Byzantine Greeks

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Byzantine Greeks or Byzantines (Greek: Βυζαντινοί) is a conventional term used by modern historians to refer to the medieval Greek or Hellenized citizens of the Byzantine Empire, centered mainly in Constantinople, the southern Balkans, the Greek islands, Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and the large urban centres of the Near East and Northern Egypt. In systems of historiography such as Arnold J. Toynbee's, where Byzantium is defined as a civilisation rather than a state, the term "Byzantine Greek" is restricted to the inhabitants of the Byzantine Empire, while "Byzantine" can refer to any medieval state of the Orthodox faith (such as Moscovite Russia). The terms Byzantine Empire and Byzantine Greeks were introduced in the English-speaking literature by Sir George Finlay in 1851, in his "History of Greece, from its Conquest by the Crusaders to its Conquest by the Turks".

Introduction

The double-headed eagle, emblem of the Palaiologos dynasty.

During most of the Middle Ages, the Byzantine Greeks identified themselves as Romaioi (Ρωμαίοι, "Romans", meaning citizens of the Roman Empire), a term which in the Greek language had become synonymous to a Greek speaking Christian, though in Latin it never lost its original meaning.^[1] The ancient name Hellene was in popular use synonymous to a pagan, and was revived as an ethnonym in the Middle Byzantine period (11th century).^[2] While in the West the term "Roman" acquired a new meaning in connection with the church and the bishop of Rome, the Greek form "Romaioi" remained attached to the Greeks of the Eastern Empire.^[3] The reason that the term "Byzantine" is preferred to the more natural "Roman" is that Western historiographers wanted to reserve the legacy of Rome for the West. In addition, the Eastern Roman Empire was in language and civilization a Greek society.^[4]

Society

While social mobility was not unknown in Byzantium the order of society is held to have been more enduring, with the average man regarding the court of Heaven to be the archetype of that found in Byzantium.^[5] This society included various classes of people that were neither exclusive nor immutable. We will present the most characteristic here, namely the poor, the peasants, the soldiers, the teachers, women, entrepreneurs and clergy.^[5]

The poor

According to a text dated to 533 AD, a man was termed "poor" if they did not have 50 gold coins (aurei), which was a modest though not negligible sum.^[6] Though the Byzantines were heirs to the Greek concepts of charity for the sake of the polis it was the Christian concepts attested in the Bible that animated their giving habits,^[7] and specifically the examples of Basil of Caesarea (who is the Greek equivalent of Santa Claus), Gregory of Nyssa and John Chrysostom.^[7] The number of the poor fluctuated in the many centuries of Byzantium's existence but they provided a constant supply of muscle power for the building projects and rural work. There did however appear to be an apparent rise in their numbers towards the end of late antiquity, the late fourth and early fifth centuries as barbarian raids and a desire to avoid taxation pushed rural populations into cities.^[8]

There were several categories of poverty with the ptochos being lower than the penes.^[8] They formed the majority of the infamous Constantinopolitan mob whose function was similar to the mob of the First Rome. However, while there are instances of riots attributed to the poor specifically the majority of civil disturbances were attributable to the various factions of the Hippodrome like the Greens and Blues.^[9] Apart from the fact that they constituted a non-negligible percentage of the population, there is a point to focusing on the poor because their existence influenced the Christian society of Byzantium to create a large network of hospitals (iatreia), alms houses and a religious and social model largely justified by the existence of the poor and borne out of the Christian transformation of Classical society.^[10]

