拜占廷的基督教的同时，还继承和维持了天主教与东正教之间的长期不和，从而，在他们和西方之间设置了一个障碍。这无疑是一种倒退，因为在此之前，俄罗斯人已同欧洲其他国家取得了多种联系，即贸易的、朝廷的和外交的联系。例如，11世纪，雅罗斯拉夫大公曾同欧洲一些主要王朝联姻：他的妹妹嫁给了波兰的卡齐米日一世；他的儿子娶了拜占廷的公主；他的两个女儿分别嫁给了法国的亨利一世和挪威的哈拉尔三世。
不仅是宗教争端，而且更大程度上是蒙古人的侵入和占领，终止了俄罗斯同西方的这些联系。基辅因地处森林和平原交界处，总是最易遭受袭击。游牧民进攻的威胁如即将临头的危险笼罩全城，这种危险于1237年终于降临。当时，蒙古人象他们席卷欧亚大陆大部分地区那样，横扫了整个俄罗斯领土。除诺夫哥罗德因地处遥远的北方而幸免于难外，基辅和其他俄罗斯城市均被夷为平地。用一位编年史家的话说：“没剩下一个能为死者流泪的人。'
蒙古人虽自愿撤离欧洲中部，却愿意继续留在俄罗斯。他们在此建立了金帐汗国。其首都萨莱地处伏尔加河折向西流的拐弯处，是伏尔加河畔的战略要地。随后两个世纪的蒙古统治，不可避免地给俄罗斯人留下深刻的印记。他们被迫放弃平原上的小块居留地，撒进安全僻静的森林之中。在那里，只要他们承认蒙古大汗的宗主权，每年纳贡，便可自行其是。的确，大汗们颁布了某些豁免权，准许俄罗斯教会免交捐税，承认大主教对东正教的管辖权。作为回报，俄罗斯牧师为大汗及其亲属祈祷。大汗及其亲属虽然是穆斯林而不是基督教徒，却欢迎这样的祈祷，因为它可以减少可能发生的反抗。
俄罗斯人渐渐恢复了他们的实力，发展起一个新的民族中心——莫斯科大公国。莫斯科远离危险的平原，位于森林深处。莫斯科除了游牧民难以接近它外，还具有其他一些优点。它是从第聂伯河到东北各地区的两条重要干线的交通要冲；几条来自各方的河流也都汇集于这一地区，使它能利用内河水系得益。它所拥有的一系列统治者也是它的一个优势；这些统治者爱好和平、勤俭节约、善于算计，他们耐心而又无情地增加自己的属地，直到莫斯科成为新的民族核心。
伊凡三世（1462 —1505年）在“兼并俄罗斯各国”方面尤为成功，因此，他被认为是俄国的第一位民族统治者。他征服了邻近几个公国，如雅罗斯拉夫、特维尔和罗斯托夫；这些公国过去曾比莫斯科强大，但后来衰落下去。伊凡三世征服强大的诺夫哥罗德公国的胜利最为著名；诺夫哥罗德过去曾建立了自己的庞大的贸易帝国。伊凡三世到他统治本期，已使其疆土大大扩展，从距波罗的海几英里处向北扩展到北冰洋，向东扩展到乌拉尔山脉的北部地区。
伊凡还通过利用蒙古人内部出现的分裂，在彼此敌对的各派别之间徘拔离间，成功地向蒙古人的统治挑战。更重要的是，俄罗斯人与蒙古人截然不同，他们从西方进口了大炮和小型武器，并且拥有制造这些武器的兵工厂。由于具备了这些有利条件，伊凡便正式拒绝承认金帐汗国的宗主权。为此，1472年，金帐汗国大汗派出一支军队北进奥卡河；但伊凡在河对岸聚集军队予以抵抗，并坚守了三个星期。最后蒙军撤退，从此承认他们对俄罗斯的统治实际上已经结束。
另外，还值得注意的是伊凡1472 年同索菲娅的婚姻。索菲娅是1453年在君主坦丁堡城墙上被杀的拜占廷末代皇帝的侄女，她曾逃亡罗马，皈依了天主教。因此，罗马教皇竭力赞同这一婚姻，希望这能导致天主教和俄罗斯教会的联合。结果相反，索菲娅立即恢复了对东正教的信仰；莫斯科宫廷的宗教仪式和信仰日益拜占廷化和东正教化。
早期的俄罗斯教会和宫廷，坚决反对在佛罗伦萨（1439 年）达成的东正教会与天主教会联合的协议。无疑，俄罗斯人认为君士坦丁堡最后落入土耳其人手中，是上帝对东正教向天主教无原则屈从的惩罚。君士坦丁堡沦陷五年后，大主教约拿尖锐地评论了他所认为的这一事件的原因：“我的孩子们，你们都知道，都城君士坦丁堡被保加利亚人和波斯人团团包围达七年之久，在这七年中，曾有许多灾祸降落其头上，不过只要希腊人那时坚持他们的信仰，君士坦丁堡是不会蒙难的。”
君士坦丁堡陷落后，俄罗斯人将莫斯科视为真正信仰的中心。他们受上帝之命保卫它，维护它原有的纯洁。15世纪末，修土菲洛修斯写信给伊凡，清楚地表达了这一深刻信念：
伊凡完全理解地接受了这一信条，它极大地提高了他的地位，夸耀了他的使命。在索菲娅的怂恿下，伊凡采用了拜占廷宫廷的礼仪，选择了拜占廷的双头鹰为他的徽章。他效法前君士坦丁堡皇帝，成为沙皇和专制君主，他的头衔也相应地变得崇高辉煌：“感谢上帝的恩赐，伊凡是全俄罗斯人的皇帝，是弗拉基米尔、莫斯科、诺夫哥罗德、普斯科夫、特维尔、彼尔姆、乌格拉和波尔法以及其他公国的大公。”
这样，拜占廷在作为第三罗马的俄罗斯领土上继续生存。这一第三罗马之所以能幸存下来，是因为它拥有丰富的资源和坚固的根据地——它包括了辽阔的欧亚大陆平原及不久之后乌拉尔山脉以东的广阔无垠的西伯利亚地区。这完全不同于1453 年前苟延残喘了几个世纪、缩小了的拜占廷。红衣主教贝萨里翁所提倡的维新，丝毫未在注定灭亡的、与时代不合的拜占廷引起过任何反应。（见第十七章第三节）但在俄罗斯，某些沙皇却以贝萨里翁的角色出现。作为庞大帝国的专制君主，他们拥有将自己的愿望变为现实——不过是不完全地——的权力和财力，从而，如修土菲洛修斯所预言的那样，保证第三罗马不会遭到第二罗马的厄运。