średniowiecze: History of the Byzantine Empire

Evidence: 45 • authority: 72

The Byzantine Empire's history is generally periodised from late antiquity until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 AD. From the 3rd to 6th centuries, the Greek East and Latin West of the Roman Empire gradually diverged, marked by Diocletian's (r. 284–305) formal partition of its administration in 285, the establishment of an eastern capital in Constantinople by Constantine I in 330, and the adoption of Christianity as the state religion under Theodosius I (r. 379–395), with others such as Roman polytheism being proscribed. Although the Western half of the Roman Empire had collapsed in 476, the Eastern half remained stable and emerged as one of the most powerful states in Europe, a title it…

Evidence: 30 • authority: 72

The Republic of Venice, officially the Most Serene Republic of Venice and traditionally known as La Serenissima, was a maritime republic with its capital in Venice, on the northeastern coast of Italy. Founded, according to tradition, in 697 by Paolo Lucio Anafesto, over the course of its 1,100 years of history it established itself as one of the major European commercial and naval powers. Initially extended in the Dogado area (a territory currently comparable to the Metropolitan City of Venice), during its history it annexed a large part of Northeast Italy, Istria, Dalmatia, the coasts of present-day Montenegro and Albania as well as numerous islands in the Adriatic and eastern Ionian seas.…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Constantinople, the modern Istanbul, was the capital of the Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire from 330 until its takeover by the Ottoman Empire in 1453. After this, it continued to function as the Ottoman capital until the abolition of the Ottoman sultanate in 1922. It was located at the core of the modern city of Istanbul, on a peninsula at the southeastern tip of Thrace in Europe; with the Bosporus strait and the ancient cities of Chalcedon and Chrysopolis in Bithynia, Anatolia (Asia Minor) to the east; the Golden Horn and the citadel of Galata (Pera) to the north; the Sea of Marmara to the south; and the Princes' Islands to the southeast. Constantinople was founded on the site of the exi…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Since its fall, the issue of succession to the Byzantine Empire has been a major point of contention both geopolitically, with different states laying claim to its legacy and inheritance, and among the surviving members of the Byzantine nobility and their descendants. Historically, the most prominent claims have been those of the Ottoman Empire, which conquered Byzantium in 1453 and ruled from its former capital, Constantinople; the Russian Empire, as the most powerful state practising Eastern Orthodox Christianity; and various nobles and figures in Western Europe of increasingly spurious and questionable imperial descent. Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Empire on 29 May 1453, with the l…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Eastern part of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, it endured until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. The term 'Byzantine Empire' was coined only after its demise; its citizens used the term 'Roman Empire' and called themselves 'Romans'. During the early centuries of the Roman Empire, the western provinces were Latinised, but the eastern parts kept their Hellenistic culture. Constantine I (r. 324–337) legalised Christianity and founded the new Eastern ca…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The Byzantine Empire experienced cycles of growth and decay over the course of nearly a thousand years. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire to Germanic invaders, the emperor Justinian I pursued an ambitious policy of reconquest, resulting in the restoration of Roman rule over much of the Mediterranean, although Britain, Gaul and much of the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa were lost forever. However, he began to be met with a number of crises towards the end of his reign, including conflict with the Sasanian Empire and a major plague. His successors were increasingly forced onto the defensive, first against the Sasanians and later against the Islamic expansion, which resulted in th…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The struggle for Constantinople was a complex series of conflicts following the dissolution of the Byzantine Empire in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, fought between the Latin Empire established by the Crusaders, various Byzantine successor states, and foreign powers such as the Second Bulgarian Empire and Sultanate of Rum, for control of Constantinople and supremacy within the former imperial territories. At the time of the Fourth Crusade, the Byzantine Empire was already divided by internal revolts. In the aftermath of the Crusader sack of Constantinople, the empire was dissolved into a patchwork of territories held by various pretenders and warlords. The former Byzantine emp…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The Empire of Nicaea (Greek: Βασιλεία Ῥωμαίων), also known as the Nicene Empire, was the largest of the three Greek rump states founded by the aristocracy of the Byzantine Empire that fled when Constantinople was occupied by Western European and Venetian armed forces during the Fourth Crusade, a military event known as the Sack of Constantinople; Latin Empire, was established by an army of Crusaders and Venice after the capture of Constantinople and the surrounding environs. Like the other Byzantine rump states that formed due to the 1204 fracturing of the empire, such as the Empire of Trebizond and the Despotate of Epirus, it was a continuation of the eastern half of the Roman Empire that…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Constantinople was recaptured in 1261 from the Latin Empire by Nicaean forces led by the general Alexios Strategopoulos. The reconquest of the city led to the re-establishment of the Byzantine Empire under the Palaiologos dynasty after an interval of 57 years, during which Constantinople had been the capital of the Latin Empire, a crusader state installed by Latin forces of the Fourth Crusade following the sack of Constantinople in 1204. The recapture of Constantinople ended more than a half century of occupation by the Latin Empire over the Byzantine capital. The reconstituted Byzantine Empire under the Palaiologoi would go on to hold the city successfully for nearly two more centuries, un…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The Byzantine Empire participated in the crusading movement from its inception in the late 11th century, serving as initiator, ally, and adversary. The Byzantines regarded their state as the continuation of the Roman Empire and the centre of the civilised world, although it had lost substantial territories during the early Muslim conquests. The empire recovered some territory after c. 960, but from the mid-11th century faced sustained pressure from several directions, including nomadic Turkomans in Anatolia. Despite strained relations with Western Christendom after the East–West Schism (1054), the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos sought Western aid, prompting Pope Urban II to proclaim t…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD marks the conventional start of the Byzantine Empire, which fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Only the emperors who were recognized as legitimate rulers and exercised sovereign authority are included, to the exclusion of junior co-emperors who never attained the status of sole or senior ruler, as well as of the various usurpers or rebels who claimed the imperial title. The following list starts with Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor, who rebuilt the city of Byzantium as the imperial capital, Constantinople, and who was regarded by the later emperors as the model ruler. Modern historians distinguish this later phase of the Roma…