The peasantry

Though we have no reliable figures it is widely assumed that the vast majority of Byzantines lived in rural and agrarian areas, hence it should prove worthwhile to discuss the lives of the peasantry.^[11] In Emperor Leo's Taktika, the two professions defined as the backbone of the state are the peasantry (georgika) and the soldiers (stratiotika).^[11] The reason for this was that besides producing most of the empire's food the peasants also produced most of its taxes.^[11] They lived mostly in villages, whose name changed slowly from the classical kome to the modern chorio.^[12] While agriculture and herding were the dominant occupations of villagers they were by no means the only ones.^[12] We have records for the small town of Lampsakos, situated on the eastern shore of the Hellespont, which out of 173 households classifies 113 as peasant and 60 as urban, which would indicate other kinds of ancillary activities.^[12] The Treatise on Taxation, preserved in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice, distinguishes between three types of rural settlements, the chorion or village, the agridion or hamlet, and the proasteion or estate.^[12] According to a fourteenth century survey of the village of Aphetos, given to the monastery of Chilandar, the average size of a landholding is only 3.5 modioi (0.08 ha).^[13] Taxes placed on rural populations included the kapnikon or hearth tax and the aerikon which depended on the village's population and ranged between 4 and 20 gold coins annually.^[11]

Their diet consisted of mainly grains and beans and in fishing communities fish was usually substituted for meat.^[14] Bread, wine and olives were important staples of Byzantine diet with soldiers on campaign eating double baked and dried bread called paximadion.^[15] As in antiquity and modern times, the most common cultivations in the choraphia were olive groves and vineyards. While Liutprand of Cremona (see below) found Greek wine irritating as it was often flavoured with resin (retsina) most other Westerners admired Greek wines, Cretan in particular being famous.^[16]

While both hunting and fishing were common, the peasants mostly hunted to protect their herds and crops.^[17] Apiculture, the keeping of bees was as well developed in Byzantium as it had been in Ancient Greece.^[18] Aside from agriculture, the peasants also laboured in the crafts as well with fiscal inventories mentioning smiths (chalkeus), tailors (rhaptes), and cobblers (tsangarios).^[18]

Soldiers

Soldier wears the lamellar klivanion cuirass and a straight spathion sword.

During the Byzantine millennium, hardly a year passed without a military campaign. Soldiers then were a normal part of everyday life, much more than in modern Western societies.^[19] While it is difficult to draw a distinction between Roman and Byzantine soldiers from an organizational aspect, it is easier to do so in terms of their social profile.^[19] Discussing the role of Byzantine soldiers goes as far as the 12th century when the rise of mercenaries within their ranks means that we no longer can talk about Byzantines in any useful sense.^[20] The military handbooks known as the Taktika continued a Hellenistic and Roman tradition that contains a wealth of information about the appearance, customs, habits and life of the soldiers.^[20] As with the peasantry, there are apart from the main core of soldiers many who performed ancillary activities, like medics and technicians.^[21] Selection for military duty was annual with yearly call-ups and great stock was placed on military exercises, during the winter months, which formed a large part of a soldier's life.^[22]

Until the eleventh century, the majority of the conscripts were from rural areas, while the conscription of craftsmen and merchants is still an open question.^[23] From that point on, professional recruiting replaced conscription and in conjunction with the heavy burden placed by mercenaries ruined the treasury.^[23] From the tenth century onwards, stipulations exist for the connection between land-ownership and military service. While the state never allotted land for obligatory service, soldiers could and did use their pay to buy landed estates and taxes would be decreased or waived in some cases.^[24] What the state did allocate to soldiers, however, from the twelfth century onwards, were the tax revenues from some estates called pronoiai. As in antiquity, the basic food of the soldier remained the dried biscuit bread though its name had changed from boukelaton to paximadion.

Teachers

A page of 5th or 6th c.Iliad like the one a grammarian might posses.

Byzantine education was the product of an ancient educational tradition that stretched back to the fifth century BC.^[25] It comprised a tripartite system of education that, taking shape during the Hellenistic era, was maintained, with inevitable changes, up until the Fall of Constantinople.^[25] The stages of education were the elementary school where pupils ranged from 6 to 10 years, secondary school, where pupils ranged from 10 to 16 and higher education.^[26]

Elementary education was widely available throughout most of the Empire's existence, in the countryside, as well as in towns. This, in turn, ensured that literacy was much more widespread than in Western Europe, at least until the 12th century.^[26] Secondary education was confined to the larger cities while Higher education was the exclusive provenance of Constantinople.^[26]

The elementary school teacher occupied a low social position and taught mainly from simple fairy tale books (Aesop's fables were often used).^[27] However, the grammarian and rhetorician, teachers responsible for the following two phases of education, were more respected.^[27] These used Classical Greek texts like Homer's Iliad or Odyssey and much of their time was taken with detailed word-for-word explication.^[27] Books were rare and very expensive and likely only possessed by teachers who dictated passages to students.^[28]

Women

Scenes of marriage and family life in Constantinople.

