ckaihatsu wrote:dward Gibbon, the first English historian to write a full history of the Byzantine Empire in his The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–1789), was a sharp critic of the Empire.[13] Jacob Burckhardt, an influential 19th-century historian shared Gibbon's view:
At its summit was despotism, infinitely strengthened by the union of churchly and secular dominion; in the place of morality it imposed orthodoxy; in the place of unbridled and demoralized expression of the natural instincts, hypocrisy and pretense; in the face of despotism there was developed greed masquerading as poverty, and deep cunning; in religious art and literature there was an incredible stubbornness in the constant repetition of obsolete motifs.
— Jacob Burckhardt, The age of Constantine the Great[14]
Critics pointed out that the Byzantine Empire and its successors were uninfluenced by such major shifts in Western philosophy as the Investiture Controversy, the Reformation and the Renaissance;[6] and reduced the Byzantine political culture to caesaropapism and authoritarian political culture, described as authoritarian, despotic, and imperialistic.[13][14]
https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Byzantinism
1) Investiture controversy applied only to those subject to the Roman Catholic church because the Pope had managed at the time to wrestle the western Kings, Princes and Duke's into submission. The controversy was about those kings and princes protesting the influence of the Pope over them. In the Greco-Roman Empire of Constantinople, bishops were state appointees so no such issue was relevant or relative.
2) The Reformation took place after Byzantium no longer existed and again not actually applicable because the Orthodox church was not subject to the Roman Catholic one which the people of the Reformation sought independence from.
3) The Renaissance(what a misnomer) took place
because of the Byzantine Empire.
4) You are touting an anti-Greek
orthodox message that also happens to be racist as it relies on replacement theory(westerners more Greeks than Greeks themselves) and on denying the Greekness of the Greek people.
5) The entire Gibbonian narrative is so ridiculous that one can only truly wonder. Those that claim that Byzantine society was too orthodox and boring between the 6th-15th centuries CE, they need to explain what were their societies doing in the Middle-Ages compared to Byzantine society where both males and females attended elementary school education, where theatre never stopped, from where the
civil code of Britain(and consequently America, Australia, Canada) and the Napoleonic
civil code of France(and consequently Europe) were lifted, where Platonic philosophy, math, medicine, architecture never stopped developing, where they engaged in sport(horse racing) and betting, where they had courts, lawyers, cutlery & universities, where their currency was the global reserve currency for 800 years.
What where their societies doing indeed when Byzantines were tutoring, Raphael, Da Vinci, Erasmus and Newton, who also spoke and wrote in fluent medieval Greek to gain access to that tuition?
Cesaropapism or the ability of secular power to wield religion/ideology on its own behalf exists to the modern day in far worse renditions even among the civilized ones and in even worse renditions among communist states.
This is manufactured outrage to break the link(Constantinople) that connects the modern western world to the Classics.
"Rennaisance", "rediscovery"...... both imply that Anglos, Francs and Germans rediscovered classical literature which itself implies that they wrote classical literature; for them to magically "rediscover" it in their granma's chest of drawers.
The Enlightenment which is far more accurate than Rennaisance happened when these guys were taught by Byzantine tutors for the first time
ever, Greco-Roman literature.
Byzantinism begins from simple stereotypes, passes through reductionism and essentialization, and then proceeds to impute Byzantium's supposed essence onto modern Balkans or Russia as the burden of history. ... As a discourse of "otherness", Byzantinism evolves from, and reflects upon, the West's worst dreams and nightmares about its own self.
Ever since our rough crusading forefathers first saw Constantinople and met, to their contemptuous disgust, a society where everyone read and wrote, ate food with forks and preferred diplomacy to war, it has been fashionable to pass the Byzantines by with scorn and to use their name as synonymous with decadence.
— Steven Runciman, The Emperor Romanus Lecapenus and His Reign: A Study of Tenth-Century Byzantium, 1988[9]
French historian Charles Diehl described the Byzantine Empire by saying:
Byzantium created a brilliant culture, may be, the most brilliant during the whole Middle Ages, doubtlessly the only one existing in Christian Europe before the 11th century. For many years, Constantinople remained the sole grand city of Christian Europe ranking second to none in splendour. Byzantine literature and art exerted a significant impact on peoples around it. The monuments and majestic works of art, remaining after it, show us the whole lustre of byzantine culture. That's why Byzantium held a significant place in the history of the Middle Ages and, one must admit it, a merited one.[27]
Historian Averil Cameron regards as undeniable the Byzantine contribution to the formation of medieval Europe, and both Cameron and Dimitri Obolensky recognise the major role of Byzantium in shaping Orthodoxy, which in turn occupies a central position in the history, societies and culture of Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, Georgia, Serbia and other countries.[28] The Byzantines also preserved and copied classical manuscripts, and they are thus regarded as transmitters of classical knowledge, as important contributors to modern European civilisation, and as precursors of both Renaissance humanism and Slavic-Orthodox culture.[29]
EN EL ED EM ON
...take your common sense with you, and leave your prejudices behind...
- By Puffer Fish
- By annatar1914