While constituting 50% of the population, women have tended to be overlooked in Byzantine studies.^[29] This is not surprising since Byzantine patriarchical society left few records about them to begin with. In addition, women were generally viewed with suspicion and considered periodically unclean and as a result were the subjects of discrimination. Women were disadvantaged in some aspects of their legal status, in their access to education and limited in their freedom of movement.^[30] The life of a Byzantine Greek woman could be divided into three phases, girlhood, motherhood, and widowhood.

Childhood was brief and perilous in that era, even more so for girls than boys.^[31] Parents would celebrate twice as much the birth of a boy and there is some evidence of female infanticide, though it was contrary to both civil and canon law. Educational opportunities for girls were few as they did not attend regular schools but were taught in groups at home by tutors. With few exceptions, education was limited to literacy and the Bible. There were no forays into Classical literature for most girls. A famous exception is the Princess Anna Comnena, whose Alexiad displays an uncanny depth of erudition.^[32] The majority of a young girl's daily life, however, would be spent in household and agrarian chores, preparing herself for marriage.^[32]

For most girls, childhood came to an abrupt end with the onset of puberty which was followed shortly after by betrothal and marriage.^[33] This is due to most women (and indeed men) having high mortality rates (the average age if they survived infancy was 35). Although marriage arrangements by the family was the norm, romantic love was by no means unknown.^[33] Most women tended to produce a large number of children in order to ensure the survival of at least a few and grief for the loss of a loved one was an inalienable part of life.^[34] The main form of birth control was abstinence and while there is evidence of contraception it seems to have been mainly used by prostitutes.^[35]

Due to prevailing norms of modesty, women would wear clothing that covered the whole of their body except their hands.^[36] While women among the poor could get away with wearing sleeveless tunics, most women were obliged to cover even their heads with the long maphorion veil. Women of means, however, spared no expense in adorning their clothes with exquisite jewelry and fine silk fabrics.^[36] Divorces were hard to come even though there were laws permitting them.^[37] Husbands would often beat their wives, though the reverse situation was not unknown as in Prodromo's description of a battered husband.

In Byzantium, female life expectancy was lower than that of men.Due to wars and the fact that men married younger, female widowhood was still fairly common.^[37] Still, women were often able to circumvent societal strictures and make their impact in society as traders, craftswomen, female abbots and entertainers not to mention Empresses and scholars.^[38]

Entrepreneurs

Gold solidus of Justinian II 4.42 grams (0.156 oz), struck after 692.^[39]

The image we had of Byzantine Greek merchants as unenterprising benefactors of state aid is beginning to change for that of a mobile, pro-active agent.^[40] The merchant class, particularly that of Constantinople, became a force of its own that could, at times, even threaten the Emperor as it did in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.^[41] This was achieved through efficient use of credit and other monetary innovations. Merchants invested surplus funds in financial products called chreokoinonia, the equivalent and perhaps ancestor of later Italian commenda.^[41] Eventually, the purchasing power of Byzantine merchants became such that it could influence prices in markets as far afield as Cairo and Alexandria.^[40] In reflection of their success, Emperors gave merchants the right to become members of the Roman Senate, that is to integrate themselves with the ruling elite.^[42] That stopped by the end of the eleventh century when political machinations allowed the landed aristocracy to secure the throne for a century and more.^[42] Following that, however, the enterprising merchants bounced back and are seen to have wielded real clout during the time of the Third Crusade.^[43]

The reason Byzantine Greek merchants were often neglected in history was not because they were any less able than their ancient or modern Greek colleagues in matters of trade. It rather has to do with the way history was then written, which was often under the patronage of their competitors, the court and land aristocracy.^[43] The fact that they were eventually surpassed by their Italian rivals can be attributed to the privileges sought and acquired by the Crusader States within the Levant and the dominance in maritime violence of the Italians.^[43]

Clergy

Unlike Western Europe where priests were clearly demarcated from laymen, the clergy of the Eastern Roman Empire remained in close contact with the rest of society.^[44] Readers and subdeacons were drawn from the laity and expected to be at least 20 years of age while priests and bishops had to be at least 30.^[44] The thorny issue of clerical celibacy was treated with more laxity by the Byzantine Greeks. Priests could keep their spouses if they were married before their ordainment and monks and nuns, while celibate, were allowed to keep in touch with family and friends.^[44]

While religious hierarchy mirrored the Empire's administrative divisions, the clergy were more ubiquitous than the emperor's servants.^[45] The issue of Caesaropapism, while usually associated with the Byzantine Empire, is now understood to be an oversimplification of actual conditions in the Empire.^[46]

By the fifth century the Patriarch of Constantinople was recognized as first among equals of the four eastern Patriarchs and as of equal status with the Pope in Rome. ^[44] The ecclesiastical provinces were called eparchies and were headed by archbishops or metropolitans who supervised their subordinate bishops or episkopoi. For most people however it was their parish priest or papas from the Greek word for father that was the most recognizable face of the clergy.^[47][44]

Culture

Language

Uncial script, from a 4th-century Bible manuscript.

Since as early as the Hellenistic era, Greek had been the lingua franca of the Eastern Mediterranean, spoken natively in the southern Balkans, the Greek islands, Asia Minor and the ancient and Hellenistic Greek colonies of Western Asia and Northern Africa. This continued after Roman expansion in the region. Latin was also introduced by Roman administration but nearly all significant literature was written in Greek.^[48] After the reforms of Constantine the Great the ancient Greek city of Byzantium became Constantinople and the "Greek East" gradually evolved into a separate political and cultural entity, having Greek as its main language, while Latin was used as an official language of administration. However Latin had never been a spoken language in the East, and it was gradually displaced by Greek in all sectors. The evolution from the Eastern Roman into the Byzantine Empire, properly speaking, starts with the reign of Heraclius, when Greek replaced Latin completely in law and administration. At the same time the Empire lost most of its non-Greek speaking territories in the near East, Africa, and the Northern Balkans, along with its second largest city, Alexandria.

The main vernacular language of the Eastern or Byzantine Empire had been Medieval Greek, spoken natively in Constantinople and the largest part of the empire. Spoken Medieval Greek was an evolution of Koine Greek, which was the popular language of the Hellenistic world, and an intermediary stage between ancient and Modern Greek. Written Greek varied considerably, embracing an archaising "high" style which imitated classical Attic, and a moderate "middle" style continuing the tradition of written Koine. Relatively few written specimens of the spoken or "low" variety of the vernacular language have been preserved. The resulting diglossia of the Greek-speaking world (which had already started in ancient Greece) continued under Ottoman rule and persisted in the modern Greek state until 1976 - although Atticist Greek^[49] remains the official language of the Greek Orthodox Church. As shown in the poems of Ptochoprodromos, an early stage of Modern Greek had already been shaped by the 12th century AD and possibly earlier. Vernacular Greek continued to be known as "Romaic" up until the 20th century.

Religion

King David in the imperial purple.

At the time of Constantine the Great, barely 10% of the Empire's population were Christians, with most of them being urban population and generally found in the Eastern part of the Empire. The majority of people still honoured the old god's in the public Roman way of religio.^[50] Nonetheless, as Christianity took shape to become a complete philosophical system, whose theory and apologetics were heavily indebted to the Classic word, this changed.^[51] In addition Constantine as Pontifex Maximus was responsible for the correct cultus or veneratio of the deity which was in accordance with former Roman practice.^[52] In short, the move from the old religion to the new entailed some elements of continuity as well as break with the past, though the artistic heritage of paganism was literally broken by Christian zeal.^[53]

The reason we are focusing on the rise of Christianity is that it led to the development of a few characteristic Byzantine phenomena. Namely the intimate connection between Church and State (a legacy as we have seen of Roman cultus).^[53] Also the creation of a Christian philosophy that would guide the Byzantine Greeks in their everyday lives.^[53] And finally, the dichotomy between the Christian ideals of the Bible and Classical Greek paideia which, however, could not be left out since so much of Christian scholarship and philosophy depended on it.^[51][53] These would shape Byzantine Greek character and their perceptions of themselves and others.

As we saw above Christians at the time of Constantine's conversion made up only 10% of the population.^[50] This would rise to 50% by the end of the fourth century and 90% by the end of the fifth.^[53] Justinian then brutally mopped up the rest of the pagans that were highly literate academics on the one end of the scale and illiterate peasants on the other.^[53] A conversion so rapid would seem to have been more the result of expediency than conviction.^[53]

The survival of the Empire in the East assured an active role of the Emperor in the affairs of the Church. The Byzantine state inherited from pagan times the administrative, and financial routine of administering religious affairs, and this routine was applied to the Christian Church. Following the pattern set by Eusebius of Caesarea, the Byzantines viewed the Emperor as a representative or messenger of Christ, responsible particularly for the propagation of Christianity among pagans, and for the "externals" of the religion, such as administration and finances. The imperial role, however, in the affairs of the Church never developed into a fixed, legally defined system.^[54]

With the decline of Rome, and internal dissension in the other Eastern patriarchates, the church of Constantinople became, between the 6th and 11th centuries, the richest and most influential center of Christendom.^[55] Even when the Empire was reduced to only a shadow of its former self, the Church, as an institution, had never exercised so much influence both inside and outside of the imperial frontiers. As George Ostrogorsky points out:

The Patriarchate of Constantinople remained the center of the Orthodox world, with subordinate metropolitan sees and archbishoprics in the territory of Asia Minor and the Balkans, now lost to Byzantium, as well as in Caucasus, Russia and Lithuania. The Church remained the most stable element in the Byzantine Empire.^[56]

A Greco-Roman heritage

Eagle and Snake, 6th c. mosaic flooring in Constantinople.

Byzantinist August Heisenberg (1869-1930) defined the Byzantine Empire as "the Christianised Roman empire of the Greek nation".^[57] Byzantium was primarily known as the Empire of the Greeks by foreigners due to the predominance of Greek linguistic, cultural, and demographic elements.^[58][59][60] From an evolutionary standpoint, it was a multi-ethnic empire that emerged as a Christian empire, soon comprised the Hellenized empire of the East and ended its thousand-year history, in 1453, as a Greek Orthodox state: an empire that became a nation, almost by the modern meaning of the word.^[61] The presence of a distinctive and historically rich literary culture was also hugely important in the division between 'Greek' East and 'Latin' West and thus the formation of a both.^[62]

Byzantines ruled a multi-ethnic empire where the Hellenic element was predominant, especially in the later period.^[63] As the direct continuation of the eastern half of the Roman Empire, the Byzantines laid an exclusive claim to the Roman imperial position, and indirectly laid claim to all Christian lands. After Charlemagne, the Latin West, for the most part, ignored such Byzantine claims and viewed the Byzantine state as an "Empire of the Greeks". Attitudes further soured after the Great Schism, when the Byzantines were seen as schismatic heretics. Some Byzantine Greek intellectuals responded by claiming for themselves the glories of ancient Hellas. Averil Cameron argues that ethnicity is a modern concept, which medieval peoples would not have recognized, and that the inhabitants of the Byzantine Empire were not a 'people' in any ethnic sense.^[64] The term Graikoi (Γραικοί), however, was a traditionally acceptable term in Byzantium used self-referentially to designate Christian Greeks even though it was seldom used in official correspondence prior to 1204 AD.^[65]

The cultures of the Latin West and the Greek East were split due to religious issues regarding recognition of the Pope, procession of the Holy Ghost, purgatory, clerical celibacy, etc. If these questions were ever resolved, then the two cultures would be reunited in a new "Romanity." Yet, the pretense of Romanity began to wear thin in the age of the Crusades. The result of the Battle of Manzikert was to make a largely Greek monarchy of what had been an ecumenical Empire. After that battle Armenia, Syria and central Anatolia were permanently lost to the Seljuk Turks, and the map of the Byzantine Empire coincided to a very large extent with the areas of Greek colonisation in the ancient world, and also with those areas where speakers of the modern language were to be found up until the population exchanges of the early 20th century. The markers of identity (spoken language and state) that were to become a fundamental tenet of nineteenth-century nationalism throughout Europe became, by accident, a reality during a formative period of medieval Greek history.^[66]

In other words, the Byzantines of the 12th century had something very like a national identity, in the modern sense of the term, foisted on them. An identity, moreover, which Greek-speakers in later centuries never quite lost sight of, and which in the long run proved more enduring than the older Byzantine model of universal empire that was maintained at an official level until 1453.^[66]

Perceptions

Self-Perception

Constantine the Great presents Constantinople to the Virgin Mary and Christ.

Within Byzantium, a Greek or Hellenized citizen of the Byzantine Empire was generally called a Ῥωμαῖος (Rhōmaîos), which was first of all defined in opposition to a foreigner, ἐθνικός (ethnikós).^[67] The Byzantine Greek perception of "Romanity" was different from that of their contemporaries. Romaic had been the name of the vulgar Greek language, as opposed to "Hellenic", its literary form. Greek (Γραικός) had been merged with Romaic (Ρωμιός), to mean a Greek-speaking Orthodox Christian. There was always a question of indifference or neglect of everything not Roman, therefore "barbarian". At the same time, the popular definition of Hellene (Ἕλλην, which is today a synonym of Greek), was that of a pagan. Yet most Byzantine emperors would list neither Augustus nor Pericles among their ancestors, but Constantine the Great, Justinian, and the Christian emperors of Constantinople.^[68]

In official discourse, "all inhabitants of the empire were subjects of the emperor, and therefore Romans." Thus the primary definition of Rhōmaios was "political or statist."^[63] In order to succeed in being a full-blown and unquestioned "Roman" it was best to be a Greek Orthodox Christian and a Greek-speaker, at least in one's public persona. Yet, the cultural uniformity which the Byzantine church and the state pursued through Orthodoxy and the Greek language was not sufficient to erase distinct identities, nor did it aim to.^[63] The highest compliment that could be paid to a foreigner was to call him ἀνδρεῖος Ῥωμαιόφρων (andreîos Rhōmaióphrōn, roughly "a Roman-minded fellow").^[67]

Often one's local (geographic) identity could outweigh one's identity as a Rhōmaios. The terms ξένος (xénos) and ἐξωτικός (exōtikós) denoted "people foreign to the local population," regardless of whether they were from abroad or from elsewhere within the empire.^[67] "When a person was away from home he was a stranger and was often treated with suspicion. A monk from western Asia Minor who joined a monastery in Pontus was 'disparaged and mistreated by everyone as a stranger'. The corollary to regional solidarity was regional hostility."^[69]

Revival of Hellenism

Beginning in the twelfth century, certain Byzantine Greek intellectuals began to use the ancient Greek ethnonym Ἕλλην (Héllēn, in popular use a "pagan") in order to describe Byzantine civilisation.^[70] The use of the term among the literati accelerated following the Greco-Latin clashes of the 12th century, such as the massacre of all foreigners in Constantinople in 1182, and especially the occupation of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204.^[71]

During that period, Theodore Lascaris tried to revive Hellenic tradition by fostering the study of philosophy, for in his opinion there was a danger that philosophy "might abandon the Greeks and seek refuge among the Latins". In a letter to Pope Gregory IX, the Byzantine Emperor John Vatatzes claimed to have received the gift of royalty from Constantine the Great, and put emphasis on his Hellenic descent, exalting the wisdom of the Greek people. He was presenting Hellenic culture as an integral part of the Byzantine polity in defiance of Latin claims. Byzantine Greeks had always felt superior for being the inheritors of a more ancient civilisation, but such ethnic identifications had not been popular up until then.^[72] Hence in the context of increasing Venetian and Genoese power in the eastern Mediterranean, association with Hellenism took deeper root among the Byzantine elite, on account of a desire to distinguish themselves from the Latin West,^[73] and to lay legitimate claims to Greek-speaking lands.

Claims to Hellenic ethnicity were continued and augmented throughout the Palaiologan dynasty. The scholar, teacher and translator, John Argyropoulos addressed John VIII Palaiologos as Sun King of Hellas and urged the last Emperor, Constantine XI, to proclaim himself King of the Hellenes. During the same period, the neo-platonic philosopher George Gemistos Plethon boasted "We are Hellenes by race and culture," and proposed a re-born Byzantine Empire following a utopian Hellenic system of government centered in Mystras.^[74]On the eve of the Fall of Constantinople the Last Emperor urged his soldiers to remember that they were the descendants of Greeks and Romans.^[75]

Western perception

The Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople, by Eugène Delacroix, 1840.

In the eyes of the West, after the coronation of Charlemagne, the Byzantines were not acknowledged as the inheritors of the Roman Empire. Byzantium was rather perceived to be a corrupted continuation of ancient Greece, and was officially known for most of its history as the Empire of the Greeks or Kingdom of Greece. Such denials of Byzantium's Roman heritage and ecumenical rights would instigate the first resentments between Greeks and Latins or Franks were called by the Greeks. Popular Western opinion is reflected in the Translatio militiae, whose anonymous Latin author states that the Greeks had lost their courage and their learning, and therefore did not join in the war against the infidels. In another passage the Ancient Greeks are praised for their military skill and their learning, by which means the author draws a contrast with contemporary Byzantine Greeks, who were generally viewed as a non-warlike and schismatic people.^[68][76]

A major turning point in how both sides viewed each other is perhaps the massacre of Latins in Constantinople in 1182. A major source for Western interpretations of the Byzantines, particularly during this event is William of Tyre, a historian of the Crusades. He described the Greek nation as a a brood of vipers, like a serpent in the bosom or a mouse in the wardrobe evilly requite their guests, highlighting the strained relations between both ethnic groups as a result of the massacre, the Crusades and the Schism, which helped to define the modern identity of the Greek nation.^[77]

Notes

References

• Cavallo, Guglielmo (1997). The Byzantines. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-09792-7. 
• Cameron, Averil (2009). The Byzantines. John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 1-405-19833-8. 
• Laiou, Angeliki E.; Morrison, Cécile (2007). The Byzantine economy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-84978-0. 
• Rautman, Marcus (2006). Daily life in the Byzantine Empire. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-32437-9. 
• Hamilton, Bernard (2003). The Christian world of the Middle Ages. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Pub.. ISBN 0-7509-2405-5. 
• Mango, Cyril A. (2002). The Oxford history of Byzantium. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-814098-3. 
• Meyendorff, John (1982). The Byzantine Legacy in the Orthodox Church. St Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 0-913-83690-7. 
• Grierson, Philip (1999). Byzantine Coinage. Dumbarton Oaks. ISBN 0-88402-274-9. 

See also

• Greeks
• Byzantine Empire
• History of Greece
• Byzantine Art
• Byzantine music
• Byzantine scholars in Renaissance

Further reading

• Peter Charanis. "Ethnic Changes in the Byzantine Empire in the Seventh Century", Dumbarton Oaks Papers 13:23-44 (1959) at JSTOR
• Ahrweiler, Hélène (1975). L'idéologie politique de l'Empire byzantin. Presses universitaires de France. 
• Harris, Jonathan (2007). Constantinople: Capital of Byzantium (Hambledon Continuum). Hambledon & London. ISBN 1-84725-179-X. 
• Kazhdan, Alexander P. (1991). The Oxford dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-504652-8. 
• Laiou, Angeliki E.; Ahrweiler, Hélène (1998). Studies on the internal diaspora of the Byzantine Empire. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. ISBN 0-88402-247-1. 
• Runciman, Steven (1966). Byzantine Civilisation. Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd.. ISBN 1-56619-574-8. 
• Toynbee, Arnold J. (1972). Constantine Porphyrogenitus and His World. Oxford University Press. ISBN 019215253X.